Mark Gimein defends Google Books over at The Big Money. New technology can be misused, but in general I tend to agree with Gimein. Along with Amazon's Search Inside feature Google Books is an excellent resource to look up and cross-reference obscure facts and data. With the utilization of Google Translate you can even get a good sense of some books in languages you don't know (I generally use this to make sure I understand the legend for a table or figure).
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I've talked about this a bit at sessions I taught at my library and also at Web Search University but it's still a favorite. Plus, you asked for posts on finding information. Oh, and one of the tools just released some updates so this is fairly timely.
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The final chapter of Bunnies Made of Cheese: The Book is currently envisioned as a look at the misuse of quantum mechanics by evil squirrels: qucks and hucksters of various sorts. As a result, I spent a good chunk of yesterday wading through the sewers of alternative medicine books on Amazon, using…
There isn't all that much news for a real obsessive update, so I'll lump in a few writing-related items of possible interest to people who read books other than mine.
A real obsessive update item: BradDeLong doubts my book can help his dog.
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Coincidentally, I'm putting up a post tonight at GNXP classic about monopoly and innovation. When did people ever think that competition fostered major innovation? In that case, you're too desperate and strapped for cash to take huge risks, lest you go under due to a single failure. The history says so too -- Bell Labs and the Dept of Defense during their hey-day being the two most obvious examples.
Google and Amazon have so many awesome products because they are insulated from competition and can devote huge resources to weird shit that might not pan out -- as with most of those Google side-projects. But unless you try out a huge number, you won't find those rare gems like Google Books, Google Scholar, Blogger, Google Maps, etc.
Population size must be large to find rare beneficial mutations. The maximum population size is controlling all of the market, so monopoly is the most likely way toward major innovation.