[ubuntu-za] How to help

[David Robert Lewis (ethnopunk)]

Lee Sharp wrote:
> Charl Wentzel wrote:
>   
>> On Tue, 2010-01-12 at 07:32 +0200, Corrie Strydom wrote:
>>     
>>> Then, remember Google is your friend.
>>>
>>>       
>> I've been wondering lately... how long before Google becomes the new
>> "MicroSoft", i.e. the one everyone loves to hate.  Or will it always be
>> our friend because it supports Linux.  It looks like they are slowly
>> taking over the world and nobody notices until it too late.... (ominous
>> music in background)
>>     
>
> More than a month ago...  I have been leery of them a while, but when 
> one of the founders says the nothing to fear if you have nothing to 
> hide" bit, I got more worried.  Just to test, try and find news about 
> that on Google.  They save everything about you, and I just don't trust 
> them anymore.
>
> 			Lee
>
>   
I'm not sure I like the new world in which human beings are sidelined or 
considered unimportant in terms of "history" because we've always got 
google, and google is the final arbiter on what's real.

So here are a few things to consider:

1. Google only archives RSA news from 2001 which is when most newspapers 
went online.

2.  Google determines which pages are "important" by how many links go 
to or from each page. In other words, popular information becomes more 
popular while the rare and untrammelled information is stuck away even more.

3. If users were allowed to vote on what information is real or 
meaningful, do you think Galileo would have been locked up or not? Would 
we still believe the sun circles the earth, if such a belief was popular?

4. Google has a habit of branding everything it touches. So whatever 
information is dished up, where did it come from? It came from Google.

5. I find life is becoming one big Google. I wake up and take Google. Go 
to sleep and dream about Google.

6. If Google want to create a Googlebuntu what should they call it?  
GoogleX  or Uboogle?

7. I actually got a postcard from  Google. It was a real shock. One day, 
Google will pay for my socks. Wish Ubuntu was doing something similar.


DRL