What the Google is Going On?

This post needs to start with an unabashed statement – I am a fan of Google. I’ve met many of the top people there, and I have been blown away by the consistent level of brilliance among them.

That is why I am so bothered by the direction that the company seems to have recently taken, and that track seems to be personally directed by the CEO, Eric Schmidt.

I’d provide an item-by-item list of disturbing recent statements by Google executives and actions by the company, but Silicon Alley Insider has already done so much more eloquently than I would be able to. I highly recommend their article, reprinted below in its entirety.  See the article at the Silicon Alley Insider site here.

The 6 Delusions Of Google’s Arrogant Leaders

Ryan Tate | Mar. 13, 2010, 5:04 AM

I know–aren’t we great!? I have to pinch myself sometimes.

Batter Up in the Information Flood

I’m itching to get the new baseball season started today.  I share season tickets for the Oakland A’s, and spent last evening placing the 81 home games into the order of 1 (the game I most want to see) to 81 (the game I care the least about).  This is how my group allocates the tickets so that each person gets to see the games he or she wants the most.

The process got me thinking about how much less I know about every player in baseball today then I did when I was a kid.  Back then, I was aware of the daily fluctuations in batting average of every player and ERA of every pitcher for the teams I followed the most closely, and knew within a few points those numbers for everyone in the major leagues.  This was when the information sources were the daily game on the radio, the daily paper, and The Baseball Weekly.

So why is it that now, with the internet putting every possible statistic and news story at my fingertips, do I have less access to immediate hard data?

One possible answer, and one that I have to face directly (if a bit sorrowfully), is that my brain is older.  Perhaps I simply cannot keep information in my head now even though doing so in the past was effortless.  Possible, but let’s just act as we of the baby boomer generation typically do and simply ignore the passage of years.