Planet Google: One Company’s Audacious Plan to Organize Everything We Know, by Randall E. Stross

According to my StrengthsFinder 2.0 results, I am a collector of information.  According to my wife, I am a packrat.  So it should not come as a surprise that I would be fascinated by a book about Google. whose stated goal is “to organize all the world’s information.”

Stross has managed to weave together a tale that is part biography and part techno-thriller.   (If they ever do a modern remake of Clint Eastwood’s movie A Fist Full of Dollars, they can put Microsoft and Yahoo at opposite ends of the street and let Google play the “Man with No Name” Eastwood character.)  After listening to this audio book twice I now think differently about blogging, searching the net for information, relationships, my private information, and what kind of plans for the future I can realistically make

I thoroughly enjoyed the audio book version of Planet Google, found it to be eye-opening, and have no hestitation to recommend it to you.  However, I don’t believe that I would have been as absorbed by the print version, so readers beware.

Hmmm…. is there such a thing as pleasure which is not existential?

There were two things about reading The Existential Pleasure of Engineering in which I took pleasure, existential or otherwise; (1) it was only 160 pages long, and (2) the author referenced great or interesting literature on nearly every page.

The cover of the book has a blurb that reads, “Enchanting.” The New Yorker. I have decided that this must be a warning that the book has some kind of hex / enchantment on it that makes book reviewers lose perspective. Read more

In 2005 a young man wanted something to prevent his wristwatch from getting scratches on the face. He resorted to technology that is used by the military to protect helicopter blades from damage. His search for an answer to a personal problem resulted in the birth of a new industry – protective coverings for electronic devices – ZAGG’s invisibleSHIELD™.

If placed in a situation where they had to choose between spouse and children or their iPhone, I have friends that would clutch their iPhone close to their heart and say goodbye to their families. That’s a bit extreme but it does tell you something about the value people place on their iPhone.

People who value their iPhone, even if they don’t value it more than family, will be interested in the ZAGG’s invisibleSHIELD™ iphone cover. The invisibleSHIELD is only .2 millimeters thick making it the slimmest iPhone skin or iPhone cover of its kind. It is virtually invisible and practically indestructible. Check out the videos at their website and you will see what I mean.