WIL WHEATON dot NET: 1.5

That's quite an honor, lol! I love how George Carlin is #3 - your book is dirtier than his!

Anyway, yes, more wonderful money-grubbing paranoia suing action. Perhaps we should make people pay a penalty for every time they sue someone. Like a "suing tax" or fee. I think it may deter the sue-happy somewhat, especially if they're not sure if they'll win the case. What do you think?

Some people have strange ways of using up the weekend.

-but-

Don't you find it disconcerting that registering then searching the word "Geek" returns 245 viewable pages from your book ?

Upon review of Tears' point, it does seem disconcerting to me, yes. But I doubt anyone will be able to read a whole book this way. And if you're stuck with a half-read book that you MUST finish, you'll just go out and buy is my guess.

that last part is SUPPOSED to be "you'll just go out and buy it is my guess." Left out one tiny word. Sorry.

Havent really used Google Print before, but it looks like there is some control over the amount of pages you can read before the system blocks them out. It would take someone very determined to register many new accounts to read the whole book.

Holy Shit! That's cool!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist)

So I google print "miserable failure" and I don't come up with Dubya. I'm a little disappointed.

Holy shit! I cannot believe you beat George Carlin in a Google ranking for "holy shit". Congratulations!

LMAO... you must feel so warm and fuzzy inside.

Holy shit, that is awesome.

(just for the sake of saying it) HOLY SHIT! Dude, you beat GEORGE CARLIN! I think that calls for a Guiness!

Holy Shit! I'm trying to think of a good joke for a word that sounds similar to Pope (more 'o', less 'e'), but it just isn't happening.

I also found a reference to me in there that I didn't know about.

Lol, that's awsome. And you're right, I can't believe they're suing... seems like there's always someone flying off the handle and suing someone. *sigh*

too funny Wil.

lol, that's cool. Even though I have read a several of pages of Wil's book. It looked intresting. Does anyone know if the whole book is interesting as the several pages?

Where do people come up with this "holy shit"? *scratches head* Must have a lot of time on their hands in the den...

But still awesome, nonetheless! :-D

Holy shit, dude. C'est le meilleur qui soit! Pardon my French.

Speaking of Holy Shit! Wil?! You didn't say you were going to be on VH1 this week! "I Love the 80s 3D" I love those shows :)

OOT alert: Sorry for posting this here Wil instead of emailing it since I haven't managed to install GPG and thus I haven't managed to get enigmail to work and I can't be sure that wil at wilwheaton dot net is working anyway since wilwheaton dot net is fubar'd so...

Lawrence Lessig has written a great op-ed for Wired on the Google sued by publishers thing here, have you read it? Got it from his blog, of course.

And BTW he's been doing these series of letters to do a fundraising for Creative Commons because the IRS requires it lest the CC loses its tax-exempt status. Details here.

Oh and one more (sorry for more OOT spamming :p) from John "Hannibal" Stokes of Ars Technica entitled "Google Print goes live, publishers and authors go ballistic"

A few choice tidbits (well within Fair Use limits, and actually benefitting Ars Technica):

[...]In fact, since so many of the attacks on Google Print are couched in terms of right and wrong, I'll go so far as to say that I think many of the legally correct arguments against Google print are fundamentally immoral and go against the spirit of the law, though not the letter.

Let's take a look at the relevant portion of the Constitution, Article I, Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

The Constitution and the minds that produced it were products of the Enlightenment, and as men of learning the framers and their Victorian contemporaries were quite serious about the promotion of "Science and useful Arts." The promotion of art and science is therefore the entire goal and purpose of copyright and patent law; the monetary compensation of artists through the mechanism of copyrights and patents is merely a means to that end.[...]

Emphases added. And I'd like to add this maxim, long internalized by thinkers and philosophers but oft forgotten by laymen and the general public, that just because something is legal does not make it moral.

Just as it was completely legal to own slaves as close as a few decades ago (And arguably even now in some parts of the world).