I was reading this. So Google agreed to pay the writers guild. Why?
I have in the past used google books to search for which book I really need from the library.
I have looked up the contents and decided whether this book is the one that I need or not.
It has sometimes saved me a trip to the library, and at other times it has helped me find the exact book that I need.

How grand it would be if the "sum of all human knowledge" were searchable. I am not saying make it all free. I am saying that make it so that one may at least know that it exists. Google has in every step of its evolution worked to wards that goal.

I hope that the money being paid by Google to publicize books for the authors is peanuts to what they can make elsewhere. But I, being almost dependent on Google for everything from email to my graduate research literature search, can't feel anything but sad when something like this happens.

Tata

I was reading this. It is sad and at the same time I feel a kind of "serves them right" feeling.
I personally was aghast when I heard that Tata wanted to come to Bengal. I asked "why?". Is there no place in Maharashtra or MP? Why does Tata want to run backward? Why come to a backward state where there is no change of government for years, where there is no infrastructure, where the people are lazy and apathetic and fundamentally opposed to progress. Stick to the industrilized states, the states that actually worship lakshmi by being industrious and hard working.

I am a Bengali, but in the end I hate the Bengali way of life. The stick it to the man attitude has gone so far that they have stuck it to themselves. I was surprised in fact by the Software companies that have chosen to stay in Bengal in places like Salt Lake. I think they have survived because they are less dependent on the so called 4th class staff - the cleark grade. These industires are infact dependent on the intellectual class which Bengal has a good supply of. They used to go out to the Bangalores and the Mumbais, but now they can stay at home and enjoy high paying jobs and continue to eat misti doi.

As for the blue collar workers - and there are very few really skilled kind left any more, the exodus of industry seems permanent. And after this its unlikely that anyone will ever come back.