The Google Spike

This article got blogged extensively when it first showed up. It's about how people are starting to use Google to run net searches on people they're starting to date. Pretty handy to know whether the guy about to pick you up is on the lam from a bunch of date rape charges, no? I shrugged when I saw the article, until I began thinking about it; it isn't just people interested in you romantically that are going to be doing this; the Web represents a semi-permanent record in real time of events that happen, and people are going to be mining this information for years. In elections to come, we'll be poring over what the candidates wrote as part of various newsgroups (or debate listservs) to ascertain their true beliefs.

And then there's employment. This leads me to my grand point of the day; injustice will come back to the dealer of the injustice by means of what we write about people by way of the internet. This I will call the "Google Spike," where we write the truth about someone to appear when their background is checked by employers or prospective romantic partners. The first subject of the Google Spike will be Michael "Mike" Sutherland. Mike graduated from high school in Eugene, Oregon in 1994, and then went to Lewis and Clark for a year. He debated on the team (with Christi Siver), and during this time committed a heinous act, which gets him the Spike. Namely, theft of compact discs:

Beastie Boys: License to Ill, Paul's Boutique, and Check Your Head.

The Specials: Singles

Erasure: Pop!

REM: Wood Green (a bootleg CD. The most terrible loss out of all of them. I'll never find the replacement for it.)

The Police: Singles
These are only the CDs I'm absolutely sure he stole. I'm also missing some that I assume he took, but I can't say for certain. These include a Bad Religion and an ABBA disc.


The circumstance of the theft is uniquely bad because it represents a breach of confidence. Mike stole these CDs while in my apartment to get debate evidence. Yes, he was asked to return them; yes, he acknowledged taking them. Mike, may you rot in hell until I get these back. Ladies, Gentlemen, Employers: MICHAEL SUTHERLAND IS A THIEF.

Updates, etc.

Update on Courtney Love and record contracts: She's filed a lawsuit to get out of a standard recording contract. Analysts predict that if successful, it could be earth shattering the way Olivia de Havilland's suit getting out of her studio contract was in the 1950s, or Curt Flood's 1970s lawsuit was for baseball free agency.

Update on Sealand (that's the anti-aircraft platform off the English coast that was taken over by a minor member of Brit royalty thirty years ago and no country has enforceable jurisdiction over): a rumor has it that a Napster clone will pop up out of there. The article I've linked doesn't buy it, though.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Hobbsblog II thanks these blogs for borrowed links: The Null Device and PCJM.