Commuterrant

Preventing Plagiarism – A Novel Idea

Having spent years in the publishing industry, I’ve been following the recent controversy about the young Harvard author, Kaavya Viswantahan, and the discovery that she had inadvertently plagiarized internalized content from author Megan McCafferty, who wrote Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings for her own first novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life. 

Viswantahan garnered a huge amount of publicity due to her age and the fact that her publisher, Little, Brown, paid her gobs of money for the book.

We blame the author. We blame the publisher. We blame the book packager, 17^th Street Productions. But let’s stop looking at blame, and solve the problem! Here’s an idea – let’s let a big company with an already-existing huge presence online and lots of money scan all the books out there, index the content and make it freely searchable on the Web. Then, when a publishing house has a manuscript, they can pick a sampling of passages and run a search, to see if the verbiage has been previously published. And this whole mess can be avoided.

As an extremely profitable by-product of this effort, the publishers and owners of the scanned content can add links to purchase the book, either directly, or from booksellers, both chain stores and independent bookstores (the few that are left), based on the searcher’s ZIP code. Readers will be exposed to content they otherwise might not have found, and there will be a huge, new revenue stream for publishers!

Oh. Wait. Google has already tried to do that. And the publishers are suing them. Never mind.

And Then I Googled "Decapitated Human Head"

...and no ads popped up, oddly enough. I couldn't resist. I then tried "human head" and found that yes, indeed, I can find human heads on eBay:

I am so getting arrested.

But you really can find whatever you're looking for on eBay:

My friend Janine then decided that she had to have a used jock strap, and she found that not only are they available on eBay, but Kadazzle.com is a worthy competior, offering the lowest prices around:

When Contextual Ads Go Horribly Awry, Part 2

There's a God-awful smell of fecundity and rot permeating the basement, and it grows more noxious with each passing day. I called a plumber, and they graciously declined to come out and charge us for a visit, telling me that more often than not, these situations result from a decomposing dead animal stuck in the wall.

So, what to do when there's a dead, rotting animal stuck in the wall? I did what I usually do when in a perilous situation. I Googled. I Googled the phrase "dead animal in wall," and alongside links to helpful homeowner web forums and message boards, I saw the following ads:

I give you: "Dead Animals. Whatever you're looking for you can get it on eBay." Has eBay purchased every possible search phrase on Google? I wanted to Google "Decapitated Human Head," to see if an eBay ad promising to fulfill my e-commerce dreams would pop up, but I'm trying to avoid a visit from the Department of Homeland Security. And I have no comment regarding the "See Dead Animals" link, which I did NOT click on. "See Dead Animals. Big, dead animals. Fun to watch." Note the use of boldface type, judiciously reserved for the word "dead." Oops; I just commented.

See other Google goodness, including When Contextual Ads Go Horribly Awry, Part 1.

Let Us See Your Google Searches, Or We Will Be Attacked Again

The Bush Administration is attempting to get Google to turn over 5 gazillion hizobtytes of data regarding searches conducted by its users. The Administration says they need the data to catch "the evildoers, like those who attacked us on 9/11." With over 5 gadabillion searches a day, Google is the most popular search engine, and news of this request has privacy advocates deeply concerned.

President Bush rebuffed those concerns. "We got ahold of Yahoo's records, and looky here," said President Bush. "This person, Paul Santos - is that an Arabic name? - searched for 'Golden Globes Scarlett Johansson's breasts.' You can't tell me he's not up to no good."

In a patriotic effort to do my part and save Google the trouble of providing my search results, I've listed my most recent searches below:

"Britney Spears" bindi
Reese Witherspoon Chanel dress
link:http://ellenmc.typepad.com/commuterrant/
"remove chocolate pudding from stuffed animal fur"
Pixanne Philadelphia
"degree programs for circus clowns"
"ass pain"
"Scarlett Johansson's breasts"

I hope this helps the cause of freedom!

When Contextual Ads Go Horribly Awry

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an overheard conversation on the T, which covered, among other topics, keratoid cysts. Adam Gaffin was kind enough to inform me that such a cyst is also known as a teratoma, after which I found myself going down the path of no return with Google and Google images.

The horror...the horror.

I found myself reading pages and pages about ovaries and ovarian cysts, and then I noticed this ad:

Google has determined, by way of a sophisticated algorithm, that if you are looking up that pesky ovarian cyst of yours comprised of hair and teeth, then surely you will be interested in buying an Ergonomic Swiss egg chair from www.ergochair.biz.

Google Unveils "Google No E"

Google announced today that is unveiling "Google No E" as a replacement for the company's Google Print program, which had been met with much resistance from publishers. With Google No E, Google will scan and make available every book ever published, with all instances of the letter E omitted.

"We had some negative reactions from publishers to our GooglePrint program," said spokeswoman Donna Manfreid. "So we decided to get past those pesky copyright issues by allowing users to search the full-text of every book ever published and view actual, scanned pages, but without the E's. We think this will go a long way toward our mission while ameliorating the concerns of publishers."

When asked to comment, president of the American Association of Publishers Pat Schroeder said, "It's a step in the right direction, but we're going to monitor the situation closely to make sure no errant E's slip through. If Google makes any excerpts available with the E's included, then book sales will plummet and we'll have to call our lawyers."