Google Doogle Fo Foogle

There's a political cartoon from the 1920s that I recall about Standard Oil, where it's depicted as a monstrous octopus with a tentacle in every pie.

Google has adopted this as a business model, I swear. New to me is Google SMS, where you can query Google from your cell phone. Still, it's kind of useful for people like me who don't pay for internet access on phones and are not near a laptop and/or wireless network all of the time..

Then Rick pointed out Google Transparencies, which is also pretty cool. Take the Google satellite images, and overlay the map on top of it.

As long-time readers may know, the price of academic journals is rising faster than my blood pressure listening to the White House spin the Plame scandal again and again. (Seriously, the price of journals is rising faster than the price of gas, housing, puppies, or health care. It's INSANE.) Google's taking a stab at it, with Google Scholar. It may not replace academic journals or databases for the short term, but it's certainly a more familiar interface for students.

Though really, what we all really want is a large button marked, Give me what I'm thinking of.