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Google Launches News Badges
theodp writes "Does it make you sad that you're too grown up to earn Scouting Merit Badges? Well, thanks to the PhDs at Google, you can now start earning Google News badges as you read articles about your favorite topics. The more you read, the higher rank you'll attain; Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and finally, Ultimate. They say, 'Your badges are private by default, but if you want, you can share your badges with your friends. Tell them about your news interests, display your expertise, start a conversation or just plain brag about how well-read you are.'"
To get started with badges, visit Google News from a signed-in account with web history
Ha-ha. Fuck no.
I refuse to give up one of the few pieces of data about me that Google allows me to control... for a few pixels.
How does reading the news make you an expert on anything other than reading news?
I'll let you know as soon as I read a story that tells me the answer to your question.
We don't need no stinkin' badges.
Exactly--a preoccupation with "news" stories is the opposite of being well read. Being well read involves understanding the depths of artistic works / events. News stories provide the opposite, especially from the establishment media. They provide surface-level summaries of what some people have said that generally serve corporate and political interests.
I don't think anyone's immune to being interested in the latest happenings, waiting for some great or tragic event to bolster or destroy a cause or bring salvation or damnation. But this superficiality works against a true understanding of what's going on, and such a reward system incentivizes chasing "what's new" over what's true or what's good.
...badges badges badges badges badges badges badges mushroom mushroom MUSHROOM!
The future is one step closer: courtesy of SMBC.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
lets take "magnetar capital" for example.
there has been one book that discusses this little hedge fund, its called EConned (which grew out of a blog called nakedcapitalism.com).
on the other hand there have been a half-dozen news stories about it, some of the first being in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
there have been pretty much zero science fiction books that deal with financial engineering, credit derivatives, tranched securities, and everything else related to the financial crisis.
there are a lot of good reporters working for the 'corporate media', including louise story and gillian tett.
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i could also talk about the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files, which were originally found by an 'independent researcher', but later more thoroughly examined by someone who had worked for the LA Times.
i dont think there are any science fiction books about the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group Files.
just going in on a specific genre doesn't make you well read either. reading exclusively scifi and fantasy just makes you a dork idiot, too, though if you have time there's no reason why you shouldn't have read potters, if only to rip on it's stupid text and print edit techniques which are straight from elementary school to increase page count. some news give some context for reading some books though, like potters.. but it's different kind of reading when you read the news, because current events after all are current events and updates on past current events are still news. if you want to list what you've read in the past 4 weeks go ahead, it's easy enough, nobody's going to give a crap though and nobody's going to give a crap about these badges. though, how long till someone codes a firefox extension that gets you the badge levels?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
ReaderAdvantage Program: As a 2010 April Fools' Day joke, Google announced a reward program for Google Reader known as ReaderAdvantage, in which points accumulated by users for reading items could earn them Novice, Gold, Platinum, or Totally Sweet Badges, which Google revealed was a goof.