From the “Starred Items” in my Google Reader

It doesn’t matter who the author really is, just as long as you like the books.

Eloquent recommendations for your media consumption.

The issue of privacy has been much on my mind, especially after finishing Ken Auletta‘s fine new book about the monster from Mountain View.  Matthew Ingram gets you up to date on the Google convection in Italy and the fact that Google IS a media company.  And Danah Boyd reports from Harvard about evolving privacy norms in the context of teens using Facebook.  Let me put it this way: fifteen years ago, if you knew someone was opening, reading, and analyzing all your mail, would that have been OK with you?  But now you don’t mind?  The world is changing and so are you.

(SPOILER ALERT for links only)  Finally, Tamara from Caprica looks like a total bad-ass with her sub-machine gun because she IS a total bad-ass.  Annalee Newitz knows how good the show is.  Are you watching the best show on television?

I am ready for Caprica

Analee Newitz at io9.com is going absolutely gaga for Caprica, which apparently begins for real this Friday night (last Friday’s “pilot” was the broadcast of material that became available last spring on DVD and through other means).  “[W]e think this series could become a classic.”  If Ron Moore and Jane Espenson can pull that off, it would put the back to back Battlestar franchises in the rarest of air.  I would also note, for good measure, that a show need not be a smash hit to become a classic.