{"id":6585,"date":"2016-02-16T08:05:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T08:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6585"},"modified":"2016-02-16T08:05:09","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T08:05:09","slug":"do-you-know-the-new-alphabet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2016\/02\/16\/do-you-know-the-new-alphabet\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you know the new Alphabet?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was unaware that Google had acquired a parent company \u2013 called Alphabet. \u00a0It's a big umbrella under which Google can nestle its many current manifestations, including what it calls its moonshot projects\u00a0\u2013 think driverless cars. \u00a0Happily, there's a recent Economist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/business-and-finance\/21689995-worlds-largest-listed-company-has-earned-patience-investors-googles-parent-company\">article<\/a> that explains all this, including a very nifty graph.<\/p>\n<p>I learned a lot from reading this, especially about what Alphabet owns. \u00a0Perhaps I was the last person\u00a0in the world to find out\u00a0that YouTube is an Alphabet \/ Google possession, but I'm sadder and wiser now.<\/p>\n<p>As I <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2016\/02\/01\/googling-ourselves-to-death\/\">explained<\/a> the other day, I don't use Google as a search engine or email. \u00a0When I began this, it wasn't for ethical reasons to do with alleged tax underpayments or near-monopoly status; rather, it was curiosity about what life outside the Big-G umbrella was like. \u00a0So far, eighteen months on, it's going well.<\/p>\n<p>I am puzzled, however, why so many of those who bad-mouth such companies for paying too little tax, unrestrained monopoly, unethical practices, rotten employment histories, etc, etc, etc, continue to use their products and services as if there are no alternatives. \u00a0You don't hurt such\u00a0behemoths by using them; quite the reverse. \u00a0Are you idiots, hypocrites, or just idle?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was unaware that Google had acquired a parent company \u2013 called Alphabet. \u00a0It's a big umbrella under which Google can nestle its many current manifestations, including what it calls its moonshot projects\u00a0\u2013 think driverless cars. \u00a0Happily, there's a recent...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}