Humanaught “art” on TechCrunch/Washington Post

I love Google Alerts — a quick setup with a few keywords and I immediately get notified if anyone’s talking about me or my various projects. Vain, perhaps, but it let me know a photo from my Flickr stream was used on a TechCrunch post, and intern syndicated on the Washington Post’s site. Pretty cool.

The image (below) is a graphic I did back in mid-2008 for an article on Lost Laowai about the Great Firewall. The TechCrunch article is about Google’s search being completely blocked in the Mainland; which, it turns out, was simply a case of mistaken identity — the GFW thought Google was Radio Free Asia. No one ever said the GFW was smart — in fact, I doubt many have said anything positive about it.

Oh, a cool link that the TechCrunch article references is Google’s Mainland China service availability, which gives a day-by-day access report for Google’s services and whether or not they are blocked in Mainland China.

I think I’ll go set up some new Google Alerts — real random stuff like, “tiny shiny monkey butts” and “compulsive floor lickers”.

Great Firewall of China

Great Firewall of China

5 Responses

  1. I saw that on TechCrunch yesterday, and thought it looked familiar. I guess you can take their kleptomania as a compliment that it’s a really good ‘shop!

    • Haha. No kleptos though, all my Flickr stuff (and blog stuff) is all released under Creative Commons, just requiring an attribute, which they gave.

  2. Hi Bud, I use Google Alerts extensively to track competitors as well as what’s being said about my company. I get somewhere around 600 Google Alert emails a month so there’s a lot to sort through but there are always gems that make it worthwhile.
    Congrats on the image. I don’t recall seeing it the first time around but it’s very creative. Well done. Talk to you on Saturday.

  3. That picture is made of mid-nineties magnificence. I guess the staff at Washington Post must be too busy to come up with their own “art”. Actually now that I think about it, I’d love to see an art gallery showcasing various people’s conceptions of the GFW manifested in their medium of choice. The exhibit could be entitled “The Mighty River Crab” to try not to get shut down.

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