Tenth Anniversary Blog: Increasingly Aggravated by Google

April 2012 marks 10 years of my erratic blogging, 17 1/2 years of being active on the Web, 24 years of being a USENET participant, and 28 1/2 years of having an E-mail address.

WHEW!

For over 10 years, Google was the best search site.  It still is, but its other features are increasingly hard to use.

There I was, trying to give feedback about a company on Google places.  I was logged into my Google account, I wrote up my comment, and this odd little box popped up:

     Set your appearance to start rating

With little graphics the type of which you'd see on early '80s video games.

My options were "Get started" or "Cancel your rating."

On the one hand, I really wanted to rate a local business.

On the other hand, I really have no interest in "Getting started" with some sort of bizarre little Google Places account.

On of the options should have been "Rate."  

Google always likes to say "Do no evil" or "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

I believed that for a long time, but I'm not so sure these days.  Increasingly, Google seems to only look for ways to monetize every bit of information anyone many be willing to share without listening to any user feedback.

Maybe I'm just an old computer user and tired.  I don't object to change.  And I understand that companies need to make money.  I've had Google ads on my sites for many years, and that basically pays for my ISP account.  But once I'm logged into one Google account, Google should not demand for me to create another account just to rate a local business.  I can see where people might want the option to create another account for such ratings, but it should not be required.

The Downfall of Google (or Alphabet)

Source Forge encourages people to write reviews of software products.  While I was once a strong Google evangelist, I'm not anymore, so I reviewed Google.:

"Google is now a paid-ad search, not a data search"

Edited 2022-02-02 (Moderated: pending)

Pros: It used to be very useful and still can be at times. Google used to base its catalog on relevant data found in the Web site, and this is still true in some subject areas.

Cons: Paid ads and Wikipedia references can dominate search results in some subject areas and are sometimes irrelevant to the search. Google is practically useless for finding travel information. Sites like Tripadvisor and booking.com buy so many ads for so many tourist sites, a casual user might think the only way to visit certain areas is to go through third party sites.

Overall: For the last few years, Google has been putting paid ads and Wikpedia over actual search results. While I have been a daily user of Google for over 20 years, I'm going to use other search engines in the future. Google search results page should have three columns - one for actual results based on page content, one for ad-based results and one for Wikipedia.

More Bad Ideas from Google

I've been a huge fan of Google for years, but given some their current projects, I've got to wonder if going public has been bad for them. Google used to be very ethical, but between gMail and AutoLink, I've got to wonder.

And the problem with both is the same thing - that Google can create links based on content according to what Google has decided upon, not upon what the page's writer has decided upon. This is just unbelievably slimey. As a result, I don't use gMail and never will, no matter how many "free accounts" I've been offered.

AutoLink is simultaneously "better" and "worse" than gMail. Many Google users will never see it. The only ones that will are those who use the GoogleToolbar. But, if you use the toolbar, you'll see links included on Web pages not intended by the Web page's creator.

Sorry, this is wrong. It looks like Google is going down that slippery slope that other search engines have gone down - making advertisers more important than content creators. I'm very disappointed by Google's behavior.

Oddly, I first read about AutoLink in this week's Time magazine. I went in search of scripts to kill AutoLink at my site, and found some at Threadwatch.org.

I guess that's what being out of the country then getting sick will do for you. I am doing a little better - I'm only really sick in the morning. By the afternoon, I start to feel better.

Not Dead Yet - American Democracy

Keep it alive - if you are registered, vote tomorrow!

Don't stand for people engage in vote fraud, vote suppression or anything else that tries to screw with our democracy. The more people who vote, the harder it is to game the system.

If you see any problems, contact:

Election Protection -- 866-687-8683
Black Box Voting -- 206-335-7747

AND

Your County's Election Board; you might take the time to look up this number before you go vote.

(If you put "voter fraud" into Google today, the JohnMcCain.com Web site comes up as a paid ad, put if you put "report vote fraud" into Google, you get an Obama paid ad! *sigh*)

And may the best candidates win!

The Birthdate Meme and the States Visited Meme

Not clear where this came from, but:

Go to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.

My birthdate is February 2, aka Groundhog Day.

Interesting Events

1709 - Alexander Selkirk is rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
1933 - Adolf Hitler dissolves the German Parliament.
1990 - Apartheid: In South Africa President F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to legally function again and promises to set Nelson Mandela free.

Interesting Birthdays

1882 - James Joyce, Irish author (d. 1941)
1949 - Brent Spiner, American actor

Interesting Deaths

1461 - Owen Tudor, Welsh founder of the Tudor dynasty of England

In addition to Dead People Server, I've been tracking a list of people born in 1957.

States Visited Meme

A new hack from Google, apparently.



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Dear Potential Employer...

Are you looking for temporary, part-time or contract Web, writing, Microsoft Office or event help?

Consider this an "uncover letter."

If you're looking for a drone or a yes person, and your only requirement is that they are available 40 hours a week (or more), please don't bother looking at my resume. I'm not the person you're looking for.

But, if you need a contract, occasional or part-time employee who is

* enthusiastic
* friendly
* computer-literate
* flexible

please read my formal resume. Even better, if you give "extra points" for creativity, humor and honesty, you might want to talk to me directly. I have a great computer, loads of software and excellent connectivity from my home, so you don't even need an office for me. I live near Pittsburgh International Airport, and am looking for a job west of downtown. I'd even consider downtown Pittsburgh if I don't have to come in every day.

I'll be blunt--I'm a middle-aged woman with severe insomnia, which means I burn out quickly in a full time job, particularly one that demands 40 hours (or more) a week. But I'm terrific 20-30 hours a week. I can:

* code Web sites
* write anything
* help with customers
* do research
* manage your databases
* help give your Web sites a higher Google ranking
* help with your spreadsheets
* negotiate with hotels or convention centers
* manage your events

I'm even cheerful first thing in the morning. And I make a great chocolate chip cookie.

So if you're looking for reliable, contract or part-time help, or event management, drop me some E-mail and let's talk.

Sincerely,

Laurie D. Mann

Battling Polluting Waste Coal Plants In Western Pennsylvania

Politicians at the state and local level in Pennsylvania believe the residents should roll over and play dead when companies push for waste coal power plants. Some politicians take it for granted that we already have. However, waste coal power plants increase the amount of fly ash and other particulates in the air and the amount of mercury and arsenic the water. We, the people, must care about what happens to the environment, to the air we breathe and the water we drink. People living in Pennsylvania need to paraphrase John Paul Jones and need to constantly remind our elected and appointed officials...

We Have Not Begun to Fight:

Battling Polluting Waste Coal Plants In Western Pennsylvania

Many years of mining in Pennsylvania created large areas of waste coal, called gob piles. This is the Beech Hollow gob pile, just outside of McDonald, as seen from the western side (photo taken winter 2008):



Here's what the Beech Hollow gob pile looks like from space, courtesy of Google Earth (photo taken late summer 2005):



The large glob of gray to the west of 980 (Robinson Highway) is the largest gob pile east of the Mississippi. It's in our backyard. Granted, it's an ugly mess, but in its current state, it isn't adding to the particulate problem in Southwestern Pennsylvania. However, if you live in places like North Fayette Towship, Oakdale, Carnegie, and Mount Lebanon, you live downwind of a proposed coal waste power plant for Beech Hollow, that will make electricity from the waste coal in this gob pile while spewing fly ash into the air.

For many years, Pittsburgh has been at or near the top of cities with the most particulate-polluted air. Yet our local politicians are giving permission for a waste coal power plant to be built just west of the area? This type of plant will only make a bad air quality situation worse, as anyone with asthma or other lung problems in our region already knows.

If you live in the Pittsburgh area, especially in the western and southern suburbs, you should be mad as hell and let your local officials know that you aren't going to take it.

To learn more about this proposed waste coal power plant, attend a public meeting in Mount Lebanon on Thursday, August 27, 7:30pm at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library.

A Bad Blogger Trend - Syndication Without Credit

Copyright © 2006 Laurie D. T. Mann

Please read my blog entries at my Web site:
http://www.dpsinfo.com/blog.

As I've been saying for years, I like to be linked to. Whenever anyone's written to me and asked me if they can link to something I've put online, I don't hesitate to say, "Of course. This is the Web - you can link to anything you'd like."

Recently, though, I've been finding some of my blog entries copied without any attribution for the sole purpose of third parties getting a few pennies from Google or other advertisers. This is just another form of plagarism, and I think it's very unfair. So I'll be annoyingly beginning all future blog entries with a separate copyright notice and a link back to my site.

Meme of Four

I enjoy doing mini-surveys/quizzes, though I like to try to trace them back to see where they started. I still haven't found the actual genesis of this one, though it seems to have been making the rounds for at least three weeks.

• Four jobs you've had in your life
  
  
  
  • Technical typesetter
  
  
  • Tecnical writer
  
  
  • Bookseller
  
  
  • Web developer
  
  
  
  



• Four movies you could watch over and over
  
  
  
  • Lord of the Rings trilogy (Jackson)
  
  
  • Star Wars IV-VI trilogy - first three only!
  
  
  • Howards End
  
  
  • American Beauty
  
  
  
  



• Four places you've lived
  
  
  
  • West Boylston, MA (13 years)
  
  
  • Mount Lebanon, PA (12 years)
  
  
  • Northboro, MA (6 years)
  
  
  • Pittsburgh, PA (4 years)
  
  
  
  



• Four TV shows you love to watch
  
  
  
  • Lost
  
  
  • House
  
  
  • Scrubs
  
  
  • Inside the Actors Studio
  
  
  
  



• Four places you've been on vacation
  
  
  
  • Maine
  
  
  • Vermont
  
  
  • England
  
  
  • Scotland
  
  
  
  



• Four websites you visit daily
  
  
  
  • Yahoo News
  
  
  • CNN
  
  
  • Google
  
  
  • IMDB
  
  
  
  



• Four of your favorite foods
  
  
  
  • Chocolate
  
  
  • Breadworks whole wheat ciabatta
  
  
  • Red wine
  
  
  • Swordfish
  
  
  
  



• Four places you'd rather be right now
  
  
  
  • London
  
  
  • New York
  
  
  • New Zealand
  
  
  • Tahiti