Now Google Can’t Be Trusted To Be Google!

Google Blocking Negative Search Recommendations On Islam – Why?

They have devastating screensnaps. I’ve verified it myself.

And I also tried it out with another group:

And I tried some others…

Sell Your Dream And You’ll Live The Nightmare

Richard Nash: Book Publishing 10 Years in the Future

3. Most predictions for 2020 based on models derived from controlling the supply side, that is, from the monopoly on the means of producing and distributing books, will be wrong. By which I mean, the supply chain book publishing and retail model is ending. The book retail chains will disappear, just like Circuit City, Sharper Image, Tower Records disappeared. And the corporate publishers will likely all but disappear just as Atari, Digital, Wang disappeared though the backlists will be spun off to private equity companies looking for semi-predictable IP-based cash flow, and a couple of front list publishing enterprises will likely be operating trying to emulate the Hollywood blockbuster model with just about enough success to be able to stay in business.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

He is seeing farther out than I have.

And he is absolutely correct about that.

This is your future if you have a contract with a print publisher:

Enjoy watching private equity feed off your creations while you starve.

I Don’t Like The Future Apple And Google Are Creating

Exclusive: Apple to Buy Quattro Wireless for $275 Million

Google (GOOG) recently forked over an astonishing $750 million for Silicon Valley’s AdMob, a Quattro competitor, which Apple (AAPL) had also made a bid to acquire.

Both innovative start-ups are aimed squarely at the fast-growing market to advertise on smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices.

I do not like this at all.

Apple and Google are two of the smartest and most nimble companies on this planet.

They are now revealing they see the same economic future I’ve been seeing.

* We’re all shit poor
* We can’t afford shiny devices
* We can have the shiny devices for free if we are bitches to their ads
* The ads will be intrusive and inescapable
* Some ads will require “opting-in”
* Every ad will cause a privacy invasion
* No ads, no opting in, no services: no voice, no data, no nothin’
* Apple and Google have more data about us than every government agency

Some disgusting fanboiz out there will cheer each company for their foresight, so they can keep up their supply of shiny toys.

I wasn’t put on this earth to be anyone’s ad bitch.

Print Lives! As Fuel.

Pensioners burn books for warmth
Hard-up pensioners have resorted to buying books from charity shops and burning them to keep warm.

Volunteers have reported that ‘a large number’ of elderly customers are snapping up hardbacks as cheap fuel for their fires and stoves.

Temperatures this week are forecast to plummet as low as -13ºC in the Scottish Highlands, with the mercury falling to -6ºC in London, -5ºC in Birmingham and -7ºC in Manchester as one of the coldest winters in years continues to bite.

Workers at one charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal.

One assistant said: ‘Book burning seems terribly wrong but we have to get rid of unsold stock for pennies and some of the pensioners say the books make ideal slow-burning fuel for fires and stoves.

A lot of them buy up large hardback volumes so they can stick them in the fire to last all night.’

A 500g book can sell for as little as 5p, while a 20kg bag of coal costs £5.

So, all you people who envision a future of used print books still being sold for decades hence — you better cross out that bit of your futurology.

Previously here:

Whiny Bookstore-Loving Hypocrites

WordPress Malfunctionaries At Work?

After months of irritation, I finally emailed WordPress Support about a persistent menu bug in this blog’s Dashboard.

Perhaps this is an indication they are mucking about with the wiring:

I’ve never before had a Top Post appear twice like that.

So don’t be surprised if other strange things pop up here.