Online reviews: no safeguard against piling

12.04.2024/12.21

There is a certain satisfaction in reading statuses like this: But at the same time it confirms what I said years ago about Google My Business and its ilk. There are no safeguards for piling. Thanks to Google’s bugs, I believe my business has a listing but it’s been nicely messed up so […]

You can post misinformation on Linkedin, and there are no consequences

11.04.2024/12.32

It’s official: unlike Medium, Linkedin has confirmed that it will not remove posts that misuse my name under the grounds of misinformation. After the initial report, and a request for a review, Linkedin determined ‘After reviewing the content, we didn’t find any violations of our policies.’ Summary: I reported the misinformation as misinformation to Linkedin. […]

“AI” is drivel

08.04.2024/03.14

This is from Perplexity, showing how convincingly these bots with their large language models spit out utter drivel: And not everyone will have the actual knowledge to call them out on it: “AI” is only useful when you already know the answer, because it does get it wrong and you need […]

A decade after Google, Meta dishes out fake cybersecurity warnings

07.04.2024/11.30

There’s nothing original with Big Tech It shouldn’t matter what Little Green Footballs’ politics are, as long as its blogger, Charles Foster Johnson, isn’t advocating anything hateful, and from what I can see of his current stance, he doesn’t. However, he’s found his blog links are being cancelled on Facebook. Links to posts going […]

To those who take technology and make life harder: you’re doing it wrong

04.04.2024/09.11

I like technology. I don’t hate technology. But I hate what a bunch of idiots have done with technology. You’d be forgiven for thinking I was referring to the mass misinformation-authoring that used my name over the last three months, but, frankly, this level of technological misuse is everywhere in various forms. Take today, when […]

A rejected PSA for the de-Googling community on Reddit

28.02.2024/01.24

Pity, this was just removed from the De-Google subreddit. Oh well, you try to do a public duty as a netizen … Here it is, as I’m not about to let it go to waste—I was hoping to share the love a bit more so legitimate websites had the full story. We all probably know […]

Who pioneered phone food ordering and delivery?

27.02.2024/02.59

Not that any search engine will find this, but according to the BBC’s The Secret Genius of Modern Life (episode 2), the inventor of the phone orders for food was the Kin-Chu Café at 137 South Brand Boulevard, Glendale, Calif., in 1922 (another link here). ‘Special Delivery Service 11 A. M. to 1 A. M.—Phone […]

Signing up on Seller Central: another Amazon swindle

22.02.2024/05.40

I thought I’d look at selling the Autocade Yearbook through Amazon, since people who visit the site are in the mood for shopping. Against all my instincts, I’d bite the bullet and make bloody Jeff even richer. But the whole sign-up process is a swindle. Here’s what I sent to them. Hello there: I […]

Semrush, LLMs (or “AIs”), and Google: a three-headed misinformation hydra?

21.02.2024/10.32

It turns out that Semrush is likely responsible for the misinformation regarding my name. When Shahid Jafar first encountered the fake topic of a new Google algorithm named for me—and apparently created by me—he mentioned he had seen 8,000 references to it. I couldn’t, but it turns out—thanks to another blog post that has incorporated […]

It would be nice to get my Amazon Associates money

17.02.2024/09.34

This has been going on for between 10 and 20 years, and I think closer to the latter. Didn’t know Jeff was this hard up for cash. I didn’t record the dialogue last time, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but since I can’t trust the buggers, I will this time. Fed in to […]