See the turquoise circle with the pencil icon. Please, Google, let me move that or make it disappear or move it up into the tool bar. Some of us still want to see what we're writing.
What clicking that icon does is insert links all over the post. Like this:
It's not as though the link on "turquoise circle" goes anywhere interesting. And it gives the insane impression that readers might need help understanding the word combo or feel intrigued about exploring the concept. Who would want links like this? It seems like the stuff of fake blogs — spam.
Posts
40 comments:
They added a marketing tool.
Why are marketing schools so bad in the US that their graduates destroy brands with their bad ideas?
As bad as Google sometimes is, there should be a way to disable that tool, no? Remember MS Clippy...?
I am not seeing it. I'm writing this comment in Edge. Do you have to be using Chrome? CC, JSM
yuk. Also the new Apple ios floats the screen underneath the now translucent search bar. Can see there’s stuff there but…sigh progress…
Software platform are shifting to phone/tablet interfaces as their primary focus. As such, they prioritize finger-touch icons and tend to bake in vertical and small layouts.
Traditional desktop/notebook interfaces that use keyboards and efficient menus often lag behind or are ignored. They now comprise a small and shrinking market share (e.g., mobile is reported as 97.8% of Internet use at the link below).
https://research.com/software/guides/mobile-vs-desktop-usage
AI PROMPT: Write a joke about turquoise.
AI RESULT: Sure thing! Let’s dive into some colorful humor about turquoise:
[1] The Pun: Why did turquoise break up with emerald? It felt like their relationship was too opaque.
[2] The Observational: Turquoise is the only color that sounds like it belongs in a jewelry store and a tropical smoothie menu.
[3] The One-Liner: I tried painting my room turquoise, but now it just feels like my walls are judging me for not living near the ocean.
Hope these jokes added a splash of color to your day!
BOTTOM LINE: Don't quit your day job, kid.
My G-mail has started giving me an executive summary of what it thinks the actual mail content is saying. I find it annoying: like someone I don't know is reading my mail.
All of this sort of thing is just the hyperscalers trying to find some broad retail use for the literally hundreds of billions of dollars they are pouring into AI infrastructure.
Sadly, it won't really take off, and much of that investment will be written off.
i'm not seeing it either ( i'm using Firefox)..
on the other hand; this morning was the 1st time i'd even thought about adding a post to My blog in at least 2 years..
i wonder WHO, besides Althouse, still even uses Blogger?
MSWord for Mac pulls the same shit. Plus, it's always trying to correct my language -- not "tone", but I'm fluent in five languages and often include words or phrases in the original. Bloody thing auto-corrects and/or tries to translate for me, requiring me to force a word-by-word override.
I find that a deadful lot of modrn software is always trying to "help" ... and it really slows down my work.
MSWord for Mac pulls the same shit. Plus, it's always trying to correct my language -- not "tone", but I'm fluent in five languages and often include words or phrases in the original. Bloody thing auto-corrects and/or tries to translate for me, requiring me to force a word-by-word override.
I find that a deadful lot of modrn software is always trying to "help" ... and it really slows down my work.
What happens when you right-click on the icon? Is there a menu with an unpin or disable choice?
> I'm glad to see Google paying
> some attention to Blogger
> and adding a new [mis-]feature
Oh for the days of benign neglect!
And folks, she's talking about the interface for the blog writer to edit new POSTS, not the comment interface.
i wonder WHO, besides Althouse, still even uses Blogger?
I do, but my blogging is infrequent these days. I went in and tested it and the pencil thing is visible but outside of the writing space. If I decide to reignite my blogging, I'm likely going to move to Substack.
It's funny to hear Brits pronounce "turquoise" in the French way:
tur-KWAZ.
I’m ready to claim it.
Wince’s Law: There isn’t an online app that won’t eventually be ruined by needless “improvements” made to it following its initial development.
Enshittification strikes again.
"Who would want links like this?"
ESL foreigners mostly.
"My G-mail has started giving me an executive summary of what it thinks the actual mail content is saying. I find it annoying." I am so old I still use yahoo mail, which does the summary business as well . . . which is often completely bassackwards of what the actual email says. I don't mind AI reading my mail so much . . . but I would like it to get it correct.
This is a feature not a bug. They are hoping that you will give up the platform and the technique they are using is death by a thousand cuts.
I think it was a couple weeks ago they changed the font style to make it almost impossible to read the blog on the phone without powerful reading glasses
Learning to love big brother is going to be tougher for some people.
Wince said...
Wince’s Law: There isn’t an online app that won’t eventually be ruined by needless “improvements” made to it following its initial development.
Randomizer's Law: Software with mandatory updates can be considered an online app.
I know nothing about Blogger, but just typed "remove new Google Search Tool icon from Blogger" and likely found the way to do it." Proper descriptive word seems to be "gadget" rather than "Tool icon."
Finding the path through a menu maze to the operative setting in software, usually to turn OFF some "feature" is the only "benefit" I find in the AI bloom.
OMG, this will bring back nightmares about that dancing paperclip.
I understand why companies are constantly up dating their products but I am a firm believer in "If it ain't broke don't try to fix it."
"I am not seeing it. I'm writing this comment in Edge. Do you have to be using Chrome?"
I have the same problem in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.
You may think it's passé to use Blogger, but I like having a freestanding blog and not just having posts that might come up in people's feeds, interspersed with other writing and all sorts of commercial crap. I like having my own home over here, and I think readers like this, because I have increasing traffic to this blog and far more page views than I had in the Golden Age of Blogging (say, 2004 to 2008).
In the Golden Age of Blogging, most people were still saying things like: "Blog, what's a blog," "Ew, 'blog,' I don't like the word — blaaahhhg," "Is everyone going to have to have a blog?," and "It's soooo narcissistic to have a blog."
Enigma @5:49: "Software platform are shifting to phone/tablet interfaces as their primary focus."
Agree. Bank rolled out new format recently for transaction history. Twice the white space and half the information as previous.
Another financial outfit I recently tied in has very phone-like Windows interface. Two colors: dark background, light contrasting color for large text and icons. Overall uncluttered and easy to see but hard to use. Navigation is by icon; text is for self-promotion.
Frankly, I do not understand how anyone can work efficiently with textual material on a phone. Screen the size of a cigarette pack and keyboard the size of matchbox. Typing speed two seconds per character without stylus. Voice-to-text works well, if no background noises, but must be proof-read.
I think Althouse should win the Nobel for literature. She has created a visionary oeuvre in the midst of apocalyptic terror, and in English, not in Hungarian.
Why would a blogger want to insert a bunch of distractions and opportunities for readers to navigate away from their blog?
“I find that a dreadful lot of modern software is always trying to "help"“
I felt that same about windows, leave me alone and let me run my programs, but I saw the advantages of having it in a business environment. Now I can just run in Ubuntu.
Google's Material floating buttons seem like a good idea, until you try them. The problem here is that the people forcing these changes in Google's apps don't seem to actually use the apps.
I once made a comment on X and accidentally hit the Grok button. It analyzed my comment.
It told me I used the word "driftwood" about a big, weathered stick I fished out of the Mississippi River because of the Driftwood Restaurant in Davenport, which opened about 25 years after I found my interesting piece of driftwood.
Then it analyzed why I would comment on something I once owned. It concluded that their is a psychological bond between a person and his or her possessions.
That's some good hallucinating right there, I don't care who you are.
“I find that a dreadful lot of modern software is always trying to "help."
I am trying Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, and Proton Drive to get away from Outlook. So far I am pleased.
I have told Microsoft that I would be interested in Outlook Hermit if they ever developed such an offering.
"Why would a blogger want to insert a bunch of distractions and opportunities for readers to navigate away from their blog?"
A blogger might want the post studded with hot links just to look bloggy. But it's clear why Google wants it. The links all go (I think) to Google searches, which these days have AI summaries at the top, so readers may only go that far and read the AI like it's Wikipedia. Google puts its ads there. Google would also like to put its ads on all the Blogger blogs, but it doesn't pay much at all. To me, it's not worth the clutter. They really should pay us more, but they don't. I don't get anything from Google other than the use of Blogger and they don't get much of anything from me. It's a relationship that has worked for more than 20 years.
@Two-eyed Jack
Ha ha.
I was just saying to Meade that there are no important American novelists anymore. Last time it was our "turn," they just gave it to Bob Dylan. Maybe next time it will be a movie writer. How about Quentin Tarantino? But also, I think a social-media writer will be a good follow up to the Bob Dylan surprise. If so, it can't be someone like me who uses so much quoting. It should be someone writing the whole thing in their own words and experimenting with the form.
Althouse at 8:10 a.m.:
Substack actually works exactly like that.
Yes, you can go to just substack.com and see some featured sites etc, But if you go to
your-site.substack.com
It functions pretty much the same as when you go to
your-site.blogspot.com
You get among other things the list of posts in reverse chronological order.
That thing popped up in my blogger too, but off to the side where it is easily ignored. The last thing I want to do is allow Google to spam my posts with idiotic links.
The two faces of Gemini.
Blogger could have called its Google Search "Bugle" if that wasn't taken already. "Bloogle" is still available if Blue Sky doesn't want it.
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