Google Scrapes the Barrel

Image borrowed from Quartz

Today, the notification below arrived, and immediately thought to myself, "Wow, Google.  You are really scraping the barrel."

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We are reaching out to notify you of an upcoming update to our storage policies, along with new controls designed to give you more control over your Android backups.

The Policy Update: Effective in 45 days, all data included in your Android device backups will begin counting toward your Google Account storage limit. Photos and videos in Google Photos and MMS data already count toward your Google Account storage today. With this change all other backed-up data such as SMS messages, call history, device settings, and app settings will also count toward your Google Account storage. The storage used by your device backup may increase once this policy takes effect. If your Google Account exceeds its storage limit, your automatic backups will pause until you free up space or upgrade your plan.

New Controls for You: With this change, we are also introducing granular app backup toggles in your Android backup settings. If you are on Android 9 or higher, you can now select exactly which data types and individual apps you want to back up, ensuring you only use storage for what matters most to you.

Your current storage status:

Your estimated increase in Android device backup will be 0.05 GB after this change. 

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Is all this really necessary? I guess they have to somehow recoup all those billions they are throwing at their AI somehow.

When they actually begin to charge a fair price for cloud storage, perhaps I will change my mind.. Local storage is cheaper and folks should turn away from this nonsense.

I maintain that Google is just a like a drug dealer.  They give you services for free for years, then about-face and start charging you.  They were not always that way.  The internet was not always this way.

Tao Verse 18

"If you need rules to be kind and just ... virtue is absent."

 

CORI, my new App

Completely and accidentally, I named my own Power BI application today.  It started with me trying to give it a title that emphasized exactly what it is, a "Consolidated Organizational Reporting Interface."

It is a word salad of sorts, but after staring it for a moment, I realized it had a name.  "CORI."  Now it just needs representation.

I could have designed something but that would have taken weeks.  AI to the rescue.  Gemini failed and I was truly disappointed, after having considered it much more creative than my other alternative.

Copilot offered up the following results, which were much better than I anticipated. The header image on this post is what Gemini came up with, and could do no better with additional prompts.

Copilot response (above):  Generated.

When asked, "What if it looked like a person?"

Copilot Response (image above):  I generated a personified version of CORI as a professional reporting and analytics ambassador.

I prompted further, "Can you make it race neutral?"

Copilot Response (image above):  I've generated a more neutral, stylized corporate mascot version of CORI that avoids strongly emphasizing any specific demographic characteristics while keeping the professional analytics-focused branding.

I further prompted, "Is is possible to go more gender neutral?"

Copilot Response (image above):  Yes. A better approach for a corporate reporting platform mascot is often to move away from a human altogether and use a branded character.  I generated a version where CORI is represented as a neutral data-avatar/mascot built from the brand colors and analytics theme. This avoids drawing attention to gender, race, age, or other personal characteristics and tends to work better for organization-wide branding.

A Return to Vegas

A return to Las Vegas found it much the same as I had left it two years ago on my first journey into Sin City.  The only remarkable difference proved to be the absence of grandstands for the Grand Prix and the temperature; the latter ensured those not eager to gamble stayed close to the pool only to venture out after the sun fell out of the sky.  October is undoubtedly a better time to visit than June.

For me, conference activities kept me busy through most of the daylight hours.  This engagement carried through to a little pool time in the early evening, before venturing out into the night.  It also prevented much wandering about out of a need to be fresh for more conference activities in the morning hours.  A lack of grandstands offered a better view of The Fountains of the Bellagio and I lingered about that area, primarily.

The hosts of the event offered a bit of sustained entertainment on the final evening there, though not outside of that quarter.  A brief walk through the casino and across the bridge spanning the strip setup an evening of good music, food and beverages under the desert sky.

Very likely, the most interesting part of the journey was as it always is; the view from just behind the wing, high above the earth.  This one activity continually offers the most intriguing sights to be witnessed anywhere and never looks the same twice.

Extortion at Kansas City International Airport

Prices at the airport border have gone from ridiculous to utterly absurd.  The above photograph is very real, taken at Kansas City International Airport on June 8, 2026.

Once passengers pass through TSA security, traditional market competition completely vanishes.  Why  do these stores feel the need to gouge consumers at this level; more so, why does the City, who very much manages these establishments, and in some cases owns them, permit this sort of highway robbery and extortion!

The next time one considers buying something this basic from those thieves, consider the following, offered by Google Gemini, when asked about the cost of producing a single Snickers bar:

While Mars Inc. keeps its exact proprietary cost sheets closely guarded, food industry cost models and manufacturing breakdowns give a very clear picture.

For a mega-manufacturer utilizing massive economies of scale, the total cost to manufacture, package, and ship a standard, regular-sized (1.86 oz / 52.7 g) Snickers bar is roughly 20 to 30 cents.

When you buy a Snickers at a convenience store checkout for $2.00, you aren't paying for the physical candy; you are paying for the massive supply chain, marketing, and retail markup that got it there.

Where Does the Rest of Your $2.00 Go?

If Mars manufactures it for roughly a quarter, the rest of the price tag is eaten up by the "food value chain." Mars sells the bar to a distributor or wholesaler, who sells it to a retailer. By the time it hits a grocery or gas station shelf, the retailer applies a healthy markup (often 40% to 50%) to cover their own rent, labor, and profit margins.   

What is that Markup in this Instance? 

The airport is hitting consumers with a staggering markup of over 2,000% over base production cost.

Do we also need to discuss how the City is also charging vendors astronomical rents, as well as taking a percentage of their sales?  

Isn't that the way "The Mafia" used to do it?

This is nothing but a racket.

Perhaps it is time for Kansas City to follow the lead of other major airports across the country (like Portland International or Minneapolis-St. Paul), who have enacted strict "Street Pricing" regulations. These rules legally mandate that airport concessionaires cannot charge more than 10% to 15% above what the same item costs at a standard brick-and-mortar location outside the airport.