A US Gov public domain photo of fireworks against the night sky

We’re now seven days into 2022, and I’m still not used to it. Yes, I remember Christmas happening, and I had the best New Year’s eve party ever - with my wfe, my daughter, and myself cooking South African style in the back yard with a potjie purchased from Boet’s Biltong (genuine recommendation), along with bread baked on cut willow sticks over the same fire. It was great.

But 2022 is difficult to comprehend - possibly because it seems that 2021 barely happened at all. I didn’t go anywhere, I saw very few people, and almost all news was on the same subject which has been preoccupying public consciousness since the beginning of 2020.

And yet, here we are. 2022. Hurray!

Some things will change this year, and having had a week to consider it, here’s what I think they are.

NFTs will become worthless

There’s silly money in NFTs right now, and I’ll be honest, and just say that I don’t really understand them. Or at least, I kind of get the explanation, but I don’t actually think there is any inherent value in them, and I also don’t think that the people who bought them believe there is any intrinsic value.

NFTs are a fad which will run out of steam as soon as the incredibly wealthy people who buy NFTs get bored of them. Sure there will be a short tale as ‘investors’ pour in their pension funds in the hope of getting rich, but at some point in the coming months, NFTs are going to experience an Emperor’s New Clothes moment.

Paid a cool million for the NFT of a pixelated unicorn? Tough shit. I’m with Jimmy Cauty on this one.

Year of the Linux desktop!

Lol. JK.

Search engines will be even less useful

SEO ruined the internet. Any topic is gamed by SEO marketers to get their site to the front page of Google. If you’re a freelance writer (as I am) you will often see jobs listings looking for contents writers in niches as diverse as garden furniture and CBD. The proportion of genuine content by people who know and care about what they write about, is vanishingly small.

The ability to find what you’re looking for isn’t helped by search engines deliberately crippling themselves. Boolean operators don’t work any more - or are treated as guidelines at best. Google wants to show you what it thinks you want to see - not what you actually specified using exact, albeit outdated, terminology and operators.

Yes, some of the old operators still work, but it’s getting worse

I cannot see this getting better any time soon. Rather than providing an up-to-date manual of useful commands we can use to specify exactly what we want to find, search engines are trying to introduce a form of learned helplessness which will allow them to feed us whatever SEO optimised crap makes them money.

Side note: You should read Kev Quirk’s ‘manifesto’ at thewebisfucked.com

Grant Shapps for UK Prime Minister

I think that our current Prime Minister’s days are numbered. yes the party has a huge majority, but it’s painfully obvious he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I think the only reason Boris still in the job is because no-one else wants to take over right now.

I think the Tories will remain in power, but once the current crisis passes, there is going to be a new leader.

My money is on Grant Shapps - currently transport secretary - as the least offensive of an obnoxious bunch.

If this comes to pass, please try to remember that the man is a Two bit grifter who used to make money selling, for almost $500, a toolkit promising customers earnings of $20,000 in 20 days. Upon purchase, the ‘toolkit’ was revealed to be an ebook, advising the user to create their own toolkit and recruit 100 ‘Joint Venture Partners’ to resell it for a share of the profits.

Shapps is probably the best and most honest of the potential candidates.

Have a great 2022!

Stay safe and enjoy yourselves responsibly. Don’t swallow SD cards.