A Nice, Clean, Blog Colonoscopy!

That's what I like to see. Found: 0 Results. 😎 

A couple times a year I check muh blog out at Lumen. 

Lumen checks (and also logs) your URL for free but part of that depends if the host reports to Lumen. According to Lumen, it collects reports of complaints, Copyright violation, etc. 

Google/Blogger states on their Terms of Service (TOS) they report all complaints to Lumen. I don't know what other platforms report to Lumen (WP, IG, X, etc) because I've no presence online other than here at the Good folks at Blogger. And I mean that. 

Short course on Lumen if your host is Blogger (or maybe other Google owned service, like You Tube, again I don't know, never used Lumen for YT).

First, go to Lumen at the link in the first second sentence. Enter full URL. Click Go. You'll get to prove you're NOT a Robot by clicking crosswalks, motorcycles, cars or something. You get the, "Hoo-Ray you're not a Robot, hold on" message.

You'll see your URL and under "the box" a bunch of entries. Ignore them. Unlikely they have anything to do with your site, it's all populated with partial, slight matches that have nothing to do with your results. 

What you want to do is click on ADD MORE and narrow your parameters. A sub-menu to pick from for Title, Topic, Tags, Recipient, etc. Then in the ADD MORE box you type in what you want added to the search. You need to click on the ADD MORE button each time to add another specific "drill down" item. 

When you've used some or all of ADDS,  click GO or Continue, I forget which. Then, "Taa-Daa", the Results. If you're using Blogger, getting "FOUND: 0 RESULTS" is just what you want to see.   

I maintain Google/Blogger TOS. Far too many I see whining, "muh soooooooooshuuullllllll meeeeeeediiiaaaaaa account was suspended or 'I'm ba-ba-banned. Waaaah'!" Well, did you break TOS? "Uhhhh...I really don't know." WTF are they talking about. They know they broke TOS.   

My previous Blog Colonoscopy (6 or more months ago) also "FOUND: 0 RESULTS". Who doesn't want to share good colonoscopy news? 🤣 

EDIT/ADDED: I am not, in any way, affiliated with Lumen. 

Any other Blogger users notice a change in the appearance of the pop-up mode comments window?

Anyone? Is it just me? I just noticed the pop up comment box looks different. Why does Blogger keep diddling with this sh*t?

I looked at other pop up comment windows on other Blogspot sites. Most appear as the one at the top of the above image. A few look like the example on the bottom. 

Do I need to change a setting? I haven't changed any comment options at all.

Dear Blogger/Google - - - WHY? Image and Video Upload Screen Size.

Anyone/everyone else using Blogger Platform, when uploading an image or video, getting the FULL PAGE upload screen instead of the previous, SMALLER-sized upload "window-within-the-window" of the "New Post" selection? 

They tried this same thing a year or more(?) ago and quickly reverted to the "old way" - the regular sized (smaller) upload image/video "window-within-the-window." AKA: The SMALLER sized screen during image or video uploads. 

It's not just cosmetic, the SMALLER upload screen is a time-saver because while an image or video is being uploaded, one can be adding labels, a later posting time and date, etc. Using the smaller screen means a smaller carbon footprint and is GREENER than the full screen option. It is! 

If you use Blogger, after you've logged in, please - kindly - provide feedback to them by clicking on the Circled Question mark located upper right screen and then click on SEND FEEDBACK. Be nice, beg them to return to small screen upload image/video mode. 

If you DON'T BLOG, but have Gmail or other Google apps or account, you can help us out by doing the same with your Gmail account. Same procedure, once you're logged in, click on the Circled ? and SEND FEEDBACK. Thank you!

Internet in Real Time.

How many posts, searches and uploads occur every second to FB, X, IG, You Tube, Pinterest, Google, Yandex and other social media sites or online Big Media? How many people are calling an Uber or using Skype every second?

This site Tracks that data it in real time: The Internet in Real Time. Check it out. It doesn't include Blooger or WP. Awwwwww...😭  It should, I'd like to see real-time data tracking for posting on both Bloog and WP.

It's kind of like the USA Debt Clock but for Social Media and other online commercial sites.

Sensitive Warning Loop.

I am just now experiencing this Loop at other blogs with the content disclaimer. It seems to show up from time to time. Then it leaves.

A Spectacular Technical Achievement is Upon Us!

Oh Boy! A more modern look and feel! Don't worry, Beta-Testing a resounding success. Passed with flying colors. No glitches. No redesigns that impact the current simplicity of it.

If you dislike the changes, will they allow you to revert to the legacy mode?

"Vat do you mean you don't like ze chang-zes? You vill like ze chang-zes und you vill use them!"

Anyone using this gadget on Blogger?

Why? 🤣

Sorry folks, some comments are landing in SPAM.

Some comments are landing in the SPAM-eater filter, which, in the past, I checked maybe twice a year. Some recent comments from Bear Claw and Irish were in the SPAM folder, I don't know why this is happening. Those comments are published. Sorry guys.

I've noticed a few other folks on the Blooger platform mentioning they're having a glitch here and there with comments.

MORTON, I appreciate the kind words and that you enjoy this blog. Thank you! Your comment landed in SPAM because it contained an active link/hypertext. 

Comments containing active links bounce right into the SPAM folder. As the comment box caveat, "if you wish to leave a link it HAS TO BE IN TEXT format only". If you want to leave another comment with a link to your business in plain text, you're most welcome to it.

I'll try to check the SPAM filter more often, but no guarantees. If your comment doesn't appear right away or not at all, don't take it personally. It's Putin's fault.

Well today's issue with Blogger, at least for me is replying to comments.

Publish comment from others. 

Enter a reply. Click Publish. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Watch the reload circle spin and spin. 

Error message: Please verify you're not a robot. Repeat process. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Watch the reload circle spin and spin.

4,5,6 tries later, Huzzah, my reply gets publish. 

Fucking Bloooooger. If it wasn't free they should pay users who use their platform. 

But how does it know I am a robot?

"Something's not right."

Thanks for that notification, Bloooooger. I wouldn't have concluded that without the message.

Friday the 13th? Since Biden's has F'ed Up everything he touches, I suppose it's a matter of time until he shats on the web. I've seen other blogs and sites (Blooooger, WP and other independently hosted sites), all having problems today. Pages won't load or if they do it's a half-assed load. Tried to leave a few comments at Blooooger and WP sites, all of which failed.

Oh...wait, I know what's causing this. It's climate change.

Study finds You Tube is a gateway to far-right ideologies.

Tech Crunch: Study of YouTube comments finds evidence of radicalization effect.

Research presented at the ACM FAT 2020 conference in Barcelona today supports the notion that YouTube’s platform is playing a role in radicalizing users via exposure to far-right ideologies.

The study, carried out by researchers at Switzerland’s Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, found evidence that users who engaged with a middle ground of extreme right-wing content migrated to commenting on the most fringe far-right content.

A March 2018 New York Times article by sociologist Zeynep Tufekci set out the now widely reported thesis that YouTube is a radicalization engine. Followup reporting by journalist Kevin Roose told a compelling tale of the personal experience of an individual, Caleb Cain, who described falling down an “alt right rabbit hole” on YouTube.

Their paper, called “Auditing radicalization pathways on YouTube,” details a large-scale study of YouTube looking for traces of evidence — in likes, comments and views — that certain right-leaning YouTube communities are acting as gateways to fringe far-right ideologies.
[.]
We reached out to YouTube for a response to the research but the company did not reply to our questions.

The company has tightened its approach toward certain far-right and extremist content in recent years, in the face of growing political and public pressure over hate speech, targeted harassment and radicalization risks.

It has also been experimenting with reducing algorithmic amplification of certain types of potentially damaging nonsense content that falls outside its general content guidelines — such as malicious conspiracy theories and junk science.

You Tube didn't reply to questions from Tech Crunch? Why, that's shocking. You Tube customer service is the finest ever, hands-down. Must be something temporary or they're short-staffed due to the flu.

It's impossible to visit You Tube and not fall into an "alt-right rabbit hole", isn't it? Happens all the time. I'll be watching an AC/DC video and then, just like Hillary says, those Dark Web Right Wing Videos fly by, you don't know what you really just viewed, you don't really remember what it was, can't find it again, and then free-fall into unintended depths of "alt-right rabbit holes".

I haven't read Switzerland’s Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil study, but I'm betting it's pretty junky science, both capricious and arbitrary.

Oh, yeah - who's Zeynep Tufekci? Here ya go.
-
Tech Crunch Archived

Posting continues as I wait for a reply from The Blogger Team.

Our programming resumes as I anxiously await a speedy and satisfactory resolution from The Blogger Team, because they really care about the people that use their products, seeking fair and judicious outcomes for all parties involved.

What...?
-
Really, I'm the one who's being harassed and bullied here, by Blogger censorship without any logged complaint on Lumen. Blogger Terms of Service states they record all complaints with Lumen. To date, that's not the case with the post they spiked here. Besides, Who TF complains about a blog post that dates back to August 2019, anyway? WTF...it was six months ago?!

Comments are open, but I'm holding off on publishing those related to the (so far two posts) censorship issue. I appreciate the support from everyone.

 Google, Blogger, You Tube=all under the same umbrella.

ZERO complaints per Lumen regarding this blog and the email from The Blogger Team.

The following from Blogger/Google Terms of Service:

A copy of every removal notice we receive related to Blogger is sent to the Lumen project complaint database.

I'm waiting on a response from The Blogger Team to their email I received yesterday, January 29, 2020:

- BEGIN TEXT OF EMAIL

Blogger <no-reply@google.com>
   
5:31 AM (Created at: Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 5:31 AM (Delivered after 1 second)
   
to me

     Hello,

     Your post titled "Epstein not dead claims Q Anon76. Autopsy
completed, "further information" needed, says Med Exam Office." at
http://daviddrakesplace.blogspot.com/2019/08/epstein-not-dead-claims-q-anon76.html
has been identified as in violation of our Terms of Service for harassment.
In accordance to these terms, we've removed the post, and the URL is no
longer accessible.

     For more information, please review the following resources:

     Terms of Service: https://www.blogger.com/go/terms
     Blogger Content Policy: https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy

     Sincerely,

     The Blogger Team

- END TEXT OF EMAIL

The post originally appeared at this URL: https://daviddrakesplace.blogspot.com/2019/08/epstein-not-dead-claims-q-anon76.html?m=0

The post removed by The Blogger Team is one where I simply linked to other stories and sources (The NY Post, a couple Twitter Tweets and some screen captures)  asking questions if the person photographed on the gurney was Epstein. That was the extent of the post other than two sentences that I added to the post:

"We can only ponder what is the "further information" they need. Could it be along the lines of, "Who is this guy? It's not Jeff Epstein."

Commenting on a possible conspiracy theory that the person shown on a gurney might not be the person we're told. How is that "harassment and/or bullying"?

The links in the censored post to Twitter were asking the same question, "the person on the gurney has various facial features inconsistent with all other photographs in the public domain of Epstein." 

The NY Post story that I linked to simply stated "the Medical Examiner’s Office needs 'further information' before determining a cause of death."

How does anyone "harass or bully" an alleged dead person, Jeffrey Epstein?

There was, and is, no harassment or bullying towards the Twitter links or the other links or images used in the post. Or is simply asking questions about conspiracy theories now included as off-limits by The Blogger Team?

Maybe Epstein's death is a hoax? This is totally implausible? No one has ever faked a death and then received a new identity? No one has ever heard of someone who's been given a new identity to escape their past, for instance, as in Witness Relocation? And this process couldn't be done for someone with scandalous intel on very important people, as was known by Epstein?

No one, ever, has contacted me about material on this site they considered objectionable - one of the first suggestions given by Blogger/Google in their Terms of Service.

Not a single complaint filed at Lumen.

No notification or warning or email from Blogger asking for any information from me. No - they just spike the post.
-
This post Archived

If this blog disappears...

...it WON'T be due to my deleting it.

I want to quote the exact language from From Google/Blogger Terms of Service:

Report inappropriate content:

Blogger takes violations of the Terms of Service and Blogger Content Policy seriously.

Blogger is a platform for free speech. We don’t monitor content or mediate disputes.

If an author’s contact information is listed on their blog, contact them directly to ask them to remove or change  the content in question.

If you have tried to contact the author without success and still believe a blog violates our Terms of Service or Content Policy, select the abuse type below to contact us.

Note: A copy of every removal notice we receive related to Blogger is sent to the Lumen project complaint database.

We also disclose the number and nature of government requests for content removal twice a year in our Transparency Report.

* No person or organization has contacted me - ever - regarding any content on this site.

* As far as I can tell from my search results at Lumen regarding any complaints about anything appearing on this site - - - there are NONE.

Stay tuned.

You Tube ends impeachment livestreams of Conservative organizations.

News Busters: YouTube Stops Impeachment Trial Livestreams from Conservative Organizations:

Two conservative outlets have complained that their livestreams of the Senate impeachment trial have been taken down —for no apparent reason.

Judicial Watch’s president, Tom Fitton, noted that the organization’s livestream of the impeachment trial was halted mid-stream. YouTube claimed that the stream was “violating ‘community standards,’” according to Fitton’s Jan. 21 tweet. While the stream still remains on Judicial Watch’s feed, it was not allowed to continue.
[.]
Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN) also tweeted that its livestream had been interrupted as well. At 3:54:41 in the video, the content ceased to stream.

Both of these streams simply followed the Jan. 21 Senate Impeachment Trial as it was happening.

YouTube’s “Restrictions on live streaming” states that “live streaming ability” would be shut off if a channel had a “Community Guidelines” strike, if the content had been blocked around the world, if there was a copyright takedown notice, or if it matched another copyrighted live broadcast. But none of these rules appear to have applied to the simple livestream of impeachment.

Find an alternative video host other than You Tube. There are many choices.
-
News Busters Archived

New study confirms Google algorithm manipulates search results favoring liberal sources.

Life Site News: Google prioritizes left-wing media sites in search results, new study finds.

A new study by researchers at Northwestern University “presents an algorithm audit of the Google Top Stories box,” examining the results’ variety and ideological leanings, the Daily Mail reports. The researchers looked at the 6,302 articles that appeared in Google’s Top Stories box in November 2017, and found that CNN had the largest percentage of articles at 10%, followed by the New York Times at 6.5% and the Washington Post at 5.6%. From there, Fox News was fourth at just 3%.

The rest of the top twenty sources were all left-leaning organizations or publications, such as Politico, NPR, ABC News, NBC News, and the Huffington Post. No openly conservative news publisher, such as the Daily Caller, made the list.
[.]
The findings are only the latest revelations to undermine Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s repeated insistence that the company’s ubiquitous services are ideologically neutral. In April, documents revealed that Google manually manipulates search results and even maintains a blcaklist of conservative sites including The American Spectator and Conservative Tribune.

This new Northwestern University pdf is located here. If the direct link to the pdf goes glitchy, here's the link to the ACM Digital Library and after "Full Text" select either HTML or PDF version for the study.

Blogger Comment Verification

Blogger (Gooble) comment verification.

Fun! Varietous! No?

Tired of selecting fire hydrants, crosswalks, bicycles, street lights, parking meters, motorcycles, buses, store fronts, road signs, bridges? Yeah, me too.

I humbly propose, well...one idea:

Tech News

The Technocralypse (Technocracy+Apocalypse) is upon us.

Engineering the end of Capitalism - The Independent:

The new era is characterised by inefficient fossil fuel production and escalating costs of climate change. Conventional capitalist economic thinking can no longer explain, predict or solve the workings of the global economy in this new age.
[.]
British economics journalist Paul Mason's...digital uprising is projected to consume evermore vast quantities of energy (as much as one-fifth of global electricity by 2025), producing 14 per cent of global carbon emissions by 2040.
[.]
... the driving force of the transition to postcapitalism is the end of the age that made endless growth capitalism possible in the first place: the age of abundant, cheap energy.

- - -
Technocracy: The Coming Technocracy.

Here are equivalent concepts: Technocracy, Sustainable Development, Green Economy, Natural Capitalism. All of this is a grand deception[.]
[.]
It is a scam to twist the economic resources of the world out of your hands and give them to the global elite. It is a power grab to take over all means of production while dictating to you what you are allowed to consume. It is a Scientific Dictatorship designed to control you, your thoughts, your behavior, your consumption and your family from cradle to cradle.

- - -
Cyberwar outlook for 2019. ZD Net:

In the US, the September 2018 National Cyber Strategy adopted an aggressive stance, promising to "deter and if necessary punish those who use cyber tools for malicious purposes."
[.]
"The [Trump] Administration recognizes that the United States is engaged in a continuous competition against strategic adversaries, rogue states, and terrorist and criminal networks. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all use cyberspace as a means to challenge the United States, its allies, and partners, often with a recklessness they would never consider in other domains."

Cybersecurity in 2019. Tech Crunch:

Expect more data leaks and exposures — but not just breaches.

California’s privacy rules will come to a head.

Brexit will hamper U.K. tech, startup growth.

Australia’s draconian encryption laws will begin to hurt.

- - -
Surveillance of Your Gestures Coming Soon: Soli, by...(who else?) Google. Ivan Poupyrev, Project Soli:

Soli is a new sensing technology that uses miniature radar to detect touchless gesture interactions.

Soli sensor technology works by emitting electromagnetic waves in a broad beam. Objects within the beam scatter this energy, reflecting some portion back towards the radar antenna. Properties of the reflected signal, such as energy, time delay, and frequency shift capture rich information about the object’s characteristics and dynamics, including size, shape, orientation, material, distance, and velocity.

FCC Approves Google Gesture Tracking Soli. The Register:

...Google has received an exemption from the Federal Communication Commission that will allow the ad biz to run the system at higher power levels than regulations currently allow.

Project Soli sensors consist of hardware capable of tracking hand gestures or objects in a specific area of space. 

- - -
UberGizmo - Electric garage door malfunction crunches Jeep.

Image from UberGizmo

According to posters on Reddit, this Jeep Wrangler was crushed when the electric garage malfunctioned due to the control unit getting flooded. This tripped the power which presumably knocked out all of the sensors which would have prevented this to happen. The malfunctioning garage kept raising the lift even as the Jeep struck the roof and was crushed.

- - -
Computer World: Why MS Edge died.

EdgeHTML, in part because of its lackadaisical upgrade cadence, was rarely able to catch up, or if it did, maintain equality, with Chrome in properly rendering pages or rendering them at speed.

- - -
TechSpot: Wi-Fi 6 is Near.

Wi-Fi 6 will have a single-user data rate that is 37% faster than 802.11ac, but what's more significant is that the updated specification will offer four times the throughput per user in crowded environments, as well as better power efficiency which should translate to a boost in device battery life.
[.]
When Wi-Fi 6 is launched in full, the specification will be backward compatible with previous standards, incorporating both 2.4GHz and 5GHz along with eventually expanding that spectrum to include bands in 1GHz and 6GHz when they become available.

- - -
Beta News - Dark Mode Chrome.

An increasing number of apps and websites are gaining dark modes, often simply for the sake of aesthetics, but also because of power-saving considerations.

- - -
ZD Net: USB Type C for increased security.

The USB Type-C Authentication solution will include: a standard protocol of authentication for USB Type-C chargers, devices, cables, and power sources; support for authenticating over either USB data bus or USB power delivery communications channels; [and several other reasons].

- - -
PC World: Tech that Died in 2018.

The yawn-inspiring personal assistant Facebook M stopped working in January after a general launch in April 2017. Lastly, Yahoo Messenger, one of the last remaining classic instant messengers, went away in July. Messenger outlasted its more notable rivals, AOL’s AIM (1997-2017) and MSN/Windows Live Messenger (1999-2012).

Tech News

ArsTechnia - Google isn’t the company that we should have handed the Web over to.

Microsoft adopting Chromium puts the Web in a perilous place.

A must-read. Also: Google evil? You have no idea. - InfoWorld, March 2014

- - -

Peering into 2019 at Beta News - Cyber predictions for 2019:

The end of the password
Increased regulation
IoT risks

And more.
- - -
BGR - Intelligent parrot instructed Alexa to play music and order food from Amazon: 

The African grey parrot, however, is something of an exception to the rule. Interestingly enough, a 2012 study published in The Royal Society found that the grey parrot has cognitive thinking skills in some areas that are on the same level as a three-year old human child.

And then, there's this parrot.
- - -
C|Net: Russian social media actors moved to Instagram after pressure on Facebook and Twitter:

Once the Internet Research Agency got outed on Facebook and Twitter, Instagram became the new haven for Russia's disinformation campaign.

That's the takeaway from two comprehensive reports Monday on Russia's social media manipulation efforts. One is from researchers at New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm, and the other is from researchers at Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Research Project and Graphika. 

- - -
Brave browser going Chromium - Computer World:

As of last week, however, Brave relies on the Chromium UI. In plainer words, Brave has gone "full-Chromium."

- - -
Tech News World -  Blackberry opens door for offering services to autonomous vehicle sector:

BlackBerry this week introduced its new Security Credential Management System.
[.]
Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry,...undertook development of this technology to provide the critical infrastructure for vehicles and traffic lights to exchange information securely.
[.]
The company likely hopes to gain the trust of automakers, as well as local governments that are involved in the development of smart city infrastructure.

- - -
Fake package covers porch thieves in glitter and fart spray. TechCrunch:

As soon as it’s opened, a custom-built spinning tub flings ridiculously fine glitter in every direction...A few seconds later comes a blast of canned fart spray. Or, I should say, the first blast of canned fart spray[.]

See the video at the link.

Tech News

Tech Radar: How DOOM changed PC gaming 25 years ago.

...despite its age, this dusty old relic lives on every shooter that’s come and gone since. Every single First Person Shooter that’s taken over the world – or failed miserably – can doff its cap to Id Software’s seminal piece of software.

 - - -

Technocracy: Robert Mueller, Technocrat Operative?

I don’t think I witnessed anything more anti-democratic, anti-freedom, and anti-everything I always thought America stood for than the actions of the MuelIer Special Counsel. I always thought entrapment was a crime.

- - -
PC Mag: Google+ shutting down earlier than planned.

On Monday, the Web giant revealed it recently discovered a new bug, which may have exposed the personal information of 52.5 million Google+ users.
[.]
In addition, "apps with access to a user's Google+ profile data also had access to the profile data that had been shared with the consenting user by another Google+ user but that was not shared publicly," wrote G Suite VP of Product Management David Thacker.

- - -
C|Net - Europe has tech companies under a microscope:

Whenever a Silicon Valley company makes a move, the EU is watching over its shoulder to make sure it's abiding by local laws, providing the best possible experience for European citizens and taking full responsibility for its mistakes.

- - -
IT ProPortal - UK NHS will stop using "absurd" fax machines:

The NHS has been ordered to get rid of its fax devices, and advised that they be replaced by email.

- - -

Tech Xplore - Detecting unreliable Facebook pages:

Detecting and identifying unreliable pages is of key importance, as it might help to warn users and reduce malicious activity on the platform.

- - -
ArsTechnia - Win Installer Build upgrades Notepad:

Notepad is also going to support a convention that's literally decades old: when the currently loaded file has been modified, an asterisk will be shown in the title bar.

- - -
Wish I would've thought of this: TechEBlog - Column-climbers: 

This shoe attachment basically turns a steel column into a ladder, or in other words, it securely grips the flanges of the column, thanks to its high strength 514 steel construction. They’re so strong, that they can hold up to 700 pounds per foot.

- - -
The name Uniblue ring a bell?, if not, how about RegistryBooster? BetaNews:

Users started to realize that they were being warned that their system always had errors.
[.]
An individual cottoned on to the fact that this was bogus software as a brand new out-of-the-box PC would be deemed to have "errors that need fixing" even after the first boot. Indeed, someone proved you could install a fresh copy of Windows, with no third-party software, install RegistryBooster and it would still claim your system had errors.

Uniblue is closing for good. Good.
- - -
Typo fixed 12/12/2018