Bungle In The Jungle

I guess it was the "VPN" on my neighbor's router that was preventing me from seeing images on this blog. That is better news than if Google had un-linked my photo album from the blog.

It is cool that Wayne gave me the password to the router, and it was way cool, at first, when I could put Youtube on, and just let it auto-play for hours, off of his "unlimited" data supply.

From Chernobyl To Jethro Tull In Eleven Hours

One time, I watched a video, probably of pedestrians caught on video getting hit by cars, maybe Evel Knievel jumps, or perhaps it was an old Boston Celtics game, that Larry Bird won with a buzzer beating shot (heaved up, off balance, with one hand, as he was falling out of bounds. Have you seen that one?) or it may have been that I watched a movie, such as "Inseparable," which was a movie set in Chernobyl, Russia, at probably the worst time in history to be at that particular spot on the globe.

But, I began an eleven hour thread of content, that I fell asleep about 3 hours into (based upon where the stuff that I remembered seeing ends) the player auto-selected a string of them which, about 11 hours later, wound up being a Jethro Tull, live-in-concert one.

What Do You Call It When A Blond Dyes Her Hair Dark?

That is interesting to me because, for one, I have never sought out any Jethro Tull videos, and secondly, it makes me wonder if the Google algorithm takes into account that the person has fallen asleep and the machine is on auto-pilot. This should be detectable by the fact that the person skipped no ads at all over the ten hours of, ostensibly, watching videos. It should trip a flag when a long series of "recommended that you watch next" videos are all accepted by the viewer. For, the recommendations, at this stage in the evolution of artificial intelligence, fall more into the category of "you might also like..." with a leap of faith taken by the algorithm.

Artificial Intelligence LOL!

For example, I might watch an entire Linda Ronstadt concert on Youtube, but that doesn't mean I am up for a full concert by Emmylou Harris, Alison Kraus, or Shawn Colvin. That doesn't mean I like all female country singers from the late 70's. I could have searched for "beautiful Latinas, if they can sing, all the better."

I am more worried that Google is dividing people into right and left, politically, based upon what they watch on Youtube. This goes along with a general fear that the Internet is becoming the global government.

Just yesterday, President Trump was barred from using twitter, and perhaps other platforms. because of the claim that he had used his thumbs to instigate whatever it was that happened at the Capitol Building.

Did he tweet something witty like: "I've got half a million bucks for the scalp of Nanci Pelosi, while you're in there."

I don't know, because I refuse to get my news from any of the free antenna TV stations that emit electromagnetic waves around here. And the current situation with Wayne's router precludes my going to Newsmax along with half of the worldwide web.

My 4 gigs of free data usually appears on my phone no later than a few hours into the 11th of any given month. That would mean that, any minute now, I could have data coming through Assurance Wireless as mobile data, piped through the hotspot to this laptop. That would isolate Wayne's router as being the problem, should all the issues resolve themselves. And that would be a moderate amount of stress lifted off me. I really am a bit paranoid about the huge tech companies being able to marginalize a citizen, by setting some bit in their file that would be the cyber equivalent of dropping them somewhere on the Yucatan Peninsula with nothing but the clothes on their back.

The "cancel culture" that has been responsible for "disappearing" some people's work into the Great Recycle Bin, is a real presence in the world.

There's A Hole In The Bucket, Dear Liza

I wasn't able to log into my account even to buy more data last night, using Wayne's wi-fi. Talk about a scenario like there being "a hole in the bucket" (that is ultimately going to require water in order to mend; and with what shall I fetch it (the water)? type of thing...) 

It just gives me the heebie jeebies to think that there might be software in place to make me disappear from the web just for rendering the syllables: "the scalp of Nanci* Pelosi" in a post.

*yeah, I intentionally spelled the name wrong, to add a layer of insulation against bots that crawl through all the text posted online, looking for sentiments of ill-will expressed towards the wrong people.

Eureka?!

Just now, I checked the Assurance Wireless site, using my phone, and I have 12 gigabytes of data -the monthly allotment of 4 gigs, plus the odd amount of 7.5 gigs, given as a courtesy to help those who are sheltered in place, and who are poverty stricken (or they wouldn't have qualified for the Obama phone in the first place). I think it is very nice of Assurance Wireless to do that. 

A cynic might think that they are doing it so people's data connection will be active, so that "they" will know if they are indeed staying in their dwellings.

The same cynic probably said that the phones were given out, in the first place, to give the government a means to track the homeless population; to ascertain their existence (adding them to the census tally, since, even though they might be homeless, and have no door for a census taker to knock on, they can be pinned down by the fact that they are in the county and using their Obama phone to perhaps call their drug dealer. So, count 'em!).

Then the cynic might go on to warn that, in the near future, gatherings of, say, 75 or more people (Obama phones) in one place might put the local riot police on alert.

The news I heard today about the "alternative to Facebook" site "Parler.com" being removed from the worldwide web for reasons related to the fact that it is a gathering spot for Trumpers and is allegedly used by them to foment their hatred and promote their violence, is just amazing.

It reminds me of the military tactic of knocking out the enemy's communications by taking out the radioman, as soon as he gives his position away by raising his antenna, with only the lieutenant and the medic ahead of him on the hit list. 

Someone told, back in 1981, when I was training to be a medic, that in the event of an enemy ambush, us medic's life expectancy would be about 7 seconds.

Before a flare ignites with a "pop" in the sky, throwing daylight on the whole area; and the enemy all yell: "Surprise!" we would have already been picked out by dedicated snipers, who would already have bead on us. It wasn't the recruiter who told me that, by the way...