Stupid headline of the day — July 27, 2017

And the stupid headline of the day goes to Gizmodo for this doozy: "Astronomers Capture Wild Intergalactic Gamma Ray Burst As It Happens."

Anyone who knows science knows that things that show up here on Earth didn't just happen. In this case, the event happened nine billion years ago. Think about that for a second and reread "As It Happens."

Second, you would expect that this observation occurred today, maybe yesterday. No, it happened over a year ago, on June 25, 2016. The thing that happened today is that Gizmodo found out about it and wet their pants over it.

Finally, and I'm grasping at straws here, it took them three minutes into the event to start recording it. What did they miss? They can only guess. They did get some exciting data four minutes into the event.

The story is a great story. It's the click-bait headline I object to. But the headline worked; enough people clicked on it that it showed up in my Google News Feed. Sadly, this is what journalism has become: It's all about how many clicks you get, some from real people and some from bots!

In writing this post, I spent some time on Gizmodo and it does have some good stories.

(I originally posted this on Facebook on July 27.)

Today is the second anniversary of this blog

Today marks the second anniversary of this blog with this being the 101st post. Google reports that I have had over 21,200 page views, which is a lot more than I expected. Set your expectations low, and you're more likely to meet them.

I started this blog so that I could post entries and not offend my Facebook friends. I was losing friends due to my posts and that stopped once I started posting away from Facebook.

So let's keep going with this. Originally, I wanted to post daily but I couldn't take the time to do that. I looks like I'm averaging one post per week, but I will try to increase that number over the next year.

Google News has flaws

Google News, viewed with Google Chrome on my Apple iPhone 4S, has five flaws. When I view Google News, I am signed on to my Google account. This customizes the news for me.

First, look at these screen shots, taken today, one at 8:30 a.m. EDT (United States) and one at 8:32 p.m. Do you see any difference with the news? Nope, neither do I. The thing that bothers me the most is the age of the stories. In the a.m. version, the China story is supposedly one hour old. Shouldn't it be 13 hours ago 12 hours later? How do I get new stories? Eventually (overnight), they will be updated but during the day I have to manually refresh the display. Even after I manually refresh, it still tends to revert to the early-morning version.

Second, as you know. Major League Baseball games are played in a series of two or more games (up to five when the Chicago Cubs played the Cincinnati Reds recently). Google News has no concept of separate games, completely mixing up the stories about the games in the series. I would prefer that each game in the series be listed separately with the pregame and postgame stories shown together.

Third, Google News does not evaluate the quality of the news sources but figures that the last news source is the best. This results in the main story being from a dodgy source (like a site that scrapes stories from other sites) or an Associated Press story instead of the breaking story from the local news media. Take the first story above. The main source is a newspaper in Nigeria. Nigeria? Clicking on "More sources" gives you stories from Sydney Morning Herald (yes, Sydney as in Australia) and Daily News & Analysis. If I click on "all 397 news articles," I get a list of articles about sending advisers to Iraq and not a peep about China (this normally doesn't happen; it's just a glitch). Normally, I get the better stories only if I click through.

I recently wanted to read about an incident in Miami, Florida. The first story was an AP story in the Seattle (Washington) Post-Intelligencer. I had to dig to get an actual story from a television station in Miami. I miss the days when there was only one copy of Associated Press stories. Now there are dozens of them, all repeated ad nauseam as if they were unique.

Fourth, I have local news sections for two cities (Norwood, Ohio, where I live and Brookville, Ohio, where I work some of the time). These sections were rarely updated, although that may be fixed once I complained. Here is an example from April 1 (no fooling):

So which is it? A delay or an approval? If you look closely, the first story is dated March 18 and the second April 1. In those days, a story could stick for a month or more even though there's always new news to replace it. I had a disgusting Brookville child molestation story stuck on there for so long (over a month) that I finally flamed Google and it was fixed within hours. (There is an option to provide feedback about News separately from feedback about Chrome.)

Finally, on my iPhone the page takes at least 15 seconds to load (Aug. 13: 29 seconds). To load Google News on my MacBook Pro, using the same wireless Internet connection, takes three seconds. I suspect the problem is with either DNS lookup or SSL negotiation. Update Aug. 24: The problem is a Chrome problem that affects other sites as well. I have filed a report with Google but no fix yet.

I will still use Google News but I am still frustrated with its limitations. Thanks, Google, for letting me vent about this on Blogger, operated by Google. I will update this post as the situation improves.

Updated Aug. 13: Added/changed load times.

Short takes #1

Google really screwed things up today. They announced that the next version of Android would be "KitKat". Now, you may have heard of Kit Kat the candy bar and that is not a coincidence; Google licensed the name from Nestlé. Is there a problem with correctly putting a space in the name, Google? It wasn't a problem with the name of the current version, "Jelly Bean". So what's the big deal? If you're a programmer, as I am, you pay attention to spaces. A misplaced space can cause a serious bug in a program. I guess the marketing people at Google didn't consult with the programming staff.

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"NO VIDEO OR STILL PHOTOGRAPHY"

Don't want me to eat at your restaurant? Just tell me not to take pictures of my food. I turned around and left. What are you trying to hide, BK?

Taken at about 7:15 p.m. on Sept. 4 at

Burger King #6239

7782 Dudley Drive

West Chester, OH 45069-2400
(513) 777-8323

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Are you running a regional commercial on Time Warner Cable in Cincinnati? Then don't put anything important in the last second of your commercial. When TWC switches to their own commercials, they don't get the timing correct and always cut off the last second of the regional commercial.

I just saw a commercial for Jack Link's Beef Jerky on Fox Sports Ohio. Jack Link's tag line is "Feed Your Wild Side." TWC cut it off after "Feed." Of course, when they switch the signal back to the regional source, they show the last second of the last regional commercial, which is awkward the other way.

One caveat: I'm watching in standard definition, which may have different switching than high definition channels do.

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Drug addicts: Don't even think of stealing this plumbing for scrap.

Yes, we know you know how to turn off the water to keep it

from making a mess when you steal it.

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PC Magazine apparently doesn't understand the concept of the International Date Line. This is the lede on an article today: "Apple will host a product event in China on Sept. 11, the day after a similarly themed gathering at the company's Cupertino, Calif. campus..." (italics added for emphasis). Ah, PC Magazine, when it's 10 a.m. on Sept. 10 in California, it's 1 a.m. on Sept. 11 in China so, in my world, it's really the same day. They do concede that the Beijing event, being held at 9 a.m. Beijing time, is only eight hours after the California event.

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The new Gmail Inbox: I like it

I like the new Gmail Inbox with tabs, which I got yesterday. I'm training it as there are some things that are showing up under the wrong tab. But for the most part, the default classification is good. Here is a screen shot of the top of my Inbox*:

My understanding is that "Primary" is the default tab for any conversations (groups of messages) not showing up under the other tabs.

"Social" are messages connected with social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogs I've subscribed to, etc.

"Promotions" are messages that have an advertising flavor to them. Promotions are not spam as that goes into the spam filter. A sample message is like the one I got from Toyota today, "Bruce, Get a First Look at the All-New Corolla."

"Updates" are more newsy items from companies that I have a relationship with. A typical entry is from Fidelity Investments, "Tax-smart investing tips."

As I mentioned, I'm training it. For example, the two messages from Cincinnati.com showing in image showed up under "Updates" and I want news like this to be under "Primary." To move them, I selected them with a check in the box at the left then right-clicked (left-clicked for left handers) on the message and selected "Move to Tab ➜" then "Primary". I got a confirmation message that the message had been moved and this:
"Do this for future messages from newsletters@e.cincinnati.com? Yes".

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* Yes, I have 14,435 messages in my Inbox of which 4,868 are unread. Google said when I signed up that I don't have to delete messages any more and I listened to them. I recently searched for and used a message I wrote in 2008.

Earlier this week, I passed a milestone that I like: I have now reached over 1,000 page views on this blog. Someone out there is reading my stuff.

iOS 7 or iPhone 6: Improvements that I would like to see

Apple Computer is going to release iOS 7 for the iPhone and iPad this fall. They are also expected to release a new iPhone this fall (either a 5S or 6). I currently am using an iPhone 4S running iOS 6. Here are some improvements that I would like to see in the new operating system and/or phone:

• The date on the Calendar app changes every day. I want the Weather app to show the correct current temperature (now it always shows 73º) and the Clock app to show the correct local time (now it always shows 10:15). I understand that changing the Weather and Clock apps could use up the battery faster but I'm confident that Apple can figure out how to accomplish this without wasting battery power (mostly by not updating when I can't see the display).
• I want to select the default browser (I prefer Chrome to Safari) and the default maps (Google Maps is still more accurate than Apple's Maps app).
• Many apps (such as Facebook and LinkedIn) include a browser within the app. When you're done with a page in the browser, you tap the back arrow at the top of the screen to go back to the app. Others (sorry, I can't come up with an example) use Safari to display web pages. However, in Safari, there is no back arrow to go back to the app; you have to leave Safari and try to remember which app you were in. The link to Safari should have a back arrow to take you back to the app.
• Speaking of back arrows, why is Safari's at the bottom of the screen instead of the top like every other app?
• Here's one that has to be fixed in hardware: There are two speakers at the bottom of the phone. That's great for portrait mode, but when I rotate the phone to look at a video in landscape mode, the way it was designed to be seen, all of the sound comes out of the left side. There needs to be one or two speakers on the top as well (the second added speaker is for people who rotate the other way).
• When I go into a restaurant with free Internet through wi-fi my phone connects to it with a minimum amount of hassle. So far, so good. Sometimes, the wi-fi is dog slow and I can't do anything with it. Currently, I have to turn the wi-fi off so I can get the faster speed of 3G (yes, it does happen that 3G is faster). I want the phone to select the faster of wi-fi or 3G (4G for later models) for my connection in this situation.
• I would like two improvements to the Contacts list in the Phone app: The ability to rearrange the sequence of phone numbers in a contact and the ability to display the company name in place of the phone number type. For example, if I look at my recent calls, I see that Sam at "work" called me recently. I would prefer that the entry say Sam at Acme Staffing Service (not the real company) instead. I usually don't care what number within the contact he used to call me.

That's all the changes I want today. Let's see how many of these get fixed in the next release of software and hardware.

Updated July 21 to fix grammar and formatting.