Dangerous Plant

Back in the day, I used to have a bad habit of just glancing at headlines on newspaper or web stories, misreading them and coming up, in my head, with some elaborate and bizarre story to justify my misreading.  Well, for the first time in years, I did it the other day, when I thought that a headline on an online aggregator read along the lines of 'Musk Plants Threaten Local Community'.  Naturally, my first reaction was to think 'Jesus, not satisfied with using his shitty social media platform boosting fascists around the world, firing off dangerous rockets that explode shortly after take off and trying to make robots powered by his crap AI, that crazy bastard has now started creating flesh eating ambulatory mutant plants!'  Worse than that, I speculated, he's unleashing them against unsuspecting small towns in the US - doubtless those that didn't vote for Trump in the last election.  Even as I think this, I thought, innocent people are being chased down streets by slavering plant monsters, with tooth-lined blossoms, oozing green sap.  Or maybe they are trained only to eat suspected illegal immigrants?  Of course, upon actually looking at the story, I found that the 'plants' referred to were of a completely different kind - the story was actually about how a small town was opposed to the building of giant data centres needed to power Musk's AI in their vicinity.  And who could blame them?  They are probably far more dangerous than ambulatory killer vegetation in terms of the vast quantities of energy and water they use and their potential contribution to global warming. 

But, I certainly can't deny my contribution to the problem.  I try very hard to restrict my use of AI, always aiming to try and get it to fulfil whatever task I'm asking of it in a single take, so to speak.  I always have that slight twinge of guilt when I think about the resources I've just burned up doing something trivial like creating an image or a podcast segment.  But then I'd shrug and think hell, the data centre processing my task is probably in Wisconsin or Ohio, so why should I care?  I mean, if Ohio, say, was to be burned to a crisp, the civilised world might not hear about it for years.  But those data centres are creeping closer - there's one fairly close to me, in Slough, where it is being blamed for a rise in temperatures in the area.  Mind you, that simply prompted me to paraphrase Sir John Betjeman: 'Come friendly data centres, burn up Slough'.  Levity aside, the expansion of these data centres does pose a serious problem.  Apparently, approval has been given for the construction of large numbers of them in the UK, despite the fact that the UK has neither the electricity generating capacities, nor the water supplies, required for their operation, if all were to be built.  'Just build more power stations and reservoirs', is the glib response that I heard recently in a radio debate.  But, leaving aside the slow rate at which we build power stations, what about the environmental effects of this?  As for the water situation - well, we are, finally, building more reservoirs, but this is to meet domestic demand for water, with this Summer's drought showing how inadequate our current supplies are.  If we let the data centres start guzzling these new supplies instead, then we're back to square one.

Of course, the obvious solution is to come up with a way for AI to operate without being so resource-intensive.  Has anyone thought of asking ChatGPT or Claude how this might be done?  After all, we keep getting told that they can answer just about anything... 

Lies, Malice, False Reporting, Hacks and Google

You know, I hate starting the week with a mega moan.  (Who am I kidding?  I love a bloody good moan).  But my Saturday turned into an online nightmare thanks to Google.  I was just settling down to watch some crappy TV, (a favourite Saturday early evening pastime), with half an eye on checking my emails, when I see an email from Google saying that they've removed a post from this blog because it has been reported as contravening their content guidelines.  Now, Google's regular censorship on the nebulous grounds of contravening content guidelines is like a red flag to a bull to me at any time, but even more so when the post in question was simply the one promoting the latest episode of the 'After Hours' podcast.  I mean, it simply comprised the promotional artwork for the episode, a brief synopsis, a link to where it can be heard and some brief notes on the creative process behind it.  Nothing that contravened any kind of content guidelines - certainly no promotion of violence, child pornography, illegal activities or anything else they list.  Of course, trying to resolve this sort of thing is made next to impossible by Google's penchant for secrecy, in that they won't tell you exactly what contravenes which of their guidelines, nor will they tell you who or what reported your content in the first place.  So, your only recourse is to use the link provided to request an immediate review.  Within half an hour of my having made my request, the post had been reinstated, with a cursory email saying that 'upon review' they had found that it didn't contravene any guidelines after all.  Well, no shit, Sherlock!  

Nevertheless, that quick turnabout on Google's part gives us a valuable clue as to what passes for their review process when it comes to handling alleged reports of material contravening their guidelines.  I think it is obvious that if someone decides to press that button to report content on a blog, they automatically sanction it, without question, without actually checking the content in question.  If a report is made, then the content is assumed to be in contravention. Which rather goes against the accepted principles of justice, under which one is innocent until proven guilty.  If you request a review then, it seems, your content actually gets looked at by a human being, at which point it becomes obvious as to whether the original report was valid or instead malicious. Which, in this case, in view of subsequent events, it most certainly was.  Because shortly after I dealt with this problem, I had Google blaring to the world that The Sleaze was a 'dangerous' site hosting malware, resulting in red screens and dire warnings on every browser when you tried to access the site, (unless you have the good sense to disable the 'extreme paranoia security settings).  I was effectively being blacklisted across the internet.  Bizarrely, Google had sent me an email, but I didn't see it because, as they had deemed The Sleaze a 'dangerous site' and blacklisted its URL, the message, containing the URL, immediately went into Gmail's spam folder, where i didn't find it until hours later!  Anyway, a malware check via my web host revealed some suspect files, (there seemed to have been a hack, which I haven't yet got to the bottom of), which were quickly dealt  with, followed by a reinstallation on the Wordpress code for good measure.

Once again, I had to request a review of the site from Google to get those warnings removed, which I had to do through the Google Search console, something I haven't bothered using since Google started systematically de-listing my site from their search engine, (I'm just one of many, many victims of this policy).  Now, here's the bit which really pissed me off - while Google is very quick to brand sites as 'a threat' and accuse them of peddling malware, 'social engineering', stealing credit card details and God knows what else, (all stuff they accused The Sleaze of, without foundation), they certainly drag their feet when it comes to withdrawing all that shit.  I was left, for the better part of a day, with Google spreading what were, effectively, slanderous misinformation about a perfectly legitimate site.  Going back to that false report about the blog post, I'm now pretty sure that that was intended as a diversion of sorts - while I was dealing with that, I was distracted from anything going on with The Sleaze.  So, while the real villains here are the hackers, they are aided and abetted by Google's own policies.  Moreover, Google now clearly considers itself as some sort of 'Guardian of the Web' and has taken it upon itself to act as judge, jury and executioner when it comes to supposed 'security' issues.  Who appointed them?  Who are they accountable to?  It is also deeply ironic that they have taken on this role when they have spent so much time over the past few years trying to destroy the web as we know it, putting vast numbers of sites out of business by denying them visibility in web searches, (basically, they have unilaterally decided that things like satire and humour sites, niche sites, informational sites and the like (anything non-commercial, in other words) have no value and that they therefore won't serve them up to users in searches, even when they may be the most relevant resource).  I'm left hugely frustrated by this whole business.  I mean, sure, if Google doesn't want to give me traffic, fine, but I get pissed off when they pull stunts like this to deny me traffic from other sources (which I still get - other, better, search engines exist).  Really, they are complete bastards who think that they have the right to decide which sites should or shouldn't be on the web.

An App for Everything?

You know what I'm getting sick and tired of?  Apps, that's what.  It's the new obsession amongst retailers, service providers and the like - you can no longer simply use their website to interact with me - oh no, you have to download and install their bloody app on your phone.  I just find it extremely frustrating as most of these apps are poorly designed and barely work.  Indeed, often what used to be a simple process taking seconds on their website now becomes a long drawn out ordeal on their bloody phone app.  Take my mobile phone provider, for instance: I used to be able to top up my credit really easily, in seconds.  But now they've forced all of us pay-as-you-go customers onto their app.  Which, I found after I downloaded it, isn't fit for purpose.  It steadfastly refused to take a payment directly from my debit card, (my usual method of payment, crashing not just the app, but the whole phone, every time I tried.  After doing some online research, I found that this is a widespread problem, which the provider knows about but either can't or won't rectify.  Instead of this most simple and direct form of payment, you instead have to either buy a voucher from them, (which means going back to their website), the code of which you then have to enter into the app, or to pay by debit card via Google Pay.  I took the latter option simply because it was undoubtedly quicker, but it means that Google now has my current card details which, bearing in mind their recent track record with regard to protecting my data, I'm not happy about.

So this supposed step forward in customer convenience actually represents several colossal steps backward - the whole process ultimately took me over an hour!  It isn't just my mobile provider - a while ago I was trying reschedule a Royal Mail delivery I'd missed but found that I could only do it via their app rather than on their website.  At which point I gave up, as I decided that there was absolutely no way that I was going to download and install yet another app to my mobile, which is already cluttered up with the bloody things, particularly I would only ever use for this single task.  Everywhere I'm being exhorted to download people's apps - if I go on eBay now they keep trying to get me to install and order via their app, when I'm already on their site in the process of bidding on something.  FFS, I'm not wasting time to download more junk onto my phone in order to carry out the same task I'm currently carrying out on my main interface with the web - my laptop.  Which, I suspect, lies at the crux of the problem - that companies seem to think that we spend all our time on our phones.  Maybe it's my age, but I really don't see why anyone would use a phone to access the web in preference to a laptop - those tiny screens make it difficult to read or see anything and also make it difficult to navigate properly.  Moreover, I don't grasp why dedicated apps are considered such a great idea when, via a decent web browser on my laptop, I can access any website of any organisation with ease.  Which again, I suspect is part of the problem: it's the 'walled garden' mentality that service providers can't seem to shake, the idea that they have to lock you into their own proprietary section of the web, for fear that you'll click away and look at someone else's content, instead.  Which is surely the point of the web.  

Virtual Invasion of Privacy

Well, I've been investigating the wild, wild world of VPNs again.  Actually, there's nothing wild about them really.  But we are getting to the stage where I fear that they are going to become a necessity if you simply want to continue surfing the web without finding yourself continuously blocked and challenged over your age and identity.  Because, of course, the whole issue of social media bans for under sixteens has raised its ugly head again.  The supposed protection of children from online harm by restricting everybody's freedom and privacy has become a perennial obsession for UK governments of both left and right.  It apparently isn't enough that we've already had that law passed which forces age verification on UK visitors to 'adult' sites, with the verification methods being dodgy in the extreme.  (Also, open to abuse - only the other day I had some scammer on Tumblr impersonating the site's admin and claiming that I needed to verify my age by giving my bank details to some third-party site.  Yeah, like that's going to happen.  Needless to say, I reported them, for what little good that will do).  I have so far steadfastly refused to engage with such nonsense, but with the prospect of being denied access to any site the UK government classifies as 'social media', the only long-term solution will be to circumvent the problem by surfing from behind a VPN.

None of this is to say that I don't sympathise with the idea of keeping kids away from potentially harmful content, but what the government has done so far and is proposing to do in the near future, is to once again put the onus of prevention upon ordinary web users, instead of trying to make those who run social media sites more responsible with regard to the kind of material they allow.  Moreover, it also seems to absolve parents of all responsibility to restrict their children's web access - indeed, it represents a further erosion of the whole concept of parental responsibility.  If your child is a horrible little bastard then, well, it's your fault and down to you to do something about it, not the rest of us.  Anyway, getting back to the responsibility of tech firms for the content their services carry, I'm also pretty sick and tired of them hiding behind the excuse of 'free speech' to justify their lack of regulation.  Yes, Elon Musk, I'm looking at you here - the man who thinks it OK for to have an AI app accessible by, well, anyone, which will create sexualised and naked images of children for public consumption.  Not just children, anyone, in fact.  It isn't as if it is difficult to stop this sort of thing - just about every other AI app has built in safeguards to prevent this sort of thing.  (It's incredible, actually, the number of things that ChatGPT will tell you that it isn't allowed to do - it won't even allow the creation of satirical images of politicians, for example).  

But to go back to Musk, his AI and those images, one has to ponder, just why are he and his acolytes so keen to put in place safeguards that would prevent their creation?  Could it have anything to do with the fact that they are part of 'Generation Epstein'?  A bunch of unhealthily wealthy people who seem to think that their money means that normal rules and social conventions don't apply to them?  Is that why they were all so drawn to Epstein and his procurement of underage girls for his rich buddies?   Do they see the sexualisation of children as one of the ultimate taboos they can break in order to reassure themselves that there is nothing their wealth won't allow them to do?  Is that why we have an AI app that allows the creation of such images?  Because they are trying to normalise the sexualisation of children in order to justify their own behaviour?  Maybe the government should be looking at taking action against them rather than trying to force the likes of me to give credit card details or photos of myself in order to verify my age just so that I can look at some model railway videos on YouTube?  But, of course, they'll just cry 'freedom of speech!' - and it isn't just the billionaires who try this defence.  A while ago on a webmaster forum, the issue of the UK government trying to force Musk to prevent the creation of this stuff via his AI got the reaction from a US contributor 'that's just censorship!'.  No, buddy, it's called 'protecting the vulnerable', a concept apparently unknown to even ordinary US citizens.  Which simply reinforces my opinion that they are a nation of psychopaths.  Pervo peado psychos, at that.  After all, they voted an adjudicated rapist and possible peado into the White House.  Twice.

Disconnected!

For fuck's sake!  Right in the middle of trying to watch something via my Roku box, I suddenly lost my internet connection!  Checking my router, there was clearly no broadband connection. Which meant, of course, that I couldn't use the broadband I pay for (and have just been billed another month for) to check the status of my ISP and find out what the fuck was going on.  I had to check via my phone, thereby using up part of my more expensive data allocation for the month, to find out that this is a planned outage by BT for 'maintenance and is scheduled to last SIX hours!  Again, for fuck's sake!  SIX hours!  At a time when people are likely to be using their broadband!  Moreover, why was there no warning of this?  No announcement to customers?  Jesus H Christ!  Typical bloody capitalism: happy to take your money but reluctant to provide any kind of service!  Luckily, the broadcasting authorities haven't yet gone through with their insane plans to switch off Freeview and force us all to watch free to air TV over our broadband connections, because it means that I least still have terrestrial TV to watch.  

If they really want to go ahead with these crazy plans, however, then they really need to get guarantees that this sort of thing simply doesn't happen, otherwise there will be a lot of irate viewers complaining that they couldn't watch TV or that stuff they had set to record hadn't recorded.  Or maybe there will be a recommendation that we will all need to have two broadband connections with two different infrastructure carriers, as backup.  Right now, just to be able to post this, I'm having to use up more of my expensive mobile data - but I decided that my posting schedules have been disrupted enough over the past few years by outages, power cuts and the like, so to Hell with the expense!  The irony here is that this latest outage is again down to BT, who provide the local infrastructure.  I went to great lengths when I switched to fibre to cut them out the equation altogether because of the problems they have caused me.  Yet here we are, with the bastards still blighting my life!  And they were the ones who told me that I had to switch to fibre and that doing so would eliminate all those outages I was suffering over the old copper wires!  As with everything else BT say, it was clearly a load of old bollocks.  

Tech Hysteria

There's a lot of hysteria surrounding AI.  I mean, hardly a day goes by without my seeing a headline somewhere asking whether some proprietary AI has become 'self aware' or 'sentient'.  (The answer is always 'no', in spite of the best efforts of assorted panic-mongers and IT nerds to convince us otherwise, there is no evidence that any current AI system does anything other than process requests and instructions originating with human beings.  They might show something resembling initiative in carry out those instructions, but they still don't spontaneously start their own tasks or create their own art work, etc.).  But it isn't just the in the press that I see these knee-jerk reactions.  Increasingly, in social media, I keep seeing truly ridiculous overreactions to any kind of AI-originated creative work - you'd think that we were talking about the works of the devil, such is the extremity and vehemence of the commentary.  At the very least, it is dismissed as 'slop' that is undermining 'true creativity'.  Most reactions are more extreme.  The other day I was struck by the sheer unpleasantness of the reactions to a user of an online music community who had had their entire library of work deleted after adding some new music they had created with AI assistance - 'good', 'serves them right' were the mildest reactions, with absolutely no sympathy amongst the vituperative gloating over their downfall.  'Oh come on', was my reaction, 'It isn't as if this person hadn't been creating original material without AI for years, but decide to experiment with it as a creative tool or aid and they are suddenly possessed by the devil and condemned to eternal damnation?'

Because, at the end of the day, that's all that AI in its current form is: a tool which can be used to aid the creative process.  If we are to condemn people for using it creatively, then we might as well also condemn artists for using brushes instead of their fingers, or musicians for using instruments instead of just clapping their hands.  OK, I can't deny that I have a dog in this race, so to speak - I make use of AI for various creative tasks I don't have the skills to carry out myself.  If you go over to The Sleaze, you'll see that I make extensive use of images I created using AI to illustrate the stories.  I have no artistic abilities myself, but I know what I want to create in terms of imagery.  AI allows me to do that. It also gets me over the potential hurdle of copyright claims on any image I use, (even the royalty-free images available from many sites are fraught with peril, as their originators could change their licensing terms at any time, without warning, leaving users of them vulnerable to copyright claims).  Do they have any artistic merit?  Clearly not, but that's not the point.  They exist simply to illustrate the story, which was written by a human - me.  Luckily, I haven't had any kickback about these images, but some other AI artwork I devised - a series of satirical fake sixties comic book covers - drew all sorts of anti-AI commentary when I published them on my Tumblr blog last year.  There was an implication that they somehow represented some form of deception.  In the end, a terse footnote I put on the last one - to the effect that they were clearly not real and a joke and created by AI because I wasn't going to pay a real artist just for the sake of illustrating a comic idea that I'm making no money from - seems of cut off this line of 'criticism' entirely.

Right now, I'm editing together a podcast on which I've used AI created voices from several AI assisted TTS systems.  I've done similar stuff before, both complete podcasts and inserts to otherwise human podcasts.  But this time around, the tools used are, in general, more sophisticated and more realistic sounding.  Doubtless, there will be many who won't like this but, as before, I'm a one man band putting my creative work out for free, so I'm hardly going to employ a bunch of actors to enact my scripts, am I?  And that's the point - the 'actors' in this podcast might be created by AI, but the words they speak are written entirely by a human - me.  The structure of the podcast - again, all me, as are all the ideas and characters.  AI is simply being used as a creative tool.  With it, I can create a far more sophisticated piece of audio than I'd be able to just working on my own, with only my voice.  So, while I'm as wary as anyone regarding the hype surrounding AI and the many dubious uses politicians and corporations are trying to put it to, as an individual creator, I'm also quite happy to embrace those aspects of it that I can put to use as a tool.  Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to AI.    

The Naked Future

Move over Nostradamus, it seems that, once more, my ramblings here have correctly predicted the future.  Many, many years ago, I wrote a post here about a non-existent computer app which could be used to 'nudify' pictures of fully clothed women.  Back then, in those far off days before AI, I envisaged it as being a feature of an image editing suite, like Adobe and like that type of software, I imagined that it would offer you a series of choices as to what you wanted your chosen subject to look like: breast size, nipple type and so on.  Although such a thing didn't exist, I speculated that, even as I was writing that post, some nerdy coder was sweating away in his bedroom devising such a piece of of software, probably with the aim of 'digitally undressing' some attractive female neighbour he had been secretly photographing.  An aid to masturbatory fantasies for those with limited imaginations, I mused.  I liked this idea (as satire) so much that, late last year, I adapted it into a fake ad for a fake smart phone for a podcast I was producing.  Well, here we are, years after the original post (and only a few weeks after the audio adaptation) and I find myself reading headlines about how Musk's attempt at AI, Grok, will, on request, happily produce fake nude images of women, even children, based on photos of them fully clothed.  Actually, the reports are unclear as to whether the fakes are actually full nudes, or just in bathing costumes or underwear.  But hey, it's creepy Elon Musk we're talking about here, so I'm guessing it'll be full nudes.  

Which is why we shouldn't be surprised that it is Grok which is the AI involved here.  Musk is one of those individuals whose ego is so large that he contrives to make every enterprise he is involved in reflect his own personality.  So it is with his AI, which frequently spews forth disinformation, abuse and downright bile which reflects the same prejudices displayed by Musk himself in his public utterances.  Moreover, if the sort of discourse that dominates Twitter since his takeover is anything to go by, I think it might be fair to assume a degree of misogyny on Musk's part.  So it is no wonder that his AI is now turning out pornographic images of unconsenting women.  For once, the UK government have actually decided to take a stand on this issue, threatening to sanction, or even ban from the UK, Twitter unless action is taken over Grok's unacceptable outputs.  Which, of course, in the eyes of Musk and his crazy murdering right-wing buddies in the US government, makes us the bad guys!  Yes, indeed, we're threatening every pervert's inalienable right to sexually objectify women (and even children)!  Damn it, there's probably an amendment to their constitution covering it!  The breathtaking arrogance of these bozos never ceases to amaze me - their apparent belief that any law other than US law is inferior, that other nations don't have the right to expect US corporations operating in their territories to conform to their laws.  Talk about cultural hegemony, (see, Gramsci was a prophet, too).  

The Musk of X Sex

Recently, I've found myself going back to that post I wrote last year about Elon Musk and his apparent desire to take physical intimacy and human interaction out of sex.  Actually, that was just a sort of footnote to the post and for some reason, it has stayed with me, expanding itself in my subconscious before beginning to bubble up into my conscious thoughts.  Originally, I had briefly mooted the idea of Musk creating sex robots with which men like him could have remote sex with women, experiencing the act via a brain implant linked to the sexbot.  But why should it have to be some kind of autonomous robot (unless you really want to enact rape fantasies without fear of consequences, of course, by sending it out anonymously to have unconsenting sex with random women)?  Couldn't it be some kind of advanced exoskeleton?  A shiny metal suit which makes the wearer an unstoppable sex machine?  Except that this would be technologically advanced sex.  Techno sex, if you will, or perhaps X-sex, with each exoskeleton having, instead of genitalia, docking ports where they can literally 'couple up', with the real genitalia beneath being artificially stimulated by the suits to the point of orgasm.  The system could guarantee, for instance, that both participants could climax simultaneously, while, via those brain implants, both parties would have the option of experiencing it all from either or both perspectives.

Now, bearing in mind Musk's public proclamations on the subject, I think that we can assume that the suits will be strictly gendered, with a 'male' version sold exclusively to alpha males, featuring a telescopic (and sizeable) 'probe' which will shoot out and 'dock' with a matching socket in the groin area of the 'female' suit.  Thus, these suits could be a step toward Musk's dream of eliminating the whole idea of transgender identities.  Only biological men can obtain the 'male' suit and only biological women the 'female' suit, so that the only form of sex available will be of the heterosexual variety - and let's face it, this cyber-sex will be so fantastic that nobody will want to do it any other way, so guy-on-girl will be the only game in town.  It won't just be the transgender community excluded, either.  With the 'male' exoskeleton having no anus equivalent, gay sex will be out, while there will be no way for 'female' suits to couple up, thereby taking care of lesbianism.  Ultimately, I'm sure that Musk would see these exoskeletons merely as a step on the path to fully integrating man and machine, with the ultimate goal being human brains transplanted into metal bodies, only able to perform techno-sex.  Which would also eliminate the need for reproduction, as these new cyborgs would effectively be immortal, able to enjoy eternity as one long orgy of technologically enhanced sex. 

I'm sure, though, that eventually someone would find a way to modify the devices to make same sex cyber relations possible.  By swapping around those genital units, so that people could effectively change sex, by making a 'male' suit 'female' and vice versa, a form of techno gender reassignment.  All of which would, no doubt, drive Musk to apoplexy, with scenes of him running around smashing up modified suits with a hammer.  

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I remember that back in the day, when computers still had novelty value and just to interact with them in the most basic of ways, you had to learn a programming language, there was a saying: 'Garbage in, garbage out'.  In other words, their output could only be as effective as the program you had inputted.  Mistakes in the code, or just downright poor coding would give you poor results.  The same, of course, is true of people - feed them a diet of false information and they'll harbour a false world view.  Propagandists know that well, which is why they make out sure that the media is full of their soundbites and stories which promote a slanted, out-of-context view of events, in order to try and give their world view hegemony in the public consciousness.  In recent times, the situation has become even worse, with those seeking to spread their dubious views now able to bypass the conventional media altogether, instead spewing out an endless stream of videos and clips on You Tube and TikTok pushing the crudest of hate-mongering - clearly directed at the young and impressionable.  But Hell, we know all this - I seem to have written about it endlessly - to little effect, obviously.  Now, of course, a new front has opened up with the advent of AI, which also is prone to spewing out misleading information, presented as facts and worse, it allows people to create realistic looking fake pictures and videos to try and discredit opponents and mislead voters.

Because, of course, that same maxim of 'Garbage in, garbage out' also applies to AI - no matter how much information a given system (illegally) scrapes from the web, if the sources it is using are bad, then it can only output bad answers.  Just look at Elon Musk's attempt at AI: Grok.  Informed, it seems, by what it reads on Twitter, which, under Musk, has become a cess pool of right-wing bigotry, racism, misogyny, transphobia and just about any other phobia you can think of, it spews forth 'answers' which reflect the general ill-informed  ignorance generally to be found there.  That, combined with apparent interference from Musk to ensure that his AI also reflects his own crackpot prejudices and you have a potentially very dangerous piece of technology.  But the 'Garbage in, garbage out' maxim also gives an opportunity to those of us who produce content to actively undermine AI systems and expose their limitations.  I'm well aware that my content here and on The Sleaze gets scraped by AI bots, which has motivated me to make out sure that I put out as much bizarre and utterly misleading stuff as I can.  I've made it my mission to try and ensure that the likes of ChatGPT start telling people that Boris Johnson was the 'Balham Buggerer', that London has been haunted by 'Flame Arsed Jack', a terrifying ghoul that lights its own farts or that Trump, clad only in soiled underpants, jumped out of a giant cake at Jeffrey Epstein's birthday party.  So, I urge everyone currently turning out content on 'little sites' like mine, I'd urge you to follow this example.  People have a tendency to perceive these AIs as somehow being 'neutral' or 'objective' arbiters of knowledge.  But they aren't: they are as prone to bias and prejudice as real humans.  But, if we can get them all to regurgitate our false information as if it were true, then maybe, just maybe, we can slow down their encroachment into everyday human activity and alter perceptions of them.  Either that, or we'll warp the minds of generations of the human race for decades to come.

Artificial Wardrobe Advice

Remember when AI was being heralded as the greatest thing since sliced bread?  How it was going to change the world, revolutionise the way we did, well, everything?  Yet here we are, down the road a bit, and the practical applications of this technology are still thin on the ground.  Most depressingly, one web giant is reduced to trying to sell AI to the public on the basis that it can tell you how to make cookies or what clothes to wear before you go out.  I'm sure you've seen all those ads for, I think, Google Gemini, the most pathetic being the one where it is used to give wardrobe advice to a user, even down to whether they should put a matching hat on their dog.  I mean, really, is this what billions of dollars have been spent for, what vast amounts of energy and resources are being expended on?  Wardrobe advice?  For dogs?  I don't which is worse, the idea that this is an appropriate use for this technology, or that its developers think that people really are incapable of making decisions on what clothes to wear without AI assistance.  I mean, if I'm in a quandary as to what to wear before venturing out of my house, I just look out of the window: if it is raining I know that I need a raincoat, if it is cold, I might want a scarf, if it is sunny, then lightweight clothing would be appropriate.  See, it's easy, you don't need an AI assistant for that.  Just like you shouldn't need it for doing your school work, baking cookies, medical advice or, indeed, virtually any other everyday task.

Now, I'm not going to be a hypocrite here and pretend that I never use AI.  But at least I confine myself to utilising it for stuff that lies outside of my expertise and ability.  Namely, the production of images used mainly over on The Sleaze.  Ok, it is still a trivial pretext for burning up valuable resources, but hey, it is at least pretty harmless.  Moreover, when I interact with things like ChatGPT, I always treat them purely as utilities, tools to get a specific job done.  I keep my requests short and concise.  Curt, even.  After all, they are just a bunch of code, they aren't alive, they aren't sentient, they don't experience emotions, they don't get upset if you don't say 'please' and 'thank you'.  Yet there are many users out there who seem to treat them as if they human as if, even, they are somehow their 'friends'.  It is something I just don't understand, talking to machines as if they are human and therefore capable of giving a genuine response based upon empathy and emotion.  

Sure, I talk to some animals, particularly the local cat population and the swans over at the local pond, as if they human, but they, at least, are living beings, capable of expressing emotions, even empathy.  Indeed, while I'm under no illusions that they understand me in literal terms, they do understand my tone and therefore my intent and respond in like fashion, (I've built up a surprisingly good relationship with those swans, mainly based upon the fact that I feed them, but also because of the way I approach and interact with them, they accept me as entirely non-threatening and therefore have no fear of me, accepting my friendly intent).  The point is that machines and codes will never be able to give you such responses, yet there are people who vainly persist in deluding themselves that they do.  Which is why I won't waste time trying to make friends with them.  Besides, my limited experiences with AI have taught me that it is actually pretty stupid, in creative terms, at least, frequently incapable of grasping exactly what it is that you are requesting it to do, regardless of how literal your instructions are.  Perhaps it will improve with time.  These are, after all, early days.  But with the amount of money and resources it has taken to get it to the stage where it can advise you on what hat your dog should wear, one has to question how many more it will take to get AI to a stage where it is actually useful and capable of properly comprehending what it is being asked to do and, indeed, whether it is worth it.

More False Alarms

I spoke too soon about finally getting a respite from the various Meta alerts and panics over my Facebook and Instagram accounts being hacked.  Yesterday, it was Google's turn to start trying to panic me.  Not that anyone actually accessed my account, but it was the usual 'suspicious activity' vagueness from Google.  So vague that  they couldn't even tell me what this activity was or where it had originated.  The only clue given was that it involved a Windows device I was logged out of - which could be any one of three devices in my possession, none of which I was logged into at the time of this supposed 'suspicious activity'.  As before I suspect that it all comes down to a years ago data breach on their part, since when my passwords have been changed numerous times, so anyone with my login details from then are on a hiding to nothing.  As soon as I got that sorted out (involving being forced to change my password yet again), I had Instagram freezing my account again over unspecified 'suspicious activity' (probably the fact that I'd had the audacity to follow someone back).  Another enforced password change and I had my account back.  This merry-go-round of alarmist false alerts really is becoming extremely tiring.

More Meta Woes

The problems with Meta seem never-ending.  After last week's fiasco of having my Facebook account deactivated because of alleged 'suspicious activity' and the struggle I had to regain access to it across all of my devices, today I had my Instagram account briefly hacked.   I was first alerted when my Facebook account helpfully told me that it had been removed from my Meta Accounts Centre, where I have it linked to the Facebook account.  I then found one of those e-mails from Instagram telling me that the email address used as a login ID had been changed and if it wasn't me who had changed it, then to reclaim the account.  Which I promptly did -it was a far easier process than it is for Facebook.  Luckily, apart from changing the bio on my account to some kind of link (probably to a dodgy crypto site) and following a hundred dodgy accounts, no damage seemed to have been done and I've been able to set everything right.  What I found somewhat bemusing was that it had taken four or five hours from the time that the email had been changed to Meta sending the email alerting me to the fact - with the hacker having all that time to do damage.  

The crucial question remains as to just how the hack was done - I'm pretty paranoid about the security of my devices, so I was reluctant to consider a hack of any of them, plus the account had one of those randomly generated passwords, different to the one I use on Facebook.  After some 'research' (ie, looking on Reddit), it seems that the most likely explanation is that the leaking of the login details lies with Meta itself which, apparently, was itself hacked some months ago and significant numbers of account details leaked.   If so, it might also explain the alleged 'suspicious activity' that got my Facebook account deactivated last week.  The reason that a hack of that, even if the login details were leaked, is unlikely to be successful is because that account has two-step verification and without access to my mobile phone, the login can't be completed.  All of which raises the perennial question of why do the likes of Meta try and pry more and more personal information out of us when they apparently cannot protect the data they already hold?  I feel vindicated in refusing to give social media sites personal info like addresses and phone numbers when these could so easily be obtained by third parties via a hack enabled by information already stolen from the companies themselves.  It seems ironic that they make such a fuss about the need for us users to use secure passwords, two-step verification and the like, yet themselves can't seem to be able to guarantee the security of even the most basic personal data that they already hold.  Hopefully, with a new Instagram password, I can have a respite from all of this nonsense.  I'm looking forward to getting back to posting about my usual shit...

Friday Frustrations

Well, I was going to try and do a quick 'Random Movie Trailer' today, but it appears that some of the films I watch are so obscure that nobody has ever uploaded a trailer for them.  Anywhere.  Neither of the films I was considering are substantial enough to warrant a longer piece, plus I simply don't have time to work up a longer piece, so I'm left with no planned post for today.  The reason I just don't have time to write anything longer is because I've had to waste so much time trying to sort out the mess that Facebook made of my accounts earlier today.  Basically, they deactivated both my account and The Sleaze's page because their 'software' had detected 'suspicious activity' which flagged them as having been hacked. Which they hadn't.  They never have been.  So I had to jump through hoops to get them reactivated, which Facebook made as difficult as possible. From the outset, they wouldn't let me even attempt to start the process on the laptop I actually had up and running, (my 'upstairs' laptop), forcing me to log onto my main laptop and carry out the process there.  Which seems bloody stupid as I was trying to log on using a logged in Firefox browser on both, which, with every other sane and rational site, synchronises my logins across the various sites I use.  But, hey, this is Facebook we're talking about.  Or rather Meta, as I was reminded when I tried to access my Instagram account only to be confronted with some gibberish about 'automated activity' having been detected on the account.  To which the response was 'fuck off'.  Luckily, I was easily able to dismiss that shit.

But, despite having access to my accounts back, the problems continued.  I now find that I'm prevented from logging in on any other device (despite these being devices I've previously 'verified' with Facebook).  An attempt to log in to the app on my Android phone, for instance, resulted in being sent to a screen and told to enter the code that had been sent to my What's App number.  I don't have a What's Up number.  I've never used the bloody app and have no intention of doing so.  In the event, the code was emailed to my verified email address.  Great, I thought, we're nearly there!  Oh foolish man that I am!  The code was, of course, rejected.  So I requested another one.  It sent me the exact same code, which was again rejected as being incorrect.  I then found myself trapped in a loop of requesting new codes, getting the same one, having it rejected, requesting a new - well, you get the idea.  So I gave up and accepted that from now on, I can't access Facebook on my phone.  But at least I got further there than I did on my other devices, where it went into a loop of simply saying there was an error and to try again, over and over.  Facebook's own help pages offer no useful advice, which is hardly a surprise.  They aren't in the business of actually helping their customers.   The irony is that the 'suspect activity' nonsense was doubtless triggered by my earlier attempts to sort out Facebook's previous idiocy regarding The Sleaze's page, which they suddenly decided wasn't eligible for recommendations to other users anymore.  Not that I was aware that they were recommending it, but it seemed concerning because it vaguely alluded to 'community standards' not being observed.  Except that, on investigation, I found that their own dashboard checks show that there are no problems with the page's contents!  After much arsing around and time-wasting, I came to the conclusion that it is simply down to the fact that, not unreasonably I think, I refuse to include my address and phone number on the publicly available contact information for the page!  I mean, why should any reader of the page need my personal details?  So they can harass me with nuisance calls and hate mail if they don't like what they read?  Locate my house and throw bricks through the windows?  Does Meta really think that I'm insane enough to endanger my safety by publishing such information?  So, as I'm never going to put such information out there, my recommendations remain suspended.  In which case Meta can just go fuck themselves.

Site Down

 It's a fucking disaster.  The Sleaze is currently down, deactivated by the host due to a 'payment failure'.  This, despite the fact that I had an automatic renewal set up - which I checked only recently.  The host, it seems, left it to the last minute to try and get the payment, then e-mailed me warning the site could be deactivated, which it did so about a half hour later!  Sending e-mails in the early hours expecting a response is hardly constructive, or good business practice.  I've now paid with my card, yet the site is still down.  You've got your fucking money, now give me what I'm paying for!  (If they can expect a response to their e-mail, I don't think I'm being unreasonable for them to restore the site immediately upon payment).  This situation really is intolerable.  Ordinarily, I'd just move the site elsewhere, but in this instance, with their actions being so swift and unheralded, I haven't had the chance to download a backup of the files and databases, so I have no choice but to pay as my entire site is now, in effect, being held hostage.  Really, you'd think that in situations like this you'd either get more warning or a grace period in the case of a 'failed payment' in order to rectify their error, (payment, after all, had been set up).

I've only been with this host for a year and until now, things had been running smoothly, but now I'm reviewing the situation (and downloading a back up as soon as I get access again).  I suppose that I should have expected this, as a while ago, the service was sold to a new owner.  My previous experiences of hosts changing hands should have tipped me off to the possibility of this sort of shit: all too often such takeovers lead to a deterioration in the services you are paying for.  So it looks as if, once I regain control of the site, I'll have to start the tedious search for yet another new host.  If I'm quick enough, I might be able to get at least part of this year's fee back,  Otherwise I'll be looking to next year to move the site, again.  A quick check, but no, it's still down.  It's amazing how quick they are to disable the account, yet drag their feet when it comes to restoring it.  I've tried raising a support ticket (still unanswered) and their 24/7 help chat - which just gave an automatic reply telling me to raise a support ticket.  Come on guys, this is unacceptable, you've got your money, now give me back my site.  Really, if it isn't back up soon, then I'm going to start naming and shaming the bastards.

The End is Nigh!

Apparently there was some kind of global IT outage today, which threw the world into chaos.  Not that I noticed, as I wasn't catching a flight overseas, wasn't visiting a doctor or picking up a prescription.  I also slept through the 'panic', only finding out about it when I finally got around to checking the news on my tablet.  Of course, every time we have some kind of IT glitch affecting the computer systems of various businesses, all of the usual suspects crawl out of the woodwork, (including that hairy loon who used to be a TV historian and now spends his time foaming at the mouth and spewing apocalyptic gibberish on GB News), to issue dire warnings of how we've become too dependent upon technology and that we're all doomed.  In today's case, there was all sorts of hysteria over the probable collapse of the global banking system, with people unable to use contactless to pay for stuff in shops, or to get money from cash points.  Yeah, it was all so bad that only did I pay for some groceries in Iceland (the shop, not the country) with contactless, but was then able to get some cash from the ATM at the bank.  Listening to the commentariat, you'd think that there had been aircraft falling out of the sky, trains crashing into each other and cars spontaneously exploding.  In reality, the worst that seemed to happen was that Sky News went off the air for a while - which is surely a good thing.  In fact, the only time that I felt remotely in danger today was when I thought that I was going to get swept away by a tidal wave of little girls rushing out of MacDonalds, where they'd been celebrating the end of the school year.

Nevertheless, for the doomsayers this was an earth-shattering event that doubtless heralds the end of the world, (just like any regional conflict, from Ukraine to Gaza, presages the outbreak of World War Three).  I'm guessing that they are the sort of people that, the first time in history one of those new fangled automobiles ran out of petrol, threw their hands in the air and decried the fact that we were now too reliant on this new technology and that now delivery and transport services would collapse, presaging the end of civilisation as they knew it.  Instead of warning about the perils of going cashless, they were warning of the perils of going horseless.  Look, I know that if you, personally, were affected by this outage then it would have been hugely frustrating, but the fact is that not everyone in the world, in fact nowhere near everyone, was affected.  Bearing in mind that this particular outage was caused by a software update, the solution was simply to roll back the update.  I recall that something similar happened to me a few years ago, when The Sleaze (and a whole lot of other Wordpress based sites) displayed a blank screen when you tried to visit them, the result of a plug in updating automatically with a defective update.  The solution was to go into the site's back-end and delete the plug in.  (The main problem was the lack of contrition from those responsible for the plug in, who basically just tried to shrug it off.  Needless to say, many, many users deleted the plugin and never re-installed it).  You see, it's simple to solve these problems!  OK, maybe today's outage wasn't quite as straightforward, although ultimately, it apparently could be solved by simply booting the affected machine into safe mode, accessing the file manager and deleting the offending update.  Having to do that on such a large scale was what caused the delays today when it came to restoring services.  Anyway, to return the original thrust of this post, the moral of today's incident is to keep calm and not listen to the doom sayers trying to stir up panic.

Getting Sick of This Now...

I’m about as sick of writing about my current problems with BT as anyone foolish enough to read this blog must be hearing about them. But it really does seem never ending. Obviously, as I predicted, the line wasn’t fixed yesterday, so I’m still without a phone or broadband for the foreseeable future. Which meant another wasted morning talking to BT via their chat app (they really don’t want to engage with their customers directly), getting nowhere. Not only did I have to go through the whole sorry saga again with yet another different agent but I also had to raise yet another complaint, This was because the reported fault had, apparently, been ‘dealt’ with. Despite this, I still had no service and was now being told that it wouldn’t be fixed until Friday! At which point I told them that this was unacceptable, as they had had since the 21^st to fix yet, despite assurances only yesterday that it would be fixed by the end of the day, BT had, apparently, done nothing. Which is where things started to turn even more surreal than usual. After being escalated to speaking to a manager, I was told that the original fault had been fixed, but the fix hadn’t worked! So, in other words, it hadn’t been fixed - unless you are BT, in which case a failed fix is considered a success. 

As a result, I’m now on a ‘new’ fault, which will be fixed, allegedly, by Friday. Of course, this makes it look as if they fixed the original problem ‘on schedule’’ –  something they will doubtless use to massage their stats with OFCOM. Interestingly, this time around, I have a text from Openreach telling me that an engineer will be assigned to the fault – something I didn’t get the first time around, reinforcing my suspicion that, in reality, nothing was actually done to rectify the fault. But none of this gets me back online. Indeed, it simply puts me back to square one. Which is par for the course with BT. The long term solution is to ditch BT – but I can’t do that until they repair the line. Going to fibre might help, nut my current ISP (who aren’t the problem here) don’t offer a VOIP option, so that would mean either losing my landline (which I still use) or having the added complication of switching the phone to a third party VOIP provider. So it could well be that I’m going to have to start looking for a new ISP who offers both FTTC (I don’t want more holes drilled in my walls to accommodate FTTP) and VOIP at a reasonable price (and which has decent customer service). Ultimately, though, I’d still be reliant upon Openreach to actually fix any problems – but some service providers, it seems, are more adept than BT at getting them to do their job in a reasonable time scale. In the meantime, I’m reliant on expensive mobile data (not to mention variable reception) to stay online. I’ve got a new story due to be put up on The Sleaze tomorrow and a podcast to post on Onsug before the end of the month. The story will probably be feasible – posting it on the site shouldn’t require much data. But the podcast looks unlikely, due to the amount of data required to upload the MP3 files. Thanks for nothing, BT.

The Interruption Continues

So, am I back online properly? Of course not. British Telecom still haven’t dealt with the fault on my phone line which is, obviously, also blocking my access to my ADSL broadband. It was supposed to be resolved by today, but the line is still dead. Now, BT have claimed that they have only said that it would be fixed by the end of today. I took this to mean the end of the working day, (as most normal people would). They, however, say that it means the literal end of the day at 23:59 and that the line will be repaired by then. Hmmm. I’ve heard all of this before – twenty odd years ago, when I needed my BT line reactivated after I’d had enough of NTL/Virgin Media, I went through the same nonsense of being given times when the line would be live, only for them to pass with no connection. BT’s response would be to pull another arbitrary deadline for activation out of thin air – which, again, would pass without anything happening. After over a week of this, I finally lost my temper with their customer service in a phone call, (the trigger was being told that they couldn’t keep me up to date because they didn’t have a valid contact number – well, obviously, they hadn’t connected it and I was having to use a public pay phone to contact them). 

So, do I really think that my phone and broadband will magically come back before midnight? Of course not. Do I really think that they have people working outside of normal hours to reconnect me? Of course not. They’ve had since just after seven o’clock last Wednesday morning, when the fault was reported and logged, to deal with this, but apparently couldn’t be bothered doing anything until today – when they apparently still haven’t done anything. Odds are that I’m going to be wasting yet more time tomorrow trying to get some sense out of the clown show that is BT’s customer service. I’ve been here before, multiple times – BT simply won’t deal with faults in their equipment where there isn’t any money in it for them. If it is your equipment at fault, fine, they’ll be there like a shot as they can bill you for the engineer’s visit and repairs. Otherwise, you have to continually harass and harry them if you want to have any chance of getting your problem fixed. But they’ll try to fob you off with false promises at every opportunity. Of course, there’s still the matter of the compensation I’m owed under OFCOM regulations – BT have been remarkably silent on this subject, (if a fault isn’t fixed within 48 hours, the customer is entitled to compensation for every day they are without service – which is three, nearly four, days for me, so far). In the meantime, I’m reduced to minimal online activity via very expensive mobile data and no streaming TV services at all.

Service Still Interrupted

So, I’m still not back online, my landline is still broken. My only web access is via the very expensive data from my mobile provider, (I’m burning through that at quite a rate, so this being typed off line and uploaded later to conserve data). Yesterday, which, incidentally, was my birthday, I spent the entire morning attempting to navigate what passes for customer service at British Telecom. The first thing to note is that you can’t actually speak to anyone on the phone any more – it is all bots and online chat – which is problematic if the fault you are trying to get resolved has robbed you of internet access, a point we’ll come back to later. First up, I tried their ‘diagnostic bot’ again. This is done via text and, once again, it failed to find the fault and made the same vague promises of referring it to the engineers. I was supposed to get a report from it, but when I checked my online BT account (eating up some more of my precious mobile data), it claimed that no fault had been reported. So, I felt I had no choice but to try using their chat function again, which is where things started to really go downhill. After getting past the chat bot I was put in touch with one of their ‘agents’, who went through all the usual tests and nonsense, turning up the same blank as the ‘diagnostic’ bot. He then found that I had already used such bot – something he started to get shirty about, implying that I was wasting his time. I tried pointing out that it had provided mr with no actual reports or fault numbers and that BT’s insistence on doing this exclusively online was problematic as the line fault had also taken out my broadband. 

This was the point where the ‘agent’ started to go off the rails, angrily retorting that my lack of internet access was entirely the responsibility of my ISP and that BT couldn’t be held responsible as the phone line being out shouldn’t affect the broadband! I tried pointing out that my broadband is provide via ADSL< meaning that there has to be a working landline for me to be able to receive the service, so the fault on BT’s landline meant that they were directly responsible for my loss of internet access. Apparently not liking my use of logic, he now went off on another line of attack: that it was my fault for using such an antiquated form of broadband and that if I wanted to avoid such problems I should get my ISP to update me to fibre! I responded that this was irrelevant as changing broadband package wouldn’t resolve the issue I was trying to get resolved: the failure of the BT landline I pay them for. He tried to defend his position, before getting back to his notion that I couldn’t hold BT responsible for my loss of internet access and if I didn’t like it I should complain. I went back over the fact that they were as a fault on their equipment was preventing my access to my broadband, making them directly responsible – a position that has hardly unreasonable. But it was too late, he’d gone. Astounded by his rudeness and lack of professionalism, I posted another message admonishing him for his lack of courtesy and telling him that I would now be raising a complaint.

Making a complaint isn’t as easy as BT like to imply that it is on their site. They’d really prefer you to do it via that bloody chat app – for reasons we’ll come to shortly. Along with the ‘write us a letter’ option, they also claim that you can complain via their phone line – except that if you try to do so, you just get the same options as before, none of which involves speaking to human being or, indeed, actually raising a complaint. After twenty minutes or so of going round and round their phone options, I realised that the chat app was still active on my mobile and that another ‘agent’ had come on and was offering to raise a complaint for me. Great, I thought, maybe I can start getting somewhere – like finding out why there is no fault listed on my account, what the unmentioned fault actually was and – most importantly – what they were going to do to fix it. But it didn’t go that way. The second ‘agent’ picked up on the switching to fibre nonsense and insisted upon giving me the sales pitch for one of BT’s fibre packages – despite the fact that I made it clear that I didn’t want to change ISP (they weren’t the ones causing the current problem). Now, I’ve been in similar situations before, where it is obvious that if you want to get to the information you actually want, you have to let the other party go through their sales spiel and, if necessary, sign up to whatever it is they are trying to sell you, after all, you have the legal right to cancel it immediately afterward without penalty. 

So that’s what I did. After that, I managed to get to the crux of the matter: the fault. Apparently, there was a break in the line, (well, obviously, as it was dead at my end). But what were they doing about it? Well, in reality, very little, Engineers are working on it supposedly (although I’ve seen no physical evidence of this), with the aim of resolving it by Monday. Which, frankly, is unacceptable. If the line has failed, that is entirely BT’s fault and they should fix it immediately. Moreover, past experience of BT suggests that the Monday deadline will come and go with my phone and internet still not having been restored. On the plus side, if it isn’t fixed by tomorrow morning then, as 48 hours will have passed since the fault was reported, BT, under its own rules, will have to start paying me compensation. Which might, at least, allow me to recoup some of the additional costs I’ve incurred as a result of having to buy additional mobile data just to get the most basic of internet access. Let’s just step back to that fibre broadband package I had to sign up to in order to simply get an update on the fault, (my account has also now been updated to show the fault). After spending all morning dealing with this nonsense, (it was past midday when I finally got the information I needed – I’d started just after eight), I was too exhausted to cancel it there and then. Later that day, my ISP sent me an e-mail saying they were sorry to hear that I was leaving them – I rang them back, (you can speak to real people with them – and explained the situation. Consequently, they cancelled the cancellation of my service raised by BT, halting the process.

I’m fascinated by the way in which BT see the their own failure to provide the main service you are paying them to deliver as a sales opportunity. Because the ‘agent’ who pushed the sales agenda was surely not a ‘rogue’ actor here – in my experience such behaviour is the result of official policy. It is acknowledgement that they can’t (or won’t) actually fix the problem at hand without putting themselves out, but instead prefer to try and scalp the customer for more money, despite not delivering what is already being paid for. This also involves a certain degree of misinformation: a switch to fibre broadband actually wouldn’t mean that line faults could no longer affect internet access. Most fibre broad band is actually Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC).meaning that from the cabinet to your home, the existing copper wire is still used to carry both phone and broadband. So if, as in my case, there is a break in it, you will still lose both. The fact is that I live so close to my exchange that, even with ADSL, I get reasonably high internet speeds. Moreover, ADSL isn’t as unusual as the first ‘agent’ tried to make out – a significant number of people still use it (it is simple and convenient).

Back to that BT fibre broadband package – while BT have acknowledged that it is effectively cancelled and can’t proceed, I’ve yet to formally cancel it with them. They texted me early this morning to call them about it – amazing how they want to actually talk to you when they are trying to screw more money out of you, but not when you want them to fix a fault – but, after yesterday, I didn’t have the strength to talk to them. They ruined yesterday for me, they weren’t going to ruin today, as well. I’ll get back to them when it suits me. In the meantime, my complaint is still outstanding (perhaps I should make another one for miss-selling) and I still don’t have a phone line or internet access (including streaming TV via my Roku box), with no prospect of getting them back in the near future. But I’m still being billed for both. Welcome to corporate Britain in 2024!

An Interruption to Normal Service

Well, I was hoping to post something about another film here today, but my phone line and internet were abruptly cut off this evening, without warning.  (I have paid the bills - only a couple of days ago, in fact).  By the time I realised what was happening - I initially thought only the internet was down, the victim of one of Plusnet's DNS outages - the BT customer help lines were down.  Their diagnostic bot sent me some texts saying that it couldn't find a fault and that it was investigating further, then went AWOL.  Their messaging system is meant to be active until 22:30, but they still haven't got back to me and seem unlikely to before they shut down for the night.  Right now, I'm only online thanks to using my mobile phone as a USB tether - it is eating up a lot of data and costing me money on top of what I pay my ISP and landline providers.  Of course, the lack of internet means that my Roku box is also down, depriving me of any streaming TV.  In all, a pretty shitty situation that I won't be able to even start resolving until tomorrow.  God knows how long it will all take to resolve - going on my past experience of BT, I don't see getting any joy any time soon, so I have no idea when I'll be able start posting here regularly again.  Thanks BT, you pile of shit.

Dropped Connections

Well, I've spent an unedifying few hours trying to resolve an issue with my Roku services, namely that a number of livestreaming channels have suddenly had their livestreams vanish from their apps.  The apps load and come up, but are lacking the livestream to click on.  Number one suspect in this are Plusnet's DNS servers, which have been falling over with monotonous regularity of late.  This tends not to affect my laptop, where I have the network adaptor set to alternative DNS servers, (indeed, the channels in question stream without issue from their websites on the laptop).  Unfortunately, changing the DNS servers on either the Roku box or the Plusnet router is a far more complex procedure and well beyond my tech confidence levels.  As a compromise, the Roku box is currently getting its wireless connection via the laptop's wireless hotspot, thereby coming via those alternative DNS servers.  Even with this method, getting even one of the problem Roku apps to stream properly required not just deleting the app, reseting the network, then re-installing it, but also a device reset for the Roku box.  I've a nasty feeling that I'm going to have to do this every time I want to watch this particular channel.  Which is a real pain.

Unreliable DNS servers seems to have been a problem afflicting a number of ISPs of late, (to be fair, Plusnet's DNS servers have always been poor, which is why the laptop is set to alternative servers).  With moves to try and push more and more terrestrial broadcasting onto streaming, (so that they can sell off more of those valuable airwaves to mobile providers), you'd think that ISPs would be investing in better DNS services, otherwise a lot of viewers are going to end up disappointed and frustrated.  Whether it is down to DNS problems, I don't know, but the move to shift everyone's telephone landlines to Voice Over Internet Protocol, (VOIP), certainly hasn't impressed me, with the converted lines frequently cutting off mid-call.  My mother's line was switched a few months ago and sometimes we can be cut off three or more times in the course of a call - it then requires multiple attempts to call back as her receiver has dropped its connection and is effectively dead.  Everyone else I've spoken to who has been switched to VOIP have experienced the same problems.  It is particularly worrying for my mother, who is in her nineties and doesn't have a mobile - if she has a medical emergency and her phone cuts off like this (sometimes it is dead when she tries to call anyone), what is she supposed to do?  Modern technology - in the UK, at least - really can be utter shit these days.