Noticed quite a few of my searches performed in Google Search are returning results that are completely off the mark / irrelevant. Many of the results I am looking for were there a day earlier. In fact, finding relevant information via Google is slowly but surely becoming an increasingly challenging affair. With that said, it looks like the traditional web is in decline with people moving more and more to proprietary platforms / silos.
Internet
Facebook now requiring login to view business pages
Update: Original functionality has been restored it appears but it does feel like Facebook keeps pulling this periodically probably in order to pull in more sign ups.
Meta / Facebook are at it again, requiring you to login to Facebook just to view business pages and public community pages…
Seems phones may still have uninhibited access to pages marked as public. Desktops and Tablets appear to be affected.
I know this is in vain… Internet users of the world, please stop supporting these misbehaving tech behemoths. So tired of these corporates trying to monopolize and seize control of our lives.
Getting the feeling that NextCloud is abandonware
This is only an unquantified Hunch at this stage, however I’m starting to get the feeling that NextCloud is slowly becoming abandonware. Used to run a self hosted instance of NextCloud, but dropped it after repeated performance issues. Went to a managed instance, but even with only a limited about of files, finding that it’s randomly slow at times. The App keeps kicking me out of a document editing session and lacks many features found in Google’s and Microsoft’s suite.
Started searching for an alternative, but sadly it appears NextCloud is still stated as the most oft recommended solution.
Issues with Web Search
I am trying to find a better solution to searching for information on the web.
The problem I’m frequently encountering is when you do a search for a problem (pertaining to something tech related), you end up in some forum post or article with outdated solutions or which may have never actually worked and you left running around in a circle going through a bunch of useless solutions.
Google search results are just inundated with cookie cutter bot written spam these days and admittedly, it’s infuriating.
Used to be able to add “reddit” on the end of any search term, but even that has become much less sure with just people confirming they experience the same issue.
As an aside, noticed there’s more internet traffic coming to my website for various vague search queries. Frankly, some pages here are ranking unduly high for some of these. May have to do some anti-SEO to get some of these pages down as some of my posts in queestion are merely “thoughts” rather than substantive “solutions” to problems that joe public may utlimately be looking for.
That said, It could be that the web as we knew it is dying out being replaced by something else. Goodness knows what. ChatGPT?
Sold a domain name (for the first time)
Ended up flicking off the domain name anhedonia.org. Admittedly I forgot I even had that domain name and the unsolicited offers sent to me were ending up in the Junk folder unbeknownst to me until I went to check that folder.
No, this is not an invitation to begin sending me unsolicited offers to buy any of the other domain names I happen to hold.
Looks like Domain Agents and Escrow.com are legitimate in so much so the proceeds from the domain sale has appeared in my bank account. That said, the mechanics of the domain sale process however I feel could have been made a lot more clearer upfront and feel I was left hanging by Escrow especially particularly on up and coming steps I should be taking in advance to ensure a smooth transaction.
Opinion: Google Reviews should be shutdown
Google should completely shut down their Google Review platform. Why? Because Google have a completely useless and inadequate way of assessing and vetting the Authenticity of any given review submitted to their platform.
For Google to keep their review platform running in the state as it is only provides a disservice to the public (and to the businesses whom have no way of opting out) and wouldn’t be surprised Google as a Review platform could be found in direct violation of consumer protection laws in many jurisdictions if any consumer protection agency decides to investigate.
I have caught numerous businesses posting or buying Fake 5 star reviews. Similarly with Competing businesses buying 1 star negative reviews to throw shade on their competition. Any business I have caught out often turns around and say that “our staff and associates are customers as well!” in a frankly futile attempt to justify running reviews under false pretenses.
Google in their latest round of shitfuckery have unleashed some AI / Machine learning algorithm which is completely off the mark as to kill off legitimate reviews as well (by way of shadowbanning or hiding reviews) with no way to otherwise appeal or upload evidence (by way of invoices, receipts, communication or otherwise) to support the authenticity of a given consumer experience.
Same deal with reporting fake reviews. There’s no way to upload evidence of such and you are left to simply “flag” a review with no other action able to be taken which is completely and utterly useless.
Frankly, without any such way of uploading documentation or other evidence to support any of the above, Google attempts to fix their fake review problem on Google Reviews is completely and utterly foolish and futile as well as an adverse and shameful display of incompetence for a tech company.
GMail’s Spam Filter failing to stop obvious spam
Very perplexed that Google’s GMail Spam Filter is failing to pick up and stop very obvious Spam Mails in recent months. The spam Emails are usually titled with the subject Confirmation! Or ConfirmationReceipt! (no space in between) and 4 numbers behind that.
While I know this is unlikely, It almost as if it feels like that Google / GMail is deliberately letting these through because no amount of mashing the “This is spam” button on such Emails with in GMail’s interface appears to have any effect and these Emails continue to land in my GMail account’s inbox.
What is even more perplexing is that my Main domain Email account (Hosted with another Email provider) which I forward all my incoming GMail Emails to is able to recognize these as Spam and file it in the Spam Folder.
Regardless, am gradually moving to “De-Google” as much as possible over the coming year or two.
Australian Mastodon Server instances
Update 16 February 2023: mastodon.au have announced they are shutting down.
Update 21 November 2022: New Australian Mastodon Server instances theblower.au and mastodon.au are now live and accepting signs ups. Existing instance, aus.social has just re-opened to Sign ups again today.
Update 12 November 2022: Appears both aus.social and Chinwag have temporarily halted signs ups. There is a new Server being developed at theblower.au. Please read more about the new AU Mastodon server here.
In the meantime, If any one knows of any other Australian Mastodon instances that are still open (and have the capacity to take in new sign ups) please advise in the comments below and help your fellow Aussies out, thanks.
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If you’re in Australia and looking for a Mastodon (Twitter alternative) server to join, please look at…
theblower.au – NEW! Open for sign ups.
aus.social – Reopened to Sign ups 21 Nov 2022.
bne.social – NEW! Open for sign ups.
melb.social – Melbourne Based – Requires invite from existing user.
chinwag.org – Closed to New Sign ups.
mastodon.au – Instance announced it is now shutting down: See announcement.
There’s probably other Australia based (or focused) Mastodon instances. If anyone knows of any that are available to take sign ups, please let me know in the comments below and I’ll add them here.
Currently helping out at mastodon.nz in an assistant mod capacity to help get on top of reviewing sign ups and noticed there were a lot of Australians applying to sign up mentioning they could not find their local regional Mastodon server.
Noble Dental Auckland Patient review – Initial Consultation only
Update 15th March 2024: Since Dropped a note to the Commerce Commission regarding Noble Dental’s marketing,
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Personal opinion only as a once-off patient. Self referred to Noble Dental Remuera back in October 2021 for an initial consultation only as part of a wider search for a new dentist after the clinic I used to attend closed down. All Noble Dental personnel appeared to be reasonably friendly and professional throughout the consultation.
While I acknowledge my dental health certainly isn’t in the best state it could be, came away feeling they made it out to be in a pretty bad way overall along with them verbally suggesting that any treatment they undertake for me would be “a gamble”. Other dental clinics I attended (as part of a search for a new dentist to frequent) did make mention of gum issues, but framed it more as a cautionary observation in which to keep watch on as opposed to warranting utmost alarm. In fact, I believe Noble Dental provided the most dire prognosis out of the Dental Clinics I had consulted.
I acknowledge Noble dental are seemingly regarded highly as specialists in this area and they are perhaps more particular in any assessment they make. Though will admit was at least a little taken back by overhearing behind the partition that 5 teeth (despite being free of decay and tested as “vital” apart from one root canaled one) have poor prognoses and would likely end up needing extraction. This appeared contrary to the impression I got when I originally read Noble Dental’s website where they state “We use minimally invasive, advanced technology in gum treatments to save teeth even in advanced cases of gum disease.”
Asked for a copy of the clinical notes during the consultation to be sent to me directly (as I had self referred) to which Noble agreed to do, though did have to chase them up a number of times. These were eventually supplied to me after a month with to their credit a profuse apology for their delay.
As a side note, two other reviews coincidentally or otherwise were originally found linked to an individual offering “Public relations for local dentists” and who I firmly maintain feel should have made disclosures of this potential conflict of interest upfront in his reviews. Upon accepting the PR person’s offer to let me sight his invoices to support his claim that his dealings with Noble were genuinely and strictly 100% patient/dentist, the individual back pedals with a curious story declining to do so along with his reviews disappearing.
Paid $490 for the initial consultation and Full Mouth X-ray which appears to be inline with what other periodontists in Auckland charge. Quoted around $7,000 for treatment which includes quadrant cleaning and perioscopy which I have decided not to go ahead with.
Have since settled into using another dental practice for regular routine treatment and ongoing monitoring of periodontal condition. That said, I wish to stress that this review is my personal opinion for the initial consultation only and does not in any way reflect or refer to the quality of Noble Dental’s treatments nor is this intended to throw shade on Noble or their expertise.
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In an apparent attempt to explain the link of some of their reviews to a Public Relations entity, Noble Dental (or may be their PR agent?) has replied with…
“Global Economic Forum” Survey call warning
Had a suspicious cold call from someone purporting to be from the “Global Economic Forum” allegedly doing research for the aforementioned and was going to ask me 8 questions. Unfortunately, I could not verify the veracity of the organisation he purported to be representing. As far as I know, “Global Economic Forum” is not an organisation in it self so raised my guard. Please note the naming difference to “World Economic Forum”.
Recommend when you hear “Global Economic Forum” Do not proceed with the call, Hang up immediately.
They have been calling in as number 09 826 7214 (However, I warn that this very well could be spoofed)
Red flags noticed…
- Repeating my name ad nauseum
- Ran rough shod over trying to enquire and verify who he really was.
- He was suspiciously and extremely insistent.
- I asked him to send me an Email first about his company and I will circle back to it in my own time and the caller did not like that.
- Would not tell me where he got my details from
- An attempt to ‘Gas light’ me was made.
The caller hung up after I raised my voice after he tried to gas light me.
As an aside, I have decided to remove public access to my phone number entirely effective immediately due to scammers, mongrels and other degenerates. I originally did have it publicly accessible by way of publicized pass phrase purely for people to contact me in emergencies, however, I believe the people that matter most in my life already have my number anyway.
Do Auckland’s trains ever run in the weekends?
The answer is most probably a “yes”, but every time I hatch the idea of taking the train in the last 3 years during a Saturday or Sunday, it has been my luck that without fail I find that Rail Bus Replacements are running instead for the route I’m planning to take.
I recalled a few times now I’ve taken a connecting bus from Auckland Airport to Papatoetoe station only to find the trains are not running and have been repeatedly frustrated at waiting at the designated make shift Rail Bus Stop for a Rail Bus replacement bus to never arrive (over half an hour in fact). Ended up calling an Uber (or Ola as is may be) out of frustration on all such occasions.
And still on the topic of Auckland’s transport system, I now learn that multiple scheduled buses across Auckland have been cancelled due to COVID which is ultimately going to present further challenges in encouraging a modal shift of getting Aucklanders out of their cars.
Wondering if Auckland will ever achieve this modal shift? I reckon it will take at least a few generations to transition to become a city where Fast, Frequent and Well patronised Public Transport services become a reality. Auckland Transport trying to enforce a modal change, particularly in established neighbourhoods is frankly trying to push the proverbial up the hill. Better to work with Auckland Council and other government departments to build high density neighbourhoods in greenfield sites with well connected passenger and personal (scooters, bikes) transport networks before forcing their ideology down the throats of residents in existing neighbourhoods.
Signing up for Matrix Chat using Element
Noticed there is basically bug all user guides directed at the layman on the internet regarding signing up for Matrix chat using the Element chat client. Here’s a hastily cobbled together one based off the Android version of the Element App off of Google Play Store. If any other Matrix chat users want to flog this and improve it, by all means, please do so.
This guide is intended to be a very quick and dirty guide for getting prospective users who are interested to have a look at the Federated Matrix chat system signed up and started in the most direct way possible using the default reference matrix.org homeserver instance purely as a starting point only.
More privacy conscious users may wish to use a different homeserver as opposed to using matrix.org’s reference homeserver. This is one of the key benefits of the matrix protocol is that you have a choice of servers in which to establish an account on. Don’t like a particular homeserver (due to their policies)? There are many other homeservers to chose from.
Without further a do.. Steps to get started with Matrix.
Step 01: Open Google Play Sore and search for Matrix. Element Messenger should come up as one the top results… Open the App’s page and click Install. Continue reading “Signing up for Matrix Chat using Element”
Matrix chat community New Zealand
There is currently a matrix.org based chat community operating for New Zealand, originally established back in 2015 (when I was exploring and testing out alternative communication platforms to potentially draw friends and family away from the large centralized and commercialized platforms such as Facebook)
The community has grown to around 80 unique users and continues to grows every week. Click the following link to get started with [matrix] (using the currently foremost client Element).
The key benefits of Matrix over say Discord, WhatsApp, Telegam and signal is that users are able to run their run (Self-host) and govern their own homeserver for their social group (social groups, makers spaces, etc) and have it federate (talk to) other Homeservers.
Given Matrix’s federated nature, users can sign up for a account on a server of their choice or host their own. Recommended for NZ is mtrx.nz or otherwise, the main reference Matrix server instance at matrix.org (via app.element.io).
Main (Landing) space…
- #nzcom:matrix.org – New Zealand Matrix Community Space
Individual Rooms within the Matrix New Zealand space…
- #nz:matrix.org – New Zealand Aotearoa (General)
- #nzphoto:matrix.org – NZ Amateur Photography
- #nztech:matrix.org – NZ Technology Discussions (Most active)
- #nzpol:matrix.org– NZ based political and debates
- #nzofftopic:mtrx.nz – NZ Off Topic
- #NZSysadmin – NZ System Administrators
- #auckland:matrix.org – Auckland
There will be others, please check the #nzcom:matrix.org – New Zealand Matrix Community Space, for the latest list of New Zealand Matrix chat rooms.
Instructions to get started with Matrix (using Element.io).
New direct .au domains in Australia available apparently but requires manual intervention to be made live
The AuDA (.au Domain Administration Ltd.) in Australia have enabled domains to be registered directly under the .au level (without the need for .com.au .net.au .id.au, etc) for eligible entities.
To be eligible, you need to meet some Australian presence test (which I don’t, so won’t) – The “Australian presence list” criteria can be found buried in their licensing rules and doing a text search in your browser for Australian presence.
The new domains apparently require manual intervention by Afilias to be made live and accessible with a few people finding their new .au domains failing to resolve and expressing dismay regarding the matter on twitter.
Web Domains not for sale
I have been getting an increasing number of enquires recently asking to buy this and other domains off of me. Unless otherwise stated on the web domains themselves, none of the web domains I presently hold are up for sale.
As a side observation, at least up until very recently and for quite some years prior (since 2014), the newer .nz direct second level registration domain names were far less sought after, regarded, and recognized than the more familiar and consequently more trusted .co.nz domain names. Having a look at the recent statistics, this appears to be still the case where .co.nz remains more popular than the equivalent .nz with the number of new .co.nz registrations continuing to substantially outpace registrations of the newer .nz extension.
On the theme of domains, Australia are getting their direct .au registrations next coming week.
Sub-reddit /r/newzealand headed for far-left extremism?
In the same way that far right extremism (actually any sort of extremism) is undesired and troublesome, the “/r/newzealand” subreddit on Reddit I would say is fast approaching an example of far-left extremism cultivating very divisive pile-on attitudes by way of epic group think and will admit, I’ve started to be become troubled by some of the views expressed in that forum recently.
It’s been a while since I last visited, but I think I will continue staying away (just as I stay away from far right extremist sites). New Zealand society I feel can ill afford to tolerate groups that seek to cultivate an “us versus them” and “all or nothing” mentality. The Echo chamber effect I feel is accelerating.
An example of this (out of several) is the unrestrained carte blanche hatred for anyone who so much as declares as being an owner of even a single investment property. Further more, I’ve noticed many members are taking the most extreme example of poor landlord conduct and using that to tar all investors with the same brush. I can assure you landlords most certainly are not all like this, far from it and would urge people not to let the conduct of a minority colour us all.
I will caution that the /r/newzealand subreddit I feel is getting less and less representative of the views held by mainstream New Zealanders in general and would further plead that people please engage their brains before being swept up by the mob mentality and jumping on the bandwagon.
Some balance, please, people. Surely we are not savages and should not aspire to become such. We’re better than this.
Security Warning – Click Hijack investigation
Investigations so far suggest that there is some type of conditional redirect exploit/hijack being planted on many WordPress websites redirecting search engine referred visitors to fake award/survey sites such as “moviesuddenvalley”, “applefacetook”, “hurryexpectsugar”, “mouthtroubleask”, “ondiesmall”, “thendownmeat”, “makemodernfive”, “sayhitome”, “whateyeweight” among several others typically ending in a “.live” or “.top” address. While this Hijack, as far as I have seen appear to predominantly affect some WordPress websites, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this possibly affects other types of websites as well.
In my experience, for sites that are affected, to replicate…
(These most certainly could differ depending on the site affected)
- Prerequisites…
- Needs to be done from an IP address that has yet to access the site in question. (e.g Mobile Data Connection, activate and deactivate airplane mode to get a new IP address)
- Chrome or Firefox browser (Win 10 or Android) in Incognito Mode (No plugins). Reportedly in other variations of the exploit, it only occurs on Safari under iOS
- Search for the site in Google search
- Click on the search result that points to the website. Instead of loading up the website as expected, you get redirected to a hijack site.
The hijack will not fire If you access the site directly (via bookmarks or typing the address directly in the address bar of your browser). This appears to be some conditional exploit based on visitors coming from Search Engines. (e.g by typing the site URL directly into the Address bar, you won’t get redirected) and it looks like it will only fire once per IP Address each week (resets at the start of each week).
I probably should add that many so called WordPress vulnerability scanners online I’ve discovered aren’t even set up to detected this sort of hijack. The scanners based on “Securi” certainly will not detect this exploit, I’ve found.
Other resources…
- WordFence – Removing Malicious redirects
- CoreRecon – Identifying a conditional redirect hack (Beware, annoying pop up)
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Original Post (Old):
Noticing some apparent weird intermittent redirect hijack on the general web where some sites are allegedly redirecting to some dodgy website with names such as “mouthtroubleask”
Update – 2020-09-11T06:55:00+12:00: Added steps to replicate (from my own experience)
Update – 2020-09-12T18:20:00+12:00: Added note to mention that all of the online WordPress malware scanners I’ve tried won’t detect this sort of hijack.
Tech Bubble 2.0
As always, all views expressed in this site is my personal opinion only. Not financial Advice
With Faceborg shares, along with other Tech shares up 6-8% today on something I can’t pin on, I’m declaring this as a classic bubble in formation as the FOMO factor along with mania very obviously increasingly takes hold. As mentioned in my previous post, If I were a short term speculator type who likes riding by the seat of their pants, yeah, I would probably look to go all in.
Also reaffirming view of the bubble scenario. COVID-19 was essentially only an interruption to the larger trend originally sensed…
Not planning to substantially change my current mix of investments, however will probably now look to offload some over valued holdings in the next month or two and then rebalance things. Currently, I see many stocks are valued far beyond any reasonable metric and strongly believe that we are in the midst of a forming classic bubble. Short term, I now expect shares, in particular, technology stocks, to shoot to the sky towards completely absurd levels. Long term, I now expect pain (should the optimism continue).
For longer term folk, who aren’t into thrills and speculating, we may just have to sit tight for a while longer. I believe personally it is fairly clear that things are now running on almost pure emotion / euphoria. Though again, who the flip knows?
Pi-Hole on a Raspberry Pi 4
Experimented with running Pi-hole on the Raspberry Pi 4 that I have.
The Set up at least for the more tech inclined is very easy, all you had to do was launch a command line prompt and type this command…
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
After running it for an evening. Thoughts and findings so far…
- Predominantly Does a DNS level block with a blocklist of known advertisement serving IP addresses.
- YouTube is a moving target whereby ads are served from youtube.com itself and therefore very difficult to (completely) block with Pi-Hole.
- Mobile devices with Ad laden apps will perhaps see the greatest reduction in ads.
- The default configuration doesn’t block nearly as many ads as say uBlock Origin installed on Desktop Firefox. This is not a replacement to having Client side ad blocking.
Curiously noticed these appearing in the query-log…
- www.collab.apps.mil
- www.gov.teams.microsoft.us
- www.dod.teams.microsoft.us
Why would Teams try and poll for these addresses is beyond me. It does raise a sufficient level of curiosity that I will be checking this out.
DuckDuckGo is down
Update: 9:41 p.m. – Appears to have just been resolved.
Apparently DuckDuckGo is down…
Anything I try to search will return the above error. Been like this for at least an hour.