Test your English comprehension

See how long it takes you to decode this excellent pun.

Suzy Smith put on her skates

Upon the ice to frisk.

Her friends all though her slightly mad

Her little *.

Geddit? Ed.

Footnote: When I started looking for a suitable photo by entering "girl skater" in Google's image search window, all I got back was images of girls skateboarding! When I amended the search to "girl ice skater", the first five images to appear were girls of colour.What does that tell you about AI and the biases baked into the big search engines?

UPDATED: Someone else doesn't like Blogger's new GUI

Ed. here. "Ed. is baffled by Blogger's new GUI", WWW 5/9/20, got a surprising number of "hits". Walt didn't think many people would care about my/our problems in putting this blog online. And frankly, I think he was inviting loyal readers to beg him/us not to quit now, after more than nine years. We did get a number of exhortations to carry on up the Khyber, so thanks to those who sent same.

I have discovered that I'm not the only one having trouble adjusting to the change. And it's not just me. Nearly three months ago, Katherine Tyrrell, who uses Blogger to write a blog "for artists and art lovers" called Making A Mark, wrote "Google's NEW Blogger interface does not work properly!", the introduction to which follows.

The tech people at Google may be regretting the notion of revamping Blogger. Below I'm itemising the problems I've encountered. There may be more!

If you are an ordinary reader please excuse the VITRIOL - which is included in the hope that somebody from Google Blogger might read it!!

Below are two main faults
* poorly managed change process
* very poor communication and very poor design
plus a section why the new interface is dysfunctional - which contains
* 10 points explaining what is wrong with the NEW BLOGGER interface

Way back then, Ms Tyrell said, as Walt did just now, "It's a big mistake to change what works." Whether Google listens to anyone is debatable, but in response to complaints from Ms Tyrell and others (we assume), they did hit the pause button on making the new GUI the default. It became such at the beginning of this month, which is what prompted Walt's piece of the 5th.

In response to that piece, Agent 3 drew our attention to a little notice, printed in "mouse type" (it's so small you have to be a mouse to read it), to the effect that we can still use the legacy GUI... for now.... You have to scroll down to the bottom of the user menu to switch back to the old version, and before they let you do that they ask you to confirm that you are indeed a dinosaur who can't adapt to change.

Walt and I do so confirm, and wonder if Ms Tyrell is doing likewise. To her, and to ourselves, we wish many good lucks!

UPDATE ADDED 17/9/20: You won't be surprised to know that within hours of our posting this, Blogger took away the option of reverting to the legacy interface. Lesson: you can't fight city hall... or Google!

Ed. is baffled by Blogger's new GUI

"Graphic User Interface" -- isn't that what they call the screen on which you compose and edit stuff for the Internet? Blogger, which is part of Google which is part of Alphabet Inc. (or something like that) has rolled out a new GUI, to replace the one that Ed. took three years to master. Ed. is not pleased. 

It seems the new GUI is designed to make it easier for people to use on their smart phones. Ed. doesn't have a smart phone. Neither do I. We use PCs -- very 20th century but we're old dogs and don't learn new tricks easily or happily. 

So until Blogger realizes that their new GUI is kind of like New Coke, and rolls out "Blogger Classic" (no charge for that!), we're suspending publication... this after more than 11 years and over 4000 posts. Thanks and `bye... at least for now... from Walt, Poor Len Canayen [and Ed.! Ed.]

Just in case you can't find Walt any more...

HEADS-UP FROM ED.: Looks like the PC police "Inside Google" have started to keep an eye on WWW. Maybe it had something to do with our "It's cool to be white!" logo? I've taken that down, but if WWW suddenly "goes black" (so to speak) you'll know what happened.

Further reading: "Donald Trump Will Use FCC, FTC to Fight Social Media Censorship", Breitbart News, 9/8/19.

Google's "gorillas"

Journalists say some stories write themselves. This is one.

Last Sunday, Jacky Alciné, who works in the Big Apple as a web developer, tweeted a picture of himself and a friend. The image-recognition feature in Google's Photos app labelled it, errr, "Gorillas".

Oopsie! Google bad! Imagine labelling people with dark skin in that horribly racist way! But see, this is a new app, a new technology, and it's still got some bugs in it. In fact, it's been widely mocked online for many other misidentifications.

The tweet quickly prompted an apology from Google, which released a statement saying the company is "appalled and genuinely sorry" about the label. After attempting to fix the algorithm, they decided to temporarily remove the gorilla label, including the application's ability to search for gorillas.

"There is still clearly a lot of work to do with automatic image labeling," they added, "and we’re looking at how we can prevent these types of mistakes from happening in the future."

Click here to read the full story in the New York Times.

Note from Ed.: Walt is to be commended for his considerable restraint in not testing the app to see if it can recognize a certain Canadian hockey player.

A glimmer of common sense at Google

Ed. here. Earlier this month we were complaining that the powers that be at Google were trying to force those of us still stuck with Blogger's new "improved" user interface to upload our pix to Picasa in order to be able to drop them into our posts. Maybe I'm just technologically inept -- yah, maybe! -- or maybe I just had a brain fart that day, but the "insert image" menu no longer included a way to upload an image from Walt's PC.

Whatever the problem was, it seems to have been fixed, as today we are once again able to upload our own pix directly to Blogger. A good thing too, because one of these days we might get a new pic of the Swazi girls, and we want to be sure all you gentlemen out there can see it.

To what do we owe the restoration of this image insertion capability? Could it be that other bloggers complained to Google? Did they actually pay attention to the feedback which they never acknowledge? If so, dare we hope that we might one day see them revert to the old, unimproved GUI? That would be sooo good.

Meanwhile, whatever happened, Walt and I express our gratitude for small mercies. It's not every day that software engineers exhibit the common sense of making something simpler rather than more complex.

New Blogger interface made even worse!!!

Ed. here with the latest bad news from Google, the evil power behind Blogger.

We have a picture of Alex Bowden, the Aussie with no fear of firecrackers mentioned in today's previous post. Alas, we couldn't upload it from our state-of-the-artless PC. Why? Because the preventers of easy computing at Google, not satisfied with having made the Blogger user interface more prone to freezing and crashing than an Embraer, now want to force users to upload pictures to something called Picasa -- another tentacle of the Google octopus -- in order to be uploadable to our blogs.

Here is the feedback I just sent to the Blogger geeks.

Have you "improved" the interface AGAIN so that it's now impossible to upload pix from my computer? What the hell is wrong with you people?! What good is a blog without pix? And do you really think I'm going to put my stuff on Picasa -- whatever that is? Dream on!

Geeks they may be, but they're honest geeks, up to a point. When you submit feedback, they tell you right upfront that they won't respond to you. Which leaves us wondering what we would have to do to get their attention. Do you suppose going public with this complaint, right here in WWW, would do it? Don't bet. (Lifetime pct .989.)

UPDATE FROM ED., Friday afternoon -- There's always a workaround, isn't there. Noli illegitimi te carborundum!

Walt Whiteman's World year in review

It's the time of year when there's not a lot of news. Nothing happens between Christmas and New Year's. So the media (Phil Space, Prop.) have to fill space [geddit? Ed.] With retrospectives on the year that was. WWW is better than the lamestream media, but not that much better. So, over to Ed. for a look back at developments in Walt Whiteman's World.

Thanks, Walt. Here's a quick summary of your blog's readership for 2012. Let me throw some numbers at you. 35%. 55%. 80%. That's right! 80%!! Daily readership of WWW did not increase by 80%!! But it did increase.

Most popular post, again this year: "Where next? Swaziland next?" Can't figure out why people in places like Russia, Turkey and India keep hitting this. I also wonder why no-one ever comments. Perhaps typing with one hand is too difficult.

The video sequel, "Swazi girls doing the reed dance -- VIDEO!", has just now started getting a lot of hits. As nearly as I can see, no-one from Swaziland has ever looked at either of these posts.

New record for most hits in one day: "Learn this new Christmas song...and pass it along!",  which rode the crest of the wave of backlash against politically correct "Happy Holidays". Bookmark it for next year.

Most popular foreign language post: "Charles DeGaulle warns about Muslim immigration". As we ran the text of le Général's prescient prediction in French, we didn't think many people would read it, mais nous avons tort.

Related post that's being circulated in the USA, Canada and not-so-Great Britain: "How can we be silent in the face of Islamization of our country?"
Surprise of the year: the continuing popularity of "Death by cactus: a prickly situation", posted on 26 June. I figured this would be a one-day story, maybe a week at best, but it has been one of the top three most-viewed items for the last six months, sometimes beating even the Swazi girls. Why do people read this? Or are they just looking at the picture of the saguaro cactus?

Where you are: Walt has regular readers all over North America, Europe (including Russia), and parts of Asia (including Russia). South America and Africa, not so much. Top ten countries (as of today) are: USA, Russia, Turkey, Canada, India, UK, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, France, Australia.

How you look at us: The big three browers are the ones you'd expect, but the order of finish tells a story: Chrome (31%); Firefox (30%); Internet Explorer (25%). And Safari is now in fourth spot, Opera in fifth.

Your operating systems are: Windows (far and away the leader -- 78%), Linux (See? It still exists! -- 11%), with Macintosh, Android, iPad and iPhone not even at the three-quarter pole. Big question for the future: Will the advent of Windows 8 make any difference? Walt's prediction: No, because no-one's going to buy it if they don't have to. Lifetime pct .987.

Worst new technological development: Google's new and useless user interface for Blogger. Another proof of the old adage: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I keep thinking about changing platforms to WordPress but am just too lazy.

Coming soon, maybe even tomorrow: Walt's predictions for 2013.

Where's Walt? Lost in the "new and improved" Blogger

This blog is (or was) created using Blogger, part of the octopus that is Google. A few months ago, Google launched a "new and improved" version of Blogger. Ed. tried it and pronounced it dreadful -- slow and buggy. But it was optional, so we just reverted to v 1.0. Two days ago all that changed.

The kind folks at Google, never shrinking from fixing what ain't broke, switched all the Blogspot blogs to the new version. The option of reverting to v 1.0 was taken off the list of tools. The new version sucks, and neither Ed. nor I has the patience to deal with it. Accuse us of being old-fashioned luddites if you like, but we don't like dealing with freezes and crashes which shut down not just this website but everything else we're doing on the Internet.

We have sent feedback to Google, but they are honest enough to tell us that they won't respond. Their feedback feature is like the little buttons you push to get the "walk" light at an intersection -- just there for show, so you should feel that something is happening when it's not.

If there are any bloggers out there who have found a workaround to get back to the original version of Blogger, please let us know. Otherwise, we may be forced to move to WordPress. While we figure it out, please excuse our absence.

Comments from readers are welcome too.