The Land of Ozz

Are our fellow bloggers taking up some of the Main Stream Media’s habits of reporting only the juiciest information even when it might be far from the truth? I took a little closer look at the JunkYardBlog story on Google’s censoring of the Google.cn web search engine. While the JunkYadBlog did a great job of showing how images.google.cn is filtered, they did not bother to tell what the main Google.cn search engine returns when plugging in things like the word “Christian”. It seems that the main Google.cn search engine actually returns more hits than the US version of Google when searching on the word Christian. Why make such a big deal over the images site and skip the fact that the main search engine seems to not reflect such an anti-Christian sentiment?

I got 251 Million hits on Google.cn when searching for Christian

I got 201 Million hits on Google.com when searching for Christian

Why not report this? Is this a case of a blog gone MSM? Why not share these facts Mr. Preston?

I also wondered what would happen if you took some of the terms that are likely being censored and translated them to Chinese and then run the search again on Google.cn. I did come up with very different results. I got less than 64 million results when I searched for “Jesus” on Google.com. You can click on the images below to see the actual current search engine results.

I then searched for “Jesus” in English on Google.cn. I got just over 93 million results.

Then I translated “Jesus” into Chinese using the Google Language Translate page. Next I searched Google.cn for the translated version of Jesus. I got 1.7 million results.

This example of the differences in the Chinese version of the Google Search engine and the regular Google.com site does not confirm censorship at all. I am really surprised that Michele Malkin didn’t catch this, but rather played right along by stating, “Searching for Christ in China - Google won’t be of much help”.

Here is another one reported on the JunkYardBlog that only mentioned the images.goolge.cn results.

JunkYardBlog reported:

On a clean search, Google-China turned up 10 hits on an image search for jesus christ. Just like that, no quotes. By comparison, the US version of Google image search turns up 168,000 hits on the same exact search terms. 168,000 versus 10. And this is just an image search.

Why didn’t the JunkYardBlog go ahead and report on a search using the main search engines of Google.cn verses Google.com for the term “Jesus Christ”? Because it would not have been as sensational of a story, that’s why. Here is how it would have read if they had included the main search engines of Google instead of only using the images search. On a clean search, Google-China turned up 32 million hits on a search for Jesus Christ. Just like that, no quotes. By comparison, the US version of Google search turns up 29.6 million hits on the same exact search terms. 32 million versus 29.6 million.

The JunkYardBlog says:

This is a very serious issue. Google has put its financial bottom line over basic human rights. An American company is assisting the Chinese government in a Stalinistic airbrushing of faith from the internet. That Google is helping Beijing wipe Jesus Christ off the web…

I say this is a very serious issue too. Is this a case of a blog trying to draw in readers using a partial truths? Is this the whole truth or only enough of the truth that will capture the attention of the likes of Michelle Malkin to get a little link love?

Update: Google China Censorship and Google Business Decision

Grill’n Time is alive on WordPress 2.0. I did a manual cut over from Blogger due to continued unresolved technical difficulties trying to post from Blogger via FTP to Grill’n Time and other blogs by TheOzz. Keep your eye on Grill’n Time for my childhood recipe concoction called Turd Candy. I am searching for a new less offensive name for this concoction. Your help would be greatly appreciated. The post should be up on Grill’n Time within a couple of days.

More details on the Blogger problem that I continue to see:

001 java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out/2005_12_01_wordpress.php

The best answer so far to this problem is to get off of Blogger.

This is the official OTA post for Monday 1/23/06.

Here is the URL for this post:
http://www.hoei.com/blog/archive/2006/01/23/194/

Here is the trackback URL to ping for this post:
http://www.hoei.com/blog/archive/2006/01/23/194/trackback/

Linked to: Bloggin’ Outloud, Freedom Folks, The Uncooperative Blogger.

BellSouth has been experiencing network problems for well over 24 hours now. An online chat session last night answered my questions pretty quickly, but did not get anything fixed. I speculate that BellSouth might have some IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) management problems from the information I have gathered. I do not have the specific text from the chat session last night, but I can say that they (BellSouth Support) quickly acknowledged that my problems with sending email over my BellSouth FastAccess DSL connection was caused by their network problems. The specific problem that I was having was that I could not send email using SMTP from an email client like Microsoft Outlook or Opera Mail. I knew the problem was with my DSL provider because I was not able to send email using five different domains (4 different .coms and 1 .mil) and I tried sending from two different PCs running different operating systems. The canned explanation of the problem during the caht session was that something was blocking SMTP ports on their network due to an excess of spam.

Today the BellSouth Network Status page says, “There are no General System Alerts at this time.” If you select a state and city you get the response shown in the photograph. BellSouth did say during the online chat session that their WebMail client was working fine and available for use. It’s that great! My contacts, groups, and emails that I need to respond to are on my computer. Not to mention the even bigger problem was that the emails I really needed to respond to last night were not received on a BellSouth.net account in the first place.

I was one fo the first five DSL customers int he Charleston, SC area many years ago. That was according to the technician who said there were only two installers at that time even trained to complete the installation. I was his second install and he said the other technician had done three installs already. For the most part, BellSouth has been great as a DSL provider. They have gone through their share of growing pains with the DSL thing, but they have come out smelling like a rose for the most part, until this week.

Yahoo! News covered a story about Search Engines Going Far Beyond Maps today. The whole Internet mapping thing is interesting to me. My history has allowed me to see detailed images taken from satellites before most people could even conceive that it was possible.

I find it a little bit funny when I read statements like this one. “I think there are going to be privacy issues, no doubt about it — somebody’s going to feel uncomfortable with it,” said Charlene Li of Forrester Research. Yes, I am sure that there will be plenty of folks screaming because big bother and the rest of the planet will be able to see what really goes on back there on the South 40 of the ranch. What is funny is that big brother has had the technology for a long time and no one even know realized it.

The truth is that most of the publicly available data is not of much use for doing anything other than what the article talks about like . I am just pleased to see that the data is not real time and does not show the degree of detail that a terrorist might be able to use. Most of the potential terrorist hot spots that I came up with off of the top of my head had very little or no graphics available in any degree of detail. This was talked about in the article, but it is much easier understood if I show you.

This first picture is a look at my house using Google Maps.

Now here is a look at the same location (My house) using Google Earth.

How current is the database of pictures on Google Earth? The following picture is of the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, SC. The new bridge is represented int he picture as the two pylons in the water just below the tow old bridges. The new bridge actually opened for public use in July 2005. The demolition of the old bridges has been underway for quite a while now so the bridges shown in the picture below are not even in use any more.

Today we feature a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill. The Washington Post released a story about how a Windows Wireless Flaw a Danger to Laptops. I have a news flash for you WaPo. This is a functionality of hard wired Windows based laptops and computers anywhere. Yes, you can gain access in more unsuspecting places like on airplanes via wireless, but this is not a new idea. The types of additional tools required to hack a laptop via a wireless connection as described in this article can also be used to hack a hard wired computer over a dial-up, cable modem, LAN, or DSL. Simply having an IP address on the same IP segment does not constitute hacking a computer as this article suggests. The meat of the story was skipped to satisfy the fear of the general population. In order to gain access to the target Windows computer remotely you must also gain user rights on that computer which requires using software that is not included on Windows computers. Computers plugged in via a standard network cable to a hotel, office, or home network are susceptible to the same kinds of attacks if they are not taking measures to “try” to stop hackers.

This news story is not really that big of a story after all. The most interesting portion of the article found below was where they are talking about hacking a laptop while on a plane over international waters.

Loveless said he believes that since the attacks were mostly carried while the plane was over international waters that U.S. law enforcement might have a hard time making the case that he was violating any laws. The real answer to that very interesting question, he said, would probably not be evident until someone gets sued in court for it.

Law enforcement authorities don’t seem to have a problem prosecuting a person for other offences over international waters. What makes computer crime over international waters any different than computer crimes committed on the ground?

The bottom line is that your data is only safe when it is on a computer that is turned off, unplugged from power and network, locked in a safe, and guarded by the US Marines.

I have contacted Technorati and TTLB (The Truth Laid Bear) about irregularities in my statistics. I am wondering if anyone else has seen the same problems.

The problem with my Technorati account is that my “X links from X sites” has not changed in over a month for The Land of Ozz. The numbers do seem to be changing slightly for Caden’s Page. The Land of Ozz gets updated way more often than Caden’s Page. The Land of Ozz also has seen a fairly significant increase in traffic over the past two months. This new traffic has also come via some new links form some pretty heavy hitter bloggers at times. I can remember one in particular where the Instapundit linked me and it never showed up in Technorati or TTLB. The link is still there on the archive page for the week of 11/13/2005. Other larger sites ahve linked me more than one time, but I only see one link represented on the TTLB.

In the TTLB ecosystem I have never been able to get my “Top Posts” to display. I have also tried to change my URL on my account by following their instructions, but I have not seen the changes reflected after more than a month.

I have put in trouble tickets with both web sites, but I have never heard anything from either of them outside of an automated response to my ticket submission.

I just realized that my OzzPoll is not visible from pages displaying individual postings. Please proceed to HERE and take the OzzPoll if it is not already visible in your side bar. I need to work on getting this particular poll plug-in to display in line with WordPress or find another plug in. In the meantime I would be grateful for any suggestions on poll plug-ins for WP. My answer to this week’s OzzPoll will come later this week.

Mister Snitch! - A great blog that I just discovered today through my OTA participation. It is worth a visit. This is one good example that trackback/link exchanges can generate more than just a bunch of useless links between wannabe bloggers. This guy is much more established than me, but he is no where near the Jesus freak that I tend to be on my blog so I think I have a more uphill battle and building faithful readers.

Also providing quality linkage today are Freedom Folks, Don Surber, Committees of Correspondence, Imagine Kitty.

I normally would not link to Those Bastards just because the name of the blog rubs me the wrong way, but today I am linking. The King Bastard offered response to some interesting things New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin recently said. I found an article talking about New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and his belief that the hurricanes might be God’s anger towards America. Check out the story at News Talk 810 WGY.

A passenger blogs about his experiences as a passenger on Alaska Airlines flight 536. This is the Alaska Airlines flight that did an emergency landing last week after depressurizing at 30 thousand feet. He has been bombarded with comments on his story. The most interesting comments are showing Alaska Airlines IP addresses as the Internet location of the visitors. You can read more about this part of the story here.

Other interesting facts are that this passenger/blogger is a general aviation pilot and used his Treo 650 to take pictures during the emergency.

The new Treo 700w has been released by Palm and Verizon Wireless. A story by PC Magazine has some pretty good coverage on the subject even though there is a difference between what the article states and what Verizon’s site shows for basic specifications. The big improvements that the Treo 700w is reported to deliver over the Treo 650 are the ability to use the phone to connect your laptop to the Internet using the EV-DO technology, the improved camera resolution, and the ability to access wi-fi (802.11b) networks using an expansion card in the SD slot. The wi-fi SD card is available on the Palm web site for $99. The Treo 700w is also reported to run Microsoft® Windows Mobile 5.0. I will hold my praises on that change until I can get my hands on one of these puppies.

Update: It looks like La Shawn Barber has been waiting on the Treo 700w after being a dedicated Treo 600 user for over a year. I look forward to hearing what she has to say about the new Treo 700.