I could not send a message to Fox News about their FoxNews.com website. Their online contact form did not work. I could not find another way to contact them online. My message?
"The Foxnews.com website is failing to update its news. Some of the stories in some of the categories, like Digital Originals, are 27 days old! If you are going to offer a news category please update it daily, if not hourly."
Some of their website news category offerings are so out of date, news-wise, the Fox News website almost worthless.
Jan 2025
Due to way too many ads I am giving up using TV and radio media. I cannot stand the 25% of ads during prime time TV and sit with the remote control in my hand, switching channels immediately to try to avoid all the annoying ads. The problem is that ALL the network and cable channels have too many ads. I am left with watching Netflix, which, though it costs extra money, thankfully does not have ads, yet. Too many stupid, uninteresting shows, too many foreign non-U.S. TV shows and movies, yes, but no ads.
As for radio shows and news radio the engagement with the audience is short and they too often interrupt the show or newscast to break for ads. So often that I am giving up that media too.
I will get my news online, where I can usually dodge the ads.
Posted on Microsoft Community
Andrew the Author
Created and posted on December 16, 2024
Why request blocked???
Once again, as a paying
Microsoft 365 home user, when trying to contact Microsoft support via their
main website, using Chrome, I enter the correct log in info and, viola, what do
I get?
The request is blocked.
20241216T153554Z-1868988d889486wlhC1LAXqx2n000000093g000000000qyz
What the
heck is going on with Microsoft? NO tech support? No phone support? No Chat
support? THIS IS 100% UNACCEPTABLE!
When Trump becomes President in 2025 he should have dominant/monopoly Microsoft (and ALL monopolistic entities) that
ignore paying consumers punished. Yes, punished. A billion dollar fine by the
FTC would do nicely as a starting point. A billion dollars fine a day would
really get their attention.
2 years ago
On a Sunday morning before noon I tuned in to the TV show, "Zombie Flipping", on the A&E network channel on cable. It's an interesting show where a group of flippers buy horrible houses (they call them zombies) and renovate and flip them. I tuned in about halfway through the episode and first had to sit through a bunch of tv commercials. I noticed. I said to myself, "Wow, there's a LOT of tv ads. It's very intrusive and annoying". I vowed to find out how many ads viewers had to suffer through the next time the show took a break to run commercials. Soon the show stopped and the ads started. On my fingers I counted the tv ads.
THERE WERE 12 F-ING TV ADS IN A ROW!
Seriously? 12 tv ads in a row? More than 15 minutes in an hour? 25 f-ing percent of a TV show is ads? And the networks expect viewers to put up with that? And the dumbass TV execs don't know why TV viewership has declined so much in the past decade(s)?
I let the tv play in the background while I wrote this rant. There were lots of ads. Too many ads. I am now considering no longer watching TV at all, due to too many ads. Or, in the case of streaming and TV networks, lousy or old shows. If only Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu, et al, had more new g-o-o-d TV shows instead of hundreds/thousands of ancient shows/movies I've seen or new crappy shows I have no interest in seeing. Seriously.
Update:
2 years later. The news channels are also unwatchable due to the number of ads. In 15 minutes per hour there could be 30-50 ads, many of them repetitive and of NO interest to me. I am using the internet news sites more and more to keep up with the news. At least there I can scroll past all the ads and don't have to sit through the ads and hear them, or change the channel, only to find the same annoying issue on ALL the other tv news channels.
Too may ads, and lousy shows, have now ruined the TV viewing experience. Not to mention that, today, most TV shows are stupid and unwatchable (with a few exceptions) and only have 10 episodes per season, as opposed to the 20 episodes in the good old days, and a lot fewer ads.
CBS and “60 Minutes” suck!
November 2024 - CBS has extended the left-wing lousy “60 Minutes” tv show by 30 minutes, some episodes now airing from 7PM-8:30 PM on Sunday. This interferes with the Prime-Time schedule and throws the viewers off for the popular shows that follow: Tracker and The Equalizer. Now, we viewers have to wait another half-hour for Tracker and The Equalizer and are stuck afterwards, at 10:30PM, with nothing to watch anywhere.
Hey, CBS, return “60 Minutes” to 60 minutes or, better yet, cancel it.
(photo of Kamala, unable to copy and paste)
Kamala, 59, Drives Probably the Most
Expensive Car In the world
This USA
News Update story was featured on Newsmax.com. I saw it there on Sunday,
November 17, 2024, at approximately 1:15 AM. I clicked on the headline and
carefully scrolled through the entire article. Kamala was not listed or
mentioned anywhere. The headline is misleading. False reporting.
I will no longer use Foxnews.com as a primary online news source. Why? They now censor reader comments on their news stories. They did that to me twice in less than 2 weeks. They did not give me an EXACT reason why they refused to publish both comments. Here is my latest censored comment, November 21, 2024, on a news story about Matt Gaetz withdrawing as Trump's pick for Attorney General in 2025:
"It’s understandable that Matt Gaetz withdraw as Trump’s AG pick. Here’s a novel concept. What if Trump (and Elon Musk) pick artificial intelligence (AI) as Attorney General? WOW! What a concept! That would instantly leapfrog the concept of government forward by 50 years! Yes, the AI AG would have to be overseen/monitored by a small proper committee."
Now, what is wrong with that comment? Is it disinformation or misinformation? Is it insurrection? Does it defame anybody or promote violence? No. It is a novel idea, a brilliant futuristic idea...that may eventually actually come to pass in the future world. So, why did Fox News refuse to publish my comment? I don't know. Are they using imperfect AI and censuring appropriate subscriber/reader comments?
I have been the victim of online censorship before. In 2021, I was cancelled by Facebook for posting my comment about how Global Climate Change has been happening for billions of years, i.e. the Ice Age. BOOM. My Facebook account was permanently cancelled, with no exact reason or explanation and no requested review.
BOYCOTT FOXNEWS.COM
THEY CENSOR YOU!
I got an email from my apartment management in L.A. about how we must recycle some things.
Pet waste and diapers are OK to throw out in the trash. But we have to recycle "paper"? Like our junk mail??? And cartons? Like the small shipping cartons we get for every little thing we buy online? Are you f-ing kidding me? And I probably will have to drive to the recycling "Blue bins" that are somewhere on the property to recycle that stuff.
On Microsoft Start, a Microsoft news site, I made a comment on an article about technology using passkeys instead of passwords. My comment was, "As in classic science fiction will we humans end up having a chip inserted into our brains at birth and be monitored/controlled 24/7 throughout our life by government?" The comment was not allowed. It said it did not meet Community Standards. I sent feedback to Microsoft. "Does not meet your community standards? Have you read "1984" by George Orwell?"
September 13, 2024 1:43 AM Los Angeles, California
All the cell phones in my house suddenly blasted an emergency alert signal. OMG, is there an earthquake? An explosion? A terrorist attack? A wildfire bearing down on us? I raced to the nearest cell phone (no, I don't sleep with my cell phone), my heart beating rapidly and my fear response at full throttle. It must be something critical as a government issued Emergency Alert in the middle of the night, waking millions of people in the area, had to be something dire and dangerous.
It was an Amber Alert. A child abduction alert. A 3-month old child was reportedly abducted, somewhere in L.A. County (which is very large at 400 square miles). A child was abducted? In the middle of the night? Possibly by a relative. Nowhere near where I live.
The Amber Alert was quickly canceled and disappeared from the phones. No reason for the cancellation was given. Was it a false alarm? Was the the child found? The possible abductor captured? We have no idea.
A bigger questions is WHY were millions of people awakened by a loud "phone siren", an Emergency Alert, or in this case an Amber Alert, in the dead of night, for something that had ABSOLUTELY NO POTENTIALLY NEGATIVE EFFECT ON THEIR LIVES???
The government waking millions of people up suddenly, in the middle of the night? With a NON-life threatening phone siren, a NON-Emergency Alert, a loud cell phone alert to those receiving it, that does not effect THEIR lives? In the middle of the night? Could that be dangerous? Could that be especially dangerous to older people, and people with existing heart conditions?
I looked up Government Alerts in Google. Apparently, government alerts, including Amber Alerts and Public Safety Alerts are set to "on" by default on smartphones. Yes, it appears that you can opt out of receiving Amber Alerts on your smartphone. I didn't know that. And tonight it's too late as I am now wide awake from this Amber Alert.
And, an hour later, as my heart rate and fear response has hopefully returned to "normal", at 3 AM, I still cannot go back to sleep.
Go to hell, Gov Gavin Nuisance. Your/our California state lottery just pissed off and screwed players by dramatically lowering the maximum amount we can win on some $5 scratch-off tickets, from $555,555 to a measly $77,777. THAT'S A REDUCTION OF 87%.
previous ticket
For the first time I decided to buy a $30 California lottery scratcher ticket. I stood at the lottery machine and looked at all the $30 scratchers. I decided on one called, "Royal Riches", which offered a win up to $10 million.
Yes, winning $10 million would do nicely. I bought the ticket. I turned the ticket over and was OUTRAGED! The ticket clearly stated "Winners of the top prize have the option of receiving an annuity paying $400,000 a year for 25 years, or a lump sum cash payout of $5.8 million". Wait a minute, that's not a true $10 million payout! With inflation, a $400,000 annual payout for 25 years might be worth about $6 million. Or less. And an immediate cash payout of less than $6 million is certainly not a $10 million payout. WTF???
I spent $30 on the assumption of a possible $10 million win. Or, if I did not win big I hoped to at least break even. $30 is a lot of money for 1 lottery scratcher ticket. It's the most expensive one the California Lottery offers. And they only want to pay the $10 million winner over 25 years of inflation, or pay out a lump sum of 58%? WTF! I was outraged. And felt like I was being screwed.
I will NEVER buy another $30 California Lottery scratcher again! Never. Unless, of course I win the top price (I will take the $5.8 million cash) and then I will play it again, every f-ing week.
UPDATE:
The next day I scratched it off. A $30 California Lottery scratcher. It said on the ticket that there were 39 chances to win. Did I win? Did I win $10 million? $1 million dollars? A thousand dollars? A hundred dollars? Did I at least break even and win $30? No. I won NOTHING. Zero. Nada.
"You don't have permission to access "http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/28808/microsoft-store-contact-support?" on this server.
Reference #18.8af7d517.1719578331.1c75acd9
https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.8af7d517.1719578331.1c75acd9"
I am signed in. I need tech support and there is no way to contact Microsoft online Chat? WTF? I PAY Microsoft every year for Microsoft 365!
July 12, 2024
2 weeks later, my HP printer is not printing the full page. It's out of warranty so free HP support is not available. I went to contact Microsoft to see if it was a Windows problem and maybe they could fix it. I went to the Microsoft.com website, logged in and clicked the Support link. This is what came up, using both Chrome and Edge browsers:
You don't have permission to access "http://support.microsoft.com/contactus" on this server.
Reference #18.92f7d517.1720817518.db19a643
https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.92f7d517.1720817518.db19a64
WTF? The same Access Denied message I was insulted with more than 2 weeks ago? I don't have access? AGAIN? This access denial is a known ongoing intermittent issue and MICROSOFT DOESN'T THINK IT'S IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO F-ING FIX IT?
Oh, and you can't call Microsoft tech support anymore. When you call the phone number listed in Google search for Microsoft tech support the f-ing bot that answers directs you to the Microsoft website and then hangs up on you
F U MICROSOFT
Here is a personal update, a rant about Microsoft and the technology sector.
My post on Microsoft Community:
Why is support not available? December 3, 2024
It is 3:50 AM on Tuesday, December 3,
2024. Apparently, there is no Microsoft support available. Not even by Chat. I
enter all the requested info correctly and it just says "support is not
available". Or, worse: "The request is blocked.
20241203T114858Z-16d98b95757fj6vvhC1LAXbafg00000001mg0000000013sd"
WHY? As a paying Microsoft
user I need tech support...NOW!
from a volunteer support for Microsoft
Replied on December 3, 2024
This has been explained
many times here, but I realize that it's a widespread issue, so I'll explain
again.
There are more than 1.5 billion users of Windows all over the world. If, on any
given day, 1/100th of 1% of them want to ask Microsoft a question, that's
150,000 phone calls every day. For Windows alone. And Windows is only one of
Microsoft's many products.
Unfortunately, Microsoft
is not able to hire enough people to handle that volume of requests, which is
why Microsoft employees do not provide customer support to individuals. They do
hire third-party contractors to handle calls, but there are only a limited
number of them, for the same reason.
On the other hand, there
are many thousands of ways to get help with Windows, including here in
Microsoft Community. In fact, you'll almost always get better support outside
Microsoft, since third parties have more time and resources than Microsoft can
offer. This is particularly advantageous to users, since many ask the same
question, as here, or need to have someone provide detailed instruction on how
to use some aspect of their computers.
My reply:
Microsoft pretty much has a monopoly on device operating systems (70%). That
being the case, if Microsoft cannot/will not make a product that works
properly, and cannot/will not properly support its products then it should
lower its annual subscription prices. As for bots and help articles and
communities, that ain't the same as individualized company tech support. Perhaps the new
Trump Administration will look into this, as it investigates the technology
industry.
All my denture adhesives are clogged! I use Poligrip powder and Poligrip cream.
WHY do my denture adhesives get clogged? Both of them. Powder and cream. Made by Polident. Do all the denture adhesives do this? Each bottle or tube costs like $6-$7. I don't want to buy them all to find out.
Hey, Polident, FIX THIS ISSUE!
Years ago I moved to Los Angeles from New York, for the weather. L.A. was warm. Low humidity. Little/No rain. No winter ice or snow or cold. And 330 sunny days a year. It was wonderful. Was. Lately, we have been getting lots of rain from Winter to Spring. And, for Southern California, it's been "cold" during Winter and Spring, like 50-60 degrees, not 75-80 degrees. And this year, 2022-2023 we got a LOT of cloudy days. In fact, we now call the month of May, "May Gray". Followed by "June Gloom".
Instead of 330 sunny days a year these days we'll be lucky to get 230 sunny days a year. Yes, I feel the difference. A nice sunny day makes me feel good, motivates me to be outside and stimulates my health and my mind. A lot of cool, cloudy or rainy days makes me depressed, makes me want to stay home and in bed. Yes, it makes me act like a 6-year-old.
In fact, it's now nearly June, barely 60 degrees at noon, and when I go outside I still wear a winter jacket!
Is this new lousy weather pattern Global Climate Change, applying itself to local Los Angeles weather? Apparently. Is it man-made L.A. Global Climate Change, caused by capitalism, gas-powered cars, gas ovens, air conditioning, and white males?
Apparently, Medicare does not cover the cost of hearing aids. Or hearing exams. Or fittings.
Why doesn't regular Medicare cover this? Aren't our ears important fundamental organs, part of our physical body?
Not to mention our teeth. You know, the body parts we need to eat, and chew, FOOD. Medicare doesn't cover dental work either.
According to Fox News the FBI is monitoring certain lingo used on the internet. The FBI list has terms associated with "Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism". The exposed document includes a commonly used word. The word is "based".
"Based" is defined by the FBI as a word used to "refer to someone who has been converted to racist ideology, or as a way of indicating ideological agreement."
Huh? Based? The word "based" is an FBI indicator of racist ideology? WTF? On my author blog, which I have had for many many years, I state that I am the author of 20 nonfiction books and am based in Los Angeles. "Based", like home base, like where you live - the normal word that's been used for hundreds of years to denote a person's current/permanent location and has NOTHING to do with racism.
Am I on an FBI list? As a racist? Am I being monitored online by the FBI? Watched?
As for being racist, 40% of my closest neighbors are black and I don't care, they are good people and I like them all. And, as an old white guy I had a wonderful black girlfriend 50 years ago, before many people today were even born.
This Woke sh*t has got to stop! Hey, Elon Musk, please invent a time machine, I wanna go back to the 1970s/80s when America was sane. And fun.
I love love love my Lenovo laptop!
No, I am not getting paid by Lenovo or affiliated with them.
I have owned my Lenovo pc laptop for a couple of years now and am still very pleased with it. It works great, starts up quickly and yes, it has a lit keyboard for middle of the night computing. This 13.3 inch laptop is a good size for everything I do on it, it's very well made, thin, not too heavy but substantial, very portable if need be and the keyboard is very good. The screen is bright and clear. And it has plenty of storage. Among other things, I am storing 20 books I wrote, and over 1,800 fine art photographs I took and edited, and still have plenty of storage left. And this laptop fits my desk area nicely.
So far, based on this laptop I am a 100% loyal Lenovo customer. Thank you, Lenovo, for making an excellent laptop. Yes, when it's time I will be replacing my current laptop with another Lenovo.
It is a genuine pleasure to have a product I use daily that is not junk, that works like it should, and is reasonable priced. More and more, the things I buy these days that are actually good quality, at a good price, are a rarity, an exception to the poor-quality "new economy".
I am a strong believer in giving credit where credit is due. Especially in this day and age of lousy products and services, and often non-human, customer service. I would've sent this glowing testimonial to Lenovo but on their website I could not find how to contact them for that. Hence this post here on my blog.
Update/rant
February 2023. As my beloved laptop was getting old I bought a new Lenovo 13.3 inch laptop. As a replacement. BEFORE my beloved old one stopped working. And it was on sale for President's Day! Once I started setting it up I realized that the all-important keyboard backlighting was not automatic. It's default was the off position. It would turn off and the keyboard would go dark after like 15 seconds of idleness. It had to be activated EVERY time you wanted to use the keyboard again. What? I do a lot of creative stuff, in the middle of the night, in the dark. I write books, blogs and do lots of photo editing, in the dark of night. In a dimly lit room. I NEED a backlit keyboard that lights up and stays lit permanently.
I spoke to Lenovo and they told me they designed the new laptops with this new default backlit keyboard - to save the battery. I never use my laptop on battery power, it is always plugged in. I do not need to save the battery! And they told me that there is no option for permanently turning on the backlit keyboard. I'm on my computer 9-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, doing stuff. In a darkened room. And it is a annoying pain in the ass to have to turn on the keyboard backlight 200 times a day.
Sad, upset and disgusted I returned the new laptop for a full refund. I cannot use this Lenovo and apparently all the smaller Lenovo laptops work this way.
So, no more Lenovo. The love affair is over. Because they got design-stupid and environmental overcontrolling - without first checking with PAYING F-ING USERS.
Welcome to the New Economy. Where nothing works properly. And, if something does work well, and is of good quality, it's rare.
p.s. I bought an HP 14-inch laptop. With permanent keyboard backlighting. It was on sale. It's not as nice as my old Lenovo laptop but it works, so far.
UPDATE:
May 2024. Guess what? It seems that HP has now disallowed the permanent keyboard backlighting. Now, my keyboard goes dark after like 10 seconds if I don't use it. As I do my work in a darkened room where someone is either watching TV or sleeping I can't see a f-ing thing on my laptop without first hitting a key.
Today, a Sunday morning, as usual I checked my email. And found 62 spams. 62 spam emails? 62 unsolicited unwanted emails? As usual I did not open any of them and deleted them en masse. Two hours later I got another 76 spams in my email box.
The next day, a Monday, so far in my email spam folder I have 101 spams. So far. It's only 3:30 PM.
And, on St Patrick's Day, 2023, I got 100 spams - in an hour! That's a 24-hr average of over 2,000 f-ing spams!
This annoying super spamming has been going on for at a long time. I am getting like 100-200 email spams a day. Every day. Despite any/all laws, rules, regulations et al email spam is alive and thriving.
What's the solution? Here's an idea
The US federal government should designate email spam as a Terrorist Attack upon American citizens. Punishable by the Death Penalty.
And that could also apply to spam phone calls.
Stop the spam. With the Spam Death Penalty. A good idea. A damn good idea.
And, anybody found guilty of spamming could be executed, live, on TV, as a pay-per-view event. A TV Special. Even after the Spam Law Death Penalty is passed there should be enough stupid spammers to make it a weekly show. The show could maybe 1-2 hours long, culminating in the live execution. It could be a terrific highly rated, high-revenue generating Saturday night TV show, in prime time, especially since there is never anything good to watch on TV during prime time on Saturday night.
Making it visually appealing for ratings sake the official US government execution could be by hanging. Or firing squad. Or maybe by guillotine. Let the convicted spammer decide how they will be executed.
As for spammers operating overseas the US could nicely demand the country turn the spammers over to us, or threaten to withhold foreign aid to that country.
Stop The Spam!
Yes, this is dark humor. Seriously dark humor. Humor/not humor.
P.S. My stupid, poorly run, outdated free aol email does not allow users to block span by "word(s)". My free aol email only allows blocking by specific email address - and spam senders use numerous different addresses, so blocking each specific email address is not feasible. Blocking spam by "word(s)" would be very helpful. I get multiple annoying spam emails that use certain words, words I am never interested in, words that would never make me open the span email, words that I would like to block permanently. Words like McAfee. And penis.
Why don't I use another email provider? I have been using aol email for over 25 years and don't want to dump it, as I have been using the same AOL email address, putting it out in the world, so people or organizations can contact me for legit reasons. AOL is now owned by Apollo Global Management, a large investment company who also obviously doesn't give a shit about us AOL free email users.
FIX THIS! The government or at least the tech industry needs to do something and stop the spam. NOW.
