Category: Tech

Goody For Google

If you look up my name on Bing or DuckDuckGo, this site appears at the top of the list. But Google is where search matters, and as I explained, Prattling Before the Pratfall was dead to it. Which was funny, because Google had first indexed the site a long time ago.

As best as I can determine, the problem was caused when Bluehost migrated my site to not only another server, but overlaid it onto another domain. This triggered Google to think there was a security risk, due to a redirection, and the lockout didn’t clear up after the site was restored to its rightful domain. Anyway, after cleaning up some DNS cnames the domain is once again being indexed by Google, and so far I’m up to page 4.

 

Buzz Off!

Turn volume down before playing. Unpleasant test tone.

This is the text I posted on YouTube to accompany the video:

Audiorpheus (https://www.youtube.com/c/Audiorpheus…) posted a lot of interesting and fun videos related to affordable record playing. He used the Hi-Fi News Test LP to perform some tracking tests, with the Nagaoka MP-110 coming out on top.

For this short video I used my copy of the Hi-Fi News test disc to compare a Grado Green cartridge with an Audio-Technica AT92E. I bought the Grado for $100 a couple of years ago, and the Audio-Technica was purchased new in 2013 for only $20 (the price was increased later to $30). The cartridges are mounted and aligned in identical head shells, and installed on a vintage Pioneer PL-112D turntable.

The Grado Green buzzes just as badly as the Grado Black did for Audiorpheus. The AT92E, however, performs just as well on the difficult inner-groove tracking test as the Nagaoka did for Audiorpheus.

The replacement for the AT92E is the AT85EP, for $40. If the AT85EP performs as well as the older model, it’s today’s #1 tracking bargain, costing a fraction the price of a Nagaoka MP-110.

I Broke Google!

Or rather, Google thinks the site is broken. A workaround, if not a fix, for the problem with Google refusing to index this site seemed to have finally taken hold. Everything looked okay on the Google Search Console, and all I had to do was wait a few days for Google to crawl through everything.

But the blog’s technical problems must be too serious even for Google. The process of crawling through everything seems to have busted the search console. It thinks at some level the site can’t be found.

Update: Now it’s working again. I checked the Google Search Console this morning and the error was still there. When I checked an hour later it was working. All I did in between was have a muffin and instant coffee, but I guess that must have fixed it! 😉

Redirected into Oblivion

I have to recreate this post, because the site was restored back to the point immediately before the entry.

The past two hours have been spent on the phone with Bluehost, trying to figure out why Google refuses to index this site. Google says it’s due to a redirection.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and the scrappy newcomer DuckDuckGo, are both indexing and searching the site without a problem, but apparently Google has a requirement that isn’t being met. Which means Google is saying, “you are dead to me.”

With any luck Neal (or Neil), at Bluehost has done something that might help. For now I’m just happy to be working again.

P.S. Another problem that I hope won’t return. “Forbidden — You don’t have permission to access this resource.Server unable to read htaccess file, denying access to be safe. Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.”

In Defense of Audio

Something from today’s Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/18/bidens-bogus-claim-that-afghanistans-military-was-larger-than-nato-allies/

“Roughly 40% of the total [300,000 security forces] consisted of Afghan National Police (ANP) whose forces varied sharply in quality, were largely conventional police and could not play an effective paramilitary role or properly hold even supposedly secure areas,” writes Anthony Cordesman of the Center for the strategic and International Studies in a report published this week on the Afghan military’s collapse.

Someone named Anthony Cordesman also wrote this:

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/author/anthony-cordesman

To the extent that new surround recordings exist, they now seem to consist largely of SACDs from a few leading U.S. audiophile recording firms like Reference Recordings and a number of European firms that have helped keep SACD alive after Sony largely abandoned it, and that are now beginning to experiment with other methods of surround recording.

Coincidence or the same guy? Same guy. This is a question that’s been asked and answered in audio circles for decades.