About couple of weeks ago Google started to get slow with some of my uncached searches.

Here is an example:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22on+top+of+the+new%22


As you can see, that "phrase" search took Google almost 6 seconds.

Repeat search was much faster -- it took only 0.28 seconds (because it was already cached).
Surprisingly, with repeat request, Google claims "About 333,000,000 results" instead of measly "91 results" in the original request.

Second (cached) request:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22on+top+of+the+new%22


You can also see that while the top result is identical for both requests, some of text results and some of the images are different.

I also tried repeat requests (3rd, 4th, ...) and incognito request:
the results are identical to the 2nd request.


Update:
Another "uncashed" request took over 6 seconds to execute:
About 967 results (6.01 seconds)
"on top of a new"


Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/166992.html

Today I learned that:
1) Jeff Bezos divorced recently (2019-01-09).

2) Donald Trump's henchman blackmailed Jeff Bezos with some photos [of naked Bezos and his mistress].

How National Enquirer prepared for blackmailing Jeff Bezos:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Posted Jan 28, 2019 @ 9:19AM
Jeff Bezos Shared Wife’s Pillow Talk With Mistress Lauren Sanchez

MORE SHAME FOR BEZOS! THE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN TEXTS SENT TO HIS MISTRESS
“I love you, alive girl. I will show you with my body, and my lips and my eyes."
.....
SHOCKING PHOTOS!
JEFF BEZOS CREEPS OUT OF MISTRESS' LOVE NEST
The billionaire cheater was caught red-handed!
Posted Jan 23, 2019 @ 17:23PM
.....
Posted Jan 14, 2019 @ 18:45PM
Jeff Bezos Shared Wife’s Pillow Talk With Mistress Lauren Sanchez
ULTIMATE BETRAYAL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Discussion on Hacker News

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/166883.html

I received new incoming Skype request from "Dev King" today.
Several minutes after I and Dev King finished this conversation, Dev King deleted all his Skype chat messages.
But thanks to inferior MS Word and Notepad++ technology, I can still share this money laundering attempt with you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Dev King]
Hi

12:24 pm
[Dev King]
Nice to meet you

[Dennis]
Hi

12:25 pm
[Dev King]
Can we discuss with a problem?
This is Zing Feng from China

[Dennis]
What problem?

12:25 pm
[Dev King]
I have a business idea to earn money together

12:25 pm
[Dev King]
Do you know upwork?

[Dennis]
Yes, I know upwork.

12:26 pm
[Dev King]
Great

12:26 pm
[Dev King]
Do you have a upwork account for feelancer?

[Dennis]
I do not remember. Why?

12:26 pm
[Dev King]
Since 2010, I have started freelancing on upwork that was oDesk

12:27 pm
[Dev King]
But 2 years ago, I couldn't continue work on upwork, because upwork is very strict for chinese

[Dev King]
So I want you to create upwork account with your name and share with me.

[Dev King]
Then I can earn money and split earnings.
What do you do?

12:28 pm
[Dev King]
I am a senior web developer

12:28 pm
[Dennis]
What skills?

12:28 pm
[Dev King]
full stack - python, javascript, php, ruby

12:28 pm
[Dennis]
Do you have an example of the web site you created?

12:29 pm
[Dev King]
getpushmonkey.com
django project
brandedbridgeline.com
weconnect.com
entertale.com
...

[Dennis]
Do these websites list your name?

12:30 pm
[Dev King]
No, I've developed these website as per client's needs

12:30 pm
[Dev King]
During working on upwork
Is there any proof that these are your websites?

12:30 pm
[Dev King]
hmmm, how can I proof that?

12:31 pm
[Dennis]
You can add your name to HTML source.

12:32 pm
[Dev King]
It is sourced to git

12:32 pm
[Dennis]
E.g. "Developed by Dev King"

12:32 pm
[Dev King]
there are not open source

12:32 pm
[Dennis]
So, can you commit it to git?

12:32 pm
But pages are deployed to these web sites, right?

[Dev King]
Sorry, it was client's git

12:33 pm
[Dev King]
After finish the project, they removed me from git

[Dennis]
So there is no proof.

12:33 pm
[Dev King]
so can't you corporate with me?

12:34 pm
[Dennis]
Do you even have business email?

12:34 pm
[Dev King]
softdevstorm@gmail.com

12:34 pm
[Dev King]
Are you freelancer?

[Dennis]
No.

12:35 pm
[Dev King]
Have you ever created upwork account?

12:36 pm
[Dennis]
I do not remember. May be I did.

Why did you contact me?

[Dev King]
Because I want to use your account and split earnings

12:37 pm
[Dennis]
Why me specifically?

12:39 pm
[Dev King]
I just searched you

12:39 pm
[Dev King]
on skype
What terms did you search for?

12:39 pm
[Dennis]
[Dev King]
Dennis

12:39 pm
Why did you search for my name?

12:39 pm
[Dev King]
Because I like named Dennis

12:40 pm
[Dev King]
I have ever working with Dennis from Germany

[Dev King]
He was very kind.

[Dennis]
That is weird connection.

12:40 pm
[Dev King]
Why do you think so?

12:41 pm
[Dennis]
People with the same name are not relevant to each other.

12:41 pm
[Dev King]
Yes, but I like name Dennis

12:41 pm
[Dev King]
So I can earn at least 4k in a month with your account

[Dennis]
What would I get if I share my account?

12:42 pm
[Dev King]
all payment wil be processed via your paypal account

12:43 pm
[Dennis]
So, how much do I keep?

12:43 pm
[Dev King]
If I withdraw earned money, it will be sent to your paypal, and then you can send to my paypal

12:43 pm
[Dev King]
mabye 10%

[Dennis]
What is your paypal ID?

12:44 pm
[Dev King]
hmmm, why do you ask that?

12:45 pm
[Dennis]
You want me to send you money there, right?

12:45 pm
[Dev King]
yes

12:45 pm
[Dev King]
After withdraw from upwork

[Dennis]
So you want to keep me in the dark until then?

12:46 pm
[Dev King]
haha, ok

12:46 pm
[Dev King]
13125597299@sohu.com [Dev King removed this paypal address from Skype on Feb 8 at 1:53 pm]

[Dennis]
How old it that PayPal account?

12:47 pm
[Dev King]
4 years

12:48 pm
[Dev King]
so can you create and share your account?
Do you have some proof that you are what you said you are?

12:51 pm
[Dennis]
E.g. -- do you have your own web site?

[Dev King]
I don't have own web site

12:52 pm
[Dennis]
Do you have a LinkedIn profile?

12:52 pm
[Dev King]
But as I said, all payment will be processed via your paypal

12:52 pm
[Dev King]
I don't have linkedin profile, but I can share my ID card if you want.
What ID card?

12:53 pm
[Dev King]
National ID card

12:53 pm
[Dennis]
From what country?

12:53 pm
[Dev King]
China

12:53 pm
[Dennis]
Do you have a web cam?

12:53 pm
[Dev King]
No, I don't have

12:54 pm
[Dennis]
Why not?

12:54 pm
[Dev King]
my PC does not have web cam

12:54 pm
[Dennis]
Ok, please send me your ID card

12:54 pm
[Dev King]
[Dennis]
Please give me a few mins

12:54 pm
[Dev King]
[Dev King posted his fake ID picture:

zing2.jpg (2,705,272 bytes)
Contains "LG-D802 2015:06:25 10:00:57" literal.

The first link from Google Image Search points to GitHub - airob0t/idcardgenerator: 身份证图片生成工具

Dev King removed his fake ID from Skype on Feb 8 at 1:42 pm]

[Dev King]
This is my ID card
It does not even have English name?

1:01 pm
[Dev King]
yes, it is chinese

1:02 pm
[Dev King]
Jing Feng is my name

[Dennis]
Why you do not use your name in Skype?

1:02 pm
[Dev King]
I like Dev King

1:03 pm
[Dev King]
If you want, I'll change to my name

[Dev King]
May I remove ID?

[Dennis]
Remove ID from where?

1:05 pm
[Dev King]
from skype

1:05 pm
I guess. Why does it matter?

1:05 pm
[Dev King]
Because it is my private information

1:06 pm
[Dev King]
Please let me know if I can use your account or not

[Dennis]
Do you have microphone?

1:10 pm
[Dev King]
Do you want call?

1:10 pm
[Dennis]
Yes

1:11 pm
[Dev King]
yes, but I don't speak English well

1:11 pm
[Dennis]
[I am starting Skype voice call, but Dev King does not respond]

[Dev King]
Give me a few mins

[Dev King]
I should check the mic.

[Missed call]

1:12 pm
Do you mean you are ready to talk?

1:15 pm
[Dev King]
yes

1:15 pm
[Missed call]

1:15 pm
[Dev King]
Can you hear me?

1:15 pm
[Dennis]
I can hear you.

1:16 pm
[Dennis]
Do you hear me?

[Dev King]
[Dennis]
I can't hear you
Fix your audio then.

[Dev King]
Let me check again but my audio working well.

1:17 pm
[Dennis]
Missed call

[Here I and Dev King talked for several minutes. Dev King's English is weak, but ok.].

1:21 pm
[Dev King]
Wu Jing Feng

1:22 pm
[Dev King]
upwork.com

[Dennis]
https://www.postjobfree.com/myip
[On Skype Voice I asked Dev King to open this link, while he is sharing his screen -- so I can see his IP address.
These are his IP usages:
~~~~~~~~
2019-02-08 18:28:28.649 UTC 209.58.130.129 (United States San Jose Leaseweb Usa Inc.)
2019-02-08 19:03:34.948 UTC 61.176.96.242 (China Dandong China Unicom Liaoning Province Network)
~~~~~~~~
]

1:28 pm
[Dev King]
teamviewer
[On Skype voice talk Dev King explains to me that if I run teamviewer on my machine and let him operate teamviewer - he would be able to prove that he does not do anything wrong.
Dev King would need teamviewer to operate Upwork account from my computer in Florida.
See chat logs below]

1:31 pm
[Dev King]
upwork account

[Dev King]
just show you I'm not doing irregular actions

[Over Skype voice I asked Dev King to show me his PayPal account.
Dev King explained to me that because he is on VPN (with IP addresses in the US), he cannot connect to PayPal, because if he does that - PayPal would block his account
I asked Dev King to disconnect from VPN and call me on Skype and show his PayPal account.
He promised to share his PayPal account, but never did.
].

[Dev King]
Removed on Feb 8 at 1:53 pm
Message removed

[Dennis]
Did you turn off VPN?

1:54 pm
[Dev King]
yes, sorry but I can't share my paypal account

1:54 pm
[Dennis]
Why not?

1:55 pm
[Dev King]
It's my personal info

1:55 pm
[Dev King]
If you can't share your account with me, that's ok

[Dennis]
Yes - that is exactly the point. You want me to trust you to send you money. So you share your personal info.

1:55 pm
[Dev King]
I'll corporate with other man

1:55 pm
[Dev King]
As I told you, all payment will be processed via your paypal

[Dev King]
but you don't trust me yet

[Dennis]
Could you please open this again:
https://www.postjobfree.com/myip

[Dev King]
Also your account will be managed via teamviewer, as I told you

1:58 pm
[Dev King]
No, I can't

1:58 pm
[Dennis]
Why not?

1:58 pm
[Dev King]
Why do you want my IP?

1:59 pm
To know if you are for real.

1:59 pm
[Dev King]
Chinese?

1:59 pm
[Dennis]
Not just Chinese
But actually real software developer who is looking for work.
Why do you hide your IP address?

[Dev King]
No, I don't hide my IP address

2:02 pm
[Dennis]
But you do not want to share your IP address with me.

2:02 pm
[Dev King]
So should I share my screen?

[I voice call Dev King again, but he does not accept my call]

2:03 pm
[Dev King]
to check my ip?
[Missed call]

2:04 pm
[Dev King]
I'll send image

2:04 pm
[Dev King]
2019-02-08_2104 Shared from Screencast.com
[Dev King's IP address is 61.176.96.242 (Dandong China)]

2:05 pm
[Dennis]
Are you in Guangzhou?

2:05 pm
[Dev King]
yes

2:06 pm
In what city is your IP address located?

2:07 pm
[Dev King]
GuangZhou

2:07 pm
I see "Dandong China"

2:08 pm
It's quite far away.
Another IP proxy?

[Dev King]
I don't know about that

2:08 pm
[Dev King]
Here is GuangZhou city
Please let me know if you can corporate with me or not

[Dennis]
I only cooperate with people I know.

2:10 pm
[Dennis]
I do not know you. You do not share your real IP, you do not share your face.
You do not show your PayPal account.

[Dev King]
Ok, thanks for your time

2:11 pm
I'd like to interview you as a developer. Would you like to do that?

2:12 pm
[Dev King]
What interview?

2:13 pm
[Dev King]
Are you developer?

[Dennis]
Technical interview.

2:13 pm
[Dennis]
Yes I am a developer.

[Dev King]
Where are you from?

2:13 pm
I am in Florida.

2:14 pm
[Dev King]
So do you have upwork account?

2:14 pm
I do not remember if I have Upwork account. But even if I have -- I currently do not use it.

2:14 pm
So, would you like to interview?

[Dev King]
Sorry, I need upwork account

2:15 pm
[Dev King]

[Dev King]
no have time to have a technical interview

[Dennis]
So you just want me to launder money for you. You are not really a developer.

2:16 pm
[Dev King]
haha, I am a senior web developer

2:17 pm
[Dennis]
If you are a web developer, why wouldn't you want to talk about your best skills?

2:17 pm
[Dev King]
Because it will be wasting my time

2:18 pm
[Dennis]
... only if your real business is something else and not web development.

2:19 pm
[Dennis]
How could you possibly get Upwork projects if you are not willing to interview?

[Dev King]
I have interview with my clients on upwork

2:20 pm
[Dennis]
Does Upwork allow voice interviews on upwork.com?

2:21 pm
[Dev King]
rigth now, I need upwork account

2:21 pm
Is that about you:
https://community.upwork.com/t5/Clients/Fake-Chinese-Freelancers/td-p/505146
"a relatively small number of dishonest freelancers masquerading as someone they're not could permanently damage the reputation of a large group of people"

2:24 pm
[Dennis]
He is talking about you, right?

[Dev King]
haha, I am honest about everything.

2:28 pm
[Dev King]
according to this link, I will tell you I am from Eruope or canada or united state
right?

[Dennis]
You are trying to hide your identity from potential buyers.

2:28 pm
[Dev King]
I shared my ID card with you

2:29 pm
[Dennis]
You will tell it not to me, but to your Upwork customers.

2:29 pm
[Dev King]
It's was my private information

2:29 pm
[Dennis]
Where did you get that ID card? That does not look like you.
Do you have any social network account (e.g. Facebook) with your picture on it?

[Dev King]
haha, ok

2:30 pm
[Dev King]
we don't need to chat anymore
don't lose the chance to earn money

[Dev King]
thanks for your time
Bye
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/166520.html

service@paypal.com emailed to me and asked to verify one of our developer's identity ... by faxing documents to:
=========
(402) 573-5732 (Attn: PayPal Compliance Department).
=========

It looks like PayPal jumped into a time machine and went back to the previous century.


service@paypal.com did NOT list any other options to upload documents.
The email ended with: "Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response."

I replied anyway.

service@paypal.com sent this auto-response:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks for contacting us.

We want to help you, but we can't answer emails sent to this unmonitored
mailbox.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


My resolution -- delete that developer account from the PayPal account.
Let's see if it would help.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/166397.html

Google emailed me today:
-------------
On April 2, 2019, the list price of G Suite Basic edition will increase from $5 USD to $6 USD per user per month, and the list price of G Suite Business edition will increase from $10 USD to $12 USD per user per month (or the local currency equivalent where applicable). These increases will apply globally with local market adjustments for certain regions.

The price of G Suite Enterprise edition will remain the same.

Why are you increasing prices?
We introduced the original version of G Suite, including Gmail and Google Calendar, more than 10 years ago. Since then, we’ve added more than a dozen new G Suite services, including real-time collaboration (Docs, Sheets, Slides) and flexible storage (Drive), powerful video conferencing (Hangouts Meet), secure team messaging (Hangouts Chat) and enterprise-grade search capabilities (Cloud Search). We’ve also infused our products with advanced artificial intelligence to make it easier to respond to emails, gather insights from data and protect against phishing attacks before they happen.
-------------

My guess is that this price increase is the part of Google attempt to make other ("non-search") divisions profitable and self-sufficient.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/166038.html

Word "psychotherapist" will never be the same for me again.

Thanks to Vlad Patryshev

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/165492.html

Since I am now forced to use new Skype (version 8.34.0.78), I discovered new Skype feature: automatic transcription of voice conversations.
Skype shows automatically generated subtitles of conversation that I have.
The transcription quality is decent. There are still many transcription errors, but occasionally Skype transcriber is managing to correctly recognize words that I missed or did not understand (from first try).

So I thought to myself: "Wow - Skype team was able to deliver a nice feature. Now I would have searchable text logs of my conversations".

No such luck.
Clueless Microsoft middle managers were not able to implement this transcription feature correctly, so Skype does NOT save the transcription and I cannot search my transcribed conversations.

So the whole "transcription" feature is just a useless toy.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/165344.html

Today my Skype Classic client showed me "Dead End" message:
=================
Update Skype today.
It looks like Skype hasn't been updated for some time. It's free, only takes a minute and comes with the latest features and security updates.

What happens if I don't update now?

The next time you sign out or restart your computer, you'll need to update Skype before you can sign back in.[Learn more]

[Update Skype] [Quit]
=================


Restarting Skype no longer helps: 5 seconds after the start Skype shows the same "Dead End" popup again.

Unfortunately I cannot find a good alternative to this deteriorating Skype client.

Discord has good audio, but Discord UI is worse than even UI of the new Skype version 8.34.0.78
Discord screen sharing resolution is only 720px horizontally.
Better resolution costs $10/month ("Nitro" plan).
Discord does not support phone calls and does not support "universal" connections (Discord only supports connections through one of "servers").

See also:
1) Annoying Skype update popup
2) Skype discontinued
3) Microsoft keeps trying to kill Skype Classic

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/164996.html

Today I learned that supernova explosion is fueled not by fusion, but by gravitational collapse of star's core:
========================
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~infocom/The%20Website/large.html
For a very short while the nuclear burning above it continues, but for a star as massive as this one there is not much time left before the burned-out iron "ashes" in the core grow into a ball 1.4 times as massive as the Sun. As predicted by Chandrasekhar in 1931, the degenerate iron is then as massive as a white dwarf can be.

It has reached Chandrasekhar's Limit.

In the blink of an eye, the entire iron core collapses from the size of the planet Mars to a sphere only 12 miles across. Under the fantastic pressure of the collapse, the iron nuclei are smashed so closely together that they are literally crushed out of existence and turn instead into a soup of swarming protons and neutrons. At such densities the rules of quantum mechanics force the electrons to fuse with the protons (which converts the protons into neutrons), and in a raging instant, neutrons are almost all that is left. The core of the red giant suddenly convulses into a bizarre, gargantuan "nucleus" with 1.4 solar masses of neutrons, very few protons, and a density of billions of tons per cubic inch.

The electromagnetic forces that had once held up the electron-degenerate matter in the white dwarf are gone, because there are no longer any electrons. As the neutrons are crushed down to the density of atomic nuclei, however, the strong nuclear force comes into play. The strong nuclear force doesn't like particles to get close together any more than the electromagnetic force does, and the strong nuclear force is, well, strong. When it finally exerts inself, the collapsing neutron matter ringingly slams to an almost instantaneous halt at a radius of perhaps six miles.

Meanwhile, behind the neutron matter, normal matter from the layers just above the core is plunging downward with a gravitational acceleration so phenomenal that in the few tenths of a second it takes to reach the center, it is already moving at 25,000 miles per second. A mass of sulfur, silicon, and oxygen that is a quarter-million times more massive than the Earth and moving at 15% the speed of light slams into the neutron core – and rebounds off it like a rubber ball hitting a solid steel bulk-head. An enormous shock wave begins to spread outward.

The collapse of the white dwarf core into a neutron mass has released far more gravitational energy in the span of one second than the star has released in the form of nuclear energy in its entire life, and we are talking about a very large star. (As I pointed out when discussing the helium flash of solar-type stars, it is flabbergasting how much energy there is in gravitational collapse, if the collapse is massive enough and deep enough.) Almost all of this gravitational energy has been transformed into heat in the neutron core, but it does not stay there. Almost as swiftly as it was created, the energy is radiated away by subatomic particles known as neutrinos.
========================

Only 0.3% of the energy released through neutrinos is used to blow up the supernova:
----------
About 99.7% of the neutrinos punch through the outer layers of the red giant as though they aren't there, and race into space at the speed of light. (Stopping a neutrino with ordinary matter is about like stopping a rifle bullet with a bowl of Jello – which is exactly why the neutrinos radiate away from the neutron core so readily.) The remaining 0.3% of the neutrino pulse is absorbed by the very dense matter in the shock wave retreating from the center. An absorption of 0.3% might not sound like much, but 0.3% of an unimaginable quantity is still unimaginable. The shock wave is instantly blasted into a super-heated maelstrom so hot, the resulting detonation literally blows away everything above the neutron core. At least five solar masses of gas, and possibly four times that much, are hurled away from the star at velocities of tens of thousands of kilometers per second. The energy of the ejected gas is so great, if it slams into a nearby interstellar cloud it can shock the entire cloud into a sudden collapse, thus creating scores of new stars at a single blow.
----------

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/164621.html

I am teaching my team members to be more proactive in criticising [potential] mistakes of others, and be more humble and grateful in receiving criticism.

Receiving critical feedback is important for effective teamwork.

Originally posted at: https://dennisgorelik.dreamwidth.org/164488.html