An open letter to Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin of Google (& YouTube)
Honestly, I got fed up with the way YouTube behaves. I am really very frustrated and annoyed with YouTube.
I am a software developer of websites and I do download many times a day my own webpages to check how they look on a PC, mobile phone and on an iPad. This is because sometimes you do not notice some of the errors in your code. It may be just a simple thing like colour matching or picture size adjustment. There are thousands of little items we need to adjust to make a webpage look attractive, readable and fast. You guys should know because you are the technical ones.
YouTube video not showing
Half way through testing and adjusting my webpage, YouTube gave me an error and then my video stopped being displayed. There was this awful blank patch at the bottom of my webpage. It looked disgusting, like something was missing.
This video, https://youtu.be/CzMqSXjlovA had been on YouTube since 20th March 2015 and there were no problems with it. Yesterday, it just disappeared from my webpage.
I cleared the FireFox and Chrome cache and cookies, shutdown and switched off my PC and handphone and switched them back on again but the video could be shown or played.
Then I checked for it on YouTube and amazingly as it sounds the video was showing without any problems. What is wrong with YouTube? Have they blacklisted me for being a software developer? My income is very dependent on how many webpages I can develop in as short a period of time as posssible. What is wrong with YouTube?
What would you do?
Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin, if your own videos were blocked what would you do?
I tell you what I did. I checked the YouTube forums and there were losts of people with block videos and videos that could not be played, see https://support.google.com/ youtube/ search? q=blocked+videos& from_promoted_search=true. Unfortunately, non had the same problem I had. Worst still I could not begin a new post in https://support.google.com/ youtube/community ?hl=en
All I could do was to add a reply at the bottom of a long list of complaints which weren't like mine. What is wrong with you guys?
YouTube error messages
After checking with different web browsers I found these error messages:-
Firefox: Blank screen where the video is
Chrome: "www.youtube.com refused to connect"
Internet Explorer: "This content cannot be displayed in a frame. To help protect the security of information you enter into this website, the publisher of this content does not allow it to be displayed in a frame. What you can try: Open this content in a new window"
What is wrong with this picture? I am the developer and publisher of both the video and the webpage and why would I want to block my own self?
Do you know what is really really bad about this issue? I used a proxy server to view my webpage and I could play the video through that proxy server. So it looks like the whole world can view my video but not me!
I do not know where and who do to contact to fix this problem and that is why I am writing this article? Please restore my video so that I too can watch my own video. Below is the article with the video at the bottom. Can you see the video?
- Dr. Peter Achutha, 21st June 2019.
Homemade Bread
I learned to make bread about 10 years ago and have been carrying out many experiments to make a better bread that did not need kneading. After years of trying and failing, one day our Lord Jesus Christ showed me in a dream, that when I was a kid, my mom used to make pancakes and the batter would get thicker the longer it was kept. I immediately understood what the Lord was showing me. I didn't have to knead the bread dough. All I had to do was to make a batter and let it rest for a few hours and that would result in wonderful bread.
The standard methods of making bread are:-
1. Straight dough method
2. Sponge and dough method
Since this new method was very different from existing methods I called it the "Batter and Dough Method". My guess was that you do not have to knead the bread as the Brownian Motion and Yeast mobility would do the kneading for you.
There are two parts to cooking delicious foods. The first is getting a good recipe and the second is technique or method. For example you can get a cake recipe and make a cake by mixing everything together. The resulting cake can be good. If you followed proper techniques you would cream the butter and sugar together, then beat the egg whites until they form a thick foam and then mix the ingredients one at a time. The resulting cake would be moist and fluffy and probably very much better texture and mouth feel.
All my recipes use the commercial method of recording them that is all weights are in percentage of the main ingredient - the flour and in grams. I do not measure using teaspoons or cups. This is because it is easy to covert the recipes to any amounts. Just multiplying the weights by 2 or 19 will allow me to make 2 loaves or 19 loaves of bread.
Also take care to remove the battery of the electronic weighing scale so that it does not go flat. I was changing a battery every month and cost me RM10/- each time, ten years ago. When I removed the battery after every weighing session the batteries would last me at least 6 months.
The Recipe
Plain Bread with Bake with Yen Bread Flour
Item | Description | Percentage | Qty (g) |
1 | Bread Flour | 100.00% | 450 |
| Total | 100.00% | 450 |
| | | |
| | | |
| Batter | | |
2 | Bread Flour | 33.33% | 150 |
3 | Yeast Instant | 2.00% | 9 |
4 | Water | 57.00% | 257 |
| Subtotal | | 416 |
| | | |
| Dough | | |
5 | Bread Flour | 66.78% | 300 |
6 | Salt | 2.00% | 9 |
7 | Olive Oil or Grape Seed Oil | 2.00% | 9 |
| Subtotal | | 341 |
| | | |
| Total | | 757 |
Technique for Making the Bread
1. Batter step
Firstly make the Batter. Mix one third, 150g, of the bread flour with yeast and all the water together. Use a whisk to stir / mix them as a fork or spoon would not be that effective. Cover the bowl with a cloth so that flies and other insects will not get into the batter.
2. Fermentation Step
Let the batter rest / ferment for 3 to 4 hours. The yeast will ferment the dough and convert the sugars to alcohol and introduce a lot more flavor into the bread. This is the reason yeast risen bread is much tastier then baking soda risen bread. Don't worry about the alcohol content as most would evaporate out of the bowl or during baking. All breads go through this fermentation process so there is nothing new here.
You will see the batter become foamy and will rise and fall gradually over the 3 to 4 hours. If it does not bubble or appear foamy then your yeast is dead. Add fresh instant yeast and begin fermentation.
3. Dough Step
After the 3 to 4 hours of fermentation add the vegetable oil and salt and mix with a whisk. Then add the rest of the flour, 300g, and mix until it forms a sticky lump. That should take less then five minutes.
4. Proofing Step
Leave the dough in the bowl and let it proof for an hour, no longer. The dough will rise a lot, probably more than twice its original size. After it has risen punch it down so that all the air escapes. 3 to 6 punches should do it.
Sprinkle some bread flour or plain flour on a clean work surface and then spread the dough out the width of your 8 inch baking tin. Then roll it, like rolling a carpet, into a log shape and place it into your previously oiled 8 inch baking tin. Let the dough rise for another hour and it should rise above the top of the tin.
5. Baking Step
When you begin your Proofing Step, mentioned earlier, switch on your oven and let it warm up to 240'C. If your oven cannot be set to 240'C set it to 210'C. This warm up period would take about 45 minutes for most home ovens. Some take longer, some take shorter time. Watch the oven heater / power light go off. That would indicate that your oven has reached the set temperature.
Place the risen dough baking tin on the lower shelf. The shelf that is about one third of the height from the bottom of the oven. Bake for 45 minutes. Depending upon your oven, after 25 minutes, check if the bread top could burn. If it is not dark brown yet let it bake the full 45 minutes to get a crusty top. If your oven has a fan switch it on so that the air circulation will provide uniform heating for the baking bread.
The video
The video shows how I made the bread in 2015. It is an old video and I have improved the recipe and techniques since then. I have made some changes as mentioned below.
I don't add any sugar or bread improver anymore. This is because I wanted the yeast to digest the bread flour and I don't use any bread improvers anymore because most of them don't work. It is probably because they were not stored properly during shipping to the baking ingredients shops. I add vegetable oils like grape seed oil, olive oil or palm oil instead of bread improvers. The oil is added in at the same time as the salt. This is not shown in this old video as the video shows oil being added later after the dough has formed. I don't use calcium propionate, the anti-fungal agent too as they say it may cause hyperactivity(?) in children.
I don't roll the proofed dough with a rolling pin anymore. Just spread it out by hand and roll it like a carpet into a log. Please don't use a rolling pin as it makes more work.
Each proofing session should not exceed 1 hour unlike what I have shown in the video below.
The video shows an older recipe. Please do not follow those measurements, only the recipe shown above.
I do plan to make a video of the latest method but not sure when. If you do not see the video below it is because YouTube has some bugs.
Dr. Peter Achutha, 21st June 2019
Please do show me your appreciation of this article by Buying me a coffee.
And do get the "I Won" t-shirt
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