It’s been several weeks since I enabled Apple Advanced Data Protection

Thus far, I’m glad I did.

The encryption is seamless. I’ve noticed no data speed drop. All my devices still access iCloud just as they did before.

The only question is, “Will Apple hold the line against the UK government?”

I find that I’m using “Notes” a bit more. “Notes” is handy for some things like a temporary password or what have you. I always hesitated to put anything of a critical nature in “Notes” mostly because of security concerns. 

If I was hacking into an iCloud account, “Notes” is the first place I’d wander through for interesting information about the person I was hacking.

I’m also more comfortable with some photos being stored in the encrypted iCloud. (Hey, we all have some photos that we don’t necessarily want out on the internet!) There’s no reason for us to be providing free thrills to some hacker. We wouldn’t want to cut into our OnlyFans account revenue now would we???

I also don’t think too much about documents being stored in iCloud as much as I did before. 

That was always a concern to me. The thought of having personal correspondence sitting unencrypted in the cloud was a big risk. That meant that some things I would only do on my computer and any saved documents were always saved locally, or to my network storage only.

But that also means that if the computer was lost, stolen, or destroyed, those documents would be lost as well, if they weren’t stored on my local network storage.

The setup process was remarkably simple. I chose to enable ADP from my computer. No particular reason other than with the larger screen, I didn’t need my glasses. I also knew that the recovery key was going to be a long string of numbers and letters, and wanted to be sure that I stored it in print and digitally somehow. 

What was interesting is that the encryption was pretty much immediate across all devices. There may have been a message saying that it could take some time before everything was available depending on how much information I had stored in iCloud, but if there was a time delay, I didn’t notice it.

I will be curious to see how iCloud handles me transitioning to a new phone, computer, or iPad in the future. But I’m looking at that as a bridge to burn later.

Thus far, the result is ADP is functional and I’m tempted to recommend everyone use it. 

My thinking is, if we’re all using it, then Apple will have more incentive to tell authoritarian governments like the UK to “EMusk” it.

a.k.a. “Go Fuck Yourself”

That interview Elon Musk did was epic! I think telling someone they can EMusk as a euphemism for go fuck yourself should be adopted.

Time to get on with the day…

Poked my head up, looked at the news. Everything is still nuts!

I did notice there was a Democrat who’d filed some paperwork for impeachment of Trump. The guy is Rep. Shri Thanedar.

Rep. Shri Thanedar.YAWN!!!!

I’m surprised that hasn’t been a Daily event.

Oh wait, I guess it’s hard to write articles of impeachment, if you’re protesting to bring a gang member back from El Salvador, or inciting Judges to make questionable rulings, or advocating for the mutilation of children, to pander to your wackjob base.

I know it sounds stupid, but my God, I just want stability!

I swear it’s like a never ending Carnaval ride. The car I’m in has one wheel with a bad bearing, another one with a chunk out of it, and clowns jumping at me round every bend.

I can see my Über Democrat stepfather nodding his head winding up for the, “See this is what you get when you don’t vote Democrat,” gloating. Until I finish the thought.

It’s been like we’re circling the toilet bowl since the Obama Administration. Okay honestly, Bush² may have been when things really started to go off the rails.

Now in Trump² it’s beginning to look like Democrat obstructionism, lawfare, and not having a better idea will continue.

But wait, there’s more! For a limited time, we can have more rioting and looting, incited by Democrat leadership. Yippee!

State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas.I want to be clear, I don’t regret voting for Trump. Had the Democrat party offered a superior candidate, I would have voted Democrat.

They didn’t. They offered Kamala Harris and a buffoon, who would have continued on with policies that weren’t working.

For example: Welfare fraud under $25,000 in California could be decriminalized due to Senate Bill 560, which was introduced by State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas.

Th 1863706216.Kamala Harris was a terrible AG for California. A do nothing Senator. She was a horrible Vice President and clearly out of her depth. Waltz, was no better. He might actually have been worse. (Hard as that is to fathom!)

Minnesota Walz 92383-748774340.That being said, my vote for Trump was a vote that I feared would likely result in 4 more years of the Democrat party showing their asses and obviously not getting the message.

We can’t continue on as we’ve been. Our spending is unsustainable.

Offshoring industries, likewise offshores jobs, (not everyone is suited to work a fast food counter,) we were spending too much money on illegal immigration, at the expense of our own citizens. I don’t care if illegals were paying taxes, they’d simply supplanted citizens who also would have been paying taxes but were now unemployed.

The underlying problem may well be corporate greed, but yelling about it, then increasing regulations, offshoring jobs, and not fixing the problem wasn’t improving anything. Nor was moving toward a globalist government or economic model under the direction of the WEF.

The WEF is not and likely, never has been, our friend. Looking at the larger picture, I sincerely wonder if they’re anyone’s friend. Many of their policies seem aimed at creating dependency. Particularly when smaller countries are examined.

There are a number of cases where productive countries who were feeding their people, and exporting their goods, (in other words doing okay,) joined or implemented WEF policies, and suddenly found themselves with people starving in the streets. What followed was insurrections and revolutions.

Yet the travails of the American People were ignored. The January 6 protest, (In Democrat Parlance, an “insurrection that was worse than 9/11″,) was the American people essentially asking, “What the FUCK are you people doing?”

That too fell on deaf ears.

Politicians choice to ignore the will of the American people led directly to Trump, both times!

The Biden years led directly to a large percentage of the American People demanding an accounting of just how much government corruption there was. DOGE is the result of that demand. 

The Democrat party is in disarray. Trump moving at breakneck speed as he has done, is about cutting the parasites out of government and keeping them so off balance that they couldn’t keep up with events enough to mount a defense.

At the risk of invoking NAZI imagery, Trump and his administration mounted a Blitzkrieg, not just against the Democrats, but against corrupt politicians in general.

Have you noticed how many Representatives and Senators have decided not to seek reelection? In the run up to the midterms, I think we’ll see a lot more from both sides of the aisle doing the same.

But now, as the first 100 days come to a close and the Blitzkrieg comes to an end, I suspect that my prediction about a second Trump Presidency will turn out to be true.

The Democrats, other corrupt politicians, organizations, lobbyists, and whatever cabal of corporations, have begun to regain their footing. They’re not off balance anymore.

Now they’re going to capitalize on the hatred they’ve created toward Trump and those who voted for him. They’ll engage in impeachment, and another summer of “Love”.

They’ll try to back Trump into a corner wherein he’ll have little choice but to deploy national guard to restore order and execute one of the primary responsibilities of the Government.

It’s in the freaking preamble of The Constitution of The United States.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The 35 words of the Presidents Oath of Office are;

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

If you read the preamble, and take it literally. The part about insuring domestic tranquility will most likely be where Trump goes.

The primary responsibility of the Government is to insure safety of the citizenry.

If/when the national guard rolls on the streets of Chicago, New York, Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles. Trump will be labeled a NAZI, a Dictator, an Emperor,  then the corrupt politicians and their henchmen will take him off at the knees.

They’ll tie his administration up in endless hearings thereby deleting any benefit of his administration.

We’ll have 3 years, and 265 days of endless bullshit. The country will remain polarized, the economy will stall, and we’ll all suffer for it.

The corrupt will run out the clock, they’ll present someone with great hair, a winning smile, and a mouth full of honey.

That person will talk about unity, peace, better jobs, the homeless, the poor, the disadvantaged, and how evil Republicans are. They’ll appeal to emotions like revenge and retribution.

That person will “win” the next presidential election. Then, they’ll say, “We have so much unrest, we’ll need to keep the nation guard in place until things calm down.” They’ll blame it all on the Trump Administration and probably set up a “Tip” line, so that “Good” citizens can report insurrectionist speech, while extolling the virtues of weeding out the evil in our midst.

And then, we’ll be living in a police state. Or there will be a revolution.

My money is on Gavin Newsom as the Democrats choice.

So it’s with this running as a simulation in my head, that I say I want to go back to freaking stability!

I’d like to go back to the ‘80s or ‘90s where sure, there were problems and issues but at least I lived my life pretty simply. I literally never thought about the government except at tax time, or if there was some monumentally stupid thing happening.

I worked, I was generally happy, global issues were beyond my control or concern, and it was quiet.

Back then I couldn’t conceive of the insanity of today. Orwell, and Rand, were fictions. The sun was gentle, the beaches were clean, the ocean warm, and my culture, future, and country, were secure. Or so I thought.

I suspect I was running the simulation in my sleep. I don’t remember dreaming about any of this, but when I woke this morning, Jesse was cuddled up next to me with his head on my arm.

He doesn’t typically engage in that kind of cuddling behavior, he’s more of a, “We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” kind of dog.

But if I’m sick, hurt, or restless while sleeping, he tries to comfort me. I have to give him credit, he’s really a sweet dog, even when he’s a pain in my ass.

I hate like hell that I have no choice but to disrupt his life, and mine, with packing up and finding some other place that we can afford to live. I can’t compete in a job market where standing behind a counter running a cash register requires a fucking Master’s Degree. 

That is the level to which higher education seems to have been devalued. I’m seeing more and more simple retail positions here where Masters Degrees are required. I guess it’s the only way an employer these days can make certain you’re able to read, do basic math & count back change.

That’s another post for another time…

Okay Snow? Really? What the heck?

The snow probably won’t stick but there have been big fluffy snowflakes for about the last 20 minutes.

It figures! I’ve already put away the gold weather gear for the year.

I’m thinking that I’m going to use the suspend function on my Apple Watch today. The forecast looks like we might have rain or snow for the whole day.Even Jesse isn’t interested in being outside. 

He’s curled up next to me snoozing.

I’m really glad that I didn’t start getting the trim ready for painting.

Oh goody! Google is at it again!

I knew it was coming. I just didn’t think they’d move this quickly.

According to an email today, and it was confirmed in the news Google is discontinuing support for Gen 1 and Gen 2 Nest Thermostats. 

At first thought, I was like no big deal, then I read further into the email and found that not only are they no longer updating the internal software, they’e also going to be killing remote access to the unit.

Basically, my smart machine is going to get just as dumb as a regular thermostat but will retain scheduling ability. 

This sucks!

No more ability to control the house temperature if I’m away. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s really nice in winter to have the house in the 50s when I’m away, then tell Siri to warm the house up to something comfortable before I actually get there.

If you’ve got a regular schedule that can be programmed. If you don’t have a regular schedule then you come home to a freezing house and crank the thermostat to warm it up quick.

With either the preprogrammed schedule, or the remote commands, the temp is increased in shorter bursts over a longer time. It’s a bit more balanced and efficient.

I knew Google was going to do this. To their credit they have discounted their newest version of the machine but I’m not interested. Yes It’s a nice machine, expensive, but given how Google is behaving and that they want me to have a full Google account instead of the old Nest account I’m not inclined to get deeper into Google.

What I want is an ecosystem that just talks to HomeKit and does so locally between devices inside the house. I don’t really like even low level stuff like house controls bouncing all over the internet. I was willing to put up with HomeKit, and Google so long as the Thermostat and the Protect smoke were providing what I believe to be a reasonable level of integrated protection.

The night of the fire, the A/C did kick on and distributed the smoke throughout the house. It also fanned the fire. 

But with Google’s recent moves,

I’ve been looking at alternatives.

Regardless of my remaining in this house or not, it’s a good point to disconnect from Google. My Thermostat will get dumb in October. I’ve got until then to make some kind of decision.

Trouble is, most of the smart thermostats want an account, and in some cases they want you to have a paid monthly or yearly subscription. 

That makes me rethink the whole smart thermostat idea. The Nest thermostat saved me money over the years, and while it was under Nest’s control didn’t cost anything beyond the cost of the unit and giving some of my information to Nest via their app.

This new situation may cancel the savings of any potential unit. It might also be a sign that for me, going forward simplicity is the best path.

OH WOW! I’m late to the game on this one.

I admit it.

I didn’t watch or read any of the news over the weekend. I obviously noted that the Pope died on Monday. I’ve skimmed headlines flashing on my phone screen but other than the major stuff, I pretty much ignored everything.

Yesterday, I got a hankering to actually write. That was welcome, and I literally dropped everything to write while the muse was upon me.

Didn’t do too bad either. I’ve got my protagonist and antagonist lined out. I’ve got an interesting ally and the general tone of the story well enough along that I can pick up where I left off. It wasn’t too shabby a start. It was like my brain letting go of everything and just letting the ideas flow.

Today, I got back to cleaning and tossing more stuff, there’s still a lot to go and I’m working on disassembling tech.

I’m boxing up the stuff that makes things effortless, (meaning one cable connection from the computer to any possible peripheral device I might want to use). This simplification of devices means that if I want to use something, I’ll have to actually plug it in. Big Deal!

Anyhow, I had the news running in the background and heard some clip from Representative Jamie Raskin. I’d read several headlines about him on some podcast or other and as usual rolled my eyes.

But when I heard what he actually said, my blood ran cold. His quote wasn’t that the Democrat party wouldn’t look kindly on countries that facilitated the Trump administration agenda, as had been reported on many outlets.

His comment was, “When we come back to power — and we will — are not going to look kindly upon people who facilitated authoritarianism in our country.

Say what? Who the fuck does this asshole think he is?

Does he mean to say that the Democrat party will used their weaponized law fare system to persecute and prosecute average American Citizens who supported Trump? The Trump administration having now become synonymous with Authoritarianism. (Sorry, but the Biden Administration looked a lot more authoritarian on day fucking one, than Trump’s thus far.)

Is Raskin saying the Democrats will take a dim view of anyone who voted for Trump, wore a MAGA hat, drove a Tesla, agreed with Trump, spoke out against law fare, illegal immigration, high taxes, bloated government, wasteful spending, the transification & stripping children of their innocence, the denial of Due Process for J6 detainees, who spoke out against mandatory vaccines, DEI, and every fucking obscenity we barely survived under the Biden Administration? Just a reminder… We still don’t know who was running the country but we all now know it’s pretty likely Joe Biden was not in control.

Did this sitting congressman just threaten at least 1/2, perhaps more of the American People?

He did say the Democrats wouldn’t look kindly on people… Not countries.

I don’t know how to take that comment other than as a threat. You know what? I’m getting damn sick and tired of Government officials threatening me!

We already know the Democrat party will suggest imprisonment for people who do not comply with their asinine edicts. Remember COVID? Anyone remember Biden threatening people who didn’t take the vaccine? How about folks that spoke out at school board meetings? Let’s not forget Maxine Waters telling African Americans to go into restaurants and coffee shops to harass not just Republicans she disagreed with, but every fucking person in the place!

We know Democrats will imprison people with different political ideologies for 3-4 years without trial, bail, or due process. All the while clutching their pearls saying that Democracy and The Constitution are under attack.

We also know that the only time the Democrats are interested in due process is when a fucking illegal alien is rightfully deported.

Representative Raskin should probably consider that most of the American People look upon the last four long years, as having already paid our fucking dues.

If by some unbelievable method, probably involving cheating, the Democrat party regains control and comes for people who facilitated the Trump Administration, they better come loaded for bear.

How the hell do these morons keep getting elected time and again?

Raskin saying what he said, should result in his office being cleaned out and his shit sitting at the curb. He’s supposedly a lawyer.

Theoretically, lawyers are masters of the English language. I will find it hard to believe his inevitable walking back of his words as a misunderstanding, or mischaracterization, or being taken out of context.

Sorry Raskin… I can read, and my hearing is just fine!