Month: July 2025

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Saw this and well, does Spanish have a word for Irony?

Caught this one on Breitbart. 

Anti-Immigration Protests Erupt in Mexico: ‘Respect My Culture’

Protest in mexico 640x480.In Mexico City, Mexicans are protesting against foreign nationals.

Yeah, you read that right. 

The people of Mexico have every right to want their culture preserved. They have every right to demand that long term residents learn Spanish, and not screw up the housing market for Mexican Citizens. 

Seems perfectly reasonable to me, it’s their Country.

But it’s really ironic that Mexico’s government was badmouthing people in the US for having similar sentiments, just a few months ago.

It’s also super interesting that not one of the main stream media corporations has said word one about Mexicans wanting presumably legal foreigners to go home. Nor have they explained how Mexicans in Mexico are different from Americans in wanting their culture preserved. Surely, the average Mexican is morally superior somehow when they’re protesting against foreigners, versus The nasty evil racist Americans.

While ICE in American is deporting illegals, and liberals have their panties in a wad about it, Mexico may be on the cusp of telling legal long term visitors to their country to get the fuck out. I can hardly wait to see Mexico’s ICE equivalent, (A.K.A. The Mexican Military) shoving foreign nationals into train box cars, or planes, and sending them home.

Do you suppose Mexican Liberals will take to the streets demanding that the deportations stop?

Not bloody likely.

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Maybe these people should look inward

In an article on 9to5 Mac a group called Extinction Rebellion vandalized the Apple 5th Avenue Apple Store spray painted by protesters calling for company to dump Trump.jpg.Store in New York. (The article is here)

Some other Climate idiot glued himself to a Trader Joes Freezer. Another Eco-idiot glued her hands to a counter at a business, then proceeded to berate people attempting to actually do business and pay their bills. Yet more idiots defaced more works of art, and still others graffitied a bunch of boats at a marina.

None of these people seem to realize that the chemicals used to clean the paint and glue off these various items is quite a bit harsher to the environment than whatever they’re bitching about.

Apparently these particular XR morons are upset that Apple CEO Tim Cook made some donation to Trump.

Give me a break! Apple has been pushing for a green agenda for a while now and their products and packaging are perhaps among the most responsibly produced in the industry.

XR (Extinction Rebellion) is just upset that Tim Cook even spoke to Trump.

I’d say that XR needs to look in their own pockets. I’d bet at least 80% of them have Apple iPhones. And probably not just iPhones, but the latest model to boot. I’d be willing to bet that most of those people upgrade their phones on a yearly basis. 

While they’re screaming about hypocrisy, they’re conveniently ignoring what their personal upgrade schedule does to the environment.

Sure if they’re trading in their iPhones to Apple then most of the materials are being recycled into new devices by Apple.

But what about the lithium in the batteries? What about the child labor used world wide to mine lithium, cobalt, and other elements necessary for those batteries? What about strip mining, and water contamination all in the cause of producing their shiny new iPhones that they dutifully buy year in and year out?

Yeah…

They conveniently ignore those issues because that’s happening in another country. Instead these idiots choose to worry about a donation from Tim Cook (not Apple) to Trump. What? Tim Cook can’t have a personal opinion? He’s not allowed to spend his money however he wants? Really? I thought all these protestors were about free speech and being allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted. 

Ohhhh I misunderstood. Those rules only apply if the group approves. Right, got it.

Even if they’re using Android based phones, the problem remains. The raw materials have to come from somewhere and the mining of those materials is devastating to the local environment.

Maybe these people could do something really constructive. Instead of calling for boycotts, maybe they could start an initiative called “Keep your devices until they die”

You know, only replace a device when it ceases to function, or can’t be repaired anymore.

They could do an annual recognition of the people with the oldest functional devices and how amazing those folks were for walking the walk and talking the talk.

That would be environmentally responsible! In fact, it would make a statement that I could get behind. Use less, recycle more. Use the hiker’s motto, “Leave no trace”.

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Some things I’ve learned living with my Apple Watch.

Apple watch ultra 2 front 2851321038.Over all I like my Apple Watch Ultra. I started with Apple Watches in the 3rd generation but the Ultra has been my favorite.

I’ve got a first generation Ultra and it’s been pretty darn good. There’ve been some bumps in the road but nothing too severe.

The battery is still holding up, although I’m starting to notice some age related degradation. Well within normal parameters for a battery that’s coming up on four years old.

The case and screen are still in good shape and I’ll swap bands from time to time just to give it a “New” feel.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere I’m hanging onto this one because of the O2 sensor. I really wish Massimo and Apple would bury the hatchet so the new watches could have the feature back. That’s another story.

There are some things I’ve learned over time.

Apple rings are generally a nice feature. There’s a down side though.

All of the rings are somewhat iffy depending on circumstances. This leads to frustration if you’re the least bit competitive trying to get the monthly challenges or maintain a move streak.

I completely blew the March challenge off this year, because it was simply too unrealistic. If you’re injured, and competitive, fighting to “win” the monthly challenges can lead to further injury. 

The Move Ring is sometimes wildly inaccurate. Why for example on some days does the move ring rack up move points walking around the house and other days literally running around in the house barely moves the ring at all?

I haven’t figure that one out yet.

The Exercise Ring is significantly affected by temperature. It’s not the sensors, or the watch itself. It’s the way the human body reacts to heat or cold.

In Winter it takes a lot more effort to get the exercise ring to move. This appears to be due to my body trying to prevent heat loss.

The Exercise Ring and sensors are tied to heart rate, and in Winter or even a cool fall day, my body reduces the blood flow to my arms and hands. So the heart rate sensor can’t read my heart rate properly or consistently. This results in the exercise ring being harder to close. Tightening the band helps some, but it’s possible to have the band too tight as well.

In Summer the reverse happens. In an effort to cool down, my body pumps more blood to my extremities which results in having to adjust the fit about mid walk or hike. There’s an almost imperceptible swelling in my arms. This swelling makes the watch too tight and at some point if I don’t adjust the fit, heart rate data isn’t collected properly because the sensors can’t detect my pulse.

The Stand Ring is also interesting and inconsistent. I’ve had it misread, simply because I reached down to pet the dog from a seated position.

All of these issues can lead to frustration closing rings, keeping up with a monthly competition, or competing with someone head to head.

Which is to say don’t take any of this too seriously. The Apple Watch and rings should be a guide, I’d say even the monthly challenges shouldn’t be much of a focus. They appear to be designed as motivations, but sometimes it’s too easy to get focused on winning the challenge instead of using common sense.

The same goes for Wrist Temperature. Primarily, wrist temperature seems to be linked to menstrual cycle tracking. Since I’m a guy, that’s not really a valid concern. I’m not likely to have that kind of cycle.

The watch knows I’m a male, so that measurement is more like a guide to my general health. If I’m ill for example, wrist temperature can lead me to breaking out a thermometer to check if I’m really running a fever.

I’d like to see more out of this sensor that catered more to male physiology.

For example, guys are notorious for “walking it off” it might be useful if the watch, knowing I was Male (genetically so), threw a notification if my wrist temperature was substantially higher than normal. Maybe something like “Hey, your wrist temp is a lot higher than normal, are you feeling okay? Perhaps you should take your temperature just to check.“

We might tell our spouses, “Yeah I’m FINE!” But our watch nudging us to take a moment of self care, we might not dismiss so out of hand.

We’re likely to recognize that the machine is just bringing something to our attention like a check engine light. That being said, Summer / Winter variations appear here as well. Heavy blankets on the bed at night during Winter, or sleeping with nothing on us on a hot Summer night, change the base temperature average slightly.

I don’t think wrist temperature can be accurate in the moment. Monitoring significant deviations over a day or two might be useful. Especially for those of us that live alone.

Sleep tracking is also one of those areas I think could be better. I had an actual sleep sensor in my bed for a while. It died and when I went for a replacement, the company was gone. I think Apple bought them and don’t know what happened after that. 

The sensor was super useful and I didn’t have to wear my watch to bed. The sleep part of Apple Watch is kind of misleading. Unlike the actual sensor that was on when my weight was on it. The Apple Watch version is dependent on alarms and schedules. If I’m late going to bed, often the Watch starts recording that I’m “Sleeping” when in fact I’m not, so the data is skewed. Likewise if I silence the morning alarm and decide to sleep an hour or so later on a Saturday or Sunday morning, the sleep data is wrong.  Don’t even get me started on what the readings look like if the watch thinks I’m sleeping but in fact I’m having sex.

The bed sleep sensor wasn’t affected too much by normal human activities.

I’m thinking that another in / under mattress sensor is in my future. I like knowing that I’m feeling tired because I thrashed around all night instead of wondering why I feel like I went ten rounds with a bear. The watch sleep sensor just doesn’t capture things the way they are.

The Cardio Fitness score is affected by when you stop a workout. If you stop a workout when you actually are done, the cardio fitness score will be higher than if you stop a workout after you’ve gotten water, wandered around the gym to the locker room, or as in my case, gotten in the door, unleashed the dog, opened the back deck, gotten fresh water for the dog, unslung a backpack, and poured a glass of iced tea.

The watch is doing a calculation about how your heart rate changes from working out to resting. The greater the change in the minutes after ending a workout, the higher the inferred cardio fitness. So screwing up telling the watch the workout is over can result in a lower score.

This can be confusing if you’ve inadvertently changed your routine and suddenly your fitness score is declining, but you’ve got no good idea why.

Since I don’t have a gym membership I’ve not played with the Apple Watch connecting to Gym equipment. I’ll have a gym membership in a month or two as part of a new insurance policy. So I may update this post once that happens.

There’s a claim, that new versions of the Apple Watch this year may have some kind of blood pressure monitoring. In theory it’s not supposed to provide systolic/diastolic numbers but instead is supposed to provide warnings like “Your BP is high,” inducing the wearer to check actual numbers with a blood pressure cuff.

This is similar to the atrial fibrillation warning the watch can give the wearer now. Given what I’ve observed with the heart rate sensors I’m not sure how accurate or useful this coming feature will be.

I’m curious and looking forward to this year’s Apple Ultra. But I’m not sure I’ll buy one. I might just keep using my old faithful for another year or two.

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Well that was a pain in the butt!

On the evening of July 4th, I was done watching the usual movie marathon. My knee was killing me, and I couldn’t sleep. 

Modemdanrouter 1 3508458483.Reading wasn’t working. I kept reading the same page over and over. I’d managed to walk the pup but it was not an easy walk. I’m still proud I put my big boy pants on and did it. But when we were done, I was hurting.

The knee is a bit better today.

Friday night though, I decided I wanted a little fun so I fired up the playstation. I was going to mindlessly blow stuff up and shoot zombies. It was s simple request. 

14d8385d59e614e0e5fea8fa5e140aa96a46622d7f836a7a 320292119.

It failed!

Turns out that somehow after the last power down of my equipment (so Edison could power down the grid, then didn’t…) My router either didn’t shut down right or corrupted a routing table.

This meant that for some reason most, and I mean almost everything dependent on internet access was working fine. I don’t use the playstation daily or even weekly so I didn’t notice.

There was something a week or so ago when I wanted to watch a movie from Amazon in surround sound. That particular night, the movie would start and play fine for a random period of time then suddenly freeze. I thought the problem was on amazon’s side and gave up after a couple of restarts.

Friday night, I couldn’t get the inevitable and requisite update to Call of Duty to download. There’s ALWAYS a download that must be installed with Call of Duty and frankly, I think it’s killing the franchise. Well, that and the story lines are kind of repetitive, plus now they’re doing this whole Season thing to milk more money out of Call of Duty fans. Honestly, I miss the days of plunking the DVD in the game station and just being able to play the damn game! 

6523167_bd 1882026385.I digress!

After repeated attempts, I switched to Borderlands and shot zombies. Saturday morning, I checked the network, the devices, and everything looked completely normal except that the Call of Duty download was still incomplete and claimed that it couldn’t use the DNS server provided.

Nothing else was having difficulty so I reset the playstation’s wifi connection & restarted the machine again. Still the problem persisted. It didn’t make sense, I half contemplated just hardwiring the playstation via a LAN cable. Doing so would probably have corrected the problem, but wouldn’t have answered the “WHY” of the problem.

Not having any better idea, I restarted the router.

That’s when everything went to shit!

When the router came back up, it started connecting to all of the devices it normally talks to then one by one devices started inexplicably dropping off wifi, then they’d come back. Something was very definitely wrong. 

I restarted the router again, this time all the devices came back online and remained except for one.

Turns out, the playstation and another device on the network were somehow interfering with each other. Both devices appeared to have the same identifiers and ip addresses. That’s a “can’t happen” situation and yet… here we were.

The routing table that is maintained internally by the router was somehow horribly corrupt. It took a several tries, and multiple reboots to get the router to let it go and purge the whole table. I thought I was going to have to reset the router entirely to factory default and reconfigure it from scratch. Somehow, probably due to a software update to the router, a portion of the table wouldn’t clear. The router was also randomly ignoring the command to purge the internal routing table

Nest protect.Not a big deal, just a pain in the ass.

However, it’s taken me most of the morning to troubleshoot, correct, and reconfigure all the devices. Some of them were extremely pissed off at the configuration “Changes”. 

The Call of Duty update has downloaded and installed. 36GB? Really? You’ve got to be kidding me!

I’m testing the playstation’s connectivity with mindless streaming of music right now. Maybe I’ll tell it to playback all of a television series while I go about my daily activities, just to make sure it’s rock solid again.

All of the other devices are back online. The last of the Nest Protects will probably go offline in the next month (it’s reaching the end of life and when Protects expire they’re quite adamant about it. And always at 3AM!) That will leave only the Nest thermostat which depending on other factors, I’ll either keep and use in manual mode, or replace with someone else’s smart thermostat. 

61JXDF3eObL. AC SL1500 -1355589408.I’ve been debating not bothering, but I like being able to have the house at some kind of reasonable temperature when I get home and at the same time not cooling or heating the house needlessly. Simple Scheduling works fine, IF you’ve got regular hours like leaving for work and returning at some predetermined time.

In winter I don’t mind the house being 55°F while I’m asleep, even colder if I’m not home. I’ve got blankets on the bed for nighttime. But I really like the house being 67° or so when I wake up or when I come home. I suppose I could use a schedule, but I like being able to get up in the middle of the night when I’m not sleeping well, and tell Siri to make the house comfortable. The newer smart thermostats appear to have the ability to use Apple home or other systems to anticipate your arrival. Yes, that’s kinda creepy but I’ll allow the creep factor to some extent if it’s under my control and convenient.

Okay, I’m spoiled! You know what? I’m worth it.

Speaking of spoiled. I’m still moving very slow with the knee. Maybe I’ll spend extravagantly on a nice long professional massage this week or next. I don’t think the problem is mechanical per se. I think it’s just a bunch of muscles have seized up from me going up & down the ladder so much working on the house.

I’ve been putting it off because I don’t want to spend the money and then undo the relaxation by going right back to what I did that caused the problem in the first place.

I may have little choice now.

After all of this one thing bears repeating:

“The problem with technology reliant processes is, without the ability to bypass technology when it malfunctions, you’re left at its mercy.“

UPDATE:

I ended up factory defaulting the router. The playstation was still having problems that made little sense.

I went through the whole reconfiguration process again. Since I had to go back to factory default, I took the opportunity to install higher security on the router.

I also enabled the HomeKit protection built into the router. This feature adds some firewalls to smart devices supposedly to protect them from hackers using smart devices to gain access to a home network. I have no idea how well it works but since it’s available I figured I’d give it a whirl.

While I was at it I enabled another feature that puts the smart devices on their own subnet. This further isolates smart devices from the main network while maintaining normal functionality. It’s kind of a pain in the butt from a configuration standpoint but does provide a little more security.

In the process, I discovered a couple more things. 1) There’s a lot more radar (from full self driving cars) in the area than I thought. 2) Someone in the neighborhood has something (no clue what) that’s blasting all kinds of RF (Radio Frequencies) at random intervals. I’m not sure, but I’d swear someone is using a microwave without a door! I guess they’re watching the food cook, and probably cooking their brains too. One can only hope!

I’d been putting off enabling or adding these security features precisely because it would require reconfiguration of the entire network.

Since I was already having to do the reconfiguration, it made sense to take care of the security issues at the same time.

The down side is that now I’ve got essentially a whole new network and that means some shake down time and tweaks.

If I’m really lucky, I may be able to tell the router to go stealth mode. Meaning that I can stop broadcasting its name. If nobody knows the network name, because it’s not showing up when they ask their devices to connect to WiFI, then it’s less likely they’ll want to mess with it.

I could see some libtard taking issue with my network name and messing with it just because they were offended. That’s the world we live in now.

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Learned something interesting, call this a PSA

I was working on the front of the house. I also happened to be precariously balanced on a ladder when an Amazon delivery driver stopped to deliver something to me.

The driver did absolutely nothing wrong. She walked into the driveway and said, “Excuse me” It was all very proper and respectful, she’d correctly judged that if she startled me I could fall from the ladder. I really appreciate her being aware and thoughtful.

The problem was, that my back was to the street, and I was wearing my Apple AirPods listening to music while I was working. This too is all fine. Where the difficulty happened was that I had the Conversational Awareness feature turned on.

When she said “Excuse me,” the AirPods dutifully amplified her voice and I swear to you, it sounded like she was literally right behind me. I dang near threw myself off the ladder trying to turn around. It startled me.

After a good laugh from both myself and the Amazon driver, and me not falling off the ladder all was well.

It wasn’t until about 1/2 hour later that I realized what happened.

So, in the interest of public safety, if you’re working on a ladder that’s precariously balanced it might be a good idea to turn off conversational awareness. This is especially true if you’re focused on what you’re doing instead of your surroundings.

I suppose I’m still a little twitchy after years of “Crazy Pants” marching up into my yard to scream obscenities, or as in the last incident raise hands to me. “Crazy Pants” is gone but I’d gotten to the point that I wouldn’t even work in the front yard with my back to the street, much less wearing anything that could impair my hearing.

Just a friendly safety tip…

I hope your holiday weekend is going well.