Author: wwducat

About: Writer, Technology guy, Photographer, Possibly EX-Software QA Engineer, Worker Bee. Interests: SCUBA, Working out, Friends, New Views, New Vistas, Photography
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We got a new IOS and a Speaker of the House

Mikejohnson2 1 3301794256I’m happy about the Speaker because he seems untainted by the rampant corruption in Washington. Time will tell. I do really like the thought of him whipping Congress into working something like real business hours instead of what we’ve been seeing. We’ll never get our money’s worth out of Congress. That’s a given, but maybe this new guy will put an end to Congress sitting around jerking off instead of passing budgets, laws, and finding ways to cut the obscene waste our government finds all too easy to create.

I’ll admit my fingers are crossed that this guy isn’t corrupt. Louisiana has a long and storied history of corruption in politics so I’m taking a “wait & see” position.

I’m hopeful though.

Iphone 15 pro max renderYesterday Apple released a lot of software.

I’m most excited about the new IOS 17.1 release. Because my iPhone and watch having weird glitches was annoying. The weather complications on my watch being blank most of the time, but intermittently working was really annoying.

I spent part of the morning updating everything in the house. Thus far all the goofy crap my watch and phone were doing appears to have been fixed. I’m sure as I move forward with the new IOS I’ll stumble across new bugs. I just hope those new bugs aren’t as plentiful as the bugs I was seeing in IOS 17.0.3.

I’ll admit that the updates went pretty smoothly. You could only appreciate how happy I am about that if you knew how much Apple Iron there is in this house.

While I was waiting for software to download and load, I managed to make a lot of headway on my list of dumb things I have to do. So the time wasn’t wasted.

I used to sit and watch the update process. I don’t anymore. I figure that watching it isn’t going to make it be any more reliable or move along any faster. It’s almost binary now. Either it works or it doesn’t. One path causes me no trouble and I get what I expected. The other path, something has gone horribly wrong and I’ll have to figure out how to fix it.

Either way, there’s little sense in my watching the screen for some cryptic message that won’t mean anything to me or to an ill trained first tier technical support person I reach at Apple.

Sadmac1

I guess that’s me applying the “Don’t worry about it until it happens” philosophy of life.

There is one thing I don’t do. I don’t update everything at exactly the same time. Typically I’ll let the phone finish before I update the iPad, computer, HomePods, AppleTVs, and watch. 

I have this vision in my head that I start the update process on everything at once. Then everything failing and seeing sad Mac faces everywhere. Which would mean I couldn’t even email for assistance.

Remember the Sad Mac?

I had to laugh at myself about the Dynamic Island.

At first I was like “Yeah, So what?” Then yesterday after the updates completed I realized that I’d been seeing the Dynamic Island all along.  True there are only a few apps that I have which make use of the Island while I’m doing other things. But the Dynamic Island is actually there all the time and providing me with useful information. It’s so seamless and honestly I expect useful information to be presented exactly where the Dynamic Island presents it that the island was almost invisible to me.

I have high expectations of software. So I’ll have to say to Apple “Good Job”. 

Now let’s have a look at other apps both Apple and third party to see if Dynamic Island integration can be useful.

I’m also liking having the always on display on the new phone. I didn’t think I’d like it but I do. Now I want to get a magsafe stand for the bedside table. So I can use the whole standby functionality thing. I haven’t had a bedside clock for years. It’s weird that my bedside clock became my phone, wand now my phone is morphing back into a bedside clock. 

Apparently I’m not the only person who’s thinking this way. MagSafe stands, particularly the one from TwelveSouth are backordered all over the place.

Well, off to continue the sorting and tossing of crap out of the house.

I hope everyone has a really nice day.

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Would your employer pay you 400K a year if you were this employee?

Employee statement:

I won the job after a couple of interviews.

I signed a bunch of documents in the first few days. I got a neat office and housing accommodation too. I got this great title. My employer doesn’t want me driving, they take care of all my transportation needs. Wherever I need to go, they make it happen.

I get to meet all kinds of interesting people. About half the people in the company don’t like me,  I get to call them bad names. Unlike in the past, now I am expected to call people names and talk about how threatening they are. I never get taken to HR about it either.

I do most of the things I was supposed to do, and because of my position I can say I’m done by noon.  Then I can go take a nap or two. Whatever doesn’t get done one day can be done the next. Besides there are other people in my office that can do the work.

I “work” from home a lot, I’m often “working” at the beach. Other people get to do that why shouldn’t I? I don’t even think about the cost of guys walking on the beach in suits & ties, or the other guys patrolling out in the ocean away from the beach keeping people away from me.

I get to do what I want and anyone that say I’m doing things wrong is a bad person, who needs to be silenced. Often they are. That makes other people say I’m doing it wrong and bad at my job. I tell them to hush-up, or else…

Would anybody’s employers put up with an employee as described above? 

None of my employers would have put up with me only putting in half a day. None of my employers ever paid me more than 96K per year either, usually I got paid around 55 – 80K per year plus insurance benefits. For that amount of money I was expected to be in the office at least 5 days a week 8 – 10 hours per day and if necessary on weekends.

I’m not complaining about my previous employers requirements, it was the job. I performed the required tasks, put in the time, and got paid. They didn’t care about my politics or personal life, I didn’t care about my coworkers politics or personal lives. We weren’t working at the company as a social event, or to make friends, we were working for paychecks that facilitated our pursuit of goals in our personal lives.

I’m sure you’ve all recognized the person I’m talking about. So I ask you, if this was your gardener, or your pool guy would you keep paying him? I wouldn’t!

So why is this employee still on our payroll?

Just asking.

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“To Teach Him a Lesson?” And in doing so you screwed us all? NICE!

John Rutherford, a Republican congressman out of Florida’s district 5. Jacksonville I’m looking at YOU!

John Rutherford headshotAnyway, John Rutherford said recently in an interview that he voted against Jordan over what Rutherford characterized as “personality flaws”, and to “teach Jim Jordan a lesson”.

Oh? What lesson might that be John Rutherford? Are you teaching Jim Jordan that you’re  a vindictive little bitch?

It wasn’t only Rutherfords vote that left Congress without a speaker for more than 20 days and made the Republican Party look like the keystone cops, But his attacks on Jim Jordan have become increasingly personal. 

Okay so he doesn’t like the Jordan… So the Fuck what!

That’s not the point. The Point Rutherford, you pompous, vindictive, shit, is to put the country first. Personal issues between Congressmen should be way the fuck down the line.

I’d like to know what Rutherford is pissed about. Did he discover that Jim Jordan has a bigger dick one morning in the Congressional Gym Locker room?  Lets face it Jim Jordan does have that big dick energy going when he starts asking questions in hearings.

I don’t know if Jordan would have been the best man for the speaker’s job. I do know that we need a speaker to kick Congress in the ass and get shit done.

I hope that Jacksonville has the good sense to give Rutherford his walking papers and replace him with someone who thinks about the Country not just their own ego.

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Time to get a chorein

HoarderGotta run errands, and then come home to keep sifting through the accumulation of crap.

Yeah, we all accumulate crap, and if it’s allowed to accumulate for 34 years, (Even after a fire…) well there’s a lot! I’ve been at this for 6 months now!

Before anyone gets judgey, I want you all to open that closet that you don’t use much. You know, the one in the spare room that’s the sewing / workout room. That closet that is behind the disused Peloton currently acting as a clothes rack. 

Go on, open it. Now look at the shelf and tell me you don’t have just as much crap as I do! If you don’t have closets that aren’t used much, go to your garage, basement, or your attic, and tell me you’re not accumulating stuff.

Uh huh. 

My place isn’t actually as bad as the photo, but there are times when I feel like it is!

Part of the issue is / has been that we were trying to do the right thing and properly dispose of stuff. Electronics to the E-Waste place, paper and plastic in the recycle bin except the plastic that can’t be recycled, then it’s figuring out what can and can’t go in which bin. Some metals can go in the recycle bin other can’t and to be really honest it’s all a pain in the ass!

So much so that the other half and I would come home tired, hungry, and wouldn’t want to take the 2 minutes to determine what went where. So shit would end up on any flat surface and we’d say we’ll get back to it. Uh NOPE!

Thus began the piles. 

The other half was always busy. There was always the next event to dash off to. I had more time but having to schedule a day to deal with loading the car up with e-waste then sitting in line to dispose of the shit and wondering if I’d destroyed all the data on any storage device is daunting!

All I wanted to do was get rid of some electronics, I don’t want to have the third degree going into the place, I don’t want to have to blow 1/2 of my day screwing around with broken shit that I’m probably disappointed about buying in the first place. Buffalo Technologies, I’m looking right at you!

There is shit in my garage and basement right now, that is almost from another epoch in terms of electronics or computer technology. Why is it there? Because it’s easier to stuff it in the basement or garage than it is to dispose of it properly!

Don’t even get me started on paperwork and bills & statements. I literally found a statement in my other half’s so called, “filing system” that was from 2000.

It was a phone bill from a company that no longer exists, having long since been purchased by a larger conglomerate.

My shredder overheats regularly!

But it’s time to get moving and hopefully get back before the freeway is a mess.

Who am I kidding? The freeway is always a mess and should be renamed to the obstruction way. After all we’re supposed to be fighting mis-information aren’t we…

Have a great day! 

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I love early morning Heart Attacks!

Digital manufacturingThis morning I got up as usual. I let the dog out, got a cup of coffee, and woke the computer to check email.

Up to this point everything is normal. I’m not feeling all that great, and I was thinking that it would be nice to take the laptop out to the living room where there’s some cuddle space and the dog would likely curl up beside me. 

Before doing that, I checked the backupstatus, because I’ve got the laptop plugged into a hub that provides an ethernet connection. If you disconnect, it makes the next backup have to clean up the files that were interrupted and it doesn’t take that long to let the machine finish its task.

That’s when I discovered that there hadn’t been any backup since yesterday at 4PM. Then, since inquiring minds want to know, I asked why. The computer said there’s no backup disk.

Hmm. I know there is a backup disk so somebody’s got some splaining to do. 

I go check on the NAS device in the closet. It’s running, but the drive indications are all wrong. There’s no error or warning per se, but the NAS is hammering on 2 drives and not responding to commands. The NAS is also not appearing at the address that it’s supposed to for me to access its control interface. 

I try a “soft” power down the NAS appears to accept that command but never completes the execution of the command. I do a hard power down. Knowing full well that whatever is going on is probably bad.

I power the NAS back up and now I’m greeted with all the drives being normal but there’s a little flashing status light. That light is usually solid. I go back to the computer and find that the NAS is still not at the address it’s supposed to be, nor is it broadcasting that it’s available. After scanning a bit I found an IP address that appeared to be the NAS. I logged in to the control console only to find that the NAS thought I’d moved drives from another NAS, and that I would have to update the NAS software to accomplish this.

Ahh I’m beginning to see the likely problem. The NAS tried to update its software and the update went horribly wrong. I guess I’m lucky that the machine still had some clue what it was, but what about my 10TB of data? What about the Porn?!?

Well there’s no path around, I must go forward. I tell the NAS that the 5 drives contain data and they are to be preserved. Then I tell the NAS it can update to the latest version of software. I didn’t want to do this… I’ve been holding off on updating to the latest (read that as completely redesigned) version of the NAS software because I just didn’t feel like working my way through the headache.

I’ve got data from the other half on that NAS that I’m still sorting through and there is no need to complicate matters with a completely different NAS operating system where I’ll have to rework permissions, connections, and applications.

My plan was to do this update when I was done with the other halfs business. 

However, since I have no choice, I click “Proceed” 

The next screen from the NAS says, “Formatting system volume” OH SHIT!!!!!

Does that mean the area that the NAS uses to store the OS, OR did I just flush all my data?

Well the helpful countdown to completion said I’d know in 9 minutes.

For the next 9 very long minutes I used the time honored prayer of IT workers everywhere.

“SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCK SHIT FUCK SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK!”

After 10 minutes the NAS came back online with a brand new OS and as an added bonus all the user accounts and been wiped. Yea! But the data appears to have remained intact.

So apparently my IT Prayer was heard, and answered, by a benevolent AI somewhere.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that I get to reconfigure the NAS and work my way through a new operating system where everything is moved and some features are gone entirely.

Yea! 

I’ve fired up a set of utilities designed to ensure drive integrity to make sure my data is in good shape. I’ll have to configure around the utilities doing their job to reconnect my NonAdmin account to the data. Oh look, the User Accounts, Groups, and Permissions controls are all different… Greeaaattt!

I have a headache that would stop Godzilla, I think I’ve got some sinus thing happening and I really may not have the patience for this…