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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Tomorrow is new OS day

I was going to say Apple Christmas, but that actually starts on the 19th or a couple of days later when shipments of new iPhones start showing up.

Looks like this year I may update my Ultra. It’s got the O2 Sensing back online although it’s not on device like it was in the original Ultra. They’ve supposedly shifted the computations over to the iPhone to get around Massimo’s patent lawsuit.

Massimo has responded by filing suit against that too. But the sensors are still there, the appeals are still pending, and Massimo hasn’t figured out that they could make a hell of a statement by simply saying, “Hey, we’re a healthcare monitoring company. We make a ton of devices used in the medical industry and are interested in making everyone’s health better. To that end, Apple can use the disputed technology freely with the proviso that they make mention of our company’s technological innovations. Upon which the blood O2 sensing in the Apple Watch is based.”

It would be a hell of a PR move, save everyone time and money, end a bitter dispute, and put Massimo front and center, in a positive light. Yeah, Apple may have gotten away with something, but the larger win might be worth it and their case may have been enough to make Apple less likely to play around without paying patent royalities.

At this point the only people getting rich in this dispute are the legal firms anyway.

There are rumors that Massimo is spinning off their consumer monitoring device into a separate company or division, probably in an attempt to isolate their actual medical division from the legal conflict.

I’d bet Apple would go for it. America is the only country where they have to disable the onboard sensors. I’m not sure, but I think the EU courts told Massimo to go pound sand.

The new Ultra has other features that make it a decent upgrade to the Ultra v1.

Still deciding about it. And I’ve got plenty of time. Pre-Orders are reporting 8 – 12 weeks out for delivery. I’ll be interested to see what the initial reports are from people who get the first units.

The iPhone 17 Pro is also interesting. It seems that I’m only interested in iPhones when they have blue as an available color. The cameras (front & back) are vast improvements over what I’ve got in my current phone. The battery life and cooling system are also of interest. My phone gets a little toasty in some use conditions. Fortunately, I don’t encounter those conditions often enough to have it be a pain in my butt, however it would be nice to not have to concern myself with those situations at all.

I’ll give it some thought, maybe I’ll just wait for another “Blue” year.

Given the change back to an aluminum frame, maybe I’ll wait & see what the real world usage feedback is, before making a move. It’s a very expensive product and if mine is working fine, perhaps waiting another couple of years wouldn’t hurt.

Probably the most interesting thing is the AirPod Pro 3. I really like my AirPod Pro 2s. They’ve been out for a few years now. It’s likely the improvements will make me demand Apple take my money.

Better heart rate sensing during workouts would be welcome. I’m pretty confident I understand why my heart rate is all over the place when I’m walking or doing other activities in colder seasons just using my watch. Perhaps a secondary set of sensors would prevent the dropouts. But cold is cold and the human body is always going to divert blood flow away from the body surfaces to maintain core temperature.

It’s possible the ear canal works the same way. Equally possible is that heart rate measured at the ear canal would be less affected, since the body is going to keep the brain fed as a priority.

The improvements to sound quality is a win, and translation functions might be very interesting. I wonder if people will be less likely to be nasty if they realize everyone around them knows what they’re saying even if it’s in another language? Likewise, I wonder if Apple translation will be adapted to translate some of the urban speech that now sounds more like another language as well.

Rough math, if I updated everything. It’s the cost of a new laptop. Wow!

Then again, the power of the phones in our pockets has eclipsed the first few laptops I owned very significantly.

The question probably comes down to “So I need that kind of computing horsepower in my pocket, or on my wrist?” Better questions to ask might be in the arena of tracking, and privacy. Having a smart assistant in my pocket opens the door for having that assistant “rat me out” to someone who is not my friend.

I’m not sure I’ll update to the new OS immediately. Maybe I’ll wait for my devices to do it automatically. It’s likely that waiting for the automatic update to take place will take a week or so, that might allow me to avoid the inevitable first release bugs.

We’ll see.

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I’m going to say what must never be said.

Tyler robinson mugshot 640x480.22 year old Tyler Robinson is in custody. Given that his father turned him in, it’s likely, but not yet proven in a court of law, that he murdered Charlie Kirk.

So at this point he’s the Alleged Assassin.

This we’re all pretty much aware of if you’ve seen the news. Nothing new.

Buckle up buttercups!

This young man deluded or insane as he may be, is clearly part of the left. The bullet casings appear to echo the leftist, ANTIFA, BLM, Glad, HRC, rhetorical talking points.

SO I ask, “Where are these organizations?“

Why aren’t they protesting and rioting demanding his release, he is after all one of their own. 

Where are AOC, Kamala Harris, Ilhan Omar, Aryana Presley, Rashida Talib, Jasmine Crocket, Adam Schiff, Bernie Sanders, Alex Padilla, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren Whoopie Goldberg, Joy Reid, Joy Behar, Stephen King, Van Jones, Maxine Waters, or any of the rest of the leftist mouthpieces?

How many times have they said they’ll pay bail to get one of theirs out of jail?

How many times have they stood on a podium loudly declaring that President Trump and all who voted for him or supported him are fascists, homophobes, transphobes, Islamophobes, dictators, oppressors, Nazis, authoritarians, White Supremacists, misogynists, rapists, or existential threats to democracy.

Has anyone set up a go fund me for this kid? People did exactly that for Decarlos Brown Jr. even though he admitted “I got that white girl” as he left the train.

Kamala Harris is a lawyer. Why hasn’t she stepped up to be the kid’s defense attorney?

Oh, right… he’s a white kid; of no consequence.

I don’t want to hear another fucking word about Race, White Privilege, or any of the rest of the spewing sewage talking points the left loves to parrot.

Attend me, all you white progressive liberal leftists, young or old. You cannot count on any of your supporting organizations or heroic leaders when the shit hits the fan. If you’re white, you stand alone to face the full weight of justice. There will be no protests for your freedom. There will be no leftist attorney riding in on a white horse to save you.

You’ll be utterly alone.

Why? Because you’ve all been used. You’re disposable useful idiots sowing chaos for people who will never know your name and don’t care to.

Guess what? The color of your skin does in fact determine whether the financial backers of the organizations you support will lift a shit covered finger to help you.

What Tyler Robinson did was wrong on so many levels words fail me. 

That being said, he was nothing more than a weapon. He was assembled, loaded, and pointed in the direction of any convenient target.

He could just as easily chosen to fire a weapon at JD Vance, Trump, Trump Jr., Rand Paul, Joe Rogan, Pete Hegseth, JK Rowling, or literally anyone holding a speaking engagement anywhere.

The idiots in congress have all said the political rhetoric should be toned down. 

It’s too late.

They’ve spent at least a decade, maybe more telling their followers, “Make these nazis afraid, don’t let them eat in peace, scream at them in restaurants and public places, make their lives miserable, make them suffer, it’s okay to peacefully burn down a business, or trash someone’s Tesla, It’s all fine because violence will make them listen and we’ll pay your bail.“

These people and organizations have created thousands of “human weapons” and left them distributed throughout the population while at the same time demonizing law abiding citizens who own guns.

Now they’re saying we need gun control and to turn down the rhetoric, saying it comes from both sides.

I reject their claims.

As angry as I am about the senseless murder of Charlie Kirk, as sorry as I feel for his family, as much as I’d like to see this kid absolutely crucified for his crime.

There’s a part of me, the better angel in me, that feels very sorry for him too. I believe his was manipulated by propaganda, never taught to question what he was being told, and never taught to think for himself.

I lay the blame for his beliefs squarely at the feet of the Democrat party, progressive liberal leftists, and even the educational system that he no doubt was a student in.

My sorrow for him, is that his life is now wasted, thrown away, at the altar of lies.

None of that mitigates that he picked up the gun, he scratched his ideological beliefs on the shell casings, he laid on that roof, took aim at another living breathing human being, and squeezed the trigger.

He’ll pay the price for his crime. But none of the precursor organizations or people will. They got what they wanted. They will get away scot free. Worse yet, they’ll do it all over again. 

I hope he gets a competent attorney and that it doesn’t bankrupt his family. I hope he comes to understand that he didn’t just destroy one family, the family of his perceived enemy… But that he destroyed his future and own family too.

They’ll always be “The family of that kid that killed Charlie Kirk.”

I also hope other kids who share his ideology watch very closely what happens to him and that he becomes an object lesson for them.

I’m not holding my breath, “The Stupid” is very strong with these people. They apparently can’t be reasoned with because they are unreasonable, they don’t seem to learn anything because their minds are closed.

Charlie Kirk, was trying in his way to change that.

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Changed my voter registration

Yesterday, amidst all the 9/11 and Charlie Kirk reporting.

I changed my voter registration back to Republican.

I switched to Libertarian sometime in the Obama administration.

I couldn’t stand what the Republicans had become, and the Democrats were no better.

At the time I wasn’t going to vote for Hillary for a wide variety of reasons. Not the least was that I believed she was simply dangerous and still do. There are too many people around her that have mysteriously “Suicided” for no good reason, and oddly they seem to have frequently shot themselves in the back of the head. I don’t know if Hillary had anything to do with any of them, but for me, it called into question the caliber of people she surrounded herself with. Either she had a lot of very unstable people surrounding her, or she had a lot of people around her that were into questionable activities that got them killed. Either way I didn’t want that anywhere near the office of the president.

At the time Trump was running and with all of his bombast I wasn’t sure he was the right man for the job nor did I have faith that he would be up to it.

The Republican field was also unbelievably weak.

So in that election I abstained from voting for president. I chose neither candidate and slept well that night.

Signing up as Libertarian wasn’t a bad move, but it was kind of sitting on the sidelines.

In principal I agree with many of the libertarian beliefs. But the party itself is ineffective and tends to put forward as candidates some real loons.

It served my purpose. I got to vote in all the elections and got notifications about all the issues and candidates.

After Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The way the Democrats in congress reacted, the silence of the libertarian party on the matter, and the giddy celebrations of the liberal left, (mostly Democrat) I was, and still am, appalled.

Add to it that Gavin Newsom is in the process of forcing redistricting in violation of the states redistricting policy, and that the California courts are saying they’ll allow it. I couldn’t stand on the sidelines anymore.

California (I don’t believe,) reports changes in voter registration publicly, but since registration is electronic and goes to the Secretary of State it seemed a fitting time to make a small statement.

Call it a pre-vote.

It was a way to let the idiots in Sacramento know that one more California voter is sick of their shit. Sick of the idiot governor and sick to their stomach of the Democrats way of doing things.

Newsom’s redistricting plan could easily be conflated with Kirk’s assassination. Both are efforts on the part of lunatic democrats to silence dissenting voices.

California redistricting is gerrymandered to the breaking point as it is by a supposedly “Independent” commission, and Newsom’s plan is just a way to silence conservative voices.

I seriously thought about registering Democrat. I thought, if all conservatives registered Democrat, then Newsom gerrymandered based on false data, it would be interesting to see him humiliated at the mid terms.

But then I decided Newsom and Sacramento should know exactly how much they’re hated and what a shitty job they’ve done.

Oh Newsflash: Looks like the FBI has maybe the “real” suspect in custody. It’s a 22 year old kid probably loaded up with rhetoric and unfounded hate towards Charlie Kirk. Etched on one of the bullet casings found with the rifle was, “Hey Fascist! Catch!”

The kids father turned his sorry ass in. 

Hearing some of the things these people believe Kirk said is completely astounding. Stephen King made the claim that Charlie Kirk advocated stoning of Gays.

His ass is going to be fried and he’s already taking heat for it. Dave Rubin jumped on the statement immediately saying the Kirk had been to several dinners with he, and his husband and never once had thrown a stone.

I hope Kirk’s estate sues the living shit out of King who has become almost as bad as Rosie O’Donald, spewing unfounded claims, rumor, & innuendo.

There was a video of a ring nosed, pink hair girl discussing Kirks murder with her Dad on X. She said she was glad Kirk was murdered because he said hurtful things. You could tell her Dad was super disappointed and see her suddenly wondering if she was going to lose her place to live. She had no good arguments and her Dad was asking simple questions about freedom of speech. She kept going back to Kirk deserved to die because he said stuff that hurt people’s feelings. The one question her Dad didn’t ask was, “You’ve said things that hurt my feelings do you deserve to be shot? Do you deserve to be thrown out of the house for those things?”

I think that would have brought his point home to her. Freedom of speech must apply equally to all, or it’s not freedom of speech. 

There are scattered repots of people losing their jobs over their sick celebrations of a murder. I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, the vengeful tired part of me says, “good”. Then the egalitarian part of me says, “Wait, their freedom of speech must be protected too, even if you think they’re shitty people.”

I suppose it comes down to their employers deciding they don’t want the bad publicity. Since employment is not guaranteed and most of the time employers have standards of conduct I suppose it’s fair. 

The people can say whatever they like, but their employers don’t have to continue giving them paychecks.

I suppose It’s the other side of the coin. Conservatives have been fired over their years for saying conservative things because those words hurt the feelings of the progressive left in the workplace. Maybe it’s a rebalancing of the scales.

Maybe America has reached a turning point. It seems that a lot of people who have been sick of years of turmoil are finally speaking up. They’re speaking truth and calling out the crazy idiots that have been running around “in control” only because everyone thought they’d burn themselves out like a weak virus.

I for one am willing to say “No More” and it looks like a shit ton of my fellow Americans are too.

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I hadn’t forgotten…

090811opinion_1280x720 1934641943.Today is the 24th anniversary of 9/11

Back then we naively believed that the enemy was largely outside our country.

We united as a nation and we wiped out one of the top five military forces on the planet in less than a week.

24 years later, it looks like the enemy is not only at the gate. They’re within!

We’ve been divided, set against each other and some of our people are celebrating the murder of a 31 year old man who simply spoke what he believed, and asked questions.

24 years ago, I was watching the endless replays of the towers falling and was every bit as angry then as I am today. I was confused, and didn’t understand why we were being attacked, or who was attacking us.

I had family in the area, 24-36 hours followed where I honestly didn’t know if they were all okay.

Today, I clearly know who the enemy is.

They were standing in the House last night in a House session of Congress.

Some of them were standing in Congress 24 years ago as well. Were they always what we’ve seen them to be recently?

I don’t know.

I have mixed feelings. Today we’re supposed to be remembering those who died on 9/11. But 9/10/2025 has to some extent reopened old wounds.

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Still stunned

I woke this morning, I watched the sunrise over the mountains. I thanked God for the beauty of his handiwork, and for another day. I asked God for patience, strength, wisdom, guidance, and to calm my raging spirit.

Today, I’m not sure what to do. Do I go about my chores, search fruitlessly for a job, act like everything is normal? It’s clearly not normal. 

Something fundamental has changed in our country and in me.

After seeing what I’ve seen over the past two days, hearing what I’ve heard on the news, and seeing people celebrating an assassination.

I believe we’ve all been forced down a very dark road. Unfortunately I don’t think we can turn around, the only path left is forward. Deeper into darkness, keeping faith that eventually we’ll step into the light again.

I never thought I’d live to see this, here, in the land of my birth, yet shockingly, here I am.

One thing is certain. If you think what happened in Utah yesterday was okay we’re not compatible. Unfollow me, or lose my number. I’m not interested in anything you have to say.