Category: Modern problems

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Brrrr! First snow of the season

We got a light dusting of snow last night. I suspect that the white fluffy hides a bunch of ice so I’ll be walking very carefully on manmade surfaces until it warms up a bit.

The temp is a balmy 29°F at the moment.

I wasn’t wanting to spend another winter here, but here I am. I’ll make the best of it as I always do. I probably wouldn’t mind so much if the county plowed our street, but they don’t, and I’m not looking forward to the winter workouts. 

I’ve replaced a bunch of threadbare socks with nice wool ones. I’ve replaced my worn out “goto” boots with a new pair. My various seasonal jackets will hold together for another year so I guess I’m mostly set. 

I’ll be stocking up on soups and lay in some other food supplies over the next few shopping trips to make sure there’s food in case I get snowed in.

It’s time to fill the overly complicated annoying “safer” gas can. I’m going to need it full of gas to fill the snow thrower soon.

Honestly the stupid thing seems to be a fill it once then toss it, because the vapor pressure caused by temperature changes has deformed the plastic permanently. It’s 1 year old. I had metal cans that were 20 years old before the house fire.

This new fangled complicated abomination has a ratcheted locking ring to keep the fill cap on. Due to the deformation of the plastic, it can’t be pressed down against the can, far enough to release. So I can’t get the top off to refill the POS.

God! I miss the old fashioned standard metal gas cans we grew up with. The flexible “snake” pour spout was the most complicated thing about ‘em. And all those metal cans, had a little plug in the top that you popped open when you filled them, or poured the gas. It equalized the pressure and prevented the glug glug that caused spills.

Hmmm. I’m thinking tin snips and a little brute force engineering will solve the problem on the current gas can. I don’t want to pay another $15 for a single use gas can. Besides, I thought these “improvements” were supposed to make things better & safer.

Because of the “Safety” features, I’m going to have a go at, a partially filled, pressurized, (pressure release? We don’t need no stinking pressure release,) gas can with a metal implement in an attempt to get the damn cap off. Yeah, that’s a lot safer!

I swear, the older I get the more I appreciate the KISS principal!

Speaking of which, I might treat myself and buy a new snow shovel. My favorite one, (we have several,) is a little tattered. It might make it through another Winter, but then again, It might not. I don’t really want to spend money on winter gear if I’m not going to be living someplace where it’s necessary.

I did treat myself to an un-necessary but convenient little device. While shopping for my nice wool socks, I bought one of those little headlamp deals. I used it a lot while I was cleaning the garage the other day. It was nice being able to peer into dark corners to see if something was peering back at me.

At one time we had two of these headlamp things. We’d received them as gifts, but Jerry used them more than I did. Now, I can only find one of the two, and it seems a little flakey. I’m thinking Jerry wore out one, switched to the other, and was well on his way to wearing out the second one. They were large, heavy, and clunky. I found them uncomfortable and they tended to have a lot of light shining back in my eyes, in addition to illuminating the area I was facing.

This new one is smaller, brighter, more directional, and I can change the brightness.

It wasn’t necessary, but I’m using it in the basement going through boxes of stuff and it was cheaper than some of the work lights I was looking to purchase.

I can also see using this one if I move someplace where Jesse & I take walks in the evening. That was a lesson learned while we were evacuated due to the fire. Jesse has a “Disco Light” that I use in the evenings to make him more visible, but if I’m not carrying a flashlight I’m invisible. Having a light is also helpful when I’m bagging his poo.

Winter preparation chores are upon me. It’s time for me to shut down the external hose bibs, and trim the chocolate flower next to the walkway. I let it grow wild throughout the Spring & Summer because the honey bees like it. In Fall, I trim it back to almost the ground because it interferes with clearing snow. 

It’s strange, last year I was still reeling in reaction to Jerry’s passing. I wasn’t really feeling it. 

This year, I feel it very sharply.

This time of year, Jerry would be doing things for the church or the temple, he’d be laying in canned goods and doing the inside stuff to prepare for Winter. I’d be outside, trimming plants, and securing various items for the freezing temperatures, I’d be adding mulch to protect their roots, cleaning the dryer vent, moving things around to make snow clearing easier, and I’d be whistling the whole time. If it was cold while I was working, Jerry would call me in every couple of hours to drink something warm. It was the inverse of our Spring / Summer routine.

Doing the chores now, and being present, (to use an overused “woo woo” term,) makes the loss a bit sharper and yet not overwhelming as it seemed last year. I guess I’ll count that in the “Win” column. I suspect it means I’m healing and coming to some sense of peace. 

I miss him. I always will. Yes, I’m doing the stuff that needs to be done. Only now I realize I was doing that stuff for him, for Us, and it was about making us comfortable. Somehow, when I come in from the various chores, the house seems oppressively silent. This is the second winter without him, and it’s feeling a lot harder than the first. Harder isn’t the right word, poignant? That seems to be a better fit, but doesn’t really capture the breadth of it.

All that being said, it is a beautiful day outside. Yeah it’s cold, but the sun is bright and it’ll warm up while Jesse and I are on our walk. I think it’s time to get up from this desk and go enjoy nature. It will make Jesse happy, and most of the time I end up smiling or laughing at his antics.

We encountered a portable generator yesterday. He didn’t know what to make of it and didn’t like it. So, he decided it was appropriate to bark at the little red block.

The workmen and I were all laughing but Jesse was undeterred in telling the machine that it was on our walking path. I took a knee and told Jesse it was okay, then one of the workmen kindly turned the machine off until Jesse & I were well away from their work area.

I’m curious to see what today brings.

Carpe Diem!

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Apple Intelligence… Hmmm this might take some getting used to.

Apple Intelligence General Feature 2893369847.Hooray! 

With the installation of MacOS 15.1 I can move large files and miracle of miracles TimeMachine is operational again. (I grumble that TimeMachine after their security patch 15.0.1 was so screwed up that I lost the past year of backups but hey, it’s only important data right???)

On the plus side I can get back to working on a Photo Project I started for a friend and had to suspend because when I moved huge blocks of files the OS would start truncating the transfer at random intervals and damaging files in the process. Bet you didn’t see that coming!

All the Apple devices have been updated. It’s as yet unclear if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

One of the improvements, is built in writing tools and some interesting summary tools for things like email. 

One of the down sides may be built in writing tools. I’m saying this tongue in cheek.

For the past few years or so, Apple has had a form of predictive text and autocorrect running on Mac OS. It was a lot like the predictive text you’d get on your iPhone and iPad. Sometimes it would get really confused and autocorrect what you were saying into something completely opposite of what you meant.

Other times, the predictions would be pretty darn good and you’d forget the system was running at all.

Often I’d find myself at odds with the system because apparently I use language a little differently than the “Norm”.

Apple Intelligence is a bit more beefed up at this point. It will no doubt get smarter and push deeper into more applications. It has the potential to be really helpful. I wonder though how much my writing style will be influenced and indeed the writing style of everyone else by this tool. Will the tool homogenize writing styles so much that written words become boring?

Writing this, the writing tool has been very helpful without being a pain in the butt. I don’t know if that because it’s not fully online, or if it’s learning from me right now. We’ll see.

Microsoft is experimenting with similar systems, so I could see a convergence wherein every news article, term paper, letter, or email, read as though they were written by the same person.

Selectric II.If that were to happen, I suspect we’d see a resurgence of IBM Selectric typewriters. Both for their nostalgic “Hip” qualities and so that writers could put their thoughts on paper without those thoughts being filtered by an AI. They came in a lot of interesting 60’s & 70’s colors.

In another 5 -10 years maybe there’ll be a market for old fossils like me who know how to fix mechanical devices. That’d be funny as hell. Selectrics were pretty bulletproof but they do need regular maintenance.

$350 an hour seems about fair!  Maybe I should start searching eBay for the specialized tools now.

I haven’t worked with the “New Improved” Siri enough to make a determination about it yet.

The “Old” Siri and I would get into arguments. It was embarrassing, Siri wouldn’t understand what I wanted but rather than admit that, Siri would go off and do something completely, sometimes horribly incorrect.

I’d ask for the latest Dave Rubin podcast, and Siri would start playing Metallica. How did Siri get to Metallica from that starting point?

Then as I’m telling Siri to cancel, stop playing, make it quiet!!!! Siri would not respond. Siri would decide to respond when I was creatively swearing in ways that would make friends of mine, who happened to be Marines laugh & applaud, by opening a text message to my mother and dutifully transcribing every obscenity into the message.

Thank goodness for unsend!

If I’m ever able to change Siri’s “Attention” word, I’m going to rename Siri to “Bitch!”

Then again, with Siri being more intelligent I might not have to rename it. Time will tell on that front.

I like the changes to the WatchOS. The smart stack seems a bit more useful. I like the latest scores or weather conditions popping up the way they do. The iPhone and iPad IOS changes are also pretty nice and with the addition of Apple intelligence baked in as it is, I could see my phone becoming more useful as a multifunctional device.

I’ll make an admission here. I mostly use my phone for actual phone calls, text messages, and photos. I often forget that I can get directions and other stuff. I’ve only in the past year or two gotten into the habit of using my phone, or watch to pay for things.

The number of applications on my phone only takes up 2 pages. I don’t tend to keep apps on my phone that serve no purpose, nor do I download apps with abandon. 

The less apps I have, the less accounts I have. The less accounts, the less exposure to data breaches. There’s a logic, it’s not just that I’m old.

That being said, if in fact the new Siri can be helpful like an actual assistant, I could see perhaps becoming more interested in the convenience offered by some apps.

Part of the issue is that I live away from the city. The further you get outside city limits the less useful apps for all the city things become.

Delivery? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

It took 20 days to get a new pair of hiking boots delivered. Really, those boots have more transportation miles on them, than I’m likely to put on them over their useful lifespan as hiking boots. Watching them come across the country, I honestly thought about just driving to one of the FedEx locations they were bouncing between, and picking them up.

Delivery… I got your Delivery right here!

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Bank of America shows us something important.

Pexels steve pancrate Bank of America 640x480.This week Bank of America had some kind of outage that resulted in an unknown number of their customers having their bank accounts zeroed out.

“My personal and business Bank of America accounts were wiped to $0.00 in this alleged cyber attack,” Elijah Schaffer, a journalist with Gateway Pundit

Elijah Schaffer is a fairly well known conservative reporter and the host of the “Slightly Offensive with Elijah Schaffer” podcast.

Thus far I’ve not seen any numbers of how many BofA customers experienced this problem.

The number was apparently large enough that their customer service phone lines were overwhelmed and would answer, say they couldn’t talk, then hang up.

This points to the fragility of a cashless society, in general. It also points to something potentially more sinister.

In recent years there has been a push from some quarters to have specialized categorizations added to VISA, MasterCard, American Express, & other cards.

For the time being these categorizations appear to be limited specifically to firearms.

So while Federal and State governments say they’re not in favor of a nationwide firearms database.

These categorizations allow Federal and State governments to have a backdoor into being able to identify someone who either has guns, (registered or not, because grandaddies rifle or six shooter is probably not registered, and doesn’t NEED to be,) who may have purchased  bullets, accessories, or even hats displaying firearms logos… or who may just have an interest in guns.

Categorizations are way better than a firearms database. With a firearms database, someone has to have purchased a firearm, or specifically chosen to register a weapon.

Ever changing laws regarding which firearms need to be registered, what doesn’t, what is legal in this state or that state and what isn’t, and that a gun or a magazine purchased last year was legal then but now isn’t legal, have gone a long way toward criminalizing average citizens.

It’s really all about creating enough legislation such that anyone, at anytime, at the convenience of whatever government or state official, can be charged for illegally possessing something that some other asshole who’s never seen or fired a gun in real life decided was too dangerous to exist.

All of which brings me to my point. 

Select, apparently random Bank of America customers have suddenly, inexplicably, had their bank accounts zeroed out. Since many banking customers have their credit cards through the same bank their checking & savings accounts are with, categorizations could literally be used to punish individuals that government entities find offensive.

Think about it. You expect your direct deposit paycheck to be accessible. You expect your debit card to work. You expect your credit card to work. What happens when you offend a government official and they order your accounts frozen?

The IRS, for years has used this power to screw citizens. The IRS was granted the power to freeze accounts in an effort to curtail drug and human trafficking. But they, more often than not, use it to make sure a mom & pop business owner and their family goes hungry.

Obama used the IRS to punish organizations which opposed him. Folks in these organizations  spent years and thousands of dollars defending themselves against Obama’s IRS. Some of them are only recently cleared of wrongdoing. But the IRS is under no obligation to pay these people back for their legal expenses.

How much easier would it have been for Obama DOJ to punish everyone who donated to organizations he didn’t like with a conference call to VISA, MasterCard, & American Express?

Creating categorizations allows for very specific targeting of large groups who have one or two charges in common. 

For example, everyone who’s ever purchased a firearm or bullet. How about anyone who’s purchased a ticket to a Trump rally?

We know that Biden’s DOJ used charge records to identify January 6th attendees. Some of those people were later classified as January 6th rioters and arrested. Many of whom are still incarcerated awaiting trial almost 4 years later.

Over time, computers could narrow it down to categorizations of individual products. Don’t like cigarettes? Cancel people’s accounts who buy them. Don’t like a particular corporation, destroy them through their clients. No one will buy a corporation’s products if doing so results in being unable to buy food.

It’s far more efficient than the IRS having to target individuals or organizations. Subpoenas and all the constitutional protections that the IRS has to step over, through, or around, become a thing of the past.

Simply looking at commonalities between members of a group would allow correlation and targeting. Eventually, I could see the focus narrowed to individual SKU numbers. I’d bet it could be done today with the right databases and a bit of creativity.

I know this sounds like a dystopian fantasy, but believe me when I say it’s possible. This is what people mean when they talk about social credit scores, if you believe this kind of control can’t or won’t be implemented here in the United States you’ve got a shock coming. There are a number of congressional folks from both parties who approve of elements of this but don’t see the bigger picture.

Which leads me to wonder, was the Bank of America “Glitch” really a cyber attack, or was it a proof of concept demonstration?