Category: Modern problems

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Morning cup of coffee

Having my morning cup of coffee, waiting for a more civilized hour to go out and start with the yard work.

I’m on the clock again, and it’s my Sunday.  Sundays are supposed to be lazy, quiet, and slow, unfortunately that’s not my life anymore.

Seems like I’m always racing to the next thing these days. I miss being able to just relax.

Well, I guess that just means I need to keep working at normalizing my life again. Whatever “Normal” is. 

It’s funny, seems like the more I try to make my life simple, the more complicated it gets. It’s not just doing the physical stuff, it’s the encroachment of the digital aspect of all our lives.  If it’s not some website demanding that you change your password and add a PIN and give us your phone number and activate two factor authentication, it’s another service telling you that they don’t have enough people to answer your call and that you really should be using their overly complicated website for better service.

Altered carbon wallpaper 62904 64914 hd wallpapersReally? Since when did using my computer, or tablet, or phone make anything actually easier?

No matter what you’re using to access the digital services… you’re having to keep track of passwords, signs & countersigns and there’s a new trend on some websites where they won’t let you copy and paste that information. That means that if you’re trying to use your phone you can’t switch to your password manager, copy the password and paste it into the required field.

So now you’re writing the 16 character password down and entering it from a piece of paper then manually typing it in, praying that you get it right. So tell me again how this is making my accounts safer???

And of course if you work where I do, you’re doing all this in your car on a 10 minute break that you’re going to burn four minutes of just getting into and out of the building.

All of our lives are too busy and too complex. 

I miss the “Good ‘Ol days” when you could move at your own pace and not dance 24/7 to someone else’s tune.

2014 04 20 15 45 131I think the Amish folks may have it right.

Maybe we should start putting away our tech, keep it and be a technological society but get back to making things simple.

I think there was a StarTrek movie about a group of people who knew technology, but chose simply not to use it.

After all who doesn’t appreciate the craftsmanship of Amish furniture and goods?

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And from the “OH For FUCKS Sake Column”

HenryCavillOk I’m catching up on news and noticed that Henry Cavill… You know Superman?

Apparently he caught a bunch of crap for expressing his personal opinion and observation that dating SUCKS!

I get what he’s saying, maybe it’s because I’m a white male. 

This guy’s comments resonated with me because I censor myself all the time. There is not a moment in a workplace or public place where I’m not wondering if anything I say is going to be taken out of context and used to suggest that I’m some kind of racist, rapey person.

For him it’s more of an issue because he’s a public figure.

There are a lot of people looking to be offended by almost anything, all the damn time. The response that his comments drew is actually a prime example of exactly what he was talking about.

There are self absorbed little special snowflakes the world over who seem to be spending their entire days looking for the slightest thing to be offended about. In the case of far too many women, (NOT ALL) everything they encounter in their world is about causing them offense.

Guess what princess, the world don’t give a shit. Get over yourselves. Ain’t nobody got the time to tailor a series of affronts to you. Increasingly, fewer and fewer people have any time to worry about whatever the fuck you’re bitching and whining about this week.

If a dude expresses an interest in you it does not automatically mean he’s going all rapist. It means that he finds you visually, personality-wise, or intellectually appealing. Take it as a complement and even if there’s no way in hell you’d like to date him, you can at least be nice about it.

Now, if that dude doesn’t take “no” for an answer then you’ve got something to complain about and ample recourse either with the law, or with some big strapping decent man who’d be pleased to make sure you have a nice time by putting a dirt bag out of whatever establishment you’ve found yourself in.

I’m not denying that there are dirtbag men out there who have no clue about proper behavior. But ladies… stop making every man you encounter fear any interaction with you.

Who knows? You might find a prince charming if you’d drop your defenses for just a moment and let a guy buy you a drink and spend two minutes talking with him.

Just Sayin…

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Some kind of major update on my Windows VM

I know that Windows is a complicated large OS but, Wow! its slow as hell when it comes to updates. The updates are necessary, I just wish that they didn’t have to be so massive every other time I decide to use Windows.

OK I’m impatient. I get that. 

I’m reminded of why I went to Mac in the first place. I think I started with Apple around the time of OS7 and I made the switch because of Windows preventing me from simply writing a letter. Here’s the funny thing, I drove to LA, bought my first Mac, set it up, and had written the letter and mailed it, before Windows said it was ready for me to actually start working.

After that time, I never looked back I was a Mac person. I keep a Windows system around mostly to keep work and home separate. Work stuff I do on the Windows system, personal stuff I do on the Mac. Both systems run on my old reliable MacBook Air so at least I’m not having to cart around or worry about two computers. Since most businesses insist on using Windows it just works out that keeping Windows available is convenient.

Yes, I know that I can use Microsoft’s Office 365 to create compatible files and move them easily across systems and frankly I do. But having a Windows desktop on my screen tends to keep me focused on “Work” if I’m doing something for work.

This morning though, I just wanted to quickly check in and see if there was anything needing my attention. That was an hour ago and Windows is still updating.

I’ll let it cook for a while longer then if It’s still not ready I’ll take the risky option of 3 finger restarting Windows and hope that the entire VM isn’t trashed.

Sigh…

I wonder if I should just move it all over to a Work User on the Mac and then at least I’ll have something that always freakin works. 

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It’s Official, I’ve become my Grandfather

A younger person was complaining about the Microwave ovens down in the lunch room. At first I thought it would be that they’re dirty or too busy or something.

What rebooted my brain was when she said they were too slow.

SLOW?!?!?!

IGen and Phone EtiquetteI guess it’s that I am really old, or that she was really young but I couldn’t help but laugh.

And I did! I laughed hard and loud.

The young lady couldn’t understand what I found so funny, so I explained that when I was growing up There were no microwave ovens and we actually had to do things like boiling water over a FLAME of all things…

One of my coworkers from Trinidad was laughing too. He said that growing up, he had to carry buckets of water for a shower 3 out of 7 days.

She couldn’t believe what we were saying. Her only response was “Ewwww!”

That made me laugh even harder!

One of the other older guys asked what was so funny, we repeated the original assertion about the slowness of the microwave. The other guy busted up laughing!

The young lady was sooo confused. She had absolutely no idea how we “olders” could have a common experience. After all us “olders” don’t even know how to use the internet to stalk each other. She doesn’t get it that we do know how… we just choose not to.

Later on another young colleague says, “I hope people are nice to me when I’m old.”

I said, “They won’t be!”

He looked at me dumbfounded.

“How do you know?”

I told him, “Look around, look at the pussy hat wearing hateful people protesting against everything and everyone. They’re your generation and as far as they’re concerned, everyone before is responsible for all the ills in the world. And they hate and blame everyone before them all the while fanning the flames of division, asserting they have all the answers. They look at us and hate us for just doing the best we could, and trying to live our lives.”

“That’s dark man.”

“And unfortunately true,” I replied.

He shook his head, then went back to work.

It got me to thinking about the snowflake mentality.

So many of these people have no concept of hardship. They have such an easy comfortable life and they freak out when things like the internet is down, or they can’t make a cell phone call.

Main qimg 94166faffa2120a9426974df45288d70 c 901x507They can’t imagine no running water, or the electricity being out. 

I had it a lot easier than my parents. I had it easy because they worked their asses off to make my life better than theirs. Much the same way their parents did for them. I don’t recall a time when the house I lived in didn’t have a telephone or electricity. I do recall that air conditioning wasn’t common except in theaters and business centers. 

I remember wanting to go to the grocery store with my parents during the summertime. Why? Because I could hang out in the frozen food section and it was cool instead of swelteringly hot and humid. 

Movie theaters had great attendance on hot summer nights. Everyone sat quietly in the dark watching a movie because it was better than being outside or at home trying to sleep when the temp was 90 and the humidity was 100%

I remember the novelty of a car with air conditioning. Prior to that, you rolled down the road with all the windows down praying that you made all the traffic lights and didn’t have to stop.

There were no calculators, there were adding machines. They were big, noisy, clunky mechanical things. Rotary telephones were the norm and if it was a multiline phone it was a big deal. Those phones actually used mechanical switches to move between lines.

The first house I recall living in had a party line. If you picked up the phone, you listened for dial tone, if there wasn’t a dial done you heard someone else talking. That was how a lot of the gossip got spread in the neighborhood.  It was impolite to listen in, but sometimes the conversation was just too juicy to ignore.

All of that is gone now, at least in this country. I remember letting the phone ring 10 times and if there was no answer, you called again later. Answering machines were amazing and being able to retrieve your messages remotely, was a big innovation.

I remember the power going off frequently and some people not having a television. It was a big deal when my family got a color TV, and even then lots of shows were only broadcast in black and white, and there were 2 and 1/2 channels depending on the day. Cable was life changing.

All these memories are of a time that the youngsters of today would call hardships. But even as I kid I knew that things were better in my life than they’d been in my parents childhoods. There was an Aunt who had a hand powered water pump built into her kitchen counter. I remember being fascinated with it as a little kid.

My Grandparents used to tell us that we were spoiled. Now that I’ve got a long string of notches on my belt, I see their point. I also begin to understand their dismay when I had trouble with simple things. “No silly, you have to prime the pump. You can’t just keep yanking on that handle and expect water to gush out.”

6a00d8341c630a53ef015435450707970c 640wiLife is change.

I suppose that my concern – and that of my grandparents, is that dashing headlong into a technological future that builds dependency on that technology always working, will lead to a very fragile future.

After all how many people know how to make a fire without a lighter? How many people know what’s actually happening when they spin that little wheel?

What happens when the cellular network goes offline? How many people have candles in their pantry? How will you get news or emergency information if everything is coming from the internet? Does anyone even have a working AM radio anymore?

If all the books are digital what happens when there is no power anymore? 

These are things I never really considered until I saw more and more people living with their faces glued to a cell phone screen, and libraries closing due to lack of use.

As I’ve interacted with more and more young people It’s become clear that they will be utterly lost if our fragile infrastructure is damaged or destroyed. Depending on where they are in the world or even our country, they may not be able to access written texts because there won’t be any. Will any of them be able to fix basic machines, or understand simple irrigation systems? 

5000 years in the future, archeologists may well conclude that we had no written language, or that we had limited written communication via a set of glyphs… what we now call emojis. Will Western Civilization enter the realm of legend like Atlantis?

All this makes me wonder about our species, in general. 

2 queensuniverWe know that asteroid impacts have wrought apocalyptic destruction on our world in the past. It’s reasonable to expect that it could happen again. Would humanity, if it survived, have to start over from the stone age?

I suppose these are some of the things that scientists and futurists ponder. Strip away the technology and what do you end up with? Desperate, scared, hungry humans? A group of animals that are a hairs breadth away from the jungle? 

I wonder if it keeps those scientists up at night?

I wonder if people like me, that know how to make things work would be revered as wise beneficial wizards, or simply put to death for practicing witchcraft.

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OK, I drank the Kool-Aid

So I love my Rolex. It’s one of my favorite things.

However, lately more and more people have been taking notice of it. Granted if I lived in a better area it probably wouldn’t be a big deal but I don’t live in a better area…

I live in an area where there are a lot of seemingly desperate people and there are a lot of homeless people. A recent event catalyzed the decision I made yesterday.

I was coming out of a grocery store Wednesday, and there was a homeless guy asking for money. He said, “A white dude with a Rolex can afford to give me 5 bucks…”

Defenses came right up and I decided that my beautiful Rolex was perhaps a little too ostentatious for the area in which I reside. $5 Bucks? How soon before it becomes $100, or $1000?

This isn’t the first time… I’ve had one guy pull my sleeve up while waiting in line at a convenience store and say stuff like, “NIIIICCCEEE, what’d that cost?” Another time a cashier at a food joint fixated on my Rolex and announced to the entire room, “We got a guy here who can buy all our lunches.”

This latest incident is the most threatening, and one of the many reasons we as a society can’t have nice things…

Soooo, I’d been considering an Apple watch, and decided as I briskly walked away from the homeless guy, it was time to buy one.

My lovely Rolex will be put in a safe place and I’ll enjoy the benefits of a watch that I have to recharge daily. Sigh!

As always the guy at the Apple Store was very nice and helpful. I got what I wanted and it came in a nice black box.

I have to admit there are some things that may prove useful about having a computer on my wrist.

I can change the face to match my mood.

Currently, Micky Mouse is tapping his foot on my wrist.

I’ll have better information about my walks and reminders to get up and stretch will be welcome during my work day. Having the ability to place and receive calls ala Dick Tracy Might not be something I’m actually going to like, but if it’s an emergency situation that might not be such a bad thing.

I guess this is a sign of the times.

Being White has become a liability. Having worked your ass off is no longer something to be respected, (regardless of your skin color) but instead, means you’re a target for people who absolutely believe they are entitled to your shit because if you’ve got money, you’ve surely got money to give to them simply because they happen to be breathing.

Increasingly, I find that I don’t much like the world we live in.

The set up on the watch was pretty easy. I was finished before my lunch arrived at my table. Everything that is, except the cellular part of the setup.

it was then, I got sucked down the rabbit hole of technology. Turns out that my cell phone carrier can’t verify my actual billing address.

THANK YOU GOOGLE!

Yep The old Google screw-up (Ongoing for the past decade) bit me in the ass yet again.

Apparently, when Google was driving around taking pictures of our homes and neighborhoods, without our permission I might add, they made mistakes. NO! NOT The Google!!!!

They drove into my rural town and promptly listed my physical address as being in a neighboring town almost 10 miles away. But they maintained the correct zip code. This created a disconnect between the ZIP code registry and the Township. Effectively rendering all the addresses Google mapped on that day invalid, nobody except Google can fix it, and at this point, the error has been propagated across so many databases, it will likely not be fixed in the data.

Instead someone in the town council will simply cede our end of town to the neighboring town because it’s easier. People have had to rent boxes in neighboring towns just so they can get medications and Amazon packages.

We’ve been trying to get Google to revise this mistake for over 10 years. No Luck! Google is too big and too powerful and because they’re rarely wrong… It means that the general perception is that they’re infallible.  Another decade or so, and Google will be elected Pope!

All this meant; for me to actually enable the cell phone functionality, on the  watch required 3 hours on the phone with my cell phone carrier instead of simply being able to enable the technology with my phone. The first 1.5 hours was with a lady in God only knows where, who obviously had no idea about first world problems.

She did however alter my billing plan such that she tripled my monthly bill.

Ahem…

The second call, early this morning resulted in my having to reset the watch (losing all the configuration data I’d put in), resulting in being able to see that I had an account and that the watch connectivity was actually available. The third call, finally put me in contact with a guy who knew what was going on and was able to actually make the connection between their services and the communication unit in the watch.

What should have been a simple thing turned into a clusterfuck.

I now have 13 days left to return the Apple Watch if I don’t “Just Love” it. I like it thus far, but I don’t know if I “Love” it. My Rolex I absolutely “Love” and have loved since the day I bought it.

Time will tell I suppose. But I like the idea of my Rolex sitting in a safe, out of reach of the people I’m forced to live around here in San Diego. Alternatively I’d prefer to feel like I could wear my shit without worrying about getting bashed in the head by some asshole who thought what I had… should be his.

Call me old fashioned.

My brother is right…

I need to get the hell out of Kalifornia and move somewhere a bit more like his neck of the woods. Somewhere more like Mayberry.