Tag: Assholes

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Oh goody! Google is at it again!

I knew it was coming. I just didn’t think they’d move this quickly.

According to an email today, and it was confirmed in the news Google is discontinuing support for Gen 1 and Gen 2 Nest Thermostats. 

At first thought, I was like no big deal, then I read further into the email and found that not only are they no longer updating the internal software, they’e also going to be killing remote access to the unit.

Basically, my smart machine is going to get just as dumb as a regular thermostat but will retain scheduling ability. 

This sucks!

No more ability to control the house temperature if I’m away. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s really nice in winter to have the house in the 50s when I’m away, then tell Siri to warm the house up to something comfortable before I actually get there.

If you’ve got a regular schedule that can be programmed. If you don’t have a regular schedule then you come home to a freezing house and crank the thermostat to warm it up quick.

With either the preprogrammed schedule, or the remote commands, the temp is increased in shorter bursts over a longer time. It’s a bit more balanced and efficient.

I knew Google was going to do this. To their credit they have discounted their newest version of the machine but I’m not interested. Yes It’s a nice machine, expensive, but given how Google is behaving and that they want me to have a full Google account instead of the old Nest account I’m not inclined to get deeper into Google.

What I want is an ecosystem that just talks to HomeKit and does so locally between devices inside the house. I don’t really like even low level stuff like house controls bouncing all over the internet. I was willing to put up with HomeKit, and Google so long as the Thermostat and the Protect smoke were providing what I believe to be a reasonable level of integrated protection.

The night of the fire, the A/C did kick on and distributed the smoke throughout the house. It also fanned the fire. 

But with Google’s recent moves,

I’ve been looking at alternatives.

Regardless of my remaining in this house or not, it’s a good point to disconnect from Google. My Thermostat will get dumb in October. I’ve got until then to make some kind of decision.

Trouble is, most of the smart thermostats want an account, and in some cases they want you to have a paid monthly or yearly subscription. 

That makes me rethink the whole smart thermostat idea. The Nest thermostat saved me money over the years, and while it was under Nest’s control didn’t cost anything beyond the cost of the unit and giving some of my information to Nest via their app.

This new situation may cancel the savings of any potential unit. It might also be a sign that for me, going forward simplicity is the best path.

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OH WOW! I’m late to the game on this one.

I admit it.

I didn’t watch or read any of the news over the weekend. I obviously noted that the Pope died on Monday. I’ve skimmed headlines flashing on my phone screen but other than the major stuff, I pretty much ignored everything.

Yesterday, I got a hankering to actually write. That was welcome, and I literally dropped everything to write while the muse was upon me.

Didn’t do too bad either. I’ve got my protagonist and antagonist lined out. I’ve got an interesting ally and the general tone of the story well enough along that I can pick up where I left off. It wasn’t too shabby a start. It was like my brain letting go of everything and just letting the ideas flow.

Today, I got back to cleaning and tossing more stuff, there’s still a lot to go and I’m working on disassembling tech.

I’m boxing up the stuff that makes things effortless, (meaning one cable connection from the computer to any possible peripheral device I might want to use). This simplification of devices means that if I want to use something, I’ll have to actually plug it in. Big Deal!

Anyhow, I had the news running in the background and heard some clip from Representative Jamie Raskin. I’d read several headlines about him on some podcast or other and as usual rolled my eyes.

But when I heard what he actually said, my blood ran cold. His quote wasn’t that the Democrat party wouldn’t look kindly on countries that facilitated the Trump administration agenda, as had been reported on many outlets.

His comment was, “When we come back to power — and we will — are not going to look kindly upon people who facilitated authoritarianism in our country.“

Say what? Who the fuck does this asshole think he is?

Does he mean to say that the Democrat party will used their weaponized law fare system to persecute and prosecute average American Citizens who supported Trump? The Trump administration having now become synonymous with Authoritarianism. (Sorry, but the Biden Administration looked a lot more authoritarian on day fucking one, than Trump’s thus far.)

Is Raskin saying the Democrats will take a dim view of anyone who voted for Trump, wore a MAGA hat, drove a Tesla, agreed with Trump, spoke out against law fare, illegal immigration, high taxes, bloated government, wasteful spending, the transification & stripping children of their innocence, the denial of Due Process for J6 detainees, who spoke out against mandatory vaccines, DEI, and every fucking obscenity we barely survived under the Biden Administration? Just a reminder… We still don’t know who was running the country but we all now know it’s pretty likely Joe Biden was not in control.

Did this sitting congressman just threaten at least 1/2, perhaps more of the American People?

He did say the Democrats wouldn’t look kindly on people… Not countries.

I don’t know how to take that comment other than as a threat. You know what? I’m getting damn sick and tired of Government officials threatening me!

We already know the Democrat party will suggest imprisonment for people who do not comply with their asinine edicts. Remember COVID? Anyone remember Biden threatening people who didn’t take the vaccine? How about folks that spoke out at school board meetings? Let’s not forget Maxine Waters telling African Americans to go into restaurants and coffee shops to harass not just Republicans she disagreed with, but every fucking person in the place!

We know Democrats will imprison people with different political ideologies for 3-4 years without trial, bail, or due process. All the while clutching their pearls saying that Democracy and The Constitution are under attack.

We also know that the only time the Democrats are interested in due process is when a fucking illegal alien is rightfully deported.

Representative Raskin should probably consider that most of the American People look upon the last four long years, as having already paid our fucking dues.

If by some unbelievable method, probably involving cheating, the Democrat party regains control and comes for people who facilitated the Trump Administration, they better come loaded for bear.

How the hell do these morons keep getting elected time and again?

Raskin saying what he said, should result in his office being cleaned out and his shit sitting at the curb. He’s supposedly a lawyer.

Theoretically, lawyers are masters of the English language. I will find it hard to believe his inevitable walking back of his words as a misunderstanding, or mischaracterization, or being taken out of context.

Sorry Raskin… I can read, and my hearing is just fine!

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Why I’ve really started hating people. Let me count the ways!

Ok, social media is definitely not for me.

Picture it as a broken sewer main of shitty people with a very occasional super nice person.

LinkedIn – For fucks sake has turned into Facebook with a pseudo business bent. I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2019, when much to my dismay I was told I needed to have it so that HR people could reach out to me, as our company was laying us all off.

Since then it’s been completely useless as a vehicle for finding a job and NO, I repeat, NO HR person has reached out to me. For a while it looked like they were turning it into a dating, pro-Palestine, DEI, & god knows what else kind of site.  None of which I’m interested in.

X/Twitter – OMG! Talk about a broken sewer pipe! Perhaps it’s that I’m easily bored. But damn! My most recent mistake on that site is that I commented on someone I didn’t realize was a flat Earther about being unsurprised that satellites wouldn’t show up in photos of astronauts working outside the ISS. 

Satellites are relatively small, tend not to have running lights and are most likely wouldn’t be seen unless they happened to reflect sunlight.

I went on to say I always missed seeing stars in the NASA photos and it bugged me. I once asked NASA why that was. They told me that often photos of planets would have the backgrounds blacked out to enhance the photo of the planet or object that was the actual subject of the photo.

Okay, that makes sense.

Credit: Don Pettit @astro_PettitI mentioned that I’d like to see photos of our galaxy. 

Then what happened was hundreds of people describing the way cameras work and this, that, and the other thing, including that space wasn’t real, we didn’t have people orbiting the earth, it was all fake etc. In the miasma of following shitposting, one post caught my attention. 

This post was from the son of an actual astronaut and very nicely explained that the ISS when on the daylight side of Earth had the same problem as we do. The stars are simply too dim versus the brightness of the sun to see. Then he included some breathtakingly beautiful photos his Dad had taken from the ISS while on the dark side of Earth. When I say breathtaking I mean it. Seeing those photos brought tears to my eyes because of their beauty.

I thanked him for the concise explanation, (even though I felt like, “Duhhhh,” I should have figured that out myself,) and for sharing the beautiful photos has Dad took. We had a pleasant exchange and he directed me to his Father’s account, the NASA website, and a Flickr account that I’d never heard of, where the astronauts posted more personal pictures they’d taken.

Basically it was a super nice adult exchange and I genuinely appreciated the information. I told him so, and thanked he & his Father for sharing. Then, thinking that was the end of it I went to bed.

This morning, my X account was still blowing up. People were still reiterating what had already been discussed and piling on. Then more people, the flat earth folks were denying that the photos were real and just going on & on about that.

I don’t like controversy and really don’t like people piling on without reading the whole thread. Generally, I read all of a thread before opening my mouth and adding my 2 cents. Yes, sometimes I screw up and add something redundant to a thread by I really try to avoid doing that, as it’s a waste of my time and everyone else’s time who may be in the comment thread.

However, in this case, (which is only the most recent in a long line of similar events,) I found myself being very depressed by it all.

Reevaluating my interactions on X I came to the realization that the vast majority of people on the site are… well, terrible people.

I partially remembered a line from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where Marvin the robot had just witnessed another robot destroy itself in a fit of anger and said, something like, “What a depressingly stupid robot.”

That sentiment is what I felt this morning. These people couldn’t just go, “Oh, that’s a lovely respectful conversation. Wow, those photos are really beautiful.” Instead, they had to drag it through absolute shit. 

I have a very hard time seeing the good in people. Jerry would often remind me that not all people in the world are shitheads. Since he’s been gone, I’m having a harder time remembering there are some good people.

Between the network news, X, LinkedIn, and just dealing with people in the grocery store it’s easy to have the “shitty people” belief reenforced.

It’s not just this one instance. However, this one seems to have broken the camels back. 

Going through the list of things I can’t stand hearing about anymore, I’ve concluded that too much interaction with the world is very depressing.

I don’t care about Palestine, or Trans rights, or the LGBT community, or the Democrats, politics, Republicans, Trump, the failure that is Congress, our broken Judiciary, the price of eggs, people demanding that Trump voters regret their vote, who’s talking about running for President in 2028, the welfare state, DOGE, government employees being laid off, taxes, the next iPhone, Ukraine, or much of anything else.

I realized, I miss looking up at the stars, (which I can’t see anymore because everyone around me is afraid of the dark). I miss simplicity, and beauty. Both of which are easily seen and appreciated, if you turn off the constant bullshit.

That’s what I’m going to do. Turn off the constant bullshit. I want peace & quiet. 

I want a little job that brings in enough money but not 100K. I want to be off mailing lists and urgent notifications, and to turn off the firehose of “Information”.

To that end, I’m closing accounts. I’m removing myself from mailing lists and locking down the flow of senseless conflict and controversy. This mechanized abomination we call “modern life” has made me unhappy.

I’m not angry about it, (although It’s going to be a while before I’m not assuming people are all shitty).

I’m looking at this as a mistake and fortunately it’s one I can correct.

I’m trying a hiatus. I’ll let you know how it goes… or not.

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Ya know…

I’ve been on “X” (The application formerly known as Twitter,) for about two years, this time.

I’ve made plenty of comments. Some snarky, some funny, some very serious. But I’ve not made comments wherein I called someone I’d never interacted with, dumb shit or motherfucker.

The left on the other hand often tends to end their comments on something I might have said with epithets like that. 

I responded to Senator Markwayne Mullin the other day.

Senator Mullin was calling out the hypocrisy of the Democrat members of Congress over the admittedly careless conversation Pete Hegseth and others had on the Signal app.

The Senator correctly pointed out that the Signal App was approved for communications by the Government. He also pointed out that none of the material was necessarily classified and that while “Yes,” the discussion should have perhaps been handled over other channels. The issue was not as “Devastating, or a threat to National Security,” as the media and Democrats have been trying to paint it as.

I took a different position. I directly asked Senator Mullin this;

My question was based in what I remembered from the days when I had a security clearance.

I vaguely remember something about identifying myself if I was included on an email or other communication that was above my clearance level.

At the time it made perfect sense to me. I thought it was based not only in operational security but common decency and politeness, so my compliance was one of those things that came completely naturally.

Perhaps its because of my experience with clearances, my recognition that some classifications were so far beyond me that my knowing anything about certain subjects could get me imprisoned, or just that I was raised right, that the question popped into my head.

The one and only time I was included in something that I was not cleared for and brought it to the attention of the meeting organizer, I was complimented and several weeks later rewarded with a higher clearance.

I’d established that I could be trusted. Even though the higher clearance meant more responsibility, and more training in dealing with the different classification. It was worth it.

So it’s from this perspective that I viewed the situation.

Senator Mullin does almost daily posts where he explains the inner workings of Congress and topics that may be occupying the news cycle. I’ll rarely miss one of his posts because they’re informative and he speaks plainly.

There were a number of comments directed at my question that were about 50/50 positive/negative. But one comment was a one sentence very angry defense of Goldberg that ended with the writer calling me a dumbshit.

I don’t really care, but then I thought about it and wondered why the person was so angry.

I looked at their profile and on many issues, I agreed with their positions. What I didn’t agree with was this person’s frequently calling people that they didn’t agree with, dumbshit, motherfucker, cocksucker, etc…

I’ve got a foul mouth, but I try not to say, “Hey you! Yes you! Yeah, dumbshit! You! You’re a load your mother wishes she’d swallowed.“

I might think it. But I’d no more say that, than the man in the moon.

Then I thought about it and decided I’m implementing a new rule.

I’m going to block anyone that speaks to me in a way that I wouldn’t tolerate in a bar. From this perspective, if I’d not speak to you in a bar, or hang out with you in person, there is no incentive whatsoever to put up with you on X.

So, my blocked list grows, not out of fear, or being thin skinned. I simply refuse to be a punching bag for abusive people whether I may agree with them or not.

I value myself too highly to waste time arguing online or to take anyone’s shit.

Treat yourself well, and have a great day.

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They almost won…

Trump address Congress.width-1024.I set time aside to listen to President Trump’s speech.

The man had no sooner taken the podium than the Democrats began showing their asses.

I understand that the Democrats are angry and upset. 

However, I am an American citizen. Donald Trump is the sitting President. I would very much like to hear what he has to say.

Congressional Democrats attempted to do ME Personally a disservice by not allowing me to hear The President. They should be ashamed!

This is unacceptable behavior for anyone in Congress. Including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. I want the Congress People to sit down and shut the hell up when the Commander in Chief speaks.

L intro 1741145029.It’s one thing when a comedian turned President acts up in The Oval Office.

It’s quite another thing for politicians representing American people to be disrespectful, to both the President and the American People in the House Chamber.

I turned the damn television off because I was so offended.

I’m willing to say I will never vote for another Democrat. I’ve always been willing to listen to what Democrats said. I’ve voted for them if they made sense and I believed they could do a good job.

Effective tonight, I don’t think that I could in good conscience vote for any Democrat.

They have repeatedly disrespected Me.

I am angry about that. 

The Sargent at Arms removing Al Green was not enough. 

I want to see investigations, not the Congressional talk, talk, talk. The kind that end with Uniformed Officers sweeping in making arrests.

You see, I’ve had enough of our Government running amok.

I’m glad that I tuned back in after the Democrat shenanigan’s were put down.

I liked hearing the rest of the speech and noted that the Democrats eventually read the room and just sat glowering. 

I have to say that Senator Elissa Slotkin made good points. Generally I disagree with her. But I’m not sure if that is because I was so offended by her colleagues or if I have valid reasons form my disagreement.

I know I just wrote I wouldn’t vote for another Democrat. However, I must as a part of my duty listen to the opposing side.