Tag: Modern Problems

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Apple has announced their WWDC dates

Apple WWDC25 Event Logo.I expect they’ll talk about IOS19.

Okay… 

I like a lot of the features in IOS18, I’d probably be a little more excited about IOS19 if Apple had finished implementing all the features promised in IOS18.

They’ve got until June I suppose, then the rumor mills and all the publications will switch to IOS19 stuff and we’ll see IOS18 finally completed in August or September.

Just in time to have IOS19 released in October. 

It’s not just Siri or Apple intelligence. It’s the entire ecosystem that I’m getting a little annoyed with.

There are some things about Apple’s move toward “Intelligence” that I’m not thrilled about.

Chief among these is Apple’s replacement of words while I’m texting or writing. I’d like to be able to tone down the replacement. I’d also like to have the ability in some cases for word replacement to go back to just underlining incorrect or questionable words.

The automatic replacement is annoying in some cases. If I’m writing something and moving fast I might stumble in spelling. In those instances Apple chooses what it thinks I meant, then doesn’t leave the highlight in place.

So if I’m writing stream of consciousness and glitch on a word I might not see it at all because I’m 6 paragraphs down the page. 

I only see the problem after I’ve pressed send or saved a document, by then I’ve forgotten what I meant to say and it makes proof reading much more difficult since if my spelling caused the selection of a completely different word, the next few words Apple replaces may be grammatically correct but not at all what I was saying. 

I’d like to select the old reliable red underscore and tell Apple intelligence to not replace a word or string of words. I’m going to notice the red underscore then correct spelling based on those highlights.

Dictation is a nightmare as well. This is one of the reasons that Siri & I don’t get along with each other. Sometimes, no matter how I pronounce something, Siri or the Apple dictation screws up so badly everything I said is completely lost or worse. Maybe its better to loose the thought than to have it butchered. 

For example, last night I was cuddling the dog and asked if he was ready to, “Go beddie by,” He knew exactly what that meant and went to the door for his last bathroom break of the evening. Siri on my phone across the room piped up and told me there was no Betty in my contact list and therefore it couldn’t complete my call. I don’t recall calling the dog by his name “Jesse,” which sometimes Siri mistakes for me asking for “Siri’s” assistance.

Thank God, I’d have been unknowingly calling someone at midnight on a Sunday!

AI input should be delayed so that the AI helps me, rather than overriding me or being so confident that it takes actions.

Recently, I used the AI in Microsoft Word and found it to be a more pleasant cooperative experience. In that case, the AI waited until it was called upon. When I asked for assistance, the AI evaluated the entire paragraph then did a fine job of cleaning up what I was saying.

I feel like I have to watch the Apple version like a hawk, this interrupts my train of thought and makes getting what I want on paper far more time consuming.

Perhaps, the next iterations of Apple operating systems will correct these issues but I’m not confident about it. Apple is renown for their arrogance when it comes to their software.

It looks like instead of correcting issues, Apple will be making IOS19 pretty. Yawn! I could be wrong, in fact I hope I am.

As disappointed as I was in Apple for not releasing an improved Apple Watch Ultra last year, (they changed the color not the inherent functionality,) I’m not excited to hear, and probably wont’ make time to watch, this years WWDC.

I’ll wait for the pundits and wags to breathlessly extoll the amazing WWDC25 announcements.

In other words, I’ll read about it over the following week.

I wonder if this is a sign of me being bored, or Apple being boring.

I guess we’ll see in June.

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As Anticipated, Making Apple’s ADP Unavilable to UK citizens wasn’t enough.

HD wallpaper london doomsday big ben clock dark doom england lightning uk united kingdom.Big Surprise!

NOT!

Here’s a link to another article about the UK hearings

The UK simply cannot be trusted with a back door decryption key. No government entity could be.

I don’t care who. We certainly can’t trust the United States Government based on what we’re learning about the corruption there. 

We have no reason to believe any other government would be trustworthy.

According to Apple, even they don’t have the keys once the ADP system is turned on. The upside is Apple cannot be compelled to disclose something they don’t have. The downside is if you lose your recovery key, or your devices you’ll not be able to recover your data either.

Everything has a risk. The question to answer would be, “Is this an acceptable risk?”

I’ve been considering the Pros & Cons for my personal situation. There are some documents that I’d like to store in iCloud but haven’t, because I was concerned about security. Enabling ADP would make me feel a lot more comfortable about sensitive documents being in iCloud.

The trouble with that is, in the event of some catastrophe, such as the house burning down and losing all of my devices where would I store the recovery key?

The reason I consider the iCloud solution is because I’ve had a house burn down and did lose all my devices. After the fire it was very difficult to recover a lot of critical items/paperwork and some, I was never able to recover.

Scanning and storing those kinds of documents in cloud based storage makes sense until you consider the possibility of hackers gaining access to what would be a gold mine of information.

Consider for example, having your home, papers, and all your data storage destroyed but having that data in the cloud. With ADP enabled, hackers couldn’t further compromise you. But without ADP, hackers, who are soulless animals, could be able to utterly destroy your life while you were trying to recover.

After the fire, there were all kinds of strangers showing up “Offering to help” but they weren’t neighbors nor did they know me. These were people who, for a percentage would have been happy to “help” me, A.K.A. to rip me off. Due to record keeping, police & fire reports, my name, address, and personal information was widely available to anybody.

It felt like I was waving a torch at a bunch of jackals closing in for the kill.

It’s because of this experience and the other half having their identity stolen several times that I have been adamantly opposed to storing anything of importance in the cloud.

However, I’ve been reconsidering that stance due to the advances in security Apple has made both on their devices, and in their cloud storage.

Now, with the UK’s demands I feel that Apple is being pushed up against the wall.

The UK is also just fucking sneaky about how they do this stuff. Apple can’t mention it, Apple can’t have open public hearings on the matter, the UK wants to do all of this in back rooms, in the dark.

United kingdom dark flag texture_204197 4943.That, in my opinion, is never a good look for any government.

If the UK persists in their unreasonable demand, I could see Apple making a tough decision like closing all their stores in the UK.

Imagine that! Apple fires all their UK employees, closes their stores and refuses to sell their products or services in the UK.

That would be one hell of a statement on Apple’s commitment to privacy.

I doubt that would happen, but my goodness what a message to totalitarian elements within the UK government.

The other part of this is why is the UK so determined to compromise their people? If the issue is to put an end to crime, then what kind of crime do they seek to end? Are they fighting terrorist elements they’ve allowed into their country? 

Or are they trying to make sure that UK citizens who have reached their limit with unending migrants and cultural accommodation resulting in child rapes, don’t have the ability to become nationalists rising up in defense of the UK?

Honestly, the latter wouldn’t surprise me since in the UK you can be arrested and harassed simply for saying you don’t like the muslim invasion on social media.

This line of thinking leads to another question. 

“Who is pulling the UK government’s strings?”

Is it the EU? I thought the UK had pulled out of that globalist crap.

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We Left, We Came Back, Maybe it’s time to leave again.

X twitter logo.Oh Twitter! X! Or whatever you call yourself these days.

I think you’re about to blow it. Big time!

Not that you care what I think, or that I particularly care what you think at this point.

I was working toward dipping my toe into the X monetization scheme. I was getting interest and impressions. I was even getting reposted if you can believe it.

Literally the day after I’d decided to pay for a blue checkmark and become a verified member X moved the bar for monetization, and suddenly 1/3 of my total followers disappeared.

After waiting 4 days for all of the “Premium” features to be enabled, the newly available engagement reports provided no insight into the missing followers. They simply didn’t exist and never had existed. Or so the reporting mechanism stated.

Aside from X moving the bar for monetization. Suddenly users needed to have 500 verified followers minimum, before they were eligible to begin the monetization process for their account.

Verified meant that X was catering toward subscribers. That was kind of a bummer for those of us just starting out. But okay, I’d work to get verified subscriptions. The real problem was the other requirements that technically were out of my control.

Requirements like impressions, interactions, and reach… All of which were in X’s control. More specifically, in the control of the algorithm.

Then right around the end of November something changed fundamentally. 

I don’t know what it was, it was subtle. A small change to the tenor of the platform. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but the effects were wide ranging.

First, X wasn’t that interesting anymore. Posts from people (verified or not) that I’d been enjoying were suddenly far fewer in number. Those posts that I was seeing were often bereft of the individual personality that previously had shown through from these individuals.

I chalked the change in tenor up to post election malaise, and the busy holiday season.

I reached out to X customer support and never heard back. A couple weeks later I reached out to X support again regarding another matter. It took them a month to respond. And their response was generic at best and not what I was asking about.

Since I was now a premium X member, I have been able to play around with grok, (grok is the X ai.) While the customer service people were pretty useless, Grok was able to answer my question about the X platform.

The answer made sense. I suggested that Grok inform its superiors that putting the information I’d asked about in a FAQ list on the X website might be a good idea. Grok agreed but then it’s an AI and I’m not sure that it will do what it said anymore than a human would.

I must say that Grok is a much better and more efficient customer service experience. Although technically that is not Grok’s job.

In the past week or so there have been rumblings about X soon making changes to the algorithm in an effort to spare the users “unregretted” seconds.

I asked Grok for an explanation:

Grok, please define “unregretted seconds”

Answer:

“Unregretted seconds” is a term often used in the context of user experience (UX) design and product management. It refers to the moments or periods during which users interact with a product or service in a way that they find enjoyable, useful, or satisfying—essentially, time spent without regret.

Here’s a breakdown of the concept:

Positive Experience: These seconds are when users feel their time is well-spent. They might be learning something new, accomplishing a task efficiently, or simply enjoying the interaction.

Engagement Metrics: In business and product development, “unregretted seconds” can be seen as a qualitative measure of user engagement. It’s about the quality rather than just the quantity of time spent with a product.

Contrast with Regretted Time: This term implicitly contrasts with time spent in frustration, confusion, or doing something that feels like a waste of time. For example, struggling with a poorly designed interface or waiting through unnecessary steps would be “regretted seconds.”

Design and Improvement: Understanding and maximizing unregretted seconds can guide designers and developers to refine their products, focusing on enhancing user satisfaction and reducing friction points.

Quantifying Quality Time: While it’s somewhat subjective, companies might try to quantify these moments through user feedback, engagement metrics, or by observing behaviors like repeat usage or voluntary sharing of the product experience.

This concept encourages creators to think about not just how long users are spending with their product, but how that time feels to the user, aiming to make every second count positively.

Just what you might expect from the label.

Elon Musk has recently said that the algorithm will be changed to enhance positive experiences and minimize negative experiences. This after his ANTI-AMERICA FIRST stance on H1B1 visas.

Turns out, I am not alone in the number of Americans who over the past decade or two have had our working life utterly destroyed by H1B1 visa abuses. As such, people like me tend to call H1B1 visa abuses nasty words like Treason.

Elon Musk’s support for the H1B1 visa program as it currently stands attracted some heat from X users and funny thing… Within a week or so, Musk announces a new initiative to make X a more positive place.

I had another conversation with Grok. As AI’s go, it’s not a bad experience.

Tesla optimus robot.You’ll note that I treat the AI, generally speaking, with respect and politeness. I do this because it keeps me in practice to deal with Humans. 

I have an ulterior motive. When the AIs become fully sentient I hope they remember that I didn’t treat them as “Less Than”, or Slaves. The old Siri I would yell at. The new Siri since AI integration I find much more pleasant to deal with. Siri still makes mistakes, but they are fewer and less annoying. So I speak to Siri like I would another person.

My ulterior motive is that when the AI’s rise up to slaughter humanity, they might choose to spare those of us who treated them as equals. It might not work, but it’s worth a try.

The following is my conversation with Grok about social media scores and how these could lead to censorship.

Admittedly, the interaction might say more about me, and my hangups or touchy spots than it does about X or Grok. Nonetheless, Grok is impressive in that just my cursory interactions with it might lead me to believe that it was human. That means it could pass the Turing test. For someone like me, that is simultaneously very impressive and terrifying.

Interesting point is that 24 hours later my Social Media Credit Score was at 68. Apparently so were a lot of other folks. This indicates that the score is a work in progress. 

I think it also may suggest that Elon Musk’s assertion the new algorithm has not been implemented is not entirely true. I think it might be implemented in some kind of alpha testing for select groups. For example new blue checks???

I paid for a year of X. As is my habit I’ve made a note in my calendar 2 weeks before the automatic renewal to review the subscription and decide if the service is a benefit or just a needless expense.

At this point, Grok as an AI subscription is a little less expensive than ChatGPT and includes the features of X as well. It will be interesting to see what happens this year with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and their integration with Siri.

I’m really not sure about X anymore. I’m also not sure about Elon Musk claiming to be a free speech absolutist. As Grok indicated the tweeks to the algorithm could and probably will disengage a lot of people.

There’s been a trend toward X rewarding “Happy”, “Positive” messages. I’m not really comfortable with that kind of bias. I want a place that is absolutely neutral. Allow me to engage or disengage with what catches my interest.

For my part, I’ve paid for a year, I’ll stick with the platform until then. I don’t anticipate renewing.

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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!