Tag: Modern Problems

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We might come full circle…

Western Electric Rotary TelephoneI was having a text conversation with my Sister and our Aunt, this morning. In the course of the conversation, I realized my Sister was using dictation to compose her text messages.

Shortly after the conversation, I thought to myself, if she was dictating her text messages, then why didn’t she just call me? I mean, if you’re speaking out loud, why not actually have a telephone conversation?

I realize that she was including my aunt and myself in the text message.That being said, she could just simply have conference called us. We all have FaceTime, she could have turned it into a video chat.

I keep thinking to myself we’re gonna come full circle anytime now. People are gonna realize that actual voice communication between two individuals might be a lot more productive than going through the sterility of a text message.

Once that happens then we’ll figure out that the nuance of the human voice is far more precise than just getting a text message and wondering whether or not the person was angry or sad or depressed or happy or just simply distracted. All of those things we can instinctively determine by hearing a person’s voice.

It’ll probably take another 20 years and I won’t be around to see it. But wherever I am, whatever I am, I’m probably gonna be laughing my ass off, when the kids discover this new thing called a telephone conversation.

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Exploding Pagers & Radios? Oh My!

Pager explosion 768x439.When I first saw some of the snippets of news talking about exploding pagers, I thought it was yet another hoax from Hezbollah or Hamas, or any of a number of the other savage organizations operating in the Middle East. I thought they were trying yet again to blame Israel for their own screw up.

You know, kind of like when the morons in Gaza blew up their own hospital with malfunctioning rockets aimed at Israel. 

When it was apparent that the story was real, I thought it was brilliant. If members of these terrorist organizations weren’t outright killed, at least they were too maimed to be interested in hurting other people. 

Then I thought, “Hmm, If their pagers were in their front pockets, even if they survived, they weren’t going to be able to reproduce or rape anyone anymore,” and I counted that as a definite win.

Whoever thought of this in the IDF deserves a freaking medal! When we had troops in Afghanistan, I was always a big believer that we should’ve randomly made every cellphone in the country ring just to blow up the IEDs. People always asked, “What about the collateral damage to innocents?” My answer was always how innocent is someone with IEDs being built in the basement?

I know I sound harsh. But these people have, after decades of bullshit, devalued themselves with me to the point of being nothing more than crudely drawn characters in a video game. I no longer see them as human. They’re liars, untrustworthy, despicable, things. They’re crash test dummies now. It’s not hate, it’s complete unconcern and distain. They’ve become the characters in the video game that you shoot in the head to see how many different patterns of blood spatter the game developers programmed into the game.

I hate that we’re still sending money to the Middle East. I’m for letting them wallow in the cesspool of their own making and think they should either prove to the rest of the world that they’re worth something or be allowed to devolve into nothing.

I do find it ironic that a people who want to drag the entire world back to the 5th century are being hurt by 20th and 21st century technology. Perhaps if they walked their own talk, Allah wouldn’t have allowed them to be punished with exploding technology. 

Maybe that’s the lesson we should be teaching them. Stone Age people have no business messing with Western magical juju.

They should stop using cars, planes, busses, phones, computers, electricity, medicine, & indoor plumbing. Perhaps they should return to their old ways as bands of tribesmen tending their flocks. We could facilitate that by making various modern devices explode randomly. Aversion therapy I think it’s called. Make it so they can’t trust any technology so they stay away from it altogether.

It would solve a bunch of problems for them, and the rest of the world.

To fight crime, I honestly wonder if building every single item with a bomb in it would be a great idea.

If the item is stolen, it detonates when it’s reported as stolen. That would shut down the crime in this county and it would only take a few years.

I think it was RoboCop that introduced the idea that car thieves got fried inside the car they were trying to steal. That’s always been an image I liked when it came to thieving of any kind.

If technology were to be expanded to include GPS Coordinates so that the devices themselves knew where they were and then exploded if they were delivered to specific areas of the world, I’ll bet you could eliminate rockets and mortars being stored in schools, hospitals, mosques, and UN facilities in Gaza or Lebanon. 

I’ll admit, low yield explosives blowing Hezbollah’s balls off just tickles the hell out of me.

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That was pretty easy for something California…

The California Mobile Driver’s License is available in my Apple Wallet app.

From what I gather, the availability may be a gradual phased approach. That might make sense, when you consider the population in California. If everyone was suddenly able to request approval from the DMV it could easily overwhelm the system. Remember the Obamacare website???

Yeah, kinda like that..

I noticed a small announcement, nothing like the big splashy announcement about the Android version, and found that indeed California mDL was listed in the Apple Wallet.

I went through the process and it failed the first time. I was asked to try again later. Several hours later, I tried and the system accepted my request. About 2 hours after that, I got a notification that my ID was available. 

The one thing I don’t like is the way my name is presented. My first name and middle name are spelled out and my last name is omitted entirely from the digital representation. I’m not sure how the information can be presented better.

That being said opening the digital representation allows me to see all the same information that is present on my physical driver’s license. That’s what matters because thats the data that will be transmitted upon request.

In short, the onboarding process was pretty easy. The DMV did their part pretty efficiently and I’m impressed. Good Job, California DMV!

Now let’s see where this is useful. Honestly, the only time I’ve been asked for ID in the past few years is when I was getting a loaner car at the car dealership while my vehicle was being repaired.

I’m curious about this though. Since I have my physical DL, and now have laid claim to the Digital version, does that make my ID easier or more difficult to steal?

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Well, my Number is 2 out of 5

2 out of 5 Times for something to work is apparently enough to keep me trying.

There’s a Shell filling station nearby in Phelan.

3 out of 5 times their pay at the pumps systems aren’t working. It’s always the same shit. “We have to reset the pump” Well if you have to reset the pump then why don’t you do it once an hour since apparently this is an ongoing issue.

Nobody knows how hard I work to keep from being an angry bitter old man just like one of my grandfathers, or one neighbor who is literally pissed off more than he is not.

It’s an effort to not go down that road.

I’m a cynic, easily annoyed, easily cranky, and generally don’t like people en mass.

Put all of those things together and it’s a recipe for a supervillain.

Except in my case I don’t have super powers so I’d just be a frustrated un-supervillain. Probably more like Dr. Evil.

I’m really tired of thing after thing, system after system, & service after service failing because people aren’t doing their jobs. What’s even worse about it is that most of these so called “Jobs” don’t require a lot of brain power, they just require that the person does as instructed.

Today, this gas station thing pissed me off perhaps a bit more than usual because they’re sitting there explaining, “We just need to reset the pump. It’ll only take a few minutes. “

I could see their display was flashing red on several pumps. Obviously all of those pumps needed attention.

So why were these idiots saying “Bro” and joking around then chatting with the customers and each other instead of doing their job. OR how about taking the pumps completely offline so they’re non responsive?

That’s what frustrated the hell out of me, The damn thing looked and acted like it was working but then told me that it couldn’t read the card. After 3 tries where I entered the rewards information only to have the transaction declined and waiting a good 20 seconds for the pump to be ready to work again I was really annoyed. It was 100° & I had groceries in the car.

What these idiots were talking about resetting is the pump’s payment processing system. So that annoyed me too. The pump was literally half assed online and was just teasing me. This is the absolute worst kind of malfunction for me. Half working shit that appears to be fully operational.

It’s not just the gas pumps. It’s literally services at every point of my contact with the world today.

I’m astounded just how much has changed in such a short period of time. Just since 2019 everything seems to have gone nuts and nothing is as it was, or stable for that matter.

I wonder if the craziness is a response to the sudden changes. Everyone is struggling to adapt and as a result folks are short tempered and easily provoked.

I hope that things settle soon.

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Google got there first.

Apple Wallet California state ID hero_inline.jpg.large_2x.Google Wallet is now supporting California mDL as of today Friday, 8/23/2024

mDL (Mobile Drivers Licenses)

I’m still not sure exactly where, “there” is. Sure, Google beat Apple to the punch but honestly so what?

There’s an article from FoxLA that largely says nothing…

California driver’s license now available to add to Google Wallet

It again reiterates the TSA piece at selected airports. But doesn’t really say much about other benefits of having your driver’s license in your phone versus your wallet. Especially since you still have to carry the physical Driver’s License.

Again… The point?

Sure it’s neat but so what?

What benefit does this provide to the actual user?

Student ID use cases seem to be more beneficial.

Some colleges allow the students to have their Student ID on their phone which grants the students access to dorms, libraries, cafeterias, and other on campus amenities.

Some corporations in addition to Apple are putting their employee IDs on phones which eliminates the annoying lanyards with your ID dangling and if you’re a tech, getting in your way constantly as you access machines. In this case the ID on the phone opens doors and eliminates a whole bunch of problems with leaving your ID card in your car, or having the ID card lost or stolen because you dropped it when you meant to shove it in your pocket.

A lot of companies have polices about not wearing your corporate ID outside the corporate campus. This is particularly true of aerospace companies.

I can see the student ID and Employee ID and their immediate utility. Thus far, the benefit of my Drivers License on my phone, escapes me. Perhaps it wouldn’t, if I flew more.

Being able to validate my alcohol purchase at the grocery store in a self checkout line would be useful. Not having to tell the pharmacist my date of birth and name when I pick up a prescription would be useful. But neither of those cases are remotely available at this time.

Congrats to Google for getting there first in California. Good for you guys. 

But what now?