Technology | Piss and Moan

Blind bat

Posted on February 20, 2020 by backuphill

Photo by Miri on Pexels.com

Along with a visit to the regular doc yesterday, I also made a 4th trip to the eye doctor for an original appointment that was back in January.

Why the 4th? Well, it’s partially because I seeming as blind as a bat (I am still developing my echo location skills) and partially due to their incompetence. The outcome of this last appointment? A possible 5th visit…

Due to the power needed for my eyes, I haven’t had the clearest of vision in one eye because technology in the soft contact industry just hadn’t caught up my needed power. So, when I found out that clearer vision was now a possibility for the worst of my two eyes I was kinda happy about that. They ordered trials and I went upon my Piss and Moan way.

When I went back to try on the trials they discovered they ordered the wrong ones and only one that I actually needed was available. So, I tried that one in my eye and it was a significant improvement over the years of partially blurry vision! But, that was only one eye. And while the better of my two eyes didn’t need as extreme an amount of correction, I didn’t have two matching brands in my eyes. So, I left knowing I would have to go back again to pick up the correct lens when it arrived.

I went back, picked it up, and with the trials I noticed that my vision was improved but comfort was down – my eyes felt dry and tired at the end of the day. Hmmm…back to the drawing board.

I also had trials of my current brand in the correct powers, so I put them in. Comfort was fine. But, I really felt the sharpness wasn’t there like the other trial and so I wondered if the prescription was actually correct. If it was, would I have to sacrifice some better vision for comfort?

So, my follow-up yesterday…sacrificing comfort wasn’t an option as I wear my contacts around 16 hours a day. I can’t spend my evenings rubbing my eyes and feeling like I need to take them out the minute I get home in the evening. The comfortable pair, the ones I felt weren’t quite strong enough, well I was right. They weren’t the right prescription. One eye was correct and the other was not.

Seriously.

My Piss and Moan level went up four notches. I know it wasn’t the gal’s fault that was helping me. But I seriously has some issues with the fact that it was the fourth time I had to take time off work, drive 20 minutes one way, just to see if they could get it correct.

I think we have it sorted out now, but I think I may visit a different doctor and office in two years when I have to go through this again.

Group texts

Posted on February 18, 2020 by backuphill

photo of man in white dress shirt holding phone near window

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I bet you cringed when you read the headline. I know I do. Or, maybe your eyes rolled violently to the back of your head. I know mine do.

I think it is safe to say group texts are the bane of texting. A necessary evil, if you will.

I am sure you can see where this is heading…I hate group texts! I really really really do.

So much so, that my family knows not to include me in a group texts unless it is absolutely necessary – like getting bad news to a large group of people quickly necessary.

The problem is, I keep getting included in groups I really don’t need to be a part of. Actually, I probably do need to be a part of them but the group then gets abused by people talking about other things I don’t need or want to know about. Suddenly the conversation goes from necessary to drivel and my phone is exploding for no good reason other than people like to hear themselves talk.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a good way to remove yourself from the group text (like an actual text conversation) unless it is through some kind of social media app. You are stuck…listening to your text alert go off endlessly…as people have a conversation about nothing….until finally you BEG the person who added you to the conversation to please remove you from it.

Not to be rude or anything, but would you please delete my contact info from your phone…forever?

Other than scolding everyone to stop using the group text message for side conversations and everyone finally agreeing to stop, how do you curb this extreme annoyance?

What do other people think? Should group texts be outlawed? When are they acceptable?

Robot vacuum

Posted on February 13, 2020 by backuphill

My vacuum is not this one. It is from a different company and this photo is just for demonstration purposes. Photo by Jens Mahnke on Pexels.com

The house has a robot vacuum.

It’s kinda new. It has been roaming the house at a pre-planned time for about three months now. Honestly, it’s nice to not have to sweep as often. It also cleans up some of the rugs that are by the entry points of the house, there there is that too.

But, it is also a lot like having a freaking toddler in the house.

Anything that is on the ground gets moved around and sometimes you have to go hunting for stuff. Example: shoes. It will push slippers and shoes under the furniture. Thus, I find myself on the floor trying to fish stuff out from under the bed or night stand. It will also sometimes grab shoe laces and drag the shoe around for a while.

It closes doors and gets stuck on the inside of a room. It keeps working, unlike a toddler, but then you have to open the door and direct it out of the room. So, now doors have to be closed when it starts so it doesn’t get stuck in room, just like you do when you have a toddler in the house and you don’t want them getting into stuff.

It gets stuck under things and doesn’t finish what it was doing. The TV stand. The coffee table. The night stand. If it gets caught on something, it just stops.

It unplugs stuff and then you wonder why it isn’t working. I have had the phone charging cable not power up my phone when I plug it in at night. The robot unplugged it from under the night stand. The subwoofer for the sound system wasn’t working and movies/tv sounded funny. The robot unplugged the subwoofer from the powerstrip under the TV stand. It once drug a phone cord all over the house.

It picks up stuff you really don’t want it to…like screws you accidentally drop or didn’t know came out of something. Fridge magnets. Hair ties. Batteries. It’s like a toddler that puts everything in its mouth and you’re running around saying, “What do you have in your mouth? Lemme see!”

Why does it treat somethings, like the wall and furniture, like it is glass and eases into cleaning the edges while at other times it just bashes it’s way around the same furniture, like it has no eyes and doesn’t have a clue that it is getting close to something? Same for a toddler and cats…you tell it to be careful and nice, gentle, and it does for a while and then all of the sudden it grabs a big handful of fur and pulls, sending the animal scurrying away.

I tell you, I don’t have time to babysit the robot.

Seriously.

Cold breeze

Posted on February 10, 2020 by backuphill

person wearing blue hoodie near body of water

Photo by Gabriela Palai on Pexels.com

I am not one to often complain about the temperature. I have, for most of my life, seemed to run at a higher temp than most so I don’t find myself shivering when it comes to “normal” temps. I am generally comfortable between 65-75 degrees.

Friday night, however, I found myself freezing, indoors, at a local restaurant. Red Robin might serve hot food, but the restaurant was cold enough to refrigerate food without a fridge. I am pretty sure the inside temp was only 7 degrees above the outside temp.

The outside temp was running somewhere around 43 degrees. It was windy and the rain was coming down in sheets – sideways. The walk from the car to the building was less than pleasant and I found the lower half of my body rather damp. The upper half was well shielded in my standard Helly Hansen jacket.

But, upon arriving at the table, my immediate comment to those there with me was that it was cold in the dining area. They agreed, as they had been sitting there for about 10 minutes waiting for everyone to arrive.

The rest of the evening, everyone was wearing jackets, sweaters, and shivering. Not exactly an inviting atmosphere for dining…

…or perhaps this cold temp was on purpose so that it would push people to leave sooner on a busy Friday night. If that’s the case, it is even more obnoxious. Upon checkout at their little computer thing, I did leave a review about the internal temp of the restaurant. Hopefully it caught someone’s attention.

Whack-a-mole car

Posted on February 6, 2020 by backuphill

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

Whack-a-mole can be kind of a fun game. But, after a while it gets rather tiring and you just wanna give up and rip the whacker off the game and just whack anything that moves.

I have gotten to that point with my teen daughter’s car. I am tired of playing whack-a-mole on maintenance issues that never seem to stop. I swear this car has become a “money pit” for repairs. Just when you think you have it fixed and it should be good for a while…not so much.

UGH!!

Anyone have a couple thousand dollars they wanna donate to just buy a different used car for her? Didn’t think so. I don’t either.

After having the alternator and battery replaced in the last two weeks, now we have an apparent coolant leak. It’s not running out onto the ground. It doesn’t appear that any hoses are busted. So, that leads me to believe it is probably going into places in the engine it doesn’t belong.

UGH!!

Did I already say that? Sorry. I am just not sure what else to say.

Fact check

Posted on February 5, 2020 by backuphill

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Pexels.com

“Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

The rise of fact checkers has never been more needed. We need to make sure our politicians are being truthful (because we all know their not, no matter what side their on). “The spin” is always in play and, quite frankly, can be rather disgusting when it gets right down to it.

So, I appreciate that we have people and organizations who do some fact checking. BUT, they are not exactly infallible. While they purport to be “unbiased,” they are not. We still need to watch for bias and we still need to be aware of leanings. Sure, they may not be as obvious in their bias as some media outlets, but it is still there. Example: simply by choosing what and what not to fact check and then report it could display bias.

Factcheck.org is one of my go to places for fact checking. It’s comprehensive and it appears to have little bias. However, there is still a problem. I’ll use the 2020 State of the Union Address from last night as a demonstration of what I was saying in the last paragraph. The linked article above only covers issues that the president got wrong or embellished. There is nothing in the article that points to where he was correct or telling the truth.

To me, that isn’t a balanced fact check. If you’re gonna do the job, do the whole job – line by line and tell us what is correct and what isn’t. Support it good research. Fact check it all. Once the speech is published in its entirety, fact check the whole thing. Don’t pick and choose what and what not to check.

So, if you are looking for more info, you can also check other places. Get a well rounded view of what is going on and what happened. Get info from every perspective, including from places deemed to have little bias. You can, again, use the president’s address from last night as an introduction to the site. The site is Allsides.org.

I know I have talked about these websites before. But I can’t help but make sure you have a place (or places) you can go to get information that is tainted as little as possible with bias. With a flood of information from anywhere and everywhere on the internet, you need to make sure that what you are consuming is as accurate as possible.

We can’t afford to be ignorant. We must be well informed.

Do your due diligence.

Back at the office

Posted on January 17, 2020 by backuphill

Photo by Asad Photo Maldives on Pexels.com

Weather in the PNW has had me telecommuting for work. Four days this week, the commute was from the coffee maker to the desk because snow and ice was on the ground.

I am back in the office today and I can honestly say this job can literally be done anywhere. I would love the opportunity to demonstrate this to my boss. My manager is already on board, but the higher-ups still think office space is a good idea.

If someone would like to sponsor a trip for me to a warm, tropical island with a well connect resort (with internet connection), I am open to offers.

Please hit up my inbox. PLEASE.

No, like really, PLEASE!

Cheaters

Posted on January 16, 2020 by backuphill

Photo by Anastasia Zhenina on Pexels.com

I love baseball. I always have.

I hate cheaters.

Sadly, the sport I love has been spoiled by cheaters. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time and that makes me really sad. Maybe sad isn’t the right word. It definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Houston = cheaters. It seems very likely that Boston will also = cheaters. Possibly the New York Yankees and New York Mets will be found to = cheaters. How far does this really go? Will we ever really know?

This whole thing about stealing signs isn’t really a new thing, per se, but it’s how they did it. Secret cameras, analysis, and then relaying that information to batters is really underhanded.

There have been cheating scandals before. Steroids. Corked bats. Pine tar. “Foreign substances” on pitcher’s uniforms. It’s all been done before. But, in most cases, those were really done by individual players and often (we assume) not at the approval of management or others on the team.

That’s why this is different. This was organized, and systematic. It may have been “player driven,” but management approved it and implemented it.

I am headed to spring training in Arizona at the end of February for the first time. It’s been a goal of mine since I was little. I am looking forward to the trip because of the people I’ll be with and for the baseball, because I love the game.

But, I have to admit there is a little bit of me that thinks the pop of the glove, the smell of the grass, and the crack of the bat just don’t have quite the same appeal as they did before.

What do you think about the whole thing? Is it a big deal or not?

Who needs security?

Posted on January 9, 2020 by backuphill

Photo by icon0.com on Pexels.com

Every once in a while (well, probably more like every day), I wonder if the people in charge know what the heck they are doing? In this case, it happens to be those who are in charge of military bases and security.

This article, Chinese caught surveilling same US military base twice in 2 weeks, caught my attention earlier this week and after reading it all I could think was, WTF? Who’s in charge of security?

Yes, its concerning the Chinese are trying to spy on our military bases and apparently doing it right under out noses.

Several things in the article stood out. The first was this:

The guard asked the men for their military IDs, which they did not have. She told Wang and Zhang to turn around and leave the grounds. Instead, they drove straight onto the property.

They drove straight onto the property. So, like, anyone can just drive through the gate unobstructed? There little to no barriers to slow them down? No tire spikes or giant posts rising out of the ground like we see in the movies to stop people from proceeding?

So what happens next? Did the guard chase after them?

The guard, who was not permitted to leave her post, radioed other security personnel with a description of the vehicle.

The guard? As in, there is only one guard at this particular post? There aren’t others there, with weapons or vehicles, as back up? What? This can’t really be how things work, can it? So she radioed other security…because there were no other security guards near by? I can’t believe an entrance to a military base is only guarded by one person. Really?

This is rich. So who actually went after these guys after they breached the under-protected gate at a military base?

After 30 minutes, Navy security forces finally located the two men.

Wait, it took 30 minutes to locate them? WHAT?? So for 30 minutes these intruders were driving around a military base, unhindered, because a single guard at a poorly designed post entrance didn’t have any back up? Seriously?

They allowed the security officers to look at their phones and their Nikon camera.

The officers found photographs taken of the property,…Officers also found video Zhang filmed with one of his devices.

Incredible! Absolutely incredible. 30 minutes of information gathering, which I am sure was sent to somewhere to someone who could use the photos for something. I am sure they weren’t just keeping those images on their devices to upload later. That wouldn’t make sense with the technology available today. So, that means they were at least partially successful in their mission. Good grief.

Nice work, whomever is in charge. Way to put safety and security protocols in place that make sense. This whole things has a Three Stooges, or Keystone Cops, feeling to it. This is how we secure a “sensitive storage site for weapons and ammunition”?

Not cool. Not cool at all.

Opinions – I want none of them

Posted on January 8, 2020 by backuphill

Opinions aren’t news. They should not be represented as news. And they sure as hell don’t belong in a “news feed.” Four of the five articles you are suggesting I read are opinion pieces – editorial, NOT news. This type of journalism doesn’t belong anywhere near the front page of a newspaper, let alone a news feed.

If I wanted someone’s opinion, I would seek it out. I don’t need it fed to me.

Dammit, Google, your “news feed” is really pissing me off, and I don’t mean the Piss & Moan kind of pissed off. That kind of pissed off is just a general, “Yeah, I’m irritated about it but not enough to do anything about it” but this crap right here, this is pushing me over the edge to something more. I’ve talked about problems with Goggle’s news feed before, but this just adds to my displeasure for this news source.

Something more…anyone remember the old Discount Tire commercial?

Yeah, I am starting to get that pissed. I just might walk up to Goggle’s front window and throw their news feed through it.

Anyone have any suggestions about a news feed that has a WIDE variety of sources and a WIDE perspective on the news? You know, like they actually report the news but don’t offer their opinions or commentary on it?