Category: Opinion

May 17, 2022 – Does Preserving History Matter?

May 17, 2022 /

I had an experience over the weekend. Quite out of the blue, my mom called on Saturday and said that the TV wanted to interview me about my experiences with the North Palestine Church. Not all of those details turned out to be completely accurate, but that doesn’t really matter. I swung into action to gather memorabilia to share and rushed out of the house to participate.

We called it Palestine Church growing up. It was about half a mile from my parents house. This was about as close as anything was. The only other public space was Fir Grove Elementary (about the same distance). The reason the church was in my life is that we used it as a meeting place for Boy Scouts during the summer time. It was also the fallback camping location for our monthly campouts (mostly wintertime).

The church was moved in 2012 from it’s cemetery location where it was built to about three miles down the road to Adair Village. The county now owns the building but it has essentially been closed since the move. They are slowly making improvements to get it ready for eventual use. However, there is no current vision on what it will be used for or even what needs to be done to make it usable.

As it turns out, the county was taking a video record of some of the people that were involved with using the church throughout the years. This is where the story I have been writing and my story intersect. Since Boy Scouts was such a fundamental building block of my youth, having a place to meet was an extremely vital component to having the entity exist. It also helps that it was extremely close and didn’t require a ride to get there every week.

Being speculative, would I have continued if I couldn’t easily get there? Would the troop exist without a permanent meeting place? If restored, will it ever hold the significance in the new location that it did in the old? These are all questions to be asked and not everyone in the troop many hold the same regard that I do.

These are photos inside the church at my Eagle Scout Court of Honor June 28, 1992. Each individual was asked what we would like to see the use of the church be. My response was that it maintains to be a venue that impacts people’s lives the way that this one did to mine.

End Your Programming Routine: If I am intellectually honest, the significance of Palestine church had a context of time, place and my personal interaction with the building. Just maintaining it as an available venue may never reach people in the same way. A fact that it was moved from it’s very rural location to a much more populated location removes the intimacy that us near it had. It could be anyplace anywhere really. So, while I have a strong emotional connection to the building, my real wish is that people make those connections wherever they are.

May 6, 2022 – Free Speech for Friday

May 6, 2022 /

It is a very interesting time we are in. I have heard from two different sources independently that all of a sudden, Twitter posts are reaching new audiences and gaining new subscribers. This is an unprecedented rate of change for both. One person said that he rarely gets more than 100 views despite having over 15,000 followers. All of a sudden subscribers are getting added several a day doing nearly nothing and views are going into the 1000s.

Another media personality said that he posts nearly every day and friends didn’t even know that he was active on the platform. It was said that those posts were never seen. Something very devious has been happening and we have just accepted it. We have been manipulated by the mysterious and unexplainable algorithm. Yet, all of a sudden there is a potential change in leadership/ownership and the first amendment is alive and well.

Make no mistake, I am not certain that Elon’s motives are altruistic. In fact, I would be willing to bet that they are not. However, that is the hammer being used to usher in a new algorithm. Discredit the old way and bring in trust for the new one. I can just say that this deal won’t even be closed until June and yet the writing is on the wall for the current batch of useful idiots.

These platforms have been lying for years using subjective labeling like ‘Medical Misinformation’ and ‘Inflammatory Speech’ as if the moderators are doctors or scientist or even subject matter experts. This is the zero tolerance approach to life (kind of). It is zero tolerance if you disagree with the establishment narrative regardless of your facts or arguments against. Yet, watching YouTube videos I am still trying to be convinced that I need to get a vaccine while wearing a mask. This is paid for by the State of Oregon, my money.

In my opinion, any sort of value judgement on someone else’s statements being visible is censorship. I have stated many times, it is not criminal to believe wrongly. There are so many people that think colloidal silver or high pH water is the fountain of youth that it is laughable. Plenty of people believe masks reduce the transmission of the virus despite having the data saying there is statistically no effect.

Or do they? Is this policy an attempt to reduce liability? Is this better to do something even if it is wrong? Have you seen those politicians without a mask on? There is literally no one that actually believes this or they wouldn’t do it, period. Who goes into space without a suit, no one because you will die, period.

If you do an internet search for ‘facemask efficacy’ you are going to find a lot of studies preporting that they do. However the top results are sources like CDC, Stanford Medicine, Mayo Clinic, etc. These are the same sources that have built a legacy of pharmaceutical managed, chronic disease treatment. I am not disputing that there is a lot of knowledge, but how smart are they really? Smart enough to dupe all the regular people that we need drugs to survive.

By the way, how did we get chronically sick? By trusting the science and by eating the food pyramid that is a majority carbohydrates. This is a non-traditional way to eat. Sure, we are getting plenty of calories to give 50% total obesity rates and skyrocketing type 2 diabetes over 50. It is not that someone or an institution cannot be mostly wrong and occasionally right but what is at stake here? How about grant funding?

End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to end on face masks even though I devolved. I am all over the place and for that I apologize. Some days I just start writing and something else comes out. Today is one of those days. My point was really isn’t it interesting how the cockroaches are moving away from the light as quickly as possible? Elon isn’t even in charge yet, the deal has not even been completed and all of a sudden speech is becoming more free at Twitter. I find this extremely deplorable. Clear, transparent and equally enforced policy is the way to build trust, Twitter et al. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

May, 2 2022 – Speaking of Privacy Again…

May 2, 2022 /

***9-9-24: My web host called and said that the link to the Tor Browser was malware and that my site was infected. I have no way of actually knowing this is true so I have removed it from this post. I suspect that they wanted a way to try and sell me their security service at $400/yr. For now, search the tor browser for yourself and use at your own risk.***

I have been thinking about BitWarden and privacy this week. I have also been aware of the benefits of a Virtual Private Network but never looked into it. Combining those two things together got me looking around for what a VPN would cost and I stumbled on the Tor Browser.

Let’s go back to the basics, what is a Virtual Private Network or VPN for short? A VPN is a networking routing strategy where your computer goes to a specified computer address every time for the first connection. In theory, if someone was looking at your history they would only see a connection to a single IP address. To go along with that, your first jump would be to a server that is clean and secure and the people running it value privacy.

As far as I know, without a VPN your routing is somewhat random. Random but also potentially public. Even more insidious than that is that most browsers are reporting your searches to the parent owner of that browser. They then take that data and use it to develop more artificial intelligence and data trends. This is how you look up something and all of a sudden you are bombarded with adds for that particular item.

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that BitWarden is doing the same thing. I think that it is also worth pointing out that a VPN is not going to protect you from that type of tracking because of the browser extension is getting the data right from the source – you.

The Tor browser is a browser that has an integrated VPN function into the operation. It is open source and differs a little from the pay services. So, you are not paying for a service for all of your devices but activating the VPN function by using the browser. Why? Because there are still some good guys out there that believe in American values. People work on these projects because they are passionate about what we all think is true, we should own our own privacy.

In looking around a little it looks like Brave can do this too by changing the settings of the browser. As a side note, I don’t think Brave is actually tracking me but it does have the potential to be public. In fact, most browsers have a private mode. With that said, I don’t happen to believe that ABC or Microsoft has our best interest in mind however. Apple does seem to be more trustworthy with privacy but I don’t think for a second that they are just sitting on data that they are collecting.

Also, looking at how these things work they don’t save any history and certainly recommend not adding any extensions. To my knowledge, Tor is the only one that has an integrated VPN feature though.

I think it is pretty evident why privacy is important. But I think it is worth mentioning that context is important. People create their own realities when they only see part of the data. What if I was pricing a pallet of shotgun shells for my kids Trap club? That seems to be explainable. But what if I was looking for a kilo of cocaine? Who knows, maybe I wanted to look at the effects of inflation and I decide I cant make the correlation. Or what if I wanted to read Mein Kampf so I was looking to buy a copy? These things can easily be taken out of context or are even tools for entrapment. In the end, I am not doing anything technically wrong and it is none of your business.

End Your Programming Routine: I am going to keep using Brave but I am also going to try out Tor. There are some clear drawbacks to using it exclusively and one is the convenient password access. I have also noticed that some sites will reject the Tor browser because (I assume) that those sites are wanting the metadata that you are bringing when you are trying to access said site. In theory with Tor, you are able to change your VPN route and try again but I have not been successful with that yet.

April 25, 2022 – Readiness vs. Preparedness

April 25, 2022 /

Sorry, but it is going dark again. I will try to keep it high level for privacy reasons. We had a huge family blow-out with my mother-in-law last week. We were trying to convince her that she needed to start the power of attorney process and try to engage hospice. My opinion is that we are within weeks of needing to invoke power of attorney and hospice is needed now. She is no longer able to walk, she is eating very little and is going back and forth with her faculties. In fact, we had to call 911 the other night because my wife thought that she had a stroke.

The next day, when we had the discussion she was firmly obstinate and declared that she was not ready to die and therefore formalize power of attorney. That is where the genesis of this topic came from. In most people’s mind, the terms are synonymous, including mine until that moment. They can mean the same thing but they are distinctly not.

I am reading between the lines in the interaction but here is the reality. I don’t think that she is ever going to be ready to die. She insists that there are good days and bad days, which is true. But, every good day is less good than the last one. In her mind, she is still defiant that she is going to beat this even though all of the doctor’s opinions are otherwise.

Not being ready has led to not being prepared. You can be ready and not prepared and you can be prepared and not ready. You can also be ready and prepared and the opposite, you get the point. To me, preparedness has an ‘if’ component to it whereas ready has a ‘when’ component. When those two circles merge you have the if and when.

Let’s say that you are preparedness minded and you are all stocked up for a hurricane. You have procedures in place for this scenario and that variation. However, if the hurricane strikes while you are on a business trip, you are not ready for it. You are not there to execute those procedures and direct your family and turn on the generator, etc. By the same token, you could be home and prepared and the hurricane misses you so you don’t lose power, it wasn’t necessary. If you happen to be home and not prepared, you know the hurricane is coming so it is too late to do anything about it. You are ready but not prepared.

What other topics can we relate? How about life insurance? I have some but it doesn’t mean I am ready to die, it means that I am prepared in case I do. You have a will, you have other legal documents that just in case I get into a car accident tonight, I have made steps to mitigate the other problems that go on with the situation.

The theory of life insurance is that it replaces income in the event of a loss. As we age beyond our income earning years, life insurance is only there to protect assets for estate planning. So, the if is dying while you are making money and you have a family or spouse that needs it. But, even that tapers off eventually unless your spouse can manage the cash flow without you and you invest the life insurance.

I think the best corollary that most people can relate to is parenthood. So many people of my generation (X) opted to wait to get married or at least waited to have children. I know that we did. Some advice that we got was that you can really never be ready for your first child. It is hard to imagine being a parent when you have no context of what it is really like. Despite all of that, you can be prepared in terms of equipment, training, plans and education. Just because you don’t know if you are ready, that baby is coming and you take it day by day. What you don’t know, you make up and keep trying to learn and get better. This is really all you can do.

I like to think that I have possibly learned something about this interaction. Who really knows what we will be like when we get to this point. I can only imagine what I would feel like if I felt like I wanted to give more and needed more time. Unfortunately, all of this time is really wasting the remaining days. I am expecting this to be a clusterf*ck by the time it is over.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose ultimately where I am at is that readiness has nothing to do with this situation, it is inevitable. All fighting does is make it more difficult to do the right thing at the right time. Ideally, you would have both states, but if you are going to opt for one, pick preparedness over readiness.

April 15, 2022 – What Was Formerly Tax Day

April 15, 2022 /

For probably forty some years, this was a day marked on the calendar. It only changed if the 15th fell on a weekend and then it would be the next Monday without fail. Two years ago, we got an extra five months and then last year tax day was May 15. It appears very arbitrary to me, but this year it is April 18, not the fifteenth.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no hurry to send my five figure bill to the government so that they can buy crack pipes or send arms to Ukraine. Why do we accept the status quo? If we had an ala carte or optional funding mechanism, how many of things the US government offers would you sign up for? I thought that it might be interesting to talk about ‘what ifs’ today.

  1. What if your neighbor came over to your house and demanded that you give them money to pay for his side action’s abortion, I mean health care? If you don’t give the money to your neighbor, he is going to take it from your bank account or other assets. Oh, and by the way, if you don’t tell him how much money you have, he may imprison you. At the very least, he will charge you more money as a penalty. This is a crime in any other setting but taxes.
  2. What if we valued cost of ownership more than having a new toy? When I think of redneck, I think of a lot of broken down shit. Before you think I am too harsh, I have been there as well. I bought a boat one time (and I would love to have another). At that time, I had two babies and the boat sat outside. I can honestly say that routine maintenance like oil changes were sometimes outside of my financial reach and so they got delayed. All infrastructure and programs have a cost to maintain and I do not see that cost factored into any project. It is assumed that once a project or program is completed, the cost of ownership is absorbed into the government for perpetuity.
  3. What if we were suspicious instead of punch drunk idiots? Every single campaign advertisement promises to ‘get stuff done’. What is that stuff you ask, well it is taking more money from you for things you (likely) don’t want and cant afford to take care of without taking more money. I honestly cannot name a single law that I want amended or clarified (read nearly free and makes life better). I can think of many that I would like to remove but when does this happen? Remember in 2016 with a Republican senate, house and president repealing the Healthcare mandate/tax, I don’t. How do we get oligarchs? We gerrymander the rules, laws and regulations to benefit the few that can afford to participate.
  4. What if James Monroe was president again, does anyone remember early American history anymore? For nearly 100 years the American foreign policy affectionately called the Monroe Doctrine was focused on items that only directly impacted us. Something needed to be happening in this hemisphere and this continent to warrant intervention. I am sorry Israel, Syria, Ukraine, South Korea, Taiwan, Serbia, Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Vietnam to name a few. Quite frankly, China’s foreign policy is a far more appropriate approach benefitting it’s citizens than is ours, stability is good for business.
  5. What if we actually believed in the Golden Rule? I remember talking about this before grade school. All of the social programs are a grotesque attempt to enforce something we should be doing anyway. But society can’t trust that I will be nice the the Z’s. Isn’t that the beauty of the concept? There is a saying that ‘morality cannot be legislated’ so why do we keep trying to do it? This is another form of me forcing my values and ethics on you. Let’s keep ‘getting more stuff done’.
  6. What if we didn’t have an FDA, USDA, HUD, Department of Education, Department of Energy or name your alphabet soup? Anybody have any idea what these entities do besides hand our money and create unnecessary regulation? These are all masking the fact that we don’t really believe capitalism is a viable solution and by the way let’s make some people rich along the way. If we are not willing to give money to a cause, then it is probably not market viable and probably doesn’t need to be done. I think that there is a collective belief that these organizations are doing this for our own good and that we are not capable of making intelligent decisions. ASTM and ISO are two non-governmental organizations that perform self policing. They perform in the very same function as USDA inspected meat do by audits and periodic monitoring.
  7. What if we were smart instead of educated? Contrary to popular opinion education is largely a waste of time. I want my kids smart enough to pursue education that is useful and not forced into indoctrination. Prisoners learn how to communicate through the plumbing or make a shiv out of a bedspring, that is learning . Learning is unstoppable but it needs the proper motivation. Education teaches compliance and obedience.

I want to finish off with a little more on seven. Suppose you were Galileo? First of all, the prevailing belief was that the universe revolved around the earth, it was a sin not to. He went to prison for his beliefs, which were provable by the way. Today he is celebrated because he was right. According to his life, he was enrolled at the University of Pisa at the age of 16 and chair of the mathematics department at 25.

To think that the best scientific minds in history were hindered because they fought the status quo of church and government or in fact that they didn’t have compulsory education is a testament to how wrong we are. The religion of climate change or critical race theory has a truth out there, it is going to take one martyr who is not going to come from within the system. The rest of us will be condemning that person until long after we are all dead.

Alright… my point here is that this is part of the mechanism that enacts and does all the things the I don’t want in my life. I probably should go into fractional reserve banking someday because taxes are not the activity that enables all of the nonsense. Taxes are the activity that build confidence for the rest of the dupes that this country is stable to invest in. That in turn creates the money for all of this in a nutshell.

End Your Programming Routine: I probably could have written for hours. I was going to write about the few things that I might be willing to put money into but then it kind of got off course and not clear enough so I deleted it. Since I haven’t railed on the government for some time, I let it fly today. As much as all of this bothers me, it also has very little impact on my day to day life, other than the continuous stealing that happens with my paycheck. Lest we all get too wrapped up in things we can’t control, moving on for the week.

“He has risen, indeed” Luke 24:34

April 12, 2022 – Is a Moustache ‘Pervy’?

April 12, 2022 /

I had to laugh a little bit on Sunday. When church was over, the young lady that works with the youth asked me why I decided to grow a moustache as she thought it made me ‘look a little pervy’.

We have all heard the term pornstache, it wasn’t exactly the area I was going for. But, in a small way it was and let me explain. It think for men, facial hair goes through trends. I saw one article that said the optimum five o’clock shadow was 10 days. I feel like the trend is some form of beard. There is the hipster/lumberjack type and then there is the playboy type.

We have had the goatee trend 15 or twenty years ago. Of course, clean shaven is always classic. I often go clean shaven when I have to do work in food plants so I don’t have to wear a beard net or additional face covering. But, the mustache is passé. To me, it is a counter culture statement. It says I know what the trends are and I am going to go contrary to them.

For a long time, I resisted this particular facial hair for the simple reason that my dad has had a moustache for many years. Quite simply I didn’t want to follow in his likeness. However, I have started changing my opinion and it has to do with how I would like to be perceived. It really has to do with the circles that you run around in.

Probably, for a college age lady, moustaches on peers bring up the creep factor when the trend is clearly bears or clean shaven. I see a lot of Indians with only moustaches, that is a cultural appearance. My angle is more mature cowboy; think Sam Elliot or Shaun Johnston.

I suppose that my argument is that context is important. What if I said, “Your skin looks a little dark. Are you sure that you are not about to commit a crime?” Or, “Are you sure you work for a living?” I think we all know those statements are not socially acceptable. It is our experiences or nurturing that form our opinions regardless of right or wrong.

End Your Programming Routine: It is just hair. It can be removed or changed. I understand the sentiment, but you tell me? Is this more pornstache or distinguished western? I definitely won’t have it forever, I get tired of the look and the grooming. For now, it is a tiny bit fun to provoke reaction.

April 11, 2022 – Where Do I Go From Here?

April 11, 2022 /

I have to admit, April is a month that gets in my head. Going all the way back to high school, there were always some life altering event that happened in the month. Not so much lately, but the feeling is still there. I know it is not real, but I am ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ as they say.

I do feel raped with my five figure tax bill every year. But, that is not it. I was thinking about the fact that I haven’t even made a effort into investigating podcasting year to date. I don’t really think so. Maybe it is the weather? We are having a day or two of nice weather with a couple days of wet, cold and freezing.

I know when travel starts to ramp up, I feel it is all I can do to keep up. My projects go on hold because all of my free time is catching up for missing other things during the week. My garage is again becoming a garbage/donation pit. I have a growing dump load in addition to an overflow of items that are slated to be given away. My son’s Go-Cart project is literally strewn all across the remainder of any open space. His car cover is collapsing and my seedlings will be looking for a home in a few weeks.

I suppose this is what the problem is. I am overwhelmed by all the things I don’t really want to do. Because of that, I feel guilty doing the things I want to do, so I don’t do them. That makes me feel anxious and I get stuck in a circle of inactivity. To be honest, that doesn’t help things either when I look at all of the wasted time after the fact.

I don’t think any of that is strictly April (at this point). But logically, this is a point of transition. We are moving in-between Winter and Summer and we are not quite either. I am moving between strictly work from home and obligations that require travel. I am also in the middle of the seasonal change and other changes at home. I do hold the opinion that people that thrive during turmoil are the next generation of success.

If you think about it, turmoil is the time where there is no particular force or clear winner. Therefore, people that pick a direction and thrive become the status quo when the turmoil settles down. Using one example, we are in rampant inflation. People that are using crypto currency, specifically Bitcoin have seen astronomical deflation in the same period. This is a prediction, but when the dollar finally collapses, those that have picked the new best direction are going to be clear leaders in the financial space.

I have heard and I tend to agree that we are in the midst of a financial collapse. It is kind of like getting fat. You don’t really know it is happening until you wake up and look at where you were a year ago and realize that you are fat. It is the incremental changes that happen every day that matter but it is the trend over a period of time that aggregates the overall result.

What does getting fat, Bitcoin and anxiety have to do with each other? Nothing really. I suppose that I am telling myself that I know where I am at and I know that doing nothing is not really helpful so I need to pick a direction to go. Trust me, I know that it is difficult to get energized for the next thing when you know that every week is jam packed and travel is again looming.

End Your Programming Routine: I didn’t know that I was going to write this today. In fact, I haven’t planned anything for the entire week since I was gone last week and too busy with commitments over the weekend to gather content. Part of why I do this is I find it helpful for me to sort things out as well. I do want be real. Life isn’t always about winning or being the best or knowing everything but adjusting to the circumstances to thrive.

April 8, 2022 – My New Travel Backpack

April 8, 2022 /

February 2015, I purchased a new Swiss Gear Backpack to replace my company issue Dell laptop. While not at the end of it’s life the end was near. Most of all, I spent a lot of time in China and I felt very subconscious advertising Dell in a third world county. While nothing ever happened, I really felt like something less conspicuous would be a better choice.

I only used that backpack for a few months before the company gave me a new backpack with the company logo on it. At that time I felt compelled to wear the brand and switch. The Swiss Gear went into backup mode for a few months until my nephew needed a replacement and he used it to the point of destruction.

From the day I switched, I regretted it. I thought maybe it would grow on me but it didn’t. Every time I looked at it and more so used it I was reminded of my poor decision. Even the embroidered company brand promise was a lie ”Technology Made Easy and Effective”. A more fitting brand promise would have been ”Difficult to Work With and Needlessly Complicated”.

The bag itself was well made with quality materials but poorly designed. Access to the main compartment was choked by the opening only allowing 1/3 of the compartment. The internal volume barely allowed my computer, notepad, charger and a small accessory bag. Travel with anything more than a book to read basically filled the bag to capacity.

Fortunately, I didn’t do much business travel while it was in service. Lately, I have been doing quite a bit more, so I got a replacement. I wrote about my day bag I bought about a year ago. My requirements for that were maximum flexibility. I wanted it to hold whatever without much care for dedicated organization. Translation, I wanted one big pouch. I could add organizers if I wanted, but mostly to hold what I wanted.

My business bag is different. I work out of it, I travel with it. I keep all of the things I need to do my job when I when I am not in the office. For those of you that dont work on the road, there are different sized bags for different laptops. I happen to have a 17” laptop which means I need a bag on the larger size (or at least to fit). I wanted it to be tough, professional and have diminutive branding.

Since I have new computer glasses, I wanted a place to keep those safe. I wanted some minimal organization for office supplies. And I wanted enough room to add a book and some travel extras like if I chose to stuff a jacket or lunch. There are some good places to look like REI or Sportsman’s Warehouse, online selection is nearly limitless. Trying to even see the features of a bag online are often impossible because they don’t show scale oftentimes only the front and back without the interior pockets.

I settled on an Ogio brand. Sometimes their logo use is garish, this one is OK. At least I don’t tend to recognize it as a logo when I see it. I have an Ogio duffle bag that is 20 years old and has worn like steel so I feel good about the durability. There is full access to my laptop and my iPad in a TSA full zip pocket and it is a little bigger than my old one.

All is not roses and my glasses case does not fit into the specified pocket. There are several other small organizers thar are advertised for a phone or other small item. Those pockets are too small and I don’t tend to leave my phone in my bag, so kind of useless. The dirty little secret is that the more of these do-dads that don’t work there are the less overall volume there is. In a way making the bag less functional.

End Your Programming Routine: This is my first trip with the bag. As much as I hated the old one, everything had a place. I am still getting used to what pocket is what and what zipper to use. It definitely has more space and a better potential for efficient organization. Maybe it is the thought of not looking at the old bag that is better but I am still happier with my choice.

April 4, 2022 – Smart TVs Suck

April 4, 2022 /

In my long term plan, I am going to hang a TV on the wall of my office. I have an eye out for a deal and I am not in a hurry. It is mostly to keep my techno-junk working and other experiments in audio and video. I plan on connecting it to my desktop in my office as a second monitor.

Because my space is small, I am am looking at 32-40″ range TV. It seems like 40″ is no longer a thing and they are either 32 or 43 inches (new) now. My preference would be 43″ of the two but I think either would be fine. I don’t want it bad enough to spend $150-200 at this point. This keeps me looking on the second hand market.

We got our first smart TV in 2009. It was a Panasonic plasma. I think is measured 55″. We still have it and it still works great for the most part. When we first bought it, I think it was rare and a more expensive option to have a smart TV. The applications worked for a number of years with a low number of issues. About 2018, the support started ending for some of the applications and now, none of them work.

Our second smart TV was an inexpensive 32″ Magnavox TV. I think this was purchased around 2012. Originally, we thought it was ideal that we could have the smart capability without a second device at an inexpensive price. Applications for this TV were less stable than the Panasonic and they started not working around the same time.

Today, it is pretty rare to see a TV that is not a Smart TV and that is not a good thing in my opinion. Our last TV was a black Friday special. In my opinion, it is a POS. When I was trying to get the Super Bowl going, I couldn’t get it switched from the apps to TV. It is not infrequent that you have to pull the power from the cord because neither the remote or the power button will shut off the TV.

From this point forward, I am solidly in the camp that I don’t want a smart TV again. My searching in the new category, I find it difficult to see anything that is not smart. Just on a whim, I searched ‘why do smart TVs suck?’ It would seem like I am not alone in my opinion. It is one thing that the apps become unusable, but it is completely another when the device does not even function properly.

I actually found this article posted by a local electronics store.

After reading this article, now I don’t even know that I am interested in an inexpensive TV (new at least). It is not like I have state secrets or anything, but I certainly bristle at the idea of Google collecting data and potentially allowing the Chinese log into my devices.

Yesterday, I was listening to the Fine Homebuilding Podcast and they were talking about some smart appliance whereby an incorrect software update was sent. Now that particular appliance is essentially broken requiring a service call to fix it because it can no longer connect to the internet or even run the appropriate software.

End Your Programming Routine: As a person employed in the software industry and having some direct exposure to the Internet of Things (IOT), I have personally watched things not go smoothly in this area for years. The reality is the industry is hell bent on pushing this just like cars will electric. This supports the planned obsolescence model and will simply keep accelerating. I side with Benjamin Franklin “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

March 30, 2022 – Computer Glasses?

March 30, 2022 /

As a trained scientist, I suppose that experimentation is in my DNA. It comes to me naturally. At least part of what I do is to see if I can figure things out or do them just out of curiosity. Part and parcel with experimentation is observation. Data needs to be collected to support the experiment and make conclusions.

Since I started working again, I have noticed that as the day wore on, I was getting very fatigued, like ready for bed by the time the work day was over. Interestingly, I didn’t necessarily feel the same way on the weekends. My hypothesis of the situation is that my office usually starts at 60-65 degrees and will heat up to nearly 80 most days if I don’t crack the door. I was thinking that the increase in temperature was causing me to become more sleepy as the day progressed.

Recently, I was at the eye doctor. We talked about the fact that I could get computer glasses if I wanted to, but if it was not a problem then it wasn’t necessary. I asked him about the fatigue and he said most likely. I decided to perform an experiment on my favorite subject, myself.

I picked up my glasses Friday afternoon. The first thing I noticed is that things are definitely clearer close up. When I look beyond a couple of feet, things are definitely worse than with the glasses off. So, these are to be truly worn for reading and screen work. I put them aside to be tried on Monday.

I have two days under my belt now and I have to say that I have not experienced the fatigue and the temperature is 80 while I type this. Two days of data is not conclusive but it is definitely a nod toward a positive conclusion. I should probably document my experience for a week wearing the glasses and go back another week without them.

I am very aware of the placebo effect. When I first started taking Vitamin D, I was very skeptical. I have been taking it for probably 10 years now and I can actually see physical changes when I am not diligent about being consistent. I will be watching this experiment as well. I can see fine without them, I just can see much better with them on.

A proper experiment would have a control and a statistically appropriate sample size. So this will never be anything other than anecdotal observation. But, the principles remain the same. The main emphasis are propose a hypothesis, define the experiment, measure the data and make a conclusion with the data.

End Your Programming Routine: Not everything is rosy. I think I have to push these glasses up every minute of the day. So, it would seem like adjustment would be in order. I am happy that my vision is good enough that I can get by without glasses. I am also glad that at the end of the work day I am not ready to go to bed.