One year ago today: December 5, 2019, they break under questioning.
Five years ago today: December 5, 2015, Yak-Yak-Yakima.
Nine years ago today: December 5, 2011, my first logic gate.
Random years ago today: December 5, 2008, my tweety friends.
I baked cakes and pies all morning. You get one picture. I mentioned I’d talk about Amazon a bit, with Elliott saying those who don’t shop on-line are out of touch. Hmmm, I’d say anybody who thinks it safe to let total strangers track their shopping habits is the one living in the past. Why don’t I shop Amazon. Because they don’t sell anything I need so desperately. I don’t think they are honest in with their delivery prices, and I don’t think they take enough responsibility for what they sell or do. In the bigger picture, I don’t buy products with such a specialty market that I’d pay a third of the full price or more for a replacement battery or an odd-shaped plug no matter who sells it.
They do not associate today’s Internet as being a tool of big corporations, nor understand that 41% of people cannot come up with $1,000 in an emergency as having anything to do with stangers keep tabs on their every move. Or why, In America they are over 50 and still working for a living. Yet they will be the ones who scream the loudest when nobody will listen.]
As for security, I’ve seen that pendulum swing several times in my life and I’ve seen the advantages of “need to know” sharing. People who protected their privacy always had an edge. I saw how computers first came along and it was the people who dropped their business cards into the shopping center “contest” who got taken. I saw the people who told the census takers all that got their taxes raised the most. I saw how the Nixon administration remove al privacy in the banking system, and then how the Internet restored anonymity, only to lose it again. I am solidly on the side of cash and Amazon doesn’t accept cash.
Yes, I have a method for card shopping. It’s just that the card is not in my name and the shipping address is not where I live. And if I’d known how much peace and quiet this was worth, I would have done it fifty years earlier. I watched how FedUP moved from a signature, to your ID, to recording your ID, to scanning it for later use. Those who say there is nothign wrong with that will be the loudest complainers when they devolve from customer into victim. It is no longer impossible for the next government to declare corn flakes a right-wing cereal and pull everybody’s grocery cards. Except those wise enough to see it coming.
There is another point on which I dislike on-line shopping and it is their rejection of cash. That’s a big issue. Those who embrace electronic shopping are unwittingly losing their ability to network with the layer of society that uses cash. Few of them have any inkling of the danger they are in if the wrong people get in control. There are already too many laws that make people responsible for what others do. Elliott sees no danger or even potential for danger. He’s now 14 years older than the age I retired, and can’t take a day off. Coincidence? Perhaps.
Did you watch Redonkulas? He’s got some choice gems in there, like how people won’t answer questions truthfully if it makes them look bad. The topic was women over 40 and dating, which he describes as past their expiry dates. These articles all rehash the same thing, which Redonkulas compares to women leaving their Xmas shopping to the last minute and then whine all the good toys are gone. Get past his presentation and he makes some great points. Little of what he says is original, but he has a knack for applying it. Like if a lady complains her last 15 dates turned out rotten, what is the common denominator?
I’ll throw in my two cents. I’ve already pointed out how in 20 years in Florida, I have not one winner lady who was single. The few nice ones I’ve met were well taken and rightly so, they are so rare. Thus, I’ll state only my more recent conclusions, mostly based on observation, but keep in mind I meet women everywhere I go. Maybe it is the way I walk and talk, but I never get mistaken for just the next dude who walked in. Is it the camera I always carry, the notebook, the crossword puzzles, or the lack of interest in TV In the old days, pulling up in a sidecar was the giveaway. Noon break.
World record tape suspension.
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This nice view shows my back yard fence, isn’t she a beaut? This is the area that got overgrown with weeds while I was away with partial normalcy restored. It’s an archive pic for my 509 fies, the thousands of photos that show the progress on this building. You have not seen most of them. Lef to right, let’s examine, unless you have something better to do, I don’t. The work shed door is ajar, you can see the newer wood. Behind that is the east fence, the one that continues across the whole yard except for the window to chat with the neighbor. Notice the added cross braces, they reflect a real problem with sagging wood.
These braces are where a lot of my scrap lumber winds up. The fencepost in the middle is bent over away from your line of sight. Can you see that tiny green tree stump at the base? That’s the one that pushed the fence and I’l have to dig it out and uproot it or it just grows back. Still moving to the right, that piece of carpet is one of three that are to form the backdrop for my firing range—air ammo only. This is a residential area. Behind this fence is nothing but empty lots for neary two blocks, but there will be a safety sheild of metal (from the old red shed as a precaution anyway.
Okay, back to the women theme. My latest thoughts are women do not seem to adapt to the times or their own changing demographics. Instead of working for a position of having a lot to offer, most women have no more at 40 than at 20. I’ve met maybe three exceptions in my life, two of whom I still know today. The Ann Landers rule is still hard at work, where women will lie about anything and later, if you truly love them, you’ll forgive. I don’t know if most women ever get over doing that. Elliott disagrees, he says good women are everywhere but all want high social value mates. JZ says much the same. Upon questioning, it turns out they have not approached these women, they are only supposing things are the same as when they were younger.
That’s the perspective. All of us see the same women, but I see them from up on the stage and they see them from down in the audience. I say the shoe is on on the other foot, these women have not transitioned well from a seller’s to a buyer’s market. If guys cling to teenage dating methods until l they are too old then women do much the same. Both parties say they can’t meet winners. I say that’s because all the winners are already paired off with other winners. What’s left over are the sob stories.
The women complain they cannot meet quality mates, which has an awfully familiar ring to it. I can’t meet quality females. Are these equal opposites? Absolutely not, they are more like parallel universes. Where most men have to go through hoops to even get a response from most women, the women usually have to do little more than show up. Women begin whining only when they realize they can’t pick and choose like they used to. I know men who seriously think they have to be like a doctor before women will like them. Hmmm, I’ll match my ability to get along with women with any doctors I’ve ever met, but that’s another tale from the trailer court.
I underline that I have more in common with women than men when it comes meeting prospects. Everyone likes being in demand. I repeat my trouble is not meeting women, but meeting good women—which is what women say about men. Yes, I started off thinking tgood women were everywhere and I somehow didn’t make the grade. I’ve since then seen for myself, generally speaking they are not everywhere. And if I knew otherwise, I would not tell. My standards in women are actualy quite low, but they do involve a career, some talent, and a modicum of self-sufficiency. Hell, in my life I’ve only met maybe twenty single women who bought their own car.
To wrap up this inconclusive thread, there is a pattern I also see in men who complain. They tend toward the same attitudes, same interests, and same approaches no matter how much they know what doesn’t work. I don’t know any general answer, but I know I’ve spent 5 out of 6 days in my life making sure I had something socially worthwhile on my side. It is music, for which I had no talent other than spotting its higher rewards. I could not even say if other things might have worked even better. I never much tried. But music has somehow spilled over into most other aspects of my sociality that can’t be quantified. Put another way, I have something else in common with Elliott and JZ. It has been more than thirty years since I’ve hit on a a good-looking strange women in a club. Or had to. BWAAAA-ha-ha-ha-ha.
In other news, I see an copyright troll lawyer has been suspended. Imagine that. And I dismiss the complaints that we do not have voice commands for computers. We had them 25 years ago, but the industry has been infested with dipshits who want the software to understand every accent on the planet. I say screw that, let them learn English or get their own. This country for one would be better off with more incentives to learn the official tongue. China is still announcing only successful parts of their copy-cat “space program”. And another robocall epidemic is breaking out, proving again how useless the FTC bastards are.
People still bring up Dragon, the speech software. It never caught on. They quote privacy concerns and background noise. But I saw the real reason first-hand. People try to use it for diction—and within moments are shocked by how goddamned boring they are to listen to. Yes, you do sound like that in real life, most of you. Use the software for commands, keep your search terms clean, and speak English. Then it works just fine.
ADDENDUM
Today’s addendum is unsual, it is a redacted e-mail to my pal, who considers himself the consummate Internet user. Although he had never owned a computer when I met him in 1986 and got his first in 1996, he regularly lectures me on the right way to do things on-line. It’s another form of derangement syndrome, so read on.
It is interesting hthat you see the "Internet" side of things on so many issues, this is certainly in vogue today. Every change in the system produces a new breed of billionaires, but other than their weath, they are a difficult lot to admire. How many people know Zuckerberg got his start with a half-million dollars from the CIA? The non-credit users, far from being hippies, are an educated and powerful bunch. They know the dangers of a cashless society, where income and spending is dictated by the state.
100% of my transactions are cash, since I have never owned a credit card. It causes one to live on a fundamentally different model, a better one. In fact, I find it is the people who live on credit are the flunkies, never suspecting the reason they cannot stop for more than a couple weeks per year (on credit) isn't "normal". I can't find anybody my own age to even have coffee with unless I pick up the tab. They go on about how little they have left over once "the bills are paid". That's living? That's success? That's retirement? They think it is cash-based people who are bad off, even though I bought my house, car, and everything for cash and still have more money in the bank than any ten of them. Clarification: money in the bank ear-marked for paying bills isn't money in the bank.
Around here, it was all the credit-based businesses that folded first and heaviest. Serves them right. COVID was merely the excuse, the whole buy-and-sell on credit business model is a house of cards and I said so since day one. Those who adhere to the "nothing to hide" theory should try cutting off the flow of information, They would be shocked at how THEY THEMSELVES suddenly can't get anything done and quit wagging fingers at those who know better. For you see, they’ve given up any alternative—and that in itself is, business-wise, the definition of stupidity.
Profiling is something completely utterly different which is not understood by 100% of the people getting themselves into it. Profiling has nothing to do with identity, they don't even care what your name is. The data is being collected for the advent of IoT, which is just around the corner. It is a society where one lousy, innocent, youthful mistake can and WILL sewer you for life. Of course it is packaged as simple and convenient. And you have to quit handing people that nonsense that on-line credit card transactions are secure. Every other day a hundred or so million files are hacked.
It is naive to think like twenty years ago when each piece of data was just a tidbit. I laugh at the people who lose their houses when their identity is stolen, because they are the ones who thought they had the system beat and nothing to hide. Their lives are effectively destroyed. Pardon me for being on the side of people who are somewhat smarter than that.
Interesting to hear you say shipping is free--as long as you spend more than $50. That's swallowing it hook, line, & sinker. The word "free" has no meaning on the Internet, I thought everybody knew that in the first ten minutes, but I guess not. BTW, I have a bone to pick with companies that advertise articles they do not have "in-store". I like to report stores that don't have items in stock for bait-and-switch, anonymously by USPS, of course.
