Don't mind me, I'm just talking to myself

It seems to be that I'm doomed to buy technology that doesn't work. I've had the Arlo (Netgear) security cameras for about 2 1/2 to 3 years, and I just spent over 40 minutes replacing the battery of my garage camera multiple times (the Arlo app on my phone kept saying that a camera was offline which meant another trip up the ladder, dismantling the camera, and reinstalling the battery, the putting everything back together again) using 2 different batteries and then going the always frustrating process of re-aiming the camera. Frustrating because the app on my phone has a selection under Device Utilities for Camera Positioning. This utility has never worked so I resort to switching on the live feed and waiting anywheres fro 90 to 150 seconds for the "live" feed to start. (What do they do, bounce the signal off of the Moon?). Then wait until the feed starts to "work" and re-aim the camera, waiting the 90-150 seconds between adjustments for the feed to catc...

Good article at progressive breakfast, it says There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. In 1976 and 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that when corporations and billionaires purchase their very own politicians, it is constitutionally protected “free speech” rather than “bribery,” which is how we defined it from the beginning of our republic until 1976. In 2010, the Supreme Court doubled down on its betrayal of American democracy with its Citizens United decision. After those twin decisions in the 1970s, money from corporations and the morbidly rich began to flow into the coffers of the Republican Party, hoisting Ronald Reagan into the White House. Nixon’s impeachment hearings happened in 1974, before the Supreme Court legalized bribery—and so the Senate voted 77-0 to forward the investigation, and the House voted 412-3 to ...

Nuff said. My US Representative and one Senator have decided that since I write to them, I need to contribute to their re-election campaigns. Sounds like if you want to be heard, a little (or a lot) "contribution" needs to be made in order to do the job that I'm already forced to pay, along with a staff of tens of people. Does anyone know how many millions of dollars are needed by our "representatives" to scam the general public and cater to the filthy rich and corporations that pay no taxes care of those same crooked politicians?

Herr William Barr is just another authoritarian sycophant in the Trumpsky administration. The NY Times said: The attorney general’s comments drew criticism that he was conflating objections to police misconduct with a disrespect for the police. Don’t ever grovel to the police who think they’re held to a different set of rules than the general populace. If their oath of office doesn’t require them to abide by the U.S. Constitution, then they’re above the law. And government employees that disregard the Constitution should be summarily fired without prejudice. And their pensions should be confiscated. And suffer jail time equivalent of a first degree murderer. Fuck The Government.

This is from the Daily Crunch: Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that Google CEO Sundar Pichai will be replacing Page as the CEO of parent company Alphabet. In addition, Brin is stepping down from his role as Alphabet’s president. Rather than framing this as a departure, the pair suggested that they’ve “never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company” and that they remain “deeply committed to Google and Alphabet for the long term, and will remain actively involved as Board members, shareholders and co-founders.” And YouTube won’t police political speech. So Trumpsky, the Orange Nazi, can perpetuate the lies he tells by his adversaries, which is pretty much the entire planet except for Trumpsky sycophants. Well, that’s the last step from Google’s former motto “Do no evil” to be a Facebook wannabe. Facebook is openly colluding with the far right to spread it’s disingenuous disformation throughout the Internet. Al...

Check out this other Wired article about automatic https redirect in the DuckDuckGo extension:  https://www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-smarter-encryption/ . The only problem I see is that the browser extension doesn’t exist for Safari. Otherwise, it gives me even more reasons to switch my default browser to DuckDuckGo. A good reason to dump Google, at least on some of my computers.

Maybe Google’s new motto should be “Do Only Evil”. See https ://www.wired.com/story/google-shakes-up-its-tgif-and-ends-its-culture-of-openness/

Well, a small group of far-left authoritarians have taken over the Pharo Project. They've single-handedly instituted a "Code of Conduct" promulgated by an individual that hates the heterosexual world, trying to force other people to accept and condone the the bizarre trans world. There a small faction that ascribes to the far-left world view, and they're trying to force all the others to accept their rule. I've cancelled my contributions to the Pharo Association and to some projects I was supporting. Good luck to them, Pharo is persona non-grata as far as I'm concerned. I abandoned Squeak Smalltalk because they didn't accept contributions except people in the clique. It looks like Pharo has decided to go down the same path. Long live normal Smalltalk, not controlled by a radical minority.

From Reason.com: “If I choose for my child to go to a charter school, then that's where my taxes should go!" https://reason.com/2019/09/11/charter-schools-vs-the-education-monopoly/ via @reason There’s only one logic problem with that, you’re spending my tax dollars on your kids education. Why shouldn’t I have a say on how that money is spent? “Education” is the great ripoff. Almost all of the money is squandered on personnel not involved in teaching, public, private or charter schools. If somebody doesn’t like public schools, them let them homeschool their children.

I bought the Fitbit Versa in April 2018 and here, September 2019, it has been rendered almost completely useless. I maintains a charge for a little over a day, takes two hours to be charged to 99%, and 80% of the time it takes 4-5 hours to get it charged because the contacts are so corroded that the watch doesn't even accept a charge. $200 for a purchases that lasts a year? I call that a ripoff. And another thing, the readings it gives are highly inaccurate. The watch just recently said my heart rate was 89 BPM, a blood pressure cuff applied 40 seconds later said my heart rate was 69 BPM or more the 22% lower. The "steps" that it counts are really vigorous arm swings, and at least for me, is at least 30% too low. I guess the target audience doesn't ever carry anything in their arms, and always looks like those stupid power walkers.  Right now, the Versa says I've taken 1205 "steps", while the Pacer app on my phone says I've taken 3219 steps. That...

Here’s a link to an interesting political quiz.

Just though I'd plug two other blogs I write, Object Networks Blog (the company blog) and Objectnets Open Source . I write about almost anything programming related in theses blogs, I don't just stick to Smalltalk topics. I hope you enjoy them, and maybe learn something new.

Quiz

If it’s not evident from all the news, “law enforcement” works by a different set of standards that the rest of us. Check out he article  https://www.abqjournal.com/1326677/man-killed-at-brewery-was-a-utah-veterinarian.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=most-read-stories-for-date-l&utm_source=Albuquerque+Journal+Newsletters&utm_campaign=25cae59f99-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_06_11_09_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2dcf4c82cd-25cae59f99-108641169 . They’re judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one.

From The Guardian article ‘Socialism for the rich’: the evils of bad economics Attempting to reduce inequality via redistributive taxation is likely to fail because the global elite can easily hide their money in tax havens. Insofar as increased taxation does hit the rich, it will deter wealth creation, so we all end up poorer.

And while I'm on a bitch session, One Nevada Credit Union's slogan should be "Worse customer service than Wells Fargo Bank".

Well, I'd stay away from Sears and ShopYorWay.com if I was you. They charged my credit card CapitalOne twice for the same transaction, then cancelled the order. CapitalOne told me that its up to ShopYourWay to refund the money and Sears refuses to refund my money. CapitalOne says that Sears had 5 business days to refund my money, until May 6. The only remedy I have is to claim fraud, which means I can't use my credit until CapitalOne sends me a new card, a week or so. Isn't this fraud and misrepresentation? Not that the legal system in this shithole country has anything to do with this sort of 'illegal' behavior. Fraud is so much of the commerce in the United States. From Amazon all the way down the line.