"Simply sign in with your username and password, and...."

Here we go again.  They want me to sign in with my username and password on an account I signed up for 2 years ago.  I've slept since then and watched way too many football games to remember some silly password.

And I don't have one single username, or one single password.  The security types will tell you that's the surest way to have your bank account drained before dark.

If I picked ajax (I didn't), one site would want a minimum of 5 letters.  OK then, ajaxx.  Then another would want at least one digit.  Then make it ajaxx1.  Then a third site would want at least one capital letter.  Ajaxx1 for them, then.  Then someone would want it stretched to 8 characters.  *sigh*  Ajaxxxx1, on and on.  Now you tell me, without writing it down, which defeats the purpose of a password, how am I supposed to remember 6 months from now what my password is for site #3?

So you start guessing, but after 2 wrong guesses, they lock down your account.  DOH!  Now you have to call their 800 number and press one for this and two for that, and finally they tell you they will email you another password.

It shows up a few seconds later in your inbox, and it's Gkei86y#.  Well, hell yeah, I'll keep that on the tip of my tongue for....2 nanoseconds.  Maybe.  So I change it to Clorox.  Or was it Comet?  I can't remember.

I tried one of those apps that remembers them all for you, but I forgot what my password to the app was.  And even if I could remember it, they say you should change it at least every 30 days to stay a step ahead of the hackers.

Even the people who I used to go to for techie help are now getting left behind by the newest generation of technology.  Now even they are throwing up their hands.

I like the blond who listed her password as "MickeyMinnieDonaldGoofySleepyHappySneezyDopeySacramento".  She said she was just following instructions:  They asked for 8 characters and one capital.

I think I'll just be a 21st Century dropout.  :) 

S

So now I've pissed off Germany, too?

"I had...a bad...experience!"  from The Italian Job.

Earlier this week I said some rather disparaging things about India, and immediately my technology tools all went kaput.  This necessitated a call to Yahoo customer service, which of course is contracted out to a couple of semi-English speaking idiots in....INDIA!   It has been suggested to me this was simply Karma coming home to roost with a vengeance.  (NOTE:  Just as I typed this, the battery compartment door on my wireless keyboard popped open and the batteries fell out.  That's creepy!)

Yesterday my car's driver side power window wouldn't open, and I remembered there was a fuse that controlled just the driver's side front window.  The other 3 windows worked fine.  So while I was out making my rounds I stopped in to my mechanic and asked him to please check it.

He got in my car (an Audi), turned on the key, hit the "down" switch....and it came down.  DAMN!  So it was just me?  Am I jinxed or what?

Then he tried to close it, and just as happened to me....nothing.  Now it was stuck down*.  Yes.  I AM jinxed.

What have I done to piss off Germany?  I like Germany, especially their cars.  *sigh*

I need the weekend to hurry up and get here.  *pout*

S

*They got it back up temporarily. It wasn't the fuse.   Replacement parts are coming pronto from Canada.  I'm just thankful they aren't coming from #$%^& India.  ;)

You live by technology, you die by technology

Technology really kicked my ass yesterday.  My business email just vanished.  Pffffft!  I can't access my business website, and my email can't forward (link?) over to my personal email account.  I used to log in to my personal Yahoo account, then I could skip back and forth between the two emails....been doing it that way for years.

And I use my biz email as my "paper trail".  I have thousands of emails saved, available to refer back to if needed.  Where'd they go?  

K says they're on a cloud somewhere, but I have no idea which one.  So what am I supposed to do?  Call Google, Yahoo, Apple, Amazon, the NSA, etc and ask 'em if they have my stuff?  And if they do, I'm sure they're gonna want a password.  

"Sure, here's 50....let's try 'em all and see if one of them works."  I'll be "locked out" after the first 3 and have the FBI after me for suspicion of hacking.  DUH!

And on a non-technology matter, even dinner kicked my ass, too.  The little jingle on TV said, "Any footlong Subway sandwich....$5 all month long."  So I went to get K and me a footlong Chicken Bacon Ranch Melt for dinner last night.  They made it, toasted it, put on my toppings, wrapped it up, and then said, "That will be $7.75."  

"Umm....what happened to $5?"

She pointed to the small print on the bottom of the menu 15 feet up in the air, 30 feet behind the counter.  It said, "Any footlong except the Chicken Bacon Ranch Melt".  Those bastards!

Then back home I pulled up my ATT Uverse app on my iPad to check the TV schedule and it said I had no favorites saved.  Bullshit!  

It wants me to look through 800 channels just to find the 10 or so I actually watch?  I've been looking at it every evening for months.  I know I have them saved.  Where'd they go?  

Then I tried to log out and then back in, and it said it couldn't find the server.  It...couldn't...find...the...server?  How do you lose an entire $%^& server?  Aren't they the size of a refrigerator?

Is there some weird sunspot activity going on?  I mean, why me?  Why couldn't it smite Iran or North Korea or Cleveland?

*sigh*

S

This is really startin' to chap my hide

My newest technology issue (actually this is a techie issue, not with the technology itself):  I have for years bought Car magazine at the news stand.  This is an expensive magazine ($10.99) published monthly in the UK.  I used Barnes and Noble discount coupons to bring the price down considerably, but they no longer allow coupon discounts on magazines.  Bye-bye B&N.

I went online and bought a DIGITAL subscription to Car for my tablet at less than 1/2 the retail price.  This required that I "create an account" for my new DIGITAL subscription.  Name, email address, password....no problem.  But then they asked for my "customer number".  It says, "The customer number will appear on your PRINTED magazine address label."

Once again, I bought a DIGITAL subscription.  I don't have a PRINTED magazine with an address label to reference.  Without a customer number, no account can be created.  No account, no sign-in, no DIGITAL subscription to read.  *beating head against wall*

I fired off an email to Car magazine customer service. "Oh, we're so sorry for the inconvenience.  This was purchased through iTunes, so go to your settings, then 'iTunes & App Stores', then 'manage subscriptions'.  Enjoy!"

Nope, nothing.  They still require you to create an account in order to read a DIGITAL subscription, and this requires a "customer number", no exceptions.  Another email sent, which they promise will be answered within 3 business days.

All I want is my customer number.  Does this require a meeting of the publisher's Board of Directors?  Am I the first person to ever buy a DIGITAL subscription to Car magazine?  Nobody's ever said anything before now?

This confirms what I've said for a long time:  Nerds can do amazing things with bits and bites, but they don't have the sense to pour pee out of a boot with the instructions on the heel.

This is so ridiculous it's comical.  :)

S

I don't like where this is going

Ahh Oh.  This isn't good.  I just heard on the news that the birth rate among women in the US has dropped below the level needed to sustain a growing population.  In other words, more people are dying than being born.  The break-even number is 2.1 births per woman, and now we've dropped to 1.9 births.

I don't think this is due to a lack of "lust".  The main excuse given for not having as many children is they are unaffordable.  Not too many decades ago one income in the household was usually enough to support a family.  Today it more often than not takes two incomes.  Apparently we're now on the cusp of two incomes not even being enough.

We've known that middle class incomes have been flat for the past 30 or so years while the most wealthy have seen their rate of income growth skyrocket.  This isn't politics, just fact.  It looks like we're approaching the breaking point.

This really has far reaching consequences.  With new technology and increases in productivity, it takes fewer workers to make the same amount of stuff it did just a few years ago.  Today it takes more of us buying even more stuff to keep employment up.  Fewer of us consumers can only exacerbate unemployment.  (This makes the slogan "Buy American" even more urgent.)

Higher unemployment = more misery.  And less tax revenue, which = higher deficits and/or less services.  We say we want to cut spending, but when we try (think the recent budget sequester and cuts in air traffic controllers and airport TSA agents) we scream bloody murder.  It's time to "pay up or shut up".  We simply can't have it both ways.

To a point I can see us slipping towards what Europe is experiencing right now.  For years they have been experiencing negative growth.  This is what we have to look forward to.

S

But the guy on TV made it look so easy

Have you heard of 3-D printing?  It's a digital process where layers of material are "printed" one on top of another to make complex 3-dimensional shapes.  You program in the plans for the gizmo you want, then layer-by-layer the printer builds it.  My Neanderthal brain can't actually wrap itself around this....I'm pretty sure there's some black magic involved.

Here's where it gets real:  A guy in Austin, TX has successfully "printed" a gun and actually fired it.  

It doesn't look like much, and it only fires .22's, but still, it worked.  Since the printer cost $8,000, I'm not sure this is a very cost effective way to get a gun, but still, it worked.  

I already have a gun, but what I don't have is a really cool car.  I mean Jaguar, Aston Martin, or maybe Ferrari cool.  So here's my plan:  First, I've gotta get me one of those fancy printers.  You think Office Depot has them?  (I have an account there.)  Then I'll need a Chilton parts manual for my chosen car.  Finally, recognizing my technological limitations, I'll need a nerd to run the machine.  Pick paint and upholstery colors and Waa-Laa....dream car!

Maybe I'll start small just to get the hang of it.  Like maybe a Mini, the original sized one.  Then raise the bar a notch at a time until I get what I want.  Isn't this cool?  I may have to rethink my prejudice against technology. 

Reality check....maybe there's more to this than I first thought.

Damn!  ;)

S

High tech pooping

Presenting...*drum roll*...the iPotty.  TaDa!

Really?  Most people will just look at this and chuckle or maybe shake their head and think "whatever."  I look at it and think, "The little fucker has his own iPad?"  So now even 2-year-olds have blown past me on the technologically savvy scale.  OH....THE SHAME!  And does the little tyke have one of those Bluetooth thingys stuck in his ear, too?

Whatever happened to that universal fixture of every well furnished bathroom, the magazine rack?  For that matter, what's happened to magazines?  Have you bought a Newsweek magazine lately?  No?  That's because they don't print it anymore.  Pfffft!  Gone.  Online only.  Every month my magazines seem to contain a few less pages of reading material and a few more pages of ads.

But back to the immediate crisis in my life.  The annual Consumer Electronics Show is now underway in Lost Wages...er...Las Vegas.  Nerds from all over have assembled to show off all their newest gizmos, things that to me look like more nails in my low-tech coffin.  They've even taken over that most holy of passions in my life....cars.

Nowadays most mainstream cars (the kind that I can afford, ie: no Ferrari's or Maserati's or Aston Martin's) no longer talk about performance.  All buyers care about today is a car's iPod connectivity or it's Bluetooth capability or it's ability to electronically parallel park itself.  And getting 60 mpg from their 3-cylinder skinny-tired hybrid "mobility device".  Where's the fun in that?

I read somewhere that a majority of kids these days don't even get a drivers license until they're pretty much forced to.  They just hole up in their rooms with their iThis and iThat and text back and forth to each other, avoiding personal contact (and daylight) at all cost.

Is this what the Apocalypse looks like?

S

The hardest thing about growing old(er)

One thing that I've noticed with every new candle on my cake is that age makes hindsight much more clear.  20/20 clear.  Things like career choice, mate choice(s), friend choices, the choice of roads you took at various junctions in your life, etc.  You'll see in retrospect all the brilliant decisions you've made, but you'll also be haunted by the decisions you've blown.  I've heard people older than me say this for years, but until you actually experience it you can't fully grasp it.

General observations:  Things seldom work out 40 years later like you thought they would when you imagined them as a '20-something'.  Times change, new technologies emerge, old technologies disappear, some things that were very important to you in your 20's or 30's will hold no interest for you at all when you're in your 60's.  Your tastes will evolve, as will your ideology.  While the really big things such as your faith or love of family might remain constant, little else will.  Even the 'life goals' you set for yourself and meet will likely prove to be of little long-term consequence.

The trick, of course, is to accentuate the positives and minimize the negatives.  That's much easier said than done.

S