Category Archives: Technology

Turning it up to 11

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Dogwood

Windows turned itself up to 11 and made a mess that I am still cleaning up. Microsoft had offered us a free facility called OneDrive, similar to Apple’s iCloud, that we have been using for a while. Unfortunately, over time we became way over subscribed on it. So apparently, during the middle of this Windows 11 upgrade Microsoft decided that it was time for us to begin paying for this once free service.

I assented and then all hell broke loose. The long and the short of it, all my photos disappeared. I could tell that they had not been deleted, because our local drive was still 99% full. I figured that they had been moved, but where? I launched a search that eventually found them all, buried several directories down. I move the photos back to where they were and was happy, until the next problem. Civilization, the video game that I play had been wrecked. After more trials and tribulation than I had just gone through to recover my photos, I was able to reconstitute the game to pretty much the way that it had been. I still have to login again to everything, which is a pain, but I think that I am civilized again.

But wait there is more. Next, while trying to process a new photo the machine got hung up. I rebooted, which triggered the Windows 11 update process to finish its destruction. When the dust settled the photos were gone. Deleted this time. The local disk is now only 23% full. Years of work lost. Fortunately, I maintain my own backup system. It is a manual system. No AI involved. So, it is likely flawed, and pics will be lost, but it was there when I needed it today. I am restoring photos from this backup now. I was going to do something useful today. I will chalk this experience up to that adage, when man proposes, God disposes. Except Microsoft is no God, even if it did dispose of all of my pictures. On the bright side, when the PC is working, it seems to be run faster now. 😉

The Imitation Game

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Turing Machine

The first lesson that I learned in college was about the Turing Machine. This machine was a theoretical device, with no practical application, in my humble opinion, but in 1972 it was still considered to be leading edge computer science. A lot has changed since then and much that was once considered to be science fiction has become science fact. If Madison Avenue is to be believed; we are now on the cusp of another revolution in computers with the introduction of artificial intelligence or to say it in a trendier way, AI. It seems that every product on the shelves these days has been reworked to include AI. For some products the introduction of AI into their DNA becomes a headscratcher. Like what were they thinking? The truth is that they were not thinking, but have simply latched onto the buzzword of AI or its marketing potential.

Recognition and Reward

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Certificate of Recognition

America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. — Harry S. Truman

Anne received an unexpected package this week. In it was the above pictured certificate that recognized her efforts for working as an election official for more than 25 elections. She has worked the polls through Covid, through all of the attacks on our elections and the attacks on the officials who make them happen. In addition to the certificate, she also received a gold pen. A small tribute, but she has never been in it to get rich as payment for her service. She views her labor as a civic duty. She is already scheduled to work the next election. 

The pen was nice, but it was not the only reward that we received this week. Really this other item was more compensations for damages done, but you know how I love alliteration. I receive a check in the mail as a settlement payment in a class action lawsuit against Apple. The check was pursuant to Apple’s breach of contract when it illegally slowed down the performance of our iPhones. Apple had tried to hide battery defects on older iPhone models by prompting users to install an update that slowed down their phones’ performance. I do not recall any other particulars of the case. I can barely remember signing up to be represented, but I was not the only one who got a check for $92. The local TV news ran a story about the settlement that said the checks are valid and are not part of some scam. I guess enough people must have called-in questioning their good fortune that the TV station decided to run a story on it. 

Cold

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Cold

Pictured here is Anne modeling the icy blast coming for you. If you live east of Saint Louis this bitter wind is headed your way. She is seen shivering after dropping off our annual offering of holiday cards at the post office. Yesterday, like a pair of Santa’s elves we busily prepared our cards. A big deal as always was preparation of the holiday letter. One-half photo collage, one-half actual letter, this staple was finished just-in-time and ready to print. Unfortunately, all four colors in our printer were low, very low.

The printer had been nagging us about this for months. The first copy printed fine, but by the time it got to the tenth, it was only a faded reflection of the original. Not to worry though, because two-years ago when we bought the new laser printer, we also bought a set of replacement cartridges. At the time, having just forked out big bucks for the printer, I was not willing to do the same for ink.

So, I bought OEM. They were considerably cheaper and worked just fine until it came time to open their box. I knew that I was in trouble when I found a toolset in the box, wire snips and a pair of tweezers. Turning to YouTube U, I watched the installation video instructions. The snips were for clipping a plastic flange that was securing a computer chip on the old ink cartridges. The tweezers were for grabbing these chips and installing them in the new cartridges.

At one time, installing these non-HP cartridges in the printer would have invalidated our warranty, but a law was passed that made that illegal. Not to be deterred, HP changed the design of their cartridges, making the YouTube video obsolete. Unable to extract the HP chips from the old cartridges, I gave up in frustration, went to the store and forked out the big bucks for new official ink.

Installing the real ink cartridges was a breeze. They just dropped right in. No tools required. Each new HP cartridge came with a UPS mailing label for recycling the old cartridge. After the post office, we dropped those off at the UPS store. What to do with the worthless OEM cartridges? It is still cold out.

Crime Roomba

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Crime Roomba

Our new Roomba has completed its exploration of the known world, also-known-as our home’s main floor. To celebrate this achievement, Meryl Sweep presented us with its map of our abode. It was a crude affair, something a kindergartener might draw, but it does capture the basic outline of our floorplan. I labeled all of the different rooms and now can dispatch the little robot to a particular area, instead of continuing to let it roam free, lost, throughout the house. X marks its home spot, basecamp, where it can rest a while and recharge or just take a dump. So far, it has led a very sheltered life and knows nothing of the basement or the stairs leading down to it, beware here there be monsters. While there are still herds of roving bands of dust bunnies that stand ready to pounce and may attack anytime, their numbers have dwindled, and the place is beginning to look a little bit cleaner. There have been no more choking incidents like on its first outing, when it first ventured beneath the living room couch.

Pictured is Meryl Sweep’s big brother, Crime Roomba. We are looking at it now. This superhero stands ready to clean up our neighborhood streets from crime. Not that there is much of that around here. Certainly not enough to warrant the acquisition of this behemoth or its cadre of uniformed officers, required for its own protection. Besides our neighborhood is undergoing siege. Plumbers and earthmovers are all about creating trenches wide enough and deep enough to swallow even super Roomba whole. The other day it was nearly impossible for us to circle the block. So, for now we will limit ourselves to cleaning the house.

The Robot Revolution Arrives

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Roomba Rumble

Our Roomba arrived. We quickly unboxed it and then unboxed it again and then unboxed it once again. I kid you not, the Roomba came wrapped in not one, but three nested cardboard boxes: the Amazon shipping carton, the iRobot shipping carton, and the actual Roomba box, the one that you might see in a store. We were not done though, not by half. Inside these boxes was a maze of smaller boxes. One held just the power cord. Quite a few held nothing at all. Unwrapping everything, there really was not that much. There was the Roomba, its docking station, power cord and an attachment. I have never seen so much packaging. God help us if the machine breaks down and we have to return it.

Setup was not too painful. Plugged it in, got the app, connected to Wi-Fi and looked good to go. We took it for a short test run, watched it move around following its own random pattern, and then docked it. Its maiden flight was a success. Then we set it loose again. Anne was fascinated with watching its perambulations. The Roomba seemed to take an almost unhealthy interest in the areas beneath the couches. After about thirty minutes, it decided to declare victory and head home. It was full. Back at base the Roomba emptied itself into the base station, but then threw up an error message. The base station was clogged. The app played a YouTube video that explained how to take the base apart, something, something about five screws, and then clean out the clog. Fortunately, the problem had already solved itself. I ran it briefly one more time to ensure that the problem had gone away and then decided that that was enough fun for the first day. Yea! We did not kill the robot on day one.