Saturday, April 11, 2015
More Tracfone
Progress. I got a few contacts successfully entered into the contact list. A bunch of random button pushes finally brought up the alpha touch keyboard. You hit an unlabeled, undocumented button in the upper right hand corner of the dinky little touchscreen and the alpha keyboard appears. Why it doesn't appear when you hit "Name" is clearly a case of the software guru's deciding to make life difficult for users. I'm a retired software guru myself and I know contempt for customers when I see it.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Tracfone
Under pressure from my children I went out and bought a cell phone. The kids wanted to be able to reach me on the road to see when I might be getting in. So, on advice of my brother, who has one, I bought a Tracfone from Walmart. Cheap, phone was only $28 for a phone with a screen, a 60 minute card was only $19.88 getting me on the air for only $47.88. It has a touch screen, built in camera, and a bunch of other stuff I haven't figured out yet. No contract, no monthly bill, just buy more minutes when ever you run low. Minutes are good for 150 days then they evaporate unless you buy more.
Shoplifting appears to be a problem. Walmart had the hanger upon which the Tracfones hung locked, I had to get a clerk to unlock the rack so I could buy it. Packaging is the ultra tough transparent stuff that required my Swiss Army knife to open. Package contained the phone, battery, and charger/USB cable. Following instructions I inserted the battery and plugged it in to charge the battery. Phone refused to do anything else until it was fully charged.
Then it wanted to be "activated". I logged into a website www.tracfone.com and answered a buncha questions, and after a couple of tries, the phone activated. I placed a test call and it went thru. I have cell phone coverage in Mittersill. Yeh! Wasn't too sure about that since all the children's cell phones had had trouble connecting from here. Progress.
Then I started thru the on-line instruction manual. Step one was to identify which of 50 different models of phone I had. I looked on the phone, and all it said with "LG" A Korean outfit with a pretty good rep that used to call itself Lucky Goldstar, back when it got going making VCRs. They changed their name to LG when they hit the big time and decided that Lucky Goldstar sounded too frivolous to American customers. But, LG had neglected to put the model number on the product, a major marketing goof in my book. You always mark your company name and the product name or model number on the product. Fortunately the model number was on the cover of the instruction booklet.
Next trick is to enter important phone numbers into the phone's memory. I'm stuck on that step as of now. The only way to enter letters involved a telephone style keypad with three letters on each key. Just hitting keys gives a gibberish name field, which doesn't work for me. I'm researching this hiccup right now.
And, more research required. It rang, but I couldn't find my way to the "answer the call" button.
Shoplifting appears to be a problem. Walmart had the hanger upon which the Tracfones hung locked, I had to get a clerk to unlock the rack so I could buy it. Packaging is the ultra tough transparent stuff that required my Swiss Army knife to open. Package contained the phone, battery, and charger/USB cable. Following instructions I inserted the battery and plugged it in to charge the battery. Phone refused to do anything else until it was fully charged.
Then it wanted to be "activated". I logged into a website www.tracfone.com and answered a buncha questions, and after a couple of tries, the phone activated. I placed a test call and it went thru. I have cell phone coverage in Mittersill. Yeh! Wasn't too sure about that since all the children's cell phones had had trouble connecting from here. Progress.
Then I started thru the on-line instruction manual. Step one was to identify which of 50 different models of phone I had. I looked on the phone, and all it said with "LG" A Korean outfit with a pretty good rep that used to call itself Lucky Goldstar, back when it got going making VCRs. They changed their name to LG when they hit the big time and decided that Lucky Goldstar sounded too frivolous to American customers. But, LG had neglected to put the model number on the product, a major marketing goof in my book. You always mark your company name and the product name or model number on the product. Fortunately the model number was on the cover of the instruction booklet.
Next trick is to enter important phone numbers into the phone's memory. I'm stuck on that step as of now. The only way to enter letters involved a telephone style keypad with three letters on each key. Just hitting keys gives a gibberish name field, which doesn't work for me. I'm researching this hiccup right now.
And, more research required. It rang, but I couldn't find my way to the "answer the call" button.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Plastic corks, This is progress??
They got everything now. Plastic corks for champagne bottles. They appear to work, the Andre (real quality brand that) champagne held pressure. They come off with just fingers. They go back on and the champagne holds its fizz over night in the fridge.
Gone is the loud POP and the flying cork which yielded so much entertainment at Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.
The price of progress can be heavy.
Gone is the loud POP and the flying cork which yielded so much entertainment at Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners.
The price of progress can be heavy.
Game of Thrones Season 4
Just came in from Netflix. Episode 1, Two Swords. Time Warner cable doesn't carry HBO so I see everything a year later. It's still good. The sets and costumes are elaborate, expensive looking, and convincing. The multiple story arcs (Jon Snow in the Black Watch. Arya on the lam, Sansa Stark married to Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister and Brienne fumbling along, Bran struggling to get beyond the Wall, Theon Grayjoy getting tortured, Joffrey Baratheon/Lannister being obnoxious) can get confusing. It's surprising that we can have so many story arcs after killing off so many likeable major characters (Lord Ned Stark, Rob Stark, Cat Stark) However each surviving story arc still retains its interest.
They have improved the sound track. I could understand everything that was said. Last season they had some really bad episodes where I could not understand a word. One of them with Jaime Lannister and Brienne sharing a hot tub would have been more fun to watch if I could have understood what they were saying to each other.
I liked the scene toward the end where Arya has somehow fallen in with big, old, and ugly Sir Gregor Clegane ("The Hound"). It opens with Clegane and Arya riding double and Arya is chewing out Clegane 'cause she lacks a horse of her own and has to ride double with him. They come upon a tavern, with five bad guys inside it. Arya drags Clegane inside, whereupon the bad guy leader tries to get Clegane to join his gang. The conversation gets frostier and frostier until swords come out and Arya and the Hound wipe up the tavern floor with the bad guys. Arya gets two of them. She has done some growing over four seasons and is bigger and taller than she was in season one. Anyhow we see the unlikely pair riding away from the scene of the carnage, Arya has her own horse now, having slain its previous rider in a hand to hand sword fight. Good scene all the way.
They have improved the sound track. I could understand everything that was said. Last season they had some really bad episodes where I could not understand a word. One of them with Jaime Lannister and Brienne sharing a hot tub would have been more fun to watch if I could have understood what they were saying to each other.
I liked the scene toward the end where Arya has somehow fallen in with big, old, and ugly Sir Gregor Clegane ("The Hound"). It opens with Clegane and Arya riding double and Arya is chewing out Clegane 'cause she lacks a horse of her own and has to ride double with him. They come upon a tavern, with five bad guys inside it. Arya drags Clegane inside, whereupon the bad guy leader tries to get Clegane to join his gang. The conversation gets frostier and frostier until swords come out and Arya and the Hound wipe up the tavern floor with the bad guys. Arya gets two of them. She has done some growing over four seasons and is bigger and taller than she was in season one. Anyhow we see the unlikely pair riding away from the scene of the carnage, Arya has her own horse now, having slain its previous rider in a hand to hand sword fight. Good scene all the way.
Rand Paul is mean to media says WashPost.
My heart bleeds for the poor innocent abused media. Bunch of ignorant, biased, back stabbing trolls.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Dried, State of California that is
I heard that Jerry Brown wants to put a limit on the length of showers Californians can take. That oughta be a hoot. First I want to see the official state policy on how long a shower oughta be. Then I want to see the enforcement mechanism. Do they station state troopers in every home with a stop watch? Or just in the homes of Jerry's political enemies?
Not a problem in NH. We are just entering mud season, and will have plenty of water for a long time.
Not a problem in NH. We are just entering mud season, and will have plenty of water for a long time.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Isolationism and Rand Paul
In America, isolationism grew up in the years between the wars, 1919 to 1939. People who were horrified by the casualties of WWI or dissatisfied with the outcome of the Versailles Treaty began to preach that America should stay at home, build up business, and let the rest of the world sink or swim. A luxury permitted to a continental power with abundant domestic natural resources. Isolationism prevented the US from joining the League of Nations, allowed Hitler to do what he liked, and prevented the US from entering WWII until the Pearl Harbor attack
WWII discredited isolationism, and the Anglosphere, led by America, set up the post war world and has run it ever since. It's been a fairly decent world, far more decent than a world run by the Communists or Islam would be. We have insisted upon the sanctity of international borders, free trade, freedom of the seas, liberating colonies, reasonable stability in international currency exchange, self determination, i.e. no messing around in the internal politics of other states, and human rights. The Pax Americana has been successful, it outlasted the Soviets, avoided WWIII, and has not been unduly expensive for us to maintain. The bulk of the world has been happy with it. They trust the Americans to uphold international order and not take them over.
Counterexamples, Putin in Ukraine, ISIS, and others serve as horrible examples of what could happen without the Americans.
And now we have Rand Paul running for President and preaching a return to isolationism. Let us hope the American voters have a better grasp of modern history than Mr. Paul has.
WWII discredited isolationism, and the Anglosphere, led by America, set up the post war world and has run it ever since. It's been a fairly decent world, far more decent than a world run by the Communists or Islam would be. We have insisted upon the sanctity of international borders, free trade, freedom of the seas, liberating colonies, reasonable stability in international currency exchange, self determination, i.e. no messing around in the internal politics of other states, and human rights. The Pax Americana has been successful, it outlasted the Soviets, avoided WWIII, and has not been unduly expensive for us to maintain. The bulk of the world has been happy with it. They trust the Americans to uphold international order and not take them over.
Counterexamples, Putin in Ukraine, ISIS, and others serve as horrible examples of what could happen without the Americans.
And now we have Rand Paul running for President and preaching a return to isolationism. Let us hope the American voters have a better grasp of modern history than Mr. Paul has.
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