Everything does not need a rechargeable battery

 I'm becoming more and more annoyed by the way that rechargeable batteries are being included in everything.

Rechargeable batteries are not the ideal solution when:

a) the device is used infrequently, largely unpredictable intervals.  It may be a year or two down the road that you need that tire inflator with a rechargeable battery.  And when was the last time you recharged it?  If you have rechargeable batteries, you'd better have a calendar marked with recharging intervals so you don't forget.  Furthermore, without regular use (not to mention charging) rechargeable batteries will go bad long before they would otherwise.  Rechargeable batteries are like a pet, they need a custodian, it's an awesome responsibility.

b) you have something that you'd like to leave on the whole time, or have it come on when external power is provided.  Nowadays, with rechargeable batteries, you often can't even operate the device when it is connected to external power.  You have to wait to charge up the batteries first, then disconnect power, then you can use the device.  And go through that same ritual next time the batteries need charging.  In this case, it would be better if the device in question had a "time-out" feature, to time out after 3 or 6 hours or so, in case you left it turned on, you wouldn't want the frequent rude experience of learning you can't get started again the very next day without recharging again.

For things used infrequently, disposable batteries are the better solution, they can last for a decade (best stored outside of any device with trickle usage) or more.  So you just keep the batteries there next to the device, ready whenever you need it again (and not discharged again, dammit).

For things you'd just as soon keep running all day or a good part of it, they should be designed to run on widely available power (USB 5V, AC 120V) and only have optional batteries.

Amazon becoming impossible

Unless you know exactly what you want to order, you are not likely to find anything you want just by "searching" on Amazon anymore.  (And it's not much better on Google either.)

Searching for something more and more resembles calling in your song request to a 1950's "Top 40" radio station.  Whatever you ask for, it will get translated to one of those Top 40.

Speaking of which, something very much like that is true for virtually everything that sells or serves, including streaming music services.  No matter what you ask for, you will get steered to something they have an extra interest in selling.  You will have to try really really hard to find something with which you were previously familiar, unless you remember the exact title and artist, and perhaps even then.

And on Amazon, this almost always means being steered to a very similar looking set of Chinese knock-offs.  I remember when I was looking for motorized window shades.  Many with different names looked like they could have been made in the same Chinese factory. 

Most people are long familiar with these things, and perhaps one of the reasons why brick and mortar stores haven't entirely faded away, just all become big chains.

Today I wanted a glass jar with a glass top.  Without knowing the exact name for what I was looking for (a Bell Top Jar), it was simply impossible to find.  Actually, on Amazon, even if I do type in "Bell Top Jar" it still can't find it.  Google does find them.  Amazon will find everything BUT what I want.  It will even find Bell Jars, but not Bell Top Jars.

If I type in the name of a specific bell top jar made by Anchor Hocking, the Anchor Hocking Heritage Hill Jar, it will find that.

When I tried constructions like "Jar with glass top" hardly any of the jars actually had a glass top, and if they did they were inevitably Mason Jars.

Amazon was happy to show me endless varieties of mason jars, but not any other kind of jar with a glass top than a mason jar, no matter how I phrased it.

Little else online was helpful either, though finally I stumbled upon the correct hame.

Blocking

Curiously, but perhaps not surprisingly, some "Family Therapist" on X who endlessly rails about free speech, and says things I agree with 100%, has nevertheless blocked me.  His byline is "Freedom of speech gives me the right to hurt your feelings and it gives you the right to cry about it."

Several times now I've tried to like his posts, but I can't like them, nor can I repost, nor can I quote.   I suppose I could photograph them (I've seen people do that, it's a hassle).  He's a favorite of some other guy I follow (who in fact follows me) so I see these posts a lot.

I might have said something that pissed him off, but I don't even ever remember disagreeing with him.

I think what happened is I replied correctively to another poster who was criticizing him.*

(*Sometimes in these sorts of situations people don't like it when outsiders stupidly try to "help" with an argument.  I might have said something stupid, based only on partial understanding.  But it was certainly not threatening, I never do that, and probably not even inflammatory, just perhaps slightly mistaken.  I was thinking of the Three Pashas were zionist figures in the Ottoman Empire who were favorable to Zionism, and were much hated by Turks later.  So in some thread I called Erdogan the "Fourth Pasha" after he unleashed the "rebels" in Syria.  I think that statement may have been the one that got me banned by Mr Family Therapist because I noticed immediately afterwards he had blocked me, but possibly he had blocked me before.  I thought of it as a clever joke, but perhaps it was peculiarly offensive to people who have views similar to mine but know more about the background and context.  I was hoping that, in that case, I might get a reply to correct me, but I didn't, I only got blocked, or so it seemed.)

Ever time I get shown this guy's posts, and try to like them because I agree, which I always do, and find I can't like them for reasons that I can't understand, I feel very dejected.

I feel like turning off X.  And that's probably a good thing.

X could just stop showing me these posts, and that would be fine with me, I'd probably spend more time on X.  But block him?  No way!  I believe in free speech.

It surprises me that X doesn't already do something like that.  Why endlessly show me posts from someone who has blocked me only because they are reposted by someone who hasn't?  Also why does this guy with cranky ideas like mine, combined with a penchant for blocking on the slightest provocation, have 65k followers?

Amazon has no "not delivered" option

If an item from Amazon has not been delivered, but Amazon says it has been delivered, there is no option provided on the "returns" page to account for this.  I had to ask google what I should do, and it brought me to a page which suggests I should wait, look around, and look for delivery stickers.  Then, if 3 or more days have passed to "contact" Amazon.  It does not give any information how to "contact Amazon."

Normally Amazon delivery through Amazon is quite reliable, and they take photos to prove their deliveries.

But if another carrier is used, they do not take photos, and it appears Amazon simply takes their word for a successful delivery.  It's also possible that Amazon might not understand what the carrier is actually telling them.  (Later evidence suggests that's exactly what happened.)

(This has happened to me before...  That time, the product was eventually delivered a week late.  This time I am already over a week after the original "attempted" delivery, but only 3 days after the supposed "actual" delivery, and there has been no box, notice, or anything.)

*** Update: It seems that my formerly "delivered" item is now being shown as a return.  So I think what happened is that it was damaged in shipment which was detected by the carrier, and they returned it to the sender.  When Amazon was previously saying it was "delivered" it was not delivered to me but back to the manufacturer.  Then the manufacturer processed it as a credit, and it seems that Amazon got that message.  So I'm good, except this was supposed to be a replacement, and I still need one, but so far I've only paid and been refunded so it looks like I have to start all over.

Photos Could Not Be Downloaded

 When I try to download the photo I need to complete my blog post today, I get a message box titled:

Photos could not be downloaded.

With the additional information below stating:

Photos could not be downloaded at this time due to an error.  Please try again later.

It's remarkable how opaque this "information" is.  What kind of error, and by whom?  It's basically telling me nothing I don't already know, except that the "try again later" qualification at least sounds hopeful.  But how long should I keep trying until I try to get support, or perhaps even an attorney?

One might wonder if it is one's own error.  Perhaps the iCloud session had timed out.  No, apparently it hadn't, I could go through all my other information, scroll through my photos, and then I even discovered I could download other photos.  Just not certain photos I had taken last night, almost 12 hours ago.

Ok, the particular photos in mind were actually RTA images stored by Analyzer.  But I just finished downloading a bunch of those from last night, it just balked with the curious error message when I got to the last few.

So I downloaded some other images, then about half an hour later found I could download 2 of the photos I had been needing.  But not the last two.

I'm still waiting for those to get out of jail or whatever it is that Apple will only explain to me in the vaguest terms.

All this brings to mind a principle I've been advocating for a long time.  Local is best.

It's much better to have local storage (and computing) on your own local devices whenever possible.  Then it can't be denied for one of a multitude of reasons, some technical, some administrative.  Basically, you can't trust anyone else to deliver information to you when you need it.  For all that kind of information, or basically everything of significance you need, you need to have your own local copy.

But what if your own devices fail?  If it's the storage that has failed, it should be provided by your own local backup, of which you should have at least 2.  Then one more non-local backup.

If it's the computing hardware that has failed, or you can't use even that for some administrative reason, then you can't do anything anyway.

Following this philosophy, I had never used cloud anything by choice, until required to by Apple, because my Apple iPhone would no longer "trust" my Apple computer running (by my choice) an older Apple OS.

This is the year I plan to buy a new Apple computer, grandfathering my old computer with it's old OS in place.  But until I do that, I've needed iCloud to bridge the gap and still let me work with my photos.

And I have generally not liked it at all.  I vastly preferred downloading my photos directly to my own computer.

One plausible theory is that Apple must clear any images that were not made by the iPhone camera following some protocol that ensures it is not being used to transmit illegal information such as child pornography.  And for some reason, the server that performs that checking is bogged down, so it can't approve your image yet.

Update: the problem seemed to have gone away immediately after pressing the "refresh" button on my Chrome browser.  That brought me back to the home page (where'd I'd been before...but possibly only from cached copy).  Thence I selected photos and the desired images could be downloaded.

This still isn't a complete explanation of why my files were essentially unavailable for download even when I was able to download all but the last ones.

 

Apple iCloud Login Finally Understood

Whenever I try to log into iCloud from my Chrome browser running on a mac, it has required 2 factor ID.  Every time.  I suppose that's to be expected...

But now I re-discover why logging into iCloud each time has been giving me fits, sometimes taking an hour to resolve, if I haven't given up.

When I open up iCloud in Chrome, it shows me a menu giving me just 2 options.

Manage Devices and Find Devices.

Well those weren't what I had in mind, actually.  What I wanted to do was access my photos from my computer, that's all.  And going down either choice simply leads to endless nothing.

But the problem was, that when the page opened up it was asking for two factor identification, and it was asking me to enter the code they had texted me, but the browser scrolled down to the very bottom of the dialog box, helping you to find your phone to get the code that had just been texted to you.

I don't know why the browser scrolled to the bottom of the page rather than staying at the top so I can see what's actually going on.  But it's happened to me every time (and taken a long time for me to 'remember' the problem, though I figured it out every time before, but only after a long chain of trying everything else which made it hard to remember.