Drifting Through

Somebody else called today to tell me that the Microsoft Windows Corporation has shut down the services on my computer, the same one I'm using to type this. I should answer one of those calls some time and record it. Of course, I should take acting classes first, so I could properly express my anguish over such a tragedy. "Oh, I can't believe [sob] this is happening to me. [sob] I sent Bill Gates fan mail in 1996. I thought [sob] we were frieeeeends![bursts into tears]" I would go on to beg the person to contact Bill for me and remind him of my email from 1996. I know he remembers it. It was really heartfelt. And suddenly, I'm off their call list.

The excitement this week was a little black bear knocking over the garbage. It wasn't a baby but was relatively small. I saw it as it escaped into the woods. The other "excitement" was a mold outbreak caused by rising humidity. Last year the humidity didn't break in September and led to mold. This was some I had missed but was in remission during the winter. I haven't been feeling good this week, especially since it's right after that tooth infection. Mold killing primer is amazing by the way.

It was a bad week on the writing front and the French front. I kind of drifted through.

Have a great weekend.

Oh, the Hypocrisy

Some in Hollywood have been throwing a tantrum over Georgia's heartbeat bill. The bill would prevent further genocide against unborn babies who have a heartbeat. It would save an untold number lives in Georgia. The irony is that the people in Hollywood who are speaking out against Georgia are the same people who film in countries that ban abortion, execute homosexuals, abuse women, etc. Hollywood doesn't seem to care about any of that at all. Georgia does none of those things.

I was thinking about Hollywood this week, and something occurred to me. Hollywood liberals are living the ultimate Republican lifestyle. They're as rich as Republicans and invest like Republicans. They're living the ultimate capitalist dream while preaching radical socialist values for everyone else. How can they look themselves in the mirror?

Something that gets lost in these liberal tantrums is this: Do people in California really have the right to tell people in Georgia how to live? Is it really any of their business what people living in any other another state do? I question whether they even have the right to open their mouths. If people in Georgia started boycotting California for something, Californians would be outraged and start screaming about their "rights" to live however they please. Counting local governments, California is trillions of dollars in debt. They're past bankrupt. And yet that state spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year to "make sure everyone feels equal".  A state that can't even govern itself should not be making demands of others.

The Civil War was a fight of states rights versus federal rights. The south believed in the rights of the states as defined by the constitution. The north wanted the federal government to be the top dog in charge regardless of the constitution. Georgia fought on the side of states rights. California fought for big government. After all these years, the battle continues.

Have a great weekend.

A Break From the Heat

Summer in the south is a time of high temperatures and dreadful humidity. Usually, by June it's a struggle to get to the solstice, when the days begin to get shorter. From there it's a long struggle through July and August to get to around September 15th. The humidity starts to drop after about the middle of September. Every summer I keep the 15th in mind as goal to reach.

This year there was a small heat wave in May. It looked like it was going to be a hard summer. This week there was a cold front with dry air. It was amazing for this time of year. It felt like autumn. According to my thermometer, it was 48 degrees(8.89C) this morning. That's a winter temperature. Summer must have been on spring break this week.

Temperatures will be getting back to normal by Sunday. This year, instead of slogging through four months of brutal humidity, I have a 90-day countdown to autumn. Psychologically, it feels more refreshing.

The sad news was that I had a serious gum infection and had to go to the dentist this week. Even after a week of antibiotics, I didn't feel that good. It was all due to two broken fillings. The dentist also discovered a chipped filling on the other side of my mouth. I had to sit through three teeth fixes. So, unfortunately, I wasn't able to enjoy the weather to the best of my ability.

Despite the dental problems, I still was able to get some more of the comma fixes done. I'm still tired, but I seem to be getting some energy back.

Have a great weekend.

5G Internet is Coming

I've talked before about my woeful internet service and how I'm trapped in an area with only one provider who won't upgrade the switch on I'm from 1.5Mbps speed. That's not a typo. We're stuck at 1.5Mbps. I've also blogged about how my ISP, Windstream, was forced into bankruptcy after treating another business the way it treats its customers. I've also mentioned that I'm less than a mile from a fiber line with speeds up to 1,000Mbps, but the provider for that doesn't service my road. Hold onto your hat. All that is about to change.

5G internet is available in limited areas as is 5G home internet. Verizon, a company I'm not a fan of but could work with, is providing 5G home internet now. It's $70/month for speeds up to 300Mbps(compared to a max of 100Mbps from Windstream) with no contract and no cell phone requirement. In comparison Windstream charges $98+/month for 1.5Mbps. Theoretically, I could go from 1.5Mbps to 300Mbps and save almost $25/month for switching. Needless to say, I'm not in a 5G area, but according to one of the articles I looked at, Verizon is supposed to be offering 5G nationwide by 2020 or 2021. I don't know whether they'll make that goal or not, but either way Windstream's days are numbered.

Here's what I'm thinking. At some point we're likely to see 4G home internet packages, too, and cheaper than 5G. Straighttalk Wireless already has a 60GB 4G data plan for $55/month for cell phones only. More and more people switching to 5G will free up the 4G network for other uses, assuming it's kept running. It's already built. Why not make money from it? If 4G internet becomes available as an alternative to 5G internet, it's all good. 4G internet would likely be here first. I'd jump on that in a heartbeat. That wold give me a minimum 3Mbps speed and maybe a bit higher. I could live with 4G speeds for a while.

AT&T also has a 5G internet plan, but it's $70 for 15GB of data. ROFL. Verizon's plan is supposed to be unlimited data. AT&T has announced they're going for a tiered approach and thus a limited number of customers. The more you get the higher the price. Verizon seems to be going for a lower price but available to everyone.

It won't happen overnight, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. All I have to do is keep an eye on 4G data plans and Verizon's 5G timeline.

Have a great weekend.

Using a Certain Power

On the writing front, it was another week of editing old works for modern comma rules.

I just deleted a message on my answering machine that said my subscription to my Windows computer expires today. My subscription to my computer? Strange. I distinctly remember purchasing it. I don't think those people will go to hell for those lies, but I do think it will make their place in hell that much hotter.

The other day I mentioned I was reading the French version of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke and how it seemed simpler than the other books I've been reading. It was the movie version and not the real, original book. I finished that and started Rendezvous With Rama by the same author. After a dumbed-down movie book, it was a kick in the face. I had to look up words right and left.

Hoping to find French books that are easier to read, I tried finding more books based on movies, but alas, I didn't see anything I would really want to read. Instead of books adapted from movies, Google wanted to show me movies based on books. That was a fail.

After a living for a while, you develop certain powers. On Amazon, I ordered a French version of the Isaac Asimov book, Caves of Steel, on March 18th. It was the next book in a series. It was supposed to arrive from France around April the 26th. By the middle of May I was almost out of French books, and it still wasn't here. I looked up reviews for the vendor and discovered that shipping could take absolutely forever. I decided to use one of my powers. I ordered 5 French books in a different series from American bookstores, that would arrive in about a week more or less. Thus, I would have tons of books, and it wouldn't matter how long the late book took. Doing it that way made Caves of Steel show up almost immediately. My powers are strong!

Have a great weekend.

Current and Past Scams

I've had some calls lately from people saying my "subscription to Microsoft Windows" "expires today" and that all services will stop working unless I call them back and hand over an unspecified amount of money. They lost me at subscription. How can they get away with lying like that? People in Washington D.C. can commit all kinds of crimes and get away with them with the one exception of lying. If politicians go to jail for lying, how do they let other people get away with it? Why aren't telemarketers going to jail? I wonder how many people who use Macs get those calls.

Another scam call I get is the one in which they claim that the past three months of my credit card payment history have been amazing and that I qualify for their credit card! I don't use credit cards. How can my use of something I don't use be amazing? What a bunch of liars. It's called knowing your audience. They didn't.

One day I got an email from myself saying that I'd been hacked. They wanted bitcoin, or they would shut down my account and publish videos from my web cam showing me doing naughty, sexually explicit things. Before they got to the part about the web cam naughtiness, it sounded real and scary. Hey, I don't have a web cam. And if they had my password, how come I could still log in to get my mail? If I could do that, I could change the password myself. Lots of people fell for that one. Hmm, what are people doing with their web cams?

Years ago, when it was still relatively safe to answer the phone, I got a call from a company trying to sell me a magazine subscription. I told the girl I wasn't interested, but she didn't take no for an answer. I told her okay. Do they have Physical Review Letters? I figured they wouldn't. If you're not familiar with it, it's a very high-level physics magazine that wasn't generally available to the public and still isn't. I think it was around $200 a year at the time. It might have been more. It was super expensive for a magazine. The girl told me she didn't see it listed, but she had this other magazine that had a similar word in the title. No, I really want Physical Review Letters. What is it about? she asked. Physics. Oh, they had this other magazine. No, I really want Physical Review Letters. It's really good. I kept her going for a while. She eventually gave up. Was I being naughty? Or I was I saving someone else from getting a sales call? You decide.

For a very funny video by a guy who replied to a spam email, check this out. It's ten minutes, but it's well worth it, if you like laughing.

Have a great weekend.

Fun Dream

The highlight of the week was a dream I had. I was invited to be in a new, experimental spaceship this guy was testing. Experimental made me nervous because no one would be able to rescue us if something went wrong, but I took a chance. One other person was onboard. He was kind of standoffish and didn't talk. We flew past a bunch of planets and moons kind of like a tour of the solar system. The planets/moons would be blurry from a distance then pop into focus with clear details. Unfortunately, we went by them so fast I was only able to get one good picture with lots of detail. I was by a big window. The pilot was flying the ship. The standoffish guy was kind of down a passage with no windows but still had sort of view out the windows where I was. We never crashed or lost pressure.

Before going to bed I had watched part of a Star Trek episode and listened to some Christian videos. Two of them talked about stepping out and taking chances when God throws something your way. Clearly, the dream had a lot of day residue in it. I was in space. I took a chance when opportunity arose while not knowing the outcome.

One way of looking at dreams is to see all the characters as an aspect of yourself. It's your dream. It's in your head. The characters come from your own mind. The pilot would be sort of a creative part of myself that pushes ahead with advancement when other fans of space are still stuck on the cost per pound to orbit "problem", a problem that is easily solved by the way. The standoffish guy would be the part of me that holds back too much. He had an amazing chance to experience the solar system but was back in the corridor/alcove and was merely looking on from a distance.

The me part of the dream was enjoying seeing all the moons and things, but there was a problem. The camera I had was big and bulky. It was about 12 inches by 12 inches(30.48cm x 30.48cm) with toggles and buttons. If you've ever seen one of those camera boxes that hunters and wildlife researchers strap to trees to take pictures of wildlife, it was similar to those. It was the reason I couldn't get any good pictures. We were going so fast, and the views were so amazing that by the time I hit the right buttons the planetary details were gone.

One way of looking at the camera is to see it as details or complications. I spent a small amount of time fiddling with the camera to get pictures I could look at later that no one had ever taken. I was doing that instead of focusing purely on the main experience. Maybe that's a dream imagery way of saying I need to stop sweating the small things and concentrate on the big picture. It could also be a way of saying that more preparation is needed for unfamiliar things. I didn't know the camera. The one good picture I got was after I had learned the camera. If I'd been properly prepared, the pictures would have been seamless and easy. Part of my thinking while working the camera was proving that I had seen all those amazing worlds. Maybe the camera was showing me I don't always need to care what other people think. I knew I was seeing all that stuff whether anyone else believed I had been there or not. Was the camera just a hindrance I could have let go of?

So, dreams are fun. On the book front I've been going through AoE sentence by sentence checking commas. I'm almost done.

Have a great weekend and pleasant dreams.