One week late, but finally archiving our Put In Bay family weekend
Posted By RichC on June 29, 2019
This content is restricted.
Tech Friday: Limiting how much data Amazon Echoes collect
Posted By RichC on June 28, 2019
Unfortunately I’ve bought into – or was “gifted” into 🙂 – BUT really enjoy the Amazon Echo smart speaker virtual assistant devices. I know Alexa is “always listening” (as is my cellphone, iPad, computers, etc) and that they are doing “who knows what”with my data, but probably not always what I want. Obviously, they dissect and analyse what is being said for marketing purposes, just as Google does with my search history (although I try to use DuckDuckGo.com) … but we get mixed signals as to what is being tracked, harvested, kept for profiling and being sold to others (yikes).
A Phys.org and USA Today does a decent job of reviewing the conundrum being faced by users who appreciate the tech conveniences, but question the amount of data Amazon needs to archive on not just the willing buyer of the Echo, but every person (minors, guests, pets, etc) that set foot in your home. At this point, Alexa doesn’t differentiate … she just listens and “feeds the beast” that is Amazon. All others competitors are likely doing the same to one degree or another — it is still the Wild West when it comes to privacy.
Here’s how to stop at least the tracking (read full article here) …
First of all, Amazon’s tracking defense is that by knowing your location, it can deliver products to your home faster. "For example, if we know your preferred shipping location, the specificity of our predictable shipping is really amazing,"
Amazon said in a statement. "Customers may see a message like, ‘if you order in the next 2:27 minutes, you will get this by tomorrow.’"
To stop Amazon tracking, begin by wiping out your browser histories. This setting is in tools; in Chrome, you click the three dots in the top right corner, go to More Tools, then Clear Browsing Data. This click will wipe out your browsing history, stored passwords and cookies. You’ll have a lot to input again after you do this. For instance, stored URLs and sign-ons will be wiped clean. So make sure you know your passwords or have them stored somewhere else before you do it.
Archive: Found a couple CPP photos when cleaning my desk #TBT
Posted By RichC on June 27, 2019
While cleaning out a few old files folders, I came across a couple Consolidated Printing and Publishing Co. building photos in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio that my insurance agent took and included glued onto a policy folder. They are likely from the late 1980s and are worth archiving and using for a Throwback Thursday #TBT post. The photos were of the building we bought in 1986 and taken after remodeling (here is a relatively current and early pre-remodeling photos). Good memories, but leaves me a bit melancholy.
Finally joining the smartwatch and Fitbit wearer club
Posted By RichC on June 26, 2019
This content is restricted.
Music Monday: Sheryl Crow and Soak Up The Sun #video
Posted By RichC on June 24, 2019
This content is restricted.
Do you spend your time like the average working man or women?
Posted By RichC on June 23, 2019
My assumption is that the averages portrayed in this study on “How working men and women spend our time” doesn’t really apply to the people I know, on the otherhand, there are only so many hours available in a day. BTW, what are the missing 2 to 2-1/2 hours each day being used for?
And who really gets 8.5 hours of sleep each night???
A different kind of Tech Friday: A homebrew Vegetation Killer
Posted By RichC on June 21, 2019
These homemade “salt based” recipe for Roundup vegetation control substitutes appears ever spring and summer on social networks, emails and blogs on the Internet. This year I figured I would archive this vinegar, Epsom salt (Magnesium sulfate) and our favorite degreaser and soap, Dawn dishwashing soap on MyDesultoryBlog as a helpful tidbit.
The challenges of pursing the American Dream – a discussion
Posted By RichC on June 21, 2019
Taylor is my millennial antagonist when it comes to discussing politics, investing and both government and personal finances. We both enjoy debating, so it’s cool most of the time. He is also a product of his generation just as I am of mine. We view the role and expanse of government differently when it comes to free markets and capitalism as the best way grow our economy, set prices, wages and benefiting society (I see it as the incentive to work hard, a reward for calculated risk and in the end, the rising-tide lifts all boats philosophy, some higher than others).
He posed a question while at dinner last week regarding as to just how achievable the American Dream is anymore for many in his generation? This started my “unfortunate rant” on personal responsibility, living within ones means, keeping debt loads down and not spending more than you earn (boomers love to criticize millennials for their frivolous spending and focus on “experiences”– shame on us). 
My point to him was that every generation has faced budgeting and finding ways to stretch their income … some planted a garden, worked a second job, while other cut back on their non-necessity spending … particularly with borrowed money.
But more to the point was that his frustration was that the American Dream was “achievable” for single income blue-collar workers after World War II and in his grandparents generation, but looks nearly impossible today. I sense he would like to be possible again … and senses that it might be that way in parts of Europe, or that is at least what is being talked about in his circles.
As a “low debt person,” he is also puzzled in seeing some of his peers driving new cars, living in bigger homes and raising family – kids are something he can’t fathom in the terms of cost. I had to agree that it is (and always was) a challenging balance … and that it is his generation faces the burden of living with the
efficiencies of business automation and globalization (eliminating lower skilled jobs and outsourcing manufacturing to where labor is less expensive). On his other point, I wonder if some “seemingly achieving” millennials are living on debt and at a burn rate that will eventually be too high, just as with tech start-up companies trying to grow on venture capital funding. Come to think about it, is not all unlike our country as a whole, we are hoping growth will be enough to eventually cover the growing debt plus interest … and maybe those living on credit cards, student loans, car loans and big mortgages are just hoping their salaries will grow faster than their mountain of debt + interest (although I’m not sure who is thinking that far)?
We actually did talk a bit more about the big picture issue and agreed that our economy was not working for a large swath of Americans. We have watch the globalization and automation eliminate blue collar jobs for 50+ years and their replacements have been a seemingly permanent minimum wage job for those who do not have marketable skills. To that argument, it was hard to disagree … and leaving it to our current education system, bureaucratic long term welfare programs and Libertarian market forces are not working.
The easy sell, quick answer for those on the political left is for government to mandate a higher minimum wage, offer even more “free” (taxpayer funded) college education, socialize more industries and make our already progressive tax code even more progressive – ie. tax the rich.
Unfortunately those solutions will fail. Raise the minimum wage = businesses close and the prices for goods and services for those with a few more “minimum wage” dollars in their paycheck goes up. They end up with less buying power. As for more free education, it is already apparent that public schools are not efficiently preparing students vocationally for life after school. All it will do is to devalue a college degree and not really prepare the next generation with the skills that are in the highest demand. As for socializing industries (ie. healthcare), that is a ticket to inefficiency. We need competition for innovation and efficiency improvement. An finally, we all need skin in the game when it come to paying for the size of government we want. Currently the highest income Americans pay the “lion’s share of income taxes.” We can only squeeze someone else hard enough before they go somewhere else – the perfect example in a global economy were the corporate tax rates pre-2016. Make the America attractive again for business, and companies will build and employ workers in the U.S. … and still pay taxes here too (some rather than none). The American workers now have jobs if they want them and employers now have to compete for the best workers – pay and benefits. That’s how we reinvigorate the American Dream … definitely not socialism.
Remembering the Lake Erie Islands with our family #TBT
Posted By RichC on June 20, 2019
Although the Throwback Thursday #TBT memory of celebrating my late parent’s 50th wedding anniversary in 2007 leaves me bittersweet, I’m so thankful we had our time together (photo above and below the break is with them on Kelley’s Island in 2007). I’m not sure where the time disappeared … but I honestly thought that both Brenda and I would have our parents with us a lot longer than we did.
Remembering this memory has me looking forward to going back to the Lake Erie Islands and Put-In-Bay again with our children (I took Brenda there on a date in 1981). For me, I grew up fishing and vacationing on North Shores (Port Clinton, Catawba Island, Lakeside and Marblehead) with my parents and grandparents in cottages. Eventually, my parents bought a home to the east of Toledo and so I grew up playing on the shores of Lake Erie, just a bit to the west of the islands. Once married, Brenda and I moved the other direction from the Bass Island and we lived southeast of Cleveland, but headed back on weekends so we could sail in the area; we spend our summers there pre-kids … and eventually a little bit with our own kids when in Cincinnati (too far away). The memories are many … and good.
Who knows, perhaps we’ll do something new in this familiar place this summer — hint, hint. 🙂
(more…)
Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee
- lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
- digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.