
SURVIVAL: Dont pet the fluffy cows
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
DISCOURAGING: I don’t want my orders sent by USPS
Tuesday, July 21, 2026A chat with amazon
*** begin quote ***
ME: USPS deliveries are inconvenient and always seem delayed. Can I specify I don’t want my orders sent by USPS?
REP: understand your concern.
I can take this as a feedback so that our team will check the details and will try our best to deliver the items directly
*** end quote ***
Have to tell Puritan’s Pride the same thing.
If they can’t deliver with UPS or FEDEX 0r something similar, then I have to take my business elsewhere.
Argh!
— 30 —
APPLE: In messages, all my contacts’ pictures are gone.txt
Monday, July 20, 2026MAC OSX TAHOE 26.5.2 (25F84)
2026-07Jul-16 DIALOGUE in messages, all my contacts’ pictures are gone.txt
*** begin quote ***
Acknowledged unfamiliar software version, sought current informationAcknowledged unfamiliar software version, sought current informationThis is a known, recurring bug with Messages/iCloud Contacts sync — it’s been showing up across macOS and iOS versions for years, and there are recent reports tied to macOS 26/iOS 26 specifically. Not something wrong on your end.
Quick fix to try first:
Apple menu → System Settings → click your name (Apple ID) at the top
Click iCloud
Find Contacts and toggle it off
Wait about 30 seconds, then toggle it back on
Restart your Mac and check Messages again
If that doesn’t work:
Check iCloud.com → Contacts to confirm the photos still exist there. If they’re intact on iCloud.com but missing on your Mac, it’s a local sync/cache issue, not lost data.
Check your iPhone — if photos are still showing there, that confirms the photos themselves are fine and it’s just your Mac’s Messages app not pulling them.
In Settings → Apps → Messages on iPhone (or the Mac equivalent under Messages preferences), toggling Shared with You off and back on has fixed this for some people.
Unfortunately, honest heads-up: several people on Apple’s own forums report this is a bit whack-a-mole — the fix works for a while, then random contacts lose their photos again weeks later. Apple’s support has acknowledged awareness of it but hasn’t shipped a permanent fix as of the reports I’m seeing. If it becomes chronic, re-adding photos manually in Contacts (Mac) tends to hold better than relying on iCloud auto-sync.
Want me to walk through the manual “re-add photo in Contacts” steps too, in case the toggle doesn’t stick?
*** end quote ***
Shame on Apple. Argh!
— 30 —
AI: CLAUDE doesn’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places
Saturday, July 18, 2026*** begin quote ***
User: Print it
Claude explained it does not have the ability to send documents to a physical
printer, and suggested the user open the file from Google Drive or download it
to print locally.
*** end quote ***
Well that’s annoying.
— 30 —
AI: CLAUDE doesn’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places
Friday, July 17, 2026*** begin quote ***
Dialogue – June 28, 2026
USER: Delete all New Jersey saved places in Google Maps
CLAUDE: I don’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places — there’s no Google Maps connector available to me.
To delete saved places in Google Maps yourself:
1. Open Google Maps and tap your profile icon
2. Go to Saved → Your lists
3. Open each list, find NJ places, tap the three dots on each, and select “Remove from list”
Or on desktop at maps.google.com, go to Saved in the left menu and manage from there. Unfortunately there’s no bulk-delete option in Google Maps — it has to be done one by one.
USER: Create text file and save in Google Drive Claudia folder
CLAUDE: What would you like the text file to contain?
USER: The previous dialogue
*** end quote ***
Sure AI and machines are going to take over the world?
Argh!
— 30 —
DISCOURAGING: Jeff Jacoby is ill and I wish him a speedy recovery
Thursday, July 16, 2026Tuesday, July 14, 2026
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Opinion columnist
*** begin quote ***
A note to readers from a longtime columnist
As some of you know, I am on medical leave from my job at The Boston Globe and have not been able to write my regular op-ed columns or my Arguable newsletter.
*** and ***
During the congressional debates on the amendment in 1866, I noted, Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania warned that birthright citizenship would undermine the ability of any state to defend itself “if it were overrun” — that word again — by immigrants of “a different race.”
*** end quote ***
Well, unfortunately, we can’t have “open borders” and a “welfare state”. If those, that come here, contribute to society, then by all means “open the golden door”, BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), if they are here for the dole, then we can’t admit them.
We have seen the abuses of our lax immigration policies and generous handouts. Birth tourism — pregnant women coming to the U.S. on tourism visas in order to obtain birthright U.S. citizenship for their newborn child becoming “anchor babies” is a very distinct problem.
End welfare; no problem. End warfare; no problem.
Get well soon, my favorite liberal author.
— 30 —
INSPIRATIONAL: Costco cashier Tony Barzar is a millionaire by slow and steady hard work
Tuesday, July 14, 2026He Earns $33 an Hour as a Costco Cashier. Now He’s a Millionaire.
- Long-tenured workers like cashier Tony Barzar are reliable, experienced and able to speed shoppers through a checkout line. Costco is willing to pay to keep them around.
By Sarah Nassauer
July 8, 2026 7:00 pm ET
*** begin quote ***
TUCSON, Ariz.—Costco cashier Tony Barzar unloaded his lunch in the breakroom, clocked in and headed for the checkout, just as he has for much of the past four decades.
That day, like most days, 60-year-old Barzar was assigned to the self-checkout area, a cluster of six registers. At 9:02 a.m., the first shoppers were ready to ring themselves up.
*** end quote ***
Not glamorous, not “big bucks”, but slow and steady wins the race.
A certainly no reason for ¾ of a million in student loan debt.
Maybe the zoomers need to adjust their expectations?
— 30 —
RANT: Where are the “smart trash cans”?
Sunday, July 12, 2026I want one that takes itself out to the curb on “trash day” and return to its spot when emptied.
Then I might believe that the machines are gonna take over the world.
— 30 —
RANT: HANDICAP spaces
Saturday, July 11, 2026Today, like many many other times, I see people use those spaces with no placard or plate. No one enforces it. Argh!
–30–
EVLYNN: The Universe either supplied what she wanted or she, in fact, “manifested” it.
Wednesday, July 1, 2026A WEBSITE ASKED:
What is your favorite road trip memory?
Send us your answer! Reply to this newsletter with a brief explanation of your response, and we’ll reveal the top answers in a future newsletter.
# – # – # – # – #
[Once upon a time, a long time ago, we drove to Biloxi.]
For the ride, we’d been to Barnes and Noble and got books on tape. (Like discs, but more fragile.) I had for my picks bought Denis E. Waitley’s “Empires Of The Mind” and Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Both suggest, but Covey really pushes “manifesting” what you want and the Universe would supply it.
She groused about it as “absurd”. Now mind you we were on a section of road in Alabama that we had driven before where there was literally nothing. So I said to her, “OK, we’ll have an experiment. What do you really want right now?”
She snaps: “a Dairy Queen ice cream cone”. “OK, in the next ten miles, we’ll manifest a Dairy Queen.”
And, I made her chant “I see a Dairy Queen.” For the next ten miles. Every time, she wanted to quit, I insisted. Just as the odometer is going to click ten, we see a hand painted sign on a 4×8 plywood that said: “Dairy Queen”.
It was brand new but no signs. And, it was open.
We went in and the manager thanked us for coming. It was their FIRST DAY open and their signs were late. We had lunch and ice cream. I laughed and she accused me of cheating. She was convinced I saw a sign.
Overlooking all the facts.
The Universe either supplied what she wanted or she, in fact, “manifested” it.
— 30 —
TECHNOLOGY: Shutting Down Traditional Phone Lines
Tuesday, June 30, 2026https://cordcuttersnews.com/california-wants-to-stop-att-from-shutting-down-traditional-phone-lines/
California Wants to Stop AT&T From Shutting Down Traditional Phone Lines
By
Luke Bouma
on
June 19, 2026
in
All News, News
*** begin quote ***
California regulators have formally accused AT&T of providing false information to the Federal Communications Commission in an effort to discontinue service on its aging copper-based wireline telephone network, according to Arstechnica. The filing, submitted by the California Public Utilities Commission on June 15, 2026, challenges AT&T’s petitions to preempt state rules and end landline obligations affecting roughly 199,000 customers. This comes as AT&T and others have been shutting down DSL and traditional phone lines that run on copper in many states.
*** end quote ***
Sad to say but as a fat old white guy retired injineer, copper-based wireline telephone network, sometimes called POTS (plain old telephone service) is and was very reliable and cheap. Power outages, tornados, and human stupidity aside, you picked up the phone and got “dial tone”.
Don’t forget the AT&T tradition of the operator dying at the switchboard to alert everyone of danger.
And, the old AT&T Motto, “no service is so urgent, that we can’t take the time to do our job safely”. Never mind the wags that amended it to “take time for coffee”.
It was a “widows and orphans” stock, until in their infinite wisdom Judge Green and the FCC (a captive of the mobile telephone industry) decided that AT&T and the Baby Bells should be “aborted”. One casualty was the greatest national resource “Bell Labs”. Another was the millions of retirees who had — whether they knew it or not — dedicated their lives to providing the BEST national telephone service.
Shame on the US Gooferment for allowing this to fail.
Argh!
— 30 —
INSPIRATIONAL: My wife had to endure the old process … …
Monday, June 29, 2026https://openbionics.com/3d-printed-prosthetic-limbs-progress-in-prosthetics-challenges-in-access/
*** begin quote ***
At our Austin prosthetic clinic, upper limb specialist Travis Heins has seen firsthand how 3D printing can elevate the experience of receiving a prosthetic arm from a drawn-out series of appointments into a streamlined, more predictable process. Instead of multiple rounds of casting, adjustments and travel to and from the clinic, Travis uses digital models and printed test sockets to refine his patient’s fit in a fraction of the time. For families who often drive hours to reach a preferred clinic or rearrange work schedules for each appointment, these efficiencies matter.
“I print two test sockets from the same digital model, one based on conservative measurements and another designed for a more experimental fit,” he said. “Sometimes we end up going with the more aggressive modified one.”
*** end quote ***
My wife had to endure the old process … …
… … (I’d say God’s replacement wife because the Universe knows how much I need help. And, it sounds disrespectful to say “second wife” and hurtful to refer to my sainted “first” wife as anything but the best thing that ever happened to me in my college days. But enough distraction.) … …
… … and the insurance company paid 60k$ and we had innumerable appointments for fittings. And the end result sucked. It was hard to get on and almost impossible for the two of us to get it off.
AND most disturbing to her was that is looked like a man’s arm.
FMPOV the lack of an “elbow” was a terrible disaster.
Maybe the new stuff will be better.
BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), not in our lifetime.
— 30 —
AI: What ClaudaAI (Claudia) can’t do — access Google Maps or saved places
Friday, June 26, 2026*** begin quote ***
Dialogue – June 28, 2026
USER: Delete all New Jersey saved places in Google Maps
CLAUDE: I don’t have access to Google Maps or your saved places — there’s no Google Maps connector available to me.
To delete saved places in Google Maps yourself:
1. Open Google Maps and tap your profile icon
2. Go to Saved → Your lists
3. Open each list, find NJ places, tap the three dots on each, and select “Remove from list”
Or on desktop at maps.google.com, go to Saved in the left menu and manage from there. Unfortunately there’s no bulk-delete option in Google Maps — it has to be done one by one.
*** end quote ***
Argh!
— 30 —
INSPIRATIONAL: One can judge from experiment or one can blindly accept authority
Thursday, June 25, 2026<<FROM FACEBOOK>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-06-09>>
Via @S Kent Troy
*** begin quote ***
“There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.” — Robert A. Heinlein – Life-Line
*** end quote ***
It seems that we have had a belly full of “science by authority”. The politicians and bureaucrats have no one else to blame but themselves for “vaccine skepticism”. New item after news item keep “leaking out”, mostly via the inet, that destroy any credibility or “moral authority” they had.
Personally, when the undertakers reported big stringy clots and health young athletic men started dropping like flies, I was “convinced” that the truth was being hidden like Hunter Biden’s laptop. And, Fauci’s 6 foot rule and face masks for viruses just “confirmed” it for me. It was all <synonym for excrement from a male cow> to cover a giant cash grab for cronies and a payday for Big Pharma, Hospitals, and insider trading politicians and bureaucrats! Argh!
“My first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me.” — George Carlin
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.” — George Carlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0
“The word ‘bipartisan’ usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.” — George Carlin
A plague on all their houses. They have set back human civilization and progress a thousand years or maybe 3 generations for it to be forgotten.
Argh!
— 30 —
DISCOURAGING: US needs a leader that would just say “no”!
Wednesday, June 24, 2026When AI-Driven Deflation Collides With America’s Debt-Saturated Economy
by Nick Giambruno
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-06-08>>
*** begin quote ***
In other words, the US would need a leader who—at a minimum—returns the federal government to a limited Constitutional Republic, closes the 800 military bases abroad, ends entitlements, kills the welfare state, and repays a large portion of the national debt.
*** end quote ***
The current 1.2T$ budget deficit, added 121T+ national debt, and the guesstimated 200T+ in unfunded liabilities that our posterity will have to deal with is staggering. And, all the politicians and bureaucrats just keep spending along.
“Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.” –Herbert Hoover
“When in a hole, stop digging!” — old Wall Street maxim
— 30 —
INTERESTING: Do human brains synchronize during empathic connection?
Tuesday, June 23, 2026<<FROM TWITTER>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-05-09>>
https://x.com/TeeplesCY/status/2052951182025588797?s=20
Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY
*** begin quote ***
Someone praying for you in another building can change your brain in real time. There is a study that proves it.
Researchers at North Hawaii Community Hospital placed 11 people inside fMRI scanners, fully isolated. In a separate building, spiritual leaders who knew them personally sent focused intentions toward them at random two-minute intervals. The receivers had no way to know when. Their brains lit up at the exact moments the senders focused on them. Specific regions associated with attention and awareness activated on cue. The odds of this happening by chance were less than one in seven thousand.
Most people have never heard of this. Here are three more.
Hand-holding and pain. Researchers placed 22 couples under EEG caps. When the woman was in pain and her partner held her hand, their brain waves synchronized. The more empathy he felt for her, the more their brains coupled. The more their brains coupled, the more her pain decreased. Touch combined with focused care produced a measurable analgesic effect. The lead researcher got the idea while holding his wife’s hand during the birth of their daughter.
Two brains in shielded rooms. A Mexican neuroscientist named Jacobo Grinberg ran a series of experiments at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Two participants meditated together for 20 minutes. Then they were placed in separate electromagnetically shielded rooms more than 14 meters apart. One participant was shown 100 random flashes of light. The other, hooked to an EEG with no sensory contact of any kind, registered matching brain-wave responses one out of every four flashes. Pairs who had not bonded showed nothing.
Group prayer. Andrew Newberg at Thomas Jefferson University has spent more than two decades scanning the brains of praying nuns, meditating monks, and chanting Sikhs. His imaging work shows a consistent pattern. The frontal lobes activate. The parietal lobes quiet. The effect amplifies in groups. Brains in shared prayer entrain to one another the way two pendulums swinging in the same room eventually fall into the same rhythm.
These studies measure what physically happens to the human nervous system when people focus caring attention on each other, in the same room or at a distance. The findings are consistent across labs, methods, and decades.
The basic finding, that human brains synchronize during empathic connection, is now mainstream neuroscience. Newberg alone has published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers.
People have been doing this for thousands of years and calling it prayer. Christians alone offer a window into the variety. Latter-day Saints kneel as families. Catholics pray the rosary. Protestants join hands in prayer circles.
What is actually happening when you pray? On the imaging, something measurable. On the EEG, something synchronized. On the pain scale, something diminished.
Prayer works.
*** end quote ***
Never heard of this before.
Like most of the “factoids” that cross the inet on XTwitter, Book of Faces, or other social media, I have no first hand knowledge of it’s “truth”.
YMMV
— 30 —
INSPIRATIONAL: Match quality matters more than head start.
Monday, June 22, 2026<<FROM TWITTER>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-05-09>>
https://x.com/ihtesham2005/status/2053103815482859767?s=20
Ihtesham Ali
@ihtesham2005
*** begin quote ***
A Hungarian psychologist raised three daughters to prove that any child could become a chess grandmaster through early specialization. He succeeded. Two of them became grandmasters. One became the greatest female chess player who ever lived.
Then a sports scientist looked at the data and found something nobody wanted to hear.
His name is David Epstein. The book is called “Range.”
The Polgar experiment is one of the most famous case studies in the history of deliberate practice. Laszlo Polgar wrote a book before his daughters were even born arguing that geniuses are made, not born. He homeschooled all three girls in chess from age four. By their teens, Susan, Sofia, and Judit were dominating tournaments against grown men. Judit became the youngest grandmaster in history at the time, breaking Bobby Fischer’s record. The story became the gospel of early specialization. Pick a domain young, drill it hard, and you can manufacture excellence.
*** and ***
There are two kinds of environments in which humans develop expertise. Psychologists call them kind and wicked. A kind environment has clear rules, immediate feedback, and patterns that repeat reliably.
*** and ***
A wicked environment is the opposite. Feedback is delayed or misleading. Rules shift. The patterns that worked yesterday may be exactly the wrong patterns to apply tomorrow. Most of the real world looks like this. Medicine is wicked. Investing is wicked. Building a company is wicked. Scientific research is wicked. Almost every job that involves a complex changing system with humans in it is wicked.
*** and ***
The skill that mattered in wicked environments was not depth in one pattern. It was the ability to recognize when a pattern from one domain applied unexpectedly in another.
*** and ***
Generalists do better in wicked domains for a reason that sounds almost mystical until you understand the mechanism. They have less invested in any single mental model, so they abandon broken models faster.
*** and ***
The single most useful sentence in the entire book is the one Epstein puts almost as a throwaway.
Match quality matters more than head start.
*** end quote ***
Fascinating insight.
So encourage children to try anything and everything. When they find “their bliss”, then the magic will happen.
Have we been doing so many things wrong for so long?
— 30 —
INSPIRATIONAL: Dale Schroeder puts Big Charity to shame
Saturday, June 20, 2026<<FROM TWITTER>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-06-06>>
https://x.com/CrazyVibes_1/status/2063349933110104394?s=20
*** begin quote ***
“Blue collar Iowa carpenter used his secret fortune to send 33 strangers to college”. Upworthy
*** end quote ***
Appears to be real. And if it is, he puts all the Big Charity to shame.
Gant, Michelle (July 25, 2019). “Blue collar Iowa carpenter used his secret fortune to send 33 strangers to college”. Upworthy. Retrieved March 28, 2026.
Dona Nobis Pacem
— 30 —
GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Put an end to the that happened to Massie
Friday, June 19, 2026https://lwvc.org/position/position-campaign-financing/
*** begin quote ***
In the summer of 2012, the League ran radio ads in Tennessee and Maine asking Senators Corker, Alexander, Snowe and Collins to support campaign finance reform. The ads were made possible through a grant from the Unitarian Universalist Church at Shelter Rock in Long Island, NY. The ads were timed in anticipation of Congressional action on the DISCLOSE Act. The ads garnered press coverage from outlets in both states.
Today the League continues to push for legislation to protect and reinvigorate the public financing system for president. In addition, the League continues to work to reinvigorate the dysfunctional Federal Election Commission (FEC) which has refused to enforce the law.
*** end quote ***
I have some suggestion for Federal Gooferment campaign restrictions:
- Only campaign contributions from eligible registered voters in the district. (Limited to $1,000)
- NO corporation contributions. (Could be implemented by making it a tax event.)
- NO Political Action Committee contributions or advertising for a candidate.
- NO contributions from foreign governments.
- Violations are sentenced to a minimum of one year in prison and barred from future campaigns.
That should put an end to the <synonym for excrement> that happened to Massie.
Argh!
Ask me how I really feel!
— 30 —
GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Armstrong paid homeless individuals on Los Angeles’ Skid Row to register to vote … …
Wednesday, June 17, 2026California US attorney says multiple election fraud investigations underway
By Sharyl Attkisson | June 6, 2026
*** begin quote ***
Essayli pointed to the case of Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, who pleaded guilty to a felony count of paying another person to register to vote in a federal election.
According to prosecutors, Armstrong paid homeless individuals on Los Angeles’ Skid Row to register to vote and, in some cases, used her address so mail-in ballots would be sent to her home. Authorities say the scheme operated for roughly 20 years.
*** end quote ***
Sure, Stalin was wrong.
“It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.” — attributed to Joseph Stalin
“As long as I count the Votes, what are you going to do about it. say?” — attributed to William M. “Boss” Tweed in Thomas Nast cartoon, 7 October 1871).
“As long as I count the Votes, what are you going to do about it. say?” — attributed to William M. “Boss” Tweed in Thomas Nast cartoon, 7 October 1871). — Not Stalin
Maybe not?
These fraudsters eliminate the need to “stuff the ballot box” or “rig the count”. They just “invent voters”. Are there more votes than register voters? All the mainstream media “swears” election are totally fair and honest.
So why don’t I believe them?
“The Italians having a Proverb, ‘He that deceives me once, its his fault; but if twice, its my fault.’” — The Court and Character of King James by Anthony Weldon, 1651
— 30 —
IDEA: Reuse versus Recycle?
Tuesday, June 16, 2026Instead of destroying boxes by flattening them for “recycling”, why not bring them to Costco for Customers to reuse?
— 30 —
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