LPT Collect all your model & serial numbers BEFORE you need them
Recently bought a house. I should have INSISTED that the previous owner and | or realtor supply an inventory of all the appliances with model and serial numbers.
All too late, I know discover that I have (a) an oven and (b) a range hood with no model / serial numbers. Argh! Very annoying.
When these require service as I am sure they eventually will, then I will be up the proverbial creek without a propulsion device.
— 30 —
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LESSONS: | Tagged: LESSONSLEARNED: | 
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Posted by reinkefj
Leave a Comment » | SURVIVAL | Tagged: malone.news, rutting bull | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
A 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 —
Leave a Comment » | DISCOURAGING | Tagged: amazon, USPS | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
MAC 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 —
Leave a Comment » | APPLE | Tagged: APPLE, Mac, Mac OSX, MAC OSX TAHOE 26.5.2 | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
*** begin quote ***
TextExpander note:
– TextExpander works in the Claude app/claude.ai input, since it operates at the OS/keyboard level.
Test message logged (2026-06Jun-14 0248):
“Test Book of Faces. 2026-06Jun-14 0248 idk IDK IDIDK GEIW FEIE FWIW fwiw Mother NatureSOME DONT WORK” – appears to be a TextExpander snippet test where some abbreviations did not expand.
*** end quote ***
Time to be an “unpaid ALPHA tester” for the nice folks at TEXTEXPANDER
— 30 —
Leave a Comment » | AI | Tagged: CLAUDE, TEXTEXPANDER | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
*** 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 —
Leave a Comment » | AI | Tagged: CLAUDE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
*** 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 —
Leave a Comment » | AI | Tagged: CLAUDE | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Tuesday, 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 —
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Posted by reinkefj
He Earns $33 an Hour as a Costco Cashier. Now He’s a Millionaire.
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 —
Leave a Comment » | INSPIRATIONAL | Tagged: Sarah Nassauer, WSJ | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
I 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 —
Leave a Comment » | ADHOC | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
Today, like many many other times, I see people use those spaces with no placard or plate. No one enforces it. Argh!
–30–
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Posted by reinkefj
https://x.com/Ikennect/status/2059026118036881822?s=20
<<FROM TWITTER>>
<< EDITOR ADDED DATE 2026-05-26>>
I am Ken
@Ikennect
*** begin quote ***
Barbara Walters writes:
Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country, but specific men who served and sacrificed during the Vietnam War.
The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot. The pilot’s name is Jerry Driscoll, a River Rat. In 1968, the former Commandant of the USAF Survival School was a POW in Ho LoPrison, the “Hanoi Hilton.”
Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJ’s, he was ordered to describe for a visiting American “peace activist” the “lenient and humane treatment” he’d received.
He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed, and was dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward onto the camp commandant ‘s feet, which sent that officer berserk.
In 1978, the Air Force Colonel still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his flying career) from the Commandant’s frenzied application of a wooden baton.
From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4E’s). He spent 6 years in the “Hanoi Hilton”. . . The first three of which his family only knew he was “missing in action.” His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned-up, fed and clothed routine in preparation for a “peace delegation” visit.
They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they were alive and still survived.
Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his Social Security Number on it, in the palm of his hand.
When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man’s hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: “Aren’t you sorry you bombed babies?” and “Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?” Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper.
She took them all without missing a beat. . . At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him all the little pieces of paper…
Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Colonel Carrigan was almost number four but he survived, which is the only reason we know of her actions that day.
I was a civilian economic development adviser in Vietnam, and was captured by the North Vietnamese communists in South Vietnam in 1968, and held prisoner for over 5 years.
I spent 27 months in solitary confinement; one year in a cage in Cambodia; and one year in a ‘black box’ in Hanoi. My North Vietnamese captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Banme Thuot, South Vietnam, whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian border. At one time, I weighed only about 90 lbs. (My normal weight is 170 lbs.)
We were Jane Fonda’s “war criminals.”
When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her. I said yes, for I wanted to tell her about the real treatment we POWs received. . . and how different it was from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by her as “humane and lenient.”
Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees, with my arms outstretched with a large steel weight placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane.
I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda soon after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing to debate me on TV. She never did answer me.
These first-hand experiences do not exemplify someone who should be honored as part of “100 Years of Great Women.” Lest we forget. . . “100 Years of Great Women” should never include a traitor whose hands are covered with the blood of so many patriots.
There are few things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane’s participation in blatant treason, is one of them.
Please take the time to forward to as many people as you possibly can. It will eventually end up on her computer, and she needs to know that we will never forget
*** end quote ***
I’ve ranted about her before. This just reminds me of her treachery.
Why she was never prosecuted?
Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: @Ikennect, Barbara Walters, Cambodia, Col. Larry Carrigan, Hanoi Hilton, Jane Fonda, North Vietnamese communists, South Vietnam | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
A 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 —
Leave a Comment » | EVLYNN | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
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FJohn Reinke
Consultant at Technology Legacies LLC
Advisor, Computer Governance Committee at Manhattan College
Editor / Publisher at Jasper Jottings
Greater New York City Area
JJ Positraction JJ Endnotes Downsize DC
Philosophy of Liberty
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