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As with any organization, there is always the possibility of internal malfeasance.  When I worked for the USPS it was drummed from day one that the Postal Inspectors could be observing.

Later on, after the USPS, I worked with the USPS Inspectors on a number of complex issues.

I too had a PO Box and it really skyrocketed when Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was appointed by the Board of Governors.

The only issues I am hearing and reading about on iOS 18 has to do with Bluetooth and Carplay issues with some cars.  Some folks have found a re-Pairing of the car and phone resolves the issue.  Other report rebooting the phone fixes it.

Given the automotive forums traffic for two major brands of cars, it does not appear to be a large problem, but some individuals are having issues after the update.  Whether it is the car, the Carplay connection (wired and/or wireless) or Bluetooth is not clear.

For me the only time I had even a tiny glitch, a deletion of the car from the phone and the iPhone from the car and re-PAIRING of the phone fixed it.

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J9438, pmcjr6142, Alex5723

I too have limited my online buys.  However, far, far, far too many brick and mortar businesses when asked if an item is available immediately point you to their online ordering.  I will do that IF the ship to the store is free (just like their in stock merchandise.)  If it is not, I go elsewhere.

From local reporting and LE reporting, there is a growing number of incidents of the suspected collusion of delivery service drivers and the thieves.  I have seen numerous Ring Camera footage of UPS or Amazon dropping off a package and before the driver even drives off a car stops and a person wearing an Amazon vest picks up the package and calmly walks away.  And, yes, reasonable facsimiles of Amazon uniform components are available online, especially near Halloween for costumes…, hmmm!
https://www.amazon.com/Qraphic-Tee-Package-Delivery-Courier/dp/B08DHSSF53

Some of the camera footage even shows Amazon logos on the vests.

Another thing is thieves are targeting items containing Lithium batteries that cannot go by air.  Our area has many reports of iPads and iPhones (and higher end Android devices) that are both never received, as well as being picked up by thieves while the delivery service truck is still in view.  Many are delivered with the “Adult Signature Required” stickers affixed, yet the recipient was never notified.

I have personally confronted delivery drivers about needing a signature, and some have me sign, but others say they already marked that it was signed it.  As some items are required by law to be signed by the recipient, not getting the signature could be referred for further action to the agency with jurisdiction.

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ibe98765

Casey S wrote:

It’s great the local sheriff was more than willing to take on the case.  (For some reason, I imaged my kid’s cartoon show, Paw Patrol, and “Chase is on the case!” when I typed that.)

However, the best law enforcement to contact for cases specifically involving the U.S. Postal Service would be the Postal Inspection Service.  They are a federal law enforcement agency who’s primary job responsibility is crimes involving U.S. Mail (theft, illicit drugs, pyramid schemes, sex crimes).

They also have a very well equipped laboratory for analyses of counterfeit and forged USPS Money Orders, and a cadre of Special Agents and criminal investigators.  They investigate internal theft and external threats and thefts.

I think it is more a matter of WHO wants to ban what, and WHO makes money off a ban or a money off NO ban.  Always follow the money.  That is all that drives so many (all?) things.  Then that leads to politics (more later).

The alleged original concept of social media was (and continues to be) romanticized as creating a community and giving folks a platform similar to the public square of old.  The difference was that the public square was PUBLIC, and listeners saw the speaker.  Sometimes the audience cheered and other times they jeered and sometimes rotten apples flew.  But you <u>knew</u> who was speaking, and who was repeating and criticizing what they heard.

Social media, however, was/is largely anonymous to the viewer.  This frees many from societal restraint and civility.  Add in the click generation aspect and revenue for clicks for the site, both the outrageous and the good were magnified.  Once algorithms were introduced and fed off of tracker input, all that mattered was opening the pipeline of clicks and “for you” material, both positive and negative.

When politics saw how effective it was in reaching folks on THEIR SIDE, courtesy of the algorithms, interested parties all around the world took advantage.  We are now reaping that whirlwind because no one wants to have their money and influence affected.

For young people the effects have been far worse.  Social media magnified everything that was happening.  The rumor mill of schools went from taking hours and days to spread and work, and became almost instantaneous.  That eliminated opportunities for countering and correcting, and magnified pressure to be on the “cool” or “in” side, lest one be subjected to the rumor and opinion mill.

However, the PRIMARY vector of this tide, the smartphone, eliminated even the lag from hearing and/or reading about someone or an issue, and rushing to type and spread into on your PC at home.  Now, it was immediate and malicious colleagues and classmates could see in real time the effects of their efforts.  Add in the algorithms, and the comments were laser focused, but above all constant and on a 24/7 basis.

I have always believed the spoon feeding of opinions and thought, manipulated by revenue driven advertising, clicks, and algorithms had a certain feel of the “telescreen” envisioned by George Orwell in his novel “1984.”   That made possible the “Two Minute Hate”, a propaganda exercise for the State.

However, the smartphone and social media apps have far, far eclipsed the fixed telescreen and expanded far beyond propaganda into a combination of opinion, curated misdirection, peer-pressure, and a means of creating a constant second-guessing, especially for those in their formative years.  And even worse than that is its being combined with tracking technologies if can “localize” these negatives.

This is why some local school districts are experimenting on smartphone bans in class.  Hopefully, schools will not need to also have a smartphone/social media recess period to allow users to feed their habit.

It will be interesting to see what happens.  The protestations of social media corporations sound suspiciously similar to Big Tobacco resisting any oversight of their product.  Evidence is piling that social media and/or smartphone use is addictive.

When I was working, one higher level manager decided that he would hold his meeting in a secure location that restricted phones and personal devices.  They had to be placed in lockers outside the room.  It was very telling to watch as some attended fidgeted and fiddled in withdrawal, almost like smokers and alcoholics feeding a need to feed their addictions, and they were adults.

Great article.   Thank you Mr. Livingston for the coverage in AskWoody.

 

 

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Steve, unbob, Steve S., Mr. Austin, SueW, Myst, WSbobby-p

I have looked at some of old mice I have used, corded, cordless, etc.   I would venture that 90 percent of my online life is desktop, with the rest being iPhones and iPads, and one Lenovo laptop.  I have found that if I could use a mouse on the iPad I would.  To me, touch (either a pad or screen) is just not precision enough, along with the inability in the iPad and iPhone to insert a cursor into a word and correct a letter or two rather than replacing/retyping the whole word.  While my laptops have come with touchpads and rubber-tipped pointers, the mouse eliminated the inadvertent touchpad contact from routine typing on the keyboard and allowed switching the touchpad off.

I also find touchscreens are tolerable on a phone or tablet, but have one issue that on a desktop I would not like, and that is fingerprints.  I find I am always using the microfiber cleaning cloth on my mobile devices, but fingerprints on my 32″ desktop monitor would impossible to adapt to.

As I was looking at the box of retired mice, i have found my favorites were more on the heavier side.  In fact on older Microsoft mice, among the most user friendly for disassembly, I often would remove the top and glue small weights to the inside of the flat bottom as the added weight allowed a more precision movement on image editing and cut and pasting, and for FPS gaming.

Thanks for that tip on the Vertical Mouse.  I just got a case of sever tendonitis and this sounds like the answer.  Big plus is the Logitech website say it is Linux compatible.

I always thought gaming be the culprit resulting in pain, but it was photo editing…

I love Logitech mice, but the newer versions seem far less durable than my older ones.

I had to dig a bit, because certain sliders were grayed out, however I had missed the highlighted print at the top saying you can turn ALL preferences to OFF, so I tapped that and OFF they are.

Maybe it is just me, but I find the journal concept uninteresting.  I live life and find no need to record or notate it for an uninterested others or posterity.

Kudos to Apple for the off switches.

Nice article.

While I am mainly (still) a desktop user, I have found the best laptop purchases I have made were re-furbished off-lease “corporate” models by Dell and Lenovo.  As such, most have readily accessible replaceable memory, HDD/SSDs and batteries without an involved keyboard teardown or return to the manufacturer.  This is to facilitate easy maintenance and repair by corporate IT departments.  Additionally, the business-grade models generally have a metal chassis and hinges and a more rigid lid to minimize screen damage.  They usually have far more ports like wired ethernet, multiple USB ports and some even have ports for external monitors, as well as space for an optional CD-RW or second HDD/SSD.  They also tend to be more flexible with UEFI/BIOS setting options.

Depending on the refurbisher, bloatware and “trial versions” of software are at a minimum.  I  buy them with the calculation for the cost of doubling/replacing the memory using both channels and swapping in a 1TB SSD.

I have primarily used Ubuntu, but now I use Linux Mint for the OS.  I use mine mainly for field photo editing and curating images from my digital SLR, and email, but my wife uses hers as a daily driver.

I have also found that with 8-16GB of memory, I can adjust the Linux ‘swappiness’ and run all but the heaviest video-editing in RAM.

From my first PC, bought from a local PC shop, the recommendation has always been to double the MS minimum recommended RAM, and check carefully how many memory slots are on the motherboard and how many are filled when considering a purchase.

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SupremeLaW

I greatly prefer Dark Mode on my phone and iPad 24-7 (along with Night Shift).  I also prefer it with Forums, but that is dependent on the forum software on  a given site.

With AskWoody, I like the white background.

With MSWord or any word processor, and even with learning word processing on a Wang system (green text on black) and then Wordperfect 5.1 (white text on blue), I prefer the appearance of a white paper/black text when I got WP6.1.  That continued to MSWord and LibreOffice Writer.

I really do not like when sites use pastel colors for text and background (or gray text) and frequently find myself highlighting the text for careful reading, or if possible switching the site preferences to Dark.

With my PCs I have Linux Mint Cinnamon Dark as the theme and had set the desktop on my old Windows 7 machine to a dark taskbar with dark wall papers.

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Myst

Alex5723 wrote:

Why should I give Microsoft access and harvest my iPhone’s personnel data ?

That was my first thought as I started the article.

However, even if one is cautious about such a possibility, another issue on disclosure of info on a phone has been making the headlines.  Here is a Malwarebytes blog post on what car makers hoover up from your phone.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/podcast/2023/09/what-does-a-car-need-to-know-about-your-sex-life

Before I read this article, with my newest vehicle, I setup and paired my iPhone to the car via Bluetooth.  The basic pairing included the phone and contact lists.  However, I found it also included my recent and missed calls, all front on center on the iPad-like dash.

Fortunately, I did not authorize it to do text messages.  After an update of the car software or the iPhone, I needed to re-pair the Bluetooth and decided to see what text messages were like.  They too are front and center for all to read, and even worse pop-up automatically creating a distraction, especially it the original text was a group text that leads to text-fest storm.  I rapidly deleted the iPhone and re-paired it with just telephone calling.

It is bad enough to constantly have to research apps to see what they they want to access, but the car integrations potentially far surpass just PCs and phones, as they can also save and potentially share verbal conversations.

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ibe98765, Alex5723

Actually the date selection calendar that was in Windows 7 so you could search any number of days just by selecting the start and finish of the search range.

Good ideas never die, they just get resurrected for new credit…

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wavy

Interestng article.  It shows a pretty unbalanced win/loss ratio.

However, you pulled a punch near the end.  The following sentence needed an accuracy/reality tweak, “With profits at stake, companies have an incentive — and the resources — to gather, create, and present to the legislature data supporting the rules that they want. Individuals do not. Legislators make decisions based on the information they have. So if the information is biased, expect the legislation to be as well.”

Here is a far more accurate version of the paragraph, “With profits at stake, companies have an incentive — and the resources — to gather, create, and present to the legislature obtuse, ambiguous language supporting the rules that they want. Individuals do not. Legislators make decisions based on the MONEY they receive. So if the information is biased, expect the legislation to be as well.”

Fixed it to reflect the win/lose ratio.

 

 

If I had a dollar for every Geek Squad spam or scam email I had I would be rich.  Be especially careful if they contain a receipt in PDF format. DO NOT OPEN IT!!!  They are hoping your curiosity will get the better of your common sense.  It could be used as a malware carrier.

I found the reference to the EFF Cover Your Tracks to be extremely helpful and enlightening. https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

It give a good rundown and analysis of your browser in its tests and both real world and hard coated security and the tradeoffs in usability. One thing I have found is how carefully configuring the browser can drastically cut down on the data for those who are on metered connections, or on older machines (or OS) that cannot handle extensive newer animations and graphical content.

This was a great issue for all the articles. A+++