Category: Tech

I Didn’t Know This

Late this evening, after I’d turned off the outside lights (except for the strings of lights on the Christmas decorations), I received a text message on my phone from someone claiming to be an Amazon delivery driver. I wasn’t expecting a package until tomorrow, so I flagged the message as spam and deleted it.

An hour later, I checked the e-mail account I use exclusively for Amazon and it said that a package had been delivered. Checking the front porch, sure enough there was tomorrow’s delivery. My first same-day delivery as a 28-year Amazon customer. This got me checking on Amazon’s policies.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html

Deliveries can occur between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time. To avoid disturbing you, delivery drivers may knock on the door, ring the doorbell, or directly contact you for delivery only between the hours of 8:00 am – 8:00 pm local time, unless your delivery is scheduled or requires a signature. For those deliveries, drivers may place a call or text to the phone number you provided for your order. They should not attempt to deliver the package outside 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. unless they are able to reach you.

So the driver was trying to reach me to get approval for the delivery, that he made anyway. I think it’s ridiculous that deliveries should ever be promised for as late as 10 PM, and I am not at all comfortable with the idea of drivers texting my cellphone number. When I entered my cell number to enable 2-factor authentication, I didn’t know I was giving them permission to have drivers text me. Not liking this.

Stephen King’s Dead Air

Did you know that Stephen King owns radio stations in Maine?

Listen while you can, because King is about to shut them down.

https://www.wabi.tv/2024/12/02/stephen-kings-radio-stations-sign-off-good-months-end/

Speaking of money losing operations, this weblog is costing me about $500/year. The service used to include backups, but now it’s an optional extra that I’m not going to add to my subscription. If the (shared) server blows up and all is lost, so be it.

Thinking Ahead

When the bathroom in the primary (formerly master) bedroom was remodeled 20 years ago, I had the contractor put in a closet access panel behind the shower valve. I knew that someday the panel would be needed. Today is that day.

The plumber should be here in a couple of hours. He said it looks like an O-ring failure.

Exciting Update: It’s fixed. As I suspected, the plumber who worked on it about nine months ago screwed up. I also suspect he may have done a lousy job deliberately because he was pissed off that I ended up not needing him for the dishwasher installation. The new guy I’ll be using from now on showed me exactly what was done wrong.

When They’re ’64

The Beatles ’64 documentary is quite good overall. Some of the footage shot by the Maysles brothers that’s seen in The First U.S. Visit DVD is used again here, but the focus is mostly on the chaos surrounding the Beatles and contemporary memories of the events. There isn’t too much overlap, so the two movies can be considered complementary.

I have a couple of quibbles. Why is Smokey Robinson given so much attention? Film clips with Marshall McLuhan’s observations on the media don’t really add anything to the narrative. I’d rather have seen a bit more attention given to Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

George Harrison, in a 30-year-old interview, questions how DJ Murray the K showed up and was then allowed to tag along with them. Apparently, Ronnie Bennett (later Spector) and the Ronettes, who the Beatles were fans of, got Murray into their hotel suite.

The irony is that Kaufman’s ridiculous claim of being the Fifth Beatle didn’t work where it mattered — in the ratings. Murray was out of a job less than a year later when WINS, getting clobbered by W-A-Beatle-C, switched to an all-news format. Sixty years on, 1010 WINS continues to be a news station.

On a tech note, I watched the first half of Beatles ’64 with the Roku stick on the porch TV. The remainder I watched with a new Fire TV stick.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQMRKRV5

I did that because I had become increasingly frustrated with the Roku remote. It started with trouble controlling the Samsung TV’s sound, eventually leading to times when the remote lost its link to the stick. Then, for no discernable reason, it would work perfectly again for a while, only to fail again.

Assuming the problem was exclusively within the remote, I saw a new one would cost $20. Noticing that Amazon had put its Fire TV sticks on sale for half price before Black Friday, and not having a 4K TV, I ordered the HD model for $18.

The funny upshot to this First World Problem is, my buddy Bismo told me he’s had exactly the same problem with the remote for his Roku-enabled TV. He ordered a new remote, but before it was delivered the original remote started working again, just as mine had.

My Work Permit

I don’t need government permission to run this website, but I did need permission to run the radio station transmitter when I was working alone on the weekends. The requirement was passing the test for an FCC 3rd Class Radiotelephone Operator’s License.

This study guide was printed the year after I took the test. Looking through the questions now, I can’t believe I knew any of this material.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-FCC/FCC-Commercial-License-Study-Guide-1974.pdf

Many wannabe DJ’s had trouble with the test. I passed it the first time. The license is in a box somewhere. As I recall, the FCC dropped the test before I quit the business. All you had to do to get a license was fill out a form and send it in.

Let me amend something I said. Parts of Element 9, the more technical section, are still with me.