Zoltar says NO!
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New Year’s Eve Double Take
Last night, ABC TV had, per usual, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Disney Plus had a live feed from ABC News, with a journalistic recap of 2025. Having two projectors (one big, one small) for the same screen, I superimposed the programs.
IFIXIT or MeBREAKIT?
Should I, or shouldn’t I? For a New Year’s project, I’m contemplating replacing the battery in my 5-year-old Google Pixel 4a. As recounted here early last year, I was forced by Google to get a new phone because of a mandatory update that crippled the battery as a safety precaution. The 4a is no longer supported by Google, but it can still do almost everything I want it to do, at least inside the house. Text messaging is available through Device Pairing with my Pixel 8a. Lacking a SIM, the only thing I can’t do with the 4a is use it for phone calls.
I prefer its size and weight to the 8a, and besides using it indoors, I take it with me on walks to listen to downloaded podcasts. The headphone jack means I don’t need to bring a DAC adapter. The only problem is the unpredictable rate the battery drains. If I’m lucky, it lasts a few hours. A new battery is promised to be unaffected by the update.
IFIXIT has a 4a battery replacement kit for not too much money. It isn’t an easy job, but I successfully replaced the trackpad in the Lenovo laptop PC. Although doing that didn’t fix whatever the problem is, I didn’t break anything in the process.
https://www.ifixit.com/products/google-pixel-4a-battery-genuine
Removing the 4a’s OLED screen, without breaking it, appears to be the trickiest step, but it’s worth a try. Having the 4a run throughout the day would make it possible to go easy on the 8a’s battery in the long run.
A bigger project for the New Year will be getting one of my Pioneer LaserDisc players working again. If I’m lucky, belts and lubrication will be all that’s needed, as was the case with my Sony dual cassette deck and 300-disc CD changer.
Canadian Import
A good alcohol-deprived beverage.
Enabler in Chief
NORTHBOROUGH — Algonquin Regional High School has seen an increase in reported instances of hate since the start of the school year.
Northborough is considered to be in Central Massachusetts. More Trump supporters tend to be found there than in Eastern Massachusetts. The state’s housing of immigrants generated some resentment in that region.
What interests, and concerns, me here is the racism and abusive bullying being engendered in kids. The President of the United States is a cruel person who openly expresses hostility towards all non-Whites. Kids see their parents openly state their support for him. This has been going on for ten years, since Trump announced his candidacy, so the first wave of kids exposed to this mentality are now teenagers and 20-somethings.
DougDoug Ends, DOuG Carries On
Until Christmas day, I had never heard of DougDoug. He has 3 MILLION followers on YouTube, but he’s just announced that he’s quitting the channel. I’m late to the party that’s coming aparty!
Seven years? I’m in my 20th year of doing this weblog. Next year, the blog can legally get drunk.
The occasion of my becoming aware of DougieDoug was receiving a copy of his self-published book, that someone ordered Amazon to print on demand. (Being DOuG myself, I’m sure that Doug wouldn’t mind me calling him Dougie.)
The book is all DOUG, and Doug, and Doug Doug, but there’s nothing about DOuG. But, then, I probably have half a dozen regular followers to his three MILLION, and one of the six is offline in the hospital.
Chapter 6 of Doug’s book is a good read. Especially if you read it while holding your breath, so you get dizzy before the end.
