Ending The Year

I could do a post about the past year.  I won't.  Personally, it was fine, but domestically and internationally it was a mess. 

I did some stuff.  I didn't do other stuff.  I need to make a list of things to do soon to get the New Year started right.  Update my Will, arrange for a full physical exam, get the 2005 Toyota Highlander in for serious maintenance (I hate all the too-fancy stuff on the new cars). 

I need to build a small medicine chest for Iza.  I need to completely rearrange the basement (too much stuff, poorly organized).  I need to stop smoking.  I DON'T need an exercise or diet change (other than smoking, I am disgustingly healthy).

I MAY decide to buy a smart phone.  I'm not sure exactly why.  I suppose I'm missing out on "something".  I plan to upgrade digitally in some ways.  Activate Siri on the computer maybe.  Turn on the HDTV voice command.  See what Amazon streaming service has to offer (as a Prime member, I'm paying for it).  I'm WAY behind the tech curve and I keep reading about stuff I COULD do. 

Or maybe not.  I'm pretty unhackable as things stand.  I can't even find myself on the net other than a few address errors of former residences.  Only the computer is online, and I have a backup system that stays offline until I plug it briefly. 

I suppose my 2 blogs are hackable, but they aren't on my computer, so I can't do much about that!

The funny thing is that I was "the techie" in my office.  Fortunately, I was able to retire just as things got beyond my knowledge.

When Dad lived with me in 2012-2014, I showed him "the internet".  He was amazed, but didn't have the slightest idea what he was really seeing.  And it wasn't just his age and declining mental abilities.  He simply had left his own tech world behind when he retired in 1979.  So that is food for thought.  Do I want to try to catch up or do I want to let it go?  And maybe finding myself in a world I can't quite understand anymore in a few more years?

It takes work to keep up with tech.  I find myself struggling with some aspects.  Should I have a "doorbell camera"?  Should my refrigerator know what I've run out of?   Do I need a computer program to tell me about pills and doctor appointments?  And whatever happened to voice-typing?  I might really need that someday, and better to get used to it now than when I am too stupid someday.  What about painless-death options?

Some people make New Year's Resolutions.  I'm pondering a decade or so of my future...  And this is a good time to consider all these things.

Blog Invasions And Other Stuff

I'm used to having Microsoft swoop into my cat blog and making 100 separate visits in a day every month or so.  I assume they are stealing all my pictures.  On the other hand, they seem to be registering my subjects to allow others who search a subject to find the cat blog, so "OK".

Have you noticed that Amazon has gotten into that too?  In the past 4 days, they have visited me 1150 times and they don't appear to be slowing down...

Should I be concerned about this?

I can't tell.  Internet searching about "why is amazon visiting my blog" doesn't produce any results.

Any thoughts?

And I noticed recently, looking at some statistics that one day, most visitors came from China.  But I can't find a problem it caused.  Maybe my firewall software saved me from some invasion or ransomware attack.  Is this something to worry about?

I bought a new router months ago and finally installed it.  Took me a week  (ignoring the prob most days) to get it connected.  Works fine (and maybe better, being 5G), but I've heard Verizon refuses to stop charging for a router.  Anyone know anything about that?  I'll be calling them in a couple days and any info might be helpful.

Lastly, my di-hydrogen oxide supply is low and the time travel machine is just not working well.  Any sources?

Mark

DNA Re-test

CRIgenetics agreed to send me a new test kit for re-testing.  I had annoyed them with several emails suggesting that their results were possibly contaminated because their report of recent ancestry was inconsistent with known family genealogy.

Here is a question.  Since I suspect this company of errors and just MIGHT possibly just send me the identical previous report to avoid admitting an error, I have a thought.  Should I just honestly send them my own cheek swab again OR get tricky and try to get a friend to do a cheek swab to see if they send an identical report?   In that case, I would know they were falsifying the results just making the report up.

My dilemma is that, if I send them my own cheek swab again and get identical results as the last time, I will never know if they just simply sent me the original report again or if there is some accuracy to it I don't understand.   But if I get some friend or neighbor to agree to this little trick, and CRI tests accurately,  and if the results are different, I won't actually know whether the new test results are his or mine.

And quite frankly, if someone came to ME and suggested this "swap of swab",  I would be immediately suspicious of some intended legal or family deception, and would decline to participate.

I'm not in any way suspecting parental infidelity, adoption, or family uncertainties in any way.  I and my siblings certainly look enough like our parents.  

I just want to have some reason to think the original report was inaccurate because it calls the genealogy into question AND disagrees substantially with a previous DNA test.  So I want this 2nd company to "generally" agree with the other company.

I might have to get a 3rd company as a tie-breaker.  The cost is trivial. 

So, hit me with logical questions, suggestions, advice, experience, or anything else...

While You Sleep

Have you ever considered what goes on in the world when you are asleep?  I know that when I go to bed, I am totally cut off from the world.  And the first thing I do when I wake up is turn on the radio on the headboard (tuned to a news station) to hear of events.

But what if something really important happened while I was sleeping?  What if the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupted?  What if India and Pakistan exchanged Nuclear weapon attacks?  What if the Sun went dead?  I mean, I would just sleep for days waiting for dawn and get colder and colder and colder.

I say this because I had the strangest dream last night.  Aliens arrived on Earth, and I didn't know about it.  And they were good aliens.  They announced they would take everyone who arrived at any major city by dawn to a newer better Earth2 (since they knew what we needed and had found one), and I slept through it.

I ignore the phone at night, I don't have smart phone with alert apps, and I doubt neighbors would beat on my door to tell me the good news.

Actually, it would be bad enough just to not know that some virus had been dropped in my area by some terrorists...

I suppose this has something to do with a feeling of lack of control over my life while I sleep, but it is still an interesting question.

"What if something really important happens when you are asleep"?