Garage door wouldn’t close this evening. It’s been squeaking a bit lately but garage doors always make noise. I figured it was sticking and needed some help. Got up on a chair and pulled down on the bottom of the door while Diane pushed the button. A little better but it wasn’t going to close. It was beeping and flashing lights and referring to an error code in the manual (which, of course, I don’t have). Figured I’d disconnect the automatic opener, close it by hand and get someone to look at it in the morning.

I decided to check out the sensors one more time. I remember once having a bug living in front of the sensor that kept the door from closing. But all clear. Except I notice the sun shining directly into the sensor. I waited a few minutes after the sun went down and all was well. A sort of Stonehenge moment. Just can’t close my garage door certain times of the day, perhaps only certain times of the year.

A good article from the London Review of Books about New Orleans musician Dr John.

Hoodoo Man

From Aeon.

The puzzle of the ‘idiot savant’

From Artnet News.

Robert Rauschenberg at 100: How the Relentless Experimenter Rewired American Art

All sorts of stuff broken from the AWS outage.

Smart bed owners experience AWS outage nightmare as they’re left sweating and stuck in upright position

My credit card number seems to have been compromised. After the usual calls to Citi I had a new one sent over. Had it sent FedEx overnight because we are going on vacation tomorrow. Got a note that it had been delivered but the photo wasn’t my front door or even my house. Told FedEx they sent my credit card to the wrong house.

I decided to drive around and see if I recognized the house, and indeed it was around the corner, a house on a different street with the same number. There was my new credit card. Oh, house is unoccupied and For Sale. Nice.

Tried to update my ticket with FedEx, but it would not let me (told me to try again later). Now I’m worried that FedEx is going to tell Citi that I don’t have my card, when I now do. So I called Citi. They were nice and added a note to my file. But my new card was already activated and had a charge on it. Impossible, I said. Eventually learned it was a hosting company I use that had a recurring charge. Seems Citi lets certain vendors use new cards, even ones that haven’t been activated. Ok.

Decided to give FedEx one more try. An AI chatbot! Except it didn’t understand a single thing I said. Even to the point of “type 1 to receive an email”. I typed “1” and got a no comprendo. Definitely artificial. Not very intelligent.

Pressing my luck further I tried to load my card into my phone for “tap”. Went to delete the old card (which has been automatically disabled — I suppose Citi and Google are in cahoots too) but it needed my 3 digit code. But that was in the trash chopped into little pieces. Wait I think I remember it. Yes! Fancy camera app took a photo of my new card and extracted all the data. Except my address was wrong. I moved six months ago. I’m sure Citi has my new address because it was where the new card was mailed. Updated the address and Google won’t allow me to use the card with my phone. No idea why. Said to call my credit card company. Nope. I’ll do without tap for now.

Does anything work any more?

Update:  just received the following voicemail from FedEx.  So they knew they mis-delivered and even knew the address of the place they mis-delivered it to.  How crazy is that?  I tried twice to return their call but after entering my case ID was put on hold, sent to a survey (gave lowest possible ratings) then was hung up on.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Breon with FedEx Express here in Albuquerque, and I am calling to do a follow-up on a case that you had created.
Asking about your package. I did speak with the driver. She did misdeliver it. It looks like she did take it to. Let me see which one this is.
15 Pueblo Bonito Road, which is like a street over from you. Um, she is already done for the day, but I can have her retrieve the package tomorrow.
If you don’t want to retrieve a On your own, or if you know who lives there. It is just around the corner again at 15 Pueblo Juanita Road.
But again, I will give you a call back tomorrow to see if you were able to get your package, if not that way. I can send a retrieval to the driver.
She does apologize for that. But again, if you.
Want to give us a call back at 1-800-463-3339? And just let us know that you are not able to retrieve your package that way tomorrow. When she goes back out for delivery, I can have her retrieve that Miss delivered package and take it to you correctly.
The tracking number on your package is 484-396-612-384, and I will give you a call back tomorrow morning. Thank you and have a good night.

From The American Prospect.

Brown Stage Capitalism

We have an old Windows 10 machine. Seems it CPU is one generation too old to update to Windows 11. No matter that all we do is email and web browsing and similar light tasks. With support for Windows 10 going away I went and bought a new PC. Spent the morning getting set up for a file transfer using their Backup tools. Had no idea the real problem would be getting the new Windows 11 machine to start. Went into “update” more and sat at 6% for a half and hour. Did a restart and now it’s stuck at 0%. Reddit says it’s a common problem. People say wait anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours. Really? For a product I was forced to buy?

Update:  had both old and new PCs on the same network and tried to use the Microsoft supplied backup tool to move files over.  It didn’t work.  After an hour or so, I gave up and moved everything manually with a 1 TB USB SSD drive.  Old style.  Pretty much a full day later, a job that should have taken 10 minutes is done. I think.

Went to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta today. A pretty amazing experience. Hundreds of balloons launched. Took maybe 200 photos, but here are a few of the better ones.