Probably My Weirdest Dream Yet
Not infrequently I'll have dreams so vivid I'll remember them when I wake up. In my latest one, I became a SCOTUS justice. Perhaps it's not that bizarre in the sense I've covered 4 SCOTUS confirmations and an additional nomination during the history of the blog. But the dream was remarkably apolitical--no President, no Senate hearing, etc. I was the last of multiple concurrent nominees confirmed.It was totally unrealistic, of course. I've never earned a law degree or served as a judge. Presidents would likely want to nominate someone several years younger, and the Dems would launch a holy war against a libertarian nominee because I would pose a mortal threat against their Statist agenda.
But the reason I'm discussing the dream is because nominating an independent non-lawyers is an interesting idea. I wouldn't be locked into stare decisis (i.e., precedent); I'm more like the boy who points out the emperor is wearing no clothes. I have zero tolerance for progressives who try to argue that the Second Amendment is some pro-government Trojan horse in the Bill of Rights meant to restrict the hand of government at the expense of individual rights. I would probably be the first justice to write "Bullshit!" in response to a colleague's opinion.
Businesses know that sometimes the prevailing managerial perspective is too tunnel-visioned or reflective of internal politics to lead a company out of a crisis. Probably the classic example is IBM in the early 1990's. Its stock price had more than halved, and there was open speculation about splitting the company into pieces. Who did IBM turn to? Maybe another high tech entrepreneur? No, "Cookie Man" Gerstner. Cookies not in the browser sense, but like chocolate chip. Gerstner managed a turnaround notably based on a services focus.
There's an old saying in basketball: you can't teach height. When it comes to the judiciary, you can't teach intelligence. An intelligent person can pick up all he or she needs to know on the job. I'll never be nominated, but I would be open to the idea of other brilliant independent non-lawyers being nominated.
More on Amazon
One of the things I intended to discuss in yesterday's post on Amazon is how it is integrating its voice recognition interface Alexa into other products, even microwave ovens! It's built its own private label value-priced ($60) brand AmazonBasics. I don't recall how I stumbled across the link, because my own compact microwave is still functional. But I'll definitely keep it in mind when I shop for a replacement. One of the focuses in my MIS research stream on human factors/human-computer interface was a natural interface, and being able to converse with technology is certainly easier and more convenient than being forced into some arcane, non-intuitive, Procrustean interface.I did have an unpleasant post-post Amazon experience. While checking on my (apparently not 2-day delivery) macadamia nut order yesterday, I noticed another order had been marked as signed for by some "receptionist". Usually this sort of thing happens if the delivery requires a signature, but I don't recall this being done before on Amazon deliveries locally. It may have been signed for by apartment management, but they've not done it in the past (availability?) I do recall having to go to a UPS store to do a pickup soon after I moved here. Neither the delivery person or whoever signed for it left a note/email/whatever.
I've actually had bad experiences with signature requirements; in most complexes, packages were signed for by management. Maybe convenient for the delivery person, but it could be inconvenient when you work long hours and/or the office is closed while they are showing apartments. I've made it clear to my Mom not to require MY signature with USPS deliveries especially when I lived in a Baltimore suburb around 2010. I've written about this incident in the past. I had an ongoing feud with the USPS asshole servicing my address. (Too long of a history to explain here, but among other things, he would dump some of my mail, like magazines, into the common bin (no, not a crammed mailbox) The retarded postal supervisors never did a goddamn thing, which seemed to encourage his abusive unprofessional behavior.) So my Mom decided to require personal signature, which kept my apartment management from signing for the package. The asshole got off on telling me that I was fucked. The town post office was small with limited parking; I spent 45 minutes in line, just to find out they didn't hold packages, that I had to call another postal facility and arrange for re-delivery. Only over the next 2 weeks they couldn't find the package and finally gave up. I never got the package. My Mom had insured it, but it would take months to process the claim with offices pointing at each other.
So I'm chatting with some (Indian?) staffer (all I could see is a "Chis" signed for it: there's no discussion of a street address or apartment number where the delivery person dropped it off; it may be with the apartment management, because none of the apartments would fit the description, but I know this manager services multiple properties; when I moved from Arizona, I had to make it on a Monday to do the paperwork ), and she's asking stuff like whether I checked with neighbors. I have zero tolerance for this nonsense. I never authorized Amazon to leave it with anyone else except maybe for apartment management. It's Amazon's problem if I don't get what I paid for. But it boggles me mind that Amazon lets its delivery service drop off my package with nothing more than a misspelled given name.
Amazon is willing to accommodate me if the order remains missing. I told them to wait until I hear the apartment management. What bothers me is why this order was handled differently from my other recent Amazon transactions.
A Couple of Wal-Mart Observations
One is a semi-correction of a comment when I noted that a Logitech wireless keyboard was priced the same as a keyboard/mouse set. It turned out the former has an embedded trackpad, so technically the functionality is similar.When I did a walkthrough of the Wal-Mart DVD section, I noticed one of Hallmark's current cable movies, "Christmas at Graceland" is already available for purchase. I was a fan of Pickler when she was on American Idol. But I'll take a pass here.
