Shutdown Diary
The latest stats from Washpo:
Well, apparently they are doing COVID-19 vaccinations (free according to a sign) at my local Walmart. For all I know, this has been for a few weeks, since my last prescription refill there. My company is changing health insurance vendors and I was advised to refill any pending prescriptions before cutover, until I get my new insurance card. Most of my prescription fills are on a 90-day cycle but a couple were on a different, expiring schedule. So I went to the Walmart online local pharmacy portal and then I noticed, for the first time, Walmart was indicating it was serving some communities and had a link for more information. So when I went to my local Walmart pharmacy a couple of days back, I noticed one of the side counters had been converted to a curtained cubicle area. I saw one lady getting a shot, but they also do other immunizations, including flu shots. The local signs noted that COVID-19 shots were free and seemed to imply drop-ins were accommodated (at least I didn't see signs of the nature "Enter here for your vaccine appointment", but that is an inference; since I was fully vaccinated, I didn't check for details. I'm somewhat curious because my understanding is a vial of multiple doses is perishable once opened.)
The "free" thing is interesting; obviously I'm aware the federal government is a single payer for doses (and I have issues with that as I've recently opined) but I don't know to what extent related costs (say delivery, refrigerated storage, materials and/or staffing) were being handled. I do recall when I checked into the Johns Hopkins site in Laurel for my first Pfizer shot (and/or when I originally registered online for my appointment), I had to submit my insurance information and confirm my mail address for any charges not covered by insurance (e.g., a co-pay). I think I read somewhere that insurers would absorb any related costs, and I haven't received an invoice from Johns Hopkins in the weeks since my March and early April shots.
On the political front, there have been a couple of topics I've been following with some interest: the debate over IP rights to COVID-19 vaccines and the Biden Administration mishandling of the J&J vaccine blood clot kerfuffle. I'll simply point out I'm a strong defender of IP (intellectual property) rights, and there are some accommodations, like compulsory licensing, without resorting to killing the hen laying the golden eggs.
On the second point: once again, the Marginal Revolution blog has done a great job pointing out the opportunity costs of the disastrous decision to pause J&J vaccine distribution over a statistically insignificant number of patients with alleged blood clot symptoms. The risk of catching and dying from COVID-19 is much more serious than the statistical anomaly in question; the eventual resolution (to print a warning) was predictable, but the delay exacerbated significant anti-vaxxer fears and was an unforced error delaying achievement of herd immunity--a death sentence for how many more people?
In terms of the stats, continuing to improve, finally seeing the positivity rates in testing drop down to 3.5% jumped out. Still too high, of course, but something I had been looking forward to seeing after weeks of 5+%.. With 30% fully vaccinated and 43% partially vaccinated, we're probably roughly halfway to herd immunity, and it looks like most of the highly motivated vaccination candidates have already gotten theirs. Like I mentioned above, Biden, while crowing over the vaccinated in his first 100 days, certainly bungled the J&J vaccine kerfuffle.
Life's Little Problems
I've done a number of earlier recurring segments of this type, but I've now decided on a signature heading.
I've blogged before I was forced into buying my low-end flat screen TV because my cable/Internet provider in Arizona did not support coaxial connection for my functional portable color TV.. So I went across the street and bought the cheapest flatscreen I could find at Walmart, about $130. The TV came with 3 HDMI connections and a USB input. The spare HDMI ports are useful for add-on gadgets like Amazon Firestick and Google Chromecast. I think that the TV can only handle so much power and/or the third HDMI port may be bad. Every once in a while I'll run into a weird symptom where the volume creeps in a polar direction (generally maximum) and the set/remote won't let me modify the setting. Long story short, I've found (by trial-and-error, not by any Internet post I could find), that repowering the TV/accessories and reseeding and/or reducing connections usually resolved the issue.
There are a couple of ways I can use to access Amazon Prime Video content on my TV: the Firestick or via an app integrated with my cable provider. So 2 or 3 times over the past week I had used the Firestick as normal. So last night I could get the interface, but anything I selected seemed to get stuck into a swirling blue circle. What the devil ? I had never seen this before in all my experience with Prime Video. Was there some sort of site outage? Troubleshooting on the Internet was annoying because Amazon doesn't like when I'm in VPN mode. (For the most part, I can use my VPN snooze feature when that happens.) I didn't find anything useful but maybe that was an artifact of my search. So I tried my TV reset script as described in the preceding paragraph, and it resolved my issue.
And it seems I have recurring purchases for various technologies, perhaps first and most notably answering machines in the 80's. I've bought likewise a long series of desktops and laptops; since the late 80's, maybe every 3-4 years, plus at least one backup PC, often my decommissioned workhorse. It's a variety of things, like a dying hard drive or other expensive repairs; especially when you can buy a functional PC for under $500, with superior functionality to the last ones you bought, repair bills starting at $300 are questionable. Although I drink only 1 or 2 cups of coffee a day, I can think of at least 2 or 3 freakish coffee spills making laptops unusable, xo among other things, I'm now anal-retentive about things like laptop stands and external keyboards and mice. I probably have a half dozen unusable keyboards or mice at home.
I've written about this before; as a professional DBA (database administrator), I'm anal-retentive about backups, including cloud and personal (typically external hard drives). The latter has also seemed to reach consumable status (i.e., I regularly seem to run through these. I currently have have 4 multi-TB units (keep in mind I have 5 PC's and a Chromebook, not to mention a couple of tablets), 2 from a couple of well-known brands.
I am going to mention a brand here, because I'm irritated with their customer service and warranty. The basic issue is they have a 2-year warranty on their drives, and I bought my drive just beyond their warranty. This is easily the shortest life for any drive I've owned. Just while I've been writing this piece, I did a search on the expected lifetime; of course, you'll have the usual "the world is complex" posts, but the general guesstimate I've seen is 3-5 years.
The typical portable hard drive I've owned typically comes with its AC power adapter and a USB cable. What caught my eye with these Western Digital drives (about 4-5 TB) is their compact size (almost the size of the palm of your hand) and basically are powered through the USB connection. I had some concerns over accessories depending on the computer's power supply, not unlike my issues with using multiple devices on my flatscreen TV above.
The device has mostly worked fine over the past 2 years. In fact, I was so impressed that when my local electronics superstore which sold me the 4 TB unit (got under $100) offered a 5 TB unit just a few months back for about the same price, I bought a second.
Several weeks back I started noticing that the older drive started having problems powering up on some of my PCs. Long story short, I could generally get the drive to work by fiddling with the USB cable port on the drive. It seems to be a port connection defect, not an issue with the drive. I'm now kicking myself for not filing a claim with WD earlier. And essentially the connection issues deteriorated to the point I can no longer coax a blink of light from the drive over the past week.
So I finally get into a long online chat with a WD agent. Never mind the long wait; he wouldn't start discussing anything until I could give the tiny print serial number plus provide proof of purchase. He finally listens to the symptoms and tells me he thinks it's a USB cable issue. (He doesn't know I'm an MIS PhD or that I owned a second device and already tried swapping cables, but more to the point it didn't explain how the drive had been working for several hours before losing connection last week. It's possibly but unlikely the cable could have suddenly failed, but that can easily be tested with my other drive.)
He must have pointed out a dozen times during the chat I was technically outside their warranty window and suggested I could out and buy a new one as if I've spilled my carton of milk and should go to the supermarket and buy a replacement gallon. I felt like ad libbing, "And which Seagate drive would you recommend?" He said he would forward my issue to his senior team; they had my email address. No response to date, no ticket number. I'm not holding my breath. It's not so much about losing the data; as I've mentioned I have several levels of backups. But losing a drive in just over 2 years really doesn't inspire confidence in WD. I'll be watching my newer drive like a hawk and will ,if necessary, invoke the warranry at the first sign of an issue.
Readership
I have an informal target of 2000 blog pageviews a month (actually the baseline is 1000 pageviews, but 2000 is feasible; I know at least one month over the past year I got over 2700. ) I'm still confused about the stats, because separately they'll send me something like 'you had 32 visitors to your website this month'. I knew it was going to be close in April just like in March where I ended up just shy and there's one day less in April when, for some odd reason, I got over 200 one day earlier last week and I ended up beating the target by almost 10%. Overall, readership numbers are up in the sense now the majority of posts attract double-digits (barely). It's a little discouraging nearly 13 years into the blog that the numbers aren't higher than they are; my modest attempts to build the audience through Twitter and Facebook haven't really worked. (To be honest, I limit my friends on FB to friends and family and I haven't published original material or comments on a regular basis. The newer Twitter account I started last summer has struggled; I still have to regain double-digits in followers (still, more than the blog) while the first account had over 70. It doesn't help my ego that an account on Donald Trump sneezing would get more impressions in a day than my stuff in a lifetime. But really, my contributions on the blog and other media are a discipline of keeping current; if others benefit in the process, it's a bonus.
WWE
Well, the biggest match since Wrestlemania was Reign's belt-vs-leave Smackdown match. against Daniel Bryan. Of course, these "leave wrestling" type matches aren't really the end; I seem to recall when Kevin Owens beat Shane McMahon, McMahon was supposed to be banished from the squared circle, but he recently feuded with Braun Strowman.)
It was not booked as a retirement match, so Bryan could technically reemerge on RAW. But Bryan had been cutting promos about this past Wrestlemania possibly being his last. If WWE were going to put the belt on Bryan, they would have had Reigns surrender the belt at Wrestlemania. They had too much much vested in monster heel Reigns for him to lose the title in a TV match. It also didn't make since given the resources they had spent building a feud with Cesaro, who has spent years on the mid-card and has certainly paid his dues. I never cared much for Cesaro's trademark gimmick of swinging his opponents by their legs around in circles. He's a talented guy, but I don't see him with the belt. I recall they seemed to be pushing Nakamura into a title shot and dropped the storyline. Could former Cesaro's former tag partner finally reemerge during this feud? Maybe. Probably.
The women's titles are difficult to figure out from a story perspective. Of course, the reemergence of former long-standing heel champ Bayley to confront babyface champ Bianca isn't surprising, but Sasha Banks has disappeared without the inevitable rematch. I'm almost surprised they haven't pushed a feud between the women's champs, who were the finalists in the Rumble match earlier this year. Of course, Ripley has an incentive to go after Charlotte Flair, who had taken her NXT belt.
