Tag: technology

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THE DREADED UNSUBSCRIBE CHORE

Why do I still have AOL?  It’s crazy, I know.  Very outdated.  The Democrats  made fun of Mike Pence because he still uses it.  But there are too many people from my past who still  contact me that way, and I think it’s too late in my life to change my e mail. Here’s the bad thing:  AOL has some way of connecting me to every website I’ve ever visited, and  places where I’ve purchased anything.  Not only that, the politicians have wormed their way in,  and  dog me  for contributions to causes and people I really don’t care about.  Every so often, after receiving about 100 emails a day, I find myself faced with the dreaded unsubscribe chore.

 

The dreaded unsubscribe chose. It's tedious to unsubscribe.
The dreaded unsubscribe chore. It’s a tedious task, but every so often it’s necessary.

Do you know how to cut down on those unwanted e mails?  I didn’t ,  until I read about it in Heloise. You  know, the lady newspaper columnist who tells you exciting ways to re purpose toilet paper rolls.   At any rate, Heloise said that first, you open the dreaded e mail.  Then, you scroll to the bottom of the page.  Put on your glasses, get a flashlight, and squint at the fine print.  Somewhere in there it says,” unsubscribe.”  You click on that.  And, if you’re lucky,  you will receive a message that you’re unsubscribed.

But it doesn’t always work out so easily.  Often, you will be directed to another message which demands to know why you’re unsubscribing, and making you verify that you honestly don’t want to get any more emails from them.  Or, they ask you to key in your email address–as if they didn’t know.  After you’ve done  that about 30 times a , it gets tiresome and time consuming.  Sometimes,  they’ll tell you that it may take a while to get unsubscribed, and not to worry if you still  keep getting emails from them .  That’s a sneaky way to keep you from losing track of who you’ve unsubscribed. The truth is, some of them will never let you go.

At any rate, today’s the day to start the dreaded unsubscribe chore.  I will only give it an hour of my time, which won’t even scratch the surface.  But you have to start somewhere.

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ARE DIGITAL COUPONS FOR DUMMIES?

Are you confused by digital coupons?  Are they worth the bother?  I guess it depends on your motivation to save money.    Navigating  the logistics of digital coupons presents a unique challenge.   If you  decide to get in the game, you’ll need technical skills, patience, and good reading ability.  It’s easier if you start with the ads in the Sunday paper, but if you have the time, you can download the ads on your computer or smart phone.   But are digital coupons for dummies? 

I didn’t used to be much of a coupon person.  In the old days, people got coupons in newspapers and magazines. .  My then mother-in-law was a coupon junkie.  Her cupboards were loaded with strange or  unappetizing products which she’d acquired by use of coupons. She knew to the penny, and was proud to say , how much she  had saved. .  She arrived at this figure by adding up the value of all the  coupons she had redeemed. . Never mind that she had bought overpriced products that she seldom consumed. .  To her, it was the bottom line that mattered

However, I saw things differently.   It seemed to me that clipping and redeeming coupons wasn’t worth the effort.

Then, along came the covid-19 pandemic.  Now, I was looking for  ways to pass the time while socially isolated. . Unfortunately, newspapers have become less interesting. They’ve cut staff , so there isn’t much” hard news“.  And what’s there  is slanted according to the bias of the editorial staff.  They’re printing more “ soft news” in  what we used to call fillers—long, two and three page human interest  stories devoted to animals, diseases and causes.  Pretty dull stuff.

Are digital coupons for dummies? You have to have some tech skills to use them.
Are digital coupons for dummies? You have to have patience and tech skills to use them.

So, there I am on a Sunday morning, desperately seeking some entertainment from the morning newspaper.  Comics and sports pages really don’t do it.  Suddenly,, the pharmacy  and supermarket pages  draw my interest.  It’s a challenge to sift through the various offers.  If you buy five of this or that, there’s a dollar to be saved.  Then, there’s BOGO (buy one get one free). And finally, the most complex offer of all, digital coupons.

Digital coupons aren’t for the time limited  or technologically unskilled person.  You’ll need to log in to the store’s  website with your email address, and then create a password which you will quickly forget.  With a sinking heart, you know you’re now on their list.  You’ll be getting emails from them  ad infinitum. Anyway, put on your  glasses and scroll through the digital coupon offers.  Read the fine print. Often, it says you must buy two, five, or nine of the product in order to save a dollar or less.

When you get to the store, you forget exactly what the offer entailed.  If you ask the checkout clerk why the coupon didn’t download on your rewards card or pin, it’s because you had to buy more than one. Or the offer ended yesterday.  Now , you have a  choice. Turn it back in—looking like a cheapskate—or pay the full price.  It’s just one of the tricks of the trade

Buyer Beware: digital coupons are not for dummies

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Mourning A National Tragedy

We’re in shock this morning. Our hearts go out to the victims of the mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, and the lives that have been changed forever. We’re mourning a national tragedy.

This is a national day of mourning
GRIEVING FOR THE VICTIMS OF THIS WEEKEND OF TRAGEDY

Why do these things happen? I don’t remember any mass shootings while  raising my children. Some  presidential candidates are now politicizing the shootings.  But forty years ago  we had Democrats and Republicans and Jim Crow Laws and the Vietnam War.  Mental illness was widely prevalent,  but  poorly understood or treated.  And there was very little gun control.

This is what we didn’t have: the internet.  There were no violent video games so readily available, desensitizing young men to violence.  No one had a Facebook account,  where people could brag and make other people envious. There was no Instagram or Twitter where you could publicly  shame or bully someone to the point of suicide.   Now, Instead of face to face relationships and real  conversations, everyone just texts.  We’ve almost forgotten  what it’s like to talk to a real live person.

Technology has changed our world and done wondrous things for our society.  But it’s also dehumanized us to the point where violence has become the norm.

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TEENAGE ANGST & SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

The word “teenager” didn’t even exist until the early 1950’s.  Before that, teen aged children had some pretty serious things on their minds.  Their parents were just coming out of the depression and World War II.  Many teens were  lucky to have a roof over their head and 3 meals a day.  They made their own entertainment, playing ball, and outdoor games like Kick The Can.   They  didn’t have cell phones or cars or laptops.  And they didn’t take guns to school.  Now, teenage angst and school shootings are on the rise.

tEENAGERS SPEND TOO MUCH TIME WITH TECHNOLOGY
BEFORE THE RISE OF THE WORLD WIDE INTERNET, TEENS DIDN’T SPEND HOURS PLAYING VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

Most teenagers in the early 50’s had after school or weekend jobs.  We bought out own clothes ( or made them) and paid our own way to the movies.  Since we hung out at the drug store when we weren’t working,  we saved up for money to buy cokes and milkshakes.  If someone borrowed their parent’s car, they were expected to pay for their own gas.  Most moms didn’t work, so if  Dad lost his job,  the teen had to help out with food and other basics.

Some of our high school classmates were Jewish or Catholic World War II refugees,  from places like Germany and Poland.

What kinds of job did kids have? For girls, mostly baby sitting until you were fifteen.  After that, you could get a sales job at a department store.  Guys mowed lawns and worked as stock boys. If the dad had his own business, a boy was expected to work there on weekends if he wanted extra money to take his girlfriend out on a date.  Restaurants were mostly locally owned, and there were no fast food franchises like McDonald’s where teens could work.

My country cousins had guns.  They hunted in the woods and shot rattlesnakes.  A gun was a necessity for protection if you were isolated on a farm.  Generally speaking, city boys did not have guns.

Fast forward to 1990, the year when the World Wide Internet was established.  In a comparatively affluent society (compared to 1950) kids stayed home and played on the internet. They sent e mails. watched porn, and learned about guns.  Instead of going to a movie once a week, they could watch TV every day, and see lots of violence in action . Then, in 2004, along came Facebook.

Beginning in 1998,  school shootings began to increase. During the 20th century, mass school shootings killed 55 people and injured 260 others at schools,  especially in America’s Western region. Most of the 25 shooters involved were white males who acted alone, and only nine were diagnosed as suffering from mental illnesses at the time. Sixty percent of shooters were between 11 and 18 years old.

It’s getting worse in the 21st century. According to a recent study,  more people have died or been injured in mass school shootings in the US in the past 18 years than in the entire 20th century.

Here’s how it looks from here.   Teenagers today have too much of everything, including leisure time to bully each other on Facebook, have sex, play violent video games, and yes, think about taking a gun to school and shooting someone because they’re suffering from “teenage angst.”

Is gun control the answer to the problem?  Or is there something wrong with the way kids are being raised today?