Yesterday I took my Mom to Miracle Ear and she decided to purchase a new remote for her hearing aids. We put it on her Discover. Later I got an email from Discover.
Cursing I logged on to my Mom’s account. For the life of me, I couldn’t find a way to change the limit. I used the link in the email but that took me to a place to change my notifications. I searched the fucking site with the word “limits.” But no hits.
Finally I just assumed that it’s still going to pay this amount, it’s just set-up probably by default to notify the card owner if a transaction is over a certain amount.
I was laying in bed this morning pleasantly tired but enjoying laying there. I wanted to keep my body in bed a bit longer, so I attempted to load Michigan Radio’s web site to stream NPR.
No internet.
This is the first time this has happened since installing my new modem. Sigh.
After a short while I was so annoyed I had to get up and problem solve the dam thing.
I looked in the material that came with it. It said to turn the new unit off and restart. Of course there was no on/off button. The instructions appeared to be a generic set for several different kinds of modems. Undeterred I unplugged it.
That didn’t work so I called Comcast to find out from their annoying robot that cable and internet is down and my area shortly to be restored.
Earlier this week I was ordering pizza online. The operator’s computer was slow and then he gasped. Oh no! He said, my computer’s just gone down.
I mention all this to illustrate something that has occurred to me which is that tech is no more efficient at providing us services than anything else I have experienced in my life. Plus we all just take it for granted that to use tech is to be inconvenienced.
I used to assume that the reason I had just trouble with tech was that I couldn’t afford the state of the art best stuff which i assume the dam geeks who make this shit use to test it.
But even with state of the art if you called to order a pizza (or talk to ANY service provider on line in person) one routinely runs into the sigh and then both the caller and service provider understand that one is once again using up minutes of ones life waiting for a fucking computer.
Steven Pinker’s ‘The Sense of Style’ – NYTimes.com
This book looks like fun. Link is to book review of it.
Zephyr Teachout’s ‘Corruption in America’ – NYTimes.com
Another book that looks good to me.
Some quotes from the review:
Citizens United, “took that which had been named corrupt for over 200 years” — which is to say, gifts to politicians — “and renamed it legitimate.”
Historic Loss May Follow Rise of Rents in Barcelona – NYTimes.com
Barcelona a city I have visited has a wonderful historic charm. This will fix that.
Pumpkin Festival Takes a Menacing Turn – NYTimes.com
My brother lives in Keene.
Cuba’s Impressive Role on Ebola – NYTimes.com
Did you know that Cuba routinely sends medical help to hurting countries?
Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K. – NYTimes.com
Paul Krugman puts the Amazon stuff in perspective.