Personal Blogs

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Windows on the World

[3 minute read ] 

Opinion

Oh my good Crikeyness. I have spent most of the day poking Windows 10 with a long stick. It is the slowest and most cumbersome operating system i have ever had the displeasure to deal with. It constantly wants to update and sucks up loads of internet bandwidth. YouTube videos freeze or buffer or something. Well, there is a periodic 'brrrrrr' noise every four of five seconds or so. What is that about? 'Starman' by David Bowie slipped into my head in the kitchen a couple of days ago and I thought I would have a little listen. 'Will You' by Toyah Wilcox was also on the cards for the sax-solo. My Windows 10 has a Spotify link buried in it and I thought why not. What a palaver! 

Of course, I don't usually use MicroSoft products or services in the course of my daily life. I mean, who would, when they have three identical laptops that run Linux operating systems that are phenomenally fast? The important thing is they don't try to update all the time. Why would they? It is a complete waste of time. It is not hackers that we need to be wary of; it is large corporations like Google, Amazon, and MicroSoft that are the data pirates. Knowledge is power and they sell advertising by offering the appropriate targets to other businesses. 

Sadly, Joe and Joanne Public are not interested in securing their private and personal information so websites like Spotify pretend to do it for us by have the two-stage security check. Namely, they send an email with a six digit code for people to enter online so they can log in. Cookies are already on the device that can read the email password as it is typed in. Why do you think I have multiple laptops? The one that is online is never the one that I get my emails on. Duh! Also, I use a SIM with unlimited data to access the internet from my laptops, so it seems like I am using a phone until websites interrogate my browser and devices. 

Anyway, it took longer to get into Spotify than it took to fire up a second laptop and access 'Starman' via YouTube. How nuts is that? Windows needed to spend half an hour checking for updates and installing them which completely stopped me using the operating system for anything else.

Even my local Council needs my telephone number and email address in an online form to report that I don't have a food-waste caddy while all my neighbours do. Ultimately, it wouldn't allow me to report a missing caddy because It said it had never been delivered. I had to phone the Council, who only needed my address to tell me that the log says the caddies were delivered to my home. Oh goodness! What do you say to the A.I. voice that answers the phone to trick it into letting you speak to a real person and not be directed to a website with another  link sent to my SmartPhone; a device that is most assuredly, and strictly, denied access to the internet? I tell you, even I ummed and ahhed today.

Of course, I know who has my caddies; my neighbour, the one whose spirit used to loom over me while I tried to sleep. There is some evidence that points to him being the weirdo thief. Today, he put one caddy out, for the refuse collectors to collect, that had no food waste in it. Instead he had put plastic and cardboard in it! They flung it to the floor and he will never figure out why they didn't empty it. We all received an advisory pamphlet a couple of weeks ago. Someone like that would be likely to assume that anything that is outside my home belongs to him simply because there is never any package outside my home. My neighbour, Sally, has to hide the eggs when she leaves them by my doorstep for me, in case he takes a fancy to them. There is no point in asking him if he stole my caddies, he would just lie anyway. He lies like he is ten years old in a school playground, you know lies mixed with fantasised insults like, 'You pooed your pants' except he says 'You are drunk', when no-one is. He refuses to believe I am an undergraduate. He doesn't have a degree and so I am definitely not going to get one because I am way more stupid than he is; everyone is, don't you know? He is the one who tried to cut wet eighteen inch tall grass with a  push-mower. I would not believe it if I hadn't witnessed it myself. Anyway, I wrote a sign warning the other neighbours that there is a porch-pirate in our road and that their pets are not safe. Well, sort of.

Is nothing safe any more? My online safety protocols are constantly eroded by more and more security checks that require me to reveal more and more about me to the very people who will absolutely exploit the information. It is all entirely normal though. Let's assume that I am not stupid enough to tell a third party logistics business my telephone number and email address when I did not order something to be delivered. How come then the business that delivers the OU course books knows my contact details. GDPR has not just been eroded but tossed of the White cliffs of Dover. Is there any wonder that I never look at my phone for messages or even carry it from room to room at home. Since I bought it two years ago it has never even left my home. Why would it? I have three laptops an external monitor, and Unlimited Data on a SIM that all the laptops can use through one laptop acting as a hub with a dongle. Duh!