complaints, music, videos, YouTube

Why do “user friendly” applications have to be so unfriendly?

I swear, I’m not a “boomer”, nor am I a member of the “greatest generation”… I’m sitting here having flashbacks to the late 1990s, when my dad struggled to send emails and would call the local computer wizard to help him with that basic task. So many of us tried and failed to teach him that skill. It got so bad that the local computer wizard quit answering my dad’s calls!

No… I’m not THERE yet… But I do seem to be having some issues with iMovie that I didn’t used to have.

On my travel blog today, I wrote a post about how I made a new music video starring our dog, Noyzi. This is something I’ve done dozens of times over the years. I bought my first iMac in 2011, and although no one ever taught me how to use iMovie, I quickly figured out how it operated. I made a whole bunch of YouTube videos, most of which didn’t feature my visage at all.

It wasn’t until some months ago that I finally decided to make music videos that show my face. Surprisingly enough, the videos that show me tend to do better, even if I think pretty scenery and pictures of my dogs are much more beautiful than I am. But, as I explained in my travel blog a few days ago, I had a really nasty looking “bloody eyeball” bruise over the weekend that was kind of disturbing to look at. It was mostly healed yesterday, when I decided to make a new video, but the song I recorded just really lent itself to using clips of Noyzi, insteading of my homely mug. So I recorded the audio portion of the video, then went off to iMovie, to make the visual part.

I tried to drag photos and clips from my photos into the editor. None of them would import. I got one of those circles with the diagonal lines through them when I tried. I went looking for an explanation and a solution. I found a few suggestions, most of which involved granting permissions, moving media into the application, rebooting my computer, updating software, and changing security settings. I did all of that, but today, I still can’t make videos the way I used to.

Another hindrance is the fact that everything help related seems to be made in a video, rather in a written article, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Yesterday, I was finding that I had to keep stopping and starting the videos I tried to watch in order to help myself, flipping back and forth to try to fix the issue. Ultimately, my efforts failed, anyway.

I created yesterday’s video using my trusty laptop. I don’t like to make videos on that, because I don’t have a mouse for it. I did have one for my old laptop, but I so seldom used it that I didn’t bother to get one for my newer one. Consequently, it’s a real pain to try to maneuver things on my laptop, and it makes creating videos all the more annoying. I did manage to succeed yesterday, though. I thought maybe I could just make the visual part on the laptop and send it to my desktop, but no dice… the video would NOT load into my iMovie app. I got the infuriating circle with a line through it and the message that I “didn’t have permission”. Grrr… it’s my computer and MY photos, dammit!

So then I airdropped my audio track to the laptop and created the video that way. It’s now on YouTube, doing fairly decently in terms of engagement. And today, I’m looking into seeing what I can do to fix the settings on my newest computer, so I don’t have to use the laptop the next time I don’t want to video directly from my desktop machine.

I’m sure there are better video editing software programs out there, but as I’m not a technogeek, I have no desire to try to find a new program and figure it out. In the past, I’ve bought new software, only to never use it, because I couldn’t quickly and easily figure out how it worked. I just want the Apple software to work easily. Is that too much to ask?

Some people are fascinated by techie stuff. Figuring things out is exciting and fun for them. I am fascinated by figuring certain things out, too… but mastering computers isn’t among my passions. I wish it was. It might make me more employable. Some people really have a real gift for mastering any and all gadgets, but I am definitely not one of them. I could probably make videos on my old desktop, but I relegated it to light duty for good reason. It’s kind of on its last legs.

Anyway… I’m sure the issue plaguing me is a minor thing. It’s just annoying, is all. But it’s not as annoying as the prospect of vacuuming the house, which is today’s dreaded chore. Guess I’d better get on that.

By the way… I’m dealing with a petty annoyance on my travel blog, too. For some reason, it won’t let me use certain category tags on my posts. For instance, if I try to tag a post with “Germany” or “dogs” or certain other categories, it will automatically revert to “uncategorized”. It doesn’t do that for all categories, just certain ones. It’s very annoying, but not as annoying as contacting tech support. I just wish things would WORK properly!

Edited to add… I ended up deleting iMovie and reinstalling it, and Final Cut. Final Cut, which I hadn’t even had on this computer (I bought it for my old one), was giving me the same weird error. It finally let me move a clip, but presented it as a still photo instead of a video. But then I tried iMovie again, and that time it worked. Why it suddenly worked is a mystery, but for now, my issue is resolved. All’s well that ends well… for now, anyway. 😀

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condescending twatbags, family, music, narcissists, politicians, politics

Pseudogranny and Ron DeSadist both strike again!

Today is turning out to be a slightly better day than yesterday was. For one thing, I think I’m FINALLY done moving most of my music collection. So far today, I’ve spent a little under four hours on this project. BUT– it does appear that I might be about done with the job, at long last. I may run across a few greyed out songs or whatever, but there are a lot fewer now than there were even 24 hours ago.

For another thing, younger daughter sent the most adorable video this morning. Back in late March, Bill and I visited Hohenzollern for the second time in our lives. Hohenzollern, for those who don’t know, is a beautiful castle in the hamlet of Hechingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. After our visit, I told Bill I thought we should see if they had any cute souvenirs for his grandkids. We picked up a few items, but it took several weeks before Bill finally managed to mail the box. It arrived yesterday, so younger daughter videoed the kids opening the box and reacting to the gifts.

We bought a little stuffed hedgehog for the youngest, who just turned one. Hedgehogs in the wild aren’t really a thing in the USA, but we have them in Europe. In fact, there’s one who lives in our backyard and appears every August.

For the granddaughter, we bought a purple and white princess dress. It has a metal ring hoop, so it’s poofed out. Younger daughter says her daughter is very girly and has lots of costume dresses, but she probably didn’t have one that came from an actual castle (actually, it came from Canada, according to the label). Anyway, she put it on and loved it. It looks like she has some growing room, too, so that’s a good thing!

And finally, for the oldest, we got a wooden sword and shield. The shield says “Hohenzollern Berg” on it. When he saw it in the box, he grabbed it, closed his eyes, and hugged it to his chest with a big smile and an exclamation that he’d been wanting a sword. His reaction was just so adorable! Younger daughter said that he’d been wanting a sword, but we didn’t know that when we were at the castle. It was a lucky guess. Pseudogranny strikes again! 😉

We also sent Haribo candies– gummies and whatnot. That made younger daughter excited! There was also a 3-D postcard in there, but hopefully it didn’t get tossed out. I don’t think she noticed it, because it was in the bag with the hedgehog. Bill had quite an ordeal trying to send the box. The postal system has gotten a lot stricter about the labels on packages going through the APO system. Probably the best part of the gift was the bubble wrap Bill used.

So… that video put me in a good mood. I like to see the grandkids happy!

Then I read about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, aka Ron DeSadist… Well, technically, what I read wasn’t about ol’ Ron. He hasn’t officially taken “credit” for the second plane full of migrants that landed in California yesterday. The planes were reportedly affiliated with a Florida based company called Vertol Systems Company Inc. The contractor that carried the migrants was participating in the migrant transportation system administered by Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.

Now, it would be sketchy enough if the migrants had come from Florida, but they were actually picked up in Texas and brought to New Mexico, where they were put on planes to California’s state capital, Sacramento, and dumped at a church. Again, DeSantis hasn’t commented on this situation, but his hands are all over it.

Ron DeSantis has pulled this shit before. Last year, he was behind sending a group of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts from Texas. Some governors think this is an appropriate way to protest what they see as Joe Biden’s lack of action in stopping illegal immigration. When I read or hear about these political stunts, it just makes me sick. I would NEVER vote for a politician that thinks this is okay, even though those people who were sent to California are probably going to be better off in the long run. The more I hear about this shit, the more I think most Republicans are not only brain dead, but they lack heart, too. They certainly aren’t behaving like Christians.

Does DeSantis not realize that these are human beings he’s using as political pawns? These are people who are looking for a better life. Very few Americans can claim that they originated in the United States. Most of us are descended from immigrants. I think it’s reprehensible that DeSantis and his like minded political pals find it acceptable to round up people and send them to places where local officials aren’t prepared to receive them.

Personally, I think Ron DeSantis and his like minded pals should be arrested and prosecuted for human trafficking. He certainly has no business being president, either. I am SO SICK of the political shit show instigated by Trump, his MAGA moron posse, and all of the wannabes, like DeSantis. I hate the idea of any of them leading the United States. I would like to see some REAL CONSEQUENCES handed down to these idiots who use human beings in this way, just to rile up the people who still think Trump is some kind of god.

I really think that living in Germany has made me more empathetic toward immigrants. I know my situation isn’t quite the same as theirs is, but I am struck by how welcoming most Germans have been to Bill and me. I think of how I would feel if some political asswipe decided to send me to some other German city just to make a point to political rivals. That just sucks… and it’s shameful. I hope the new arrivals will be treated with more kindness and humanity, in any case.

Of course, now Pence has also joined the fray… I think 2024 is going to be an epic political shitshow. I probably need to see a doctor soon, but honestly, I’m so tired of this crap that I think I might just let the chips fall where they may. The sooner I get beamed up, the better.

But, at least the grandkids had reason to smile, right? And my music library is mostly fixed. So those are two good things that happened. Now, I think I will take Noyzi for a walk… try to burn off some of my beer gut… 😉 (and yes, Susanne, walking can help burn off a beer gut.)

Featured photo is a shot of the video we watched. That was the shield we got for oldest grandkid. It came with a sword.

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first world problems, modern problems, music, technology

I feel the terrible “STING” of moving Sting’s music to my new computer…

I’m getting a late start on today’s blog post, because I spent the morning trying to move more of my music collection from my old computer. It mostly went smoothly, until I got to Sting. I have tons of music by Sting, and that seemed to complicate matters a lot. I have multiple copies of several albums, along with different versions of the same albums. I kept trying to put them on my external hard drive, so they could be moved, only to find that either the albums didn’t make it onto the drive, or I got partial albums.

Making matters worse was the fact that every time I tried to move the damned files, duplicates were generated on the old computer. And even then, it was a crap shoot as to whether or not they’d successfully migrate to the hard drive, even when I tried to check.

I know this is a first world problem, but moving these files is legitimately a real pain in the ass. I have to get up from my chair to go to the other computer, which doesn’t have a chair. Then I stand there and wait for the colorful wheel to stop spinning so things won’t be frozen. After awhile, I got the bright idea to delete some of the duplicate files, only to find that I accidentally permanently erased a few of them.

iTunes won’t let me replace the lost tracks, because they’re already purchased. Amazon won’t let me buy MP3 albums here, because I have a US based credit card, but I live in the German market. And I have a US Apple account, so I can’t buy from the German store. Even if I wanted to do that, I’d still have the credit card issue. Sometimes, I can use PayPal to get around that kind of stuff, but it was all just getting way too annoying and complicated. And sometimes there are other editions of an album available that can be purchased, but there I was no such luck for the album I messed up today. So I ended up buying an actual CD so I can manually replace the lost files.

Hopefully, my Superdrive CD-ROM peripheral will still work properly. I’m not sure if I managed to move everything else I have by Sting today, but I simply had to quit trying. My mood was progressively getting worse by the minute.

The good news is, I don’t have too much further to go in order to be done with this “project”. I managed to get to the Ts, my trials with Sting notwithstanding. So, hopefully, I will be finished with moving my music tomorrow. Then I can make new playlists. I might have said “fuck it” regarding Sting, but he happens to be a big favorite of mine. I have some pretty great stuff by him, some of which is rare. I’m not willing to sacrifice a thing.

I’m sure I could probably send Apple a note and see if they might make it possible to download those files again on the new computer. However, as much as I’d like to be practical and save some money, my concern is that it would take too much time and effort to deal with customer service.

You know… as much as I like how easy and convenient it is to download music, and as nice as it is not to have to find places for physical CDs, I will say that using CDs was a lot easier. Plus, once you own the CD, you have the music for as long as the CD lasts. I don’t want to join Apple or Amazon Music, because I don’t want to rent my music. Plus, I don’t want them fucking up or with the files I have. Some of my most cherished MP3s date back to Napster circa 2000.

So anyway… because of this project, I don’t have anything else to write about today. Sorry to have wasted your time. 😉 Maybe I could rant about how it’s 2023, and I’m having to waste so much time on this shit. Why wasn’t all of this automatically moved on the cloud? iTunes/Apple Music really sucks on many levels for multiple reasons.

But there are lots of other useful posts in this blog… and other blogs on the Information Superhighway. I now feel the overwhelming urge to go lie down somewhere and try to decompress. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be back with something more exciting to share.

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Bill, communication, divorce, family, narcissists, psychology

“I never said it would be easy…”

I’m happy to report that I finally got my new computer going yesterday. The new VESA monitor arm arrived in the afternoon. Although the Invision 450 arm was significantly less expensive than the Ergotron model I bought last week, it was a much better purchase. I did have to put more parts together, but they were very sturdy and the process was straightforward. I didn’t have to use any YouTube videos to figure out anything. In fact, the Invision had very clear instructions and diagrams that were obviously written by someone fluent in English. So, I am very pleased with that purchase, and I’m enjoying my new computer.

Naturally, the new computer needs to be broken in, which means transferring a lot of files and upgrading equipment. I finally retired some nice Bose speakers I’ve been using for about nine years. This morning, I should be getting another Minipod to use with the one I bought a few weeks ago. That will give me a nice stereo sound in my office. Edited to add: I just figured out how to use the old Bose speakers, too… so my sound system is gonna be bangin’!

Since a lot of my music is from CDs that can’t be easily moved to the new computer, I think I might repurpose my old computer for just media tasks. I ordered a new table to put in my office so I can set up the old computer for that use. I think, once everything is set up, it’ll be very nice. However, all of this change doesn’t come without significant ass pain and inconvenience. Like they say in the LDS church… “I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be ‘worth it’… “. Or something along those lines.

Yesterday, I wrote about the “truth bombs” I delivered to younger daughter. I ended up sending her three emails. The first was a brief explanation about why her dad and I never had our own children. The second was to tell her the dogs are fine. And the third was an apology for not acknowledging younger daughter’s own struggles with having children of her own. I got so caught up explaining about the vasectomy and the reversal that I forgot to acknowledge her pain. So my third email was to do that, and to let her know how happy Bill and I both are to be talking to her after all these years of no contact.

Last night, we watched a video of younger daughter sautéing mushrooms in butter. She wanted to know if we like mushrooms. Bill loves them and told her so. I hate them, and told her so. Apparently, younger daughter’s husband, father-in-law, and two older kids don’t like them, either. Her baby likes mushrooms. We explained about my issues with mycophobia, which is a literal phobia of mushrooms.

Then, after he responded to the video about mushrooms, Bill made another video about what I had sent younger daughter in the first email. He explained in a lot more detail about why he had chosen to have a vasectomy. Younger daughter was surprisingly empathic about everything. She spoke about how her mother didn’t take care of her children. That was left up to Bill’s daughters, who had to look after the youngest two children or else they would be neglected.

Younger daughter said that when her mother stopped working, she would stay up until 5:00am and then sleep until noon. And that meant no adults were conscious to take care of the youngest kids. Of course, some of the stories Bill told were surprising to her, too. Like, I don’t think she knew about the time Ex traded in the family car and bought two more– a VW Euro Van for herself and a Miata for Bill. She did things like that a lot– spending money they didn’t have on things they didn’t really need. It meant financial ruin, and that was the state Bill was in when we met. It took years to recover from it.

In the course of the conversation about childbirth and Ex’s tendency to wig out from the pain, younger daughter said that Ex had epidurals for her youngest two and there was no trauma involved with their births. Why she didn’t do that for the three eldest kids, I don’t know. The two eldest were born in military hospitals, but younger daughter wasn’t. I can’t understand why she wouldn’t have had epidurals for all of their births, especially given her history reacting to pain. But… I have a feeling that was probably about attention seeking.

One thing younger daughter mentioned was that Ex would do things like “swoon”. Like, one time, Ex just randomly fell over, like she had fainted. But it didn’t appear to be an actual collapse. Other times, when she would try to speak to her mother in the mornings, Ex would open her eyes, then close them again… as if she was asleep. Younger daughter knew she was faking it, but the message was that she should go away and fend for herself.

Then she said something along the lines of, “I don’t know why she would have such a big family if she didn’t even really want to be a mom to us.”

I can tell her the answer to that question. If Ex is a narcissist, as I strongly suspect she is, she doesn’t see other people as individuals, worthy of regard. They are mere tools to her… extensions of herself. That’s why everyone in her sphere is Facebook friends with other people she knows. Her children with Bill are “friends” with Ex’s first husband, people in Bill’s family, and people in #3’s family. They aren’t “friends” with me or Bill, though, because we’ve been “painted black”. Ex won’t get anything from us, so we’re “bad”.

Younger daughter would probably happily be friends with Bill and me, if it didn’t mean huge drama with her mom. Bill has to be punished severely for not obeying her whims… for taking care of himself and his needs, rather than catering to hers. I don’t know why #1 still speaks to Ex. She denied him contact with his son for about twenty years. But I see that he and #3 are “friends” on social media.

I also think that of all of the people in Ex’s life, Bill was the most devastating to lose. He has more earning power than the other two husbands combined. He has the most stable family. He’s the best educated, and frankly, the best looking. He probably treated her the best, too. She pushed him too far, so he had to get away from her. She probably sees me as the mean girl who stole her favorite toy. She probably thinks of Bill as her property that was cruelly taken from her, rather than discarded. So, because her ego is injured, she paints us as “black”… evil people who didn’t appreciate Ex’s specialness.

I’m sure she blames Bill for a lot of her problems, including being married to #3. If he had just realized her divorce proposal was “high drama” that she didn’t actually mean. If he had only not agreed to her demand for a divorce and simply acquiesced to her, just as he’d always done in the past… If Bill had only continued to be loyal to her, even though she was cheating on him with #3, right down to moving him into the money pit house that she had to have because it looked like one she’d seen in a snow globe.

Bill was paying for that house, and had probably paid for the bed she and #3 were fucking in, while she was still married to Bill. That didn’t matter, though… and the fact that he still had a scintilla of self respect after almost ten years with her was more than she could take. She couldn’t admit that she was being dramatic and work toward a compromise… change some of her habits and be a better partner. No… she had to “save face”. Lucky for me.

I came along at a time when Bill was being cast out. She was trying to teach him a lesson… force him to “rock bottom”. I ruined everything for her. Or, at least that’s how she sees it. She thought he would come crawling back to her. Instead, he fell into my arms, emotionally battered, mentally bruised, physically scarred, and financially beaten. I’ve seen Ex on Twitter, apparently showing empathy to women in bad relationships. She never lets on what a sadistic partner she is, and how anyone in her sphere is basically in her own private cult. She’s always a victim.

One thing I’ve noticed when I listen to younger daughter speak is that she never refers to Ex as simply “Mom”. She calls her “my mother”. This morning, when she was responding to Bill’s video, she said “It’s sad you can’t have a family because of ‘your wife’.” At first, I thought she was talking about me, but it was soon clear that she was referring to her mother in that way. She doesn’t want to acknowledge Ex as her mother. She’s trying very hard to distance herself from her mother. I’m sure there are many layers of pain there on younger daughter’s side… things that we haven’t even scratched the surface of yet. We may never get there.

I know that younger daughter knows Bill is telling the truth, too… as outrageous as the stories are at times. She knows he’s being truthful, because she’s seen the craziness firsthand. She’s experienced it in person. As a child, she found it easier to ignore, because it was just life to her. Just as I’ve come to realize, so has she– when you become an adult, your eyes open to the truth. You start to realize the truth about people that you might have, at one time, had great love, respect, and admiration for. You start to realize that they’re just as frail and human as you, yourself, are… and some are more damaged and dysfunctional than you ever knew.

I used to think Ex was just a mean, nasty person. Now, I think that besides being mean, she’s also truly very mentally ill, and she’s done some things that may very well eventually land her in a place where she will be exposed to other mentally ill people. It’s because of enablers like her children and husbands that she’s never had to face the consequences of her actions. I think her day is coming, though. Bill isn’t the only one who’s had enough.

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modern problems, technology, YouTube

Keeping it simple, stupid…

This week, I mentioned that I’ve been trying to make my home “smarter”. I’m not a particularly tech savvy person, so making my home smarter mostly entails doing very simple things. I replaced twelve light bulbs with smart bulbs. Now, I have twelve lights that can be controlled by an app on my phone. Not only can I turn them on with my phone or iPad, but I can program them to turn on or off, light up in different colors or intensities, or even set them to music. Cool, huh? Well… this new “upgrade” hasn’t come without glitches.

For the past two nights, one of the lamps in my bedroom has been inexplicably turning on at midnight. I don’t know why. I can’t see any evidence that I programmed the lamp to turn on at midnight. I don’t even use that lamp very often.

Bill has had trouble adding all of the lamps to his app. Yesterday, he called up to me and asked me to use my phone to turn on the light for him, because his phone wouldn’t load the bulb into his app, for some reason. Now… I have discovered that we can turn the lights on and off the old fashioned way, but that may cause them to go “offline”, which potentially means adding them to the app again. I don’t know… I’m still learning. At my age, learning this kind of stuff is a challenge.

I remember when I was a teenager, my parents bought their first VCR. For the longest time, I was the only one who could program it. Now I know how they felt.

I bought some smart power strips and outlets, too. From what I can tell, I can use these to shut off power when we aren’t using something without having to unplug the device. That can be an energy saver, which means lower electric bills. I can also program things to turn on and off by using my app. Like, if I wanted to, I could set up the coffee maker with ground coffee and water every night and program it to turn on at a certain time. I could come downstairs to fresh coffee every morning, rather than waiting for Bill to make it. Cool, huh?

It is kind of exciting to be able to direct appliances to work from my phone. But there’s also a beauty to watching Bill make coffee every morning. He does it so well. In fact, he takes great pride in making coffee. Automating the process wouldn’t necessarily change the process. He’d still have to grind the coffee and put the water in the tank. All the power strip would do is hit the switch remotely, so the coffee gets made while we’re doing our morning routines. It sounds convenient, but it could be more trouble than it’s worth.

Yesterday, I read a distressing article written by a professional copywriter. He says his job is now threatened by AI (artificial intelligence) technology– specifically ChatGPT. ChatGPT was able to create good copy in thirty seconds for free. The same copy would have taken the human being hours to create and he would have charged over $500. Henry Williams, the author of the piece wrote:

The developers admit that the software still has limitations. It tends towards the verbose and repetitive (“honing my craft and perfecting my ability to craft”), and minor changes to question phrasing can be the difference between an amazing response and no response at all. The more we use it, however, the better it will become. As ChatGPT told me, it can already “replicate the writing styles of different authors” and “even be trained to mimic the tone and voice of a particular brand or organization”.

I use YouTube daily, and it’s scary how many channels use AI to create robotic sounding content. Every day, it seems like fewer human beings are involved in the process of writing articles and making videos. Some of the AI generated content is downright horrible, but I have run across some videos that are almost indistinguishable from content made entirely by a living, breathing, human. It’s also been used for creating music “in the style of…” How creepy it is to think of a computer program creating music that sounds like that made by a real person?

This morning, Bill told me about how AI has now managed to pass state bar exams– the tests that actual lawyers often fail with ease. And just now, I found an article about how AI was almost used to fight parking tickets in court. Angry lawyers protested. Who could blame them? That technology could put their livelihoods in jeopardy! I’ve also read about how students can now use AI to write papers, which makes a teacher’s job more difficult. Isn’t it bad enough that teachers have to worry about being shot while they’re teaching? Do we have to add AI to the mix, too?

I have nothing against technology. There are some things robots do better than people. I’m sure, for instance, that robots might be better at certain surgeries than humans are. There’s less worry about human frailties or failures, like shaking hands, fatigue, or emotions getting in the way. But as intelligent as machines and computers can be made to be, they have to be mastered by humans. Otherwise, what good are we?

It used to be that people had to go places to go shopping. They had to interact with other people. There was a human being to ring up the sale and bag the item. Now, a lot of us shop online, and our interaction might come if we happen to see the delivery person… and no one steals our stuff from the porch. Automated cashiers have made it possible to go shopping for groceries and check yourself out. That might seem convenient enough, but it also means that one less person has a job. I don’t like using self checkout lanes, either, because I find that they often mess up the transaction and the process ends up taking longer

I’m sure my angst is for nothing. People have been lamenting “progress” forever. As a writer and musician, though, it does kind of disturb me that AI is getting “too good”. If AI can do in seconds what I do in hours, what’s the point of getting up every day? Are we living in The Jetsons age, now?

One more thing… My friend Thomas, who frequently comments on my posts, informed me that he’s not been able to like or comment on my most recent posts. I have been investigating the issue this morning. It seems I’m having trouble with a “nonce verification error”. I’ve tried disabling plugins, which is a real pain, because it messes up the settings I’m used to using. I tried changing the theme, but that also didn’t work. I did find that I could comment if I did it on my desktop or laptop computers, using Chrome. But I can’t do it on the desktop with Safari, or from my iPad. I tried commenting with Safari on my laptop and it worked.

This is very weird, and I don’t know how to fix the issue. So if you’ve wanted to comment and can’t, all I can tell you for now is to try using Chrome. Hopefully, this issue will be fixed at some point. I have emailed support. Maybe they can straighten this out for me.

I’ve read that Jetpack can cause “nonce” issues. I’ve tried to disable Jetpack, but WordPress won’t let me. Apparently, I pay for it with my subscription. Sigh…

Maybe it’s better to just keep it simple, stupid… The K.I.S.S. method has alway served me well in the past. But then, I think about my mom, who has steadfastly refused to learn how to use the Internet and now has to get one of her daughters to Google for her when she needs help. I don’t think I want to get to that point. I’ll try to keep learning the new methods. I just hope all of these new things we have for convenience don’t end up being too much of a good thing.

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