Get Your Flu Shot

There are a lot of strong feelings about vaccines and if you are opposed to them, feel free to disregard this post. For those that think they are a benefit, please keep reading. As you can probably guess, I fall into this second category.

My company sends me notices every fall to remind me to get my annual flu shot. When I actually went into an office, they had healthcare professionals come to the office and provide free flu shots to all those interested in receiving them. Now that I work from home, they send me a voucher that can be used at any Walgreens to get a free flu shot. This year I printed up the voucher and headed down to my local Walgreen's pharmacy. When I got there, the pharmacy area of the store had a huge line and so I turned around and came home.

I thought about going to another store in the area but opted to schedule an appointment at the one around the corner from my house. I logged into the Walgreen's website and set up a time for my shot the next day. Then I set an alarm on my phone so I wouldn't forget. I also added the appointment to my work calendar so nobody would try to schedule a meeting at the same time.

The next day the time for my appointment rolled around and I drove the short mile to the pharmacy. I went back to where they administer the shot and waited all of 30 seconds. Then a nice young lady escorted me into a private room, rolled up my sleeve, and gave me a shot containing the flu vaccine. While I set aside 30 minutes in my calendar, I only needed about 10. I quickly drove home and resumed my work.

The one thing common with all vaccines is a sore arm and I felt that the next day but not severely. Sometimes there are very mild flu-like symptoms but I didn't feel any of that. The weekend has passed and I actually feel this has been one of the easiest flu shots ever.

For the past couple years I have not bothered to get my flu shot and never came down with the flu. This year I don't want to take that chance. I let my COVID vaccine expire and came down with it in August. My dad didn't bother to get a shingles vaccine and just spent the last week suffering from the ailment. Because of these two incidents, I felt it prudent to get my flu vaccine this year.

Hopefully you don't fall victim to the normalcy bias where you feel it unnecessary to get the flu vaccine because you haven't gotten sick over the past couple of years without it. It only takes a few minutes to get the shot and most insurance covers the cost so it is free. You never know if you will get exposed and those few minutes can keep you from getting sick for a week or more. After all it could mean a lost week of skiing for me.

Robot Vacuum: Hide-and-Seek Champion

This morning I went to empty the dust bin on one of my robot vacuums and noticed my wife had beat me to it. I asked if she had emptied our second one and she had not. I headed upstairs and quickly saw that the device had not found its way back to the charging station. I announced the search by yelling, "Marco," like the pool game I played as a kid and heard my wife chuckle. I only wish the creators of my robot vacuum had added a function for the device to beep when it hears someone yelling "Marco."

My wife volunteered to help me find the disappearing robot and I told her not to worry as there is only 500 square feet to hide in. She still came and helped. I checked all the usual spots but could not find the device. I started opening closet doors to see if it had managed to squeeze in and close the door behind it. I checked under the 2 beds on that level of the house. No matter where I looked, I couldn't find the missing robot.

At this point I decided that I should award hide-and-seek champion of the world because I looked everywhere. Now my wife and I started looking more closely in places we had already checked. My wife eventually found the robot. It had climbed on top of some storage items under one of the beds and safely hidden itself next to the box springs. My wife came out carrying the device and laughing. She emptied the dust bin while put the robot vacuum on the charger.

We have quite a few devices that make our lives easier and our robot vacuums are still on that list. Should you decide to pick one or more up, just be warned that you may be playing hide-and-seek once a month. Most of the time it will be a short game. On days like today, it may be a lot longer.

Fact Checking Crazy Statements

I have not hidden that I am not a fan of election season and we are in the middle of it right now. One problem we have this year is all of the crazy statements being made. I try to stay politically neutral in this blog as I try to focus on technical issues and so I will try not to pick a side and just explain what I am seeing. Recently I have noticed that both sides of the US Presidential Election are making crazy statements. While the news tries to fact check some of the statements, they are definitely biased. Fortunately we all have the ability to check the validity of things being said.

As a child I used to make all sorts of crazy statements that seemed true in my mind but probably crossed the line with actual facts. I would say things like, "I just rode my bike faster than anyone has ever gone before." I doubt I am alone with such hyperbole but children are allowed such liberties. Politicians running for office should not be allowed to make similarly crazy statements. A quick Internet search would show that the record for the fastest person on a bicycle is 183.93 miles per hour and set by a woman in 2018 on the Utah Salt Flats. I don't think my 7-year-old self came close to that number even though I rode down a hill. Whenever you hear someone say something like crime rates and inflation are both down, it is easy to run your own Internet query and see if it is true. Doing so will allow you to see how the statistics have been manipulated and you may discover that you disagree with the politician's comment.

The problem with doing your own fact checking is that it takes more time than accepting statements as facts. Most people don't want to go through the effort and politicians know that. So does the media. Unfortunately a lot of the fact checking done by the media is wrong. When a politician says something crazy like, "This policy enacted by my opponent is causing birds to fly upside down," the media instantly dismisses the statement as an outright lie. Have they bothered to check the validity of it? Nope. It just sounds so outlandish that they dismiss it and nobody bothers to correct them even if it is true. I have discovered that a number of crazy statements thrown out by this year's presidential candidates sound utterly stupid and sensationalized but have more merit than mainstream media wants to admit. I only wish more people would do such research.

Ultimately there is a bias we all have called, "Confirmation Bias." In a nutshell it says that no matter what facts we are presented, we will use the data to strengthen our current belief. If we favor a particular candidate, we twist negative stories about him or her to reinforce why we like the person. My guess is that any fact checking results in strengthening of your current belief about a candidate. So if you have made up your mind as to whom you are voting for this year, fact checking is a waste of time.

Not a Fan of Disney's Magic Band+

I spent last week in Disney World with my wife and a couple of granddaughters. Whenever one of my grand kids turns 5, we take them to Disney for a couple days. This year we had 2 granddaughters turn 5 and so we brought them together. It made for a fun trip but I'm not sure the extra $35 investment in Disney's MagicBand+ is worth the extra cost.

My son is a huge Disney fan and loves taking his family to Disneyland and Disney World. He invested in the watch-like devices for his family and suggested we do the same. He loves staying close to Disneyland or at the lower-cost resort hotels within Disney World. He has also done a cruise on the Disney Cruise Line. For him, he just loads park tickets and room access onto the bands and doesn't have to worry about carrying extra key cards. He also is a fan of the Lightning Lane and can add that to the bands.

We had a very different situation for our trip last week. First off, we stayed at an off-property hotel using frequent stay points. That means the bands wouldn't help us get into our room. We also had a height limit with our 5-year old granddaughters. One measured just over 38 inches but under 40. That means we could not ride most of the thrill rides. Those are the ones with the longest lines where it makes sense to pay for Lightning Lane access. We also visited the park when it seemed fairly empty compared to other times of the year. We walked onto most rides.

Without the need to use the Lightning Lanes, we really only used the MagicBand+ to enter the parks. Of the 4 days we visited parks in Disney World, the bands had problems during 2 of them. They worked perfectly on the first day. On the second, 3 of the 4 bands had issues and needed to be reset. One thing they didn't tell us on the first day is that the finger print for a 5-year old is not very reliable and that we should have used an adult's finger. We fixed that and then my wife's device reported itself as stolen and turned itself off. We had to reactivate it. All of this took time.

On the last day of our visit we ran into another issue with the bands and had to visit guest services once again. I'm not sure we would not have had those problems with a free paper card that gets handed out for those not willing to buy MagicBand+ bracelets but I would not have had to pay for them.

If you are on the fence about purchasing a Disney Magic and+ here are some criteria I would use before spending the money:

1. Are the parks crowded and do you have kids old enough to make Lightning Lanes worth the extra cost? If so, the MagicBand+ is much easier to use than fishing around in your pocket for easily lost paper cards.
2. Do you plan to return to the Disney parks many times for years to come or spend time on a Disney Cruise? If so, then it might be worth it.
3. Do you plan to stay at a Disney hotel? If so, then the Magic Band+ can be used as your room key and might be worth it.
4. Is this probably a one-time visit to a Disney park? Save your money and use your smartphone, which is also an option, or the free paper card they give you.

I hope this helps as you debate whether or not to spend the extra $35 for a piece of technology that I don't think works very well. Disney wants you to buy the device as it allows them to track your movement throughout the different parks, thanks to their ubiquitous golden statues that light up your wrist band whenever you walk by them. In my opinion, because of that tracking feature, they should be giving them out for free.

Airplane Tickets Printed or on Your Phone

I do a lot of travel for my job and am coming up on having flown over 2 Million miles. When it comes time to print out a ticket for a flight there are 2 options. The first is to actually use an old-fashioned printer and print a paper ticket. The second is to send a QR code to a smartphone and use that to board the plane. One would think it is a no-brainer and the smartphone is the way to go. For the technically savy, I would agree. My preference is to print a paper ticket though.

Yes I know that my seat may be updated between the time I check in and when I actually board my flight. If I used the airline's app, the seat is automatically changed and I don't have to pay attention to the monitors in the terminal. I also don't have to worry about losing my ticket. As I have said, the smartphone ticket seems to be the way to go.

The problem is that smartphones slow the boarding of the plane. I'm not sure how so many people can have such problems getting the ticket scanner to read a phone screen but it happens. I have waited for several minutes behind passengers who don't know you need to turn up the brightness so the QR code can be read properly. I have also seen countless travelers not able to find their ticket on the phone. Then of course there is the dreaded screen lock. You have your ticket ready to scan only to have the screensaver kick in and blank out the screen as you go to scan it. Ultimately I have found that pulling out a paper ticket speeds things up and gets me onto the plane quicker.

Amateur Scientists and Explorers

It is no secret that I enjoy my job at Sony. I love what I do and my work conditions could not be any better. However that doesn't keep me from thinking about changing careers every now and then. I've thought about being a high-school teacher and even spent a week as a substitute one. Unfortunately kids treat substitutes with an insane amount of disrespect. The morning of the first day of class a kid walked in and said, "You must be a total looser if this is the only job you could get." Little did he know that I could afford to be a substitute teacher because of my successful career in the tech industry.

I've also thought about making my passion my career. I could follow my youngest daughter's career path and be a ski instructor or work at a ski resort. My fear is that skiing would then become like work. Right now when I head up to the ski resort before work, it doesn't matter what the weather is like, I will only be there for an hour and don't mind skiing in storms. If skiing became my job, I might learn to detest snowy days instead of embracing them like I do now.

I've also thought about doing something relating to sailing. I currently have a sailboat that I keep in the Great Salt Lake and love to take it out as my schedule permits. The only problem with a sailboat is that it is a hole in the water you pour money into and there are not a lot of ways to make money with them. Sure I could try to offer tours but that requires getting a captain's license and that takes a lot of work.

I was thinking along the lines of how to make money with a sailboat and came up with a new idea related to our planet's oceans. It doesn't require a sailboat but tiny submarines instead. Imagine a spherical submarine the size of a softball or large grapefruit with 3 or 4 fins and a propeller. When it sits in the water, it barely floats so that if it loses power, the submarine would automatically rise to the surface. Now put a solar panel on the top of it to charge the device's battery. You could include a number of sensors such as GPS, pressure, and temperature. You may even put a 4K camera on the front of it with some sort of low-power LED illumination. If you do it right and control costs, my guess is you could keep the price under $100. That would allow all sorts of amateur scientists and explorers to use them for any number of purposes.

I think the idea has merit and am looking for feedback. No I don't plan to leave Sony to create such a device nor do I think they have any plans to create one, though I could always ask. Instead I would like to open source the idea and get feedback on what sensors should be included and how it would be used. Some simple ideas might be tracking the changes in ocean currents or using AI and the camera to have the device follow specific marine life without attaching a tag. Who knows, it might best provide a platform to improve current marine research technology.

Let me know what you think and if there is use for such an inexpensive robot submarine. How do you think it would best serve the marine research community? With an idea like this, feedback is always appreciated.