WordsWatcher

Three days ago, I heard the economy was the best ever, we're in a Golden Age, and gas is a low as $1.99 per gallon. Yesterday my local gas station was at $2.89 - quite a way from the promised $1.99. Dummy that I am, I thought I'd be OK to get gas today. Ha, 30 cents up in one day. You don't think the president was lying, do you?

Even though it was written in 1915, at the beginning of the First World War, Freud's essay, "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death" is still a fascinating read, full of depressing observations on human nature. For example, he notes that when it comes to maintaining a civil society and bad actors are allowed to do as they want, if "...the community no longer raises objections, there is an end, too, to the suppression of evil passions, and people perpetrate deeds of cruelty, fraud, treachery and barbarity so incompatible with their level of civilization that one would have thought them impossible."

I took up Sling TV to get ESPN back and watch the finals of the US Open. So when I logged in today, I found that the match is not there. It turns out that ESPN decided to stream via ABC instead of ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPN3. And guess which channel Sling doesn't have? Yup, ABC! Disney are doing their best to force folks off DTV to Hulu (because that's theirs) and now from Sling. If you don't think Fubo is next, then YouTube you don't understand how monopolies are created. This is definition anti-competitiveness, something Disney want DTV (and ultimately others) to agree not to talk about!

My wife just moved up to level 90 with Verified Adventure, but we're at home. I thought the Verified Adventure badge was given for using Verified locations, but my house certainly isn't! Any idea how this happens?

The Treadmill tracker on my G4 Classic has stopped working correctly. All it tracks is time and heart rate; no steps, speed, calories etc. My regular Steps Tracker works but that data clearly isn't being sent to the treadmill tracker. After 45 minutes at 3.00 mph the tracker says I used 15 calories!! I can do that walk walking from my car to the gym! I've rebooted several times and downloaded the latest software but no luck. Any suggestions from anyone who has experienced the same?

Wife's new GW5 won't show SOS message from my phone but her phone does. Any ideas why? Other SMS messages will show on her phone.

I have the Inactivity Prompt set and it's been happily sending me reminder if I stay idle for 50 minutes. However, this morning it has been sending prompts even after I've moved i.e. moving around doesn't seem to be resetting that 50-minute period. Has anyone had to deal with this before and how did you resolve it?

According to the "Many World" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, there is very probably a world in another dimension in which all the weird and wonderful theories of the Qanons are happening. Rather than wasting effort on time machines, clones, nanobots, and med-beds, why don't this world's physiQuists invent a device to transport everyone to that alternate dimension? Then everyone will be happy :)

After two years of piano lessons I still cannot "read" music. For each new piece I plod through reading every note by using EGBDF or GBDFA then play until I remember it. I can't look at a page of notes and just read the notes and automatically find the key on the piano. My teacher keeps having me read notes and play them - and I'm glad she forces me or I'd go back to playing totally by ear - but every time I turn the page to a new piece it feels like I'm back at my first lesson trying to match a D on the staff (I start at the bottom and read up "E G B D..." and then look at the piano and start at C and find D. I'm seriously wondering if there's some cognitive impairment similar to dyslexia.