Also got a Fathers' Day message from #sonOne on #Wire ... including a continuation of our discussion about trying to get #GS1 and #GS2 some vocational training. They moved out, so he cannot just enroll them at the local job training center.
Of course, I also compared his tweeting to that of a well-known former politician. Both have tweeted things which should never be said publicly, if at all.
In all of this, I’m hearing a thoughtful, contemplative person who has finally found his voice. He’s using words longer than five letters long, spelled correctly, with proper punctuation and discussing concepts that I’m only aware of because of some of the courses I took in college.
(I guess some of those discussions about what I was studying sunk in. I did not know he was paying attention.)
@geniusmusing @guizzy Shared the link with the kids. It sparked a conversation ( on #Wire ) about which old games we remember. Surprisingly, the youngest ( #Daddy_A ) remembers more games than the older kids.
Was informed that #GD1 lost her phone. #GS1 likewise lost his phone, but found it and sent it to sonOne because it wasn't accepting a charge. Daughter-in-law will make the six hour round trip to deliver the now-working phone to her son.
(Asked because both of them suddenly stopped responding to SMS.)
But I don't object to others choosing such end-to-end encrypted messengers over messaging apps such as (for example) #Facebook_Messenger.
I personally use #Wire, #XMPP, #Matrix, and #WickrMe. (I tried #Jami, but it wasn't very usable yet; none of my contacts were willing to try #Tox or #Briar.) I've even considered getting a Google account again so I can use whatever their latest incarnation of messaging is (just because almost everyone I know has a Google account).
It does bother me that Signal and Telegram and most other messaging services are centralized and non-federated.
It seems we haven't learned from the 1990s & early 2000s when some friends had AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), some had MSN Messenger, some had Yahoo Messenger, some had ICQ, and a few had various other walled garden messengers (such as Excite's messenger). If I wanted to talk with all my friends, I needed to have accounts on every possible service. I should be able to communicate with my friends from whatever service I choose to use to whatever services they choose to use and not have to create accounts on every possible service.
But that's a matter of educating our friends and family, not of dogmatically refusing to communicate with them on any service they might use.
One of my brothers sent me an e-mail where he accused me of brainwashing her against Zoom. I sent a long response. It took me a while to write, so hopefully I got past reacting to his accusation.
I said I don’t know why your camera suddenly didn’t work today. It has worked in all the other videochats. I don’t know why another brother’s microphone didn’t work today. Likewise, it has worked in all the other videochats.
Yesterday, I drank double my usual amount of (decaffeinated) coffee and my usual amount of water, as the resurgent cold kept converting fluids into mucus. I felt pretty unproductive as I coughed and sneezed the entire time I was awake from 03:00 to 22:00 ... but I guess I did get some things done:
* Installed #Lubuntu 20.04 in place of 18.04—because of some deep changes, upgrading was not recommended—and then installed some of the things I’m currently working on learning
* I found an “Intro to SciLab” slideshow, so I installed #SciLab on the Win10 machine and started stepping along with the slideshow. There’s still quite a bit to go, but it seems doable. I’m considering downloading some #COVID-19 data and trying to see whether there are better ways to present it than most of the present sites are using.
* We had our second family-wide #videochat on #JitsiMeet last evening. It is really targeted at my siblings (including the extended groups that grew up in different states). I dropped out when it was time to talk to #GS3 on #Wire ... he’s got a new area to explore, so he and the granddoggy are spending a lot of time searching the recesses of the enclosed porch.
Today seems to be a little better so far, as there’s a lot less runny nose and sneezing (no coughing yet today).