In a previous post, I mentioned that I purchased a new iPad Pro since all my older iPads were obsolete and retired by Apple. I am very happy with the new iPad, but there were a few old apps that I could not find. The most disappointing was Air Video HD. I purchased that app in 2014 to stream videos from my main PC. Even though I have bought a network attached storage (NAS) server since then, I still use the old app on all my devices. Unfortunately, the app is no longer available on the Apple app store, so I thought I had to do without.

Today I learned that you could reinstall old apps that you purchased on to new devices if you are using the same Apple ID. I managed to find my old purchase and installed Air Video HD on my new iPad. There are other apps on my iPad Air 2 that I could not find in the app store so I will have to reinstall them using this method.

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One of the other unavailable apps is OnSong 2020. I purchased that several years ago when I planned on auditioning with my church to play bass. However, I was sick at the time, and the previous music pastor was not very welcoming. I believe that was a $20 purchase and I was upset that the new version, OnSong 2022, is a subscription only product. Again, I was able to find and reinstall the old version, and now I need to transfer my songbook to the new iPad.

People suck.

People suck a thousand times worse when they are on anonymous social media like Reddit.

I used to follow many subreddits (sub) about China and Taiwan, but I have removed them from my subscription list. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tries very hard to equate the party and the nation, all discussion ends up being political. It has spent billions of dollars on anti-Western propaganda, social media disinformation campaigns, and mass censorship worldwide. There is no way to discern whether a commentor is just pro-China, a CCP agent, or a paid shrill. If you look on Reddit, the biggest sub on China is /r/china. The population seems to be mostly ex-pats and they generally have a negative impression of the CCP. I get the sense that many enjoyed their time in China but hate what it has become under Xi Jinping. It also attracts a bunch of anti-Asian racists, wannabe commies, and people that usually post in /r/sino.

Sino is a strange sub. I cannot browse that sub for more than five minutes without getting angry or physically sick to my stomach. About half the posts praise the CCP by reposting media from China state owned media, and the other half are just anti-America rants. As a Chinese American from Taiwan, the entre sub is offensive to me. Their tagline is “News, Information, Discussion on all things China and Chinese Related” but any user that is slightly critical of the CCP is immediately banned. Just like the CCP.

There is a website called Map of Reddit where most subs are shown with lines connecting to other subs with similar posters. Here is an explanation from the creator:

Each dot is a subreddit. Two dots within the same cluster are usually close to each other if multiple users frequently leave comments on both subreddits.

Interestingly, if you look up /r/china and /r/sino, they are located in very different areas and connected to very different subs.

From the maps, it appears that /r/china posters are somewhat interested in East Asia since they also post to /r/taiwan, /r/japan, and other related subs. However, /r/sino users appear to be just a bunch of communists and socialists. I guess they only have a small passing interest in China. Since Chinese state media agrees with their worldview, they gather to feel good about communism and to shit on America. Just remember that if you are trying to get news about China from Reddit.

I tried reading some posts from /r/china recently and I think I will still continue my self-imposed ban on new and commentary from China.

A strange thing happened to my Tesla this week. When I got in the car to drive to work Thursday morning, I noticed the energy meter was blank. Since it usually shows energy usage for the past thirty miles, the display is never blank. I then checked the trip data display, and it was showing zeros too. I have never reset the trip counter before.

When I got to work, all the displays above were still showing blank data even though I just drove forty miles. Interestingly, a third-party app called Tessie did not have any problems collecting trip data.

Since I did not know if this would cause other issues in the car, I set up an appointment with Tesla Service center in Irvine to have them check the car. I am sure it is a software glitch, though I did not update the car’s operating system recently.

This evening however, after dinner at a Thai restaurant with my parents and sister, the display came back suddenly. All my historical data is gone, but the car is tracking miles and energy usage. Strange. When the issue first appeared, I reset the console computer several times while driving, but it did not help. I am going to wait a few days to see if it keeps working before cancelling the service appointment.

Each time we have an open requisition and receive candidate resumes, there is an argument about school reputation versus experience. Our CEO is the ultimate school snob. His philosophy is to hire the smartest students from the best schools and let them do their thing. Me, I really want to hire people with some experience, so I am not telling my analysts to not hit reply all and send email to 10,000 coworkers.

I have a new analyst starting tomorrow. He graduated from University of Illinios Urbana-Champaign (#41) and has about four and a half years of experience. I scanned through the US News & World Report National University Rankings and most of the finance team comes from the top 50 schools, while the accounting team comes from more local schools like Cal State Los Angeles/Long Beach/Fullerton/Dominguez Hills. There is nothing wrong with those schools, but our company discriminates against non-ranked schools when recruiting candidates.

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I graduated from university many years ago. Hopefully no one is judging my work based on ancient educational history, but my schools are still ranked #20 and #25.

Since I attended USC for graduate school, I am unsure if the #25 ranking for undergraduate program applies. I will need to find specific rankings for my two master’s degree programs.

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Heh, there are rankings for everything.

Engineering Schools: USC Viterbi #15, UCLA Samueli #16

Business Schools: USC Marshall #19

It has been ~30 years since I attended university, so the current rankings have no relation to what the schools were like back then.

Spotify came out with their annual summary of your listening habits. There are no real surprises. I typically start my main K-Pop playlist when I get into the car, and the Top Songs listed are songs one, two, three, six, and eight of the playlist. Likewise, “What is Love” by TWICE is the first song, and my car will start with that song even though I have shuffle play enabled. This is the second year that BIBI has been my Top Artist.

It must be Black Friday/Cyber Monday. I ordered a bunch of stuff on Amazon over the weekend and several items were delayed. One item, a poster frame, was delayed several times, and now it is just missing.

I have never seen this before. I have had several delayed deliveries but none where the package was l0st. Amazon ended up automatically cancelling the original order and placed another order for the same product at $0. It was very confusing.

Today, UPS delivered the original order. I thought I read that I will have to return one of the items if both end up arriving. To avoid that scenario, I cancelled the replacement order since it has not shipped yet. Now when I look at my account, the replacement order does not even exist, and it shows the original order as returned. Yet I still have one poster frame in my possession. Super confusing.

I just received another delivery. It is the keyboard case for my new iPad that has yet to be delivered. I purchased the wrong case, received it yesterday, returned it earlier this afternoon to Amazon Fresh, and the replacement is here already. World-class logistics.

The only weird thing is that I received a text from the driver. Typically, Amazon package delivery drivers do not text. I do receive texts from Amazon Fresh delivery drivers, but these are guys in their private cars. The text said this:

I can understand the part about pets, but dark? It is 2:14 in the afternoon, and my entire neighborhood is single-family houses. I am not sure why the driver thinks it may be dark by my front door. The delivery “truck” was a Honda Accord so maybe they are using Amazon Fresh drivers to make these totally unnecessary same-day deliveries of non-food stuff.

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So, I have received my Logitech keyboard case (twice) and the Apple Pencil 2. Just waiting for the actual iPad Pro to be delivered.

The calendar app on my MacBook just popped up a notification informing me that today is Native American Heritage Day. It is sad if it is only one day since the other three minority cultures get an entire month. This year, it is also the same day as Black Friday. Nobody is going to celebrate or learn about Native American Heritage while fighting the crowd of shoppers at Walmart.

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Ugh, it is the day after Thanksgiving. Is that supposed to be some counterpoint to the traditional Thanksgiving holiday?

November 25, 2022. I think I bought too much stuff today. For real Amazon delivery guy is coming by three times today. And tomorrow. And Sunday,

The biggest purchase is a new 11″ Apple iPad Pro. I have several iPads but they are all fairly old and I cannot run iOS 16 on any of them.

iPad Model	Release Year	Discontinued
iPad 2	2011	March 2014
iPad 4	2012	October 2014
iPad mini 2	2013	March 2017
iPad Air 2	2014	March 2017

I did purchase two iPad Pros after the iPad Air 2, but those were for my parents. I do feel a bit justified in buying a new iPad since the “newest” models I have were discontinued almost six years ago. I also bought an Apple Pencil 2, and a keyboard case from Logitech that cost way too much.

Another large purchase was a portable power station. I am kind of building an emergency kit, and one of the big items is stable power. I have about 3.6 kW of solar panels on my house, but since the system is grid-tied, I am unsure on how to reroute the DC power if needed. The power output is likely too large to be useful without a voltage converter. In my Tesla, there is a ~75 kWh battery, but I have no idea how to use that if there is a prolonged power outage. Long story short, I purchased a Jackery Explorer 300, which has a 293 kWh battery. It seems like a lot but that will get my Tesla about a mile down the highway. To be self-reliant, I purchased the matching 100 W solar panel that will charge the Explorer 300 in 3.5 hours. Together, the system is normally $600 but there were some Black Friday coupons that saved me about $180.

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I just received another delivery. It is just some peanuts and other mixed nuts. It arrived about half an hour after the previous delivery, so it is likely another driver. Are there multiple warehouses that ship to my house? I would love to spend a day at Amazon learning about their logistics process.

I mentioned before that the Elton John concert was very loud. I found a summary in the Health app on my iPhone.

This says there were five notifications from my Apple Watch. I did see a few that said sound levels were greater than 95 dB. I found a chart on sound levels and the concert was like an ice cream truck.

I went to Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road Tour last night at Dodger Stadium. It is supposed to be his farewell tour, but it seems that he has had several final concerts. I do not usually listen to his songs, but I did know about half of the songs he performed at the concert. My sister and her partner are fans, and they really loved the show.

Since we were driving to Dodger Stadium from Irvine, we left at 5:00 pm but it still took about two-and-a-half hours to get there. Dodger Stadium holds about 56,000 people and it felt like the show was sold out. When we got to our seats at around 8:00 pm, the stadium was only about one-third full. By the time Elton came on stage at 8:15 pm, most of the seats were filled. The concert was about two hours long with two short encores. My iPhone was running out of batteries, so I only recorded one song and took a few photos.

Overall, I enjoyed the show even though I did not know all the songs. Elton looked good for someone who is 75 years old. The band was great and included some original members from the sixties. My one complaint was the sound. I spent a few years volunteering as a sound engineer at a large church, and the sound guy last night was total shit. The volume was way too loud; the average was close to 100 dB with peaks up to 110 dB. My Apple watch gave me five warnings about the sound level. Even worse, the mix was muddled. For some songs, you could not make out any of the lyrics as the instruments overpowered Elton’s voice. Total cost was about $300 for me. I am glad I got to see him in concert, just wished I could hear him sing.

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With dialysis then COVID, this was my first concert in a long time. I had thought about going to the Blackpink concert this weekend, but decided two $300+ concerts was too much for one week.

I have both a Windows PC and a MacBook Pro. Now both are asking me to upgrade the OS to the next major release. Windows 11 has been released for months and each time I restart my PC, I get a message to update. I have not done so yet.

Today, I noticed an update notification on the System Preferences icon. It turns out there is a major macOS release too. I am still using version 12.6, codenamed Monterey. The latest version is 13.0.1, codenamed Ventura. Apple is still going with California place names.

Each time there is a major OS release or revision, I am always hesitant on upgrading. I want to check out the new features, but I am always afraid that bugs in the update will make the experience worse.

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I just started the update process on my Mac. Hope it does not brick.

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Updated: November 11, 2022 @2:37 pm

I was right. MacOS Ventura has more of an iOS feel. The system settings (renamed?) window looks totally different from all the previous MacOS versions, and very much like the iOS settings.

One other place I feel Apple messed up is the screen display settings. For some reason, there are a lot less options for external monitors. I have a Samsung U32R59x. It is a 4k monitor with 3840 x 2160 resolution, but MacOS says 1920 x 1080 is default. That makes the screen image huge but reduces the desktop size. If you set it at full resolution, the text becomes tiny. In MacOS 12, you can scale the text larger but maintain the high resolution for movies. This option appears to be gone. I now have the resolution at 2560 x 1440, which is a good compromise, but I lose the ability to control the refresh rate, and again, I cannot view videos at 4k resolution.

What the fuck, Apple!?

My new senior manager started this past Monday, while my departing analyst just turned in her formal two-week notice. We knew the analyst was leaving several weeks ago so I have been going into the office to train in person. Unfortunately, I have two areas of responsibility and the two staff changes are not related.

For the new manager, I am picking up a bunch of responsibilities from another group. We are not sure if I will get any analysts along with the extra work, either internally or externally. We did make an offer yesterday to a candidate to replace my analyst, but even if he accepts right away, he will miss my departing analyst, and I will be responsible for his training. I will likely forget 50% of the work instructions so he may need to figure a lot out by himself. I also have a second opening that was transferred to me from another department so there is still a lot of uncertainty.

What is certain is that the daily two-to-three-hour (both ways) commute is killing me. There was an accident with a motorcycle rider fatality Wednesday morning, and it took me over two hours to get to work.

It is sad that someone died. It also caused an hour delay for thousands of morning commuters. Here is an article from Los Angeles Times. The motorcyclist crashed into a Caltrans attenuator truck that was designed to absorb crashes into Caltrans vehicles.

I received this strange email at 1:00 am this morning. It looks like a phishing email where you are asked to log into an account at a fake site, but the email was apparently from appleid@id.apple.com. Of course, email addresses can be spoofed, but he full email header looked legit. My email web portal even showed “This message is from a trusted sender” at the top. I typed out the included URL into a browser and it brought up the correct Apple ID website.

Obviously, I did not make a change to my Apple ID nor email address(es). My Apple ID does not match what was in the email either. I tried using my correct account credentials and the website brought up the right information. When I tried to use the listed email address, which is my personal email, Apple said no account exists. Very strange. Even if the email was faked, I do not understand the scam.

Since you must enter your first and last name when searching for an account, my guess is that someone created an Apple account and typed in my personal email in error. Or some tried to update their account with a new email and made a typo. I guess the only thing I can do is ignore the email and hope nothing bad happens. Very strange.

There is a lot of K-Pop collaborations with Western countries, but this was not something I expected. Jennie Ruby Jane here is Jennie Kim of the K-Pop girl group Blackpink. This is the. press release from Porsche:

Jennie Kim, known as Jennie Ruby Jane or simply JENNIE, is a famous artist in South Korea. The 26-year-old is a member of girl group BLACKPINK, but has also won the hearts of many fans as a solo singer of rap and K-pop (Korean pop music). As part of the Sonderwunsch programme in collaboration with Porsche Korea, her own personal dream car has been built based on the Taycan 4S Cross Turismo.

https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2022/products/porsche-exclusive-manufaktur-taycan-4s-cross-turismo-sonderwunsch-jennie-ruby-jane-blackpink-south-korea-29960.html

The Taycan 4S Cross Turismo was one of the cars on my fantasy EV list. It is likely the car I will get next since I doubt I will spend $167k on a Bentley Bentayga. However, I do question Porsche’s marketing strategy here. Sure, Jennie is famous and has a huge social medial following, but are Blackpink fans really Porsche customers? The list price of the Taycan 4S CT is $113k, which even makes me have second thoughts. As evident in several prior posts, I listen to K-Pop girl groups, including Blackpink. This Jennie x Porsche collaboration has zero impact on whether I end up purchasing a Porsche. I would like to know how much it costs to have your own custom logo and embroidery if I want to do the same thing.

Here are some more photos from Instagram:

The 12V battery in my Tesla Model S needs replacement. Even though the car has a huge main battery, it is wired at ~350 volts. Since all car electronics run on 12V DC, Tesla cars have a 12V battery that is charged by the main battery instead of an alternator. The original 12V battery was replaced after about 18 months while under warranty.

A typical 12V car battery lasts from three to five years. My purchased his Honda CR-V about the same time and he had to replace his car battery about a year ago. Instead of going into a service center, Tesla is sending out a mobile technician to replace the battery. This happened previously as well. The battery is buried behind the plastic frunk (front trunk) lining, so it takes a bit of work to replace it. Since the car is out of warranty, I will have to pay for the battery replacement. Tesla is charging $165 for the battery and $43 for labor. I believe the 12V is lithium-ion instead of lead-acid. The price seems fair as it would take me much longer to either drive to the service center or try to replace the battery myself.

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I just checked Costco’s website for battery pricing, and they (through Interstate Batteries) do not sell car batteries for Tesla cars. It is not even an option in the drop-down menu for car makes.

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I got this in an Instagram direct message. Based on my count, this post about Tesla service and my dead 12V battery is post #1337. Is the world just one big Internet meme now?

I just saw this movie with my friend who travels to China regularly. It was his suggestion that we see this movie. It tells the story of a 2022 Falun Gong (FLG) hacking the Changchun TV station new program to broadcast a rebuttal video against CCP persecution.

I am not that familiar with the FLG, other than it may be a Buddhist cult. Now I think that it may be influenced by CCP anti-FLG propaganda. Even though I have not heard about this incident previously, the narrative is sadly familiar. The CCP is concerned about control and when they feel threatened, the party will crush and perceive opposition, then lie to conceal their actions. Out of all the people involved, many were imprisoned, tortured, and murdered by the local police and the government. Two of them are currently outside of China and were featured in the movie. The actual historical scenes were animated instead of live action but does not take away from the storytelling. Anyone with interest in modern Chinese history should watch this movie.

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Over a decade ago, I purchased a bunch of discount AMC movie tickets from work. I thought they were lost but fortunately I found them, and they were still useable. Since this was a matinee, the ticket price was “only” $10.69; the regular adult ticket price is $15.69.

Also, since this was a documentary and in Mandarin (with English subtitles), the theater was pretty empty. When I walked into the theater fifteen minutes early, I was the first person in the room. Eventually, about twenty people walked in, which I guess is great attendance for a Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday, I had lunch with an ex-coworker. He started as a MBA intern while I was at my previous company. It has been close to fifteen years, and he is still working at the same company. He is a car guy and currently owns a new mid-engine Corvette. We ended up talking about cars and I mentioned I am thinking of replacing my six-year-old Tesla Model S.

The car still drives fine but since it is several generations old, the range is not that great. I typically charge up to 90% and that only gets me 192 miles. The computer is HW 2.0, so it is using the older Nvidia-based system and will not run some of the latest software. After driving an EV for six years however, I cannot go back to a gas car, so I am looking for another EV or plug-in hybrid.

This is just a wish list so I will likely end up with something low on the price list.

1. Bentley Bentayga Azure Hybrid
2. Porsche Taycan 4S Cross Turismo
3. Tesla Model X Plaid
4. Hyundai Electrified G80
5. Mercedes-Benz EQS Sedan
6. Ford Mustang Mach-E
7. Hyundai IONIQ 5
   

Purple Bentley FTW! Most of the cars on my list are super expensive, even considering my Model S was about $80k out the door. The regular Bentayga Hybrid starts at $167k so the Azure edition is closer to $200k. That seems crazy for a car, though the Model X Plaid is around $150k. The Hyundai is looking better as I check prices on the rest.

I have had good luck with my Tesla so far. Maybe I can drive it for another six years. Meanwhile, I can get a mid-sized hybrid SUV for road trips.