Another day of wind and cloud, the air damp, but not enough to produce drizzle. Trump made headline news first thing this morning, announcing a truce after 12 days of missile exchanges between Israel and Iran. He spoke too soon, as another exchange of missiles took place shortly after the deadline, provoking him to a frustrated expletive ridden condemnation of both sides for the violation of a a commitment he inevitably took all credit for. Since that early exchange there have been no more. What will happen next I wonder? Hopefully global media attention will now switch back to the continuing crisis of starvation and killing in Gaza, amid a rising tide of sentiment among Israelis that they'd have enough of war and seeing the economy drained by profligate military expenditure.
The world waits and watches helplessly. Hamas has not been driven out of government let alone expelled from Gaza. Its military infrastructure has been smashed. Instead of there being a trained disciplined jihadi army surrender, there are now tens if not hundreds of thousands of lightly armed insurgents on the loose for organised crime gangs to recruit, whose hatred for Israel will have been amplified beyond measure by the destruction of their homeland. Not all the hostages, whether still living or dead, have been returned home. Netanyahu's chief war aims have not been achieved, despite the cost and loss of life. The desire to expel the demon of Hamas has not only failed but opened the way for many more demons every bit as destructive and dangerous to manifest themselves and wreak havoc in years to come.
After breakfast I finished next week's Morning Prayer slideshow and uploaded it to YouTube. Clare had her study group in Penarth, and I went shopping for veg to cook along with two large pieces of coley for lunch. When she returned her friend Linda who gives her a lift was with her, asking if I could help her with her Samsung S24, phone as if was asking to install upgrades which she that didn't make sense and aroused her suspicious. She returned after lunch with the phone, and let me study it.
She's had the phone a couple of months and had difficulties in using it, as the user interface is nothing like the one on her previous phone. When switched on a fixed blank screen containing a start button was all it displayed, and neither of the physical buttons would do anything useful. She feared this was malware. It occurred to me that a system upgrade had been downloaded and installed, but needed to configure it with personal details. Pressing 'Start' revealed page after page of demands for information about data sharing options, terms and conditions etc. The only way forward was to plough through them all (in tiny print) and opt out to limit data sharing wherever possible.
The most confusing feature was the imposition of a range of AI tool intruding into the searching environment, pitching all sorts of unwanted confusing suggestions, intruding on one's thinking process. I was able to explain to Linda she'd have to get used to ignore things she didn't need in the user interface. She identified her regularly used apps and I showed her how to move them on to the home page, and move ones she didn't to another page, also how to add widgets. She didn't like the default Samsung notification sound, so I found the setting that made it possible to replace it with a simple ping. She's not a newcomer to mobile phones, and seldom used one in the past. She decided to buy a smartphone simply for its high quality camera. Fortunately, it didn't take her long to get it working for weeks before the Android update arrived. Hopefully its other features will now be more accessible to her in a user friendly way.
When it came to powering down the phone, the method she'd been shown in when she bought it, seemed to work randomly, bringing up a Gemini search bar which gave information about how to turn it off, but was unable to implement the action. There's always more than one way to power down a phone. Normally, beneath the home screen when you sweep a finger down, a menu of assorted buttons is shown, and one of those is an 'Off' switch. Initially, I had a problem with this downward finger sweep, as the tiny hot-spot button wouldn't react at first. I showed Linda how to do this, just in case the physical side buttons kept on responding inconsistently.
It took two and a half hours to get the phone to function in a way Linda felt comfortable with, largely because I was having to learn how to achieve things and show her as I went along. It wasn't as easy as it should be. I'm used to configuring devices, but without having to explain without jargon to someone who is unfamiliar with the very concepts employed and the language needed.
Heavens! My Moto G22 is due for replacement as its front facing camera is damaged and screen slightly cracked and not as sensitive as it used to be. Will I have the same sort of issues setting up a new phone imposing fancy new AI features I don't need? I hope not. When I last changed my phone, just about all the basic setup was taken care of. In my decades of using software on any device, development means, that each new iteration adds more options than you ever need, configuration gets more complex, and if the interface is simplified for visual appeal it means more features are buried in drop down menus, taking longer to find what you need. It's no wonder so many older people coming late to this brave new world are scared of doing things wrong, losing data, forgetting how to navigate around an app, getting scammed.
It was five by the time I went out and walked for an hour or so. I really needed it to clear my head after all that small screen concentration. Clare had left for meditation group by the time I returned. I wrote for an hour and a half, and waited to have supper with her when she returned. At dusk I went out again for a short walk, to complete my daily quota before turning in for the night.
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