Royal Caribbean Cruisers -- How Are Things Where You Are? (was "Routine" ​ 😁 ​day in lockdown... how was yours?)

[reallyitsmema]

27 minutes ago, sgmn said:

Are you guys talking about LFTs given out free by the govt? Here we've always been able to order from NHS, they come in packs of 7. Or you can download a code and get them free from a pharmacy. But next week there's going to be big changes and I think one of them may be no more free tests .

You couldn't use the tests for holiday testing, you have to buy a private test 

 

Yes, the government recently had a program that each household could register to receive four at home antigen tests per household.  We ordered over a month ago and haven't received them yet.  We have been able to buy tests at pharmacies, when the pharmacies had them, which was next to impossible around the holidays.  Now, they are easy to find and our health insurance companies are reimbursing some of the costs.

[sgmn]

1 hour ago, aussielozzie18 said:

Sorry to hear you tested positive. Hope you continue to have mild symptoms and recover asap.  How long do you have to isolate for?  7 days for us and this also includes anyone else living in the same house even if they test negative.

Officially 10 days from start of symptoms or positive test.  So my symptoms started on Wed.  But on day 5 and 6 if you have two negative LFTs you can stop self isolating. If they are still positive you have to carry on self isolating.

If you are same household you don't have to self isolate if you are negative and fully boosted with no symptoms.  So when my son had it in December, my DIL was told to still go into the school where she teaches 🤷‍♀️

There's meant to be an announcement on Monday about changing the legal requirements to suggestions and personal responsibility.

Edited February 19, 2022 by sgmn

[Ocean Boy]

1 hour ago, Ocean Boy said:

Well, technically you still have a cold. It just has an unidentifiable cause that has a name.

Unidentifiable was supposed to be identifiable.🙄

[Sea Dog]

@aussielozzie18 Great pictures. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

[h20skibum]

15 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

You made me think of another possibility.  We have Amazon's "she who shall not be named" in almost every room of our house.  She may have heard me talking about Greg's surgery with Micheline.  Time to go see if there's some privacy setting for Alexa that I can tweak.

I was just looking through my Alexa history, and there are some interesting video clips of things she has heard.

 

One other thing to consider is your phone and phone settings.  I was just reading an article about how your phone microphone is always listening, if you have Siri enabled.  That got me wondering if the Siri & Search options have anything to do with it.  I found that my microphone on the phone was on for YouTube and instagram under the privacy tab.  
 

When I look at almost any app, they have Siri & Search turned on to “learn from how you use whatever app, and to make suggestions across apps.  With so many settings, who knows how they are intertwined, especially with those that are part of one large company?

 

 

[h20skibum]

8 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

@aussielozzie18 Great pictures. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

I will add a +1 to that.

 

Greg, how is the PT going?  I hope it is getting easier for you each day.

[LucasLikesToCruise]

21 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

We flew from JFK to New Orleans in Feb.2002.There was no security at the airport.I nearly got arrested because I told the Jet Blue rep that there was more security at my local public library.

Just out of extreme curiosity and not doubting your experience, but how does one get nearly arrested for asking about the lack of security at an airport?

[LucasLikesToCruise]

21 hours ago, BonTexasNY said:

I flew to Vegas on Jan., 2002 and there were armed military guys (I saw 2) holding rifles, standing watching people getting on/off escalators, in Vegas, not NY!

I went to London about two weeks after 9/11, there were all kinds of armed military all over the airport in Charlotte.  I always travel with a black leather Tumi backpack for a few carry on items.  We were not allowed to carry anything onto the flight to London Gatwick. They gave us a small clear plastic bag to carry any necessities on.  I took my book and a small bottle of meds.  That’s all that was allowed.  There was even a secondary screening by military personnel at the gate before boarding the flight.  

Edited February 19, 2022 by LucasLikesToCruise

[h20skibum]

37 minutes ago, h20skibum said:

there are some interesting video clips of things she has heard.

Too late to edit, but that should have read “audio” clips.  
 

Heaven help us if she is doing video clips too.😳

[jagsfan]

10 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

This little guy was happy for me to take his photo.  Kookaburra.

Do Australian kids sing the song about “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree

merry merry king of the bush is he. 
Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra,

Gay your life must be.”

I can’t see the word kookaburra without singing that song in my head!

[Sea Dog]

37 minutes ago, h20skibum said:

I will add a +1 to that.

 

Greg, how is the PT going?  I hope it is getting easier for you each day.

PT is going good. I am meeting or exceeding my benchmarks. I am now at 104 degrees of range of motion though that 104 was pretty painful at the end. It’s interesting in that I’m starting to see the same people at my sessions. One woman is 4 weeks from surgery so it’s interesting to talk to her and compare.

I actually enjoy PT especially the massage part and the electro stimulation it feels really good. I’m trying to only take two Oxycodone pills a day. One at night to help sleep and pain and then 1 before therapy. On the days without therapy I try to get by with 1. So far I would say I’m pleased but I am getting tired of hurting. Thank you for asking Mark.

[Sea Dog]

8 minutes ago, h20skibum said:

Too late to edit, but that should have read “audio” clips.  
 

Heaven help us if she is doing video clips too.😳

How do you play back the recordings that Alexa has made?

[jagsfan]

9 hours ago, BonTexasNY said:

I forgot the phone calls!! 

 

What ticks me off is the spoof phone calls where the caller id shows a local number and it’s not. 
I have the reverse phone look up app. Sometimes I use it to see where the calls are coming from. Most seem to be from Texas. 
Luckily my iPhone silenced them and I get a banner saying possible spam. 
We mostly stopped getting on our landline. 

[h20skibum]

1 minute ago, Sea Dog said:

How do you play back the recordings that Alexa has made?

The Alexa app on my phone is tied to the one in the house.  Open the Alexa app and tap on “more”.  It is at the bottom right on my screen.  Then select “Activity”, then “voice history”. You can filter on just today, or go back as far as all history takes you.

 

You can expand each one, and each will have a “play” button.▶️

[bobmacliberty]

15 hours ago, Luckynana said:

If you find out, Bob, please share it on here!  

Yesterday on FB, I was watching a little video where a mom told Alexa to play "This Little Heart of Mine" for her little toddler.  The Alexa in our living room began playing the song...lol!

 

I did learn a little about Amazon Alexa security, but I don't think it's the cause of my YouTube video appearing.  Alexa records all interactions that you have with her.  While she is constantly "passively listening", she will only record things that are said after you use the "wake word", which by default is "Alexa" (that can be changed by the way on a device-by-device basis to a few other words...helpful if you have a daughter named Alexis or similar 😉).  You can see/listen to/delete all recordings that have been made by going to the Settings section of the Alexa app and selecting Alexa Privacy.  You can also automatically delete recordings after a certain amount of time, or not save them at all.  Amazon gives you warnings that this may affect how well Alexa works.  I chose to auto delete all recordings after 3 months.  More info from Amazon about managing Alexa recordings by clicking here.  For a Cnet web page with more ways to protect your privacy when using Alexa, click here.  I use and trust Cnet as an independent reference for many things technology related.

 

According to a study done, I learned that voice assistants (including Google and Siri...not just Alexa) mistakenly think they are being asked something about 19 times a day.  For Alexa, some words with a vowel followed by the letter K will make Alexa think she heard the wake word.  I sample listened to a few of these mistaken recordings and they are mostly empty recordings or words that are not understandable.  While it's possible that Amazon may be "mining" these recordings to make money somehow, they claim that they are not.  I tend to believe them because it would cause the company serious damage if it turns out that they are spying on their customers.  Maybe I'm just naive though and Jeff Bezos really is trying to take over the world.

 

Amazon also manually reviews "an extremely small fraction" of voice recordings from a "diverse range of customers" to help improve Alexa's voice recognition capability.  If you go to Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage Your Alexa Data > Help Improve Alexa, you can turn off the potential use of your recordings.  Again, Alexa will scare you a bit with warnings about things not working well if you turn this of, but I chose to turn it off anyway.  We'll see if that actually does affect how well Alexa voice recognition works.

 

I mentioned above that the study was for all voice assistants.  Google and Apple Siri have very similar features to Amazon Alexa, including recording of voice commands.  Click here for a Cnet article on managing voice recordings for all 3 services.  

[bobmacliberty]

1 hour ago, h20skibum said:

I was just looking through my Alexa history, and there are some interesting video clips of things she has heard.

 

One other thing to consider is your phone and phone settings.  I was just reading an article about how your phone microphone is always listening, if you have Siri enabled.  That got me wondering if the Siri & Search options have anything to do with it.  I found that my microphone on the phone was on for YouTube and instagram under the privacy tab.  
 

When I look at almost any app, they have Siri & Search turned on to “learn from how you use whatever app, and to make suggestions across apps.  With so many settings, who knows how they are intertwined, especially with those that are part of one large company?

 

 

 

This may well be what happened.  Time to tighten down on Siri settings a bit also.

[Ozark_Kid]

10 hours ago, BonTexasNY said:

I forgot the phone calls!! 

 

 

8 hours ago, Bailey & Sophie said:

 

I've been getting phone calls from Medicare and Social Security. Did I receive my new card?

I also got a call from the FBI. From Atlanta, about bank accounts in Texas that I (in Minneapolis) had. Ummm, we have an FBI office in Minneapolis. Why didn't that office call me? Cause it wasn't real!

Unless the number is in my contacts, I don’t answer.  I haven’t ever setup voice mail either.  Last month, until I blocked the number, I had the same number call me each day for over 2 weeks!  I finally looked up the number.  It was Sirius xm.  

[Ozark_Kid]

38 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

mistakenly think they are being asked something about 19 times a day. 

I always think it’s funny when we are watching tv and Alexa, which is in the next room on the kitchen counter, will join into the conversation.  Sometimes we can’t figure out what triggered it.

[DaniDanielle]

My daughter’s Siri hardly answers her but if I am talking to my Siri downstairs I hear hers answer me!

she is upstairs but most likely enjoys me more.😁

[lenquixote66]

2 hours ago, LucasLikesToCruise said:

Just out of extreme curiosity and not doubting your experience, but how does one get nearly arrested for asking about the lack of security at an airport?

I was very angry that they were so lax and I guess that I asked my question in a rather loud voice.On the return trip the security in New Orleans was what I expected at JFK.

[BonTexasNY]

2 hours ago, LucasLikesToCruise said:

I went to London about two weeks after 9/11, there were all kinds of armed military all over the airport in Charlotte.  I always travel with a black leather Tumi backpack for a few carry on items.  We were not allowed to carry anything onto the flight to London Gatwick. They gave us a small clear plastic bag to carry any necessities on.  I took my book and a small bottle of meds.  That’s all that was allowed.  There was even a secondary screening by military personnel at the gate before boarding the flight.  

What I remember vividly in the immediate aftermath of 911 was how quiet the sky was with no planes flying.

1 hour ago, jagsfan said:

What ticks me off is the spoof phone calls where the caller id shows a local number and it’s not. 
I have the reverse phone look up app. Sometimes I use it to see where the calls are coming from. Most seem to be from Texas. 
Luckily my iPhone silenced them and I get a banner saying possible spam. 
We mostly stopped getting on our landline. 

I love the possible spam feature.  Yes, they know how to maneuver their # to show a local one.

52 minutes ago, Ozark_Kid said:

 

Unless the number is in my contacts, I don’t answer.  I haven’t ever setup voice mail either.  Last month, until I blocked the number, I had the same number call me each day for over 2 weeks!  I finally looked up the number.  It was Sirius xm.  

I don't answer either but it's annoying to have to hear the ring, then look at the phone to see who's calling. 

We still have a landline that we'll probably give up soon.  I don't recall the last time we used it.  I think it's there in case something happens to our cell phones.

[lenquixote66]

This past Tuesday there was a joint all years reunion of my HS and JHS in Fla.A friend of mine who was there sent me pictures of all who attended along with the names.Ten of the people were in my Elementary school graduating class.

I saw pictures of some people who I last saw 66 years ago who looked so young,it was amazing.Everyone who was there was a Florida resident.

 

[BonTexasNY]

3 minutes ago, lenquixote66 said:

I was very angry that they were so lax and I guess that I asked my question in a rather loud voice.On the return trip the security in New Orleans was what I expected at JFK.

It could be that security measures were in place, incognito, without anyone noticing?

 

[lenquixote66]

9 hours ago, Bailey & Sophie said:

 

I've been getting phone calls from Medicare and Social Security. Did I receive my new card?

I also got a call from the FBI. From Atlanta, about bank accounts in Texas that I (in Minneapolis) had. Ummm, we have an FBI office in Minneapolis. Why didn't that office call me? Cause it wasn't real!

We get calls supposedly from the Police Department asking for donations.

I once got a call from my grandson asking for money.I do not have any grandsons.

[lenquixote66]

6 hours ago, sgmn said:

Well after testing negative every day this week, I finally got a positive LFT test this morning.

I've felt like I have a bad cold since Thursday, sore throat, cough, tired but it's covid not a cold.  I'm all boostered so hopefully it won't get any worst. Legally I have to self isolate (and I will) though its widely reported that from Monday the govt is doing away with the legal bit and making  it advisory only. 

Gary is still testing negative 

We have PCR tests booked for later to confirm 

Sorry to hear this.Feel better soon.