Peaches and Dulcinea: creepy questions

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2025/jun/18/nuclear-armageddon-is-back-baby-so-how-does-one-survive-a-nuclear-explosion

fleeting train (really fast express)

WHY do most apps want access to contacts and the phone-dialing system?

WHY does everyone everywhere want access to "Location services"?

Location permissions are required?

If you only need the SSID (in a database) you don't need location services to be on.
IOW you're FOS, but nvm

I get all interested in "RSSI" which is a fancy-assed way of saying "Signal strength."
The minimum needed for a high-speed connection, limited hopefully by distance and maybe the ceiling.
But this turned out to be a multi-part miniseries....No, my router won't show RSSI except as an icon with little bars, and connection-speed.

Parenthetically, My RSSI for cellular modem service is, -89 to -86, which is horribly bad supposedly but I''m still here (You bastards)

SO when the router asks me what my RSSI connection boundaries are, I totally guess,

or,

use a freebie wi-fi spy-thing that wants me in some database.

THEN (in part xxxviii) I learn that the whole RSSI-Boundary thing is only a request to clients that they switch to a different node in my mesh, not a bubble to keep wifi-hackers out.

Assuming most cellular companies follow the law, and the law wants to know where your phone is 24/7 (watch any cop show)

I guess I answered my own questions. The Law and hackers need to know where and who you are.
I'm supposed to have a "Burn phone" but I don't.
So blame me, right?

Anyway, I want my battery to last long.
It does not.

Under my wifi-button, with it turned OFF, it continually says "Networks available."

This is because of "Location services", I am told.
So I disable "Location services" and get dire warnings.

I'm still seeing the "Networks available" on the wi-fi button. It doesn't scroll anymore, does that mean it's frozen, or it just scans slower? No, wait, It scrolls now. Must have been a choice I made that something overrode.

My number and the towers I use must impart valuable location information to the
"Powers that be" so Wi-fi is more of a micromanaging-thing, to know e x a c t l y where I'm at.

This just got edited down, it was more bombastic than creepy.
"Creepiness" is so subjective anyway...

Not "creepy," more bland homogenized patter.
https://www.mobilesignalguru.com/blog/why-does-your-mobile-signal-get-worse-at-night/

It's You, you didn't choose the right company, you're still awake when you should be sleeping,
And you didn't buy a "Signal Booster."
Apparently the latest cellular slogs through the worst signals ever, so nobody really cares, except maybe cellular gurus wanting to save a buck on electricity.

Someone said that one of our town's Towers died and they're replacing it.
Then they changed the palaver and said they're modernizing an existing (dead?) tower.
Both scenarios mean that one of the towers will stay dead for a while(?), and the surviving tower is doing double-duty.
IDK, but it sounds great, like some submarine-movie.

To the zillions of iPhone-users who have never seen nor used a VCR,

this next bit is meaningless, so stop reading.

The "Back Arrow" meant "Rewind"
The circle meant "Record"

and the square meant "Stop (recording.)"

Yeah-yeah, I know, "Times have changed."

I press until the desired result happens.

(e.g., "square"="screenshot-menu")

I get it wrong two out of three times.
I don't like it much, but I like the "Screenshot"-thing when I actually get it to work.

I always thought that the woman on the train holding her phone up, so the people behind her could see it,

was swapping apps mindlessly using gestures to sell her cool phone brand (this was maybe 2004.)

She might maybe have been practicing gestures....
Or maybe she was recording us watching her, or maybe she was testing the phone's responsiveness??

I thought she was very weird at the time, not stopping on any one app nor really watching the screen...

I'll choose to believe (for now) that she was testing her new phone.

Was that the day my wife nearly had an aneurysm cussing me out for worrying what other people think or do?

I try not to think about it much.

-----------------

getting told your blood pressure is high, almost-high or whatever, might make you want to go out and buy a meter, which never gets used.
The exercise (spelling "Exercise" correctly,) dragging the meter from the closet, rearranging furniture and plugging the damn thing in and turning it on, And one-handed cuff acrobatics, vs braving traffic to get to their offices on time and be all nervous, um, means your blood pressure will ALWAYS be above normal, it's futile to fight it.
Unless there's some trick, like holding your breath or completely going limp or arm-positioning.
Putting on the cuff *very loosely* (cuz if it's nice-and-tight before you begin, your pressure will be higher.)

Well anyway.

O, and doctors get paid more if your blood pressure is high and they can prescribe stuff
(that depresses you and makes you dizzy)

If one blood-pressure-pill makes your pressure go lower than 200 (say,) then TWO blood pressure pills might be even better...buut nooo, that extra pill would make you nearly black out and order an (expensive) ambulance....the creepy feelings from the memory are still there.
Blood pressure is either high or it isn't. "Above normal" doesn't count.

I wonder about manual testing. The cuff doesn't have to be positioned exactly, and the sphygmomanometer /stethoscope (ear-hose thingy) gets pressed to your arm wherever.
You might be more nervous than with a soothing machine
(It reminds me of executions, and no, I couldn't find a picture yet)
...bottom line, for all the wrong reasons, it's high, based upon the opinion of the fancy manual machine operator.
Now comes the home meter.
I failed biology-stethoscopes, couldn't hear a damn thing and the model-type was totally pissed anyway.

I failed buying a cheapo meter (The one they all use) because the cuff was too damn small.
With googling, I managed to get a Bentley/Lexus meter, which I avoid except once a year when the subject arises.
If you're old, they can profit tons and if they make a mistake, well you're old anyway.
Bah! Humbug.
Now that I've really worked myself up, I shall press "test" on the old Bentley.
3 tests average: 124/70!!! In your FACE!!

Now I'll wonder why my left ear whistles sometimes, to the beat of my pulse...