Panera Bread's captive Wi-Fi portal and "Access Denied"

For more than a year, I struggled with Panera Bread's captive Wi-Fi portal in their restaurants, seeing Access Denied whenever I tried to use them from my personal phone. My work phone was able to use their Wi-Fi.

Finally I ran across a discussion on Reddit, which apparently I did not bookmark, that solved the issue.

Panera apparently doesn't like it if one's Android phone allows the Russian language, which I was at one time studying. Once I removed Russian from the list of available system languages, the portal and the website worked without further trouble.

Repaired a solar-powered holiday light string

During a winter storm, one of the solar-powered light strings we had on display was severed. In retrospect, it should have been obvious, as there were only two visible wires going from one end of the string to the other, but I didn't realize at first, when repairing it, that polarity doesn't matter.

This string has various pattern effects, and to do that it takes advantage of inherent properties of diodes (light-emitting or not) and human vision. Each bulb in the string is wired in opposite polarity from the one that precedes it, so any effect that alternates half of the string will light, because a diode wired against the flow of current will simply block the current.

When the string appears to be fully lit, it takes advantage of the slow decay of impulses in the human retina - it rapidly alternates the current, lighting each half of the string in succession. If the string and the observer remain stationary, the entire string appears to be lit. Moving the observer or the string might result in some flicker being observed.

 Eric Flint on the attack on Baen's Bar.

"Not all" versus "all are not"

There is a clear difference in meaning between

All X are not Y.

and

Not all X are Y.

The first statement, taken literally, says that no member of group X has attribute Y.

Most people don't mean it that way, but by using that construct, they sow confusion.

If you mean that only some members of group X have attribute Y, while some do, then say that:

Not all X are Y.

If you mean that zero members of group X have attribute Y, then please use a different construct:

No X are Y. 

Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham wants federal judges who are in their mid-to-late-60s to retire so they can be replaced now.

Lindsey Graham is 64. Shouldn't he, by his measure, retire now?

COVID-19

Some say that COVID-19 is a god's punishment for the behavior of some-or-other minority group.

They could not be more wrong.

It's not a punishment, but it can be viewed as Nature showing who's really in charge.

Humanity is a plague on this planet, and we destroy more than we create.

On religion and "persecution"

If you're prevented from forcing your religious views on everyone, that doesn't mean you're being persecuted.

China has too many people.

China has a high male to female ratio.

China refuses to endorse same-sex marriage.

?

The Problem with systemd (link)

Primer: The Problem With Systemd

Cox update

Cox is raising the price of the lowest internet service tier, with no indication where the increase in rate is going, and my attempts to learn that have gone nowhere.

We really need competition in the ISP space. Two incumbents, one cable, one DSL/"fiber", do not constitute competition.