I have Skype app installed on my Android cell phone. I thought that Skype was only to do calls, voice or video, to others with Skype also. But recently, I am getting notifications from Skype much like text msg notifications, and these notifications are of the news type. For example, Skype today sent a notification about the death of O.J. Simpson.

I looked at the Skype app, and didn't see any way to turn off such notifications. Anyone else experience this type of behavior? And does anyone have a solution to stop Skype from sending these notifications?

I thought that the Cone of Silence was a technology of Spy Organizations...

Gee, and here I thought that the Buffalo curse had to do with the Buffalo Bills football team.

The other thing that amazes me is how the astronomers can plot the course of the moon and the exact times for cities in the path of the eclipse, the beginning of eclipse, the exact time of totality, and the exact end of totality. And this is not only for the eclipse of April 8, 2024, but they can give the same exact info for the next one 300 years into the future!

We live in a cul-de-sac. I should have been more descriptive.

For yesterday's eclipse, 4/8/2024, we didn't take any pictures, as the wise recommendation was to just enjoy the event, and not worry about camera settings. So, wife and I, with eclipse glasses, lay down in the middle of our street to watch. At totality, we took off the glasses.

What amazed me was the extent to which even a sliver of the sun (just before and just after totality) gave what was daylight, albeit much like dusk. So, long as the sliver was there, one could, if desired take a landscape picture. But as soon as totality came, BINGO, it went from day to night in an instant. WOW!

The Title ... was that intended as click-bate?

Jerry, if you are also using McAfee as your anti-virus, and have recently done a McAfee update...that is the problem. If you have any other anti-virus program, perhaps there are similar scenarios. I had such and got with Macrium support. The problem is that Macrium update removes 2 Excludes from McAfee, and thus Macrium goes bonkers and scans everything over and over...thus 10 hours. They provided a fix, which has to be done EVERYTIME you do a Macrium update:

Macrium Reflect – Problem:

Doing FULL backup to external HD taking 10 hours instead of approx. 2 hours.
Exclude 2 files from scan in McAfee:
Follow the instructions in the link below to exclude from Real-Time Scanning, 2 exe files in McAfee
https://www.mcafee.com/support/?articleId=TS102056&page=shell&shell=article-view

The files to exclude:
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect\reflect.exe
C:\Program Files\Macrium\Reflect\reflectbin.exe

Jerry, is the 1st picture a generic picture of any non-specific runners?
Or, is that you in the middle in your younger days?

A little town in New Hampshire got $20 Million recently to install "heated sidewalks." Huh???

Jerry, try Karate for Ear Wax ON...Ear Wax OFF...

100 Motivational Quotes That Will Inspire You To Be Successful:

1. If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission. ~Anonymous

2. Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out. ~John Wooden

3. To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. ~Anonymous

4. If you are not willing to risk the usual you will have to settle for the ordinary. ~Jim Rohn

5. Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it's safe or certain. ~Anonymous

6. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. ~Swami Vivekananda

7. All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them. ~Walt Disney

8. Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them. ~Anonymous

9. If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. ~Anonymous

10. Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill

11. Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly. ~Proverb

12. Successful entrepreneurs are givers and not takers of positive energy. ~Anonymous

13. Whenever you see a successful person you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them. ~Vaibhav Shah

14. Opportunities don't happen, you create them. ~Chris Grosser

15. Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value. ~Albert Einstein

16. Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

17. I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. ~Thomas A. Edison

18. If you don't value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents- start charging for it. ~Kim Garst

19. A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. ~David Brinkley

20. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

21. The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it. ~Henry Ford

22. If you're going through hell keep going. ~Winston Churchill

23. The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do. ~Anonymous

24. Don't raise your voice, improve your argument. ~Anonymous

25. What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.~ Oscar Wilde

26. The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. ~Anonymous

27. The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. ~Bruce Feirstein

28. When you stop chasing the wrong things you give the right things a chance to catch you. ~Lolly Daskal

29. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. ~John D. Rockefeller

30. No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy artist.~ Anonymous

31. Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

32. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. ~Albert Einstein

33. Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting. ~Anonymous

34. Do one thing every day that scares you. ~Anonymous

35. What's the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable. ~Anonymous

36. Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. ~Lolly Daskal

37. Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. ~Anonymous

38. Knowledge is being aware of what you can do. Wisdom is knowing when not to do it. ~Anonymous

39. Your problem isn't the problem. Your reaction is the problem. ~Anonymous

40. You can do anything, but not everything. ~Anonymous

41. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. ~Steve Jobs

42. There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed. ~Ray Goforth

43. Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. ~Dr. APJ Kalam

44. I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. ~Thomas Jefferson

45. The starting point of all achievement is desire. ~Napolean Hill

46. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out. ~Robert Collier

47. If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work. ~Thomas J. Watson

48. All progress takes place outside the comfort zone. ~Michael John Bobak

49. You may only succeed if you desire succeeding; you may only fail if you do not mind failing. ~Philippos

50. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absense of fear. ~Mark Twain

51. Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. ~Pablo Picasso

52. People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily. ~Zig Ziglar

53. We become what we think about most of the time, and that's the strangest secret. ~Earl Nightingale

54. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. ~Vidal Sassoon

55. The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning; to create a product or service to make the world a better place. ~Guy Kawasaki

56. I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing. ~Martha Stewart

57. It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. ~Anonymous

58. The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. ~Colin R. Davis

59. The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. ~Ralph Nader

60. Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. ~Maya Angelou

61. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. ~Bill Gates

62. A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them. ~Henry Kravis

63. The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself. ~Mark Caine

64. People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. ~Tony Robbins

65. When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. ~Audre Lorde

66. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. ~Mark Twain

67. The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus. ~Bruce Lee

68. Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life -- think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. ~Swami Vivekananda

69. Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. ~Dale Carnegie

70. If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. ~ Jim Rohn

71. If you genuinely want something, don't wait for it -- teach yourself to be impatient. ~Gurbaksh Chahal

72. Don't let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning. ~Robert Kiyosaki

73. If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your problems and start focusing on the size of you! ~T. Harv Eker

74. You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. ~Steve Jobs

75. Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to doDon't wish it were easier, wish you were better. ~Jim Rohn

76. The number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family, and neighbors. ~Napoleon Hill

77. The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them. ~Denis Watiley

78. In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it. ~Jane Smiley

79. Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. ~George Bernard Shaw

80. I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. ~Diane Ackerman

81. You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them. ~Michael Jordan

82. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. ~Jim Ryun

83. People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. ~Dale Carnegie

84. There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

85. Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter. ~Francis Chan

86. You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction. ~George Lorimer

87. To be successful you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can't just accept the ones you like. ~Mike Gafka

88. Success is...knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others. ~ John C. Maxwell

89. Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice. ~Wayne Dyer

90. To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.~ Anatole France

91. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all. ~Dale Carnegie

92. You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals. ~Booker T. Washington

93. Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. ~Theodore N. Vail

94. It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ~Herman Melville

95. Fortune sides with him who dares. ~Virgil

96. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it. ~Washington Irving

97. Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. ~Truman Capote

98. Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ~John R. Wooden

99. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. ~Margaret Thatcher

100. A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done. ~Vince Lombardi

I have a vision of the Addams family in that house.

...and how the proprietors of that stable got the animals into the upper loft is a mystery.