No one is forcefully installing COVID-19 apps on your phone

All these conspiracy theories

I have been seeing shared notices and things on my Social Media timeline about Google and Apple automatically installed a COVID-19 Tracking app on our phones. At first, I ignored the notices, but they were getting pervasive and it will not be long before one of my friends or acquaintances contacts me to confirm whether this was true or not.

It meant one should just put paid to the issue, no one is automatically installing an app on your phone, any app installation would always require your consent along with the express granting of permissions to access features on your phone.

On my Android phone

Now, I do not have an Apple device, but I can check my Google Android device to explain exactly what you can view on your phones. On your Android phone, choose Settings, then choose Google. There, you will see the option COVID-19 exposure notifications. This was a feature pushed to Android phones in the last couple of months as part of an update process. [Forbes: Have Apple And Google Suddenly Uploaded A COVID-19 Tracking App To Your Phone? The Facts Behind The Furore]

Select Google after you have chosen Settings on your Android phone.

The COVID-19 exposure notifications feature that contains elements you setup and control.

Choosing the COVID-19 exposure notifications, you are presented with a number of options for your phone to be fully engaged in a mobile phone tracking and contact tracing activity. You need to turn on Bluetooth first. Then you need to install and setup a participating tracking app. The original ‘Track and Trace’ app that was piloted in the Isle of Wight for the UK has been shelved, it would not be rolled out in the UK. [GOV.UK: Next phase of NHS coronavirus (COVID-19) app announced]

The COVID-19 exposure notification features you control.

There are plans to develop a new app that takes advantage of the joint Google and Apple COVID-19 exposure notifications feature. Using a road and vehicle analogy, it is basically, a road with traffic stops and markings, open for use by anyone with a vehicle. The vehicle is the app, you need to put it on the road yourself to drive it, else, the road is just there, and you are going nowhere.

[Rant Alert] The app had nothing to do with the NHS, the NHS tag was applied to give the app some legitimacy, the NHS did not commission, tender, build or deploy the app, this was a created by a private company and managed by a committee instigated by the government and headed by someone who once headed a company with major data breaches and who has no expertise in public health or epidemiology. [End of Rant.] [The BMJ] [The Guardian]

You control everything

Furthermore, you have the means to control, delete or turn off the features along with deleting the participating app. Then your phone generates random IDs, these are anonymised identities of your phone that you can share which would link up with other proximity phones participating fully in the COVID-19 exposure notification programme, after the other person has enabled Bluetooth and installed the participating app.

Those random IDs will be deleted after 14 days, you can also manually delete those random IDs at your leisure. Fundamentally, you have to act to be involved, no one is commandeering your phone into a programme you have not actively and willingly subscribed to.

Let your fears be allayed.

Essential Snobbery 101: To serve and be served reveals a mindset of wealth

A fictional pandemic life

The different perspectives journaled of lives during this Coronavirus pandemic have given some insight into the way we deal with situations somehow out of our control. The organ grinder of our government’s spouse created a veritable work of fiction about the Coronavirus experience of their family situated in London when in reality, they had driven up to stay in Durham.

All on the premise of the need for childcare, which left us reeling from realising some people were above the law. Lest we forget, Make Wakefield’s family does own a castle; they are too established to follow the rules. [iNews: Mary Wakefield Spectator article: How Dominic Cummings’ wife’s coronavirus story differs from his statement]

A wealth pandemic life

A few days ago, we were brought to luxurious Kensington, a large house with enough space to invite other occupants to sequester as part of the enforced quarantine process. What followed was a life lesson in the power of wealth to insulate you from the common that the exclusive almost begins to grate.

Now, I have no issues with the piece Shruti Advani wrote for the Financial Times, it was a window into the cares, concerns and priorities of those who do not have to bother about the means to get anything done. Self-absorbed and lacking in self-awareness as it might seem, you begin to realise that you have to find ways to create your own bubbles in a turbulent world. If wealth gives you that opportunity, then so be it. [FT Wealth: The awkward lessons of my luxury lockdown in Kensington]

Accommodations of orderliness

What places her in this exclusive situation is borne of many things: she inherited wealth, used to edit a magazine about private wealth, and her husband is a venture capitalist. She retained a sense of order around the house, tripling the delivery of flowers, and when she found that kiddie arithmetic was a bit out of her league, she hired a private tutor for her son, whose educational challenges appear to be between schoolwork and chess, forestalling the future need for a psychiatrist.

There is a method to the whole narrative. Engaging in some conversation on Facebook, someone noted that she was name-dropping. The names dropped were those of helpers rather than of friends or colleagues. It exudes, in my view, a sense of confidence without a hint of social climbing; the designer or brand names simply mirroring her comfort zone. Obviously, she has a personal shopper.

Reality is at the door

Yet, her world is not devoid of reality; the pandemic bears weighty risks, death being present and threatening, with the recognition that wealth offers some protection, but it is not a talisman. The pandemic spread around the world, and the rich has inordinately affected the poor and ethnic minorities more.

The undercurrent of the writing still points to the many pressed into service to make our lives bearable, the nanny, the florist, the delivery men, the private tutor, the house help that cooks, the personal shopper, the police, and the ambulance crew. Eliminate those you cannot afford.

I came away with two thoughts: if I were ever to be affected by it at all, that wealth is a mindset and something you need to be conditioned for and that it is a nice life if you can afford and live it with any sense of guilt or apology. We are not called to carry the world on our shoulders; there is usually enough on our plates.

Azure: A blessing of the bright blue in colour like a cloudless sky

Share the useful things

Just a short note to acknowledge even the small blessings. Last night I happened upon some course material that had been lingering in the background. Microsoft offered a free hour’s webinar that I attended after work two days ago and in that hour, I learnt some things I never knew were possible quite surprisingly.

The technological landscape is changing, just as the workplace is. We are in the constant self-improvement quest to remain relevant and retain prominence. Everything is moving to the cloud. I had the course on playback on my television this morning and it just occurred to me to share it with some friends and on Twitter and Facebook.

See the unlikely rewards

I was gratified to know some of my friends were already exploring the option, others found it could be useful, but most notably, a friend with whom I have had a working relationship as far back as 2004, who had given me some insight in career development many times before, contacted me to offer some additional material and tips from his study programme, very helpful stuff.

Besides finding that it helped link me up with other friends. I liked the feeling that a simply act of dissemination in the hope that someone might gain some benefit has redounded more than could be expected.

I am even more thankful because illustrates the point I am swift to make; an open hand is that is ready to receive. That is how the blessing gets around.

The stuff to play with

If you are interested in gaining a cloud technologies certification in Microsoft Azure, you can start with Exam AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, follow the 3:10 hours YouTube course Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Certification Course (AZ-900) below (There are quite a few training outfits offering the course and some bundle it with a free exam voucher.) then extend your knowledge of Azure with the free Learn Azure in a Month of Lunches book that you can read as a webpage and download as a PDF.

If you do find any of this useful and go on to do the exam, please return to leave a note of your experience. Thank you.

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An obituary to a tablet in its prime

Distended innards

For the past few days, I noticed that the cover case of my Huawei MediaPad M3 Lite 8 was not closing properly. I put it down to the fitting and paid no further attention to it. Eventually, I decided to have a closer look, the screen on the folding side of the case was bulging out for reasons I could not say.

Trying to push the screen back into place simply led to the bulge coming back with a vengeance. That is when I learnt of one of the drawbacks of Lithium-Ion batteries. They have a tendency to bulge out, explode and catch fire.

Apparently, sometimes the chemical reaction within the battery cells which produces gas is not recycled within the electrolytic process leading to the expansion of the fuel cell and affecting the integrity and safety of the battery. [DfR Solutions: Why Do Lithium-Ion Batteries Swell?]

This is put under more stress when the battery is being charged. Sadly, after just 26 months of usage, this is the end-of-life of the device as there are no user-serviceable parts, for the battery is built-in and it is well outside warranty, I need to check that.

Unintended upgrade

Whilst it has been a constant bedside companion especially for radio play during the night amongst other things. It has been a gadget worthy of a Swiss Army Knife accolade, just because of the versatility of apps and functionality I have gotten out of it. It would be consigned now to the graveyard of tablets gone out of service because of all sorts of reasons. The third in 8 years.

In retrospect, it probably was ready for a replacement as Huawei were not offering upgrades to the operating system and user interfaces. It was stuck on Android 7.0 Nougat when many new products are now on Android 10, with Android 11 being released only in February. [Wikipedia: Android version history]

Whilst I await a more current replacement, I have backed up the tablet, tried to extract enough configurations from it and left it to fully discharge. It’s a shame that rather than then CPU, the battery is really the life-giving force of most electronic devices, take out the battery and that’s the end. It is like the human version of cardiovascular disease with the risk of a heart attack more likely than not. C’est la vie!

The side of the screen being pushed out by a swollen battery.

My trust tablet lying in state.

A day in concision

A day in time

What a difference a day makes, even if you cannot remember what happened in the last 24 hours. The clock ticks away as time grows old each moment reached and left to travel into the eternity past and the present which was a moment ago the future creeps upon you.

Sometimes, we give no thought to the passing of time, I attend work at home with expectation and patience, the things we need to do are limited by the things we are yet to acquire. Our presence tested by enquiry and hesitancy, for we must amend not to offend.

The time is true

In this, we tackle the affairs of the heart, a missive on a mission for which we have agreed to accomplish a union at the next rendezvous. Putting doubts aside and stepping out in faith, there is a lot in this for us. Birthdays wishes and thankful greetings, mining the gems of relationships that matter even more.

Not much a cauldron nor a pot, the black-eyed beans boil away in the gentility of slow cooking, no concern for the hours and no fear for the burning. Eventually, when it is ready, a tasty meal is had. Crying from the hamlet far away is the patriarch, needy and needful, we cannot needless heed even as we find ourselves needing.

Doing the timely stuff

The return of the leader is suffused attending to urgencies of proximity, nothing of our questions will for now be satisfactorily answered, we have become the waiters at the tables of time. Tapping away again, the words are a jumble of nonsense and insensibility, yet, in a few hours the day’s work would have been done.

Just to remember something I heard Trevor Noah say, “If he wasn’t black, he won’t be dead.” The shooting dead of Rayshard Brooks speaks to the fact that police reform critically needs a curriculum that majors in de-escalation because there are too many trigger-happy hotheads in police uniform devoid of common sense charged with protecting us. [BBC News: Rayshard Brooks shooting: Use of deadly force by Atlanta police condemned]

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The smell of love

A whiff of stink

I needed a distraction from everything else, so I went looking for an odd news story to write about and this is one for which one would smother giggles and probably pinch one’s nose. Yet, if one cannot escape quickly enough, you might just express displeasure and allow your olfactory system to bear the brunt of the onslaught than taste it.

Now, I would not go into the dynamics and science of flatulence, it happens. In some cases, it can be discreet and in others registering on a scale of decibels. Yet, they range in orders of pungency to which a slightly impaired sense of smell might well be a blessing if not one of the symptoms of having contracted the Coronavirus.

A test of love

That menace cannot seem to escape attention or intrusion in our affairs. The inspiration for this blog comes from the story of a couple who had been going out for 3 years and the girlfriend happened to inadvertently fart in the presence of her boyfriend and to him, it was the sign that they were really an item that he brought her a cake to celebrate this abandonment of self-awareness, inhibitions, and restraint. [Metro: Man treats girlfriend to congratulatory cake for farting in front of him after three years]

I doubt I would have gone public about certain intimate issues between my partner and I, definitely not on that, though it does not bother me, it usually occurs naturally and though personally there have been times of unfortunate mishaps that have occasioned a swift return home for a change of undergarments along with the fear of the onset of incontinence, which mercifully has not been the case. A gastrointestinal bug or some stomach upset can present difficulty at the best of times.

What I cannot say is whether this does really indicate a sign of love or we have just been invited to the spectacle of eproctophilia, which apparently is a bizarre subtype of olfactophilia. I would think many of us probably exhibit the larger rather than the particular. [Psychology Today: Eproctophilia Explained]

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - IX

A river tamed

The intention to go for a walk yesterday never happened even though it was a good day for such activity. I just could not decide what to do, so I just stayed at home.

Today, however, I had grand plans though there was little in terms of execution towards achieving that. I donned my shorts, put on my trainers and stepped out in a different direction, not south or east like I used to, but towards the west.

Soon, I caught an unusual view of River Medlock that I first wrote of some 6 years ago, when I visited Philips Park and read of how it flooded and washed away graves of the cemetery that the Victorians culverted most of the river through Manchester until it flowed into the River Irwell.

Blog - Walks through the cycle of life

A tall view of new Manchester

Then, I was walking beside the construction site of Renaker’s Deansgate Square, a group of 4 tower blocks, the South Tower at 64 storeys exceeds the height of Beetham Tower, which at 47 storeys is currently the tallest occupied building in Manchester, in terms of comparatives, it would be the fifth tallest building in the United Kingdom. [MEN: Watch how Manchester's biggest ever skyscraper shot up to soar over the north]

Out onto Deansgate, I took Dawson Street over the River Irwell towards Regent’s Road and stopped off at Regent Retail Park, a shopping precinct that I always sighted but never visited in my over 6 years of living in Manchester.

The huge Sainsbury’s supermarket was quite a big draw with the queue snaking down the whole length of the storefront and almost halfway down the side of the carpark. Obeying social distancing rules, it was about 50 people deep, yet, moving quite fast. I was in the store within 10 minutes.

Mamucium is something old

Leaving the store, I took a separate route back, towards Trinity Way, then onto Water Street where signs, plaques and signboards began to tell the history of canals, railways, and Castlefield, a Roman Wall? Now, that was a surprise as I chanced upon a pavilion and a canal wharf shaped like a tuning fork.

Further on was a rebuilt structure representing the North Gate to Mamucium or Mancunium, the old Roman names of Manchester. These were interesting elements of the history of this city going back around 1,900 years, I had not visited and considered.

People were out but not in droves, many in small groups catching the sun, but even in these pandemic times, just a stroll in a different direction can reveal some intriguing things.

Snapshots of what I saw.