This phenomenon has been well-researched since 2012. Social media in particular creates an information seeking loop. The only solution is to quit social media entirely.

Unfortunately, this creates withdrawal symptoms remarkably similar to opiate withdrawal because the information seeking loop messes with your dopamine system.

I've made a couple of videos about this.

https://youtu.be/au0S65dafQY?s...

My mother is beyond learning any technology. It's why we can get away with surreptitious cameras.

I have absolutely considered your suggestions prior to settling on Ring. There are numerous benefits that the company and its products bring to the table beyond simple monitoring.

There are also my own points of failure inasmuch as local Internet goes down far more frequently than AWS.

This AWS outage as an absolute earthquake to be sure. I have a good friend who's a consultant who has so far spent 20 hours with clients in India and had a pending call with UK customers wen I IM-ed him. Worldwide, lost revenue is simply astonishing. He told me that one of his clients was losing $4K every minute AWS was down. This jives with my own experience working for a credit company. If we went down, we were losing about $1M per minute.

Moreover, when the Internet is down, Ring automatically connects to a cell network, and our monitoring is unaffected. That wouldn't be the case if I were running a home-brew system.

With a risk analysis and taking into consideration my family's general technological knowledge, the benefits of Ring outweigh those of a home-brew system.

Nothing is perfect. However, weighing all factors, I think Ring is still the best solution for my use case.

Not at all. They simply aren't IT specialists.

I taught IT at the college level for several years. You need to lower your expectations as to what Joe Average is capable of understanding without specialized training.

It's like any profession. You don't expect a patient to know what it took their GP a decade to learn. Similarly, it's inappropriate to expect non-IT people to know what you do.

We've considered it. While I could certainly come up with a home-brew solution, my other relatives didn't spend 40 years in IT as I have. I could never explain to them how to access such as system.

Ring makes it simple for them. It's not perfect, but I can at least take breaks from monitoring without worrying that my other relatives would be utterly confused.

I would caution you against making such remarks while you are ignorant of the specific circumstances. While I'm too old to care, most people would find your remarks insulting.

I would caution you against giving medical advice without being aware of the specific circumstances. While I'm too old to care, most people would find such remarks insulting.

My family and I are not caring for her in a vacuum, but rather with the guidance of medical professionals and specialists. I'll take their advice over a stranger on the Internet.

Sadly, it's not as simple as that. If your parents suffer from Alzheimer's, then you know how unpredictable it can be. Each person is different, requiring different techniques to deal with them.

Additionally, I have relatives who, unlike me, haven't been in IT for 40 years. Ring's interface makes it easy for someone else to monitor her if I'm unavailable or I just need a break.

Could I come up with a home-brew solution? Absolutely. Could I explain to my siblings and descendants? Not in a million years.

No, Ring.

Unless you monitor your elderly mother with Alzheimer's. It becomes infinitely more difficult to keep her from doing something that might harm herself or others without Ring.

In my case, it's because there's a Cam in my Ring doorbell. I use Ring to surreptitiously monitor my elderly mother who has Alzheimer's. Without Ring, it's a lot more difficult to keep her from doing something that might harm herself and others. I particularly need the exterior door cams. She lives on a busy street and has been known to sit down with her legs in the street to do infinitesimal yard work. She's also gone through neighbors' trash. I use the cams to know when she's exited the house, in the front or back yard, and deal with whatever she's doing.

It's more problematic for me. I use Ring to surreptitiously monitor my elderly mother who has Alzheimer's. Without Ring, it's a lot more difficult to keep her from doing something that could be harmful to herself or others.

They always make this sound so easy, but there are a million things we don't know that would lead to the certain deaths of Lunar colonists.

• The Problem With Space Travel

I see nowhere in the article that says the clerk shut down all the pumps. Citation, please?

Well, kid, as to the time taken to notice, it was long enough to obtain an emergency kit. It's not stated if such kits are kept on-site or if it was obtained by a manufacturer. In either case, the expedient of an Out of Order sign would have bought some time.

My first job was washing dishes at a restaurant. There is no crappier, not-worth-the-pay, unskilled labor job, and it remains so to this day. Let's put a parallel situation into this:

To wash large numbers of dishes, you put them in a rack and then place them at one end of an industrial dishwasher. They come out on the other side. They have sensors (even at that time) that stopped the conveyor belt to ensure that it didn't slide off the end and destroy the dishes within.

However, these sensors sometimes break -- not surprising in an area with high humidity and corrosive detergents. When this occurs, should I:

A. Allow the racks to fall off the end of the dishwasher, thereby destroying all the dishes therein (as well as causing a significant safety hazard to the surrounding environs due to broken glass).

B. Watch the end of the dishwasher and grab the racks as they come off.

By your account, it would be (A), as I wouldn't be earning enough to do (B).

Pay is irrelevant. Common sense, attention to detail, and a desire to do a good job regardless of pay is what's relevant.

(I might also mention that one of the other dishwashers was developmentally challenged, operating on about the 10-year-old level. Even he knew to grab the racks.)

Also, I'd note that your math is off. $3.00 in 1981 is $8.71 today. However, due to the nature of the restaurant, someone doing that job today would earn at least $9.00/hour -- significantly more in some States.

Here's another thing that goes over your head, kiddo: when you make stupid mistakes that cost me some percentage of $1800 (versus your $12-$15/hour wage), you're never going to advance. Want to keep your crappy $12-$15 wage (or be fired)? Feel free to keep screwing up.

The world owes you nothing. You either do a job worthy of advancement, or you flip burgers for the rest of your life. Grandpas like me will neither promote nor hire you when you're cost us money, regardless of your pay.

Gotta remember, sonny: you don't own the joint. We do.

Then at some point an Out of Order sign should have been wrapped around the pump handle.

Low-wages don't enter into it. When I entered the workforce at age 16 (when the minimum wage was $3.00-ish), I'd've done it. Never mind that I had other things going on, I'd've said to customers, "You're going to have to hang on a sec, I need to put an Out of Order sign on a pump."

This isn't a question of wages. It's a question of intelligence. The clerk tried to turn it off at some point. When that procedure failed, they should have thought to themselves, "Frak! We're losing money right-and-left! Better go put an Out of Order sign at the pump!"

They lost $1800. That's worth a hell of a lot more than some flunky's minimum wage. Frankly, if I had been 16 and making minimum wage, I'd be scared zark-less that I'd lose my job over costing the store in the vicinity of $1800 for my failure to do something so fantastically obvious.

I'm not from the area, but given footage on YouTube by local station WDIV it would appear to be one of those big gas stations with a convenience store. It doesn't look like it's in a bad part of the city.

Additionally, I spent a couple of minutes geolocating the convenience store in question. It appears to be in a largely residential area with well-maintained homes.

The reason for the pump's malfunction is irrelevant to my statements. The clerk could have posted an Out of Order sign at any time.

I have no idea what you mean by conspiracy theories. I never mentioned any. I simply said that the convenience store clerk was stupid for not putting an Out of Order sign on the pump. I further went on to state that this kind of stupidity is consistent with what I've seen of such clerks for a long time.