Samsung's Galaxy S* phone series has a very annoying naming issue. The S25 series includes - S25, S25+, S25 Ultra, S25 Edge, and S25 FE. If I want a case for an S25 Edge, I search Amazon with "S25 Edge", and similarly for the others, until I get to the S25. For the S25, I need "S25 NOT + Ultra Edge FE", but Amazon search doesn't support that. Why not call the S25 the "S25 Compact". Then I could do useful searches for it.
I was waiting on the Samsung Galaxy S26, due in a month, to get a new phone. But all indications are - slightly bigger, no anti-reflective glass. The S25 Ultra has a new anti-reflective glass that I was hoping would be used on the S26 - apparently not. The S25 is slightly smaller than the S26 and I didn't see any disadvantage. Switching phones is a major pain. Copy the old phone (easy), but then update settings (do not disturb schedule, suppress picture in picture in Maps, Maps sound levels, brightness settings), log into calendar app, TV web page, Amazon, Google, Facebook, recreate my home page in Nova (launcher), turn on my alarms, set up the always on display, turn off all gestures, set up the fingerprint reader, set up app permissions and other app settings. Hours of work. Then transfer the SIM - done!
The fingerprint reader seems to be noticeably improved - faster, more reliable. And the side buttons are a bit easier to push.
Huge phones have taken over the market. The base Galaxy S* series is the smallest mainstream Android phone. Why do they make their small phone larger? Its primary feature is that it is small.
After two and a half years, my S23 was as good as new. And that's without ever using a screen cover. The only reason for upgrading was to get app widgets on the always on display (AOD). The S23 had this feature at one point, and then it was dropped. That would normally cause me to drop Samsung. But, to my knowledge, no other phones ever had the feature. The S25 does let you put app widgets on the AOD. But they are dimmed relative to the clock, so not as useful as they should be. Anyway, I have time zone and next alarm on my AOD again, if not quite bright enough to see in some conditions. And the AOD clock no longer roams the screen since the new screens, apparently, do not have a burn in problem.
The S25 screen is blinding. I keep turning the brightness down, but the slide bar is in the lower 5% of its range so it is not easy to control. Single step buttons on each side of slide controls would be very useful on touch screens. Why do phone manufacturers keep pushing brighter screens? Why do reviewers keep praising them for it?
Samsung Game Booster is supposed to help you with action games - preventing interference from other apps. I don't know or care what else it might do. But any app that declares itself to be a game is captured - chess, word games. A pop up menu is controlled by an added button in the lower left corner of the screen, right about where my thumb is holding the phone. So the menu is constantly popping up over the game. And of course there is nothing on the menu that improves the game.
But you can't delete the app, you can't turn it off, and you can't filter what games it controls. I finally found a good way to kill it - this is mostly from a YouTube video. Update Samsung Game Booster (it was already installed but didn't show up on my settings app list). Then in Setting - Apps - Game Booster, Change system settings - not allowed and Appear on top - off. So the annoying pop up button still shows up on the navigation bar, but it doesn't have permission to put a menu on top of the game. And it is not allowed to give itself permission. Problem solved. But the whole situation is an example of software design stupidity. Why don't you just let me delete the app? Or tell it to ignore specific types of games.
Maybe in a year or two anti-reflective screens will make it to the mainstream. I suspect that by the time that happens, all phones will be huge.
2026-01-27
Samsung Galaxy S25
2025-11-08
Investing - The Tax Gauntlet of Roth Conversions
This post has taken a long time to write (mostly rewrite) to try to make it coherent. I hope the rewrites were successful. Sorry for the acronyms, but you can't talk about taxes with using them.
MAGI for IRMAA and NIIT - This is your modified adjusted gross income. It is your total income, including investment distributions, IRA withdrawals, the taxable portion of Social Security benefits. It includes tax-exempt interest. Student loan interest and pretax IRA contributions are NOT deducted. Roth IRA withdrawals are not included. IRMAA and NIIT use this number and higher means more Medicare and tax. BEWARE - other taxes may calculate MAGI differently.
RMDs - Required Minimum Distributions - Starting around age 73 (depends on your birth year), you are required to withdraw a percentage of your IRA (or 401K, etc.) and pay taxes on it. It starts at about 4% and goes up every year. This money cannot be converted to a Roth IRA. You pay income tax on it at your marginal rate since it is in addition to your regular income. And sometimes it increases your marginal rate. If you don't need this money, you can invest it, and pay taxes on the distributions.
IRMAA - Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount - Medicare penalizes you for making too much money. And the amount is a very nonlinear function of your MAGI. Below around $100k (unmarried), no penalty. Above about $183k, about $5000/year. Then this would be multiplied by how many years it takes to convert your IRA. It sounds good to do it all at once, pay a big penalty, and be done with it in one year. But ...
Tax Bracket - When you top around $200k (unmarried) your marginal tax rate pops up to 32%, a nice jump from 24%. So it would be good to keep your Roth conversions below $200k minus your income. But if your income is, for example, $50k, that leaves you converting just $150k per year.
NIIT - Net Investment Income Tax - This is an additional tax on your investment income (interest, dividends, capital gain) if your MAGI is above $200k (unmarried). The amount of the tax is 3.8% of the lesser of your investment income or your MAGI minus $200k (unmarried).
You want low RMDs (RMDs are a percentage of the total IRA). You want low MAGI for lower Medicare premiums. You want low income for lower taxes. And you want low MAGI to avoid an NIIT tax bump. But you want to convert a lot of assets from IRA to Roth IRA and this counts as income and MAGI.
(Unmarried) it looks to me like it is best to keep your MAGI under $197k to stay out of the 32% tax bracket. This "spreadsheet" assumes you have an income of $44k. It show four levels of MAGI, each obtained by adding a Roth conversion amount to your income. The Medicare penalty percentage is minimized by pushing the MAGI to the top of (but not past) each IRMAA bracket. (Such evaluations would be so much easier with a continuous curve instead of stepped brackets, but our representatives in Congress apparently do not understand mathematics.)
income – includes conversion MAGI penalty penalty
Social Security *.85, amount per month per year
RMDs, as a % of
pretax IRA contributions, conversion
investment distributions
44,000 62,000 106,000 0 0.0%
89,000 133,000 88 1.2%
123,000 167,000 220 2.1%
156,000 200,000 353 2.7%
This shows that faster conversion gives higher Medicare penalties And there is likely higher tax on the RMDs. But it reduces RMDs faster. RMDs can bump your MAGI into higher Medicare penalties. And an RMD can't go to your Roth unless you have equal earned income. That means that if you invest the RMDs you pay tax on the distributions. So - choose your poison.
Investing - Total Return for Dividend Stocks
Dividend stocks and ETFs have an odd characteristic. Their stated goal is to produce income via dividends, but actually their total return (income plus growth) is just as important as the dividends. The issue is that the listed dividends are the current dividends. But you probably want those dividends to increase with inflation. If the payout ratio (profits paid as dividends / total profits) is 50%, half of profits go to dividends and the rest are used to, hopefully, increase profits and produce higher dividends in the future or buy back stock to increase the stock value. Businesses that have a high payout ratio pay high dividends, but don't grow as fast as businesses with low payout ratios. And if they pay out more than 100% of profits, the business is shrinking.
So my suggested strategy for selecting a dividend ETF or stock is decide how much I need from dividends and select an ETF that gives me that, and no more. The more is used by the business to improve future dividends, so it not disadvantageous to own this business.
There are a number of covered call dividend ETFs. These use stocks as collateral to gamble on the stock price. If they win, you get the result as an ETF dividend. Two problems - these are not qualified dividends, so taxed as income, not capital gains. And if they lose, they must sell the stock below market value. They can offer very nice dividends as long as they are winning. And they can continue the nice dividends while they are losing, but their value will go down.
When I chose to use SCHD and VYM a few years ago, SCHD had a dividend of about 3.5%. VYM about 3%. SCHD was significantly ahead in total return for the past ten years. This year SCHD is paying 3.8% and VYM is paying 2.5%. But total return, VYM value is up 12.8% and SCHD is up 1.6%. So VYM is set to give 12.8% higher dividends on the cost basis than the reported dividends because the principal has grown 12.8%. SCHD is set to give 1.6% higher dividends on the cost basis than the reported dividends.
Compare JEPI to VOO, VYM, SCHD - using totalrealreturns.com. Total return (dividends reinvested) per year for 5 years. JEPI 10.3%, VOO 17%, VYM 14.5%, SCHD 10.4%. JEPI is actively managed and uses covered call options to improve returns. It returns 8.4% dividend (currently). But that means that growth is just 1.9%, not keeping up with inflation. VYM returns 2.5% currently. But it's growing 12% per year. SCHD returns 3.8% currently and growing at 6.6%.
The net of all of this - the best dividend stocks or funds are the ones with the best total return while giving you the amount of income that you need, but no more. Beware if the dividends exceed about 4%. These are at significant risk to drop in value either because the businesses are likely paying more than half of their profits in dividends or the fund manager is gambling with the stocks to get higher dividends.
SCHD - I have a blog post about SCHD, which, in the past, looked like an outstanding dividend fund. Recent performance doesn't look so good - apparently it's in out of favor sectors. So, when I say "That's history, not prediction" take it to heart. VYM looks a lot better recently.
2025-07-29
More Good and Bad
In no particular order-
It took a while to find an Android app that would just tell me how far I have walked. I don't want to plan a route - my route this summer is wherever there is shade. I don't want steps, or calories burned, or how fast I'm going. I don't need a map of where I've been. Map My Walk is the best I have found and it has about 5x what I want, but pretty simple to just start a walk, and it notifies me every quarter mile (adjustable), which is handy. You can't buy it - subscription only. (Update - for what I use, it doesn't even need a subscription.)
KROGER has quit stocking whole wheat spaghetti. BAD. They still have, for now, whole wheat thin spaghetti. (Update - they fixed the issue - regular and thin whole wheat spaghetti on the shelf.)
Gestures - I have railed against gestures as an input method on phones before. But I was hit with it recently. I was testing one of my Android apps on a virtual phone with Android defaulted to gesture navigation. I needed the app list but could not find it. I gave up my search and asked Perplexity.ai. The answer - swipe up on the home screen. What? How was I supposed to know that? It seems to me that gestures are a lot like invisible icons. I hate icons, but with a (visible) icon, even if I can't decode the meaning, at least I know some function is a touch away. But a gesture?
Philips Norelco One Blade electric razor - excellent. It's like an electric hair clipper or hedge trimmer, except the head is only about 1+1/4 by a 1/2 inch. And it has a surface that lets you drag it across your skin smoothly. It doesn't shave as close as fancy razors. But it doesn't leave long hairs that don't get under the foil. And it doesn't pull hairs. No pain. Doesn't irritate skin.
I hate sock that squeeze my feet. Many years ago, I found Gildan size 12-15 gray crew socks. Much better than other socks although they still squeezed a bit. I don't know why, but the black ones were much tighter. I never tried white. But they quit making them. Inexplicably, the low cut versions of these socks were no looser that their regular socks. I tried other large size socks - they were longer but not any looser. Searching Amazon recently to see if Gildan had started making the 12-15 gray crew socks again, I found these - Extra Wide Comfort Fit Socks. There are other brands that appear similar, but the Extra Wide brand has a much higher cotton content. They are expensive, about $10/pair. The medium size socks are loose on my feet. Fantastic. As with all socks that I wear, I cut the calf part off to just above my ankle.
Brooks Adrenaline 24 (running) shoe tongue loops - finally a shoe company has addressed the problem of shoe tongues falling to the side. A small string loop on each side of the tongue. The shoe string goes through the loop and holds the tongue up and reasonably centered. A significant advancement in shoe technology!
Amazon Kindle - it appears that they have fixed the page number line display (see Software Bugs post). It took about nine months.
Lubuntu 24.04 and Android 15
Ubuntu (Linux) 24.04 - I was informed that 20.04 long term support was ending shortly. Time to update - skip 22.04, go to 24.04.
You can't skip 22.04 - update to 22.04 then then update to 24.04. The update to 22.04 went well.
The update to 24.04 failed miserably. Linux installs work great - until they don't work - then you are screwed. I resorted to installing from a 24.04 ISO disk image install. At this point I decided to switch to Lubuntu. This is just Ubuntu with the LXQt GUI. Then I went through a day of torture trying to figure out why I could install, but not boot to my disk.
I finally realized that my disk was partitioned as MBR (Master Boot Record) for booting directly and the install wanted GPT (GUID Partition Table) for booting to UEFI which, I think, lets you boot to a USB drive without choosing it in the computer BIOS. But changing the partition type wipes the disk, which I was avoiding. But I need to have a working computer so I did it. I still couldn't get this working. So back to MBR and I figured out how to make it bootable. Too late to save my disk. With my disk wiped, I had to install a bunch of software and of course restore my personal files. That went reasonably well, except that when I backed up the disk before the update, I didn't think to backup hidden directories. My SSH certificate that let me log on to my web page was gone. Fortunately I had put that directory on my laptop.
So, finally up and running. But some of the software that I need wasn't working. These are the down level programs that I had to get to make v24.04 work as well as 20.04
Okular has replaced Evince (also know as Document Viewer). Okular produces absolute garbage prints of PDFs to my PostScript printer. Evince still works well.
A new EasyABC (music editing app) runs on Python 3 (Yay!). But it has again been disabled by Python changes. I had to get down level Python 3.9.
Newer versions of abcm2ps (this formats ABC format tunes into sheet music) do not produce correctly scaled sheet music. There is a replacement program written in JavaScript using abcm2ps as a starting point. But if the latest amcm2ps doesn't work right, why would I spend the time to switch. I got down level abcm2ps 8.14.6. Back in business.
Ghostview, a GUI interface to GhostScript (PostScript emulator) is obsolete. But it still works. But you need down level GhostScript 9.52. I'm not sure why they needed to update Ghostscript - Postscript hasn't changed in many years (to my knowledge).
I could rag on Linux for depending on libraries downloaded independently from applications. But even worse is new programs that don't work as well as the old programs that they are replacing. Okular PDF prints to my Postscript printer are just plain wrong. Abcm2ps was updated and lost scaling functions that I was using. Ghostview (GUI for Ghostscript) supports has been dropped and it does not work with new versions of Ghostscript.
Of course this is common on Windows and Android. I have no experience with Apple.
I wrote a Windows/Wine version of my text editor in 2007. I have fixed a few bugs and added a bit of function over the years but no other changes. I still use it for almost all of my text editing, under Wine in Linux, 18 years later.
Android 15
While Linux makes it hard to keep using old software, Android makes it impossible to use anything more than a few years old. How? By changing the API (application programming interface), redacting old API function, and constantly changing the requirements to be listed in the app store.
Android 15 on a Samsung S23 - Good Lock / Lockstar ruined - app widgets are no longer allowed on the AOD (always on display). I recently modified my clock app to display (optionally) only time zone and next alarm. I used this with Lockstar to display it on the AOD. This fixed one of my major issues with Samsung's Android. No more. Back up to Android 14? Only by resetting the phone and losing the entire setup and data on it.
For Android Firefox and I Heart Radio I have block notifications set. But they both manage to display annoying notifications.
If I turn the phone off, the display blanks and then displays the AOD. What's that for? Apparently, I often turned off the phone and then checked the time. Now I turn off the phone and have to wait for it to display the time.
New battery recharge modes: charges to 100% then stop until it's down to 95%; stops charging at 80% while you are asleep and switches to 100%/95% mode while you are awake; stops charging at 80% (or 85%, 90%, 95%). Why not charge to 80% then stop until it's down to 75% and similarly for 85%, 90%, 95%? This is important because I will often take my charged phone off the wireless charging stand, use it for a short time and put it back on the stand. Wouldn't it be better to not charge until it has dropped significantly? I don't know.
So what's new and improved in Android 15? The status line battery display is easier read. I use Nova Launcher, not One UI, so nothing there. I can't find anything else.
Why Didn't I Do This Long Ago?
Many times in my life, after doing some really useful task or acquiring a very useful device, I have realized how useful it is and think - why didn't I do/get this long ago?
Scripts to do repetitive tasks. After typing command lines over and over and using clumsy GUIs for my current 3D print project, I finally spent a half hour writing a script (OpenSCAD and Prusa Slicer both have command line interfaces). Having completed it, render and generate printer control code is one short command line. Faster, easier, less frustrating.
While I was thinking about the above script, I asked Perplexity.ai if I could set up a key to type in today's date. Yes - it took 5 minutes to do. Now when I want a date stamp on a file name I just use F10 instead of typing the date.
I recently did a house cleaning, and I wanted to get the limescale off of my faucets. I used a chemical calcium/lime/rust remover on my kitchen faucet, then realized - I just bathed my drinking water faucet in toxic chemicals. I've done this before and spent a lot of time running water before drinking. But this time I checked on Amazon and found new complete faucet aerators (including shell) for about $2 each. These installed easily, dramatically improved the flow due to the unclogged aerators, and of course look great.
My bread maker is another example. Just measure out the ingredients, let the bread maker turn it all into bread, and slice it. What's so great here is that I control the ingredients - for me whole wheat flour, olive oil, salt, yeast, gluten. And if you try this, you will soon learn the root of the idiom "the greatest thing since sliced bread".
Battery vacuum cleaner, string trimmer, leaf blower, drill, Dremel tool. It is so much easier to pick up a tool and use it instead of choosing a suitable electical outlet and perhaps extension cord, and working around the cord while doing the job.
Exchange Traded Funds started to compete with mutual funds around 2000, long after I had been investing via mutual funds. They have huge advantages over mutual funds - delayed capital gains taxes, mid day trading and tracking, low expense ratios. Why did I wait until retiring, 2016, to investigate and start using ETFs?
Gewa Strato violin case - light and space efficient. Mine is wearing out after many years. But it's been discontinued. I can't find anything similar on the market. Why didn't a get a spare?
After reading about how tea bags release microplastics into tea, I found everything that I needed to make tea from loose leaves. Specifically an infuser (stainless steel) and some loose leaf tea. I tastes about the same as using tea bags, but no plastics. This time I'm ahead of the curve!
2025-01-30
Sundries
Ally bank alerts - Ally Bank quit sending deposit and withdrawal alerts to me. After two weeks, I switched to US Bank. I received an email recently that claims that this is fixed. Three months. I'm not going to test this.
Restaurant background music - do Italians really like jarring horn blasts in their music? Who decided that droning/unchanging drum tracks enhance music (at a Thai restaurant, but clearly American music). Why must it all be so loud? And why do restaurants need any background music?
Samsung S25 features - I bought a Samsung S23 (smartphone) in June 2023. Upgraded from an S22 solely because reviews said that the S23 fingerprint reader is much better. True - it was worth the $800 (?) price. I later found that Samsung Goodlock/Lockstar (free software) allowed me to put the time zone and next alarm on the always on display. I finally had a decent phone, but too big, nasty screen reflections, and heavy. The S24 did not address any of these issues. Pass. The S25 Ultra has this new feature - Gorilla Armor 2 - "the Industry’s First Anti-Reflective Glass Ceramic For Mobile Devices". Enhanced durability - fine, but I do not have a single scratch on my S23 with no screen cover. Anti-reflective surface - this is, apparently, a wave cancellation layer (or multiple layers) made with a very hard (ceramic?) material. 75% reflective light cancellation. This is worth $800. But it is NOT on the S25, only the S25 Ultra, which is BIG. New AI function, new colors, more speed? Pass.
Folded lists - folded lists are a handy way to put a long list in a short place. On Google's blog top page, by default, the list is folded by year and month. You can't see titles until you click on a year and a month. Sigh. A scrolling list is far superior. You can switch to a long list, but it only shows dates, not titles. The date of publication is more important than the title of the post? After living with this for years, I made a web page of all the titles as a list, and repeated the investing blogs (the most popular posts) at the top. www.blog.ravitz.us . This is so much easier for finding specific posts.
Calendars - after maybe 45 years of wall calendars with a nice picture for each month, I can't find anything interesting and new. For 2025 - Peanuts, the comic strip from long ago. I like Snoopy.
My phone calendar (Google calendar via Calengoo app) has a significant defect. It has all the national holidays, but no religious holidays. Mardi Gras - I need to know when restaurants have a Cajun special. Saint Patrick's Day - restaurant specials again. Easter, Halloween - look at all the associated candy. Whether you believe in the roots of these holidays or not, they are important in our culture and I want them on my phone calendar.
(2025-02-02) I found everything that I wanted under "Holidays in United States" "Other observances", except Mardi Gras. And I found Mardi Gras under "Global religious holidays" "Christian holidays", but that is along with many other holidays that I can't unselect.