Tetris.

It’s worked better for me when I throw complex tech questions at it, instead of wading through mountains of StackOverflow and Reddit 10-yo bilge.

You can’t trust 2/3 of what ChatGPT generates or returns, and still have to know what you’re doing. But it’s a lot easier than clicking on 100 search results and finding 99 of them irrelevant.

We’ve had a box that comes in three segments. Each has a label: Save, Give, and Spend. Easy to find online.

The weekly cash allowance, as well as family and holiday gifts all go in there, split into portions. The spend section typically gets used when hanging out with friends or after sports practice. Usually candy or junk food. If going on a planned field trip or a group gathering with friends, we throw in some extra funds ($5-$20) so they can get food, snacks, or treat a friend. Nothing is digital or credit based.

When the Save or Give sections get full, kid gets to pick a charity (‘Give’) or we walk down to the bank to deposit the ‘Save’ cash into a kid’s saving account with no monthly fee.

It’s worked pretty well so far.

First time, people thought it was an innocent design mistake. An oversight ona minor product.

Next update, OK still there, but maybe it was a leftover from the original design.

This time. No, it’s intentional. You deserve all the mocking heading your way.

Protip: once you dissolve as much of the gunk as possible, take a small metal brush and give the contacts a scrub. If they’re coated, this helps open up metal contact surface to give the new batteries a chance.

But if the contacts are too corroded, you may need to MacGyver something with a soldering iron.

Times like this, I really miss George Carlin.