you know what grinds my gears

[rrinker]

 Given enough time I might be able to come up with a replacement for the whole song. I am only mildly creative. Some friend of mine could do it in no time - the one they did for Bowie's Space Oddity is awesome - though it's an inside joke for the forum we're all on because it refers to one specific member.

 In college we did one for one of our EE professors. The guy all the upperclassmen warned us was such a horrible professor - he ended up being my favorite and I took every class of his I could, even though I was mostly leaning digital I took his op amp course, which was awesome - one of the few notebooks I've saved from all those years ago even though the last time I designed something with op amps was probably that class. He was tough, but very fair - if you blew off work and failed tests, you got what you deserved, if you put forth effort and showed up and sough out help when you needed it, he made every effort to make sure you could pass.  So one night, we're all in a study lounge studying for the final, just before winter break. And we came up with this whole parody of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. = "Uncle Karl is Teaching Today" (his name was karl, duh!). 3 whole verses and chorus. So we got the idea to anonymously distribute it in class. We knew he hung out a lot with one of our other professors, so we put a copy of the song and a note telling the other prof what we intended and for him to just mention it in class one day if he thought Prof Holzinger would take it as a joke, or if he would be pissed. If he would be offended, we would simply drop it and nothing more would be done. We slipped it into his mailbox with no names or anything. A week or so went by and nothing out of the second prof. We thought either they knew it was us and were really pissed, or something of that sort. Then one day as everyone was packing up and leaving the lecture hall, the second prof called out that he had one more thing - he said he got something in his mailbox the other week and that it should be ok to do what it said! So we had a few hundred copies printed up, and Prof Holzinger had a tendency to have some assistant bring in a stack of handouts and put them up front and expected us to just take them, so we recruited a freshman we knew to carry the stack in one morning. But for some reason, no one was taking them - so my friend goes down and gets one, and that started the flood. The lecture hall is buzzing as people are reading this. Prof Holzinger walks in, sees the pile of papers and looks questionably at it, picks one up, looks it over, and stuff it in his briefcase. His expression never changed, he never said a word - we were thinking we were now dead, that they DID know it was us, and he's pissed off about this song. Never heard a word about it, that was sophomore year, one of our first EE classes. After finals senior year, I happened to be walking past his office and he asked me to stop in if I had a minute. We mostly chatted about my opinions on the EE department, and the education experience there and so forth. Somehow the topic of the song came up, and he said "I knew it was you guys all along. That was pretty funny." So much for putting one over on this guy.   Next time I'll tell you about the sign in sheet and camera...

[rickselectricalprojects]

The most popular kids in my year grade are the ones who have the latest iphone's and apple watch's and other crap like that. I really don't understand why having an expensive phone makes you popular.

[station240]

What grinds my gears is not when they buy a new $800 phone every few years, but when they don't:
1) Own a PC, so you can't send them something they need to print.
2) Own a decent car, instead driving some shitbox.
3) Look after their phone so it looks like something out of a Fallout game.
4) Read their email and actually reply. Most annoyingly of all.

Mobile phones have made people lazy, no need to plan their day, remember things, actually learn things. Just use your phone as a portable brain.
It's a joke how much some of this stuff sells for, especially when you know what the parts actually cost.

[timb]

All I can say is, $900 for a chair? I wish I made that kind of money, holy hell.

It's all about perspective. Chiropractor is way more expensive. And so is replacing chairs every few years.

Chiropractors are a great example of value. They're expensive but worthless.

If I want to hear my back crack I'll just try and dead lift an anvil again. (kidding, that never happened)

All I can say is, $900 for a chair? I wish I made that kind of money, holy hell.

Weren't you on your mid teens just a couple of years ago? Well, finish up school and go to college.

Then $900 for a chair won't be that bad, unless you marry and have kids before being able to purchase the chair

Still, that's ridiculous, I'd rather find a comfortable $100 chair and stockpile a couple of them. Then again, I'm not sure picky on chairs, but it still seems pretty insane to spend that much on one. I guess if you sat in it 12 hours a day you might want to spend a bit more though.

And 21 now, having crap luck finding another job (worked at a parts counter in an auto supply place, one of the other employees sprayed me in the face and eye with brake cleaner when he was fooling around like a retard, had to drive to emergency to get my eye flushed, and he was fired right away, they waited until the last day of probation to call me in and fire me then, and haven't had any luck since)

Anyways, even if I had a good paying job, I couldn't justify that much for a chair lol

In a few more years, once you've got a job sitting at a desk on the computer all day, and your back isn't 21 anymore, you'll really wish you had invested in ergonomics much earlier. Trust me. I thought the exact same thing you did 10 years ago.

Since I'm dolling out ergonomic life lessons, invest in a good mattress too. Memory foam is where it's at, son. You spend 1/3 of your life sleeping, don't skimp on what you sleep on.

Sure, you may think that waterbed is cool, but it's awful support. Plus, the first time you get drunk and bring a fat chick home, it's going to burst, she'll be flopping around like a white whale in a tuna net while you keep stabbin' at her like Captain Ahab. Next thing you know, she drowns! And fat girls aren't like skinny coked up hookers, you can't just wrap them in a tarp and carry them to the trunk of your car. So either you've got to phone a friend to help, or Dexter her in the bathtub yourself. That's a problem because it's messy and leaves trace evidence everywhere. So, you take the third option: Make a body suit out of her skin and pretend to be her. Now you're leading a double life, you by day and her by night. As time goes on, the lines between your personalities blur, you drink more to num the all consuming guilt. You never sleep; staying awake through Red Bull and Bath Salts. Increasingly paranoid, you think your co-workers are plotting to steal your organs for science, so you decide to strike first. But something goes wrong and you're killed by a security guard! All because you didn't buy the right mattress. (True story.)

[Robert Karl]

Sure, you may think that waterbed is cool, but it's awful support. Plus, the first time you get drunk and bring a fat chick home, it's going to burst, she'll be flopping around like a white whale in a tuna net while you keep stabbin' at her like Captain Ahab. Next thing you know, she drowns! And fat girls aren't like skinny coked up hookers, you can't just wrap them in a tarp and carry them to the trunk of your car. So either you've got to phone a friend to help, or Dexter her in the bathtub yourself. That's a problem because it's messy and leaves trace evidence everywhere. So, you take the third option: Make a body suit out of her skin and pretend to be her. Now you're leading a double life, you by day and her by night. As time goes on, the lines between your personalities blur, you drink more to num the all consuming guilt. You never sleep; staying awake through Red Bull and Bath Salts. Increasingly paranoid, you think your co-workers are plotting to steal your organs for science, so you decide to strike first. But something goes wrong and you're killed by a security guard! All because you didn't buy the right mattress. (True story.)

Well, uh okay then. You learn something new everyday on eevblog 

Maybe Dave should cover this on Life Lessons Tuesday?

[AlxDroidDev]

But, all quality made gadgets, I mean in the same league, such as Dell XPS, M$ Surface, Lenovo ThinkPad X/T/P, Vaio Z/Z Pro are all more expensive for the same hardware specs compared to Apple.

That depends on the market. While it may be true for the US, it may not be on other countries. The Dell XPS is a good example, since I have one. It has very high specs, but around here it costs a fraction of the price of a MacBook Pro of similar spec, because the XPS is assembled locally, so there are no import duties and taxes on it, while "everything Apple" is imported and subject to a lot of taxes.

Another thing is the difference between value and price. Value is perceived, while price is absolute. I don't see $40k value on a SUV, but someone with 5 children might. I do, however, see value on a Nikon D810 + $20k on high end Nikkor lenses, while someone else might be just as glad (value perceived) with a super-zoom or even using only their cellphone cameras.

While for me an iphone just seems silly, because I don't perceive its value (specially when compared to the price), I don't condemn those who have one, it doesn't grind my gears.

Now, what REALLY grinds my gears are people who buy $100k+ luxury cars and skimp on bluetooth. Then they drive like assholes because they are on the phone all the time, and holding their phones to their ears. Even worse are people with $100k+ cars with bluetooth, BT enabled phones but don't even know how to use them together because they never bothered to RTFM. 

[os40la]

Perhaps they have installed this iPhone app to make them better drivers 

[sarepairman2]

stuff

[tooki]

In a few more years, once you've got a job sitting at a desk on the computer all day, and your back isn't 21 anymore, you'll really wish you had invested in ergonomics much earlier. Trust me. I thought the exact same thing you did 10 years ago.

^^^ This x1000.

Seriously. It took less than two years of a desk job with suboptimal (not even bad, just not great) ergonomics  to cause me problems that are going to take years of physical therapy and avoiding desk work to reverse. Trust me, when you're facing a career change because of it, spending $300 on a keyboard, $1500 on an adjustable desk, etc. all seem cheap compared to not being able to work at all. (Not speaking hypothetically here: I've spent upwards of $2000 on ergonomics for my home office, which is basically just rounding error compared to the year+ of lost income this issue has caused me.)

[XOIIO]

In a few more years, once you've got a job sitting at a desk on the computer all day, and your back isn't 21 anymore, you'll really wish you had invested in ergonomics much earlier. Trust me. I thought the exact same thing you did 10 years ago.

^^^ This x1000.

Seriously. It took less than two years of a desk job with suboptimal (not even bad, just not great) ergonomics  to cause me problems that are going to take years of physical therapy and avoiding desk work to reverse. Trust me, when you're facing a career change because of it, spending $300 on a keyboard, $1500 on an adjustable desk, etc. all seem cheap compared to not being able to work at all. (Not speaking hypothetically here: I've spent upwards of $2000 on ergonomics for my home office, which is basically just rounding error compared to the year+ of lost income this issue has caused me.)

Oh, I already spent $300 on a keyboard, closer to $350 I think actually, though it wasn't ergonomic lol

[jeroen74]

Yesterday I wanted to watch some Youtube on my smart TV. I recently changed my password so I expected an error. Which indeed came up... And then, the utterly stupidly designed Youtube app simply gave me no option to change my account details so I can enter my new password

I have a lot of patience, really lots, but that kind of basic UI mistakes make me looser my temper real quick.

At first I tried clearing all data from the app, which means diving into several somewhat obscure menus and scrolling through dozens and dozens of app, most of which are not even applicable to my TV (really, a phone app?). Didn't work. According to Youtube help I should remove the last update, which indeed worked.

Come on!

[timb]

You know what grinds *my* gears? My girlfriend trying to drive my six speed.

[Mechanical Menace]

In a few more years, once you've got a job sitting at a desk on the computer all day, and your back isn't 21 anymore, you'll really wish you had invested in ergonomics much earlier. Trust me. I thought the exact same thing you did 10 years ago.

I was about 2 meters tall at 12* and used to think it was stupid when certain teachers made me use their chairs instead of the standard students ones. Before I'd started my GCSEs I stopped thinking it was stupid. By the time I'd started my A levels i had ££££s in my computer desk, chair, mouse, keyboard, and adjustable monitor stand. Over 15 years later all of that stuff is still being used between me and my little brother and there's nothing wrong with it. I've also managed to keep half decent posture and avoid the level of back pain my tall friends have gone through. I count my self very lucky I learned that lesson before I developed serious problems and am pretty certain the investment in a couple of pieces of good office furniture over the years has made me money avoiding replacing it more often than I'd have to and due to missed days of work etc.

A "standing desk" at the right height for you is also a cheap way to avoid having to sit all the time. Yes you won't be writing a novel stood at it and may get funny looks from some people but sod 'em.


*Luckily haven't grown much since.