Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[Ed.Kloonk]

it was many years after I was married that my arm would still reach for the non existent gearshift in my wife's car when I felt the rpm at certain speeds.

When I put my car in park after driving home, my poor car's windscreen wiper/washer wand wishes that I would stop forgetting that I'm not driving my truck with it's column shift.

One of these days, it will have had enough..

[Circlotron]

When some kind of draggable border in a window is only *one* pixel wide and you need hands as steady as a surgeon to get the mouse right on it to drag it to a new position... 

[MathWizard]

My win10 PC falls asleep, and often when it wakes, my 155Hz monitor is only at 60Hz, and I can notice the diffrence right away in windows, let alone in a fast game

[Red Squirrel]

I don't know why but in Linux I can never go even to 60hz on my two 4ks.  One of them will go to 60 but if I try to do the other, all hell breaks loose.  So I ended up just putting both to 30 to be safe.  It's oddly not really noticeable though...  back in CRT days even 60hz felt like a strobe light.

[AUSSIE]

it was many years after I was married that my arm would still reach for the non existent gearshift in my wife's car when I felt the rpm at certain speeds.

When I put my car in park after driving home, my poor car's windscreen wiper/washer wand wishes that I would stop forgetting that I'm not driving my truck with it's column shift.

One of these days, it will have had enough..

Done that in the past, broken off indicator stalk as well.

[SilverSolder]

it was many years after I was married that my arm would still reach for the non existent gearshift in my wife's car when I felt the rpm at certain speeds.

When I put my car in park after driving home, my poor car's windscreen wiper/washer wand wishes that I would stop forgetting that I'm not driving my truck with it's column shift.

One of these days, it will have had enough..

Done that in the past, broken off indicator stalk as well.

When I need to remember something about my car, I put an elastic band over the rear view mirror as a flag...   can't avoid seeing that several times during the journey, and it reminds me "There is something you need to remember that you are sometimes an idiot with".   For example, towing a small trailer...   The experience of forgetting you are towing a trailer is memorable! 

[GlennSprigg]

Those damn TV Ads here in Australia, where they all get the SAME narrators/readers!!!
Some regular 'Aussies' but often American, who drone on in the same mind destroying voices,
like "But WAIT, there's MORE !!" etc etc...  Bloody hell.  Even when/if there is something/product that I
REALLY liked, or REALLY needed, I would not buy it ever, just because of those bloody voices!!   

[CatalinaWOW]

Those damn TV Ads here in Australia, where they all get the SAME narrators/readers!!!
Some regular 'Aussies' but often American, who drone on in the same mind destroying voices,
like "But WAIT, there's MORE !!" etc etc...  Bloody hell.  Even when/if there is something/product that I
REALLY liked, or REALLY needed, I would not buy it ever, just because of those bloody voices!!   

Funny.  Here in the US we get the same annoying ads, but more than half of the announcers have accents from various parts of the British Empire.

Must be something to do with being run out of town at home.

[Sal Ammoniac]

We get a lot of annoying TV ads here for prescription drugs that are 2-3 minutes in length, with the last minute or two consisting of a long list of all of the side effects of the drug.

[Ed.Kloonk]

We get a lot of annoying TV ads here for prescription drugs that are 2-3 minutes in length, with the last minute or two consisting of a long list of all of the side effects of the drug.

May cause spontaneous, explosive anal leakage.

[TimFox]

A few years ago, there was a parody where the side effects included “possession by the Prince of Darkness”.  This was in an ad for a stockbroker who specialized in after-hours trading, allowing the lady watching the drug ad to dump her stock in that drug company promptly.

[james_s]

We get a lot of annoying TV ads here for prescription drugs that are 2-3 minutes in length, with the last minute or two consisting of a long list of all of the side effects of the drug.

I remember the ads for that drug to help you stop smoking, the guy rattles on and on at an auctioneer pace with a list of potential side effects that include hallucination, suicidal thoughts and tendencies and a bunch of other stuff. The side effects sound worse than smoking.

[SpecialK]

We get a lot of annoying TV ads here for prescription drugs that are 2-3 minutes in length, with the last minute or two consisting of a long list of all of the side effects of the drug.

I remember the ads for that drug to help you stop smoking, the guy rattles on and on at an auctioneer pace with a list of potential side effects that include hallucination, suicidal thoughts and tendencies and a bunch of other stuff. The side effects sound worse than smoking.

Yeah. Bear in mind hey are obligated to list the side-effects, but that doesn't mean you will get all or even a single one of them. 

I like the disclaimer, don't take "x" if you are allergic to "x". Huh?

[Labrat101]

Being a smoker myself . I still think that if you worry about all
The side effects and the odds that can kill you . The distraction worry & life in general will be more dangerous.  And just reading all the small print . May damage your eye sight . 🤪
Update .. This new vaccine 4bug 19  .. Its 94% affective . But in the small print .   They don't know if there will be side affects in the future ..     Extra eye's or the odd finger dropping off .   
       what does the extra 6% not included !!.
         Yes I know the flue vaccine is only apx 45% .
 

[SilverSolder]

Being a smoker myself . I still think that if you worry about all
The side effects and the odds that can kill you . The distraction worry & life in general will be more dangerous.  And just reading all the small print . May damage your eye sight . 🤪
Update .. This new vaccine 4bug 19  .. Its 94% affective . But in the small print .   They don't know if there will be side affects in the future ..     Extra eye's or the odd finger dropping off .   
       what does the extra 6% not included !!.
         Yes I know the flue vaccine is only apx 45% .

Nothing is 100% safe.  Life is about avoiding the dumb risks, and taking the good ones...

[DrG]

I guess that I have a bit of a pet peeve with the term, “side effects” when applied to pharmacologics.

IMO, there are drug effects on your body and there are your body’s effects on drugs. It is ok to say “beneficial”, “desirable”, “adverse” and “undesirable” effects, within a context.

The peeve is because I think that the use of “side effects” simplifies the issue, is always relative and, basically, thwarts a better understanding of drug action in general.

Take for example (a mostly archaic example, but one that is easy to understand) dextroamphetamine (speed, upper). When the same dose range was administered for obesity or pregnancy weight gain, the “side effect” was labelled as mania (in this case, increased mood, excitement, hyperactivity). When administered as an antidepressant, the “side effect” was labelled as anorexia (in this case, weight loss from diminished appetite).

[AlbertL]

In discussing the competition between AC and DC for power transmission in the early years of the electric utility industry (the "war of the currents"), writers who state that "DC can only be transmitted for short distances" or words to that effect.

[CatalinaWOW]

In discussing the competition between AC and DC for power transmission in the early years of the electric utility industry (the "war of the currents"), writers who state that "DC can only be transmitted for short distances" or words to that effect.

Give them a break.  It was true at the time.  There was no practical way at that time to step dc up to high voltage so unless your were willing to go broke buying meter squared conductors line losses were immense.  It was forty years before technology made it marginally practical and another forty before it became relatively easy.

[james_s]

Give them a break.  It was true at the time.  There was no practical way at that time to step dc up to high voltage so unless your were willing to go broke buying meter squared conductors line losses were immense.  It was forty years before technology made it marginally practical and another forty before it became relatively easy.

It's still not practical for distribution, it only really makes sense on large transmission lines where the advantages of DC start to outweigh the additional complexity required. Step down converters of the sort of scale needed to feed residential neighborhoods would be a lot more expensive and likely less reliable than conventional transformers and they're not going to be as robust in terms of surviving lightning strikes and overloads. The process of stepping it up and down still involves converting it to AC in the process.

Without the ability to step the voltage up and down even with unrealistically enormous conductors the voltage is going to be lower the further you are from the power plant. Prior to the 1970s at the earliest DC transmission would have meant rotary converters and it wasn't until probably the 90s that solid state electronics in the required power levels were even close to practical.

[TimFox]

As I remember an article in Popular Science in my youth (55 years ago or so), the first trans-Channel underwater transmission lines between England and France ran DC, but huge mercury-vapor tubes were used for rectification and DC-AC conversion at both ends, rather than rotary machines.

[srb1954]

Give them a break.  It was true at the time.  There was no practical way at that time to step dc up to high voltage so unless your were willing to go broke buying meter squared conductors line losses were immense.  It was forty years before technology made it marginally practical and another forty before it became relatively easy.

Without the ability to step the voltage up and down even with unrealistically enormous conductors the voltage is going to be lower the further you are from the power plant. Prior to the 1970s at the earliest DC transmission would have meant rotary converters and it wasn't until probably the 90s that solid state electronics in the required power levels were even close to practical.

There were a few HVDC links were using mercury arc rectifiers prior to the 1970s.

The HVDC link between the 2 main islands of New Zealand was put in to service in 1965. At the time this was one of the largest and most advanced HVDC links in the world and used state-of-the-art mercury arc rectifiers, undersea cables, generators and circuit breakers.

After about 25 years service it became one of the last mercury arc rectifier based systems in the world before it was upgraded to thyristor based convertors.

[CatalinaWOW]

The definition of HV has drifted over the years, but Wikipedia credits the first HV DC transmission line to a run in Sweden in 1954.  I believe lower voltage and/or experimental applications occurred in the  1930s.  Little hiccups like a world wide depression followed by a war delayed actual implementation of the technology.

[james_s]

How do you use a mercury arc rectifier to turn DC into AC? I didn't realize that was possible.

Either way it was not practical for small scale stuff. It would make no sense to use DC transmission into residential neighborhoods with converters to turn it into AC and step it down for each group of houses.

[SilverSolder]

How do you use a mercury arc rectifier to turn DC into AC? [...]

Hold it with both arms - and shake it, like a cocktail!   

[TimFox]

How do you use a mercury arc rectifier to turn DC into AC? I didn't realize that was possible.

Either way it was not practical for small scale stuff. It would make no sense to use DC transmission into residential neighborhoods with converters to turn it into AC and step it down for each group of houses.

I said “Mercury-vapor tubes”.  The inverters used thyratrons or ignitions.  Mercury-vapor rectifiers do not use arcs.
I also see no reason to use DC instead of AC with transformers for local distribution.\

Edit:  as caught below, spell-check changed my "ignitrons" into "ignitions".  Microsoft's ignorance is bliss.