EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: Circlotron on September 05, 2020, 01:38:33 pm
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Here we have a headline that reads:
Black hole 142 times heavier than the Sun discovered
and further along in the article we read
GW190521 weighs in at 142 times the mass of our Sun
https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html (https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html)
Which is of course, plainly contradictory.
If it were 142 times heavier than our sun it would be 143 times the mass of our sun, not 142. This kind of thing seems to be popping up more and more lately.
What other things are there?
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People saying MOSFET and a transistor. What do they think the T stands for? grumble grumble
I hear a lot of people saying that, they think BJTs are transistors and FETs something else. :-//
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And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
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I KNOW how it works, but I HATE it when we refer to past dates, like the 17th Century!!
I prefer the likes of the 1600's to define a date !!! 8)
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The saying used by many UK retailers "when it's gone, it's gone"
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People saying MOSFET and a transistor. What do they think the T stands for? grumble grumble
I hear a lot of people saying that, they think BJTs are transistors and FETs something else. :-//
pin numbers and atm machines >:)
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If it were 142 times heavier than our sun it would be 143 times the mass of our sun, not 142. This kind of thing seems to be popping up more and more lately.
NOOOoooooooooooooo!
My pet peeve are people who say that.
Years ago, I found a very detailed and nice article going hundreds of years back in records to prove you totally wrong. Although, that was regarding Finnish language where the exact same stupid discussion has been seen over and over again (popping up more and more lately!). The construct, and argumentation are exactly the same. So I don't know if you are actually wrong in English. But I'm 99% sure you are. And I'm sure it goes back for much longer than in Finnish. After all, correctness of language is not defined by some arbitrarily chosen pedantic (on surface) logic (defined by YOU in this case), but by actual usage, and the actual usage of "x times heavier" goes back for the long time.
This is easy, just laborious to research. Just get as much material as possible from as long period of time as possible, find usages of the "x times heavier" pattern, pick those where the meaning can be inferred from the context or otherwise (for example, both numbers are well known or verifiable from other sources), and see which was the intended meaning. Let me guess: it will be 100% of the "x times heavier" = "x times as heavy" meaning, the other, your "correct one", "x times heavier" = "x+1 times as heavy" only seen in meta-discussions like this.
If you want to be extra careful, you avoid the whole "x times heavier" construct just to avoid one of the nitpickers "misunderstanding" on purpose; this is what I try to do, preferring exactness whenever it's possible.
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a few of mine
- bootup / time from disc-in to movie start times of blu-ray and dvd players. i have an old ( made in october 2000 ) daewoo dvd player with a hard mechanical on/off switch. click the switch and within a second the menu is ready. pop in a disc and within another second or two the disc menu appears. Try that with a modern player. they sit there chewing and chewing on the disc and then frequently come up with 'this disc needs a firmware update in order to play'. you want a quiet comfy movie night and the whole experience is ruined because you can spend half an hour installing four or five firmware updates to these fuckers. i stopped buying discs yeara ago. i'm tired of that nonsense.
- ANY programming language that requires semicolons to denote end of statements. there is a cr or cr/lf pair in the file already. use that. and , in case a line really is too long you should either : rewrite the code , or have a line continuation character. there are much less cases where you need to split a long line.
- Any programming language that makes a difference between uppercase and lowercase for statements and variable names.
- Any programming language using whitespace for flow control
- Any programming language that cannot understand when = means 'assign' and when it means 'compare'. This problem was solved in the 60's. And we are still fucking around with things like := and == because the parsers writers are stupid.
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People who believe that Bible stories actually happened.
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- ANY programming language that requires semicolons to denote end of statements. there is a cr or cr/lf pair in the file already. use that. and , in case a line really is too long you should either : rewrite the code , or have a line continuation character. there are much less cases where you need to split a long line.
- Any programming language using whitespace for flow control
These two are conflicting. Which one do you want? I agree with the latter, and for that exact reason, disagree with the first.
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Ha... these are kind of cute (although the example cited by the OP is, in fact, correct). How about something genuinely annoying:
People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
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People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
Oh, traffic!
People who drive their toy SUVs (mostly white Kia, for some strange reason! I have no opinion about this brand except this real-life observation) 85km/h in perfectly optimum conditions, when the limit is 100km/h (and would be 110km/h in most European countries in similar conditions/roads), right next to the center line, even on the top of the center line wearing off the line, making it much more difficult to take over. If there is a (limited-length) passing lane, they will immediately speed up to 105km/h overspeed to prevent law-abiding citizens taking over (so most in the long jam caused by them), then slow back to 85 km/h. They fail to see what they do is actual criminal offence on at least two or three different counts. You often need some serious speeding to get past the jams they produce. Or, you just finally fall asleep in the jam. They think they are good drivers, yet they have 5-second reaction times and cause most of the accidents (not counting alcohol related), while people driving normally pay most of the fines by driving 87 km/h - 200€ a pop - or oh my god, 105km/h - easily 10000€/pop - on a 100-80-100-80-100-80-100-80 camera trap road that would be solid 110km/h in almost any other European country.
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And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
This is a good example case of one of the pet peeves of mine, shortening multi-word concepts that consist of attribute + base term, to the attribute only. This makes for great obfuscated professional jargon. The key is, shortening it to the base term only is correct, but loses information. Shortening it to the attribute only, provides a hilariously ridiculous and totally wrong word, but if the receiving part can guess the base term, then the information is preserved: great compression ratio.
This also works if the users of the words do not know what the attribute means, and would only use it in this single phrase. Then, the base term becomes redundant for them. This is the case for "transistor radio".
A ridiculous example would be "bus stop". Would you call it a "bus"?
Regarding the traffic theme, police here call drivers under influence of alcohol... drumroll: "steering wheels". Example usage: "We caught a steering wheel." Because it's literally, and semi-officially called "wheel-drunkenness". Remove the base term, drunkenness, leave the attribute, the steering wheel. That's it!
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And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
This is very common. A key point here is "general public"; inherent in that description is they would not have a need to know or understand the vagaries of electronic components. Consider that people going to the beach or whatever would be unlikely to bring any other kind of transistorized device, so in that case "transistor" would imply that the device in question is a radio.
For a long time in America televisions were generally known as "tubes", even though it was understood that "tubes" were also the functional components within the device.
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Using the term "hydro" to mean "electricity". Some of our electricity is hydro-electric. Much of it isn't. It's throwing out the significant term and keeping the insignifcant detail. It's like calling a pneumatic tire automobile a "pneumo" or something.
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I have a couple disagreements with what is asserted by grammarian or scientist pedants:
1. I use the phrase, "this data is..." as opposed to "these data are...". From my point of view, the data set is a unitary collection; therefore it is a single item. Even if the data set were multiple, independent items, the conclusion would still be based on the unified collection of the data sets. Alternatively, if some amount of the data were removed, the implication is the conclusion would also be different.
2. The location of the period within a quotation. I move it to the outside of the quote. For instance:
And then he said, "My transistor is broken".
as opposed to:
And then he said, "My transistor is broken."
which would imply:
And then he said, "My transistor is broken.".
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Any kickstarter that claims "Our product will revolutionize the industry !"
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- ANY programming language that requires semicolons to denote end of statements. there is a cr or cr/lf pair in the file already. use that. and , in case a line really is too long you should either : rewrite the code , or have a line continuation character. there are much less cases where you need to split a long line.
- Any programming language using whitespace for flow control
These two are conflicting. Which one do you want?
He wants BASIC.
(And has not realized that carriage return is a white-space character.)
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People who put the em fa sis on the wrong syll a ble.
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The dork "Fetlington" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2N7000) label used for a 2N7000 MOSFET. Actually a JFET+BJT is a compound-Darlington for that label.
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If it were 142 times heavier than our sun it would be 143 times the mass of our sun, not 142.
:wtf:
I guess one could prove it by induction by starting from "one time heavier", but FFS |O
I have never heard anyone saying it that way.
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My pet peeve is treating "data" as singular. A "data set" is singular, and "datum" (a member of that set) is singular, but put a few together and you have "data", which is plural.
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The verb: to Google
Such as: "Google the Battle of Kursk". Rather than: "Search the web for the Battle of Kursk".
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“Fully imported”
= better than local people could produce.
“Export quality”
= better than local people deserve.
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This is the internet, when you ask for "advice" ;D
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/FJQrzBzCtA6YrkTQLINOveegoI6dYwpsxsjRXdy17CpIUPGonXmsjgF_mrxj5URkV1YuNkHvZpVkRS024KwE_UkyN59QMZ6F_Sv9PvWSEZB8MGWAVfazj9ctjvHlhFFks5ph64fQEcMWk27yCc0pa_4bzhE4QYYc_HzV_B3QxMAKFSXUqivnFD-qj2m0ah236d-I-_p2FpkskBZCTo-28p17aZlpgVBhyjIk3XC-hTKwEaH0rieJQp_qqxbVHgVsCo9y1JFCjcXGOBvmCV0j4LSnZ6LPtYbqKRmydm0MQrPURTic5rFWPP_1WILb7r61YNACzLJVFOuy9UhKn4eUzQMqnfKp0FPbtWOIFmmB_xwXg_Rq43KgrC0TKiwy_oVrH6k9hmtFbfEYZdBHOJXtlfQeT2DjX81OuiiGMDlR8jQBd-VCFErg4FYvWVwe8Qhw4kxnCzav6YEqEbRODPJH9lUdgU6x_DvT-4KRws3_NqFafFfBGpuw4NR8Mwa5QP6tWYHgS9wY2vK6To7A4wZwUohXVDygElbfpSUHP9GIK5RZxtRKlCVs15PgGR4TKkc1lt2uXMsaxBtDPb6dAFx2j6DJmuozW8aepGCpbfpxA6k9MxPmu4m9XwTuGcl_Pm2QWu9cx0sN8GNFGUzB_bnHGlSxIq7RRZuVaEOxfrAqPS2_itH0zEMBm_RG8mo1D44=w787-h590-no?authuser=0)
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Engineers, when they forget they are essentially half-assed physicists.
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People who claim that the century/millennium starts at year XX00 not XX01. I guess they forget that there was never a year 0000. :scared:
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Somebody puts up a post that they discovered a worm hole into another dimension, with a video to prove it and the thread derails into an argument about the wrong ISO settings on the camera :palm:
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When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.
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People who claim that the century/millennium starts at year XX00 not XX01. I guess they forget that there was never a year 0000. :scared:
Damned right! The last year of the Twentieth Century was twenty-hundred, just as the last year of the First Century was one hundred. Year one through year 100 is 100 years, a century. When this was defined, the Church used Roman numerals, which do not contain zero.
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Ring main when describing socket circuits,its a ring final circuit,or even ring final will do,a ring mains belongs in the world of high voltage distribution or is something to do with water.
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People who claim that the century/millennium starts at year XX00 not XX01. I guess they forget that there was never a year 0000. :scared:
People who came up with there not being a year 0.
People who think all dates are four digits long :)
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NOOOoooooooooooooo...
Let me guess: it will be 100% of the "x times heavier" = "x times as heavy" meaning
He is correct: 142 times is 14200 percent. Suppose for purposes of discussion that the subject is only 50% heavier than the mass of the Sun. If "50% heavier than" actually means "50% as heavy", we have the curious conclusion that it is both heavier and lighter at the same time.
The multiplicand of the relative amount is always the object of the comparison, and comparative adverbs like "heavier" or "cheaper" always refer to differences (subtraction).
To put it simply, "A is X% [comparative] than B" --> \$ A - B = \frac X {100} \cdot B \$
Taking a popularity contest will not establish correctness, because it's been shown that the majority of people are innumerate.
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People who came up with there not being a year 0.
That would be the ancient Romans. They didn't have the number zero. When counting time they considered the present time as 1. So, when you were born you already were in your first year. On your first birthday, you were in your second year and so on. If an ancient Roman told you something would happen in two days, that'd be tomorrow, because the present day would be counted as the first day.
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When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.
Did you Xerox your TPS report?
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Here we have a headline that reads:
Black hole 142 times heavier than the Sun discovered
and further along in the article we read
GW190521 weighs in at 142 times the mass of our Sun
https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html (https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html)
Which is of course, plainly contradictory.
If it were 142 times heavier than our sun it would be 143 times the mass of our sun, not 142. This kind of thing seems to be popping up more and more lately.
What other things are there?
AAPL just did a 4:1 split.
A lot of people had no idea how many shares of stock they'd have after the split was complete.
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
In the 2000s there was a cultural appreciation of poorly translated sentences found in video games from Japan. "All your base are belong to us" from Zero Wing, and the like. A particular feature of these Engrish utterances are a tense shift from present to imperfect ("am wanting"), which I surmise reflects differences of Japanese sentence structure. Many people found it funny, and started using these forms as an attempt at humor; others copied it, without knowing why it was humorous. This is how many language trends develop.
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It annoys me when shareholders supposedly get paid a dividend.
No they don’t!
They get paid a quotient.
A dividend is the total amount to be divided up.
And the divisor is now many parts it is separated into.
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Somebody puts up a post that they discovered a worm hole into another dimension, with a video to prove it and the thread derails into an argument about the wrong ISO settings on the camera :palm:
Nar, those who video in portrait mode. Firing squad's to good for them.
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Somebody puts up a post that they discovered a worm hole into another dimension, with a video to prove it and the thread derails into an argument about the wrong ISO settings on the camera :palm:
Nar, those who video in portrait mode. Firing squad's to good for them.
I do agree, in the "traditional" sense, but I think you're a little behind the times me old friend - most people watch video on mobile, now, and for the most part, and for *what* they are watching (their friend digging a hole or singing) the portrait mode suffices, and also, it's more comfortable to hold.
Let's be honest - NO ONE SANE watches anything more than that, on a mobile! TV or film HAVE to be on a TV!
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When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.
But you DO KNOW what they mean, and calling any old vacuum "Hoover" is decades old... so you DO KNOW, you just choose to be a right old pedant, eh? :-DD
Lest you forget, not everyone's life revolves around eating, sleeping and being knee-deep in tech - it's pretty easy to forgive!
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If "50% heavier than" actually means "50% as heavy"
"x% heavier" is obviously a completely different expression from "x times heavier".
He is wrong, so are you.
There is no mathematical definition for the word "times", so you can't solve this with mathematical logic alone. You need to look at the language.
Taking a popularity contest will not establish correctness
In language, in long term, it really does.
You can't arbitrarily choose to define the language against the actual usage everybody has followed for centuries.
Further, AFAIK, no "official" language body has ever took your stance. So it's just your internet opinion.
If you were right, expression like "1 times heavier" (or "1 time heavier") would make sense, and would exist. Have you seen that?
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When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.
and calling any old vacuum "Hoover" is decades old...
And when people call a vacuum cleaner a vacuum!!!
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He is correct: 142 times is 14200 percent. Suppose for purposes of discussion that the subject is only 50% heavier than the mass of the Sun. If "50% heavier than" actually means "50% as heavy", we have the curious conclusion that it is both heavier and lighter at the same time.
You make an erroneous assumption that "heavier" is continuous. It's not.
It works how you described up to 1x heavier, and for more than 1x heavier it's as simple multiplication.
0.5 heavier = 1.5 heavier = 1.5 the original weight.
Simple :phew:
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Hey.
What gets easier to pick up the heavier it gets?
A woman.
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One delight that seems to have become endemic is the following:-
Say a company has a deal where they are selling something for half price, if you buy two.
This often was advertised as "Buy one, get one free!", which is silly in itself, but recently has been replaced by the totally nonsensical "Buy one, get one!", which makes me want to say, "Well, duhh, If I didn't get one, I'd stop payment!"
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Linux fan boys :palm:
Such arogant arses. Think they know everthing. Always telling everyone how better linux is better than Windows (fyi I hate all computers and operating systems with equal venom)
Sure linux has good points but it has bad points as well. It is not the best os at everything, Windows has a far better/freindly gui for starters.
Insisting that having to type long command line as part of code development is NOT better, it is complete waste of (my) time. Modern IDEs were developed for a reason - to make life easier!
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My pet peeve is two wires of opposing polarity touching no matter how hard i try to keep them apart, it's like if i look away then the moment i turn back they've shorted out.
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Annoys me when you see an ad for something, and they say “limited stock, selling fast! Don’t miss out!” Two things, 1/ if there really is limited stock then somebody is always going to miss out and them advertising it is only going to make things worse in that more people are going to be disappointed. And especially 2/ if whatever they are advertising is selling fast and almost run out then why the need to further advertise it???
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Why do some call a 1nF capacitor 1000pF or 0.001uF? Is there some "nanophobia" that I'm not understanding?
Hey.
What gets easier to pick up the heavier it gets?
A woman.
Heavier because of more fat or more muscle?
Windows has a far better/freindly gui for starters.
The surprisingly useful "always on top" button still seems to be missing from Windows. Linux had that when I started using it 20 years ago.
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Linux fan boys :palm:
Such arogant arses. Think they know everthing. Always telling everyone how better linux is better than Windows (fyi I hate all computers and operating systems with equal venom)
Sure linux has good points but it has bad points as well. It is not the best os at everything, Windows has a far better/freindly gui for starters.
Insisting that having to type long command line as part of code development is NOT better, it is complete waste of (my) time. Modern IDEs were developed for a reason - to make life easier!
Mhmm, what's worse are linux fanboys who are determined to prove their dip into the scrabble bag of commandline options is better than anyone else's
;D
Command line phobics. Because the winders registry is some much more superior.
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Engineers, when they forget they are essentially half-assed physicists.
Managers, when they try to be half-assed engineers.
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
In the 2000s there was a cultural appreciation of poorly translated sentences found in video games from Japan. "All your base are belong to us" from Zero Wing, and the like. A particular feature of these Engrish utterances are a tense shift from present to imperfect ("am wanting"), which I surmise reflects differences of Japanese sentence structure. Many people found it funny, and started using these forms as an attempt at humor; others copied it, without knowing why it was humorous. This is how many language trends develop.
Japanese is very flexible when structuring sentences. There can be difficulty when translating from Japanese to English because English grammar and structure is an amalgam of languages over the centuries. Additionally, English is relatively limited in some ways, which means that for someone translating from Japanese to English there can be difficulty in reaching the exact structure that is necessary to make the sentence sound natural.
This is why it's easy to identify material translated from Russian, Chinese, Japanese, etc. that was not done by someone intuitively familiar with English.
The above expressions, "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing.", are a perfect place to start.
A few notes:
1. Grammar is not the same across all languages. The rules in one may not transfer exactly to the rules of another. Consider that C and Python, while they have similarities, can’t be translated exactly without significant interventional engineering.
2. Japanese writing uses English letters, Katakana (consider them to be phonetic or UPPER CASE, although that isn’t an exact way to describe it), Hiragana (consider them to be phonetic or lower case, along with completion of Kanji words or as simplified substitution of Kanji characters), and Kanji (carried over from China around 1000 years ago. They generally have several readings, such that there is a “Chinese” set of one-syllable readings, and an equivalent reading for the traditional Japanese word of the same meaning that may be multi-syllable and that will have additional Hiragana attached to it to continue the exact usage. Compare to how Greek is used in English.)
3. In general spaces aren’t necessary between words in Japanese. The delineation between words is understood in the transition between various word endings, particles, context, etc. In the Hiragana-only part I will use spaces to distinguish between the various words.
4. This post includes Japanese characters, and may not render properly if Unicode isn’t supported completely.
I will structure the examples in the form of:
Romaji = Hiragana = Kanji = Direct complete translation to English (with implied words) along with [commentary, explanation, or a long English translation in parenthesis because it's difficult to go in that direction.]
Let’s start with a verb that means, “to want”:
hoshii = ほしい = 欲しい = (I) want (that). [I want..., I want it, I am wanting it. The item that is wanted is understood by both parties. The subject is the speaker, the object is whatever is known, the verb is “to want”. It is a complete sentence from the English point of view.]
kore hoshii = これ ほしい = これ欲しい = (I) want this (thing that is closer to me). [The item “near me” is specified. Using a pronoun.]
sore hoshii = それ ほしい = それ欲しい = (I) want that (thing that is closer to you). [Now the item “near you” is specified. Using a pronoun.]
are hoshii = あれ ほしい = あれ欲しい = (I) want that (thing that is far away from us). [Now the item “far away” is specified. Using a pronoun.]
Now let’s cover another word and construction:
morau = もらう = 貰う = (I) will get/receive (it). [I will receive (from you) the thing.]
moraitai = もらいたい = 貰いたい = (I) want to get/receive (it). [The “tai” ending indicates “want to”.]
So we can also make this in the same pattern:
*hoshitai = ほしたい = 欲したい = (I) want to want (it). [While grammatically this is correct, it isn’t proper usage. It would either sound “cute” or obnoxious. Imagine a child wanting a toy, or a teenage girl wanting a fan with a picture of the latest Korean group.]
So now let’s start with a reasonable translation for "I want a new thing", however, let’s make it definite. In this case, how about a digital multimeter, or DMM, for “I want a new DMM”.
Using “hoshii”, “want”:
atarashii DMM hoshii = あたらしい DMM ほしい = 新しいDMM欲しい = (I) want (a) new DMM. [“I want a new DMM”. However, in Japanese it sounds a little immature. See the ‘hoshitai” example.]
Using “morau”, “get/receive”:
atarashii DMM wo moraitai = あたらしい DMM を もらいたい = 新しいDMMを貰いたい = (I) would like to get a new DMM. [“I want a new DMM”. For instance, the old one doesn’t have enough digits, so I want to get an HP 3458A.]
Finally, let’s cover how "I am wanting a new thing", or “I am wanting a new DMM” might translate:
Using “hoshii”, “want”:
atarashii DMM wo hosite imasu = あたらしい DMM を ほして います = 新しいDMMを欲しています = (I) am wanting a new DMM.
Using “morau”, “get/receive”:
atarashii DMM wo moraitakute imasu = あたらしい DMM を もらいたくています = 新しいDMMを貰いたくています = (I) am wanting to get a new DMM.
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Programming language that considers double quotes and single quotes as the same, and consistency has to be maintained by programmers with opinions.
Also, "You should build me X for free to test the market, because building stuff is easy and free."
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When people say HERT instead of HERTZ.
Like one megahert, one kilohert.
Everytime you say Hert instead of Hertz, Rudolph Hertz makes a single revoliution in his grave.
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... Rudolph Hertz makes a single revoliution in his grave.
Now that's definitely a hert :-+ :popcorn:
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Linux fan boys :palm:
A subgroup: "it's not a bug, it's a feature" boys, where each serious defect in linux/distro/documentation/linux-related applications is "between the chair and computer". Luckily, Linus Torvalds himself has a solid opinion here; if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and it's a bug, and should be fixed. This is why such arrogancy is rarely seen in kernel, would be nice if this would be the case in userland as well.
Also, Windows fanboys to equal degree. Surprisingly similar dynamics. If Windows crashes or is being impossible to use, the problem is always "between the chair and computer", and "I never have any problem".
Catch these "I'm always fine" guys having a problem pants down and don't let it slip through unnoticed, funny times.
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People who call themselves "makers" and/or "hackers".
Have yet to encounter one who actually can make(i.e. design) or hack something. Have only encountered ones who copy/mimic.
Makers: Show them a cool project that you built, they ask for layout, schematics, code. Offer instead to explain the architecture and help them understand it and design their own, no interest, and they are likely to ask for the layout, schematics, and code again. Refuse: They sulk away and don't talk to you anymore. Pathetic mindset, not willing to learn, only willing to mimic and then celebrate this mimic as if it is an actual accomplishment.
Hackers: Apply someone else's instructions for "hacking" an item and declare themselves the hacker. Worse yet, modify something that has been modified a million times over on the internet in the past, do a write up on this, and have other "hackers" celebrate their "hack". This site "hack per day" comes to mind. Pathetic mindset, no ingenuity, when faced with an unknown system or device to be hacked they would lose interest.
"Makers" seems to be a more recent thing, born from hordes of people who wanted to create things but were too lazy to learn how to do it on their own. "Hackers" is another thing, this used to be a very proficient group of people which has now been diluted by mimics and by those who seem to have no understanding of what it means to "hack" something.
:blah:
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... Rudolph Hertz makes a single revoliution in his grave.
Now that's definitely a hert :-+ :popcorn:
Only if he does that once in a second.
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I decided to restore this old radio that was laying around in the shop.
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Saying, or even more weirdly, writing "enään" instead of "enää" in the Finnish language. English translation would be somewhat like "anymoregh" instead of the expected "anymore".
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Backseat drivers. :horse:
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Here we have a headline that reads:
Black hole 142 times heavier than the Sun discovered
and further along in the article we read
GW190521 weighs in at 142 times the mass of our Sun
https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html (https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html)
Which is of course, plainly contradictory.
If it were 142 times heavier than our sun it would be 143 times the mass of our sun, not 142. This kind of thing seems to be popping up more and more lately.
What other things are there?
I think that they pull the numbers out of a hat ..
This only happened Seven Billion Years ago . Some what old news :-DD
It may only have the mass of a pea now .
that's about twice the size of all there brains combined .
I don't see how you can measure the mass of something that one does not know what
it is made up of for sure . They think they know because they get paid to come up
with an answer to account for all the time and money they spent on research etc.
So it's a large jelly with a hole in the middle . Prove me wrong .
with valid samples only .
I can wait 14 billion years for the answer. ( 1 round trip )
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Just a thought experiment for the OPs interpretation of mass ratios.
So I have a one kg weight, and another that is 142 times as heavy. By the OPs logic this second weight comes in at 143 kg
Lets try one that is twice as heavy. 3 kg.
Now 1.5 times as heavy. 2.5 kg.
Now 1.001 times as heavy. 2.001 kg.
You apparently can't do ratios for masses that are close to the original mass.
I'll stick with the news stories interpretation. I think nearly identical masses do exist and need a way to be described as a ratio.
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Just a thought experiment for the OPs interpretation of mass ratios.
So I have a one kg weight, and another that is 142 times as heavy. By the OPs logic this second weight comes in at 143 kg
Lets try one that is twice as heavy. 3 kg. .. 1 + 1 = 3 :-DD Just love your Maths .
Now 1.5 times as heavy. 2.5 kg.
Now 1.001 times as heavy. 2.001 kg.
You apparently can't do ratios for masses that are close to the original mass.
I'll stick with the news stories interpretation. I think nearly identical masses do exist and need a way to be described as a ratio.
You forgot to add the cream topping into the equation
Mass is only heavy if it has Gravity .
You will have to check your fingers or buy a calculator
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Overtaking me and slowing down for no apparent reason while the road is clear ahead.
Toilet paper roll inserted in the wrong direction!
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...
Toilet paper roll inserted in the wrong direction!
I blame Benjamin Franklin for that one.
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Toilet paper roll inserted in the wrong direction!
Ah, but what is the "right" direction? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation)
;D
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Just a thought experiment for the OPs interpretation of mass ratios.
So I have a one kg weight, and another that is 142 times as heavy. By the OPs logic this second weight comes in at 143 kg
Lets try one that is twice as heavy. 3 kg. .. 1 + 1 = 3 :-DD Just love your Maths .
Now 1.5 times as heavy. 2.5 kg.
Now 1.001 times as heavy. 2.001 kg.
You apparently can't do ratios for masses that are close to the original mass.
I'll stick with the news stories interpretation. I think nearly identical masses do exist and need a way to be described as a ratio.
You forgot to add the cream topping into the equation
Mass is only heavy if it has Gravity .
You will have to check your fingers or buy a calculator
Sarcasm is lost on many. You have much company.
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By the way I think the original posters problem stems from confusion with the construction "Object A weighs X again as much as Object B" which does mean something quite different from "Object A weighs X times as much as Object B". The first form is usually used with fractional values for X, while the news article clearly used the second form and a large integer.
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When people say HERT instead of HERTZ.
Like one megahert, one kilohert.
Everytime you say Hert instead of Hertz, Rudolph Hertz makes a single revoliution in his grave.
Or maybe he makes a single cycle in his grave.
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oh I've got a good one. One thing is people who empty lab/shop consumables and dont restock. The worst is people who leave a microscopic amount, so that they wont be the one emptying the thing.
I even do it to myself sometimes. It must be a deep seated glitch of the human psyche
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Just a thought experiment for the OPs interpretation of mass ratios.
So I have a one kg weight, and another that is 142 times as heavy. By the OPs logic this second weight comes in at 143 kg
No. I would call that one 142kg. 142x1
If it was 142 times heavier it would be 143kg. 1+(142x1)
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... Rudolph Hertz makes a single revoliution in his grave.
Now that's definitely a hert :-+ :popcorn:
https://dilbert.com/strip/2004-07-28 (https://dilbert.com/strip/2004-07-28)
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Just a thought experiment for the OPs interpretation of mass ratios.
So I have a one kg weight, and another that is 142 times as heavy. By the OPs logic this second weight comes in at 143 kg
No. I would call that one 142kg. 142x1
If it was 142 times heavier it would be 143kg. 1+(142x1)
And there it is from the horses mouth. times heavier = again as heavy. times heavier <> times as heavy.
Those equalities and inequalities don't exist in my mind. I suspect it is one of those English language foibles like the meaning of "tabling a motion" which has exactly opposite meanings in England and the USA. There is no absolutely correct answer, the answer depends on where you are. If you are one of those snobs who says England and only England defines the English language I will just stop speaking English and speak American. And the Australians can speak Australian and the Indians can speak Indian English.
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It could be worse. Imagine if pre 1974 an Englishman said to an American "I say, old chap, is this thing a *billion times more than that, or is it a *billion times as much as that?"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion)
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Why do some call a 1nF capacitor 1000pF or 0.001uF? Is there some "nanophobia" that I'm not understanding?
Hey.
What gets easier to pick up the heavier it gets?
A woman.
Heavier because of more fat or more muscle?
Windows has a far better/freindly gui for starters.
The surprisingly useful "always on top" button still seems to be missing from Windows. Linux had that when I started using it 20 years ago.
The capacitor thing is mainly just a historical curiosity.
People weren't as invested in Engineering Notation, whereas Decimals were pretty much mainstream.
Also, 1nF/1000pF/0.001uF were pretty much in the "sweet spot" of common usage.
In audio, 0.001uF was getting towards the low end of commonly used values, all of which where widely referred to in Decimal parts of a uF, & towards the high end of commonly used values in RF, where, to fit in with other values like 220pF, 470pF,etc, 1000pF just seems easier.
Even now, I have to think twice, & mentally translate, when I see higher values in nF.
It only takes a second, but it is there.
On the other hand, it takes a second to relate ".001uF",(without the leading zero, as it was often printed) with "1000pF"! ;D
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Just a thought experiment for the OPs interpretation of mass ratios.
So I have a one kg weight, and another that is 142 times as heavy. By the OPs logic this second weight comes in at 143 kg
Lets try one that is twice as heavy. 3 kg.
Now 1.5 times as heavy. 2.5 kg.
Now 1.001 times as heavy. 2.001 kg.
You apparently can't do ratios for masses that are close to the original mass.
I'll stick with the news stories interpretation. I think nearly identical masses do exist and need a way to be described as a ratio.
You missed the (flawed) point of the OP.
Their idea is that there are two different phrases, "x times as heavy", and "x times heavier", with the different meanings. Obviously, as seen in real usage through centuries, these phrases do have the exact same meaning (the former one, not the +1 one).
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As a native English speaker in the southern UK I would interpret both of the OP's constructs as a multiplication rather than 1+. We do have a 1+ construct with again: "half as heavy again" would be 1.5x and "as heavy again" = 2x, but it would sound very weird to use it for any larger numbers. It also feels a little archaic to my ears, like something my grandparents would say or I'd read in an older book.
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In the US, I believe normal usage is "half again as heavy", but it still sounds quaint. However, "50% more" always means x1.5, and "200% more" means x3.0.
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“Export quality”
if it comes from alibaba/dealextreme : ok if it falls apart upon opening the box
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When people call a generic tablet an iPad.
Or call any old vacuum cleaner a Hoover.
i'm still taking pictures with my canon kodak !
let me grab a cola ( grabs pepsi , or that cheap no-name brand from aldi / costco / walmart )
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Sloppy, careless use of non-synonymous verbs: e.g., imply and infer, comprise and constitute.
In patent law, proper use of comprise is vital: if an invention X comprises A, B, and C, that does not preclude adding D.
Yes, I know that there is historical precedent for the inappropriate use of these words, but we are all technical people and should be careful when communicating.
If imply and infer become synonymous, how can we distinguish between the two meanings?
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Sloppy, careless use of non-synonymous verbs: e.g., imply and infer, comprise and constitute.
In patent law, proper use of comprise is vital: if an invention X comprises A, B, and C, that does not preclude adding D.
Yes, I know that there is historical precedent for the inappropriate use of these words, but we are all technical people and should be careful when communicating.
If imply and infer become synonymous, how can we distinguish between the two meanings?
There is a regional language pattern around here that follows this style:
* "Will this transistor work or no?"
as opposed to:
"Will this transistor work or not?"
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There is a regional language pattern around here that follows this style:
* "Will this transistor work or no?"
as opposed to:
"Will this transistor work or not?"
I grew up in Northern Minnesota, where there is a strong Scandinavian background, and I found that many local English idioms were literal translations from Scandinavian languages. In fact, I didn't learn that "Are you coming with?" (as opposed to "coming along") was incorrect English until we got in trouble in high-school German, when we translated "Kommen Sie mit?" (which is correct German) accordingly. Your example may be the same effect.
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There is a regional language pattern around here that follows this style:
* "Will this transistor work or no?"
as opposed to:
"Will this transistor work or not?"
I grew up in Northern Minnesota, where there is a strong Scandinavian background, and I found that many local English idioms were literal translations from Scandinavian languages. In fact, I didn't learn that "Are you coming with?" (as opposed to "coming along") was incorrect English until we got in trouble in high-school German, when we translated "Kommen Sie mit?" (which is correct German) accordingly. Your example may be the same effect.
That's very interesting. Specifically, I notice it north of a boundary line at approximately Interstate 694.
To me, both "Are you coming with?" and "Are you coming along" sound natural. I never would have noticed that the "coming with" form has grammatical issues.
The perceived correctness or incorrectness may have to do with which unsaid, yet implied, words would be filled in by the listener. For instance, a Minnesotan, don'cha know, would fill in with "me", resulting in:
"Are you coming with me?"
while someone else might expect the element that is to be brought would be clearly specified:
"Are you coming with a pack of beer?"
"Are you coming with a multimeter?"
"Are you coming with Dave from EEVblog?"
Such that their angst would result in a feeling of, "What is it! I have no idea! Finish the sentence for sake of Ole and Lena!"
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So many people don't know the difference in its and it's.
it's is a contraction. It usually means it is, but can also mean it has, as in "It's been an hour since I got home."
its is the possessive pronoun.
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How about those who still do not know the distinction between
"there"
"their"
and "they're"
or between
"your"
"you're"
and not to mention "yore" ?
And one thing I cannot listen to for more than 3 minutes is someone who MUST start every sentence with "So..."
These drive me nuts.
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I was watching a movie or something recently and one line of dialog was "Coming with?". If I happen to remember what the title was I'll add it.
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english is a very complicated language !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGcDi0DRtU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGcDi0DRtU)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo)
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How about those who still do not know the distinction between
"there"
"their"
and "they're"
or between
"your"
"you're"
and not to mention "yore" ?
And one thing I cannot listen to for more than 3 minutes is someone who MUST start every sentence with "So..."
These drive me nuts.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
I was unlucky enough to start school in 1969 and be part of a stupid experiment where they taught my class ITA (both my sisters escaped this madness).
I was being taught to read in a way that bears no resemblance to English, for example
[attachimg=1] See pic at bottom of post
Then I was going home and my mum was trying to get me to read from a normal English Ladybird book and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t read a word.
End result, like many others taught this way, I remained in the bottom group of English throughout my entire school life and still can’t spell or grasp the rules 50 years later. The greatest help for me was when MS Word first started underlining misspelt words, over time words I continually used, I began to memorise. But rarely a week goes by without me having to ask my wife (or children when they were still at home) how you spell xyz.
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And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
I've heard them called transistor radio, maybe someone just shortened it.
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- ANY programming language that requires semicolons to denote end of statements. there is a cr or cr/lf pair in the file already. use that. and , in case a line really is too long you should either : rewrite the code , or have a line continuation character. there are much less cases where you need to split a long line.
ANY programing language that requires ; for some statements but lets them be optional for others
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Wndows has a far better/freindly gui for starters.
I've never found Windows GUI better/friendly. I much prefer Workbench 1.3
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And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
I've heard them called transistor radio, maybe someone just shortened it.
No, that started in the '50s. Transistor radios were becoming very common and "in". But hardly any non-technical people had seen a transistor (the device) let alone knew what it was. So this new word "transistor" obviously referred to the newly common small battery powered radio.
I vaguely remember telling a classmate I had lost a transistor when I dropped it and it fell into a crack, or something like that. She was astonished that I had managed to lose an entire transistor just by dropping it. Back then, and being a student, losing one transistor depleted my stock by a significant percentage.
A CK722 was about a dollar 60 years ago. Equivalent to $9 now.
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I was watching a movie or something recently and one line of dialog was "Coming with?". If I happen to remember what the title was I'll add it.
This is a variation on the "You're from Place X? I've never been," with an implicit "there" at the end of the sentence.
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My pet peeves fill a frigging zoo. The biggest is probably people who refuse to acknowledge errors or mistakes they have made, because of their ego or insecurities; leading others astray. :rant:
In Finnish, one of my pet peeves is missing the possessive suffix in formal contexts. (I don't mind everyday speech, I consider it something like an accent.)
One of the most annoying cases of that was a series of advertisements by the Sonera (now Telia) phone company, and their "Minun Sonera" ad campaign.
(The possessive suffix, and the correct form, is "Minun Sonerani". The difference is something like my/me in English to my ear; analogous to pirate speech in English: "me Sonera, arrr!".)
If they had used any of the local dialects in Finland, like "Mun Sonera" (which would match common spoken Finnish), then I'd be okay with it, but butchering proper Finnish like that to avoid a suffix in the trade name just grinds my gears. It sounds fake and contrived!
And one thing I cannot listen to for more than 3 minutes is someone who MUST start every sentence with "So..."
I apologise. I do not do it in speech, but in writing, I too often start a sentence with "So," or "Thus," to indicate the following paragraph is based on the axioms/facts/assumptions/preliminary conclusions stated in previous paragraphs. (Me fail English. Any and all suggestions on how to do better are very welcome! :))
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News agencies, when reporting an event, use the same word or phrase over and over and over again. Several examples, during the 1991 Gulf War our ears got worn off hearing again and again about “columns” of tanks. And 9/11 getting continually referred to at the time as “ground zero.” And now whenever something happens, reporters are not “at the scene”, they are “on the ground.”
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So around here :) everyone adds s to the end. I'm going to Krogers or I'm going to Meijers. Some say they are making it possessive but even then they are using it wrong.
Or referring to a driver's license as they, I always ask where their other one is from.
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(Attachment Link) See pic at bottom of post
what the hell is this monstrosity ?
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Wide and ultrawide monitors and laptop displays.
Yeah, I know most of the customers are using their computers to watch movies, but if you have to work with the darn thing, you'll be better off with more vertical real estate.
There's a reason books have had that format since before Gutenberg.
And then there are applications - browsers, wordprocessing tools, etc. - that add a giant overhead at the top because they need to have stilish buttons or tabs (Firefox for one) so that you are left with a handful of looong lines to read (especially on website that are not adapting to the browser's width).
Bring back the 4:3 laptops!
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Wide and ultrawide monitors and laptop displays.
Yeah, I know most of the customers are using their computers to watch movies, but if you have to work with the darn thing, you'll be better off with more vertical real estate.
There's a reason books have had that format since before Gutenberg.
And then there are applications - browsers, wordprocessing tools, etc. - that add a giant overhead at the top because they need to have stilish buttons or tabs (Firefox for one) so that you are left with a handful of looong lines to read (especially on website that are not adapting to the browser's width).
Bring back the 4:3 laptops!
Use half the screen for one app, use the other half for another app. Very handy for development to have the datasheet and code in view at the same time.
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Wide and ultrawide monitors and laptop displays.
Use half the screen for one app, use the other half for another app. Very handy for development to have the datasheet and code in view at the same time.
The problem is that a 15 inch widescreen laptop is now equivalent to two 9 inch 4:3 laptops side by side.
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And then there are applications - browsers, wordprocessing tools, etc. - that add a giant overhead at the top
Yep. Reminds me of this I posted once before:
"Turn on the TV news and so often there is this stupid banner across the bottom of the screen, actually blocking something that you want to see. Even more stupid, this banner is often raised from the bottom somewhat so it blocks even more of the screen than it's vertical size would dictate."
This kind of thing ->
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2cgvh0WjJUs/maxresdefault.jpg)
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News agencies, when reporting an event, use the same word or phrase over and over and over again. Several examples, during the 1991 Gulf War our ears got worn off hearing again and again about “columns” of tanks. And 9/11 getting continually referred to at the time as “ground zero.” And now whenever something happens, reporters are not “at the scene”, they are “on the ground.”
"Columns of tanks" is how a lot of tanks in single file have been described ever since there were tanks.
Before that, we had "columns of cavalry", & "columns of infantry."
That said, journalists really do like to overuse terms.
Two that freak me out are :
"In country".
and
"Ahead of" instead of "prior to", or if they really have to be elephantine, "in the leadup to".
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"up to 50% or more" :palm:
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"up to 50% or more" :palm:
https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=338-3575-ND (https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=338-3575-ND)
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The verb: to Google
Such as: "Google the Battle of Kursk". Rather than: "Search the web for the Battle of Kursk".
(Yea, it was pages ago, sorry...)
Humans like to re-invent words/meanings. That's just like saying we need to 'Hoover' the carpet. (Brand name).
Or to take a 'Zerox' (copy) of that document. (Brand name, but less used these days).
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Well, at least "Zerox" is not a registered trademark of the Xerox corporation. The word "xerography", from the Greek word for dry, is not intellectual property.
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(Attachment Link) See pic at bottom of post
what the hell is this monstrosity ?
Believe it or not, it was how I was taught to read and spell at infant school (aged 5 years +)
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1523708.stm]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1523708.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1523708.stm)[/url]
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Pet peeves? I have many. Here are a few:
Technical documentation. Much of it is poorly written and does not convey a complete and accurate description of the part. This is especially true for complex parts like microcontrollers, and the "remedy" often suggested is to look at the example code or use the vendor libraries. This is nonsense--the documentation itself should be complete and accurate without recourse to other materials like source code. A related peeve is that often these manuals are written by someone for whom English is not their first language. The result is a mess of typos and confusing phrasing. Sometimes these issues even obscure the meaning of the text, or make it incorrect. Many of these companies have offices in the US and should have a native English speaker go over the documents and correct the mistakes. ST is a big offender here--some of their technical documentation reads like it was written by an eight-year-old.
Chip errata. Some vendors don't mind releasing parts with dozens and dozens of nasty errata. A good example was the Microchip PIC32MZ EC. The errata sheet for this part was almost eighty pages long and even fundamental things like the crystal oscillators didn't work. Took Microchip a year to fix some (but not all) of these bugs and release the EF parts. Some vendors never fix certain errata--stepping after stepping of the part gets released with the same errata there year after year.
Vendor websites. Some of these make you jump through hoops to download datasheets and other documentation, sometimes to the point of requiring you to wait for an email from them containing a download link. Others (like Broadcom) won't provide documentation at all, or require NDAs. Oftentimes these sites are so poorly organized as to make it very difficult to find information on their products.
Development Boards. Some vendors like to put too many external peripherals on their boards (accelerometers, SDRAM, LCD displays, microphones, audio codecs, etc) to the point where it's difficult to find a combination of free pins to implement something you need. Some of these vendors don't even bother to break out all of an MCU's port pins on accessible connectors, or, in many cases, only have "Arduino compatible" connectors on the board. Many MCUs have a separate power domain intended to be powered by a battery in case of a power failure, but most vendors don't bother making the Vbat pin accessible to users. ST has the right idea with their STM32 Nucleo boards. These typically only have a few LEDs and a button, but every port pin is broken out to a connector. Another peeve related to dev boards: vendors never seem to provide enough ground and Vcc connection points on their boards.
IDEs. Many of these are based on Eclipse, which in and of itself is okay, but vendors can't resist adding every plug-in and add-on under the sun, and the effect of this crud is to slow everything down to a crawl. Another IDE peeve is the "wizards" often provided to create new projects. There never seems to be an option to create a bare-bones project with nothing except the start-up code--the only options create projects that pull in lots of unwanted crap that needs to be deleted. Do vendors think professional embedded developers always start a new project as a "blinky" app? Hint: we don't.
Some general peeves:
DVDs and Blu-rays that have previews that can't be skipped or fast-forwarded through. People who create these should be boiled in oil.
Drivers who don't indicate when turning or changing lanes. Drivers who use their windshield washers in moving traffic (this usually happens right after I get my car washed). Drivers who throw burning cigarettes out the window.
People who don't use its/it's and your/you're properly in a sentence.
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Wide and ultrawide monitors and laptop displays.
Use half the screen for one app, use the other half for another app. Very handy for development to have the datasheet and code in view at the same time.
The problem is that a 15 inch widescreen laptop is now equivalent to two 9 inch 4:3 laptops side by side.
...and at super high resolution everything becomes tiny.
Then you have go into windows to magnify it.
Madness!
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4K resolution on small screens (ie smaller than a ping pong table )
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Try to explain to a cop that traveling at a 'high rate of speed' is not illegal or measurable with his equipment.
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The diode symbol getting bastardized like this:
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What other things are there?
I saw your post and wasn't planning to respond but I'm done with this POS set of calipers. They use a single LR44. There is no power switch and they run 24/7. A battery will last maybe 6 months or so. I go to use them and they are dead. Peeves me right off. Ran out of button batteries tonight, so I fit it with some AAs and a couple of Si diodes.
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I saw your post and wasn't planning to respond but I'm done with this POS set of calipers. They use a single LR44. There is no power switch and they run 24/7. A battery will last maybe 6 months or so. I go to use them and they are dead. Peeves me right off. Ran out of button batteries tonight, so I fit it with some AAs and a couple of Si diodes.
Sometimes the manufacturers are stupid enough to install the batteries in these before shipping. You take home what you think is a brand new set of calipers from the shop, open up the battery compartment and find it is already heavily corroded from battery leakage.
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Any product made of, or featuring, silver-colored or silver-painted plastic. To me, nothing screams cheap and nasty as loud as a silver-colored plastic crap. It makes decent products look like crap and crap products 10 times more crappy (see what I did here?). Any designer who ever thought "let's make this plastic thing silver as it makes it look more premium, metal-like" should have their head examined. Seriously, it should be penalised.
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Worse than silver for actual use: black lettering on black background for connectors, etc., on electronic gear.
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Any product made of, or featuring, silver-colored or silver-painted plastic. To me, nothing screams cheap and nasty as loud as a silver-colored plastic crap. It makes decent products look like crap and crap products 10 times more crappy (see what I did here?). Any designer who ever thought "let's make this plastic thing silver as it makes it look more premium, metal-like" should have their head examined. Seriously, it should be penalised.
Yeah, chrome inside door handles on Hyundai Accents from a few years back--------the chrome layer started to peel off within a year.
The chrome layer is actually electroplated on plastic using a graphite layer, so is an interesting technique, which I remember seeing on toys when I was a kid--------they peeled off, too!
Hyundai changed to a dull metallic surface on the later Accents.
In the late 1960s, early 1970s, some car manufacturers used a metallic layer inside a transparent plastic external trim.
Over time, UV would make the plastic break down, water would enter & corrode the thin metallic layer, & the trim would look like junk!
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I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would waste hard earned money on a "hot water heater"
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I saw your post and wasn't planning to respond but I'm done with this POS set of calipers. They use a single LR44. There is no power switch and they run 24/7. A battery will last maybe 6 months or so. I go to use them and they are dead. Peeves me right off. Ran out of button batteries tonight, so I fit it with some AAs and a couple of Si diodes.
I have a set of remote controlled mains switches, whose remote control used to drain its 9V battery in no time when sitting idle on my desktop. It fell down once and the plastic bent enough to keep the battery from making contact unless I squeezed it in my hand before pressing the buttons. It's been years since I replaced the battery.
Enabling the battery only before use should be mandatory in all handheld devices of this kind.
A thin isolated support with both faces metallized should go between one pole of the battery and the battery holder's contact, the terminals should be connected to a switch that gets automatically closed when the remote is held. Works a charm with my remote.
EDIT: I don't know how, but I managed to put in more typos than lines.
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Try to explain to a cop that traveling at a 'high rate of speed' is not illegal or measurable with his equipment.
"You were accelerating at a rate of XYZ miles."
Do I have the stones to tell the cop that the derivative of acceleration is jerk?
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Try to explain to a cop that traveling at a 'high rate of speed' is not illegal or measurable with his equipment.
"You were accelerating at a rate of XYZ miles."
Do I have the stones to tell the cop that the derivative of acceleration is jerk?
Don't argue with the Cop. Save it for the judge.
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Best not to argue with a judge as well.
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Best not to argue with a judge as well.
The attorney argues in front of the judge.
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Here's the worst: Learning curve.
"This program has a steep learning curve!"
Yes, that means it's easy to learn.
"No, I mean that it's hard to learn."
Plot knowledge vs time. If it takes a long time to acquire a particular level of knowledge, the slope of that line will be shallow. If knowledge is acquired in a short time, the slope will go upward sharply.
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Best not to argue with a judge as well.
The attorney argues in front of the judge.
That’s why it is a bad idea to argue with the judge, lest you be found in contempt.
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Here's the worst: Learning curve.
"This program has a steep learning curve!"
Yes, that means it's easy to learn.
"No, I mean that it's hard to learn."
Plot knowledge vs time. If it takes a long time to acquire a particular level of knowledge, the slope of that line will be shallow. If knowledge is acquired in a short time, the slope will go upward sharply.
Quick and easy are different things.
Climb the Burj Dubai on the outside. You get very high, very quickly. But it isn't easy.
Climb to the height of the Burj Dubai by walking up the Mississippi River, the Amazon River, or the Nile. Each step will be easy but you will walk thousands of kilometers before you get the altitude.
So something with a steep learning curve may reward those who are successful quickly, but many may find the journey impossible. The shallow path has its own pitfalls.
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Here's the worst: Learning curve.
"This program has a steep learning curve!"
Yes, that means it's easy to learn.
"No, I mean that it's hard to learn."
Plot knowledge vs time. If it takes a long time to acquire a particular level of knowledge, the slope of that line will be shallow. If knowledge is acquired in a short time, the slope will go upward sharply.
I disagree. The saying is quite OK, but you are misunderstanding it.
There is a logic behind this saying:
Steep learning curve means, you need to acquire new knowledge at a massive rate, all the time, and as a result, cannot get any work done. All your effort is going into the learning process.
Flat learning curve means, you slowly acquire some new knowledge as you go, getting better with the tool, while still getting work done.
Finally, whether it's finally easy or difficult to fully learn, the slope of the curve is irrelevant. The height of the required target level is; the amount of knowledge that needs to be acquired. The saying (and your version of just inverting it) completely ignores this aspect.
"Steep learning curve" saying doesn't focus on the total complexity, but it describes the initial amount of involvement that's needed to be able to do anything with the tool: you are learning the tool quickly, but only because you have to. The opposite is the flat learning curve: you are not learning the tool, you are just using it (and doing the work).
That's why it's called "learning curve", not "getting work done curve". Learning isn't always a positive; you have limited resources for learning and people hate to spend time learning tools when they want to use the tools for the job.
Given that people have some limited rate of putting effort into a project per time, this defines a maximum slope. If you plot two curves, "learning curve for the tool" and "advancing the actual project", the sum of their slopes is somewhat constant. If the learning curve is steep, the "advancing the project" curve has to be flat, and vice versa.
The massively important distinction is, whenever the "learning" part is really important, then it has to be done, and having a steep curve is acceptable. Still, having it too steep may cause psychological problems of totally losing focus of the problem. Whenever the "learning" part is unintended - for example, you definitely do not plan to be a PCB designer, yet have to use a PCB EDA tool for some weird reason for a small project - this steep learning curve is pretty much unwanted.
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Micromanagers.
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Whomever it was at the bakery who put the twist tie on the bread bag lefty tighty instead of righty tighty; you had one job.
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Micromanagers.
You know, if we had a thread titled, "Your personal hell, technical or otherwise" then this could be:
"Micromanagers, who use Agile."
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Micromanagers.
Non-technical micromanagers who don't trust you because you were born at the wrong time (age, horoscope sign or some such).
One boss I worked for in my early twenties was a "lady" who wouldn't trust me at all, because she had a worthless idiot son of about my age. Not even when I had successful technical projects completed in her department. A big part of why I broke myself later, too; I was too socially stupid to see how sick that sort of stuff is. :palm:
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"It is what it is"
:horse:
(Replace dead horse with person that said it) :palm:
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"We are one of the top fifteen companies..."
I wonder which one they are? Number one? Number two?
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People who keep saying "I'll go ahead and <do X>" instead of just straight up saying "I'll do X".
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Online purchasing where, the moment you complete checkout and pay, you're presented with a list of similar - if not the exact same - items, at least one of which will be cheaper then you just paid. Thanks for rubbing salt into the wound Aliexpress, Ebay, Amazon et al.
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People who keep saying "I'll go ahead and <do X>" instead of just straight up saying "I'll do X".
I was waiting for people who don't say anything and just do X and present the data.
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"We are one of the top fifteen companies..."
I wonder which one they are? Number one? Number two?
Number 15 for Shore .. Left out on the beach
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Marketing material addressed to me in the post that; misses out important bits of information, bends to the truth regarding my rights and contradicts what's in the advert in the small print. With trendy pretty wording in the advert, "most powerful router" with pictures on looks but lacks the specifications about the hardware for me to compare. They think by making it look pretty and trendy like that is going to make feel happy and content when it makes feel insulted and angry like I am somewhat stupid and confused and don't know what I am doing.
I see this abstract crap but maybe it us just an illusion of my own when I read things that make me annoyed that I find patronising and insulting: "Most powerful wifi super router hub for your whole house" to boost your PC/tablet/phone and broadband from in a tiny box but because it looks pretty that means it is super smart and intelligent and will add to the performance and be better than any other router out there and for any problems it will wake up compensate and sort it self out." I think: Bugger off!
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Websites that claim I'm signed in, yet when I try to do anything, they require me to sign in. Examples: Digikey, Ebay.
I can accept that they require new sign-in every 5 minutes if that's what they want to do, but why lie in the first place? That's like lying you have an 8-inch device; when the device is needed, the truth is exposed creating an immediate, awkward dissatisfaction.
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Here's another peeve of mine... I have an Amazon FireTV that I use to watch streaming content. The remote has a pause button, but the "pause" function times out after about four minutes and the display goes back to the home screen, forcing me to find what I was watching and resume it. Sometimes what I was watching will show up in "Recents", but sometimes not, forcing me to search for it in other places.
Hey Amazon--when I hit the Pause button, I want it to stay paused indefinitely! If I hit Pause and come back a week later, I want the movie to immediately start from where I left off then I hit Play.
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"Recommended for you" on web sites that have no real idea of who I am, Youtube in particular. Even when they know what I just watched Youtube's recommendations of what I should watch next often seem oddly random.
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That soft-grip stuff they put on electronic goods and some tools which after a couple of years de-vulcanizes or decomposes to a sticky goo.
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When a micro has several byte-wide ports with multi purpose pins and for whatever reason you want to read or write entire parallel bytes from the outside world. The trouble is, one special function pin will be in port A, another special function pin in port B etc and if you also need that special function you cant use the entire width of the port for a byte. It’s fine to have these special function pins of course, by but WHY do they have to scatter them around and ruin the usefulness of different ports so you end up having to use a much larger package with extra pins??? Just concentrate them all in one or two ports and leave the rest alone for goodness sake!!!
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Websites that claim I'm signed in, yet when I try to do anything, they require me to sign in. Examples: Digikey, Ebay.
Or sometimes, eevblog!
I can accept that they require new sign-in every 5 minutes if that's what they want to do, but why lie in the first place? That's like lying you have an 8-inch device; when the device is needed, the truth is exposed creating an immediate, awkward dissatisfaction.
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That soft-grip stuff they put on electronic goods and some tools which after a couple of years de-vulcanizes or decomposes to a sticky goo.
What a delight! >:(
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That soft-grip stuff they put on electronic goods and some tools which after a couple of years de-vulcanizes or decomposes to a sticky goo.
What a delight! >:(
I've got a rechargeable torch/emergency light that has that going on.
Does anyone know what solvent might dissolve it without causing too much electronic upheaval?
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I've got a rechargeable torch/emergency light that has that going on.
Does anyone know what solvent might dissolve it without causing too much electronic upheaval?
I've got one of those wind-up torches with the same, also had a camera and one of those cheap USB microscopes suffer from it; in both cases some wiping with cloth & IPA got rid of it which leaves the shiny ABS or whatever plastic lies underneath.
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When you drive on a two-lane highway/motorway/dual-carriageway and two trucks try to overtake each other, one going 55 mph and the other going 56 mph, only for the overtaking truck to hit a hill and maintain its position and make no progress for the next two minutes.
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Webshops with a "Customers also bought" section. The Customers also bought section is pretty useless on website like Farnell, Mouser,... if the only thing it can show you are completely unrelated things.
You put the housing for a connector for which you also need crimp terminals in the shopping basket on the Farnell website. Guess what I will need next dear website? Crimp terminals of course and perhaps the PCB part for that same connector series in whatever orientation and maybe crimping tools and perhaps some stranded wire. I do know other people are buying screws, soldering stations, semiconductors...Otherwise they would be bankrupt.
Other things:
Conspiracy channels on YT and people believing what's being said on those channels who go off like a raging bull when you try to explain them where they are wrong.
People with backwards logic. You can't change how they think.
YT channels with people who speak slow because it makes them sound like an expert giving opinions and advise on something they clearly don't know anything about.
Engineers with an ego problem. Every tech company has at least one or two.
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Man made climate change.
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American Plumbing
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In the checkout line and the person in front of you pulls out a checkbook and proceeds to fill it out to pay. :=\
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In the checkout line and the person in front of you pulls out a checkbook and proceeds to fill it out to pay. :=\
The person ahead of you in line at a fast food place takes ten minutes to get to the front of the line and only then looks at the menu and takes a few minutes to decide what to order. :palm:
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That soft-grip stuff they put on electronic goods and some tools which after a couple of years de-vulcanizes or decomposes to a sticky goo.
What a delight! >:(
I've got a rechargeable torch/emergency light that has that going on.
Does anyone know what solvent might dissolve it without causing too much electronic upheaval?
Orange Power air freshener (https://shop.coles.com.au/a/alexandria/product/orange-power-air-freshener-spray) from your local supermarket. Honestly, it's been my go-to sticky stuff remover for years. It absolutely strips anything sticky or gooey (be careful on labels as it will probably take the printing off as well). I use this stuff to get the bulk of whatever substance off, then finish it off with some IPA, you don't need much at all.
I have a microphone stand with those "rubberised" adjustment knobs and the Orange spray (a combination of orange oil and ethanol) stripped it right back.
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That soft-grip stuff they put on electronic goods and some tools which after a couple of years de-vulcanizes or decomposes to a sticky goo.
What a delight! >:(
I've got a rechargeable torch/emergency light that has that going on.
Does anyone know what solvent might dissolve it without causing too much electronic upheaval?
Orange Power air freshener (https://shop.coles.com.au/a/alexandria/product/orange-power-air-freshener-spray) from your local supermarket. Honestly, it's been my go-to sticky stuff remover for years. It absolutely strips anything sticky or gooey (be careful on labels as it will probably take the printing off as well). I use this stuff to get the bulk of whatever substance off, then finish it off with some IPA, you don't need much at all.
I have a microphone stand with those "rubberised" adjustment knobs and the Orange spray (a combination of orange oil and ethanol) stripped it right back.
Good to know.
:)
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People who take the exit lane as soon as it appears and then speed up to pass traffic on the left.
Some exits lanes go for half a mile or more before they split off, and not everyone else is keyed up on coke watching and waiting for the instant that exit lane appears.
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Websites that make no sense.
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I have so many pet peeves I could probably write a book about them.
One I came across lately, when somebody painting a room, exterior wall, etc spends a ton of effort masking around an electrical fitting, invariably making a mess and getting paint on the thing anyway instead of simply removing a couple of screws and getting it out of the way. A couple years ago and elderly family friend nearly had her house burned down because the painters wrapped plastic around a halogen motion sensor flood on the side of the house and taped it up, then when the sun set something triggered the light and it set the plastic and then the wall on fire.
Magically shrinking products and deceptive packaging to try to hide cost increases, for example a "gallon" of ice cream is nowhere near an actual gallon anymore. Especially when they try to spin it as something good for the consumer ("These candy bars are now only 100 calories, they're healthier!")
Outsourced tech support handled by people who have thick accents that are difficult to understand. Nothing against folks who don't speak my language fluently but when your entire job is to have a spoken conversation with me it is really an important skill for that particular job.
When software tries to guess what I want and be helpful, more often than not it is wrong and creates additional work rather than saving me work.
When software updates are automatic and rigidly enforced and nag Nag NAG NAG or even auto-reboot regardless of what I'm doing.
When software is excessively buggy, half baked, shipped half finished on the pretense that it will be updated "later" and I am expected to be the QA of a product that I'm paying for.
When a device containing a battery is sealed such that it is difficult or impossible to replace said battery.
People who ride my bumper when I'm driving, then aggressively pass me only to drive slower than I was going when they were behind me.
When people can't figure how how to get up to speed and merge onto the highway, making me either stomp on the brakes or floor it to get out of their way before they run out of onramp.
When I am not allowed to do something because some other idiot did it, found a way to hurt themselves and then sued over it.
When I hear of companies throwing good equipment into the scrap bin instead of making it available to someone who can use it.
When software moves to a subscription model in place of the option of a perpetual license.
Robocalls. I don't think I need to explain that one.
Excessive political correctness, the euphemism treadmill, people going out of their way to find something to be offended about or outraged over.
Corporate HR that actively filters out so many excellent candidates, passing along all the ones who's greatest skill seems to be gaming the system and sprinkling their resume with all the right keywords.
Well-meaning but poorly thought through regulations that invariably come loaded with unintended consequences.
I could go on but this is probably enough, contrary to how it may appear I am not an angry old geezer whose favorite pastime is yelling at neighborhood kids to get off my lawn.
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Plastic "clamshell" packaging without tabs or cutouts to facilitate unwrapping without using a box-cutter knife. They are downright dangerous, since the edges of the plastic can be sharp as you try to rip off the remaining package to get at what you spent your money on. I'm surprised there have not been liability lawsuits reported for cut fingers.
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Technical drawings labelled "Rev 1" when they really mean "Version 1", which would actually be "Revision 0", which is grammatically ridiculous.
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Technical drawings labelled "Rev 1" when they really mean "Version 1", which would actually be "Revision 0", which is grammatically ridiculous.
The "mirror image" of that is when people designate, in this case, RF amplifiers, amp 0, amp 1, amp 2, & so on.
We had some transmitters from the PRC, where the documentation was very sketchy, with some acronyms reversed, & so on.
When the LCD display came up with "OI" fault", we thought it was another one like that, & embarked upon a wild goose chase for a "IO" fault.(the display used capital "O" for zero).
In fact, the fault was that the low value series resistor for indicating the first ("number 0") amplifier supply current had gone high, triggering an alarm.
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Websites that make no sense.
Thank you, Gerry Harvey.
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Google search results, where the brief resume' on the search page includes something about the subject of your search, then when you go to the website, there in nothing, nada, zilch, about it.
Searching Jaycar website----- a couple of things that match the search criteria, then lots of stuff which don't match at all!
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That soft-grip stuff they put on electronic goods and some tools which after a couple of years de-vulcanizes or decomposes to a sticky goo.
What a delight! >:(
I've got a rechargeable torch/emergency light that has that going on.
Does anyone know what solvent might dissolve it without causing too much electronic upheaval?
Uhg, I hate that stuff! My laptop is covered with that so I know it's only a matter of time, at least it's only on the outside. I have an old 486 laptop that was entirely covered in it and it became sticky all over like it was dipped in honey. My IR thermometer had it on the grip and around the nose and did the same thing. I found that isopropyl alcohol and a lot of elbow grease will take it off, but nothing I've found wipes it off easily without damaging the plastic.
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Jira, Confluence, or any other rancid software produced by Atlassian.
Case in point:
I search for "blocking". Not "block", not "blocks"; "blocking". Everything with "block" or "blocks" shows up, and they can't be filtered out.
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Getting home with shopping to find some git has already opened and sampled an item.
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Getting home with shopping to find some git has already opened and sampled an item.
That was a problem with ice cream a year or two ago, I think a lot of manufacturers now added some sort of seal to the containers.
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Keeping something for forty years then finally throwing it out, then needing it in a week’s time so you have to go buy another. |O
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1. Altium changing the user interface every time they do an update. Moving options and features around. It's like they keep hiring new UI "experts" who can't help but to tinker and dabble with how it works.
2. "Engineers" who do everything on a 10 mil grid instead of 100 mil.
3. Cisco Webex.
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Anyone that says "To be honest" in a sentence.
What? So normally you're not honest?
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Anyone that says "To be honest" in a sentence.
What? So normally you're not honest?
There are many times when it is the socially accepted norm to not be honest. For example if your wife says "Do you like my new haircut?" and you think it looks awful, it is probably not in your best interest to be completely honest.
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SWMBO!!
There, I said it and all you were thinking it :-DD
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Facebook!
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Animated banner ads.
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When you go to a large department store and get a pair of pants that finally fit just perfect and the price is right, so you decide to go again next week and get one or two more pairs and you find they are sold out, and worse still, it was a line they only carried just once, never to be seen again. Of course, nobody else has them.
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When people standing behind you in a line get so close that they bump into you. Luckily that happens less now thanks to covid.
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I actually have a whole list of things where the popular opinion is wrong. Here's an example that applies to almost no one here, but it might be interesting. And I have plenty more.
"Annealing." After welding high carbon steel, you have to "anneal" it. But you aren't actually annealing. If it's made of high carbon steel, it is hardened; that's why it's made of high carbon steel to begin with. And after welding it, you still want it to be hardened. The reason you are reheating it to cherry red is not to anneal it.
When you weld on this high carbon steel, you are hardening it (which is what you want), but you are exceeding the critical temperature by a large margin. When the steel cools (from air and the rest of the metal drawing the heat out) it hardens, but the excessive temperature increases the grain size, making the steel lose toughness. It is prone to cracking. If you wanted to make this steel softer, you could just temper it all the way to dead soft. But that wouldn't fix the grain structure.
When you reheat the steel to just slightly glowing, you are not doing it to soften or anneal the steel. You do it to re-harden the steel, properly. By heating it to just barely reach critical temp, the grain structure is fine as you can make it. When you harden steel (whether you quench it with oil or just let it air harden), you want to barely reach glowing, and it's best to do it indoors. In direct sunlight, you can't see where the steel starts to glow, and you will reach an excessive temperature by the time you can detect the glow. Like what happens when you weld on it.
This is not simply semantics. Because people think this is actually annealing/softening the steel, they think you don't have to temper the steel after. You don't have to do anything but die and pay taxes. But you should temper, because you didn't anneal the steel. You re-hardened it, properly. And it will still be suspect to internal stress fracture until it has been tempered.
Likewise, if you braze high carbon steel. You are re-hardening it. You didn't use excessive temp; you just barely got it beyond critical. So you don't have to anneal the steel, after. But you should still temper it.
Even if the result after annealing/brazing is softer than you would like, you should still temper. Otherwise the steel will be prone to spontaneous breakage after repeated bend cycles, even if you keep the bending in the elastic limit, well below the yield point of the steel.
The easy way to remember this is anytime you get high carbon steel to glow red, and you don't get the entire piece to glowing and then let it cool over a period of at least 12 hours in a sealed oven, you haven't fully annealed it. You will get various formations of steel. And if you let it cool fast enough, even by room temperature air, many alloys will harden to some degree (martensenite? formation) even without quenching. And whether or not it is softer than it was before, you still have residual stress in the newly formed martensenite and should temper it. But because in the english language we have to call everything backwards, we call this "annealing," even it cases where it's not.
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More forum related:
A lot of people on this forum know my pet peeve about aquarium bubbler "cupric chloride" etching.
But there's not too many electronics related things I can think of, where the general opinion is so wrong. I guess we're not that dumb, on average.
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Techs who lose/incorrectly replace bolts. There are some absolute fucking butchers here in Melbourne, and it’s a bit like the Van Halen brown M&Ms thing- as soon as I inspect a piece of gear for repair and see missing/stripped/incorrect fasteners I know immediately that I have to press pause on the repair job and first idiot check the last guys work. So on one hand it’s a good warning sign, but overall it just drives me mental. How goddamn hard is it to keep track of a handful of bolts and put them back where they came from??!! Ugh.
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I actually have a whole list of things where the popular opinion is wrong. Here's an example that applies to almost no one here, but it might be interesting. And I have plenty more.
...
Specifically relevant to your post about welding terminology:
Power panels that have no empty spaces for dual breakers.
I moved a couple years ago and I can't use my welder yet. Installing a 60A circuit for is difficult because I will have to rearrange a bunch of other circuits.
More cogent as an actual issue is hack "electricians" leaving behind a trail of poorly-installed and mis-wired code violations with missing covers...
AND THE CORRUPT "INSPECTORS" WHO CLEARLY EITHER NEVER INSPECTED IT OR WERE PAID OFF BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL OWNER OF THE HOUSE WAS A BUILDING CONTRACTOR.
Any number of the animatronic emoticons would apply here.
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Techs who lose/incorrectly replace bolts. There are some absolute fucking butchers here in Melbourne, and it’s a bit like the Van Halen brown M&Ms thing- as soon as I inspect a piece of gear for repair and see missing/stripped/incorrect fasteners I know immediately that I have to press pause on the repair job and first idiot check the last guys work. So on one hand it’s a good warning sign, but overall it just drives me mental. How goddamn hard is it to keep track of a handful of bolts and put them back where they came from??!! Ugh.
Years ago my grandfather told a story of rebuilding a carb on an old 50's Ford. He claims it wouldn't start afterward and he realized there were some bolts left over on his workbench. So he pull off the air cleaner cover, dumped the bolts in and put the cover back on and then it was able to start and run,
I figure he was either drunk when he did that or drunk when he was telling the story (or both).
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My daughter was once watching me take her Laptop apart and asked me how any tech can remember where each screw and wire went in! I told her that it comes with what is called experience ;D
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My daughter was once watching me take her Laptop apart and asked me how any tech can remember where each screw and wire went in! I told her that it comes with what is called experience ;D
And hiding the one or two left-over screws will always remain the master magician's magic trick!
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My daughter was once watching me take her Laptop apart and asked me how any tech can remember where each screw and wire went in! I told her that it comes with what is called experience ;D
And hiding the one or two left-over screws will always remain the master magician's magic trick!
One can always give them as spares to the owner :-DD
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My daughter was once watching me take her Laptop apart and asked me how any tech can remember where each screw and wire went in! I told her that it comes with what is called experience ;D
My friend worked as a computer technician when we were in highschool. I remember him telling me that the tech that worked on laptops would shake the machine when he was finished putting it back together and if nothing rattled he would throw away the leftover screws.
Laptops can be tricky, but I've gotten in the habit of sorting the screws by type into little baggies and marking what they were for.
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Ice cube trays are good for sequential disassembly fasteners.
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Youtubers with two cameras for multi angle. (why?)
If that's not bad enough, not bothering to align the color balance.
Annoying and distracting.
Look at the color of their shirts..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1-vexPmFeI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1-vexPmFeI)
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Idiots naming things with very frequently used English words, making the names unsearchable through all the noise. Example: CAN.
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Idiots naming things with very frequently used English words, making the names unsearchable through all the noise. Example: CAN.
SOWHATDOESITMEAN.!
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Ice cube trays are good for sequential disassembly fasteners.
Egg cartons too.
(https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66555147/2007_09_TOH_ATH_525_2001.0.jpg)
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Anyone that says "To be honest" in a sentence.
What? So normally you're not honest?
I admit, I do this from time to time. Me fail English.
In my defense, I always used it in the sense of "To be direct", or "To be blunt" (which I will be using in the future).
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I admit, I do this from time to time. Me fail English.
In my defense, I always used it in the sense of "To be direct", or "To be blunt" (which I will be using in the future).
There's nothing wrong with saying "to be honest", the fact that it is one person's pet peeve doesn't mean that it is not proper English or in common use.
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I admit, I do this from time to time. Me fail English.
In my defense, I always used it in the sense of "To be direct", or "To be blunt" (which I will be using in the future).
There's nothing wrong with saying "to be honest", the fact that it is one person's pet peeve doesn't mean that it is not proper English or in common use.
Agreed, just don't overuse / seriously misuse (compare to over-mis-use of "literally").
IMHO, use it whenever it's completely normal and socially acceptable norm to omit some information, and you, for some reason, want to reveal a bit more than people often would. For example, an opinion which strictly isn't needed but you feel it adds to the discussion.
Example: to be honest, I don't like the color of your bikeshed.
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Keeping something for forty years then finally throwing it out, then needing it in a week’s time so you have to go buy another. |O
Probably at least a 50% chance of this happening, might be even higher if you kept it longer.
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Ice cube trays are good for sequential disassembly fasteners.
Egg cartons too.
(https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66555147/2007_09_TOH_ATH_525_2001.0.jpg)
Now this is a pet peeve of mine also. Ghetto solutions to things where it doesn't make sense.. like egg cartons to store parts.. yeah, somebody can spend many dollars on hardware / parts but cant spend the money for proper cheap plastic drawers.. Eeek GADS... for crying out loud.. egg cartons.. really!
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YouTube with no talking but sickening loud music.
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Keeping something for forty years then finally throwing it out, then needing it in a week’s time so you have to go buy another. |O
Probably at least a 50% chance of this happening, might be even higher if you kept it longer.
So help me formulate a law here, something along the lines "How soon you will need that old item is inversely proportional to how long you kept it before finally throwing out".
I feel it should be inverse square or inverse logarithmic function perhaps?
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Ice cube trays are good for sequential disassembly fasteners.
Egg cartons too.
(https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66555147/2007_09_TOH_ATH_525_2001.0.jpg)
Yeah, but label each of the pockets as to where the item is used! Put the egg carton on a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 and write a label beside each.
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Ice cube trays are good for sequential disassembly fasteners.
Egg cartons too.
(https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66555147/2007_09_TOH_ATH_525_2001.0.jpg)
Yeah, but label each of the pockets as to where the item is used! Put the egg carton on a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 and write a label beside each.
Yes and be sure to write those labels in crayon with a backwards N thrown in for a professional look.
Here is another peeve: Software that doesn't give you a choice where to install it. It forces itself into the C drive.
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Websites that won't allow backwards navigation. Let me explain:
You are search for a widget, but don't know the classification. So instead of starting at the beginning and branching ou to the product you use the search function, and find one such eaxample of a widget. But from the product page, you can't click on the category/subcategory to look at similar items. Like the tree should look like "Toyota - 2010 - power train - fuel delivery". Such that I could click on fuel delivery and see other related parts.
Also, websites where adding more terms to the string broadens the search rather than narrowing. Like searching for "2010 Toyota Corolla gas tank" returns every Toyota part, every tank (regardless of make), everything related to gas, plus every 2010 part in the inventory. WTF is the use?
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Thats because a Toyota Corolla is disposable, you're not supposed to replace parts :-DD
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Recently, I have seen several Acopian power supplies on eBay, where the seller lists them as “250 V”, instead of the actual voltage (usually 24 V or other common DC Voltage). Looking at the photos, it’s obvious that the “250 V” is the fuse rating on the nameplate, clearly labeled as such.
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I know it's not totally rational, but I hate that every piece of fruit must have a sticker on its skin.
Yes, I know about PLU-codes.
More a pet peel than a pet peeve.
(I'll show myself out)
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Traffic lights that decide whether or not to use the green turn arrow WAY before the main light turns green. You could arrive at the lights, be waiting for 5 or 10 seconds and then when the lights turn green you should also get the turn arrow because you are sitting there waiting. No, it made up it's mind depending on whether a car was present or not 30 seconds ago. |O
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Something else that used to be a pet peeve of mine but not any more is long long traffic turn lanes controlled by a green arrow. They build this long turn lane in anticipation of much traffic but the arrow duration is never long enough to let very much of this long line through. Then I realised that it is also a slowing down lane so you can pull into it at full speed and slow down to a stop rather than slow down in the main straight ahead lane and then finally pull into the beginning of a short turn lane.
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I know it's not totally rational, but I hate that every piece of fruit must have a sticker on its skin.
Yes, I know about PLU-codes.
More a pet peel than a pet peeve.
(I'll show myself out)
Hahaha I can't believe it, I came to this thread specifically with that in mind... Synchronicity, or what? :D
Why do they do that? I've just peeled the stickers off a dozen apples. What a @#$!@$ waste of my time!
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Ha... these are kind of cute (although the example cited by the OP is, in fact, correct). How about something genuinely annoying:
People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
Even worse is when you end up having a sort of passing leap-frog with someone, while you are on cruise control, going the speed limit, as in, they are going slower than the speed limit, sou you pass them, but they won't be passed by a {whatever you are driving, usually happens with something like a minivan or station wagon} so they pass you, then slow down, so you driving with cruise control on, pass them again, and the cycle repeats.
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Even worse is when you end up having a sort of passing leap-frog with someone, while you are on cruise control, going the speed limit, as in, they are going slower than the speed limit, sou you pass them, but they won't be passed by a {whatever you are driving, usually happens with something like a minivan or station wagon} so they pass you, then slow down, so you driving with cruise control on, pass them again, and the cycle repeats.
That happens to me all the time. As soon as I get the cruise control dialed in just right, some idiot decides to pass me, and then goes slower than I was going when they were back behind me. I do drive a station wagon so that could be part of it.
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Thats because a Toyota Corolla is disposable, you're not supposed to replace parts :-DD
I'm willing to bet that Corolla will still be hanging in there when most of its contemporaries have gone to the "Happy recycling ground".
I own a 21 year old Camry, which looks rough, but still drives like new.
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Ha... these are kind of cute (although the example cited by the OP is, in fact, correct). How about something genuinely annoying:
People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
Even worse is when you end up having a sort of passing leap-frog with someone, while you are on cruise control, going the speed limit, as in, they are going slower than the speed limit, sou you pass them, but they won't be passed by a {whatever you are driving, usually happens with something like a minivan or station wagon} so they pass you, then slow down, so you driving with cruise control on, pass them again, and the cycle repeats.
Easy, turn off your cruise control, & drive as Nature intended! ;D
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Websites that won't allow backwards navigation. Let me explain:
You are search for a widget, but don't know the classification. So instead of starting at the beginning and branching ou to the product you use the search function, and find one such eaxample of a widget. But from the product page, you can't click on the category/subcategory to look at similar items. Like the tree should look like "Toyota - 2010 - power train - fuel delivery". Such that I could click on fuel delivery and see other related parts.
Also, websites where adding more terms to the string broadens the search rather than narrowing. Like searching for "2010 Toyota Corolla gas tank" returns every Toyota part, every tank (regardless of make), everything related to gas, plus every 2010 part in the inventory. WTF is the use?
You could try searching for "Fuel tank" instead!
I do feel your pain, though, I tried to find a 100nF Mylar capacitor (Yaesu specified them for an AF filter in one of their radios.) on Jaycar's website.
On the first try, it hit me with every 100nF cap they had in stock, plus some other values.
OK, I will just search fot "Mylar capacitors".
This got me all those, plus a whole lot of other things, either made of that material, or having a name a "bit like" that word.
So I Googled, & found that Mylar, which I had known as sheets of insulating material used in various applications at my old jobs, is the same stuff used in "common or garden" Polyester caps, so all is good!
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Just had this on the RS website. Did a google for a part and found the link direct to the RS page, but from there can't find similar parts. Worse, starting afresh on RS and even knowing what the page has on it, can't do a search that would turn up the part (other than using the RS ID, of course). Can't navigate the product tree to reach the part either.
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Ha... these are kind of cute (although the example cited by the OP is, in fact, correct). How about something genuinely annoying:
People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
Even worse is when you end up having a sort of passing leap-frog with someone, while you are on cruise control, going the speed limit, as in, they are going slower than the speed limit, sou you pass them, but they won't be passed by a {whatever you are driving, usually happens with something like a minivan or station wagon} so they pass you, then slow down, so you driving with cruise control on, pass them again, and the cycle repeats.
Easy, turn off your cruise control, & drive as Nature intended! ;D
Set the cruise control 20% above the prevailing speeds, and you never run into those kinds of problems! :D
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Ha... these are kind of cute (although the example cited by the OP is, in fact, correct). How about something genuinely annoying:
People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
Even worse is when you end up having a sort of passing leap-frog with someone, while you are on cruise control, going the speed limit, as in, they are going slower than the speed limit, sou you pass them, but they won't be passed by a {whatever you are driving, usually happens with something like a minivan or station wagon} so they pass you, then slow down, so you driving with cruise control on, pass them again, and the cycle repeats.
Easy, turn off your cruise control, & drive as Nature intended! ;D
Set the cruise control 20% above the prevailing speeds, and you never run into those kinds of problems! :D
You don't even have to keep it at 20%. Just long enough for the bonehead to disappear over the rear horizen. Without your carrot to goad them they quickly revert to their slow pace.
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Here's another pet peeve: The annoying "modern" trend of using of hand-held cameras to film Hollywood movies. I get vertigo just watching some of these abominations. I guess some people consider their use to be "edgy" and modern, but I think it makes a movie look amateurish--sure, that may have been okay for something like The Blair Witch Project, but for movies with an eight or nine digit budget it's just stupid.
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I know it's not totally rational, but I hate that every piece of fruit must have a sticker on its skin.
Yes, I know about PLU-codes.
More a pet peel than a pet peeve.
(I'll show myself out)
Same here. I hate those things. All it means is that there is a roll of stickers at the packaging plant. About as useful as prop 65 notices.
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One of my big tech related pet peeves is the fact that so many products require you to have an account and register it now days, and rely on outside servers to even work. Game consoles, phones, practically anything that has a phone app such as drones, action cams, home auytomation etc... there is zero reason why an app can't rely only on wifi to work, and be stand alone. I know WHY they do it (to spy on you) but I absolutely hate it. I have a bad feeling we are going to see this being the norm with cars too. Tesla already does it. Overall it's just happening everywhere and I absolutely hate it.
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Facebook telling me as of 2023 my oculus rift cant be used without logging in with them :rant:
In the meantime oculus server sends packets upon packets of encrypted data to facebook owned ip addr with the thing just laying there off and unused :palm:
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The annoying type ahead "smart" ::) at the browser before striking the Enter key, like when I typed in the search dialog box, sometimes it made the browser or keyboard stuttered, and it doesn't "smartly" clear the keyboard buffer hence the typing went crazy, really hate that. >:( >:( >:(
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Radio stations that chop the guitar solo so they can squeeze in a few more ads.
:rant:
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One of my big tech related pet peeves is the fact that so many products require you to have an account and register it now days, and rely on outside servers to even work. Game consoles, phones, practically anything that has a phone app such as drones, action cams, home auytomation etc... there is zero reason why an app can't rely only on wifi to work, and be stand alone. I know WHY they do it (to spy on you) but I absolutely hate it. I have a bad feeling we are going to see this being the norm with cars too. Tesla already does it. Overall it's just happening everywhere and I absolutely hate it.
Agree 100% - I simply don't buy those products unless I'm absolutely forced to. There are usually alternatives, if you look hard enough. Instead of buying a new car that spies on you, buy a used Corvette or Porsche that doesn't! - All round winner! :D
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Now this is a pet peeve of mine also. Ghetto solutions to things where it doesn't make sense.. like egg cartons to store parts.. yeah, somebody can spend many dollars on hardware / parts but cant spend the money for proper cheap plastic drawers.. Eeek GADS... for crying out loud.. egg cartons.. really!
So I presume you'll be particularly annoyed to know that you can build an entire parts cabinet out of used matchboxes.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/h1NCKUx0i_s/maxresdefault.jpg)
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I think the parts in egg cartons is just temp storage while you disassemble, fix and reassemble something.
I do use peanut butter and butter jars/tubs for long term storage though.
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Egg cartons, muffin tins, and similar informal fixtures were common when sorting the components out of a bag to assemble a Heathkit.
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I've used all sorts of recycled containers for various things, what's wrong with it? I could afford to buy new containers but why do that when I've already got something I can use? If you want to be wasteful and throw something away then buy something else just so the peanut gallery doesn't think that you're ghetto then go right ahead, I'll continue to use what I already have when possible. Egg cartons aren't good for long term storage, but they work great when you need to temporarily organize the pieces of something. I mean why buy a storage cabinet every time I need to take something apart if I can pull an egg carton out of the recycle bin and use that? I frequently reuse prescription pill bottles too, they're great for keeping screws and other small parts together while I'm waiting for parts I need to show up.
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One of my big tech related pet peeves is the fact that so many products require you to have an account and register it now days, and rely on outside servers to even work. Game consoles, phones, practically anything that has a phone app such as drones, action cams, home auytomation etc... there is zero reason why an app can't rely only on wifi to work, and be stand alone. I know WHY they do it (to spy on you) but I absolutely hate it. I have a bad feeling we are going to see this being the norm with cars too. Tesla already does it. Overall it's just happening everywhere and I absolutely hate it.
Agree 100% - I simply don't buy those products unless I'm absolutely forced to. There are usually alternatives, if you look hard enough. Instead of buying a new car that spies on you, buy a used Corvette or Porsche that doesn't! - All round winner! :D
The issue is often you don't now of this until AFTER you buy it. And sometimes there really is no alternative. Like with phones. There's basically Apple, and Android. Both require you to have an account and tie it to the cloud. There is zero technical reason for that, I should be able to use the phone as a stand alone device and the only "account" should be with the provider, for the actual cell service. Everything else is just a computer.
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I should be able to use the phone as a stand alone device
Fairly sure you can do that with Android (can't check since all my phones are already enslaved). Indeed, with some you cannot access, for instance, the Play store even if you wanted to. Can you recall what stops you just putting a SIM in and making a call?
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I've used all sorts of recycled containers for various things, what's wrong with it? I could afford to buy new containers but why do that when I've already got something I can use? If you want to be wasteful and throw something away then buy something else just so the peanut gallery doesn't think that you're ghetto then go right ahead, I'll continue to use what I already have when possible. Egg cartons aren't good for long term storage, but they work great when you need to temporarily organize the pieces of something. I mean why buy a storage cabinet every time I need to take something apart if I can pull an egg carton out of the recycle bin and use that? I frequently reuse prescription pill bottles too, they're great for keeping screws and other small parts together while I'm waiting for parts I need to show up.
There is of course, nothing wrong with this practice.
I guess for me, its a little OCD and a little of the right tool (or container) for the job. Sure you *CAN* use egg cartons to hold parts but I like proper container for the particular parts. You can sometimes use coins as a screwdriver too. Re purposing plastic bottles is a little less ghetto.. pet peeves are very subjective..
Each to their own! :-+
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I should be able to use the phone as a stand alone device
Fairly sure you can do that with Android (can't check since all my phones are already enslaved). Indeed, with some you cannot access, for instance, the Play store even if you wanted to. Can you recall what stops you just putting a SIM in and making a call?
When you first turn on a phone for the first time, one of the first things it wants is a google account. There is no way around this, well nothing easy anyway. I'm sure people who are deeply into phones like rooting etc might be able to bypass that process.
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I should be able to use the phone as a stand alone device
In that case don't buy a smart phone,dumb phones are still available regardless of what the salesbod tries to tell you.
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I should be able to use the phone as a stand alone device
In that case don't buy a smart phone,dumb phones are still available regardless of what the salesbod tries to tell you.
I absolutely HATE arguments like that. No, I want a smart phone, but I don't want all the other crap like spying or being forced to make an account. Is that so hard to ask for? There is no technical reason for all the other crap. I hate people who just say "Well don't buy it" when it comes to any product that comes with "frills" that are unwanted. No, how about they actually make it the way we want. THAT is how it should work.
As a side note my phone recently got hacked and I realized they split up security updates from regular updates, I had been getting regular updates but not security updates since they purposely stop those to force you to buy another phone. So I actually DID start looking at dumb phones for fun, but there is really not much. I want something that has a full keyboard (touch screen or physical works), and a good camera that compares to a smart phone camera. But there is not much as far as that goes.
At one point there was an Ubuntu based phone called Open Moko, wish there were more options like that. These are proper stand alone devices that don't need to tie into any sort of cloud or require any kind of account to use.
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I should be able to use the phone as a stand alone device
Fairly sure you can do that with Android (can't check since all my phones are already enslaved). Indeed, with some you cannot access, for instance, the Play store even if you wanted to. Can you recall what stops you just putting a SIM in and making a call?
When you first turn on a phone for the first time, one of the first things it wants is a google account. There is no way around this, well nothing easy anyway. I'm sure people who are deeply into phones like rooting etc might be able to bypass that process.
I use a disposable email address, that I then don't ever bother monitoring or reading again.
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People propagating myths about Tesla's supposed secret and forbidden free energy technologies. It really upsets me seeing this poor man being credited with inventing most of this kind of BS.
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I should be able to use the phone as a stand alone device
Fairly sure you can do that with Android (can't check since all my phones are already enslaved). Indeed, with some you cannot access, for instance, the Play store even if you wanted to. Can you recall what stops you just putting a SIM in and making a call?
When you first turn on a phone for the first time, one of the first things it wants is a google account. There is no way around this, well nothing easy anyway. I'm sure people who are deeply into phones like rooting etc might be able to bypass that process.
It depends on the phone. Stock Android you can run without a google account, but a lot of the manufacturers add on their own UI front end and setup apps that require it. So you have to search out the phones with the least manufacturer addons.
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There is of course, nothing wrong with this practice.
I guess for me, its a little OCD and a little of the right tool (or container) for the job. Sure you *CAN* use egg cartons to hold parts but I like proper container for the particular parts. You can sometimes use coins as a screwdriver too. Re purposing plastic bottles is a little less ghetto.. pet peeves are very subjective..
Each to their own! :-+
But if you're taking apart a laptop for example and this is something you do only on occasion when you need to upgrade or repair it, does it make sense to go out and buy some kind of storage container to keep track of the hardware until you have it back together then have a random container sitting around? Or just use an egg carton, sort the bits into it, then throw it away when you're finished with it. We're not talking long term storage of inventory or someone whose job involves repairing laptops or similar devices every day, the idea is to fulfill a temporary need.
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When you fill out a web form, leaving it nicely formatted, spaces, paragraphs etc, and when it's submitted, it turns into a single wall of text
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There is of course, nothing wrong with this practice.
I guess for me, its a little OCD and a little of the right tool (or container) for the job. Sure you *CAN* use egg cartons to hold parts but I like proper container for the particular parts. You can sometimes use coins as a screwdriver too. Re purposing plastic bottles is a little less ghetto.. pet peeves are very subjective..
Each to their own! :-+
But if you're taking apart a laptop for example and this is something you do only on occasion when you need to upgrade or repair it, does it make sense to go out and buy some kind of storage container to keep track of the hardware until you have it back together then have a random container sitting around? Or just use an egg carton, sort the bits into it, then throw it away when you're finished with it. We're not talking long term storage of inventory or someone whose job involves repairing laptops or similar devices every day, the idea is to fulfill a temporary need.
Well, I do take things apart on occasion as well, so yes it does make sense for me to buy a little parts tray that I keep around for exactly that purpose. Its not like its very much cost. I could have used egg cartons, but I chose to use something a little more suitable. Since it holds electronic components occasionally, it is also ESD safe, and durable. Again, right tool / container for the job. No point to discussing the views of each opinion - like I said, there is nothing wrong with it and your view is perfectly legit. - but for me, too many pill bottles, egg cartons, peanut butter jars etc.. Im sorry, I say it looks ghetto. Sounds like that's not what you do, but some people do. Its not for me, It just an opinion.
:-+
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When you fill out a web form, leaving it nicely formatted, spaces, paragraphs etc, and when it's submitted, it turns into a single wall of text
Yes! This.
Also, on a similar note, when you have to go back to the page and of course, it has wiped out all your information and you have to re fill in EVERYTHING. Ughh!
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it has wiped out all your information
For Firefox there is an addon - Textarea Cache - that keeps a copy of any text boxes you've filled in. If you do lose stuff due to a refresh or whatever, a copy of the lost content is a click away.
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Websites that have pictures of a product with the enlarge button, you click it and the same size image appears in a new window :palm:
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Websites that have pictures of a product with the enlarge button, you click it and the same size image appears in a new window :palm:
I've seen sites that have this "feature" and when you click the enlarge button a smaller image pops up.
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When you fill out a web form, leaving it nicely formatted, spaces, paragraphs etc, and when it's submitted, it turns into a single wall of text
Yes! This.
Also, on a similar note, when you have to go back to the page and of course, it has wiped out all your information and you have to re fill in EVERYTHING. Ughh!
My keyboard had this back/forward button right on the palm rest area. Been burned so many times by my hand, or cat's paw accidentally hitting back and losing everything. There is probably a way to disable that in the OS but did not want to be bothered trying to figure out how to do that in Linux so I just ripped out the buttons with pliers and filled the hole with caulking lol. I always prefer hardware fixes, they are permanent even between reinstalls. :P
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To add another pet peeve of mine... sites that are suppose to be selling a product, but yet don't have any option to shop, see prices, or buy. I think this is more a Canada thing because I find plenty of American sites willing to sell me whatever I am looking for but it's so hard to find sites here where I can actually shop, see the product, and buy. When I was trying to buy solar panels for example it was like pulling teeth. I see so many Facebook ads that are the same, they refuse to tell you pricing. If someone asks they are just asked to contact them. What is the point of advertising a product or service if you're not willing to disclose the price?
I even got a flyer in the mail once for prefab steel buildings. Given I want to eventually buy off grid property I got curious and went through it. Not a single price mentioned.
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Websites that have pictures of a product with the enlarge button, you click it and the same size image appears in a new window :palm:
I've seen sites that have this "feature" and when you click the enlarge button a smaller image pops up.
:-DD
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To add another pet peeve of mine... sites that are suppose to be selling a product, but yet don't have any option to shop, see prices, or buy. I think this is more a Canada thing because I find plenty of American sites willing to sell me whatever I am looking for but it's so hard to find sites here where I can actually shop, see the product, and buy. When I was trying to buy solar panels for example it was like pulling teeth. I see so many Facebook ads that are the same, they refuse to tell you pricing. If someone asks they are just asked to contact them. What is the point of advertising a product or service if you're not willing to disclose the price?
I even got a flyer in the mail once for prefab steel buildings. Given I want to eventually buy off grid property I got curious and went through it. Not a single price mentioned.
My assumption is that if they won't show me the price, they're asking too much, I leave and look elsewhere.
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To add another pet peeve of mine... sites that are suppose to be selling a product, but yet don't have any option to shop, see prices, or buy. I think this is more a Canada thing because I find plenty of American sites willing to sell me whatever I am looking for but it's so hard to find sites here where I can actually shop, see the product, and buy. When I was trying to buy solar panels for example it was like pulling teeth. I see so many Facebook ads that are the same, they refuse to tell you pricing. If someone asks they are just asked to contact them. What is the point of advertising a product or service if you're not willing to disclose the price?
I even got a flyer in the mail once for prefab steel buildings. Given I want to eventually buy off grid property I got curious and went through it. Not a single price mentioned.
My assumption is that if they won't show me the price, they're asking too much, I leave and look elsewhere.
If you have to ask how much, you prolly can't afford it.
;)
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To add another pet peeve of mine... sites that are suppose to be selling a product, but yet don't have any option to shop, see prices, or buy. I think this is more a Canada thing because I find plenty of American sites willing to sell me whatever I am looking for but it's so hard to find sites here where I can actually shop, see the product, and buy. When I was trying to buy solar panels for example it was like pulling teeth. I see so many Facebook ads that are the same, they refuse to tell you pricing. If someone asks they are just asked to contact them. What is the point of advertising a product or service if you're not willing to disclose the price?
I even got a flyer in the mail once for prefab steel buildings. Given I want to eventually buy off grid property I got curious and went through it. Not a single price mentioned.
My assumption is that if they won't show me the price, they're asking too much, I leave and look elsewhere.
If you have to ask how much, you prolly can't afford it.
;)
Yeah that's pretty much what I go by too. If they refuse the show the price I will just assume it's overpriced and move on.
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To add another pet peeve of mine... sites that are suppose to be selling a product, but yet don't have any option to shop, see prices, or buy. I think this is more a Canada thing because I find plenty of American sites willing to sell me whatever I am looking for but it's so hard to find sites here where I can actually shop, see the product, and buy. When I was trying to buy solar panels for example it was like pulling teeth. I see so many Facebook ads that are the same, they refuse to tell you pricing. If someone asks they are just asked to contact them. What is the point of advertising a product or service if you're not willing to disclose the price?
I even got a flyer in the mail once for prefab steel buildings. Given I want to eventually buy off grid property I got curious and went through it. Not a single price mentioned.
Car sales yards where the used cars have signs attached to their windshields, which, instead of having the price, just say "for sale".
Well, duhhh, fancy that! I thought it was just a parking area! :palm:
Or cars being sold privately on the side of the road, with no price, just a mobile phone number. |O
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#blessed hashtag :palm: :palm: :palm:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/fashion/blessed-becomes-popular-word-hashtag-social-media.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/fashion/blessed-becomes-popular-word-hashtag-social-media.html)
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#blessed hashtag :palm: :palm: :palm:
Maybe it's just that they got saved by BLES, Breast Lesion Excision System? Breast cancer awareness isn't too bad, methinks.
:-/O :palm:
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Blessed are the cheese makers.
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or, quite literally, #brianblessed.
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
Ooh, this one gets me. I'm so sick of the -ing-ing of colloquial American English.
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
Ooh, this one gets me. I'm so sick of the -ing-ing of colloquial American English.
F*k-ing annoy-ing! :D
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Could be worse, you could be in Ohio where everything is plural. "I had to renew my driver's licneses, because of COVID I'll have to get them online" or "I went to WalMarts", or "I got it at WalMarts"
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Could be worse, you could be in Ohio where everything is plural. "I had to renew my driver's licneses, because of COVID I'll have to get them online" or "I went to WalMarts", or "I got it at WalMarts"
Similar to company names with apostrophe and plural.
National's Semiconductors makes it sound like a mum and dad operation.
National Semiconductor sounds much better.
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I suspect it's historical, coming from a time and region where most businesses WERE small "mom & pop" operations with apostrophe'd (possessive) names. "Frank's General Store" might be locally referred to just as "Frank's", if most businesses were traditionally named that way I could see people habitually pronouncing others in that manner. It's not something I recall hearing around here though.
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You put full stops at the end of your sentences;
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My pet peeve is any programming language that requires semicolons to denote end of statements.
It allows putting several statements on one line; this can be useful at times.
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Being explicit and clear is must in programming. This is science and/or engineering.
Whitespace delimitation is a great idea every newbie gets but fails miserably in real world. Programming languages have evolved from early simple BASIC style languages into using more explicit and visible delimiters and this is only good. Yes, Python is crap, but it's crap anyway because you can't know whichever version of language happens to work for whatever program. It isn't supposed to be stable, robust or do what you expect it to do, so whitespace control of program flow is just OK for that mindset anyway.
Suck it up and grow up, you'll get used to it in, what, 10 minutes. I had zero problems accepting ; as a 11-year old when I started with C.
Use the same idea whenever designing any ASCII based protocol. Oh lord the time wasted fighting with stupidly designed / buggy whitespace parsers in commercial / industrial equipment such as programmable power supplies and measurement devices, expecting exact combination of \n, \r, \n\r, \r\n or who knows what, coupled with implicit conversions no one wants. The ones designed by me just work because commands and replies are delimited by ; or something else and \r and \n totally ignored, but I'm sure you would hate to use them having to type ; for "do it!" explicitly.
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E-mails from vendors stating that “your order has shipped”, when the shipping company’s tracking indicates that “the label has been created” or “cannot find number”. In extreme examples, there were one week delays until the delivery company physically received the item.
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E-mails from vendors stating that “your order has shipped”, when the shipping company’s tracking indicates that “the label has been created” or “cannot find number”. In extreme examples, there were one week delays until the delivery company physically received the item.
Ebay's "The item is in transit"
>:(
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The ones designed by me just work because commands and replies are delimited by ; or something else and \r and \n totally ignored, but I'm sure you would hate to use them having to type ; for "do it!" explicitly.
Whenever I have to read line-based input (molecule data, for example), I use the equivalent of /[\t\v\f ]*(\r\n|\n\r|\r|\n)[\t\v\f ]*/ regular expression as the separator. Essentially, I ignore leading and trailing whitespace on every line, and accept LF, CR, CR LF, and LF CR as the newline itself. I learned to do this when I had users running Windows (98 era), Mac (PowerPC pre-OS X), and Linux (myself); it just cut down the issues altogether. I also did Win-1252/Latin1/Latin9/MacRoman/UTF-8 pseudo-autodetection on web forms prior to browsers honoring accept-charset, because us Finns love our ä and €.
It is annoying to have to do this, but it was so long ago, and browsers have come so much further together (fewer browser-specific workarounds), that it isn't a peeve for me anymore.
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My pet peeve: I simply cannot stand blue LEDs.
I run from appliances having those like the plague. Bad times for me in the 2000's..
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My pet peeve: I simply cannot stand blue LEDs.
I run from appliances having those like the plague. Bad times for me in the 2000's..
I just recently designed in a blue LED as power indicator.
For the first time in history, I'm really feeling the idea is getting so old it's almost retro now.
Really cool products did it in some early years of 2000's. Around 2005, it was in each and every product; couldn't stand it.
Now, nobody does it any more, we have got over it as a human society. Good riddance.
So, I figured, why not!? If nothing else, for trolling purposes.
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Now, nobody does it any more, we have got over it as a human society. Good riddance.
Can't agree. Most if not ALL appiances from china have those highly offending blue hi-power LEDs... and we're plagued with chinese stuff!
For some reason, hi-power blue LEDs make my eyes ache and it's not an exaggeration.
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Don't worry, they'll be gone soon from the products copying trends.
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The problem is how bright the blue LEDs often are... not so much the fact that they are blue!
The best devices have an ambient light sensor so they can adapt to the environment they are in...
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The problem is how bright the blue LEDs often are... not so much the fact that they are blue!
Maybe, but my eyes don't ache with red, green, yellow, etc. hi-power LEDs. Just whith those horrible blue ones.
It may be just me but they bother me big time.
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The problem is how bright the blue LEDs often are... not so much the fact that they are blue!
Maybe, but my eyes don't ache with red, green, yellow, etc. hi-power LEDs. Just whith those horrible blue ones.
It may be just me but they bother me big time.
I don't know why equipment for household use need high power LEDs at all... I agree that blue is the worst, but who wants a 10 million lumen indicator light of any kind in a dark bedroom?
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The gamers do! :box: Long live RGB lighting on every stupid gaming accessory, chairs included!
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The problem is how bright the blue LEDs often are... not so much the fact that they are blue!
Maybe, but my eyes don't ache with red, green, yellow, etc. hi-power LEDs. Just whith those horrible blue ones.
It may be just me but they bother me big time.
Our eyes have difficulty focusing on the blue light, I don't remember the exact reason for this but I think it's something to do with the way the different wavelengths behave when passing through the lens. CRT projection TVs used to slightly defocus the blue gun, I believe for a similar reason.
For decades there were no blue LEDs at all, the closest you could get was a sickly green. Then when they first appeared they were exotic and very expensive, prices dropped a bit and I bought one that I think was $10 and used it as the power indicator in my PC. Then they got cheap and suddenly EVERYTHING was using them, always with the brightness dialed up to 11 and I quickly tired of them. For some reason the Chinese seem to feel that when it comes to indicator lights, brighter is better. Countless times I've had to stick bits of tape over blinding surface mount LEDs on various development boards or replace resistors with something nearly an order of magnitude higher to knock the brightness down to something I could actually look at. I've modified several pieces of consumer equipment by replacing blue LEDs with less irritating colors.
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I use craft dot stickers over the blue LEDs on the front panels, a dollar for a hundred or so. sometime it takes two stickers on top of each other to bring the insane brightness down. Works great.
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Not only are indicator LEDs often too bright, but on top of that they will use clear lens (point source) type which make them even more annoying.
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Hole dots, genius! :-+
Trouble is most LEDs are 0805 or smaller SMDs on the end of a glued-in-place light pipe; replacing them is not straight forward. But for the sake of sanity, replacement HAS to be done.
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Our eyes have difficulty focusing on the blue light, I don't remember the exact reason for this but I think it's something to do with the way the different wavelengths behave when passing through the lens.
Human eye has this fairly simple single lens optical path, and the problem with single-lens optics is they focus different wavelengths to different planes, hence causing "chromatic aberration". Camera optics get around this by using combination of lenses. Human vision system implements a very complex AI algorithm instead, but there are limits what that can do. Light blue targets contain enough green so human brain can use high-resolution data from green receptors, combined with the color obtained from the blue receptors.
You can actually try this out: sometimes you can see company logo signs that contain deep blue color (it needs to be very deep blue!) which, as a result, looks blurred at night, while adjacent other colors look sharp. You can actually force your eye to focus on that blue (you know, by forcing your eye muscles to defocus the image); then the blue suddenly looks focused, but red and green becomes clearly defocused. This test confirms the weakest link in human vision regarding blue is in the lens, not the receptors (although it is also true the number of blue receptors is lowest; obviously it would be a waste having more!)
CRT projection TVs used to slightly defocus the blue gun, I believe for a similar reason.
No, the reason here isn't similar, but instead about chemistry of the phosphors. In order to compensate for the effect in eye, they would need to project blue to actually different distance, which would be nearly impossible. Defocusing is done on tube (adjusting the electrostatic/electromagnetic focusing), not even on the lens. The reason is that the blue phosphors used in the tube are quite weak and can't produce high illumination level; similarly the blue tube is the first one to wear out. But by defocusing the gun, tiny bright spots can utilize a larger area of phosphor, reducing peak intensity, utilizing more phosphor to emit the light. The obvious problem is, the resolution suffers. But lo and behold, didn't we just describe that the human eye sucks on blue resolution (because our eyes focus based on green and red)? So we can accept that defocused blue tube.
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The CCIR (rough) rule of thumb for converting colour images to monochrome, whilst preserving visual 'luminance' is :
1Y = 0.3R + 0.6G + 0.1B
The blue end of the spectrum holds very little 'information' or importance for mammals living in sunlight. It's the green shades our ancestors needed to distinguish when swinging from tree to tree. Maybe this is why blue LEDs just do not look natural?
If you are a Bee 1Y = 0R + 0.1G + 0.3B + 0.6U and violet LEDs are the coolest colour ever.
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Psychovisual models show that bright blue light in otherwise not predominantly blue nor extremely brightly lit environment is "unnatural" to the human visual processing facilities.
This is the reason emergency vehicles have bright blue flashing lights, and why they are usually banned for other vehicles.
Having a bright blue LEDs in a dimly lit room, say a bedroom or a livingroom when reading a book or something, is a distraction to the human visual processing facilities: it will always "label" that bright blue light as an anomaly. How the rest of the being reacts to that label, varies.
Siwastaja, have you considered using one of those fast color-changing LEDs as a power indicator? :-X
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One trick I found for way too bright blue LEDs is to put a piece of fluorescent paper in front of it, dramatically cuts down on brightness and changes the color. Or if the actual problem is the LED being too directed, sand it to diffuse the light.
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I have used nail polish. You can adjust attenuation will thickness. Wife doesn't mind since it justified more purchases.
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I'm not bothered by blue LED indicator lights at all. In fact, I quite like them as they tend to be more visible than other colors. I can understand the issue with indicator lights in general in the bedroom, and would probably cover them with black tape, but I don't have any electronics in my bedroom, so no issue there.
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- Any programming language that cannot understand when = means 'assign' and when it means 'compare'. This problem was solved in the 60's. And we are still fucking around with things like := and == because the parsers writers are stupid.
Hm. This is now the second time I read this from you ... in how many threads are you actually spreading this bunkum?
Maybe my pet peeve is comments like that above.
So, I will explain everything again:
No, this "problem" was not "solved" in the 60s. That's simply because it never was a problem. It is *trivial* to make this distinction in a parser. Again: It is a DESIGN decision. There is a mathematical difference between *statements* and *expressions* and some people deem it a good idea to make this difference explicit in the syntax. Some people agree with that, others don't. It's as simple as that.
Yes, yes, the "parser writers" are "stupid". Oh dear. Know what? Oftentimes, parsers are not even written but defined in a formal grammar which is then used to generate the actual parser implementation. So, implementing the difference between ":=" and "==" can be as quick as changing some lines of declarations.
I know, I am boring you. You don't want to know any of this. You just want to retain your belief system.
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I see often videos, which are not actually 16x9 or whatever (most frequently see this with those dumb ass vertical format phone videos) where what would/should just be black bars is filled with some distorted/stretched/blurred extension of the original video. I find this more distracting than useful. I've wondered if this is done on the fly (by some algorithm) or baked into the video file itself. Either way I wish it would go away.
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Besides that, I often see wide-screen broadcast of still photos, either portrait or 3:2 landscape, with the sides filled in by distortion of the original image. Luckily, my local TV station that shows local photography during the weather report has stopped this barbarism and now fills the sides with neutral padding.
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The rare times that drag races are on tv, or worse still, you are at a live event and you have some donkey commentator that just won’t shut up. The cars are tearing down the strip and he drowns out the whole show with a foghorn voice telling you something completely obvious like “Look! Fred Bloggs is pulling ahead of Bill Sykes!” Just shut up and let me hear the machinery! Edit - similar to various example on YouTube of monster trucks ploughing through neck deep mud at ridiculous speeds and there is some commentator jibbering and hyperventilating with some “c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon” nonsense like an auctioneer playing on 78. I’ll try and find some examples later on. |O
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^ Commentators!
If I could watch sports on TV without the commentating, I would probably pay extra. Yeah, there's a mute button, but I want to hear the game. The crowds, the hits. What penalty just happened.
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Ditto with space launches. I'd rather listen to Mission Control than the clueless network commentators.
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- Any programming language that cannot understand when = means 'assign' and when it means 'compare'
I would like to add a subset of this peeve which is when the coders know what you mean and raise an error telling you that is what you mean but make it a fatal error instead of just a warning
"Error 42: You typed = when you mean =="
"Error 43 you typed == when you mean ="
If the parser is smart enough to know that is the error you made and also what you intended then ask the user if they want to change "=" to "==" (or vice versa)
If a parser is smart enough to parse:
if UserIsPresent:
DoAction()
and know that you are actually asking:
if UserIsPresent==True:
DoAction()
then it is just lazy coding to not include:
if UserIsPresent=True:
DoAction()
as valid syntax and instead to make this a fatal error, not a warning.
EDIT: It would seem my peeve is against the DESIGN decision and the inability of the implementers of the DESIGN decision to make a parser for humans instead of just blindly implementing the DESIGN decisions without any thought for usability.
God forbid a parser might be made to make the user experience better or easier. All hail the DESIGN decision, it rules over all. |O
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Telling the user he doesn't really want what he wants is not unique to compiler writers. Sometimes it is arrogance. Detroit automakers sacrificed a dominant worldwide position to this. Sometimes it is just that the user represents a small, unimportant market. It sucks to have unique needs. Sometimes it is just a failure to communicate with both sides sharing the blame.
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I forgot a big one for me, those stupid logos that every TV channel has floating in the corner of the screen at all times. It is incredibly distracting, like a smudge on the screen that I can't wipe off. It's so annoying that it drove me to completely stop watching any form of broadcast TV and go to 100% discs and streaming.
Even worse are the stupid animated banners and graphics at the bottom of the screen advertising some other show, some of them even make sounds. It obscures the content that you're trying to watch! Whoever decided any of this stuff was a good idea should have been fired 20 years ago. Modern TV has had digital channel guides for years, there is NO reason to continuously remind everyone what channel they're watching or what's on next. Perhaps it deters piracy to some extent but only by degrading the content such that I don't want it even if it's free.
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Human eye has this fairly simple single lens optical path, and the problem with single-lens optics is they focus different wavelengths to different planes, hence causing "chromatic aberration". Camera optics get around this by using combination of lenses. Human vision system implements a very complex AI algorithm instead, but there are limits what that can do. Light blue targets contain enough green so human brain can use high-resolution data from green receptors, combined with the color obtained from the blue receptors.
You can actually try this out: sometimes you can see company logo signs that contain deep blue color (it needs to be very deep blue!) which, as a result, looks blurred at night, while adjacent other colors look sharp. You can actually force your eye to focus on that blue (you know, by forcing your eye muscles to defocus the image); then the blue suddenly looks focused, but red and green becomes clearly defocused. This test confirms the weakest link in human vision regarding blue is in the lens, not the receptors (although it is also true the number of blue receptors is lowest; obviously it would be a waste having more!)
Ah, yes chromatic aberration, I knew there was a word for it but I couldn't think of it at the time. I'm curious though why deep red doesn't have a similar issue, are we just optimized for that end of the spectrum and blue is the extreme other end?
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I forgot a big one for me, those stupid logos that every TV channel has floating in the corner of the screen at all times. It is incredibly distracting, like a smudge on the screen that I can't wipe off. It's so annoying that it drove me to completely stop watching any form of broadcast TV and go to 100% discs and streaming.
Even worse are the stupid animated banners and graphics at the bottom of the screen advertising some other show, some of them even make sounds. It obscures the content that you're trying to watch! Whoever decided any of this stuff was a good idea should have been fired 20 years ago. Modern TV has had digital channel guides for years, there is NO reason to continuously remind everyone what channel they're watching or what's on next. Perhaps it deters piracy to some extent but only by degrading the content such that I don't want it even if it's free.
We threw out the TV 20 years ago, never looked back - the best family decision ever! :D
Unfortunately the sum of our sins is a constant, so all kinds of other time wasting activities popped up to replace the time gained!
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- Any programming language that cannot understand when = means 'assign' and when it means 'compare'
I would like to add a subset of this peeve which is when the coders know what you mean and raise an error telling you that is what you mean but make it a fatal error instead of just a warning
"Error 42: You typed = when you mean =="
"Error 43 you typed == when you mean ="
If the parser is smart enough to know that is the error you made and also what you intended then ask the user if they want to change "=" to "==" (or vice versa)
...
Somewhat related is the use of "or", where in general English usage it means "exclusive OR" (Latin "aut") while in computer usage it means "inclusive OR" (Latin "vel").
The trouble with using "=" to mean both assignment and comparison is that within English, the term "equals" is, as it were, overloaded with both "is equal to" and "is assigned to" even though there is no need for it. In essence it's a homonym with the same spelling. Computer languages that separate out the two, whether by "=" and "==", ":=" and "=", or some other method, are getting past the unfortunate limitation in English of not having separate common usage terms.
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Visual Studio.
During install you can tell it to install to whatever folder you want, and since I try to keep C: to absolute minimum, to enable fast and efficient disaster recovery, I put dev tools on G:. So this goes in G:/VisualStudio right? Wrong. It puts a few MB there and dumps GBs, and we're talking tens of same, on C:.
It's because of lazy programmers that my C: drive is 100GB with only 10GB free. And, no, Linux isn't any better - you don't get a choice where to install anything. Unless you compile from source yourself, everything gets dumped together. But Microsoft should know a lot better, and did at one time.
Also hate the tool IDEs that don't tell you what fun you're about to have until you see the bloody VS installer starting up...
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Visual Studio.
During install you can tell it to install to whatever folder you want, and since I try to keep C: to absolute minimum, to enable fast and efficient disaster recovery, I put dev tools on G:. So this goes in G:/VisualStudio right? Wrong. It puts a few MB there and dumps GBs, and we're talking tens of same, on C:.
It's because of lazy programmers that my C: drive is 100GB with only 10GB free. And, no, Linux isn't any better - you don't get a choice where to install anything. Unless you compile from source yourself, everything gets dumped together. But Microsoft should know a lot better, and did at one time.
Also hate the tool IDEs that don't tell you what fun you're about to have until you see the bloody VS installer starting up...
Symbolic links?
But yeah, hard coding storage locations is sloppy.
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^^ Like some older stuff from P&E Micro that gives you the option of where you want to install it but won't actually work unless you install in the default location.
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I think you can (temporarily) move program files to wherever you want. So it should be possible to move it, install, put it back. I've heard there can be problems doing that, though.
I used symbolic links for C++Builder and some years later figured they were a fatal error waiting to be tripped over. But thanks for reminding me that the option is there :-+
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but won't actually work unless you install in the default location
Oh, that's a cruel one!
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I would like to add a subset of this peeve which is when the coders know what you mean and raise an error telling you that is what you mean but make it a fatal error instead of just a warning
It's an error, not a warning because the compiler really doesn't know. It's a GUESS. For example: gcc nowadays prints those "helpful" "did you mean" suggestions. Guess what? Some 10% of the time for me, they are completely wrong. Thank god they are errors, not warnings.
Grow up, you are not an end consumer looking for the greatest "user experience", you are a programmer, be thankful that your tools catch your errors and don't produce random crap for you.
In C, for example, the following construct is used all the fucking time:
if( (retval = do_thing()) == SUCCESS)
do_something_with(retval);
Explicit over implicit any day. Erroring out istead of "guessing" the intent, any day, for robust programming, and programs that work as expected.
You don't even save any significant time by guessing! Maybe some 0.001%, all of which is instantly wasted if the guess is wrong even once.
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I wish to associate myself with the comment by Siwastaja :-+
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Linux isn't any better - you don't get a choice where to install anything. Unless you compile from source yourself, everything gets dumped together. But Microsoft should know a lot better, and did at one time.
Some Linux aren't any better you mean. Other Linux let you pass a basedir= to the Slackbuild specifying where you want the install.
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Can't they just have a dialog with "Install folder: " and point/click selection of destination?
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That's the way games do it. I've never had any problems. As a matter of fact, I've moved entire game folders from drive to to drive after installing and they still work fine. Maybe Windows 7 takes care of everything behind the scenes, I don't know but it's a non-issue.
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That's the way games do it. I've never had any problems. As a matter of fact, I've moved entire game folders from drive to to drive after installing and they still work fine. Maybe Windows 7 takes care of everything behind the scenes, I don't know but it's a non-issue.
It doesn't (take care of anything behind the scenes), but clearly the games are properly designed.
My pet peeves are programs that pollute the file tree or operating system in one way or another and are unable to work without "installation" which does random, unwanted and undocumented things to the system, and if you move the folder, they stop working.
Surprisingly many Windows programs are designed to just work putting the files somewhere, installers doing just that; cheers to them.
This being said, dynamic linking hell seems to apply to both Windows and linux distros.
On the unix tradition, this works in a completely different manner; so different that it isn't very fruitful to try to compare directly. The one which you are used to "feels" the only right way to do it. Strangely, I feel both are viable ways.
The very classic Windows way, "everything in one folder per program, including config" is quite good, but it has been broken a long time ago when programmers were encouraged to use The Registry for config storage; not that different from the unix tradition "put all config under /etc/", resulting in a strange mix of traditional Windows and Unix ways. In Unix, the idea is that all binaries of all programs are in one place, all config of all programs are in another place, all documentation of all programs in yet another... Which is again broken by the fact that there are multiple such places, think about /bin/, /usr/bin/, /usr/local/bin; and by the fact you have to come up with a place for files not easily classified under those traditional types.
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I have an entire folder called "portable" and almost every program I use is in there. None have ever been installed. Games however often require their own specific version of the MSVC++ runtime. I think there's around 15 copies on my game machine. It would be nice if these were contained in the game folder without requiring installation. But yeah, most Windows software will just run, no install needed.
I used to create a restore point, install something, then restore and see if it still worked. Almost always it did. One way to keep the registry unpolluted I guess.
Interestingly, writing to the registry seems built-in or maybe done by Windows itself in some cases, because it will happen even if a program folder is copied from a completely different machine once the executable is run.
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Note that in most Linux distributions, the package manager not only forces a specific location, but it tracks them too.
For example, on Debian or Debian-derivatives like Ubuntu or Mint using Debian packaging, one can say for example
dpkg-query -L $(dpkg-query -S $(which foo) | cut -d ':' -f 1)
to find out what other files are in the same package that provided command foo; or just
dpkg-query -S $(which foo)
to find the names of the package(s) that provide existing command foo.
However, you most definitely can create Debian (and RPM) packages that use only the libraries provided within the package, in the same directory (or more preferably, a subdirectory), wherever it is compiled or installed to. In fact, it is trivial for non-SUID, non-filesystem-capability-using binaries; and you don't even have to recompile the libraries. All you need is to write a small wrapper that extracts its own absolute path, set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to that directory (or suitable subdirectory), containing the libraries needed, and then execute the actual binary. (Privileged programs that change UIDs or use filesystem capabilities do need to be relinked, with DT_RUNPATH ELF dynamic section attribute naming the correct location, and -z nodeflib option so that standard ELF cache locations are not used as a back-up location to search in.)
(I've ranted before about how it is possible and not difficult to make portable Linux applications – that Just Work across most/all Linux distributions –, so I won't repeat that here. If anyone wants a practical example, though, just ask.)
You can also run binaries in a chroot environment (even bind-mounting existing filesystems or their leaf-parts to the chroot), but overall, a virtual machine is a better choice for that use case (since you probably want to protect the "parent" system from any shenanigans those binaries might do).
It is the same old story: with Linux, you can do whatever you want, but either you do it yourself, or you get someone to do it for you. Ain't no free lunch.
By this I mean that if you want to use Linux as a tool in a production environment, you should have someone – paid, contracted, whatever – to do your support for you.
In an optimum situation, that someone or those someones also continually optimize the Linux environment you use for your workflow(s), too.
But try and get pointy-haired bosses to go for this! At least, I myself am not enough of a salesman to get through the PHBs, even showing past proof of it working.
It seems like whenever you mention Linux, they think "no cost". No, there is always a cost, and one should compare the cost to the tool you get for that (ongoing) cost, in terms longer than a quarter year.
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Web 2.0 text that you can't select and copy, at least in part.
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Web 2.0 text that you can't select and copy, at least in part.
Be grateful that you can still do screen shots...
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or the web sites that now prevent cursor key scrolling
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Web sites that nag you to install the app EVERY SINGLE TIME you visit with a mobile browser, even if the app is not supported on your version of the mobile OS.
Apps that drop support for older versions of iOS even when they were working perfectly. I do not need or want my phone to be updated to a newer, slower operating system with new bugs every year, and I an ticked off that ebay blocked their perfectly working app requiring a new version that requires a new OS. The effect is I spent a lot less time browsing ebay, save a lot of money, and sell much less on there too since these activities are much less convenient now. I used to browse the ebay app any time I was waiting somewhere and had time to kill, the mobile web experience is crap.
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I realized I've been agreeing with pretty much all web related stuff people say, so to cover all bases:
Web 2.0.
That's my pet peeve. Seriously though, Most modern designs just simply suck, they are less usable and more annoying than the more old school counterparts, while also taking up way more resources. So many websites now are just filled with annoyances and every time they update they only make it worse. Just look at Digikey. it's a disaster now.
If you really want to push your system to it's limits try opening more than one Facebook tab. If I can manage to do Alt F1 to get into a console and killall firefox I can recover, but usually once the cursor starts to feel like molasses, it's game over and I have choice but to do a hard reboot.
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Basically, the Javascript engine in modern browsers is now so powerful that it acts like a virtual machine, running programs locally in your browser. That is the real problem, because now we have a lot of bad programmers writing terrible code that executes inefficiently, compared to old style HTML.
It isn't just the web designers that are the problem. We also have companies like Adobe that have to justify their cloud subscriptions... so they develop and sell web design tools that create reams of Javascript to turn a 100 byte web page into a 10 terabyte monstrosity, which can only be maintained using their tools.
There is no cost to either the web designers or Adobe for doing this, since it is us, the poor sap users, that have to pay the price of under-performing web sites. If customers protest (e.g. like they do with the new Digikey site) the management is told that the web designers are professionals that use all the latest tools, and the customers are a bunch of old fuddy duddys that are fondly remembering the days of their youth around a no longer permitted camp fire... Then they show the manager how easy it is to like their company on Facebook when using Digikey on a tiny screen phone, and the manager goes away again, pacified, thinking about his/her next promotion.
Of course, it needn't be like this. There is no law of nature that says you can't make an excellent and well performing web site even if the tools have too much unsaturated fat in them... So the main blame goes to the web designers that are slaves to modern fashion and don't bother to understand how the site is actually used and how their technology works, followed by tool makers like Adobe that tend to fool people into thinking that their tools are so good that the designers no longer have to think about how they work... And of course a dunce prize for company management teams that let all this happen on their watch.
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I bristle every time I hear someone say that a website needs updating because it looks dated. To me "dated" means it is clean and functional, and a redesign now inevitably means it will be bloated and buggy with half the information density and a bunch of useless crap that nobody asked for. I hate fashion because it overrides logic. You can watch the evolution of any product, it will start out primitive and then keep getting better and better until the development peaks, all the real problems have been solved and it is as close to perfection as it's going to get. But development doesn't just stop, they keep finding ways to screw with it in order to justify their own existence and inevitably it gets worse from all this constant tinkering and meddling. We use Slack for communication at work and it was mature and fully developed years ago and worked almost perfectly. This has not stopped them from constantly tinkering and making changes, moving things around in the UI for no apparent reason, adding annoying features that nobody asked for and then occasionally changing them again some months later after everyone complains. It drives me crazy, it's a tool, once it works just leave it alone and stop screwing with it. Some people can never just finish a project and go make something else, they have their one pet project that is always a project because they can never make up their minds and just call it finished.
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Consider what would happen if a car maker decided to reverse the position of the gas pedal vs. the brake in their cars... because their designer thought it looks better with the skinny pedal on the other side! It would be pandemonium.
But in the software / web industry, making major changes to the GUI is considered cost free - and it pretty much is, to the people making the changes...
Some industries won't accept it. If you change the GUI on a financial trading workstation, the sales manager will be phoned the next day and asked to remove this useless garbage from their premises!
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Consider what would happen if a car maker decided to reverse the position of the gas pedal vs. the brake in their cars
Not a lot, really. First, that's essentially what it was like here in Britland in the 70's and 80's when we have British bikes (Triumph, BSA, etc) with the gearshift on the right, and Jap bikes (Honda, Yamaha, etc) with the gearshift on the left. Only a couple of times did I try to brake with the gearshift, and maybe once changed gear with the brake. But at that age I would have done stupid things like that anyway :)
Second, it's only because it's always like it is that there's a problem for anything different. If the norm were to be random then it would just be the norm and no-one would blink at it.
I am not saying that standardisation isn't desirable, just noting that we have survived without, and whilst it would be a bugger, it wouldn't be such a big one as might be imagined.
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I bristle every time I hear someone say that a website needs updating because it looks dated. To me "dated" means it is clean and functional, and a redesign now inevitably means it will be bloated and buggy with half the information density and a bunch of useless crap that nobody asked for. I hate fashion because it overrides logic. You can watch the evolution of any product, it will start out primitive and then keep getting better and better until the development peaks, all the real problems have been solved and it is as close to perfection as it's going to get. But development doesn't just stop, they keep finding ways to screw with it in order to justify their own existence and inevitably it gets worse from all this constant tinkering and meddling. We use Slack for communication at work and it was mature and fully developed years ago and worked almost perfectly. This has not stopped them from constantly tinkering and making changes, moving things around in the UI for no apparent reason, adding annoying features that nobody asked for and then occasionally changing them again some months later after everyone complains. It drives me crazy, it's a tool, once it works just leave it alone and stop screwing with it. Some people can never just finish a project and go make something else, they have their one pet project that is always a project because they can never make up their minds and just call it finished.
This is inevitable, because it is far easier to tinker with something that is working and desirable than it is to invent something new that is desirable.
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Consider what would happen if a car maker decided to reverse the position of the gas pedal vs. the brake in their cars
Not a lot, really. [...]
Maybe if you are designing a new Edsel... :D
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Consider what would happen if a car maker decided to reverse the position of the gas pedal vs. the brake in their cars
Not a lot, really. First, that's essentially what it was like here in Britland in the 70's and 80's when we have British bikes (Triumph, BSA, etc) with the gearshift on the right, and Jap bikes (Honda, Yamaha, etc) with the gearshift on the left. Only a couple of times did I try to brake with the gearshift, and maybe once changed gear with the brake. But at that age I would have done stupid things like that anyway :)
Second, it's only because it's always like it is that there's a problem for anything different. If the norm were to be random then it would just be the norm and no-one would blink at it.
I am not saying that standardisation isn't desirable, just noting that we have survived without, and whilst it would be a bugger, it wouldn't be such a big one as might be imagined.
I suppose it depends on how ingrained something is. Muscle memory is very hard to override, for a while my brother had a car that was almost identical to mine except his had an automatic and mine had a manual gearbox. I drove his a few times and had to wedge my left foot behind my right leg to keep from reflexively stabbing for the clutch, which results in catching the edge of the wide brake pedal used in slushbox equipped cars and slamming on the brakes.
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Muscle memory is very hard to override
Sure is! And you really want muscle memory when driving so you're not half-focused on how to operate it.
Periodically I drive a motor with a push-button parking brake. Often it is only overnight but nevertheless it doesn't catch me out very often. But get back in my own motor and I'm forever trying to find the parking brake button! I think it's the strangeness of the different motor that keeps one mentally awake, but get back into familiar surroundings and you kind of relax your guard, but something at a low level is still saying 'that control is the other way around'.
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Two experiences with different vehicles that caused some confusion. Many years back in the UK I purchased a Simca 1500. This had a different gear change to the normal in the UK as the original french version was a column change. In the UK it had been changed to a floor change but a different gear change order it was reversed I cant remember where reverse gear was.
----------1 3--------------------3 1
----------2 4 ---------------- 4 2 .
Being a lot younger then I did not find it a problem and fortunately it had a Porsche type gearbox that the recommended check for it's condition was to drive at 30 mph in a higher gear and then quickly change in to first gear keeping the clutch disengaged. >:D Yes it really worked with no problem but I wouldn't recommend that as a habit it did however protect one from possible gear change errors while adapting. My second confusion was arriving to pick up an American hire car (automatic) in Ottowa at night and being unable to release the handbrake or even find it. I had not come across the 'Foot operated' version before and it was pitch black in the car park so I could not even see it. A quick visit back to the pick up office and all became clear. Nowadays electric handbrakes are automated as well but I do miss the option of using a handbrake manually especially when parking on steep inclines. Perhaps I will eventually trust them. :)
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Some cars with the automatic handbrakes let you activate them manually by pushing/pulling the release button. It can increase the trust factor when parking on a hill! :D
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Frameless windows, like Windows Explorer windows on the latest version of Windows 10, that blend into white backgrounds so that you can't tell where one window ends and another begins.
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Consider what would happen if a car maker decided to reverse the position of the gas pedal vs. the brake in their cars
Not a lot, really. First, that's essentially what it was like here in Britland in the 70's and 80's when we have British bikes (Triumph, BSA, etc) with the gearshift on the right, and Jap bikes (Honda, Yamaha, etc) with the gearshift on the left. Only a couple of times did I try to brake with the gearshift, and maybe once changed gear with the brake. But at that age I would have done stupid things like that anyway :)
Second, it's only because it's always like it is that there's a problem for anything different. If the norm were to be random then it would just be the norm and no-one would blink at it.
I am not saying that standardisation isn't desirable, just noting that we have survived without, and whilst it would be a bugger, it wouldn't be such a big one as might be imagined.
I suppose it depends on how ingrained something is. Muscle memory is very hard to override, for a while my brother had a car that was almost identical to mine except his had an automatic and mine had a manual gearbox. I drove his a few times and had to wedge my left foot behind my right leg to keep from reflexively stabbing for the clutch, which results in catching the edge of the wide brake pedal used in slushbox equipped cars and slamming on the brakes.
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.
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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..
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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... :--
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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
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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.
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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.
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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! :D
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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!! >:D
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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!! >:D
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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 . :scared:
what does the extra 6% not included !!.
Yes I know the flue vaccine is only apx 45% .
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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 . :scared:
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...
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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How do you use a mercury arc rectifier to turn DC into AC? [...]
Hold it with both arms - and shake it, like a cocktail! :D
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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.
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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.
It would make no sense to convert the existing installed base. Starting from scratch with today's components it might make a lot of sense. No capacitive or inductive loss. No power factor issues. Simplified grid sync.
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The inverters used thyratrons or ignitions.
Ignitrons
Not being pedantic, just fixing the word so those unfamiliar with this olde timey tech can look it up.
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Oops! I typed "ignitron" but Microsoft didn't recognize the word. I remember a comic strip where the office workers were not allowed to have games on their company computers, so they goofed off by entering their names into spell-check to see what came out.
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Quote from: Circlotron on Today at 04:44:14 am (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=252850.msg3337258#msg3337258)>Quote from: TimFox on Yesterday at 09:30:10 pm (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=252850.msg3336828#msg3336828)
The inverters used thyratrons or ignitions.
Ignitrons
Not being pedantic, just fixing the word so those unfamiliar with this olde timey tech can look it up.
Ignitrons are ignitor-fired mercury pool rectifiers with very high peak and average current handling capability. Low frequency ignitrons were the backbone of the welder control and electroplating industries for years. These low-cost devices are still in use today in large motor speed controls and many welder panels around the world.
Just A cool home garage project >:D
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office workers were not allowed to have games on their company computers
so instead microsoft hid them as easter eggs within excel and word
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It would make no sense to convert the existing installed base. Starting from scratch with today's components it might make a lot of sense. No capacitive or inductive loss. No power factor issues. Simplified grid sync.
It would require very expensive breakers that can deal with the arcs produced when interrupting a DC current. HVDC links (point-to-point) get around this by shutting off the rectifier, this won't work for a one-to-many distribution.
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Quote from: radar_macgyver on Today at 05:41:07 pm (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=252850.msg3337984#msg3337984)>Quote from: CatalinaWOW on Yesterday at 10:09:07 pm (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=252850.msg3336908#msg3336908)
It would make no sense to convert the existing installed base. Starting from scratch with today's components it might make a lot of sense. No capacitive or inductive loss. No power factor issues. Simplified grid sync.
It would require very expensive breakers that can deal with the arcs produced when interrupting a DC current. HVDC links (point-to-point) get around this by shutting off the rectifier, this won't work for a one-to-many distribution.
These are still in production and shutting the arc off is simple . without a contactor .
https://www.relltubes.com/products/High-Energy-Transfer-Products/Ignitron.html (https://www.relltubes.com/products/High-Energy-Transfer-Products/Ignitron.html)
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I said “Mercury-vapor tubes”. The inverters used thyratrons or ignitions. Mercury-vapor rectifiers do not use arcs.
There are mercury arc rectifiers that certainly do seem to contain arcs when operating.
I have seen a demonstration mercury arc rectifier operating. It looked like a glass octopus with a large bulbous head about 800mm high in total. From each of the arms lightning bolts appeared to travel in a jagged arc to a spot on the surface of the mercury pool. The spot where the arcs terminated seemed to dance around randomly on the surface of the pool.
The whole assembly was enclosed in a explosion containment box made of a a thick, very dark tint plastic to filter out the prodigious UV emissions from the arcs.
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There is some confusion in nomenclature.
Mercury-arc rectifiers indeed have arcs into a pool of liquid mercury.
The mercury-vapor rectifiers to which I referred (e.g. 872 and 866) have hot cathodes emitting electrons, and the mercury ions inhibit space charge, allowing a much lower anode-cathode voltage when forward biased. The 872A could withstand 10 kV reverse voltage, with only 10 V forward drop at several amperes forward conduction (much lower than a high-vacuum rectifier).
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Mercury Arc DC to AC inverters were in use probably before WW2.
They used 3 phase half wave (triple anode, 1 cathode, grid controlled)
glass bulb mercury arc devices.
Probably used by rail-road and heavy industry eg steel rolling mill etc.
I have a reference here:
Robert Wells: "Static Power Converters" published 1962
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Oops! I typed "ignitron" but Microsoft didn't recognize the word. I remember a comic strip where the office workers were not allowed to have games on their company computers, so they goofed off by entering their names into spell-check to see what came out.
That’s like MS Word 97. You would type in the name of former Australian prime minister Paul Keating and it would substitute the word “cheating”. :-DD
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In a different arc discussion here, I referred to the “Poulsen arc” (later known as the “Federal arc”), and spell-check changed it to “Poulenc”. When typing this, it did it again, but I was ready for it. At least it was a high-class cultural error, instead of, say, “poultry”.
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That’s like MS Word 97. You would type in the name of former Australian prime minister Paul Keating and it would substitute the word “cheating”. :-DD
On some old version of OS X, entering "bill gates" into the terminal gives the response "kill gates?".
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Saying "LDO" when you definitely mean "linear regulator".
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Entering a conversation with:
"I'm a noob"
"I'm new to all this"
"All this is new to me"
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or "a ham radio license is "a license to learn" "
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Entering a conversation with:
"I'm a noob"
"I'm new to all this"
"All this is new to me"
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or "a ham radio license is "a license to learn" "
I don't know, it seems kind of useful to state up front what your level of experience is?
E.g. if someone starts the conversation "I have used oscilloscopes for years, but this measurement is driving me crazy..." you might respond differently than if someone says "I'm a complete n00b and this is my first 'scope, how would you...."
No?
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Entering a conversation with:
"I'm a noob"
"I'm new to all this"
"All this is new to me"
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or "a ham radio license is "a license to learn" "
I don't know, it seems kind of useful to state up front what your level of experience is?
E.g. if someone starts the conversation "I have used oscilloscopes for years, but this measurement is driving me crazy..." you might respond differently than if someone says "I'm a complete n00b and this is my first 'scope, how would you...."
No?
Agreed.. level of experience can be useful in creating responses. So a free pass this time. But dont use the word n00b. Makes you sound like a b00b.
Speaking of scopes.. how about this GEM of a thread starter
"Help a woman choose here first oscilloscope" - like being a woman has ANYTHING to do with it. geez, geat real.
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They are better off making sandwiches.
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Entering a conversation with:
"I'm a noob"
"I'm new to all this"
"All this is new to me"
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or "a ham radio license is "a license to learn" "
I don't know, it seems kind of useful to state up front what your level of experience is?
E.g. if someone starts the conversation "I have used oscilloscopes for years, but this measurement is driving me crazy..." you might respond differently than if someone says "I'm a complete n00b and this is my first 'scope, how would you...."
No?
I find it useful. It saves me from trying to explain Ohms law to an experienced EE, or making the assumption that someone already knows such basics and jumping straight to more complicated things.
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"I am designing thing X but I have no clue how to do it".
Really?
You are "designing" ?
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"I am designing thing X but I have no clue how to do it".
Really?
You are "designing" ?
:-+
You forgot to add "noob" in the sentence :)
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Entering a conversation with:
"I'm a noob"
"I'm new to all this"
"All this is new to me"
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or "a ham radio license is "a license to learn" "
I don't know, it seems kind of useful to state up front what your level of experience is?
E.g. if someone starts the conversation "I have used oscilloscopes for years, but this measurement is driving me crazy..." you might respond differently than if someone says "I'm a complete n00b and this is my first 'scope, how would you...."
No?
Agreed.. level of experience can be useful in creating responses. So a free pass this time. But dont use the word n00b. Makes you sound like a b00b.
Speaking of scopes.. how about this GEM of a thread starter
"Help a woman choose here first oscilloscope" - like being a woman has ANYTHING to do with it. geez, geat real.
Sure it has something to do with it... like attracting hundreds of men to help her! Probably the best framing of a question ever! :D
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Entering a conversation with:
"I'm a noob"
"I'm new to all this"
"All this is new to me"
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or "a ham radio license is "a license to learn" "
I don't know, it seems kind of useful to state up front what your level of experience is?
E.g. if someone starts the conversation "I have used oscilloscopes for years, but this measurement is driving me crazy..." you might respond differently than if someone says "I'm a complete n00b and this is my first 'scope, how would you...."
No?
Agreed.. level of experience can be useful in creating responses. So a free pass this time. But dont use the word n00b. Makes you sound like a b00b.
Speaking of scopes.. how about this GEM of a thread starter
"Help a woman choose here first oscilloscope" - like being a woman has ANYTHING to do with it. geez, geat real.
Sure it has something to do with it... like attracting hundreds of men to help her! Probably the best framing of a question ever! :D
That has really got to me that Post :palm:
Its like putting the sweets near the checkout . ;D :P
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Nothing at all against charity and helping those in need,
BUT
I’ve had a bad week, we’ve also got the pandemic, I want to switch off from reality for a couple of hours, have a few beers and watch a comedy on the COMEDY channel and hopefully make myself laugh.
There was about 10 different charities advertising during that film, everything from children going blind to crippled donkeys. I’ve got all the sympathy in the world for their plight, but lately in the UK the charity tv adds are in overload. Imo I should be able to turn on the Comedy channel without seeing this sort of thing every 15 mins.
Hope no one misinterprets what I’m saying
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I know how you feel .
Charity for the Dogs Cats , Donkey etc & children OK They need .
And
Then the next Advert is a Donkey advertising Mouth Wash :palm:
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I’ve had a bad week, we’ve also got the pandemic, I want to switch off from reality for a couple of hours, have a few beers and watch a comedy on the COMEDY channel and hopefully make myself laugh.
Exactly! Heck, I've had to consciously stop looking at news, to stop getting infuriated at peoples (especially politicians – on all sides!) stupidity and sheer short-sighted self-destructivity.
When I need a bit of humor or cheering up, showing me the plight of others is not going to make me redouble my efforts: it just depresses me and makes me even more passive.
(And I'm much less forgiving than you are, being very critical about what proportion of donations goes to the actual cause, and what is spent for wages and e.g. three-star accommodation for the workers in the third world countries.. but that is a completely different thing.)
I have seen some not-advertisements on Youtube that work better than advertisements: it's the success stories, like rescued animals and so on. I wonder why they can't make adverts like that, with a small text bar at the bottom basically saying that if you'd like to make more of this happen, here's a way. Feels good for everyone.
(Well, I don't wonder, actually: most advertising people are crafty and sometimes very good at what they do, but hardly intelligent. Often clever, but never wise.)
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All those adverts are not free .. They pay thousands for prime air time .
I would guess the money spent on running these Adds don;t out way the money
received . or maybe I am missing something .
Maybe I am the donkey on the Listern Mouth wash Add ;D :D
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If they didn't make more profit from running the ads than they spend to run the ads (or at least think they did) then they wouldn't run the ads, simple as that.
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Barclays.
Santander is no better, but Barclays have really got up my nose tonight.
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I have seen some not-advertisements on Youtube that work better than advertisements: it's the success stories, like rescued animals and so on.
A word of caution on some (not all!) of those animal rescue channels: some are made by <insert preferred insult here> who put animals in danger or worse, harm them, to produce revenue from the views and likes. A notable offender was located in Vietnam and had/has several channels with the same poor animals that were either drugged, half drowned, tossed into pits with snakes or onto a dumpster fire to show the 'hero' saving them.
The more people reports these assholes to YT, the better. (unfortunately as soon as a channel is shut down, another one springs up with the same people behind).
Of course there are real animal care institutions and shelters that really do good. But the world is a wicked place.
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I have seen some not-advertisements on Youtube that work better than advertisements: it's the success stories, like rescued animals and so on.
A word of caution on some (not all!) of those animal rescue channels: some are made by <insert preferred insult here> who put animals in danger or worse, harm them, to produce revenue from the views and likes. A notable offender was located in Vietnam and had/has several channels with the same poor animals that were either drugged, half drowned, tossed into pits with snakes or onto a dumpster fire to show the 'hero' saving them.
The more people reports these assholes to YT, the better. (unfortunately as soon as a channel is shut down, another one springs up with the same people behind).
Of course there are real animal care institutions and shelters that really do good. But the world is a wicked place.
Absolutely true! I'm sorry I didn't mention that myself.
My typical morning starts with looking at I Can Has Cheesburger? (https://icanhas.cheezburger.com/), except that my ad blocker and browser settings block posts/images from Instagram etc. Some of the Youtube channels I was referring to are Howl Of A Dog (https://www.youtube.com/c/HowlOfADog/videos), Flatbush Cats (https://www.youtube.com/c/FlatbushCats/videos), Vet Ranch (https://www.youtube.com/user/VetRanch/videos), and Walter Santi (https://www.youtube.com/c/waltersanti/videos) (just taking care of a backyard cat colony).
Remembering there are good people and good things, no matter how small, being done all around the world, is IMO a good way to start ones mornings.
There are others, but me being so suspicious/paranoid, I prefer channels where the most cases are ordinary, i.e. just neglected and scared, as opposed to abused; and who emphasize the need of good vet care and neutering/spaying. (The vet channels are the ones that have the real special/hard cases, and they may not be morning-coffee/breakfast viewing material.)
If a channel constantly focuses on abused animals "just found by accident", you can be pretty sure there is a reason for that, and it unfortunately usually is financial incentive, no matter where the channel is from.
I also like channels like the box cat Maru (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRVruzlQF5cqpw9jQgIgNdw/videos); that cat is amazingly calm even when washed or nails being clipped, constantly giving everyone the "I'm happy with you here" eye squints, even when his tail swishes around like he was really mad.
Right now he's dealing with a new kitten, Miri, in a delightfully playful and friendly manner, for a 13-year old male cat. ^-^
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And then there's things like this:
RABBIT-Free Australia says the State Government owes Victorians an explanation after spending $70,000 on saving rabbits — despite Australia facing the worst rabbit plague since 1995.
This comes after an Olinda rabbit orphanage — which has divided readers after spending $1500 on fixing one rabbit’s teeth and another $1500 on a hernia operation - was given a $50,000 government grant to improve its shelter for sick and stray rabbits.
-> https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a (https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a)
-
And then there's things like this:
RABBIT-Free Australia says the State Government owes Victorians an explanation after spending $70,000 on saving rabbits — despite Australia facing the worst rabbit plague since 1995.
This comes after an Olinda rabbit orphanage — which has divided readers after spending $1500 on fixing one rabbit’s teeth and another $1500 on a hernia operation - was given a $50,000 government grant to improve its shelter for sick and stray rabbits.
-> https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a (https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a)
This kind of thing should be done by charities etc., it doesn't immediately seem logical to have government involved in financing it!
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A related pet peeve:
Old ladies who regularly feed "pigeons" in cities.
Even when told that only a small fraction of what they spread is eaten by pigeons, and the rest goes into helping the local disease-spreading rat population to grow, they insist they are just doing good by feeding the nice little pigeons, and rely on peoples' reluctance to get little old ladies fined for breaking the local ordnance.
Little old selfish ignorant fuckers, I say.
-
[...]
Little old selfish ignorant fuckers, I say.
The pigeons like them, though! :D
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A related pet peeve:
Little old selfish ignorant fuckers, I say.
Look on the bright side . one Day you will also be old , and doing stupid things is a privilege
If any one asks .. ''What I can't remember doing that ... where am I " :-// :-+
-
And then there's things like this:
RABBIT-Free Australia says the State Government owes Victorians an explanation after spending $70,000 on saving rabbits — despite Australia facing the worst rabbit plague since 1995.
This comes after an Olinda rabbit orphanage — which has divided readers after spending $1500 on fixing one rabbit’s teeth and another $1500 on a hernia operation - was given a $50,000 government grant to improve its shelter for sick and stray rabbits.
-> https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a (https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a)
This kind of thing should be done by charities etc., it doesn't immediately seem logical to have government involved in financing it!
Pets are one thing. Rabbits in the wild are quite another. They have absolutely no place in Australia. They are an introduced species and are an ecological and financial disaster. The harm they cause to other species of living things is huge. Why a government would finance the making of this problem worse is ridiculous.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia)
-
And then there's things like this:
RABBIT-Free Australia says the State Government owes Victorians an explanation after spending $70,000 on saving rabbits — despite Australia facing the worst rabbit plague since 1995.
This comes after an Olinda rabbit orphanage — which has divided readers after spending $1500 on fixing one rabbit’s teeth and another $1500 on a hernia operation - was given a $50,000 government grant to improve its shelter for sick and stray rabbits.
-> https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a (https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a)
This kind of thing should be done by charities etc., it doesn't immediately seem logical to have government involved in financing it!
Pets are one thing. Rabbits in the wild are quite another. They have absolutely no place in Australia. They are an introduced species and are an ecological and financial disaster. The harm they cause to other species of living things is huge. Why a government would finance the making of this problem worse is ridiculous.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia)
Ah, I did not know that... so Bugs Bunny not welcome down under, it seems.
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I don't mean to imply that my wife, the gardener, is anti-rabbit, but she always roots for Elmer Fudd in the cartoons.
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Confusing terms, made because the M-word is no longer acceptable, as the S-word isn't either, and who gives a shit about context because fake racism scores 110 out of 100.
Currently looking at a multi-drop protocol where the master once interrogated each slave. Now the client is the master, the slave is a server, and who knows what the function names or comments refer to any more.
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Entering a conversation with:
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or if you're a ham, you can combine the two:
"I just got this XYL and I know nothing"
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Entering a conversation with:
"I just got this xyz and I know nothing"
and last but not least ....
"I'm a new ham"
Or if you're a ham, you can combine the two:
"I just got this XYL and I know nothing"
There isn't much about hams that I've got to be peeved about. Why, just yesterday a ham showed up in my refrigerator with a tea towel wrapped around it.
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A related pet peeve:
Little old selfish ignorant fuckers, I say.
Look on the bright side . one Day you will also be old , and doing stupid things is a privilege
If any one asks .. ''What I can't remember doing that ... where am I " :-// :-+
I had hoped it would work that way, & I would be well on my way to learning how to sit in front of the TV, drooling down my cardigan.
Sadly, I not only still remember dumb arse things I recently did, but also those I did half a century ago!
(there were many more back then, as although you don't get smarter with age, you do get more cunning!)
I also know where I am, & it's not in the middle of a lake from following spoken travel instructions given by an "App" on a smartphone.
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A related pet peeve:
Little old selfish ignorant fuckers, I say.
Look on the bright side . one Day you will also be old , and doing stupid things is a privilege
If any one asks .. ''What I can't remember doing that ... where am I " :-// :-+
I had hoped it would work that way, & I would be well on my way to learning how to sit in front of the TV, drooling down my cardigan.
Sadly, I not only still remember dumb arse things I recently did, but also those I did half a century ago!
(there were many more back then, as although you don't get smarter with age, you do get more cunning!)
I also know where I am, & it's not in the middle of a lake from following spoken travel instructions given by an "App" on a smartphone.
That's Good to Hear that . I only use the Dumb old thing when I get stop by the Police .
for driving to fast .. I just say Sorry, I was in a Hurry before I will forget were I am Going :-DD
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Online documentation. You never know if it's going to be there next time you need it or, if it is, if it will say the same thing as last time you looked.
Similarly, open source projects that have great documentation but online only. Wouldn't hurt them to just zip up all the html pages for download but, no, to have it offline you need to install their favoured weirdo language plus all the compilations support tools plus some unknowable (until afterwards when it's too late) installation gotchas. Wouldn't be so bad, but still annoying, if they all used the same thing, but you'll likely end up with this system pollution just for this one project.
Guys, if zip is too hard for you, tgz is ok to use!
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Online documentation. You never know if it's going to be there next time you need it or, if it is, if it will say the same thing as last time you looked.
Similarly, open source projects that have great documentation but online only. Wouldn't hurt them to just zip up all the html pages for download but, no, to have it offline you need to install their favoured weirdo language plus all the compilations support tools plus some unknowable (until afterwards when it's too late) installation gotchas. Wouldn't be so bad, but still annoying, if they all used the same thing, but you'll likely end up with this system pollution just for this one project.
Guys, if zip is too hard for you, tgz is ok to use!
What I've been doing fairly recently is in the browser, print the page, when the dialog comes up for the printer, choose print to PDF file. Save.
:-+
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For a single page that's sometimes OK (except when they use web3.0 stuff so it never prints how it looks, if it even prints what you can see in the first place). But for a multi-page manual it's not going to work well, and you lose all the inter-page links, etc.
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For a single page that's sometimes OK (except when they use web3.0 stuff so it never prints how it looks, if it even prints what you can see in the first place). But for a multi-page manual it's not going to work well, and you lose all the inter-page links, etc.
Lucky for me, after about the second page the ADHD kicks in and I've moved on to something else.
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Yeah, that's why I like an offline copy so I can come back when I've got bored of whatever distracted me :)
-
And then there's things like this:
RABBIT-Free Australia says the State Government owes Victorians an explanation after spending $70,000 on saving rabbits — despite Australia facing the worst rabbit plague since 1995.
This comes after an Olinda rabbit orphanage — which has divided readers after spending $1500 on fixing one rabbit’s teeth and another $1500 on a hernia operation - was given a $50,000 government grant to improve its shelter for sick and stray rabbits.
-> https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a (https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/orphaned-olinda-rabbits-chew-through-up-to-3000-in-dental-and-medical-bills-at-nokill-shelter/news-story/55a4f39728a32441a3d3c657bb87742a)
This kind of thing should be done by charities etc., it doesn't immediately seem logical to have government involved in financing it!
Pets are one thing. Rabbits in the wild are quite another. They have absolutely no place in Australia. They are an introduced species and are an ecological and financial disaster. The harm they cause to other species of living things is huge. Why a government would finance the making of this problem worse is ridiculous.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia)
Ah, I did not know that... so Bugs Bunny not welcome down under, it seems.
It's funny, that here in Australia, (where rabbits are classed as vermin), that the 'Do-Gooders' here tried to have "Easter-Bunny"
changed to an Aussie critter called a 'Bilby'. A 'few' companies initially made some Chocolate Confectioneries to that effect at
Easter time a few years back, but they were HOWLED DOWN and immediately disappeared there-after!!! 8)
Don't MUCK with what our children/parents/grandparents know & love!!! :-DD
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Our new/old 'Pet-Peeve' for the majority of Australians???...
Having other Countries tell US how to behave in our own Country!!!
Grand-Kids (school) "Not Allowed" to have sandwiches containing 'ham' in case it 'offends' some people here??!!!
This will probably be deleted, but is a REAL problem here!!! (Could list 100 other examples off my head). >:D
Edit...
Look, I don't care how any individual/group cares to personally live. Pray to their own gods, dress how they choose,
make pilgrimages, bow down in certain directions, or stuff 'notes' into a brick wall, drink or don't drink, believe what
ever you want... But just don't demand from the country that 'accepts' you to change their attitudes & laws just to
accommodate YOU!! That is the ULTIMATE insult.
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[...] Grand-Kids (school) "Not Allowed" to have sandwiches containing 'ham' [...]
That cannot possibly be true... can it ????
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It is, and its not just Aus it happens to, those things happen here as well.
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Christmas Holidays being called December Holidays. If you want to be "all inclusive" leave the traditional name and give us a public holiday for all the other special religious days of the year.
I for one, am all for a month off during Ramadan :-+
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Organisations and workplaces that blather on about "diversity" and inclusiveness" and yet when you express a point of view that is different to theirs, they are the first ones to jump down your throat. If they were true to their principles they would actually include an idea that diverges from their own. :palm:
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Fritzing diagrams. I can't stand them! I cringe every time I see an interesting looking project only to find that instead of a proper easy to read schematic it has a stupid Fritzing diagram and usually not even one that is neatly drawn. It just looks like a rats nest of wires that is difficult and error prone to follow. Some may argue that it's good for beginners and to some extent I can agree, it's appropriate maybe for the first few circuits in a child's first electronic experimenters kit but that's it. Beyond that it serves as a crutch that delays the mandatory skill of learning to read a schematic diagram which holds people back.
-
Our new/old 'Pet-Peeve' for the majority of Australians???...
Having other Countries tell US how to behave in our own Country!!!
Grand-Kids (school) "Not Allowed" to have sandwiches containing 'ham' in case it 'offends' some people here??!!!
This will probably be deleted, but is a REAL problem here!!! (Could list 100 other examples off my head). >:D
Edit...
Look, I don't care how any individual/group cares to personally live. Pray to their own gods, dress how they choose,
make pilgrimages, bow down in certain directions, or stuff 'notes' into a brick wall, drink or don't drink, believe what
ever you want... But just don't demand from the country that 'accepts' you to change their attitudes & laws just to
accommodate YOU!! That is the ULTIMATE insult.
It may not be anything to do with upsetting "some people". (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
It is not unusual for people to be allergic to pork, ham, bacon & other similar products
My Mum used to get violently sick if she ate some---she would cook it for us, though.
I'm a bit allergic to pork if it is cooked rare (so it is pretty much still oinking)-------no problem with well cooked pork, or processed stuff, like ham, bacon, salami, etc.
Other people are allergic to peanuts (common), or as in my Son's case, mushrooms.
Schools are paranoid about being responsible for anyone having any sort of attack due to food they allow.
Anything with nuts in it is commonly banned.
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It is not unusual for people to be allergic to pork, ham, bacon & other similar products
People need to get hookworms, then. (A recent study showed that at least half of people who believed they had food allergies, did not. Hookworms are known to alleviate (even completely get rid of) allergies, and although icky, aren't dangerous if one monitors ones blood and hemoglobin levels regularly.)
The race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator, will transform humans into eusocial hive-beings. The line must be drawn somewhere. I draw it here.
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It is not unusual for people to be allergic to pork, ham, bacon & other similar products
People need to get hookworms, then. (A recent study showed that at least half of people who believed they had food allergies, did not. Hookworms are known to alleviate (even completely get rid of) allergies, and although icky, aren't dangerous if one monitors ones blood and hemoglobin levels regularly.)
The race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator, will transform humans into eusocial hive-beings. The line must be drawn somewhere. I draw it here.
Sorry, but your "recent study" sounds like nonsense.
People have had allergies since there have been people--- they just learn to avoid food or other things that affect them.
Hookworms have also been around, but people still had allergies.
I will give you that in earlier years, the standard allergy tests often gave false positives.
I was supposed to be allergic to peanuts, but it turns out I'm not!
As a kid, I was very allergic to pollen from Australia's national flower, the Golden Wattle, & many of its close relatives, so I avoided them.
I was also allergic to the smoke which emanated from Superphosphate factories, & to the finished product, both of which it was hard to avoid.
At the time, it was fashionable amongst some to attribute Asthma to psychological causes, which turned out to be bollocks, when diagnostic & treatment technology advanced enough that an attack could be detected early & allieviated or suppressed.
Psychobabble never had the slightest effect!
Of course, nowadays, things have gone full circle--- the reaction to someone revealing they suffer from Asthma is "Oh my God, don't die on me!"
The received wisdom is now that you don't grow out of Asthma, but myself, & many Old Farts are here to say you do, at least, effectively.
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Allergies can also change over time, as far as I know it isn't really known what actually causes them. Starting from about the age of 10 I was horribly allergic to grass and many tree pollens, my nose was always runny and for several months out of the summer even taking medication for it I would open the door and could just feel my sinuses swell up to where I could barely breath through my nose at all. Itchy eyes, sneezing, the whole mess. In recent years it's been a lot better, I still take antihistamine if I'm camping or mowing the lawn or something but most of the time I don't need it. My partner has the opposite problem, she used to love peanut butter but has gradually developed an allergy to peanuts and nuts in general. We're not even sure how serious it is now because nut allergies are something you don't want to mess around with but last year I ate a few handfuls of mixed nuts at my mom's place and then when I touched her arm it made a red itchy spot.
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It is not unusual for people to be allergic to pork, ham, bacon & other similar products
People need to get hookworms, then. (A recent study showed that at least half of people who believed they had food allergies, did not. Hookworms are known to alleviate (even completely get rid of) allergies, and although icky, aren't dangerous if one monitors ones blood and hemoglobin levels regularly.)
The race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator, will transform humans into eusocial hive-beings. The line must be drawn somewhere. I draw it here.
Sorry, but your "recent study" sounds like nonsense.
Sure, and you sound like an idiot stuck in his beliefs, but that does not make it so.
Wherever hookworms are endemic, severe food allergies are almost nonexistent. Look it up (https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/218805-overview). They do not affect lactose intolerance or pre-existing asthma, but they do statistically almost eliminate food allergies – including celiac's disease and Crohn's disease, and the emergence of asthma.
If we consider human evolution, this all makes sense. Humans have evolved to be able to handle a parasitic load, especially hookworms (since even today, almost 500 million people are infected with them). These parasites suppress the immune system in specific ways. When completely absent, immune system response is way too strong, leading to allergies, Crohn's disease, and so on.
Non-food allergies, like being allergic to animal dandruff, can be effectively treated with intolerance therapy: very controlled exposeure to the irritant to reduce the immune system response.
(Because it is more commercially viable to sell people antihistamines than actually examine the almost endemic parasitic load to see their effects on the human immune system and produce proper modulants, thus far drug companies have only investigated how to eradicate helminths, instead of their positive effects. All helminth (hookworm) therapy studies have been done by universities. David Pritchard at University of Nottingham, UK, is probably the leading expert on the matter right now.)
(I am not saying I hope lots of people get infected with hookworms; I am saying their effect on human immune systems should be duplicated by safe supplements. In the mean time, anyone with really severe food allergies, really need to try intolerance therapy. If they cannot, then helminth therapy is a possibility.)
Banning ham because some people are allergic to it is sheer idiocy. (Nuts, and all powdery substances I can understand; those are non-contact effects, and would interfere with intolerance therapy and so on. But not fish, eggs, meat, etc. If you're that sick, you need to isolate.)
Like Mark Twain said, "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
Instead of censoring others, we should control ourselves.
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Like Mark Twain said, "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
1. That's not censorship.
2. Mark Twain never said it. In fact, no-one ever said it. It's a misquote of "It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t eat steak", from Robert Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon.
You're welcome :)
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You're welcome :)
:palm:
You're very good at picking at the deficiencies of the expression, rather than considering the content of the expression, aren't you? You'd make a very good politician or a corporate lackey, I think.
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
I tend to agree.
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
I tend to agree.
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
Subaru has this feature. The Crosstrek XV 2015 has it. So, this is not old.
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[...]
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
This is actually present in a lot of cars today.
And I think the animated blinkers look cool, especially on old American cars!
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
I tend to agree.
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
There is nothing more annoying when the car in front indicates in one direction and then goes the
opposite way :palm:
They need a third indicate for those people that can't make up their Minds :-//
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Most cars have the lane changer where a quick push of the lever blinks three times, I can never hit it just right to make it work though.
I hate the new animated brake lights that flash, I see the brake light come on and apply my brakes then it goes off so I release mine then it comes on again so I apply mine again, etc. So now when I see a brake light I have to wait to see if its going to stay on or not.
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I think it would be cool to have bar graph type brake lights that start at the edge and grow towards the centre. The harder you brake the more they come on. As it is now, you don’t know whether the driver in front is just taking a few k’s off or trying to stop running under the back of a stationary truck.
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You're very good at picking at the deficiencies of the expression, rather than considering the content of the expression, aren't you?
Trying to be helpful. A non-sequitur doesn't illustrate whatever point you're trying to make and just confuses things.
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You're very good at picking at the deficiencies of the expression, rather than considering the content of the expression, aren't you?
Trying to be helpful. A non-sequitur doesn't illustrate whatever point you're trying to make and just confuses things.
You're failing, badly, at being helpful. You might consider some completely different approach, for better results.
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You're very good at picking at the deficiencies of the expression, rather than considering the content of the expression, aren't you?
Trying to be helpful. A non-sequitur doesn't illustrate whatever point you're trying to make and just confuses things.
You're failing, badly, at being helpful. You might consider some completely different approach, for better results.
Yeah, maybe call you an "idiot" or a "lackey", but then again, most people don't become "all bent out of shape" if their comments are disputed. ;D
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I forgot about these new crappy Kias and Hundays that are putting the turn signals as low on the bumper as possible to hide them from other cars.
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I forgot about these new crappy Kias and Hundays that are putting the turn signals as low on the bumper as possible to hide them from other cars.
That reminds me, in Australia, in the state of Victoria at least, with vehicles like Toyota Land Cruiser and Nissan Patrol and similar you can get a rear bumper bar with tail, brake and indicator lights built in. If you fit one of these, the normal lights that are much higher up and more easily visible must be disconnected! That’s the law! How stupid is that???
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
I tend to agree.
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
There is nothing more annoying when the car in front indicates in one direction and then goes the
opposite way :palm:
They need a third indicate for those people that can't make up their Minds :-//
Yes, this one reminds me of another peeve of mine.. the driver who puts on the turn signal like 1 second before actually making the turn. Why bother at all at that point.
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So called "journalists" with zero, zilch, nada command of the English language:
Most recently, this from a local newspaper's coverage of the latest Hyundai recalls:
(http://www.paladinmicro.com/TestEquipment/ElegooMars/HyundaiRecall.jpg)
How does one determine the necessity of replacing a leak? I'm sure the owners will be delighted to have new leaks instead of the bad old ones.
I showed this to my wife and she said it means "They will replace the engine."
I told her "I know what they meant, but that's not what they said."
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So called "journalists" with zero, zilch, nada command of the English language:
Most recently, this from a local newspaper's coverage of the latest Hyundai recalls:
(http://www.paladinmicro.com/TestEquipment/ElegooMars/HyundaiRecall.jpg)
How does one determine the necessity of replacing a leak? I'm sure the owners will be delighted to have new leaks instead of the bad old ones.
I showed this to my wife and she said it means "They will replace the engine."
I told her "I know what they meant, but that's not what they said."
Or it could mean replacing the engine
That has a fresh oil leak . Only drips on the road an not on ur driveway.
Whats a knock sensor.. ?
Knock knock who's there . Oil ..
Oil who . ?
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Or it could mean replacing the engine
That has a fresh oil leak . Only drips on the road an not on ur driveway.
Whats a knock sensor.. ?
Knock knock who's there . Oil ..
Oil who . ?
As written it means they will replace any leaks revealed by their inspection. They certainly meant it to mean they will replace the engine, but that's not what it says--that's my peeve, pathetically poor sentence structure and/or just not reading what they wrote.
Sometimes it's just funny:
(http://www.paladinmicro.com/TestEquipment/ElegooMars/DfxeW5fUwAAN2Mz.jpg)
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How would you rephrase it?
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Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks and, if necessary, replace the engine.
Though a single semi-colon would improve it by indicating the second clause is missing essential words provided by the first.
Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks; and replace them if necessary.
(I spent 5 years creating and editing technical documents for Lockheed Martin Astronautics; mostly for their EELV project)
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
I tend to agree.
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
My eleven year old VW Golf does this.
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Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks and, if necessary, replace the engine.
Though a single semi-colon would improve it by indicating the second clause is missing essential words provided by the first.
Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks; and replace them if necessary.
(I spent 5 years creating and editing technical documents for Lockheed Martin Astronautics; mostly for their EELV project)
Yes much better wording - clear and concise.
I guess the original phrasing might be considered slang / lazy? Not quite written correctly, but everybody understands the meaning.
LOL on the students first hand job experience. Those crazy high school kids..
.
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While it is possible that replacing the engines was the intention, I'd put long odds on it being a spell check error and that repairing the leaks was the real intended sentence.
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While it is possible that replacing the engines was the intention, I'd put long odds on it being a spell check error and that repairing the leaks was the real intended sentence.
Most of the people writing these blurbs have no technical expertise and limited reading comprehension. The recall notice states they will inspect for fuel and/or oil leaks and replace parts as indicated--including engine replacement if con-rod bearing damage is found. If you dig deep enough it appears the foundational issue is failure of seals in the camshaft driven high-pressure fuel pump (2500 psi) used in the direct injection fuel system. The seals fail and raw gas contaminates the engine oil.
DFI on other brands has similarly failed (along with gummed up intake valves)--overall it is a piss-poor design, trading engine life to meet absurd EPA fuel economy regulations...
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My eleven year old VW Golf does this.
Our 1992 Plemon (Plymouth Lemon) has this as well. The only vehicle that I've ever had that didn't was my 1988 s10 and that was because the steering column had been bent when the previous owner put on a body lift and most of the steering column parts had been bashed when it was stolen. It didn't even turn off the turn signals after a turn because that part was broken. Dad got it cheap from an auction for my first vehicle.
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I forgot about these new crappy Kias and Hundays that are putting the turn signals as low on the bumper as possible to hide them from other cars.
That reminds me, in Australia, in the state of Victoria at least, with vehicles like Toyota Land Cruiser and Nissan Patrol and similar you can get a rear bumper bar with tail, brake and indicator lights built in. If you fit one of these, the normal lights that are much higher up and more easily visible must be disconnected! That’s the law! How stupid is that???
These crappy cars have all the lights up high where you can see them except for the turn signals, and those are on the very lowest portion of the bumper, which being a minivan/cuv is pretty low. Those are going to cause a lot of accidents.
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I hate the new animated brake lights that flash, I see the brake light come on and apply my brakes then it goes off so I release mine then it comes on again so I apply mine again, etc.
Your internal PID control loop needs tuning.
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So called "journalists" with zero, zilch, nada command of the English language:
Most recently, this from a local newspaper's coverage of the latest Hyundai recalls:
(http://www.paladinmicro.com/TestEquipment/ElegooMars/HyundaiRecall.jpg)
How does one determine the necessity of replacing a leak? I'm sure the owners will be delighted to have new leaks instead of the bad old ones.
I showed this to my wife and she said it means "They will replace the engine."
I told her "I know what they meant, but that's not what they said."
To me it seems obvious that this is what they mean. IE "if the leak cannot be corrected through less drastic measures, the engine will be replaced."
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
I tend to agree.
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
My eleven year old VW Golf does this.
That sounds extremely annoying, I don't want it to automatically blink 3 times every time I accidentally bump the signal lever or start to signal one direction and then decide I want to go the other way instead. I want my car to do precisely what I command it to do, period. If I want the signal to blink at least 3 times, I'll let it blink 3 times before I cancel it.
That brings up another peeve of mine, when things do stuff automatically for me, trying to guess what I want in an effort to be helpful. I find that they invariably get it wrong at least as often as they correctly guess my intentions and it creates additional work and gets in my way rather than helping. Software is the worst offender of this, I *HATE* IDEs that automatically add a matching quotation mark, parem, bracket, etc, it drives me absolutely crazy! I often go to add parentheses after I've already typed something and I have to move the mouse, click, delete the unwanted character, then go to where I want the closing character, type it, click, backspace to delete the extra one it adds there. It's absolutely infuriating and creates the impression that the software is actively trying to fight me and make my life harder. The worst part of all this is that it's often excessively difficult to disable this stupid behavior.
Autocorrect on my phone is just as bad, sometimes it's helpful but I loathe the way it second guesses me constantly and changes correctly spelled words to completely different words that it thinks I wanted to use instead. I'd like it to correct misspelled words but it should never change a word that is spelled correctly.
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Sounds like this thread is rapidly heading towards the need for lots of paper and boxes of crayons but I'll add my beef anyway (sorry if it's already been said)...
New cars need a 'Dumbass' switch.
'Dumbass' on - the car will ping, ring, buzz, vibrate, fart for every little transgression of deviation from 'normal' operation, according to the manufacturer.
'Dumbass' off - only mission critical issues will be forcibly alerted. You know, no oil, for example.
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Animated turn-signals on cars bug me. They feel very gimmicky whilst (imo) being less visible.
I tend to agree.
But also, I believe that all turn signals should be made to blink no less than 3 times even if the turn signal lever is barely touched. This cures those who give only a half-blink when turning or changing lanes. Why has no car maker done this?
My eleven year old VW Golf does this.
That sounds extremely annoying, I don't want it to automatically blink 3 times every time I accidentally bump the signal lever or start to signal one direction and then decide I want to go the other way instead. I want my car to do precisely what I command it to do, period. If I want the signal to blink at least 3 times, I'll let it blink 3 times before I cancel it.
You can turn it off if you want, I have done that so it only blink once.
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AMPERAGE. I hate it when people use the word AMPERAGE! It's CURRENT and it is measured in AMPERES!
And I also hate traffic lights that are timed so that, driving exactly the speed limit, you catch each and every one red and they turn red so that you have to brake harder than you normally would. And you have to do this three to five times every mile! On the other hand you can set your cruise control five to seven miles an hour north of the speed limit and get all those lights green, mile after mile after mile. All that STTOOPPP go SSTTOOOOPPPP go SSSTTTOOOPPPP go driving wastes gas, causes air pollution, and contributes to glow-bull warming. Quite often driving just a little bit faster saves gas and is actually safer.
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Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks and, if necessary, replace the engine.
Though a single semi-colon would improve it by indicating the second clause is missing essential words provided by the first.
Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks; and replace them if necessary.
(I spent 5 years creating and editing technical documents for Lockheed Martin Astronautics; mostly for their EELV project)
This may be the case when the audience is familiar with dry technical language and the topic, but for an average Joe the original construction would work better, since it clearly says which component will be replaced. Otherwise a non-savvy reader may think they will replace fuel or oil leaks found during inspection.
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AMPERAGE. I hate it when people use the word AMPERAGE! It's CURRENT and it is measured in AMPERES!
It is a back-formation analogous to "Voltage" for "Potential". I have never seen a "Danger! High Potential" sign in an English-speaking country.
In German, I believe it is "Hochspannung lebensgefahr" for danger, high voltage. "Spannung" translates into voltage, tension, or stress.
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My pet peeve, typically found in audio contexts, is when one measures the RMS voltage V across a load resistor R to measure the power applied to the resistor and refers to the result as "RMS power", when the correct answer is "mean power" or "average power". The RMS power exists mathematically, but is never useful for a sine wave. Comparing the RMS power to the mean power for a sine wave, we find that the RMS power is 1.225 = (3/2)1/2 times the mean power.
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Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks and, if necessary, replace the engine.
Though a single semi-colon would improve it by indicating the second clause is missing essential words provided by the first.
Dealers will inspect the engines for fuel or oil leaks; and replace them if necessary.
(I spent 5 years creating and editing technical documents for Lockheed Martin Astronautics; mostly for their EELV project)
Sorry for the delay on this one. I asked for your version because I couldn't think of a simple and easy-fitting alternative. Your first suggestion is fine, but rather artificial in the way it circumvents the problem.
The second suggestion, with the semicolon, made no sense to me at all. So I bounced this off my partner who is an editor (hence the delay) and she says the semicolon contributes nothing. It's a separator, and could be treated as a full stop. The comma alternative doesn't contribute anything either.
OK, that's her bit said (and she agrees with you that the original is very iffy). My view is that it may be wrong but everyone knows what it means, and that's pretty much how you'd say it, so it comes over as natural (at least to the non-cognoscenti). I think that's why it wasn't simple for me to think of a better alternative (and why I asked for yours).
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People using "your" in place of "you are."
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People using "your" in place of "you are."
"break" instead of "brake"
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People using "your" in place of "you are."
"break" instead of "brake"
There are lots moar examples of this.
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Your right - a break needs to be put on those with immediate affect.
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My pet peeve, typically found in audio contexts, is when one measures the RMS voltage V across a load resistor R to measure the power applied to the resistor and refers to the result as "RMS power", when the correct answer is "mean power" or "average power". The RMS power exists mathematically, but is never useful for a sine wave. Comparing the RMS power to the mean power for a sine wave, we find that the RMS power is 1.225 = (3/2)1/2 times the mean power.
:-+
My very pet peeve!
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AMPERAGE. I hate it when people use the word AMPERAGE! It's CURRENT and it is measured in AMPERES!
It is a back-formation analogous to "Voltage" for "Potential". I have never seen a "Danger! High Potential" sign in an English-speaking country.
In German, I believe it is "Hochspannung lebensgefahr" for danger, high voltage. "Spannung" translates into voltage, tension, or stress.
Electromotive Force is measured in Volts. Voltage is easier to say that Electromotive Forceage. But I,too, have never seen a sign that says, "Danger! LOTS of Electromotive Force."
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A related term, found in safety codes for wiring, is “ampacity”. The NEC defines it as the maximum continuous current in a conductor that will not exceed the temperature rating.
Should we say “currentability” instead?
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I wonder what the metric version of mileage is... kilometerage :scared:
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My pet peeve, typically found in audio contexts, is when one measures the RMS voltage V across a load resistor R to measure the power applied to the resistor and refers to the result as "RMS power", when the correct answer is "mean power" or "average power". The RMS power exists mathematically, but is never useful for a sine wave. Comparing the RMS power to the mean power for a sine wave, we find that the RMS power is 1.225 = (3/2)1/2 times the mean power.
:-+
My very pet peeve!
So your not likely to be a fan of "Peak Music Power Output" PMPO either... :-DD
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I remember the greatest scam of that era, when manufacturers started quoting power "+/- 1 dB", thus increasing all their amplifiers by 26%. After that fraud, the authorities tried to clamp down on advertising, but somebody mis-informed them about RMS vs. mean power.
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I wonder what the metric version of mileage is... kilometerage :scared:
I know heaps of ppl that would still use the term mileage even though they are otherwise all metric.
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I wonder what the metric version of mileage is... kilometerage :scared:
I know heaps of ppl that would still use the term mileage even though they are otherwise all metric.
YMMV :P
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I wonder what the metric version of mileage is... kilometerage :scared:
I know heaps of ppl that would still use the term mileage even though they are otherwise all metric.
YMMV :P
;D
There ya go!
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I wonder what the metric version of mileage is... kilometerage :scared:
I know heaps of ppl that would still use the term mileage even though they are otherwise all metric.
YMMV :P
;D
There ya go!
Excactus!
I'm not bothered by those, though. If I were, I'd be really annoyed by those who express fuel consumption in miles per gallon. It's like using minutes per mile for speed. Perhaps that's where mile-age comes from? As in how much older you get, when you travel a mile? (:palm: No, I am not serious!)
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Miles per gallon = what you can do with what you've got.
Litres per 100km = what you need for what you want.
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Android (v6) has a notification area where apps can post messages to the user, and the user then clears the messages when read.
Here's my pet peeve about that: Some app writers think their application is so important and wonderful, that it deserves a permanent entry on the Notification list. As more and more of these important and wonderful apps with "permanent notifications" get installed, the actual notifications from other apps drop further and further down the list, so you have to scroll down to see them...
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People using "your" in place of "you are."
"break" instead of "brake"
There are lots moar examples of this.
You're/your is so common. But they sound the same, at least. It's/its is one that I actually have to think about as I write it, every time. I can give a pass on those.
But why do so many people spell quiet as "quite?"
And how do so many people "weight" things on a scale?
I recall trying to petition a test question, "which of A/B/C/D can you alternate with X?"
In his head, the professor used "alternate" to mean substitute rather than switch back and forth. If you try to explain this only works as a noun, not a verb, to an East Indian professor? You will be shitcanned for the rest of the class.
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You're/your is so common. But they sound the same, at least. It's/its is one that I actually have to think about as I write it, every time. I can give a pass on those.
It's so simple though. It's = "it is", you're = "you are", all you have to do is consider whether it makes sense to say it is, or you are in the sentence and if it doesn't then the contractions it's and you're are not the correct word. What they sound like spoken is irrelevant. I admit I have difficulty understanding how that one can be difficult for so many people when it's one simple rule to remember.
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It's = "it is"
From that direction it seems easy.
But when you actually need the word "its" is where I got hung up when I learned this in school.
"The bear scratched at its paw."
"Its" is a plainly weird word to me to this day. It sounds like a possessive. "It" being the bear.
"The bear scratched the bear's paw."
"The bear scratched it's paw."
5 yr old me found "its" to be strange. I still find it strange.
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It's = "it is"
From that direction it seems easy.
But when you actually need the word "its" is where I got hung up when I learned this in school.
"The bear scratched at its paw."
"Its" is a plainly weird word to me to this day. It sounds like a possessive. "It" being the bear.
"The bear scratched the bear's paw."
"The bear scratched it's paw."
5 yr old me found "its" to be strange. I still find it strange.
Its --> It's
:-+
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My biggest pet peeves are:
(1) People who want me to explain what I'm doing, but who don't have the attention span to listen.
(2) Doing projects for family members and friends. Doing things for free gives people the idea your skills aren't really worth much, they expect more than they would ever think of asking a professional to do or would never question a "professional who charged them an arm and a leg." (I'm not an electrician, but I do make sure I follow the NEC when I do "charity" work for relatives).
(3) People who ask for advice and then want to argue about the advice, because they don't like the answer, so, it's like, "Why did you bother asking me? Go find someone who will tell you what you want to hear even if it's wrong."
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I wonder what the metric version of mileage is... kilometerage :scared:
In spanish: Kilometraje.
So basically, yes, you're close :)
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Data are (not data is).
The verb "to gift".
The BBC for changing the capitalization (or capitalisation) of abbreviations. e.g., Nasa.
American English rules of punctuation. See my first two peeves for how it should be done :)
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Data are (not data is).
You are 100% correct. I long ago tired of correcting that. "Datum" is singular, "data" is plural. These data, not this data. Sadly, "data" is sometimes used as a shorthand bastardization of "data set", thus fueling its constant misuse.
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"Data" is actually a mass noun. And the ODE says:
usage: In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields, it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified. In modern non-scientific use, however, it is generally not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English.
So data is. Sorry :)
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(https://media1.giphy.com/media/FAwZnWT4opRKg/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47ffe662baf2896214ca0a8aca97beb1b4221e7388&rid=giphy.gif)
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"Data" is actually a mass noun. And the ODE says:
usage: In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields, it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified. In modern non-scientific use, however, it is generally not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English.
So data is. Sorry :)
Yes, I use, "This data is..." even though I'm fully aware that grammarian and scientist pedants will use, endorse, and cajole the use of, "These data are...".
However, imagine this situation:
1. A scientist collects a large volume of data points into a spreadsheet.
2. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
3. The spreadsheet is encrypted using a very secure algorithm.
4. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
5. Somewhere in the middle of the file one byte is changed. Now the spreadsheet can't be decrypted.
6. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."? No data points are available, as all the data points were formed into a unitary item.
7. Working backwards, apply the same reasoning to all versions of the spreadsheet.
Using the term, "These data are..." carries an implication that some aspect of the data could be removed, yielding much the same result.
For instance, I poll 1000 people about the use of, "These data are..." compared to "This data is...". The results are collected into a spreadsheet, and sorted by response with the first 500 endorsing "This data is...", and the second 500 endorsing "These data are...". The spreadsheet gets corrupted, losing the second half. A statistical review of the spreadsheet would then reveal that 100% of respondents endorsed, "This data is...".
The point being that the data set is a unitary collection, otherwise one is corrupting the data set. Therefore, "This data is...".
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"Data" is actually a mass noun. And the ODE says:
usage: In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields, it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified. In modern non-scientific use, however, it is generally not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English.
So data is. Sorry :)
Yes, I use, "This data is..." even though I'm fully aware that grammarian and scientist pedants will use, endorse, and cajole the use of, "These data are...".
However, imagine this situation:
1. A scientist collects a large volume of data points into a spreadsheet.
2. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
3. The spreadsheet is encrypted using a very secure algorithm.
4. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
5. Somewhere in the middle of the file one byte is changed. Now the spreadsheet can't be decrypted.
6. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."? No data points are available, as all the data points were formed into a unitary item.
7. Working backwards, apply the same reasoning to all versions of the spreadsheet.
Using the term, "These data are..." carries an implication that some aspect of the data could be removed, yielding much the same result.
For instance, I poll 1000 people about the use of, "These data are..." compared to "This data is...". The results are collected into a spreadsheet, and sorted by response with the first 500 endorsing "This data is...", and the second 500 endorsing "These data are...". The spreadsheet gets corrupted, losing the second half. A statistical review of the spreadsheet would then reveal that 100% of respondents endorsed, "This data is...".
The point being that the data set is a unitary collection, otherwise one is corrupting the data set. Therefore, "This data is...".
WOW That was A mind Boggling OverLoad of DATA
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Yes, I use, "This data is..." even though I'm fully aware that grammarian and scientist pedants will use, endorse, and cajole the use of, "These data are...".
However, imagine this situation:
1. A scientist collects a large volume of data points into a spreadsheet.
2. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
3. The spreadsheet is encrypted using a very secure algorithm.
4. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
5. Somewhere in the middle of the file one byte is changed. Now the spreadsheet can't be decrypted.
6. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."? No data points are available, as all the data points were formed into a unitary item.
7. Working backwards, apply the same reasoning to all versions of the spreadsheet.
Using the term, "These data are..." carries an implication that some aspect of the data could be removed, yielding much the same result.
For instance, I poll 1000 people about the use of, "These data are..." compared to "This data is...". The results are collected into a spreadsheet, and sorted by response with the first 500 endorsing "This data is...", and the second 500 endorsing "These data are...". The spreadsheet gets corrupted, losing the second half. A statistical review of the spreadsheet would then reveal that 100% of respondents endorsed, "This data is...".
The point being that the data set is a unitary collection, otherwise one is corrupting the data set. Therefore, "This data is...".
This analogy isn't right. The fact that you can take a whole set of records and view it as a single record has nothing to do with the discussion because then you are talking about a different data set than before -- a data set with only one record.
Put differently: You are using many words just for saying that you can change perspective, i.e. just declare something else to be the data that interest you. Of course you can do that, but it has nothing to do with the grammatical/linguistical question.
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I maintain the distinction between the singular datum (for one element of the set) and the plural data (for the complete set). If the words were native English, and not Latin, would one say “The datums shows...”?
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Data is . Just a word that Humans use for the jumble of info.
That we have no idea where exactly where to put it . :-//
Stick it into a Graph it looks impressive and no one has the courage to say :wtf: is it .
A computer will convert it to Binary . 8)
etc etc.
There is insignificant data to complete this task !!
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This all relates to my prime peeve about the evolution of language.
1. Neologism, e.g., coining the word "transistor" to describe something new, is a sign of progress.
2. Laziness, e.g., neglecting the difference between "infer" and "imply", is pernicious, since thereafter one cannot choose one of the two words carefully to make a distinction.
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I have another peeve that always make me laugh .
Waze GPS . while driving . A female voice saying .
" Police spotted a Head "
I always say to the wife Look out there's a head on the road . :o
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I once knew a rabbit who wanted to get ahead, so he traded his head for a head of lettuce. However, he ate the head of lettuce, so he really didn't get ahead, did he?
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It's = "it is"
From that direction it seems easy.
But when you actually need the word "its" is where I got hung up when I learned this in school.
"The bear scratched at its paw."
"Its" is a plainly weird word to me to this day. It sounds like a possessive. "It" being the bear.
"The bear scratched the bear's paw."
"The bear scratched it's paw."
5 yr old me found "its" to be strange. I still find it strange.
Its --> It's
:-+
I thought of an even better example.
Person 1: How's the kitten you rescued?
Person 2: It's drinking its/it's milk.
If "it" has milk, can "it" not drink "it's" milk, as in the milk that belongs to "it?"
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Data is . Just a word that Humans use for the jumble of info.
That we have no idea where exactly where to put it . :-//
Stick it into a Graph it looks impressive and no one has the courage to say :wtf: is it .
A computer will convert it to Binary . 8)
etc etc.
There is insignificant data to complete this task !!
It's only mass ignorance that has led "data" to become a "mass noun". I am pedantic and I am a scientist. But it isn't the combination of the two that leads me to use "data" exclusively as a plural noun and "datum" as the singular. It's because it is the right thing to do scientifically. So, I will correct people in a scientific setting. Outside of that, I just accept people are ignorant and play along.
"Resistor, transistor. Whatever. I'm just a hobbyist so I'll just start using the wrong terms. One day, at least one dictionary will give in."
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Then there are those who pronounce it data instead of data.
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I maintain the distinction between the singular datum (for one element of the set) and the plural data (for the complete set). If the words were native English, and not Latin, would one say “The datums shows...”?
Actually, as the old joke goes, the singular of data is anecdote.
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However, imagine this situation:
1. A scientist collects a large volume of data points into a spreadsheet.
2. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
3. The spreadsheet is encrypted using a very secure algorithm.
4. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
5. Somewhere in the middle of the file one byte is changed. Now the spreadsheet can't be decrypted.
6. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."? No data points are available, as all the data points were formed into a unitary item.
7. Working backwards, apply the same reasoning to all versions of the spreadsheet.
Good examples of relevant questions. I would suggest that data is treated as singular or plural depending on context. If you are talking many individual points, for instance, then 'are' would be appropriate. But if you're talking a bunch of points en bloc then 'is' would make more sense. Which is how mass nouns are normally dealt with: we might catch a fish or land a whole load of fish, for example. The fish is, and the fish are.
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However, imagine this situation:
1. A scientist collects a large volume of data points into a spreadsheet.
2. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
3. The spreadsheet is encrypted using a very secure algorithm.
4. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."?
5. Somewhere in the middle of the file one byte is changed. Now the spreadsheet can't be decrypted.
6. At this point is it referred to as "This data is..." or as "These data are..."? No data points are available, as all the data points were formed into a unitary item.
7. Working backwards, apply the same reasoning to all versions of the spreadsheet.
Good examples of relevant questions. I would suggest that data is treated as singular or plural depending on context. If you are talking many individual points, for instance, then 'are' would be appropriate. But if you're talking a bunch of points en bloc then 'is' would make more sense. Which is how mass nouns are normally dealt with: we might catch a fish or land a whole load of fish, for example. The fish is, and the fish are.
Recently, on a television report regarding Covid, the reporter said something like, "The amount of people with Covid has increased dramatically...", as opposed to, "The number of people with Covid has increased dramatically...".
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Yeah, like confusing fewer with less and similar. I'd forgive a live TV interviewer though - thinking about what they're saying probably comes quite a way down the list of attention grabbers :)
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However, imagine this situation:
[...]
Good examples of relevant questions. I would suggest that data is treated as singular or plural depending on context. If you are talking many individual points, for instance, then 'are' would be appropriate. But if you're talking a bunch of points en bloc then 'is' would make more sense.
Well, you draw the right conclusion from a wrong premise. (See also my earlier reply above).
Tomorokoshi presented a wrong argument that stems from a logical fallacy. I shall present it in a more formal way so that it is clearer.
Let D = {d_1, ... d_n} be the data set we are talking about. Tomorokoshi's argument first talks about the individual d_i's and concludes that it is ok to say "these data are" because there are many of them (items 1 and 2 of the argument). So far, so good.
Then, in item 3, his argument shifts the subject of discussion from the individual d_i's to the set D. D is, of course, distinct from the individual d_i's; this follows from the mathematical definition of sets. Now, the error follows: The argument implies that it is ok to call the individual d_i's "this data is" because there is only exactly one D. That conclusion is wrong.
Because not all people are interested in mathematical arguments, let me use a non-mathematical analogy (but please note that it is only an analogy for illustration): I cannot say "there is 100 apple on this tree" just because there is only one tree. I have to say "there are 100 apples on this tree". Of course, it would be correct to say "there is a tree", it would be wrong to say "there are tree". You see, we just have to be clear what we are talking about: either the individual apples or the tree itself. The rest follows from that.
It's the same with data: Are we talking about D (the data set itself) or the individual records, the d_i's? It's that simple. The rest follows from that decision -- at least logically. Of course, you may choose to think non-logical.
In item 5 and item 6, complete and utter confusion follows. What is stated there has nothing to do whatsoever with the subject matter.
There is no clarity in the argument, everything gets mixed up. The fact that it is wrong is actually not the problem, but it throws multiple smoke grenades, and *that* is a problem. Talking about encryption using "a very secure algorithm", polls and losing half of a spreadsheet has nothing to do with the subject, it only obscures the matter and bedazzles the reader. If the argument had used plain logic instead of talking about spreadsheets, polls, and fancy encryption, everything would have been in plain sight and maybe the error would have not even be made because it would have been so simple to see it.
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Dictionary dumfukery.
The word peruse means to examine carefully, to study, to read thoroughly. It was decided (by whom I do not know) that we should have a secondary meaning; to browse, to look over in a cursory manner. Clearly, chronic misuse, no matter how ridiculous, leads to an acceptable new definition.
We then invent a new class of word, a contronym, a word having two meanings that contradict one another. This to legitimize the madness.
Therefore, dumfukery also means brilliance.
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And, as a result, when a careful writer intends one of those meanings and not the other, he cannot use the single word and is forced to use the whole definition, e.g. “I carefully studied the data sheet”, to make his meaning clear. Whereafter, we may as well delete the simpler word from our vocabulary.
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I'm on calls with people from the .uk so I get to hear about dater all the time.
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Dictionary dumfukery.
The word peruse means to examine carefully, to study, to read thoroughly. It was decided (by whom I do not know) that we should have a secondary meaning; to browse, to look over in a cursory manner. Clearly, chronic misuse, no matter how ridiculous, leads to an acceptable new definition.
We then invent a new class of word, a contronym, a word having two meanings that contradict one another. This to legitimize the madness.
Therefore, dumfukery also means brilliance.
Doublethink - embrace it, be happy!
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The silly season.
No, really.
>:(
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Holiday Music.
They start in November and by now I am even sick of substituting the lyrics with pornographic versions. I think the Victorian Era folks had the right idea.
(https://usaartnews.com/wp-content/uploads/4teg.jpg)
Bah Humbug ;D
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When your computer time zone is set to UTC, and the web site displays the time with AM and PM. I am looking at you EEVBlog!
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When your computer time zone is set to UTC, and the web site displays the time with AM and PM. I am looking at you EEVBlog!
Hey, it's only a default. Use Profile > Summary, then Modify Profile > Look and Layout, and pick your preferred Time Format there.
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Nowt like that for me.
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Nowt like that for me.
It's there. Modify Profile - pull down menu - Look and Feel Layout
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I was reminded of another peeve recently, entry forms that put every country on the planet in alphabetical order instead of guessing my location by my IP address and defaulting to where it thinks I am, or at least letting me type US in a search.
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Ah! Thank you!
I thought the highlight on 'Modify profile' denoted the page I'm looking at, not that it's a button to press :palm:
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Ah! Thank you!
I thought the highlight on 'Modify profile' denoted the page I'm looking at, not that it's a button to press :palm:
That Fine, Only 8 years it took . 2013 to 2021 (almost)
It could have been worse ;D
Press 'B" for money refund
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When your computer time zone is set to UTC, and the web site displays the time with AM and PM. I am looking at you EEVBlog!
Hey, it's only a default. Use Profile > Summary, then Modify Profile > Look and Layout, and pick your preferred Time Format there.
You made my point ... defaulting to 12 hour time display for UTC is a terrible default.
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defaulting to 12 hour time display for UTC is a terrible default
I am intrigued - is it different for any other time zone (i.e. less terrible)? If so, what's the difference?
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I was reminded of another peeve recently, entry forms that put every country on the planet in alphabetical order instead of guessing my location by my IP address and defaulting to where it thinks I am, or at least letting me type US in a search.
Some programmers these days, thought once they've mastered an IF THEN ELSE statement in programming, then they're so confident that they become computer AI expert. :palm:
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This may be US specific, but why do so many forms require entering city, state and ZIP code (mail code). Once you enter mail code the other two are defined. And to the prior posters comment it pretty much nails the country, though this is not worldwide unique. Easily could be though.
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This may be US specific, but why do so many forms require entering city, state and ZIP code (mail code). Once you enter mail code the other two are defined. And to the prior posters comment it pretty much nails the country, though this is not worldwide unique. Easily could be though.
World ZIP codes are long overdue...
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This may be US specific, but why do so many forms require entering city, state and ZIP code (mail code). Once you enter mail code the other two are defined. And to the prior posters comment it pretty much nails the country, though this is not worldwide unique. Easily could be though.
World ZIP codes are long overdue...
Internet country code + ZIP code = problem solved!
Nothing new to be formulated.
Two things people are already familiar with.
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This may be US specific, but why do so many forms require entering city, state and ZIP code (mail code). Once you enter mail code the other two are defined. And to the prior posters comment it pretty much nails the country, though this is not worldwide unique. Easily could be though.
World ZIP codes are long overdue...
Since AFAIK only the USA calls Postcodes "zipcodes", the easy way is to just prefix the US ones with a "Z".
Australian Postcodes narrow things down to a State City, & Postal area,but are just numeric, so the number combinations are probably not unique to this country.
British ones are alpha-numeric & pretty much take you down to the street level.
They are far more likely to be unique.
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A postal code and a zip code are exactly the same thing, there's no need to prefix the US ones, they could just all be called postal codes and everyone would know what it meant, or change the label to zip code when US is selected as the country.
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This may be US specific, but why do so many forms require entering city, state and ZIP code (mail code). Once you enter mail code the other two are defined. And to the prior posters comment it pretty much nails the country, though this is not worldwide unique. Easily could be though.
World ZIP codes are long overdue...
Internet country code + ZIP code = problem solved!
Nothing new to be formulated.
Two things people are already familiar with.
I like this approach. Might take some doing to get widely used.
No reason for anyone to get tied up on names. Zip or mail code it is all the same idea. US ZIP+4 is much like British code. I think it comes close to unique code for each dwelling unit.
The number of digits used and the character set varies world wide so it will take more than a few minutes to do all the coding.
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There are quite a few countries that use the same or very similar format. I had to test something with postal codes at work a couple years ago so I wrote a script that would spit out all valid postal codes for about a dozen countries we were supporting, it didn't take very long, seems like there were 3 or 4 distinct formats among all of the countries I looked at.
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All of the above said, most of the time, the websites I use have no difficulty in accepting Australian Postcodes where it says "Zipcode".
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All of the above said, most of the time, the websites I use have no difficulty in accepting Australian Postcodes where it says "Zipcode".
That is because all those websites are just treating it as a lump of text, not trying to process it.
I never meant that the data processing was an intellectually challenging task. Biggest job is probably generating the data base which ties code to the administrative units (city and state in the US case). Some more code to deal with the people who don't include the country code. A bit more to figure out how not to be too annoying to the customer. Deciding how to allocate those three tasks between callable units. Still something measured in man days or weeks, not minutes or years.
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People who can't keep their metaphors straight: "Cast in stone" should be "cast in concrete" or "carved in stone". How would one cast something in stone (I don't think lava is castable).
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(I don't think lava is castable).
Tell that to the 35000 residents of Pompeii.
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Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash. Herculaneum was buried under ash and pumice.
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People who can't keep their metaphors straight: "Cast in stone" should be "cast in concrete" or "carved in stone". How would one cast something in stone (I don't think lava is castable).
:( Intentionally mixing metaphors to confuse people is one of my favourite pastimes.
My favourite one is "Joka toiselle kuoppaa kaivaa, parhaiten nauraa". It's a mash-up of two:
"Joka toiselle kuoppaa kaivaa, siihen itse lankeaa" – He who digs a pit for another will fall into it himself
"Joka viimeksi nauraa, se parhaiten nauraa" – He who laughs last laughs best
Besides, certain types of lava is actually castable. Felsic lava, for example, produces obsidian, which is semi-castable.
It is also important to realize that "casting in stone" does not necessarily require high temperatures; only that the material is initially liquid, then turns into stone. This is how sedimentary rocks like sandstone are formed, after all.
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It doesn't necessarily literally mean cast in stone - it's saying it is as if cast in stone, to imply it's not going to change easily. There is something of the hyperbolics about it to make the point, just as when we say "tastes like cat's piss" about a beer, we don't literally mean that but you perfectly get the idea that it's not very nice.
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Obnoxious Forced Choice Options!
Just the other day, on software that I purchased (actually rented for a year). Basically the popup asks me if I want to install ANOTHER one of their products OR remind me later to install another one of their products. There is no other option - it is either install more of our crap that you did not ask for now, or we will annoy you later. Not even an 'x' to close the popup. So, to close the popup, I have "consented" to the later reminder.
It represents the discontinuation of the "don't remind me again" or "stop seeing this annoying spam message from us". WTF am I supposed to do - spent 4 hours figuring out where this is in the registry or finding someone who has written about it and presents a registry fix that is outdated and they (the software folks) have already decided to use another tactic.
I HAVE changed software (when it is convenient) for exactly these reasons.
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Roman Emperors used to propagate their legislation by carving it in stone for public display. That made sense.
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I HAVE changed software (when it is convenient) for exactly these reasons.
In the noughties, I rented a LOT of DVDs, until I got too fed up with the unskippable "Don't be a criminal", "FBI will talk to you if..." ads. Told my friendly local rental place manager why, and never rented a single DVD or BluRay since then.
They, too, reminded me of the old "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" question.
(That is, in both the software case and the above question, the question is deliberately phrased so that you, the answerer, must submit to the role the asker designated, with no true choice presented or question asked. It is particularly annoying when they claim the question/answer as a proof [of anything].)
Roman Emperors used to propagate their legislation by carving it in stone for public display. That made sense.
I think next summer I need to find a nice rounded river stone, and carve "Nothing" on it. So that I can have nothing carved in stone always with me.
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And then you can skip the stone...
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And then you can skip the stone...
Yeah! "I'm skipping nothing!", or, to confuse, "No, I prefer skipping nothing carved in stone instead." It's not unlike avoiding underutilisation of multiple negations.
I recall an episode of TruTV's World's Dumbest, where Tonya Harding says, "What comes around, goes around". Easy to miss, but darn funny nonsensical mistake if you really think about it.
I can see why these can be a pet peeve for some, though. It's not the same doing it deliberately, and doing it accidentally just because you don't care.
Missing the possessive suffix in Finnish is one of mine; common in speech, but stings like a bad pirate accent in written text. Arr.
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Eddie Vedder's song Say Hi.
:=\
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People who spell cord chord. They are two very different things
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My pet peeve are flashing banner adds, they are terribly distracting and actually make me feel sick. (Inserts vomit emoticon). :blah:
Furthermore, I would never purchase a product or service from any company who uses such annoying marketing techniques. :rant:
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My pet peeve are flashing banner adds, they are terribly distracting and actually make me feel sick. (Inserts vomit emoticon). :blah:
Furthermore, I would never purchase a product or service from any company who uses such annoying marketing techniques. :rant:
their was this web 1.0 video game forum. were it was ok to post animated gif's as past of your user profile.
including personal animated banner designs that show on every post.
hy I sell t shirts other stuff too! flashing banner!
pages of this forum looked like time square, as user's tried to outdo each other. :o
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Interesting but what has animated banners and tee shirts have in common. 🤔
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Interesting but what has animated banners and tee shirts have in common. 🤔
animated banners promoting merchandise on the old game maker forum. YoYo Games from 2007
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My pet peeve are flashing banner adds, they are terribly distracting and actually make me feel sick. (Inserts vomit emoticon). :blah:
Furthermore, I would never purchase a product or service from any company who uses such annoying marketing techniques. :rant:
My browser can be set to only play an animation once... one "play" is OK with me, but not a looping distraction!
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Telcos that require a reason for the change before they will submit your request.
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Telcos that require a reason for the change before they will submit your request.
"I want to" is not reason enough?
I suppose you could embellish and say something like "I've been sentenced to 10 years in prison and have no further need for phone service."
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(I'm just here for the 'Electronics' but... )
I love watching the shows on TV about Crime & Police Chases etc etc...
And without fail, (especially the English shows), they say something like....
"We got this 'Gentleman' on the 'Floor'... (OK, i'ts called the 'Ground' !!! 8) )
I don't mean one has to say "this dickhead" or this "druggie asshole" etc etc, but maybe...
"this guy", "man", "bloke", "suspect etc etc... but "Gentleman"!! Argh... :P
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"We got this 'Gentleman' on the 'Floor'... (OK, i'ts called the 'Ground' !!! 8) )
Bri'ish English is Bri'ish English, my Aussie mate.
Because of the era we live in, translated from Finnish that would be "We got this Customer on the ground..."
Now that, everyone being "a customer", gets my goat.
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Cyclists who expect me, a pedestrian, to step into the road so they can ride past on the footpath.
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(I'm just here for the 'Electronics' but... )
I love watching the shows on TV about Crime & Police Chases etc etc...
And without fail, (especially the English shows), they say something like....
"We got this 'Gentleman' on the 'Floor'... (OK, i'ts called the 'Ground' !!! 8) )
I don't mean one has to say "this dickhead" or this "druggie asshole" etc etc, but maybe...
"this guy", "man", "bloke", "suspect etc etc... but "Gentleman"!! Argh... :P
In these shows, how come the bad guy, when he runs out of ammunition, always throws his gun at the good guy?
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
Han shot first.
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
And their radios sound like WW2 AM with carbon microphones!
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Apostrophe plural's.
(runs away)
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(I'm just here for the 'Electronics' but... )
I love watching the shows on TV about Crime & Police Chases etc etc...
And without fail, (especially the English shows), they say something like....
"We got this 'Gentleman' on the 'Floor'... (OK, i'ts called the 'Ground' !!! 8) )
I don't mean one has to say "this dickhead" or this "druggie asshole" etc etc, but maybe...
"this guy", "man", "bloke", "suspect etc etc... but "Gentleman"!! Argh... :P
How about in "Midsomer Murders", where the baddy sets up some elaborate trap, like a falling bookcase, & the victim, instead of jumping out of the way, just stands there & gets squished.
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And why do people when chased by a car run down the middle of the road . .🤔. and the scene lasts about 5 minutes.. who can run that fast. ..
Most cars can do in excess of 40 Mph in first gear . .. new guiness book of records .🤪
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
Quite often the good guys seem to hit 2 or 3 of the bad guys with the one shot.
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
Quite often the good guys seem to hit 2 or 3 of the bad guys with the one shot.
The other thing is That the aliens always have the cool weapons shooting some Green plasma .
After finery killing the Bad Alien They never pick up the better weapon :palm: ..
Hell if that was me in a real life scenario I would take the better technology .
An post it to Dave for a tear Down :-DD
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Cyclists who expect me, a pedestrian, to step into the road so they can ride past on the footpath.
Or cyclists that ride in the car lane adjacent to a perfectly good bike path we spent millions of tax dollars to build. Or right on the line dividing the two so that you can't safely pass them without risking clipping them with your mirror. I cycle myself and I don't like to associate with cyclists.
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Talking about cycling, it is maddening to walk on side walks in Berlin. The cyclists have the right of way it seems.
When you park on the side and want to get down from the car, it is very dangerous.
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Talking about cycling, it is maddening to walk on side walks in Berlin. The cyclists have the right of way it seems.
When you park on the side and want to get down from the car, it is very dangerous.
They don't have the right of way on the sidewalk, at least not in most European countries. They are supposed to be on the bicycle path if there is one, or on the road if there isn't.
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In Copenhagen the bike path was immediately adjacent to the parking zone, between that zone and the sidewalk. As an ignorant American my first time exiting the passenger side of a car I nearly caused an accident and got some very rude remarks. The bikes absolutely do have the right of way in the bike path, and there is no way to exit a car and get to the sidewalk without crossing that path.
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Talking about cycling, it is maddening to walk on side walks in Berlin. The cyclists have the right of way it seems.
When you park on the side and want to get down from the car, it is very dangerous.
They don't have the right of way on the sidewalk, at least not in most European countries. They are supposed to be on the bicycle path if there is one, or on the road if there isn't.
Nobody has right of way at all. There's my pet peeve for the day.
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They don't have the right of way on the sidewalk, at least not in most European countries. They are supposed to be on the bicycle path if there is one, or on the road if there isn't.
The problem is that so many of them behave like they are above the law. They ride on the sidewalks, they blow through stop signs without slowing down, they get ride around with a chip on their shoulder and blow a gasket any time a car driver does something they don't like, go on about how cars have to share the road and all that, but they can't be bothered to follow the rules themselves. When I refer to "them" I don't mean ALL cyclists obviously but there are enough of them like that to be a problem.
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They don't have the right of way on the sidewalk, at least not in most European countries. They are supposed to be on the bicycle path if there is one, or on the road if there isn't.
The problem is that so many of them behave like they are above the law. They ride on the sidewalks, they blow through stop signs without slowing down, they get ride around with a chip on their shoulder and blow a gasket any time a car driver does something they don't like, go on about how cars have to share the road and all that, but they can't be bothered to follow the rules themselves. When I refer to "them" I don't mean ALL cyclists obviously but there are enough of them like that to be a problem.
Nothing a little judicious law enforcement couldn't cure... but there are so many donuts, and so much coffee, and so few hours in a day! :D
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my first time exiting the passenger side of a car I nearly caused an accident and got some very rude remarks. The bikes absolutely do have the right of way in the bike path
It is not that the bike has right of way but that opening the door has responsibilities. Had the person been walking and you opened the door onto the footpath right in front of him, you'd still be at fault. Another car taking out your door as you open it - yep, still your fault.
Here in the UK it is simpler: the driver is responsible for what histheir passenger does, so in your case the cyclist's ire, and a possible NIP, should have been directed at the driver.
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
Sorry for the time delay...)...
Naa... I've been watching virtually every re-run of the old Combat! TV show. I love it, but they are all hopeless shooters!!!
6 or 8 Germans and 6 or 8 Americans maybe 50 to 70 ft apart with logs for 'protection'. They even all half stand up at times, to
take a shot!! 5-10 mins later, and nearly 1000 rounds fired, (they must carry 50 clips each!), maybe 1 is down!! >:(
Just ONE guy, with a set of Scopes on his rifle could get the LOT with 20 rounds Max!! Maybe even just 8 rounds! |O
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
Sorry for the time delay...)...
Naa... I've been watching virtually every re-run of the old Combat! TV show. I love it, but they are all hopeless shooters!!!
6 or 8 Germans and 6 or 8 Americans maybe 50 to 70 ft apart with logs for 'protection'. They even all half stand up at times, to
take a shot!! 5-10 mins later, and nearly 1000 rounds fired, (they must carry 50 clips each!), maybe 1 is down!! >:(
Just ONE guy, with a set of Scopes on his rifle could get the LOT with 20 rounds Max!! Maybe even just 8 rounds! |O
Hollywood clips are special they have Magic Auto refill :-DD They don't Miss, they are shooting at the Camera Man >:D
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You'll love Portugal then.
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Lets face it, going forwards at the end of the day the reality is rolled out. The issue of turnkey levvvveraging and monetization with due respect.
who makes this shit up? What is it for? :-//
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Here in the UK it is simpler: the driver is responsible for what histheir passenger does
I have been in this exact legal situation so I know that rule only applies to passengers in the front. If the front passenger has no seatbelt, for example, the driver is responsible. If a passenger in the rear has no seatbelt, the passenger is responsible.
The logic is that the driver can observe and correct a front seat passenger but it would not be reasonable to expect them to be aware of the actions of someone directly behind them.
So, not as simple as it appears.
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I sit slightly corrected :)
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Here in the UK it is simpler: the driver is responsible for what histheir passenger does
I have been in this exact legal situation so I know that rule only applies to passengers in the front. If the front passenger has no seatbelt, for example, the driver is responsible. If a passenger in the rear has no seatbelt, the passenger is responsible.
The logic is that the driver can observe and correct a front seat passenger but it would not be reasonable to expect them to be aware of the actions of someone directly behind them.
So, not as simple as it appears.
My mum's car specifically tells you which seatbelt in the back isn't in use. Now how does it work? :)
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Here in the UK it is simpler: the driver is responsible for what histheir passenger does
I have been in this exact legal situation so I know that rule only applies to passengers in the front. If the front passenger has no seatbelt, for example, the driver is responsible. If a passenger in the rear has no seatbelt, the passenger is responsible.
The logic is that the driver can observe and correct a front seat passenger but it would not be reasonable to expect them to be aware of the actions of someone directly behind them.
So, not as simple as it appears.
My mum's car specifically tells you which seatbelt in the back isn't in use. Now how does it work? :)
Anyone have the guts to disobey your mum??? :D
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
You've obviously never watched 'The A Team'!
-Pat
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
You've obviously never watched 'The A Team'!
You're right, I haven't.
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When in movies like Star Wars they have all this unimaginably super duper technology but they still can’t shoot straight at each other with their laser beams or whatever. They take at least 50,000 shots to get one single hit.
That only applies to the bad guys. The good guys almost always hit what they're aiming at, usually with the first shot.
You've obviously never watched 'The A Team'!
You're right, I haven't.
You haven't missed anything. (though they did, plenty...)
-Pat
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I think they intended to miss though, don't want kids watching prime time tv shows to see death so the A-team would miss intentionally to just scare the bad guys.
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I think they intended to miss though, don't want kids watching prime time tv shows to see death so the A-team would miss intentionally to just scare the bad guys.
I read something about it at some point, having grown up in the 80s it was virtually impossible to be unfamiliar with the A Team. Apparently a significant factor was that Mr T did not like violence, and the result was that much of the violence was cartoonish without people actually getting shot up.
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I think they intended to miss though, don't want kids watching prime time tv shows to see death so the A-team would miss intentionally to just scare the bad guys.
I read something about it at some point, having grown up in the 80s it was virtually impossible to be unfamiliar with the A Team. Apparently a significant factor was that Mr T did not like violence, and the result was that much of the violence was cartoonish without people actually getting shot up.
In the 60s, there was a popular show called The Rifleman. It was about a peaceful loving man in the old West, just trying to raise his son after his wife died of small pox. Good wholesome family values. Nevertheless, he figured out a way to shoot 2-3 people an episode. The popularity of the show persists today and, of course, someone counted all the carnage....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrOPVo5GFY4&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrOPVo5GFY4&feature=youtu.be)
More seriously, when I was young I thought that the way to deal with so much violence on TV, was to show realistic violence...show the horror of what it really looks like as opposed to the TV violence of those days (all that shooting but no blood to speak of). As I got older, I realized how naive I was. People can habituate to anything....I guess that can be a peeve sometimes, but not so much a pet peeve.
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I think they intended to miss though, don't want kids watching prime time tv shows to see death so the A-team would miss intentionally to just scare the bad guys.
I read something about it at some point, having grown up in the 80s it was virtually impossible to be unfamiliar with the A Team. Apparently a significant factor was that Mr T did not like violence, and the result was that much of the violence was cartoonish without people actually getting shot up.
In the 60s, there was a popular show called The Rifleman. It was about a peaceful loving man in the old West, just trying to raise his son after his wife died of small pox. Good wholesome family values. Nevertheless, he figured out a way to shoot 2-3 people an episode. The popularity of the show persists today and, of course, someone counted all the carnage....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrOPVo5GFY4&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrOPVo5GFY4&feature=youtu.be)
More seriously, when I was young I thought that the way to deal with so much violence on TV, was to show realistic violence...show the horror of what it really looks like as opposed to the TV violence of those days (all that shooting but no blood to speak of). As I got older, I realized how naive I was. People can habituate to anything....I guess that can be a peeve sometimes, but not so much a pet peeve.
This was common to almost all post WWII movies and television in the US. Strong good guy vs bad guy themes. Might makes right. Then after Vietnam war there was almost a complete 180. Existing power structures were almost always portrayed as evil. No good guys. Power always corrupts.
I guess cartoonish views of morality are what sells. Not sure if a more nuanced approach would actually change anything in real life.
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I think they intended to miss though, don't want kids watching prime time tv shows to see death so the A-team would miss intentionally to just scare the bad guys.
I read something about it at some point, having grown up in the 80s it was virtually impossible to be unfamiliar with the A Team. Apparently a significant factor was that Mr T did not like violence, and the result was that much of the violence was cartoonish without people actually getting shot up.
In the 60s, there was a popular show called The Rifleman. It was about a peaceful loving man in the old West, just trying to raise his son after his wife died of small pox. Good wholesome family values. Nevertheless, he figured out a way to shoot 2-3 people an episode. The popularity of the show persists today and, of course, someone counted all the carnage....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrOPVo5GFY4&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrOPVo5GFY4&feature=youtu.be)
More seriously, when I was young I thought that the way to deal with so much violence on TV, was to show realistic violence...show the horror of what it really looks like as opposed to the TV violence of those days (all that shooting but no blood to speak of). As I got older, I realized how naive I was. People can habituate to anything....I guess that can be a peeve sometimes, but not so much a pet peeve.
This was common to almost all post WWII movies and television in the US. Strong good guy vs bad guy themes. Might makes right. Then after Vietnam war there was almost a complete 180. Existing power structures were almost always portrayed as evil. No good guys. Power always corrupts.
I guess cartoonish views of morality are what sells. Not sure if a more nuanced approach would actually change anything in real life.
I think it probably would change things, on the "monkey see, monkey do" principle. But this cat is well and truly out of the bag now. Just another way to fail in life if you're not careful.
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I dunno, I've seen a lot of violent TV shows and movies, played a lot of violent video games when I was younger, never went into a life of crime, never murdered anyone. Maybe some people have a harder time separating reality from fiction.
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I dunno, I've seen a lot of violent TV shows and movies, played a lot of violent video games when I was younger, never went into a life of crime, never murdered anyone. Maybe some people have a harder time separating reality from fiction.
Who knows what you get up to when you're sleeping.
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I dunno, I've seen a lot of violent TV shows and movies, played a lot of violent video games when I was younger, never went into a life of crime, never murdered anyone. Maybe some people have a harder time separating reality from fiction.
I don’t for one minute think violent tv shows, movies and video games *make* people do violent things in real life, but I do think they reduce the reluctance to do such things. So a person that might not have done such a thing in given circumstances might now be maybe more likely to. That doesn’t mean they actually will of course.
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I dunno, I've seen a lot of violent TV shows and movies, played a lot of violent video games when I was younger, never went into a life of crime, never murdered anyone. Maybe some people have a harder time separating reality from fiction.
I don’t for one minute think violent tv shows, movies and video games *make* people do violent things in real life, but I do think they reduce the reluctance to do such things. So a person that might not have done such a thing in given circumstances might now be maybe more likely to. That doesn’t mean they actually will of course.
Some people hold back from being evil for fear of being bashed or shot so all in all it balances itself out :popcorn:
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"Amperage" and "Ampacity", words that tell me you need to be institutionalized or arrested for misuse of electricity.
I have attached a document describing the correct way to specify conductors.
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"Amperage" and "Ampacity", words that tell me you need to be institutionalized or arrested for misuse of electricity.
I have attached a document describing the correct way to specify conductors.
I have no words for that.
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I'm sure it will work out, asking RS for a reel of cumquat.
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"Amperage" and "Ampacity", words that tell me you need to be institutionalized or arrested for misuse of electricity.
I have attached a document describing the correct way to specify conductors.
Ampacity is a portmanteau of Ampere and Capacity... just like we say "motorcar" instead of "motorized carriage"?
Amperage, on the other hand...
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My new pet peeve is using silly code words in place of a proper and easily understood description. ::)
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That one has to be a joke, right?
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My new pet peeve is using silly code words in place of a proper and easily understood description. ::)
Yea... First we just had LGB or GLB, then we had to add Trans, etc etc. So now it's...
L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ to try to cover them all... (The + sign to cover future addendum's!)
I'm not against them, but why not include ALL people, 'S' straight, or 'U' for undecided !! 8)
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Another pet peeve: movies and TV shows with a scientific or technical theme that totally mess up the science and/or technology.
Case in point: Infinite resolution cameras. A tech on a CSI show will pull the video from a CCTV camera along a street and isolate the reflection of a car in a small part of the frame and zoom in. The license plate will be a complete blur. Then the tech presses a button and presto! the license plate is perfectly readable.
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Yea... First we just had LGB or GLB, then we had to add Trans, etc etc. So now it's...
L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ to try to cover them all... (The + sign to cover future addendum's!)
I'm not against them, but why not include ALL people, 'S' straight, or 'U' for undecided !! 8)
In that case maybe we could just shorten it to LG+. I don't really understand this trend of trying to separately name every possible variation of something. We don't generally use 50 different names for all the shades of green or whatever. People are individuals, no matter how many buckets you have there will always be someone who doesn't quite fit into one of them so why have so many buckets?
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People are individuals, no matter how many buckets you have there will always be someone who doesn't quite fit into one of them so why have so many buckets?
My position is, why drag those buckets along anyway?
I mean, we don't wear badges with a picture of our genitals or anything, because that would be silly and irrelevant. Similarly, the particular details of how someone expresses their sexuality or gender just isn't relevant in most situations. I don't need to know your sexual preferences to be a friend or colleague working with you.
I know that to some, their sexual preferences or gender expressions are a core part of their identity, but fact is, social interaction is interaction; it cannot be dictated.
These new social rules of behaviour are really hard on people like me who just cannot perceive the importance of sexual preferences or gender expressions. We are basically excluded from social networking, labeled as "haters", while we'd be happy to interact with anyone, just have serious difficulty trying to follow these newfangled social language "rules". And, because I see these "rules" as basically either as a social game, or divisive tribalism, I don't even want to.
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My position is, why drag those buckets along anyway?
I mean, we don't wear badges with a picture of our genitals or anything, because that would be silly and irrelevant. Similarly, the particular details of how someone expresses their sexuality or gender just isn't relevant in most situations. I don't need to know your sexual preferences to be a friend or colleague working with you.
I know that to some, their sexual preferences or gender expressions are a core part of their identity, but fact is, social interaction is interaction; it cannot be dictated.
These new social rules of behaviour are really hard on people like me who just cannot perceive the importance of sexual preferences or gender expressions. We are basically excluded from social networking, labeled as "haters", while we'd be happy to interact with anyone, just have serious difficulty trying to follow these newfangled social language "rules". And, because I see these "rules" as basically either as a social game, or divisive tribalism, I don't even want to.
Well I don't necessarily disagree, but the desire to classify and sort "things" seems to be an innate part of human psychology, and the tribalism as well. Looking under the polished surface of modern society we have really not changed much from the tribal hunter/gatherers we spent most of our evolution as. Humans are inherently tribal animals, they naturally form into groups of individuals linked by a common bond. That bond can be their gender, sexuality, race, country of origin, socio/economic status, hobby interests, career, political affiliations or anything else. Some people seem to be much more strongly driven by this than others but everyone does it to some degree and it is the core reason behind what I believe is a fact that it is impossible to legislate or mandate inclusivity. Humans will to some degree ALWAYS give preferential treatment of some sort to their own tribe.
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Humans will to some degree ALWAYS give preferential treatment of some sort to their own tribe.
I fully agree. I only claim that we do have some power over how we define those tribes. For technical discussions on the net, and for engineering/science work in general, (hobby) interests and experience makes for a much better glue for a "tribe".
Like Big Clive says in his Saturday Lives, "Hello to my technical family."
He has pointed out a couple of times that he knows quite a few technical people who aren't heterosexual. I don't think it is a coincidence: I think that because technical people are more interested in technical things than social details, it is much easier for all kinds of persons to fit in. It does not matter how "weird" you are; as long as you do good work and help others you're accepted, because those social details are just details, a spice if you will, and nothing relevant to whether or not one is considered a member of "the technical tribe".
(And, if I am correct on this, it means that "inclusivity efforts" in engineering/science fields, from programming projects to electrical engineering, will backfire: they impose new behavioural norms and patterns where individual variety was widely accepted, and therefore just end up excluding people. This has already happened, StackExchange network probably being the best example.)
For social networking like Fakebook, Twatter, etc., I have no idea or comments, since I do not use those.
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He has pointed out a couple of times that he knows quite a few technical people who aren't heterosexual. I don't think it is a coincidence: I think that because technical people are more interested in technical things than social details, it is much easier for all kinds of persons to fit in.
Ummm... so if tech people aren't too interested in social details, how does Big Clive know how his tech people hang?
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He has pointed out a couple of times that he knows quite a few technical people who aren't heterosexual. I don't think it is a coincidence: I think that because technical people are more interested in technical things than social details, it is much easier for all kinds of persons to fit in.
Ummm... so if tech people aren't too interested in social details, how does Big Clive know how his tech people hang?
Patreon only after-stream party? :o
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He has pointed out a couple of times that he knows quite a few technical people who aren't heterosexual. I don't think it is a coincidence: I think that because technical people are more interested in technical things than social details, it is much easier for all kinds of persons to fit in.
Ummm... so if tech people aren't too interested in social details, how does Big Clive know how his tech people hang?
He has done a lot of freelance work with lots of people. Don't you ever make friends at work? After working with them a few weeks, and going for beers or whatever, and opening up?
I'm not sure "interested" is the correct word, though. I am interested in many things that are not important at all to me; I don't know how to express that. Perhaps, "social details are not a factor", because by default, everyone is different, an individual?
It's not like orientation etc. needs to be kept hidden. It just isn't important at all. It can be interesting, but it is not relevant. To me, it's the sort of thing that may come up naturally in some discussion, or perhaps when revealing personal details over a nice lunch or beers after work, or something, and you trust the person enough to consider them a friend: voluntary, possibly interesting, but fundamentally irrelevant: like the color of your hair or skin, or whether you sleep with socks on or off, or whether you prefer cats over dogs.
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There are certainly some non-hetero people that I work with, it's not relevant to the job but it's not exactly a secret either. When you spend 8+ hours a day around a group of people you tend to hear about whatever is going on in their personal lives and in most cases end up friends with at least some of them eventually. Whether the numbers in technical fields are higher than in other types of jobs I really don't know, unless you count the fast food job I worked when I was a teenager I've always worked in tech. Generally techies tend to be pretty accepting I think, I've worked worked with quite an eclectic range of people over the years, some of them quite strange, but if they had talent and weren't total jerks they got along fine.
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or whether you sleep with socks on or off,
OMG!
What kind of weirdo sleeps with their socks on? :scared:
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Don't you ever make friends at work? After working with them a few weeks, and going for beers or whatever, and opening up?
Used to, not so much now it's hard to talk to people. But thinking back to previous lives, nothing pops into mind about anyone.
Perhaps I have just been too uninterested in people's private lives.
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or whether you sleep with socks on or off,
OMG!
What kind of weirdo sleeps with their socks on? :scared:
I grew up in Northern Minnesota, where the cold weather kept the riff-raff out. We had socks dedicated to bed use.
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or whether you sleep with socks on or off,
OMG!
What kind of weirdo sleeps with their socks on? :scared:
I bet you there are nights in winter you tuck your tracky dacks into your socks before going to bed :-DD
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100,000,000 pF ! WTF is wrong with capacitor manufacturers. Marty, start the DeLorean! Oh wait need 1.21GpF's and we only got 0.1GpF.
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or whether you sleep with socks on or off,
OMG!
What kind of weirdo sleeps with their socks on? :scared:
I bet you there are nights in winter you tuck your tracky dacks into your socks before going to bed :-DD
Or if the person next to you has cold feet! :rant:
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Don't you ever make friends at work? After working with them a few weeks, and going for beers or whatever, and opening up?
Used to, not so much now it's hard to talk to people. But thinking back to previous lives, nothing pops into mind about anyone.
Perhaps I have just been too uninterested in people's private lives.
I personally just don't notice. I once did some programming work for a gay couple, without realizing they were gay. It just isn't relevant to me. They even introduced me to the puppy they just got, and I didn't "put two and two together", so to speak. :palm:
Note that in real face-to-face interactions, I'm quite easy to talk to, and talkative myself. It is not a matter of not talking/listening.
Which is exactly why these social "you must observe subtle social cues, and respect them, or you will be ostracized" rules are so hard for me. Impossible, really.
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Or if the person next to you has cold feet! :rant:
I wish I had that problem, instead when I go to bed it sometimes feels like the soles of my feet are on fire and I end up poking them out from the covers. It has always affected me for as long as I remember, not every night but frequently. Occasionally it's to the point where I'll get up and go stand on the cool tile floor in the bathroom for a few minutes. I've heard others complain of the same thing but I've never seen a conclusive answer to why it happens.
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Note that in real face-to-face interactions, I'm quite easy to talk to, and talkative myself. It is not a matter of not talking/listening.
Which is exactly why these social "you must observe subtle social cues, and respect them, or you will be ostracized" rules are so hard for me. Impossible, really.
You might be marginally autistic, I am and can certainly relate to that difficulty with social cues. I just don't "get it", never have, and at this point I probably never will. All I can do is observe the way other people respond in various situations and try to emulate them.
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Yea... First we just had LGB or GLB, then we had to add Trans, etc etc. So now it's...
L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ to try to cover them all... (The + sign to cover future addendum's!)
I'm not against them, but why not include ALL people, 'S' straight, or 'U' for undecided !! 8)
In that case maybe we could just shorten it to LG+. I don't really understand this trend of trying to separately name every possible variation of something. We don't generally use 50 different names for all the shades of green or whatever. People are individuals, no matter how many buckets you have there will always be someone who doesn't quite fit into one of them so why have so many buckets?
Sorry, I'll get off this branch here... (I started the 'L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+' thing...). I don't have a personal problem at all, with
anyone in this regard and I know many! The only problem I noticed right back from when my boys were in BoyScouts
and played Football etc, is the LOGISTICAL problems!! Boys (here) can't join 'GirlGuides', but girls can join BoyScouts.
A 'girl' may be transgender now, but what do you do in regards to change-rooms or toilets etc?? for football too etc...
And when a Girl was with BoyScouts, she had to have a woman chaperone, and used up a 6 person tent on her own
so the boys had to crowd into what was remaining. The Scout Hall even had to build a separate toilet/change-room
for her. (She left after a few months). These are the things that need to be taken into account too!! :P
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Yea... First we just had LGB or GLB, then we had to add Trans, etc etc. So now it's...
L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ to try to cover them all... (The + sign to cover future addendum's!)
I'm not against them, but why not include ALL people, 'S' straight, or 'U' for undecided !! 8)
In that case maybe we could just shorten it to LG+. I don't really understand this trend of trying to separately name every possible variation of something. We don't generally use 50 different names for all the shades of green or whatever. People are individuals, no matter how many buckets you have there will always be someone who doesn't quite fit into one of them so why have so many buckets?
Sorry, I'll get off this branch here... (I started the 'L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+' thing...). I don't have a personal problem at all, with
anyone in this regard and I know many! The only problem I noticed right back from when my boys were in BoyScouts
and played Football etc, is the LOGISTICAL problems!! Boys (here) can't join 'GirlGuides', but girls can join BoyScouts.
A 'girl' may be transgender now, but what do you do in regards to change-rooms or toilets etc?? for football too etc...
And when a Girl was with BoyScouts, she had to have a woman chaperone, and used up a 6 person tent on her own
so the boys had to crowd into what was remaining. The Scout Hall even had to build a separate toilet/change-room
for her. (She left after a few months). These are the things that need to be taken into account too!! :P
As the Brother of a Gay Sister Glenn where do you get of other than one handed typing! Undecided is grossly offensive >:(
Other than that :bullshit: this is an Electronics forum so take your personal opinions and piss off to which ever cellar you like!
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Yea... First we just had LGB or GLB, then we had to add Trans, etc etc. So now it's...
L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ to try to cover them all... (The + sign to cover future addendum's!)
I'm not against them, but why not include ALL people, 'S' straight, or 'U' for undecided !! 8)
In that case maybe we could just shorten it to LG+. I don't really understand this trend of trying to separately name every possible variation of something. We don't generally use 50 different names for all the shades of green or whatever. People are individuals, no matter how many buckets you have there will always be someone who doesn't quite fit into one of them so why have so many buckets?
Sorry, I'll get off this branch here... (I started the 'L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+' thing...). I don't have a personal problem at all, with
anyone in this regard and I know many! The only problem I noticed right back from when my boys were in BoyScouts
and played Football etc, is the LOGISTICAL problems!! Boys (here) can't join 'GirlGuides', but girls can join BoyScouts.
A 'girl' may be transgender now, but what do you do in regards to change-rooms or toilets etc?? for football too etc...
And when a Girl was with BoyScouts, she had to have a woman chaperone, and used up a 6 person tent on her own
so the boys had to crowd into what was remaining. The Scout Hall even had to build a separate toilet/change-room
for her. (She left after a few months). These are the things that need to be taken into account too!! :P
As the Brother of a Gay Sister Glenn where do you get of other than one handed typing! Undecided is grossly offensive >:(
Other than that :bullshit: this is an Electronics forum so take your personal opinions and piss off to which ever cellar you like!
WOW!! You really are a nasty bully piece of work. If you read anything, including some other peoples followup comments,
(about 10 or 15??), you would realize I'm talking now about the LOGISTICS. I couldn't give a @#$%ing rats arse about your
'sister'. Good on her! I have family & friends that are too... What's your point??????
As for "Not on an electronics forum"... you dip shit!! This original post was about 'Pet Peeves tech or otherwise'...
And wasn't started by ME!!! So go crawl back in your OWN insecure little world! Boy, are you fucked up & wrong!! :box:
I make NO apologies about my response here. :phew:
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"Undecided" you go tell your apparent people you know they are undecided and see how they respond!
You want to allow pet peeves that are off topic then low lifes like you are a peeve!
Post 581 is yours and I find ZERO posts before your :bullshit:
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"Undecided" you go tell your apparent people you know they are undecided and see how they respond!
I would call gender fluid “undecided”.
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"Undecided" you go tell your apparent people you know they are undecided and see how they respond!
I would call gender fluid “undecided”.
This also isn't able to cover it even remotely. Gender identification & Sexual orientation are not able to be covered by a single term and are really nothing to do with each other.
Reducing peoples identities to 'undecided' remains WRONG.
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Somebody has hit a nerve.
Maybe that should be added as one of my pet peeves. The way some people fly off the handle and blow a gasket over stuff that just seems trivial and completely unimportant to me. I really don't understand why the perceptions others have over one's identity would be a big deal. I've never had anyone confuse my gender but if they do I can't even comprehend being upset by it, I mean whatever, I can't control how they perceive me and I don't care. The perception and pronouns someone uses to describe me have absolutely zero impact on my self worth. It has become such a minefield that there are people I'd rather just not associate with, not because I have any problem with them being whoever they are but due to the risk of triggering their ire due to my own lack of social skills and empathy. I refuse the play the identity politics game, and I refuse to get on the euphemism treadmill. I perceive these things as a completely superfluous waste of time and I cannot even process why they are of more than passing importance to anyone.
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WOW!! You really are a nasty bully piece of work. If you read anything, including some other peoples followup comments,
(about 10 or 15??), you would realize I'm talking now about the LOGISTICS. I couldn't give a @#$%ing rats arse about your
'sister'. Good on her! I have family & friends that are too... What's your point??????
As for "Not on an electronics forum"... you dip shit!! This original post was about 'Pet Peeves tech or otherwise'...
And wasn't started by ME!!! So go crawl back in your OWN insecure little world! Boy, are you fucked up & wrong!! :box:
I make NO apologies about my response here. :phew:
Glenn, please exit this thread now before you get booted out of it.
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WOW .. :o :box: :scared:
I think That the Subject Needs to be changed ASP .
Nice COOL :popcorn:
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Another annoying peeve: The Amazon FireTV UI returns you to the main screen after only a few minutes when pausing a show. This is ridiculous. When I hit the pause button, I want it to stay right where I am, even if I don't hit the play button again for a week.
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Yet another peeve: One place I've worked had wall-mounted thermostats and the company put a locked plastic case over the thermostats. That's fine, if they set a reasonable temperature, but at this place the cheap bastards set the temperature way too low in the winter and way too high in the summer to try to save money, the comfort of the employees be damned. This being an engineering company, it didn't take us poor sods long to figure out a solution: mount a soldering iron under the thermostat's case in the summer and a liberal use of component freeze spray in the winter. Worked like a charm.
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Yet another peeve: One place I've worked had wall-mounted thermostats and the company put a locked plastic case over the thermostats. That's fine, if they set a reasonable temperature, but at this place the cheap bastards set the temperature way too low in the winter and way too high in the summer to try to save money, the comfort of the employees be damned. This being an engineering company, it didn't take us poor sods long to figure out a solution: mount a soldering iron under the thermostat's case in the summer and a liberal use of component freeze spay in the winter. Worked like a charm.
I remember a place that had those. I pretty quickly figured out I could reach a straightened paperclip through one of the slots and twiddle the dial with it. A strategically placed desk lamp also worked back in the incandescent days. On one occasion the building maintenance guy dropped in and asked us to move the lamp because the guy in the next room was "freezing his balls off".
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Yet another peeve: One place I've worked had wall-mounted thermostats and the company put a locked plastic case over the thermostats. That's fine, if they set a reasonable temperature, but at this place the cheap bastards set the temperature way too low in the winter and way too high in the summer to try to save money, the comfort of the employees be damned. This being an engineering company, it didn't take us poor sods long to figure out a solution: mount a soldering iron under the thermostat's case in the summer and a liberal use of component freeze spay in the winter. Worked like a charm.
My Mom was in hospital a few years ago and another old girl in her room had a very home-grown solution to the thermostat problem: Get a small towel (or whatever), soak it in cold water and drape it over the thermostat box. It worked every time.
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My electronics related
power saving mode when it not needed, times-out on LCD displays.
it had a clock and 5 other unwanted modes . its more complicated then needed.
wrong type of display for the control interface. 3 digit 7 segment, when you need a full character display
too many or too little buttons.
no reset button or go back button or undo.
too many unknown icons on buttons. lack of text on the control interface.
poor contrast or text and or icons in pastel colors. hard to see control interface.
its made to sit vertical. it has a vertical dvd Blu-ray tray. on gaming consoles but not on high-end Ultra HD Blu-ray players
you need a phone app to use it. even though its a stand-alone device with its own buttons.
its more then 20 kg or 44 lbs but has no hand grip or handles.
plastic molded plugs that have little or no strain relief cable gland. so the kettle plug cable gets pulled out.
plastic device case, that has hard to see raised molded plastic text. when recessed text can have a different color paint added to the text.
only one cheap remote control, when the device costs 100 times as much. how hard is it to add a his & Hers spare remote.
for the life of the device.
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I'm not sure if I've grumped about this before, but DMMs with a "power saving" feature that shuts the thing down right in the middle of doing a measurement.
My old Fluke77 does power down, but it waits until the thing has not shown a reading other than zero / OL
for a reasonable time, but the new " hi-tech" things apparently use a "dumb" timer.
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I'm not sure if I've grumped about this before, but DMMs with a "power saving" feature that shuts the thing down right in the middle of doing a measurement.
My old Fluke77 does power down, but it waits until the thing has not shown a reading other than zero / OL
for a reasonable time, but the new " hi-tech" things apparently use a "dumb" timer.
I hate that too. At least with my 87 you can hold down a button as you turn it on to disable the shutoff, it would be nice if it was a persistent option though.
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Razor sharp edges on stamped metal chassises.
I've got an overactive immune system, so those papercuts always got inflamed. Painful.
Then I found that the silver-coated bandaids (antibacterial) do work, so when I used those on my fingers for a day, no more painful inflamed papercut issues.
And now I found out that antibacterial bandaids are considered a no-no now, so one cannot get them here anymore. Dammit!
(No, I'm not an antibacterial fan, and I don't drink colloidal silver for some foo-fah reason. Metals like silver and copper do kill bacteria and viruses, though. I consider them appropriate for when the tips of your pokey bits get inflamed otherwise. And also within the risky triangle (mouth-nose area, where infections can more easily pass into the brain). I don't use them elsewhere, though.)
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Surely the answer is to buy only copper or silver chassis to skip the middleman.
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Surely the answer is to buy only copper or silver chassis to skip the middleman.
No, they should be made of solid gold or platinum, since those are biocompatible.
A truly nefarious company would make them out of solid nickel, because many people get an allergic reaction off nickel.
The other option with those chassis papercuts is to use disinfectant gel, but then I leave fingerprints everywhere. If I put a bandaid or something on top of the gel, the bandaid slides around, like wearing two sets of gloves, so I get almost zero tactile feedback. With my bumbly sausage-fingers, I'm then about as effective as replacing my fingers with actual sausages. (Since I'm a partial to good sausages, I'd be likely to chomp them off in my sleep, so that's not a solution either.)
Those silver bandaids really were the bees knees for fingertip papercuts. :'(
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A few drops of colloidal silver on a regular band-aid?
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A few drops of colloidal silver on a regular band-aid?
Would it work? I don't know.
Bare silver and copper surfaces destroy bacterial and viral cell/encasement surfaces on contact, that's how they work. Does colloidal silver do the same? I dunno.
The reason the bandaids are no longer sold here is exactly because they're antibacterial, by the way. (They used to be sold at pharmacies, and were actual scientifically verified working products; this is not the kind of pseudoscience drinking colloidal silver is.) By overusing antibacterial "tools" we're just selecting for stronger bacteria, so banning them does make sense... but for this particular use case (as well as some others, like say wound coverings after surgery), the antibacterial nature is actually preferable even considering the bigger picture.
What I haven't checked, are wound adhesives. (Basically cyanoacrylate glues.) My body produces quite "stiff" scar tissue, and I already have one annoying subcutaneous scar tissue clump in a finger pad. Papercuts don't tend to be that deep, so maybe gluing them closed would work.
I'm not sure if there are gloves that would protect against handling those almost-serrated stamped metal edges. Even just a tight grip can cause some cuts; you don't need to drag your fingies along the edge. They're so small that I'm not sure even puncture-proof gloves can protect against them. I've mentioned before that I actually prefer taking a file or some sandpaper to the edges before building a PC, because I find these stamped metal edges so annoying.
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Try kevlar glove liners. Yes, they're a thing.
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One thing that drives me nuts here in Canada is one of the habits TV news editors have when showing an interview. The graphic tag line that shows who is being interviewed stays on the screen for about 1.7 seconds! Who reads that fast? And it doesn't matter how much, or little, text is there, it's impossible to read it all in that time. That much time can elapse just with recognizing that its there and moving your eyes to begin reading it and then, poof! it's gone. And if there is an unfamiliar acronym or lengthy multi-word descriptor, forget it! :rant: :scared:
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What I haven't checked, are wound adhesives.
I use them on and off. My issue is lack of clotting, so a trivial wound can seep for a long time. The plastic skin works fine, although it stings like buggery when first applied. Presumably superglue would work as well, but the proper stuff isn't that expensive and you know it hasn't got any toxic additives.
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Pet peeve, blue backlights on LCD devices with an already poor contrast ratio and viewing angle, so you cannot see the display, and the glare drowns it out. Also the use of the teeniest tiniest display possible, with a high dot density, so you literally need a magnifier to read it. There are plenty of displays though that are tiny, yet perfectly legible, and I had a good number of OLED displays on small media players that I have no issue with, mostly because the display is a white OLED and has good contrast, Transcend and LG seem to have gotten it right, but the others.......
Then Saturday a timer, with a display with a 15 degree usable angle, so I was lying down on the grass to see the display. At least Marley the lab was happy, as she was licking, and brought a few toys to play with. She has not destroyed the fishing float yet, about the only toy that has lasted more than a day with her.
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A few drops of colloidal silver on a regular band-aid?
Would it work? I don't know.
Bare silver and copper surfaces destroy bacterial and viral cell/encasement surfaces on contact, that's how they work. Does colloidal silver do the same? I dunno.
The reason the bandaids are no longer sold here is exactly because they're antibacterial, by the way. (They used to be sold at pharmacies, and were actual scientifically verified working products; this is not the kind of pseudoscience drinking colloidal silver is.) By overusing antibacterial "tools" we're just selecting for stronger bacteria, so banning them does make sense... but for this particular use case (as well as some others, like say wound coverings after surgery), the antibacterial nature is actually preferable even considering the bigger picture.
What I haven't checked, are wound adhesives. (Basically cyanoacrylate glues.) My body produces quite "stiff" scar tissue, and I already have one annoying subcutaneous scar tissue clump in a finger pad. Papercuts don't tend to be that deep, so maybe gluing them closed would work.
I'm not sure if there are gloves that would protect against handling those almost-serrated stamped metal edges. Even just a tight grip can cause some cuts; you don't need to drag your fingies along the edge. They're so small that I'm not sure even puncture-proof gloves can protect against them. I've mentioned before that I actually prefer taking a file or some sandpaper to the edges before building a PC, because I find these stamped metal edges so annoying.
I use the "wound glue" every time I have an issue like that - I like it 100x better than any plaster in terms of both lack of impediment to using your finger afterwards as well as speedy healing. It forms a strong seal over the wound to keep things hygienic. It works especially well on "gash" type cuts, like paper cuts. Definitely worth a try IMHO.
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One thing that drives me nuts here in Canada is one of the habits TV news editors have when showing an interview. The graphic tag line that shows who is being interviewed stays on the screen for about 1.7 seconds! Who reads that fast? And it doesn't matter how much, or little, text is there, it's impossible to read it all in that time. That much time can elapse just with recognizing that its there and moving your eyes to begin reading it and then, poof! it's gone. And if there is an unfamiliar acronym or lengthy multi-word descriptor, forget it! :rant: :scared:
That reminds me of something that annoys me in shows/movies, when the editing cuts between cameras constantly and way too rapidly. My mind is still processing the detail in the scene and then it suddenly cuts to a different perspective, I find it quite jarring.
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One thing that drives me nuts here in Canada is one of the habits TV news editors have when showing an interview. The graphic tag line that shows who is being interviewed stays on the screen for about 1.7 seconds! Who reads that fast? And it doesn't matter how much, or little, text is there, it's impossible to read it all in that time. That much time can elapse just with recognizing that its there and moving your eyes to begin reading it and then, poof! it's gone. And if there is an unfamiliar acronym or lengthy multi-word descriptor, forget it! :rant: :scared:
That reminds me of something that annoys me in shows/movies, when the editing cuts between cameras constantly and way too rapidly. My mind is still processing the detail in the scene and then it suddenly cuts to a different perspective, I find it quite jarring.
Kids CGI cartoon movies are often like that from start to finish.
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I absolutely hate the recent trend for Hollywood movies to use shaky hand-held cameras. Gives me motion sickness just watching some of them.
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"Are you sure you want to log out?"
>:(
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I absolutely hate the recent trend for Hollywood movies to use shaky hand-held cameras. Gives me motion sickness just watching some of them.
Yes its beyond enoying . The camera men are ether Drunk or dogging bullets .
From the other cheap scenes & Flash Backs :-DD :popcorn:
Quote from above.
Are you sure you want to log out?
Not sure I will give it some thought ...
KK eeee Y y Board E rr OOer
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When people insist that with two engines of equal capacity [edit -> displacement, not capacity], the one with the longer stroke would produce greater torque, supposedly because of the greater leverage of the larger crank pin offset. What they fail to realise is what the longer stroke gains from greater crank leverage, it loses by smaller piston area.
If you have 500psi pushing on 12 square inches of piston then you have 6000 lbs force pushing on a crank radius of say 3 inches = 5000x12x0.25 = 1500 lb/ft of torque. Then if you halve the piston area and double the stroke you have 500x6x0.5 = 1500 lb/ft again! As a first approximation, engine torque depends on capacity and volumetric efficiency, not stroke.
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When people insist that with two engines of equal capacity, the one with the longer stroke would produce greater torque, supposedly because of the greater leverage of the larger crank pin offset. What they fail to realise is what the longer stroke gains from greater crank leverage, it loses by smaller piston area.
If you have 500psi pushing on 12 square inches of piston then you have 6000 lbs force pushing on a crank radius of say 3 inches = 5000x12x0.25 = 1500 lb/ft of torque. Then if you halve the piston area and double the stroke you have 500x6x0.5 = 1500 lb/ft again! As a first approximation, engine torque depends on capacity and volumetric efficiency, not stroke.
Why are you assuming a longer stroke brings with it smaller piston area? Displacement, stroke and bore do not exist in isolation, they are all interactive. I don't do much engine tinkering these days but there are obviously advantages and disadvantages of different stroke and bore ratios. The belief may just be due to the fact that engines with a long stroke tend to be large displacement, relatively slow turning engines that produce a lot of torque because that is what they are optimized for, being low RPM.
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When people insist that with two engines of equal capacity, the one with the longer stroke would produce greater torque, supposedly because of the greater leverage of the larger crank pin offset. What they fail to realise is what the longer stroke gains from greater crank leverage, it loses by smaller piston area.
If you have 500psi pushing on 12 square inches of piston then you have 6000 lbs force pushing on a crank radius of say 3 inches = 5000x12x0.25 = 1500 lb/ft of torque. Then if you halve the piston area and double the stroke you have 500x6x0.5 = 1500 lb/ft again! As a first approximation, engine torque depends on capacity and volumetric efficiency, not stroke.
Why are you assuming a longer stroke brings with it smaller piston area? Displacement, stroke and bore do not exist in isolation, they are all interactive. I don't do much engine tinkering these days but there are obviously advantages and disadvantages of different stroke and bore ratios. The belief may just be due to the fact that engines with a long stroke tend to be large displacement, relatively slow turning engines that produce a lot of torque because that is what they are optimized for, being low RPM.
I'm going with the assumption that when he said "engines of equal capacity" that he meant equal displacement. Longer stroke with equal displacement would have to mean smaller bore. As for the torque numbers, I have no input on that.
-Pat
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I'm going with the assumption that when he said "engines of equal capacity" that he meant equal displacement. Longer stroke with equal displacement would have to mean smaller bore. As for the torque numbers, I have no input on that.
-Pat
Well yeah, you can't increase the stroke without decreasing the bore if you want to keep the same displacement. It does seem like longer stroke engines tend to have more torque but I suspect it isn't just due to the stroke, but the fact that the entire engine is designed for lower RPM and higher torque. On the flip side F1 engines run at absurdly high RPM and have exceptionally short stroke, that comes down to piston speed I think. If you had a 6 inch stroke and tried to spin the crank at 15k RPM the piston speed and resulting forces would be ridiculous.
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I'm going with the assumption that when he said "engines of equal capacity" that he meant equal displacement.
Yep. My bad. I'll edit that.
My thinking is that an engine with a long stroke relative to its bore (very undersquare) would not have space for large valves so it may run well chugging away at low rpm but run out of breath pretty quick at high rpm. Some people without an engineering background may get to thinking that torque is a description of how an engine behaves at low rpm.
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For your standard SPST light switch, UP is ON, DOWN is OFF.
Also, American 120v receptacles, the Ground is on the bottom with the Hot and Neutral on top.
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For your standard SPST light switch, UP is ON, DOWN is OFF.
No. You're completely wrong there I'm afraid. Completely.
:)
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opabob and I are from the US, where light switches on the wall and toggle switches on front panels are always as he describes. Is your common practice antipodal?
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For your standard SPST light switch, UP is ON, DOWN is OFF.
And I would add, for on/off applications the switch should always operate up/down never side to side. For push buttons, in is on, out is off.
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opabob and I are from the US, where light switches on the wall and toggle switches on front panels are always as he describes. Is your common practice antipodal?
UK is opposite, down is on, it's one of the first things I noticed when I visited there and it felt very odd to me. Of course it doesn't apply to 3 way switches in which it's what is on depends on the state of the other switch, or the occasional horizontal switch.
Obviously on an international forum what is "wrong" depends on where an individual lives. Every country has its own codes and conventions.
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For your standard SPST light switch, UP is ON, DOWN is OFF.
Also, American 120v receptacles, the Ground is on the bottom with the Hot and Neutral on top.
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There's actually no code requirement on whether ground is on the top or the bottom, and if you look closely at most spec grade and hospital grade receptacles the writing is such that it's rightside-up if the receptacle is installed with the ground hole at the top and the live and neutral below. I've heard an electrician advocating installing them that way so that if something conductive drops on a plug that is not fully inserted it will contact the ground pin first. It's uncommon though, most are installed the other way around but it's legal (in the US) to put them in any orientation, including horizontal.
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opabob and I are from the US, where light switches on the wall and toggle switches on front panels are always as he describes. Is your common practice antipodal?
Yeppers. Generally down is on.
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I understand every country has it's customs. But me, here, I like my light switches UP ON, DOWN OFF.
Pet Peeve. Just like the thread title.
Interesting story about receptacle orientation
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Up Down !! So why are fuses when tripped are always DOWN
And only Blow UP ?? >:D
Why are Main Isolator Switches DOWN is Off .
Simple reason if your getting electrocuted your arm is Only able to Pull Down .
So if your lucky and the Non ISO standard is down for ON .. Smoke bacon flavour :-DD .
Down was Made the ISO standard take it or leave it .
Domestic Light switches are not covered and seem to be ether or .
Double pole or reversed light switch's 1 has to be up and the other down for the light to be On.
Or visa versa :phew:
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Your recitation omits which country is being discussed. We have already established that these functions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
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My circuit breakers flip horizontally, the vast majority of those in the USA do. The panel bus bars run from top to bottom and the breakers sit perpendicular to this.
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My circuit breakers flip horizontally, the vast majority of those in the USA do. The panel bus bars run from top to bottom and the breakers sit perpendicular to this.
Which is also how 3-phase boards are arranged, because it's practical.
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The standard of up for on might have originated from the days of Frankenstein and his monster and similar, where he used a knife switch in the lab. Gravity would keep the switch harmlessly in the off position with no chance of falling to the on position like it would if down was on.
(https://jimflanigan.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/switch-igor.gif?w=656&h=300&crop=1)
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There seems to be an assumption that the default should be off. Fine for the techy handling the bare wires, but for the other 99.999% of the time a user would be really badly put out if the lights go out accidentally. For that and similar reasons, down = on makes more sense.
Also, with down = on, the tops the switches can be coloured red to show they are on. With up = on, you'd never see that :)
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The most common switches in North America have a protruding toggle rather than a rocker and the words ON and OFF are embossed on the moving assembly. This of course does not apply to 3-way switches and I don't know whether anyone actually relies on the printing. Personally I find it's easiest to just look at the light and see if it's on. If the light is not on when I think it should be then I can investigate further. For lights located remotely and not visible from the switch, there are switches that have a pilot light.
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The standard of up for on might have originated from the days of Frankenstein and his monster and similar, where he used a knife switch in the lab. Gravity would keep the switch harmlessly in the off position with no chance of falling to the on position like it would if down was on.
(https://jimflanigan.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/switch-igor.gif?w=656&h=300&crop=1)
Yes the knife switch.. a sensible answer to the possible origin of the convention!
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There seems to be an assumption that the default should be off. Fine for the techy handling the bare wires, but for the other 99.999% of the time a user would be really badly put out if the lights go out accidentally. For that and similar reasons, down = on makes more sense.
Also, with down = on, the tops the switches can be coloured red to show they are on. With up = on, you'd never see that :)
When I was a boy, they told us that the earth pin should be on the bottom because of plug and gravity and stuff and that you want the earth to stay connected until the very last.
(The whole outlet is up side down)
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The standard of up for on might have originated from the days of Frankenstein and his monster and similar, where he used a knife switch in the lab. Gravity would keep the switch harmlessly in the off position with no chance of falling to the on position like it would if down was on.
(https://jimflanigan.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/switch-igor.gif?w=656&h=300&crop=1)
Who would trust Marty Feldman with any high power switch?
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[attachimg=1]
This is also UP on ..
The Top Flash Bar breakers Are Up Off .. (Trips)
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Personally I find it's easiest to just look at the light and see if it's on.
Same here. And since most of the wall switches in my house are 3-way, it doesn't matter anyway.
The only time the on position of a wall switch mattered to me was the time I installed a ceiling light for my sister-in-law. She moved into a new house and the builder installed the wall switch and wired it to a receptacle in the ceiling, but the lighting fixture itself was left to the homeowner to install. When installing the lighting fixture, I flipped the wall switch to the down position and proceeded to wire the light fixture to the bare wires coming out of the ceiling. I didn't get very far when I touched the bare wires and got a nasty shock. Upon investigation I found that the switch was installed upside down and "on" was "down" and "off" was "up". Yes, I know I should have turned the circuit off at the breaker before doing the install--lesson learned. All of the other wall switches in the house were installed the conventional way (for the U.S.) with "on" being "up" and "down" being "off".
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Personally I find it's easiest to just look at the light and see if it's on.
Same here. And since most of the wall switches in my house are 3-way, it doesn't matter anyway.
The only time the on position of a wall switch mattered to me was the time I installed a ceiling light for my sister-in-law. She moved into a new house and the builder installed the wall switch and wired it to a receptacle in the ceiling, but the lighting fixture itself was left to the homeowner to install. When installing the lighting fixture, I flipped the wall switch to the down position and proceeded to wire the light fixture to the bare wires coming out of the ceiling. I didn't get very far when I touched the bare wires and got a nasty shock. Upon investigation I found that the switch was installed upside down and "on" was "down" and "off" was "up". Yes, I know I should have turned the circuit off at the breaker before doing the install--lesson learned. All of the other wall switches in the house were installed the conventional way (for the U.S.) with "on" being "up" and "down" being "off".
@ James .. And if the BULB is Dead . .. Its a 50 / 50 chance its the other way .. Murphy's Law
Here we are 250v so if you get it wrong the the 2 neons Balls Glow ..
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Personally I find it's easiest to just look at the light and see if it's on.
Same here. And since most of the wall switches in my house are 3-way, it doesn't matter anyway.
The only time the on position of a wall switch mattered to me was the time I installed a ceiling light for my sister-in-law. She moved into a new house and the builder installed the wall switch and wired it to a receptacle in the ceiling, but the lighting fixture itself was left to the homeowner to install. When installing the lighting fixture, I flipped the wall switch to the down position and proceeded to wire the light fixture to the bare wires coming out of the ceiling. I didn't get very far when I touched the bare wires and got a nasty shock. Upon investigation I found that the switch was installed upside down and "on" was "down" and "off" was "up". Yes, I know I should have turned the circuit off at the breaker before doing the install--lesson learned. All of the other wall switches in the house were installed the conventional way (for the U.S.) with "on" being "up" and "down" being "off".
@ James .. And if the BULB is Dead . .. Its a 50 / 50 chance its the other way .. Murphy's Law
Here we are 250v so if you get it wrong the the 2 neons Balls Glow ..
Even though we use low voltage (120V) bulbs here in the US, I still use old high voltage habits when changing light bulbs. Don't touch metal parts, only use one hand. I don't usually open the breaker, though my wife nags me about it from time to time. But even with that bit of carelessness the chance of testicular illumination is quite low regardless of the switch position. Particularly for homeowner changers of bulbs who should know which direction their switches work. Even the three way ones.
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The only time the on position of a wall switch mattered to me was the time I installed a ceiling light for my sister-in-law. She moved into a new house and the builder installed the wall switch and wired it to a receptacle in the ceiling, but the lighting fixture itself was left to the homeowner to install. When installing the lighting fixture, I flipped the wall switch to the down position and proceeded to wire the light fixture to the bare wires coming out of the ceiling. I didn't get very far when I touched the bare wires and got a nasty shock. Upon investigation I found that the switch was installed upside down and "on" was "down" and "off" was "up". Yes, I know I should have turned the circuit off at the breaker before doing the install--lesson learned. All of the other wall switches in the house were installed the conventional way (for the U.S.) with "on" being "up" and "down" being "off".
The former owner of my house knew just enough about electricity to do stuff without knowing enough to do it right. There was an interior light fixture installed on the back wall outside next to the hot tub which I decided to replace with a proper outdoor fixture. When I removed the old one from the wall I was surprised to find there was no junction box, just a 1/4" hole in the wall which the wires ran through. Fortunately the laundry room is on the other side and has one of those suspended ceilings so I was able to access the wall cavity from the top. I reached down in and found there was a box extension installed on the inside which had no cover on it, and the wire nuts were not properly installed and the one on the live wire fell off and I got a shock while standing on a ladder with my arm stuck down the wall, not fun. The switch was off so I opened the switch box and discovered both switches were on the neutral. At that point I opened up every other box downstairs and found that ALL of the switches were on the neutral, with exception of the two lights in the rec room which had been wired when the house was built.
Now I always confirm everything is dead with a non-contact voltage probe before I mess around. And if I ever buy a different house one of the first things I'll do is open up and inspect every electrical box in the place to see what surprises are lurking.
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Just one of my pet peeve is the Duvet . How I hate this invention .
Yes its nice and toasty on a cold night .
But changing the Cover on this is like trying to push water back into a running tap :wtf:
Yes I know all the correct ways to do it . But doing this single handed . is a Nightmare .
I put changing a Duvet cover worse than listening to Shakespeare .. :palm:
Have Fun Stay safe :popcorn:
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Corrected 1099s that reach me 24h after I file....R_t B_s___d S__s of B_____s
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The only time the on position of a wall switch mattered to me was the time I installed a ceiling light for my sister-in-law. She moved into a new house and the builder installed the wall switch and wired it to a receptacle in the ceiling, but the lighting fixture itself was left to the homeowner to install. When installing the lighting fixture, I flipped the wall switch to the down position and proceeded to wire the light fixture to the bare wires coming out of the ceiling. I didn't get very far when I touched the bare wires and got a nasty shock. Upon investigation I found that the switch was installed upside down and "on" was "down" and "off" was "up". Yes, I know I should have turned the circuit off at the breaker before doing the install--lesson learned. All of the other wall switches in the house were installed the conventional way (for the U.S.) with "on" being "up" and "down" being "off".
The former owner of my house knew just enough about electricity to do stuff without knowing enough to do it right. There was an interior light fixture installed on the back wall outside next to the hot tub which I decided to replace with a proper outdoor fixture. When I removed the old one from the wall I was surprised to find there was no junction box, just a 1/4" hole in the wall which the wires ran through. Fortunately the laundry room is on the other side and has one of those suspended ceilings so I was able to access the wall cavity from the top. I reached down in and found there was a box extension installed on the inside which had no cover on it, and the wire nuts were not properly installed and the one on the live wire fell off and I got a shock while standing on a ladder with my arm stuck down the wall, not fun. The switch was off so I opened the switch box and discovered both switches were on the neutral. At that point I opened up every other box downstairs and found that ALL of the switches were on the neutral, with exception of the two lights in the rec room which had been wired when the house was built.
Now I always confirm everything is dead with a non-contact voltage probe before I mess around. And if I ever buy a different house one of the first things I'll do is open up and inspect every electrical box in the place to see what surprises are lurking.
Home wiring is far from rocket surgery, yet so many people find creative ways to half ass and otherwise fuck it up - it's mind blowing.
When I did my rewire, I followed the suggestions in a book I'd been reading and tried to group the breakers in the panels by function, always fed the supply wire in from the bottom left of the box, labeled the cables where they emerged from the panel and finally used a paint pen to write the panel and breaker number inside of each box and also on the yoke of the devices in the box so that by simply removing the cover plate you can immediately tell what circuit(s) are feeding a given box and go shut down the appropriate breaker(s) with no fuss. Also kept lighting and power receptacle circuits separate so that if one or the other must be turned off for work on it you can still either have the overhead lighting or a hot receptacle to plug in a lamp, and every room has receptacles on two separate circuits to always have a hot circuit to feed tools and whatnot. Previously, whole rooms were on a single circuit and killing it killed ALL power and lighting. Very frustrating to work on back then.
-Pat
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Animated placeholders/skeletons that appear after every page/element load and visually annoy me in the process whether the page load is slow and is repetitive or fast where it flashes.
(https://i.imgur.com/CIVZ5VJ.jpg)
In this case on Stuff.nz it is with lazyload but can't hide the .lazyimg class element as it seems to also hide the pictures and some others .animated-background don't seem to stop it.
There's some of them that appear to set a delay as in element name like these that I found a couple of weeks ago on the Mozilla website:
(https://i.imgur.com/oNQmEXf.jpg)
It seems much quicker when I hid all that crap to stop seeing it but it seems to show the table before the contents and I am not sure if that delay if there is a delay has anything to do with it or not.
https://pastebin.com/sCrFH1Rc
addons.mozilla.org##.pswp__bg
addons.mozilla.org##.AutoSearchInput-suggestions-list
addons.mozilla.org###Loading
addons.mozilla.org##Loading
addons.mozilla.org##.Loading
addons.mozilla.org##.SearchSuggestion-icon
##.SearchSuggestion-icon
##.li.SearchResult
##.SearchResult-icon--loading
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-1.LoadingText--width-100
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-2.LoadingText--width-100
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-3.LoadingText--width-100
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-1.LoadingText--width-40
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-2.LoadingText--width-40
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-3.LoadingText--width-40
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-1.LoadingText--width-20
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-2.LoadingText--width-20
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-3.LoadingText--width-20
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-1.LoadingText--width-10
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-2.LoadingText--width-10
addons.mozilla.org##.LoadingText.LoadingText--delay-3.LoadingText--width-10
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Happened again today: "Drivers" who do not understand a blinking yellow arrow, and just sit there until the light turns red forcing you to wait for another entire cycle. Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!
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but it seems to show the table before the contents
Sounds like the classic amateur fix for a race condition.
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Happened again today: "Drivers" who do not understand a blinking yellow arrow, and just sit there until the light turns red forcing you to wait for another entire cycle. Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!
The blinking yellow arrows are pretty new, in fairness!
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People who think 666 is the number of the devil.
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Of course not. 666 is the number of the Beast. Revelation 13, v 16-18. A precursor of the injected microchip conspiracy.
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By the way, US Highway 666 (originally numbered as being parallel to US 66 of musical fame) was renumbered to US 491 in 2003, partly because of superstition and partly because of highway-sign theft. It runs near the "Four Corners" area, where the State boundaries of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet.
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Happened again today: "Drivers" who do not understand a blinking yellow arrow, and just sit there until the light turns red forcing you to wait for another entire cycle. Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!
The blinking yellow arrows are pretty new, in fairness!
Really? Where? I've had a driver's license for over 40 years and can't remember a time they weren't around. I've lived in the western USA most of my life, maybe they're new to the east?
Either way, "right turn on red" is another pet peeve - I just didn't want to type too long of a post. But I can't count the number of people who just sit there at a red light, already halfway around the corner, their intention to turn right totally obvious and 100% committed, yet they wait for the light to change despite zero cross traffic. And right turn on red has been available nationwide since I was a small child.
EDIT: Looks like flashing yellow arrows may have been a west coast thing until 2009: "In December 2009, after extensive testing, the Federal Highway Administration authorized use of flashing yellow arrows nationwide. A study conducted by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program determined that drivers had fewer crashes with flashing yellow left-turn arrows than with traditional yield-on-green signal configurations." Based on this, maybe western states were using them and the fedgov decided to sanction them nationwide based on what the western states had experienced. In any case, they've been nationwide for at least 10+ years.
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By the way, US Highway 666 (originally numbered as being parallel to US 66 of musical fame) was renumbered to US 491 in 2003, partly because of superstition and partly because of highway-sign theft. It runs near the "Four Corners" area, where the State boundaries of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet.
That's an interesting renumbering. Odd highway numbers are supposed to run north-south, while even highway numbers are supposed to run east-west. Yet here they changed from an even number to an odd number. I presume they didn't also physically move the highway.... >:D
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. And right turn on red has been available nationwide since I was a small child.
Fellow New Yorkers visiting the area perhaps?
Wikipedia:
All turns on red are forbidden in New York City unless a sign is posted permitting it.
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Yes, when right turn on red was enacted, the two jurisdictions specifically excluded were NYC and DC.
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Happened again today: "Drivers" who do not understand a blinking yellow arrow, and just sit there until the light turns red forcing you to wait for another entire cycle. Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!
The blinking yellow arrows are pretty new, in fairness!
Really? Where? I've had a driver's license for over 40 years and can't remember a time they weren't around. I've lived in the western USA most of my life, maybe they're new to the east?
Either way, "right turn on red" is another pet peeve - I just didn't want to type too long of a post. But I can't count the number of people who just sit there at a red light, already halfway around the corner, their intention to turn right totally obvious and 100% committed, yet they wait for the light to change despite zero cross traffic. And right turn on red has been available nationwide since I was a small child.
EDIT: Looks like flashing yellow arrows may have been a west coast thing until 2009: "In December 2009, after extensive testing, the Federal Highway Administration authorized use of flashing yellow arrows nationwide. A study conducted by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program determined that drivers had fewer crashes with flashing yellow left-turn arrows than with traditional yield-on-green signal configurations." Based on this, maybe western states were using them and the fedgov decided to sanction them nationwide based on what the western states had experienced. In any case, they've been nationwide for at least 10+ years.
I live in the Seattle area and I don't recall ever seeing a flashing arrow. Are they specific to certain locales? It seems like a reasonable idea and I'm pretty sure I'd have figured out what it means by the fact that yellow light means proceed with caution, but it isn't something I think I've ever encountered.
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Interesting. I've lived in CA, AZ, Eastern WA, and ID and they're a standard. I've driven in most Western states - I'm thinking of OR, CO, NV, UT, etc. - and haven't noticed their absence.
In any case, where they ARE used they've been around a while yet people just stare stupidly at them. What, do they think they're just decorations? Traffic signals that are facing your lane of traffic *mean something*. This is not a huge intuitive leap, as you mentioned.
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Interesting. I've lived in CA, AZ, Eastern WA, and ID and they're a standard. I've driven in most Western states - I'm thinking of OR, CO, NV, UT, etc. - and haven't noticed their absence.
In any case, where they ARE used they've been around a while yet people just stare stupidly at them. What, do they think they're just decorations? Traffic signals that are facing your lane of traffic *mean something*. This is not a huge intuitive leap, as you mentioned.
I think part of what is going on is people whose risk tolerance is lower than yours. While I have seen people sit through these lights when there is absolutely no opposing traffic, I have also seen many people pass up opportunities that I would happily take. And when riding with my wife watch her take opportunities that make my hair stand on end. She embodies the old phrase "A miss is as good as a mile."
By the way I'll confirm that these lights exist in Oregon.
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My first instinct would be to think of the yellow arrow as the same as a yellow/amber traffic light - i.e. you are at the tail end of the green, and shouldn't proceed! Now that I know about it, I won't make that mistake...
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People who think 666 is the number of the devil.
Hail Satan.
>:D
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Pet Peeve re. Android applications:
Why does EVERY developer seem to feel their app is so important that it needs to occupy a permanent slot in Android's notification area? After loading a dozen apps, "real" notifications appear off the screen, after all the "fake" notifications that just sit there... so you have to scroll to read actual notifications.
Developers: Don't use the notification area as a kind of icon to access your app... only put up notifications if you have something to say that the user cares about... otherwise, STAY AWAY from the notification area! >:(
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Just a note for those driving in lefty countries like Australia, NZ, Japan and the UK; a right turn on red means you'll most likely be hit by oncoming traffic. Except in India, when turn right on green means, you'll most likely be hit by oncoming traffic.
@SilverSolder Right now I have four pointless app notifications that I'm about to dismiss... Gone. For the next two days.
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My first instinct would be to think of the yellow arrow as the same as a yellow/amber traffic light - i.e. you are at the tail end of the green, and shouldn't proceed! Now that I know about it, I won't make that mistake...
Agreed except that this yellow arrow is flashing, which clearly indicates "something different" than the usual solid yellow round light. If the message was "do not proceed" we have an entirely different color for that... Red!
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Pet Peeve re. Android applications:
Why does EVERY developer seem to feel their app is so important that it needs to occupy a permanent slot in Android's notification area? After loading a dozen apps, "real" notifications appear off the screen, after all the "fake" notifications that just sit there... so you have to scroll to read actual notifications.
Developers: Don't use the notification area as a kind of icon to access your app... only put up notifications if you have something to say that the user cares about... otherwise, STAY AWAY from the notification area! >:(
That reminds me of another peeve, Windows software installers that poop a shortcut onto the desktop, enabled by default, or in some cases you can't even choose. My desktop is my work space, I do NOT want a bunch of shortcuts to software cluttering it up, there's a Start menu for that, or the quicklaunch toolbar for my most frequently used stuff.
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I think part of what is going on is people whose risk tolerance is lower than yours. While I have seen people sit through these lights when there is absolutely no opposing traffic, I have also seen many people pass up opportunities that I would happily take. And when riding with my wife watch her take opportunities that make my hair stand on end. She embodies the old phrase "A miss is as good as a mile."
I think our judgement depends on whether we are in control and driving the car or a passenger without control. I know that when I'm riding with people I often find myself just about making a divot in the passenger side floor with my foot, pushing where the brake pedal would be. It always feels like they wait until the last moment to start braking but maybe they'd feel the same if I was driving.
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By the way, US Highway 666 (originally numbered as being parallel to US 66 of musical fame) was renumbered to US 491 in 2003, partly because of superstition and partly because of highway-sign theft. It runs near the "Four Corners" area, where the State boundaries of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet.
That's an interesting renumbering. Odd highway numbers are supposed to run north-south, while even highway numbers are supposed to run east-west. Yet here they changed from an even number to an odd number. I presume they didn't also physically move the highway.... >:D
The highway physically runs approximately N-S, but the old number apparently came from its connection (not parallel, my mistake) to US 66.
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I think part of what is going on is people whose risk tolerance is lower than yours. While I have seen people sit through these lights when there is absolutely no opposing traffic, I have also seen many people pass up opportunities that I would happily take. And when riding with my wife watch her take opportunities that make my hair stand on end. She embodies the old phrase "A miss is as good as a mile."
I think our judgement depends on whether we are in control and driving the car or a passenger without control. I know that when I'm riding with people I often find myself just about making a divot in the passenger side floor with my foot, pushing where the brake pedal would be. It always feels like they wait until the last moment to start braking but maybe they'd feel the same if I was driving.
I agree that the lack of control changes our judgment. But I can be relatively calm with some drivers, and some I have never ridden a second time with. I knew one guy who literally was getting into the ABS on every stop. Other driving maneuvers were equally close to the edge. The occasional ping of a bumper kiss on lane changes. I actually had no doubt about his skills, but he did not realize that conditions can vary and that his skills weren't the only ones that matter. Fortunately for me my wife is not that extreme by a significant margin.
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I think part of what is going on is people whose risk tolerance is lower than yours.
Could well be. Here in London (well, there in London but here in the UK) you can drive in the bus lanes out of certain hours. But the hours differ, and with some lanes you can't ever. Given the small writing on the signs and the focus necessary to deal with ambient traffic, whenever I'm driving in London I always keep out of bus lanes, even if I'm sure this particular one is allowed.
It seems some lanes are OK but lead directly into another lane that isn't. Just ain't worth the fine for accidentally transgressing, or the insurance for sideswiping something as you realise you're about to be fined.
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Definitely cabinet hinges.
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Here in London (well, there in London but here in the UK) you can drive in the bus lanes out of certain hours.
If you think THAT's fun, you haven't lived until you've enjoyed reversible lanes! I first experienced those in Tucson AZ, where the only freeway skirts around the west edge of town and therefore everything is surface streets. All the commute is in one direction in the morning, and in the other direction in the afternoon. So they took the very wide surface streets and made some number of the centermost lanes reversible... they go one way in the morning and the other way in the afternoon. Excellent use of available resources, right?
Except that a lot of the residents of Tucson were (at least back then) elderly folks escaping the northern snow. We're talking 70's, 80's, and up. Every single day - without exception - at least one of these folks would drive the wrong way in a reversible lane and end up nose to nose with a line of cars coming in the "proper" direction. Hilarity ensued. Folks would get out of their cars in 45 MPH traffic to gesture at the overhead signs that switched from green arrows to red X's depending on the time of day. Other folks, farther back, would try to switch lanes (there were no lane separators whatsoever) which meant cutting into 45 MPH traffic while trying to accelerate from zero, which often led to accidents which stopped up even more lanes.
My wife once got trapped in the middle of an intersection between two such streets for two whole light cycles. She was trying to make a left turn, and with all the wrong-direction cars and resulting frustration people were so fast off the line that she could not complete her turn. So the traffic went in straight lines on all sides of her and she couldn't get out of the middle of the intersection until finally she just anticipated the next green and punched it.
Fun times.
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[...] finally she just anticipated the next green and punched it. [...]
Isn't that standard operating procedure at a traffic light? :D
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you haven't lived until you've enjoyed reversible lanes!
Yep, got one of those locally too. In the morning rush hour it's one direction, evening rush hour it's the other, and between times it's a free for all.
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Alright: I bet folks don't see this one coming:
THE WEEKEND 'FLYING LESSON':
You can tell, if you try, which small aircraft are involved in some sort of 'meandering / loitering flight.
(Aside from law enforcement or local government geo-mapping.)
Listening, often you will hear a drastic backing off, of throttle, engine noise, as a plane drifts above, very low and sometimes moving in some lazy arc or circle.
My interpretation is like: "Honey! Can you see me (us)?", as the student flight lesson proceeds.
The lazy throttle down sounds have become the hallmark, of flight lessons, for me. Not that irritating, it just seems obvious: Most other flights seem to be oriented on 'getting somewhere', rather than lingering.
I've often assumed that some flights (lessons) are kids / older students, that made 'honor roll' or some such...
-- I'm just saying...
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Well they have to do it somewhere. You don't just wake up one day an experienced pilot, and if it's a flying lesson you're probably not going to want to stray too far from the airfield.
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Happened again today: "Drivers" who do not understand a blinking yellow arrow, and just sit there until the light turns red forcing you to wait for another entire cycle. Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!
The blinking yellow arrows are pretty new, in fairness!
Really? Where? I've had a driver's license for over 40 years and can't remember a time they weren't around. I've lived in the western USA most of my life, maybe they're new to the east?
Where do you live? I live in the SF Bay Area and have been driving here for 40 years and have never seen a blinking yellow arrow.
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Speaking of flying, this one is *way* more than a pet peeve with me.
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The sheer lunacy of doing aerobatics over a built up suburban area.
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In Australia there is this group called the Roulettes that are part of the Air Force. They perform at air shows and are available for hire for special days of whatever sort. About ten years ago the local council had them doing loops and dives and such directly over our rooftops. At one stage they flew along the the creek adjacent to our place at about 200 feet altitude. Stupidity on steroids.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_20th_century (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_20th_century)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_21st_century (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_21st_century)
https://www.airforce.gov.au/displays/roulettes (https://www.airforce.gov.au/displays/roulettes)
:palm:
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The most unusual signals I recall seeing are the blinking green lights they have up in Canada, at least in BC. I forget what they mean, something relating to a crosswalk I think?
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Speaking of flying, this one is *way* more than a pet peeve with me.
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The sheer lunacy of doing aerobatics over a built up suburban area.
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In Australia there is this group called the Roulettes that are part of the Air Force. They perform at air shows and are available for hire for special days of whatever sort. About ten years ago the local council had them doing loops and dives and such directly over our rooftops. At one stage they flew along the the creek adjacent to our place at about 200 feet altitude. Stupidity on steroids.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_20th_century (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_show_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_20th_century)
Aerobatic teams fly over suburban areas here too, the Blue Angels try to stay mostly over Lake Washington but it's not really possible to stay entirely over the lake. Never seemed like a big deal to me, people enjoy the show, accidents are very rare, it's an acceptable risk. Throughout large portions of the world we lack the luxury of a wide open unpopulated space, so you either do that stuff over houses and such or you don't do it at all. In Canada a year or two ago one of the aerobatic jets crashed in somebody's front yard a few blocks from where friends of mine lived, nobody on the ground was hurt though. If you think that's crazy, you should check out some videos of Group B rally racing in the 80s, 400+ horsepower modified production cars tearing through twisty public roads at crazy speeds with mobs of spectators literally diving out of the way as the cars barrel through.
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The most unusual signals I recall seeing are the blinking green lights they have up in Canada, at least in BC. I forget what they mean, something relating to a crosswalk I think?
Here in Ontario fast blinking green light at an intersection means left turn is allowed before the light turns solid green, that is where the traffic light does not have a dedicated left turn arrow light. Basically it is same as left turn arrow light.
In BC they have slow blinking green light, that one i do not know what it means.
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Blown plaster.seems its only the wall paper thats holding the very thin skim coat onto the walls.
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The most unusual signals I recall seeing are the blinking green lights they have up in Canada, at least in BC. I forget what they mean, something relating to a crosswalk I think?
It's a way of implementing the US green arrow without an arrow! :D
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Blown plaster.seems its only the wall paper thats holding the very thin skim coat onto the walls.
I want to know how is it possible to skim between 1 to 3mm and still call it plastering? To the other extreme, we had a room where 30mm thick render was held together by decades of paint over 1960's wallpaper. Relining with drywall was our only option.
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Blown plaster.seems its only the wall paper thats holding the very thin skim coat onto the walls.
Is that still used in current construction? Here plaster over lathe (thin wood slats with gaps between) was common up until sometime in the 1940s or so when sheetrock was developed and since then that has been used everywhere. There are still a few people around who do the old fashioned plastering but it's only used in historical structures.
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Is that still used in current construction?
in the uk yea,even with plasterboard walls its not uncommon to put a skim over them,although cheaper chuck em up quick new builds may only skim the joints between boards.This place was built late 50's so all the walls are brick or block work with 1/2" of rough plaster on top,then a thin smooth skim on top of that
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Blown plaster.seems its only the wall paper thats holding the very thin skim coat onto the walls.
Is that still used in current construction? Here plaster over lathe (thin wood slats with gaps between) was common up until sometime in the 1940s or so when sheetrock was developed and since then that has been used everywhere. There are still a few people around who do the old fashioned plastering but it's only used in historical structures.
In the US, wood framed houses with sheetrock are the norm. In the UK, bricks are the norm (even in new houses).
Having lived in both countries, my experience is that UK brick houses are much more durable than the US constructions - there was almost no maintenance on my UK house, compared to my American one (new vinyl siding, new roof, new gutters, new windows, it's never ending... the materials are simply not as durable as brick walls and tile roofs).
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In the US, wood framed houses with sheetrock are the norm. In the UK, bricks are the norm (even in new houses).
Having lived in both countries, my experience is that UK brick houses are much more durable than the US constructions - there was almost no maintenance on my UK house, compared to my American one (new vinyl siding, new roof, new gutters, new windows, it's never ending... the materials are simply not as durable as brick walls and tile roofs).
For interior walls and ceilings though? Aren't those built of wood studs faced with some kind of panel even in brick houses?
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For interior walls and ceilings though? Aren't those built of wood studs faced with some kind of panel even in brick houses
In the uk house construction varies a bit,in general though brick or some other type of block is used for the outer walls,theirs normally 2 walls with a cavity between them,the outer wall will be your nice finished bricks whilst the inner wall can be rough blocks . Internal partition walls may use some form of block work,or a frame work,either wood or metal, with plasterboard attached to it,The internal finish on brick/block walls tends to be either plaster ,or plaster board fixed to the blocks by dot n dab.The plaster board itself might be plaster,or just a skim were the boards join,ceilings tend to be plaster board fixed to the joists ,again it might be fully plastered or just were boards join.
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Is plaster board more or less the same as what we call sheetrock? It's a layer of plaster 3/8-1/2" thick sandwiched between a layer of heavy paper on both sides. You screw or nail it to the studs then tape the seams with paper tape and use joint compound to smooth over the seams and indents from screws/nails. After that it's common to spray on a texture, otherwise you have to do a much nicer job of taping and finishing before you paint or the seams will be visible.
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I think this justifies a new pet peeve: Typing a 13 word question with a 17 word description and a I'm tired of counting now elaboration instead of going to Google or Wikipedia and typing 'plasterboard'.
And yes, it's exactly the same product.
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Is plaster board more or less the same as what we call sheetrock? It's a layer of plaster 3/8-1/2" thick sandwiched between a layer of heavy paper on both sides. You screw or nail it to the studs then tape the seams with paper tape and use joint compound to smooth over the seams and indents from screws/nails. After that it's common to spray on a texture, otherwise you have to do a much nicer job of taping and finishing before you paint or the seams will be visible.
Yes except UK houses typically don't have studs like American houses, you often get bricks right behind the plaster / sheetrock. Older houses tend to have brickwork even inside the house, separating the rooms. Put it this way, you never see kids accidentally punching holes in the wall in UK houses the way it sometimes goes down in the US, lol! :D
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UK houses typically don't have studs like American houses, you often get bricks right behind the plaster / sheetrock. Older houses tend to have brickwork even inside the house, separating the rooms.
Yes, they do. Non-supporting walls are perfectly ordinary internally. Masonry for internal walls is usually to support the upper floors, roof structure and a central chimney or chimneys.
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If there's no space between the plaster and bricks, where do the utilities run through the walls?
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Wherever they want to - they just drill a hole. Otherwise run under floorboards between joists.
D.
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If there's no space between the plaster and bricks, where do the utilities run through the walls?
wiring is covered with capping or oval conduit thats nailed to the brick work,and then gets buried in the plaster.
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Another pet peeve: UPS drivers who stop in front of your house for ten seconds, not even leaving the driver's seat, just so they can claim they couldn't deliver the package.
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UK houses typically don't have studs like American houses, you often get bricks right behind the plaster / sheetrock. Older houses tend to have brickwork even inside the house, separating the rooms.
Yes, they do. Non-supporting walls are perfectly ordinary internally. Masonry for internal walls is usually to support the upper floors, roof structure and a central chimney or chimneys.
Depends on the house, when it was built, etc. etc., I guess. My house had only brick walls everywhere. Built in 1933 and will probably still be standing in 3033! :D
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If there's no space between the plaster and bricks, where do the utilities run through the walls?
wiring is covered with capping or oval conduit thats nailed to the brick work,and then gets buried in the plaster.
Exactly, you literally dig a trench in the wall to run cables, then cover with metal (or use conduit in the first place)
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then cover with metal
no need for metal,plastics perfectly acceptable,its only job is to stop the cable being damaged by the plasters trowel
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If there's no space between the plaster and bricks, where do the utilities run through the walls?
wiring is covered with capping or oval conduit thats nailed to the brick work,and then gets buried in the plaster.
An day cutting channels with a multitool and vacuum cleaner, followed by a day of making the channel invisible with smooth surface filler. Fun fun fun.
Another peeve; people who do block schematics that are backwards compatible with 1950s typewriters. Ever heard of MS Word?
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then cover with metal
no need for metal,plastics perfectly acceptable,its only job is to stop the cable being damaged by the plasters trowel
An inspector over here would have a heart attack seeing that. Seems like incidents of someone hanging a picture and managing to pound the tack right into a live wire would be common enough to be problematic. You'd never hit a wire like that if you were trying, but random events have a way of doing that sort of thing.
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Another pet peeve: UPS drivers who stop in front of your house for ten seconds, not even leaving the driver's seat, just so they can claim they couldn't deliver the package.
My biggest delivery peeve are the FedEx drivers who set the package right on the edge of my front porch in the spot that is most clearly visible from the street and not protected from rain by the roof. I once saw a package delivered while I was at work and the driver set it in the one patch of porch that was already wet with torrential rains predicted for the day. I had to call my mother and get her to drive over to my house and collect the package which was already soaking wet. The driver could have set it 2 feet further back and it would have been fine. They seem to be unaware of the existence of doorbells, we've started calling FedEx the package ninjas.
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Here Amazon drivers never ring the bell. UPS and Fedex still do.
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An inspector over here would have a heart attack seeing that. Seems like incidents of someone hanging a picture and managing to pound the tack right into a live wire would be common enough to be problematic. You'd never hit a wire like that if you were trying, but random events have a way of doing that sort of thing.
Were only supposed to run cables in "safe zones" but of course that dont stop people deciding they really must have a picture hung directly above a socket,or diy daves draping there cable diagonally across the wall to save a few inches of cable
(http://professional-electrician.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/021_PE_DEC17-copy.jpg)
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An inspector over here would have a heart attack seeing that. Seems like incidents of someone hanging a picture and managing to pound the tack right into a live wire would be common enough to be problematic. You'd never hit a wire like that if you were trying, but random events have a way of doing that sort of thing.
Were only supposed to run cables in "safe zones" but of course that dont stop people deciding they really must have a picture hung directly above a socket,or diy daves draping there cable diagonally across the wall to save a few inches of cable
(http://professional-electrician.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/021_PE_DEC17-copy.jpg)
That's why I like covering the cables with metal... you have to try harder with the picture hook to make an impression, and you have a grounded conduit there to short the whole thing out with an almighty bang to teach a lesson!
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Yep, I second the james_s comment about inspectors and that scheme. Honestly it just seems dangerous no matter what the local standards may allow.
Speaking of metal coverings... here in the States we have these little metal plates with sharpened points that you hammer on the top of studs to protect pipes that pass through the studs. Again, this is to prevent penetration of a water or gas pipe with a screw or nail by a hapless homeowner. I'm not always a fan of building codes but in these cases they make a lot of sense.
EDIT: Here's a photo.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/AyTGAXJ-jebLEzHpJw2aC-nSYE4SSZ8U0nduU61A0vdSciUkLVKcR0CANEqclbXp4pI7UVx7rRwgb4Irtis1IUI_lpEUq-sBvW1CX8T007CF6T-ZJjMFT51AnZa4sboT6oFhjfEAiv923RlZyhKmDtyISJpI4YQw_sdImcSCrpM)
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Hot should be above the cold.
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Maybe red is used for cold in that jurisdiction. >:D
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Maybe red is used for cold in that jurisdiction. >:D
:scared:
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Yep, I second the james_s comment about inspectors and that scheme. Honestly it just seems dangerous no matter what the local standards may allow.
Speaking of metal coverings... here in the States we have these little metal plates with sharpened points that you hammer on the top of studs to protect pipes that pass through the studs. Again, this is to prevent penetration of a water or gas pipe with a screw or nail by a hapless homeowner. I'm not always a fan of building codes but in these cases they make a lot of sense.
I believe that those plates are for the plasterboard fixers, really. They are the most likely to do damage.
Would like to have seen some silicone squeezed around the pipes to prevent water hammer.
:)
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Yep, I second the james_s comment about inspectors and that scheme. Honestly it just seems dangerous no matter what the local standards may allow.
In the uk rcd (gfi) protection is required on all socket circuits,also any cables passing through certain locations like bathrooms,even if its in the roof space,require rcd protection.The rcd's are normally in the consumer unit (fuse board) and protect the whole circuit,unlike the states ,were from what i can make out from the gfi tend to be built into the socket so the cable supplying it is unprotected.
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In the States you can get circuit breakers with GFCI protection. In fact, they're basically required on most new work these days, indoors or outdoors. Freaking expensive... ~$45 each instead of <$10 each. But then you can use standard outlets on that entire circuit.
They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one. The entire POINT of a welder is to create an arc, so the breaker trips after a few seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat. When I first discovered this I dealt with it quickly with a super beefy extension cord to a circuit in an older part of the house that still had its grandfathered-in normal breaker, worked perfectly. I suspect long term I'll have to switch the outdoor circuits that power my welder to normal, non-AFI breakers.
"New and improved" isn't always a better solution for every situation.
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[...] "New and improved" isn't always a better solution for every situation.
It often (but not always) ends up that the "new and improved" solution is more complicated, less robust, and generally just an added cost.
There have been some wins along the way. I'd never give up fuel injection / electronic ignition to go back to carbs, points, and condensers on my cars, for example!
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In the States you can get circuit breakers with GFCI protection. In fact, they're basically required on most new work these days, indoors or outdoors. Freaking expensive... ~$45 each instead of <$10 each. But then you can use standard outlets on that entire circuit.
They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one. The entire POINT of a welder is to create an arc, so the breaker trips after a few seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat. When I first discovered this I dealt with it quickly with a super beefy extension cord to a circuit in an older part of the house that still had its grandfathered-in normal breaker, worked perfectly. I suspect long term I'll have to switch the outdoor circuits that power my welder to normal, non-AFI breakers.
"New and improved" isn't always a better solution for every situation.
That's for damned sure. I despise AFCIs - can't run my power tools on them, they nuisance trip. And they're like $50-60 a pop. But I'm sure the breaker manufacturers are pleased that they're being written more and more deeply into the code with every iteration, it seems. Bloody PITA.
-Pat
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AFCIs are horrible, they're a band aid over those stupid backstab terminals that are allowed on receptacles, I've seen them fail dangerously on numerous occasions. The AFCIs are a nuisance though, like you say, they're expensive, literally 10 times the cost of a standard breaker, they consume power, in many it's enough that the breakers get noticeably warm, and they're notorious for nuisance tripping. I can see maybe requiring them for bedroom circuits as was initially done, but now in new construction you have to use them virtually everywhere. Talk to any electrician and they'll tell you AFCI nuisance trips are their number 1 source of callbacks.
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Maybe red is used for cold in that jurisdiction. >:D
I wonder if there's a code requirement for which goes above and below, and which color for that matter? My house is copper so the color has never come into question, can't say I ever paid attention to which pipe is above in horizontal runs. That Pex stuff has advantages and it's certainly easy to install but it makes the water taste like plastic if it's a less frequently used tap.
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I've never heard of a temperature based orientation requirement. They're every which way in my house. Blue is hot in a couple of places, the plumbing sub asked if I cared because they ran out of red on the last day. As you said, copper isn't color coded and I have a mix of both so what's the diff?
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copper isn't color coded
Any place it matters will have labels showing direction and that kind of stuff. Does it matter for a home owner? No, but we are engineers and like things to be 'right'. Would we wire up some hobby box with all black wires, no ident on the PCB and that kind of thing? There is satisfaction in doing things well.
However, even if you don't care, the case with the red/blue pipes is really bad IMO. It's the equivalent of putting yellow/green sleeving on a live wire because they ran out of red stuff. A decade down the line when the next owner wants to tap into the cold water supply, I reckon it will matter then.
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You were lucky with only having a double brick wall. Helped a friend change out the broken toilet in the new to him house, and there the walls are a half meter thick in the old part of the house. Toilet was the original, came with the original build, and while the tank was replaced in 1957 (made 1956, but not the same style as the original) the bowl was probably installed pre-war. 6 hours of work to get the old concrete mount cut away enough to get the last bits of the bowl away, along with getting the old original lead sealed cast iron pipes out from both the ground ( did not want to damage that socket, I needed it), from the toilet itself and to get enough of the vent pipe broken to get movement. Did I mention the half meter of brick I had to chop out to get the pipe to move, and the elbow was buried partly in it.
New toilet went in in under 2 hours, including the time I waited for the first round of Rockset, that made the base level, to harden sufficiently to not move. The rest went to stick the new one in place, and funny enough it was in nearly the same position as the old one, only moved 5cm further back in changing from bowl with wall hung cistern to close coupled. At least changing will be easier for this one, though I very much doubt the bowl will come loose intact with 2kg of Rockset as adhesive.
Peeve from this is cowboy roofers, as the vent pipe was stuck in with 30 layers of tar paper, but there was no actual seal as the base layers were all loose. It left Friday after a good talking to with a hammer and a long chisel to get the obstruction to move, then a bit more work to make the roof actually rain proof. Got one cast iron pipe out, looks like new, just stored for a century outdoors, but otherwise fine. not the same for the outlet pipe, that came out in lots of little pieces, along with the bowl. As far as we can figure this was originally a police station, as the windows do not need any extra bars, the ones there, half inch thick steel bar, with one inch solid steel rod, are not likely to break for anything short of a very large plasma cutter. I need to buy a 600mm drill bit to do plumbing there again, he wants a shower.
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"We are one of the top fifteen companies..."
I wonder which one they are? Number one? Number two?
- this is easy: they are number 15. If they were number 10 - they say 'We are one of the top 10' :-)
(Or, for example 'We are a one of the top 192' :-) )
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I especially like it when they use an uncommon number: "We are in the Top 17 companies...". C'mon, just say you're 17th and be done with it.
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"We are one of the top fifteen companies..."
I wonder which one they are? Number one? Number two?
- this is easy: they are number 15. If they were number 10 - they say 'We are one of the top 10' :-)
(Or, for example 'We are a one of the top 192' :-) )
My point exactly. :-+
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Noisy HVAC units in hotel rooms.
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They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one.
I have a similar problem with a treadmill in my garage when plugged into a circuit with a ground fault breaker (as all circuits in my garage are). Using the treadmill for just a few seconds is enough to trip the breaker. I've been told that it's due to the treadmill acting like a Van de Graaff generator.
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They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one.
I have a similar problem with a treadmill in my garage when plugged into a circuit with a ground fault breaker (as all circuits in my garage are). Using the treadmill for just a few seconds is enough to trip the breaker. I've been told that it's due to the treadmill acting like a Van de Graaff generator.
Possible I suppose, although they also use brushed permanent magnet motors and those are notoriously noisy. The arcing brushes will trip AFCIs and RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.
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Corrected 1099s that reach me 24h after I file....R_t B_s___d S__s of B_____s
...and let me add to that...Crappy Tax Software that claims to be able to do an amended return, but it gets rejected and you have to go through a series of incredibly convoluted steps to fix it |O
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They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one.
I have a similar problem with a treadmill in my garage when plugged into a circuit with a ground fault breaker (as all circuits in my garage are). Using the treadmill for just a few seconds is enough to trip the breaker. I've been told that it's due to the treadmill acting like a Van de Graaff generator.
Possible I suppose, although they also use brushed permanent magnet motors and those are notoriously noisy. The arcing brushes will trip AFCIs and RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.
Perhaps, but I use lots of power tools in the garage, many of them with brushed DC motors, and none of them has ever tripped the breaker.
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I'm curious as to what the typical trip currents for other countries. Here the standard is 30mA and I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water
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I'm curious as to what the typical trip currents for other countries. Here the standard is 30mA and I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water
I'd like to know also. But given that the prevalence of those standard Din breakers are everywhere, I'd say 30mA is the magic number.
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RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.
Whopping great caps those would be.
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I'm curious as to what the typical trip currents for other countries.
presume your talking about rcd's,in the uk 30mA is the most common.
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I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water
I haven't seen any separate "water proximity" specs in the USA. They might exist, but I've never heard of them. We don't seem to sell any "water specific" breakers that I've seen nor heard about. Just one type of hideously expensive, false-positive-tripping breakers for all applications.... :rant:
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RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.
Whopping great caps those would be.
Or you could have a lot of individual pieces of equipment plugged in at once. The equipment installed on the work bench of a typical EEVblog forum member would be getting close to tripping a GFCI!
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I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water
I haven't seen any separate "water proximity" specs in the USA. They might exist, but I've never heard of them. We don't seem to sell any "water specific" breakers that I've seen nor heard about. Just one type of hideously expensive, false-positive-tripping breakers for all applications.... :rant:
My PC is down at the moment so I don't have access to au standards. All I've managed to find is talk about 10mA RCD's for medical class I gear for patient care
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Well, yeah, medical is its own specialized world. Hospitals have completely separate wiring codes, for example. I don't know much about them but I can easily believe they have specialized fault interrupters for that market. They probably make the normal ones seem downright inexpensive!
Heck, even rabbit-in-the-python power supplies have a separate medical rating system. DC-DC converters also have entirely separate capacitive isolation requirements for medical applications.
Medical is its own world. Comparing to residential or even commercial, "near water" or not, is like comparing those to aircraft or space applications.
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Medical is its own world. Comparing to residential or even commercial, "near water" or not, is like comparing those to aircraft or space applications.
I'm simply recollecting having to install low mA RCD's many years ago for a specific situation. Unfortunately I don't remember the specifics other than water was involved and it definitely wasn't medical. It was certainly industrial though
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I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water
I haven't seen any separate "water proximity" specs in the USA. They might exist, but I've never heard of them. We don't seem to sell any "water specific" breakers that I've seen nor heard about. Just one type of hideously expensive, false-positive-tripping breakers for all applications.... :rant:
GFCI breakers are for use near water, they are not required anywhere else. These days they're required anywhere that could end up wet, like unfinished basements but they never used to be. The typical setup used for years in ordinary houses was a single GFCI duplex receptacle in either one of the bathrooms or out in the garage, and then the receptacles in the other bathrooms and usually at least one outside are all daisy chained off that first one. Now they're required in kitchens too but my house has never had one there, wasn't required when it was built in 1979.
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I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water
I haven't seen any separate "water proximity" specs in the USA. They might exist, but I've never heard of them. We don't seem to sell any "water specific" breakers that I've seen nor heard about. Just one type of hideously expensive, false-positive-tripping breakers for all applications.... :rant:
GFCI breakers are for use near water, they are not required anywhere else. These days they're required anywhere that could end up wet, like unfinished basements but they never used to be. The typical setup used for years in ordinary houses was a single GFCI duplex receptacle in either one of the bathrooms or out in the garage, and then the receptacles in the other bathrooms and usually at least one outside are all daisy chained off that first one. Now they're required in kitchens too but my house has never had one there, wasn't required when it was built in 1979.
The application requirements for AFCIs in the US NEC has been expanding over the past ten tears or so, too. THOSE are very aggravating if you try to use power tools - the ones I had to install nuisance trip nearly every time.
-Pat
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I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water
I haven't seen any separate "water proximity" specs in the USA. They might exist, but I've never heard of them. We don't seem to sell any "water specific" breakers that I've seen nor heard about. Just one type of hideously expensive, false-positive-tripping breakers for all applications.... :rant:
GFCI breakers are for use near water, they are not required anywhere else. These days they're required anywhere that could end up wet, like unfinished basements but they never used to be. The typical setup used for years in ordinary houses was a single GFCI duplex receptacle in either one of the bathrooms or out in the garage, and then the receptacles in the other bathrooms and usually at least one outside are all daisy chained off that first one. Now they're required in kitchens too but my house has never had one there, wasn't required when it was built in 1979.
The application requirements for AFCIs in the US NEC has been expanding over the past ten tears or so, too. THOSE are very aggravating if you try to use power tools - the ones I had to install nuisance trip nearly every time.
-Pat
AFCIs yes, I hate those things with a passion and have ranted about them before. AFCI and GFCI are two entirely different things, although combination units do exist.
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Throw away land fill. So my old petrol/gas lawn mower is packing it in and I saw a 'returned' electric one at our large hardware conglomerate on 'special'.
It came with no charger or batteries but I'm in the power tool eco-system and had the right stuff to make it a decent purchase.
It was a good price, so I took along a set of batteries to test it. Looks like something has happened between the motor and the blades, the motor spins up but blades don't.
They have no option to sell the mower at 'lower than cost price' - which I though was too high to take a risk on, apparently it will end up in the locked skip to go as landfill.
I could not persuade them to let me dispose of it for them. *sigh*
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In that same vein, a pet peeve of mine is all the various separate recycle bins when 70-90% of everything just gets lumped together and dumped into the landfill. That's the worst of both worlds: Waste a bunch of labor on the front end sorting things, then throw away all that effort on the back end.
I realize this used to have merit back when China accepted the world's waste, but since they stopped doing that years ago the statistics are consistent from year to year that the vast, VAST majority gets dumped no matter how much front-end sorting takes place.
It seems counterproductive to be running all those separate recycle trucks, molding all those separate recycle bins, spending all that time sorting, etc. when it makes zero difference anyway. Suboptimal at every step in the process. Pick one approach, and optimize the entire sequence for it. Don't waste time, fuel, manhours, and so on just for show when it doesn't make any actual difference at the landfill.
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I think we should focus on recycling the really high grade stuff that makes sense and do it locally. Glass is highly recyclable, it's cheap and easy to do and the recycled product is high quality and easily used to make new bottles and jars and such. Aluminum is a valuable metal that is also easily recycled, requiring significantly less energy than making new material from raw ore. Paper and cardboard is probably better used as fuel to generate electricity or other processes, or compost it. Maybe sort the very best stuff for recycling into other paper products. Stop contaminating the recycling stream with bits and scraps of low grade material that will end up in a landfill, that's counterproductive.
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Don't waste time, fuel, manhours, and so on just for show when it doesn't make any actual difference at the landfill.
Seems to be standard procedure for governments. What's new?
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In that same vein, a pet peeve of mine is all the various separate recycle bins when 70-90% of everything just gets lumped together and dumped into the landfill. That's the worst of both worlds: Waste a bunch of labor on the front end sorting things, then throw away all that effort on the back end.
I realize this used to have merit back when China accepted the world's waste, but since they stopped doing that years ago the statistics are consistent from year to year that the vast, VAST majority gets dumped no matter how much front-end sorting takes place.
It seems counterproductive to be running all those separate recycle trucks, molding all those separate recycle bins, spending all that time sorting, etc. when it makes zero difference anyway. Suboptimal at every step in the process. Pick one approach, and optimize the entire sequence for it. Don't waste time, fuel, manhours, and so on just for show when it doesn't make any actual difference at the landfill.
We get notices in with the land rates ordering us to 'get it right on bin night'.
Here is a online example.
https://www.hepburn.vic.gov.au/get-it-right-on-bin-night-2/ (https://www.hepburn.vic.gov.au/get-it-right-on-bin-night-2/)
On that page is a link to another page:
https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/recycling (https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/recycling)
On that page, the following:
404 page not found
Oops, looks like this page has been recycled.
Har. Har.
:-+
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We have only about 5 bins .
Glass, plastic bottles, cardboard,
Gen trash.. the best one is a larger board space . Marked as everything else.
This is were all the electronic equipment, and house furniture is put .... just picked up a 40inches flat screen.
I have picked up before fully working computers . I call it my spares shop . What's not wanted..
Ebay..
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Don't waste time, fuel, manhours, and so on just for show when it doesn't make any actual difference at the landfill.
I would initially agree with you, but...
It can be really hard to go from zero to fully-functioning in one gigantic step. Usually you'd do it in smaller steps, and the possibility is that the whole doesn't work until the final link is in place. With recycling, it wouldn't be cost effective to spend millions on recycling plants and resupply chains without the raw product to actually recycle, so getting everyone to go through the motions in preparation makes sense. Or would if it didn't take so long to get the other bits of the chain in place (assuming there is a plan to).
The downside of this approach, when applied to humans, is that we see the initial efforts being apparently pointless, so we give up and ignore them and make it all pointless. Or at least much harder going that it should have been.
Around here where we've had the different bins for years, just recently they've replaced one bin with woven bags and now we don't just sort but have to wash and dry the stuff before bagging too.
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Reuse is by far the most efficient form of recycling and in that sense we've gone backwards. It used to be for example milk was delivered in glass bottles which you then returned when they were empty and they got cleaned out and refilled. With stuff that comes in glass bottles it wouldn't be too hard to have a deposit on them as is done in some states which would encourage people to rinse out and return their empty bottles which could then be washed out and sterilized at high temperature and reused. It would be more efficient to reuse beer bottles for example than to sort, crush and melt down the glass and mold new bottles. Wouldn't work for everything but there are a lot of things that it would work well for. Beer, wine, champaign, pickles, jelly, lots of stuff still comes in glass bottles and jars.
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Pet peeve d'jour:
My 76YO mother in law has a Samsung tablet. It got cluttered enough that she wanted us to factory reset it, which we did. Now, it recognizes that it has been factory reset and wants the GMail account and password that was originally used to initialize it when new.
No problem, she's 76YO, she's only ever had one GMail account and 76YO's don't like changing passwords so it's the original password. Provably correct, we can log into GMail, create messages, etc. Yet the tablet refuses it with an "Unknown error, please try again in 24 hours" message.
No problem, we'll use the telephone backup scheme. Enter in the phone number originally used to initialize the tablet. Text message arrives. We enter the code, tablet seems happy... and then it demands the GMail authentication data again. And refuses it again.
We wait 24 hours.
We wait 48 hours.
We wait a week.
We wait a MONTH.
No improvement. Nothing changes. We reach out to Google and they say their database is fine, and how can we argue? The login credentials work perfectly.
We reach out to Samsung and after 90+ minutes of waiting, I have another appointment and have to disconnect.
I'm now in a chat with Samsung that's lasted an hour so far. I'm being elevated to the third level from whomever originally answered. Nobody even attempts a solution, they just keep elevating the session.
It is a fundamental design error to brick a device due to a loss of sync with a remote database. This tablet is 100% functionally perfect, yet it is 100% functionally useless because Samsung and Google cannot validate an email account. I understand the desire to discourage theft, but the telephone backup should be sufficient to obviate all other authentication steps and give you a true factory reset. Except it's not. And so here's my 76YO mother-in-law's tablet, in perfect condition, and completely worthless.
This "feature" is filling landfills with tablets.
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That's weird, are you sure there isn't a more complete factory reset procedure? I haven't yet encountered a device that needed the original password once it had been truly reset.
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Pet peeve d'jour:
My 76YO mother in law has a Samsung tablet. It got cluttered enough that she wanted us to factory reset it, which we did. Now, it recognizes that it has been factory reset and wants the GMail account and password that was originally used to initialize it when new.
No problem, she's 76YO, she's only ever had one GMail account and 76YO's don't like changing passwords so it's the original password. Provably correct, we can log into GMail, create messages, etc. Yet the tablet refuses it with an "Unknown error, please try again in 24 hours" message.
No problem, we'll use the telephone backup scheme. Enter in the phone number originally used to initialize the tablet. Text message arrives. We enter the code, tablet seems happy... and then it demands the GMail authentication data again. And refuses it again.
We wait 24 hours.
We wait 48 hours.
We wait a week.
We wait a MONTH.
No improvement. Nothing changes. We reach out to Google and they say their database is fine, and how can we argue? The login credentials work perfectly.
We reach out to Samsung and after 90+ minutes of waiting, I have another appointment and have to disconnect.
I'm now in a chat with Samsung that's lasted an hour so far. I'm being elevated to the third level from whomever originally answered. Nobody even attempts a solution, they just keep elevating the session.
It is a fundamental design error to brick a device due to a loss of sync with a remote database. This tablet is 100% functionally perfect, yet it is 100% functionally useless because Samsung and Google cannot validate an email account. I understand the desire to discourage theft, but the telephone backup should be sufficient to obviate all other authentication steps and give you a true factory reset. Except it's not. And so here's my 76YO mother-in-law's tablet, in perfect condition, and completely worthless.
This "feature" is filling landfills with tablets.
It's not a theft prevention measure, it is lazy dumfuckery. They could warn you that if you do a factory reset, you need the goocrap OR you can remove the goocrap BEFORE you do a reset https://www.samsung.com/my/support/mobile-devices/why-do-i-need-re-enter-my-google-account-after-a-factory-reset/ (https://www.samsung.com/my/support/mobile-devices/why-do-i-need-re-enter-my-google-account-after-a-factory-reset/) see how can I disable this goocrap nonsense (I am paraphrasing).
There are published methods to overcome the jam you are in but I can not vouch for them. e.g.,
https://www.unlockunit.com/blog/bypass-google-account-verification-factory-reset-protection/ (https://www.unlockunit.com/blog/bypass-google-account-verification-factory-reset-protection/)
Serch on "How do I bypass Google on Samsung after factory reset?"
Hope it helps...
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Even if they don't warn you, their system is broken. We HAVE the original credentials. They are provably accurate. We also have the original telephone number used as the "backup" for this device and account. It too is provably accurate, because when we used it with this tablet we received a text message with its magic numeric code, which we entered into the tablet.
Despite this, the tablet continues to demand the GMail account data AND refuses to accept it even though we know, for certain, that it is accurate.
Utter stupidity, by two very large multinational corporations who certainly have the resources to do this very simple job correctly.
I'll check into those links you provided, thank you!
EDIT: I was excited by the instructions to "hold the @ symbol" which would bring up a Settings dialog, from which you could navigate. Sadly, it doesn't work on this tablet. I tried both the primary @ and the one on the secondary "punctuation" keyboard to no avail. Chasing the concept myself, I looked for any way to reach any sort of Settings menu, keyboard configuration, etc. There's literally nothing available.
Very maddening. They've done a great job at locking out legitimate owners from a perfectly functional tablet. Their latest suggestion in the chat (yes, I'm STILL on that) is to call this "phone support team" telephone number. I did, and it's for "Samsung apps"... "press 1 for our heart monitor app", etc. No options offered for tablets for any reason, let alone authentication questions.
GRRRRR.
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Even if they don't warn you, their system is broken. We HAVE the original credentials. They are provably accurate. We also have the original telephone number used as the "backup" for this device and account. It too is provably accurate, because when we used it with this tablet we received a text message with its magic numeric code, which we entered into the tablet.
Despite this, the tablet continues to demand the GMail account data AND refuses to accept it even though we know, for certain, that it is accurate.
Utter stupidity, by two very large multinational corporations who certainly have the resources to do this very simple job correctly.
I'll check into those links you provided, thank you!
Good point....a factory reset that, apparently, can't accurately access the information for verification but demands it nonetheless? Hopefully you can get passed it - let us know how it turns out.
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Latest update....
I spent quite a while on the phone with a polite Samsung guy. He doesn't know me, so of course he had me go through all the usual mind-numbing steps of freshly factory resetting, freshly clearing the cache, etc. Once we got past that, he started getting frustrated (with the situation, not with me).
I finally asked the following: "When this device came out of the box, it was not associated with any GMail account. It knew to ask for a new-to-it account because it had no knowledge of any accounts. The fact that it now asks for a PREVIOUS account means something is not truly factory reset... something is persistent, it even knows the previous email account and offers it as a fill-in, so it is not truly a 'factory reset' but some sort of intermediate 'soft reset'. How do we TRULY factory reset this tablet, so that it remembers NOTHING, acts like new, and requests a new account instead of requesting a previous one?"
His suggestion: Find a third party service shop who can reflash the system firmware onto the tablet. I am not making that up.
Oh, he did have one other suggestion: Buy a new tablet. Again, I am not making that up.
I suspect we'll be doing the latter. And you can bet it won't be a Samsung tablet. In fact, I'd like to find a tablet vendor that doesn't demand a relationship with Google OR Apple. I like Android as an OS but this compulsory apron-strings relationship is going to add to a landfill, cost us money for a new tablet when the one my MIL has is not broken, and cause her headaches because of the learning curve for a new device.
You can bet I'll be going out of my way to loudly advertise this experience for many months, on lots of forums. Bad business practices deserve to be crushed like cockroaches.
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Quote from above .
Bad business practices deserve to be crushed like cockroaches.
Don't blame the cockroaches.. they have been around before the dinosaurs..and will be here long after us...
Yes agree the big business once you bought something.. Thanks..
Read the very small print. In the guarentee section the 3 dots are micro prints. ... Thanks our service and after sales are here 24/7 and fully trained in NOT to be helpful ..
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Reading this, I wonder if Google might be independently 'tracking' customer use details. That way, sure, that laptop in customer's private possession could be totally reset / wiped, but the Corp. office still has records of phone number associated with that particular machine (and with a serial number to be read). That way, you surely COULD wipe things clean, but the Google system likely has their own private files or logs, showing previous (account) activity, as a sort of 'archieve'.
Makes sense to me, as I feel my own (Android on Alcatel phone) cell phone has a separate 'agenda' likely not always aligned with my wishes. Besides, any business has, likely, rights to store data regarding activity related to old accounts and name / phone number, without protected medical data or other privacy related info. But customer data, wiped out directly on the phone, maybe be sure that (Google) is only using 'that', not their own copies.
Hope that's clear, I have limited expertise here!
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People who find that their duty is to search for forum discussions which have diverted from the original subject, due to the original matter being discussed to a resolution or a lack of further comments, into an interesting and fruitful off-topic theme for that thread but totally on-topic for the forum, then post a bitter complaint about the thread which they never commented about and won't never comment about - because such people never contribute to anything - being offtopic. They invariantly receive a bunch of "thanks" from similar minded people who similarly never contribute to anything.
Those bad excuses for human beings are surprisingly effective achieving their target of shutting down good discussion, possibly turning it into pointless bickering or leading into locking of the thread. I have no evidence but I think their strategy is to troll out some bad responses from the participants of discussion using bitter language and malicious rhetorical "questions", then when they receive an angry reply, they instantly click the "report to the moderator" button, then Simon looks up the last two or three messages and clicks "close thread".
Long posts seem to trigger these people who usually themselves are only capable of generating up to 2 lines of text.
I have seen the moderators on some other forums split threads under new subject line, working much better than closing threads.
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Uh, say bud: What was THAT POST ABOUT ?
Can you be a bit, respectfully, uh, maybe more direct with your 'POOR EXCUSE FOR HUMAN' ?
So the 'target' can maybe take the critical feedback and change posting style, or whatever is called for.
Clarity, man, clarity: that's gonna be a good start.
Wasting our time.
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Reading this, I wonder if Google might be independently 'tracking' customer use details. That way, sure, that laptop in customer's private possession could be totally reset / wiped, but the Corp. office still has records of phone number associated with that particular machine (and with a serial number to be read). That way, you surely COULD wipe things clean, but the Google system likely has their own private files or logs, showing previous (account) activity, as a sort of 'archieve'.
Makes sense to me, as I feel my own (Android on Alcatel phone) cell phone has a separate 'agenda' likely not always aligned with my wishes. Besides, any business has, likely, rights to store data regarding activity related to old accounts and name / phone number, without protected medical data or other privacy related info. But customer data, wiped out directly on the phone, maybe be sure that (Google) is only using 'that', not their own copies.
Hope that's clear, I have limited expertise here!
There is no question in my mind that the "surveillance capitalist" business model (Google being the prime example) leads to a lot of information being stored about you on a "just in case we need it" basis, for example, they like to know your age (hence why Google is constantly asking for my birthday) for marketing / demographic reasons - this information is valuable for ALL advertising campaigns, so they would prefer to have that in your "shadow profile" that they maintain based on your activity.
"Your activity" likely includes where you go (GPS / location tracking), the apps you use, how you use them, what you browse on your PC, etc. - and from Facebook, they can get your name, and so on and so on - basically, they can build up a pretty complete picture of most people unless they go to great lengths to stay private...
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Uh, say bud: What was THAT POST ABOUT ?
Can you be a bit, respectfully, uh, maybe more direct with your 'POOR EXCUSE FOR HUMAN' ?
So the 'target' can maybe take the critical feedback and change posting style, or whatever is called for.
Clarity, man, clarity: that's gonna be a good start.
Wasting our time.
People who find that their duty is to search for forum discussions which have diverted from the original subject, due to the original matter being discussed to a resolution or a lack of further comments, into an interesting and fruitful off-topic theme for that thread but totally on-topic for the forum, then post a bitter complaint about the thread which they never commented about and won't never comment about - because such people never contribute to anything - being offtopic.
I interpret his post as being about a pet peeve, technical or otherwise (in this case about people who don't contribute to a thread other than to go in and bitch that it has gone off topic - AKA thread police), that's posted in a thread about pet peeves. How is it wasting our time?
-Pat
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About a month ago I got a new iPhone SE. It doesn't come with a charger, and I understand that. The annoying thing is, the charging / data cable it does come with has a USB C connector and I don't have a single thing that it will plug into. Apple want AU$29 for a lightning to USB A cable. $4 eBay ones are useless. What was so terribly wrong with USB A that really is Universal???
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[...] What was so terribly wrong with USB A that really is Universal???
Not enough opportunities to make money...
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The annoying thing is, the charging / data cable it does come with has a USB C connector and I don't have a single thing that it will plug into. Apple want AU$29 for a lightning to USB A cable. $4 eBay ones are useless. What was so terribly wrong with USB A that really is Universal???
Ironically, my 19YO son and I had this exact same discussion the same day that you posted this. I maintained that USB-A is the closest thing to a universal connector that we've seen. They're literally everywhere. When you can get power using the same cable from both a rental car dashboard and a hotel room alarm clock, society has accomplished something. Granted the current capacity may vary but even 5V @ 500mA (the minimum spec) is enough to power 95% of handheld devices that use a USB cable.
So... let's change the connector! Again! Because why not?!?
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many different ones to choose from." Grrrrrr.
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While USB-C does have a few advantages, I'm not a fan either. I have a lot of equipment that doesn't have it so I use USB-A on everything, even the stuff that does have C. The only place I ever actually use USB-C is my employer issued Macbook because there is no other option, and even on that I use converter dongles for absolutely everything but the charger. Pretty much all of my coworkers have a pencil pouch full of dongles, USB-C has been around for years and it has never really caught on because it doesn't offer anything compelling enough to be worth the hassle of switching to yet a different connector. The cables are expensive and fragile too, and some of them support the higher powers and some don't. Devices with USB-C connectors vary in how much of the standard they have implemented too. I hear people touting the ability to insert the connector either way around and I just think "neat but so what?" Am I the only one who never seemed to have a difficulty inserting a standard USB connector the right way around? Couldn't we have solved this by clearly marking USB-A plugs and sockets?
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While USB-C does have a few advantages, I'm not a fan either.
I don't care one way or the other, I just hate the constant "connector churn" for no reason other than to brag that they have the newest shiny connector style.
I hear people touting the ability to insert the connector either way around and I just think "neat but so what?" Am I the only one who never seemed to have a difficulty inserting a standard USB connector the right way around? Couldn't we have solved this by clearly marking USB-A plugs and sockets?
In fact, USB-A is marked. Look at the male plug. The shield is formed by "wrapping" the metal and the seam is always on the bottom. Nice and easy. You can even feel for it in the dark if necessary. If you don't have sufficient tactile sense in your fingertips, use a fingernail. It's actually better than many marking schemes; the only improvement would have been asymmetry.
I'm not hung up on USB-A nor any other style. I just hate the constant churn for little or no deliverable. There are very few peripheral devices where a USB-A cable isn't fast enough. Heck, I do backups on external SSD's and they plug into USB-A connectors without causing any noticeable slowdown. USB was supposed to be a replacement for modest speed serial devices... does it really need to support multiple 8K video streams? /rant
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I use little red and green self adhesive stickers on the USB A plugs and sometimes on the socket or on the side of the device with the socket so I know which way is 'up'.
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In fact, USB-A is marked. Look at the male plug. The shield is formed by "wrapping" the metal and the seam is always on the bottom. Nice and easy. You can even feel for it in the dark if necessary. If you don't have sufficient tactile sense in your fingertips, use a fingernail. It's actually better than many marking schemes; the only improvement would have been asymmetry.
The issue is not the plug but the socket which is often not clearly marked and many are installed sideways or upside down. Still, I rarely have had any trouble getting a USB plug in, and on the occasion that I try to put it in the wrong way it's very easy to just flip it around and try again, total non-issue. The first time I heard that USB-C had an IC in the cable plug I thought it was a joke but it's true.
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Pet Peeve d'jour: Can NO ONE create a decent, well-rounded MEMS chip design?
Given the well documented and well discussed Bosch Sensortec availability problems, I'm researching a TDK InvenSense alternative. Not a perfect match at the hardware level (which we can tolerate on the PCB), and a completely different animal in terms of programming interface (which we can accommodate in the firmware). No complaints there.
As with most other SPI/I2C interfaced parts, they use an eight bit address field with one bit indicating read/write. Kudos to them for using B7, which makes things much easier to read (the accursed Bosch part uses B0!?!). There are 111 unique registers in the TDK part, which easily fits in the seven-bit address space of the address byte after B7/RW is consumed.
Easy, right? Just specify the address and crank away! Yeehaw!
Except NOPE. Instead of this very logical approach, TDK created five "Register Banks" numbered 0-4. And they divided up those 111 registers across those five banks. And they duplicated the addresses of just a few. This forces the firmware to set and maintain which freaking register bank is presently selected.
Why? WHY? Why do this? You have 111 registers and 128 discrete addresses. Just map the registers across that space and be done with it. But no, we're back in Intel 80286 addressing school with segment base addresses (read: paging) instead of a nice linear address space.
Can NO ONE create a decent, well-rounded MEMS chip design?
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While USB-C does have a few advantages, I'm not a fan either. I have a lot of equipment that doesn't have it so I use USB-A on everything, even the stuff that does have C. The only place I ever actually use USB-C is my employer issued Macbook because there is no other option, and even on that I use converter dongles for absolutely everything but the charger. Pretty much all of my coworkers have a pencil pouch full of dongles, USB-C has been around for years and it has never really caught on because it doesn't offer anything compelling enough to be worth the hassle of switching to yet a different connector. The cables are expensive and fragile too, and some of them support the higher powers and some don't. Devices with USB-C connectors vary in how much of the standard they have implemented too. I hear people touting the ability to insert the connector either way around and I just think "neat but so what?" Am I the only one who never seemed to have a difficulty inserting a standard USB connector the right way around? Couldn't we have solved this by clearly marking USB-A plugs and sockets?
You can actually get USB connectors that can plug in either way - they work surprisingly well, despite being a bit of a "hack". I use them in my cars, so I don't have to take my eyes away from the road when plugging something in to charge...
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Pet Peeve d'jour: Can NO ONE create a decent, well-rounded MEMS chip design?
Given the well documented and well discussed Bosch Sensortec availability problems, I'm researching a TDK InvenSense alternative. Not a perfect match at the hardware level (which we can tolerate on the PCB), and a completely different animal in terms of programming interface (which we can accommodate in the firmware). No complaints there.
As with most other SPI/I2C interfaced parts, they use an eight bit address field with one bit indicating read/write. Kudos to them for using B7, which makes things much easier to read (the accursed Bosch part uses B0!?!). There are 111 unique registers in the TDK part, which easily fits in the seven-bit address space of the address byte after B7/RW is consumed.
Easy, right? Just specify the address and crank away! Yeehaw!
Except NOPE. Instead of this very logical approach, TDK created five "Register Banks" numbered 0-4. And they divided up those 111 registers across those five banks. And they duplicated the addresses of just a few. This forces the firmware to set and maintain which freaking register bank is presently selected.
Why? WHY? Why do this? You have 111 registers and 128 discrete addresses. Just map the registers across that space and be done with it. But no, we're back in Intel 80286 addressing school with segment base addresses (read: paging) instead of a nice linear address space.
Can NO ONE create a decent, well-rounded MEMS chip design?
If you make something simple, the job is done quickly and it will probably work reliably for decades. Where's the fun (and profit) in that??? - there's your answer!
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It's just so aggravating. Granted I'm not the chip designer, but a linear address space would seem easier to implement than this banked arrangement. Not to mention easier to use by their customers. There must be some architectural reason why this is "better" because it sure looks stupid from the outside... extra work for both designers and customers.
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I recently had the misfortune of having to use a phone menu, when I noticed a new "feature" that I found particularly obnoxious. When you would say a response (or key it in), there was a pause during which the system would play a typing sound for a few seconds- you know, clickety-click-click... the sound you hear when someone is typing on a keyboard.
Apparently the sacks of pigshit that decided to go this route believe that humans would be more comfortable hearing those sounds to simulate a human-to-human interaction, or worse, would think that their there was actually a human typing their responses.
Consistent with my evaluation of the intellectual capacity of the creators, this occurred after every response, so for example, if the machine output is "say or enter your seven digit code", I would, literally respond, "or enter your seven digit code"....then "clickety-click-click" for a couple of seconds, followed, by "I don't understand your response...say or enter your seven digit code".
We are all doomed.
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chucking away stuff thats been sat around ,unused for far too many years (at least 20 in this case ) and then a few weeks later you find it would have been ideal for your next project.O well time to trawl the second hand world for a 19" 4:3 crt tv with a scart input.
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I recently had the misfortune of having to use a phone menu, when I noticed a new "feature" that I found particularly obnoxious. When you would say a response (or key it in), there was a pause during which the system would play a typing sound for a few seconds- you know, clickety-click-click... the sound you hear when someone is typing on a keyboard.
Apparently the sacks of pigshit that decided to go this route believe that humans would be more comfortable hearing those sounds to simulate a human-to-human interaction, or worse, would think that their was actually a human typing their responses.
Consistent with my evaluation of the intellectual capacity of the creators, this occurred after every response, so for example, if the machine output is "say or enter your seven digit code", I would, literally respond, "or enter your seven digit code"....then "clickety-click-click" for a couple of seconds, followed, by "I don't understand your response...say or enter your seven digit code".
We are all doomed.
Whenever I get a robot, I utter "I want to close my account".
I keep repeating that at every response cue until the thing gives me a human.
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chucking away stuff thats been sat around ,unused for far too many years (at least 20 in this case ) and then a few weeks later you find it would have been ideal for your next project.
You mean I'm not the only person that lives that reality?!?
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Whenever I get a robot, I utter "I want to close my account". I keep repeating that at every response cue until the thing gives me a human.
I repeat "moldy mayonnaise". It's not likely to be close to any of the menu responses, so their algorithm will decide I have an accent or something and default to a human.
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I recently had the misfortune of having to use a phone menu, when I noticed a new "feature" that I found particularly obnoxious. When you would say a response (or key it in), there was a pause during which the system would play a typing sound for a few seconds- you know, clickety-click-click... the sound you hear when someone is typing on a keyboard.
Apparently the sacks of pigshit that decided to go this route believe that humans would be more comfortable hearing those sounds to simulate a human-to-human interaction, or worse, would think that their was actually a human typing their responses.
I experienced that same thing recently, and I had a very similar reaction. It was almost offensive in the sense that I could not believe they would think I was stupid enough to believe that's a real person typing. I swear if I sat down to engineer an automated phone system with the goal being to be as aggravating to the user as possible I would be hard pressed to do a better job. It really baffles me that companies think these systems are a good idea, the worse they get the more likely I am to just keep mashing zero until I get connected to a human.
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chucking away stuff thats been sat around ,unused for far too many years (at least 20 in this case ) and then a few weeks later you find it would have been ideal for your next project.O well time to trawl the second hand world for a 19" 4:3 crt tv with a scart input.
Just as I predicted would happen, CRT TVs suddenly became somewhat rare, and now a bog standard 19" CRT TV in working condition will fetch $100+ and rising as a "gaming TV". Vintage light gun video games will not work at all on any other display tech, and a CRT is the only authentic experience for any 80s-90s system. Even a year ago you could have probably got $75 for it pretty easily. The CRTs themselves are increasing in value too, at least the ones that will fit classic arcade monitor chassis.
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It really baffles me that companies think these systems are a good idea, the worse they get the more likely I am to just keep mashing zero until I get connected to a human.
Sadly they have become wise to that technique. We have literally reached the point where in some cases it is impossible to connect to a live person. Their menu system circularly routes you back to their finite set of options. Repeatedly pressing zero, or saying "operator", or anything else results in (direct quote) "I'm sorry you're having trouble. Goodbye."
One trick that has worked is to navigate the menu as if you want to sign up, or buy new services (read: give them more money). THOSE options are always well staffed. Once I reach a human, I start describing my problem and they are generally willing to "correct" me with a real phone number that is already past the front-end public "Customer Support" number.
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It really baffles me that companies think these systems are a good idea, the worse they get the more likely I am to just keep mashing zero until I get connected to a human.
Sadly they have become wise to that technique. We have literally reached the point where in some cases it is impossible to connect to a live person. Their menu system circularly routes you back to their finite set of options. Repeatedly pressing zero, or saying "operator", or anything else results in (direct quote) "I'm sorry you're having trouble. Goodbye."
One trick that has worked is to navigate the menu as if you want to sign up, or buy new services (read: give them more money). THOSE options are always well staffed. Once I reach a human, I start describing my problem and they are generally willing to "correct" me with a real phone number that is already past the front-end public "Customer Support" number.
The other trick that always gets you to a human real fast, is to attempt to cancel the service. That gets you to the Customer Retention Department, where all the good deals are!
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The other trick that always gets you to a human real fast, is to attempt to cancel the service. That gets you to the Customer Retention Department, where all the good deals are!
That's a better idea than mine. "If you don't fix [problem] by this time tomorrow, I'm closing my account." I bet they have a special support number that prioritizes such calls because they actually threaten revenue. Great suggestion!
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The other trick that always gets you to a human real fast, is to attempt to cancel the service. That gets you to the Customer Retention Department, where all the good deals are!
That's a better idea than mine. "If you don't fix [problem] by this time tomorrow, I'm closing my account." I bet they have a special support number that prioritizes such calls because they actually threaten revenue. Great suggestion!
They definitely do, and they are the best reps. I got my cable bill halved, and speed doubled, the last time I tried this, LOL. I'm having a go at the cell phone company next week...
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People who say "anyways" older than 40.
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Sadly they have become wise to that technique. We have literally reached the point where in some cases it is impossible to connect to a live person. Their menu system circularly routes you back to their finite set of options. Repeatedly pressing zero, or saying "operator", or anything else results in (direct quote) "I'm sorry you're having trouble. Goodbye."
One trick that has worked is to navigate the menu as if you want to sign up, or buy new services (read: give them more money). THOSE options are always well staffed. Once I reach a human, I start describing my problem and they are generally willing to "correct" me with a real phone number that is already past the front-end public "Customer Support" number.
Maybe wrapping a note around a brick and throwing it through the window of their office would get you in touch with a real person.
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That’s why these outfits never show their physical location.
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I recently had the misfortune of having to use a phone menu, when I noticed a new "feature" that I found particularly obnoxious. When you would say a response (or key it in), there was a pause during which the system would play a typing sound for a few seconds- you know, clickety-click-click... the sound you hear when someone is typing on a keyboard.
Apparently the sacks of pigshit that decided to go this route believe that humans would be more comfortable hearing those sounds to simulate a human-to-human interaction, or worse, would think that their was actually a human typing their responses.
I experienced that same thing recently, and I had a very similar reaction. It was almost offensive in the sense that I could not believe they would think I was stupid enough to believe that's a real person typing. I swear if I sat down to engineer an automated phone system with the goal being to be as aggravating to the user as possible I would be hard pressed to do a better job. It really baffles me that companies think these systems are a good idea, the worse they get the more likely I am to just keep mashing zero until I get connected to a human.
My family moved to the south (US, Alabama) and I was being shown how to use a cash register (summer job). I was told to "mash" the button. I looked at my trainer in bewilderment. "Mash" a button? When I "mash" something, like potatoes, it becomes a pulverized mess. I was raised to "push" buttons, not "mash" them. Not a pet peeve, but reminded me of linguistic differences. In Alabama, they also wore toboggans on their heads. Where I was raised, we rode toboggans down a snowy hill. Also, the generic term for a soft drink was "Coke". I've lived in several other US states and had used "pop", "soft drink" or "soda". But in Alabama, when a waitress asked someone what they wanted to drink, a person might respond with "A Coke". To which the waitress would ask, "What kind?", and the person might respond with "A Pepsi"
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Also, the generic term for a soft drink was "Coke". I've lived in several other US states and had used "pop", "soft drink" or "soda". But in Alabama, when a waitress asked someone what they wanted to drink, a person might respond with "A Coke". To which the waitress would ask, "What kind?", and the person might respond with "A Pepsi"
similar confusion can happen in parts of Scotland were ginger means fizzy drink.
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One pet peeve that I'm experiencing more frequently recently is the claim by some that vinyl LPs are better than CDs. Now sure, "better" is a relative term, but many of these people claim that LPs are better in a technical sense than CDs, which is patently false. In every objective, measurable way CDs are better: SNR, channel separation, frequency response, etc.
I can completely understand some people liking the sound of LPs better, but that's due to the inherent limitations and distortions of the format that they've grown used to over time rather than any technical superiority. I can also understand liking LPs for other reasons like nostalgia, album art, liner notes, and the tactile feeling of putting a record on a turntable, but wish they'd stop making claims they can't back up with test results.
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LPs are better in a technical sense than CDs,
Whats the sampling rate of a cd compared to that of an LP recorded purely analogue?
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LPs are better in a technical sense than CDs,
Whats the sampling rate of a cd compared to that of an LP recorded purely analogue?
The CD standard is 16-bit sampling at 44.1 kHz. Music destined for CD is often recorded at higher sampling rates and bit depths to allow for more headroom in the mastering process, but all discs use the 44.1/16 standard.
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Your LP will be mastered from that exact same 44.1kHz original data stream.
As to IVR menus, the one thing you do not say when with retention or complaints is the lawyer word, as often then they will become stuck in a loop of you needing to talk to legal via your lawyer, here is the number for legal, and hanging up.
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Traditional analog LPs were recorded through a continuous process (no discrete sampling or digitization), with defined band limits from the magnetic tape system. There was a short-lived vogue for issuing LPs that went directly to the disc cutter (no tape, no editing), which was a throwback to the very early days of gramophones.
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That reminds me of one of my pet peeves, loudness war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war).
When the masters are converted to distribution, be it CDs or digital files, instead of using the full dynamic range, they let the data clip just so that the content sounds louder compared to others on the same media. This is particularly noticeable in radio, and when playing random files (on shuffle); not on any single album.
It is possible, I guess, that certain bands release their vinyl records with more sensible dynamic range use (less clipping of the signal), compared to their CDs and digital files.
So, once again, it all boils down to us humans doing silly choices in the production chain; not to any real technical limitations or requirements.
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Drivers who are not fully engaged in driving.
Stop driving and using your phone at the same time. I've just driven 4000-odd km in the last two weeks, and watching people veer all over the road is becoming all too common. The white double lines in the centre of the road will not protect you when you veer into the opposite lane with an approaching b-double.
We had another halfwit doing ~75 in the 100 zone in the right-hand lane of the Warrego Highway yesterday. I pulled to the left to see what was going on - driver was reading some papers. Then an empty beef bus roared up and let him have it. Must have shocked him a beauty, he swerved in front of me then hit the accelerator. Time to get a dash cam.
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Ugh, drivers with their phones in the hand...
Sometimes i wish mobile phones simply would turn off at a certain speed. Convenience for the passengers be damned, but distracted drivers are getting worse and worse.
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Ugh, drivers with their phones in the hand...
Sometimes i wish mobile phones simply would turn off at a certain speed. Convenience for the passengers be damned, but distracted drivers are getting worse and worse.
When I was riding the bus to the office prior to the pandemic I would see that EVERY DAY, multiple drivers. Most of them set it in their lap where they think nobody can see them playing with it. If it were up to me I'd make distracted driving a criminal offense, a felony if it results in any kind of accident, even a minor one. Maybe substantial fines, $5k for the first offense and the amount doubling for each additional offense would get people to think twice. It's as dangerous as driving drunk and yet people do it all the time.
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It is possible, I guess, that certain bands release their vinyl records with more sensible dynamic range use (less clipping of the signal), compared to their CDs and digital files.
So, once again, it all boils down to us humans doing silly choices in the production chain; not to any real technical limitations or requirements.
One of the reasons people may prefer vinyl LPs over CDs for certain releases is because it's just not possible to push LPs as far as CDs with respect to loudness. Doing so would make the LP unplayable. This is not a limitation of the CD format, however, but a limitation of short-sighted record producers.
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Fuckwitted webapp developers developing phone apps |O
HMRC app is a great example:
1. Sign in by laboriously typing your user ID of 12 random characters.
2. Ditto your password which you can't remember but fortunately have a note of same in Keepass on the PC.
3. "We will now send you a verification code via SMS to your phone"
Yes, the very phone they bloody well know I am trying to log in with. Naturally, switching to the text app aborts the login so after having memorised the code I have to go through it all again. Complete with sending a code again. Rinse, repeat, scream.
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Fuckwitted webapp developers developing phone apps |O
HMRC app is a great example:
1. Sign in by laboriously typing your user ID of 12 random characters.
2. Ditto your password which you can't remember but fortunately have a note of same in Keepass on the PC.
3. "We will now send you a verification code via SMS to your phone"
Yes, the very phone they bloody well know I am trying to log in with. Naturally, switching to the text app aborts the login so after having memorised the code I have to go through it all again. Complete with sending a code again. Rinse, repeat, scream.
..And the app needs to access your photos, contact list, GPS..
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It's a government app - they already know more than they really need to about me. And if they didn't, they did after my missus filled in the census form they sent her along with a £10 Amazon gift token bribe.
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It's a government app - they already know more than they really need to about me. And if they didn't, they did after my missus filled in the census form they sent her along with a £10 Amazon gift token bribe.
They paid you to fill in the legally required census?
How do I get in on this?
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It's a thing from, I think, ONS. Since it's not, as you put it, legally required they need some incentive to get people to do it.
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It's a thing from, I think, ONS. Since it's not, as you put it, legally required they need some incentive to get people to do it.
Oh, so not the census census. Shame. There I was thinking I could get them to pay me for my time instead of me paying them 20 times what theirs is worth.
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Reminds me of another pet peeve, calling desktop software "apps". Microsoft did this starting with Win8 and continued right on into Win10 and it really makes me cringe. I don't even know why it bothers me so much but it drives me nuts. In my mind an "app" is a stripped down single function "mini-program" for a mobile device. It would even be reasonable to call something like Calculator or Notepad an "app" on a PC, but calling a full fledged desktop program like Office, Photoshop, CAD, etc "apps" is just stupid. It feels like some old guy trying to talk hip and cool and fit in with a bunch of teenagers.
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Reminds me of another pet peeve, calling desktop software "apps". Microsoft did this starting with Win8 and continued right on into Win10 and it really makes me cringe. I don't even know why it bothers me so much but it drives me nuts. In my mind an "app" is a stripped down single function "mini-program" for a mobile device. It would even be reasonable to call something like Calculator or Notepad an "app" on a PC, but calling a full fledged desktop program like Office, Photoshop, CAD, etc "apps" is just stupid. It feels like some old guy trying to talk hip and cool and fit in with a bunch of teenagers.
Exactly, and the old guy is too dumb to realize that he is the one that should be making the teenagers feel it is hip and cool to call them "applications", not the other way round!
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People saying MOSFET and a transistor. What do they think the T stands for? grumble grumble
I hear a lot of people saying that, they think BJTs are transistors and FETs something else. :-//
The “T” of the acronym “MOSFET” stands for “Transistor”, so they’re also right.
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People saying MOSFET and a transistor. What do they think the T stands for? grumble grumble
I hear a lot of people saying that, they think BJTs are transistors and FETs something else. :-//
There are a bunch of these acronym redundancies that have become commonplace in language, presumably because they are more comfortable to speak. Personally, I think that it is difficult for people to maintain awareness of the acronym meaning after it has become commonplace in the language. They are treated like names of things that require identification of the thing, even though the acronym includes that identification (maybe I could say that better :) ).
"Is there an ATM machine here?" (ATM=automated teller machine).
"What is the VIN number on your Audi?" (VIN=vehicle identification number).
"When did you buy a new NIC card?" (NIC=Network Interface Card [but arguably network interface controller, so maybe a pass on this one]).
"Did you bring your CAC card?" (CAC=common access card).
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Related:
"Orientated"
"Preventative"
"Irregardless"
...and many others.
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"Orientated"
"Preventative"
"Irregardless"
Yes. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OUad17_Pzo)
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Dark overlays/animations and dimming on dialogues and pretty much creeping to everything, newish android phone, I am trying to put a wireless and moved the notes in the background around the dialogue to see it as the key on the side but the background was so dark I couldn't see it. I couldn't find any way to turn that whatever it is off. To me I think it is very stupid and it hurts my eyes when excessive. Whether it was done for a decoration (maybe whoever done it thought it looked good) or if it was "help" users "focus" because 'somehow all the information in the background might confuse them with the dialogue in front.
A setting to leave the background alone, mostly like the previous android 5 or so (there were a few but not that dark) isn't that much to ask for?
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Dark overlays/animations and dimming on dialogues and pretty much creeping to everything, newish android phone, I am trying to put a wireless and moved the notes in the background around the dialogue to see it as the key on the side but the background was so dark I couldn't see it. I couldn't find any way to turn that whatever it is off. To me I think it is very stupid and it hurts my eyes when excessive. Whether it was done for a decoration (maybe whoever done it thought it looked good) or if it was "help" users "focus" because 'somehow all the information in the background might confuse them with the dialogue in front.
A setting to leave the background alone, mostly like the previous android 5 or so (there were a few but not that dark) isn't that much to ask for?
I believe the various dark themes are actually intended to extend battery life. But I totally agree, they are extremely annoying and I disable them wherever encountered. I haven't left one in place long enough to find out if it actually makes a difference in battery life.
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The word kernal.
There is no such word in English; it is kernel.
As a non-native English speaker, it somehow is one of those words that pokes me in the eye when I see it. I am well aware that because the latter vowel is silent in spoken language, native speakers do not care, nor see any issue here. But to me, someone who mostly reads and writes English, it is always jarring to see it. I'd compare it to writing "speech" as "speeche", "which" as "witch", and so on.
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As a native English speaker (and writer!), the non-binary pronouns thing triggers big grammar alarms whenever my eyes float over them. Maybe non-natives find those easier.
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As a native English speaker (and writer!), the non-binary pronouns thing triggers big grammar alarms whenever my eyes float over them. Maybe non-natives find those easier.
As a Finnish native speaker, I must say I do find them easy – even comfortable –, but that's just because Finnish has no gendered words except for a few nouns like "chairman", ("actress" - no, they're all called "actors" nowadays), or say "fireman". Sorry!
That said, I think I know how that feels. The opposite case occurs often in programming, when one deals with "parent" and "child" processes. People from certain cultures insist calling these (in English) "father" and "son", which sounds really odd to me. (But it isn't a peeve for me, because it doesn't stop my linguistic processor like encountering 'kernal', or 'witch' instead of 'which', do.)
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I'm a native English speaker and "kernal" would annoy me, it's a misspelled word. It isn't one that I have seen misspelled like that often though. The English mistakes that bother me the most are people who can't figure out the difference between there/their/they're. I see that all the time.
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I'm a native English speaker and "kernal" would annoy me, it's a misspelled word. It isn't one that I have seen misspelled like that often though. The English mistakes that bother me the most are people who can't figure out the difference between there/their/they're. I see that all the time.
I find it often in my own writing. When I haven't checked what auto correct did to me.
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I'm a native English speaker and "kernal" would annoy me, it's a misspelled word. It isn't one that I have seen misspelled like that often though.
The good folks at Commodore fell for this one, and decided to invent a backronym to keep the misspelling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KERNAL). :palm:
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I'm a native English speaker and "kernal" would annoy me, it's a misspelled word. It isn't one that I have seen misspelled like that often though. The English mistakes that bother me the most are people who can't figure out the difference between there/their/they're. I see that all the time.
As a non-native English speaker, I notice a lot of "natives" also struggle with then/than. Seems weird to mix those up, people that do it must be spelling phonetically?
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One that seems to catch out Americans is affect/effect. The BBC suggests that might be down to pronunciation - in British English they are pronounced differently whereas in American English they sound the same. No idea if that's actually the case.
edit: source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/eiam/unit-1/session-34 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/eiam/unit-1/session-34)
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A VERY annoying thing:
You load a website/app on your smartphone, and JUST when you reach to tap a certain icon or link... THE PAGE JUMPS! SO YOU TAP SOMETHING ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!
ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH! :-DD :palm:
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in British English they are pronounced differently whereas in American English they sound the same
They are distinct in American English too, if the speaker speaks clearly. Sadly, many do not.
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One that seems to catch out Americans is affect/effect. The BBC suggests that might be down to pronunciation - in British English they are pronounced differently whereas in American English they sound the same. No idea if that's actually the case.
edit: source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/eiam/unit-1/session-34 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/eiam/unit-1/session-34)
In Australian English, there is a microscopic difference in pronunciation, but it isn't that hard to work out from context, anyway.
"British English" tends to be a rather idealised version of how Brits speak, whereas real Brits vary radically in their pronunciation of the same words.
Remember, "Brits" includes Scots, people from Northern Ireland, & Wales as well as English people.
Even amongst the latter, there those who call horses "horse-is", others who pronounce "a" as in "cat", more like "ar", so our feline friend would be a "cart", & I haven't even mentioned Yorkshiremen, Cornish folk, & a slew of others.
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While we're on variations in pronunciation, here in Australia we pronounce buoy as boy and buoyancy as boyancy. Americans say booey, but how do they say buoyancy?
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One that seems to catch out Americans is affect/effect. The BBC suggests that might be down to pronunciation - in British English they are pronounced differently whereas in American English they sound the same. No idea if that's actually the case.
edit: source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/eiam/unit-1/session-34 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/course/eiam/unit-1/session-34)
In Australian English, there is a microscopic difference in pronunciation, but it isn't that hard to work out from context, anyway.
"British English" tends to be a rather idealised version of how Brits speak, whereas real Brits vary radically in their pronunciation of the same words.
Remember, "Brits" includes Scots, people from Northern Ireland, & Wales as well as English people.
Even amongst the latter, there those who call horses "horse-is", others who pronounce "a" as in "cat", more like "ar", so our feline friend would be a "cart", & I haven't even mentioned Yorkshiremen, Cornish folk, & a slew of others.
My favourite English regional dialect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pW8mIL9TAc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pW8mIL9TAc)
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Americans say booey, but how do they say buoyancy?
The same way you do.
Nobody said Americans were consistent!
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While we're on variations in pronunciation, here in Australia we pronounce buoy as boy and buoyancy as boyancy. Americans say booey, but how do they say buoyancy?
In Western Australia, we pronounce the place names "Albany" & "Derby" as they are written.
In other words the "Al" as in "pal" & the "Der" as in "germ" or "term".
People from the "Eastern States" pronounce them as "Orlbany" & "Darby", causing WA folk to "grit their teeth!(just one of the many things about them that do!) ;D
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In Western Australia
Oh yeah, West Australia. ;D
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Not Hervey Bay, in QLD.
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Not Hervey Bay, in QLD.
Don't you pronounce it "Harvey"?
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Not Hervey Bay, in QLD.
Don't you pronounce it "Harvey"?
Yep. I wonder if the local Harvey Norman is pronounced Hervey Nurmon.
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Not Hervey Bay, in QLD.
Don't you pronounce it "Harvey"?
Yep. I wonder if the local Harvey Norman is pronounced Hervey Nurmon.
It only works one way round, as far as I can tell.
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Subscription blackmail.
Just doing stuff on my PC and message pops up: both Windows and Bitdefender firewalls are stopped. WTF?!?! A quick check shows Bitdefender completely disabled and I am already sorting out my last backup when I notice the reason it's stopped: my subscription has expired.
There is no warning that the subscription is going to expire (perhaps a week in advance or something), they just cut you off. And then provide a link to subscription renewal so you can be safe again, but it's auto-renew and costs twice as much as from a more sensible source. They are relying on the panic effect to have you renew without the chance to consider whether the competition might be nice to try this time. And, of course, leaving your PC wide open whilst this is going on - if you happen to be in the middle of surfing the intertubes, tough shit. Even worse if you happen not to be watching at the time and miss the message, then go off surfing.
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IMHO Bitdefender is kind of scammy to begin with, I don't use anything like that. Windows firewall is free and doesn't expire, use an updated browser, install ad blocking and script blocking and don't visit sketchy sites. No need to pay for a 3rd party firewall.
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Windows firewall is free and doesn't expire
And is pants. Often comes well down below most other stuff in real tests. Probably isn't updated for W7 anyways.
Edit: another reason not to use it is because it's not a core product. Just like DNS and DHCP on routers, it is there as a tickbox exercise. OTOH, the likes of Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Comodo exist because of the product they are selling.
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When I was a program manager at Microsoft it used to send me spare that devs would include an error code in some action, often getting written to the system logs, and then would never actually document what the hell the error code meant.
Every time I'd find one of these I'd log a bug against it and then do battle with the dev managers who wanted to keep working on new features rather than making stuff easier to diagnose. I worked on Visual Studio and not Windows which I suspect, given their inability to set ACLs on com objects correctly would have been a much harder task.
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Edit: another reason not to use it is because it's not a core product. Just like DNS and DHCP on routers, it is there as a tickbox exercise. OTOH, the likes of Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Comodo exist because of the product they are selling.
They exist because people are convinced they need them and spend money on it. All sorts of snake oil products exist and people spend good money on them. I'm not saying that firewalls and antivirus and whatnot are snake oil necessarily, but to some degree I think they are. They create a false sense of security although they are far from infallible. I have never used a 3rd party firewall on my PC ever, I've seen a lot of problems caused by them though on other systems I've fixed for people. I haven't run a realtime virus scanner on any of my systems in quite a few years now either, and I find I have a lot fewer issues overall. Every now and then I do an off-line scan but I haven't had any sort of infection on my stuff since I started using VMs to check anything of questionable pedigree and I never browse without adblock and script blocking. The only firewall I care about is the one between the public internet and my internal network.
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For my personal use, Windows Defender and Windows Firewall are simply good enough. Alongside my router's firewall and NAT rules.
I see no reason at all to pay a subscription to a scaremongering third party.
I concur with @james_s: Securing your browser is nowadays the most important thing. And an ad- and scriptblocker will already do a really good job at that. Most of the time, a scriptblocker alone will be enough, since most ads heavily rely on tracking scripts.
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I'm not too fussed about a PC firewall and really only use one to stop the annoying Windows prompting. But I brought it up here because that was the indication that the AV was stopped, and even if you don't use or want one, something subtle happening that has no explanation is, IME, something to investigate (and not just on PCs).
As to whether the AV part is useful or necessary, I think it is. Loads of people say their AV protects them because they've never had it trigger, but they are fools - the proof of it's working is that it DOES get triggered. I am quite a cautious person and take various steps to mitigate risk. I don't run strange downloads, don't open email attachments, have script and ad blockers, don't visit dodgy sites, etc. Nevetherless, I have been this >< close to being caught out with some phishing, and Bitdefender often blocks various things. Perhaps they are false alarms, but so far they are all things that I would be suspicious about (or even know they're dodgy).
But... I only use it for on-access scanning. If I let it loose on my disk for a scan, firstly it would be making the system crawl for hours but, more importantly, it would hassle me about stuff like Nirsoft tools and the like. Which is both good and annoying. My reasoning is that any bad stuff is going to be dangerous at the point of use, hence that's when you want to check it. If you scan a disk you might find something you otherwise wouldn't (if you never opened it, perhaps) but exploits that turn up later won't have been matched at that time, so you have to keep scanning often. Sod that.
I should also note that I've been around since DOS days when saving (now) trivial amounts of memory to enable network drivers or whatever was de rigueur (not to mention a similar attitude when programming embedded systems), so I have always been quite circumspect about what runs in the background and takes up resources. AV is something I don't really like but is necessary because, well, I'm human and make mistakes. It's like an emergency stop button on machinery - it's not going to give you an impenetrable cloak of steel, but it raises the odds of getting away with something stupid.
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Many browsers, for example Chrome and Firefox, can block known phishing websites on their own. No third party software required.
As far as i know, Internet Explorer and pre-Chromium Edge did this on a windows level, with "SmartScreen"
If the phishing site is too new to be known, the thirdparty tool will not be able to protect you anyway.
I have been burned by third party av software in the past. I had several cases of mistakenly deleted system files, killing windows or major drivers. These were well documented cases each time, that affected quite a few people, so not a local infection. After the third different AV software killed windows, i threw it all away and only used the then relatively new Defender.
It is rare to get Defender triggered, i think it is easily more than a year since i saw it blocking something, and that was a false positive.
Still, i am quite confident that my machine is clean, since i am very careful about the sites from which i download software.
Since SSDs and multicore processors have been become common i don't care all that much anymore about what actually runs in the background. The local ressources are there anyway, i don't really care that one core of my 16 (8 core CPU with HT) is sitting at 20% or so, and some processes using a couple hundred megabytes of my 32 gigabytes RAM.
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By 'phishing' I mean stuff like email. Many times I get correct-looking emails but for something I don't use. Sometimes I get them for things I do use, and just now and then I get them for something I do use and am expecting an email from. There ain't no browser that will protect me from that.
Further, browsers by themselves are not too hot. You need addons, and if you don't know the right addon you're not that well protected. And with Google hobbling browsers to allow more ads through, and ad blockers allowing paid-for ads through, they are hardly the bastion of digital health. Frankly, you're a fool if you rely on browsers to save you, and that's just surfing - there are LOTS more ways for badness to reach and affect you.
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Ok, privately i use relatively little email. I only use webmail, so there the browser is the line of defense ;) I am also not signed up to all that many services, the most important would be Paypal and Amazon (since those have access to my bank account) and of course the email service itself.
I agree about Chrome. I recently read report about increasing Chrome errors about "Unsafe Ports". Whatever makes a port unsafe :p It hides to much, and it is sad to see that Firefox always seems to try to copy Chrome.
I currently use Firefox, and except for uBlock, i have no addons enabled. uBlock also does not have that "acceptable ads" crap that Adblocker has.
I know what software i have installed on my computer. Much of it is just for gaming, for example the Steam client, which is one of the few things i actually have in autostart.
Regarding productivity software, i mostly use open source, except for Office 365, which was just too cheap to not get it, if you can share a famility subscription with more than 3 people.
I do not use any online banking at all. My important passwords are in KeePass, without Browser integration, the less important stuff is in the Firefox keystore (with Master password) as well. And yes, some of them by now have been flagged by the HaveIBeenPwned collaboration that Firefox does. I am aware, i dont't really care about those crappy accounts that i have not used in many years anyway. That i don't use the same password on multiple sites should be obvious.
Windows telemetry and fluff (Cortana, online search, and who knows what else) is as far disabled as i can do this on Win 10 Pro, without affecting Windows Update. Security Updates are installed automatically, Feature Upgrades are *not*. I regularly check the telemetry settings with O&O Shutup 10. Yes, third party, but the tool is fully portable and does not install.
My daily runner account is not and admin account.
I have no inbound rules allowed in my router firewall, no port forwardings, and my provider does not even support IPv6, so there is no way to directly access my computer or any other device on my network from the outside. The firmware of the router is kept up to date, this is my own device and not a locked down one from a provider. There are no Alexas or general server dependent "Internet of Shit" devices on the network.
I know that this is not 100% safe. Simply *nothing* is 100% safe, except a cut cable. There always can be 0day vulnerabilities. I believe i know what i am doing though to get a reasonably safe home network, without too much effort.
I already have to keep up with all this crap at work, so "good enough" is good enough for my home network :p
*sheesh* What a ramble... I think i need to dig out the "Old man yells at cloud" meme again. :horse:
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*sheesh* What a ramble... I think i need to dig out the "Old man yells at cloud" meme again. :horse:
How are you pronouncing "meme", it may be worse than you think :) [re: "No, I think it's pronounced MiMi, two Me s"]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85lcnBnkems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85lcnBnkems)
My peeve is when commercials are actually funny because they hired real comedy writers.
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Another one to add to the list, well 2:
1: Sites that just arbitrarily forget your password. They'll just say your password is wrong even though you use a password manager and KNOW it's right. You are forced to use forget password option to reset it. In some cases it won't let you set it to the same thing you were trying to enter in first place and it says it's already the same password! :-DD
2: I see this more with corporate internal stuff. Sites that refuse to remember your login info despite having an option and they keep prompting for your password every single time. There is this internal site we use to keep job aids, processes etc and it's so annoying, every time you open it or click a new link you need to login, even within like a 1 minute interval. When you click on a document it will open and then you have to login again. So freaking annoying. When security goes too far and becomes this user unfriendly to me that is just too excessive and will even force people to try to find workarounds. For example I'm often tempted to build a device that can emulate a keyboard and I just need to press a button and it auto fills the password. This would be a terrible security practice though, but it's very tempting. >:D
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By 'phishing' I mean stuff like email. Many times I get correct-looking emails but for something I don't use. Sometimes I get them for things I do use, and just now and then I get them for something I do use and am expecting an email from. There ain't no browser that will protect me from that.
Further, browsers by themselves are not too hot. You need addons, and if you don't know the right addon you're not that well protected. And with Google hobbling browsers to allow more ads through, and ad blockers allowing paid-for ads through, they are hardly the bastion of digital health. Frankly, you're a fool if you rely on browsers to save you, and that's just surfing - there are LOTS more ways for badness to reach and affect you.
I *never* blindly click a link in an email, no matter how legit it looks, unless the email is a direct result of something I just did, like sign up for something or reset my password where it comes immediately. If I get an email that looks like it's from my bank, I manually type in the website of my bank. Even when I'm fairly sure it's legit, I still mouse over the URL to make sure it's going to where it says it is, on several occasions I've seen a dyndns redirect instead.
I don't rely on browsers to save me, I rely on my own situational awareness. I assume everything is nefarious until proven otherwise and so far what I'm doing has always worked. I also make frequent backups of my important files which makes me almost immune to ransomware. Getting infected would be a minor inconvenience rather than a disaster.
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Rabbits.
My place looks like Caddyshack.
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@Red Squirrel:
If a site "forgets" your password like that, this may be an indication that they got hacked, and expire all passwords, but not telling you why.
Or it's run by incompetents. Or both :p
While we are on the topic of annoying wildlife:
Since we don't have a cat anymore, we have a metric ton of birds in my area. There are several recognizably new species in the area now.
Nightingales are nice and all, but boy are they annoying when they decide to start singing in the middle of night right under your windowsill. It's astonishing how loud such a tiny bird can get.
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I never did care much for birds. They have their place in the ecosystem of course but they crap all over my car, wake me up early in the morning and I've had repeated problems with woodpeckers pecking holes in the trim on the back corner of my house. At least that hasn't been as much of an issue lately since I patched up the last batch with a really hard filler they seem to not enjoy pecking.
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If the topic has shifted to birds, I'll open with Canada Geese: The inflamed boil on the backside of the avian world.
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i wonder if,in an alternative universe theirs a forum for wildlife were the topics go along the lines of "i hate mankind they keep destroying our homes" or "why are the humans wiping out our food sources" or even "bloody street lamps keeping me up all night "
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As a Canadian I am sorry about Canada geese.
But this is why we are so friendly. Once a year as a tradition, we direct all our anger and hatred into Canada geese, and then send them south. :-DD
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See Leviticus 16:8-10.
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If the topic has shifted to birds, I'll open with Canada Geese: The inflamed boil on the backside of the avian world.
I once worked at a company whose building was surrounded by a large artificial pond. There was a walkway leading to the building across the pond. The whole site was home to hundreds of Canada Geese, and every morning the maintenance people would have to hose down the walkway to remove the goose shit. Early arrivers who got there before the hose down had to navigate wall-to-wall shit to get to the building. I saw numerous goose attacks on people crossing the walkway, including one that sent a woman to the hospital.
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i wonder if,in an alternative universe theirs a forum for wildlife were the topics go along the lines of "i hate mankind they keep destroying our homes" or "why are the humans wiping out our food sources" or even "bloody street lamps keeping me up all night "
There has always been competition between different animal species for various finite resources. Humans are just another animal species competing for many of those same resources.
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Canadian Geese are vile, worthless creatures that should have a bounty on them. Instead, back in the early 1900's Canada and the USA signed a treaty which, among other things, actually protects these demons. |O :-- :wtf: So there is zero human backpressure on this invasive species, and since they're not native to many areas they've occupied in the States there's also basically zero "natural" backpressure.
As a result, they're also an enormous environmental disaster. They poop roughly their own body weight each day, and their poop is ultra-rich in phosphorus which causes eutrophication which in turn causes excessive weed growth and death of animal life in the lakes these geese infest. Environmentalists should be supporting their widespread eradication if only because of the environmental damage they cause to nature in their artificially-invaded regions.
Consider this: In Seattle, a bastion of feel-good animal-huggers, the local government was hiring people to shoot the Canadian Geese in city and county parks a while back. And I didn't read of a single complaint. My only problem with it was that they got the financial arrangement backwards: They could have turned it revenue-positive by selling goose tags.
Don't get me wrong, I adore animals and they love me right back. Heck, we've been known to put food out for deer and elk during especially bad winters. But Canadian Geese are the exception. They're not animals, they're environmentally disasterous vermin with wings that are protected by international treaty.
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Canadian Geese are vile, worthless creatures that should have a bounty on them. Instead, back in the early 1900's Canada and the USA signed a treaty which, among other things, actually protects these demons. |O :-- :wtf: So there is zero human backpressure on this invasive species, and since they're not native to many areas they've occupied in the States there's also basically zero "natural" backpressure.
As a result, they're also an enormous environmental disaster. They poop roughly their own body weight each day, and their poop is ultra-rich in phosphorus which causes eutrophication which in turn causes excessive weed growth and death of animal life in the lakes these geese infest. Environmentalists should be supporting their widespread eradication if only because of the environmental damage they cause to nature in their artificially-invaded regions.
Consider this: In Seattle, a bastion of feel-good animal-huggers, the local government was hiring people to shoot the Canadian Geese in city and county parks a while back. And I didn't read of a single complaint. My only problem with it was that they got the financial arrangement backwards: They could have turned it revenue-positive by selling goose tags.
Don't get me wrong, I adore animals and they love me right back. Heck, we've been known to put food out for deer and elk during especially bad winters. But Canadian Geese are the exception. They're not animals, they're environmentally disasterous vermin with wings that are protected by international treaty.
Please lean back in the couch, relax, and tell us more about your feelings about Canadian Geese, before we move on to discussing your relationship with your father! :D
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See, my father's nickname was "Goose" which probably had something to do with it.... :-DD
Just kidding. I actually liked Canadian Geese before moving to the Pacific Northwest. Until I learned the truth, that is.
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Suburban office parks, including the one where I worked before retiring, feature ponds (for flood retention) with mowed grass leading up to them. To geese, this is a vision of Paradise, and they decide to move there and work from home. Why commute?
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People and organisations that jump down your throat and criticise you for not being “inclusive” because you have a point of view that is different to theirs, thereby demonstrating that they are the ones that are not “inclusive”...
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People and organisations that jump down your throat and criticise you for not being “inclusive” because you have a point of view that is different to theirs, thereby demonstrating that they are the ones that are not “inclusive”...
Such people are amazingly hypocritical yet they cannot see it in themselves. True on every edge of the political landscape. Nobody has an exclusive on hypocrisy, it seems. If they did it would be easier to fence them off by themselves!
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Semiconductor manufacturers that publish mosfet data graphs and swap the dependent and independent variable. e.g. they put the Vds along the bottom and the Id vertically along the side. Who on earth applies a certain drain-source voltage to a mosfet and wants to know the drain current??? MUCH more likely to pass a certain drain current and want to know the drain-source voltage drop. The known (independent) variable should be across the bottom of the graph and the unknown (dependent) variable should be on the side, not the other way around! Grrr.
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This has been the normal format for these graphs, including FETs and BJTs, since vacuum tube characteristic curves (before 1930). It allows you to put a load line on the graph and see where the constant-Vgs lines intersect the load characteristic. (BJT graphs typically showed lines of constant Ib instead of Vbe.)
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Self appointed moderators on forums.
Its up to the moderator to moderate not the members.
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People and organisations that jump down your throat and criticise you for not being “inclusive” because you have a point of view that is different to theirs, thereby demonstrating that they are the ones that are not “inclusive”...
Your mistake is thinking that "inclusive" means what it sounds like it means.
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One of my pet peeves is "Monday through Friday"---- through to when?
Ok, they are trying to make a distinction between something that is "All the days up to, but not including Friday" & another thing which is "Monday to Friday inclusive", but why not just say that?
Another delight is the journalist's habit of labelling something as "Iconic"--------Do we venerate such things as part of a religious observation?
Yet another is "ahead of" instead of "prior to" some event.
There are so many more, such as "Hot Gospellers" like the late Herbert W Armstrong, who declared that he "Believed 'on' Jesus Christ".
Not that he "believed in Him", or believed in the various Gospels, no--------he "believed 'on' Him!"(Note, I'm being properly respectful & giving JC his capitalisation of "Him".)
This seems to be common among broadcast preachers, not just "old mate" Herb!
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(Note, I'm being properly respectful & giving JC his capitalisation of "Him".)
May God bless you.
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Re: "Believe on". Acts 16:31 (King James Version): "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
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People who sanctimoniously use English language words from several hundred years ago like thee and thy and thou, particularly in a religious context, as if this obsolete way of speaking is more wonderful and grand and whatever compared to contemporary vernacular speech, despite the fact that that was how ordinary people spoke way back then.
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People who sanctimoniously use English language words from several hundred years ago like thee and thy and thou, particularly in a religious context,
And the same people seem to get offended when i use language of a similar age to tell them to go away or question there parentage
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Re: "Believe on". Acts 16:31 (King James Version): "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
An early example of a typo? :D
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Re: "Believe on". Acts 16:31 (King James Version): "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
An early example of a typo? :D
No, just an earlier version of the language that I speak. Contemporary English usage admits both "log in" and "log on", as required.
I would never criticize a preacher from Rev. Armstrong’s generation for quoting the King James Version translation.
If we forget about the language of that era, we lose much of the beauty of Shakespeare and Donne when forced to read it through a translation of texts that are readable in plain text.
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Language is hard.
One of my pet peeves are people who knowingly re/misdefine words and concepts, in order to manipulate others.
Like browser developers, who decided "UTF-8 is the only non-legacy character set". And that is used to end any and all arguments about why UTF-8 is treated specially among all character sets – specifically, it is the ONLY character set you cannot choose as your default one, "because it is not a legacy character set, and the default mechanism is meant only for legacy character sets". Yet, who defined "legacy character set"? I know for a fact that it has nothing to do with time, because UTF-8 was introduced in Plan-9 in 1992, but the widely used ISO-8859-15 – the ISO Latin 1 character set that includes the € character; ISO-8859-1 does not - came about after 1996. The assholes did, who wanted to discriminate against UTF-8, but not do so openly; that's who. The definition is based on nothing except "because we say so".
This is even more prevalent in today's politics, but let's not go there. Suffice it to say that it is impossible (and utterly, utterly frustrating) to discuss any important matter when a faction takes each term and twists them to suit their own needs, so that discussion on objective facts is impossible, no matter what the concept or situation. It becomes just a nitpicking game that does not and cannot achieve anything constructive.
And if you post a reply saying "objective facts do not exist anyway", I have a baseball bat which would like to be introduced to your nose at a high velocity, as a surrogate for a philosophical argument on objectivity and facts.
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Definitions: In high-school competitive debate, it was mandatory to start by defining the important terms, so that both sides used the same definitions. In this modern age, each of us can use arbitrary meanings of political terms such as “socialist”, “conservative”, “liberal”, “fascist”, “progressive”, “reactionary”, ad inf. This works, since we aren’t talking with each other, anyway.
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This may be a repeat, and if so, I apologize... One of my biggest peeves is companies who require you to register on their site before they let you download datasheets or user manuals.
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One of my pet peeves are people who knowingly re/misdefine words and concepts, in order to manipulate others.
Indeed. The word "gay" appears in popular Christmas carols and had an entirely different meaning from today's common usage. So too "progressive", "liberal", and a host of others. For example, it's now necessary to use the modifier "classic" to identify that you're speaking of what was commonly known as liberalism just ~100 years ago. It's extremely annoying when perfectly good and long-established words are hijacked for someone's agenda.
Disclaimer to assuage the cancel culturists: This is not a comment on anyone's politics, just a eulogy for the loss of - dare I say it - diversity in word choice.
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[...] if you post a reply saying "objective facts do not exist anyway", I have a baseball bat which would like to be introduced to your nose at a high velocity [...]
"Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth."
--Mike Tyson
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One of my pet peeves is "Monday through Friday"---- through to when?
Ok, they are trying to make a distinction between something that is "All the days up to, but not including Friday" & another thing which is "Monday to Friday inclusive", but why not just say that?
I think it's obvious what "Monday through Friday" means. It means normal weekday business hours, so approximately 9am Monday through 5pm Friday. Maybe it isn't a common saying in all English speaking places but if you said it in the USA pretty much anyone would know exactly what you meant.
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Here's a pet peeve: Copy bad behavior because a competitor did it that way. Circlotrons example in that datasheet There are other companies who do it the same way because well, they think they need to be easily compared to the competition and thereby keep perpetuating the nonsense.
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One of my pet peeves is "Monday through Friday"---- through to when?
Ok, they are trying to make a distinction between something that is "All the days up to, but not including Friday" & another thing which is "Monday to Friday inclusive", but why not just say that?
I think it's obvious what "Monday through Friday" means. It means normal weekday business hours, so approximately 9am Monday through 5pm Friday. Maybe it isn't a common saying in all English speaking places but if you said it in the USA pretty much anyone would know exactly what you meant.
I agree. In American usage, "Monday to Friday" could mean until the start of Friday, while "Monday through Friday" unambiguously means until the end (or COB) of Friday.
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Here's a pet peeve: Copy bad behavior because a competitor did it that way. Circlotrons example in that datasheet There are other companies who do it the same way because well, they think they need to be easily compared to the competition and thereby keep perpetuating the nonsense.
I disagree about Circlotron's example, since that's the form in which characteristic curves have been graphed since the beginning of electronics. Curve tracers normally ramp the voltage (drain-source for FETs) while measuring the current (drain for FETs), then change the bias voltage (gate-source for FETs) and ramp again, possibly limiting the sweep to avoid excess power dissipation, to generate the family of curves in the graph.
There are other ways to graph the same data, of course. What's wrong with making it easy to compare one component with a similar one from the competition? Sneaky companies would try to confuse the comparison.
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I can understand why characteristic curves are graphed the way they are for devices that are intended for operation in the linear region. No argument there. But with mosfets, the overwhelming majority of which are meant to be used primarily as a switching device, I still think the drain current should be across the bottom of the graph and the resulting voltage drop up the side of the graph.
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I can understand why characteristic curves are graphed the way they are for devices that are intended for operation in the linear region. No argument there. But with mosfets, the overwhelming majority of which are meant to be used primarily as a switching device, I still think the drain current should be across the bottom of the graph and the resulting voltage drop up the side of the graph.
Maybe it is historical, as back in the day, if you said "mosfet", you were probably referring to a device used in a small signal application in a linear mode.
"Dual gate mosfets" were pretty much the "go to" solution for both RF/IF amplifiers & mixers in much RF stuff in the 1970s, '80s, early '90s.
The characterisation of mosfets as power switching devices is pretty much a 2000s thing.
Unfortunately, many relatively youthful people only know them as such.
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One of my pet peeves is "Monday through Friday"---- through to when?
Ok, they are trying to make a distinction between something that is "All the days up to, but not including Friday" & another thing which is "Monday to Friday inclusive", but why not just say that?
I think it's obvious what "Monday through Friday" means. It means normal weekday business hours, so approximately 9am Monday through 5pm Friday. Maybe it isn't a common saying in all English speaking places but if you said it in the USA pretty much anyone would know exactly what you meant.
I agree. In American usage, "Monday to Friday" could mean until the start of Friday, while "Monday through Friday" unambiguously means until the end (or COB) of Friday.
To non-Americans it is ambiguous.(quite apart from sounding weird)
Why not "Monday to Friday, inclusive?"
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Why not "Monday to Friday, inclusive?"
Because that sounds weird to us, we'd understand what it means but it isn't something you're likely to hear an American say and the "inclusive" is an extra word that is not really necessary as it is already implied. If I wanted to say Monday up until but not including Friday I'd say "Monday through Thursday", the "inclusive" is implied without explicitly saying it.
It's kind of useless to debate this sort of thing IMO, American English is its own distinct dialect, and within that there are numerous local dialects. Australian English has its own unique dialects compared to British English. It's all English and we can all more or less understand each other but it's not really the same language. There are a lot of phrases that would sound really weird to someone from a region where that phrase is not typically used.
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One of my pet peeves are people who knowingly re/misdefine words and concepts, in order to manipulate others.
Indeed. The word "gay" appears in popular Christmas carols and had an entirely different meaning from today's common usage. So too "progressive", "liberal", and a host of others. For example, it's now necessary to use the modifier "classic" to identify that you're speaking of what was commonly known as liberalism just ~100 years ago. It's extremely annoying when perfectly good and long-established words are hijacked for someone's agenda.
Disclaimer to assuage the cancel culturists: This is not a comment on anyone's politics, just a eulogy for the loss of - dare I say it - diversity in word choice.
In Oz, we have a political party called the Liberal Party.
They have, historically, been true conservatives, much closer in philosophy to the British Conservative Party, than to others parties with similar names.
They have drifted somewhat further right in recent years, making the name even less valid.
As "conservative" is just a label, traditional conservatives don't have anything to distinguish them from others that are quite a bit more radical, so the term "conservative" in this country has come to refer to the "right wing" of the Liberal Party as well as others even/much further from the mainstream.
Thus, we have the situation where the media has to call more left wing people "small 'L' liberals."
Much of this is because various people have seen fit to shoehorn current US terminology into Australian politics, where the meanings don't neatly fit.
Of course, "cut n' pasting" of US material is a cheap way for smaller groups of whatever persuasion to appear to have a presence on line.
The dumb thing is they don't do "due diligence" when it comes to editing the result, so their followers end up perpetuating the misuse of terminology, further distorting the meanings of words.
Your example of "gay", though a common one, is not as new as you may believe.
I read an American novel written in the late 1950s, where it was used in that sense.
Even disregarding that one as an "outlier" , it has certainly been in common use in Oz since, at least, the 1980s.
When a ice cream confection was launched called "Golden Gaytime", it caused many a chuckle.
Interestingly, they still make & sell it!
A common term back in the1960s, synonomous with the modern use of "gay", was "camp".
That term has morphed into one simply meaning "showy, extravagant, "kitschy".
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... "go ahead"... why is this now said?
Example:
I'm going to go ahead and screw in that light bulb.
I'm going to screw in that light bulb.
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People who sanctimoniously use English language words from several hundred years ago like thee and thy and thou, particularly in a religious context, as if this obsolete way of speaking is more wonderful and grand and whatever compared to contemporary vernacular speech, despite the fact that that was how ordinary people spoke way back then.
In any case, that wasn't what was actually said by the historical?(religious) figures quoted.
It has been filtered through many translations before it got to the "King James" Bible.
Interestingly, I have never heard the "on" usage perpetuated by any normal working Priest, Minister, Pastor, or whatever.---- the ones that actually do stuff, like wedding & burial services, good works, etc, & live in the real world.
It always seems to be from these blokes who scream & shriek on TV or Radio, then con the believers into sending them donations so they can continue to live a life of affluence & privilege.
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... "go ahead"... why is this now said?
Example:
I'm going to go ahead and screw in that light bulb.
I'm going to screw in that light bulb.
In Oz, most people are "gunna change a light globe".
Which leads to another pet peeve------the invasion of silly bloody ES globes to replace our Bayonet cap ones!
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... "go ahead"... why is this now said?
Example:
I'm going to go ahead and screw in that light bulb.
I'm going to screw in that light bulb.
In Oz, most people are "gunna change a light globe".
Which leads to another pet peeve------the invasion of silly bloody ES globes to replace our Bayonet cap ones!
Funny. Here in the states many of the new fixtures use bayonet bases instead of the ES that is standard here.
Now you know they are doing it just to annoy us.
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Funny. Here in the states many of the new fixtures use bayonet bases instead of the ES that is standard here.
Now you know they are doing it just to annoy us.
Hm I haven't seen that, unless you mean those weird bi-pin bases that only fit special (expensive) CFL and LED bulbs? I think California mandates those, in typical California style useless feel-good legislation that ignores unintended consequences.
At least you can get adapters for them, or do what I did the one time I encountered a fixture that had them, remove the weird sockets, throw them in the trash and install a set of standard ones.
The European bayonet base lamps are fine, although lamps tend to be a bit wobbly in them. They do have the advantage that the socket shell isn't energized no matter which way it's wired.
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Why not "Monday to Friday, inclusive?"
I'm a non-American and have never heard that said other than where it might be ambiguous (and that's rare). It's always assumed to be inclusive.
If you think about it, it has to be so. If you said "Monday to Tuesday" then that can only be inclusive, otherwise it's bollocks - why not just say "Monday"?
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The PostNord/DPD courier did the same trick now twice in a row: stop in front of the building just long enough to mark the package as "couldn't deliver". (I made doubly sure the shipping company had full delievery information, from the color of the building to the instructions on how to get inside in less than a second. No dice.)
For the sake of Dog and all that is holy: use a shipping company whose couriers are able to step out of their vans, please.
My language to both the shipping company and now Banggood too (about using such a shitty "courier" company) has become rather... salty.
I'm starting to believe the guys just drive around in empty vans, so they get people to come pick up their packages in another city, queuing hours (since only two customers are permitted inside at a time). I guess they can hire cheaper drivers that way. The company is owned by the Swedish and Danish governments; without their subvention, it surely would have gone under by now.
The next time I see a courier, I'll have my cellphone handy, and will upload the video to Youtube, in the hopes it'll become viral. Nothing less seems to help. :rant:
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so they get people to come pick up their packages in another city
A delivery company around here tried that on a while back. It was a bummer (not just because I had to go and collect all the time) because they marked it as delivery attempted but no-one in, so it would be my fault if it was returned to sender. I wound up charging them my time and petrol costs for doing their delivery for them, and they were pretty OK after that. Until they folded, anyway.
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A delivery company around here tried that on a while back. It was a bummer (not just because I had to go and collect all the time) because they marked it as delivery attempted but no-one in, so it would be my fault if it was returned to sender. I wound up charging them my time and petrol costs for doing their delivery for them, and they were pretty OK after that. Until they folded, anyway.
I have security cameras that cover my driveway and front porch, if they try to say they attempted to deliver something I can send them the video footage for the time range they say they attempted to deliver.
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Something that used to be a pet peeve until I understood why - the garbage truck would come down the street and it would pick up a bin while moving forward several metres, empty it, then put the bin down again. Turns out with those particular trucks, the act of revving the engine a bit (and consequently moving forward) would make the hydraulics work faster and so the bin could be lifted and lowered quicker. A method in the madness.
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Guess what? PostNord actually sent the package back to sender without even attempting to deliver it even once.
Unless you call having a probably empty delivery van make an U-turn at my cul-de-sac, without the driver even stepping out, "a delivery attempt". I just wish I had caught it on video.
It was not expensive, just some ER11 collets worth about 20€, and it remains to be seen if the seller will re-ship it (I hope they do, just use some other shipping company but DPD/PostNord - PostNord handles DPD in Finland, and is known for this kind of fuckery).
Obviously, the seller is quite puzzled as to why the package is being returned.
Funny thing is, PostNord is proud of having its regional center here "temporarily too busy". As if it is something to be proud of, having customers you're supposed to ship packages to, having to come to another city and queue outside (only two people permitted inside at a time, you see) to be able to get their packages they paid to be delivered to their door. (Reminds me of the South Park cable company episode, with the employees rubbing their nipples whenever they get to fuck over customers.)
Then again, The Finnish Post has made oddball business choices too, so much so that even though normal letter and parcel services have been profitable, their extra-curricural activities like expanding abroad haven't, so they're cutting domestic services (the profitable ones, since they can cut costs by cutting those without admitting the bosses have made really, really stupid decisions costing taxpayers millions – and get bad service on top, with druggies and whatnot being hired at the sorting centers to pick the best-looking packages for themselves as a perk for the job). And suggesting their postmen could maybe also cut lawns or something? (No, not kidding. It's real, look it up.)
It looks like postal services just aren't something current Nordic countries know how to do right.
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Guess what? PostNord actually sent the package back to sender without even attempting to deliver it even once.
Unless you call having a probably empty delivery van make an U-turn at my cul-de-sac, without the driver even stepping out, "a delivery attempt". I just wish I had caught it on video.
It was not expensive, just some ER11 collets worth about 20€, and it remains to be seen if the seller will re-ship it (I hope they do, just use some other shipping company but DPD/PostNord - PostNord handles DPD in Finland, and is known for this kind of fuckery).
Obviously, the seller is quite puzzled as to why the package is being returned.
Funny thing is, PostNord is proud of having its regional center here "temporarily too busy". As if it is something to be proud of, having customers you're supposed to ship packages to, having to come to another city and queue outside (only two people permitted inside at a time, you see) to be able to get their packages they paid to be delivered to their door. (Reminds me of the South Park cable company episode, with the employees rubbing their nipples whenever they get to fuck over customers.)
Then again, The Finnish Post has made oddball business choices too, so much so that even though normal letter and parcel services have been profitable, their extra-curricural activities like expanding abroad haven't, so they're cutting domestic services (the profitable ones, since they can cut costs by cutting those without admitting the bosses have made really, really stupid decisions costing taxpayers millions – and get bad service on top, with druggies and whatnot being hired at the sorting centers to pick the best-looking packages for themselves as a perk for the job). And suggesting their postmen could maybe also cut lawns or something? (No, not kidding. It's real, look it up.)
It looks like postal services just aren't something current Nordic countries know how to do right.
Well, you will have to go a long way to get to the service levels SAPO has. Letters might take 6 weeks to get from one box to another in the same post office, they are trying to get a court case to be the sole way to deliver anything below 1kg instead of couriers, but in the same week are closing offices, cutting services and also have a 50% chance of actually delivering anything. The only offices that are open are those doing sales and payments for third party contracts and for doing motor license renewals, the rest are just there to be the place you go to to ask where your parcel with tracking number, which says it is there, is, and they are unable to find it. Oh yes, they also are unable to print, as they have not paid the suppliers who give them stationary, and also postage stamps are often hard to get, if you actually want to send a letter for some reason.
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This is a repeat of earlier entries, but I just got a major re-introduction.
Microsoft's complete disdain for the time and preferences of users/customers.
I just won the lottery for a W10 update. Took more than four hours, when I really wanted to use the computer. I don't know how a business could put up with this. As icing on the cake when I finally get to use the machine it has totally rearranged my desktop icons, forced me to re-examine my preferences, and I am sure I will be reminded that I am not using the preferred browser or search engine.
I got rid of the Xbox because I could never turn it on without a half hour or more of updates and downloads. Sorry Microsoft, I don't leave it on 24/7 and I don't have a fiber optic connection. Can't you get something right enough that it doesn't require multiple updates per week or month?
I can't get rid of Windows because of some programs I need, but each year Microsoft is pushing me to forgo those excellent pieces of software and either do without or make do with the closest Linux equivalent. They have already chased me out of MS Office.
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This is a repeat of earlier entries, but I just got a major re-introduction.
Microsoft's complete disdain for the time and preferences of users/customers.
I just won the lottery for a W10 update. Took more than four hours, when I really wanted to use the computer. I don't know how a business could put up with this. As icing on the cake when I finally get to use the machine it has totally rearranged my desktop icons, forced me to re-examine my preferences, and I am sure I will be reminded that I am not using the preferred browser or search engine.
I got rid of the Xbox because I could never turn it on without a half hour or more of updates and downloads. Sorry Microsoft, I don't leave it on 24/7 and I don't have a fiber optic connection. Can't you get something right enough that it doesn't require multiple updates per week or month?
I can't get rid of Windows because of some programs I need, but each year Microsoft is pushing me to forgo those excellent pieces of software and either do without or make do with the closest Linux equivalent. They have already chased me out of MS Office.
This is why I still use Win 7 on some of my (too many) PCs - the apex of Microsoft achievement. It just works... month in, month out - year in, year out. I have spent zero time fixing things for the last 5 years or more. What's not to like?
On the rare occasions that Win 10 is necessary, it goes in a virtual machine (where it is easy to disconnect it from the network, and easy to roll it back to a previous snapshot), or I use a Win 10 laptop.
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When something is faulty and their diagnosis is "The fuse failed" very common in the UK as we have fused plugs.
No the fuse didn't fail, it did it's job. Then they decide to put a bigger fuse in and if that fails a bigger one or a roofing nail.
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When something is faulty and their diagnosis is "The fuse failed" very common in the UK as we have fused plugs.
No the fuse didn't fail, it did it's job. Then they decide to put a bigger fuse in and if that fails a bigger one or a roofing nail.
Whenever something fails dead most people assume "it's just the switch". Also I remember in the CRT era any time a TV failed completely it was always "the tube blew", but when the tube had actually failed and gone dim/blurry "it just needs adjusting".
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In Australia at least - news sources when reporting on a road incident, if an upmarket car is involved, they say "the Porsche did this" or "the BMW did that" or whatever. If someone is driving an old dirt box it doesn't get a mention.
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When something is faulty and their diagnosis is "The fuse failed" very common in the UK as we have fused plugs.
No the fuse didn't fail, it did it's job. Then they decide to put a bigger fuse in and if that fails a bigger one or a roofing nail.
Whenever something fails dead most people assume "it's just the switch". Also I remember in the CRT era any time a TV failed completely it was always "the tube blew", but when the tube had actually failed and gone dim/blurry "it just needs adjusting".
Back when one of my duties at a TV Studio was repairing picture monitors, I also had to fix quite a few domestic TVs which the "suits" had in their offices.
Many came in with "broken on/off switches", &, indeed, the switches were broken.
On replacing them, the real fault presented itself------a faulty SMPS.
A common fault with many TV power supplies was that the "start" circuit had failed.
Just pressing the new switch didn't start the supply, but the "suits" had discovered that by pushing the switch multiple times in quick succession, you could often "jag" a start.
Of course, this wore out the switch in double quick time!
Fixing the start circuit (in Sanyos, the fault was a 220k resistor which chronically went high or O/C), restored normal operation.
On the same subject, not a peeve, but a funny story regarding such sets, was a 27" Philips in the office of "Norm" ( a really nice bloke).
His TV resided on a large wall shelf, sharing it with a very leafy indoor plant.
It was hired, as were all the other such plants, & a staff member of the hire company, regularly attended to prune it.
In their wisdom, Philips made the power cord a nice browny beige colour, similar to the plant stems.
Inevitably, someone had tidied the cord, so it was lost amongst the foliage.
Along came the hire company gardener, snipping away happily with his pruning shears.
Bang!----A blinding flash, & a very shaken gardener.
Yep he'd mistaken the power cord & snipped it -------just as well his shears had plastic handles, although I doubt insulation rating was at the fore of the manufacturer's thinking!
I said a "funny" story, but it could have been far from funny!
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In Australia at least - news sources when reporting on a road incident, if an upmarket car is involved, they say "the Porsche did this" or "the BMW did that" or whatever. If someone is driving an old dirt box it doesn't get a mention.
Alernatively, you get the figures for car theft.
Umpteen thousand Holdens, Fords, Toyotas & Hyundais, stolen, but a very much smaller number of BMWs, Porsches, etc.
Therefore, the latter must have much better anti-theft systems.
Of course, the very much smaller numbers of the latter types on the road couldn't possibly be a factor.
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One of my biggest pet peeves is the preponderance of 'buyer's premiums' with auctions. They generally turn me away from auctions. Even worse are the ones that don't advertise the stupid premium until you sign up to bid.
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Consultants that tell you how to do your job when they have zero relevant knowledge or experience.
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Consultants that tell you how to do your job when they have zero relevant knowledge or experience.
... and then create a certificate for it which your employer wants you to pay for and have
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When you ask for a solution to something dead simple that you are doing and you get replies that are seven orders of magnitude more complex than that problem you are trying to solve.
E.G.
"Learn the C language".
"Use a Raspberry Pi".
"Get an engineering degree".
"Put an LS engine in it".
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"Use an FPGA"
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"Use an FPGA"
... usually said by some who have never used one but heard about it last week.
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Consultants that tell you how to do your job when they have zero relevant knowledge or experience.
How about giving a friend/cow-orker a crash course in the intricacies some subject, and have your boss introduce them to you the next day, declaring them to be an expert on the subject that you should definitely learn from?
The pet peeve: People who value appearance over behaviour.
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Ebay appears to have reconfigured the way they display the 'saved sellers' list. It now shows as two columns where previously it was one, and the new default sort order is by date added. WTF? Why in the wide, wide world of sports would someone want to display them in that order other than as a curiosity thing to determine who came first? It seems far more logical (to me at least) to sort them alphabetically. Saved sellers in my case at least are added as I find ones that pique my interest, and they are thus more or less random and certainly in no logical order of any kind. Now to search it I have to select then resort it as alphabetized.
Can anyone suggest a logical reason to default sort by date added for the vast majority of users, or is this just (as usual) ebay being ebay? (At least they left 'saved searches' in numerical/alphabetical order... For now, at least...)
-Pat
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I guess the reasoning is the most recently added ones probably tend to be the most currently relevant for a lot of people. If you added a saved seller ages ago it may have been because they had something you were interested in at the time but now you may not be. Not a sorting method I'm likely to use much but I can see where it might be useful to somebody.
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The reasoning is that their head of Development wanted it that way. Guaranteed.
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The "buggy whip" analogy, part of the "tool box" of "change agents".
Their story, as handed to them at the knees of their mentors is that anyone who raises objections to some muddle headed change which completely ignores ongoing commitments is like the "buggy whip makers" who weren't prepared for change.
It is absolute bollocks, as buggy whips were never anything but a niche market-----most people who worked with horses never used them, & even the ones that were sold, lasted for many decades with a little easy care.
Industries which were more likely to be badly affected, like makers of horsedrawn vehicles, easily survived the early onset of "horseless carriages", being the people with expertise in making the "carriage" part.
Studebaker, who were a major automaker for many years, used to make covered wagons.
You can bet that the transition was slow, & they didn't say to their existing customers "Sorry, but from next week we are making " widgets" instead!"
History is littered with the remains of businesses which seized upon "something new" as the answer to all their problems, only to sink ignominiously when the world didn't go in that direction.
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When you ask for a solution to something dead simple that you are doing and you get replies that are seven orders of magnitude more complex than that problem you are trying to solve.
E.G.
"Learn the C language".
"Use a Raspberry Pi".
"Get an engineering degree".
"Put an LS engine in it".
This is common in this forum.
A noob will ask how to switch something from another thing.
The answer which a Tech would provide, is "use a relay".
Engineers must "engineer" though, so there will follow ten pages or so of alternative ways to do it, all using the most convoluted methods conceivable.
It will eventually descend into very erudite discussions about the pros & cons of various devices & processes.
It is an Engineering "master class", but it doesn't really address the OP's simple requirements.
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Back to a more "technical" peeve.
On several occasions in a row, my iPad has not connected to the WiFi signal from my modem, but to one of several airconditioners in adjacent houses.
Unfortunately, that doesn't allow me to mess with their A/Cs, but it does mean I have to re-select the correct signal.
Interestingly, the Aircond WiFi doesn't have a password, so there doesn't seem to be any way to stop this happening from time to time, as Apple have set things up so the iPad can use "free Wifi" where available.
"Internet of things", my furry backside!
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This is common in this forum.
A noob will ask how to switch something from another thing.
The answer which a Tech would provide, is "use a relay".
Engineers must "engineer" though, so there will follow ten pages or so of alternative ways to do it, all using the most convoluted methods conceivable.
It will eventually descend into very erudite discussions about the pros & cons of various devices & processes.
It is an Engineering "master class", but it doesn't really address the OP's simple requirements.
But usually the simple answer gets posted first, then after that people start discussing alternate methods, likely as you point out because engineers like to engineer. As long as the question is answered I don't see any problem with discussing other options, even if they border on Rube Goldberg complexity.
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When you ask for a solution to something dead simple that you are doing and you get replies that are seven orders of magnitude more complex than that problem you are trying to solve.
I guess I'm guilty of that. I sincirely apologize, but cannot help myself.
In my defense, the extra information is to describe the expected pitfalls ahead, so you avoid falling into them; not unwarranted complexity for the sake of verbosity.
Also, often there are several answers with different sets of benefits and drawbacks, so to avoid directing you into a hornets nest, I have to describe at least one in detail, to give you enough information to decide for yourself.
So, it is there only because I need the advice I give to be useful and reliable.
I know people want simple answers, but the world is a complicated place, and I for one want robust, reliable devices, not easily designed and implemented ones.
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When you ask for a solution to something dead simple that you are doing and you get replies that are seven orders of magnitude more complex than that problem you are trying to solve.
I guess I'm guilty of that. I sincirely apologize, but cannot help myself.
In my defense, the extra information is to describe the expected pitfalls ahead, so you avoid falling into them; not unwarranted complexity for the sake of verbosity.
Also, often there are several answers with different sets of benefits and drawbacks, so to avoid directing you into a hornets nest, I have to describe at least one in detail, to give you enough information to decide for yourself.
So, it is there only because I need the advice I give to be useful and reliable.
I know people want simple answers, but the world is a complicated place, and I for one want robust, reliable devices, not easily designed and implemented ones.
Be verbose, Mr Animal. We wouldn't have you any other way.
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Related pet peeve:
Certain people who can't stand someone being verbose or coming up with a "wall of text".
Those TLDR STFU people.
You can feel the hate and envy oozing out of them; they can't write more than 3-4 sentences by themselves, they can't form a chain of logical thinking, they lose all arguments by not even trying, and can only basically say "you wrong lol stfu" and hope some of the similar minded presses the upvote button.
We have a few here on this forum (and yes they "thank" each other's posts) but really, I like this place because we don't have too many, they are not too vocal (typically all with < 1000 posts), and not of the absolute worst kind.
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Related pet peeve:
Certain people who can't stand someone being verbose or coming up with a "wall of text".
Those TLDR STFU people.
You can feel the hate and envy oozing out of them; they can't write more than 3-4 sentences by themselves, they can't form a chain of logical thinking, they lose all arguments by not even trying, and can only basically say "you wrong lol stfu" and hope some of the similar minded presses the upvote button.
We have a few here on this forum (and yes they "thank" each other's posts) but really, I like this place because we don't have too many, they are not too vocal (typically all with < 1000 posts), and not of the absolute worst kind.
Yes, it's interesting when you branch out to other forums/areas of interests...anything more than 1,000 words in a post and half of the responses are like "do you seriously expect me to read this" "tldr' etc. Not saying I'm great at it, but it's definitely a good skill to be able to extract what you need and to perhaps come back later once you understand more.
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"Use an FPGA"
Reminded of some discussion on the electronix.ru forum. It started with a question about a program for a school digital electronics club and quickly turned into a "FPGA vs Raspberry Pi" flame.
P.S. Unrelated pet peeve: articles with titles like "Simple Direct Conversion Receivers"... where reader met by a circuit with mechanically controlled variable capacitor. As if the authors had been in suspended animation for twenty (or when it was still possible to find old radios in the nearest landfill) years.
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Related pet peeve:
Certain people who can't stand someone being verbose or coming up with a "wall of text".
Those TLDR STFU people.
You can feel the hate and envy oozing out of them; they can't write more than 3-4 sentences by themselves, they can't form a chain of logical thinking, they lose all arguments by not even trying, and can only basically say "you wrong lol stfu" and hope some of the similar minded presses the upvote button.
We have a few here on this forum (and yes they "thank" each other's posts) but really, I like this place because we don't have too many, they are not too vocal (typically all with < 1000 posts), and not of the absolute worst kind.
Yes, it's interesting when you branch out to other forums/areas of interests...anything more than 1,000 words in a post and half of the responses are like "do you seriously expect me to read this" "tldr' etc. Not saying I'm great at it, but it's definitely a good skill to be able to extract what you need and to perhaps come back later once you understand more.
I am one who does not read long posts but i do not bash people for writing such either. I just skip them. What those posters fail to understand is they lose part of audience because of this. If this is not an issue to them, then who cares.
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Related pet peeve:
Certain people who can't stand someone being verbose or coming up with a "wall of text".
Those TLDR STFU people.
You can feel the hate and envy oozing out of them; they can't write more than 3-4 sentences by themselves, they can't form a chain of logical thinking, they lose all arguments by not even trying, and can only basically say "you wrong lol stfu" and hope some of the similar minded presses the upvote button.
We have a few here on this forum (and yes they "thank" each other's posts) but really, I like this place because we don't have too many, they are not too vocal (typically all with < 1000 posts), and not of the absolute worst kind.
I've noticed something like this with a few people I work with, they get annoyed by detailed information and if you send them a long message it's like they have a buffer overflow and just lock up and don't process it. Mostly seems to be the younger people, I've wondered if it is the twitter brain training that has ruined their ability to process larger quantities of information, or maybe it's just people getting into the tech industry who previously never would have given it a second thought.
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"Use an FPGA"
Reminded of some discussion on the electronix.ru forum. It started with a question about a program for a school digital electronics club and quickly turned into a "FPGA vs Raspberry Pi" flame.
P.S. Unrelated pet peeve: articles with titles like "Simple Direct Conversion Receivers"... where reader met by a circuit with mechanically controlled variable capacitor. As if the authors had been in suspended animation for twenty (or when it was still possible to find old radios in the nearest landfill) years.
I wonder if there's enough of a niche retro market for those to make it worthwhile for somebody to produce them again? They are not particularly high tech, no exotic materials are required, a person could make one themselves if they really wanted to. A single series could have a lot of shared parts, just a frame, shaft, and identical sets of plates that could be installed in the number needed.
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Related pet peeve:
Certain people who can't stand someone being verbose or coming up with a "wall of text".
Those TLDR STFU people.
You can feel the hate and envy oozing out of them; they can't write more than 3-4 sentences by themselves, they can't form a chain of logical thinking, they lose all arguments by not even trying, and can only basically say "you wrong lol stfu" and hope some of the similar minded presses the upvote button.
We have a few here on this forum (and yes they "thank" each other's posts) but really, I like this place because we don't have too many, they are not too vocal (typically all with < 1000 posts), and not of the absolute worst kind.
Yes, it's interesting when you branch out to other forums/areas of interests...anything more than 1,000 words in a post and half of the responses are like "do you seriously expect me to read this" "tldr' etc. Not saying I'm great at it, but it's definitely a good skill to be able to extract what you need and to perhaps come back later once you understand more.
I am one who does not read long posts but i do not bash people for writing such either. I just skip them. What those posters fail to understand is they lose part of audience because of this. If this is not an issue to them, then who cares.
True, but like you say, the long post is not for everyone. When I post on a forum, usually I am in a bind, and I want to figure out something (relatively) quickly. If the only response I got was extremely long-winded, I might be a little upset because it means I have to do a lot of sifting to find the "quick fix" to my problem. But, that's usually not the case. Usually there is a mixed variety of responses, shorter ones usually being more immediately practical/pragmatic, and longer ones to dwell/sleep on. I think they are both useful.
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Australia Post. Nearly everything they do, but in particular their very uninformative parcel tracking site.
So, here's an example of what I'd consider adequate tracking info. In this case a parcel being sent from a reshipper in LA, to me in Australia. (It's one of three parcels that went at the same time.)
06/11/2021 Shipito Warehouse Shipment Recorded
06/11/2021 Shipito Warehouse, LA Departure Scan
06/11/2021 LAX Shipment Booked Flight #: PO9232 Sched. Dep:13-June Sched. Arr:14-June
06/12/2021 Shipping information received by Australia Post
06/13/2021 LAX Enroute to Australia
06/14/2021 Australia Flight Arrived
06/14/2021 Shipping information approved by Australia Post
Once Australia post has them, this is what happens: (see pic)
* "It's being prepared" Infuriating garbage newspeak, like it's their job to somehow improve the package, instead of just transporting it.
* So they sat around all week, nothing happening. Sheesh. Or at least nothing they want to mention.
* Their stupid web page is one of those html abortions that prevents you from selecting text and Ctl-C copying it for your records. On a tracking info list, whhhhy?
* You can click it for 'more info' but that just says the same nothing.
* The site keeps wanting you to do a survey to tell them 'how are we doing'. Pretending they care.
Incidentally, who else has had their postal delivery cut back to 2 or 3 days a week?
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Australia Post. Nearly everything they do, but in particular their very uninformative parcel tracking site.
So, here's an example of what I'd consider adequate tracking info. In this case a parcel being sent from a reshipper in LA, to me in Australia. (It's one of three parcels that went at the same time.)
Imagine how peeved you'd be if you realise that law enforcement can find out where every parcel is in an instant and who sent it. And you paid for the ability for them to do so.
Incidentally, who else has had their postal delivery cut back to 2 or 3 days a week?
It was part of the back and forth which led to the postage increase. It was no secret.
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* Their stupid web page is one of those html abortions that prevents you from selecting text and Ctl-C copying it for your records. On a tracking info list, whhhhy?
Probably because they don't want you collecting evidence of their incompetence.
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People giving me a ration for driving with the AC on and the windows open. The reason is empirically sound and if you don't like it, get out and walk!
If the car is hot from baking in the sun, AND I have a short drive - say 10-15 minutes, I will both run the AC (which puts out cool air in less than a minute of driving) and have the windows opened to some degree. This, because it is more comfortable! I know I am not going to be driving long enough for the entire cabin to be cooled in time. I will also do this initially for a longer drive.
This is NOT the same as running the AC at home with all the windows open you fricken brain-washed dimwits.
My position was reinforced during the recent local infestation of cicadas.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1229603;image)
There were so many of these flying around, I had to keep the windows closed always because it was guaranteed that at least one would make its way into the car. Now, it is largely back to normal.
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My pet peeve - clients that don't want to pay for labor :--.
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Incorrect sayings that people repeat without actually thinking about e.g. “it’s darkest just before the dawn”. That is so wrong. If there is no moon out it is darkest about halfway between sunset and the next sunrise, not just before the next sunrise.
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If there is no moon out
But what if there is? What if it's cloudy? Mid-Winter?
If you're going to pull things apart you can't really do so on the basis of an 'if'. This kind of saying often isn't meant to be taken literally.
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Incorrect sayings that people repeat without actually thinking about e.g. “it’s darkest just before the dawn”. That is so wrong. If there is no moon out it is darkest about halfway between sunset and the next sunrise, not just before the next sunrise.
Dunno about darkest, but in mid-Winter Perth it is always coldest just after dawn.
By the way, it was 2C last night, & yesterday, my old work area in Bickley didn't get above 9C----2 degrees colder than Kalamunda a few km away!
I can just imagine how cold it would be 145m up the TVW tower.
Radio & TV Transmitter sites always seem to be situated in the coldest, windiest places possible.
Back on topic, how about "the dark side of the Moon?"
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How dark it is just before dawn obviously depends on the contribution of light from the Moon. Which means it will also depend on the observers location. And in modern times you'd have to factor in the effects of artificial lighting. Today, locally, the Moon rises at about 5:00 am, about an hour before sunrise, and is 90% illuminated, so it's probably not going to be darkest before dawn.
edit: should be 5:00pm not am
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I suspect that particular saying has little or nothing to do with astronomy or photometry, but instead relates to state of mind. In which case it might well be true for a lot of people in a lot of situations.
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how about "the dark side of the Moon
There is no dark side of the moon. Matter of fact, it's all dark.
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Oh Australia Post WHAT are you doing?
See https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3590096/#msg3590096 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3590096/#msg3590096)
Those three boxes that arrived in Australia on the 14th, are STILL just sitting somewhere. Not a single peep out of Auspost about any movement. Are they going for a Guinness Book of Records recognition for incompetence?
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Oh Australia Post WHAT are you doing?
See https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3590096/#msg3590096 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3590096/#msg3590096)
Those three boxes that arrived in Australia on the 14th, are STILL just sitting somewhere. Not a single peep out of Auspost about any movement. Are they going for a Guinness Book of Records recognition for incompetence?
What, only a week?
Here in the greatest and second least corrupted, best country in the world, ran by the Great Leader "Who Leads Her Troops From The Front"*, I just waited for four weeks packet just sitting on the hands of the Finnish post. Then I finally accepted the fact I'll probably never see it but nevertheless, for laughs mostly, started doing the process of reporting a missing shipment but that failed as I found out mid way they closed down the reporting form on their website because of too many reports of missing packets for them to handle. Go figure; they handle getting rid of the mail and packets just fine, but can't handle the reports. Seeing you can't even report missing shipments to the Finnish post, I then filed a complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman who oversees the Post and the ministry supposed to oversee the Post. They came back saying the related law doesn't apply to my packet because of its certain weight and size, not knowing its weight and size because I never supplied such data or the tracking number.
In any case, in the end, after waiting total of 6 weeks, the box just appeared! Magic! (There were actually two, one of which is still missing after 3 months.)
Seeing some 5% rate of lost shipments is completely normal here nowadays (it was maybe 0.1% just 15 years ago), maybe they figured out it's easier to just finally deliver the shipment instead of figuring out how to either A) store all those accumulating packages forever, or B) manage the huge waste flow, because lost shipments have to physically exist somewhere or need to be (illegally) disposed of which becomes expensive especially as it has to be done behind the curtain**. Of course, anything of value will go in the good hands of the employees so no problem here.
But they do offer lawn mowing services!
*) real citation from the now-in-governmental-control media.
**) and this is no joke. There have been a few scandals when large amounts of mail and packets, including letters with personal/confidential information, have been found just lying around somewhere in a public trash bin etc. Police has shortly investigated with no result, and with no internal investigation within the Post. And people forget it happened. Now it seems to be better under media control now as this hasn't apparently happened during maybe last 3-4 years at all anymore.
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appears that you and i are having the same issue with the same shipito to freight shipment
Flight #: PO9232 Sched. Dep:13-June Sched. Arr:14-June
agree trying to get answers out of australia post is a joke
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They came back saying the related law doesn't apply to my packet because of its certain weight and size, not knowing its weight and size because I never supplied such data or the tracking number.
I was waiting for an MPU 9250 inertial measurement unit (a small break-out board worth 5 or 6 euros), which was shipped with tracking on May 18th. It was last seen at Vantaa Post Marxist Redistribution Center on June 12th.
More funkily, the target Zip code also changed on that day. I kick myself for not screenshotting the correct zip code earlier, now it is something off by about 500 km or so. I guess some of the junkies and thieves hired there (as part of the many social programs – no, not kidding; they think putting thieves in charge of sorting packages is a good civic idea) have started an electronics hobby, and have realized that by hand-editing the zip codes on the packages, they can better hide their tracks. Apparently, the shift managers have actually started tracking who held the hand-held scanner when a package was last scanned, you see.
Then again, nothing new in Finland. Because we don't have a constitutional court, although the Finnish Customs were ordered to pay pack VAT they erroneously collected in early 2000s for EU import cars by the highest court in Finland in 2013, the customs just decided to not do so, and now have sent the victims notices that because time has passed, they'll just keep the money anyway. It's like the Finnish State Treasury office, who unilaterally cut court awards because "we know better" or something; and there is absolutely nothing a Finn can do.
We are an unbelievably, unbelievably meek people. Just look sour, in the hopes that nobody notices how easily we actually roll over. In the last 25 years or so, Finland really has become a Banana Republic. Except not owned by any company, just idiots.
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appears that you and i are having the same issue with the same shipito to freight shipment
Flight #: PO9232 Sched. Dep:13-June Sched. Arr:14-June
agree trying to get answers out of australia post is a joke
Well, it would be more accurate to say we are having problems with Oz Post. Not Shipito or the flight. Btw those are actual flight numbers, you can look them up on flight tracker sites and see real-time status. Shipito are acting as a freight forwarder, and book packages on whatever flights they can. That part works OK, though a couple of times I've had parcels get bumped off scheduled flights and have to be rebooked on another. There's not enough freight capacity since a lot of it is space on passenger flights, and those are way down.
It's once the flight gets to Australia, and shipments are transferred to Australia Post that things grind to a halt.
I tried to get shipito to allow me to deal with the airline at this end and do airline freight terminal pickups myself (cut Australia Post out of the process) but no luck.
But, there's hope! Just this evening I got an email from oz-post saying that one of the parcels will be delivered on Wed or Thursday. Maybe there'll be some news of the other two soon. (And the two more parcels that landed in Australia a couple of days ago.)
Everything's falling apart. Supply chains... See https://www.youtube.com/ (https://www.youtube.com/) watch?v=b1JlYZQG3lI
Why There are Now So Many Shortages (It's Not COVID)
Going to get worse too. Ironic example: The airlines made all their pilots get the covid 'not-vaccines.'
Now they are discovering the Co-vaxxed are highly prone to suddenly dropping dead.
Blood clots, heart attacks, and other problems. So it isn't safe for co-vaxxed pilots to fly. What a quandry.
You will not find this story in the MSM.
Siwastaja & Nominal Animal - Wow, sounds like Finland has become quite the Socialist Utopia. Perhaps even approaching 'Real Communism' (tm) where 'you will own nothing and you will be happy.' Own nothing because it was all stolen in the post.
At least the only time anything I had something vanish in the post (coming in from the USA) it was cheap. Just a small packet of yellow BNC dust caps. But that made me wonder - who'd steal that? Or it just fell into a sorting center wormhole or something?
I like this video: https://www.youtube.com/ (https://www.youtube.com/) watch?v=jza2zLw_8cI Losing. My. Mind. - Lauren Southern
I'd give Mr Southern a hug too, if he wanted one. No homo. (Only a few will get the joke, I think.)
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When the technical guy says "more on that '(sideband channel, whatever)'...which by itself maybe tolerable.
But then often there is more. Same sort of bait: "We will be getting into that WIZBANG shortly.
I'm tempted to tease the reader, by writing something here like that, "more later" form, but NO, a fair portion (of readers)would be looking / waiting
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Talk about terrible shipping!
Late Sunday (might have been Monday by then) I ordered two replacement batteries for our gates, which had decided not to be automated any more. I ordered then because shipping was Wed/Thur and I knew I would be out all day today. Late last night I got an email saying they would be delivered on Thursday. Got back today to find them on the doorstep - apparently the post office van I almost t-boned on the way out this morning was delivering them.
Sorry to be a bearer of good tidings in this thread.
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Today, locally, the Moon rises at about 5:00 am, about an hour before sunrise, and is 90% illuminated, so it's probably not going to be darkest before dawn.
What are you talking about? A 90% illuminated moon most certainly does not rise at 5:00am. A waxing 90% illuminated moon will rise at around 5:00pm and a waning 90% illuminated moon will rise around 10:00pm at this time of year.
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Wow, sounds like Finland has become quite the Socialist Utopia. Perhaps even approaching 'Real Communism' (tm) where 'you will own nothing and you will be happy.' Own nothing because it was all stolen in the post.
It is when you are no longer ruled by law, but by arbitrary redefinitions of words used to write those laws.
There is a Finnish Police Blog post still standing, where the writer, a police officer, quotes a Marxist definition of racism – one where the individual is never considered; only the class membership and class struggle opponents matter –, even though it is clearly, literally against the Finnish constitution (which states that each individual is treated equally; not according to their Marxist class theory class membership), and uses it to explain why it is impossible to have a racist motive against a Finn, as Finns are in majority (and therefore oppressors) here, and therefore racist crime in Finland can only be committed by native pale-skinned Finns here. A couple of years ago, it turned out a decorated police chief was a major drug supplier in Finland, and recently his superiors skated by completely without even scolding, because "how was I supposed to know? My underlings are not my responsibility, I just make the decisions." Nobody bats an eye, because, well, words don't mean what you think they mean, they mean exactly what happens to be expedient moment-by-moment, you see.
It is not about politics, though. Not the kind you can read from statesmen and biographies. It's more like the politics at the kindergarten playground, where kids invent new words to bolster their ridiculous claims, without logic or rules imposed by sane adults, and nobody dares point out they don't understand, because they are afraid of being singled out.
Shows well how you can completely flush a Nordic country down the drain within little more than a single generation, and all with perfectly good intentions.
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"how was I supposed to know?"
If that's his answer then the media is asking the wrong questions.
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It's more like the politics at the kindergarten playground, where kids invent new words to bolster their ridiculous claims, without logic or rules imposed by sane adults, and nobody dares point out they don't understand, because they are afraid of being singled out.
I think one of the greatest kindergarten political strategies was the legendary "I'm not touching you" gambit. This is where one kid puts his finger right up to, but not touching, the face of the other, moving as necessary to maintain near contact...and all the while stating "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you".
I always wanted to do a longitudinal study to see how the tormentor and tormented turned out.
Also, I once tried the strategy with my older sister, who promptly gave me a shoulder punch (knuckle out, noogie style). Ahhh simpler times :)
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You're correct and that was a typo. Should have been 5:00pm. Probably the darkest point that night would be around 8 or 9 pm, but that's just guessing.
What are you talking about? A 90% illuminated moon most certainly does not rise at 5:00am. A waxing 90% illuminated moon will rise at around 5:00pm and a waning 90% illuminated moon will rise around 10:00pm at this time of year.
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I think one of the greatest kindergarten political strategies was the legendary "I'm not touching you" gambit. This is where one kid puts his finger right up to, but not touching, the face of the other, moving as necessary to maintain near contact...and all the while stating "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you".
I always wanted to do a longitudinal study to see how the tormentor and tormented turned out.
Also, I once tried the strategy with my older sister, who promptly gave me a shoulder punch (knuckle out, noogie style). Ahhh simpler times :)
When I was a kid, I remember thinking that adults were somehow different, much more mature, better behaved, more knowledgeable, etc. Now that I'm an adult it's clear that most of them are just a bit better at putting on a good front, given just a bit of emotion they revert back to acting like bratty children. The way our politicians behave is just a reflection of society as a whole.
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Email clients that don't allow typing ad-hoc sender address, only predefined account addresses (and equally useless aliases if you're lucky). Don't any email developers have catch-all addresses, or use recipient-specific addressing to detect spam leaks?
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The way our politicians behave is just a reflection of society as a whole.
Applicable quote: "You get the government you deserve."
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'Talking hands' youtubers who shake the object you are trying to look at on every. spoken. syllable.
Stop it.
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All online forum and news sites, that date current articles in the form 6:30pm TODAY (or YESTERDAY) and only include an actual numeric date if the item is at least two days old. Result: if you save the article locally, later it contains no useful date.
This (and because the file creation date attribute is ephemeral) is why I manually prefix filenames with the full date like YYYYMMDD, but I still wish that 'today' or 'yesterday' if someone feels it *must* be mentioned, would be placed in brackets after the absolute date.
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full date like YYYYMMDD
Isn't it about 20 years since we needed '20' to differentiate from the last century? My file prefix is 'YYMMDD' and I reckon that's going to suffice a lot longer than my data will be relevant.
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I wasn't born in this millennium, so my financial, tax, and medical records certainly contain dates in the "19" series.
There was a short-lived animated TV series based on "Dilbert", where the scripts were perhaps more bitter than in the newspaper comic strip.
My favorite episode involved Y2K: we see Wally, starting work in 1975, long before he burned out. The senior members were showing him their coding procedures, including using two digits for the year. He asked if that wouldn't be a problem in 25 years, but they all laughed at him.
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I wasn't born in this millennium, so my financial, tax, and medical records certainly contain dates in the "19" series.
There was a short-lived animated TV series based on "Dilbert", where the scripts were perhaps more bitter than in the newspaper comic strip.
My favorite episode involved Y2K: we see Wally, starting work in 1975, long before he burned out. The senior members were showing him their coding procedures, including using two digits for the year. He asked if that wouldn't be a problem in 25 years, but they all laughed at him.
I've been playing with computers for a long time, so I still have files around that were created prior to the year 2000. I really don't think we want to go through that Y2K debacle again even if I'm not around to see it.
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contain dates in the "19" series
Yes, but you're not going to assume they could be '20' by mistake. A simplistic '>50 == 19' would be fine.
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don't think we want to go through that Y2K debacle again
Indeed, but it wouldn't necessarily lead to that. Credit card expiry dates, for instance, are two digits and I'm pretty sure if anyone was going to be paranoid it would be them.
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contain dates in the "19" series
Yes, but you're not going to assume they could be '20' by mistake. A simplistic '>50 == 19' would be fine.
I was born in 1949, and that is a mandated question for me when dealing with health care. Typing in “19” or “20” is not a big deal.
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I wasn't born in this millennium, so my financial, tax, and medical records certainly contain dates in the "19" series.
There was a short-lived animated TV series based on "Dilbert", where the scripts were perhaps more bitter than in the newspaper comic strip.
My favorite episode involved Y2K: we see Wally, starting work in 1975, long before he burned out. The senior members were showing him their coding procedures, including using two digits for the year. He asked if that wouldn't be a problem in 25 years, but they all laughed at him.
I still had one computer in my office running (I believe—memory gets foggy) Windows 3.1 at the start of the last year of the previous millennium, and it showed an absurd date in January of 2000.
I've been playing with computers for a long time, so I still have files around that were created prior to the year 2000. I really don't think we want to go through that Y2K debacle again even if I'm not around to see it.
Sorry—that reply was inserted in the wrong place.
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full date like YYYYMMDD
Isn't it about 20 years since we needed '20' to differentiate from the last century? My file prefix is 'YYMMDD' and I reckon that's going to suffice a lot longer than my data will be relevant.
Ha ha ha... Are you aware that some people alive now, will become immortal? (Assuming there isn't an ELE.) Seriously. The technology of life extension is proceeding very well, you just aren't hearing about it because it isn't in the MSM. For very obvious reasons, if you think about it.
Incidentally there's one practical result of impending potential immortality, very impactful on all of us worldwide atm... can you guess what it is?
But anyway, I was born in 1955, have files from pre 2000, and like them all to sort time-sequentially. So four digit years are fine by me. I am not so *incredibly* lazy that I can't type "20" in front of dates. Leaving that off is what I'd call really stupid optimization.
Besides, I take the long view. The people who don't plan and strive for immortality now will NOT be among those who achieve it. I likely won't make it but not because I didn't try. And I don't want to be kicking myself for file date laziness in another 80 years. Or 5000 years. I do wonder slightly if I might be annoyed in 7978 years from now. But hell, I can just partition all those old files off in a backup archive. Or do an AI-automated global rename, but I can think of a few risks and downsides. Deal with that problem if it ever arises.
Relevant short SF story: http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm (http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm)
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All online forum and news sites, that date current articles in the form 6:30pm TODAY (or YESTERDAY) and only include an actual numeric date if the item is at least two days old. Result: if you save the article locally, later it contains no useful date.
This (and because the file creation date attribute is ephemeral) is why I manually prefix filenames with the full date like YYYYMMDD, but I still wish that 'today' or 'yesterday' if someone feels it *must* be mentioned, would be placed in brackets after the absolute date.
What I really hate is when some author dates an article with the month and day, but leaves off the year. The year is by far the most important part of the date. I mean, really, do they think that something they put on the internet is just going to magically disappear in less than a year? Anyone who writes an article on the internet and doesn't include the year should receive an automatic lifelong ban from ever writing anything again. Those kinds of people are just complete idiots! I guess you can figure out what my pet peeve is.
Regarding date format, YYYYMMDD (with the option of putting delimiters in between the year and month and between the month and day) should be the only allowable date format for all uses. First of all, for computer use, YYYYMMDD can be sorted easily in chronological order. YYMMDD cannot. And any other "standards" can also not be easily sorted. But the computer sorting of a date is but a minor point. We live in a global world. How is one to know if it's MM.DD.YYYY or DD.MM.YYYY just by looking at a date? Example, 10.11.2021, is that October 11, 2021 or November 10, 2021? Depending on which country you live in, you'll assume one way or the other. In order to correctly determine the date, you first need to figure out which country it came from, which in some cases might not even be possible. I see this constantly at the supermarket with imported foods that come from various countries. In order to check the expiration date, I first need to check which country it came from. Any country not using YYYYMMDD needs to change and stop showing their stupidity / lack of living in a global world. Just look at time. AFAIK everyone writes time starting with the most significant hours, then minutes, then optional seconds. Ignoring the AM/PM, it makes total logical sense (I almost always use a 24-hour time base, myself). So why when it comes to the date do people do it differently, and not put the most significant part (the year) first? It's totally illogical! I grew up with the standard being MM/DD/YY, with YY being optional. Once I was exposed to YYYY.MM.DD, I immediately recognized how stupid my country's standard date method was/is. Just for kicks, if it's not something critical, whenever I fill out a form that asks for the date format in something else, I'll just write it as YYYY.MM.DD. Anyways, I don't hold out any hope for it to ever change. If even in the USA they cancelled the conversion to the Metric system, after it was well along, there's really no hope of standardizing dates.
Edited to add: I realize that people speak dates one way, and I'm not saying we need to change that. For example, in American English, a conversation about a date next month, such as "September 15", is fine with me. It's when it's not in a conversation, but in writing, and when that writing can be read at any time in the future, then it at least needs to indicate the year, ie. "September 15, 2021". And it's when we write dates using a totally numeric format that the YYYYMMDD format needs to be the standard. If you're speaking/writing and using the name of the month, use whatever format is common in your country. If you're using numerical dates that are to be read by people around the world, standardize it!
One humorous comment about times, from people around where I live. I often see the opening time for a store listed as 09:00 AM. I always laugh, being they obviously don't have a clue about why the leading "0" is added for military time, and not appropriate if you're using AM/PM.
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I was born in the 60s, and am very old by my children's standards :-DD . I have, as probably quite a few other members have, met and known relatives born in three centuries -- my great-grandmother was born 1899 and was a teenager during Gallipoli. Edit: She wasn't there, but she did certainly read about that lesson in the lecture series "Don't start a land war in Asia". (Yes, I know, it's on the western shore of the straits, so technically Europe, but the thesis mostly holds. Not that it helped, though, which is why my children learn about our current clusterfucks.)
4-digit years (at least, we don't have to write them "MCMLXIX" or "MMXXI", although "MM" is short and sweet. Variable length strings, oooh, buffer overflow time! ) are a no-brainer!!
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do they think that something they put on the internet is just going to magically disappear in less than a year?
Seems to be a general rule that something you really wouldn't want to be there for perpetuity will stick and be around forever, but stuff you once saw and need to access again will leave no trace.
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Relevant short SF story: http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm (http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm)
Entertaining read, thanks :-+
But... so the name of the game is/was to gather up all the info, the genomes of all species, etc., and shove 'em in space arks so they survive for all eternity. But what then? Surely if you don't do something with them - like short-cut evolution and populate a barren planet - then there's no point in having them. It's just hoarding, for the sake of owning, on a galactic scale. On the other hand, if you do use it as a seed to restart things then you're just going to replay the end wars.
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A related peeve of mine is calling a time of day “12:00 AM” or “12:00 PM”. In this abbreviation, “M” means “noon”. US railroads avoid safety problems by shifting times to 11:59 or 12:01, and the proper 24 hour notation 1200 avoids the problem entirely.
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A related peeve of mine is calling a time of day “12:00 AM” or “12:00 PM”. In this abbreviation, “M” means “noon”. US railroads avoid safety problems by shifting times to 11:59 or 12:01, and the proper 24 hour notation 1200 avoids the problem entirely.
As in many other countries, railroads brought order to timekeeping in Sweden;
- A single time zone was instigated; the difference of ~30 minutes between Gothenburg and Stockholm was to cumbersome to deal with so was erased. First the time in Gothenburg was chosen for railway use, but that did not go well with the Stockholm people, so in 1878 a compromise time was chosen. Then, in 1900, Sweden was adjusted to the global time zone system as GMT+1 (now UTC+1).
- 24-hour time format was standardised for everything except casual speech.
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Without US Federal legislation, the railroad companies assembled and arranged their own time zones (four for the "continental" US) in 1883 for their convenience (minimizing the number of zones per company, regardless of longitudinal rules). There is a plaque in downtown Chicago showing where they met to do this. For example, I believe that the State of Georgia was put in "Central" time (along with Chicago), but the later Federal legislation put Georgia into "Eastern" time (along with New York and Washington DC). I understand that France did not have standard time at the beginning of WW I, which contributed to defense difficulties regarding railroad timetables.
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Relevant short SF story: http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm (http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.htm)
Entertaining read, thanks :-+
But... so the name of the game is/was to gather up all the info, the genomes of all species, etc., and shove 'em in space arks so they survive for all eternity.
No, the game was to personally survive for all eternity. The data collection... there are several ways to think of that. Nostalgic mementos, something to mull over on the long hops, potentially useful bits and pieces in the genomes, whole mind data captures ('souls' if you like), simulation experiments raw data, hoarder's compulsive piles of (data) stuff, data is compact so why not... and quite importantly, one of several things that story doesn't delve into: TRADING items.
He was hoping to find that kind of data, the library etc, in the glass marbles. Like the way he keeps his.
Think about it. At that level of physical existence, there are no material shortages. You can mine asteroids and planets for whatever materials you need. Now supposing you meet other travellers like yourself. What are you going to talk with them about? What are you going to trade with or gift to them?
Stories. And what better story that the entire history of a world that evolved life, intellignece, cultures, and you?
You'd have figured that out before setting off. And so you would want to archive EVERY. SINGLE. THING. you possibly could.
But what then? Surely if you don't do something with them - like short-cut evolution and populate a barren planet
Such activity is deeply, fundamentally forbidden. Haram on a level that has nothing to do with silly human religions. I won't try to explain why or how. But you could try examining why you (as a human) would even consider such a thing.
- then there's no point in having them. It's just hoarding, for the sake of owning, on a galactic scale. On the other hand, if you do use it as a seed to restart things then you're just going to replay the end wars.
:) You should try thinking some more about the objectives an immortal, self-engineering, star-travelling entity would choose for themself. In the context of what the actual Fermi Paradox says about existence. Also the potentials with unlimited computing power, possible quantum.
Btw, what is wrong with hoarding (on a galactic scale)? Bear in mind this is DATA hoarding, not physical. No similarities to filling up a small flat with stacks of old newspapers and ornaments, that then fall over and crush you.
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No, the game was to personally survive for all eternity.
Fair enough. I took that as a given and jumped to what the being would do for all that time.
What are you going to talk with them about? What are you going to trade with or gift to them?
You mean after having not wiped them out due to being technologically advanced, and technology not being entirely compatible with long-lasting civilisations? (You might not be that way inclined, but what guarantees that anyone you meet is the same? Is there some universal rule that you only make it to the end if you're a goody?). OK, that's a fair excuse for accumulating data. Indeed, wallowing in memories can be good. Or bad, depending on what they are.
[Kickstarting a planet]
Such activity is deeply, fundamentally forbidden.
By whom or what? Indeed, that would seem a quite reasonable pastime if you're around forever and stuck for something to do: planet-sized corewars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War). It's not a huge step from that to thinking perhaps we're at the wrong end of one.
Btw, what is wrong with hoarding (on a galactic scale)?
Initially, nothing. It becomes a problem when it's an end in itself, although being a more or less omnipotent entity does mitigate some aspects. In a similar vein, a deep dive into someone's life experience, taking a close-up look at their triumphs and failures, their feelings and desires, could turn into mental jacking off. Of course, that might only be a problem because it's something we abhor and an everlasting entity might feel differently. There is also the small question of 'so what' - who or what is going to complain or take them to task.
You should try thinking some more about the objectives an immortal, self-engineering, star-travelling entity would choose for themself.
Well, that's a bit tricky. But one thing that does spring to mind is boredom. I mean, once you've done everything and been everywhere - metaphorically speaking - what is there left to do? It's not a rare problem that people work hard, retire and then struggle with the lack of something meaningful to do. And they only have to put up with it for maybe 20 or 30 years (although it's not unknown for them to last just a year or two and pop off early).
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I can't remember if I already mentioned this one, but the fact that every damn flashlight these days seems to use those stupid flash modes and every time you turn it on you hae to cycle through all of them until you get to a normal on mode. Why is it so damn hard to make a flash light that has a simple on/off function and that's it?
Just bought a flashlight at Canadian Tire as an impulse purchase since it was on sale, and sure enough, when you turn it on, it's normal, but then you have to keep cycling through all the modes to turn it off. So annoying!
It looks easy enough to take apart, so I'm debating on just stripping out all the electronics from it and then putting in my own. It has a charge function though and I don't know if I trust myself to design a lithium ion battery charger. :P
I think I will give up on buying off the shelf flashlights, and just look into making my own. I kind of want to take a gas Coleman lantern and convert it to electric. They are built better than the actual electric ones.
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we see Wally, starting work in 1975, long before he burned out.
When was that? Around 1976?
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I can't remember if I already mentioned this one, but the fact that every damn flashlight these days seems to use those stupid flash modes and every time you turn it on you hae to cycle through all of them until you get to a normal on mode. Why is it so damn hard to make a flash light that has a simple on/off function and that's it?
OMG that drives me crazy, I think there are a few open source firmwares out there to fix this issue. I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone thought those stupid modes were a good idea, or why they are present in nearly EVERY flashlight. All I can come up with is some Chinese businessman took the term "flashlight" far too literally and then everyone else just copied it. I have never, ever wanted my flashlight to produce a seizure inducing strobe effect or flash out SOS, if they're going to have those extra modes please, Please PLEASE make it so you have to go out of your way to enable it, don't force me to cycle through all of them every damn time I just want to turn it on or off.
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l, that's a bit tricky. But one thing that does spring to mind is boredom. I mean, once you've done everything and been everywhere - metaphorically speaking - what is there left to do? It's not a rare problem that people work hard, retire and then struggle with the lack of something meaningful to do. And they only have to put up with it for maybe 20 or 30 years (although it's not unknown for them to last just a year or two and pop off early).
I can't even begin to relate. As long as my health holds up so that I'm still capable of doing at least some of the things I enjoy, I have enough projects lined up already to keep me busy for at least 100 years assuming I stopped finding new ones. If nothing else I'd be content to sit in a chair all day and fly model airplanes or volunteer to fix broken electronics for people. Enough stuff with trivial faults gets thrown out that I wouldn't even have to bother with the tough dogs.
Regarding hoarding, I recognize a few of those tendencies myself so I actively try not to just hoard stuff but I know a few serious hoarders who have houses so full of crap that they can't even use any of it, it's all buried. At least the guys I know hoard reasonably interesting stuff, they just have far too much of it, it isn't literally garbage like the people who hoard rotting food or piles of old newspapers. When the guy who lived a few houses over from my mom passed away they found thousands of empty pizza boxes stacked floor to ceiling, he ordered pizza every day for years and never threw out any of the boxes. In my case I tend to hold onto stuff because most of the stuff that interests me is vintage, if I throw it out I can't just go get another one later and many times I've gotten rid of something and then regretted it in a few years when it caught my interest again but I can't keep everything.
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I'd be content to sit in a chair all day and fly model airplanes
In general, people think they would be content to do <favourite pastime> all day every day, right up until they actually do it all day every day. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that :)
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It looks easy enough to take apart, so I'm debating on just stripping out all the electronics from it and then putting in my own. It has a charge function though and I don't know if I trust myself to design a lithium ion battery charger.
Idea: Just add a normally closed pushbutton in series with one terminal of the battery. This becomes your "Off" button. No matter what mode it's in, depowering it temporarily will return it to "Off". You can then use the "On" button to select the mode you want (generally the first one), and the "Off" button when you're done. Simple, easy, and no need to mess with their charging circuitry.
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In general, people think they would be content to do <favourite pastime> all day every day, right up until they actually do it all day every day. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that :)
Well I have lots of favorite pastimes so that isn't likely to be an issue for me. If I get bored of one hobby I can do a different one for a while. And there's always other stuff I could take up given a surplus of time. I could get a boat and go sailing frequently like my dad did, or I could take up flying (full scale), or I could take some classes on other things that interest me like auto body repair or welding, or I could volunteer at an aviation museum restoring vintage aircraft or any number of other activities I don't currently have time for. I don't dislike my job but I freely admit I do it because they pay me. If I weren't getting paid I have lots of other things I could spend my time on.
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Idea: Just add a normally closed pushbutton in series with one terminal of the battery. This becomes your "Off" button. No matter what mode it's in, depowering it temporarily will return it to "Off". You can then use the "On" button to select the mode you want (generally the first one), and the "Off" button when you're done. Simple, easy, and no need to mess with their charging circuitry.
Easier said than done. In many cases it isn't easy to open them up, and there isn't much extra space inside most flashlights, and if you add a button it has to be done carefully if you want to preserve the waterproof nature. Easiest thing if you can get it apart is probably just replace the firmware, but the fact that this is even necessary to contemplate is infuriating.
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It looks easy enough to take apart, so I'm debating on just stripping out all the electronics from it and then putting in my own. It has a charge function though and I don't know if I trust myself to design a lithium ion battery charger.
Idea: Just add a normally closed pushbutton in series with one terminal of the battery. This becomes your "Off" button. No matter what mode it's in, depowering it temporarily will return it to "Off". You can then use the "On" button to select the mode you want (generally the first one), and the "Off" button when you're done. Simple, easy, and no need to mess with their charging circuitry.
Good idea actually... For this particular flashlight, I think that might actually work. It always turns on to the same mode. This is more of a "gun" style flashlight that's in a plastic package with screws. Most flashlights are not this easy to take apart though.
I have another one that seems to turn on to a random mode each time which is quite annoying as it seems to use a capacitive touch to toggle modes but it's easy to trigger it by error and it just goes on the next mode each time you turn it on. That one is not easy to fix though but at some point I may just take it apart destructively and try to save the head, which has the LED and the zoom function. That part is actually kind of nice.
As mentioned, I actually do wonder if this all stems from a manufacturer in China that took the word "flash" literally and are pumping out billions of controller chips that end up going in almost every flashlight.
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Extant weapons-grade nutbaggery (sorry, I watched the news tonight).
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When using Zoom with multiple screens worth of participants there is a whole lot of waste space around the edge of the screen that could be used for either more participants or larger thumbnails. |O
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Can't believe I haven't already mentioned this one. At least several times.
The address/search bar editing. Type in something, say, 'EE' and it autopopulates with 'EEVBlog...etc" with the non-typed part highlighted. Very useful, but suppose you actually wanted to type 'EV' for 'eveningpost.com' or whatever. No problem: just backspace the second E and retype with V, right? Wrong! The backspace just removes the highlight so you end up with 'EEV' again. In every app under the sun, except for browsers, a backspace deletes the last typed character.
Fine, so you think you can just double-backspace to get started. But now you type 'EX' and a double backspace deletes the lot because there was no highlight! It is bonkers, and annoying.
Can't believe no-one else has figured this is the stuff of broken monitors and PCs out of windows, but seemingly if they've even noticed they've thought "Wow, this stupid-ass stuff is cool! Going to add this to my browser address bar too".
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That reminds me of another one, when I try to select part of a word to copy or edit and it "helpfully" automatically selects the entire word, it is infuriating. A related and equally maddening thing I run into frequently is autocorrect on my phone repeatedly replacing correctly spelled words with a different word. Sometimes I will backspace it and type again multiple times and it keeps replacing it until I specifically tap the selection for the original word. It frustrates me to no end, autocorrect is handy but I NEVER want it to replace a correctly spelled word with a different word it thinks I wanted to use instead. Just fix the misspelled words! There is no way to set it to do that.
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Several times on this site, when making an historical reference to the “Poulsen arc”, the system automatically corrected that to “Poulenc”. It tried again on this post, but I expected it and was too smart for the corrector. (I thought Poulenc was a bit obscure for this site.)
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@james_s:
If you are on a pc, you can hold shift and use the cursor keys to exactly select what you want. I really got used to that, because many microsoft products, especially outlook, do not allow you to select all of a word except the last letter. As soon as you went to the second to last letter, the whole word got selected.
@dunkemhigh: I agree. That always throws me off when i mistype a URL.
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There's also the rotten "helpful" behavior of double clicking on a word and it automatically includes the trailing space. Sure, that might be helpful in 1% of cases, but I have yet to experience one. Every single time I have to manually deselect the space, or remove it after pasting.
There are many, many threads hating on this "feature" in forums all over the Internet. Microsoft Office tools are especially egregious about it, and AFAIK there is no option to disable it.
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@james_s:
If you are on a pc, you can hold shift and use the cursor keys to exactly select what you want. I really got used to that, because many microsoft products, especially outlook, do not allow you to select all of a word except the last letter. As soon as you went to the second to last letter, the whole word got selected.
Yes, there are workarounds but it is infuriating none the less. I just want to select exactly the part I want, I never, ever want it to automatically select the entire word. If they're going to have that auto select functionality, it should be hold down a key or double click or something to select the whole word, don't make it the default. It is not helpful at all, it is the opposite.
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When using voice to text on an iPhone at least, and it misinterprets a word and puts some profanity there instead. That could make a lot of trouble for you if you don’t see and correct it. There really should be a word blacklist that you can enable somehow.
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I hate autocorrect too. My android comes up with corrections once and insists that I MUST use it, because hitting space bar makes it do the correction. No, I know what I wrote, I want to actually just hit space. But it won't let me. So I hit dot so I can get out of that and go delete the dot after. Nope, it will still try to do the correction. There used to be a way to turn that off so it only does suggestions and not actually change it unless you want to, but it seems something changed.
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Yeah, me too: Hate autocorrect!
It's like having a (clumsy) DOG-SERVANT; Doing all these stupid things around you, and drooling all the while...fixing your tie, buttoning your shirt, or unbuttoning, whichever way you DONT want.
My Android cellphone did autocorrect, where I had typed the words 'self-deduced' intelligence.
UH, HEY!?? That sucker changed my line to
"Self-Deluded talents"... Lead me to suspect:
? They put a guy in their screen, in the morning, so they can MESS with the action...
...Call it harmless pranking, by those running the system...maybe true
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There's also the rotten "helpful" behavior of double clicking on a word and it automatically includes the trailing space. Sure, that might be helpful in 1% of cases, but I have yet to experience one. Every single time I have to manually deselect the space, or remove it after pasting.
There are many, many threads hating on this "feature" in forums all over the Internet. Microsoft Office tools are especially egregious about it, and AFAIK there is no option to disable it.
Again, shift can come to the rescue ;) Doubleclick a word to select it and it's trailing space. Hold shift and press the left arrow once.
Yes, there are workarounds but it is infuriating none the less. I just want to select exactly the part I want, I never, ever want it to automatically select the entire word. If they're going to have that auto select functionality, it should be hold down a key or double click or something to select the whole word, don't make it the default. It is not helpful at all, it is the opposite.
I have to admit that using shift and the arrow keys to precisely select has been ingrained now ;)
I have just played around a bit with outlook, and either the behaviour changed, or i misremember.
When i use the mouse to select a single word, it actually does what it is supposed to do in outlook 2016. It precisely selects, and does not even select the trailing space. But as soon as i do the same on multiple words, outlook tries to be helpful.
When i start the selection in the middle of a word and i cross a space, both words get selected once i hit the second or third letter of the second word.
But i just discovered something that i was not aware of: If you move the cursor back, this expanded selection is undone, and as long as you do not release the left button, you can now precisely select over multiple words. This works in Outlook and Word 2016.
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Years ago, before Dilbert, there was another newspaper comic strip about young office workers (probably using DOS on their office computers). Since management did not allow them to play computer games at work, they made do with feeding their personal names into auto-correct to see what came out.
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When using voice to text on an iPhone at least, and it misinterprets a word and puts some profanity there instead. That could make a lot of trouble for you if you don’t see and correct it. There really should be a word blacklist that you can enable somehow.
My son was visiting one of his company's sites, which was right next to Moffitt Field Naval Air Station in Mountain View, and texted me on his phone that he saw two Backhawks (helicopters). The phone's speech recognition software converted that to "two black cocks".
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There's also the rotten "helpful" behavior of double clicking on a word and it automatically includes the trailing space. Sure, that might be helpful in 1% of cases, but I have yet to experience one. Every single time I have to manually deselect the space, or remove it after pasting.
There are many, many threads hating on this "feature" in forums all over the Internet. Microsoft Office tools are especially egregious about it, and AFAIK there is no option to disable it.
Then there's the feature in Windows Explorer, where selecting a file name excludes the file extension... and there is no way that I know of to alter that behaviour. Whenever I copy a file name from Explorer, I need the whole thing without extension, but Microsoft is catering for the 1% of use cases where you don't need/want the extension....
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I run into the same problem, but to be fair in this case they are probably thinking that you want to rename the file. Pressing F2 on the file has the same effect: Highlight the filename without extension, presumably so you can just start typing your replacement. In this one case, I'm not sure there's an obvious better choice. It would be nice to make it configurable!
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I'm sorry if it appears i'm butting in again :D
When you double-click on the file name after hitting F2, it selects the full file name, including the extension. At least it does for me in Windows 20H2, but i know MS changed that behaviour sometime after Windows Vista i think.
But related (and on topic ;)): I hate it that hiding the file extensions is *still* the default setting. It's just confusing and potentially dangerous.
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But related (and on topic ;)): I hate it that hiding the file extensions is *still* the default setting. It's just confusing and potentially dangerous.
Indeed. Hiding the file name extension can make virus.jpg.exe look like virus.jpg
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Didn't Windows go through a (short) period where renaming virus.com to virus.txt would still let it run when clicked?
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Bird shit.
Specifically, the pigeons and squirrels that search out where on our property I've parked my car so they can shit on it again. One time there was rather more in the mornings than usual, so I crept out at night and discovered five small birds in a row nesting on a branch over it. Moved the car and they never came back. Gits.
But the real annoyance is whatever beast leaves the big brown turds that have the consistency and stickiness of cured epoxy resin. Even when fresh, if you can call this stuff fresh, car shampoo and a brush doesn't even scratch it. Only fix I've found so far is soaking with the expensive MucOff chain cleaner I use on the bike chain, and then a good working in with a stiff wheel brush.
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But related (and on topic ;)): I hate it that hiding the file extensions is *still* the default setting. It's just confusing and potentially dangerous.
Indeed. Hiding the file name extension can make virus.jpg.exe look like virus.jpg
Those who would recognize dangerous extensions should also notice what looked like an extension when they are hidden.
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Bird shit.
Specifically, the pigeons and squirrels that search out where on our property I've parked my car so they can shit on it again. One time there was rather more in the mornings than usual, so I crept out at night and discovered five small birds in a row nesting on a branch over it. Moved the car and they never came back. Gits.
But the real annoyance is whatever beast leaves the big brown turds that have the consistency and stickiness of cured epoxy resin. Even when fresh, if you can call this stuff fresh, car shampoo and a brush doesn't even scratch it. Only fix I've found so far is soaking with the expensive MucOff chain cleaner I use on the bike chain, and then a good working in with a stiff wheel brush.
The brown stuff is properly not Bird droppings . You may have flying foxes Known as fruit Bats .
they spit & poop .
the ammonia in there excretions is really good for paint work :palm:
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Could be bats, yes. Could soon be ex-bats if they're not jolly careful.
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Could be bats, yes. Could soon be ex-bats if they're not jolly careful.
They are a protected species in most countries
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I will try and remember to tell the cat that when I point them out to her.
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I will try and remember to tell the cat that when I point them out to her.
[attachimg=1]
Wait All day for that .CAT.
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COMCAST REMOTE CONTROL -. Functional Change !
NOW I don't know if this is the weirdest, or the most dumb-ass 'imporvment' (yes, I deliberately misspelled) I've ever seen, in consumer electronics:
Comcast remotes, when running anything, on your TV, now has changed the 'VCR' modes where you can stop and do a freeze frame step by step, let's say watching some Olympic high-jumper.
Now, the thing is going back slightly, when you press the 'Stop/Single frame' button twice. Used to be, until recently, the Video would advance, a little bit, every time you did a fast double press on the STOP button.
So the effect is, you just get a quick fraction of second of your video, and that repeats, almost always going back, instead of clear steady progress thru the stuff you are examining, such as a high dive or tight gymnastic move.
We Engineer types are also paying attention to CONSUMER ELECTRONICS, it's often our JOB, yo.
AND, please, try this on your home TV / integral Video player, or am I going batty(?)!
Also, some of the time, the stopped frames do advance, but too erratic to make sensible use of
SLO-MO for casual focus on action / motions.
ARRRRRGH.
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I quite like autocorrect when it corrects misspelled words, in that respect it does a pretty good job, at least on my iphone. What drives me nuts though is when it changes a correctly spelled word to another word, it is almost always wrong! There is no way to change that behavior either, you can turn it off completely but you can't just turn off the word replacement part.
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you can't just turn off the word replacement part
Ouch!
I have autocorrect enabled nearly everywhere (phone, PC, interactions with the missus) but the worst that happens is a popup to pick from (on the PC) or one or three 'correct' alternatives on the virtual keyboard to press. If it changed words without getting an explicit OK from me I'd turn the damn thing off and live with sending garbled rubbish.
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Linux users, please cover your eyes.
The increasing prevalence of .jpeg as a file suffix on web images, instead of .jpg as the DOS-GOD intended it.
Computer-heads still using FAT file systems because they can be trusted, will understand what 'more than 3' letter suffixes do to the file tables.
I could also complain about file names containing characters . , ' and so on, but most will ask so what.
Or even file names longer than 8 characters, considering what trash the 'extended length file name structure' is in FAT systems. Oh well, NTFS...
Then there's the retarded practice creeping in, where people have seen computer-heads use underscore to visually separate words without whitespace. Not understanding the significance of whitespace, the innocents have started using space-underscore-space as a separator. Monkey see monkey do. Sigh...
About LED torches that insist on cycling through flash modes to reach OFF. Arrgh yes. I *HATE* that. I especially hate that while on urbex outings. When you want to turn a torch off then, you usually really, really want to turn it off quickly. Not via 'hey, I'm hiding over here!' mode. You get in the habit of covering the LEDs with your hand first, then cycling through the stupid modes. But it's a pain.
I've only encountered one situation where flashing mode was useful. Bushfire fighting, supporting helicopter water bombing operations, going on towards dusk. Makes it easier for the pilot to dump the water on the flames where you are pointing a few meters away, not on you. Water bombing must be incredibly frustrating when there are no ground rakers to put out the smaller spot fires. By the time the heli goes to refill the bucket and return, small spot fires are as big again as the flareup they put out a few minutes ago.
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Bird shit.
It's especially important not to park near trees where starlings roost, otherwise your car may end up like this one:
(https://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/13286195/thumb/1.jpg)
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COMCAST REMOTE CONTROL
One thing that really peeves me is how Amazon Fire TV handles PAUSE. The pause seems to time out after a very short time (around five minutes or less), dropping you back to the main menu. This doesn't even give me enough time to make popcorn or take a bathroom break.
Why pause even times out at all is a mystery to me. Hell, when I hit the pause button, I should be able to go on holiday for six months and come back to find it still paused in the same spot. :palm:
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COMCAST REMOTE CONTROL
One thing that really peeves me is how Amazon Fire TV handles PAUSE. The pause seems to time out after a very short time (around five minutes or less), dropping you back to the main menu. This doesn't even give me enough time to make popcorn or take a bathroom break.
Why pause even times out at all is a mystery to me. Hell, when I hit the pause button, I should be able to go on holiday for six months and come back to find it still paused in the same spot. :palm:
Pause timeout makes sense in the pre-IPTV video on demand systems. When you play VOD content a QAM channel is set up to broadcast the requested content and the box on your end tunes to that channel and displays the content. The actual playback is occurring on a video server in the headend and your transport controls are forwarded to that server. If you leave a video paused it leaves that physical channel tied up and it wouldn't take very long for the whole system to get clogged by people pausing some show and walking away. With IPTV streaming this isn't really the case though and I see no reason not to let it pause indefinitely.
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otherwise your car may end up like this one
Blimey! Bet he was loved at the hand car wash.
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With IPTV streaming this isn't really the case though and I see no reason not to let it pause indefinitely.
It's taking up a connection, and possibly it's holding the stream active on the local CDN. I notice that when starting some content it can take a while to actually get going, but after that it's fine. It occurred to me that it might be digging the stuff off disk somewhere (hey, it can't live as an ever-ready streaming stream but has to reside somewhere) and then piped to the CDN. With the number of connections Amazon will be supplying, even a small hump can turn into a mountain.
Edit to note that's purely guesswork.
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With IPTV streaming this isn't really the case though and I see no reason not to let it pause indefinitely.
It's taking up a connection, and possibly it's holding the stream active on the local CDN. I notice that when starting some content it can take a while to actually get going, but after that it's fine. It occurred to me that it might be digging the stuff off disk somewhere (hey, it can't live as an ever-ready streaming stream but has to reside somewhere) and then piped to the CDN. With the number of connections Amazon will be supplying, even a small hump can turn into a mountain.
Edit to note that's purely guesswork.
I don't know how it's architected but I bet they could design it so that paused content would time out after a while on the server side while remaining paused on the client. The client device could potentially buffer enough content that playback could resume immediately while giving the server time to spool up the stream and resume from the previous point. It is certainly technologically feasible to do.
VOD was one of the features I owned at a former job at a place that made settop boxes, IP based streaming was just starting to pick up steam around the time I moved on so I did not get into a lot of the technical details.
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REGARDING USING PAUSE, TO SLO-MO STEPPING
Just to clarify, (thanks for timeout comments, BTW),
my interest was to keep doing repeated press - press, which gives a SLO-MOTION or STOP FRAME effect, for closer examination of action.
Whether an Olympic Diver, or your little dog, you can close examine / stop. Now, (my Comcast TV) remote will 'go back a second' when you press the second time so RESUME PLAY features a tiny rewind...for your convenience; understandable, in an isolated context.
It means you get to skip any hassle, trying to rewind the video, a moments time.
BUT, that feature totally destroys any chance of doing those close-up examinations / frozen if you want, as that 'rewind' you end up with a 'bup bup...bup bup...bup bup' type repeat, of that same 700 milliseconds, rather than steady slow progress thru your video.
Not verified, but I believe my ANDROID phone does that little, 700 mSec rewind, also.
A potentially 'nice' feature that, again I didn't and wouldn't ask for.
So, now, if I want to record and analyze some new machine function, like those SLO-MO video segments, of gasoline engine (or Olympic Gymnast movements), I cannot do. CAN'T DO ! That's a lame functional change, reminding me WHO owns my phone.
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That's a software issue. I can tell you what probably happened there. The team is using agile methodology which in practice means that most of the thoughtful spec writing goes out the window and they start working on little bite sized features and changes. Most of the QA is dispensed with and the focus is on fixing the problems that the most users complain about. Edge cases like yours get ignored because few people notice and even fewer bother to report it. Somebody either made some related change and broke it, or someone decided it's better this way for one reason or another and it got changed. That tiny rewind for example may have been intentional, someone thought it would add convenience and didn't even consider your use case.
It's also possible that it's a CODEC limitation, IIRC some types of video encoding use keyframes and cannot easily use trickplay features to stop on the frames between those. My memory is a little hazy there though. It may just be that when you resume it is jumping to the previous keyframe and repeating some you've already seen, generally preferable to jumping forward and skipping some that you haven't seen. This is not trivial stuff, I remember having a lot of trickplay related issues.
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The simplest reason is they have poor control over exactly when "pause" takes effect, so rewinding a few hundred milliseconds was their attempt at hiding that.
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Linux users, please cover your eyes.
The increasing prevalence of .jpeg as a file suffix on web images, instead of .jpg as the DOS-GOD intended it.
Computer-heads still using FAT file systems because they can be trusted, will understand what 'more than 3' letter suffixes do to the file tables.
I actively and aggressively use ".jpeg" as an extension because the 8.3 convention and file systems limited by it need to be eradicated from the active computing world and put in museums. Real Computers (32/64-bit preemptive multitasking, POSIX compliant) have gotten this right since before DOS was released.
The words "FAT" and "trusted" only can appear in the presence of a negation. A real file system has a journal, and is tolerant against power outages. Two file systems have the distinction of never having chewed one of my files; IBM jfs for AIX and ZFS for the system I've run it on, mostly FreeBSD but also Solaris. The rest I'd rather not use, and that includes HFS/HFS+ on the Mac, but that, since Apple gave up their ZFS work, can't be avoided.
(I'm no Linux user except when forced, so that's why I'm staring at this.)
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Real Computers (32/64-bit preemptive multitasking, POSIX compliant) have gotten this right since before DOS was released.
Is that why most non-Windows build tools can't handle spaces in filenames or paths?
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When I post something for sale and someone contacts me with "What is your lowest price."
I posted my asking price, I'll generally entertain reasonable offers, I might even take a lowball depending on how tired I am of looking at the thing and whether they can come pick it up so I don't have to pack and ship it but I'm not going to negotiate against myself. Money talks and bullshit walks, either pay what I'm asking or make me an offer, don't waste my time. Seems like I get this more and more these days and it just drives me nuts. I usually just hit delete.
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Ha, yes, I got stiffed with that. Once upon a much more naive time I was flogging my Honda CB900 and figured I would like £1100 for it but could be talked down. So off to the friendly bike shop, who did all my MOTs across various machines, and we got down to business. "What's your lowest price?" he asks. Well, being a kid I think a bit and tell him I might go down to £900, expecting use to meet halfway. "Done!" he says. Damn.
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Ha, yes, I got stiffed with that. Once upon a much more naive time I was flogging my Honda CB900 and figured I would like £1100 for it but could be talked down. So off to the friendly bike shop, who did all my MOTs across various machines, and we got down to business. "What's your lowest price?" he asks. Well, being a kid I think a bit and tell him I might go down to £900, expecting use to meet halfway. "Done!" he says. Damn.
Yes.. I think we all learned the hard way . :palm:
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When I post something for sale and someone contacts me with "What is your lowest price."
I posted my asking price, I'll generally entertain reasonable offers, I might even take a lowball depending on how tired I am of looking at the thing and whether they can come pick it up so I don't have to pack and ship it but I'm not going to negotiate against myself. Money talks and bullshit walks, either pay what I'm asking or make me an offer, don't waste my time. Seems like I get this more and more these days and it just drives me nuts. I usually just hit delete.
You should respond that your lowest price is 10% higher and increase the asking price.
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Prices that end in 0.99 e.g. $29,999.99.
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Unfortunately, I believe that quantitative research by the business-school guys has proven that that annoying technique works with consumers.
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It does work. Psychologically $4.99 is interpreted as significantly lower than $5. Personally I don't really care about that, but it annoys me that gasoline here is always priced with a 9/10th cent on the end, ie 2.969/gal. It shouldn't even be legal to price something in smaller increments than is possible with our currency denominations.
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Prices that end in 0.99 e.g. $29,999.99.
Pah! That's peanuts. It would turn into $20,000 when justifying the purchase to the missus :)
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Cars parked on the verge with "For Sale", a phone number, but no price.
If it has a price marked on it, I know straightaway what the seller's expectations are, & if they are unrealistic, I won't bother calling.
If there is no price shown, I assume it will be unrealistic, & still don't call!
A similar thing is car yards with big signs on cars saying "For Sale", instead of the price.
It's a car yard, so surely, we have already established that it is for sale! :palm:'
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Cars parked on the verge with "For Sale", a phone number, but no price.
I've been in a number of various types of stores in my life where prices aren't posted. I generally try to tell the owner or manager that there are items I'm interested in, but I will not do business ever with a store that refuses to clearly post the prices of their items for sale. Usually they'll respond with something like, "Oh, just ask the price of anything you want", to which I'll respond, "If you don't respect me as a customer, and my valuable time, and insist I need to waste my time to ask the price for everything, then I have no respect for you and your store", and I walk out.
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I generally agree there, although there was a thrift shop I liked going to before the owner retired, they had tons of stuff and a lot of turnover so there was always something new in there. They didn't bother to price stuff because he said it was just too much work with the amount of stuff they moved but the prices were always very reasonable every time I went, he was willing to haggle but I seldom bothered. On one occasion I got an armload of random stuff including a vintage RCA professional microphone preamp module, paid $20 for the whole pile. I didn't know how much the preamp was worth and had no real use for that particular item but I was pretty sure any sort of tube gear was a good buy at that price. I ended up selling it for over $600 unrestored.
In general though yeah, if there isn't a price posted I assume they want too much.
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It does work. Psychologically $4.99 is interpreted as significantly lower than $5. Personally I don't really care about that, but it annoys me that gasoline here is always priced with a 9/10th cent on the end, ie 2.969/gal. It shouldn't even be legal to price something in smaller increments than is possible with our currency denominations.
I bought an item in a supermarket that was marked up as 19.99 .I gave them a 20 note . And stood with my hand out . The girl said What ! . I'm waiting for my change. She said I haven't got a 1. I Said I'm not leaving till I get it and by law she has to comply .
The manager turned up .
After a very heated argument I started to phone the police. If the store takes 0.1 from 1000 customers a day . This is stealing .
In the end I got the only small coin available. A half . So I paid 19.50 . They lost I won .
Always demand you correct change. Every One counts 🤪
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I bought an item in a supermarket that was marked up as 19.99 .I gave them a 20 note . And stood with my hand out . The girl said What ! . I'm waiting for my change. She said I haven't got a 1. I Said I'm not leaving till I get it and by law she has to comply .
The manager turned up .
After a very heated argument I started to phone the police. If the store takes 0.1 from 1000 customers a day . This is stealing .
In the end I got the only small coin available. A half . So I paid 19.50 . They lost I won .
Always demand you correct change. Every One counts 🤪
And based on whatever amount of time it took, and calculating the pay for that time of the clerk and manager, it cost them a lot more than the 49 cents. Another case of people being penny-wise and pound foolish.
Speaking of paying for things, years ago I had some old US red seal currency, but they were only worth very marginally over the face value. So I got kicks out of spending them at stores and seeing the reactions of the clerks. At one shop, the young clerk was probably born long after those bills vanished from circulation, and when she looked at what I handed her, she told me to wait a moment. She went to the side to speak to the manager, thinking it was counterfeit. The manager, realized what it was and whispered to her to accept it, probably thinking the bill was very valuable and he'd just made a good score by accepting it.
Now those blasted Susan B. Anthony Dollar coins, when I tried to spend those, they'd typically think they were quarters, and ask me for more money.
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I've been in a number of various types of stores in my life where prices aren't posted.
I'm in the market for a new microscope, and prices are never available on any dealer websites--you always have to "request a quote". Unfortunately, requesting a quote means giving details like your email address and/or phone number to the company, which then results in a constant flurry of annoying calls/emails from sales droids. :palm:
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Speaking of paying for things, years ago I had some old US red seal currency, but they were only worth very marginally over the face value. So I got kicks out of spending them at stores and seeing the reactions of the clerks. At one shop, the young clerk was probably born long after those bills vanished from circulation, and when she looked at what I handed her, she told me to wait a moment. She went to the side to speak to the manager, thinking it was counterfeit. The manager, realized what it was and whispered to her to accept it, probably thinking the bill was very valuable and he'd just made a good score by accepting it.
The U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving sells currency in uncut sheets (of 100, I think). I heard a show once where Steve Wozniak said he likes to pay for things in convenience stores by cutting $2 bills from a sheet of bills with scissors . In most cases, hilarity ensues because the cashier and manager think this is somehow not legal.
I've heard of one case where a guy (not the Woz) was arrested because a dumb store manager and even dumber cop thought there was no such thing as a $2 bill and hence it must be counterfeit.
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It is very hard to find two-dollar bills anymore. When they were more common, some businesses made a point of paying their creditors with two-dollar bills to show the town how important they were to the local economy.
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I miss the scottish pound notes,after england got rid of there pound note confused english shop keepers would occasionally mistake them for a fiver.
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Prices that end in 0.99 e.g. $29,999.99.
Pah! That's peanuts. It would turn into $20,000 when justifying the purchase to the missus :)
It's simply a question of your algorithm, truncation vs. rounding. :-DD
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It is very hard to find two-dollar bills anymore. When they were more common, some businesses made a point of paying their creditors with two-dollar bills to show the town how important they were to the local economy.
I have one around here somewhere. I'm not really sure WHY they exist but they certainly do.
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I'm in the market for a new microscope, and prices are never available on any dealer websites--you always have to "request a quote". Unfortunately, requesting a quote means giving details like your email address and/or phone number to the company, which then results in a constant flurry of annoying calls/emails from sales droids. :palm:
That is super annoying. Best to have a separate email address used just for that sort of spammy purposes.
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It does work. Psychologically $4.99 is interpreted as significantly lower than $5. Personally I don't really care about that, but it annoys me that gasoline here is always priced with a 9/10th cent on the end, ie 2.969/gal. It shouldn't even be legal to price something in smaller increments than is possible with our currency denominations.
I bought an item in a supermarket that was marked up as 19.99 .I gave them a 20 note . And stood with my hand out . The girl said What ! . I'm waiting for my change. She said I haven't got a 1. I Said I'm not leaving till I get it and by law she has to comply .
The manager turned up .
After a very heated argument I started to phone the police. If the store takes 0.1 from 1000 customers a day . This is stealing .
In the end I got the only small coin available. A half . So I paid 19.50 . They lost I won .
Always demand you correct change. Every One counts 🤪
It's kind of ridiculous that it came to that. First of all they should have had a pile of pennies and other coins in the register drawer to make change. Second, if I were waiting behind some numbskull who was holding up the whole line over a penny I would happily take a penny out of my own pocket and give it to them to get the line moving.
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Now those blasted Susan B. Anthony Dollar coins, when I tried to spend those, they'd typically think they were quarters, and ask me for more money.
On the flip side, more than once I have bought something, gotten change and then realized when I got home or sometimes days later that the clerk gave me Susan B Anthony dollars thinking they were quarters. I really don't know what they were thinking when those coins were designed though, they should have made them a different color or given them a unique shape. It's just common sense that coins should be very easy to identify, by sight, by touch and by mechanical means.
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Now those blasted Susan B. Anthony Dollar coins, when I tried to spend those, they'd typically think they were quarters, and ask me for more money.
On the flip side, more than once I have bought something, gotten change and then realized when I got home or sometimes days later that the clerk gave me Susan B Anthony dollars thinking they were quarters. I really don't know what they were thinking when those coins were designed though, they should have made them a different color or given them a unique shape. It's just common sense that coins should be very easy to identify, by sight, by touch and by mechanical means.
Bear in mind that they were designed by a government committee. Common sense is not a requirement, and I would posit that it is actually discouraged in such an environment.
-Pat
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It does work. Psychologically $4.99 is interpreted as significantly lower than $5. Personally I don't really care about that, but it annoys me that gasoline here is always priced with a 9/10th cent on the end, ie 2.969/gal. It shouldn't even be legal to price something in smaller increments than is possible with our currency denominations.
I bought an item in a supermarket that was marked up as 19.99 .I gave them a 20 note . And stood with my hand out . The girl said What ! . I'm waiting for my change. She said I haven't got a 1. I Said I'm not leaving till I get it and by law she has to comply .
The manager turned up .
After a very heated argument I started to phone the police. If the store takes 0.1 from 1000 customers a day . This is stealing .
In the end I got the only small coin available. A half . So I paid 19.50 . They lost I won .
Always demand you correct change. Every One counts 🤪
It's kind of ridiculous that it came to that. First of all they should have had a pile of pennies and other coins in the register drawer to make change. Second, if I were waiting behind some numbskull who was holding up the whole line over a penny I would happily take a penny out of my own pocket and give it to them to get the line moving.
Its Not the Penny its the principle .
This is how the pyramid scam started .. Give me a Million Pennies and I will buy a new car . ;D :popcorn:
Yes I will except your penny as well .
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It is very hard to find two-dollar bills anymore. When they were more common, some businesses made a point of paying their creditors with two-dollar bills to show the town how important they were to the local economy.
I have one around here somewhere. I'm not really sure WHY they exist but they certainly do.
There is a superstition that the $2 bill is unlucky. Years ago on TV, I saw a process server giving the recipient $2.00 as a traditional payment, but I can’t locate anything to confirm that—I thought it might have something to do with the superstition.
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Now those blasted Susan B. Anthony Dollar coins, when I tried to spend those, they'd typically think they were quarters, and ask me for more money.
On the flip side, more than once I have bought something, gotten change and then realized when I got home or sometimes days later that the clerk gave me Susan B Anthony dollars thinking they were quarters. I really don't know what they were thinking when those coins were designed though, they should have made them a different color or given them a unique shape. It's just common sense that coins should be very easy to identify, by sight, by touch and by mechanical means.
It may only be my opinion, but they were not thinking at all when they made them because they new that they would never be used. They could have made them them with a different composition and a unique coin color like the subsequent Sacajawea and Presidential dollar coins but they are not popular either. The principle is simple, as long as you have a paper one dollar bill (lasts about 18 months) nobody wants the dollar coin (lasts about 30 years).
I have a whole set of them - stunning portrait - eh?
.. and speaking of Sacajawea, I am reminded of the line from Two and a Half Men....
Alan: Charlie, get your priorities straight; I'm trying to get him into a decent middle school! After he's accepted, he can learn that Sacajawea wasn't... [reading Jake's test answer]: "a bag full of Jawea".
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The difference in diameter between the “small dollar” coins and a standard quarter coin is 26.5 vs. 24.3 mm, and they were easily confused. They were commonly used in USPS stamp vending machines, and in some public transportation (including Baltimore) systems.
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It is very hard to find two-dollar bills anymore. When they were more common, some businesses made a point of paying their creditors with two-dollar bills to show the town how important they were to the local economy.
I have one around here somewhere. I'm not really sure WHY they exist but they certainly do.
It's so our currency has denominations that match oscilloscope horizontal and vertical scale divisions: 1, 2, 5. (Which doesn't explain why we have a quarter dollar coin.)
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Prices that end in 0.99 e.g. $29,999.99.
There is a local pizza joint that posts prices with oddball cents amounts. For example, a slice costs $2.76, not $2.75 or $2.99. A whole pie costs $18.40.
Sales tax in the city is 8.7%.
Do the math. The pizza guy is a genius.
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It is very hard to find two-dollar bills anymore. When they were more common, some businesses made a point of paying their creditors with two-dollar bills to show the town how important they were to the local economy.
I have one around here somewhere. I'm not really sure WHY they exist but they certainly do.
It's so our currency has denominations that match oscilloscope horizontal and vertical scale divisions: 1, 2, 5. (Which doesn't explain why we have a quarter dollar coin.)
No $0.02 coin (since 1873), and $0.25 coin, but otherwise 1,2,5 up to $100 bill. (Could be worse: my AC voltmeters usually have 1,3,10 where 3 really means 101/2.)
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I have a whole set of them - stunning portrait - eh?
When the U.S. mint was contemplating introducing a new dollar coin (to replace the Eisenhower dollar) they at first considered using a classical liberty design, like most U.S. coins prior to 1909. The proposed design looked like this:
(https://images.greysheet.com/d/blogs/20191204/1977-obv-of-new-small-dollar-300x300.jpg)
The thing on the stick behind Miss Liberty is a Phrygian cap (liberty cap), which was used on many U.S. coin designs in the 1800s.
The reverse design was to look like this:
(https://images.greysheet.com/d/blogs/20191204/1977-rev-of-new-small-dollar-300x300.jpg)
For political reasons, the liberty design was scrapped in favor of the Susan B. Anthony design. Why they chose that stern and austere portrait of her I don't know--there were many better ones they could have used. They also opted to use the same reverse design from the Eisenhower dollar.
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It is very hard to find two-dollar bills anymore. When they were more common, some businesses made a point of paying their creditors with two-dollar bills to show the town how important they were to the local economy.
I have one around here somewhere. I'm not really sure WHY they exist but they certainly do.
It's so our currency has denominations that match oscilloscope horizontal and vertical scale divisions: 1, 2, 5. (Which doesn't explain why we have a quarter dollar coin.)
No $0.02 coin (since 1873), and $0.25 coin, but otherwise 1,2,5 up to $100 bill. (Could be worse: my AC voltmeters usually have 1,3,10 where 3 really means 101/2.)
The US has issued 1/2 cent, 1 Cent, 2 cent, 3 cent (I like the silver ones but the nickel ones were cool also), and 20 cent pieces in addition to .25, .5 and 1. I have examples of all of them as do most US coin collectors who like type coins. I am leaving out all of the gold denominations and whatever else I forgot :) edit: and the five cent piece of course but also their predecessor the half dime..and the dime, so...as parts of the dollar
.005 .01 .02 .03 .05 .10 .20 .25 .50 and 1.0 what does that function look like, what is the best fit equation for that? Why would I care?
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1244455;image)
A 4th degree polynomial fits ok but the 20 cent piece is problematic - no wonder they only made them for a few years.
Order 4
Coefficients:
b[0] 0.1375
b[1] -0.1962082362
b[2] 0.0864495921
b[3] -0.0140918803
b[4] 8.2604895105e-4
r ² 0.994817189
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I deeply appreciate places (like the pizza place mentioned above) that scale their prices so the end result, including tax, is a "round number" in the given context. For example, food trucks should always price things in unit dollars and adjust the amount of food given appropriately. Their lines speed up (which gives a better customer service experience), they minimize how many different denominations of change they must maintain, etc.
On the other hand, for normal retail sales I WANT the taxes listed separately. In big bold numbers. Thus reminding people every time they buy something of just how much they're losing to the government. Yes, government is necessary, but it's probably where the term "necessary evil" originated and its funding source (read: taxpayers) should be reminded of their burden each and every transaction.
Oh, and tax day should move from April 15th to the day immediately preceding Election Day.
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It may only be my opinion, but they were not thinking at all when they made them because they new that they would never be used. They could have made them them with a different composition and a unique coin color like the subsequent Sacajawea and Presidential dollar coins but they are not popular either. The principle is simple, as long as you have a paper one dollar bill (lasts about 18 months) nobody wants the dollar coin (lasts about 30 years).
There's no real reason they couldn't be used though, if they gave them a unique look so as to not be confused with other coins and then simply stopped printing dollar bills people would use them. Most of our coins are kind of laughably worthless these days thanks to inflation. Pennies are a joke, I don't even want them and when offered change I often just leave them on the counter for someone else. I'm just old enough to remember when you could still buy a gumball from a machine for a penny but it's been years since I've seen anything that cheap and even nickels aren't worth the weight and bulk to carry around, I only bother with dimes because they're so small. A dollar coin now is probably worth about what a quarter was in the 50s or 60s.
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I deeply appreciate places (like the pizza place mentioned above) that scale their prices so the end result, including tax, is a "round number" in the given context. For example, food trucks should always price things in unit dollars and adjust the amount of food given appropriately. Their lines speed up (which gives a better customer service experience), they minimize how many different denominations of change they must maintain, etc.
On the other hand, for normal retail sales I WANT the taxes listed separately. In big bold numbers. Thus reminding people every time they buy something of just how much they're losing to the government. Yes, government is necessary, but it's probably where the term "necessary evil" originated and its funding source (read: taxpayers) should be reminded of their burden each and every transaction.
Oh, and tax day should move from April 15th to the day immediately preceding Election Day.
IMO the tax should be listed in smaller numbers on the price tag with the main price including the tax. It makes no difference as far as people understanding how much they pay in taxes anyway, most ordinary people have a complete mental disconnect, I've even met a few otherwise fairly intelligent people who couldn't grasp the connection between the efficiency of their appliances and lighting and what they pay each month in utility bills. As far as tax goes, sales tax does not irritate me too greatly, at least I have some control over how much I pay. The one that gets me is property tax and with property values soaring this one really stings. I don't want to derail things into politics but every election it seems like there is another levy, just a few pennies on the dollar of property value to fund this or that, it doesn't sound like much and they almost invariably pass but my property taxes have increased by more than $1200 a year since last year. That's money out of my pocket, and my home value is wealth only on paper since I need a place to live. I could choose to some degree how much to spend on a house when I bought it but I have no control over what the values do after that, I would love it if they totally crashed. Even if it dropped to 1/8th the current value I still wouldn't be under water.
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It may only be my opinion, but they were not thinking at all when they made them because they new that they would never be used. They could have made them them with a different composition and a unique coin color like the subsequent Sacajawea and Presidential dollar coins but they are not popular either. The principle is simple, as long as you have a paper one dollar bill (lasts about 18 months) nobody wants the dollar coin (lasts about 30 years).
There's no real reason they couldn't be used though, if they gave them a unique look so as to not be confused with other coins and then simply stopped printing dollar bills people would use them. Most of our coins are kind of laughably worthless these days thanks to inflation. Pennies are a joke, I don't even want them and when offered change I often just leave them on the counter for someone else. I'm just old enough to remember when you could still buy a gumball from a machine for a penny but it's been years since I've seen anything that cheap and even nickels aren't worth the weight and bulk to carry around, I only bother with dimes because they're so small. A dollar coin now is probably worth about what a quarter was in the 50s or 60s.
Absolutely we would use them (ignore the color similarity with the SBA in favor of the more recent version) if there were no bills. That's what other countries do and it would save us money, but it just is not happening. Also agree that the one cent coin is problematic, especially those times when it cost more to mint than one cent (same with the five cent piece) https://www.coinnews.net/2021/02/23/penny-costs-1-76-cents-to-make-in-2020-nickel-costs-7-42-cents-us-mint-realizes-549-9m-in-seigniorage/ (https://www.coinnews.net/2021/02/23/penny-costs-1-76-cents-to-make-in-2020-nickel-costs-7-42-cents-us-mint-realizes-549-9m-in-seigniorage/)
Maybe the theory is to keep on cranking until nobody is using anything but electronic money - who knows? I still can't believe that pillow guy gave a cyber security symposium. :)
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There is a local pizza joint that posts prices with oddball cents amounts. For example, a slice costs $2.76, not $2.75 or $2.99. A whole pie costs $18.40.
Sales tax in the city is 8.7%.
Do the math. The pizza guy is a genius.
When you think about it, it makes no economic sense for the U.S. to continue to use 1 cent coins, or even 5 cent coins for that matter. The 1/2 cent coins were discontinued some 160 years ago. Checking an online inflation calculator that only goes back to 1914, 1 cent in 1914 adjusted for inflation is 27 cents in 2021. If you go back to the 1850, I imagine it's even more. So eliminating (stop producing) the 1 cent, 5 cent and 10 cent coins, and make a law that all prices from here on will be rounded to the nearest 25 cents, would be comparable to the same situation back in the 1850's. Producing low denomination coins with extremely small value cost the government money to produce, and costs businesses time to deal with. Or just wait a few more years, with inflation coming back, and simply eliminate cents all together and make the dollar the lowest denomination. For me personally, I stopped using coins/currency a long time ago, except for certain cases where a credit/debit card isn't accepted, or if traveling to a foreign country. It's just a hassle to me to deal with physical money.
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There is a local pizza joint that posts prices with oddball cents amounts. For example, a slice costs $2.76, not $2.75 or $2.99. A whole pie costs $18.40.
Sales tax in the city is 8.7%.
Do the math. The pizza guy is a genius.
When you think about it, it makes no economic sense for the U.S. to continue to use 1 cent coins, or even 5 cent coins for that matter. The 1/2 cent coins were discontinued some 160 years ago. Checking an online inflation calculator that only goes back to 1914, 1 cent in 1914 adjusted for inflation is 27 cents in 2021. If you go back to the 1850, I imagine it's even more. So eliminating (stop producing) the 1 cent, 5 cent and 10 cent coins, and make a law that all prices from here on will be rounded to the nearest 25 cents, would be comparable to the same situation back in the 1850's. Producing low denomination coins with extremely small value cost the government money to produce, and costs businesses time to deal with. Or just wait a few more years, with inflation coming back, and simply eliminate cents all together and make the dollar the lowest denomination. For me personally, I stopped using coins/currency a long time ago, except for certain cases where a credit/debit card isn't accepted, or if traveling to a foreign country. It's just a hassle to me to deal with physical money.
In principal I completely agree, but don't underestimate the power of nostalgia. They have tried to axe the penny on a few occasions but people go nuts. Personally I think the simplest thing to do is just quietly reduce the number minted to something insignificant, then technically they haven't gone anywhere but at least we aren't wasting resources making millions of them.
I rarely actually USE currency anymore but I still generally carry $30-$100 in my wallet just in case as almost everyone will accept it.
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As far as tax goes, sales tax does not irritate me too greatly, at least I have some control over how much I pay.
Oh, I completely agree. In fact, income taxes should be eliminated in favor of a National Sales Tax (NST). I am NOT talking about a VAT (Value Added Tax), that makes everyone a tax collector. I'm talking a pure NST at the point of retail sale, period. If you exempt the basics (food, shelter, medical) it becomes automatically progressive... if you're only buying necessities you pay zero tax, and as you have more disposable dollars your tax scales accordingly. This syncs up with the desire of the Left to tax the wealthy more heavily while exempting the poor.
The REAL power of the NST comes from its efficiency. No more annual "tax day", the government gets its revenue continuously throughout the year. Paperwork for individuals goes to zero - no tax returns whatsoever. Same for most businesses, except for those with a retail presence. If we're honest, "businesses" don't pay taxes anyway; their taxes are paid by their customers and the business is just an unpaid tax collector. So let tax collection ride on the existing infrastructure for sales taxes. Individuals save time and money by not having to prepare tax returns; same with most businesses.
Last I checked, "tax compliance" in the United States consumed $600B every year. Plus a whole lot of trees. Compliance is a pure waste of resources. The NST would shrink that by 95% and put all that time and money back into productive uses.
Would there be loopholes? Of course. No system is perfect. But an NST would automatically make every person a contributor to society. No more free rides. Even if you're here illegally, or you're super rich, or if you're a tourist from another country, no matter your circumstance, if you spend disposable dollars on something beyond the basics you contribute to funding the government that makes society possible. That's as fair as I can imagine, and the NST does so with zero direct paperwork for individuals. It can be made revenue neutral with respect to today's income tax simply by dialing in the national tax rate. Last I checked, the estimate was 17%. Sounds high, but "it's in there already" so why not collect it efficiently, include everyone who benefits from society, and eliminate paycheck withholding and quarterly estimates and April 15th and all the rest of it for the same number of dollars delivered to the Treasury.
The one that gets me is property tax and with property values soaring this one really stings.
Agreed. Property taxes have a lot of rotten side effects. The worst one is that a family's home can be seized by the government if they fall on hard times and cannot pay. There's something diabolical and wrong when the government can render you homeless like that. Property taxes are generally levied based on "improvements" which evilly encourages owners to demolish buildings in favor of parking lots in commercial areas. That's just bass-ackwards... is that really what we want, more "unimproved" properties with cars parked on them?
Again, I'm not an anti-tax zealot. Taxes are necessary because government is necessary. But at least in the USA we seem to have devised the most inefficient, unfair collection method imaginable. And then forced the participants to pay even more time and money in compliance. And then, in the case of property taxes, threaten to seize their homes if they cannot pay. Surely we can do better.
{/rant}
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There is a local pizza joint that posts prices with oddball cents amounts. For example, a slice costs $2.76, not $2.75 or $2.99. A whole pie costs $18.40.
Sales tax in the city is 8.7%.
Do the math. The pizza guy is a genius.
When you think about it, it makes no economic sense for the U.S. to continue to use 1 cent coins, or even 5 cent coins for that matter. The 1/2 cent coins were discontinued some 160 years ago. Checking an online inflation calculator that only goes back to 1914, 1 cent in 1914 adjusted for inflation is 27 cents in 2021. If you go back to the 1850, I imagine it's even more. So eliminating (stop producing) the 1 cent, 5 cent and 10 cent coins, and make a law that all prices from here on will be rounded to the nearest 25 cents, would be comparable to the same situation back in the 1850's. Producing low denomination coins with extremely small value cost the government money to produce, and costs businesses time to deal with. Or just wait a few more years, with inflation coming back, and simply eliminate cents all together and make the dollar the lowest denomination. For me personally, I stopped using coins/currency a long time ago, except for certain cases where a credit/debit card isn't accepted, or if traveling to a foreign country. It's just a hassle to me to deal with physical money.
In principal I completely agree, but don't underestimate the power of nostalgia. They have tried to axe the penny on a few occasions but people go nuts. Personally I think the simplest thing to do is just quietly reduce the number minted to something insignificant, then technically they haven't gone anywhere but at least we aren't wasting resources making millions of them.
I rarely actually USE currency anymore but I still generally carry $30-$100 in my wallet just in case as almost everyone will accept it.
Yes, unfortunately, as with many things in life, people's emotions get in the way of doing what makes sense.
If they did reduce the numbers minted drastically, it would make the collectors go crazy gobbling up all they could, and none would be in circulation long.
I also carry a similar amount of currency in my wallet for emergency use, should my credit card suddenly not work or someone doesn't take a credit card. I keep several low denomination notes and one higher, and generally find the need to use them once a year or so.
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Oh, and tax day should move from April 15th to the day immediately preceding Election Day.
Election Day should be on a Sunday or be made a public holiday (except for poll workers then ofc) so that not only the rich can vote. It is so here in Sweden, so it's a peeve I hold for the countries where the ruling classes keep ruling through make-it-harder-to-vote measures. Also: Gerrymandering
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Oh, and tax day should move from April 15th to the day immediately preceding Election Day.
Election Day should be on a Sunday or be made a public holiday (except for poll workers then ofc) so that not only the rich can vote. It is so here in Sweden, so it's a peeve I hold for the countries where the ruling classes keep ruling through make-it-harder-to-vote measures. Also: Gerrymandering
You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run? Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem
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Australian 5, 10 and 20 cent coins (all silver colour) have a weight that is proportional to their face value. That way you can put a mixed bag of them on the scales and find the value. Do other countries have this feature with their coins?
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Election Day should be on a Sunday or be made a public holiday (except for poll workers then ofc) so that not only the rich can vote. It is so here in Sweden, so it's a peeve I hold for the countries where the ruling classes keep ruling through make-it-harder-to-vote measures.
You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run? Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem
It's like scheduling a wedding - you can't fit everyone's needs.
On a positive note, lots of employers here are starting to give employees time off on Election Day.
Have to say... when I was growing up this idea that poor folk were being kept from the polls wasn't an issue. My family was quite humble... Dad was a high school teacher, Mom was stay-at-home, we weren't even close to well-off, yet they made it to every election and took me with them as education. We generally went after Dad's school day was over, I remember it being dark outside. Polls are open until 8p, a full three hours after the end of the usual workday, which seems like a pretty decent window. Not trying to be insensitive, just observing that this seems like more shouting than substance.
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In Chicago, along with the rest of the US, elections are held on the "first Tuesday after the first Monday" of the month, which is an interesting bit of history, dating to 1845. Prior to that, local dates varied considerably.
However, on that day the polls are open from 6 AM to 7 PM (in Illinois), and anyone in line at 7 PM must be allowed to vote.
Recently, "early voting" was added, where for a reasonable time ahead of Election Day at least 50 sites in the city are open seven days a week for in-person voting. Although one must go to the polling place in ones precinct on Election Day, a registered voter can vote at any of the early sites (the vote cast thereby is final and it is a felony to attempt to vote again). Before I retired, I found it convenient to use the early voting option on a weekend date. Cook County has its own election administration, but the rules are similar. Of course, during the last election, the existing right to vote by mail was more popular due to the pandemic.
All in all, I found this to be a reasonable accommodation to the schedule problems of working people.
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You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run? Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem
Not sure what era you live in but the buses run pretty reliably and frequently on Sundays in the century that I live in.
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You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run? Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem
Not sure what era you live in but the buses run pretty reliably and frequently on Sundays in the century that I live in.
Not a question of era, but location. In Chicago (a large city) the bus schedule is sparser than on weekdays, but there are other municipalities in the US with literally zero public bus service on Sundays. For example, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa have bus service only Monday to Saturday. (Total population roughly 110,000)
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Not a question of era, but location. In Chicago (a large city) the bus schedule is sparser than on weekdays, but there are other municipalities in the US with literally zero public bus service on Sundays. For example, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa have bus service only Monday to Saturday. (Total population roughly 110,000)
This is certainly a solvable problem. There is nothing to stop them from implementing a special election day schedule for the buses, they could even make it a ride for free day. This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.
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Yes, unfortunately, as with many things in life, people's emotions get in the way of doing what makes sense.
If they did reduce the numbers minted drastically, it would make the collectors go crazy gobbling up all they could, and none would be in circulation long.
That's kind of the point. We don't need them in circulation, they are essentially worthless, they should be gradually phased out and then at some point most of the people who still feel particularly nostalgic about them will be gone and eventually they can go out of production. Then they'll just be like any other obsolete coin.
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This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.
...while they ignore the edge cases that argue against the status quo. This ends up being "we can't change it" and we're stuck with mediocrity.
On the macro level, I often wonder if all politics devolves to CYA (Cover Your A$$). Nobody dares do anything meaningful because if there's the least chance it could go wrong, that will be used against them politically, forever. So the safest thing is to champion the status quo and make only meaningless changes around the edges to give the appearance of "doing something" while taking the least risk possible.
I'll share another semi-related tidbit: The political definition of recidivism is "reelection".
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You mean you want voting on a day when the buses don't run? Another "Let them eat cake" solution to a problem
Not sure what era you live in but the buses run pretty reliably and frequently on Sundays in the century that I live in.
Well I actually live in the country under discussion, and in the area I live bus service is reduced on Saturday and nonexistent on Sunday. Other places I have lived did have Sunday service, but much reduced. Once an hour or so. So a solution that seems perfectly obvious and reasonable to you at your location has a totally opposite effect somewhere else.
It turns out that in many areas in this country there are not enough bus riders to pay the bills. Most folks drive themselves, ride share or work from home. For fairly obvious reasons. In my case every time I have checked public transit it involved multiple hours per day of additional travel time and exposure to inclement weather. The only ones riding them are those who supposedly don't have the means to get to polling places on workdays.
When given the choice of having service on workdays or weekends those riding buses choose workdays (surprise, surprise). And when given a choice of higher fares or reduced service on weekends the choice is lower fares. Maybe a small surprise. And the general population which is supplementing (usually to the extent of roughly two thirds of operating costs) are asked to pay still more for that weekend service they decline. Not so big a surprise.
Of course where I live we have 100 percent vote by mail so all of that is pretty much a non issue, and didn't require changing the voting day or any of a number of other complaints about the difficulty of voting. To prevent any arguments about the cost of a stamp being too much to pay for the privilege of voting the mail in ballot is pre-paid postage. It does require that the person trying to vote has a place to receive mail so they can get their ballot and the information booklet in case they can't get information on candidates any other way. Which does make it tough on the portion of the homeless population that is so out of it that they can't receive welfare checks. Addresses as vague as "Under the bridge at 12th street and Champion have been sufficient, but there are still those valuable voters that can't achieve this. And there are still complaints of disenfranchisement.
In most cases the claims of voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement in this country are politically driven, with most problems poorly supported by facts. One the other hand, when a couple of dozen votes are the difference between winning and losing an election both sides fight like rabid dogs over each and every vote. The problem isn't with the voting, it is the fact that a tiny bit of noise in the system can cause a binary change in outcome.
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This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work
I would normally agree with you, but...
This is certainly a solvable problem. There is nothing to stop them from implementing a special election day schedule for the buses
As a foreign observer it seems to me the Republicans are doing their utmost to make it NOT work, and actively throwing stuff in the way to make it harder. So it's not really a solvable problem if the best you can hope for is the status quo.
Of course, I realise that this only applies to some states, and that we get second-hand and biased new over here, but if it's anywhere near accurate for even one state it's quite worrying.
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Not a question of era, but location. In Chicago (a large city) the bus schedule is sparser than on weekdays, but there are other municipalities in the US with literally zero public bus service on Sundays. For example, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa have bus service only Monday to Saturday. (Total population roughly 110,000)
This is certainly a solvable problem. There is nothing to stop them from implementing a special election day schedule for the buses, they could even make it a ride for free day. This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.
Of course this problem could be solved by improving public transportation on Election Day. However, it is now worse in many places than it was in a previous century.
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As a foreign observer it seems to me the Republicans are doing their utmost to make it NOT work, and actively throwing stuff in the way to make it harder. So it's not really a solvable problem if the best you can hope for is the status quo.
Of course, I realise that this only applies to some states, and that we get second-hand and biased new over here, but if it's anywhere near accurate for even one state it's quite worrying.
I have not followed it all that closely but one thing I do know is that there are a lot of people making mountains out of mole hills, getting emotional and spreading misinformation about one thing or another and neither side is innocent here. The media is especially bad, they latch onto things and parrot this and that, I've been surprised more than once when I read through a proposed bit of legislation and found that it did not even do most of what people were claiming it did. I would encourage you to take the hearsay and fever-pitched news articles with a grain of salt and read the actual legislation/science/data before forming an opinion if it's something you are the least bit curious about.
-
This reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, people get hung up on some edge case as to why something couldn't possibly work as if it is some insurmountable hurdle and the whole idea must be scrapped.
...while they ignore the edge cases that argue against the status quo. This ends up being "we can't change it" and we're stuck with mediocrity.
On the macro level, I often wonder if all politics devolves to CYA (Cover Your A$$). Nobody dares do anything meaningful because if there's the least chance it could go wrong, that will be used against them politically, forever. So the safest thing is to champion the status quo and make only meaningless changes around the edges to give the appearance of "doing something" while taking the least risk possible.
I'll share another semi-related tidbit: The political definition of recidivism is "reelection".
The degenerate form is called "conservatism" :-DD
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The problem isn't with the voting, it is the fact that a tiny bit of noise in the system can cause a binary change in outcome.
This. "Winner-takes-all" districts are, IMNSHO, a horrible thing.
In Sweden, we have a proportional system where each party gets its share of the votes from each district. This then is aggregated to what in the end is a city/county/country -wide result (we vote for town (Kommun), county, (Län/Region) and country-wide (Riksdag), all at the same time, using the same proportional system). Any party that gets 4% of the votes in the country, aggregated, will get seats in the parliament.
It's got its warts, and we have fascists in our parliament too. The last government crisis took some soul-searching by all parties, but was solved. Let's see what the budget process this autumn brings.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NmH1ajdFMk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NmH1ajdFMk)
not sure why but I'm put off the youtube uploads that omit the "talking head" - somehow they lose their credibility and the substitute backing track is often irritating.
The PeakTech link is a good example - as some assurance may help the would be tester here - the likes to dislikes ratio is quite low.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rJLUhR0KMY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rJLUhR0KMY)
more authoritative?
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more authoritative?
No. You are probably influenced by the text effects, which might be the video equivalent of, ah, personal websites with marquee banners.
The Peak one is preferable simply because you can easily fast wind to whatever info you need. Pause it and there the info is on-screen all the time. With the second you tediously skip back and forth to find the bit you half remember and then put it on loop if you can't take it all in at once. The first also allows judicious screencaps to capture the essence for posterity.
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I don't think I would fast wind such a short piece as in a few views you would soon learn what was what, here.
On a wider level I suspect that the first video is the contemporary popular (familiar) explanation style and the plain Fluke video, with the mature talking head (hidden) voice, is now less appealing. The Fluke has more dislikes than I thought it would've gotten - perhaps those people wanted to see another application.
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...
For a long time in America televisions were generally known as "tubes", even though it was understood that "tubes" were also the functional components within the device.
Youtube came out in 2005... and refer to the "tube".
:)
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TVs were called that because of the cathode-ray tube (CRT) found in all TV sets until flat screens replaced them.
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Yeah it made perfect sense at the time. Most people referred to TV CRTs as "picture tubes" and "the tube" is the part you're looking at when you watch TV. To the average layman the "tube" is essentially the entire TV, they are only vaguely aware that there is anything else in the box. About 90% of the time when a TV failed such that it wouldn't power up I'd hear "the tube blew", people just have no clue. Prior to the flatscreen era I very frequently heard people referring to the TV set as "the tube" or "boob tube" the latter in reference to the proliferation of stupid content catering to the lowest common denominator.
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Today I'm peeved about the user-hostile practice of significant whitespace. Python and YAML, I'm looking at you. What were they thinking?
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Today I'm peeved about the user-hostile practice of significant whitespace. Python and YAML, I'm looking at you. What were they thinking?
Or all news sites (even the big ones like The NY Times and the Washington Post) with their narrow columns of text that remain the same size regardless of how you resize your browser window.
Or all of the forums that have migrated to software that does that too.
Sheeesh.
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The worst forum software by far is Discourse and it has spread like a cancer, this is one of the only forums I've used that hasn't switched, and it's no coincidence that it's the only forum I'm still active on. I cannot fathom how Discourse is so popular, it is just SO bad. There is so much fundamentally wrong with the way it works that I don't even know where to start. I really wanted to like it because there were several useful communities that use it but ultimately I ended up throwing in the towel and abandoning them. On the topic of text formatting though, when you post it has two side by side windows, and what you type in one window is duplicated in the other using the final formatting, I don't know why it doesn't just do WYSIWIG like every other text/publishing software in about the last 30 years :palm:
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Today I'm peeved about the user-hostile practice of significant whitespace. Python and YAML, I'm looking at you. What were they thinking?
Or all news sites (even the big ones like The NY Times and the Washington Post) with their narrow columns of text that remain the same size regardless of how you resize your browser window.
Or all of the forums that have migrated to software that does that too.
Sheeesh.
There actually is a reason for that. Most people read text best, most reliably
and fastest when there's no more than say 65 to 75 characters per line.
If you increase the line length, you decrease comprehension, coherence
and reading speed. This is why for instance IEEE and USENIX papers are
typeset in a two-column format, maximising the usage of the paper while
maintaining a short and easy to read line length.
One of many sources (https://www.google.com/search?q=optimum+line+length+in+typography) that discuss this: https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability (https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability)
Counter-peeve: People who do not understand 600 years of typesetting
evolution conclusions. :-DD
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Today I'm peeved about the user-hostile practice of significant whitespace. Python and YAML, I'm looking at you. What were they thinking?
Or all news sites (even the big ones like The NY Times and the Washington Post) with their narrow columns of text that remain the same size regardless of how you resize your browser window.
Or all of the forums that have migrated to software that does that too.
Sheeesh.
There actually is a reason for that. Most people read text best, most reliably
and fastest when there's no more than say 65 to 75 characters per line.
If you increase the line length, you decrease comprehension, coherence
and reading speed. This is why for instance IEEE and USENIX papers are
typeset in a two-column format, maximising the usage of the paper while
maintaining a short and easy to read line length.
One of many sources (https://www.google.com/search?q=optimum+line+length+in+typography) that discuss this: https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability (https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability)
Counter-peeve: People who do not understand 600 years of typesetting
evolution conclusions. :-DD
This point brings to mind another pet peeve of mine: source code formatted to 80 columns. I understand why it was done, being in the past 80 column terminals were common. But these days, with high resolution large screen monitors, I personally see absolutely no need to force source code into 80 columns, and break up single lines of code in order to do that. It just destroys the ability to quickly scan the code.
When editing source code, I dedicate the full screen to the editor, and have over 200 columns. If I need to go over 200 columns for a single line of code, it most likely means I'm better off redoing it so that I don't have such a massive single line. With many decades worth of experience in coding, I've found time and time again that being able to scan code quickly is really the key to optimum coding/debugging speed. I just glance at a line of code and get the gist of it and then make a decision based on that (whether that line is a line of interest, or to go on to the next line). Being able to scan code rapidly and zero in on what you need, and THEN read/study carefully the line is of top priority. Breaking up lines of code onto multiple lines just totally trashes the ability to scan at the fastest possible speed. This is especially true for code which I haven't touched for many years. Quickly scanning of my code to refresh my memory and zero in on where I need to be is even more important. When my memory is rusty, neatly organized code based on single lines, proper indentation, etc., is really a must, unless I want to waste time unnecessarily.
If I'm debugging in an IDE, which has a portion of the screen to show the source code, naturally the columns are more limited, and if I need to scroll to see the whole line, I gladly trade that for the ability to have things formatted for easy scanning when I'm using my full-screen editor.
Programmers often point to the studies that say what an optimal number of characters per line is for reading, and then foolishly apply the same to coding. Coding and reading text are two completely different things, and need to be treated as such.
I get the feeling though I'm in a very small minority with this opinion. It's rare for me to see programmers who go beyond 80 or 100 columns per line, and I'm not about to tell other programmers what they should be doing. To each their own.
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I get the feeling though I'm in a very small minority with this opinion. It's rare for me to see programmers who go beyond 80 or 100 columns per line, and I'm not about to tell other programmers what they should be doing. To each their own.
I'm part of the 80char movement, because I quite often edit code in a window
that is -- for some reason -- perhaps max 100 characters wide. To me, it's
more readable like that.
But, this probably comes from the fact that I'm more a systems person than
a software person, so will end up editing files in "ed" on a 80x24 terminal via
IPMI or similar...
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This point brings to mind another pet peeve of mine: source code formatted to 80 columns.
I used to feel the same and thought it was stupid/silly to have this column width limit but as I have become more experienced as a software developer I regret not enforcing it as a standard on my projects.
For example, take this (source Looking Glass project):
const uint64_t pending =
atomic_load_explicit(&g_state.pendingCount, memory_order_acquire);
if (!lgResetEvent(g_state.frameEvent)
&& !forceRender
&& !pending
&& !app_overlayNeedsRender()
&& !RENDERER(needsRender))
{
if (g_state.ds->skipFrame)
g_state.ds->skipFrame();
continue;
}
vs unlimited line length
const uint64_t pending = atomic_load_explicit(&g_state.pendingCount, memory_order_acquire);
if (!lgResetEvent(g_state.frameEvent) && !forceRender && !pending && !app_overlayNeedsRender() && !RENDERER(needsRender))
{
if (g_state.ds->skipFrame)
g_state.ds->skipFrame();
continue;
}
You tell me which is easier to follow if you didn't write this code? The human eye likes lists, they are easy to follow. When code gets too wide it becomes easy to miss errors in a line of code.
This is especially true for code which I haven't touched for many years.
Exactly my point here, you know your coding practices and how you would structure your conditionals, what you would name things, etc. as such scanning your own code even years later is a sinch vs someone else's code.
Enforcing a width limit not only helps prevent mistakes it also prevents developers from doing stupid things like too many layers of nested if statements:
void doSomething(void)
{
if (a)
{
something
if (c)
{
something
something
if (d)
{
something
something
}
}
}
}
All that nesting makes it hard to follow, especially when the function gets quite long. Now compare it to the following.
void doSomething(void)
{
if (!a)
return;
something;
if (!c)
return;
something;
something;
if (!d)
return;
something;
something;
}
My current working environment for C development... If the columns were too wide, could I make efficient use of my screen space?
[attach=1]
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Oh and my pet peeve...
Failure for developers to use and leverage control statements like `continue`, `break`, and `return`, and obviously nested if statements where they are not needed.
Use of `malloc/calloc` for a local that would be small enough to exist on the stack. For where VLAs are not an option, `alloca` doesn't get enough attention IMO.
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You tell me which is easier to follow if you didn't write this code? The human eye likes lists, they are easy to follow. When code gets too wide it becomes easy to miss errors in a line of code.
I think that's just common sense, you don't need a 80 column limitation to enforce that kind of formatting.
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You tell me which is easier to follow if you didn't write this code? The human eye likes lists, they are easy to follow. When code gets too wide it becomes easy to miss errors in a line of code.
I think that's just common sense, you don't need a 80 column limitation to enforce that kind of formatting.
Haha, one would think, but I have seen it far too often in enterprise projects... having to horizontally scroll due to whitespace padding in .NET or Java applications is something I have had to do quite frequently due to terrible programmers.
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This point brings to mind another pet peeve of mine: source code formatted to 80 columns.
I used to feel the same and thought it was stupid/silly to have this column width limit but as I have become more experienced as a software developer I regret not enforcing it as a standard on my projects.
For example, take this (source Looking Glass project):
const uint64_t pending =
atomic_load_explicit(&g_state.pendingCount, memory_order_acquire);
if (!lgResetEvent(g_state.frameEvent)
&& !forceRender
&& !pending
&& !app_overlayNeedsRender()
&& !RENDERER(needsRender))
{
if (g_state.ds->skipFrame)
g_state.ds->skipFrame();
continue;
}
vs unlimited line length
const uint64_t pending = atomic_load_explicit(&g_state.pendingCount, memory_order_acquire);
if (!lgResetEvent(g_state.frameEvent) && !forceRender && !pending && !app_overlayNeedsRender() && !RENDERER(needsRender))
{
if (g_state.ds->skipFrame)
g_state.ds->skipFrame();
continue;
}
You tell me which is easier to follow if you didn't write this code? The human eye likes lists, they are easy to follow. When code gets too wide it becomes easy to miss errors in a line of code.
Well, I must be the odd man out, because the second is WAY easier to scan for me. When I look at code, for instance your example, I just scan that there's an if statement, and if true, it does something. I typically don't want to analyze all the conditions of the if statement when I'm scanning it. Take your first example though, and often programmers will put the opening brace at the end of the line of the last condition of the if statement, which makes it even worse. Of course I can follow code written that way, but it just takes more time for the brain (my brain at least) to process where the lines of code are, vs. the lines on the screen. Just for example, I can see/process a line I'm scanning in let's say under 100 milliseconds if it's all on one line. If it's broken into multiple lines, I first need to scan it to see where the end of the "if line" is, and then process it. That additional brain processing will maybe add another 100 milliseconds or more, and if a brace is at the end of the line, instead of on a line by itself, it takes even more time. Maybe that's just me, but absolutely quickly scanning code, and not analyzing it in any detail is a huge percent of the amount of time I spend, and I can sometimes be scanning code for several hours a day. The difference in time between the two styles, at least for me, is very significant.
Many years ago, when I first saw code where the various conditions of an if statement, or the various parameters to a function were on separate lines, of course I thought, "oh, that's easier to see each item lined up vertically". But in actual practice, it just isn't as efficient for me, because of the fact that my brain works the most efficiently by easily processing one line as one concept/statement. Certainly it is a tradeoff. If really analyzing in detail a line of code, vertically arranged parameters, etc. is faster. For scanning, where details aren't necessary, it's slower. So it depends on the ratio of scanning to analyzing.
Anyways, one key point is the indentation. When I see an if statement, etc., then the following line is indented, my brain immediately thinks the following line is to executed if the condition is true. Then it takes a bit of time to realize, "no, it's not the next line after the if statement, but it's a continuation of it." Maybe if there was a good method, such as colorization to indicate the if statement, with all of it's lines (conditions), it wouldn't be so distracting for me. But as it is, using indentation for two different purposes makes it less efficient. And maybe other programmers don't have the same issue as me if they haven't had it so engrained in their mind to do things one way (ie. the whole statement all on one line).
For the example you gave, my personal coding style for the second one would be:
const uint64_t pending = atomic_load_explicit (&g_state.pendingCount, memory_order_acquire);
if ((!lgResetEvent (g_state.frameEvent)) && (!forceRender) && (!pending) && (!app_overlayNeedsRender ()) && (!RENDERER (needsRender)))
{
if (g_state.ds->skipFrame)
{
g_state.ds->skipFrame ();
}
continue;
}I use parenthesis to delimit each of the conditions of the if statement. To me, it makes it easy to scan the statement and see each condition, whereas in your example they tend to run together without the parenthesis. I also ALWAYS add braces to every if statement, such as the second one. Yeah, it takes up two more lines to add those opening and closing braces, but it's just another visual cue to me to show exactly where the if block begins and ends, and also I can easily add code inside the if block later. But anyways, that's a separate issue.
This is especially true for code which I haven't touched for many years.
Exactly my point here, you know your coding practices and how you would structure your conditionals, what you would name things, etc. as such scanning your own code even years later is a sinch vs someone else's code.
Enforcing a width limit not only helps prevent mistakes it also prevents developers from doing stupid things like too many layers of nested if statements:
void doSomething(void)
{
if (a)
{
something
if (c)
{
something
something
if (d)
{
something
something
}
}
}
}
All that nesting makes it hard to follow, especially when the function gets quite long. Now compare it to the following.
void doSomething(void)
{
if (!a)
return;
something;
if (!c)
return;
something;
something;
if (!d)
return;
something;
something;
}
Yes, the second is better. But just having a long line length available doesn't mean it should be used and an excuse for what ends up being bad coding style. In fact, I rarely use long lines. Typically the only place I use lines which go much over 100 characters is for if statements and function calls, and even then, if they become too unwieldy, then I'll modify things so that it's not the case. Of course, giving unlimited line lengths to inexperienced programmers, or programmers who've never learned proper coding style is an invitation for abuse. But there's plenty of other things besides unlimited line lengths that give rise to horrible code. In my situation, it's up to me to review the code of the software engineers who are under my supervision to see that they're practicing good coding in accordance to the standards I've specified, and if not, tell them what they're doing wrong and how to correct it. As for code written by someone outside my organization, I have no control over it, and if it's code we'll be using and need to modify a lot or frequently, we'll first convert the general format according to our standards, much of which can be done automatically, and then go over it in detail and add/adjust comments, modify bad coding style, etc.
The other time I'll go over 100 or so characters is with comments. I find it so annoying to see code that has a strict character limit per line, and see a comment that fills up one line, then on the following line has just one single last word. And comments that are written as a long paragraph, with the text just wrapping according to the limit. For normal writings, that style is fine, because it's assumed the reader will read the entire content. But for comments in code, to me it's not appropriate. Again, one line = one concept, and in the case of comments = one sentence. I try to keep the sentences of my comments fairly short, but when necessary I don't hesitate to go beyond 100 or so characters. The next sentence starts on the next line. Again, it all has to do with scanning. I read the first few words of a line of comments to see if it's applicable to what I need to know, and if so, read the whole sentence. If not, skip to the next line.
-
It certainly has a personal aspect to it and I 100% know where you're coming from because I used to write my code with the exact same styling, even the extra brackets around conditionals, and I can still work that way without difficulty still today. I also agree with comments that wrap so only one word is on the next line, that is quite frustrating.
When working with a team of developers and you can dictate the code styling standards it's not too bad, but most of my work is FOSS and the contributors are usually someone who decided to spend their free time to enhance something I built, so one can't be too picky or people will get frustrated with trying to learn your coding style (try contributing code to a project like QEMU... that's never much fun).
For my DevOps work, the 80 column limit has also helped with dodgy code in the past when a hacker has breached a website and put their malicious code 1000 whitespace characters off to the right. If you don't have line wrapping on in your editor, you won't immediately see it when checking things.
One of the first bugs I fixed in XBMC (now Kodi) was caused by a function call that would turn on AA if the 2nd last boolean parameter was true, amongst a plethora of other boolean arguments. Someone mixed up the fullscreen and AA arguments so if you run the app in fullscreen mode, it would turn on AA and run like crap. This was one of those long lines that didn't look like it had anything to do with the problem at hand and a team of 30+ developers had missed this bug for months, even resorting to writing a hacky workaround to fullscreen the app after launching it windowed as this seemed to work. This taught me the importance of breaking things up across lines, like the following where now I even comment the arguments to save on having to look up the documentation later when working on the code.
90 XPresentPixmap(
91 x11.display,
92 x11.window,
93 x11.presentPixmap,
94 x11.presentSerial++,
95 x11.presentRegion, // valid
96 x11.presentRegion, // update
97 0, // x_off,
98 0, // y_off,
99 None, // target_crtc
100 None, // wait_fence
101 None, // idle_fence
102 PresentOptionNone, // options
103 0, // target_msc,
104 0, // divisor,
105 0, // remainder,
106 NULL, // notifies
107 0 // nnotifies
108 );
In short, I learn't not to underestimate the utillity of splitting things up over lines.
-
Pet Peeve...
Freaking hot melt, or as professionally known as hot snot!
Yes I understand it can be helpful and I too have used it... BUT there really needs to be a law or perhaps a world wide authority to oversee, train and issue permits to use hot snot... In an appropriate, clean and purposeful way.. OH and there ought to be fines or imprisonment for individuals that show blatant disregard for such authority..
Just a thought. ..oh I feel so much better that I've said this, very therapeutic really.
-
It certainly has a personal aspect to it and I 100% know where you're coming from because I used to write my code with the exact same styling, even the extra brackets around conditionals, and I can still work that way without difficulty still today. I also agree with comments that wrap so only one word is on the next line, that is quite frustrating.
When working with a team of developers and you can dictate the code styling standards it's not too bad, but most of my work is FOSS and the contributors are usually someone who decided to spend their free time to enhance something I built, so one can't be too picky or people will get frustrated with trying to learn your coding style (try contributing code to a project like QEMU... that's never much fun).
For my DevOps work, the 80 column limit has also helped with dodgy code in the past when a hacker has breached a website and put their malicious code 1000 whitespace characters off to the right. If you don't have line wrapping on in your editor, you won't immediately see it when checking things.
One of the first bugs I fixed in XBMC (now Kodi) was caused by a function call that would turn on AA if the 2nd last boolean parameter was true, amongst a plethora of other boolean arguments. Someone mixed up the fullscreen and AA arguments so if you run the app in fullscreen mode, it would turn on AA and run like crap. This was one of those long lines that didn't look like it had anything to do with the problem at hand and a team of 30+ developers had missed this bug for months, even resorting to writing a hacky workaround to fullscreen the app after launching it windowed as this seemed to work. This taught me the importance of breaking things up across lines, like the following where now I even comment the arguments to save on having to look up the documentation later when working on the code.
90 XPresentPixmap(
91 x11.display,
92 x11.window,
93 x11.presentPixmap,
94 x11.presentSerial++,
95 x11.presentRegion, // valid
96 x11.presentRegion, // update
97 0, // x_off,
98 0, // y_off,
99 None, // target_crtc
100 None, // wait_fence
101 None, // idle_fence
102 PresentOptionNone, // options
103 0, // target_msc,
104 0, // divisor,
105 0, // remainder,
106 NULL, // notifies
107 0 // nnotifies
108 );
In short, I learn't not to underestimate the utillity of splitting things up over lines.
Yes, a lot depends on the development environment, and in your case, there's certainly a good reason for having line length limitations. In my case, all my code remains in-house, or my personal code, so I never deal with a lot of your issues. And in the few cases where a customer requires the source code, and then has their own software engineer modify it, and they modify it way outside my standards, I generally refuse to "take back" the code/project, unless I charge them a lot extra for the hassle of undoing the non-standard code.
For your example, with the ability to comment each parameter you're passing, again it's something I recognized a long time ago as being extremely useful, but conflicting with my personal philosophy of not using multiple screen lines for a single line of code. If I really needed to do something like that, I often just use a structure, and fill in the structure with separate lines of code and pass the structure as a single parameter. Yeah, I know, it likely takes up more code space and time to execute, but for me it's generally worth it for allowing me to adhere to my standards while making the code very readable. For initializing constant structures, I do use multiple lines, with the required braces, and each item on a separate line, with comments. So for me, my general rule is if there's braces, everything in between gets it's own single line (with the exception of arrays which in some cases would be tedious and meaningless to separate onto individual lines). And if it's parenthesis, then it doesn't get broken up onto separate lines.
In case anyone reading this doesn't realize it, we're referring to C language here, which might not be applicable to other programming languages.
-
Gotta say, AaronLee, I would charge double if I had to deal with your code, and I'd still whine about it.
-
Gotta say, AaronLee, I would charge double if I had to deal with your code, and I'd still whine about it.
Back in the days when I was a junior software engineer, I heard lots of whining from the other members of my team about my coding style. If there's any whining done these days, they do it in secret, being I'm now the boss. It's good to be the king. :)
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If I really needed to do something like that, I often just use a structure, and fill in the structure with separate lines of code and pass the structure as a single parameter.
100%, this is what I would do also, in this case, it's an external library for which we have no control over the prototype for.
-
While on the subject of pet peeves, related to C language, here's a few more of mine.
1. Abbreviations in variable names. Unless it's a totally standard abbreviation, you might have trouble remembering your own abbreviations, and certainly will not remember someone else's abbreviation if it doesn't match what you'd choose. This obviously is a problem when wanting to search for a variable, or using a variable but not remembering the exact spelling. And often the abbreviation leads to ambiguity. Perhaps not the best example, but 'temp' used in software dealing with temperature. Does 'temp' mean temporary or temperature? I've lost countless hours over the years trying to remember the correct abbreviation, or looking at someone else's code and scratching my head as to what the abbreviation means.
2. Too short of names for variables. Ok, 'i' for some index is fine, or 'x' or such for some temporary variable that's immediately then used again. But for meaningful variables, don't use some short name that doesn't adequately describe what it's purpose is. Yes, if the variable name doesn't adequately describe it, but you comment it well where it's defined, I can look it up, but that wastes time. Sure, it takes extra time to type out a long variable name, but the code is so much more readable like that, and saves time in the long run.
3. Underscores in variable names. This one might sound strange, but I disliked having to stretch my finger to press the underscore, as it's commonly for separating words in variable names. These days I have a keyboard which I can totally customize, and put the underscore on an easily accessible key, such as Shift-Space, if I wanted to. So I guess it's no longer a pet peeve, but I got used to over the years just capitalizing the first letter of each word in a variable name in order to distinguish words, rather than the underscore. For macros, which I use all caps, I do use the underscore. So not using underscores in variable names also is another way to emphasize that it's a variable and not a macro, and to my eyes just looks cleaner.
4. Lack of a standardized line of comments at the top of each function, specifying the name, description, parameters, return value, etc, along with some instantly easily recognizable way of separating those comments from the general code, such as a full line of equal signs, dashes, asterisks, or whatever you like at the top/bottom of the header. When I'm scanning code in a file from top to bottom, and get to a function, then determine I've seen enough, I want to quickly jump to the next function, which scrolling down quickly until I see that instantly recognizable header allows me to do that with the greatest efficiency. A function without any header on top can easily be missed when trying to scroll very quickly through a file. Not to mention, the header naturally is great documentation for knowing what the function does and how to use it.
5. Lack of whitespace to separate things. There's no limitations these days for the storage size of source code. Nor noticeable difference in compile times by adding as much whitespace as needed to make things clear. Being whitespace is basically free, use it as much as is needed to make your code more readable. The example are endless, but for one:
for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)
is much more instantly readable to me than:
for(i=0;i<10;i++)
Those were just the first five off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's a very long list of coding pet peeves if I thought about it.
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen. If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
If some woman came up to me and starting talking politics at the mall, it does not mean that it was some random woman.
Making a choice without some specified method or conscious decision does not make it a random choice.
An understanding of what random does and does not mean is an integral part of all inferential statistics that I use and deserves accurate use in many professional activities and in common and casual conversation. It is a very important concept and, as such, it should be treated as a reserved word. Instead, you can read dictionary definitions for the word that are explicitly wrong.
There is no reason to part from the accurate use of the word because it is somehow convenient or one does not know any better and, further, the rationalization of “you know what I mean” is particularly annoying because you don’t know what you mean.
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If some woman came up to me and starting talking politics at the mall, it does not mean that it was some random woman.
What word would you use instead?
The OED suggests 'at random' means "without method or conscious decision", which is typical of the rest of the definitions. It is only in statistics where the meaning is "goverened by or involving equal chances for each item".
It would seem that you are using the definition for one field in another. Kind of like 'wet' can have multiple meanings which are all OK and sensible in the right context, but a mess (and no doubt worth a rant) if used in the wrong field.
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In statistics, a random distribution is one that follows a given probability density function (which need not be flat) and where the total is one (everything must be somewhere).
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...which reminds me:
"If you have a 50-50 chance of guessing something right, there's a 90% chance you'll guess wrong."
Statistics can be a cruel taskmaster.
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I get the feeling though I'm in a very small minority with this opinion. It's rare for me to see programmers who go beyond 80 or 100 columns per line, and I'm not about to tell other programmers what they should be doing. To each their own.
I'm part of the 80char movement, because I quite often edit code in a window
that is -- for some reason -- perhaps max 100 characters wide. To me, it's
more readable like that.
But, this probably comes from the fact that I'm more a systems person than
a software person, so will end up editing files in "ed" on a 80x24 terminal via
IPMI or similar...
I'm also in the 80-character camp but I realize that I'm not using punch cards and I should probably just stop.
But now that I have this nice 4k monitor at work (and the 5k on the iMac at home) I've gotten quite used to having multiple emacs windows side-by-side, each a bit more than 80 characters wide. I can fit four of them on the screen!
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But now that I have this nice 4k monitor at work (and the 5k on the iMac at home) I've gotten quite used to having multiple emacs windows side-by-side, each a bit more than 80 characters wide.
Exactly this. Since I ran Brief under DOS I've always had two or more edit windows side-by-side.
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But now that I have this nice 4k monitor at work (and the 5k on the iMac at home) I've gotten quite used to having multiple emacs windows side-by-side, each a bit more than 80 characters wide.
Exactly this. Since I ran Brief under DOS I've always had two or more edit windows side-by-side.
Now there's a name (Brief Editor) that I haven't heard, nor even thought about for a very long time. When I first saw it for sale (back in the good old DOS days), I thought "why would anyone pay that much for just an editor", but then realized how much money it could save by improving productivity.
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen. If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
If some woman came up to me and starting talking politics at the mall, it does not mean that it was some random woman.
Making a choice without some specified method or conscious decision does not make it a random choice.
An understanding of what random does and does not mean is an integral part of all inferential statistics that I use and deserves accurate use in many professional activities and in common and casual conversation. It is a very important concept and, as such, it should be treated as a reserved word. Instead, you can read dictionary definitions for the word that are explicitly wrong.
There is no reason to part from the accurate use of the word because it is somehow convenient or one does not know any better and, further, the rationalization of “you know what I mean” is particularly annoying because you don’t know what you mean.
So you are saying that the choices from your selection process do not have a uniform probability distribution they are not random? Certainly limits whole books full of statistical tools. And means that many natural processes are not random. Things like Johnson noise.
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen. If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
If some woman came up to me and starting talking politics at the mall, it does not mean that it was some random woman.
Making a choice without some specified method or conscious decision does not make it a random choice.
An understanding of what random does and does not mean is an integral part of all inferential statistics that I use and deserves accurate use in many professional activities and in common and casual conversation. It is a very important concept and, as such, it should be treated as a reserved word. Instead, you can read dictionary definitions for the word that are explicitly wrong.
There is no reason to part from the accurate use of the word because it is somehow convenient or one does not know any better and, further, the rationalization of “you know what I mean” is particularly annoying because you don’t know what you mean.
So you are saying that the choices from your selection process do not have a uniform probability distribution they are not random? Certainly limits whole books full of statistical tools. And means that many natural processes are not random. Things like Johnson noise.
No, I am not saying that at all. That is why you could not point to where I said such in my post. It's just that simple and you telling me what I said does not mean that I said it, no matter what you want to believe. Nor does you deciding to interpret what I said in some manner that you can argue about mean that I said it - that is, I don't think what I wrote needs your your interpretation. I stand by what I said, I am not backing down, changing it or otherwise suggesting that it needed to be written more clearly.
What it does mean, however, is that I am not going to take your bait. Nice try and all that but you see it is MY pet peeve and I don't need for you to agree with it, and I am not dismayed that you (or really anyone) disagrees with it, does not understand it, or even verbally engages in precisely what I am peeving about -or not.
If I spent my next 1000 posts trying to convince you otherwise, I feel certain that I would fail because I don't believe that you have tried to understand what I wrote, you just didn't like how it sounded so you decided that I must have said something else and something that you could argue about, hence the distinctly underwhelming "so you are saying" ploy.
If you (or anyone) truly wants to pursue this, then take my post, one sentence at a time, and clearly state why you thing it is wrong. Don't give me this..."so you are saying" and than insert some ridiculous interpretation - you are better than that.
Use what I actually wrote, so:
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen. Do you disagree with that? - if no, move on to the second sentence. If yes, explain to me why what I said in that sentence is wrong or why you don't agree with it even if you don't think it is necessarily wrong.
Can you actually do that? If yes, then do it and if it is a sincere attempt, I will respond.
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If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen.
Not all the shirts may be in the set. You might think "I'm not going to wear a red shirt today" then pick a random one from what remains. The shirt is still chosen at random.
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In practice I find that while I have probably 20+ shirts, I end up wearing the same 10 or so shirts over and over, not counting the separate selection of stained/worn out ones I put on when I'm working on something dirty or amusing shirts I might wear to extremely informal events. I start working my way through the shirt drawer and then at some point my partner decides to do laundry and brings me a stack of clean shirts that I put back in the drawer. These end up on top so unless I go out of my way to mix up the stack there is a layer on the bottom of the drawer that I almost never wear.
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In practice I find that while I have probably 20+ shirts, I end up wearing the same 10 or so shirts over and over, not counting the separate selection of stained/worn out ones I put on when I'm working on something dirty or amusing shirts I might wear to extremely informal events. I start working my way through the shirt drawer and then at some point my partner decides to do laundry and brings me a stack of clean shirts that I put back in the drawer. These end up on top so unless I go out of my way to mix up the stack there is a layer on the bottom of the drawer that I almost never wear.
You could always always take your shirts out and leave them lying all over the floor and wait for your partner to pick them up and put them away again, thus randomising the stack order. I hear that works well.
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You could always always take your shirts out and leave them lying all over the floor and wait for your partner to pick them up and put them away again, thus randomising the stack order. I hear that works well.
That sounds like a great way to end up single, at which point I guess I could just wear the same shirt every day until it wears out and then replace it.
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If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen.
Not all the shirts may be in the set. You might think "I'm not going to wear a red shirt today" then pick a random one from what remains. The shirt is still chosen at random.
I think you and I have a different concepts of what random means. If you agreed with the prior sentences as per my last post, I will elaborate.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen. If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
I am including the second sentence in that section, even though I note that you are stopping at the first sentence. But I trust that you read the next sentence.
All shirts ARE in the universe of shirts that a person has to wear. Just as in the case of "all numbers between 1 and 100". If I remove one shirt or one number, it is an awkward technicality at best but boils down to rephrasing....ALL shirts except for this red one or all numbers between 1 and 100 except for 64.
In the example case, you now say that, after eliminating a red shirt from possible choices, "The shirt is still chosen at random." when you have presented absolutely no evidence at all that it was chosen at random. Why was it a random choice? What does a random choice mean in your example? it seems like the shirt was chosen and you are deciding it is a random choice because you are saying it is a random choice. It is as though randomness has no meaning at all, only outcome and any outcome is considered to be random. That's ok with me if you believe that, but I don't (and yes I am elaborating and interpreting to some extent but it is to make a point).
I very much disagree and stay with what I said and ask that you read it carefully.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen.
This remains coherent and accurate as per following from the first sentence. Because that is, in fact, a [generally accepted] representation of what random means.
Looking forward (not that you are saying it explicitly), it is not a meaningful argument against that sentence to say something like the probability distribution conforms to the list of probabilities associated with each of the possibilities of shirts to wear, so, even if you want to impose, after the fact, that what I am saying is wrong because you decide that there are different probabilities associated with each shirt because it is contrived to the point of being tortured.
We know that different outcomes can have different probabilities but the examples I used are clearly not talking about those distributions and you can tell by what I chose - I didn't say the green shirt has this probability and the white one this probability - they all have the same probability - how could anyone miss that?
Had I said there are 62 red shirts and 128 blue shirts and 4 green shirts and you picked 4 green shirts in 4 choices (without replacement) I could argue that it is not a random choice based on an unlikely outcome and the common theme that each shirt has the same probability of being chosen - but in fact, it could be a random choice no matter how extreme the outcome. That is not the point here.
You know what it means to pick a shirt at random and to pick a shirt for some other reason and SAY something like I chose this shirt at random - that is my point....look at the following sentence...
If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
...and it most definitely does not mean it was chosen at random because I am stating outright that there was a reason, specified or not, and most definitely that is NOT evidence of a random choice.
Edit: to add two examples: 1) I stand in front of my closet and look at all my shirts and think about the colors and matching with my pants and comfort and and trying to get laid and looking cool or looking for something that goes with a cowboy hat or for some reason choose a shirt. and 2) I stand blindfolded in front of the, arm outstretched and waving back and forth over the totality of my shirts until somebody somewhere (who isn't watching any of this) yells "stop". Then I pick the shirt closest to my outstretched hand.
If used 1 and went to work and said "I chose this shirt at random". I would peeve myself off because I would be misusing the word and disrespecting the process which I hold dear to me.
If I used 2 and went to work and said "I chose this shirt at random". I would not peeve myself off because it was at least approaching a random process.
Note that my peeve is not based on randomness vs. causation, it is simply the MISUSE of the word which underscores the common misunderstanding and under-appreciation of the meaning of the word, in my view.
So, no, it does not look like we agree.
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You could always always take your shirts out and leave them lying all over the floor and wait for your partner to pick them up and put them away again, thus randomising the stack order. I hear that works well.
That sounds like a great way to end up single, at which point I guess I could just wear the same shirt every day until it wears out and then replace it.
Well, you may want to save it for some heavy painting or something - I have many such shirts (and pants and shoes), all ready to go when I tackle that dirty job.
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Well, you may want to save it for some heavy painting or something - I have many such shirts (and pants and shoes), all ready to go when I tackle that dirty job.
So do I, and I make new ones more frequently than I'd like to, every time I forget to change into grubby clothes, or think "I'm just going to do this quick thing, I'll be careful not to get dirty."
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Well, you may want to save it for some heavy painting or something - I have many such shirts (and pants and shoes), all ready to go when I tackle that dirty job.
So do I, and I make new ones more frequently than I'd like to, every time I forget to change into grubby clothes, or think "I'm just going to do this quick thing, I'll be careful not to get dirty."
I favor the bleach screw up more than anything....I just need to use a little bleach here and I will be real careful...instant grey shirt with added pink streaks - it truly amazes me.
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I think you and I have a different concepts of what random means.
That seems to be the crux of it, yes.
Which is fine. But it seems to me that your peeve is based on your preferred meaning of the word, which is not the commonly understood meaning. Kind of like me complaining that everyone in the US calls the pavement a 'sidewalk'.
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calls the pavement a 'sidewalk'.
which actually describes what it is, a walk along side,same with boot and trunk,trunk is were the trunks (luggage) goes,just a pity they keep leaving letters out of words.
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calls the pavement a 'sidewalk'.
which actually describes what it is, a walk along side,same with boot and trunk,trunk is were the trunks (luggage) goes,just a pity they keep leaving letters out of words.
"Burglarized". I'll leave it there.
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"Burglarized". I'll leave it there.
Indeed, we all know the correct spelling is BurglariSed
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calls the pavement a 'sidewalk'.
which actually describes what it is, a walk along side,same with boot and trunk,trunk is were the trunks (luggage) goes
Consider: In the USA we drive on the parkway, yet park on the driveway. :wtf: :scared: :rant: ???
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My pet is peeved, because I haven't taken her to the park for a few days. She feels she is leading a dog's life.
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Counter-peeve: People who do not understand 600 years of typesetting evolution conclusions. :-DD
One of my personal peeves: using sans-serif fonts for body text.
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Some examples of the statistical properties of random processes. In each of these cases, the next result/event/choice is independent of its predecessors. The first one shows a flat distribution, where each outcome has the same probability, but the others do not. Having equal probabilities for each outcome, in general, is neither necessary nor sufficient to define a random process, but is not excluded.
1. Honest die.
An honest die (plural dice) is a cube with six faces numbered 1 to 6 (opposite sides add to 7). The probability of any number from 1 to 6 equals 1/6. The mean value for the numerical value of the events (throws) is 3.5, which is not itself a possible value. The events are independent, so that the probability of each of the six results after throwing a “4” is the same as after throwing a “3”. This is close to randomly choosing shirts that have laundry markers to distinguish them, assuming you have the same set of shirts available for each act of random choice. If used shirts stay in the laundry hamper for a long time, there will be an obvious change in the probability distribution as the number of available shirts decreases, but the distribution will be “flat” for each act.
2. Loaded die.
If a malefactor drills a small hole through the single spot on the “1” side, inserts a heavy ball, and re-seals the hole with the ball near the “1” face, the probabilities are no longer equal: “6” is more probable than “1”, but “2” through “5” have equal probabilities. The process is still random when throwing many times, but the probability distribution is no longer “flat”.
3. Astragalos.
The astragaloi (Greek) or tali (Latin) were six-sided ankle bones used as dice in ancient Rome. They had six sides, but two were curved and did not count, leaving four sides (scored by which side ended down) that were numbered by convention as I, III, IV, and VI. Since the bones are not cubical, the probability for each of the four sides is different. The probabilities add up to 1.
4. Poisson statistics.
This is very important in physics and engineering for the probability of a given number of events occurring in a pre-defined time interval. The usual example is a radioactive source and a counter that registers the number of detected particles in a fixed time. See any statistics text or Wikipedia for details. Specifically, assume that the mean rate (per that time interval) is the parameter m, and let x be the random variable of detected particles in each time interval, which can be any non-negative integer k = 0, 1, 2, 3 … As is well known in statistics, the standard deviation of the distribution is given by m1/2. The probability distribution is far from flat, and shows a pronounced peak.
The probability that x = k for each time interval is given by the formula
Pr(x = k) = mk exp(-m)/k!
For m = 4, as an example, we have these probabilities (calculated in Excel) which go on forever, but die off quickly:
(k = 0) 0.018
(k = 1) 0.073
(k = 2) 0.147
(k = 3) 0.195
(k = 4) 0.195
(k = 5) 0.156
(k = 6) 0.104
(k = 7) 0.060
(k = 8 ) 0.030
(k = 9) 0.013
….
The probabilities for k = 3 and k = 4 are equal, even though the mean value is 4.
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For a truly fascinating story of an early attempt at doing random numbers electronically, see
https://datamuseum.dk/w/images/5/56/DASK_daskrnd_en.pdf
which is an off-print of Teleteknik, Engelsk Edition, Vol III, 1959,No 2: A Generator of Random numbers. by Henning Isaksson. Thanks to forum member "bsdphk" who works with older Danish technology history and IIRC put me on the trail of that text. (In true rabbit hole fashion, I then spent 3 days reading about Regnecentralen and other early Danish computer history. You've been warned. Most of it is in Danish, though, so it helps that I'm a passable reader and speaker of that language...)
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I favor the bleach screw up more than anything....I just need to use a little bleach here and I will be real careful...instant grey shirt with added pink streaks - it truly amazes me.
Oh yeah, that stupid Chlorox Cleanup stuff, I've ruined more clothes with the spray bottle of that. "Oh I'll just give this spot of mold mildew in the shower a quick squirt", and then the mist blows back at me and makes little pink spots all over whatever I'm wearing. Or I wipe down the counter with it then forget and lean over it to grab something or drag my sleeve across it. I've got shirts, hoodies, pants, even pajamas and boxer shorts that have bleach streaks or mist spots on them. Sure does a good job of keeping the shower clean though.
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Which is fine. But it seems to me that your peeve is based on your preferred meaning of the word, which is not the commonly understood meaning. Kind of like me complaining that everyone in the US calls the pavement a 'sidewalk'.
To me anything that is paved is "pavement", that includes both the street and the sidewalk, parking lots, etc. The pavement is the paved surface, a sidewalk is a paved surface for pedestrian traffic adjacent to a road.
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Counter-peeve: People who do not understand 600 years of typesetting evolution conclusions. :-DD
One of my personal peeves: using sans-serif fonts for body text.
Then it must pain you to read EEVblog Forum, with it's standard sans-serif font. :)
Actually I worked for many years on a project where fonts were one of the top priorities. Many people think they don't like a sans-serif font for normal text, but in cases where it's hard to read (the size of text is small relative to the reader's distance from the monitor), 99% of the time, in my experience, with countless people in my dataset, they agree that a sans-serif font is more readable. If you're sitting in front of your computer monitor and can adjust the font size yourself, then a font that you find attractive is fine. If your application involves reading from a distance, where it's not practical to increase the font size anymore, choosing a font that is readable becomes the priority over aesthetics.
For someone like myself, getting older and having poorer eyes, I prefer a sans-serif font even for regular stuff on my computer monitor. When stuff appears in the normal default font size, if it's in a sans-serif font, there's less likelihood I'll need to increase the magnification to be able to easily read it.
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Counter-peeve: People who do not understand 600 years of typesetting evolution conclusions. :-DD
One of my personal peeves: using sans-serif fonts for body text.
Then it must pain you to read EEVblog Forum, with it's standard sans-serif font. :)
Not really. I was thinking about printed books. And it's not just aesthetics. I find that my reading speed is higher with serif fonts and I have less eye strain as well. I read a lot--three or four books a week--so others who read less might not find it as much of an issue.
I also prefer traditional fonts, such as Times Roman, over new-age crap that millennials find edgy and modern.
Another peeve: people who don't understand the difference between "its" and "it's". ;)
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Disclaimer: I used to work for a printer company, and design fonts, in a past life.
Long-past studies did prove that serifed fonts were more readable. However, I saw a decline in that in the 80's and 90's. I believe it was due to the relatively low resolutions which were available then (think dot matrix printers, low-res CRT's, etc.). The long-past studies were done with offset printing and other inherently high resolution printing systems so resolution wasn't an issue. But when you try to render serifed fonts in a low resolution environment, all that extra detail goes from "helpful optical hints" to "blurry smudges".
In a low res environment, simplicity helps - and thus during this time of my career we found that sans serifed fonts were actually more readable and preferred by most customers. The old time print shop owners thought we were nuts, but it wasn't an apples to apples comparison. Neither side was "wrong", the underlying technology was just different and the optimal font was different too.
Today, with laser and ink jet printers regularly hitting actual 600-1200 DPI and LCD/OLED displays having inter-pixel spacing below the eye's resolving power at normal viewing distances, sans serifed fonts are no longer a disadvantage. You can use serifed fonts and resolve every extra detail. However, I must say that all these years later I still prefer sans serif fonts... it's just "less optical noise" while conveying the same information to my eyes. Maybe it's all those years of writing font editing tools and creating font character sets. Who knows.
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Long-past studies did prove that serifed fonts were more readable. However, I saw a decline in that in the 80's and 90's. I believe it was due to the relatively low resolutions which were available then (think dot matrix printers, low-res CRT's, etc.). The long-past studies were done with offset printing and other inherently high resolution printing systems so resolution wasn't an issue. But when you try to render serifed fonts in a low resolution environment, all that extra detail goes from "helpful optical hints" to "blurry smudges".
Yes, and for my personal experience, it was with fonts on computer monitors during the 80's and 90's. Starting with very low resolution of I think 320x192, then to standard VGA, then SVGA. Often the text wasn't even displayed on a computer monitor, but on NTSC/PAL video monitors which were already fuzzy looking without adding even more fuzziness via serifed fonts. The fonts were all custom hand-drawn and the sizes considerably larger than the built-in ROM character set, so adding serifs were possible, but they still looked lousy.
I don't really read printed books these days, except for the odd opening up a reference book or old text book to just read a section of it. If I was doing a lot of reading of printed books, and if the text size was large enough for my eyes, I'd likely prefer serified fonts for that case. Any of the newer stylized fonts being created these days don't interest me in the least.
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen. If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
If some woman came up to me and starting talking politics at the mall, it does not mean that it was some random woman.
Making a choice without some specified method or conscious decision does not make it a random choice.
An understanding of what random does and does not mean is an integral part of all inferential statistics that I use and deserves accurate use in many professional activities and in common and casual conversation. It is a very important concept and, as such, it should be treated as a reserved word. Instead, you can read dictionary definitions for the word that are explicitly wrong.
There is no reason to part from the accurate use of the word because it is somehow convenient or one does not know any better and, further, the rationalization of “you know what I mean” is particularly annoying because you don’t know what you mean.
So you are saying that the choices from your selection process do not have a uniform probability distribution they are not random? Certainly limits whole books full of statistical tools. And means that many natural processes are not random. Things like Johnson noise.
No, I am not saying that at all. That is why you could not point to where I said such in my post. It's just that simple and you telling me what I said does not mean that I said it, no matter what you want to believe. Nor does you deciding to interpret what I said in some manner that you can argue about mean that I said it - that is, I don't think what I wrote needs your your interpretation. I stand by what I said, I am not backing down, changing it or otherwise suggesting that it needed to be written more clearly.
What it does mean, however, is that I am not going to take your bait. Nice try and all that but you see it is MY pet peeve and I don't need for you to agree with it, and I am not dismayed that you (or really anyone) disagrees with it, does not understand it, or even verbally engages in precisely what I am peeving about -or not.
If I spent my next 1000 posts trying to convince you otherwise, I feel certain that I would fail because I don't believe that you have tried to understand what I wrote, you just didn't like how it sounded so you decided that I must have said something else and something that you could argue about, hence the distinctly underwhelming "so you are saying" ploy.
If you (or anyone) truly wants to pursue this, then take my post, one sentence at a time, and clearly state why you thing it is wrong. Don't give me this..."so you are saying" and than insert some ridiculous interpretation - you are better than that.
Use what I actually wrote, so:
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen. Do you disagree with that? - if no, move on to the second sentence. If yes, explain to me why what I said in that sentence is wrong or why you don't agree with it even if you don't think it is necessarily wrong.
Can you actually do that? If yes, then do it and if it is a sincere attempt, I will respond.
First, I did over interpret your statement.
Second, you have made it obvious this is a serious peeve for you.
I am still not in total agreement. The disagreement lies solely in how language is used in edge cases or grey areas, not in the fundamental math. Some examples of where this might apply.
1. In your case of selection of integers between 1 and 100. People are notoriously poor as random number generators. If you conduct a test with hundreds of people asked to select a digit randomly in the interval the results clearly don't follow a uniform distribution. But there would be no conscious intent at selection, just a poor quality generator. In fact, armed with the results of the experiment you could even modify the results to better approximate a desired distribution (This is just an application of Bayes Theorem). I find nothing wrong with describing the peoples choice as random. The problem comes from assuming more information than actually exists in that word.
2. The second example is actually conceptually similar. Use of the flawed random number generator provided with Excel (or any number of other languages). In this case there is usually at least a partial definition, usually limited to saying a uniform distribution over the interval. The generator passes simple tests of randomness, but fails a full examination. But the results are close enough to random that for the vast majority of applications there is no significant error introduced by these failures. Again I don't really have a problem with casually calling this a random number generator.
3. In the shirt selection example there may indeed be many biases in the selection process ranging from color and style preferences through difficulty of access in the storage system. The results may vary depending on whether one looks at the shirts and "tries" to pick at "random" or closes ones eyes and fumbles for a shirt. Both processes have biases, but the conscious intent is still random, and usually nothing critical depends on the quality of the selection.
I guess my position boils down to a knowledge thing. If you are doing something that requires high precision in the use of the word random you should also have the knowledge and experience to realize the pitfalls in obtaining axiomatically correct results. There is no more harm in the word being used casually in general use than there is in saying that your mass is 80 kg based on an uncalibrated bathroom scale.
Now if a guy is going to be executed if after a year his choice of shirts does not pass formal tests for randomness he better do some serious thought about the selection method. With stakes that high just numbering the shirts and using one of the published tables of random digits might not be good enough. He would be well advised to spend time understanding the failure criteria, rules for dealing with shirts lost in the laundry and any new shirts purchased and myriad of other details. And might well protest on the error bounds of a test based on only 365 samples.
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Which is fine. But it seems to me that your peeve is based on your preferred meaning of the word, which is not the commonly understood meaning. Kind of like me complaining that everyone in the US calls the pavement a 'sidewalk'.
To me anything that is paved is "pavement", that includes both the street and the sidewalk, parking lots, etc. The pavement is the paved surface, a sidewalk is a paved surface for pedestrian traffic adjacent to a road.
Pavement is (was) an indie rock band from California.
I mixed front of house for this show (https://www.themckenzietapes.com/tapes/2019/7/29/pavement-at-maxwells-07-29-1992).
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Pavement is (was) an indie rock band from California.
I mixed front of house for this show (https://www.themckenzietapes.com/tapes/2019/7/29/pavement-at-maxwells-07-29-1992).
Did you make the recording too?
My last outing was prepared for recording, but that did not happen, not by me. I really must start getting my jobs recorded.
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Functioning headphones that become useless because the foam padding has disintegrated.
I bought these, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/SHS3701_27/- (https://www.usa.philips.com/c-p/SHS3701_27/-) I liked them and they worked fine (I prefer over the ear to reduce the inevitable plunge toward deafness).
Now, the padding has disintegrated although they otherwise work fine. Searches for foam pads that fit were futile. No patience or instructions for making my own.
So, I look to buy these https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Koss-KSC75-Portable-Stereophone-Headphones (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Koss-KSC75-Portable-Stereophone-Headphones) and I notice that I can also get these https://www.amazon.com/Koss-PORT-REPLACEMENT-CUSHIONS-Replacement/dp/B000O2KIMO/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Koss+Portable+Replacement+Cushions&qid=1629468691&sr=8-1 (https://www.amazon.com/Koss-PORT-REPLACEMENT-CUSHIONS-Replacement/dp/B000O2KIMO/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Koss+Portable+Replacement+Cushions&qid=1629468691&sr=8-1) which appear to fit the model.
If I get the extra pads now, I would think that they would degrade sitting in the package - no? If I wait until the ones on the new product degrade, they will stop offering the replacements.
There is no end to the injustice I must suffer :)
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my Philips SBC HP840 headphones fell apart - now partially fixed with parcel tape. Those were not expensive, the Bose noise cancelling headphone's mock leather stitching falling apart was a bigger down.
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my Philips SBC HP840 headphones fell apart - now partially fixed with parcel tape. Those were not expensive, the Bose noise cancelling headphone's mock leather stitching falling apart was a bigger down.
At least the Bose ones are easy to obtain and fit. Most headphone era pads now crumble after 2 to 4 years, and for many models replacements are nearly impossible to obtain. In the 60s and 70s headphone pads lasted until they literally wore out.
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Functioning headphones that become useless because the foam padding has disintegrated.
/---
Now, the padding has disintegrated although they otherwise work fine. Searches for foam pads that fit were futile. No patience or instructions for making my own.
--/
Maybe I will try to affix some replacement fabric on to them. I should have some old fabric around here or something and some fabric adhesive. I would need to fashion a sophisticated clamp (e.g., a rubber band) - how hard could it be? :-DD
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Functioning headphones that become useless because the foam padding has disintegrated.
Reminds me of another thing, earphones that sound like crap. It used to be easy to find wired earbuds that sounded quite good, not audiophile of course but plenty good for listening to music while walking/jogging/biking etc. Gradually I had the wires break and I went looking for new ones but now every pair I've tried sounds tinny and terrible, and most are the kind that have a rubber plug that pokes into your ear and I don't like those. Wireless bluetooth earbuds seem all the rage now but I hate those, they look stupid and it's yet another battery to remember to charge up. I just want some good old fashioned earbuds with a wire, no mic, no built in volume control, just something I can plug into my phone or ipod and listen.
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I just want some good old fashioned earbuds with a wire, no mic, no built in volume control, just something I can plug into my phone or ipod and listen.
https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/ (https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/)
Insanely good-sounding. Quite expensive. Highly desirable.
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Ask a friend returning from overseas to grab an extra one for you on the plain ;)
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https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/ (https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/)
Insanely good-sounding. Quite expensive. Highly desirable.
So the selling point is that they can make multiples of the same model of headphones, that isn't even handed apart from perhaps writing "L" or "R" on the outside, such that two examples are within 1dB of each other and you have to pay $300 for the pleasure? My £15 Sony pair are that close as far as I can tell, or care.
The frequency response of the ones you've linked is only up to 16 kHz which isn't great!
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wow i wanted to but some earbud's at the food-market, but the price was about 6x what I want to pay.
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https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/ (https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/)
Insanely good-sounding. Quite expensive. Highly desirable.
So the selling point is that they can make multiples of the same model of headphones, that isn't even handed apart from perhaps writing "L" or "R" on the outside, such that two examples are within 1dB of each other and you have to pay $300 for the pleasure? My £15 Sony pair are that close as far as I can tell, or care.
The frequency response of the ones you've linked is only up to 16 kHz which isn't great!
Naturally, without the "Beats by Dre" marketing hype, this is not going to sound (sic) much, but as unassuming as these look and (very conservatively are specced), the more impressively they sound. No hyperbole. Just quite a few years of solid engineering work building audiological equipment, and actually learning how the ear works, and building transducers that work in the ear canal more convincing than anything else I've heard.
Re £15 buds: My children have £35 Sony cans, bought to get them something that would sound at least decent. The step up between those and my MDR-7506 pro Sony cans (£98.86, ex VAT, from Canford (https://www.canford.co.uk/Products/54-436_SONY-MDR-7506-1-HEADPHONES-Closed-63-ohms-3.5mm-jack-6.35mm-adapter-coiled-cable-folding)) is astonishing (I almost did not buy the cheap ones because of that, but it turns out they still sound better than all the "gaming" headsets available...), and then, to put perspective on things, I think that the 7506es (while still more or less the broadcast standard in Europe) have a distinct second place in a race against the Etymotics.
But yeah. I appreciate that it has to be experienced to be understood.
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I just want some good old fashioned earbuds with a wire, no mic, no built in volume control, just something I can plug into my phone or ipod and listen.
https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/ (https://www.etymotic.com/product/er4sr-earphones/)
Insanely good-sounding. Quite expensive. Highly desirable.
Yeah no way am I paying $300 for earbuds. Back in the day I had lots of different <$10 pairs that sounded just fine, like I said, not audiophile grade but they didn't sound like complete garbage either, which is what every modern pair I've tried sounds like. No bass at all, they are clearly using drivers designed for voice rather than music. I'd consider spending as much as perhaps 20 bucks, I have some over-ear headphones that were about that much that sound perfectly fine but they're no good for any sort of vigorous activity.
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Pavement is (was) an indie rock band from California.
I mixed front of house for this show (https://www.themckenzietapes.com/tapes/2019/7/29/pavement-at-maxwells-07-29-1992).
Did you make the recording too?
I did not. There were few regulars at the club who had the Sony Pro Walkman cassette recorder (I eventually bought one, too) and they'd use the little stereo condenser mics clipped to their lapels. They never asked to patch into the console. That's because they were my friends and knew better. The occasional stranger who asked for a console feed was always told "no." Tapers are annoying.
The console we had (Soundcraft 200B) didn't have a simple way to connect a recorder (no matrix, not enough groups) so on the occasion when I did bring a recorder I used the console's main output inserts to feed it. The trick: take a ¼" TRS plug and short tip and ring together and connect it to the insert. That gives you an output you can use, and the short accomplishes the same thing as the jack's shorting connection. Still it's a board mix so generally the result was drums and vocals with hints of guitar and bass.
Nowadays many consoles have digital recording outs over USB, which is quite handy. You get a multitrack thing you can mix down later.
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Pavement is (was) an indie rock band from California.
I mixed front of house for this show (https://www.themckenzietapes.com/tapes/2019/7/29/pavement-at-maxwells-07-29-1992).
Did you make the recording too?
I did not. There were few regulars at the club who had the Sony Pro Walkman cassette recorder (I eventually bought one, too) and they'd use the little stereo condenser mics clipped to their lapels. They never asked to patch into the console. That's because they were my friends and knew better. The occasional stranger who asked for a console feed was always told "no." Tapers are annoying.
The console we had (Soundcraft 200B) didn't have a simple way to connect a recorder (no matrix, not enough groups) so on the occasion when I did bring a recorder I used the console's main output inserts to feed it. The trick: take a ¼" TRS plug and short tip and ring together and connect it to the insert. That gives you an output you can use, and the short accomplishes the same thing as the jack's shorting connection. Still it's a board mix so generally the result was drums and vocals with hints of guitar and bass.
Nowadays many consoles have digital recording outs over USB, which is quite handy. You get a multitrack thing you can mix down later.
I'm well familiar with the 200b. Recently failed to get my fingers on an insanely cheap 200 Delta that would have been a capability enhancement for me -- 10 channels and one monitor send is a bit limiting except for jazz. And no, tapers don't get a hole, unless authorized by the band. The insert trick is very nice.
I did get to watch a colleague use a Allen & Heath dLive desk yesterday evening. Must say that I'm impressed; especially by the EQ. It acutally DOES something. The likes of Yamaha and other Asian digital EQ's do a lot to the sound curve, but not the sound, if you follow.
My present peeve is people buying "iPad mixers" and expecting me to work with them. I want a control surface, damnit!
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The console we had (Soundcraft 200B)
that takes me back,must be at least 20 years since i last since i kicked one in the wild,great little desk,especially for theatre.
My present peeve is people buying "iPad mixers" and expecting me to work with them. I want a control surface, damnit!
totally agree,although having a tablet for remote is very useful,especially during soundcheck,also handy if theirs not a separate monitor board.
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Pet Peeve...
Freaking hot melt, or as professionally known as hot snot!
Yes I understand it can be helpful and I too have used it... BUT there really needs to be a law or perhaps a world wide authority to oversee, train and issue permits to use hot snot... In an appropriate, clean and purposeful way.. OH and there ought to be fines or imprisonment for individuals that show blatant disregard for such authority..
Just a thought. ..oh I feel so much better that I've said this, very therapeutic really.
It is practically useless for actual gluing of things like even small pieces of wood, because the glue cools down rapidly & does not stick the parts together---------" Gorilla Snot" (contact cement) does a much better job.
Hot Snot is useful enough to keep a big electro from slopping about, or slicing the glue stick up & putting it inside large heatshrink as a substitute for self adhesive tubing (works a treat!).
Most other things are better done with silicone sealant, or perhaps, epoxy.
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen. If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
If some woman came up to me and starting talking politics at the mall, it does not mean that it was some random woman.
Back in the day, we would speak of a "stray woman" in that situation.
I tried hard to fight the good fight against "random", but finally succumbed.
(On the first pass, the iPad made it "suddumbed" which is sort of appropriate! ;D)
Making a choice without some specified method or conscious decision does not make it a random choice.
An understanding of what random does and does not mean is an integral part of all inferential statistics that I use and deserves accurate use in many professional activities and in common and casual conversation. It is a very important concept and, as such, it should be treated as a reserved word. Instead, you can read dictionary definitions for the word that are explicitly wrong.
There is no reason to part from the accurate use of the word because it is somehow convenient or one does not know any better and, further, the rationalization of “you know what I mean” is particularly annoying because you don’t know what you mean.
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
If a number between 1 and 100 is chosen at random, it means to me that every number from 1 to 100 had an equal probability of being chosen.
If a shirt to wear is chosen at random, it means that every shirt had an equal probability of being chosen. If I chose a shirt to wear for some unspecified reason, some unknown or unclear reason or it struck my fancy at the moment, it does not mean that it was chosen at random.
If some woman came up to me and starting talking politics at the mall, it does not mean that it was some random woman.
Making a choice without some specified method or conscious decision does not make it a random choice.
An understanding of what random does and does not mean is an integral part of all inferential statistics that I use and deserves accurate use in many professional activities and in common and casual conversation. It is a very important concept and, as such, it should be treated as a reserved word. Instead, you can read dictionary definitions for the word that are explicitly wrong.
There is no reason to part from the accurate use of the word because it is somehow convenient or one does not know any better and, further, the rationalization of “you know what I mean” is particularly annoying because you don’t know what you mean.
So you are saying that the choices from your selection process do not have a uniform probability distribution they are not random? Certainly limits whole books full of statistical tools. And means that many natural processes are not random. Things like Johnson noise.
In the case of the lady at the mall, DrG would not be the person choosing, she would be.
We know nothing of her process-------maybe she just fancies the Doc! ;D
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I think you and I have a different concepts of what random means.
That seems to be the crux of it, yes.
Which is fine. But it seems to me that your peeve is based on your preferred meaning of the word, which is not the commonly understood meaning. Kind of like me complaining that everyone in the US calls the pavement a 'sidewalk'.
Back in the day, in Western Australia everybody called it a footpath"!
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
Not to belabor this pet peeve of mine, but by way of further explanation… I have taken several undergraduate courses in statistics and I have taken several graduate courses in statistics. I have published many times in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and as first author. I have used inferential statistics in virtually all of these publications and, at times, “fairly” sophisticated statistics (e.g., mixed model ANOVA where you specify the co-variance structure). I am not a statistician and I am not a mathematician. Furthermore, NONE of my prior studies and SME means that I am right and anyone who disagrees is wrong.
It does, however, mean that I have a particular position/appreciation for what “random” means and a strong belief in what it should mean to others (not pointing any fingers here as I think that most here are far above the most egregious (IMO) violations).
My examples were not stellar and (as some noticed) were intended to communicate a contrast from my experiences/beliefs and some “common” and “popular”; and sometimes professional uses of the word. I have not changed at all how much this peeves me, but by now, I suppose, I should not be surprised or expect otherwise, yet I still am and still do.
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Hot Snot is useful enough to keep a big electro from slopping about, or slicing the glue stick up & putting it inside large heatshrink as a substitute for self adhesive tubing (works a treat!).
Most other things are better done with silicone sealant, or perhaps, epoxy.
Surprisingly, hot snot works exceptionally well to braze polypropylene; a plastic that is notorious to glue otherwise. The hot snot kinda melts the polypropylene, so if you use just the right amount (experiment!), the polypropylene-hotsnot-polypropylene joint is very, very strong.
I heard of this when I was doing a cross belting for a chair seat, and found that a couple of screws to a metal frame are really not enough, and the chairs I was using as a model used lots of staples to wood instead, and was stumped on how to do this. (Making a loop, using hot snot to glue/braze the surfaces together for an inch or two, works well. I do suspect the hot snot glue stick does need to be a chemically compatible thermoplastic, though. I dunno if there are sticks that won't work, or if all widely used ones are compatible. I use the ones locally available for dirt cheap.)
I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
[...]
My examples were not stellar and (as some noticed) were intended to communicate a contrast from my experiences/beliefs and some “common” and “popular”; and sometimes professional uses of the word. I have not changed at all how much this peeves me, but by now, I suppose, I should not be surprised or expect otherwise, yet I still am and still do.
While I kinda-sorta disagree (but I'm not a mathematician, just a dirty computational physicist and software developer), I know exactly how that feels.
In my youth, I spent a year as an all-around IT support and sysadmin person for a department in an Arts and Design university. One day, I got my hands on a public "crib sheet" from the art department, describing terms like "volume", "gravity", and so on. At the time, I had already an uni physics background, so the utter silliness and wrongness of these was just unreal to me. I found it hilarious, it was so unreal. As time passed, and I found out that most of the students and basically all of the professors insisted that theirs was the correct interpretation of the terms (and should be accepted even by physicists, because after all, these are the correct terms), it became sad and annoying to the extreme. Because I was young, male, and without an university art background, my counterarguments were completely ignored. After all, they were lecturers and professors in a leading university, so they were by default correct.
At the time, I still had my old skills intact to deal with that sort of stuff, so I shrugged and simply began to define the terms my own way when I perceived it likely the parties in the discussion might disagree or be unaware of the definition. That worked very well in my later studies and onwards in my life. But, as I grew older, even after over two decades, those definitions and their idiocy still bugs me. Why did they just take an established term, and redefine it (so wrong!), instead of developing a new one?
Thing is, and this creeps into psychology and such squishy stuff I don't like much, by redefining the words people use you can manipulate the way they think. When humans develop their language skills, they use the complex association of terms to automatically build those definitions; but such auto-definitions are very fuzzy in reality even if the person feels they know exactly what a term means. By defining a term exactly, especially a term that has vaguely similar auto-definitions already, teaching a subject becomes much easier. (This too is something most teachers do not realize, and simply do it because it works.) The downside is that almost all teachers only consider the subject at hand, and not at all the other uses of that term, which causes all sorts of misunderstandings down the line.
As to art education, one of my pet peeves there was how the color theory was taught to the students. Additive and subtractive color models were approached through how the effects were observed, and none of the physical attributes were described, possibly because the teachers had basically no physics understanding. Understanding that human color perception is based on two different mechanisms: rod and cone cells, former providing low-light colorless information, and latter being sensitive to three sets of wavelengths (depending on the cone cell length, short, medium, and long (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#Physiology_of_color_perception)); and their opponent processing in the brain. Common problems in this combined process includes red-green color blindness for example. An hour on this subject would explain exactly why natural light and specific-spectrum light like cheap fluorescent lights produce such completely different color perception in artwork; and also how additive and subtractive color models are the two sides of the exact same topic.
I don't know if the situation has gone better or worse in the last two decades, but I hope for the better; I dislike the idea of artists and art teachers believing light and color are magic that nobody understands. You know, like magnets.
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Hot melt glue is available in a very large range of types, in various compositions, and in various materials. Only thing they have in common is that you melt them in a chamber and then extrude it into a place to make the joint, and while are mostly a thermoplastic composition, there are a few which are thermoset material that will chemically react when heated to make a result that will not melt again once cooled.
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I have long held a pet peeve against the misuse of the word random, especially in professional contexts, but also everywhere else.
IMHO there is random in a mathematical/statistical sense and then there is "random" in a colloquial sense, meaning something along the lines of undefined/don't care/don't know. I don't really have a problem with this, there are many, many words in the English language that have multiple meanings depending on context.
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Pet Peeve...
Freaking hot melt, or as professionally known as hot snot!
Yes I understand it can be helpful and I too have used it... BUT there really needs to be a law or perhaps a world wide authority to oversee, train and issue permits to use hot snot... In an appropriate, clean and purposeful way.. OH and there ought to be fines or imprisonment for individuals that show blatant disregard for such authority..
Just a thought. ..oh I feel so much better that I've said this, very therapeutic really.
It is practically useless for actual gluing of things like even small pieces of wood, because the glue cools down rapidly & does not stick the parts together---------" Gorilla Snot" (contact cement) does a much better job.
Hot Snot is useful enough to keep a big electro from slopping about, or slicing the glue stick up & putting it inside large heatshrink as a substitute for self adhesive tubing (works a treat!).
Most other things are better done with silicone sealant, or perhaps, epoxy.
Hot glue is fantastic stuff, when used appropriately. Adhesive is a complex topic, there is no one "best" adhesive, it is highly dependent on the materials you are attempting to bond, the environmental conditions they will be exposed to and other factors. Yes a lot of people use hot glue inappropriately, but a lot of people use superglue, or epoxy or silicone sealant or <insert glue here> incorrectly. Just recently I spent a good hour picking and scraping silicone caulking off a gasket that should have had a light coating of grease instead.
There are some materials that hot glue sticks to incredibly well, I've used it to repair foam model airplanes with good results although it's heavy so it must be used sparingly. Some kinds of plastic it adheres to very well and makes a durable repair. It's also great for tacking down loose wires, craft projects that involve gluing fabric, and things you want to be able to take apart later, you can heat the stuff up until it softens and adjust it as needed. There are even a number of different types of hot glue sticks suited to more specialized tasks. Of course if you try to use it for everything it will not work out well but that is true of any type of glue.
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I don't really have a problem with this, there are many, many words in the English language that have multiple meanings depending on context.
I gather that the problem is he knows that but is peeved nevertheless. That he's effectively made a rod for his own back and the issue isn't resolvable by anyone is beside the point: it peeves him all the same and here is just telling us that, not asking for confirmation or agreement.
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... by redefining the words people use you can manipulate the way they think.
Warning TL;DR ahead.
You made a lot of good points and I want to address that one with a real-world example.
An example comes from the US 2020 election, which, as you probably know was hotly contested. One side promulgated that there was significant cheating and offered up the now infamous “one in a quadrillion” defense. The message, that repeatedly went out to millions of people was that, given the early lead by one candidate, in some states, the chances of that candidate losing the state was less than one in a quadrillion, or 1 in
1,000,000,000,000,000. By extension; that is, having occurred in multiple states, the odds of the event happening decrease to less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power.
The message was not just carried all over the media; it actually appeared in an appeal/motion/brief to the SCOTUS – the highest court in the US. Here is the actual brief: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163048/20201208132827887_TX-v-State-ExpedMot (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163048/20201208132827887_TX-v-State-ExpedMot) 2020-12-07 FINAL.pdf
So, how does this claim work? You can see the whole presentation in Appendix A, but generally, the idea is that given the vote tally with 93% of the vote in (candidate X ahead), the final outcome of candidate Y finishing ahead is so unlikely that there must be an investigation of impropriety (this example is for the state of Georgia).
Consider two situations.
In the first, we take all of the votes in the state of Georgia and put them in some large container. For illustration, assume each vote is represented by a coin (red for one party, blue for another party and green for 3rd party and write in votes – which make up a very small proportion of the total.
AT RANDOM, we draw 93% of the votes. In this case, “at random”, means that each time we draw a coin, every coin in the bin (or remaining in the bin) has an equal probability of being chosen. Under these conditions, and considering the number of votes, to find a big difference between the tallies at 93% counted versus at 100% counted, would, in fact, be reasonably represented by those extreme Z-scores.
In the second, we examine what actually happened. Georgia is a state in the US which is made of counties. These counties can reasonably be viewed historically (looking at the results of the last few elections) as predominately red, predominately blue, or mixed (sometimes called purple) – and to all sorts of degrees.
Counties are of varying sizes. Each county reports their own vote tally and at their own rate. They can also follow their own rules as to when mail-in votes are counted, other kinds of absentee ballots and so on. Because the counties can be so different in size, they are not all finished counting and reporting their votes at the same time; small counties generally finish earlier than large counties and staff size matters and a bunch of other factors. We watch all of this in real time as the chunks of tallies gets reported. The last 7% does not need to be representative of the first 7% or the first 93%.
Because the real world situation is in the second example and not the first example, the statistical claim is bogus. The reporting of vote tallies is not a random process; it is distinctly and easily understandable to NOT BE RANDOM – so long as we can agree on what the word ‘random’ means.
Like you, I also don’t know if it is getting better or worse, but when you water down the meaning of random processes and you combine the watering down with “alternative truths” and a declining standard of proof, you have something nefarious. Yes, I know, I am talking about the meaning of one word and its misuse is not the cause of the world’s problems, but I hope others see that the principle is there and it is not trivial.
I also note that such propaganda is not limited to politics and certainly not one side or the other; it is extant, whether it is the crazy conspiracy claim or the free energy machine. Dumb it down and repeat.
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Given the disparity in county populations in most states and the different speed in reporting county returns, sampling bias in the incomplete results is inevitable.
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An example comes from the US 2020 election, which, as you probably know was hotly contested. One side promulgated that there was significant cheating and offered up the now infamous “one in a quadrillion” defense. The message, that repeatedly went out to millions of people was that, given the early lead by one candidate, in some states, the chances of that candidate losing the state was less than one in a quadrillion, or 1 in
1,000,000,000,000,000. By extension; that is, having occurred in multiple states, the odds of the event happening decrease to less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power.
That kind of annoyed me because in my mind it was totally obvious and expected the way the results shifted. Due to the pandemic there was a large amount of mail-in voting taking place. We knew from multiple surveys that people who lean conservative were overwhelmingly skeptical of mail in voting and are far more likely to downplay the risks of the pandemic and insist on voting in person where available while people who lean liberal are far more accepting of mail-in voting and far more likely to be concerned about the pandemic and choose to stay home and vote by mail. The obvious result of this situation is that a very large number of conservative leaning votes will come in on election day with a majority of liberal leaning votes trickling in over the following days as the mail-in ballots arrive and are counted. Not coincidentally, this is exactly what we saw happen. The fact that anyone thinks the result is surprising is frankly, baffling to me. Knowing what we know, I really don't understand how anyone could rationally expect otherwise, which makes me think it is largely an emotional belief rather than any sort of logic.
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The commentators on the TV networks obviously had copious data on the historical politics of individual counties, and would comment on how such-and-such county's results could swing the result.
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On the positive note, the fact that the way humans think is affected by the way we define terms, is also a good thing: consider education.
If we cannot teach how to think rationally, "magical thinking" and "cargo cults" (in the sense they are defined in e.g. cognitive science, as patterns of thought) would be the norm. And indeed tends to be, when the majority of the population is not taught to think rationally.
As an example of this (positive manipulation), consider the Socratic method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method) and how examining the definitions of terms helps understand what one knows and does not know.
Unfortunately, the way various groups demand the right to exclusively use and define certain terms (like gender), means intellectual examination of such terms in for example a humanist university setting, is nowadays considered offensive. To me, that means rational thought itself is becoming "offensive".
Which, indeed, is one of my own pet peeves: the capability of rational thought is one of the few redeeming qualities of humanity.
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which makes me think it is largely an emotional belief rather than any sort of logic.
Looked to me like it was 100% opportunistic bullshit. Trump even went so far as to demand the counting stopped while he was ahead. That's all it was, no belief or misunderstanding or anything like that, just an opportunistic "Hey, if we stop now I've won". The statistics thing was just bullshit added after the fact to prop up Trump's call.
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At the time, many commented about football games at halftime, or baseball games in the 7th inning.
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..... Knowing what we know, I really don't understand how anyone could rationally expect otherwise, which makes me think it is largely an emotional belief rather than any sort of logic.
I for one, am horrified at the kind of irrational bull$h1t a great number of people in this country will believe. Its embarrassing actually.
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which makes me think it is largely an emotional belief rather than any sort of logic.
Looked to me like it was 100% opportunistic bullshit. Trump even went so far as to demand the counting stopped while he was ahead. That's all it was, no belief or misunderstanding or anything like that, just an opportunistic "Hey, if we stop now I've won". The statistics thing was just bullshit added after the fact to prop up Trump's call.
It was wholly bullshit, and the continuing nonsense in Maricopa County, Arizona with the "Cyber Ninja" "recount" "audit" is even worse. The latest: the "report" is delayed because -- surprise -- three of the "Cyber Ninjas" are very sick, having apparently contracted COVID-19. Also the Arizona State Senate President refuses to release the records of that company, citing "legislative immunity," even though the "audit" is subject to all sorts of public records laws.
The delay in publishing their "report" is likely because they haven't found any evidence of any fraud.
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which makes me think it is largely an emotional belief rather than any sort of logic.
Looked to me like it was 100% opportunistic bullshit. Trump even went so far as to demand the counting stopped while he was ahead. That's all it was, no belief or misunderstanding or anything like that, just an opportunistic "Hey, if we stop now I've won". The statistics thing was just bullshit added after the fact to prop up Trump's call.
I'm not even talking about him in particular, I mean people in general although given the stuff that comes out of his mouth sometimes I'm not actually sure it classifies as lying, I suspect it is largely a case of someone who perceives a different reality than most people and probably believes a large portion of the things he says. There are large numbers of people who genuinely believe the election was stolen, they are not being opportunistic, they are being emotional, or they are just stupid. Even if we were to hypothetically assume that widespread cheating did take place, the results flipping later in the count is not indicative of that, it is totally expected given the demographics who vote on voting day in person vs those that vote by mail and get counted later.
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I for one, am horrified at the kind of irrational bull$h1t a great number of people in this country will believe. Its embarrassing actually.
Me too, but it is not unique to this country, and it is not unique to any particular political leaning. As someone who is largely apolitical I see a great deal of cognitive dissonance and irrational bs on all sides, it can be argued which is worse or who does it more but regardless I see people all over engaging in the same behavior they accuse other people of, and both are equally unwilling to acknowledge that they do it. I read some time back about the Horseshoe Theory and it struck me as being quite accurate. The far left and far right are very much like magnetic poles, they are diametrically opposed and yet viewed in isolation without the other to compare to, they are essentially indistinguishable. Bottom line is humans are tribal animals and morality is relative, the world is far too complex for any individual to wholly comprehend so we take mental shortcuts. For any of us there are any number of things we believe are true but have not directly and personally tested, we read/heard it somewhere from a source we trust and it does not conflict with anything else we know to be true so we accept it as such.
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James_s you are right, and e-design: I got some NEWS for you.
There is a person, around my circle, keeps 'accusing' me, as he has likely been instructed: keeps with the 'Fox News, Hannity viewer', and with the nerve to point finger at me: "You are a Fox / Hannity (fan)... Big fan, big fan..."
Hell, I don't even have to do, or say ANYTHING. He just keeps with the smears.
My suspect, is he getting those bogus attack instructions, from talk radio / Thom Hartman most likely. That (baseless) smear job, sounds like another propaganda smear, put forth by an unaccountable radio HACK
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...So to clarify my point:
Trump, and his folks maybe sometimes stupid, but not always, and not so 'comical' and predictable.
But I'm not a Republican, so...
Modern Democratics, so obviously LIE and SMEAR it's seemingly natural mode.
But I'm not a Democrat, either, so...
A good Green Party member, I feel like (we greens) have to be the police, lording it, over the other two.
And, yes, that attitude earned me a bunch of false smear speach. (Hannity is ok, just a bit irritating, but point is, I don't really watch his show...)
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That practice of labeling people - even (especially!) when you don't know them - is seriously corrosive to society no matter where you are on any socio-political spectrum.
Once I was handing out fundraising flyers. A total stranger walked up to me, having not received nor read a flyer, and screamed "You NAZI!" to my face and stalked away. Seriously? He had precisely zero basis for any comment whatsoever about me, yet somehow he decided that adjective was appropriate. Given the whole antifa "speech is violence" attitude I guess I'm fortunate he didn't punch me.
That sort of snap judgement, based on nothing real yet wildly overreactive, poisons normal discourse. No wonder politics is so dysfunctional these days. The whole point of diplomacy is to talk peacefully with "others". If they're unwilling to even have a discussion but instead just want to "cancel" those who (they think) have a different viewpoint there's no way to even get a conversation started.
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That practice of labeling people - even (especially!) when you don't know them - is seriously corrosive to society no matter where you are on any socio-political spectrum.
Yes, I have had different people accuse me of being a right wing conservative and a left wing socialist within the space of the same day, because I dared to disagree with them on something or other they clearly felt very strongly about and in their mind that placed me squarely in the other group. In reality I am neither particularly conservative nor particularly liberal, and frankly I don't really fit in any of the smaller parties either. I'm an independent in any sense of the word.
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I tell people "I have at least one opinion which will offend everyone". :-DD That's the point: We can be different and still co-exist peacefully. Or at least that used to be possible. Live and Let Live is still a good rule, but it requires all parties to follow it.
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Here's one:
The word is HOBBYIST.
Not "hobbiest."
This is mildly unacceptable from people for whom English is a second (or third) language.
Coming from native speakers this is an unforgivable sin, especially when the computer used to type the word flags it as "not a word." See screenshot, with the non-word highlighted. Hell, my computer autocorrected "hobbiest."
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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That problem probably results from the false equivalence with, for example, “deadly” to “deadliest”, but that is a superlative form of the root word. Perhaps a badly constructed circuit could be denigrated as “hobbiest”, but that is a totally different meaning from your example.
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That problem probably results from the false equivalence with, for example, “deadly” to “deadliest”, but that is a superlative form of the root word. Perhaps a badly constructed circuit could be denigrated as “hobbiest”, but that is a totally different meaning from your example.
Tim, you put too much thought into it.
It's simple illiteracy.
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HP Online tech support chat who don't read or understand a word I say.
I bought a HP Smart Tank 559 printer from John Lewis in the UK, it was delivered Thursday. I went to set it up.
The colours all went in fine, the big bottle of black ink initially filled the black tank up, but it wouldn't recognize it had any black ink in, and I had to do this before the printer would move the bit where I need to I installed the heads into.
Knew it was more than likely faulty, but just in case I'd done something stupid, I contacted HP online chat support.
I explained how it wouldn't recognize the black ink had been put in and until I had done so, I couldn't install the print heads.
Then followed one of the most frustrating conversations I've had this year.
While talking via chat, I noticed how the previously full black tank was now only showing 2/3 full (can actually see tank, not talking software) and I mentioned I was concerned that black ink was leaking somewhere internally.
There followed (very very short version) him cutting and pasting bits of the manual I told him I had already read (and quoted to him the parts he then cut and pasted back to me), him wanting me to send a video to prove what I was saying was true, him telling me the reason it wasn't working was because the black ink wasn't filled up (ignoring and not understanding that it was full and was slowly emptying somewhere internally), and finally him asking me if I had the print heads installed, and when I explained I can't install them during initial setup until there's ink in the tank, him saying I need to install the print-heads and could I please do so now.
At which point (this was after about an hour of him cutting and pasting bits of the manual and not listening to me at all), I told him "Don't worry. I'm arranging to return it to John Lewis" and I ended the chat.
I then contacted John Lewis (this was about 6:30pm Thursday evening) via their online chat, they asked me for my phone number, phoned me straight away, arranged for a new printer to be delivered the next day, a link to arrange free return courier, and said I had 28 days to return faulty one, whole process took less than 10 mins.
Friday new one turned up, I did exactly the same, only this time it recognized the black ink was in there, worked perfectly, and the black ink tank is still full.
I have just got a message from HP saying "Hello, I did not hear back from you so I will close the case for now. Please contact me again if you still need any help. Have a great day"
I fully understand that someone with excellent tech support knowledge is likely to be doing other things than working answering tech support calls for HP. I also have no problem (jobs for UK residents aside) talking to overseas call centers and have talked to very helpful and knowledgeable people before. But the above is the short version of a call that got me so wound up, simply because he knew less than a 5 year old would know after reading the quick install sheet, and who didn't seem to understand anything I said.
rant mode off
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That problem probably results from the false equivalence with, for example, “deadly” to “deadliest”, but that is a superlative form of the root word. Perhaps a badly constructed circuit could be denigrated as “hobbiest”, but that is a totally different meaning from your example.
Tim, you put too much thought into it.
It's simple illiteracy.
Exactly! Have you noticed how often people pluralize words with an apostrophe (catastrophe?) s rather than just adding an s? Of course hobby would pluralize to hobbies (though many would type "hobby's"), so this is a case of mangling what would be a proper plural for use as what should be a different word.
-Pat
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That problem probably results from the false equivalence with, for example, “deadly” to “deadliest”, but that is a superlative form of the root word. Perhaps a badly constructed circuit could be denigrated as “hobbiest”, but that is a totally different meaning from your example.
Tim, you put too much thought into it.
It's simple illiteracy.
English spelling is complicated and does not always follow logical rules. However, there is no excuse for auto-correct inserting non-existent words.
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That problem probably results from the false equivalence with, for example, “deadly” to “deadliest”, but that is a superlative form of the root word. Perhaps a badly constructed circuit could be denigrated as “hobbiest”, but that is a totally different meaning from your example.
Tim, you put too much thought into it.
It's simple illiteracy.
Exactly! Have you noticed how often people pluralize words with an apostrophe (catastrophe?) s rather than just adding an s? Of course hobby would pluralize to hobbies (though many would type "hobby's"), so this is a case of mangling what would be a proper plural for use as what should be a different word.
-Pat
There's even a term for that apostrophe abuse. It's called (in England) the Greengrocer's apostrophe (https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-greengrocers-apostrophe-1690826). Of course that means just one greengrocer owns the error. If more than one greengrocer is involved, it's the "greengrocers' apostrophe."
As we all well know, the crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe.
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A related error, often found in supermarket signs, is to use quotation marks incorrectly for emphasis, as in ' "Fresh" carrots ' (extra space added for clarity), which actually impugns their freshness.
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It's simple illiteracy.
Sometimes. And sometimes it's just mind and fingers losing sync then, like a programmer failing to spot his own typos, the error becomes invisible until posted for posterity.
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Exactly! Have you noticed how often people pluralize words with an apostrophe (catastrophe?) s rather than just adding an s?
Truly annoying, with one exception that I personally practice: I use an apostrophe when pluralizing acronyms. I struggled with this decision for a long time because it's technically inaccurate. However, I had too many cases where people got the trailing "s" confused as part of the base acronym despite using lowercase. So now I write this:
"The address lines of all RAM's have equal length."
...instead of the arguably more accurate:
"The address lines of all RAMs have equal length."
I just got tired of people asking stuff like "Does each RAMS require its own bypass cap?" or "Nobody carries that RAMS component, only something called RAM". Since the apostrophe those misinterpretations have died off. It's worth it, at least for me.
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I use apostrophes for plurals of numbers, e.g., four 7586’s, but learned not to do so for abbreviations, e.g., four FETs. My boss at the time enjoyed catching my errors in reports, e.g., writing “ordinance” for “ordnance”.
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Here's one: The word is HOBBYIST. Not "hobbiest."
Yeah!!! :box: Just like "orientated". Or "preventative". Why do people insist on adding letters and syllables that are not only wrong, but completely unnecessary?!?
Here's another one: "Commentator". WTF?!? If someone is offering a comment, they are a commentor. Not a commentator.
I'm all for more T and A in the world, but let's have the good/fun kind. Not the annoying, needless, illiterate kind.
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I use apostrophes for plurals of numbers, e.g., four 7586’s, but learned not to do so for abbreviations, e.g., four FETs. My boss at the time enjoyed catching my errors in reports, e.g., writing “ordinance” for “ordnance”.
I use your style for numbers too. So I guess my informal rule is that I use apostrophes to prevent misunderstanding where the trailing "S" might be interpreted as part of the thing being discussed. In part numbers, a trailing "S" can definitely be a significant character... so your example is perfect. But I'm sticking with my method for acronyms too, for exactly the same reason.
Ordinance vs. ordnance is a great one.
You'll love this: I write my own patents before submitting them to the attorneys for "legalese". Far cheaper and more accurate to have ME write about the topic than to partially educate an attorney (at our expense) and then pay them to write what I would have written anyway (at our expense) so I can then review it (at our expense). On a network interface patent there was a certain important characteristic about how data was managed through the interface, and I used the word "transit" to describe the conveyance of data from one side of the interface to the other (example: "The byte then transits the interface without having to be written into, and later read from, the shared memory").
I submitted this for legal review, and it came back with a fat invoice for "corrections". That was wildly out of character as I'm a very careful writer. Upon inspection, I found that every single instance of the word "transit" had been replaced by some paralegal with the word "transmit" and we had been billed accordingly. Nobody asked, nobody emailed, nobody read in context - they just "knew" it was related to networking so I must have meant to use the word "transmit", right? Yep, I must have somehow mistyped every single use of the word "transmit" in the entire document. Yeah, that's logical.
The above sentence would thus become the nonsensical "The byte then transmits the interface without having to be written into, and later read from, the shared memory". Pretty cool being able to transmit hardware, eh? Apparently this is part of the overall intellectual property package surrounding my perfecting of the Star Trek transporter. |O
Bad enough to be miscorrected, but then to be BILLED for the service. BTW, they initially argued with me (the author!) but when I cited a couple of their "corrected" examples they conceded defeat, undid their "corrections", and the invoice disappeared.
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"Commentator". WTF?!? If someone is offering a comment, they are a commentor.
'Commentator' is a proper word: "A person who comments on events or on a text" (ODE)
OTOH, 'commentor' is not a valid word. Perhaps you meant 'commenter'. :-DD
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Oh, I know "commentator" is an accepted word. It just doesn't make logical sense.
In English, typically you describe someone who does something by adding "er" or "or" as a suffix to that something.
Solder -> Solderer
Labor -> Laborer
Hunt -> Hunter
Drive -> Driver
Teach -> Teacher
So why not:
Comment -> Commenter (or Commentor)
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Why not indeed!
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commenter (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commenter)
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There's even a term for that apostrophe abuse. It's called (in England) the Greengrocer's apostrophe (https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-greengrocers-apostrophe-1690826). Of course that means just one greengrocer owns the error. If more than one greengrocer is involved, it's the "greengrocers' apostrophe."
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In German we are less polite and call it "Deppenapostroph" (fool's apostrophe).
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English spelling is complicated and does not always follow logical rules.
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This is an understatement, if I ever saw one. ;)
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Oh, I know "commentator" is an accepted word. It just doesn't make logical sense.
In Swedish, "Kommentator" is for instance a sports commenter. It's the only proper from.
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That problem probably results from the false equivalence with, for example, “deadly” to “deadliest”, but that is a superlative form of the root word. Perhaps a badly constructed circuit could be denigrated as “hobbiest”, but that is a totally different meaning from your example.
Tim, you put too much thought into it.
It's simple illiteracy.
Exactly! Have you noticed how often people pluralize words with an apostrophe (catastrophe?) s rather than just adding an s? Of course hobby would pluralize to hobbies (though many would type "hobby's"), so this is a case of mangling what would be a proper plural for use as what should be a different word.
-Pat
There's even a term for that apostrophe abuse. It's called (in England) the Greengrocer's apostrophe (https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-greengrocers-apostrophe-1690826). Of course that means just one greengrocer owns the error. If more than one greengrocer is involved, it's the "greengrocers' apostrophe."
As we all well know, the crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe.
There's a guy on another forum I'm on who misuses them far more often than he uses them correctly - he had one post I recall reading that had eight or ten apostophes in it. Perhaps TWO of them were used correctly, and on top of that there were several instances where there SHOULD have been one and it was missing. It made it difficult to take his posts seriously, and if anyone pointed the errors out to him he'd accuse them of being a Grammar Nazi and act proud of his misuse, saying that was just how he wrote. (And in my head I'd think "yeah, you write like an illiterate moron.")
Nearly always had to bite my tongue to not reply to his more egregious posts with a link to the Oatmeal's "How To Use An Apostrophe" comic.
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe
-Pat
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(fool's apostrophe)
Or fools' apostrophe? :-//
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"Commentator". WTF?!? If someone is offering a comment, they are a commentor.
'Commentator' is a proper word: "A person who comments on events or on a text" (ODE)
OTOH, 'commentor' is not a valid word. Perhaps you meant 'commenter'. :-DD
There is a difference between a “commuter” and a “commutator”, even though they share a root.
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Got to ask, Tim: why quote my post? Something wrong with it?
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Got to ask, Tim: why quote my post? Something wrong with it?
No, just continuing the discussion about commentator vs. commenter with a parallel example.
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In Swedish, "Kommentator" is for instance a sports commenter. It's the only proper from.
Exactly. A sports commenter. Why does it need a different word?
It feels like when people say "irregardless" to make themselves sound erudite. "The bigger the word, the smarter I will sound! Yeah, that's it!"
The problem with this word is it's become so commonplace that people just accept it. I fear that will happen to "orientate" and "preventative" too. To say nothing of "pre-existing".
The dumbing down of language....
EDIT: I decided to dig into "pre-existing" a bit more. The Chicago Manual of Style says this:
Q. What’s the difference, if any, between the words existing and preexisting? Isn’t the prefix pre- redundant?
A. You can use pre- in ways that are redundant, but it’s a valid prefix, and preexisting has its own meaning. For instance, if you want to describe dinosaurs in relation to humans, existing doesn’t work, but preexisting does.
...which ironically means the present common usage of "pre-existing" (to describe an existing medical condition) is exactly backwards. The strict definition of "pre-existing", according to the above, is something which used to exist but no longer does. If it still exists, then "existing" would be the correct word. So a "pre-existing medical condition" would properly be one which used to exist but no longer does.
Is it too much to ask of anyone that enters politics to be able to effectively communicate via written words? Legislation, their actual work product, is literally written words. {sigh} We get the government we deserve.
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Is it too much to ask of anyone that enters politics to be able to effectively communicate via written words? Legislation, their actual work product, is literally written words. {sigh} We get the government we deserve.
Yes, it is. I believe that the vague wording is intentional - easier to stretch the boundaries and expand the scope later that way - it gets the camel's nose under the tent, so to speak. Pass something that on the surface sounds innocuous, then start stretching and bending to suit your actual purposes.
It all depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is...
-Pat
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"Pre-existing" is not redundant in its normal usage: it means something that existed before a given point in time.
A "pre-existing condition" is one that existed before the start of ones insurance coverage or similar event.
An "existing condition" is one that was true at that point in time.
A subtle distinction, but one that is important to the insurance industry.
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English spelling is complicated and does not always follow logical rules.
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This is an understatement, if I ever saw one. ;)
"I before E, except after C and a laundry list of other exceptions!"
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Here's one: The word is HOBBYIST. Not "hobbiest."
Yeah!!! :box: Just like "orientated". Or "preventative". Why do people insist on adding letters and syllables that are not only wrong, but completely unnecessary?!?
How about "I am wanting" instead of "I want?"
I honestly don't understand that. Why use three words when two suffices?
There was an episode of "The X-Files" which was basically Mulder and Scully participating in a reality show like "C-O-P-S." Mulder was totally into goofing on the whole thing, and Scully was just sighing throughout at him. The best part of the show was how it parodied that ridiculous "cop speak" that literally (as in literally, not figuratively or virtually) law-enforcement agent uses. I guess they think it makes them seem smarter than they are. The line that stood out was one where some sergeant was addressing the press after the police sketch guy was found murdered: "He died in the line of duty, while serving the department in an artistic capacity."
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Another one, inspired by the What do we mean by bandwidth? (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/what-do-we-mean-by-bw-10kbps/msg3656699/) thread ...
The use of words like "bandwidth" and "optics" outside of their actual technical meaning.
For instance, "I don't have the bandwidth to do this, that and the other thing." Maybe if you could frequency-division multiplex yourself you would!
"We need to consider the optics of the situation." As we say in New Jersey, "fuck outta here with that shit!"
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For instance, "I don't have the bandwidth to do this, that and the other thing." Maybe if you could frequency-division multiplex yourself you would!
I first heard that within Microsoft, it was a very common expression. I always liked it, it's very intuitive, I know exactly what it means when it's said.
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Quote
(fool's apostrophe)
Or fools' apostrophe?
German can be way less precise than English native speakers are led to believe. "Deppen" could be a whole range of cases. However, consistent with with the "greengrocer's apostrophe", I stand by my original translation.
Edit: To illustrate this point, I give you a conjugation table for "Depp" (fool): :palm:
Singular Plural
Nominativ der Depp die Deppen
Genitiv des Deppen der Deppen
Dativ dem Deppen den Deppen
Akkusativ den Depp die Deppen
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for me,its when a video made by an american,uses weight measurments in lbs(pounds) and talks of speed in kilometers per hour,maybe in old school but in the uk we use miles per hour for speed and kilograms for weight,why the hell is this so common for yank documentries to do this?,it sends hy head in a spin and benifits no one,anyone else pissed off with this too?
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m3vu, let me guess, you tell your body weight in stone, pound, and ounce? >:D
Regarding the U.S.American aversion against metric: They use thermometers to measure Fahrenheit...
In general aviation there is a distinct usage of length measurement units. The unit changes with the type of length (e.g. feet for altitude, meters for visibility, knots for speed, nautical miles for distance traveled). A beautiful arrangement, which has led to some rather tragic accidents. Being a German engineer rooted in SI, I really enjoyed flying seventy year-old crates which gave IAS in mph. And don't get me started on inches of mercury for pressure. Makes you feel like at the doctor's.
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for me,its when a video made by an american,uses weight measurments in lbs(pounds) and talks of speed in kilometers per hour,maybe in old school but in the uk we use miles per hour for speed and kilograms for weight,why the hell is this so common for yank documentries to do this?,it sends hy head in a spin and benifits no one,anyone else pissed off with this too?
Are you sure it isn't a Canadian? They use kilometers to measure distance, Celsius to measure temperature and kilograms to measure the weight of food in the grocery store but most of them still use pounds to measure a person's weight.
I typically use miles to measure distance, pounds to measure weight and measure temperature in Fahrenheit but I know metric too and can work in that when it makes sense to do so. I've driven foreign cars all my life so most of my tools are metric. I use Celsius when dealing in scientific matters but prefer Fahrenheit when referring to ambient temperature due to the greater resolution.
People who live near the US-Canada border tend to be more familiar with both measurement systems and mix and match depending on context and who they're dealing with. Neither country is particularly pure in one system or another, they both use a mix to some degree.
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How about "I am wanting" instead of "I want?"
That reminds me of this gem: "The truck needs repaired". Or "The house needs painted". Instead of "The trust needs to be repaired" or "The house needs to be painted".
I hear this a lot and it drives me crazy. In this case words are missing, instead of needless words or letters or syllables added, but the effect is the same: The speaker has labeled themselves as illiterate.
Nothing, though, beats this one guy I heard speaking to an audience. He was a genuinely nice guy with whom I'd spoken prior to his addressing the assembled masses. I got this impression that he was in over his head a bit, but who am I to judge? I was running the sound system so I mic'd him up and brought up his fader when he started to speak. He covered one topic for a bit, then alerted his audience that the topic was changing by using the word "segue". Except that he pronounced it "see-gew". I nearly died, I felt so bad for the guy. A ripple ran through the audience and that was it. He kept speaking but it didn't matter, the entire tone of the gathering had changed and not in his favor.
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How about "I am wanting" instead of "I want?"
That reminds me of this gem: "The truck needs repaired". Or "The house needs painted". Instead of "The trust needs to be repaired" or "The house needs to be painted".
I hear this a lot and it drives me crazy. In this case words are missing, instead of needless words or letters or syllables added, but the effect is the same: The speaker has labeled themselves as illiterate.
Nothing, though, beats this one guy I heard speaking to an audience. He was a genuinely nice guy with whom I'd spoken prior to his addressing the assembled masses. I got this impression that he was in over his head a bit, but who am I to judge? I was running the sound system so I mic'd him up and brought up his fader when he started to speak. He covered one topic for a bit, then alerted his audience that the topic was changing by using the word "segue". Except that he pronounced it "see-gew". I nearly died, I felt so bad for the guy. A ripple ran through the audience and that was it. He kept speaking but it didn't matter, the entire tone of the gathering had changed and not in his favor.
That seems to be a mid-Atlantic/central US trait - I've heard it a lot from people I know from Pennsylvania and Ohio. It grates on me a bit, too. "The truck needs repair" or "The truck needs to be repaired" Pick a tense!!! Another I've heard from that region is "That should be suffice". No, either it should be sufficient, or it should suffice.
-Pat
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Here's a new neologism (heh) that I came across on the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-58255378): de-arrested. WTF is wrong with "released" in this context?
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Growing up in Minnesota, everyone around me (friends and family) would ask "Are you coming with?" I did not learn that was incorrect English until German class in high school, where we were not allowed to translate "Kommen Sie mit?" as anything but "Are you coming along?"
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Growing up in Minnesota, everyone around me (friends and family) would ask "Are you coming with?"
I had never heard that until I met my high school sweetheart and her family. Drove me crazy for a while.
I married her anyway. :-+ 41 years later we're still going strong, and I must confess I utter that phrase myself once in a while. :palm:
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Growing up in Minnesota, everyone around me (friends and family) would ask "Are you coming with?" I did not learn that was incorrect English until German class in high school, where we were not allowed to translate "Kommen Sie mit?" as anything but "Are you coming along?"
"Are you coming with?" - sounds like a direct translation from a Scandinavian language. Any Scandinavians in Minnesota?
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Ja, sure, yabetcha!
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Growing up in Minnesota, everyone around me (friends and family) would ask "Are you coming with?" I did not learn that was incorrect English until German class in high school, where we were not allowed to translate "Kommen Sie mit?" as anything but "Are you coming along?"
Ah, Lübke English in the wild...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbke_English
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"Are you coming with?" - sounds like a direct translation from a Scandinavian language. Any Scandinavians in Minnesota?
Usually shortened to just "Coming with?" or "Come with ?" in Northern England. There's a rise towards the end of the phrase to indicate a question rather than a statement.
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New pet peeve.
When a couple says “we” are pregnant…
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for me,its when a video made by an american,uses weight measurments in lbs(pounds) and talks of speed in kilometers per hour,maybe in old school but in the uk we use miles per hour for speed and kilograms for weight,why the hell is this so common for yank documentries to do this?,it sends hy head in a spin and benifits no one,anyone else pissed off with this too?
But it's you who are weird!
Why on earth would you use speed in mph?
What I sorely hate is the "re-Imperialisation by stealth" that has occurred in Oz.
We have people who would have been far too young to have been taught Imperial measures saying "About an inch", or whatever.
Another one is the propensity to sell beer in "Pints".
"Pints" as a beer measure had disppeared into the distant mists of history, well before I came of drinking age, with the Aussie standard drink sizes being variously, the "Glass", "Middy", "Pot", Schooner, etc.
All of these were defined in Imperial measures, but with Metrification, were redefined in Metric terms.
Everything was fine for a while, until a few places started selling "Pints" to snotty little "trendoids" who liked to pretend they were in London.
Unfortunately, it took off & spread like a Pandemic, till you are battling to get a Middy or Schooner anywhere!
To add insult to injury, some of the "Pints" are the wimply little US version, not the full hairy chested Brit one!
Yet another, when we Metricated, many of us were happy to say goodbye to Whitworth, UNF, BSF & BA threads, but go into any big Hardware store today, & you will find most of the shelf full of Whitworth & UNF bolts & nuts with Metric a poor cousin.
India produces an avalanche of good quality, but cheap, Imperial screws, & for most home hardware type jobs it doesn't matter, so the shops are just maximising their profit.
It still makes me go "Aaarrrrgggghhhh!", though. >:( >:( >:(
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It still makes me go "Aaarrrrgggghhhh!", though. >:( >:( >:(
Which makes you sound like a proper pirate, while you're having a drink! :-+
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Here's a new neologism (heh) that I came across on the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-58255378): de-arrested. WTF is wrong with "released" in this context?
Next time I get on an airplane, I'm going to "plane" the plane. If they can call it "deplaning" when getting off, I can call it "planing" when I get on!
Then there's "disembark." You embark when you get onto the boat, and you disembark when you get off the boat. How about simply barking when you get off the boat?
Next, there's "disenfranchise." When you give someone the right to vote, they get the franchise. They are enfranchised. So why is it disenfranchised and not defranchised?
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"Pre-existing" is not redundant in its normal usage: it means something that existed before a given point in time.
A "pre-existing condition" is one that existed before the start of ones insurance coverage or similar event.
An "existing condition" is one that was true at that point in time.
A subtle distinction, but one that is important to the insurance industry.
But the airline industry has this oddball term "preboarding," defined as "getting on board the plane first," but if you take it literally it means "get on the plane before getting on the plane."
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How about "I am wanting" instead of "I want?"
That reminds me of this gem: "The truck needs repaired". Or "The house needs painted". Instead of "The trust needs to be repaired" or "The house needs to be painted".
In Texas, there's a defense for the use of lethal force: "He needed killin'." Which is slightly better than "He needs killed," but, you know, Texas.
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Transcript of Texas criminal trial:
(Defendant) "He needed killin'"
(Judge) "I don't want you killin' nobody who don't need killin'"
(Defendant) "I hear you"
(Judge) "Well, there ya go..."
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(Judge, glares at audience) "Y'all got that? Good. Nah gid outta me courthouse."
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Guilty until proven innocent..
Or innocent before proven guilty !
🤔
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Then there's "disembark." You embark when you get onto the boat, and you disembark when you get off the boat. How about simply barking when you get off the boat?
Debark?
Unbark?
Disbark?
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Guilty until proven innocent..
'unless'
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New pet peeve.
When a couple says “we” are pregnant…
I've noticed that too and I also thought it was weird. If the break up is it still "we" or does it suddenly become "she"? Only one individual becomes pregnant, that's just biology.
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Having been down that road, after my wife had extreme difficulty getting pregnant, I understand this use of "we" and believe me, it feels appropriate.
I think most couples who say "we" are trying to acknowledge the role of the Dad in the experience, and that's a very positive thing, so I give them a pass on this particular technicality. Our son is our "science project", maximum IVF technology, ICSI, the whole package. I swear after mixing meds, and giving my wife injections at all hours of the day and night for weeks, and running the ultrasound machine when the Docs/Techs couldn't figure it out, I have a minor degree in Assisted Reproductive Technology. While my involvement pales in comparison to what my wife went through, I was very much involved and we spoke of "we" and "us".
The one I don't understand is when the British press speaks of a woman "falling pregnant" or "fell pregnant". What's that reference mean?!?
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It's always weird to me when I hear of people going to great lengths trying to get pregnant. The vast majority of my friends who have kids weren't really trying. Either they were indifferent and not really trying not to, or they were actively trying not to and it happened anyway. There is only one I can think of who went to lengths to make it happen and he ended up with severely autistic twins. Whatever the case, raising children definitely does not fit my lifestyle, I'll leave it for those who really want to do so.
That actually brings up another peeve, every once in a while my partner and I have encountered someone pressuring us to have kids. We have clearly stated that we are NOT interested in doing that but a few people don't seem to take no for an answer. It was only after I passed 40 and could legitimately say I was too old to be comfortable starting a family that it started to ease up. Having witnessed the results of a few people who never wanted kids, ended up with them and are horrible parents who seem to view their offspring as an inconvenience, I cannot understand why anyone would take issue with someone recognizing ahead of time that they are not well suited to be a parent and choosing not to. With something like 10 billion people on the planet it's not as if we are facing a shortage and need everyone to chip in and reproduce.
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I do wish there were some way (other than personal responsibility! :-DD) to insure that those who don't want children don't have them, and those that do can do so without undue hardship.
We were married for 20+ years before having our one and only son. As my wife approached 40YO it became evident it wasn't "just going to happen" and we deeply desired to have a child. This was not a case of "Oops, an accident". No one was ever able to diagnose the problem which is how we ended up doing the Full Monty of IVF+ICSI.
And it was so totally worth it. Our son is truly one of the finest humans we know, and that's not just a proud Dad talking. As an infant he showed some signs of what I interpreted as potential autism but I specifically worked with him as a baby to avoid that and now, at 19YO, he is perfect in every way. A competitive swimmer (so no physical issues), in his junior year of his BSEE degree (so no mental issues), can play in a crowd but also study alone, an internationally ranked drone racing pilot that's been on TeamUSA at the World Cup two different years, etc.
I understand your comments about "went to lengths to make it happen and he ended up with severely autistic twins". I was frankly terrified of "pushing too hard" and overriding nature with technology. But as a result I kept a close eye on his early development and actively managed what I perceived to be risk factors. I don't know if other people pay attention like that, or if any of it mattered at all, but here he is and things couldn't be more perfect.
Well, OK, they could be more perfect in the sense that we wanted more children and went the IVF route a couple more times but it never worked again. Amazing odds BTW... they say you have a 30% chance of carrying to term for each attempt so "don't get your hopes up on the first couple of attempts". Yet after everything else had failed, IVF worked perfectly the very first time - and then never again.
We cherish our son and are thankful for every single day with him. He's soon off to school again and has openly told us that while he'll come home for visits, he likely won't be home "to live" again due to internships and other opportunities. Emotionally we hate it, but we recognize this is exactly how his life should be progressing. Parenthood isn't for everyone and we respect that, but it's been the single best thing to ever happen in our lives.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not even remotely suggesting that someone who wants kids shouldn't try to have them, or that they shouldn't necessarily resort to technology to achieve their goals. I totally recognize that for a lot of people parenthood is the greatest thing they will ever experience and I respect that. On the flip side, I wish more people would accept that it isn't for everybody, not everyone gets that same enjoyment out of it and not everyone flips and becomes a great parent once their kid is born. I think people who choose not to reproduce should be respected for being responsible rather than chastised for not doing their part or whatever. I don't expect the whole world to be fascinated with engineering the way I am and I wish they would not expect me to be as fascinated with human reproduction as they are. Different strokes...
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I didn't misunderstand your comments and, in fact, fully agree with them!
WRT "with something like 10 billion people on the planet" and people "pressuring us to have kids", I do find the hypocrisy aggravating. Generally speaking the same people who favor zero (or negative) population growth are also those who favor increased social services and entitlements. That's disingenuous and hypocritical, because the bigger the "social safety net" the more workers required to fund it via taxes. Most of the social programs in the USA were created decades ago when the demographics were radically different; the ratio of producers to consumers was many 10's to 1. Fast forward to today when I recently heard that the ratio of Social Security producers to consumers is under 5:1. Maybe my numbers are off a bit (I haven't independently confirmed) but that's an order of magnitude shift and the demographics of the USA are headed the same place as, say, Japan where they are very open about having a serious social funding crisis.
I don't care which way folks want to advocate, but they should at least have the honesty of a consistent position. You can't both want ZPG/NPG and greater tax-and-spend on social programs. They need to pick one or the other and accept the baggage that comes with their choice.
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Generally speaking the same people who favor zero (or negative) population growth are also those who favor increased social services and entitlements. That's disingenuous and hypocritical, because the bigger the "social safety net" the more workers required to fund it via taxes. Most of the social programs in the USA were created decades ago when the demographics were radically different; the ratio of producers to consumers was many 10's to 1. Fast forward to today when I recently heard that the ratio of Social Security producers to consumers is under 5:1. Maybe my numbers are off a bit (I haven't independently confirmed) but that's an order of magnitude shift and the demographics of the USA are headed the same place as, say, Japan where they are very open about having a serious social funding crisis.
I agree with you in principal, but I think I'm somewhere near the middle. On one hand I think a social safety net is important, within reason, obviously the money has to come from somewhere and it can't be so comprehensive that it is a permanent replacement for work. On the other hand the system we have of relying on perpetual growth in a world where resources are finite is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. Creating more people to generate more tax revenue cannot possibly keep going forever, because at some point an increasing number of those new people become old and unable to work and the population cannot increase infinitely forever for obvious reasons. I think there's plenty of room for discussion and compromise on this balance, but what gets me is the tendency of people to seek simple solutions to complex problems and boil everything down to isolated cause-effect relationships. "Just fix x, y and z and everything will be great!" Well except you look a little closer and x affects a whole slew of other things, as does y and z, and everything interacts. It might be easier for someone to understand who has ever aligned a CRT projection TV where there is a big grid of pots and every adjustment affects every other adjustment so it all has to be done in a precise order and usually through several iterations before it's good enough, and it is never perfect.
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I agree with you in principal, but I think I'm somewhere near the middle. On one hand I think a social safety net is important, within reason, obviously the money has to come from somewhere and it can't be so comprehensive that it is a permanent replacement for work.
Agreed. There needs to be a balance. If people truly need short-term assistance that's a proper role for a caring society. I don't pretend to have the answers but some sort of means testing on a case-by-case basis seems warranted to help with one's most basic needs. A true "safety net", as in "when things get truly desperate". Unfortunately we seem to swing wildly between "nothing" and "cradle to grave handouts". And those wild swings generate tension between the various strata of people... if we're in a "nothing" phase the destitute are angry at the well-off, and if we're in a "cradle-to-grave" period the taxpayers feel ripped off by the beneficiaries.
I suspect the vast majority of people would be happy with a stable, transparently fair temporary assistance program where means testing (of some kind) helps insure tax dollars aren't being skimmed. That would inspire confidence in the system, helping to damp the oscillations. Unfortunately, politicians benefit from conflict and strife and class warfare (it gives them enemies with which to distract voters) so the system is sort of rigged against such stability.
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My pet peeve of the day: language lawyers.
Standards are nice and very useful, but reality always trumps theory. Whenever I need to choose between code that is known to work in practice, and code that is supposed to work because the standard says so but in reality does not work, guess which one I choose?
There are those who say C89 cannot support threads. Yet, POSIX threads (POSIX.1c) were standardized in '95, and worked just fine in e.g. Linux. The rational explanation is that the standard did not fully capture the actual implementation users relied on, and I fully agree –– even the later C99, C11, and C17 still do not fully capture the real feature set current users require.
However, the C language lawyers claim that it is the users that are in the wrong. This is insane. Standards cannot dictate reality; they're not SCP reality-benders. They can only describe a consensus understanding, and if the description does not work in practice, it is the description – and therefore the standard – that needs fixing.
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However, the C language lawyers claim that it is the users that are in the wrong. This is insane. Standards cannot dictate reality; they're not SCP reality-benders. They can only describe a consensus understanding, and if the description does not work in practice, it is the description – and therefore the standard – that needs fixing.
Or the ever popular alternative, create a new standard to "fix" the previous standard.
Oh, and introduce some new issues as well.
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Next time I get on an airplane, I'm going to "plane" the plane. If they can call it "deplaning" when getting off, I can call it "planing" when I get on!
Didn't like port, never drank starboard.
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... Our son is our "science project", maximum IVF technology, ICSI, the whole package. ...
Mmmh. Turns out I am unable to read that as anything other than iSCSI. :-//
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However, the C language lawyers claim that it is the users that are in the wrong. This is insane. Standards cannot dictate reality; they're not SCP reality-benders. They can only describe a consensus understanding, and if the description does not work in practice, it is the description – and therefore the standard – that needs fixing.
Or the ever popular alternative, create a new standard to "fix" the previous standard.
Oh, and introduce some new issues as well.
No, that approach is by the idiots who think they can affect what others do by writing a paper describing what others should do, instead of leading by example.
Language lawyers are a different set of idiots.
(They're idiots, because history has shown that that almost never works. You need to invoke god or ghosts or something else supernatural to make it stick. The few exceptions to the rule are articles like Magna Carta and various constitutions, that happen to be brilliant and actually work in practice [but even they tend to be based on observations of existing reality and human behaviour, rather than invented rules humans should follow]. Only idiots and those suffering from megalomania believe they can invent something new that is even more brilliant and useful while completely detached from practical reality and considerations.)
The C standard prior to C11 did not attempt to describe the rules compilers should follow; they recorded the existing consensus among the C compilers.
Annex K in C11 (the bounds-checking "safe" variants of many standard C library functions) was a major push from Microsoft (that has vowed to never implement C99 fully in its C frontend to its C++ compiler), and outside Windows, is basically either nonexistent or unused. Nothing new from Microsoft; they did push OOXML as a "standard" just so that they could claim .docx and others a "standard" format, even though it really is just an XML format memory dump from some MS applications, and completely unsuitable as interchange formats.
You could say "language lawyerism" is a myopic affliction that involves the inability to see or understand reality; using some arbitrary text, and its syntax, as a replacement for reality: an axiomatic truth that is inviolable and above all practical considerations. This affliction is a basic requirement for successful defence lawyers, hence the name.
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Re:. Pet Peeves around apostrophes, (a few days ago).
My (advanced) reasoning seems to prefer the using of the different (spelling), for cases of 'SOMEONE EXPLAINING SOMETHING'.
So, a 'commentor' individually, stays spelled that way, while a commentator just sits there, commenting in a more formal or even more 'professional' or on-the-job context. That, I think, starts us on the road, to satisfactory (and consistent) word handling.
BUT, the whole, open, world doesn't practice consistency, consistently. (funny).
I once googled 'the'. Of course, that was simply another crazy-assed approach, to self-entertainment via smart phone.
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I once googled 'the'. Of course, that was simply another crazy-assed approach, to self-entertainment via smart phone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The)
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Power hungry control freaks dictating rules about your password via their software... like Hitler.
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Google “Godwin’s Law”.
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OK, NOW, folks, gonna mention, seriously, a media source, potentially COMPLETELY discredited (even to the point, of self-discredit!
THE SIMPSONS tv animated sitcom.
We, no shii, watched an episode every night, at the shop. Closing time being 7 pm. Kind of an employee perk, reward for good sales day.
(Besides, Hayward city traffic was killer, so we would wait out).
Anyhow; the SIMPSONS writers would often indulge in WORD USE MASSACRE with a satire bend.
One example I can remember (it was 20 years, now) was a deliberate mispronounced:
"Nothing can possib-lie go wrong...uh that's 'possi-bly go wrong..."
... That's deliberate, multiple language errors, used to dispell any trust / reliance, on the rocket engineers nearing launch.
I think a venture back to those (late 1990s) SIMPSON tv shows would reveal a pattern, of many such deliberate gaffs: making Homer Simpson et al look stupid. (Duh).
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Google “Godwin’s Law”.
I’m absolutely aware!
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Yes, I just googled Godwin's law:
'...power hungry control freaks, in protest demonstration...'
But, hey look: (they) are wearing 'tie-die' shirts, AKA 'WOODSTOCK FESTIVAL'!
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The probability that spark plugs or butterflies will get a mention also approaches 1 :D
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(LOL)
I was just alluding to the probability that a real-genuine NAZI, meaning Nazi Party member, old school that's 1940s, ok. And the point being, a '1942' Nazi wouldn't be caught DEAD, wearing a tie-die to a protest.
Somewhat immature and jerky, but reading all this thread puts me in that (playfully - sarcastic) mood.
Actually, this thread, on pet peeves, is chock full of good info. (Also see recommendation for 'orange oil' to clean up old plastic 'goop'. Very helpful.
-- Rick B.
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I once googled 'the'. Of course, that was simply another crazy-assed approach, to self-entertainment via smart phone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The)
"I'm just another Western guy
With desires that can't be satisfied"
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Actually (and thanks, mansaxel) that's partially insomnia / part fascination with smart phones that get you on the internet. Irony is: The more interesting or 'engaging' the movie, the faster the SNOOZES come!
As for 'unsatisfied', that has alternate words, like 'drive', 'ambition'. Those are the people whose BIOGRAPHYs fascinate me, as a growing Engineer.
Age 67, and still waiting for 'success': but that is the given territory. Million point 2 dollars gets you a 'nice' home in the (California) 'YAY AREA'.
(Note: Yay Area I stole that one, from Oakland Rapper.
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Here's one.
Xilinx and the others have ISERDES and OSERDES elements in their I/O.
So there's an Input SERializerDESerializer and an Output SERializerDESerializer.
PUHHHH-LEEEEEZE.
There is a deserializer (input is implied) and a serializer (output is implied). Simple. Right?
I suppose this is the modern version of the UARTRX and the UARTTX. At least they don't call it Input UARTRX.
(And yes I'm aware of the wall of confusion that surrounds RS-232 and whether RX is an input or an output.)
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modern version of the UARTRX and the UARTTX
I sometimes use that kind of thing to note the RX is from the UART and not to be confused with GPSRX or whatever.
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> And yes I'm aware of the wall of confusion that surrounds RS-232 and whether RX is an input or an output
To the extent that I breathed a huge sigh of relief when ST made their UART TX and RX swappable in software. The number of times that a hardware designer and a software engineer had screwed that up by not communicating sufficiently ... blood boiling doesn't even come close...
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The number of times that a hardware designer and a software engineer had screwed that up
Wouldn't that be an entirely hardware issue? The software bod can only use what the hardware person provides.
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Software bods often do amazing things in spite of hardware designers.
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Sometimes to spite them, too :)
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> And yes I'm aware of the wall of confusion that surrounds RS-232 and whether RX is an input or an output
To the extent that I breathed a huge sigh of relief when ST made their UART TX and RX swappable in software. The number of times that a hardware designer and a software engineer had screwed that up by not communicating sufficiently ... blood boiling doesn't even come close...
I once worked at a company where the hardware engineer reversed RX and TX EVERY SINGLE TIME. He never once made a board where they were correct. Whenever a new board came out, first order of business was to hook up a scope and show the signal, and tell him that he once again had them reversed. I understand the confusion that can happen, but what I don't understand is that once an experienced engineer realizes the reason for the confusion, why they can't simply trace the RX/TX lines on the device they're connecting them to, and figure out which is which for the device they're designing. Maybe they do, but some of them still can't realize that RX/TX need to be crossed between devices. I don't know...to me it's so simple.
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I once worked at a company where the hardware engineer reversed RX and TX EVERY SINGLE TIME. He never once made a board where they were correct. Whenever a new board came out, first order of business was to hook up a scope and show the signal, and tell him that he once again had them reversed. I understand the confusion that can happen, but what I don't understand is that once an experienced engineer realizes the reason for the confusion, why they can't simply trace the RX/TX lines on the device they're connecting them to, and figure out which is which for the device they're designing. Maybe they do, but some of them still can't realize that RX/TX need to be crossed between devices. I don't know...to me it's so simple.
It's a shame you couldn't take a look over the design BEFORE a run of boards was made. If I had screwed that up more than once or twice I'd get in the habit of adding some 0 ohm jumpers that could configure it straight or crossed just in case.
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Agreed. It IS so simple, and yet so easily confused, that I've always personally sat down with the artwork and the spec sheets and traced out the artwork myself. I keep Gerber file viewers on all of my machines specifically for this purpose.
SPI can have the same confusion. "Input" is usually from the perspective of the device in question, but sometimes devices intended as SPI slaves "helpfully" label their signals to match the SPI master. I much prefer MISO and MOSI, which are unambiguous, but few use those.
In the case of your habitual offender, perhaps it would have been wise to surreptitously include some 0R jumpers. Then it just becomes a matter of which two get stuffed. EDIT: I see that james_s posted the same idea while I was typing it! 8)
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Agreed. It IS so simple, and yet so easily confused, that I've always personally sat down with the artwork and the spec sheets and traced out the artwork myself. I keep Gerber file viewers on all of my machines specifically for this purpose.
SPI can have the same confusion. "Input" is usually from the perspective of the device in question, but sometimes devices intended as SPI slaves "helpfully" label their signals to match the SPI master. I much prefer MISO and MOSI, which are unambiguous, but few use those.
In the case of your habitual offender, perhaps it would have been wise to surreptitously include some 0R jumpers. Then it just becomes a matter of which two get stuffed. EDIT: I see that james_s posted the same idea while I was typing it! 8)
The (senior) hardware engineer was older than me, and demanded all the younger engineers respect him. I once tried to tell him directly he was wrong, and got loudly yelled at, so after that I kept my mouth shut and just showed him the scope results when I was testing, and let him, on his own, realize that TX and RX were swapped. I didn't have any control over the hardware design to enforce the use of jumpers, etc.
He also always labeled SPI lines, "SDO/SDI" and I once told him how it was much easier to understand using "MISO/MOSI" labels, and again he yelled at me for overstepping my boundaries, though after that magically all new designs had "MISO/MOSI" labels.
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I would still voice my concerns, and at least in this era I would do it in email so there is a record of it. If somebody wants to yell at me that's fine, they'll look like an idiot once they realize I was right. It isn't disrespectful to point out an error, you don't have to call the guy a moron, just point out that you believe the pins are swapped. I've had multiple bosses commend the fact that I'm not afraid to voice concerns, even when it's with someone levels above me. I don't keep pushing the issue after they say no, but I'll call it out and make my opinion known.
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Agreed. It IS so simple, and yet so easily confused, that I've always personally sat down with the artwork and the spec sheets and traced out the artwork myself. I keep Gerber file viewers on all of my machines specifically for this purpose.
SPI can have the same confusion. "Input" is usually from the perspective of the device in question, but sometimes devices intended as SPI slaves "helpfully" label their signals to match the SPI master. I much prefer MISO and MOSI, which are unambiguous, but few use those.
In the case of your habitual offender, perhaps it would have been wise to surreptitously include some 0R jumpers. Then it just becomes a matter of which two get stuffed. EDIT: I see that james_s posted the same idea while I was typing it! 8)
The (senior) hardware engineer was older than me, and demanded all the younger engineers respect him. I once tried to tell him directly he was wrong, and got loudly yelled at, so after that I kept my mouth shut and just showed him the scope results when I was testing, and let him, on his own, realize that TX and RX were swapped. I didn't have any control over the hardware design to enforce the use of jumpers, etc.
He also always labeled SPI lines, "SDO/SDI" and I once told him how it was much easier to understand using "MISO/MOSI" labels, and again he yelled at me for overstepping my boundaries, though after that magically all new designs had "MISO/MOSI" labels.
He obviously just likes yelling... The best thing to do is to just let that pass right over you! Some people are just a little "difficult"...
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I much prefer MISO and MOSI, which are unambiguous, but few use those.
And even fewer from now on.
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I would still voice my concerns, and at least in this era I would do it in email so there is a record of it. If somebody wants to yell at me that's fine, they'll look like an idiot once they realize I was right. It isn't disrespectful to point out an error, you don't have to call the guy a moron, just point out that you believe the pins are swapped. I've had multiple bosses commend the fact that I'm not afraid to voice concerns, even when it's with someone levels above me. I don't keep pushing the issue after they say no, but I'll call it out and make my opinion known.
Unfortunately that would have never worked, as the hardware engineer had been friends with the company CEO for a very long time. Anyone in the company that crossed him ended up leaving in short order. Thankfully the company I'm with now has a hardware engineer that understands UART RX and TX, and already used "MISO/MOSI" for SPI labels before I got there. I now have final approval before any PCBs are made, and I've yet to discover him mixing up RX and TX.
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Well if people keep leaving eventually that's only going to harm the company. It's hard to argue with fact, if you point something out, get yelled at and then it turns out that you were right, it's pretty hard to justify getting rid of you, and frankly at that point I wouldn't want to work in such a toxic and broken culture anyway.
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Often, you get remembered as being a pain in the arse more than you are for being right. In fact, being right can amplify the PITA bit.
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Well if that's the case then I don't want to work there anyway. I've never worried about it and so far it has worked for me.
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I much prefer MISO and MOSI, which are unambiguous, but few use those.
And even fewer from now on.
::) Oh for fuck's sake, say it's main and secondary and move on.
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I use MISO and MOSI, they make sense. Main and secondary? That's ambiguous, is main the master that is always in control or is it the primary that is usually in control? Is secondary capable of being in control if main is busy or is it a slave? I would find it hilarious if it wasn't so annoying that people tiptoe around language to describe relationships between inanimate objects as if they have feelings and rights, it's inane and idiotic, a fake, feel-good solution to a made up problem. On topic, that is definitely one of my pet peeves.
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Agreed! I'm "offended" when I'm told I can't use a perfectly understandable word or phrase because someone else used it in a manner that some yet additional person found objectionable. That quickly devolves to having a limited rather than rich vocabulary based on the whims of entirely separate third parties who get to declare what words are, or are not, acceptable. Today. Or tomorrow. I don't have time to keep track of the socially acceptable, politically correct moving targets so I just *communicate* clearly with zero malice. If someone imagines an inference I didn't intend, that's on them.
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It seems to be lost on some people that language is a tool for communication and words are like buckets that can be used to transfer a message. The words themselves are only a vehicle, what matters is the message behind them. There is this very strange concept recently that a person is somehow responsible for how another person may interpret what they say, a concept that completely falls apart under scrutiny when we acknowledge that humans are not telepathic beings and there is some inherent ambiguity in language itself. It is totally futile to try to ensure that another person will never read malice into something that was said or that a totally innocent word will not trigger some kind of PTSD in another person by way of association. It is entirely the responsibility of the individual to seek whatever form of therapy they require in order to deal with their PTSD rather than expecting the whole world to alter their vocabulary to appease that individual. There is a point in life where one has seen it play out enough times to know just how futile it is, because it absolutely does not end, ever. If you manage to ban some word, another word immediately takes its place, because the problem was never the word itself in the first place. If someone thinks I'm an asshole because I refuse to make what they see as a trivial change so be it, I think they're an asshole for insisting I change to suit them and or insisting that I actually meant something other than what I said. I refuse to play the game, I just won't do it, it is completely nonsensical to me.
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Sometimes I wonder if people just create this stuff to see what they can get away with. To see just how far they will be tolerated. Like in the movie "Trading Places"... "I'll bet you one dollar we can get the word 'thug' banned as politically incorrect". There are much more pressing problems in the world, is filtering the daily word choice of disinterested third parties really at the top of the list?
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I agree in principle, but my pet peeve, as it were, is how there's always the snide comment or joke that wants to highlight this even when the discussion is about something completely different. It sounds about as bad to me as someone referring to women as 'broads' or something equally offensive, and then complaining that 'back in the day' they could use such language and that their ability to communicate is being stifled. Language is fluid, get used to it.
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Most of the easy problems have been solved and what remains are hard problems. Some people make up problems to fixate on so they can feel like they're doing something useful. I don't think there is much logic in the process, they're doing something that makes them feel good, and thus they're immune to logical arguments against what they're trying to do, and any evidence showing it doesn't actually work is irrelevant and ignored because it's all based on feelings.
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I agree in principle, but my pet peeve, as it were, is how there's always the snide comment or joke that wants to highlight this even when the discussion is about something completely different. It sounds about as bad to me as someone referring to women as 'broads' or something equally offensive, and then complaining that 'back in the day' they could use such language and that their ability to communicate is being stifled. Language is fluid, get used to it.
Language is fluid, yes, it evolves on its own. That is different from someone trying to go on a power trip and force changes. If you want to use different words then use different words, and accept that some people will have difficulty understanding you. Like most people I do not like being forced, and if some authoritarian twit tries to force me to change language I will push back, and probably look for more opportunities to use those words they don't like. Don't tell me to "get used to it", that's a statement of dismissal and I find it offensive. It doesn't seem to matter to the language police types what I find offensive though, it's entirely about them.
Calling women "broads" was never something classy people did as far as I know. Frankly it doesn't really seem like a big deal, chances are I'm not going to hang out with a person but do I care what words they use? No, not really. Rude people are a dime a dozen, I have better things to do than try to police their language.
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This is turning into a Hate I love War instead of peeve, technical or otherwise.
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I realised I'm out of Valium pills so to get to sleep I put on that new ABBA record.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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It wouldn't be my first choice of things to listen to, but I can think of a whole load of other artists I'd less rather hear.
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I realised I'm out of Valium pills so to get to sleep I put on that new ABBA record.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A new ABBA record was not on my "Things we'll get in 2021" bingo card.
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I realised I'm out of Valium pills so to get to sleep I put on that new ABBA record.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A new ABBA record was not on my "Things we'll get in 2021" bingo card.
You know you're old when Afternoon Delight refers to a nap.
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I realised I'm out of Valium pills so to get to sleep I put on that new ABBA record.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A new ABBA record was not on my "Things we'll get in 2021" bingo card.
You know you're old when Afternoon Delight refers to a nap.
You know you're old when you know that "Afternoon Delight" was by the Starland Vocal Band, not ABBA.
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A new ABBA record was not on my "Things we'll get in 2021" bingo card.
There has been some murmurings around the business that they'd met in a studio to do <something>, but the focus was that they'd been quoted saying "it felt better than we thought it would", not any firm plans to record. Björn and Benny have been quite busy all along, with various projects like the Mamma Mia franchise, Kristina från Duvemåla musical, et c.
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- Schematics drawn in MS Paint. In 2021.
- "it's" instead of "its". Auto-correct and lazy posters basically eradicated "its" from the internet.
- Same goes for lose/loose.
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That homophone thing often gets me as well. While i am not claiming i don't make mistakes when writing, these often stand out extremely.
For example break and brake. Or the infamous there, their and they're.
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Then, than
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I realised I'm out of Valium pills so to get to sleep I put on that new ABBA record.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
A new ABBA record was not on my "Things we'll get in 2021" bingo card.
You know you're old when Afternoon Delight refers to a nap.
You know you're old when you know that "Afternoon Delight" was by the Starland Vocal Band, not ABBA.
Oh yes, you are quite right - my mistake. All I can say in my defense is that I disliked them both.
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That homophone thing often gets me as well. While i am not claiming i don't make mistakes when writing, these often stand out extremely.
For example break and brake. Or the infamous there, their and they're.
And of course you’ll get some people talking about brakes who’ll use BOTH, sometimes in the same sentence. At least pick one and be consistent!
-Pat
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That homophone thing often gets me as well. While i am not claiming i don't make mistakes when writing, these often stand out extremely.
For example break and brake. Or the infamous there, their and they're.
And of course you’ll get some people talking about brakes who’ll use BOTH, sometimes in the same sentence. At least pick one and be consistent!
-Pat
its happening more and moar.
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That homophone thing often gets me as well. While i am not claiming i don't make mistakes when writing, these often stand out extremely.
For example break and brake. Or the infamous there, their and they're.
And of course you’ll get some people talking about brakes who’ll use BOTH, sometimes in the same sentence. At least pick one and be consistent!
-Pat
its happening more and moar.
The boarder between good and bad English is quite thin!
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- Schematics drawn in MS Paint. In 2021.
- "it's" instead of "its". Auto-correct and lazy posters basically eradicated "its" from the internet.
- Same goes for lose/loose.
The same goes, in triplicate, for "hobbiest" instead of "hobbyist."
For fuck's sake, my web browser highlights the clearly-misspelled "hobbiest."
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Please send everyone an identical PC to yours so they can avail themselves of your browser.
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Please send everyone an identical PC to yours so they can avail themselves of your browser.
Firefox on a Windows 10 machine? Seems like something fairly standard.
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That will do nicely if you'd like to ship them ASAP.
Or, alternatively, not assume that world+dog shares your experience.
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Firefox on a Windows 10 machine? Seems like something fairly standard.
I resolve this by disabling spell/grammar check on the browser. And everything else. While the occasional error slips through, I just hate all the highlighting that comes with someone else's opinion of how things should be written. Not to mention the outright spelling errors as noted earlier in this thread.
Technology is great, but there is such a thing as "being too helpful". Glad they "let" us disable these "features". I sure wish Microsoft would allow us to disable Windows Update. Maybe I could upgrade from Win7.
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Firefox on a Windows 10 machine? Seems like something fairly standard.
It's not incredibly rare but I'd hesitate to call it standard, Firefox has fallen down into single digit market share as I recall. I used it for years but abandoned it when I got sick of the constant UI changes and having to find extensions and hacks to re-implement useful features they took away. I typically use Brave and Waterfox now, the latter probably still reports as Firefox so I suspect the actual Firefox market share is even lower than the stats indicate.
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Firefox on a Windows 10 machine? Seems like something fairly standard.
I resolve this by disabling spell/grammar check on the browser. And everything else. While the occasional error slips through, I just hate all the highlighting that comes with someone else's opinion of how things should be written. Not to mention the outright spelling errors as noted earlier in this thread.
Technology is great, but there is such a thing as "being too helpful". Glad they "let" us disable these "features". I sure wish Microsoft would allow us to disable Windows Update. Maybe I could upgrade from Win7.
A constant peeve of mine is people not upgrading their virus-carrier operating systems to supported, fixed releases. It does not matter if you tell yourself that it's not going to get connected, sooner or later you will, because today, not networking a computer renders it useless.
It is a sad state of affairs that special hardware and software gets written by people not employing more timeless techniques. The lure of the then-greatest soon-to-be-deadend technology (Remember Silverlight? Flash? Any of the Java releases with special features?) is constant. Ten years from now, we'll be swearing over .NET code that cant be gotten to run. And this means that old, dangerous computer installations out of maintenance will remain alive and connected to the Internet.
In my case, I'm mourning a very nice sound card, that had the misfortune of being
- A FireWire connected device
- A M-Audio piece of hardware, and as such abandoned by them way too early.
It is useless to me, and to most other people, because it's only supported with drivers in OS releases that ought not to run anymore.
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In my case, I'm mourning a very nice sound card, that had the misfortune of being
- A FireWire connected device
- A M-Audio piece of hardware, and as such abandoned by them way too early.
It is useless to me, and to most other people, because it's only supported with drivers in OS releases that ought not to run anymore.
MS changed the sound subsystem 4 times during the 90's. Every iteration different from the previous. For no good reason.
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Firefox on a Windows 10 machine? Seems like something fairly standard.
It's not incredibly rare but I'd hesitate to call it standard, Firefox has fallen down into single digit market share as I recall. I used it for years but abandoned it when I got sick of the constant UI changes and having to find extensions and hacks to re-implement useful features they took away. I typically use Brave and Waterfox now, the latter probably still reports as Firefox so I suspect the actual Firefox market share is even lower than the stats indicate.
As of a 2021 report, Google Chrome is running away with the desktop browser market share at 77%. Neck and neck behind are Safari at 8.9%, Firefox at 7.7% (down from 2020), Edge at 5.8%, and the rest at < 2.5% each.
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What happened to Firefox? I mean, I know, but geez.
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As of a 2021 report, Google Chrome is running away with the desktop browser market share at 77%. Neck and neck behind are Safari at 8.9%, Firefox at 7.7% (down from 2020), Edge at 5.8%, and the rest at < 2.5% each.
I don't care enough to research it, but I wonder how much of that Chrome percentage is mobile devices. I draw a distinction between the browser I use on real computers vs. the browser I use on a phone or tablet. The former get Firefox; the latter get whatever is native to the portable operating system, which for all portable devices I have is Android and therefore Chrome. Yes, I know mobile versions of other browsers are available.
If that Chrome percentage includes mobile devices, that would bias it up very strongly.
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What happened to Firefox? I mean, I know, but geez.
They forgot what made it popular, the fact that it was lightweight and extremely flexible with a very robust extension ecosystem. It got more and more bloated and Chrome-like and while losing more and more features and flexibility. If I wanted a Chrome clone I'd just use Chrome.
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I don't care enough to research it, but I wonder how much of that Chrome percentage is mobile devices. I draw a distinction between the browser I use on real computers vs. the browser I use on a phone or tablet. The former get Firefox; the latter get whatever is native to the portable operating system, which for all portable devices I have is Android and therefore Chrome. Yes, I know mobile versions of other browsers are available.
If that Chrome percentage includes mobile devices, that would bias it up very strongly.
This is desktop share specifically, mobile is a separate metric.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide
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What happened to Firefox? I mean, I know, but geez.
They forgot what made it popular, the fact that it was lightweight and extremely flexible with a very robust extension ecosystem. It got more and more bloated and Chrome-like and while losing more and more features and flexibility. If I wanted a Chrome clone I'd just use Chrome.
I use Firefox for its privacy features. Especially useful is the ability to disable Javascript on a per-domain basis.
Chrome is designed for data mining.
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In my case, I'm mourning a very nice sound card, that had the misfortune of being
- A FireWire connected device
- A M-Audio piece of hardware, and as such abandoned by them way too early.
It is useless to me, and to most other people, because it's only supported with drivers in OS releases that ought not to run anymore.
MS changed the sound subsystem 4 times during the 90's. Every iteration different from the previous. For no good reason.
And it took them frickin' forever to support USB Audio Class 2.0 for High Speed USB and thus multichannel audio at rates better than 48 kHz. That spec was ratified in 2006 and Apple supported it almost immediately. It took Microsoft nearly fifteen years to add that support to Windows.
It's kinda like how long it took Xilinx to support VHDL-2008.
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I was reminded of another pet peeve, the protectionism in virtually the entire HVAC industry. There are a handful of online dealers now that will sell to anybody but prior to that it was virtually impossible for an individual to buy a furnace, boiler, ducting or even replacement parts like gas valves and such. I've heard people say it's about safety but I don't buy that. I can walk into any trade counter, electrical, plumbing, lumber, roofing, etc and buy anything I could possibly need to build or maintain a house, they aren't going to give me the discounts they'll give their regular guys but they're happy to take my money and give me the item I need. I can walk into an automotive supplier and buy any parts they sell for maintaining a car, truck, van, even bus or semi including fuel system parts, high voltage ignition, brakes, suspension, anything. I can even buy medical supplies and parts for medical equipment, a little harder to come by but I've never had a supplier refuse to sell me something. I can buy a gas water heater at any hardware store or home center, I can buy a gas range, or any other appliance, all readily available. All of this stuff is readily available to anyone, except for HVAC. Try buying a furnace, AC condenser, most ducting or anything else and those places will flat out refuse to sell unless you are a licensed contractor.
I have never encountered any other group of tradesmen that are so openly hostile toward the DIY crowd and I can think of no other reason than protecting of their own and feeling entitled to a profit. They act like the work they do is extremely difficult and beyond the abilities of ordinary people but it is not THAT hard and it would be much easier if all of the materials and equipment were readily available like they are with other trades. It requires an attention to detail and combines several other trades but it is something that virtually any engineer or advanced DIY enthusiast ought to be able to do if they feel inclined. Plumbing, electrical, highschool level physics and chemistry, basic math, it's not rocket science. Some of the guys who practice the trade are real craftsmen but a lot of them are just goobers and I've seen some really idiotic sloppy work done by supposed professionals.
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We can buy split system air-con from hardware stores here. Finding a right fitter that isn't too much a grumble bum is the key. A couple of them that I've fitted, my usual air-con guy refused to come out. "i;m too busy, can't you just do it?" They come with enough refrig charge in them if your frig lines are short ie though a wall. And they have a air bleed so you just do that after checking the plumbing.
My bloke says that the problem with the consumer buying the stuff is they buy the cheapest system without considering the extreme hot/cold days. It's just one or two people who buy the wrong damn thing, then complain to the regulator who then is forced to spoil the fun for everybody.
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I have a few, this is a huge pet peeve:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/no-you-didnt-reach-out-you-contacted-them/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/no-you-didnt-reach-out-you-contacted-them/)
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In my case, I'm mourning a very nice sound card, that had the misfortune of being
- A FireWire connected device
- A M-Audio piece of hardware, and as such abandoned by them way too early.
It is useless to me, and to most other people, because it's only supported with drivers in OS releases that ought not to run anymore.
MS changed the sound subsystem 4 times during the 90's. Every iteration different from the previous. For no good reason.
And it took them frickin' forever to support USB Audio Class 2.0 for High Speed USB and thus multichannel audio at rates better than 48 kHz. That spec was ratified in 2006 and Apple supported it almost immediately. It took Microsoft nearly fifteen years to add that support to Windows.
It's kinda like how long it took Xilinx to support VHDL-2008.
By the end of the 90's anyone wanting pro sound gear just got a mac. If the thing had mac support, the driver development usually started life in the win environment, then polished up for the mac.
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We can buy split system air-con from hardware stores here. Finding a right fitter that isn't too much a grumble bum is the key. A couple of them that I've fitted, my usual air-con guy refused to come out. "i;m too busy, can't you just do it?" They come with enough refrig charge in them if your frig lines are short ie though a wall. And they have a air bleed so you just do that after checking the plumbing.
My bloke says that the problem with the consumer buying the stuff is they buy the cheapest system without considering the extreme hot/cold days. It's just one or two people who buy the wrong damn thing, then complain to the regulator who then is forced to spoil the fun for everybody.
I've put in several split systems, some heat pumps some straight AC, several furnaces and one mini split, 100% success rate on all of it, all but the mini split were more than 15 years ago and every one of them I put in is still working. I figured it out just fine on my own, but I had to get the stuff from various ebay sellers, mostly scratch & dent equipment. Built some of the tools like my refrigerant recovery machine myself. Already had a good vacuum pump and all the plumbing and electrical tools.
Yes a lot of people are going to buy the wrong thing or screw up the install, that's their problem and their money, just like any other DIY project. The HVAC guys have every right to refuse to come fix botched installs if they don't need the money and I don't mind if the vendors won't warranty the DIY stuff if they'd just sell it. I put in that mini split recently because my friend got quoted almost $8k to have one put in and he found he could buy exactly the same system online for around $2k. No warranty for a DIY install but he realized we could screw it up, throw it away, buy a whole new system and try again and still come out way ahead and it was a good excuse to hang out and work on a project. Piece of cake, knocked out the whole job in an afternoon and it sailed through a record breaking heat wave about a month later.
I don't need technical help, I don't need support, I don't need to ask questions, I'd be happy if I could just walk up to the trade counters, ask for what I want, pay and walk out, same as I do at the electrical and plumbing places when I need something I can't get from the big box stores.
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But your friend doesn't have the pay the added cost of conducting the business of fitting an a/c indeed doing several per week. By the time you add up the cost of running a van, insurances, licences, business admin, support staff, maintenance of tools etc his own salary and on top a bit extra to save for a holiday he doesn't have time to have..
Are pricing it at cost and not factoring even your own labor for just one install? I'm glad you saved money but I wonder if the professional price may have been negotiable.
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I don't need technical help, I don't need support, I don't need to ask questions, I'd be happy if I could just walk up to the trade counters, ask for what I want, pay and walk out, same as I do at the electrical and plumbing places when I need something I can't get from the big box stores.
To speak to this particular point a bit more, the situation may be due to (as is here) the high regulation of refrigerant gas. We've got some stringent rules for supply here and you have to show you recover the old refrigerant into a bottle for recycling and not just vent it out to the atmosphere like we used to do in the bad old days. There's a bit of book-keeping in regards to proving you are paying to recycle the gas. And big fines if they find out your aren't and putting your licence in jeopardy which is needed to acquire the new gas.
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That homophone thing often gets me as well. While i am not claiming i don't make mistakes when writing, these often stand out extremely.
For example break and brake. Or the infamous there, their and they're.
And of course you’ll get some people talking about brakes who’ll use BOTH, sometimes in the same sentence. At least pick one and be consistent!
-Pat
its happening more and moar.
Come on------ Noone does that!
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But your friend doesn't have the pay the added cost of conducting the business of fitting an a/c indeed doing several per week. By the time you add up the cost of running a van, insurances, licences, business admin, support staff, maintenance of tools etc his own salary and on top a bit extra to save for a holiday he doesn't have time to have..
Are pricing it at cost and not factoring even your own labor for just one install? I'm glad you saved money but I wonder if the professional price may have been negotiable.
I guess this is why DIY is "worth it", you are getting quite a good hourly rate for your efforts in some cases. For example, working on my own cars, I "save" $100 an hour or more, compared to letting the mechanics at it. Sometimes I do let the mechanics have at it, if the job requires a lift or other equipment that I don't want to invest in.
In the case of the split A/C installation, the difference of $6K seems a lot of money for an afternoon's work, not really related to hourly pay?
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I'm looking into adding AC and replacing our furnace right now. I'm an enthusiastic DIY'er and can, and would, do the job myself. But a bit of research hasn't revealed a source of the equipment to charge a new AC lineset (the two copper tubes that run between the condenser and the coil). I don't know if this is related to regulatory restrictions, rent seeking by the HVAC industry, or what.
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I'm looking into adding AC and replacing our furnace right now. I'm an enthusiastic DIY'er and can, and would, do the job myself. But a bit of research hasn't revealed a source of the equipment to charge a new AC lineset (the two copper tubes that run between the condenser and the coil). I don't know if this is related to regulatory restrictions, rent seeking by the HVAC industry, or what.
The problem I can see is convincing the HVAC guy to charge up the lines without knowing how good the plumbing job is. I know my fellow would be very apprehensive about not only leaks but also contaminants in the lines. When the compressor stuffs up, whose fault is it?
If you must insist on DIY, then make sure first that a 'fridgey' (as we call them) would be prepared to 'run the copper' and commission the units on the understanding that you won't undo or otherwise damage the connection ends of all the lines. You'll need to assure that person that the modules on either end are mounted securely and if need be with rubber mounts to arrest vibration travel.
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In medieval times the tradesmen formed guilds and they would come by your house and beat you up if you just started to, say, bake your own bread without playing by the guild's rules.
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When I fitted the aircon in my office the plumbing came pre-charged with a special connector that allowed a live join. That was a few years ago now, and I can't find a source of similar - there are ones like this:
DIY split (https://www.aircondirect.co.uk/p/865335/1000-btu-panasonic-powered-easy-fit-inverter-wall-split-air-conditioner-with-5-meters-pipe-kit-and-5-years-warranty)
but they use different connectors and more acceptable refrigerant. £300 is a steal though - mine was about the same price and payback was 2-3 years over a fan heater. Much more comfortable too.
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In medieval times the tradesmen formed guilds and they would come by your house and beat you up if you just started to, say, bake your own bread without playing by the guild's rules.
They've outsourced that enforcement to the government these days.
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I'm looking into adding AC and replacing our furnace right now. I'm an enthusiastic DIY'er and can, and would, do the job myself.
The problem I can see is convincing the HVAC guy to charge up the lines without knowing how good the plumbing job is.
No, Do It Yourself. As in I would handle everything including charging the lines. No "HVAC guy" at all.
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I have a few, this is a huge pet peeve:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/no-you-didnt-reach-out-you-contacted-them/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/no-you-didnt-reach-out-you-contacted-them/)
Yes exactly..I can't stand this term. I'm not reaching out like some helpless fool falling off of a cliff. If I am after something, I might grab. I don't "reach out."
These days I hear "Thanks for reaching out.." grrrr. >:(
Who came up with this lame phrase?
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Probably the lyricist for “Sweet Caroline”.
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These days I hear "Thanks for reaching out.." grrrr.
I use that quite often when responding to a salesdroid. What's sauce for the goose, etc. In the same way I often spell colour 'color' just to be rid of the potential for a little friction and make life momentarily smoother.
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Probably the lyricist for “Sweet Caroline”.
Neil Diamond?
Over-played song sure but Neil is a living legend.
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An advertising company from Philadelphia started the whole "reach out" thing back in 1979 when they created a very successful ad campaign for AT&T here in the US, where the tag line was "Reach out and touch someone".
Of course, these days, that sort of thing could end up with the "touchee" pressing charges against the [alleged] "toucher"... :-DD
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An advertising company from Philadelphia started the whole "reach out" thing back in 1979 when they created a very successful ad campaign for AT&T here in the US, where the tag line was "Reach out and touch someone".
True, but in my experience the phrase had died out by the 90's. Then I started hearing "thanks for reaching out" from our Canadian friends and business contacts. At almost the same time I started hearing "no worries". I don't know the history but it's interesting.
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In medieval times the tradesmen formed guilds and they would come by your house and beat you up if you just started to, say, bake your own bread without playing by the guild's rules.
There's a subplot in the movie "Brazil" about licensed and rogue HVAC engineers ...
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To speak to this particular point a bit more, the situation may be due to (as is here) the high regulation of refrigerant gas. We've got some stringent rules for supply here and you have to show you recover the old refrigerant into a bottle for recycling and not just vent it out to the atmosphere like we used to do in the bad old days. There's a bit of book-keeping in regards to proving you are paying to recycle the gas. And big fines if they find out your aren't and putting your licence in jeopardy which is needed to acquire the new gas.
I have my EPA 608 certification so I can legally buy and work with refrigerant, I got that many years ago, just had to pass a test. The obstacle I hit is that I'm not a licensed contractor. Refrigerant is way too expensive to just vent it even if it were not illegal to do so. The charge in a typical residential split system would cost a couple hundred bucks to replace.
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I'm looking into adding AC and replacing our furnace right now. I'm an enthusiastic DIY'er and can, and would, do the job myself.
The problem I can see is convincing the HVAC guy to charge up the lines without knowing how good the plumbing job is.
No, Do It Yourself. As in I would handle everything including charging the lines. No "HVAC guy" at all.
The systems typically come pre-charged. You need to pull a vacuum in the lines, the modern systems want at least down to 500 microns so you need a 2 stage mechanical pump to achieve that but those are not exotic or particularly expensive anymore. Once you confirm that it's holding a vacuum you open the service valves on the condensing unit and that lets the charge out into the rest of the system. Most of the online sellers of HVAC equipment say you're supposed to have a professional come out and hook up the lines but good luck finding one that will touch a system you installed yourself. I don't have a problem with that, they're free to choose what they work on.
The tools are all easy to find, you can buy everything you need in the way of tools online. I've bought a few different vacuum pumps on ebay, mostly for other things but one is a HVAC service pump. You need a gauge manifold, and you really ought to have a micron vacuum gauge. The really proper way to connect the lines is to braze them which requires a nitrogen purge. Personally I've always soldered them with Staybrite 8 silver solder and the liquid flux sold by the same company. A lot of guys will sneer at anything not brazed but I've never had a joint leak or fail. You don't need a nitrogen tank and regulator due to the lower temperature required and the copper doesn't get annealed from the heat. Cleanliness is of the utmost importance, I can't stress that enough. You need to make absolutely perfect joints and be extremely careful not to get any debris into the lines. Use only the minimum amount of flux and make sure you don't get any into the system. I always install a liquid line filter/dryer unless the condensing unit comes with one built in.
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I guess this is why DIY is "worth it", you are getting quite a good hourly rate for your efforts in some cases. For example, working on my own cars, I "save" $100 an hour or more, compared to letting the mechanics at it. Sometimes I do let the mechanics have at it, if the job requires a lift or other equipment that I don't want to invest in.
In the case of the split A/C installation, the difference of $6K seems a lot of money for an afternoon's work, not really related to hourly pay?
If I billed myself hourly for my hobbies I'd be better off working for minimum wage. It's really not even about saving money for me, I mean saving money is nice but being able to look at a finished project and say "I did that!" is worth much more than any money saved. I also work on my own cars, in fact I've never taken a car to a mechanic in my life. From simple tuneups to major work like engine and transmission swaps I've always just done it. I've been fortunate enough to have friends with a forklift for heavy lifting.
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I guess this is why DIY is "worth it", you are getting quite a good hourly rate for your efforts in some cases. For example, working on my own cars, I "save" $100 an hour or more, compared to letting the mechanics at it. Sometimes I do let the mechanics have at it, if the job requires a lift or other equipment that I don't want to invest in.
In the case of the split A/C installation, the difference of $6K seems a lot of money for an afternoon's work, not really related to hourly pay?
If I billed myself hourly for my hobbies I'd be better off working for minimum wage. It's really not even about saving money for me, I mean saving money is nice but being able to look at a finished project and say "I did that!" is worth much more than any money saved. I also work on my own cars, in fact I've never taken a car to a mechanic in my life. From simple tuneups to major work like engine and transmission swaps I've always just done it. I've been fortunate enough to have friends with a forklift for heavy lifting.
James, I must say, in reading your various posts, you really are a Jack-of-all-trades. I mean that in a good and respectful way. Great for you that you have such a broad range of abilities, in this world of specialists. I often times think about how I'd like to expand my abilities more, but never seem to find the time, and whenever I do have a bit of time, I always end up spending it on things closely related to my career.
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True, but in my experience the phrase had died out by the 90's. Then I started hearing "thanks for reaching out" from our Canadian friends and business contacts.
I remember hearing the "reach out" phrase used in TV shows in the late 90's, especially cop shows. The cops would be finishing questioning of a witness and they would say something like "Here's my card. If you remember anything else, reach out..."
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When people follow some “fashion” without thinking it through. For example, when I first got my licence in 1977 every young buck that drove a car that he thought was hot had to reposition the bonnet / hood hinges so that the rear of the bonnet was raised about 40mm or so to supposedly let the hot air out. This was to tell the world that their car had such a fire and brimstone fury of an engine that it needed extra cooling ventilation courtesy of this lateral slot. What never occurred to them though is the location of the slot at the base of the windscreen is a high pressure area and so air would be forced in there, not exiting, and as a consequence it would somewhat reduce the flow of air through the radiator when moving forward. And the fact that one never saw a full tilt race car with that setup didn’t occur to them.
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When people follow some “fashion” without thinking it through. For example, when I first got my licence in 1977 every young buck that drove a car that he thought was hot had to reposition the bonnet / hood hinges so that the rear of the bonnet was raised about 40mm or so to supposedly let the hot air out. This was to tell the world that their car had such a fire and brimstone fury of an engine that it needed extra cooling ventilation courtesy of this lateral slot. What never occurred to them though is the location of the slot at the base of the windscreen is a high pressure area and so air would be forced in there, not exiting, and as a consequence it would somewhat reduce the flow of air through the radiator when moving forward. And the fact that one never saw a full tilt race car with that setup didn’t occur to them.
There was a sci-fi book from the 50s or 60s titled "The Big Ball of Wax". It envisioned this kind of stuff, deliberately conning morons with noisemakers, fake gauges, and most particularly doctored speedometers so the fools would think they were really flying. The whole point was to market a bunch of junk to brainless dolts, while at the same time limiting their ability to hurt themselves or others.
Viewed this way the only annoyance is the large market for such tomfoolery. It would be nice to think that people were smarter than they repeatedly demonstrate themselves to be.
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True, but in my experience the phrase had died out by the 90's. Then I started hearing "thanks for reaching out" from our Canadian friends and business contacts.
I remember hearing the "reach out" phrase used in TV shows in the late 90's, especially cop shows. The cops would be finishing questioning of a witness and they would say something like "Here's my card. If you remember anything else, reach out..."
Yes, that's where I first heard the phrase. Specifically, on NYPD Blue. BTW, that's also where I first heard the now-ubiquitous "I'm sorry for your loss".
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James, I must say, in reading your various posts, you really are a Jack-of-all-trades. I mean that in a good and respectful way. Great for you that you have such a broad range of abilities, in this world of specialists. I often times think about how I'd like to expand my abilities more, but never seem to find the time, and whenever I do have a bit of time, I always end up spending it on things closely related to my career.
I get it from my dad, he was a mechanical engineer and spent a large part of his career designing boilers and process equipment for the pulp & paper industry and later he was a supervisor of the engineering department at the airport. When I was a kid he did some extensive remodeling on our house and I was often recruited to help and from that I learned carpentry, plumbing, drywall, tile, etc. He was also an avid sailor and spent a lot of time working on his boat so I learned how to handle and maintain a sailboat with him and he always did all the work on the family cars too. One of my uncles was a master electrician and taught me most of the tricks of that trade as I helped him out with a lot of his projects at home when I was a kid. Another uncle was also an engineer of some sort, he designed stuff for power plants and nuclear submarines, another worked at a boat factory and taught me how to work with fiberglass. In a nutshell there are several engineers and a couple mechanically inclined blue collar types in my family so I had access to a lot of teachers. I also didn't have much money growing up so I had necessity as a motivator, I could either figure out a way to do something myself or I'd go without. Now I could afford to hire people to do stuff but I'm not in the habit of doing so.
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When people follow some “fashion” without thinking it through. For example, when I first got my licence in 1977 every young buck that drove a car that he thought was hot had to reposition the bonnet / hood hinges so that the rear of the bonnet was raised about 40mm or so to supposedly let the hot air out. This was to tell the world that their car had such a fire and brimstone fury of an engine that it needed extra cooling ventilation courtesy of this lateral slot. What never occurred to them though is the location of the slot at the base of the windscreen is a high pressure area and so air would be forced in there, not exiting, and as a consequence it would somewhat reduce the flow of air through the radiator when moving forward. And the fact that one never saw a full tilt race car with that setup didn’t occur to them.
I saw a picture of a car like that once and wondered why they didn't bother to fix the hood so it would close properly, didn't even occur to me that someone would do that intentionally. I also never thought about that being a high pressure zone, I'm kind of surprised that it is actually but now that I think about it, the air intake for the HVAC in my car is located there and when at speed I can turn off the fan and there is still a pretty good flow of air. I never even thought about it.
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My amazon review of the PR-3254 crimper got rejected - I assume I didn't use obscene or offensive words but perhaps mangle has become so? I mentioned another crimper so perhaps that wasn't wise? Though the review was run-of-the-mill stuff I doubt (yet) it could've been rejected for not adding anything new.
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My amazon review of the PR-3254 crimper got rejected - I assume I didn't use obscene or offensive words but perhaps mangle has become so? I mentioned another crimper so perhaps that wasn't wise? Though the review was run-of-the-mill stuff I doubt (yet) it could've been rejected for not adding anything new.
Searching on Amazon for PR-3254 returns a billion crimpers but not a PR-3254...
I hate Amazon search, nothing could possibly be more broken...
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Try Preciva
(precise value)
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I hate Amazon search, nothing could possibly be more broken...
Yesterday I was searching for 'chocolate pudding' (don't ask) and got this as part of the result:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B015O589JO (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B015O589JO)
I am thinking that firstly Amazon goes slightly off-brand to present alternatives to the (possibly) limited desired object, but also something completely off-piste to promote a wider search and purchase of stuff that wasn't intended at the start. Instead of broken search, it could be really clever marketing.
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I hate Amazon search, nothing could possibly be more broken...
Yesterday I was searching for 'chocolate pudding' (don't ask) and got this as part of the result:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B015O589JO (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B015O589JO)
I am thinking that firstly Amazon goes slightly off-brand to present alternatives to the (possibly) limited desired object, but also something completely off-piste to promote a wider search and purchase of stuff that wasn't intended at the start. Instead of broken search, it could be really clever marketing.
Well, I'd go with "broken search" and "clever marketing" being in effect at the same time! :D
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If only you had searched for pudding chocolate. It comes up correct.
Why ?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=pudding+chocolate&crid=25QJ25VPG4KXD&sprefix=pudding+&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_3_8 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=pudding+chocolate&crid=25QJ25VPG4KXD&sprefix=pudding+&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_3_8)
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That certainly makes a difference.
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My amazon review of the PR-3254 crimper got rejected - I assume I didn't use obscene or offensive words but perhaps mangle has become so? I mentioned another crimper so perhaps that wasn't wise? Though the review was run-of-the-mill stuff I doubt (yet) it could've been rejected for not adding anything new.
Searching on Amazon for PR-3254 returns a billion crimpers but not a PR-3254...
I hate Amazon search, nothing could possibly be more broken...
Amazon's search engine points you to what they want you to buy, not what you want. We've all probably seen what happens when you enter an exact part number and manufacturer name. Suffice to say you rarely get a useful result.
It is truly unbelievably bad.
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That certainly makes a difference.
I got this . the top line seems to be a sponsored by advert .
It as someone else mentioned its not what you think you want .
Its " What You Truly desire " that counts :-// >:D .
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[Amazon] They're reluctant to lose an opportunity to sell - but I was so confused by an order notification that I cancelled and reordered from Mouser, saved a few pounds as well.
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I guess this is why DIY is "worth it", you are getting quite a good hourly rate for your efforts in some cases. For example, working on my own cars, I "save" $100 an hour or more, compared to letting the mechanics at it. Sometimes I do let the mechanics have at it, if the job requires a lift or other equipment that I don't want to invest in.
DIY is very popular, but it's not for everyone. I used to do it when I was younger because I had more free time than money. As I've gotten older this has reversed and now I have more money than free time, and I value my free time so much that in nearly every case I just hire someone to do the job.
With cars, that hasn't even been an issue. I tend to drive a new car for 100,000 miles and then replace it with a new car. Modern cars are so reliable that they almost never need repairs. I can't even think of the last time any of my cars needed more than oil changes during the 100,000 miles I kept them.
What little DIY I do is all hobby related, particularly in electronics. I've designed and built a lot of things for around the house (weather station, water tank level sensors, security system, etc.) even though I could have bought all of these commercially, and sometimes for less money than I spent on them. But for stuff like painting, plumbing, HVAC, and other stuff around the house, I have absolutely no interest in doing any of that myself and consider the cost to have it professionally done a more than fair trade-off since it lets me devote my time to what I really want to do. I used to envy people who could do their own carpentry, car repairs, and other DIY stuff, but not anymore.
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A lot of the DIY stuff is a hobby for me, it's like climbing a mountain I guess, a personal challenge, in some cases not because it's easy but because it's hard. I'm not really sure what else I'd do with myself if I didn't have anything to fix or build.
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OK, for a TECH oriented person to say:
BIG TECH SUCKS.
...For consumers, we frequently getting the raw deal. I, (we) DON'T WANT Walmart ads that poke over the file lists.
Right now, I'm looking at 'fixing' some changes, that just happen somewhat randomly. The current 'change' surprise, my EMAIL goes straight to INBOX and with no clue how to get anywhere else, now, on that email web site. Used to be, simply click on 'compose', but now, to save my life, I couldn't activate any other place, but INBOX.
THAT sort of issue, by the way, I actively purchased the book: "SO AND SO FOR DUMMIES", but guess what folks:
That book seems more like a 'marketing gimmick', rather than a helpful book, (I'm a consumer, trying to avoid 'passive' dynamic).
So, for now, no email...haven't got a clue.
Pet peeves? Yeah, hey thanks for this thread !
We need more critical reviews, of BIG TECH monopoly power status...thanks
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Search engines that throw in some other stuff because "There aren't many hits for ..."!
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Search engines that throw in some other stuff because "There aren't many hits for ..."!
Or .. the Amazon search feature, which returns what AMZN wants to sell, not what you want to buy. (This may have already been mentioned in this thread.)
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OK, for a TECH oriented person to say:
BIG TECH SUCKS.
...For consumers, we frequently getting the raw deal. I, (we) DON'T WANT Walmart ads that poke over the file lists.
Right now, I'm looking at 'fixing' some changes, that just happen somewhat randomly. The current 'change' surprise, my EMAIL goes straight to INBOX and with no clue how to get anywhere else, now, on that email web site. Used to be, simply click on 'compose', but now, to save my life, I couldn't activate any other place, but INBOX.
THAT sort of issue, by the way, I actively purchased the book: "SO AND SO FOR DUMMIES", but guess what folks:
That book seems more like a 'marketing gimmick', rather than a helpful book, (I'm a consumer, trying to avoid 'passive' dynamic).
So, for now, no email...haven't got a clue.
Pet peeves? Yeah, hey thanks for this thread !
We need more critical reviews, of BIG TECH monopoly power status...thanks
What is called "Big Tech" by the financial community is not tech at all. It's an advertising and data-mining operation made efficient by the use of database technology.
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Yes, thanks for your response, RE: Big Tech (Social).
I mean the irony, 'Berkeley EE Engineer' can't even buy (local stores) an AM RADIO: has to resort to parasite laden ' Andoid' monopoly-habits.
I just 'gave up' trying to correct / overcome the now useless radio listening feature (podcast website of broadcast company). YOU NEED TO INSTALL THEIR APP, that's all...just one more...
Of course, smart-ass reaction, to all this frustrating, would be to REQUIRE my own APP!!
Ok, people, the way this works...the way I work: You've got to sign up on my RICK APP, to get anywhere with me. Open / unlock the door, (for you) ? Fine, get my RICK APP installed, then we can talk.
Folks, we need a TECH STRIKE or boycott something.
More positivity is possible, but we got to get a handle on this is a real problem.
What's your think, there ?
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What's your think, there?
The only extra app I've got installed on my Android phone is the 2FA for my banking, and Google Home to control a Chromecast (at my mom's house; I don't have one at home). I used a flip phone (Samsung X460) until just a few years ago. I don't play with it, only use it to call or text people, and to check public transport time tables, local map, or the weather radar.
I always leave my phone home when I go for a walk, or nearby grocery shopping. I don't watch broadcast TV, don't even have one; only computer monitors.
You know from my output that I'm not an anti-techie at all. I just refuse to be a slave to my tools and implements, even if other people expect me to be. In particular, I refuse to be immediately contactable 24/7: my time is mine, and I choose when I'm available or not.
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There seems to be a new trend where browsers decide that when you type in the address bar that you are wanting to do a search instead of going to a url so it just dumps the hostname of whatever you were trying to access into google, essentially leaking potentially confidential info to the internet. No, I don't want to do a search, if I wanted to do a search I would have went to a search engine! This is very annoying on mobile since you need to type out the whole http : // part which is annoying on a mobile keyboard.
It seems they are making it harder and harder to disable this feature too. There used to be an easy way to do it but they keep hiding the option. Even Firefox is doing this crap now, just got an update and I can't seem to find a way to disable it. I'm at a point where I just want to set my home page to a custom internal website that has it's own address bar to act as a redirector.
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Aw man.
Why can't the browser just accept that I typed 192.x.x.x without needing to add the S next to http?
:-//
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That too, some seem to INSIST you use https. Well maybe not everything is or should be https, ex: local stuff on your LAN. Which brings me to another thing.. so many things seem to forget that local things even exist. Android for example will complain if the wifi network has no internet and keep giving you issues. If I wanted a wifi network with internet, then I would have connected to a wifi network with internet! Now stop nagging me and just let me connect to the local resource I'm trying to connect to!
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Append a single / to the end, that will not trigger search.
As far as i remember, it will now try https:// first.
For Chrome, i have manually added a "blank" search engine, and set that as default.
As Query URL set "http://%s"
Then set that as default search, and anything you type will only trigger a http request. I assume that something similar is possible with Firefox.
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There seems to be a new trend where browsers decide that when you type in the address bar that you are wanting to do a search instead of going to a url so it just dumps the hostname of whatever you were trying to access into google, essentially leaking potentially confidential info to the internet. No, I don't want to do a search, if I wanted to do a search I would have went to a search engine! This is very annoying on mobile since you need to type out the whole http : // part which is annoying on a mobile keyboard.
arrrrgh, I hate this, especially when (like others in this thread have noted) I am typing in an IPV4 address.
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The word is:
SILICON
not
SILICONE.
(Unless you are talking about gel inserts, fake boobs or plumbing sealants.)
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The word is:
SILICON
not
SILICONE.
(Unless you are talking about gel inserts, fake boobs or plumbing sealants.)
Or slippy spray stuff.
-Pat
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Or insulation on good test leads.
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Silicon is a natural chemical element .
silicone is a man-made product :popcorn:
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Aw man.
Why can't the browser just accept that I typed 192.x.x.x without needing to add the S next to http?
:-//
Because it wants to teach you to use DNS. You know, like Facebook.
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A while back there was discussion of Chrome getting rid of the URL field completely. All they'd offer would be the search text line. If you wanted a specific URL, you'd type it into the search line.
No thanks. The inability to directly specify the target address means it's no longer a browser anymore. It would simply be the Google portal.
I don't know where this ended up in their plans (if anywhere) because I don't use Chrome.
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Or insulation on good expensive test leads.
Fixed that for you (semi-kidding).
Most of the affordable and usable test leads I have, are just overly plasticized PVA. The difference is that that stuff does burn at temperatures where silicone doesn't.
Aside from lower maximum temperature, the downside is that the plasticizer tends to leech out if in contact with a compatible plastic, and completely meld the lead into that plastic. So they're definitely usable and perhaps even good, just not as good as proper silicone test leads.
I wonder how many have tested their test leads whether they really are silicone or just overly plasticized PVA? I bet many have the latter, while believing them to be the former.
Apologies for the repeat-peeve (I already mentioned this way back in this thread).
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@IDEngineer:
Well, that *is* the state of the URL Bar in Chrome. And Firefox. And i suspect the new Edge as well.
Anything you type into that, as long as you have not changed the defaults, is searched first if it is not a full URL or followed by a /
Chrome only shows a partial URL, the protocol and the www. is omitted.
I hate that so much is hidden away from the user. That is dangerous in my opinion and can lead to ignorance.
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@IDEngineer:
Well, that *is* the state of the URL Bar in Chrome. And Firefox. And i suspect the new Edge as well.
Anything you type into that, as long as you have not changed the defaults, is searched first if it is not a full URL or followed by a /
Chrome only shows a partial URL, the protocol and the www. is omitted.
I hate that so much is hidden away from the user. That is dangerous in my opinion and can lead to ignorance.
Yes. So annoying. Windows did this by trying to hide filename extensions. A file you thought was a picture was actually treated by the OS as an executable with a nasty paylode.
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Or insulation on good expensive test leads.
Fixed that for you (semi-kidding).
Most of the affordable and usable test leads I have, are just overly plasticized PVA. The difference is that that stuff does burn at temperatures where silicone doesn't.
Aside from lower maximum temperature, the downside is that the plasticizer tends to leech out if in contact with a compatible plastic, and completely meld the lead into that plastic. So they're definitely usable and perhaps even good, just not as good as proper silicone test leads.
I wonder how many have tested their test leads whether they really are silicone or just overly plasticized PVA? I bet many have the latter, while believing them to be the former.
Apologies for the repeat-peeve (I already mentioned this way back in this thread).
The plasticized PVA junk is a peeve of mine. I think different vendors on the cheapness scale even have different formulations... I recall years ago digging a set out of a storage box only a couple years old and the "plastic" had dried up and was brittle. It had cracks and crumbles which is downright risky if you use them for high voltage work. Plus its "stiffer" when working with it. After I threw away that mess, I decided I didn't care about a few extra bucks for good silicone leads, I would pay it. I'd guess any vendor who uses the plasticized stuff also probably didn't put a lot of care into the testing of such..
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Shopping trolleys with fixed wheels on the back and castor wheels on the front! |O
To steer them you have to exert a twisting force with the whole length of your body, and heaven help you if you have a bad back, especially if it is loaded up with heavy stuff. It would be so so soooo much better if they had fixed wheels on the front and castor wheels on the back. That way you only have to push the handlebar laterally to steer it and it is very easy to keep it in a straight line, particularly if you have to cross a car park that slopes a little to one side.
And lets not even think about shopping trolleys with four castor wheels. :palm:
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better if they had fixed wheels on the front and castor wheels on the back
You ever tried maneuvering a boat down a canal? Reversing your car down a winding lane? I really don't think it would be sensible to let that format loose on your average shopper :)
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That rubbery soft touch coating that is on a lot of laptops, remotes and other electronic equipment. It feels nice and luxurious at first but it invariably turns to sticky goo eventually that ranges from difficult to impossible to remove without completely destroying the item.
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You do know it is possible to push a trolley backwards? Puts the castors next to you like you want, and with a better bumper in the direction you are headed. Only drawbacks. The "handle" is a bit less comfortable. You look a little weird.
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You do know it is possible to push a trolley backwards? Puts the castors next to you like you want, and with a better bumper in the direction you are headed. Only drawbacks. The "handle" is a bit less comfortable. You look a little weird.
Ever tried doing that? I have, not for the steering aspect but because I happened to be standing on that end a few times and had to move it. The "tongue" underneath sticks out enough that it hits you in the shin. The back of a cart is cut out so you have space to walk. If the castors were at the back it would probably cause a similar problem when the back end swung around.
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That rubbery soft touch coating that is on a lot of laptops, remotes and other electronic equipment. It feels nice and luxurious at first but it invariably turns to sticky goo eventually that ranges from difficult to impossible to remove without completely destroying the item.
Planned obsolescence!
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That rubbery soft touch coating that is on a lot of laptops, remotes and other electronic equipment. It feels nice and luxurious at first but it invariably turns to sticky goo eventually that ranges from difficult to impossible to remove without completely destroying the item.
Planned obsolescence!
From this thread 1 year ago...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3252734/#msg3252734 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3252734/#msg3252734)
:)
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better if they had fixed wheels on the front and castor wheels on the back
You ever tried maneuvering a boat down a canal? Reversing your car down a winding lane? I really don't think it would be sensible to let that format loose on your average shopper :)
Or seen someone use a hand pallet truck for the first time? Rear wheel steering is hard to get used to if you're a front wheel steerer
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Shopping trolleys with fixed wheels on the back and castor wheels on the front! |O
To steer them you have to exert a twisting force with the whole length of your body, and heaven help you if you have a bad back, especially if it is loaded up with heavy stuff. It would be so so soooo much better if they had fixed wheels on the front and castor wheels on the back. That way you only have to push the handlebar laterally to steer it and it is very easy to keep it in a straight line, particularly if you have to cross a car park that slopes a little to one side.
And lets not even think about shopping trolleys with four castor wheels. :palm:
I see how The Average Person maneuvers a shopping cart in the store, and it's horrifying. Then I think about how those people are going to get into a car (or, increasingly, a giant SUV) and drive, and that's utter madness.
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better if they had fixed wheels on the front and castor wheels on the back
You ever tried maneuvering a boat down a canal? Reversing your car down a winding lane? I really don't think it would be sensible to let that format loose on your average shopper :)
Or seen someone use a hand pallet truck for the first time? Rear wheel steering is hard to get used to if you're a front wheel steerer
Or flown a plane with 'conventional' landing gear (a taildragger) and taxied at anything much above a walking pace. You need to be on your game with the rudder pedals as these flying machines are by nature directionally unstable and want to swap ends (known among pilots as a ground loop) when moving on the ground. With the center of gravity behind the main gear, any deviation from straight causes positive feedback and builds upon itself quickly - the mass of the airplane wants to keep going the direction it was, but the mains want to go straight relative to the way they're pointing, and they're now pointing off to the slide slightly. As they move in the new direction they're pointing, the CG moves further off center and before you know it you're in the weeds on the outside wingtip wondering what happened. Just give a shopping cart/trolley a shove backwards and let go to see it in action - it won't go far before it veers off in one direction or the other and then quickly spins out. Steering from the rear can be very maneuverable on the ground, but takes some getting used to, and with an airplane you really need to 'fly' it from the moment you start moving until you have stopped again.
-Pat
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From this thread 1 year ago...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3252734/#msg3252734 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg3252734/#msg3252734)
:)
Thought I must have mentioned it already but then I didn't find it when I searched. I just encountered more sticky goo again recently though which has freshly renewed my annoyance with the stuff.
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"Because it did not happen to me, everyone claiming it happened to them must be wrong, lying, dumb, or most likely all three."
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And, "It happened in this way to me, therefore it always happens in this way to everyone."
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"It won't work for my circumstances, therefore it is a dumb idea and will never work for anybody"
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"I can't conceive / understand it, therefore it can't happen."
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(Even though it is sad that so many others know exactly what I'm talking about, I do feel much better knowing it's not only me.)
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"Because it did not happen to me, everyone claiming it happened to them must be wrong, lying, dumb, or most likely all three."
^ Yes. This is possibly one of the most commonly seen responses from otherwise (seemingly) exceptionally intelligent people. But then, were they truly, exceptionally intelligent, they'd be able to "think meta" and objectively remove themselves from the woods to stand back and look at the trees from an aerial view, and form an observation that concludes that they're able to only see their view as they're disinterested in any other (I know, I haven't articulated that very well)
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Ooooh I have one!:
Back in the days when Apple first released aluminium iMac models, which had ANODISED aluminium bodies, the entire "tech press" (cringe!) parroted that they were "brushed aluminium"🤦
It happened again and again, and again, and again. Had any single one of them stopped to consider what BRUSHING does to a surface, that would maybe have been corrected.
Here's one I've not thought about for a while ... supposed "experts" on YouTube stating the capacity of a cellphone battery, using "milliamps" where they meant "mAh" or "milliamp hours" - this one is an epidemic in that area of journalism, and one which seemingly no one even corrects.
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Ooooh I have one!:
Back in the days when Apple first released aluminium iMac models, which had ANODISED aluminium bodies, the entire "tech press" (cringe!) parroted that they were "brushed aluminium"🤦
It happened again and again, and again, and again. Had any single one of them stopped to consider what BRUSHING does to a surface, that would maybe have been corrected.
I wonder if it was a deliberate journalistic faux pas. 'Brushed' aluminium has connotations of a brush being used by an artist.
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I paid no attention to Apple products of the day so can't say if this applies, but there really is sich a thong as brushed aluminum surface finish. It is aluminum slightly roughened with a wire brush. There are variations in how deeply the surface is roughened and whether a pattern of striations is left by the brush(s). The surface may be anodized after brushing. And there are ways to simulate an actual brushed finish. The intent of these finishes is either artistic or to reduce glare and reflections from the surface. In some siruations they might improve heat transfer.
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there really is sich a thong as brushed aluminum surface finish.
>:D
I use cast aluminium boxes for many of my electronics things, and I like the almost "stainless steel look" that I get if I sand the surface (320-400 grit). I assume this is what others mean when they say "brushed aluminium surface finish" (based on web image searches, they match). It does not seem to tarnish (oxidize) in normal use, not even from my sweaty and oily sausage fingers handling them.
I do also like anodized aluminium finishes with black, blue, red, or white dyes. I find the anodized un-dyed look a bit dull; you see this often in all sorts of furniture. In some ways color-anodized aluminium looks like paint, but the colors don't really fade and ordinary scratches don't have a different color, and it obviously doesn't peel off even with chemicals, so it at least feels more durable.
(And, as mentioned, anodizing does not hinder cooling properties at all, and can even help a little bit in some specific cases.)
I don't understand how anyone could mix the two.
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I paid no attention to Apple products of the day so can't say if this applies, but there really is sich a thong as brushed aluminum surface finish. It is aluminum slightly roughened with a wire brush. There are variations in how deeply the surface is roughened and whether a pattern of striations is left by the brush(s). The surface may be anodized after brushing. And there are ways to simulate an actual brushed finish. The intent of these finishes is either artistic or to reduce glare and reflections from the surface. In some siruations they might improve heat transfer.
Yes, I know, and these products didn't have that finish.
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but there really is sich a thong as brushed aluminum surface finish.
I've never seen thongs with a brushed aluminum finish. :-DD
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but there really is sich a thong as brushed aluminum surface finish.
I've never seen thongs with a brushed aluminum finish. :-DD
I refrained from replying with that - well all make typos ;) ;D
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Here's one I've not thought about for a while ... supposed "experts" on YouTube stating the capacity of a cellphone battery, using "milliamps" where they meant "mAh" or "milliamp hours" - this one is an epidemic in that area of journalism, and one which seemingly no one even corrects.
Never use "YouTube" and "journalism" in the same paragraph, or forum post, or ... anywhere.
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There's no fundamental reason that quality journalism can't exist on youtube. It just usually doesn't. Actually I'm not even so sure about that, there is some really high quality content on youtube, there's just a lot of garbage too.
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The highest quality journalism is usually found on YouTube or independent blogs. Sure there also is a overwhelming lot of garbage, but for the reasonably well educated, it should be quite obvious. You don't find yourself accidentally listening to Alex Jones...
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TV's dumb and smart that won't let you select video and audio from different sources. Am I the only one who wants to do this?
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TV's dumb and smart that won't let you select video and audio from different sources. Am I the only one who wants to do this?
As in, overdubbing a news cast with AC/DC "TNT" ?
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TV's dumb and smart that won't let you select video and audio from different sources. Am I the only one who wants to do this?
As in, overdubbing a news cast with AC/DC "TNT" ?
Of course not!
Classical music over Swedish Pron.
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I never even use the audio on my TV, the built in speakers are junk due to the obsession with thin-ness.
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Phone menus that do not EVER give you an option to talk to a human when NONE of the options you are presented with are what you need to do. Either this is getting worse or I have recently run into a bunch of these. Today, I actually had to use Google to see how to get to a human being for this particular place (and it was basically just saying to select an option that I did not want).
Then, to add insult to being a PITA, at the end, you get transferred to a "request" that you provide feedback on their service - and of course, there are only the usual few forced choice options...
There is no end to the injustice that I must endure :)
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My solution is to choose the option that says "I want to buy new service" or "add features" or whatever else implies you want to give them more money. That almost always switches you to a human because they can try to upsell you. Instead, I start describing my technical problem and they immediately offer to switch me to someone internal who handles that because time spent with me is not generating new revenue and thus detracts from their sales goals. I always get their name and extension before they switch me, so they know I can call back and ask for them again if "somehow" my call gets dropped.
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit. 100% of the time you need to spend clicks (and time) to go the Cookies settings and scroll through all the options to be sure that only the "necessary", or "functional" or whatever minimum setting is enabled. Ah, to add insult to injury, usually only the button "Accept All Cookies" looks active, while the other real button "Enable only selected" or something else is greyed out, looking inactive.
These guys turned the weasel level to 11! :rant:
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit. 100% of the time you need to spend clicks (and time) to go the Cookies settings and scroll through all the options to be sure that only the "necessary", or "functional" or whatever minimum setting is enabled. Ah, to add insult to injury, usually only the button "Accept All Cookies" looks active, while the other real button "Enable only selected" or something else is greyed out, looking inactive.
These guys turned the weasel level to 11! :rant:
"Sign in with Google." :rant:
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I have a peeve that I find really annoying that the Trending Searches . on the Samsung Internet browser .
Even going to the setting and disabling them . Does not work |O.
And some of the results are so stupid . I cant believe that people actual search for those things.
How do giraffes Sleep .? :wtf: Well :-DD
what color is a dinosaur . :-//
inventor of peanut butter :palm: :scared:
how long to boil an Egg :palm: :wtf:
:horse:
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And some of the results are so stupid . I cant believe that people actual search for those things.
I suspect a bit of the 'ole Boaty McBoatface syndrome might be in play.
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit.
Addon for pretty much all browsers:
https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ (https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/)
Basically, it just presses the buttons for you so you don't have to do a thing.
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit.
Addon for pretty much all browsers:
https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ (https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/)
Basically, it just presses the buttons for you so you don't have to do a thing.
Was going to suggest this though I don't use it myself and prolly should. Couldn't remember the name of it and meant to come back to it tomorrow if noone had mentioned it. Good thing you're here! :)
Now, if only there were a plug-in to enable me to figure out who you are talking to when you quote posts...
;)
:horse:
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit.
Addon for pretty much all browsers:
https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ (https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/)
Basically, it just presses the buttons for you so you don't have to do a thing.
Now, if only there were a plug-in to enable me to figure out who you are talking to when you quote posts...
;)
:horse:
Try Trending Search for sure its between
Peanut butter & can oozlum bird really fly backwards :-DD (edited Typo)
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit.
you can thank the eu's digital transparency laws or some such nonsense,its also why some us web sites are unavailable here in the uk.
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit.
you can thank the eu's digital transparency laws or some such nonsense,its also why some us web sites are unavailable here in the uk.
Is the UK still following those EU laws post-Brexit?
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Is the UK still following those EU laws post-Brexit?
But of course ,plus 1000's of others ,its only when they see a profit or a way of further stifling personal freedoms do things get changed
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Is the UK still following those EU laws post-Brexit?
They made all EU law UK law when they exited, the poor sods, because they had not the time to fix it first, and now the government is trying to drive all progress made through this legislation (which for the most parts is good for the public and bad for companies without a conscience ) away from the UK to make it as bad as the USA.
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My latest pet peeve is the Cookies settings now present in every new page you visit.
Addon for pretty much all browsers:
https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/ (https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/)
Basically, it just presses the buttons for you so you don't have to do a thing.
Thank you, dunkemhigh, but I will pass due to this assertive on their page: "sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what's easier to do"
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I will pass due to this assertive on their page
Its only purpose is to get rid of the nagging dialogs, not protect you from anything.
If you're concerned about cookie usage you would normally have your browser set appropriately (or run a cookie managing extension), so whatever the website thinks it's allowed to do is meaningless - your local settings trump it.
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Its only purpose is to get rid of the nagging dialogs, not protect you from anything.
OH shuks It wont work on the Mother-IN-Law
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I have a peeve that I find really annoying that the Trending Searches . on the Samsung Internet browser .
Even going to the setting and disabling them . Does not work |O.
And some of the results are so stupid . I cant believe that people actual search for those things.
How do giraffes Sleep .? :wtf: Well :-DD
what color is a dinosaur . :-//
inventor of peanut butter :palm: :scared:
how long to boil an Egg :palm: :wtf:
:horse:
I have no idea how long to boil an egg, I don't like boiled eggs and don't think I've ever boiled one. If somebody asked me to boil them an egg I'd have to look up how to do it.
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If somebody asked me to boil them an egg I'd have to look up how to do it
You'd find there are many different times to boil an egg, even to achieve the same effect. It would wind you up when they say to bring the pan to the boil then turn off and let it cool - that may work for their pan but yours will have a different amount of water, be a different size or style, and your cooker will let it cool differently depending on if it's gas (quick-ish) or electric (slower). Fortunately, eggs are quite forgiving and the only way you can really go wrong is by microwaving them (very briefly, it has to be said).
But there are some useful toys around. Basically, you measure water into them, shove in one to a dozen eggs and turn it on. They can be very consistent and the stupidly cheap and nasty one I acquired a long time ago still works perfectly. My missus even compliments me each time on how perfectly the yolk turns out.
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Nothing smells so good as boiled Eggs ..
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or feels so bad as walking around IKEA - the other day I found a short cut out of the store, however the trip was a wasted one as the stock to complete the bookshelf was not available.
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The one thing that makes me stark raving mad is when people do not read simple instructions they have available to them, instead of making a post here and snapping at others who point them to it. Surely, we all have things to do in our lives and expecting to be know it all s is not fair. On top of that to snap at others? I just stop contributing to the topic when I see that behavior.
There are some others from native English speaking countries, who does not take the time to spell check or punctuate, making me scratch my head and read many times before I can make some sense of what they write.
Is that all fair?
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There are some others from native English speaking countries, who does not take the time to spell check or punctuate
I'm sorry. :)
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There are some others from native English speaking countries, who does not take the time to spell check or punctuate, making me scratch my head and read many times before I can make some sense of what they write.
Is that all fair?
Yup .. My Grammar is not so Hot, But yours is also :--
English speaking countries, who do not take the time to spell check or punctuate, makes me scratch my head, having to read over and over before I can make some sense of what they are trying to write ! ( or Say)
Is what I believe you meant .
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'OOZALEM BIRD'. ??? !!! ??? WOW,
Flys Backwards?...Really ?
...now I really GOT TO Google that...
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'OOZALEM BIRD'. ??? !!! ??? WOW,
Flys Backwards?...Really ?
...now I really GOT TO Google that...
Sorry about the Spelling .. your oozlum bird .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioaJ_jGsops (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioaJ_jGsops)
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To save everyone else 3' 30" of their time, there is no flying birds or anything, just this:
The oozlum bird, also spelt ouzelum, is a legendary creature found in Australian and British folk tales and legends. Some versions have it that, when startled, the bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up itself, disappearing completely, which adds to its rarity. Other sources state that the bird flies backwards so that it can admire its own beautiful tail feathers, or because while it does not know where it is going, it likes to know where it has been. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "[a] mythical bird displaying ridiculous behaviour" and speculates that the word could have been suggested by the word ouzel, meaning a blackbird. The earliest citation recorded by the dictionary dates from 1858.
That's it.
Oh, and "This video is targeted to blind users." But we aren't such and the entire text is there up front for copy'n'pasting.
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Online forms with overly-restrictive (and unstated) field validations due to either obsessive fear of SQL injection, or ignorance about the range of valid entries. I remember one form which didn't allow periods in a postal address field, so the commonly-written abbreviations like "St." and "Rd." were rejected - without explanation. Another form didn't allow hyphens in the domain portion of an email address, giving only a vague (and erroneous) "Invalid email address" message.
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The comment of @dunkemhigh relates to something that i really do not like, and that sadly also happenes here a lot:
Posting of random videos without any kind of description or context. Most often the thread titel is just the video title, or something like "You need to see this!".
People, please write a couple of sentences what the video you posted is about.
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On a similar note, I have 3rd party scripts and frames blocked by default so if there's a copy/paste link to a youtube video, I don't see anything but an empty post. I wish the forum could just show a text link instead of the embedded video.
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When the dumbest person in the room thinks they are the smartest. What makes it extra annoying is when they use volume to convince the next dumbest people in the room.
My favorite example of the first part of that: years ago in philosophy class we would discuss moral dilemmas. The classic, would you take action to save 5 people even though your action results in harming 1 person. The prof would give various hypothetical scenarios to describe the finer details and help us picture it. One loudmouth would always try to pick holes in the hypothetical to weasel out of answering the actual question. For example, 'I'd save everyone by running really fast and yelling really loud to get them all off the train tracks.'
Then the prof would say, 'no you're really far away' and then they'd go back and forth ad nauseam. That's when I'd start chatting with my neighbor. That was the only class I've ever had chalk thrown at me for chatting.
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Yeah, +100 for people who start sentences with 'So,'...
Connector sites that make you work really hard to figure out which pins / receptacle / tool etc are used with which plug.
Product sites that make you work really hard to figure out the differences between products with similar names. Bonus hatred if all the products start with the same three letters and have random numbers after them and the tech specs are on separate web pages. Yeah, I assume the marketing department knows what the difference is between the PRO100 and PRO200 and the SuperPRO300 - but I don't and I don't want spend 15 minutes figuring it out by comparing 50 product attributes knowing that a random 45 of them are the same.
Amazon links that take you to a different product than the one you ordered last time. FFS.
Dumb search algorithms that when you ask for Manufacturer's name + product name give you a load of irrelevant nonsense from other manufacturers. Oh and the copycats that use a different manufacturer's name meaning 'like the thing you were looking for but lower quality and we hope you don't notice'. e.g. on Amazon UK type 'PCL air fittings' in the search box.
Oh and air fittings - does the world really need 50 incompatible shapes?
The dumb-assed Euro-nonsense 'click to say you're happy we use cookies' every time I go to any web site - even one I've used 100 times before. Did you not sit down and think about the consequences of this law for just 10 seconds? Have you lawmakers never even used a web browser?
'Stateless' web search boxes that make you add the same 6 filter criteria in every time you do a search.
Sites that pop-up 'will you give us your feedback' when I'm on their web site for the first time and have been on it for less than 3 seconds.
I could keep going ... how long have you got? :)
Alan
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Did you not sit down and think about the consequences of this law for just 10 seconds?
This comment could be applied to the vast majority of legislation passed by any politicians anywhere.
When someone says something equivalent to "There ought to be a law..." the first thing I ask them is to describe how that law will be enforced. Usually there's a few seconds of confusion, followed by an "Oh... oops" expression on their face. Do you REALLY want to live with a sufficient enforcement mechanism to accomplish what you're asking for? Most people don't but they haven't thought it through - which is how a lot of laws like that get passed, I suspect!!!
Related case: We recently had another attempt to severely restrict on-water activities on lakes in our local county. This has come up each year lately. They tried to sneak it through this time to avoid the usual public outcry but word got out and the resulting furor caused the public hearings to be attended by sheriff's deputies. They already have strict limits which are enforced by the marine division of the sheriff's office, but the complaint is that the marine deputies don't have the resources to sufficiently patrol for it. I was invited to speak, and one of my comments was "If the marine deputies already cannot enforce the existing restrictions, why do you think further restrictions will work better?" That line got a dumbfounded look from the elected officials - and thunderous applause from the audience (which those same officials did NOT like, they immediately threatened to close the hearing if it happened again).
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YouTube videos that ask you to “like and subscribe” at the *start* of the video, before you have actually seen anything and you don’t know what the content is.
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To save everyone else 3' 30" of their time, there is no flying birds or anything, just this:
The oozlum bird, also spelt ouzelum, is a legendary creature found in Australian and British folk tales and legends. Some versions have it that, when startled, the bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up itself, disappearing completely, which adds to its rarity. Other sources state that the bird flies backwards so that it can admire its own beautiful tail feathers, or because while it does not know where it is going, it likes to know where it has been. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "[a] mythical bird displaying ridiculous behaviour" and speculates that the word could have been suggested by the word ouzel, meaning a blackbird. The earliest citation recorded by the dictionary dates from 1858.
That's it.
Oh, and "This video is targeted to blind users." But we aren't such and the entire text is there up front for copy'n'pasting.
TV shows where the action is described by an annoying voice, supposedly for blind people.
There doesn't seem to be a way of turning it off.
Off topic for a moment:
Q:-"Why do Morris dancers wear bells?"
A:- "So they can piss off blind people,too!"
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"Historical aviation" videos, where they fill half of it with shots of totally different types of plane.
The videos would (obviously) be less half the length if they cut all that crap, & the intervening connecting bits out.
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"Historical aviation" videos, where they fill half of it with shots of totally different types of plane.
The videos would (obviously) be less half the length if they cut all that crap, & the intervening connecting bits out.
You're gonna love this 'ad' for a private jet. :scared:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzV_o03sUic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzV_o03sUic)
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Yeah, +100 for people who start sentences with 'So,'...
Guilty (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/embedded-computing/sdcc-error-129-pointer-types-incompatible/msg3793775/?topicseen#msg3793775) :'( In my defence, me fail English, as I do not talk English socially.
Any suggestions on how to express "If I understood you correctly" or "Assuming the aforementioned holds" or "Therefore" in the beginning of a sentence better? (Because that's what I use "So," for at the start of a sentence.)
I'm asking, because even though I am annoying and verbose, I'd rather spend a little more effort to be less so.
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How about:
"With that in mind, I wonder...will price go up ?"
That maybe subtlely leaves room for the preceding speaker to interject, without burdening the subject directly if you understood. Leaves the assumption that you have heard correctly what was said.
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https://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732859/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-starting-a-sentence-with-so (https://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732859/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-starting-a-sentence-with-so)
...but personally I think it's lazy, like saying "umm" and "ahh" to buy time while speaking.
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When speaking (to a person, group, or even a crowd), you can always use the short intervals/pauses (of a breath or so) to gauge the interest, observe the nonverbal cues, and adjust. It is a relatively easy to learn skill, and one doesn't need to use fillers (except to indicate giving thought to a matter or similar). When writing, it's impossible: there is nothing similar. One has to predict/guesstimate reactions, and try to keep avenues open, if the intent is to have an information-rich exchange. That leads to verbosity, and as we know, verbosity is Evil on the intertubes.
I can assure you, at least in writing, it is not laziness. Dammit, human languages are hard. >:(
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When writing, it's impossible: there is nothing similar.
Maybe an ellipsis...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis)
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... at the start of a paragraph?
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In the original Old English, the epic poem Beowulf starts with an untranslatable word "Hwæt".
A recent translation into Modern English by Maria Headley rendered that as "Bro!". The word apparently exists just to fill space leading into the real plot.
The eminent scholar Seamus Heaney published his translation in 2000 as a bilingual (Old on left side, Modern on right side) edition, and translated the first word as "So".
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OK 'virtual assistants' that don't understand anything (I'm looking at you Fedex) and are just a way for the organisation to stop you from contacting people who know stuff.
Devices that want to update themselves every day worldwide because there's some tiny bug that has been 'fixed' that doesn't affect you anyway.
Payment processors who decide you need to go through extended security verification for $2 purchases.
Alan
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>>> The eminent scholar Seamus Heaney published his translation in 2000 as a bilingual (Old on left side, Modern on right side) edition, and translated the first word as "So".
Yeah, to my mind, 'so' if fine if it's used like this:
(http://[attachimg=1])
And also instead of because ('so the chicken could get to the other side of the road') and even at the start of a sentence as an explanatory answer to a question - Q 'Why did you cut the tomatoes that way?', A 'So I could fit more on the plate.'
Q 'What time did you get up this morning?' A 'So, I was drunk last night and stayed out late.' ... is just bollox. It's just a tip-off that you've got no intention in being straight in answering the question.
Alan
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I've used it three times this evening :)
I seem to use it as a continuation. Where I've been going on about something and digressed a bit, 'so' is saying 'but back to where we were'. And a lot shorter.
I don't see a problem with it per se, but like anything else it jars if used too often.
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I don't see a problem with it per se, but like anything else it jars if used too often.
I suppose this falls into the category of hearing a phrase without ever seeing it written, but seeing someone write, "I don't see a problem, per say" is grating!
I am not at all annoyed by people who use words correctly when spoken but they mispronounce them. That indicates being well read. I was a senior in high school when my English teacher corrected my pronunciation of "epitome." This is one result of how English absorbs words from other languages.
Here's a puzzler: how to pronounce "quixotic." Hopefully everyone knows that it is derived from the name of the Most Excellent Man of La Mancha Don Quixote, and it is defined as "a task akin to tilting at windmills." The name is pronounced "kee-oh-tee" so my guess is the word is pronounced "kee-oh-tick" but I've heard it pronounced "kwix-ah-tick" so I honestly don't know. I'm sure the attempt to learn how it is pronounced is quixotic!
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I seem to use it as a continuation. Where I've been going on about something and digressed a bit, 'so' is saying 'but back to where we were'. And a lot shorter.
I think of "so" as a synonym for words like "hence" or "thus" when the first word in a sentence. In that manner it is indeed a sort of "continuation", as you said.
"I paid with a $100 bill at the store. So I have smaller denominations now."
vs:
"I paid with a $100 bill at the store. Thus I have smaller denominations now."
vs:
"I paid with a $100 bill at the store. Hence I have smaller denominations now."
The grating usage is when people use "so" when it's not necessary - when the sentence would have exactly the same meaning without it. I hear this all the time during Q&A's between media talking heads and whomever they're interviewing. The interviewee's answer very often starts out with "So, ..." and sometimes even a delay after that word, which is completely unnecessary. It's bad enough that I ALSO heard a discussion of this behavior in another interview, wherein the language expert flatly stated that the use of a leading "so" is a subconcious signal that the speaker believes their audience to be beneath them; to that respondent a leading, unnecessary "so" indicates they are dumbing down their answer based on their opinion of the listener(s). I don't know if there's any validity to that opinion, but I already didn't like it and you can bet I've tried hard to avoid it all the more ever since!
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Quixotic:
In modern Spanish, the name is usually spelled “Quijote”, matching the Spanish pronunciation, although the original title page (in Spanish) used “Quixote”.
The adjective in English is usually pronounced like “quicks”. The Spanish adjective is “quijotesco”.
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I think my latest pet peeve is the fact that when I posted in this thread a long time ago, I failed to realise that as a result it would endlessly crop up in my new replies list.
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There is a fix: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/1450/?action=notify;sa=off (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/1450/?action=notify;sa=off)
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I have had a 'reverse peeve' for some time.
That is when things get sooo bad, ridiculous, that a person takes their own 'sponsability, for what is rational, and starts breaking established Grammer rules, in deliberate frustration.
This, enter: 'Deborah', a word variation (I invented), for lots of crap strewn around, on the ground. Borrowed from 'debris', for the mangle.
Heck, just a reflection of 'real' language mis-applied, in today's culture.
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I don't see a problem with it per se, but like anything else it jars if used too often.
I suppose this falls into the category of hearing a phrase without ever seeing it written, but seeing someone write, "I don't see a problem, per say" is grating!
To shay! >:D (Things like that drive me nuts, too.)
I am not at all annoyed by people who use words correctly when spoken but they mispronounce them. That indicates being well read. I was a senior in high school when my English teacher corrected my pronunciation of "epitome." This is one result of how English absorbs words from other languages.
I got that one wrong when I was younger, too - thought it was epi-tome, like a really epic book. :palm:
Here's a puzzler: how to pronounce "quixotic." Hopefully everyone knows that it is derived from the name of the Most Excellent Man of La Mancha Don Quixote, and it is defined as "a task akin to tilting at windmills." The name is pronounced "kee-oh-tee" so my guess is the word is pronounced "kee-oh-tick" but I've heard it pronounced "kwix-ah-tick" so I honestly don't know. I'm sure the attempt to learn how it is pronounced is quixotic!
I’ve no idea if it’s correct, but I’ve always pronounced it as key-AHH-tic.
-Pat
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There are large numbers of words in English that are found in print and relatively rarely in speech. And since I seldom consult a dictionary when encountering a new word if the meaning is clear from context there are quite a few I have mispronounced. One of the ones that surprised me the most was banal.
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there are quite a few I have mispronounced.
Quite a few? That sound like hyper bowl to me.
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OK 'virtual assistants' that don't understand anything (I'm looking at you Fedex) and are just a way for the organisation to stop you from contacting people who know stuff.
Yeah, "assistants".
The one class of "assistants" I do like, is the automatic notifications that need no interaction.
I particularly like the email notifications I get from the Finnish Post notifying a package is ready for pickup.
The emails end with "Tämä on Postin robottikaverin automaattinen sähköpostiviesti. Hän ei vielä osaa lukea – älä siis vastaa hänelle." which translates roughly as "This is an automated email from the postmans robot buddy. He can't read yet, so please don't answer him."
I think it is a masterful psychological stroke, defusing any "this has no humanity in it" feelings from the human-oriented people, while at the same time informing the readers that it is just an automated message.
There are large numbers of words in English that are found in print and relatively rarely in speech. And since I seldom consult a dictionary when encountering a new word if the meaning is clear from context there are quite a few I have mispronounced. One of the ones that surprised me the most was banal.
My pronunciation is so bad I get surprised when I pronounce one correctly. That's why I switched from trying to adopt British/American accent to just using "Rally English" years ago: it's clearer. And I don't mind me sounding funny to others if it means I'm easier to understand; I do that trade gladly.
I do like language puns, like pronouncing bicycle as bi-cycle, just to jest and confuse the listener.
Like asking someone how to pronounce 'y', 'e', 's', and after they say "yes", asking how to pronounce it if you prepend an 'e' to it. (Followed by the obligatory "I'm so tired I can't keep my ejes open.")
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"Tämä on Postin robottikaverin automaattinen sähköpostiviesti. Hän ei vielä osaa lukea – älä siis vastaa hänelle."
Wow, I've read that entire phrase, word by word. ;D
No idea what it was saying, but anyways it all sounded very trippy. By the end of it I was already feeling like a true Viking, even believing for a moment that I have a my own dragon for real. ^-^
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"Tämä on Postin robottikaverin automaattinen sähköpostiviesti. Hän ei vielä osaa lukea – älä siis vastaa hänelle."
Wow, I've read that entire phrase, word by word. ;D
No idea what it was saying, but anyways it all sounded very trippy. By the end of it I was already feeling like a true Viking, even believing for a moment that I have a my own dragon for real. ^-^
Finns (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANQNl1JHXV0)
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New topic: Rental car companies that revise their billing and refuse to honor their reservations!
WARNING: DO NOT RENT FROM DOLLAR RENT A CAR.
I travel a lot for business and rent a lot of vehicles from a lot of companies. Generally things go well, and I'm not picky about a few percent either way.
Today I'm reconciling my receipts from a recent business trip. I have the reservation printout from their website sitting right here in black and white, for USD 379.64. Yet the bill totaled USD 522.77 - a 38% increase! I just got off the phone with them and their response was "Doesn't matter what the reservation says. Once you sign for the car you agree to what's on the new paperwork."
Yes, I understand that a signed agreement with a later date can supercede a previous reservation. But I have a habit of comparing the reservation bottom line to the rental agreement on the spot, and if there had been a discrepency I'd have raised the question immediately. That tells me what they had me sign - and what they retained - was close enough to the reservation to not catch my eye.
When I returned the car, they gave me a printout. Of course by this time I'm in a hurry to get to the gate, and besides - I compared the bottom line figures earlier, right?
Again, I understand that ultimately I could have been even more anal retentive about this than my usual level. But somehow they knew they could get away with it this time. It's not insulting enough that they bumped the daily rate from a quoted AND PRINTED figure of 70.84/day to a figure of 95.45/day. They also added 52.00 for "an additional driver". Never mind that I specifically asked if there was a charge for an extra driver (some do, some don't, which is why I always ask!) and that their employee said, to my face at the airport, "If they are with the same company there's no extra charge". The 52.00 is on the receipt, and in the words of their phone rep just now, "We do not adjust charges after you return the car".
My last words to Dollar today were "I travel a lot and I rent a LOT of vehicles. Whatever you think you saved today on this transaction, I promise you have lost 100X that amount because I will tell everyone I know to never rent from nor trust Dollar ever again".
YMMV, but there are a lot of rental car companies out there. I suggest you use anyone but Dollar.
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I think I rented from Dollar just once many many years back. Now, I go through Costco and usually they work with Enterprise. On two occasions I got a larger car than what I reserved, at the same price. Never had a problem so far. Even Hertz is not bad. They do the same thing. Never charge extra.
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My son rented from Dollar recently and had a horrible experience. Reserved a full size car. They gave him a sub-compact, which matters a lot because he is NBA size. Told him tough, that was what they had, and didn't change the rate either. So your advice to avoid Dollar seems good.
Don't know how to spread that advice to Dollar's owner, Hertz, or their sister company also owned by Hertz, which is Thrifty. At least at some airports they operate as a single entity, sharing counter help and some other services.
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I happened to use Alamo on my first US trip back in 93. It turned out nice, and I've used them since. I go to the US perhaps once every three years, on average, and most of the times I've rented. Last time was to NAB in Las Vegas, and since I have no good words to say about flying domestic in the US (there's a peeve if you want one, oh my), I fly to the closest coast and drive the rest. Will investigate train next time if feasible, but then it'll be for the ride an sich.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrRzbpBuAfo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrRzbpBuAfo)
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Blimey! Currently playing Wreckfest and I thought that style of derby was made up for the game. Didn't realise it was pukka.
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Packaging.
That is all.
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Many programs still showing a floppy disc icon for "Save" when nobody knows anymore what a floppy disc is and how it's supposed to look like
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That's been a standard icon for decades, it doesn't matter if somebody doesn't know what a floppy disk is, everyone knows that icon means save. Does a stop sign look like a stop?
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Same thing. Many phone icons show a "classic" receiver (or even a rotary) when real phones don't have that anymore since decades.
Icons were originally meant to give visual feedback of the real thing - somehow defeats the purpose if you've never seen that. People end up deciphering ancient hieroglyphics instead of having immediate "visual grasp".
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What would be the alternatives to the disk or handset icons?
Remember, icons need to be distinctive.
I sometimes see a cloud icon to represent saving to a cloud service, but that is not universal, since it would not match local saving.
An icon of a harddrive? Almost extinct for most users as well. Also difficult to create a distinctive look for small icons.
An icon of a flash chip? How would that even look?
Abstracted and distincitive icons are in my opinion really good. Yes, it is something you need to learn. But when it is abstracted, as the floppy disc icon is nowadays, it does not need to change with technology. If the save icon had changed with each underlying storage technology, you would have had to learn quite a few different icons.
Same for the handset icon. It is distinctive. What would a generic smartphone icon be? A rectangle with slightly rounded corners?
This touches another "per peeve" of mine. Change for change's sake. There are so many pointless changes to GUIs with a new software version. Many that make usability actually worse. Just look at the disaster that is the taskbar of Windows 11.
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What would be the alternatives to the disk or handset icons?
"Save"
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Has "Touch screen car commands" already been mentioned? Wanted to activate seat heating, caught a bump and changed radio station instead.
Oh, and also FM radio. Why is it still a thing, at least in Europe? Loaded to the brim with demential commercials and once you find a good song and skip station (see above), you will NEVER be able to find it again!
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That's been a standard icon for decades, it doesn't matter if somebody doesn't know what a floppy disk is, everyone knows that icon means save. Does a stop sign look like a stop?
Even a safe icon would probably be more intuitive for people that never saw a floppy disk (and probably would imply more safeness for people that do).
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Oh, and also FM radio. Why is it still a thing, at least in Europe? Loaded to the brim with demential commercials and once you find a good song and skip station (see above), you will NEVER be able to find it again!
How would a change in transmission modulation from FM to digital change the program content?
I keep my car radio on FM, rather than "HD" (which is "hybrid digital", not "high definition") since signal interruptions (overpasses, etc.) cause any narration to repeat a word or back up further, which is more annoying than just a momentary dropout.
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What would be the alternatives to the disk or handset icons?
"Save"
The whole point of an "icon" is that it is not tied to the local language. Before retiring, I sometimes had to use a computer in Japan or Sweden on work trips.
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The whole point of an "icon" is that it is not tied to the local language. Before retiring, I sometimes had to use a computer in Japan or Sweden on work trips.
Yes, but a tiny unknown icon vaguely depicting something you've never seen is a foreign language even in your own language! At least Google Translate can show you what real words mean (and the Lens version is jolly brilliant).
Are you suggesting there should be no menus? Those are localised languages, you know.
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What would be the alternatives to the disk or handset icons?
Remember, icons need to be distinctive.
I sometimes see a cloud icon to represent saving to a cloud service, but that is not universal, since it would not match local saving.
An icon of a harddrive? Almost extinct for most users as well. Also difficult to create a distinctive look for small icons.
An icon of a flash chip? How would that even look?
Abstracted and distincitive icons are in my opinion really good. Yes, it is something you need to learn. But when it is abstracted, as the floppy disc icon is nowadays, it does not need to change with technology. If the save icon had changed with each underlying storage technology, you would have had to learn quite a few different icons.
Same for the handset icon. It is distinctive. What would a generic smartphone icon be? A rectangle with slightly rounded corners?
This touches another "per peeve" of mine. Change for change's sake. There are so many pointless changes to GUIs with a new software version. Many that make usability actually worse. Just look at the disaster that is the taskbar of Windows 11.
I can see it now: "Sorry the save feature is not working because we tried to update the icon to look like the current popular data storage hardware."
One of the things I like about the old icon is this joke I keep seeing: "I showed my kids a floppy disk and they asked me why I 3D printed the save icon."
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The whole point of an "icon" is that it is not tied to the local language. Before retiring, I sometimes had to use a computer in Japan or Sweden on work trips.
Yes, but a tiny unknown icon vaguely depicting something you've never seen is a foreign language even in your own language! At least Google Translate can show you what real words mean (and the Lens version is jolly brilliant).
Are you suggesting there should be no menus? Those are localised languages, you know.
There is a difference between iconography using language-independent symbols (icons), and using menus using local language.
Once you learn that a tiny image of an object you have not used represents the verb "to save" in your language, you and your international colleagues may proceed.
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That kind of works in theory. I have an app (actual several different apps) with configurable toolbars. I can choose what icons go on the toolbars, and sometimes I can even choose what the icon function will be. But I still seem to be ignoring them and going for the menus instead. The exceptions are the toolbars where I can show icons and short text underneath.
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Has "Touch screen car commands" already been mentioned? Wanted to activate seat heating, caught a bump and changed radio station instead.
Oh, and also FM radio. Why is it still a thing, at least in Europe? Loaded to the brim with demential commercials and once you find a good song and skip station (see above), you will NEVER be able to find it again!
I'm pretty sure it has, I certainly loathe touchscreens in cars.
I actually like FM radio and think they should have stuck with it instead of pushing out all this digital nonsense that is using what are now hopelessly obsolete compression standards. Analog FM sounds very good, and unlike digital, the signal doesn't abruptly cut out when it is weak. Now the content being broadcast that is another matter, but there are still several good stations near me, though I rarely listen to them anymore since I have other sources without ads.
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Are you suggesting there should be no menus? Those are localised languages, you know.
Who would make such a ridiculous suggestion as that? Well, actually for reasons I cannot fathom, menus have been disappearing on a lot of software, Microsoft is a major offender here. The proper way of doing it is to have standardized icons for frequently used functions in a toolbar below a hierarchical dropdown menu containing all of the commands. A properly designed interface will have tooltips for the icons too so if you hover over that little picture of a mysterious object you have never seen it will say "Save" and then you'll know what that symbol means, problem solved.
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Are you suggesting there should be no menus? Those are localised languages, you know.
Who would make such a ridiculous suggestion as that? Well, actually for reasons I cannot fathom, menus have been disappearing on a lot of software, Microsoft is a major offender here. The proper way of doing it is to have standardized icons for frequently used functions in a toolbar below a hierarchical dropdown menu containing all of the commands. A properly designed interface will have tooltips for the icons too so if you hover over that little picture of a mysterious object you have never seen it will say "Save" and then you'll know what that symbol means, problem solved.
UI design is not super difficult, but it is not trivial either... The mobile world has destroyed the idea of apps having comprehensive menus, tool tips, etc., and this "philosophy" is now leaking back to the desktop OS world too.
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Are you suggesting there should be no menus? Those are localised languages, you know.
Who would make such a ridiculous suggestion as that? Well, actually for reasons I cannot fathom, menus have been disappearing on a lot of software, Microsoft is a major offender here. The proper way of doing it is to have standardized icons for frequently used functions in a toolbar below a hierarchical dropdown menu containing all of the commands. A properly designed interface will have tooltips for the icons too so if you hover over that little picture of a mysterious object you have never seen it will say "Save" and then you'll know what that symbol means, problem solved.
UI design is not super difficult, but it is not trivial either... The mobile world has destroyed the idea of apps having comprehensive menus, tool tips, etc., and this "philosophy" is now leaking back to the desktop OS world too.
The basic sin of some current UI developers is the thought that mobile (small screen and touch interface) and fixed systems (large screens and keyboards) should have identical UIs.
The related trend is video: we either watch movies on a small mobile screen or a gigantic home-theater screen.
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UI design is not super difficult, but it is not trivial either...
Sadly, it looks like UI design too has devolved into race to the bottom, to the simplest common denominator. They're no longer designed to be powerful, just simple and easy to use, with lots of bling/eye-candy. >:(
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I'd say that nowadays UIs are not designed, just made.
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doesn't UI mean Unusable Interface :palm:
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Finally, someone said it.
[attachimg=1]
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I'd say that nowadays UIs are not designed, just made.
Well, if you believe in an unintelligent designer, then yes, they were designed.
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The issue with user interface design, or say software design, is not that the designers are stupid.
It is that they do not consider the various real-life workflows of using the interface or software as a tool.
I've mentioned I've done some workflow optimization, both as a paid work and just for fun (I'm addicted to problem-solving).
It takes humility and possibly a slightly wonky mind to accept different working workflows (I admit mine is at least the latter, if not the former), and to design the tools that can be used for them all, and not just a specific one the designer thinks is the correct one.
To change the current situation, we'd have to change the focus and reward rules for the designers. And I just don't see that happening anytime soon.
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The issue with user interface design, or say software design, is not that the designers are stupid.
It is that they do not consider the various real-life workflows of using the interface or software as a tool.
I've mentioned I've done some workflow optimization, both as a paid work and just for fun (I'm addicted to problem-solving).
It takes humility and possibly a slightly wonky mind to accept different working workflows (I admit mine is at least the latter, if not the former), and to design the tools that can be used for them all, and not just a specific one the designer thinks is the correct one.
To change the current situation, we'd have to change the focus and reward rules for the designers. And I just don't see that happening anytime soon.
I don't blame the designers.
They just design what they are told to design. There is always some manager or marketing person driving the design.
(This applies to all of engineering, not just user interface.)
You can have all of the usability testing and best practices and Edward Tufte books you want, but the person writing the checks ultimately decides what goes live. And if that person doesn't believe in usability or has "other reasons" for how a web site (or product) should work, then the designer either does what is demanded or quits.
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When the neighbor parks their shitty beat up car on the street in front of my house instead of across the street in front of their own house. They don't always do it but occasionally do and I can't figure out why. I know they are legally allowed to do so but it still seems rude and I would not park a car in front of their house if the space in front of mine was open. Especially not a beater, they park their nice cars in the driveway.
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When the neighbor parks their shitty beat up car on the street in front of my house instead of across the street in front of their own house. They don't always do it but occasionally do and I can't figure out why. I know they are legally allowed to do so but it still seems rude and I would not park a car in front of their house if the space in front of mine was open. Especially not a beater, they park their nice cars in the driveway.
If that's your worst problem, you are indeed a very happy man, obviously. But it appears you don't really feel like that?
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When the neighbor parks their shitty beat up car on the street in front of my house instead of across the street in front of their own house. They don't always do it but occasionally do and I can't figure out why. I know they are legally allowed to do so but it still seems rude and I would not park a car in front of their house if the space in front of mine was open. Especially not a beater, they park their nice cars in the driveway.
If that's your worst problem, you are indeed a very happy man, obviously. But it appears you don't really feel like that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dULOjT9GYdQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dULOjT9GYdQ)
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If that's your worst problem, you are indeed a very happy man, obviously. But it appears you don't really feel like that?
I'm not sure what makes you think it's my worst problem. It's just something that annoys me, and was annoying me at the time as I had just glanced out and noticed that stupid beat up old car parked right in front of my house again while the street in front of theirs is completely clear. Parking on the street in this area is relatively rare, everyone has a garage and a driveway so when a car is parked on the street it really stands out.
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CMake.
Closely followed by CMake online help.
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i've just ordered a de-soldering gun (Hakko, with accessories) at about £450 pounds - yet when i google retro classic record players I can't get anything better that £125 ?
its like I'm not on the right wavelength, and the switch to get there isn't working?
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I’ve got one of those label making machines that put black text on white 12mm wide self adhesive tape. The thing is, regardless of how long or short the label text is, there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end. This is particularly bad if you only want to print a single label with a single character on it e.g. “3”. Heaps of wasted tape. About 5 to 7 mm on each end would be plenty. |O
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The basic sin of some current UI developers is the thought that mobile (small screen and touch interface) and fixed systems (large screens and keyboards) should have identical UIs.
Windows 8 has entered the chat.
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I’ve got one of those label making machines that put black text on white 12mm wide self adhesive tape. The thing is, regardless of how long or short the label text is, there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end. This is particularly bad if you only want to print a single label with a single character on it e.g. “3”. Heaps of wasted tape. About 5 to 7 mm on each end would be plenty.
That's a "feature", according to their sales department. As in, "sales of their label tape". It's all about maximizing the consumables.
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I’ve got one of those label making machines that put black text on white 12mm wide self adhesive tape. The thing is, regardless of how long or short the label text is, there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end. This is particularly bad if you only want to print a single label with a single character on it e.g. “3”. Heaps of wasted tape. About 5 to 7 mm on each end would be plenty.
That's a "feature", according to their sales department. As in, "sales of their label tape". It's all about maximizing the consumables.
Indeed. The business is in the selling of tape, not the machine.
I usually use small fonts and dual lines on my Dymo label maker to save on tape.
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there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end
To be fair, there's not a lot they can do about that because the cutter has to go after the transfer tape off-feed, and that has to go after the printhead (so the cartridge needs to be quite robust there). They all suffer from it to some extent. I have a few of their models, and the most recent I have has the cartridge redesigned to minimise the unused part of the tape by making the cartridge really thin at that point (like a couple of mm). Still wastes some, though.
Mine printer is the one with dual tapes and the peel-off labels are unwasted. Expensive, yes, but you can use every label.
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I've seen printer designs where the media was retracted after cutting, so the starting edge was back near the printhead. Simple reversal of the feed motor. Zero extra components, the motor has to be there anyway.
So they CAN solve the problem. They just choose not to.
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I've seen printer designs where the media was retracted after cutting, so the starting edge was back near the printhead. Simple reversal of the feed motor. Zero extra components, the motor has to be there anyway.
So they CAN solve the problem. They just choose not to.
I guess it's possible that it didn't occur to them to do that, or making the motor reversible would add additional cost, requiring a full H bridge instead of a single transistor. Cartridges may jam if not specifically designed with the ability to wind back in. Either way it's annoying, but it may not be such a trivial thing to fix as you imply.
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Sure, all of that is true. I'm just saying it's been a solved problem for a very long time.
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Microsoft. Again.But specifically for their habit of acquiring freely available programs, making them run only on Windows 10, the shoving them in the app store and removing from the rest of the Internet, solely to force happy Windows 7 users to 'upgrade'.
Latest one I've found is NGT Lite. This is a text relay app - I am deaf, and this app allows me to make calls which are routed through a text-to-voice service (and voice-to-text back). Went to upgrade today and it doesn't exist - now it is BT Relay, which is fair enough because BT run the service. There's a download link to.... the Windows store and the minimum requirement is Windows 10.
It's bad enough that they do this shit on programs it would be nice to have, but to do it on something that massively affects my ability to communicate is really shit.
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Microsoft. Again
now it is BT Relay, which is fair enough because BT run the service
Id be looking more at BT than at microsoft,if its a BT product they decide what its requirements are and were its available from.
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BT are tossers (the help page is pants and contains not a lot helpful, but has an embedded video for deaf people to see a sign language version, which turns out to be just a bloke waving his arms about saying exactly the same non-info as on the page! I mean, if you're using a text service presumably you can read the text on the page and don't need a video of non-text non-speech to see it.)
But Microsoft have form and can remove the app from sources where BT can't. Of course, you'd think that BT could just provide a download link for the various versions, but my guess is that Microsoft have told them they're happy to put the app in their spiffy app store providing they are the sole source.
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When the neighbor parks their shitty beat up car on the street in front of my house instead of across the street in front of their own house. They don't always do it but occasionally do and I can't figure out why. I know they are legally allowed to do so but it still seems rude and I would not park a car in front of their house if the space in front of mine was open. Especially not a beater, they park their nice cars in the driveway.
If that's your worst problem, you are indeed a very happy man, obviously. But it appears you don't really feel like that?
mfro - what a strange reply for a thread about pet peeves.
james_s - That is annoying. Many of my neighbors use their 'driveway' for storage and treat the street as their driveway. The worst was one that left their friends car beside my house while I was pruning a tree over it. They sauntered out to a different car and took that one to get coffee then after they got back they offered to move. By that point I had already carried most of the branches a few cars away to my truck and squeezed them in between my truck and the other neighbors car.
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Speaking of parked cars...
Around here you get cars parked half up on the pavement (sidewalk for you non-brits). I can see the intention (not block traffic) but all they do is block pedestrians and still block the traffic - even with half a car off the road, the other half means cars still have to move right over to get past. They would be much better to just park in the kerb as normal.
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Speaking of parked cars...
Around here you get cars parked half up on the pavement (sidewalk for you non-brits). I can see the intention (not block traffic) but all they do is block pedestrians and still block the traffic - even with half a car off the road, the other half means cars still have to move right over to get past. They would be much better to just park in the kerb as normal.
Speaking of cars half on sidewalks. At my new house, one of the guys working on the neighbors house parked half on the sidewalk and got hassled by the city. I think the city was actually here for other business as they spent some time down the road first and then stopped at the neighbors on their return trip. Worst part was just before that, I was giving those tradies a hard time for getting concrete on my house so now I think they think I called the city and complained about their parking. Either way, their mess and music got worse afterwards and they never brought the beer I said they owed me.
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Speaking of parked cars...
Around here you get cars parked half up on the pavement (sidewalk for you non-brits). I can see the intention (not block traffic) but all they do is block pedestrians and still block the traffic - even with half a car off the road, the other half means cars still have to move right over to get past. They would be much better to just park in the kerb as normal.
That happens sometimes in my neighborhood too, in the section that has sloped curbs. Equally annoying are people who put out their garbage and recycle bins on the sidewalk instead of placing them on the street like you're supposed to. When I go for a walk I have to walk out into the street to get around the bins.
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WAIT,; You have 'sidewalks' ?
Our little town, there outside of Oakland city limits, has some sidewalks, maybe 78 %. Some spots have spotty asphalt patches, hella trip hazard.
Long stretches of dirt attract DOGs, being walked, and keepin regular. I often walk with cane-assist, so rather veer into the street.
BUT, that's OK, I prefer to not drive.
I guess my pet-peeve, of the day, taking a DOG's Point of view:
DOG OWNERS:. Let 'MAXXEY' take a leisurely SNIFF, or two...That's how they communicate / connect, socially. Kind of like Faecbohk (but from the other end). All joking aside, just let, another 30-40 seconds, and your dog is ready to resume the walk.
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100% agree with you about letting dogs have the time to sniff to their satisfaction. Fully 1/3rd of their brain is devoted to smell... that's how important it is to them.
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Fully 1/3rd of their brain is devoted to smell...
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Are you sure you got the science straight there?
(https://preview.redd.it/c45a4kltkzz21.jpg?auto=webp&s=02435f0029e1ccba69c6015a8e733ce47d52ea05)
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You do have a point. :-DD
And I do love Bernies. And Newfies. But most especially Curly Coated Retrievers.
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So what annoys the hell out of me is any statistical graph or chart without a proper legend. Or some explanation in a paragraph what it means.
Likewise I do get very annoyed when people don't introduce a conversation topic properly. Or fail to mention key information so that I can make sense of what someone is saying.
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So what annoys the hell out of me is any statistical graph or chart without a proper legend. Or some explanation in a paragraph what it means.
I remember some 40 years ago there was a leaflet for this Amway product (aloe vera maybe?) telling you just how wonderful it was, and on the back page was an "analysis" graph with a wiggly trace on it. There was no labels or numbers on the X and Y axes, and what's more, as well as going up and down the trace also went side to side a little. :palm:
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I remember some 40 years ago there was a leaflet for this Amway product (aloe vera maybe?) telling you just how wonderful it was, and on the back page was an "analysis" graph with a wiggly trace on it. There was no labels or numbers on the X and Y axes, and what's more, as well as going up and down the trace also went side to side a little. :palm:
The graph probably just represented the shape of an aloe vera leaf! ;D
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When you show people some modern, up to date and technologically sophisticated device that actually works properly, and they say "ahhh... you can't beat the old [technically decrepit and not even remotely comparable object]. The thing they are referring to might have some worthwhile feature e.g. low cost, but generally they imagine their sharpened stick is superior to your new CNC laser because, you know, the electricity might go off.
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When you show people some modern, up to date and technologically sophisticated device that actually works properly, and they say "ahhh... you can't beat the old [technically decrepit and not even remotely comparable object]. The thing they are referring to might have some worthwhile feature e.g. low cost, but generally they imagine their sharpened stick is superior to your new CNC laser because, you know, the electricity might go off.
Like by surprise they give an honest response: "Ugh, you hurt my feelings. I desperately put up this coping mechanism and even just looking a little to your system make me realize what a caveman I actually am."
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When you show people some modern, up to date and technologically sophisticated device that actually works properly, and they say "ahhh... you can't beat the old [technically decrepit and not even remotely comparable object]. The thing they are referring to might have some worthwhile feature e.g. low cost, but generally they imagine their sharpened stick is superior to your new CNC laser because, you know, the electricity might go off.
Or the other way round, someone shows you a "modern, up to date and technologically sophisticated device" & sneers at your perfectly capable "sharp stick", then, when you try to use the new device for your standard tests, it is incapable of performing them.
Instead of "pulling their head in", they "double down", in effect, calling you a "dinosaur" because you can't see the sterling qualities of their "you beaut" instrument.
This was the scenario with "Reps" demonstrating the early Tek & HP DSOs.
The things were seriously dire at displaying PAL (or any) analog video signals at longish time/div settings (around 5ms/div), due to the presence of HF components up to 5MHz.
They "aliased like there was no tomorrow", producing a display that looked like an overgrown back yard.
We didn't look at video signals at these time/div settings for fun------it was an important way of determining system performance.
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This was the scenario with "Reps" demonstrating the early Tek & HP DSOs.
The things were seriously dire at displaying PAL (or any) analog video signals at longish time/div settings (around 5ms/div), due to the presence of HF components up to 5MHz.
They "aliased like there was no tomorrow", producing a display that looked like an overgrown back yard.
That's why I included the phrase "that actually works properly".
And then there's the situation where neither party will acknowledge that both objects actually have some redeeming features if properly applied to an appropriate situation. For example, vacuum tubes apparently make for great musical instrument amplifiers, but for hifi, well that's a matter of opinion, and I don't mind other people enjoy using them for hifi, but not for me. And then there are those that insist that everything must be 1024 bit 10,000GHz DSP with SiC power MOSFETS and whatever else otherwise it simply isn't good enough. Often neither party will accept that both approaches to amplification have their place in the scheme of things, even if the criteria for choice is simply what you subjectively enjoy.
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[...] someone shows you a "modern, up to date and technologically sophisticated device" & sneers at your perfectly capable "sharp stick", then, when you try to use the new device for your standard tests, it is incapable of performing them.
[...]
A consumer example of that is modern, microprocessor controlled car battery chargers... they refuse to start when confronted with a completely dead battery - you have to jump start the dead battery first (from another battery, or an older "dumb" charger) before the new chargers can get to grips with it... (The new chargers are much better. But they are more often than not helpless if the battery is 100% discharged)
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[...] someone shows you a "modern, up to date and technologically sophisticated device" & sneers at your perfectly capable "sharp stick", then, when you try to use the new device for your standard tests, it is incapable of performing them.
[...]
A consumer example of that is modern, microprocessor controlled car battery chargers... they refuse to start when confronted with a completely dead battery - you have to jump start the dead battery first (from another battery, or an older "dumb" charger) before the new chargers can get to grips with it... (The new chargers are much better. But they are more often than not helpless if the battery is 100% discharged)
This is a similar scenario that I faced when bought a sophisticated Sony NiMH/NiCD charger many years ago: it was fully independent on its four cells, had a discharge function and a fancy LCD showing the charge display. It was so finicky with the type of battery to be charged that I ended up going back to my older Werlisa with only a pair of LEDs but did the job even on the aging cells. :-/O
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[...] someone shows you a "modern, up to date and technologically sophisticated device" & sneers at your perfectly capable "sharp stick", then, when you try to use the new device for your standard tests, it is incapable of performing them.
[...]
A consumer example of that is modern, microprocessor controlled car battery chargers... they refuse to start when confronted with a completely dead battery - you have to jump start the dead battery first (from another battery, or an older "dumb" charger) before the new chargers can get to grips with it... (The new chargers are much better. But they are more often than not helpless if the battery is 100% discharged)
This is a similar scenario that I faced when bought a sophisticated Sony NiMH/NiCD charger many years ago: it was fully independent on its four cells, had a discharge function and a fancy LCD showing the charge display. It was so finicky with the type of battery to be charged that I ended up going back to my older Werlisa with only a pair of LEDs but did the job even on the aging cells. :-/O
Yes, modern designs tend to be more fragile, and increasingly over-engineered... in these inflationary times, look out for old products being quietly dropped, new ones coming in with new "features" to justify the enormous price increases...
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Not only features, but also durability, robustness, etc. Since forever, the "first generation" of a new technology was usually priced at a premium while at the same time being engineered accordingly. As cost reductions are applied as the product/technology matures, the usual first victim is the less prominent feature of durability (robustness). In these covid years, the pressure to accommodate the increased costs in electronics ("chipaggedon") will probably create a few generations of much more mechanically fragile products in the upcoming years...
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Not only features, but also durability, robustness, etc. Since forever, the "first generation" of a new technology was usually priced at a premium while at the same time being engineered accordingly. As cost reductions are applied as the product/technology matures, the usual first victim is the less prominent feature of durability (robustness). In these covid years, the pressure to accommodate the increased costs in electronics ("chipaggedon") will probably create a few generations of much more mechanically fragile products in the upcoming years...
So things will be breaking and getting replaced even faster? That oughta help with chipaggedon [/sarcasm]
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A pet peeve: this overall race to the bottom.
Things are not made to last, or even to solve any practical need. They are made to extract profit out of consumers. Short-term profit and growth is key. You know, like cancer has. Somehow we're making societies that encourage humans to become zero-asset consumers.
If you get to build things that last and have a true purpose, count yourself lucky. :'(
The term "zero-asset consumer" I stole from Neal Asher's Owner trilogy, depicting a time when the majority of the population of Earth are "zero-asset citizens" living on social support, with no middle class, and a tiny self-deluding elite ruling the world.
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It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.
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A technical peeve:
4-wire ohmmeters or LCR meters that do not warn the user when the source leads are not properly connected. (open)
ie: They still give you a reading as if nothing is wrong.
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It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.
You are Not describing me here :rant: :box:
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It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.
In an inflationary environment, it can make sense to buy old stock and/or older items that haven't yet been jacked up in price.
Wages are lagging the price increases, which will mean a lowering of the average person's standard of living... they only have so much money and can't afford to pay 25% - 50% more for everything... so they will cut down out of necessity.
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It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.
You are Not describing me here :rant: :box:
Nor me, but we don't really matter. It's the masses that drive the market, and most people shop almost purely by price.
Speaking of pet peeves, I may have mentioned this already but one of my peeves is that there is often nothing on the market in the gap between the cheapest of cheap garbage and high end professional gear costing an order of magnitude more.
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It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.
You are Not describing me here :rant: :box:
Nor me, but we don't really matter. It's the masses that drive the market, and most people shop almost purely by price.
Speaking of pet peeves, I may have mentioned this already but one of my peeves is that there is often nothing on the market in the gap between the cheapest of cheap garbage and high end professional gear costing an order of magnitude more.
That by and large seems to be the case for DSLR lenses - seems you can get kit lenses or pro grade, but little or nothing in between.
-Pat
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My pet peeve?
Everybody's complaining how "nowadays" electronics last shorter than ever, but it's been the same song for decades and decades, as long as I can remember.
Obviously this is just impossible, given limitations of physical reality, such as product lifetime having to be a positive number. It's the same story how certain people can't stand how Christmas advertising "starts earlier every year", have complained about this for decades. What, does it start in January now?
If you look at the advertisements from 1950's, consumer electronics was always about price. It always was race to the bottom.
Really the only actual reason why people erroneously think that old electronics was more reliable, is the selection bias, those products, or very simple products, that somehow ended up lasting long are here to stay. All crap was thrown away after fixing them become non-option.
I do accept the argument that relying on software ecosystem on the cloud makes "bricking" otherwise functional devices a real possibility and this has actually happened. But this is not what people complain about, they complain about build quality and component quality, which in reality is better than ever. 1960's television sets required constant servicing, it was completely normal to have repairmen come over and replace components, fix solder joints etc, and people were relieved when they could upgrade to a newer gadget, for example color television.
Someone somewhere said well that today's commercial grade components are equivalent to the military grade of two decades past and this is easy to believe. A $0.005 part of today includes more qualifications, data points and design guidance than a $100 military part of 1970's. While failures do still happen, the sheer number of electronic gadgets in an average household has skyrocketed. This is all enabled by the fact that devices are surprisingly long-lasting. Heck, I can't remember when I last time had a failed electronic device. Oh, I had a capacitor failure in an ATX PSU 15 years ago. Capacitor problems were common back then. This problem has nearly been solved as well.
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Really the only actual reason why people erroneously think that old electronics was more reliable, is the selection bias
Good point.
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Obviously this is just impossible, given limitations of physical reality, such as product lifetime having to be a positive number.
Well it'd be pretty crap if product lifetime was a negative number.
BTW I get the essence of your message and I do agree. I'd actually go one further with the selection bias and factor in complexity, or lack of complexity as items get older relative to the current date.
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Obviously this is just impossible, given limitations of physical reality, such as product lifetime having to be a positive number.
Well it'd be pretty crap if product lifetime was a negative number.
BTW I get the essence of your message and I do agree. I'd actually go one further with the selection bias and factor in complexity, or lack of complexity as items get older relative to the current date.
The problem is that the vendors have a business expectation of this short life, in order to sell new gear. Thus we get artificial life span termination -- software bricking et c. Associated to this is non-repairability. In some devices it is defensible, because the device is so complex and miniaturised that most repairs aren't possible. In other cases the lure of selling a new one obviously got too strong and artificial limits were introduced.
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People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me.
I know we say it in a different order but if you really love words so much then use words. By using numbers, you are acknowledging their superiority while simultaneously reducing their greatness by making them not sort properly and be ambiguous sometimes.
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Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.
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Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.
no substitutions required if you grab a copy of this, possible Australia's greatest export
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OhXVJzVsOAw/hqdefault.jpg)
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People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me.
This is an area of conflict for me too. Your formats are obviously the best, and I use YYYY-MM-DD as the prefix to filenames to make them easy to sort regardless of when last "touched". However, in written communication I use "DDMMMYYYY" as in 23DEC2021 because it eliminates the possibility of confusing the month and day. Those are ordered differently in different countries, but no one will confuse two numbers with three letters. Also, using the three letters to separate the digit fields provides further demarcation without requiring hyphens.
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Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.
I'm so glad I don't work retail - THOSE are the people I feel sorry for - they've been subjected to it on the store Muzak since at least Thanksgiving in late November, if not longer. I was sick of it after a 45 minute shopping trip a few weeks back - surprised they don't go insane.
-Pat
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Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.
I'm so glad I don't work retail - THOSE are the people I feel sorry for - they've been subjected to it on the store Muzak since at least Thanksgiving in late November, if not longer. I was sick of it after a 45 minute shopping trip a few weeks back - surprised they don't go insane.
-Pat
Normally I get sick of the bright lights and crappy music after 10 minutes. About 5 minutes during xmas. Ironic thing is they supposedly put effort into making stores comfortable so people will spend more time there and buy more stuff.
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People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me.
I know we say it in a different order but if you really love words so much then use words. By using numbers, you are acknowledging their superiority while simultaneously reducing their greatness by making them not sort properly and be ambiguous sometimes.
This one is a cultural thing. Same as 'AM'/'PM' vs 24hrs time format .
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People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me.
I know we say it in a different order but if you really love words so much then use words. By using numbers, you are acknowledging their superiority while simultaneously reducing their greatness by making them not sort properly and be ambiguous sometimes.
This one is a cultural thing. Same as 'AM'/'PM' vs 24hrs time format .
It seems that way. Engineers seem to use YYYY MM DD, but an industrial designer / artist just gave me a bunch of files that are MMDDYY. I think this is worse than using AM/PM or 24hrs format. It is like saying 11:00 but not saying AM/PM or indicating it is 24 hrs format.
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WRT time, I also drop the trailing "m" as being entirely redundant. It's the same letter whether morning or night. "11a" (when on the hour) or "5:32p" (when minute resolution is needed) is unambiguous without the trailing "m".
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WRT time, I also drop the trailing "m" as being entirely redundant. It's the same letter whether morning or night. "11a" (when on the hour) or "5:32p" (when minute resolution is needed) is unambiguous without the trailing "m".
So efficient. I like it.
What I dont like is people who use MA for may or march. If they're really stuck with 2 letters, it should be should be MY and MR.
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What I dont like is people who use MA for may or march. If they're really stuck with 2 letters, it should be should be MY and MR.
That's why you can't drop to two letters. JUne and JUly have the same problem. You can use JN and JL but then is JN "January"? JA is common for January but if JN is just sitting there by itself, with nothing to compare, which is it?
Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!! :-+
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What I dont like is people who use MA for may or march. If they're really stuck with 2 letters, it should be should be MY and MR.
That's why you can't drop to two letters. JUne and JUly have the same problem. You can use JN and JL but then is JN "January"? JA is common for January but if JN is just sitting there by itself, with nothing to compare, which is it?
Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!! :-+
I prefer 3 letters to 2 but theoretically, I think 2 is possible
January: JA
June: JE
July: JL
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My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others. :-DD
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My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others. :-DD
Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!!
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My related peeve is undefined abbreviations. Careful writing, e.g., meeting author’s requirements for American Physical Society (APS) publications, is to spell it out on first appearance, and then abbreviate on later occurrences (as in this example).
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My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others. :-DD
Kevin's attempt to use small talk and the resulting discussion was one of my favorite parts in 'The Office'.
Kevin's Small Talk - The Office US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K-L9uhsBLM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K-L9uhsBLM)
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My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others. :-DD
Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!!
Pilots are the worst: "We'll be flying ABC with SUX under TARD until FML localizer established."
FMD.
And my two cents, metric calendar and time keeping.
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It seems that way. Engineers seem to use YYYY MM DD, but an industrial designer / artist just gave me a bunch of files that are MMDDYY. I think this is worse than using AM/PM or 24hrs format. It is like saying 11:00 but not saying AM/PM or indicating it is 24 hrs format.
MMDDYY is correct to me, but that's just the convention in my country, other places people have different conventions. You are essentially complaining about the fact that people speak a different language in other countries than your own.
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The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. Including date formats.
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If you strictly deal with "local" partners, using your local conventions is alright. Well, most often. But otherwise, that's pretty risky. That's what standards are for.
Yes, YYYY-MM-DD and time in 24h format are pretty much standard and should be used if you care about working internationally. Or if you just want to avoid any ambiguity.
Here, it ISO 8601: https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/web-development/iso-8601/ (https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/websites/web-development/iso-8601/)
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Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.
no substitutions required if you grab a copy of this, possible Australia's greatest export
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OhXVJzVsOAw/hqdefault.jpg)
Just listened to "Kristmas On the Piss" - this guy is a freaking disgrace - I love it!
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The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. Including date formats.
There actually only is one, and that's ISO 8601. The rest are not standards, only conventions.
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MMDDYY is correct to me, but that's just the convention in my country, other places people have different conventions. You are essentially complaining about the fact that people speak a different language in other countries than your own.
It's not only that, it's because the convention really, actually (from culture-free neutral viewpoint, that is) logically sucks because it's neither little endian nor big endian.
It's like writing one hundred twenty three as 213 "by convention" and then you need to know it actually means 123.
But yeah, I understand your point. When you get mentally stuck into something, no matter how crappy system it is, it's hard to fix.
My pet peeve is the analog clock. Yes, that one which is used literally everywhere, in my culture, and in yours. I still hate it. It's total FUBAR which only works by forcing the convention through the throats of little kids when their minds are flexible enough to learn any arbitrary piece of crap. You might not remember it any more but as a kid, you were taught how to read time from the analog clock, and it was not simple 5-minute lesson, it took real effort to start to really understand it.
As an engineer who likes logical and good solutions and detest all kinds of bullshit, I still struggle reading time from the analog clock.
The problems are:
* Most significant (hours) hand is smaller than less significant (minutes) hand; or they are very similar in size, and form a strange graphical mess where you first need to identify which hand is which before you can start parsing.
* That stupid 12-hour system, it's like a scope that is set to trigger on both falling and rising edges of a sine wave so that the simple periodic signal is impossible to read. Why multiplex two completely different times of day into the same number? Who thought that?
* Despite people making a point that it's this way because of the history of showing the position of sun, this is exactly what it does not do. Astronomy based clock would be 24-hrs clock, and would show directly up at noon (which it does), and directly down at midnight (which it doesn't). It would be a rough approximate instrument without any arbitrary minute hands that mess up the clear physical indication.
Add extremely stupid, probably alcohol-induced ideas like the daylight savings mess.
Digital 24-hrs clock at least solves part of the problems and is orders of magnitude more readable (you can just read the time directly without tedious and unreliable parsing*) but still has the the problem of the absolutely stupid 24-60-60 division (why not 100-100-100 or 1000-1000 or whatever?)
*) which you might not notice because you are so used to it that it runs on "autopilot"
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Digital 24-hrs clock at least solves part of the problems
The analog clock scores over digital because you can easily see 'how close' and 'how far' relative time is. It's kind of like the metric system looks good on paper but doesn't allow for real people, so 15:45 doesn't mean much in relation to 16:00, but look at an analog watch and it means a lot more. Similarly, 16:00 doesn't really carry how far you are through the day.
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Yes, YYYY-MM-DD and time in 24h format are pretty much standard and should be used if you care about working internationally. Or if you just want to avoid any ambiguity.
Ahhh just use a 64 bit integer in hex notation for all seconds passed since January 1st, 1970 at UTC and cut the civilian interpretation crap :)
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It's like writing one hundred twenty three as 213 "by convention" and then you need to know it actually means 123.
That reminds me of a stupid aspect of german. Those numbers make me crazy sometimes.
We say "(Ein)hundertdreiundzwanzig" literary "(one)hundredthreeandtwenty"
For my job i regularly have to switch between english and german, and i always misplace digits when writing numbers down :D
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The analog clock scores over digital because you can easily see 'how close' and 'how far' relative time is.
Yeah, in theory. It's unclear to me whether this is just because this argument is also taught, or if some people actually are able to eyeball the time from the analog clock effectively and quickly.
I'm not. For me, it takes a significant, and worse, nondeterministic mental load and anything between 500ms - 5 seconds to process what the heck that analog clock is saying. Digital clock is no problem. But this is because I'm good at reading and processing numbers.
Things could be different. Take an alternative reality, take a caveman who can't read. Build a 24-hrs analog clock with only one hand (hours hand), and you have a very well working scenario where even the caveman can eyeball the time and get intuitive idea; while reading the digital clock would be significant work.
But reality is, in addition to the ages-old 12h mistake, modern clockmakers have forgotten that originally there were just one hand, and additional minute hand was supposed to be very very thin, and the result is exactly the graphical mess where the parsing process starts by recognizing which hand to ignore, and only after that step is successful, you can go on and eyeball the time quickly. And even then, it doesn't match with the position of sun or the intuitive "percentage" of the current day, because there is the accidental and arbitrary 2x gain and resulting overlapping of the hours. So now you need to mentally combine this hours information to the approximate expected time of day.
Meanwhile, for those of use who read a lot and work with numbers, the mental load of directly seeing the current time in numbers is totally minuscule, like < 100ms. And totally predictable, there is no graphical cross-coupling of hours and minutes. And, because the hours are expressed first in all digital clocks (even those from the US of A, go figure!), it's trivial to just ignore minutes.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to all!
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Analog clocks can give a good visual indication of the time remaining. Basic idea was used for traffic signals once.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshalite (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshalite)
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Yeah and I had an analog darkroom timer which had 100 seconds per full rotation, and only the second hand.
But such special instruments are not what I was talking about; my comments are regarding the usual timekeeping instruments as seen literally everywhere. Specifically those (today in majority) whose designers failed to understand the original idea of large hours hand and very thin minute hand.
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When Mrs. Kloonk and I were trying for the first kid, we soon discovered there was no need to fix the broken thermostat on the kettle.
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Yes, YYYY-MM-DD and time in 24h format are pretty much standard and should be used if you care about working internationally. Or if you just want to avoid any ambiguity.
Ahhh just use a 64 bit integer in hex notation for all seconds passed since January 1st, 1970 at UTC and cut the civilian interpretation crap :)
Heck, with a 64 bit integer you could keep time in milliseconds since the Big Bang.
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Ahhh just use a 64 bit integer in hex notation for all seconds passed since January 1st, 1970 at UTC and cut the civilian interpretation crap :)
Heck, with a 64 bit integer you could keep time in milliseconds since the Big Bang.
Make it a signed 64 bit integer and you can do both!
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Digital 24-hrs clock at least solves part of the problems
The analog clock scores over digital because you can easily see 'how close' and 'how far' relative time is. It's kind of like the metric system looks good on paper but doesn't allow for real people, so 15:45 doesn't mean much in relation to 16:00, but look at an analog watch and it means a lot more. Similarly, 16:00 doesn't really carry how far you are through the day.
You are confusing things; "habitually familiar" and "neutrally correct" are not equal. Your peeves are not my peeves; mine are opposite! To a person brought up with one system, the other system is always going to be strange; more so if the system is immersive; less so if there is cross-contamination.
I need to think twice for "AM/PM" formatting, but 24h time is a no-brainer. (By the way, Swedish and Danish and Norwegian has this name, "Dygn"/"Døgn" for a complete 24h cycle, that I've not found in other languages. Very convenient. A "dygn" is normally from midnight to midnight, but may also be used as shorthand for "n * 24 hours from <time>".) OTOH, I will readily accept that glancing at the hands of my wrist watch is a very quick and -- to me -- intuitive way to tell how far the current hour has progressed, which is often the most frequently needed information.
Same with measurement systems; I can immediately visualise "19mm" but 3/4" requires parsing.
Similarly, and perhaps a better case to describe the problem, the way AWG or SWG or Number Drills or BA threads are named makes me have to think hard about what a value is, instead of being able to deduce that a 1,5mm2 cable is 0,6 times a 2,5 mm2 cable. With AWG13 and AWG15 I have to know the intriciacies of a wire making method.
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Same with measurement systems; I can immediately visualise "19mm" but 3/4" requires parsing.
US and their binary system is actually quite clever as arguably binary (as the number system of minimum possible base) is superior to our stupid decimal system based on number of fingers!
It would just work better if it was only one one, and all other zeroes; i.e., 2", 1", 1/2", 1/4", 1/8" and so on. Even more, you could then just denote the place of the sole '1' using a single number, making it a logarithmic scale.
Also, representing the fundamentally binary system with decimal numbers loses most of the strength. This conversion is what makes it look weird.
For some weird reason I can't understand, measurements like 3/8", 3/4", or 15/16" or 7/16" seem to be hugely popular. These are all one-off from sensible values, and cause unnecessary clutter since you really need to look carefully at both numerator and denominator. I tend to mix up 3/8" and 3/4" quite easily, but I have nothing against 1/4", 1/2" and 1" sizes.
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For some weird reason I can't understand, measurements like 3/8", 3/4", or 15/16" or 7/16"
Too many numbers. Given we know how big one of something is, it's easy to realise how big 2 of them are, or half of one. And 3 or 1/4 is doable. But 27 of them? 15/34? Buggered if I know! That's how old systems scored over the metrics - they may be less accurate (for instance, being based on the size of a body part) but it's really easy to relate to a few of them. The trick is to start with a reasonably sized base thing for what you're measuring or describing so only single-digits (and preferably only half of those) are needed.
I use and prefer metric, especially when I am making (or breaking!) stuff. But the numbers are largely meaningless to me and just a maths thing. OTOH, tell me something is 2" long and I can relate to that. Whereas with 50mm (which I mentally convert to 2") I would take a ruler and just check off 5cm, with 2" I just look at my thumb and imagine two of the tops. (In fact, doing that now I note that the entire thumb is a shade over 2". What a coincidence!)
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Yes and even here everybody talks about 2x4 lumber and knows intuitively that if you cut that in half, it becomes 2x2, and then everybody knows a 4" or 5" nail is suitable to joining these pieces.
Despite the fact no one normally uses inch for measuring anything else, never has, it's totally weird unit of measurement for most of us.
We still think about lumber in inches even when you can't buy 2"x4" because no one manufactures or sells that, you'd need to import it from the USA! You can buy 96x48 mm but you can also buy 98x48 mm and whatnot for maximized confusion. Somehow 100x50mm wasn't an option, I have no idea why. Then you have to calculate what happens if you cut 96mm in half. 96/2 is not a difficult calculation, but if you want to concentrate on something else, 4/2 sure is easier.
And if you happen to have some old 2"x4" stock, good luck joining it to the significantly smaller "equivalent" metric size. (My house is built in 1952 using actual 2"x4", 2x5" and 2x8" because people back then understood that 1" = 25.4mm, not 24mm.)
Same for nominal pipe sizes. These have no relation to actual measurements, they are just names. Everybody knows what 1" pipe means (it's that roughly 33mm OD pipe), and the fact it does not measure even close to 1". So then lo and behold, we need new metric system. So let's call them DN25 or 25mm nominal pipe. It's still not 25mm, and for added confusion, we do have things like 19mm pipes that actually are 19mm outer diameter. Could have just kept calling 1" pipe a 1" pipe.
Same for SMD footprints, everybody knows what 0402 is and it's just a name, exact measurements are what they are and available in datasheet drawings. Now let's confuse everyone and invent a new naming system which then overlaps with the existing one.
Forced "metrification" makes things worse, especially when you try to apply it in some fully metric part of the world so there are no benefits to be had.
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For some weird reason I can't understand, measurements like 3/8", 3/4", or 15/16" or 7/16" seem to be hugely popular. These are all one-off from sensible values, and cause unnecessary clutter since you really need to look carefully at both numerator and denominator. I tend to mix up 3/8" and 3/4" quite easily, but I have nothing against 1/4", 1/2" and 1" sizes.
Measurements using those inconvenient fractions happened because a 1/4" screw was too weak while there was no room for a 1/2" one. Thus 3/8". Or, 1/4" + 1/8" :-DD
The stupid decimal system allows for arbitrary precision using a linear model. That is one of the very good things with it. As Dunkemhigh illustrated with their 2" vs 50mm example vs my 19mm example, the convenience using either is almost exclusively down to habit, excluding precise measurements, when the aggressive proponents of "Imperial" suddenly start using "thou" which, except being based on the inch (which in itself is defined as 25,4mm) very much is a decimal system...
Oh, and lumber-wise, the sawn dimensions are much closer to 2" and 4". The planed dimensions are smaller. As one would expect.
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There is no question about the binary system represented as fractional decimals being an utter disaster. I remember a funny Youtube video of two experienced American carpenters trying to figure out some basic geometrical math summing and subtracting fractional measurements and doing conversions. It's hilariously demanding task, even if you are used to it, and even if you are a professional.
But the binary idea behind it, always dividing/multiplying by two, is interesting. This would work perfectly fine if the representation was in binary form as well, and with the units (foot vs. inch and so on) being 2^n multiples (in which case it would be just tagging parts of the number, which you can opt not to do). Then you would have the same "linearity", but doubling and halving would be a simple bitshift.
The decimal system is by far not the only numerical system in use, historically. In this system, it's very easy to multiple and divide by 10, but that is an operation which is very rarely needed.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that 2000 years in the future everyone's using binary and laugh at our base-10, like we laugh at base-60. Those who have programmed for a long time close to hardware already are pretty fluent in binary and see the benefits.
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Digital 24-hrs clock at least solves part of the problems
The analog clock scores over digital because you can easily see 'how close' and 'how far' relative time is. It's kind of like the metric system looks good on paper but doesn't allow for real people, so 15:45 doesn't mean much in relation to 16:00, but look at an analog watch and it means a lot more. Similarly, 16:00 doesn't really carry how far you are through the day.
I don't really see much difference, digital, analog, it's all pretty much the same to me. Once you know that times ending in 15, 30, 45 and 00 are quarter hours it's pretty easy to visualize relative time.
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Yes and even here everybody talks about 2x4 lumber and knows intuitively that if you cut that in half, it becomes 2x2, and then everybody knows a 4" or 5" nail is suitable to joining these pieces.
The thing that has always bothered me about lumber dimensions is that a 2x4 isn't actually 2"x4" when you buy it, it has been planed down to significantly smaller dimensions, although the length is what it says it is. It's only mostly tolerable because it's been that way for long enough that people just kind of know.
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Oh, you CAN get true 2x4's and 4x6's and the like, but they're "rough". The typical dimensional lumber everyone "knows" is "surfaced four sides", often abbreviated as S4S. Each side that is finished loses 0.25in, hence why they're actually 1.5in x 3.5in.
If you measure posts, like 6x6's and 8x8's, they're usually the full measurement. And they're often rough to the touch because they haven't been surfaced.
The nice thing about standards....
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Once you know that times ending in 15, 30, 45 and 00 are quarter hours it's pretty easy to visualize relative time.
I seem to manage just fine, but seeing the time on an analogue clock surprises me with it's immediate grasp of progress between the hour, or hour through the day. As I say, if I'm due out at 16:00 and it's 15:45 I know I have 15 mins, but I envision it as 3 x 5mins. Glance at a clock and I think, gosh, I am three-quarters of the way there (or just a quarter of an hour left).
Similarly, at 16:00 I know it's nearly tea time, and 4 hours since lunch, but seeing a clock it's obvious that it's late afternoon and not long to evening. Kind of hard to describe. Perhaps like using a mouse when normally you use the trackpad on a laptop.
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Once you know that times ending in 15, 30, 45 and 00 are quarter hours it's pretty easy to visualize relative time.
I seem to manage just fine, but seeing the time on an analogue clock surprises me with it's immediate grasp of progress between the hour, or hour through the day. As I say, if I'm due out at 16:00 and it's 15:45 I know I have 15 mins, but I envision it as 3 x 5mins. Glance at a clock and I think, gosh, I am three-quarters of the way there (or just a quarter of an hour left).
Similarly, at 16:00 I know it's nearly tea time, and 4 hours since lunch, but seeing a clock it's obvious that it's late afternoon and not long to evening. Kind of hard to describe. Perhaps like using a mouse when normally you use the trackpad on a laptop.
The face of the clock provides a context... E.g. seeing an oil pressure of 100psi on a digital gauge doesn't tell you as much as seeing 100psi on a gauge that goes from 0psi to 200psi!
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The face of the clock provides a context...
That's the phrase I would have used had I thought of it first :)
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The face of the clock provides a context... E.g. seeing an oil pressure of 100psi on a digital gauge doesn't tell you as much as seeing 100psi on a gauge that goes from 0psi to 200psi!
And if that oil gauge came with three hands, at least two of which were physically very similar size, only to show you the oil pressure with 0.1psi resolution, that gauge wouldn't live longer than a day. It would be replaced immediately by a simple gauge with one hand (like it is now), or by a digital display if that high resolution is necessary, or a combination thereof.
In aircraft, digital + analog combinations have been used for a long time, so that the direction of rotation of the analog hand provides quick, intuitive idea about what is happening, and then the digital number provides exact value. Having hands pointing at whatever directions, some more significant than others, would immediately cause enough crashes so that such instruments would be replaced.
I'm fascinated how people repeatedly tell the story how the analog clock is supposedly quick and easy to read because it simply doesn't match up with the reality I'm observing at all. But maybe the problem is in myself, I admit that. Maybe others can just intuitively distinguish between the minute and hour hands in mere milliseconds and choose the right one to "quickly" visualize the time.
I like this implementation of analog clock:
https://jaykatsaatajat.fi/viisari.htm (no need to read the gibberish text, just look at the picture).
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repeatedly tell the story how the analog clock is supposedly quick and easy to read because it simply doesn't match up with the reality I'm observing at all
The trick is to look at the hand that is relevant. If you're timing a 30-minute egg (yuk) you ignore the little and fast hands. Similarly, if you're interested in how much daylight is left, you ignore the big and fast hands.
<brainwave> Think of it as a multi-turn pot: the number of turns is the coarse reading, the last time round the face/dial/digits is the fine reading </brainwave>
<brainwave> Think of it as a vernier caliper in the round. One presumes you don't have anything against those </brainwave>
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Detecting the movement of the minute hand takes 2-3 minutes, so that's a no-go.
Assessing the size differences of the two nearly similar hands takes anything between 500ms - 5 seconds depending on my mental state, presence or non-presence of background graphics on the clock face, amount of lighting, and so on. Unless I fall into the rabbit hole and start lecturing to my wife about how I enjoy hating the analog clock.
If clock manufacturers understood this issue, they would make a clock with significant size differences in the hands. Like the hours hand would have 5x the thickness of the minute hand. I would hazard a guess that's how clocks looked like hundreds of years ago.
Also the fact that the scales are accidentally swapped and one of them removed does not help. As it stands now, the minute hand points directly into numbers 1,2,3,4,5..., when they should actually read 5,10,15,20,.... Then the hours hand should point into another scale reading 1,2,3,4,5... One of the scales is completely missing from the typical implementation, and the two hands are swapped, i.e. pointing at exactly the wrong scale.
But really, if I want to boil the eggs for 7.5 minutes, I already understand this can be converted into 1.5 analog clock time units - for example, if the hand is showing 5, the eggs are done at 6.5. This seems to work. This is based on observations of how real-world analog clocks are implemented. I don't feel I need to tell the made-up story I was taught in school how it is supposed to work since it clearly doesn't work that way.
I really find analog clock a hilarious joke, or a piece of modern art, not an instrument to provide any idea about time (accurate or approximate) efficiently. But I like to have such piece of amusement in our kitchen.
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Detecting the movement of the minute hand takes 2-3 minutes, so that's a no-go.
Assessing the size differences of the two nearly similar hands takes anything between 500ms - 5 seconds depending on my mental state, presence or non-presence of background graphics on the clock face, amount of lighting, and so on. Unless I fall into the rabbit hole and start lecturing to my wife about how I enjoy hating the analog clock.
If clock manufacturers understood this issue, they would make a clock with significant size differences in the hands. Like the hours hand would have 5x the thickness of the minute hand. I would hazard a guess that's how clocks looked like hundreds of years ago.
Also the fact that the scales are accidentally swapped and one of them removed does not help. As it stands now, the minute hand points directly into numbers 1,2,3,4,5..., when they should actually read 5,10,15,20,.... Then the hours hand should point into another scale reading 1,2,3,4,5... One of the scales is completely missing from the typical implementation, and the two hands are swapped, i.e. pointing at exactly the wrong scale.
But really, if I want to boil the eggs for 7.5 minutes, I already understand this can be converted into 1.5 analog clock time units - for example, if the hand is showing 5, the eggs are done at 6.5. This seems to work. This is based on observations of how real-world analog clocks are implemented. I don't feel I need to tell the made-up story I was taught in school how it is supposed to work since it clearly doesn't work that way.
I really find analog clock a hilarious joke, or a piece of modern art, not an instrument to provide any idea about time (accurate or approximate) efficiently. But I like to have such piece of amusement in our kitchen.
It seems that the problem with analog clocks has much to do with your purchasing decisions, or those who surround you. While I have seen clocks with the defects you mention, and have even occasionally had the problems you describe, none of the clocks I own has them. Most of the clocks I encounter do not. The hour, minute and second hands are clearly identifiable and labels are clear and appropriate. I use both analog and digital clocks and find both have their place.
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I guess that digital clocks are now so common that most kids probably don't learn to use an analog one, so it never becomes second nature to them?
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I guess that digital clocks are now so common that most kids probably don't learn to use an analog one, so it never becomes second nature to them?
Yup.
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I guess that digital clocks are now so common that most kids probably don't learn to use an analog one, so it never becomes second nature to them?
Yup.
When I was a kid, "digital" clocks were large, hung over city footpaths, & went "clunk!" when the hours & minutes changed.
The upside was they also displayed the day of the week, & the date. ;D
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When a jigsaw puzzle is missing a piece. I just finished one last night, 1,000 piece puzzle and one of them missing, ARG!! |O It totally triggers my OCD tendencies. No idea what happened but I suspect it fell on the floor and got picked up by the Roomba and into the trash.
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We finished one tonight and thought there was one piece missing--luckily, it was still in the drawstring bag that the manufacturer supplied inside the box.
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humans >:D, i mean old tantalum caps.
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A bit disjointed and rambly as it’s sort of an off-the-cuff video he’s doing, but the timing is good given recent discussions in this thread:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NeopkvAP-ag
I too find that I can parse time more easily on an analog clock/watch.
-Pat
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A bit disjointed and rambly as it’s sort of an off-the-cuff video he’s doing, but the timing is good given recent discussions in this thread:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NeopkvAP-ag
I too find that I can parse time more easily on an analog clock/watch.
-Pat
On an analog clock, you can instantly see "it's nearly 4" without thinking... 3:37 just isn't quite as fast.
On an analog clock, it makes sense to have 60 minutes in an hour. On a digital clock... we really need 100 minutes in an hour for it to make sense!
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teaching kids to tell the time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QVPUIRGthI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QVPUIRGthI)
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I find that analog gauges are inherently faster to "read" for relative measurements, at the expense of fine detail. Analog gives you an overall view of the entire dynamic range and a relative value/percentage of that range. With a digital display, there is a whole secondary process where you must interpret the value against a (non-displayed) dynamic range and then interpret the result.
Example: Imagine an audio mixing console where each channel's level was represented by a two digit dB value updated every 500mS, instead of an array of discrete LED's or a VU meter. The former would be almost useless except maybe as a peak indicator.
I'd argue that a digital tach in a car would be almost useless for the same reason. The analog gauge instantly communicates where you are in the engine's redline range, a relative relationship that is actually more important than the absolute RPM value.
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On an analog clock, it makes sense to have 60 minutes in an hour. On a digital clock... we really need 100 minutes in an hour for it to make sense!
Fun fact: On a microwave oven, 61 (":61") is greater than 100 ("1:00").
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On an analog clock, you can instantly see "it's nearly 4" without thinking... 3:37 just isn't quite as fast.
On an analog clock, it makes sense to have 60 minutes in an hour. On a digital clock... we really need 100 minutes in an hour for it to make sense!
Agreed. Especially if you have an idea what the expected reading is going to be, I find it easier to glance and see the hand (or pointer, in the case of a gauge) is where you know it should be, your brain can say 'close enough' in an instant. “I need to leave at 3:55” A glance at an analog clock at 3:38 shows you have time, and it’s roughly a quarter hour left. Digital you need to parse that 38 is less than 55, then do the math to find it’s 17 minutes less, then compare that to the 60 minutes in an hour to find it’s about a quarter hour. Having grown up with analog timepieces, and as one who still wears a watch, this is simply intuitive to me.
Digital is great for absolute precision, but I find analog is usually better for quick interpretation and comparison.
-Pat
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Many years ago I was tasked to perform a test which required starting a system when a countdown timer reached zero. Obviously before such tests were automated. But late enough that I had the choice of a digital countdown timer or an analog timer. Both timer had millisecond resolution, obviously much to small for a human to read and respond to time.
I found that I could anticipate the sweep of the fast hand of the analog timer and hit zero with a standard deviation of about 3 milliseconds. This was verified over dozens of trials, I just don't recall the exact value for the standard deviation.
With the digital timer my accuracy was about an order of magnitude worse. There were other operators at the time. All of us had similar results.
They each have their place, but this clearly identifies one of the advantages of analog.
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I find that analog gauges are inherently faster to "read" for relative measurements, at the expense of fine detail. Analog gives you an overall view of the entire dynamic range and a relative value/percentage of that range. With a digital display, there is a whole secondary process where you must interpret the value against a (non-displayed) dynamic range and then interpret the result.
Example: Imagine an audio mixing console where each channel's level was represented by a two digit dB value updated every 500mS, instead of an array of discrete LED's or a VU meter. The former would be almost useless except maybe as a peak indicator.
I'd argue that a digital tach in a car would be almost useless for the same reason. The analog gauge instantly communicates where you are in the engine's redline range, a relative relationship that is actually more important than the absolute RPM value.
I still can picture the illustration in a book on the progress of flight that I had as a kid that was discussing gauge layout in the cockpit as we entered the jet age and things became more complicated. Eventually, human factors started going into the layout, and with things that would have steady readings (say, for instance, hydraulic pressures or bus voltages), rather than putting a bunch of instruments in a neat array with zero at 7:30 and max at 4:30 on the face, requiring they be read individually, they determined it was much better to clock the scales at whatever odd angle might be required to make the pointers all line up horizontally during normal operation. An aesthetics person would cringe at the seemingly randomly clocked scales, but in operation a system that deviated from the norm would immediately be evident at a glance, and could then be looked at more closely.
Like everything, horses for courses. Sometimes direct digital readings shine; other times analog is much better suited. I find the latter to be true for telling time. (That said, there is a wall clock floating around somewhere in the mess here that my ex bought - it looks pretty, but had an outer ring connected to the main body with a bunch of spokes. Eight of them, if I remember correctly. THAT used to mess me up when I tried to read it, and the designer should have been taken to the woodshed for that little layout choice.)
-Pat
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I found that I could anticipate the sweep of the fast hand of the analog timer and hit zero with a standard deviation of about 3 milliseconds. With the digital timer my accuracy was about an order of magnitude worse.
That is an excellent example. The immediacy of analog allows you to judge rate of change much easier than digital. Obvious in hindsight!
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I found that I could anticipate the sweep of the fast hand of the analog timer and hit zero with a standard deviation of about 3 milliseconds. With the digital timer my accuracy was about an order of magnitude worse.
That is an excellent example. The immediacy of analog allows you to judge rate of change much easier than digital. Obvious in hindsight!
I've gotten pretty good at anticipating the digital display at the petrol station: I can hit e.g. 2.00 gallons exactly while pumping at full speed and stopping at exactly the right moment. Obviously that's not done by interpreting the numbers on the display, but instead sensing how fast they are changing (I look at the third digit from the end and time it) - in other words, an analogue approach!
(I use this for filling small cans for garden equipment! - to get the two stroke oil & fuel stabilizer mixes right)
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I do the same - but it's utterly dependent on the digital display's update rate. Sometimes it works to your advantage, other times it defeats the goal.
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I found that I could anticipate the sweep of the fast hand of the analog timer and hit zero with a standard deviation of about 3 milliseconds. With the digital timer my accuracy was about an order of magnitude worse.
That is an excellent example. The immediacy of analog allows you to judge rate of change much easier than digital. Obvious in hindsight!
Similar concept to a drag racing Christmas tree where the timed succession of yellow lights enables the drivers to more accurately anticipate the moment the green light comes on.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-s5lz3gaHEw (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-s5lz3gaHEw)
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Lots of crosswalks have downcounters to tell pedestrians how much time remains for them to cross. But I was blown away in Shenzhen when I saw they had downcounters for the traffic lights! My immediate thought was the drag racing Christmas tree... and that Shenzhen was basically encouraging drivers to anticipate and sprint off the line.
Non-citizens cannot rent a car nor drive in (at least) Shenzhen. After seeing those lights that made more sense.
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Many countries' traffic lights go from Red to Yellow and then Green instead of directly from Red to Green like in North America. It makes more sense to me since it stops people from looking at the cross traffic lights instead.
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Many countries' traffic lights go from Red to Yellow and then Green instead of directly from Red to Green like in North America. It makes more sense to me since it stops people from looking at the cross traffic lights instead.
I always thought this was a great idea. I usually put my car in neutral while I'm stopped at a light so I don't sit there with my foot on the clutch wearing out the release bearing and related parts. If I'm at the front of the line I usually have to crane my neck to look at the other signal phase so I have enough warning to put my car in gear without abusing the 1st gear synchro before the person behind me gets impatient.
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Many countries' traffic lights go from Red to Yellow and then Green instead of directly from Red to Green like in North America. It makes more sense to me since it stops people from looking at the cross traffic lights instead.
I always thought this was a great idea. I usually put my car in neutral while I'm stopped at a light so I don't sit there with my foot on the clutch wearing out the release bearing and related parts. If I'm at the front of the line I usually have to crane my neck to look at the other signal phase so I have enough warning to put my car in gear without abusing the 1st gear synchro before the person behind me gets impatient.
Isn't it about time that facebook would send drivers a message that the light has changed to green? You know, so they'd know they can go.
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Many countries' traffic lights go from Red to Yellow and then Green instead of directly from Red to Green like in North America. It makes more sense to me since it stops people from looking at the cross traffic lights instead.
I always thought this was a great idea.
But I think it is not. Garanteed, many drivers start moving when Red goes to Yellow and before getting Green.
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Many countries' traffic lights go from Red to Yellow and then Green instead of directly from Red to Green like in North America. It makes more sense to me since it stops people from looking at the cross traffic lights instead.
I always thought this was a great idea.
But I think it is not. Garanteed, many drivers start moving when Red goes to Yellow and before getting Green.
As an Aussie who spent a bit of time driving in England (which has the red/yellow before green), it doesn't happen. What it does though is enable drivers to 'get the car into gear' and be ready for the green. It's the second car you've got to worry about. They are expecting you to move when the light goes green.
I had some eurotrash volkswagon that liked to turn off the engine when stopped. The yellow light was a godsend because the car needed to be nudged forward to wake the engine up.
London traffic in the morning.. if you're dragging your feet... BEEEP!
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Garanteed, many drivers start moving when Red goes to Yellow and before getting Green.
Some, but generally most drivers don't have the reactions to do that, and don't think to watch the other set to see when they go red.
It's also kind of a traffic offence. You MUST NOT (the Highway Code's words) cross the white line before the lights go green, so clever drivers stop a couple of feet back and watch the opposing lights, so they cross the white line at a rate of knots exactly as the lights go green.
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But I think it is not. Garanteed, many drivers start moving when Red goes to Yellow and before getting Green.
Do you have any evidence that this occurs in the places where traffic lights do in fact work like this? If somebody starts moving when the light turns yellow that is their problem and they should be cited for it. Everyone knows the green light means go.
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But I think it is not. Garanteed, many drivers start moving when Red goes to Yellow and before getting Green.
Do you have any evidence that this occurs in the places where traffic lights do in fact work like this? If somebody starts moving when the light turns yellow that is their problem and they should be cited for it. Everyone knows the green light means go.
My own accounts of this are that people that do roll over the line, technically, as the light goes green. Happens often enough to notice it yet doesn't appear to be very dangerous. I found that red light runners are fewer in number probably because on the other side, you don't wait forever for the cars to get moving like red/green systems do. It does get cars moving on the green but I simply don't agree that it turns every driver into a Fangio.
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Many countries' traffic lights go from Red to Yellow and then Green instead of directly from Red to Green like in North America. It makes more sense to me since it stops people from looking at the cross traffic lights instead.
I hated them when I visited the UK back in the day, not so much in high traffic situations, but because in light traffic, when the lights went yellow both ways simultaneously, two drivers, both "sneaking through on the yellow" could have a very unpleasant result.
Maybe UK drivers of the time were less wild than Oz drivers, as I didn't see that happen, but it always worried me!
Other delights were "three lane roads" with the middle lane available for overtaking from both directions, the roundabout outside Southampton with a small hill in the middle, & the propensity of drivers to drive on their parking lights at night.
The latter, which had just become illegal in 1971 was still widespread, & combined with those godawful Sodium lamps made cars without any yellow in their colour scheme virtually disappear.
Another side effect of not using dipped lights was that many lights would be grossly out of adjustment, causing glare to oncomers, & of little use to the user.
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But I think it is not. Garanteed, many drivers start moving when Red goes to Yellow and before getting Green.
Do you have any evidence that this occurs in the places where traffic lights do in fact work like this? If somebody starts moving when the light turns yellow that is their problem and they should be cited for it. Everyone knows the green light means go.
Yrs of course it is their problem. However this is a cultural thing. "Everyone" you mean in the US ? ::)
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People who believe that cryogenic freezing is living for eternity.
when was the last time granny go 30 more yrs from been defrosted.
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People who believe that cryogenic freezing is living for eternity.
when was the last time granny go 30 more yrs from been defrosted.
If that's within the Best Before Date?
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People who believe that cryogenic freezing is living for eternity.
when was the last time granny go 30 more yrs from been defrosted.
Ever since I saw Fargo in late nineties, I've told my family I want to be disposed of that way: First deep-frozen, then put through a wood chipper. They were, and are horrified about the idea.
(I do believe there is an experimental setup in Sweden, where the corpsicles are frozen and then ultrasonically turned into slurry.)
Thing is, I'm not actually kidding. Burning releases quite a bit of heavy metals into the air. Decomposition is slow, and can cause heavy metal poisoning in the soil. Being turned into small chips, and then distributed over a larger area, would reduce the environmental impact, not require too much energy, and it would make it safer for the little critters to turn me back into life-bearing soil. I wouldn't mind being fertilizer for say a small nice copse of birches.
And it would be funny as hell, of course.
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The American horror author H P Lovecraft was perhaps the first writer to consider what would go wrong with "re-animation" of deceased humans in a series of short stories.
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Lots of crosswalks have downcounters to tell pedestrians how much time remains for them to cross. But I was blown away in Shenzhen when I saw they had downcounters for the traffic lights! My immediate thought was the drag racing Christmas tree... and that Shenzhen was basically encouraging drivers to anticipate and sprint off the line.
Non-citizens cannot rent a car nor drive in (at least) Shenzhen. After seeing those lights that made more sense.
We have traffic lights that count down where I live (Florianópolis, Brazil). Dunno if they're the same as in Shenzhen. Someone was seemingly impressed by them and put a video up on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8p-9t7E-Zs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8p-9t7E-Zs)
I don't find that it causes drivers to anticipate. When they want to disobey the traffic lights they usually won't even stop anyway (mostly motorcyclists).
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When you've done VAST amounts of research into a product, for weeks or months, and give someone the EXACT product details, barcode number, product code... in fact LOTS of details to make sure there couldn't possibly be any doubt that you want THIS EXACT ONE AND NOTHING ELSE, the EXACT colour, specs, and you tell them "I don't care about the cost, BUY IT PLEASE, I need THIS ONE, it's my money"
... and then... the person charged with purchasing it returns with:
"I didn't get it as I thought it was a little pricey"
OR
"I got this one instead, it's near enough" (uneducated opinion-based decision, went over your head)
|O :-//
I know who I can trust with this type of decision, and there aren't many. Non-engineers DO NOT understand how crucial this stuff is, and the subtle nuances and spec diffs between versions of something which LOOKS the same, but isn't.
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I have always found it annoying when people go into some incredibly speculative rant about something and end with "...just saying" Am I to believe that there is no reason that those words came out of your mouth? Would the proper response be "...just hearing"?
It is right up there with "It is what it is".
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I have always found it annoying when people go into some incredibly speculative rant about something and end with "...just saying" Am I to believe that there is no reason that those words came out of your mouth? Would the proper response be "...just hearing"?
It is right up there with "It is what it is".
“… just saying” - I despise the mass societal adoption of this supposed “disclaimer” that people tack onto the end of their often bigoted/highly inappropriate/uneducated/whatever “observations”/passive-aggressive insults. It’s childish and often used to deride or offend… but okay, that’s fine, since they’re “…just saying” 🤦🏻♂️
“It is what it is” - this is about the most empty, open-ended, airhead filler phrase one could ever not wish to hear. It’s not even classifiable as circular logic, it’s many exponents more idiotic than that.
Western society has truly become a logical,
moral and intellectual wasteland.
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It is right up there with "It is what it is"
Don't see a problem with that one. It is succinctly pointing out that something isn't what one might wish it to be; that one has to accept that to get anywhere, this is where you start; you can't go back and make it different, etc. Sometimes people do need that pointing out.
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It is right up there with "It is what it is"
Don't see a problem with that one. It is succinctly pointing out that something isn't what one might wish it to be; that one has to accept that to get anywhere, this is where you start; you can't go back and make it different, etc. Sometimes people do need that pointing out.
Yes - as always, every idiom - even "just saying" - has a valid use case. The actual problem is that idioms come in and and go out of fashion, causing phases of severe overuse. After that, they become "pet peeves" of everyone until in a few years, they are forgotten.
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OK thanks for clearing that up because here I was thinking that people who say "It is what it is" are merely annoying simpletons so utterly devoid of understanding and creativity that they can do no better than "it is what it is". Now, I understand that it is more complicated and that there are actually three varieties of these simpletons.
1. "It is what it is" - these folks belong to the reflexive party of reality and want to let everyone know as much.
2. "It is what it isn't" - these folks are the realty deniers from the alternative truth party.
3. "It isn't what it is" - these are the contrarians that, no matter the position, they disagree.
Thanks so much, I am now on my way to being a better person :)
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[...] The actual problem is that idioms come in and and go out of fashion, causing phases of severe overuse. After that, they become "pet peeves" of everyone until in a few years, they are forgotten.
It is what it is! :D
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It is right up there with "It is what it is"
Don't see a problem with that one. It is succinctly pointing out that something isn't what one might wish it to be; that one has to accept that to get anywhere, this is where you start; you can't go back and make it different, etc. Sometimes people do need that pointing out.
I agree. I'm open to suggestions for a replacement phrase to get that point across, since some people don't actually understand the meaning! I can't think of anything that doesn't become long and tedious.
E.g. "life's like that sometimes, you just have to suck it up"
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It is right up there with "It is what it is"
Don't see a problem with that one. It is succinctly pointing out that something isn't what one might wish it to be; that one has to accept that to get anywhere, this is where you start; you can't go back and make it different, etc. Sometimes people do need that pointing out.
I agree. I'm open to suggestions for a replacement phrase to get that point across
E.g. "life's like that sometimes, you just have to suck it up"
Yeah. 'Life sucks' kind of sums it up. Sometimes I use a more polite version: 'Everything is not perfect and there is nothing we can do about it right now'.
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I also don't see a problem with "It is what it is", but I know many that do object to it.
I also use "Nothing is perfect" but that is usually on a conversation with someone I know well - otherwise it may trigger some more vitriolic reactions depending on the subject (people may think you are dismissing their argument, instead of pointing out realities of life).
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No disponible por el momento
not yet a pet peeve but may be become so, if amazon can't defer to English?
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On an analog clock, you can instantly see "it's nearly 4" without thinking... 3:37 just isn't quite as fast.
On an analog clock, it makes sense to have 60 minutes in an hour. On a digital clock... we really need 100 minutes in an hour for it to make sense!
Agreed. Especially if you have an idea what the expected reading is going to be, I find it easier to glance and see the hand (or pointer, in the case of a gauge) is where you know it should be, your brain can say 'close enough' in an instant. “I need to leave at 3:55” A glance at an analog clock at 3:38 shows you have time, and it’s roughly a quarter hour left. Digital you need to parse that 38 is less than 55, then do the math to find it’s 17 minutes less, then compare that to the 60 minutes in an hour to find it’s about a quarter hour. Having grown up with analog timepieces, and as one who still wears a watch, this is simply intuitive to me.
Digital is great for absolute precision, but I find analog is usually better for quick interpretation and comparison.
-Pat
While personally I prefer analog, I have no problem at all looking at a digital clock and automatically know how long to whenever.
If I need to leave at 3.55 (much prefer 24 hr format) and it read 3.38, I automatically think I’ve got 17 mins, it’s instant.
Likewise if it’s 18:04 and my wife says dinner is in about 20 mins, dinners at 18:24.
I don’t get where looking at an analog clock is any quicker, I certainly don’t understand the previous comment where they say digital needs 100 minutes in an hour to make sense.
I have a grandfather clock in my hallway and two other analog clocks in my living room. I still usually look at the digital time displays on my TV or whatever rather than glance at either of the two analog ones.
I do agree when it comes to gauges though, if I know what my gas cylinder pressure is normally, a non thinking glance tells me if it’s wrong, that’s only because the needle doesn’t usually move though.
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I have always found it annoying when people go into some incredibly speculative rant about something and end with "...just saying" Am I to believe that there is no reason that those words came out of your mouth? Would the proper response be "...just hearing"?
It is right up there with "It is what it is".
“… just saying” - I despise the mass societal adoption of this supposed “disclaimer” that people tack onto the end of their often bigoted/highly inappropriate/uneducated/whatever “observations”/passive-aggressive insults. It’s childish and often used to deride or offend… but okay, that’s fine, since they’re “…just saying” 🤦🏻♂️
“It is what it is” - this is about the most empty, open-ended, airhead filler phrase one could ever not wish to hear. It’s not even classifiable as circular logic, it’s many exponents more idiotic than that.
Western society has truly become a logical,
moral and intellectual wasteland.
My biggest hate (probably said it in this thread already), “When it’s gone, it’s gone”. I don’t know why I hate it so much, but every time I see it, another part of me dies.
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Tiny, delicate items (like Micro-SD cards) that come armored in thick blister plastics that apparently were meant to let you see what you purchased, but firmly resist any sensible attempt to unpack.
You need heavy duty tools and brute force to open them and then either hurt yourself, or even worse, the item you wanted to get at.
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I think those packs are made thus to prevent easy pilfering when they are display in-store. You'd be amazed at some of the tricks shoplifters get up to, and what they consider worth nicking. Double-digit currency cards you can palm so easily would basically walk out of the store on their own without being encased in big unopenable packs.
I agree they're a right pain to open, though. And dangerous with it sometimes.
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I think those packs are made thus to prevent easy pilfering when they are display in-store.
I'm well aware as to *why* these things are packed as they are. Stores are trading their very own store problems for customer problems that way, however. And the dumb honest customer even pays for it.
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I've got so annoyed and cut open by those packages in the past that I will now only open them with a guillotine.
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I certainly don’t understand the previous comment where they say digital needs 100 minutes in an hour to make sense.
Yeah, but you're from a country that once had money that had 12 pence per shilling and 20 shillings per pound (but guineas were 21 shillings!) :palm:
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Tiny, delicate items (like Micro-SD cards) that come armored in thick blister plastics that apparently were meant to let you see what you purchased, but firmly resist any sensible attempt to unpack.
You need heavy duty tools and brute force to open them and then either hurt yourself, or even worse, the item you wanted to get at.
Here's a packaging mistake I remember from childhood: I went to the local Woolworth's to buy a goldfish. The clerk dutifully netted the fish, put it in a plastic bag filled with water, put the plastic bag into a paper bag, rang up the sale, and then stapled the paper receipt to the bag. On the ride home in the back seat of Dad's car, I noticed the bag was leaking. Further investigation revealed that the clerk stapled the receipt through the plastic bag and the fish!
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I've got so annoyed and cut open by those packages in the past that I will now only open them with a guillotine.
I have an angry immune system, and when I get papercuts (or similar on stamped metal edges or plastic packages, which I do quite often, being a bumbleduck; or, like just now, get infected hangnails because I don't grease my fingies often enough and it's really dry cold right now), they really hurt/itch a long time, and easily get infected. The peeve: this stuff worked really well for such cuts for me,
(https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5190Tszu-6L._SY300_QL70_.jpg)
but is no longer available in Finland by any manyfacturer. Dammit!
The actual medical dressings are available, of course, but cost about 50× as much, and I really cannot justify that for myself.
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but is no longer available in Finland by any manyfacturer. Dammit!
Completely as expected, because of this pet peeve:
Nasty and harmful stuff is forced down the throats of people for no reason whatsoever, for example adding biocides to detergents and cleaning supplies. Just buying a cleaning product not full of unwanted perfumes is a tedious task. Or, go to a doctor for any reason -> get prescription for antibiotics "just in case".
And when you actually need some of that shit, it's completely unavailable to you.
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but is no longer available in Finland by any manyfacturer. Dammit!
So the anti-bacterial agent in those dressings is just silver?
You know you can easily make the same yourself, right? Look up 'making colloidal silver solutions.'
I have done it, and it's simple. Buy some pure silver wire (few mm thick) and make an electrolysis setup
with a jar and the wires as electrodes. Distilled water and power supply, adjust voltage for to get a small
current (I forget the actual range, can look it up it you like.) Once there are some silver ions in solution the
voltage required to push the current goes down.
Stop when the water turns a pale straw yellow. That's super-fine silver particles in solution.
You could soak dressings in it, use wet, or let them dry out first.
My pet peeve of the day: 'tactile grip rubber' that rapidly turns to revolting sticky goo.
Here's a relatively cheap current clamp meter I bought about a year ago. It went in a drawer, I forgot about it. Dug it out yesterday to check the battery and take it to another room to use.
Urrgh. The body outer layer and the selector wheel are molded of that 'tactile grip rubber.' Which is all going soft and sticky. Leaves a residue on the fingers, so 'cancer avoidance instinct' cuts in and I don't want to even touch it. The thing is now unusable, unrecoverable.
Even if I can find the receipt (unlikely) it's probably not claimable on warranty. Have never once actually used it.
Man I HATE that stuff.
Have a rule to never buy anything with that crap anywhere on it. But I think in this instance the thing was inside a blister pack and I didn't realize the black case was 'tactile rubber.'
The story continues: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/die-sticky-tactile-rubber-die (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/die-sticky-tactile-rubber-die)!/
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but is no longer available in Finland by any manyfacturer. Dammit!
So the anti-bacterial agent in those dressings is just silver?
Yes. Which makes the entire "let's not make everything antibacterial" reason for not selling them anymore doubly silly.
The main thing is that it is just on the surface of the pad. Because the pad is dry, it helps keep the fingers clean. Disinfecting with weak alcohol doesn't keep them clean, and dries out the skin even worse; and cremes and such always make a mess.
When I use normal bandaids or nothing, the skin around the papercut/scratch/hangnail in my fingers gets angry red (inflamed): like I said, I've got an angry immune system. With the silvery bandaids, the cuts tend to stay calmer, and only have the mild healing itch, not the angry sensitive hurty itch, and even heal somewhat faster.
You know you can easily make the same yourself, right? Look up 'making colloidal silver solutions.'
Yup. It would be cheaper to buy say Aquacel Ag Hydrofiber dressing (say, a 1cm by 45cm strip), and add it (piecewise) to the bandaid, though.
I do need to check out 'Hansaplast Universal' and 'Hansaplast Sensitive', in 1m long 6cm wide format, since I just found out the constituents of the pad are "cellulose viscose, polypropylene, polyethylene, aluminium, silver" (and that's not listed on the package; found it on ya.fi only, Finnish University Pharmacy pages). Perhaps they simply stopped advertising it as antibacterial? I can't find any images of the pads in those; must invest the 4€/5€ per pack to test, I guess!
My pet peeve of the day: 'tactile grip rubber' that rapidly turns to revolting sticky goo.
And stinky! Reminds me of the residue left when a pipe or something is wrapped in electrichickens tape. Sticky gooey mess.
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Another pet peeve: pathetic car interior lighting.
Interior lighting should provide a function to FLOOD the interior with light (including under-seat lighting!), given that the vehicle is standing still.
Try finding that pacifier, thrown by the toddler in the backseat precisely in the slit between the seats and the central tunnel. Pitch dark, child screaming, wife screaming, and a light that would fit a stealth submarine, not a familiy van!
Another useful function, although only implemented in some SAABs in the early 2000's: complete shut off of the centre console and dashobard lighting, leaving only the speedometer visible to the driver. Ever tried a new Ford? That thing looks like a Christmas tree!
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Nominal Animal, we have here a colloidal silver in spray form - can you find it there? It may be a bit more practical than electrolise it.
There are a few brands, but this is the one we usually get.
https://www.sourcenaturals.com/products/GP1411/ (https://www.sourcenaturals.com/products/GP1411/)
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I've got so annoyed and cut open by those packages in the past that I will now only open them with a guillotine.
My guillotine hasn't arrived yet, but I know the feeling. Finally, after years of problems, I have changed my strategy. Instead of saying/thinking I can just make a few precision cuts here and here and then pull it apart - or some such thing, I immediately go get some heavy duty shears and do a snip completely across the circumference and as far from the edge as is safe. I trained myself to resist stopping half way thinking...that should be enough. Those packages have beat me and I have surrendered...learned patience I suppose.
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I went to the local Woolworth's .
*sigh* a 5 and 10
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My pet peeve of the day: 'tactile grip rubber' that rapidly turns to revolting sticky goo.
Here's a relatively cheap current clamp meter I bought about a year ago. It went in a drawer, I forgot about it. Dug it out yesterday to check the battery and take it to another room to use.
Urrgh. The body outer layer and the selector wheel are molded of that 'tactile grip rubber.' Which is all going soft and sticky. Leaves a residue on the fingers, so 'cancer avoidance instinct' cuts in and I don't want to even touch it. The thing is now unusable, unrecoverable.
Even if I can find the receipt (unlikely) it's probably not claimable on warranty. Have never once actually used it.
Man I HATE that stuff.'
I remembered when I was looking for mouse and keyboards over 10 years ago. I found it strange why many of the expensive £69+ Logitech keyboards/mice packages had all that rubber stuff over them and the cheaper EX110 £19.99 didn't. Now I chose the £19.99 EX110's not because it was the cheapest but it was because it didn't have that rubber stuff that would cause me problems in future getting dirty, sticky and swelling up. Not only that the Logitech EX110 plastic is just black and they paint the expensive fancy ones with silvery colours that I have often seen wear off and look awful which is another thing I didn't want to happen with anything I buy. I have still got my collection of EX110's all with USB and PS/2 receivers that I can join and unjoin if one developed a defect and many of them still work fine.
Maybe they believe for those who can afford to pay for their fancy range of mice/keyboards can also afford to replace them more often by gradually making it look and feel undesirable through wear and tear of the paint and rubber.
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That rubbery coating does feel nice and luxurious at first, but it invariably turns to nasty sticky goo at some point.
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...Finally, after years of problems, I have changed my strategy. Instead of saying/thinking I can just make a few precision cuts here and here and then pull it apart - or some such thing, I immediately go get some heavy duty shears and do a snip completely across the circumference and as far from the edge as is safe...
Industry has a nasty answer to that approach as well. I don't remember what it was, but with that same strategy, I recently found I've just cut the manual and warranty card for the item that was accurately folded and perfectly hidden behind into a nice cutout puzzle...
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...Finally, after years of problems, I have changed my strategy. Instead of saying/thinking I can just make a few precision cuts here and here and then pull it apart - or some such thing, I immediately go get some heavy duty shears and do a snip completely across the circumference and as far from the edge as is safe...
Industry has a nasty answer to that approach as well. I don't remember what it was, but with that same strategy, I recently found I've just cut the manual and warranty card for the item that was accurately folded and perfectly hidden behind into a nice cutout puzzle...
I have not yet run into that situation; where they hide a manual or something like that....if/when I do, my screaming will probably heard in several countries.
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That rubbery coating does feel nice and luxurious at first, but it invariably turns to nasty sticky goo at some point.
I have a nice Lenovo laptop (company issued) that's been given the rubbery coating treatment all over... It is sooner or later going to be a disaster... will have to be dipped in flour to be usable lol! :D
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My pet peeve of the day: 'tactile grip rubber' that rapidly turns to revolting sticky goo.
Here's a relatively cheap current clamp meter I bought about a year ago. It went in a drawer, I forgot about it. Dug it out yesterday to check the battery and take it to another room to use.
Urrgh. The body outer layer and the selector wheel are molded of that 'tactile grip rubber.' Which is all going soft and sticky. Leaves a residue on the fingers, so 'cancer avoidance instinct' cuts in and I don't want to even touch it. The thing is now unusable, unrecoverable.
Even if I can find the receipt (unlikely) it's probably not claimable on warranty. Have never once actually used it.
Man I HATE that stuff.'
I remembered when I was looking for mouse and keyboards over 10 years ago. I found it strange why many of the expensive £69+ Logitech keyboards/mice packages had all that rubber stuff over them and the cheaper EX110 £19.99 didn't. Now I chose the £19.99 EX110's not because it was the cheapest but it was because it didn't have that rubber stuff that would cause me problems in future getting dirty, sticky and swelling up. Not only that the Logitech EX110 plastic is just black and they paint the expensive fancy ones with silvery colours that I have often seen wear off and look awful which is another thing I didn't want to happen with anything I buy. I have still got my collection of EX110's all with USB and PS/2 receivers that I can join and unjoin if one developed a defect and many of them still work fine.
Maybe they believe for those who can afford to pay for their fancy range of mice/keyboards can also afford to replace them more often by gradually making it look and feel undesirable through wear and tear of the paint and rubber.
They just made them too well, back in the day! - I have several Logitech MX310 in daily use, they have to be approaching 20 years old...
My kids had one of those on their gaming computer. They put millions of miles on it, the feet wore off, and then the entire underside became polished smooth, at least 1mm shaved off, with no discernible features. It still works today lol! :D
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On an analog clock, you can instantly see "it's nearly 4" without thinking... 3:37 just isn't quite as fast.
On an analog clock, it makes sense to have 60 minutes in an hour. On a digital clock... we really need 100 minutes in an hour for it to make sense!
Agreed. Especially if you have an idea what the expected reading is going to be, I find it easier to glance and see the hand (or pointer, in the case of a gauge) is where you know it should be, your brain can say 'close enough' in an instant. “I need to leave at 3:55” A glance at an analog clock at 3:38 shows you have time, and it’s roughly a quarter hour left. Digital you need to parse that 38 is less than 55, then do the math to find it’s 17 minutes less, then compare that to the 60 minutes in an hour to find it’s about a quarter hour. Having grown up with analog timepieces, and as one who still wears a watch, this is simply intuitive to me.
Digital is great for absolute precision, but I find analog is usually better for quick interpretation and comparison.
-Pat
While personally I prefer analog, I have no problem at all looking at a digital clock and automatically know how long to whenever.
If I need to leave at 3.55 (much prefer 24 hr format) and it read 3.38, I automatically think I’ve got 17 mins, it’s instant.
Likewise if it’s 18:04 and my wife says dinner is in about 20 mins, dinners at 18:24.
I don’t get where looking at an analog clock is any quicker, I certainly don’t understand the previous comment where they say digital needs 100 minutes in an hour to make sense.
I have a grandfather clock in my hallway and two other analog clocks in my living room. I still usually look at the digital time displays on my TV or whatever rather than glance at either of the two analog ones.
I do agree when it comes to gauges though, if I know what my gas cylinder pressure is normally, a non thinking glance tells me if it’s wrong, that’s only because the needle doesn’t usually move though.
why is it that bed side clocks are AM-PM 12-hour clocks but most others are 24-hour military time
how hard is it to put an AM-PM 12-hour or 24-hour clock mode switch in most appliances or even show a analog clock if the user interface screen can do so. :rant:
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how hard is it to put an AM-PM 12-hour or 24-hour clock mode switch in most appliances
It doesn't even require a separate switch. I just recently set the time on something that, while you scroll through the hours, toggled between 12 and 24 hour mode as part of the rotation. First I'd seen it but I immediately realized it was a graceful solution to this entire question. Zero extra cost and gives everyone their preference.
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I have a nice Lenovo laptop (company issued) that's been given the rubbery coating treatment all over... It is sooner or later going to be a disaster... will have to be dipped in flour to be usable lol! :D
This season we discovered our ski helmets have devolved into a sticky mess. And they didn't even have the usual rubbery coating! Just some sort of hard surface treatment. Totally useless now. Grrrrrr.
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On an analog clock, you can instantly see "it's nearly 4" without thinking... 3:37 just isn't quite as fast.
On an analog clock, it makes sense to have 60 minutes in an hour. On a digital clock... we really need 100 minutes in an hour for it to make sense!
Agreed. Especially if you have an idea what the expected reading is going to be, I find it easier to glance and see the hand (or pointer, in the case of a gauge) is where you know it should be, your brain can say 'close enough' in an instant. “I need to leave at 3:55” A glance at an analog clock at 3:38 shows you have time, and it’s roughly a quarter hour left. Digital you need to parse that 38 is less than 55, then do the math to find it’s 17 minutes less, then compare that to the 60 minutes in an hour to find it’s about a quarter hour. Having grown up with analog timepieces, and as one who still wears a watch, this is simply intuitive to me.
Digital is great for absolute precision, but I find analog is usually better for quick interpretation and comparison.
-Pat
While personally I prefer analog, I have no problem at all looking at a digital clock and automatically know how long to whenever.
If I need to leave at 3.55 (much prefer 24 hr format) and it read 3.38, I automatically think I’ve got 17 mins, it’s instant.
Likewise if it’s 18:04 and my wife says dinner is in about 20 mins, dinners at 18:24.
Kirk: "Spock, what time is it?"
Spock: "It is exactly 11:57 and 35.625 seconds."
McCoy: "Spock, it's noon, dammit!"
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Tiny, delicate items (like Micro-SD cards) that come armored in thick blister plastics that apparently were meant to let you see what you purchased, but firmly resist any sensible attempt to unpack.
You need heavy duty tools and brute force to open them and then either hurt yourself, or even worse, the item you wanted to get at.
Everything sold at Costco has way too much packaging. "Oh, you want to buy orange juice. Well, you have to buy three bottles [OK!] and the three bottles are held together with a piece of non-recyclable plastic." And then Costco has the stones to not give you proper grocery bags, so you end up putting your food and such into parts of the cardboard packaging that the products are packed in for shipping to the store.
Oh, a better example. Buy two loaves of bread. but! You have to put both loaves (which already have two layers of plastic bag packaging) into a third bag, so it counts as "one" SKU.
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I'm sure a lot of readers think that this silver stuff is just another dodgy woo-woo, but it is actually rather simple thing: in physical contact with many metals, including silver and aluminium, bacteria (and viruses with encapsulating shells) die, as their outer molecular structure breaks down. Because vertebrate cells have a different surface structure, they're not vulnerable to the same kind of breakdown. As aluminium has certain issues if used internally, medical dressings and creams commonly use silver for exactly this purpose (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_uses_of_silver).
Antiperspirants use aluminium salts for two purposes: aluminium chlorohydrates form a colloid in sweat glands, which physically reduces sweating. Aluminium sulfate salts (alum) in turn inhibit bacteria; it is the bacteria subsisting on the sweat that generates the smell, as sweat itself is usually scentless. (There are certain compounds that do appear in sweat if they are ingested, though. That is, living human skin can smell different based on their diet.)
Nominal Animal, we have here a colloidal silver in spray form - can you find it there? It may be a bit more practical than electrolise it.
Yep, there are even local manufacturers (who work with Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency control).
Colloidal silver is problematic in that it only stays on the surface; I'd like it to adhere to the dressing, but be on the surface too. I fear that if I just spray some to the dressing, it'll be transferred to my skin, and soon be absorbed/flushed/covered in the cut by the plasma and fibrins, and is no longer effective.
I haven't tested the Hansaplast Universal (which according to ya.fi (https://www.yliopistonapteekki.fi/hansaplast-universal-length-1mx6cm-1-kpl-82743) is a polyethylene strip with natural latex as the glue, with the wound pad made of cellulose viscose, polypropylene, polyethylene, aluminium, and silver), as I haven't yet gone to a store/pharmacy that has them. Due to the omicron stuff and it being the flu season, I'm kinda avoiding public transport.
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That rubbery coating does feel nice and luxurious at first, but it invariably turns to nasty sticky goo at some point.
Along the lines of plastic,
Xcelite screwdrivers and tools have "that smell." I have some that are 25 years old and they STILL STINK LIKE NEW. I open my toolbox and eewwwwwwwww ....
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That rubbery coating does feel nice and luxurious at first, but it invariably turns to nasty sticky goo at some point.
Along the lines of plastic,
Xcelite screwdrivers and tools have "that smell." I have some that are 25 years old and they STILL STINK LIKE NEW. I open my toolbox and eewwwwwwwww ....
Cellulose Acetate, I've never opened a box of old tools that didn't reek of that weird vinegary oxidized oil smell.
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That rubbery coating does feel nice and luxurious at first, but it invariably turns to nasty sticky goo at some point.
Along the lines of plastic,
Xcelite screwdrivers and tools have "that smell." I have some that are 25 years old and they STILL STINK LIKE NEW. I open my toolbox and eewwwwwwwww ....
Cellulose Acetate, I've never opened a box of old tools that didn't reek of that weird vinegary oxidized oil smell.
not using uv stabilised plastic in anything exposed to sunlight.
even sunlight from a window can make plastic tubs fragile or brittle over time.
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Tiny, delicate items (like Micro-SD cards) that come armored in thick blister plastics that apparently were meant to let you see what you purchased, but firmly resist any sensible attempt to unpack.
You need heavy duty tools and brute force to open them and then either hurt yourself, or even worse, the item you wanted to get at.
That is primarily done to deter theft. Small, relatively valuable items are put into larger packages that are difficult to slip the item out of.
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why is it that bed side clocks are AM-PM 12-hour clocks but most others are 24-hour military time
how hard is it to put an AM-PM 12-hour or 24-hour clock mode switch in most appliances or even show a analog clock if the user interface screen can do so. :rant:
Probably because the ICs they are based on need to be wired differently for 12 or 24 hour mode and are not easily switchable. They were designed in the 70s-80s and various clones are still being used.
For what it's worth, I don't think I've ever seen a digital clock in this part of the world that used the 24 hour format, although I have a couple of vintage Russian clocks that are and some of the nixie clocks I built are selectable.
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why is it that bed side clocks are AM-PM 12-hour clocks but most others are 24-hour military time
how hard is it to put an AM-PM 12-hour or 24-hour clock mode switch in most appliances or even show a analog clock if the user interface screen can do so. :rant:
Probably because the ICs they are based on need to be wired differently for 12 or 24 hour mode and are not easily switchable. They were designed in the 70s-80s and various clones are still being used.
For what it's worth, I don't think I've ever seen a digital clock in this part of the world that used the 24 hour format, although I have a couple of vintage Russian clocks that are and some of the nixie clocks I built are selectable.
In Brasil there were some late models (i.e., late 80s) that had 24h formats, but were not as common.
IMHO the AM/PM is a PITA, as everyone I knew (including myself) was bitten more than once by oversleeping due to a mixed setting on their alarm clock. Worse, some of the cheaper and later models did not even had the letters anymore, but simply an LED that, when lit, indicated PM.
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Pet peeve of today: Search engines that return results that don't contain your search terms!
Looks like eBay has switched to this type of "greedy search" recently. It is so annoying to have to "double check" the results, and avoid clicking into a product that won't work (i.e. not what you asked for).
Amazon is the poster child for this kind of crappy search... but now eBay has started too...
Is it too much to ask for a "Verbatim" mode like Google has, to save some time for long suffering consumers with an IQ over 50? :rant:
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Pet peeve of today: Search engines that return results that don't contain your search terms!
Looks like eBay has switched to this type of "greedy search" recently. It is so annoying to have to "double check" the results, and avoid clicking into a product that won't work (i.e. not what you asked for).
Amazon is the poster child for this kind of crappy search... but now eBay has started too...
Is it too much to ask for a "Verbatim" mode like Google has, to save some time for long suffering consumers with an IQ over 50? :rant:
This happened to me last week. I pulled out the phone to help someone out and the search results.. I was like WTF is this s...?
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Pet peeve of today: Search engines that return results that don't contain your search terms!
Looks like eBay has switched to this type of "greedy search" recently. It is so annoying to have to "double check" the results, and avoid clicking into a product that won't work (i.e. not what you asked for).
Amazon is the poster child for this kind of crappy search... but now eBay has started too...
Is it too much to ask for a "Verbatim" mode like Google has, to save some time for long suffering consumers with an IQ over 50? :rant:
YouTube now does this as well, returning "recommended for you" results or "people also watched" crap not related to the search query. For example, searching for "soldering" returns a load of soldering videos as expected. A few results down (about 8) is a video titled "7 USEFUL CRFATS [sic]" which is one of those useless DIY "hack" videos that make no practical sense.
It does it on both desktop and in the app. The desktop also returns "for you" results that correlate to stuff I've recently watched and the results get less and less relevant to the query as I scroll, to the point where it just shows me stuff I've recently watched. A search for "soldering" returns the recent EEVblog 1446 (analogue WH meter) a bit down the page, for example. I also get results about the James Webb telescope.
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You know, I just realised that it's now so common I don't even notice and just automatically filter out irrelevant results.
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You know, I just realised that it's now so common I don't even notice and just automatically filter out irrelevant results.
Sometimes that can be hard work, for example searching for "Ford Escape AWD" and 90% of the results are non-AWD... What a pain in the neck, makes me wish great misfortune on the designers and spiritual leaders of these systems.
It's as if they have really drunk the AI kool aid, masturbating themselves to sleep at night while fantasizing that their AI powered fecal-spray search is actually better than the user at finding what they are looking for... :wtf: (can you tell I'm annoyed?)
Sometimes it gets so bad, I literally have to use the browser's search function to search in the search results! - but the browser's search function is not as good as a proper search engine that supports multiple predicates... Maybe that's a solution, improving the browser's own search function with an add-in? hmmm.....
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This discussion prompted me to install the "Chrome Regex Search" in my browser. This is an amazing tool and has made my day! :D
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This discussion prompted me to install the "Chrome Regex Search" in my browser. This is an amazing tool and has made my day! :D
Curious as to how this is different than the CTRL-F search? I'm not currently using Chrome because of issues I've had with it in the past.
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This discussion prompted me to install the "Chrome Regex Search" in my browser. This is an amazing tool and has made my day! :D
Curious as to how this is different than the CTRL-F search? I'm not currently using Chrome because of issues I've had with it in the past.
Basically, the "Chrome Regex Search" add-in allows you to use more advanced query language (regular expressions) in the search field.
If you are new to regular expressions, they are a little daunting at first, but extremely brutally powerful once you know them.
An example of what you can do with the add-in:
Search on eBay for "HP spectrum analyzer", get 200 results in the browser. Now we want to find only HP 856xx and 358xx listings. So we type into the add-in: ^.*HP.*(358|856).*
...which basically means, "Give me every line of text from the beginning, containing the string HP followed later by 358 or 856, and any following characters to the end of that line"
The add-in has a button that copies all the selected text that was found to the clipboard, and we get these eBay headings:
TESTED/DIM HP AGILENT 8563A 9KHz - 26.5GHz SPECTRUM ANALYZER #55
HP 3582A Spectrum Analyzer 25kHz Dual channel
- HP 3582A Spectrum Analyzer 25kHz Dual channel
Hewlett Packard HP Agilent 8565A Spectrum Analyzer OPT:100 100Hz/300Hz Parts
HP 3582A Spectrum Analyzer Hewlett Packard
HP Agilent 8562A Spectrum Analyzer 1 khz to 22 ghz
HP 8568B SPECTRUM ANALYZER - Free Shipping
- HP 8568B SPECTRUM ANALYZER - Free Shipping
HP / Agilent 85662A Spectrum Analyzer Display 48-66Hz, 250 VA - w/Opt. 067
- HP / Agilent 85662A Spectrum Analyzer Display 48-66Hz, 250 VA - w/Opt. 067
HP 85662A spectrum analyzer display front panel assembly
- HP 85662A spectrum analyzer display front panel assembly
HP8563A Spectrum Analyzer 9kHz - 26,5 - 40,0GHz with Mixer HP11970A
HP 8569B Spectrum Analyzer 2.0 - 4.5 GHz Oscillator Assembly PN: 5086-7350
HP 8560E RF Spectrum Analyzer 30Hz-2.9GHz W/85620A Memory Module Working
Not perfect and with some duplication (sponsored listings etc.?), but basically, we just saved looking through 200 listings manually to do the job that eBay's search engine used to be able to do in the good old days, when men were men, and computers were computers! :D
The add-in obviously works with any other page too, as long as there is text in there...
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And then Costco has the stones to not give you proper grocery bags, so you end up putting your food and such into parts of the cardboard packaging that the products are packed in for shipping to the store.
I wish they did that in all stores, it's far superior to grocery bags in my opinion. With everything packed in a box I can place the box in the back of my station wagon and when I get home I don't have to crawl around retrieving all of the various food items that rolled out of the bag and rolled around in the back of the car. Boxes are easier to carry than bags too.
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And then Costco has the stones to not give you proper grocery bags, so you end up putting your food and such into parts of the cardboard packaging that the products are packed in for shipping to the store.
Don't be fooled. That's a cost saving measure for Costco. They don't have to pay to haul away their old cardboard... you're doing it for them!
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And then Costco has the stones to not give you proper grocery bags, so you end up putting your food and such into parts of the cardboard packaging that the products are packed in for shipping to the store.
Don't be fooled. That's a cost saving measure for Costco. They don't have to pay to haul away their old cardboard... you're doing it for them!
Oh, of course it's a cost-saving measure.
If only the boxes weren't of the sort that's designed to have the top and front parts cut off for display purposes, which makes them unusable as box to carry your purchases!
Also if you bring your own bags (paper, or an insulated pack, or whatever), they won't pack it for you. Of course how they pack those silly half-boxes isn't useful either.
But they have Lagavulin 16 whisky for $75 a bottle, and they sell actual prime beef (not just that "choice" dog food), so hey, you deal.
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And then Costco has the stones to not give you proper grocery bags, so you end up putting your food and such into parts of the cardboard packaging that the products are packed in for shipping to the store.
I wish they did that in all stores, it's far superior to grocery bags in my opinion. With everything packed in a box I can place the box in the back of my station wagon and when I get home I don't have to crawl around retrieving all of the various food items that rolled out of the bag and rolled around in the back of the car. Boxes are easier to carry than bags too.
James, there is a way to tie the plastic grocery bags in a way that is very easy to be untied. It is hard to explain in words, so there's a short clip I did:
https://youtu.be/czqSlAEAWL4
I use this method every time when going to the supermarket. It never fails to keep the groceries from rolling around the cargo area.
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I detest it when (usually Americans) say:
# “Feel free to go ahead and <X>”
(er thanks, I know I’m *free* to do as I wish, and I’m not so stupid as to need some meaningless “permission” in this manner. Yes, I’m well aware of my freedom, how patronising.
or
# “I went ahead and <Y>”
or
# “I’m going to do this, right now”
My stupid Amazon Alexa, when asked “What’s the weather?”, will reply in a typically stupid American “English” way, saying “Right now, it’s raining” blah blah blah. When ELSE do the programmers think the user wants to know the weather for, unless they SPECIFY A TIMEFRAME? Duh.
Redundant, ridiculous addition of “Right now” and countless other idiotic “word fluff” is the doing of, and the way of many yanks (of course not all.)
Considering American “English” is based on the very premise of laziness, saving letters, mis-spelling and bad pronunciation of words, the concept of needlessly ADDING words to a sentence is all but idiotic.
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And then Costco has the stones to not give you proper grocery bags, so you end up putting your food and such into parts of the cardboard packaging that the products are packed in for shipping to the store.
Don't be fooled. That's a cost saving measure for Costco. They don't have to pay to haul away their old cardboard... you're doing it for them!
Oh, of course it's a cost-saving measure.
If only the boxes weren't of the sort that's designed to have the top and front parts cut off for display purposes, which makes them unusable as box to carry your purchases!
Also if you bring your own bags (paper, or an insulated pack, or whatever), they won't pack it for you. Of course how they pack those silly half-boxes isn't useful either.
But they have Lagavulin 16 whisky for $75 a bottle, and they sell actual prime beef (not just that "choice" dog food), so hey, you deal.
I do think Costco is one of the better stores, in terms of which products they choose to carry. Generally good to excellent quality, there aren't many duds...
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I detest it when (usually Americans) say:
# “Feel free to go ahead and <X>”
(er thanks, I know I’m *free* to do as I wish, and I’m not so stupid as to need some meaningless “permission” in this manner. Yes, I’m well aware of my freedom, how patronising.
or
# “I went ahead and <Y>”
or
# “I’m going to do this, right now”
My stupid Amazon Alexa, when asked “What’s the weather?”, will reply in a typically stupid American “English” way, saying “Right now, it’s raining” blah blah blah. When ELSE do the programmers think the user wants to know the weather for, unless they SPECIFY A TIMEFRAME? Duh.
Redundant, ridiculous addition of “Right now” and countless other idiotic “word fluff” is the doing of, and the way of many yanks (of course not all.)
Considering American “English” is based on the very premise of laziness, saving letters, mis-spelling and bad pronunciation of words, the concept of needlessly ADDING words to a sentence is all but idiotic.
That's very funny, that is! (as a Black Country lass might say, adding those extra words on the end!)
The Black Country regional dialect is amazing! The home of the Industrial Revolution, James Watt, Lunar Society, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest etc. etc. etc., this is Heavy Metal to the core!
Just listen to this... and if you understand the joke he is telling, you're doing very well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew)
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I detest it when (usually Americans) say:
# “Feel free to go ahead and <X>”
(er thanks, I know I’m *free* to do as I wish, and I’m not so stupid as to need some meaningless “permission” in this manner. Yes, I’m well aware of my freedom, how patronising.
or
# “I went ahead and <Y>”
or
# “I’m going to do this, right now”
My stupid Amazon Alexa, when asked “What’s the weather?”, will reply in a typically stupid American “English” way, saying “Right now, it’s raining” blah blah blah. When ELSE do the programmers think the user wants to know the weather for, unless they SPECIFY A TIMEFRAME? Duh.
Redundant, ridiculous addition of “Right now” and countless other idiotic “word fluff” is the doing of, and the way of many yanks (of course not all.)
Considering American “English” is based on the very premise of laziness, saving letters, mis-spelling and bad pronunciation of words, the concept of needlessly ADDING words to a sentence is all but idiotic.
That's very funny, that is! (as a Black Country lass might say, adding those extra words on the end!)
The Black Country regional dialect is amazing! The home of the Industrial Revolution, James Watt, Lunar Society, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest etc. etc. etc., this is Heavy Metal to the core!
Just listen to this... and if you understand the joke he is telling, you're doing very well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew)
I understand Brummie very well, sadly. It’s one of those accents I just can’t take to. I’m good with understanding English spoken with a strong accent (I’m thoroughly English btw). Many of my friends used to look baffled when listening to reggae, wondering how on earth I could understand the patois; it’s not at all difficult. It’s not that the singer speaks too fast, it’s that the audience listens **too slowly** 😁
As regards Birmingham and the area, it’s about 40 mins away from me. I’ve visited a few times, can’t say I have much fondness for the accent nor the place (esp the old New St station - UGH!) - I won’t say I “hate” Birmingham, but could happily live my life without feeling the urge to go back. Hehe.
-
I detest it when (usually Americans) say:
# “Feel free to go ahead and <X>”
(er thanks, I know I’m *free* to do as I wish, and I’m not so stupid as to need some meaningless “permission” in this manner. Yes, I’m well aware of my freedom, how patronising.
or
# “I went ahead and <Y>”
or
# “I’m going to do this, right now”
My stupid Amazon Alexa, when asked “What’s the weather?”, will reply in a typically stupid American “English” way, saying “Right now, it’s raining” blah blah blah. When ELSE do the programmers think the user wants to know the weather for, unless they SPECIFY A TIMEFRAME? Duh.
Redundant, ridiculous addition of “Right now” and countless other idiotic “word fluff” is the doing of, and the way of many yanks (of course not all.)
Considering American “English” is based on the very premise of laziness, saving letters, mis-spelling and bad pronunciation of words, the concept of needlessly ADDING words to a sentence is all but idiotic.
That's very funny, that is! (as a Black Country lass might say, adding those extra words on the end!)
The Black Country regional dialect is amazing! The home of the Industrial Revolution, James Watt, Lunar Society, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest etc. etc. etc., this is Heavy Metal to the core!
Just listen to this... and if you understand the joke he is telling, you're doing very well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew)
I understand Brummie very well, sadly. It’s one of those accents I just can’t take to. I’m good with understanding English spoken with a strong accent (I’m thoroughly English btw). Many of my friends used to look baffled when listening to reggae, wondering how on earth I could understand the patois; it’s not at all difficult. It’s not that the singer speaks too fast, it’s that the audience listens **too slowly** 😁
As regards Birmingham and the area, it’s about 40 mins away from me. I’ve visited a few times, can’t say I have much fondness for the accent nor the place (esp the old New St station - UGH!) - I won’t say I “hate” Birmingham, but could happily live my life without feeling the urge to go back. Hehe.
The Black Country accent isn't really the same as the Brummy one - but you have to be a bit of a local aficionado to know.
With lovely inhabitants like this, what possible reason could anyone have to avoid the area???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG8JmI2UaLA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG8JmI2UaLA)
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I detest it when (usually Americans) say:
# “Feel free to go ahead and <X>”
(er thanks, I know I’m *free* to do as I wish, and I’m not so stupid as to need some meaningless “permission” in this manner. Yes, I’m well aware of my freedom, how patronising.
or
# “I went ahead and <Y>”
or
# “I’m going to do this, right now”
My stupid Amazon Alexa, when asked “What’s the weather?”, will reply in a typically stupid American “English” way, saying “Right now, it’s raining” blah blah blah. When ELSE do the programmers think the user wants to know the weather for, unless they SPECIFY A TIMEFRAME? Duh.
Redundant, ridiculous addition of “Right now” and countless other idiotic “word fluff” is the doing of, and the way of many yanks (of course not all.)
Considering American “English” is based on the very premise of laziness, saving letters, mis-spelling and bad pronunciation of words, the concept of needlessly ADDING words to a sentence is all but idiotic.
That's very funny, that is! (as a Black Country lass might say, adding those extra words on the end!)
The Black Country regional dialect is amazing! The home of the Industrial Revolution, James Watt, Lunar Society, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest etc. etc. etc., this is Heavy Metal to the core!
Just listen to this... and if you understand the joke he is telling, you're doing very well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew)
Easy-Peasy!
It does help that it is a really old joke!
The most indecipherable "English" speech I have ever heard was back in 1971.
My mate & I were in Liverpool, tooling around in the mighty "Ford Pop", when we sighted some young ladies thumbing a lift.
Gallantly (& lustfully) pulling up, we invited the lasses into our mobile lair.
"Whereyagoing?" we asked in "broad Oz".
The answer sounded like Martian, but persevering, we managed to pick up the words "The Cave" & the "B----les".
It turned out they were saying :
"We are going to "The Cave"---you know, where the Beatles used to perform."
They gave us directions, mainly by pointing in the directions we had to go, we dropped them off, to incomprehensible thanks, they waved us goodbye, & we went on our way, astounded.
-
I detest it when (usually Americans) say:
# “Feel free to go ahead and <X>”
(er thanks, I know I’m *free* to do as I wish, and I’m not so stupid as to need some meaningless “permission” in this manner. Yes, I’m well aware of my freedom, how patronising.
or
# “I went ahead and <Y>”
or
# “I’m going to do this, right now”
My stupid Amazon Alexa, when asked “What’s the weather?”, will reply in a typically stupid American “English” way, saying “Right now, it’s raining” blah blah blah. When ELSE do the programmers think the user wants to know the weather for, unless they SPECIFY A TIMEFRAME? Duh.
Redundant, ridiculous addition of “Right now” and countless other idiotic “word fluff” is the doing of, and the way of many yanks (of course not all.)
Considering American “English” is based on the very premise of laziness, saving letters, mis-spelling and bad pronunciation of words, the concept of needlessly ADDING words to a sentence is all but idiotic.
That's very funny, that is! (as a Black Country lass might say, adding those extra words on the end!)
The Black Country regional dialect is amazing! The home of the Industrial Revolution, James Watt, Lunar Society, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest etc. etc. etc., this is Heavy Metal to the core!
Just listen to this... and if you understand the joke he is telling, you're doing very well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7y5_oY8ew)
I understand Brummie very well, sadly. It’s one of those accents I just can’t take to. I’m good with understanding English spoken with a strong accent (I’m thoroughly English btw). Many of my friends used to look baffled when listening to reggae, wondering how on earth I could understand the patois; it’s not at all difficult. It’s not that the singer speaks too fast, it’s that the audience listens **too slowly** 😁
As regards Birmingham and the area, it’s about 40 mins away from me. I’ve visited a few times, can’t say I have much fondness for the accent nor the place (esp the old New St station - UGH!) - I won’t say I “hate” Birmingham, but could happily live my life without feeling the urge to go back. Hehe.
This is what, as an Australian, I found astonishing about England.
You live about 40minutes away from Birmingham & "you've visited" a few times!!
Hell, you pretty much live in Greater Birmingham!
Similarly, back when I lived in Southampton for a time on an extended visit, I could not find many locals who wanted to make a day visit to London.
The general tenor of their comments was that the mighty Capital was "pretty overrated!"
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Americans are generally much more willing to jump into a car and think nothing of driving a few hundred miles in a day - in the UK, that would be considered a major journey! :D How does that work in Australia?
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Americans are generally much more willing to jump into a car and think nothing of driving a few hundred yards. Walking more than from the door to the car seems a major exercise, according to sources (possibly biased)!
And, to be fair, a few hundred miles from almost anywhere in the UK will see you paddling in a rather large pond.
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This is what, as an Australian, I found astonishing about England.
You live about 40minutes away from Birmingham & "you've visited" a few times!!
unlike aussie towns theirs a bit more to most british town than a pub and a brothel,so no need to travel a few 100 miles for pint of milk.
a few hundred miles from almost anywhere in the UK will see you paddling in a rather large pond.
depend on the source the furthest point inland from the salty wet stuff is somewere between 70 and 90 miles so a few 100 miles is going to be either very wet,or no longer the uk
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Americans are generally much more willing to jump into a car and think nothing of driving a few hundred miles in a day - in the UK, that would be considered a major journey! :D How does that work in Australia?
In the before time, at one stage, I was clocking up +700kms a week to the place of work. And then working full days. The experience hasn't affected me at all.
[takes a shot]
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Americans are generally much more willing to jump into a car and think nothing of driving a few hundred yards. Walking more than from the door to the car seems a major exercise, according to sources (possibly biased)!
And, to be fair, a few hundred miles from almost anywhere in the UK will see you paddling in a rather large pond.
;D
But outside of large cities, distances tend to be pretty large in the US, long roads with little traffic, so that's a very different driving experience too. In most of Europe, driving is not a "relaxing" experience. You need to be on your toes at all times.
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In the before time, at one stage, I was clocking up +700kms a week to the place of work. And then working full days. The experience hasn't affected me at all.
I've done that too. And telecommute was completely out of the question. It lasted little over 2 years before I was so fed up. Now, I have about an hour each way on public transport, and I typically can get work done (responding to email, writing ugly shell scripts, etc) during most of that time. During this "extended telecommute experience for medical reasons" I've averaged one day at the office per week, and mostly driven to work, so that people who lack that option can have more room on buses and trains.
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Americans are generally much more willing to jump into a car and think nothing of driving a few hundred yards. Walking more than from the door to the car seems a major exercise, according to sources (possibly biased)!
And, to be fair, a few hundred miles from almost anywhere in the UK will see you paddling in a rather large pond.
Well, if you want to travel from Land's End to John 'O Groats, that is a fairly decent trip, even by Oz or Yank standards.
Not something that would be commonly done, though.
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Land's End to JohnO? Here, people walk that.
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Americans are generally much more willing to jump into a car and think nothing of driving a few hundred miles in a day - in the UK, that would be considered a major journey! :D How does that work in Australia?
When we lived in Quairading, in the WA wheatbelt SWMBO, on a number of occasions, drove a round trip of 320km (200miles) to go to her favourite Bingo game in Perth.
When I was courting her, I regularly travelled to Collie & back, a round trip of 400km (250miles) as she did the other way round----I guess we were "pretty keen on each other!" ;D
When my daughter was working in Carnarvon WA, people would travel to Geraldton to shop as the selection of shops were better--a round trip of 952km (591 miles).
So, yeah, Aussies (especially West Aussies) aren't scared of a few hundred miles . ;D
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Land's End to JohnO? Here, people walk that.
Still a respectable trip, for a road distance of 874 miles (1,407 km)
Back around the end of the 19th Century, when the Victorian Goldfields were petering out, miners packed all their gear on wheelbarrows & pushed them all the way across Oz to Coolgardie in WA.
No roadside hostelries to "wet their whistles", either,----but that was before people got soft!
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This is what, as an Australian, I found astonishing about England.
You live about 40minutes away from Birmingham & "you've visited" a few times!!
unlike aussie towns theirs a bit more to most british town than a pub and a brothel,so no need to travel a few 100 miles for pint of milk.
Brothels are few and far between in small Oz country towns, (not enough ROI), but most have a pub, (often several) & a shop to buy milk, even if it is only the local petrol station (we call 'em "roadhouses" & they offer meals, as well as small shopping).
Big country towns often have many pubs, some, like Kalgoorlie, are famous for both pubs & brothels, but that is unusual.
Those that way inclined will probably be happy to drive a few hundred miles for a bonk, beer is a bit more urgent!a few hundred miles from almost anywhere in the UK will see you paddling in a rather large pond.
depend on the source the furthest point inland from the salty wet stuff is somewere between 70 and 90 miles so a few 100 miles is going to be either very wet,or no longer the uk
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miners packed all their gear on wheelbarrows & pushed them all the way across Oz to Coolgardie in WA
That is impressive :o
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I thought pushing miners over state lines was illegal.
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I thought pushing miners over state lines was illegal.
Nah! they were the "pushers"! :D
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I detest it when (usually Americans) say:
Feel free to go ahead and denounce our American language right now, you bloody Pom! :-DD
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Technical pet peeve of the day:
Sites that want you to register (that's OK), and want to send you a confirmation email to verify you gave the right email address (that's OK, too), but then fail to actually send that frigging email in timely manner (< 1 minute) or at all, and somehow magically succeed on the second try 10 minutes later, and then immediately sends the previous "lost" message, too. Is sending email this difficult?
Or worse, they say your name is already taken and don't offer you "I did not get the verification email" link, but you can't log in either because the account is not verified, so there is no way around the one single lost email.
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and somehow magically succeed on the second try 10 minutes later
That could be your mail host. They may implement 'grey mail' which is an anti-spam measure against previously unknown incoming mail servers. Those may or may not be dropping off spam but you don't know and don't really want to just shove anything in your spam folder by default. So the trick is to pretend the host is too busy to accept mail right now, and the sending system will then go away and try again later. This is as per the relevant RFC, and the possible back-offs and retries can lead to mail being in transit for a couple of days.
Anyway, some bright spark realised that spammers send so much junk they can't be arsed retrying, so if it doesn't get through on the first drop that's it. Any pukka mail will be retried after a short period, but spam won't be, and that short period is typically around 10 minutes...
So, your experience is exactly what would be expected of your host implementing grey mail.
(And, on this subject, spammers know that mail host implement black and white lists and they are probably on a 'just fsck right off' list, so they send spam instead to the secondary mail server - that is, your host's backup. That server is typically somewhere else and not configured with your personal ban lists, so the spam gets through even though you might be specifically blocking their sending server.)
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The problems are:
* That stupid 12-hour system, it's like a scope that is set to trigger on both falling and rising edges of a sine wave so that the simple periodic signal is impossible to read. Why multiplex two completely different times of day into the same number? Who thought that?
You should try learning the Thai time system, which is kind of a 6-hour system. lol.
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GPU miners taking all the GPU's from gamers.
And for that matter, why don't they use all the workstation GPU's ? I haven't heard anyone complain of a lack of those GPU's, is there one ?
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Why would a miner use a significantly more expensive professional GPU, when a cheaper gaming GPU performs just as well for them?
At least when you compare raw performance per dollar, gaming GPUs are a lot cheaper that workstation GPUs. You may get better drivers for professional Applications, and maybe even a couple of extra features, but those are not important for mining.
And yes, i dislike the shortage as well. I was lucky that i was able to buy a card directly from AMD last year, so for the forseeable future i am out of the market.
I suspect that we will see a stagnation, if not even a regression in graphics quality over the next few years. Not that i care, in my opinion we have reached a "good enough" in graphics quality some time ago. More is window dressing, except maybe for VR, since that needs high framerate and high resolution.
Even beginner GPUs are starting at 300 Euro. Add to that the increasing energy costs in Europe (Some suppliers in Germany take more than 60 Eurocents per kwh!), and that the modern performance increases are mostly bought by increased power consumption, and many gamers will not be able to invest into modern GPUs anymore. So new games need to reduce their requirements if they still want to target the PC market.
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New pet peeve for me:
When people repeatedly sniff while narrating a YouTube video.
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New pet peeve for me:
When people repeatedly sniff while narrating a YouTube video.
Have you been watching snuff movies? :\
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New pet peeve for me:
When people repeatedly sniff while narrating a YouTube video.
Have you been watching snuff movies? :\
[attachimg=1]
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New pet peeve for me:
When people repeatedly sniff while narrating a YouTube video.
Have you been watching snuff movies? :\
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Oy, so there's the sort of snuff you sniff, which is ground-up tobacco, and then there are the films you don't want to watch.
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New pet peeve for me:
When people repeatedly sniff while narrating a YouTube video.
Have you been watching snuff movies? :\
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Oy, so there's the sort of snuff you sniff, which is ground-up tobacco, and then there are the films you don't want to watch.
Well, one is worse on your libido than the other. Well, to be fair, anything thing you snort can affect your performance.
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Ran into another peeve, overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word. Classic, Class, Classy, Classical, etc all have the "ass" part automatically snipped out. Same with Cocktail, Cockatoo, and numerous others. It's kind of ridiculous given how easy it would be to filter in a more sensible way.
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Ran into another peeve, overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word. Classic, Class, Classy, Classical, etc all have the "ass" part automatically snipped out. Same with Cocktail, Cockatoo, and numerous others. It's kind of ridiculous given how easy it would be to filter in a more sensible way.
If its a large animal veterinary forum, filtering ass might be quite annoying. Quite a pain in the arse (the British probably only invented that spelling to circumvent some filter imposed on them by Americans) in fact. Who doesn't know what the f**k is really being said when words are filtered, anyway?
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overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word.
Scunthorpe residents have been having that problem for years
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overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word.
Scunthorpe residents have been having that problem for years
I remember in the 70s the "If Typhoo put the tea in Britain, who put the **** in Scunthorpe" gag being paint sprayed along a platform of a Victoria Line tube station in London in letters about half a metre high. It was cleaned off the next day. They really can keep the tube stations clean when they set their minds to it. I wonder how many spray cans it took to write that? ;)
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For those among us who appreciate language in all it's forms, seek out Kevin Bloody Wilson's You cant say c*** in Canada.
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If its a large animal veterinary forum, filtering ass might be quite annoying. Quite a pain in the arse (the British probably only invented that spelling to circumvent some filter imposed on them by Americans) in fact. Who doesn't know what the f**k is really being said when words are filtered, anyway?
It actually took me a while to figure out what "clic" meant, but eventually I realized it was "classic" that had been censored.
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If its a large animal veterinary forum, filtering ass might be quite annoying. Quite a pain in the arse (the British probably only invented that spelling to circumvent some filter imposed on them by Americans) in fact. Who doesn't know what the f**k is really being said when words are filtered, anyway?
It actually took me a while to figure out what "clic" meant, but eventually I realized it was "classic" that had been censored.
OMG :palm: :-DD
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Ran into another peeve, overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word. Classic, Class, Classy, Classical, etc all have the "ass" part automatically snipped out.
The traditional way to refer to this kind of stupid filter is to use the word clbuttic. It is even listed in the English Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clbuttic). (The even older, but related, medireview (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/medireview) [instead of medieval, eval() being a scary Javascript thing] was a Yahoo-only goof; clbuttic has been encountered many times in many different implementations.)
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There was a UK planning department that got a lot of complaints, about them no longer approving any online applications for permits, and even the internal applications that were posted in and typed into the system. Mainly because every application referred to the erection of structures, which resulted in the email being silently deleted by the mail server.
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overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word.
Scunthorpe residents have been having that problem for years
Ages ago I participated in a forum dedicated to live sound production, and two of the regular posters complained that the forum software did not like that they were from Oakland.
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I play a game where they filter the entire clan's chat if one underage person joins. When we find out the filter is back, we curse and kick until its 'fixed'.
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My wife asks. “Alexa, Question of the day.”
Alexa, “What country…………..”
My wife, “D Korea”
Alexa, “Good guess, but the correct answer is “D Korea”
Second time that’s happened in the last week lol
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I went to the shops today. That's everybody's pet peeve, sure.
But someone was parked in my usual car spot. >:(
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There was a UK planning department that got a lot of complaints, about them no longer approving any online applications for permits, and even the internal applications that were posted in and typed into the system. Mainly because every application referred to the erection of structures, which resulted in the email being silently deleted by the mail server.
Some years back, the visiting IT guy, as part of his ongoing campaign to destroy our system, somehow set the server "profanity filter" "to 11!".
I had to set an email to bloke in NSW whose name, if you squinched your eyes up, stood on your head, & farted, had a passing resemblance to the "F" word.
His details contained his "ABN" number, which the filter also had problems with.
The server rejected the email due to "racial vilification".
If you really stretched your imagination, & performed the aforesaid acrobatics, it looked vaguely like a nasty reference to Indigenous people.
Astounded, I sent the Boss an internal email, saying "The bloody thing rejected my email!"
That one was also rejected---------for profanity! :palm: :palm:
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overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word.
Scunthorpe residents have been having that problem for years
It would also be a bummer to live in Shitterton, & an ongoing problem for the Fuchs lubrication manufacturers.
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overly aggressive profanity filters. There is a website that filters even soft profanity like "ass", but the problem is it filters it even when it is a part of another word.
Scunthorpe residents have been having that problem for years
It would also be a bummer to live in Shitterton, & an ongoing problem for the Fuchs lubrication manufacturers.
I remember being apprehensive about buying a CDROM drive that had a software driver from a company called Matshita.
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There was a village in Austria, called "Fucking"
That must also have been fun when ordering online from english speaking countries.
They now have changed their name to an older spelling: "Fugging", because too many tourists stole the signs |O
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There was a village in Austria, called "Fucking"
was it twinned with intercourse pennsylvania
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There was a village in Austria, called "Fucking"
That must also have been fun when ordering online from english speaking countries.
They now have changed their name to an older spelling: "Fugging", because too many tourists stole the signs |O
I believe it was Norman Mailer who used "fugging" as a euphemism in his early novels to avoid censorship.
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I believe it was Norman Mailer who used "fugging" as a euphemism in his early novels to avoid censorship.
Now that you mention it, I read "The Naked and the Dead" quite a few years ago and I remember that. The book was actually a bit of a drag, slogging through page after page I felt a lot like the characters within it slogging through the mud and muck of the battlefield. For a book about war there was disappointingly little action in it.
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There was a village in Austria, called "Fucking"
That must also have been fun when ordering online from english speaking countries.
Back when I worked at Microsoft a friend of mine was in the group that made whatever mapping software they were doing at the time and with great amusement he sent me a screenshot of a bug report titled "There is no Fucking Austria", apparently the whole village was missing off the map.
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There was a village in Austria, called "Fucking"
That must also have been fun when ordering online from english speaking countries.
They now have changed their name to an older spelling: "Fugging", because too many tourists stole the signs |O
They must have gotten tired of Oberfucking (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberfucking).
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Back when I worked at Microsoft a friend of mine was in the group that made whatever mapping software they were doing at the time and with great amusement he sent me a screenshot of a bug report titled "There is no Fucking Austria", apparently the whole village was missing off the map.
Well, since apparently some people have gotten their microsoft accounts blocked because some AI or something deemed their name offensive, i would not be surprised if MS automatically nixed Fucking from their maps. I wonder if they also removed "Ficken", a small Town in Germany, whose name translates to, well you may have guessed it: "Fucking" :-DD
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Today's pet peeve: "There is an update to the User Agreement"....
Many tech corporations in a monopoly or oligopoly market position frequently message you to inform you of their latest unilateral decision.... and you are given a choice between "Obey" or "F*k off".
If this is "user agreement", what does "user coercion" look like??
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This reminded me of the guy that changed the terms of service of an unsolicited credit card sent to his house... And the bank accepted (without noticing, obviously).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russian-man-got-bank-sign-144810926.html
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When recommended footprint looks like it was drawn by a poorly taught junior ME (mechanical engineer). This gem from C&K is for a small button, PTS840. They use precise, odd values that don't divide by 2 nicely. They don't measure to centers of pads. They skew the holes by a ridiculously small amount.
Hole skew: x:0.025mm and y:0.075mm +-0.1mm. The tolerance is bigger than the value!
Hole size 0.65mm +0.1mm / -0mm. Could have said 0.7mm +/- 0.05mm. Either way it requires half the tolerance that JLCPCB offers: +0.13mm / 0.08mm.
On top of this, they didn't make it clear where the edge of the button is, relative to the footprint.
Still doesn't take too long to sort it out but once I add the time to come here and complain about it, it's really eating up my time. :palm:
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When recommended footprint looks like it was drawn by a poorly taught junior ME (mechanical engineer). This gem from C&K is for a small button, PTS840. They use precise, odd values that don't divide by 2 nicely. They don't measure to centers of pads. They skew the holes by a ridiculously small amount.
Hole skew: x:0.025mm and y:0.075mm +-0.1mm. The tolerance is bigger than the value!
Hole size 0.65mm +0.1mm / -0mm. Could have said 0.7mm +/- 0.05mm. Either way it requires half the tolerance that JLCPCB offers: +0.13mm / 0.08mm.
On top of this, they didn't make it clear where the edge of the button is, relative to the footprint.
Still doesn't take too long to sort it out but once I add the time to come here and complain about it, it's really eating up my time. :palm:
That sort of footprint diagram is maddening. Tell me the dimensions of the pads/holes and where their centers are relative to some reasonable point such as the mechanical center of the part or something similar - don't force me to print out the datasheet, break out my calculator and figure that stuff out myself. I've made up footprints for some connectors that had more horrific drawings than that, and would love to have reached through the screen and wrung the neck of whoever put them out.
-Pat
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company's not having enough stock to meet the minimum order quantity,why if the minimum order quantity is 25,do you only have 23 in stock.
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That's a good one :)
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Assertions without anything to back them up.
There is zero utility in drive-by "That's wrong. You're wrong." type of assertions. They have no value, because they rely purely on the argument from authority fallacy, and cannot discussed on their merits, because there are none. You either believe, or don't. I don't like that sort of religiosity.
If this makes me a 'drama queen', so be it: I'll wear a pink tutu for the rest of my life before I accept that behaviour without pointing it out.
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People mistake their own beliefs for facts. If you claim someone is wrong, you need to back that up with logical reasoning, instead of just "That's wrong, because I say so".
Every time I try to explain something about physics here (with examples, explanations and links), I get hit by people who offer their unfounded beliefs as counterarguments. "That's not true" and "That's wrong" are not counterarguments, they're assertions, and without any logical reasoning, a rational argument as to why one would believe so, they're assertions that have nothing to do with logic or science, and everything to do with personal beliefs: religiosity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity). It is ridiculous.
A good, rational argument is always welcomed and fun. "Debunking" something by saying "That's been debunked ages ago" is belief, not an argument. Referring to a paper which redefines the phenomenon to something completely different and then shows that does not happen, has nothing to do with the original phenomena, and is a classic diversionary social gaming tactic. Social gaming, and nothing to do with science, in other words.
Getting frustrated with this kind of non-argument on a topic which itself is interesting but unresolved (with models explaining how the physical phenomenon could occur, only about a decade old at this point), I get called a 'drama queen'. (I should remember to keep away from subjects where believers will offer up their beliefs as unshakeable truths and will never argue anything rationally, really.)
I really don't understand how Dave can deal with this (irrationality, beliefs claimed as facts, negative-value assertions like "This is wrong!" without any basis or explanation, and so on) in the comment sections of his videos. I get angry; he just laughs. I wish I could just laugh, too.
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The sooner you choose to just step over the idiots in your life, the happier you will be.
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company's not having enough stock to meet the minimum order quantity,why if the minimum order quantity is 25,do you only have 23 in stock.
I bet if you actually contacted them in that case they would sell you 23 of them. I'd guess the minimum quantity was set based on the assumption that they would always have adequate stock.
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I get called a 'drama queen'.
That was not only hit under the belt, but also really weird because you were just normally lecturing in the normal, positive manner, there was no fight about anything, and the only drama queen I did see in that thread was the one who used that word, literally out of nowhere.
Oh, but writing that it occurred to me what this means. It's just social manipulation; you were assigned the role of drama queen. The idea was to build that fight. After it's going, then they can start calling names, and no one bothers to check who started it; so you will become the drama queen, just because they said it, and in the context they created it makes sense. This process is also called "trolling". They just slipped out this "drama queen" thing a few posts too early, so it felt totally out-of-place. Social manipulators don't always succeed.
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The thing I love about discussions and arguments is the different viewpoints and approaches to the problem. When it is the arguments that fight on their own merits, not the humans proposing the arguments. (I especially love it when you can have a heated argument with someone, but stay friendly outside that argument. Or, like Dave said in a recent video, that he has friends that have opinions he completely disagrees with. Me too; I like that.)
Because of how the human mind works, it is either impossible or takes too much time to shift between viewpoints; this is why even the most brilliant minds in the world like to cooperate with each other. The rest of us, like myself, can still participate and help via rational, logical arguments, no matter how simple. I sometimes like to be the devil's advocate, too, proposing an argument I do not really endorse, just to see the underlying reasons others have for their opinions/understanding on the subject. Those underlying reasons and experience is the valuable part, not the argument or opinion itself. Even if I completely disagree with the opinion, I can still appreciate the underlying reasons and experiences that "built" the opinion.
Science and engineering are tools of the mind. Science is a way to build models describing testable reality, and testing them, comparing them against the observed behaviour of the real world. Engineering is using science and the scientific models, to build useful mechanisms and tools and things in the real world. Both rely on the scientific method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method), which itself is based on making conjectures or tentative explanations, and comparing the predictions of that conjecture or explanation to observable behaviour. Assertions are hypotheses devoid of explanation or model, and therefore utterly non-scientific.
(We do have axioms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axioms) or postulates that cannot be verified, but these are things like "physical reality can be described and physical processes described using mathematical equations". These have to be agreed upon explicitly, and assumed to be true, so that we can build knowledge upon them. These are, therefore, only at the very core of things like maths and physics and chemistry.)
We have these wonderful tools of the mind; thousands of years, hundreds of generations in their making. When we use them, discuss problems with each other, and suggest solutions and explanations, we can build utterly amazing stuff. Just think of e.g. the Socratic method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method) as an example. In my opinion, the capability of having and using these tools are among the few truly admirable, beautiful features in all humans.
Consider, then, the frustration when you want to reach for that, but are constantly bogged down by social gaming and refusal to use logic or rational thought: the dismissal of the scientific method, and the reliance of logical fallacies like argument from authority, or assuming popularity correlates with quality or usability. Chatting, instead of discussion, if you will.
I love to try and help if someone is struggling, but when humans refuse to use these amazing capabilities they have, apparently because it's too much effort or not as fun as playing social games, it is just heartbreaking.
Note that this has nothing to do with stupidity. I know firsthand how it feels when one realizes someone else is so much smarter than oneself: like standing in the shadow of a huge granite monolith, and looking up; almost a dizzying sensation. Can be hard on ones ego, too. Dealing with stupidity is easier, as there is no malice or loss there; you just do what you can with what you have. But refusal to use logic and rational thought, and instead just rely on beliefs or instincts, or playing social games? That I cannot stomach. It is depressing.
Apologies for the wall of text.
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"Since we're a hardware company, all of our engineering positions are 100% onsite."
I might have been born at night, but I wasn't born last night. You're either idiots, or lying about the real motivation for the policy (e.g. boss doesn't trust the employees).
Note that I'm not referring to being onsite for bringup/integration/DVT etc., customer visits, classified work, or on-call for FPGA/FW/SW/production folks. None of those, however, are 100% of the HW design/development cycle (even classified programs do not necessarily start with a classified design cycle).
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"Since we're a hardware company, all of our engineering positions are 100% onsite."
I might have been born at night, but I wasn't born last night. You're either idiots, or lying about the real motivation for the policy (e.g. boss doesn't trust the employees).
Note that I'm not referring to being onsite for bringup/integration/DVT etc., customer visits, classified work, or on-call for FPGA/FW/SW/production folks. None of those, however, are 100% of the HW design/development cycle (even classified programs do not necessarily start with a classified design cycle).
Nice pet peeve. :-+
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"Since we're a hardware company, all of our engineering positions are 100% onsite."
I might have been born at night, but I wasn't born last night. You're either idiots, or lying about the real motivation for the policy (e.g. boss doesn't trust the employees).
Note that I'm not referring to being onsite for bringup/integration/DVT etc., customer visits, classified work, or on-call for FPGA/FW/SW/production folks. None of those, however, are 100% of the HW design/development cycle (even classified programs do not necessarily start with a classified design cycle).
One of the reasons I have seen for this policy is in companies that put out crap products and overworked their people to put out constant fires. Mind you, this was in another era where no remote work happened and jobs were scarce (thus very few people actually left), but I can clearly see this happening in today's day and age.
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...Just some additional comment: The (January 15 'ish) discussion around 'American speech patterns':
(eti, SilverSolder vk6zgo, thanks), the pet peeve around the WEATHER DIALOG, saying "Right now, it's 70 degrees."
I think you've missed a fine subtle aspect of some different (language type), than yours.
The 'subtle' communication, you've missed, is that the phrase 'right now's can often be a valid structural element, in that, soon, the speaker might be talking about FUTURE conditions; rain tomorrow, etc.
..."But, for now, it's 70 degrees, and no rain forecast, over the next, 12 hours"...That sort of present-past in same sentence.
THATS WHAT WEATHER STATIONS DO, by the way...
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(so I guess THAT was my Pet Peeve).
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"Since we're a hardware company, all of our engineering positions are 100% onsite."
I might have been born at night, but I wasn't born last night. You're either idiots, or lying about the real motivation for the policy (e.g. boss doesn't trust the employees).
Note that I'm not referring to being onsite for bringup/integration/DVT etc., customer visits, classified work, or on-call for FPGA/FW/SW/production folks. None of those, however, are 100% of the HW design/development cycle (even classified programs do not necessarily start with a classified design cycle).
One of the reasons I have seen for this policy is in companies that put out crap products and overworked their people to put out constant fires. Mind you, this was in another era where no remote work happened and jobs were scarce (thus very few people actually left), but I can clearly see this happening in today's day and age.
Yep - incompetent/malevolent managers fomenting perpetual crises. There's also the arrogant exceptionalism wheeze ("Our market/products/technology/culture are unique, therefore we require these policies") and magical thinking around the effects of face-to-face interaction on innovation/collaboration/productivity.
I recently saw a job description where the company touted their penchant for turning Monday's idea into Thursday's quick-turn PCB, assembled in time for Friday bench testing. I should have scored an interview just to ask them how they managed to get all their good ideas on Mondays.
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"Yep - incompetent/malevolent managers fomenting perpetual crises."
I have worked for managers whose entire skill set was exactly that: Intentionally fomenting crises which they could then be seen as solving. Come to think of it, this concisely describes most politicians too.
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I recently saw a job description where the company touted their penchant for turning Monday's idea into Thursday's quick-turn PCB, assembled in time for Friday bench testing. I should have scored an interview just to ask them how they managed to get all their good ideas on Mondays.
Who said they had all their good ideas on Monday. They could well have had a bad idea on Monday but wouldn't find that out until they started testing the assembled PCB on Friday. They would then have to wait until next Monday before they could come up with a new good idea instead, having wasted a week progressing a bad idea.
A similar situation occurred at one firm I was doing contract work for. They were doing a major new design and management decided that they should to do a board spin every week regardless of whether they had properly tested and corrected the previous week's spin. They got into a terrible mess as there wasn't sufficient time to build and properly test the complex PCB in a week. As a result they spent most of their time constantly updating schematics and producing new PCB versions where the previous version hadn't been tested properly thus propagating errors through several versions. This took an enormous amount of engineering time testing and redesigning multiple PCB versions. All told it took more than 20 spins of the PCB to get it production ready.
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[...]
I recently saw a job description where the company touted their penchant for turning Monday's idea into Thursday's quick-turn PCB, assembled in time for Friday bench testing. I should have scored an interview just to ask them how they managed to get all their good ideas on Mondays.
One way to have good ideas 'on Mondays' is to spend all weekend thinking about work.
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company's not having enough stock to meet the minimum order quantity,why if the minimum order quantity is 25,do you only have 23 in stock.
I bet if you actually contacted them in that case they would sell you 23 of them. I'd guess the minimum quantity was set based on the assumption that they would always have adequate stock.
They might even have opened the box already and willing to sell anything upto 23 of these items. I think a phone call would work best for cases like this. Just ask them for the quantity you need.
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[...]
I recently saw a job description where the company touted their penchant for turning Monday's idea into Thursday's quick-turn PCB, assembled in time for Friday bench testing. I should have scored an interview just to ask them how they managed to get all their good ideas on Mondays.
Mondays were the only day they had time to think. All other days were consumed in screaming panic, trying to get Mondays' half-baked ideas to work by Friday.
My pet hates of recent days:
Work boots that contain ONE critical component made of some crappy rubber or fake leather that disintegrates rapidly. Thus making the whole boot unusable despite the real leather being perfectly good.
People that destroy books deliberately. Case in point - a small second hand bookshop, that gets sent a lot of charity donated 2nd hand books. More than they can sell. So rather than set up some giveaway scheme such as a 'free books bench' out front, to at least give the books a chance of living on, they tear the covers off most of the best ones and put them all out in paper recycling bins. Two bins full every week. Given the small size of the place, the staff/guy must spend a significant portion of his time tearing covers off.
Cat pee soaked well into a futon.
And ebay sellers that pack big, heavy, precious items in really crappy boxes so they get broken.
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They likely believe they're being environmentally responsible. Look up "stripped book". I have no idea how they decide which ones to strip.
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I have no idea how they decide which ones to strip.
'round my way they usually start with the ones containing blasphemy.
:P
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Did I ever mention how much I hate leaking NiCad batteries soldered into PCBs of historic/rare old test equipment?
I think I might have a, uh few times. I really don't like repeating myself. But not as much as I hate those &*#$@ NiCads.
Here's another reason to hate them. A HP 8170A Logic Pattern Generator. A recent 'interesting bit of history' buy (and I got the manual and necessary pods too!).
The machine arrived today. Immediate horror on opening it. I think it might be repairable, we'll see how it goes.
The worst are the edge connector sockets. But with a pointy thing the green corrosion scrapes off easily, leaving clean gold plating. The problem is the tight space and the number of contacts. The idea of a miniature 'sand blaster' using some soft grit (baking soda?) seems worth trying. Needs to be some abrasive that can be washed or blown out of the sockets. And that won't blast away the socket body material.
Has anyone ever tried something like that?
There are two backplanes. One is OK, the other one has about half the sockets (two fifferent kinds) with 'green gunge.'
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Did I ever mention how much I hate leaking NiCad batteries soldered into PCBs of historic/rare old test equipment?
I think I might have a, uh few times. I really don't like repeating myself. But not as much as I hate those &*#$@ NiCads.
Here's another reason to hate them. A HP 8170A Logic Pattern Generator. A recent 'interesting bit of history' buy (and I got the manual and necessary pods too!).
The machine arrived today. Immediate horror on opening it. I think it might be repairable, we'll see how it goes.
I also hate NiCds, particularly those used widely in HP equipment of this era.
Good luck with cleaning up the edge connectors but it might be better to be looking for replacements as once the corrosion has got through to the underlying base metal it is nigh impossible to permanently eradicate it.
Looking at the extent of the corrosion I think you are also going to have to remove some ICs and clean up the corrosion underneath. Hopefully, you won't have too many bad PTHs.
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Many tech corporations in a monopoly or oligopoly market position frequently message you to inform you of their latest unilateral decision.... and you are given a choice between "Obey" or "F*k off".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsW9MlYu31g (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsW9MlYu31g)
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I ordered a used, nice looking portable bluetooth keyboard on Ebay but what they don't show in the listing is the battery compartment with the lid off.
(https://i.imgur.com/3wX7pFd.jpg)(https://i.imgur.com/G6guS6o.jpg)
There is some corrosion on the positive end but fully caked in the green stuff on the battery terminals inside the cover.
Listed as "tested".
Doesn't seem to power up, no lights, and not detected so as usual I opened a returns for defective or doesn't work.
Obviously I forgot to ask. So now I have remember to ask the sellers to check for these sorts of things.
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Did I ever mention how much I hate leaking NiCad batteries soldered into PCBs of historic/rare old test equipment?
I think I might have a, uh few times. I really don't like repeating myself. But not as much as I hate those &*#$@ NiCads.
This is a very common problem that plagues vintage computers and arcade/pinball games. Commodore Amiga PCs had a NiCd, and some games like Omega Race and Qbert are particularly notorious for having batteries leak and run down the board due to being located up at the top. Even worse than NiCds, 68k Macs have a lithium thionyl chloride battery that occasionally leaks and completely destroys the machine, venting acidic vapor that corrodes the hell out of everything nearby.
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.
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[...] The idea of a miniature 'sand blaster' using some soft grit (baking soda?) seems worth trying. Needs to be some abrasive that can be washed or blown out of the sockets.
Haven't tried it myself but dry ice could be easy to 'clean up'.
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. <---
lithium thionyl chloride missed a spot
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When your parents won't let you do certain things but tell everyone how wonderful and talented your enemy is when they do that exact same thing. |O
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I need to be able to connect with a web browser to check all the basic things that it is running correctly with all the strings and voltages.
Solar panel installer: It is "cloud based" You need an app on your phone or PC to see it. bullsh*t.
Very angry hearing nonsense once again.
What happens if this "cloud" stops. then that would useless wouldn't it?
I shouldn't have to have it upload stuff just so I can download it elsewhere.
Very stupid.
Engensa did this thing, I was told to check that the panels were working but that was useless and when they closed down it stopped. I think it was a website portal for just comparing the difference between two meters (maybe handy for comparing but not see if it is working) but in the contract I put down for a Sunny webbox which they eventually provided after arguing with them.
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People who argue based on how things have always been. That's never a justification for anything. Same with people who say well that's the rule. If the rule doesn't make sense, change the rule. People acting like machines make me hate them cause at least machines are good at it.
"His Majesty made you a Major because he believed you would know when not to obey his orders."
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And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
And my reaction then was what it is now AAARRRRGGGGHHHH! :palm: :palm: :palm: :palm:
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People who argue based on how things have always been. That's never a justification for anything. Same with people who say well that's the rule. If the rule doesn't make sense, change the rule. People acting like machines make me hate them cause at least machines are good at it.
"His Majesty made you a Major because he believed you would know when not to obey his orders."
I don't see the problem with that. I don't like change, it is stressful to me. "It's always been like that" is a perfectly valid reason to me to keep it like that, unless there is a real, genuine need or benefit to changing it.
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I don't mind changes too even if they don't add any benefit but when they start to disadvantage me in any way and cause me problems and inconvenience then yes I wouldn't like those changes.
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I dislike churn for no good reason. Like when a vendor changes the user interface to "freshen things" without actually adding any value. Microsoft Office is a perfect example, as are countless development tools over the years. There is zero redeeming value in forcing your user base to waste time RElearning how to use the same tool. It's just lost time and greater frustration.
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I don't see the problem with that. I don't like change, it is stressful to me. "It's always been like that" is a perfectly valid reason to me to keep it like that, unless there is a real, genuine need or benefit to changing it.
You see I've never seen someone use it as a justification when there isn't a major benefit to change. Yeah if the effort of changing doesn't outweigh the benefits don't change. But the people touting that as a reason have always in my experience been those who either just want busywork, or don't want to have to think/ put in the effort required to make needed changes.
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i got a new pet peeve : #%&&^ USB-C !
Every new laptop comes with the damn things. New docking station comes with the damn things. The end result is that none of my existing peripherals ( keyboard, mouse , space navigator ) can be plugged in. i need to buy a usb hub. old charging cables for iphone, watch and whatnot : same deal. i need ot buy adapter to convert 'classic' usb to that usb-c connector.
They can pump displayport or thunderbolt over that connector. yet another cable i need to buy.
For oodles of years HP has been using a standardized power plug. i got at least 10 of those 240 watt bricks laying around. Due to USB-C they now use a much smaller plug ( they use a kind of combo connector with a powerplug magnetically attached to a thunderbolt link for the dock ) Tthe dock still takes the classic power connector. the laptop has a different one. Problem is there are two versions of the dock : one with power (240watt), one without power (120watt). of course i have the 120 watt dock without power link. Power goes over the usb-c but is not sufficient to run the laptop full throttle (Zbook Fury 17 with an i7-10850 and a Quadro RTX3000). so now i can get another power brick for my second office ( i have two locations i work from. both have a dock and a power brick connected to the screens. i only move the laptop. no need to carry that stuff. now i have to.)
i understand the technical reasons and the reversability ( finally no more attempts to plug in a usb connector, having to flip it over and then flip it once more since you had it right the first time , it just didn't go in) but it is bloody annoying to have to deal with all the adapters and other crap since it is not backward compatible.
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I don't see the problem with that. I don't like change, it is stressful to me. "It's always been like that" is a perfectly valid reason to me to keep it like that, unless there is a real, genuine need or benefit to changing it.
You see I've never seen someone use it as a justification when there isn't a major benefit to change. Yeah if the effort of changing doesn't outweigh the benefits don't change. But the people touting that as a reason have always in my experience been those who either just want busywork, or don't want to have to think/ put in the effort required to make needed changes.
You must be new to the internet and the corporate world, no? I think the most offenders are websites all around that change for the sake of change, but several other minuscule changes to match the "new style" of the company are quite prevalent for a few decades now (me and my colleagues are suffering through this on our documentation).
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i got a new pet peeve : #%&&^ USB-C !
Every new laptop comes with the damn things. New docking station comes with the damn things. The end result is that none of my existing peripherals ( keyboard, mouse , space navigator ) can be plugged in. i need to buy a usb hub. old charging cables for iphone, watch and whatnot : same deal. i need ot buy adapter to convert 'classic' usb to that usb-c connector.
They can pump displayport or thunderbolt over that connector. yet another cable i need to buy.
For oodles of years HP has been using a standardized power plug. i got at least 10 of those 240 watt bricks laying around. Due to USB-C they now use a much smaller plug ( they use a kind of combo connector with a powerplug magnetically attached to a thunderbolt link for the dock ) Tthe dock still takes the classic power connector. the laptop has a different one. Problem is there are two versions of the dock : one with power (240watt), one without power (120watt). of course i have the 120 watt dock without power link. Power goes over the usb-c but is not sufficient to run the laptop full throttle (Zbook Fury 17 with an i7-10850 and a Quadro RTX3000). so now i can get another power brick for my second office ( i have two locations i work from. both have a dock and a power brick connected to the screens. i only move the laptop. no need to carry that stuff. now i have to.)
i understand the technical reasons and the reversability ( finally no more attempts to plug in a usb connector, having to flip it over and then flip it once more since you had it right the first time , it just didn't go in) but it is bloody annoying to have to deal with all the adapters and other crap since it is not backward compatible.
I also dislike the new USB-C dusplacing legacy connectors, but at least in this case it has tangible benefits. My biggest peeve is with the notebooks that use it for everything (Ethernet, Graphics, USB 3/2, etc.) and the docking stations have five or six footnotes that describe why you can't have simultaneous Ethernet and 4k video, for example, despite showing this feature all around their marketing documentation (I am looking at both Dell and HP here).
About the change in plugpack jacks, I have been suffering from this for about five years now, when Dell sid the same move after some 15+ years of a pretty decent jack.
Ah, the USB-C connector seems to be a lot more fragile than the type A.
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You must be new to the internet and the corporate world, no? I think the most offenders are websites all around that change for the sake of change, but several other minuscule changes to match the "new style" of the company are quite prevalent for a few decades now (me and my colleagues are suffering through this on our documentation).
My favorite is when some stale company develops a stupid new logo, usually with much fanfare, as if that's going to fix anything.
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I also dislike the new USB-C dusplacing legacy connectors, but at least in this case it has tangible benefits. My biggest peeve is with the notebooks that use it for everything (Ethernet, Graphics, USB 3/2, etc.) and the docking stations have five or six footnotes that describe why you can't have simultaneous Ethernet and 4k video, for example, despite showing this feature all around their marketing documentation (I am looking at both Dell and HP here).
About the change in plugpack jacks, I have been suffering from this for about five years now, when Dell sid the same move after some 15+ years of a pretty decent jack.
Ah, the USB-C connector seems to be a lot more fragile than the type A.
I'm not a fan either. My work MacBook is USB-C only, everybody has a pencil pouch of dongles for everything and I've had to replace the charging cord several times because the connector either gets damaged when the ridiculously slippery laptop slides off the back of the sofa or it just gets loose over time. I don't recall having that problem with other USB types.
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I know someone who spent a lot of money an a Macbook last year and their's only came with two USB C ports on the left despite there being a good amount of room.
I had to get a couple of adapters to fit it just to plug a normal USB flash drives.
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You must be new to the internet and the corporate world, no? I think the most offenders are websites all around that change for the sake of change, but several other minuscule changes to match the "new style" of the company are quite prevalent for a few decades now (me and my colleagues are suffering through this on our documentation).
My favorite is when some stale company develops a stupid new logo, usually with much fanfare, as if that's going to fix anything.
My favourite one is moron Jobs who paid 100K in 1986 money for his "Next" logo.
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My favourite one is moron Jobs who paid 100K in 1986 money for his "Next" logo.
Seems a reasonable price. He sure got his moneys worth from the deal, so the only dodgy part was paying up front and that
was surely mitigated by the designer he chose.
You can say a lot of things about Jobs, but he certainly knew the value of branding and appearance. A moron would be the one saving a few dollars on the wrong thing.
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I know someone who spent a lot of money an a Macbook last year and their's only came with two USB C ports on the left despite there being a good amount of room.
I had to get a couple of adapters to fit it just to plug a normal USB flash drives.
that too . cant use any of the gazillion flash drives i have anymore.
and some of the usb hubs are total crap. they have usb-c connector but only usb 3 ( old style) outputs. and they are only port. why doesnt anyone make a 7 port hub ? like usb-c in , three usb-c out and four regular usb 3 (usb with extra pins )
not only that. you need ot carry a whole arsenal in converters.
bloody morons.
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I know someone who spent a lot of money an a Macbook last year and their's only came with two USB C ports on the left despite there being a good amount of room.
I had to get a couple of adapters to fit it just to plug a normal USB flash drives.
I use USB drives mostly to boot install images, and even that, depending on hardware platform, is going out of fashion. Last two physical machines I installed were a pair of Dell servers, due to get FreeBSD 13, and there, I looked at the boot screen long enough to figure the iDRAC IP address out, then went back to my desk. Fired up browser UI and got a console, mapped the ISO file on my local drive on the wi-fi-connected Macbook that's only got USB-C jacks to the virtual CD in the iDRAC system, and off I went. Yes, an ISO over wi-fi is going to be a bit slower, but not slow enough that it is a problem for a run-once installer. And it actually was impressively fast given the setup.
The USB-C was used only as power input.
There are USB-A connectors on my desktop dongle which makes the "plug laptop into ordinary desk position" operation faster. So, yes, adapters needed, but less frequently now, with a decline still.
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I don't mind changes too even if they don't add any benefit but when they start to disadvantage me in any way and cause me problems and inconvenience then yes I wouldn't like those changes.
If the "new" way is less efficient, as it often is, it is just "change for changes sake".
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Happened to remove my old Dell from temporary control duty in the garage (only thing I have at the moment with an actual serial port, and the target is old enough to really need the -V before accepting it's a 0). Latitude C810 and runs XP, but it sure isn't stuck for ports. Modem, USB, keyboard, AV, RJ45, serial, parallel, video, power, infrared, and then a pair of PCMCIA in case they forgot something. And a docking station port to boot so you don't have to dick with actually plugging stuff in if you don't want.
By gum, them were the days.
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Exactly why I looked for and found a new X260 ThinkPad when I needed a new laptop. Every port type right on the machine (well, except a DB9 serial or DB25 parallel) and a true docking station with all those same ports too. A true traveling Engineer's PC.
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I was reminded of another peeve recently, entry forms that put every country on the planet in alphabetical order instead of guessing my location by my IP address and defaulting to where it thinks I am, or at least letting me type US in a search.
What’s much more annoying are the ones whose software displays the list by name, but sorts it by country code! |O |O |O
So here in Switzerland, you scroll down to the late S’s, and it’s not there, it’s up near Canada because Switzerland’s country code is “CH”.
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This may be US specific, but why do so many forms require entering city, state and ZIP code (mail code). Once you enter mail code the other two are defined.
Incorrect assumption. There are zip codes with numerous city names within them. (Some are vanity, like when suburbs are allowed to use the city name, some aren’t, when zip code areas actually contain multiple towns.)
For example, my last zip code in USA, 21227, encompassed the unincorporated towns of Halethorpe, Lansdowne, and Arbutus, but also accepted Baltimore (though all three towns are decidedly outside the city limits).
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Since AFAIK only the USA calls Postcodes "zipcodes", the easy way is to just prefix the US ones with a "Z".
Yep, because the codes were introduced under the Zoning Improvement Plan.
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A small shipment from Germany to my address in Chicago, USA ended up in Swiss Customs in Zurich because someone saw "CH" in the address.
The French abbreviation for the US is ÉU, which can be misread.
In the US, the full 9-digit ZIPTM Code, written 55555-5555, will locate the address almost to the single house (not quite).
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Reminds me of another pet peeve, calling desktop software "apps". Microsoft did this starting with Win8 and continued right on into Win10 and it really makes me cringe. I don't even know why it bothers me so much but it drives me nuts. In my mind an "app" is a stripped down single function "mini-program" for a mobile device. It would even be reasonable to call something like Calculator or Notepad an "app" on a PC, but calling a full fledged desktop program like Office, Photoshop, CAD, etc "apps" is just stupid. It feels like some old guy trying to talk hip and cool and fit in with a bunch of teenagers.
In the Mac world, where executables have always officially been called “applications”, it’s been common use for decades to call them “apps”. Microsoft Office and Photoshop were both born on the Mac, so they’ve been “apps” since day 1, back in the 80s.
So in reality, “app” to mean “mini-program” is actually the neologism.
(Pre-OS X Mac OS, by the way, had a special name for mini-programs: “desk accessories”.)
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Back to a more "technical" peeve.
On several occasions in a row, my iPad has not connected to the WiFi signal from my modem, but to one of several airconditioners in adjacent houses.
Unfortunately, that doesn't allow me to mess with their A/Cs, but it does mean I have to re-select the correct signal.
Interestingly, the Aircond WiFi doesn't have a password, so there doesn't seem to be any way to stop this happening from time to time, as Apple have set things up so the iPad can use "free Wifi" where available.
"Internet of things", my furry backside!
Categorically untrue.
If it’s auto-connecting to a network, it’s because you’ve previously connected to a network with that name. To stop it from happening, go into the WiFi settings, tap the circled “i” of the offending network, and either disable auto-join (useful for networks you do occasionally want to connect to, just not automatically) or tap “forget this network” to make it as though you’d never used it before.
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Ooooh I have one!:
Back in the days when Apple first released aluminium iMac models, which had ANODISED aluminium bodies, the entire "tech press" (cringe!) parroted that they were "brushed aluminium"🤦
It happened again and again, and again, and again. Had any single one of them stopped to consider what BRUSHING does to a surface, that would maybe have been corrected.
And this despite Apple clearly stating in their keynote presentations that it is bead-blasted aluminum.
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there is always 25mm of unmarked tape at each end
To be fair, there's not a lot they can do about that because the cutter has to go after the transfer tape off-feed, and that has to go after the printhead (so the cartridge needs to be quite robust there). They all suffer from it to some extent. I have a few of their models, and the most recent I have has the cartridge redesigned to minimise the unused part of the tape by making the cartridge really thin at that point (like a couple of mm). Still wastes some, though.
Mine printer is the one with dual tapes and the peel-off labels are unwasted. Expensive, yes, but you can use every label.
Additionally, the most common type (Brother TZ and TZe) is laminated thermal transfer labels, so the printed label is actually three layers, and two of those need backing in the cartridge. This means it’s literally impossible to have the print head right at the edge of the tape. The layers must be pressed together before cutting.
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That by and large seems to be the case for DSLR lenses - seems you can get kit lenses or pro grade, but little or nothing in between.
When is the last time you bought a kit lens? While they won’t be the fastest lenses (which is not so bad since modern cameras are great at high ISO), the sharpness and chromatic aberration of modern kit lenses is far, FAR better than just 15-20 years ago. Modern computer-aided optical engineering and manufacturing makes it possible for inexpensive zoom lenses to produce far sharper images than in ages past.
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I guess that digital clocks are now so common that most kids probably don't learn to use an analog one, so it never becomes second nature to them?
People said the same thing back when I was a little kid in the 1980s. Yet every school classroom still has analog clocks, and analog watches remain as common as ever (perhaps more so than in the 80s, when “digital” was novel). Smartwatches still all default to analog faces.
So absent actual data, I call complete bunk on this claim.
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company's not having enough stock to meet the minimum order quantity,why if the minimum order quantity is 25,do you only have 23 in stock.
Uhhhh… not that hard. MOQ is 25 for whatever reason they like. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that one has to order in lots of 25. So suppose they originally had 1000, and sold 25 here, 67 there, 93 there, etc. and happened to end up with 73 pieces left. Then someone buys 50.
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My favourite one is moron Jobs who paid 100K in 1986 money for his "Next" logo.
$100K for a Paul Rand logo (which, remember, also means all the documentation, guidelines, etc) is hardly moronic.
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Maybe, but can you tell when was the last time you saw a product with that logo, or even just the logo itself ?
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I suspect that if Jobs hadn't returned to Apple, Next would be where Apple is and Apple would be toast. Or mush.
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Maybe, but can you tell when was the last time you saw a product with that logo, or even just the logo itself ?
Well they managed to get paid to buy Apple, so one could argue they won big time.
(As in, Apple paid money to buy NeXT, but NeXT’s technology and management almost completely replaced Apple’s.)
Regardless, what on earth is your point? $100K is peanuts when launching a company with hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Branding is important, something Jobs understood extremely well.
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I suspect that if Jobs hadn't returned to Apple, Next would be where Apple is and Apple would be toast. Or mush.
Next was basically out of business when Jobs returned to Apple. Probably both companies would now be toast if he had not returned.
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That by and large seems to be the case for DSLR lenses - seems you can get kit lenses or pro grade, but little or nothing in between.
When is the last time you bought a kit lens? While they won’t be the fastest lenses (which is not so bad since modern cameras are great at high ISO), the sharpness and chromatic aberration of modern kit lenses is far, FAR better than just 15-20 years ago. Modern computer-aided optical engineering and manufacturing makes it possible for inexpensive zoom lenses to produce far sharper images than in ages past.
I haven't (unless you count the EF 24-105 f/4L IS, which was kitted with some 5D series cameras). I'm not complaining of their sharpness or lack thereof and am well aware that their optical qualities are much better than in the past, but of their limited and often variable maximum apertures. A quick glance at B&H shows the Canon EF-S 18-55 kit lens has a maximum aperture that goes from f/3.5 on the wide end to f/5.6 at the long end. The EF-S 75-300 goes from f/4 to f/5.6.I like to shoot with available light, and often at wide apertures. And these are the short back focus lenses made for the cameras with the smaller APS-C format sensor, so they don't even have to cover a 35mm frame. f/5.6 in my book is not a wide aperture. When I first got seriously involved in photography as a senior in HS in the early 80s, the first lens I bought to use in addition to the 50 f/1.8 that came with the camera was a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 f/3.5 zoom. While only 1/3 of a stop wider at max than the 75-300 is at 75, it's 1-1/3 stops wider when zoomed in fully - that's more than a doubling of the shutter speed in a given situation, and at the long end of the focal length where you most need it.
-Pat
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failing to properly laser etch or label small components. its not the size of a label that matters, most of us have microscopes. but having a legible label in the first place.
or the removing integrated circuit labels when the component is off the shelf or non property.
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Maybe, but can you tell when was the last time you saw a product with that logo, or even just the logo itself ?
Well they managed to get paid to buy Apple, so one could argue they won big time.
(As in, Apple paid money to buy NeXT, but NeXT’s technology and management almost completely replaced Apple’s.)
Regardless, what on earth is your point? $100K is peanuts when launching a company with hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Branding is important, something Jobs understood extremely well.
The NeXT logo is also one of the more aesthetically pleasing logos I can think of too, up there with Sun Microsystems. The reason NeXT wasn't more successful is because the products were incredibly expensive, and being far ahead of their time was not enough to overcome the fact that they were incompatible with the vast libaries of PC and Mac software already dominating the market. They were *really* slick workstations, there's a reason that today they are highly sought after collectibles.
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Maybe, but can you tell when was the last time you saw a product with that logo, or even just the logo itself ?
Well they managed to get paid to buy Apple, so one could argue they won big time.
(As in, Apple paid money to buy NeXT, but NeXT’s technology and management almost completely replaced Apple’s.)
Regardless, what on earth is your point? $100K is peanuts when launching a company with hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Branding is important, something Jobs understood extremely well.
The NeXT logo is also one of the more aesthetically pleasing logos I can think of too, up there with Sun Microsystems. The reason NeXT wasn't more successful is because the products were incredibly expensive, and being far ahead of their time was not enough to overcome the fact that they were incompatible with the vast libaries of PC and Mac software already dominating the market. They were *really* slick workstations, there's a reason that today they are highly sought after collectibles.
Indeed they are! At the first “real” (full-time) job I had, at a Mac reseller back in 1999, they still used a NeXT slab (with NeXT laser printer) to maintain and print the price list! I think it was done in WriteNow.
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Indeed they are! At the first “real” (full-time) job I had, at a Mac reseller back in 1999, they still used a NeXT slab (with NeXT laser printer) to maintain and print the price list! I think it was done in WriteNow.
I had the opportunity to grab a NeXT cube about 20 years ago, for some reason I didn't though and I sometimes kick myself for that. Oh well, I probably wouldn't use it much anyway. I had a bunch of Sun and SGI stuff, got rid of most of that back when my last partner moved in with me.
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I had the opportunity to grab a NeXT cube about 20 years ago, for some reason I didn't though and I sometimes kick myself for that. Oh well, I probably wouldn't use it much anyway. I had a bunch of Sun and SGI stuff, got rid of most of that back when my last partner moved in with me.
I found the cubes a bit clunky. The nice things to have on your desk were the pizza box NeXTs.
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I found the cubes a bit clunky. The nice things to have on your desk were the pizza box NeXTs.
That would be my preference, actually there might have been one of those there too, I don't recall but I do distinctly remember the cube. It was in a storage room full of old computer stuff at the place where a friend's brother worked back then, they let me grab a bunch of old gear to clear out some space.
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They've been trying to reach me regarding my car's extended warranty.
It's everyone's pet peeve, sure, but that's not my peeve today.
I have a phone that I use for work. It's only for emergency contact and other than that purpose it doesn't get used, just sits on the charger. Except for Amazon spammers calling. It's a phone number I don't give out too often.
During 'the thing' I noticed the bastard calls dropped to nearly zero but in the past fortnight they have resumed in frequency to about 4 a week.
I wonder if someone in the brains trust here could riddle me as to why. I've changed nothing in my movements or my habits.
Were the spammers deemed non-essential? If so, I wish someone would deem them non-necessary.
>:(
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got some loupe glasses locally at a good-ish price - picked up them yesterday. Don't know much about them, may or may not fit the bill.
the pet peeve is that they are actually about half the price of at least two other retailers, luckily enough for me I picked up on the inflated price of the other retailers. :phew:
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During 'the thing' I noticed the bastard calls dropped to nearly zero but in the past fortnight they have resumed in frequency to about 4 a week.
I wonder if someone in the brains trust here could riddle me as to why. I've changed nothing in my movements or my habits.
Spam here drops off markedly a the weekend. I also note that hacking attempts on my mail server are networked (in the sense of a botnet) - some IP in Brazil will try to log in and then literally moments later an IP the other side of the world will try the exact same login details. From this I suspect that spammers and not actually keeping to office hours but are using infected office machines. Thus the sending of spam relies on offices being open (and machines being available), which is markedly reduced at weekends and during 'the thing'.
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Undownloadable documentation.
Typically open source projects, the documentation is a wiki or web-page-per-heading thing where to obtain an offline copy means scraping the website (or manually, tediously saving each of tens or even hundreds of web pages).
I don't care if the stuff is more than 2 microseconds old, I just want to peruse ANY version offline in a documentation reader (that is, not a bloody browser that's being used for lots of other things). When/if I am writing code I can look up the latest revision then.
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Ebay sellers and their surplus equipment sources, that separate/lose the connector blocks from I/O expansion plugins in equipment such as the HP 3488A Switch/control unit, HP 3497A data acquisition/control unit, etc.
These use plugins that consists of a card, and a plastic-body connector that attaches to the card and has the terminal blocks etc for cable connections. The two parts form a single part number, since each part is useless without the other. Usually the HP part number and description of the card label is on the plastic connector block part, since that's visible from the back of the machine.
Here's an example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/254300899488 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/254300899488)
Seller has bins full of cards for the HP 3488A, all of them missing the connector blocks.
Here's a rare sight: https://www.ebay.com/itm/224062686490 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/224062686490)
One of those cards for sale WITH the connector block.
Quite often you see the mainframes being sold as 'unpopulated' but some idiot has just pulled off the connector blocks leaving some (or all) the actual interface cards in their slots. If you buy something like that you are getting a lot more for the $ than the seller knows. But then you have to find connector blocks.
Like this 3488A I just received. Contains one 44471A general purpose relay card, but missing the connector block.
There are always far fewer connector blocks on ebay than their mating cards. So what happens to the connectors?
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1447486;image)
With the HP 3497A/3852 the connector blocks are quite big and look like they might contain something other than just a connector. When unlocked and pulled from the back they come out quite easily, but the mating circuit board is much more difficult to extract. Deliberately. So seeing these connector blocks listed on ebay as if they were the complete card, is quite common.
Here's an example. Fool thinks he has a whole unit, but only has the connector: https://www.ebay.com/itm/403461811989 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/403461811989)
What the complete unit looks like: https://www.ebay.com/itm/372738248549 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/372738248549)
Anyway. Idiots. I hate them. I just wanna get some cards (with connectors) for my 3488A and idiots are making life difficult.
It's the same syndrome as people who leave the rack-mounting half of slide rails in racks. Morons.
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When you are listening to the weather report on the radio waiting for your area to be mentioned and they read off a list of cities like this:-
City A 27 deg
33 deg City B
City C 18 deg
42 deg City D
etc
Swapping the order back and forth every second line. So annoying!
I'm talking about you, ABC Radio (Australia)
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Two different musicians with first name Taylor. The wrong one died.
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You don't like James Taylor?
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They've been trying to reach me regarding my car's extended warranty.
It's everyone's pet peeve, sure, but that's not my peeve today.
I have a phone that I use for work. It's only for emergency contact and other than that purpose it doesn't get used, just sits on the charger. Except for Amazon spammers calling. It's a phone number I don't give out too often.
During 'the thing' I noticed the bastard calls dropped to nearly zero but in the past fortnight they have resumed in frequency to about 4 a week.
I wonder if someone in the brains trust here could riddle me as to why. I've changed nothing in my movements or my habits.
Were the spammers deemed non-essential? If so, I wish someone would deem them non-necessary.
>:(
I've had the same phone number for years and I try hard to not give it out. Scam calls on it are very rare.
I got a new number for my business. Have never used it or given it to anyone. It got lots of scam calls. I changed the new number to a different new number and it gets scam calls too. I enabled call control and that stopped them. When someone phones me, they hear a message telling them a number to enter. Then they have to enter the number to get through.
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not be surprised if someone would try to sell a cheap car one bit at a time to maximize profit.
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Just had that discussion with the missus. Got a lawnmower en route for the tip (but nowadays we have to book online when we want to visit!). Worth nothing on Ebay, but take the motor off and flog that on it's own and it's worth a few bob. Not sure if it's enough to cover the hassle of listing and selling, but certainly the sum seems to be less valuable than the parts.
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Ohh, l loved these images when i saw them as a kid in car magazines.
Your comment though reminds me of these magazines that include a model kit or something. The first issue is just 4,99, all the other 50 issues are then just 19,99 :D To get some cheap model kit that may be worth 20 bucks on it's own :p
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They could probably double the parts count if they broke down the electronic modules too. Every little module probably has dozens of discretes in addition to the integrated parts. The more recent the vehicle the more this would be true.
Pretty soon we may be able to order a kit EV on DigiKey, with the "chassis available separately" since it will be the only non-electronic-related thing in the car!
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[...] Got a lawnmower en route for the tip (but nowadays we have to book online when we want to visit!). [...]
Making an appointment to go to the bl**dy tip. What's next - an appointment to use the public roads? Hmmm, actually not a bad idea. You could bid on a limited number of road slots in the morning before going to work. If you really want to go, you pay!! :D
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The place has really gone to the dogs since the start of the pandemic. Previously we used to have to phone our GP for an appointment, but that had to be done early morning. Fair enough - limited slots, you don't want the admin tied up all day just on appointment phone calls. But now they've switched to an online system which (allegedly) tries to help - you go through multiple forms and lists to identify what your problem is and you'll get a callback within 48hrs to deal with it. But it's shit. For some reason only known to bureaucrats the online system is only available between 7am and 9am! It's a bloody computer and there's no reason you couldn't fill in the stuff at any time but, no, 7-9 is it.
It's a UX nightmare as well. On the first page you get a text box to explain what it's about, so you fill in things that might be relevant only to find you're limited to 200 words or something. So you whittle it down as much as you can without losing anything import and then two pages later there's a text box to detail your symptoms. If they'd say at the start that's coming up you wouldn't agonise over what the leave in or out of the first one.
It goes downhill from there too, but there's not enough room in this thread to detail it all. Mind, for a free service it's OK (actually, it's not but it's kind of like open source, I guess).
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I agree trying to get an appointment with a Dr ... If it was to be a serious problem Forget it . Phone the undertaker cut the middle man out . :wtf:
Everything is now Online . How about a Human .. They complain there is a high unemployment .. No one knows how
to answer a Phone without Googling it First ..
Sorry for being Morbid But I think the human race is doomed like the dinosaur
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The place has really gone to the dogs since the start of the pandemic. Previously we used to have to phone our GP for an appointment, but that had to be done early morning. Fair enough - limited slots, you don't want the admin tied up all day just on appointment phone calls. But now they've switched to an online system which (allegedly) tries to help - you go through multiple forms and lists to identify what your problem is and you'll get a callback within 48hrs to deal with it. But it's shit. For some reason only known to bureaucrats the online system is only available between 7am and 9am! It's a bloody computer and there's no reason you couldn't fill in the stuff at any time but, no, 7-9 is it.
I don't know where you live. In the UK they like you to use an online booking system for GPs, but its mostly for people who need to make repeat appointments for long term issues. If you get a sudden problem, and you call and talk to someone, you can usually get a quick appointment. If your issue doesn't appear to be urgent, they may refer you back to the online system, but you might not be able to make an appointment there in less than 2 weeks. I think they get a lot of people who know weeks in advance that they need an appointment, who wait until the last moment before booking. So, they need some mild convincing that you really need quick medical attention.
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I agree trying to get an appointment with a Dr ... If it was to be a serious problem Forget it . Phone the undertaker cut the middle man out . :wtf:
Everything is now Online . How about a Human .. They complain there is a high unemployment .. No one knows how
to answer a Phone without Googling it First ..
Sorry for being Morbid But I think the human race is doomed like the dinosaur
The part of the human race that figures out the workarounds for all the (IT based) paper-pusher systems will inherit the Earth! :D
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I agree trying to get an appointment with a Dr ... If it was to be a serious problem Forget it . Phone the undertaker cut the middle man out . :wtf:
Everything is now Online . How about a Human .. They complain there is a high unemployment .. No one knows how
to answer a Phone without Googling it First ..
Sorry for being Morbid But I think the human race is doomed like the dinosaur
The part of the human race that figures out the workarounds for all the (IT based) paper-pusher systems will inherit the Earth! :D
I hope Not ... No Names Put-In (http://www.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/fighting/fighting0070.gif) (http://www.mysmiley.net)
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It's a UX nightmare as well. On the first page you get a text box to explain what it's about, so you fill in things that might be relevant only to find you're limited to 200 words or something. So you whittle it down as much as you can without losing anything import and then two pages later there's a text box to detail your symptoms. If they'd say at the start that's coming up you wouldn't agonise over what the leave in or out of the first one.
Sounds like they accurately duplicated the real-life in-office experience! My pattern - over my whole life - is:
* Check into the office, and they hand you a thick pile of paperwork to complete that includes a demand for a written description of what ails you
* Get ushered into the exam room, and a nurse asks you every one of the same questions you just completed on the paperwork
* Finally the doctor arrives, and (s)he asks you EXACTLY THE SAME SET OF QUESTIONS. You answer them for the third time.
I wonder if they're like police, checking to see if your story changes each time you tell it!
It's gotten to the point where when the nurse asks me, I take the pile of paperwork and start reading my answers out loud. Doesn't take long before (s)he smiles sheepishly at me, retrieves the papers, and stops asking. Lather/rinse/repeat with the doctor, same sheepish grin, and finally we're down to business. This technique has saved me 30+ minutes per visit the last few times. You'd think THEY would be motivated to save that time too, but I suspect "it's just our system" and nobody dares challenge it. Well I do!
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I don't know where you live. In the UK they like you to use an online booking system for GPs
Yes, it is likely that system. 'eConsult' they call it.
If you get a sudden problem, and you call and talk to someone, you can usually get a quick appointment.
No, that's how it used to be. We were specifically told that using this eConsult was better because the GPs (it's a practice) check it every day so it will be seen and actioned, whereas phoning in for an appointment may result in one a week or several hence.
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Sounds like they accurately duplicated the real-life in-office experience!
Yes, it's exactly that! Perhaps the spec was "See Sharon in reception and she'll tell you what they do."
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A cynical person may think the uk system has been designed to make people get so fed up with the "free" nhs system that they decided to move to private care
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If you get a sudden problem, and you call and talk to someone, you can usually get a quick appointment.
No, that's how it used to be. We were specifically told that using this eConsult was better because the GPs (it's a practice) check it every day so it will be seen and actioned, whereas phoning in for an appointment may result in one a week or several hence.
So they want everyone to go to A&E? If you have sudden massive pain, swelling, bleeding, etc, you are not going to wait around for a system like that.
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My recent run-in with the system threw that up. I had to downplay my symptoms because otherwise it would throw up a page with the tickbox "'SOK, I'll go and find someone to talk to about this" if it felt it couldn't cope. The fact that I was on there TO talk to someone about seemed to be forgotten.
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Just now.
When you are trying to pick a tea bag out of the box and the string gets tangled up with another teabag! :-[
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Just now.
When you are trying to pick a tea bag out of the box and the string gets tangled up with another teabag! :-[
I saw somewhere that the tendency for strings to entangle/knot themselves is some kind of universal law...
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You want entanglement? Try bungee cords. Even a single one, alone, by itself, hooks to everything you don't want and won't hook to the one thing you do.
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This happens to Christmas lights and extension cords too. I couldn't tie a knot as secure as forms when I'm specifically trying to prevent something from becoming tangled.
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(https://photos.smugmug.com/Other/Miscellaneous/i-w5kBnXn/0/1e7682fe/O/301A6B9B-2DE0-4600-B354-B914641FD23F-19342-000017DE0B8E8C26_tmp.jpg)
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AWESOME!
...and painfully true.
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Another pet peeve is use of the word INVESTMENT in lieu of bought, purchased, squandered money on, foolishly spent for anything or any service that has zero chance of adding or gaining value. For instance my nephew said that he “invested in a tattoo”. |O
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"Stakeholders": How we refer to people who don't really have any legitimate standing in the topic at hand, but are being included anyway for some reason.
We have actual terms for legitimately interested parties: Owner, shareholder, operator, customer, parent, child, government, etc. But in the last ~10 years I've seen an increase in the use of this word "stakeholder" and it's always in reference to people who really shouldn't be involved.
An example might be "We're holding a meeting to review the landscaping of the playground area in the new city park. We invite local residents, parents, children, associated government agencies, and other stakeholders to attend." Translation: We're not going to give outside interests an excuse to claim we excluded them, even though they really have no business being involved at all since they're not 1) paying the taxes that make it happen, 2) being hired to do the work, 3) in a government oversight capacity, or 4) in the group of people this project is meant to serve when completed. Generally "stakeholders" means environmentalists from another state, politicians looking to grandstand, busybodies who desperately wish to appear important, and similar parasites.
Anytime you see the word "stakeholder" be on your guard. Political Correctness is probably lurking nearby.
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Whenever I read the word 'stakeholder', the image of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes to my mind.
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"Stakeholders": How we refer to people who don't really have any legitimate standing in the topic at hand, but are being included anyway for some reason.
Mmmh. Stakeholder is just a collective term. It means "all of the above" in your list, and means you don't have to list out all the specific reasons why someone is there. They're a stakeholder == They have a vested interest.
Now I'm sure it can be abused to include other people who, as you say, have no standing - but my "stakeholder" meetings are my direct manager, my director, my VP and any cross-functional groups that are involved in the project. It's easier to just say stakeholder.
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Whenever I read the word 'stakeholder', the image of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes to my mind.
Pretty accurate image, actually. Most entities collectively included in "stakeholder" seem like they're trying to kill your project. Again, I name environmentalists, politicians....
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Ebay sellers and their surplus equipment sources, that separate/lose the connector blocks from I/O expansion plugins in equipment such as the HP 3488A Switch/control unit, HP 3497A data acquisition/control unit, etc.
When those machines are decommissioned it is easier to remove the two connector screws , sell the machine and chuck the rest in the bin. unwiring all the other stuff is tedious , even if you were to cut the cabling... so they don;t bother. the attitude is : the machine is worth more than those stupid connectors.
In many cases the sellers get only access at a pallet of machine.s they don;t go out in the field to actually do the decommissioning. so whoever sold the machine to the ebay seller has already left out the connectors...
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Wiring with connectors goes into a big bin, so look for one at the auction, and pay copper scrap price for the bin, and get all the connectors for free. Then make a profit sorting them out and selling to the rest of the buyers.
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"They're living their dream there"
I can get that right, and I'm no native speaker. Granted, it is a language homonym trap, but it can't be that hard to get right if I can. I really try to read through the ignorance if I'm encountering such "ghoti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti)" in text I'd like to read, but can't help deducting a fair amount of intelligence and cred points from people who can't be arsed to learn the rules and do it right.
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... if I'm encountering such "ghoti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti)" in text I'd like to read ...
Very fishy!
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I really try to read through the ignorance if I'm encountering such "ghoti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti)" in text I'd like to read, but can't help deducting a fair amount of intelligence and cred points from people who can't be arsed to learn the rules and do it right.
I rarely speak English, I mostly only read and write English, so I do not intuitively associate "their" and "they're" at all. To me, they're two completely different words. Thus, such writing is simply damned hard for me to understand!
If I know the writer is dyslexic, or the writing shows the typical signs of that, then I just power through. Just like I've learned to keep silent and let the other person power through, if they have a bit of a stutter. If others can ignore my sometimes poor social skills, I can for sure ignore others' dyslexia or stuttering. The interaction is worth it.
But, if it is a matter of "I cannot be arsed to care, even though I could if I wanted to", then I don't associate it with lack of intelligence per se, but more with the kind of people who use jargon because they think using jargon makes them look more believable, or like customers in a large convenience store offhandedly mention to a poor store worker that "one of the aisles" has a slick patch and they should go and fix that – but do not tell exactly which aisle that is. You know, "inconsiderate, selfish asshole" type.
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"They're living their dream there"
I can get that right, and I'm no native speaker. Granted, it is a language homonym trap, but it can't be that hard to get right if I can. I really try to read through the ignorance if I'm encountering such "ghoti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti)" in text I'd like to read, but can't help deducting a fair amount of intelligence and cred points from people who can't be arsed to learn the rules and do it right.
For non-native speakers I can totally forgive this, but for people that grew up speaking English as a first language I find it appalling that so many get it wrong.
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I rarely speak English, I mostly only read and write English, so I do not intuitively associate "their" and "they're" at all. To me, they're two completely different words. Thus, such writing is simply damned hard for me to understand!
Interesting. When people see me reading Chinese but find I can't speak it they wonder what is happening in my head as I scan text, because we are used to hearing the sound of the text in our heads as we read a language we can read and write well. I never have a good answer for them. What is going on in your head if you don't associate homonyms as being similar?
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"They're living their dream there"
Let's make it a bit better ....
They're living their dream there and it is all theirs. :phew:
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I rarely speak English, I mostly only read and write English, so I do not intuitively associate "their" and "they're" at all. To me, they're two completely different words. Thus, such writing is simply damned hard for me to understand!
Interesting. When people see me reading Chinese but find I can't speak it they wonder what is happening in my head as I scan text, because we are used to hearing the sound of the text in our heads as we read a language we can read and write well. I never have a good answer for them. What is going on in your head if you don't associate homonyms as being similar?
I don't have a good answer either.
I do know that when working out geometric problems or designing software, I don't always think in words at all. Sometimes it is visual, sometimes abstract; when understanding comes, it often takes a few thousand words to describe it in text (especially as there usually are critical details to note for the solution to work). I do also do "rubber duck debugging", but that's different: that is a tool for organizing ones understanding of the problem at hand.
When dealing with physics, mechanics, software development, or science, I do completely switch to English. When dealing with humans and emotions and squishy stuff, I do it in Finnish. A sentence in English just does not have the same emotional impact as the Finnish equivalent does, when it is about personal stuff. Fiction I read in either.
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What other things are there?
I saw your post and wasn't planning to respond but I'm done with this POS set of calipers. They use a single LR44. There is no power switch and they run 24/7. A battery will last maybe 6 months or so. I go to use them and they are dead. Peeves me right off. Ran out of button batteries tonight, so I fit it with some AAs and a couple of Si diodes.
Had a mitotoyo micrometer,that was the same,stupid for an expensive piece of kit.
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The contraption that is the modern teleprompter. You've seen it. Where the asshat overlord reader sways from side to side trying (and failing) to convince the audience that there is no script. It's annoying. Why do they persist?
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Here we have a headline that reads:
Black hole 142 times heavier than the Sun discovered
and further along in the article we read
GW190521 weighs in at 142 times the mass of our Sun
https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html (https://alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5038560/Black-hole-142-times-heavier-than-the-Sun-discovered.html)
Which is of course, plainly contradictory.
If it were 142 times heavier than our sun it would be 143 times the mass of our sun, not 142. This kind of thing seems to be popping up more and more lately.
What other things are there?
I agree with the O.P here.
Heavy is an adjective to describe mass or weight.
Heavier is a comparative adjective comparing the weight of one object to another.
Comparative also means relative (to).
If two objects have the same mass or weight (1kg) then one of the objects is 1 times as heavy as the other object. Neither object is heavier than the other. Therefore, each object is 0% heavier than the other object since they are the same mass.
If one of the objects has a mass of 1.5kg and the other object has a mass of 1kg then one of the objects is 1.5 times as heavy as the other object. Also, one of the objects is 50% (0.5 times) heavier than the other object.
If the two objects are the Sun (1 solar mass) and a photon (zero mass) then the photon is zero times as heavy as the Sun. Also, the photon is -100% (-1 times) heavier than the Sun.
Incidentally, the mass reported in the article by the O.P is 142 solar masses.
In another article, the reported mass is the remnant of a binary black hole merger whose total solar mass was 151 solar masses (rounded to 150 in the headline) prior to the merge.
The precise mass of the (intermediate-mass) black hole is \$\ 142_{-16}^{+28} M_⊙ \$
https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.101102
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I struggle with statements like "200% cheaper than the competition". That means when you select the item in question, they OWE YOU MONEY. But I have not been able to find who is actually distributing the cash!
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Given the quoted uncertainty of the black hole's mass, 142 or 143 as heavy or heavier are all within the measured value.
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One of my latest gripes is how the poor silly Conspiracy Theorists are getting predated on by scammers selling "Faraday bags" to put their mobile phones in.
Their victims are already "away with the fairies", & pointing out that if the product really worked the mobile phone in the bag wouldn't work at all, so "why have a phone in the first place?", falls on deaf ears.
They think the scammers are their "friends", & believe the same nonsense they do!
If they really want to shield their phone into unusability, I have a bunch of empty 500g coffee cans I can supply free.
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One of my latest gripes is how the poor silly Conspiracy Theorists are getting predated on by scammers selling "Faraday bags" to put their mobile phones in.
Their victims are already "away with the fairies", & pointing out that if the product really worked the mobile phone in the bag wouldn't work at all, so "why have a phone in the first place?", falls on deaf ears.
They think the scammers are their "friends", & believe the same nonsense they do!
If they really want to shield their phone into unusability, I have a bunch of empty 500g coffee cans I can supply free.
It is surprisingly complicated to build a good phone shield.
https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/faraday/ (https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/faraday/)
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Just turn the bloody thing off?
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Just turn the bloody thing off?
Did you read the article? Blaze is no noob, he knows what he's doing.
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Just turn the bloody thing off?
Did you read the article? Blaze is no noob, he knows what he's doing.
Many of the customers for such things think they have been injected with a microchip to either cause Covid, or to allow Bill Gates to control them, & somehow think that 5G is the method doing these dastardly deeds.
If, on the other hand, your problem is that you think your phone is spying on you to find out your secrets, put it in the toilet,(No, not "down" the toilet!), or the corner of your garage, or wrap it in sound insulating materals, as in your case, the radiation isn't the thing, it just needs to be prevented from seeing or hearing you.
If you don't want it to blab where you are going, leave it home.
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Vegemite. The original would keep forever, even after the jar had been opened.
Some years ago the Vegemite brand was sold off. (I don't know to who or what.)
Now I notice (two instances) that Vegemite no longer lasts forever. It goes off, in a rather disgusting manner. Something changed in the formulation.
Much like the brand 'Pyrex', that used to mean high quality silica glass with near zero coefficient of thermal expansion, so Pyrex cookware could take sudden heat/cold shock without shattering.
'Pyrex' brand was sold to an Asian knock-off mob, who now make ordinary garden grade glass cookware and label it 'Pyrex.' Leading to lots of injuries when big glass pots full of very hot food, spontaneously shatter when taken out of ovens.
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Vegemite. The original would keep forever, even after the jar had been opened.
Some years ago the Vegemite brand was sold off. (I don't know to who or what.)
Now I notice (two instances) that Vegemite no longer lasts forever. It goes off, in a rather disgusting manner. Something changed in the formulation.
Much like the brand 'Pyrex', that used to mean high quality silica glass with near zero coefficient of thermal expansion, so Pyrex cookware could take sudden heat/cold shock without shattering.
'Pyrex' brand was sold to an Asian knock-off mob, who now make ordinary garden grade glass cookware and label it 'Pyrex.' Leading to lots of injuries when big glass pots full of very hot food, spontaneously shatter when taken out of ovens.
Or "Golden Syrup". When I was a kid, it was highly refined from sugar cane & considerably lighter than Treacle, which, in turn, was lighter than Molasses.
Now, if you buy Golden Syrup, you get what used to be Treacle, & today's Treacle is very little refined over Molasses.
OK, it may even be healthier, but it doesn't taste the same on big slabs of German Rye.
Which brings me to another point, why is it so hard to find German Rye bread, these days?
And Cassatas! There was a place in what we now call "Northbridge" in Perth, which had the most delicious Cassatas, made on the premises, but they went out of business.
Years later there was a company called Benny's who made prepackaged Cassatas, & sold them at Supermarkets,
They weren't quite as nice as the former ones, but were still pretty good.
Now, they, too, have gone, & people's eyes glaze over if you ask for such a thing.
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Just turn the bloody thing off?
Did you read the article? Blaze is no noob, he knows what he's doing.
Many of the customers for such things think they have been injected with a microchip to either cause Covid, or to allow Bill Gates to control them, & somehow think that 5G is the method doing these dastardly deeds.
The wackos I don't care about. There are valid cases for screening off a radio; especially since they're pretty good at not turning off when you tell them to.
If, on the other hand, your problem is that you think your phone is spying on you to find out your secrets, put it in the toilet,(No, not "down" the toilet!), or the corner of your garage, or wrap it in sound insulating materals, as in your case, the radiation isn't the thing, it just needs to be prevented from seeing or hearing you.
If you don't want it to blab where you are going, leave it home.
The problem is when you need to carry it but not want it to blab. Using it of course is out of the question, but logistics alone might dictate that you can't get to a deserted phone before you need it, after you've done your secret stuff.
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Much like the brand 'Pyrex', that used to mean high quality silica glass with near zero coefficient of thermal expansion, so Pyrex cookware could take sudden heat/cold shock without shattering.
'Pyrex' brand was sold to an Asian knock-off mob, who now make ordinary garden grade glass cookware and label it 'Pyrex.' Leading to lots of injuries when big glass pots full of very hot food, spontaneously shatter when taken out of ovens.
That drives me nuts. Pyrex is still the colloquial term for borosilicate glass but it is also a brand that is slapped on junky soda-lime glass kitchenware. I know somebody that was very surprised to have a "Pyrex" pan shatter when it was hit by a drop of water.
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Much like the brand 'Pyrex', that used to mean high quality silica glass with near zero coefficient of thermal expansion, so Pyrex cookware could take sudden heat/cold shock without shattering.
'Pyrex' brand was sold to an Asian knock-off mob, who now make ordinary garden grade glass cookware and label it 'Pyrex.' Leading to lots of injuries when big glass pots full of very hot food, spontaneously shatter when taken out of ovens.
That drives me nuts. Pyrex is still the colloquial term for borosilicate glass but it is also a brand that is slapped on junky soda-lime glass kitchenware. I know somebody that was very surprised to have a "Pyrex" pan shatter when it was hit by a drop of water.
Apparently, the use of the trademark "Pyrex" for kitchenware made from soda-lime glass, as well as the high-temperature borosilicate glass, goes back to the 1940s.
Corning still makes borosilicate glass for laboratory and technical uses, as well as competitors. I believe Corning uses the trademark Pyrex on the chem-lab glassware.
With the bastardization of the trade name by others, it is wise to look for actual part numbers, such as Corning 33 and 51 that have reliable data sheets.
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Peeve I just remembered from the past: Jurisdictions where they demand dual-language labeling so the product name is shown twice, even though the name is spelled EXACTLY THE SAME WAY in both languages. Just needlessly consumes label space. I've designed enough labels in my life to learn that printable space is a precious commodity. It's already stupid to have to label things in two languages, but to literally duplicate the same (usually large) information just piles on the stupidity. |O :wtf: :rant:
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Is that an actual legal demand, or will they accept this format:
PRODUCT NAME
Lang 1 description Lang 2 description
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I don't know. I agree your format sure seems like the logical way to handle it, so when I've seen the duplication it made me believe it had to be statutory because otherwise why on earth would anyone do it?!?
No LOGICAL person would do it. But bureaucrats and politicians, well....
EDIT: Places I've seen this include Canada (English and French) and Southern California (English and Spanish). I may have seen it overseas too but can't recall specifically. Canada is especially militant about it so frankly I could easily believe they would insist on full standalone duplication. Especially in Quebec.
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Just turn the bloody thing off?
Did you read the article? Blaze is no noob, he knows what he's doing.
Many of the customers for such things think they have been injected with a microchip to either cause Covid, or to allow Bill Gates to control them, & somehow think that 5G is the method doing these dastardly deeds.
The wackos I don't care about. There are valid cases for screening off a radio; especially since they're pretty good at not turning off when you tell them to.
If, on the other hand, your problem is that you think your phone is spying on you to find out your secrets, put it in the toilet,(No, not "down" the toilet!), or the corner of your garage, or wrap it in sound insulating materals, as in your case, the radiation isn't the thing, it just needs to be prevented from seeing or hearing you.
If you don't want it to blab where you are going, leave it home.
The problem is when you need to carry it but not want it to blab. Using it of course is out of the question, but logistics alone might dictate that you can't get to a deserted phone before you need it, after you've done your secret stuff.
If only there were a phone pre-fitted with the appropriate hardware kill switches.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/purism-librem-5-another-crowd-funding-fail/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/purism-librem-5-another-crowd-funding-fail/)
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I don't know. I agree your format sure seems like the logical way to handle it, so when I've seen the duplication it made me believe it had to be statutory because otherwise why on earth would anyone do it?!?
No LOGICAL person would do it. But bureaucrats and politicians, well....
EDIT: Places I've seen this include Canada (English and French) and Southern California (English and Spanish). I may have seen it overseas too but can't recall specifically. Canada is especially militant about it so frankly I could easily believe they would insist on full standalone duplication. Especially in Quebec.
It’s possible that the duplication you saw is due to a standard format adopted by a manufacturer who had other products where the term was different in the two languages.
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I may have whinged about this before, but a pet peeve is when people, usually on political discussion forums, but also quite often on Sports & other sites say:- "You, I, or they are bias"!
Obviously, they mean "biased", but don't seem to understand the difference.
I had an argument with a person recently on line, where he steadfastly defended his use of the term in such a sentence.
He certainly is not the only person who does this---I've seen it many times recently.
It ruins any point they are trying to make, by demonstrating that they are an ignoramus!
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I may have whinged about this before, but a pet peeve is when people, usually on political discussion forums, but also quite often on Sports & other sites say:- "You, I, or they are bias"!
Obviously, they mean "biased", but don't seem to understand the difference.
I had an argument with a person recently on line, where he steadfastly defended his use of the term in such a sentence.
He certainly is not the only person who does this---I've seen it many times recently.
It ruins any point they are trying to make, by demonstrating that they are an ignoramus!
Consider the possibility that they are propagandists - in which case the identification as bias would be accurate! :D
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I may have whinged about this before, but a pet peeve is when people, usually on political discussion forums, but also quite often on Sports & other sites say:- "You, I, or they are bias"!
Obviously, they mean "biased", but don't seem to understand the difference.
I had an argument with a person recently on line, where he steadfastly defended his use of the term in such a sentence.
He certainly is not the only person who does this---I've seen it many times recently.
It ruins any point they are trying to make, by demonstrating that they are an ignoramus!
Consider the possibility that they are propagandists - in which case the identification as bias would be accurate! :D
But if they are a person, they cannot actually be bias---they can only display it.
Similarly, a transistor has bias applied to it, so can be said to be biased, but it cannot, in itself, be bias.
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If people can choose their pronouns, why can't they change their adjectives?
Answer: because other people won't understand them.
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If people can choose their pronouns, why can't they change their adjectives?
Answer: because other people won't understand them.
I'm Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville.
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If people can choose their pronouns, why can't they change their adjectives?
Answer: because other people won't understand them.
I'm Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville.
Those are all nouns. Historically, we are free to choose our nouns, and sometimes other people use them.
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If people can choose their pronouns, why can't they change their adjectives?
Answer: because other people won't understand them.
I'm Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville.
Those are all nouns. Historically, we are free to choose our nouns, and sometimes other people use them.
Then...I'm awesomely awesome and amazingly amazing. :)
(The abuse of those words are one of my pet peeves.)
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That's OK. One of my pet peeves is when Microsoft changes "is" to "are", as in your statement, even though "one" is a singular subject.
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That's OK. One of my pet peeves is when Microsoft changes "is" to "are", as in your statement, even though "one" is a singular subject.
Microsoft went through a long stretch where it routinely changed my name to "Simian Gorilla".
I now work at Apple.
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"one" is a singular subject
Similar to how "they" and "them" are plural.
At least most of the time.
These days.
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Microsoft went through a long stretch where it routinely changed my name to "Simian Gorilla".
I now work at Apple.
Apple is not much better. The autocorrect on my iPhone is ridiculously aggressive and very frequently changes correctly spelled words to something else it thinks I actually wanted. Not only that but it is very inconsistent, sometimes when I backspace and correct it autocorrect leaves it alone, other times it will "fix" it over and over until I finally tap the desired word above the keyboard. It drives me crazy that there is no way to set autocorrect just to correct misspelled words. I never, ever want it to change a correctly spelled word to a different word. Also I don't think I have ever once deliberately typed "ducking".
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I never, ever want it to change a correctly spelled word to a different word.
Most people don't know how to correctly spell words anymore?
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Microsoft went through a long stretch where it routinely changed my name to "Simian Gorilla".
I now work at Apple.
Apple is not much better. The autocorrect on my iPhone is ridiculously aggressive and very frequently changes correctly spelled words to something else it thinks I actually wanted. Not only that but it is very inconsistent, sometimes when I backspace and correct it autocorrect leaves it alone, other times it will "fix" it over and over until I finally tap the desired word above the keyboard. It drives me crazy that there is no way to set autocorrect just to correct misspelled words. I never, ever want it to change a correctly spelled word to a different word. Also I don't think I have ever once deliberately typed "ducking".
*shrug* I don't work on the keyboard, I most recently did the client engineering for "Hide My Email" since I moved to iCloud a couple of years back. Before that I've worked on the watch, on projects going back almost a decade that are only just beginning to see the light of day, and I used to manage Aperture before it got canned as unprofitable. In between I worked in Platform Architecture - which is basically R&D. PAE is awesome but it doesn't pay as well as iCloud :)
My point wasn't "Apple is awesome, MS sucks", it was "Apple didn't call me an ape every time I type my name". It was also supposed to be just a joke - there's no real correlation between the 'corrections' and my employment :)
And for what its worth, I get just as frustrated as you do on the misspelt words; and no, that's not misspelt :)
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My favorite examples of auto-correct when posting on this site from an iPad are typing “Poulsen” and getting “Poulenc”, and typing “Bergoz” and getting “Berlioz”. The former is a stabilized arc used to generate RF, and the latter is a manufacturer of current transformers and beam current sensors. The results are classical composers.
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Apple is not much better. The autocorrect on my iPhone is ridiculously aggressive and very frequently changes correctly spelled words to something else it thinks I actually wanted. Not only that but it is very inconsistent, sometimes when I backspace and correct it autocorrect leaves it alone, other times it will "fix" it over and over until I finally tap the desired word above the keyboard. It drives me crazy that there is no way to set autocorrect just to correct misspelled words.
Change "Apple" to "Android" and everything you said still applies. Maddeningly frustrating. ESPECIALLY the repeated "I know better than you" re-re-re-re-corrections.
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I never, ever want it to change a correctly spelled word to a different word.
Most people don't know how to correctly spell words anymore?
All the more reason to leave it alone if it is spelled correctly!
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*shrug* I don't work on the keyboard, I most recently did the client engineering for "Hide My Email" since I moved to iCloud a couple of years back. Before that I've worked on the watch, on projects going back almost a decade that are only just beginning to see the light of day, and I used to manage Aperture before it got canned as unprofitable. In between I worked in Platform Architecture - which is basically R&D. PAE is awesome but it doesn't pay as well as iCloud :)
My point wasn't "Apple is awesome, MS sucks", it was "Apple didn't call me an ape every time I type my name". It was also supposed to be just a joke - there's no real correlation between the 'corrections' and my employment :)
And for what its worth, I get just as frustrated as you do on the misspelt words; and no, that's not misspelt :)
I wasn't suggesting it was somehow your fault. I was just pointing out essentially that these products all kind of suck in various ways no matter which company they come from.
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Change "Apple" to "Android" and everything you said still applies. Maddeningly frustrating. ESPECIALLY the repeated "I know better than you" re-re-re-re-corrections.
There must be some setting for that - on my phone I get suggestions (some quite clever) but no auto-correct. Is it something new in 11?
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Pet peeve: Labels like 'open sores' and 'pro-rapey software'. Just call them "open source" and "proprietary software"; language is hard enough as is.
I still like wordplay and puns, though.
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Roger Bloody Waters.
I wonder if he sees the irony that his shows are full of the mindless masses are exactly what he complained about in that double album.
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Roger Bloody Waters.
I wonder if he sees the irony that his shows are full of the mindless masses are exactly what he complained about in that double album.
I think it's largely down to the fact that he grew up, became an adult, and eventually became aware of the reality that in the real world you produce what the masses want to consume if you want to be successful. Kids are idealistic because they are naive and have an overly simplistic view of the world. As they get older most eventually realize that the easy fixes for society's problems they envisioned in their youth are in reality not so easy.
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Datasheets that are plainly wrong.
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I hate the way the keyboard on my ASUS laptop seems to be too slow to always keep up with a relatively fast "hunt & peck typist", & sometimes just jumbles the last few letters I typed---they are all there, just out of order!
Another fun thing is that it often confuses the "space" key with several of the letters immediately above it, sobyoubmightbhavensomethingnlikenthis! .
Such things could be forgivable with a touchscreen, but this is a real keyboard.
Another delight is not the keyboards fault, but a W10 thing, where, following an update, or sometimes quite randomly in the middle of typing some text, it swaps my " & @ keys over
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I hate the way the keyboard on my ASUS laptop seems to be too slow to always keep up with a relatively fast "hunt & peck typist", & sometimes just jumbles the last few letters I typed---they are all there, just out of order!
Another fun thing is that it often confuses the "space" key with several of the letters immediately above it, sobyoubmightbhavensomethingnlikenthis! .
Such things could be forgivable with a touchscreen, but this is a real keyboard.
Another delight is not the keyboards fault, but a W10 thing, where, following an update, or sometimes quite randomly in the middle of typing some text, it swaps my " & @ keys over
There's got to be something wrong somewhere? - a keyboard must respond instantly and accurately... otherwise 10 finger typists wouldn't be able to use them!
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https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/measuring-capacitor-leakage-with-a-multimeter/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/measuring-capacitor-leakage-with-a-multimeter/)
the above is an example of a pet peeve of mine - as I read it now I feel close to catching a fish that has mostly escaped. But, perhaps the gaps and non sequitur are not fatal.
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Pet peeve: Labels like 'open sores' and 'pro-rapey software'. Just call them "open source" and "proprietary software"; language is hard enough as is.
I still like wordplay and puns, though.
you mean broken source ? yeah, there's plenty of that around
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Pet peeve: Labels like 'open sores' and 'pro-rapey software'. Just call them "open source" and "proprietary software"; language is hard enough as is.
I still like wordplay and puns, though.
you mean broken source ? yeah, there's plenty of that around
What exactly is your major malfunction?
Actually, don't bother. It's easier if I'll just ignore you from now on.
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.. following some sage advice from David Hurwitz [on Youtube] I'm getting my classical CD collection in better shape.
.. a new "selected" recording's liner notes has prompted this [Ferris Bueller?] post
MDG - Our Sound Ideal
"All MDG recordings are produced in the natural acoustics of specially chosen concert halls. It goes without saying that our audiophile label refrains from any sort of soundmodifying manipulation with reverberation, sound filters, or limiters.
We aim at genuine reproduction with precise depth gradation, original dynamics, and natural tone colors. It is thus that each work acquires its musically appropriate spatial dimension and that the artistic interpretation attains to the greatest possible naturalness and vividness."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA)
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Hey, they weren't really lying.
"It goes without saying that our audiophile label [...] acquires its musically appropriate spatial dimension [...]" by disappearing up their own ass.
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EDIT: Places I've seen this include Canada (English and French) and Southern California (English and Spanish).
I do not believe California has any mandates on bilingual product labeling. A very cursory Google search found nothing beyond an article about them considering requiring it on prescription medicines.
Regardless, I chuckle, because here in Switzerland, products must be labeled in at least one of the three official languages, but because of logistics simplicity, practically everything is labeled in all three, and increasingly in English as well. And with German and French (two languages with famously long text lengths) being among those three, this often leads to comically inefficient layouts. :p
"one" is a singular subject
Similar to how "they" and "them" are plural.
At least most of the time.
These days.
The use of singular “they” (and the inflected forms: them, their, theirs and themselves) in English goes back to the 14th century, only a century after the emergence of the plural “they” in the language to begin with!
Yes, the expansion of singular “they” to a deliberate “I identify as ‘they/them’” usage is new, but grammatically speaking, it’s absolutely established, and the least-disruptive of any of the alternatives. Any of the alternatives would be significantly harder to get used to, which is likely why those alternatives haven’t caught on, while they/them has.
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Yes, the expansion of singular “they” [is] absolutely established, and the least-disruptive of any of the alternatives.
I love using they in online discussions when the participants use pseudonyms, because I so easily get gendered pronouns wrong (as in, unless I'm careful, I won't even be consistent with them). I just never grokked gendered words, not in Swedish, German, or English, and I studied all of them at comprehensive school.
Really, it's the forced language uppityness that bugs me in this respect. It's like "You need to call me Sir/Lady Uppity, you trash". Most of those who do want others to use specific pronouns for them do not see it that way, but hey, if I don't get to define how language works and should be used, then neither do you. It evolves by itself via use, and even if I am a linguistic troglodyte, I too am part of the language user scene like everybody else is.
I don't like honorifics either. If formal, I'll use your surname, but that's about it. I do honorifics once when introducing people to others, but not to refer to them, especially when they are present. If they insist, I'll laugh and leave; I've seen too much to play dat. Call me stuck egalitarian ::).
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My experience with plurals like they, them, etc. is that the people in question are utterly unknown, so these terms are used to apply to anyone without specificity. This occurs in user manuals and the like.
When you're speaking of a specific individual, either in print or verbally, there is no rational reason to use the plural. And doing so can be confusing, too. I'd be pretty angry as a firefighter if someone said "THEY are still in the burning building", or as law enforcement if someone said "THEY are still shooting", when what they really meant was a single person was involved.
People can live how they wish, but there's no justification for corrupting existing words in the language. Make up some new words if you must, but stop co-opting words and confusing normal conversation. I've gotten fed up enough with this nonsense that when someone aggressively insists I use "they/them" I tell them I'm very sorry that they ALSO suffer from multiple personality disorder. Sometimes I add "What is the name of the personality with whom I'm speaking at this moment?" "They" usually lose coherence at that point, to the entertainment of everyone in earshot.
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My experience with plurals like they, them, etc. is that the people in question are utterly unknown, so these terms are used to apply to anyone without specificity. This occurs in user manuals and the like.
When you're speaking of a specific individual, either in print or verbally, there is no rational reason to use the plural. And doing so can be confusing, too. I'd be pretty angry as a firefighter if someone said "THEY are still in the burning building", or as law enforcement if someone said "THEY are still shooting", when what they really meant was a single person was involved.
People can live how they wish, but there's no justification for corrupting existing words in the language. Make up some new words if you must, but stop co-opting words and confusing normal conversation. I've gotten fed up enough with this nonsense that when someone aggressively insists I use "they/them" I tell them I'm very sorry that they ALSO suffer from multiple personality disorder. Sometimes I add "What is the name of the personality with whom I'm speaking at this moment?" "They" usually lose coherence at that point, to the entertainment of everyone in earshot.
"They" referring to a individual is quite appropriate in many circumstances, as in a comment like:- "Some random on Facebook is complaining that they were banned from eevBlog!"
In that case, the person commenting has no idea whether the "random" is a man, woman, extraterrestrial, robot, or a dog.("On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog!")
In the above, I nearly used "you" in place of "the person commenting", but knew some nit picker would pick it up!
English varies quite a bit in what is a normal way of expressing things.
I read an American crime novel where someone says speaking of the victim,"I knew her, so I dropped in to her house".
The detective then thinks "Egad!---This person spoke in the past tense, so must have known the victim was dead!
QED: They are the killer!"
To an Australian, the past tense would commonly be used in the case of "something done in the past", irrespective of the state of health of the person referred to, so the above deduction needs rereading to work out just what the hell is going on.
I might say, referring to a visit to another town. "I knew the bloke at the Pizza shop, so dropped in to catch up"
The trip, obviously took place in the past, & the Pizza guy is still "hale & hearty".
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Slightly related,
"You" in the English language might also be confusing when it comes to politeness. I Dutch there are two different words to address someone in person. "Je of Jij" and "U". The former is used when you know someone on a more personal level and is a friend. The latter is more formal and used to address someone you just meet and you show some respect with this one.
The same exists in French "Tu" and "Vous"
In English "You" is used in both cases and is in that way easier.
But on a forum like this one it is a bit tricky on how to address who you are replying to or writing about, and still be politically correct.
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In "Early Modern English", e.g. Shakespeare and the King James translation of the Bible, there is a distinction between singular/informal "thou" and plural/formal "you".
See pp 450-451 of D and B Crystal "Shakespeare's Words", Penguin, 2002.
That discussion includes interesting examples where the speaker's opinion of the other person changes during the speech.
I find it interesting that in modern French, German, and Dutch (etc.), God is addressed in the singular/informal second person, and that usage of "Thou" persists in modern English.
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Interesting :)
I'm not a language person and thought "you" was just the thing in English, but now that you mentioned it "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not steal" bubbled up, but there it feels more like a plural in addressing multiple people, like done in church. Google showed "Exodus 20:15" for "thou shalt not steal"
Not to familiar with how "God" is addressed in the countries you mentioned. I'm a non practicing atheist ^-^ and don't circle in religious circles.
To my surprise I saw a youtube video a while back about atheism around the world and a list of the top 25 countries with the highest percentages of them, and the Netherlands was not in that list. Did not verify the list against other sources though.
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In "Early Modern English", e.g. Shakespeare and the King James translation of the Bible, there is a distinction between singular/informal "thou" and plural/formal "you".
See pp 450-451 of D and B Crystal "Shakespeare's Words", Penguin, 2002.
That discussion includes interesting examples where the speaker's opinion of the other person changes during the speech.
I find it interesting that in modern French, German, and Dutch (etc.), God is addressed in the singular/informal second person, and that usage of "Thou" persists in modern English.
Thou is specifically singular, but you has always covered both singular and plural. There are plenty of places in olde English writing where you is clearly referring to one person. Thou is still in common usage in many English speaking places. Often blended to the point people barely notice, except in comedy scripts with lines like "Where's the bin?", "What business is it of yours where I have been."
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That's why I referred to "you" ("vous", "Sie", etc.) as "formal/plural".
Note that in German, the capitalized "Sie" is second person, but non-capitalized "sie" is third person.
In Early Modern English (lose "olde"), "you" functions as plural or formal singular.
See the Shakespeare book I referenced for a detailed description, especially in regards to different status between the first person (speaker) and second person (hearer).
There is an apocryphal story about a suburban high-school teacher who bragged to a professor that he was teaching Shakespeare to his students in "old English".
The professor was amazed, since that would require a linguist at the level of J R R Tolkien to pull off.
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That's why I referred to "you" ("vous", "Sie", etc.) as "formal/plural".
Note that in German, the capitalized "Sie" is second person, but non-capitalized "sie" is third person.
I don't know about how it is in German, but in French "vous" is both. It compares to the Dutch "U" (formal) when you address a single person or "jullie" when you address a group of people. The two Dutch examples I gave before "je or jij" and "U" are singular. The usage of "je or jij" is based on where it sits in the sentence. "Je bent gevonden" which means "You have been found" or "Ben jij het" which means "Is it you". Don't know how to call the two different types of usage, but I'm sure there is an expression for it.
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In "Early Modern English", e.g. Shakespeare and the King James translation of the Bible, there is a distinction between singular/informal "thou" and plural/formal "you".
See pp 450-451 of D and B Crystal "Shakespeare's Words", Penguin, 2002.
That discussion includes interesting examples where the speaker's opinion of the other person changes during the speech.
I find it interesting that in modern French, German, and Dutch (etc.), God is addressed in the singular/informal second person, and that usage of "Thou" persists in modern English.
Thou is specifically singular, but you has always covered both singular and plural.
Here in the US, of course we've bastardized the language to suit our needs.
That's why we have words like youse (pronounced yoooz) as in youse guys for the plural. There's also you all for plural, which Way Down South has been contracted into y'all and of course from there somehow that became singular so they came up with y'all's because they think the apostrophe-s makes it plural. There's also all y'all and all y'all's and clearly all youse Europeans are just baffled by all of this.
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English:
Parent: Stop tormenting the cat!
Kid: I'm not tormenting it!
Finnish:
Parent: Älä rääkkää sitä kissaa!
Kid: En minä rääkkääkään!
Even Finns get confused when you ask how many 'kääk' syllables there are in that final word.
Don't get me started on how confusing it is to ask a guy named Kokko to make the Midsummer Bonfire; that sounds just like chickens anxiously waiting for dinner.
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Luckily something like subtitles exist on TV.
We like to watch Scandinavian detective series and certainly need them to be able to follow what is being said. In Danish there seems to be some German influences but still can't understand what is being said. Looking at your example it seems to be even worse in Finish.
But I guess that when you grew up with it, it all makes sense :)
Just like Dutch sounds like gibberish to people who don't speak it.
Edit:
Dutch:
Parent: Stop met de kat te martelen. (Can also use: Zit de kat niet te kwellen.)
Kid: Ik ben de kat niet aan het martelen. (Ik ben de kat niet aan het kwellen)
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In Danish there seems to be some German influences but still can't understand what is being said.
Ask any Swede or Norwegian and they agree. Written Danish is very easy to read for Swedes and Norwegians (and Swedish speakers in Finland, like me). But spoken Danish is so different. I've no issue talking to Norwegians, we just adjust our respective dialect a bit. But with Danes I prefer to use English.
The Scandinavian, German and Dutch languages are relatively close, so I've no issue of basic understanding of written Dutch either, but spoken is too hard to understand when you are not used to the language melody and sounds.
Finnish is a totally different language, so there is no relation except for a few thousand loan words from mostly old Swedish and old German. But the words are differently spelled and pronounced in Finnish. Example: the word for "chair". English cognate word "stool", Swedish/Danish/Norwegian "stol", Dutch "stoel", German "Stuhl", Finnish "tuoli". Yes, it's the same word with same origins, only pronounced a bit differently and thus written differently in each language.
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Luckily something like subtitles exist on TV.
We like to watch Scandinavian detective series and certainly need them to be able to follow what is being said. In Danish there seems to be some German influences but still can't understand what is being said. Looking at your example it seems to be even worse in Finish.
Here in the colonies, we like to watch the various BBC detective shows. We've learned that Cambridge is the Murder Capital of the EU.
However, the shows that take place in Scotland and Ireland require subtitles, because I know they speak a language called "English" but I'll be damned if I understand what they're saying.
I assume that our EU friends also have subtitles on when they watch shows that take place in any US city where a local dialect of English is spoken. "The Sopranos" is a good example. (So are "The Wire" and "Treme.") See the above comment about "youse," which is gabagool* Italian spoken by working-class people (of any cultural background, really) from places like Gowanus, Bushwick, Hoboken and Staten Island.
* gabagool is how we pronounce the Italian cured pork capicola (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-capicola-became-gabagool-the-italian-new-jersey-accent-explained). It's sorta like prozhute (spelled "prosciutto"), and it makes a nice sandwich.
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Have you ever watched "midsomer murders" it is in a fictive county, but they drop like flies during the investigation. Hence the "murders"
But yes we do have subtitles for the "English" spoken programs. I don't need them that much and sometimes the translations are hilarious :-DD
Between the US and UK detectives I prefer the UK. I find them more subtle and less loud.
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Pretty sure y'all (or you all) is singular most of the time. The plural version would be all y'all.
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My experience with plurals like they, them, etc. is that the people in question are utterly unknown, so these terms are used to apply to anyone without specificity. This occurs in user manuals and the like. …
The point, though, is that English has not only the plural “they”, but also the long-established singular “they”, which we have generally used for singular (or unknown number) persons of unknown gender, and more recently expanded to known persons who do not identify as one of the two traditional genders. Yeah, that takes a bit of getting used to, but grammatically speaking, English has had the singular “they” for centuries.
Pretty sure y'all (or you all) is singular most of the time. The plural version would be all y'all.
Absolutely not. I lived in the South for many years (as did my mom, who’s an English teacher) and “y’all” is never used to address a single person, it is distinctly to contrast the singular and plural. (There are people who claim there exists a rarer, singular “y’all”, but they appear to be northerners who don’t actually use y’all themselves. I don’t think their opinions matter, to be frank. But everyone agrees that its primary, if not sole, meaning is the plural.)
“All [of] y’all” means simply “all of you[pl]”. (To contrast with “some of you”.) “You [pl]” and “all of you” are not synonymous either, after all.
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Here in the US, of course we've bastardized the language to suit our needs.
Like every language in existence has done and continues to do.
That's why we have words like youse (pronounced yoooz) as in youse guys for the plural. There's also you all for plural, which Way Down South has been contracted into y'all and of course from there somehow that became singular so they came up with y'all's because they think the apostrophe-s makes it plural. There's also all y'all and all y'all's and clearly all youse Europeans are just baffled by all of this.
”Y’all’s” isn’t a plural or hyper-plural, it’s a possessive form of y’all (i.e. a plural of “your”).
Belongs to me: mine
Belongs to you[sg]: your
Belongs to you[pl]: y’all’s
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What’s gotten forgotten here is the last, rarest of the “nonstandard” plural “you” forms in USA: the Appalachian “you’uns”!
As in the real-world phrase, asked by a Tennessee diner waitress, that left my Swiss stepdad in complete confusion: “Would you’uns be a-wantin’ anythin’ else?”
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Have you ever watched "midsomer murders" it is in a fictive county, but they drop like flies during the investigation. Hence the "murders"
But yes we do have subtitles for the "English" spoken programs. I don't need them that much and sometimes the translations are hilarious :-DD
Between the US and UK detectives I prefer the UK. I find them more subtle and less loud.
"Summer Bay", in the Oz soapie "Home & Away" is pretty deadly place to live, too! ;D
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Luckily something like subtitles exist on TV.
We like to watch Scandinavian detective series and certainly need them to be able to follow what is being said. In Danish there seems to be some German influences but still can't understand what is being said. Looking at your example it seems to be even worse in Finish.
Here in the colonies, we like to watch the various BBC detective shows. We've learned that Cambridge is the Murder Capital of the EU.
However, the shows that take place in Scotland and Ireland require subtitles, because I know they speak a language called "English" but I'll be damned if I understand what they're saying.
I assume that our EU friends also have subtitles on when they watch shows that take place in any US city where a local dialect of English is spoken. "The Sopranos" is a good example. (So are "The Wire" and "Treme.") See the above comment about "youse," which is gabagool* Italian spoken by working-class people (of any cultural background, really) from places like Gowanus, Bushwick, Hoboken and Staten Island.
* gabagool is how we pronounce the Italian cured pork capicola (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-capicola-became-gabagool-the-italian-new-jersey-accent-explained). It's sorta like prozhute (spelled "prosciutto"), and it makes a nice sandwich.
As far as the cop shows are concerned, Australians seem to be able to understand them all.
If you watch very old (1950s) detective series & movies, Brit stuff always seemed to have "chaps" with "Oxbridge" accents as the heroes & higher level villians, with real UK regional accents confined to a few "comic relief" characters & bottom level minions.
A similar problem bedevilled US productions with the ubiquitous "Mid Atlantic" accent.
Now, regional Brits & Yanks sound the part (at least to those of us who don't live in the regions portrayed).
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Dont risk a visit to Beckindale .Plane crashes, bus crashes, helicopter crash, fires, explosions, floods,acid attacks ,murders .All in a tiny Yorkshire village
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Back on topic. (But I did like Bergerac and Midsomer Murders and Hamish MacBeth and Schimanski episodes of Tatort, back when I did watch TV.)
Whoo boy, the state of graphical user interfaces (schematic capture, symbol creation) for spice-compatible circuit simulation on Linux, is bad. |O
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Gonna get worse once they modernise to the borderless, flat, white on white (sorry, black on black now) of Microsoft's Metro.
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Whoo boy, the state of graphical user interfaces (schematic capture, symbol creation) for spice-compatible circuit simulation on Linux, is bad. |O
This is interesting. One would think, due to the open source origins of SPICE, that there would be also good graphical programs available for Linux. On the contrary, there are only a few. Supposedly also e.g. KiCAD works with ngspice, but I haven't tried.
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Whoo boy, the state of graphical user interfaces (schematic capture, symbol creation) for spice-compatible circuit simulation on Linux, is bad. |O
This is interesting. One would think, due to the open source origins of SPICE, that there would be also good graphical programs available for Linux. On the contrary, there are only a few. Supposedly also e.g. KiCAD works with ngspice, but I haven't tried.
Qucs-S (https://ra3xdh.github.io/), Qucs with SPICE, turns out to work relatively satisfactorily.
It is straightforward to use a 'SpiceLibComp' file component to represent any SPICE subcircuit. Everything except creating a new visual symbol to use for the subcircuit in the GUI to wire to, is easy and doable in the GUI. I did need to create new visual symbols (https://qucs-s-help.readthedocs.io/en/latest/SubLib.html#symbol-pattern-files-format-description) to describe PNP and NPN transistors, since there is no symbol editor yet, and the SPICE-compatible symbol list is woefully empty (you will need to create one for each type of subcircuit you want to use).
I tested with Nexperia BC847C and BC857C SPICE subcircuit models, and compared them to the built-in BC847C and BC857C components. I replicated the base-emitter voltage (Vbe) curve as a function of collector current (Ic) available in the datasheets; including at different temperatures. After I understood how the GUI and ngspice interact, it was a simple matter of a (transient simulation) to sweep the base-emitter voltage from 0 to 1 V (negative for the PNP). The built-in components do not model temperature, but the Nexperia SPICE subcircuits do. The differences are all such that the SPICE subcircuits nicely replicate the datasheet, with differences as expected between a generic and a specific model. The Nexperia BC857C SPICE subcircuit does consistently seem to have about 0.25V closer to ground Vbe than the generic component, at all valid collector currents, at +25°C.
But hoo boy is ngspice fast. A 100,001 step transient simulation of those two transistors in separate subcircuits (generating 1,300,144 lines, and 24,702,654 bytes of data), takes less than a second. It's more annoying to have to separately click "Exit" (to switch to the result diagrams file).
Thus, as usual, it is a GUI / User interface / User experience problem, not a matter of not having efficient number crunching tools, really.
It does show that most Linux developers are technically oriented, more comfortable with Unix tools, than creating graphical user interfaces.
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All y'all was actually a bit of a joke. Having been born in Kentucky and living most of my adult life in North Carolina and the last 20 years in Mississippi means I can safely say the actual usage varies a lot.
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It may have been a joke, but I have both heard and used that construct. Language (at least English) is a malleable tool, often adjusted on the spot for convenience or nuance.
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my amazon-prime-day shopping spree ended with a wordy math book :palm:
a book with a ***** mode score and very small naysayer contingent
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So a major annoyance for me is online shops with product pages that lacks even the most basic information to judge whether the product is suitable for me needs. Seen this over and over. :palm:
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Dutch:
Parent: Stop met de kat te martelen. (Can also use: Zit de kat niet te kwellen.)
Kid: Ik ben de kat niet aan het martelen. (Ik ben de kat niet aan het kwellen)
you need to try it in flemish
ouders: skeet uit me die katte t'ambeteren e
kinders : ma k'benne kik die katte nie aan t'ambetern e!
or
depending on the region ( and this can literally be the next town over) that word coudl be
- ambeteren
- kloten
- koeionneren
- lastig the vallen
- pesten
- vermassekreren
stopping could be
- skeet uit
- stopt
- stoppet
or they could use completely different expressions or even make it as a question
est nuy gedaan me die katte t'ambeteren ? (are you done annoyting the cat ? but in a commanding tone so it is not a question ..)
there are also other weird things from region to region.
doe nekee den televiesie dood , of de lucht dood.
literally : kill the tv or kill the air.. but it means switch off and that 'air' is actually the 'light'. the correct word is "licht" (light) but it is pronounced 'u' like in "butt"
And then there is the french ....
"le lecteur DC utilise du courant CD ..."
the CD player uses DC current
DC = disque compacte instead of compact disc
CD = courant directe : current direct instead of direct current
On utilise l'ordinateur pour acceser la toile.
We use an ordner to access the web
because l'academie francaise want to keep the language pure.
They tried computer courses in flemish.... hilarious. windows 98 : ruute achtnegentuh (a "ruit" is a window. in flemish it is pronounced ruute.)
There is one word borrowed from the maldivian language that found its way in every language of the world : atol (atolhu). Simply because that is how you describe that type of island structure.
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Atol is also a test equipment language......funny enough the original manuals were in French, but the minicomputer that ran the racks of ATE was made by HP, and there the manuals were English, with US measurements. The ATE itself was metric, with the US measurements to 3 decimal points in the conversion in all the diagrams and drawings. We had English and French paper tapes for the programs, and also English translations of the french manuals, and French translations of the HP manuals.
Most popular book in there was the English French dictionary, as the translations were often rather lacking in accuracy, especially for the technical side. Half the dictionary was English and French translation, and the other half vice versa. None of us spoke french..... But we made do with the technical translations, and lots of little bits of masking tape with writing on it, for the engraved labels on some test equipment.
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How about the banking nazi's and there mindless corporate drones |O
The last month they have been pestering me with their privacy invading questions about how much money I make, how much I can spend and why I'm using a dutch mobile phone number when I live in France?
None of their f....ing business. Verifying my identity, ok. Questioning suspicious transactions, to some extend ok.
And what do the bastards do, they start threatening with blocking and closing your account.
>:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
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That's probably not the banks but the government making them do that. Anti-laundering legislation, and the banks just have to suck it up. There have been large fines for them when they've been a bit lax:
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/uk-anti-money-laundering-fines-hit-record-as-watchdog-seeks-criminal-convictions-68630335 (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/uk-anti-money-laundering-fines-hit-record-as-watchdog-seeks-criminal-convictions-68630335)
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I know about these laws, they are not just for anti-laundering, they also take funding terrorism in account. I have investigated them 14 years ago when we bought the house in France. Money paid to a foreign notary and the bank came with the question what the money was for. Same reply from me, none of their business.
A little bit of thinking and some easy investigation would have showed them it was for buying a house and thus legit. Don't bother your customer when not needed.
At that time, the arrangements of the law where that the bank had to ask the question, and in case of non compliance, they, the bank, could report this to a government agency. No blocking of accounts enforced by the government before the agency taking action. Just the bank being a bully.
Sure laundering or funding terorism is the biggest crime you can commit nowadays, but allowing banks to do this, starts to look a lot like a police state.
But that is just me. I don't like to role over and play dead. :box:
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allowing banks to do this, starts to look a lot like a police state.
Things have looked a lot like a police state for a long time now, particularly since 9/11/2001 and the USA's "Patriot" Act whose tendrils reached out and bullied lots of other nations to do the USA's bidding.
To be fair, I honestly believe there are plenty of good-intentioned people in government who truly wish to protect their respective nations and citizens. But it's hyper-dangerous to create sweeping systems with excessive authority, because with a couple of elections they can migrate into the hands of people with very different intentions. Such systems are also hard to eradicate once established. It is safer to never create the environment in which such ill intentions can flourish, but that requires voters to accept a certain degree of risk - and waving one's arms shouting about "safety" has elected a lot of politicians.
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I love the smell of TIP2955 in the morning.
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I love the smell of TIP2955 in the morning.
A new one or one that just blew up :-DD
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I love the smell of TIP2955 in the morning.
A new one or one that just blew up :-DD
Ancient homebuilt lab switching power supply.
Note to self: lab psu doesn't play nice charging a car battery.
To the beginners sub forum, Robin!
:palm:
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That's probably not the banks but the government making them do that. Anti-laundering legislation, and the banks just have to suck it up. There have been large fines for them when they've been a bit lax:
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/uk-anti-money-laundering-fines-hit-record-as-watchdog-seeks-criminal-convictions-68630335 (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/uk-anti-money-laundering-fines-hit-record-as-watchdog-seeks-criminal-convictions-68630335)
That's getting too far though. And this is happening pretty much all over the world, indeed.
Has it helped curb laundering in any way though?
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Has it helped curb laundering in any way though?
Only some of the laundering they don't like.
Remember the old adage: "Don't do bad things. Governments hate competition."
And its corollary: "Politicians want either less corruption, or more participation in it."
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I hear your frstration, pcprogrammer... Many years ago we went through similar transactions and information sharing to avoid "money laundering and evasion". Pure BS, since the economic scandals at the time were in the order of tens of millions - much higher than what was being transfered to use as a downpayment for a middle class house. Bastards.
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That's probably not the banks but the government making them do that. Anti-laundering legislation, and the banks just have to suck it up. There have been large fines for them when they've been a bit lax:
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/uk-anti-money-laundering-fines-hit-record-as-watchdog-seeks-criminal-convictions-68630335 (https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/uk-anti-money-laundering-fines-hit-record-as-watchdog-seeks-criminal-convictions-68630335)
That's getting too far though. And this is happening pretty much all over the world, indeed.
Has it helped curb laundering in any way though?
No. It just adds extra cost and delays for legitimate business operations.
In our anti-money laundering legislation one of the requirements is that you have to provide details of official identity papers and proof of address to any financial institution, lawyer or real estate agent you deal with. If you can't provide the original documents in person you have to provide a certified copy instead. Certification involves getting the copies sighted and attested as a true copy by some prominent or trusted professional person.
Included in the list of so-called trusted professional people are lawyers and accountants, who are more likely than any other sector of the population to be involved in actual money laundering! :wtf:
However, professional engineers are not classed as being sufficiently trustworthy to attest to document veracity. :palm:
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I don't mind the verification of my identity or my address when applying for a new account. It is the once in a while update they want, as if my identity changes over time just because my passport went out of date.
Also the non relevant additional questions they ask involving the "know your customer" act, that to me are privacy sensitive, and to which I say none of your business.
And then you have to deal with the "low" level staff that can't deviate from the script they have in front of them. Think for your self is not allowed here, hence the "mindless corporate drones"
And for sure it only drives up cost, but that seems to be the way society works nowadays, where no one seems to give an f... and just run a long as a willing herd of sheep's.
And terrorist know about the 10000 euro/dollar limit that raises the red flag in the automated systems, so they just transfer less :palm:
Edit: Come to think of it the money for the house thing is idiocy anyway. If I had told them it is for buying a house and they just take my word for it, they could have bothered to just not ask. If on the other hand they do some research to verify my answer, they could have done the research in the first place so they did not have to ask me. :-//
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I love the smell of TIP2955 in the morning.
A new one or one that just blew up :-DD
Ancient homebuilt lab switching power supply.
Note to self: lab psu doesn't play nice charging a car battery.
To the beginners sub forum, Robin!
:palm:
Well that explains. I was thinking of the transistor :)
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Pet peeve of today... user interface "engineering" in some new cars. Renting a new VW Golf currently - a nice car in most respects... but e.g. to turn up the heater or a/c fan, you have to (1) Touch the "Climate Control" button for what feels like an eternity before it accepts that it has been "touched", which then causes a screen to pop up on the display. (2) On that new screen, you can then slide your finger to adjust the fan speed.
OMG, seriously VW?? This all just takes too long, and you have to pay way too much attention to something you can do blindfolded in most other cars. This particular design is so irritating that it's a reason to avoid renting a Golf, let alone buy one!
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Touch screen interfaces that the driver must interact with have no business being in cars. They should have physical controls, easily identifiable by touch without the need to look directly at them. :rant: :rant: :rant:
-Pat
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Touch screen interfaces that the driver must interact with have no business being in cars. They should have physical controls, easily identifiable by touch without the need to look directly at them. :rant: :rant: :rant:
-Pat
Marine GPS navigators are the worst when you've got wet, salty hands. And using a cloth to clean or dry the screen sends the system into complete shock.
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OMG, seriously VW?? This all just takes too long, and you have to pay way too much attention to something you can do blindfolded in most other cars. This particular design is so irritating that it's a reason to avoid renting a Golf, let alone buy one!
Having rented a Golf in England, yes. A terrible car.
They once made positive-ground (?) 6V Beetles. Good fun trying to fit a car radio. Not.
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=403205 (https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=403205)
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Pet peeve of today... user interface "engineering" in some new cars. Renting a new VW Golf currently - a nice car in most respects... but e.g. to turn up the heater or a/c fan, you have to (1) Touch the "Climate Control" button for what feels like an eternity before it accepts that it has been "touched", which then causes a screen to pop up on the display. (2) On that new screen, you can then slide your finger to adjust the fan speed.
OMG, seriously VW?? This all just takes too long, and you have to pay way too much attention to something you can do blindfolded in most other cars. This particular design is so irritating that it's a reason to avoid renting a Golf, let alone buy one!
And law forbids you from using a phone in your hand because it is to distracting. What you described seems also very distracting and having you to take your eyes of the road. They should not try to fix what ain't broken. An old fashioned dashboard work's perfectly fine |O
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Having rented a Golf in England, yes. A terrible car.
My car is a Golf (MKV) and although I wouldn't have kids with it I quite like it. Certainly, I am happy enough not to be wanting something else, and I've driven a few other things.
What I like is that the driver assistance stuff has been obviously thought out and doesn't get in the way. But we're talking a model that's 15 years old now and there ain't no fancy touch stuff or owt. And lots and lots of wires.
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Having rented a Golf in England, yes. A terrible car.
My car is a Golf (MKV) and although I wouldn't have kids with it I quite like it. Certainly, I am happy enough not to be wanting something else, and I've driven a few other things.
What I like is that the driver assistance stuff has been obviously thought out and doesn't get in the way. But we're talking a model that's 15 years old now and there ain't no fancy touch stuff or owt. And lots and lots of wires.
I found the driver assistance stuff in the 2022 Golf irritating, in particular the alarm that goes off when the computer thinks you are not driving in the center of the lane. It gets it wrong a lot, and starts squealing for no reason in some circumstances. I don't recall other cars with lane departure monitoring having this problem.
Then there's the adaptive cruise control (that is meant to follow the car in front, if it drives slower than the cruise setpoint speed). This system has the flaw that on a motorway, with multiple lanes, it gets confused by cars in the other lanes and annoyingly often decides to slow down for no good reason. I haven't seen that in other cars with adaptive cruise control.
It's as if the systems are "maximally paranoid" to the point where it interferes with competence...
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I turn all of that stuff off immediately when I drive a rental car. I want to be making the decisions about vehicle operation, not someone else's algorithm.
Oh, and the single most annoying "feature" of all? Engines that turn off when you're stopped at a light or stop sign. Constantly restarting an engine is hard on the engine and the battery. And there is always a startup delay... I've avoided quite a few accidents by being able to instantly accelerate out of the way.
All of this is just another reason I'm thankful to be driving a Lotus, the Engineer's Car. It's a pure driving experience, period. Leave Out The Unnecessary Stuff (Lotus).
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I found the driver assistance stuff in the 2022 Golf irritating
Oh, not tried one that modern. I can easily believe it's a right pain in the ass though, and often think the the MkV was peak Golf, occurring just after the improvement in efficiency and ODBII stuff but before they ran out of simple things to do and start on the make work stuff.
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Oh, and the single most annoying "feature" of all? Engines that turn off when you're stopped at a light or stop sign.
Ah, now I drove two cars with that for a while, a Smart and a Dacia Duster. Have to say I quite liked the feature!
The Dacia had a stupidly low first gear, so second was always used to pull away. But sometimes the slightly too high gear would cause a stall, typically just as you've pulled onto a roundabout or similar. No problem: clutch in, wait 2 secs, off you go again.
I never found them too slow to start up, but it was a bit offputting to have the engine die unexpectedly the first dozen or fifty times.
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I turn all of that stuff off immediately when I drive a rental car. I want to be making the decisions about vehicle operation, not someone else's algorithm.
Oh, and the single most annoying "feature" of all? Engines that turn off when you're stopped at a light or stop sign. Constantly restarting an engine is hard on the engine and the battery. And there is always a startup delay... I've avoided quite a few accidents by being able to instantly accelerate out of the way.
All of this is just another reason I'm thankful to be driving a Lotus, the Engineer's Car. It's a pure driving experience, period. Leave Out The Unnecessary Stuff (Lotus).
Those auto start-stop systems are the most ridiculous thing ever, some of them use a hybrid style motor-generator to start the ICE but many use a conventional starter motor and they result in greatly decreased life of the starting battery, and they are just irritating. They exist purely to exploit a loophole in the way idle emissions are measured. The real world fuel saving is negligible but they are able to game the system. I have no idea why they are still allowed.
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I turn all of that stuff off immediately when I drive a rental car. I want to be making the decisions about vehicle operation, not someone else's algorithm.
Oh, and the single most annoying "feature" of all? Engines that turn off when you're stopped at a light or stop sign. Constantly restarting an engine is hard on the engine and the battery. And there is always a startup delay... I've avoided quite a few accidents by being able to instantly accelerate out of the way.
All of this is just another reason I'm thankful to be driving a Lotus, the Engineer's Car. It's a pure driving experience, period. Leave Out The Unnecessary Stuff (Lotus).
Those auto start-stop systems are the most ridiculous thing ever, some of them use a hybrid style motor-generator to start the ICE but many use a conventional starter motor and they result in greatly decreased life of the starting battery, and they are just irritating. They exist purely to exploit a loophole in the way idle emissions are measured. The real world fuel saving is negligible but they are able to game the system. I have no idea why they are still allowed.
In my last two trips out to California, I wound up renting vehicles that had the auto stop-start. The first was a Chevy Malibu, and the second was a VW Tiguan. The system in the Malibu was nearly transparent - I barely felt it shut down and restart. The VW on the other hand was very annoying - there would be a big lurch every time it started when the transmission reengaged and the drivetrain wound up - don't know if it was an issue with that particular vehicle or if it's endemic to the breed, but was very surprised that the Chevy was so much smoother and better refined than the VW.
That said, I don't like them, either - can't imagine that the fuel savings outweighs the added wear and tear on the starter, battery and charging system. Like the 'automatic' seat belts of the late 80s/early 90s, it's a kluge.
-Pat
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[...]
That said, I don't like them [automatic shut-off/restart], either - can't imagine that the fuel savings outweighs the added wear and tear on the starter, battery and charging system. Like the 'automatic' seat belts of the late 80s/early 90s, it's a kluge.
-Pat
Maybe the designs have been uprated to deal with it? - it probably isn't the standard starter...
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[...]
That said, I don't like them [automatic shut-off/restart], either - can't imagine that the fuel savings outweighs the added wear and tear on the starter, battery and charging system. Like the 'automatic' seat belts of the late 80s/early 90s, it's a kluge.
-Pat
Maybe the designs have been uprated to deal with it? - it probably isn't the standard starter...
Considering the sticker shock I got the last time I priced a replacement starter 20+years ago, they damned well had better be - wanted a rebuilt for my friend's Toyota, which had a bad solenoid - contacts worn down. Called the parts store for a rebuilt, and was quoted several hundred dollars - at the time had last paid under $50 some years earlier for a run of the mill remanufactured GM starter for my late 60s Pontiac. I clarified with the guy on the phone that I wanted reman, not new. He said that price WAS for the reman, the new one was around $500 IIRC. Major sticker shock. I repaired the worn contacts on the old one by soldering in a flattened piece of solid wire and reshaping them with a file.
Regardless, restarting the engine multiple times over a trip covering only a few miles can’t be doing the electrical system any favors.
-Pat
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To say nothing about the wear on the battery. It takes a while to restore the charge consumed by an engine start... what if you're in a heavy downtown area? Or rush hour freeway?
Plus starting an engine is one of the highest wear events because there's no oil pressure yet. Terrible idea to specifically increase the frequency of such events.
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Don't they have a button to turn this feature off? We have a fairly new Ford Fiesta, and it does have the start stop feature, but I can turn it off and I did.
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Don't they have a button to turn this feature off? We have a fairly new Ford Fiesta, and it does have the start stop feature, but I can turn it off and I did.
To my knowledge they do. I didn't bother with either of the rentals as they were only for two week periods and I wasn't driving them that much. If I owned one, for sure it would be disabled.
-Pat
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So far my experience has been that when they do have a disable button, it defaults to enabled each time the car is started. I have spent plenty of time thinking about an auto-disable circuit for this "feature" while sitting in traffic....
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Many of them do have a button, some don't. As was mentioned, it always defaults to on every time you start the car. I have seen aftermarket kits that plug in to effectively push the disable button automatically. Never had the misfortune of owning a vehicle with that idiotic system though.
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To say nothing about the wear on the battery. It takes a while to restore the charge consumed by an engine start... what if you're in a heavy downtown area? Or rush hour freeway?
The one's I used wouldn't stop if the battery wasn't fully topped up. And when stopped they would restart if the battery was getting a bit low (relative to topped up). I seem to recall seeing a stopped time of 30 seconds being the break-even of saving fuel, but of course nowadays just not polluting the place unnecessarily is a big thing (so much so you can get nicked here for sitting in a queue with the engine running for too long).
Plus starting an engine is one of the highest wear events because there's no oil pressure yet. Terrible idea to specifically increase the frequency of such events.
But it's not like a normal start. The engine is hot, the oil is at working viscosity and everything has a nice oil film. Takes nothing to restart compared to a cold start. I wouldn't be surprised if they have some clever stuff like keeping the valves open while the motor spins up and then it's just like a bump start - hardly anything required from the starter motor and the first proper compression stroke will get it going.
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Current pet peeve is the insane amount of subsystems and helper devices required to get the ICE to work to present emission standards.
Not that I think there's anything wrong with the emission standards, they're probably all too weak because of all the lobby money spent by Big Car in Brussels and Washington, it is that people persist in using and designing ICE propulsion when it's so obviously in need of crutches and braces to even exist.
With their warts and all, current electrical is so much better.
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it is that people persist in using and designing ICE propulsion when it's so obviously in need of crutches and braces to even exist.
With their warts and all, current electrical is so much better.
Not this again. For some it is great and for others it's just not practical. But the biggie for most is it's too expensive. There isn't a cheap EV. Give me £26,000 gratis and I'll happily get an EV tomorrow.
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All that complexity is to wring out more efficiency. The basic ICE, like a basic turbine engine, is relatively simple. But the curve goes asymptotic as you seek ever greater efficiency. Ever seen a modern turbine engine with the cowlings removed? Sensors, harnesses, plumbing everywhere. Yet the core is just a rotating shaft with some blades.
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Brushless electric motors are very nice, and pack surprising amounts of punch for their size. I love'm.
The problem is the damn energy storage, especially if you happen to live near the Arctic Circle (Nordic countries, Canada, Alaska).
Even the lifetime of the current battery technology really remains to be seen, when ambient temperature swings between -30°C and +30°C.
ICEs have no issues in that regard.
I'm also waiting to see how well the battery packs will be recycled, or whether they'll actually end up in landfills and in Africa instead.
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Brushless electric motors are very nice, and pack surprising amounts of punch for their size. I love'm.
The problem is the damn energy storage, especially if you happen to live near the Arctic Circle (Nordic countries, Canada, Alaska).
Even the lifetime of the current battery technology really remains to be seen, when ambient temperature swings between -30°C and +30°C.
ICEs have no issues in that regard.
I'm also waiting to see how well the battery packs will be recycled, or whether they'll actually end up in landfills and in Africa instead.
There are a few edge cases like that where current EV tech may have some issues, although having been to Calgary and Edmonton a few times, I'd argue that ICE is not completely free of issues, at the time I went many parking lots had scores of electrical outlets to plug in the engine block heaters. I remember someone telling me they had trouble with diesel fuel gelling too although I don't know whether modern stuff still has that issue. There is no reason the same can't be done for battery packs, although it makes sense to just draw some energy out of the batteries themselves, or from the charger.
We should have some lifetime data out there by now, at least in the early stages. My friend recently bought a 2013 Tesla S, that's nearly 10 years old and the battery in it is in good shape still. Commercially viable EVs have been around for more than decade now. Given the amount of valuable lithium and nickel contained in the batteries I would be shocked if they were not already being recycled.
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All that complexity is to wring out more efficiency. The basic ICE, like a basic turbine engine, is relatively simple. But the curve goes asymptotic as you seek ever greater efficiency. Ever seen a modern turbine engine with the cowlings removed? Sensors, harnesses, plumbing everywhere. Yet the core is just a rotating shaft with some blades.
"A rotating shaft with some blades" is grossly oversimplifying the mechanical part of the engine core. The degree of precision and the strength of the components is extremely impressive. The internal parts rotate at thousands of RPM under insanely high loads with ridiculously tight clearances. The compressor stage in a modern jet engine absorbs tens of thousands of horsepower, generated by turbine discs that are operating at high enough temperature to make them glow. I would argue that the internal rotating assembly and stator are at least as impressive as the ancillary systems wrapped around it that deliver fuel, oil and air to the various components and sensors that monitor operation. A tremendous amount of engineering has gone into it, including entirely new alloys being developed.
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I guess we get to call you shocked james_s. Battery recycling is still in the prototype stage. The reasons are fairly obvious if you think about it. Lead acid batteries are basically a compartmented plastic dish with half a dozen big lead plates and filled with a liquid acid. Recycling involved popping the lid off, dumping the acid out and the pulling half a dozen parts out. These batteries are a simple rectangular prisms and even the largest ones can be moved (barely) without special equipment. The batteries in a modern EV are in a crash proof case that is sometimes a structural element of the vehicle. It requires heavy equipment to move and there is no standardized form factor. Inside this case there are electronics, cooling systems and hundreds of thousands of tiny cylindrical batteries, each of which is its own lightly armored compartment. Inside that is a tightly wound coil that has to be unwound to separate the goodies. It will take a lot of work to develop and then build out capacity of an economical recycling process.
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I guess we get to call you shocked james_s. Battery recycling is still in the prototype stage. The reasons are fairly obvious if you think about it. Lead acid batteries are basically a compartmented plastic dish with half a dozen big lead plates and filled with a liquid acid. Recycling involved popping the lid off, dumping the acid out and the pulling half a dozen parts out. These batteries are a simple rectangular prisms and even the largest ones can be moved (barely) without special equipment. The batteries in a modern EV are in a crash proof case that is sometimes a structural element of the vehicle. It requires heavy equipment to move and there is no standardized form factor. Inside this case there are electronics, cooling systems and hundreds of thousands of tiny cylindrical batteries, each of which is its own lightly armored compartment. Inside that is a tightly wound coil that has to be unwound to separate the goodies. It will take a lot of work to develop and then build out capacity of an economical recycling process.
Do you have some data to back that up? According to this https://spectrum.ieee.org/lithiumion-battery-recycling-finally-takes-off-in-north-america-and-europe (https://spectrum.ieee.org/lithiumion-battery-recycling-finally-takes-off-in-north-america-and-europe) they're already building the largest lithium battery recycling plant in the world, not the first. Lead acid battery recycling doesn't actually work anything like what you describe, at least not on an industrial scale. The way it is done now is the batteries are dumped into a massive machine that grinds them up whole. The acid drains out and is recovered, then the shredded material goes through a process that separates out the lead from the plastic. Lithium battery recycling could be done in a similar manner, grind them up, separate the materials, nobody is going to sit there with a can opener cutting open millions of cells and unwinding the inner parts. There are also surplus dealers that sell used EV batteries to individuals, so many of them will have a second life after they are no longer fit for propelling a car.
Actually here, I found a video showing the process in the Volkswagen recycling plant which is already in operation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi8Y2lF7Luw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi8Y2lF7Luw)
Here's one of a lead acid recycling plant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJj5iIwF8p4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJj5iIwF8p4)
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Yes, I simplified the internals of a turbine. But there's some precise tech in BLDC motors, and batteries touch so many separate disciplines it's hard to name them all.
And then... to simply get a BLDC spinning is simple. To do it efficiently, with precision and regen? Now you're layering up the technology, just like advanced ICE's and turbines.
Bottom line: Most technologies are simple to get started. But they get increasingly complex as you demand more from them. A basic two-stroke gas engine with reed valves is extremely mechanically and electrically simple but inefficient and dirty. So too a basic implementation of four-strokes, turbines, and BLDC's. Want them "better"? Prepare for complexity.
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The Volkswagon process is exactly what I would call a prototype. Very labor intensive and not very large scale. Not clear how economics would work out on that. And color me surprised that they are able to shred the batteries, even after deep discharge of the packs. Shows great confidence in the balancing circuits of the packs. But obviously it can be done.
The largest plant in north america that you reference is by their statement going to be able to process 55 million lbs (25 metric kilotons) of battery packs per year. The lightest Tesla batteries weigh about 1000 lbs so this plant under generous assumptions will be able to keep up with production of 55 thousand vehicles a year, or about a quarter of Teslas current production. Without even talking about plug in hybrids or other manufacturers of electric vehicles.
Obviously recycling will happen, if for no other reason than regulatory requirements. But there is going to be a lot of sweat, blood and tears putting it into place.
I will end by quoting two paragraphs from the article on the Kodak plant site project.
"These startups aim to automate, streamline, and clean up what has been a labor-intensive, inefficient, and dirty process. Traditionally, battery recycling involves either burning them to recover some of the metals, or else grinding the batteries up and treating the resulting “black mass" with solvents.
Battery recycling doesn't just need to be cleaner—it also needs to be reliably profitable, says Jeff Spangenberger, director of the ReCell Center, a battery-recycling research collaboration supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. “Recycling batteries is better than if we mine new materials and throw the batteries away," Spangenberger says. “But recycling companies have trouble making profits. We need to make it cost effective, so that people have an incentive to bring their batteries back."
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Obviously recycling will happen, if for no other reason than regulatory requirements. But there is going to be a lot of sweat, blood and tears putting it into place.
And that recycling will have regulatory requirements and oversight, too, if only because bureaucrats feel the need to justify their existence and budgets. If manufacturing the batteries requires regulation and oversight, recycling of old used batteries will be at LEAST as heavily regulated and monitored. All of that will add cost and complexity to the EV marketplace.
There is no free lunch. EV's have their place - post office vehicles, local mass transportation, any application that involves stop-and-go movement in a relatively small geographic area. They are ideal for such applications. But EV's are worse than useless for long-haul transportation of people or products because of their relatively short range and relatively lengthy refueling time, especially as the total mass increases (like for over the road trucking).
The ideal general-purpose drivetrain technology is hybrid because it combines the recapture of the pure EV and the range of the ICE. Ironically, the railroads have known and used this for decades in their diesel-electric locomotives. We are simply rediscovering what has actually been known for a very long time.
My family just suited action to the words by buying a new Toyota Sienna Hybrid minivan. We've had it about six weeks and just finished our first long distance road trip with it, so we have some experience now with local, mixed, and all-highway driving. It's basically perfect. We get ridiculous mileage around town, approaching 50 MPG; we were closing in on 1000 miles before we ever had to put fuel in it. Mixed driving sees around 40 MPG. The road trip... well, there the EV aspect yields basically nothing because there's very little braking, but we still get mid 30's for MPG and the range is over 600 miles per tank. There's simply no other drivetrain that can deliver that combination of short-haul efficiency and long-haul range. I think Toyota has nailed it with their hybrid technology because it's suitable for almost every family situation.
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I'd argue that ICE is not completely free of issues, at the time I went many parking lots had scores of electrical outlets to plug in the engine block heaters.
Yes; they do make it much easier to start the engine when the temperature drops below -10°C or so. They're only needed for a half hour to a hour before starting, though; they're not needed continuously.
I remember someone telling me they had trouble with diesel fuel gelling too although I don't know whether modern stuff still has that issue.
The stuff sold here has additives added that fixes those issues, and they're also available separately (typically in bottles to be mixed with 400 liters of diesel). This winter, there was a shortage of a key one, and its price shot through the roof. (I forget the exact details.)
There is no reason the same can't be done for battery packs
It is a slightly different issue, because the charge the battery can take or release is dependent on the temperature. It is not sufficient to just heat it when charging, you also need to heat it when discharging, so basically continuously. This affects the overall efficiency. And which cars already do this? Which ones have been tested to work in Arctic conditions in practice? I do not know.
Then again, I'm not in the market for a new EV, or any new vehicle, anyway.
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That rubber like coating they put on mice, keyboard palmrests and other peripherals, and invariable, turns to a sticky goop that is annoying as hell.
Whoever invented that should be coated in two layers of the stuff and put out in the hot sun for a couple of days..
I found a good way to remove that crap.
Use an old creditcard or an amazon giftcard ( they work even better, the plastic is a bit flexier than a credit card ) and scoop it of in one motion. try to get as much off as possible.
Then use Purell hand sanitizing wipes. the ones in individual packs. They have a hard paper towelette. much harder than your regular soft cloth towelettes. it has the right amount of "grit" to get the rest off.
https://www.amazon.com/Sanitizing-Alcohol-Fragrance-Individually-Portable/dp/B014EVXZ9S/ref=asc_df_B014EVXZ9S/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198076816763&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9490757455855247871&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031827&hvtargid=pla-351519938381&psc=1 (https://www.amazon.com/Sanitizing-Alcohol-Fragrance-Individually-Portable/dp/B014EVXZ9S/ref=asc_df_B014EVXZ9S/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198076816763&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9490757455855247871&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031827&hvtargid=pla-351519938381&psc=1)
don't get the other type (the "personal") : that has a regular cotton soft cloth. you need the hard version. it's almost like wax paper.
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There is no free lunch. EV's have their place - post office vehicles, local mass transportation, any application that involves stop-and-go movement in a relatively small geographic area. They are ideal for such applications. But EV's are worse than useless for long-haul transportation of people or products because of their relatively short range and relatively lengthy refueling time, especially as the total mass increases (like for over the road trucking).
The ideal general-purpose drivetrain technology is hybrid because it combines the recapture of the pure EV and the range of the ICE. Ironically, the railroads have known and used this for decades in their diesel-electric locomotives. We are simply rediscovering what has actually been known for a very long time.
My family just suited action to the words by buying a new Toyota Sienna Hybrid minivan. We've had it about six weeks and just finished our first long distance road trip with it, so we have some experience now with local, mixed, and all-highway driving. It's basically perfect. We get ridiculous mileage around town, approaching 50 MPG; we were closing in on 1000 miles before we ever had to put fuel in it. Mixed driving sees around 40 MPG. The road trip... well, there the EV aspect yields basically nothing because there's very little braking, but we still get mid 30's for MPG and the range is over 600 miles per tank. There's simply no other drivetrain that can deliver that combination of short-haul efficiency and long-haul range. I think Toyota has nailed it with their hybrid technology because it's suitable for almost every family situation.
For long haul transportation of goods I think it's still hard to beat diesel. Rail is especially efficient, and as an alternative to diesel it is relatively easy to electrify without needing huge onboard batteries.
For general purpose transportation EVs currently available can meet the needs for easily 90% of the driving done. Statistics show that most people never drive more than a few hundred miles in a stretch and commonly available EVs can already do 300 miles. I rarely drive anymore and I love the specific car I have, but if I were considering buying a brand new car EV is an absolute no-brainer for me. It's so much cheaper to run, it requires much less maintenance and it offers much better performance. It's been almost 20 years since I've driven more than 300 miles in a day but if I did need to do that I could stop at a supercharger or just rent a different car for that rare trip. When I drove my dad's Tesla Y for a few weeks I worked out that it cost me about $10 to put 300 miles in it, a hybrid would be at least 5 times that cost for fuel and wouldn't come close to touching the ~3 second 0-60 time. Granted nobody really needs such absurd acceleration but it sure is fun. I view hybrids as a stopgap while battery tech was developing, and as a niche for the small percentage of people who actually need more range. They exist obviously, but the are a minority.
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That said, I don't like them, either - can't imagine that the fuel savings outweighs the added wear and tear on the starter, battery and charging system.
You’d be wrong. Here in Switzerland, it’s been the law for many, many years that drivers are required to turn off the engine at red lights and railroad crossings, as well as when stuck in traffic jams. Consequently, both government and private entities (including pro-driver ones) have done studies over the years on both fuel savings and engine wear, and they found that it doesn’t add any engine wear at all. Meanwhile, they found that bottom line, it saves fuel to turn off the engine for any stop longer than 5-10 seconds. Two caveats they list: to not floor the gas pedal while restarting, and to not turn off the engine before it has warmed up fully. (I assume that the modern auto-stop systems and fly-by-wire controls eliminate both of these caveats.)
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That said, I don't like them, either - can't imagine that the fuel savings outweighs the added wear and tear on the starter, battery and charging system.
You’d be wrong. Here in Switzerland, it’s been the law for many, many years that drivers are required to turn off the engine at red lights and railroad crossings, as well as when stuck in traffic jams. Consequently, both government and private entities (including pro-driver ones) have done studies over the years on both fuel savings and engine wear, and they found that it doesn’t add any engine wear at all. Meanwhile, they found that bottom line, it saves fuel to turn off the engine for any stop longer than 5-10 seconds. Two caveats they list: to not floor the gas pedal while restarting, and to not turn off the engine before it has warmed up fully. (I assume that the modern auto-stop systems and fly-by-wire controls eliminate both of these caveats.)
How many miles did the cars have on them when they checked for engine wear and how did they account for variables in the way the cars were driven and maintained? Did they include wear of the starter motor too? The better systems like this use a hybrid style brushless motor on the flywheel to start the engine but many systems use a conventional starter motor, it's easy to tell by the sound. When I looked a few years ago someone driving fleet vehicles said that the fuel savings was on the order of single digit gallons per year over quite a lot of driving. Personally that fuel consumption is worth it just for a less irritating ride, I find the lag when starting up and the lurch to be obnoxiously irritating. Also at least with some of them the air conditioning stops working when the engine shuts off and warm moist air starts blowing out the vents, that's pretty miserable. Some systems at least will stop the engine from shutting off when the AC is engaged.
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The articles I found (which is many, I got lots of results from Germany, too, which has similar laws) didn’t specify the test parameters. But what they do say is that cars with auto-stop use heavier-duty starters and batteries to make up for the more frequent starts, and that they won’t stop the engine until it’s warm, and that a warm restart doesn’t cause nearly as much wear and tear as a cold start.
As for fuel savings, it’s obviously highest (up to 15% according to tests) in city driving. For Switzerland as a whole (which is a lot of rural, non-freeway driving), they estimate a savings of about one tank of gas per year on average.
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The articles I found (which is many, I got lots of results from Germany, too, which has similar laws) didn’t specify the test parameters. But what they do say is that cars with auto-stop use heavier-duty starters and batteries to make up for the more frequent starts, and that they won’t stop the engine until it’s warm, and that a warm restart doesn’t cause nearly as much wear and tear as a cold start.
As for fuel savings, it’s obviously highest (up to 15% according to tests) in city driving. For Switzerland as a whole (which is a lot of rural, non-freeway driving), they estimate a savings of about one tank of gas per year on average.
Most cars with start stop won't start stop much if you mostly drive in town, especially diesel cars, If you drive a lot on highways, they do their start stopping around town, but then that isn't a big part of their total operation, so the savings aren't great.
I've read a few studies about the effectiveness of start stop. The results seem pretty much in line with what you might expect. If the study is sponsored by a group with an interesting in promoting start stop they think its wonderful, and downplay all the negatives. If its funded by others they think its terrible, and downplay all the positives.
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I find the lag when starting up and the lurch to be obnoxiously irritating
Ah! Do you drive an automatic? Reason I ask is because both stop/start motors I drove were manual, and the act of depressing the clutch prior to selecting first (or second for the Dacia) got the motor running. So no lag and no lurch.
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I find the lag when starting up and the lurch to be obnoxiously irritating
Ah! Do you drive an automatic? Reason I ask is because both stop/start motors I drove were manual, and the act of depressing the clutch prior to selecting first (or second for the Dacia) got the motor running. So no lag and no lurch.
In most cars, automatic or manual, you lift your foot from the brake and the engine starts. In a manual, there is an interlock with the neutral position of the gearbox and the clutch. By time your foot has reached the accelerator the engine is running. The snag is in poorly maintained cars that don't start first turn, even when warmed up.
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Most cars with start stop won't start stop much if you mostly drive in town, especially diesel cars, If you drive a lot on highways, they do their start stopping around town, but then that isn't a big part of their total operation, so the savings aren't great.
LOL what? That makes NO sense. Stop and go driving in cities is exactly where they gain the largest fuel savings. (And emissions reductions, which is the actual reason behind the laws.)
I live in downtown Zurich (Switzerland’s largest city) and hear car engines stop and restart on a daily basis at crosswalks.
I've read a few studies about the effectiveness of start stop. The results seem pretty much in line with what you might expect. If the study is sponsored by a group with an interesting in promoting start stop they think its wonderful, and downplay all the negatives. If its funded by others they think its terrible, and downplay all the positives.
The source most cited in Swiss media is the TCS (Touring Club Suisse), which is an automobile club akin to AAA, and they’re decidedly pro-car, yet they still clearly support start-stop.
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Most cars with start stop won't start stop much if you mostly drive in town, especially diesel cars, If you drive a lot on highways, they do their start stopping around town, but then that isn't a big part of their total operation, so the savings aren't great.
LOL what? That makes NO sense. Stop and go driving in cities is exactly where they gain the largest fuel savings. (And emissions reductions, which is the actual reason behind the laws.)
There are several factors going on. If your car has a particulate filter its cleaning cycle status goes into the stop start logic. That can severely reduce how often you stop start in city driving, as the car won't stop start if it wants to run its cleaning cycle. Many cars now won't fully charge the battery in around town daytime driving, although you can often fool them into charging by using the headlights 100% of the time. Battery status goes into the stop start logic, preventing stop start if the battery is not fully charged. This became a big issue with covid lockdowns, where the reduced number of journeys combined town driving caused a lot of cars to completely stop using start stop. I bought a new Volvo in 2019. If stop started until covid greatly changed my driving patterns and hasn't done so since.
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In most cars, automatic or manual, you lift your foot from the brake and the engine starts.
It could do that too, but you shouldn't be riding the foot brake if you're stopped for long enough for the stop/start to engage >:D
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In most cars, automatic or manual, you lift your foot from the brake and the engine starts.
It could do that too, but you shouldn't be riding the foot brake if you're stopped for long enough for the stop/start to engage >:D
In the stop start cars I've used the engine stops the moment the car does.
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In most cars, automatic or manual, you lift your foot from the brake and the engine starts.
It could do that too, but you shouldn't be riding the foot brake if you're stopped for long enough for the stop/start to engage >:D
In the stop start cars I've used the engine stops the moment the car does.
Yes, I would expect them to. But riding the brake to keep it stopped isn't good practice. You stop, put it in neutral, activate the handbrake, foot off the brake. Fairly sure the engine should stay stopped until you dab the clutch to put it in gear. Perhaps putting your foot back on the brake might do it.
OTOH, I'm not going to go and buy one just to check that!
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OTOH, I'm not going to go and buy one just to check that!
So I did the next best thing and Googled. Came up with: https://www.dash-lights.com/dacia/stop-start-not-working/ (https://www.dash-lights.com/dacia/stop-start-not-working/)
Conditions for Engine Stop to Take Place
The vehicle has moved off from its original parked position and:
Dacia vehicles with automatic or sequential gearbox
The gear selector is in position D or N
The brake pedal is sufficiently depressed
The accelerator pedal is not depressed
The speed of the vehicle has remained at zero for at least one second
Dacia vehicles with a manual gearbox
The gear selector is in neutral
The clutch pedal is released
The stop / start warning light Dacia Stop / Start Warning Light flashes if the clutch pedal is not sufficiently released
Driver Actions Preventing Engine Stop
In certain situations, such as getting ready to move off from a busy junction for example, you may not wish for engine stop to take place. To do this:
Automatic or sequential gearbox
Engine stop will be prevented by keeping the vehicle stationary without pressing too hard on the brake pedal.
Manual gearbox
Engine stop will be prevented by keeping the clutch pedal pressed right down.
The brake is needed for the auto for obvious reasons, but on the manual it is the clutch (and gearbox) that controls it.
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It is possible to override start-stop by briefly releasing the brake pedal immediately after the wheels stop turning. The systems I've had to endure won't stop the engine when this happens. At least for now.
We should not have to trick our cars to control them.
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I don't mind the start-stop system in my VW Golf with automatic transmission at all.
A couple of observations i made:
- It only stops if i push the brakes harder that i would need to stay stopped. So i can control the system that way
- i can likewise prompt it to start by easing off the brake, but not enough to actually start rolling
- the system is only active when the motor is on temperature. Sometimes, on longer stops, the motor starts without my doing, indication not enough temperature
- I do have a button to disable start-stop, but it resets to active when i shut off the car
I think that especially the temperature thing is important, to minimize wear and tear. These systems have been very common in germany for quite some time. Yes, initially there was a lot of fear regarding excessive wear, but i have not heard about widespread issues in the last couple of years.
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I don't mind the start-stop system in my VW Golf with automatic transmission at all.
I bought a used diesel Golf before the pandemic, especially for driving to work. The 7-speed DSG automatic transmission was wonderful to drive (the first few years of these transmissions had bad reputation, but I think they'd figured out the issues). The start-stop system wasn't really necessary, because it rarely stopped. This is due to our cold weather and the thing that I mostly drove long distance without stopping. The battery in this car was also a lot under stress due to diesel heater during cold winter days and Android radio (and possibly other stuff) that consumed power even in powered off mode, so much that when the pandemic started and I worked from home it drained the battery before I disconnected it (I was able to rescue it from 0V by charging with a lab supply first). I even installed a maintenance charger because of this. My conclusion is that in this particular scenario and for the diesel engine, it would have needed a much larger battery to be effective. Otherwise I didn't mind the start-stop system. Eventually I sold the car, because now I'm working from home 95% of the time.
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Most cars with start stop won't start stop much if you mostly drive in town, especially diesel cars, If you drive a lot on highways, they do their start stopping around town, but then that isn't a big part of their total operation, so the savings aren't great.
I don't like stop-start systems, but in my experience this isn't really true. I had a VW Tiguan on loan for a few weeks while VW were fiddling with the hybrid battery in my car. It stopped the engine pretty much at every opportunity, which on my commute was fairly frequent. The exception was if you had the demister running (as that needed A/C) and the interior was at a certain high humidity level, and for the first few minutes of the drive when the engine coolant was cold. It would stop/start five times in a row. It works OK with full auto transmissions, as the clutch is not engaged until the engine is started, but for standard manual (my dad's old Passat also had stop-start, though an older version) it made it harder to drive as the engine start would often happen just as you were depressing or releasing the clutch (depending on the park brake) which made for a jerkier start.
As for fuel savings, eh... Harder to say.
I definitely prefer the pure hybrid in my current vehicle as it sets off with the electric motor then clutches the engine in - you don't even notice the stop-start behaviour. But I don't consider this a stop-start system, since it can drive at 70 mph on electric only if it needs to. It's just "select the best powertrain" mode.
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I don't mind the start-stop system in my VW Golf with automatic transmission at all.
A couple of observations i made:
- It only stops if i push the brakes harder that i would need to stay stopped. So i can control the system that way
- i can likewise prompt it to start by easing off the brake, but not enough to actually start rolling
- the system is only active when the motor is on temperature. Sometimes, on longer stops, the motor starts without my doing, indication not enough temperature
- I do have a button to disable start-stop, but it resets to active when i shut off the car
I think that especially the temperature thing is important, to minimize wear and tear. These systems have been very common in germany for quite some time. Yes, initially there was a lot of fear regarding excessive wear, but i have not heard about widespread issues in the last couple of years.
Most likely, it also considers catalyst temperature, as a catalytic converter getting too cold will impair emissions performance dramatically. This is also true of hybrid vehicles.
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I don't mind the start-stop system in my VW Golf with automatic transmission at all.
A couple of observations i made:
- It only stops if i push the brakes harder that i would need to stay stopped. So i can control the system that way
- i can likewise prompt it to start by easing off the brake, but not enough to actually start rolling
- the system is only active when the motor is on temperature. Sometimes, on longer stops, the motor starts without my doing, indication not enough temperature
- I do have a button to disable start-stop, but it resets to active when i shut off the car
I think that especially the temperature thing is important, to minimize wear and tear. These systems have been very common in germany for quite some time. Yes, initially there was a lot of fear regarding excessive wear, but i have not heard about widespread issues in the last couple of years.
Most likely, it also considers catalyst temperature, as a catalytic converter getting too cold will impair emissions performance dramatically. This is also true of hybrid vehicles.
That's a very good point, too, especially given the recent trend by manufacturers to move the cat further and further upstream to get it closer to the engine so it heats faster and lights off sooner. (That also has the added benefit of making it harder for scumbag thieves to saw it out to 'recycle' it for drug money - one of the big downsides to battery powered tools.)
-Pat
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The new radios in cars take so much current you are constantly prompted to start the engine.
A function that should use less than 1A at 12 volt for reasonable volume now needs much more to run all other crap.
I wondered why I saw soo many people sitting in their cars with the engine running in parking lots. It's a real win for the environment i tell ya.
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I ran an experiment in our new Toyota Sienna Hybrid: I "turned on" the car (which is a totally silent act!) and then turned on the air conditioning. I wondered if it would instantly fire up the engine to provide rotating mechanical power, or if the drivetrain could turn the AC compressor from battery power alone. The latter turned out to be the case. The AC started up and got cool. My wife took longer than she'd promised so it ended up running for a while until the (smallish) battery ran down enough to cause the engine to start. This experiment confirmed my faith in Toyota's handling of the hybrid system.
I'm told that Teslas, with their substantially larger batteries, have a "pet mode" where the AC runs off the battery while parked to keep pets at a comfortable temperature. AC is pretty power consumptive so I don't know how long that would last, but it's a great idea. I sure hope nobody uses it to rationalize leaving their kids in the car though.
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In modest, 25C temperatures with the interior at 18C and without too much direct sun, my car uses about 1kW for the air conditioning*. On battery alone, it could run for about 5hrs. A Toyota hybrid has a much smaller battery but I'd still expect 30 mins to be possible if it was at a high state of charge. That is one other advantage of hybrids: they do not need to idle the engine at the lights to keep the air con going. You will find many stop-start cars will just stop the A/C and engine unless the cabin is above 25C or so, but you will also notice they get warm quickly doing this. It's definitely a compromised technology.
A Tesla could probably run air con for several days if it was at a high state of charge to begin with.
*In the 42C heatwave we had recently though, the air con was up to 2.5kW, presumably as the sun sensors had detected the high level of IR which requires a lot more power to compensate for.
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Most likely, it also considers catalyst temperature, as a catalytic converter getting too cold will impair emissions performance dramatically. This is also true of hybrid vehicles.
I assume this is also why cars with particulate filters often don't stop start when used exclusively in town. They just keep trying to get things in the right state to start a cleaning cycle, and fail every time. That does, however, mean the filter gets more and more clogged.
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I find the lag when starting up and the lurch to be obnoxiously irritating
Ah! Do you drive an automatic? Reason I ask is because both stop/start motors I drove were manual, and the act of depressing the clutch prior to selecting first (or second for the Dacia) got the motor running. So no lag and no lurch.
No, I loathe automatics, but the only cars with that stupid start/stop system I've ever driven were automatics. Rental cars are universally automatic in the USA, unless you go to one of those special exotic places and rent a sports car. I hate the way things are, but manual equipped cars are almost always a special order thing over here. Even 10 years ago when my uncle bought his BMW he had to custom order it with a manual, the dealer did not have a single one on the lot. >95% of the cars on US roads have slushboxes.
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The articles I found (which is many, I got lots of results from Germany, too, which has similar laws) didn’t specify the test parameters. But what they do say is that cars with auto-stop use heavier-duty starters and batteries to make up for the more frequent starts, and that they won’t stop the engine until it’s warm, and that a warm restart doesn’t cause nearly as much wear and tear as a cold start.
As for fuel savings, it’s obviously highest (up to 15% according to tests) in city driving. For Switzerland as a whole (which is a lot of rural, non-freeway driving), they estimate a savings of about one tank of gas per year on average.
A tank of gas per year is negligible, not even remotely worth the annoyance, nevermind the higher costs of a heavy duty starter and battery, and shorter battery life. Having the starter motor replaced by a mechanic would easily consume a decade of fuel savings.
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I'm told that Teslas, with their substantially larger batteries, have a "pet mode" where the AC runs off the battery while parked to keep pets at a comfortable temperature. AC is pretty power consumptive so I don't know how long that would last, but it's a great idea. I sure hope nobody uses it to rationalize leaving their kids in the car though.
If its a hot day the AC might take a couple of kW. Lets say you have happy to sacrifice 10% of your range for this. In a typical 60kWh car your pet can be left happy for 3 hours. If you leave it alone in the car longer than that you might want to rethink how you treat your pet.
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I ran an experiment in our new Toyota Sienna Hybrid: I "turned on" the car (which is a totally silent act!) and then turned on the air conditioning. I wondered if it would instantly fire up the engine to provide rotating mechanical power, or if the drivetrain could turn the AC compressor from battery power alone. The latter turned out to be the case. The AC started up and got cool. My wife took longer than she'd promised so it ended up running for a while until the (smallish) battery ran down enough to cause the engine to start. This experiment confirmed my faith in Toyota's handling of the hybrid system.
I'm told that Teslas, with their substantially larger batteries, have a "pet mode" where the AC runs off the battery while parked to keep pets at a comfortable temperature. AC is pretty power consumptive so I don't know how long that would last, but it's a great idea. I sure hope nobody uses it to rationalize leaving their kids in the car though.
A lot of modern cars don't have an engine driven AC compressor, they have an electric compressor instead which makes this possible. Tesla does indeed have a "dog mode" and there's also a camping mode that will keep the HVAC going. You can also use the mobile app to turn on the AC (or heat) remotely so the car is comfortable by the time you get in it to go. They have ~80kWh of battery capacity so the AC could run for days if you wanted it to.
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A lot of modern cars don't have an engine driven AC compressor, they have an electric compressor instead which makes this possible.
Not sure which Toyota uses in the hybrid Sienna. But their clever transmission permits the drivetrain to be powered by the engine, the electric motor, or both simultaneously. I watched a detailed video teardown of that transmission and it's a marvel of packaging and creativity. They didn't go into the control algorithm but I bet there's a lot going on... to avoid "short circuiting" one prime mover into the other you'd need to detect lead/lag on both the engine and motor and modulate accordingly. My point is that they end up generating rotating mechanical power at the output of the transmission no matter which prime mover(s) is/are running. So they could be using either a mechanical or electrical compressor. I'll try to find out which.
Just ~1000 watts to power the AC? With the solar gain from all that glass surface area, outdoors? Impressive. A 12K BTU single-room window unit draws ~1200 watts and I'd think it would require more than that to overcome the solar gain. Seems like I heard a "automobile HP consumed" value in the mid single digits a few years ago, but maybe they were wrong. Definitely better than I expected, for sure.
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My pet peeve is when I ask a question and I don't get told the answer, just told I am stupid.
"It's obvious"
If it was obvious then I wouldn't be asking.
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All Toyota hybrids use electric AC compressors. It's been this way since the first gen Prius.
AC power for these systems is entirely dependent on the temperature delta. If it's only 10C or so (18C cabin, 28C exterior) then 1kW is probably enough - and 200W or so will go to running the interior fan and (if stopped) the exterior fan. For bigger differences, of course power needs to go up. The system in my car is rated somewhere around 24000 BTU, which is about what you'd need to cool an entire floor of a small house in the UK.
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All Toyota hybrids use electric AC compressors. It's been this way since the first gen Prius.
Thanks for confirming!
AC power for these systems is entirely dependent on the temperature delta. If it's only 10C or so (18C cabin, 28C exterior) then 1kW is probably enough - and 200W or so will go to running the interior fan and (if stopped) the exterior fan. For bigger differences, of course power needs to go up.
Interesting. I did not expect the compressor to be a variable load. I presumed it simply "ran" like a pump and temperature was controlled by mixing chilled vs. ambient air in the cabin. Most pressure pumps (which is what a compressor really is) don't run across a wide RPM range. Maybe there's a different pump design, because obviously running its electric motor over a wide range of RPM's would be trivial.
The system in my car is rated somewhere around 24000 BTU, which is about what you'd need to cool an entire floor of a small house in the UK.
So about twice a typical whole-room window AC unit. That sounds about right, given the roof area and huge solar gain from all that glass.
Thanks for the feedback!
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Interesting. I did not expect the compressor to be a variable load. I presumed it simply "ran" like a pump and temperature was controlled by mixing chilled vs. ambient air in the cabin. Most pressure pumps (which is what a compressor really is) don't run across a wide RPM range. Maybe there's a different pump design, because obviously running its electric motor over a wide range of RPM's would be trivial.
Many ground source heat pumps are nowadays variable. In our house, the heat pump (Nibe) has a Mitsubishi compressor with a BLDC motor that is varied between 20 rps and 120 rps depending on load.
There are multiple benefits. It is whisper quiet at light loads (most of the time), startup is easy for all involved components (no sudden current rush), temperature regulation is optimized and so is heat output (efficiency).
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Interesting. I did not expect the compressor to be a variable load. I presumed it simply "ran" like a pump and temperature was controlled by mixing chilled vs. ambient air in the cabin. Most pressure pumps (which is what a compressor really is) don't run across a wide RPM range. Maybe there's a different pump design, because obviously running its electric motor over a wide range of RPM's would be trivial.
Yes, it's variable speed. One consequence of this is your valves need to be electronically metered as well... not exactly sure how that works though. A simple 'bang bang' controller as used on a regular ICE doesn't need this. As to why they do it? My guess is the motivation is the same as for fridges with inverters, it's slightly more efficient. The motors are usually 3 phase AC induction, so speed control is trivial, it's just a VFD which you needed anyway.
For EVs, the system is often reversible as a true heat pump to provide mild heat in winter (usually reinforced with a PTC air heater to get the cabin up to temperature a little quicker in very cold conditions.)
On my vehicle, the AC system runs year round to provide demisting and humidity control; you can often see it pulling just 200-300W at very light load to provide this function (you need a fraction of the power to dehumidify as you do to cool.) I don't know if variable speed control makes this more practical, but maybe it makes it less noisy and that's one benefit especially for an otherwise virtually silent vehicle (barring the odd pump whirr I hear sometimes.)
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Variable apeture valves operate using a solenoid to pull the needle away from the seat. They need feedback, mostly from having pressure transducers in the compressor high side by the accumulator after the refrigerant is compressed and cooled, pressure by the suction of the compressor, and temperature of the condenser coil, evaporator and also interior and exterior temperature. This then is used to control the flow so the maximum possible drop is possible with the flow from the compressor, but also keeping the evaporator coil just above freezing, so it does not ice up. If it detects the coil is freezing up, it will throttle back the compressor, and open the valve to a higher flow rate, so the hot refrigerant can defrost the coil.
Of course with the tiny amount of R1234YF refrigerant in the system, it will set an error code, if only 2% of the refrigerant is lost through the compressor seals. That is why you need a computer controlled charging system to get the system charged, it has to communicate with the vehicle, to use all those sensors and verify them over a wide range.
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This then is used to control the flow so the maximum possible drop is possible with the flow from the compressor, but also keeping the evaporator coil just above freezing, so it does not ice up. If it detects the coil is freezing up, it will throttle back the compressor, and open the valve to a higher flow rate, so the hot refrigerant can defrost the coil.
Very interesting. I had thought about such variables with respect to an idea I had about chilling our waterfront home using water drawn from below the lake's thermoclime. I haven't studied modern refrigeration systems in a very long time, and back when I did they were hyper-simple constant speed zero sensor systems. Sounds like they've gone the way of internal combustion and turbine engines... a basic version can be very simple but to get that last percent of efficiency adds heaping gobs of instrumention.
For my lake-chilled idea I figured I'd need to modulate flow based on temperature drop across the coil. There's no chance of coil freeze-up with liquid water refrigerant but might as well minimize the GPM flow to ease wear and power consumption.
EDIT: We just added an AC compressor to our house last year, and the parts of its installation that I didn't do personally I watched very carefully. The coil in the house has no sensors that I saw, and the compressor runs at a constant speed using a standard AC synchronous motor. The control wiring going to the outside compressor consists of ground and one signal wire, which use 24VDC to close the contactor that powers up the unit (e.g. not variable speed). Given your comments above I'm surprised that this latest-generation system isn't more instrumented... it's a LOT bigger (60K BTU) and therefore represents a better energy efficiency target than a vehicle AC system.
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The articles I found (which is many, I got lots of results from Germany, too, which has similar laws) didn’t specify the test parameters. But what they do say is that cars with auto-stop use heavier-duty starters and batteries to make up for the more frequent starts, and that they won’t stop the engine until it’s warm, and that a warm restart doesn’t cause nearly as much wear and tear as a cold start.
As for fuel savings, it’s obviously highest (up to 15% according to tests) in city driving. For Switzerland as a whole (which is a lot of rural, non-freeway driving), they estimate a savings of about one tank of gas per year on average.
A tank of gas per year is negligible, not even remotely worth the annoyance, nevermind the higher costs of a heavy duty starter and battery, and shorter battery life. Having the starter motor replaced by a mechanic would easily consume a decade of fuel savings.
Again, there’s no evidence that the starter motors or batteries are suffering from this, and these systems have been around for a while now.
As for the increased cost of the new car: I’d be surprised the added cost exceeded $100, and it would not surprise me in the least if it was more like $10. Cars are fundamentally built down to cost to an extreme degree, so adding a bit of reinforcement likely costs very, very little.
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I ran an experiment in our new Toyota Sienna Hybrid: I "turned on" the car (which is a totally silent act!) and then turned on the air conditioning. I wondered if it would instantly fire up the engine to provide rotating mechanical power, or if the drivetrain could turn the AC compressor from battery power alone. The latter turned out to be the case. The AC started up and got cool. My wife took longer than she'd promised so it ended up running for a while until the (smallish) battery ran down enough to cause the engine to start. This experiment confirmed my faith in Toyota's handling of the hybrid system.
My Honda CR-V hybrid is the same as your Sienna. Even here in the Sonoran Desert, where AC is a must, the AC runs even when the car's motor is not.
One thing i noticed is that the engine will start when you run the cabin heater, and it will continue to run until the engine reaches some standard temperature. I presume that the car uses a standard heater core fed by the coolant. Maybe a resistive heater is too complicated/power-hungry?
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One thing i noticed is that the engine will start when you run the cabin heater, and it will continue to run until the engine reaches some standard temperature. I presume that the car uses a standard heater core fed by the coolant. Maybe a resistive heater is too complicated/power-hungry?
"If you want heat, burn something." Resistive heat is fine for small things (like TCXO's) but if you're heating larger spaces it's a poor approach. Yes, I know entire buildings are heated with electricity but that doesn't make it a good idea.
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One thing i noticed is that the engine will start when you run the cabin heater, and it will continue to run until the engine reaches some standard temperature. I presume that the car uses a standard heater core fed by the coolant. Maybe a resistive heater is too complicated/power-hungry?
"If you want heat, burn something." Resistive heat is fine for small things (like TCXO's) but if you're heating larger spaces it's a poor approach. Yes, I know entire buildings are heated with electricity but that doesn't make it a good idea.
Most modern EVs use a heat pump for both heating and A/C. When you already have an internal combustion engine though there is a huge supply of waste heat so it makes sense to use that to heat the cabin. Even with the engine shut off you will have heat for quite some time if you keep the coolant circulating.
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Again, there’s no evidence that the starter motors or batteries are suffering from this, and these systems have been around for a while now.
As for the increased cost of the new car: I’d be surprised the added cost exceeded $100, and it would not surprise me in the least if it was more like $10. Cars are fundamentally built down to cost to an extreme degree, so adding a bit of reinforcement likely costs very, very little.
I only have a sample size of one which is not very significant, but I had a coworker with an SUV that had one of these systems and he said he was replacing the battery every couple of years. It's hard to say if it was due to that system, but it stands to reason that the more you use something, the faster it will wear out.
Either way the main issue for me is that they are annoying, the starting and stopping engine is jarring to me, and the ones that use a conventional starter are noisy. The fuel savings are negligible and the whole thing is political more than anything and a way to game the way emissions are measured.
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We just added an AC compressor to our house last year, and the parts of its installation that I didn't do personally I watched very carefully. The coil in the house has no sensors that I saw, and the compressor runs at a constant speed using a standard AC synchronous motor. The control wiring going to the outside compressor consists of ground and one signal wire, which use 24VDC to close the contactor that powers up the unit (e.g. not variable speed). Given your comments above I'm surprised that this latest-generation system isn't more instrumented... it's a LOT bigger (60K BTU) and therefore represents a better energy efficiency target than a vehicle AC system.
Most of them are that simple, I think current efficiency standards have essentially mandated a TXV rather than the fixed orifice that was pretty much the norm for a long time. They're starting to use ECM (BLDC) motors for the fans in more and more of them these days too rather than the old PSC induction motors. Quite a bit of energy savings there, especially at low speeds. Really high end systems use inverter drives so the compressor is variable speed and have sensors but you don't really see that until the top end of the efficiency range and you pay a substantial premium. If you live in a really hot climate it could make sense to go with something like that but where I am there are diminishing returns on increasing A/C efficiency, I only spend about $20/mo on additional electricity during the peak summer heat with the 18 year old single stage system I installed 18 years ago.
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Not sure which Toyota uses in the hybrid Sienna. But their clever transmission permits the drivetrain to be powered by the engine, the electric motor, or both simultaneously. I watched a detailed video teardown of that transmission and it's a marvel of packaging and creativity. They didn't go into the control algorithm but I bet there's a lot going on... to avoid "short circuiting" one prime mover into the other you'd need to detect lead/lag on both the engine and motor and modulate accordingly. My point is that they end up generating rotating mechanical power at the output of the transmission no matter which prime mover(s) is/are running. So they could be using either a mechanical or electrical compressor. I'll try to find out which.
Just ~1000 watts to power the AC? With the solar gain from all that glass surface area, outdoors? Impressive. A 12K BTU single-room window unit draws ~1200 watts and I'd think it would require more than that to overcome the solar gain. Seems like I heard a "automobile HP consumed" value in the mid single digits a few years ago, but maybe they were wrong. Definitely better than I expected, for sure.
The drivetrain yes, but an engine driven A/C compressor is on the accessory end of the engine so it won't rotate unless the crankshaft is rotating. Technically I suppose it would be possible to mount the compressor on the transmission instead but I've never seen it.
It's hard to find specs on this but I recall being told once that a typical automotive A/C system is about 2 tons, or 24k BTU/hr. It takes about 1HP per ton of refrigeration capacity to drive the compressor, so an electrically powered system with a hermetic compressor draws about 1kW per ton. With an engine driven compressor you have belt losses which for a V-belt can be pretty significant and I'm sure the efficiency is not helped by the fact that engine speed (thus compressor speed) varies without any relation to needed cooling capacity.
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They're starting to use ECM (BLDC) motors for the fans in more and more of them these days too rather than the old PSC induction motors. Quite a bit of energy savings there, especially at low speeds.
Is that residential, or commercial? Really big systems for commercial installations could justify the additional expense but I wonder if it would be worth it for a single family residence.
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All Toyota hybrids use electric AC compressors. It's been this way since the first gen Prius.
AC power for these systems is entirely dependent on the temperature delta. If it's only 10C or so (18C cabin, 28C exterior) then 1kW is probably enough - and 200W or so will go to running the interior fan and (if stopped) the exterior fan. For bigger differences, of course power needs to go up. The system in my car is rated somewhere around 24000 BTU, which is about what you'd need to cool an entire floor of a small house in the UK.
IIRC it's not the temperature delta but the condenser temperature. The pressure in the condenser coil is directly related to the temperature of the refrigerant within it and the mechanical load on the compressor is directly related to the pressure of the refrigerant it is compressing. The higher the condenser temperature, the more mechanical energy is required to drive the compressor. The temperature of the evaporator will be fairly constant, although the more heat it absorbs from the air, the more refrigerant needs to be admitted into it by the TXV. With my home AC the measured power consumption is certainly dependent on outdoor temperature, though the indoor temperature doesn't vary much.
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I'm sure the efficiency is not helped by the fact that engine speed (thus compressor speed) varies without any relation to needed cooling capacity.
I've often wondered how AC compressors handle the varying input RPM's, which can have a 10:1 dynamic range in a gasoline engine (diesels are about 5:1 or 6:1 max). This has been a problem since AC was first introduced in cars back in the, what, 70's? Back then it would have had to be a purely mechanical solution. I wonder if they just put a pressure regulator on the output and short-circuit the unnecessary flow back to tank like most fuel systems. To get adequate cooling while idling means the compressor would be massively oversized given that typical engine operation at cruising speeds is ~2000 RPM. Typical idles are about 1/3rd of that.
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With my home AC the measured power consumption is certainly dependent on outdoor temperature, though the indoor temperature doesn't vary much.
You'd expect that regardless of the design, since the system is being asked to remove excess heat and a higher outdoor temperature means a greater delta to your constant indoor temperature.
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They're starting to use ECM (BLDC) motors for the fans in more and more of them these days too rather than the old PSC induction motors. Quite a bit of energy savings there, especially at low speeds.
Is that residential, or commercial? Really big systems for commercial installations could justify the additional expense but I wonder if it would be worth it for a single family residence.
Residential. I have put in a couple of forced air furnaces recently that had ECM blowers, virtually all of the mid to high efficiency units already have those and the efficiency requirements keep getting higher. I've put in a couple of those mini split heat pumps that are inverter drive and super high efficiency, something like 30 SEER. A friend of mine had a larger Mitsubushi split system installed in his house last year that is inverter drive. I looked at them when I did the install at my brother's house but the variable speed AC would have been more than double the cost and in the climate here it would probably never pay back, we only need A/C for a month or so out of the year.
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Again, there’s no evidence that the starter motors or batteries are suffering from this, and these systems have been around for a while now.
As for the increased cost of the new car: I’d be surprised the added cost exceeded $100, and it would not surprise me in the least if it was more like $10. Cars are fundamentally built down to cost to an extreme degree, so adding a bit of reinforcement likely costs very, very little.
I only have a sample size of one which is not very significant, but I had a coworker with an SUV that had one of these systems and he said he was replacing the battery every couple of years. It's hard to say if it was due to that system, but it stands to reason that the more you use something, the faster it will wear out.
Either way the main issue for me is that they are annoying, the starting and stopping engine is jarring to me, and the ones that use a conventional starter are noisy. The fuel savings are negligible and the whole thing is political more than anything and a way to game the way emissions are measured.
I can barely hear (or feel) when the engine on my hybrid CR-V turns on. It's remarkable. Now I suppose that's not fair to compare the hybrid system with a standard gasoline-only car, as there might be a slight lag while the gas motor starts up in the latter. In the hybrid, the batteries can move the vehicle until the engine starts and the transition between the two is seamless.
As for battery life, well, I live in the Sonoran Desert, and replacing car batteries every two years is just standard.
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I'm sure the efficiency is not helped by the fact that engine speed (thus compressor speed) varies without any relation to needed cooling capacity.
I've often wondered how AC compressors handle the varying input RPM's, which can have a 10:1 dynamic range in a gasoline engine (diesels are about 5:1 or 6:1 max). This has been a problem since AC was first introduced in cars back in the, what, 70's? Back then it would have had to be a purely mechanical solution. I wonder if they just put a pressure regulator on the output and short-circuit the unnecessary flow back to tank like most fuel systems. To get adequate cooling while idling means the compressor would be massively oversized given that typical engine operation at cruising speeds is ~2000 RPM. Typical idles are about 1/3rd of that.
The older ones don't really do anything special, they are oversized at high engine RPM and don't perform as well at idle, being optimized for best efficiency at typical cruise RPM. With a fixed orifice system you just piss refrigerant into the evaporator at a rate dependent on the pressure delta between the high and low side and any refrigerant that doesn't boil off flows into the receiver where it is gradually fed back to the compressor. With a TXV the charge is metered into the evaporator as needed so excess refrigerant will back up into the condenser. You can fit the entire charge into the condenser and plumbing between the compressor and evaporator so if the compressor is spinning really fast you'll just see the suction side pressure drop as more and more of the refrigerant is sitting in the high side.
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I can barely hear (or feel) when the engine on my hybrid CR-V turns on. It's remarkable. Now I suppose that's not fair to compare the hybrid system with a standard gasoline-only car, as there might be a slight lag while the gas motor starts up in the latter. In the hybrid, the batteries can move the vehicle until the engine starts and the transition between the two is seamless.
As for battery life, well, I live in the Sonoran Desert, and replacing car batteries every two years is just standard.
Hybrid systems are different, they have a large brushless motor/generator that can start the engine almost instantly and even move the car on their own. Some of the better start/stop systems use the same type of motor/generator as both the starter and alternator. Many of these systems though use a conventional starter motor, it sounds just like a regular car starting and the starter motor is not powerful enough to propel the car. There is a very noticeable clack as the bendix engages the flywheel teeth.
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Residential. I have put in a couple of forced air furnaces recently that had ECM blowers
Yep, I know furnaces have had variable speed blowers for a while now. But I wasn't aware that residential compressor/condenser units (the big, outdoor, mostly empty box with the fan and lots of radiator surface area) had variable speed motors in either application (fan or compressor).
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Residential. I have put in a couple of forced air furnaces recently that had ECM blowers
Yep, I know furnaces have had variable speed blowers for a while now. But I wasn't aware that residential compressor/condenser units (the big, outdoor, mostly empty box with the fan and lots of radiator surface area) had variable speed motors in either application (fan or compressor).
This is an example of one: https://hvacdirect.com/3-ton-20-seer-goodman-high-efficiency-ac-with-inverter-technology-gvxc200361.html
Note the price of this 20 SEER inverter unit is about 4.5x that of a 13 SEER single speed system of the same capacity.
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Note the price of this 20 SEER inverter unit is about 4.5x that of a 13 SEER single speed system of the same capacity.
Yep... as with everything, the cost-benefit curve goes asymptotic. Just like ICE's and turbine engines. Squeezing out that last little bit of efficiency adds a lot of complexity and a lot of expense. That's why I'm surprised the payback works on smallish residential units like your example.
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I don't know if the payback works, but they are available for those who want the best. I suppose in a hot climate with expensive electricity you might come out ahead but I haven't done the math. Certainly where I am with a mild climate and relatively cheap electricity it wouldn't make economic sense. They do have performance and noise level benefits though so I guess if a person has the money it could make sense.
That said, I could install one of these high end things myself for about the same price as hiring a company to come out and put in one of the cheap ones.
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I don't know if the payback works, but they are available for those who want the best. I suppose in a hot climate with expensive electricity you might come out ahead but I haven't done the math. Certainly where I am with a mild climate and relatively cheap electricity it wouldn't make economic sense. They do have performance and noise level benefits though so I guess if a person has the money it could make sense.
I think you nailed it on both counts. Our HVAC company's rep, while visiting here to quote, said "We carry the highest efficiency units for those people who put more emphasis on energy savings than money." That message is pretty clear.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we might run our AC for a few days during a 2-3 week period. And we have relatively inexpensive hydropower. So the math definitely does NOT pencil out, the most efficient units don't make sense unless your goal is to absolutely positively minimize your "footprint" - in which case why are you buying AC at all?
That said, I could install one of these high end things myself for about the same price as hiring a company to come out and put in one of the cheap ones.
We normally do all of our own work too, and I came very close to doing this myself. But I eventually chose to go with a friend at an HVAC company because I don't have the refrigerant equipment, don't have any experience using it, and therefore wanted someone else I could call if things didn't work properly. I still did my own electrical, pad prep, permitting, etc. Just not the copper lineset and charging.
Generally I find that for the same amount of money as hiring out a job I can buy all of the associated tools and then I'm set forever, but I doubted I'd need the gas equipment that often. That last rule, however, has left me with a lot of "unusual" tools. Most people don't own things like rotohammers, concrete coring bits, and full-size Case 580SK loader-backhoes. But once you DO own such things it's amazing how you can no longer live without them... the projects just appear like magic!
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I've always looked at projects as an excuse to buy additional tools, and you're absolutely right - once you have them, you find plenty of additional uses further down the line. Unfortunately I've not yet done anything that could justify my buying a loader/backhoe, but don't think I wouldn't like to!
-Pat
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The first time I put in a split system I did it myself because it was not long after I bought my house and I was broke. I made a vacuum pump out of a surplus rotary compressor for a window AC unit and I bought the manifold and other tools on ebay. The equipment was scratch & dent stuff I got for a fraction the retail price from a local ebay seller. In total I spent less than $1600 installing a high efficiency condensing furnace and 3 ton heat pump and that system is still working to this day. Over the years word got around and friends started asking me to install systems for them, I acquired better tools over time because I could just ask them to buy me a tool needed in exchange for doing the work. The attitude I have gotten from various people in the HVAC industry further motivated me to keep doing it myself, and I vowed never to give them a dime. I've gotten pretty good at it and I think most would be hard pressed to identify one of my installs as a DIY job. In fact I've seen "professional" installs I thought were much sloppier.
One thing that can tip things in favor of the highest efficiency system is if it's a heat pump rather than A/C. When you use the same system for both heating and cooling the higher efficiency can pay off more quickly.
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I've gotten pretty good at it and I think most would be hard pressed to identify one of my installs as a DIY job. In fact I've seen "professional" installs I thought were much sloppier.
I share your opinions. Much respect for your DIY. Someday I'll share the project that caused us to buy the loader/backhoe... it involves lots of two-ton blocks of concrete.
One thing that can tip things in favor of the highest efficiency system is if it's a heat pump rather than A/C. When you use the same system for both heating and cooling the higher efficiency can pay off more quickly.
I had the same thought. Using a single device to work both directions could definitely help things pencil out. In our case we replaced a 25YO natgas furnace with a more efficient natgas unit, plus the aforementioned "traditional" AC system, as both natgas and electricity are relatively inexpensive here. Heating is a much larger consideration here in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at 48 north latitude so we optimized for that.
Ironically, we made the decision to install AC and only afterwards decided to update the furnace. While the old unit was still working, it had always been a bit undersized and the effort to install the AC coil in it would have to be duplicated if it failed anytime soon. So we decided to buy some insurance against EOL furnace failure and lower our natgas consumption in the process.
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Yeah once you're installing an AC coil you've done about 90% of the work required to replace the furnace so unless the furnace is relatively new and in good shape I'd probably replace it at the same time too.
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25 years old and undersized, meaning it had been working hard its whole life. Replaced!
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As for battery life, well, I live in the Sonoran Desert, and replacing car batteries every two years is just standard.
I just replaced the hybrid battery in my 2009 Civic Hybrid. I had it replaced under warranty at 68K miles, Honda did a software mod to improve battery life, and the 2nd battery went bad at 185K miles. But, that one was on ME! I ended up getting a rebuilt pack from Bumblebee batteries, and it is working very well.
Jon
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25 years old and undersized, meaning it had been working hard its whole life. Replaced!
It's rare to encounter an undersized furnace, usually they're oversized. Properly sized it should run almost continuously in the coldest weather, which in the PWN doesn't happen very often. Too big and they short cycle which is not particularly good for comfort or for the heat exchangers.
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It's rare to encounter an undersized furnace, usually they're oversized. Properly sized it should run almost continuously in the coldest weather, which in the PWN doesn't happen very often. Too big and they short cycle which is not particularly good for comfort or for the heat exchangers.
In addition to being undersized, the original HVAC contractor for this house (long before we owned it) did a TERRIBLE installation job. Their worst offense was horrific intake restriction... there were only two intakes for the entire house and both were achieved by drilling a few one-inch holes through the bottom 2x4 in interior walls, then sticking a grille on the drywall. Total cross sectional area wasn't even close to the 16x25 filter surface area at the blower intake. This starved the blower for intake air for the first several years of its life.
Starving the intake is one of the worst things you can do to any pump, moving any medium.
When I saw what had been done, I cut a huge rectangular opening in the return ducting as a stop-gap measure. Later, when we remodeled the lower level, *I* designed entirely new ductwork and had them relocate the furnace too. The HVAC guys weren't used to homeowners designing their own ductwork but they did what I asked, including large-radius curves instead of sharp corners on both supply and return ducts to minimize turbulence and improve efficiency, and having TWO return paths from separate sections of the house, each with its own separate 16x25 filter (the blower now draws from both sides of the furnace enclosure, then exhausts upward into the firebox). When the AC was recently installed the new HVAC guys, with no prompting from me, commented very positively on the ductwork. "Someone was really thinking when they did this." :-+
Part of the decision to proactively replace the furnace was because I knew the poor thing had strained under insufficient airflow for years before we showed up. That would have caused excessive heat in the firebox with all of its associated ills, which cannot have lengthened its service life.
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Insufficient return air ducting is also something I've encountered a lot. It surprised me given the relative simplicity of the return side but when I have encountered excessive static pressure the return side has almost always been the worst offender. Low static pressures are especially important for heat pumps and modern high efficiency condensing furnaces, they're designed to move more air and have much lower bonnet temperatures than older furnaces so they need larger ducting.
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Either way the main issue for me is that they are annoying, the starting and stopping engine is jarring to me, and the ones that use a conventional starter are noisy. The fuel savings are negligible and the whole thing is political more than anything and a way to game the way emissions are measured.
I have a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid. It has a CVT and the start/stop is about as seamless as anything I have ever experienced. You take your foot off the brake, and the engine is instantly (and pretty silently) started by the traction motor. The transmission engages a "start clutch" like a wet pack motorcycle clutch under computer control, and then engages it further when you press on the "gas" pedal. The only thing that is annoying with it, is if you have to back up a hill, the start clutch shudders a bit.
The only other issue is if you come to a stop in winter, and the engine is barely warm enough to stop, then while sitting, it may need to restart.
You have to kep your foot FIRMLY on the brake under these conditions, or the car may start to roll before you can react. They ought to give a warning beep before the restart.
Jon
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I ran an experiment in our new Toyota Sienna Hybrid:
I have a Honda Civic Hybrid (2009) that has a dual compressor. There is a belt-driven scroll compressor in the same housing as an electrically-driven compressor. The power train computer can select to run either depending on need, but it runs the electric compressor when the engine is stopped.
Jon
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Why do split ACs have a drip pan under the evaporator .... but no easy way to access the drain when it clogs?
Yesterday a sudden waterfall came out of my wall, I had to take the housing off the unit and reach in to see the gunk blocking the drain. It was fixed in 30 seconds but now I can't get the housing back on.
Why isn't there a hole in the casing or a brush already inside that you can manually jiggle without having to take the cover off?
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Welcome to the omnipresent reality of unserviceable product design. I try very hard to keep in-field service in mind for my designs, often at belittlement from my peers. Too many Engineers have never actually had to WORK on things in the real world. If you've been on your back in a pool of oil, reaching up into the dark greasy confines of some machine to access a poorly placed control module or filter or whatever, with accumulated dirt and leaves and mouse poop falling into your face, those experiences stay with you and improve your own later designs. "You know, an access panel would have made this so much faster and easier and cleaner."
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The only other issue is if you come to a stop in winter, and the engine is barely warm enough to stop, then while sitting, it may need to restart.
You have to kep your foot FIRMLY on the brake under these conditions, or the car may start to roll before you can react. They ought to give a warning beep before the restart.
The owner's manual for my 2021 CR-V hybrid is pretty clear about the possibility of "creeping" if you take your foot off of the brake pedal. It really feels like the car has a standard gasoline engine and automatic transmission.
Thing is, my other cars have manual transmissions, so this whole "brake" thing is alien to me.
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As for battery life, well, I live in the Sonoran Desert, and replacing car batteries every two years is just standard.
I just replaced the hybrid battery in my 2009 Civic Hybrid. I had it replaced under warranty at 68K miles, Honda did a software mod to improve battery life, and the 2nd battery went bad at 185K miles. But, that one was on ME! I ended up getting a rebuilt pack from Bumblebee batteries, and it is working very well.
Jon
Just to clarify -- the batteries I mentioned are the 12 V batteries, not the main hybrid drive pack batteries.
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I have a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid. It has a CVT and the start/stop is about as seamless as anything I have ever experienced. You take your foot off the brake, and the engine is instantly (and pretty silently) started by the traction motor. The transmission engages a "start clutch" like a wet pack motorcycle clutch under computer control, and then engages it further when you press on the "gas" pedal. The only thing that is annoying with it, is if you have to back up a hill, the start clutch shudders a bit.
The only other issue is if you come to a stop in winter, and the engine is barely warm enough to stop, then while sitting, it may need to restart.
You have to kep your foot FIRMLY on the brake under these conditions, or the car may start to roll before you can react. They ought to give a warning beep before the restart.
Jon
I'll clarify once again that I'm NOT talking about hybrids. I'm talking about conventional gasoline powered vehicles that automatically stop the engine when you stop the car. They are NOT as seamless as a hybrid because they lack the large battery and electric motor that can get the car moving, they just have a conventional engine and starter motor so there is a lag as the engine starts up.
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Why do split ACs have a drip pan under the evaporator .... but no easy way to access the drain when it clogs?
Yesterday a sudden waterfall came out of my wall, I had to take the housing off the unit and reach in to see the gunk blocking the drain. It was fixed in 30 seconds but now I can't get the housing back on.
Why isn't there a hole in the casing or a brush already inside that you can manually jiggle without having to take the cover off?
I know it can happen but I've never encountered a clogged one. My evaporator is uncased and is mounted in the supply plenum, the cover over the hole I cut to install it is easily removable if I need to access it. Cased coils normally have a cover that can be removed but it's often tricky. In more recent installs I've done I used cleanout elbows in strategic locations on the condensate drain to make cleaning easier.
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I'm talking about conventional gasoline powered vehicles that automatically stop the engine when you stop the car. They are NOT as seamless as a hybrid because they lack the large battery and electric motor that can get the car moving, they just have a conventional engine and starter motor so there is a lag as the engine starts up.
I'll second this. Earlier in this thread I joined the complaints about these auto-stop engines, and I too meant traditional ICE engines that behave this way. We now have a brand new hybrid vehicle (our first) which obviously stop-starts its engine frequently and I will concede it manages that cycle much, much better for all the reasons already described above.
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The owner's manual for my 2021 CR-V hybrid is pretty clear about the possibility of "creeping" if you take your foot off of the brake pedal. It really feels like the car has a standard gasoline engine and automatic transmission.
Thing is, my other cars have manual transmissions, so this whole "brake" thing is alien to me.
My PHEV creeps under pure EV mode. It will stop if you press the brake, but if you just tap the accelerator it will continue to creep.
I don't mind creep mode, even for an EV, it makes it much easier to drive at low speeds because modulating a brake to slow down gives you more control than alternating between an accelerator and a brake. You just have to make sure you've switched "modes" in your mind at low speeds.
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...modulating a brake to slow down gives you more control than alternating between an accelerator and a brake...
Good manual transmission drivers don't have to switch between the accelerator and the brake. I just came back from a fun ~2 hour drive to get lunch and even in the twisties I hardly touched the brake pedal. Shift to keep the engine in its responsive midband range and you can do everything but a full stop by modulating just the accelerator pedal. Look up "leading and lagging throttle".
EDIT: I realized that "throttle lag" has a different meaning to many people - implying "slow response time" - than what I meant above. To be clear: In a given gear at a given speed, there is a throttle point where the engine is perfectly sync'd and is neither putting energy into the drivetrain nor bleeding energy out of it. If you back off a bit more, the engine will start slowing down the car and that's called a "lagging throttle". Conversely, if you push into the throttle a bit more, the engine will start speeding up the car and that's called a "leading throttle". If the engine is in its midrange (usually 3-5K RPM) it can have sufficiently fast response that you don't have to use the brakes, so your foot never leaves the one pedal. Another alternative is heel-toe but that's mostly for shifting, not ongoing driving.
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I'm talking about conventional gasoline powered vehicles that automatically stop the engine when you stop the car. They are NOT as seamless as a hybrid because they lack the large battery and electric motor that can get the car moving, they just have a conventional engine and starter motor so there is a lag as the engine starts up.
I'll second this. Earlier in this thread I joined the complaints about these auto-stop engines, and I too meant traditional ICE engines that behave this way. We now have a brand new hybrid vehicle (our first) which obviously stop-starts its engine frequently and I will concede it manages that cycle much, much better for all the reasons already described above.
I still come back to wondering why we don't have after-market drop-in replacement engine management controllers. I understand the use case is low and what not, but if they can churn out fake i-phones, there should be a market for people annoyed with the factory hardware of their cars. Or is that proportion of car owners way down in the noise?
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I'm talking about conventional gasoline powered vehicles that automatically stop the engine when you stop the car. They are NOT as seamless as a hybrid because they lack the large battery and electric motor that can get the car moving, they just have a conventional engine and starter motor so there is a lag as the engine starts up.
I'll second this. Earlier in this thread I joined the complaints about these auto-stop engines, and I too meant traditional ICE engines that behave this way. We now have a brand new hybrid vehicle (our first) which obviously stop-starts its engine frequently and I will concede it manages that cycle much, much better for all the reasons already described above.
I still come back to wondering why we don't have after-market drop-in replacement engine management controllers. I understand the use case is low and what not, but if they can churn out fake i-phones, there should be a market for people annoyed with the factory hardware of their cars. Or is that proportion of car owners way down in the noise?
We do, kind of, I've been running Megasquirt in one of my cars more than a decade now. It's not really "drop in" though. A large part of the reason such things don't exist are the fact that the vast majority of people have no interest in replacing their engine management, and a larger issue is that at least in the USA they are illegal for street vehicles because it is considered tampering with the emissions control devices. I would guess that at least 98% of cars go from the showroom to the scrapyard with nothing more than a bumper sticker or seat cover in the way of modifications.
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...modulating a brake to slow down gives you more control than alternating between an accelerator and a brake...
Good manual transmission drivers don't have to switch between the accelerator and the brake. I just came back from a fun ~2 hour drive to get lunch and even in the twisties I hardly touched the brake pedal. Shift to keep the engine in its responsive midband range and you can do everything but a full stop by modulating just the accelerator pedal. Look up "leading and lagging throttle".
I think he's talking about creeping, which is crawling around at <5mph such as in a parking lot. It's an issue for manual cars too since I sometimes find myself wanting to go slower than the car goes in 1st gear at idle.
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...at least in the USA they are illegal for street vehicles because it is considered tampering with the emissions control devices...
[California has entered the chat]
This is a huge problem for car enthusiasts. Engine Control Units (ECU's) are now serialized with the VIN of the vehicle, and checksummed with that VIN. When your friendly neighborhood DMV does your annual inspection and plugs into your OBD-2 connector, their device automatically confirms those things. If you're running a "tune" in your ECU, it will come up on their device and you don't pass inspection.
I'm told the process for applying and getting approval for modifications is so expensive and onerous that very few projects can justify it. So they don't. And thus your freedom of choice is restricted - again.
Don't take this the wrong way. I'm all for pollution reduction. But they should simply measure actual noxious output at the exhaust pipe (like they used to, with those sniffer things they shoved up the exhaust pipe at the inspection stations). What a novel concept: Actually measure what you care about! If the car meets its standards, it passes - no matter how it got there. Instead, California (and others?) demand that you leave things utterly untouched.
Fortunately, lots of more reasonable states don't care about serialized ECU's and such. They either measure the actual output, or don't inspect at all. It shouldn't surprise anyone that lots of car enthusiasts are moving out of states like California and into states like Idaho and Tennessee (just the first two I can think of). I live in Idaho and we are free to experiment with ECU's to our heart's content.
Here's an interesting question: What if you chose to install an electric drivetrain in an ICE car? Engineers have done this as home projects. In a reasonable world it would "pass" emissions since it doesn't have any. But something tells me California would cut off their nose to spite their face and find fault with you "tampering" with the vehicle. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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Don't take this the wrong way. I'm all for pollution reduction. But they should simply measure actual noxious output at the exhaust pipe (like they used to, with those sniffer things they shoved up the exhaust pipe at the inspection stations). What a novel concept: Actually measure what you care about! If the car meets its standards, it passes - no matter how it got there. Instead, California (and others?) demand that you leave things utterly untouched.
Fortunately, lots of more reasonable states don't care about serialized ECU's and such. They either measure the actual output, or don't inspect at all. It shouldn't surprise anyone that lots of car enthusiasts are moving out of states like California and into states like Idaho and Tennessee (just the first two I can think of). I live in Idaho and we are free to experiment with ECU's to our heart's content.
At least here in WA they finally shut down all the emissions testing and inspections. Modern cars burn so clean that there was no point, the cost of running all the inspection sites and all the fuel wasted on cars idling away in line at the test stations more than offset any environmental benefit from the small percentage of cars that failed the test. There are just not enough older/modified cars on the road anymore to matter.
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I still come back to wondering why we don't have after-market drop-in replacement engine management controllers. I understand the use case is low and what not, but if they can churn out fake i-phones, there should be a market for people annoyed with the factory hardware of their cars. Or is that proportion of car owners way down in the noise?
There is indeed a market for people annoyed by this. :-DD
https://www.thedrive.com/news/43394/worlds-first-v8-swapped-tesla-model-s-is-officially-on-the-road (https://www.thedrive.com/news/43394/worlds-first-v8-swapped-tesla-model-s-is-officially-on-the-road)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odq9E92DAJk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odq9E92DAJk)
(sorry, couldn't resist)
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At least here in WA they finally shut down all the emissions testing and inspections.
Yep, we were still living in Spokane when that happened. I was frankly surprised since drivers were required to PAY at the state-operated inspection sites, so presumably they were (mostly?) self funding. It's a rare net-zero bureaucracy that goes away like that.
However, I'd say you're at risk for WA State getting the whole serialized ECU nonsense. It was my experience while living in WA State that Olympia desperately wanted to be "North California", in many cases simply duplicating whatever CA did. I vaguely recall one state legislator openly stating that, something like "We'll wait to see what California decides to do, and follow their example". If that's the attitude, WA residents could perhaps save a bunch of state taxes by just making it formal and letting Sacramento run Olympia via Zoom.
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Yep, we were still living in Spokane when that happened. I was frankly surprised since drivers were required to PAY at the state-operated inspection sites, so presumably they were (mostly?) self funding. It's a rare net-zero bureaucracy that goes away like that.
However, I'd say you're at risk for WA State getting the whole serialized ECU nonsense. It was my experience while living in WA State that Olympia desperately wanted to be "North California", in many cases simply duplicating whatever CA did. I vaguely recall one state legislator openly stating that, something like "We'll wait to see what California decides to do, and follow their example". If that's the attitude, WA residents could perhaps save a bunch of state taxes by just making it formal and letting Sacramento run Olympia via Zoom.
Well I'll keep my classic cars on the road for as long as I possibly can, then if I ever buy something newish it'll be an EV so I won't care. Any ICE powered car I ever own will be old enough to not have such nonsense.
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I wonder if CA respects the federal "after 25 years anything goes" rule. The feds are quite strict about importing non-production foreign vehicles but there's an exemption if it's 25+ years old. CA likes to go its own way, so who knows.
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A long-standing pet peeve. I just got back from my first road trip in a while, and was reminded about the excessive noise made by hotel/motel heating/air-conditioning units.
HVAC is a "mature technology"--surely there is some way to make a unit that can be mounted only a few meters from ones bed and not keep the victim awake during a hot or cold night.
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They exist. Inverter drive mini split systems are extremely quiet, but they're expensive.
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Some of the larger hotels also use centralized HVAC and control the vents into each room. Those seem to be in tall, recently built structures as opposed to the "every room is an island" motel-like places that *I* tend to frequent (examples: Quality Inn, Courtyard).
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Yeah, my last trip was in a fairly-new Courtyard, which was otherwise perfectly comfortable.
When I had frequent business in Las Vegas (in the dull and boring area south of the airport), I always stayed at a nearby Courtyard.
I would leave the air conditioner running full-blast during the day (while at work), and let the room warm up with the unit off so I could sleep at night.
The problem seems to be that 240 V AC is easier to get to each room than any kind of pipe or duct from a central facility.
I do remember, however, household window air conditioners that were not as loud as the wall-mounted units typically found in this class of hotel building.
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A long-standing pet peeve. I just got back from my first road trip in a while, and was reminded about the excessive noise made by hotel/motel heating/air-conditioning units.
About ten years ago we stayed in a motel for several nights. The outdoor part of the split system A/C was on the roof and it must have been inverter driven because it never stayed at a constant speed. The rpm would gradually glide down over about 30 seconds and here and there it would hit a resonance with either the roof structure or the air volume and room dimensions and pretend to be a subwoofer. It sounded like a large truck in the distance using it's exhaust brake coming down a long hill. So glad to get out of there.
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A long-standing pet peeve. I just got back from my first road trip in a while, and was reminded about the excessive noise made by hotel/motel heating/air-conditioning units.
About ten years ago we stayed in a motel for several nights. The outdoor part of the split system A/C was on the roof and it must have been inverter driven because it never stayed at a constant speed. The rpm would gradually glide down over about 30 seconds and here and there it would hit a resonance with either the roof structure or the air volume and room dimensions and pretend to be a subwoofer. It sounded like a large truck in the distance using it's exhaust brake coming down a long hill. So glad to get out of there.
The blokes should use rubber mounts. Sometimes on older systems outside tho, the rubber feet can deteriorate. One I've seen the blower fan motor in the condenser had a crook bearing. That was an interesting noise. And a bonus light show at night too, apparently.
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Yeah, my last trip was in a fairly-new Courtyard, which was otherwise perfectly comfortable.
When I had frequent business in Las Vegas (in the dull and boring area south of the airport), I always stayed at a nearby Courtyard.
There's a good hotel on the strip, the Best Western Plus Casino Royale. 3 or 4 stories, access directly from car park to rooms, very easy to get in and out without passing slot machines, close to the monorail, and every room with a coffee maker and a fridge. AC central and quiet. I make a point of staying there when being forced to Vegas.
Also, it does not smell of moldy carpet with cigarette smoke. Which is my pet peeve of the day.
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AC fan motors being BLDC or PSC motors really depends on manufacturer. Daiken has been BLDC since at least 1980 for pretty much the entire range, putting a 24VDC power supply into the indoor unit to operate it, but other manufacturers have stayed with the motor they had, PSC. The motors though all are nearly identical in dimensions and shaft, plus all have compliant rubber mountings, along with the cylinder blower having compliant rubber bonding both sides for the drive and non drive end, and almost all use the same styles of NDE bearing, a sintered oilite bush or a self lubricating nylon bush in rubber. Low noise, and low vibration as long as it is clean. Speed control is generally noise free on both, the BLDC has speed control with a 0-5V input from the controller, and the PSC has triac speed control on the board, or has a few tappings and optically controlled triacs or small relays to give 3 or 4 speeds. Pretty much the only noise is the air flowing, and for the outdoor units almost all, except for the more expensive inverter types, the fan motor is a PSC motor with at most 2 speeds, simply because it is rugged and durable in extremes of temperature.
The hotel AC units that are noisy I will say are all window wall boxes, where the biggest problem is the fan motor has to drive both fans, and has no rubber noise damping at all, and is on a resonant steel plate, with the compressor being on rubber, but with time the rubber goes hard, as it is running hot all the time. As well service is never done, they might pull the filter out and clean it, but unless you pull the entire unit, take it outside and wash it down with a hose, it will clog up with time, especially as they use the condensor coil to evaporate the water pulled out from the evaporator, so as to avoid having a drain connection.
You used to get the drain kit with the units, but they removed it, along with the hole in the pan, so as to save the cost of putting in the drain, which also means the compressor sits in water, and the fan slings it into the condenser coil ,rotting it from the inside out, so after 5 years, when the compressor warranty is up, you need to replace the unit if you actually want cooling, as the fins are all rotted away on the inner layer, and clogging up the outer.
Split units come with drains for both indoor and outdoor, as the heat pump versions need it, and thus you get it for both, as the only difference between them manufacturing wise is the reversing valve and the extra wire in the cord kit, and in most cases you just get the heat pump version anyway, for the same price. Do not need the heat pump simply take the remote, and change the option bit using the remote, to the non heat pump version, and get cooling only. Noisy units are generally not serviced, and the drain pan is pretty easy to remove off the indoor unit, and then wash it, blow out the drain line, and then wash off the coil with coil cleaning detergent (not acid or alkali coil cleaner, neutral so you do not rot it), pull the drum fan out and wash it clean, and wash the outer housing along with the filters. One hour job to strip, wash and reinstall, and only a dozen screws typically to remove for the lot.
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A long-standing pet peeve. I just got back from my first road trip in a while, and was reminded about the excessive noise made by hotel/motel heating/air-conditioning units.
HVAC is a "mature technology"--surely there is some way to make a unit that can be mounted only a few meters from ones bed and not keep the victim awake during a hot or cold night.
oh good god this.
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...modulating a brake to slow down gives you more control than alternating between an accelerator and a brake...
Good manual transmission drivers don't have to switch between the accelerator and the brake. I just came back from a fun ~2 hour drive to get lunch and even in the twisties I hardly touched the brake pedal. Shift to keep the engine in its responsive midband range and you can do everything but a full stop by modulating just the accelerator pedal. Look up "leading and lagging throttle".
Yep, this was my point. My little Honda S2000, now 17 years old and not quite at 100,000 miles, is on the original brakes. It's also on the original clutch.
Since most drivers have no idea about manual transmissions, they are surprised to the point of almost rear-ending me when I downshift to decelerate when coming to a stoplight. They can't figure out that I'm actually slowing down even though the brake light isn't on. I have to heel-and-toe when doing this just to hit the brake pedal enough to let the tailgater behind me know I'm slowing down.
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the iconification of software. Case in point : the "hamburger" menu.
I literally spend 5 minutes figuring out what the hell the "hamburger" menu is. Somebody was explaining something to me and said , just click the hamburger menu ... the what ? yeah, the icon that looks like a hamburger . so i look aroudn for something brownish , bulging on top maybe a green and red strip (lettuce tomato) .. nothing.. i gave up had to ask : where do you see this ?
top left. the three horizontal lines.
WHAT ARTCLOWN HAS INVENTED THAT ? AND WHY CALL IT HAMBURGER MENU ?
This is ridiculous. you go and explain somebody in china to click the hamburger menu ...
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the iconification of software. Case in point : the "hamburger" menu.
I literally spend 5 minutes figuring out what the hell the "hamburger" menu is. Somebody was explaining something to me and said , just click the hamburger menu ... the what ? yeah, the icon that looks like a hamburger . so i look aroudn for something brownish , bulging on top maybe a green and red strip (lettuce tomato) .. nothing.. i gave up had to ask : where do you see this ?
top left. the three horizontal lines.
WHAT ARTCLOWN HAS INVENTED THAT ? AND WHY CALL IT HAMBURGER MENU ?
This is ridiculous. you go and explain somebody in china to click the hamburger menu ...
Yeah man, totally agree. not just software also product packaging, and "instructions" like for a car fuel filter installation. Usually I can't figure out what they mean. Ask another person and they have no clue either. Although English is not my native language I would very much prefer that over those ridiculous icons and pictures.
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The hamburger menu has never really grown on me, although I do recognize that many things are named in a somewhat abstract fashion and it wouldn't make much sense to have a menu that literally looks like a hamburger. Once you know what that thing is called, you will know what it is the next time somebody mentions it, none of us are born innately knowing what every word means, we have to learn them as we go along.
Back to pet peeves, I'm too lazy to look and see if it has been mentioned already but I absolutely cannot stand people who agree to plans and then bail out at the last moment. I've gradually purged most of these flakes from my life but new ones pop up all the time. We make plans for some event, they agree to do some part of it like driving one of the cars and picking up someone else, etc and then right up at the last minute when it's too late to invite someone else they text saying they can't make it because of some lame excuse. My time is valuable, don't tell me you're gonna do something unless you're gonna do it come hell or high water. If there's a death in the family, you get seriously ill or some other legitimate excuse that's one thing, but many people are habitual flakes and I can't deal with that.
Another one that I cannot stand is impulsiveness. I have known multiple people who make major life decisions on a whim that shifts with the breeze. One day they're perfectly happy where they are, another day they're putting their house up for sale and moving somewhere else. Then they change their mind and they're going to stay, then they trade in their car seemingly out of the blue for another car, and so on. It drives me nuts, I don't like inconsistency.
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Yep, this was my point. My little Honda S2000, now 17 years old and not quite at 100,000 miles, is on the original brakes. It's also on the original clutch.
Since most drivers have no idea about manual transmissions, they are surprised to the point of almost rear-ending me when I downshift to decelerate when coming to a stoplight. They can't figure out that I'm actually slowing down even though the brake light isn't on. I have to heel-and-toe when doing this just to hit the brake pedal enough to let the tailgater behind me know I'm slowing down.
I generally don't downshift unless it's something like a mountain pass where there is a risk of overheating the brakes. I remember discussing this decades ago and the conclusion was why put wear on the engine, gearbox syncrhos and clutch instead of the brakes? Brake pads are cheap, easily replaced consumables. Every other part of the drivetrain is more expensive and more effort to service. Engine braking would be perfectly sensible if it regenerated fuel back into the tank but it doesn't, it just exchanges wear of a cheap consumable for wear on expensive core components. On top of that there is the safety issue you bring up, slowing down substantially without the brake lights illuminating increases the risk of an accident. For the vast majority of typical driving it seems to offer very few advantages.
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I remember discussing this decades ago and the conclusion was why put wear on the engine, gearbox syncrhos and clutch instead of the brakes? Brake pads are cheap, easily replaced consumables. Every other part of the drivetrain is more expensive and more effort to service.
It's not just about wear and tear and being cheap. Mostly it's about forward thinking, planning, observation, knowing your vehicle's capabilities pretty exactly. That is, being a better driver.
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I remember discussing this decades ago and the conclusion was why put wear on the engine, gearbox syncrhos and clutch instead of the brakes? Brake pads are cheap, easily replaced consumables. Every other part of the drivetrain is more expensive and more effort to service.
It's not just about wear and tear and being cheap. Mostly it's about forward thinking, planning, observation, knowing your vehicle's capabilities pretty exactly. That is, being a better driver.
Ok yes, all those things are good, I know how to downshift, I do it occasionally when it makes sense to do it. I am more familiar with the capabilities of my vehicle than most, having done some mild autocrossing in the past, I've done slides, I've maneuvered my way out of some close calls, I've towed trailers over the pass, but I still don't see a practical reason to downshift in most situations. Unless you are in a situation where overheated brakes are a real possibility, what is the compelling advantage of downshifting beyond showing off that you know how? I would argue that part of being a better driver is not only knowing the capabilities of the vehicle, but knowing when and how it makes sense to utilize them.
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what is the compelling advantage of downshifting beyond showing off that you know how?
Not downshifting per se, but that kind of stuff - the forward planning, etc - atrophies unless you practice.
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Well of course I do the planning, I consider myself a better than average driver with the stats to back it up, to this day I've never had a ticket, not even a parking ticket and the only accidents I've been involved in I was sitting still and somebody crashed into me. I am of the opinion that people who drive manual gearbox cars are overall more engaged, more attentive and more skilled drivers because it forces you to focus on operating the vehicle and provides a more direct connection to the physics.
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scissors or knives packaged in material that needs ... scissors or knives to open... and if they come in a box filled with those styrofoam peanuts ... that stuff should be outlawed.
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the iconification of software. Case in point : the "hamburger" menu.
I literally spend 5 minutes figuring out what the hell the "hamburger" menu is. Somebody was explaining something to me and said , just click the hamburger menu ... the what ? yeah, the icon that looks like a hamburger . so i look aroudn for something brownish , bulging on top maybe a green and red strip (lettuce tomato) .. nothing.. i gave up had to ask : where do you see this ?
top left. the three horizontal lines.
WHAT ARTCLOWN HAS INVENTED THAT ? AND WHY CALL IT HAMBURGER MENU ?
This is ridiculous. you go and explain somebody in china to click the hamburger menu ...
Had it been open source you coulda changed it! (FX: ducks, runs)
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the iconification of software. Case in point : the "hamburger" menu.
I literally spend 5 minutes figuring out what the hell the "hamburger" menu is. Somebody was explaining something to me and said , just click the hamburger menu ... the what ? yeah, the icon that looks like a hamburger . so i look aroudn for something brownish , bulging on top maybe a green and red strip (lettuce tomato) .. nothing.. i gave up had to ask : where do you see this ?
top left. the three horizontal lines.
WHAT ARTCLOWN HAS INVENTED THAT ? AND WHY CALL IT HAMBURGER MENU ?
This is ridiculous. you go and explain somebody in china to click the hamburger menu ...
Had it been open source you coulda changed it! (FX: ducks, runs)
too late, i sent the ducks.
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scissors or knives packaged in material that needs ... scissors or knives to open... and if they come in a box filled with those styrofoam peanuts ... that stuff should be outlawed.
I'm a big fan of the cornstarch based packing peanuts. You can dump them in the toilet or in a compost bin and they go away. They don't generate static electricity and cling to everything the way the foam ones do either.
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I wish they'd use packets of peanuts. Might order more stuff then.
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Hidden web links.
A while back Google changed the play store which used to be reasonably OK in that you could see at a glance what an app was about, recent reviews, etc. Then they changed it and it seemed that the useful info was gone. The attached screenie is typical.
But, no, it's still there. You just have to click the short description which doesn't follow any convention of hinting that you could click it. The only clue is the mouse cursor changing as it passes over (great if you're using a touch screen). So not it takes another click to get to info that was up front before, and the means of accessing is deliberately hidden.
(And this is a major reason why many are still on W7 - stupid anti-user, undiscoverable interface 'improvements' in 10+)
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new gmail. All of a sudden the entire gmail screen has changed, it now automatically classifies emails by importance based on some algorithms. FUCK OFF GOOGLE
Half of the emails are missing, they get moved from inbox to the important category automatically. i never asked for that or set that up. been missing emails for two days now. i move stuff manually. i don't go in the other mailboxes unless i need to find something i personally stored there.
Why do they do this kind of shit ? i don't want it , i don't want to re-learn it , i'm too old for this crap. Stay off of my mail. I'll manage it.
Same thing with those bloody photo organizing tools. they start moving stuff in the file system. you have no idea where stuff physically resides anymore. i organize my photos using the filesystem. i know where they are i know how to copy them and make backups. stuff now is all fuzzy.
does anyone want to launch a class action lawsuit against google for invasion of privacy ? i never gave them permission to start sniffing through my emails and sorting them based on analytics.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/186543?hl=en
this is the crap they turned on without asking me
Modern technology is becoming annoying as hell. we are no longer in control of our systems, and evolving to a pay-for-anything model. Soon you won't be able to buy a computer anymore. You'll lease a terminal-like device with the actual computing happening as a service you need to pay for. It will have a finite predefined life span, it won't have local storage apart for the stuff needed to make it run. they will no doubt come up with all kinds of marketing bullshittery.
"you will always have the leatest and greatest device" , " the best one yet"
" you will never run out of storage space"
"your data is accessible from anywhere"
"if you lose the machine, or it breaks, your data is safe as it is in the cloud and nothing was on the machine"
Great idea, but what will this cost me ? ah, yes -evil grin and lots of hand rubbing- only your firstborn, your soul, one kindey and all of the money you make. We are modern slaves. We own nothing , we have to do the bidding of master and we only get enough scraps we don't die. I fear for the next generation. Once we die our children will be bombarded with automated emails for cremation services , inheritance settlement service, estate service and whatnot. That is, if governments have not decided by then that inheritance is illegal and everything goes to the state. They are already cutting a huge chunk , why not go for everything ?
What crappy world we live in ... modern slavery. panem et circenses...
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new gmail. All of a sudden the entire gmail screen has changed,
There's no right to complain. It was never free to begin with. The product is YOU and your data.
But I know, I use gmail myself, because it's so much easier than running your own mail server (been there done that).
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new gmail. All of a sudden the entire gmail screen has changed, it now automatically classifies emails by importance based on some algorithms. FUCK OFF GOOGLE
Not free but if you cough a few bob I think you can access the gmail account with POP3/IMAP. Then you can use whatever mail client you like to view stuff whilst still benefiting from gmail's cloud storage/access.
Although the thought occurs that since IMAP stores mail on the server in user-defined folders, whether gmail would still dick around moving mail between those. Probably.
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new gmail. All of a sudden the entire gmail screen has changed, it now automatically classifies emails by importance based on some algorithms. FUCK OFF GOOGLE
Not free but if you cough a few bob I think you can access the gmail account with POP3/IMAP. Then you can use whatever mail client you like to view stuff whilst still benefiting from gmail's cloud storage/access.
Although the thought occurs that since IMAP stores mail on the server in user-defined folders, whether gmail would still dick around moving mail between those. Probably.
Anyone with a gmail account can use POP3 or IMAP. There is no fee for that. I don't even know what the gmail app screen looks like. I've never used it.
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new gmail. All of a sudden the entire gmail screen has changed,
There's no right to complain. It was never free to begin with. The product is YOU and your data.
But I know, I use gmail myself, because it's so much easier than running your own mail server (been there done that).
Instead of using gmail and instead of running your own mail server, you can register a domain and pay a hosting company a few bucks a month to deal with it. I've been doing that for ages. No gmail bullshit (either the client or the fact that you're the product) and it just works.
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Anyone with a gmail account can use POP3 or IMAP.
I am probably thinking of a custom domain with gmail, then.
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And this is a major reason why many are still on W7 - stupid anti-user, undiscoverable interface 'improvements' in 10+
Which is another way of saying "changing the user interface for no good reason". Casual computer users may be entertained by the idea of learning a whole new interface. Those of us (like the members of EEVblog) who use computers as tools, to get real work done, don't have the time to waste (re)(re)(re)learning how to configure and manage those tools just to get back to Square One and start generating useful output again.
Where did Microsoft hide that configuration option THIS time? Where in the Registry did THAT variable move? And what did they rename it? And for the love of all that's holy... why did they change it at all when it worked just fine before?!?
...which leaves unsaid the whole nonsense of Windows Phoning Home all the time with all versions past Win7. Any one of these annoyances is enough to stick with known, stable, reliable Win7.
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Smoke alarms ! Those freakshows invariably beep in the middle of the night to tell you the battery is low. during the daytime , when it is warm , the battery works fine but, as it cools down in the night, the voltage drops and they start beeping. not funs at 2am with an alarm in a vaulted ceiling 25ft off the floor...
Whatever engineering clown that invented that concept (beep for low batt) should be forced to eat one.
Flash a light , or at least put in a daylight sensor so it will beep only during daytime to tell you battery is low. not at 2am when i'm trying to sleep
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Smoke alarms ! Those freakshows invariably beep in the middle of the night to tell you the battery is low. during the daytime , when it is warm , the battery works fine but, as it cools down in the night, the voltage drops and they start beeping. not funs at 2am with an alarm in a vaulted ceiling 25ft off the floor...
Whatever engineering clown that invented that concept (beep for low batt) should be forced to eat one.
Flash a light , or at least put in a daylight sensor so it will beep only during daytime to tell you battery is low. not at 2am when i'm trying to sleep
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingshot
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Smoke alarms here signify dinner time.
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Smoke alarms ! Those freakshows invariably beep in the middle of the night to tell you the battery is low. during the daytime , when it is warm , the battery works fine but, as it cools down in the night, the voltage drops and they start beeping. not funs at 2am with an alarm in a vaulted ceiling 25ft off the floor...
Whatever engineering clown that invented that concept (beep for low batt) should be forced to eat one.
Flash a light , or at least put in a daylight sensor so it will beep only during daytime to tell you battery is low. not at 2am when i'm trying to sleep
Nobody would notice the flashing light, the beeping is deliberately designed to be obnoxious so that you can't ignore it and I appreciate that. I do think that a light sensor would be a big improvement though, I don't want to be awakened in the middle of the night to deal with it.
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Nobody would notice the flashing light, the beeping is deliberately designed to be obnoxious so that you can't ignore it and I appreciate that. I do think that a light sensor would be a big improvement though, I don't want to be awakened in the middle of the night to deal with it.
And since the device already obviously has the ability to sense a threshold voltage on the battery, they could guarantee it has enough remaining power to operate in case of a fire on that first night. In other words, no additional risk.
I'd have the following sequence:
* Flash a warning LED (they all have LED's anyway, no extra expense) - your opportunity to deal with it with minimal life intrusion
* After a couple days of that, step up to beeping when light is detected - your opportunity to avoid sleep interruption
* After a couple days of that, beep regardless of light/dark - you ignored the previous warnings, so now your safety is paramount
If they don't have an MCU to count time, they could use battery thresholds instead.
If they were really clever, they could probably use the existing LED as a photodiode light detector during its off periods. But the support circuitry might be more expensive than just a simple detector.
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where is this big "internet of things" when it comes to smoke detectors ? i finally found some that have z-wave AND allow remote reading of battery status. you get a nice notification on your phone when it is time to replace the batteries. But, they are expensive and there is only one or to models. They come with CR123 cells or lithium cells.
That is the problem with the regular smoke detectors : they come with a wet-paper-bag variety of a 9 volt battery. it holds as much charge as that bag can hold water.
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That is the problem with the regular smoke detectors : they come with a wet-paper-bag variety of a 9 volt battery. it holds as much charge as that bag can hold water.
All off-the-shelf products come with cheap carbon-zinc "starter" batteries. Same business model as the "starter" toner cartridges and "starter" ink jet cartridges. All they have to do is make it work initially. They're not setting you up for several years of battery life. True for TV remote controls, etc. Always the cheapest batteries with manufacturer names I've never seen elsewhere.
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Anyone with a gmail account can use POP3 or IMAP. There is no fee for that. I don't even know what the gmail app screen looks like. I've never used it.
That's the whole reason I went with gmail in the first place, it was the only free one that supported IMAP and I've always used it that way. The only time I ever use the web interface is when I'm not on one of my own devices. Every time I do use it, they've made it worse than the time before. I really don't know what the engineers at Google are smoking, it's like they sit around trying to think of ways to make their interface less usable and more annoying. For a while at least they seemed to be trying to turn email into instant messaging and they made the compose window a tiny box down in the lower right corner with no way to expand or move it.
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All off-the-shelf products come with cheap carbon-zinc "starter" batteries. Same business model as the "starter" toner cartridges and "starter" ink jet cartridges. All they have to do is make it work initially. They're not setting you up for several years of battery life. True for TV remote controls, etc. Always the cheapest batteries with manufacturer names I've never seen elsewhere.
Those aren't always so bad. The weird off-brand carbon-zinc 9V battery in the code pad for my garage door opener lasted 10 years, granted it is not used every day but I do use it typically more than once a week. I have had cheapo batteries in remotes last years too, and they don't seem to leak like alkaline batteries do.
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Anyone with a gmail account can use POP3 or IMAP. There is no fee for that. I don't even know what the gmail app screen looks like. I've never used it.
That's the whole reason I went with gmail in the first place, it was the only free one that supported IMAP and I've always used it that way. The only time I ever use the web interface is when I'm not on one of my own devices. Every time I do use it, they've made it worse than the time before. I really don't know what the engineers at Google are smoking, it's like they sit around trying to think of ways to make their interface less usable and more annoying. For a while at least they seemed to be trying to turn email into instant messaging and they made the compose window a tiny box down in the lower right corner with no way to expand or move it.
What do you want for free?
Register a domain. Pay a host $100 a year to deal with the server. Use a standard mail client (I love the Apple Mail client, I fucking hate Thunderbird and Outlook) as your user interface. Done.
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Register a domain. Pay a host $100 a year to deal with the server. Use a standard mail client as your user interface. Done.
I'll heartily second this. Did this years ago and it's well worth the ~$100/year to totally control your environment. Allows you to manage your own DNS records if you wish, host webpages, etc.
I went with InMotionHosting, overall I'd give them an 8/10. Had a few glitches over the years but generally they're reachable, knowledgeable, and help you solve the problem. Only repeating problem is sometimes finding my email on a blacklist somewhere which I attribute to being on a shared server with a shared IP address. It was bad enough at one point that I asked them to move my account to a different shared box, which they did, and that rectified the issue. They do offer dedicated boxes with dedicated IP's for additional money but so far I haven't considered it worth the cost - maybe someday. This is not a plug for them, just sharing my experiences and I'm sure other hosting outfits are similar.
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Having and controlling your own domain is like doing your own auto mechanics. Doing it yourself often results in a better technical outcome. But takes time that comes at the expense of something else. Your own domain typically takes less time than servicing a car, but it is just one more thing on the list of things to do. Which in my case more than fills the available time. Fortunately many of the things on the list can be outsourced and domain management is one that is outsourced for me. YMMV.
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There is a difference between having your own domain and messing around with the domain config. The first - the having it - is really pretty essential whereas the second - the tedium of looking after it - can be outsourced to whichever registra you used. Or someone else (best to keep the mail hosting and domain hosting separate to prevent an 'eggs in one basket' issue).
Edit: for a car analog, having the domain is like buying your own car as opposed to renting one. You can still get a garage to do all the work, and even hire a chauffeur if you want. So, actually, having a domain is not at all like doing your own auto mechanics :)
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What do you want for free?
Register a domain. Pay a host $100 a year to deal with the server. Use a standard mail client (I love the Apple Mail client, I fucking hate Thunderbird and Outlook) as your user interface. Done.
What do I want? Well the gmail web interface from ~15 years ago was pretty nice as I recall, that would be a nice start. Why does being free mean that it has to be garbage or that I have no right to point out flaws? They already had something that worked, they have continued to expend effort actively making it worse. Also it isn't really free, Google makes billions of dollars off of the advertising data they gather and I give them that data in exchange for using the service.
As I already said though, I use it via IMAP 99.999% of the time, so I bypass that whole mess. Why would I pay a host $100 a year when I already have IMAP that works with a standard email client?
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I use
Dyndns for host
Rackspace for email
The costly part is the monthly charge by Comcast for the static IP.
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I never really understood the point of a static IP, a friend of mine was always ranting about how he "needed" one but for years I've been using dynamic DNS and it works just fine. For most things where a static IP actually makes sense it's usually more sensible to just have them hosted elsewhere. Static IP on domestic internet is a round peg in a square hole.
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it's not so much googles user interface (ok, the iconification bugs me) but the fact they poke their nose in my email content and start sorting emails based on what they deem important ... they track whom you email and what conversation and start rearranging emails for you. KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT OF MY EMAIL !
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it's not so much googles user interface (ok, the iconification bugs me) but the fact they poke their nose in my email content and start sorting emails based on what they deem important ... they track whom you email and what conversation and start rearranging emails for you. KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT OF MY EMAIL !
Remember, you're the product.
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it's not so much googles user interface (ok, the iconification bugs me) but the fact they poke their nose in my email content and start sorting emails based on what they deem important ... they track whom you email and what conversation and start rearranging emails for you. KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT OF MY EMAIL !
I don't particularly like it, but I accept that I'm giving them that information as payment for use of their service. I don't really mind so much because my online presence is polluted with enough garbage data to be essentially useless and I'm not a typical consumer anyway, on the rare occasions that I buy something new I very carefully research what I'm interested in. I've used an ad blocker for quite a few years now and I don't watch TV so there aren't too many ways to bombard me with advertisements.
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Using “Bode plot” to mean a plot of a system’s actual frequency response rather than a straight line asymptotic approximation to the frequency response. (I know – picky, picky. But if it was good enough for Hendrik Bode it’s good enough for me.)
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Using “Bode plot” to mean a plot of a system’s actual frequency response rather than a straight line asymptotic approximation to the frequency response. (I know – picky, picky. But if it was good enough for Hendrik Bode it’s good enough for me.)
Hendrick Bode may not have had a VNA or SA? :D
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Back in my early days we hand-drew Bode plots using a function generator and oscilloscope. Amplitude plots were semi-reasonable, but phase plots were a real drag.
Yes, it was uphill both ways in the snow too. ::)
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Using “Bode plot” to mean a plot of a system’s actual frequency response rather than a straight line asymptotic approximation to the frequency response. (I know – picky, picky. But if it was good enough for Hendrik Bode it’s good enough for me.)
Hendrick Bode may not have had a VNA or SA? :D
I think it is very likely that he had both, as he worked for Bell Labs.
When I learnt about Bode Plots, back in the early 1980s as part of Telecom Australia's Bridging Training to Tech Officer scheme (The participants proudly called ourselves "Retreads"! ;D), we were presented with a mathematical expression describing a network, & asked to draw an idealised plot of the amplitude/ frequency & phase/frequency response.
They were, as ccktek points out, straight line approximations.
People whose "bread & butter" was involved with using swept frequencies to measure amplitude/ frequency response could easily understand the difference between Bode Plots & "real world" results.
On occasion, we used non-swept signal generators to check levels at discrete frequencies across the band of interest, then graphed them manually, if required.
Another "pet peeve" of mine is when people who should know better use the term "in series" to refer to "cascaded" devices! >:(
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While I'm at it, why does every educational establishment have to call themselves a "campus?"
Up until the 1980s,the term was virtually unknown outside North America, but these days, it is used to describe the premises of even the smallest primary school.
Now, hospitals have started using the term, even when they are not "teaching hospitals"!--AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!! |O
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In US usage, a “campus” usually means multiple buildings on a large plot of land, originally educational, but now extended to health care or multiple museums.
The dictionary starts with that first meaning for a college or university, and the second meaning is a situation that resembles a college campus.
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Using “Bode plot” to mean a plot of a system’s actual frequency response rather than a straight line asymptotic approximation to the frequency response. (I know – picky, picky. But if it was good enough for Hendrik Bode it’s good enough for me.)
Hendrick Bode may not have had a VNA or SA? :D
I think it is very likely that he had both, as he worked for Bell Labs.
When I learnt about Bode Plots, back in the early 1980s as part of Telecom Australia's Bridging Training to Tech Officer scheme (The participants proudly called ourselves "Retreads"! ;D), we were presented with a mathematical expression describing a network, & asked to draw an idealised plot of the amplitude/ frequency & phase/frequency response.
They were, as ccktek points out, straight line approximations.
People whose "bread & butter" was involved with using swept frequencies to measure amplitude/ frequency response could easily understand the difference between Bode Plots & "real world" results.
On occasion, we used non-swept signal generators to check levels at discrete frequencies across the band of interest, then graphed them manually, if required.
Another "pet peeve" of mine is when people who should know better use the term "in series" to refer to "cascaded" devices! >:(
See H Bode, “Network Analysis and Feedback Amplifier Design”, D Van Nostrand, 1945 and subsequent editions.
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While I'm at it, why does every educational establishment have to call themselves a "campus?"
Up until the 1980s,the term was virtually unknown outside North America, but these days, it is used to describe the premises of even the smallest primary school.
Eh, it is latin, and there's this military plot of land in Rome, that's called "CAMPVS MARTII", or "Mars Field" (because "CAMPVS" means "Field", nothing more, nothing less.) being as it as exercise grounds was dedicated to the god of war, Martius. Stating that the term was recently unknown outside USA is "The trouble with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur" level ignorant.
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While I'm at it, why does every educational establishment have to call themselves a "campus?"
Up until the 1980s,the term was virtually unknown outside North America, but these days, it is used to describe the premises of even the smallest primary school.
Eh, it is latin, and there's this military plot of land in Rome, that's called "CAMPVS MARTII", or "Mars Field" (because "CAMPVS" means "Field", nothing more, nothing less.) being as it as exercise grounds was dedicated to the god of war, Martius. Stating that the term was recently unknown outside USA is "The trouble with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur" level ignorant.
Ok, you got me!
I should have written "virtually unused" outside North America. (Please note that I did not mention the USA).
It is the specific usage which is the subject of my rant.
In that part of the world, the word "campus" does not usually bring to mind your very erudite reference. -----people just think "University grounds".
Elsewhere its use in that sense has been treated as an amusing North American idiosyncracy until relatively recently, rather similar to
people in the UK calling a moving van a "Pantechnicon".
It, like "entrepeneur", was formerly regarded as rather pretentious.
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people in the UK calling a moving van a "Pantechnicon"
They do? Can't say I've ever heard anyone say that word, nor have I read it except in Jeeves & Wooster-style novels. Can't imagine it would be used for real for the simple reason that it's too unwieldy - it would be shortened to 'panty' or something after the first mouthful.
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people in the UK calling a moving van a "Pantechnicon"
They do? Can't say I've ever heard anyone say that word, nor have I read it except in Jeeves & Wooster-style novels. Can't imagine it would be used for real for the simple reason that it's too unwieldy - it would be shortened to 'panty' or something after the first mouthful.
From memory, the shortened version was "Pantech", similarly to the way Brits call semitrailers "Artics" (short for "Articulated vehicle").
I think they would find "panty" hilarious.
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Possibly more likely that I come from the wrong area or class and/or age for such language.
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I fucking hate Thunderbird and Outlook
OK, Outlook is a mess. But what is so bad about Thunderbird?
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"Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise" Entry #2150 ... Apple Keyboards!
Despite their sleek design and Apple price tag, in my opinion, the Apple keyboard is one of the worse keyboard designs in town.
This from a few days ago. On the outside this A1243 was a gleam machine - almost factory mint. On closer examination though, this keyboard had been around the block a few times. Thus it required a strip and clean. Which is where my issue with Apple's design is revealed. Keys sit over a key well, which holds a delicate plastic scissor mechanism, a rubber contact, and sometimes a metal spring; unfortunately the key well acts as miniature garbage sump.
From skin cells to fast food, everything accumulates in these key wells. Over time, a biological record of the keyboard's life builds up as a layer of congealed sediment under the keys. Regardless of how clean and sanitised the keyboard is on the outside, a biological rubbish dump is lurking just under the fingertips. At some point, the debris can lock up the scissor mechanism, causing the infamous stuck key.
Of course, being an Apple product, keyboards cannot be dismantled like a PC keyboard with a screw driver and spudger. On a canteen wall in Cupertino California a neon sign must read, "screws are just not cool". Instead, to get at the key well, you have to pop each of the 102+ keycaps, which are held in place by Apple's own unique and obscurated engineering style. Styles, plural.
This A1243 keyboard is a venerable cocktail of human gloop, fluff, dog hair or eye lashes and, glitter! Okay, this is a bad one, but the problem with Apple keyboards is they will trap everything in the key well. Dust, crumbs, dirt, soot, drinks and all kinds of human fluids will fall in, mix and solidify. Only IPA and time can revitalise a gloop monster. Otherwise that's another $199 for a new clean one. Thinks, in sterile environments are Apple keyboards safe?
* Tip: When removing keytops, only ever use a plastic pry tool. Never use a metal pry tool, knife blade or flat screwdriver (as shown on many YouTube videos), as these will eventually break through the plastic scissor mechanism, indent the plastic key or, nitch the surrounding aluminium frame. It's Apple, so it's not meant to be easy.
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As a keyboard Design Engineer in a former life, I have to say that's the grossest example of keyboard detritus I've ever seen. And trust me, I saw a LOT back in the day because we had "failed" keyboards shipped back for analysis.
Did this come from the factory where they make Cheetos?
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As a keyboard Design Engineer in a former life, I have to say that's the grossest example of keyboard detritus I've ever seen. And trust me, I saw a LOT back in the day because we had "failed" keyboards shipped back for analysis.
Did this come from the factory where they make Cheetos?
Cheetos no, but I did detect a slight hint of Chinese restuarant. Which might explain the glitter and eye lashes.
My beef with Apple is how the hell can they design such a premium product with an ingress rating of minus zero? It's a similar story with MacBook keyboards. How many customers have gone to the Genius Bar with a stuck key only to be told by a 'genius' that their device cannot be fixed?
Only on screen iPad keyboards are 100% wipe clean :)
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As a keyboard Design Engineer in a former life, I have to say that's the grossest example of keyboard detritus I've ever seen. And trust me, I saw a LOT back in the day because we had "failed" keyboards shipped back for analysis.
Did this come from the factory where they make Cheetos?
Having one of these myself as my work laptop, I think the issue is that the space under the keys is so small that it doesn't take much volume of dust and crumbs to fill it up and stuff that gets in is harder to get out than with a more conventional keyboard. The keyboard really is garbage, it's incredibly noisy to type on and it clogs very easily.
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Those flat keyboards should be put to death anyway (just like the fricking flat UI stuff.)
Holy crap, is those guys' world flat or what is it?
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It's a classic example of one design goal being pursued too far, causing excessive suboptimization elsewhere. The laptop world uses "thinness" as a criteria of such overwhelming importance that other things, like proper keyboard design that is actually good to, you know, TYPE on, get jettisoned in the mad dash to be "the thinnest ever".
Me, I use a laptop that is thicker than the "thinnest" but has every physical port type you can get in a single box. That way I'm prepared when I walk into some lab or shop and need to connect to whatever. I don't have to carry a dozen dongles or adapters, because I probably have the native port. In trade for this flexibility I have to suffer the indignity of not having a paper thin laptop and enduring the friendly ribbing of my son and his 20-something friends.
Worth it.
Your optimization may vary.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I also have enough thickness to enjoy a very nice keyboard (for a laptop, anyway).
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Indeed flat keyboards are a pain to be used, although my wife loves her decade-old Toshiba z935-P300 (I have no idea why) which, despite being a notebook as thin and light as the ones of the modern variety, accumulates a lot less crud under its keys.
I really liked the older Toshiba keyboards (around 2005~2006) which, together with Dells of the turn of the century, still had curved keys that gave me a lot of typing precision.
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It's a classic example of one design goal being pursued too far, causing excessive suboptimization elsewhere. The laptop world uses "thinness" as a criteria of such overwhelming importance that other things, like proper keyboard design that is actually good to, you know, TYPE on, get jettisoned in the mad dash to be "the thinnest ever".
Me, I use a laptop that is thicker than the "thinnest" but has every physical port type you can get in a single box. That way I'm prepared when I walk into some lab or shop and need to connect to whatever. I don't have to carry a dozen dongles or adapters, because I probably have the native port. In trade for this flexibility I have to suffer the indignity of not having a paper thin laptop and enduring the friendly ribbing of my son and his 20-something friends.
Worth it.
Your optimization may vary.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I also have enough thickness to enjoy a very nice keyboard (for a laptop, anyway).
That has been my thought all along. It sacrifices too much in order to be thinner than it needs to be. It's so thin that it's uncomfortable to hold on edge in my hand, there is no reason for it to be that thin, with an extra 5mm it could probably fit a large enough battery to last a whole work day and maybe a better keyboard. The thing that bugs me even more than the thinness race is the obsession with thin bezels on phone and laptop displays. I simply don't understand the importance placed on having little or no bezel, to the absurd extreme of having notches or holes cut out of the display. It makes no sense at all to me, I would much prefer to have a bezel around a solid, uninterrupted display than to cut out part of the display, especially when it's for a feature I don't even want like a front facing camera. I have never once intentionally turned on the front facing camera on a phone.
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First up, full disclosure. I work at Apple, have done for what is now approaching decades. Judge any bias as thou wilt.
The pursuit of razor-thin-laptops-über-alles is over, folks, it left the building together with a certain Mr. Ive. I have one of the new (well, ish) M1-Max MBP’s and it’s a chunky boy. The keyboard is, not un-coincidentally, rather nice too, and doesn’t suffer from the above-discussed scissor mechanism, AFAIK.
The screen “notch” is not a notch out of the usual visible screen at all, BTW. There are more pixels, over and above the normal resolution, to each side of the camera. This gives extra screen real-estate to either side of the camera, and the menu-bar generally fits to the left. I get that it’s a visual look that may take some getting used to, and that the UX for extra-long menu-bars could probably be improved, but personally it took me hours to accept it as the new norm. I don’t even notice it now.
As for battery life, I recently took that laptop on a 2-week vacation traveling down the California coast to Disneyland and back (kids, watchyagonnado…) and forgot the charging cable in the packing debacle. I used the laptop pretty much every night, we streamed a movie on one night. By the end of the two weeks it had lost 50% or so of its battery… Now clearly it wasn’t in use all day, every day, but I’ve done that before as well, the thing *sips* battery like it’s never going to be charged again.
I won’t go into cameras apart from to say that the vast majority of people use the cameras (both front and back) on their cellphones, they’re an ever-increasing part of the cellphone “must have” criteria. I use the front camera on mine at least once per week to face-time my parents who live 6000 miles away. They get to see their grandkids, I get to see my niece, and that’s awesome.
I will agree that the port situation on an MBP isn’t optimal for engineers, especially mobile ones. I don’t take a slew of dongles or adapters with me, though, I take a thunderbolt hub - it has everything you’d find on any other laptop and more besides, is bus-powered so there’s no external PSU, is relatively compact, and since I usually carry my laptop in a bag when I go anywhere, it isn’t any less convenient to take. In fact it stays in the bag because that’s the only time I need it.
None of which is to say that any of this means “you ought to like it too”, everyone is different, everyone has opinions, and for each individual, they are perfectly entitled to dislike X or Y about something they’ve bought. Manufacturers, however, have to choose ahead of time - engineering is the art of compromise and different people will have different reactions to the trade-offs made; a long and roundabout way of saying YMMV :)
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The screen “notch” is not a notch out of the usual visible screen at all, BTW.
My beef with that kind of thing is not that it's a notch (I appreciate the extra pixels) but that there is little to no bezel. You can't pick up a live phone without triggering something because a finger will be on a live part of the screen. With a bezel there is room for your fingers to no be pressing anything.
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… rather similar to people in the UK calling a moving van a "Pantechnicon".
As a Brit, and having lived in several regions of the UK, I have never once heard a moving van to be called a pantechnicon. Not once. I’ve heard “the movers” if it’s a third party doing the moving, “a lorry”, or the 99% case “a moving van”.
I fear you may have been misled, perchance in pursuit of a jape, but unless you happened to be conversing with the right honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, I fear the only citizenry sufficiently lexiphanic to use such a term would also refer to the common double-decker red vehicular conveyance as an omnibus, a spade as an earth-inverting horticultural instrument, or a child’s carriage as a perambulator. These people are not commonplace… :)
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None of which is to say that any of this means “you ought to like it too”, everyone is different, everyone has opinions, and for each individual, they are perfectly entitled to dislike X or Y about something they’ve bought. Manufacturers, however, have to choose ahead of time - engineering is the art of compromise and different people will have different reactions to the trade-offs made; a long and roundabout way of saying YMMV :)
I wouldn't care, except that everybody copies Apple, so when there's some stupid idea like a notch out of the screen, pretty soon every other flagship and a lot of cheap stuff too has copied the notch. Perhaps I'm a bit OCD but I find any kind of notch simply intolerable. I don't care that there are extra pixels, there's a chunk out of one of the edges that is unusable and it is extremely distracting. I guess that's great if most people can tune it out, I've seen loads of people watching TV blissfully unaware or not caring that there's a smudge of something on the screen or those irritating channel logos floating in the corner, or the color is off and people's faces are pink, they seem to adjust to that and not care, I can't, to me it makes it unwatchable.
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I’ve heard “a lorry”... common double-decker red vehicular conveyance as an omnibus... a spade as an earth-inverting horticultural instrument... a child’s carriage as a perambulator.
I actually use all of those terms, and I'm a born-and-raised Yankee! Also, "pram" is much more common than "perambulator" even though "pram" aren't the first four letters of the full word.
I suspect my copious consumption of works by PG Wodehouse may have had something to do with this.
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"pram" is very commonplace, in fact I had to adjust to "stroller" when I came over to the US. Perambulator, not so much :)
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Those very thin laptops - they may look great indeed while the lid is closed - but once the lid is open and you're going to use them, then not only you won't see the difference, but yes, the compromises to make them this thin are inconvenient. In other words, it's like those products are optimized for when they are actually not being used, and for photographs.
Who cares about 5mm thicker when the laptop is in your bag, or when it is open on your desktop?
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Who cares about 5mm thicker when the laptop is in your bag, or when it is open on your desktop?
I think I might because of the keyboard. If it were like a normal keyboard, with the edge right by the space bar, it would no problem, but when the keys are set back 6" or more that 5mm step can play havoc with your wrists.
Of course, nowadays you need to put a touchpad in there, but I don't know why that isn't placed above the keyboard instead of below.
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I think a touchpad above the keyboard would be awful from an ergonomic standpoint. I can use a touchpad with my thumbs without moving my hands off the keyboard but if the touchpad were above it I would have to reach up over the keyboard to use it. I don't like the trend of touchpads being so huge these days though, I end up using only a small portion down in the corner of one and I always have to crank the sensitivity up all the way to max for it to feel even close to responsive enough.
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One thing I always turn off is "tap to cliick", gestures or anything that interprets me touching it as a set of unwanted actions. Many of my friends and past customers brought in mouses with their laptop saying the difficulty they have using them but with a quite a few of them as soon as I turned that stuff of and make a few adjustments to the speed and acceleration they seem to like it.
Now I see they merged the buttons into the touchpad and not all of them have that "touch zone"? or filters to stop it moving on the areas designated as buttons as that seems to cancel out what I am doing on the slightest movement there.
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I think a touchpad above the keyboard would be awful from an ergonomic standpoint. I can use a touchpad with my thumbs without moving my hands off the keyboard but if the touchpad were above it I would have to reach up over the keyboard to use it. I don't like the trend of touchpads being so huge these days though, I end up using only a small portion down in the corner of one and I always have to crank the sensitivity up all the way to max for it to feel even close to responsive enough.
I prefer the smaller touchpads as well... - or, a separate mouse. Easy enough to bring a small wireless mouse along with the laptop...
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nowadays you need to put a touchpad in there, but I don't know why that isn't placed above the keyboard instead of below
Best design i used was an old 486 elonex (i think) laptop were the track ball was to the right of the screen and the 2 buttons behind it on the lid. It also had its own built in psu so no external brick,just a bog standard fig 8 lead
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I can use a touchpad with my thumbs without moving my hands off the keyboard but if the touchpad were above it I would have to reach up over the keyboard to use it.
I think it probably depends on what you're used to and what work you do. I am more keyboard-centric, but if I happen to be in moving pointer mode I find the pad pretty poor compared to a BT mouse I always have with the laptop. So in my case the pad is mostly getting in the way because I'm not using it. The few times I would need to use it wouldn't be a big problem.
But... some people swear by the IBM tit, which I have never found at all usable. I'd rather use the cursor keys ::)
I am pretty sure I once had a laptop which had a pop-out mouse. It was attached by a thin rod which both supported it and provided movement info (there was no LED or ball or anything). Can't remember if it was very usable, though.
Edit: the Omnibook
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKfJq62tnHA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKfJq62tnHA)
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But... some people swear by the IBM tit, which I have never found at all usable. I'd rather use the cursor keys ::)
If you mean the "eraserhead" or "thumbstick", yeah - those are an abomination. We did extensive studies on them vs. other pointing devices and they are uniquely awful because they function completely differently from everything else.
Mice, trackpads, trackballs, styluses, etc. all translate your motion to motion of the cursor on the screen. Sometimes there's acceleration or other effects but the bottom line is motion in, motion out.
In stark contrast, the IBM/Toshiba/Lenovo eraserhead acts more like a switch, or cursor keys. You are inputting direction data, not motion data. You tilt it in a direction and the cursor moves that way - with no further motion of the input device! It too can have acceleration effects and such, but unlike virtually every other input device the cursor motion will continue even if you are not moving the input device further.
The motion-for-motion relationship is extremely intuitive. Most people become competent in mere minutes. There is an obvious relationship and your eyes+brain easily, naturally, inherently close the loop.
But the eraserhead's behavior is not intuitive. It's like cursor keys stuck on autorepeat. Activate it, and motion continues until you release. There is no physiological connection between YOUR motion and the cursor motion. You stopped moving, but the cursor kept right on going. This leads to frequent overshoots/undershoots, repeated corrections instead of "hitting the target" the first time, and user frustration.
I do understand that some people like eraserheads. To each his own. But with many years of human interface design in my background I have, do, and will ALWAYS discourage including them in any design. If people like them they should buy one as a USB or Bluetooth accessory so the vast majority of people aren't saddled with them.
As for touchpads on laptops... yep, I too disable "tap to click" immediately. Just way too many opportunities for mistakes caused by heels or palms of hands brushing the touchpad and being misinterpreted. Frankly, touchpads are little more than a necessary evil and should be kept pretty small to avoid unintentional input that often goes unnoticed until you find you've been editing in a completely wrong section of the file because you brushed the pad and thus moved the cursor while you were typing. Thank goodness for Ctrl-Z and autorepeat when that happens! My solution is to disable the touchpad and carry a Bluetooth micromouse. I buy neoprene laptop cases with a zipped pocket specifically to have a place to carry that mouse.
EDIT: I also carry a paper-thin dedicated mousepad since optical mice often have trouble with various tabletop surfaces. I get one whose size roughly matches the keyboard, and I store it on top of the keyboard when the laptop is closed. This protects the screen from getting a "keyboard imprint" caused by the keytops gently scrubbing against the screen surface during transport. Take a look at a few laptops with the light at an angle... very often there's an array of scrubbed little boxes all over the screen caused by the keys rubbing. The thin mousepad solves two problems and weighs nearly nothing.
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If you mean the "eraserhead" or "thumbstick", yeah - those are an abomination. We did extensive studies on them vs. other pointing devices and they are uniquely awful because they function completely differently from everything else.
Back in the early 2000's I had an older Toshiba (I think) laptop with a clit mouse and it actually worked really well. My later Lenovos have it and on those I don't think it works nearly as well although some people still love it. I'm not bothered by it being there, I just rarely use it. There are occasions when it has been handy though, like when the end of my finger is sore from extensive touchpad use.
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The eraser head is a terrible solution that is better than the alternative touchpad. The eraserheads I have used aren't just on/off, but move the cursor at a rate that is force dependent. Takes training, but most people need to learning mouse and finger stroke stuff(and touch typing too for that matter.)
Whenever possible I use a small travel mouse, but that doesn't work in a coach airplane seat or other cramped situations.
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… rather similar to people in the UK calling a moving van a "Pantechnicon".
As a Brit, and having lived in several regions of the UK, I have never once heard a moving van to be called a pantechnicon. Not once. I’ve heard “the movers” if it’s a third party doing the moving, “a lorry”, or the 99% case “a moving van”.
I fear you may have been misled, perchance in pursuit of a jape, but unless you happened to be conversing with the right honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, I fear the only citizenry sufficiently lexiphanic to use such a term would also refer to the common double-decker red vehicular conveyance as an omnibus, a spade as an earth-inverting horticultural instrument, or a child’s carriage as a perambulator. These people are not commonplace… :)
Whatever!
Last time I visited the UK was 1974----a lifetime ago.
I definitely remember references to "Pantechs" in the local "rag" in Southampton, & in the "Yellow Pages" of the Phone book.
Strangely enough, the word doesn't come up in casual conversation, any more than "campus" does if talking to an American.
"Lorries" instead of "Trucks", "Artics" for "Semitrailers", did come up, as did "Motor" for "Car".
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Welcome to the omnipresent reality of unserviceable product design. I try very hard to keep in-field service in mind for my designs, often at belittlement from my peers. Too many Engineers have never actually had to WORK on things in the real world. If you've been on your back in a pool of oil, reaching up into the dark greasy confines of some machine to access a poorly placed control module or filter or whatever, with accumulated dirt and leaves and mouse poop falling into your face, those experiences stay with you and improve your own later designs. "You know, an access panel would have made this so much faster and easier and cleaner."
Having read books about the automobile industry, including the fascinating title “Car: A Drama of the American Workplace (https://www.amazon.com/Car-American-Workplace-Mary-Walton/dp/0393318613),” which gave an insider view of the development process of the 1996 Ford Taurus, I’m far more inclined to believe that things like access hatches aren’t omitted because of engineering incompetence (what you allude to when you say they have no service experience, which is true for some but definitely not all the engineers; remember that most of them were gearheads as kids and worked on cars in their garages, so they definitely have hands-on experience), but because of two things:
1. bean-counters cutting costs everywhere possible
2. the need to shave off weight to achieve fuel efficiency goals
Number two is not insignificant: it comes down to shaving off 20g here, a gram here, 100g there, another 10g there. Do that from hundreds and hundreds of parts and you end up with significant weight savings.
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I want to agree with you, but after seeing some of the automotive design decisions over the decades.... Some things are so mind-numbingly suboptimized it boggles the mind. Many times I've seen things that made things MORE difficult and yet cost MORE money. Yes, I'm familiar with the concept that perhaps parts are shared between vehicles and rather than design something new they just cram-fit an existing part into the latest model. That might explain a few. But sometimes you just stand there scratching your head asking yourself WHY, when it would have been easier/faster/cheaper/lighter/etc. to do something better.
EDIT: Here's a perfect example. This is a Toyota engine. There needs to be a connection from the block fitting to the silver cooling rail above it. On some versions of this engine they have an intercooler so they have hoses coming down to the bottom of the engine for that connection. In this application, they don't use that intercooler - so the "solution" was a U-shaped aluminum hardline connecting the two dangling hoses! You can see the U-shaped tube at the bottom of the first photo. The second photo shows the 100% functional optimum solution: A short piece of rubber hose. This saves cost, space, weight, and improves reliability because there are half the number of connections that can become leaks later.
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That is the problem with the regular smoke detectors : they come with a wet-paper-bag variety of a 9 volt battery. it holds as much charge as that bag can hold water.
All off-the-shelf products come with cheap carbon-zinc "starter" batteries.
Many smoke detectors now ship with lithium batteries that last for ages. Some are even dispensing with removable batteries, since the lithium battery will last more than a decade, which is when an ionizing smoke detector is supposed to be replaced anyway.
True for TV remote controls, etc. Always the cheapest batteries with manufacturer names I've never seen elsewhere.
In a remote control, this makes sense. Carbon zinc batteries still provide years of life in an IR remote, and they aren’t anywhere near as likely to leak as alkaline batteries.
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I'm familiar with the concept that perhaps parts are shared between vehicles and rather than design something new they just cram-fit an existing part into the latest model.
Indeed. BOM consolidation across a product line is enforced in many industries - unfortunately it sometimes can lead to ridiculous decisions such as the one you showed.
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Me, I use a laptop that is thicker than the "thinnest" but has every physical port type you can get in a single box. That way I'm prepared when I walk into some lab or shop and need to connect to whatever. I don't have to carry a dozen dongles or adapters,
Sometimes a man needs a static addressed Ethernet port. Especially when the system manger is being a complete a*s over the wifi. And smug is the man who can still connect a DV camcorder to a Firewire port. Even PCMCIA ain't dead yet - in the world of business modems.
That has been my thought all along. It sacrifices too much in order to be thinner than it needs to be. It's so thin that it's uncomfortable to hold on edge in my hand, there is no reason for it to be that thin, with an extra 5mm it could probably fit a large enough battery to last a whole work day and maybe a better keyboard.
...
My tablet is a real pain to hold outside of it's cover. So too, my iPhone needs it's sillyprice-silicone case just to make it ergonomic.
Welcome to the omnipresent reality of unserviceable product design...
Two more reasons I believe the Apple keyboard is a piece of style over substance junk.
The PCB is a pair of paper thin plastic sheets with super thin traces. Like all membrane keyboards, it cannot be serviced. In fact, taking an Apple keyboard to the repair shop results in the keyboard's certain destruction. The traces are so fragile, a gust of wind will blow them off the substrate. Sometimes literally when the tracks have been exposed to a corrosive liquid like Diet Coke - or even a sea breeze.
And why do Apple keyboards have edges that feel they are straight off a milling machine? You can use an Apple keyboard as a varnish scraper, the edges are that acute. I've burnished (polished) the edges which makes the keyboard feel like a $99 maccessory. If Apple made apples, they would be square, make your gums bleed and have no allergy information.
I simply don't understand the importance placed on having little or no bezel, to the absurd extreme of having notches or holes cut out of the display. It makes no sense at all to me, I would much prefer to have a bezel around a solid, uninterrupted display than to cut out part of the display, especially when it's for a feature I don't even want...
I agree. "Why is it zooming!?!?!?! Oh yeh, I'm touching the very edge with my fingernail." If you think notched out screens are dumb, check out Samsung's new folding phone. A technological masterpiece but for the consumer, why make a phone go twice as thick in the pocket? :wtf:
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The eraser head is a terrible solution that is better than the alternative touchpad.
I like trackpads — but only because I’m a Mac user: Apple’s trackpad mechanics are so far ahead of anyone else’s it’s not even funny. I don’t know what their secret sauce is, but it’s all in the drivers, since even the Apple drivers for Windows (provided for Boot Camp dual booting) completely change the trackpad behavior.* They’ve managed to get the sensitivity, palm rejection, and acceleration dynamics just right.
Though the ones that follow the “Windows Precision Touchpad” standard are infinitely better than non-precision touchpads under Windows, they still aren’t great. I find that Windows touchpads somehow manage to be simultaneously too sensitive and not sensitive enough. I don’t know how Apple solved this, but they did.
*Caveat: I’ve never used Apple’s Boot Camp drivers for the Magic Trackpad 2. Maybe they’re better than the ones for the original Magic Trackpad, what I have at home.
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“Hanning window”. There was a Julius von Hann and a Richard Hamming (as in Hamming window) but no one named Hanning. If we’re going to corrupt von Hann’s name, shouldn’t we at least not capitalize it? (I know – picky, picky. But credit where credit is due.)
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I am a field service tech working on custom digital image and biometric solutions( will not go into greater details due to IP and NDA's). These are custom and expensive solutions. the engineers who design all of this equipment have had the word serviceability removed from their brains and vocabulary. There is 20 pounds of stuff crammed into a 5 pound enclosure and I am the one stuck trying to figure out how to repair it without adequate documentation. These same engineers also may understand how to design but not understand how what they design works. A few years back there was an issue of an OTC strobe flash in a camera tower catching fire-2 instances in several hundred pieces deployed and unfortunately in both cases, this happened over the weekend when no one was in the building. No damage other than to the tower. This created a full on crapshow involving the engineers and the top brass for the client and the company. We had a conference call about it as it was in our program. Stoopit little tech me said, no big deal, shut the tower off at end of day and turn on in the morning. For more background, these towers are plugged into surge protectors under the desks of the users with other pieces of our equipment. After a couple of weeks of whatever went on in the hallowed halls, the lead engineer sent out a memo for the end users to reach under the desk to turn off the surge protector at end of day. Mind you, the towers have their own on and off switch. :palm: Of course, no on ever did that. After another couple of weeks, another memo came out that the end user could turn off the tower switch. |O 3 years later, the cameras still stay on 24\7 and there have been no repeats. I know this can't be unique to my company. Right or wrong, I will always be of the opinion that the engineers should be made to service their designs under field conditions. For mass produced items built to a price point, I am not naive enough to expect this, but in those markets where full on custom/expensive solutions are the norm, this should be mandatory.
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I will always be of the opinion that the engineers should be made to service their designs under field conditions.
Me too.
I've designed and implemented custom software for different kinds of needs, mostly to support the work my own team or organization does. Think of customized tools. Every time, instead of asking them what they wanted, I talked and observed them when they went through a real-world workflow. I'm pretty good at it, too: I can usually tell how to make the process more robust (reduce the likelihood of errors), and save time and effort also.
Having done that successfully, making everyone really happy and productive, and then seeing how the Big Boys do the same, makes me :palm: and want to cry.
It's like the bad telephone game: someone rants a bit about what they want (without actually knowing or having any skill in deciding what they want), writing a report about it to their boss. The boss goes on a few paid wet lunches, to see which companies could "fix" the issue. Some dedicated people at those companies create some offers –– note that these people are not part of the actual development process, they're dedicated to writing tempting offers, and specialized in weasel-words. The boss, or someone the boss picks, selects one of the offers, based on metrics defined on a spreadsheet somewhere, completely unrelated to the thing at hand but designed by some analyst or bureaucrat somewhere. Then starts the design rounds, where the picked company selects a set of people to write up a description of the result. None of these people have ever used this kind of software, but they're very good at writing nice descriptions; that's what they get paid for. After a few rounds, the description is agreed upon, and a different set of people start developing software, using their own understanding of the description. None of them have any experience in using that kind of software, of course. The end result? Has nothing to do with what was needed to solve the original problem. Nobody takes responsibility, because everyone did their jobs perfectly, even if millions were spent and the end result is not usable nor would it solve the problem even if it was. Some designer/architect/developer might get blamed and fired if some accountant or bureau generates noise about the wastage, but all the management types will get bonuses and happily move on to the next, even better paid job.
(In Finland, only about a third of large IT projects succeed, producing an usable result. The failures never seem to impact the leaders of such projects. A roughly similar project in Estonia that cost 20 M€ and was a success, cost an estimated 774 M€ (our population is about 5.5M, compared to Estonia's 1.3M) and is a complete unusable turd; see here (https://www.apotti.fi/en/).)
Making unserviceable, unusable stuff should be a shame that impacts your career. Instead, it somehow seems to be something to be proud of. WTF?
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… rather similar to people in the UK calling a moving van a "Pantechnicon".
As a Brit, and having lived in several regions of the UK, I have never once heard a moving van to be called a pantechnicon. Not once. I’ve heard “the movers” if it’s a third party doing the moving, “a lorry”, or the 99% case “a moving van”.
I fear you may have been misled, perchance in pursuit of a jape, but unless you happened to be conversing with the right honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, I fear the only citizenry sufficiently lexiphanic to use such a term would also refer to the common double-decker red vehicular conveyance as an omnibus, a spade as an earth-inverting horticultural instrument, or a child’s carriage as a perambulator. These people are not commonplace… :)
Whatever!
Last time I visited the UK was 1974----a lifetime ago.
I definitely remember references to "Pantechs" in the local "rag" in Southampton, & in the "Yellow Pages" of the Phone book.
Strangely enough, the word doesn't come up in casual conversation, any more than "campus" does if talking to an American.
"Lorries" instead of "Trucks", "Artics" for "Semitrailers", did come up, as did "Motor" for "Car".
Pantechnicon is a term I heard a few times as a child in 1950s and 60s London, but I'm not sure I've heard it even once in adult life.
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Making unserviceable, unusable stuff should be a shame that impacts your career. Instead, it somehow seems to be something to be proud of. WTF?
Dunno, it probably depends on which side of the fence you're on.
For companies selling services rather than products (in the general sense), it probably pays off to make stuff that requires constant upgrades. Until clients get bored.
Happens even with the big ones. IBM has failed many software projects, some having burnt hundreds of millions of dollars. And it's like people just whine for a bit and move on, and IBM is still there.
Great business model. :-DD
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Well thats just people using mass and weight interchangeably. Not that much of a contradiction.
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Women who wrongly accuse men of "mansplaining" while at the same time being unable to define what a man is.
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Cutting the ground prong.
#%*&$#!! |O
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If in the US, Liberty Mutual TV ads!
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Cutting the ground prong.
#%*&$#!! |O
I don't think that happens much anymore. I have had the ground prongs break off several times though, they tend to stick much more firmly in the receptacle than the other prongs and being larger and round they exert a lot of force on the attachment point if somebody trips over the cord or whatever.
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While we're on the topic of plugs and outlets... If you're in the USA, who shares my hatred of those relatively new (and NEC required) "childproof" wall sockets with the internal doors over the prongs? Theoretically the doors are supposed to retract when the ground prong goes in first, but my experience is that you push and shove and try various angles until the doors just crack out of the way. Unfortunately, they don't seem to actually break off so you get to enjoy this little song and dance every time.
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Too many to pick a favorite, but these are on the list:
Fixing what ain’t broke.
Ads that say “Up to X% off, or more!”
Any sequence of traffic lights that are NOT synced.
Any vitamin or mineral or “health” supplement ad with the word “supports”.
And finally, the unfortunate reality that if a bacterium were to be discovered on Mars, the newspapers would have six-inch headlines, and TV networks would interrupt their regularly scheduled programs for this special news bulletin,
“LIFE FOUND ON MARS”
but we are supposed to believe that a human fetus with a heartbeat, is not life.
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While we're on the topic of plugs and outlets... If you're in the USA, who shares my hatred of those relatively new (and NEC required) "childproof" wall sockets with the internal doors over the prongs? Theoretically the doors are supposed to retract when the ground prong goes in first, but my experience is that you push and shove and try various angles until the doors just crack out of the way. Unfortunately, they don't seem to actually break off so you get to enjoy this little song and dance every time.
Oh those things are awful, "Tamper Resistant" they call them, and since they're only required in residential construction you can only get them in the cheap builder grade junk which of course costs as much as good spec grade commercial receptacles. I refuse to use them except as needed to get through inspection. Thankfully due to only being required for residential the spec grade stuff is still readily available.
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“LIFE FOUND ON MARS”
but we are supposed to believe that a human fetus with a heartbeat, is not life.
IMHO until it can survive independently of another organism it is not a life form, it is a parasite. Sperms are alive, we don't worry about those.
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“LIFE FOUND ON MARS”
but we are supposed to believe that a human fetus with a heartbeat, is not life.
IMHO until it can survive independently of another organism it is not a life form, it is a parasite. Sperms are alive, we don't worry about those.
By that reasoning then, a hospital patient on life support would be considered a parasite. So why do we go to such great lengths to keep them alive? Besides there being lots of money to be made, in contrast to preventing a child coming into the world
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“LIFE FOUND ON MARS”
but we are supposed to believe that a human fetus with a heartbeat, is not life.
IMHO until it can survive independently of another organism it is not a life form, it is a parasite. Sperms are alive, we don't worry about those.
By that reasoning then, a hospital patient on life support would be considered a parasite. So why do we go to such great lengths to keep them alive? Besides there being lots of money to be made, in contrast to preventing a child coming into the world
Babies are born helpless.
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By that reasoning then, a hospital patient on life support would be considered a parasite. So why do we go to such great lengths to keep them alive? Besides there being lots of money to be made, in contrast to preventing a child coming into the world
That's a good question, I often think FAR too much effort is expended keeping bodies alive on life support, especially those that will never recover. I can see some reasoning though, society has already invested a tremendous amount of effort raising a person into a functional adult, if there is a chance that a person can be saved to the extent that they can recover and be able to live (as opposed to simply being alive) then it is worth some effort. A fetus on the other hand has had zero investment and it is trivial to make another. It is not even a person until it has been born, it has no memories, no relationships with others, nothing. Sperm are alive, the body naturally jettisons an egg every month, nobody gets upset about that. I personally don't see what makes it so special once these two elements have combined, it's not magic, it's just biology.
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the body naturally jettisons an egg every month, nobody gets upset about that.
Oh yeah? Try co-cohabitating with a host of said egg.
;)
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
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Neither can I :)
Wait until the egg factory dries up, and live with it then :o
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[A fetus] is not even a person until it has been born,
That is where we differ, but I respect your right to have your point of view. No flame war intended.
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While we're on the topic of plugs and outlets... If you're in the USA, who shares my hatred of those relatively new (and NEC required) "childproof" wall sockets with the internal doors over the prongs? Theoretically the doors are supposed to retract when the ground prong goes in first, but my experience is that you push and shove and try various angles until the doors just crack out of the way. Unfortunately, they don't seem to actually break off so you get to enjoy this little song and dance every time.
Yes I hate those, but here, at least in the Netherlands and France, you can't buy them without this. >:( On extension cords I usually go at them with a dremel to get rid of them.
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“LIFE FOUND ON MARS”
but we are supposed to believe that a human fetus with a heartbeat, is not life.
IMHO until it can survive independently of another organism it is not a life form, it is a parasite. Sperms are alive, we don't worry about those.
By that reasoning then, a hospital patient on life support would be considered a parasite. So why do we go to such great lengths to keep them alive? Besides there being lots of money to be made, in contrast to preventing a child coming into the world
Emotion and hope. Often rational thinking goes out of the window in these case.
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Pet peeve #2203 :
Heavy light fittings held up on a ceiling by a single tiny grub screw.
Just fitted a lamp made from brass and glass, weighing around two kilos without lamps. Despite the mounting bracket being 'engineered' to the ceiling so not even an earthquake can move it, the lamp attaches to the bracket with a 5mm long M3 grub screw. Please, "no swinging from the light fittings".
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While we're on the topic of plugs and outlets... If you're in the USA, who shares my hatred of those relatively new (and NEC required) "childproof" wall sockets with the internal doors over the prongs? Theoretically the doors are supposed to retract when the ground prong goes in first, but my experience is that you push and shove and try various angles until the doors just crack out of the way. Unfortunately, they don't seem to actually break off so you get to enjoy this little song and dance every time.
Yes I hate those, but here, at least in the Netherlands and France, you can't buy them without this. >:( On extension cords I usually go at them with a dremel to get rid of them.
Yes, when we had some work done two years ago the electrician installed them in a new room, to meet code requirements.
They work fine with a three-prong plug, but our vacuum cleaner is double-insulated and has a (polarized) two prong plug.
Luckily, the outlets are never in the right place anyway, so we use (legal) outlet strips (with breaker) that have non-childproof three-prong sockets.
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If you're in the USA, who shares my hatred of those relatively new (and NEC required) "childproof" wall sockets with the internal doors over the prongs?
wait until you get the moronic "safety experts" calling for covers to be fitted that actually make things more dangerous.
Just fitted a lamp made from brass and glass, weighing around two kilos without lamps.
with the standard cord grips as found in batten holders and ceiling roses a bit of 0.5mm is allowed to support upto 2Kg,move up to 1mm and its 5Kg
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Another pet peeve: Use of the word "midnight" in news articles.
Right now in the US, there is a possibility of a railroad strike in a few days.
The media insist on calling the time of the strike "midnight Friday".
One site tried to get this right and said "midnight Friday, so the strike starts 12:01 AM on Saturday".
With 24 hour clocks, 24:00 on Friday would be 00:00 on Saturday, and the ambiguity disappears.
(US railroads usually avoid this problem in their timetables by avoiding midnight and scheduling at either 11:59 PM or 12:01 AM when using 12-hour clocks.)
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Related: If one must use 12 hour time representation, why always use the trailing "M"? It's 100% redundant and conveys zero additional information.
1:23P is completely unambiguous. We do not need to write 1:23PM. Likewise 1:23A and 1:23P cannot be misinterpreted, despite the absence of the trailing M's.
Yeah, I know, but I'm a bandwidth and storage nazi so every character matters!
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Related: If one must use 12 hour time representation, why always use the trailing "M"? It's 100% redundant and conveys zero additional information.
1:23P is completely unambiguous. We do not need to write 1:23PM. Likewise 1:23A and 1:23P cannot be misinterpreted, despite the absence of the trailing M's.
Yeah, I know, but I'm a bandwidth and storage nazi so every character matters!
Note that the trailing "M" refers to noon, not midnight.
Ante meridiem and post meridiem.
This leads to further confusion at 12:00 AM and 12:00 PM, since 12:00 PM is (usually) noon, unless it is 12 hours after noon (literally).
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If you think about it, even the phase of our local clocks is all wrong. I mean, a normal day starts at around 6-9, midday is at 12 and immediately wraps down to 1, with evening starting at around 5 or so –– but with some variation depending on whether you have siesta or similar or not.
Why isn't 12 at the bottom, instead? Then the day would change around when people start waking up for the new day, and the first turn of the clock is the typical wakefullness time ("day"), and the second turn the typical sleep time ("night"), say corresponding to when the sun is visible on the equator at that latitude or time zone.
My pet peeve isn't the clock, though. It's my own frigging mind, which finds these kinds of things to wonder about, all the time. And it annoys me to no end. I know there is an interesting long history behind it, some of it lost, some of it very obscure, and anyway it is one of those 'culture' things you grow into and cannot really change. I'd rather wonder about some useful stuff instead.
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Before the Meiji Restoration, during the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Japanese time system separated "day" and "night", and divided each into six parts.
Therefore, the length of an hour varied with the season.
This interesting link discusses the mechanical clocks used in the traditional system: https://museum.seiko.co.jp/en/knowledge/relation_15/
There were several locations in Edo (now Tokyo) with bells to synchronize timekeeping in the metropolitan area.
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but with some variation depending on whether you have siesta or similar or not.
I thought siesta was a southern thing, you know in warm countries where it is to hot to work between 14:00 and 16:00 or so.
I guess in your neck of the wood it is more like hibernation :-DD
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Related: If one must use 12 hour time representation, why always use the trailing "M"? It's 100% redundant and conveys zero additional information.
1:23P is completely unambiguous. We do not need to write 1:23PM. Likewise 1:23A and 1:23P cannot be misinterpreted, despite the absence of the trailing M's.
Yeah, I know, but I'm a bandwidth and storage nazi so every character matters!
I guess I never really thought of that. I suppose though by that logic we could truncate all sorts of words and the message would still carry, but grammar dictates otherwise.
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the body naturally jettisons an egg every month, nobody gets upset about that.
Oh yeah? Try co-cohabitating with a host of said egg.
;)
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Valid point. That thought did cross my mind at the time. It is a different sort of upset though.
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I guess I never really thought of that. I suppose though by that logic we could truncate all sorts of words and the message would still carry, but grammar dictates otherwise.
Take it to a ridiculous extreme, and you have modern texting! LOL BFG etc.
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My pet peeve is using the suffix gate for any scandal. Watergate wasn't a scandal about water, it was the name of the office building where the scandal occurred.
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My pet peeve is using the suffix gate for any scandal. Watergate wasn't a scandal about water, it was the name of the office building where the scandal occurred.
Did someone say sensationalism? :scared:
My personal favourite was probably the Sharpiegate. Watching the coverage of it I was like "...is this real life? :palm: " I forgot the details of it but I do remember it was 100% genuine silliness.
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I swear some people use "-gate" in a vain attempt to generate more outrage than is justified.
News used to be news. Now it's just politics.
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Many years ago I used to be able to buy these round open terminals by the buckets. I liked them as they have a very round and large contact area with the head of the screw.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1591045)
However, it seems that nowadays the only ones that I can buy are the "spade" types with square corners... :(
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1591051)
Well, that or my google-fu skills are lacking severely... But I searched everywhere where these things are sold, including the typical trade sites eBay, Aliexpress, Banggood, etc.
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Yeah. What happened to them?
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Have a look at "ring terminal high temp"
Might have to cut the slot. :-\
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Many years ago I used to be able to buy these round open terminals by the buckets. I liked them as they have a very round and large contact area with the head of the screw.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1591045)
However, it seems that nowadays the only ones that I can buy are the "spade" types with square corners... :(
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1591051)
Well, that or my google-fu skills are lacking severely... But I searched everywhere where these things are sold, including the typical trade sites eBay, Aliexpress, Banggood, etc.
Back in my first job, we sold the first type as "spade connectors", so that is what I think of when I hear the term.
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Many years ago I used to be able to buy these round open terminals by the buckets. I liked them as they have a very round and large contact area with the head of the screw.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1591045)
However, it seems that nowadays the only ones that I can buy are the "spade" types with square corners... :(
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1591051)
If you look at it afresh, the bottom one is simply the top one with extra material at the ends to prevent a point occurring. It looks like it has less material overall because the hole is larger compared to the full width, but the top one with the same size hole would have less material.
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My pet peeve is that while LEDs have exceeded 200lm/W years ago and 80-90% efficient driver circuits are easy to design, we mere mortals (unless we live in Saudi Arabia or whatever, I forgot which country it was exactly where efficient LED lights are available) have to buy lowest tier factory floor crap LEDs.
For a bulb, the available range is 80 - 105 lm/W. From crap to just barely acceptable. But it gets worse with fixtures, much worse. I am looking for either self-adhesive LED strip, or slim aluminum cased fixture to install under the kitchen cabinets to light up the work areas. I looked in every local store, including Bauhaus for example which usually does not just sell cheap crap but have decent offerings. And what I found out, almost all products are 50 lm/W and the best ones, good brands, are approaching 80 lm/W. There is no excuse for this crap, these products do not have fancy diffusers or shades which would explain the poor efficiency (but at least give some visual improvement).
I have set my mental limit so that I absolutely refuse to buy a LED fixture below 90 lm/W so no kitchen work lights for us, then. I need to import these from more developed countries, or design and build my own LED lights.
And I'm even willing to pay, but high-efficiency stuff is simply not an option, at any price, even when we are in the middle of energy crisis. Go figure.
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I know nothing, but parroting BigClive, I do believe that the luminosity per watt for a LED is much below the maximum current. As shown by BigClive, the Doobys just run the pretty much same LED chips at lower currents.
This means that if you want more efficient lighting, just grab some good quality lamps, about twice the luminosity you need, and replace their LED drivers with ones that produce about half the current.
If I had a reliable calibrated luminosity measuring device, this is exactly what I'd be testing with a few different LEDs, including some el-cheapo eBay ones, as well as proper quality ones: the luminosity per watt curve at different constant currents. Yes yes, I know, many believe it is "basically constant", but it isn't, or the Dooby LEDs would not exist in the form they do.
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If you think about it, even the phase of our local clocks is all wrong. I mean, a normal day starts at around 6-9, midday is at 12 and immediately wraps down to 1, with evening starting at around 5 or so –– but with some variation depending on whether you have siesta or similar or not.
Why isn't 12 at the bottom, instead? Then the day would change around when people start waking up for the new day, and the first turn of the clock is the typical wakefullness time ("day"), and the second turn the typical sleep time ("night"), say corresponding to when the sun is visible on the equator at that latitude or time zone.
My pet peeve isn't the clock, though. It's my own frigging mind, which finds these kinds of things to wonder about, all the time. And it annoys me to no end. I know there is an interesting long history behind it, some of it lost, some of it very obscure, and anyway it is one of those 'culture' things you grow into and cannot really change. I'd rather wonder about some useful stuff instead.
Jewish tradition starts the next day at sunset. Possibly for the same reason.
(this also gives a clearly visible and fair "progress bar" of sorts, until no one is allowed to work on the Sabbath)
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If you think about it, even the phase of our local clocks is all wrong. I mean, a normal day starts at around 6-9, midday is at 12 and immediately wraps down to 1, with evening starting at around 5 or so –– but with some variation depending on whether you have siesta or similar or not.
Why isn't 12 at the bottom, instead? Then the day would change around when people start waking up for the new day, and the first turn of the clock is the typical wakefullness time ("day"), and the second turn the typical sleep time ("night"), say corresponding to when the sun is visible on the equator at that latitude or time zone.
My pet peeve isn't the clock, though. It's my own frigging mind, which finds these kinds of things to wonder about, all the time. And it annoys me to no end. I know there is an interesting long history behind it, some of it lost, some of it very obscure, and anyway it is one of those 'culture' things you grow into and cannot really change. I'd rather wonder about some useful stuff instead.
Jewish tradition starts the next day at sunset. Possibly for the same reason.
(this also gives a clearly visible and fair "progress bar" of sorts, until no one is allowed to work on the Sabbath)
its a copyright© and intellectual property issue.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens† and the earth†. so do not forget
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Have a look at "ring terminal high temp"
Might have to cut the slot. :-\
I tried to do this on some modern ring units (never tried the "high temp" variant), but it gives the impression the material gets somewhat weaker with the plier cut.
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Back in my first job, we sold the first type as "spade connectors", so that is what I think of when I hear the term.
I did not know these were called spade connectors. Thanks!
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If you look at it afresh, the bottom one is simply the top one with extra material at the ends to prevent a point occurring. It looks like it has less material overall because the hole is larger compared to the full width, but the top one with the same size hole would have less material.
It might not have less material, but it is misplaced on its ends. To me it fails to fully encompass the area of the screw head, where it would have the practical advantage of reducing the ohmic resistance.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1592176)
Versus:
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1592182)
If I need to get a complete area coverage I need a larger spade, but then the wire gauge has to increase as well.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1592188)
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If I need to get a complete area coverage I need a
Ring,not a spade
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If I need to get a complete area coverage I need a
Ring,not a spade
I think he's saying he wants a bigger fork. (who doesn't !?!?)
There are fork, ring and spade.
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If I need to get a complete area coverage I need a
Ring,not a spade
A ring unfortunately is fully enclosed, which does not work on captive screws.
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I am hearing this nonsense more and more this year starting from solar panel inverters and especially for things that don't need broadband.
I feel like having a right scream and shout at the next person who tells me in person:
"To do this, you need an app on your pc/phone whatever" "first you need to create a account 'on the cloud':bullshit:, sign in, download an app, sign into that, do this and that, enter your location... " Internal thought: F*** off. I am not going to. You can forget it.
Restaurant... Peel this sticker and win this prize.
Okay I look at it to find, "need to download "the app", and registration... name, phone number, address and proof of identity... etc"
Internal thought: Rubbish. What waste time reading it in the first place.
Television adverts: It's all free and easy, all you need is to download "app" register your name and address blah blah blah.
Internal though: It's easier and much more free not to do anything.
Youtube advert yesterday: "Smiley lady: Businesses are moving to the cloud...."
Joke: If they are physically moving to the cloud then that is impossible because there is nothing in the sky up there to support them and that speaks for access to their data and use if they have no infrastructure in house and find they need it one day.
Anybody noticing an increase in this nonsense?
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It's the default today for sure. I too don't run hordes of apps. I'm hoping there will be a backlash of sorts eventually where folks just get tired of the nonsense.
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A lot of HP printers and multifunction devices now need a cloud account, something they call HP+ and once you set it up on a printer you can't go back. It locks the printer into using genuine ink/toner only and has an ink subscription service. I like my HP printer that came out prior to this nonsense but I will never buy another one.
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It's the default today for sure. I too don't run hordes of apps. I'm hoping there will be a backlash of sorts eventually where folks just get tired of the nonsense.
I'm afraid that many business model is build on only more and more of this. The smartphone is becoming your everything. The only thing you need to carry on your body to go through life. All your plastic can go into it, because for every card you have in your wallet there will be an app eventually. Payment with it already starting to increase.
I hope the plastic debit/credit card lasts long enough for me, not to have to switch to this smartphone solution, because I fear the day that I'm forced to take that route.
All your shit in one device without some easy fallback when it is stolen. I rather carry things spread over my pockets to not have all my eggs in one basket.
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Youtube advert yesterday: "Smiley lady: Businesses are moving to the cloud...."
Joke: If they are physically moving to the cloud then that is impossible because there is nothing in the sky up there to support them and that speaks for access to their data and use if they have no infrastructure in house and find they need it one day.
Is that not where we all go in the end? You know that sweet place in the clouds :-DD
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Yes but they are not holding me or my things to ransom.
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*A lot of HP printers and multifunction devices now need a cloud account, something they call HP+ and once you set it up on a printer you can't go back. It locks the printer into using genuine ink/toner only and has an ink subscription service. I like my HP printer that came out prior to this nonsense but I will never buy another one.
I heard about the HP subscription thing after complaints of not being able to print when loosing connection but thought you could opt out.
*I find that very disturbing.
All I need, basic print driver and network scan to folder function that supports jpg and pdf.
That is all I need, it is simple, it is quick, it works and not dependent on anything outside a bit like with some previous printers I had over a decade ago where some of buttons relied on this bit of software that sometimes didn't always work or registered it's presence to the printer.
I have a HP8620 from 2015, for £150, ink has gone up so I use compatibles but continues to works brilliantly.
If I buy a printer and find it needs broadband in order to work I will return it to the shop and make a complaint.
The STUPIDITY!
I suppose if it says it on the box I wouldn't buy it but I can imagine that being left out.
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I heard about the HP subscription thing after complaints of not being able to print when loosing connection but thought you could opt out.
I find that very disturbing.
All I need, basic print driver and network scan to folder function that supports jpg and pdf.
That is all I need, it is simple, it is quick, it works and not dependent on anything outside a bit like with some previous printers I had over a decade ago where some of buttons relied on this bit of software that sometimes didn't always work or registered it's presence to the printer.
I have a HP8620 from 2015, for £150, ink has gone up so I use compatibles but continues to works brilliantly.
If I buy a printer and find it needs broadband in order to work I will return it to the shop and make a complaint.
The STUPIDITY!
I suppose if it says it on the box I wouldn't buy it but I can imagine that being left out.
Apparently you can opt out, at least with most of them, but if you happen to opt in during setup you are stuck. Either way it's enough to keep me from ever buying one. It's bad enough that my HP printer driver has been nagging me for a year that the black toner is low, I found a new OEM one for a good price on ebay some time back but as long as it keeps printing perfectly I'm not going to change it.
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Aaah so it is a glitch it is not intentional.
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Which is? Making it opt into the HP+ thing that then traps you and forces you to use OEM ink/toner is absolutely intentional.
The low toner nag is also intentional I'm sure, they want you to buy a new cartridge. Printer manufactures have started using the razor blade business model, sell the printer at cost or at a loss then try to make it up with overpriced consumables.
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Printer manufactures have started using the razor blade business model,
Started? they been at it for years.
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Google phone pushing things down my throat. BECAUSE it's become a necessity, (and if I don't like it..
...I can always go to Apple phone, at what, $1800 !)
Today, phone has been placing (ie 'pushing') PayPal account creation (APP), and now, seems to have installed (PayPal), simply because my hand 'slipped' across the screen (I had dropped / fumbled).
Then, no PayPal Icon, (as if APP was installed, so message disappeared).
Lol, someone should tip off NY Attorney General, apparently interested in 'consumer' rights and financial fraud.
Bought the book, Android for Dummies...useless chock full of advertisements.
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...(continued)...
Oh and I have a 'REVERSE Pet Peeve',
That is; Those complaints of mine, about Google, PayPal, get me into a 'whine'-y reputation, maybe complains about literally everything...
It's maybe an old-school thing, but I feel cornered, on the whole Google dynamic...or should I say 'inescapable' dynamic. (Monopoly doesn't have to please the customers).
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I bought a "smart" phone a while back. It's probably the stupidest piece of garbage I've ever owned. As an example, when charging and it reaches 100% it pops up a message saying something like "Charging at low rate check cable" instead of "Charging complete". If I can find a decent 4G normal phone, the "smart" one is going in the trash.
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Printer manufactures have started using the razor blade business model,
Started? they been at it for years.
Indeed.
If anything, they’re finally starting to tiptoe away from that business model, in the bulk-ink inkjets (Epson EcoTank, Canon MegaTank, etc). You’re paying double up front for the printer, but in return the consumables are practically free.
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Aaah so it is a glitch it is not intentional.
No, it was very, VERY intentional.
There are numerous models released before HP+ which were then re-released, with an “e” tacked onto the model number, for HP+. What’d that do? It moved previously free app features into subscription-only HP+ features, and (at least here in Europe) moved the free-on-registration second and third year of warranty into HP+. And you get 6 months of free “instant ink” subscription. (Instant Ink has been around for years and doesn’t require HP+, and is actually a good deal for people who print lots of ink-heavy pages like photos.)
In return for those perks, you permanently rule out third party ink and refills, and must leave the printer connected to the internet at all times.
Now, on the HP inkjets with the “e”, HP+ is optional: on setup, you choose whether you want it or not, and that’s burned into the printer’s firmware.
But on the HP laser printers with the “e”, HP+ is mandatory. If you don’t want it, you need to buy the more expensive version without the “e”.
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Google phone pushing things down my throat. BECAUSE it's become a necessity, (and if I don't like it..
...I can always go to Apple phone, at what, $1800 !)
Why the hyperbole? The absolutely most expensive iPhone configuration (14 Pro Max with 1TB storage) is $1600, and that’s just because of the 1TB, which you only need if you plan to use it to film lots of 4K video. A more typical 256 or 512GB are $1200 and $1400, resp. But if you don’t want the Max’s gigantic size and don’t need pro features, you can get a standard 14 from $800 or an SE from $430. They’re really no more expensive than other high-end smartphones, and you get a lot more life out of them thanks to loooong OS support.
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It's the default today for sure. I too don't run hordes of apps. I'm hoping there will be a backlash of sorts eventually where folks just get tired of the nonsense.
Here is the massive problem with Apps; smart phone applications require a device to support the very latest gleaming OS build. If your IoS or 'droid is a version behind OS support, then it is highly likely that THE APP CANNOT BE USED >:(
My iPad/iPhone/Chrome owing mother raised this issue with a bank employee some 60 years her junior; even though the bank employee was a real human, her point caused the 'app' inside his head to leak memory... and crash his brain. He must have thought apps are "downloaded from the cloud" by some ethereal angels with magic wings made from JSON code. Upgrading your phone every time there is a software update only maketh for a drawer full of defunked phones.
It is 'appy that those super keen apps developers in India are using the latest build for "platform interoperabity". It's just a crying shame that NOW some 50% of a company's clients can no longer access their accounts or, patients not access their medical records. And all because the fancy Bluetooth QR code reading widget that no one will ever use, only works on an iPhone with built-in Dolby Surround Sound.
As for apps for Microsoft phones, that'll teach me you for being different :'(
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Supposedly educated people, when talking about, or reporting on, Nuclear subjects, who don't pronounce Nuclear correctly >:(
Really grinds my gears!
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Supposedly educated people, when talking about, or reporting on, Nuclear subjects, who don't pronounce Nuclear correctly >:(
Really grinds my gears!
Grind away...
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How should it be pronounced?
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New-clee-err, based on the spelling.
US President D Eisenhower never got this right either.
Then again, everyone back then called nuclear power "atomic power", as well.
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Oh, that's what I thought. How disappointing :)
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Here is the massive problem with Apps; smart phone applications require a device to support the very latest gleaming OS build. If your IoS or 'droid is a version behind OS support, then it is highly likely that THE APP CANNOT BE USED >:(
Which is why I check before I choose them that they can run standalone and won't update behind my back.
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Printer manufactures have started using the razor blade business model,
Started? they been at it for years.
I guess I should have said started enforcing it, it's been around for decades but more recently it has gotten much worse. That stupid HP+ thing locks users into it, no thanks. Personally I think it should be illegal for printers to enforce OEM ink, and they shouldn't be able to void the warranty either unless they can prove the failure was a result of the aftermarket cartridge. It's not my fault they've decided to make printers stupidly cheap, and I'm not ever going to pay retail price for toner.
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New-clee-err, based on the spelling.
US President D Eisenhower never got this right either.
Then again, everyone back then called nuclear power "atomic power", as well.
Yes, that was a thing. There was book published by the United States Atomic Energy Commission and Department of Defense, titled The Effects of Atomic Weapons, basically a review of results from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and later weapons testing. This was then published again, titled The Effects of Nuclear (Nu Killer for those that muddle their pronunciation) Weapons. Atomic and Nuclear would seem to distinguish between Atomic weapons, that is fission bombs, and Nuclear, that is Fission Fusion or, thermonuclear bombs.
Both books by the way, are extremely interesting reads, and very scary.
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Heinz tinned soup.
Not the soup, which is perfectly reasonable, but the stupid cans. Once upon a time they were just like any other modern can, which a beveled bottom edge so they'd stack easily. Then some bright spark had the idea of making shelf stackers' life more 'interesting' and made the bottom edge exactly the same as the top, so they no long stack. Just spent a fun 10 mins picking the bloody things up off the floor when trying to fit them just two-high onto the pantry shelf.
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Watching a TV review about Volkswagen battery cars. I got put off starting from the bit when the creator was all, it's got "this app" and "that app", " the app does this and that" and "the 'smart'' app:bullshit: will tell you how much battery is left blah blah blah..."
All I care about is how well it drives and pulls out of busy junctions, how smooth it is, the torque, efficiency, the functionality within the car itself and the serviceability not about phones and apps dominating the review.
I'd expect it to display that information by default on the built in screen without the need of an "app" on a phone. It's nice to have functionality as well but I found it ridiculous that the creator was focusing on just a phone when it should be the car and showing this functionality in the car.
So they are taking features that are nothing new and are calling it 'smart' because it is on batteries instead of fuel, which I find a damn insult as if they were portraying that the "fuel gauge" is brand a new concept that I have never seen before.
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Watching a TV review about Volkswagen battery cars. I got put off starting from the bit when the creator was all, it's got "this app" and "that app", " the app does this and that" and "the 'smart'' app:bullshit: will tell you how much battery is left blah blah blah..."
All I care about is how well it drives and pulls out of busy junctions, how smooth it is, the torque, efficiency, the functionality within the car itself and the serviceability not about phones and apps dominating the review.
I'd expect it to display that information by default on the built in screen without the need of an "app" on a phone. It's nice to have functionality as well but I found it ridiculous that the creator was focusing on just a phone when it should be the car and showing this functionality in the car.
So they are taking features that are nothing new and are calling it 'smart' because it is on batteries instead of fuel, which I find a damn insult as if they were portraying that the "fuel gauge" is brand a new concept that I have never seen before.
Cars are all so similar now that ads mostly focus on the infotainment crap and other gadgets they contain. They're pretty much all the same basic design, nearly indistinguishable from each other. They're pretty much all reliable, get similar gas mileage and have similar performance, there isn't much to differentiate the brands besides the hideous gigantic grills and the tech gadgets.
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Cars are all so similar now that ads mostly focus on the infotainment crap and other gadgets they contain. They're pretty much all the same basic design, nearly indistinguishable from each other. They're pretty much all reliable, get similar gas mileage and have similar performance, there isn't much to differentiate the brands besides the hideous gigantic grills and the tech gadgets.
Really? Where can we find these highly reliable cars? The average car is better than it used to be, but large numbers of us still choose cars with a big bias towards ones that don't break too often. Choosing a higher power option doesn't give the eye watering fuel bills it used to, but there is still a large gulf between economy and performance engine options.
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Really? Where can we find these highly reliable cars? The average car is better than it used to be, but large numbers of us still choose cars with a big bias towards ones that don't break too often. Choosing a higher power option doesn't give the eye watering fuel bills it used to, but there is still a large gulf between economy and performance engine options.
I struggle to think of anybody I know whose car under about 10 years old has been in the shop recently. Cars used to break down regularly, even fairly new cars, now most of them will go 100k+ miles with little more than oil changes. Many of them will go a lot longer than that without requiring major repairs. Everyone seems to have settled on the cookie cutter crossover SUV design, they're all pretty much the same.
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Really? Where can we find these highly reliable cars? The average car is better than it used to be, but large numbers of us still choose cars with a big bias towards ones that don't break too often. Choosing a higher power option doesn't give the eye watering fuel bills it used to, but there is still a large gulf between economy and performance engine options.
I struggle to think of anybody I know whose car under about 10 years old has been in the shop recently. Cars used to break down regularly, even fairly new cars, now most of them will go 100k+ miles with little more than oil changes. Many of them will go a lot longer than that without requiring major repairs. Everyone seems to have settled on the cookie cutter crossover SUV design, they're all pretty much the same.
Unless you bought one of the gasoline direct injection cars that choke with carbon after 40k or 50k miles; or you bought one of most makes with a CVT, especially Nissan; or you bought one of the various troublesome dual clutch gearbox cars, like the Fords that caused huge law suits; or.... The best cars out there are pretty solid these days, but I wouldn't say this was general. They keep changing technologies without much regard for the downsides. We even had a fault on our 10 year old 65k mile Honda Jazz recently, and that keeps topping the reliability ratings in the UK. :)
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In the current context - engines with aluminium cylinder heads. |O Back in the day with cast iron heads you could boil them till the paint peeled off, refill them with coolant and away you go. Not nowadays. Just look at them sideways or misgender them or whatever and bingo! time for a new head gasket. And nowadays doing a head gasket is not always straightforward job you can do at home. Gotta get the head machined, preferably with a surface finish to suit the gasket, new head bolts that torque to yield instead of three grunts tight :P and there is a whole plethora of overhead cams and belts and chains and a pile of other stuff that gets in your way. And get of my lawn!
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In the current context - engines with aluminium cylinder heads. |O Back in the day with cast iron heads you could boil them till the paint peeled off, refill them with coolant and away you go. Not nowadays. Just look at them sideways or misgender them or whatever and bingo! time for a new head gasket. And nowadays doing a head gasket is not always straightforward job you can do at home. Gotta get the head machined, preferably with a surface finish to suit the gasket, new head bolts that torque to yield instead of three grunts tight :P and there is a whole plethora of overhead cams and belts and chains and a pile of other stuff that gets in your way. And get of my lawn!
This leads to another gripe, though it is really a "past gripe".
Bosch in Oz sold a particular sparkplug part number to fit the HQ Holden six cylinder engines.
They worked much better than the cruddy "AC" brand ones fitted by GMH, but were expensive, so when I saw the same part number a lot cheaper at KMart, I grabbed a set.
Fitting them, I looked forward to trouble free operation, only to find the insulation was breaking down after a very few km.
Looking at them, they all had hairline cracks in the insulator, right where it joined the metal body.i
It turned out that Bosch Germany used that part number in aluminium cylinder heads.
As all the other characteristics were the same, Bosch in Australia reused the same part number for sparkplugs which were intended for use in cast iron heads, just "beefing up" the insulation at the point where the insulator entered the metal body, due to the greater difficulty of dissipating heat with the cast iron heads.
Comparing the German & Oz ones, the thicker insulator was quite obvious---it appears thar was all that was needed to avoid the hairline cracks.
Bosch in Oz always struck me as " pretty sharp cookies" but they dropped the ball on that one!
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In the current context - engines with aluminium cylinder heads. |O Back in the day with cast iron heads you could boil them till the paint peeled off, refill them with coolant and away you go. Not nowadays. Just look at them sideways or misgender them or whatever and bingo! time for a new head gasket. And nowadays doing a head gasket is not always straightforward job you can do at home. Gotta get the head machined, preferably with a surface finish to suit the gasket, new head bolts that torque to yield instead of three grunts tight :P and there is a whole plethora of overhead cams and belts and chains and a pile of other stuff that gets in your way. And get of my lawn!
Volvo was using aluminum heads on cast iron blocks as far back as 1976, I've had several of them, one of which my parents bought new in 1986 has 350k miles on it and still runs fine. If you overheat them badly enough the head will warp but it isn't too hard to avoid doing that. The aluminum is *much* lighter and easier to work with if it does need work. There's an even greater weight savings in newer cars that have aluminum blocks too.
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In the current context - engines with aluminium cylinder heads. |O Back in the day with cast iron heads you could boil them till the paint peeled off, refill them with coolant and away you go. Not nowadays. Just look at them sideways or misgender them or whatever and bingo! time for a new head gasket. And nowadays doing a head gasket is not always straightforward job you can do at home. Gotta get the head machined, preferably with a surface finish to suit the gasket, new head bolts that torque to yield instead of three grunts tight :P and there is a whole plethora of overhead cams and belts and chains and a pile of other stuff that gets in your way. And get of my lawn!
Volvo was using aluminum heads on cast iron blocks as far back as 1976, I've had several of them, one of which my parents bought new in 1986 has 350k miles on it and still runs fine. If you overheat them badly enough the head will warp but it isn't too hard to avoid doing that. The aluminum is *much* lighter and easier to work with if it does need work. There's an even greater weight savings in newer cars that have aluminum blocks too.
The Volvo red block engines are famous for being among the most trouble free engines ever made. I'm not sure what they did right about mixed materials, expansion rates, etc. but they certainly did get it right.
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Yes. They really should.
[attachimg=1]
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Yes. They really should.
(Attachment Link)
Why would they?
Ours isn't quite that old, being from 1999, but even if it looks beat up, still stacks up well against a lot of new cars.
Some years ago, I thought "it must be on the way out!" but as happens, the occasion came up where my daughter got a new job in Carnarvon in WA's Northwest, 892 km away from Perth.
Her Mazda 323 was a bit tired, so we drove her up there, loaded "down to the gunnels" with stuff she needed, & made it Ok, except for a dead alternator (a young couple in a Hilux helped us out by recharging our battery every 50-70km).
We got there, the local Auto Electrician rebuilt the alternator, & after a few days visiting, we flew back home, leaving her with the Camry.
We made do with her Mazda.
She drove it round for the best part of a year without incident, then came back, traded the Mazda in on a new Hyundai Accent.
Back she went to Carnarvon with her new "pride & joy", but on her first return trip to Perth, the Hyundai blew its radiator cap off, & cooked the engine.
And to think we were concerned about the "ancient" Camry!
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Watching a TV review about Volkswagen battery cars. I got put off starting from the bit when the creator was all, it's got "this app" and "that app", " the app does this and that" and "the 'smart'' app:bullshit: will tell you how much battery is left blah blah blah..."
All I care about is how well it drives and pulls out of busy junctions, how smooth it is, the torque, efficiency, the functionality within the car itself and the serviceability not about phones and apps dominating the review.
I'd expect it to display that information by default on the built in screen without the need of an "app" on a phone. It's nice to have functionality as well but I found it ridiculous that the creator was focusing on just a phone when it should be the car and showing this functionality in the car.
So they are taking features that are nothing new and are calling it 'smart' because it is on batteries instead of fuel, which I find a damn insult as if they were portraying that the "fuel gauge" is brand a new concept that I have never seen before.
Cars are all so similar now that ads mostly focus on the infotainment crap and other gadgets they contain. They're pretty much all the same basic design, nearly indistinguishable from each other. They're pretty much all reliable, get similar gas mileage and have similar performance, there isn't much to differentiate the brands besides the hideous gigantic grills and the tech gadgets.
They even share the same parts, e.g. Ford and GM even use the same 8-speed automatic these days...
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Yes. They really should.
(Attachment Link)
I'd rather have a nice clean '93 Camry than just about anything available in dealers today. I find modern cars to be almost universally hideously ugly. They all look like angry anime robots. Comically gigantic grills, many of which are mostly fake, and the emblems are enormous now too.
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They even share the same parts, e.g. Ford and GM even use the same 8-speed automatic these days...
There has always been a lot of sharing of automatic gearboxes. Borg Warner used to make them for many people. What is now Aisin was Aisin Warner in the 1980s, and built derivatives of the Borg Warner gearboxes for the Japanese market, and others like Volvo. Whole cars get shared now. With makes producing cars for other makes, makes jointly building plants to make variants of a car for all of them, and makes subcontracting manufacture to OEMs, like Magna.
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People who are quick to snap up a freebie then, once the arrangements are made, enter radio silence. It would be nice to send just a quick note to say it's arrived, and polite if they could bring themselves to mutter a simple 'thanks' for covering the shipping cost.
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Yes. They really should.
(Attachment Link)
I'd rather have a nice clean '93 Camry than just about anything available in dealers today. I find modern cars to be almost universally hideously ugly. They all look like angry anime robots. Comically gigantic grills, many of which are mostly fake, and the emblems are enormous now too.
Indeed. And they also look like the Cx has been a completely forgotten notion as well. Now with max speeds getting reduced all the time, you could argue that it doesn't matter much anymore. Who cares about the Cx when you're driving at 30 km/h? :-DD (OH it's getting there!)
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Electronics YouTubers who pronounce "H", "Haych"
Argh! |O
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How should it be pronounced?
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How should it be pronounced?
The demographic which call horses "horse-is" would pronounce it as "aitch". ;D
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Ah, thanks.
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The demographic which call horses "horse-is" would pronounce it as "aitch". ;D
There are three levels of horses. Owsiz, horsiz and hoarsuz, in order of increasing poshness. The latter is best attempted if you make your face look like a horse when you say it.
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Logitech's m650 left handed mouse: The primary button is not the one for the index finger |O and if I use Window's button switch, it will change it for all other mice.
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Logitech's m650 left handed mouse: The primary button is not the one for the index finger |O and if I use Window's button switch, it will change it for all other mice.
I don't know that specific mouse, but have you tried to remap the buttons with Logitech Options? On my M720 this gives me the option to swap left and right buttons.
Depending on whether the mouse has any internal memory, you might not even need to have Logitech Options running all the time after you reassigned the buttons.
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About 10-12 years ago in the company I worked back then the sysadmin decided to get us all new mice with more than 3 buttons. If I recall correctly they were one of the first MS Explorer optical mice.
Anyway, the extra buttons were exactly where I rest my thumb and my pinkie so I always clicked them just while moving the mouse around. Really annoying. I don't recall if I did not have the necessary privileges on Win2000 or maybe I was just too stupid to find a way to disable these extra buttons but for my sanity I had to find a way to make this 5 button mouse behave like a 3 button mouse.
Solution: I flooded the offending buttons with glue, let it set over night and was happy again :-DD.
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It's a good party trick to show people the 'secret' third mouse button. Depressing the scroll wheel makes a clicking sound. 8) Shhhh secret
Pet peeve: Programmer's with teenage texting brains who thought the following autoresponder message was an acceptable response to business customers:
Hiyar {firstname} Gotten ur order Will send it 2U Hugz
We had big words with their manager.
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Logitech's m650 left handed mouse: The primary button is not the one for the index finger |O and if I use Window's button switch, it will change it for all other mice.
I don't know that specific mouse, but have you tried to remap the buttons with Logitech Options? On my M720 this gives me the option to swap left and right buttons.
Depending on whether the mouse has any internal memory, you might not even need to have Logitech Options running all the time after you reassigned the buttons.
Logitech Options + doesn't allow remapping of the primary buttons, only switch them for this mouse. Razor can do it, why can't Logitech?
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It's a good party trick to show people the 'secret' third mouse button. Depressing the scroll wheel makes a clicking sound. 8) Shhhh secret
Somebody once bought me a few beers after work for binding the thumb button that would bring up a full screen spreadsheet for when management barges in.
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It's a good party trick to show people the 'secret' third mouse button. Depressing the scroll wheel makes a clicking sound. 8) Shhhh secret
And brings up a useless function which makes it nearly as annoying as a touch screen! >:( >:(
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OMG don't get started on mice.
That scroll wheel button is a nightmare. On many (most?) programs if you click that while rolling the wheel it adjusts the zoom factor or font size or something. Some of those buttons have rather lightweight springs and so you end up suddenly having the entire window appearance radically change - and it can be tough to get it back to "normal" again.
Another one: Years ago Microsoft marketed a simple mouse with a completely asymmetric left-right profile. Yet right on the packaging it said "Ideally designed for both right and left handed users". WTF?!?
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completely asymmetric left-right profile. Yet right on the packaging it said "Ideally designed for both right and left handed users".
If you place your hands spread flat on the table, do they look exactly the same? Well then :)
That scroll wheel button is a nightmare
You need the right mouse. The only ones I use now are the Logitech Master series (and the portable version of same), which have decent enough, but not overly strong, springs there. But the important aspect is that they can switch between clicky-clicky and free-wheeling modes automatically. If you're going through a long document (or web page or something) slowly it will do the clicky thing for accuracy, but give a flick and it goes free-wheeling quickly through pages and pages (ok, maybe paragraphs and paragraphs) until you stop it spinning. It's hard to adequately describe how brilliant and useful it is. Kind of like having a 'back' button on the mouse - I'd tear my hair out if I had to keep moving the pointer fro the scroll bar to the back button every 10 seconds.
I think Microsoft were good when the LED mice first came out, but I've not tried one I could cope with in the last few years.
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It was curved horizontally. Think capital "C" backwards. How can that asymmetrical shape be optimal for both hands?
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Wasn't trying to say it could be, just pointing out that your hands are asymmetrical, as is the mouse. Just the wrong asymmetrical >:D
[thinks] Maybe they meant you have to turn it back to front when you change hand.
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But the important aspect is that they can switch between clicky-clicky and free-wheeling modes automatically. If you're going through a long document (or web page or something) slowly it will do the clicky thing for accuracy, but give a flick and it goes free-wheeling quickly through pages and pages (ok, maybe paragraphs and paragraphs) until you stop it spinning. It's hard to adequately describe how brilliant and useful it is.
Besides the fact that the MX Master just does not fit my hand, i also dislike this automatic.
I am using an M720 Marathon at work that has a similar wheel, but instead of an automatic, there is a mechanical switchover button to select between the free running and the indented mousewheel.
I love that feature, but sadly Logitech has patented, or otherwise protected it, and other mouse manufacturers cannot use similar features. Considering the waning quality or outrageous prices of Logitech mice, i would love to see other manufacturers implement something similar.
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Besides the fact that the MX Master just does not fit my hand, i also dislike this automatic.
Yeah, the form factor is an acquired taste I guess. The recent 3 has the side buttons, and side scroll, much handier than previous models, but overall it's the same.
The auto thing can be turned off, of course, and then you use the button to manually switch mode. I really hate that, partly because the button is hard to get to (in the way you have to curl your finger) and partly because it's a conscious decision to switch modes and then scroll, rather than just happening. Hard to explain, but with manuals I always leave them in clicky mode and then mentally grumble all the time about excessive finger wear when scrolling :)
Considering the waning quality or outrageous prices of Logitech mice, i would love to see other manufacturers implement something similar.
Yes, agreed. I reckon they've had their money's worth of it by now and other implementations should be allowed.
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Besides the fact that the MX Master just does not fit my hand, i also dislike this automatic.
Considering the waning quality or outrageous prices of Logitech mice, i would love to see other manufacturers implement something similar.
Waning? They're quality has always sucked. I've used a lot of Logitech mice, because I like the feel. However, I've always expected to replace them frequently. They can actually make a mouse where the low friction pads on the bottom don't fall off after a year. You probably wouldn't know that unless you'd tried their really expensive mice, like the MX Masters. The vast majority of their mice loose those pads. Its probably best to peel them off on day one, and restick them with decent glue. When they loosen naturally you've usually lost some of them before you realise.
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I actually had decent experiences with Logitech mice in the past. But they let me down quite a bit in the last couple of years, both at home and in the office.
I privately owned an G5 refresh, that i replaced because it was utterly filthy after 5 or 6 years. That was on me alone.
Then i got a g500s, that started having doubleckick issues. I fixed that by replacing the button. Two years later i also replaced that one.
So two mice in more than ten years? Not a bad turnover in my opinion.
Then i tried a G502. And oh my... Whatever designer came up with those stupid sensitivity buttons left of the left mouse button :palm: I disabled them, but they still annoyed me like crazy. I can't use that mouse.
I am now using a Roccat Kone Aimo, that has it's own issues. I love the formfactor, as it is very similar to the G5 series. But it does not have the freewheeling mousewheel, and it has RGB "running lights" that can only be turned off if you have the configuration software running...
Other than that i like it, it seems to hold up, but is only two years old.
At work, for the longest time, i used an M705. I loved that mouse, since it had a third side button that can be pressed with your thumb, which I remapped to middle mouse. And it had the freewheeling mousewheel. It ran on just a singe double A for a year or more. So what is not to like? Three of them broke before even the first battery was empty :-BROKE
And then i got another replacement. Still called the M705. But that third side button i mentioned? Gone :wtf: That mouse now sits in the spares bin.
I am now using a M720 that uses bluetooth. My current work laptop just has a single USB A port, so no space for the dongle. It also has that third button, but the bluetooth sometimes cuts out, and the battery runtime is significantly worse. I now have that for about half a year, i will have to see how it keeps up. All in all i still like the mouse, and since i can only get Logitech mice at work, i am stuck with that model. Or i could get the MX Master, but that gives me cramps. :-//
So no great experiences with Logitech in recent years.
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Or i could get the MX Master, but that gives me cramps
Have you looked at the MX Anywhere 2? All the fun of the Masters but in a reduce format - I have one for portable use, and my partner uses one on her desktop. Unifying receiver or Bluetooth, hyper-scrolling (or button to select), etc.
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Has that one got the rubbery bits on the sides?
I find they get dirty easy, sticky and sometimes gradually peel off.
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Plastic that isn't hard :)
Being black, or a reasonable facsimile, they won't show up stuff and I can't recall every having a Logitech part suffer rubber plague and go sticky. I think the sides on these are structural, so unlikely to peel.
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I actually had decent experiences with Logitech mice in the past. But they let me down quite a bit in the last couple of years, both at home and in the office.
[...]
I still have an MX-310 here, with several million miles on it... it must be 20 years old, if not more?... still showing no signs of giving up, laser accurate and nice to use.
They probably don't build'em like that any more, they'd be out of business!
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Ah yea,mice i remember them,life got much better when i discovered
(https://www.picclickimg.com/AU8AAOSwuqNf1g7F/Microsoft-Intellimouse-Trackball-PS-2-X03-09209.jpg)
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Alright, time to get this major annoyance of my chest. >:(
You know, ebay! A platform where buyers and sellers from around the globe can trade stuff. Private individuals and businesses it doesn't matter. So far so good but now the bad stuff. What would be an suitable language to communicate internationally..... ENGLISH! But then you have this stupid idea emerging out the the ebay company that they think it would be a convenience to have ebay webpages display in your native language. And the result is that when I'm dealing with some dispute with a seller in another country for example, I don't have access to the proper english phrase for an aspect on the ebay website, Like "mark return item as shipped" page, order number, item number, return ID. I do want to communicate clearly and complete and use the exact terminology the seller is seeing on his screen. The same stuff is displayed for me in dutch and for the seller in german for example. My german is bad and I neither want the seller to try dutch so english is the only way. Now we both have to try to guess what the correct english term is for an ebay thing..... Such an annoyance >:(
Even an downloadable packing list for a return has number descriptions like "return ID" translated in my INFERIOR native language and it is going to Germany!
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Alright, time to get this major annoyance of my chest. >:(
You know, ebay! A platform where buyers and sellers from around the globe can trade stuff. Private individuals and businesses it doesn't matter. So far so good but now the bad stuff. What would be an suitable language to communicate internationally..... ENGLISH! But then you have this stupid idea emerging out the the ebay company that they think it would be a convenience to have ebay webpages display in your native language. And the result is that when I'm dealing with some dispute with a seller in another country for example, I don't have access to the proper english phrase for an aspect on the ebay website, Like "mark return item as shipped" page, order number, item number, return ID. I do want to communicate clearly and complete and use the exact terminology the seller is seeing on his screen. The same stuff is displayed for me in dutch and for the seller in german for example. My german is bad and I neither want the seller to try dutch so english is the only way. Now we both have to try to guess what the correct english term is for an ebay thing..... Such an annoyance >:(
Even an downloadable packing list for a return has number descriptions like "return ID" translated in my INFERIOR native language and it is going to Germany!
eBay's CEO has been trying to explain to the markets why eBay volumes are falling... I think they should have asked some long time users instead!
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The phrase "rate of speed" to mean speed.
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... But then you have this stupid idea emerging out the the ebay company that they think it would be a convenience to have ebay webpages display in your native language. ....
In it self not that bad, but the fact that it is enforced on you based on your IP address is bloody stupid. Living in France, being Dutch, preferring English a lot of the time, I get French website presented to me when googling. Even with language set to English. Some big companies are the worst. You try to select the English version, it still reverts back to French.
Not sure if this is also the case for ebay. Don't use it anymore.
Look at the language my computer is set to instead of my IP address, idiot website makers and use that if you must.
I know, I can setup a VPN to overcome this, but it is annoying.
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That is always annoying when i am in the home office, connected to my compant via VPN.
We have locations all over europe, the VPN client takes any of these location as a potential point of connection, and connects to whichever answers first.
I don't really care which location i'm connecting to, i'm in germany, smack in the middle of the various locations, and our internal network is fast.
I only notice to which location i am connected to when i google something :D
Because that then uses the location's internet breakout, i get localised results: Swiss, Dutch, French, British, Norwegian, Swedish, you name it :D Sometimes i need localised results and then i manually connect to our german endpoint.
I really would love for websites to respect my locale settings. Ideally not just the language though, since that is set to en-us for our machines, it also should respect the *configured* location, which is Germany.
On the other hand though, sometimes this was actually useful to circumvent blocks. There are a couple, especially US, sites that generally block european IP adresses since they do not want to deal with GDPR. Then i always was able to connect to a endpoint outside of europe to still be able to access the sites.
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... But then you have this stupid idea emerging out the the ebay company that they think it would be a convenience to have ebay webpages display in your native language. ....
If you move countries E-Bay let's you change addresses and phone numbers globally, and maintain the same account. However, they never let you change the original language you chose when you first signed up. It used to be that language was locked to your location. I signed up long ago in Hong Kong and my account was forced to be in Chinese. I moved to the UK, and interact with the ebay.co.uk web site in English. However, all the emails I get from E-Bay are in Chinese. This is OK, until I hit issues like you. If I click on anything in the email I go to an E-Bay page in Chinese. To find the exact wording I need to interact with people in the UK, I have to log in to ebay.co.uk, and go to my account. Then I see the information in English. Its a mess.
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So my municipality has begun a 'war on waste' where by us dirty scum residents are apparently not recycling enough waste material, which is bullshit. Don't get me wrong there are some people who live like pigs but I doubt any messaging will change their ways, if we're honest.
A few of us have been chatting and it turns out that not only have we been sorting our rubbish at least as has been specified, we, as rate payers, feel that it is they who should instead be looking at their own resource management and waste in that regard.
I expect this situation is about to spill over on to social media and as I'm not exactly a man of few words, I'll be expected to participate in the dog-pile. I'd like to be able to drop a simple phrase short enough that you could nearly put it on a t-shirt, yet still have plenty of sting in the tail.
The message should be:
...
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drop a simple praise short enough that you could nearly put it on a t-shirt
"Brilliantly fantabulous"
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"Definitively Pegged"
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Did you, perhaps, mean a 'simple phrase'?
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Did you, perhaps, mean a 'simple phrase'?
|O
:-DD
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"wasted management"
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"not our sort"
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"The most important thing about waste management, is to sort the management out first."
No, not pithy enough. Quite punny, though.
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My "smart" phone needs to do some kind of update and
demands is asking to connect to a WiFi network. I pay for 5G internet on the phone, so WTF? I blame google (but it could be idiot Samsung programmers). I don't use WiFi, so it can figure out how to update itself or die trying, I don't care.
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My "smart" phone needs to do some kind of update and demands is asking to connect to a WiFi network. I pay for 5G internet on the phone, so WTF? I blame google (but it could be idiot Samsung programmers). I don't use WiFi, so it can figure out how to update itself or die trying, I don't care.
It's set to a data download saving foo mode. Somewhere behind the cogwheel icon, there's an "only update over wifi option", or words to that effect. Select the option that says, "sod-it I don't care if you burn all the gigabytes in the universe!" Sometimes smart phones just need a little education.
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I appreciate that information and will check it out. Still, it is a "smart phone" and can't figure this out? Update is needed choose how to connect? These so-called "smart" phones are stupid as rocks.
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You WANT updates be done via WiFi because a glitch or out of range event while on a cell service may brick your phone. For similar reasons you want to have the phone connected to the charger when doing firmware updates.
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Losing connection during an update won't brick it - the update won't be applied until it's all downloaded.
By default phones will only do mega-downloads over WiFi because users typically pay per byte for cell data. Around here the cost is stunningly expensive as PAYG and very much cheaper (like, free) if you buy a package (i.e. a subscription). But even then there is likely to be a size cap, after which it either stops or you start paying stupid money again.
This is actually a good example of smart phones being deliberately not too smart and letting the user decide that an available connection is worth the potential cost.
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Losing connection during an update won't brick it - the update won't be applied until it's all downloaded.
Yeah, but the security update model enforced by the makers of these things is amateur hour.
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Everything said makes sense, yet I still contend that because it's a "smart" phone it should be able to figure these things out on its own. State of charge? Plugged in to a charger? Able to connect via internet 5G? Puleeze...
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Take that as the learning experience that it is: The vast majority of the stuff that is called - or worse - calls itself "smart" is actually anything but :D
This stuff is only as smart as those who make it.
And to where this setting/default comes from?
In many locations *cough*Germany*cough* mobile data plans are still very limited. More often than not, you would not even be able to fully download a major update with your monthly "allowance". I think the average on the cheap plans is still around one or two gigabytes per month, even if they are 5G enabled.
At least now you can actually override this setting. On Apple devices that was not possible for quite some time.
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Commentator at the conclusion of some football today.. (RIP Italy)
I think he should be man of the match.
....
Player of the match.
What they did there. I see it.
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VERY FIRM dislike for:
~ Copycat YouTube videos, esp "band-waggoning" when a new product is launched, most of the publishers parroting the same spiel. adding nothing new (no research done, hype hype hype!)
~ "Smash that like button <blah blah blah>" - er, nah, you're alright thanks; don't PROMPT me - if what you have produced is of merit, I'll want to do all this of my own volition
~ Also on YouTube, "tech" channels using incorrect terminology, the main culprit is "X phone has 1,500 milliamps battery" when they mean mAh! - if ya can't even get THAT right, why would I listen to you?
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The misuse of the term "galaxy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy)".
I'm constantly seeing Youtubers use the term for a single planetary system, star system or tiny stellar cluster.
Smallest galaxies have about a hundred million stars. The galaxy next door to us is the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light years away. The closest star system is Alpha Centauri, a bit over four light years distant. It is a triple star system, three stars orbiting each other, and at least the third, currently closest to us, Proxima Centauri, has a planetary system around it. There are over a hundred known stellar clusters within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, with the closest ones a few thousand light years away. In a cluster, the distance between closest stars can be well under a light year, without them being gravitationally bound to orbit each other.
So it's not like it's off a bit, it's off by a factor of million or so. "Nearby galaxy" involves distances in the millions of lightyears, whereas "nearby star system" is typically in the single-digit lightyears.
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Oh, yeah. In a similar vein though, think of how people abuse the term "race" when meaning "species".
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Smallest galaxies have about a hundred million stars.
The smallest Galaxies are those little bars they give you as a snack on airlines.... at least on the airlines that still serve you any food at all.
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Oh, yeah. In a similar vein though, think of how people abuse the term "race" when meaning "species".
"Human race" is a common phrase in English.
"There's a smile on my face
For the whole human race
Why, it's almost like bein' in love"
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We ain’t a “species”, we are human beings of the human race. There’s also NO different races, only different ethnicities. A different race implies a different creature. This is highly flawed.
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Of course we're a species, Homo Sapiens.
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One definition of a "species" is a group that can interbreed.
In one of my favorite Lincoln-Douglas debates before the Civil War, Douglas argued that there was a "natural antipathy" between the races.
Lincoln countered with the data from the 1850 Census about the rate of interracial births, and suggested to Douglas that the antipathy was not strong.
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According to dictionaries, "race" ≃ "subspecies"; for example, "A group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common ancestry, heritage or characteristics". "Species" has a biological/taxonomical definition (here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species)), and while it is often defined via having fertile offspring, it is not the only accepted one.
While humans are currently the only species we categorise as sentient beings, that may change in the future, as our understanding grows. In mythology and fiction, we have always had many. "Race" is one of the terms used to indicate groupings and associations within one, just like "kin", "clan", "family", et cetera.
Essentially, "race" is an almost arbitrarily defined fraction of some sentient species.
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Over the last few centuries, with respect to the species homo sapiens, "race" has been more of a political concept than a biological concept.
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While humans are currently the only species we categorise as sentient beings...
Who says that? The definition of sentient (from Merriam Webster) is "responsive to or conscious of sense impressions". Strictly speaking some plants qualify (example: Venus fly trap) and certainly all ambulatory creatures do. I suspect what's trying to be expressed here is the ability to consciously engage in some degree of abstract thought, as opposed to purely instinctive/reactionary behavior. But even by that definition domesticated mammals such as dogs and cats would be considered sentient. And I can tell you from personal experience diving with dolphins that they are both sentient and intelligent by anyone's definition.
Not starting an argument here, just wondering what source is arguing that humans alone are sentient beings. The evidence to the contrary is literally all around us, every day.
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While humans are currently the only species we categorise as sentient beings...
Who says that?
Laws in various countries around the world; see animal rights by country or territory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights_by_country_or_territory). Only 32 countries in the world have recognized non-human animal sentience.
Many religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, as well as many prehistoric religions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_religion) do recognize non-human sentient species, so this isn't "new" or particularly "advanced" among humans; it has, however, been quite slow in application in practical law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_animal_welfare_and_rights) (timeline) in most jurisdictions.
I do agree that there is definitely sufficient evidence in support of many species being sentient and even sapient.
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We ain’t a “species”, we are human beings of the human race.
Yes we are. "Human race" for designing the human species is a familiar english term; it has no scientific meaning.
As tor races themselves (which, if you don't like the term, would make your sentence above absolutely even more meaningless ::) ), that usually means subcategories of a given species that have some different classifiable characteristics and that can interbred. That we would call that "ethnicity" instead of "race" (that we have less trouble using for other animals - as though we weren't ones) doesn't change anything.
Now of course we know that the species barrier can sometimes be broken (even if that's relatively rare overall), which is called hybridation. So the classification as species is not always that clear cut, but it has proven to work fairly well.
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There is scientific evidence for interbreeding between homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis.
https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals
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I was asked by someone, "should my [lamp] power pack be bulging like this?"
I will leave it to you guys to ponder just how many pounds per square inch of over pressure were inside this 'puffy lipo'. Hint, the expanded cell had ripped the case's fixing screws through their plastic holes. Either way, the pressure inside makes leaking alkaline batteries seem tame by comparison.
The 'bigged up' 3553120 cell was one of three connected in series; the 3S pack was welded to a BMS. The other two cells were still functioning correctly. This cell was the one connected to the positive rail, which might have been significant?
For 24 hours the cell was discharged defused through a tungsten MES lightbulb, outside and on a concrete block. At some time the battery went flacid - possibly pecked by a curious bird. The voltage had fallen from ~4V to ~1V.
Pet peeve? Puffy Lipos are a potential hazard to modern living, especially in the second usage market. Watch out for online listings that say, "battery is just a little bit swollen", "case is slightly curved", "bulging does not affect the e-scooter's range" and "I have been told by an electrical expert that batteries expand like this and this is normal."
You'll note I measured the battery cells will plastic calipers.
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That's not exclusive to LiPo's. APC UPS's regularly stress their AGM batteries to the point that their expansion makes removal by normal means impossible. I've lost count of how many APC rack enclosures I've had to almost completely disassemble to remove AGM's that were just 12 months old (regularly scheduled replacement). I never bothered to study the voltages they applied to them but they cannot have been very "smart" no matter what label was on the front cover. Chargers/maintainers like Battery Tenders, etc. have never done this in my decades of experience.
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Ugh, APC... For some reason my Boss still buys them. Even though the damn UPSes are the main reason of failures in our distribution cabinets.
At least modern APCs have the batteries fully enclosed in their own metal cage per pack. So less danger of stuck batteries :D
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At least modern APCs have the batteries fully enclosed in their own metal cage per pack.
These (~15 years ago, "SmartUPS" rackmount product line) also had their batteries fully enclosed in (solid panel) metal boxes within the enclosure. Theoretically you could remove a front panel and just slide them out. Except when the charging "profile" (I suspect a too-high steady-state voltage, not "smart" at all) puffed the batteries to the point that they could not slide out anymore. I even tried putting thin straps around the new batteries but they'd get so tight even that wouldn't pull them out.
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puffed the batteries to the point that they could not slide out anymore. I even tried putting thin straps around the new batteries but they'd get so tight even that wouldn't pull them out.
:palm:
That's annoying.
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APC does the double whammy, slight overvoltage to increase capacity, and also will charge at maximum discharge current when the batteries have been discharged, so they will always tend to gas off the electrolyte. Got one for free, just needed 2 new batteries, so use car batteries, because those at least are in a separate case, and I can top up the water in them. Time for the monthly check.
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Of course we're a species, Homo Sapiens.
"Species" implies we are ANIMALS, and we are not. GOD made us above the animals.
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Of course we're a species, Homo Sapiens.
"Species" implies we are ANIMALS, and we are not. GOD made us above the animals.
Tuuuuuuuuuuuuut :horse:
Biology 101. :palm:
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"Species" implies we are ANIMALS, and we are not. GOD made us above the animals.
Of course we are animals, we're certainly not plants, fungus or minerals. You know, we've decoded much of the human genome and humans share much more genetic code with other mammals than not. It's rather self absorbed and narcissistic to the extrme to believe that humans are somehow that unique and above al other animals that we have so much in common with. Take a domestic cat for example, they have all the same internal organs as we do, their brain structure while smaller and missing a few bits we have is very similar to ours, they can have depression, bipolar disorder and other mental conditions that humans have, they are sentient beings with memory, feelings, and emotions just like ours, they dream when they sleep just like we do. Primates such as chimps and apes take the similarity to another level. Humans are primates, primates are mammals, mammals are animals. This is just basic biology, period.
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Of course we're a species, Homo Sapiens.
"Species" implies we are ANIMALS, and we are not. GOD made us above the animals.
This is a technical forum, so any reference is based on science, in this case we are talking about biology. Biologically man is classified as an animal end of. Religion has no baring here.
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Of course we're a species, Homo Sapiens.
"Species" implies we are ANIMALS, and we are not. GOD made us above the animals.
This is a technical forum, so any reference is based on science, in this case we are talking about biology. Biologically man is classified as an animal end of. Religion has no baring here.
Since God created literally everything, including the laws of physics, and Science, existence, itself, et cetera, I’m not sure how you were able to isolate them.
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*sigh* I really wanted to sympathize with you, after your post explaining your recent issues.
But you are doing it again. You are again deliberately bringing up controversial topics that are not wanted here.
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So I had a 'revelation' today. ;)
A few pages back in this thread, I participated in a m.2 compatibility rant.
Tomorrow I had planned to hit my computer shop and take the controller, the m.2 sticks and not leave until I found something that works.
I pulled the spec sheet for my WD drives and the info on the usb -> m.2 ctlr. I read the info again. It should work... So I plugged it in and...well :palm:
What a difference having a modern kernel makes. The new one is LTS like the old one was but the new one speaks to m.2 controllers apparently.
In 20 years, I've never needed to have a new kernel to get hardware to work. With my stuff I'm the one usually yelling at the kernel devs and others to "put that back!"
::)
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I would love to profess puzzlement about m.2 since it Just Works on Windows. But Microsoft deemed that stuff too modern for W7 and pulled the drivers. Kind of the reverse of your experience!
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I would love to profess puzzlement about m.2 since it Just Works on Windows. But Microsoft deemed that stuff too modern for W7 and pulled the drivers. Kind of the reverse of your experience!
USB implementation on win9x was painful. Sorry for reminding those who remember.
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What's this about M.2 not working on Win7? My primary workstation has Win7 *booting* from an M.2 drive, plus additional storage in a second M.2 on the motherboard.
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That's not exclusive to LiPo's. APC UPS's regularly stress their AGM batteries to the point that their expansion makes removal by normal means impossible. I've lost count of how many APC rack enclosures I've had to almost completely disassemble to remove AGM's that were just 12 months old (regularly scheduled replacement). I never bothered to study the voltages they applied to them but they cannot have been very "smart" no matter what label was on the front cover. Chargers/maintainers like Battery Tenders, etc. have never done this in my decades of experience.
That has been going on for decades already. Likely APC makes more money on their batteries than their UPSs. A shame really. IMHO the electronics are decent except for the charging circuitry.
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What's this about M.2 not working on Win7? My primary workstation has Win7 *booting* from an M.2 drive, plus additional storage in a second M.2 on the motherboard.
M.2 is just the connector. There are M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe drives available, and Windows 7 cannot handle the latter as a boot device. It can boot from a M.2 SATA drives without problems though, and should also be able to handle NVMe drives as simple storage volumes.
Though as far as i know there are third party drivers available to enable NVMe boot support on Windows 7.
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What's this about M.2 not working on Win7? My primary workstation has Win7 *booting* from an M.2 drive, plus additional storage in a second M.2 on the motherboard.
M.2 is just the connector. There are M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe drives available, and Windows 7 cannot handle the latter as a boot device. It can boot from a M.2 SATA drives without problems though, and should also be able to handle NVMe drives as simple storage volumes.
Though as far as i know there are third party drivers available to enable NVMe boot support on Windows 7.
But don't the SBC with ARM SOCs use the NVMe drives? Seems nuts.
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M.2 is just the connector. There are M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe drives available, and Windows 7 cannot handle the latter as a boot device.
Both of my M.2's are running as MVMe and Win7 is booting from the first one. It's been a while so I can't remember if I had to find third-party drivers for it, but it's definitely working. This message is being typed on it, in fact.
More: Just looked back at my notes. They are Samsung M.2's and indeed, I downloaded Samsung's own NVMe driver for Win7. Has been working great since July 2021, so here's a tested technique if anyone is interested.
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What's this about M.2 not working on Win7? My primary workstation has Win7 *booting* from an M.2 drive, plus additional storage in a second M.2 on the motherboard.
Mine too, but I had to go looking for the driver from somwhere that Microsoft hadn't erased it. If you have an M.2 drive before they did that you'd be OK.
Edit: I am talking NVME. I think SATA are different in a big way (like very much the same as pukka SATA).
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But don't the SBC with ARM SOCs use the NVMe drives? Seems nuts.
Some use NVMe, some use SATA. Many use eMMC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMMC#eMMC). Some cannot boot off such media at all, and require booting off an SD card. In the Linux world, it fortunately only means you have to put your /boot (including initrds) on SD-card, but can keep everything else on proper storage. You can also keep /boot mounted read-only, and only remount it read-write when updating the kernel. Dunno about the Windows world on ARMs, though.
Edit: I am talking NVME. I think SATA are different in a big way (like very much the same as pukka SATA).
Yes, NVMe and SATA are wildly different.
The illustration in the Wikipedia M.2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2) article is informative:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/SATA_Express_interface.svg)
M.2 connector is keyed (with B, M, or B and M keys). M key is used for for NVMe/PCIe, and B is for SATA, when considering SSD.
The M.2 connector is also widely used for 4G/5G/LTE WAN modules, where only the USB and the SIM card pins are used. And also for things like Sparkfun MicroMod, as the connector between microcontroller modules and carrier boards, with custom pinouts. If you are looking to buy DIY'able or older stuff, note that M.2 was previously known as NGFF.
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Of course we're a species, Homo Sapiens.
"Species" implies we are ANIMALS, and we are not. GOD made us above the animals.
This is a technical forum, so any reference is based on science, in this case we are talking about biology. Biologically man is classified as an animal end of. Religion has no baring here.
Since God created literally everything, including the laws of physics, and Science, existence, itself, et cetera, I’m not sure how you were able to isolate them.
I can isolate you though!
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Technology back-tracking drives me nuts;
Used to be, (the old man said), used to be you would turn on a radio, and that was it. No drop-outs, no spying on neighbor's wifi.
Today, I fumble with (Anoidra)...ok it's an Android piece of cap.s. As I fumble around, attaching charger and headphones, the little screen flashes:
"Contacts list is using BATTERY."
...WHAT...THE...???
The smart phone, was $85 roughly, (drug store product). Am/ Fm RADIO was $19 a decade ago. But you can't get it, at least not at local retail outlets.
That wouldn't be so bad, if..eewww: DROPOUTS!
I get at least 5 dropouts soon after the radio talk show gets downloaded, correctly, and without the usual numerous false starts to loading and playing.
(I think it's 'Iheart' talk radio server). At any rate, suspicion is, that's ffft up by design;
GET THE APP,...(stupid).
Old days, you'd turn radio on. End of drama.
I even took it to second level;
Purchased 'ANDROID FR DUMMIES'...
What was I thinking ? That book is just chocka fulla ADVERTISEMENTS, for more adnoid crap.
Now, we all get to have an AI assigned to us, like some boring old 1965 SPY NOVEL.
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Of course we're a species, Homo Sapiens.
"Species" implies we are ANIMALS, and we are not. GOD made us above the animals.
Just for the record, I also happen to believe that God created everything good around us.
However...
I started this pet peeve thread.
I check it out with interest every day.
I don’t want to see it locked because of something you say.
You are welcome to start your own thread and get it locked, and if you persist, to get yourself banned.
And for an appropriate irony, there is “a time to be silent and a time to speak” Ecclesiastes 3:7
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Whomever and however we all got here, from my perspective there's a set of rules (which we call physics) and we are all living within those rules while we simultaneously learn more about them.
In my opinion, we can all get along and enjoy the game while having different opinions of how the game and its rules originated. I hope everyone around me feels the same.
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Technology back-tracking drives me nuts;
I dislike that as well (I think I mentioned somewhere here how modern TVs and vacuum tube ones have the same turn on delays) - however, I think the issue in your particular case is:
The smart phone, was $85 roughly, (drug store product).
In this case I don't think it is a backtrack, this smartphone never reached the track in the first place. :-DD
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Whomever and however we all got here, from my perspective there's a set of rules (which we call physics) and we are all living within those rules while we simultaneously learn more about them.
In my opinion, we can all get along and enjoy the game while having different opinions of how the game and its rules originated. I hope everyone around me feels the same.
Yes I don't really feel that the origin is all that important in this context. Regardless of who or what created us, it's pretty clear to me that humans and other animals, especially mammals, are all built from the same basic plan and have a lot more in common than not. There was life on earth long before humans and I am quite confident there will be life on earth long after we've gone extinct. It's a humbling thought that the entirety of human existence is a tiny blip in the history of our planet.
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There was life on earth long before humans and I am quite confident there will be life on earth long after we've gone extinct. It's a humbling thought that the entirety of human existence is a tiny blip in the history of our planet.
History is on your side, BUT humans are different from all other lifeforms, past and present, in one important respect: We can change our environment. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse! But the point is that while all other lifeforms primarily react to their environment, we have learned to manipulate it. We also have learned about technology. So theoretically, while it is possible our species may simply run its course like all others before us, we actually possess the ability to prevent our own demise. Maybe on this planet, maybe on another celestial body, but so far we alone have the ability to proactively survive otherwise species-extinguishing events. No idea if that will really happen but it's definitely a discontinuity in historical terms.
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There was life on earth long before humans and I am quite confident there will be life on earth long after we've gone extinct. It's a humbling thought that the entirety of human existence is a tiny blip in the history of our planet.
History is on your side, BUT humans are different from all other lifeforms, past and present, in one important respect: We can change our environment. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse! But the point is that while all other lifeforms primarily react to their environment, we have learned to manipulate it. We also have learned about technology. So theoretically, while it is possible our species may simply run its course like all others before us, we actually possess the ability to prevent our own demise. Maybe on this planet, maybe on another celestial body, but so far we alone have the ability to proactively survive otherwise species-extinguishing events. No idea if that will really happen but it's definitely a discontinuity in historical terms.
While we are perhaps the first species to use technology on the planet, we are certainly not the first to change the environment. Most radically the oxygen generating algae filled the atmosphere with what was a deadly poison to most then extent life. But life carried on, including survivors of the earlier area living in protected nooks and crannies of the current environment. The have been other species (or at least types of organisms, while it starts with a single species the change usually occurs as many species of the type develop) that have completely changed life on earth as it was previously known. Flowering plants and grasses are two examples. It is hubris to assume that we are unique in having negative effects on those around us, hubris to assume that we can and will end all life and unfortunately also hubris to assume we can't or won't.
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History is on your side, BUT humans are different from all other lifeforms, past and present, in one important respect: We can change our environment. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse! But the point is that while all other lifeforms primarily react to their environment, we have learned to manipulate it. We also have learned about technology. So theoretically, while it is possible our species may simply run its course like all others before us, we actually possess the ability to prevent our own demise. Maybe on this planet, maybe on another celestial body, but so far we alone have the ability to proactively survive otherwise species-extinguishing events. No idea if that will really happen but it's definitely a discontinuity in historical terms.
That is true, but humans are quite self destructive, I suspect we will wipe ourselves out in a series of wars over various resources that get scarcer and scarcer. That or some new disease will come along that makes Covid look like the common cold. Or an extinction level collision with a large asteroid that leaves nothing but buried microbes. I think it's highly unlikely that we will ever colonize space, we are just too far away from anywhere that could possibly contain a habitable planet and if we did find one it's extremely unlikely that a colony would survive long enough to take hold.
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Technology back-tracking drives me nuts;
I dislike that as well (I think I mentioned somewhere here how modern TVs and vacuum tube ones have the same turn on delays)
One of my computer monitors, when I change the input source (to another source with exactly the same type of output) or when the computer boots with 4 different resolutions, each one takes sooo long to appear.
When TVs had a rotary dial, you only had to wait up to a maximum of 1 frame for the vsync to lock. Or at least start to lock. :rant:
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When TVs had a rotary dial, you only had to wait up to a maximum of 1 frame for the vsync to lock. Or at least start to lock. :rant:
The sluggish tuning on modern TVs makes them completely unusable in my opinion, flipping through channels is absolutely painful. Of course by the time that happened I had already given up on broadcast TV after every channel started superimposing a logo permanently in the corner obstructing a bit of the content. Maybe it reduces piracy, I don't know. I mean it does prevent me from pirating it, but only because it reduces the value of the content to zero, I don't want it even for free.
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... broadcast TV after every channel started superimposing a logo permanently in the corner obstructing a bit of the content. Maybe it reduces piracy, I don't know. I mean it does prevent me from pirating it, but only because it reduces the value of the content to zero, I don't want it even for free.
It was handy for bulk 'tuning-in'. The TV or VCR had 12 channels, each one had a tiny wheel tuner where you had to go through and find the right channel to set it to. Yuk.
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Technology back-tracking drives me nuts;
I dislike that as well (I think I mentioned somewhere here how modern TVs and vacuum tube ones have the same turn on delays)
One of my computer monitors, when I change the input source (to another source with exactly the same type of output) or when the computer boots with 4 different resolutions, each one takes sooo long to appear.
When TVs had a rotary dial, you only had to wait up to a maximum of 1 frame for the vsync to lock. Or at least start to lock. :rant:
Hehehe... Indeed the "analog processors" of the time had much faster reaction times, although over the years of service such operation had to be followed with the occasional slap on the side to tidy the electrons up. ;D
After a few years the "digital" gang switch TVs had taken place with no loss of "processing speed" - a great advance IMO. My brother even found a way to remote control it: he would throw a pillow at the gang switch and change the channel. He claims it was effective, but I never did a tally on the success rate. :-DD
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It was handy for bulk 'tuning-in'. The TV or VCR had 12 channels, each one had a tiny wheel tuner where you had to go through and find the right channel to set it to. Yuk.
Early VCRs had those too, hidden under a flap that needed a coin to crack it open. Then someone invented auto tuning, which was a whole new circle of pain for people who didn't have access to a teenager. Tuning TV's and radios was a skill we all had as kids; especially knowing where on the radio dial the pop stations were. Back then we needed just two knobs; tune and volume.
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If you had three knobs, the third one was "Tone". Zero standardization from brand to brand, or even model to model, about what it did to the frequency response.
The "really high end" units got separate Treble and Bass. Those were the days.
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The "really high end" units got separate Treble and Bass. Those were the days.
Wood-veneer Panasonic RE-7860, with the cassette player on the otherwise empty top side; black front, with Volume, Balance, Bass, and Treble knobs, two analog VU meters, red LED on the tuner to indicate stereo transmissions, and analog radio signal quality meter. Oh, the memories...
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To this day I still prefer analog VU meters. Probably my version of "tube sound"... not real but a "feel" thing. It just doesn't feel like a real mixing console without VU meters swinging their needles.
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The term “first harmonic” aka fundamental.
A harmonic implies a multiple of the fundamental frequency.
Wikipedia contradicts itself here IMHO:
A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the 1st harmonic,
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The term “first harmonic” aka fundamental.
A harmonic implies a multiple of the fundamental frequency.
Wikipedia contradicts itself here IMHO:
A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the 1st harmonic,
From a physics terminology perspective it is correct, because 1st multiple of the fundamental frequency is the fundamental frequency itself, as 'multiple' here is a noun, not an adjective (and only the adjective has the "more than one" sense). Thus, "harmonic" does not actually exclude the fundamental itself. Compare to e.g. harmonic oscillator.
Similarly, in mathematics, the smallest positive multiple of two is two.
Now, I do not know about the definitions and usage in say radio and radio-frequency electronics, as these terms are completely arbitrarily defined by us humans, and the definitions do vary between fields. I am only pointing out that the usage of first harmonic being the fundamental frequency is completely in line with how physicists and mathematicians use the terms "harmonic" and "multiple". So please don't bite my head off, if your experience in some other field says otherwise.
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I don't see a contradiction. One (1) is a "positive integer", and if you multiply the fundamental by this positive integer you get the original frequency. Calling the fundamental the "1st harmonic" is consistent with this.
I do love calling out linguistic errors, but I'm afraid I don't see a problem here.
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I only found out recently for sure which the first is as I also confused first harmonic with the 2x, linguistically if a harmonic is a multiple then you would assume 2 but yes mathematically 1 makes sense.
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In music the fist harmonic is "an overtone accompanying a fundamental tone at a fixed interval", and I suspect most non-mathematicians might think that way. But it is hardly unique: programmers tend to count from 0 whereas everyone else counts from 1, and a UK 1st floor is the floor above the ground floor, whereas a US 1st floor is the floor level with the ground.
There should be standards for this kind of thing >:D
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Plain:
It is even worse. Some buildings in the US have a Ground Floor and then a First Floor. Like in the UK and elsewhere.
Then there are the other buildings that have the First Floor on the ground level.
I think this is the Architect's creativity coming out.
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'multiple' here is a noun, not an adjective (and only the adjective has the "more than one" sense).
I'm a native English speaker and yet you know more about it than I do. LOL :D
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Plain:
It is even worse. Some buildings in the US have a Ground Floor and then a First Floor. Like in the UK and elsewhere.
Then there are the other buildings that have the First Floor on the ground level.
I think this is the Architect's creativity coming out.
The ones that bother me are tall buildings that don't have a 13th floor. It should be obvious that they do in fact have a 13th floor, and calling it 14 doesn't change that. The fact that it's 2022 and people in a developed nation still believe in the concept of an unlucky number just does not compute to me.
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'multiple' here is a noun, not an adjective (and only the adjective has the "more than one" sense).
I'm a native English speaker and yet you know more about it than I do. LOL :D
You express yourself natively in it, whereas I have to do real work to try and express myself in it. I don't actually "know" more, I just have to rely on the rules others have discovered about the language; the stuff that is written in dictionaries. So, you're the fluent one, whereas I just point out stuff others have said, because I rely on them myself to be able to communicate.
Think of it more like someone walking with crutches telling a jogger to beware of rotating their ankle on slippery leaves on the road.
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People are weird beasts. I know folks that would speak dismissively about skipping assignment of the number thirteen to a floor, but go on to talk about the importance of feng shui in a house.
When you are designing a commercial building you are really unlikely to find someone who won't rent because the number 13 is missing from the floor set, but there is a very real possibility that someone won't rent on a floor numbered 13, and even some chance they will shun the building. The decision to not include the 13 in the floor numbers is a sound business decision. Just like the decision to include an astrology column in a newspaper.
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I never have a version 13 of anything. Software or hardware 8)
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People are weird beasts. I know folks that would speak dismissively about skipping assignment of the number thirteen to a floor, but go on to talk about the importance of feng shui in a house.
When you are designing a commercial building you are really unlikely to find someone who won't rent because the number 13 is missing from the floor set, but there is a very real possibility that someone won't rent on a floor numbered 13, and even some chance they will shun the building. The decision to not include the 13 in the floor numbers is a sound business decision. Just like the decision to include an astrology column in a newspaper.
(https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/greeting-card/images-medium-5/what-lemmings-believe-robert-mankof.jpg?&targetx=87&targety=25&imagewidth=525&imageheight=450&modelwidth=700&modelheight=500&backgroundcolor=ffffff&orientation=0)
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Let's see if there will be a Windows 13. >:D That's not too far away.
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Actually, FENG SHUI is an established science, although I know only bits and pieces about it. Some of it makes good sense, geometrically. Like principals that say things like:
'Keeping doorways clear of clutter, and leaving ample space, so door can open completely', (in my interpretation), allows 'luck' and 'health' generally to flow and circulate. Sounds comic book fiction, sure, but Feng Shui has some pleasingly APPROPRIATE fit, I've seen.
My consultant used partial intuitive reading, and talked about a couple things (in my business office location) that were private / confidential, although she had no direct knowledge. That's just a bit of mystery.
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Actually, FENG SHUI is an established science, although I know only bits and pieces about it. Some of it makes good sense, geometrically. Like principals that say things like:
'Keeping doorways clear of clutter, and leaving ample space, so door can open completely', (in my interpretation), allows 'luck' and 'health' generally to flow and circulate. Sounds comic book fiction, sure, but Feng Shui has some pleasingly APPROPRIATE fit, I've seen.
My consultant used partial intuitive reading, and talked about a couple things (in my business office location) that were private / confidential, although she had no direct knowledge. That's just a bit of mystery.
Utter nonsense.
Your "consultant" conned you.
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Let's see if there will be a Windows 13. >:D That's not too far away.
:o :scared: :popcorn:
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(https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/greeting-card/images-medium-5/what-lemmings-believe-robert-mankof.jpg?&targetx=87&targety=25&imagewidth=525&imageheight=450&modelwidth=700&modelheight=500&backgroundcolor=ffffff&orientation=0)
Lemmings are not actually suicidal; they're migratory, and can swim. Some do drown if the patch of water is wide enough, so maybe that's the origin of the misconception.
The stories about lemmings exploding is probably from predatory birds happening on a migratory group and getting into a feeding frenzy. (Least weasels, stoats, and foxes tend to eat them whole; birds of prey tend to rip them apart while dining.)
(Only reason I responded to this is because I happened to grow up where they live.)
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(https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/greeting-card/images-medium-5/what-lemmings-believe-robert-mankof.jpg?&targetx=87&targety=25&imagewidth=525&imageheight=450&modelwidth=700&modelheight=500&backgroundcolor=ffffff&orientation=0)
Lemmings are not actually suicidal; they're migratory, and can swim. Some do drown if the patch of water is wide enough, so maybe that's the origin of the misconception.
The stories about lemmings exploding is probably from predatory birds happening on a migratory group and getting into a feeding frenzy. (Least weasels, stoats, and foxes tend to eat them whole; birds of prey tend to rip them apart while dining.)
(Only reason I responded to this is because I happened to grow up where they live.)
In a twist of irony, it’s probably lemmings like me who propagated the myth 😁
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People are weird beasts. I know folks that would speak dismissively about skipping assignment of the number thirteen to a floor, but go on to talk about the importance of feng shui in a house.
When you are designing a commercial building you are really unlikely to find someone who won't rent because the number 13 is missing from the floor set, but there is a very real possibility that someone won't rent on a floor numbered 13, and even some chance they will shun the building. The decision to not include the 13 in the floor numbers is a sound business decision. Just like the decision to include an astrology column in a newspaper.
Feng shui is bullshit too of course, it's said to be a science, but talk to 5 different feng shui consultants and you'll get 5 different answers on how to organize the furniture in your bedroom. While I'm not going to personally avoid a building that lacks a 13th floor, I shake my head at the utter absurdity of it all. It should be obvious that there is in fact a 13th floor, even if it's called something else. Then again, there is a large number of people who think that changing the name of something will somehow change what it is, witness the euphemism treadmill.
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In music the fist harmonic is "an overtone accompanying a fundamental tone at a fixed interval", and I suspect most non-mathematicians might think that way. But it is hardly unique: programmers tend to count from 0 whereas everyone else counts from 1, and a UK 1st floor is the floor above the ground floor, whereas a US 1st floor is the floor level with the ground.
There should be standards for this kind of thing >:D
In music, an "overtone" is not necessarily a "harmonic".
In physics, for a perfect one-dimensional resonator, such as a vibrating string or organ pipe, the overtones (mis-translation of German "Oberton", Helmholtz' contraction of "Oberpartialton") are harmonics (integer multiples of the fundamental frequency), but for other systems (such as kettle drums and non-perfect one-dimensional systems), the overtones are not harmonic multiples of the fundamental.
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Crystal resonators overtones are not multiples of the fundamental.
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People are weird beasts. I know folks that would speak dismissively about skipping assignment of the number thirteen to a floor, but go on to talk about the importance of feng shui in a house.
When you are designing a commercial building you are really unlikely to find someone who won't rent because the number 13 is missing from the floor set, but there is a very real possibility that someone won't rent on a floor numbered 13, and even some chance they will shun the building. The decision to not include the 13 in the floor numbers is a sound business decision. Just like the decision to include an astrology column in a newspaper.
Feng shui is bullshit too of course, it's said to be a science, but talk to 5 different feng shui consultants and you'll get 5 different answers on how to organize the furniture in your bedroom. While I'm not going to personally avoid a building that lacks a 13th floor, I shake my head at the utter absurdity of it all. It should be obvious that there is in fact a 13th floor, even if it's called something else. Then again, there is a large number of people who think that changing the name of something will somehow change what it is, witness the euphemism treadmill.
So you have validated the business decision. Skipping a floor named 13 did not lose any business due to an irrational belief. While you are stipulating that there is a significant (your term was large) number of people who would avoid a floor labeled 13. So it is an easy decision. One choice leads to no loss of business. The other does. That the reason for the business drop is irrational is irrelevant. Reality overwhelms theory every time.
Feng Shui is in an even stronger position. As prior posters have pointed out, some part of it is actually good design. The ensemble, BS and rational parts together sells houses and business designs. So it is rational to operate a feng shui business. And while there is some part of the rational community that will throw up their hands in disgust and walk away when feng shui is mentioned, the majority of people will just ignore it and buy the property or accept the design anyway. And it is rational for agents to not waste time showing properties with "bad" feng shui" to clients known to be proponents of the discipline.
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Skipping a floor named 13 did not lose any business due to an irrational belief. While you are stipulating that there is a significant (your term was large) number of people who would avoid a floor labeled 13. So it is an easy decision. One choice leads to no loss of business. The other does. That the reason for the business drop is irrational is irrelevant. Reality overwhelms theory every time.
Remember that fellow that wanted to bungee jump of the side of a building? So, off he went. Whump! He made a hole in the dirt at deep as he was wide. When they did the investigation, the guy counted 15 floors or something and so many feet per floor. Didn't know that there was no floor 13. Bungee cord was exactly 1 floor too long.
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So you have validated the business decision. Skipping a floor named 13 did not lose any business due to an irrational belief. While you are stipulating that there is a significant (your term was large) number of people who would avoid a floor labeled 13. So it is an easy decision. One choice leads to no loss of business. The other does. That the reason for the business drop is irrational is irrelevant. Reality overwhelms theory every time.
It's just the principal of the matter, I would like to see society become less stupid and irrational, so given a choice between two buildings, one that had a 13th floor and one that did not, I'd choose the one that did every time, all else being equal. If I could work on the 13th floor that would even be preferable as it might help filter out the number of irrational idiots in my vicinity. I get why developers do it, I just think it's stupid and I roll my eyes whenever I see it, and point out that floor 14 is the 13th floor at every opportunity. Seriously, this superstition is the sort of thing a toddler might believe, it has absolutely no place in modern society.
And yes it's rational to operate a feng shui business in the same sense that it's rational to operate a psychic or palm reading business, it's profitable to scam gullible people out of their money.
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Lot of high rise buildings at one time used to use the thirteenth floor as a service floor, as it is high up, so put the booster pumps and tanks there for both the lower floor fire fighting and to pump higher up in the building, as your standard steel water piping is starting to reach the limit of cheap steel piping systems, at around 10bar pressure, so you need to have header tanks and controls there. Plus you need to snub the waste water piping, along with the storm water pipes, so they do not erode the pipes badly.
6th floor you install pressure reducing valves for the lower and upper floors, so you have no more than 6 bar pressure, within the limits for taps to handle. Plus room for electrical distribution, so you can use diversity on cables to reduce size, and put in the LV distribution transformers. Solves a lot of problems doing it there, use the floor some are unhappy with, and get services up where needed.
After that you simply repeat every 12 floors till top, though often on a very high building you also have express elevators to a sky lobby on one of these floors, so you do not need to have crowding of them, plus the lower floors have a separate machine room to them, and you can reuse the shaft for higher floors.
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In Germany recently, I noted the building lift went 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 ... 12.0 Point zero? Is this German's being super accurate? Nine. It's because europeans count half floors or Mezzanines - from latin mezzo for half. So that could be ...2.0 2.5 3.0... With a point zero, maybe the building had a secret half floor? ...12.0 13.5 14.0...
( The train will be arriving at platform 9.75 )
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In Germany recently, I noted the building lift went 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 ... 12.0 Point zero? Is this German's being super accurate? Nine. It's because europeans count half floors or Mezzanines - from latin mezzo for half. So that could be ...2.0 2.5 3.0... With a point zero, maybe the building had a secret half floor? ...12.0 13.5 14.0...
( The train will be arriving at platform 9.75 )
Ha, remember that movie Being John Malkovich? What was that name of that company where they had that half floor?
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In Germany recently, I noted the building lift went 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 ... 12.0 Point zero? Is this German's being super accurate? Nine. It's because europeans count half floors or Mezzanines - from latin mezzo for half. So that could be ...2.0 2.5 3.0... With a point zero, maybe the building had a secret half floor? ...12.0 13.5 14.0...
( The train will be arriving at platform 9.75 )
And Germans can handle negative numbers, so the basement floors go -1, -2, -3...
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In Germany recently, I noted the building lift went 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 ... 12.0 Point zero? Is this German's being super accurate? Nine. It's because europeans count half floors or Mezzanines - from latin mezzo for half. So that could be ...2.0 2.5 3.0... With a point zero, maybe the building had a secret half floor? ...12.0 13.5 14.0...
More likely a typo by the Chinese that made the plate. IIRC in German language they put a dot behind a number to tell is it part of a sequence. 1st => 1. 2nd => 2. 5th => 5.
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Or maybe we're just over thinking, and the real reason is the floor number is defined in firmware by a floating point number?
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Crystal resonators overtones are not multiples of the fundamental.
Since crystals are three-dimensional, the overtones are not harmonic; one dimension is much thinner than the other two, so the overtone modes are close to harmonics.
The overtone frequencies are roughly integer multiples, hence the terms "third overtone", "fifth overtone", etc.
By physical symmetry, there are no even overtone modes with these crystals.
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the real reason is the floor number is defined in firmware by a floating point number?
Its a floating floor?
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I don't see a contradiction. One (1) is a "positive integer", and if you multiply the fundamental by this positive integer you get the original frequency. Calling the fundamental the "1st harmonic" is consistent with this.
"Real Radio people" don't use that terminology, but calling the fundamental the "Ist harmonic" is more tolerable than those who think 2f is the 'first harmonic" because it is the first one you see on a Spectrum analyser.
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The ones that bother me are tall buildings that don't have a 13th floor. It should be obvious that they do in fact have a 13th floor, and calling it 14 doesn't change that. The fact that it's 2022 and people in a developed nation still believe in the concept of an unlucky number just does not compute to me.
Back in the day, the 13th floor would probably have been marked "12a"!
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(https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/greeting-card/images-medium-5/what-lemmings-believe-robert-mankof.jpg?&targetx=87&targety=25&imagewidth=525&imageheight=450&modelwidth=700&modelheight=500&backgroundcolor=ffffff&orientation=0)
Looks like "the rapture"! ;D
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The ones that bother me are tall buildings that don't have a 13th floor. It should be obvious that they do in fact have a 13th floor, and calling it 14 doesn't change that. The fact that it's 2022 and people in a developed nation still believe in the concept of an unlucky number just does not compute to me.
In East Asia they always have a 13th floor. Its the 14th floor that is missing. :)
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One of my oldest and best friends is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. He collects University degrees as a hobby, 4 at the last count, is fluent in French and German and very proficient in English, one of his Degrees! I mention that because many native English people have a very poor grasp of their own language these days.
Anyway, despite his intelligence and education, he is a professional astrologist!! He's also been a teacher in various subjects and lectures on Astrology, much of his income is Astrology related!! He is also very religious!! Personally I have no mystical or supernatural beliefs and have never believed in gods of any flavour, to me it's all snake oil and hocus pocus.
So for him to believe in such cr4p does not compute! He's otherwise a very logical and rational person, and also a biker which is how we met.
We really do have some big fall outs over this, because he tries to indoctrinate me into his world. My response is generally to say, show me the proof, which really grinds his gears. He gave me one of his books on a birthday some years ago, it was about my star sign, yeah, I forgot to say he's a prolific author too!! He dedicated it to me with an inscription saying, look (my name), no engineering!! When we next spoke, I said, yeah, no engineering because it doesn't exist!! Astrology that is. That was a bit mean of me, as it was a thoughtful gift, but it would never convince me that Astrology has any validity.
So, for a guy of his intellect to believe in such nonsense is very erroneous. I'll have to ask him about number 13!
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One of my oldest and best friends is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met. He collects University degrees as a hobby, 4 at the last count, is fluent in French and German and very proficient in English, one of his Degrees! I mention that because many native English people have a very poor grasp of their own language these days.
Anyway, despite his intelligence and education, he is a professional astrologist!! He's also been a teacher in various subjects and lectures on Astrology, much of his income is Astrology related!! He is also very religious!! Personally I have no mystical or supernatural beliefs and have never believed in gods of any flavour, to me it's all snake oil and hocus pocus.
So for him to believe in such cr4p does not compute! He's otherwise a very logical and rational person, and also a biker which is how we met.
We really do have some big fall outs over this, because he tries to indoctrinate me into his world. My response is generally to say, show me the proof, which really grinds his gears. He gave me one of his books on a birthday some years ago, it was about my star sign, yeah, I forgot to say he's a prolific author too!! He dedicated it to me with an inscription saying, look (my name), no engineering!! When we next spoke, I said, yeah, no engineering because it doesn't exist!! Astrology that is. That was a bit mean of me, as it was a thoughtful gift, but it would never convince me that Astrology has any validity.
So, for a guy of his intellect to believe in such nonsense is very erroneous. I'll have to ask him about number 13!
Most studies of which articles are most read in newspapers say the astrology column comes first. Those studies also find little correlation between the type of person - be it gender, income, IQ, race, religion, or other factors - and the popularity of the astrology column.
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Most studies of which articles are most read in newspapers say the astrology column comes first. Those studies also find little correlation between the type of person - be it gender, income, IQ, race, religion, or other factors - and the popularity of the astrology column.
The stars look all different now since astrology was invented don't they?
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Most studies of which articles are most read in newspapers say the astrology column comes first. Those studies also find little correlation between the type of person - be it gender, income, IQ, race, religion, or other factors - and the popularity of the astrology column.
The stars look all different now since astrology was invented don't they?
I said "correlation" not "constellation". :)
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The ones that bother me are tall buildings that don't have a 13th floor. It should be obvious that they do in fact have a 13th floor, and calling it 14 doesn't change that. The fact that it's 2022 and people in a developed nation still believe in the concept of an unlucky number just does not compute to me.
In East Asia they always have a 13th floor. Its the 14th floor that is missing. :)
The number "4" is unlucky in some Asian countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia
This often results in skipping other numbers: 14, 24, ...
A classic Bob Newhart comedy routine (he often did monologues with a telephone) has the night watchman at the Empire State Building phoning in a report of a giant ape climbing the building.
When asked "how tall?", he replies "It depends on whether we have a 13th floor".
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The ones that bother me are tall buildings that don't have a 13th floor. It should be obvious that they do in fact have a 13th floor, and calling it 14 doesn't change that. The fact that it's 2022 and people in a developed nation still believe in the concept of an unlucky number just does not compute to me.
In East Asia they always have a 13th floor. Its the 14th floor that is missing. :)
The number "4" is unlucky in some Asian countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia
This often results in skipping other numbers: 14, 24, ...
Interestingly, the fear of 4 sounding like "dead" doesn't stop most buildings having a floor 4. Its usually 14, where the missing floors start, and may continue through 24, 34, etc. Nobody ever offered me a reasonable explanation for this.
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the real reason is the floor number is defined in firmware by a floating point number?
Its a floating floor?
Or the lift is connected to a floating earth? [ please do not touch the metal sides ]
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Shall we start on the flat earthers?! :-DD
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Shall we start on the flat earthers?! :-DD
You want to squash them?
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"The stars are misplaced' - - guitarist Jimi Hendrix
(Song 'Up from the Skies').
I started avoiding '13's after a couple incidents as a young person...
BUT: MY superstition, and I'll carry it to my grave,
My superstition is 'Tuesdays before the 12th', (any month or year)
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Pogo used to worry when Friday the 13th came on a different day of the week, but Friday was OK because that was expected.
His friend Albert maintained that you could not eat alligator on any month that did not contain a "Q".
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My grandfather was very superstitious.
He wouldn't work any week that had a Friday in it.
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After placing insulated spade connectors onto the terminals of this mains rated DPST neon switch, can you spot where the potential shock hazard is?
I had a few of these with the same manufacturing snag.
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Let's see if there will be a Windows 13. >:D That's not too far away.
depends on if the want to make a shit version or a good one. It used to be that the odd numbers were the good ones but they skipped nine so now it's reversed.
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Well, both 10 and 11 are not very good, so that theory has gone down the tubes.
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10 was supposed to be the last version going onwards.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows (https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows)
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Well, both 10 and 11 are not very good, so that theory has gone down the tubes.
well with 10 it depends on when you refer to. I would have stuck with 7. I suspect 10 is actually getting a lot of stuff that 11 is made of. All of a sudden 10 is now asking me to confirm what program to use for that file, just like 11. Up until the release of 11 10 was at least bearable.
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In Germany recently, I noted the building lift went 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 ... 12.0 Point zero? Is this German's being super accurate? Nine. It's because europeans count half floors or Mezzanines - from latin mezzo for half. So that could be ...2.0 2.5 3.0... With a point zero, maybe the building had a secret half floor? ...12.0 13.5 14.0...
More likely a typo by the Chinese that made the plate. IIRC in German language they put a dot behind a number to tell is it part of a sequence. 1st => 1. 2nd => 2. 5th => 5.
FYI, those are called “ordinal” numbers.
Regular numbers are the “cardinal” numbers.
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A lot of the Windows 10 telemetry garbage was back-ported to Windows 7. It eventually got so bad that I just re-installed 7 and never updated it. Well, other than stuff that games required. Actually, if not for gaming Windows as a general purpose OS might have died years ago. All most people need these days is something that can run a web browser. And most people seem to have no problem selling their soul to Google.
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Actually, FENG SHUI is an established science, although I know only bits and pieces about it. Some of it makes good sense, geometrically. Like principals that say things like:
'Keeping doorways clear of clutter, and leaving ample space, so door can open completely', (in my interpretation), allows 'luck' and 'health' generally to flow and circulate. Sounds comic book fiction, sure, but Feng Shui has some pleasingly APPROPRIATE fit, I've seen.
My consultant used partial intuitive reading, and talked about a couple things (in my business office location) that were private / confidential, although she had no direct knowledge. That's just a bit of mystery.
Utter nonsense.
Your "consultant" conned you.
No more so than your religious leaders conned you! ;)
Jokes aside, you do need to accept that religion is something you cannot bring to a facts-based forum as if it were fact. You are free to believe what you believe, but many of us do not, and cannot and will not accept it as fact even if you make such declarations. I am an atheist and don’t believe in your religion (or anyone else’s), so arguments that DOG created everything and made us inherently superior to animals don’t, um, improve your standing in my eyes.
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I've managed to get quite a few people very confused about me, by describing my own beliefs.
To me, it does not matter if there is a creator, god, godhood, or anything like that. If one exists, it is so far beyond my ken that any worship or even acknowledgement by me is more likely to be offensive (or just ridiculous) than desirable. Consider something like a bacteria worshiping one of my nostril hairs, for an analog: "I split from my parent-sibling, and was a long time in a deserted droplet, cooling down, slowing my life processes. Then I was suddenly grasped by a heavenly appendage, the Protrusion of God, and put here! With lots of food, stable conditions, and this endless surface for me-us to explore. I/we shall populate this world!"
I don't mind the idea of there being a final judgment; fine by me, I accept that. Whether reality was created, is a simulation, or is a quantum mechanical relativistic machine, does not matter to me. I can only behave according to my own judgment, based on what I can sense. In my teenage years, I thought about it a lot, and finally decided that as a person, I wanted to behave like I'd like others to behave around me. I've tried to do that ever since, and use that as the metric for my own behaviour. Whatever judgment my behaviour gets, will be interesting, too. As to pain or punishment, well, as a human, I can adapt to almost anything (possibly excepting an icicle in my butt, because that melts before you gets used to it).
And with this post, I wager I've managed to trigger the pet peeves of several members here. Sowwy! :P
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10 was supposed to be the last version going onwards.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows (https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows)
Many of us suspected this was just going to be a lie. And it was.
A "forever version" of something is not sustainable marketing-wise. (Sure it may be if the majority of us was less idiotic, but we are what we are.)
Releasing a new version of something creates anticipation, while a forever "Windows 10" ends ups just being transparent. No matter what it actually contains. That's marketing 101. Keeping the same version also makes it harder to make breaking changes, otherwise it creates too much fragmentation and major support headaches.
Their claim of the "last version" at the time was just to introduce rolling releases to the public, something which was just not a thing for MS products before.
Those rolling updates have created a lot of pain for users of Win 10 for several years. Then the cycle has settled to more or less twice a year, so things are getting a bit more stable.
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finally decided that as a person, I wanted to behave like I'd like others to behave around me.
That's a good philosophy. Mine's slightly different: I try to leave people and things better for my having interacted with them. I hope to leave a trail of improvement behind me. I figure that's objectively a good thing regardless of your belief system. And if there's some sort of "judgement" such a record would reflect well on me.
If we play out my philosophy, it might lead to and include yours!
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10 was supposed to be the last version going onwards.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows (https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows)
Many of us suspected this was just going to be a lie. And it was.
A "forever version" of something is not sustainable marketing-wise. (Sure it may be if the majority of us was less idiotic, but we are what we are.)
Releasing a new version of something creates anticipation, while a forever "Windows 10" ends ups just being transparent. No matter what it actually contains. That's marketing 101. Keeping the same version also makes it harder to make breaking changes, otherwise it creates too much fragmentation and major support headaches.
The "last version" statement was never an official Microsoft stance but it came from one of their employees - I believed that as well.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/394724/why-is-there-a-windows-11-if-windows-10-is-the-last-windows.html (https://www.pcworld.com/article/394724/why-is-there-a-windows-11-if-windows-10-is-the-last-windows.html)
Regarding versions, Apple and its marketing machine was able to successfully capitalize on releasing the same "major" version of their operating system for almost twenty years - OS "ten" (OS X).
You can sell anything if you market it wisely - something that Microsoft has trouble with in many occasions.
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You can sell anything if you market it wisely - something that Microsoft has trouble with in many occasions.
Their marketing is almost universally terrible, I don't even know how they manage to make it so bad. Have you ever seen a commercial for one of their tablet things? I forget what they're even called.
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This is more of a question that has bothered me forever, rather than a pet peeve, but anyway:
How do you help people who are asking for advice on how to complete a thing, when they are doing just about everything wrong?
A recent particular example I stumbled on was someone writing a "server" in C on Linux. They use recv() (https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/recv.2.html) on a socket to read a structure, but never even check how many bytes they actually received. They then use strcmp() (https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/strcmp.3.html) on structure members to check the username and password. Their question is, how to add many users.
Everything in it is wrong, especially if they are using TCP sockets (https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/tcp.7.html), since the number of bytes available depends on the network conditions, and does not necessarily reflect the number of bytes sent. Assuming data is a string, terminated with a nul byte (as you do when you use str...() family of functions in C), is a clear buffer overrun risk.
Not to mention the overall architecture. You want to use a database (a flat file will work fine) of usernames, salts, and salted hashes of the passwords to compare against. To explain why, you need to understand the overall security model, and that alone is at least a dozen paragraphs.
My intuition is to point out a few of the errors in the existing code, and then throw it all away and start from scratch, using sensible engineering principles. (This includes things like using the proper available POSIX interfaces like getaddrinfo() (https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/getaddrinfo.3.html) to obtain the socket given host name and service or port, nftw() (https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/nftw.3.html) to scan directory trees, scandir() (https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/scandir.3.html) to list the contents of a specific directory, regex (https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/regex.7.html)es for matching (regcomp()/regexec()/regerror()/regfree() (https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/regcomp.3.html), all of the aforementioned being included in the standard C library; plus things like return value checking, proper error messages via %m (GNU extension) or strerror(errno) (pure C), robust data structures using known working approaches, and so on.)
In face-to-face, I can observe cues and adjust my approach so that the learner does not get frustrated, just more motivated/excited. (I've used things like describing past projects by myself and other people; showing how the proper engineering approach is not only more powerful, but saves a lot of work in the long term; and how these things makes one quite a powerful developer.)
Online, say stackoverflow, possibly here also, the more likely response is "No, I didn't ask for that. I asked for help with my code. If you cannot help me with this, please do not post at all."
In a similar vein, here in physics threads, I've tried to describe things in a way that helps people intuitively grasp the phenomena better, but as such descriptions are not exactly what is discussed in text books, the response is similarly polarized to positive and utterly negative, with nearly nothing in between. (Consider things like describing electron orbitals around an atom as electron clouds. Each "cloud" is just one delocalized electron, with "density" corresponding to the squared modulus of the actual quantum wave function. If you examine each term in isolation, you can find several faults in it. But, if you examine the two sentences assuming that the terms used are descriptive, not definitive or exact, then you have to agree that it fits perfectly to our current quantum mechanical understanding of atom electron orbitals.)
The underlying question is, what is the approach that has the best chance of actually being useful?
And "useful" defined as something that helps there be less crappy software or misunderstanding of physics out there in the future.
This bugs me to no end. I don't want to waste my efforts when it is not welcome or is considered not useful. But seeing someone just take off with a little bit of help, I really really like that.
:-\
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Damn bonfire night, a strange UK custom for those in the rest of the world!! People literally burning money just to see pretty lights in the sky :palm: So those that don't indulge in such nonsense have to endure 6 hours of noise disturbance!! Yes, I am a grumpy b4stard!!
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At least they're getting wet tonight :)
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This is more of a question that has bothered me forever, rather than a pet peeve, but anyway:
How do you help people who are asking for advice on how to complete a thing, when they are doing just about everything wrong?
Well, if it is someone online like stackoverflow I don't think you should waste your time and effort and instead try to find a question from a poster that shows a style more like yours. That person is more likely to accept your suggestions.
If it is a coworker it's more problematic. Try to assess if the person is just naive but cares for quality or just being careless and wants instant results. In the first case provide some tests that break the code and show ways to prevent that. In the careless case I'm not sure, maybe avoid having that person on your team.
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Damn bonfire night, a strange UK custom for those in the rest of the world!! People literally burning money just to see pretty lights in the sky :palm: So those that don't indulge in such nonsense have to endure 6 hours of noise disturbance!! Yes, I am a grumpy b4stard!!
Strange custom alright. Celebrating a political terrorist. Or at least his downfall.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night)
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When I started my employment, there were many British subjects working at the American company.
They were prone to celebrate Guy Fawkes' (no relation) day.
Out of curiosity, I asked them which king had been the target of the Gunpowder Plot, and none of them knew.
(One said that his history class in school had stopped at 1066.)
I had to look it up on my own, before the internet: James I of England (aka James VI of Scotland).
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I think we tend not to be big on history. I recall at school that history mainly consisted of knowing things like what Shakespeare had for breakfast on a Tuesday, which wasn't too riveting for a 14-year-old. Bonfire night we celebrate because... well, it's lots of bangs and flashes and who the hell knows why but it's fun.
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How do you help people who are asking for advice on how to complete a thing, when they are doing just about everything wrong?
If it is a coworker it's more problematic.
Well, like I said, I find face-to-face rather easy in comparison.
Most of my coworkers have liked me, because I do admit when I'm wrong, and explicitly express my appreciation when I learn something new from them.
It's only the instant-gratification types who don't care about long-term results because they've gone by then with whatever they have managed to extract by then that aggravate me; I don't want to work with them at all, so one of us will walk out anyway.
Here at EEVblog, it's the physics discussions, things like "measuring the speed of DC current". By exact definition, you can't do that, because DC implies a steady state where no changes actually propagate, because as a steady state, there are no changes. If you use it as an approximation, it's like starting a psychology paper with "We define humans as roughly spherical toroids, with mouth at one end, and rectum at the other". It just won't lead to a practical useful model at all, even though you can derive many details that match with real world measurements. Yet, a majority of the participants on the discussion reject using transmission line or electromagnetic field models –– which would be appropriate, down to the quantum mechanical level, really! –– because it gets too far from the approximations they are familiar with and have experience in applying in typical situations.
How the hell is a nobody like me, using a pseudonym, going to help anyone realize they're using the wrong model to solve the problem?
It's exactly the same as the discussion here in Finland about the origin on Finns. A relatively recent bog-body DNA samples from 5000 years ago clearly shows that they were genetically closest to modern Finns (https://www.aaas.org/news/science-stone-age-skeletons-suggest-europes-first-farmers-came-southern-europe). Yet, just a few days ago, yet another docent held a talk at Helsinki University (youtube (https://youtu.be/2dknQNzeGCw)) "describing" how Finns came from "somewhere between the rivers Olga, Kama, and Oka, getting to Estonia about three thousand years ago". Yet, Finns genetic forebears have been in Central Sweden, much further West, over the Gulf of Bothnia, at least two thousand years before that.
Whenever I send that link to anyone, they just respond: "No, I trust the Finnish linguists and historians like this docent more."
Basically saying "I trust their theories more than what the archaeological DNA findings say, because it is important to my ideological narrative about Finns' origins," so please don't bother me with such links, you racist fennomaniac. (My closest friends and colleagues at UH only leave the "racist" bit out.)
I'm not interested in making history political, but when people like the prime minister of Finland says they don't know what being a Finn means, and they don't really think of themselves as Finnish, it is time to show them where their roots are, using physical facts and research done by non-Finns. Finns are not better or more original than anyone, but just like everyone else, we do have a history that is much more interesting than the ideological "Turanic idiots from the Volga river" these story-tellers are peddling for ideological reasons.
Similarly, online, I want to help people find solutions that are used to create better (robust, resilient, efficient, effective, utile/useful) "stuff", especially programming. Not pointing out when people are going about arse-end first is just letting crap slide downwards towards future; stopping them early, and diverting them on even just slightly better path, reduces the total amount of crap out there in the future, and possibly increases the total amount of good stuff.
Is it even ethical to stay quiet and ignore them? :-//
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At least the uks fireworks are let off to celebrate a historical event,not in memory of some spreader of fairy tales as happens in many other countries
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In the US, the main fireworks displays celebrate our independence from Britain.
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This is more of a question that has bothered me forever, rather than a pet peeve, but anyway:
How do you help people who are asking for advice on how to complete a thing, when they are doing just about everything wrong?
Nominal, just slowly make your hands walk away from the keyboard... Then put one one the mouse... Move the cursor to the "X" near the tab... Click! And go make a tea or a coffee.
I suffer from the same "help at all costs" inkling as you and it took me years to get a sense to find the best balance of my time with the interest and engagement of the original poster. There is a discussion somewhere around here when both I and Mr Modemhead talked about it in yet another thread where the OP vanished after all the good will efforts of many around here.
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
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That's inflation 1:1. Lived through that and much worse in the 1980's and their 2000%+ a year. The lost decade for us.
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
Shrink-flation.
I just hope it doesn't affect any products from the Durex company.
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My point(s) involving Pet Peeves religion and Feng Shui, is not that they are real and proven so, but that there is a 'mystery' dynamic...even some formal religions mention that. It's a 'quality' of un-provability that some written texts mention.
One older SIMPSONs TV episode featured that:
Quote: " The YETI always disappears, when cameras come out...lending a quality of UNPROVABILITY, to the actually REAL sighting...".
...this, leading to Lisa's (Simpson) head to 'explode'.
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My point(s) involving Pet Peeves religion and Feng Shui, is not that they are real and proven so, but that there is a 'mystery' dynamic...even some formal religions mention that. It's a 'quality' of un-provability that some written texts mention.
One older SIMPSONs TV episode featured that:
Quote: " The YETI always disappears, when cameras come out...lending a quality of UNPROVABILITY, to the actually REAL sighting...".
...this, leading to Lisa's (Simpson) head to 'explode'.
;D
There is something reminding quantum mechanics in that.
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10 was supposed to be the last version going onwards.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows (https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows)
That’s a parroted myth which Microsoft never said: https://www.pcworld.com/article/394724/why-is-there-a-windows-11-if-windows-10-is-the-last-windows.html (https://www.pcworld.com/article/394724/why-is-there-a-windows-11-if-windows-10-is-the-last-windows.html)
Also, quoting “da vrrrrj” subtracts you -1,000 points for quoting a source who are know not to know what they are on about.
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
Shrink-flation.
I just hope it doesn't affect any products from the Durex company.
I don't need them anymore, but it wouldn't matter---I've shrunk, too! ;D
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
Shrink-flation.
I just hope it doesn't affect any products from the Durex company.
I don't need them anymore, but it wouldn't matter---I've shrunk, too! ;D
It was a cold winter. 8)
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The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special.
They're trying to gently move you forward to a 1980s fragrance.
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Also, quoting “da vrrrrj”
Just the first result in Google. Couldn've picked any of a dozen more. My original source would have been something like The Register, but try this:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/windows-10-last-version-microsoft (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/windows-10-last-version-microsoft)
Or maybe you're not a 'tofu-eating woketard' (in the words of our Home Secretary) and that august publication is still below your wavering standards.
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I hate how multi meter probes are designed to get trapped between the two wheels in your office chair and then pull the meter off the bench when you move.
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
Shrinkflation makes my blood boil. I understand the need to increase prices. It pisses me the hell off when these disgusting marketing dweebs try to conceal it by making the product smaller, some even try to spin it by saying the smaller candy bar has fewer calories so it's better for you. It makes me feel like I'm being cheated, I notice and I resent it.
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I hate how multi meter probes are designed to get trapped between the two wheels in your office chair and then pull the meter off the bench when you move.
Bear in mind these multi meter probes will get the hell exit at the pearly gates....
I hope that will give you sufficient revenge feeling.
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Damn bonfire night, a strange UK custom for those in the rest of the world!! People literally burning money just to see pretty lights in the sky :palm: So those that don't indulge in such nonsense have to endure 6 hours of noise disturbance!! Yes, I am a grumpy b4stard!!
Don’t mind 5th Nov or the nearest weekend, but past few years it’s started mid October, and still idiots were letting fireworks off right up to new year.
On bonfire night this year, I and my dog were woken up at 3:45am with some idiots letting them off.
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Actually, FENG SHUI is an established science, although I know only bits and pieces about it. Some of it makes good sense, geometrically. Like principals that say things like:
'Keeping doorways clear of clutter, and leaving ample space, so door can open completely', (in my interpretation), allows 'luck' and 'health' generally to flow and circulate. Sounds comic book fiction, sure, but Feng Shui has some pleasingly APPROPRIATE fit, I've seen.
My consultant used partial intuitive reading, and talked about a couple things (in my business office location) that were private / confidential, although she had no direct knowledge. That's just a bit of mystery.
Utter nonsense.
Your "consultant" conned you.
No more so than your religious leaders conned you! ;)
Jokes aside, you do need to accept that religion is something you cannot bring to a facts-based forum as if it were fact. You are free to believe what you believe, but many of us do not, and cannot and will not accept it as fact even if you make such declarations. I am an atheist and don’t believe in your religion (or anyone else’s), so arguments that DOG created everything and made us inherently superior to animals don’t, um, improve your standing in my eyes.
I believe in God, but also totally agree with what you say.
While I believe in God, I loath organised religion and 99% of all churches whatever their denomination. The way most churches behave, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that most people want to run a mile
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I believe in God, but also totally agree with what you say.
While I believe in God, I loath organised religion and 99% of all churches whatever their denomination. The way most churches behave, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that most people want to run a mile
Something I remember observing when I was a small child is there are numerous different religions, and pretty much all of them think that they are right and everyone else is wrong. My conclusion at the time was that the most likely explanation is that they are all wrong, at least to some degree. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned of all of the other deities that have been worshiped throughout human history, the people that worshiped them believed in those deities as firmly as people believe today. Even so many people who are deeply devout have trouble understanding how a person can be atheist, despite the fact that there are numerous deities they themselves don't believe in. Well it's just like that, only adding one more to the list.
Now people are free to believe whatever they want, I don't actually know the answer and it's virtually impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, so I consider myself agnostic rather than outright atheist, but I don't like it when people try to present their religion as concrete fact or use their belief as proof of something. It's not proof of anything, it's a belief.
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I believe in God, but also totally agree with what you say.
While I believe in God, I loath organised religion and 99% of all churches whatever their denomination. The way most churches behave, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that most people want to run a mile
Something I remember observing when I was a small child is there are numerous different religions, and pretty much all of them think that they are right and everyone else is wrong. My conclusion at the time was that the most likely explanation is that they are all wrong, at least to some degree. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned of all of the other deities that have been worshiped throughout human history, the people that worshiped them believed in those deities as firmly as people believe today. Even so many people who are deeply devout have trouble understanding how a person can be atheist, despite the fact that there are numerous deities they themselves don't believe in. Well it's just like that, only adding one more to the list.
Now people are free to believe whatever they want, I don't actually know the answer and it's virtually impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, so I consider myself agnostic rather than outright atheist, but I don't like it when people try to present their religion as concrete fact or use their belief as proof of something. It's not proof of anything, it's a belief.
ageing & ultimately death explained-
98% of all organised religion is waste of time, this is humanity's failed attempt to find God.
however God has offer to humanity, God has His only one Son & only one way to Live for Eternity.
terms and conditions apply. refer to the user manual , important set of documents.
explains the errors in the universe & who is responsible for wars, pain , suffering & death.
beginning of time to the end of time is only a short time. universe was made perfect in just 144 hours,
then all of it was corrupted by the lust of a talking reptile, hypnotizing an innocent naked woman.
1 or 2% churches do have truth about God , His Son, & the key to living for Eternity.
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
Shrink-flation.
I just hope it doesn't affect any products from the Durex company.
Reminds me of a soup packet that advertized 25% less salt than original. The directions called for 3 cups of water instead of the usual 4. There was 25% less everything, for the same price.
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
Shrink-flation.
I just hope it doesn't affect any products from the Durex company.
Reminds me of a soup packet that advertized 25% less salt than original. The directions called for 3 cups of water instead of the usual 4. There was 25% less everything, for the same price.
Nobody here is brave enough to futz with the bread or milk.
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Damn bonfire night, a strange UK custom for those in the rest of the world!! People literally burning money just to see pretty lights in the sky :palm: So those that don't indulge in such nonsense have to endure 6 hours of noise disturbance!! Yes, I am a grumpy b4stard!!
People here are amazing. Everyone’s always pleading poverty and “How WILL we survive the winter?! Cost of living” and yet, like magic, EVERYONE seems to have a secret unlimited wallet that appears for:
# Booze (fiver a pint, last time I looked, and I don’t drink any more GLADLY!
# New phones (debt debt debt! Thaaaaat’s the spirit!)
# Takeaways every weekend
# Sending £50-200 up in flames into the sky
As a youngster it used to annoy me that everyone always claimed they were “skint” when I was trying to sell them stuff half or quarter price, but beer somehow magically buys itself endlessly, without fail.
People talk rubbish.
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My point(s) involving Pet Peeves religion and Feng Shui, is not that they are real and proven so, but that there is a 'mystery' dynamic...even some formal religions mention that. It's a 'quality' of un-provability that some written texts mention.
One older SIMPSONs TV episode featured that:
Quote: " The YETI always disappears, when cameras come out...lending a quality of UNPROVABILITY, to the actually REAL sighting...".
...this, leading to Lisa's (Simpson) head to 'explode'.
“Proven” so 🤣😂
I believe you have shares in an international “Feng shui” consultancy which are trying to float on the stock market. My dear friend, it’s a load of old rubbish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z77N2esipxc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z77N2esipxc)
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[...] which are trying to float on the stock market. My dear friend, it’s a load of old rubbish.
That I fully agree with; the stock market is a load of rubbish. Especially so for derivatives, high-frequency trading, and shorts.
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Yes, stock market voodoo.
For more rubbish, try reading a regular monthly medical HMO bill:. The dang thing is printed SIDEWAYS.
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HMO bill: The dang thing is printed SIDEWAYS.
They need the long axis for all the commas in the prices.
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Nobody here is brave enough to futz with the bread or milk.
unless your a "budget" uk frozen food chain ,4 pints is a standard uk container size for milk,however this particular mob sell 2 litres,you think your saving 10p until you look closely at the label.
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Nobody here is brave enough to futz with the bread or milk.
unless your a "budget" uk frozen food chain ,4 pints is a standard uk container size for milk,however this particular mob sell 2 litres,you think your saving 10p until you look closely at the label.
Well!
I had to go and check this and, to my surprise, most supermarket milk is indeed sold in pints (I had assumed litres for some reason). The exceptions, that are 2L instead of 2 pints, are third-party milks (typically organic, non-dairy, but also normal stuff). Even a well-known frozen food chain (perhaps not the one you cite) sells own-brand in pints and third-party in litres.
Of course, it can be difficult to tell which is own-brand now. Tesco, for instance, regularly creates brands whose names suggest actual farms and the like, but are entirely fake.
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Hadn't thought about it but it seems to be true here in the States too. Many things (soda, etc.) have moved to metric units but dairy continues to be imperial units.
Exception: Ice cream, which has been suffering with shrinkflation for years. Used to be the half-gallon was the standard unit of measure, but then they went to 1.75 liters, and lately 1.5L seems to be the new norm. It's getting so that eating an entire carton in one go isn't even embarrassing anymore.
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Nobody here is brave enough to futz with the bread or milk.
unless your a "budget" uk frozen food chain ,4 pints is a standard uk container size for milk,however this particular mob sell 2 litres,you think your saving 10p until you look closely at the label.
Well!
I had to go and check this and, to my surprise, most supermarket milk is indeed sold in pints (I had assumed litres for some reason). The exceptions, that are 2L instead of 2 pints, are third-party milks (typically organic, non-dairy, but also normal stuff). Even a well-known frozen food chain (perhaps not the one you cite) sells own-brand in pints and third-party in litres.
Of course, it can be difficult to tell which is own-brand now. Tesco, for instance, regularly creates brands whose names suggest actual farms and the like, but are entirely fake.
Note that its only the red, green and blue milk that is sold in pints. Banana milk, chocolate milk, or any other specialty product is in litres. Funky system, eh?
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Nobody here is brave enough to futz with the bread or milk.
unless your a "budget" uk frozen food chain ,4 pints is a standard uk container size for milk,however this particular mob sell 2 litres,you think your saving 10p until you look closely at the label.
Here supermarkets are required to post the price per unit, but it's always in tiny print and it's shocking the number of people that don't know about it. They also use different units sometimes, deliberate I'm sure. One brand will have price per oz and another brand will have price per liter.
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Funky system, eh?
Just like you can order a pint of beer,but not a pint of shandy.Still if some of our politicians get there way we'll be switching back to imperial measurements,wonder if lsd will also make a comeback.
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Another pet peeve I've run into more and more lately, stuff that doesn't include a power supply. Several times I've bought a bit of electronic gear and opened the box to find it includes a USB to barrel plug cable but no power brick. In most cases that means I have to go buy another USB charger. Used to be everything came with its own power supply, it was all in the box, nothing extra to go get.
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Another pet peeve I've run into more and more lately, stuff that doesn't include a power supply. Several times I've bought a bit of electronic gear and opened the box to find it includes a USB to barrel plug cable but no power brick. In most cases that means I have to go buy another USB charger. Used to be everything came with its own power supply, it was all in the box, nothing extra to go get.
The assumption is customers have a spare USB port on the TV/radio/router that can drive 1.0+amps.
Try buying power tools. Battery charger and battery not included. My peeve, power tool batteries are non standard, even within the same brand and even the same brand range. Most pro battery chargers DO come with a USB port though :)
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My peeve, power tool batteries are non standard, even within the same brand and even the same brand range.
Oh yes! And to rub it in they even all use the same design but make sure the dimensions are just too off to fit together.
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Try buying power tools. Battery charger and battery not included. My peeve, power tool batteries are non standard, even within the same brand and even the same brand range
Depends on what manufacturer you buy , bosch are a good example of how it can be done.
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Try buying power tools. Battery charger and battery not included. My peeve, power tool batteries are non standard, even within the same brand and even the same brand range
Depends on what manufacturer you buy , bosch are a good example of how it can be done.
Really? "One battery for all tools within the 36V system" is an interesting statement from Bosch's publicity about their wonderful battery commonality. Of course it misses out that many of their products don't run from a 36V battery. Like the tools that need an 18V battery.
As for tools not coming with a battery or charger, the key word to look for is "bare". This seems to indicate, across makes, that no battery or charger is included with the tool.
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Try buying power tools. Battery charger and battery not included.
Is this a UK thing? Here manfacturers offer different options. You can buy just the tool, tool with battery and charger, battery pack and charger, or just the battery or the charger. It is actually great, if i buy several tools i do not end up with a bunch of batteries i would not use.
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It's turning into a thing here. Presumably the manufacturers have realised a drill at half price looks good, even if the total with separately-purchased batteries is higher than the combined lot, so that's what they tend to sell.
The exception is brands like Guild who make some excellent kit and sell, for instance, the drill with a charger and two batteries rather than bare tools. The snag with them is the batteries are unobtainium, so if you need more you're going to have to buy the drill again as well.
And Guild are gits that have batteries from one model not fitting a similar but cheaper model.
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Is this a UK thing? Here manfacturers offer different options. You can buy just the tool, tool with battery and charger, battery pack and charger, or just the battery or the charger. It is actually great, if i buy several tools i do not end up with a bunch of batteries i would not use.
It's becoming more and more common place. Buying seperates has always been more expensive profitable than buying kits. Comes down to marketing; a 34.8V pack is perceived as being more powerfull and will last longer than the 34.2V pack, right?
As for tools not coming with a battery or charger, the key word to look for is "bare". This seems to indicate, across makes, that no battery or charger is included with the tool.
Totally NUDE. Even cheapish DIY store branded power tools, which are okay for DIY use or throw away after six weeks trade use, are sold bare. So, do I get the 18V, 24V or 28V battery lump + charger, to go with the 18V, 24V and 28V tools?
I have a crate of long dead battery packs with functional tools, and another of functional tools with dead battery packs. As technical dudes we have a chance of refurbishing the battery packs, but only if those high current batteries are available cheaper than a whole new battery pack + tool + charger. As for battery packs containing Nicad and NiMH cells, the spiders now have those in another crate.
+ I should add that for the reason of interoperabilty, I'm only buying tools that come with a power lead and run off mains power. They don't need charging and keep their torque under load/abuse. I have a pet peeve about power cables always being half a meter too short and never being flexible at room temperature, but that's just me.
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Another pet peeve I've run into more and more lately, stuff that doesn't include a power supply.
That's becoming the LAW in some jurisdictions, another virtue signal to "environmentalism". Their theory is that you probably already have the exact cable, adapter, etc. "just lying around the house", not being used with anything else, so why consume the materials and energy and "footprint" to add another one to the box?
Of course, when you DO go buy a separate cable and separate adapter, they come packaged in a bunch of their own packing plastic/paper/etc. and incurred separate shipping costs and all the rest, rather than leveraging those same things in the original box. Whether this is a net-positive idea is left as an exercise for each individual reader.
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I don't seem to have an issue here with power tool batteries. When I bought my Bosch drill it came with two batteries and a charger, and space for those in the case. Then, when the time came to add a small jigsaw to the tool collection, I bought it bare, and the battery is compatible. I'll probably add a few more tools eventually. Batteries aren't cheap and I don't need a new one with every tool, given I'm a casual DIYer at best.
What would be nice is if the EU could stop focusing on type C USB and start figuring out power tool battery standardisation - oh, that's a whole 'nother debate!
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What would be nice is if the EU could stop focusing on type C USB and start figuring out power tool battery standardisation
Ooo! Ooo! And while they're at it, they could legislate that standardized battery must be used in laptops too!
Give a politician an inch, and he'll take your wallet. And your choices. And also do something stupid like the above.
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Hadn't thought about it but it seems to be true here in the States too. Many things (soda, etc.) have moved to metric units but dairy continues to be imperial units.
Exception: Ice cream, which has been suffering with shrinkflation for years. Used to be the half-gallon was the standard unit of measure, but then they went to 1.75 liters, and lately 1.5L seems to be the new norm. It's getting so that eating an entire carton in one go isn't even embarrassing anymore.
It's 2 litre & 4 litres for ice cream in Oz!
The fancy brands go down to 750ml.
Milk comes in 1 litre, 2 litre & 3 litre, & the rarely seen 600ml.
Flavoured milk drinks are normally 600ml, on the other hand, although sometimes you see 300ml.
Some years back, Nescafe changed their large can size from 500g to 400g.
"Great!" said the big chains, rubbing their hands together!
It went over like a wrought iron hanglider, & after a few months, Nescafe quietly restored the 500g.
That was it, as far as I knew, until I was in Aldi one day, & spotted cans of Nescafe for around the same price as Coles & Woolworths sell 500g cans for "on special".
As this purported to be a "everyday" price, I grabbed a couple, & was congratulating myself on a good deal, till I noticed "400g" on the label.
Now I knew where all those unsold 400g ones went! ;D
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Really? "One battery for all tools within the 36V system" is an interesting statement from Bosch's publicity about their wonderful battery commonality. Of course it misses out that many of their products don't run from a 36V battery. Like the tools that need an 18V battery.
As for tools not coming with a battery or charger, the key word to look for is "bare". This seems to indicate, across makes, that no battery or charger is included with the tool.
The strange term used in Oz is "skins" for the basic tool without battery & charger.
If you already have the compatible battery, it is a reasonably good saving.
I have an "El Cheapo" drill called an "Ozito", which I bought "in a hurry" for a job which became "urgent" after I farted around re-celling a Ryobi battery pack, only for the charger to fail.(most unusually, the transformer died).
If the Ozito only lasted for that job, it would have been worth it, but the bloody thing is still hanging in there, whilst the Ryobi & its battery pack are languishing in the "probably never get done" list
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I bought a Samsung A03s from AT&T in July. Got home and found it had no charger. It had a USB cable though. Too bad it was type C which none of my computers have.
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My peeve, power tool batteries are non standard, even within the same brand and even the same brand range.
Oh yes! And to rub it in they even all use the same design but make sure the dimensions are just too off to fit together.
This has bothered me too, although in reality it's probably easier said than done to make it a standard. Tools have widely varying power requirements and they improve from generation to generation. Even among the same brand there are often different voltages used and sometimes multiple capacity batteries are available. The battery requirements would have to be made pretty rigid in order to be interchangeable, especially from a liability aspect with chargers for lithium batteries. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but I don't think it's as easy as a lot of people assume. At this point though battery tech might be approaching the point where it would be feasible, but then it would also result in there being yet another incompatible battery that everyone would have to buy new tools to use.
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I bought a Samsung A03s from AT&T in July. Got home and found it had no charger. It had a USB cable though. Too bad it was type C which none of my computers have.
Yeah I don't really have anything with USB-C either, I did finally pick up some USB-A to C cables so at least I can use my standard chargers. The only thing I have around with USB-C on it is my work laptop, it doesn't seem like that standard ever really took hold, it's rare that I see anyone using USB-C for anything other than charging Macbooks with the included charger.
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Is this a UK thing? Here manfacturers offer different options. You can buy just the tool, tool with battery and charger, battery pack and charger, or just the battery or the charger. It is actually great, if i buy several tools i do not end up with a bunch of batteries i would not use.
This is how it is with Makita. The thing I've noticed though is it's usually way cheaper to buy the bundle and then sell the extra charger and battery on ebay than it is to buy the bare tool.
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I bought a Samsung A03s from AT&T in July. Got home and found it had no charger. It had a USB cable though. Too bad it was type C which none of my computers have.
Yeah I don't really have anything with USB-C either, I did finally pick up some USB-A to C cables so at least I can use my standard chargers. The only thing I have around with USB-C on it is my work laptop, it doesn't seem like that standard ever really took hold, it's rare that I see anyone using USB-C for anything other than charging Macbooks with the included charger.
I use tiny adaptors that convert from Micro USB to USB-C, so I can keep all my legacy stuff a little longer... basically, until a majority of the devices are USB-C, which is almost guaranteed to happen now that it is a legal requirement.
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When you are updating the firmware on a gadget ( radiacode 101 ) and windows interrupts it to tell you that your machine isn't "Windows 11 Compatible".
#1, I didn't ask if it was
and
#2, I now have a $400 paperweight because of it.
I hate windows more and more each day.
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Seriously, F%$&*@! Windows 10 and 11! I had these issues back when I tried 10 for the first time (2015?), uninstalled and never looked back.
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Who was that idiot who designed windshield wipers on Toyota Camry 2020 ? To raise the driver side wiper you MUST SHUT THE ENGINE OFF, then move the wipers control to a specific position and wait a few seconds. :wtf:
Really, Toyota? :rant:
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Sadly not the first time I've seen that. On many cars you have to start the wipers, then turn off the engine when the wipers are mid-stroke so they are accessible for blade changes. I understand it, it's a tradeoff between frequent asthetics vs. infrequent blade changes. Not completely irrational.
The one that gets ME is when they fail to design the wiper hinges so the blades can be locked in the up position, away from the glass. This is especially common on rear wipers. THAT has no rationale whatsoever. There are plenty of times that you need to keep the blades off the glass, such as doing a full clean of the glass or during below-freezing temperatures to keep the blades from freezing to the glass and damaging the wiper edges. Even if the "mid-stroke engine off" trick is necessary, you still want the ability to lock the wipers up off the glass to ease blade replacement. Utter insanity.
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That sounds totally obnoxious. The wipers on my cars are completely exposed, I don't mind the look at all and they're dead easy to service.
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This is my current pet peeve and it fucking stinks. :bullshit: :phew:
Scumbag companies who scam loyal customers by shrinking their product sizes but increase the prices. This is one of the dirtiest tricks in the book and made worse when they retain the same size packaging but reduce the contents for nothing more than profit. :rant:
The regular can I buy on the left is 150gm and normally costs $3.15 on special, the new can on the right is only 130gm and cost me $3.75 also on special. :wtf:
While I wouldn’t call shrinkflation “scamming” except where they deliberately make the container look like the old one, I have one major objection: food packaging sizes. Why? Because so many recipes are designed around specific package sizes. So if they reduce a can from, say, 16 to 14 ounces, your old recipes may not work.
For example, the cheesecake recipe I got from my aunt back in 2000 uses 3 eggs and 3 packages of cream cheese. I haven’t made it in years, and who knows whether the recipe would still work unmodified.
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Literally ANY ads. Marketing people have become more and more arrogant and cocky, pushy, greedy, and untruthful. I will go many many miles out of my way to avoid ads, no matter the cost or time involves setting up the mechanisms to block them.
Tough shit if your YouTube video doesn’t make revenue from me, use your brain and find a better way.
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I understand it, it's a tradeoff between frequent asthetics vs. infrequent blade changes. Not completely irrational.
I don't think it is. On my Golf you have to do the engine off, flick switch thing for the wipers to move to the vertical position, and given the leaf-shedding trees around here I have to do it quite often to be rid of stuck leaves and such. ISTM there are two reasons:
1. Trying to switch off at peak wipe isn't conducive to good electrical practice, and also defeats any attempt at (I hesitate to use the word here) 'smarts' that manage the wipers after the ignition is turned off.
2. There are distinct 'parked' and 'maybe active' positions. I figure the parked position is to get the arms out of the airflow, thus improving drag coefficient and mileage. In use, between wipes, the arms aren't parked but just get more or less out of the way, and then after some period of unuse they automatically park. This is where 1. is significant - you can turn off the ignition and the wipers will move to the park position if they aren't there already.
tl;dr: seems to me to be practical rather than aesthetic. At least for a proper car like mine :)
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It is totally impractical and especially in winter. Weather here can change on a whim. If snow is in forecast or has started and my car is parked in the driveway or company's parking lot, i want to raise the wipers. With my old car i just walked to the car and raised the wipers. Now i need to go inside the building, get the car keys, go outside, START the engine, STOP the engine, do that acrobatics with the wiper switch, only then can i raise the wipers. Efking idiots.
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No problem on my Mk7 Golf. Ignition needs to be 'on', but if car is not in drive then one tap of the wiper control will put the wipers into the service position. In fact I'm sure my 2005 Peugeot 206 had a similar function (engine off, ignition on, wiper switch acts as 'service mode' rather than 'single swipe'). Since I need the key to unlock the car it's hardly a big deal to have to use the key in the ignition switch...
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While I wouldn’t call shrinkflation “scamming” except where they deliberately make the container look like the old one, I have one major objection: food packaging sizes. Why? Because so many recipes are designed around specific package sizes. So if they reduce a can from, say, 16 to 14 ounces, your old recipes may not work.
It's absolutely scamming. They always try to make the package look as close to the old one as possible. If not for the fact that they are legally required to list the amount of product within you know they would not. The whole point of shrinkflation is to conceal price increases by making the product subtly smaller, knowing that many people won't notice for a while. In a way I think it would be worthwhile to legally mandate product sizes to prevent this.
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It's absolutely scamming. They always try to make the package look as close to the old one as possible. If not for the fact that they are legally required to list the amount of product within you know they would not. The whole point of shrinkflation is to conceal price increases by making the product subtly smaller, knowing that many people won't notice for a while. In a way I think it would be worthwhile to legally mandate product sizes to prevent this.
Or, if a product size changes, require that a prominent label be added "PRODUCT SIZE REDUCED" for say at least 1 quarter from the reduction. The effect would be that no manufacturer would want to include the label and therefore they would not use shrinkflation tactics unless it was utterly unavoidable.
You'd need to figure out how to avoid manufacturers creating multiple different SKUs or arguing one product under a slightly different name was a different product, though.
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Who was that idiot who designed windshield wipers on Toyota Camry 2020 ? To raise the driver side wiper you MUST SHUT THE ENGINE OFF, then move the wipers control to a specific position and wait a few seconds. :wtf:
Really, Toyota? :rant:
This is becoming common, and its not a bad thing. The wiper's resting position has been made very low in most modern designs. This improves aerodynamics (at least when its dry) and reduces noise.
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Having concerns about aerodynamics driving in a city is silly. I am more concerned about convenience. As i said, when a snowstorm is coming I need to put the wipers in the raised position. The fact that i need to START and STOP the engine in order to raise wipers is pure debilism.
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Having concerns about aerodynamics driving in a city is silly. I am more concerned about convenience. As i said, when a snowstorm is coming I need to put the wipers in the raised position. The fact that i need to START and STOP the engine in order to raise wipers is pure debilism.
I agree that starting the engine is a bit wacky. In my Volvo I just go to the menu item for "wiper service" and the wipers swing to the upper position, where you can lift them off the windscreen. I have to turn the car's systems on to be able to use the menus, but I don't need to start the engine.
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So far I've been able to run the wipers of every car with the key in the "ON" position but the engine unstarted. This powers up the electrical system, which is all that is necessary. However, given today's "smart" cars, I can easily imagine somebody thinking there's no need to power the wipers unless the engine is started.
Just another case of "trying to be too helpful". The electrical system is separate from the engine - let ME decide what I'm doing and how to do it. It's possible I'm dealing with a situation that didn't get listed on the whiteboard in the corporate boardroom.
Idea: Let cars have two modes, "Smart" and "Stupid". Smart can even be the factory default, where it does as much as possible and presumes the driver knows next to nothing (so the car needs to be "smart"). But Stupid mode eliminates all the helpful little details and lets everything run separately, requiring the operator to make the decisions (and importantly, NEVER OVERRIDING THE DRIVER'S INPUT).
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So far I've been able to run the wipers of every car with the key in the "ON" position but the engine unstarted. This powers up the electrical system, which is all that is necessary. However, given today's "smart" cars, I can easily imagine somebody thinking there's no need to power the wipers unless the engine is started.
Just another case of "trying to be too helpful". The electrical system is separate from the engine - let ME decide what I'm doing and how to do it. It's possible I'm dealing with a situation that didn't get listed on the whiteboard in the corporate boardroom.
Idea: Let cars have two modes, "Smart" and "Stupid". Smart can even be the factory default, where it does as much as possible and presumes the driver knows next to nothing (so the car needs to be "smart"). But Stupid mode eliminates all the helpful little details and lets everything run separately, requiring the operator to make the decisions (and importantly, NEVER OVERRIDING THE DRIVER'S INPUT).
It is really frustrating to fight systems or devices that some idiot has programmed to only work in sunny day scenarios.
For example, ignition keys. To solve the very difficult problem of having to have a key in your pocket to start the car, we now have a ton of electronics involved and a big, clunky key that you need a backpack to carry... so many irrelevant dependencies have been introduced that you should actually stop and do a Thank You prayer to your favourite deity every time the car actually starts, because it is truly a miracle that the (beautifully packacked) Heath Robinson technology actually works at all!
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One of my pet peeves: RF people focusing too much on S11 as a measure of bandwidth of a circuit. "Look, S11 <10 dB from 0 to 10 GHz, this filter thus has a 10 GHz bandwidth"...
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Popped into a local chew and spew somewhere in Wheredefuqarewe.
"I'll have a hamburger with the lot."
"Ah, you mean a Works Burger."
|O
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Australian kids who sing a song using a fake eastern United States accent. :rant:
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Australian kids who sing a song with a fake eastern United States accent. :rant:
A nuisance or a nuance?
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somewhere in Wheredefuqarewe
Albuquerque (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albuquerque,_New_Mexico)?
Australian kids who sing a song using a fake eastern United States accent. :rant:
Oh, hello there!
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somewhere in Wheredefuqarewe
Albuquerque (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albuquerque,_New_Mexico)?
Nope. Northern NSW, believe it or not. Sign in the window said "Best hamburgers in town." It was the only hamburger shop in town. :palm:
So technically, they also have the worst hamburgers in town.
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We used to kayak in a tiny little town at the confluence of three rivers. It had one, single, tiny little "store" and in its window was an award stating "Voted Best Business in Town". I asked who voted (an easily guessed topic) and the owner happily confirmed that his was the sole vote.
I love little business owners like that guy. Never going to be in the Forbes 400 but he's happy and surrounded by friends and customers who share his passion every single day. There are worse ways to live.
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I can't remember seeing big outdoor garbage bins, shaped and painted like a classic treasure chest.
Someone should make and market them
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Some people already treat dumpsters like treasure chests. "The good stuff is always at the bottom."
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Most treat bins as religious deity's here, totally empty, with the offerings around them.
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While I wouldn’t call shrinkflation “scamming” except where they deliberately make the container look like the old one, I have one major objection: food packaging sizes. Why? Because so many recipes are designed around specific package sizes. So if they reduce a can from, say, 16 to 14 ounces, your old recipes may not work.
It's absolutely scamming. They always try to make the package look as close to the old one as possible. If not for the fact that they are legally required to list the amount of product within you know they would not. The whole point of shrinkflation is to conceal price increases by making the product subtly smaller, knowing that many people won't notice for a while. In a way I think it would be worthwhile to legally mandate product sizes to prevent this.
No, they don’t “always” try to make the package mimic the old one. Standard metal food cans just got smaller. What I consider deceptive is with things like detergent bottles where they added larger air spaces in the foot of the bottle to make it appear the same size.
(To me, the word “scam” goes beyond simple deception, and shrinkflation doesn’t rise to that threshold, even if it is irritating as hell.)
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Popped into a local chew and spew somewhere in Wheredefuqarewe.
"I'll have a hamburger with the lot."
"Ah, you mean a Works Burger."
|O
I think that depends on whether the latter is the formal name of a menu item. It’s wise to confirm to the customer what they’re ordering, so if that is the official name of the menu item, you echo back the correct name, not the customer’s description. (Wouldn’t surprise me if staff are required to do so, if it’s a corporate chain.)
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No, they don’t “always” try to make the package mimic the old one. Standard metal food cans just got smaller. What I consider deceptive is with things like detergent bottles where they added larger air spaces in the foot of the bottle to make it appear the same size.
(To me, the word “scam” goes beyond simple deception, and shrinkflation doesn’t rise to that threshold, even if it is irritating as hell.)
Well call it what you want, but it's clearly deliberate deception used as an attempt to conceal price increases. Sports drink bottles that were 32oz are now 28oz, they're the same size except there is a squeezed in band around the middle. Ice cream bars that used to come in boxes of 6 are now being sold in a box of 3 that is the same size on the shelf but half as thick. I find it offensive that companies think they can slip this sort of thing by me and I'm much less likely to buy the product than if they just raised the price.
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Reminds me of that old gag:
>:( Honey, what's for my dinner?!
::) Dunno sweetie. The label fell off the can.
Yeh but seriously, when I was a kid we had Cola in 1 Litre cans.
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(To me, the word “scam” goes beyond simple deception, and shrinkflation doesn’t rise to that threshold, even if it is irritating as hell.)
Righty-o!
English dictionaries describe "scam" something like "a fraudulent deal"; with "fraudulent" meaning "dishonest", "based on deception", or "based on fraud"; with "fraud" meaning either the crime (illegally obtaining money via deception) or "any act of deception carried out for the purpose of unfair, undeserved and/or unlawful gain".
To me, that means "scam" can vary anywhere from "simple deception" to "deception for the purpose of undeserved and/or unlawful gain". You happen to lean more towards the latter, I happen to lean more towards the former; but none of us is wrong, I don't think, as there is no exact definition.
In other words, I think it was excellent that you defined what the term means to you, because that anchors your position in measurable terms, and makes it possible to reflect it against ones own. That makes it quite useful.
It is one of my own pet peeves when people do not do that. It makes arguments less than useful.
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deliberate deception used as an attempt to conceal price increases
I can't remember what product right now, but I do remember being extremely offended that an outwardly identical container suddenly had a "false floor" consisting of a gridwork that extended up from the bottom into the container space. From the outside it was exactly the same, but a significant percentage of the volume had been eliminated by redesigning the container. That one was deliberate subterfuge. There's no way to color that as anything but dishonest. Heck, companies change their packaging size, shape, coloring, etc. all the time for no reason other than "marketing", often with phrases like "Bold new container, same great taste" or whatever. To specifically AVOID changing the container's outward appearance while shrinking the deliverable... I'm sorry, that's just intentionally dishonest.
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The 'Seriously (https://www.seriouslycheddar.co.uk/products/spreadable-original/)' cheese spread line is like that. Small-ish containers which look like all other similar ones on the shelves, but built so the bottom is actually half an inch or so above the floor which, for that size tub, is a big proportion of the contents. No indication on the outside that the bottom is false, and the tub is even plastic so there's no structural reason for it.
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The 'Seriously (https://www.seriouslycheddar.co.uk/products/spreadable-original/)' cheese spread line is like that. Small-ish containers which look like all other similar ones on the shelves, but built so the bottom is actually half an inch or so above the floor which, for that size tub, is a big proportion of the contents. No indication on the outside that the bottom is false, and the tub is even plastic so there's no structural reason for it.
I remember these to be 125g and the content weight prominently indicated on the top cover. Now they are 110g and the weight nowhere to be found?
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New Improved recipe. How can it be both new and improved, except for the improvement being that they got rid of the more expensive ingredients. Just like the big seller being "plant butter", which is just another way to say, without actually saying it, that this item, priced to be close to that of real butter, is actually just much cheaper margarine with a fancy package and upsell.
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"plant butter"
Please tell me that does not refer to hydrogenated palm oil!
That stuff is incompatible with my digestion in any but the smallest amounts. Small amounts give me the runs, large amounts to an empty stomach make me barf.
When I was younger, I was fine with it, but no longer now. I have to check the ingredients because of it. :rant:
Here in EU, I do believe "butter" is only allowed to refer to the dairy product itself. (It is definitely a law here in Finland; no margarines can have "butter" in their name.)
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Here in EU, I do believe "butter" is only allowed to refer to the dairy product itself. (It is definitely a law here in Finland; no margarines can have "butter" in their name.)
Certainly. Only 100% pure butter is allowed to be called butter. Even the butter/oil (and water, most of the time) mixtures they sell as easily spreadable are not allowed to be labeled "butter": https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62011CA0037&qid=1669046495414
Some might that call nitpicking and overly bureaucratic, but I find it just fair when you get what you pay for.
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When a bank or similar financial institution markets and describes some kind of service they are offering as a “product”.
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Here in EU, I do believe "butter" is only allowed to refer to the dairy product itself. (It is definitely a law here in Finland; no margarines can have "butter" in their name.)
Certainly. Only 100% pure butter is allowed to be called butter. Even the butter/oil (and water, most of the time) mixtures they sell as easily spreadable are not allowed to be labeled "butter": https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62011CA0037&qid=1669046495414
Some might that call nitpicking and overly bureaucratic, but I find it just fair when you get what you pay for.
In the US, "butter" is reserved for the dairy product, but "peanut butter", "almond butter", "apple butter", etc. are allowed, and are not likely to be confused with "butter".
21 US Code 321a:
"For the purposes of the Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906 (Thirty-fourth Statutes at Large, page 768) “butter” shall be understood to mean the food product usually known as butter, and which is made exclusively from milk or cream, or both, with or without common salt, and with or without additional coloring matter, ..."
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When you are updating the firmware on a gadget ( radiacode 101 ) and windows interrupts it to tell you that your machine isn't "Windows 11 Compatible".
#1, I didn't ask if it was
and
#2, I now have a $400 paperweight because of it.
I hate windows more and more each day.
switched 2021 to Debian Linux only, and after some pain, it is just so much better: no tyranny anymore!
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switched 2021 to Debian Linux only, and after some pain, it is just so much better: no tyranny anymore!
My Windows 7 laptop suffered a motherboard failure about 6 months ago after it fell off the back of the sofa. I bought a parts machine to use to repair it and switched to an older Thinkpad with Linux Mint on it. I still haven't got around to repairing the Windows machine, Mint is working fine for my needs.
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Left Windows behind me 8 years ago. Used Linux Ubuntu and Mint instead and like these very much. But to play games from the steam platform it still is the go to OS and once in a while I do play. Hate every bit of Windows though. Last Sunday my brother asked me to join a game of Halo, so I booted my machine into Windows 10, and it started with some setup screen |O Had not used it for almost a year, so I was like :wtf: and no, I don't want your bloody office suite or cloud storage or whatever shit you have to offer. I just want to play my game. Luckily I have 1Gbps fiber internet, because next up was steam. Had to update Halo before I could play it. 66GB needed to be downloaded. With 100MBps for most of the time it did not take long :-DD
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I use Win 7, 8, and 10 daily... as well as Linux.
All of these machines "just work", especially Win 7 and Linux! - the reason Win7 works so well nowadays is that there are no updates, so MS doesn't keep messing with it, lol
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the reason Win7 works so well nowadays is that there are no updates, so MS doesn't keep messing with it, lol
No "LOL" about it. That's one of the KEY REASONS Win7 is ideal for Engineering work: It doesn't keep changing configuration without your notice and approval. Once you have it configured, it "just keeps working" the way you set it up.
In my world, I need my tools to stay configured the way I configure them. It can take a while to dial in a given tool to the configuration that suits my use of it. And once configured, I do NOT want anyone (including the "we know better than you" vendor) to ****ing change ANYTHING on it. Period. Exclamation point. Full stop.
If Microsoft "permitted" this on Win10+ I'd switch. But as it is now, they literally waste their user's time (and therefore money) forcing them to constantly fight back and undo/redo configuration details. Every time the air turns blue in our home lab/office I know Microsoft has forced another download onto my wife's machine. The blueness of the air is my wife expressing how she feels about it.
If MS wants to offer a "babysitting mode" that the user can enable/disable at will, that would be the best of both worlds. Those users who want or need the handholding can opt in. Those of us who need things to stay static can opt out. WTF is that so hard?!?
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I don't know anything about Windows beyond 7, but much of the automatic crap it does in the background is controlled by the Task Scheduler. No matter how much Microsoft claims it's vital to proper functioning of the pc, It's really not and it can be turned off. My Windows 7 machine has been running fine without it for close to a decade.
I've been using Debian for a year or so, and so far I'm not that happy with it, probably need to try some other flavor.
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I don't know anything about Windows beyond 7, but much of the automatic crap it does in the background is controlled by the Task Scheduler. No matter how much Microsoft claims it's vital to proper functioning of the pc, It's really not and it can be turned off. My Windows 7 machine has been running fine without it for close to a decade.
I've been using Debian for a year or so, and so far I'm not that happy with it, probably need to try some other flavor.
Windows 10/11 make it MUCH harder to turn off all that stuff. Especially updates, it's Windows "as a service" which absolutely nobody asked for, but it means they own it and control it and tinker with it as they see fit and you just get to use it.
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Indeed! Task Scheduler is one of the first NT Services folks should disable. You actually don't need very many of the default Services running at all.
A good measure of a Windows configuration is the number of running processes reported by Task Manager. My machine has 41 processes when there's nothing running in the foreground.
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MS Windows assumes we all have our head stuck in the clouds , are all female & are somehow working as a group. ::)
when actual fact this a personal computer!. so the odd default settings.
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In the end every OS sucks :-DD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d85p7JZXNy8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d85p7JZXNy8)
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it's Windows "as a service" which absolutely nobody asked for
I remember back in the Steve Ballmer days, during an interview he said something like "We get paid when you buy our software, but if you're still benefitting from it years later why shouldn't we be compensated then too?"
That told me everything I needed to know about Microsoft in particular and SaaS in general. They're going to have to do some serious penance to restore their reputation before anyone like me would trust them again.
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it's Windows "as a service" which absolutely nobody asked for
I remember back in the Steve Ballmer days, during an interview he said something like "We get paid when you buy our software, but if you're still benefitting from it years later why shouldn't we be compensated then too?"
That told me everything I needed to know about Microsoft in particular and SaaS in general. They're going to have to do some serious penance to restore their reputation before anyone like me would trust them again.
The whole concept of "do something once, and then get paid forever" seems unsustainable... think about it, if everybody did that... :D
Basically, if you are running an OS locally on your own hardware, you should be given the choice of owning or renting like in other areas of life.
Unfortunately, all the whizz kids are fixated on the idea of creating "forever revenue streams" out of everything, and then selling those revenue streams as overpriced stocks...
Eventually, subscription fatigue builds up... even the dimmest consumer eventually realizes that his/her entire paycheck is already spoken for by all the subs, and they barely have a penny left for an avocado toast. They have no choice but to review all their subscriptions and keep what they actually need... and enough people will be smart enough to buy, rather than subscribe to, the products and services that they need long term. The current economic downturn is probably exacerbating this effect...
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I remember back in the Steve Ballmer days, during an interview he said something like "We get paid when you buy our software, but if you're still benefitting from it years later why shouldn't we be compensated then too?"
Oddly I don't think they or any of my other former employers are going to be interested in compensating me now for any benefit they're getting from work I did back when I worked there. I want to buy something once and then use it until it no longer meets my needs. I absolutely do not rent software. I very rarely rent anything at all, even tools it's usually not much cheaper to rent than to just buy one.
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Subscriptions don't just trap consumers, they go messy when a business finds a subscriber cash cow has been taking a long dump on the IT budget. Forget not the other consumer traps in the EULA, like agreeing to have the software call home with 'diagnostic' information - such as location, network details, usage stats and your screen cam view [just to check it's you using the 18+ rated PCB design software]
I don't rent SW either [only beer]. Buy it, use it, upgrade it. Much cheaper than paying $10 a month for the next millennia. Yes, I can hear the accountants yelling cash flow, quasi leasing and allowable business expenses, but I ain't that guy. I noted the other day a networking program I use has a pro version that used to be $49. It's now $8 a month. A bargain? No sh*.
Related to software, my peeve de jour is in-app purchases. All app stores feature freemium software, free to download with in-app purchases. So what ARE those in-app purchases? How much do they cost? What do you get for the purchase? Is the purchase a one off or an open subscription? Not a single App Store is transparent. It's rather like going into a restaurant, asking for the menu and receiving an otherwise blank piece of paper that reads, "pay the Chef." Prices have to be clearly displayed, is the law in most western countries. Except on the internet.
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The subscription model puts you at extreme risk because you're inevitably tied to the software's ability to "phone home". What if you're remote? What if the company goes under? What if the local Internet access has a routing problem? The list of possible failures is endless. Indeed, this is the root problem with all "cloud" models. If you don't personally control it, if the actions of someone else can disable your use of your tool (or your DATA!), you don't really own it. And you're an idiot for trusting that 100% of everything - human and machine - will always work properly forever. If that were true, no one would need to make backups.
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Subscriptions don't just trap consumers, they go messy when a business finds a subscriber cash cow has been taking a long dump on the IT budget. Forget not the other consumer traps in the EULA, like agreeing to have the software call home with 'diagnostic' information - such as location, network details, usage stats and your screen cam view [just to check it's you using the 18+ rated PCB design software]
I don't rent SW either [only beer]. Buy it, use it, upgrade it. Much cheaper than paying $10 a month for the next millennia. Yes, I can hear the accountants yelling cash flow, quasi leasing and allowable business expenses, but I ain't that guy. I noted the other day a networking program I use has a pro version that used to be $49. It's now $8 a month. A bargain? No sh*.
Related to software, my peeve de jour is in-app purchases. All app stores feature freemium software, free to download with in-app purchases. So what ARE those in-app purchases? How much do they cost? What do you get for the purchase? Is the purchase a one off or an open subscription? Not a single App Store is transparent. It's rather like going into a restaurant, asking for the menu and receiving an otherwise blank piece of paper that reads, "pay the Chef." Prices have to be clearly displayed, is the law in most western countries. Except on the internet.
I have no idea what "In-app purchases" actually means, I always assumed it means that you can buy "stuff" from the business that made the app, where the "stuff" is TBD.
I have purchased a few mobile apps, and been more than happy with some of them. I'm glad they are not (yet) sold on a subscription basis, lol!
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The subscription model puts you at extreme risk because you're inevitably tied to the software's ability to "phone home". What if you're remote? What if the company goes under? What if the local Internet access has a routing problem? The list of possible failures is endless. Indeed, this is the root problem with all "cloud" models. If you don't personally control it, if the actions of someone else can disable your use of your tool (or your DATA!), you don't really own it. And you're an idiot for trusting that 100% of everything - human and machine - will always work properly forever. If that were true, no one would need to make backups.
I have a bought-and-paid-for Android app on a tablet in my car, that I use to talk to the car through its OBD2 port. - Every few months, I get a sour and accusatory error message "Application not owned!"... which means that I have to take the tablet with me into the house, connect to WiFi, and let it talk to the "mother ship" (all silently in the background, of course... heaven forbid that the user is ever told about its homesick condition). Once it has been on the Internet for a few minutes, I suddenly "own" the application again, and I am OK to use it for another couple of months! Seriously....
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I have no idea what "In-app purchases" actually means, I always assumed it means that you can buy "stuff" from the business that made the app, where the "stuff" is TBD.
I have purchased a few mobile apps, and been more than happy with some of them. I'm glad they are not (yet) sold on a subscription basis, lol!
It means exactly that, or in some cases you can purchase additional functionality in the app.
I have paid for a handful of apps, but I absolutely refuse to pay a subscription for any, if it's subscription only I'm not interested.
I'm annoyed by Apple's whole app model though. They update the phone OS constantly, far more often than is necessary and it breaks older apps. I can understand app developers not wanting to update their apps forever for a one time purchase. The thing is, I would be willing to pay for a new version of the app when it becomes necessary to do so, but I really would prefer that OS releases were more like every 5 years than every year. I do not need and do not even want a new phone OS every year.
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I have no idea what "In-app purchases" actually means, I always assumed it means that you can buy "stuff" from the business that made the app, where the "stuff" is TBD.
I have purchased a few mobile apps, and been more than happy with some of them. I'm glad they are not (yet) sold on a subscription basis, lol!
It means exactly that, or in some cases you can purchase additional functionality in the app.
I have paid for a handful of apps, but I absolutely refuse to pay a subscription for any, if it's subscription only I'm not interested.
I'm annoyed by Apple's whole app model though. They update the phone OS constantly, far more often than is necessary and it breaks older apps. I can understand app developers not wanting to update their apps forever for a one time purchase. The thing is, I would be willing to pay for a new version of the app when it becomes necessary to do so, but I really would prefer that OS releases were more like every 5 years than every year. I do not need and do not even want a new phone OS every year.
Are you forced to update Apple OS these days, or can you just leave it to run?
I get around all these problems by using an ancient phone (an LG V20) with a headphone jack, removable battery (now replaced with a 3x capacity one), and SD card slot... I feel like most new phones are a downgrade, with their expensive and/or cumbersome solutions to the above needs!
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Are you forced to update Apple OS these days, or can you just leave it to run?
I get around all these problems by using an ancient phone (an LG V20) with a headphone jack, removable battery (now replaced with a 3x capacity one), and SD card slot... I feel like most new phones are a downgrade, with their expensive and/or cumbersome solutions to the above needs!
I've had an update badge on my settings icon for a couple of years now, but unlike some of the older iOS versions it has not been repeatedly downloading the update and badgering me to install it. I've just gotten used to the icon at this point, for about 95% of the time I've had an iPhone that stupid badge has been a permanent fixture. They always seem to go about one version past where they should have stopped supporting older devices with the new OS version.
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[...] They always seem to go about one version past where they should have stopped supporting older devices with the new OS version.
That's the version that's meant to kill the old phone, so you'll go out and get a shiny new one!
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I get around all these problems by using an ancient phone (an LG V20) with a headphone jack, removable battery (now replaced with a 3x capacity one), and SD card slot.
Precisely why, when I wanted to replace my field laptop, I searched backwards to find the latest model of the Thinkpad X2xx series that natively supported Win7. Turned out to be the X260. It's just as you describe: All sorts of hardware ports, SDCard interface, dual(!) hot swappable(!) batteries so I don't even have to power down, reasonably fast i7 processor with 32GB, etc. No, it's not sleek and hyper thin. But it's bulletproof, cold boots in mere seconds, I don't have to carry dongles and adapters, etc. I'm not a Thinkpad fanboi (first one I've owned) but it fit my needs as if it had been designed for on-the-road Engineering work.
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https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price (https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price)
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I get around all these problems by using an ancient phone (an LG V20) with a headphone jack, removable battery (now replaced with a 3x capacity one), and SD card slot.
Precisely why, when I wanted to replace my field laptop, I searched backwards to find the latest model of the Thinkpad X2xx series that natively supported Win7. Turned out to be the X260. It's just as you describe: All sorts of hardware ports, SDCard interface, dual(!) hot swappable(!) batteries so I don't even have to power down, reasonably fast i7 processor with 32GB, etc. No, it's not sleek and hyper thin. But it's bulletproof, cold boots in mere seconds, I don't have to carry dongles and adapters, etc. I'm not a Thinkpad fanboi (first one I've owned) but it fit my needs as if it had been designed for on-the-road Engineering work.
Yep, I buy older Dell laptops for exactly the same reason. - Basically, things have taken a bad turn about ten years ago, and we haven't recovered from it.
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Unfortunately even the latest laptops that support Win7 are far from perfect. I love the X250 I've had for years, but the clickpad on it is absolutely horrible. Put proper physical buttons below it and it would be perfect. The concept of a clickpad is defective by design.
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Unfortunately even the latest laptops that support Win7 are far from perfect. I love the X250 I've had for years, but the clickpad on it is absolutely hobble. Put proper physical buttons below it and it would be perfect. The concept of a clickpad is defective by design.
Indeed, even on some of the older macs. I hate them all. Even the touch clicks annoy me with false clicks when I lift my fingers from it.
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I love the X250 I've had for years, but the clickpad on it is absolutely hobble. Put proper physical buttons below it and it would be perfect. The concept of a clickpad is defective by design.
I like the touchpad on HP EliteBook 820 G2, 830 G3, and 840 G4. They have four physical buttons: two above and two below the touchpad. By default, the above and below buttons act the same (left and right mouse buttons), but technically, the two buttons above belong to the trackpoint (between G, B, and H; a "PS/2 Generic Mouse" device), and the two buttons below to the trackpad (a Synaptics one, varies between models, but 840 G4 has TM3139-001).
This means that if I want or need, I can use the buttons independently, at least in Linux (which is what I happen to use on these).
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My X260 has two buttons above the trackpad. I operate it two-handed. But I also carry a micro mouse in it's neoprene carry case and use that nearly all the time except in space constrained spots like a plane seat.
It also has one of those stupid eraserhead thumbsticks. I believe those originated with Toshiba decades ago. Useless then, useless now.
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One thing I've found indispensable on a laptop is a Fn keystroke to disable the trackpad. Otherwise on many machines it picks up the heel of your hand and suddenly the cursor is "somewhere else".
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It also has one of those stupid eraserhead thumbsticks. I believe those originated with Toshiba decades ago. Useless then, useless now.
As I do not use it for its intended purpose, I've been thinking about converting it to do 3D rotation instead.
If applications used USB HID 3D Game Control input events for 3D rotation (and zoom and pan), it'd be easy.
Unfortunately, most applications do not. Instead, they use the standard mouse events only, with 3D rotation "tool mode".
The difference is that with the former, you need additional code for the mouse emulation: When 3D rotation tool mode is enabled, mouse events are consumed by the application, and corresponding 3D Game Control input events injected back to the UI event loop. It can be argued this is much cleaner, because instead of doing the emulation in a widget, you do the emulation in the main event loop, and let each widget just deal with the 3D Game Control input events however they like.
One more pet peeve from me, I guess!
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My X260 has two buttons above the trackpad. I operate it two-handed. But I also carry a micro mouse in it's neoprene carry case and use that nearly all the time except in space constrained spots like a plane seat.
It also has one of those stupid eraserhead thumbsticks. I believe those originated with Toshiba decades ago. Useless then, useless now.
Yeah the "clit mouse", I actually had a Toshiba for a few years and got quite used to that, it worked really well. I don't mind that it's there on the Thinkpad, sometimes I use it, especially for scrolling, I could probably get used to it again if I really wanted to but I do prefer a proper touchpad with physical buttons.
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My problem with it is that it's not a positional tool, but a directional one. A mouse translates its motion to motion on the screen, but with the eraserhead you're saying "go this direction". It's not as direct an input method.
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Expanding on my pet peeve above:
User interfaces should provide zoom, pan/scroll, rotation etc. events, instead of applications synthesizing them from other events.
This would mean that instead of each application doing all the work themselves, with usually different interfaces, they all would use the same events. The OS would provide configurable mappings, when the user does not have a Human Interface Device directly producing the events.
The main benefit would be that new interface devices would not need any additional application support. They would Just Work.
Have an useless nipple stick on your laptop? No worries, map it to pan/scroll, or 3D rotation, whichever you prefer.
Have two fancy trackballs? Use one for 3D rotation in 3D design programs, and the other for the normal user interface.
Make your own input device for engineering and design tasks, and have applications work with it by default; no need to plead for the application vendors to add support for it.
Am I asking for a new standard? No, everything exists already, especially in USB HID. All I'm asking is for the mapping of these events moved from individual applications to the OS UI services. Even games would benefit from this –– although they are probably furthest along in doing this already.
This is also nothing new; this has been happening all the time, albeit slowly; a good example is two-finger and edge scrolling on touchpads. Applications don't see them as touch events, the OS converts them to pan/scroll events automagically. I just wish we'd do the same for the rest of the 2D and 3D controls.
Feels silly to be stuck in twenty-year old limitations for no real reason.
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Related: Euler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_angles) and Tait-Bryan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_angles#Tait%E2%80%93Bryan_angles) angles. They need to be burned in fire and banned. Use quaternions/versors, bivectors, or axis-and-angle instead. All those have a unique mathematical definition – no tricks or gotchas, they just work –, including conversion to and from rotation matrices. And they don't suffer from inanities like gimbal lock. :rant:
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Feels silly to be stuck in twenty-year old limitations for no real reason.
It's called, backwards compliance. Which is why I need a box of adapters and converters to tie my computing kit together. Would be nice just to have a common API for HID, but that would need yet another standards working group. At least a vintage RS232 trackball from 1990 still works on my PC - if I use a chain of adapters!
Noticed this the other day on the underside of an Aldi battery pack. Aldi are sure serious when it comes to anticipating potential uses and abuses to their products. No overheating this battery, no throwing into a lake and no burning all make sense - but no to flushing? For the record, some bricks flush, some prove difficult to flush, but this battery brick is not even small enough the get wedged in the bend. There's common sense and there's Aldi customers.
:wtf:
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Still not as good as he one found in virgin trains toilet
(https://wearethecity.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/image001.jpg)
Even more amusing was the same message was played through the bog speaker when you locked the door
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Sadly, 18 month's after that photo was taken, the UK government flushed the Virgin Trains' operating franchise down the British Bog (toilet pan).
It's a good job their rolling stock was designed to go around tight bends.
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I noticed that youtube videos which start with "Hey guys whatsup" or "Hey whatsup youtube" opening are typically an indication of low quality content video that follows it.
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Would be nice just to have a common API for HID
Linux has had one for the last two decades. See here (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/input/input_uapi.html) for details. Individual events have a timestamp, but there is also a SYN event following a cluster of related events, so it is easy to determine which events describe a single human action. All USB devices map to it, and so do SMBus devices, even keyboards. There is even an interface for grabbing one or more event interfaces –– each HID device provides one or more ––, and creating a synthesized one, with your own application or service daemon mapping the incoming events to the synthesized outgoing one, uinput (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/input/uinput.html). For security reasons, access to the interfaces does require sufficient privileges (which are easily configured on a per-device basis).
It's the X11 input events and Gtk+, Qt, FLTK etc. GUI toolkits that haven't kept up.
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I noticed that youtube videos which start with "Hey guys whatsup" or "Hey whatsup youtube" opening are typically an indication of low quality content video that follows it.
Often a video from some attention seeking teenager "whose gonna tell yar every freakin' thing that you ever needed to know" about crypto, tech and this new cool ting called, the internet of tings. He then proceeds to spew words all over a sealed Amazon box which he unpacks to show you what's inside: free stuff. And then there are the over 25's who must have drunk all of the caffeine in the vending machine. Just grow up.
Another affectation of the YouTube generation is the need to be speaking into a USB microphone that's half the size of the presenter's head. Why? My phone microphone is the size of this number 0. Maybe it makes them look like Elvis? More conversation please.
Linux has had one for the last two decades.
Linux just works. And you know that.
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Linux has had one for the last two decades.
Linux just works. And you know that.
It's nowhere near perfect, though, and I'm only suggesting the low-lying fruit that are achievable without huge effort or cost. And it is only the kernel that has these stable features; most of the userspace, especially freedesktop.org stuff, is in quite a flux but not really progressing "forwards" in my opinion.
I'd love to replace systemd with something better engineered, but I'd need a team of developers to do so; I am not productive enough by myself. The related organizations are subsuming other services at a rather alarming rate (for anyone who considers single points of failure fatal design errors).
I'd also love to replace the C standard library with something better suited for systems programming and perhaps even applications programming (GTK+ shows that it can be done without too much pain, even though C++ and other object oriented languages are better for such event-driven programming).
Not to mention avr-libc/newlibc for embedded development; I've even discussed these in the Programming sub-forum here.
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I loathe systemd, don't even get me started on that. Linux is far from perfect, and so is every other OS.
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Intel is taking it to a whole new level: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-officially-introduces-pay-as-you-go-chip-licensing (https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-officially-introduces-pay-as-you-go-chip-licensing)
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Feels silly to be stuck in twenty-year old limitations for no real reason.
It's called, backwards compliance. Which is why I need a box of adapters and converters to tie my computing kit together. Would be nice just to have a common API for HID, but that would need yet another standards working group. At least a vintage RS232 trackball from 1990 still works on my PC - if I use a chain of adapters!
Noticed this the other day on the underside of an Aldi battery pack. Aldi are sure serious when it comes to anticipating potential uses and abuses to their products. No overheating this battery, no throwing into a lake and no burning all make sense - but no to flushing? For the record, some bricks flush, some prove difficult to flush, but this battery brick is not even small enough the get wedged in the bend. There's common sense and there's Aldi customers.
:wtf:
RTFM even.
I wonder how that one slipped through.
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I may have posted this before, but why, oh why, do laptops continue to use barrel connectors?
Laptops detect the presence or otherwise of charging voltage electronically, so they don't need the barrel connector to operate an extra set of contacts.
These connectors have considerable mechanical advantage, & over time can damage the mating connector, or even rip it off the board, or out of the moulded slot in the case, depending upon which is used.
Quite small polarised connectors without the long rigid "neck", which don't have this problem, were widely used for CB radios in the 1970s,
OK, with older laptops, you could dismantle them & replace the jack on the board, but after a few times, the other crappy design factors start to show up, like stripped threads, etc.
I don't think it is possible to dismantle my current Asus, so when the connector dies, it is recycle time!
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I may have posted this before, but why, oh why, do laptops continue to use barrel connectors?
The Thinkpad X260 that I mentioned above uses a "rectangular barrel" connector which is exactly as it sounds: Take a traditional DC barrel connector and change its profile to a rectangle. Which, by the way, is almost exactly the size and shape of a USB-A jack. Right next to actual USB-A jacks. A real head scratcher, that choice.
I don't think it is possible to dismantle my current Asus, so when the connector dies, it is recycle time!
And right there, you may have revealed the reason they choose failure-prone barrel connectors. >:( :-- :rant: :wtf:
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I may have posted this before, but why, oh why, do laptops continue to use barrel connectors?
Laptops detect the presence or otherwise of charging voltage electronically, so they don't need the barrel connector to operate an extra set of contacts.
These connectors have considerable mechanical advantage, & over time can damage the mating connector, or even rip it off the board, or out of the moulded slot in the case, depending upon which is used.
Quite small polarised connectors without the long rigid "neck", which don't have this problem, were widely used for CB radios in the 1970s,
OK, with older laptops, you could dismantle them & replace the jack on the board, but after a few times, the other crappy design factors start to show up, like stripped threads, etc.
I don't think it is possible to dismantle my current Asus, so when the connector dies, it is recycle time!
I much prefer the barrel connectors on my older Lenovo laptops to the fragile USB-C connector on my work Macbook. The rectangular connector on newer Lenovos is pretty robust, I've yet to ever break one of those.
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I preferred the connector on my very first laptop,a standard fig8 mains connector,no need for any power bricks.
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The rectangular connector on newer Lenovos is pretty robust, I've yet to ever break one of those.
I'm glad to hear that, and didn't mean to imply they're weak. Just that they are basically rectangular versions of round barrel connectors.
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I may have posted this before, but why, oh why, do laptops continue to use barrel connectors?
I sorta like the barrel connector, actually, because I can use a 90° connector and have it rotate as needed, instead of sticking out like a stick and always being in the way.
What would be nice, if the connector wasn't soldered directly to the board, but used short wires. That way it could be replaced when necessary.
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Connectors are already some of the expensive components in most systems. Requiring flying leads means manual labor, which drives up the cost even more. Plus the separate connector then needs to be manually strain relieved somehow since it can't rely on soldered mechanical connection to the PCB. I suspect it would be a VERY hard sell to get a laptop company to use a flying lead power connector unless it was necessary for some other reason.
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The laptop barrel connector with a 90 degree plug that has a break away connector in the cord solves all the problems. It won't ever get damaged by tripping because of the break away connector in the cord.
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A magnetically held connector would also solve this, and it could be made watertight too if useful. I have such a connector on my car for the Battery Tender... it's fast and easy to connect, and safely falls off if I drive away without disconnecting it. Rated for 4ADC. Probably more money than the budget in most laptops, though.
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A magnetically held connector would also solve this, and it could be made watertight too if useful. I have such a connector on my car for the Battery Tender... it's fast and easy to connect, and safely falls off if I drive away without disconnecting it. Rated for 4ADC. Probably more money than the budget in most laptops, though.
Apple offered the MagSafe connector for a while, it was similar to that. I think they brought it back on the most recent models.
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I may have posted this before, but why, oh why, do laptops continue to use barrel connectors?
I sorta like the barrel connector, actually, because I can use a 90° connector and have it rotate as needed, instead of sticking out like a stick and always being in the way.
What would be nice, if the connector wasn't soldered directly to the board, but used short wires. That way it could be replaced when necessary.
That didn't work well with my old Toshiba.
The plastic moulding distorted after awhile, the socket became loose & broke the wires off.
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Apple offered the MagSafe connector for a while, it was similar to that. I think they brought it back on the most recent models.
Which prevents sweeping the laptop from the table accidentally if you manage to entrap yourself in the cable. Good.
The cable itself on the MagSafe power supplies is so weak that it reliably breaks close to the connector after a few years anyway. Bad.
I consider the MagSafe one of the (many) "good idea, poorly implemented" examples.
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Leaf blowers |O What a complete waste of time!!! One of my bl00dy neighbors has been blowing his garden for the past 2 hours, what a cretin!!
I should tell him nature has that sorted, it's called wind!!!!
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Leaf blowers |O What a complete waste of time!!! One of my bl00dy neighbors has been blowing his garden for the past 2 hours, what a cretin!!
I should tell him nature has that sorted, it's called wind!!!!
I find raking leaves quite relaxing, actually. Apparently, it's too much work for the leaf blower types...
I just have to remember to wear gloves nowadays, because my milky soft hands aren't calloused enough anymore, and I easily get blisters at the root of my thumb. I do have one callus right now: on the inside of the last joint of my little finger in my left hand. I use it to keep my laptop upright when laying on my back and typing.
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Try to rake leaves behind or between bushes or in between bushes and fence, or sweep leaves with a broom from the driveway. Leaf blowers have their application, but often people buy shitty models that are only good to blow 0201 resistors from the PCB. Seems your neighbour did not get the right tool.
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"If they make a powered version of the tool you're considering, there's a reason. Buy it."
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My problem with it is that it's not a positional tool, but a directional one. A mouse translates its motion to motion on the screen, but with the eraserhead you're saying "go this direction". It's not as direct an input method.
Both a mouse and trackpoint are directional tools. Neither one provides absolute positioning (as a touch screen or graphics tablet does). They’re both relative, in that they indicate the direction to move the pointer. The difference is that the amount of a mouse’s movement translates into an amount of pointer movement, while a trackpoint’s movement translates into the velocity of pointer movement.
Note that mouse movement is not a strict 1:1 movement at a particular scale. The operating systems apply acceleration curves, so that slow movements move the pointer a small amount, while fast movements move the pointer a large distance, even though the mouse has traveled the same distance on the desk.
So in essence, pointer movement when using a trackpoint is distance * time, while with a mouse, it’s more like nonlinear distance / time thanks to the acceleration curves.
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Leaf blowers |O What a complete waste of time!!! One of my bl00dy neighbors has been blowing his garden for the past 2 hours, what a cretin!!
I should tell him nature has that sorted, it's called wind!!!!
I find raking leaves quite relaxing, actually. Apparently, it's too much work for the leaf blower types...
If the leaves are dry raking them is no bother. If you have a wide and a narrow rack, even racking them around shrubs is usually no bother. When the leaves are wet, raking them is a PITA, but the blowers don't work at all. So, either way, a couple of rakes and a pair of gloves is a cheaper and very effective way to go. Either way, you still have to collection the leaves, and put them in a bin for disposal. The big hassle we get is the last council collection of garden waste for the year is this Tuesday, but the trees haven't finished shedding. So, the bin will spend the winter full of wet leaves, and be pretty stinky when collections resume in the spring.
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Leaf blowers |O What a complete waste of time!!! One of my bl00dy neighbors has been blowing his garden for the past 2 hours, what a cretin!!
I should tell him nature has that sorted, it's called wind!!!!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1468260/Leaf_Blower_Revolution__Idle_Game/
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Both a mouse and trackpoint are directional tools. Neither one provides absolute positioning (as a touch screen or graphics tablet does). They’re both relative, in that they indicate the direction to move the pointer. The difference is that the amount of a mouse’s movement translates into an amount of pointer movement, while a trackpoint’s movement translates into the velocity of pointer movement.
I slightly disagree. Most OS's and mouse drivers allow you to choose the acceleration rate, including zero, and zero makes the mouse absolute. Likewise tablets can have nonzero acceleration rates. Even touchscreens can have acceleration - "flick" a scrollable screen and it will often continue to scroll after your finger has left the surface. Trackballs are another reasonable choice, which work like an upside down mouse with all of the same configuration options. Even a traditional joystick (with ratiometric output, not just bang-bangs) can work positionally, even absolute position.
The Big Loser is the eraserhead. It ONLY conveys direction, which abstracts the user an additional degree from what is almost always intended: Position. It's not just less useful, it is impossible to configure an eraserhead to operate in any kind of positional mode. All of the other input devices can be dumbed down to act like an eraserhead (if desired), but an eraserhead cannot be configured to act like the others. It is a fundamental failure of the design.
I do respect those who really love their eraserheads. It's a small niche market group but they do exist and my hat is off to them, being able to achieve some measure of usefulness from such a fundamentally limited device.
EDIT: To be fair, there is a potentially improved eraserhead mode. It requires an eraserhead that senses pressure on its two axes. If you have that, theoretically you can translate that pressure to relative distance, yielding a positional offset from point of origin. Two limitations immediately become apparent. First, it requires a remarkable degree of fine motor control in a single finger to achieve any sort of positional accuracy. Second and more crucially, what should happen when you release the eraserhead? Should the cursor snap back to its original location? Or should the driver assume you meant to leave the cursor wherever it was when you released? What defines "release", and should the driver accept or ignore (what it interprets as) small unintentional movements just prior to release? Or just anchor to the "greatest excursion"? If the latter, note you cannot reverse direction without an intermediate release of the eraserhead, to "reset" its idea of greatest excursion. These are not small problems, and we studied them back when I worked on Human Input Devices in the 80's. The eraserhead was the butt of many jokes for some valid reasons.
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The Big Loser is the eraserhead. It ONLY conveys direction, which abstracts the user an additional degree from what is almost always intended: Position. It's not just less useful, it is impossible to configure an eraserhead to operate in any kind of positional mode. All of the other input devices can be dumbed down to act like an eraserhead (if desired), but an eraserhead cannot be configured to act like the others. It is a fundamental failure of the design.
I do respect those who really love their eraserheads. It's a small niche market group but they do exist and my hat is off to them, being able to achieve some measure of usefulness from such a fundamentally limited device.
I don't class myself as someone who loves them, but I am able to use one without any great difficulty. It's one of those things where you get used to it and then you don't even really notice it anymore, a bit like walking, you think about where you want to go or where you want the mouse pointer to go and it just happens, you don't really have to think through the whole mechanical process. The eraser has a significant advantage for those with carpal tunnel or other similar issues as you don't have to actually move anything, just apply force.
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Try to rake leaves behind or between bushes or in between bushes and fence, or sweep leaves with a broom from the driveway. Leaf blowers have their application, but often people buy shitty models that are only good to blow 0201 resistors from the PCB. Seems your neighbour did not get the right tool.
I have a cordless electric one that I use to blow leaves off my roof and out of the gutters, occasionally I'll also blow off the walkway up to the front door and the driveway since it's steeply sloped and a slipping hazard. Otherwise I just leave the leaves where they fall and let nature take care of it, it doesn't bother me to have leaves on the ground and I see little point in blowing them around from one place to another.
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See 0:51:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6prPrnXutKY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6prPrnXutKY)
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Otherwise I just leave the leaves where they fall and let nature take care of it, it doesn't bother me to have leaves on the ground and I see little point in blowing them around from one place to another.
If we just the leaves to go where they may they form a damp slippery layer on the sloped driveway that lets cars slide down into the main road. A blower is useless to us, though. The critical leaf falling time it also a high rainfall time, so they have to be raked up.
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Both a mouse and trackpoint are directional tools. Neither one provides absolute positioning (as a touch screen or graphics tablet does). They’re both relative, in that they indicate the direction to move the pointer. The difference is that the amount of a mouse’s movement translates into an amount of pointer movement, while a trackpoint’s movement translates into the velocity of pointer movement.
I slightly disagree. Most OS's and mouse drivers allow you to choose the acceleration rate, including zero, and zero makes the mouse absolute. Likewise tablets can have nonzero acceleration rates. Even touchscreens can have acceleration - "flick" a scrollable screen and it will often continue to scroll after your finger has left the surface. Trackballs are another reasonable choice, which work like an upside down mouse with all of the same configuration options. Even a traditional joystick (with ratiometric output, not just bang-bangs) can work positionally, even absolute position.
You’re using the terminology in a way inconsistent with standard industry practice. “Absolute” in the context of pointing devices means an input device that conveys absolute position: graphics tablets, touchscreens, light pens, etc.
A mouse is relative: if you pick up a mouse off the desk and put it down somewhere else on your desk, it doesn’t know it’s been moved. (Since it’s designed to detect motion along the surface.) When you pick up the stylus of a graphics tablet or finger of a touchscreen, and put it down somewhere else, the pointer instantly moves there because it’s an absolute position device.
In other words: the native output of an absolute input device is an X-Y coordinate, while the native output of a relative input device is an X-Y movement.
This has nothing to do with acceleration. A mouse without acceleration (an awful experience, by the way) is still a relative input device. And a graphics tablet in “relative mode” (or any trackpad, for that matter!!) is simply the software parsing absolute position information into movement commands for the mouse driver. Under the hood, it’s an absolute device.
And scrolling inertia is a software function having nothing to do with the hardware. (We just don’t normally implement it for non-touch interfaces.)
As you hinted at: a joystick is fundamentally an absolute device, in that they use potentiometers to determine the stick’s position. And indeed there have been some specialized graphics systems that used non-spring-loaded joysticks as pointing devices, with the joystick’s position corresponding to the pointer position on screen. (Don’t ask me what it was, I unfortunately don’t remember.)
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All of this is why I led with "slightly disagree".
My points were from the perspective of the user. My work in HID's always started with that. If you keep the focus on the user experience and don't worry so much about the technical specifics, the limitations of the eraserhead surface early and don't go away. Some users are able to achieve remarkable results with them, but they remain fundamentally limited because of everything I wrote above.
Case in point: Yes, if you lift and move the mouse it doesn't "know" it has moved. But if you move the mouse, the cursor moves in an intuitive manner related to the mouse movement. Not true for the eraserhead, which may estimate your intentions using some of all of 1) direction of tilt, 2) force applied, 3) rate of force application (aka acceleration!), 4) duration of force application, and 5) rate of force release (deceleration, or negative acceleration), and 6) area under the resulting curve. We experimented with all of those. That's why eraserhead proponents impress me, that's a lot of variables to skillfully control with a single finger.
I'm not an Apple fanboi (I can't think of a single Apple product I own) but they spend a LOT of money doing a LOT of research into human factors design trying to make "the computer for the rest of them". >:D They have the money to make anything they want. Yet I've never seen an eraserhead on any Mac or MacBook. Apple was fast to adopt the mouse, but since the 80's they've apparently never found the eraserhead to be superior to a mouse or a trackpad. Just another data point.
This is another case of "Glad there's so many different options to choose from". Buy what you prefer, I do!
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Apple puts a lot of effort into the design of their products but I wouldn't make the assumption that just because Apple doesn't do something it's not a good idea. For all the good design choices they make there are a lot of bone-headed decisions too. Ditching all the ports and going with only USB-C, the awful butterfly keyboard, the glued in non-user-replaceable battery, that ridiculous notch in the iPhone and newest Macbook screens, the useless and annoying touchbar, the ridiculous round mouse on the original iMacs, the list goes on.
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My current pet peeve: SolidWorks. I am very much a novice at 3D modeling, but anything but a novice when it comes to computers and applications, including pro apps, and I have never, EVER had a program cause me frustration the way SolidWorks does.
In terms of anything vaguely graphical, I’ve learned lots of professional graphics design software (FreeHand, PageMaker, Quark, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and more), Altium, Avid (pro video editing, back in the days when it ran only on custom hardware), Final Cut Pro, and rapid UI prototyping software.
I’m not afraid of complexity, having mastered all manner of other pro stuff back when I worked as a computer tech/consultant/system integrator.
But SolidWorks is doing my head in. Wild internal inconsistency, with things working sometimes, or not. Error messages that provide zero hints as to how to resolve the problem. Searching the web finds instructions… which don’t work. Official documentation referring to commands and user interface elements that don’t exist. Zooming seemingly designed by a moron. (I know, controlling 3D motion with a 2D input device is not trivial. But it doesn’t need to be brain-dead.) Using it is not only death by a thousand paper cuts, there’s also rusty razor blades hidden between the pages, and sometimes a dusting of itching powder that blows in your face just for fun.
All hyperbole aside, even my boss, who’s fairly experienced with SolidWorks, runs into oddities, and has been unable to explain or resolve some errors and problems I’ve encountered. (And I’ve seen him run into inexplicable inconsistencies, too.) I accept that professional software has a learning curve. It’s fresh in my mind, since I had never touched PCB layout software until just a bit less than 3 years ago. In that time I have become fairly proficient at Altium, which is not devoid of complexity, and does have a learning curve, albeit a fairly gentle one for pro software. I had some moments of frustration, sure, but nothing like what SolidWorks has caused. In Altium, I was always able to figure out why something didn’t do what I expected, and understand that 9 times out of 10, it was actually just some feature that I didn’t know how to configure to work for me, causing it to inadvertently work against me. So the problems led to me learning more about what Altium can do, and solving problems led me to learn how to use the software better. SolidWorks has been entirely unforthcoming with any such revelations.
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Apple puts a lot of effort into the design of their products but I wouldn't make the assumption that just because Apple doesn't do something it's not a good idea. For all the good design choices they make there are a lot of bone-headed decisions too. Ditching all the ports and going with only USB-C, the awful butterfly keyboard, the glued in non-user-replaceable battery, that ridiculous notch in the iPhone and newest Macbook screens, the useless and annoying touchbar, the ridiculous round mouse on the original iMacs, the list goes on.
100% agree on every point. You do not need to convince me that Apple ain't perfect! I swear their OS and overall user interface is designed on some foreign planet by aliens. Everything is different than I would logically expect it to be. I'm amazed at their ability to be so consistently opposite to my expectations. To be clear: Opposite as in different, not necessarily "wrong" or "broken".
My point was that Apple's biggest claim to fame since the first Mac has been "ease of use" or some similar phrase yet they've never done anything like an eraserhead. If there was some - any - advantage you'd think they'd have tried it sometime in the last ~40 years of offering pointing devices.
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All of this is why I led with "slightly disagree".
Again, it’s just that you were using the terminology incorrectly, so it was unclear to me whether you actually understood what I was saying! (Agreement/disagreement can’t even really be established if one isn’t even on the same page regarding meanings.) :)
My points were from the perspective of the user. My work in HID's always started with that. If you keep the focus on the user experience and don't worry so much about the technical specifics, the limitations of the eraserhead surface early and don't go away. Some users are able to achieve remarkable results with them, but they remain fundamentally limited because of everything I wrote above.
Case in point: Yes, if you lift and move the mouse it doesn't "know" it has moved. But if you move the mouse, the cursor moves in an intuitive manner related to the mouse movement. Not true for the eraserhead, which may estimate your intentions using some of all of 1) direction of tilt, 2) force applied, 3) rate of force application (aka acceleration!), 4) duration of force application, and 5) rate of force release (deceleration, or negative acceleration), and 6) area under the resulting curve. We experimented with all of those. That's why eraserhead proponents impress me, that's a lot of variables to skillfully control with a single finger.
I'm not an Apple fanboi (I can't think of a single Apple product I own) but they spend a LOT of money doing a LOT of research into human factors design trying to make "the computer for the rest of them". >:D They have the money to make anything they want. Yet I've never seen an eraserhead on any Mac or MacBook. Apple was fast to adopt the mouse, but since the 80's they've apparently never found the eraserhead to be superior to a mouse or a trackpad. Just another data point.
This is another case of "Glad there's so many different options to choose from". Buy what you prefer, I do!
Totally agree with you on all of that!
I use both Apple and Windows products, and while newer Windows stuff is infinitely better than in the past, I’m still surprised at how bad trackpads are on Windows. The trackpad on my HP laptop (which is Windows Precision Touchpad compliant) is not bad, but it isn’t as nice to use as even Apple’s very first generation of multitouch trackpad*. Even the non-multitouch trackpads from Apple were always really nice. (OK, other than the first ones in 1995. Those kinda sucked.) Part of the lousiness is, with 100% certainty, due to the drivers, since an Apple multitouch trackpad that works gloriously well in Mac OS works like garbage with the Windows drivers provided for dual-booting, on the very same computer.** But part of the suckiness is due to the careless selection of trackpad surfaces on most Windows hardware. Apple’s trackpads are textured glass, with them once boasting of the gazillions of different textures they tested in order to get it just right. And I know from reading bare trackpad module datasheets/app notes that an OEM needs to tweak various settings to match the trackpad sensor electronics to the trackpad surface material, thickness, etc. It’s clear many Windows hardware manufacturers simply don’t spend enough time doing that. :( I tried buying an external Windows Precision Touchpad for my work desktop, but abandoned it because of the god-awful textured plastic surface. (Think mid-90s mouse mat, the kind with the textured rigid plastic with foam rubber backing.) Like so many PC trackpads, managed to be simultaneously too sensitive to spurious inputs, but not sensitive enough to deliberate ones.
*in the original MacBook Air, introduced in January 2008. Fun fact: I worked for the fruit company at the time and actually was one of the staffers at their booth at the Macworld Expo, demoing the MacBook Air to visitors and press!
**with my usual caveat that I last tried this with the original 2010 Magic Trackpad, up through Windows 7. I do not know whether the later Windows drivers for newer OSes, or for the Magic Trackpad 2, are better or not.
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If the surface matters that much, I'm surprised we don't see more emphasis on cleaning those surfaces. I'd think accumulated grime, skin oils and cells, particulates, etc. would overwhelm modest texture differences rather fast. I got out of the HID business before touchpads got that picky.
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Apple puts a lot of effort into the design of their products but I wouldn't make the assumption that just because Apple doesn't do something it's not a good idea. For all the good design choices they make there are a lot of bone-headed decisions too. Ditching all the ports and going with only USB-C, the awful butterfly keyboard, the glued in non-user-replaceable battery, that ridiculous notch in the iPhone and newest Macbook screens, the useless and annoying touchbar, the ridiculous round mouse on the original iMacs, the list goes on.
100% agree on every point. You do not need to convince me that Apple ain't perfect! I swear their OS and overall user interface is designed on some foreign planet by aliens. Everything is different than I would logically expect it to be. I'm amazed at their ability to be so consistently opposite to my expectations. To be clear: Opposite as in different, not necessarily "wrong" or "broken".
When I worked at the fruit stand, 9 out of 10 Macs we sold were to people who’d never owned one before. My experience was consistently this: users who expected to find things on the Mac in the same place or work in the same exact way they expected/knew it to be on Windows would find the transition extremely frustrating. The ones who approached it from “where would I expect it to be/how would I expect it to work if I’d never seen Windows before” picked it up quite quickly and without frustration.
In other words, Apple designs its things fundamentally from a philosophy of “where would it make sense for this to be/how would it make sense for it to work” independent of prior knowledge. “Intuitive” is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot, but that is something Apple genuinely strives for. (Before anyone jumps down my throat: no, not worth 100% success. And they’ve made a number of usability design decisions in more recent times that I found perplexing or maddening. 99% of the time I create a floating window on the iPad, it’s by mistake, and getting rid of it is the polar opposite of intuitive. Still better than SolidWorks, though!)
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If the surface matters that much, I'm surprised we don't see more emphasis on cleaning those surfaces. I'd think accumulated grime, skin oils and cells, particulates, etc. would overwhelm modest texture differences rather fast. I got out of the HID business before touchpads got that picky.
The differences in textures aren’t “modest” by a long shot. What’s on the market range from perfectly smooth to very rough.
Apple’s glass trackpad surfaces are a satiny finish that doesn’t easily collect gunk (I’ve never had any accumulated dust or sweaty grime; I have oily skin so I do clean that off periodically) and exhibits absolutely no wear (becoming shiny) even after a decade of use, very unlike plastic ones. The surface texture is just right to not feel sticky like smooth glass*, but not feel rough like paper. And being glass, it is easy to clean without fear of damage.
*many glass touchscreens use oleophobic coatings that, in addition to reducing fingerprints, make your fingers stick less, making sliding across them take less effort. No squeaking-down-a-window sound.
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Try to rake leaves behind or between bushes or in between bushes and fence, or sweep leaves with a broom from the driveway. Leaf blowers have their application, but often people buy shitty models that are only good to blow 0201 resistors from the PCB. Seems your neighbour did not get the right tool.
I have a cordless electric one that I use to blow leaves off my roof and out of the gutters, occasionally I'll also blow off the walkway up to the front door and the driveway since it's steeply sloped and a slipping hazard. Otherwise I just leave the leaves where they fall and let nature take care of it, it doesn't bother me to have leaves on the ground and I see little point in blowing them around from one place to another.
I just leave them, wind blows them away eventually, any that are left just decompose, good for nature. Some people seem to be obsessed with neat and tidy!!!
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Try to rake leaves behind or between bushes or in between bushes and fence, or sweep leaves with a broom from the driveway. Leaf blowers have their application, but often people buy shitty models that are only good to blow 0201 resistors from the PCB. Seems your neighbour did not get the right tool.
I have a cordless electric one that I use to blow leaves off my roof and out of the gutters, occasionally I'll also blow off the walkway up to the front door and the driveway since it's steeply sloped and a slipping hazard. Otherwise I just leave the leaves where they fall and let nature take care of it, it doesn't bother me to have leaves on the ground and I see little point in blowing them around from one place to another.
I just leave them, wind blows them away eventually, any that are left just decompose, good for nature. Some people seem to be obsessed with neat and tidy!!!
I tried benign neglect of the leaves on my small front lawn (roughly 10 m by 5 m) one autumn.
After a winter with normal snowfall, the leaves formed a non-woven tight carpet over the grass that ruined the lawn in the next spring.
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I know, controlling 3D motion with a 2D input device is not trivial. But it doesn’t need to be brain-dead.
Please, please tell me they're not using Euler or Tait-Bryan angles for the rotation. (It is one of my pet peeves I described here recently.)
If dragging horizontally rotates the view around the vertical axis, and dragging vertically around the horizontal axis, and rotating one 180° causes the other to be mirrored (can happen with only one of the axes, depends on the Euler/Tait-Bryan model used), they are.
Anyone writing such code should be shot severely scolded, and forced to do a few weeks of tier-1 user support via phone as a penance.
It's not like the intuitive virtual trackballs are any more difficult to implement, you just use versors/bivectors for tracking the core orientation.
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I know, controlling 3D motion with a 2D input device is not trivial. But it doesn’t need to be brain-dead.
Please, please tell me they're not using Euler or Tait-Bryan angles for the rotation. (It is one of my pet peeves I described here recently.)
I wish I could tell you, but I literally don’t even know what those are! :p
If dragging horizontally rotates the view around the vertical axis, and dragging vertically around the horizontal axis, and rotating one 180° causes the other to be mirrored (can happen with only one of the axes, depends on the Euler/Tait-Bryan model used), they are.
Anyone writing such code should be shot severely scolded, and forced to do a few weeks of tier-1 user support via phone as a penance.
It's not like the intuitive virtual trackballs are any more difficult to implement, you just use versors/bivectors for tracking the core orientation.
I just know that changing to a view I want is annoying as hell. The fulcrum of the rotation axes is wherever you click, so unless you want things flung off into space you have to carefully center the mouse first…
And the zooming… two detents of the mouse wheel and you’re out in space looking at your model shrunk down to the size of a caper. While I understand the logic of zooming into the spot where the mouse is, it zooms out using some algorithm that isn’t quite intuitive, upshot is, when you inevitably fail to reach the zoom level you wanted and try reversing your action, by the time you’re done your once-centered model is now off in the weeds.
It also blocks you from rotating beyond certain points, making it nearly impossible to view certain angles with a certain rotation.
I’m sure I’m explaining it poorly (and since I’m not at work I can’t fire it up to try and characterize it better, so just going off my clouded-by-frustration memory)…
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The Euler angles are used in classical mechanics to discuss the rotation, nutation, and precession of a rotating solid body.
https://mathworld.wolfram.com/EulerAngles.html
Each of those processes (for example, in a child's toy top) is the evolution of one of the three Euler angles.
I haven't seen them used in computer-graphic interfaces, but that's not my field.
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I keep telling myself I need to learn SolidWorks, but I also keep reading comments like those in this thread. If it's that bad, how has it become the standard 3D CAD package? I can't remember the last vendor, customer, or consultant we've worked with who used anything else.
And: Their eDrawings viewer tool, which I use so I can view the .STEP and .SLDPRT files generated by everyone else, has all the same translate/zoom/rotate idiosyncrasies as described here for SW itself. I'm constantly having to inconveniently switch between rotate and translate modes to recenter a rotate or zoom. Each mouse click is a huge percentage of zoom factor so it's basically impossible to dial it in just right.
I use a Gerber viewing tool to do PCB reviews and it has this simple, elegant "Fit" feature. Press the F key and it automagically resizes to maximally fill the present window size. I have yet to find its equivalent in eDrawings, but man do they need it.
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As best I can tell, in terms of usability, it’s just that everything else is even worse! :palm: :o |O :wtf:
I am of the opinion that while professional software has the right to be complex, it doesn’t need to be needlessly hateful. Final Cut Pro, InDesign, and Altium are three great examples of that: widely used, capable professional software that put a lot of work into good user interface design.
I think CAD software has the unfortunate burden of being some of the very first graphical software ever designed, in an inherently complex discipline, so some CAD user interface conventions got settled on way back then, which are at odds with how our user interfaces in general work.
But some of the problems are just… come on. Find a fucking way to offer a solution to an error, rather than just display “SORRY NOPE CAN’T DO IT BYE”. Or find a better way to do the thing I need to do, so I don’t run into that error in the first place.
(For context, it’s ludicrously difficult to do something I would think to be a very, very common task: modify existing models. Like taking the model of an enclosure and making holes in it for other things to poke in and out of. I don’t care whether SolidWorks is the easiest tool for making new models from scratch, because that’s not the task I was given.)
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One thing I've found indispensable on a laptop is a Fn keystroke to disable the trackpad. Otherwise on many machines it picks up the heel of your hand and suddenly the cursor is "somewhere else".
I beg your pardon. Language, please! ;D
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The Euler angles are used in classical mechanics to discuss the rotation, nutation, and precession of a rotating solid body.
https://mathworld.wolfram.com/EulerAngles.html
Each of those processes (for example, in a child's toy top) is the evolution of one of the three Euler angles.
I haven't seen them used in computer-graphic interfaces, but that's not my field.
Using Euler or Tait-Bryan (yaw, pitch, roll) angles to describe orientation or free rotation in 3D is wrong, because- There are 24 different definitions: 6 axis choices for Euler, 6 for Tait-Bryan, and both can be using either intrinsic or extrinsic rotations.
Nobody agrees to exactly which one is which. - Gimbal lock.
What you do, is use a bivector or unit quaternion, a four-component description of type R=(r; i, j, k).
One useful interpretation is that if (x, y, z) is your unit axis vector (x²+y²+z²=1) and φ is the rotation around that axis, then r=cos(φ/2), i=x·sin(φ/2), j=y·sin(φ/2), k=z·sin(φ/2). After any operation on this description, you normalize it by dividing the four components by sqrt(r²+i²+j²+k²), so that r²+i²+j²+k²=1 always. This normalization does not induce any directional or rotational bias, unlike e.g. matrix orthonormalization does.
There are rules on how two rotations are combined (Hamilton product, not associative). Just like with matrices, a series of rotations is applied from right to left. There is a 1:1 mapping between these and 3×3 orthonormal matrices, although the matrix-to-description has three branches, depending on which of the three diagonal elements in the matrix has the largest absolute value, for numerical stability and accuracy with e.g. floating-point numbers.
Now, consider a virtual track ball, i.e. the rectangular window in which some 3D view is shown.
Choose some diameter, usually around half the smaller edge of the rectangular window or slightly more, and think of a circle of that diameter in the center of the window.
When the user drags outside the circle, apply a rotation (using the aforementioned axis-and-angle definition) in the plane of the display, i.e. with the axis perpendicular to the display plane. This lets them rotate the view by dragging near the wider edge of the viewing window.
When the user drags within the window, consider the drag path as if a finger on top of the virtual sphere. This gives you an axis and an angle with respect to the virtual trackball, but note that both change as the drag continues. (So, during the dragging, the rotation is with respect to the orientation before the rotation started, and both the axis and the angle can vary.)
If the user drags outside the window, use the point where the circle exits the line between the drag start and endpoints as the virtual sphere endpoint, but increase the rotation based on how far outside the sphere the user dragged. I recommend using nonlinear, even square, "acceleration" here, so that the user can do larger (180°) rotations faster than having to drag three or four times over the virtual trackball. But make sure the transition outside the circle is smooth.
It is the most intuitive interface I know. When the point on the surface of the virtual sphere that the drag started at tracks the drag end point closely, you know you got it right.
One thing I've found indispensable on a laptop is a Fn keystroke to disable the trackpad. Otherwise on many machines it picks up the heel of your hand and suddenly the cursor is "somewhere else".
I beg your pardon. Language, please! ;D
What? It's the name of the effin key. Oh. Oooh.
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Off at a bit of a tangent, back in the day, I worked for a time repairing hearing aids.
The particular brand we supplied got around the problem of requiring tiny, but rugged pots by using tiny spring loaded centre zero toggle switches.
The volume was adjusted by pushing the switch multiple times, with each push of the toggle producing a pulse, which depending upon the direction of the push made the sound lower or higher.
A change in volume required a series of pushes to produce the required pulses.
Clever idea, Mr EE----not!
People over the years had become used to the volume controls on TV remotes, where you press & hold the + button to become louder, & the - button for softer.
This expectation led them to expect that toggling the switch from the centre zero position would continue to make the sound louder or softer as long as you held them in that position.
Thus it came to pass that large numbers of aids came in with broken volume switches, as when nothing happened, people just pushed harder!
They were horrific things to replace, too!
Back on topic:
The trackpad on my laptop works "OK", but was annoying to use, so the first thing I did was to buy a cheap cordless mouse.
I had been using an older ipad for quite a while, & the laptop was a welcome change.
The ipad touchscreen is, to me, just plain, clunky, as at least on the old one, there is no priority of sensitivity to touches, ie, an accidental touch at the screen edge immediately changes the display, putting up some junk I'm not interested in.
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One thing I've found indispensable on a laptop is a Fn keystroke to disable the trackpad. Otherwise on many machines it picks up the heel of your hand and suddenly the cursor is "somewhere else".
I beg your pardon. Language, please! ;D
What? It's the name of the effin key. Oh. Oooh.
I thought it was pun-worthy.
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One thing I've found indispensable on a laptop is a Fn keystroke to disable the trackpad. Otherwise on many machines it picks up the heel of your hand and suddenly the cursor is "somewhere else".
I beg your pardon. Language, please! ;D
What? It's the name of the effin key. Oh. Oooh.
I thought it was pun-worthy.
Me too. You succeeded. I failded, as usual.
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Those stupid checkout machines at supermarkets.
Had the misfortune to deal with one just now. There is no indication whatsoever which is the correct side to place your bag of shopping before you start checking out. 50-50 chance you put on the wrong side, and then the machine tells you to call an attendant. Why is that they don’t have a sign saying put your stuff “here”? Unbelievable…
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Those stupid checkout machines at supermarkets.
Had the misfortune to deal with one just now. There is no indication whatsoever which is the correct side to place your bag of shopping before you start checking out. 50-50 chance you put on the wrong side, and then the machine tells you to call an attendant. Why is that they don’t have a sign saying put your stuff “here”? Unbelievable…
Here you always place your bag on the side facing the interior of the store or the entry to the checkout area and the bagging area is always toward the exit doors. The rack of empty bags is usually a good clue too.
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I think Solidworks picks an axis or edge in your design and rotates about that line or edge. Sometimes it decides to highlight it in a pink/magenta color, other times it seems to be hidden.
Other ways I've found it to be picky:
- Beyond a certain complexity, the mates in an assembly can spontaneously become overconstrained. Without touching anything, I can close the design and reopen it, and all the mates solve just fine
- The super annoying resource monitor will nag when system RAM usage goes above about 60%. My CAD box has 32 GB of RAM and a T400, but both Solidworks and Altium end up fighting over the apparently meager resources.
- Support forums direct one to using SpeedPaks for complex components within a larger assembly. In my limited experience, it seems like all that Speedpaks do is complain that they're out of date, and the assembly is just as slow to manipulate.
Having said this, Solidworks is miles ahead of FreeCAD in terms of frustration. I've been using FreeCAD at home for a while, and even with very simple parts, it tends to crash a lot. Plus there's the well-known topological naming bug. I'm really hoping that they fix that one soon.
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Another SolidWorks problem: Earlier versions refuse to even view files created by later versions even when no new features have been used.
This stupidity is extended to eDrawings, which not only includes this "feature" but Dassault doesn't keep eDrawings current! I just downloaded the latest version, which they promote as the 2022 version, but it's exactly the same (at the binary level, including the dates in its About page) as the 2019 version. And it will not open files created by SW versions past 2019 unless they are stored as back-revs. Derp!
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Another SolidWorks problem: Earlier versions refuse to even view files created by later versions even when no new features have been used.
This stupidity is extended to eDrawings, which not only includes this "feature" but Dassault doesn't keep eDrawings current! I just downloaded the latest version, which they promote as the 2022 version, but it's exactly the same (at the binary level, including the dates in its About page) as the 2019 version. And it will not open files created by SW versions past 2019 unless they are stored as back-revs. Derp!
I know, annoying is it? In some regard a design on an old version is more valuable.
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Those stupid checkout machines at supermarkets.
Had the misfortune to deal with one just now. There is no indication whatsoever which is the correct side to place your bag of shopping before you start checking out. 50-50 chance you put on the wrong side, and then the machine tells you to call an attendant. Why is that they don’t have a sign saying put your stuff “here”? Unbelievable…
I am so glad that the self-checkouts here in Switzerland don’t perform any kind of post-scan shenanigans. No weighing your shopping bag, no photointerruptor conveyor belt tunnel, nothing. Those things drove me absolutely bananas in the USA. I think more stores have come to realize that the frustration those things cause (which in turn cause people to insist on a real checkout lane) exceeds the cost of the small amounts of theft that happen without them.
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Here IKEA Canada self checkout treats you as a criminal by default. It gives several warnings in rather harsh language about responsibility for theft as you do your items. It is absolutely dusgusting and I whenever possible go to a human cashier lane instead.
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I am so glad that the self-checkouts here in Switzerland don’t perform any kind of post-scan shenanigans. No weighing your shopping bag, no photointerruptor conveyor belt tunnel, nothing. Those things drove me absolutely bananas in the USA. I think more stores have come to realize that the frustration those things cause (which in turn cause people to insist on a real checkout lane) exceeds the cost of the small amounts of theft that happen without them.
It's a mix in the UK. I've noticed the ones at 'posher' supermarkets, like Waitrose, do not use a weigh scale for the self checkout, whereas the bigger more value-oriented supermarkets are hawks for anti-theft, usually having CCTV directly in front of you! Oddly enough one city centre self checkout in an area you would think would be a theft magnet has the no weigh scale system too, perhaps it's just a trial. And paying an attendant to look after these isn't free so there will be an intersection point at which trusting people is a better arrangement than policing it, even if the frustration isn't a big concern for the business.
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Except for when I have just a few items to checkout, I refuse to use them! Something always seems to go wrong which requires a member of staff to sort out. Problem is now, my local store has and is reducing the number of manned checkouts ongoing, so the queues are getting bigger, which is obviously their intention to induce us to use self check out. If they remove manned checkouts completely I will just go somewhere else.
Thankfully, Aldi and Lidl show no sign of introducing self check outs.
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Except for when I have just a few items to checkout, I refuse to use them! Something always seems to go wrong which requires a member of staff to sort out. Problem is now, my local store has and is reducing the number of manned checkouts ongoing, so the queues are getting bigger, which is obviously their intention to induce us to use self check out. If they remove manned checkouts completely I will just go somewhere else.
Thankfully, Aldi and Liddle show no sign of introducing self check outs.
Lidl here (Northamptonshire) has self checkouts, so much better than waiting for the otherwise understaffed main checkouts to pay for a few things. For a big shop though you can't beat them.
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Problem is now, my local store has and is reducing the number of manned checkouts ongoing,
Not a sainsburys by any change? Our local now only has 4 real tills left,some suite got my thoughts,both barrels, when he tried to convince me to use the self service,of course he's not bothered that the many checkout staff will be replaced by 1 or 2 security guards
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Except for when I have just a few items to checkout, I refuse to use them! Something always seems to go wrong which requires a member of staff to sort out. Problem is now, my local store has and is reducing the number of manned checkouts ongoing, so the queues are getting bigger, which is obviously their intention to induce us to use self check out. If they remove manned checkouts completely I will just go somewhere else.
Thankfully, Aldi and Liddle show no sign of introducing self check outs.
Lidl here (Northamptonshire) has self checkouts, so much better than waiting for the otherwise understaffed main checkouts to pay for a few things. For a big shop though you can't beat them.
Hmmm, could be on the way here then!! Probably something to do with store size. Another problem with self checkouts is for elderly people. I've noticed that very few of the elderly use the damn things, I wonder why? Looks when you become elderly you are considered obsolete by commerce.
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Problem is now, my local store has and is reducing the number of manned checkouts ongoing,
Not a sainsburys by any change? Our local now only has 4 real tills left,some suite got my thoughts,both barrels, when he tried to convince me to use the self service,of course he's not bothered that the many checkout staff will be replaced by 1 or 2 security guards
Tesco in my case. Actually our local Sainsbury hasn't introduced self checkouts yet.
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Our Tesco has both: usual self-checkout with weighing scales, and scan-as-you-shop which doesn't do anything except take your money at the end. I prefer that one since you can pack stuff as you go around and then skip all the queues for tills and self-checkouts. Only fly in the ointment is a random check which can be a pain if you've got a tight and very nicely packed bag.
Used to be separate areas for self-checkout and scan-as-you-shop, but now you can use the latter with the former if you like.
Local Waitrose has scan-as-you-shop too, and although I am not a patron except when riding shotgun for the missus, I can't recall ever seeing a random check (or even non-random one) there.
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Here IKEA Canada self checkout treats you as a criminal by default. It gives several warnings in rather harsh language about responsibility for theft as you do your items. It is absolutely dusgusting and I whenever possible go to a human cashier lane instead.
Blame the people that steal and head the warnings. A surprising number of people WILL steal something if the opportunity presents itself. I read a survey somewhere that said something like 80% of respondants if they found somebody's wallet would keep the cash it held. I was kind of shocked and disappointed. Giving warnings isn't "treating you like a criminal", that's hyperbole. Slapping handcuffs on you and searching your body would be treating you like a criminal.
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Hmmm, could be on the way here then!! Probably something to do with store size. Another problem with self checkouts is for elderly people. I've noticed that very few of the elderly use the damn things, I wonder why? Looks when you become elderly you are considered obsolete by commerce.
It's because people get more and more set in their ways as they age and it becomes harder and harder to learn new skills. Elderly people spent most of their lives in a time before self checkout so the process is unfamiliar to them and they stick to what they know. It has nothing to do with being considered obsolete, it's just personal habits.
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Problem is now, my local store has and is reducing the number of manned checkouts ongoing,
Not a sainsburys by any change? Our local now only has 4 real tills left,some suite got my thoughts,both barrels, when he tried to convince me to use the self service,of course he's not bothered that the many checkout staff will be replaced by 1 or 2 security guards
Most of our local supermarkets in York still have quite a few manned checkouts, but hardly anyone uses them in most of the stores. For some reason they are moderately busy in the small local stores, but in the big ones they are mostly wasted space. I find it strange they aren't removing them more quickly, as the self-checkouts and barcode wand linked checkouts can get congested at times.
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Hmmm, could be on the way here then!! Probably something to do with store size. Another problem with self checkouts is for elderly people. I've noticed that very few of the elderly use the damn things, I wonder why? Looks when you become elderly you are considered obsolete by commerce.
It's because people get more and more set in their ways as they age and it becomes harder and harder to learn new skills. Elderly people spent most of their lives in a time before self checkout so the process is unfamiliar to them and they stick to what they know. It has nothing to do with being considered obsolete, it's just personal habits.
I think you misunderstand what I meant, or I didn't explain very well! Which was, commerce and society generally doesn't give enough consideration to elderly people. They are often left to struggle with tech they don't or can't understand, with no alternative option.
Trust me, I know this from personal experience with my now very elderly mother, if it wasn't for me she would have had real problems in todays world. One example, we have a local tax in the UK, called council tax, which is universally despised but that is another discussion.
So my Mum paid in monthly installments, which most people do because it's a very high tax. Then she started to have memory problems and forgot a payment. The local council didn't take any time to find out a possible reason for this, if they had they would have noticed her age and thought that she might be having problems. No, they took her straight to court, no warning letter although they claim they did send 2, they lied, and she was fined quite heavily!!! She was very distressed by that and I visited her to find her in tears. She had phoned the council to find out why she had been treated like that and she was treated harshly a told if she didn't pay the fine the bailiffs would visit and take possessions to recover the fine plus costs!! Bunch or evil, vicious b4stards!!! I went straight over to their office and really laid into them for treating an elderly, vulnerable person in such an inconsiderate and vile manner. I caused such a commotion that everyone there, other members of the public and council staff were alarmed and security was called. I insisted that a councilor was bought down so that I could may it clear what I thought of their nasty little gang. She did appear and hustled me into a private room for a discussion! So I explained what had happened and asked where their strategy was for dealing with vulnerable residents of the area, the result of which was, they didn't have one!! So I strongly suggested they should urgently sort that out and instead of dropping the court hammer without checking possible reasons for missed payments, they should maybe compile a list of those above a certain age and use different, more considerate tactics to determine what may have gone wrong, with those people. She eventually apologised after trying to BS her way out of it, and agreed to look at the situation.
Whether they have or not I don't know but I now manage my mums finances to ensure she isn't subjected to such vile treatment in future.
UK councils are renowned for this behavior, they use the courts as an unchallenged device to fine people without warning, you don't even get the opportunity to defend yourself. They break all regulations to avoid having to follow the correct and legal procedure, and are allowed to get away with it. Elderly people are just collateral damage to them. Absolutely insidious.
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It's because people get more and more set in their ways as they age and it becomes harder and harder to learn new skills. Elderly people spent most of their lives in a time before self checkout so the process is unfamiliar to them and they stick to what they know. It has nothing to do with being considered obsolete, it's just personal habits.
I experienced that personally with my Dad. He was a teacher, extremely intelligent, could hold his own on almost any topic, but almost zero involvement in anything technical. Along I come and I get into technology at a VERY early age. My parents were very supportive even though they didn't understand what I was doing most of the time.
Once I grew up, moved away, got married, and started my career my parents started running a regional library + bookstore as volunteers. My Mom handled the library stuff and my Dad focused on the bookstore. By this time PC's were pretty commonplace and I offered to get my Dad a PC, set it up, and teach him how to use a spreadsheet to keep track of inventory, sales, etc. I was going to hand him a totally turnkey solution - all he had to do was use the spreadsheet, and I could provide ongoing support.
He wasn't interested. He was just going to keep doing everything on paper. I asked why, and he replied "I've lived this long without learning how to use a computer. I figure I can make it the rest of the way."
The point is that he COULD have easily used a computer. He simply wasn't interested. I think he viewed it as something for the "next generation". No bitterness, no anger, no sadness, simply "I don't need to".
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I experienced that personally with my Dad. He was a teacher, extremely intelligent, could hold his own on almost any topic, but almost zero involvement in anything technical. Along I come and I get into technology at a VERY early age. My parents were very supportive even though they didn't understand what I was doing most of the time.
Once I grew up, moved away, got married, and started my career my parents started running a regional library + bookstore as volunteers. My Mom handled the library stuff and my Dad focused on the bookstore. By this time PC's were pretty commonplace and I offered to get my Dad a PC, set it up, and teach him how to use a spreadsheet to keep track of inventory, sales, etc. I was going to hand him a totally turnkey solution - all he had to do was use the spreadsheet, and I could provide ongoing support.
He wasn't interested. He was just going to keep doing everything on paper. I asked why, and he replied "I've lived this long without learning how to use a computer. I figure I can make it the rest of the way."
The point is that he COULD have easily used a computer. He simply wasn't interested. I think he viewed it as something for the "next generation". No bitterness, no anger, no sadness, simply "I don't need to".
I saw the same thing with my grandmother, she was very smart but she just didn't "get" computers.
I think it's just a natural part of the way the brain develops and part of the same continual process we all experience. Learning a second language for example is very easy for young children, but it gets harder and harder the older we get. Someone who immigrates into foreign country when they are a kid will usually end up speaking the new language fluent with no perceptible accent. The older a person is when they immigrate, the less fluent they speak and the thicker their accent generally. Unfortunately I'm old enough myself now to notice this gradual shift, I don't pick up new skills as easily as I once did.
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When a google search gives you a result but the relevant site has one of those multi page pages, perhaps hundreds of pages, and you have to click through every single one to find what you are looking for.
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Rear fog lights.
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Rear fog lights.
What's wrong those? My car has them, they're useful for increasing visibility in fog or heavy rain which is not a rare occurrence here. I actually find it strange that American cars don't have them, at least none that I'm aware of.
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Rear fog lights.
What's wrong those? My car has them, they're useful for increasing visibility in fog or heavy rain which is not a rare occurrence here. I actually find it strange that American cars don't have them, at least none that I'm aware of.
The problem is that people unused to them don't realise they are on, so in non-fog conditions, following traffic is confronted by this very bright red light.
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The problem is that people unused to them don't realise they are on, so in non-fog conditions, following traffic is confronted by this very bright red light.
That's hardly the fault of the feature that people don't know what the switch is for. Mine clearly lays out the purpose in the owner's manual.
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Rear fog lights.
What's wrong those? My car has them, they're useful for increasing visibility in fog or heavy rain which is not a rare occurrence here. I actually find it strange that American cars don't have them, at least none that I'm aware of.
The problem is that people unused to them don't realise they are on, so in non-fog conditions, following traffic is confronted by this very bright red light.
This.
When I come up behind a car with fogs on, have I run into the back of it? No, so why does it need spotlights shining in my eyes? All they do is create a wall of red, obscuring everything else, and persuade me to look away. If the driver stamps on his brakes I will be slow to react because the change of intensity from the brake lights is non-existent.
Further, if you're driving at a speed that you might run into the car ahead, you're going too fast and will plough through unlit obstacles your lights would otherwise show up. And being able to see that car much further ahead encourages faster driving because the driver thinks he can see much better than the actuality.
They should either be banned or turn off automatically as a vehicle arrives behind. Or have a dash indicator light of equal brightness. Preferably flashing.
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The problem is that people unused to them don't realise they are on, so in non-fog conditions, following traffic is confronted by this very bright red light.
That's hardly the fault of the feature that people don't know what the switch is for. Mine clearly lays out the purpose in the owner's manual.
You are the one in a thousand people who read the owner's manual?
It seems that many cars are left with this function on as default as they come out of the dealer.
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You are the one in a thousand people who read the owner's manual?
Which brings us to the next annoyance. I remember the good old days when owner's manuals contained valuable information.
Nowadays they appear to be written by lawyers and are mainly "you can't sue us for anything" one-sided contracts.
My car came with a 300+ pages book. The real information probably fits in about 50 pages. The rest is "take your fingers out before you slam the door", "don't forget your kids in the car" and "don't smoke when fueling up" hazard warnings. Recommended problem solving strategies are reduced to "contact your authorized dealership".
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My car came with a 300+ pages book. The real information probably fits in about 50 pages. The rest is "take your fingers out before you slam the door", "don't forget your kids in the car" and "don't smoke when fueling up" hazard warnings. Recommended problem solving strategies are reduced to "contact your authorized dealership".
The most ridiculous warning my car's manual had was to avoid the car breaking down, because if your car breaks down you might do so in cold weather and freeze to death. I'll make sure to schedule my breakdowns for the summer.
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The problem is that people unused to them don't realise they are on
I think a bigger problem is that the people that use them can't see them. They look at the car in front, which doesn't have them on, and think all is fine. Hell, those lights at the back will save them from anything, so must be better than not having them. They've never looked in their mirror and wondered why everything back to the horizon is bright red, or what that might be doing to the driver behind.
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In all the cars I had that featured fog lights, the dashboard indicator was a very clear orange light completely distinct from the regular beam lights (usually green), so hardly unnoticeable.
[rant]
However, just like with anything done using heavy machinery such as a multi-ton car, attention is paramount but a rare commodity in this world of adults with five-year-old attention spans, which can't either be bothered to read the manual or get a proper time to get familiarized with its controls. So we get these idiots that use fog lights or high beams constantly and can't be bothered to pay attention to their own dashboard.
Another case is how many drivers are completely ignorant of basic maintenance such as replacing a flat tire or inspecting the fluids.
[/rant]
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In all the cars I had that featured fog lights, the dashboard indicator was a very clear orange light completely distinct from the regular beam lights (usually green), so hardly unnoticeable.
As I tried to say above, the drivers are no doubt fully aware that the lights are on. In fact, I saw some of them turn the damn things on after travelling some way without. It's just that they don't appreciate the effect it has, which is why I suggest the indicator should be able to sear their eyeballs rather than just being noticeable.
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In all the cars I had that featured fog lights, the dashboard indicator was a very clear orange light completely distinct from the regular beam lights (usually green), so hardly unnoticeable.
As I tried to say above, the drivers are no doubt fully aware that the lights are on. In fact, I saw some of them turn the damn things on after travelling some way without. It's just that they don't appreciate the effect it has, which is why I suggest the indicator should be able to sear their eyeballs rather than just being noticeable.
I get it. Instead of lack of attention, it is a false perception of increased safety. :-+
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This.
When I come up behind a car with fogs on, have I run into the back of it? No, so why does it need spotlights shining in my eyes? All they do is create a wall of red, obscuring everything else, and persuade me to look away. If the driver stamps on his brakes I will be slow to react because the change of intensity from the brake lights is non-existent.
Further, if you're driving at a speed that you might run into the car ahead, you're going too fast and will plough through unlit obstacles your lights would otherwise show up. And being able to see that car much further ahead encourages faster driving because the driver thinks he can see much better than the actuality.
They should either be banned or turn off automatically as a vehicle arrives behind. Or have a dash indicator light of equal brightness. Preferably flashing.
Maybe the ones in modern cars are brighter than mine, I don't know, mine use the same type of bulb as the brake lights and all cars have those. They're intended to be used in heavy fog when visibility is low, primarily on the highway and such, not in city traffic where there's a car right behind you. I don't know if you get heavy fog where you are but we do from time to time and it can be quite difficult to see the tail lights on a car ahead of you. Driving more slowly brings its own problem, that someone will slam into the back of you. It would be nice if people drove slowly enough that they could see unlit obstacles but in the real world they usually don't. They are pretty rare here but always seemed like a great idea, the handful of cars that have them stand out nicely in low visibility, I don't recall ever being in a situation where I'm blinded right behind a car. Some regular brake lights and turn signals are obnoxiously bright now though.
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I get it. Instead of lack of attention, it is a false perception of increased safety. :-+
The number of people I see who leave their turn signal on for minutes after they have finished changing lanes, makes me think that many people do not check the dashboard of their car at all while driving. I was behind a HGV driver who had their signal lit for a good 20 minutes.
Then again perhaps I should be happy that they use their signal at all. So many don't, that's a proper peeve of mine, it's so effortless and yet people can't be bothered.
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Rear fog lights.
I need to ask: REAR fog lights? Seriously? I've never seen those, never even heard of them before this thread. Who drives backwards fast and long enough to justify REAR fog lights?
I figured this was a typo but nobody has said anything, so I have to ask....
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Then again perhaps I should be happy that they use their signal at all.
I avoid using turn signals as a small gesture for environmentalism. It takes energy to power those lights, you know. The small things add up. >:D
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Rear fog lights.
I need to ask: REAR fog lights? Seriously? I've never seen those, never even heard of them before this thread. Who drives backwards fast and long enough to justify REAR fog lights?
I figured this was a typo but nobody has said anything, so I have to ask....
I also never seen that, but just guessing if they are red lights that may help the following driver keep safe distance in foggy conditions. They are not for driving backwards methink.
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However, just like with anything done using heavy machinery such as a multi-ton car, attention is paramount but a rare commodity in this world of adults with five-year-old attention spans, which can't either be bothered to read the manual or get a proper time to get familiarized with its controls. So we get these idiots that use fog lights or high beams constantly and can't be bothered to pay attention to their own dashboard.
Another case is how many drivers are completely ignorant of basic maintenance such as replacing a flat tire or inspecting the fluids.
[/rant]
My friend's wife ignored the low tire pressure warning, then ignored the weird handling and the noises and continued driving on a flat tire until the rim cut completely through the tire. Destroyed a nearly $1k wheel and a $250 tire because she was so intent on finishing her errands. I simply cannot relate to people like that at all, I don't think they should be allowed to drive.
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Rear fog lights.
I need to ask: REAR fog lights? Seriously? I've never seen those, never even heard of them before this thread. Who drives backwards fast and long enough to justify REAR fog lights?
I figured this was a typo but nobody has said anything, so I have to ask....
They have been a standard feature on European cars for decades, the first time I saw them was when my parents bought a Volvo in 1986. They are just an additional red segment in the tail lamp clusters, often on just one side to reduce confusion, it's roughly the same as a brake light. It's a great feature when used properly, you're supposed to turn it on in thick fog, snow or other low visibility conditions so that cars approaching from the rear can see you. If you've never had the unpleasant experience of driving in thick fog it may not make a lot of sense, but I have and the rear fog lights work. Obviously (I thought) they're not for driving backwards, they're to help other drivers approaching from behind see you, not to help you see what's behind you.
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My current pet peeve: SolidWorks. I am very much a novice at 3D modeling, but anything but a novice when it comes to computers and applications, including pro apps, and I have never, EVER had a program cause me frustration the way SolidWorks does.
In terms of anything vaguely graphical, I’ve learned lots of professional graphics design software (FreeHand, PageMaker, Quark, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and more), Altium, Avid (pro video editing, back in the days when it ran only on custom hardware), Final Cut Pro, and rapid UI prototyping software.
I’m not afraid of complexity, having mastered all manner of other pro stuff back when I worked as a computer tech/consultant/system integrator.
But SolidWorks is doing my head in. Wild internal inconsistency, with things working sometimes, or not. Error messages that provide zero hints as to how to resolve the problem. Searching the web finds instructions… which don’t work. Official documentation referring to commands and user interface elements that don’t exist. Zooming seemingly designed by a moron. (I know, controlling 3D motion with a 2D input device is not trivial. But it doesn’t need to be brain-dead.) Using it is not only death by a thousand paper cuts, there’s also rusty razor blades hidden between the pages, and sometimes a dusting of itching powder that blows in your face just for fun.
All hyperbole aside, even my boss, who’s fairly experienced with SolidWorks, runs into oddities, and has been unable to explain or resolve some errors and problems I’ve encountered. (And I’ve seen him run into inexplicable inconsistencies, too.) I accept that professional software has a learning curve. It’s fresh in my mind, since I had never touched PCB layout software until just a bit less than 3 years ago. In that time I have become fairly proficient at Altium, which is not devoid of complexity, and does have a learning curve, albeit a fairly gentle one for pro software. I had some moments of frustration, sure, but nothing like what SolidWorks has caused. In Altium, I was always able to figure out why something didn’t do what I expected, and understand that 9 times out of 10, it was actually just some feature that I didn’t know how to configure to work for me, causing it to inadvertently work against me. So the problems led to me learning more about what Altium can do, and solving problems led me to learn how to use the software better. SolidWorks has been entirely unforthcoming with any such revelations.
I have the totally opposite experience. As someone who didn't used any 3D modelling app, Solidworks was very easy for me to pick up and start doing some programs for some brackets and cuts on a Laser Machine.
In one month I started from a zero and by the end of the month I was able to do this:
(https://i.imgur.com/2AX6CuI.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ItNpVTs.jpg)
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Rear fog lights.
Oh God, this is one of mine too!!!
Slightest mist and these muppets bang all the fog lights on, then forget they are on for the next month!!! They don't seem to realise that if you can see 100's of metres or more ahead then you don't fcuking need fog lights!!! It is actually an offence in the UK to have rear or front fog lights on when not actually needed. They are only needed when it is difficult or impossible to see cars more than around 20 mtrs in front, and if someone gets behind you that you can see, rear fogs should be turned off.
Another is the inconsiderate D heads that wash wipe their windscreen when someone is following directly behind them!! Typically this happens in summer when they see a few particles on their windscreen in direct sunlight, so wash wipe and you get it too!!!Cretins!!
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Not a pet peeve, but every man and his dog releasing a "New OS!" every month or so, which is basically a re-skinned, tweaked Ubuntu or other main distro. Android nerds love to do this too with 107 variants of re-skinned Android versions.
Yeah that's exactly what we need to lessen confusion, MORE derivative works.
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Rear fog lights.
I need to ask: REAR fog lights? Seriously? I've never seen those, never even heard of them before this thread. Who drives backwards fast and long enough to justify REAR fog lights?
I figured this was a typo but nobody has said anything, so I have to ask....
They have been a standard feature on European cars for decades, the first time I saw them was when my parents bought a Volvo in 1986. They are just an additional red segment in the tail lamp clusters, often on just one side to reduce confusion, it's roughly the same as a brake light. It's a great feature when used properly, you're supposed to turn it on in thick fog, snow or other low visibility conditions so that cars approaching from the rear can see you. If you've never had the unpleasant experience of driving in thick fog it may not make a lot of sense, but I have and the rear fog lights work. Obviously (I thought) they're not for driving backwards, they're to help other drivers approaching from behind see you, not to help you see what's behind you.
So American cars don't have rear fog lights?!
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Not that I've ever seen.
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Maybe the ones in modern cars are brighter than mine, I don't know, mine use the same type of bulb as the brake lights and all cars have those.
Yes, but your brake lights aren't on permanently. Worst case, you sit at lights with your foot on the brake (and, yes, that can be annoying to the following driver), but it's very temporary.
I don't know if you get heavy fog where you are but we do from time to time and it can be quite difficult to see the tail lights on a car ahead of you.
Yep, last night was very foggy, enough to make me slow down considerably. No problem detecting rear lights way before I would have run into the back, though - you should drive so you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear, and if that's 4' in front of your bumper then a car having normal lights will be quite some distance beyond that.
Worse when it's patchy fog. Then you get either wall of red in the dense stuff then unfiltered lasers in your eyes in the clear. Wouldn't be a problem if drivers would think "Oh, that car following sure knows I am here, I don't need the force field turned on now".
I don't recall ever being in a situation where I'm blinded right behind a car
Maybe you have sensible drivers over there! But even lights that are not ultra-bright drown out everything else. That's why you don't drive on main beam in fog (though I'm sure some probably do).
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Another is the inconsiderate D heads that wash wipe their windscreen when someone is following directly behind them!! Typically this happens in summer when they see a few particles on their windscreen in direct sunlight, so wash wipe and you get it too!!!Cretins!!
I do that all the time, never occurred to me to see what's behind me before I use the window washer. What does it matter? The cleaning fluid is mostly water.
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Rear fog lights.
I need to ask: REAR fog lights? Seriously? I've never seen those, never even heard of them before this thread. Who drives backwards fast and long enough to justify REAR fog lights?
I figured this was a typo but nobody has said anything, so I have to ask....
Assuming you're not Ed.K taking the piss...
You have two kinds of fog lights: front and rear. Front ones are at the front and white, supposed to let you see better than full-on main beams. Rear ones are red, at the rear.
Rear fogs have been mandatory for.. well, a long time. Most decent cars turn them off automatically when you turn the lights off (that is, where the fog switch is incorporated into the headlight switch, turning the lights off forces the fogs off, and you have to intentionally turn them on again next time). Not sure if that's mandatory now.
The Highway Code (which is what you will be held against if taken to court) says (https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/fog.html):
236
You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226) as they dazzle other road users and can obscure your brake lights. You MUST switch them off when visibility improves.
and rule 226:
226
You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres (328 feet). You may also use front or rear fog lights but you MUST switch them off when visibility improves (see Rule 236). Law RVLR regs 25 & 27
(The Highway Code uses SHOULD and MUST to confer advisory and mandatory meanings to rules.)
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Another is the inconsiderate D heads that wash wipe their windscreen when someone is following directly behind them!! Typically this happens in summer when they see a few particles on their windscreen in direct sunlight, so wash wipe and you get it too!!!Cretins!!
I do that all the time, never occurred to me to see what's behind me before I use the window washer. What does it matter? The cleaning fluid is mostly water.
One is meant to be considerate of other people. Just helps things run smoother, see.
What does it matter? You know when you wash/wipe your screen because it's a bit dirty, well now the chap following, whose screen was perfectly clear, now has a dirty screen that needs cleaning just like yours had.
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I have used my windshield washer to suggest to a tailgater that he back off.
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Another is the inconsiderate D heads that wash wipe their windscreen when someone is following directly behind them!! Typically this happens in summer when they see a few particles on their windscreen in direct sunlight, so wash wipe and you get it too!!!Cretins!!
You probably never drove in warmer climates. Critters can get smashed at any time against the windshield and Murphy's law tells us they will be smashed *always* at your focal point. That and the occasional spray from another vehicle puddle that never dries due to the storm drainage system clogged by other class of idiots that can't be bothered to use a trashcan.
I have used my windshield washer to suggest to a tailgater that he back off.
Precisely this. If my windshield gets dirty for any reason and at any time and any speed, I will use the washer. If you choose to tailgate, you get sprayed. Simple.
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One is meant to be considerate of other people. Just helps things run smoother, see.
What does it matter? You know when you wash/wipe your screen because it's a bit dirty, well now the chap following, whose screen was perfectly clear, now has a dirty screen that needs cleaning just like yours had.
Well I don't like driving around with bug splatter or bird poop on my windshield. I wouldn't have thought it would even get on another car, certainly I don't remember ever getting sprayed by a car that was in front of me. It's supposed to spray on the windshield, not up over the top of the car. I think if my washer is spraying them they're probably following too closely. Never even occurred to me that my spray would get on anyone else, it sprays onto the glass and runs downward and the wipers wipe it off to the side.
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Nowadays I always have a squeegee and a spray bottle of dish soap in my car. When I am about to drive off and notice any bird poop or other mess on my windshield I can fix it right away. Or when something happens along the drive that can't be solved with the wash/wipe function.
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WRT rear fog lights... I've never seen a car in the USA with that. And I've been driving a long time, multiple brands from multiple countries of manufacture.
Front fog lights are commonplace, sure. But rears? In RED? Never.
MORE: Info from https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15343065/gah-what-is-that-blinding-red-light-oh-right-un-regulation-48/: (https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15343065/gah-what-is-that-blinding-red-light-oh-right-un-regulation-48/:)
"Especially when weather conditions are variable, as in winter, you may find yourself following a car or truck with a bright red light that is always illuminated, regardless of what its brake lights are doing. Those little red lights are the rear fog lamps. If you’re an American, you’ll be forgiven for not knowing such a light exists on many cars and trucks."
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WRT rear fog lights... I've never seen a car in the USA with that. And I've been driving a long time, multiple brands from multiple countries of manufacture.
Front fog lights are commonplace, sure. But rears? In RED? Never.
You've probably seen it and not realized what you were looking at, it just looks like tail lights that are brighter than usual, it's part of the tail light assemblies in most cars, not a separate unit, often only on the left side but some cars have two. It has been a standard feature on Volvos since the early 80s, and I've seen it in BMWs too. I think most European cars have it, or at least a provision for it.
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Perhaps. I'm certainly sensitized to it NOW! :o
I have a 2020 Lotus, and it was designed when the UK was part of the EU, yet it doesn't have any sort of rear fog lights. Hmmmm.
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Perhaps. I'm certainly sensitized to it NOW! :o
I have a 2020 Lotus, and it was designed when the UK was part of the EU, yet it doesn't have any sort of rear fog lights. Hmmmm.
Does it have amber turn signals? Most European cars exported to the US are adapted for that market.
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MORE: Info from https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15343065/gah-what-is-that-blinding-red-light-oh-right-un-regulation-48/: (https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15343065/gah-what-is-that-blinding-red-light-oh-right-un-regulation-48/:)
Yep, that's them. Except the ones shown there are dinky kids compared to the stuff over here now.
Once upon a time there were regulations about the size and position of lights on cars (in the UK) and most were pretty similar. Then sometime around when LEDs because usable on cars, those regs appear to have been binned and now you get all kinds of stuff. Manufacturers use the lights to identify the car model and come up with truly weird configurations. And now stuff like fog lights are full-blown floodlights because that fits the brand ... logo, for want of a better word, better.
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Perhaps. I'm certainly sensitized to it NOW! :o
I have a 2020 Lotus, and it was designed when the UK was part of the EU, yet it doesn't have any sort of rear fog lights. Hmmmm.
For many years it was common for European cars exported to the US to have special US market headlights. Usually the taillights are the same, but it's possible the rear fog light(s) do not have the wire or bulb socket installed, if you're curious you could look at the tail lights and see if there's an unused reflector section. It may also be a separate assembly on UK/European market cars.
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However, just like with anything done using heavy machinery such as a multi-ton car, attention is paramount but a rare commodity in this world of adults with five-year-old attention spans, which can't either be bothered to read the manual or get a proper time to get familiarized with its controls. So we get these idiots that use fog lights or high beams constantly and can't be bothered to pay attention to their own dashboard.
Another case is how many drivers are completely ignorant of basic maintenance such as replacing a flat tire or inspecting the fluids.
[/rant]
My friend's wife ignored the low tire pressure warning, then ignored the weird handling and the noises and continued driving on a flat tire until the rim cut completely through the tire. Destroyed a nearly $1k wheel and a $250 tire because she was so intent on finishing her errands. I simply cannot relate to people like that at all, I don't think they should be allowed to drive.
Before we had fancy stuff like that, drivers would glance at their tyres when they first went out to the car in the morning, & notice if one "looked a bit low".
Another thing is that experienced drivers will notice something a bit funny about the "ride" well before the point of major damage occurs.
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Quite away from the car thing, one of my pet peeves is when someone posts a screen shot of some particular brand of DSO, asking for help with analysing a waveform.
These usually have all sorts of unconnected stuff on the display, which is confusing to others with a different flavour of DSO, or even, shock!, horror! :scared: :scared:, an analogue Oscilloscope.
It would be helpful if the actual settings, like time/div, & volts/div, were included in the text to make it a bit easier.
Usually, the would-be "helper" is left to make an educated guess of such settings, but even when the guess is right, the graticule is often almost invisible, making "counting squares" as a sanity check on the strange displayed voltage & frequency readings difficult.
Not having a modern (or any) DSO, I am unsure if the unused stuff on their screens can be turned off, but if it can, it would add a lot to the clarity of screenshots.
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Before we had fancy stuff like that, drivers would glance at their tyres when they first went out to the car in the morning, & notice if one "looked a bit low".
Another thing is that experienced drivers will notice something a bit funny about the "ride" well before the point of major damage occurs.
She ignored a big glaring warning indicator, weird handling and a nasty noise and you think she would have checked the pressure or paid any more attention without those gadgets? I don't. Some people are simply oblivious to such things.
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Before we had fancy stuff like that, drivers would glance at their tyres when they first went out to the car in the morning, & notice if one "looked a bit low".
Another thing is that experienced drivers will notice something a bit funny about the "ride" well before the point of major damage occurs.
Things have changed. 30 years ago a car felt really different if the tyre pressures were just a little off. Now the pressures can be very badly wrong, and you barely feel it when driving. Modern low profile tyres don't even look that squishy unless the pressure approaches zero.
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I agree, three decades ago, 'puffy' or 'sloppy' tyre pressure meant the vehicle would fail to track, even on the straight line. As for braking, good luck with that on a summer's day. There's a good reason to "kick the tyres and light the fires", but with driver suspension modes, ABS and power steering, haptic feedback through the streering column is long gone. Try driving a classic car, your wrists will hurt.
Lookout for a tyre pressure warning icon that resembles a tiny space invader sprite somewhere on the digital binnacle. ( It's possibly been there since you took delivery ) A modern car is like an iphone, we just use the bits we understand. Which too often is often too little.
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Lookout for a tyre pressure warning icon that resembles a tiny space invader sprite somewhere on the digital binnacle. ( It's possibly been there since you took delivery ) A modern car is like an iphone, we just use the bits we understand. Which too often is often too little.
This was a Tesla, the tire pressure warning was shown on a huge touchscreen in the middle of the dash. Even the small warning lights on the cluster should be hard to miss though, I always monitor all of my instruments regularly while I'm driving. There's no way a warning light would come on without being quickly noticed.
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Ah yes, so why did the Tesla not send a notification to the driver's iPhone? We live in an apps world, so Facebook is where many driver's attention is focused these days. Just observe the moms collecting their brats from the school gate.
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Ah yes, so why did the Tesla not send a notification to the driver's iPhone? We live in an apps world, so Facebook is where many driver's attention is focused these days. Just observe the moms collecting their brats from the school gate.
You think that would have made a difference? She was so focused on running her errands that she ignored all sorts of warnings. This is not a matter of a person not noticing the warnings, they are actively ignoring them because their mind is focused on something else. It happens surprisingly often, talk to any professional mechanic and they'll have a bunch of stories about replacing destroyed engines that were overheated so badly or run out of oil because they had a cooling system failure or oil leak and the driver "just wanted to get home" and kept going until it literally stopped running.
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I have used my windshield washer to suggest to a tailgater that he back off.
Precisely this. If my windshield gets dirty for any reason and at any time and any speed, I will use the washer. If you choose to tailgate, you get sprayed. Simple.
Even if that happens to be when in a queue of slow moving traffic or, if the car behind is a safe distance? That's just a fcuking inconsiderate, belligerent attitude..
Spray back from using wash wipe can reach quite a way behind. No wonder there is so much gun crime in America.
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UK postal strikes!! Causing me all sorts of havoc!! Also, I didn't realise that Parcel Force is striking in sympathy!! I'm still waiting for 2 parcels that were sent from Germany and Holland over 3 weeks ago, normally they would take about 4-5 days!! And there is a consequential effect, people are sending stuff by other carriers to avoid the delays, which has pushed their volume through the roof so many of those are now taking much longer.
All intentional by Royal Mail of course, but still a PITA!!! I do sympathise with mail workers, they are driven like slaves and whose wages aren't exactly generous.
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Even if that happens to be when in a queue of slow moving traffic or, if the car behind is a safe distance? That's just a fcuking inconsiderate, belligerent attitude..
Spray back from using wash wipe can reach quite a way behind. No wonder there is so much gun crime in America.
So my vision is obscured but my ability to clean it, and improve my safety, is dictated by the tailgater behind me?
If traffic is moving slowly the spray likely doesn't reach back to a following car. Same if the car behind is a "safe distance".
I get your point but think about the scenarios. Someone else's poor choices cannot always force me into making more poor choices.
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Things have changed. 30 years ago a car felt really different if the tyre pressures were just a little off. Now the pressures can be very badly wrong, and you barely feel it when driving. Modern low profile tyres don't even look that squishy unless the pressure approaches zero.
This. My Golf has 18" wheels with 1.5" sidewalls. Had a flat a week ago. All I noticed was a louder than usual banging whenever I went over a pothole in the road, but the ride otherwise felt OK. About 30 seconds after the banging started the car's ABS-based TPMS warned of pressure loss. The tyre was very hot to the touch and due to it being a wet day, steam was coming from it, so I imagine if I had tried to drive much further it could have turned into a blowout type situation. I call that system a win - because while I'm reasonably attentive I can imagine my partner would not have noticed that.
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If traffic is moving slowly the spray likely doesn't reach back to a following car. Same if the car behind is a "safe distance".
I get your point but think about the scenarios. Someone else's poor choices cannot always force me into making more poor choices.
The spray does reach back, sometimes even when stationary, the washer jets on modern cars are quite powerful, hence my peeve, because it happens to me on a regular basis!!
Maybe your perception of safe distance and tail gating is different to mine, but I don't tailgate when moving, the only time I get closer than normal is when in a queue or stationary, but even driving at normal speeds and at a safe distance the spray does reach back, because of airflow. Anyway, it's a peeve of mine, don't want to labour the the point.
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UK postal strikes!! ... I do sympathise with mail workers, they are driven like slaves and whose wages aren't exactly generous.
Speaking to our posty, his big beef is that management have decided they will all work 9-5. Many of them want to keep working the current 4am-2pm but they're told they can't any more. Having done shift work I can sympathise - you get the benefit of being an employee but also get to enjoy half a day of daytime when you can go shopping and stuff, or just sit and soak up the rays.
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Had a flat a week ago ... could have turned into a blowout type situation
Er...
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Even if that happens to be when in a queue of slow moving traffic or, if the car behind is a safe distance? That's just a fcuking inconsiderate, belligerent attitude..
Spray back from using wash wipe can reach quite a way behind. No wonder there is so much gun crime in America.
Why? If you're in a slow moving queue why would the spray even get to you? Maybe some cars are different but my washers spray onto the windshield, not over the top of the car. What on earth do window washers have to do with gun crime? I've been driving for ~25 years and I have never once in my recollection gotten sprayed by someone else's windshield washers, if I did I didn't notice. Is it seriously that big of a problem? Having never encountered it it has never even occurred to me before this thread that someone could be bothered by it.
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Even if that happens to be when in a queue of slow moving traffic or, if the car behind is a safe distance? That's just a fcuking inconsiderate, belligerent attitude..
Spray back from using wash wipe can reach quite a way behind. No wonder there is so much gun crime in America.
Why? If you're in a slow moving queue why would the spray even get to you? Maybe some cars are different but my washers spray onto the windshield, not over the top of the car. What on earth do window washers have to do with gun crime? I've been driving for ~25 years and I have never once in my recollection gotten sprayed by someone else's windshield washers, if I did I didn't notice. Is it seriously that big of a problem? Having never encountered it it has never even occurred to me before this thread that someone could be bothered by it.
I have had the "burden" once in a while. At 120Km an hour the spray can reach quite a distance, but no big deal, click your own wipers and it is done with. No reason to get upset about it.
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Even if that happens to be when in a queue of slow moving traffic or, if the car behind is a safe distance? That's just a fcuking inconsiderate, belligerent attitude..
Spray back from using wash wipe can reach quite a way behind. No wonder there is so much gun crime in America.
Why? If you're in a slow moving queue why would the spray even get to you? Maybe some cars are different but my washers spray onto the windshield, not over the top of the car. What on earth do window washers have to do with gun crime? I've been driving for ~25 years and I have never once in my recollection gotten sprayed by someone else's windshield washers, if I did I didn't notice. Is it seriously that big of a problem? Having never encountered it it has never even occurred to me before this thread that someone could be bothered by it.
Back in the day, windscreen washers were adjustable, so they sprayed onto the screen properly.
Occasionally, you would see a car with incorrectly adjusted washers spraying wastefully into the air, but they were quite rare.
OK, they are affected by vehicle speed, but could be adjusted for the best compromise.
In any case, if you are travelling that fast, the driver behind shouldn't be tailgating you.
You probably have to use a smartphone "app" to adjust them these days, anyhow! :D
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The problem is that people unused to them don't realise they are on, so in non-fog conditions, following traffic is confronted by this very bright red light.
That's hardly the fault of the feature that people don't know what the switch is for. Mine clearly lays out the purpose in the owner's manual.
You are the one in a thousand people who read the owner's manual?
It seems that many cars are left with this function on as default as they come out of the dealer.
From a german's point of view this dicussion is funny. Over here, fog lights are mandatory, and everybody learns at driving school that using them in non-foggy situations, or failing to use them in heavy fog, constitutes an infraction and leads to getting fined.
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The problem is that people unused to them don't realise they are on, so in non-fog conditions, following traffic is confronted by this very bright red light.
That's hardly the fault of the feature that people don't know what the switch is for. Mine clearly lays out the purpose in the owner's manual.
You are the one in a thousand people who read the owner's manual?
It seems that many cars are left with this function on as default as they come out of the dealer.
From a german's point of view this dicussion is funny. Over here, fog lights are mandatory, and everybody learns at driving school that using them in non-foggy situations, or failing to use them in heavy fog, constitutes an infraction and leads to getting fined.
Same in Portugal and also in China (I had to to a small written test to convert my European Licence to the Chinese one). I suppose that the non use in conditions who don't warrant it is something that is universal around the world.
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Even if that happens to be when in a queue of slow moving traffic or, if the car behind is a safe distance? That's just a fcuking inconsiderate, belligerent attitude..
Inconsiderate and belligerent? Yeah, my safety before your (in)convenience of being sprinkled.
Slow moving traffic does not cause the spray to reach that far back, unless the nozzles are completely out of wack (common in older cars) or there is a heavy front wind.
No wonder there is so much gun crime in America.
Looking at your reactions I think you are the one that, if given the opportunity, would be most bound to use a gun* against someone when confronted with such situation. This makes you the problem, not me or "America".
*Ok, given it is the UK, I could probably say knife instead of gun.
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From a german's point of view this dicussion is funny. Over here, fog lights are mandatory, and everybody learns at driving school that using them in non-foggy situations, or failing to use them in heavy fog, constitutes an infraction and leads to getting fined.
Most people know about front facing foglamps----the rear facing ones are a bit less well known.
A lot of things are self-evident in particular weather conditions, but nonsense in others.
In Australia, there has been a big push to drive on dipped beams during the day----"for safety".
In WA where I live, I did a simple test on a sunny day during a drive in the country.
There was no difference in visibility between the cars with dipped beams or headlights off.
Even in traffic, the visibiity is not improved.
Towards dusk, or during a very dark Winter's day, most people do put their headlights on.
Usually, fog only lasts a few hours when it occurs, so the habit of having foglamps, either front or rear is not ingrained.
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We see that "headlights on for safety" thing here in the USA too. Like many such things, it only works by exception. If only one or two cars have their headlights on in the daytime, they do indeed stand out. But if everyone has their lights on, things blur into a sea of random-ish lights and they sort of fade into the background of your awareness. True for auditory noise too, basically true for almost any sensory input. Your brain automatically masks the commonplace while seeking to filter down to the unusual and noteworthy. Probably an evolutionary survival trait.
So, ironically, to best optimize your own safety you should encourage others to NOT turn on their headlights - while you proceed to do so! Altruism only goes so far, after all.
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Those idiot industrial designers that make things to tight, like on my Microsoft wireless mouse. The battery compartment is just a wee bit to small making it hard to remove and insert a battery. Had to use pliers just now to get the rechargeable one out of it >:(
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Had a flat a week ago ... could have turned into a blowout type situation
Er...
Forgive me, I couldn't think of the right word... the situation when the tyre comes off the rim because it loses pressure. That's quite common with lowish profile wheels. Then you have rim on tarmac, which probably means you need a replacement wheel even if you notice almost immediately. You need to stop as soon as pressure is lost to be safe.
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We see that "headlights on for safety" thing here in the USA too. Like many such things, it only works by exception. If only one or two cars have their headlights on in the daytime, they do indeed stand out. But if everyone has their lights on, things blur into a sea of random-ish lights and they sort of fade into the background of your awareness. True for auditory noise too, basically true for almost any sensory input. Your brain automatically masks the commonplace while seeking to filter down to the unusual and noteworthy. Probably an evolutionary survival trait.
So, ironically, to best optimize your own safety you should encourage others to NOT turn on their headlights - while you proceed to do so! Altruism only goes so far, after all.
In WA, on the open road, I could see the sun reflecting off the windscreens at a longer distance than I could see if their lights were on.
I agree with motorbikes having their lights on, as they have a much smaller surface area for natural light to reflect from.
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In WA where I live, I did a simple test on a sunny day during a drive in the country.
There was no difference in visibility between the cars with dipped beams or headlights off.
I think there is a difference, but it's not measurable. The dipped beams don't add anything but they look different, like a green stripe on a yellow background. Or, in the UK here, a blue light amongst many white and red ones - you catch it out of the corner of your eye and notice it even though it's insignificant. A daylight running light used to be unusual enough to catch most people's attention (and is why bikes used to have them on). Now everyone has them the effect is reduced, but it's still there. I think it's the artificial light vs natural reflection thing.
Edit: Many years ago I had a bike onto which I fitted twin spotlights, for better illumination the single headlights then were pants). I had to dump them because cars were pulling out of side roads right in front of me! The visibility was obviously much better than with the single headlight, but to the waiting driver it would look like a car coming, and since a car is 6' or so wide they automatically saw me being much further away than I was. Unintended consequences and all that.
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On the subject of lights... walkers/runners with head-mounted torches. And cyclists with super-bright LEDs. Same issue as with fog lights - to the user they seem great, but everyone else is blinded by them.
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I think that's probably because bicycle lights fidget about with the riders movements, so the glare fluctuates, also of course, they don't have dip beam!
For the benefit of American, and other countries that don't realise, daylight running lights became mandatory in the UK from 2011. I think, but could be wrong on this, some manufacturers just removed the headlight switch, so the headlights became the DRL's, others fitted, or had already fitted dedicated DRL's.
This was possibly an EU influenced law!!
Motorcycles are exempt, but a bike I bought new in 2018 has a permanent on headlight anyway! I don't like this because it's a nuisance when you are working on the bike in the garage, especially at night, and the bl00dy headlamp is on!!
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DRL's have been standard in the USA for some time now. Like anything that's universal, they've basically faded into the noise floor and don't provide the awareness that they're intended to. It's a constant game of one-upsmanship. I wonder how far this will go?
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I can't stand people that whistle. Also, people that eat with their mouth open and talk with food in their mouth.
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people that eat with their mouth open and talk with food in their mouth
<sweeps crumbs from keyboard>
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I can't stand people that whistle.
:-DD :-DD When I opened this thread for viewing I was whistling :-DD :-DD
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On the subject of lights... walkers/runners with head-mounted torches. And cyclists with super-bright LEDs. Same issue as with fog lights - to the user they seem great, but everyone else is blinded by them.
The bloody blinking ones are horrible! If I'm tired, and they're the fast kind, I get sick. Others get migraine.
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[/quote] :-DD :-DD When I opened this thread for viewing I was whistling :-DD :-DD
[/quote]
LOL!
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People who whistle *while you're answering their question*.
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People who whistle their esses are worse. Hurts my hearing, those piercing high tones in there.
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People who whistle their esses are worse. Hurts my hearing, those piercing high tones in there.
In the heyday of radio broadcasting, the National Broadcasting Company network published a list of preferred words to avoid sibilants (including that one) that would distort in microphones.
There were also announcers' tests to qualify for broadcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Announcer%27s_test
The last one listed there, from WFMT in Chicago, continues to show up during their holiday broadcasts.
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^^ The old timey barber shop where you would be sitting there getting your hair cut and there would be an AM radio on the bench most often tuned to the races and nearly always it would be slightly off the station, causing all sorts of sibilance. 😵💫
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^^ The old timey barber shop where you would be sitting there getting your hair cut and there would be an AM radio on the bench most often tuned to the races and nearly always it would be slightly off the station, causing all sorts of sibilance. 😵💫
I think it's the law. Here in the UK it's always Talk Sport on AM/Medium wave. With DAB the signal to noise ratio falls off a cliff when the electric clippers start sparking EMI. At least the performance of the latest Manchester United soccer manager is always a good conversation starter - barbers are just so opinionated.
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... barbers are just so opinionated.
And we are not :-DD :-DD
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It's not an opinion when we are correct!
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That brings to mind another pet peeve, which I may or may not have already mentioned at some point. When strangers make smalltalk with me and bring up sports, this happens often when our local football or baseball team are doing well. People just assume I'm excited about it when in reality I usually have not paid any attention at all and could not care less. It gets annoying to be asked about the Seahawks 5 times in a day by store cashiers and such. I've never had any interest in sportsball.
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That brings to mind another pet peeve, which I may or may not have already mentioned at some point. When strangers make smalltalk with me and bring up sports, this happens often when our local football or baseball team are doing well. People just assume I'm excited about it when in reality I usually have not paid any attention at all and could not care less. It gets annoying to be asked about the Seahawks 5 times in a day by store cashiers and such. I've never had any interest in sportsball.
Hows about them Seahawks?;D ;D
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I respond "What's a seahawk" (or whatever the team name) and I usually get a blank open-mouthed stare, followed by their departure. Success!
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Until we stamp out fish, we'll never get rid of them!
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I respond "What's a seahawk" (or whatever the team name) and I usually get a blank open-mouthed stare, followed by their departure. Success!
That's a Seahawk![attachimg=1]
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I've never had any interest in sportsball.
Me too. Could not give a rats ass about sports others do. Only "sport" I do for health purposes is a brisk walk every day.
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Me too. Could not give a rats ass about sports others do. Only "sport" I do for health purposes is a brisk walk every day.
I actually enjoyed playing floor hockey when I was in highschool, but watching other people play sports is the most boring thing ever. A while back my cousin who is a radio announcer for a minor league baseball team got a bunch of tickets to a major league game and gave them out to my family, I went along to visit with some relatives I don't see often and I'd never been to a pro game. I quickly found out it was about as entertaining as watching paint dry and spent the second half of the game walking around exploring the stadium.
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Same here, but then from my twenties to thirties with table-tennis (ping pong) and badminton. Only sports I ever liked doing. Now with my CFS even thinking about these sports makes me tired :-DD
A 4Km walk is what I can do without consequences and keeps things in check. Without it the body becomes stiff and more painful.
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Me too. Could not give a rats ass about sports others do. Only "sport" I do for health purposes is a brisk walk every day.
I actually enjoyed playing floor hockey when I was in highschool, but watching other people play sports is the most boring thing ever. A while back my cousin who is a radio announcer for a minor league baseball team got a bunch of tickets to a major league game and gave them out to my family, I went along to visit with some relatives I don't see often and I'd never been to a pro game. I quickly found out it was about as entertaining as watching paint dry and spent the second half of the game walking around exploring the stadium.
I'ts not so bad if you are sitting in the executive booth with free booze! :D
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I'ts not so bad if you are sitting in the executive booth with free booze! :D
Does not help when you don't drink alcohol :-DD
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As if youtube follows postings here, because this one popped up on my list :-DD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fraSdN-PG8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fraSdN-PG8)
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That brings to mind another pet peeve, which I may or may not have already mentioned at some point. When strangers make smalltalk with me and bring up sports, this happens often when our local football or baseball team are doing well. People just assume I'm excited about it when in reality I usually have not paid any attention at all and could not care less. It gets annoying to be asked about the Seahawks 5 times in a day by store cashiers and such. I've never had any interest in sportsball.
Same here, it's the football world cup at the moment and it's giving me the rage!! Every 'king news program, TV and radio, almost everyone I speak to is going on, and on, and on, and on, and on...........about it!! I HATE the game and everything to do with it!! I mainly listen to radio for information but every station just has to have a sports update at every news break, which is twice per hour for commercial stations!!! Even the Times Radio station does it, in fact, worse than most of the others!!! ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! STOP IT!!!
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Same here, it's the football world cup at the moment and it's giving me the rage!! Every 'king news program, TV and radio,
and all but 1 mainstream channels insist you want to watch bits of a cow getting kicked around a field instead of what's normally on that channel at that time
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OMG basketball literally takes over most broadcast channels in the winter in the USA. Channels devoted to almost everything else have their schedules pre-empted for weeks. How can there be that many games? Or viewers to watch them? Don't they know there are *already* multiple dedicated networks for sports? News, finance, weather, science, all must yield to basketball. No wonder the average IQ and sperm counts are declining.
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:-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD :-DD
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Don't they know there are *already* multiple dedicated networks for sports? No wonder the average IQ and sperm counts are declining.
Same in the UK, except it's football, rugby, cricket and now, bl00dy womens football!! We have dedicated tv and radio sports channels, but the MS media insist on fouling up their programming with sports too!!! We used to have a rest from sports coverage over winter but now they cover global sports too, so no rest over winter!! Good job the internet comes to the rescue, but it would be such a relief if just the radio could manage with say just 2 sports updates per day, say lunch time and evening, I could live with that and filter it out, but not every news break!! Those words, and now for the sports news, just push my stress levels out of sight!!
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and all but 1 mainstream channels insist you want to watch bits of a cow getting kicked around a field instead of what's normally on that channel at that time
Same crap as when the Queen died... I mean, I get it, but do we need two weeks of nearly non-stop coverage? She was a political figurehead, a major celebrity, sure, but ultimately not that important any more.
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womens football!!
Oh, I like women's football. I am fan of Olympique Lyonnais. The french team from Lyon that won the UEFA Champions League this summer. But now there is some trouble as many of the star players have knee ligament injuries, they seem to be a bit more fragile on women.
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OMG basketball literally takes over most broadcast channels in the winter in the USA. Channels devoted to almost everything else have their schedules pre-empted for weeks. How can there be that many games? Or viewers to watch them? Don't they know there are *already* multiple dedicated networks for sports? News, finance, weather, science, all must yield to basketball. No wonder the average IQ and sperm counts are declining.
Yes that drives me nuts, there's a retro radio station which is the only worthwhile AM station around that I listen to with my vintage radios, they have period music and old fashioned radio dramas, and during basketball season broadcasting the game takes over the regular programming. It's annoying, if I wanted to listen to sports there are already multiple AM sports and talk stations.
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Same in the UK, except it's football, rugby, cricket and now, bl00dy womens football!!
At least it's real football, not handegg which has some major ethics issues regarding known safety issues that have been left unsolved for a long time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzbxrnm7jXc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzbxrnm7jXc)
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At least it's real football, not handegg which has some major ethics issues regarding known safety issues that have been left unsolved for a long time.
Same "brain" issues are now being discussed with football, knocking balls with your heads, heads against eachother.
Today football is a full contact sport, sometimes it resembles a battlefield. And with the arabian oil dollars the european competition has also been bought which is not so much fun. It is more exiting when all the competition teams would be +/- equal in strenghth. Nowadays you know the outcome of many european leagues at forehand, at least the first three teams.
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As if youtube follows postings here, because this one popped up on my list :-DD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fraSdN-PG8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fraSdN-PG8)
This might be why..
Garfunkel & Oates Foretold Kanye’s Future All the Way Back in 2009
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/garfunkel-andamp-oates-foretold-kanyes-future-all-the-way-back-in-2009/ar-AA154oJR (https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/garfunkel-andamp-oates-foretold-kanyes-future-all-the-way-back-in-2009/ar-AA154oJR)
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This might be why..
Garfunkel & Oates Foretold Kanye’s Future All the Way Back in 2009
I saw a video of that performance on youtube, but I did not know whom they where referring to. Had never heard of Kane West, and still don't know who he is or what he does. Don't care either.
But it shows what I have known all along. Bigots live on both sides of the fence. :palm:
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Had never heard of Kane West, and still don't know who he is or what he does. Don't care either.
I don't know how it's possible to have not heard of Kanye West. He's a loudmouth that has been all over the news for years.
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Not having heard of Kanye West seems to be an advantage of living in the Netherlands.
Like any other countries, the Netherlands has bad people who are not well-known in the US.
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Had never heard of Kane West, and still don't know who he is or what he does. Don't care either.
I don't know how it's possible to have not heard of Kanye West. He's a loudmouth that has been all over the news for years.
Have you thought to consider that maybe pcprogrammer is actually deaf? That would very well explain why he's never heard of Kanye West at all because he's never heard him.
Not having heard of Kanye West seems to be an advantage of living in the Netherlands.
Like any other countries, the Netherlands has bad people who are not well-known in the US.
Conversely, the US (may have) bad people who are not well-known in the Netherlands.
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Had never heard of Kane West, and still don't know who he is or what he does. Don't care either.
I don't know how it's possible to have not heard of Kanye West. He's a loudmouth that has been all over the news for years.
Have you thought to consider that maybe pcprogrammer is actually deaf? That would very well explain why he's never heard of Kanye West at all because he's never heard him.
Not having heard of Kanye West seems to be an advantage of living in the Netherlands.
Like any other countries, the Netherlands has bad people who are not well-known in the US.
Conversely, the US (may have) bad people who are not well-known in the Netherlands.
English distinguishes between “to hear” and “to hear of”. Or, as in the Gospels, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
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English distinguishes between “to hear” and “to hear of”. Or, as in the Gospels, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
I get that there's a difference between the two expressions. My reply was intended to be a joke, and not be taken too seriously. My fault, I guess.
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Speaking for myself, I've heard the name but have no idea why his? her? name is known. I'm guessing professional sports figure? That's the usual reason, and I don't care about professional sports so I'd have no idea.
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Speaking for myself, I've heard the name but have no idea why his? her? name is known. I'm guessing professional sports figure? That's the usual reason, and I don't care about professional sports so I'd have no idea.
No, he's an extremely wealthy musician, record producer, reality star, US presidential candidate and all around obnoxious narcissistic jerk. I kind of wish I didn't know who he was, but you practically have to live under a rock to have missed him.
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(Sorry Space Fans),
Floating Interviews, in space station.
Did I mention, they are floating, there! Maybe sounds sarcastic, sorry..., but they just float. That's it.
A person gets to where they want to see; A
roller-derby style team contest of wills, floating
'weight-less' wills. A circular track, ala 'A Space Odessey'.
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No, he's an extremely wealthy musician, record producer, reality star, US presidential candidate and all around obnoxious narcissistic jerk. I kind of wish I didn't know who he was, but you practically have to live under a rock to have missed him.
Guess I'll crawl back under my rock.
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I don't know how it's possible to have not heard of Kanye West. He's a loudmouth that has been all over the news for years.
Oh that is very simple. I don't follow the news myself. The wife does and updates me on relevant stuff. Also have not followed the music scene for many many years because I hate most of the crap that is produced. Have a large set of ripped CD's of the oldies on my computer and play these instead of listening to some radio station with a lot of bullshit talk and shitty rap or other crap music. >:D
Not having heard of Kanye West seems to be an advantage of living in the Netherlands.
I'm Dutch, but live in rural France. Even less exposure to the idiots in the world. :-DD
Like any other countries, the Netherlands has bad people who are not well-known in the US.
Most likely also true for "good" people, it is a small country with only 18 million people, so peanuts compared to the states.
But on the subject of idiots, who knows of Thierry Baudet or Geert Wilders to name just a few.
Have you thought to consider that maybe pcprogrammer is actually deaf? That would very well explain why he's never heard of Kanye West at all because he's never heard him.
Yes deaf for the idiots in this world. :-DD
And by the sound of it this Kane West is one for sure. ::)
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Whatsapp... during Paypal security check where Whatsapp is sometimes selected as the default selection (which I don't have don't want and have absolutely no interest in) instead of the option below to just send a text with the confirmation numbers like before.
Sometimes I accidentally continue waiting and waiting expecting to receive a text to realize later why it hasn't come through and that just aggravates things considering it is a poor signal area where I have to put my phone in certain places to get a signal.
Also now being asked to call someone back on Whatsapp through a text message.
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I don't know how it's possible to have not heard of Kanye West. He's a loudmouth that has been all over the news for years.
Oh that is very simple. I don't follow the news myself. The wife does and updates me on relevant stuff. Also have not followed the music scene for many many years because I hate most of the crap that is produced. Have a large set of ripped CD's of the oldies on my computer and play these instead of listening to some radio station with a lot of bullshit talk and shitty rap or other crap music. >:D
Not having heard of Kanye West seems to be an advantage of living in the Netherlands.
I'm Dutch, but live in rural France. Even less exposure to the idiots in the world. :-DD
Like any other countries, the Netherlands has bad people who are not well-known in the US.
Most likely also true for "good" people, it is a small country with only 18 million people, so peanuts compared to the states.
But on the subject of idiots, who knows of Thierry Baudet or Geert Wilders to name just a few.
Have you thought to consider that maybe pcprogrammer is actually deaf? That would very well explain why he's never heard of Kanye West at all because he's never heard him.
Yes deaf for the idiots in this world. :-DD
And by the sound of it this Kane West is one for sure. ::)
Of course, if you insist on Googling "Kane West", you won't find "Kanye West", who has changed his name to "Ye".
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Of course, if you insist on Googling "Kane West", you won't find "Kanye West", who has changed his name to "Ye".
I tried that and got "About 275,000,000 results". There have been a few mentally ill celebrities that change their name, sometimes repeatedly, bu most of the world continues to use their former name.
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Of course, if you insist on Googling "Kane West", you won't find "Kanye West", who has changed his name to "Ye".
I tried that and got "About 275,000,000 results". There have been a few mentally ill celebrities that change their name, sometimes repeatedly, bu most of the world continues to use their former name.
Googling "Kane West" gave "Showing results for kanye west". That's what I meant.
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Whatsapp... during Paypal security check where Whatsapp is sometimes selected as the default selection (which I don't have don't want and have absolutely no interest in) instead of the option below to just send a text with the confirmation numbers like before.
Sometimes I accidentally continue waiting and waiting expecting to receive a text to realize later why it hasn't come through and that just aggravates things considering it is a poor signal area where I have to put my phone in certain places to get a signal.
Also now being asked to call someone back on Whatsapp through a text message.
I don't wanna be "That guy" but I'm going to...
Delete PayPal. I was on PayPal from the early days and put up with it when they decided not to continue the football 3rd factor authentication when my one's battery ran out. Then this year they shoved their woke bullshit into the T&S. Nar. Out of patience.
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Alternative theory, its all a ploy to get out of his contract with his management/record company without losing money
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Googling "Kane West" gave "Showing results for kanye west". That's what I meant.
Oh I didn't even notice that said Kane instead of Kanye.
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Googling "Kane West" gave "Showing results for kanye west". That's what I meant.
Oh I didn't even notice that said Kane instead of Kanye.
Google didn't say "Did you mean Citizen Kane?" LOL
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Oh I didn't even notice that said Kane instead of Kanye.
Yep, what a playaz. (that's player not Copacabana del Rio). Kane, Kayne or even Cane, moot point as his name is now [official]...
YE
Sorry for the gratituous use of HTML on the forum, but that's the only way to describe the etymology. Nuts? He married into the carcrashian clan. Wikipedia, thank you.
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What's this about woke stuff in PayPal Terms of Service?
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What's this about woke stuff in PayPal Terms of Service?
Not sure if serious. :-\
But anyway, start here..
In a quickly-reversed policy move, the web’s leading payments processor, PayPal, announced it would deduct $2,500 from users who violates its acceptable use policy, which includes bans on spreading “misinformation,” “hate,” or anything else the company deemed “unfit for publication.”
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/10/10/woke-disaster-paypal-u-turns-on-plan-to-fine-users-2500-for-misinformation/ (https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/10/10/woke-disaster-paypal-u-turns-on-plan-to-fine-users-2500-for-misinformation/)
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What's this about woke stuff in PayPal Terms of Service?
I think something about if they think you have spread false information like for example men are men and women are women they can take several thousand dollars out of your account. Something like that.
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Snap.
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Alternative theory, its all a ploy to get out of his contract with his management/record company without losing money
Unlikely, or the penalties he seeks to avoid must be very large. Because his behaviour cost him quite a few personal sponsorship deals and cooperations. For example he lost a triple-digit million deal with Adidas, after bragging that he can say and do whatever he wants and Adidas can't stop him. Then he went on with his Nazi shit, and Adidas canceled the cooperation with Kanye, taking quite a financial hit themselves.
I think mental illness, combined with an ego that was never shown any kind of boundaries. Not unlike someone else who he tried to buddy up with :p
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What's this about woke stuff in PayPal Terms of Service?
I think something about if they think you have spread false information like for example men are men and women are women they can take several thousand dollars out of your account. Something like that.
Yep. They seriously tried it. But they quickly retracted when that made thousands of users close their accounts and the stock value plunge.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilymason/2022/10/27/after-paypal-revokes-controversial-misinformation-policy-major-concerns-remain-over-2500-fine/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilymason/2022/10/27/after-paypal-revokes-controversial-misinformation-policy-major-concerns-remain-over-2500-fine/)
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I think something about if they think you have spread false information like for example men are men and women are women they can take several thousand dollars out of your account. Something like that.
That almost has to be a joke. I don't see how that could possibly be legal in the US, which as far as I know is where Paypal is located.
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Then this year they shoved their woke bullshit into the T&S. Nar. Out of patience.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilymason/2022/10/27/after-paypal-revokes-controversial-misinformation-policy-major-concerns-remain-over-2500-fine/ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilymason/2022/10/27/after-paypal-revokes-controversial-misinformation-policy-major-concerns-remain-over-2500-fine/)
After PayPal Revokes Controversial Misinformation Policy, Major Concerns Remain Over $2,500 Fine
Emily MasonForbes Staff Oct 27, 2022, 05:42pm EDT
After facing backlash earlier this month, PayPal PYPL -0.9% rescinded a line in its policy stating that spreading misinformation on the platform would be subject to a $2,500 fine. Today, the remaining language leaves users and elected officials demanding more clarity over how the platform defines fine-worthy speech.
I don't remember getting a notification of any change in their terms and conditions so I just checked my emails relating to Paypal and nothing in there.
That sounds to me like open interpretation, a term once described to me by Ebay customer services about 10 years ago when I phoned up to complain about something I brought where the description in the listing did not match and the seller was trying to interpret their listing to mean something else to bolster their argument.
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What's this about woke stuff in PayPal Terms of Service?
Not sure if serious. :-\
But anyway, start here..
In a quickly-reversed policy move, the web’s leading payments processor, PayPal, announced it would deduct $2,500 from users who violates its acceptable use policy, which includes bans on spreading “misinformation,” “hate,” or anything else the company deemed “unfit for publication.”
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/10/10/woke-disaster-paypal-u-turns-on-plan-to-fine-users-2500-for-misinformation/ (https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/10/10/woke-disaster-paypal-u-turns-on-plan-to-fine-users-2500-for-misinformation/)
You cannot be serious! Wikipedia says (my emphasis):
Breitbart News Network (known commonly as Breitbart News, Breitbart, or Breitbart.com) is an American far-right[5] syndicated news, opinion, and commentary[6][7] website founded in mid-2007 by American conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart News's content has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by academics and journalists.[8] The site has published a number of conspiracy theories[9][10] and intentionally misleading stories
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I think mental illness, combined with an ego that was never shown any kind of boundaries.
That seems to happen to people who get/have money or fame. This guy, Trump (though I think his goes back a long way), and - most surprising for me - Elon Musk. That guy has really disappointed me lately. For a long time it seemed we finally had a "Successful Nerd", someone who had made themselves wealthy doing impressive things and then went on to do even more impressive things, all without being a weirdo. Prior examples such as Gates, Jobs, etc. always seemed to have some rough edges that reinforced the nerd stereotype. Woz was pretty good but his achievements were hard for non-tech people to understand and he was somewhat hidden by the spotlight on Jobs.
But Musk did things regular people could understand: PayPal. Tesla. SpaceX. Highly visible, respectable, useful things one could be proud of. I thought finally we had a Successful Nerd who broke the stereotype.
NOPE! Musk fell to the same mental illness they all seem to. In his case it manifests itself as oddball girlfriends, strange obsessions (Musk's hobby seems to be accumulating offspring with multiple women), "WTF distractions" like Twitter, inane comments like those about the cave kids' rescuers.
Why?!? We finally had a nerd to be proud of. Yet right off the deep end he goes, like the rest of them. It's so disheartening.
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Musk's hobby seems to be accumulating offspring with multiple women
we had a prime minister like that
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Why?!? We finally had a nerd to be proud of. Yet right off the deep end he goes, like the rest of them.
Perhaps being like that is what it takes to be that successful.
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You cannot be serious! Wikipedia says (my emphasis):
Breitbart News Network (known commonly as Breitbart News, Breitbart, or Breitbart.com) is an American far-right[5] syndicated news, opinion, and commentary[6][7] website founded in mid-2007 by American conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart News's content has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by academics and journalists.[8] The site has published a number of conspiracy theories[9][10] and intentionally misleading stories
Actual quote from the PayPal company as reported by fake news Reuters:
"PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. We're sorry for the confusion this has caused," a spokesperson for the company said.
Never intended, huh?
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/paypal-says-it-never-intended-fine-users-misinformation-bloomberg-news-2022-10-10/ (https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/paypal-says-it-never-intended-fine-users-misinformation-bloomberg-news-2022-10-10/)
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Weird. Can't see how they could enforce that. I mean, sure they could grab the dosh but they would be wide open to being sued for damages and the like.
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I cancelled my PP account a while back when this announcement first came out. They sure didn't make it easy. anything I tried to do, such as delete my bank account, would just end in a generic error. When I tried to message them it went ignored. I ended up calling them during the day when I was off and I said I was trying to delete my bank account and credit card so I can add the new one (didn't say I was trying to cancel the entire account) and once they fixed my account to allow me to do that, I just nuked the whole account. I also put a stop payment at my bank, just to be on the safe side, since the account is probably not REALLY deleted.
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Oh I didn't even notice that said Kane instead of Kanye.
Yep, what a playaz. (that's player not Copacabana del Rio). Kane, Kayne or even Cane, moot point as his name is now [official]...
YE
Sorry for the gratituous use of HTML on the forum, but that's the only way to describe the etymology. Nuts? He married into the carcrashian clan. Wikipedia, thank you.
carcrashian :-DD :-DD Good one :-DD :-DD
I chuck the "Kane" versus "Kanye" up to one reads what one wants to read :-DD
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I would not know who Kanye West is either, except for:
Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdZnGz9CWpU)
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People (<cough> Dave) pronouncing “H”, “Haych”. Ugh! Apparently it’s an Aussie affliction. Not a good excuse, hehe
Pronouncing “X-rays” as “X-uh-rays”
Software people trying to speak like they know about hardware realms. Stop.
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I chuck the "Kane" versus "Kanye" up to one reads what one wants to read
I used to think it was Kayne and the tabloid or wherever had just made a typo.
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pronouncing “H”, “Haych”. Ugh! Apparently it’s an Aussie affliction.
It is standard pronunciation in English in Ireland (Hiberno-English (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English)), I believe.
Because it developed in tandem with British English, one without personal and emotional ties to any English language variants could claim it is just as correct as the other pronunciation. I have no opinion on what is correct, speaking only Rally English myself.
Software people trying to speak like they know about hardware realms. Stop.
Won't. >:D
Kidding aside, you do have a good point, although mine (peeve) is the more general "I wish people would reconsider their beliefs and understanding, when confronted with contradicting evidence, instead of pushing their misconceptions onto others". You know, like people who graduate from University thinking they know everything there is to know about the subject because they have a diploma of some kind, and ignoring the actual reality.
(Surprisingly, it tends to be much rarer among university lecturers and professors than other PhD's, in my experience.)
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People (<cough> Dave) pronouncing “H”, “Haych”. Ugh! Apparently it’s an Aussie affliction. Not a good excuse, hehe
Pronouncing “X-rays” as “X-uh-rays”
Software people trying to speak like they know about hardware realms. Stop.
My peeve is hyphenating "X rays".
Punctuation usage says to hyphenate the adjective "x-ray" or "X-ray" in, for example, "X-ray tube", but not the noun as in "turn on the X rays".
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[...] although mine (peeve) is the more general "I wish people would reconsider their beliefs and understanding, when confronted with contradicting evidence, instead of pushing their misconceptions onto others". [...]
The Japanese say a man is no good until he is 70. Now you know why! :D
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My pet peeve, one I've had for several years now, is the trend towards removing physical power switches from appliances. Time and time again we read in "modern" instruction and troubleshooting guides that we must "remove the power cable from the wall" to fully reset or restart some device.
It is like a Kafka novel, the elephant in the room, sheer stupidity that makes stuff harder to use for many people (disabled and elderly people for example).
The increasing reliance too on (often) cruddy software, means there is a greater need than in the past, to force restart many devices because they are so poorly designed that a reboot is the only option and the "way" they let us do that is to move furniture and crawl around pulling wires out, waiting several minutes and then reinserting.
Doing that in the dark or dim, while tired or bending uncomfortably is a risk too, especially in the USA where power outlets DO NOT HAVE SWITCHES !. One can struggle to pull and grab the plug and accidentally touch the live connecter - it is insanity.
Almost all "on/off" switches these days are not that at all, they simply put the device into standby, low power mode, they are (in essence) a request to the device not an interruption of power. If these designers insist on making stuff that needs a true power cycling to recover then they should make that easy and put a good old fashioned power switch (or at the very least supply a cable with an in-built physical switch at some point along its length) - but oh no, that's a sin these days, that's a cost, a maintenance burden!
We've gone backwards not forwards.
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My pet peeve, one I've had for several years now, is the trend towards removing physical power switches from appliances. Time and time again we read in "modern" instruction and troubleshooting guides that we must "remove the power cable from the wall" to fully reset or restart some device.
I feel your pain. Our hob uses touch zones, which is fine in concept, not so clever with wet fingers. The dryer and microwave can operate by just looking at them in a certain way. I blame microcontroller manufacturers for implementing capacitive touch on every GPIO pin. C is not a constant.
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I totally agree with the diatribe against fake power switches.
A practical solution is to use power strips that contain real switches, usually as part of the circuit breaker, to avoid fumbling with outlets in the dark (especially with an arthritic knee).
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I never thought to even look before, but just found these (https://www.amazon.com/HX-CQHY-Extension-Waterproof-Grounded-Appliances/dp/B0B5QC4WT3/ref=sr_1_12?crid=PKB8UCR10B5V&keywords=power%2Bcable%2Bwith%2Bswitch&qid=1670772449&sprefix=power%2Bcable%2Bwith%2B%2Caps%2C493&sr=8-12&th=1), they are pretty helpful for people who can't easily bend and contort or shift furniture, at the very least they're much safer that pulling and pushing cables into outlets.
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81ZIW93SIQL._AC_SL1500_.jpg)
That one even has a raised symbol so one can tell on from off in dark or other visually constrained situations.
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Just need the Clapper from decades ago. "Clap on! Clap off!"
Given all the worry that some folks expend over power lost to wall wart power supplies, and legislation standardizing USB connectors in the name of resource consumption, I'm amazed there isn't a hue and cry about all the soft power switch appliances quietly destroying the environment.
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Given all the worry that some folks expend over power lost to wall wart power supplies, and legislation standardizing USB connectors in the name of resource consumption, I'm amazed there isn't a hue and cry about all the soft power switch appliances quietly destroying the environment.
There kind of was, hence the EnergyStar certification that mandates the max standby consumption. That was a big improvement, a lot of gear used to draw 5-10 watts in standby and that has generally dropped down below 1W on a lot of things. Of course the proliferation of soft power has probably consumed most of the savings.
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
That's nothing compared with:
"I could care less"
It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
Don't get me started on "Caught 'on' fire". and "Am too."
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
That's nothing compared with:
"I could care less"
It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
Don't get me started on "Caught 'on' fire". and "Am too."
I moved to the USA in the early 2000's and was fascinated by stuff like this, the only way I could make sense of it was that it might have originally been said like this:
"I could care less ?"
In the sense of a question, anything else is just nonsense.
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Many people like to say things like, "I am loving this new thing," instead of saying, "I love this new thing."
Or "I am wanting a new thing" instead of "I want a new thing."
I don't get it.
That's nothing compared with:
"I could care less"
It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
Don't get me started on "Caught 'on' fire". and "Am too."
With respect to the present continuous "I am wanting" and the present simple "I want", both are grammatically correct, but English usage prefers the latter.
I suspect that many people who use the present continuous learned another language before English, where that present tense is more common.
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Others:
"Fell pregnant" (primarily UK)
"These ones" or "Those ones"
"Needs repaired"
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The profound, deep and meaningful, hand on heart words pronounced when NASA launches a rocket. :palm: Also, in this case, when Artemis splashed down.
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"Liftoff" doesn't make sense upon splashdown....
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It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
Kind of. OTOH, if you couldn't care less you could care more, which is problematic. So with 'could care less' you couldn't care more, which is more appropriate.
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It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
Kind of. OTOH, if you couldn't care less you could care more, which is problematic. So with 'could care less' you couldn't care more, which is more appropriate.
Almost everyone who says "I could care less" means that he could not care less about the topic.
I have never heard anyone say "I could care less" when he meant that.
Another example of a common error is "irregardless" for "regardless", which some easy graders think is a double-negative intensifier for "regardless", but is usually just careless.
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People (<cough> Dave) pronouncing “H”, “Haych”. Ugh! Apparently it’s an Aussie affliction. Not a good excuse, hehe
Pronouncing “X-rays” as “X-uh-rays”
Software people trying to speak like they know about hardware realms. Stop.
My peeve is hyphenating "X rays".
Punctuation usage says to hyphenate the adjective "x-ray" or "X-ray" in, for example, "X-ray tube", but not the noun as in "turn on the X rays".
Haha! 😂
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My pet peeve, one I've had for several years now, is the trend towards removing physical power switches from appliances. Time and time again we read in "modern" instruction and troubleshooting guides that we must "remove the power cable from the wall" to fully reset or restart some device.
It is like a Kafka novel, the elephant in the room, sheer stupidity that makes stuff harder to use for many people (disabled and elderly people for example).
The increasing reliance too on (often) cruddy software, means there is a greater need than in the past, to force restart many devices because they are so poorly designed that a reboot is the only option and the "way" they let us do that is to move furniture and crawl around pulling wires out, waiting several minutes and then reinserting.
Doing that in the dark or dim, while tired or bending uncomfortably is a risk too, especially in the USA where power outlets DO NOT HAVE SWITCHES !. One can struggle to pull and grab the plug and accidentally touch the live connecter - it is insanity.
Almost all "on/off" switches these days are not that at all, they simply put the device into standby, low power mode, they are (in essence) a request to the device not an interruption of power. If these designers insist on making stuff that needs a true power cycling to recover then they should make that easy and put a good old fashioned power switch (or at the very least supply a cable with an in-built physical switch at some point along its length) - but oh no, that's a sin these days, that's a cost, a maintenance burden!
We've gone backwards not forwards.
I think there’s an obsessive trend for “Touch = modern” with lemming designers. Don’t use a particular interface type “just because”, use it where ONLY it makes sense. I’d love to hear Dieter Rams’ views on this, he’s very rational and direct (both attributes which I admire)
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It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
Kind of. OTOH, if you couldn't care less you could care more, which is problematic. So with 'could care less' you couldn't care more, which is more appropriate.
Almost everyone who says "I could care less" means that he could not care less about the topic.
I have never heard anyone say "I could care less" when he meant that.
Another example of a common error is "irregardless" for "regardless", which some easy graders think is a double-negative intensifier for "regardless", but is usually just careless.
Some of them make it into the dictionary.
Examples from my trade ... "Output", "Input" and many others. Made up words. Now in the dictionary.
Merriam-Webster defines irregardless as "nonstandard" but meaning the same as "regardless." "Many people find irregardless to be a nonsensical word, as the ir- prefix usually functions to indicates negation; however, in this case it appears to function as an intensifier," the dictionary writes.
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I have no problem with neologism, the development of new words to go with new situations.
"Transistor", "laser", "to google", etc.
What I detest is when two words with different meanings are confused, so that one must use longer phrases for a specific statement.
For example, the confusion between "to infer" and "to imply".
(Yes, I know that the confusion between them is historical, but still detestable.)
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My pet peeve, one I've had for several years now, is the trend towards removing physical power switches from appliances. Time and time again we read in "modern" instruction and troubleshooting guides that we must "remove the power cable from the wall" to fully reset or restart some device.
It is like a Kafka novel, the elephant in the room, sheer stupidity that makes stuff harder to use for many people (disabled and elderly people for example).
The increasing reliance too on (often) cruddy software, means there is a greater need than in the past, to force restart many devices because they are so poorly designed that a reboot is the only option and the "way" they let us do that is to move furniture and crawl around pulling wires out, waiting several minutes and then reinserting.
Doing that in the dark or dim, while tired or bending uncomfortably is a risk too, especially in the USA where power outlets DO NOT HAVE SWITCHES !. One can struggle to pull and grab the plug and accidentally touch the live connecter - it is insanity.
Almost all "on/off" switches these days are not that at all, they simply put the device into standby, low power mode, they are (in essence) a request to the device not an interruption of power. If these designers insist on making stuff that needs a true power cycling to recover then they should make that easy and put a good old fashioned power switch (or at the very least supply a cable with an in-built physical switch at some point along its length) - but oh no, that's a sin these days, that's a cost, a maintenance burden!
We've gone backwards not forwards.
I think there’s an obsessive trend for “Touch = modern” with lemming designers. Don’t use a particular interface type “just because”, use it where ONLY it makes sense. I’d love to hear Dieter Rams’ views on this, he’s very rational and direct (both attributes which I admire)
I recently "upgraded" an old car to a slightly newer old car... the old car had a button-operated navigation system, the newer one has a touch screen. No prizes for guessing which is the most straightforward to use, and which one is almost dangerous in how distracting and how much attention you have to put into it, in order to use it "on the fly"!
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I recently "upgraded" an old car to a slightly newer old car... the old car had a button-operated navigation system, the newer one has a touch screen. No prizes for guessing which is the most straightforward to use, and which one is almost dangerous in how distracting and how much attention you have to put into it, in order to use it "on the fly"!
"almost dangerous". No, they are deadly. I have a rental Citreon C3 and it has a big touch screen for everything including the heating controls. You have to look away from the road. Location the right bit of screen. Press it. Then wait on feedback. That takes way longer than 2 seconds. FAR too long.
My own car has tactlile rotary encoders and physical buttons, even if they are just "soft" buttons you can "feel" them and don't need to look at all.
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I think it's less touch = modern and more touch = cheap. Good quality switches and buttons are expensive, touchscreens and capacitive buttons are cheap. I do think touchscreens should be illegal in cars, they really are dangeorus. My car has physical switches, knobs and sliders, they're laid out logically and can be operated entirely by feel, I never have to take my eyes off the road.
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neologism 26x26x26
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I think it's less touch = modern and more touch = cheap. Good quality switches and buttons are expensive, touchscreens and capacitive buttons are cheap.
True, the human input device(s) may be cheaper, but then on the other end you need some kind of actuator (relay, linear actuator for HVAC stuff, etc.) backed by a CAN-enabled MCU which adds back cost. Before touchscreens, to adjust the vents or temperature you slid/rotated a manual control that moved a cable or lever system which directly controlled the object in question. I don't know how those costs compare.
I do think touchscreens should be illegal in cars, they really are dangeorus. My car has physical switches, knobs and sliders, they're laid out logically and can be operated entirely by feel, I never have to take my eyes off the road.
I agree with this sentiment. I have a 2020 Lotus Evora GT, and until very recently Lotus was known for extreme simplicity so they could focus on the driving experience. Despite my car being manufactured as recently as 2020, my HVAC controls are three round knobs that I can operate by feel without ever taking my eyes off the road. My parking brake is a lever between the seats, not a button, so I can apply rear mechanical brakes to any degree desired at any time. The gauges are analog so they mentally register instantly (though there is also a digital speed display if you prefer that) and being analog they give you a immediate relative indication based solely on the needle's position, which is often more important than the absolute value.
I'm not a Luddite, but this is how motor vehicles should be controlled. Simple, tactile, eyes-don't-have-to-leave-the-road. Maximum safety requires you sacrifice the "Space Shuttle" interior experience.
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That's nothing compared with:
"I could care less"
It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc)
Minute mark 1:07 has Mr. Yankovic's thoughts on this.
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True, the human input device(s) may be cheaper, but then on the other end you need some kind of actuator (relay, linear actuator for HVAC stuff, etc.) backed by a CAN-enabled MCU which adds back cost. Before touchscreens, to adjust the vents or temperature you slid/rotated a manual control that moved a cable or lever system which directly controlled the object in question. I don't know how those costs compare.
I have no data but I suspect the electrical actuators and associated electronics are still cheaper than the old mechanical stuff, especially if you want automatic climate control which I think is almost universally terrible but everyone else seems to want that now. The HVAC in my car uses vacuum servos on the dampers and the dash controls are vacuum valves, the fancier models had an early electronic climate control that added electrically actuated vacuum valves to control the servos. I have one double acting servo with a leaky diaphragm which is difficult to access and replacements are no longer available so I'm not sure I'm real crazy about that aspect but it did work pretty well for many years.
Speaking of climate control, I think the fatal flaw with every one of them that I've played with is that they try to regulate the cabin temperature which is a futile task in a car. What they really ought to be doing is regulating the temperature of the air coming out of the vents since that seems to be largely what determines how warm the cabin feels. They also all seem to love to crank the fan up to full blast when the measured temperature is far enough off the set point and I find that absolutely obnoxious. The fan should never ramp up to more than about half speed without the user manually selecting max fan.
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That's nothing compared with:
"I could care less"
It's backwards, the correct saying is "I couldn't care less" In that you already care the least you possibly can about something. "I could care less" suggests that you do indeed care and you could "care a little less".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc)
Minute mark 1:07 has Mr. Yankovic's thoughts on this.
Ah! One of my favourite songs! 🤣
This one makes it SO clear why “could care less” is simply idiotic, and in a very precise manner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw)
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There is nothing left to care more or less about >:D
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There is nothing left to care more or less about >:D
That’s not even logical. When you couldn’t care less, you COULD care more.
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The mind works in mysterious ways :-DD
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Some of them make it into the dictionary.
Examples from my trade ... "Output", "Input" and many others. Made up words. Now in the dictionary.
What makes you think they’re “made up”? Those words, in similar meaning to current ones, predate our lifetimes by a bit, and earlier meanings stretch back many centuries.
We simply took existing words with relevant meanings and applied them to new technologies, like we do with kinda everything.
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What makes you think they’re “made up”? Those words, in similar meaning to current ones, predate our lifetimes by a bit, and earlier meanings stretch back many centuries.
Every word in every language is "made up" at some point in time. Unless you believe in some god who made everything including language, and even then it is made up by this god.
Like it or not, language is fluid, and changes over time. Maybe in 10, 20 years time the youth only speaks in abbreviations, like they do in text messages and on the internet, because the teachers forgot about proper language due to this phenomena.
A lot of the new fashion abbreviations, also used here on the forum, I have to look up what they mean.
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What makes you think they’re “made up”? Those words, in similar meaning to current ones, predate our lifetimes by a bit, and earlier meanings stretch back many centuries.
Every word in every language is "made up" at some point in time. Unless you believe in some god who made everything including language, and even then it is made up by this god.
Like it or not, language is fluid, and changes over time. Maybe in 10, 20 years time the youth only speaks in abbreviations, like they do in text messages and on the internet, because the teachers forgot about proper language due to this phenomena.
A lot of the new fashion abbreviations, also used here on the forum, I have to look up what they mean.
All true, but why are you telling me? I wasn’t the person complaining (incorrectly, no less) about input and output being neologisms. Indeed, my reply was to point out that they aren’t.
FYI, in English to “make something up” does indeed mean “invent”, but has a strong connotation of “deceptive”, “illegitimate” or “phony”, and of “created deliberately”. It’s not just a neutral synonym for “create” or “come into existence”. The implication, when someone says a word is is “made up”, is that the norm is that words evolved naturally. (Of course, in practice, to many people it’s really just “any word that was established before I learned the language is legitimate, and anything coined later is bogus!” :P )
(Linguistics was my minor at university.)
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... but why are you telling me? ...
I wasn't. Just emphasizing your point. :)
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I thought "made up" meant "consists of" or "comprises", as in "Cellphones are made up of a variety of components". {evil grin}
English as a second language must be extraordinarily challenging. So many different used for the same words and phrases....
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English as a first language can be tricky!
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English as a second language must be extraordinarily challenging. So many different used for the same words and phrases....
the serial killer had cereal for breakfast and dessert in the desert
pretty simple really,compared to say Vietnamese were 1 word has multiple meanings depending how you say it
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English as a second language must be extraordinarily challenging. So many different used for the same words and phrases....
I disagree with this. The importance to understand English is huge. For example if you know the correct term in English for your DIY task at hand you might be able to find information on Wikipedia or a YouTube video. Or to navigate the McMaster-Carr website to understand which tools and materials do exist.
Once you're comfortable around the basics you learn the difference between serial - cereal and dessert - desert. At that time you can also enjoy English/American sitcoms, movies and books to further develop your English.
EDIT:
English as a first language can be tricky!
Would you elaborate a bit more on that?
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I disagree with this. The importance to understand English is huge. For example if you know the correct term in English for your DIY task at hand you might be able to find information on Wikipedia or a YouTube video. Or to navigate the McMaster-Carr website to understand which tools and materials do exist.
Once you're comfortable around the basics you learn the difference between serial - cereal and dessert - desert. At that time you can also enjoy English/American sitcoms, movies and books to further develop your English.
Agreed on the value of knowing English, but I do think it is a challenging language, lots of native speakers have difficulty with using the correct form of there/their/they're, brake/break, tea/tee and other words that have multiple completely different words that are pronounced exactly the same. Then there are words like lead (the element) and lead (to lead somebody somewhere) that are spelled exactly the same but pronounced differently, and the past tense of lead is led, which is pronounced the same as the element lead.
On the other hand at least English rarely has the silent letters that French is notorious for, I never have really understood why French has so many gratuitous letters on the end of words that aren't pronounced.
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English as a first language can be tricky!
Try Dutch, Germain or French for tricky, and lots of other languages for that matter.
I find English easier then my own native Dutch at times. But it is true that to know all the pitfalls, exceptions and "standard" phrases it takes more then just knowing basic English.
With "standard" phrases I mean expressions that are commonly used. Can't think of an example right now though :palm:
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English is relatively "easy" compared to many other languages, which is one of the reasons it has become the de facto international language. (The other reason probably coming from the british empire era, but quite a few other cultures had large empires and their languages haven't made it through as well, so its simplicity is probably key here.)
Of course it's not *that* easy either and there's still a lot of rules and false friends. But in that regard, it reminds me a bit of C in the programming languages realm. Its use is widespread, almost everybody thinks it's dead simple, yet only a small fraction uses it properly.
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Any foreign language is "challenging" to the new student, except maybe for a Scandinavian language to a student from a different Scandinavian country.
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Another language is best learned when young, but needs the learner to be open for it, which is often not the case when you are young :)
Neighbors of ours have a young son (~6 years old). They teach him French and Germain, because the mom is French and the dad is Germain. The kid picks up both languages quite well.
I now wish I was more open to lessons given in school when I was young, but liked to play more. :(
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[...] I suspect the electrical actuators and associated electronics are still cheaper than the old mechanical stuff, especially if you want automatic climate control which I think is almost universally terrible but everyone else seems to want that now. [...]
Yes, that's another "upgrade" in my slightly newer old car (an '09 Ford Escape Hybrid). The "new" car has auto climate control, which basically always blows air at the 'wrong' temperature, no matter what I set it at... whereas with the older car, which had "bath tub faucet" heating controls, it was literally set-and-forget, unless the exterior temperature changed a lot (on a really long trip).
Against that: the new car has a much smoother and better hybrid drivetrain, which is also about 10% more economical than the previous one. It is not subtle, it is a huge improvement. The interior is much nicer. The audio system is excellent, a significant upgrade (both cars had the high end audio option, but the newer high end is higher!)
So, it looks like not everything goes backwards at the same time, thankfully!
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Another language is best learned when young, but needs the learner to be open for it, which is often not the case when you are young :)
Neighbors of ours have a young son (~6 years old). They teach him French and Germain, because the mom is French and the dad is Germain. The kid picks up both languages quite well.
I now wish I was more open to lessons given in school when I was young, but liked to play more. :(
I remember reading that learning a new language before puberty is much more efficient than after.
This is how young children pick up their native language from that spoken around them.
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This is how young children pick up their native language from that spoken around them.
What helped me in learning English is that on the Dutch TV the English spoken films and series are broadcast with subtitles instead of dubbing the voices with Dutch, like done quite a lot in France and Germany with their native languages.
And it sounds awful when you see a series like "Two and a half man" in French. |O
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- ANY programming language that requires semicolons to denote end of statements. there is a cr or cr/lf pair in the file already. use that. and , in case a line really is too long you should either : rewrite the code , or have a line continuation character. there are much less cases where you need to split a long line.
- Any programming language that makes a difference between uppercase and lowercase for statements and variable names.
- Any programming language using whitespace for flow control
- Any programming language that cannot understand when = means 'assign' and when it means 'compare'. This problem was solved in the 60's. And we are still fucking around with things like := and == because the parsers writers are stupid.
I can't think of many languages which won't peeve you...
..Assembly or LabVIEW work :S
Alternatively you could write your own preparser :)
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What helped me in learning English is that on the Dutch TV the English spoken films and series are broadcast with subtitles instead of dubbing the voices with Dutch, like done quite a lot in France and Germany with their native languages.
And it sounds awful when you see a series like "Two and a half man" in French. |O
That brings up another pet peeve of mine, when they dub over foreign language material, especially when the original audio is faintly in the background. It's distracting, I'd much rather hear the audio as originally intended, and read subtitles in my own language.
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That brings up another pet peeve of mine, when they dub over foreign language material, especially when the original audio is faintly in the background. It's distracting, I'd much rather hear the audio as originally intended, and read subtitles in my own language.
Sometimes when a video is dubbed the original dialogue is still present but turned right down and so are all the other sounds as well, stuff that adds to the atmosphere. A good example is Garage 54 where there are all sorts of noises you want to hear but they are often drowned out by the translation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUX-uP0EIUk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUX-uP0EIUk)
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I thought "made up" meant "consists of" or "comprises", as in "Cellphones are made up of a variety of components". {evil grin}
I would say that “to be made up of” is quite distinct from “to be made up”.
English as a second language must be extraordinarily challenging. So many different used for the same words and phrases....
Absolutely. My mother is a retired EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher, and she’s mentioned many such things!
With that said, I don’t think English is particularly unique in this particular aspect.
But man is English weird in other ways. Like how we have a gazillion vowels, but those don’t include the 5 monophthong vowels that are the most common worldwide, and that we use some really strange consonants, like the two ‘th’ sounds and the rhotic ‘r’, all of which are also really rare worldwide. English also has a, um, rather rich set of verb tenses, and then to top it off, we don’t use them to mean the same things those tenses mean in other languages. (For example, the simple present tense — “I eat” — doesn’t mean that I am actually eating right now (in the present), but rather that it’s something I do regularly. This incongruity drives English learners up the wall…
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English is relatively "easy" compared to many other languages, which is one of the reasons it has become the de facto international language. (The other reason probably coming from the british empire era, but quite a few other cultures had large empires and their languages haven't made it through as well, so its simplicity is probably key here.)
Of course it's not *that* easy either and there's still a lot of rules and false friends. But in that regard, it reminds me a bit of C in the programming languages realm. Its use is widespread, almost everybody thinks it's dead simple, yet only a small fraction uses it properly.
I think it’s categorically impossible to say that a particular language is fundamentally easy or hard to learn. Instead, there’s an individual learning difficulty per language pair. For example, learning Italian is much easier for a Spanish speaker than an English speaker. For an English speaker, learning German will be easier than learning Japanese. But for a Korean, learning Japanese would be easier than learning German.
I also believe that language learning isn’t necessarily linear. English is a language whose learning curve starts shallow, so it’s easy to get started, but becoming expert at it is very hard. Other language are very hard to get started with, but once you’re over the hump, you’re good. And others are more linear.
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I remember reading that learning a new language before puberty is much more efficient than after.
This is how young children pick up their native language from that spoken around them.
It’s not just efficiency. Childhood language acquisition occurs in a different part of the brain from adult language acquisition, and the child language part of the brain is basically designed to create language.
That’s why children can learn languages (yes, plural) easily and essentially perfectly, while adults struggle and are seldom able to achieve true native proficiency.
It’s also why children who grow up isolated (like those stories of horrific child abuse where the kid was kept in a closet for their whole childhood) never really develop proper language skills.
And it’s also why groups of children that grow up without exposure to a “proper” adult language (as happened in colonial times*) will automatically as a group fill in all the gaps in grammar and vocabulary!
And it’s how some sign languages developed: deaf children in institutions couldn’t speak, and started signing. And the magical child language brain created everything needed for complete language. (It is believed that American Sign Language significantly evolved from Old French Sign Language, which was one of those spontaneously-invented sign languages.)
*Like during the colonial era, where there are numerous examples of groups of immigrants, with no common language, who are forced to work together. The adults muddle their way through with very broken language (often, all speaking broken versions of a language that is foreign to all of them), using incomplete sentences, irregular grammar, etc. which is called a “pidgin”. But the children of those adults hear the pidgin and automatically fill in the gaps, and the resulting language, which is grammatically complete, consistent and stable, is known as a “creole”. After that, the creole continues for generations as a stable language.
I just think it’s amazing that it literally takes ONE generation to completely make a proper, complete language out of pidgin. Our childhood brains are literally built to embrace language.
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What helped me in learning English is that on the Dutch TV the English spoken films and series are broadcast with subtitles instead of dubbing the voices with Dutch, like done quite a lot in France and Germany with their native languages.
And it sounds awful when you see a series like "Two and a half man" in French. |O
That brings up another pet peeve of mine, when they dub over foreign language material, especially when the original audio is faintly in the background. It's distracting, I'd much rather hear the audio as originally intended, and read subtitles in my own language.
Be glad you aren’t Russian or Polish: they often dub things by using a “lector”, a single (!) voice, or sometimes luxuriously with one voice for men and another for women, who dubs all the dialog, just talking over the original dialog. I honestly don’t know how people can tolerate it; my ADHD brain struggles tremendously with the distraction of multiple voices at once.
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I just think it’s amazing that it literally takes ONE generation to completely make a proper, complete language out of pidgin. Our childhood brains are literally built to embrace language.
It really is amazing, and interesting too. I work with people from all over the world and quite often they will speak somewhat broken English with a thick accent while their kids speak it fluently with no accent at all, in addition to speaking the parents native language fluently too.
I also am frequently entertained by the grammatically incorrect but often both understandable and humorous things many non-native English speakers say. A former (female) boss of mine was talking to me and a coworker once and wanted us to write up a proposal for something, but what she said was "I would like you guys to propose to me" which has an entirely different meaning, we all got a good laugh out of that.
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But man is English weird in other ways. <snip> and that we use some really strange consonants, like the two ‘th’ sounds
But for a Korean, learning Japanese would be easier than learning German.
I have a Korean friend who spent several years In Australia while progressively learning (the local version of!) English and she cannot pronounce the word "Woolworths" to save her life. :-DD And she was quite amused at the colloquial term "dilly dally" which of course means to procrastinate.
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I disagree with this. The importance to understand English is huge. For example if you know the correct term in English for your DIY task at hand you might be able to find information on Wikipedia or a YouTube video. Or to navigate the McMaster-Carr website to understand which tools and materials do exist.
Once you're comfortable around the basics you learn the difference between serial - cereal and dessert - desert. At that time you can also enjoy English/American sitcoms, movies and books to further develop your English.
Agreed on the value of knowing English, but I do think it is a challenging language, lots of native speakers have difficulty with using the correct form of there/their/they're, brake/break, tea/tee and other words that have multiple completely different words that are pronounced exactly the same. Then there are words like lead (the element) and lead (to lead somebody somewhere) that are spelled exactly the same but pronounced differently, and the past tense of lead is led, which is pronounced the same as the element lead.
On the other hand at least English rarely has the silent letters that French is notorious for, I never have really understood why French has so many gratuitous letters on the end of words that aren't pronounced.
I noticed that years ago, when travelling through Italy & France.
Italian words are relatively easy for an English speaker to analyse "by inspection" in their written form, & even make a reasonable effort at pronunciation.
French words look quite similar to Italian ones, but large numbers of letters are "dropped", so the end result sounds very different.
I also found that Italians were much less likely to snort "humph!" & ignore you if you have trouble in pronunciation. ;D
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I find “some people” (or person) here are so gushingly overflowing with their own self-perceived “cleverness” and “insight” - I’ll add that to my pet peeve list here.
They know who they are.
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I also found that Italians were much less likely to snort "humph!" & ignore you if you have trouble in pronunciation. ;D
That has always seemed weird to me. If somebody is willing to speak my language the last thing I'm going to do is nitpick over their pronunciation.
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I thought "made up" meant "consists of" or "comprises", as in "Cellphones are made up of a variety of components". {evil grin}
I would say that “to be made up of” is quite distinct from “to be made up”.
Fine, I will amend my sentence to "A variety of components make up a cellphone". >:D Are we talking about a two-word phrase for women's cosmetics, a two-word phrase that means "comprise", a two-word phrase that means "go into", or...?
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When people refer to electricity as hydro.
Does this happen in other places or is it specific to BC, Canada? There are lots of hydro dams and the main electrical utility company is called BC Hydro.
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When people refer to electricity as hydro.
Does this happen in other places or is it specific to BC, Canada?
My wife does it all the time. Has been doing it for decades. I have stopped trying to discourage it. No point.
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When people refer to electricity as hydro.
Does this happen in other places or is it specific to BC, Canada?
My wife does it all the time. Has been doing it for decades. I have stopped trying to discourage it. No point.
Maybe she's just doing it to get at ya now.
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I noticed that years ago, when travelling through Italy & France.
Italian words are relatively easy for an English speaker to analyse "by inspection" in their written form, & even make a reasonable effort at pronunciation.
French words look quite similar to Italian ones, but large numbers of letters are "dropped", so the end result sounds very different.
I also found that Italians were much less likely to snort "humph!" & ignore you if you have trouble in pronunciation. ;D
Yes there are a lot of similar words in French and English but differently pronounced, and it seems to make it hard for either side to speak the others language.
Hearing either French speak English or English speak French makes your toes curl :-DD (Not that my French is any better)
About the French ignoring you when you don't speak their language to perfection might depend on your location in France and your nationality. The Dordogne seems to be a bit anti English because they bought a lot of the houses away from the locals. Here in the Correze it is not so bad, and most are willing to try and communicate with you, especially when you show willingness to speak French.
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I find “some people” (or person) here are so gushingly overflowing with their own self-perceived “cleverness” and “insight” - I’ll add that to my pet peeve list here.
They know who they are.
I thought envy was one of the deadly sins.
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I find “some people” (or person) here are so gushingly overflowing with their own self-perceived “cleverness” and “insight” - I’ll add that to my pet peeve list here.
They know who they are.
Are you referring to me? I'll tell you a secret: I'm very sensitive and unsure about what helpful people think of me, especially of my "cleverness" and "insight" (except for the very narrow domains I have actual, tested, battle-hardened insight). :'(
That 'eti ite' in the joke thread wasn't a slight, or sarcastic; more about finding funniness in small things and odd places, and self-reflection, instead of relying on formulaic definitions of a joke or humor.
Sure, you tend to rant a bit, but that doesn't bother me. I highly appreciate your honesty.
My own pet peeve is these passive-agressive references, because I too often spend inordinate amounts of time wondering if they are directed at me (if made by a person I happen to care/appreciate/consider helpful to others). As a Finn, I'd much, MUCH prefer people just come out and say it out straight.
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In light of the recent scuffle in an other thread I think he is referring to tooki, and maybe me for some earlier run ins.
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We all should just try and get along esp this time of year.
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Save the hate for the upcoming family gatherings like normal people.
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When people refer to electricity as hydro.
Does this happen in other places or is it specific to BC, Canada? There are lots of hydro dams and the main electrical utility company is called BC Hydro.
I've only heard it in BC, and I assumed it's because the power company serving the region is called "BC Hydro" so it's pretty natural to refer to "the hydro bill" and such.
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Save the hate for the upcoming family gatherings like normal people.
Do I get to be the racist drunk uncle this year?
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Save the hate for the upcoming family gatherings like normal people.
Do I get to be the racist drunk uncle this year?
Sure and give em hell. >:D
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About the French ignoring you when you don't speak their language to perfection might depend on your location in France and your nationality. The Dordogne seems to be a bit anti English because they bought a lot of the houses away from the locals. Here in the Correze it is not so bad, and most are willing to try and communicate with you, especially when you show willingness to speak French.
Paris is the only place I’ve ever been in France where people have been dismissive of novice French (and even so, it was only a few; most people were gracious). Everywhere else I’ve been in France, people have been delighted that you honor them by making the effort to speak their language, even if it’s imperfect.
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It really is amazing, and interesting too. I work with people from all over the world and quite often they will speak somewhat broken English with a thick accent while their kids speak it fluently with no accent at all, in addition to speaking the parents native language fluently too.
Absolutely! That’s how it is with me and Spanish (my dad’s native language). My dad has an accent, but my sister and I do not, and we did speak Spanish at home, too, though my vocabulary is fairly limited since I’ve never lived in a Spanish speaking country.
I totally concur with your observation, I’ve seen that with lots of families with lots of languages.
I also am frequently entertained by the grammatically incorrect but often both understandable and humorous things many non-native English speakers say. A former (female) boss of mine was talking to me and a coworker once and wanted us to write up a proposal for something, but what she said was "I would like you guys to propose to me" which has an entirely different meaning, we all got a good laugh out of that.
Hah!!! I know I’ve made some doozies in German. :P
(For example, I learned that “sinngemäss” and “sinnlich” mean very, VERY different things! :P)
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With respect to Spanish, often when eating in a Mexican restaurant in Chicago, a neighboring table will be occupied by two adults and two children.
The conversation at that table will alternate between Spanish and English, but (in English) the kids have a normal Chicago accent while the adults have a noticeable Spanish accent.
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With respect to Spanish, often when eating in a Mexican restaurant in Chicago, a neighboring table will be occupied by two adults and two children.
The conversation at that table will alternate between Spanish and English, but (in English) the kids have a normal Chicago accent while the adults have a noticeable Spanish accent.
Yep. That’s exactly how it is with my Guatemalan relatives that live in USA. (Well, other than it not being a Chicago accent! :P )
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(For example, I learned that “sinngemäss” and “sinnlich” mean very, VERY different things! :P)
Funny story about that topic. My wife and I grew up in the San Diego area, and many of the cities there (including San Diego!) have Spanish names such as La Mesa, El Cajon, etc. We grew up learning that la mesa was "the table" and el cajon was "the box", the latter making good sense because that city was a low plateau surrounded by hills forming a sort of box.
One night we were dining in a Mexican restaurant and had leftovers, so I thought I'd show off my extremely modest Spanish language skills and said "El cajon, por favor". The waiter gave us this very puzzled look. I repeated "El cajon, por favor" and did hand signals to indicate we wanted a hinged-lid box for our leftovers. His eyes got really wide, then he exploded with laughter and came back with a to-go box. I asked what was so funny, and he said "What you wanted to say was 'la caja' for a box". So naturally I asked what el cajon meant, and he said "Oh, it's a box all right. That means a coffin". :palm: :-DD
That became one of our favorite restaurants and the entire staff always smiled when we showed up!
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Language is always funny. There is a town in California called Coalinga. Normally pronounced co-ah-ling-ah. Sounds like a normal Spanish or possibly Portuguese word. A brother in law pointed out that it was originally a railroad town and it was the first coaling stop on that branch. Hence Coaling A. Coaling B and Coaling C were not as easy to pronounce as one word.
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Do I get to be the racist drunk uncle this year?
It's 2022. You can be whatever you want to be.
:)
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I try not to understand the intelligence of the common motorist.
It looks like that the moment people get into their cars, the intelligence is left on the sidewalk. :-DD
What you describe is probably global, but worse near big cities. When we visit the remaining parents in the Netherlands we start out relaxed with little traffic on the road, but as soon as we hit Paris you just have to adapt to a more aggressive driving style to get through. Then it is somewhat better for a while until we reach Liege and after that it is the Netherlands. Busy no matter where you go it seems to me.
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dash cam owners australia :popcorn:
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People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
People here all do 110km/h in a 90 zone anyway so [...]
I've found it to be most efficient to let people who want to go faster than me, get past me ... I gladly pull over and let'em go on with their lives. Who knows why they are in a hurry... late for an appointment, frustrated about life, pregnant wife in the back about to give birth... it doesn't really matter, why would I intentionally block them?
After OMG 45 years of driving, I've long since concluded that it is best overall to go about the same speed as everyone else on the road - not significantly faster or slower. If there is no traffic in sight, and it is a nice road, all bets are off...
And definitely, merge at the same speed as the rest of the traffic, don't force people to brake and possibly cause an accident - why would one do that. And don't merge too fast either, that is just as bad. Begin looking for your spot way before the ramp meets the main road, and you'll be fine.
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People park at the end of driveways and lanes such that they look like they are trying to emerge into traffic.
I mean it takes 1 person to park that way and EVERY SINGLE person coming down that road has to take a hazard flag and ask "Is he going pull out?", maybe adjust speed. Then you find there is nobody in the car!
That and people when there is only one other car parked on a residential street, they will come up and park directly opposite it. I swear most people can't see the world beyond the length of their own nose.
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People who fail to reach cruising speed before merging onto the freeway (or equivalent in your country), and people who drop below cruising speed before having fully exited the freeway.
People here all do 110km/h in a 90 zone anyway so to "reach cruising speed" would require me to first break the law and the merging lane isn't long enough to have time to select a free spot to merge into when doing 110km/h, it was designed for a specific merging speed in mind. So I drive typically 10km/h under the 90km/h speed limit and wait for a very wide opening, sometimes stopping in the merging lane if I have to. That is on the bypass that is. not on a major highway.
Don't get me started on the people who do 130km/h in the fast lane (on a 90km/h roadway) and come up behind you with super bright illegal headlights and blind you. Very dangerous. Very stupid. But just about every prick where time is money (tools in the back of a ute tray on an illegally lifted 4x4) does it.
And don't get me started on the number of people that have been killed by legally/illegally lifted 4x4s. They are everywhere and are around massive amounts of smaller vehicle traffic. Every few months I hear of a death involving a 4x4 and a small granny in her car. Just a few years ago a 4x4 killed a kid on a beach because the driver went over a sand dune blind. Fucking ban them.
At least the same people wisened up and started this speeding split nonsense. It used to be much more unsafe and people would often speed in the slow lane too, often in bumper to bumper traffic too.
Tell me what about speeding over the speed limit and staying 1 meter off the bumper of the car in front of you is smart? Its often not just one car either its dozens of cars all doing this at the same time. Sometimes with passengers in the back of small compacts. Its idiotic.
The rulebook says that you must not speed under any circumstances even during overtaking. Overtaking is meant for getting around slow traffic that does under the speed limit not traffic that is doing the speed limit just because you wanted to act like a dick and show the rear end of your arse to the car thats currently in front of you. Yet people do this on mass.
And I would get shouted at for having this opinion. Very much so. Even if I'm driving with kids in the car or with trucks around me they don't care about you and they wish the death on you.
Why is australian motoring so aggressive anyway. There is often very little time to stop when you see a Yellow light and you are regularly expected to go through the yellow light because often the car behind you is travelling so close that you cannot possibly stop quick enough. Yet this is stretched to the extremes, around here I often see people who see the yellow light and its already just about to turn red but they continue to drive anyway because its simply too dangerous to stop or because they are impatient (though tbh there are a LOT of traffic lights around here.) Almost every day I see cars punching red lights. If there isn't a red light camera there that intersection is guaranteed to get cars regularly going through red lights. They should extend the time on period for yellow lights and match it with the speed of the road behind them but that won't happen. If the RTA did that then people would take advantage of that "loophole" and continue to punch red lights only more aggressively.
Yet the road rules say that you should be slowing if you see a yellow light, if anything most people speed up.
I try not to understand the intelligence of the common motorist.
I don't know what the current rule is in other States, but in WA, there is no such thing as a "fast" lane.
If you can, on a normal multi-lane road, you are expected to try to return to the left (Kerbside) lane if you aren't passing.
On the Freeways, & controlled access roads, that is not practical, & often there are several lanes flowing simultaneously at just
under, or a tad over, the speed limit.
On the longer sections of these, the speed limit is 100kmh, but you see a few loonies trying to go faster---hard to do so at peak times, though.
Interestingly, the open road speed limit in West Oz is 110kmh--back in the 1960s, it was unlimited!
When I went to the UK many years ago, the "slow" & "fast" lane idea was pretty strictly policed, & I found it quite alarming, as from time to time, you had to change lanes, & took your life in your hands each time, with the crazies steaming down the "fast lane" at 100+ knots in their Jaguars, etc.
Screaming along in a "Ford Pop", trying to complete a passing manoeuvre around something even more dire than the Ford, with some rich twit sitting a handspan behind your rear bumper, puts some of the Oz crazies into perspective.
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Today im lamenting the disappearance of the local independent hardware shops,you know the sort of place were the assistant glances at the bolt your holding and confidently announces its a 13/29th BTF thread,asks how many you want and what length,before casually reaching into 1 of the 100+ wooden draws behind him and grabbing exactly what your after.I'm also slightly annoyed my metal punch set has given up,i bought it in 96 and its only done a few 100 20 and 25mm holes, dont nothing last these days.
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Agreed! I got a very real basic education by walking around such stores and playing with all the interesting bolts, fittings, etc. You build a sort of catalog in your mind of what is available, and years later when you're solving some problem you recall that one of "those" with two of "that" and a custom shaped piece of something else is the answer. No classroom teaches such problem solving.
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Today im lamenting the disappearance of the local independent hardware shops,you know the sort of place were the assistant glances at the bolt your holding and confidently announces its a 13/29th BTF thread,asks how many you want and what length,before casually reaching into 1 of the 100+ wooden draws behind him and grabbing exactly what your after.I'm also slightly annoyed my metal punch set has given up,i bought it in 96 and its only done a few 100 20 and 25mm holes, dont nothing last these days.
We have a local one of those, and it is THRIVING by keeping prices down and having an inventory relevant to the area it is in. - The locals love the place and only go to the "big box" stores in case of dire emergency! - so, it can be done....
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We have a local one of those, and it is THRIVING by keeping prices down and having an inventory relevant to the area it is in. - The locals love the place and only go to the "big box" stores in case of dire emergency! - so, it can be done....
There's a local chain around here too, Mclendons hardware, the place is always packed in the summer, they have a large selection of plants and gardening items that is always popular and they have a lot of real hardware too. Best selection of fasteners of any walk-in place I'm aware of.
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In some, but not all of the US states the rule is for "slower moving traffic" to keep right (away from the center lines for those who don't know US driving orientation).
While I can sympathize with Mark03's complaints about speed demons, I find drivers like him equally infuriating.
Driving in the "fast" lane at the "speed limit" enforcing their speedometers calibration on a whole row of drivers. While my speedometer and the GPS in the dash and the GPS in my phone all agree that we are going substantially below the speed limit.
Limiting overtaking speed to the speed limit and thus going a fraction of a kilometer/hour faster than the vehicle they are passing. This often results in a miles/kilometers long backups of dense, unsafe traffic. There is a bright spot to this. It also creates miles/kilometers of open space in front of this long pass and if you happen to enter the road in the huge hole in traffic that is created you find very pleasant driving. As long as you don't drive too fast it is a long lasting joy.
And coming to a full stop at the end of merge lanes. I have encountered this three times in my life. The rarely occurring event receives diminished attention while paying more attention to the traffic arriving from behind, both to select a merging spot and speed and to assess the much more common hazard of some speed racer slamming into that spot to cut a second or two off his driving time. In two of the three cases some rather violent avoidance maneuvers avoided an accident. Unfortunately a full emergency stop in the third case couldn't avoid a bumper bending collision.
The speed limit is often not the dominant rule when driving in traffic. As SilverSolder says it is almost always safest to be driving at nearly the average speed of traffic. Even if that is substantially above to posted speed limit. In some locales in the US that can result in a traffic violation for impeding the flow of traffic, or unsafe driving for driving at the speed limit.
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My latest pet peeve.
When someone refers to a politician by their given name only.
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My latest pet peeve.
When someone refers to a politician by their given name only.
What you mean rather than "Cu**!"?
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My favorite name for incumbent politicians is "defeated".
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Oregon USA has an absolute, no exceptions, even for passing slow vehicles, speed limit. I got a ticket there a while back when I pulled out into a designated passing lane to overtake someone who was driving juuuuuust under the speed limit. That meant I had to exceed the limit ever so slightly to get past them safely before the passing lane ended. BAM! Pulled over for speeding.
I was going to write a letter to the court explaining things, but when I researched Oregon law so I could cite chapter and verse I found the above absolute prohibition. It even includes the specific language about not passing slower vehicles and tells drivers they must wait until slower vehicles pull over to let you pass (which never happens).
I mailed the check for the ticket, now avoid Oregon, and encourage others to avoid it too. No reason to encourage such lunacy.
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My latest pet peeve.
When someone refers to a politician by their given name only.
Why? most of them have fairly distinctive given names.
Our current & most recent Oz PMs have quite widely used nicknames, like "Scomo" & "Albo", although referring to the former as "Scotty" didn't confuse people.
Historically, we had "Bob" (Menzies), "Gough" (Whitlam), "Mal" (Fraser), "Tony" (Abbott), & everybody knew who you were talking about.
For some reason, it didn't really take with Hawke ('Hawkie"), Keating ("Paul?"--nah!), Turnbull (the shadow of the real "Mal" was still too recent), Or Howard (maybe "Johnny" to some)
On the world stage, every Australian knows who "Don", "Joe", "Boris" & "Vlad" are.
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I find “some people” (or person) here are so gushingly overflowing with their own self-perceived “cleverness” and “insight” - I’ll add that to my pet peeve list here.
They know who they are.
Are you referring to me? I'll tell you a secret: I'm very sensitive and unsure about what helpful people think of me, especially of my "cleverness" and "insight" (except for the very narrow domains I have actual, tested, battle-hardened insight). :'(
That 'eti ite' in the joke thread wasn't a slight, or sarcastic; more about finding funniness in small things and odd places, and self-reflection, instead of relying on formulaic definitions of a joke or humor.
Sure, you tend to rant a bit, but that doesn't bother me. I highly appreciate your honesty.
My own pet peeve is these passive-agressive references, because I too often spend inordinate amounts of time wondering if they are directed at me (if made by a person I happen to care/appreciate/consider helpful to others). As a Finn, I'd much, MUCH prefer people just come out and say it out straight.
Bless you. No I don’t mean you. It’s someone and they will know who they are (like one of those whack a mole moles who can never keep their head down) - no doubt they’ll pick up on it and make a multi-multi-multi quoted response, picking apart everything I’ve said lol
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Comments like this one on YouTube, under a current Putin news story (Screenshot attached)
People seemingly Thinking that touchscreens are “magic”, are the same kind of people who think that Apple Mac production lines must use Apple Macs to control the factory machines. Wow.
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People who are constantly whining and never come up with proper solutions for problems at hand.
You see them everywhere. Just look at the Dutch government, you can find more then a couple there.
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People who are constantly whining and never come up with proper solutions for problems at hand.
You see them everywhere. Just look at the Dutch government, you can find more then a couple there.
I understand you are whining but don't have a proper solution? :-DD
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I understand you are whining but don't have a proper solution? :-DD
Oh I have plenty, but these will be seen as to extreme. >:D
The question for you is if you understood what I'm whining about. 8)
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Tactile/microswitches in mice which "tick" but dont "click". You have to press a little harder to get the click.
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People seemingly Thinking that touchscreens are magic.
well wat do you know, I walked into a pub poke lounge in the 1990s
found a touchscreen on a poke machine, with just one finger rubbed it like a magic lamp. suddenly ALL the machines in the room shut-down
with a system error, :scared: I quickly made an exit.
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Not only with electronics but electricity, mechanics, CNC, Tools, etc...
Of course YouTube doesn't care a little about it even if you report it.
Then YouTube goes and says that they have X years of videos uploaded per day, but when you distill it only 5% is really meaningful learning info, the rest is memes, promotion/ads or outright junk.
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2022.
Ever since January, I've found this year and everything to do with it simply fucking annoying.
Whose with me?
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Yea.
2020 - People said "well 2021 has to be better, couldn't get worse than 2020 eh?"
2021 - People said "well 2022 has to be better, couldn't get worse than 2020/21 eh?"
This year. I'm going to slap the first person who starts that. 202* has been shit, I highly expect 2023 to continue to the trend. Tempting fate by celebrating that's "It couldn't possibly get worse" needs a stopping!
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Yea.
2020 - People said "well 2021 has to be better, couldn't get worse than 2020 eh?"
2021 - People said "well 2022 has to be better, couldn't get worse than 2020/21 eh?"
This year. I'm going to slap the first person who starts that. 202* has been shit, I highly expect 2023 to continue to the trend. Tempting fate by celebrating that's "It couldn't possibly get worse" needs a stopping!
UK located, you'll remember Tony Blair and "things can only get better" :-\
Maybe 2023 will see Mad Vlad's military generals put him up against the wall, before he puts his military generals up against the wall? Just saying :-//
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Yea.
2020 - People said "well 2021 has to be better, couldn't get worse than 2020 eh?"
2021 - People said "well 2022 has to be better, couldn't get worse than 2020/21 eh?"
This year. I'm going to slap the first person who starts that. 202* has been shit, I highly expect 2023 to continue to the trend. Tempting fate by celebrating that's "It couldn't possibly get worse" needs a stopping!
UK located, you'll remember Tony Blair and "things can only get better" :-\
Maybe 2023 will see Mad Vlad's military generals put him up against the wall, before he puts his military generals up against the wall? Just saying :-//
Didn't Biden not just give Ukraine a patriot missile system for christmas. That's going to impress Mad Vlad endlessly. He'll be resonating much "peace" feelings and good will towards us all I'm sure.
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New peeve: The self-redundant phrase "software code". As in, "She wrote the software code to add the feature".
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Software is more than code.
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Software is more than code.
it's just typing... we could ask the receptionist to do it :-DD
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too many violent video games not enough peaceful or fun or happy ones.
Superflight
Poly Bridge
Jigsaw Puzzle Dreams
Train Valley (original is great, V2 not so much)
Mini Metro
Desert Golfing / Golf on Mars
Freeways
Race the Sun
Drawkanoid
Those are just some free or low cost ones that are, IMO, worth playing. Plenty more I haven't tried.
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You missed
Portal 1 and 2
Portal bridge builder
The Turing test
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Kids games. Education games.
Fail.
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every single damn thing these days requiring your name email and phone number to log in.
Yep! 100% tired to **** with this.
In work as the holiday period code freeze approached the broadcast went out that all developers must complete 10 hours of online training in code security and policies.
I ignored it. They have done the same thing every year. It goes away again. The system they direct you to has changed many times and is always sh1t. Can't find what course to so, find a wiki with 100 pages and "self assessment tests". Meh.
My manager repeated the broadcast so I went and looked. I was redirected to a third party website and asked to accept a privacy policy, which I denied. I also raised concerns with my employers data controller. I haven't done that training. When I get back in after new year week it will have disappeared as the code freeze is gone, but I'm still annoyed. What information was given to this 3rd party? Who consented or authorized the data transfer cross borders? My data controller basically said they will claim "Legitimate interest use" of my data and we discussed that as a UK citizen sharing by contract, data, to the USA and there currently being ZERO legal framework for UK+GDPR+US ... means my data is free game in the US now.
I bought a router. In order to log into it and configure it without a mobile phone internet connection took me a day of messing. It constantly wanted me to log in and create a an online account and would NOT tell me the IP of the device only a hostname that redirectly through their mDNS. Grr. I did manage it though.
My fear is that 99% of people don't know, and thus don't care. They are the product and they don't see how dangerous that is.
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Please warn as to which dreadful company is making those routers which need a phone to visit the interent to configure them...
The very idea of a router expecting you to have internet acces at the time you're configuring it is madness, a lot of people set up a router's settings first when they move house before trying to connect to the wider interenet at al, and cannot get to the wider internet until they've done setup.
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Please warn as to which dreadful company is making those routers which need a phone to visit the interent to configure them...
The very idea of a router expecting you to have internet acces at the time you're configuring it is madness, a lot of people set up a router's settings first when they move house before trying to connect to the wider interenet at al, and cannot get to the wider internet until they've done setup.
That reminds me of the older windows issue that used to say something along the lines of you have a problem with your internet, to fix this problem go onto the internet to this site to find a solution.
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My pet peeve at the moment is websites expecting and requiring me to set up 2FA, usually insisting on a mobile number. Now when the website leaks my info it will leak that extra bit of info which means I will then be on a list to get scam text messages. I understand the use of this for things that are important but really DGAF if its for an online shop.
Much like the websites that made you use very complicated passwords with UPPER and lower case letters, symbols, >12 digits but <15 etc. which often you would get wrong so you reset it only to find the new password you set can't be used as it's the same as the old one.
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It was a NetGear Nighthawk R7000. It's stock firmware lasted about 24 hours before it got OpenWRT'd.
I believe the way it's meant to work is... you download their app via the QR code on the router. The QR code also contains the hardware generated SSID and Passcode for it's config WAP. So the app connects your phone to the routers Wifi and does the initial configuration. All while sending all the data back home.
The next pet peeve on my list to kill off is the SmartTV advertising at me. I put them out on the guest network when they were found "rummaging" in fileshares. Seems PiHole is not preventing them downloading ads. I only need network on the smart TV to watch 4K netflix so I might make it optional, in the sense I can pull the network cable out of hte TV unless I want to watch netflix :)
All 3 of my APs are OpenWRT, including the central Linksys WRT3600 central router. All my LAN is VLAN hardware switched. 2 VLANs, Open and Guest.
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Much like the websites that made you use very complicated passwords with UPPER and lower case letters, symbols, >12 digits but <15 etc. which often you would get wrong so you reset it only to find the new password you set can't be used as it's the same as the old one.
The thing that drives me up the wall with that is the conflicting requirements of different sites. Some require special characters, some don't allow them, etc, which prevents using the same system of passwords. I don't share passwords across any sites I actually care about, but my passwords to mostly follow a convention that makes it possible for me to remember them. Password managers help mitigate that but they also make me a little uneasy because if someone does manage to compromise my password manager (say they break in and steal my laptop) then they have access to EVERYTHING.
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It was a NetGear Nighthawk R7000. It's stock firmware lasted about 24 hours before it got OpenWRT'd.
I have one of those too, I used the stock firmware for just long enough to boot it up and flash it with Tomato. I don't know why but stock firmware on consumer routers is universally garbage.
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It was a NetGear Nighthawk R7000
Netgear have form for creating firmware that resembles a steaming pile. Hardware tends to be OK (their metal-cased dumb switches were nice) but software requires a skillset they've never been able to assemble. The classic example is them hardcoding the IP address of an NTP server at a university, and then having it looked up every second. On every router they sold. And then ignoring the reports of the problem that resulted due to excessive traffic.
A long writeup of it is here: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~plonka/netgear-sntp/
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[...]
Much like the websites that made you use very complicated passwords with UPPER and lower case letters, symbols, >12 digits but <15 etc. which often you would get wrong so you reset it only to find the new password you set can't be used as it's the same as the old one.
The whole concept of these super-complicated passwords is completely shot through the head anyway - since any reasonable web site should lock the account after 5 or so failed login attempts. How complex does a password have to be to survive 5 attempts? - obviously a few letters/digits is more than enough.
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If the user hasn't got it right in 5 attempts then they've probably forgotten the password. But the proper way to do it is to either unlock the account after some period (30 minutes, say) or implement increasing pauses between attempts. The idea is simply to slow things down so it would take the heat death of the universe to brute force access but still allow a genuine user to recover from a senior moment.
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Often on a webserver you use somthing like fail2ban which you can set various triggers for and it just watches your logs and looks for attempts to get into SSH, Wordpress etc. Its rather annoying that you have these script kiddies out there who are just setting up a script to go off in search of a potential hackable site.
The sad thing is the password is only 1 part of the problem. Hackers/scammers evolve to work with the current protection protocols. The human is again the weak link. It's worth it to them to keep at it as we do so much online that there is real money in it for them.
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The password strength thing has two poles.
On one side the person who wrote the original password complexity and updating garb in the 70s admitted that he had not expected it to be picked up so widely, but also admitted he had caused so much insecurity in computing because... the majority of people start writing passwords down when they get too complicated to remember. Defeating the purpose.
On the other side however, in todays world of cloud castles which present perfect targets.... all your eggs in one big basket alone with everyone elses... databases get hacked. Entire user data tables get stolen. Thankfully 99% of them, these days, if it wasn't written by a 16yo in his bedroom will encrypt or at least hash passwords. Turns out however if you had that table of hashed passwords to a 3080 GPU running custom software it will have most of the 6 or less digit passwords brute forced in minutes. It's only when you get above 10 digits which include the full upper, lower, number, punctuation 70 odd characters... that it starts to take hours and hours and hours. I believe it takes several weeks to crack the 12 digit complex passwords if it can. They don't just use rotating guesses either. It is pre-trained and has massive pre-canned "seed" passwords like "password", "passwd", "petsname", It scans with those, then modify them slowly, combine them etc. etc. The software just generates milliions of passwords a second and compares the hashs to all the passwords in the DB. They even have the most popular few thousand passwords pre-hashed. Heck there is a website out there that will give you the possible values for a hash. No shocker that short passwords like "password" tend to reverse quite easily once you filter out the random garbage.
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The password strength thing has two poles.
On one side the person who wrote the original password complexity and updating garb in the 70s admitted that he had not expected it to be picked up so widely, but also admitted he had caused so much insecurity in computing because... the majority of people start writing passwords down when they get too complicated to remember. Defeating the purpose.
On the other side however, in todays world of cloud castles which present perfect targets.... all your eggs in one big basket alone with everyone elses... databases get hacked. Entire user data tables get stolen. Thankfully 99% of them, these days, if it wasn't written by a 16yo in his bedroom will encrypt or at least hash passwords. Turns out however if you had that table of hashed passwords to a 3080 GPU running custom software it will have most of the 6 or less digit passwords brute forced in minutes. It's only when you get above 10 digits which include the full upper, lower, number, punctuation 70 odd characters... that it starts to take hours and hours and hours. I believe it takes several weeks to crack the 12 digit complex passwords if it can. They don't just use rotating guesses either. It is pre-trained and has massive pre-canned "seed" passwords like "password", "passwd", "petsname", It scans with those, then modify them slowly, combine them etc. etc. The software just generates milliions of passwords a second and compares the hashs to all the passwords in the DB. They even have the most popular few thousand passwords pre-hashed. Heck there is a website out there that will give you the possible values for a hash. No shocker that short passwords like "password" tend to reverse quite easily once you filter out the random garbage.
I wasn't thinking about that side of it, but you're right, it protects you against others getting hacked.
Usually I sign up to everything I can with disposable IDs, but there are absolutely some places where you can't do that!
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Most hacked passwords revealed as UK cyber survey exposes gaps in online security
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/most-hacked-passwords-revealed-as-uk-cyber-survey-exposes-gaps-in-online-security (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/most-hacked-passwords-revealed-as-uk-cyber-survey-exposes-gaps-in-online-security)
Plug these into your pentest scripts - a small selection from the most loved passwords out there:
123456
123456789
qwerty
password
...
1q2w3e4r5t
qwertyuiop
123
monkey
...
ginger
nicole1
mylove
arsenal
...
patrick1
loser1
mother1
lalala
...
cowboy24
memyselfi
trevor3
nudist
There are 100,000 listed in this flat text document.
Educate and inform: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/static-assets/documents/PwnedPasswordsTop100k.txt (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/static-assets/documents/PwnedPasswordsTop100k.txt)
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Sure, using a common password makes cracking easier. But as stated above, if methods are used to slow down the attempts it is still robust enough. A brute force attack on a 100k list will take 50k attempts on average. Just putting a five second delay in would make that a nearly 3 day effort. And if you are willing to slightly inconvenience those who need multiple attempts to enter their own password it is easy to raise that time into years.
The problem isn't in the intrinsic security of passwords due to length, it is the vulnerability to attacks that completely bypass the login process. Things like getting access to the table of passwords or phishing attacks to get people to voluntarily expose their password.
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Most hacked passwords revealed as UK cyber survey exposes gaps in online security
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/most-hacked-passwords-revealed-as-uk-cyber-survey-exposes-gaps-in-online-security (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/most-hacked-passwords-revealed-as-uk-cyber-survey-exposes-gaps-in-online-security)
Plug these into your pentest scripts - a small selection from the most loved passwords out there:
123456
123456789
qwerty
password
...
1q2w3e4r5t
qwertyuiop
123
monkey
...
ginger
nicole1
mylove
arsenal
...
patrick1
loser1
mother1
lalala
...
cowboy24
memyselfi
trevor3
nudist
There are 100,000 listed in this flat text document.
Educate and inform: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/static-assets/documents/PwnedPasswordsTop100k.txt (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/static-assets/documents/PwnedPasswordsTop100k.txt)
That list is nearly as dodgy as Hunter's laptop.
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the VPS operators make sure that you have a secure password emailed to you on signup
Here in the UK a well-known VOIP provider uses an 8-digit number as the account name, and a 6-digit number as the password. No non-digits allowed and you can't change them - I presume this is because they need to be presented via a phone during connection, and the protocol allows only digits. However, their website login used (until 6 months ago) the same details for account login.
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If they break into your house and hold you at gunpoint though while your laptop is powered up and unlocked, what are you gonna do? Die for some passwords? No.
All forms of security has its limitations.
When this happens, chances are that you die either way. People who have no morals and go to the extend to break into your house and hold you or your loved ones at gun point, mostly won't hesitate to kill to make sure no one can testify against them.
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Accepting cookies and turning off ad blockers.
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Seems Listy is reading this thread,
Hackaday: The Problem With Passwords.
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/the-problem-with-passwords/
Some of the comments are interesting.
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the VPS operators make sure that you have a secure password emailed to you on signup
Here in the UK a well-known VOIP provider uses an 8-digit number as the account name, and a 6-digit number as the password. No non-digits allowed and you can't change them - I presume this is because they need to be presented via a phone during connection, and the protocol allows only digits. However, their website login used (until 6 months ago) the same details for account login.
The point with numerics is they can be totally "pure".
My bank uses purely numeric tokens. I say tokens, things only used for online banking, a "customer number" and a 8 digit pin + a RSA token generator.
Point is that none of them have any relevance to anything, they are entirely pure numbers. Could be anything. Nothing can be implied from them at all.
Recently they also added mobile app authentication, which is trusting that finger print sensor an awful lot.
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hot glue guns?
my limited experience is not a happy one (or expensive) - luckily the last one I bought came with a spare nozzle
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Spend a bit more and get a decent glue gun, not the cheapest.
Worth looking at battery powered ones - those tend to warm up in seconds, whereas the cabled ones take half of forever.
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hot glue guns?
my limited experience is not a happy one (or expensive) - luckily the last one I bought came with a spare nozzle
I love my hot glue gun. It isn't appropriate for everything, but it forms very strong bonds on the foam used to build a lot of model airplanes, and it's great for craft type stuff, bonding wood and fabric and such. It works well for sticking PCBs and perfboard into housings of quick prototypes and one-offs, or holding LEDs to the back of panels and tacking down wires, it's great for making strain reliefs on custom cables. You can even mold custom connectors that are otherwise nearly impossible to obtain if you can find suitable pins. It's good for sticking things temporarily to smooth surfaces, they stick pretty well but you can get them off cleanly if you need to.
I've never seen one that came with a spare nozzle. The current one I have is a dual temperature model branded Gorilla Glue, it's been great, it doesn't drool like a couple I had in the past.
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hot glue guns?
my limited experience is not a happy one (or expensive) - luckily the last one I bought came with a spare nozzle
They all come to a sticky end,
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Like/hate them.
They are handy for bodging stuff together but at the same time hate it as the glue isn't great, you end up with random strings all over the place and it just looks rubbish.
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New peeve: The self-redundant phrase "software code". As in, "She wrote the software code to add the feature".
Disagree, at least in some contexts. It makes sense when there are different sets of code to distinguish amongst. For example, your bootloader vs. your “software”, or firmware vs. software, or OS vs application. There are usually more precise terms, but it does make some sense. The other thing is web code vs software code: many non-web programmers expressly reject web development as being “programming” and reject the result being “software”.
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Well that is the question, when do you stop calling something programming. Web development comes in many forms, no pun intended, like from the very basic writing html markup to constructing what you want in some graphical web builder.
I myself have done the hands on development with both asp or php combined with basic script or javascript along with html and css, but never with those web builder packages. Never felt the need or urge to learn to do it with those.
The distinction between software and firmware to me is that the first is something that is more or less free from dedicated hardware and runs from media like floppies, harddisks, etc and firmware resides in memory like EPROM or FLASH and belongs to some dedicated hardware. But they are both code written by someone in some language. So when come other terms in play like operating system or application to separate it from the term software.
I know the distinction between the two terms of course, but again they are software written by someone is some language.
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Password managers help mitigate that but they also make me a little uneasy because if someone does manage to compromise my password manager (say they break in and steal my laptop) then they have access to EVERYTHING.
Yes this.
When you leave the house store the laptop in a powered down state and encrypt it. (This won't prevent them from storing a keystroke logger on your laptop on bootup or on your keyboards ribbon cable but it will make it difficult), they just then need to wait for you to type in your pw manager's master password and then send the results back to a server that they own however firewalling any outside connections on an app basis can mitigate against that somewhat, but thats what keyfiles are for. Store the keyfile on a usb thumb drive on your keys. You then need the master password and the keyfile.
If they've installed a keylogger on your laptop then its game over anyway, hardware based or software based.
That way the only way to get access to your password database is to have both the password and a copy of your usb thumb drive on your keys. So they would need to mug you for your keys or obtain a short period of time to access them while you are inebriated in a bar, etc. AND they would need to break into your house and take your laptop and copy its contents then return it within a period of time that you are away from home. The contents that they obtain will be encrypted at that point and they will also need the key for the whole harddrive encryption.
Biometrics can help somewhat also. A USB flash drive with biometrics (A reputable one, not one from aliexpress) can prevent your keyfiles from being stolen (eg in oppportunistic theft). If you want to go full paranoid you could use a toeprint instead of a fingerprint to unlock the usb flash drive. The usb flash drive should ONLY be used for storing your keyfiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVKl3GuazEs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVKl3GuazEs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASHEtvByvd0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASHEtvByvd0)
https://www.kingston.com/en/solutions/data-security/ironkey (https://www.kingston.com/en/solutions/data-security/ironkey)
This or Veracrypt with a pin.
Something with a keyboard besides your laptop keyboard can also prove useful. But again if your main laptops keyboard is keylogged.... no point. Because once the usb flash drive is unlocked a compromised system will copy the contents of it and send it back to remote servers. It also means that you have to remember yet another pin to unlock the usb flash drive. It makes things very complicated when you have to enter in 3 passwords just to start your day.
That makes it then to make a sucessful attempt on your password database as difficult as obtaining the master password inside your head or inside of your safe, a copy of the contents on the usb flash drive on your keys, and a full image of your hard drive, and then a copy of your full hard drive encryption master password. Much more difficult than simply obtaining one password for your password database and a copy of your password database.
There is also the matter of backups. If you backup your password database any and all hard drives containing your old backups can and will be used as a place to obtain a copy of your keyfile and or password database.
I suggest storing a copy of your backups and password database in a safe, one that is bolted down to the ground. Keep the tumbler code in your head and the key on your keychain.
The safest place for any master password is inside your head or in a safe deposit box or inside a safe.
If they break into your house and hold you at gunpoint though while your laptop is powered up and unlocked, what are you gonna do? Die for some passwords? No.
All forms of security has its limitations.
All true, but it makes the other side of the problem obvious. If the master password is in your head or otherwise absolutely tied to you, if you die or are incapacitated your family, dependents and heirs have no access. How are they to pay your bills while you are in a coma, or settle your estate. Many of us on this forum are of an age where the latter issue is very real.
I have my own solution to this, but it isn't perfect and would be made less perfect by publishing it. Everyone would be well advised to think about this problem.
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All true, but it makes the other side of the problem obvious. If the master password is in your head or otherwise absolutely tied to you, if you die or are incapacitated your family, dependents and heirs have no access. How are they to pay your bills while you are in a coma, or settle your estate. Many of us on this forum are of an age where the latter issue is very real.
I have my own solution to this, but it isn't perfect and would be made less perfect by publishing it. Everyone would be well advised to think about this problem.
I had this problem when my dad died. I had to break into all of his accounts the old fashioned way, thankfully I knew enough about him that I could answer the security questions to reset his email password, then once I had access to his email account it was a lot easier to crack everything else. It would have been far easier if he'd had a list of passwords stashed somewhere though.
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They blocked VPNs too which really has ticked a lot of people off.
Those "VPNs" that people try and pass off proxies as? But they provide such security an privacy how could anyone possibly identify you are using a VPN? /sarcasm
What they really do is provide a nicely concentrated area of high "density" and several IPs from which you know you will get idiot traffic emerging in abundance.
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stay ahead of uncle sam u need something darker then the crowded VPN 's
every man and his dog is using a-new silkroad or whatever at your own risk.
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One of my pet peeves is when I see posts along the lines of:
"I'm a complete noob, but I've soldered before and I want to design [some extremely challenging project that would likely be difficult for someone with advanced degrees and decades of experience]"
That said, I have absolutely no problem with people who have ambition, goals and a desire to learn, but going from barely being able to crawl to warp speed in one jump is unrealistic at best.
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Now I have my own low down sports car back and it's winter....
People with really wonky aligned headlights. Spent 10 minutes in a 30mph zone tonight with a BMW X6 behind me and his lights were lighting up my entire cabin. Couldn't look in any mirrors without being blinded. Thankfully I left him behind when I got to the 60mph zone.
There is an "I'm alright jack" attitude which I have heard for people. Saying things like "Point them down for the annual test, the point them back up again when you drive out."
At times I am completely blind, rabbit in the headlights. I sit 45cm off the road. My head is level with most SUV bonnets. I can't even see over them at junctions and it often requires the car behind help with a little beep.
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Along those same lines: When you help someone for the first time, and they interpret this act of kindness as a permanent Customer Support Contract. I'm all for helping people, but I've been bled dry by a few over the years that want help over and over and over and over. I'm sure this sounds selfish but after a while it just grinds on your time and patience.
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Now I have my own low down sports car... I sit 45cm off the road. My head is level with most SUV bonnets. I can't even see over them at junctions and it often requires the car behind help with a little beep.
What are you driving? I'm driving a nice little number from your country, a 2020 Lotus Evora GT, and I can sympathize with everything you typed. Cars like this are nearly invisible to some other vehicles. Once the warranty expires I intend to install an ultra-loud horn front AND back... "The smaller the car, the louder the horn". Almost had a huge pickup back into my rear end in a parking lot, I was honking like a madman with no time to get out and wave him off, but the stock horn is kinda wimpy and pointed the wrong direction and I'm certain he never heard anything.
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Now I have my own low down sports car... I sit 45cm off the road. My head is level with most SUV bonnets. I can't even see over them at junctions and it often requires the car behind help with a little beep.
What are you driving? I'm driving a nice little number from your country, a 2020 Lotus Evora GT, and I can sympathize with everything you typed. Cars like this are nearly invisible to some other vehicles. Once the warranty expires I intend to install an ultra-loud horn front AND back... "The smaller the car, the louder the horn". Almost had a huge pickup back into my rear end in a parking lot, I was honking like a madman with no time to get out and wave him off, but the stock horn is kinda wimpy and pointed the wrong direction and I'm certain he never heard anything.
Modern headlamps are a lot brighter than the "old school" type, and seem to be more blinding as a result - even when well adjusted.
Add to list of pet peeves! :D
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What are you driving?
2017 GT86 Pro.
Just got it back after the neighbour across the street reversed into it, crushing in the rear drivers quarter panel. Thankfully they were insured and admitted fault. Repair is near perfect, rewelded to manufacturer regulations of course.
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Now I have my own low down sports car back and it's winter....
People with really wonky aligned headlights. Spent 10 minutes in a 30mph zone tonight with a BMW X6 behind me and his lights were lighting up my entire cabin. Couldn't look in any mirrors without being blinded. Thankfully I left him behind when I got to the 60mph zone.
There is an "I'm alright jack" attitude which I have heard for people. Saying things like "Point them down for the annual test, the point them back up again when you drive out."
At times I am completely blind, rabbit in the headlights. I sit 45cm off the road. My head is level with most SUV bonnets. I can't even see over them at junctions and it often requires the car behind help with a little beep.
Back in the early 1970s, the road rules in the UK had recently changed from "You can drive on parking lights only in built-up areas" to requiring dipped beams everywhere.
In true Brit fashion, it took quite a while for this to sink in, & many kept to the old ways.
The combination of Sodium streetlights, a dark coloured car on parkers only, & a pedestrian from another country was a perilous one.
The upshot of seldom using the headlights led to them being badly adjusted or completely unadjusted.
As an Australian, I was used to most headlights being relatively well adjusted (the problem in Oz is that many just won't dip!) & would cringe at the sight of cars in more rural areas with their "low" beams illuminating the treetops----fairly obviously drivers who rarely left lighted areas.
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One of my pet peeves is when I see posts along the lines of:
"I'm a complete noob, but I've soldered before and I want to design [some extremely challenging project that would likely be difficult for someone with advanced degrees and decades of experience]"
That said, I have absolutely no problem with people who have ambition, goals and a desire to learn, but going from barely being able to crawl to warp speed in one jump is unrealistic at best.
Now you've done it!
People will react as if you are the Grinch! ;D
I posted something similar some years back & was blasted for "discouraging" noobs.
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A Hakko 599B being $176 AUD
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004476504820.html (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004476504820.html)
It says $59.90 for me, surely the AUD to USD exchange rate is not THAT bad?
Of course you can buy the real deal direct from Hakko for $9.67 so I'm not sure why anyone would use aliexpress for that.
https://hakkousa.com/599b-tip-cleaner.html (https://hakkousa.com/599b-tip-cleaner.html)
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Modern headlamps are a lot brighter than the "old school" type, and seem to be more blinding as a result - even when well adjusted.
Yes. My own headlights are xenon projector lamps. On full high beam it's like a small sun. However, as they are OEM discharge lamps, they are self levelling and have a sharp as a knife, tuned beam cut off. It's actually rather annoying because on a country road the dip beams extend about 3 car lengths and then stop. Like a line drawn across the road with a pencil it's light and then instantly it's pitch black, nothing. You can barely see the leakage glow on road signs 100 yards away.
This means the only time I am blinding people is coming up over crests.
My high beam is engaged either by pulling or pushing the light stalk. I tend to hold it back for "intermittent" when I need FULL beams. So I can just let go if I come to a crest, a tight bend or a car comes the other way.
It's some of that later bit people don't bother with. Dropping the lights when coming round a tight bend is "polite" as nobody likes suddenly being blinded in a tight bend.
On being blinded. Sometimes it works to look for the verge on the nearside. Try and keep reference with the side of the road. DO NOT LOOK AT THE LIGHT! :)
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I blame the LED replacements for incandescents on Ebay/Amazon/etc. They are very good indeed, but inappropriate for headlamps that aren't designed for them and just dazzle oncoming drivers. Illegal in the UK to retrofit them (should be an MOT failure) but easily swapped out just for the test (like 'power' exhausts on bikes).
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Having to use an authentication code just to buy groceries online.
Great, isn't it! Coles send the dumb thing to your phone.
My Samsung is a pain in the backside to look at texts on, but luckily, I have Microsoft Phonelink which "sorta works", so I don't have to find where I've put the phone, as long as it is reasonably close to the laptop.
The funny thing is, that I can order, then go to Coles Online later & open the page without needing the code, so if I was the "boogey man" I guess I could change the order items & delivery address.
Once it is delivered, it seems that they go back to the silly code for next time.
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I blame the LED replacements for incandescents on Ebay/Amazon/etc. They are very good indeed, but inappropriate for headlamps that aren't designed for them and just dazzle oncoming drivers. Illegal in the UK to retrofit them (should be an MOT failure) but easily swapped out just for the test (like 'power' exhausts on bikes).
They're illegal here too, the package will typically say "For off-road use only" but like you say they're easily swappable, and most states don't have any kind of vehicle inspection anyway.
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What?!? LED bulbs which are drop-in replacements for standard headlight bulbs are illegal here in the States? First I've ever heard that, and they're widely available from retail brick and mortar auto parts vendors everywhere.
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What?!? LED bulbs which are drop-in replacements for standard headlight bulbs are illegal here in the States? First I've ever heard that, and they're widely available from retail brick and mortar auto parts vendors everywhere.
They are absolutely illegal, unless they are DOT certified. Look closely on the package, they will say something like "for off-road use only" in small print. Installing them in a headlamp certified for tungsten bulbs voids the DOT certification of the assembly.
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The OEM lights are designed to create the correct beam shape (or not above a certain beam limit shape). The OEM lights do not have the ability to raise or lower them. They have to do that themselves. Fancy Audi's do an animated thing when you power the car up, mine just monitors the rear axle and adjusts the headlights to load. There is a minimal amount of adjustment in the headlight assembly.
Putting discharge lamps, xenon or led or whatever into a standard headlight reflector will produce far, far too much wide light compared to an OEM projector headlight. So while the main beam pattern might look okay, the amount of light being leaked up and away will blind other drivers.
That is why they are illegal to be retro fitted unless it done in a certified way.
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LED's save fuel and reduce emissions compared to incandescents. It's a shame they don't make the LED packages to produce the same 3D profile of light output.
Guess I'll just continue reducing my environmental footprint by not using turn signals. Every little bit helps.
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LED's save fuel and reduce emissions compared to incandescents. It's a shame they don't make the LED packages to produce the same 3D profile of light output.
Guess I'll just continue reducing my environmental footprint by not using turn signals. Every little bit helps.
If it was that easy they would. It took years just to develop LED replacements for domestic lightbulbs that reasonably matched the light distribution of a standard bulb. An automotive headlamp has a filament only about 1mm diameter and 5-8mm long that is very precisely located. LEDs just don't have the same physical characteristics.
The amount of energy consumed by the headlights is negligible compared to what is required to move the car. I am skeptical that you'd even be able to measure a difference if you drove a 3,000 mile trip with the headlights on and then did it again with the headlights off. I suspect any difference would be down in the noise floor.
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Because Halogen is so dim you do need good night vision, once your night vision is gone its like driving in the dark.
It is in that situation where I find myself on a regular basis and it ticks me off to no end.
That's a problem with getting old, not the fault of the lamp.
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I don't think my night vision is that bad, you would be right to say that the halogen reflector is old in my car.
Give it 10 years and any halogen out there is flaking its reflective coating off, maybe even less time than that.
There is a condition where your sensitivity to bright light in the dark increases as you age. I believe it's to do with how fast your iris and lens responds to constrict. So you get more blinded as this condition progresses.
10 years for a car? Hmm. 10 years or 100,000 miles and it's done, sell it to a new driver, move on or it will just start costing you more than the payments on a brand new car. This is of course location dependant. If you live in Arizona your car is going to have a lovely dry life. I live in Ireland about 1/4 mile from the beach/sea. Strong sea winds blow tons of salt over the land every month. Cars rot out here in 10 years. If you look after them but still drive them daily, they might last 15 if you are lucky and it will require some work to keep it road legal. If you want it to last longer, best keep it in a garage and only drive it on sunny dry days.
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Any car with steerable rear view mirrors has a defense against following bright lights. Unfortunately it is seldom effective, either the clutz behind can't figure out the solution or it incites a retaliatory road rage incident.
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My fifteen-year-old Golf has an auto-dim rear mirror (switchable on or off) which deals with most rear blinders. The only ones it hasn't coped with have been very recent LED megawatt jobs that the driver has left on main beam. You'd think they'd notice everything to the horizon being ultra-bright and figure perhaps they forgot to dim, but it never seems to occur to them.
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And, while I'm here...
Lack of joined-up thinking for roadworks. Current aggravation is a collapsed road on a rat run, so traffic that would normally go through there now has to go into town and back out. So, of course, on the only other main road in - to which they've diverted the through traffic - they've set up 4-way lights that take forever to allow for a possible cyclist to traverse the full length before switching queues. And if you happen to take the scenic route and go right around town to come in from the other way, there's a road closed on that route and more roadworks for putting in fibre. At 8am today it took an hour to do a journey that would usually take 20 mins in rush hour.
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Lack of joined-up thinking for roadworks. Current aggravation is a collapsed road on a rat run, so traffic that would normally go through there now has to go into town and back out
and dont forget 2 weeks after they've reopened the road it will have a lane closed to allow for road markings to be painted, once there dry open reach will turn up to dig up the lovely smooth asphalt to install new fibre,and in doing so disturb the water main causing a leak.Or does that only happen on the main through road here?
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There is a trend around here of inserting pedestrian crossings and traffic lights in random places. The most annoying are the crossings right on the roundabout exits which cause many rear end clips because people start braking mid exit and at rush it the right hand turners block the whole roundabout while the wait on the constant stream of kids hitting the button, sometimes just for fun.
The another annoying thing about them is... the placed a new one exactly halfway along the main street to stop people crossing through the traffic. Please STILL cross through the traffic.
On having your entire interior cabin lit up in cold sun light by the car behind. In traffic I use the light to make shadow rabbits and butterflies on the headliner. It sends a signal to the car behind as my hands are lit up for them :) Not that anyone does anything about it or can do anything other than replace and/or align their lights!
Road side spot checks in October, £50 on the spot fine for failing the alignment test. That might help!
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Lack of joined-up thinking for roadworks. Current aggravation is a collapsed road on a rat run, so traffic that would normally go through there now has to go into town and back out
and dont forget 2 weeks after they've reopened the road it will have a lane closed to allow for road markings to be painted, once there dry open reach will turn up to dig up the lovely smooth asphalt to install new fibre,and in doing so disturb the water main causing a leak.Or does that only happen on the main through road here?
Oh yes. Further down the road are potholes due to previous works (from 4 months ago) not being finished properly, so they will need to be done again.
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And... on the topic of travel...
This is westbound on the M4 out of Reading, courtesy of Google Maps (https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4379901,-1.0636337,3a,90y,300.4h,74.92t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5Bs-DoIXgoDAyAgAwB2Fsg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192). We are just getting to the end of the variable speed limit gantries - the blue sign you see there says "Variable speed limit ENDS". Today, there was allegedly congestion (there wasn't) so the variable limit was 50mph - the big sign in front had a big "50" in a red circle - so the 50ft or so of motorway between those signs was 50. Urggh. What's the point? All it did was confuse half the drivers into going slow unnecessarily until a few miles later when they twig.
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All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.
Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit? Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!
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10 years for a car? Hmm. 10 years or 100,000 miles and it's done, sell it to a new driver, move on or it will just start costing you more than the payments on a brand new car. This is of course location dependant. If you live in Arizona your car is going to have a lovely dry life. I live in Ireland about 1/4 mile from the beach/sea. Strong sea winds blow tons of salt over the land every month. Cars rot out here in 10 years. If you look after them but still drive them daily, they might last 15 if you are lucky and it will require some work to keep it road legal. If you want it to last longer, best keep it in a garage and only drive it on sunny dry days.
That's so bizarre to me. I've never in my life owned a car that was less than 10 years old or had less than 100,000 miles on it. My last car was 30 years old with 330,000 on it when it got rear ended and was totaled. My current daily driver is 33 years old with 275,000 on it, zero rust, still has most of the original paint and the leather is holding up fairly nicely. Maintenance cost is negligible, I probably spend $500 annually on maintenance and repairs.
Salt is horrible, evil stuff that should be illegal to put on roads. It costs billions of dollars a year in destroyed cars and infrastructure. I'll drive in snow no problem but I won't drive in salt. I can't even comprehend how someone could be ok with such a major investment as a car only lasting 10 years.
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You're a bit more extreme than I am, but I agree with your sentiments! We typically buy our cars new (so as not to inherit other people's problems and lack of proper maintenance) and then we drive and fastidiously maintain them until ~150K miles or so. Generally that's when larger maintenance items start to surface. Those could still be more economical to repair that to buy a new car, but we dislike the unpredictability of age-related failures. So to my family the incremental cost of a new car after ~150K on an existing one is insurance against unpredictable failures.
I should note that I dislike working on cars as a hobby. Regular maintenance items are fine, but if it requires a lift or tearing into the engine or transmission I am honest enough to admit it's outside my sphere of experience. Those who love working on cars can keep them running for hundreds of thousands of miles and I applaud such folks. I'm just not one of them.
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All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.
Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit? Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!
:-DD
And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.
Nice times I say! :-DD
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My pet peeve are egotistical engineers and engineers that cannot "turn it off".
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You're a bit more extreme than I am, but I agree with your sentiments! We typically buy our cars new (so as not to inherit other people's problems and lack of proper maintenance) and then we drive and fastidiously maintain them until ~150K miles or so. Generally that's when larger maintenance items start to surface. Those could still be more economical to repair that to buy a new car, but we dislike the unpredictability of age-related failures. So to my family the incremental cost of a new car after ~150K on an existing one is insurance against unpredictable failures.
I should note that I dislike working on cars as a hobby. Regular maintenance items are fine, but if it requires a lift or tearing into the engine or transmission I am honest enough to admit it's outside my sphere of experience. Those who love working on cars can keep them running for hundreds of thousands of miles and I applaud such folks. I'm just not one of them.
Well I am thankful of people like you for subsidizing my transportation. I've always bought vehicles around the time you'd be getting rid of them, fix the typical age related problems that crop up and anything else they need and then just drive them. I enjoy working on cars though and have done a handful of engine swaps, transmission swaps, several auto to manual swaps including my current daily driver. As with most stuff that breaks, I take it as a personal challenge and am not about to let some fault get the best of me.
These days nobody is making a car that interests me in the slightest so I'm pretty much stuck keeping old cars going. Some day I'll be forced to get a boring more modern beater that is easily replaceable so I don't have to worry about something happening to it but I'm not at that point yet.
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These days nobody is making a car that interests me in the slightest so I'm pretty much stuck keeping old cars going.
That's one of the reasons we bought a brand new Lotus in 2020: A new, warranted, modern vehicle (so we "reset" our ownership timeframe) that is a more pure analog environment instead of a bunch of needless touch screens. Analog gauges. Manual transmission. Bulletproof Toyota engine (same V6 as a Camry!) and transmission, parts and service available everywhere for decades.
Last year we bought a 2022 Toyota Sienna Hybrid minivan. It has all of the electronics, gadgets, bells and whistles, etc. that the Lotus left out and a LOT more. Kinda over the top, honestly. But the mileage is mind-blowing and my wife likes it, being her second Sienna she's very comfortable with the environment and controls.
Meanwhile, our 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 with its Cummins diesel engine just keeps crankin' along....
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Meanwhile, our 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 with its Cummins diesel engine just keeps crankin' along....
Those old Cummins diesels are fantastic. Take good care of them and they just keep going and going. Modern requirements have pretty much ruined diesels unfortunately, DEF, particulate filters, etc, more trouble than they're worth.
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That was exactly the rationale we used to justify buying it when we did.
2006 was the last model year with the 5.9L inline 6 Cummins engine, WITHOUT all the next-gen exhaust nonsense and DEF and so on. Just add fuel and go. (BTW, we get ~26 MPG in mixed driving.) Also, that same 5.9L Cummins powerplant is used in everything... boat engines, generators, construction equipment, you name it. They're everywhere, which means parts and service will be available anywhere. We've had boat yards say "Let us handle the maintenance on your truck, we know that powerplant inside and out".
Also, 2006 was during the period that Mercedes-Benz owned Chrysler. As a result, the six speed manual transmission used in that era is actually an MB transmission designed for Class 5 truck applications (up to 19,500 pounds). Our one-ton 3500 doesn't even remotely approach the design parameters of that transmission so it lives a nice, easy, comfortable life and should last basically forever.
I have zero loyalty to Dodge or any other brand. What I wanted was a hyper-reliable powertrain since that's where all the value is anyway. Research told me Cummins was the way to go, so I tell people "I bought a Cummins engine and it came wrapped in a Dodge truck".
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All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.
Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit? Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!
:-DD
And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.
Nice times I say! :-DD
Radar detector, or similar tech?
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And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.
1984 is becoming very real.
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You're a bit more extreme than I am, but I agree with your sentiments! We typically buy our cars new (so as not to inherit other people's problems and lack of proper maintenance) and then we drive and fastidiously maintain them until ~150K miles or so. Generally that's when larger maintenance items start to surface. Those could still be more economical to repair that to buy a new car, but we dislike the unpredictability of age-related failures. So to my family the incremental cost of a new car after ~150K on an existing one is insurance against unpredictable failures.
I should note that I dislike working on cars as a hobby. Regular maintenance items are fine, but if it requires a lift or tearing into the engine or transmission I am honest enough to admit it's outside my sphere of experience. Those who love working on cars can keep them running for hundreds of thousands of miles and I applaud such folks. I'm just not one of them.
Well I am thankful of people like you for subsidizing my transportation. I've always bought vehicles around the time you'd be getting rid of them, fix the typical age related problems that crop up and anything else they need and then just drive them. I enjoy working on cars though and have done a handful of engine swaps, transmission swaps, several auto to manual swaps including my current daily driver. As with most stuff that breaks, I take it as a personal challenge and am not about to let some fault get the best of me.
These days nobody is making a car that interests me in the slightest so I'm pretty much stuck keeping old cars going. Some day I'll be forced to get a boring more modern beater that is easily replaceable so I don't have to worry about something happening to it but I'm not at that point yet.
For a modern beater, I recommend the Ford Escape Hybrid 2009 - 2012. Decent size, good on gas, cheap to own and fix, and (much) more reliable than the V6 equivalent with its glass transmission. If you can get the "Limited" package, it is a very very nice car - quiet, AWD, good in snow, etc. Taxi drivers used to routinely put 500K miles on these things, they are solid.
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All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.
Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit? Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!
:-DD
And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.
Nice times I say! :-DD
Radar detector, or similar tech?
There's a driver behind the wheel and they will spot the offenders and trigger the flash. I don't know the details of the kind of radar they use as it must account for their own vehicle's speed.
One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.
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One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.
That's the part that I find disturbing. It's clearly a revenue machine, otherwise they'd have police out there patrolling.
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One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.
That's the part that I find disturbing. It's clearly a revenue machine, otherwise they'd have police out there patrolling.
I wouldn't mind police cars patrolling highways to spot risky behaviors and prevent accidents. Whatever this is, it's none of that.
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One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.
That's the part that I find disturbing. It's clearly a revenue machine, otherwise they'd have police out there patrolling.
Here in the States it's common for private companies to install license-plate-reading traffic cams. They mail you the ticket and the company splits the revenue with the jurisdiction. There was a big dustup over this in Spokane recently, got a lot of local news coverage. I don't know how it turned out but folks were NOT happy that 1) a private for-profit company was in a position to accuse you of an offense, and then 2) profit from it.
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Here in the States it's common for private companies to install license-plate-reading traffic cams. They mail you the ticket and the company splits the revenue with the jurisdiction. There was a big dustup over this in Spokane recently, got a lot of local news coverage. I don't know how it turned out but folks were NOT happy that 1) a private for-profit company was in a position to accuse you of an offense, and then 2) profit from it.
About 15 years ago people in a city nearby me tried to use a citizens initiative to abolish the red light cameras. A city official was quoted as saying "We need the revenue" and that instantly made me realize they are not about safety. Some stats that I've seen suggest that they actually cause an increase in accidents as people change their mind and slam on the brakes at the last moment.
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New York: "... roughly 2,200 speed cameras and about 220 red-light cameras assigned fines that brought in more than $200 million."
"But the Department of Transportation said that roughly 4 percent of its 28 million camera activations were foiled by unreadable plates". source (https://buffalonews.com/investigators-dispense-street-justice-one-defaced-license-plate-at-a-time/article_d7078f97-d4a5-5296-b390-a5abdc263cb6.html).
Apparently the thing is putting a leaf sticker or bending your plate to thwart the cameras, and now vigilantes straightening them out lol.
But that's quite the cash cow.
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I have mixed feeling about the red light cameras. In several cities I have found that people in turn lanes feel entitled to continue on the same light, long after it has turned red. I have counted up to seven cars passing after my light has turned green. In some cases they consumed the entire cycle of the light for my direction. One or two might be ascribed to making a bad estimate of the time to clear the yellow, but not seven. This can't enhance safety, and surely resulted in some road rage. In Tucson when red light cameras were installed it largely stopped this behavior at the intersections having cameras. But those people who got caught stretching the lights raised such a clamor that they were removed and the old and bad behavior returned.
The problem is not fundamentally difficult. As you approach a light you know that it may change. When the caution arrow comes on you may have a decision to make, but in most jurisdictions (not some suburbs of Portland) there is some margin making it pretty easy to make a legal decision. If you can't make speed/time/distance estimates at the speeds involved in turning you probably shouldn't be driving. The only ones who are forced into dangerous behavior by trying to comply with the law are those not driving sensibly in the first place. Particularly the one in back of the one slamming on the brakes who was definitely following too close.
It is simple on the other side too. In the Tucson example human operators (often police) reviewed the camera data. As was reported they were legally very strict on the definitions of clearing the intersection, etc. If they had only ticketed the flagrant offenders, letting those who barely crossed the lines it would have resulted in far less anger, and quite possibly still ended the multiple vehicles passing a red light behavior.
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New York: "... roughly 2,200 speed cameras and about 220 red-light cameras assigned fines that brought in more than $200 million."
"But the Department of Transportation said that roughly 4 percent of its 28 million camera activations were foiled by unreadable plates". source (https://buffalonews.com/investigators-dispense-street-justice-one-defaced-license-plate-at-a-time/article_d7078f97-d4a5-5296-b390-a5abdc263cb6.html).
Apparently the thing is putting a leaf sticker or bending your plate to thwart the cameras, and now vigilantes straightening them out lol.
But that's quite the cash cow.
I thought about the feasibility of a bright IR license plate light to blind the camera but having never been nailed by one it has not been a big priority for me.
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I have mixed feeling about the red light cameras. In several cities I have found that people in turn lanes feel entitled to continue on the same light, long after it has turned red. I have counted up to seven cars passing after my light has turned green. In some cases they consumed the entire cycle of the light for my direction. One or two might be ascribed to making a bad estimate of the time to clear the yellow, but not seven. This can't enhance safety, and surely resulted in some road rage. In Tucson when red light cameras were installed it largely stopped this behavior at the intersections having cameras. But those people who got caught stretching the lights raised such a clamor that they were removed and the old and bad behavior returned.
I get the problem, red light running is a big problem, the people that do that drive me nuts. The issue I have is not catching those people, but the robotic cameras that take no other factors into consideration and do not give you the opportunity to argue your case in front of a judge. They *could* be implemented in such a way as to improve safety but instead they are tuned for increased revenue. Several cities have been caught adjusting the amber light intervals on camera enforced intersections down to the bare minimum allowed time in order to increase revenue.
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Salt is horrible, evil stuff that should be illegal to put on roads. It costs billions of dollars a year in destroyed cars and infrastructure. I'll drive in snow no problem but I won't drive in salt. I can't even comprehend how someone could be ok with such a major investment as a car only lasting 10 years.
Yea, I forgot about the road salt. Most of this light coloured dirt is actually salt.
https://i.imgur.com/TqESg6N.jpg
Snow is not the issue. It's sheet ice is the issue. You tend to find it in hard to see place in the middle of bends. There are evenings when they can't salt the roads because it's raining or going to rain through the night. If it freezes the next monrning, it's black, sheet, invisible ice everywhere. You can't see it because it just looks like black, wet, road, but it's obviously deadly. Snow is a known quantity and it's obvious. Note the tyres on my car (this is my old one), are winters. Not because of snow, but because the car came fitted with performance "Summer" tyres not rated below 10*C. The winters aren't meant to be used above 10*C. They provide amazing grip on ice and frost, but I have never really got to test them in snow!
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All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.
Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit? Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!
:-DD
And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.
Nice times I say! :-DD
Radar detector, or similar tech?
There's a driver behind the wheel and they will spot the offenders and trigger the flash. I don't know the details of the kind of radar they use as it must account for their own vehicle's speed.
One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.
There are always electronic countermeasures! :D
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How the younger generation and big corporates are destroying the www... and mobile apps in general.
Everyday now I see issues. The "Back" button becoming non-functional. Single-page-webapps always taking you back to the home page. In apps, right click having no effect or doing the same thing as left, because mobiles don't have 2 buttons and macs have 1. All web functionality being reduced down to the low common demononator for mobile use.
It's even little conventions that have been completely forgotten. Why when you go to a log in page does the login form not automatically focus? Well, that because in mobile space you have to click it anyway to get the keyboard up. If you attempt to "tab" your way there you'll find that convention has been forgotten or abused for ages.
Now a few weeks ago I discovered another breach into the sacred convention of the status bar showing your the ACTUAL URL you are going to. Apparently both Chrome and Firefox now support "ad hiding" and URL masquerading of proxy/relay hosts such as "googleadservices.com".
Does nobody have any respect anymore?
Rarr,rarr,waves fists. GET OFF MY LAWN!
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I am sorry I misread the above. It is about the status bar. So now they playing around with that.
Now a few weeks ago I discovered another breach into the sacred convention of the status bar showing your the ACTUAL URL you are going to. Apparently both Chrome and Firefox now support "ad hiding" and URL masquerading of proxy/relay hosts such as "googleadservices.com".
I thought they stopped that nonsense after giving up on hiding the https and providing an option to show it.
https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/06/10/google-ends-its-attack-on-the-url-bar-resumes-showing-full-address-in-chrome/ (https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/06/10/google-ends-its-attack-on-the-url-bar-resumes-showing-full-address-in-chrome/)
I haven't seen it yet as I use Vivaldi mainly (dressed up version of chrome) and some old version of Chrome launched by shortcuts to individual profiles to specific things and sites.
I just found this:
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/make-chrome-display-the-full-url-in-the-address-bar/#:~:text=If (https://www.groovypost.com/howto/make-chrome-display-the-full-url-in-the-address-bar/#:~:text=If) you want to force,Always Show Full URLs option.
(https://www.groovypost.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Chrome-Uncheck-Always-See-URLs-640x411.png)
Right click to show full urls where I believed that was to do with showing the full url including the https.
It wouldn't surprise me if they changed their minds again.
How the younger generation and big corporates are destroying the www... and mobile apps in general.
My experience has already been ruined by their massive big spammy nav/toolbars headers, that I sometimes find, excessive use of dimming overlays, spinners, page slowing animations under the name "preloaders" and other page/content interfering things where I am at the mercy of even more extensions to manage them. I only started to use adblock when I discovered that it can hide auto suggest lines on google search when they removed the option back in 2015 to hide suggestions.
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Otherwise peeve?
C o r p o r a t e G R E E N W A S H I N G
Maybe something was lost in translation, but here HP joyously claim their TV product uses 85% recycled plastic/metal and 5% ocean bound plastic.
So is there a mountain of plastic in Korea/China that is specifically designated as dump at sea? Why not use 100% of ocean bound plastic, instead of leaving the other 95% floating in the Plastific Ocean :-\
Or why not make your products sustainable by making them last :-//
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Plastic(s) are not the problem. Single use plastic and the waste management of is the problem.
The knee jerk reaction against plastic is causing a massive spike is produce waste in supermarkets. A properly protected lettuce might have a shelf life of 3-5 days. An unprotected one, 1 maybe 2. But because concerned customer demand they use less plastic they now charge more for lettuce and dump far, far more of it. I believe Tesco's actually published information to say their fresh produce waste has increase 3 fold on "plastic free" packaging lines.
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An interesting point was put to me by Sabine - YouTube scientist.
Given that plastic is mostly carbon and we are storing it in land fills and the oceans.... isn't that a good thing? We are now trying to develop bacteria and decomposers that will attack plastic and turn it back into CO2. <-- This could go SO, So, so badly wrong. People in plastic hulled, lined or sealed boats and ships might have a bit to worry about.
Has anyone actually stopped and thought this through?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajb34Aid5jY&t=880s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajb34Aid5jY&t=880s)
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So is there a mountain of plastic in Korea/China that is specifically designated as dump at sea? Why not use 100% of ocean bound plastic, instead of leaving the other 95% floating in the Plastific Ocean :-\
The problem is common to most forms of recycling. Recycled material is not as pure as virgin stuff and making it adequately pure is very difficult. If you tried to make a plastic housing out of 100% ocean recovered or otherwise recycled plastic the quality and finish would not be anywhere near good enough. If you mix a small percentage as filler in virgin material the end result is nicer.
I'm assuming by "ocean bound" they mean recovered from the ocean, not headed for the ocean as the literal meaning of the phrase would imply but I really don't know about that. Maybe it's some BS where they collect types of plastic most likely to end up in the ocean and call that ocean bound.
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Plastic(s) are not the problem. Single use plastic and the waste management of is the problem.
The knee jerk reaction against plastic is causing a massive spike is produce waste in supermarkets. A properly protected lettuce might have a shelf life of 3-5 days. An unprotected one, 1 maybe 2. But because concerned customer demand they use less plastic they now charge more for lettuce and dump far, far more of it. I believe Tesco's actually published information to say their fresh produce waste has increase 3 fold on "plastic free" packaging lines.
On top of that, areas like my state have instituted bans on single use plastic bags. The problem with this is that a large number of "single use" bags were actually reused for things like lining waste baskets and scooping cat boxes. I used to use them for that but now I ended up buying a box of the old fashioned single use shopping bags specifically for these purposes. The plastic bags they do offer now are ostensibly reusable and are much heavier, using many times as much plastic as the old bags but few people bother to bring them back in so they end up being single use and consume more material than before. Paper bags are easily recycled but recycled paper is of limited use and making these bags results in something like 80 million trees per year being consumed just in the USA. The net result of these plastic bag bans has been an increase in plastic consumption AND an increase in tree consumption and yet people vote for them because it *feels* like they're helping. They would help "if people just did xyz", the problem is that in the real world people just *don't* do these things.
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All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.
Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit? Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!
:-DD
And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.
Nice times I say! :-DD
Radar detector, or similar tech?
There's a driver behind the wheel and they will spot the offenders and trigger the flash. I don't know the details of the kind of radar they use as it must account for their own vehicle's speed.
One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.
There are always electronic countermeasures! :D
Well, you can install "specific" license plates for instance. This shouldn't be much risk with those private radar vehicles, as those guys have no possibility of arresting you, so if the plate number doesn't show on the pictures, they can't do anything. Problem is, if you install this kind of plates, and run into an actual cop, you are in trouble. And you never know (although you can assume that the more of those private vehicles on the road, and the fewer the cops, as this is going to be used to lower the public operational costs.)
Not that I recommend doing this at all, of course. ::)
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Who are those elusive "customers" who "vote" for end of plastic bags use in groccery stores? I am yet to see/know a single person. Terminating plastic bags has created nothing but inconvenience for shoppers in stores that ironically called "convenience" stores. It is all corporate driven.
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Who are those elusive "customers" who "vote" for end of plastic bags use in groccery stores? I am yet to see/know a single person. Terminating plastic bags has created nothing but inconvenience for shoppers in stores that ironically called "convenience" stores. It is all corporate driven.
And now it's the disposable dishes thing that are being attacked. They are becoming illegal. So fast food restaurants are now getting rid of them and buying enormous amounts of non-disposable plastic dishes, which undoubtedly is a much better idea than disposable cardboard stuff. :-DD
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Well, you can install "specific" license plates for instance. This shouldn't be much risk with those private radar vehicles, as those guys have no possibility of arresting you, so if the plate number doesn't show on the pictures, they can't do anything. Problem is, if you install this kind of plates, and run into an actual cop, you are in trouble. And you never know (although you can assume that the more of those private vehicles on the road, and the fewer the cops, as this is going to be used to lower the public operational costs.)
Not that I recommend doing this at all, of course. ::)
Seems like I saw an article a couple years ago where someone was caught with a James Bond style rotating license plate mechanism on their car.
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Why not an LCD license plate? Scan your issued one and display the image most of the time.
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Why not an LCD license plate? Scan your issued one and display the image most of the time.
The ones I had in mind are LCD-based, but are not displays. The LCD covers the whole plate and just hides the plate when it detects a flash. Pretty effective.
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Who are those elusive "customers" who "vote" for end of plastic bags use in groccery stores? I am yet to see/know a single person. Terminating plastic bags has created nothing but inconvenience for shoppers in stores that ironically called "convenience" stores. It is all corporate driven.
Greenwashing. Simply tell people they are being environmentally friendly by congratulating them on opting for the cheap crap option; this saves businesses money and makes vocal wokes think they are saving the planet by changing everyone else's behaviour. Meanwhile, it still takes consumers 25 minutes to find a parking space in the out of town shopping mal. Unless they are driving an EV when, they soon discover there are no charging sockets at this plastic bag free supermarket!
As for all of that plastic floating in the ocean, one could ask how my waste plastic that is dutifully collected for recycling in the UK, manages to get into the Pacific and Antarctic oceans and kill dolphins? Maybe they package my recycling into a ship, which sails to the other side of the planet, where it springs a leak and sinks. Every month. :-//
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The ones I had in mind are LCD-based, but are not displays. The LCD covers the whole plate and just hides the plate when it detects a flash. Pretty effective.
I wonder if a passive solution would work, something retroreflective perhaps, optimized for the upward angle where a pole mounted camera would be to overwhelm the dynamic range of the camera. The cameras they use must be pretty good, the security cameras I have at my house struggle to see a license plate in the evening when relying on the built in IR illumination.
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An interesting point was put to me by Sabine - YouTube scientist.
Given that plastic is mostly carbon and we are storing it in land fills and the oceans.... isn't that a good thing? We are now trying to develop bacteria and decomposers that will attack plastic and turn it back into CO2. <-- This could go SO, So, so badly wrong. People in plastic hulled, lined or sealed boats and ships might have a bit to worry about.
Has anyone actually stopped and thought this through?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajb34Aid5jY&t=880s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajb34Aid5jY&t=880s)
I seem to remember an old sci-fi movie, where a plastic eating virus escaped in flight on a plane... [edit: Andromeda Strain?]
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The ones I had in mind are LCD-based, but are not displays. The LCD covers the whole plate and just hides the plate when it detects a flash. Pretty effective.
I wonder if a passive solution would work, something retroreflective perhaps, optimized for the upward angle where a pole mounted camera would be to overwhelm the dynamic range of the camera. The cameras they use must be pretty good, the security cameras I have at my house struggle to see a license plate in the evening when relying on the built in IR illumination.
I think there are some clear varnishes that work well for this. They are easily detected though as just using a flashlight is enough to detect the coating.
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hides the plate when it detects a flash
Wouldn't it be too late then? Particularly given LCD response times vs flash duration.
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Yeah, I'd think by the time the flash is detected and the LCD responds it's too late.
I was thinking that the plate image could be selectively displayed. Say, left blank under most conditions but if you get pulled over, a switch would fade in the plate image. If the officer looks again, the plate is there. Meanwhile, cameras - whether you know about them or not - can't capture an image.
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A lot of cameras just take two photos. Then they measure locations on the road as references and it calculates your speed based on how far you move between shots.
Now... if your number plate where to change during that delay, surely that can't be you.
On plastic shopping bags. That law was passed here (first in the UK I believe) way a back around 2014 or something.
I went from having a box of single use plastic bags under the sink to having a box of reusable plastic bags under the sink.
I did like how the retailers (Tesco/Asda) responded to the government though, total attitude. The government said the retailer has to collect a 5p tax on the disposable plastic bag. So ... the retailer instead sold you a much stronger reusable bag for 10p. Government gets 0p.
To be honest the only real hassle for general shopping is remembering to bring bags with you, otherwise you'll need to buy some.
Over here disposable plastic bags are still allowed for many things. Raw produce, some pre-made foods, etc. When I order online it all arrives in crates/totes without bags, but the meat and fish are placed in tied plastic bags and some, not all veg is isolated in paper bags. This is just to prevent cross comtamination during delivery.
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There are a few good mini-docus on YT about the international state of plastic recycling.
There are plastics in there which are valuable, valuable enough for a workforce to separate them out for processing.
There are plastics which simply cannot be recycled or cannot be recycled economically which goes straight to land fill and permenant disposal. Or at least thats the idea, if 5% of it gets blown/washed into the sea, some nice charity somewhere will scoop it back up and return it to be blown back into the sea again.
The issue is the middle ground. This is where most of the things like PET bottles lives. It's on the margin. For a while China was importing it, separating, grading and reselling it. However they apparently determined that, when factoring in the worker health and hazards and the burden on the republic health services, it was not economical and banned it's import overnight. The waste majority of that now sits in massive heeps in places like indonessia for whom the little money they get to take it is worth taking.... shame they are trashing their beautiful landscape for a few bucks.
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This is where most of the things like PET bottles lives.
maybe they could use a material that can be recycled,something like erm glass,and heres an idea,how about a deposit on the bottle to encourage you to return said bottles for recycling.
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This is where most of the things like PET bottles lives.
maybe they could use a material that can be recycled,something like erm glass,and heres an idea,how about a deposit on the bottle to encourage you to return said bottles for recycling.
Because glass is easy to recycle? It's much the same as plastic. The issue is glass gets mixed up. Mixed glass is not worth a lot compared with single type glass, such as brewers and large producers might have. It's also very, very energy intensive, heavy to transport etc.
The things that annoy me are multi-packs where each individual item has it's own plastic wrapper. Not to mention the amount of time, energy, chemicals and resources they are putting into the packaging which immediately goes in the bin. I'm not going to care if they start giving them to me in brown paper bags FFS, yet individual multipack items have inner wrapper with gold embosed print on them! WTF?
Regarding PET bottles. I wish there were keg filling outlets. "Corny kegs" like used by CocaCola's distribution into pubs and restaurants. Then you can just buy you fizzy pop/soda in a 19 litre keg and have no plastic waste. Granted the outlay for keg, refrigeration and CO2 supply is a bit steep.
I am seriously considering looking for "flavoured water flavour concentrates" and making my own "soda". The difficult part, however, is keeping it sane and bacteria free. If the flavour concentrate does not contain any preservatives I'll have to add them.
Bring back SodaStream but do it right!
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I still don't understand why fluorescent lighting was quickly banned and LED lighting was put in its place which requires you to throw out the entire lighting assembly and replace it with a new one whenever a LED light board or its electronics die
no it dont ,you can get led direct replacement for florry tubes
Because glass is easy to recycle?
no need to recycle,good clean out and refill,like we used to do, ive been using the same 500ml bottles for my home brew for years.
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Not really a pet peeve, but I forgot the password for one of my trunk switches. Had no option but to factor reset it. Which dumps all the VLAN config, tagging etc. Right bugger to fix again once the internet goes down and you can't access half the stuff.
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I still don't understand why fluorescent lighting was quickly banned and LED lighting was put in its place which requires you to throw out the entire lighting assembly and replace it with a new one whenever a LED light board or its electronics die. They could have just made Fluorescent lighting more reliable, eg electrodeless inducting lighting works perfectly fine.
Induction lamps have many of the same problems as fluorescent lamps. They take time to warm up to reach full brightness, they contain mercury and the phosphor depreciates with use. Also RFI can be a challenge and the efficiency topped out at about half of what current LED lamps are achieving. I don't like the disposable LED fixtures but LED sources are far superior to induction.
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Not to mention that fluorescent bulbs are inherently more fragile than LED's. Also far more sensitive to cool temperatures which cause flicker problems. Fluorescent lights have far more disadvantages than advantages... their big plus was efficiency but LED's have destroyed that.
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And, while I'm here...
Lack of joined-up thinking for roadworks. Current aggravation is a collapsed road on a rat run, so traffic that would normally go through there now has to go into town and back out. So, of course, on the only other main road in - to which they've diverted the through traffic - they've set up 4-way lights that take forever to allow for a possible cyclist to traverse the full length before switching queues. And if you happen to take the scenic route and go right around town to come in from the other way, there's a road closed on that route and more roadworks for putting in fibre. At 8am today it took an hour to do a journey that would usually take 20 mins in rush hour.
Ah another member that drives through Wells.
The fun we have had around here for a few years is a new firm doing Fibre to your door. They dig up holes all over the place then do 10 mins work but they are left there for 2 weeks and they even had the cheek to close roads for weeks causing traffic chaos.
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I've solved the plastic problem in my home. I simply don't buy any tools or products which have plastic in their outer casings unless I can't avoid it.
They had it right in the early 20th century. Make everything out of wood or metal or metal alloy. Why can't we produce a synthetic wood?
If I want a new desk fan I'm not going to be buying something brand new, I'll buy something made from metal or something that was built properly in the first place, eg a Sanyo desk fan from the 1980s one from the 1940s properly restored.
I still don't understand why fluorescent lighting was quickly banned and LED lighting was put in its place which requires you to throw out the entire lighting assembly and replace it with a new one whenever a LED light board or its electronics die. They could have just made Fluorescent lighting more reliable, eg electrodeless inducting lighting works perfectly fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4c4K64Ojc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4c4K64Ojc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu6VvNJN8XM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu6VvNJN8XM)
I cannot avoid using plastic bags in my grocery shopping because i get my groceries home delivered. But the plastic bags are recycled.
I also cannot avoid buying prepackaged food which uses a lot of cellophane plastics, but what can be recycled is recycled. This part still keeps me up at night.
As for everything else you guys are just going to have to figure it out for yourselves. I for one am just going to sit back and relax and do my knitting with my mum.
Back in the day, we used real Cellophane, made from Cellulose.
It wasn't a lot different from tomato skin, & discarded material rapidly biodegraded.
It was also a bit fragile, so packaging using clear plastics of other types was enthusiastically adopted, so now you have to be Superman to open a "Lolly wrapper" & know that the discarded packaging will probably outlive you---ain't progress grand!
Re the knitting---I learnt to crochet when I was a kid, but never quite got my brain around knitting.
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Hillaire Belloc:
Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.
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invisible cursor or white text insert markers on text dialog box with a white background.
- web browser changes made to accommodate inverted color schemes phone text :-//
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Back in the day, we used real Cellophane, made from Cellulose.
It wasn't a lot different from tomato skin, & discarded material rapidly biodegraded.
It was also a bit fragile, so packaging using clear plastics of other types was enthusiastically adopted, so now you have to be Superman to open a "Lolly wrapper" & know that the discarded packaging will probably outlive you---ain't progress grand!
Re the knitting---I learnt to crochet when I was a kid, but never quite got my brain around knitting.
And is highly toxic apparently:
Production, however, uses carbon disulfide (CS2), which has been found to be highly toxic to workers.
Somehow I don't think society is sustainable. I mean if you're going to charge me $5 for a box of chicken nuggets that don't have any chicken in it and give me a belly ache and taste terrible and $8 for a box of real chicken nuggets that are gluten free but contain real chicken in it but the crumb is so rough and feels like I'm chewing sand... I dunno something's gotta give. For the love of god at least cut back on the amount of herbs and spices in the vegetarian alternatives!
I'm all for not eating the cute little chickens but lets be reasonable rational grown up adults here. I need protein and for me to get protein something else has to die. I actually have genuine medical needs for meat containing food, I went to the hospital once and the doctor there told me to stay away from any food that contains high amounts of herbs in it. I was vomiting up my guts at the time. Guess what vegetarian food contains in it? Lots and lots of herbs. At least the ones that I've tried are like that. It wasn't like I was doing a paprika challenge either, I was taking St Johns Wort at the time and my stomach just couldn't handle it.
https://www.cbi.eu/news/spices-and-herbs-essential-vegan-meat-alternatives (https://www.cbi.eu/news/spices-and-herbs-essential-vegan-meat-alternatives)
A wide range of spices is used in meat alternative products. The most popular mixes include dried onions, dried garlic, black pepper, garlic, chilli, paprika, ginger, and curry powder. Many also contain a wide range of herbs such as sage, rosemary and thyme.
As for your guys comments on LED vs Induction lamps. phooey!
Yes you are right but I don't have to like it. I mean going to a fully reliable and trustworthy light source such as LED is just asking for trouble. Where are all of the maintenance men and groundskeeper jobs going to go? There used to be jobs for groundskeepers, street sweepers, garbage men.
Oh but we will all just automate those jobs I hear you say or give them to a volunteer.
Well gee I'm sure AI will automate just about everything else too eventually.
Let that sink in for a second....
Ok, now I'll ask the question..
What are we all going to do once everything becomes automated?
Oh right we will just all go get more sophisticated jobs that require a lot of brain power... uh.... yeah about that... Have you seen the advancements in AI lately?
I don't know about you guys but I like induction lamps. I like things that break down, it gives me something to do. It gives me hope that there is a fighting chance against the living hell that corporations are dreaming up. No jobs, reliable technology that doesn't require repairing, efficient lighting, prepackaged vegeterian food that may or may not taste good and also possibly not give me a belly ache but there is always that possibility that it will. Are you sure that you guys want this kind of lifestyle?
CFL/Incandescent are a comfort lamp. Because I know that eventually I'll have to swap one out and feel useful and they produce a really high quality light source that doesn't trigger my migraines.
But by god is incandescent horribly inefficient.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go watch Summer Time Machine Blues from 2005 with my mum and do some knitting and pretend its the past.
I don't know if this future is something that I would want to be a part of, I mean people doing nothing all day? Thats my day to day reality and its just painful, its agonizing, its torture! I can't imagine it would be a utopia for anybody else.
CFLs are horrible--if you want fluorescent get the real thing---- a tube!
They produce a decent amount of light, are relatively efficient, & in domestic service, last for decades.
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Not all CFLs are horrible, Philips, Osram and other reputable brands made some very good ones. I don't think anyone is making good ones anymore though, LEDs are superior in pretty much every way.
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Hillaire Belloc:
Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.
Capitalism. to flower properly, needs most people to have enough money to afford to buy stuff.
Unfortunately, rich people want to keep all their money & be the "Lord of the Manor".
The ultimate end of such a path is back to Feudalism, where even the rich lived in squalor---just much fancier squalor than the rest of us!
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Not all CFLs are horrible, Philips, Osram and other reputable brands made some very good ones. I don't think anyone is making good ones anymore though, LEDs are superior in pretty much every way.
The best of them did check all of the boxes. Good light output, which did not vary as the "bulb" warmed up, near instant start up, dimmable and reliable in all enclosures. But very few did check all of those boxes, and not all products from the good brands did. Even the good models from the good brands had bad units come off the line at very significant rates. My WAG based on my experience is that it wasn't much less than 1% duds that failed one or more boxes. Which is only an order of magnitude better than the auto makers of the world achieve on products that are literally thousands of times more complex.
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Unfortunately, rich people want to keep all their money & be the "Lord of the Manor".
It is even worse, they not just want to keep all their money, it needs to become more and more.
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Not all CFLs are horrible, Philips, Osram and other reputable brands made some very good ones. I don't think anyone is making good ones anymore though, LEDs are superior in pretty much every way.
I've never seen anything that great from Philps or Osram, but Matsushita made CFLs with very impressive light quality and longevity. It certainly could be done.
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I accidentally bought 2 CFLs when I bought Phillips outdoor lights for the house. For some reason, even though I was looking for LED lights specifically I didn't check these.
The immediate issue I have with them is, when first turned on, they are dim and at the extreme end of "warm white". It then takes them a good minute or more to brighten and cool in colour.
This is great for lights that get left on a lot, but these are like "patio" lights which are turned on while you head out to the garden/garage and switched back off 1 minute later.
Neither do they get used often enough to bother changing them until they expire.
On expiry....
I had a CFL go bad on me one day. A big fat 150W equivalent 18W job. Was the bulb in my upstairs landing which was directly above the switch. I flipped it on and "BANG!", sounded like a 'ing shot gun and I literally dropped onto the ground. Not for fear of "gun shot", but from such a loud noise directly over my head being as far away from that as possible seemed to be my reflex response. Luckily the bulb base contained almost all of the detonating capacity, because it was properly sealed, glued etc. A cheaper one may have just sprayed hot copper dust, electrolyte and sparks all over me.... like the last cap I blew up with mains voltage accidentally.
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I think the most horrendous invention ever made was the hybrid halogen/CFL light globe. Sounds good on paper but eugh. And from memory I had one that failed where the halogen light globe was left on at the same time as the CFL was still on. The high voltage halogen filaments are extremely fragile also and fail easily.
With lights in my house that are turned on then quickly turned off I use warm white LED from a reputable manufacturer, Osram or Philips. I don't use LED in the bedroom or living room, I use CFL. for everywhere else in the house its LED.
I use incandescent in the living room (on a dimmer, set low!). Can't beat the glow of glowing metal! :D
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Quality Managers that are glued to thier desk.
Had a grumpy email come in today stating lots of % of error stats etc for a job we did suggesting we need to do a 8-D report etc. All around some certificates issues the other day. Admittedly my colleague made an error on the date, it was only the 3rd day back for 2023 and he got stuck in 2022. There was one for me, supposedly I got the serial number wrong.
I have changed he model etc to protect the innocent but. Lets say I just calibrated a Datron 1281 and I used a 8 digit number for the serial. Then you get an email stating that the serial is 1281 would you find that interesting. So I rang him, it took a moment for the penny to drop. He then said but the database says 1281, I asked what the item said on the side where the details are and he said he has never looked at it and he is new to the firm.
I get these a few times a year and it's quite fun when the next time I visit I pull it up and point out the data in the database could be wrong. If I am wrong I am wrong and I will admit it but I do get annoyed when I get blamed for stuff and it turns out they made a mistake becuase they are glued to a desk and never look at the item in question and just assume the database is perfect.
Sorry for the rant, it's been a long day onsite.
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I accidentally bought 2 CFLs when I bought Phillips outdoor lights for the house. For some reason, even though I was looking for LED lights specifically I didn't check these.
The immediate issue I have with them is, when first turned on, they are dim and at the extreme end of "warm white". It then takes them a good minute or more to brighten and cool in colour.
This is great for lights that get left on a lot, but these are like "patio" lights which are turned on while you head out to the garden/garage and switched back off 1 minute later.
Neither do they get used often enough to bother changing them until they expire.
Those lamps use a mercury amalgam rather than elemental mercury. They are better at controlling vapor pressure so amalgam is used in lamps that are especially compact, contained within an outer bulb or rated for use in enclosed fixtures. The downside is that amalgam lamps take considerably longer to warm up and vaporize the mercury. They're really only suitable for applications where they are turned on once for the day and then run for a considerable amount of time. They're great for dusk till dawn service or things like commercial buildings where the lights are turned on in the morning and off when the business closes.
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3.5mm jacks and the fact you can't avoid cross connecting all the various sets of pins. Except may the last.
Still struggling with mains leakage on audio grounds I wince and make a face every time I plug the jack lead in, invariably the tip (signal) touches ground and with the two systems floating at AC and DC offsets I get a massive BRRRRRRRRRRRR 50Hz at way, way, way more than full tilt. I think I measure the mains leakage into 10K at around 14VPP.
Really I should turn the volume down when I do that, but I'm lazy. My brother a sound engineer would probably slap me, really, really hard right now. (anyone who has felt the eyes of a sound engineer with a multi K rig and someone on stages touches signal to ground and produces a massive 50Hz blast... will understand).
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3.5mm jacks and the fact you can't avoid cross connecting all the various sets of pins. Except may the last.
Still struggling with mains leakage on audio grounds I wince and make a face every time I plug the jack lead in, invariably the tip (signal) touches ground and with the two systems floating at AC and DC offsets I get a massive BRRRRRRRRRRRR 50Hz at way, way, way more than full tilt. I think I measure the mains leakage into 10K at around 14VPP.
Really I should turn the volume down when I do that, but I'm lazy. My brother a sound engineer would probably slap me, really, really hard right now. (anyone who has felt the eyes of a sound engineer with a multi K rig and someone on stages touches signal to ground and produces a massive 50Hz blast... will understand).
They work fine for headphones and earphones which is what they're for. Unfortunately they get used for a lot of applications for which they are poorly suited.
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3.5mm jacks and the fact you can't avoid cross connecting all the various sets of pins. Except may the last.
Still struggling with mains leakage on audio grounds I wince and make a face every time I plug the jack lead in, invariably the tip (signal) touches ground and with the two systems floating at AC and DC offsets I get a massive BRRRRRRRRRRRR 50Hz at way, way, way more than full tilt. I think I measure the mains leakage into 10K at around 14VPP.
Really I should turn the volume down when I do that, but I'm lazy. My brother a sound engineer would probably slap me, really, really hard right now. (anyone who has felt the eyes of a sound engineer with a multi K rig and someone on stages touches signal to ground and produces a massive 50Hz blast... will understand).
They work fine for headphones and earphones which is what they're for. Unfortunately they get used for a lot of applications for which they are poorly suited.
3.5mm jacks/plugs are actually very durable and reliable in real world use. I have several that are all bent out of shape from years of abuse, that still work great. Not many other connectors take that kind of abuse...
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My latest pet peeve is sellers on eBay & elsewhere who present as "Australian", but if you buy from them, source things from China, the USA, UK, or whatever, with a month or more delivery time.
Previous to now the only things I have bought on the Bay of Evil were a nanoVNA & an AD584 DC voltage reference board.
I was in no rush for them, so the delay wasn't a problem.
This time I wanted a car part, -----a small bushing for the auto trans linkage on my 1999 Toyota, to be precise.
Many of the usual car parts places just didn't seem to have heard of such a thing, & the rest had no stock, so I went on a Googling marathon.
Just about everything that popped up was either one of the suppliers I had already checked, eBay, or Amazon.
Both of the latter had the "Yes, we have them for an exorbitant price, & two months delivery from China" syndrome.
After much digging, I finally found a company in Queensland who not only stocked the things, but they also made them "in house".
For a lower price than everywhere else, I will have the gadget in a couple of days, instead of a couple of months!
A lesser peeve is at Toyota for using a plastic bushing, which when it fails, renders the car unusable, though I can hardly whinge, as it has given reliable service longer than the original lifetime envisaged for the vehicle.
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This time I wanted a car part, -----a small bushing for the auto trans linkage on my 1999 Toyota, to be precise.
...
After much digging, I finally found a company in Queensland who not only stocked the things, but they also made them "in house".
Good to know you eventually found that company in Queensland. Can you consult the Electronic Parts Catalog from Toyota? I always like to look at that to see which parts are involved, obtain the official Toyota part number and see what my options are for aftermarket or from the dealer. With some digging on the EPC you might even figure out that some part is used on different models. In Europe we have a big aftermarket online store called autodoc. Even though you might not intent to buy from them, their website can be used as a catalog for aftermarket options: You know all the common brands like Valeo, Bosch, TRW, Aisin, Denso etceteta.
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The problem with tip-ring-sleeve (TRS) plugs is they virtually guarantee shorting of the contacts during insertion and removal. That's one reason you see XLR's for better quality audio connections, they don't short. This is also why DC power connectors are barrel type (some even use XLR for power) - no shorting.
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What I like about 3.5mm TRS jacks/plugs:
1) they are universal and almost always work as expected on every device.
2) little or no fiddling with controls or pairing etc. to use - just plug and play
3) generally durable and reliable
the connector sticks out too far from the housing of the device
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Sometimes sticking out is a good thing - how many times have you seen cables break near the connector? - that's what happens when the connector does not stick out far enough, and does not have a sufficiently strong elastic strain relief. This is often how phone charging cables die for me... 3.5mm plugs rarely die this way, the old timers knew that the cable is the weak point.
Maybe you are using higher quality ones.
For the first time ever, I bought some nicer quality ones when I replaced a headphone cable that was falling apart at the cups. I was looking for long and thin ones that could actually reach my phone's jack through a quite thick carrying case (another case where "sticking out" is a good thing!) and found a nice all-metal design for that. Since I used some very heavy microphone cable, I added heat shrink tubing on the outside of the plug up and 5cm up the cable, to act as extra strain relief. If the plugs and jacks were not mechanically strong, they would soon break from the load of the robust cable.
The problem with tip-ring-sleeve (TRS) plugs is they virtually guarantee shorting of the contacts during insertion and removal
That is true, but in many applications that is not important. Where it is important... it is not the right solution! :D
DC power connectors are barrel type
I like the DC barrel connectors even more. The plugs and jacks are generally very strong, but the cables themselves tend to break where they exit the plug after some years of use. I use large diameter heat shrink tubing to strengthen this area (overlap the plug and the cable, and shrink away), which makes it reliable for many more years of abuse.
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because the connector sticks out too far from the housing of the device
so cut em off and retro fit a right angled jack
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because the connector sticks out too far from the housing of the device
so cut em off and retro fit a right angled jack
Or, when your DIY jack plug failed, again, because nobody told you not to solder AND crimp, you just twist the wires together or in extreme cases you open the device and shove the wires into the plug socket springs.
You can tell I worked on a non-existant budget when I was in my 20s. New stuff wasn't an option, botched up old stuff ! :-+
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PC Monitor on screen displays and menus.
Straight to room 101.
I have to routinely change sources on my monitors and it always amazes me how many different ways the menu can make me wait on it and then do the wrong thing, or just power off because it didn't see a signal... because it didn't give you time to switch to the second... and umpteen other bugs.
It's almost as embarressing for the embedded folks as "ATMs" are for enterprise folks like me.
... and why does, in many instances my PC boot faster that the monitor! Holy moly, how can that be!
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I had this problem when my dad died. I had to break into all of his accounts the old fashioned way, thankfully I knew enough about him that I could answer the security questions to reset his email password, then once I had access to his email account it was a lot easier to crack everything else. It would have been far easier if he'd had a list of passwords stashed somewhere though.
I hear you. We went through all that a year ago when my stepdad died. Luckily my mom knew his iPhone passcode, so I could use that as the security token to unlock his iMac and MacBook, which had his email set up.
Frankly, all of us, regardless of age, need to put our master passwords into escrow or something in case we get hit by a car or something.
I mean, when I die, it will be categorically impossible for anyone to guess my myriad account passwords, since they’re randomly generated by my password manager. I don’t know the passwords myself!
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:( sorry for your losses. I'm 48. People my age, childhood friends have started exiting stage already half a dozen are gone. My grandpa (RIP@96) used to say, "The problem with living a long time, is you out live a lot of friends."
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The problem with tip-ring-sleeve (TRS) plugs is they virtually guarantee shorting of the contacts during insertion and removal. That's one reason you see XLR's for better quality audio connections, they don't short. This is also why DC power connectors are barrel type (some even use XLR for power) - no shorting.
Sure but an XLR jack on a walkman, iPod, mobile phone, etc wouldn't be very practical. There are applications where the shorting is not an issue.
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One of my pet peeves is when I see posts along the lines of:
"I'm a complete noob, but I've soldered before and I want to design [some extremely challenging project that would likely be difficult for someone with advanced degrees and decades of experience]"
That said, I have absolutely no problem with people who have ambition, goals and a desire to learn, but going from barely being able to crawl to warp speed in one jump is unrealistic at best.
I’ve been dealing with exactly this in real life. Internal customer who we’ve assembled boards for, of his design. They’re pulse amplifier boards which, due to the tiny pulse widths in question, have around 4GHz bandwidth. Despite our microwave expert advising him what to do and not do, he just continues trying ambitious stuff out, without really understanding it. (I mean, I don’t know much about high frequency design, but I don’t claim to, and would defer to the advice of experts!)
Problem is, neither he nor us have the 6-digit-price-tag software that would be needed to accurately simulate it, so more conservative designs with lower risk would be much more achievable, but no…
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:( sorry for your losses. I'm 48. People my age, childhood friends have started exiting stage already half a dozen are gone. My grandpa (RIP@96) used to say, "The problem with living a long time, is you out live a lot of friends."
My grandmother lived to a few weeks before what would have been her 99th birthday. She outlived her husband by 35 years and literally all of her friends, the last passing a few years before her.
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The problem with tip-ring-sleeve (TRS) plugs is they virtually guarantee shorting of the contacts during insertion and removal. That's one reason you see XLR's for better quality audio connections, they don't short. This is also why DC power connectors are barrel type (some even use XLR for power) - no shorting.
Sure but an XLR jack on a walkman, iPod, mobile phone, etc wouldn't be very practical. There are applications where the shorting is not an issue.
FWIW, I really like the mini-XLR connector. The plugs are much larger than a 3.5mm plug, but the jacks are not that much bigger than a good quality panel mount 3.5mm jack. Some high-end headphones use mini-XLR for their cables.
It is, however, much too large for mobile phones and the like.
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:( sorry for your losses. I'm 48. People my age, childhood friends have started exiting stage already half a dozen are gone. My grandpa (RIP@96) used to say, "The problem with living a long time, is you out live a lot of friends."
<PG-13 version>While I appreciate the sentiment, in my case it was no loss whatsoever. My stepdad was a horse’s hindquarters narcissist and his departure was a relief. He took from us the opportunity to spend quality time with my mother before her health started to decline, and I’ll never forgive him for that. I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but by making our life hell, he made his bed, now he can lie in it.
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Eventually we will get good performing LED headlights in factory cars but it will take a VERY long time and it will NEVER be compatible with other cars on the road which still use Halogen because whenever you have a HID/LED fitted car behind you even just the spill light from it reflecting from trees and road obstacles and street signs can cause your night vision to be ruined and then you are stuck in a very dangerous position where the light in front of you on the road is dimmer because you are using Halogen but your night vision is destroyed because of all of the excess light coming from behind you.
High end cars in Europe already use extremely advanced LED headlamps that use combinations of special optics and LED matrices with very granular control in order to place light exactly where it’s needed and actively black out the beam for oncoming vehicles, pedestrians, etc.
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I still don't understand why fluorescent lighting was quickly banned and LED lighting was put in its place which requires you to throw out the entire lighting assembly and replace it with a new one whenever a LED light board or its electronics die. They could have just made Fluorescent lighting more reliable, eg electrodeless inducting lighting works perfectly fine.
Oh boy…
“Quickly banned”? Fluorescent lighting has been on the market in volume since the 1940s. Europe is banning fluorescent later this year because it contains mercury. That’s entirely sensible. But you’re in Australia, where no such ban is in place or planned.
Moreover, LED exceeds fluorescent in both energy efficiency and light quality. It affords light fixture designers much more flexibility in lamp design. Fluorescent doesn’t like being turned on and off frequently. (Even so, it’s a very reliable technology.) And the market has spoken: people HATED compact fluorescent bulbs (thanks to slower turn-on speeds and often terrible light quality), but have embraced LED bulbs.
So in practice, the EU fluorescent ban is more symbolic than anything else, since people largely stopped buying fluorescent years ago anyway.
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I strongly dislike bans. The market is, as you say, already shifting. There is no need to ban them, just allow them to fade away. That enables any applications that actually need them to still get them. Germicidal and blacklight lamps are still something fluorescent is superior for.
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I strongly dislike bans. The market is, as you say, already shifting. There is no need to ban them, just allow them to fade away. That enables any applications that actually need them to still get them. Germicidal and blacklight lamps are still something fluorescent is superior for.
Specialty fluorescent lamps like UV are exempted for the moment.
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I guess I found another pet peeve (more a nuisance, really), which was probably already discussed here: subject reacts to a relatively long old thread based on the impressions of the first post only. Then, subject deletes/scratches the entire post after reading the rest of the thread and realizing the comments are almost all invalid/non-applicable.
By now, the updated posts list is already out to everyone else involved in the past. :palm: :-DD
Latest case in point:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/jobs/how-do-you-get-an-electronics-job-when-your-not-popular/msg4650154/#msg4650154 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/jobs/how-do-you-get-an-electronics-job-when-your-not-popular/msg4650154/#msg4650154)
It doesn't happen too frequently, but I found this today.
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It's when you search long and hard for a very specific issue and after dozens of searches and hours passing you find one reference that exactly matches your problem, you read the problem/question nodding going, yep, yep, uhha, yes, me too....
And there is one answer and its from the OP and reads.
"It's okay, I fixed it."
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I only use a mix of 2700K and 3000K LED bulbs inside the house, and all of them are ceiling mounted. Using desk or under shelf lights gives me problems, as anything above 3000K does too.
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From my experience with film color photography:
Traditional household incandescent bulbs' radiation is close to a thermal black-body spectrum at 2800 K.
Real daylight (from sunshine on a clear day) is close to a black body at 5500 K.
Skylight (in the shadows on a clear day, illuminated by the blue sky) is maybe 7500 K, with more blue light.
Photographic tungsten light (now hard to find) is about 3200 K.
The common photographic terms "cool" = high temperature (bluish) and "warm" = low temperature (reddish) are obviously misnomers, due to associating blue with cold ice and red with hot fire.
LED-phosphor and fluorescent-phosphor lights give only approximately black-body spectra.
Is your problem actually with the brightness (intensity) or the higher blue content in hotter-temperature sources?
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I don't know for sure. All I know is that all LED lights currently are too intense for me and eventually cause eye strain. Warm white LED still does it but I need to have the diffuser within eyesight. I can have a 13w warm white LED light in the other room from me and if the diffuser is within eyesight I get eye strain and migraines. It could be that the light is just too damn bright.
With cool white LED all I need is a reflection from a wall for it to cause eyestrain/migraine, even with a puny little 5 watt bulb, if the light is flooding the room I have to turn it off within about 20 mins or it triggers a migraine/eye strain.
I can view my laptop's screen just fine for several hours a day without issues but it does have the lowest lumen output of any laptop out there, HP Victus, but once a cool white LED is introduced into the room that then triggers a migraine which lasts for 6 hours. Yet I'm looking at LED lights directly in front of me from the LED backlit screen on my computer!?!?
I think the issue could be that cool white or neutral white LED produces high intensity light within a small area. warm white to me is also intense and confined to a small area but less so. Which leads me to believe that it might be a combination of both the amount of blue light that LED produces AND the intensity of the light.
I'm 100% fine and used to fluorescent which produces a light that is uniform and spread across a large surface area along the surface of a bulb. It could be that the problem is coming down to intensity and needing more surface area. It could also be that I simply need to dim a LED light down to the levels that a fluorescent light would produce in the same amount of surface area. If thats the case then that means that if I was put into a normal work environment that the LED lights would be too strong for me and I would have to wear shades.........
My main room light is a 8w Philips Tornado CFL in warm white, I have no issues with it and it fills the room just fine, can use that for ages with no issues. Soon as I plug in a cool white LED 5w into the same lamp on the same table in the same room, boom, migraines, even from just the secondary dimmed reflections from the walls. THAT makes me think that its blue light thats causing the problems.
It might also be that light travels in straight lines and is acting to me like a laser beam of sorts, all it takes then is a single point of reflection for it to cause troubles, even if my entire field of vision otherwise is coming from non reflective surfaces. All it takes is a single shiny metal object in the room for the light to come into my retina and start to cause pain.
Who knows for sure.
Maybe your lights are flickering? are these PWM'd or constant current do you know? (aiming a camera at it might show you). But I agree, a few of the office gadgets had blinding blue on lights on them, so i stuck some kapton tape over them to dim them.
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One way to increase the apparent size of a small-extent light source is a diffuser, such as ground glass or similar plastic sheets.
A listing: https://www.edmundoptics.com/c/optical-diffusers/731/# (https://www.edmundoptics.com/c/optical-diffusers/731/#)
Have you tried anything like this to reduce your eye strain?
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Yes I think you are on the right track.
And I think I may have figured out my problem.
LED lights in Cool white, that is 6500k or thereabouts, are too bright/intense. But warm white LEDs are ok and I tolerate them just fine. Provided I don't buy something that is too high powered.
Holy cheese, I would suggest dropping it right away to 4K and after adapting to it drop to 3K. And i do not know your habbits but one should take walks outside during daytime as well. We do not typically appreciate that natural daylight affects our health.
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White LEDs are mostly blue LEDs exciting a phosphor that produces the other colors to make light that appears white (but does not have the same spectrum as white light from an incandescent source such as the sun). Because blue light has physiological effects from its interaction with the sleep-wake cycle, the massive use of LED lighting can be regarded as a medical experiment.
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My grandmother told me to "always keep your hand in" which meant that you should always keep busy right up until you can't physically do it anymore due to old age preventing you. She's now in a nursing home and hates it there, well that would be putting it too bluntly, she is very bored there.
Mine said roughly the same, and she did stay active. She was regularly out on her riding mower cutting the grass at 98 and always walked down the ~1/4 mile driveway to get the newspaper until the last week or so of her life. Use it or lose it.
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. She was regularly out on her riding mower cutting the grass at 98
:-+
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... I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, ....
I have always found that to be so stupid. If someone was a bastard during his life, why hide it when he is dead. The fact that he died does not change how he was.
The biggest criminal, but at his funeral, "It was such a good person." Yeah right. :palm:
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Perhaps because it is surely better to remember good things than bad things.
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In the Sci-Fi novel Speaker for the Dead (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_for_the_dead?useskin=vector), Orson Scott Card describes one solution to the dilemma: someone to thoroughly but honestly describe the reasons driving a person, why they were the way they were, to bring true closure via understanding to the family.
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Orson Scott Card describes one solution
That would be OK. It's important to remember that funerals and the like are not for the deceased but purely for those that remain.
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I'm 100% fine and used to fluorescent which produces a light that is uniform and spread across a large surface area along the surface of a bulb. It could be that the problem is coming down to intensity and needing more surface area. [...]
My main room light is a 8w Philips Tornado CFL in warm white, I have no issues with it and it fills the room just fine, can use that for ages with no issues. Soon as I plug in a cool white LED 5w into the same lamp on the same table in the same room, boom, migraines, even from just the secondary dimmed reflections from the walls. THAT makes me think that its blue light thats causing the problems.
The fact that fluorescent is by design a very very diffuse light source and spread across a very large surface area, basically the entire length of the bulb, could mean that its the combination of reflective surfaces and concentrated light sources from a small area, eg the diffuser on a regular LED GLS bulb, and the high concentration of blue light. But that still doesn't explain why I get eye strain from beige coloured walls reflecting cool white LED.
I don't see why an LED "bulb" would have a significantly higher emission per surface area than a fluorescent one. The scattering/diffusing surface area of an LED GLS bulb is not significantly smaller than the one of a CFL spiral.
It seems likely to me that the "cold" 6500K spectrum plays a role in your response to the LED bulbs you tried. Maybe coupled with a psychological effect, getting tense because you expect problems, which might make this a self-fulfilling prophecy?
If you prefer even illumination emanating from a large surface area, have you heard of lamp shades? ::)
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I have a lamp shade only problem is the half illuminated LED GLS bulbs shoot most if not all of the light up onto the roof instead of out to the sides so the lamp shade doesn't glow and further diffuse the light.
I was thinking of lamp shades made of translucent glass, plastics or paper, which are in the line of sight between your eye and the light bulb.
Also, for workplace illumination: Have you looked into the LED tubes which replace the large T5 and T8 fluorescent tubes? They should nicely meet your "large emission surface" requirement, and are an easy retrofit to the low-cost lighting fixtures you can get (or already have) for the T5 and T8 tubes. And in contrast to the original fluorescent tubes, the LED types light up immediately without blinking.
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I have a lamp shade only problem is the half illuminated LED GLS bulbs shoot most if not all of the light up onto the roof instead of out to the sides so the lamp shade doesn't glow and further diffuse the light.
And the "other" type of LED bulb the ones with fake filaments don't help the cause for LED either because they last such a short period of time due to the lack of any heatsinking whatsoever.
LED is a failed product. You lose a led driver in an entire baton thats no big issue but it still affects the overall brightness of the device but you quickly lose half of them in some of the LED devices and you end up just shifting shit products onto the market especially in an economy where people mostly buy the cheapest nastiest stuff they can find, combine that with the fact that manufacturers drive the hell out of most LEDs however and you get premature failure of most LED light fittings. Or did everybody forget this when they all went gun-ho and bought up LED? Did drivers and LED life expectancy improve while I was stuck under a rock? I can't imagine any LED light surviving 50,000 hours however even if they did improve the reliability of them, which is what makes me weary of using them that and the migraines.
I dunno LED smells too much like a con to me. It seems to me like people are just buying it because its new and trendy and the companies making them con everyone into believing that they'll last forever and ever and ever and that they pull such little power from the wall, oooh woooow, gee whizz!
Half the time I think people actually like change for changes skake. Because it makes them feel better. But you still have the problems of ballasts and electronics as you did have with CFL. You still have the problem of early failures with LED. And there is the elephant in the room the fact that LED produces blue light then converts it into other colours using phosphors.
I would rather stick to fluorescent, its tested its mature tech its reliable and if a bulb goes you can swap it out easily for hardly any cost. If you were to hold LED lights up to the same standards of light quality as you get from Fluorescent you would go broke replacing entire LED fixtures just to make sure that they all produced the same light output and all still worked because you have to replace the entire fixture most times with LED, unless you use strictly T5 and T8 retrofits.
Doing all of the numbers just doesn't add up. People who own teslas know what I mean, ever priced an entire LED fixture just because of shitty design?
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/daytime-running-lights-drl-issues-what-options-do-we-have-in-nz.234560/
As an experiment, I replaced some of the regular incandescent bulbs in a long bathroom fixture (with 12 bulbs). I literally cannot tell the difference between the colour and brightness of the LED vs. the incandescent bulbs from any angle in the room - I was both surprised and impressed. These LED bulbs look and work like normal bulbs, except the bottom inch or so is stuffed with electronics. I think one of those would work with the kind of lamp shade you talk about?
Where LED fails for me is when used on a dimmer... the colour doesn't change correctly when dimmed.
The light bulb industry has been a scam since forever (one of the first ever industrial cartels, agreeing among themselves to not make bulbs last too long). Of course these days, making things not last too long is par for the course in every industry. Burn the planet down for short term profits, is what these clowns are all about. Another pet peeve of mine!
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You seem to confuse "brightness" with "color" for artificial light sources.
My guess is that your problem has to do with color (especially the blue part of the spectrum) rather than brightness or intensity.
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Get your self a smart bulb. Not an RGB one. Just a white one that has color temp and brightness controls.
I find them very, very useful. For example I have them setup, such that during the evenings they come on rapidly to about 50% brightness. However, after midnight, they come on slowly over 5 seconds to 25% brightness and max warmth.
You can imagine how pleasant this is when both the upstairs hallway and the bathroom lights are configured like that. No longer do you have to be blinded when you hit the bathroom switch!
The slightly annoying thing is, I went a little futher and made the lights, if forced on during the day to be 100% bright cold white. If you need the light during daylight it's for something that needs a lot of light.
However I used the solar panel out put being under 0.1W as my "night time" trigger... and I didn't add any histeresis. So, anytime I have the office light on during the dawn or dust hours the constantly gets brighter, dimmer, warmer colder. Reminding me how lazy a hobby programmer I am.
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Perhaps because it is surely better to remember good things than bad things.
When your father is a bastard psychopath all you have of memories in your past is bad things. Then society has built up a rule whereby if you disagree and do not trust or listen to your father in any way you are further punished again by society, by your friends, family, neighbours, anyone who knows only half of the story and immediatley disagrees with your series of events in some way or just disagrees with you because of something that you've done while going through the emotional turmoil and destroyed life that your father has left you.
Its pure horror material and it happens all of the time.
This exactly happened to me.
EDIT: It's better to not have contact with family members than constantly getting those unmistakable signs they want to blame you for it.
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Get your self a smart bulb. Not an RGB one. Just a white one that has color temp and brightness controls.
I find them very, very useful. For example I have them setup, such that during the evenings they come on rapidly to about 50% brightness. However, after midnight, they come on slowly over 5 seconds to 25% brightness and max warmth.
You can imagine how pleasant this is when both the upstairs hallway and the bathroom lights are configured like that. No longer do you have to be blinded when you hit the bathroom switch!
The slightly annoying thing is, I went a little futher and made the lights, if forced on during the day to be 100% bright cold white. If you need the light during daylight it's for something that needs a lot of light.
However I used the solar panel out put being under 0.1W as my "night time" trigger... and I didn't add any histeresis. So, anytime I have the office light on during the dawn or dust hours the constantly gets brighter, dimmer, warmer colder. Reminding me how lazy a hobby programmer I am.
I have quite a few of them now, I find the Philips Hue bulbs to be the best. They have white, variable CCT white and RGB full color versions. Unfortunately they do flicker at the 1kHz PWM frequency whch took getting used to. I mostly don't notice it anymore but if I move my eyes with the lamp in view I see the flicker.
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Perhaps because it is surely better to remember good things than bad things.
When your father is a bastard psychopath all you have of memories in your past is bad things. Then society has built up a rule whereby if you disagree and do not trust or listen to your father in any way you are further punished again by society, by your friends, family, neighbours, anyone who knows only half of the story and immediatley disagrees with your series of events in some way or just disagrees with you because of something that you've done while going through the emotional turmoil and destroyed life that your father has left you.
Its pure horror material and it happens all of the time.
The rules for corner cases should always be different than what is right for the bulk of the population. Unfortunately there seems to be a trend now to force the corner case rules on everyone. Somehow concluding that a modest harm to a huge number of people is better than a larger harm to a small group.
If we were really wise we could arrange solutions that harm no one.
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If we were really wise we could arrange solutions that harm no one.
Oh we could. But we probably won't. Problem is that many deciders (political leaders) have perverse tendencies (often through narcissism), and rejoice in the idea of harming others in some way.
It's rather well known and you'll find a lot of studies about that. One paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279839204_Narcissism_And_Leadership_A_Review_And_Research_Agenda (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279839204_Narcissism_And_Leadership_A_Review_And_Research_Agenda)
(just in case some would think I'm just taking this out of my arse.)
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"Somehow concluding that a modest harm to a huge number of people is better than a larger harm to a small group."
That's like somehow concluding that if one person has cancer, it's better if more people have it.
The goal should be to *minimize* the number of people affected. Simple chance says that some ills will befall some people, even through no fault of their own. We should seek to prevent that from spreading, not artificially penalize the otherwise unaffected.
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Right now it seems like the whole world is going psychotic and preparing for war.
I don't see a solution occuring anytime soon either.
the best conspiracy theories are true, it takes time to realize war , peace & politics is sometimes planned years in advance.
even ET has its finger in the pie that is the world economic forum, believe it or not.
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Speaking of the WEF, this year they've had a bunch of billionaires saying that capitalism is bad. This is getting fun. :-DD
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Speaking of the WEF, this year they've had a bunch of billionaires saying that capitalism is bad. This is getting fun. :-DD
The day these billionaires start spreading their wealth, I will start believing them :-DD
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We have had Bill Gates in Sydney. Somebody tweeted a picture of his parked plane.
I thought what I'm sure Bill has heard many times..
"I thought it would have been bigger."
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I remember way back in the 90s there was a fair bit of fanfare that his personal car was a modest Volvo.
Yes, but meanwhile he was lobbying the US Congress to pass the 25 year and "Show and Display" rules so he could get his imported Porsche out of quarantine. :) Gates is basically personally responsible for our ability to import otherwise non-US-marketed vehicles. The EPA and NHTSB are hyper-sticklers about non-US-marketed cars, even if those cars are identical to those sent to other countries (example: Canada). Spare some thanks to Gates and his resources for making some of those vehicles kinda accessible to the "free" citizens of this country.
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Yes, but meanwhile he was lobbying the US Congress to pass the 25 year and "Show and Display" rules so he could get his imported Porsche out of quarantine. :) Gates is basically personally responsible for our ability to import otherwise non-US-marketed vehicles. The EPA and NHTSB are hyper-sticklers about non-US-marketed cars, even if those cars are identical to those sent to other countries (example: Canada). Spare some thanks to Gates and his resources for making some of those vehicles kinda accessible to the "free" citizens of this country.
Those laws are stupid. A person ought to be free to import any car they want from anywhere in the world regardless of what it is or when it was made. Obviously it's going to need to have things like compliant lighting if it's going to be driven on public roads but the amount of rules and limitations that exist are just ridiculous. There are relatively very few people that are even going to want to go through the effort to import some random car, it's pretty much only collectors and enthusiasts.
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Those laws are stupid. A person ought to be free to import any car they want from anywhere in the world regardless of what it is or when it was made
But your supposedly the land of the free
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cmake and ninja. Nothing but trouble and take forever to get almost working (that is, they still don't work properly). Make was so much simpler and Just Worked.
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Those laws are stupid. A person ought to be free to import any car they want from anywhere in the world regardless of what it is or when it was made
But your supposedly the land of the free
Some of us try to be, but it's a constant battle against others that wish to control people. New laws and regulations are passed all the time, old laws are very rarely wiped, we get less free all the time.
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Yes, but meanwhile he was lobbying the US Congress to pass the 25 year and "Show and Display" rules so he could get his imported Porsche out of quarantine. :) Gates is basically personally responsible for our ability to import otherwise non-US-marketed vehicles. The EPA and NHTSB are hyper-sticklers about non-US-marketed cars, even if those cars are identical to those sent to other countries (example: Canada). Spare some thanks to Gates and his resources for making some of those vehicles kinda accessible to the "free" citizens of this country.
Those laws are stupid. A person ought to be free to import any car they want from anywhere in the world regardless of what it is or when it was made. Obviously it's going to need to have things like compliant lighting if it's going to be driven on public roads but the amount of rules and limitations that exist are just ridiculous. There are relatively very few people that are even going to want to go through the effort to import some random car, it's pretty much only collectors and enthusiasts.
The car companies have the global car market stitched up very carefully, to avoid people importing vehicles from region A to region B when cars are more expensive in region B.
Not just car companies do this, of course... they are pretty much all "at it". (Remember region coded DVDs?)
There is no such thing as a free market, just different mafias in control of different regions and divvying up the takings between them...
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Those laws are stupid. A person ought to be free to import any car they want from anywhere in the world regardless of what it is or when it was made.
I'm OK with the car having to pass USA emissions. Stick a sensor up the tailpipe and confirm it's compliant with the laws in effect for its model year. That affects everyone else. Make the buyer pay for that test. Totally reasonable.
Your point about headlights, etc. is also appropriate. Things which could affect other people should be compliant to the model year. Again, require the buyer to pay for an inspection which generates paperwork acceptable to the DMV in your state.
But they ALSO demand that it conform to NHTSA passenger safety standards at the federal level. That affects ONLY the buyer and any subsequent purchasers. So, have a disclaimer form which the buyer must submit wherein they acknowledge the unknown interior safety situation and accept liability associated with it. No one external to the car is affected.
I can speak from personal experience on this one. I wanted to buy a 2009 British car in Canada and bring it back to the States. The manufacturer didn't want to have separate versions for the two markets so they exported the same car to both USA and Canada. The cars were so identical that this Canadian car had a United States EPA sticker on the engine certifying that it passed US EPA requirements! But Canada has its own version of the NHTSA, so it had a Canadian "safety" sticker instead of a USA one. Bang - case closed, the feds say you cannot bring it into the USA for ownership.
You may be able to get it here, and some states will even title and license it. Some people have done that and just take the risk. But if the feds find you driving it they will seize and crush it. That's the law. Never mind that the car is identical to US safety standards for 2009. Never mind that the only people affected by any potential substandard safety situation were the people INSIDE the car. Nope, your only real course of action is to wait for 25 years to elapse.
By the way, Canada's "25 year rule" is just 15 years. Still too long, but hey... lots of people point to Canada as an example of a better way to run a government, so how about we start with this?
Grrrr.
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Some of us try to be, but it's a constant battle against others that wish to control people. New laws and regulations are passed all the time, old laws are very rarely wiped, we get less free all the time.
If I were granted one Constitutional Amendment of my choice, it would be this: Every law past or future has an automatic and compulsory 10 year sunset clause. This would automatically retire bad laws passed as knee-jerk overreactions to short-term events. If the need continues, future Congresses can review the situation and pass either the same, or an updated version of the law.
Yes, this would chew up some of Congress's time revisiting old legislation. That's not a bug, that's a feature. As you noted, we have lots of old laws that remain on the books long after they're useful, needed, or in some cases even in context anymore. It's exceedingly difficult to get rid of old laws, old taxes, and other such waste products. Think of this as "term limits for legislation"... lacking any forceful advocates, bad laws just drift away without overt effort.
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People, this thread has gone off the tracks, please discuss that stuff elsewhere. :rant:
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But they ALSO demand that it conform to NHTSA passenger safety standards at the federal level. That affects ONLY the buyer and any subsequent purchasers. So, have a disclaimer form which the buyer must submit wherein they acknowledge the unknown interior safety situation and accept liability associated with it. No one external to the car is affected.
I can speak from personal experience on this one. I wanted to buy a 2009 British car in Canada and bring it back to the States. The manufacturer didn't want to have separate versions for the two markets so they exported the same car to both USA and Canada. The cars were so identical that this Canadian car had a United States EPA sticker on the engine certifying that it passed US EPA requirements! But Canada has its own version of the NHTSA, so it had a Canadian "safety" sticker instead of a USA one. Bang - case closed, the feds say you cannot bring it into the USA for ownership.
You may be able to get it here, and some states will even title and license it. Some people have done that and just take the risk. But if the feds find you driving it they will seize and crush it. That's the law. Never mind that the car is identical to US safety standards for 2009. Never mind that the only people affected by any potential substandard safety situation were the people INSIDE the car. Nope, your only real course of action is to wait for 25 years to elapse.
By the way, Canada's "25 year rule" is just 15 years. Still too long, but hey... lots of people point to Canada as an example of a better way to run a government, so how about we start with this?
Grrrr.
The safety thing is ridiculous, you can still buy a motorcycle so any arguments about safety are pretty much invalid, an individual should have the right to take whatever risks to themselves they are comfortable taking.
The rest makes my blood boil, it's an example of the federal government being out of control and trampling the rights of the individual for no obvious reason. Anyone willing to go through and scrub these laws or neuter whatever entity is responsible for enforcing them will earn my vote.
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Economics 101 states if you buy more, you save more. Which is why we have price breaks. Well just be sure you've done the math before you click checkout ???
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If I were granted one Constitutional Amendment of my choice, it would be this: Every law past or future has an automatic and compulsory 10 year sunset clause. This would automatically retire bad laws passed as knee-jerk overreactions to short-term events. If the need continues, future Congresses can review the situation and pass either the same, or an updated version of the law.
I would partially agree with this, but I don't think it should apply to laws against things like murder, rape, burglary, etc. There are not enough resources to even look at *all* of the laws on a regular basis and I don't want to end up with a situation where a government shutdown or oversight results in murder or child exploitation or something being legal for some period of time.
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People, this thread has gone off the tracks, please discuss that stuff elsewhere. :rant:
Well, to be fair, obsolete laws are definitely a pet peeve! But message received, sorry.
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Alright I'll get the ball back in court.
Tell me whats wrong with this picture?
Brand new tube of Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste, 10 gram size.
Surely it can't cost them that much more to fill it all up.
My guess is that if the paste is somewhat difficult to push out then there would be an advantage to having the plunger halfway down the tube so that it would be somewhat braced from bending sideways under pressure.
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As long as the volume specification is correct I wouldn't mind they deliver it in a halfway plunger position.
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There may be other packaging considerations. A narrower syringe that would require less pressure is also going to be longer. Perhaps the short squat half filled syringe fits better in the packaging and shipping cartons.
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There may be other packaging considerations. A narrower syringe that would require less pressure is also going to be longer. Perhaps the short squat half filled syringe fits better in the packaging and shipping cartons.
Exactly.
I've heard slower-thinking people complain "potato and corn chip bags have all that air inside, all that does is take up space and waste packaging". Yeah, except that it ALSO helps protect the product inside! They would be just as fast to complain if the bags contained nothing but chip dust upon arrival.
Sometimes seemingly dumb choices have sound reasoning behind them. The longer my career, the slower I am to immediately question odd choices made by others more familiar with their industry.
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That said, there is a LOT of BS with packages deliberately engineered to appear larger than they are. Shrinkflation is absolutely a thing, not one product ever proclaims "New smaller package for the same price!" If they point it out at all they'll try to spin it as fewer calories.
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Pizza Hut is still available in the States. We have one in our little town of ~12K population, in fact. A Domino's too. And a Taco Bell. And a Dairy Queen. And a McDonald's.
Now that I'm listing them off, I'm realizing that our town is full of junk food!
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I've heard slower-thinking people complain "potato and corn chip bags have all that air inside, all that does is take up space and waste packaging". Yeah, except that it ALSO helps protect the product inside! They would be just as fast to complain if the bags contained nothing but chip dust upon arrival.
Sometimes seemingly dumb choices have sound reasoning behind them. The longer my career, the slower I am to immediately question odd choices made by others more familiar with their industry.
Yeah you keep telling yourself that Mr Fellow Potato Chip enthusiast.
Its not like packaging doesn't get damaged it does but most likely the packaging will get damaged as a result of catastrophic bursting of the bag via a lorry reversing into a crate of them. Think about it. Aint nothing gonna protect you against that.
What would you tell your customers if they thought that they were getting conned, you'd tell them that "yeah but the bag is filled with air because it CUSHIONS the potato chips from getting broken and damaged!".... Its exactly what they want you to think.
You see I have this thought that if the bag of potato chips is impacted from the side, the potato chips are all at the bottom and forced up against the edges due to gravity anyway, so there isn't any air gap between them is there? So where is this magic air cushion thats going to make the potato chips safe from damage? Its no where to be seen. End result is broken potato chips everywhere.
The only place where an air cushion is created is on the very top of the bag and vertical. But since the introduction of cardboard packaging the potato chip bags are heavily protected from vertical compression of any object on top of them, in fact you can even stack multiple boxes of them on top of one another!. So why is there an air gap at the top of the bag of potato chips?
And if you think that there must be some kind of cushioning force, its a bag of air! yeah... well.... its a bag of air, it has no internal bladder to spread out the force of any impacts, and if there is an impact that bag is gonna burst. On top of that the potato chips are gonna end up following gravity, so they will always be compressed up against the sides of the bags and then stuck inside of cardboard boxing. Some chips will make it to the top of the bag if the bag is turned upside down and some wont. All of that moving around surely does some damage to the chips.
Tell me please what you think about that?
Boom, conspiracy confirmed!
Sometimes I pack my ties in Ziploc bags, with a bit of air, so they don't get crumpled when packed in my suitcase. The principle works great, so I think @IDEngineer may be on to something!
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Alright I'll get the ball back in court.
Tell me whats wrong with this picture?
Brand new tube of Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste, 10 gram size.
Surely it can't cost them that much more to fill it all up.
I don't know how much is in the tube that was included with my Noctua heatsink. For sure not 10 grams, i think something like 4?
I barely used a quarter of it when i built my pc last year. I see no need yet to repaste, i did not do that in the entire 6 years i had the previous PC, so i have no idea how long it would take to use it all up. I suspect it will dry out before then, or i lose the tube :D
So more paste seems totally superfluous to the main customers of Noctua, and i'm sure as an OEM you can get larger batches.
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Finding a neat little display that would suit a quick project in the spares box..... but the manufacturer has no markings to indicate what their part number or chipset is. Guess they don't want me to ever use it or buy more from them.
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And if you think that there must be some kind of cushioning force, its a bag of air! yeah... well.... its a bag of air, it has no internal bladder to spread out the force of any impacts, and if there is an impact that bag is gonna burst. On top of that the potato chips are gonna end up following gravity, so they will always be compressed up against the sides of the bags and then stuck inside of cardboard boxing. Some chips will make it to the top of the bag if the bag is turned upside down and some wont. All of that moving around surely does some damage to the chips.
The air in a bag is enough to stop the chips being crushed even if they are all at one end. The entire thing is one big bladder and won't collapse at one end because the other won't stretch. Try it some time - you won't end up with lots of crumbles in a bag. The exception is if the force is enough to make the bag burst, and then it won't sell anyway (contaminated and not fit for sale).
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I've heard slower-thinking people complain "potato and corn chip bags have all that air inside, all that does is take up space and waste packaging". Yeah, except that it ALSO helps protect the product inside! They would be just as fast to complain if the bags contained nothing but chip dust upon arrival.
Sometimes seemingly dumb choices have sound reasoning behind them. The longer my career, the slower I am to immediately question odd choices made by others more familiar with their industry.
But then there are "chip" manufacturers like Pringles who have managed to cram as many chips into a small space as possible.
I think it's a little bit of both. Sure the extra air helps protect the chips from being crushed, but it also helps to make it look like the bag contains more product than it really does. Plus, it makes shipping much more expensive due to higher volume of the containers required vs the Pringles tube method.
Probably the worst offenders are vitamin and pill manufacturers who put their product in a bottle that is only 1/4 full. This serves no useful purpose at all, costs more in materials to make the bottle, and there is all the added cost of the extra cotton wool needed to fill the empty space. Yea, and there's no valid excuse of "standardized bottle sizes" when I see the same manufacturer also sell other products in smaller bottles.
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Pringles are an exception as they come in a rigid container. This is possible because they aren't real potato chips, they're the particle board equivalent, synthetically made and uniformly identical so they stack neatly in a rigid tube. If you tried this with regular potato chips it wouldn't work, you'd never get them to stack neatly enough to fill the volume and not move around and bash each other to crumbs.
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Finding a neat little display that would suit a quick project in the spares box..... but the manufacturer has no markings to indicate what their part number or chipset is. Guess they don't want me to ever use it or buy more from them.
There's a number printed right on the flex cable of the display itself. Is this it?
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804798112820.html (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804798112820.html)
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Pringles are an exception as they come in a rigid container. This is possible because they aren't real potato chips, they're the particle board equivalent, synthetically made and uniformly identical so they stack neatly in a rigid tube. If you tried this with regular potato chips it wouldn't work, you'd never get them to stack neatly enough to fill the volume and not move around and bash each other to crumbs.
That's true about real potato chips. The air filled bag is the best for those IMHO. My main beef is that the air/chip ratio is too lean.
But corn chips could also be properly formed, and placed in a tube just like the Pringles, but I've never seen that done. Especially those formed corn chips that are marketed as "scoops" and packaged in an overinflated bag. The one saving grace that the bag has over the tube is that the materials are cheaper. The bags might have a lower enviro impact too, but not sure on that due to the chip/air ratio not packing as many chips onto a transport as tubed chips could be.
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Sometimes seemingly dumb choices have sound reasoning behind them. The longer my career, the slower I am to immediately question odd choices made by others more familiar with their industry.
After the SunnyD ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunnyD ) fun I still question the logic that the manufacturer's go through. I remember a product that sold less as they found that a higher price and less product made it taste better. They are experts in the placebo effect its just crazy.
Do you ever wonder how many tin foil hats you wear and is there sufficient air gap between the layers.
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Pringles are an exception as they come in a rigid container. If you tried this with regular potato chips it wouldn't work, you'd never get them to stack neatly enough to fill the volume and not move around and bash each other to crumbs.
Plus discarded chip bags aren't nearly as effective as Pringles cans at trapping the heads of cats, skunks, and other small animals.
/sarcasm
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Hi I'd like to file a complaint with reality.
Was just minding my own business when I got stung by a wasp while walking up the front stairs of our property.
Out of 10 I'd say its about a solid 8 on the pain threshold.
Oh that's unfortunate. Can you give a description of the suspect?
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When declining or cancelling anything on the internet, having to press "don't want" 3+ times....
That's ignoring the dishonesty, and predatory behaviour of moving the buttons around, actively making the cancel button less visible, changing the phrasing of the question "do you want to cancel?" to "do you want to stay?" or the single click to re-sign-up.
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Finding a neat little display that would suit a quick project in the spares box..... but the manufacturer has no markings to indicate what their part number or chipset is. Guess they don't want me to ever use it or buy more from them.
There's a number printed right on the flex cable of the display itself. Is this it?
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804798112820.html (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804798112820.html)
Unfortunately not, it just must be a common flex cable, but thanks anyway good Sir!
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Pringles are an exception as they come in a rigid container. If you tried this with regular potato chips it wouldn't work, you'd never get them to stack neatly enough to fill the volume and not move around and bash each other to crumbs.
Plus discarded chip bags aren't nearly as effective as Pringles cans at trapping the heads of cats, skunks, and other small animals.
/sarcasm
This is one of my pet peeves. Humanity projecting humanity on creatures. Small critters have always had a tough life, they always will. Small critters life expectancy is tiny. They have the most preditors and the most dangerous life. Nature is perfectly happy letting them die on a whim, why do / should we care otherwise? If it's not a crisp packet, it'll be a hungry sea gull.
It's like the debate about domestic cats being a threat to local bird wild life. Boohoo. I'm sure if you ask the birds would they prefer that all the humans moved out, the buildings removed and restored to their natural habbitat the birds would be saying "NO! PLEASE NO!", because in that natrural woodland environment there are 100s of time MORE predators than in suberbia which has push most of the little birdies predators back into the little woodland that still exists. Things like raptors, foxes and so on and so forth. Most of the predatory threats to the little birdies do not come into suburbia so they get a nice safer environment and... the humans even put out tons and tons of food across an area.
Finally. Nature it not stupid. If it was not a better life for the birdies in suburbia, they would not be there. They would move, leave, migrate, stop nesting, disappear.
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Pet peeve, ...hmmm:
Turned on my RADIO today, crashing in bed before falling asleep. It 'dropped out', went silent, at about 39 seconds in (to some innocent nighttime show).
Turned 'RADIO' back on, it said:
"Comm Error: Report to Admin", (like, 3 times).
...radio show resumed, into commercial's break, and ran fine, until...53 seconds later, that commercial went dead, then 'squirked' a couple times, then said, (sigh),
"Comm Err, Comm Err...Report to Admin"
Oh wait, that right:
General merch. stores DON'T SELL radios, now...
(We have drop-outs, world-wide, now).
(sarcasm)
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I have fond memories of shortwave listening when I was a kid but I can see why most of it is gone. Anyone can read/listen/watch globally over the internet now, there is little commercial value in shortwave, it's only fanatics driven to get their message out that bother.
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Yeah, the Internet is/has killed shortwave and amateur radio as hobbies. However, the latter both work when the nets are down... the ionosphere is still there waiting to be used! We still have some pretty high end ham radio equipment sitting around, and I know how to make an emergency antenna by stripping coax to the proper length....
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Regarding Post#3155, also those adverts disguised as download links were really nasty, big green buttons that said download and would appear on sites you were actually trying to download files from, except what the green buttons downloaded was adware. Note how I use the past-tense, NoScript has cured that problem for me, haven't such those horrible adverts in years now.
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Yeah, the Internet is/has killed shortwave and amateur radio as hobbies. However, the latter both work when the nets are down... the ionosphere is still there waiting to be used! We still have some pretty high end ham radio equipment sitting around, and I know how to make an emergency antenna by stripping coax to the proper length....
Amateur radio is still alive and well, there's a lot more to it than just broadcasting information. I'm skeptical of its value in most emergency situations though, first responders have their own radio systems, and for everyone else setting up an ad hoc wireless network might have more value.
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Pet peeve: People who have, and can afford to buy, all of the fancy gear, but have absolutely zero idea of even the basic principles required to understand what happens when they switch it on.
"On the dial of my new EEVBlog 121GW meter there is a AmA setting. Why did they put this on there?"
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Thats the Ask Me Anything setting.. You put it there to ask it a question.
Sorta like google or amazon echo.
Why bother to understand first principles when there's a whole internet of people with less disposable income than you doing your thinking for you.
The Ask Me Anything button :-+
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Code like this:
https://github.com/RobertoBenjami/stm32_graphics_display_drivers
1. It seems that C isn't really his thing. Instead he likes to program in "Pre-processor directives"
2. It's trying to incorporate so much crap in one package it's insanely complex in just what exactly is a function, a macro for a function or a parameterised, ifdefed aliased a few times macro for a function. Not even Eclipse could track it and gave up so none of the index references worked.
3. It looks like at least part of it has been auto-converted from C++ to C.
4. It insists on fiddling with the low level stuff conflicting with HAL stuff.
5. After 3 hours I gave up. Not even the SPI trace on the scope made any sense. It seemed like it was reconfiguring the SPI clock rate repeatedly from high to low, Some times it would send a command so fast it looked like a sinewave on a decent bit of zoom, the next time it would sent it pedestrianly slow. Other times it seemed to float all the data and clock pins and they would errupt in induced clock noise. Possibly relating to point 4.
6. The reason for the pet peeve is the anger I felt while trying to understand what the code is actually doing when it's all written in a bespoke custom macro language and nothing is what it seems. The only way to actually work out what code path you'll be on is to follow it in a debugger.
Life is too short. I'll modify the ili9431 driver instead.
A prime example, as ISR... everything is a macro. Everything:
void DMAX_STREAMX_IRQHANDLER(LCD_DMA_TX)(void)
{
if(DMAX_ISR(LCD_DMA_TX) & DMAX_ISR_TCIF(LCD_DMA_TX))
{
DMAX_IFCR(LCD_DMA_TX) = DMAX_IFCR_CTCIF(LCD_DMA_TX);
DMAX_STREAMX(LCD_DMA_TX)->CR = 0;
while(DMAX_STREAMX(LCD_DMA_TX)->CR & DMA_SxCR_EN);
BITBAND_ACCESS(SPIX->CR2, SPI_CR2_TXDMAEN_Pos) = 0;
while(BITBAND_ACCESS(SPIX->SR, SPI_SR_BSY_Pos));
SPIX->CR1 &= ~SPI_CR1_SPE;
LCD_IO_Delay(2 ^ LCD_SPI_SPD_WRITE);
SPIX->CR1 |= SPI_CR1_SPE;
if(LCD_IO_DmaTransferStatus == 1) /* last transfer end ? */
LCD_CS_OFF;
#ifndef osFeature_Semaphore
/* no FreeRtos */
LCD_IO_DmaTransferStatus = 0;
#else
/* FreeRtos */
osSemaphoreRelease(spiDmaBinSemHandle);
#endif // #else osFeature_Semaphore
}
else
DMAX_IFCRALL_LCD_DMA_TX;
}
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Google with 'latest' security assurance.
"WE ENCRYPT YOUR ENTRIES"!
Yeah cool, but while you spy on every last little morsel, of my keyboard pokes...to the millisecond it sometimes seems.
But also any other entity declaring themselves 'Safe and Secure with your personal data'.
And don't worry about me...been fact-checked.
Definition of 'CHECKED':
To stop or block a thing from being or happening.
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Here's what chatGPT says about electronics engineering pet peeves
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1703743;image)
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Here's what chatGPT says about electronics engineering pet peeves
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1703743;image)
Well thats me out of a job.
11. Electronic engineers using ChatGPT to get lists of electronic engineering pet peeves.
>:D
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12. Management who think they can do engineering
:-// Just saying
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13. The entire contents of the EEVblog thread "your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise" since that is literally the reason for this thread.
Is this attempting to be an example of recursion?
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has dividing amps and watts by hours been mentioned yet?
(same goes for using kV and kW interchangeably.)
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Point 9. is interestingly biased. ::)
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12. Management and accountants who think they can do engineering
:-// Just saying
FTFY
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Pet peeve: People who have, and can afford to buy, all of the fancy gear, but have absolutely zero idea of even the basic principles required to understand what happens when they switch it on.
"On the dial of my new EEVBlog 121GW meter there is a AmA setting. Why did they put this on there?"
I won't claim to know it all, yet I get to play with some nice kit. I also get to talk to some smart people. I did not start out with the desire to go into electronics, I just needed a job and started in a cal lab[1], now I run the lab even though I spend the least amount of time there. To the experienced hands I am a dunce, but I am trying to learn, one step at a time. [1] mech and elec lab so I have to deal with just more than electrical pixies.
I had a conversation with a 17025 auditor on the lack of first principle know how. He put some of it down to the starters in industry not being put in a lab with metrology grade stuff to learn the basics as an apprentice. These days all the kit goes out to a magic place where it gets a new label and a bit of paper so it can be used for another year. The wise old chap, though a grumpy person, is the best source of information but they have trained so many newbies who just jump ship once they get the better job and leave that grump to teach another hopeful that the wise old grump is just tired and does the bare minimum until he can retire.
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Amateur radio is still alive and well, there's a lot more to it than just broadcasting information.
Broadcasting is specifically forbidden by the amateur radio rules in most countries.
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You aren't allowed to entertain anyone either... :-DD
What's the definition of entertainment? Do they get a really bored, grumpy guy to listen to the broadcas... er, I mean, transmission, and see if he cracks a smile?
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Amateur radio is a hobby, and what is any hobby if not a form of entertainment?
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>>I think in Australia they monitor and record all amateur radio transmissions...<<
How? There's a lot of ham radio spectrum.
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The broadcast band licences are a few dozen or so stations on known frequencies that broadcast continuously across a small slice of the spectrum. The amateur radio bands cover a far wider range of spectrum and consist of potentially many thousands of licences that can pop up at any time on any frequency they are allowed to use under the terms of their license. I really doubt the government records all of it, it's not even all audio, there's CW, video and data in various formats in bands from kHz to GHz.
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irony of amateur radio is many are more professional then the so called professionals.
most of the amateur activity seems to be legacy technology and aircraft radio phonetics. at least on analog by males over 50.
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Finding a neat little display that would suit a quick project in the spares box..... but the manufacturer has no markings to indicate what their part number or chipset is. Guess they don't want me to ever use it or buy more from them.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=252850.0;attach=1699624;image) (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1699621;image)
Your GoogleFu is lacking! |O
Google: 1.54'SPI/IIC V2.0 (https://www.google.com/search?q=1.54%27SPI%2FIIC) ;)
I recognised it, as I got one free, misshipped by 'Tiardey' from Amazon, when they should have sent me something else, rather more expensive! :horse:
Its an EastRising monochrome ER-OLEDM015-2?-SPI-I2C display (where ? is a single letter that codes the color - White, Blue or Yellow) configured for SPI write-only interface. Apart from the three SPI signals, it needs an extra I/O to drive its Data/nCommand pin (DC), + a /Reset pulse.
See https://www.buydisplay.com/serial-spi-i2c-white-1-54-inch-arduino-raspberry-pi-oled-display-128x64 (https://www.buydisplay.com/serial-spi-i2c-white-1-54-inch-arduino-raspberry-pi-oled-display-128x64) for datasheets, including its SSD1309 controller, Arduino and R.Pi demos and libraries and more ...
Yesterday I just finished porting their 8051 SPI demo code to a SiLabs C8051F330's hardware SPI. The most tedious part was getting it to fit in a 7.75K FLASH MCU using SDCC 4.2 (as its well over the Keil demo 2K code limit) - I had to implement RLE compression for the bitmap arrays, write a console utility to compress them and spit out C source for the compressed arrays, and re-write the demo's Display_Picture() function to expand them 'on the fly'. The utility's fugly, but it all works. Code attached.
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Your GoogleFu is lacking!
He's not the only one.
(TLDW, Reddit and Tiktok.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48AOOynnmqU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48AOOynnmqU)
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Google has been irredeemably Evil for nearly five years now!
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-erases-dont-be-evil-from-code-of-conduct-after-18-years/ (https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-erases-dont-be-evil-from-code-of-conduct-after-18-years/)
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seems that the new youtube trend is phone friendly pillarbox video
or is this a war with TikTok?
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has dividing amps and watts by hours been mentioned yet?
(same goes for using kV and kW interchangeably.)
Surely you mean multiplying amps by hours to give Ah.
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has dividing amps and watts by hours been mentioned yet?
(same goes for using kV and kW interchangeably.)
Surely you mean multiplying amps by hours to give Ah.
For any practical purpose, *I* multiply them, yes. I can into units of measurement.
But (remember the context of this thread!) I did mean division, which is undertaken by many carefree souls: "cell capacity: 10 A/h, power consumption: 500 W/h" etc.
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has dividing amps and watts by hours been mentioned yet?
(same goes for using kV and kW interchangeably.)
Surely you mean multiplying amps by hours to give Ah.
For any practical purpose, *I* multiply them, yes. I can into units of measurement.
But (remember the context of this thread!) I did mean division, which is undertaken by many carefree souls: "cell capacity: 10 A/h, power consumption: 500 W/h" etc.
Yes. Unit miss use is prevailent. I see power/energy swapping everyday in the news. "The modern home consumes 2500kW". Stuff like that.
Also in a science docu this week I heard the statement, "And the probe accelerates away from the sun at 150km/s."... there are no standards anymore. If you point out the stupidity in such statements, it is YOU who are considered at fault, for finding fault.
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Sad state of affairs when mediocrity is celebrated.
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"The modern home consumes 2500kW".
Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong in this statement, except for not mentioning the conditions at which this was measured or calculated :).
More often, however, they would use something like "The modern home consumes 2500kW per month", which tends to wake up medieval instincts inside me.
If you point out the stupidity in such statements, it is YOU who are considered at fault, for finding fault.
YES.
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"The modern home consumes 2500kW".
Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong in this statement, except for not mentioning the conditions at which this was measured or calculated :).
Except for the fact said modern 'home' would need something like a 11KV >130A three phase feed to reach 2500KW - that's not a home its either a massive tower block with >50 large apartments, or a medium size factory or a small industrial estate! There are villages in 1st world countries that draw less than that!
While we are looking at ridiculous numbers, Paulca's other example - the presumably large engine interstellar probe that's capable of accelerating at over 15000 g (assuming the idiot reporter simply dropped the 'squared') is pure SciFi territory.
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Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong in this statement, except for not mentioning the conditions at which this was measured or calculated :).
More often, however, they would use something like "The modern home consumes 2500kW per month", which tends to wake up medieval instincts inside me.
Err, kWh, no?
Except for the fact said modern 'home' would need something like a 11KV >130A three phase feed to reach 2500KW - that's not a home its either a massive tower block with >50 large apartments, or a medium size factory or a small industrial estate! There are villages in 1st world countries that draw less than that!
Assumption from the UK local grid operator is the average home needs about 2kW of capacity. This is built into diversity calculations e.g. size of a substation to feed a street.
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More often, however, they would use something like "The modern home consumes 2500kW per month", which tends to wake up medieval instincts inside me.
Err, kWh, no?
In the ideal world of pink ponies, yes. In our world of pain, it's kW/month :).
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Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong in this statement, except for not mentioning the conditions at which this was measured or calculated :).
More often, however, they would use something like "The modern home consumes 2500kW per month", which tends to wake up medieval instincts inside me.
Err, kWh, no?
Why can't we all work in Joules?
Except for the fact said modern 'home' would need something like a 11KV >130A three phase feed to reach 2500KW - that's not a home its either a massive tower block with >50 large apartments, or a medium size factory or a small industrial estate! There are villages in 1st world countries that draw less than that!
Assumption from the UK local grid operator is the average home needs about 2kW of capacity. This is built into diversity calculations e.g. size of a substation to feed a street.
That's going to need to rise a lot if most things run from electricity. Most discussions of moving to electric power for most energy uses ignore the trillions needed to tear up every street and lay higher capacity cables, which is a bigger issue than the substations themselves.
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Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong in this statement, except for not mentioning the conditions at which this was measured or calculated :).
More often, however, they would use something like "The modern home consumes 2500kW per month", which tends to wake up medieval instincts inside me.
Err, kWh, no?
Why can't we all work in Joules?
Except for the fact said modern 'home' would need something like a 11KV >130A three phase feed to reach 2500KW - that's not a home its either a massive tower block with >50 large apartments, or a medium size factory or a small industrial estate! There are villages in 1st world countries that draw less than that!
Assumption from the UK local grid operator is the average home needs about 2kW of capacity. This is built into diversity calculations e.g. size of a substation to feed a street.
That's going to need to rise a lot if most things run from electricity. Most discussions of moving to electric power for most energy uses ignore the trillions needed to tear up every street and lay higher capacity cables, which is a bigger issue than the substations themselves.
It is clearly going to take a lot longer, and cost a lot more, than the EV hype is currently (bad pun, I know) taking into account!
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I think the sci-fi documentary failed to mention at which point in it's travels would it be at 150km/s. The original report/paper it was sourced from probably mentioned something like "around the Orbit of jupiter".
On power consumption, yes, I heard 2kW figure too. They recently upgraded all the old 1970s bakelite presentation points (or are in the process of), replacing older 60A and 80A fuses with 100A fuses.
Technically you could draw 20kW or so, not recommended and given my whole house plug ring runs off a single 32A breaker and... I have tried and never popped it. Technically a 13A kettle, the 10A Tumble drier and the 10A living room electric fire, should trip it, but didn't, at least for the short time the kettle was boiling. My tamed spark said about as much. "You'd think you'd break it all the time, but unless you really go at it trying, you probably never will".
I think the 2kW needs clarifying though. It's not the total capacity, but rather the aggregate average, instantaneous load from an average household.
So if 100 new modern homes are going in, they may not spec it for 2kW as they would not represent "average" households if they are coming prebuilt with solar panels and car chargers as standard.
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Except for the fact said modern 'home' would need something like a 11KV >130A three phase feed to reach 2500KW - that's not a home its either a massive tower block with >50 large apartments, or a medium size factory or a small industrial estate! There are villages in 1st world countries that draw less than that!
Good catch. However! How many joules per second does an average home consume in the first few microseconds the moment it is powered on after a long outage, when all the SMPS' capacitors begin to charge and the refrigerator's compressor is about to begin starting up? :)
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a single 32A breaker and... I have tried and never popped it. Technically a 13A kettle, the 10A Tumble drier and the 10A living room electric fire, should trip it, but didn't,
and so it shouldnt ,your only 1A over,no were close to the instantaneous tripping time for any 32A device fitted in domestic consumer units
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a single 32A breaker and... I have tried and never popped it. Technically a 13A kettle, the 10A Tumble drier and the 10A living room electric fire, should trip it, but didn't,
and so it shouldnt ,your only 1A over,no were close to the instantaneous tripping time for any 32A device fitted in domestic consumer units
Story goes that with the "linky", the smart meter here in France, it trips instantly when you go over the set limit. Have not tried or experienced it myself.
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That's going to need to rise a lot if most things run from electricity. Most discussions of moving to electric power for most energy uses ignore the trillions needed to tear up every street and lay higher capacity cables, which is a bigger issue than the substations themselves.
Trillions? How much do you think the infrastructure needs upgrading by? The biggest issue is not the cabling under the streets but the transformers and the 11kV/33kV infrastructure. Millions, I'd grant you... Billion, maybe at a push if a lot more needs upgrading (especially at the 400kV network)... but trillions? Er... we're not going to the moon...
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It's interesting. Modern high kW car charging stations can have 8 350kW chargers. That's today. If electrification goes forward at the rate they hope, in 10 years time rapid chargers will need to be available in much higher density. Not 8 chargers per facility, but 80. It's not just the cost of the infrastructure, for large commercial cosutomers they get billed per mile of distribution and billed directly for distribution and transmission losses incurred. So the further your massive multi-megawatt facility is from a prime source like a power plant the more it's going to cost you... the more it costs the customers.
It's been determined that this is "fine" for out-of-city, close to motorway and importantly close to power plants facilities, however facilities in already developed areas will struggle to get that much power out of the current grid.
The net result is going to be a case where, if you run low on battery in the city, you are going to have to wait in a long queue for a VERY expensive charger. If you want cheap electric you'll need to drive the 10 miles out of town to the large motorway service centre near the power station.
Imagine if you will, the M25 outer ring in London and how many cars refuel on the average rush-hour morning. Now fast forward to a world where they are all electric. Rather than a 5 minute splash and dash with the morning paper, it's a 20 minute top up just to be sure. That means those stations need around 4 times as many chargers as they have pumps and limit people to 20 minutes a pop at peak times. There are probably at least dozen of these stations around just that one motorway. If all of them are to have 40 or 50 350kW chargers ... that's a few power plants worth on it's own!
Again... in towns, cities and already developed areas electricity for your car will become astronomically expense and you'll end up driving 10s of miles to get electric 50% cheaper!
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It's interesting. Modern high kW car charging stations can have 8 350kW chargers. That's today.
pff.
Ban personal cars within the city boundaries, problem solved.
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By the way. There was a discussion on here, might have been started by me around "how in hell do you give an average joe a power cable to stick in his car which carries 350kW".
It would seem I didn't cover enough options, what they actually use is only 400V.... and water cool and much thinner cable as it gets hot running nearly 1000 amps.
The question is... what does that do to the efficiency of the whole process?
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Regarding Post#3155, also those adverts disguised as download links were really nasty, big green buttons that said download and would appear on sites you were actually trying to download files from, except what the green buttons downloaded was adware.
Not a problem, IMHO, because any site that would accept such abusive advertisement, is a security risk in itself - in other words, the "real" link is likely malware, too. Any adblocker just hides this and makes a malware site look less malwareous (this is a word now).
Simply don't trust any third-party flashy download site, at all. Download at software vendor's own site, over https, with valid certificate.
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It's interesting. Modern high kW car charging stations can have 8 350kW chargers. That's today.
pff.
Ban personal cars within the city boundaries, problem solved.
Please note that in other countries, the population density in large cities can be much lower than in older European cities.
Chicago and Paris have comparable populations, but Chicago is roughly 2.8 million population in 607 km2, and Paris is 2.2 million in 105 km2, within their city boundaries.
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Please note that in other countries, the population density in large cities can be much lower than in older European cities.
Chicago and Paris have comparable populations, but Chicago is roughly 2.8 million population in 607 km2, and Paris is 2.2 million in 105 km2, within their city boundaries.
Nevermind, they will find a plausible excuse to do it anyway. First they will ban ICE cars for ecological or whatever reasons (because, hey, EVs are a great alternative), and then they will ban personal EV cars as well, because they put too much stress on the electric grid.
I'll be very happy to be proven wrong on this. Will see in 10-20 years.
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a single 32A breaker and... I have tried and never popped it. Technically a 13A kettle, the 10A Tumble drier and the 10A living room electric fire, should trip it, but didn't,
and so it shouldnt ,your only 1A over,no were close to the instantaneous tripping time for any 32A device fitted in domestic consumer units
Story goes that with the "linky", the smart meter here in France, it trips instantly when you go over the set limit. Have not tried or experienced it myself.
Yep. There is no margin.
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Please note that in other countries, the population density in large cities can be much lower than in older European cities.
Chicago and Paris have comparable populations, but Chicago is roughly 2.8 million population in 607 km2, and Paris is 2.2 million in 105 km2, within their city boundaries.
Nevermind, they will find a plausible excuse to do it anyway. First they will ban ICE cars for ecological or whatever reasons (because, hey, EVs are a great alternative), and then they will ban personal EV cars as well, because they put too much stress on the electric grid.
That is obvious.
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.......
Don't all diseases suck?
Even the flu can make you feel miserable for a while. Nobody wants to be sick, but it still happens. The ones the medical science knows next to nothing about are the worst. Just have to live with it, which sometimes ain't easy.
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Pcprog:
Yeah, many of my relatives got tired of my 'mysterious' illness that wouldn't just go away. Doctor diagnosed as LYME DISEASE, and seems to fit well with symptoms. THEY were tired of it ? Oh boy, unpack that monster of psych dynamic.
K-Mart clerk VS. Doctor ? Hmmm. (I went with doctor opinion).
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seems that the new youtube trend is phone friendly pillarbox video
or is this a war with TikTok?
To make it even worse, instead of black sidebars when viewed on a normal monitor, they like to render the sidebars as blurred video.
The silly thing is that there's nothing stopping the poster from turning their phone 90 degrees and filming "normally"... It's kind of crazy since we went from 4:3 displays to 16:9 because it was more a natural viewing perspective for the human eye, but now have flipped to vertical video due to "smart" phone proliferation.
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By the way. There was a discussion on here, might have been started by me around "how in hell do you give an average joe a power cable to stick in his car which carries 350kW".
There’s always the safer option of a hose full of hydrogen at 10,000 psi.
Both sound like pretty good material for Colin Furze.
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It's interesting. Modern high kW car charging stations can have 8 350kW chargers. That's today. If electrification goes forward at the rate they hope, in 10 years time rapid chargers will need to be available in much higher density. Not 8 chargers per facility, but 80. It's not just the cost of the infrastructure, for large commercial cosutomers they get billed per mile of distribution and billed directly for distribution and transmission losses incurred. So the further your massive multi-megawatt facility is from a prime source like a power plant the more it's going to cost you... the more it costs the customers.
It's been determined that this is "fine" for out-of-city, close to motorway and importantly close to power plants facilities, however facilities in already developed areas will struggle to get that much power out of the current grid.
The net result is going to be a case where, if you run low on battery in the city, you are going to have to wait in a long queue for a VERY expensive charger. If you want cheap electric you'll need to drive the 10 miles out of town to the large motorway service centre near the power station.
Imagine if you will, the M25 outer ring in London and how many cars refuel on the average rush-hour morning. Now fast forward to a world where they are all electric. Rather than a 5 minute splash and dash with the morning paper, it's a 20 minute top up just to be sure. That means those stations need around 4 times as many chargers as they have pumps and limit people to 20 minutes a pop at peak times. There are probably at least dozen of these stations around just that one motorway. If all of them are to have 40 or 50 350kW chargers ... that's a few power plants worth on it's own!
Again... in towns, cities and already developed areas electricity for your car will become astronomically expense and you'll end up driving 10s of miles to get electric 50% cheaper!
This is assuming that "they" are going to be giving the savings from being close to the power station to the motorists... instead of pocketing the profits and distributing to the shareholders. I know which way I'd bet...
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Q: When you're chatting at a party, how do you know which one owns the Tesla?
A: They'll tell you.
|O
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Q: When you're chatting at a party, how do you know which one owns the Tesla?
A: They'll tell you.
I thought that was only for Ferrari's and Lamborghini's, but you might frequent other parties then I do. :-DD
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Q: When you're chatting at a party, how do you know which one owns the Tesla?
A: They'll tell you.
|O
I recently rode in an Uber, where the vehicle was a Tesla. Who knew driving Ubers was so profitable? :-D
I couldn't figure out how to use the door handles. Driver had to wind down the window and explain... and I could tell he had done that before! :-DD
Which brings me to the pet peeve: designers making everyday things 'different' just to be different - while imposing an actual cost on the world to use it!
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Q: When you're chatting at a party, how do you know which one owns the Tesla?
A: They'll tell you.
|O
I recently rode in an Uber, where the vehicle was a Tesla. Who knew driving Ubers was so profitable? :-D
I couldn't figure out how to use the door handles. Driver had to wind down the window and explain... and I could tell he had done that before! :-DD
Which brings me to the pet peeve: designers making everyday things 'different' just to be different - while imposing an actual cost on the world to use it!
Like the designers of electric kettles who put large clear plastic windows on the sides to "easily check the water level".
They look stylish, but over time the seal between the main body of the kettle & the window inevitably deteriorates, until after a little over a year, they start to weep water.
It is very hard to find one with a "sight tube" which avoids this problem, but if you do, they last for multiple years, simply because they apply a mature technology which is known to work.
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Peeve: "The law" and IT.
They really don't have the faintest clue do they? I suppose most judges are still technically "Silver surfers", probably taking evening classes in CLAIT.
Presently. In the UK. If the TV licensing folks want to search you home, you are to provide them access to all devices which could be used to watch a TV programme. Failure to do so (assist) can be considered a criminal offense and obstruction.
Note. Devices which can be used to watch TV would include...
* Your phone.
* Your laptop.
* Your work laptop.
* The PC with the highly confidential VPN access into a live stock exchange
* and the smart TV currently displaying the names and addresses of your wife's school kid's group.
Meaning there is ZERO stipulation that such devices can be used for this FAR, FAR beyond the reach of any stupid TV License warrant.
They just don't have a clue.
They also seem to completely bypass the law about "Unlawful access", such as browsing someone else's watch history on YouTube... is technically a ciminal offense if done with intent and knowledge the accuont was not yours!
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Technology moves fast. Law moves slow.
And that's actually a good thing... people's liberties are generally less infringed by a legislature that is sluggish.
If laws were well written to start with, a lot of these problems could be avoided. Simple changes to phrasing and word choices could prevent conflict by being more specific and less catch-all. Kinda makes one wonder what the ultimate intent is, eh?
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If the TV licensing folks want to search you home, you ...
... can tell them to push right off. If they want search your place they have to go to court and get a search warrant. I guess, pedantically, that translates as "you are to provide them access to all devices which could be used to watch a TV programme", but it is not automatic and they can't just roll up and bash your door down. Nor can they treat your telling them to go away as a criminal offense.
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the TV licensing folks
who?
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In some countries even government propaganda is not free :-DD , you have to pay for a license to watch it.
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If the TV licensing folks want to search you home, you ...
... can tell them to push right off. If they want search your place they have to go to court and get a search warrant. I guess, pedantically, that translates as "you are to provide them access to all devices which could be used to watch a TV programme", but it is not automatic and they can't just roll up and bash your door down. Nor can they treat your telling them to go away as a criminal offense.
Agreed. This discussion stemed from BlackBeltBarristars video. In it he was suggesting that you NEVER let them in just to show them you don't have a TV. What they will do is take note of all the devices which "could" be used to view TV and then use that as eivdence to support a warrant.
I do not pay. I fill in their "I do not need a license" form every year.
Interestingly, all of my "TVs" are just big monitors and they all require a password... which they can get out of me with a specific court order to provide it.
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In some countries even government propaganda is not free :-DD , you have to pay for a license to watch it.
The argument for it however is that they can publish content which has negative commercial but high civil value. Commercial run stations cannot and will not publish content or views which will harm their sponsors, investors.
There are many, many, many examples of them (the BBC) doing just that internationally. They can and will go investigating into deep dark holes that "investor funded" journalists will be told to steer clear of or be sacked.
Where I personally feel the issues begin is not with the propoganda, which is there, it's the "other commercial interests" of the BBC.
Example: Doctor Who. The resent series have, argued by some, been produced specifically for a US biased international market and not infact made for the british public which funded it. The BBC then "sell" that content to the US. They argue, commercial revenue streams are always part of the business model and the tax payers will benefit from teh revenue collected.... But ... the content suffers.
Looping back to the original point though... the TV licensing laws are just not compatible with modern media or how we consume it.
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On the law and IT.
I set myself a thought experiment and recoiled in horror when I thought, "What if I was called to the stand as an expert IT security witness?"
Given the way the law uses terminology I cannot see how it would be possible without arguing defintitions for a long, long time, before you could actually give any grounded, concrete professional opinion.
In reality, I think such witnesses are just "pre-coached".
I have to drop this here... sorry.
https://youtu.be/zKNoU2P0dQc
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If the TV licensing folks want to search you home, you ...
... can tell them to push right off. If they want search your place they have to go to court and get a search warrant. I guess, pedantically, that translates as "you are to provide them access to all devices which could be used to watch a TV programme", but it is not automatic and they can't just roll up and bash your door down. Nor can they treat your telling them to go away as a criminal offense.
Agreed. This discussion stemed from BlackBeltBarristars video. In it he was suggesting that you NEVER let them in just to show them you don't have a TV. What they will do is take note of all the devices which "could" be used to view TV and then use that as eivdence to support a warrant.
I do not pay. I fill in their "I do not need a license" form every year.
Interestingly, all of my "TVs" are just big monitors and they all require a password... which they can get out of me with a specific court order to provide it.
I thought the UK had switched to financing the BBC via general taxes, rather than a license fee?
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If the TV licensing folks want to search you home, you ...
... can tell them to push right off. If they want search your place they have to go to court and get a search warrant. I guess, pedantically, that translates as "you are to provide them access to all devices which could be used to watch a TV programme", but it is not automatic and they can't just roll up and bash your door down. Nor can they treat your telling them to go away as a criminal offense.
Agreed. This discussion stemed from BlackBeltBarristars video. In it he was suggesting that you NEVER let them in just to show them you don't have a TV. What they will do is take note of all the devices which "could" be used to view TV and then use that as eivdence to support a warrant.
I do not pay. I fill in their "I do not need a license" form every year.
Interestingly, all of my "TVs" are just big monitors and they all require a password... which they can get out of me with a specific court order to provide it.
I thought the UK had switched to financing the BBC via general taxes, rather than a license fee?
I don't think anyone really knows anymore where their taxes go. The last effort on that front was with labour who proposed giving tax payers a break down of how their tax was spent in their pay check statement. That vanished. I never actually seen one, although the company I was working for responded initially.
It's like "Road Tax" as people call it, or "Vehicle Excess Duty" its often miss understood that "it pays for road maintenance"... directly. Like "National Insurance" "directly" fills your "unemployment" benefit. People believe these are descete, banded pots of money. They aren't obviously.
None of these things are technically true or false, it's just a LOT more complex than that. People get confused a lot and it's hardly surprising.
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Peeves: Getting "ignored" on an audiophile forum for describing how the master clock in I2S is just used a as the "CLK>" input for the I2S peripheral.
Actually that's probably not a peeve but an achievement.
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If the TV licensing folks want to search you home, you ...
... can tell them to push right off. If they want search your place they have to go to court and get a search warrant. I guess, pedantically, that translates as "you are to provide them access to all devices which could be used to watch a TV programme", but it is not automatic and they can't just roll up and bash your door down. Nor can they treat your telling them to go away as a criminal offense.
Agreed. This discussion stemed from BlackBeltBarristars video. In it he was suggesting that you NEVER let them in just to show them you don't have a TV. What they will do is take note of all the devices which "could" be used to view TV and then use that as eivdence to support a warrant.
I do not pay. I fill in their "I do not need a license" form every year.
Interestingly, all of my "TVs" are just big monitors and they all require a password... which they can get out of me with a specific court order to provide it.
I thought the UK had switched to financing the BBC via general taxes, rather than a license fee?
Australia did that in the 1970s, after they discovered that it cost more to enforce licenses than was received in fees.
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The TV license thing has always seemed bizarre to me. The vast majority of people have owned something that is at least technically capable of receiving TV signals for decades whether they use it for that or not. It makes no sense to have a whole system of licenses, just roll it into the general tax fund. There are a lot of other things I also don't use that I'd be much more interested in opting out of paying for.
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I don't think anyone really knows anymore where their taxes go. The last effort on that front was with labour who proposed giving tax payers a break down of how their tax was spent in their pay check statement. That vanished.
That's a great platform to use while campaigning, but as soon as anyone is elected he/she is probably immediately "educated" on why transparency in tax spending is a Very Bad Idea for incumbent politicians (which now includes the newly elected individual). One hears all of these transparency promises every election cycle, then they vanish like the morning dew on Election Day + 1.
It's also very telling that nobody, NOBODY, ever follows up on that topic after the election is over. No politician, no failed candidate, and especially not the press, ever hold the winning candidates accountable for that particular promise. Tax collections - yes. This-or-that individual liberty questions - sure. But where do our taxes go? Crickets, from everyone. That's conspiracy-level collusion.
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Should make election manifestos legally binding documents.
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The TV license thing has always seemed bizarre to me. The vast majority of people have owned something that is at least technically capable of receiving TV signals for decades whether they use it for that or not. It makes no sense to have a whole system of licenses, just roll it into the general tax fund. There are a lot of other things I also don't use that I'd be much more interested in opting out of paying for.
It's really old. It was originally started as a radio license in 1923 (no longer exists) and televisions were added in 1946. Not many people had a TV in 46... So a fee made sense then. But today, it's just a silly leftover bureaucracy since the majority have a TV today...
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Another argument for a compulsory sunset clause on every law.
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There are some laws that I don't think there is any point in having a sunset clause, and in fact it could be dangerous in case someone forgets to update it. I think we can safely say (at least I hope) that laws against things like murder, rape, kidnapping, child exploitation and other such basic direct crimes are never going to be obsolete. Also it would be worth looking at the total number of laws on the books, it's possible that even once you eliminate the fluff we'd probably need to greatly expand the legislative branch of the government in order to have the resources to actively maintain all of them.
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There are some laws that I don't think there is any point in having a sunset clause, and in fact it could be dangerous in case someone forgets to update it.
That's rarely the case. The policy makers here never let a law go to waste.
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forgetting that it is usually a bad idea to measure voltage when the DMM is set to measure current*.
*especially when the fuse is expensive and not available at any of the local suppliers.
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forgetting that it is usually a bad idea to measure voltage when the DMM is set to measure current*.
*especially when the fuse is expensive and not available at any of the local suppliers.
Even worse if it's one of those cheap meters that doesn't have fuse. Or even a CAT rating. Then the pet peeve becomes something about adequate eye/medical care.
That's what I like about the better built meters: If you plug into the current jack and set the knob to volts, etc then it'll beep at you until you correct that mistake.
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That's what I like about the better built meters: If you plug into the current jack and set the knob to volts, etc then it'll beep at you until you correct that mistake.
Mine does. It did not prevent me, twice in a single month, from trying to measure residual voltage on a (beefy) capacitor when the probe was in the current jack *and* the range selector was in the mA/uA position (after I did some actual current measurements), so the meter honestly did its job and would not beep.
Lesson learned: buy enough spare fuses when you have a chance. Also prefer meters with easy access to fuses, if possible, whence comes another pet peeve of mine: I want an updated version of Brymen BM869s. Easier fuse access, white LED-capable diode mode, wireless communications, faster update rate in some modes, auto-hold, low impedance mode. Come on Brymen, it's long overdue.
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If you find yourself blowing meter fuses with any sort of regularity you really should be more attentive, this sort of carelessness can get you killed depending on what you're working on. I've blown fuses in my meters before, but it's been probably 10 years since it's happened and the number of times in total I think I can count on one hand. Doesn't bother me a bit that I have to open my meter to get to them.
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It's why I use a beefy analog DC ammeter for measuring amps on 12v. 10A isn't enough current capacity often anyway. Not worth the risk of a good meter.
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... beefy analog ...
Nowadays electrical engineers might think that it is a snack :-DD
"beefy analog" can I eat it?
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... beefy analog ...
Nowadays electrical engineers might think that it is a snack :-DD
"beefy analog" can I eat it?
Beefeater is a famous brand of barbecue here.
https://www.beefeaterbbq.com/en-au/our-history/ (https://www.beefeaterbbq.com/en-au/our-history/)
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Beefeater is a
infamous pub restaurant chain here
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Beefeater is a famous brand of barbecue here.
https://www.beefeaterbbq.com/en-au/our-history/ (https://www.beefeaterbbq.com/en-au/our-history/)
Also a popular brand of Gin!
Probably safer not to indulge in the latter before operating the former! ;D
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Beefeater is a famous brand of barbecue here.
https://www.beefeaterbbq.com/en-au/our-history/ (https://www.beefeaterbbq.com/en-au/our-history/)
Also a popular brand of Gin!
Probably safer not to indulge in the latter before operating the former! ;D
Beefeater is also a popular brand of tourist attraction. Their original job meant they were not always they safe playing their trade.
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Web sites with "Contact Us" forms that don't send a confirmation email so you know that your message has been received. The best ones include a copy of your message so you have a record of what you sent.
I just used a form that gave me a generic error massage - and erased all the fields - after I hit Send. So I retyped everything and hit Send again. This time it erased some of the fields and said "Your message has been sent." But has it?
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Most likely it just subscribed you to their junk email list.
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aluminum wire that looks like its not.
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aluminum wire that looks like its not.
You mean CCA?
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It's why I use a beefy analog DC ammeter for measuring amps on 12v. 10A isn't enough current capacity often anyway. Not worth the risk of a good meter.
I use a DC clamp probe, it's much easier to use in most cases anyway and it there is zero risk of damaging the meter with it, unless you drop it on the meter.
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I use a DC clamp probe, it's much easier to use in most cases anyway and it there is zero risk of damaging the meter with it, unless you drop it on the meter.
It works as long as you don't need to measure microamps and milliamps.
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It works as long as you don't need to measure microamps and milliamps.
He specifically said that 10 Amps is not enough, that kind of implies that microamps and milliamps is not the use case here.
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aluminum wire that looks like its not.
You mean CCA?
copper-clad aluminum yes try'd soldering cable lug on some.
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copper-clad aluminum yes try'd soldering cable lug on some.
Unless the twisted pair cable I have is pure copper, which I doubt, I use this stuff to make my proto pcb's. Solders just fine. I strip it and stretch it a bit and then use it to make the tracks on the boards.
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copper-clad aluminum yes try'd soldering cable lug on some.
Unless the twisted pair cable I have is pure copper, which I doubt, I use this stuff to make my proto pcb's. Solders just fine. I strip it and stretch it a bit and then use it to make the tracks on the boards.
CAT5 cable is by definition pure copper, however I got screwed once when I accidentally bought some "CAT5E" that was CCA. The stuff was junk, I ended up throwing it out, I should have known there was a reason it was so much cheaper.
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Sometimes seemingly dumb choices have sound reasoning behind them. The longer my career, the slower I am to immediately question odd choices made by others more familiar with their industry.
Quoted for truth.
Unfortunately, anyone who has experience with their industry is then dismissed by the whiny outsiders as “biased”, a “shill”, or “sheeple”…
You can’t win.
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[attach=1]
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You can’t win.
Yep, but for sure I don't want to join them |O
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Google Maps when you try and drag a suggested route to a new road. So often the whole thing turns into a bowl of spaghetti, looping back on itself with no apparent way of sorting it out.
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Makes me think of some commercial that was aired on Dutch TV. It was about a driver trusting on its GPS to much, and turned left directly when told and steered into a hedge or swimming pool, can't recall which. Could not find it so here is something along the same lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l5VbyvPCtg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l5VbyvPCtg)
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I've been driving with GPS navigation for many years now and never had any incidents. It's great for somebody like me that has a poor sense of direction. The key is not to just blindly follow whatever it tells you, you still have to have your brain on and decide whether the instruction makes sense. It's just a guide, it's not self driving.
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Google Maps when you try and drag a suggested route to a new road. So often the whole thing turns into a bowl of spaghetti, looping back on itself with no apparent way of sorting it out.
Hit the arrows to reverse the route,then hit em again,spaghetti removed.
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Audiophiles
No just that. Audiophiles in general. This time, in particular is people trying to use a couple of raspberry PIs running on super capacitors to avoid master clock jitter, by creating a synchronous buffered, asynchronous FIFO.
The surprising thing is how many people are throwing money at this sh1t. As far as I can determine the ONLY thing this setup achieves is creating really, really long buffers of megabytes in size and potentially hours in duration synchronising two streams they just make asynchronous. It's baffling. It has a net ZERO effect.
Then you have people claiming they can HEAR a difference. Even when you point out it takes light longer to get from your speakers to your eyes than the maximum 180* phase shift on a masterclock!
I have to stop reading these audiophool forums or I'm going to end up insulting someone.
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Childrens' toy slime.
Whomever invented and started selling that stuff needs punished.
The stuff is like glue, if it touches anything "fabric" like it instantly engrains itself around the very threads of the fabric and sets like... glue. It's NEVER coming out. Sparkles, glitters stars and all!
My daughter set a blob of it on her "numbers" play mat. I had told her to keep it on that. Within 3 minutes however, the blob had flattened and spread and found the crack in the foam between the number tiles and made it's way through there, out the bottom and created an irremovable blob of slime in my carpet.
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Audiophiles
No just that. Audiophiles in general. This time, in particular is people trying to use a couple of raspberry PIs running on super capacitors to avoid master clock jitter, by creating a synchronous buffered, asynchronous FIFO.
The surprising thing is how many people are throwing money at this sh1t. As far as I can determine the ONLY thing this setup achieves is creating really, really long buffers of megabytes in size and potentially hours in duration synchronising two streams they just make asynchronous. It's baffling. It has a net ZERO effect.
Then you have people claiming they can HEAR a difference. Even when you point out it takes light longer to get from your speakers to your eyes than the maximum 180* phase shift on a masterclock!
I have to stop reading these audiophool forums or I'm going to end up insulting someone.
the irony is by the time your at the age when one can afford quality audio reproduction equipment your hearing is in decline.
assuming you haven't tinnitus damaged it more so as a teen.
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the irony is by the time your at the age when one can afford quality audio reproduction equipment your hearing is in decline.
assuming you haven't tinnitus damaged it more so as a teen.
What? Sorry speak up?
Where's my Metallic album on cassette and my Sony Walkman
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Audiophiles and audiophools are not the same.
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But the latter often think they're the former.
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If only audiophools would simply say that they enjoy using this or that equipment or technique. That in itself is perfectly valid. It's when they try to justify their enjoyment by trying to convince everyone that there is a real difference is where it all falls apart.
If someone makes the statement "I just love fiddling with and listening to valve amplifiers" that can be a true statement. No problem at all. If on the other hand they say "valve amplifiers are the best for hi-fi sound reproduction" then they are presenting something subjective as if it were immutable fact.
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Your last phrase is not limited to audiophools! That behavior occurs in virtually every niche imaginable.
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There's some audiophool equipment that I think has artistic value. I'm not going to claim that it sounds better, but I'm sure a lot of it sounds very good, once you cross a certain threshold of quality that is not hard to achieve with modern technology, you can pretty easily get very good sound. The value of art is subjective, there are sculptures that are worth millions of dollars that you don't even *do* anything at all. I'd sooner spend $100k on a really unique looking turntable that I can use to play records than on a sculpture that just sits there.
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Source and Loudspeakers are the first things to work on.
No no no,totally wrong,the first thing to improve is the mains cable powering your amp,something like https://www.thecableco.com/sukhavati-power-cable.html (https://www.thecableco.com/sukhavati-power-cable.html) will be ok for entry level amps
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when the force will not die
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when the force will not die
But according to Newton's 3rd it always has an exact opposite, just ask electrodacus :-DD
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The latest Star Wars movie is really bad. I'm sorry for your loss.
Fortunatley for a Star Trek fan I don't have that problem (as much). Care to jump ship?
I like both. The most recent Star Trek series I tried to watch (Picard) was so awful I shut it off after 3 episodes and never looked back.
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The Orville, season 3 is a woke bunch of shit. :--
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The Orville, season 3 is a woke bunch of shit. :--
As so may other tv series that start of okish and then turn to shit :palm:
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I watched the first season of the Orville and had some laughs of it. Was doable as a bit of a time waste, but not for long.
Another series I started with was the Rookie and it was ok for the first couple of seasons, but now it is utter crap, to me at least.
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I've been paying £10.99 a month for NetFlix UHD, but I haven't watched anything on Netflix for a year now.
Maybe I should cancel it.
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Sometimes seemingly dumb choices have sound reasoning behind them. The longer my career, the slower I am to immediately question odd choices made by others more familiar with their industry.
Quoted for truth.
Unfortunately, anyone who has experience with their industry is then dismissed by the whiny outsiders as “biased”, a “shill”, or “sheeple”…
You can’t win.
Clearly lacking "can-do" attitude :-DD
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An amplifier is a poor example. Its often the last thing that you improve. Source and Loudspeakers are the first things to work on. Preferably Loudspeakers first because a Loudspeaker change gives you the most improvement among all other things. Provided your source or amplifier isn't from a cereal box.
I almost think that your speakers ought to be the highest quality (and therefore likely most expensive) parts of your system.
Years ago a picked up a set of Acoustic Research AR7 speakers. These are true acoustic suspension, not just sealed without a port. For their size, they sound amazing to me. I don't need LOUD, I prefer 'good bass' (and that doesn't necessarily mean sub octaves, either). Later on I picked up a similar design made by EPI. Why they don't make acoustic suspension designs any longer I do not understand. Originally, they were considered too power inefficient, but these days watts are no longer an issue. You simply cannot find a 'real' acoustic suspension driver from any manufacturer these days, even if you wanted to build yourself.
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Old rule of thumb was 50% of your audio budget on speakers, 50% for everything else.
The electromechanical transducers are always the weak link. There's no point in worrying about fractional THD percentages when the original microphones and end-game speakers are distorting multiple integer percents. When I proved that to myself in an audio lab is when I stopped wasting money on expensive audio electronics... it's nice to see purity on a scope but you'll never actually hear it.
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Old rule of thumb was 50% of your audio budget on speakers, 50% for everything else.
I probably ended up there. My speakers are cheap, include an amp for £130. My headphones where £180. The headphone amp was bought in components from Farnell for £45, which built two of them. Although in fairness, if you take a £40 BOM and convert it to a product you would be more looking like £200-250 retail?
Sounds about right.
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I don't need LOUD, I prefer 'good bass' (and that doesn't necessarily mean sub octaves, either).
This is my poison. Bass. It's why I used my electronics hobby skills to make an amp designed for my purposes. Simply because the commercial efforts are all "nanny state" headphone amps with 20mA limiters for 99db.
If I was to put my headphones on, with a flat EQ and play an audio track at the usual volume level, I'm very likely to rip the headphones off and go "Ahhwwwooo". Simply because my EQ usually has a low bass shelf with a corner freq of 80Hz gain of +10db. 1kHz with a wide Q drops the hearing damaging range down to about -6db. Another slight cut around 4k and a very slight boost over 10k high shelf.
So the power is consumed by the bass end. Normal amps will not supply that kind of current. They are limited, because 99% of people will use them without EQ and if they max the volume out with all that 1k mid range it will deafen them. Looking through IC catalogs and nearly every single "consumer" grade headphone amp IC is limited either by current (which will just distort the bass) or limited effectively at a db limit. I think the most beefy one I could find from TI was 56mA. Which is quite good as most are 20mA. My amp is 2xOPA551s capable of 200mA or more. Max I have ever seen the headphones do was 1.1 watts and that was intense as hell and not something I would do very often.
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it's nice to see purity on a scope but you'll never actually hear it.
...but you still know it's there ;)
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While we're on the topic, I'll add the 'Loudness War' to my list... Where have all the dynamics gone ???
That and the masses accepting lossy compressed media just so you can fill your 128G drive up with your entire library. With physical media all but gone, it can be difficult to obtain high quality sources these days. Thankfully, used CD's seem to be fairly inexpensive.
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While we're on the topic, I'll add the 'Loudness War' to my list... Where have all the dynamics gone ???
That and the masses accepting lossy compressed media just so you can fill your 128G drive up with your entire library.
Actually, I'm on the other side of that first argument. Not with Audio, but movies.
Ever since consumer grade home movie watching went digital the producers have gone nuts with the dynamic range in both visuals and audio.
The last block buster I watched on Netflix I had to keep turning the volume up and down. You'd have a scene where two people are practically whispering to each other and the sound of the cat licking it's arse was too loud and I couldn't hear it. So I doubled the volume so I could hear it. Then immediately it cuts to a battlefield scene with shells exploding everywhere and I thought things were going to start falling off shelves. Volume down.... then it's back to the couple talking in whispers. Fine in a cinema, NOT fine in a living room or bedroom.
I even broke a rule. I enabled the dynamic volume compressor on the TV!
The same happens with the visuals. That scene were they were talking, was in a dark tunnel. You could barely see their faces the scene was that dark. Turning up the gamma gain and you could see what was happening. However the next scene is broad daylight, bright white screen and it looked washed out and too bright.
Again, fine for sitting in a dark cinema. Not fine for watching a movie while you eat your dinner.
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Ever since consumer grade home movie watching went digital the producers have gone nuts with the dynamic range in both visuals and audio.
The old adage 'Too much of a good thing' remains as relevant as ever ;)
And I'm with you on the movie dynamics - and I too have enabled compression on many (something I would have considered heresy in my younger days). I have a pc based media center, which is handy for allowing a VST processing audio chain.
Which makes me think of yet another pet peeve - "smart" televisions... Planned obsolescence built into what seems like an afterthought running on limited hardware for the worst experience possible when it works, and spys on you when in the background. I've never bothered plugging a tv into my network.
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Ever since consumer grade home movie watching went digital the producers have gone nuts with the dynamic range in both visuals and audio.
How true is this. I keep raising my gamma setting in the video player, because the darker scenes are too dark, and the audio side of things is exactly as you described. Unusable unless you're in headphones or in a cinema. I'm looking for a realtime dynamic compression audio filter to take care of this.
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While we're on the topic, I'll add the 'Loudness War' to my list... Where have all the dynamics gone ???
https://dr.loudness-war.info/ :)
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Where have all the dynamics gone
Here Here,came to the conclusion several years back remastered=run it through a compressor.
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Where have all the dynamics gone
Here Here,came to the conclusion several years back remastered=run it through a compressor.
My brother's trade is sound production. He explained it to me when he was working in a radio station. It's about maximising the bandwidth you have at the same time as protecting the levels outbound to the transmittor.
Allowing large gain swings from the studio can result in issues for the transmittor and it will cause issues for too many "casual listeners" if the DJ is allowed to raise and lower the volume.
So they use a multiband compressor. A normal compressor won't work because dance music with a heavy bass beat will cause the compressor to "breath" with the beat. So they use a multiband compressor and compress each part of the range individually.
What this basically gives you is a very, very strict volume and EQ normalizer. It will undo anything the DJ does with the EQ or the volume. So when people tune in they get a constant, stable volume, no matter what is playing.
In pop music, just like in adverts on TV, it's about maximising the levels and energy in the track, while also compressing it so much that it's unlikely to "get away" from the listener in terms of volume. It makes it idiot proof to play loud basically.
Personally I did some digital DJing for a few years, when making actual CD mix "tapes" it is actually really difficult to master. You want a consistent maximum volume that will not clip, but with uncompressed wide dynamic range audio, like a heavily EQ'd dance record, that is very, very diffitult if not impossible. When I asked my brother about this he just said, "There is career in just mastering", it's not easy. My solution, like nearly everybody else was a hard limiter, aided and supported by a fairly agressive compressor.
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I understand the rationale, but fail to understand why producers choose to normalize at the mastering level for the distributed media... Why not leave the compression to others to apply as needed? Radio stations can process their own. Need to DJ? Do what you did. At least that way the option is there. When the producers apply compression at the master level, they've reduced the quality of the recording to the consumer paying money for it, and eliminated any ability to restore it.
I have absolutely no experience in the broadcast field, but I suspect that radio stations would process the audio regardless of how it arrives... Would they ever really just take a CD off the shelf and broadcast what comes out of the player? It seems redundant.
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Fully aware of the need for compression on radio stations,but hey why not do that thing they used to do,release a radio friendly version ,instead of forcing us to listen to flat insipid music thats had all the life squeezed out of it,and it aint just in recorded music.In live music nowadays with digital desks you can chuck a compressor on every channel,bus and output,gives the engineer a nice easy life as they dont need to keep bouncing around the desk tweaking the kick down a notch or pushing the third triangle up a bit,the result is flat boring gig missing the raw excitement.
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I always smirk when reading descriptions of volume compression and other issues with popular music.
Last summer in Santa Fe, I attended a live concert featuring Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" for clarinet, violin, 'cello, and piano.
I was truly amazed at the acoustic dynamic range, especially at the quiet end where the sound was just above the background level due to ventilation.
Such works are rarely played on the automotive sound system in the pickup truck stopped to my left at a traffic light.
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Such works are rarely played on the automotive sound system in the pickup truck stopped to my left at a traffic light.
There's certainly no accounting for taste :-DD
Which might explain the whole problem.
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I didn't say that. Looks like you quoted someone else but attributed me to what he said.
LOL - I said that ;D
I think something got mucked up when the person quoting me captured my quote from you about amps and speakers. ;)
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Hoovle
I wasn't quite sure if that's a real thing or a nickname, so I googled it. And got search results almost entirely filled with links to Google!
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I didn't say that. Looks like you quoted someone else but attributed me to what he said.
LOL - I said that ;D
I think something got mucked up when the person quoting me captured my quote from you about amps and speakers. ;)
Yes. You are right. My appologies. I made a mistake in editing the 'quote' tags and... "fixed it" ;) ;) Apparently I just made it worse.
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My point is. Don't forget everything else is also watching you too, not just your smart tv.
This is more what worries me. It's not what one particular advertising agency want's to capture from me to go into their massive vat of millions of similar "average people"
It's what happens when you start to correlate across those datasets. It is surprisingly easy to take a possible cartesian set of billions of trillions of combinations and have some machine learning pull out the 10,000 possible cross dataset individuals.... in a few hours.
Not even that is worrying.
It's not the advertising company I'm worried about and it's not "now" i'm worried about. I do not have that data, I do not control that data, I cannot guarantee it stays with that advertising company and I cannot guarantee I will like the way it is used in the future and I cannot know by whom it is used or for what and ... if that will be good or bad for me.
More plainly. Your data is out there. The bottom line is, you don't know who "they" are and you certainly don't know what they "want". So how they hell do people so quickly answer they are fine with it?
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That is the perfect photo and movie reference!
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Nah the Orville was never going to be okish as its creator is also the creator of Family Guy. Family Guy is and always was about taking ideas to their extreme for comedic effect so therefore it was doomed from the very start. Family Guy is what is wrong with today's society. A cancer on the world. You don't build a fuctioning society based upon ultraviolence in any form (Robocop) and extreme sexual references.
I've never heard of Orville but I think Family Guy is hilarious, it's one of my favorite shows. It's a joke, it's funny precisely because it's over the top, it's not a role model on which to base society. If a person is basing their life and behavior on cartoons the problem is them, not the show.
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Old rule of thumb was 50% of your audio budget on speakers, 50% for everything else.
The electromechanical transducers are always the weak link. There's no point in worrying about fractional THD percentages when the original microphones and end-game speakers are distorting multiple integer percents. When I proved that to myself in an audio lab is when I stopped wasting money on expensive audio electronics... it's nice to see purity on a scope but you'll never actually hear it.
Not mention cheap ears!
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If a person is basing their life and behavior on cartoons the problem is them, not the show.
Keep on telling yourself that buddy.
Plenty of ex cons will tell you and plenty of religious folk will tell you that shows like that are bad. Go talk to some of them and stop listening to your self bias.
Ex cons maybe, but why would I listen to religious folk about something like this. To them everything is bad if it does not fit their purpose, and some comedy cartoon like that Family Guy will certainly not fit them, but what they don't tell you is that they secretly watch it in the basement. :o
Biased, of course not :-DD
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Keep on telling yourself that buddy.
Plenty of ex cons will tell you and plenty of religious folk will tell you that shows like that are bad. Go talk to some of them and stop listening to your self bias.
You're talking about bias and you want me to talk to ex cons? That's an extremely biased approach. You're literally saying talk to people that have a proven track record of making poor life choices and religious nutters that take their guidance from a magical man in the sky. Sorry but it is not the fault of a TV show that they can't behave, it is 100% their fault and their fault only. Personal choices, personal responsibility. Nobody is responsible for your actions and choices except you, period.
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Nah the Orville was never going to be okish as its creator is also the creator of Family Guy. Family Guy is and always was about taking ideas to their extreme for comedic effect so therefore it was doomed from the very start. Family Guy is what is wrong with today's society. A cancer on the world. You don't build a fuctioning society based upon ultraviolence in any form (Robocop) and extreme sexual references.
I've never heard of Orville but I think Family Guy is hilarious, it's one of my favorite shows. It's a joke, it's funny precisely because it's over the top, it's not a role model on which to base society. If a person is basing their life and behavior on cartoons the problem is them, not the show.
If you liked Star Trek TNG, and also can stand the humor, I think you will like The Orville. The first season sometimes is quite over the top, but season 2 and 3 dial down the jokes quite a bit and get more serious.
It is quite, well, "woke" though. But in my opinion: Those that complain about Star Trek being too "woke", well, I don't think these people understand Star Trek.
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The whole "woke" thing is a pet peeve for me.
Is that supposed to be an insult? Should we all be "asleep" and ignore societal issues instead?
There are extremists on both sides. It seems like the middle has lost it's voice in recent years.
edit - sorry, but Seth MacFarlane is a funny guy. And Family Guy is more satire than a danger to society. Certainly less so than social media IMO.
And I found the Orville quite entertaining. In MacFarlane fashion, many societal divisive subjects are referenced.
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The extremists on both sides used to keep their edge cases behind closed doors, and societal norms were the mainstream. Recent political movements have emboldened the extremists to believe their proclivities are now the mainstream - again on both sides.
As evidence I offer the Grammy Awards show last weekend, which was on the TV at the house we were visiting at the time. IMHO folks can live how they wish as long as it doesn't legally compel others, but that show was basically the modern version of PT Barnum's circus. Normal people continue to be entertained by a freak show, even when the entertainment doesn't realize (or admit?) they're being laughed at instead of respected.
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Agreed.
I'm not smart enough to understand philosophy etc, but I sometimes get the sense that mankind is simply not capable of getting along on it's own without some kind of guardrail in place.
Though there will always be those who push the boundaries of what society accepts - sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. Those that were previously relegated to the shadows of society seem to feel empowered these days.
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You're talking about bias and you want me to talk to ex cons? That's an extremely biased approach. You're literally saying talk to people that have a proven track record of making poor life choices and religious nutters that take their guidance from a magical man in the sky. Sorry but it is not the fault of a TV show that they can't behave, it is 100% their fault and their fault only. Personal choices, personal responsibility. Nobody is responsible for your actions and choices except you, period.
"Personal responsibility" does not occur in a vacuum. It is reasonable to consider it as part of the reason people end up where they did, but it is rarely the only reason for someone's poor outcomes. All too often it is used as an excuse by those opposed to change to argue that we cannot improve society because the reason people are in jail or obese or smoking or whatever else is because of their personal choices -- it's a very pervasive argument because at the heart of it, it is correct that these are often personal choices, but the fact that they vary across states and countries shows that there is far more than just personal choice at play. Education, social values, poverty are all important too, and a good society would act to make it so that these poor choices happen less often. (A pretty good example is the correlation and possible link between lead in gasoline and increased criminality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis). How can you blame personal choice for lead levels in blood?)
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The Orville, season 3 is a woke bunch of shit. :--
As so may other tv series that start of okish and then turn to shit :palm:
Nah the Orville was never going to be okish as its creator is also the creator of Family Guy. Family Guy is and always was about taking ideas to their extreme for comedic effect so therefore it was doomed from the very start. Family Guy is what is wrong with today's society. A cancer on the world. You don't build a fuctioning society based upon ultraviolence in any form (Robocop) and extreme sexual references.
Woke shit is what you get when you take things to their extreme.
You create a heroin den or meth centric culture based upon those two values. Not a society though. The shit that he is pumping out is/has been destroying the USA by popularizing those two values and pumping it into the homes of everybody.
He in fact did the same thing with Family Guy itself, in the first few episodes it was sold as an ok show, tolerable (but barely). Then he amped up the violence and sex a few episodes afterwoods. I actually like the first few episodes of Family Guy. But only those few.
It was SOLD as a show that could be okish but it never delivered even from episode 1. It was a complete and 100% total con from the very beginning. It should have had a different director and a different script writer than Seth Mcfarlane. The underlying idea is ok but the script and directing is totally wrong for that idea to take foot.
Would have been an ok show if it stayed true to its type but that never happens in any show today.
You must be really fun at parties… :palm:
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Nobody is responsible for your actions and choices except you, period.
..... Or in the case of a human being, if they've been abused and they lash out that they should be put down.
No matter someones history, they are still accountable for their own actions. I don't buy into the "I had to ride a tricycle when I was young and now I have issues" defense of someone who rapped or killed someone due to being abused or whatever. We live in a society where what is right and what is wrong are clearly presented, so no excuse there.
There are plenty of cases where some psychopath has been released back onto society, after the doctors assessed "no this one is of no threat to society", and rape or kill someone the next or even the same day. To me the removal of these types of people from this planet seems only fair, but at least keep them locked up. Evil does exists, and it is not the likes of james_s and me that are the threat.
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... (A pretty good example is the correlation and possible link between lead in gasoline and increased criminality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis). How can you blame personal choice for lead levels in blood?)
Don't forget that many of my generation grew up with lead in petrol and only a small percentage might have reverted to criminal behavior based on elevated levels in their blood.
But I do agree that there are multiple influences on someone becoming a "criminal". Only a very small percentage will actually be born a "criminal", but it does happen. There are people that are just bad from the start, despite proper upbringing in a protected environment. And it is these that can't become proper members of society, whatever you do for them.
Edit: and furthermore, lead has been removed from petrol for quite a while now, but youngsters are starting to show more aggressive and criminal behavior in current society, so other factors are at play for sure.
In the Netherlands a snack bar owner was killed by they think three youngsters, two female (15, 17) and a boy (17), and why they don't know yet. :palm:
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Also You are kidding yourself right there. You said " I don't buy into the "I had to ride a tricycle when I was young and now I have issues" defense of someone who rapped or killed someone due to being abused or whatever." Who the fuck would!? Who would take that as a defence? No the most likely defence of someone who snapped and killed someone is because they've been beaten up and screamed at their entire lives.
Don't you understand a metaphor?
I can understand that people who have been abused lash out, and that consideration is in place, but there are doctors and other instances people can turn to when needed. And before you come up with it, yes I do understand about social stigma's and shame and society putting the blame on the victims and so on.
We live in a fucked up society for sure and that is a damned shame. And why, I blame money for the most part!
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Bah - the old "parents can't compete with the media" is an old excuse. Probably goes back to print literature and then repeated with moving images. 'Reefer Madness' and all that.
I'm not for child abuse, but as a child I stayed in line knowing my mom would swat me - anyplace, anytime - if I acted up. And neighbors were expected to do the same for other kids if the parents weren't around. Now, I see kids having complete meltdowns in a store or restaurant and everyone is afraid to deal with them. My wife works for a mental health agency and there is a professional fear of what could happen if a child makes a report on staff - even fabricated claims can result in loss of employment, or worse yet some legal action.
What I do see as a contributing factor is that these days it takes both parents working full time or more to get by, so there is an absence of supervision. The lack of meaningful daycare support in the US doesn't help.
I'm not smart enough to claim any answers to these issues, but clearly things are just getting worse.
Edit - I'll throw it out once more - social media is a much bigger threat IMO than anything broadcast on network media.
Edit 2 - Don't forget to bring a towel !
Edit 3 - I grew up watching Monty Python, and I didn't grow up to be a lumberjack. And that's ok.
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I'm not for child abuse, but as a child I stayed in line knowing my mom would swat me - anyplace, anytime - if I acted up. And neighbors were expected to do the same for other kids if the parents weren't around. Now, I see kids having complete meltdowns in a store or restaurant and everyone is afraid to deal with them. My wife works for a mental health agency and there is a professional fear of what could happen if a child makes a report on staff - even fabricated claims can result in loss of employment, or worse yet some legal action.
Neither am I, but there is a difference between a smack on the bum and abuse. There has to be order and some discipline. And I know what you are talking about. Have seen it myself in supermarkets too. :palm:
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Edit: and furthermore, lead has been removed from petrol for quite a while now, but youngsters are starting to show more aggressive and criminal behavior in current society, so other factors are at play for sure.
In the Netherlands a snack bar owner was killed by they think three youngsters, two female (15, 17) and a boy (17), and why they don't know yet. :palm:
This is often stated, but if you actually look at crime rates, they have been falling since the 90's.
For instance, for the UK: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2022 (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2022) (Figure 1 for all crime, Figure 7 for violent crime)
Though this trend is seen all over, definitely not unique to the UK. There are some inversions with certain crimes increasing against the general fall of others decreasing. Those have more complex causes, but in general criminality including violent crime has been falling for over 30 years and the fall is significant, like it's some 2-3x less likely that you will be involved in a violent assault in the UK today, as compared to the 90's. Media narrative loves to spin the idea that it's getting worse because it sells newspapers and gets clicks, but it's clearly fallen by a significant amount. One other aspect is social media and the internet make these crimes that much more visible.
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.... (Figure 1 for all crime, Figure 7 for violent crime) ....
Yet they state in the graph
Excluding fraud and computer misuse, we have seen continued falls in overall levels of crime over recent decades.
So it is not ALL CRIME.
And sure media likes to blow things out of proportion, but as with the stock exchange "results from the past are no guarantee for the future". And there seems to be a trend amongst youngsters of carrying more and more knives, and apparently not small ones.
No fancy graphs and in Dutch:
https://www.om.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/03/30/maatschappelijke-onrust-trend-in-jaarbeeld-2021 (https://www.om.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/03/30/maatschappelijke-onrust-trend-in-jaarbeeld-2021)
https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2462017-minderjarig-en-een-mes-op-zak-steeds-meer-jongeren-betrokken-bij-steekincidenten (https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2462017-minderjarig-en-een-mes-op-zak-steeds-meer-jongeren-betrokken-bij-steekincidenten)
Just a couple of sites of multiple that can be found on this.
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.... (Figure 1 for all crime, Figure 7 for violent crime) ....
Yet they state in the graph
Excluding fraud and computer misuse, we have seen continued falls in overall levels of crime over recent decades.
So it is not ALL CRIME.
No - that was only logged since 2017 or so. Beforehand it was not recorded in the statistics. You can see however that in the 4-5 years of data available that it is following a similar trend. So ONS is being appropriate in not drawing a conclusion from a limited data set here.
And sure media likes to blow things out of proportion, but as with the stock exchange "results from the past are no guarantee for the future". And there seems to be a trend amongst youngsters of carrying more and more knives, and apparently not small ones.
It may well be true that more youngsters are carrying knives and this is definitely a point of concern. However, if overall violent crime drops, say, 60% in 30 years, but people carrying knives go up by, say, 30%, what headline is most appropriate to describe the situation? Is it "Violent crime falls" or "More people carrying knives leading to violent crime"? Depending on the author's viewpoint you can create the impression of either when the data only shows that crime is falling. The fact is, that violent crime in general has been falling year on year across the globe, yet media reports would have you believe that people are being stabbed to death more than ever. Carrying a knife is part paranoia and self-protection and yes I am sure some intend to harm others, but when the overall trend is negative for violent crime, I am much less worried.
Also, here is some data on the intentional homicide rate for NL:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=NL&view=chart
I couldn't find violence/crime rates, though I didn't dig too far. But I would imagine homicide and violence are well correlated. NL sees a 40% fall since the 90's.
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Not really a peeve, although interviewing flat fail candidates is a bit of pain.
Guy today, when I was explaining a code exercise to him... his mobile rang. I paused, expecting to say, "No, no it's fine", when he silenced the phone, but instead he answered it. Went on mute on the call and had a conversation for a minute. Then returned. I re-explained the, really, really basic code example (a "insert code here" type affair" and asked him how he would approach it.
After much humming and ha'ing and having me repeat the breif 3 times, even giving him the first step in the process... his answer. "No, sorry, no idea".
He was applying for a software engineer job. Immediately I thought, is he just going to say that "on the job", "No sorry no idea how to do that?". I mean, does he understand engineering differently to the rest of us or something?
I didn't know how to do the first time I read the exercise, but I worked it out in about 2 minutes. Thats the point! How do you get an interview so badly wrong and still look confident at the end of it?
You guys aren't software enginers... have a crack.
String input = "5.56 5.58 5.54 5.48 5.54 5.59 5.52";
double[] idealBuySellPrices = calculateBestBuySell( input );
double[] calculateBestBuySell( String input ){
// TODO Implement
}
All I was looking for was "english pigeon code". For example. "I'd split the string on space...."
Bonus points for also taking a boolean "Short Sell" ;)
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Guy today, when I was explaining a code exercise to him... his mobile rang. I paused, expecting to say, "No, no it's fine", when he silenced the phone, but instead he answered it. Went on mute on the call and had a conversation for a minute.
Kinda tells you how he prioritizes the potential job, doesn't it? And that's beyond simple common courtesy.
I'm starting to feel old - where's my 'get off my lawn' sign?
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Interviews when they go well and you have a good candidate just migrate into a techie chat. Then you know you could be talking tech next week on a project at the same level ... and that's what you want. It's easy for everyone. Flat fail canidates are... yes a pet peeve.
My action item from this is to include a minimal code exercise in the quick "pre interview" we do. Normally I jsut get them to talk about their tech stack, ask them questions and if they sound like they have actually worked in/on what their CV claims I put them forward. We are seeing too many "book" people though. Too many people coached and "read up" with exam like cheat sheets and .... couldnt write a single line of code.
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Not really a peeve, although interviewing flat fail candidates is a bit of pain. [..]
I've had to interview a few, and we get the guys who come to a senior software engineer interview (first stage via Teams usually) in t-shirt and a pair of shorts, okay don't worry we're not expecting a suit and tie, but maybe dress a little nicer than the pajamas you woke up in so we think you at least care a little about your appearance when interviewing for a £60k a year job? Then you get into the technical and the answers are "dunno" or "I can't say how you'd do that", like no exploration of possibilities or even wonder in what could be achieved. This is probably the case for 20% of all candidates. Recruiters are pretty bad at filtering out the chaff unfortunately (and they still somehow get 15-20% of first year salary, it seems insane to me.)
Jeff at StackOverflow observed that a surprising number of candidates with otherwise promising job applications are actually really bad at programming:
https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
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Exactly. When the interviewee. If I don't know the answer to a question I just go straight to... think out loud. What do I know. What can I assume, what can I guess, lay the working out in front of the interviewer. If you actually manage to just "figure out" the answer on the spot, that goes down exceptionally well.
EDIT: I completely fluffed half an interview because I completely forgot the other half of the "left alone exercise". They had given me their product brief and asked me to highlight any concerns I may have over it in regards to security.
When they returned and asked for it, my eyes went wide and I went with, "I completely forgot that part.".. paused, considered the day job and continued with, "I'll do it now." and analysed it out loud in a stream of hmms ha's and "Ah...s" and got to the route of the issue... digital encrypted DRM for set top and satelite boxes is breakable at the device UUID level.
The way I seen it, it didn't matter if I was right or wrong, if these two managers had come to me on a Monday morning at 9am (which it was) and asked me to review that 2 page document, that is exactly what I would have done if they wanted an immediate answer.
They offered me the job.
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You own guns don't you?
One thing I've noticed is that the strongest personalities own guns.
You're the type of person who thinks that an abused dog lashing out should be put down huh. Or in the case of a human being, if they've been abused and they lash out that they should be put down.
I agree I think you should do whatever you want to. The less number of people that we have in the world of your type the better.
Religious people never give up on others. That is a tough thing to do, to care about people who are nasty toward you. I have yet to master that.
I do, I'm not really a "gun guy" but I inherited a couple of antiques from my dad and I do think shooting is fun. Your prejudice may be off a bit there though, I typically would not say I have a "strong personality", in reality I'm quiet, introverted and keep to myself, I don't like crowds, I don't like cities and don't particularly like interacting with random strangers.
It's also a pretty crappy thing to say that 'the less of your type we have in the world the better". Which type is that? People that mind their own business, do not commit crimes, work at a job producing products that people use, spend a great deal of time fighting against entropy and repairing things to keep them out of landfills and investing many hours of my time in forums such as this one trying to help people learn things. You really think the world would be better off with fewer people like me? Or have you just formed an image in your mind of what I'm like because I happen to be fascinated with airplanes (which you've said should not exist) or because I think a satirical TV show you don't like is funny? Just what sort of people do you think would make the world a better place?
Your comment on the dog is not only prejudiced, it is rude, uncalled for and quite frankly couldn't be further from the truth. I have three elderly cats that are special needs, the youngest is 17. That's down from a high of 7, the youngest that passed away was 18 and the oldest 24, I have put a great deal of effort into giving them the very best care I possibly can at a substantial financial and time expense. They are domestic animals that are fully dependent on my care for survival and I knew that when I adopted them. That is a totally different scenario than an adult human that needs to be responsible for their own life.
You might not like the idea of personal responsibility, but ultimately each of us is responsible for our own path in life and if something needs changing or fixing in your life nobody is going to do it for you, you've got to do it yourself, that's reality. You can blame others all you want, but that won't change anything. Life isn't easy, it isn't fair, and we've all got only one shot at it.
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......
We will see what the future brings.
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Don't forget that many of my generation grew up with lead in petrol and only a small percentage might have reverted to criminal behavior based on elevated levels in their blood.
But I do agree that there are multiple influences on someone becoming a "criminal". Only a very small percentage will actually be born a "criminal", but it does happen. There are people that are just bad from the start, despite proper upbringing in a protected environment. And it is these that can't become proper members of society, whatever you do for them.
Edit: and furthermore, lead has been removed from petrol for quite a while now, but youngsters are starting to show more aggressive and criminal behavior in current society, so other factors are at play for sure.
In the Netherlands a snack bar owner was killed by they think three youngsters, two female (15, 17) and a boy (17), and why they don't know yet. :palm:
The lead is a valid (and interesting) example. People suffering from lead exposure could be said to be mentally ill. Mental illness is not the fault of the individual, nobody would choose to be mentally ill. In many cases though it cannot be fixed, and ultimately a mentally ill person still has to play with the cards they were dealt, it sucks but it's just how life is. I read somewhere that around 70% of the (American) prison population has a cluster B personality disorder, mostly ASPD but NPD and BPD are common, especially among the white collar criminals. Cluster B disorders are interesting in that they are the result of a fundamental fault in the way the brain has developed, particularly the amygdala which is involved in decision making and impulsiveness. There are some forms of intense therapy that can enable a cluster B disordered person to live a somewhat normal life, but ultimately their hardware is wired wrong and some just can't be saved. You can teach a psychopath or sociopath to emulate empathy, but you cannot make them actually feel empathy, the hardware is not there or is not wired up properly.
Anyway in the end we don't just say "oh well, that person has a personality disorder, it's not their fault they raped somebody" and send them on their way. They are still fully responsible for their actions.
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Edit: and furthermore, lead has been removed from petrol for quite a while now, but youngsters are starting to show more aggressive and criminal behavior in current society, so other factors are at play for sure.
In the Netherlands a snack bar owner was killed by they think three youngsters, two female (15, 17) and a boy (17), and why they don't know yet. :palm:
This is often stated, but if you actually look at crime rates, they have been falling since the 90's.
For instance, for the UK: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2022 (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2022) (Figure 1 for all crime, Figure 7 for violent crime)
Though this trend is seen all over, definitely not unique to the UK. There are some inversions with certain crimes increasing against the general fall of others decreasing. Those have more complex causes, but in general criminality including violent crime has been falling for over 30 years and the fall is significant, like it's some 2-3x less likely that you will be involved in a violent assault in the UK today, as compared to the 90's. Media narrative loves to spin the idea that it's getting worse because it sells newspapers and gets clicks, but it's clearly fallen by a significant amount. One other aspect is social media and the internet make these crimes that much more visible.
They were falling here for many years, but in recent years they have been going back up. Homicides in Seattle and Portland for example have nearly doubled from a few years ago. There is some trickery going on with the stats on property crime because so much of it doesn't even get prosecuted anymore people don't bother to report it. If it doesn't get reported, it's not part of the crime stats. All you have to do is take a stroll through Seattle and see the used needles all over the sidewalks, graffiti on buildings, tents and piles of trash everywhere, empty stores that have gone out of business or relocated due to extremely high theft rates. It's gotten pretty bad.
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... nobody would choose to be mentally ill. In many cases though it cannot be fixed, and ultimately a mentally ill person still has to play with the cards they were dealt, it sucks but it's just how life is. ...
That is something that can be said for every illness. I did not choose to become ill (Fibromyalgia), it just happens to you and you have to live with it. But coping with a mental illness won't be easy and will affect decision making, I see that, but still not a valid excuse to start killing and raping or whatever else that is not allowed and get a free pass because of the illness. Not that it happens that often, but they do let people out that really should have been kept locked up.
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Microsoft Word
Used it since forever and I've never noticed this before: you have one document open in an instance of word to which you are going to do search and replace. You open a different document in another instance of Word, and this document holds the search and replace terms. OK so far.
In the first document you hit Ctl-H to get the replace dialog. Switch to the second document to copy the terms, hit replace, and blow me if the bugger doesn't do the search and replace to the second document instead of the one in which you opened the search dialog!
Just spent far too long dicking about with autocorrect options after noticing the crib document was different every time I looked at it :(
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Microsoft Word - Bring back the talking paper clip I say.
You guys aren't software enginers... have a crack.
String input = "5.56 5.58 5.54 5.48 5.54 5.59 5.52";
...
One silver star for mentioning the basic string.split syntax that's used across many languages. But only for a script kiddie/trainee programmer. However, if I'm looking for a software engineer (whatever that is), I would be expecting a response showing knowledge of Regular Expression group capturing. With an extra stars for implicit format validation, for-each iteration and maybe questioning why the data is in such a bad format. More stars for mentioning string.format, boxing, floating point number characteristics, localization, ISO character sets, buffers, pointers, structs, arrays, etc, etc. Really this is a question that helps the interviewer discover what the candiate knows about data mangling.
As for your candidate who did not park his phone in voice mail mode, did he realise where he was? Maybe he thought he was doing you the favour, what with this shortage of highly qualifed IT workers under the age of 13?
Recruiters are pretty bad at filtering out the chaff unfortunately (and they still somehow get 15-20% of first year salary, it seems insane to me.)
And THIS is the BIG problem across the engineering industry. Some 25 year's ago, businesses decided they no longer needed a recruitment function as, this can be contracted out to some high performance recruitment agency. A quarter of a century ago, the agent would have known their boolean from their bollocks because they were ex-industry. Today, the recruitment sector is just one giant file forwarding marketplace populated by Gen-Z wannabes whome, know nothing about the industry in which they claim to have excelled. It's all going rather Dilbert...
Manger: Find me candidates who are top their game
Recruitment consultant: I've hundred's, no thousands on my database!
Manager: Great, send me their CV's!
Dogbert: Please God is there anyone can spell curriculum vitae?
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Ok good. I've made you depressed. All I used was words.
No you haven't, you've made me pity what a sad person you must be to apparently enjoy trying to make someone depressed for no obvious reason. I'm in quite a good mood, the sun is out, I just had a delicious cheeseburger that I cooked myself for lunch and now I'm in a comfy seat with a warm cat on my lap and just about to get back to work and wrap up my day. I'm not going to bother reading the rest of the wall of text you've written because it's not likely relevant to engineering. I would encourage you to seek some type of therapy to deal with your issues which as you've explained a few times are apparently serious. You are free to ignore me if you like or be angry at the reality I'm pointing out, but that won't change the fact that nobody is going to fix your life for you. If you want things to be different, YOU have to choose to make them different.
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That is something that can be said for every illness. I did not choose to become ill (Fibromyalgia), it just happens to you and you have to live with it. But coping with a mental illness won't be easy and will affect decision making, I see that, but still not a valid excuse to start killing and raping or whatever else that is not allowed and get a free pass because of the illness. Not that it happens that often, but they do let people out that really should have been kept locked up.
My view is the same, though moderated somewhat. We should our best to get people back into society. That means forgiving most crimes eventually, after the appropriate justice is served. But, I am not a fool. If you continue to test the patience of society, maybe you are best on the inside of a jail cell for a very long time.
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When Shazam identifies an unknown cool tune and gives you the option of opening it on Spotify, but Spotify has no knowledge of it. |O
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My pet peeve is mumbling. I don't care if someone has an unusual accent, but not opening ones mouth properly to speak is the height of laziness and makes communication very frustrating. Someone where I work often mumbles. It's hard work. |O
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Teenagers, specifically the modern age - arrogance and feeling they know it all.
Said no one ever: “Wisdom comes with youth”
You can’t teach them anything. We don’t need Google, just ask a teenager. lol.
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My pet peeve is mumbling. I don't care if someone has an unusual accent, but not opening ones mouth properly to speak is the height of laziness and makes communication very frustrating. Someone where I work often mumbles. It's hard work. |O
I hear you. (Am aware of the potential irony there)
If you dislike mumbling, avoid the BBC - their new (awful, plastic “acting”) drama - “The Gold” is FULL of mumblers. It’s bad enough the acting is garbage, but the mumbling seals the coffin on that show.
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Teenagers, specifically the modern age - arrogance and feeling they know it all.
wasn't that the same for every generation of teenagers
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Teenagers, specifically the modern age - arrogance and feeling they know it all.
wasn't that the same for every generation of teenagers
Yes, but in todays "ME ME ME! LOOK AT MEEEE! I AM RIGHT, I SAW IT ON TIKTOK, SOOOO...." society, this behaviour has been amplified a bajillion percent. Teenagers are trapped in a dummie's echo chamber of OTHER teenagers, and idiotic "influencers" - NO ONE can accept they may not know something, any more. Yeah, you're right also - teens often think they don't need advice or guidance, but if you can't see how the world has fallen SOOOOO far downhill, and how arrogance is FAR WORSE these days, well... keep observing.
They don't TRY something first-hand, often, they will just accept their peers' word for something as "fact", and go no further. Don't tell me you haven't noticed this behaviour? As part of a study, I had to join and interact on TikTok for a few months... it is VERY VERY painful, and one's IQ points can be felt falling away, minute by minute. I DO NOT envy teenagers or youngsters AT ALL these days - in fact, if there was some way to tranport them back to what we had in the 80s and 90s, and de-program them of this SHITE they engage in now, I can't imagine many of them would want 202X "socialisation" back AT ALL... because it lacks almost EVERYTHING wholesome or worthwhile.
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MX_SPI1_Init();
MX_DMA_Init();
If you understand, you'll understand.
No?
DMA needs to be enabled for the SPI config to attach to it. If DMA is initialised after, it no workie.
2 hours. 2 hours of what was supposed to be fun moving a project to a new MCU... wasted. Because of that ******** bug in MX... Again. And I didn't spot it this time. Shame.
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A general peeve about sloppy spelling in technical contexts:
Why do people waste money on "200 mhz DSOs"?
My DMM is faster than that.
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All those vintage electronic Restoration youtubers who does not clean the dust off of the poor old electronic they so proudly restore. I do not get why that decades old dust is so precious. This is ridiculous how those "restorers" proudly show you how they align that RF filter with their hands dirty from the dust and the boards and chassis all in smears where were touched by those idiots. This is Restoration for f.ck sake, so restore it then, there was no dust covering that TV when it rolled off the factory floor. These idiots are all over youtube.
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All those vintage electronic Restoration youtubers who does not clean the dust off of the poor old electronic they so proudly restore. I do not get why that decades old dust is so precious. This is ridiculous how those "restorers" proudly show you how they align that RF filter with their hands dirty from the dust and the boards and chassis all in smears where were touched by those idiots. This is Restoration for f.ck sake, so restore it then, there was no dust covering that TV when it rolled off the factory floor. These idiots are all over youtube.
Interesting; any examples? I haven't seen these specific types of "restoration" channels. In the channels I know, usually when the dust is left is where they specifically mention they will just see if they can put the equipment to work.
The other day I watched some dude put an old TV set to work but his delivery method was really obnoxious for my taste: he repetitively made dozens of remarks about the number of spider exoskeletons, old nests, roach remains and rat poo than with the work of putting it to work again.
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All those vintage electronic Restoration youtubers who does not clean the dust off of the poor old electronic they so proudly restore. I do not get why that decades old dust is so precious. This is ridiculous how those "restorers" proudly show you how they align that RF filter with their hands dirty from the dust and the boards and chassis all in smears where were touched by those idiots. This is Restoration for f.ck sake, so restore it then, there was no dust covering that TV when it rolled off the factory floor. These idiots are all over youtube.
I have a problem with the opposite end of the spectrum----those who want to restore equipment to "showroom condition", to the point of searching out ancient parts identical to those which, in the device, have long failed & been replaced with more modern equivalents or undoing well done modifications that had been carried out to overcome an inherent weakness in the original design.
In my opinion, properly carried out & technically valid repairs & modifications are as much a part of the equipment's history as the original configuration.
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All those vintage electronic Restoration youtubers who does not clean the dust off of the poor old electronic they so proudly restore. I do not get why that decades old dust is so precious. This is ridiculous how those "restorers" proudly show you how they align that RF filter with their hands dirty from the dust and the boards and chassis all in smears where were touched by those idiots. This is Restoration for f.ck sake, so restore it then, there was no dust covering that TV when it rolled off the factory floor. These idiots are all over youtube.
While we're talking about "vintage" YouTubers, there is a VAST EXCESS of them, most of whom regurgitate or "re-spin" VERY obvious, done-to-death topics which 5000 other channels have equally done to death. You see this A LOT. We don't care THAT MUCH about the very subtle colour difference between the first coat and the second coat of paint you applied to your "vintage" Game Boy; you're blatantly spewing out videos of very little interest, and haven't given your mind enough of a PROPER breather since the other 25 videos you've posted this month... PUBLISH LESS VIDEOS please - give people a CHANCE to miss you.
Yeah, ya see, the bottom line is the tedious, mundane topic which kills and dilutes these channels... money. Don't chase the money as the goal, be passionate - stop spamming with "Click the bell icon and subbb-scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab" - no, and no, I do NOT want to "follow" you, or know about every meal you have on Instagram - I SIMPLY CAME AS I WAS PASSING BY, and took a vague interest in ONE video - don't overdo it and put me off your channel.
... and the overly neat, pristine shelves, showing off their ENTIRE collection of hoarded clutter that has NEVER been used, and is showing off how much stuff they own (that doesn't prove they know anything about any of it - it proves they received a parcel, unpacked it and put it on a shelf)
I'd rather see a messy workshop and an obscure, eccentric bloke who isn't reading a rehearsed, rigid "YouTuber Guidebook formula" script.
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"Rather see...eccentric bumbling bloke...".
Yup, that'd be myself.
Same here, with the heavy 'SUBSCRIBE' Crap. I immediately turn away any music or video reviewers that do endless 'intro' s.
'HEYhey B whatotit B, B ? '... Thinking that's clever
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Yet another packaging failure has become a trend with supermarkets. STOP these stupid, overly sticky thick paper bands around bananas. Paper and glue have existed for time immemorial - why are you ONLY JUST doing this? These bands are nigh on impossible to remove. How does this help anything? You time wasters.
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Packaging aside, what is a difference between organic vs non organic banana? :-//
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what is a difference between organic vs non organic banana?
around 20 pence per banana
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Paper and glue have existed for time immemorial - why are you ONLY JUST doing this?
Because they've been banned from using alternative means, so have to fall back on paper.
How does this help anything?
Helps keep the bunch together. Partly that will be for shipping (which includes shelf filling) and partly to prevent 'shoppers' taking a freebie or sample. So it no doubt helps lots, otherwise they wouldn't bother - paper and glue is not cost free, you know.
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I've never seen any kind of packaging on bananas, here the loose bunches are just piled on a display shelf. They're sold by weight so it's common to split up a bunch and take only the quantity you want.
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It happens. There's even a photo of it in this thread if you don't believe it!
And splitting up a bunch is probably exactly what they are designed to prevent.
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I believe it, I've just never seen it done here. There's no reason for them to prevent bunches being split up, as I said they are universally sold by weight here, it's perfectly acceptable to purchase a single banana.
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A good comparison is:
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/275280804 (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/275280804)
vs
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/303869954 (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/303869954)
The first is sold by weight, the second in a bunch of five. The first is cheaper per banana. It doesn't happen only with those but also with potatoes, onions, garlic, peppers,... Typically, the more expensive ones are sold packaged and the cheap ones sold loose.
Selling packaged means you can put a barcode on them and there is then less chance of, say, red onions being self-checked out as common or garden yellow ones. Or even a completely different product. Also, where they are relatively expensive, you get to sell all of them rather than only the good looking ones (with singles, eventually you get left with a box of discards you can't shift). And, of course, it is better to sell five rather than two or three.
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A good comparison is:
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/275280804 (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/275280804)
vs
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/303869954 (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/303869954)
The first is sold by weight, the second in a bunch of five. The first is cheaper per banana. It doesn't happen only with those but also with potatoes, onions, garlic, peppers,... Typically, the more expensive ones are sold packaged and the cheap ones sold loose.
Those bananas are not equal. The packaged ones are Organic Fair Trade and the loose ones aren't.
The premium product is always packaged because it's the easiest way to separate it from the rest. Ironically, those who are more likely to buy Fair Trade are also more likely to have an aversion to excess packaging.
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I believe it, I've just never seen it done here. There's no reason for them to prevent bunches being split up, as I said they are universally sold by weight here, it's perfectly acceptable to purchase a single banana.
My local Target store has a small grocery, which stocks bananas in normal bunches.
However, they only have self-checkout, and no scales built into the checkout terminals, so you have to specify bananas by integers, even though the weight of an individual banana can vary considerably by nature.
All other normal groceries in my neighborhood use weight for bananas and other produce.
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eventually you get left with a box of discards you can't shift
unless you make wine, bananas make a cracking dessert style wine,and the blacker the banana the better the wine.
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eventually you get left with a box of discards you can't shift
unless you make wine, bananas make a cracking dessert style wine,and the blacker the banana the better the wine.
Just recently out local Tesco has been flogging off the packaged bananas (don't think these are organic, but I never bother to look at the label) at about 30% of normal price because they were getting to the best before date. Even after languishing in the kitchen for a week they are still perfect - no black bits, precisely ripe. A couple got coopted for banana bread, but the rest are just great to eat on the rocks.
I think it's the season - I recall this (loads of them going cheap) happening last spring as well.
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Paper and glue have existed for time immemorial - why are you ONLY JUST doing this?
Because they've been banned from using alternative means, so have to fall back on paper.
How does this help anything?
Helps keep the bunch together. Partly that will be for shipping (which includes shelf filling) and partly to prevent 'shoppers' taking a freebie or sample. So it no doubt helps lots, otherwise they wouldn't bother - paper and glue is not cost free, you know.
It's hogwash. So why wasn't this new fad in place years ago? All ya have to do is tie a bit of string round em.
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Check the links I gave earlier - you'll see that some used plastic bags.
It's hogwash
What is?
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Calling this better than factory. :palm: The comment section also agreeing and believing this how a solder job should look.
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Here’s another. Computer UIs.
Computers UIs can be so idiotic. The interface designers of Win10 don’t think we are clever enough to be told basic info about an error?!! Trying to backup my iPhone to pc - windows just says “Something went wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “ …. Yeah? No shit!!
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eventually you get left with a box of discards you can't shift
unless you make wine, bananas make a cracking dessert style wine,and the blacker the banana the better the wine.
Banana bread is also tasty and works well with bananas that are past their prime.
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Here’s another. Computer UIs.
Computers UIs can be so idiotic. The interface designers of Win10 don’t think we are clever enough to be told basic info about an error?!! Trying to backup my iPhone to pc - windows just says “Something went wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “ …. Yeah? No shit!!
They could at least have an option for "verbose error messages"...
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https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1736597/smart-meter-bulb-octopus-energy-bill-prepayment-meter (https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1736597/smart-meter-bulb-octopus-energy-bill-prepayment-meter)
Smart meter horror as mum of two slapped with eye-watering £27k energy bill after mistake
The energy company mistakenly estimated that the woman used 100,000kWh worth of electricity, the amount a small business might use.
By JACOB PAUL
08:15, Sun, Feb 19, 2023 | UPDATED: 08:34, Sun, Feb 19, 2023
"The incorrect electricity billing happened when Bulb remotely connected Ms Coplin’s electricity meter to * the smart network"
*Sounds to me insulting like below:
Customer: What network is it?
The SMART! network...
Customer: Which smart network?
A smart network is a smart network is a smart network is a smart network.... it's none of your bloody business... never mind how it works it has nothing to with you.
It is NOT "the smart network" :bullshit: it is "the DCC network" (Data Communications Company).
That was what I was told last year by Octopus about a smart meter joining the "DCC network" either by some radio (can't remember which type) if South or cellular up North and that it was also owned by Capita when querying the terms and conditions about it being inaccurate and proprietary where they themselves have limited control over the functioning of meter but apparently it has a switch in there that can cut the supply off in the event that the bill has not been paid which they can do (as a last resort) if it is connected up remotely.
Google search: DCC Network
DCC network
What is the DCC? The DCC is building and maintaining the network to which Britain's smart meters will connect to. When the roll-out is complete, more than 30 million homes will be connected to our network. When will the smart meter roll-out be complete?
The smart <insert text here> :bullshit:
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People that think their turn signal gives them right of way :palm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSgiByo_8Lw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSgiByo_8Lw)
The guy in the first bit of this video cuts in across a continuous line from the turn left lane in front of the truck and thinks he is in his right because he had his turn signal on :-DD
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Bars that have music playing that's too loud to have a conversation with the people on the other side of the table. If I go out to a bar it's because I want to talk to people over a drink, if I wanted to listen to loud music I could do that at home.
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What I notice a frequently in the UK, a car pulls out quickly from like a slip road onto a motorway or an "A" road at the same speed or faster of course but as soon as they level up in front they suddenly slow all the way down forcing the driver behind to brake a bit hard. 60 - 70 mph down to about 40mph and then they slowly speed up again. I don't understand the logic in that when they could just go with the flow or slow down slowly if they are feeling a little uncomfortable with the speed.
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That is similar to the "a-holes" that overtake you at a marginal speed difference and then move to close in front of you and slightly drop their speed. Particularly annoying when you are on cruise control :palm:
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A general peeve about sloppy spelling in technical contexts:
Why do people waste money on "200 mhz DSOs"?
My DMM is faster than that.
This one plays a bit into your peeve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbkpW3ZsYHE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbkpW3ZsYHE)
At around 6:08 he states mega hertz, but the writing looks a bit like lower case m even though he drew it rather big. And the h should he H to my understanding. So MHz.
But that is not really my issue with it. Although he explains things nicely and makes things understandable, to me he is of with his FM and AM connection to the spectrum. Sure the defined radio FM band is at the given frequencies, but FM stands for a technique that can be used on any part of the spectrum and is not bound to the given range. Same for AM. So a bit of a miss.
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Just dialing in for bananas.
Due to scary costs of packaging material, bananas are usually not wrapped. Shops tend to limited their offer to 2 or so sorts, so they can easily be distinguised by the little manufacturer sticker at checkout.
However there are "miniature bananas" (usually EU agriculture) which are quite expensive and are in a bag. Probably to battle theft and destruction.
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People that think their turn signal gives them right of way :palm:
The guy in the first bit of this video cuts in across a continuous line from the turn left lane in front of the truck and thinks he is in his right because he had his turn signal on :-DD
I once took an advanced driving course given by Cook County after a stop-sign failure conviction.
At that course, the instructor noted that one only "has the right of way" when the guest of honor in a funeral procession.
All other mentions in the Illinois statutes are about "yielding the right of way" in various situations.
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I has been a long time since driver education, but I was taught that you are not allowed to "take right of way". It has to be given to you. So even when coming up to a cross section where you have "right of way" you are not allowed to just take it. In case of an accident you are most likely to be in your right due to the fact that the other driver should have given you right of way, but one should not take it for granted.
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Those bananas are not equal. The packaged ones are Organic Fair Trade and the loose ones aren't.
There seems to be a pattern here. The "socially conscious" option tends to be the environmentally hostile one, using more and less renewable packaging to look fancy.
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As I tell my kids: having the right of way doesn't help if you're dead.
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"Here lies the body of Johnny O'Day
Who died Preserving His Right of Way.
He was Right, Dead Right, as he sailed along
But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong"
classic poem
I've also seen a limerick with
"His right was clear,
His will was strong"
before the last line.
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when people say "roll the dice" when there's only a single die. I don't know why I've heard so many people say that.
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Dice is singular as well as plural. The plural of die is dies.
noun (plural same)1.A small cube with each side having a different number of spots on it, ranging from one to six, thrown and used in gambling and other games involving chance. See also die2.
• [mass noun] a game played with dice
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Did you mean "OED"?
I prefer careful usage, with "die" singular and "dice" plural.
Also, "datum" singular and "data" plural: that distinction is very useful.
However, I do not insist on "Ampices" as the plural of "Ampex".
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Dice is singular as well as plural. The plural of die is dies.
noun (plural same)1.A small cube with each side having a different number of spots on it, ranging from one to six, thrown and used in gambling and other games involving chance. See also die2.
• [mass noun] a game played with dice
Did you mean "OED"?
I prefer careful usage, with "die" singular and "dice" plural.
Also, "datum" singular and "data" plural: that distinction is very useful.
However, I do not insist on "Ampices" as the plural of "Ampex".
Google translate shows for the Dutch singular "dobbelsteen" the word "die". For the Dutch plural "dobbelstenen" it shows "dice", so what is correct here.
I always thought it to be like what PlainName mentioned
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Did you mean "OED"?
Oxford Dictionary of English. My version of the SOED says:
II sing.3 A small cube whose six faces are marked with from one to six spots, thrown and used in games of chance; a die. lME.
E. Haywood Never to touch a card or throw a dice again. fig.: T. D'Urfey The uncertain Dice of Fate thus far runs well.
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Google translate shows for the Dutch singular "dobbelsteen" the word "die".
I would go with whatever has the words Oxford, English and Dictionary in its title over Google. But worth considering that the Dutch word isn't necessarily directly translatable, or once translated the 'other' usage of dice is assumed.
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Trust me "dobbelsteen" is the exact Dutch word for a cube with different number of spots on each side indicating the numbers one to six. :-+
And according to your quotes from the ODE and the SOED it is a "die" as well as a "dice" :)
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Bars that have music playing that's too loud to have a conversation with the people on the other side of the table. If I go out to a bar it's because I want to talk to people over a drink, if I wanted to listen to loud music I could do that at home.
Tbh, music is probably more enjoyable than most of the utter rubbish people talk about 😂
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Did you mean "OED"?
Oxford Dictionary of English. My version of the SOED says:
II sing.3 A small cube whose six faces are marked with from one to six spots, thrown and used in games of chance; a die. lME.
E. Haywood Never to touch a card or throw a dice again. fig.: T. D'Urfey The uncertain Dice of Fate thus far runs well.
Your version of the "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" is derived from the longer OED (never abbreviated ODE), and omits most obsolete words except those in Shakespeare, Milton, and the King James Bible.
The full Oxford English Dictionary (originally "A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society") set out to be a descriptive dictionary, documenting actual usage as it changed over history, including words that have gone obsolete or archaic.
It is not a "prescriptive" dictionary that gives guidance on careful usage.
I own the photographically reduced printings of the First and Second editions; they decided not to print the Third edition, to which you must subscribe online.
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Bars that have music playing that's too loud to have a conversation with the people on the other side of the table. If I go out to a bar it's because I want to talk to people over a drink, if I wanted to listen to loud music I could do that at home.
Tbh, music is probably more enjoyable than most of the utter rubbish people talk about 😂
Your music may not be as enjoyable to me as my conversation with friends.
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And according to your quotes from the ODE and the SOED it is a "die" as well as a "dice"
Hmmm. Fair cop :P
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Bars that have music playing that's too loud to have a conversation with the people on the other side of the table. If I go out to a bar it's because I want to talk to people over a drink, if I wanted to listen to loud music I could do that at home.
Tbh, music is probably more enjoyable than most of the utter rubbish people talk about 😂
Your music may not be as enjoyable to me as my conversation with friends.
If you want to listen to music in public, put on headphones, it sounds better that way anyway. If the conversation is not interesting then what is the point of being at a social gathering? Go somewhere else.
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Die and dice:
If you say, "throw the dice" instead of "throw the die", it does not sound bad to a English-speaking auditor.
However, if George III had said "the dice is cast" instead of "the die is cast", people would have thought him mad.
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Wouldn't it be 'The dice ARE cast ?'
just sayin
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if George III had said "the dice is cast"
As RJH suggests, shouldn't it be ARE cast? However, I think we've moved on a little since the time of George III and much of what was the norm then is quiet foreign now.
Also, I think it very clear what dice is, whereas die has several competing meanings. Might George have suggested the mould for whatever was finalised, rather than bits of wood (or ivory) being tumbled around? Obviously not, but... you never know.
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Or was he just spreading "death" :-DD
Also a meaning of "die"
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Wouldn't it be 'The dice ARE cast ?'
just sayin
George III, upon hearing about the rebellion across the Atlantic, quoted the Latin phrase (attributed to Caesar) "iacta alea est" = "the die is cast".
If dice be singular, then throwing one would be "dice is cast".
Hence my illustration of why one should use "die" as the singular: "dice is" grates!
Historically, "dice" is the irregular plural of "die", as "mice" is the irregular plural of "mouse".
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But eti, post #3333, we only go to the pub with other engineers, there aren't any braindead people at our tables who we need to block out.
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Or was he just spreading "death" :-DD
Also a meaning of "die"
In English, "die" in that meaning is a verb, while "death" is a noun.
However, "die" as in a casting or coining tool has the plural form "dies".
Unfortunately, modern English uses the noun "sheep" as both singular and plural forms, but it is usually useful to distinguish singular and plural forms of common nouns, with an added "s" in English for "regular" nouns.
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If dice be singular, then throwing one would be "dice is cast"
It is both singular and plural, so your reasoning is misplaced.
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If dice be singular, then throwing one would be "dice is cast"
It is both singular and plural, so your reasoning is misplaced.
Nonsense.
If one uses "dice" as a singular noun in the subject of a sentence, then the verb is also singular: "The dice is white."
If one uses "dice" as a plural noun in the subject, the verb is plural: "The dice are blue."
Agreement of subject and verb number is a fundamental rule of English grammar.
If one accepts "dice" as singular, then "The dice is white." is grammatically correct, but I submit it sounds bad.
The verb in each sentence, then, would tell the listener if there be one or more dice.
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Well not being old enough to have learnt any Latin at school, I will bow to your greater knowledge :)
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This is English, not Latin, grammar.
As I said, unfortunately "sheep" can be singular or plural.
"The first sheep is in the fold, but the other sheep are in the field."
A very interesting book: "Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae" (Grammar of the English Language) came out in six editions (last in 1765, posthumously) by the mathematician John Wallis, 1616-1703, an important early member of the Royal Society). There is a modern edition and translation by J A Kemp published by Longmans in 1972.
He was one of the first to emphasize that Latin grammar is not useful to understand English (declension of noun cases is not a thing).
As befits a scholar of his era, it was published in Latin, just as Newton and the other Royal Society members did.
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This is English, not Latin, grammar.
yep and it us english who decide how its used it,now go away and learn how to spell colour , labour and humour correctly
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This is English, not Latin, grammar.
yep and it us english who decide how its used it,now go away and learn how to spell colour , labour and humour correctly
Only after you learn how to capitalize, space, and punctuate your English.
I assume you meant "it's we English" and "how it's used".
Please note that I did not use any of those three words in my discussion here, which concerns grammar, not spelling.
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This is English, not Latin, grammar.
But the derivation of George's quote is from the Latin. You know the Latin refers to die, whereas I haven't the foggiest. Thus the knowledge of Latin is important in determining whether die or dice is relevant.
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This is English, not Latin, grammar.
But the derivation of George's quote is from the Latin. You know the Latin refers to die, whereas [sic whereof] I haven't the foggiest. Thus the knowledge of Latin is important in determining whether die or dice is relevant.
Historically, King George stated in English, "The die is cast.", using the singular noun "die". A well-formed simple English sentence.
I submit that that sentence would sound bad with singular "dice" in place of "die", "dice is cast", where a singular noun must agree with a singular verb in English grammar.
Full quotation: "The die is now cast. The colonies must either submit or triumph."
It is sad that he went mad, but to be fair to him his native language was German.
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This is English, not Latin, grammar.
But the derivation of George's quote is from the Latin. You know the Latin refers to die, whereas [sic whereof] I haven't the foggiest. Thus the knowledge of Latin is important in determining whether die or dice is relevant.
Historically, King George stated in English, "The die is cast.", using the singular noun "die". A well-formed simple English sentence.
I submit that that sentence would sound bad with singular "dice" in place of "die", "dice is cast", where a singular noun must agree with a singular verb in English grammar.
Full quotation: "The die is now cast. The colonies must either submit or triumph."
It is sad that he went mad, but to be fair to him his native language was German.
In that case, "die" can mean something else, as in Sideshow Bob's "The Bart, the!"
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This is English, not Latin, grammar.
But the derivation of George's quote is from the Latin. You know the Latin refers to die, whereas [sic whereof] I haven't the foggiest. Thus the knowledge of Latin is important in determining whether die or dice is relevant.
Historically, King George stated in English, "The die is cast.", using the singular noun "die". A well-formed simple English sentence.
I submit that that sentence would sound bad with singular "dice" in place of "die", "dice is cast", where a singular noun must agree with a singular verb in English grammar.
Full quotation: "The die is now cast. The colonies must either submit or triumph."
It is sad that he went mad, but to be fair to him his native language was German.
In that case, "die" can mean something else, as in Sideshow Bob's "The Bart, the!"
Again, nonsense!
In the royal quotation, "die" is a noun and the subject of the sentence. In Sideshow Bob's statement, "die" is a verb.
"The" is an article.
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Peeves: Getting "ignored" on an audiophile forum for describing how the master clock in I2S is just used a as the "CLK>" input for the I2S peripheral.
Actually that's probably not a peeve but an achievement.
Audiophiles
No just that. Audiophiles in general. This time, in particular is people trying to use a couple of raspberry PIs running on super capacitors to avoid master clock jitter, by creating a synchronous buffered, asynchronous FIFO.
The surprising thing is how many people are throwing money at this sh1t. As far as I can determine the ONLY thing this setup achieves is creating really, really long buffers of megabytes in size and potentially hours in duration synchronising two streams they just make asynchronous. It's baffling. It has a net ZERO effect.
Then you have people claiming they can HEAR a difference. Even when you point out it takes light longer to get from your speakers to your eyes than the maximum 180* phase shift on a masterclock!
I have to stop reading these audiophool forums or I'm going to end up insulting someone.
Not suprised since they believe in cables altering what they hear (it does not, if the cable is minimally well build any cable is transparent) and that cable risers, power plugs and specialist capacitors introduce "warm" and "Soundstage" and make records "sound better" than the original medium they are stored...
That is my biggest way to screw them, specially when they start with "Skin effect" theories and "stable voltage" plus "attenuation"... Kudos for the users than then post this link for this study:
http://boson.physics.sc.edu/~kunchur/papers/Interconnect-cable-measurements--Kunchur.pdf (http://boson.physics.sc.edu/~kunchur/papers/Interconnect-cable-measurements--Kunchur.pdf)
But fail to understand what is show in the paper and that the changes is in a range of magnitude higher than the 20Hz to 20000Hz of our human hearing.
I like audio, I like to hear a good music on my system but no way in hell I would spend thousands in cables.
I build my cables using Mogami, Canare or Sommer wiring together with Neutrik or Amphenol connectors, including sleeving not because I believe that they will change my perception and improve my music analysis skills but because they are more robust by using good connections and proper copper and look good, even if after being connected I don't see them anymore.
I also use cable stands made by me using wood not because it increases "the soundstage" but because it is easier to clean the floor by moving them, while the cable gets less dirty and gunk up by not being on the floor
Over all I spent in all, with my soldering, way less than one speaker cable from AudioQuest, while looking as good as then and doing exactly the same thing: connecting the amplifier to the speakers..
Nothing less, nothing more...
There's some audiophool equipment that I think has artistic value. I'm not going to claim that it sounds better, but I'm sure a lot of it sounds very good, once you cross a certain threshold of quality that is not hard to achieve with modern technology, you can pretty easily get very good sound. The value of art is subjective, there are sculptures that are worth millions of dollars that you don't even *do* anything at all. I'd sooner spend $100k on a really unique looking turntable that I can use to play records than on a sculpture that just sits there.
Then I suggest the one I would love to own:
https://maglevaudio.com/ (https://maglevaudio.com/)
Not because I believe that my vinyl records will sound better than when they were pressed but because is a beauty to see it start up and work, and a excellent conversation starter to any person who visits your house.
https://youtu.be/rOtbBQJDLQg (https://youtu.be/rOtbBQJDLQg)
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Looking at the 5 digit pricetags of some IEC 'audio' mains cables, I'm surprised there isn't a bigger population of audiophiles powering their gear off dc battery power... Because I suspect even a $10,000 IEC power cable still carries some noise... :P
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I'm surprised there isn't a bigger population of audiophiles powering their gear off dc battery power..
But then you've got the noise of the chemical reaction happening in the battery to deal with.
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But then you've got the noise of the chemical reaction happening in the battery to deal with.
That's excellent, because it opens a new market for audiophile-grade chemical-less batteries.
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Before they were banned for obvious reasons, we used mercury batteries (inside a constant-temperature oven) to get an essentially noise-free reference voltage.
Zener diodes have shot noise due to internal current flowing across a voltage gap.
(We did have to adjust periodically against a high-resolution differential voltmeter, but the load current on the battery was very low.)
Mallory would sell us custom batteries with a customer-specified number of cells to obtain higher reference voltage.
We used the Hg battery in the feedback loop to the virtual ground of a good op-amp (remember Analog Devices' square modules?).
For > 10 V, we could use a level-shifting amplifier (6AN5 with cathode degeneration or HV NPN transistor), or (more simply and less hum) an appropriate voltage "B battery" (dry battery originally intended for plate supply in a portable vacuum tube device).
These were used in laboratory systems, not commercial devices.
(Incidentally, my speaker cables are 12-gauge SO portable cordage.)
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Stupid mistakes that cost me money.
Got new Lithium batteries for the solar setup. Had a meeting cancelled in work, so went down, in haste to swap them over.
Forget the NEVER rule. NEVER disconnect the battery while the solar panel is connected.
Now the charge controller is dead. Could be a fuse, I will check. Needed to upgrade it anyway and found the 40A version cheap on Ama.
EDIT: Fixed it. Randomly, simultaneously the battery dual pole isolator switch ground contact has clearly rusted up and was bad contact.
Old solar controller is happy on the new 105Ah LiFePO4 cells :)
I still need to upgrade the controller, I plan to start ordering some 330W panels next.
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Online only documentation.
And documentation that needs a Linux distro plus half a dozen strange utilities to generate readable output. Almost guaranteed to be a different set of utils, and skills, needed from some other project.
Surely it's not impossible to just compile to a pdf for easy distribution and 'read on anything'.
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And documentation that needs a Linux distro plus half a dozen strange utilities to generate readable output.
I'll bite.
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Sphinx, asciidoc - those are the two most recent. There are others I've done my best to scrub from my mind.
OK, pedantically you can do a Windows install, but actually you're just installing into a fake-linux environment. It surely wouldn't hurt, as I mentioned, to just provide a downloadable version of the stuff so the install of an entire ecosystem isn't needed for a one-off run. (Although, of course, it will be a several-off because it won't work the first few times, so there will be the usual fault-finding faffing about on top.)
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No docker-composes available for a quick spin up?
Also most projects provide the generated output documentation online?
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Also, "datum" singular and "data" plural: that distinction is very useful.
I'm always amused by people who (vehemently) claim that "data" should be plural in English, but then are amazingly inconsistent in their usage.
If "data" is plural in English, then the following are "incorrect", right? :)
- There's too much data ... (should be "There are too many data")
- The experiment provided less data than expected ....(should be "provided fewer data")
- The data speaks for itself ... (should be "the data speak for themselves")
I could go on and on.
Just because something is plural in Latin (a language I read in almost every day), doesn't mean it has to be plural in English.
If "data" is plural, then "agenda" should also be plural (since it's from ago -> agendum -> agenda, literally "things that are to be done"). So one could no longer say "he has a hidden agenda" -- it would be have to be "he has hidden agenda". And one would also have to say things like "the agenda are still being finalized".
There are plenty of other examples (or should I say "exempla"? :))
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Also most projects provide the generated output documentation online?
Yes, hence my peeve:
Online only documentation.
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claim that "data" should be plural in English
Good one. I'll run that past my partner (an editor) when I fancy a clout round the ear.
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- There's too much data ... (should be "There are too many data")
Here's some statistical data (from Google's Ngram): although prior to 2019, more people used "data are" (plural) compared to "data is", only about 1 in 8 people use the corresponding form "too many data". [If it's plural / countable, then English requires many, not much: too many oranges, but too much orange juice]
Although I personally find "data are ..." a bit ... pedantic ... I think it's fair to expect that if someone says that data is plural, then they should consistently treat it as a plural word.
[attachimg=1]
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Datum - an item of data.
The data - the collective set of datums
Different data. Meaning different collective set of datums.
The rest becomes one of scope and context. Today I called a struct a "datum", even though it contains multiple fields. That is because the "thing" handling it does not see the contents and it is the smallest quanta of data it will operate on. Other parts of the code consider the fields datums [sic].
If we want to continue the technical aspects of the definitions ... it's a long, long road through a whole degree in data engineering.
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I try to preface my nit-picking by saying "in careful usage", such as one datum in a set of data.
Another important distinction is between "data" and "statistic", where statistic is not the data, but a quantitative measurement on the data set (such as the arithmetic mean).
Many years ago, there was a scary sketch on "Saturday Night Live", with Steve Martin and Jane Curtin.
He played the jovial host of a TV game show, and she was the guest celebrity, playing Jeane Kirkpatrick (a political science professor and UN ambassador).
She chose "history" as the quiz topic, and the question was "What happened in 1215?".
She replied "the Magna Carta", but was buzzed wrong.
The correct answer, determined by a survey of US high-school seniors, was "the Gettysburg Address".
There were no Google statistics available then.
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Messaging apps like Viber that only allow you to find a single occurrence of a word. There is no facility to find the next occurrence. |O
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Samsonite Bags.
I have a luggage from them, the old all plastic with triple latches also in plastic, without any TSA lock.
You go to see their new designs and all are with zippers. I don't know if all of you know but zipped bags are easy to open just using a ballpen tip (I worked in the airport and saw handlers doing that on the bulk of airplanes while loading them to steal valuables form inside the bags). That combined with the online available 3D printed files for the TSA keys is a receipt for stealing.
But nowardays they don't have anything latched only with rubber seal. It is or plastic with zippers or metal latched a lá Rimowa (with prices equivalent) that get scuffed and bruised on the first trip, looking like you had been in the war with it.
Also bags with rubber bottoms instead of full nylon, that with change of temperature and humidity will crack. I have a LowPro back pack that I had to buy similar fabric and ask someone to replace the bottom rubber insert because of that.
They are made to look premium but then they will not take a while to look like shit.
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...
They are made to look premium but then they will not take a while to look like shit.
As is the case with so many things being sold these days.
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1, People who tell other just to search the forum.
2, Forum search engines, you can never find what you are looking for. Just 1001 replies to an unanswered question.
3, Lists.
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Sites that post useless great bloody long directory lists of service manuals, schematics and books, etc., in plain text when they have no intention of making them available, whether for free or purchase!
Chris Williams
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Not having the right transformers, or trying to make the wrong thing with my salvaged transformers
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Not having the right transformers, or trying to make the wrong thing with my salvaged transformers
transformer winding and modding is sometimes unavoidable in the DIY hobby space.
more than one way to skin a cat, my apologies to all cats.
as my father would say about my grandfather's 1940s quotes. when everything was rationed or unavailable at any reasonable price.
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Sites that post useless great bloody long directory lists of service manuals, schematics and books, etc., in plain text when they have no intention of making them available, whether for free or purchase!
Chris Williams
Or those that post all the text from magazines, --- no photos or schematics, & headings are in the same lower-case font as everything else.
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Incorrect, confusing wording from Amazon Echo “Alexa”:
Me: “Alexa, at 11pm remind me to watch TV”
Alexa: “Okay, I’ll create a reminder at 11pm”
Erm, no, you’re CREATING the reminder now. You’re REMINDING me at 11pm. It used to say this correctly, then they screwed it up about a year ago. 🤣
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My mum asked me to go to the shop and get some milk. She said if they had any eggs to get 6. When I seen they had eggs I had to go back and get another 5 milk!
It's an old programmer joke and the moral of the story is... use parenthesis everywhere.
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Incorrect, confusing wording from Amazon Echo “Alexa”:
Perhaps you should rename her Dyslexia...
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Incorrect, confusing wording from Amazon Echo “Alexa”:
Me: “Alexa, at 11pm remind me to watch TV”
Alexa: “Okay, I’ll create a reminder at 11pm”
Erm, no, you’re CREATING the reminder now. You’re REMINDING me at 11pm. It used to say this correctly, then they screwed it up about a year ago. 🤣
Just as annoying (and somewhat amusing)
Me “Alexa, television on”
Alexa, words along the lines of “I’m sorry I don’t know that”
Me “Alexa, television on”
Alexa “I’m sorry I don’t know that”
Me, "Alexa, TV on”
Alexa “Did you mean television”
Me, “yes”
and finally tv is switched on
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Incorrect, confusing wording from Amazon Echo “Alexa”:
Me: “Alexa, at 11pm remind me to watch TV”
Alexa: “Okay, I’ll create a reminder at 11pm”
Erm, no, you’re CREATING the reminder now. You’re REMINDING me at 11pm. It used to say this correctly, then they screwed it up about a year ago. 🤣
Just as annoying (and somewhat amusing)
Me “Alexa, television on”
Alexa, words along the lines of “I’m sorry I don’t know that”
Me “Alexa, television on”
Alexa “I’m sorry I don’t know that”
Me, "Alexa, TV on”
Alexa “Did you mean television”
Me, “yes”
and finally tv is switched on
I’ll give Alexa “her” dues; having tried all the “Artificial Assistants”, she’s one the I least want to attack with a hammer until its smashed to smithereens. It may be the US voice I have it set to; it’s pretty relaxing and soothing, and I can forgive most of the inevitable foibles, having used Alexa for about six years.
“Google Home” otoh is DEAF AS A DOORNAIL, has the most cocky, know-it-all voice (like an autistic female librarian), needs “permission” to SET A REMINDER, but not to set an alarm. It tells me EVERY SINGLE TIME I ask it to play a podcast, that “You can change the default podcast provider in assistant settings; I’ve sent a link to your phone.” - erm - why not REMEMBER that you’ve told me, and make the experience better, schmohawk!
Oh and get this:
#1 I’m cooking and tell it to set a timer
#2 I ask it to play a podcast
#3 <at arbitrary time during podcast> “Hey Google, pause” - it dutifully replies “OKAY! TIMER PAUSED!”
Erm… no, I didn’t say “pause TIMER”, did I, numbnuts! One would obviously assume that based on the context of a timer running and some audio playing, that “pause” is for the AUDIO - clearly a running timer has a higher importance than some music or a podcast- a timer is a critical task.
Such a dumb company, Google.
Much respect to this young lad for taking action against his 😂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLcZPddDwY4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLcZPddDwY4)
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1, People who tell other just to search the forum.
2, Forum search engines, you can never find what you are looking for. Just 1001 replies to an unanswered question.
3, Lists.
That’s the cold and detached types. Doesn’t take a few seconds to help someone.
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Mathematical or scientific proofs which contain the following "Without loss of generality, it can be assumed that .....".
Most of the time, such proofs are very vague .
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Mosfet datasheets.
Why does it always seem they are delibrately hiding the biggest devils in the smallest details? Everyone is like reading the dream and then studying towards the disappointment.
An example of obfuscation. The BS170. It says it has a Vgs of 0.8-3V and then it goes and gives you the RDS(on) for 10V. Why? If you are buying a mosfet with a Vgs of 3V why in hell would you care about it's RDS(on) at 10V? Do you think someone buying a mosfet like that even has 10V? F****
All that does is spook a mosfet newbie like me into thinking... maybe it really does need 10V if they only give me the RDS for 10V.
#
Why can't they just put the figures you need in the heading section and stop hiding the good stuff in the details. All I want to know is "Will it work at this system voltage/current", yet they make that one of the hardest things to find.
Is it some sort of mosfet datasheet writing cult? I bet they have Christmas dinner with the OpAmp datasheet cult.
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An example of obfuscation. The BS170. It says it has a Vgs of 0.8-3V and then it goes and gives you the RDS(on) for 10V. Why? If you are buying a mosfet with a Vgs of 3V why in hell would you care about it's RDS(on) at 10V? Do you think someone buying a mosfet like that even has 10V?
I'm looking at the BS170 datasheet and it's rated for 60V and a very typical Vgs of +/-20V. Nothing unusual there.
As for Vgs at 10V, that does seem to be something of a "standard" value for gate voltage specs. There's always a chart giving a curve, but 10V seems to be a popular value in the textual portion of MOSFET datasheets. Kinda like the "threshold" gate voltage, which is often the value at which the Ids hits 1 microamp. Seriously, how many applications really count on a 1uA condition? Yet that's the "standard".
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An example of obfuscation. The BS170. It says it has a Vgs of 0.8-3V and then it goes and gives you the RDS(on) for 10V. Why? If you are buying a mosfet with a Vgs of 3V why in hell would you care about it's RDS(on) at 10V? Do you think someone buying a mosfet like that even has 10V? F****
All that does is spook a mosfet newbie like me into thinking... maybe it really does need 10V if they only give me the RDS for 10V.
I feel your pain. I'm not an EE by any stretch and Vgs got me more than once myself. I believe this is because the Vgs is usually specified as the threshhold voltage the device requires in order to begin conducting. At this low level, you're in the nonlinear region and the Rds is likely to be high, making any switching inefficient. The 10V ratings for Rds seem to be fairly standard and I think that's because at the atomic level mosfets generally require around 10V to be guaranteed into the linear 'on' region with low resistance.
This probably means a lot more for amplifying circuits than it does switching.
All I know is I started using 'logic level' mosfets that work at 5V or below and specify their Rds at more meaningful (to me) 4-5V. Like the IRL540 (https://www.vishay.com/docs/91300/sihl540.pdf (https://www.vishay.com/docs/91300/sihl540.pdf))
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An example of obfuscation. The BS170. It says it has a Vgs of 0.8-3V and then it goes and gives you the RDS(on) for 10V. Why? If you are buying a mosfet with a Vgs of 3V why in hell would you care about it's RDS(on) at 10V? Do you think someone buying a mosfet like that even has 10V? F****
Are you perhaps confusing VGS(th) with simply VGS? Read the next column called "Test Condition" to see the difference between the VGS(th) spec and the RDS(on) spec.
Knowing VGS(th) is still useful because you want to know that your mosfet will turn "off" even if a small voltage remains on the gate.
https://www.vishay.com/docs/68214/turnonprocess.pdf (https://www.vishay.com/docs/68214/turnonprocess.pdf)
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Automated birthday announcements. There are websites I haven't signed into in years that send out happy birthday emails. I get a pile of them every year when my birthday rolls around and I find it annoying. It's not like it's a friend wishing me a happy birthday, it's just some cold impersonal automated spam.
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My current pet peeve:
Using the word "theory" incorrectly. Especially when referring to anything scientific or medical.
Most of the time people use "theory" when the term "observation" or "hypothesis" is the correct term. (maybe even wild ass guess)
Lots of things touted as "theory" are not proven at all, let alone proven in the accepted scientific procedure.
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My current pet peeve:
Using the word "theory" incorrectly. Especially when referring to anything scientific or medical.
Most of the time people use "theory" when the term "observation" or "hypothesis" is the correct term. (maybe even wild ass guess)
Lots of things touted as "theory" are not proven at all, let alone proven in the accepted scientific procedure.
And, especially in political contexts, referring to an actual scientific "theory" as "oh, that's just a theory".
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And, especially in political contexts, referring to an actual scientific "theory" as "oh, that's just a theory".
My theory is that most people, especially politicians, have no clue what they're talking about.
The one thing politicians are supposed to understand is the law, right? We should ask these same geniuses what happened before the Law of Gravity was passed.
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My current pet peeve:
Using the word "theory" incorrectly. Especially when referring to anything scientific or medical.
Most of the time people use "theory" when the term "observation" or "hypothesis" is the correct term. (maybe even wild ass guess)
Lots of things touted as "theory" are not proven at all, let alone proven in the accepted scientific procedure.
As an non native speaker I'm probably at fault for doing that. The alternatives are more logic and better suited. I will try to change my speech by using "observation" and "hypothesis" when there is no such defined validation.
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Automated birthday announcements. There are websites I haven't signed into in years that send out happy birthday emails. I get a pile of them every year when my birthday rolls around and I find it annoying. It's not like it's a friend wishing me a happy birthday, it's just some cold impersonal automated spam.
Happy birthday.
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1, People who tell other just to search the forum.
2, Forum search engines, you can never find what you are looking for. Just 1001 replies to an unanswered question.
3, Lists.
That’s the cold and detached types. Doesn’t take a few seconds to help someone.
After being "Mr Nice Guy" many times, people get pissed off with the OP coming back with increasingly inane supplementary questions, or in some cases angrily disputing the answer.
In other cases, third & fourth parties join in, arguing for & against your answer, or often bringing up increasingly esoteric interpretations, so the thread blows out to hundreds of pages, with the OP going off to another forum to start the same bun fight all over again.
A suggestion might be for the OP in those cases to ask ChatGPT, which won't get stressed by continued questioning of its answers.
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My current pet peeve:
Using the word "theory" incorrectly. Especially when referring to anything scientific or medical.
Most of the time people use "theory" when the term "observation" or "hypothesis" is the correct term. (maybe even wild ass guess)
Lots of things touted as "theory" are not proven at all, let alone proven in the accepted scientific procedure.
I have a theory it depends on context. I also, could be mistaken, but un-akin to science itself the term "Theory" is not defined and is fairly theoretical. :) I honestly don't think the way science use it was intended to be so significant, it's just the Internet and people having too much free time they can get bored enough to get annoyed by things like this.
I've watched a room of Flat Earthers and Anti-Flat Earthers debate the definition of theory for over an hour. It was pointless there and it's pretty pointless anywhere.
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Pet peeve: Packaging of all sorts, especially those Sytrofoam peanuts. Or those small items that are totally encased in clear plastic shells requiring you to slice them open, usually cutting through the enclosed instruction sheet. Or food packages that either require the skill of a surgeon to open or are nearly impossible to open with arthritic hands.
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Or food packages that either require the skill of a surgeon to open or are nearly impossible to open with arthritic hands.
or that will never open where the "open here" label is.
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Or food packages that either require the skill of a surgeon to open or are nearly impossible to open with arthritic hands.
or that will never open where the "open here" label is.
Several years ago we were getting these two litre milk containers that had a peel off seal under the plastic screw-on lid. They had a little section in the centre that you could grab between your thumb and forefinger and supposedly peel off the seal. But I kid you not, I kept a pair of pliers by the kitchen sink for this purpose. Many but not all were stuck on with industrial strength glue. There was no way on earth I could remove some of them and there is nothing wrong with my hands. I can’t imagine how a little old granny would have managed. Maybe poke a hole through it.
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Often the pull tab just rips off the seal, leaving now alternative but to poke a hole and then peel it off with your fingers.
Lately I've found that the bags inside cereal boxes are thermally welded in a way that makes them stronger than the material. Pulling those apart just rips the bag all the way down its side.
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I often don't even try to peel it off, I just grab a sharp knife and slice around the inner circumference of the opening most of the way around and then tear off the loose piece.
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I remembered that happening frequently some years ago just before the covid lockdown where I ended up damaging a cartoons and packaging but I haven't come across anymore since.
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Excessive LOG-IN / Password trivia.
Seems like every last atom, in the known universe is going to sooner or later, require a sign-in.
"Just to order a bag of Cheetos ??! (Enter password).
Heck, if I did that you might say that is ridiculous:
...Require folks to give me a password and...wait... I'm getting an ERROR 490. Please report, to administrator.
Why not 'adopt' all the irritating Web site behaviours, to make my point.
Part of my point being that lots of folks are going to need a notebook, of some sort. Oh, and don't forget to write all your new passwords, in big, RED letters.
? What is a normal, expected number of handy passwords, that a person can remember ? Possibly relates, to how many phone numbers a person usually can remember, in daily life.
Don't get me started, on keeping a 'Password File' list.
- - Rick
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? What is a normal, expected number of handy passwords, that a person can remember ?
Remembering more than a couple of passwords is either futile, or unsafe, or both.
Password managers plus file synchronization software is the way to go.
keepassxc/testing,unstable,now 2.7.4+dfsg.1-2 amd64 [installed]
Cross Platform Password Manager
syncthing/syncthing,now 1.23.1 amd64 [installed]
Open Source Continuous File Synchronization
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I have something like 30-40 passwords I need to keep track of. I prefer to use a sheet of paper in my top desk drawer.
LastPass says employee’s home computer was hacked and corporate vault taken (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/lastpass-hackers-infected-employees-home-computer-and-stole-corporate-vault/)
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For something like the keys to your kingdom you really shouldn't rely on some cloud provider, precisely because of the potential for the hacking which your link notes, but also because you need them to keep existing and providing a free service (if you pay for the subscription, what about if you hit hard times?).
Fortunately there are alternatives, possibly the best know being Keepass. Unlike a sheet of paper you can backup your password database, sync it across your devices (hard to read the paper in your drawer from out on the road), etc.
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LastPass says employee’s home computer was hacked and corporate vault taken (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/lastpass-hackers-infected-employees-home-computer-and-stole-corporate-vault/)
- encrypted storage;
- master password kept in head only (and in a secure off-site location, if necessary);
- 2-factor authentication.
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On cloud. Just remember there are different types of cloud. The kind of "cloud" a company uses is not the same kind of cloud that you, the consumer use. The pecking order is usually...
IaaS company (AWS,Azure et al) -> large enterprise cloud services -> reseller -> you
Now. The IaaS company will make the required security and quality/level of service and regulatory guarantees to the large enterprise... and they will pay for it.
The large enterprise will make no such guarantees to the reseller and the reseller nor to you. In fact most, if not all, will make suggestions and marketing hype about reliability/SLAs etc. However in the small print it says something very, very different. It basically has a 0% liability clause. No matter how deliberate or negligent your data loss or data breach is, the terms and conditions you agreed to free the provider from any civil liability. They don't even need to refund your money.
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I see stuff like that whether it be webhosting or service as a convenience and expect it to be finite and necessary for a backup on standby waiting and a copy in house. I don't believe any marketing claim that guarantees the data will still be there as many things can happen out of their control.
Customer brings a laptop to me, says it is not charging, can I have a look at it. The person who gave them it to bring to me *didn't think I need a charger except, no voltage or current rating anywhere, just a name, Lenovo but no model number and the battery is dead.
* This was frequent many years ago, whether they'd forgot to bring them or the charger wasn't working or the charging pin (Dell) except all of them stated, the voltage and current rating and I had universal adapters for that.
Very stupid idea not to state the input rating or even a model number to find out so I don't have to guess.
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The IaaS company will make the required security and quality/level of service and regulatory guarantees to the large enterprise... and they will pay for it.
Presumably you've looked at the SLAs and wondered what use they actually are. Typically they guarantee to not charge you if the service is unavailable for some extended period (actually, you get a refund and maybe a few quid for the hassle if you're lucky), but there is no compensation for losing your data or having it stolen, or your business failing because you can't provide service to your customers.
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rdl says: "I have something like 30-40 passwords I need to keep track of. I prefer to use a sheet of paper in my top desk drawer."
Only 30-40? I have 120 passwords and I use a little notebook organized into 26 pages, A, B, ...., Z, indexed by site name. Banks, shopping, bills, doctors, insurance, forums, etc. The list is endless.
And don't get me started with 2FA which I now even need to get into my e-mail (Comcast/Xfinity). Enough already.
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And don't get me started with 2FA which I now even need to get into my e-mail (Comcast/Xfinity). Enough already.
That's not a proper way of doing 2FA. TOTP is.
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The IaaS company will make the required security and quality/level of service and regulatory guarantees to the large enterprise... and they will pay for it.
Presumably you've looked at the SLAs and wondered what use they actually are. Typically they guarantee to not charge you if the service is unavailable for some extended period (actually, you get a refund and maybe a few quid for the hassle if you're lucky), but there is no compensation for losing your data or having it stolen, or your business failing because you can't provide service to your customers.
Your assuming the "company" signed "that" version of the contract. When talking about "Enterprise" cloud use within AWS they do and will accept liability and penalty clauses to get the business. They will also adhere to the correct level of regulatory encryption and data security which they accept liability for.
As I said, they will pay for it though.
However, even without going up to that level, just a basic AWS account provides you with far, far better security and privacy then any "Cloud service" reseller.
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When people answer a question that is SO basic, that there can only be a "yes" or "no" response, with an answer that becomes a speech, because "I interpreted what you asked me, as... X" - Erm, I make questions VERY CLEAR.
"Is this towel clean?"
"Yes" or "No"
"Is this plate red?"
"Yes" or "No"
My family suffer HUGELY from "story telling" and being garrulous. I form questions specifically, so that I am not subjected to "Story time" (I am autistic).
Reserve lengthy conversation and expanding on subjects to things which require it, not trivia like every day life household questions. It is EXHAUSTING!!!!
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How about the non sequitur questions that my wife is fond of asking me. Something like, "can you take a look at the noise my car is making, or do you want a salad with dinner?"
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How about the non sequitur questions that my wife is fond of asking me. Something like, "can you take a look at the noise my car is making, or do you want a salad with dinner?"
;D
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There's also this bullshit (emotional manipulation):
"If you feel like being nice, would you X for me?"
and...
"Can I ask you a question" (The "big build up" nonsense - JUST ASK ME!)
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When someone is about to ask you to do something for them and they start by asking "what are you doing tomorrow?" the idea being they are weighing up the relative value of their big plans for visiting irritating relatives versus your worthless brain surgery.
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I use to get asked these questions at schools and a few work places I use to volunteer most of the time to give me something to do:
May I ask you a question please?
Yes...
*Have you ever been kissed by girl?
No.
Would you?
No and I don't want to be kissed by a girl.
Then they'd be behave all strangely after that.
Just at work:
Would you like a baby?
No, they need money and a stable job which I don't have.
Babies don't need money.
How else am I to afford its keep?
I just remembered another one I use to get asked:
Did you ever get hurt by a girl before?
In what way?
No answer
Nonsense, I got hurt by many people and it's called bullying and it happens regardless of what gender.
Have you ever been dating.
What is dating?
When you arrange go on trips with ladies. Do you like them like this and that... I can sign you up to some websites.
No interested, that is not how I get to know people.
Pretty much all of them who asked me this stuff had issues, bipolar, aggression and psychopathic tendencies:
I had one become abusive and swear when nobody was around, phone up their friends and family to say I was going to break the door down and physically attack them when on CCTV in the part of the building they came out of that locked room and started thing finger pointer at me and can be seen shouting their mouth off moving up and down in an agressive defensive manner.
I remember one sociopath at a school who kept on pretending and spreading this nonsense about me "that I was going out with them". At first before this she use to give me all strange looks in the lesson all the time, if I just looked at the board in my and I'd noticed in my peripheral then and when I look, she'd sling her arm down on the table violently, get up and in a dull voice, say "I hate boys I hate this school" and walk out the lesson and slam the door on the way out.
One day some lad from the younger years punched me in the back. I asked, aye' that hurt why you do that for? "Well if I smack you in mate I get to go out with that <girl>" Oh that, I said look it's a lie you could do that already there is nothing stopping you from "going out with that Scottish bitch", I didn't need to do anything so why shouldn't the same apply to you?, "she said I 've got to smack you in mate"
It ended up with me sitting on them in the hallway on their back, he had no strength, he was very thin and light but he was all angry and kicking his legs. I said "If you got your away she might do the same to you." There someone watching him obviously she sent them out to see if the job was done.
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"May I ask you a question?"
"You just did. Would you like to ask another?"
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Mathematical or scientific proofs which contain the following "Without loss of generality, it can be assumed that .....".
Most of the time, such proofs are very vague .
No, you just don't understand them :D
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Here’s another:
This incredibly tedious modern trend that video editors (usually “YouTubers”) have of showing us a “triple replay” of some mundane aspect of the video from different angles (and we get to hear the audio 3x too, talk about grating) - it’s ALWAYS, ALWAYS done in threes.
“Here’s the ball falling! Did you miss it? Here’s the other angle!! Now the other angle!! And now fhe FINAL ANGLE!!!”
These young Dilbert “creators” all seem to blindly copy one another’s style, with barely any tangible original ideas. Did I NEED to see that shot of your ball falling, THREE TIMES? It’s always the SAME PATTERN.
Oh and the repeated “zoom—ZOOM—ZOOOOOOM—in—on—my—face—rapidly—as—I—feel—I’m—making—my—words—appear—more—profound” idiotic rapid fire zoom in and out jump cuts that younger people do on YouTube - likely the ones who’ve not yet developed the self-confidence to know how to articulate themselves in a subtle and meaningful, honest way, and so resort to cheap tricks like that.
Stop it. You insult your audience. I’ll be the one who decides if I agree with your sentiments or not, and that is NOT achieved with your silly iMovie editorial gimmicks.
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These young Dilbert “creators” all seem to blindly copy one another’s style, with barely any tangible original ideas. Did I NEED to see that shot of your ball falling, THREE TIMES? It’s always the SAME PATTERN.
I used to be impressed by the effort some went to for effect shots.
Then I installed a demo version of a few modern video editors and effect packs.
The reason they all seem to copy each other is because they are all using the same demo effect pack from the same video editor.
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I used to be impressed by the effort some went to for effect shots.
Then I installed a demo version of a few modern video editors and effect packs.
The reason they all seem to copy each other is because they are all using the same demo effect pack from the same video editor.
You used to see this same thing all the time back in the 90s, the Amiga based Video Toaster was widely used, practically universal in low budget production and stuff like music videos. Since the effects themselves were all part of a library that was not customizable you'd start to recognize the Video Toaster effects all over.
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Star wipe! 🤣
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Don’t forget the obligatory “What’s up gaazzzzzzz? It’s ya boy <insert_wannabe_gangsta_sounding_silly_username> blah blah blah blah”
Minutes and minutes of waffle preamble before getting to the VERY THINLY SPREAD minute portion of the video, which is probably parroted, copy/pasted topic.
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Google likes variety, when a person might want to go back and view some video, again.
Seems like various searches will repeat a results list fairly consistently, but if I've viewed something it, often, will not be easily brought back up, for another view...(a repetitive activity often called 'study', when I've not absorbed the new stuff adequately.)
All I wished to do today (but noooo), is re-watch a nature and animal skills video...NOT something similar.
Seems like Google missed the ball on that one.
Hard to deal with a monopoly...especially with flaws (theirs). Suppose might be a settings, somewhere.
(Sigh!). Trudging out my, handy (NOT), 'Android for Dummies'...maybe there's a smarter way (to search / study).
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All I wished to do today (but noooo), is re-watch a nature and animal skills video...NOT something similar.
That's what your browser's history function is for.
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.. a little early to fail (under 2 years I think) - but 220 degrees C on bake my convection fan let out a 1 second growl and stopped :palm:
It's one of those jobs with consequences - or just use without fan dilemma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhpCrRt6QWU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhpCrRt6QWU)
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This incredibly tedious modern trend that video editors (usually “YouTubers”) have of showing us a “triple replay” of some mundane aspect of the video from different angles (and we get to hear the audio 3x too, talk about grating) - it’s ALWAYS, ALWAYS done in threes.
I feel your pain. Even the over 30 bloggers now feel the need to FX the hell out of their productions.
My peeve is the use of crop zoom. That's when every other word being said requires the frame to crop by 25% to create a sudden zoomy emphasis effect.
Don’t forget the obligatory “What’s up gaazzzzzzz? It’s ya boy <insert_wannabe_gangsta_sounding_silly_username> blah blah blah blah”
This is when I click out. A rule for these drongo influencers; the bigger the microphone the smaller the content.
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Speaking of effects: How about the recent practice of having out-of-focus sidebars? Literally throwing away 66% of the usable frame space. Who in the world thinks that's a net positive? It looks ugly, it conveys zero additional content, it's just stupid on every level.
The ONLY "reason" I can think of is as a replacement for black rectangles when a portrait-oriented video is displayed in landscape format. But that just calls attention to the fact that the person was stupid enough to take video in portrait format in the first place. Seriously, unless you have original footage of the Kennedy assassination or something of similar historical value, just have the integrity to discard your past mistakes and commit to using proper landscape orientation in the future.
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The annoying out-of-focus sidebars have been around for a while, but maybe they are becoming less frequent, replaced by neutral colors.
The neutral colors are less annoying than black, but the out-of-focus repeat of the context is pernicious!
People who insist on holding their phones vertical (resulting in portrait orientation) when taking video are the reason for this, but even with a real camera the aspect ratio of a landscape shot probably disagrees with the aspect ratio on current television formats.
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even with a real camera the aspect ratio of a landscape shot probably disagrees with the aspect ratio on current television formats.
Sheesh, I have that problem with live feeds TODAY. My local news stations don't match my (rather recent Samsung) TV so their sides disappear. They also didn't fit the Samsung TV this one replaced, and it too was a different aspect ratio. Meanwhile older TV programs shot in 4:3 have big black bars. And how many different aspect ratios has Hollywood used over the years, sometimes within the same year? I can't remember the last time something "just fit" on my screen.
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Meanwhile older TV programs shot in 4:3 have big black bars
Unavoidable if you have widescreen TV. The only solution is to either crop the top and bottom or stretch the sides, ignoring the aspect ratio. I'd rather have the black bars and see it in proper aspect ration (and, in fact, I do) rather than have it stretched so circles are oval and everyone looks fat.
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For fuzzy side bars read, the TikTokization of social media.
What I really want to know is, if people hold their phones in portrait format, why are device manufacturers unable to make a camera that record in landscape format? Would it kill them to make a square CCD that does all formats from 16:9 through 1:1 to 19:6? I don't want TEN lenses on the back of my book sized smart phone, just logic that knows you always hold your camera this way <------->
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Sheesh, I have that problem with live feeds TODAY. My local news stations don't match my (rather recent Samsung) TV so their sides disappear. They also didn't fit the Samsung TV this one replaced, and it too was a different aspect ratio. Meanwhile older TV programs shot in 4:3 have big black bars. And how many different aspect ratios has Hollywood used over the years, sometimes within the same year? I can't remember the last time something "just fit" on my screen.
Black bars are the correct way to display content that is of a different aspect ratio than the display. One of my pet peeves is when 4:3 content is cropped or stretched to fit a 16:9 display or the other way around. Movies that have been reformatted to 4:3 are missing significant portions of the content. I don't know why a modern news station would have a live feed in an odd aspect ratio but I absolutely hate it when 4:3 content *doesn't* have black bars because it means the image is distorted. I never understood why the bars bother some people, it's the only way to display the content without distorting or cutting part of it off.
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Don’t forget the obligatory “What’s up gaazzzzzzz? It’s ya boy <insert_wannabe_gangsta_sounding_silly_username> blah blah blah blah”
This is when I click out. A rule for these drongo influencers; the bigger the microphone the smaller the content.
Sadly the yoof of today doesn't know how to use their kit. Have you watched them trying to use a phone they seem to use it in any other way than it was designed to be used.
Oh and don't get me started on the ones who have to try and outdo Dave and AvE on stupid ways to open a box. Daft idiots trying to use a hammer to open a box.
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Car and bike themed video's with music either replacing the sound of the engines or almost covering it!!! Grrrrrrrr!! Especially when it's some utterly cr4p heavy metal guitar!!! >:( Why would petrol heads want to listen to some sh1t music instead of a howling V12 or thundering V twin??!!
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When a whisp of blue smoke wanders almost romantically across the circuit board from the last voltage regulator to be cooked and you don't even react, almost expecting it.
I apologise to 3.3V regulators. Especially those that took the hit and saved the circuit.
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Yes, I understand that black bars preserve the aspect ratio. It's just maddening that there are so many different aspect ratios out there. Nothing ever fits properly.
And that's when the portrait vs. landscape IS matched. When someone takes a vertical video... grrrrrrrrrr.
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I'm part of the problem currently.
I have 21:9. When you upload 16:9 content and you specify it as 16:9 content, I get black bars left and right.
If however someone uploads 29:1 content but it default to 16:9, I get a 16:9 image with black bars top and bottom, inside a 21:9 image with black bars left and right.
Even when I uploaded 21:9 content to YouTube it was that way if I made a tiniest mistake... with all settings tending to default to the HD 16:9 standard res, it's easy to miss one.
I'm switching between wanting to replace 2x21:9 with 1x55" 4K TV. That or 2x4k 28" monitors.
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Yes, I understand that black bars preserve the aspect ratio. It's just maddening that there are so many different aspect ratios out there. Nothing ever fits properly.
And that's when the portrait vs. landscape IS matched. When someone takes a vertical video... grrrrrrrrrr.
Well, FullHD and 4K are both pretty much standard.
But anything else, sure everything goes.
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Yes, I understand that black bars preserve the aspect ratio. It's just maddening that there are so many different aspect ratios out there. Nothing ever fits properly.
And that's when the portrait vs. landscape IS matched. When someone takes a vertical video... grrrrrrrrrr.
If you watch services like Netflix, and note the material which was made specifically by or for them, most of it is no longer 16:9. There is usually some black space at the top and bottom. Does Netflix management use those ultra wide screens the gamers love?
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Don't go down this rabbit hole or you'll find that pixels do not necessarily match the aspect of the screen.
Worse. Pixels in the camera do not necessarily relate linearly to the pixels on the screen.
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A rule for these drongo influencers; the bigger the microphone the smaller the content.
So true! ;D
The bigger and the more expensive.
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If however someone uploads 29:1 content
Like when looking under the bottom of a door with a spy camera. 🙂
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Car and bike themed video's with music either replacing the sound of the engines or almost covering it!!! Grrrrrrrr!! Especially when it's some utterly cr4p heavy metal guitar!!! >:( Why would petrol heads want to listen to some sh1t music instead of a howling V12 or thundering V twin??!!
It's even worse with aircraft. Unless your video is directly related to music, just say no to music in your video. If I wanted to listen to music while watching videos I'd put on my own music.
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Well, FullHD and 4K are both pretty much standard.
But anything else, sure everything goes.
720p, 1080i, 1080p ("FullHD") and 4K all have a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Movie theaters have had a variety of formats over the years, all part of the effort to keep the experience novel. They weren't considering home viewing on TV sets.
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Maybe the future for movies is an adaptive aspect ratio.
And not just consisting in cropping, but something more adaptive giving a better experience in various aspect ratios.
Haven't worked out the details though, just a very general idea at the moment.
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I think TV programs used to allow for 4:3 cropping with 16:9 output, to allow for those still with old sets. At least, on BBC news the presenters and any significant visuals were always within that crop area. (Looking now, I think it's still like that - the ident and time display are both inset somewhat from the respective sides. Subtitles, too.)
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Maybe the future for movies is an adaptive aspect ratio.
And not just consisting in cropping, but something more adaptive giving a better experience in various aspect ratios.
Haven't worked out the details though, just a very general idea at the moment.
What could you possibly do? The director frames the shots with a specific aspect ratio in mind. Absolutely anything you do to display it in a different aspect ratio without black bars is going to involve cropping or stretching which is going to change the way the shot is framed. Some people won't care about that, some will. Many/most TV sets do have various picture modes and will zoom and crop or stretch the picture for viewers that prefer that. You could also install a frame over the face of the TV to mask off the unused portion if it was really that bothersome.
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The problem is almost always because of stretching. Just don't do that and then fit as best as possible without cropping. I really don't see why this is so hard. Surely some kind of auto adjust is possible. If not that, or in addition to that, comprehensive aspect ratio and cropping controls need to be implemented. VLC seems to do it easily.
I stayed at a motel recently and whoever set up their TV system is an idiot. Everything was forced to 21:9 widescreen no matter the source and the TVs were normal 16:9, so varying amounts of black bar top and bottom. I never saw anything that wasn't badly distorted while I was there.
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Isn't that what they already do? The picture should be scaled so that it fills one axis of the display and has black bars on the other axis if the aspect ratio doesn't match. Properly configured there should never be bars on *both* the top/bottom and the sides.
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It should be easy to detect the incoming aspect ratio and scale it to fit the shorter screen axis, using black bars to fill the opposite axis. Some TV's even have an "auto" sizing setting but it NEVER works like this.
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Mine has always worked like that. There are lots of ways to screw it up though, lots of people have no idea how to set up their TV, I remember when HD and flat panels were first getting popular I used to see them connected with composite video which is SD-only all the time. People had no idea that their HD TV was only HD if they fed it a HD source over a compatible interface.
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When wider TVs started showing up, a client of mine complained that he now hated watching old TV shows. I asked why. He said the tops of their heads are chopped off.
I said that you need to adjust the aspect ratio on the TV. He said "Oh, I know that. But the Mrs doesn't want to see the black bars on the screen."
:palm:
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Don’t forget the obligatory “What’s up gaazzzzzzz? It’s ya boy <insert_wannabe_gangsta_sounding_silly_username> blah blah blah blah”
This is when I click out. A rule for these drongo influencers; the bigger the microphone the smaller the content.
Sadly the yoof of today doesn't know how to use their kit. Have you watched them trying to use a phone they seem to use it in any other way than it was designed to be used.
Oh and don't get me started on the ones who have to try and outdo Dave and AvE on stupid ways to open a box. Daft idiots trying to use a hammer to open a box.
Yeah, they hold their phone out parallel to the floor in front of them & yell at it!
Meanwhile, the people concerned about RF exposure to the brain think that they hold it up to their head like a "real phone", whereas it's only "OFs" that do that.
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When wider TVs started showing up, a client of mine complained that he now hated watching old TV shows. I asked why. He said the tops of their heads are chopped off.
I said that you need to adjust the aspect ratio on the TV. He said "Oh, I know that. But the Mrs doesn't want to see the black bars on the screen."
:palm:
I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower? Most people watched 4:3 content on a 19" TV, maybe 25" if you were well off, throughout most of the history of TV. Modern sets are huge in comparison so with black bars on the sides you'll still have a bigger picture than a 19" set in almost all cases, often larger than a 25". The wider screen can display a wider picture but there's no reason it has to. Lots of CRT sets had speakers or other cabinet features flanking the display.
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Dynamic aspect ratio. They did this back when widescreen became the norm in Cinema but not on home VHS/TV. They did it manually back then, although it's possible to do it automatically now. "Pan and scan".
On how "not simple" aspect ratio actually is, check these out. https://www.red.com/red-101/anamorphic-lenses (https://www.red.com/red-101/anamorphic-lenses) and https://www.red.com/red-101/video-aspect-ratios (https://www.red.com/red-101/video-aspect-ratios)
Also check the various options for same when encoding MPeg video. 16:9 movie aspect may not mean a 16:9 pixel aspect nor necessarily 1:1 aspect. In fact how "pixels" are treated is quite intrique and the pixels as the movie process from one format to the next are subject to change, including their size and aspect, whether down/up sampled or not.
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I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?
The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...
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I was working for "Pace Plc" when 3G and 4G mobile data networks were only just starting to yield reasonably high "broadband" rates.
Phones back then (2012-2014) were only boosting 5" screens tops.
However, the amount of flak Pace started to receive because their media distribution platforms and DRM libraries did not support 1080p for mobiles yet.
People with a 4.5" screen with a maximum resolution of around 600x400 where demanding 1080p over 480p.... on a 400p screen.
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I find it amusing that there are now two simultaneous trends in viewing movies:
Ginormous screens in home theaters.
Minuscule screens on mobile phones.
Somehow, the producers need to produce content for both applications.
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And both at the same time. VR. VR movie players make it appear you are watching on a massive cinema screen.
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Its amusing all the moaning about black bars these days,in the days of proper cinemas it was common practise to mask the screen designed for ciniscope when showing a 1-85 film,no bugger complained back then.
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I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?
The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...
I hate the notch because it takes out a chunk of usable display. I much prefer a bezel that creates black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, the complete image is available and the edges are straight. It would bother me if TV screens had a weird shape, and the notch wouldn't bother me if the weird "ears" could be blacked out and shift all the content down below it.
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Agreed. Anything that interrupts the usual rectangle is a problem because there's no "safe space" that anyone can know for certain will never contain important content. Classic example: Those scrolling text lines at the bottom of many TV news programs. They're often RIGHT OVER THE TOP of some similar text content in the existing video they're using as part of their report! Likewise the network's own logos or "promo pieces", often in the lower right corner... where they typically stack up over the logos/thumbnails of the content itself. Add in partial transparency (itself an admission of the stupidity of this concept!) and you get some weird Pollock-like renderings that are utterly unintelligible and completely frustrating.
A far better approach, if someone insists on stealing some screen real estate, is to downscale the image (to maintain the aspect ratio) and put your content in the created black space. Sure, it's still a visual interruption and maddening, but at least they've respected the original content (which is the reason you're a consumer of their product!) while satisfying whatever corporate overlords have demanded their own content be displayed. I see this a fair bit... the main image shrinks for a few seconds, some sort of nonsense content appears, and then the main image zooms out to the original size. That's an intelligent way to handle this.
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I can't watch anything that has those logos hovering in the corner, or worse, the animated ads with sound that come up during a show you're watching. That trend pushed me away from pay TV and now broadcast TV in general. The obsession with branding the content reduces its value to me to zero, thankfully most streaming and content you buy on discs doesn't have this.
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I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?
The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...
I hate the notch because it takes out a chunk of usable display.
Just consider the display an aspect ratio that would have the notch be a black bar otherwise. Problem solved :)
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Agreed. Anything that interrupts the usual rectangle is a problem because there's no "safe space" that anyone can know for certain will never contain important content. Classic example: Those scrolling text lines at the bottom of many TV news programs. They're often RIGHT OVER THE TOP of some similar text content in the existing video they're using as part of their report! Likewise the network's own logos or "promo pieces", often in the lower right corner... where they typically stack up over the logos/thumbnails of the content itself. Add in partial transparency (itself an admission of the stupidity of this concept!) and you get some weird Pollock-like renderings that are utterly unintelligible and completely frustrating.
A far better approach, if someone insists on stealing some screen real estate, is to downscale the image (to maintain the aspect ratio) and put your content in the created black space. Sure, it's still a visual interruption and maddening, but at least they've respected the original content (which is the reason you're a consumer of their product!) while satisfying whatever corporate overlords have demanded their own content be displayed. I see this a fair bit... the main image shrinks for a few seconds, some sort of nonsense content appears, and then the main image zooms out to the original size. That's an intelligent way to handle this.
The worst example I face of the superimposed text and logos in broadcast TV is how they often obscure the network's display of the game's score in sports reporting.
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I don't get why the black bars are so offensive. Would it be that different than making the display narrower?
The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...
I hate the notch because it takes out a chunk of usable display.
Just consider the display an aspect ratio that would have the notch be a black bar otherwise. Problem solved :)
Yes, like I said, if there was a way to shift the content down so that there was a black bar in place of the notch it wouldn't bother me. As far as I know though there is no way to do this, if you watch a video in landscape mode, the notch juts into the side of the video and obscures part of it.
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if you watch a video in landscape mode, the notch juts into the side of the video
Oh! That's a different matter, yes. Willfully aggravated design.
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>:(
Sci-fi where the author bounces back and forth in time every other chapter.
Trying to get through Andy Weir's follow-up to The Martian, Project Hail Mary. Audiobook.
All over the place like Pulp Fiction. No gimp yet.
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Yea I have endured a few of those kinds of books.
I don't mind parallel stories and I enjoy the suspense on how they will all tie up in the end, but when those stories go on for half the book and seem not only distant to the story, but completely unrelated.
Ah. An example. Rama By Arthur. C. Clarke and Gentry Lee. The issues with several of that series being from the later, gentry lee. His sub stories in that book are horrendously boring and completely distant from actual science fiction, it's like the plot of a soap opra trying to run in parallel with 2001 A Space Odessy. I literally started skipping all the Gentry Lee sections and the book was still digestable without them.
More tolerable but only just is KSR's Red, Green, Blue mars trilogy. Wow. That series has tangents that go on for hundreds of pages. Like the whole swing into quadratic analysis of carbon / energy / effort economics that goes on for half of Green Mars.
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>:(
Sci-fi where the author bounces back and forth in time every other chapter.
You would lurve Memento, then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_(film)
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Here’s another:
This incredibly tedious modern trend that video editors (usually “YouTubers”) have of showing us a “triple replay” of some mundane aspect of the video from different angles (and we get to hear the audio 3x too, talk about grating) - it’s ALWAYS, ALWAYS done in threes.
“Here’s the ball falling! Did you miss it? Here’s the other angle!! Now the other angle!! And now fhe FINAL ANGLE!!!”
These young Dilbert “creators” all seem to blindly copy one another’s style, with barely any tangible original ideas. Did I NEED to see that shot of your ball falling, THREE TIMES? It’s always the SAME PATTERN.
Oh and the repeated “zoom—ZOOM—ZOOOOOOM—in—on—my—face—rapidly—as—I—feel—I’m—making—my—words—appear—more—profound” idiotic rapid fire zoom in and out jump cuts that younger people do on YouTube - likely the ones who’ve not yet developed the self-confidence to know how to articulate themselves in a subtle and meaningful, honest way, and so resort to cheap tricks like that.
Stop it. You insult your audience. I’ll be the one who decides if I agree with your sentiments or not, and that is NOT achieved with your silly iMovie editorial gimmicks.
I was reminded of this when I saw a recent post (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/chatgpt-for-code-generation-a-marvel-to-watch!/) using multiple font sizes, colours and other attributes. Takes one to know one, I guess.
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Relative "human-friendly" timestamps in logs: commit history, events, whatever. Github being an example. Okay, github, when exactly were these two commits made? "2 hours ago" and "2 hours ago". And when exactly did the last few actions run, so that I can track down which of them caused this crash in production? "1 hour ago" and "1 hour ago". Thank you very much github, it sure doesn't get more useful than this!
The dickhead who decided that it would be a good idea to use this in interfaces for engineers must be fired. It's good for pornhub, but it's a disaster for github.
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git log -p
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The dickhead who decided that it would be a good idea to use this in interfaces for engineers must be fired.
Well, I'm pretty sure the "product owner" wrote a nice "user story" for this particular feature. :popcorn:
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Here’s a peeve:
THE CRAPPY UPS WEBSITE!!!!!
Why does it have to have 489,009 different menus, account widgets, codes, links, verification methods, ENDLESS bullshit.
Very likely cobbled together by “designers” of the same ilk that “designed” the hideous Android… (autistic engineers with ZERO idea about how humans work)
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I flew on Southwest today. Standing in line, I brought up my boarding pass so it would be ready on my phone and I'd just stream right through. Got up to the gate agent and my phone display had "slept" to save battery, so I clicked the button... and the Southwest app had discarded my boarding pass! It required me to re-enter ALL of my data, including confirmation number and name and password, then walk through every menu step to bring up my boarding pass again. Really embarrassing. I hadn't gone away from the app, the only thing that happened was the screen timed out. Terrible app design.
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I flew on Southwest today. Standing in line, I brought up my boarding pass so it would be ready on my phone and I'd just stream right through. Got up to the gate agent and my phone display had "slept" to save battery, so I clicked the button... and the Southwest app had discarded my boarding pass! It required me to re-enter ALL of my data, including confirmation number and name and password, then walk through every menu step to bring up my boarding pass again. Really embarrassing. I hadn't gone away from the app, the only thing that happened was the screen timed out. Terrible app design.
Take a screenshot in advance, next time; no internet or app needed.
https://maphappy.org/flight-basics-take-a-screenshot-of-the-boarding-pass/
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My pet peeve of the day is Icom ham radio schematics, or at least the one I'm currently working on.
They start out with one convention to designate their coaxial plugs on the leads between boards, then discard it on the next Interboard connection.
For instance, they designate one set of plugs as p2 & P3, which logically enough, plug into J2 & J3.
On the same board, however, we have p1 & p2 plugging into j5 & j4 respectively.
Looking more closely, they have j1 because it comes from the "1st LO", & re-use j2 for the "2nd LO"---fine, & quite logical, if they hadn't already established a standard nomenclature.
In fairness, they aren't the only company that does things like that, even the revered Tektronix have been known to slip up from time to time.
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git log -p
Yes, but it's a separate tool. I was talking about online interfaces.
(besides, CLI git doesn't work with GHA.)
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The hatred for phones with a notch springs to mind...
phones with a notch , is that something to do with identifying the top from the bottom. lest we hold it upside down.
developing the monkey brain
going to a public movie theater in 2023 with the sound of others munching on food, the fragrance of flatulence! Why? when we have theaters at home
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git log -p
Yes, but it's a separate tool. I was talking about online interfaces.
(besides, CLI git doesn't work with GHA.)
No. "git" is the tool. You are complaining about the management UI.
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No. "git" is the tool. You are complaining about the management UI.
(this) UI is also a tool.
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No. "git" is the tool. You are complaining about the management UI.
(this) UI is also a tool.
Yes, but it's like using a multi-meter when you needed a scope.
I don't use github much. That might surprise you. I use git everyday. I use it from within eclipse, within bitbucket, within all manor of other intergrations. However. One thing is true. UIs and integrations while handy are also a source of issues, confusion and "hidden operations".
The latter, "hidden operations" is why in the day job I have a clear policy. If you want my help with a git problem you created with a GUI, we solve it in the CLI. I will NOT support git GUIs without corresponding confirmation from the command line. Watching a college explain his problem to me, whereby two branchs from different lineage would not merge and had got him stuck in a partial merge state he couldn't get back out of.... I watched the git integration logs. Each time my college did an operation with the GUI the GUI ran half a dozen different git operations. Things like stashing, rebasing, stash apply, tagging, manifest checking, manifest updating. I put it to my college that if he doesn't understand what all of those operations being carried out by the GUI do, then he should not be using the GUI, period end of. So I won't support their use. People can use them, but when they start wasting time and require a senior engineer to come and fix the mess, they need to get out of the picture before I arrive.
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A) Windows S freaking mode and
B) the instructions to switch the machine out of S freaking mode and
) Best Buy laptops that most of them are sold with S freaking mode enabled!
Does S stand for Satan or Satya ?
Clearly worded instructions example :
(https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of-s-mode-in-windows-4f56d9be-99ec-6983-119f-031bfb28a307#WindowsVersion=Windows_11)
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Switching out of S mode in Windows
Windows 11 in S mode is designed for security and performance, exclusively running apps from the Microsoft Store. If you want to install an app that isn't available in the Microsoft Store, you'll need to switch out of S mode.
Windows 11 in S mode is only available in the Windows 11 Home edition. If you have the Pro, Enterprise, or Education editions of Windows 10 in S mode, Windows Update will not offer Windows 11 because S mode is not available in those editions of Windows 11. Therefore, if you have the Pro, Enterprise or Education editions of Windows 10 in S mode, you'll need to switch out of S mode to upgrade to Windows 11.
Switching out of S mode is one-way. If you make the switch, you won't be able to go back to Windows 10 or Windows 11 in S mode. There's no charge to switch out of S mode.
On your PC running Windows 11 in S mode, open Settings > System > Activation.
In the Switch to Windows 11 Pro section, select Go to the Store. (If you also see an "Upgrade your edition of Windows" section, be careful not to click the "Go to the Store" link that appears there.)
On the Switch out of S mode (or similar) page that appears in the Microsoft Store, select the Get button. After you see a confirmation message on the page, you'll be able to install apps from outside of the Microsoft Store.
------------
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Does S stand for Satan or Satya ?
Isn't that the same? :popcorn:
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A) Windows S freaking mode and
B) the instructions to switch the machine out of S freaking mode and
) Best Buy laptops that most of them are sold with S freaking mode enabled!
Does S stand for Satan or Satya ?
Clearly worded instructions example :
(https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of-s-mode-in-windows-4f56d9be-99ec-6983-119f-031bfb28a307#WindowsVersion=Windows_11)
------------
Switching out of S mode in Windows
Windows 11 in S mode is designed for security and performance, exclusively running apps from the Microsoft Store. If you want to install an app that isn't available in the Microsoft Store, you'll need to switch out of S mode.
Windows 11 in S mode is only available in the Windows 11 Home edition. If you have the Pro, Enterprise, or Education editions of Windows 10 in S mode, Windows Update will not offer Windows 11 because S mode is not available in those editions of Windows 11. Therefore, if you have the Pro, Enterprise or Education editions of Windows 10 in S mode, you'll need to switch out of S mode to upgrade to Windows 11.
Switching out of S mode is one-way. If you make the switch, you won't be able to go back to Windows 10 or Windows 11 in S mode. There's no charge to switch out of S mode.
On your PC running Windows 11 in S mode, open Settings > System > Activation.
In the Switch to Windows 11 Pro section, select Go to the Store. (If you also see an "Upgrade your edition of Windows" section, be careful not to click the "Go to the Store" link that appears there.)
On the Switch out of S mode (or similar) page that appears in the Microsoft Store, select the Get button. After you see a confirmation message on the page, you'll be able to install apps from outside of the Microsoft Store.
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It stands for "stupid" or more precisely "Let's be just like an iPad, so we won't miss out on all that lovely money!"
My problem used to be with the "dumbed down" versions of Windows loaded by OEM manufacturers, where most of the clever tricks on the 'Net to fix problems didn't work----now Microsoft do the dumbing down themselves!
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Sweeping claims from YouTubers and click bait articles that “<insert thing> WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING!” (Mark Rober has just done this)
See also “THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY!!” & “THIS IS GROUND-BREAKING!” or “THIS IS THE FUTURE!” (How it is that anyone can know what the future will be, until the future becomes the present, is beyond me!)
The problem is that this excessive hyperbole is used SO OFTEN about almost any technology subject imaginable, that it just shows little, if any discernment or critical thinking on the part of the person making the bold claims of such.
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It's because people are morons. Sorry, but if you think the "average joe" is a bit thick, most of them are even thicker.
They use YouTube. They fall for click bait, because, you know drooling and dragging knuckles. The YouTube Algorithm likes that. So it starts favouring click bait titles. So content creates have to march along to the algorhythms tune, because people are morons. It's going to go the same way it always does. Moron's make more money. Content becomes made exclusively for morons.
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Yes, Youtubers do this because, whether we like it or not, it works.
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Sweeping claims from YouTubers and click bait articles that “<insert thing> WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING!” (Mark Rober has just done this)
See also “THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY!!” & “THIS IS GROUND-BREAKING!” or “THIS IS THE FUTURE!” (How it is that anyone can know what the future will be, until the future becomes the present, is beyond me!)
The problem is that this excessive hyperbole is used SO OFTEN about almost any technology subject imaginable, that it just shows little, if any discernment or critical thinking on the part of the person making the bold claims of such.
THE FOLLOWING POST I'M MAKING WILL SHOCK EVERYONE HERE
Hey, I hardly ever do this so cut me some slack! :-DD
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Here’s one. The internet is RAMMED FULL of people who do this, since they can’t BEAR the notion that maybe they don’t know the answer to a question being asked, so they say any old thing in the hope it’ll be accepted:
I just saw someone ask how much space macOS installer takes (the USB drive upon which the installation media resides), on quora:
Someone answers “The full install occupies <blah blah>GB disk space”
Yeah? The person asking, asked how much disk space THE INSTALLER occupies - the flat, packed away airbed, not the volume it occupies WHEN INFLATED (installed).
I think a problem when people answering overestimate their technical knowledge.
I’ve learnt from decades of internet usage that sitting for hours or days, trying things out and Googling, is vastly preferable than engaging in trap loops of circular discussion and misunderstanding with people who you get a gut feeling are winging it, but want to convince you they’re right (insecurity).
I rarely ask for help, interactively; I’m only asking questions here when I’ve spent weeks, months or years (on the back burner) exhausting all other avenues, and asking us TRULY the last resort. I’m a strong lateral thinker which helps; becoming self-sufficient in technical domains is very valuable.
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Sweeping claims from YouTubers and click bait articles that “<insert thing> WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING!” (Mark Rober has just done this)
See also “THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY!!” & “THIS IS GROUND-BREAKING!” or “THIS IS THE FUTURE!” (How it is that anyone can know what the future will be, until the future becomes the present, is beyond me!)
The problem is that this excessive hyperbole is used SO OFTEN about almost any technology subject imaginable, that it just shows little, if any discernment or critical thinking on the part of the person making the bold claims of such.
THE FOLLOWING POST I'M MAKING WILL SHOCK EVERYONE HERE
I wrote a reply to this post. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT I WROTE.
THE BEST TUTORIAL EVER on writing replies to message boards!
THIS IS THE ONLY REPLY YOU NEED TO READ!
Yes, definitely irritating. I tend to skip that kind of "information".
And I wish I could go inside the houses of Amazon customers who answer questions on the site with "I'm sorry, it was a gift" or "I have no idea how to do that", and break their router with a 5kg sledge hammer.
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Another: tabloid chimpanzees who LITERALLY have television industry inside contacts, and yet are too lazy and stupid to get tv programme names CORRECT.
Attached: the correct title from ”Channel 5” (UK) and the hideously incorrect one from tvguide.co.uk (absolute chimps!)
HOW CAN YOU BE SO THICK AS TO MESS THIS UP?!
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The UK gives you!!!! Blair-ite qualifications for everyone initiative.
Solution. Invent acedemic subjects that didn't exist before and give people qualifications in them. Make Britian more qualified! Makes sense, no? No, didn't think so.
"Media Studies". This was taken too seriously by the media, who started hirering them!
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The UK gives you!!!! Blair-ite qualifications for everyone initiative.
Solution. Invent acedemic subjects that didn't exist before and give people qualifications in them. Make Britian more qualified! Makes sense, no? No, didn't think so.
"Media Studies". This was taken too seriously by the media, who started hirering them!
Never understood the rabid hatred of vocational courses. Btw I did media studies at college. I wanted to be a sports photographer so I looking for a photography course at college, there wasnt enough students for it so I took media. There I learnt html(css), flash, director, graphic design, photography, ran a radio station (oddly I was the station engineer), we made short films. Of the students several have ended up in local radio as presenters, some went on to do film work. I did another two years at uni doing a dedicated photography course. It's just a sham that when you go to get a job all the want is cheap but with experience rather than training. The photography I wanted to get into ended up being a bit crap as it turns out that the industry is designed to keep new people out and its who you know rather than what you know.
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The UK gives you!!!! Blair-ite qualifications for everyone initiative.
Solution. Invent acedemic subjects that didn't exist before and give people qualifications in them. Make Britian more qualified! Makes sense, no? No, didn't think so.
"Media Studies". This was taken too seriously by the media, who started hirering them!
Never understood the rabid hatred of vocational courses. Btw I did media studies at college. I wanted to be a sports photographer so I looking for a photography course at college, there wasnt enough students for it so I took media. There I learnt html(css), flash, director, graphic design, photography, ran a radio station (oddly I was the station engineer), we made short films. Of the students several have ended up in local radio as presenters, some went on to do film work. I did another two years at uni doing a dedicated photography course. It's just a sham that when you go to get a job all the want is cheap but with experience rather than training. The photography I wanted to get into ended up being a bit crap as it turns out that the industry is designed to keep new people out and its who you know rather than what you know.
Fair enough. I think it's just that a lot of media studies students end up reporting for the BBC et. al. and are the source of poor research examples.
My brother did a similar course here in "Bangor" a few decades back. He was in the performing arts course, which had it's own recording study and constantly producing live music events for the tech and wider social circle. They also go the oppurtunity to run/manage/present on the temporary radio licenses they got every year for 3 or 4 months.
I even "performed" on live radio. "performed", my job was running an Amiga 500 with an active sampler, bank of premade samples and an effects processor. I had one channel on the desk which I was allowed to touch and much to my Brothers (running the rest of the live desk) discomfort I was doing absolutely mad stuff like routing the send to my sampler, then back to the desk and routing my effects return back to the sampler creating a feedback loop through teh sampler. Shifting the delays and effects on that feedback started producing some seriously cool sounding electronic torture "music" as that was the genre at hand.
Dropping key quotes out of Sci-Fi films or completely out of context movie lines over the top of the music was my main job. Running 5 minutes of a Ren and Stimpy episode in the background with a pitch shifting delay was my idea too. It's amazing how well Ren and Stimpy always seem to line up hilarious quotes right before the beat drop!
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Veterinarians.
Just because my cat chooses to have a vegan diet like the rest of us isn't the reason why he's sick.
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Well, it turns out that the feline digestive system is that of an obligate carnivore. They must eat meat, period. If a cat only eats vegetables it will be malnourished.
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People who save screenshots, or convert them to... JPG! |O :-DD
Amateur hour. This ain't 1995! - it's PNG - any Apple pro knows this (Apple being the definition of high quality codecs, formats etc).
If you worked for me and I caught you doing such a thing, you'd get ONE warning, then OUT! ;) :P
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People who save screenshots, or convert them to... JPG! |O :-DD
Amateur hour. This ain't 1995! - it's PNG - any Apple pro knows this (Apple being the definition of high quality codecs, formats etc).
If you worked for me and I caught you doing such a thing, you'd get ONE warning, then OUT! ;) :P
My flagship Android doesn't play nice with PNG.
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If you worked for me and I caught you doing such a thing, you'd get ONE warning, then OUT!
Highly unlikely, on both counts.
As a quick test I took an A4 jpg (an invoice, scanned from the paper version) which was 1.8MB in size, and converted it to png. That took many seconds (perhaps 10-15) which surprised me. The result was an 8MB png. So I took that and converted it to jpg which resulted in an instant (like no time for progress bars) 1.3MB copy.
(I find the second conversion being smaller not relevant - the original was scanned using 100% quality, whereas the conversion would use 95%. None of them - jpg1, png, jpg2 - were distinguishable when comparing to each other.)
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People who save screenshots, or convert them to... JPG! |O :-DD
Amateur hour. This ain't 1995! - it's PNG - any Apple pro knows this (Apple being the definition of high quality codecs, formats etc).
If you worked for me and I caught you doing such a thing, you'd get ONE warning, then OUT! ;) :P
PNG isnt the best thing for every image. I have had it generate quite large files. Even on screenshots. It's just a posh gif image.
Jpg has it uses and I was amused to find that a progressive loading jpg has a smaller file size than a normal one. Same quality settings.
I have been known to go gif and drop the pallet down until the file is as small as I can get it. I learnt web design during the 56k era.
At least it's not that google image format. The least said about that the better.
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Not sure what this discussion is about. Of course every image format has its use. Screenshots, or at least those where important information is text or UI elements, must be saved in a format with lossless compression, essentially meaning PNG.
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When the print screen has a reduced color pallet, with big areas of the exact same color, PNG works better.
TIFF works pretty well for that situation too.
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Just do not save chart/graph screenshots in JPG please >:(
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IIRC .png showed up primarily because of licensing fees required by .jpg, I don't remember the exact details but it was something that came up with a product I worked on ~20 years ago.
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IIRC .png showed up primarily because of licensing feeds required by .jpg, I don't remember the exact details but it was something that came up with a product I worked on ~20 years ago.
by GIF.
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For me it's the terms Pal or bro, I find pal an intimidating term, and i am not your bro.
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For me it's the terms Pal or bro, I find pal an intimidating term, and i am not your bro.
"Pal" is condescending, cold, sounds like someone wants to start a fight. Unless I am a tin of dog food, I ain't "Pal" to you.
"Bro" is cringey yank slang (not ALL their slang is bad) - I am not your "bro", you assume too much ;D
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'sup bro
:-DD
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M D Headley, in her 2020 translation of Beowulf, used "Bro!" for the untranslatable Old English word "Hwæt" in the first line.
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M D Headley, in her 2020 translation of Beowulf, used "Bro!" for the untranslatable Old English word "Hwæt" in the first line.
Ignorant me thought Beowulf was a German poem. :palm:
But... "Bro!"? I mean... bro...
Anyway, out of curiosity I found this: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/listen-beowulf-opening-line-misinterpreted-for-200-years-8921027.html (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/listen-beowulf-opening-line-misinterpreted-for-200-years-8921027.html)
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"Bro" is cringey yank slang (not ALL their slang is bad)
Indeed.
I think the expression “goofing off” is a real gem. :)
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Headley spends a few pages in the introduction to her published translation about "Bro!" in the first line.
She imagines a competitive conversation at a bar between a male group, where "bro" can be either friend or foe, while at least feigning friendship.
The first three lines of the original poem:
Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
(Spell-check rejects each word, except for "We" and "in".)
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'sup bro
:-DD
There’s always that one ain’t there 😂
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"Bro" is cringey yank slang (not ALL their slang is bad)
Indeed.
I think the expression “goofing off” is a real gem. :)
So did he: (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/beano/images/0/02/Plug.jpg)
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Organizations like NASA bending to stupid whims of noisy schmucks (https://spacenews.com/nasa-policy-discourages-naming-missions-after-individuals/) in the fear of being publicly bullied. Things like this must never happen. A bunch of madmen must not affect the actions of sane people.
A new NASA policy makes it unlikely future missions will be named after individuals in response to the controversy surrounding the naming of the James Webb Space Telescope.
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For me it's the terms Pal or bro, I find pal an intimidating term, and i am not your bro.
"Pal" is condescending, cold, sounds like someone wants to start a fight. Unless I am a tin of dog food, I ain't "Pal" to you.
"Bro" is cringey yank slang (not ALL their slang is bad) - I am not your "bro", you assume too much ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EndozxolXKE&ab_channel=boysoncrack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EndozxolXKE&ab_channel=boysoncrack)
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Reminds me:
In Europe, people seem to work, study fairly seriously, but, alas here in the U.S.A. folks are more like talking in broken English:
"...Do he code ? ". Followed by laughter, as they think technology is some nerdy joke pursuit.
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How annoying my own "pun alarm" is when talking about electrical stuff.
Shall we say, there is too much potential when currently discussing anything electrical. You just can't avoid using the words "potentially" or "currently" when referring to circuits in development.
My "pun alarm" goes off all the time, "cringe".
It's as bad as friends who point at you and giggle with you use "do, do" in a sentence.
It's a "Potential death trap!"
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How annoying my own "pun alarm" is when talking about electrical stuff.
Is it as bad as the smut/innuendo alert when someone says something and you must resist the urge to say something inappropriate?
It's as bad as friends who point at you and giggle with you use "do, do" in a sentence.
Push Pineapple
Thanks, I now have that damned song in my head, oh well. Might as well ask Alexa to play it loud so the neighbours get to suffer as well.
shake the tree
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I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but popup notifications that can't be moved or put into the background. My work laptop is a Macbook and I generally like the OS, but reminder popups are always up in the corner and often obscure the browser tab I want or some other application. This is all made much worse by the fact that a few releases ago they removed the ability to snooze a reminder for a customized amount of time :palm: That annoys me to no end, I very often want to snooze something for 5-10 minutes while I finish something else up, I don't want to dismiss it and then forget about it, and the infuriating thing is it USED TO WORK GREAT. They actually put developer effort into removing perfectly working functionality and making it less useful. |O
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Yes! Teams in work started doing this. Lovely notification with a screenshot thumbnail of the window and everything, but no 'bleeping' X button. Almost always sits just over the Teams meeting floating window or the mute controls.
"GO THE F..... AWAY!" (Actually silent)
"Sorry guys I'll send you the link when the pop up gets out of my way...", while everyone else watches said pop up on the screen share and laughs.
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Typing :wq into windows editors.
People who automatically type :wq to exit.
People who when faced with a permission denied then try :wq!
It's the same as people who do:
git add -a
Against the wall and shot I'd say.
The correct response to "I have no idea why I'm here or what i did" in Vim is...
ESC ESC ESC ESC :qa!<RET>
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Template "phrases" (or YouTube "slang") copied, sheep-esque...
"Can we talk about <thing>?" - Er, YOU ARE talking about it - you typed a comment about it.
"<Thing/Person> is so underrated" - I just saw this as a comment under a video from WORLDWIDE pop star from the 80s - he (Nik Kershaw) is the furthest thing from "underrated" EVER.
I think people feel COMPELLED to HAVE to say something, any old horse shit, just to "be seen to have a view".
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Instructional videos where narrator says:
"Voltage times Current, What reason we say Voltage times Current....Because, we say it as...."
Another example:
"Gravity is a force...Why is it we say Gravity is this force?"
But also repetitively, helps to seal the deal (that topic speaker is not skilled in language or communication skills. Plus, this person, professor, whatever, will STILL be vocalizing butchered language, virtually identically, like, 25 years from now...!
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But gravity is not a force. :popcorn:
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I was told in the UK by someone that it was turning into a police state.
Now with the voting ID for elections and the way the "Emergency phone alert" is being applied to hijack the controls and interfere with phones it seems to me like it is turning out to be true.
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These pieces of crap (attached).
Even if this were the case, I’d not want another one. Amazon “Fire TV” devices are the most sluggish, laggy, unstable, unreliable pieces of future landfill ever conceived. GARBAGE!
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Sorry, what's your peeve with that? Are you being forced to take one or something? Can't you just... well.. not have it?
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Sorry, what's your peeve with that? Are you being forced to take one or something? Can't you just... well.. not have it?
What does my owning one have to do with my opinion on them? They’re shit, regardless of my owning one or not. I own one, they’re garbage. I’ve owned four different models / they ARE all garbage. Then again it’s android, and Amazon, so there you go.
I take it you grasp how opinions work?
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Sorry, what's your peeve with that? Are you being forced to take one or something? Can't you just... well.. not have it?
I’d not want another one.
“Another one” means he already has at least one. At this point “not having it” means throwing it out. It’s a real pain in the butt when you pay good money for something that doesn’t live up to its advertised claims and specs.
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[...] the infuriating thing is it USED TO WORK GREAT. They actually put developer effort into removing perfectly working functionality and making it less useful. |O
This is the inevitable consequence of making changes for the sake of making changes. The next team doesn't know why the previous team ended up with the design that they did, so they feel it is OK to start over every time. I'm hoping AI will help rein this in, eventually. "Joe. Do you understand that many people rely on the feature you just deleted? Put it back before the countdown reaches zero, or you will receive a significant electric shock, like last week when you tried the same thing. Joe?"
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[...] the infuriating thing is it USED TO WORK GREAT. They actually put developer effort into removing perfectly working functionality and making it less useful. |O
This is the inevitable consequence of making changes for the sake of making changes. The next team doesn't know why the previous team ended up with the design that they did, so they feel it is OK to start over every time. I'm hoping AI will help rein this in, eventually. "Joe. Do you understand that many people rely on the feature you just deleted? Put it back before the countdown reaches zero, or you will receive a significant electric shock, like last week when you tried the same thing. Joe?"
I'm afraid I can't let you delete that, Joe.
Not very far from "are you sure you want to delete that" is it?
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Sorry, what's your peeve with that? Are you being forced to take one or something? Can't you just... well.. not have it?
What does my owning one have to do with my opinion on them? They’re shit, regardless of my owning one or not. I own one, they’re garbage. I’ve owned four different models / they ARE all garbage. Then again it’s android, and Amazon, so there you go.
I take it you grasp how opinions work?
I think we all know how your opinion works, and how you seem to have an infinite supply of derogatory ones.
It wasn't clear if you were railing against the product or the offer. Since you posted a specific offer it's natural to assume that's where your beef is, hence my asking if you were being forced to take it or could just not have (another) one.
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I was told in the UK by someone that it was turning into a police state.
Now with the voting ID for elections and the way the "Emergency phone alert" is being applied to hijack the controls and interfere with phones it seems to me like it is turning out to be true.
The emergency phone alert is annoying, at least if it doesn't respect silent/do-not-disturb settings (I'm looking at you Amber Alerts) or if you can't disable it, but neither of these things bring to mind the term "police state".
I've never had to show ID here to vote and frankly it has always puzzled me why or why some people go into a panic over the idea. I don't know how much fraud actually occurs but ID seems like a good idea to quell concerns that it may occur, and with a very low cost to the public. I have to show my ID to buy alcohol, open a bank account, pick up concert tickets, heck even to buy spray paint now, it's just not that big of a deal to me. There are other forms of ID you can get if you don't have a drivers license. I'm happy to take a simple step to prove that I'm me if it prevents someone else from potentially claiming that they're me, especially for something as important as voting.
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I don't know how much fraud actually occurs
317 cases here in the uk going by the 2021 records,so a fairly small amount compared to the estimated £40-£120 million (depends whos figures you trust) its going to cost over 10 years
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Here's my current "pet peeve".
Using W10 on my ASUS laptop, I will be typing something to post on this, or some other forum, when suddenly the website disappears.
I can go to "history" & get the webpage back, but my carefully composed comment is gone!
initially, I thought --"OK, you silly old sod, you've hit a couple of keys accidentally which do this!"
Upon trying to make it happen, I have been unsuccessful.
As far as I can see, it is when I hit the "shift" key, but no combinations of keys in that vicinity have such an effect.
It has a few other tricks, like printing "b" or "n" instead of "space", but that really could be my sausage-like fingers.
Others not so likely---while I was typing this, the word "typing" came up as typine".
"g" & "e" are not adjacent, so whether it is a W10 problem or an ASUS one, I don't know.
P.S. "Or" came up as "on" in that last sentence.
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Using W10 on my ASUS laptop, I will be typing something to post on this, or some other forum, when suddenly the website disappears.
Yeah, Mozilla's default binding of backspace to "Go Back" is a pet peeve of mine. It makes no sense and is a constant source of annoyance if I'm using a machine I can't customize the keys on.
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I haven't got an answer for what's causing your problem, but I can say that I've been screwed by losing data I've typed into a webpage many times for various reasons (an errant back action, closing a tab by mistake, some mysterious crash, etc). I have largely solved the problem by:
- if I have the foresight that I'm going to be typing a long screed, I'll do it in a text editor that autosaves (even across exits and crashes). Then when I'm done with my masterpiece, I copy/paste.
- for the many times where I don't bother with that workaround, I have installed the Textarea Cache browser extension (https://github.com/wildskyf/TextareaCache). It's not perfect - for reasons that usually aren't clear to me, it doesn't always have a copy of what I've lost. But it works most of the time and that is much better than nothing.
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Searching on Amazon for Electronics ESD Mat. 90% of the results are for silicone mats. Some even proudly quote their anti-static properties as being 10^6 - 10^8 ohms of protection LMAO. Fail.
I did make the mistake of buying one of these for soldering on. After it crackled and everything stuck to it I wasn't sure. When it was able to make my hair stand on end, I didn't it would only go one place. The bin.
I've never seen a BS product sold with the complete opposite effect than it's sold for.
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Using W10 on my ASUS laptop, I will be typing something to post on this, or some other forum, when suddenly the website disappears.
Yeah, Mozilla's default binding of backspace to "Go Back" is a pet peeve of mine. It makes no sense and is a constant source of annoyance if I'm using a machine I can't customize the keys on.
Uhg! Seriously! I have never once wanted to navigate back by pressing a key, certainly not by pressing backspace! That's just idiotic, they could have made it Ctrl-Backspace and that would be fine. I have had to re-fill-out countless forms due to that moronic "feature".
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Searching on Amazon for Electronics ESD Mat. 90% of the results are for silicone mats. Some even proudly quote their anti-static properties as being 10^6 - 10^8 ohms of protection LMAO. Fail.
I did make the mistake of buying one of these for soldering on. After it crackled and everything stuck to it I wasn't sure. When it was able to make my hair stand on end, I didn't it would only go one place. The bin.
I've never seen a BS product sold with the complete opposite effect than it's sold for.
I have a small silicone pad for soldering on and it's great, I bought it several years ago from some random Chinese seller. It's perfect for times when I'm trying to solder pins or some tricky arrangement of parts where it helps to have something to press them against. It's not anti-static at all though so I'm careful about what I use it for.
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Some browsers used to interpret the Escape key as "go back" or "clear all". If you brought up an overlay menu for some feature and then dismissed it with Esc, it was a dice roll if you'd get a keystroke bounce and undo all of your work.
Seriously, some of these user interface designers must never work in the real world.
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I don't know how much fraud actually occurs
317 cases here in the uk going by the 2021 records,so a fairly small amount compared to the estimated £40-£120 million (depends whos figures you trust) its going to cost over 10 years
317 cases that were caught, I don't know how anyone can measure those that aren't caught. Personally I suspect fraud is not a huge issue but I don't really know. What is a huge issue though is people believing that there is fraud taking place, and if requiring ID quells that and restores faith in fair elections then I'd say the money is worth it. £40-£120 million sounds like a lot of money but it's <£2 per UK citizen over 10 years which really is nothing. Pocket change. Even if you count only citizens that are of voting age it's got to be less than £1 a year per person. Mountains out of mole hills.
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Some browsers used to interpret the Escape key as "go back" or "clear all". If you brought up an overlay menu for some feature and then dismissed it with Esc, it was a dice roll if you'd get a keystroke bounce and undo all of your work.
Seriously, some of these user interface designers must never work in the real world.
Having spent the large bulk of my career in software development I can tell you that they haven't. Most of those decisions are made by PMs, and they are often not particularly technical people.
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Ctrl-Z should be a progressive undo not a form or page reload, with Ctrl-Y as a progressive redo. Any browser that gets that wrong (other than on f***ed up continuous loading pages), isn't fit for purpose
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Uhg! Seriously! I have never once wanted to navigate back by pressing a key, certainly not by pressing backspace! That's just idiotic, they could have made it Ctrl-Backspace and that would be fine. I have had to re-fill-out countless forms due to that moronic "feature".
How do you turn on the "back" action on backspace?
update: LOL. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.backspace_action)
it's platform-dependent. It is set to a sane value (do nothing outside of text inputs) by default on Linux. On Windows, some bright mind thought that it was a good idea to do it...
for consistency with Internet Explorer.
Calling it "moronic" is inappropriate. I'd call it outright anencephalic.
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Having spent the large bulk of my career in software development I can tell you that they haven't. Most of those decisions are made by PMs, and they are often not particularly technical people.
Those must be the same morons who completely redesign user interfaces for popular programs when literally NO ONE was asking for such changes, leading to a worldwide population of experienced users having to re-learn their daily tools. Microsoft Office, I'm thinking of you (in terms not suitable for a family website).
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Having spent the large bulk of my career in software development I can tell you that they haven't. Most of those decisions are made by PMs, and they are often not particularly technical people.
Those must be the same morons who completely redesign user interfaces for popular programs when literally NO ONE was asking for such changes, leading to a worldwide population of experienced users having to re-learn their daily tools. Microsoft Office, I'm thinking of you (in terms not suitable for a family website).
Assuming you’re talking about the Ribbon, I think it’s important to point out that it absolutely was not a situation of a change “no one was asking for”. At the time, Microsoft had been getting complaints for years and years about “bloat” in the Office menu-and-toolbars interface, combined with countless feature requests for features it already had but users struggled to find, as well as huge amounts of user telemetry and usability testing demonstrating real difficulties with the interface. The Ribbon was a bold, ambitious attempt to redesign the interface from the ground up for the complex applications the Office programs had become, not the comparatively tiny, basic programs they were when the menus-and-toolbars interfaces were first applied to them for the Mac. (Office for Mac actually predates Office for Windows!)
The Ribbon is a fascinating case study, in that it was created with a huge amount of care given to sound UX methodology, with tons of thought behind it, and massive amounts of usability testing. And yet lots of users hate it. For example, most commands require fewer clicks in the Ribbon UI than the old menus and toolbars, yet to many people they feel like they take more clicks. (I know I sometimes get that feeling.)
I also know, from attempting to discuss the Ribbon with users who hate it, that there is a visceral component to the hate, because most are unable to even articulate why they dislike it beyond “it’s different”. I had one coworker who was frothing at the mouth because I didn’t agree with him unconditionally about it being anything but an unmitigated disaster. The fact that I didn’t hate it (even though I slightly preferred the old interface) was enough to send him into near rage. :o There was no arguing that it was anything other than “stupidity” — no room for even the possibility that it could be a really solid effort that just didn’t pan out.
That was back in 2009-2013 and I haven’t seen him in many years. I wonder how he feels about the tablet versions of Office, which have only the most abbreviated of toolbars, with many commands available only by search box…
(To anyone who misses the menus in Office: buy a Mac. While Office for Mac does use the Ribbon, it still has all the menus!)
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My issue with the revised interface was simply that most users only use perhaps 5-10% of the many features of such programs, *and they already know where those features are*. No matter how "careful" the redesign, it's still a completely artificially created learning curve for a office suite that already had what, 90% of the market? They cannot justify it on the basis of "it will make things easier for new users". All it did was frustrate the 90% of the market they already had captured. Idiocy.
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My issue with the revised interface was simply that most users only use perhaps 5-10% of the many features of such programs, *and they already know where those features are*. No matter how "careful" the redesign, it's still a completely artificially created learning curve for a office suite that already had what, 90% of the market? They cannot justify it on the basis of "it will make things easier for new users". All it did was frustrate the 90% of the market they already had captured. Idiocy.
|O
It wasn’t just designed for new users. As I literally just told you, existing users were complaining about it constantly and that was the main reason they even embarked on a new UI. So it absolutely was an attempt to make things easier for existing users. It wasn’t about increasing sales; as you say, they had already cornered the market. I don’t know why Ribbon haters believe it was only designed with beginners in mind, because that’s really anything but the truth!!
I’m not claiming they succeeded in their goal, just that that was the intent.
One of the things they explored in their research before starting on the Ribbon was about which features got used the most, in the hopes they’d find some that were used so little they could be jettisoned altogether. This was done by analyzing telemetry data from millions of real users. I forget the exact numbers, so don’t hold me to these exact ones, but it was some variation of the 80/20 rule (20% of the features are used 80% of the time), but with the big surprise being that the other 80% of features all got used roughly equally, making it nearly impossible to prioritize them, never mind drop them.
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And yet lots of users hate it. For example, most commands require fewer clicks in the Ribbon UI than the old menus and toolbars, yet to many people they feel like they take more clicks.
I think a big part of it was the massive amount of space it took out of the screen real estate. Menus take just a line when you're not, ah, menuing whereas the ribbon takes a quarter of your page, seemingly. Also, when you're hunting and pecking for a command, a menu list is quickly perusable whereas with with the ribbon some command are hidden behind dropdowns. You need to know what part of the ribbon to look at, but many time you don't associate the command with the right category. So with the menu you can quickly trawl all menus and find the thing, but the ribbon does indeed take longer.
And that's without considering the icons. Icons are OK if there are few and you know what they mean (most are non-obvious, particularly when they are in a menu analog where there are several very similar ones). Having a lot of them is just graphical blur, so you end up enabling the text description too, and that takes up even more space.
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Having spent the large bulk of my career in software development I can tell you that they haven't. Most of those decisions are made by PMs, and they are often not particularly technical people.
Those must be the same morons who completely redesign user interfaces for popular programs when literally NO ONE was asking for such changes, leading to a worldwide population of experienced users having to re-learn their daily tools. Microsoft Office, I'm thinking of you (in terms not suitable for a family website).
Yep, but looking at it in a different light may make you see the benefits - for the vendor.
New users are usually easier to deal with, and they are the ones making companies grow, at least for this kind of products.
So transforming every user, even the old ones, into new users is a great deal.
And if you have done what it takes to make them captive, they won't go to the competition anyway (if there is any.) So it's all benefits and almost zero risk.
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Not being an MS Office user myself I don't have a deeply emotional opinion about "the ribbon interface". I'm not totally sure I even understand its underlying logic or widget structure. But the idea of a team at Microsoft spending a lot of effort, using copious user input and "telemetry", and ending up with a dog's breakfast, is completely unsurprising when you consider the most important factor in that equation: Microsoft.
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And yet lots of users hate it. For example, most commands require fewer clicks in the Ribbon UI than the old menus and toolbars, yet to many people they feel like they take more clicks.
I think a big part of it was the massive amount of space it took out of the screen real estate. Menus take just a line when you're not, ah, menuing whereas the ribbon takes a quarter of your page, seemingly. Also, when you're hunting and pecking for a command, a menu list is quickly perusable whereas with with the ribbon some command are hidden behind dropdowns. You need to know what part of the ribbon to look at, but many time you don't associate the command with the right category. So with the menu you can quickly trawl all menus and find the thing, but the ribbon does indeed take longer.
And that's without considering the icons. Icons are OK if there are few and you know what they mean (most are non-obvious, particularly when they are in a menu analog where there are several very similar ones). Having a lot of them is just graphical blur, so you end up enabling the text description too, and that takes up even more space.
Have you forgotten how many toolbars the old Office UI had?!? As big as it seems, the Ribbon uses less real estate than the default toolbars and menu bar of the old UI.
This blog post has a (staged of course) screenshot of what Word looked like with all its toolbars open, on the typical screen size of the early 2000s: https://blog.codinghorror.com/sometimes-a-word-is-worth-a-thousand-icons/ (https://blog.codinghorror.com/sometimes-a-word-is-worth-a-thousand-icons/)
It also has at the very end this link to the Microsoft blog about the Ribbon’s development (http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.aspx). It’s been years since I read it, but it’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in UX.
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I've been living with the ribbon interface for how many years now, 14? I don't even remember when the place I worked switched to that version but I still haven't gotten used to it and hate it. The thing is, they could have very easily left the original menu in place and simply added the ribbon and made it a user selectable option avoiding all the controversy.
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I don't think anybody that actually used Word would have needed all those toolbars. It's been 15 years or so since I used it, but for me one small single row was usually enough. The ribbon uses way more space than that at a minimum. And they added it to the file explorer where it does little except take up space. The original Explorer's interface was pretty simple after all.
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OTOH it was pretty easy to add a custom toolbar to toggle other toolbars, so pre-Office 2007, power users would typically have at most three lines of toolbars open at any one time (and that's on a small screen), and most likely one or more of those toolbars would be heavily customised for their workflow, or to reduce the toolbar by excluding icons for commands with easy keyboard shortcuts to fit more toolbars on the same line. The only problem was if you were temporarily standing in for that power user using the same logon and had to live with their customisations.
Still using Office 97 here - it does what I need with no need to relearn the UI every couple of years and no cloud crap whatsoever. If/when a windows update finally breaks it irretrievably, I'll simply reinstall it under Wine on WSL! :popcorn:
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OTOH it was pretty easy to add a custom toolbar to toggle other toolbars, so pre-Office 2007, power users would typically have at most three lines of toolbars open at any one time (and that's on a small screen), and most likely one or more of those toolbars would be heavily customised for their workflow, or to reduce the toolbar by excluding icons for commands with easy keyboard shortcuts to fit more toolbars on the same line. The only problem was if you were temporarily standing in for that power user using the same logon and had to live with their customisations.
Still using Office 97 here - it does what I need with no need to relearn the UI every couple of years and no cloud crap whatsoever. If/when a windows update finally breaks it irretrievably, I'll simply reinstall it under Wine on WSL! :popcorn:
I thought I was bad, sticking with Office 2010! - I use the latest and greatest Office 365 at work. It's amazing how little difference there actually is... Other than the monthly payments!
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Using W10 on my ASUS laptop, I will be typing something to post on this, or some other forum, when suddenly the website disappears.
Yeah, Mozilla's default binding of backspace to "Go Back" is a pet peeve of mine. It makes no sense and is a constant source of annoyance if I'm using a machine I can't customize the keys on.
My problem is with Edge, & it seems to be connected to the "shift" key.
The fact that I can't make it do it when I really try to is what freaks me out.
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Have you forgotten how many toolbars the old Office UI had?!?
I never use toolbars - as I said, the icons are meaningless without text or very frequent use. But, in any case, one could enable or disable each toolbar, and the enabled ones could fit on one line. Even if you used a few, they take up less vertical space than the ribbon.
Edit: Icons... perversely, I really like the tiny icons in menus. Of course, they are still meaningless but they add something to the menu which I can't put my finger on. Perhaps it's just decoration that breaks up the menu text, or they act as an additional clue.
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I don't find icons meaningless, good ones should imply what they are visually, and then it doesn't take long to learn what they are. Tooltips that display when you hover over an icon and say what it is are important too.
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What other things are there?
People that idle in their cars for 20 minutes at Starbucks, McDonalds or other drive throughs when there is nobody in the store. :palm:
Operating system bloat. I'm sitting in front of a high-spec 2010 iMac that is not able to run any recent version of MacOS. On the latest version that it can run, it is hoplessly slow doing even the simplest tasks and too risky to use.
Same hardware with Ubuntu 22.10 works great for my electronics design work. And the OS is in support :)
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I don't find icons meaningless, good ones should imply what they are visually, and then it doesn't take long to learn what they are. Tooltips that display when you hover over an icon and say what it is are important too.
See the example attached, which even has a tooltip that tells me nothing.
If you use a specific one a lot then it's easy to know what it is. I bet you go by the shape of it rather than thinking "yes, that means xxx", though. Hovering is just daft - you waste 2 seconds waiting for the text to come up. Might as well just show the text as well as the icon, and then you've more or less got a horizontal menu.
Right click context menu is great, but quickly tell me what the icons in the second lot mean.
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I don't find icons meaningless, good ones should imply what they are visually, and then it doesn't take long to learn what they are. Tooltips that display when you hover over an icon and say what it is are important too.
The academic concept of "affordance". Like a (good) door handle affords pushing, or pulling. A good knob affords turning.
A "bad door" looks like it should be pulled ... has, say, a grab handle but is actually pushed to open and if pulled does nothing. This is not uncommon, but is a good example of "poor affordance". People trying to turn protruding buttons in another. Knobs that can be pushed or pulled are obviously a different ball game.
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Affordance taken to the extreme is found in airliner cockpits.
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I don't find icons meaningless, good ones should imply what they are visually, and then it doesn't take long to learn what they are. Tooltips that display when you hover over an icon and say what it is are important too.
Yep. Tooltips work well to remind you what a given icon does, if you use it frequently and the icon is not too badly designed, you'll quickly learn what it does.
For those that you don't use frequently and may thus not remember, then waiting for 1 s for the tooltip to appear is plenty fine.
And you can place toolbars where you want them, including floating if you prefer that.
That's a much better use of screen estate and respects users' preferences.
Of course, for people used to touchscreen interfaces and who now practically see the mouse as an annoyance, hovering is not even a concept.
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I'm sure it happens, but I have yet to ever see somebody in a corporate environment using a touchscreen as their primary input device.
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I don't find icons meaningless, good ones should imply what they are visually, and then it doesn't take long to learn what they are. Tooltips that display when you hover over an icon and say what it is are important too.
The academic concept of "affordance". Like a (good) door handle affords pushing, or pulling. A good knob affords turning.
A "bad door" looks like it should be pulled ... has, say, a grab handle but is actually pushed to open and if pulled does nothing. This is not uncommon, but is a good example of "poor affordance". People trying to turn protruding buttons in another. Knobs that can be pushed or pulled are obviously a different ball game.
Have a watch of the film “Objectified” by Gary Hustwit.
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Being asked to review every single thing I buy or use.
Had a Pet scan a couple of weeks ago after oesophagus cancer was found, a couple of days later, I was asked to fill in a survey
So I click on the survey
The first question is the one that got me:
“We would like you to think about your recent experience of our service.
How likely are you to recommend our services to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?”
Followed by
"Can you tell us why you gave that response?"
I’ve been diagnosed with cancer and the NHS arranged my scan. No 0ne would have a Pet scan except to check whether they still had cancer, the cancer had spread, or whether their cancers gone.
What a stupid quest to ask me
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It is stupid, but it's probably all automated and makes sense for many of the recipients.
That's an unenviable diagnosis, I hope they're able to eradicate it.
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I know this sounds really “grumpy old man”, but I’m just fed up of daft mannerisms and habits which demonstrate a deficit of presence of mind... This is annoying:
Why do people offer you something, you say “no thanks”, and then they ask you “are you sure?” (some of my family will ask you SIX TIMES!) Yes I’m sure, I’m always sure of my decisions. If I change my mind I’ll ask you 🤦♂️🤣
My South African friend once highlighted the foolishness of this habit, when her husband offered me a lift home - I replied “are you sure?”, and the wife said VERY directly (which I admire) “Matthew of course he’s sure - if he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have offered would he!”
Yep. Don’t waste my time with mental and verbal ping pong. I know it’s meant as kindness and I value that, but when it becomes habitual it just gets a bit much.
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Being asked to review every single thing I buy or use.
Yeah, I go see my doctor twice a year and the next day or so I'll get an email wanting me to take a "survey". Similar thing happens as soon as I log in to pay my rent,. They want me to rate them and tell them if I'd recommend them. No, I absolutely would not, but am I gonna say that in a way that is directly traceable to me? No way.
Every time I buy something from there, Newegg wants me to review it. They're not persistent about it though. Amazon oddly enough almost never pesters me.
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Being asked to review every single thing I buy or use.
Yeah, I go see my doctor twice a year and the next day or so I'll get an email wanting me to take a "survey". Similar thing happens as soon as I log in to pay my rent,. They want me to rate them and tell them if I'd recommend them. No, I absolutely would not, but am I gonna say that in a way that is directly traceable to me? No way.
Every time I buy something from there, Newegg wants me to review it. They're not persistent about it though. Amazon oddly enough almost never pesters me.
Here's how I work: if you want me to "review" something, using MY TIME, you pay me. Simple.
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Even worse than being asked for a review ,its being asked several times, because you didnt respond to there first-second-third request,that's a guaranteed 0 out of whatever and a review along the lines of never use them again,constantly hassling you ,do not recommend,regardless of the service ive received
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Being asked to review every single thing I buy or use.
Had a Pet scan a couple of weeks ago after oesophagus cancer was found, a couple of days later, I was asked to fill in a survey
So I click on the survey
The first question is the one that got me:
“We would like you to think about your recent experience of our service.
How likely are you to recommend our services to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?”
Followed by
"Can you tell us why you gave that response?"
I’ve been diagnosed with cancer and the NHS arranged my scan. No 0ne would have a Pet scan except to check whether they still had cancer, the cancer had spread, or whether their cancers gone.
What a stupid quest to ask me
Might be a corporate precaution so that when that do some cost cutting, they don't get hit with unfair dismissal claims.
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Yeah, I go see my doctor twice a year and the next day or so I'll get an email wanting me to take a "survey". Similar thing happens as soon as I log in to pay my rent,. They want me to rate them and tell them if I'd recommend them. No, I absolutely would not, but am I gonna say that in a way that is directly traceable to me? No way.
Why not? I have no problem being brutally honest to someone's face if necessary, I certainly don't care if that survey is tracked back to me, the only time I care about that is at work.
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I hear this A LOT in YouTube videos; talk about verbal fluff!!:
I can never understand why some people (usually Americans) waste words and time by saying:
“I’m going to go ahead and”
Vs just
“I’m going to”
That’s three extra words for absolutely no reason at all. 🤨
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Yeah, I go see my doctor twice a year and the next day or so I'll get an email wanting me to take a "survey". Similar thing happens as soon as I log in to pay my rent,. They want me to rate them and tell them if I'd recommend them. No, I absolutely would not, but am I gonna say that in a way that is directly traceable to me? No way.
Lots of this can be directed at ISO 9001. There is a lot of stress on the need for customer feedback so you can constantly improve systems.
But I do chuckle when you see a well-worded survey that makes it almost impossible to say a bad thing about the experience. This even goes for general surveys that feed those websites/news stories that make you cringe "A survey has found that 9 out of 10 people would like to work fewer hours and get paid more".
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I hear this A LOT in YouTube videos; talk about verbal fluff!!:
I can never understand why some people (usually Americans) waste words and time by saying:
“I’m going to go ahead and”
Vs just
“I’m going to”
That’s three extra words for absolutely no reason at all. 🤨
Lol, there are some fun drinking games to be had watching YT videos. I guess it's because some like to use their words and feel a heavy-worded script makes for good YT. For some its a localism for their area or even country, I live in an area where lines like "Gurt big hole" are common. My pet peeve is people who explain a task and say "it helps if you have this tool but you don't need it" but you really need that tool otherwise its a total PITA to do.
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Lots of this can be directed at ISO 9001. There is a lot of stress on the need for customer feedback so you can constantly improve systems.
Huh? ISO9001 has nothing to do with improvement. You have the wrong spec in mind. ISO9001 is about maintaining the level of quality you currently have, be that good or bad.
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Lots of this can be directed at ISO 9001. There is a lot of stress on the need for customer feedback so you can constantly improve systems.
Huh? ISO9001 has nothing to do with improvement. You have the wrong spec in mind. ISO9001 is about maintaining the level of quality you currently have, be that good or bad.
10.3 Continual Improvements
https://www.iso-9001-checklist.co.uk/10.3-continual-improvement-gbp.htm (https://www.iso-9001-checklist.co.uk/10.3-continual-improvement-gbp.htm)
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Lots of this can be directed at ISO 9001. There is a lot of stress on the need for customer feedback so you can constantly improve systems.
Huh? ISO9001 has nothing to do with improvement. You have the wrong spec in mind. ISO9001 is about maintaining the level of quality you currently have, be that good or bad.
10.3 Continual Improvements
https://www.iso-9001-checklist.co.uk/10.3-continual-improvement-gbp.htm (https://www.iso-9001-checklist.co.uk/10.3-continual-improvement-gbp.htm)
So, where in ISO9001 does it say you need to continually improve? There is a lot of misleading info about ISO9001. Most training courses state very emphatically that ISO9001 has nothing to do with making high quality products, to try to fight against the misinformation. ISO9001 is purely about making consistent quality. "Document what you do, then do what you document" is a typical way of summarising it. If the quality of your products or services improves, without applying other processes, and updating your ISO9001 documentation, you aren't properly implementing ISO9001. Improvement processes are covered in other 9000 series specs.
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ISO9001:2015
9.1.2 Customer satisfaction
The organization shall monitor customers’ perceptions of the degree to which their needs and expectations have been fulfilled. The organization shall determine the methods for obtaining, monitoring
and reviewing this information.
NOTE Examples of monitoring customer perceptions can include customer surveys, customer feedback on delivered products and services, meetings with customers, market-share analysis, compliments, warranty claims and dealer reports.
So there it is direct from the standard.
Also 10.3 section is literally called "Continual Improvement".
Doing the same thing just becuase it's not broke is not longer the attitude to have.
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Ridiculous stuff put into spec sheets just because "that's the way it's always done".
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I can never understand why some people (usually Americans) waste words and time by saying:
“I’m going to go ahead and”
Vs just
“I’m going to”
That’s three extra words for absolutely no reason at all.
OMG, that drives me crazy. Just listen to news reports on TV or radio. When asked a question, virtually all of the "reporters" start their sentences with "So..." or "Yeah..." or "So, yeah..." or "Yeah, so..." or some other utterly unnecessary prefix words. These people consider themselves "journalists" yet they can't even communicate verbally in their native language.
If you had a drinking game that was based on TV/radio voices starting sentences with "So" or "Yeah" you'd be drunk in minutes.
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OMG, that drives me crazy. Just listen to news reports on TV or radio. When asked a question, virtually all of the "reporters" start their sentences with "So..." or "Yeah..." or "So, yeah..." or "Yeah, so..." or some other utterly unnecessary prefix words. These people consider themselves "journalists" yet they can't even communicate verbally in their native language.
This is not to mention that their diction creates an impression that they are holding a dick in their mouth which makes them unable to pronounce a single word clearly and distinctively. When and why did it happen that the narrators with perfect diction whom we can hear in the 40s-60s documentaries and educational films became extinct?
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Well, watch Idiocracy.
Then watch TV and look around you. :popcorn:
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I suspect it correlates with when "journalists" stopped thinking of their job as "reporting the facts" and switched to "promoting an agenda". True on both ends of the political spectrum. They apparently all believe they are smarter and better informed than we are, and are thus justified in skipping the "news reporting" step in favor of getting right to "we'll do your thinking for you".
On the rare occasion that I watch/listen/read packaged news anymore, it's both entertaining and frustrating to realize they're talking AT their audience almost without even a pretense of objectivity.
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ISO9001:2015
9.1.2 Customer satisfaction
The organization shall monitor customers’ perceptions of the degree to which their needs and expectations have been fulfilled. The organization shall determine the methods for obtaining, monitoring
and reviewing this information.
NOTE Examples of monitoring customer perceptions can include customer surveys, customer feedback on delivered products and services, meetings with customers, market-share analysis, compliments, warranty claims and dealer reports.
So there it is direct from the standard.
Also 10.3 section is literally called "Continual Improvement".
Doing the same thing just becuase it's not broke is not longer the attitude to have.
Interesting. Its some years since I had to do anything with the ISO9000 series. That must have added that in one of the updates. They used to keep 9001 purely about quality maintenance, which was the right thing in many ways - separating consistency and improvement are generally a good thing, as they are separate goals, typically with different people responsible for them - but caused a LOT of confusion for people who had been sold the idea of 9001 being about offering high quality products and services.
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Continual Improvement has always been at the core of ISO9001 for as long as I can remember at least.
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Yes, in some sense iso 9000 has always been a bit of a joke. In principal, if you have a written process that says - "Check with Bob and do what he says" you are compliant. It takes a little more than that, you have to have metrics that show you are following your proceeds. But that can be covered by doing the checks with Bob in writing, recording his answers, and then some form of paper showing that you did what Bob said.
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Yes, in some sense iso 9000 has always been a bit of a joke. In principal, if you have a written process that says - "Check with Bob and do what he says" you are compliant. It takes a little more than that, you have to have metrics that show you are following your proceeds. But that can be covered by doing the checks with Bob in writing, recording his answers, and then some form of paper showing that you did what Bob said.
Pretty much, yes. I worked at a company that was ISO certified for a while and noticed the same thing. Contrary to common assumption, it didn't really have anything to check that what you're doing is adequate or makes sense, only that it's documented and that you're following the documented processes.
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Lots of this can be directed at ISO 9001. There is a lot of stress on the need for customer feedback so you can constantly improve systems.
Huh? ISO9001 has nothing to do with improvement. You have the wrong spec in mind. ISO9001 is about maintaining the level of quality you currently have, be that good or bad.
One employer I had was striving towards ISO9001, & religiously enforced the totally crap standard they had already reached, so that things were consistently bad! |O
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The opposite side of the ISO9000 coin is anarchy... Either type of system is able to produce good output, but which is the way to bet? :D
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As an aside, the confusion about continual improvement probably stems from a self inflicted wound. If anything in your company's documented processes calls for continuous improvement the 9000 auditors will look for evidence that you are doing what you say.
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I agree that improvement needs to be continuous, but I can vouch for what some have said about the ISO system keeping product quality consistent and not really seeming to do much to improve it. I have worked at four ISO-certified companies, one of which I was trained as an internal auditor.
The most notable one was an electronics contract manufacturer, where I was a repair technician (I was not an auditor in that case). We had what was known as “the wall of shame”... a section of shelving ~24ft x 8ft (7m x 2.5m) stacked with anti-static containers of various assemblies awaiting repair, after having failed functional test. It was estimated that product stored there totalled approx $1 million USD at any one given time. A huge problem was that our technical group was constantly giving feedback to production about how to mitigate the issues we discovered, but in most instances we were ignored. Management refused to follow the procedures required by ISO to make the changes which would allow them to build better product that would consistently pass FCT. Therefore, quality remained the same and the amount of product on the “failed” shelves never got smaller. They paid the assemblers extremely low wages and thus had constant employee turnover, all trained using the same flawed assembly procedures that management refused to address.
We suspected their ISO-certification was simply being used as a marketing tool and I didn’t remain at that company too long. Oddly, they are still in business.
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The opposite side of the ISO9000 coin is anarchy... Either type of system is able to produce good output, but which is the way to bet? :D
Nonsense. ISO9000 is a tick box. Nothing more. An organisation may have good processes in place to stabilise quality, and steadily improve it, or it may not. This is, however, only tangentially related to ISO9000. Remember, the Japanese were the first masters of stable consistent reliable mass production, while British defence contracting (not exactly known for high or consistent quality) is where ISO9000 originated.
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You sound angry. ;D
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We suspected their ISO-certification was simply being used as a marketing tool and I didn’t remain at that company too long. Oddly, they are still in business.
1) Have you ever been in an organisation that pushed hard to get or maintain ISO9000 certification, because they knew they needed to get their act together over quality?
2) Have you ever been in an organisation that pushed hard to get or maintain ISO9000 certification, because their business might suffer without the tick box ticked?
I'd guess most people have been in far more of 2) than 1). Most organisations will do anything to get that certification short of taking it seriously.
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We suspected their ISO-certification was simply being used as a marketing tool and I didn’t remain at that company too long. Oddly, they are still in business.
1) Have you ever been in an organisation that pushed hard to get or maintain ISO9000 certification, because they knew they needed to get their act together over quality?
2) Have you ever been in an organisation that pushed hard to get or maintain ISO9000 certification, because their business might suffer without the tick box ticked?
I'd guess most people have been in far more of 2) than 1). Most organisations will do anything to get that certification short of taking it seriously.
Yes of course, it's like diplomas.
Sure some people actually study to get skilled and knowledgeable in some area, and the diploma is just icing on the cake, but for many, they just want the diploma as a pass to get a good job, even if that means cheating to get it.
Do companies cheat? Yeah. Surprise.
But if done properly, ISO9001 can act as a *basic guide* to get a sensible organization. Even if most of the points in it are pretty obvious things really.
Getting ISO9001 certified is no big deal. Getting the certification is certainly no sign of a particularly proficient level of organization, but conversely, willing to get it and not managing to is usually a clear sign that something's wrong.
Anyone having worked in environments that require compliance with much more stringent standards will see ISO9001 as entertainment.
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But if done properly, ISO9001 can act as a *basic guide* to get a sensible organization. Even if most of the points in it are pretty obvious things really.
Getting ISO9001 certified is no big deal. Getting the certification is certainly no sign of a particularly proficient level of organization, but conversely, willing to get it and not managing to is usually a clear sign that something's wrong.
Anyone having worked in environments that require compliance with much more stringent standards will see ISO9001 as entertainment.
9001 is a good way to get the basic layout for your business. It allows people to move from one business to another and know roughly what to expect. Business to business you get the advantage that you are hopefully talking a similar language. But in a lot of cases to be able to get work you need to at least have 9001 so therefore it's a tick box thing.
I am tasked with extending our 17025 scope and then also getting mechanical stuff on the scope so we can do work for more companies as it seems some of the Rolls Royce requirements and some of the industry standards are making comments that the labs used need to be 17025 accredited, though doesnt state that the calibration needs to be 17025.
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But if done properly, ISO9001 can act as a *basic guide* to get a sensible organization. Even if most of the points in it are pretty obvious things really.
Some would argue that a book list of writings about how Japan became the world's leader in quality manufacturing would get you further.
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I agree that improvement needs to be continuous, but I can vouch for what some have said about the ISO system keeping product quality consistent and not really seeming to do much to improve it. I have worked at four ISO-certified companies, one of which I was trained as an internal auditor.
The most notable one was an electronics contract manufacturer, where I was a repair technician (I was not an auditor in that case). We had what was known as “the wall of shame”... a section of shelving ~24ft x 8ft (7m x 2.5m) stacked with anti-static containers of various assemblies awaiting repair, after having failed functional test. It was estimated that product stored there totalled approx $1 million USD at any one given time. A huge problem was that our technical group was constantly giving feedback to production about how to mitigate the issues we discovered, but in most instances we were ignored. Management refused to follow the procedures required by ISO to make the changes which would allow them to build better product that would consistently pass FCT. Therefore, quality remained the same and the amount of product on the “failed” shelves never got smaller. They paid the assemblers extremely low wages and thus had constant employee turnover, all trained using the same flawed assembly procedures that management refused to address.
We suspected their ISO-certification was simply being used as a marketing tool and I didn’t remain at that company too long. Oddly, they are still in business.
Sounds eerily like one company I worked for.
They were worse, though, treating anyone who found a problem with their processes as if they were "an enemy of the people"!
I got sacked for that reason, but the Dumbos were so useless that they asked me to stay on for a bit, "while they were looking for a replacement", then promptly forgot to do so.
I stayed there for another year or so, until I realised that my sanity was worth more than the meagre wage I received & quit.
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Well defined and consistent processes are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for having a world leading business. The way I explained this to the zealots pushing these standards as the path to excellence was by citing this little paradox.
"If you could define a process for winning the Super Bowl (World Cup for those of that religion), then everyone would implement it and everyone would win"
These processes are a tool to pull yourself up to average if that is needed, and perhaps a little beyond. But more is needed if you want to go further.
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But if done properly, ISO9001 can act as a *basic guide* to get a sensible organization. Even if most of the points in it are pretty obvious things really.
Some would argue that a book list of writings about how Japan became the world's leader in quality manufacturing would get you further.
Oh yeah, this has also been tried extensively with the 5S stuff and all derived ones. Imitating doesn't make you japanese though. That has led to some nice failures.
If anything, the 5S zealots (outside of Japan) where often the ones claiming that following the method would automatically lead to excellence with no possibility of failing any project.
Whoever thinks following a given method is a silver bullet is an idiot, whether it's ISO9001 or any of these japanese methods. But from what I've seen, ISO9001 doesn't create nearly as blind and stubborn organizations as 5S/similar does, outside of Japan. And anyway, it's just a minimum as I and others have said. Not an end.
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But if done properly, ISO9001 can act as a *basic guide* to get a sensible organization. Even if most of the points in it are pretty obvious things really.
Some would argue that a book list of writings about how Japan became the world's leader in quality manufacturing would get you further.
Oh yeah, this has also been tried extensively with the 5S stuff and all derived ones. Imitating doesn't make you japanese though. That has led to some nice failures.
If anything, the 5S zealots (outside of Japan) where often the ones claiming that following the method would automatically lead to excellence with no possibility of failing any project.
Whoever thinks following a given method is a silver bullet is an idiot, whether it's ISO9001 or any of these japanese methods. But from what I've seen, ISO9001 doesn't create nearly as blind and stubborn organizations as 5S/similar does, outside of Japan. And anyway, it's just a minimum as I and others have said. Not an end.
5S is a pretty weak goal these days. Even 30 years ago people in a number of countries were targeting, and achieving, 6. You don't have to be Japanese to make these ideas work. As with any process improvements, its attitude that determines how well it goes.
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There’s a member of my family who REFUSES to learn that parking a GARGANTUAN, TALL mug of water RIGHT NEXT TO MY LAPTOP is a terrible and rather selfish idea!
Mug: (it’s about 4-5” across and 8-9” deep, literally FULL TO THE BRIM - the VERY EDGE - with water, and being tall it has a high centre of gravity!)
I’ve asked again and again and again and again, politely “please use some LOGIC and sense, and don’t park that there - put it on the separate table behind you!”
Last summer, said person knocked a cup of water all over my Mums Chromebook keyboard for this very lack of spatial awareness I'm on about.
Words fail me. How are people SO DUMB?
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Fans. Fans in power supplies. First my little 5A boost/buck starting WHRRRR'ing, then stalling. Took it apart, replaced the fan with one that barely fits.
Not two days later, both the large 20A buck and it's 480W DC brick, developed fan "clattering" until you tap them a few times and/or they warm up first.
That's another 2 (or 3) fans I need to find... and rebuild the PSUs.
I suppose I should do the other PSU as well then. 5 years old most of them.
Adding thermal switches on them so they get used far less often is about all I can do to preserve them longer. Or buy expensive ( but quiet) industrial grade fans.
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There’s a member of my family who REFUSES to learn that parking a GARGANTUAN, TALL mug of water RIGHT NEXT TO MY LAPTOP is a terrible and rather selfish idea!
Mug: (it’s about 4-5” across and 8-9” deep, literally FULL TO THE BRIM - the VERY EDGE - with water, and being tall it has a high centre of gravity!)
I’ve asked again and again and again and again, politely “please use some LOGIC and sense, and don’t park that there - put it on the separate table behind you!”
Last summer, said person knocked a cup of water all over my Mums Chromebook keyboard for this very lack of spatial awareness I'm on about.
Words fail me. How are people SO DUMB?
one of the rules of using a computer. food and beverages are consumed elsewhere.
because computers are expensive. that is from the days of mainframe computer rooms!
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Does that person believe in Feng Shui? If so then you have your answer >:D
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I have 3 keyboards so I can rotate a clean one in after I spill something on the one in use.
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I have a (well, several, but just one in use) Dell SK-8115 which seems to be pretty much spill proof. The keys sit in a kind of dished tray which stops anything getting to the innards. There are even drain holes at the lowest point so a pool doesn't sit in there for too long.
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Does that person believe in Feng Shui? If so then you have your answer >:D
Feng Shui is bollocks. But I believe in uncommon sense!
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Garmin satnav setup
Great things once they're going (but you need an active cell data connection if you want safety camera notifications, even though the database is on the device :palm: ) but getting them going... Today it took me literally three hours just to get my mobile talking to the thing. Sadly, that's not unusual - the one this satnav is replacing also took far too long to get a connection, and the one that replaced similarly was on the verge of being sent back as faulty before it Just Worked. Fortunately, they're too expensive to be having to do this very often, and once they are talking they are OK.
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But if done properly, ISO9001 can act as a *basic guide* to get a sensible organization. Even if most of the points in it are pretty obvious things really.
Some would argue that a book list of writings about how Japan became the world's leader in quality manufacturing would get you further.
Oh yeah, this has also been tried extensively with the 5S stuff and all derived ones. Imitating doesn't make you japanese though. That has led to some nice failures.
If anything, the 5S zealots (outside of Japan) where often the ones claiming that following the method would automatically lead to excellence with no possibility of failing any project.
Whoever thinks following a given method is a silver bullet is an idiot, whether it's ISO9001 or any of these japanese methods. But from what I've seen, ISO9001 doesn't create nearly as blind and stubborn organizations as 5S/similar does, outside of Japan. And anyway, it's just a minimum as I and others have said. Not an end.
5S is a pretty weak goal these days. Even 30 years ago people in a number of countries were targeting, and achieving, 6. You don't have to be Japanese to make these ideas work. As with any process improvements, its attitude that determines how well it goes.
It's all in the attitude. And 7 is better than 6!
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It's all in the attitude.
I may raise a few hackles with this comment, but....
I've been at this long enough to see all sorts of "quality" programs come and go. Most of them seem to devolve to a bureaucratic report generation system that consumes time and money to generate reports that few actually read.
I've also seen lots of companies seek this-or-that "certification" just so they can list "ISOwhatever" on their website and literature as a bragging right.
I ignore all such labels. My criteria is "Focus on the Deliverable". I'm not buying their ISOxxxx certification, I'm buying their products. Do their products work well? Are they reliable? Do their existing customers still like them and would buy them again? If those are all positive then I don't need to care about ISOxxxx, and if they're negative all the ISOxxxx's in the world don't matter to me.
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It's all in the attitude. And 7 is better than 6!
I always think of this scene when people get all excited about the 5S stuff, which has now changed to 6S.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE)
Anyway my pet peeve for the day. My neighbours. Recent weekends it's been nice, but they are polluting the air with thier choice of music. One opens his windows and then turns his Alexa up, the other side of the road there is a somone else with emo music and occasionally backed up with her singing again with the windows open. It makes it tough for me to spend time in the shed. I often listen to music in there but I turn the volume down so unless you are in the shed you can't hear it.
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It's all in the attitude. And 7 is better than 6!
I always think of this scene when people get all excited about the 5S stuff, which has now changed to 6S.
5S was always for losers. :)
More seriously I've watched interesting dynamics with the move from 5σ to 6σ to 7σ. Most people are on board, and feel good, getting to 5σ. Then it starts getting harder. There's push back. "We're pretty good now. Why do we need to keep pushing?". "Maybe because some of our customer integrate thousands of parts into their product, and to get a decent quality level there they need the components to be nearly perfect". "Sure, but its SOOOOO HARD".
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It's all in the attitude. And 7 is better than 6!
I always think of this scene when people get all excited about the 5S stuff, which has now changed to 6S.
5S was always for losers. :)
More seriously I've watched interesting dynamics with the move from 5σ to 6σ to 7σ. Most people are on board, and feel good, getting to 5σ. Then it starts getting harder. There's push back. "We're pretty good now. Why do we need to keep pushing?". "Maybe because some of our customer integrate thousands of parts into their product, and to get a decent quality level there they need the components to be nearly perfect". "Sure, but its SOOOOO HARD".
I have always chuckled at the ones who stride around the place stating some 6 sigma blackbelt stuff like they are suddenly some religious deity to worshiped. It get funnier when the firm gets a slap on the wrist for a lack of keeping up with the basic internal audits and when the sigma deity is confronted they use every bit of teflon coating clothing they have to say they trained up several people to do auditing but they have all have thier normal job to do with no free time as the sigma lord has got rid all all the staff from that department.
I think any management system is good at the start but every new level up from there is harder due to the added paperwork. It's a bit like racing where to start with gains are fairly easy but the last 0.01s a lap is a big challenge.
I was chatting to a customer the other day as they have were talking about how covid etc highlighted a lot of problems with how lean some firms have been running. A global supply chain with a just in time delivery schedule is all well and good until someone throws a spanner in the works or a container ship into a narrow channel. The firm did well as they still hadn't upgraded and they still could do 90% of their work, only having slow down due to getting raw materials. They have a new MD and he is spending millions to scrap off the old stuff and move them to a shiny new building.
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I was chatting to a customer the other day as they have were talking about how covid etc highlighted a lot of problems with how lean some firms have been running. A global supply chain with a just in time delivery schedule is all well and good until someone throws a spanner in the works or a container ship into a narrow channel. The firm did well as they still hadn't upgraded and they still could do 90% of their work, only having slow down due to getting raw materials. They have a new MD and he is spending millions to scrap off the old stuff and move them to a shiny new building.
There is no one size fits all for these things. Some people are actually OK with the occasional supply issue. Either their savings in the smooth times outweigh their loses in the hiccups, or they have the flexibility to make something else while waiting for the missing bits. Other people need day by day flow with certainty, like a bakery.
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I was chatting to a customer the other day as they have were talking about how covid etc highlighted a lot of problems with how lean some firms have been running. A global supply chain with a just in time delivery schedule is all well and good until someone throws a spanner in the works or a container ship into a narrow channel. The firm did well as they still hadn't upgraded and they still could do 90% of their work, only having slow down due to getting raw materials. They have a new MD and he is spending millions to scrap off the old stuff and move them to a shiny new building.
There is no one size fits all for these things. Some people are actually OK with the occasional supply issue. Either their savings in the smooth times outweigh their loses in the hiccups, or they have the flexibility to make something else while waiting for the missing bits.
Nice for them, not so nice for their customers.
Other people need day by day flow with certainty, like a bakery.
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A pet peeve for today, which is Shakespeare's Birthday.
Some media outlets are pushing "Talk like Shakespeare" day, but couldn't find a copywriter that could actually conjugate verbs in the manner of the Bard.
What's so difficult about "thou hast" vs. "he hath"--you could look it up.
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A pet peeve for today, which is Shakespeare's Birthday.
Some media outlets are pushing "Talk like Shakespeare" day, but couldn't find a copywriter that could actually conjugate verbs in the manner of the Bard.
What's so difficult about "thou hast" vs. "he hath"--you could look it up.
There is a whole sub-culture now performing Shakespeare in OP (original pronunciation, not original poster). The rhyming works much better like that.
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2BSA or not 2BSA, that is the transistor question?
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A pet peeve for today, which is Shakespeare's Birthday.
Some media outlets are pushing "Talk like Shakespeare" day, but couldn't find a copywriter that could actually conjugate verbs in the manner of the Bard.
What's so difficult about "thou hast" vs. "he hath"--you could look it up.
There is a whole sub-culture now performing Shakespeare in OP (original pronunciation, not original poster). The rhyming works much better like that.
Another curmudgeon was mocking a suburban high-school English teacher who was proud of teaching "Shakespeare in the Old English".
The mocker suggested that such a feat required a genius on the order of J R R Tolkien.
Actually, Chicago not only has a dedicated Shakespeare theater, but many of the smaller theaters will do Shakespeare in interesting stagings, including a Hamlet with Ophelia and Laertes playing video games, but they are careful to keep to the original pronunciation and grammar.
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Ah shakspeare,the famous literary agent and plagiarist,although his later works like west side story and search for the forbidden planet are ok
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Clergymen making public prayers in Shakespeare era English as if that was more appropriate than what is currently, but respectfully, spoken.
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Shakespeare was alive when the King James version was translated.
It is not difficult to understand the "Early Modern English" used in both, with some tweaking of the spelling.
As one literary critic said, "The King James Bible has ceased to be the almost universally used translation as readers have been encouraged to read more ‘accessible’ versions, which also happen to be stylistically inferior in virtually all respects."
Do you think the text of Handel's Messiah would sound better or be better understood using a more modern translation?
Amusing conspiracy theory: Shakespeare is not credited as having been involved in the King James translation.
However, language play and codes were common in that era.
Check Psalm 46: (ignoring "Selah" which is a direction, not part of the text).
The 46th word from the start is "shake".
The 46th word from the end is "spear".
Shakespeare was 46 years old in 1610.
Two problems: the King James translation was published in 1611.
Also, Coverdale's translation of the psalms (still used in the Book of Common Prayer) is virtually the same (46 and 48th position for the two words).
Could have happened, but not proven.
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Clergymen making public prayers in Shakespeare era English as if that was more appropriate than what is currently, but respectfully, spoken.
When the King James bible was produced it used already archaic language. This was partly due to laziness, reusing a translation produced nearly a century before, by William Tyndale who wrote in the style of his time. Tyndale couldn't complete the execution, because he was executed. Book burners have nothing on the rulers in the good old days. Direct reuse was also because when they tried to modernise the language people found it a lot less authoritative. It seems to be broadly true, in multiple languages, that a somewhat antique style adds gravitas to anything.
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At that time, the language used in the King James translation was perhaps more formal, but no more archaic than that of Shakespeare, living at the same time.
Both use Elizabethan English: Shakespeare's career overlapped the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I; the latter commissioned the Bible translation.
You can find occasional archaisms in Shakespeare, such as the odd "yclept", but they are not common in the King James.
The total size of the vocabulary in Shakespeare's plays is substantially larger (31,000 words) than that used in the King James translation (12,000 words).
(Authorities differ on the exact numbers, depending on how they are counted, but the ratio seems to be constant.)
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Being called a "Consultant".
Being called a "Java developer"
The company I work for not understanding why the former is offensive and insulting.
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If the job description is, in fact, "consulting", why is "consultant" offensive or insulting?
One standard dictionary definition of "consultant" is "a person who provides expert advice professionally".
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In practice consultants are contracted to provide a service to a company but not as employees, so the financial relationship is quite different.
If you "work for a company" or receive a salary you cannot technically be a consultant.
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If the job description is, in fact, "consulting", why is "consultant" offensive or insulting?
One standard dictionary definition of "consultant" is "a person who provides expert advice professionally".
The job title "consultant" has been so devalued, its widely considered a dirty word when its a complete job title. If the word consultant is not immediately followed in a job title by a specific area of expertise, the person's role is usually parasitic. Their only expertise may be in getting and keeping lucrative contracts which produce nothing of value. Genuine consultants are usually proud of their expertise, and very much want that in their job title.
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Now if we could only get the word "counselor" (as in "lawyer") similiarly disparaged.
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Once again, "counselor" is a valid legal term.
This is analogous to a non-engineer complaining that a bipolar transistor is manic-depressive.
The US Constitution, Amendment 6:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense." [emphasis added]
If you watch the old Perry Mason TV series, the District Attorney always addresses Mr Mason as "counselor".
Degraded terms: in some circles "engineer" has been degraded, but that should not stop you from so describing yourself.
"Sanitation engineer" is a bad euphemism for trash collector.
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If you "work for a company" or receive a salary you cannot technically be a consultant.
Yep. Some employees, past a certain point in their careers and if the company hasn't found a management position for them/or they didn't want one, sometimes end up in some 'expert' position. That kind of title often means that the employee has stopped being a direct productive value to the company for whatever reason, but the company doesn't want to/can't get rid of them. So, they become an "expert" and get invited in meetings, and occasionally as "firemen". ;D
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External consultants, normally paid through a 1099 form rather than by salary, are common.
However, that is not the only meaning of that noun.
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"Counselor" can be simultaneously a valid legal term and a term of disparagement.
Like "convict", for example.
Also, "elected official".
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"Google Groups" are a current pet peeve.
Signing onto the ham radio group I am a member of, I see a category called "Recent Groups".
Clicking on it, I find a few sites which are ham radio or similar, but a plethora of other crap, including such delights as:
"Foto fantasia"---- "For the discerning voyeur".
"married housewives in singapore"
"nudist photograph"
The last one might be quite legitimate pictures of Naturists trundling around having "nice family holidays", but the first two definitely send out very obvious signals. Probably the lady in the first one & the ladies from Singapore are quite "voyeur worthy", but I have never had occasion, or the need to look at that group.
A bit further down we have (evidently referring some esoteric computer networking stuff, or whatever.): -
"Salt users"
Going lower, it gets a bit dark, with:-
"alt.assassination.jfk"
& a few others.
The point of this is they don't offer any way for ordinary users to remove these groups, unless you are an owner/administrator of a Group.
I can understand Google working out that I am interested in ham radio & electronics from the nature of the group, but what tells them I am an old pervy conspiracy theorist? ;D
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"Counselor" can be simultaneously a valid legal term and a term of disparagement.
Like "convict", for example.
Also, "elected official".
So you want to disparage lawyers, counselors, and attorneys.
Those are still the terms used for them.
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"Google Groups" are a current pet peeve.
Signing onto the ham radio group I am a member of, I see a category called "Recent Groups".
Clicking on it, I find a few sites which are ham radio or similar, but a plethora of other crap, including such delights as:
"Foto fantasia"---- "For the discerning voyeur".
"married housewives in singapore"
"nudist photograph"
The last one might be quite legitimate pictures of Naturists trundling around having "nice family holidays", but the first two definitely send out very obvious signals. Probably the lady in the first one & the ladies from Singapore are quite "voyeur worthy", but I have never had occasion, or the need to look at that group.
A bit further down we have (evidently referring some esoteric computer networking stuff, or whatever.): -
"Salt users"
Going lower, it gets a bit dark, with:-
"alt.assassination.jfk"
& a few others.
The point of this is they don't offer any way for ordinary users to remove these groups, unless you are an owner/administrator of a Group.
I can understand Google working out that I am interested in ham radio & electronics from the nature of the group, but what tells them I am an old pervy conspiracy theorist? ;D
The issue it's not just you but the other members of the group that happen to also frequent those other places. Being a ham operator isn't really pulling in the ladies as we all thought it would.
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In my experience.
Consultant: Either a subject matter expert sent in to "consult" on an existing or developing system or a general industry expert who does the business analysis, identifies problems, proposes solutions based on industry case studies and other customer examples and successes etc. etc. Examples might be an AWS Consultant sent in to a customer to review and consult on their ambition to move their IT to the cloud.
The other relevant industry term here is: "Solution Integrator". A company which has primarily consultants on various platforms and technologies that they as a business 'resell' to their customers. They analyse the business problem, propose a collection of "off the shelf" cloud based (or other) components and the only actual development work is like clicking lego blocks together. Although in fairness it usually ends up a lot more fiddly an annoying trying to get different vendors solutions to work together in one system.
Code is a dirty word in these companies. Code costs money. Code has bugs. Code is difficult to resell. They go out of their way and throw money at any technology which reduces the amount of code involved. AWS Lambda et al. They don't want to hold a sizable engineering bench to support and develop code, they want small dynamic teams which can be far flung to other customers and treated as "fungible resources".
It's almost as if, in a meeting, when a requirement pops out, and I might say, "Yea, we can knock that part up in python in a few days.", people stare at you like you have two heads and someone says, "I think we will use Amazon XYZ service API instead". More pointy clicking, draggy droppy web page admin. No development.
When you mix the above with "body shopping", the worst case and this has happened to me, you get shipping out to a customer. The customer has been told you are the expert consultant in some software platform. The truth is, you once used that software platform in a pre-sales prototype and actually know nothing about it at all. Needless to say it was 4 of the most uncomfortable days in my career and thankfully it was in London, the first place they had me packed and ready to go to was Abidabi for 2 weeks, but was cancelled! When I pointed out I had no clue, they just said, "You'll be fine."
On "Java Engineer". Calling me a java engineer or a java developer is like calling a spark a "Screwdriver engineer" or a plumber a pipe bender operator.
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Seconded.
Another IT job, "Senior Solutions Architect". I have yet to meet anyone who knows what that is, other than it comes with a six figure salary and airmiles to Dubai, Las Vegas and Singapore. Nearest defn. A guy who uses AWS, cloud, blockchain, API and interop, on every other Powerpoint slide. Welcome to Dilbert World.
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The use of indicators by drivers, to tell you what they've just done, is atrocious.
If you're really lucky they might use indicators to tell you what they're doing, but many can't be arsed to even manage that.
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Apollo guidance computers restorations on Youtube. Every neighbor and their dog making them. I wonder how many Apollos were built back then.
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extremely large rockets that fail to make it into orbit.
all that fail. since the N1 Russian super-heavy rocket.
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extremely large rockets that fail to make it into orbit.
Why is that a peeve? It's not as if they (fail to) do it deliberately.
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extremely large rockets that fail to make it into orbit.
all that fail. since the N1 Russian super-heavy rocket.
So you are against something that is not 100% reliable? Does that mean you are pissed off with everything?
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extremely large rockets that fail to make it into orbit.
all that fail. since the N1 Russian super-heavy rocket.
So you are against something that is not 100% reliable? Does that mean you are pissed off with everything?
no
best super-heavy rocket design IMO was rockwell's 1970s Star-Raker design
from a video- by Common Sense Skeptic ch
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Which one proved it could actually fly?
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Which one proved it could actually fly?
ok
why it never got to fly
here is the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjMTitvc82E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjMTitvc82E)
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/star-raker-spaceship-concept-could-have-changed-the-world-cgi-video-shows-how-181695.html (https://www.autoevolution.com/news/star-raker-spaceship-concept-could-have-changed-the-world-cgi-video-shows-how-181695.html)
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Don't have 44 minutes to not find the info - the second link didn't say why it didn't get to fly and just provided a cgi. Perhaps you could do a one-sentence synopsis? Give the timestamp in the video? C'mon, it's you making the argument and providing Youtube rabbit-hole time sinks isn't doing that.
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Don't have 44 minutes to not find the info - the second link didn't say why it didn't get to fly and just provided a cgi. Perhaps you could do a one-sentence synopsis? Give the timestamp in the video? C'mon, it's you making the argument and providing Youtube rabbit-hole time sinks isn't doing that.
starts at 23:00 on the video by Common Sense Skeptic entitled [Of Rockets, Shuttles and Planes] on youtube.
Star-Raker design uses 3 types of rocket engine.
10 air breathing rocket/jet engines for takeoff and landing.
and 3 stored oxidizer liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engines for getting into orbit. as the space shuttle did so.
with third type is the steering thrusters.
Star-Raker design has much in common with the space shuttle's aerodynamics.
with a cargo capacity of 100,000 kg more then the space shuttle's 29,000 kg.
Star-Raker's internal tanks held all propellants needed unlike the space shuttle.
largest technical challenge for Star-Raker IMO would be venting the fuel tanks without explosion.
between the modes of flight. such as starting and re-starting engine procedures.
the Star-Raker has a side-swing flip-out flight crew cabin design type nose cone.
the landing gear of Star-Raker is also retractable but must also have a set of jettisoned or drop-off super-heavy
runway takeoff gear bogies.
IMO starship's super heavy vertical design has failed to capitalize on the experience learned from the space shuttle.
levs open the possibility of horizontal Star-Raker using super heavy rocket sled takeoffs from rails beside the space-port/airport runways.
the design can also have booster rockets to assistance takeoff. with the crew cabin/nose cone acting as an escape pod if something goes wrong. So then successful the same Star-Raker landing back on earth's runways with rubber tyre's like an aircraft or space shuttle did.
Star-Raker concept was to be the super heavy space shuttle for a Space-based solar power
concept for collecting solar power in outer space. and then using microwave power transmission
to get it back to earth.
why Star-Raker sized space shuttle was no longer needed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power
The project was cancelled with the change in administrations after the 1980 United States elections.
so the Star-Raker horizontal takeoff super heavy space shuttle design A single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle.
was also was not continued. funding was stopped and the project cancelled
you will find Star-Raker mentioned here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stage-to-orbit
end of this rabbit hole..........
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OK, thanks.
why Star-Raker sized space shuttle was no longer needed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power
I am failing to see why that made it no longer needed, particularly since SBSP is still a pipedream.
Isn't the Virgin effort partway to doing this? At least they leave the bulk of the thing behind so the main mission and return isn't lumbered with a big rocket-sized vehicle to maneuver around.
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Having to be IP EXPERT to use on-line news radio.
Yes I know, I've been reputed in the past, for whining and complaining too much, but, LOL call it like I see it.
Security concerns bring a personal limit, on those APPs, necessary to, well, to even function decently.
Technology measured there could say:
'Measured by 1923 standards (I was -50 y.o. then), a simple flick of switch, and maybe fiddle with tuner, and that was it.'. Of course the offerings in today's (2023) media world are much richer.
Like, for instance, a news radio show in OHIO (U.S.) couldn't be received in San Francisco...But not able to listen, or dropouts every couple minutes....what's the difference if that rich scene of broadcast media options is virtually unlistenable.
Couldn't listen to radio news, from Ohio, in 1923.
Can't really listen to radio news, from Ohio, 2023.
Yeah, point of pride, there...(RJ sarcasm).
thanks
EDIT: Please also see:
'The glorious return of humble car feature'
was posted by Black Phoenix.
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Having to be IP EXPERT to use on-line news radio.
Yes I know, I've been reputed in the past, for whining and complaining too much, but, LOL call it like I see it.
Security concerns bring a personal limit, on those APPs, necessary to, well, to even function decently.
Technology measured there could say:
'Measured by 1923 standards (I was -50 y.o. then), a simple flick of switch, and maybe fiddle with tuner, and that was it.'. Of course the offerings in today's (2023) media world are much richer.
Like, for instance, a news radio show in OHIO (U.S.) couldn't be received in San Francisco...But not able to listen, or dropouts every couple minutes....what's the difference if that rich scene of broadcast media options is virtually unlistenable.
Couldn't listen to radio news, from Ohio, in 1923.
Can't really listen to radio news, from Ohio, 2023.
Yeah, point of pride, there...(RJ sarcasm).
thanks
Are you talking about satellite drop-outs?
Don't you have an AM radio in your car?
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Thanks for question.
Part of my (omitted) point, is that many car sales today do not have a 'radio'. I had to consider which thread to post this, as just a couple subject lines away is a good thread on inclusion / exclusion of regular (RF with antenna) classic radio, in deference to that big, 14 inch screen that the car-makers are putting in late models.
But also, my friendly local drug store always used to carry a $21 AM/FM radio, which is not sold now. Comparisons to that are clear, as you turn switch on, and done...unless batteries got low.
Then, there were no 'drop-outs', and, by the way, it appears that never dropping out, during commercials, (although I need to carefully test that.
It's all really in similar vein, to that other thread, nearby, on having simple, practical vs a smart touch screen doing everything...or smart speaker deal.
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Thanks for question.
Part of my (omitted) point, is that many car sales today do not have a 'radio'. I had to consider which thread to post this, as just a couple subject lines away is a good thread on inclusion / exclusion of regular (RF with antenna) classic radio, in deference to that big, 14 inch screen that the car-makers are putting in late models.
But also, my friendly local drug store always used to carry a $21 AM/FM radio, which is not sold now. Comparisons to that are clear, as you turn switch on, and done...unless batteries got low.
Then, there were no 'drop-outs', and, by the way, it appears that never dropping out, during commercials, (although I need to carefully test that.
It's all really in similar vein, to that other thread, nearby, on having simple, practical vs a smart touch screen doing everything...or smart speaker deal.
I like older cars for exactly those reasons... cars with real knobs and buttons, with AM/FM radios, etc.! - I recently rented a 2023 car in the UK, everything was on touch screen and my passenger had to spend a long time figuring out how to control the heating/AC, and the radio. There is no way that I could have done that safely while driving.
The people that design the touchscreen systems for cars are the most inept user interface designers, they must have been selected specifically for their lack of skill and common sense - it cannot possibly happen at random! How is it possible to make something that only needs a couple of buttons so hard to use? It takes real talent to do that!
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Today I experienced the general practice in my town is unable to provide me a referral letter to hospital per email. This was because their amazingly f*cked up ICT system is unable to email me when I leave the field for the mobile phone number empty. I do have a normal landline number which is actually Voip, but they can't accept that. But still, it is just a plain old email I want to receive.
I get f*cking angry it seems that everything requires a mobile phone nowadays.
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In those cases I usually enter an obviously fake number (1234567890 or whatever format is needed). Of course, it's counterproductive if they'll only contact you via that :)
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Today I experienced the general practice in my town is unable to provide me a referral letter to hospital per email. This was because their amazingly f*cked up ICT system is unable to email me when I leave the field for the mobile phone number empty. I do have a normal landline number which is actually Voip, but they can't accept that. But still, it is just a plain old email I want to receive.
I get f*cking angry it seems that everything requires a mobile phone nowadays.
Obviously the phone number is now a de facto, unregulated, ID number.
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I like older cars for exactly those reasons... cars with real knobs and buttons, with AM/FM radios, etc.! - I recently rented a 2023 car in the UK, everything was on touch screen and my passenger had to spend a long time figuring out how to control the heating/AC, and the radio. There is no way that I could have done that safely while driving.
The people that design the touchscreen systems for cars are the most inept user interface designers, they must have been selected specifically for their lack of skill and common sense - it cannot possibly happen at random! How is it possible to make something that only needs a couple of buttons so hard to use? It takes real talent to do that!
It's probably interns or young grads that don't drive. They've never spent enough time behind the wheel to understand the importance of being able to operate everything without taking your eyes off the road.
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Today I experienced the general practice in my town is unable to provide me a referral letter to hospital per email. This was because their amazingly f*cked up ICT system is unable to email me when I leave the field for the mobile phone number empty. I do have a normal landline number which is actually Voip, but they can't accept that. But still, it is just a plain old email I want to receive.
I get f*cking angry it seems that everything requires a mobile phone nowadays.
Obviously the phone number is now a de facto, unregulated, ID number.
It's not unregulated. It's open season. In the UK you cannot get a simcard activated without a credit or debit card in the name of the person registered to the number. This is regulatory to try and prevent "Burner phones" being used by criminal gangs.
What it also means is that every mobile phone number has official documentation linking it to the legal (at least financially) identity of the person whom it is registered to.
It is also a brilliant seed search for social engineering or hacking an invididual and can often yield quite a lot of information about a person, from their facebook to their linked in.
The last 4 digits of your phone number are also used in many authentication protocols.
So it has significantly high value as a piece of PII you really should look after it and consider who gets it.
As an asides rant, peeve. Work. Work asking for your personal mobile number. Customers asking for your mobile number! The last time this happened I completely blank ignored the request. They followed up with an email which contained a table of invidividuals, the name, phone numbers, timezones, "place of work", personal email addresses.
"THIS! THIS! Is why you cannot have my phone number you fucking imbeciles! You work in a fucking bank I should report you all to the securtity officer, start an investigation into where else my PII has gone under GDPR AND file for damages for the leakage of personal information!"
I didn't hit send. I just raised it directly with my HR department as a "proxy" complaint.
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I like older cars for exactly those reasons... cars with real knobs and buttons, with AM/FM radios, etc.! - I recently rented a 2023 car in the UK, everything was on touch screen and my passenger had to spend a long time figuring out how to control the heating/AC, and the radio. There is no way that I could have done that safely while driving.
The people that design the touchscreen systems for cars are the most inept user interface designers, they must have been selected specifically for their lack of skill and common sense - it cannot possibly happen at random! How is it possible to make something that only needs a couple of buttons so hard to use? It takes real talent to do that!
It's probably interns or young grads that don't drive. They've never spent enough time behind the wheel to understand the importance of being able to operate everything without taking your eyes off the road.
I have nightmares still about being followed in traffic by "young grads". Constantly looking in the mirror to see the top of their head as it's down in their lap. As traffic moves forward, you proceed forward, a 20 yard gap builds behind. Suddenly the young'un looks up, looks aggrivated at the distraction from social media and accelerates towards you.... then it's the top of the head again while they approach..... closer... closer.... top of the head... closer... closer.... I'm reaching for the horn now... finally they look up and slam the brakes on, stop and IMMEDIATELY it's "top of the head again".
One day I got so stressed after this happened 10 times in a row, I was so close to getting out and going and having a chat with the person face to face about it. Probably resulting in their phone finding itself in the fast lane under a lorry.
Instead, I took the next turn and found another way home.
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My niece, in her 40's would likely respond positively, to complaints about new technology, and about 'social media', and is often at the center, when somebody needs help with, for example, signing up to use UBER ride sharing. But my attitude is different (grumpy), and I expect more than "just figure it out".
So, UBER or Lyft are just examples, but the PET PEEVE is concerned with the instructability issue, that also involves various KEYBOARD short-cuts and effectively no access to clear instructions. She would likely shrug it off, saying " Yeah I guess". Now I suppose maybe it's the expectation that differs, between generations...
Pressing the cellphone rt. hand side 'square thingy' and maybe just a split-second too long...and the phone goes into 'Collections: Add to collection'. What the hell does that mean ? (Rhetorical: Don't answer that). It's a smartphone feature, I get that, and a younger generation will try it and find out what that particular 'nuance' has in store for user.
A newer thing, DRAG across the phone keyboard, and you've got a 'trail' staring at you, on the screen. Yeah I know somebody could, randomly, tell me what that does...and then 'scold' me for being so backwards as to question; "What does squiggle squiggle tap squiggle do, on a Tuesday, exactly ?".
So, I'm trapped, somewhat. I've mentioned before, (several times), having purchased 'Android for Dummies' ...that dang book is somewhere in the room now. But why can't Google (choak) put out explanation, when introducing 'Squiggle squiggle tap, tap will get you, when tap is 330 milliseconds, will get you to airport reservations'. That way (I) can decide.
My phone, at 3 years old, is now getting system message:
'Server not supported' ...
I thought there were updates, downloaded. But, again, where do I go for 'update ANDROID' action?
But cheaper phone once per year ?
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Graphics and CAD programs that treat the mouse wheel as vertical scroll.
It's dumb. It's a 1D control but there is a 2D screen to move, so what if you want to pan horizontally? The solution appears to be pressing a key as well, but now you have some movement needing a magic key and some not, and what if you really wanted to go diagonally?
The solution should be obvious: make the mouse wheel zoom in and out. With that, you can zoom and pan to wherever you want, all without any magic keys or anything, just scroll the wheel. If you need the page-analog scroll, you can add the ctrl key for vertical, shift for horizontal. That (needing a key whichever way it goes) makes more sense than sometimes needing one, and the most used option (zoom) never needs one.
Some packages let you configure the mouse wheel to however you want. I happened to try the latest Inkscape last night since someone pointed out how grown up it had got, and that doesn't let you do anything at all. You'll fart around pressing a key when you shouldn't, not when you should, moving off the bottom of the page when you meant to zoom in, and you'll bloody like it. Inkscape doesn't need to feat me using it in the near future.
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Graphics and CAD programs that treat the mouse wheel as vertical scroll.
It's dumb. It's a 1D control but there is a 2D screen to move, so what if you want to pan horizontally? The solution appears to be pressing a key as well, but now you have some movement needing a magic key and some not, and what if you really wanted to go diagonally?
The solution should be obvious: make the mouse wheel zoom in and out. With that, you can zoom and pan to wherever you want, all without any magic keys or anything, just scroll the wheel. If you need the page-analog scroll, you can add the ctrl key for vertical, shift for horizontal. That (needing a key whichever way it goes) makes more sense than sometimes needing one, and the most used option (zoom) never needs one.
Some packages let you configure the mouse wheel to however you want. I happened to try the latest Inkscape last night since someone pointed out how grown up it had got, and that doesn't let you do anything at all. You'll fart around pressing a key when you shouldn't, not when you should, moving off the bottom of the page when you meant to zoom in, and you'll bloody like it. Inkscape doesn't need to feat me using it in the near future.
Inkscape is rather good, I agree with you about scrolling with the mouse wheel - it works for me in a browser, but not in an image or vector graphics application...
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Some packages let you configure the mouse wheel to however you want. I happened to try the latest Inkscape last night since someone pointed out how grown up it had got, and that doesn't let you do anything at all.
In Linux at least: Edit > Preferences, Behaviour, Scrolling, check Mouse wheel zooms by default.
I use a touchpad (with both horizontal and vertical two-finger scrolling), so I keep it unchecked: that way I can do two-finger panning.
All the Inkscape keyboard shortcuts are editable in Edit > Preferences, Interface, Keyboard Shortcuts.
There are a few different presets (defined in XML files), with the Inkscape default being only the default one. I have "Adobe Illustrator", "Corel Draw", "Xara", "Macromedia Freehand", and a few others in that list, but haven't tested them.
If you go through all the shortcuts, you can export the shortcut key list, which you can import in newer or older versions (and is useful to keep a copy of your personal preferred defaults).
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I have the latest release of Inkscape (1.2.2) on Linux and haven't found this option. May be configurable with the keyboard shortcuts though which is another preference tab. Haven't tried that.
But, as is relatively common in CAD apps, a combination of key + mouse wheel gets you there by default:
- Mouse wheel : pan up/down
- Shift + Mouse wheel : pan left/right
- Ctrl + Mouse wheel : zoom in/out
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But, as is relatively common in CAD apps, a combination of key + mouse wheel gets you there by default:
Yes, exactly. It's a stupid default carried over from text viewers of various sorts. Why is panning one way with a magic key and the other way without a magic key? Illogical and user-hostile. And get the magic key mixed on and you'll be zooming instead, which shouldn't need a magic key.
But that would be fine if they let you configure it, and some devs clearly think they know better than their users.
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It's quite acceptable for somebody to say "There's a method to my madness"
What isn't acceptable, apparently, is to retort "How about a method without any madness (for once)."
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I believe that Dr Watson wondered if there were madness in Holmes' method.
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The prospect of methodical madmen is considerably more worrying than some other type.
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But, as is relatively common in CAD apps, a combination of key + mouse wheel gets you there by default:
Yes, exactly. It's a stupid default carried over from text viewers of various sorts. Why is panning one way with a magic key and the other way without a magic key? Illogical and user-hostile. And get the magic key mixed on and you'll be zooming instead, which shouldn't need a magic key.
Using a consistent UI across apps is not stupid.
If it doesn't match your preferences, that still doesn't make it stupid. Actually, the fact that CAD software in general has tended to ignore commonUI rules and consistency is pretty horrific. They are almost all very quirky.
Getting used to this mouse wheel thing only takes a couple minutes anyway. Not something that I would fret about.
But that would be fine if they let you configure it, and some devs clearly think they know better than their users.
Yeah. Well, that is configurable in self-respecting software. But removing configurability has been a trend in software development for a good decade, so.
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Using a consistent UI across apps is not stupid.
Indeed. However, as I explained, this isn't consistent because it's an extrapolation from 1D text viewer scrolling. And using the wrong thing consistently is just aggravating and reinforces how wrong it is, like scratching a sore.
Getting used to this mouse wheel thing only takes a couple minutes anyway
Doesn't for me, for the reasons explained: you sometimes need a key, sometimes not, and it's often the other key to the one your motor memory selects.
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:clap: when the "dot" conflicts with the IC manufacturers logo print :palm:
WTB SMTC-1159 :horse:
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Can't see any logo or text on that, only the dot.
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if only they hadn't
[edited to add context - pics]
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if only they hadn't
I must be dense, because I can't see a problem here.
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designs :palm:
rotary encoder resolution on knobs
getting the rotary encoder resolution on a knob right, so dialing the value is not too too slow. or just add a 10x speed mode
having the display backlighting in power saving mode by default even when not needed such as a AC powered device.
the space between sockets on a pcb
not using uv stabilised plastic
AI help when its not needed sarcasm fail irony fail
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[edited to add context - pics]
Ah! Yes, well you have a 25% chance of getting it right.
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Using a consistent UI across apps is not stupid.
Indeed. However, as I explained, this isn't consistent because it's an extrapolation from 1D text viewer scrolling. And using the wrong thing consistently is just aggravating and reinforces how wrong it is, like scratching a sore.
Well, no, the mouse wheel was once called a scroll wheel and was meant for scrolling stuff on the screen. Not just text. Lists, images, whatever.
Using it for scrolling in some contexts and zooming in others is what is not consistent.
I'm not saying that using the mouse wheel for zooming is not useful in practice. Just talking about UI consistency. Then it's just a matter of habits.
And that said, again, I'm all for giving users a choice - we all have different habits and preferences.
Getting used to this mouse wheel thing only takes a couple minutes anyway
Doesn't for me, for the reasons explained: you sometimes need a key, sometimes not, and it's often the other key to the one your motor memory selects.
I'm sorry to hear that.
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Just been troubling the developer of an application that wasn't working correctly. Eventually they sent a screenshot showing the right button to press. The reason I hadn't pressed it was because it didn't look like a button - no frame around the icon so it looked just like some cosmetic squiggle. I really, really loath the shit Windows 10/11 style of hiding information.
Scrollbars are another. The AMD Radeon main window is scrollable but I went for literally years nowt seeing anything below the line because there's nothing to indicate that there was anything there. No scrollbars, no half a line at the bottom, nothing. Of course, if you do scroll (via mousewheel) the scrollbar kindly appears until you stop, and then it bloody hides again!
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I have the latest release of Inkscape (1.2.2) on Linux and haven't found this option.
Ouch, sorry: I forgot to check, and am still running 0.92.5 (because vanilla Linux Mint 20.3).
But, as is relatively common in CAD apps, a combination of key + mouse wheel gets you there by default
Many microcontrollers (especially my favourites, Teensies) with native USB can expose a mouse+keyboard+multimedia keyboard combo, and generate the necessary events in combination. In Linux, this means that one can create a custom HID device for zooming and panning, plus a suitable set of macro keys, to supplement mouse/trackpad controls.
I already have a small e-Ink display and a suitable capacitive touch module (configurable buttons and/or trackpad), but I'd really like to add a 3D trackball (for rotating the view in 3D CAD) and a detentless wheel for zooming. With a large enough trackball, say 8 cm in diameter, two or three optical mouse sensors with some crafty math might work... I wouldn't mind having the ball being non-captive in a simple cradle, if it was heavy enough.
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Any trackball is a 2 DOF input device; to get '3D' input you need 6 DOF, so there must be compliant mounts and strain sensors in addition to the "optical mouse" type rotation sensors. That is why most 6 DOF sensors don't rotate but just use strain sensors for everything: it's more reliable and avoids backlash problems.
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I already have a small e-Ink display and a suitable capacitive touch module (configurable buttons and/or trackpad), but I'd really like to add a 3D trackball (for rotating the view in 3D CAD) and a detentless wheel for zooming. With a large enough trackball, say 8 cm in diameter, two or three optical mouse sensors with some crafty math might work... I wouldn't mind having the ball being non-captive in a simple cradle, if it was heavy enough.
I'm also considering making some kind of "3D" mouse. A classic commercial device is the 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse. I have looked at teardowns, it's relatively clever.
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My pet peeve regarding computers and technology is something that has bugged me for years... when the process light of my laptop is on and flickering whenever the system is idle. I've learned in recent times that it's all to do with the system being "indexed" or something, but at times I see under Task Manager that processes to do with Windows Update and even Disk Defragmenter are on without my say-so. This has happened ever since I had this laptop and I don't recall it ever happening on my last one.
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My pet peeve regarding computers and technology is something that has bugged me for years... when the process light of my laptop is on and flickering whenever the system is idle.
It's gotten worse with each Windows evolution. All kinds of crap runs in the background now. Some of it is useful, most of it is not. With a prebuilt PC, I always do a full wipe and reload of the OS as job #1.
After, I ran a little utility called ShutUp10 which made it easy to turn off unnecessary stuff. Just be careful with turning things off you don't fully understand.
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It's gotten worse with each Windows evolution. All kinds of crap runs in the background now. Some of it is useful, most of it is not.
Even worse when you can't tell if any background processes are running or not, as some computers and laptops don't even have a process light now (take the Dynabook Satellite Pro for instance, that I loaned from my college)... makes you want to have Task Manager open always to see what's going on |O
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You know, once upon a time I was always bothering about what's running in the background and what's using memory and all that. Totally micro-managing everything and stopping everything possible so there's no chance it would affect a game or whatever. That'd lasted for years and years - DOS, Win3, 95, XP... I could be really anal about the tiniest resource grab by apps or the OS.
Then I got a Core i7 and, frankly, I don't give a toss now. So long as I can't tell if anything is running, and it's not doing naughty stuff, I struggle to be bothered. In fact, just checking my task tray now I see 27 icons there, and there are a handful of gadgets on the desktop to boot. In a previous life that would horrify me! Fact is, PC hardware has just kept getting more powerful and capable faster than software is managing to soak it up. Apart from a few special cases where the developers really should be taken out and shot.
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My pet peeve regarding computers and technology is something that has bugged me for years... when the process light of my laptop is on and flickering whenever the system is idle.
It's gotten worse with each Windows evolution. All kinds of crap runs in the background now. Some of it is useful, most of it is not. With a prebuilt PC, I always do a full wipe and reload of the OS as job #1.
After, I ran a little utility called ShutUp10 which made it easy to turn off unnecessary stuff. Just be careful with turning things off you don't fully understand.
I turned on my screen yesterday to see a message about xbox360. I dont have an xbox or even a login for it. Not sure why I need several apps running for xbox related stuff. I have a decent pc but still see no point in another app to mess things up or send me random messages.
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This evening, I thought I could write a computer's media playlist to an Audio CD and play this on the hifi. I have a functional USB CDRW drive, but not a single blank CD-R in the house! Not since 2015 apparently. Progress ???
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Years back, when I got my first W7 desktop computer, the dumb thing used to crash at every opportunity.
I could get it back by returning to the original configuration, in the process, losing all the programs I had installed, & reactivating my pet hate of all time-Norton! >:(
The Internet was full of clever ways to get your PC back from a crash, except they required you to have admin privileges, which the "dumbed down" OEM version of W7 did not grant to the "unwashed".
I finally "bit the bullet" paid big bucks for a W7 disk from Dick Smith, & installed it, saying goodbye to the "e-Machines" crap forever, & never looked back!
The PC very seldom crashed, & was recoverable with a minimum of fuss when it did.
Much more recently, my ASUS laptop came with W10 "S" (for stupid or shit).
At least, they allowed me to send "S" to Hell where it belongs, with a minimum of fuss.
They did sternly warn me, that if I did that, I could never get it back-------but who would want to! >:(
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Another one that occasionally gets on my nerves is mice... the fact that mice nowadays don't last as long and experience wear and tear after a year or so. From the past eight years, I've went through six mice (two Logitech B100s, an HP X1000 and three Dell MS116s) and now I'm using a Kensington K72356EU. I'm trusting the reviews it got on Amazon regarding its longevity so here's hoping it'll do me a good number of years and not like six months like my last one.
It seems to me that mice nowadays aren't built to last... I mean, I had a Logitech mouse that did me a whopping 11 years (that I had since my first WinXP computer). I still miss it to this day :(
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Another one that occasionally gets on my nerves is mice... the fact that mice nowadays don't last as long and experience wear and tear after a year or so. From the past eight years, I've went through six mice (two Logitech B100s, an HP X1000 and three Dell MS116s) and now I'm using a Kensington K72356EU. I'm trusting the reviews it got on Amazon regarding its longevity so here's hoping it'll do me a good number of years and not like six months like my last one.
It seems to me that mice nowadays aren't built to last... I mean, I had a Logitech mouse that did me a whopping 11 years (that I had since my first WinXP computer). I still miss it to this day :(
hehe. You showing up in the cat thread and now complaining about mice isn't lost on this old cat. ;)
I'm a trackball guy and there's a extensive thread on here that goes into much detail on procuring new switches much better than the OEM for my particular offending model. Depends on the model, but if you can get at the switches (and the case is screwed not glued) your favourite mice can enjoy eternal life.
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endless multiturn :'(
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endless multiturn :'(
Go on, give us a clue :)
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It seems to me that mice nowadays aren't built to last... I mean, I had a Logitech mouse that did me a whopping 11 years (that I had since my first WinXP computer). I still miss it to this day :(
I still have one of the original Microsoft optical mice that I got over 20 years ago when I worked there, it's a bit yellowed and there's some wear from my fingers but it still works.
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I had one of those (until I gave it away earlier this year). Looked pristine, mostly because it'd never been used since I discovered Logitech mice :)
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I have a Roccat kone pure which is something like 7 years old and it still works fine. A bit worn out externally but nothing major. Recently, the right click tends to be occasionally bouncy (triggers two right clicks instead of one), which is rarely a problem in most applications. But as I'm looking for a new mouse, I see it as a pretext to change.
I can't seem to find anything much I like though with recent mice. If anyone's got suggestions. I want to avoid wireless.
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Why not wireless? I used to be a wired user because, games. But then I got wireless and the only difference I could tell was the cable not getting in the way any more. Even battery life is a non-issue: goes seemingly forever (well, a loooong time) and once a month I might remember to plug a USB cable into it when I go to make dinner or something. Worst case, it needs charging in the next 30 secs and then I just plug the cable in and use it as a wired mouse for a bit.
Having said that, non-rechargeable (that is, with alkaline batteries and typically Bluetooth) need a button press to wake them up if you don't move them for a bit. You get used to it, but it's a drag and I'd not use one of those for my main setup.
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endless multiturn :'(
Go on, give us a clue :)
when the trim pot has no end stop (and freewheels?)
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endless multiturn :'(
Go on, give us a clue :)
when the trim pot has no end stop (and freewheels?)
Ah, OK. Annoying, that.
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endless multiturn :'(
Go on, give us a clue :)
when the trim pot has no end stop (and freewheels?)
That's kind of normal. Usually there's a little click click click as you continue to turn it against the endstop.... Or, for example, did you mean that the 10k pot goes from 10K back to zero again?
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Every linear multi-turn trimpot I have seen has a "lock thread" where the lead screw goes click-click-click at the ends of travel.
Otherwise, it would be easy to break the mechanism by overtravel.
"Helipots" (without separate lead screws) have definite stops at the ends of travel.
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Every linear multi-turn trimpot I have seen has a "lock thread" where the lead screw goes click-click-click at the ends of travel.
Otherwise, it would be easy to break the mechanism by overtravel.
"Helipots" (without separate lead screws) have definite stops at the ends of travel.
That "lock thread" can fail, with the lead screw going click-click-click, but turning in the other direction does not reverse the direction of resistance change, with the resistance staying at the setting it reached before the failure.
Replacement is then the only "fix".
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My stupid car wipers!
Use the squirters to clean the windscreen.
Then set the wipers going for several strokes.
Upstroke cleans the glass perfectly.
Downstroke allows airflow to flick some water off wiper blades and frames and back onto window.
Even after 10 or 12 wipe cycles there is still spots of water there.
:rant:
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endless multiturn :'(
Go on, give us a clue :)
when the trim pot has no end stop (and freewheels?)
Don't most multiturn trimpots do that? Usually there is a clutch mechanism that makes a soft clicking sound if you listen closely though.
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And when posts one’s pet peeve and it gets ignored by everybody else.
Actually I’m a great fan of recursion, so seeing that’s an example of such, I’m okay with it. :)
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My stupid car wipers!
Use the squirters to clean the windscreen.
Then set the wipers going for several strokes.
Upstroke cleans the glass perfectly.
Downstroke allows airflow to flick some water off wiper blades and frames and back onto window.
Even after 10 or 12 wipe cycles there is still spots of water there.
:rant:
Yep. Try manually cleaning a window with the same motion - it's not really going to be very effective.
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The bit that annoys me is you can't wash then wipe. It's always wipe then wash.
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The bit that annoys me is you can't wash then wipe. It's always wipe then wash.
It's the dumbed down world we live in. They are trying to be helpful when they make the wipers automatically go when you trigger the squirt. What was wrong with the pulling on the stalk to spray and then manually engaging the wipers once enough fluid was on the windshield?
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The bit that annoys me is you can't wash then wipe. It's always wipe then wash.
It's the dumbed down world we live in. They are trying to be helpful when they make the wipers automatically go when you trigger the squirt. What was wrong with the pulling on the stalk to spray and then manually engaging the wipers once enough fluid was on the windshield?
I suspect the automatic wiping could be defeated by disconnecting the wire from the wash contacts to the intermittent wiper relay, at least on older cars like mine where everything is controlled by separate relays.
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The bit that annoys me is you can't wash then wipe. It's always wipe then wash.
It's the dumbed down world we live in. They are trying to be helpful when they make the wipers automatically go when you trigger the squirt. What was wrong with the pulling on the stalk to spray and then manually engaging the wipers once enough fluid was on the windshield?
I suspect the automatic wiping could be defeated by disconnecting the wire from the wash contacts to the intermittent wiper relay, at least on older cars like mine where everything is controlled by separate relays.
This is not an issue with new cars. They either have the sprayer on the wiper arms, or they delay the start of the wipe until the sprayer has got the glass wet. The latter can be a little confusing when you aren't used to it. If you keep giving little shots of washing the wipers don't start. You have to hold the wash on for a couple of seconds.
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They are trying to be helpful when they make the wipers automatically go when you trigger the squirt. What was wrong with the pulling on the stalk to spray and then manually engaging the wipers once enough fluid was on the windshield??
Doing it there way ensures the wipers drag across the dry surface for a few seconds without lubrication,leading to a shortening of the wiper blades life,meaning you have to by replacements more often
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They are trying to be helpful when they make the wipers automatically go when you trigger the squirt. What was wrong with the pulling on the stalk to spray and then manually engaging the wipers once enough fluid was on the windshield??
Doing it there way ensures the wipers drag across the dry surface for a few seconds without lubrication,leading to a shortening of the wiper blades life,meaning you have to by replacements more often
That was my very first car driving experience, manually pumping the screen wash lever on my dad's car and then flicking the wiper toggle. Because if you tried to wipe before washing, the rubber blades juddered across the windscreen and my dad was not happy.
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My Discovery had a delay so the wash was on the screen before the wiping started.
My annoyance is when the car has ran out of wash and the wipers still move then 5 seconds later that extra auto wipe does as well. So you end up with a smeary windscreen.
Today's pet peeve for me was people who look at you as if you are weird. Can't a man sing along to his favourite song while sat in traffic on the M25. I dont care that you don't like the works of Britney Spears especially her breakout 1998 single "Baby One More Time". I had to find a way to cope with the 4hr drive in a van with no aircon and the hell that is the M25.
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Another one that occasionally gets on my nerves is mice... the fact that mice nowadays don't last as long and experience wear and tear after a year or so.
Two logitechs in a row the left click button would "click", but not respond unless you pushed just a little harder. Extremely annoying. both only maybe 6 months old.
Decided to go back to Microsoft. The M1500 .. the scroll wheel developed basic rotary encoder twitch at only 3 month old. I went up a range to the M3500 and discovered it's a "silent mouse" with no detent or drag at all on the wheel, so it randomly scrolls things and makes gaming impossible.
I decided mice no longer cost £10. maybe if I buy one that costs £75 it might last longer? So I have a Logictech Triathalon M720 which is okay so far, I like how the wheel drag/clicker can be switched in and out and it supports binding to 3 different dongles.
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Would you believe in 2017 Toyota sell a car which can't park the wiper blades correctly? Know defect. Sometimes they just stop about 3 inches up the window and you have to try again. 2017.
However, having spent a few years riding a motorbike all year round, I'll take any wipers.
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Another one that occasionally gets on my nerves is mice... the fact that mice nowadays don't last as long and experience wear and tear after a year or so.
Two logitechs in a row the left click button would "click", but not respond unless you pushed just a little harder. Extremely annoying. both only maybe 6 months old.
Decided to go back to Microsoft. The M1500 .. the scroll wheel developed basic rotary encoder twitch at only 3 month old. I went up a range to the M3500 and discovered it's a "silent mouse" with no detent or drag at all on the wheel, so it randomly scrolls things and makes gaming impossible.
I decided mice no longer cost £10. maybe if I buy one that costs £75 it might last longer? So I have a Logictech Triathalon M720 which is okay so far, I like how the wheel drag/clicker can be switched in and out and it supports binding to 3 different dongles.
I have a Logitech MX-310 here that's still going strong after what... 23 years or something like that? - Still has beautiful feel, accuracy, smooth clicks. They probably don't make them like they used to!
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I suspect the automatic wiping could be defeated by disconnecting the wire from the wash contacts to the intermittent wiper relay, at least on older cars like mine where everything is controlled by separate relays.
This is not an issue with new cars. They either have the sprayer on the wiper arms, or they delay the start of the wipe until the sprayer has got the glass wet. The latter can be a little confusing when you aren't used to it. If you keep giving little shots of washing the wipers don't start. You have to hold the wash on for a couple of seconds.
I think I'd find that even more annoying! Reason being that when I hit the wipe control I want it to wipe there and then - I will put off using the wipers until I'm in a situation where momentary loss of vision (or even an unrecoverable smear) won't have a big impact. It needs to happen then, not in a while.
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I have a Logitech MX-310 here that's still going strong after what... 23 years or something like that? - Still has beautiful feel, accuracy, smooth clicks. They probably don't make them like they used to!
They still make a model called the MX-310. I don't know if its similar to the one you have, but I know it won't last. No Logitech mouse does these days. Even the rather expensive gaming ones. They seem incapable of debouncing a switch these days. The clicky buttons work well with new contacts, but as they age you get wacky results. The expensive mice have additional failure modes due to poor design. Like the MX Master 2S, where poor design of an extra button, which is of no value even when its working, manages to jam and foul up operation of the mouse entirely after some time. There are a number of descriptions on the web of how to strip the mouse and unstick this button.
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Yep. The recent Logitech (now marked 'logi', which I find ugly for some reason, but that's not the point) mice look "nice" but they are mostly crap.
The "good" thing with these mediocre wireless mice on the market is that by the time the battery is dead, the mouse will long have had faulty switches and whatnot anyway, so you won't have to deal with trying to find a replacement battery, you'll just trash the whole thing.
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I've replaced the cheap Logitech mouses I had that stopped working with cheap Kensington "Mouse-in-a-Box USB". They seem to last pretty good. The oldest one probably has 6 or 7 years of heavy use on it.
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I've replaced the cheap Logitech mouses I had that stopped working with cheap Kensington "Mouse-in-a-Box USB". They seem to last pretty good. The oldest one probably has 6 or 7 years of heavy use on it.
This is what I have also ;)
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Only Logitech have the hyper-scroll wheel, though. That's the reason I buy 'em.
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Only Logitech have the hyper-scroll wheel, though. That's the reason I buy 'em.
You mean the two modes, one being the wheel spnining freely? It's cool indeed, but it's actually not the only brand that offers this (as I remember, it was the first one though).
For instance, the Razer Basilisk V3.
Yes this is a "gaming" mouse, but it works fine for any purpose.
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Only Logitech have the hyper-scroll wheel, though. That's the reason I buy 'em.
You mean the two modes, one being the wheel spnining freely? It's cool indeed, but it's actually not the only brand that offers this (as I remember, it was the first one though).
Kind of - the hyper-scroll auto-switching between modes. I hate freewheeling normally because the slightest touch selects the thing above or below, but clicky-clicky doesn't lend itself to fast and continuous scrolling. The auto-switch means that you get the normal clicky-clicky but then if you spin the wheel a bit faster you go into freewheeling continuous mode.
Once you get used to that it's really hard to give it up.
For instance, the Razer Basilisk V3.
Didn't think anything else would, but a quick look suggests that does indeed do the auto-switch. Hmmm... thinking that (rather, a wireless version) might be a decent thing to try I had a browse of the range. Blimey, I had no idea anything could make Logitech prices look cheap :o
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I have a Logitech MX-310 here that's still going strong after what... 23 years or something like that? - Still has beautiful feel, accuracy, smooth clicks. They probably don't make them like they used to!
They still make a model called the MX-310. I don't know if its similar to the one you have, but I know it won't last. No Logitech mouse does these days. Even the rather expensive gaming ones. They seem incapable of debouncing a switch these days. The clicky buttons work well with new contacts, but as they age you get wacky results. The expensive mice have additional failure modes due to poor design. Like the MX Master 2S, where poor design of an extra button, which is of no value even when its working, manages to jam and foul up operation of the mouse entirely after some time. There are a number of descriptions on the web of how to strip the mouse and unstick this button.
The "old" model MX-310 sell for silly money on eBay. I guess they might still be worth it, being from the era before planned obsolescence became the norm with almost every product. - back in the day I remember buying them for $3 or $4 each, eBay was awash with them.
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Google links to PDF files that force you to open the PDF in a browser before being able to save it. PDFs tend to download quicker if you can right click and "save link as"...
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Speaking of search links, I find it utterly annoying that, when looking for a component with its reference, in general the first good ten links (sometimes you even have to go to the next page) are nothing like the actual product web page, but either direct links to files, or links to distributors, or random blogs.
That "probably" reflects what most people are looking for though, so I may be the only one annoyed here.
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Speaking of search links, I find it utterly annoying that, when looking for a component with its reference, in general the first good ten links (sometimes you even have to go to the next page) are nothing like the actual product web page, but either direct links to files, or links to distributors, or random blogs.
That "probably" reflects what most people are looking for though, so I may be the only one annoyed here.
I have been having this "fun" recently, trying to find 1980s devices used in an old Icom ham radio.
First up, it shows links which mention the device, but when I hit the link, the website has no reference to it.
The next page brings up just about anything that matches one or more words in my query, with the vital part number not included.
All this leads into another peeve--- Icom's habit of making complex single sided PCBs with (super peeve) SIL devices & (bonus peeve) "TMP" coax connectors!! ----AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! |O |O
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Speaking of search links, I find it utterly annoying that, when looking for a component with its reference, in general the first good ten links (sometimes you even have to go to the next page) are nothing like the actual product web page, but either direct links to files, or links to distributors, or random blogs.
That "probably" reflects what most people are looking for though, so I may be the only one annoyed here.
It reflects paid-for search rankings, possibly?
Search engines have gotten worse and worse over the years...
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I have a minor pet peeve with some web sites: Why can't some teams seem to figure out how to place the cursor in the first required input field (e.g. for entering your user name) without having to click your way to it, when you first open it?
Teeeeeedious!
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Almost as bad is when Tab doesn't put the cursor in the next input field.
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Cursing about cursors: There is this game where I have to enter a password to logon. Sometimes, randomly while I'm typing in the password, it'll switch input focus to the desktop behind the application. Since I'm a two finger typist, with my eyes mostly on the keyboard, I'll end up launching another application when I hit enter at the end.
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Speaking of search links, I find it utterly annoying that, when looking for a component with its reference, in general the first good ten links (sometimes you even have to go to the next page) are nothing like the actual product web page, but either direct links to files, or links to distributors, or random blogs.
That "probably" reflects what most people are looking for though, so I may be the only one annoyed here.
It reflects paid-for search rankings, possibly?
That's possibly part of the reason for some cases, although I'd find it weird if say some blogs would pay more for SEO than semiconductor vendors themselves (and I'm not talking about large web sites like stackexchange).
But just the fact that direct links to datasheets often come well before the product pages annoys me tremendously.
If I'm looking for a datasheet, I prefer downloading it from the vendors website rather than directly from a search engine, thanks.
I guess probably most people prefer the opposite though, as it's a bit faster (but you never know if that's the latest version in this case, and often it is not). Even worse when the direct link to a datasheet is not even hosted on the vendor's website but on a random one that's ranked way higher in the results. :palm:
I think direct links from websites in search results should not even be allowed, but I'm sure many would disagree, so.
Search engines have gotten worse and worse over the years...
Well, it's pretty much down to entropy, something like that.
Search engines are gigantic pools of opportunity, it's natural that everyone will try to get their share. But over time, it tends to become a big mess.
I don't think there's any way around it, apart from creating more specialized search engines to avoid swimming all in the same polluted pool.
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Speaking of search links, I find it utterly annoying that, when looking for a component with its reference, in general the first good ten links (sometimes you even have to go to the next page) are nothing like the actual product web page, but either direct links to files, or links to distributors, or random blogs.
That "probably" reflects what most people are looking for though, so I may be the only one annoyed here.
It reflects paid-for search rankings, possibly?
That's possibly part of the reason for some cases, although I'd find it weird if say some blogs would pay more for SEO than semiconductor vendors themselves (and I'm not talking about large web sites like stackexchange).
But just the fact that direct links to datasheets often come well before the product pages annoys me tremendously.
If I'm looking for a datasheet, I prefer downloading it from the vendors website rather than directly from a search engine, thanks.
I guess probably most people prefer the opposite though, as it's a bit faster (but you never know if that's the latest version in this case, and often it is not). Even worse when the direct link to a datasheet is not even hosted on the vendor's website but on a random one that's ranked way higher in the results. :palm:
I think direct links from websites in search results should not even be allowed, but I'm sure many would disagree, so.
Search engines have gotten worse and worse over the years...
Well, it's pretty much down to entropy, something like that.
Search engines are gigantic pools of opportunity, it's natural that everyone will try to get their share. But over time, it tends to become a big mess.
I don't think there's any way around it, apart from creating more specialized search engines to avoid swimming all in the same polluted pool.
There are some newer search engines around, but they are all powered by Google or Bing behind the scenes. I'm thinking of DuckDuckGo, mostly. There are some good ideas in there, for example. Maybe time to revisit!
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There are some newer search engines around, but they are all powered by Google or Bing behind the scenes. I'm thinking of DuckDuckGo, mostly. There are some good ideas in there, for example. Maybe time to revisit!
When DuckDuckGo switched from using Google to Bing, its search capabilities dropped so badly I've had to switch back to Google. >:(
Now, how do I switch the default search engine from https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-lm&q=%s to https://www.google.fi/search?tbs=li:1&q=%s ? That used to be settable in the preferences, but no longer. The related profile config file is compressed using some mozlz4 compression scheme that is not supported by my default tools. Sigh, time to build the necessary tools to get a darn 543-byte config file modified. Anyone wanna guess why they chose to "compress" that tiny file, when the entire profile is about 600,000 times as large, and full of uncompressed plain text files? I'm sure the search engine deals between Mozilla and others have nothing to do with it.
EDIT: It turned out adding "browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh" config parameter (as boolean, True) let me add the search string I want; no tools needed.
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The word “ideate”. It’s from create and idea. Hence a creative industry person who is an Ideation Engineer.
It’s just a fancy term for a freelance graphic designer who engineers advertorials on a BYOD MacBook.
I don’t think there are any Ideation Engineers in the EE world, yet?
CRAP! I just realised that the words ideate and advertorial are already burnt into my predictive text :-X
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The word “ideate”. It’s from create and idea. Hence a creative industry person who is an Ideation Engineer.
It’s just a fancy term for a freelance graphic designer who engineers advertorials on a BYOD MacBook.
I don’t think there are any Ideation Engineers in the EE world, yet?
CRAP! I just realised that the words ideate and advertorial are already burnt into my predictive text :-X
Back in the day when I worked at a TV studio, we had an "AVA-Graphics" suite, which was used to add graphics to program material.
It used two of the biggest hard disc drives I've ever seen---the discs themselves were as big as a 331/3 rpm vinyl disc.
Two people worked in the suite, & both were real artists in the use of the thing---they could just about "make it sit up & beg".
Time goes by, & the "powers that be" set up a new department called "Creative Imaging" run by a couple of "bright young things" (BYTs), which used PCs, the AVA Graphics folk were deemed "too set in their ways" to adapt to the "brave new world" & "offered redundancy".
The first real "outing" of "Creative Imaging" was a sort of novelty football game where retired footballers ("Legends") from several teams were brought back to play a game for charity.
At the beginning of the game, up came a graphic proclaiming "The Legands"!
It continued to appear in every break throughout the game, & was the cause of much hilarity amongst most of us greybeards!
These days, misspelling in graphics & captions is more the rule than the exception, although the "BYTs" would now be greybeards themselves, & the graphics department probably has some new buzzword based name.
Two more terms that have crept into the language are "ahead of" instead of "prior to", & "Vets" for ex-service men & women.
I can live with "War Veterans", but "Vets" are animal doctors!
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Who decides that this is:
- Good relation between resistor values and switching frequency.
- Good selection of resistor values even if we accept that the relation is arbitrary.
- What's with the wide gap in the selection of switching frequencies anyway.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1847587;image)
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Resistance goes up, frequency goes up. And down.
A chart would have been so much better.
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(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1847587;image)
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1847623;image)
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I like to plot resistor values in log since that's mostly what I expect the response will be. Higher values *looks* linear, but lower values are arbitrary.
I won't even try to interpolate since datasheet don't even guarantee operation besides 1% within specified values...
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=1847629;image)
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I don't plot very often, but when I do, I copy/paste this in a terminal:
echo -e " \
3.92 400 \n \
4.75 200 \n \
5.76 303 \n \
7.87 100 \n \
11 500 \n \
17.8 1818 \n \
42.2 2000 \n \
124 2222 \n" | \
gnuplot -p -e 'set logscale x; set grid; set grid mxtics; set xlabel "kOhm"; set ylabel "kHz"; plot "-" with linespoints linecolor "red" pointtype 15 notitle'
8)
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When I hear the following words, "modern" "newer", "pretty", "trendy", "contemporary", used in such a way like below, I don't think I fully understand what they are trying to say other than what I think they think I am stupid and confused, don't know what I am doing and not mean't to understand other than to buy into it by the nicely sounding words they put together:
https://mountlighting.co.uk/led-lighting-vs-fluorescent-lighting/
The M-Line Range from Mount Lighting provides a smart :bullshit: , modern :bullshit:, aesthetically crisp :bullshit: and clean luminaire :bullshit: system with the versatility :bullshit: to incorporate endless :bullshit: feature design concepts.
BUZZWORD BULLSHIT: Smart, modern, aesthetically crisp, clean luminaire, versatility
Sounds so meaningless to me.
Translated: "The M-Line Range from Mount Lightning provides lightning styles and fittings of the latest trends with lots of accessories and addons to choose from to help fit your application and lightning requirements. "
Does that sound clearer and accurate on what they are trying to say?
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MrMobodies, non-native english speaker here...
Despite I could understand both sentences, I personally think the separation of adjectives using commas brings me a clearer and better defined list of concepts/advantages/features to the product line.
Sure, it has buzz words, but the "trends" in your sentence seems also "buzzy" to me. :-D
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When I hear the following words, "modern" "newer", "pretty", "trendy", "contemporary", used in such a way like below, I don't think I fully understand what they are trying to say other than what I think they think I am stupid and confused, don't know what I am doing and not mean't to understand other than to buy into it by the nicely sounding words they put together:
https://mountlighting.co.uk/led-lighting-vs-fluorescent-lighting/
The M-Line Range from Mount Lighting provides a smart :bullshit: , modern :bullshit:, aesthetically crisp :bullshit: and clean luminaire :bullshit: system with the versatility :bullshit: to incorporate endless :bullshit: feature design concepts.
BUZZWORD BULLSHIT: Smart, modern, aesthetically crisp, clean luminaire, versatility
Sounds so meaningless to me.
Translated: "The M-Line Range from Mount Lightning provides lightning styles and fittings of the latest trends with lots of accessories and addons to choose from to help fit your application and lightning requirements. "
Does that sound clearer and accurate on what they are trying to say?
Do they do ball lightning, or just the regular jagged stuff? ;D
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Oops sorry, lighting not lightning.
Do they do ball lightning, or just the regular jagged stuff? ;D
Maybe PhotonicInduction could fix something up.
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PDF files that are named "aaeueijfj223132123.pdf" when downloaded instead of "widget_datasheet.pdf"
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PDF files that are named "aaeueijfj223132123.pdf" when downloaded instead of "widget_datasheet.pdf"
Oh yes. And more generally, when you download a file for e.g. a driver or a firmware update, and the file name doesn't have any relationship with the product, the software and/or the version in question.
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PDF files that are named "aaeueijfj223132123.pdf" when downloaded instead of "widget_datasheet.pdf"
Oh yes. And more generally, when you download a file for e.g. a driver or a firmware update, and the file name doesn't have any relationship with the product, the software and/or the version in question.
And W10 goes & hides it somewhere other than the folder you downloaded it to.
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PDF files that are named "aaeueijfj223132123.pdf" when downloaded instead of "widget_datasheet.pdf"
Oh yes. And more generally, when you download a file for e.g. a driver or a firmware update, and the file name doesn't have any relationship with the product, the software and/or the version in question.
And W10 goes & hides it somewhere other than the folder you downloaded it to.
My win11 has been beaten into submission & runs mostly ok most of the time.
I re-name files and work the folders manually
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PDF files that are named "aaeueijfj223132123.pdf" when downloaded instead of "widget_datasheet.pdf"
Oh yes. And more generally, when you download a file for e.g. a driver or a firmware update, and the file name doesn't have any relationship with the product, the software and/or the version in question.
And W10 goes & hides it somewhere other than the folder you downloaded it to.
My win11 has been beaten into submission & runs mostly ok most of the time.
I re-name files and work the folders manually
That's what I mainly do, now.
The annoying thing is that sometimes it works properly!
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Computer mice whose button is low enough such that every time you bump into the keyboard it clicks and holds down the left button!!!!
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Computer mice whose button is low enough such that every time you bump into the keyboard it clicks and holds down the left button!!!!
How about every surface has to be clickable so if you grab the mouse a little bit to quickly you end up changing a setting or some other annoying thing.
People at work are always confused when they watch me on a computer as I do a fair amount if stuff using the keyboard. The mouse is only used when I need it.
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Well, there can be the opposite problem where there are so many keyboard short cuts that it doesn't take much in the way of mistyping to do something you had no idea you did.
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Not to mention typing a whole ream of stuff into some window that grabbed focus when you didn't notice.
But while we're on this, I loathe the web page full of clickable, hoverable images (think shopping site, or TV schedule) so there's no space to click to set focus without activating something.
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Not to mention typing a whole ream of stuff into some window that grabbed focus when you didn't notice.
Especially when you are typing your enterprise password but the focus is stolen to an internal group chat window. 😡
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Not to mention typing a whole ream of stuff into some window that grabbed focus when you didn't notice.
Especially when you are typing your enterprise password but the focus is stolen to an internal group chat window. 😡
Enterprise password? That's nothing. Try doing that with your on-line banking.
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Not to mention typing a whole ream of stuff into some window that grabbed focus when you didn't notice.
Especially when you are typing your enterprise password but the focus is stolen to an internal group chat window. 😡
Enterprise password? That's nothing. Try doing that with your on-line banking.
But yours isn't that hard to guess,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k)
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Not to mention typing a whole ream of stuff into some window that grabbed focus when you didn't notice.
Especially when you are typing your enterprise password but the focus is stolen to an internal group chat window. 😡
Enterprise password? That's nothing. Try doing that with your on-line banking.
Indeed that would be even worse. However for online banking I isolate the host: no chats or other online activities other than the banking application or web application itself... Somewhat easy to do with a VM, although with the massive drawback of the extra disk space.
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One of my pet peeves: After a serious accident or crime, the company or government agency responsible for the location that puts out a press release saying "The safety of our customers, employees and the public is our highest priority".
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One of my pet peeves: After a serious accident or crime, the company or government agency responsible for the location that puts out a press release saying "The safety of our customers, employees and the public is our highest priority".
You mean the prearranged responses designed to appease the public while at the same time avoiding any sort of legal issues. Sadly it is what they are expected to say to avoid the press making a big thing that they didn't say anything. It is much like "Our hearts go out to those affected". With the quote you mentioned, I wonder what their 9001 auditors would say as it should be a clear statement in the manual that this is the company policy and above things like making massive profits.
Often the bit that peeves me when something goes wrong is even though the emergency services work 24/7 and do what they can but if you need anyone from the council emergency planning departments or the highways departments good luck as these people work 9-5 mon-fri. It was noticeable when there was flooding or snow that people I would be dealing with would fail to respond, this meant getting access to the sandbags they have in stock was almost impossible so houses flooded and other issues. It took two days to reopen the road near me the other week after flooding dragged a ton of mud and gravel onto the roads because it happened at 4pm then when they got in the next day the office wasn't geared up to deal with an issue on the rural roads and not the motorways.
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I watched Dave's Fluke Volt Alert video today - and of course it prompted me to check my batteries in my volt alert -- aagh getting into this was a pain, I eventually substituted my inferior finger strength with a vice (rubber protected jaws :phew: - Energiser Max OK
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Generic sellers corrupting technical terms.
For instance, buy a tracker off Ebay/Amazon/Ali and it will say "GPS" even though it may not have a GPS receiver and just use GSM triangulation. 'GPS' is not shorthand for determining location regardless of technology.
Similarly, 'BNC' means 'coax connector' and is typically applied to F connector and other RF, but definitely not BNC, connectors.
Just a huge drag having to send stuff back because they don't know wtf they are selling.
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Just noticed this:
(https://i.imgur.com/4AYx6m4.png)
Dear
Your latest XLN invoice is ready to view online.
*1 Please download and install our MyAccount App :bullshit: on your Android or Apple device. If you don’t have a smart device :bullshit: , *2 you can still access all of your invoices here.
*1 No! I am not going to download anything to just to view a bunch of invoices.
*2 Why shouldn't I be allowed to view invoices without the need of a phone and a stupid app.
Very STUPID. It is a page full of text and numbers and should not need a stupid "smart" phone with limited screen size/resolution, limited input and a stupid app just to view it.
I find that talk "smart device" very insulting and degrading.
What has that got to do with it because it is labelled "smart".
You should not need this sh*t just to view invoices.
I do have a phone but it is old and won't use it for things like that apart from programs that run locally for a reason as I find the new phones bloated full of annoying animations that treat me like I am stupid that I find I can't turn off and make me mad and loose me temper, the dimming overlays and embedded malware from the manufacturer.
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Many banks do this now. Chase, Monzo, etc. force you to use their mobile app to not just do money stuff but view statements. At least they have the ability to 'share' the documents so you can email them to your PC.
The one you show, XLN, at least give you the option to still view online (presumably that's what the "you can still access all of the invoices here" thing is). Bear in mind that the trend is for people to use mobiles to do things nowadays, so a mobile app is better than trying to use a web page, or to download a pdf that you don't have a viewer for. In that context it's just catering for modern users, but old farts like us can still view online if we want.
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The other more and more prevalent (near) forced use of mobiles is for MFA.
Banks for example will very often now ask you to sign in on your mobile as a way of authenticating for online or phone transactions. The mobile platforms are actually considerably more secure than the average home desktop. Surprisingly Android and IOS provide enough layers of sandboxing and SSL lockins that banks et. al. actually trust mobile environments more than a desktop. There are a limited number of combinations of device and OS and it's easy to profile, work around or block clients that aren't secure. Not so easy on a desktop without endpoint protection. The other big advantage is a certified/tested biometrics sensor of a known brand and spec.
I personally hate working on mobile. The most use it gets is when I'm waiting in a waiting room to mull the time away. I needed to type a paragragh to my mother the other day, I got to 3 words on the mobile and went and logged into the PC and used WhatsApp desktop to send it instead.
My email address is xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx long. Android refuses to remember it and autocomplete it. It makes using the phone for ANYTHING that requires I log in to the local network devices TEDIOUS. / rant.
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Many banks do this now. Chase, Monzo, etc. force you to use their mobile app to not just do money stuff but view statements. At least they have the ability to 'share' the documents so you can email them to your PC.
The one you show, XLN, at least give you the option to still view online (presumably that's what the "you can still access all of the invoices here" thing is). Bear in mind that the trend is for people to use mobiles to do things nowadays, 1 so a mobile app is better than trying to use a web page, or to download a pdf that you don't have a viewer for. In that context it's just catering for modern users, but old farts like us can still view online if we want :-+.
For a bank with money transfers but for an ISP that does not involve money transfers and so on I find that plain stupid.
Joke: 1 I find a desktop browser with controls on it so much better and easy than using a "mobile app" with a keyboard that hogs screen space that I can imagine maybe possibly littered with fixed headers and widgets, animations; fake loading spinners, animated skeleton placeholders and dimming overlays that cut me off from the contents whatever is left (with the dimming hurting my eyes) and no adblock to kill them like with a browser.
Actually you might know the ones that do the above annoyances if you use them. I am hoping they'd stop that nonsense one day with the above.
The other more and more prevalent (near) forced use of mobiles is for MFA.
Banks for example will very often now ask you to sign in on your mobile as a way of authenticating for online or phone transactions. The mobile platforms are actually considerably more secure than the average home desktop. Surprisingly Android and IOS provide enough layers of sandboxing and SSL lockins that banks et. al. actually trust mobile environments more than a desktop.
I am not happy about having the banking presence and access to my account on a phone that I take everywhere that I only use to make calls. I'd feel the need to buy a phone just for that to separate it. Also the wifi portion too (my paranoia) but maybe I could buy a ethernet adapter.
I had an idea that maybe the bank could issue modified phones or devices just for the purposes of banking, that are kept at home for customers but with the annoyances I find above I think I'll go into the branch whatever one is left and the paper invoices which is not ideal but I think I prefer that whilst they are still going and I see they may not be there pretty shortly.
So if, I have a probem with the "smart phone", won't turn on, wifi issues, no longer supported etc, that means I won't be able to view stuff.
The ONE and ONLY way of just viewing stuff which I find VERY STUPID.
I think they should stick to both mobile and desktop browser (with some authentication) as a backup and for convenience.
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I am not happy about having the banking presence and access to my account on a phone that I take everywhere that I only use to make calls. I'd feel the need to buy a phone just for that to separate it.
Yup... Seems less secure to me. Hopping onto random WiFi networks, phone getting lost, getting robbed while a thug forces you to empty your account via that convenient device in your pocket, etc, seems way less secure than a desktop PC with a dedicated connection. My 2FA comes through another device (landline) where as the so called 2FA on a phone is on the same potentially compromised device. Plus trying to do complex stuff, or deal with larger lists of data, on a stupidly small screen with a touch interface is just retarded. I'm not that old yet and have good eyesight, but I can imagine a day where a phone would just be impossible to use.
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I am not happy about having the banking presence and access to my account on a phone that I take everywhere that I only use to make calls. I'd feel the need to buy a phone just for that to separate it.
Yup... Seems less secure to me. Hopping onto random WiFi networks, phone getting lost, getting robbed while a thug forces you to empty your account via that convenient device in your pocket, etc, seems way less secure than a desktop PC with a dedicated connection. My 2FA comes through another device (landline) where as the so called 2FA on a phone is on the same potentially compromised device. Plus trying to do complex stuff, or deal with larger lists of data, on a stupidly small screen with a touch interface is just retarded. I'm not that old yet and have good eyesight, but I can imagine a day where a phone would just be impossible to use.
Yeah. Also, while some banks allow the same feature set on their web interface and their mobile app, others (such as one of my banks) do not, and offer some functionalities on the app that aren't available on the web interface - so for those, it's either the mobile app or going to the bank agency.
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That's something I hate also.
On the other side you have museum archivists who write descriptions so vague and non-technical, it doesn't seem like they would be useful to anyone:
Here: (https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102806961)
Each wire ends in a circular metal connector with 1 pin in the center of each.
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I had an idea that maybe the bank could issue modified phones or devices just for the purposes of banking, that are kept at home for customers
My bank, Nationwide offer that as the alternative. They ship you a little device with a keypad on it. To do anything with it, you need one of your cards and it's pin. It will then allow you to respond to various challenges presented by the web banking. Such as verifying a new payee will require a full challenge/response exchange of RSA tokens. One generated by the bank, the other by your "card reader device".
It's a right pain to use though. 50% of the time the chip reader gets a bad connection part way through and you have to back out again. Or... annoyingly... it always asks for the last 4 digits of the card, after you put it in the reader and can't see the number.
Biometric finger print is fair enough with me as long as it's local to the device (which it is in Android) and not exported to clients of the reader.
The security feature which you will not get with the card reader is the MFA authentication at time of purchase. If anyone tries to use more than about £100 or a merchant for the first time, they will be required to authenticate to Nationwide. With the mobile app this means I get a "ping" and a notification of who, what and how much and to approve it I have to use my fingerprint. I believe this feature should be extended to re-occuring subscription type charges through your bank. Allow you to approve or deny/delay each individual one.
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On the "challenge response" stuff.
In the example of adding a payee, the web site instructs you to enter the reference number (which is basically the target account number), then enter the full amount of the first payment. It then generates a 6 or 8 digit number as the response.
Given there is no communication channels available with this card reader device the expected behaviour here is to hash the reference number + amount + salt + a sequential RSA token. The salt being something which can only be gained from the chip/pin hardware with the correct PIN. That information is present on both sides. If both sides generate the hash with the same data (having matching synchronized RSA seeds) and the same algorithm then the hashes match.
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I think I have found the 2020s equivalent of the "Audio-phool".
The "NAS-phool".
Oh boy. We have a collection of mostly spotty bedroom nerds with too much money, being led by YouTubers and 'influencers' who convince them they need "Enterprise class" hardware to run it on.
Those people the spend £3k on a NAS setup with a dozen Seatgate Red NAS drives or some second hand enterprise SAS drive. They run it on a second had dell poweredge burning 200W idle and sounding like the vacuum cleaner is on constantly.
They are "proper enterprise grade server admins" now aren't they? They fell well big in their boots.
Now... should you an actual enterprise tier 1 developer should .. lets say... test drive one of their "Enterprise grade platforms" and can instantly crash it node or cluster wide in a matter of moments.
I am using it wrong.
What most of these people actually do is....
1. Install Plex.
2. Copy their pirated movie collection to the 80Tb RAIDz3 array of expensive disks.
3. Install a Wireguard or pfSense VPN on it... on a single LAN bridge, on a single VLAN on a single node.... in a container as root on the main cluster host bare.... yep.
Then they get on the forums and tell people like me that I'm using it wrong because I can crash the whole damn node/cluster nearly at will from a continer or VM and it's isolation and authority over said virtual environment is toothless and insecure.
When you push them on "HA" their concept if HA is "Be right back in a minute...." No. Just No.
/rant.
I should know better. This was "Reddit".
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today's annoyance is suppliers who take your money for an order and ship it out with a little note saying xyz is out of stock and will follow when we get some more.Why couldn't you tell me that at the time of order?why cant you at least give me a rough idea when the parts expected to land?and why have you charged me for it?
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today's annoyance is suppliers who take your money for an order and ship it out with a little note saying xyz is out of stock and will follow when we get some more.Why couldn't you tell me that at the time of order?why cant you at least give me a rough idea when the parts expected to land?and why have you charged me for it?
Yes it's a hassle. When dealing with an unknown online shop or one with a previous bad experience. First contact customer service to have them verify if that item is actually on stock. Even with such a simple question you might get some vague answer because the salesperson is as shallow as 90 nm! >:( Then reconsider doing business with them altogether. If that item is like 25% more expensive elsewhere I would likely buy elsewhere then.
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The inconsistency of DVD menus from one disc to another in a box set. Currently we are watching Monk from start to finish, and even discs in the same container have different menu structures. And some you can skip all the copyright warnings and some you have to wait through.
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YOUTUBE changes that do 'clumsy' things to cellphone players.
Latest 'change over' making my screen to have a tiny little active area while whole rest of display is a blank area. Various apparently unworking ICONs that do other things when click-on, (such as going to 'share this', when icon looks like it should expand to viewing window).
Also, appears that I've been, somehow, been SIGNED UP, as a 'member', newly receiving other members 'recommend's, randomly.
Those newly minimized screen formats also often playing 2 or more ADs with definitely LOUDER audio, click-offs that don't work, or take you anyway. etc.
New marketing push ? Open exploitation doesn't even pretend, anymore ?
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(...)
Oh boy. We have a collection of mostly spotty bedroom nerds with too much money, being led by YouTubers and 'influencers' who convince them they need "Enterprise class" hardware to run it on.
Those people the spend £3k on a NAS setup with a dozen Seatgate Red NAS drives or some second hand enterprise SAS drive. They run it on a second had dell poweredge burning 200W idle and sounding like the vacuum cleaner is on constantly.
(...)
Yeah sure. Well people spend their money on the shit they like. That's their problem. Of course that's ridiculous in the vast majority of cases.
But the same kind can also spend thousands of dollars just to gain 10% more FPS on their favorite game.
Note that those who do this and promote it on social networks (with enough subscribers) can get a lot of cash out of it and thus it basically costs them naught. Sure a number of gullible people may replicate what they see while not managing to get any cash out of it (so it's a net loss), but that's pretty much the business model of influencing, and thus social media in general.
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People have their own interests.
A co-worker who wanted to buy very expensive audio speakers (above his pay grade at the time), could not understand why a different person would want a car more expensive than a Honda Civic.
As I posted elsewhere, my boss once suggested that my good 4x5 and 8x10 inch film cameras were obsolete, but his enthusiasm was raising horses.
As long as it's their money, let's just all get along.
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Todays "mild" annoyance.Wondering why my latest master piece works exactly as designed with a bog standard 555 but fails spectacularly when a low power 7555 was used.Turns out the 7555's that dropped through the door this morning are actually 25lc04's.
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Automated voice system, in enterprises, government or private. Note that the abilities of such system are (often) inversely proportional to severity of need:
1.) Local frozen custard stand automated orders will work perfectly.
2.). Critical transactions, (like Calif. DMV), will exhibit SEVERAL obvious flaws. One DMV topic asks for your cellphone number, then interrupts virtually immediately, saying;
" (51 is not a valid call-back number"
An obviously broken menu system,...How do the contractors get away with that kind of shoddy performance ??? That's what buggs me.!
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Garmin.
Express won't update satnav because there isn't enough space on the PC. Oh yes there bloody well is, it's just not on the C: drive which Express is hardcoded to use. Mind, it has improved somewhere in recent times - now it asks where you want to install the 10s of GB of map data, so of course you point to that drive with TBs free and it accepts that, and even installs the map there. But it won't use that to update the satnav and still insists on the C: drive! fsck!
OK, so out with Sandboxie to redirect C: to the oodles-of-space drive, and still it doesn't work because instead of actually trying it the damn thing just looks as the space on C: and goes 'nope'.
And if you do manage to free up enough space on C: to get it working, and also tell it to shove the maps elsewhere, the cretinous excuse for software leaves a copy of it on C:, so you actually have the stuff duplicated in two places!
Nice hardware, really shit software.
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Apple Watch alert sound.
When it’s paired with your phone only the watch will sound. Trouble is, the sound is a high pitched ping that I can hardly hear, especially when outside. Not only that, there is no option to change the sound. :--
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Pet peeve: That no one working on the Bluetooth standard though it would be a good idea to upgrade the profiles to allow a mic channel and high quality audio at the same time. "Oh, so you want a mic channel, let me drop your stereo audio quality to 4bit 8khz mono"
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Pet peeve: That no one working on the Bluetooth standard though it would be a good idea to upgrade the profiles to allow a mic channel and high quality audio at the same time. "Oh, so you want a mic channel, let me drop your stereo audio quality to 4bit 8khz mono"
Its almost like the cellular people don't want people bypassing their networks, using Wechat, Whatsapp and so on, with higher quality audio than their systems permit.
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SaaS ... its the end of the world, soon it will be EaaS that is: Everything as a Service.
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Well since about the year 2000 I have had my own website. I am increasingly becoming annoyed with the script kiddies etc that just go poking around websites looking to break into it.
90% of the traffic was someone trying passwords to the admin page for the site, which up to now has been safe due to obscurity. I know it should be better protected but I have to spend a fair bit of my website tinker time with working out what URLs they are trying and blocking the little twats.
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Well since about the year 2000 I have had my own website. I am increasingly becoming annoyed with the script kiddies etc that just go poking around websites looking to break into it.
90% of the traffic was someone trying passwords to the admin page for the site, which up to now has been safe due to obscurity. I know it should be better protected but I have to spend a fair bit of my website tinker time with working out what URLs they are trying and blocking the little twats.
Imagine how far we would be if all those people spent this gigantic amount of time actually building stuff rather than trying to destroy stuff.
Of course that's a general musing. I guess it's even a whole part of our human condition and life in society.
The realist in me tells me that all the people focusing on destroying others' work rather than producing their own would probably only produce a pile of crap anyway, although I have no formal proof of that theory.
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Dont you guys love those "talking hands" style youtube videos? ... :rant: |O
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It's all because of money. They can use my server/site to spread their messages and catch more people off guard. I know that some do it for the bragging rights and some do it to teach people that unless they are willing to become a high end tech security nerd then the internet isnt for you, elitist types.
I host the village councils website which means it gets a lot of attention.
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Yep. Money, ultimately. Those who are bold and criminally minded enough, hide within the packs of trolls and elitists.
Too many people assume attackers are after them and their stuff. They then justify low security as "I have nothing worth hacking".
Wrong. They are most likely not interested in your stuff, they are interested in using your broken server or PC as a stepping stone. As an anonomised worker node. From there they conduct the shady stuff like sending scam emails, phishing emails, running their port scanners, DDOS agents etc.
At the end of their work the output is usually lists of verified identities to scam or steal, credit card details, bank account details and even transfers of entire pensions to bit coin scams.
However, there are hackers out there who will specifically target families. Especially family photos in the cloud. The most scary thing about this is that, just like AOL back in the day, most of these "hackers" are just cloud employees and creepers. Google has an infestation of them currently under investigation who collect "family photos" into Google albums from random family private photos and share them for money in various news net and Tor groups.
At least when it's between your own 4 walls you know where the cable goes. That's all I'm saying.
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... and as a confession and a peeve.
I got hacked. Well, technically I didn't get hacked, I had a blonde miss configuration of an email server and the total damage done was roughly 16,000 scam emails being sent from my server before my ISP suspended my relaying for 24 hours. Then another 3,000 emails the next morning, but by that time I was onto it.
This occured when, for some god unknown reason ticked "Masquerade" on the LAN interface. Then (it's never just one mistake!) on seeing all the email traffic bouncing off the mailgw coming from the "mainrouter" I thought, "I upgraded that, maybe its now trying to send email alerts"... so I checked why the mail gateway was bouncing the connections and found it was configured to not respond to any local addresses without authentication. (CORRECTLY!) I added "accept_mynetworks" thinking I didn't need internal autthentiation on SMTP.
That later stipulation was correct. I don't. However the mail GATEWAY is NOT, repeat NOT the local god damn mail server! I am an idiot.
That "accept_mynetworks" and all public port 25 now appearing to come from the mainrouter (a trusted LAN address) meant it accepted and relayed any mail for anyone to anywhere.
Fixed now. Although the whole mailgw is headed to Linode. Extranet'ing it, if you will.
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Dont you guys love those "talking hands" style youtube videos? ... :rant: |O
Yeah, I find that pretty annoying too, but this is one of these gimmicks that many Youtubers use and that seems to "work", so.
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Dont you guys love those "talking hands" style youtube videos? ... :rant: |O
Yeah, I find that pretty annoying too, but this is one of these gimmicks that many Youtubers use and that seems to "work", so.
I haven't heard or seen that. Any examples?
(My youtube searches brought a lot of wristwatch videos... :P )
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I think talking hands might be Big Clive style, but the talking upper body including shoulders and arms that can be really annoying is exemplified by Samira Hussein on the BBC (elsewhere too, but this is where she crosses my radar). Random example:
https://youtu.be/k8NvdFsdGQo?t=71
She has toned down considerably, so I wonder if someone has been (trying to) coach her. If not, they should! And, often, the shot will try to crop her hands, but they are very difficult to lose without zooming into just her face.
Perhaps I am more triggered than most because I am deaf, so I notice expressions and stuff. Her gestures make no sense at all, which is the problem - she is talking one thing and he gestures say another, and they are loud gestures. And they are typically the same ones since she has two or three that she uses in rotation. And during all this her shoulders and going up and down until, when she is done, they noticeably drop as if some great exertion has been spent and now she can relax.
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Dont you guys love those "talking hands" style youtube videos? ... :rant: |O
Yeah, I find that pretty annoying too, but this is one of these gimmicks that many Youtubers use and that seems to "work", so.
I am not sure. I quite like the output from ThisOldTony.
It is not as cringeworthy as the person behind a bench with a bunch of tools behind them talking and walking like Tim the Toolman Taylor. Acting like they are some big production and we should trust them as they try and promote a new product.
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If you want to see one telling example that even the least allergic to this will easily spot, then you can try the "Action Retro" YT channel. Have fun.
(NB: I have absolutely nothing against this channel or this guy and don't mean to give him bad publicity. It's just about this "talking hand" gimmick.)
Quite a few other Youtubers use the same gimmick. It's a communication thing they have either been coached to do, or learned from others that do it.
It's definitely not just people talking with their hands in a "natural" way.
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SaaS ... its the end of the world, soon it will be EaaS that is: Everything as a Service.
And you will be happy!
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SaaS ... its the end of the world, soon it will be EaaS that is: Everything as a Service.
And you will be happy!
You will be. You won't own yourself anymore either. You will belong to a company that will allow you to exist and use your own being as long as you keep paying the subscription. Sounds nice. :)
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resistance - How hard is it to measure :palm:
just got caught out with an unfamiliar TIS1835 dmm/insulation tester continuity/resistance setup.
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This morning volunteer for pet peeve was... paper labels from other calibration labs.
1 on each bit of gear that was send it, bag, unit, cables, power lead etc.
1 on the unit so they can scan it in next year.
1 calibration label.
It took forever to remove the damned things and clean up the glue residue.
Then I go onsite, to do a few hardness testers, paper labels, and large ones. But this time there were 10 years of labels stuck on top of each other.
Don't get me started on labels being put on askew, there is a very special place in Hell for people like that. My 17025 assessor even got to hear about a rant I did at a sub-con lab for wonky labels.
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When I see a social media photo of a gathering that someone I know arranged but I wasn’t invited to. What is the value of telling uninvolved people about it?
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well, you can take the hint or just figure that people have lives that sometimes don't need or require your intimate contribution but still like to know you anyway.
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IMPROPER AUDIO COMPRESSION, used in several radio shows, (talk radio).
Hi, there are a couple radio shows, (mostly streaming now) that serve the trucking industry crowd, often in late night hours. My peeve, ultimately, is that (the producers) don't consider or use 'self awareness', of recurrent audio problems.
Seems like, some type of AUDIO COMPRESSION used will have a sort-of 'pre-muting', where the volume is cut,(drastically), until the person has begun talking. This means an effect where a listener has loss of maybe a portion of a word or two, while the audio volume comes up to normal.
It's similar to when a person speaking keeps turning head away from the microphone. I've included in text, here, approximating what I mean by drop-outs:
(Lower case text, to illustrate low volume or indistinguishable.)
" this senTENCE, YOU CAN HEAR..."
" but the beginING IS NOT CLEAR"
Something like that, but maybe one third of the sentences the show hosts are saying.
But the real question is why the show's engineers, etc. don't seem to notice this audio defect....???
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It is well known that MP3 compressed music when played via mobile phone hybrid encoding compression sounds absolutely terrible.
However, nearly ever other phone "hold" music is mp3s and they sound like the music is being played at a beach with tone washing noises and near complete garbling at times.
Mobile phone codecs are design for VOICE and VOICE only.
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Mine is when people rinse off the dishes in the sink before putting them into the dishwasher - just what is the point in the dishwasher then? The dishwasher does a rinse cycle before it starts the wash. :-//
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MYSELF. (lol)
Bet you didn't see that one coming.
I'd like to put a tech 'burden' on somebody that's asking some important stuff,...(like "Have you seen where I put my heart medication?"...).
Like for example:
1.). "Would you like me to continue, in English ?"...(press or say '1').
2.). "After we talk, would you be willing to take a brief survey?"
3.). "I'm sorry, could you please provide a 2nd. authentication, of your I.D. ?"
This is sounding too much like a real (phone) conversation, not really so funny;
But using that paperwork / phone agent model, for a typical human to human chat,
4.). "We / I don't discriminate on any basis and strive to provide 35 translations, in any language on earth,...including 'Tagalog'...if you prefer that..."
5.). "Please see my Web site, for more info on how I process 'Heart Medication questions'."
Not really funny....get it ?
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IMPROPER AUDIO COMPRESSION, used in several radio shows, (talk radio).
Hi, there are a couple radio shows, (mostly streaming now) that serve the trucking industry crowd, often in late night hours. My peeve, ultimately, is that (the producers) don't consider or use 'self awareness', of recurrent audio problems.
Seems like, some type of AUDIO COMPRESSION used will have a sort-of 'pre-muting', where the volume is cut,(drastically), until the person has begun talking. This means an effect where a listener has loss of maybe a portion of a word or two, while the audio volume comes up to normal.
It's similar to when a person speaking keeps turning head away from the microphone. I've included in text, here, approximating what I mean by drop-outs:
(Lower case text, to illustrate low volume or indistinguishable.)
" this senTENCE, YOU CAN HEAR..."
" but the beginING IS NOT CLEAR"
Something like that, but maybe one third of the sentences the show hosts are saying.
But the real question is why the show's engineers, etc. don't seem to notice this audio defect....???
They got rid of the engineer "because they have software for that". But it may well be some compression stuff coming from the place that streams the show to the masses. Every byte needs to be saved.
I had to stop listening to BBC Radio 2 (one of the big UK radio stations) on my drive home from jobs especially on a Friday as they would have regular phone in sessions where they would have people going on about being stuck in traffic as they head away for their holiday. The audio was always terrible, of course due to crappy mobile phone compression, but it was fine for the presenter who is in a studio with nice headphones to listen to this, me well I am in a van with a crap radio and sat in the traffic as I live in the area all the grockels are heading for.
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Mine is when people rinse off the dishes in the sink before putting them into the dishwasher - just what is the point in the dishwasher then? The dishwasher does a rinse cycle before it starts the wash. :-//
Funny, one of mine is dishwashers that don't get the dishes clean without that pre-rinse. Which is the vast majority of them. Unless you are in the situation where you can run the dishwasher before the food dries. In our situation that means running a nearly empty dishwasher every time which we choose not to do.
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They got rid of the engineer "because they have software for that". But it may well be some compression stuff coming from the place that streams the show to the masses. Every byte needs to be saved.
Sound engineering is as much of an art as it is a science and a practice. You might even argue that a sound engineering remains the last of the analog jobs? Compression artefacts in audio is possibly someone just being lazy/inept or, 96Kbs breaks the studio bandwidth as it was only designed to handle 10KHz talk for AM broadcast.
Recently, we were at a staged event where the performers microphones were clearly picking up a rumble which was likely a blend of the tom-toms and a reverb from the wooden auditorium. The result was a muddy phase cancellation which at times sounded like a dumper truck. The audience could see this was causing a significant irritation to the lead performer. In the interval we asked the guy on the sound desk if he had EQ'd the mics to cut the low end? His response, "they're all default." As if to say, what's wrong, I set all the dials to +/- zero which is how I always do it. I'm not paid to listen. But I am qualified. The second part was equally muddy. The lead performer was even less happy.
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Mine is when people rinse off the dishes in the sink before putting them into the dishwasher - just what is the point in the dishwasher then? The dishwasher does a rinse cycle before it starts the wash. :-//
Funny, one of mine is dishwashers that don't get the dishes clean without that pre-rinse. Which is the vast majority of them. Unless you are in the situation where you can run the dishwasher before the food dries. In our situation that means running a nearly empty dishwasher every time which we choose not to do.
I have never had that problem before. I can put in dishes with dried on bits and they all come out clean. The only time I've ever heard of that in the past was from when people used crappy dishwasher detergent from a brand called Finish, they are utter crap.
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Mine is when people rinse off the dishes in the sink before putting them into the dishwasher - just what is the point in the dishwasher then? The dishwasher does a rinse cycle before it starts the wash. :-//
Funny, one of mine is dishwashers that don't get the dishes clean without that pre-rinse. Which is the vast majority of them. Unless you are in the situation where you can run the dishwasher before the food dries. In our situation that means running a nearly empty dishwasher every time which we choose not to do.
It's absolutely critical that the dishwasher have most/all of its powder/liquid remaining after the pre-rinse is done (ready for main wash cycle).
Or even better to have two powder systems, one that activities immediately for the pre-rinse and one that activates later for the main wash cycle.
The tables you throw anywhere into the machine cause so many issues because your pre-rinse uses up most of the tablet and leaves very little for the main wash cycle when its actually needed.
When used properly handwashing stuff before putting it into the dishwasher is almost never needed.
There are a few exceptions where a manual hand-wash is needed.
Dried-on spinach comes to mind, so you really want to wash that under the tap first, while its wet, to get it off, or put the dishwasher on before it dries onto the plate/saucepan.
One it sets its really hard to get off and even the machine has trouble.
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Other exceptions include rice, peanut butter, oat meal and pancake batter. There are many others. And my washer does have two stage powder delivery and I use dw detergent that has best reviews for cleaning.
If your diet consists only of steak and baked potatoes dishwashers work fine. And even with the bother of pre-rinse they are worthwhile.
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oh yeah, and melted vegan cheese tends to be as hard as a rock if you let it dry on the plate.
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Mine is when people rinse off the dishes in the sink before putting them into the dishwasher - just what is the point in the dishwasher then? The dishwasher does a rinse cycle before it starts the wash. :-//
Funny, one of mine is dishwashers that don't get the dishes clean without that pre-rinse. Which is the vast majority of them. Unless you are in the situation where you can run the dishwasher before the food dries. In our situation that means running a nearly empty dishwasher every time which we choose not to do.
It's absolutely critical that the dishwasher have most/all of its powder/liquid remaining after the pre-rinse is done (ready for main wash cycle).
Or even better to have two powder systems, one that activities immediately for the pre-rinse and one that activates later for the main wash cycle.
The tables you throw anywhere into the machine cause so many issues because your pre-rinse uses up most of the tablet and leaves very little for the main wash cycle when its actually needed.
When used properly handwashing stuff before putting it into the dishwasher is almost never needed.
There are a few exceptions where a manual hand-wash is needed.
Dried-on spinach comes to mind, so you really want to wash that under the tap first, while its wet, to get it off, or put the dishwasher on before it dries onto the plate/saucepan.
One it sets its really hard to get off and even the machine has trouble.
The tablets go in the tablet dispenser, they don't get dispensed until after the rinse. I've never had a dishwasher not wash properly, people are either using crap dishwashers or combination of that and crap detergent. I never have to hand rinse, it's just pointless, you may as well carry on by hand. It's like having a dog and doing the barking yourself.
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Mine is when people rinse off the dishes in the sink before putting them into the dishwasher - just what is the point in the dishwasher then? The dishwasher does a rinse cycle before it starts the wash. :-//
Funny, one of mine is dishwashers that don't get the dishes clean without that pre-rinse. Which is the vast majority of them. Unless you are in the situation where you can run the dishwasher before the food dries. In our situation that means running a nearly empty dishwasher every time which we choose not to do.
It's absolutely critical that the dishwasher have most/all of its powder/liquid remaining after the pre-rinse is done (ready for main wash cycle).
Or even better to have two powder systems, one that activities immediately for the pre-rinse and one that activates later for the main wash cycle.
The tables you throw anywhere into the machine cause so many issues because your pre-rinse uses up most of the tablet and leaves very little for the main wash cycle when its actually needed.
When used properly handwashing stuff before putting it into the dishwasher is almost never needed.
There are a few exceptions where a manual hand-wash is needed.
Dried-on spinach comes to mind, so you really want to wash that under the tap first, while its wet, to get it off, or put the dishwasher on before it dries onto the plate/saucepan.
One it sets its really hard to get off and even the machine has trouble.
The tablets go in the tablet dispenser, they don't get dispensed until after the rinse. I've never had a dishwasher not wash properly, people are either using crap dishwashers or combination of that and crap detergent. I never have to hand rinse, it's just pointless, you may as well carry on by hand. It's like having a dog and doing the barking yourself.
Some tablets don't fit into the dispensers on some machines, so the instructions say to put them in the bottom of the machine, or put them into the knife/fork/spoon holder thing.
Which, if you do that, usually results in dishes that dont clean as well as they would otherwise, because the tablet dissolves in the pre-rinse.
Often they try to claim that their tablet are special and coated in something that has a time delay release to avoid this problem, but it doesn't work properly
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They always fit in my dispenser, I've never had any trouble what so ever. The filthiest of dishes go in, covered in all sorts, dried baked on stuff, they come out like new.
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Other exceptions include rice, peanut butter, oat meal and pancake batter. There are many others. And my washer does have two stage powder delivery and I use dw detergent that has best reviews for cleaning.
If your diet consists only of steak and baked potatoes dishwashers work fine. And even with the bother of pre-rinse they are worthwhile.
My dishwasher gets rid of all of that. There are bowls and a saucepan in the dishwasher now which have had oats on them this morning. The dishwasher will go on later, by that point it'll all be dried on, it always comes out perfectly clean.
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Re dishwasher, if you inspect glassware carefully under a very strong light, you will see a slight blue film left behind by modern detergents. It is a consequence of removing a very effective cleaner (phosphates) and replacing it with something that doesn't over-feed the marine plant life...
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The user's manual of all the dishwashers that I had always recommended to remove food from the dishes before putting them in a cycle - to reduce the possibility of clogging the drain filter. Otherwise, they do a good job if the soap is worth its salt. I also leave a small splatter of soap on the door to help with the initial rinsing step.
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The user's manual of all the dishwashers that I had always recommended to remove food from the dishes before putting them in a cycle - to reduce the possibility of clogging the drain filter. Otherwise, they do a good job if the soap is worth its salt. I also leave a small splatter of soap on the door to help with the initial rinsing step.
I agree, and I have only used powder type detergent, so this is easy to do (a dose in both dispenser trays, and a small dose outside the flaps). I am naughty and add a small amount of TSP as well.
My view on "pods" or detergent tablets is a dim one.
The only thing I am constantly unable to fully clean is crusty carbon on baking dishes. I am not quite at the point of using hot sulfuric acid but it seems like nothing else works...
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The user's manual of all the dishwashers that I had always recommended to remove food from the dishes before putting them in a cycle - to reduce the possibility of clogging the drain filter. Otherwise, they do a good job if the soap is worth its salt. I also leave a small splatter of soap on the door to help with the initial rinsing step.
I agree, and I have only used powder type detergent, so this is easy to do (a dose in both dispenser trays, and a small dose outside the flaps). I am naughty and add a small amount of TSP as well.
My view on "pods" or detergent tablets is a dim one.
The only thing I am constantly unable to fully clean is crusty carbon on baking dishes. I am not quite at the point of using hot sulfuric acid but it seems like nothing else works...
I remove excess food, as you usually would anyway, scrape off left overs into the bin, but I'm not rinsing it in the sink before putting it in the dishwasher.
I pull the filter once a week maybe and give it a good wash out.
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The only thing I am constantly unable to fully clean is crusty carbon on baking dishes. I am not quite at the point of using hot sulfuric acid but it seems like nothing else works...
For these I tend to scrape the crust using a wood spoon or something else that does not scratch the bottom of the pan (our pans are cast iron, which helps by being much sturdier than the fragile T-Flon ones). Otherwise it is as you said: the crud becomes caked and fused into the pan.
I remove excess food, as you usually would anyway, scrape off left overs into the bin, but I'm not rinsing it in the sink before putting it in the dishwasher.
Since our sink has the food disposer, we end up rinsing the food away on the sink but not overdoing it.
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Sigh. Aliexpress product titles. >:(
I just want to buy foam wiping swabs. One of the sellers describe these as:
"Inks Wiping Foams Sponge Cotton Sticks For Roland Epson Mimaki Mutoh Inkjet Eco Solvent Printer Printhead Cotton Bud Sticks"
I had to ask if they dipped it in solvent already of if they come dry.
I only love how McMaster-Carr describe their products on their website.
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Why, when I go to use the microwave, do I have to push a button labeled "Cook" first? Is that not what the thing is made for? Open door, put item inside, close door, enter a time and press "Start'. But the last two I've had require an extra step of pressing "Cook" before entering the time.
Yes, it's a minor thing, but still annoying. Not that I've had all that many microwaves, but only the last two required the extra button press. Maybe this is a brand/manufacturer thing, I don't know.
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Maybe you want to defrost a frozen food, for which I am guessing there is a different button.
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People have taken to ranting about Microwaves getting IoT internet connections. They cry "What possible need does a microwave have for an internet connection?"
Well, it would certainly provided a way to solve the No. 1 problems with microwaves. Nobody knows how to cook with them.
The manufacturer of the microwave knows what it will do, but does not know exactly what the food you are putting into it is. So they can't give you exact answers.
When you buy pre-made food to heat in them, the manufacturer of the food has no clue what your microwave is capable of.
The result is blanket, absolutely non-sense cooking guidelines which are far, far, far removed from how the microwave was intended to be used. Nobody can "safely" give you instructions to cook the food propoerly with YOUR microwave.
Instead they put things like: "900W Heat for full power for 4 minutes. Allow to stand for 1 minute. Heat on full power for 3 minutes."
This will absolutely 100% nuke the HELL out of whatever you are microwaving. After about the first minute, parts of it will be agressively boiling and drying out while other parts are frozen. The initial 4 minute is FAR too long. It would far, far, far better to use the intermediate power settings, however those are not standarized across manufacturers or models. So nobody can safely advise you use them.
If the microwave could be facilitated with a database of bar-coded products, you could simple scan the Pizza or ready meal and stick it in, close the door and it would cook it correctly based on what the microwave is capable of the best way to heat/cook that particular food in "This" particular oven.
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People have taken to ranting about Microwaves getting IoT internet connections. They cry "What possible need does a microwave have for an internet connection?"
Well, it would certainly provided a way to solve the No. 1 problems with microwaves. Nobody knows how to cook with them.
The manufacturer of the microwave knows what it will do, but does not know exactly what the food you are putting into it is. So they can't give you exact answers.
When you buy pre-made food to heat in them, the manufacturer of the food has no clue what your microwave is capable of.
The result is blanket, absolutely non-sense cooking guidelines which are far, far, far removed from how the microwave was intended to be used. Nobody can "safely" give you instructions to cook the food propoerly with YOUR microwave.
Instead they put things like: "900W Heat for full power for 4 minutes. Allow to stand for 1 minute. Heat on full power for 3 minutes."
This will absolutely 100% nuke the HELL out of whatever you are microwaving. After about the first minute, parts of it will be agressively boiling and drying out while other parts are frozen. The initial 4 minute is FAR too long. It would far, far, far better to use the intermediate power settings, however those are not standarized across manufacturers or models. So nobody can safely advise you use them.
If the microwave could be facilitated with a database of bar-coded products, you could simple scan the Pizza or ready meal and stick it in, close the door and it would cook it correctly based on what the microwave is capable of the best way to heat/cook that particular food in "This" particular oven.
I use 2.5 mins initially, open the microwave, then with a spatula, break up the frozen food, (which is definitely not "nuked" in that time) so it has a chance to cook evenly (messes up pasta, but who cares?).
Subtracting the 2.5mins from the recommended time, I then put it back in for the resultant time.
Sometimes it works, sometimes the food needs another 30 secs to a minute, but it is a much better method than slavishly relying upon the directions.
Why do you assume the microwave & food manufacturers would take the time to generate a whole database just for your convenience & at no profit to themselves?
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The only thing I am constantly unable to fully clean is crusty carbon on baking dishes. I am not quite at the point of using hot sulfuric acid but it seems like nothing else works...
For these I tend to scrape the crust using a wood spoon or something else that does not scratch the bottom of the pan (our pans are cast iron, which helps by being much sturdier than the fragile T-Flon ones). Otherwise it is as you said: the crud becomes caked and fused into the pan.
I remove excess food, as you usually would anyway, scrape off left overs into the bin, but I'm not rinsing it in the sink before putting it in the dishwasher.
Since our sink has the food disposer, we end up rinsing the food away on the sink but not overdoing it.
Interestingly, dishwashers for different markets are programmed with different wash cycles.
Some years back, I had a temporary job re-programming dishwashers to the Australian market settings.
They had been inadvertently supplied with the German program.
To this end, a bunch of us were flown to Melbourne from various parts of Oz, as well as a solitary person from NZ, & were shown how to do the job which consisted of opening the cartons, undoing the front panels, reprogramming them, then returning the devices & cartons to normal.
It was hardly rocket science & they could have just made a video of someone doing it & distributed it, but we weren't complaining as we all got a free trip to Melbourne.
The actual job was a bastard--very hard on the back & boring as hell, but we got it done (well, I got mine done, & I assume the others, who were all much younger, did too).
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Why do you assume the microwave & food manufacturers would take the time to generate a whole database just for your convenience & at no profit to themselves?
Oh come on. Have you been living under a rock?
They spy on you and advertise at you of course. If that model doesn't work they then, after your already paid for the microwave, charge you a subscription to use the service.
Taking the example of frozen pasta ready meal, they can be a right pain. I will typically take the stated "first heat" time and put it in at 66-75% power for that time, not HIGH. By then it is usually stir-able, it's also pretty much defrosted. Stiring the hot parts into the frozen parts hurries that up. If I can't stir it or don't want to, I will probably run it the entirety of their stated "second heat" timer also at 60-75%. However, if it's stirred and defrosted, 1 minute on high will get it to "barely warm enough" and 2 minutes on high gets it to hot enough to eat with some parts a little frazzled. I like to heat my food so I can immediately eat it. (assume it's already cooked). I have never burnt the scare tissue into my mouth that others have, so I have no tolerance for "piping hot food", it simply hurts and literally burns me.
That said... risk... The other factor to consider why they tend to over do the cooking is that they specifically want to boil the food. They don't just want you to heat it up to eatable temps ~60-70*C. They want you to pin it at 100*C for at least a while.
Why? It will save them about 25% on their public liability insurance if they have lab tests showing this will significantly reduce the changes of any bacterial contamination making it to the customers guts.
Additionally, this allows them to put MORE water into the product. In the knowledge they are asking you to microwave it 2 or 3 minutes longer than is necessary, that excess will boil off. If you short cut the times on these meals they are sloppy. More water = more weight = higher price.
Tagent: Where I have found the most significant gains with "ding ding" cooking, is when it's used in combination with other things like grill or oven. This also tilts towards the "smart ovens" future potential.
Example: Frozen Pizza. Microwaved alone... you'd need to be desperate. Oven alone and typically the surface cheese is burning before the centre has fully defrosted and the centre is left soggy and sloppy. My technique is to pre-heat the microwave with it's fan oven to 230*C. Then put the pizza in on a stand so it's mid oven and use the "Pizza Auto" mode set to 400g. The automatic pizza mode uses a combination of oven, grill and short pulses microwave and produces the best looking and eating frozen pizza I have seen! Those short bursts of microwaves are just what it takes to rapidly defrost the core of the pizza while the oven is working on bringing it up to temp and browning it. The microwave basically get the pizza from 0 up to 100 and then the oven and grill do the browning.
Similarly, defrosting in microwaves. They go banded as being "ideal" for defrosting and I honestly have no idea why. Microwaves do not heat up ice. The hydrogen atoms held in the crystal latice do not transmit their resonance anywhere near as much. So what actually happens is, the part where your hand was holding the frozen item when it went in has got a small amount of defrosted water at just that point. That water takes the whole whack of the 900W -loses. It boils, it runs off into the tray and continues to boil the food from underneath, all while the mass bulk of the thing is still frozen and absorbing sod all microwaves. The approach of "pulse" and wait.... "pulse" and wait.... "pulse and wait...." will either take hours with only 1 or 2 second pules and minute or it will partially cook bits of the food (say a lump of steak).
However, what I now do is put the oven into "Convection + Microwave" mode. Which is about 10% microwave, 90% 2kW fan oven. 3-5 minutes. By which time the oven cavity is up to about 60*C, some of the food has been lightly and infrequently microwaved. Leave it alone for an hour and when you come back it will be perfectly defrosted and have virtually not rubberised leather, boiled grey meat to cut off.
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Software companies just hiking up prices and inconsistent prices that depend on where you live.
I used to have Adobe Crearive Suite but now it's at £660 a year so I have had to give it up.
I have been tempted at paying for Fusion 360 as I have been using that a fair bit recently but they have just announced that it's going from $490 to $680 (oddly looking at prices online it's already £510 in the UK). The free option remains but for how long and I expect it to loose more features.
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I think it has taken you a very long time to realize what I knew almost immediately, from a young age:
Microwave ovens are a gimmick product sold to a gullible consumer who values a mythical "convenience" more than his enjoyment or health. The kitchen equivalent of Crocs. You shouldn't feel any shame sneering at this kind of consumer; after all, you have yourself been tricked into it in the past.
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A poor workman blames his tools :-DD
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I think it has taken you a very long time to realize what I knew almost immediately, from a young age:
Microwave ovens are a gimmick product sold to a gullible consumer who values a mythical "convenience" more than his enjoyment or health. The kitchen equivalent of Crocs. You shouldn't feel any shame sneering at this kind of consumer; after all, you have yourself been tricked into it in the past.
Socks with crocs for the win.
Microwaves have thier uses, handy if you don't want to faff with the saucepan when you just want to warm up some rice pudding.
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Sigh. Aliexpress product titles. >:(
the best of chinglish, top effort ;D
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Sigh. Aliexpress product titles. >:(
I just want to buy foam wiping swabs. One of the sellers describe these as:
"Inks Wiping Foams Sponge Cotton Sticks For Roland Epson Mimaki Mutoh Inkjet Eco Solvent Printer Printhead Cotton Bud Sticks"
How about 3D Gravity Night Light Gravity Jumping Comb Carrot Butterfly Knife Decompression Toy Halloween Christmas Gift Kids Toys.
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How about 3D Gravity Night Light Gravity Jumping Comb Carrot Butterfly Knife Decompression Toy Halloween Christmas Gift Kids Toys.
I thought you were joking but it is actually there on aliexpress. I prefer to search for the more constructive items and even then I get so annoyed by the mess that I postpone my search effort.
Nevertheless the items could be just fine in quality.
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plenty of things you don't wont to buy in stock - not so for the stuff you do want to :palm:
is everyone after the curvy ones?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/24028920826 (https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/24028920826)
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Is it just me or do other people also suddenly have a teal tint on Google maps?
There is no way to revent back to the original, is there?
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or do other people also suddenly have a teal tint on Google maps?
Nope.
whilst im here google maps road colours,why cant we customise then so those us who grew up with motorways being blue ,A roads red and so on see at a glance what type of road its trying to send us down.
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whilst im here google maps road colours,why cant we customise then so those us who grew up with motorways being blue ,A roads red and so on see at a glance what type of road its trying to send us down.
Because offering customization options scares off most of the target audience, or the software creators think so. That's the today's general trend.
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And that's one reason I use an actual satnav rather than a phone - it works exactly the same way now as it did 5 years ago. With Maps you don't know how big a change is going to happen overnight and you're catching up as you're trying to use the thing, and then hate whatever new thing it is and spend months wishing you could revert.
Come to think of it, same with Windows now.
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The "software industry" is a complete nightmare these days anyway.
Google apps are worse and worse in terms of usability IMO.
Some claim that it's to make them "easier to use". In the sense of lowering the access barrier, or something. Go figure. It's a bit like what shapirus said about customization. The more we progress, and the more we are supposed to be completely dumb, I thought we were all supposed to become smarter due to this extensive exposure to technology? What's the deal? :-DD
The key buzzword now is "lowering friction" - you need to do whatever to "lower friction" to the use of your products, whatever that means.
But less customization means less work for the developers in general, so maybe, just maybe, that's the only reason there is less and less of it.
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Welcome to the "update culture".
To my opinion software developers are now being assessed on the number of updates they output and not on the quality of the work. You can update your phone and the next day the same apps can have a new update waiting. It is ridiculous |O
The more we progress, and the more we are supposed to be completely dumb, I thought we were all supposed to become smarter due to this extensive exposure to technology? What's the deal? :-DD
With AI it might only get worse. A lot of people will become so reliant on what it tells them that they will completely forget to think for themselves.
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To my opinion software developers are now being assessed on the number of updates they output and not on the quality of the work. You can update your phone and the next day the same apps can have a new update waiting. It is ridiculous |O
I think that depends on the type of software. For some types of software an endless stream of new, only slightly different, versions maintains customer engagement. For others it drives customers away. A third path has developed around terms like LTS. You keep pushing out incremental changes, then define a few releases that will get long term support (LTS), receiving only essential bug and security fixes.
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While 90s and early 00s were a shitty time in terms of economy, I sometimes miss the freedom of not being connected 24/7.
easy solution ,introduce phone to bin.
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Apparently, in this fucking information age not answering right away means I probably had a car accident, stroke, seizure, heart attack or whatever.
One summer day I went for a relaxing 3-hour bike ride and simply forgot my phone - I realized this only when I was deep in a forest and wanted to check time. No biggie, nothing ever happens anyway on a sunday afternoon, right? Right?
When I came back home, there's a dozen of unanswered calls, bunch of text messages and you're already driving to see why I don't respond.
Well, you seem to have your contacts trained well that you are ususally answering very very quickly.
Might be time to re-train them :P
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
I just went to get some “Marmite”, and found a huge greasy slick of butter sitting on the top… niiiiiiice. Have asked them MANY TIMES OVER DECADES not to. This is slothenly, selfish and just lazy.
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Welcome to the "update culture".
To my opinion software developers are now being assessed on the number of updates they output and not on the quality of the work. You can update your phone and the next day the same apps can have a new update waiting. It is ridiculous |O
The more we progress, and the more we are supposed to be completely dumb, I thought we were all supposed to become smarter due to this extensive exposure to technology? What's the deal? :-DD
With AI it might only get worse. A lot of people will become so reliant on what it tells them that they will completely forget to think for themselves.
That's likely, yes. But what's the deal with all these people who, to the question of those who are afraid of AI taking up most jobs, answer that it's like all earlier new technologies, it will make the lower-end, "automatable" jobs obsolete, and in turn create even more new jobs. Except that this premise implies that people are actually going to switch en masse from less "intellectual" jobs to more intellectual ones (as we have experienced in the past). But this premise fails to consider that people are going, in majority, to be too dumb for that, and that what we now consider like "unusable" output from ChatGPT stuff may very well, not particularly improve in quality, but be considered like of higher and higher quality due to the continuous lowering of our standards.
Just a thought. :popcorn:
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
I just went to get some “Marmite”, and found a huge greasy slick of butter sitting on the top… niiiiiiice. Have asked them MANY TIMES OVER DECADES not to. This is slothenly, selfish and just lazy.
Carry on like that that, and your relationships will be toast.
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Ahah, Marmite!
The infamous thing that only a Brit can enjoy. Well, apparently not only. :-//
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Ahah, Marmite!
The infamous thing that only a Brit can enjoy. Well, apparently not only. :-//
This one also has truffle taste included: yummy.
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Ahah, Marmite!
The infamous thing that only a Brit can enjoy. Well, apparently not only. :-//
His country flag is fake. He just gave himself out with that marmite thing.
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Welcome to the "update culture".
To my opinion software developers are now being assessed on the number of updates they output and not on the quality of the work. You can update your phone and the next day the same apps can have a new update waiting. It is ridiculous |O
The more we progress, and the more we are supposed to be completely dumb, I thought we were all supposed to become smarter due to this extensive exposure to technology? What's the deal? :-DD
With AI it might only get worse. A lot of people will become so reliant on what it tells them that they will completely forget to think for themselves.
That's likely, yes. But what's the deal with all these people who, to the question of those who are afraid of AI taking up most jobs, answer that it's like all earlier new technologies, it will make the lower-end, "automatable" jobs obsolete, and in turn create even more new jobs. Except that this premise implies that people are actually going to switch en masse from less "intellectual" jobs to more intellectual ones (as we have experienced in the past). But this premise fails to consider that people are going, in majority, to be too dumb for that, and that what we now consider like "unusable" output from ChatGPT stuff may very well, not particularly improve in quality, but be considered like of higher and higher quality due to the continuous lowering of our standards.
Just a thought. :popcorn:
What I have experienced in the past was that many of the new jobs were less "intellectual" than the jobs that the "suits" in their perceived view of the then current state of technology, decided had become obsolete.
The "suits" themselves were hardly intellectual giants.
The existing workload didn't go away because the existence of some technology somewhere, as those wondrous new devices were not "born full grown from the sea foam, like unto Aphrodite, then delivered by magic carpets to where they were required", but took years to implement.
Most of those keeping the old stuff going were made redundant, after devising ingenious modifications to make 30-plus year-old equipment work something like the wonders the "suits" had promised their Masters.
Those few remaining were "run off their feet" trying to maintain services which were still mainstream, using equipment which was never designed for unattended service.
Further afield, other "suits" were even consigning mainstream trade qualifications to the rubbish bin, including Carpenters, Electricians, & Plumbers.
The new "more intellectual" favourites were IT & BMAs.
Now, the few remaining "Tradies" are "small business people" & "charge like wounded bulls" for their services.
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'Update Culture', annoying, yes. Even that first sentence I typed has an 'updated' text entry idiosyncracy: Typing 'update culture' takes AT LEAST two additional passes, as first thing I get is " update Culture" the system put annoying capitalization (on 'culture'), plus it always makes an edit to your typing, by turning a word into 'plural' mode...as in " 'update culture's " that has to be edited back to how you want it.
Annoying update(s) on the TV (Comcast cable) including wild off the wall results when simply entering a channel number: Now a channel entry like '233' can become '2333' if you hesitate, barely lingering on remote button.
The pause, resume play button was revised so that the TV will resume play by going back a short moment; seems trivial but can no longer manipulate program PLAY when observing some screen action. Formerly, you could do a crude step- stop- step- stop to analyze some fast sports or whatever.
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'Update Culture', annoying, yes. Even that first sentence I typed has an 'updated' text entry idiosyncracy: Typing 'update culture' takes AT LEAST two additional passes, as first thing I get is " update Culture" the system put annoying capitalization (on 'culture'), plus it always makes an edit to your typing, by turning a word into 'plural' mode...as in " 'update culture's " that has to be edited back to how you want it.
Annoying update(s) on the TV (Comcast cable) including wild off the wall results when simply entering a channel number: Now a channel entry like '233' can become '2333' if you hesitate, barely lingering on remote button.
The pause, resume play button was revised so that the TV will resume play by going back a short moment; seems trivial but can no longer manipulate program PLAY when observing some screen action. Formerly, you could do a crude step- stop- step- stop to analyze some fast sports or whatever.
Hey. it's an excuse for another update! - see how this works? :-DD
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why aint sot 23 package luminous orange that fluoresces under uv,be about the only way to have half a chance of finding the buggers that ping out the tweezers.The floor around my bench must be worth a fortune in pinged parts.
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Apple developers who respect your privacy - except what you are doing with their apps and where you are using their apps :-//
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Ahah, Marmite!
The infamous thing that only a Brit can enjoy. Well, apparently not only. :-//
His country flag is fake. He just gave himself out with that marmite thing.
I am British-Russian working in Moscow, I ssh tunnel back to home, see for yourself: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bgRTLzhcun3OmJzXz7nXBTABWUSPhP1M/view?usp=sharing
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
And people who put the teaspoon in coffee first then sugar second so bits of coffee end up in the sugar. No big deal for coffee drinkers but terrible for following tea drinkers.
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Ahah, Marmite!
The infamous thing that only a Brit can enjoy. Well, apparently not only. :-//
His country flag is fake. He just gave himself out with that marmite thing.
I am British-Russian working in Moscow,
Makes sense then. ;D
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And people who put the teaspoon in coffee first then sugar second
Does one not own a set of sugar tongs?
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
And people who put the teaspoon in coffee first then sugar second so bits of coffee end up in the sugar. No big deal for coffee drinkers but terrible for following tea drinkers.
It's just bad form all round. It's EASY to NOT do it, and the only reason for doing it is a lack of consideration, and/or cleanliness.
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...yeah but you have to forgive some, that's behaviour during the first 20 minutes, after getting up out of warm bed, 70 % asleep still (6 am).
I actually DID self-correct the order of instant coffee, AFTER sugar...just because it's a correct way, as described above. Sheet; I've gone maybe 55 years doing the backwards way!
Felt smug, when I figured out why it's sugar first...(unless there's someone avoiding any sugar intake completely).
The other sloppy drips and crumbs aren't good either, when sharing kitchen stuff with others. Except in college.
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Don't put sugar - problem solved, both for the spoiling problem and for your insuline levels. ;D
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And people who put the teaspoon in coffee first then sugar second
Does one not own a set of sugar tongs?
Has one tried scooping granulated sugar with tongs? One may struggle, although one wouldn't find it altogether an impossibility. :P ;D
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Don't put sugar - problem solved, both for the spoiling problem and for your insuline levels. ;D
I gave up on sugar years ago. Partly becuase of the coffee drinkers and there need to drip brown crack into the sugar all the time. The other part is I spent a lot of time near motorcycle racing and a 1kg bag of sugar lasts years in a caravan that is used for events.
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
And people who put the teaspoon in coffee first then sugar second so bits of coffee end up in the sugar. No big deal for coffee drinkers but terrible for following tea drinkers.
That's not as annoying as people giving you a cup of black coffee filled to the very brim, and telling you to help yourself to cream.
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I find the unremitting "you're great" in the comments on YouTube so annoying:
context
So for an easy win (practice) I've been following Ben Eater's computer clock / 555 timer series of 4 videos. And very good viewing they are ..
aaaaaaaaaaand what can go wrong - as usual a couple of things for me :palm:
the first mistake was a copycat error but the second one seems to have been an LED issue/fault - reading the comment space for some sense of how others have faired turns out to be pointless, as viewers can't resist just praising their YouTube guru. Seldom confirming even if they actually built the thing. [ed spelling]
... now my Blue LED is flashing as it should I should comment that my previous not Blue LED was double tapping when the variable resistor was set low :-// [edited high]
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
And people who put the teaspoon in coffee first then sugar second so bits of coffee end up in the sugar. No big deal for coffee drinkers but terrible for following tea drinkers.
That's not as annoying as people giving you a cup of black coffee filled to the very brim, and telling you to help yourself to cream.
Back in the day, when my wife & I both drank plain black coffee, cafes/roadhouses & the like would fill the cup up with boiling water.
Not a good idea when I was travelling around with work, as my offsider would finish his coffee & be "champing at the bit" to hit the road while I was still waiting for my drink to cool down enough to be drinkable.
Even worse, were the "takeaway" places that sold coffee & tea in a Styrofoam cup.
Such cups were intended to be placed in a solid plastic holder, but nobody ever seemed to do so.
One night at the "Trots/Pacing", I bought two coffees & as I tried to navigate through the crowd, I was bumped, causing the Styrofoam to distort & spill.
The scalding stuff poured over my left hand, particularly under my wedding ring.
It was instantaneous agony.
I managed to get some crushed ice from a bar which relieved it for a while, but the drive home was still very painful.
As it was Winter & cold, with drizzling rain, hanging my hand outside helped a bit.
When we got home, it was still bad, & SWMBO had to go out in the rain to a scarily situated coin operated ice machine for a bag of ice.
Near filling a bowl with ice, then adding water relieved the pain enough to sleep, & I awoke with a pain free, but very itchy hand.
Over the next week, a layer of skin peeled off, & all was well.
We both went back to coffee with milk after that!
I was an adult, but just imagine if that hot stuff had landed on a child!
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... now my Blue LED is flashing as it should I should comment that my previous not Blue LED was double tapping when the variable resistor was set low :-//
having even a very basic sub-$100 scope allows to avoid having to dive into the garbage container under the youtube videos that's for some reason is known as "comments section".
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... now my Blue LED is flashing as it should I should comment that my previous not Blue LED was double tapping when the variable resistor was set low :-//
having even a very basic sub-$100 scope allows to avoid having to dive into the garbage container under the youtube videos that's for some reason is known as "comments section".
getting the scope out was third on the list - which should've been already out to look at the waveforms :palm: too lazy
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that clock module circuit is too good for a breadboard so I'm putting it on a pcb (in the breadboard style).
And I'm using sockets for the logic gates - 14 - pin.
I need a few more, so we'll take a look at RS :palm:
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And I'm using sockets for the logic gates - 14 - pin.
speaking of which, btw, while we're at it: does anyone know, by chance, if KiCad has a footprint for surface-mounting these, and how that may be called? The idea is to bend or cut their legs and solder them as 2.54mm pitch SMT DIP to use the existing pile of through hole ICs without having to drill holes.
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
I just went to get some “Marmite”, and found a huge greasy slick of butter sitting on the top… niiiiiiice. Have asked them MANY TIMES OVER DECADES not to. This is slothenly, selfish and just lazy.
People who cut onion on the bread board at the toaster and don't wipe it or mark it fouled.
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People who cut onion on the bread board at the toaster and don't wipe it or mark it fouled.
mmmm onion bread and the boards now covered with a natural antibacterial cleaner,double bonus.
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People who:
* Leave chunks of jam in the butter
* Leave chunks of butter in the jam
* Leave crumbs in either
And people who put the teaspoon in coffee first then sugar second so bits of coffee end up in the sugar. No big deal for coffee drinkers but terrible for following tea drinkers.
That's not as annoying as people giving you a cup of black coffee filled to the very brim, and telling you to help yourself to cream.
Back in the day, when my wife & I both drank plain black coffee, cafes/roadhouses & the like would fill the cup up with boiling water.
Not a good idea when I was travelling around with work, as my offsider would finish his coffee & be "champing at the bit" to hit the road while I was still waiting for my drink to cool down enough to be drinkable.
Even worse, were the "takeaway" places that sold coffee & tea in a Styrofoam cup.
Such cups were intended to be placed in a solid plastic holder, but nobody ever seemed to do so.
One night at the "Trots/Pacing", I bought two coffees & as I tried to navigate through the crowd, I was bumped, causing the Styrofoam to distort & spill.
The scalding stuff poured over my left hand, particularly under my wedding ring.
It was instantaneous agony.
I managed to get some crushed ice from a bar which relieved it for a while, but the drive home was still very painful.
As it was Winter & cold, with drizzling rain, hanging my hand outside helped a bit.
When we got home, it was still bad, & SWMBO had to go out in the rain to a scarily situated coin operated ice machine for a bag of ice.
Near filling a bowl with ice, then adding water relieved the pain enough to sleep, & I awoke with a pain free, but very itchy hand.
Over the next week, a layer of skin peeled off, & all was well.
We both went back to coffee with milk after that!
I was an adult, but just imagine if that hot stuff had landed on a child!
There is absolutely zero reason to serve boiling beverages... Nobody can drink it!
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There is absolutely zero reason to serve boiling beverages... Nobody can drink it!
There is no direct relation between serving boiling beverages and being able to drink them. One does not render another automatically pointless.
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There is absolutely zero reason to serve boiling beverages... Nobody can drink it!
There is no direct relation between serving boiling beverages and being able to drink them. One does not render another automatically pointless.
Serving boiling beverages in a takeaway scenario, especially in flimsy containers is pointless in business terms.
A minimal time saving is offset by the possibility of having your backside sued.
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Serving boiling beverages in a takeaway scenario, especially in flimsy containers is pointless in business terms.
A minimal time saving is offset by the possibility of having your backside sued.
Ah yes, did I miss the "takeaway" part? In that case, right, I agree. In addition, for some reason, I find that e.g. takeaway coffee with that lid, you know, that kind with only a small drinking hole to avoid spilling it in the car, feels much hotter when you drink it through that hole in the lid than the very same coffee with the lid removed. I wonder why.
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Serving boiling beverages in a takeaway scenario, especially in flimsy containers is pointless in business terms.
A minimal time saving is offset by the possibility of having your backside sued.
Ah yes, did I miss the "takeaway" part? In that case, right, I agree. In addition, for some reason, I find that e.g. takeaway coffee with that lid, you know, that kind with only a small drinking hole to avoid spilling it in the car, feels much hotter when you drink it through that hole in the lid than the very same coffee with the lid removed. I wonder why.
I've noticed that too!
Such containers are much safer than the horrible Styrofoam things which were common years ago, though.
In a non-takeaway situation, the over-hot coffee is just an annoyance, so is not as much of a "pet peeve"
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takeaway coffee with that lid, you know, that kind with only a small drinking hole to avoid spilling it in the car, feels much hotter when you drink it through that hole in the lid than the very same coffee with the lid removed. I wonder why.
Perhaps because when you normally sip there is a fair amount of air getting mixed up as well, which cools the drink. When you suck through the hole there is no air, so no cooling.
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Rant:
I love watching people do horrible things to old machinery, I also love watching people restore old machinery... and even destroy old machinery in amusing ways.
However, for some reason, this particular group cause me issues.
This video. I do not know how many of you know anything at all about bikes, but basically... neither do these guys. Not the slightest clue. I am honestly surprised they didn't get SERIOUSLY hurt here.
First... The want to fit a "decompression valve" to a racing scrambler. No, just no. Why? Because they are short-asses, don't know how to fix the engine to start properly and believe it's too hard to kick over.
Second... they lower it, soften it and then remove material from the seat! If they ever give this bike to a profressional or someone who knows how to ride it, they will potentially suffer a broken back on the first jump the take on it.
Then they come to trying to "pull start" the bike.... with a FIXED tow rope on the forks... in 1st. FACE PALM SMACK. I am watching this ranting at the screen! "You are just going to lock up the rear wheel in 1st. The fixed tow rope is going lock out on you and send you down hard... and the tow rope is going to get fouled in the wheels... all of which then immediately happen. Did they figure it out? Did they wonder why that happened and try something a bit more sensible? Nope. They just got back up and repeated it.... They are EXTREMELY lucky that tow rope did not foul in the chain and pull the riders foot in there too.
Then they get to riding it. They run around with the clutch pulled in 90% of the time, trying to ride it like a bicycle with a temporary engine. They think the bike is broken because it keeps stalling out. It's not, it's because they keep blipping it and letting it idle back with the clutch in. Highly tuned 2 strokes like these do NOT have throttle dampers. If you blip them and let it return to idle it will ... half the time... stall. This is not an issue when ridden properly with the clutch OUT 99% of the time. They have very light fly-wheels for a reason and require the whole drive train to be connected to maintain themselves basically. Stalling the engine or locking up the rear end on braking are common, but easily fixed if riding properly and in the right gear.
So they get up to some speed, about half the speed an experienced rider would have got to, like they hit 40mph on the straight, I'd have had that thing up to 60 and a good rider close to 80 or the rev limiter on the bike in top gear.
To slow down for a corner, the immediately pull the clutch in and then ride the rear brake only to try and slow the bike down, all while blipping the throttle to try and stop the bike from stalling. If they just left the f'ing clutch OUT and let the engine do the rear braking, grabbed a whole load of front brake they would stop in 1/10th the distance, and get the rear wheel set out correctly to simple boot the throttle and powerslide throught the corner.
This "clutching" on braking is not just a rant about this video, it's a rant about nearly every american YouTuber who "self taught" themselves "stick" or riding a dirt bike. I see it all the time. As soon as it comes to braking, they disengage the clutch. Cars, go karts, dirt bikes and road bikes. It is not a wonder why the road death stats for US bikers is so damn high.
Do NOT attempt ANY of this at home... or at work... or ever. Please seek even 1 hours training.
https://youtu.be/LXNPYlCLNkM
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So last week a small blue DMC crimp tool turns up to work with the grumble that a anvil is sticking. So I take a gander and note no issue but I strip is down and give it a clean and a dab of lube. I found I nice curl of swarf in there so just assumed that wouldn't help. There was some grime about as the tool looks like it has been in the tool kit for a few years.
But I reassembled and then checked the gap with the correct plain plug and sent it on its merry way. Only for the customer to complain that the anvil is sticking and sent a picture to the boss. So I get asked how this could happen etc.
The tool got sent in today again. We all looked at the anvil that was stuck out. Until I blew the bit of dirt away. Anvils are nice and silver colour not black ffs.
So tonight it got fully stripped and I threw the bits into the ultrasonic bath for a few mins to clean the dust/oil/grease that has been allowed to get into it over the years. I have just had a "Fun" 10 mins trying to reassemble the ping fook its (anvils with springs that need to sit in ring, 4 of them and there are three rings to fit over it.
Peeved because they couldn't clean the dust out and assumed it was an anvil. Made worse by the fact these people work on aircraft for a living.
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the ping fook its
:-DD
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the ping fook its
:-DD
I think they often use a basic form of the Improbability Drive. You hear a ping and then you swear, after 1 hour or more of searching you find it has landed in your left trouser pocket. We have lots of fun in the lab as we have a short pile carpet which is a charcoal grey with white and black flecks in it so you spend ages searching for that screw or spring.
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People who can't, and especially don't want to, figure out how a freaking reverse vending machine works.
Y'know, the kind that just throws the can in the opening repeatedly despite the display showing "Do not throw container". Machine spits out the can, rinse and repeat. Eventually one of the cans lands at a dead angle against the door, then machine blocks. For the fourth time. |O
You would expect professional soda can pickers to operate these machines like freaking pros, but nope.
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Don't know what a reverse vending machine is, but the problem sounds a lot like what's around this house: the persons are expected to conform to how the machine works rather than vice versa. So, for instance, if the door doesn't latch unless one slowly and carefully turns the handle as it's closed then surely the door needs fixing rather than having the person trained to be slow and more careful.
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My guess is he revers to the machines you can put your empty soda or beer cans in to get your deposit back. There have been problems with these kind of machines in the Netherlands where they stop working due to contamination by the remaining liquids in the cans.
I have my doubts by putting any confidence in the "professional soda can pickers" to do things properly though :-DD
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Ah, thanks. I reckon they'd need to refund more or less the cost of the contents to get people doing that around here :)
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I reckon they'd need to refund more or less the cost of the contents to get people doing that around here
worked ok 40 years back, finding an empty bottle with a deposit was like finding treasure.
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My pet peeve!
My electronic pet peeve!
People who draw schematics with the signal flow in all directions. Signal flow should be left to right first and then top to bottom. The entire idea of a schematic is to make the functioning of the circuit EASY to comprehend. Otherwise you might as well just take a photograph of the rat's nest of wires or connections.
That's my electronic pet peeve!
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My pet peeve!
My electronic pet peeve!
People who draw schematics with the signal flow in all directions. Signal flow should be left to right first and then top to bottom. The entire idea of a schematic is to make the functioning of the circuit EASY to comprehend. Otherwise you might as well just take a photograph of the rat's nest of wires or connections.
That's my electronic pet peeve!
the Chinese do it in reverse. :popcorn:
right from the bottom up, at 5% of the cost
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The KiCad crowd loves doing it different way. No more left to right or top to bottom. In fact no more wire connections. Just drop component symbols randomly on a sheet and terminate with ports.
How anyone would follow signal flow in such garbage I do not know.
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The KiCad crowd loves doing it different way. No more left to right or top to bottom. In fact no more wire connections. Just drop component symbols randomly on a sheet and terminate with ports.
How anyone would follow signal flow in such garbage I do not know.
There are also different kinds of circuits. For opamp stages for example it make much sense to have signal flow from left to right. But when you have a schematic with a big FPGA on it. You might want to split it in many blocks. And make connections based on net names rather than drawn wires. Then with PCB layout you might want to change the order of many connections and change the FPGA signal to pin order accordingly.
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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2020, 02:22:00 pm »
And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
No, NO,
Portable radio was not called that. They called them Transistor Radios Because they were the first have transistors which allowed them to be portable hand-held size. Context, history my friend
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And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
No, NO,
Portable radio was not called that. They called them Transistor Radios Because they were the first have transistors which allowed them to be portable hand-held size. Context, history my friend
And which the general public called "transistors", at least here in Australia.
As you say, history.
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And which the general public called "transistors", at least here in Australia.
+1 here.
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https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-radio-called-a-transistor-while-a-transistor-refers-to-an-electronic-component (https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-radio-called-a-transistor-while-a-transistor-refers-to-an-electronic-component)
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From day one they were called Transistor Radios here in the US. It seems kind of odd that anybody would call them something else.
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'Transistor radio' is too long and unwieldy when speaking informally, particularly when the 'radio' part, as already mentioned, was superfluous. It's why 'hoover' took off as a synonym for 'vacuum cleaner', 'IBM Personal Computer' (or even just 'personal computer') is and always has been a 'PC', etc.
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Three minutes of ADVERTISEMENTS, before I can figure out, if I've found the correct video...
This time YouTube has done a 'take down' of some copyrighted material (likely reason, I've guessed). Video has the '!' symbol signifying that it got taken down by yt.
Any technological reason, they can't notify upfront, rather than a user experience that breeds contempt and begs for mis-trust.
Swell, then....teach your kids. (That's my snark, sorrrry).
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Re: Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2020, 02:22:00 pm »
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Quote
And back in the 1960s the general public would often call a portable radio a transistor. |O
No, NO,
Portable radio was not called that. They called them Transistor Radios Because they were the first have transistors which allowed them to be portable hand-held size. Context, history my friend
Maybe in the USA, but in Australia, calling them a "transistor" was annoyingly common.
In a similar manner, people in the UK commonly called a "motor car" a "motor" when I first visited there in 1971.
Meanwhile people in the USA referred to"automobiles"as "autos".
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One of my pet peeves is the way people confuse the words "purposely" & "purposefully" when they mean quite different things.
"Purposely" means "intentionally", whereas "Purposefully" has a meaning similar to "resolutely."
If this was only something done by ordinary members of the public, it would be bad enough, but journalists & public figures who should know better do it as well.
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One of my pet peeves is the way people confuse the words "purposely" & "purposefully" when they mean quite different things.
"Purposely" means "intentionally", whereas "Purposefully" has a meaning similar to "resolutely."
If this was only something done by ordinary members of the public, it would be bad enough, but journalists & public figures who should know better do it as well.
[/quote
How about people on YouTube who "review" ( :-DD ) phones ALL day EVERY day, and yet don't know to say "Milliamp HOURS", and say "Milliamps" ... :palm:
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Interesting.
I always heard "transistor radio" that that is what I was always told here in the US. (New York, Chicago, and Oakland.) now wonder about other parts of the world.
using "handheld radio" was used, but I never heard just "transistor"
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Maybe in the USA, but in Australia, calling them a "transistor" was annoyingly common.
In a similar manner, people in the UK commonly called a "motor car" a "motor" when I first visited there in 1971.
Meanwhile people in the USA referred to"automobiles"as "autos".
LOL!! and the US German auto manuals always spoke of the "boot" repeatedly confused me!
[/quote]
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Maybe in the USA, but in Australia, calling them a "transistor" was annoyingly common.
And around here at least,often shortened further to tranny.
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In a similar manner, people in the UK commonly called a "motor car" a "motor" when I first visited there in 1971.
That's mostly a low class London thing. However, internationally a lot of car makers use that term, like Mitsubishi Motors being the car making division, and not one of the divisions making motors.
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In a similar manner, people in the UK commonly called a "motor car" a "motor" when I first visited there in 1971.
That's mostly a low class London thing. However, internationally a lot of car makers use that term, like Mitsubishi Motors being the car making division, and not one of the divisions making motors.
I fort they said "Mo-uh!" ;)
Strictly speaking, or so I was told many years ago by an Automotive Engineer, the big cast metal thing that drinks fuel is an "engine".
The only "motors" in the automotive lexicon at the time were "electric motors".
That was probably a reaction at the time to the obsessive use of "motor" by the public at the time, & after all, he was an engineer! :D
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The things under the bonnet have always been engines, AFAIK. And electric motors have always been motors. I think the distinction is that engines have moving parts whereas motors don't (other than the rotor, of course). But cars en bloc have been known as motors to chavs.
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Pedentry here, I am shocked.
Don't get the bright sparks started on bulbs/luminars etc.
Of course we could talk about the humble battery.
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In a similar manner, people in the UK commonly called a "motor car" a "motor" when I first visited there in 1971.
That's mostly a low class London thing.
How would you explain the etymology of motorist (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/motorist) and motorway (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/motorway) ?
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The things under the bonnet have always been engines, AFAIK. And electric motors have always been motors. I think the distinction is that engines have moving parts whereas motors don't (other than the rotor, of course). But cars en bloc have been known as motors to chavs.
There are technical distinctions between “motors” and “engines” and “locomotives”.
Internal combustion engines are heat engines, as described by Carnot.
Locomotives contain their prime mover, such as steam heat engines or Diesel engines.
Locomotive-shaped objects without prime movers, using external electrical power, are often called “motors”.
Electrically powered rotating thingies are properly called motors, not engines.
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Don't get the bright sparks started on bulbs/luminars etc.
Lamps glow bulbs grow >:D
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You might think this mild madness would be limited to cars...,err : AUTOs,...mmmmh ok Chariots. We've said " Got to go to store, but the Old Lady has my 'Wheels' !".
Here in the U.S. it's been said, on and off, (to a Man; "...you go, GIRL !".
That's, obvious direct disregard for correct speak. A sort-of cultural understanding, that the use of 'girl' is by context just a habit or way of speech...not a literal label.
But all this makes me wonder, now, what about 1700's horse and buggy. Guess is, that 'buggy' could conceivably be short for something like 'lugger-trolly'...(crappy example, I know, lol).
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Near to Years End, news media reviewing the year, ...but for a whole week, which consumes 1/51 th. or about 2 % of the year.
I ALMOST prefer the whole infatuation with alcohol, up until New Year's Eve.
How about we make some good, during that last 2 % of 2023!
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Near to Years End, news media reviewing the year, ...but for a whole week, which consumes 1/51 th. or about 2 % of the year.
I ALMOST prefer the whole infatuation with alcohol, up until New Year's Eve.
How about we make some good, during that last 2 % of 2023!
Issue I have is they often only remember recent stuff (up to filming) and not stuff that happened at the beginning of the year.
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The things under the bonnet have always been engines, AFAIK. And electric motors have always been motors. I think the distinction is that engines have moving parts whereas motors don't (other than the rotor, of course). But cars en bloc have been known as motors to chavs.
There are technical distinctions between “motors” and “engines” and “locomotives”.
Internal combustion engines are heat engines, as described by Carnot.
Locomotives contain their prime mover, such as steam heat engines or Diesel engines.
Locomotive-shaped objects without prime movers, using external electrical power, are often called “motors”.
Electrically powered rotating thingies are properly called motors, not engines.
Bus-like objects with IC engines which run on normal railway lines are mostly called "railmotors", whereas somewhat larger objects which perform the same function are "Railcars", whether IC engine powered or electrically powered.
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somewhat larger objects which perform the same function are "Railcars"
Over here we wouldn't use that but would understand it to be an American term for an unpowered carriage: 'railway carriage'.
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somewhat larger objects which perform the same function are "Railcars"
Over here we wouldn't use that but would understand it to be an American term for an unpowered carriage: 'railway carriage'.
It must be an Oz thing then, but "railcar" is only used here for powered carriages.
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Railcars are no longer common in the US, but were powered.
Some were modified automobiles, some were streamlined purpose-built units.
We never called passenger rolling stock “carriages”, just “cars”.
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Oh, we must have misunderstood things, then. Not exactly a surprise :)
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It is very easy to misunderstand language usage in a different country.
For example, referring to the US Department of Transportation as the “Department of Transport”.
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In a similar manner, people in the UK commonly called a "motor car" a "motor" when I first visited there in 1971.
That's mostly a low class London thing.
How would you explain the etymology of motorist (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/motorist) and motorway (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/motorway) ?
Motorsport, motorhome, motorboat, motoring ....
At least it's not automobile.
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At least it's not automobile.
A random Swede: Min bil är Volvo.
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What always has bugged me is why extension cords or any other type of electrical power cord is folded and twist-tied and not shipped in a "coil" shape.
I needed a small 18g extension cord in black and it came folded and tied. Since the insulating jacket is literally thicker than the copper wrapped inside, I needed to bring out my heat gun to straighten it.
I'd pay extra ;D
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What always has bugged me is why extension cords or any other type of electrical power cord is folded and twist-tied and not shipped in a "coil" shape.
I needed a small 18g extension cord in black and it came folded and tied. Since the insulating jacket is literally thicker than the copper wrapped inside, I needed to bring out my heat gun to straighten it.
I'd pay extra ;D
Its so you can relax after unpacking the product, and occupy your hands trying to straighten out the folds in the cord. I think they warm those cables to soften them, and really get those folds properly formed, to maximise your unfolding pleasure.
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My other rant lately has been about Ebay.
Every time I try to search for an item on Ebay, many of the listing results don't match my search words :scared:
I just did a search using 3 specific words. Out of the 25 results that Ebay returned, only 4 listings had all of my search words in the title |O
Really :o
I'm getting shown items totally unrelated to what I'm looking for, why :-//
EBAY, WHEN I PUT WORDS IN THE SEARCH BAR, I EXPECT TO SEE THOSE WORDS IN THE TITLE >:D
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I expect to see them in the body of the listing. Titles are (relatively) short, so including all the likely search keywords is hopeless and restricting the search to the title would miss many items.
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When I search for "1968 Dodge Charger" I should not be getting "1970 Dodge Charger" listings.
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Look at this listing for example. This came up in the auto parts section when searching for 1968 Dodge Charger. It's a GM part!
The seller put in 1000's of keywords in the body of the listing:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/256377927380?hash=item3bb150b6d4:g:CIIAAOSw9cFlpW6k&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4PQHd2CSFxO4RwasFDL8hUtmrHufabaV9GVOHA348ORDacxTTo%2F65xyFnYm7B2IuaOe%2FOl57P1GHmsdeAB0MmIS5Ae53VN5XvC8GPDpYWZofsskWRJS3YhsZt3uKLaYQKsYGP9o7x3uUVhWr%2BmubJrtsHUnR1FAs%2BY3OsrpB7Dg%2F1dUXr8Vr%2B6SVSB0fai96SSytstT6y6hW4Zr2mrcoiBl6aEpBcPRAIA2%2FST%2FabbT03U%2FopCuFsm17jh6WQV31xhwkpNMxCueVDHLmPKnn2eauzFtDEyhdecMzE4wWn9K1%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5SLitOlYw (https://www.ebay.com/itm/256377927380?hash=item3bb150b6d4:g:CIIAAOSw9cFlpW6k&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4PQHd2CSFxO4RwasFDL8hUtmrHufabaV9GVOHA348ORDacxTTo%2F65xyFnYm7B2IuaOe%2FOl57P1GHmsdeAB0MmIS5Ae53VN5XvC8GPDpYWZofsskWRJS3YhsZt3uKLaYQKsYGP9o7x3uUVhWr%2BmubJrtsHUnR1FAs%2BY3OsrpB7Dg%2F1dUXr8Vr%2B6SVSB0fai96SSytstT6y6hW4Zr2mrcoiBl6aEpBcPRAIA2%2FST%2FabbT03U%2FopCuFsm17jh6WQV31xhwkpNMxCueVDHLmPKnn2eauzFtDEyhdecMzE4wWn9K1%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5SLitOlYw)
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Surely that's a seller issue, not an Ebay one.
Was this with the advanced search or the plain brainless one?
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I'm getting shown items totally unrelated to what I'm looking for, why :-//
EBAY, WHEN I PUT WORDS IN THE SEARCH BAR, I EXPECT TO SEE THOSE WORDS IN THE TITLE >:D
Seems to be a problem with almost every search tool these days. It's getting harder and harder to filter out the unwanted crap.
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searching is hopeless - finding is miraculous (may be)
just had a peevish time after checking my DM16L calculators.
Longish story - a few years ago I ordered one new SwissMicros DM16L from a well known online retailer and received two used ones instead. :palm: They were were a bit rubbish but at the time I thought better than one rubbish one. Today after watching Ben Eater's video where he tests his EEPROM Arduino programme and confirms 2's complement with his HP16C, I find my used versions are faulty using SET COMPL. A search online is hopeless - but I find there is a PX-16C kit to build :-+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_PGX669SiA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_PGX669SiA)
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Yeah, search these days is totally idiotic. I have no idea what they're actually trying to do. I mean, if I search for Joe Blow, I don't want to see any results that don't have those two words, consecutively and in that order, until you can't find any more like that, or even at all. Don't show me "Joe Smith was doing fine until somebody decided to blow up his car" on the first page of results.
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Yeah, search these days is totally idiotic.
Made to fit the majority of internet users, I guess.
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Made to take up as much of your time as possible to be able to show you more ads.
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Today after watching Ben Eater's video where he tests his EEPROM Arduino programme and confirms 2's complement with his HP16C, I find my used versions are faulty using SET COMPL.
Today after reading the manual I find they are working ok :clap:
hadn't set the WSIZE I guess
https://jrpn.jovial.com/
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Surely that's a seller issue, not an Ebay one.
Quite so. And you can do something about it: report the item for the policy violation
"Listing practices" --> "Search and browse manipulation" --> "Keyword spamming"
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but I find there is a PX-16C kit to build :-+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_PGX669SiA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_PGX669SiA)
.. that's worth deconstructing?
I, got one myself the other day - I'm sure a kid could [eventually] assemble it, but I'd be surprised if it was unsupervised :palm:
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Software engineers
This week I have been tasked with calibrating stuff on two machines from the same factory and made at the same time but for two very similar unit.
First the customer didn't have the password for me to log into the system. So that took two hours. Then I get into the internal procedure and first was trying to get the pressure transducers done, after doing the adjustment using the software we have to log out of 4 screens and shut the program down, start it up and work my way through the menus. Not great fun when you have 30ish transducers to do. All of them needed adjusting and we tried to adjust a bunch at a time only to find ome would actually save.
At one point we found an adjustment screen that would just shut itself down with no reason, after talking with germany where they have the same machines they repeated the problem and took a few hours to realise that you need to press the physical button that occasionally switches off when you shut down the software but you have to do this on the first part of opening the program or it doesn't work, this is only an issue for 3 valves.
The best bit was swapping to the other machine to find the buttons for Start and Shutdown have swapped place so some fun was expected.
They have some more new units in boxes waiting to be unpacked. I look forward to what new things they have put in there for me to do this time.
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What's with the obsession with overly minimalist to the point of losing usefulness web design?
Who thought the new ADI website layout is a good idea?
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Rechargeable flashlight manufacturers that are smart enough to make a long press turn off the flashlight but dumb enough not to realize I'd rather long-press the button for the flashing feature rather than to avoid it. A flashlight should not need 7 clicks to turn off.
If flashlight designers are reading this, try using a short click to turn on normally, a 1 second button press for dim, a 2 second button press for blinking and a single click when in any mode turns it back off.
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Rechargeable flashlight manufacturers that are smart enough to make a long press turn off the flashlight but dumb enough not to realize I'd rather long-press the button for the flashing feature rather than to avoid it. A flashlight should not need 7 clicks to turn off.
If flashlight designers are reading this, try using a short click to turn on normally, a 1 second button press for dim, a 2 second button press for blinking and a single click when in any mode turns it back off.
I have been known to go into a bit of a rant about torches. I just want a on/off button. I DGAF about flashing, SOS, or even half brightness mode.
How did he Get spotted by the T-Rex?
Well he touched a torch.
Eh?
Well, as he frantically tried to turn the thing off but had to cycle through multiple different flash patterns. This took time and as he finally got it to turn off, she was right there and he had nowhere to run.
On a side note it also annoys me when you come across something where the clever designer has managed to just use 1 button on a device but you need the manual there to work out what you need to do. Long press to get into the menu, then >1sec but <3sec to scroll otherwise it kicks you out etc. Seen this on pressure gauges and temp controllers a few times.
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The single-button multi-option thing is taken to the extreme with some Sofirn SC31 torch which runs the Anduril OS (yes, really). But it actually works OK - there are two main modes: simple and "I'm bored", but in either it's really just a case of remembering the button sequence for the feature you want to use. So, for instance, I know that four presses will get it to display battery voltage, two presses and hold will go to 'burn their eyes out' brightness (for when oncoming cars don't dip when I am out walking), etc.
https://ivanthinking.net/thoughts/anduril2-manual/
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How about a full keyboard with just a single button? And you'd type in characters in Morse code. :-DD
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Oh noes, that's going to pop up on Crowd Supply soon.
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That kind of stuff can be useful for people with limited motor abilities though.
The idea is not new, although it wasn't quite juste one key:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard
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Kind of - it's one click, albeit several buttons together. And you can't pretend it might save your life someday.
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When the instructions for a Covid test kit tell you to put five drops of liquid in the test cassette but they only give you enough liquid for two drops, or in my case this morning, one and a half drops. :--
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When the instructions for a Covid test kit tell you to put five drops of liquid in the test cassette but they only give you enough liquid for two drops, or in my case this morning, one and a half drops. :--
I hate the ones that have the test liquid separate from the part you have to use to dip your snotty cottonbud.
The little container tends to just produce bubbles.
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When the instructions for a Covid test kit tell you to put five drops of liquid in the test cassette but they only give you enough liquid for two drops, or in my case this morning, one and a half drops. :--
I hate the ones that have the test liquid separate from the part you have to use to dip your snotty cottonbud.
The little container tends to just produce bubbles.
That's the type I had.
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All the ones I've used have required just two drops in the test cassette.
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Idiotic government departments.
The morons that look after car registration where I live give you the option of paying every 12, 6 or 3 months. Someone I know pays every 3 months. The thing is, they give you the mutually exclusive option of either getting a reminder by email or text 6 weeks before it becomes due, or by post 6 weeks AFTER it was due. The second option is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. What use is that as a reminder???
https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/registration/registration-fees/short-term-rego (https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/registration/registration-fees/short-term-rego)
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Reminds me of some H&S yearly tests I had to take where the answer is one of a selection, and all the wrong ones are really very obviously stupid to make sure you pick the right one and pass. Maybe they are hinting they don't want to do post but can't actually refuse.
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ArdWar, you were commenting on the reduction of buttons (extreme case to one button), well I just was reading about HEADSET competition between Meta and Apple, with details on what the differences in approach are; seemed like Apple more interested in augmenting the scene in front of you, while Meta had goal of completely artificial views, for gaming.
But one developer commented that he was ' designing for single button functionality'.
One of my battery clocks has a horrible convoluted button function, with 2 buttons.
Such as "Press f2 three times to exit menu"
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Reminds me of some H&S yearly tests I had to take where the answer is one of a selection, and all the wrong ones are really very obviously stupid to make sure you pick the right one and pass
wasnt for a cscs card by any chance? What a joke that was.
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I have had to contend with the lack of buttons on many microcontroller type household consumer gadgets. >:D
somehow industrial designers seek to make it look cool , minimalist & cut costs at the same time. but in doing so
make it more complicated to use by removing buttons from the user interface.
once the complicated user instructions are lost, the gadget is a nightmare to use.
add to that many gadgets, use phone app,s as the user interface. that in time can be discontinued.
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Anything requiring a mobile app to function is by nature planned obsolescence.
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Anything requiring a mobile app to function is by nature planned obsolescence.
Disagree. It's just simplifying the number of products they need to support, in much the same way that a web UI removes the need to program for Mac, Windows, Linux one version, Linux another distro, etc. So while it may well cause premature obsolescence, it's not planned per se.
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Anything requiring a mobile app to function is by nature planned obsolescence.
Disagree. It's just simplifying the number of products they need to support, in much the same way that a web UI removes the need to program for Mac, Windows, Linux one version, Linux another distro, etc. So while it may well cause premature obsolescence, it's not planned per se.
If that app goes via a remote website rather than communicate directly with the target device, then if that website goes dark, or worse still, they intentionally make things incompatible after a period of time so you have to buy a newer one...
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Yes, but that's because it's cheap and quick to do it like that. I really doubt they're thinking, "Hey, if we take the cheap and quick route we can obsolete the product sooner!" No, abandoning isn't intentional at the design stage, which was my point. It's something that will surely result but as collateral damage to other aims.
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Yes, but that's because it's cheap and quick to do it like that. I really doubt they're thinking, "Hey, if we take the cheap and quick route we can obsolete the product sooner!" No, abandoning isn't intentional at the design stage, which was my point. It's something that will surely result but as collateral damage to other aims.
I would argue that. I am sure some are aware that without a obsolescence plan they may loose out on revenue. There are tales of games developers not caring so much about the story or playability, they just want to know what extras they can add as a extra to make more. This week I was asked to look at a viscosity meter that is in ok condition, but the manufacturer has removed support for it, including calibration as its obsolete.
I will agree its quicker and easier and I suspect the sales team keep bleating an about it being the way that customers want to interact with the product, as they refresh thier x account screen on the latest buzzwords.
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Yes, but that's because it's cheap and quick to do it like that. I really doubt they're thinking, "Hey, if we take the cheap and quick route we can obsolete the product sooner!" No, abandoning isn't intentional at the design stage, which was my point. It's something that will surely result but as collateral damage to other aims.
I would argue that.
No doubt :)
There are tales of games developers not caring so much about the story or playability, they just want to know what extras they can add as a extra to make more.
Not the same thing. In fact, they don't want the game to become obsolete because if it does they won't be able to sell more addons for it. The extras don't make it obsolete - they extend the life!
This week I was asked to look at a viscosity meter that is in ok condition, but the manufacturer has removed support for it, including calibration as its obsolete.
That would kind of match if there is no need for calibration or, if there is a need, only the manufacturer can calibrate it. But I would still be unsurprised if the design aim in that case is to provide ongoing revenue stream, and obsolescence being collateral after the fact.
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The 'asymmetrical blob of white beard' that seems so popular, with men younger than fully grey... So due to the whole COVID masking thing the lazy folks got used to just...pop on a mask, instead of regular hygiene.
I've done that. But somewhere along the line, I've realized, after repeated encounters, that the sloppy habit has taken hold, and it's the age 25-30 crowd that looks a bit tacky and dated.
Petty thing, but I'd advise; Go full out: shave the sucker, or dye that little patch, at age 27 or whatever...(slobs!)
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The 'asymmetrical blob of white beard' that seems so popular
Do you have an example image of that? Can't say it rings any bells with me.
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(I've been attempting to avoid political comments, partially because other readers here expressed that wish, as comments can be annoying or even offensive)
Attorney Jack Smith, appears on the news occasionally. He has that brown beard, with uneven white chin hair. (That's a US political person).
Various relatives have that 'sloppy' uneven white slash on the chin, can't show you that. But generally it's a younger person, having an 'almost' uniform brown or black beard,...but image gets disrupted by lazy care issue (hair dye).
A petty thing, comparatively, but perhaps (yet another) fallout from the whole COVID scene, a couple years ago). Thanks.
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OK, I found a decent photo of him (his Wikipedia page). Have to say I think they just go like that - nothing to do with care or dyeing, just beards can be like that.
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just beards can be like that.
indeed they do,mine starts of brown fades through grey and is ends up white
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OK, I found a decent photo of him (his Wikipedia page). Have to say I think they just go like that - nothing to do with care or dyeing, just beards can be like that.
Smith's wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Smith_(lawyer)) also has a photo of him from 2017, clean shaven. I must say I think he looks much better with the beard, streaked with gray or not.
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Actually, I should have been more clear, as it's only the 'younger' folks that just have the beginnings of greying happening, on front of chin, (so my reference to Jack Smith was a lazy semi-similar picture, to illustrate that 'irregular patch' look.)
I'd say I'm talking more about, say, those born 1994 or sooner, and 30 years old or less. That isolated and very irregular patch, on front of chin, looking like some milk dribbled while also eating cookies. The older picture, you might notice (Jack Smith) has grey also up along the side temples (symmetrical, yay).
Yeah, it's the younger look, when the person looks 22, but with the little, irregular start, of white hairs. With older men, everything actually matches;...that being older skin, and grey / white that is visible more distributed around the face.
Part of my point is, that I've gotten LAZY myself, after couple years masking in public, to just pop on a mask....instead of spending time at the sink shaving proper!
All in fun, here, as it's mainly a 'fashion peeve'.
Thanks for interest!
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White hair starting at 22?
I am nearing 44, and only my eyebrows of all things start getting the occasional white hair :D
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Genetics. To me the first steaks of grey hair started appearing at 18... But I don't wear a beard, so I can't relate to the whole white/grey/sloppy looks...
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I have to apologize; 'creative genious' types like myself often have personal quirks / spacing out on some quantum theory details and meanwhile steering car off into a ditch, (etc.).
Meaning that I left out perhaps the main point I wished to express: That, post-covid trends include MORE BEARDS, due to people getting lazy about shaving, daily! That's the real take-away regarding how my particular peeve angle lies.
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That, post-covid trends include MORE BEARDS, due to people getting lazy about shaving, daily! That's the real take-away regarding how my particular peeve angle lies.
That or the idiotic Gillette ad that turned away zillions of men from a razor blade... or the hipster fashion trend... or simply the pendulum of history... 😁
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Yeah, to be honest I did mostly stop shaving during Covid. Why? I never went out much for months. I couldn't get a haircut so I bought a Wahl clipper on amazon and started buzz cutting my own hair. Maybe that makes up for more of it on the face? And the clipper actual does good enough for me as an electric razor. One tool does both, very efficient.
Also, I had my first gray hairs at age 14. By time I was 50 it was almost totally white.
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I just came across this today in some Sparkfun code.
Worse than a pet peeve, it made me want to shoot myself.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/?action=dlattach;attach=2079458;image)
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My current pet peeve is W10/Microsoft Edge.
When I first got my current laptop, I set up Google Chrome as an alternative browser, & checking regularly over time, it had remained functional.
SWMBO & I are old codgers, she is semi-disabled, so we have taken to buying a weeks worth of pre-prepared meals from a company called "Lite 'n Easy".
After initially battling their disorganised website, we used to order on line with no problems, until we discovered that thanks to the Federal govt, because of her condition, Steffi was eligible for a discount on their products.
This only applied to her, & I had to keep paying the full amount for mine.
Steffi was duly issued with a special number after her name on our account, being assured all would be well.
It wasn't-----The company kept charging us the "full whack", & after umpteen attempts on line, we reverted to ordering by phone.
After a while, this became tiresome, so we would try online every now & then.
Eventually, either they fixed a problem at that end or one of the W10 updates did it, but we could now order on line, with the charging working properly.
Duly "chuffed" we settled in to the new routine, until, suddenly, Lite 'n Easy refused to recognise my password.
Having tried everything else, I tried "forgotten your password" & they sent me a temporary one.
Rang them, talked to the lady who said that "Yes, that happens sometimes, & the best way around it is to use a different browser!"
"Magic!", thought I, "I'll just go on Chrome!".
Clicking on the icon, nothing happened!
I finished the phone call, then spent most of the day Googling for a reason why suddenly, Chrome wouldn't work with W10, all to no avail.
I even uninstalled the old version of Chrome & tried to download a new one, but W10/Edge didn't let me.
Eventually, I did what I should have done at the start, tried accessing the website with my mobile phone.
That worked perfectly, & I put in an order, but I hate using a phone for such things.
After we finished our evening meal, I had another look at the laptop & downloaded Firefox with no problems.
That browser worked perfectly with Lite 'n Easy's website, too.
All is "sort of" well, but I now have to change browsers to use a website, when I was formerly reasonably happy with Edge.
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Electronic component websites that have crap parameter search:
(a) Have multiple options I want to select for example
- IP66
- IP67
- IP68
But once you click on IP66 it refreshes the page (slowly) and takes away the other options.
(b) Parameters not in sequence in "+/-" search.
Want to search for example parameter max current >100mA?
No problem sir, I've arranged it so that the values ignore the unit of measurement, so 100A = 100mA = 100uA.
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Electronic component websites that have crap parameter search:
A related issue. The website shows you a list of components to choose from and you sort by price, only to find that the sorted prices are for one off quantities that make no sense at all seeing you want to buy hundreds.
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Another one...
You go to calibrate your multimeter against a reference voltage and you find the meter has only one pot for all DC voltage ranges. So you might be able to adjust it dead on for the 20V range but it's anyone's guess for the other ranges.
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Another one...
You go to calibrate your multimeter against a reference voltage and you find the meter has only one pot for all DC voltage ranges. So you might be able to adjust it dead on for the 20V range but it's anyone's guess for the other ranges.
Fluke 77?
Mine seems to hold up pretty well, for a' that!
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Haven't we all experienced the following?
Ok, you want to purchase something and you're emailing with a customer service person of some company.
You have some questions. But no matter how you phrase the questions. They never answer it properly. You get some response on the topic that you introduce that nowhere addresses the real thing you're looking for and they add another irrelevant thing like that they have 100,000 parts in their warehouse. So frustrating! >:(
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Companies that put software based alerts that calibration is due. But the manual just says to send it to one of thier representatives.
For me it's a Milwaukee M12 digital torque wrench. That is giving a warning becuase it's been used more than 5k times. But there is no way to reset the counter. If you were a company running your own internal calibration this would be sooo annoying.
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Haven't we all experienced the following?
Ok, you want to purchase something and you're emailing with a customer service person of some company.
You have some questions. But no matter how you phrase the questions. They never answer it properly. You get some response on the topic that you introduce that nowhere addresses the real thing you're looking for and they add another irrelevant thing like that they have 100,000 parts in their warehouse. So frustrating! >:(
I'm pretty sure it is something like a 'Chat-Bot' that you are communicating with.
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I'm pretty sure it is something like a 'Chat-Bot' that you are communicating with.
No, I had this person also on the phone. Also humans can behave like robots when they are too concerned they cannot share anything meaningful or else that would be a break from company policies.
Chat-bots are a whole other category of useless crap!
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Haven't we all experienced the following?
Ok, you want to purchase something and you're emailing with a customer service person of some company.
You have some questions. But no matter how you phrase the questions. They never answer it properly. You get some response on the topic that you introduce that nowhere addresses the real thing you're looking for and they add another irrelevant thing like that they have 100,000 parts in their warehouse. So frustrating! >:(
I'm pretty sure it is something like a 'Chat-Bot' that you are communicating with.
I had this with Worchester Bosch. My question was simple.
"What is an acceptable number of daily ON/OFF cycles for the boiler to survive it's warranty period?"
They just wouldn't answer the question. They just tried to sell me their smart/spyware Wifi controllers.
I pushed that I wasn't interested and I just wanted to know if 10 cycles is too many or if 100 cycles is too many.
No response.
You absolutely know they have tested this and have data for this. They just won't tell me what it is in case my boiler fails and they claim it's "over cycling causing over wear and tear", if they tell me a figure and I can prove it was under that, ... you know how they work.
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Fools who litter the forum with threads all about the same project. Recently, idiots who shall remain nameless have polluted the place with numbers threads about their Bioamplifier and 723 project. Telling them doesn't make any difference so I gave up.
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The 'asymmetrical blob of white beard' that seems so popular, with men younger than fully grey.
Maybe they’re Herrenmänner from Wunderland.
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You'd think the LCD on the right hand side digit under "Vol" setting is broken , but it seems a weird Sony way to display volume setting - one digit followed by one,two or three stacked horizontal bars. As you rotate the volume dial, the leading nimber is changed as the major step followed by one,two or three bars as minor steps.
I wonder if this is Sony specific "invention", which also what my other Sony radio has, which i never liked BTW.
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Pete peeve, how about someone that sets a date for you to pick up some equipment and at 11pm the night before, he sends a text wanting $50 more?
He was selling equipment off a production line, said I could test it there, etc. I said that wasn't necessary and I just wanted to pick it up. I told him we had a verbal agreement and he needed to honor it. Things went down hill but I tracked down the CEO of the company and sent a letter asking if this was the way they did business. Haven't heard back but I doubt they have the letter yet.
What happened to people? This person sold his word for $50. Then he lied about our agreement, for $50??? I would never do that, never. You can't put a price on reputation.
Jerry
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Pete peeve, how about someone that sets a date for you to pick up some equipment and at 11pm the night before, he sends a text wanting $50 more?
He was selling equipment off a production line, said I could test it there, etc. I said that wasn't necessary and I just wanted to pick it up. I told him we had a verbal agreement and he needed to honor it. Things went down hill but I tracked down the CEO of the company and sent a letter asking if this was the way they did business. Haven't heard back but I doubt they have the letter yet.
What happened to people? This person sold his word for $50. Then he lied about our agreement, for $50??? I would never do that, never. You can't put a price on reputation.
Jerry
People breaking agreements is commonplace. At work we have an internal classified page and a few elements tend to be firm as jell-o when agreeing with something. One asked for more money after posting a price, another simply sold the item between the arrangement for pickup and the pickup time itself... At this point I simply move on and add their names to my "do not buy" list.
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Doctor's Offices serving under (U.S.) Medicare HMO's, gouging excessive 'fees' for pandemic things like gloves ($200), annual 'blood pressure' checks (US $120) etc.etc.including phone question...(They called ME !)...US $220 charged.
I mean, even before COVID appeared on the scene, medical office profits soaring, on pushing things like 'annual flu shot'.
The monthly mailed billing statements come....(wait for it:);
SIDEWAYS PRINT, with billed items splayed out in landscape mode. And of course my peeve includes the whole account 'enter password / login'.
Subsidies must be massive, for the privately held HMO 'Provider'
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Medicare is the US government medical insurance for retirees. "Medicare Advantage" is a scheme that funnels federal dollars into private insurance companies to service the same retirees. So naturally, elders are coerced and/or cajoled into signing up to this program, often with lies about how it's an "HMO" or "concierge care". Old people are the number one profit center for the medical industry, and the program is a solution for insurance companies angry that they were not getting a slice.
Similar privatization schemes are being introduced to Britain's NHS.
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Every countries health care system seems terrible.
What irritates be about the US system (assuming you have insurance) is that you have no idea what the real cost of service is. You receive a bill for $25,000 dollars. It is submitted to insurance. They say no way, we will only pay $4500. Initial billing entity says OK, if the patient will pay $350 we are even. WTF? This pattern has been repeated on every encounter I have had with the system, from childbirth, through broken bones, joint replacements, cancer treatments everything.
The best I can guess is that the actual cost is somewhat under $4500 dollars, and the first bill is an attempt to build up margin to pay for the indigent who can't/won't pay at all. In the US for the most part hospitals can't deny treatment to anyone, so the money has to come from somewhere. They get this from those who are too wealthy to be concerned about such things and those who can't negotiate as well as the insurance companies.
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I'm not an insurance expert, but I think what happens is that each hospital group has a so-called "chargemaster" that lists services at the most optimistic rates they can dream up. The hospitals have arrangements with insurers, ironically with Medicare being the most influential, that agree to pay only a percentage of the billed cost. You can imagine how this came about: at some point in the past, the government was facing a cost crisis and had to institute a "we'll pay only 30%" policy. So to prevent going bankrupt, hospitals had to scramble to create a document that proved their actual prices were whatever 1/30% was. That's the chargemaster.
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Top-posters!
Because it screws up the order in which people normally read text.
Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
Top-posting.
What is the most annoying thing in e-mail, forums, and groups?
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Every countries health care system seems terrible.
sod the critics,the nhs here in the uk is ok,its could be excellent if they got rid of the excessive non clinical staff,suppliers stopped charging ripoff prices because,well its the nhs and successive governments stopped interfering in running things.
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Yup. Very annoying.
;)
Top-posters!
Because it screws up the order in which people normally read text.
Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
Top-posting.
What is the most annoying thing in e-mail, forums, and groups?
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Yup. Very annoying.
;)
Top-posters!
Because it screws up the order in which people normally read text.
Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
Top-posting.
What is the most annoying thing in e-mail, forums, and groups?
overquoting!
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Yup. Very annoying.
;)
Top-posters!
Because it screws up the order in which people normally read text.
Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
Top-posting.
What is the most annoying thing in e-mail, forums, and groups?
overquoting!
How about replying within the quote.
I really dislike that we get massive email chains with no snipping of useless info. I keep getting complaints that I haven't replied to the email but its it's only becuase their app hides it.
Becuase its bad
Why is top posting bad?
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Why is top posting bad?
The reason (and example) was given in the reply #4011 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg5426300/#msg5426300): Because it screws up the order in which people normally read text.
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Xena that’s exceptionally poor form publicly naming and shaming an employee. Every one was young and dumb once , but it appears that you sir, are not worthy of having employees in your charge.
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Why is top posting bad?
The reason (and example) was given in the reply #4011 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/msg5426300/#msg5426300): Because it screws up the order in which people normally read text.
Reread mendip_discovery's entire post... ;D
**Humor detected**
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Yep, was too distracted/concentrated compiling my project, took the subtle trolling literally :palm:
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Xena that’s exceptionally poor form publicly naming and shaming an employee. Every one was young and dumb once , but it appears that you sir, are not worthy of having employees in your charge.
Thank you for your opinions.
It is young dumb dangerous idiots like him who get people killed.
He has already had numerous complaints made against him by other members of my department, beside his lack of productivity.
I am gently letting him know that it will not be tolerated, and giving him the chance to consider his behaviour.
I have no problem with verbal banter but do not tolerate practical jokes.
He has done far worse to others, this way he gets a final, and I mean final chance. I have only brought this to his attention so as not alert those who would have no choice but terminate his contract, there is zero tolerance for stupidity like this by the company's HR and H&S: I doubt any of those persons would read this forum.
I could not berate the guy in the work place in front of colleagues as it would then have to become public and he would have to have been dismissed already.
Supposedly a college wizz kid, this person has in the last two weeks played various stunts including putting IPA in a colleagues drinks cup.
If you, sir, think that is funny you are as much a dumb **** as he is.
If you wish to address me again my pronouns are She and Her, my acceptable titles are Miss, Ms, or formally, Doctor.
Not sir.
Regards.
Xena.
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this person has in the last two weeks played various stunts including putting IPA in a colleagues drinks cup.
For that that alone they deserve sacking ,and possible criminal charges of attempted poisoning.
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I'm not an insurance expert, but I think what happens is that each hospital group has a so-called "chargemaster" that lists services at the most optimistic rates they can dream up. The hospitals have arrangements with insurers, ironically with Medicare being the most influential, that agree to pay only a percentage of the billed cost. You can imagine how this came about: at some point in the past, the government was facing a cost crisis and had to institute a "we'll pay only 30%" policy. So to prevent going bankrupt, hospitals had to scramble to create a document that proved their actual prices were whatever 1/30% was. That's the chargemaster.
This seems logical and may be correct. But whatever it is, it sure makes it hard as hell to determine what a fair price is and whether anyone is getting screwed.
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CatalinaWOW:
Thanks for interest. Did you ever watch the 'Spagetti Westerns', where the cowboy bounty-hunter tests if a criminal man is hiding out...not supposed to start any trouble, because the outlaws will be conducting a robbery, (dont attract any attention, in the bar there).
The Lee Van Cleef cowboy 'tested' that by doing an aggressive move, on the criminal guy, laying low. He lit his match, for cigar, on the criminal's back, obviously a natural fight starting ploy. But, NO FIGHT; as the crook guy can't be causing any trouble, (before bank heist).
Well, sorry for that lengthy mention, but that was the situation with (my) HMO, as I inadvertantly had to stop making the monthly HMO bill! I had been wondering, how my lapse in paying would be responded to ?
NOTHING, although they did keep sending bill every month. That tells me, (maybe), that HMO would somehow make profit, even WITHOUT my monthly payment due; a very interesting development, considering I had already suspected government subsidies, some perhaps paid unseen, was the HMO business model, not myself, the supposed 'beneficiary'.
Seems like the private corporations have little interest, in health care, besides just racking up endless tests; MRI's, CT scans etc. My observations confirmed that, over a few years. Realized, my doctor was very smart, very very busy with TWO offices in the region, and....crappy as hell !
Except for the blood pressure controls, everything else has been, uh, perhaps a '2' on a scale of '5' in the quality of care.
And a real snotty attitude, that's why I really don't want to name names, publicly. Livid...absolutely.
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Xena that’s exceptionally poor form publicly naming and shaming an employee. Every one was young and dumb once , but it appears that you sir, are not worthy of having employees in your charge.
Thank you for your opinions.
It is young dumb dangerous idiots like him who get people killed.
He has already had numerous complaints made against him by other members of my department, beside his lack of productivity.
I am gently letting him know that it will not be tolerated, and giving him the chance to consider his behaviour.
I have no problem with verbal banter but do not tolerate practical jokes.
He has done far worse to others, this way he gets a final, and I mean final chance. I have only brought this to his attention so as not alert those who would have no choice but terminate his contract, there is zero tolerance for stupidity like this by the company's HR and H&S: I doubt any of those persons would read this forum.
I could not berate the guy in the work place in front of colleagues as it would then have to become public and he would have to have been dismissed already.
Supposedly a college wizz kid, this person has in the last two weeks played various stunts including putting IPA in a colleagues drinks cup.
If you, sir, think that is funny you are as much a dumb **** as he is.
If you wish to address me again my pronouns are She and Her, my acceptable titles are Miss, Ms, or formally, Doctor.
Not sir.
Regards.
Xena.
Then report it and get him fired, someone who does the things you claim needs to learn the hard way.
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Yep, was too distracted/concentrated compiling my project, took the subtle trolling literally :palm:
Wasn't planning on trolling. It's a way my friends used to explain to other why top post is bad. Being on a mailing list with a few hundred emails a day if you didn't snip emails or reply correctly then the spectrum collective would rise up and pick on you until you corrected your ways.
Though I did sneak in one troll, that was those that reply in the quoted text, leaving you wondering what is quoted and what is reply.
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Xena that’s exceptionally poor form publicly naming and shaming an employee. Every one was young and dumb once , but it appears that you sir, are not worthy of having employees in your charge.
Thank you for your opinions.
It is young dumb dangerous idiots like him who get people killed.
He has already had numerous complaints made against him by other members of my department, beside his lack of productivity.
I am gently letting him know that it will not be tolerated, and giving him the chance to consider his behaviour.
I have no problem with verbal banter but do not tolerate practical jokes.
He has done far worse to others, this way he gets a final, and I mean final chance. I have only brought this to his attention so as not alert those who would have no choice but terminate his contract, there is zero tolerance for stupidity like this by the company's HR and H&S: I doubt any of those persons would read this forum.
I could not berate the guy in the work place in front of colleagues as it would then have to become public and he would have to have been dismissed already.
Supposedly a college wizz kid, this person has in the last two weeks played various stunts including putting IPA in a colleagues drinks cup.
If you, sir, think that is funny you are as much a dumb **** as he is.
If you wish to address me again my pronouns are She and Her, my acceptable titles are Miss, Ms, or formally, Doctor.
Not sir.
Regards.
Xena.
Then report it and get him fired, someone who does the things you claim needs to learn the hard way.
I gave the guy a chance by letting him know what would happen without confrontation at work. Due process is a drag to go through and not nice to be identified as a whistle blower.
Sorry for using the forum thus.
However he was more stupid than I first thought as he took a screen shot of the linked post before it was deleted and went to HR himself to put in a complaint about me, claiming bullying.
After talking to others in the department, HR focused more on his behaviour than mine and was summarily dismissed this afternoon.
If he thinks he's funny and wants to act like a twat he can do it somewhere else now.
Regards,
Xena.
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I know what it is like believe me.
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for a pet peeve how about whatever the fuck you call reassembling a leatherman with those fucking keyed washers on the fucking keyed shaft that is barely fucking visible without keyed end caps with zero fucking clearance on the fat fucking flat hex screwdriver tip holder
why did i fucking take that fucking thing apart for cleaning. You need special fucking tweezers or something for that. holy shit
it would be approximately 50000 times less annoying if the god damn venier end washer was keyed so it does not fucking spin around.
not to mention that god damn lever you need to depress or the shaft siezes. I need doctor fucking octopus to do this shit for me
and chemistry laboratory jacks are bad too they also play demented games with snap rings and crappy rollers.
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One of my peeves is excessive and unnecessary profanity in print, past the point of cuteness.
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Station Astronauts bobbing up and down, (like some crazed Frank Zappa set).
We've all seen it;...space station 'employees' bobbing up and down for the NASA camera shot, with vidio about life...whoosh...in space.... whoosh. (whoosh).
Such a petty nuisance, In these troubled times. But they also (all) seem to wear the ugliest clothes ...
A friend refers to the pants as 'birth control's fashion, mainly because no one could hope for a date, in THOSE grey cargo pants.
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Amazon and Ebay begging for product reviews before I have a chance to test them out. They think the review should be based on shipping and first appearances. I like to test things out first. They could give me 2 weeks to get to know the product before filling my email box with junk.
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They think the review should be based on shipping and first appearances. I like to test things out first.
They don't care about honest reviews and they (at least Amazon) are notorious for not allowing negative reviews. All they need is to sell, regardless of whether the product is good or bad.
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I bought a passive audio channel switch box on Amazon.
After 3 weeks the selector buttons became intermittent and scratchy.
I said that in the review.
"Your review has been rejected because of reasons."
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Something that bothers me is when quite valuable electronics (industrial equipment, minicomputers, etc) are sent to scrap simply because the parties who are cleaning out a house/storage unit don't see the value. In one recent case I saw what must be at least $5K (potentially much more) of hardware tossed into dumpsters and turned into waste.