Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[PlainName]

I'm really bothered by fonts that have capital I and L look the same, and sometimes they look like ones.

And sometimes it's getting really ridiculous

I agree that those look alike, but that wasn't a good pair of examples. The first could never have lowercase L instead of I, and in the second there is enough of a difference to notice (plus there would never be a double I). If they had been a random collection, such as in a password where there isn't a real word for context, it would be very different and easily confused, though.

[MathWizard]

The lack of letter distinction also reminds me of the GUI of some windows programs, that sort of hide their buttons, or just don't make them look like old style buttons, and it just looks like part of the "artwork".

[shapirus]

Same goes for web UIs: replacing proper HTML buttons with pictures which have no visual feedback on click and which are calling JS functions instead of URLs (thus no indication in the browser's status bar), so you cannot tell whether your click was even registered when you click them. In some cases I have to go as far as opening a debugger console just to check if anything happens on click.

[calzap]

I'm really bothered by fonts that have capital I and L look the same, and sometimes they look like ones.

Same goes for lack of distinction between O ("oh") and 0 (zero).

I see this all the time for confirmation "numbers" when doing online commerce.  Would not be that hard for programmers to eliminate both  O ("oh") and 0 (zero) in their confirmation number generators.

But aren't those "numbers" generally just copied and pasted from one place to another, so no need to figure out what chars are what?
(I guess not if, say, the confirmation # comes in a text message and you have to then type it into a browser field, in which case your peeve is 100% justified.)

Much of the time, the number is copied and not used again.  But when there is trouble with the transaction (need to dispute, cancel, order again, etc.), it's best to have it right.  Occasionally, it can just be copied and pasted to resolve trouble.  But not if you're talking to a real person or sometimes the number can't really be copied because it's a bitmap, so you have to type it.  And then there's those website input boxes that don't allow pasting.

Mike

[Circlotron]

I'm really bothered by fonts that have capital I and L look the same, and sometimes they look like ones.

Same goes for lack of distinction between O ("oh") and 0 (zero).

To add to the confusion, here in Melbourne, Australia we had a TV station Channel 0. It was written zero but always pronounced “oh”.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATV_(Australian_TV_station)#History

[TimFox]

We avoided the "Channel 0" problem in the US by starting the VHF channels from Channel 2.

[Analog Kid]

We avoided the "Channel 0" problem in the US by starting the VHF channels from Channel 2.

But why not channel 1?

[mwb1100]

We avoided the "Channel 0" problem in the US by starting the VHF channels from Channel 2.

But why not channel 1?

Channel 1 caused to much interference (with something...) so they removed it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_1_(North_American_TV)

[TimFox]

We avoided the "Channel 0" problem in the US by starting the VHF channels from Channel 2.

But why not channel 1?

Channel 1 at different times was 50 to 56 MHz, 50 to 54 MHz of which was given later to the 6-meter amateur radio band.

The interesting discussion  https://www.tech-notes.tv/History&Trivia/Channel%20One/Channel_1.htm   includes a table of the channel assignments and changes from 1940 to 2003.
When things went digital, the definitions changed again.
Another big change was shifting FM audio broadcasting from 42 to 50 MHz up to the current 88 to 108 MHz.

Do you not have Google?  My workflow is to remember these things from my youth, but then look them up to verify details and to post the details from an available source.

[Analog Kid]

Do you not have Google?  My workflow is to remember these things from my youth, but then look them up to verify details and to post the details from an available source.

My interest in this particular thing is far, far below my Googling threshold. Hence my question. I'm not about to launch a research project on this out of idle curiosity.

[themadhippy]

Today's major annoyance? ME. Spent most of the day pulling software apart trying to find why a counter was getting stuck at the top and generally glitching, It helps if you solder all the components on the hardware first .especially the pull down resistor on one side of the rotary encoder

[RJSV]

   'Teasing Interface' time outs set way too low.

   Maybe it's just myself, at 71 years, but it just seems, that I barely BLINK and the screen selection option disappears.   No real practical time, to decide, scratchass and yell at the kids ..

[woody]

The f***ing PostNL service.

I need to send a couple of malfunctioning PCB's back to the manufacturer. Used to be able to walk 200 yards to the local supermarket that also had the PostNL service point. Open between 0700 and 2100. Hand over the (labeled) package and tell 'm I want it insured to €1000,-. They weigh it, check the address, print a barcode, stick it on and give me a piece of paper that states I dropped it off with a barcode I can use to follow it. I pay, get a receipt for tax purposes and I am done. Then look for something to eat for dinner while I am there.

Not any more. In the race to the bottom the supermarket lost their PostNL service point to another outfit. This being a flooring shop. A mile out. Opening hours 09:00 to 17:30. So, taking into account it is 17:00 I go there by bike. Turns out to be the only open storefront on a further deserted industrial area. Cosy. After entering with my package I'm told they are not able to process it. They only act as a drop-off point. Which means I have to go home, enter all the details (how big, how heavy) in an irritating website. Doing this I find out I am no longer able to insure my package for the amount I want (the only possibility being a signed-for package with a maximum value of €500,-), I then generate a barcode that needs to end up on my package. So either I print it on something sticky or I use a lot of tape to fix an A4 to a box. Both annoying activities. Then I have to pay for it online, never getting a receipt. Then off to the drop-off point again to, yeah, drop it off. Look for a new hardwood floor while I am there  Alas, they are done for the day. Me too.

Might be my age, but I have the feeling that services like this are being stripped back to their bare minimum. Meanwhile the price goes up every year. More and more money for less and less service. You have got to love capitalism.

[shapirus]

More and more money for less and less service. You have got to love capitalism.

It's more about the lack of a functioning anti-monopoly law (or its enforcement) rather than capitalism.

[PlainName]

Just for a change, because no-one's mentioned it this week, bloody Windows 10.

Needed my laptop for a quick job and on booting had to wait a literal half hour for the damn thing to finish updating something or other. "Just wait, don't turn it off." When I shut it down there was no indication at all that an update was happening or might occur on next boot. So that quick check to make sure it worked and out the door was nicely fucked over by Microsoft.

And just for icing, the face recognition login no longer works after the update. Nor the PIN. Thankfully the local account password does still.

[Analog Kid]

   'Teasing Interface' time outs set way too low.

   Maybe it's just myself, at 71 years, but it just seems, that I barely BLINK and the screen selection option disappears.   No real practical time, to decide, scratchass and yell at the kids ..

Rick, could you please explain what was going through your fevered brain when you made that post?
I swear, most of your rambling ruminations make no damn sense ... pleas explain to us other Earthlings.

[paulca]

Long one...

Freeware game developers.

I have been around a lot.  Been in and out of my different spaces and sectors in software.  From projects worth over a billion to projects I do for free.  Free as in beer, speech etc.

I am in the belief that if you do something out of passion and love and give it away for free, that you have done just that.   You have done it for the love of doing it and shared it with others so they may enjoy it to.

However... for whatever reason, I'm trying to work it out, the gaming community, especially modders and "content creators" are an entirely different kind of bunch.

They seem to be stuck in the good ole days of bulletin boards and mail-order shareware distribution.

They seem to think that when you publish your game modification or addon to the public, without license and without restriction, under "default copyright" mechanics that they can still retain control over the distribution and make statements about how the end user should "Download", "Install", "Use", "Share", "Copy", "modify" their works.

Not only that, but they become fairly toxic about it too.

I gather very few of them are in anyway professionals.  I also gather a lot of them are basically just kids.

Recently while playing a game, I went off to find some "quality of life" automation mods to enhance my game.  I googled, browsed and downloaded 4 or 5 mods.

I ran the game and up pops a message

"DONT USE SCUMMY DOWNLOAD SITES" - OK

Now, I'm a bit of an old git and often a stickler for details.

This is shouting at me. Yes?  It doesn't have a source.  It's an anonymous popup.  It doesn't tell me what mod is sending the message, it doesn't tell me what site its referring to, so I can't exactly action it, can I?   I mean, even if I wanted to after it's basically chastised me for some implied infraction of where I downloaded their mod from!

Researching into this and oh boy did I uncover a rats nest of little bitches. 

It turns out the modder in question is absolutely proud of his message.  He says it should include swear words and be far less polite to the user as apparently there are some of these 3rd party mod distribution sites that he doesnt like.

My 7yo kid plays this game.  They still didn't see this as an issue.

At one point the modder mentioned that he has considered ... wait for it...  deleting all of the users save games and backups of in the event he discovers his mod was downloaded by a website the doesn't like.

I was quick to ask him politely, for his own sake, not to do that.  In the UK that would 100% be criminal miss-use and while I doubt I would get him in court I would certainly put a bit of effort and even money into making sure his life is shit for a while.

Anyway, you just don't do this stuff, really.

If you give your work away for FREE and publish it on a PUBLIC github repository without attached, embedded, implied or referenced license.... you HAVE NO CONTROL OVER IT.  You have no control over the distribution, you have no control over the users or how they use it.  "Default copyright" does, technically prevent these mod sites from sharing on your work, but as it's "FREE" and has already been freely distributed to the public at large.... no copyright lawyer or court will go near it with a barge pole.  Especially when there is zero actual "worth" involved.

I have released freeware game mods and utilities.  They were further distributed by 3rd party sites.  In fact one was downloaded about 10 times more from them than from my site.  Did I get upset?  No.  Did I complain, No.  Why?  Well, I wrote it for me, I wrote it because I enjoyed it.  I figured others might enjoy it too, so I published it for free.

I have no silly little notions that I can control that software or that I can make any requests or demands of the users.  I am fully aware that any attempt for me to, after the fact, say, "Oh wait, I don't want you doing X", would be stupid, childish and fruitless.

EDIT:

A side I hadn't considered and I don't think "they" have either.  This particular modder has a dozen or so "contributors".  They share PRs and code in the repo.

Now given there is no license involved here, no OSS license, no GPL-like, not even a custom license of a boiler plate one from ChatGPT....  Should the repo owner decide make all his repos private, to bundle it all up and sell it to the game publisher for lots of money... those contributors will be right up shit creek without a penny in the deal.

Worse, even now there would be "worth" in it and a lawyer might be interested in fighting their case ... it is extremely unlikely, under the license conditions they would be able to get any damages for the mod "maintainer" from just selling the work without giving even credits.

I note this has happened before, can't remember which game, but a very popular mod got "bought" into the main game by the publisher.  Wars errupted as the owner of that mod had received hundreds of submissions from contributors and he paid exactly none of them a penny.

EDIT 2:
My rather petty response to all of this was to make a small statement as a shot across the bow.

I forked his repo and modified the message to say something nice like, "Please be kind to each other".

It's a small slap in the face to him and a reminder of where and how he published it, permitting me to do as I did, while at the same time violating his "default copyright" blatantly in his face.  Just to reminding him of it's true worth.

EDIT 3:
Trying to offset myself to a different point of view in aim of fairness.

To me, a professional software engineer for 20+ years the amount of software I have written is effectively HUGE.  To me a little evening project for a few dozen hours and releasing a game mod or util is a tiny fraction, a literal throw away, "here you go, thank you".

To an amatuer game modder, who probably has zero professional experience in software or tech, those few thousand lines of LUA code in his mod amounts to a sizable portion of all the software he had written.  The fact that thousands and thousands of people download it and use it must make him feel really proud.

I can understand that they might see their repo as being worth far more than it is, while at the same time not having the faintest clue and being poorly advised on the need for and purpose of a license.

The thing is.  If they were not so petty, ignorant, childish, and annoying about it (little bitches) they could be educated, informed and things explained to them about how modern "FREE" software distribution does not just imply it's "FREE at time of access", it means its FREE as in speech, as in beer.  FREE to do with as you please without restriction or warranty.

Some one strawmanned the analogy of a YouTube video to me.  It's freely available to the public, does that mean you can do what you like with it, including uploading it to other websites and gain ad revenue?

Well for a start that has been done to me.  YouTube detected it and submitted the copyright take down request automatically.

Why is this different to the mod case?  It's because YouTube videos are protected by both a license with TEETH and have a body backing that license with enough power to scare others into compliance.

The GPL and GPL-like license (and others) may not provide quite as aggressive protection as YouTube license and copyright system, but in extreme cases they can and do find money to help represent license holders works.

[PlainName]

They seem to think that when you publish your game modification or addon to the public, without license and without restriction, under "default copyright" mechanics that they can still retain control over the distribution and make statements about how the end user should "Download", "Install", "Use", "Share", "Copy", "modify" their works.

I am fairly sure that's how it works. You can be granted a license of some kind but the default is no license.

Think about it: if the default was a free for all then any license would be easily worked around by not bothering to find it. Someone sends you something without the license for it and you'd be free to do whatever you want with it: pass it on, sell it, anything. So the default has to be you can't do anything with it without a specific license grant.

[Nominal Animal]

   'Teasing Interface' time outs set way too low.

   Maybe it's just myself, at 71 years, but it just seems, that I barely BLINK and the screen selection option disappears.   No real practical time, to decide, scratchass and yell at the kids ..

Rick, could you please explain what was going through your fevered brain when you made that post?
I swear, most of your rambling ruminations make no damn sense ... pleas explain to us other Earthlings.

Analog Kid, could you please explain why you are always so damn toxic and negative, and rarely if ever contribute anything positive or useful?

I swear, I have to ignore most of your posts as they detract from almost every discussion you try to participate in.  Please explain to us other members who actually try to have a mutually beneficial, constructive discussions, why you do this.

[paulca]

They seem to think that when you publish your game modification or addon to the public, without license and without restriction, under "default copyright" mechanics that they can still retain control over the distribution and make statements about how the end user should "Download", "Install", "Use", "Share", "Copy", "modify" their works.

I am fairly sure that's how it works. You can be granted a license of some kind but the default is no license.

Think about it: if the default was a free for all then any license would be easily worked around by not bothering to find it. Someone sends you something without the license for it and you'd be free to do whatever you want with it: pass it on, sell it, anything. So the default has to be you can't do anything with it without a specific license grant.

There is a default license.  It defaults to bare basic international copyright.

In cases where works have already been distributed to the public at large the implication is the works is in the "Public Domain".

Default copyright only provides the original owner the "right" to say who copies it and who doesn't.  A lot easier to enforce in teh days of the printing press than the internet.

Again it comes back to the real world effect.  What default copyright "says" and what you can realistically do about it are two different things.  Having dillusions about your control over a freely distributed git repo and who downloads it and what they do with it is ... a serious stretch.

Anyway, the debates about license/distribution implied or expected rights aside.

What annoys me how childish, bickering, spiteful and overly protective they are.  There are far better and more mature ways to deal with these things and not snarky message popups and/or deleting peoples stuff.

[PlainName]

Anyway, the debates about license/distribution implied or expected rights aside.

What annoys me how childish, bickering, spiteful and overly protective they are.

On that I am likely to agree with you

[shapirus]

What annoys me how childish, bickering, spiteful and overly protective they are.  There are far better and more mature ways to deal with these things and not snarky message popups and/or deleting peoples stuff.

Come on, kids are just being kids.

[Analog Kid]

Analog Kid, could you please explain why you are always so damn toxic and negative, and rarely if ever contribute anything positive or useful?

No.
Your problem, not mine.
Ignore away if you must.

[paulca]

What annoys me how childish, bickering, spiteful and overly protective they are.  There are far better and more mature ways to deal with these things and not snarky message popups and/or deleting peoples stuff.

Come on, kids are just being kids.

True but some of these kids are in their 40s and 50s.

[Nominal Animal]

Your problem, not mine.

Pot, meet kettle.  Just sayin'.