Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: ian on 21 June, 2018, 10:24:50 pm
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It's true Damon, it really is, and I've decided to catalogue the many, various and nefarious ways in which modern life is truly rubbish.
Starting with internet banking. In olden times, you'd ride your trusty stead to the high street branch, dismount, say verily to a maiden (no one knows why), before clanking in (armour, everyone wore it back then, you could never be sure when there'd be an outbreak of jousting or a crusade, or maybe just an encounter with revolting Frenchmen). Then you'd queue for a multiple of your dinner hour to served by a venomous orc.
Modern life means you can do all this in just your pants so long waits and orcs* are more a niche hobby than a lunch time staple. Supposedly. I've just spent thirty minutes trying to pay a gas/electric bill. Giving British Gas money is painful at best. Firstly, apparently I need a digital secure key, or rather it's just DSK. From HSBC. FFS. OK. Modern life thrives on constant abbreviation. I follow the steps and it sends me a verification code. I click messages to copy the long and winding code and in the process the mobile banking app moves along (verily). Is there a way to go back? Oh no. There's no backward with modern life. Everything is forward ho! We're dashing headlong into the future. It's a greased luge ride into shiny suits and hover cars (you also want to know what's rubbish about modern life, we're still not hovering anywhere – I mean, shit, we got as far as lawn mowers).
Anyway, twenty minutes later HSBC inform me that something has gone wrong. Thanks for the update, shitmiddens. Something has truly gone wrong.
*a tipsy nerd-minion tried to explain Dungeons and Dragons to me the other week. A bar narrative choice I fear she came to regret.
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Tried a different browser? (If you're using a browser, and not an app, that is).
Santander won't work with FF on our laptop so I use Pingu's Iron browser instead.
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To be fair, we did get slightly more hovering than that, it's just that they're remote controlled quad/quint/hexa/whatever-copters, that at some point got re-branded[1] as 'drones'. Here's one armed with a flamethrower, in one of the rare examples of both twitter and portrait video not making modern life rubbish (https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1009150968787849216).
I've been online banking with NatPest since the 1990s. To their credit, over the internet revolution of the last 20 years it hasn't really got any worse. Of course it hasn't really got any better, either...
[1] Re-branding is a large part of what makes modern life rubbish. I steadfastly refuse to call refugees 'migrants', or the CTC 'We Are Cycling UK'.
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I’ve been online banking since 1987, it’s been hit and miss, but very very mostly hit.
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I don't do smartphones cos I can't.
I'm quite glad my internet banking is via my trusty laptop. The whole business would scare me on a phone.
Never had a problem paying utilities via my laptop.
I know my limits!
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Yeah, I've never seen a pressing need to use a smartphone app for banking. Just seems like an excuse for my bank to spam me, tbh. And I reckon I'm better off not doing such things from a mainstream OS without good reason.
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Not full internet banking. It my revolut card is superb for going overseas. Correlated phone location and card location to stop fraud. Reduces my exchange costs and works like a dream. Sent a wedding present to Canada to a friend essentially for free and to a business in Budapest similarly.
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Mobile phone app banking is great. You can buy tickets for a cycling event, you and mates, then a few weeks later, be standing in the queue to get into the London Velodrome, and you give them your bank details they just pay you, as you are chatting.
Roll on contactless between phones.
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I'd be Bankrupt (again) without internet banking. Might happen anyway, I can't seem to comprehend the idea of money goes in but a lot goes out before i can use it. Unfortunately, by the time the "Regular Stuff" is due to go out, there's none of your Earth Pounds left in the bank.
I used to write and sign contracts from 3 to 12 years, sometimes dealing with £millions. I used to work stuff like that out on the spot, never wrong. Now I have to write a monthly planner for finances and use a calculator for simple math'.
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Barclays: Why not use our app to access ur money?
Me: OK.
Barclays: Enter teh number of ur Barclays current account.
Me: I do not have a Barclays current account.
Barclays: Then off u must fuck.
[A Several of months pass]
Barclays: I see ur still accessing ur money with a browser. Why not try our app? It is better.
Me: Do I need a Barclays current account?
Barclays: Yes. Yes, u do.
Me: Then off u must fuck!
[Repeat, with minor variations]
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All of the foregoing taken with a 30 plus year history working on large IT systems and more recently web applications is why, whenever I go to the bank and the poor, harrassed sod behind the counter who is dealing with a queue that stretches out of the door*, asks, "Have you considered on-line banking?" I reply, "Satan will be skating to work before I use on-line banking."
*Because the fuckwit suits at head office think that fewer staff that you can actually talk to is the way to improve customer satisfaction.
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Just be glad you're not in tsb :facepalm:
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It's not so much that I'm against online banking. I, for one, enjoy not spending my lunch hour in a queue to cash a cheque (note to non-Americans, cheques were a strange vehicle for transferring money) and avoiding the risk of inadvertent jousting. I also like paying for beer with a contactless card (though come now, it's not actually contactless, is it?) I'm against the lack of a back button and the sort of UI design that appears to never have been tested by an actual human. Now that's modern life being rubbish.
Next up, online clothes shopping. This is simple, I'm not buying anything that isn't pictured being worn by a model gazing wistfully into the distance, perhaps a hand on hip. Because that's how I stand all the time. It's important. Don't give me a page of inadequate thumbnail pictures of trousers. How am I supposed to know what they'll look like worn by man with a slight smile and a gaze to one side.
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Terry Gilliam's film Brazil, summed up in 1985 what we are experiencing today.
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Modern life hasn't even delivered the paperless office yet
I'm sitting in my office at home surrounded by the stuff. Think how many CO2's we could have saved by not chopping down the trees and leaving to suck up more.
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Can Thee Panel explain to me why, in a world in which people are generally getting bigger in all dimensions, it is possible to operate all three pedals on a 17-plate Ford Ka+ with a single foot at the same time?
Apparently it was designed by Ford Brazil. Perhaps they're all the size of Felipe Massa over there.
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We had the Brio Mallard when Baby Cudzo was a baby, but he never really played with it.
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My office is effectively paperless as my toner cartridge ran out three years ago. It can still occasionally be persuaded to print a single page through the art of vigorous shaking. I would replace it, but that would require a duel with our SAP-based procurement system (for reasons we're not allow to simply expense computer items). I'm still bloodied after ordering a MacBook the other year. Admittedly, my lack of ability to generate pointless pieces of paper is addressed by the postman, who shoves enough pointless paper through the letterbox.
On other matters. Email. That's rubbish. What did we do before email?
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Fax it up.
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Can Thee Panel explain to me why, in a world in which people are generally getting bigger in all dimensions, it is possible to operate all three pedals on a 17-plate Ford Ka+ with a single foot at the same time?
Apparently it was designed by Ford Brazil. Perhaps they're all the size of Felipe Massa over there.
It's because Ford are thankfully still clinging to the notion some drivers continue to enjoy a good old fashioned heel n toe*. Most cars don't even manage to get the pedals on the same plane which makes it impossible.
*in which the throttle and brake are pressed at the same time at slightly different rates to get the rear end a bit loose and turn the front end in sharper (as developed by the BMC works rally drivers in their Minis in the 1960s) - it's very useful on the commute to work, honest.
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Thought that was left foot braking . . .
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Rubbish it is and rubbish indeed. Last Saturday I rode through 48 villages and saw lots of shops closed, shuttered and the premises up for sale. Not just my favourite butcher's but an LBS as well.
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It's because Ford are thankfully still clinging to the notion some drivers continue to enjoy a good old fashioned heel n toe*. Most cars don't even manage to get the pedals on the same plane which makes it impossible.
*in which the throttle and brake are pressed at the same time at slightly different rates to get the rear end a bit loose and turn the front end in sharper (as developed by the BMC works rally drivers in their Minis in the 1960s) - it's very useful on the commute to work, honest.
Unfortunately modern cars will cut the throttle if the brake is pressed at the same time.
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Fax it up.
But I don't think stood around all day sending faxes did they? I can't remember, I joined the workforce just as email became a thing (though I'm old enough to remember when you had to share and book computers). It was pointless anyway, the recipient machine would have run out of toner or ribbon or film or whatever, and had a buffer that held about six bytes. You may as well have made your document into a paper plane and zipped it out the window. Yep, I sent it, you didn't get it? No really, I'm sure I sent it.
Anyway, email is good, don't get me wrong. The rubbishism is that we can now claim to have done nothing all day but read and send email.
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The really rubbishness of email is that some people expect you to do nothing other than reply to their emails immediately with no regard for the fact that you do actually have a job to do apart from attending to their egomail
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As the last living human on subdeck 13583599gh of the mothership, all questions eventually find their way to my inbox. Or people CC me because somehow they thing it's something that I should know. It's not and I was genuinely quite happy not knowing. Those huge dangling emails quoting everything that was ever said. And someone's email begat someone else email, and begat begat begat. I wouldn't mind, but do you know how this Tidy Haired Thought Leader™ answers the many questions that emailed to him? Sometimes I just Google the answer and respond. That, dear minions, is how I know the GDP of Burundi. Do they think I just memorized them? OK, evidently. Other times, when I'm feeling less charitable, I just make up the answer. I'm like Alexa, if you'd somehow managed to persuade her to open a spreadsheet containing the Darkhold function, and she turned a bit evil. She'd still be better than Siri. No Siri, I said Excel, not XXX. Close. Close. Close.
Which reminds me, I've written the first episode of The Emailer in my head.
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The really rubbishness of email is that some people expect you to do nothing other than reply to their emails immediately with no regard for the fact that you do actually have a job to do apart from attending to their egomail
Likewise the godawfulness of Skype. People would yak & yak & yak just because it was free. Bloke I knew in Oz would call in the Ozzie evening when he had SFA to do but waffle and I had SFA to do but work all morning.
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Thought that was left foot braking . . .
Left-foot braking was introduced by BMC's Scandiwegians attempting to make Mini-Coopers go sideways, while heel-and-toe is intended to permit one to blip the throttle while braking and changing down, and is the preserve of MG owners in string-backed driving gloves, and Troy Queef. Neither requires the simultaneous operation of all three pedals with the right foot.
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Meetings. At work. The never-ending absolutely bloody pointless chat-fests polluted with something that is almost entirely, but not quite, unlike the language spoken by normal human beings. And does anything come out of these "meetings" other than hot air and a feeling of alienation? That last was rhetorical because everybody here already knows the answer.
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Rules for meetings:
No agenda: no meeting.
Chair late: no meeting.
No briefing paper for agenda item: it's not on the agenda.
After the planned end time (1 hour, 2 hours...): meeting over.
Strong chair to cut the crap: "could you come to your point please, if you have one"
Simple...
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You forgot one...
If it can be done with an email - no meeting required.
My fave.
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Ah, meetings the things we do between email and opening spreadsheets. You know who really loves meetings? Americans. There's nothing my American colleagues can't have a meeting about. Let's get on a call, they'll announce if they're feeling really gung ho, to discuss that email. Otherwise, it's a future calendar bomb. There's some teams that practically MIRV my month. None of these meetings really achieve anything other than give people a platform to talk – and it's usually alpha-management types who just have to talk because they're alpha-management types and that's what alpha-management types do, the people that want to be alpha-management types (they always write MBA after their name, makes them easy to spot), and the wafflers. The wafflers, at least, may have a point. Or will have. Probably. The minimum unit of any meeting run by Americans in one hour, of which the first ten minutes will be spent waiting for Sherri to get coffee and bagels and then inevitable technical issues. Oh yeah, and when it finally gets going (I'm going to dial out and dial back in again!) for those on the phone, surround sound background chewing. You ever listen to twelve people eating bagels? It's like listening to a hungry hippopotamus masticate its way through a tyre yard.
The standard outcome for any meeting is another meeting. They self-perpetuate. I sat through a call the other about a product release where the delivery drone simply read everything from the screen. That's a search field. That's the login button. Click this for help. Someone needs fucking help. Honestly, this is stuff I could work out for myself in about five minutes. Or just write it down. A nice simple document that I can read in a few minutes. Job done. Hundreds of people have just saved 55 minutes. I've spent a good chunk of my working life in the US and they truly are the least productive people ever mostly because they simply can't say no to a meeting. I'm harsh when I have power – I expect an agenda, some explanation of why I need to attend, and what outcome we plan to achieve. I personally never book a meeting longer than 30 minutes, and often fifteen. That, at least, focuses attention.
I won't even start on the Town Hall. An event grimmer than a public execution. Of kittens. Do they really think there's any value in explaining the graph projected in front of us? I have a PhD, I can read a bar chart. And it's always delivered by the CFO or some such in a literally death-inducing monotone. The there's happy happy QA with über-leaders from the bridge because they really want to know our opinions. No, really. They don't and anyway, they just get suck-up questions from the wannabe alpha-management types, MBA.
I'm generally not allowed to ask questions, for obvious reasons. I'm not allowed near the bridge. Which is fine, they care about as much about what I think as I do about what they think. There's occasionally glints of entertainment, I was stuck in one of those interminable diversity things the other week (and I've no problem with diversity, but any lack thereof is systemic and not likely to be addressed by Powerpoint) where they were waffling on about 'strong female role models' in management because that's really it isn't it, women just needed to be told – anyway (I know, the irony of waffling) at the end someone raised her hand and asked very politely if a 'role model' could babysit her kids. Cue the most splendid moment of silence from our über boss.
I think our entire modern working life is rubbish.
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You forgot one...
If it can be done with an email - no meeting required.
My fave.
Unfortunately my manager doesn't seem to realise this but repeatedly complains about having too many meetings...
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My manager discourages emails and likes colleagues to go to me direct. So I get phone calls where the person on the other end witters at me distractingly while I try and look something up, or my personal lack-of-favourite hovers by my desk while I'm in the middle of something else, until I prioritise their answerable-if-they'd-only-use-the-database-properly query.
Modern life is only rubbish because 50% of people are of below average intelligence.
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My office is effectively paperless as my toner cartridge ran out three years ago.
;D
(Why do I think you've been saving that joke for many many months ... )
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...my American colleagues...
Not just the septics I'm afraid. I think that somewhere, possibly in a hollowed out extinct volcano, an evil genius is creating hundreds of identical companies with totally sclerotic business processes so that when the world grinds to an utter and irrevocable halt he (no woman could be so cold-bloodedly callous as to inflict current business practices on people) can step in with a handful of companies that actually work and achieve world domination and wealth beyond measure. And all perfectly legal too. No mucking about with knocked off nuclear weapons or hare-brained attempts to secure the world's gold reserves. No mindless bloody henchmen forever cocking up even the simplest instruction. Absolutely no risk whatsoever of some bloodthirsty, monosyllabic, alcoholic government goon tipping you into your own shark tank. In fact no bloody sharks at all. No, not even ones with lasers.
...The standard outcome for any meeting is another meeting... ...stuff I could work out for myself in about five minutes. Or just write it down. A nice simple document that I can read in a few minutes. Job done.
Hark I think I hear the cry of the lesser spotted, nay rarely spotted, Common-Sense Bird! Quick! Someone fetch me my 12 bore and game bag. I haven't shot one of those in many a year!
Do they really think there's any value in explaining the graph projected in front of us? I have a PhD, I can read a bar
Hell I've only got CSE French and even I can read a bar chart. Bigger bars generally mean better yeah?
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my pet hates are the speaker who reads their slides. If you only say what is on the slides then why did I give up my time to hear you waffle.
Secondly the comment "this slide is a bit busy and you won't be able to read it at the back but....". This makes me wonder what you are hiding.
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I dislike like the person I shall call 'MrDictionary'. This is the person who, when you ask them how to spell a word, recites the entire dictionary.
Or, when in a meeting, you ask them "Does this process produce x or y?", they gabble the Cyrillic alphabet. You listen to them patiently (or impatiently) for 20 minutes - they are a sensitive soul, you dare not interrupt them - then you have to ask they question again. At this point they look offended, confused and say that they aren't sure.
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File under 'I've listened to you for 20 minutes and I'm none the wiser, merely better informed...'
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There's also the dangerous documenters – cue the 70 page dense Word file explaining how to use a search field. Number of people who look at p2 of any given text document <=1, and that's the author who may or may not have managed to read that far.
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Power sockets. They're not keeping up with the demands of modern life. For reasons best left to himself, our fix-it-man has bought us a new wireless doorbell. He's not even charging us for it, he's apparently fed up with the sign on the front door that says 'the bell doesn't work' in a language that is apparently unintelligible to all couriers.
Now, tbh, I was happy without a doorbell because they're just another reason why modern life is rubbish. Who comes and knocks on your door in 2019? Couriers don't hang around long for you to get there, and even JWs don't bother. Anyway doing door-to-door looks up our steep street and thinks, nah.
So, I have two receivers. How many free power sockets do I have? Precisely nil. All the current ones are sprouting adaptors left, right, and centre, mad tendrils of wires inveigling their way under cabinets, feeding god knows what. None of it looks even vaguely safe, there are corners of my room that looks like developing world shantytowns. I wouldn't mind so much, but we had the place rewired five years ago and had extra sockets installed.
Back in the sixties when the Asbestos Palace was constructed it seemed the one socket per room was more than adequate.
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I reworded my House when I moved in, and like you I’ve run out of sockets in many rooms. The one room that has spare sockets is,the Lou Gehrig, but that is because we’ve moved the TV and it’s associated boxes to a different location and now need to run that all from a single extension lead. Pah!
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When my granddad rebuilt the bungalow that he and Nan moved into he knew exactly how he felt about sockets. One wall of the living room has eight double sockets alone and the rest of the place is similar.
He never ever did anything by halves.
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I have no qualms about daisy-chaining 4-ways and such, as long as the load is something sensible like computer equipment where it's unlikely to get within an order of magnitude of the fuse rating[1]. My electronics workbench has a 3-way (things under test) and a 4-way with a grelco in it (equipment I want to switch on and off in one go) plugged into an 8-way (other stuffthat stays on), eventually terminating at a plug-in RCD, because RCDs save lives and prevent embarrassment. The biggest load is the soldering iron.
The server rack has slightly more organised power distribution (rackmount 10-ways!), but most of it's fed from the UPS, which can be trusted to trip out at the slightest hint of an overload, in the way that 13A plug fuses don't. TBH, there's a lot less spaghetti in there than there was when we had an Electric Monk (https://www.mythtv.org/) watching telly for us. I've also been embracing Power-Over-Ethernet where appropriate[2], to prevent excessive breeding of wall-warts.
Anything that involves serious heating-type loads gets treated with the suspicion normally reserved for a village hall tea-urn, and gets its own socket with a known-good earth.
[1] Obviously this is a controlled environment where nobody's going to plug a hoover in somewhere stupid, because the person doing the hovering (on the odd occasion that hoovering gets done) is invariably me.
[2] This includes doorbells.
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You can get 8-way extensions that stand vertically, saving space and untidiness, possibly with USB charging sockets too these days.
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I've also been embracing Power-Over-Ethernet where appropriate[2], to prevent excessive breeding of wall-warts.
Every day is a school day.
Do you need to install special cable to do that then? (I assume it's not just your bog std Cat5)
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I reworded my House when I moved in, and like you I’ve run out of sockets in many rooms. The one room that has spare sockets is,the Lou Gehrig, but that is because we’ve moved the TV and it’s associated boxes to a different location and now need to run that all from a single extension lead. Pah!
Chortling at your autocorrects :)
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I reworded my House when I moved in, and like you I’ve run out of sockets in many rooms. The one room that has spare sockets is,the Lou Gehrig, but that is because we’ve moved the TV and it’s associated boxes to a different location and now need to run that all from a single extension lead. Pah!
Chortling at your autocorrects :)
I’m not doing much better than yesterday am I?
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I reworded my House when I moved in, and like you I’ve run out of sockets in many rooms. The one room that has spare sockets is,the Lou Gehrig, but that is because we’ve moved the TV and it’s associated boxes to a different location and now need to run that all from a single extension lead. Pah!
Chortling at your autocorrects :)
I’m not doing much better than yesterday am I?
I like them!
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You can get 8-way extensions that stand vertically, saving space and untidiness, possibly with USB charging sockets too these days.
My wife has one of those. Weirdly, computers seem to require less pluggery these days. iMac and laptop charger, desk lamp, and erm, that's it under mine.
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I've also been embracing Power-Over-Ethernet where appropriate[2], to prevent excessive breeding of wall-warts.
Every day is a school day.
Do you need to install special cable to do that then? (I assume it's not just your bog std Cat5)
Bog standard cat5. The device needs to be designed to accept PoE (802.3af), and you need either a switch that can supply PoE (which nearly always means a big one with evil noisy fans) or a mid-span power injector. Ethernet ports are transformer-isolated, and PoE intercepts the cable before the transformers to supply power.
You can sometimes bodge it with non-compliant 'passive PoE', where you simply break out the two unused pairs in 10/100M Ethernet and stick DC power up them with readily available dongles or passive injectors. There's no proper negotiation of current draw, no guarantees about voltage drop in the wiring[1], and you can't esaily do it with gigabit, which uses all the pairs. Often useful, but proceed with caution.
Most proper PoE kit tends to be things like IP phones, CCTV cameras and WiFi access points, where a separate wall-wart is either impractical (eg. because it's going on a roof) or an unwanted cost/point of failure (if you've got a couple of dozen phones in an office, better to just have a single power supply to worry about).
As with so many rubbish things in life, assorted non-802.3af-complaint 'standard' implementations proliferate (Cisco, Ubiquiti, etc.).
There's probably a parallel universe where WiFi wasn't invented, where this became the de-facto standard for charging laptops.
[1] 802.3af uses 48V to provide headroom and minimise I2R losses, while still qualifying as extra-low voltage for safety purposes.
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I reworded my House when I moved in, and like you I’ve run out of sockets in many rooms. The one room that has spare sockets is,the Lou Gehrig, but that is because we’ve moved the TV and it’s associated boxes to a different location and now need to run that all from a single extension lead. Pah!
Chortling at your autocorrects :)
I’m not doing much better than yesterday am I?
I like them!
So do I! :) :)
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Honestly, Tesla had all this wireless power sorted out with his Big Tower.
The most grabby source of pluggery in The Asbestos Palace seems to be lamps. They've proliferated like amorous rabbits in a viagra warehouse. It's like a bloody light showroom. Those and the cupboard of technological shame under the stairs. There is stuff plugged in under there of uncertain and possibly no known function. All I know is that I shouldn't ever unplug it. Bad things may happen. This is one of the problems in living in a structure situated at precisely the junction of this mortal plain and Hell, a structure previously maintained by BBC set designers.
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The most grabby source of pluggery in The Asbestos Palace seems to be lamps. They've proliferated like amorous rabbits in a viagra warehouse. It's like a bloody light showroom.
Ever paid attention to the lamps in House MD's erm, house? Once you start counting them, you can't stop noticing more. Lazy set-dressing or useful places to conceal a Vicodin stash? Who knows. The floor must be a rats' nest of dodgy USAnian plug boards.
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I don't think I've seen House. I've checked my lamps collection, no Vicodin, which is a disappointment. US plugs fall out if you look at them but then again, the power itself goes out if you think about it too much.
A lot of the lights are on timers, so they come on and go off at random times, so the neighbours think we're in the throes of a really slow disco.
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In other matters of modern life being rubbish (I've turned this into a podcast, it's really good, but alas only currently available inside my head), I was reminded by Robert Webb the other day, but where is the 'metal' button?
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A lot of the lights are on timers, so they come on and go off at random times, so the neighbours think we're in the throes of a really slow disco.
We've got that, on account of lights coming on automagically as you enter the room[1]. This seemed wanky when I added the code, but barakta (who is low on hands and reckons computers are for swearing at, not talking to[2]) finds it unexpectedly helpful. It also means that I don't get to wander around muttering that "it's like the Blackpool illuminations in here"[3], except when visiting the in-laws.
(As discussed in threads passim, the doorbell turns the slow disco into a full-on rave.)
[1] The way I see it, if you're going to the effort to design a migraine-proof dimmable LED lamp driver, it might as well have Features.
[2] "Fuck off, Siri."
[3] Or something less cliched and more generationally-appropriate about carbon footprints.
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[2] "Fuck off, Siri."
I tend to prefer "Siri, you're an absolute fuckwit"
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There's nothing sophisticated about my lighting arrangements, they're just attached to random timers that only get individually changed when they've become sufficiently annoying in their behaviour. The only ones I change with any fervour are the driveway lights because a failure to do so would encourage bears.
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I took a CD* of Mozart Horn Concertos (von Karajan, Berlin Phil. 1969. Deutsche Grammophon) off the shelf the other day and tried to play it. It skipped like Muhammad Ali on speed. Utterly useless. So much for the, "indestructible"** and, "better than vinyl" marketing tosh they were heralded with. I have LPs as old (and older) than me that still play well and give a good sound into the bargain.
*Now, it could be argued that CDs are no longer "modern" but I am sufficiently reactionary and contrary to consider them bang up to date and will brook no argument to the contrary.
**I know why they degrade with age, doesn't mean I can't grumble about it.
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Sitting in an internal meeting where the subject matter is 'that we have too many internal meetings.'
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Kill yourselves
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I wouldn't mind if the action item from that meeting was to look at how we have fewer internal meetings. But I expect someone will figure out a way to create a 'working group' to explore the issue. They'll resolve to do this with, obviously, a series of regular meetings.
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We had a similar such meeting. The conclusion was we would add two half-days week that would be 'meeting free'.
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Remove chairs from meeting rooms. That speeds things up.
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Remove chairs from meeting rooms. That speeds things up.
No seats, no loo breaks, and everyone has to down a litre of water on entering the room...
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Alas, it's all virtual now which, if anything, leads to more meetings.
Once upon a time, some debuted the concept of meeting-free-Fridays. That just made Friday's the perfect time to find an empty slot on someone's calendar. So that lasted about as long as you'd expect.
Now, some meetings are useful. The have a topic, an agenda, and an outcome that isn't merely to hold another meeting.
Most just seem to be waffle-fests with the same people talking. Americans are the worst. Anything at all, and they slap an entire fucking hour into my calendar.
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The thing that most pisses me off is people who call a meeting (with a cast of thousands) because they don't understand something which will need a decision.
Read the fucking material first so that you understand the problem.
Sure, then call a meeting to brainstorm how we resolve the problem.
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Generally, if I've nothing to contribute to a meeting, I will go ahead and contribute precisely that. Nothing. I'd had enough the other day when I blurted out 'sorry, I don't know what this meeting is for?' and there was silence. Apparently they wanted to have 'a discussion.' I really didn't.
This meetings typically feature the same people who just waffle to be heard.
Another one is a project I'm part of. We had four hours of meetings which I may have assumed would lead somewhere, but at the end, they just sent me a link to some requirements and said 'have your developers do this.'
What the fuck were those meetings for? I want my four hours back. With interest.
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I don't mind modern life. I want more of it.
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Part of the reason I dislike my job less than I could[1] is that I've been here long enough that I just decline meetings with comments like:
* Don't think this needs me
* Don't think I can contribute usefully to this meeting
* Can't see why I've been invited to this meeting
* Sorry, too busy at the moment, if my attendance is required/important then rearrange for next week some time
* Can't attend, I only work part time and don't work on a Monday, rearrange if you require me to be there
* Can't attend, I only work part time and finish at 3pm on a Tuesday/Wednedsay, rearrange if you require me to be there
The vast majority of the time I never hear back and my calendar remains sparsely populated.
I have ~3 hours of meetings a week at most.
This is one of joys of being here a long time and being one of the few people who know how this stuff actually works.
1. I almost said "like my job". shudder
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I decline meetings that I don't think are relevant. I generally only schedule 30-minute meetings and try to get through them in 10. I mostly decline anything before 9am and after 6pm on account that even if I don't have a life, I'm going to pretend to have one (I actually do). Americans, despite having several, also don't seem to understand time zones and frequently try to book slots at 7 or 8pm in the evening. Anyway, if you need me please reschedule, if you don't, go ahead without me.
The worse meetings are the strategy calls. Those kill me.
Also, people who send me links to the meetings that they've helpfully recorded because, yeah, like I'm going to sit there for 63 minutes watching that. If you've a point, write it down. And good god, not dozens of pages of bullet points. He said, she said, he said. A couple of sentences to summarize what was discussed and what was resolved.
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Better than decline, tentatively accept. That gives the impression that I would attend your poxy meeting, if I possibly could....
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Working with people and clients from both east and west of the Greenwich Meridian means meetings both at stupid-o'early and stupid-o'late. I don't mind the stupid-o'early as much as the late as I'm an early riser and can then knock off early on the basis of I've already done my time - if you want me permanently available pay me more.
This morning was 0730 with malaysia, which in itself is OK, except that it's a client who thinks they can send me a response to an information request they've had for two weeks on Thursday for a Friday meeting, not include half of the items they say are there and expect me to read it, come up with more questions and respond for their working day, and then assume that they can cover what would normally take 2 days face to face in a 90 minute call.
They seemed genuinely surprised when we said we'd need to talk again, and even more surprised when I asked them to actually send the stuff they'd referred to which they'd not actually sent. It got even more confusing for 15 minutes as the conversation revealed that the information they'd said answered my question hadn't actually been sent to me yet, didn't actually answer my question, and wasn't actually completed yet in any case. They seemed genuinely confused when I asked them whether they actually had the information I'd asked for initially.
I'm thinking of changing my name to Humphrey
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I had a fantastic meeting this morning.
Major problem with a release.
Problem stated.
Likely cause stated.
Plan of action agreed.
Who is doing what agreed.
6 minutes
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After a particularly grim week I totted up this morning that this week I would have done 14 hours in meetings by midday today. It's no wonder I can't get any work done.
Then a bit later I got an email from a sales colleague in West Africa asking if I would be up for a trip to Paris in Nov/Dec to visit some customer he's trying to develop some business with.
Are you mad? I thought. Never mind the fact that Covid cases are escalating in Europe again, our current travel policy says you have to get permission from VP level for international travel and I suspect that's only handed out for site visits where we really need to dig ourselves or the customer out of a hole, not so that we can go and do some business development chit chat.
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I don’t think I’ve ever been to a meeting. I feel deprived.
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The silliest international meeting I've done was Perth (the Australian one), UK and Seattle. It was winding down to go home time on a Friday for the Aussies, early o'clock for me (and I had the day booked off as leave, so was back home at about the same time I would normally get into work) and the poor chap, on his own, in Seattle was falling asleep as it was silly late and still Thursday as far as he was concerned (or possibly very early Friday).
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My 'horizontal' combines San Francisco, Philadelphia, Beijing, Wellington, and London. They've yet to invent a time zone for that meeting that won't fuck me off. And 'horizontal.' There's only two things that I want to do horizontal and neither of them involves a teleconference. And if it did, at least one of them I'd charge people to watch.
Still, at least I don't have to get off my arse to be inconvienced. I once flew all the way to Johannesburg for what I believe our sales team said was a 'done deal' they just needed me to confirm 'a few things.' They neglected to confirm that the client had no money, nope, no funding at all. They were very cheerful about it. I got to shoot a gun, get impressively drunk, and buy a giant cuddly lion that got an entire business class bed to itself.
Come to think of it, that's a lot better shit than a Teams call.
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Many many years ago, when I was a fresh-faced young engineering geologist, the only one in a big multinational consulting engineers, I walked into the Victoria St office one morning, and was intercepted by the travel lady, asking me for my passport. Why? You're going to Saudi tomorrow. For a meeting.
Think I went out one day, back the next. And that was in the days before free booze on BA.
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I flew to St Louis once to remove a ; from a configuration file.
Ironically that might have been sorted out in minutes, without me having to move from my spare bedroom, had the concept of Webex or other screen sharing systems been available then.
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A friend got sent to Munich for a meeting. Out and back on the same day, so no luggage.
Then Eyjafjallajökull errupted. :facepalm:
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I flew to St Louis once to remove a ; from a configuration file.
Ironically that might have been sorted out in minutes, without me having to move from my spare bedroom, had the concept of Webex or other screen sharing systems been available then.
Or ssh? Or even telnet?
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San Francisco for a 45 minute meeting at Wells Fargo (really!) - but did blag a further 5 days of holiday for the trip, I just paid a couple of nights in the hotel :thumbsup:
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Indonesia for a two day audit. Spent longer travelling than being there
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Software patch needed for urgent install on customer's IBM dinosaur mainframe*; in spite of ultra-careful checking of our (VAX-written) code for FORTRAN-77 compliance. BOFH makes two copies on 9-track tapes and hand-crufts tinfoil hats for them. Handed over to programmer who hotfoots it to LHR and thence to JFK. On Concorde. Sitting next to a Mr H Kissinger. Thence to customer’s site in, IIRC, Rochester NY.
Ladies & Gedderbong, I was that BOFH.
* it worked on other customer's IBM dinosaur mainframes…
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BOFH?
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BOFH?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_Operator_From_Hell
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On French TV the abbreviation for Bora-Hansgrohe was BOH, which I read as Bastard Operator from Hell every time I saw it. Kinda transferred itself to Sagan, too, esp when he LARTed Woot van Aert in the Stage 11 sprint.
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A lot of the lights are on timers, so they come on and go off at random times, so the neighbours think we're in the throes of a really slow disco.
In the middle of frying breakfast late last night, the Kitchen light went out... I'd forgotten I had it on a timer... That was awkward, trying to get to the light switch, in a narrow kitchen, without burning my food.
Need to find better timings...
J
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I flew to St Louis once to remove a ; from a configuration file.
Ironically that might have been sorted out in minutes, without me having to move from my spare bedroom, had the concept of Webex or other screen sharing systems been available then.
Or ssh? Or even telnet?
Possibly, but that generally was never possible for our customers. Getting remote access wouldn't fly with their security teams.
It went something like this:-
When they ran out bit of our software it reported a syntax error with the config file. Every time we'd asked for the config file the customer had ftp'd it from the machine and emailed it to us and we found no problem with config file. Support were getting nowhere so they sent me to go on site.
When I got there I asked him to run it from the command line and it displayed the config file. Editing the config file showed the missing ; character. We added it and it worked fine.
I then asked the customer what he did when we asked him for a copy of the file. He opened up a new shell, checked the piece of paper taped to his desk for the IP address of that specific machine, ftp'd to that IP address, fetched the file and emailed it to us. I checked the IP of the machine we were ssh'd in to, it didn't match the piece of the paper. The piece of paper had the IP address of the corresponding Dev system, and on that machine the config file was correct, and that's the one that he'd been emailing us each time.
So, technically, it wasn't just flying to St Louis to add a ; to a config file, it was also to correct a single octet of an IP address on a piece of paper taped to a desk.
I was scheduled to be at that customer for 2 days to get to the bottom of this, having sorted this in the first 5 minutes we went through everything else he had questions on, including me demoing some of the newer bits of our software, but that only took about 2 hours. I gave him my cell phone number, told him I was in town for another day if he had any further problems and went off sightseeing (it wasn't worth rearragning my flights).
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As for a different modern life is rubbish story.
I went to look at a nearby flat that was for sale, just to see if it was worth it. Upon entering the estate agent mumble something about the lights, luckily we didn't need them as it was bright daylight, but I saw the instructions for them.
There were no light switches anywhere upstairs, it was all controlled by an smartphone app. So the instructions for the EA for turning on the lights meant that the EA would have to:
* Join the right wireless network
* Download the app
* Let the app 'discover' the lights on the wireless network
* Use the app to turn the lights on.
Somehow this is a form of progress...
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As for a different modern life is rubbish story.
I went to look at a nearby flat that was for sale, just to see if it was worth it. Upon entering the estate agent mumble something about the lights, luckily we didn't need them as it was bright daylight, but I saw the instructions for them.
There were no light switches anywhere upstairs, it was all controlled by an smartphone app. So the instructions for the EA for turning on the lights meant that the EA would have to:
* Join the right wireless network
* Download the app
* Let the app 'discover' the lights on the wireless network
* Use the app to turn the lights on.
Somehow this is a form of progress...
That's just shockingly bad design.
I have 'smart' lights throughout my flat, but for all of them, there is both a 'smart' switch, that I can use, and cos the original switches are on the wall, I can flip them off then back on again. I have tape over the wall switches, as I got fed up with guests using the wrong switch...
J
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I flew to St Louis once to remove a ; from a configuration file.
Ironically that might have been sorted out in minutes, without me having to move from my spare bedroom, had the concept of Webex or other screen sharing systems been available then.
One of my first jobs in IT was updating our code. All the changes were designed, tested and implemented in Hong Kong or the USA, then we in our satellite state were sent printed instructions what to change which we did by retrieving code and typing the changes in.
This also happened when the antitrust regulators were due. We'd to change all the code to remove certain freight pricing instructions until after the inspection, then we put the original code back.
Our IT dept was a portakabin in the middle of a container park. Very noisy.
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I've never been in IT, but one of my first jobs as a young chemical engineer was to replace a control system that was "Y2K non compliant" .
I know of at least one of those that is still in use running an oil terminal
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As for a different modern life is rubbish story.
I went to look at a nearby flat that was for sale, just to see if it was worth it. Upon entering the estate agent mumble something about the lights, luckily we didn't need them as it was bright daylight, but I saw the instructions for them.
There were no light switches anywhere upstairs, it was all controlled by an smartphone app. So the instructions for the EA for turning on the lights meant that the EA would have to:
* Join the right wireless network
* Download the app
* Let the app 'discover' the lights on the wireless network
* Use the app to turn the lights on.
Somehow this is a form of progress...
Welcome to the bane of my life in many public places.
Me: "Hi, your lights are flickering/bastard-bright, can you turn them off/down in this room/anywhere? There seem to be no light switches."
Them: "ERRR... Everything is centrally controlled. We can try and find out."
*time passes*
If I am lucky, someone comes back to say "We can turn the lights off in one place" and I have to wrangle special permission to go to that place.
More commonly I get: "Sorry, no, we can't change any lighting anywhere. Can't you just manage?"
And I have to either risk severe migraines, visual distortions and sometimes becoming ill enough that my vision starts cutting out and I fall over. Or I have to leave.
I will one day end up taking a disability discrimination legal case on this issue because lighting should be locally controllable and it's inexcusable for it not to be.
I can't understand why anyone would do this to a residential place. All my friends who have smart lights (which are often horrid flickery messes) also have actual light switches and can TURN THEM OFF.
See also rants x many about modern fucking building design, sensorily hostile and hideous.
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You forgot that time I helped a judge sellotape an envelope over a PIR sensor, in the hope the lights might time out...
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While we're on the slow disco theme, about a quarter of the streetlights on the A38 between Rubery and the M5 roundabout are cycling on and off at ~5 second intervals, in the manner of an LED driver protecting itself from overload with a failed string.
It adds an extra element of excitement to using the overgrown-to-singletrack shared-use pavement[1] in the uphill-blinded-by-headlights direction.
I keep meaning to report it to the council, but I'd quite like to shoot some video of it first.
[1] Normally I wouldn't, but it's a useful way to avoid a nasty bit of climbing.
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@Kim. Gosh! do you cycle that section often? I think the only time I rode the A38 beyond
Rubbery Rubery was on my 1999 eclipse tour.
Stayed on the A38 for much of the following days, though.
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While we're on the slow disco theme, about a quarter of the streetlights on the A38 between Rubery and the M5 roundabout are cycling on and off at ~5 second intervals, in the manner of an LED driver protecting itself from overload with a failed string.
It adds an extra element of excitement to using the overgrown-to-singletrack shared-use pavement[1] in the uphill-blinded-by-headlights direction.
I keep meaning to report it to the council, but I'd quite like to shoot some video of it first. bloody stupid designer
[1] Normally I wouldn't, but it's a useful way to avoid a nasty bit of climbing.
FFTY?
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@Kim. Gosh! do you cycle that section often? I think the only time I rode the A38 beyond Rubbery Rubery was on my 1999 eclipse tour.
Not normally, but it's the most efficient way to get to/from the south-west corner of my veloviewer cluster (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=108374.msg2535914#msg2535914).
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You forgot that time I helped a judge sellotape an envelope over a PIR sensor, in the hope the lights might time out...
Argh the number of places that use PIR sensors to control their lights, and put the sensor somewhere bloody stupid. The worst culprit for this is in toilets, where they put the sensor in the main area with the sinks, such that when you're sat in the cubical, the lights turn out and you can't turn them back on...
I once worked in an office where the sensor didn't cover my desk, so when working late, the lights would all turn off and I'd have to get up, walk 2m, wave at the sensor, and then go back to work. Most infuriating. Similar setup screw ups include where the sensitivity is such that a geek sat typing doesn't create enough movement to trigger the sensor, cue waving arms at the ceiling every 10 minutes...
J
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You forgot that time I helped a judge sellotape an envelope over a PIR sensor, in the hope the lights might time out...
Argh the number of places that use PIR sensors to control their lights, and put the sensor somewhere bloody stupid. The worst culprit for this is in toilets, where they put the sensor in the main area with the sinks, such that when you're sat in the cubical, the lights turn out and you can't turn them back on...
Bala C&CC site is my all-time favourite: All the lights in the wash block have their own sensor. Timeouts set to under a minute. Keep your head torch on while you're on the loo and it's merely funny as you watch them trace your steps through from the outside door at bladder o'clock.
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I once worked in an office where the sensor didn't cover my desk, so when working late, the lights would all turn off and I'd have to get up, walk 2m, wave at the sensor, and then go back to work. Most infuriating.
Retconned by the designers as 'providing a more ergonomic working environment, by promoting regular changes of position and posture'...?
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Many many years ago, when I was a fresh-faced young engineering geologist, the only one in a big multinational consulting engineers, I walked into the Victoria St office one morning, and was intercepted by the travel lady, asking me for my passport. Why? You're going to Saudi tomorrow. For a meeting.
Think I went out one day, back the next. And that was in the days before free booze on BA.
I get out of Saudi by ticking the OH VEY, I'M REALLY VERY JEWISH box on the visa form. They may have relaxed things, but probably not.
I think the worst meeting I got sent to was early in this section of my career when my boss and I went to a meeting we had scheduled. We figured we could do it in a day if we got up sometime in the middle of the night (an idea that always seems progressive less good the close you get to the alarm going off) and schlepped over to Heathrow for the early flight.
The guy we were meeting forgot about it then made a big fuss about the 'imposition' and 'found fifteen minutes' from his schedule of sitting around and drinking coffee. So he went and got more coffee and cake, which he shared with everyone in the meeting other than us as our bellies growled around the remains of a BA croissant.
And because it was supposed to be a all day meeting, I'd book the last flight out and, of course, they couldn't squeeze me on a earlier plane. I should have taken the opportunity to see the sights, but I was mostly a bit a fucked off. My boss has another meeting so flew off elsewhere. Oh, and I fell asleep in the taxi to the airport and the driver tried to stiff me for an epic fare (he lost his previous ability to speak English during this heated discussion). I threw some money at him and stomped off. Then got double annoyed but it wasn't my money anyway.
Austria has made me grumbly ever since.
Oh, and the time senior management dispatched me to Chennai to 'sort something out' with some new Indian business we were outsourcing too. Sure, says I. It turned out that somewhere in the morass of communications they'd not really told the Indian company this was happening or that I was coming. But in the usual way, the Indian company was so keen to stay in our good books (and keep the contract) they didn't admit they had no clue why I was there. I'd keep asking for stuff that I assumed they'd have and they'd all nod and say 'yes' and that was that, it wouldn't appear. This act lasted about three days, until someone fessed up that really, they weren't sure who I was or why I was there.
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As for a different modern life is rubbish story.
I went to look at a nearby flat that was for sale, just to see if it was worth it. Upon entering the estate agent mumble something about the lights, luckily we didn't need them as it was bright daylight, but I saw the instructions for them.
There were no light switches anywhere upstairs, it was all controlled by an smartphone app. So the instructions for the EA for turning on the lights meant that the EA would have to:
* Join the right wireless network
* Download the app
* Let the app 'discover' the lights on the wireless network
* Use the app to turn the lights on.
Somehow this is a form of progress...
Welcome to the bane of my life in many public places.
Me: "Hi, your lights are flickering/bastard-bright, can you turn them off/down in this room/anywhere? There seem to be no light switches."
Them: "ERRR... Everything is centrally controlled. We can try and find out."
*time passes*
If I am lucky, someone comes back to say "We can turn the lights off in one place" and I have to wrangle special permission to go to that place.
More commonly I get: "Sorry, no, we can't change any lighting anywhere. Can't you just manage?"
And I have to either risk severe migraines, visual distortions and sometimes becoming ill enough that my vision starts cutting out and I fall over. Or I have to leave.
I will one day end up taking a disability discrimination legal case on this issue because lighting should be locally controllable and it's inexcusable for it not to be.
I can't understand why anyone would do this to a residential place. All my friends who have smart lights (which are often horrid flickery messes) also have actual light switches and can TURN THEM OFF.
See also rants x many about modern fucking building design, sensorily hostile and hideous.
Oh this happened in our new very swanky offices. We were promised the ability to dim the lights in each room.
Cue us arriving in the new office and discovering 'daylight' bulbs above every desk. No screening over the bulbs, so looking across the room was like staring into the headlights of a modern Audi.
I stuck post-its over the lights above my desk.
A month or two later, some electricians noticed the post-its and offered to disconnect the power to those lights. Didn't have any bottles of whisky on hand to give them, so made do with heartfelt gratitude.
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I have 'smart' lights throughout my flat, but for all of them, there is both a 'smart' switch, that I can use, and cos the original switches are on the wall, I can flip them off then back on again. I have tape over the wall switches, as I got fed up with guests using the wrong switch...
J
It saves on tape to avoid having guests.
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Oh this happened in our new very swanky offices. We were promised the ability to dim the lights in each room.
Cue us arriving in the new office and discovering 'daylight' bulbs above every desk. No screening over the bulbs, so looking across the room was like staring into the headlights of a modern Audi.
I stuck post-its over the lights above my desk.
A month or two later, some electricians noticed the post-its and offered to disconnect the power to those lights. Didn't have any bottles of whisky on hand to give them, so made do with heartfelt gratitude.
I tried to cover the evil lights at ex work but instead of talking to us, someone grassed us up to Boss3 who came down and demanded they were removed "fire risk".
I wish I'd said "lights off, or I'm going home until they're off" cos that is what wrecked my vision/brain. The visual stress of that office is horrid and several people left who were less affected by me but got headaches and eye issues.
And to piss me off even further, I had put in my access needs for new office "controllable/dimmable lights" but because X didn't pass it to Y and to Z, I was literally treated like I hadn't disclosed. I almost wish I'd pursued them to tribunal to answer that and every other failing in detailed legal record.
Even current work the small rooms we're in do have dimmable lighting after boss fought for it, but dimmable = PWM so they flicker instead. Bastard bright or flickering is your choice. Excellent for me and the neurodiverse light sensitive students I see in there. The plug in uplighter also flickers.
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On the subject of evil lighting, how bad are the IKEA Tradfri lights ? in terms of flicker, etc...
J
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Like seriously, Hive is down. Dead. Doomed. Degraded. The fury that envelops me is like a splenetic hurricane. But a cold one. Now I have to walk all the way to the hallway to turn up the heating 0.5 degrees. Or remain here, cold.
They never said modern life would be so hard.
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jan/12/modern-life-is-rubbish-the-people-whose-homes-are-portals-to-the-past
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(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/143a2cea9c69c770fb4cee648bcac104b1f713f0/0_0_4032_2432/master/4032.jpg?width=1300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=6fb4fae5227a89fa7aeba1ac352c5827)
I imagine some YACFers have a bar like this in their home!
And if we had a thread for "skip gadget and bodge it" we'd definitely have people doing this:
I have a Decca TV from the 70s that I found on Facebook Marketplace, three miles down the road. It’s ridiculous. The same model is on display in the Science Museum. It does turn on, but unfortunately the analogue signal was switched off in 2012, so I’m sending it to someone who specialises in making old appliances work on new systems. He’s going to make it compatible with Netflix and digital TV.
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And if we had a thread for "skip gadget and bodge it" we'd definitely have people doing this:
I have a Decca TV from the 70s that I found on Facebook Marketplace, three miles down the road. It’s ridiculous. The same model is on display in the Science Museum. It does turn on, but unfortunately the analogue signal was switched off in 2012, so I’m sending it to someone who specialises in making old appliances work on new systems. He’s going to make it compatible with Netflix and digital TV.
That's less "skip and bodge" than "101 uses for a Raspberry Pi", on which we've had several threads. Earlier models have a composite video[1] output that should be directly compatible with a 70s telly.
[1] Slightly disappointed that the examples stop at the 1970s, although it makes perfect sense, because that's how old you have to be to afford a house. Nevertheless, I expect in years to come there will be nostalgic reproductions of 80s and 90s houses, complete with lovingly-restored SCART cables.
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It also makes sense to stop with the 70s because the median age of the UK population is 41, meaning that's the last decade which is "history" for most people. But I'm looking forward to, or at least expecting, 1980s repro: lots of matt black gadgets with bright red or acid yellow buttons, floppy lopsided haircuts and moody synths. So cool. For a while.
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Oh yes. Pass me my DX7.
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...I expect in years to come there will be nostalgic reproductions of 80s and 90s houses, complete with lovingly-restored SCART cables.
Alas no, as nothing made after 1980* is repairable.
*Pick your own arbitrary date. :)
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(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/143a2cea9c69c770fb4cee648bcac104b1f713f0/0_0_4032_2432/master/4032.jpg?width=1300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=6fb4fae5227a89fa7aeba1ac352c5827)
I imagine some YACFers have a bar like this in their home!
I note he hasn't got the shit selection of booze that was available in the 60s.
We once had a 70s evening with some friends. All food and wine from a typical 70s menu. The food was fine but the wine (Black Tower, Blue Nun, Mateus Rose - all still available :o ) ended up being poured down the sink.
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Black Tower, Matteus Rose, and Blue Nun are the three wines that distinguish the posher parts of my childhood. They're also, I realise now, how my parents kept me quiet on Sunday afternoons.
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Bulgarian Cab Sauv was the lubricant of choice amongst the PSOs around these parts back when we were PSOs.
Cheap reds always seemed less offensive than cheap whites back then.
(And actually, I think that's still true. Ski chalet free bulk-grade wine is generally more drinkable in red form than in white.)
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I'm pretty sure that when I saw Bruce Springstein at Hyde Park around 11 years ago the wine being served from a back pack was then black towef
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Bulgarian Cab Sauv was the lubricant of choice amongst the PSOs around these parts back when we were PSOs.
Cheap reds always seemed less offensive than cheap whites back then.
That stuff was the social lubricant of my student years. Tasted like battery acid cut with creosote but at £3.99 a bottle was cheaper than buying either.
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(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/143a2cea9c69c770fb4cee648bcac104b1f713f0/0_0_4032_2432/master/4032.jpg?width=1300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=6fb4fae5227a89fa7aeba1ac352c5827)
I imagine some YACFers have a bar like this in their home!
I note he hasn't got the shit selection of booze that was available in the 60s.
We once had a 70s evening with some friends. All food and wine from a typical 70s menu. The food was fine but the wine (Black Tower, Blue Nun, Mateus Rose - all still available :o ) ended up being poured down the sink.
You're telling me that rum with a pirate on the label and Mount Gay gin (or whatever it is in that bottle) aren't genuine 1960s brands? I'd like to think he's actually printed the labels up himself and arranged them prominently for the photographer.
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I don't think I like the 1930s house; too dark.
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Argh the number of places that use PIR sensors to control their lights, and put the sensor somewhere bloody stupid. The worst culprit for this is in toilets, where they put the sensor in the main area with the sinks, such that when you're sat in the cubical, the lights turn out and you can't turn them back on...
As all "Viz" fans know, the Office of Bottom Inspection considers reading on the toilet to be a hanging offence, so consider yourself lucky.
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It's a fact of modern life for those of us in the meetings manufacture business that if you rush to do your daily exercise at a frantic pace because you have a solid afternoon of meetings, that during that rush, many of those meetings will get rescheduled so you all that frantic pedalling could have done at a more leisurely pace.
On the plus side, I have the impossible probability of two entire hours in the afternoon that aren't polluted by meetings.
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Modern life is trying to get rid of rubbish, a.k.a. 'stuff'.
That's why I try not to buy anything that is not directly life-supporting. (It's getting easier to buy less stuff anyway thanks to brexit.)
There is a war going on over our local 'tip' recycling centre. A few years back York had two so they closed one down and moved the other somewhere smaller and less accessible.
Coronavirus has made a visit to the tip into a main leisure activity and people form long queues waiting to be allowed in so they can 'recycle' half a dozen cardboard boxes caused by e-shopping, the other booming lockdown activity. The queue causes major traffic jams because in this version of lockdown people are not actually staying home after all. Receiving abuse for visiting the tip is the new normal.
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You don't get cardboard boxes picked up as part of your recycling collection then?
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Oh yes. My tip trip was to dump a trailer- and boot- load of old kitchen flooring. We also made another journey, in the opposite direction during which we collected a trailer- and boot- load of new kitchen flooring. One day we will have a new kitchen to go with it.. ..when Covid permits. Then we will be able to eat cooked food again.
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Until then, you need a Trangia! Or a Jet Boil or a Boy Scout with two twigs.
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We tried cooking a 3 course for two on the pocket rocket but now we have the student's friend - a twin hob electric hot plate from Argos. It's all very rough luxe
(https://www.detnk.com/files/images/ROUGHLUXE1.preview.jpg)
till April.
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Good god, the fire/CO/sleep alarm has chirruped off its mortal coil. Slightly narked after recent discussion that it's optical, since I was thinking of the fun stuff I could do with americium. My tritium count is probably almost background, I'm relying on carbon-14 for my healthy glow.
Rubbish, why, you might ask? Because detectors have moved in the seven years since I bought it. And now, seriously, the fuckery with which you have to put up when attempting to buy a replacement. I don't fucking need it to interface with wifi and a fucking phone app. I want something with a nocturnal neighbourhood shattering beep that will knock me out of the land of nod. I do not need seven choices of alarm tone. I just don't want to burn to death in my sleep or take a CO-cruise into the great beyond. I don't want to groggily stumble into the afterlife to the bloody Ride of the Valkyries.
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People who need to switch off their bicycle lights are contemplating jar lids (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=120808.msg2652241#msg2652241).
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Very heavy triple layered curtains in lounge have just pulled the xxxxxxxx pole bracket fixings out of the wall AGAIN! Pole now hanging by a single screw on the LH bracket. Can I simply screw the thing back in? Can I xxxxx ! The upper component half of the bracket prevents access to the screw heads. Will Have to take the whole lot down in the morning. House made of ticky tacky. Additional brackets now ordered - bugger! Now where did I put the SDS drill?
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I had to deal with one of those recently. Gave up and fitted a batten, and (on barakta's advice) painted it with some magnolia emulsion that was lingering in ye shedde so it would look like a landlord had done it.
(Landlords being a significant source of rubbishness in modern life.)
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I may have to do just that Kim.
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Suffering a bout of modern organization and switching suppliers of thing, which modern life thinks is a valuable use of my time, and modern life is quite wrong about.
On the plus side, as mentioned, I'm several hundred pounds richer on home insurance (really, L&G were serving us a shitburger) and when we (ok, my wife, I don't talk to people on the phone*) called them they told us to fuck off if we wanted a discount.
Dithering over gas and electricity tells me there's really not a lot of difference to what we're paying now, it's like a tenner here and there. That's really disappointing because I wanted confirmation that British Gas were radioactively shite.
And broadband, which BT did respond to a haggle over, but apparently £37 is the best they can do, which is a bit stinky compared to new deals, but of course, do you trust two broadband suppliers, when united to swap your connection, to not fuck it up? Go ahead, make my day.
*it's true, I have a mental disease. I know it makes no sense, I talk to people all fucking day and get paid to do it, but ask me to phone a call centre, and that's it, game over man, game over.
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I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarkets here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap - but from pallets.
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I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarket here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap - but from pallets.
Oh, the irony.. Back in the USSR:
(https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c9875e0fdd95f9d8cd817de3799dddd9)
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Stack it high and sell it cheap - but from pallets.
ASDA, Aberdeen, c1983.
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I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarket here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap - but from pallets.
Oh, the irony.. Back in the USSR:
(https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c9875e0fdd95f9d8cd817de3799dddd9)
Where on earth and when was that?
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Same photo has been doing the rounds for at least ten years but is definitely Russia, and the Soviet Union, and Venezuela, and…
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I think it actually is Venezuela. Though the actual source is down as no one in Venezuela is up to paying their hosting fees at the moment.
I'm pretty sure the Russians don't label their aisles with English and Spanish, plus the colour yellow wasn't readily available in Russia until 2017.
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Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? :demon:
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The bread aisle in my local Tesco looked just like that at some point in March 2020.
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Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? :demon:
I found a bigger version, bread is pan for instance, and those snack cakes are pastelitos. The lady is definitely Hispanic and she's wearing a big Jesus Christ t-shirt.
OK, I should caveat, it's used in several Venezuelan media sources, but it could be anywhere from Florida south (I'm not sure South America would label the aisles in English and subtitle them in Spanish). If I had to revise my answer, I might actually plump for Florida, that looks like the result of a pre-Hurricane panic buy.
I can't find a credited version anywhere, but I am now voting for Florida. If so, the irony, of course, is splendid.
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I had to deal with one of those recently. Gave up and fitted a batten, and (on barakta's advice) painted it with some magnolia emulsion that was lingering in ye shedde so it would look like a landlord had done it.
(Landlords being a significant source of rubbishness in modern life.)
Frame fixings, into the lintel or block work beneath the dry lining or the the plaster, are the answer.
Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
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I think that because I make decisions all day, I'm all out of decision making capability by the evening. I was honestly sat there last night looking at a list of broadband providers blank-eyed with a string of drool escaping my mouth to decorate my shirt. It high stakes, my wife has made it clear she's running umpteen virtual meetings soon and if I break the broadband, she breaks me. She even illustrated this point with a nutcracking gesture. Crunch. She could and would.
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Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? :demon:
I found a bigger version, bread is pan for instance, and those snack cakes are pastelitos. The lady is definitely Hispanic and she's wearing a big Jesus Christ t-shirt.
OK, I should caveat, it's used in several Venezuelan media sources, but it could be anywhere from Florida south (I'm not sure South America would label the aisles in English and subtitle them in Spanish). If I had to revise my answer, I might actually plump for Florida, that looks like the result of a pre-Hurricane panic buy.
I can't find a credited version anywhere, but I am now voting for Florida. If so, the irony, of course, is splendid.
Florida or not, it definitely isn't the USSR. Nor even Russia.
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Is there Spanish too? I can't make out what's written under eg "Bread". So primarily English and also Spanish: could be Puerto Rico or Gibraltar? :demon:
I found a bigger version, bread is pan for instance, and those snack cakes are pastelitos. The lady is definitely Hispanic and she's wearing a big Jesus Christ t-shirt.
OK, I should caveat, it's used in several Venezuelan media sources, but it could be anywhere from Florida south (I'm not sure South America would label the aisles in English and subtitle them in Spanish). If I had to revise my answer, I might actually plump for Florida, that looks like the result of a pre-Hurricane panic buy.
I can't find a credited version anywhere, but I am now voting for Florida. If so, the irony, of course, is splendid.
Florida or not, it definitely isn't the USSR. Nor even Russia.
I googled a bit more, it's a Miami grocery store, so as an illustration of the failure of socialism, erm.
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Manager used to work for tele-sales - selling space.
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I’ve not the foggiest where it is.
However, I do remember very well the stories of scarcity in communist Russia,
this sort of thing:
https://dustyoldthing.com/inside-soviet-grocery-store/
Clearly when you have such memories this news
“I noted via CC that russian supermarkets are on their way over here claiming to be 30% cheaper than the other discounters. Branded as 'Mere' thousands of branches already exist apparently. Should bring the price of cabbage down. Their sales model reminds me of one of the early supermarkets here Victor Value. Stack it high and sell it cheap - but from pallets.“
contains traces of irony (irony: a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.)
This I am sure exonerates me from the need for any further explanation.
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https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2021/07/russian-discounter-mere-confirms-opening-date-for-first-uk-store/
Founded 2009. I'd hazard that more changed in Russia between 1990 and 2009 than between 1953 and 1990. They seem to be stocking Western brands, which might be disappointing to some.
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NX buses are working a paperless 'pretend your bank card is an oyster card' whereby you can only confirm what you've paid by checking your bank account later. I guess ticket checkers are an extinct profession ::-)
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NX buses are working a paperless 'pretend your bank card is an oyster card' whereby you can only confirm what you've paid by checking your bank account later. I guess ticket checkers are an extinct profession ::-)
TfL does this (you can tie your contactless card or device to an Oyster account and get a journey and payment history, but it's optional).
Revenue inspectors, as I believe they're now called, can still check during the journey that the card has been used.
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Isnt' it odd that these days improving efficiency usually means taking something away from the end user, rather than adding value for them in some way?
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https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2021/07/russian-discounter-mere-confirms-opening-date-for-first-uk-store/
Founded 2009. I'd hazard that more changed in Russia between 1990 and 2009 than between 1953 and 1990. They seem to be stocking Western brands, which might be disappointing to some.
Read a report that on assuming power Putin was horrified to discover how dependent Russia was on imports for its food supply. Since then he has turned the situation round to the extent that Russia is now able to export a considerable proportion of its farm produce.
It went on to describe how Russia's vast land area and sparse population would be to its advantage as the climate changed since produce could be grown in formerly impossible regions. Emphasis is also being shifted gradually away from dependence on fossil fuel exports.
This was in the FT this morning but i don't have the link now.
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Updates. Constant sodding updates.
Just a couple of days ago when I switched on the tv & river co dongle dismal+ offered an update now/later. As we were just sitting down to watch an episode over dinner I selected later. 3 minutes into the program dismal+ restarted and began the update without so much as a by your leave.
Last night I switched on tv & river co dongle & repaired to the kitchen to serve up. On returning the river co dongle was busily updating. Once complete it rebooted & began optimising storage or some such bs. We finished our meals before that was done.
TVs used to just work. Or not depending on the weather. Sure there was shit all on but you never had to sit & wait more than a few seconds for your Trinitron to get its life in order.
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Mine occasionally forgets that it’s supposed to squirt its sound to the audio system rather than its own loudsqueakers, which means some tedious button-frobbing to put it back [“I think you want the ‘First World Problems’ thread…” – Ed.]
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The rot set in when everything became a computer.
Those familiar with anbaric computers will be painfully aware that, on a good day, it always takes about 5 minutes to get them going. It doesn't matter whether you're waiting for the valves to heat up, for the enginerd to tweak the acoustic delay lines with a wigglescope, for the disk drive to make alarming grinding noises, for the BIOS to check that your improbably large amount of RAM is still there, for things to download, or for the notwork to timeout.
It's one of those physical constants, and every time some clevercloggs finds a way to cheat it, something else comes along to thwart it. Wirth's Law always applies.
(There's probably a law for distascopes that says that when they work properly, there's nothing worth watching.)
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Oh yes. Even on Bruiser McHuge (RIP), with all the mighty resources at his disposal, the backup job – scheduled for 09:00 or immediately after startup – would sometimes cough and die because he had failed to rouse the target NAS from its torpor. Instead of shouting “WAKE UP, DOPEY!!” at it and polling it until it became accepting of incoming bits.
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The smart television updates as does the smart Blu-ray player. The NUC, the parlour pc, the dining room pc, the two laptops for work purposes in the office and the
three four smartphones in regular use within the Bear-o-drome all regularly though not often simultaneously, update. We know folk who have cars which update and I've been stuck on a train which needed to urgently update before it could depart.
I'm avoiding expanding our internet of things just in case it all starts updating simultaneously causing an outage of lifeTM ...
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https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=111701.msg2635981#msg2635981
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Our LG smart TV updates quickly and infrequently, which isn't so bad. Apple stuff does its updates when I'm asleep. One of the things I hated about the Windows laptop is that it was perpetually updating something (and I was never clear which, or indeed if any of the updates were even successful) – I can understand why people seek to preserve their sanity by turning off the auto-update.
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FruitCo stuff is supposed to update while I'm asleep. “Leave me plugged into the mains and in range of ur wifi and I shall perform this 'ere iOS update while you dream of [“trains” – The Invigilator]”. This is a lie. In the morning there is invariably 1) no update and c: an error message so cryptic that even poor dead Alan Turing could not parse its meaning. Telling the fondleslab to retry the update then works.
Windows updates these days cannot be turned off altogether unless you go tinkering under the bonnet with Services or have Advanced God powers, though they can be paused so as not to try to download half a data centre over shit hotel connections.
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though they can be paused so as not to try to download half a data centre over shit hotel connections.
...which you will inevitably forget to do.
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Even when electricity was under 10p/unit, leaving a computer on all night seemed rather profligate.
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The Apple stuff seems to be quite good at updating itself unattended, I can't remember the last time I manually updated any of the computers, phones or iPads, which is nice, as there are a lot of them (another MLIR, why do have so many computers, when I was at school, we had 4 BBC model Bs for 1,500 kids).
They're not left on, they're sleeping, no idea how much power that uses, apparently a 'power nap.' It can be turned off.
Apparently, the Windows laptop can do the same, but good luck finding that option. I have a mothership Macbook on backorder (we're hiring about 100 people a month, apparently I'm not at the top of the queue for IT). It's learned me that I'm too old for computer diversity.
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Updating never seems to be a problem with Linux too. I think it's only Windows that is totally shit at it.
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Even when electricity was under 10p/unit, leaving a computer on all night seemed rather profligate.
One of mine stays on 24/7. But because modern life is rubbish, shutting it down and restarting it is a PITA involving tedious stuff like getting off the sofa to frob the switch.
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I have a server on 24/7, but that's actually doing something useful (including logging electricity consumption).
My desktop runs Debian, and is therefore capable of doing updates and backups out of cron.daily without bothering the user (apart from maybe the fan running slightly faster). If it installs a new kernel, that gets used on next boot, none of this urgent need to interrupt you for a series of restarts rubbish that Windows insists on.
Of course, the one way to make Windows worse is to have it managed by Mordac. Barakta's $ork laptop is a textbook example of taking an OS that's annoying about updates and making it even more intrusive. Let's push an update that breaks something people need to do their jobs, then spend the day with everyone waiting for a helldesk monkey to log in remotely and click on things.
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Plantronics.
I have a work-supplied Plantronics headset for teams calls etc. Fine.
But not only does it require a driver ( for a headset? really? ), it also has a full-blown desktop app, called the Plantronics Hub. A full-blown desktop app? For a set of headphones? Really Really?
The only function of this app seems to be to update itself, which it seems to do about once a week.
I've never come across such an unnecessarily update-needy simple peripheral device.
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That's the other thing about Windows. When you've got a driver for some non-trivial piece of hardware you have the choice of:
a) Let Microsoft supply a driver, which - USB shenanigans and such notwithstanding - just quietly gets on with it.
b) Install the manufacturer's recommended bloatware, complete with hundreds of megabytes of video tutorials, a dependency on .NET or Java runtime or similar, so you have to install and update that too, yet another icon that sits in the system tray, and a configuration app that throws any attempt at UI consistency with the rest of the OS straight out the, well, window.
The modern life is rubbish angle being that a decent percentage of the time, you need to jibble some obscure setting that's only accessible using (b), which also inconveniently rules out:
c) The Linux driver, which is probably in the kernel and therefore Just Works with even less hassle than the Microsoft version, but only supports a subset of functionality because it was written by someone who bought the previous model.
d) The OSX driver, which hasn't been updated since 2014.
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Mac drivers (or the need to do anything) is mostly a non-thing. I did once-upon-a-time have to install printer drivers. HP kindly provided them all in a single convenient and practical and quick-to-download 20-ish GB file or somesuch.
I don't do headsets, every call I'm in features five minutes of someone messing with their headsets. Can you hear me now? they mime. No. I just shout at the computer, something that comes naturally and works just as effectively on minions as it does on computers.
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Yes, OSX is similar to Linux in that most normal things Just Work.
Barakta once found a Braille terminal in a cupboard and plugged it into her colleague's Mac to see what would happen. It thrashed disk for a couple of seconds, then the pins started jumping around. Meanwhile a large image appeared on the screen depicting the Braille characters, along with ASCII translation.
Sometimes the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation really do earn their reputation for ease of use.
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though they can be paused so as not to try to download half a data centre over shit hotel connections.
...which you will inevitably forget to do.
After having been caught out back in 2016 by Windows waking my very very slow laptop from hibernation in order to install a humongous update over the jam-filled connection of the Brewers Inn of Keewatin ON, turning off the Windows Update services is on my pre-departure checklist. This has a bonus side effect, viz. it speeds the laptop up to the point where its performance is acceptable enough to put me off buying a new one until next year.
On drivers: while Windows will routinely claim that no newer driver for $HARDWARE is available this is frequently A Lie, as I discovered while trying to persuade the wifi on my laptop to continue working for longer than ten minutes at a pop.
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For balance, my Linux desktop got in a bit of confusion about python versions recently. I uninstalled and used pyenv, which has worked for now.
My work mac does quite a lot of updating. Despite this, the password manager and browser are only compatible with each other about half the time. And we’ve been warned not to touch the latest OS version.
But it’s still better than any windows machine I’ve seen.
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What pisses me off with current Ork laptop is that it'll say it needs and update and it can be rescheduled for end of working day... Except, invariably the laptop ends up being so crashy and buggy that I end up having to reboot it umpty times through the reboot to stop it doing badweird shit.
Today IT appear to have broken the key university records system that we do clicky things on and which generates auto-emails about ImportantStuff to the students, which is extra time critical at the moment Cos Exams. Registry responded to my "Error?" email with "yeah, we know, can you bug IT cos they don't seem to be responding to us".
I then got told to email our "IT Business Partner" (remember when they were just your IT manager, or IT representative?). HR seem to call everyone "business partner" as if they're some external client/consultant relationship. We're a fucking university, they're under paid peons like the rest of us.
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*One* thing that our 3rd party IT "service has got right is is the installation and scheduling of the inevitable (as the sparks fly upwards m'dear) Windaes updates. The bodge^w update is trickled down the wire and when everything is ready a little window, which cannot be closed, pops up saying, "Upgrade or else peasant!" However it does give you up to 10 hours to do some work before applying the update off its own back.
The fact that the upgrade alert can't be minimised is a bit irritating, but it's not a bad system given they've got to keep many thousands of machines up to date with whatever shit M$ is shovelling out.
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My current employer does that too, you can even install the updates and further defer the inevitable reboot for 3 hours. The system fails straight back into spectacular stupidity in that I shutdown my laptop every night (not suspend). Apparently that's not the right flavour of reboot as next morning the 3 hour counter is still running.
Mostly though I just stop work, close all the apps & tell it to get on with it as everything seems much slower when there are updates pending, especially outlook. My employer pays me the same to watch updates as to try being productive so fuck it.
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Back when I used a version of Windoze that MS still supported the Law of Sod dictated that during the summer every "system updating: do not shut down" message would coincide with the approach of a BFO thunderstorm. Microsoft TenterhooksTM.
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Plantronics.
I have a work-supplied Plantronics headset for teams calls etc. Fine.
But not only does it require a driver ( for a headset? really? ), it also has a full-blown desktop app, called the Plantronics Hub. A full-blown desktop app? For a set of headphones? Really Really?
The only function of this app seems to be to update itself, which it seems to do about once a week.
I've never come across such an unnecessarily update-needy simple peripheral device.
I have that at work too.
I have still not found out how to adjust the volume except for in the nanosecond when at random times it pops the volume slider on the screen. When I am almost certainly not ready with my mouse.
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There was nothing particularly wrong with the user interface for the iOS version of VLC, so they reworked it to make sure nothing was where your stubby peasant finger expected it to be. Look, it is neither big nor clever, so don’t do it.