The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Bustitution.  Still, the engineering works looked impressive.

[Jasmine]

There is someone who lives in India with the same first name-surname as me.  Today they have been busily subscribing to matrimonial services to find a husband (26-31, professional, etc.).  One site helpfully sends a welcome email with a big button for 'this is not me', which deletes the account.  We are currently playing a game of create account-delete account because they don't seem to realise that [firstname][surname]@gmail.com might be logical, but isn't theirs.  Another site has sent me 5 emails in 15 minutes.  They don't have a 'piss off this isn't me' button, and the unsubscribe button takes me to the account preferences of the user.  Unfortunately, although I don't need a password to see their whole account (having clicked from the email seems to auto-login) I can't edit the email address to thisisnotyouremailaddress@gmail.com without their password.

Grump 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yebbut just wait until the marriage offers arrive!

[Jasmine]

 

[perpetual dan]

If the site has an on-the-web messaging thing, presumably you could have some fun with the profile before deleting?
"Looking for a man that understands email addresses for good times etc etc"

[clarion]

Someone on the train today probably has a new telephone.  Slightly battered, and no battery in it, but mine nonetheless.  No idea how I lost it, though

[Cudzoziemiec]

Well, let's hope the first person they call on it is you. 

[Kim]

There is someone who lives in India with the same first name-surname as me.  Today they have been busily subscribing to matrimonial services to find a husband (26-31, professional, etc.).  One site helpfully sends a welcome email with a big button for 'this is not me', which deletes the account.  We are currently playing a game of create account-delete account because they don't seem to realise that [firstname][surname]@gmail.com might be logical, but isn't theirs.  Another site has sent me 5 emails in 15 minutes.  They don't have a 'piss off this isn't me' button, and the unsubscribe button takes me to the account preferences of the user.  Unfortunately, although I don't need a password to see their whole account (having clicked from the email seems to auto-login) I can't edit the email address to thisisnotyouremailaddress@gmail.com without their password.

Grump 

Yeah, but you should be able to request a password reset, as it's associated with your email address.

The tactical nuclear solution to xkcd://1279 issues is to change the account's associated email address to support@service.com


(Indian matrimonial services probably beat my Canadian soccer mom; USAnian grandparent^[1]; poorly-paid^[2] British actor; USAnian who probably didn't turn up to their ob/gyn appointment and person unknown (but let's be honest, probably another USAnian) who is the proud owner of a shotgun with telescopic sight.)


_{[1] Don't grandchildren grow up quickly these days?
[2] I've seen the royalty statements.  Fortunately these revealed contact details for their agent, who was a bit more on the ball email wise.}

[Cudzoziemiec]

Anyway, what caste are they looking for? What level of education? What dowry are they offering? We could flood them with marriage offers!

And generally, how come people don't know their own email address?

[Kim]

And generally, how come people don't know their own email address?

A technically competent family member or the salesdroid in the mobile phone shop sets up the account for them, mail clients increasingly tend to hide them behind pretty-printed contact names, and they fumble through life not really understanding what they're doing.

I obtained the correct address for one of my gmail doppelgängers through someone else's top-posting, and was able to contact them and explain the problem.  They promptly sent an email to all their contacts (which now included me) explaining that it was vitally important to spell their email address with a capital K, because I had the lower-case version.  I may have been a little terse (and maybe quoted an RFC) in my reply-all, to the effect of "Ignore this, it's bollocks, gmail usernames aren't case sensitive - his is the one with a '54' in it."

Of course, a side-effect of doing that was that his luser friends now have my email address.   

[Jasmine]

Yeah, but you should be able to request a password reset, as it's associated with your email address.

The tactical nuclear solution to xkcd://1279 issues is to change the account's associated email address to support@service.com


(Indian matrimonial services probably beat my Canadian soccer mom; USAnian grandparent^[1]; poorly-paid^[2] British actor; USAnian who probably didn't turn up to their ob/gyn appointment and person unknown (but let's be honest, probably another USAnian) who is the proud owner of a shotgun with telescopic sight.)


_{[1] Don't grandchildren grow up quickly these days?
[2] I've seen the royalty statements.  Fortunately these revealed contact details for their agent, who was a bit more on the ball email wise.}

Good call on the password reset.

This isn't my first one either.  Interestingly, this one and the main one I get loads of stuff for are both registered nurses.  The other is in the US.  A few years ago the US one tried to get gmail to reset the password on my account to get into it.  Fortunately it was actually associated with some other metric of mine (phone or other email or something).  Irritatingly, she subscribes to bloody everything going - voucher shite, childcare bollocks, alternative health websites, all sorts of crap.  In trying to unsubscribe to emails about Las Vegas crawls (pub crawl, casino crawl? I don't know) I managed to end up with Las Vegas crawls being the advert of choice on BookFace and any site with targeted ads.

[Jasmine]

Anyway, what caste are they looking for? What level of education? What dowry are they offering? We could flood them with marriage offers!

And generally, how come people don't know their own email address?

Doesn't say what caste she's looking for.  She's listed as upper middle class in Roorkee.  She's looking for someone 26-31 with a bachelors degree.  Hindi as mother tongue and a baptist.

I suspect some of them are people who have tried to enter [firstname][surname]@provider.com and have been told that they can't have that but can have [firstname][surname]43@provider.com.  They have then clicked 'ok' and promptly forgotten about that last part.

[Guy]

Two days running a nice day has turned to pissin' rain at home time and it looks like it's going to do it again boo chiz moan drone

[ian]

Owing a cold finally packing its bags and getting ready to leave, I have an annoying snot bubble in my left nostril. Blowing my nose profusely gives me a few seconds of solace as does snorting inwards, but it comes back and sits there and wibbles and wobbles every time I breath or talk. I'm thinking of stenting my nose with a drink straw.

[Kim]

Owing a cold finally packing its bags and getting ready to leave, I have an annoying snot bubble in my left nostril. Blowing my nose profusely gives me a few seconds of solace as does snorting inwards, but it comes back and sits there and wibbles and wobbles every time I breath or talk. I'm thinking of stenting my nose with a drink straw.

I've had that for a couple of days too.  Xylometazoline works for a while, as does hot curry.  Barakta keeps complaining that she can't hear me, so presumably my speech is affected.

Barakta's also the resident expert on nose stents, and is unlikely to recommend them.  At least it's not the 80s, where your snot-sucking machine could suddenly be rendered inoperative by Arthur Scargill.

[ian]

Its still there. It's quite annoying. My job is basically talking for a living (yeah, they pay me for that) and everything at the moment sounds like mumbgloomaloonamamooon. Actually, that might just be how I sound, I'm from the East Midlands and only fluent in Erewashian. It's all mushed vowel sounds and glottal emergency stops.

Fortunately it missed last week when I had a half dozen presentations to give to audiences whose first language is very far from English. That would have been spectacular. It's bad enough with Americans who expect everyone from Britain to sound like they've stepped out of Downton Abbey (I've learned everything I know about that programme from Americans).

[Guy]

I've still got 35 minutes before I can go home. And it's clouding over again

[ElyDave]

I've still got 35 minutes before I can go home. And it's clouding over again

It had stopped raining earlier, I thought about running, it started again.

Turbo tonight.

[Wombat]

Lost my phone, thanks to a brand new phone lanyard snapping on Sunday, that's annoying and expensive, but shit happens...

Got a new SIM card, fished out the standby phone (A Sony Xperia Pro) and not the person at Vodafone has unblocked the number the new SIM will actually work, but can I sign in to my Google account, no I bloody can't!  It keeps telling me my username and password don't match.  Oh yes they do, how the hell do you think I signed into the PC and tablet with the same username and password, then? (Obviously I changed the password when I lost the phone, as well as blocking the SIM and IMEI number.)

Most frustrating when a message tells you you've got it wrong, when you know damn well you haven't.

Hopefully I'll get into the new phone OK, when it arrives later today.  I'm waiting with baited breath for them to try to deliver it just 5 mins after my wife leaves the house...

[Ruthie]

Lost my phone, thanks to a brand new phone lanyard snapping on Sunday, that's annoying and expensive, but shit happens...

Got a new SIM card, fished out the standby phone (A Sony Xperia Pro) and not the person at Vodafone has unblocked the number the new SIM will actually work, but can I sign in to my Google account, no I bloody can't!  It keeps telling me my username and password don't match.  Oh yes they do, how the hell do you think I signed into the PC and tablet with the same username and password, then? (Obviously I changed the password when I lost the phone, as well as blocking the SIM and IMEI number.)

Most frustrating when a message tells you you've got it wrong, when you know damn well you haven't.

Hopefully I'll get into the new phone OK, when it arrives later today.  I'm waiting with baited breath for them to try to deliver it just 5 mins after my wife leaves the house...

giggle

[Si S]

There are times I hate being colour blind, not being able to tell if things are on or off or charged or not is a bit of a pain but having to try the handle on the mixed sex toilet cubicles can be very awkward 

[Wombat]

Amazingly it turned up while Mrs W was at home fending off cats, while hanging out the washing.  Its at home, on charge, and it had better be a good little lump of technology and behave itself when I get home...

[Kim]

There are times I hate being colour blind, not being able to tell if things are on or off or charged or not is a bit of a pain

A bit of gel can help with this, so you get bright/dim (or the presence or absence of a 3D effect if you hold the gel over one eye) to indicate state, but that's not always helpful without a reference.

I've been known to modify hardware to have proper separate charging/charged blinkenlights - it's trivial to snip one of the leads on a two-colour LED and solder another LED (perhaps of an actually different colour) across it, assuming you can get physical access (which you usually can't).  I'll happily pay a premium for chargers etc with numerical/bargraph LCD indicators rather than the hated colour-not-really-changing LEDs.

but having to try the handle on the mixed sex toilet cubicles can be very awkward 

Not an issue I have (I can usually discriminate red and green, unless it's too small to have colour), but it's bloody stupid of them to use red/green rather than red/white or, you know, text.   

It's the sort of thing people just don't think about.


(Ironically, I've got multi-coloured LEDs to indicate whether there's someone in the bathroom.  They flash in the level crossing wig-wag style when they're red.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

Text would be no good for people who who might have to peer uncomfortably closely to make it out, or who don't know the language or simply can't read. LEDs depend on power. How about colour combined with text and a pictogram on one space? Designing the pictogram should give scope for humour...

[Kim]

Text would be no good for people who who might have to peer uncomfortably closely to make it out, or who don't know the language or simply can't read. LEDs depend on power. How about colour combined with text and a pictogram on one space? Designing the pictogram should give scope for humour...

Yeah, text, like pictograms, can be used to augment a simple colour.  That covers most options.  Do something tactile (external handle in a different physical state would be best, but a screwdriver slot rotating would work) and you've got the completely blind covered too.  Though people tend to be more sympathetic about obviously blind people and toilet doors.

Then you just need working locks.  Standard procedure in British public toilets is to push the cubicle door slowly and listen for a yelp, after all.

And you have to train people to actually use the locks (or at least the light switches^[2]) when there are deaf people around.


(That's actually why we've got LEDs on the bathroom door - the computer works out whether there's someone in there by a combination of PIR and door state reed switch and sets the blinkenlights appropriately, without anyone actually using the lock - barakta and I habitually leave it unlocked in case of emergencies^[1], but it stops us being startled by being walked in on.)


^{[1] Be that door lock issues, risk of injury form general wobbliness in a slippery environment, or priority interrupt for use of the toilet.
[2] Standard procedure for entering a not-otherwise-equipped unlocked room that might have an not-decent deaf person in it: Open door enough to get your hand in, frob the light off and on, wait for the yelp or door being opened fully.}