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

[essexian]

You are of course correct Ian, that is what I should expect. I however, still live in Hope (and yes, I have been to Hope!)

However...... I just had two tradesperson arrive and quickly and effectively do the tests they were scheduled to do. No need to make them tea or dig in the back of the cupboard for sugar etc as they simply did their bit and went.

Problem is..... they were the second tradesperson scheduled today so checked the electric installation without the new switch which the first tradesperson is yet to arrive and fit.

When asked if that was an issue, it turns out not to be..... 

 

[Andrij]

I want to ride my bicycle!  Tomorrow will be two weeks since I last cycled.

But as breathing is an effort, and I can't go 10 minutes without coughing, cycling is probably not a good idea. 

[ElyDave]

Still no decision from the police re my SMIDSY incident.

Just rang to find out what's happening "It's with the case officer to decide, they've had it about a month now"

Can't get anywhere with my claim until that gets decided as the lawyers need it before contacting the insurers.

[Beardy]

You lot get me into so much trouble. ‘But someing good came up on YACF and I had to read it’ just doesn’t cut it with Dr Beardy (Mrs) when I’m scrabbling around for an excuse as to why the tea isn’t on the table when she gets home. Mind you, neither does ‘But I don’t like cleaning the toilet’ in explanation to the state of the smallest room’

Hrumph.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Try mixing them up: "Why isn't tea ready?" "Because a thread came up on YACF about cleaning the toilet."

[Kim]

You lot get me into so much trouble. ‘But someing good came up on YACF and I had to read it’ just doesn’t cut it with Dr Beardy (Mrs) when I’m scrabbling around for an excuse as to why the tea isn’t on the table when she gets home. Mind you, neither does ‘But I don’t like cleaning the toilet’ in explanation to the state of the smallest room’

I think both of those are in my top five go-to excuses.

[Mrs Pingu]

But nobody likes cleaning the toilet and therefore not an excuse....

[Torslanda]

Garmin have 'acquired' Tacx. There goes any hope of innovative tooling solutions in favour of MOAR fucking stupid devices that cost ridiculous amounts of money so you can pretend you ride a bike...

Puts me in mind of that supercilious person advertising 'Elite Singles' - "a shot at finding The One" - yeah! Anything to avoid, you know, actually having to, like, interact with someone. Relationship! NOW! Because entitled...

And now I've turned it into a rant.

[ElyDave]

Garmin have 'acquired' Tacx. There goes any hope of innovative tooling solutions in favour of MOAR fucking stupid devices that cost ridiculous amounts of money so you can pretend you ride a bike...

Puts me in mind of that supercilious person advertising 'Elite Singles' - "a shot at finding The One" - yeah! Anything to avoid, you know, actually having to, like, interact with someone. Relationship! NOW! Because entitled...

And now I've turned it into a rant.

And there's the problem, having been a Garmin user for ten plus years, its now so ingrained that I doubt I could function wit something else, despite regularly ranting about the illogical crap and random turnings off. I've finally bitten the bullet and decided to ditch the ancient uncalibratable Tacx turbo trainer in favour of #modern technology, and ANT+, unless GarTaxc decide that they are going to stop their products talking outside the family. Oh, guess what, they already have - see the new Taxc app, wont talk to anything else.

And now that seems a bit ranty as well
Harumph

[chrisbainbridge]

Garmin have 'acquired' Tacx. There goes any hope of innovative tooling solutions in favour of MOAR fucking stupid devices that cost ridiculous amounts of money so you can pretend you ride a bike...

Puts me in mind of that supercilious person advertising 'Elite Singles' - "a shot at finding The One" - yeah! Anything to avoid, you know, actually having to, like, interact with someone. Relationship! NOW! Because entitled...

And now I've turned it into a rant.

I am not so down on Garmin.  Having used a Satmap which made a Garmin seem easy to use and had the battery life of a dodo then I am more forgiving.  Also my 1030 works like a charm.

I have had 3 Tacx turbos.  The first simple one was boring and simple but worked so long as you kept the tyre pumped up.  My wife got a forties I think with manual resistance control and bluetooth? transmission of speed? 
I got the original Tacx Neo.  Never gone wrong for me, just works.  Occasional cadence spike at low power when it interprets my lack of smoothness as extra cadence.  I have an old frame on it, permanently plugged in and I walk in climb on and start pedaling.


Tacx will now have access to a lot better software engineers and the TTS RLV may well provide a real life alternative to Zwift, vertigo and BigringVR.  I suspect in a years time one of those 3 will cease to exist.

The alternative is probably that Zwift will produce their own hardware and lock everybody else out.

[Mr Larrington]

Garmin have 'acquired' Tacx. There goes any hope of innovative tooling solutions in favour of MOAR fucking stupid devices that cost ridiculous amounts of money so you can pretend you ride a bike...

Puts me in mind of that supercilious person advertising 'Elite Singles' - "a shot at finding The One" - yeah! Anything to avoid, you know, actually having to, like, interact with someone. Relationship! NOW! Because entitled...

And now I've turned it into a rant.

This should probably go in the "Things I Have Learned Today" thread a couple of days back, but it seems that among Garmin's other products are complete avionics suites for small/medium sized hairyplanes.  It is down to the individual, I suppose, to check whether they will be flying on such a beast, and whether they trust the thing to get them to their destination.

Emily the TwatNav did try to direct me to somewhere that was not Hemel Hempstead last summer but even if I'd followed her instructions to the letter it wouldn't have resulted in a controlled flight into terrain.  Only into Watford.

[Guy]

And as any fule kno...

We really must by-pass Watford. That place is full of Daleks

*






* From Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 AD

[ElyDave]

The saga of the car repair continues.

Having finally got authorisation for everything, including door lock (£100 almost tipped it over the edge of not worth it apparently), I went to pick it up today.  Beacsue it's the 7 seater, it has air suspension on the rear.  There is an extra mudflap bolted to the side step just in front of the rear wheel that protects the air suspension.  The LR original sidestep is no longer available and the pattern part (good though it is) has a different bracket design.

I'll have it for the weekend and then drop it back to them on Monday to fabricate a bracket

At least the body shop is only about 500yds round the corner, and I'll get a spare RH step out of this as they come in pairs.

[ElyDave]

Garmin have 'acquired' Tacx. There goes any hope of innovative tooling solutions in favour of MOAR fucking stupid devices that cost ridiculous amounts of money so you can pretend you ride a bike...

Puts me in mind of that supercilious person advertising 'Elite Singles' - "a shot at finding The One" - yeah! Anything to avoid, you know, actually having to, like, interact with someone. Relationship! NOW! Because entitled...

And now I've turned it into a rant.

I am not so down on Garmin.  Having used a Satmap which made a Garmin seem easy to use and had the battery life of a dodo then I am more forgiving.  Also my 1030 works like a charm.

I have had 3 Tacx turbos.  The first simple one was boring and simple but worked so long as you kept the tyre pumped up.  My wife got a forties I think with manual resistance control and bluetooth? transmission of speed? 
I got the original Tacx Neo.  Never gone wrong for me, just works.  Occasional cadence spike at low power when it interprets my lack of smoothness as extra cadence.  I have an old frame on it, permanently plugged in and I walk in climb on and start pedaling.


Tacx will now have access to a lot better software engineers and the TTS RLV may well provide a real life alternative to Zwift, vertigo and BigringVR.  I suspect in a years time one of those 3 will cease to exist.

The alternative is probably that Zwift will produce their own hardware and lock everybody else out.

So my Fenix 2 decided today while I was out running to spontaneously stop the activity. When I noticed and restarted it about 500m later, it decided to restart as a Hike rather than Run.  Battery level was about 90% so no issue there, and it's this kind of general shit that really fucks me off with Garmin. 

When working well, they are superb, but the glitches are dammned annoying

[hellymedic]

Partner did not fully tighten stopper to washing machine filter he grudgingly cleaned on Friday.
My kitchen floor is wet, which will upset him.
I have managed to tighten stopper properly...

[Jakob W]

The 3-volume history I mail-ordered arrived in the post this morning. Except the parcel only contained a single book; despite plastering '3-VOLUME SET' all over the listing, the seller had neglected to point out that they were only selling volume 3. To add insult to injury, the invoice slip inside the cover was for half the amount I actually paid. I've already requested a return label.

(ETA: There's clearly another level of silly buggers going on here. The packing slip has the correct address, but a different seller, book title, and price to what I paid. Looks like someone is trying to engage in a little arbitrage by listing books with vaguer (more search-friendly?) titles, and then getting the original seller to ship the book direct whilst pocketing the mark-up.)

[Wombat]

Heavily trimmed by me...

Tacx will now have access to a lot better software engineers and the TTS RLV may well provide a real life alternative to Zwift, vertigo and BigringVR.  I suspect in a years time one of those 3 will cease to exist.

Pardon?  Access to a lot better software engineers?  from Garmin?  You're avin' a larf!  My experience is that they make perfectly reasonable hardware, but are utterly, unbelievably crap in the software department.

[mrcharly-YHT]

7 meetings by 4pm. How the hell am I supposed to get any work done? Every meeting produces 'actions'. No wonder my beard is white.

[rafletcher]

"Meetings, the meaningful alternative to work" 

[ian]

I delegate my action items.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I delegate my action items.

Can't delegate most of this, that is the problem with being a 'technical' manager.

Just exited a meeting where we identified that I am the only person who can do the gerrit review on 100 json files, by tomorrow. Small changes in each file, but it will still take a minute or two per file. I guess I know what I'm doing tonight.

[ian]

What can I say, my development team hate me. Which is good and proper. I pretend not to know anything, which is surprisingly easy. Who the hell is this Jason, anyway?

[T42]

I am happy to say that since I retired I have forgotten.

[mrcharly-YHT]

What can I say, my development team hate me. Which is good and proper. I pretend not to know anything, which is surprisingly easy. Who the hell is this Jason, anyway?

[pumpkin]

"Meetings, the meaningful alternative to work" 

where I work, people have well-paid careers going to meetings