Author Topic: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)  (Read 10181 times)

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #25 on: 26 October, 2018, 12:37:11 pm »
I don't have a desk, I have to go online and book one by the morning or afternoon when I'm planning to be in the office.

As an actual plus, my access card gets me into both the London and Aberdeen offices, not quite sure how we managed to get something useful happening.

My access card works across the board. Before we were divested, it was quite handy for using the executive loos in Times Square and lower Broadway (when I was on holiday in NYC. obviously). Alas no more, you'd have to go to Boston or Philadelphia for a piss.

Weirdly, you also need a card to exit the building. Which bemuses visitors no end. There is literally no escape. I presume we burn to death in a fire – apparently all the doors open if the fire alarm goes off and that kind of technology never, ever fails.

Given the mothership's relaxed attitude to homeworking and the fact that I work with people who are mostly, like me, on the road, there's never a shortage of empty desks anyway. No point in booking one.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #26 on: 26 October, 2018, 01:48:58 pm »
At my office they have had the clever idea of saving money by making the default settings for the universal printer driver black and white, instead of colour (which everyone knows the printers are capable of), to save on coloured ink/toner.
So what do people do?
Print off a (coloured) docment, go and get it, fidn that 'oh bugger, it's printed in black and white', go back to their desk, change the settings, in order to print it again in colour.  :facepalm: ;D

Along similar lines, when MS Word updated itself a while ago, it changed the default print option to double-sided - a similar kind of resource-saving measure. Which is fine in principle, but of course I quite often need stuff to be printed out single-sided, so end up having to print it twice...

I think I've finally beaten it into submission - after several attempts I have persuaded it to accept single-sided as the default. At least until the next update...
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #27 on: 26 October, 2018, 01:51:59 pm »
In practice in newjob there are insufficient printer/scanner devices for staff (1 for 100+ staff) so always a queue and a nightmare when it breaks (repairs seem to take DAYS) AND it's in a stupid place.

At my last-but-one job, there was a big whiteboard next to the departmental printers bearing the message: "Days since last printer breakdown: X"

I don't think X ever got into double figures during the seven years I worked there.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #28 on: 26 October, 2018, 08:36:53 pm »
I thought I'd go for round 2 with the wireless print server gubbins and the hilarious long instructions.

Yeah.

Then I took it outside, placed it on the patio, and jumped up and down on it while the cats watched from a minimum safe distance.

I believe I have now solved the problem.

Mrs Pingu

  • Who ate all the pies? Me
    • Twitter
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #29 on: 26 October, 2018, 08:48:33 pm »
Everytime I go to the printer I have the excitement of wondering whether it's going to read my card first time or not. I suspect there's a sweet spot in the optimum number of milliseconds that you hold the card to the scanner. Too short or too long and it no worky. One day maybe I'll get it right every time.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #30 on: 26 October, 2018, 08:50:44 pm »
Wireless printers never, ever work; network printers are hit and miss; and plugged-in printers only occasionally decide to fuck up when things are mission-critical.

Actually, I malign the species - I never remember having a problem with my dot-matrix, though the screech of it printing off school essays made a dentist's drill seem like a lullaby by comparison.

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #31 on: 26 October, 2018, 11:00:12 pm »
Everytime I go to the printer I have the excitement of wondering whether it's going to read my card first time or not. I suspect there's a sweet spot in the optimum number of milliseconds that you hold the card to the scanner. Too short or too long and it no worky. One day maybe I'll get it right every time.

This too! It seems random about what it does and doesn't read... And the UI is terrible, you can't change the defaults from shitty 200DPI mono scans which means I keep getting documents I CAN'T READ cos it's too nasty when enlarged.

Mrs Pingu

  • Who ate all the pies? Me
    • Twitter
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #32 on: 26 October, 2018, 11:12:19 pm »
You can change our scans, but I can only work out how to do it if I change the way the info is displayed.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

redshift

  • High Priestess of wires
    • redshift home
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #33 on: 27 October, 2018, 07:41:49 am »
[snip]...
Imagine if someone invented a widely known way to download a file by right-clicking and clicking download. That would be great, because then we could invent webapps that remove it and replace the feature with an invisible button.

Hey Ian, I found your problem.

As in:
"Hello, I'm your new stats-keeper for <old-bit-of-kit-that-still-works>.  Please create an account at https://shonky-website-with-cruddy-scripts.com"
"Why?  I have software that does that on my systems."
"Ah, but we're deprecating your old software, so when your next OS update happens it won't work any more, and we've decided you should use The Web Service instead."
"Why?  I have terabytes of scale-out storage and my own substation onsite.  Why not give me an appropriate update for the software?"
"Well, your kit is so old that everyone who worked on it is either retired or dead, and nobody really understands how it works anymore...*"
"I do..."
"...so that involves hiring programmers who programme, rather than interns who know a bit of PHP and can find Bootstrap.  See, it looks just like Twitter, and it keeps all your stats in the cloud."
"So, it exposes my stats to all kinds of privacy and commercial risks.  Great!  What about the ten years or more of stats I have in my database?  Can I upload those too, just to make the thing so much better?"
"Of course you can.  Just export each record individually as a single .blx file and upload them one at a time..."
"!"
"Once you've installed our new driver, your kit won't talk to your old database at all, it'll all be in our servers."
"!!"
"Oh, and you don't own your information, either.  We'll sell it to anyone we like, because you happen to live outside the area in which <EULA> is enforceable."
"!!!"

We're barely a hair's breadth away from the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

* Out of context here, but that's an actual quote.  Yes, really.
L
:)
Windcheetah No. 176
The all-round entertainer gets quite arsey,
They won't translate his lame shit into Farsi
Somehow to let it go would be more classy…

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #34 on: 27 October, 2018, 12:00:09 pm »
My network laser B&W printer (plugs into the wifi router by ethernet) works every time with XP, but it did have some problem on the current Ubuntu Mate but it's working now.

What I don't understand is why scans comes out all grey and washy, you have to adjust contrast and levels for something as simple as black text on a white page.

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #35 on: 28 October, 2018, 06:22:45 pm »
Buying stuff online. I was on the train yesterday and looking at my increasingly distressed Meindl walking boots. OK, I find a replacement pair online (I'm very happy with them) and whoopie, they're even on sale, they have my size and they're in stock. Awesome. In the basket they go.

Go through to checkout.

That fucking additional credit card security thing, that's what. I have no fucking idea what the 3rd, 6th, and 32nd letter of a security password I don't have is. Because I told you to remove it from my card because it's an entirely useless security measure that simply makes people write down their password because no sane person knows what the umpteenth letter of a cryptic phrase is. Try another card, same shit.

Give up, figure I'll try back at home.

You can guess the rest. Ain't got my size now. In fact, for the same boots there's suddenly a sizing lacunae between 8.5 and 9.5. Sometimes I think the internet is just fucking with me.

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #36 on: 29 October, 2018, 10:21:58 am »
On the grounds that I never learn, I thought I'd brave the internet again to finally get around to ordering one of those Hive thermostats (mostly because it'll be too complicated for the inlaws to turn up to the house temperature to Bahrain). Plug in my details, add DD, book appointment.

Sorry, something's gone wrong.

Why don't you call us?

So I do. Of course, our BG account is in my wife's name, so they can't talk to me because it's still impossible in 2018 to have two account holders.

Why is it so hard? Is it just me that finds the only way to buy something off the internet means Amazon, because it's the only bloody site that works.

ETA: but they just sent me a confirmation. However, they can't confirm they've sent me a confirmation unless I pretend to be called Clare.

Ben T

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #37 on: 29 October, 2018, 10:38:17 am »
The only thing even more annoying than "Sorry, something's gone wrong", is when they, on a published, live, supposedly professional website, feel the need to insert the word "Whoops!" into that piece of text.
I haven't just slipped over on a banana skin you unprofessional bunch of shites.

amazon is often the only site that works but is anyone else finding it increasingly populated with cheap chinese tat rather than good quality products, and when it does have good quality products it's usually last year's / old stock?

Ben T

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #38 on: 29 October, 2018, 10:42:25 am »
You can guess the rest. Ain't got my size now. In fact, for the same boots there's suddenly a sizing lacunae between 8.5 and 9.5. Sometimes I think the internet is just fucking with me.
Hard as it might be, go on your phone, edit basket and remove them from the basket on your phone. Or try after a time period.

They sometimes reserve a stock item when someone puts it in their basket, rather than when they checkout. It might stay reserved for a certain time period. Removing it might free it up. Might not, but you might be lucky. "In stock"-ness isn't always accurate.

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #39 on: 29 October, 2018, 11:04:49 am »
You can guess the rest. Ain't got my size now. In fact, for the same boots there's suddenly a sizing lacunae between 8.5 and 9.5. Sometimes I think the internet is just fucking with me.
Hard as it might be, go on your phone, edit basket and remove them from the basket on your phone. Or try after a time period.


Or, indeed, make a phone call to place an order.  :)
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #40 on: 29 October, 2018, 11:34:07 am »
Yeah, but my gripe is really using the internet and then ending up having to phone them, which is a bit of a fail. That and the stupid input the 5th, 32nd, and 245th letters of a phrase you don't know to authorize a purchase. Even if I knew the code, I'd have to write it down and count the letters. I'd hazard most people would.

Anyway, I got my boots from somewhere else in the end (more expensive, but c'est la vie), so Blacks lost £150 of my custom. When they appear in the retail failure thread, that'll be my fault.

My other gripe is the meaningless Sorry, something's gone wrong. Whoops indeed. What? Come on, don't be so coy.

And then, of course, sending me the order confirmation.

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #41 on: 29 October, 2018, 12:12:58 pm »
Quote from: ian
Whoops indeed.
It's all of a piece with the relentless kiddywinkyfication of everything.  Treat everyone like they're helpless idiots and eventually they'll learn to be helpless idiots, which is exactly what *they* want us to be.  Now, where's my tin-foil hat?  I had it a moment ago... 

There's a Dilbert cartoon from 20 odd years ago on the theme of learned helplessness, but as part of my ongoing resistance to the Fisher-Price Interface Hegemony I'm going to make you search for it. :)
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #42 on: 29 October, 2018, 12:15:59 pm »
And, setting up my Hive account for the quantum superpositions order/non-order, I let Safari fill in my password.

Verify account.

Non!

It insists I have to re-type the auto-filled password and not let the computer do it. Which the computer won't let me do. Well, I assume this is the problem, the button simply isn't working. OK then, you win, if anyone wants to hack my heating system (which may not exist), the password is 'Password01.'

Ben T

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #43 on: 29 October, 2018, 12:32:18 pm »
Yeah, but my gripe is really using the internet and then ending up having to phone them, which is a bit of a fail. That and the stupid input the 5th, 32nd, and 245th letters of a phrase you don't know to authorize a purchase. Even if I knew the code, I'd have to write it down and count the letters. I'd hazard most people would.

Anyway, I got my boots from somewhere else in the end (more expensive, but c'est la vie), so Blacks lost £150 of my custom. When they appear in the retail failure thread, that'll be my fault.

My other gripe is the meaningless Sorry, something's gone wrong. Whoops indeed. What? Come on, don't be so coy.

And then, of course, sending me the order confirmation.

Mine is 10 letters long - it has to be one you know off by heart. Last pass et al doesn't help you with verified by visa

Ben T

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #44 on: 29 October, 2018, 12:38:21 pm »
And, setting up my Hive account for the quantum superpositions order/non-order, I let Safari fill in my password.

Verify account.

Non!

It insists I have to re-type the auto-filled password and not let the computer do it. Which the computer won't let me do. Well, I assume this is the problem, the button simply isn't working. OK then, you win, if anyone wants to hack my heating system (which may not exist), the password is 'Password01.'

BTDT again :) - try typing an extra space on the end then deleting it again. Sometimes the password box has a change event handler (which enables the button) which isn't hooked up until after your password manager auto-fills it. Not always the case but sometimes is.

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #45 on: 29 October, 2018, 12:45:14 pm »
Safari doesn't let you touch the password, it just offers you the ability to have Safari set the password and save it to the keychain. Which mostly works and as I'm all Apple these days, passwords are generally seamless and I don't have to remember them. Which is as it should be. Until people fuck with the forms or add weird extra layers on non-security. If you want secure, use two-factor authentication, not another fucking cryptic password.

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #46 on: 29 October, 2018, 12:52:58 pm »
I've never had a problem with the "Verified with...." thing online. I set it up ten years or more ago and it never asks for a password or letters of a pass phrase (On any device - even those that don't belong to me). I guess that's a security flaw in itself. Nick my cards and you're in.

One thing I have noticed though - in my local shop my debit card only works about 50% of the time. Or rather their machine/connection only works about 50% of the time. I have to then go to the ATM at the back of the shop to get cash. I suppose it at least gives me some loose change to tip the pizza delivery men, as I doubt I could tip them with contactless....
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #47 on: 29 October, 2018, 01:04:55 pm »
I swear I asked Barclays and HSBC to take it off my card anyway. Never been asked for years, though sometimes it blips through the page without pause. Maybe because I was using my phone. Anyway, it's stupid asking people to input random letters, because I'm sure no one can, leastways without writing it down and counting letters.

Anyway, I have a Hive account and a 'free' Echo dot and maybe an engineer will come around on the 20th. Maybe not.

I thought while I was there I'd book a smart meter replacement.

Oops, something went wrong...

You know the rest.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #48 on: 29 October, 2018, 01:08:31 pm »
Anyway, it's stupid asking people to input random letters, because I'm sure no one can, leastways without writing it down and counting letters.

That's not actually a problem, given that the random letters thing is intended to defeat keyloggers.  A keylogger can't see your post-it collection.

ian

Re: Modern Life Is Rubbish (aka ‘Tech fails’)
« Reply #49 on: 29 October, 2018, 01:29:50 pm »
Yes, but for a minimal increase in security, it's creating maximal inconvenience. Passwords don't really work, we all know this, merely adding more doesn't fix the issue.

I did like the British Gas help pages though: e-mail is apparently unavailable. What is this thing with making you talk to someone? I know my call is important to you, you keep telling me.