Author Topic: modern life is rubbish  (Read 20990 times)

ian

modern life is rubbish
« on: 21 June, 2018, 10:24:50 pm »
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.

Mrs Pingu

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Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #1 on: 21 June, 2018, 10:35:01 pm »
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.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #2 on: 21 June, 2018, 10:43:25 pm »
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.

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'.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #3 on: 21 June, 2018, 11:17:07 pm »
I’ve been online banking since 1987, it’s been hit and miss, but very very mostly hit.
It is simpler than it looks.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #4 on: 21 June, 2018, 11:29:20 pm »
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!

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #5 on: 21 June, 2018, 11:41:57 pm »
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.

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #6 on: 21 June, 2018, 11:57:03 pm »
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.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #7 on: 22 June, 2018, 12:55:41 am »
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.
It is simpler than it looks.

Pedaldog.

  • Heedlessly impulsive, reckless, rash.
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Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #8 on: 22 June, 2018, 01:06:37 am »
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'.
You touch my Coffee and I'll slap you so hard, even Google won't be able to find you!

Mr Larrington

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Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #9 on: 22 June, 2018, 03:58:19 am »
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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Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #10 on: 22 June, 2018, 05:50:31 am »
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.
Τα πιο όμορφα ταξίδια γίνονται με τις δικές μας δυνάμεις - Φίλοι του Ποδήλατου

Ben T

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #11 on: 22 June, 2018, 09:20:53 am »
Just be glad you're not in tsb  :facepalm:

ian

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #12 on: 22 June, 2018, 09:21:36 am »
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.

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #13 on: 22 June, 2018, 09:40:22 am »
Terry Gilliam's film Brazil, summed up in 1985 what we are experiencing today.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #14 on: 22 June, 2018, 10:14:35 am »
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.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Mr Larrington

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Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #15 on: 22 June, 2018, 10:19:15 am »
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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Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #16 on: 22 June, 2018, 11:50:13 am »
We had the Brio Mallard when Baby Cudzo was a baby, but he never really played with it.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

ian

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #17 on: 22 June, 2018, 12:22:06 pm »
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?

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #18 on: 22 June, 2018, 12:24:48 pm »
Fax it up.
It is simpler than it looks.

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #19 on: 22 June, 2018, 12:41:49 pm »
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.
Duct tape is magic and should be worshipped

Torslanda

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Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #20 on: 22 June, 2018, 01:34:16 pm »
Thought that was left foot braking . . .
VELOMANCER

Well that's the more blunt way of putting it but as usual he's dead right.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #21 on: 22 June, 2018, 01:58:06 pm »
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.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #22 on: 22 June, 2018, 02:34:59 pm »

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.

ian

Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #23 on: 22 June, 2018, 06:50:12 pm »
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.

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: modern life is rubbish
« Reply #24 on: 22 June, 2018, 07:45:08 pm »
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
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.