Pet peeve's 2020-21-

[Zacha341]

I feel you BB23. I have a 'few' faved Grub-hub and Uber Eats places I deal with but some of the restaurants are selling substandard crap at inflated prices. I have a couple of family members and friends that do food deliveries so I get that it can be a good option.

But sometimes it stinks. Couple that tips and delivery fee and you're broke - and still hungry! So mostly I wait until I have coupons/ discount codes so I can tip well when warranted. Hah!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I'm still waiting on my second delivery on a Papa John's delivery they forgot about even though it was tracked as delivered hours ago...Welcome East-German Stazi + Pizza.

[jcole]

Happy Belated, Bigb. If you want a really good frozen pizza, try the Motor City Pizza, Co frozen square. It is really good for a frozen pizza; I've had worse carry outs. It has a real Buddy's/Loui's/Shield's vibe. Available at Wal Mart, Meijer, Hollywood and others.

Thanks' old guy. So-so pizza, American Whiskey, and a Bavarian Cream Packzi with a toilet paper/rubbing alcohol candle on top. And I had Samuel L. Jackson sing Happy Birthday MotherF**ker to me on my Alexa.

Boy it sucks to be an advanced aged man. [[Correct, old guy?)

[bust]

So-so pizza, American Whiskey, and a Bavarian Cream Packzi with a toilet paper/rubbing alcohol candle on top.

Please tell us more.
Reminded:
Funkadelic: What Is Soul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgPIqOh9uTU

[Bigb23]

Please tell us more.

What's "more"?, I lost family and friends in the past year, and the worst medical shit piled on the previous medical shit that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

And you know what? I still smile and joke with all of the people I still have left.

Humor is the only thing that will save us from ourselves.

[Bigb23]

Well, now it's official, my AT&T DSL is slower than my old dial up !!!



This is what I get for $56/mo. My only other option is $$$Comcast$$$, which according to Reddit comments, is not much better.
Our mega corporations are in a race to the bottom.

And after dozens of calls over the YEARS, they have no plans for ANY upgrades, and thank you for choosing AT&T, you are very important to us.

[Zacha341]

I hear that BB23. Laughter and smiles do the soul and countenance good [[depending on what your laughing and smiling about)! I had a few friends pass [[none from COVID). One of heart disease, another advanced age... I smile and go on in their honor yet seizing the moments more and taking more stock in what I spend my time doing.

What's "more"?, I lost family and friends in the past year, and the worst medical shit piled on the previous medical shit that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

And you know what? I still smile and joke with all of the people I still have left.

Humor is the only thing that will save us from ourselves.

[bust]

Ajit Pai, Trump FCC chair, and before that, Verizon in-house top lawyer, is the villain we never knew about. He took his orders from Trump, of course, but it was unsurprisingly to the great benefit of the major telecoms that he reversed Obama-administration rulings that would have ensured internet service providers delivered competitive services at fair prices.

Net Neutrality is a crucial topic few realize how much it affects our lives.

For the most part-- either because they're bought and paid for by telecom ad dollars [[things are so bad it doesn't take much), or they think we don't have the attention span and technical aptitude to grasp the subject-- most media outlets don't address the subject. Same for our government representatives. If so, only in passing. It's not one of the "push-button" issues they like to discuss.

About two decades ago I called the office of my representative, a Democrat, to complain about his committee votes against Net Neutrality. He was on the Telecommunications and Technology Committee [[or whatever it was called back then). He repeatedly voted, with republicans, to prevent Net Neutrality legislation from coming before the the full house for a vote. Because of legislators like him, Net Neutrality bills always "died in committee."

Verizon, headquartered in a neighboring district in NY, was one of his top campaign contributors. Among other telecoms.

Whomever took my call realized I knew what I was talking about and passed me on to the Rep's advisor in charge of telecommunications. I was truly shocked how little he knew about the topic. Or he could have fooled me.

The Congressman passed away a few years later. The Congressman who replaced him is still there, much younger, and is already more influential. But he's not on a committee relevant to Net Neutrality. And at least as far as I know, he's said little about the topic, either for or against.

Telecommunications companies are not among his top contributors. I guess that's a good thing, because only telecoms have the money to buy votes. But I don't think for an instant they're no longer corrupting politics. They direct their resources toward key players on relevant committees instead.

That's not too complicated to understand.
Why aren't we better informed about it?
Why aren't we paying better attention?

[Bigb23]

^^^
You got my upvote, bust. I live in an apartment complex that has no plans, [[Like AT&T), to have decent internet for my thousand dollar a month apartment. So Elon Musk's Skynet is out of the question.

I hope he sinks the big telecoms by offering decent service at a reasonable cost. They have been looting from the citizenry for way too long.

[Bigb23]

Maybe it's just me, but to save a buck here and there at Kroger, I buy the marked down "Managers Special" at the Deli refrigerated shelves.
It MUST be company policy to always cover the use by date on the item. When you get home, and spend fifteen minutes peeling bits of sticker off, you find out the use by date is the day you bought it.

It's like playing "Russian Roulette" with our food. And it's all on Kroger.

Always the almighty buck.

[Jimaz]

One of my biggest pet peeves is planned obsolescence. There's nothing better I like to do than repair something that was designed to fail in a way that makes it impossible to fail again. It saves money and keeps junk out of the landfill.

Here's a useful website from National Geographic that helps with DIY repairs: FixItClinic.org.

[Crystal]

- "My bad'"
- Misuse and overuse of "iconic"
- Replying with "no problem" instead of "you're welcome"

[Zacha341]

- "Woke"
- The increasing use of "has" when "have" is the correct word [or vise versa]
- "We need 'full throated' conversations". Most claiming that don't really want dialog. Only forced agreement.
- "Gaslight"... so over used. Just say what you mean about the idea, person or situation.

[Dan Wesson]

- "Woke"
- The increasing use of "has" when "have" is the correct word [or vise versa]
- "We need 'full throated' conversations". Most claiming that don't really want dialog. Only forced agreement.
- "Gaslight"... so over used. Just say what you mean about the idea, person or situation.

Along the line of wordage abuse has anyone mentioned the use of “had had” ? One will do just fine.

[Jimaz]

This appeared today on another website:

This Week's Opinion Poll
Did you travel more than 10 miles to view the August 21 total solar eclipse?...
Yes, I traveled to try to get a better view of the
2%
No, I viewed the eclipse as well as I could withou
6%
No, I didn't try to see it or wasn't able to
33%
I wasn't aware of the event
57%
Total votes: 1762

There was no eclipse yesterday. That eclipse was in 2017.

I suspect the poll was authored by a bot. I suspect the 2% of respondents who claimed to travel over 10 miles to view the {nonexistent} eclipse are also bots.

Bots. Their only purpose is to waste our time.

[bust]

^

1. People who pretend to know what they don't. Not all bots.
2. "For I." I'm not a stickler about tradition tho.

[Jimaz]

Radio stations that play the same commercial over and over back to back.

At some point that defeats the purpose and just makes it obvious that there's nobody at the helm — at least nobody with a pulse.

[jcole]

Same goes for the hundreds of online casino ads I see every week. Who in the heck is managing ad placement on TV anymore? Even my 17 yr old grandson sees them as a danger to people

Radio stations that play the same commercial over and over back to back.

At some point that defeats the purpose and just makes it obvious that there's nobody at the helm — at least nobody with a pulse.

[enio]

Same goes for the hundreds of online casino ads I see every week. Who in the heck is managing ad placement on TV anymore? Even my 17 yr old grandson sees them as a danger to people

The hypocritical gaming industry running casino ads with a tag 1-800-Gambler. As Steve Wynn suggested, if you play long enough the casino will get it all.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Even your dreams....

Don't start [gambling]. Then you don't have to quit: broke.

[Jimaz]

One of the things you can do with Amazon's voice-activated Echo is play radio stations. It does that well with its nice speakers.

Audacy.com {formerly Radio.com} provides this service by redistributing commercial broadcast radio over the internet. I don't know what agreement Audacy has with these broadcast stations but they seem to be trying to overlay their own commercials over those of the broadcast stations. {That seems like lawsuit fodder to me but that's their concern, not mine.}

My beef comes in when Audacy commercials clip the conclusion of an important or interesting news story rendering the whole story useless. It defeats the purpose of their business model and I have brought that to their attention. {They treated it as a help desk call that could be solved by tweaking something at my end.}

This happens often with Audacy but never with the broadcast stations. It's glaringly obvious when it happens and it's very annoying.

Oh well. What can you expect from an "audio" business that changed its name from something perfectly clear like Radio.com to a homophone that needs to be spelled out every time it's used to distinguish it from "Odyssey"?

Entrepreneurs need to think before grabbing at the money.

[Former_Detroiter]

People who don't know the correct use of then & than.

[jcole]

And Wear and where; there, their and they're; and since and sense

People who don't know the correct use of then & than.

[Jimaz]

Jimmy Fallon Asks People To Name A Funny Or Weird Problem That Needs A Solution

There are a lot of common sense solutions to common problems in that video. It's interesting to look for common themes in these frustrations. Most seem to involve advertising and failed business/consumer relations. There are a lot of opportunities for improvement there.

{I believe the double faucets are required by law in England. Ah, yes, here it is: Why Britain Uses Separate Hot and Cold Taps.}

[Jimaz]

This morning I fired up a computer and before I did anything Microsoft interrupted, unannounced and uninvited, to offer "help" to configure several features that I don't have and don't want.

The only way to decline was a button that said "remind me again in three days." There was no "don't nag me ever again" option.

Ctrl Alt Delete took care of it.

Whoever at Microsoft decided to do that to their users knew exactly how rude it was but they did it anyway.

Lily Tomlin's Ernestine character would have said "We don't care. We don't have to. We're Microsoft."

• Ernestine, the playlist

[jcole]

I take care of about 30 PCs at work, and that nag screen has been around a while now. It's a major pain at the library I work at because it blocks the SAM login screen that we need to load before patrons can log in. I finally found a couple ways to kill it:
To turn off the alerts, simply open the Settings menu, click on ‘System’, and then click on ‘Notifications & Actions’. Select the option that states “Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates…” and turn it off. You can also turn off the remaining options to further reduce the chance of seeing the nags in future.
Or, in the registry:

1. Open the Registry Editor app.
2. Go to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\UserProfileEngagement.
   See how to go to a Registry key with one click.
3. On the right, modify or create a new 32-Bit DWORD value ScoobeSystemSettingEnabled.
   Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value.
   Set its value data to 0 to disable the screen.
   Problem is that on the next major update, MS might change it again.

This morning I fired up a computer and before I did anything Microsoft interrupted, unannounced and uninvited, to offer "help" to configure several features that I don't have and don't want.

The only way to decline was a button that said "remind me again in three days." There was no "don't nag me ever again" option.

Ctrl Alt Delete took care of it.

Whoever at Microsoft decided to do that to their users knew exactly how rude it was but they did it anyway.

Lily Tomlin's Ernestine character would have said "We don't care. We don't have to. We're Microsoft."

• Ernestine, the playlist