Pet peeve's 2020-21-

[Jimaz]

...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....

Well, thank you, jcole! I did that.

I also turned off the "Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device to get the most out of Windows."

It seems to think I'm gleefully wallowing in devices but as I see it, the fewer devices I have to tend, the better.

This still doesn't let Windows off the hook though. These machines were intended to do our bidding, not the other way around.

[Jimaz]

I just heard a commercial on WWJ that ended with the most obscenely egregious example of fast-talking disclaimers I have ever heard.

These are the equivalent of fine print in contracts. They want credit for disclosing information but want the benefit of concealing that information too. Apparently they can have it both ways in this age of building shrines to corruption.

It's so blatantly deceptive. It sounds like a babbling brook only more forceful, like a child's bubble pipe being blown by an air compressor.

[Jimaz]

Here's another example of a reaction against technology that tries too hard to help us in evermore annoying ways.

The Anti-Smartphone Revolution

Some might not remember the "dumb terminals" that became popular in the 1970s. A terminal was originally just a keyboard and monitor that connected to a remote mainframe where all the computation was done. As microprocessors became more available, terminal manufacturers began adding them to terminals allowing them to add unnecessary features, justifying price increases. They advertised them as "smart terminals." People rebelled, creating a backlash demand for "dumb terminals."

Funny how history repeats itself repeating itself. < I did that on purpose.

[Former_Detroiter]

People who do not know the correct use of "then" and "than"

[Zacha341]

^ Hah! I'm more noticing the misuse of the words 'has' vs. 'have' in conversations.

[Meddle]

People that listen to commercials.


Lists of pet peeves.

[jcole]

There, their, they're; here, hear; where, wear; and the beat goes on.
Oh, and any one who says or writes "I seen it".

[Ray1936]

One lane barricaded off with orange pylons with absolutely nothing going on.

[Jimaz]

Today Lake Superior State University released its traditional Banished Words List. Follow the link for rationales.

2023 Banished Words List Press Release

1. GOAT
2. Inflection point
3. Quiet quitting
4. Gaslighting
5. Moving forward
6. Amazing
7. Does that make sense?
8. Irregardless
9. Absolutely
10. It is what it is

“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

― George Orwell, 1984

[Zacha341]

Never cared for Gaslighting. For sure overused. Also overdone IMO is 'Awesome' to describe actions/ activities not always so noteworthy.

More words will be redefined, vetted and eliminated going forth. If the 13 page “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” report from Standard University is true it's going to be wild ride: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/d...rdlanguage.pdf

https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanfo...inst-american/

Words such as Seminal have to go. As defined as leading, groundbreaking. This term reinforces male-dominated language.

OH MY!

See other samples in PDF link.

[467riverfix]

Or suburbanites who speak for people in Detroit or conflate Metro Detroit with the City of Detroit.

[467riverfix]

Or Fords and Chryslers - pluralized - but that's just rust town industrial speak, after all.

[467riverfix]

Beginning sentences with 'so', 'reaching out', 'leaning in', 'gifting', 'oh my gosh'.

[Jimaz]

What changed in the Google search engine and why? Now commercials — the turds of capitalism — float to the top of Google's search results, burying any useful results to a depth beyond reach. It's been enshittified.

[jcole]

Enshitters pay for that privelidge; have for years. I think the "sponsored" tag is just bigger now and more are paying.

What changed in the Google search engine and why? Now commercials — the turds of capitalism — float to the top of Google's search results, burying any useful results to a depth beyond reach. It's been enshittified.

[oladub]

I did a Google Search recently for a Florsheim plain toe dress shoe. Amazon may have been one of the links offering that shoe. Two days later dress shoe ads started appearing on my Alexa device. That's another pet peeve. Ads started appearing on my Alexa feed in between weather summaries, dining fantasies of the rich, sports, and family photos. It's like the more and more frequent ads that show up in the middle of music on YouTube. The gradual increase of annoying torments is supposed to get us to open our wallets.

I am still wondering about how my Amazon Alexa device started trying to sell something something for sale that my wife and I had been talking about in the living room near the Alexa device. Maybe Alexa is the capitalist kid sister of Big Brother already in our homes or, so far, benevolent version of Kim Jong Un's dominatrix like sister Kim Yo Jong.


The answer, of course, is to subscribe to premium services to avoid ads on all these devices. That sounds fair enough but cable TV was sold as more expensive but it was initially free of advertising. Throw away bottles were going to make beverages cheaper because there was no need to return them and all that washing return bottle made them more expensive. However, the throwaway bottle became more expensive but were then marketed and being more convenient. My guess is that down the line there will be even more expensive premium services that will offer more content; content that was once offered for free elsewhere.