What Grinds Your Gears, Again

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

Also, please don’t say ridiculous things like, “Everything I know about Star Trek I learned while watching Sheldon on Big Bang Theory.”

Oh dear, this is pitiful, and hilarious!

I once had to school a young'n on Aretha's song 'Who's Zooming Who?"  She kept saying that it was nice that Arthea was singing a hymn and I kept telling her that wasn't god that Aretha was singing about.  She was sure however that the old fart was wrong, until I told her that "Who's zooming who?" was really about "Who's fucking who?"  the look on her face when she finally realized that the old fart knew what she was talking about.  Priceless.  

[HexMachina]

People the same age as me not realising a song is a cover rather than an original. We grew up at the same time in the same place in very similar circumstances, HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS?!

On a, perhaps related note, I get irrationally annoyed when people don't know references or stupid random facts that I know. For instance, I was working on something the other day and made a mistake, colleague beside me then said "Oh sorry I should have said don't do [boring explanation]." I said "NOW a warning?" And he just looked at me and said "Sorry." WHAT HAPPENED TO CULTURE?!

Edited January 26 by HexMachina

[kissdbyfire]

1 minute ago, HexMachina said:

WHAT HAPPENED TO CULTURE?!

Gone out the window like an enemy of Putin now that people are so very proud to be so very stupid.

[polishgenius]

17 hours ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

And most importantly, after seeing the cool cartoon that I have in my cubicle of Wolverine (dressed in yellow, blue, and black) playing chess, never ever fucking ask me, “Why doesn’t he look like Huge Jackman?” 

 

To be fair there's a good chance some of your colleagues weren't born when he first played Wolverine. 

[Teng Ai Hui]

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

To be fair there's a good chance some of your colleagues weren't born when he first played Wolverine. 

The other teachers in my department are all 30-35 y/o, so there's some possibility that they could have seen X-Men: The Animated Series.  Regardless, I'm planning to take them to see Deadpool 3 when it comes out, so they can see how Wolverine is supposed to look. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

Here's what grinds my gears: as a music collector, I'm constantly getting shafted in this age of streaming.

When iPods first arrived on the scene, I was excited. Finally I could carry 80GB+ of music around with me and enjoy as I pleased. Of course, the fact that the Classics were phased out before the Minis were a hint that big collections were not the priority.

Fine enough. I still have my CDs, which I can rip into mp3s. Good thing I did, since CDs and CD players have since been phased out.

Well, at least mp3s allow me to store and organize my collection. Which is still true, except "store" sometimes means Apple Music corrupting my files.

This past Friday, I found that, after I updated to Mac OS Sonoma, just under 600 of the music files stored on my external hard drive were corrupted after importing them to the Apple Music library.

Fucking. Hell.

(I regret not having pursued vinyl more seriously)

Edited March 17 by Phylum of Alexandria

[Liffguard]

15 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Here's what grinds my gears: as a music collector, I'm constantly getting shafted in this age of streaming.

When iPods first arrived on the scene, I was excited. Finally I could carry 80GB+ of music around with me and enjoy as I pleased. Of course, the fact that the Classics were phased out before the Minis were a hint that big collections were not the priority.

Fine enough. I still have my CDs, which I can rip into mp3s. Good thing I did, since CDs and CD players have since been phased out.

Well, at least mp3s allow me to store and organize my collection. Which is still true, except "store" sometimes means Apple Music corrupting my files.

This past Friday, I found that, after I updated to Mac OS Sonoma, just under 600 of the music files stored on my external hard drive were corrupted after importing them to the Apple Music library.

Fucking. Hell.

(I regret not having pursued vinyl more seriously)

It's a genuine problem. Digitial storage does not actually appear to be all that durable long-term, contrary to the idea that something is effectively permanent once it's on the internet.

I would suggest that if you've already paid for the tracks once and now lost them, there's nothing unethical in just pirating them now to restore them. But of course, in the age of streaming, there's significantly less demand for pirated music and therefore no guarantee that you'd actually be able to find the same tracks again anyway.

In essence, in the digital age it's apparently suprisingly easy for a particular piece of art or culture to just...disappear.

[Liffguard]

On 3/18/2024 at 8:46 AM, Liffguard said:

It's a genuine problem. Digitial storage does not actually appear to be all that durable long-term, contrary to the idea that something is effectively permanent once it's on the internet.

I would suggest that if you've already paid for the tracks once and now lost them, there's nothing unethical in just pirating them now to restore them. But of course, in the age of streaming, there's significantly less demand for pirated music and therefore no guarantee that you'd actually be able to find the same tracks again anyway.

In essence, in the digital age it's apparently suprisingly easy for a particular piece of art or culture to just...disappear.

As always, relevant xkcd.

[maarsen]

On 3/18/2024 at 4:46 AM, Liffguard said:

It's a genuine problem. Digitial storage does not actually appear to be all that durable long-term, contrary to the idea that something is effectively permanent once it's on the internet.

I would suggest that if you've already paid for the tracks once and now lost them, there's nothing unethical in just pirating them now to restore them. But of course, in the age of streaming, there's significantly less demand for pirated music and therefore no guarantee that you'd actually be able to find the same tracks again anyway.

In essence, in the digital age it's apparently suprisingly easy for a particular piece of art or culture to just...disappear.

This is why I like film photography as opposed to digital. Negatives have a much longer shelf life than a computer file. Just ask the guy still trying to retrieve his old hard drive from a landfill because it has a few hundred million dollars worth of bitcoins saved on it.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

On 3/18/2024 at 4:46 AM, Liffguard said:

It's a genuine problem. Digitial storage does not actually appear to be all that durable long-term, contrary to the idea that something is effectively permanent once it's on the internet.

I would suggest that if you've already paid for the tracks once and now lost them, there's nothing unethical in just pirating them now to restore them. But of course, in the age of streaming, there's significantly less demand for pirated music and therefore no guarantee that you'd actually be able to find the same tracks again anyway.

In essence, in the digital age it's apparently surprisingly easy for a particular piece of art or culture to just...disappear.

With respect to commercial video streaming, one of the quirks of our current age is that it's much easier to get ahold of random trash from my childhood than it is to watch a more culturally important or daring work of any age. 

Like, if I had to bet that I could readily watch Samurai Pizza Cats over any given masterpiece by Abbas Kiarostami, my money is on Samurai Pizza Cats.

There are ways to get to certain classic or arty films for now, but the priorities and profit incentives are crystal clear: nostalgia and pleasant distractions are the way to go.

So I wouldn't bet on the steady availability of anything but blockbusters and random junk from people's childhoods.

What to watch this weekend? Lawnmower Man it is...

[Madame deVenoge]

On 3/22/2024 at 9:58 AM, maarsen said:

This is why I like film photography as opposed to digital. Negatives have a much longer shelf life than a computer file. Just ask the guy still trying to retrieve his old hard drive from a landfill because it has a few hundred million dollars worth of bitcoins saved on it.

That kind of blows cortical stacks out of the water, all apologies to Richard Morgan, a Favorite Author.

[DireWolfSpirit]

What grinds my gears lately- 

The ever growing tendency of restrooms that have the flush button directly in the upper middle of my back. Otherwise known as the most inconvenient location imagineable.

How does that even happen, I mean youd think someone along the process of developing these wouldve pointed out the lack of functionality?

[Tears of Lys]

Going into a public restroom that has a motion detector that activates the lights , then staying a bit too long on the toilet and having the lights go out, leaving you to finish your business in complete black.  Apparently, the motion detector only detects you coming in, not going out.  At least that's what happened to . . . a friend of mine.

  

[DireWolfSpirit]

^^^Yes it happened to me as well, at a State Park Campgrounds washroom.

These annoying flush switches in the middle of your back I am finding them in all our work restrooms and along the highway rest stops.

This stuff drives people buggers and its why you hear the middle aged bitching about how older stuff was so much nicer than a lot of newer things that we get forced on us at the user end.

Product packaging is getting lamer and lamer as well, not only is all the crap bad for the environment but you often need 2-3 tools to open things and your thinking, "It wasn't always so stupid".

[Liffguard]

My dad is currently in hospital. He doesn't normally use a tablet but he asked me to bring my mum's old ipad up to him so he could read his various newspaper subscriptions and watch netflix while he recovers. I wanted to deliver it to him fully charged. It's one of the ones with a USB-C slot. So I plugged it in, it didn't charge. No worries, dodgy charger, tried a different one. Didn't charge. Tested the charger on my phone, charged just fine. Maybe the charging port on the ipad is busted? Eventually discovered that while the ipad has a USB-C shaped charging port, it's not universal. It will only charge with an Apple branded USB-C charger, thus defeating the entire point of moving away from a proprietry standard to a universal one.

I fucking hate Apple so much. They also started the lunacy of removing audio jacks from devices. Literally paying more for reduced functionality.

[DMC]

5 hours ago, Liffguard said:

They also started the lunacy of removing audio jacks from devices.

Yeah I got a new iPad in October and couldn’t believe it didn’t have one.  I have wireless headphones, but frankly I often prefer my ones with a wire, at least in certain situations.  Fuck Apple.

[Loge]

14 hours ago, Liffguard said:

My dad is currently in hospital. He doesn't normally use a tablet but he asked me to bring my mum's old ipad up to him so he could read his various newspaper subscriptions and watch netflix while he recovers. I wanted to deliver it to him fully charged. It's one of the ones with a USB-C slot. So I plugged it in, it didn't charge. No worries, dodgy charger, tried a different one. Didn't charge. Tested the charger on my phone, charged just fine. Maybe the charging port on the ipad is busted? Eventually discovered that while the ipad has a USB-C shaped charging port, it's not universal. It will only charge with an Apple branded USB-C charger, thus defeating the entire point of moving away from a proprietry standard to a universal one.

I fucking hate Apple so much. They also started the lunacy of removing audio jacks from devices. Literally paying more for reduced functionality.

People calling USB C a universal standard always reminds me of this:

https://xkcd.com/927/

The only thing universal about USB C is the plug. What the port or even the cable can do varies. As for your dad's ipad, I'd check if the charger provides enough power. Not sure if this is still the thing with newer chargers but the ones that came with iphones used to be too weak to charge an ipad.

Edited March 27 by Loge

[Castellan]

On 3/25/2024 at 7:55 AM, DireWolfSpirit said:

^^^Yes it happened to me as well, at a State Park Campgrounds washroom.

These annoying flush switches in the middle of your back I am finding them in all our work restrooms and along the highway rest stops.

 

When I went to California the variety of these things was notable. in one day or even in the same airport you could encounter 4 different set ups for waving your hand under something or over something or other other in the wash basin or pressing your foot on something or other to get something like, the water to run in the sink, or soap to come out of somewhere, or to dry your hands, not to mention for flushing the toilet. You feel something of a fool standing there with your hands out looking for somewhere else to wave them. It seems like a lot of wasted effort to invent so many.