Minor things that bother you

[SkyPesos]

Can we get a "Compilation: Angelo71 in one thread" asap?

[vdeane]

When websites auto log you out even if you press the "remember me" button.

*cough* College Board's site

That was the one I was thinking about!

College Board is an annoyance to me for the past 3 years. Glad I'll be done with them after this year's AP exams.

Wait 'til you find out how common that is for employer's mandatory email systems and payroll systems...

Can you not save passwords?

At the casino I worked at our systems were all configured to force password changes every 90 days. I had logins for, let's see...Windows (which also got me into email and payroll), Bally's ACSC, Everi, bingo, keno (which went away eventually), and off-track betting. So six different passwords I had to keep track of, and if you weren't careful you were likely to have the 90-day expiry windows hit at different times, so even if you were trying to save yourself some sanity and keep some of them the same (like I did) you had to be careful to proactively change all of the others so they'd all expire at once, or else you'd have some systems using your old password and some your new one. Except bingo wouldn't allow you to change your password yourself, so it would inevitably end up desynced and you'd either have to reset everything else to be on bingo's schedule or just deal with it having a different password.

No password manager was provided and users didn't have admin rights to install their own. It wouldn't have been that useful anyway, because bingo, keno, and OTB all used separate computer systems. So most people either synced their passwords so they were all the same, or they wrote all six of their passwords down on a sticky note and stuck it to the back of their ID badge (which of course would inevitably fall off and land on the floor in a customer-accessible area). Information security was clearly my old employer's passion.

At NYSDOT we have two main ones - our Windows/email/LATS password, and our SLMS/online payroll one (there was also a separate one for TADS, but that went away - good riddance, too, because that was on a 80s mainframe!).  I've been keeping mine in sync, but recently IT went from a 90 day change to a 365 day change.  I'm wondering if that affects only the Windows/email/LATS password or if it will also affect the SLMS/online payroll one.

Of course, there are a bunch of other passwords that are needs for other various things, like SFS, Agile Assets, ProjectWise, etc., some of which I don't access often enough to keep a password remembered; adding it all together, I think I have over a dozen.  I have a scheme, so I can at least keep a text file with a key to what each one is that is far enough removed that one who doesn't know what my scheme is will only see random codes that have no obvious way to figure out what the password is.

[Scott5114]

Heh, Bally's ACSC runs on an 80s mainframe too. Or at least required an IBM 3270 terminal emulator to access. I really don't mind character-cell text user interfaces, like those produced by ncurses(3), but a lot of the interface design on ACSC (some of which I'm sure was caused by the terminal emulator) is highly questionable. Like F3 instead of Esc to exit, completely freezing the entire terminal any time text was entered with the cursor outside of a text field and requiring you to hit Ctrl to unfreeze it, displaying critical error messages in the status bar rather than somewhere more noticeable, etc. A lot of cashiers got themselves into financial difficulties due to the last one; it was too easy to miss a message saying that a ticket had been voided or was otherwise no good and paying it out anyway.

My strategy for password resets was to use the same password but cycle the special character from one to the next, so that after "!" was "@", then "#", and so on. This did cause a problem a couple of times because Everi used a brain-damaged password hashing algorithm that caused it to silently lock you out of your account if you used "*" (and a few other characters too that I can't remember) in a password. In any case, when one password expired I would go through the whole suite of programs and change them all to match.

The most awful thing about that job is that it was basically an all-day every-day parade of "minor things that bother you", and over time it just built up and up until it became toxic (and that's even before you get to the actual intentional toxicity of management).

[1995hoo]

For the school mail, at least they give up and stop mailing you after a couple of years.  Some other mailers are still sending mail to my grandfather, who's been dead for 15 years.

I occasionally get mail addressed to family members who have never lived at my address:

–I suspect I sometimes got mail addressed to my father because once upon a time in the 1990s I was an additional cardholder on a credit card account he had set up. I don't get mail addressed to my father anymore, but now I sometimes get mail addressed to my mother. I suspect the reason is that when my father died in 2019 and my mom changed various things into her name, somehow the junk mailers updated their records and substituted her name on some of the junk they were sending to him at my address. On average this happens once or twice a month. I don't think I've received anything with my father's name on it recently.

–Even weirder, I sometimes (not very often) get mail addressed to my father's mother. She never lived in Virginia–she lived in Brooklyn when I was a little kid and moved to Far Rockaway in the early 1980s–and, more importantly, she died in 1995. I suspect my receiving mail addressed to her is related to my receiving mail addressed to my father because in her final years, my father held a power of attorney and managed her financial affairs as she became unable to do so herself.

Thankfully, it's all junk mail and we tear it up and recycle it, but it's still weird. Neither my father, my mother, nor my grandmother has ever lived at this address.

[JoePCool14]

Can we get a "Compilation: Angelo71 in one thread" asap?

We could, but he would probably rename it to something else like "1", "e", or "apologies".

[jmacswimmer]

Can we get a "Compilation: Angelo71 in one thread" asap?
(img snipped)

We could, but he would probably rename it to something else like "1", "e", or "apologies".

He could easily make his "Mass Interstate Highway System Overhaul" thread his compilation thread.  I don't have an issue with that one since there's more to discuss, but all his threads with one-off ideas like "[route] control city" or "[route] widening" cluttering up the fictional board are definitely getting irritating.

[kphoger]

Unless, of course, they're savvy enough to put "...or current resident." Then you're stuck with it.

It bothers me that I have to accept mail that doesn't have my name on it.  If mail is addressed to "Current Resident", then I should be able to write "no such tenant" on the envelope and refuse delivery.

It seems the USPS (or some other address provider) re-coded my street as an Avenue or a Street, or vice versa, and this was sufficient to prevent delivery.  (I can't tell you from one day to the next which it is.)

Whenever I have doubts about that for an address here, I simply look the address up in the computer system at work.

Interestingly, I used to live on Chautauqua Ave and now live on Christine St.  They're both normal residential streets on the east side of town.  Who knows why one got Ave and one got St? 

[Scott5114]

Usually it's just the developers (or whoever named the streets) deciding which one sounds better. In most cities there's no standardized meaning to any of them. Hell, Tulsa has a major arterial that goes on for several miles called Admiral Place. I usually associate "Pl." with small residential streets (often with the same name as the street it branches off of).

[kphoger]

Hell, Tulsa has a major arterial that goes on for several miles called Admiral Place. I usually associate "Pl." with small residential streets (often with the same name as the street it branches off of).

At least they're not Broken Arrow, who thought a bunch of Okies could pronounce "Quinoa Avenue" correctly...

[Scott5114]

I always pronounce it "quin-oh-ah" to make my wife mad.

[kphoger]

I always pronounce it "quin-oh-ah" to make my wife mad.

Isn't that how the street there is pronounced?  (I'm only basing this on what I've heard cable guys in the area say, which, now that I've typed that, seems like it might not be the most reliable almanac.)

[SkyPesos]

Imagine how much fun delivery drivers have with Queens street system. There's like 6 different suffixes for each street number.

[tolbs17]

Don't rename threads.

[hotdogPi]

Don't rename threads.

I checked the initial post of this thread... nothing.

[Roadgeekteen]

Don't rename threads.

I checked the initial post of this thread... nothing.

I think that's (the renaming threads) the thing that bothers him.

[US71]

Those who think they know everything are annoying to those of us who DO.  

[Roadgeekteen]

When people are still scared of covid after getting the vaccine.

[Scott5114]

When people are still scared of covid after getting the vaccine.

Breakthrough cases are a thing. They're not a particularly likely thing, but they are a thing. Commercial plane crashes aren't particularly likely either, but some people swear off flying anyhow.

[US71]

When people are still scared of covid after getting the vaccine.

Breakthrough cases are a thing. They're not a particularly likely thing, but they are a thing. Commercial plane crashes aren't particularly likely either, but some people swear off flying anyhow.

After 9/11 my dad said he would never fly again.

[Roadgeekteen]

When people are still scared of covid after getting the vaccine.

Breakthrough cases are a thing. They're not a particularly likely thing, but they are a thing. Commercial plane crashes aren't particularly likely either, but some people swear off flying anyhow.

They happen, but they are very rare and even less likely to be serious.

[I-55]

When people are still scared of covid after getting the vaccine.

Breakthrough cases are a thing. They're not a particularly likely thing, but they are a thing. Commercial plane crashes aren't particularly likely either, but some people swear off flying anyhow.

They happen, but they are very rare and even less likely to be serious.

but they always make the news so people think they happen more often than they actually do.

[tolbs17]

They need to get the damn vaccine and move on!

[vdeane]

Also keep in mind that there are strains that are resistant to the vaccine.  Right now they're not common, but that's mainly because other variants like the UK strain have crowded them out.  As more people get vaccinated, that will change.

I read an article about a woman in a nursing home who had been vaccinated but died from the South African variant.  So, while the vaccines are certainly important and do make us much safer than we were, we're not out of this yet.

[bm7]

When people are still scared of covid after getting the vaccine.

I agree, I don't understand it. Why did they even bother to get vaccinated if they don't think it does anything?

[texaskdog]

When people are still scared of covid after getting the vaccine.

I agree, I don't understand it. Why did they even bother to get vaccinated if they don't think it does anything?

When people start putting two and two together.....