Minor things that bother you

[webny99]

Rapid City's CBS station is a semi-satellite of Sioux Falls's. They can split it for NFL games (usually because Rapid is a Broncos town meaning sometimes they have to air the late game Sioux Falls doesn't always air). So they get primetime at 6 PM live with Central and Eastern.

Nearby Wyoming, on the other hand, is becoming Bills country.

[1995hoo]

I've found that even the most recent option doesn't always show the most recent posts

Ultimate annoyance.

Some sites, such as Twitter, will unilaterally change your feed periodically if you set it to show you the latest posts on top. Twitter has some algorithm it uses to determine what it thinks are "top tweets" and it considers that to be the default to which it unilaterally resets you every so often. Nextdoor will do that every 30 days, too.

[jeffandnicole]

I've found that even the most recent option doesn't always show the most recent posts

Ultimate annoyance.

Overly annoying.  Every once in a while I'll think of someone who I haven't seen for a while, and for some of them it concerns me that they're not on Facebook anymore or something happened to them.  Then when I look them up, they posted 2 hours ago.  And yesterday, 3 times.  So they're very much alive; I'm just not getting their posts on my feed.

[JoePCool14]

I've found that even the most recent option doesn't always show the most recent posts

Ultimate annoyance.

Overly annoying.  Every once in a while I'll think of someone who I haven't seen for a while, and for some of them it concerns me that they're not on Facebook anymore or something happened to them.  Then when I look them up, they posted 2 hours ago.  And yesterday, 3 times.  So they're very much alive; I'm just not getting their posts on my feed.

The social media companies think they know how to run your feed better than you do. That's the problem.

[jemacedo9]

The social media companies think they know how to run your feed life better than you do. That's the problem.

FTFY

[STLmapboy]

Traffic lights on span wires where the top half of the backplate has been cut off to accommodate the span wire. 

[mgk920]

As someone who has lived in the Mountain time zone the vast majority of my life, this is what "8/7 Central" means:

8 PM Eastern
7 PM Central
7 PM Mountain (this means it is delayed one hour from the Eastern/Central viewing time)
8 PM Pacific (likewise, delayed three hours from Eastern/Central)

This is because of how the primetime TV schedule works: in Eastern and Pacific time, primetime TV programs begin at 8, but they start  at 7 in Mountain and Central. This is also why the late-evening news is at 11 PM on the coasts, but 10 PM in Central and Mountain time.

Sports events are not subject to this weirdness because the entire country sees them at the same time - so general convention for those is just to give the time in Eastern and let everyone else calculate from there.

It is rather annoying that the millions of people living in Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Albuquerque, Boise, and other smaller cities don't really exist to New Yorkers - but we're way better at doing time zone math in our heads because of it.

This is a big reason why I often think, in this era of hyper-connectivity, that it would be a very good idea to put the entire planet on UTC - instead of it now, as of this typing, being 3:05 pm/15:05 CDT, it would be 2005Z, same anywhere in the World.



Mike

[JoePCool14]

As someone who has lived in the Mountain time zone the vast majority of my life, this is what "8/7 Central" means:

8 PM Eastern
7 PM Central
7 PM Mountain (this means it is delayed one hour from the Eastern/Central viewing time)
8 PM Pacific (likewise, delayed three hours from Eastern/Central)

This is because of how the primetime TV schedule works: in Eastern and Pacific time, primetime TV programs begin at 8, but they start  at 7 in Mountain and Central. This is also why the late-evening news is at 11 PM on the coasts, but 10 PM in Central and Mountain time.

Sports events are not subject to this weirdness because the entire country sees them at the same time - so general convention for those is just to give the time in Eastern and let everyone else calculate from there.

It is rather annoying that the millions of people living in Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Albuquerque, Boise, and other smaller cities don't really exist to New Yorkers - but we're way better at doing time zone math in our heads because of it.

This is a big reason why I often think, in this era of hyper-connectivity, that it would be a very good idea to put the entire planet on UTC - instead of it now, as of this typing, being 3:05 pm/15:05 CDT, it would be 2005Z, same anywhere in the World.



Mike

[SSOWorld]

As someone who has lived in the Mountain time zone the vast majority of my life, this is what "8/7 Central" means:

8 PM Eastern
7 PM Central
7 PM Mountain (this means it is delayed one hour from the Eastern/Central viewing time)
8 PM Pacific (likewise, delayed three hours from Eastern/Central)

This is because of how the primetime TV schedule works: in Eastern and Pacific time, primetime TV programs begin at 8, but they start  at 7 in Mountain and Central. This is also why the late-evening news is at 11 PM on the coasts, but 10 PM in Central and Mountain time.

Sports events are not subject to this weirdness because the entire country sees them at the same time - so general convention for those is just to give the time in Eastern and let everyone else calculate from there.

It is rather annoying that the millions of people living in Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Albuquerque, Boise, and other smaller cities don't really exist to New Yorkers - but we're way better at doing time zone math in our heads because of it.

This is a big reason why I often think, in this era of hyper-connectivity, that it would be a very good idea to put the entire planet on UTC - instead of it now, as of this typing, being 3:05 pm/15:05 CDT, it would be 2005Z, same anywhere in the World.



Mike

Not happening.  But we won't be talking about the other option either.

[Scott5114]

The social media companies think they know how to run your feed life better than you do. That's the problem.

FTFY

Again, they want to manufacture a problem that buying ads from them will solve.

[vdeane]

As someone who has lived in the Mountain time zone the vast majority of my life, this is what "8/7 Central" means:

8 PM Eastern
7 PM Central
7 PM Mountain (this means it is delayed one hour from the Eastern/Central viewing time)
8 PM Pacific (likewise, delayed three hours from Eastern/Central)

This is because of how the primetime TV schedule works: in Eastern and Pacific time, primetime TV programs begin at 8, but they start  at 7 in Mountain and Central. This is also why the late-evening news is at 11 PM on the coasts, but 10 PM in Central and Mountain time.

Sports events are not subject to this weirdness because the entire country sees them at the same time - so general convention for those is just to give the time in Eastern and let everyone else calculate from there.

It is rather annoying that the millions of people living in Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Albuquerque, Boise, and other smaller cities don't really exist to New Yorkers - but we're way better at doing time zone math in our heads because of it.

I find the way they handle Mountain time with TV to be odd.  I would have assumed they would have combined Mountain and Pacific like they do Eastern and Central.  Then they could have "8/7 Central" and "7/8 Mountain".

[mrsman]

As someone who has lived in the Mountain time zone the vast majority of my life, this is what "8/7 Central" means:

8 PM Eastern
7 PM Central
7 PM Mountain (this means it is delayed one hour from the Eastern/Central viewing time)
8 PM Pacific (likewise, delayed three hours from Eastern/Central)

This is because of how the primetime TV schedule works: in Eastern and Pacific time, primetime TV programs begin at 8, but they start  at 7 in Mountain and Central. This is also why the late-evening news is at 11 PM on the coasts, but 10 PM in Central and Mountain time.

Sports events are not subject to this weirdness because the entire country sees them at the same time - so general convention for those is just to give the time in Eastern and let everyone else calculate from there.

It is rather annoying that the millions of people living in Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Albuquerque, Boise, and other smaller cities don't really exist to New Yorkers - but we're way better at doing time zone math in our heads because of it.

I find the way they handle Mountain time with TV to be odd.  I would have assumed they would have combined Mountain and Pacific like they do Eastern and Central.  Then they could have "8/7 Central" and "7/8 Mountain".

It is sort of odd that Mountain has its own feed that is one hour delayed.  It is also odd that unless an event is broadcast live, most Mountain TV stations have decided to broadcast prime time at 7-10, instead of 8-11.  Since they aren't on the main feed, they could choose to delay one hour or two hour.  I guess they feel it is better for their viewership if this is done this way.

Pacific generally follows a 3 hour delay, basically the entire prime time block is rebroadcast as soon as it is over.  There are some weird exceptions to this.  In Sacramento, most stations broadcast prime time 8-11, but the CBS affiliate broadcasts 7-10.  Shows that would normally conflict in most of the country would not conflict there.  So while it may be easier to just broadcast the 3 hour delayed feed, CBS in Sacramento made a business decision that it would be better for them to simply tape delay 2 hours and have a 7-10 prime time.  [I initially found this confusing when I first lived in the area, but one summer when I had to get up really early for a project, I found that I would watch 7-8 on CBS and then go to bed, so it may make sense to get a one hour jump on the competition.]  I am surprised the network allowed them to do this, since they seem to insist that all Pacific stations air on a 3 hour delay.

Arizona will broadcast 7-10 all year long, even though they have no DST.  So a 1 hour delay of the national feed during standard time and a 2 hour delay of the national feed during DST.  I found this confusing once when I was driving with my family to Arizona (and we were living in CA at the time) and we came to our hotel and wanted to watch a TV show that airs 8pm in L.A. (and the East Coast).  While we did not have to change our clocks since Arizona during DST is basically the same as Pacific time in DST, the TV stations were all broadcast an hour earlier and we missed our show.

[I am sure there were some levels of confusion back when eastern and central Indiana also did not do DST.  Since they are on the national feed, they probably were forced to change their broadcast schedule every time the clock changed in the rest of the country.  So prime time was 8-11 during the winter, but 7-10 during the summer.  But I have no first hand knowledge of the situation there.  It would seem that they basically had to know what to do and ignore the national advertising of TV show times, since the 8/7 central thing just didn't really apply.  They were in Eastern time, but the TV was on Central.]

A quick check seems to indicate that Anchorage, Alaska and Hawaii does prime time 7-10.  Hawaii has to do a custom delay, but Anchorage, Alaska can just broadcast the Pacific feed, since they are 1 hour behind Pacific.

EDITED TO ADD:  Here's a link to wikipedia article on Sacramento's CBS station and its weird early prime time practice.  Seems like it was done for the sake of providing a 1 hour local news at 10 pm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOVR

[zachary_amaryllis]

annoy me? the tv.

i live in the mountain time zone and for some channels i have to perform differential calculus to figure out what time something 'really' comes on.

related: most networks, just completely omit mst/mdt from their schedules: 'tonight 8/7c'. thats no help at all.

I've never had an issue with it. 8/7c just means it's at 7 PM mountain, but make sure to avoid any spoilers as everyone in Eastern and Central will see it an hour before you do. Sports and other similar events come in the format "8 PM ET"  - in which case you just subtract 2 hours.

It would be far worse to live in the Pacific time zone as far as TV is concerned, in my opinion.

i have directv... and some channels its on either 3 hours before whatever time is is listed, or 1 hour after... something to do with 'east' and 'west' feeds for some channels, i'm told. i say, i'm in the western part of the country, so make it all 'west' feeds, and call it good.

i mean, with hd and all, there's no technical reason they can't list all time zones, or something like that.
i dunno. it just bugs me. i've also seen 8/7c and then they a time for pacific... like we don't exist here.. except for a lot of us in mst/mdt, directv or dish is the only option, so you'd think they'd know that a large # of their subscribers are in this zone..

</rant>

[tdindy88]

[I am sure there were some levels of confusion back when eastern and central Indiana also did not do DST.  Since they are on the national feed, they probably were forced to change their broadcast schedule every time the clock changed in the rest of the country.  So prime time was 8-11 during the winter, but 7-10 during the summer.  But I have no first hand knowledge of the situation there.  It would seem that they basically had to know what to do and ignore the national advertising of TV show times, since the 8/7 central thing just didn't really apply.  They were in Eastern time, but the TV was on Central.]

I think prime time stayed 8-11 year round here in Indianapolis. At least I seem to think that's how it was. The news has always been on at 11 and that didn't change in the spring or fall. I never noticed anything different growing up on the TV scheduling. As a kid I don't think I even realized that we were on Central Time half of the year, it wasn't until my dad told me driving back from Ohio to Indiana that we were going back an hour that I noticed something was up.

Now I want to say that the national radio programs were offset an hour when they were on. There was one morning talk show I listened too that was on at 6-10 when we were on Eastern time and 5-9 on Central. Now they are just on at 6-10.

[hbelkins]

I remember when shows were pitched as "8 Eastern, 7 Central and Mountain."

And of course there's the venerable promo for 60 Minutes during football games: "Stay tuned for 60 Minutes immediately following this game, except on the West Coast."

Someone else mentioned "east" and "west" feeds on satellite TV. I get three iterations of Ion via DirecTV. Apparently there is an over-the-air Ion broadcast on Channel 67 that is included in my local channels. Then there's the Ion East and Ion West feeds. If I miss a rerun of "Law & Order," I can see it three hours later on the west feed.

But while Ion is included in the OTA package, few of the secondary channels get picked up. We get CW, which is a subsidiary of WKYT, but not MeTV, AntennaTV, Heroes & Icons, or any number of other secondary offerings.

[hotdogPi]

None of this makes sense to me (although I don't watch TV). Why not just show it simultaneously everywhere in North America (possibly excluding Alaska and Hawaii)? 5 PM in California and 9 PM in New Brunswick.

[US 89]

None of this makes sense to me (although I don't watch TV). Why not just show it simultaneously everywhere in North America (possibly excluding Alaska and Hawaii)? 5 PM in California and 9 PM in New Brunswick.

Because as a major broadcast television network, you want your primetime shows to air at a time when people can watch them so you get good ratings. The 8-11 or 7-10 block is the time when most people watch TV after they get home from work, eat dinner, and settle in for the night. If you're running your show live across the country at 8 Eastern, that means it runs at 5 Pacific and nobody there is going to be able to watch it.

This is also why, say, tonight's presidential debate is so late from an East Coast point of view (9 PM ET). Because that is aired live across the country, it has to be late enough that they can expect a good amount of Pacific time people to be able to watch.

[STLmapboy]

The Darien Gap really pisses me off.

[doorknob60]

annoy me? the tv.

i live in the mountain time zone and for some channels i have to perform differential calculus to figure out what time something 'really' comes on.

related: most networks, just completely omit mst/mdt from their schedules: 'tonight 8/7c'. thats no help at all.

I've never had an issue with it. 8/7c just means it's at 7 PM mountain, but make sure to avoid any spoilers as everyone in Eastern and Central will see it an hour before you do. Sports and other similar events come in the format "8 PM ET"  - in which case you just subtract 2 hours.

It would be far worse to live in the Pacific time zone as far as TV is concerned, in my opinion.

i have directv... and some channels its on either 3 hours before whatever time is is listed, or 1 hour after... something to do with 'east' and 'west' feeds for some channels, i'm told. i say, i'm in the western part of the country, so make it all 'west' feeds, and call it good.

i mean, with hd and all, there's no technical reason they can't list all time zones, or something like that.
i dunno. it just bugs me. i've also seen 8/7c and then they a time for pacific... like we don't exist here.. except for a lot of us in mst/mdt, directv or dish is the only option, so you'd think they'd know that a large # of their subscribers are in this zone..

</rant>

On satellite, the rule of thumb is that all the cable networks (eg. TBS, USA, AMC, whatever else) are always going to be the Eastern feed. There are only a few national networks that have a Pacific feed on satellite, and it's usually the kids channels like Nick and Disney. And of course some networks like ESPN and CNN only have one live feed. Your local networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) will of course be the your local time zone, same as if you were to use an antenna to pick them up.

The reason for this is that it would take almost twice as much satellite bandwidth to broadcast both an Eastern and Pacific feed of a network, as for nationwide service they'd need to have both, which means more satellites required in space, which is very expensive, for minimal gain, as you can just watch what you want a few hours earlier or DVR it. I honestly prefer it this way, I can watch it early if I want to, and if I don't, I can record it, watch it later, and be able to skip the ads. And worst case scenario, networks often replay that night's shows a few hours later in case you missed them.

The reason this is not the case on cable, is that your local cable system only has to broadcast either the Eastern or Pacific feeds of the channel (as far as I'm aware, no major networks, besides the local broadcast ones, have specific Mountain or Central feeds, you just get either Pacific or Eastern), not both, so there is no real difference either way cost wise.

[jakeroot]

The Darien Gap really pisses me off.

I do wonder from time to time how much different Central America might be if there wasn't that gap there.

For example, would we see more South American plates driving around North America, and vice-versa?

[texaskdog]

The social media companies think they know how to run your feed life better than you do. That's the problem.

FTFY

I don't need to be constantly followed by "fact checkers" of a different political persuasion.

[hotdogPi]

The social media companies think they know how to run your feed life better than you do. That's the problem.

FTFY

I don't need to be constantly followed by "fact checkers" of a different political persuasion.

Fact checkers tell you what is objectively true or false, regardless of political beliefs. They do not fact check opinions.

[Scott5114]

Something is either a fact or not a fact. The sky being blue doesn't indicate that all meteorologists are Democrats.

[74/171FAN]

If everyone believed that the fact checkers were doing what they should be doing, then what 1 is stating would be correct. 

However, there have been many issues recently regarding overall censorship based on personal political opinions, and that is where it becomes a Freedom of Speech issue.

[Scott5114]

You have no freedom of speech on a website. Freedom of speech, like all of the enumerated rights in the constitution, applies to the government only. The person who controls a Web server is a private entity and is allowed to set whatever sort of conditions on the use of that server that they want. Your rights are not being trampled, because the owner of the server has rights too, and since they own the server their rights take precedent over yours. If you don't like it, you can rent your own server for twenty bucks a month and truly say whatever you want.

Legally, you're allowed to go to your city council meeting and say a bunch of racist stuff during an open hearing, because the government cannot restrict your speech. If you try that here you have your post deleted and your account banned. C'est la vie.