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[ZLoth]

My Pixel phone has a neat feature where it will screen calls and show a little transcription. It has prevented a lot of spam from reaching my ears but also allowed in good calls because I can actually read a little snippet before picking up the call.

I love this feature along with the ability to send certain key phrases to the caller. I do tell people that I screen my calls.

[hbelkins]

My Pixel phone has a neat feature where it will screen calls and show a little transcription. It has prevented a lot of spam from reaching my ears but also allowed in good calls because I can actually read a little snippet before picking up the call.

I love this feature along with the ability to send certain key phrases to the caller. I do tell people that I screen my calls.

Why would anyone not screen their calls these days?

I was getting so many unsolicited calls on my personal cell phone that I found a "silence" ringtone .m4r file, loaded it to my phone, and set it as my default. Only calls from people in my contacts, with pre-selected custom ringtones, actually make a sound when they come in. For anyone else, they can leave a message if I don't recognize the number.

I haven't done that with my work cell yet, but still, if I don't recognize the number, I don't answer the call. They can leave a voicemail if it's important. If it's not important enough to leave a voicemail over, then they must not have needed to talk to me all that badly.

I've taken to doing that with my desktop office phone as well. Leave a message if I don't answer.

[XamotCGC]

My phone has a feature that blocks private and unknown phone numbers.

[JayhawkCO]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

[tdindy88]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

This is pretty similar to what you just mentioned but I hate it when I pull up an actual written news story and a video about it starts playing automatically, forcing me to turn the volume DOWN so that I don't annoy people around me. One TV station's news app is so bad with this I have to keep the phone on mute anytime I read an article on their app.

[thenetwork]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

I hate when my smartphone apps "suggest" news articles (based on algorithms) -- that part I don't mind...But what I DO mind is when I click on these non-sponsored story links only to be blocked out by a paywall.

And speaking of news, I hate when they overuse the term "BREAKING NEWS".  When I was growing up, when a radio or TV station had "Breaking News", they interrupted with a bulletin.  Nowadays on some media outlets, whenever Kim Kardashian stubs her toe, they call it breaking news..

One of the national radio news outlets -- SBN/Salem-Townhall.com news will randomly start their top of the hour newscasts with "Breaking news this hour...".  Most of the time, it's just the top story of the day that's hours old -- *not* something that happened in the last hour.

It's like crying "Wolf".

[Scott5114]

Nowadays on some media outlets, whenever Kim Kardashian stubs her toe, they call it breaking news..

I suppose if she stubbed it hard enough, it would be news of something breaking.

[US 89]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

I hate when my smartphone apps "suggest" news articles (based on algorithms) -- that part I don't mind...But what I DO mind is when I click on these non-sponsored story links only to be blocked out by a paywall.

Or worse, "This content is not available in your country."

[CtrlAltDel]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

Or as I like to say, I can read faster than you can talk.

[JayhawkCO]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

Or as I like to say, I can read faster than you can talk.

Ding ding ding.

[GaryV]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

Or as I like to say, I can read faster than you can talk.

And when you're doing some online training module, which involves watching a slide show. And they have to read each slide to you. And you can't advance to the next slide until the narrator is done - no matter that you finished reading before the narrator is halfway through.

[hbelkins]

Here's one spun off from another thread:

I hate when news "articles" are videos. I don't want to watch your dumb video where I have to turn up the volume and possibly annoy people around me. I read fast. Just type the damn thing so I can read it at my leisure.

Or as I like to say, I can read faster than you can talk.

And when you're doing some online training module, which involves watching a slide show. And they have to read each slide to you. And you can't advance to the next slide until the narrator is done - no matter that you finished reading before the narrator is halfway through.

Did that yesterday. Thankfully there was a 'mute' button on the slides so I could read them at my speed.

[webny99]

• There is an arterial near me that expands from two lanes to four lanes just prior to an intersection where I frequently turn left. There's no turning lanes, so when oncoming traffic is heavy (which is almost always, sometimes even backing up into the intersection because of the lane merge), this creates a situation where I will be sitting in the left lane waiting to turn for most of the green light cycle.
  
  Traffic coming up behind me normally splits into two lanes, but since I'm there, they can only go past using the right lane. I try to ensure they do so by (1) turning on my left blinker well in advance so they know to move right, and (2) coming to a stop with ample room to pull up, so that I can give them a buffer to move right if they happen to not see my blinker. Some people, though, blindly insist on pulling up right behind me and sitting there while I wait to make my turn, even though the right lane is open and they can see I'm turning. This bothers me to no end. I simply can't believe there are drivers out there with so little awareness that they would actively choose to wait behind someone for no reason, be completely oblivious to the sea of oncoming traffic that indicates I'll be there for a while, and continue to sit there even when I pull up to give them an opportunity to correct and go past. That's grounds for immediate license suspension IMO.

[vdeane]

^ Given how thick oncoming traffic is, would I be correct in assuming that it's a similar story in your direction?  If so, then they don't exactly have much opportunity to move over once they're already stuck behind you.  As for how they got stuck in the first place, I agree, it's amazing how oblivious most people are to what the other cars on the road are doing.  A good chunk of congestion on the roads would go away if only people would pay more attention to what traffic around them is doing.

[Takumi]

When someone leaves their phone’s GPS on when they’re in a store. They’re in the middle of an aisle and their phone just blurts out “Turn right onto Center Street”.

[1995hoo]

When someone leaves their phone’s GPS on when they’re in a store. They’re in the middle of an aisle and their phone just blurts out “Turn right onto Center Street”.

That sometimes bothers me for a different reason: Last time we were in New York together, my wife went to the 9-11 Museum while I was at work and she used her phone for directions to get there. But she forgot to stop the mapping when she got there and it kept trying to give her directions while she was at the museum, draining her battery down to 1% before she noticed it. Thankfully, she remembered that I had told her that if she walked past the Millennium Hotel she’d come to Broadway and that a right turn would take her back to our hotel. (She was headed to the Met the next day, so for that I typed up directions as a precaution!)

[zachary_amaryllis]

"Please leave your message for [someone/some number]" [pause] "sorry, mailbox is full. goodbye!"

Seems like perhaps it could have told me that at the beginning. I know what I dialed.

[webny99]

^ Given how thick oncoming traffic is, would I be correct in assuming that it's a similar story in your direction?  If so, then they don't exactly have much opportunity to move over once they're already stuck behind you.  As for how they got stuck in the first place, I agree, it's amazing how oblivious most people are to what the other cars on the road are doing.  A good chunk of congestion on the roads would go away if only people would pay more attention to what traffic around them is doing.

Yes, traffic in my direction is heavy too, but it's not the same story because everyone is in a single lane before it widens to two lanes just before the intersection. That's why I try to put my blinker on well in advance, so they can pick the right lane. Now, there are cases where people start stacking up behind me and then can't get over because of continuous traffic in the right lane... and that can get dicey, especially for people turning left across from me, who now have to watch for cars darting into the lane they're about to cross.

[vdeane]

The fact that Adobe Reader doesn't print properly under Wine.  New York state's income tax forms require Adobe Reader to fill out (enforced with code that specifically checks for Adobe, even though other readers can theoretically work with XFA forms; that said, other readers don't work properly with XFA forms, as I tested on Firefox before the code that blocks out non-Adobe readers even when the XFA is theoretically supported was added), and Adobe Reader doesn't have a Linux version.  Unfortunately, the it only prints the first page no matter what, and comes out blurry to boot.  I had to dig out my ancient (and dying) Windows 7 laptop to get my tax returns printed.  I don't know what I'll do next year, since I'm planning on getting rid of that laptop this year.  I guess I'll have to hand write my return, even though my handwriting is garbage and it takes 10 times a long to get my refund that way, as I refuse to pay for tax software or a tax preparer, which are the only ways to e-file taxes in New York if your income is too high for the Free File Alliance.

[CtrlAltDel]

The fact that Adobe Reader doesn't print properly under Wine.  New York state's income tax forms require Adobe Reader to fill out (enforced with code that specifically checks for Adobe, even though other readers can theoretically work with XFA forms; that said, other readers don't work properly with XFA forms, as I tested on Firefox before the code that blocks out non-Adobe readers even when the XFA is theoretically supported was added), and Adobe Reader doesn't have a Linux version.  Unfortunately, the it only prints the first page no matter what, and comes out blurry to boot.  I had to dig out my ancient (and dying) Windows 7 laptop to get my tax returns printed.  I don't know what I'll do next year, since I'm planning on getting rid of that laptop this year.  I guess I'll have to hand write my return, even though my handwriting is garbage and it takes 10 times a long to get my refund that way, as I refuse to pay for tax software or a tax preparer, which are the only ways to e-file taxes in New York if your income is too high for the Free File Alliance.

Save the pages separately, and print them one at a time maybe? That will definitely take a while, though.

[Scott5114]

The fact that Adobe Reader doesn't print properly under Wine.  New York state's income tax forms require Adobe Reader to fill out (enforced with code that specifically checks for Adobe, even though other readers can theoretically work with XFA forms; that said, other readers don't work properly with XFA forms, as I tested on Firefox before the code that blocks out non-Adobe readers even when the XFA is theoretically supported was added), and Adobe Reader doesn't have a Linux version.  Unfortunately, the it only prints the first page no matter what, and comes out blurry to boot.  I had to dig out my ancient (and dying) Windows 7 laptop to get my tax returns printed.  I don't know what I'll do next year, since I'm planning on getting rid of that laptop this year.  I guess I'll have to hand write my return, even though my handwriting is garbage and it takes 10 times a long to get my refund that way, as I refuse to pay for tax software or a tax preparer, which are the only ways to e-file taxes in New York if your income is too high for the Free File Alliance.

I did a little bit of research and found that apparently Firefox post-version 91 and Evince (the Gnome PDF viewer) are supposed to have some level of support for XFA. I'm not sure if they're sufficient for your purposes, though. Another, though time consuming, option would be to take the PDF into a PDF-editing program, delete all the XFA forms, and add your own standard form elements.

The real problem here is that XFA is proprietary, complicated (the spec is 1600 pages, longer than that of PDF itself) and deprecated (replaced by native PDF 2.0 forms in 2017), so devs see little use in spending the time and effort to implement it on Linux. That means the true permanent solution is to get ahold of your state rep and see if they can put political pressure on the tax department to just upgrade the damn form to modern spec.

[J N Winkler]

I did a little bit of research and found that apparently Firefox post-version 91 and Evince (the Gnome PDF viewer) are supposed to have some level of support for XFA. I'm not sure if they're sufficient for your purposes, though. Another, though time consuming, option would be to take the PDF into a PDF-editing program, delete all the XFA forms, and add your own standard form elements.

Are the forms available for download as bare PDFs?  If so, the variant of this approach I would try is to add the form elements to them.  I've done this successfully in Foxit Reader (free version), and I would expect something similar is available for Linux.

I more or less avoid Adobe software these days--the DC version of Reader is an unmitigated disaster.

[ZLoth]

"Please leave your message for [someone/some number]" [pause] "sorry, mailbox is full. goodbye!"

Seems like perhaps it could have told me that at the beginning. I know what I dialed.

It's a cheap way to post an audible annoucnement on a voice mail box that never gets checked.

[vdeane]

I did a little bit of research and found that apparently Firefox post-version 91 and Evince (the Gnome PDF viewer) are supposed to have some level of support for XFA. I'm not sure if they're sufficient for your purposes, though. Another, though time consuming, option would be to take the PDF into a PDF-editing program, delete all the XFA forms, and add your own standard form elements.

Are the forms available for download as bare PDFs?  If so, the variant of this approach I would try is to add the form elements to them.  I've done this successfully in Foxit Reader (free version), and I would expect something similar is available for Linux.

I more or less avoid Adobe software these days--the DC version of Reader is an unmitigated disaster.

I just checked the standard form.  It looks like they finally got around to adding form fields to it, at least.  Those weren't there when they first switched to free file.  They're really basic (not even drop-downs for things like counties and school districts), but they're there, at least.

The fact that Adobe Reader doesn't print properly under Wine.  New York state's income tax forms require Adobe Reader to fill out (enforced with code that specifically checks for Adobe, even though other readers can theoretically work with XFA forms; that said, other readers don't work properly with XFA forms, as I tested on Firefox before the code that blocks out non-Adobe readers even when the XFA is theoretically supported was added), and Adobe Reader doesn't have a Linux version.  Unfortunately, the it only prints the first page no matter what, and comes out blurry to boot.  I had to dig out my ancient (and dying) Windows 7 laptop to get my tax returns printed.  I don't know what I'll do next year, since I'm planning on getting rid of that laptop this year.  I guess I'll have to hand write my return, even though my handwriting is garbage and it takes 10 times a long to get my refund that way, as I refuse to pay for tax software or a tax preparer, which are the only ways to e-file taxes in New York if your income is too high for the Free File Alliance.

I did a little bit of research and found that apparently Firefox post-version 91 and Evince (the Gnome PDF viewer) are supposed to have some level of support for XFA. I'm not sure if they're sufficient for your purposes, though. Another, though time consuming, option would be to take the PDF into a PDF-editing program, delete all the XFA forms, and add your own standard form elements.

The real problem here is that XFA is proprietary, complicated (the spec is 1600 pages, longer than that of PDF itself) and deprecated (replaced by native PDF 2.0 forms in 2017), so devs see little use in spending the time and effort to implement it on Linux. That means the true permanent solution is to get ahold of your state rep and see if they can put political pressure on the tax department to just upgrade the damn form to modern spec.

I did try Firefox, before NYS made the forms smart enough to detect Adobe by means other than seeing whether the XFA worked or not.  It was wonky but somewhat functional for a while before breaking at the box where I had to check for it to factor in the standard deduction.  I'm guessing NYS tried to make XFA do something it's not supposed to do.  I suppose I could try seeing if it can print at least, given that the forms open up after a print attempt is made and the barcodes are generated.

Not surprised NYS is on some old tech.  They were still using Windows XP when I started in 2014.  Our timesheet software was on an 80s mainframe, too, and only switched to a webapp a few years ago.

[ZLoth]

In case you haven't noticed, LastPass has a major security breach that was reported in late December. And, yes, the extent of the damage is much worse as the breach extended to other parts of the parent company. It was enough to cause me to scream at LastPass to issue me a refund and migrate my password management over to 1Password. Now, comes the fun part of changing aand pruning my password list. Fortunately, my online password list is a subset of what I keep in my KeePass Password Vault. This also brings up some of my gripes with the sites again like:

• Let's not let you know what the password requirements, including which special characters are allow and the maximum password length, until you submit a bad password.
• Financial institution which handles your finances? Limit of 20 characters. Web forums for discussion of various topics (such as AARoads)? 32 characters with special characters, dashes, and underscores isn't a problem.
• There is no password reset option, which means you have to use "Forgot Password" in order to reset your password.
• KeePass not allowing me to limit which special characters are being used. Feature request submitted.
• The password KeePass generates doesn't always contain the checked-off options. Defect submitted.

Fortunately, I also save my KeePass file in several places.