Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

Weird timing.  My wife just had to post on Facebook that her sister's account had been hacked...

[hotdogPi]

Someone else got into my Minecraft account a few years ago... and changed the username (this can be done once per month, so I changed it back when I could) and player skin. It looked like whoever it was was using it as if it was their own account rather than trying to trash it. (That said, you can't really trash a Minecraft account, or at least you couldn't before the chat reporting "feature" introduced permanent bans.)

Nobody else has gotten into my other accounts.

[kphoger]

The Mexican 100-peso bill.

I'm picky about facing paper money.  I always un-dogear my bills and make sure they're all facing the same way in my wallet.  I also sort them from highest to lowest denomination.

But the Mexican 100-peso bill was bothering me the whole time I was in Mexico last week.  I'm sure they designed it this way on purpose, but I've been unable to settle on which orientation is "right".  See below.



Of course, the obvious answer is that neither one is "right", and that it's supposed to be oriented 90° to the left from Option #1.  But that doesn't help, because my wallet isn't oriented that way.

[tchafe1978]

Yeah, I wonder what the heck all of these people are doing to get their social media accounts "hacked". I've never had an account hacked, so far as I know. (I did have a webserver hacked once, but that's because I was dumb about file permissions. Once I fixed that issue I haven't had that problem again. But that's not a situation a "normal" person would ever find themselves in.)


I'm pretty sure some people are in the habit of saying their account got hacked as a way to deny responsibility for things they themselves did. "Oh, no, Julie, I didn't cuss you out and call your mother a steaming pile of Clearview, my account got hacked."

I think a lot of it has to do with privacy settings. Far too many people have their profile and all their posts set to public, so any old Tom, Dick, or Harry can come along and see all your posts, your profile, and all your info and easily steal it. I have many friends who have everything set to public and many times when they share something, the first "person" to comment is some scammer or spammer commenting "You win! Check my profile!" Of course if you're gullible enough you'll go to that profile thinking you've won something and comment or like something on that profile and you've given that profile access to your info. I don't know why nearly everyone, unless you're running a business page or something, keeps their profile set to private and their posts set to friends only, and have my settings so only friends of friends can send me friend requests. That's what I have and I almost never have a problem. The only annoying problem I've ever had was when I tried to do one of those Facebook Fundraisers for my birthday one year, and of course no one donated, but 5 years later, it's my only public post outside of my profile or cover photos. Every other day I have to bonk some random scammer profile that likes that particular post. But I never have a problem otherwise. I'd delete that post but for some reason, probably because it was a fundraiser post, there isn't an option to delete it or even make it friends only.

[Scott5114]

The Mexican 100-peso bill.

Wow, that is annoying. I shared your post with someone I used to work with as a cashier and she felt the same way. I would probably just go with option 2 with the "reverse" facing me, since large, easy to read numbers in the upper left corner is the most functional option for bills stored in a wallet.

A lot of currencies have been doing the "portrait orientation" thing because that's the orientation that bills are usually in when they're handed from one person to another, and often the way they're stored in money tills. But I feel like the solution to that isn't to make the bill all confusing to orient, it's to just accommodate for that with extra markings, like this:

[roadman65]

When a friend on Facebook asks you to be FB friend again. You automatically think he or she accidentally defriended you, so you accept only to find them more friendly to you than ever.

Then comes the kill. They ask you if you got your federal stimulus money or even one better, your Steve Harvey Foundation Money. Usually your so called friend had gotten their money and just happened to see your name on the list as their package arrived.

Then, of course you figured it out already, so you contact your friend in person to see if they’re aware of their picture and all being used. Of course they have been informed and you tell them how their imposter is trying to con you in some way.

Wait...how many clues did it take before you finally figured out you were being conned?

Shouldn't you review your friends list to see if they're still a friend first? Seems like you are making yourself a prime target for getting hacked, and by doing so getting others on your friends list hacked also.

At first it was the over friendliness. Then of course, asking for my password which I would never give out to anyone.

The second time it is the phrase “ I saw your name on the list, when I received my money” etc.  Considering my best friend was number two, it wasn’t hard to piece that one together.

Another con is when you get a text saying “ Hello is Bill there? Or is Brian available?”  You respond kindly to inform them they got the wrong number to only say that they’re sorry followed by “ Oh BTW I’m Megan or Shiela or some name” and try to start a conversation.

Any wrong texts I get now, I block instantly.

[kphoger]

Another con is when you get a text saying " Hello is Bill there? Or is Brian available?"   You respond kindly to inform them they got the wrong number to only say that they're sorry followed by " Oh BTW I'm Megan or Shiela or some name"  and try to start a conversation.

My wife once answered a "wrong number" text message, and the other person started sending her naked pictures of (supposedly) herself.  When my wife told her she was happily married to her husband, the pictures didn't immediately stop coming.

[roadman65]

Another con is when you get a text saying " Hello is Bill there? Or is Brian available?"   You respond kindly to inform them they got the wrong number to only say that they're sorry followed by " Oh BTW I'm Megan or Shiela or some name"  and try to start a conversation.

My wife once answered a "wrong number" text message, and the other person started sending her naked pictures of (supposedly) herself.  When my wife told her she was happily married to her husband, the pictures didn't immediately stop coming.

What's worse is when a minor answers the text.

[abefroman329]

I'm picky about facing paper money.  I always un-dogear my bills and make sure they're all facing the same way in my wallet.  I also sort them from highest to lowest denomination.

Same.

And option 1 is the correct answer.

[kphoger]

When you poop, but then afterward you're only about 60% sure there isn't more to come out.

Wipe, or wait?  Waste TP and run the risk of a clog, or just waste time sitting there for no reason?

[abefroman329]

Probably depends where I'm headed post-BM.  If I'm about to get in the car and drive to California, then I'll sit for a few more minutes.

[1995hoo]

FedEx and UPS drivers' refusal to knock on the door. I know they're trained not to spend time looking for the doorbell. But it's quite annoying when the FedEx driver leaves a perishable package on your stoop in direct sunlight and does nothing at all to let you know it arrived. Thankfully, I had the tracking page open and I refreshed it periodically, so the package only sat outside for about ten minutes and no harm was done (this time, at least).

[kphoger]

Some of the most common deliveries to our house are groceries (EveryPlate), whose cold pack can sweat through the cardboard, and bars of wax (my wife sells Scentsy), which can have the oils separate out.

[ZLoth]

FedEx and UPS drivers' refusal to knock on the door. I know they're trained not to spend time looking for the doorbell. But it's quite annoying when the FedEx driver leaves a perishable package on your stoop in direct sunlight and does nothing at all to let you know it arrived. Thankfully, I had the tracking page open and I refreshed it periodically, so the package only sat outside for about ten minutes and no harm was done (this time, at least).

It makes me wish there was a Alexa skill for both UPS and Fedex packages to announce when they arrive.

[abefroman329]

FedEx and UPS drivers' refusal to knock on the door. I know they're trained not to spend time looking for the doorbell. But it's quite annoying when the FedEx driver leaves a perishable package on your stoop in direct sunlight and does nothing at all to let you know it arrived. Thankfully, I had the tracking page open and I refreshed it periodically, so the package only sat outside for about ten minutes and no harm was done (this time, at least).

It makes me wish there was a Alexa skill for both UPS and Fedex packages to announce when they arrive.

You can sign up for text alerts with both companies and you'll get an alert shortly after the package arrives (usually).

[hbelkins]

When you poop, but then afterward you're only about 60% sure there isn't more to come out.

Wipe, or wait?  Waste TP and run the risk of a clog, or just waste time sitting there for no reason?

Wipe, flush, and then continue to sit for a bit longer just to make sure.

[Amaury]

As soon as it's done charging since it was at 15%, I get to go through and manually readd my 44 contacts on my Android phone, because sometime overnight–and I went to bed around 4:30 AM–all of my contacts decided to just disappear from my phone, and I have literally no idea how or why it happened. They're still there if I go to my Google Contacts online, but I have tried everything to sync things and such, and nothing has worked. I've tried exporting the CSV file, but it won't let me choose it when choosing import from file on my phone, I have tried turning off both the overall sync option and the Contacts sync option and reenabling them, and I have tried restarting my phone. I've also manually performed a sync and checked for updates–there are currently no updates available as everything is up-to-date. Nothing has worked. The sync is working and not throwing any errors, it's just not syncing contacts to my device. They're not missing, as mentioned, they're still there. I just cannot get them on my phone. Messages and everything are all still there, just showing as numbers instead of the name of the person.

When I do finally get these manually readded, I'm going to have copies so this doesn't happen again. I'm going to have contacts on Google Contacts, as I do know, and also have them directly on my device. So frustrating.

[kphoger]

A lot of currencies have been doing the "portrait orientation" thing because that's the orientation that bills are usually in when they're handed from one person to another, and often the way they're stored in money tills.

I'm not opposed to it in general.  But, when they issued a portrait-orientation 200 MXN bill back in 2009, everything that was still landscape was at least the same landscape, so there was still a "right" way to face them in my wallet.

[gonealookin]

My real name is My Name, and I have a Gmail account that is:  myname@gmail.com.

There are other people in the United States named My Name.  "My" is pretty common but fortunately "Name" has an odd spelling and is not common.  I get e-mails pretty regularly addressed to "my.name@gmail.com", because Gmail ignores the period.  I can't imagine the other My Names are giving out "my.name@gmail.com" as their own e-mail address.  Do people just guess "I'm trying to reach My Name in Wisconsin so I'll take a shot at my.name@gmail.com?

Usually I just delete the e-mails manually.  If I notice the same sender is sending them repeatedly (I'm looking at you, Ohio Republican Party) I set up a filter to automatically send those to the trash.  One of these people did have an investment account though, and that company kept sending me his e-mails.  It might have been tempting to click the "I forgot my password" link, but eventually and before I stupidly did that, I finally sent my own e-mail to customer service of that investment company telling them they probably ought to solve that issue.

[formulanone]

The Mexican 100-peso bill.

Wow, that is annoying. I shared your post with someone I used to work with as a cashier and she felt the same way. I would probably just go with option 2 with the "reverse" facing me, since large, easy to read numbers in the upper left corner is the most functional option for bills stored in a wallet.

A lot of currencies have been doing the "portrait orientation" thing because that's the orientation that bills are usually in when they're handed from one person to another, and often the way they're stored in money tills. But I feel like the solution to that isn't to make the bill all confusing to orient, it's to just accommodate for that with extra markings, like this:

Please tell me you put you initials somewhere hidden in that design, like Victor David Brennen.

[J N Winkler]

Please tell me you put you initials somewhere hidden in that design, like Victor David Brennen.

I like how he worked in the I-69 trident.

[J N Winkler]

My real name is My Name, and I have a Gmail account that is:  myname@gmail.com.

There are other people in the United States named My Name.  "My" is pretty common but fortunately "Name" has an odd spelling and is not common.  I get e-mails pretty regularly addressed to "my.name@gmail.com", because Gmail ignores the period.  I can't imagine the other My Names are giving out "my.name@gmail.com" as their own e-mail address.  Do people just guess "I'm trying to reach My Name in Wisconsin so I'll take a shot at my.name@gmail.com?

Usually I just delete the e-mails manually.  If I notice the same sender is sending them repeatedly (I'm looking at you, Ohio Republican Party) I set up a filter to automatically send those to the trash.  One of these people did have an investment account though, and that company kept sending me his e-mails.  It might have been tempting to click the "I forgot my password" link, but eventually and before I stupidly did that, I finally sent my own e-mail to customer service of that investment company telling them they probably ought to solve that issue.

I have the same problem, with the added complication that the combination of first and last name is more common than it looks.  I do use the form with period, however.

Since I nearly always give my email address in writing, I have a filter that sends emails without the period straight to trash.  Periodically I go through them to hunt for unsubscribe links--I don't hesitate to use them even for email subscriptions others have set up (the less dross I have taking up my quota, even temporarily, the better).  The ones that pass the filter usually come from recruiters, and when I've tried to ignore them, they follow up, so now I tell them straight out that they have the wrong person.

As for how these misdirected emails happen:

*  Yes, I do suspect there is a certain amount of speculatively assuming a person is FirstName LastName at Gmail (with or without dot).

*  Some people use others' email addresses as spamtraps.  I find this has become far less common now that email verification has become the norm.

*  One of my doubles has the middle initial D, which he uses in his email address where I have the period in mine.  I hypothesize that when he says his email out loud, the "D" is sometimes heard as "dot."

*  I think there may be a certain amount of resentment since I got my Gmail address back when they were available by invitation only and thus gazumphed all of the others with my first and last names who might have wanted to have my address.  If I had to do it over again, I would think hard about using a username with a number in it, so that all of the "firstname lastname" guesses and spamtrap use bypass my inbox.

I don't often use password recovery to take over an account that is generating unwanted email.  I last did so for Mebis, which is an online learning platform run by the state government in Bavaria, Germany.  Someone from the Balkans named Deja Winkler had used my email with it, probably as a spamtrap.  Every so often I would receive big bursts of email connected to what appeared to be a course in conversational English (ironically enough, given the subject matter, they were all in German).  There was no unsubscribe link (no CAN-SPAM in Europe) and the sender was always identified as "(Person) über Mebis" with a no-reply address.

I recovered the password, changed it, and also changed the email associated with the account to a fictional address, which I was able to do because the server had no email verification.  I checked Mebis just now and got a SSO login prompt, so it looks like they have cleaned up their security, which was frankly long overdue.

A year or two ago, someone tried to use my email address to set up an account that could commit money--I think it was for a crypto exchange of some kind.  I got in touch with the site owners immediately and asked them not just to close that account, but also to take steps to prevent any others being opened with the same address.

[Scott5114]

Please tell me you put you initials somewhere hidden in that design, like Victor David Brennen.

I like how he worked in the I-69 trident.

I don't deserve any credit for the map portion; it's from Wikimedia Commons, and the only thing I added to it was I-49. The base map was made by SPUI and the I-69 trident was added by a user named Clorox.

[LilianaUwU]

(my wife sells Scentsy)

MLMs bother me.

[mgk920]

I'm kind of bothered by the fact that common USA coins now are worth so little that they're essentially useless.  Today, the most that I can buy with one quarter is 15 minutes of time from a downtown Appleton, WI parking meter or 7 minutes of time from a dryer and a nearby laundry that I often use.  That laundry also now charges $3 and more to run an average load of laundry in their medium sized washers.  C'mon guys, give us some coins (ie, 50¢, $1, $2, $5, etc) that we can actually USE in our everyday lives (and get rid of the even more useless pennies, nickels and dimes)!



Mike