Minor things that bother you

[kphoger]

Smoke detectors that are hard-wired into electric.

You burn something in the oven, the smoke detector goes off, you pop the battery out, it doesn't stop.

[1995hoo]

I do all the laundry in our house except for some things my wife hand-washes. I insist on doing the laundry because she doesn't read care tags (I found one of her tops in the laundry basket when the care tag said "dry clean only") and because I have some things I don't put in the dryer and it would not be easy for anyone other than me to figure out which things those are.

My co-worker puts all of her clothes in the wash, no matter if the tag says "dry clean only" or not.  She reports that, about 75% of the time, there's no problem.  Her understanding is that, if the clothes get damaged that way, they would have been more trouble than they're worth.

I like how she thinks

I have a problem that I have pens in my pockets and i'll check them 3 times but once a year one winds up in there and destroys my shirts.  as of this week I'm washing my shirts separately

The biggest argument we had about laundry was back in 2010 or 2011 shortly after we got married. Some of my wife's t-shirts developed holes and she accused me of either having a defective laundry machine or doing the laundry incorrectly. After a couple of rounds of arguing, I guessed what the problem might be: I took one of her rear-closing bras and held it up to the shirt where the holes were. Sure enough, the hooks matched the holes exactly. Even though I closed all the hooks before doing the laundry, they came undone and snagged on things. My wife conceded the point and got a tightly-woven mesh bag at Bed Bath & Beyond and her bras now go in that so they won't snag on anything. Problem solved.

About 1 am last night one of the smoke detectors started chirping.

Often it's a low battery; but we replaced the battery and it's still chirping. Some detectors are fussy about the specific battery and will chirp if they're pissed off, as this one is doing. Or, it could be too old and needs replacing and will continually chirp until you do that. (Home Depot's not open at 1 am.) Some online sources say that detectors might remember an error state, and even after you replace the battery they'll continue chirping (why???) until (are you fucking kidding me) you remove power at the circuit breaker, go to the detector (in the dark; you cut the power), and hold a reset button for 15-20 seconds.

I think the villain in the next John Wick movie should be Smoke Detector Inventor Guy. John doesn't kill him; he keeps him alive (and awake) for a long, long time.

One of our smoke detectors started beeping once and it required a 9-volt battery, which I didn't have. I wound up taking the thing off the ceiling and sticking it in the garage for a day or two (until I got to a store to buy batteries) so I wouldn't hear the beeping. Removing the battery wasn't enough to solve the problem because it continued to beep.

Smoke detectors that are hard-wired into electric.

You burn something in the oven, the smoke detector goes off, you pop the battery out, it doesn't stop.

I once generated enough smoke in the kitchen that I set a fan in the kitchen door blowing into the kitchen (away from the smoke detector, which is in the dining room) so the smoke wouldn't reach the detector. More typically I'll set a fan in the kitchen window blowing outside so as to try to suck the smoke out of the kitchen.

[mgk920]

Younger people (mainly later millennials and later) constantly changing their tune players after every song, or even before each song file has finished playing.  Double demerits if they are constantly yelling these song changing instructions at an Alexa player - *THAT* is über-annoying, especially at work!



(This really makes me appreciate decent radio stations and tune player playlists!)

Mike

That's because we grew up on iPods and iTunes.  Back then, we'd buy and play individual songs - that said, song view on an iPod and the iTunes library both put everything you own into one giant playlist, necessitating pausing or changing the song after each one - it would jump to whatever was next with respect to how it organized the list otherwise.  The idea of popping in a CD and listening to a whole album start to finish is mostly foreign to us, though some hipsters will do that with records.

I haven't bought physical music (except for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and even then only for the stories in the liner notes) in ages.

I set my iPod (a bit of 20K files) to play files at random from its entire library.  That's in my car.  Otherwise it is listenable OTA radio stations.

Mike

[DaBigE]

Younger people (mainly later millennials and later) constantly changing their tune players after every song, or even before each song file has finished playing.  Double demerits if they are constantly yelling these song changing instructions at an Alexa player - *THAT* is über-annoying, especially at work!



(This really makes me appreciate decent radio stations and tune player playlists!)

Mike

That's because we grew up on iPods and iTunes.  Back then, we'd buy and play individual songs - that said, song view on an iPod and the iTunes library both put everything you own into one giant playlist, necessitating pausing or changing the song after each one - it would jump to whatever was next with respect to how it organized the list otherwise.  The idea of popping in a CD and listening to a whole album start to finish is mostly foreign to us, though some hipsters will do that with records.

I haven't bought physical music (except for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and even then only for the stories in the liner notes) in ages.

That's what creating custom playlists is for. Until now, I thought that was a more common practice. Even the oldest/cheapest of players would auto-create playlists based on album or artist.

[crt08]

About 1 am last night one of the smoke detectors started chirping.

Often it's a low battery; but we replaced the battery and it's still chirping. Some detectors are fussy about the specific battery and will chirp if they're pissed off, as this one is doing. Or, it could be too old and needs replacing and will continually chirp until you do that. (Home Depot's not open at 1 am.) Some online sources say that detectors might remember an error state, and even after you replace the battery they'll continue chirping (why???) until (are you fucking kidding me) you remove power at the circuit breaker, go to the detector (in the dark; you cut the power), and hold a reset button for 15-20 seconds.

I think the villain in the next John Wick movie should be Smoke Detector Inventor Guy. John doesn't kill him; he keeps him alive (and awake) for a long, long time.

Lately when I go for a walk on my street, I can hear a smoke detector chirping. The first day or so I thought "oh, they must not be able to reach it because of vaulted ceilings or something,"
but now it's been going on for several weeks. I can't imagine putting up with that for more than a day at the most.

[texaskdog]

I do all the laundry in our house except for some things my wife hand-washes. I insist on doing the laundry because she doesn’t read care tags (I found one of her tops in the laundry basket when the care tag said "dry clean only") and because I have some things I don’t put in the dryer and it would not be easy for anyone other than me to figure out which things those are.

My co-worker puts all of her clothes in the wash, no matter if the tag says "dry clean only" or not.  She reports that, about 75% of the time, there's no problem.  Her understanding is that, if the clothes get damaged that way, they would have been more trouble than they're worth.

I like how she thinks

I have a problem that I have pens in my pockets and i'll check them 3 times but once a year one winds up in there and destroys my shirts.  as of this week I'm washing my shirts separately

The biggest argument we had about laundry was back in 2010 or 2011 shortly after we got married. Some of my wife's t-shirts developed holes and she accused me of either having a defective laundry machine or doing the laundry incorrectly. After a couple of rounds of arguing, I guessed what the problem might be: I took one of her rear-closing bras and held it up to the shirt where the holes were. Sure enough, the hooks matched the holes exactly. Even though I closed all the hooks before doing the laundry, they came undone and snagged on things. My wife conceded the point and got a tightly-woven mesh bag at Bed Bath & Beyond and her bras now go in that so they won't snag on anything. Problem solved.

About 1 am last night one of the smoke detectors started chirping.

Often it's a low battery; but we replaced the battery and it's still chirping. Some detectors are fussy about the specific battery and will chirp if they're pissed off, as this one is doing. Or, it could be too old and needs replacing and will continually chirp until you do that. (Home Depot's not open at 1 am.) Some online sources say that detectors might remember an error state, and even after you replace the battery they'll continue chirping (why???) until (are you fucking kidding me) you remove power at the circuit breaker, go to the detector (in the dark; you cut the power), and hold a reset button for 15-20 seconds.

I think the villain in the next John Wick movie should be Smoke Detector Inventor Guy. John doesn't kill him; he keeps him alive (and awake) for a long, long time.

One of our smoke detectors started beeping once and it required a 9-volt battery, which I didn't have. I wound up taking the thing off the ceiling and sticking it in the garage for a day or two (until I got to a store to buy batteries) so I wouldn't hear the beeping. Removing the battery wasn't enough to solve the problem because it continued to beep.

Smoke detectors that are hard-wired into electric.

You burn something in the oven, the smoke detector goes off, you pop the battery out, it doesn't stop.

I once generated enough smoke in the kitchen that I set a fan in the kitchen door blowing into the kitchen (away from the smoke detector, which is in the dining room) so the smoke wouldn't reach the detector. More typically I'll set a fan in the kitchen window blowing outside so as to try to suck the smoke out of the kitchen.

My ex gf said the laundry was destroying her shirts at stomach level.  Turns out she kept rubbing up to the table at work.

[kphoger]

Lately when I go for a walk on my street, I can hear a smoke detector chirping. The first day or so I thought "oh, they must not be able to reach it because of vaulted ceilings or something,"
but now it's been going on for several weeks. I can't imagine putting up with that for more than a day at the most.

Sure it's not in a vacant house?

My ex gf said the laundry was destroying her shirts at stomach level.  Turns out she kept rubbing up to the table at work.

This is true of practically all my wife's shirts.

It doesn't help that women's shirts are made of such poorer quality to men's shirts.

[roadman]

Smoke detectors that are hard-wired into electric.

You burn something in the oven, the smoke detector goes off, you pop the battery out, it doesn't stop.

Which is precisely why most building codes now require smoke detectors to be hard-wired into the electrical system.  Because many people were injured or killed because someone decided - for whatever reason - to remove the battery from the smoke detector.  Hard wiring also means that when one detector goes off, they all go off.  Personally, I find it reassuring that if a fire were to start in the basement, I would be warned about it before it reached the smoke detector outside my bedroom.

[US 89]

When a light is controlled by multiple switches and there's no way to turn it off with every switch in the down position.

[DaBigE]

When a light is controlled by multiple switches and there's no way to turn it off with every switch in the down position.

Without whipping out a screwdriver

[Beltway]

Which is precisely why most building codes now require smoke detectors to be hard-wired into the electrical system.  Because many people were injured or killed because someone decided - for whatever reason - to remove the battery from the smoke detector.  Hard wiring also means that when one detector goes off, they all go off.  Personally, I find it reassuring that if a fire were to start in the basement, I would be warned about it before it reached the smoke detector outside my bedroom.

How does that help during power outages?

[Ben114]

About 1 am last night one of the smoke detectors started chirping.

Often it's a low battery; but we replaced the battery and it's still chirping. Some detectors are fussy about the specific battery and will chirp if they're pissed off, as this one is doing. Or, it could be too old and needs replacing and will continually chirp until you do that. (Home Depot's not open at 1 am.) Some online sources say that detectors might remember an error state, and even after you replace the battery they'll continue chirping (why???) until (are you fucking kidding me) you remove power at the circuit breaker, go to the detector (in the dark; you cut the power), and hold a reset button for 15-20 seconds.

I think the villain in the next John Wick movie should be Smoke Detector Inventor Guy. John doesn't kill him; he keeps him alive (and awake) for a long, long time.

In my house, we have four smoke detectors right near each other, so when one goes chirping, nobody knows which one it is.

[vdeane]

Which is precisely why most building codes now require smoke detectors to be hard-wired into the electrical system.  Because many people were injured or killed because someone decided - for whatever reason - to remove the battery from the smoke detector.  Hard wiring also means that when one detector goes off, they all go off.  Personally, I find it reassuring that if a fire were to start in the basement, I would be warned about it before it reached the smoke detector outside my bedroom.

How does that help during power outages?

That's what the battery is for.  I do wonder, though - with a hard-wired detector, what does someone do if it's set off by burnt cooking?

[dlsterner]

Which is precisely why most building codes now require smoke detectors to be hard-wired into the electrical system.  Because many people were injured or killed because someone decided - for whatever reason - to remove the battery from the smoke detector.  Hard wiring also means that when one detector goes off, they all go off.  Personally, I find it reassuring that if a fire were to start in the basement, I would be warned about it before it reached the smoke detector outside my bedroom.

How does that help during power outages?

That's what the battery is for.  I do wonder, though - with a hard-wired detector, what does someone do if it's set off by burnt cooking?

There's often a "hush" button that will silence the alarm for a fixed period of time - presumably so that you have some time to clear the smoke out of the kitchen.

[J N Winkler]

How to silence a smoke detector when there is no fire

Professional fire detection installations frequently use a heat (not smoke) detector in the kitchen to ensure cooking smoke doesn't give rise to a false alarm.  This approach works best when there is a door that can be shut to isolate the kitchen from smoke detectors elsewhere in the house, however.

[kphoger]

Which is precisely why most building codes now require smoke detectors to be hard-wired into the electrical system.  Because many people were injured or killed because someone decided - for whatever reason - to remove the battery from the smoke detector.  Hard wiring also means that when one detector goes off, they all go off.  Personally, I find it reassuring that if a fire were to start in the basement, I would be warned about it before it reached the smoke detector outside my bedroom.

How to silence a smoke detector when there is no fire

Yeah, well, hard-wiring has had the opposite effect in our family.  The hassle of figuring out how to disarm a hard-wired smoke detector has, in the past, made my wife and me much less likely to even use the darned things.  When the batteries would go dead, we used to simply remove the smoke detectors and leave them somewhere.  That made life less annoying.  Over time, the number of detectors in our house that were actually working gradually decreased.  Then, when we went through the process of applying for a home daycare license, we of course had to get them all batteried-up an hooked up again.  But, during that in-between time, the practice of hard-wiring smoke detectors made our family less safe.

[Max Rockatansky]

I kind of don't like it when people ask me about work, but I've come to accept it's basically how people in my Wife's family ask "how's it going?"   I can't really talk about much from work to begin with due to the nature of it and when I'm off I like to put it out of my mind for life/work balance purposes. 

In that vein somehow I've gotten away with not having a phone or laptop that didn't have my work email on it the past six years.  I used to have both and I absolutely hated being wired into my job during off hours unless I went somewhere remote to hike or camp. 

[kphoger]

I am moderately bothered when people ask me what I do for work as basically the only question they ask me.  That is, they seem to think that's what defines me as a person.

However, I am also moderately bothered when people ask me some other question in order to purposefully avoid doing that exact thing–such as "what do you like to do for fun".

I guess they can't win.

[texaskdog]

I am moderately bothered when people ask me what I do for work as basically the only question they ask me.  That is, they seem to think that's what defines me as a person.

However, I am also moderately bothered when people ask me some other question in order to purposefully avoid doing that exact thing—such as "what do you like to do for fun".

I guess they can't win.

You're a monster!

[Max Rockatansky]

Regarding my Wife's family, they all work blue collar jobs and well over 50-55 hours a week.  In that sense they definitely appear to be very much defined by their work, with my Father in law it's bordering on being a workaholic.  Most people tend to ask about things that they can relate it. 

[SSOWorld]

How are we doing?

I can't speak for you.

[DaBigE]

I am moderately bothered when people ask me what I do for work as basically the only question they ask me.  That is, they seem to think that's what defines me as a person.

I despise being asked that question because 99% of the time it leads to one thing: a debate on roundabouts. And if not a debate, it's "did you do the one in Xyz?" Like I'm the only traffic engineer out there.

Nearly no one is ever like "oooh, that's a cool job," with a deep interest and wide eyes, like someone whose working on medical cure or goes to some exotic location on a regular basis. Their response is more like "oh, so you're the one to blame for all the world's problems".    I haven't enjoyed going to a family function since I graduated from college for that very reason.

[webny99]

I am moderately bothered when people ask me what I do for work as basically the only question they ask me.  That is, they seem to think that's what defines me as a person.

However, I am also moderately bothered when people ask me some other question in order to purposefully avoid doing that exact thing–such as "what do you like to do for fun".

I guess they can't win.

Well, they could ask a few more questions instead of just one.
I'm not a big fan of extended conversation with strangers, though. The longer it gets, the harder it is to end. I prefer to offer whatever information I think is relevant out of the gate and hoping they will do the same. Short and sweet.

[texaskdog]

How are we doing?

I can't speak for you.

Used to work with a guy who had me do all the floor work and would say "where are WE at"....well WE has done a lot what have you done?

[GaryV]

How are we doing?

I can't speak for you.

Or the server asking, "Have we decided?"

I think they teach them that.  Just like they teach them to come back and ask how everything is just as you have a big mouthful of food.