Minor things that bother you

[jakeroot]

In the Central States board, "Iowa Notes" is the only pinned topic with "notes" after the state name.

I find it odd it says "Central States" and not just "Central", none of the other regions have "States" in the name.

[tchafe1978]

Mirror images of photos. Mainly when I see a photo of someone wearing a shirt with some writing or other graphic on it and it is backwards.

It's usually a selfie. Selfies will often times be mirror images unless the person taking the picture changes the settings.

[mgk920]

Mirror images of photos. Mainly when I see a photo of someone wearing a shirt with some writing or other graphic on it and it is backwards.

I all them 'Lazy Selfies' (cues: The Chainsmokers).

Mike

[hbelkins]

Selfies.

[Scott5114]

In the Central States board, "Iowa Notes" is the only pinned topic with "notes" after the state name.

I find it odd it says "Central States" and not just "Central", none of the other regions have "States" in the name.

None of the other region names are also the name of a time zone.

[jakeroot]

In the Central States board, "Iowa Notes" is the only pinned topic with "notes" after the state name.

I find it odd it says "Central States" and not just "Central", none of the other regions have "States" in the name.

None of the other region names are also the name of a time zone.

Well, okay. But then why would someone assume "Central" would mean everything in central time zone, when none of the other regions are time zones?

Also...

[Scott5114]

Because Central Time is central to human existence. Duh.

This is also why we don't call it UTF-8 or whatever. Cause that would be silly.

(For real, I don't ever use the plus or minus numbers because despite living in the same time zone for thirty-three years I still can never remember which one corresponds to Central Time...and it doesn't help that it changes twice a year, either. And it looks like whoever made the meme has problems with it too, since now that I'm looking it up, Central Time is UTC-6 during standard time and UTC-5 during summer; it's never UTC-7!)

[hotdogPi]

(For real, I don't ever use the plus or minus numbers because despite living in the same time zone for thirty-three years I still can never remember which one corresponds to Central Time...and it doesn't help that it changes twice a year, either. And it looks like whoever made the meme has problems with it too, since now that I'm looking it up, Central Time is UTC-6 during standard time and UTC-5 during summer; it's never UTC-7!)

You were very active on Wikipedia for several years. You didn't know the offset between your time and Wikipedia time?

[jakeroot]

(For real, I don't ever use the plus or minus numbers because despite living in the same time zone for thirty-three years I still can never remember which one corresponds to Central Time...and it doesn't help that it changes twice a year, either. And it looks like whoever made the meme has problems with it too, since now that I'm looking it up, Central Time is UTC-6 during standard time and UTC-5 during summer; it's never UTC-7!)

I made the meme. I'm the idiot

I guess...point taken.

As a side-note, living in UTC+9, it's very important for me to know the time offsets when contacting the US. Though it helps I already knew the offsets (or...so I thought lol).

[SSOWorld]

Because Central Time is central to human existence. Duh.

This is also why we don't call it UTF-8 or whatever. Cause that would be silly.

(For real, I don't ever use the plus or minus numbers because despite living in the same time zone for thirty-three years I still can never remember which one corresponds to Central Time...and it doesn't help that it changes twice a year, either. And it looks like whoever made the meme has problems with it too, since now that I'm looking it up, Central Time is UTC-6 during standard time and UTC-5 during summer; it's never UTC-7!)

define "standard".  What it really means may surprise you.

[ZLoth]

The amount of whining people do when a "BLUE ALERT" (law enforcement) goes off at 11:16 PM and 6:38 AM Central Time and their mobile phones are waking then up.

Initial: https://twitter.com/TX_Alerts/status/1692019249349325210
1st Update: https://twitter.com/TX_Alerts/status/1692047190036808184
2nd Update: https://twitter.com/TX_Alerts/status/1692120260281786522

This went off for the entire state of Texas, including El Paso.

[US 89]

Big states should really have a way of localizing these kinds of things more. I live in Tallahassee and routinely get amber alerts and such for events that occurred all the way down in Miami, which is a 7 hour drive away. For stuff that happens that far away, anything that warrants warning me should really hold off until authorities decide it's necessary to expand the alerts into Georgia.

[CtrlAltDel]

The amount of whining people do when a "BLUE ALERT" (law enforcement) goes off at 11:16 PM and 6:38 AM Central Time and their mobile phones are waking then up.

I can't really agree with this one. If you were more than about fifty miles away from the 13600 block of Homestead Road in Houston last night, the blue alert was a pointless interruption.

[ZLoth]

The amount of whining people do when a "BLUE ALERT" (law enforcement) goes off at 11:16 PM and 6:38 AM Central Time and their mobile phones are waking then up.

I can't really agree with this one. If you were more than about fifty miles away from the 13600 block of Homestead Road in Houston last night, the blue alert was a pointless interruption.

The actual incident occurred at 7:30 PM, and the Blue Alert occurred at 11:15 PM... almost four hours (yes, I'm rounding). That's enough time to drive to DFW, San Antonio, Austin, or Corpus Christi. So, not pointless, although I'm not likely to be driving around at 11:15 PM on a weekday night unless I had a extreme case of the munchies that only WhatABurger or Taco Hell can fix.

[CtrlAltDel]

The amount of whining people do when a "BLUE ALERT" (law enforcement) goes off at 11:16 PM and 6:38 AM Central Time and their mobile phones are waking then up.

I can't really agree with this one. If you were more than about fifty miles away from the 13600 block of Homestead Road in Houston last night, the blue alert was a pointless interruption.

The actual incident occurred at 7:30 PM, and the Blue Alert occurred at 11:!5 PM... almost four hours (yes, I'm rounding). That's enough time to drive to DFW, San Antonio, Austin, or Corpus Christi. So, not pointless, although I'm not likely to be driving around at 11:15 PM on a weekday night unless I had a extreme case of the munchies that only WhatABurger or Taco Hell can fix.

True, but by that point, really, at least in my view, the threat is too diffuse to justify the alert, especially for the late hour.

11:!5 PM.

Exciting times we live in. 

[1995hoo]

I disabled the amber alerts, silver alerts, etc., on both our phones after they went off at 3:00 AM when we were staying at a hotel in Port Wentworth, Georgia, en route to Florida. The alerts were useless from our point of view because we had no idea where they were talking about anyway.

I did leave the emergency alerts for things like weather active, and earlier this week our phones both sounded exceptionally loud alerts when we were under a tornado warning (freaked my wife out as she was hitting the head at the time and she heard our phones blow up through the bathroom door). Not that I did anything in response to the tornado warning, but it was good info to have, and I noted how loud the alert was even though I have the silent switch activated and my ringer volume turned all the way to the lowest possible setting.

[mgk920]

I (here in Appleton WI) also get somewhat annoyed about the very occasional amber and silver alerts from Milwaukee, WI.  Not often, though (they only come about one every 5-6 months or so max).

Mike

[J N Winkler]

This thread is actually the first time I've heard of blue alerts, though it appears the Kansas Bureau of Investigation has had the legal capability to issue them since 2014.

My Android phone has a "crisis alerts" setting that I keep turned off; this allows me to continue receiving NWS weather-related notifications.  I normally don't sleep in the same room as my phone, so it is not like emergency alerts (of whatever color or metal) are bothering me.  However, I am less likely than the bulk of the population to be in a position to act on them, and on the occasions when I am, the alerts also appear on VMS.

[CtrlAltDel]

Another thing that really bothers me is when they pave a highway in concrete and the seem between two longitudinal sections doesn't follow the lane lines but appears in the middle of a lane, as can happen in the center lane of a three-lane section.

[ZLoth]

I have "Extreme Threats" and "Severe Threats" enabled on my phone. Unfortunately, because "Amber Alerts" happen too often, they are disabled.

[webny99]

When did the first day of school move from "just after Labor Day" to "beginning of August"?

When you moved to Texas. First day of school being in early- to mid-August is just how the Plains does things.

I was similarly weirded out by the concept of the first day of school being around Labor Day when I was first exposed to the idea, since it was always in mid-August for me. Likewise, it's weird that other states' schools get out for the year sometime in June; in Oklahoma school normally lets out the week before Memorial Day.

The "minor thing that bothers me" about this is that it means Labor Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the west/plains states, and Memorial Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the eastern states. That means July 4th is the only summer holiday that's truly nationwide, which is pretty bizarre.

(By contrast, Canada has three true summer holidays [Canada Day, Civic Day, and Labor Day] plus an unofficial start of summer holiday [Victoria Day] and an unofficial end of summer holiday [Thanksgiving] which both occur during the school year.)

[Scott5114]

(For real, I don't ever use the plus or minus numbers because despite living in the same time zone for thirty-three years I still can never remember which one corresponds to Central Time...and it doesn't help that it changes twice a year, either. And it looks like whoever made the meme has problems with it too, since now that I'm looking it up, Central Time is UTC-6 during standard time and UTC-5 during summer; it's never UTC-7!)

You were very active on Wikipedia for several years. You didn't know the offset between your time and Wikipedia time?

During the time I was most active, I had the gadget that displayed the current time in UTC in the corner of the screen, next to the login links and such.

In general, my method for dealing with UTC is about the same as dealing with metric–for those things that are in metric, measure in metric, and for those things that are in American, measure in American, and don't ever try to convert between the two.

Fortunately, the wiki I'm most active on now has its clock set to Eastern time...

[TheHighwayMan3561]

The "minor thing that bothers me" about this is that it means Labor Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the west/plains states, and Memorial Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the eastern states. That means July 4th is the only summer holiday that's truly nationwide, which is pretty bizarre.

(By contrast, Canada has three true summer holidays [Canada Day, Civic Day, and Labor Day] plus an unofficial start of summer holiday [Victoria Day] and an unofficial end of summer holiday [Thanksgiving] which both occur during the school year.)

From my own experiences I never really thought of Labor Day as a "summer holiday" because it's the end of summer from a social perspective as mindsets turned to school and the coming of fall and winter.  Labor Day is the final day of the Minnesota State Fair, which probably adds to that mindset for me.

[webny99]

The "minor thing that bothers me" about this is that it means Labor Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the west/plains states, and Memorial Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the eastern states. That means July 4th is the only summer holiday that's truly nationwide, which is pretty bizarre.

(By contrast, Canada has three true summer holidays [Canada Day, Civic Day, and Labor Day] plus an unofficial start of summer holiday [Victoria Day] and an unofficial end of summer holiday [Thanksgiving] which both occur during the school year.)

From my own experiences I never really thought of Labor Day as a "summer holiday" because it's the end of summer from a social perspective as mindsets turned to school and the coming of fall and winter.  Labor Day is the final day of the Minnesota State Fair, which probably adds to that mindset for me.

When do public schools restart in Minnesota? I thought it was August but maybe I'm getting confused with ND.

Here, public schools don't restart until the day after Labor Day, which usually has warm weather, so it's the traditional final chance for families to travel somewhere for the weekend, go to the beach, or do any other strictly "summer" activities. Interestingly, Labor Day is also the last day of the NY State Fair in Syracuse, but I see that as a late summer event too.

Memorial Day, by contrast, is during the school year, so weekend travel is limited or condensed for anyone with kids, plus it's usually before beach season in the Great Lakes (meaning before the lakes have flipped to warmer temperatures).

[JayhawkCO]

The "minor thing that bothers me" about this is that it means Labor Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the west/plains states, and Memorial Day isn't a true "summer holiday" in the eastern states. That means July 4th is the only summer holiday that's truly nationwide, which is pretty bizarre.

(By contrast, Canada has three true summer holidays [Canada Day, Civic Day, and Labor Day] plus an unofficial start of summer holiday [Victoria Day] and an unofficial end of summer holiday [Thanksgiving] which both occur during the school year.)

From my own experiences I never really thought of Labor Day as a "summer holiday" because it's the end of summer from a social perspective as mindsets turned to school and the coming of fall and winter.  Labor Day is the final day of the Minnesota State Fair, which probably adds to that mindset for me.

When do public schools restart in Minnesota? I thought it was August but maybe I'm getting confused with ND.

Here, public schools don't restart until the day after Labor Day, which usually has warm weather, so it's the traditional final chance for families to travel somewhere for the weekend, go to the beach, or do any other strictly "summer" activities. Interestingly, Labor Day is also the last day of the NY State Fair in Syracuse, but I see that as a late summer event too.

Memorial Day, by contrast, is during the school year, so weekend travel is limited or condensed for anyone with kids, plus it's usually before beach season in the Great Lakes (meaning before the lakes have flipped to warmer temperatures).

I'm not sure if it's changed in the ~30 years since, but when I was a kid in Minnesota, school started similarly to yours, right after Labor Day.