Minor things that bother you

[1995hoo]

^^^
Thank  you for reminding me to investigate how to turn off superscripting of ordinals. I hate when I want to type 2nd or 3rd and Outlook turns it into 2^nd and 3^rd.

In Word, File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat as you type > uncheck the box to replace ordinals with a superscript.

That's one of the first things I change when I have a new copy of Word because the standard in legal citation is not to use the superscript (e.g., 4th Cir., 9th Cir. etc.—although "second" and "third" aren't an issue because legal citation uses "2d" and "3d" and Word doesn't recognize those as ordinals and so doesn't change them).

[vdeane]

I'm the same way—sometimes I worry that it may be a sign I'm getting old and set in my ways. But in many ways 2010 was the start of many of the trends now recognized as enshittification. (Is it really being an old person if it really was objectively better in our day?)

I agree to a point.  I paid for the phone, the TV, and the car, and when those transactions are completed then so also should be all contact.  The websites and social media platforms, maybe not so much.  As has been said for a long time -- if you're not paying for the product then YOU are the product.  These outfits have employees and tons of physical tech equipment, and they don't owe it to anyone so that the massed millions can send memes and cat videos.  Someone's paying for it, and the someones are doing so by purchasing your personal info.

Pay walls on news websites.

Because they owe you the content, right?  See above.

I think I'm too used to news articles being aggregated by things like social media and Google News and choosing them a la carte to go back to the old way of subscribing to one or two newspapers and getting all my news exclusively from them.  Maybe if there was some browser extension or something that would allow me to pay a monthly bill for just what I specifically read?  Otherwise, preserving the current way of browsing would require dozens of subscriptions, which is hardly practical.  It's bad enough I have to do something similar with streaming services (I swear, it now costs more than cable to watch what used to be $7.99/month on Netflix combined with Hulu being free).

Regarding making money by selling personal info - it's disputed whether individually targeted advertising actually makes advertisers money at all.  Of course, once an idea goes viral, it's impossible to dislodge, even if it's wrong.  See also how the streaming wars still rage, despite the fact that every single company that has tried to create their own Netflix has lost money as a result.  The model is a big fat failure, but the companies and investors have convinced themselves that This Is The Way (TM), and no amount of evidence will show them otherwise.  Ads targeted based on the broad demographics that view a site would be much less invasive and I would suspect more profitable.  After all, who buys something based on an ad for something they already bought?

[J N Winkler]

I disagree with the premise that free access to a platform (whether social media or a search engine) necessarily justifies the platform providers' monetizing user data.  Yes, there may be a contract in the narrow technical sense that consideration has been received (free access in exchange for data), but it is grotesquely one-sided because each provider is so much larger than any individual user, and none of us was given a chance to negotiate either how much we give up or what we get in return.  Maybe a fair deal is Facebook paying me a royalty every month on top of free access.  (Does this sound entitled?  Of course it does!  In business you rarely get ahead by negotiating against yourself.)

The concept of enshittification is essentially Cory Doctorow seeking to marketize these and related arguments for consumer-focused regulation.  The underlying concepts are not new.  Roger McNamee (early Facebook investor turned critic of the platform) illustrated just how one-sided the relationship is between Facebook and its users in his book Zucked, and none other than Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web) has made the case for users' ownership of their own data, including full portability.

[GaryV]

As long as they tell you what they're going to do before they do it (and I know, they keep coming up with new stuff as the technology gets more complex), you have the option to either use or not use their services.

[Scott5114]

And by and large, I don't use social media. Partly for this reason, partly because there's not really anything on it that I really care about getting involved in.

[Rothman]

And by and large, I don't use social media. Partly for this reason, partly because there's not really anything on it that I really care about getting involved in.

This forum is social media.

I am on social media because I keep contact with my friends through it.

[J N Winkler]

This forum is social media.

While I know the definition of social media that includes Web forums has gained wide acceptance, I have misgivings about it.  We don't function as an ad pipeline for registered users, we don't have an algorithmically curated endless feed, we are operated by volunteers on a nonprofit basis, we do not monetize user data, our interface is not engineered to exploit the dopamine feedback loop, etc.

[Scott5114]

If you know the name of the person who moderated you, it's not social media.

[roadman65]

And by and large, I don't use social media. Partly for this reason, partly because there's not really anything on it that I really care about getting involved in.

I agree with you. It's the new de facto news as most people on it believe it's is so. I stay away as the last election is still causing friction on it.  People are still accusing others of drinking the Kool aid over the last big presidential fiasco no matter what candidate they supported. It's like people are using it to become childish and have fun at their political nemesis supporters by calling people stupid and such or hellbound as people seem to think the Antichrist is here or the like for the latter remark.

Then recently people in my church on social media are trying to stir up gossip as well because Pope Francis fired Joe Strickland in Texas for whatever reason and some are ranting about that and a previous firing the pope did on another Bishop who got too political in his beliefs ( if it's true or not as I'm not sure of) almost once or twice a week.

So I shed away from it and just post roads or good thoughts and use messenger to communicate.

[1995hoo]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

[elsmere241]

Along those lines, my mail carrier has started putting mail on the chair on the porch.  Never mind that we have a mail slot on the front door, and a screen door in front of that.

[Bruce]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

[vdeane]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

It takes all of one second, if that, to hit the doorbell once you leave the box on the door.  And with the rise in package thefts, I would think that would be an incentive to ensure that someone who's at home would know the package is there.  Plastic might take slightly longer, but not THAT much.  Perhaps we need a law saying that delivery companies are 100% liable for stolen or damaged packages.

[JayhawkCO]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

It takes all of one second, if that, to hit the doorbell once you leave the box on the door.  And with the rise in package thefts, I would think that would be an incentive to ensure that someone who's at home would know the package is there.  Plastic might take slightly longer, but not THAT much.  Perhaps we need a law saying that delivery companies are 100% liable for stolen or damaged packages.

How can they be liable for stolen packages if they're not there when it's stolen?

[jeffandnicole]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

It takes all of one second, if that, to hit the doorbell once you leave the box on the door.  And with the rise in package thefts, I would think that would be an incentive to ensure that someone who's at home would know the package is there.  Plastic might take slightly longer, but not THAT much.  Perhaps we need a law saying that delivery companies are 100% liable for stolen or damaged packages.

Then it would be on the recipient to travel to the shipping warehouse, which is often nowhere convenient, with inconvenient hours, to retrieve their package.  Many people are getting things delivered to avoid going out in the first place, so they'll be a bit unhappy to have to go out anyway to get it.

[ZLoth]

At least with my Amazon shipments, I get a notification on my Echo device that a package has arrived, plus there is a Amazon locker about five minutes away from my home. I wish there was a similar skill for my UPS and FedEx shipments.

[jakeroot]

Minor annoyance related to package deliveries:

In Japan, all deliveries must be signed for. No exceptions. You can have a third party sign for it, but leaving it alone is simply not done.

You probably ask, "Jake, how does it work if you at work during the day?" You get home at night, tell them (usually via LINE app) when you're home (after 16:00 or whatever), and they deliver it either that night or the next night, usually providing a two-hour slot for delivery. You see postal workers here working very late into the night as a result, though not after 23:00 that I've seen.

To avoid this hassle, you can have deliveries sent to secured locations, such as convenience stores (7-Eleven, Family Mart, Lawson, etc).

[1995hoo]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

It takes all of one second, if that, to hit the doorbell once you leave the box on the door.  And with the rise in package thefts, I would think that would be an incentive to ensure that someone who's at home would know the package is there.  Plastic might take slightly longer, but not THAT much.  Perhaps we need a law saying that delivery companies are 100% liable for stolen or damaged packages.

I know UPS drivers are trained not to take the time to look for the doorbell because it's not necessarily always obvious where it is, although traditionally they were trained to knock. In the case of the item I received yesterday, the doorbell was directly above where he put the box and it's big and obvious.

[roadman65]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

It takes all of one second, if that, to hit the doorbell once you leave the box on the door.  And with the rise in package thefts, I would think that would be an incentive to ensure that someone who's at home would know the package is there.  Plastic might take slightly longer, but not THAT much.  Perhaps we need a law saying that delivery companies are 100% liable for stolen or damaged packages.

Then it would be on the recipient to travel to the shipping warehouse, which is often nowhere convenient, with inconvenient hours, to retrieve their package.  Many people are getting things delivered to avoid going out in the first place, so they'll be a bit unhappy to have to go out anyway to get it.

Doesn't Walmart on line let you pull into a local Walmart and you don't even have to get out of your car?  Your merchandise is brought out to you, I am to believe. Or is that another service.?

[ZLoth]

Doesn't Walmart on line let you pull into a local Walmart and you don't even have to get out of your car?  Your merchandise is brought out to you, I am to believe. Or is that another service?

WalMart, Total Wine, Specs, Kroger, Target....

[jeffandnicole]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

It takes all of one second, if that, to hit the doorbell once you leave the box on the door.  And with the rise in package thefts, I would think that would be an incentive to ensure that someone who's at home would know the package is there.  Plastic might take slightly longer, but not THAT much.  Perhaps we need a law saying that delivery companies are 100% liable for stolen or damaged packages.

Then it would be on the recipient to travel to the shipping warehouse, which is often nowhere convenient, with inconvenient hours, to retrieve their package.  Many people are getting things delivered to avoid going out in the first place, so they'll be a bit unhappy to have to go out anyway to get it.

Doesn't Walmart on line let you pull into a local Walmart and you don't even have to get out of your car?  Your merchandise is brought out to you, I am to believe. Or is that another service.?

Yep, but that's not the point here. People order online to have it delivered so they don't have to go out to begin with.

[Scott5114]

Minor annoyance of the day: FedEx/UPS/other delivery services that leave packages out in the rain without wrapping them in plastic and without either knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell (that is plainly visible directly above where the driver left the box). In this case it's minor because the video doorbell told me someone was outside and I looked and saw who it was, so I went and retrieved the box. No damage done. The box contains some reasonably pricey electronics and we have over two inches of rain in the forecast, yet the idiot driver just left it on the stoop fully exposed to the weather with no plastic wrap or anything. They always used to wrap packages in plastic on rainy days. I guess it's yet another sign of the demise of customer service.

They're being pressured to make more deliveries in less time amid worsening traffic conditions. Blame the company, not the driver.

It takes all of one second, if that, to hit the doorbell once you leave the box on the door.  And with the rise in package thefts, I would think that would be an incentive to ensure that someone who's at home would know the package is there.  Plastic might take slightly longer, but not THAT much.  Perhaps we need a law saying that delivery companies are 100% liable for stolen or damaged packages.

Then it would be on the recipient to travel to the shipping warehouse, which is often nowhere convenient, with inconvenient hours, to retrieve their package.  Many people are getting things delivered to avoid going out in the first place, so they'll be a bit unhappy to have to go out anyway to get it.

Doesn't Walmart on line let you pull into a local Walmart and you don't even have to get out of your car?  Your merchandise is brought out to you, I am to believe. Or is that another service.?

Yep, but that's not the point here. People order online to have it delivered so they don't have to go out to begin with.

For me the main advantage of ordering online is being able to find the thing I need with a search bar instead of having to look all over the office supply section, not find it, track down an employee, get told it's in arts & crafts, go there, look all over that section, find out that they actually don't even carry what I'm looking for (or do they and I just missed seeing it), go to a different store, etc. That and not having to dodge idiots not looking where they're pushing their carts. Not having to actually leave the house is just a nice bonus.

[mgk920]

At least with my Amazon shipments, I get a notification on my Echo device that a package has arrived, plus there is a Amazon locker about five minutes away from my home. I wish there was a similar skill for my UPS and FedEx shipments.

Does the USPS' 'Informed Delivery' service work with parcels?

Mike

[J N Winkler]

I basically quit having packages sent to the house when I had a stack of recordable Blu-rays go missing about five years ago.  Since then, I've had packages held at Amazon lockers (free), sent to me general delivery at the downtown post office (free), or sent to a mailbox shop (first package was free; I think the next one cost three dollars to collect).  I don't mind leaving the house to pick up a package because I can often integrate that into an errand chain and the hassle associated with pickup itself is far less than dealing with the aftermath of the package going missing.

However, it does mean I prioritize sellers who have a "fulfilled by Amazon" delivery channel that allows locker pickup.  I don't like to pay to have packages held because that is essentially a delivery cost and I deliberately bundle orders for free shipping without Amazon Prime.  Package carriers also handle USPS general delivery in different ways:  just earlier this month I almost had a shipment go back to the seller after it stalled in "out for delivery" status for close to a month when in fact it was awaiting pickup at the post office.

We had to set up a new checking account about five years ago when bill payments were stolen out of our curbside mailbox less than an hour after we put up the red flag.  Since then, we've had other bill payments fail to show up on the relevant accounts after being dropped into USPS blue boxes at either the Dillons supermarket near us or the downtown post office (where I suspect there is video surveillance).  We are all but certain mailbox fishing is going on.

We've never actually lost money as a result of stolen checks being cashed, or even seen confirmation of attempts to do so.  Nevertheless, we've basically given up on the blue boxes for mailpieces containing checks.  Nowadays I just park and go into the lobby to drop them off, even though this means a trip out to the Wichita GMF near the airport if I miss lobby hours at the downtown PO.

[Bruce]

At least with my Amazon shipments, I get a notification on my Echo device that a package has arrived, plus there is a Amazon locker about five minutes away from my home. I wish there was a similar skill for my UPS and FedEx shipments.

Does the USPS' 'Informed Delivery' service work with parcels?

Mike

It does for some but not all parcels (even from USPS). I have a bunch of email filters just for package deliveries.