Minor things that bother you

[ZLoth]

This also ignores that if the person doesn't have the $1,000 up front. Yes the payback maybe what to some people is a short period of time, but if a person doesn't have the thousand dollars to begin with, they will make due with the cheaper per-month option they already have.

And don't get stuck on the example amount here. If it's $10,000 or $100,000, fact is if the person doesn't have the money, they can't just simply upgrade because the technology is there.

If you are talking $10,000 or $100,000, then obviously you are probably talking about capital equipment here, thus the "Return of Investment (ROI)". And, if that equipment is broken, then there is zero productivity, and negative income if you have people standing around doing NOTHING because there is no work. And quite frankly, if your business is dependent on a $1,000 mission critical equipment that is giving issues, but they cannot "upgrade" it, I would question how the business is managing their finances.

No doubt you aren't buying a new car every time some new technology comes out, or a new phone every time something is improved. Even you have your limits on when you're going to go out and upgrade or purchase something new.

Lets see here.... did you say "new car"? A reasonable assumption would be that a car would last 200k miles provided you take good care of it. While I would love to get a new car for the Android Auto integration, the fact is that my 2013 vehicle which I had purchased in 2014 has only 90k miles on, and is running great. Just change the oil on a regular basis, and do the scheduled maintenance. It also has Bluetooth integration, and is paid off. Thus, the compelling reason to even think about replacing my car is extremely weak.

Mobile phone? Again, a reasonable assumption would be that a smart phone will last three years. New phone generations are introduced on a yearly basis, but the incremental improvements from year to year just isn't that great, but if you cumulate those updates across two-years years, then the difference is more significant. It is also standard industry practice to support a device and provide upgrades for 3-4 years. It also doesn't help that the mobile phone manufacturers no longer allow easy user replacement of the battery. My Pixel 3 phone is having battery life issues, but replacing the battery is nightmarish ("This device is among the most difficult battery replacement process"), and I don't have the necessary equipment. I am looking forward to replacing it with a Pixel 6 phone, and while I would like to pay cash for it, in order to take advantage of the trade-in discount, I have to take advantage of the 0% financing.

Now, lets take a look from another aspect. As far as I can determine, there is no cost to utilize Apple or Google Calendar and Contacts in the cloud. (I'm sure there is a cost elsewhere in this "free" service, but I digress.) I don't know about Apple Calendar, but I live and die by my Google calendar. I can access the calendar from a web browser, my smart phone, and my tablet. My appointment details can include an address which can I launch into Google maps, and I can share my appointment details with another person, and automatically provide updates when the details change. For hotel and event registrations, often they provide a ICS file to import into the calendar if not a direct add link. The only change I have to make to my methods is that I have to stop thinking about "Event starts at 5 PM" and more along the lines of "I have the event blocked out from 5 PM to 6:30 PM". Yet, some people still spend money on paper planners because they don't want to change their habits even through they lost their paper planners several times. 

[kkt]

When restaurants sprinkle some sort of green garnish on top of food. Seriously, this has been an annoying trend in the last few years. It's not just fancy restaurants that do it anymore.

since the garnish is free... could you go into a restaurant and order, say, a plate of garnish and a glass of water?

You could order it, but I wouldn't expect them to bring it to you.  (There's probably a minimum purchase requirement.)

[jeffandnicole]

This also ignores that if the person doesn't have the $1,000 up front. Yes the payback maybe what to some people is a short period of time, but if a person doesn't have the thousand dollars to begin with, they will make due with the cheaper per-month option they already have.

And don't get stuck on the example amount here. If it's $10,000 or $100,000, fact is if the person doesn't have the money, they can't just simply upgrade because the technology is there.

If you are talking $10,000 or $100,000, then obviously you are probably talking about capital equipment here, thus the "Return of Investment (ROI)". And, if that equipment is broken, then there is zero productivity, and negative income if you have people standing around doing NOTHING because there is no work. And quite frankly, if your business is dependent on a $1,000 mission critical equipment that is giving issues, but they cannot "upgrade" it, I would question how the business is managing their finances.

No doubt you aren't buying a new car every time some new technology comes out, or a new phone every time something is improved. Even you have your limits on when you're going to go out and upgrade or purchase something new.

Lets see here.... did you say "new car"? A reasonable assumption would be that a car would last 200k miles provided you take good care of it. While I would love to get a new car for the Android Auto integration, the fact is that my 2013 vehicle which I had purchased in 2014 has only 90k miles on, and is running great. Just change the oil on a regular basis, and do the scheduled maintenance. It also has Bluetooth integration, and is paid off. Thus, the compelling reason to even think about replacing my car is extremely weak.

Mobile phone? Again, a reasonable assumption would be that a smart phone will last three years. New phone generations are introduced on a yearly basis, but the incremental improvements from year to year just isn't that great, but if you cumulate those updates across two-years years, then the difference is more significant. It is also standard industry practice to support a device and provide upgrades for 3-4 years. It also doesn't help that the mobile phone manufacturers no longer allow easy user replacement of the battery. My Pixel 3 phone is having battery life issues, but replacing the battery is nightmarish ("This device is among the most difficult battery replacement process"), and I don't have the necessary equipment. I am looking forward to replacing it with a Pixel 6 phone, and while I would like to pay cash for it, in order to take advantage of the trade-in discount, I have to take advantage of the 0% financing.

Now, lets take a look from another aspect. As far as I can determine, there is no cost to utilize Apple or Google Calendar and Contacts in the cloud. (I'm sure there is a cost elsewhere in this "free" service, but I digress.) I don't know about Apple Calendar, but I live and die by my Google calendar. I can access the calendar from a web browser, my smart phone, and my tablet. My appointment details can include an address which can I launch into Google maps, and I can share my appointment details with another person, and automatically provide updates when the details change. For hotel and event registrations, often they provide a ICS file to import into the calendar if not a direct add link. The only change I have to make to my methods is that I have to stop thinking about "Event starts at 5 PM" and more along the lines of "I have the event blocked out from 5 PM to 6:30 PM". Yet, some people still spend money on paper planners because they don't want to change their habits even through they lost their paper planners several times. 

Did we ever specify if we were talking personal or business?  Even in businesses, a small business in someone's basement may struggle with that $1,000 upgrade.  A startup business needs to prioritize.  It's all relative. 

But then you state the exist opposite for your own needs.  You don't seem to mind pushing costly upgrades on others, but once I mentioned a car, suddenly your 8 year old car is fine, or a 3 year old cell phone is fine.  So you're not all in on needing the lastest technology...only when it suits your preferences.

[ZLoth]

And even in cases where the willingness to upgrade exists, many people stall on transitioning to a new technology until it reaches a subjective threshold of maturity in terms of market availability.  With LED bulbs, for example, it is a lot easier to avoid compromising on color temperature and illumination pattern now than it was five years ago.

I agree, as being an early adopter is extremely challenging. The technology landscape is littered with failed and/or abandoned technology. Any remember Divx discs? HD-DVD? Windows Phone? Amazon's Fire phone? Apple's Newton?

I can understand the product maturity part. The Apple iPhone was released in June, 2007 while the first Android phone was released in October, 2008. The first iPhones didn't even have app support. My first Android phone was a personal graduation gift to myself in December 2010, and even then, it was running Android 2.1 (Eclair). Even at that point, there was significant improvements from Android 1.0 from two years previous. And, even then, it was a few more years of product maturity because I recommended smart phones to my not-so-tech savvy mother.

Did we ever specify if we were talking personal or business?  Even in businesses, a small business in someone's basement may struggle with that $1,000 upgrade. A startup business needs to prioritize. It's all relative. 

But then you state the exist opposite for your own needs. You don't seem to mind pushing costly upgrades on others, but once I mentioned a car, suddenly your 8 year old car is fine, or a 3 year old cell phone is fine. So you're not all in on needing the lastest technology...only when it suits your preferences.

You completely misinterpreted what I have stated. Let me requote what I stated what bothered me and highlight a key phrase:

• People whose mantra is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", even though the technology is technologically obsolete, and it's replacement is both cheaper to operate, more efficient, and more productive. Plus, there is the issue of actually finding the replacement parts.
• In a similar brush stroke, people who cling on to the "old way of doing things", and resist even learning how to do things "the new way" because it is "too different" and perceive it to be "too complicated", even though the "new way", once learned, will be actually faster and less expensive.

A eight-year old car with 90K miles can hardly be called "technologically obsolete", and you can easily obtain replacement parts. My Pixel 3 phone was running Android 11 until I upgraded to Android 12 earlier this week, and all Android apps support Android 11. On the other hand, a ASUS tablet that I got in 2017 never upgraded beyond Android 7 (Nougat), and some apps stopped supporting Android 7 recently, thus it's "technologically obsolete". Another term for "technologically obsolete" is "end of life" which is a point where no drivers upgrades are offered and any calls to support is met with a terse "you must upgrade". 

In the past, I have been involved in small business, and am well aware of the fiscal challenges some of those business face. You make sure that whatever you get lasts, and that you get the most usage out of said product. Sadly, I have been in situations where the business was "penny wise, pound foolish" to the point where they made decisions that had negative future impacts. One example is ignoring making regular backups of your computer systems or even automating your backups of your critical data offsite, only to have the hard drive completely crash at the most inopportune time, the computer destroyed in a fire, or stolen in a theft. Or, ignoring the minor time and costs of preventative maintenance of your equipment, only to wait several days while an expensive replacement refurbished part to arrive, thus no income to the business.

[Scott5114]

This is starting to become a major thing that bothers me, but... Programs that don't free memory they're not using anymore. If I have multiple documents or tabs open and close some of them, the memory usage of the program should go down. It's not 1988, where doing a system call to the OS to have memory allocated to you was a huge overhead burden. If you just keep requesting more and more and more memory you don't need, the only thing that's going to get you is a SIGKILL from the kernel's out-of-memory routine.

Firefox has long been an offender in this regard but I'm learning Inkscape has gotten to be this way too.

[hbelkins]

Here's something that bothers me. As I type this, it's 8:35 PM Eastern time. It's pitch-black dark outside and has been dark for about 90 minutes.

Next week at this time, it will be 7:35 PM Eastern time and it will have been pitch-black dark outside for about 90 minutes.

[1995hoo]

Here's something that bothers me. As I type this, it's 8:35 PM Eastern time. It's pitch-black dark outside and has been dark for about 90 minutes.

Next week at this time, it will be 7:35 PM Eastern time and it will have been pitch-black dark outside for about 90 minutes.

US clocks don't change until the week after next–first Sunday in November, which this year is November 7 (the latest possible date).

[hbelkins]

Here's something that bothers me. As I type this, it's 8:35 PM Eastern time. It's pitch-black dark outside and has been dark for about 90 minutes.

Next week at this time, it will be 7:35 PM Eastern time and it will have been pitch-black dark outside for about 90 minutes.

US clocks don't change until the week after next–first Sunday in November, which this year is November 7 (the latest possible date).

That's right, I should have known that, because most communities are setting trick-or-treat hours for Saturday, because the 31st is on a Sunday, so they don't conflict with evening church services.

[abefroman329]

Here's something that bothers me. As I type this, it's 8:35 PM Eastern time. It's pitch-black dark outside and has been dark for about 90 minutes.

Next week at this time, it will be 7:35 PM Eastern time and it will have been pitch-black dark outside for about 90 minutes.

Yeah, winter is depressing enough here as it is; the fact that it's pitch-black by 5 pm is just the cherry on the shit sundae.

[roadman65]

I don't know why we have to change clocks? Yes I am aware the history, but both Arizona and Hawaii are exempt yet Florida has to do the change despite voters wanted one consistent time year round.

[ZLoth]

I don't know why we have to change clocks? Yes I am aware the history, but both Arizona and Hawaii are exempt yet Florida has to do the change despite voters wanted one consistent time year round.

The disruption in personal lives really isn't worth it. Standard time year round!

[hotdogPi]

Don't get this thread locked.

[webny99]

I don't want to get this thread locked, but it is certainly a minor thing that bothers me that the latest sunrise(s) of the year are in late October/early November instead of on the shortest day(s) of the year.

This past weekend or the one prior would have been the perfect time for DST to end. Instead, we have another two full weeks of brutally late sunrises, and it's even worse for people further west in the eastern time zone.

[JayhawkCO]

I don't want to get this thread locked, but it is certainly a minor thing that bothers me that the latest sunrise(s) of the year are in late October/early November instead of on the shortest day(s) of the year.

This past weekend or the one prior would have been the perfect time for DST to end. Instead, we have another two full weeks of brutally late sunrises, and it's even worse for people further west in the eastern time zone.

If they'd actually split up the U.S. Eastern Time Zone to have some folks in Eastern and some in Atlantic as the actual geography would dictate, this would help some too.

Chris

[hbelkins]

I don't want to get this thread locked, but it is certainly a minor thing that bothers me that the latest sunrise(s) of the year are in late October/early November instead of on the shortest day(s) of the year.

This past weekend or the one prior would have been the perfect time for DST to end. Instead, we have another two full weeks of brutally late sunrises, and it's even worse for people further west in the eastern time zone.

I don't mind the late sunrises. It's the early sunsets I don't like.

All I'm doing in the morning is showering and driving to work. I'd like to have a little time to see to do a few things outside when I get home from work in the evenings.

[renegade]

Don't get this thread locked.

Please don't get this thread locked!

I don't want to get this thread locked, but it is certainly a minor thing that bothers me that the latest sunrise(s) of the year are in late October/early November instead of on the shortest day(s) of the year.

This past weekend or the one prior would have been the perfect time for DST to end. Instead, we have another two full weeks of brutally late sunrises, and it's even worse for people further west in the eastern time zone.

I don't mind the late sunrises. It's the early sunsets I don't like.

All I'm doing in the morning is showering and driving to work. I'd like to have a little time to see to do a few things outside when I get home from work in the evenings.

Once again, please don't get this thread locked.  Please?

[formulanone]

Center-mounted brake lights which blink 3-4 times.

That dealer-installed item becomes very irritating when you're stuck behind them in a slow-moving traffic jam.

[jakeroot]

Center-mounted brake lights which blink 3-4 times.

That dealer-installed item becomes very irritating when you're stuck behind them in a slow-moving traffic jam.

Definitely agreed. Not sure how Pulse/BrakePlus/etc got into the pockets of so many dealers, but it's very irritating and I don't believe there is any safety evidence behind them. Worse, they seem to charge buyers for these addons at an exorbitant cost.

[Scott5114]

Center-mounted brake lights which blink 3-4 times.

That dealer-installed item becomes very irritating when you're stuck behind them in a slow-moving traffic jam.

Definitely agreed. Not sure how Pulse/BrakePlus/etc got into the pockets of so many dealers, but it's very irritating and I don't believe there is any safety evidence behind them. Worse, they seem to charge buyers for these addons at an exorbitant cost.

I've seen them often enough I figured it was some new safety requirement. A little bit of research shows they're not. Hmm.

My car doesn't have it, but sometimes I pump my brake pedal in such a way to cause my brake lights to flash when I feel like there is a risk of getting rear-ended, e.g. when I am the last car on a slow-moving or stopped exit ramp with free-flowing traffic on the freeway.

[zachary_amaryllis]

.... brutally late sunrises, and it's even worse for people further west in the eastern time zone.

i work nights. i'm all about late sunrises over here.

[formulanone]

Center-mounted brake lights which blink 3-4 times.

That dealer-installed item becomes very irritating when you're stuck behind them in a slow-moving traffic jam.

Definitely agreed. Not sure how Pulse/BrakePlus/etc got into the pockets of so many dealers, but it's very irritating and I don't believe there is any safety evidence behind them. Worse, they seem to charge buyers for these addons at an exorbitant cost.

I've seen them often enough I figured it was some new safety requirement. A little bit of research shows they're not. Hmm.

My car doesn't have it, but sometimes I pump my brake pedal in such a way to cause my brake lights to flash when I feel like there is a risk of getting rear-ended, e.g. when I am the last car on a slow-moving or stopped exit ramp with free-flowing traffic on the freeway.

I think it's not a bad idea (for the high-mounted brake light to flash) if the brake pedal hasn't been pressed in say, 10-15 minutes or slowing from above 55mph. When the driver presses the brake pedal every 30 seconds, it's pointless; furthermore, if most vehicles had it, the effect would be distracting.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Same with all of you who don't want this thread to be locked. I'm surprised with how long this thread has been running, and I still want for more.

But, one minor thing that bothers me with DST, is the different start and end dates. This means for some weeks a year (one in the fall, happening next week; and two or three in March) using the nominal time difference results in a time that differs in one hour from the actual observed time at the other end (one hour ahead going from North America to Europe, one hour behind going the other way). This effect is more noticeable when crossing the equator: The nominal time difference I have with Sydney, Australia is 9 hours, but that only happens for about four weeks a year. Most of the time, it's either 8 or 10.

[hbelkins]

Center-mounted brake lights which blink 3-4 times.

That dealer-installed item becomes very irritating when you're stuck behind them in a slow-moving traffic jam.

Definitely agreed. Not sure how Pulse/BrakePlus/etc got into the pockets of so many dealers, but it's very irritating and I don't believe there is any safety evidence behind them. Worse, they seem to charge buyers for these addons at an exorbitant cost.

I've seen them often enough I figured it was some new safety requirement. A little bit of research shows they're not. Hmm.

My car doesn't have it, but sometimes I pump my brake pedal in such a way to cause my brake lights to flash when I feel like there is a risk of getting rear-ended, e.g. when I am the last car on a slow-moving or stopped exit ramp with free-flowing traffic on the freeway.

I've noticed a lot of flashing brake lights on bigger trucks (box trucks and semis) lately.

Same with all of you who don't want this thread to be locked. I'm surprised with how long this thread has been running, and I still want for more.

But, one minor thing that bothers me with DST, is the different start and end dates. This means for some weeks a year (one in the fall, happening next week; and two or three in March) using the nominal time difference results in a time that differs in one hour from the actual observed time at the other end (one hour ahead going from North America to Europe, one hour behind going the other way). This effect is more noticeable when crossing the equator: The nominal time difference I have with Sydney, Australia is 9 hours, but that only happens for about four weeks a year. Most of the time, it's either 8 or 10.

I think the reason is to make sure it happens on a weekend, when most people aren't working. That's why it's specified to begin on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November, rather than on a fixed date that might come in the middle of a work week.

[ZLoth]

The problem with the spring forward and fall back is when you are working the overnight shift on the weekend. In the springtime, since we are "losing" an hour, I either had to show up one hour early to work or work one hour later to make up for that skipped hour. In the fall, I either show up to work one hour later, leave one hour earlier, or get one hour of overtime because of coverage issues.

I haven't worked overnight shift since July, 2019, and it's doubtful I will do overnight shift anymore.

Which brings up another "minor thing that bother me".... people who think that because you work overnights, you have plenty of time available to do chores or run errands during the day. No, not really. I'm trying my best to sleep when it's daylight, and that is a challenge in itself. It becomes worse when you worked extra time because of complex technical issue, you are bleeping tired, and when you get home, you get told "Before you go to bed, we need to pick up my car", and the car repair people is a 30 minute drive away.... each way. Oh, and they remind you that they tried calling you, but you weren't picking up.... because you had silenced the phone because of that complex issue.

[hbelkins]

Friends of mine who were police officers had issues with some split scheduling. Some weeks they worked nights; others they worked days. And some weeks they worked nights some days and days on others. It really messed with their sleep habits.