Minor things that bother you

[US 89]

That the title of one of the sub-forums on here is "Urban Planning and design" with a lowercase D.

[Scott5114]

That the title of one of the sub-forums on here is "Urban Planning and design" with a lowercase D.

Is that better?

[US 89]

That the title of one of the sub-forums on here is "Urban Planning and design" with a lowercase D.

Is that better?

Ow, my eyes!

[LilianaUwU]

That the title of one of the sub-forums on here is "Urban Planning and design" with a lowercase D.

Is that better?

Ow, my eyes!

Hey, at least the text isn't LiKe ThAt OnE SpOnGeBoB MoCkInG mEmE.

[J N Winkler]

Title case (a variant of which is used to render all-uppercase legends on US warning and regulatory signs to avoid shouty all-caps):  "Urban Planning and Design."

Sentence case (required for British road signs):  "Urban planning and design."

Programmers' case:  "urban planning and Design."

[vdeane]

^ I would have thought "urbanPlanningAndDesign" for the programming one... in any case, I see you've influenced the forum.

[1995hoo]

I have a colleague who insists on naming electronic files using title case. She's the only one who does it, and we don't normally use title case for anything except centered section headings, so I'm not sure why she insists on it.

[Scott5114]

I have a colleague who insists on naming electronic files using title case. She's the only one who does it, and we don't normally use title case for anything except centered section headings, so I'm not sure why she insists on it.

As someone who uses a case-sensitive filesystem, I hate your coworker.

[formulanone]

I have a colleague who insists on naming electronic files using title case. She's the only one who does it, and we don't normally use title case for anything except centered section headings, so I'm not sure why she insists on it.

As someone who uses a case-sensitive filesystem, I hate your coworker.

That's like half my files until I got over using spaces in long filenames a few years ago.

[J N Winkler]

Unicode filenames are fun:

甘肃省高速公路交通标志优化提升工程 施工图设计 敦煌高速公路处 .pdf

[Scott5114]

I have a colleague who insists on naming electronic files using title case. She's the only one who does it, and we don't normally use title case for anything except centered section headings, so I'm not sure why she insists on it.

As someone who uses a case-sensitive filesystem, I hate your coworker.

That's like half my files until I got over using spaces in long filenames a few years ago.

Spaces are even worse, since command-line arguments use spaces as separators. For example mv file1 file2 moves/renames file1 to file2. So if you have a file called Big Huge Long Name With Caps.pdf and want to rename it sensible_name.pdf you have to do mv Big\ Huge\ Long\ Name\ With\ Caps.pdf sensible_name.pdf. Otherwise it will assume you are trying to move a file named Big to Huge and it will fail.

All files I create are all lowercase with hyphens or underscores in place of spaces.

"Wouldn't a case-insensitive filesystem be better?" No, because if you're procedurally generating files whose filenames will never be used by a human, having  "7gpxhY" and "7gpxhy" refer to different files doubles the amount of file names you can have in the same number of characters. (Also, changing it now would break compatibility going back to the 1970s.)

"Why don't you just use a graphical file manager so you don't have to worry about spaces?" Ever had to rename 1300+ files in a graphical file manager?

[J N Winkler]

Spaces are even worse, since command-line arguments use spaces as separators. For example mv file1 file2 moves/renames file1 to file2. So if you have a file called Big Huge Long Name With Caps.pdf and want to rename it sensible_name.pdf you have to do mv Big\ Huge\ Long\ Name\ With\ Caps.pdf sensible_name.pdf. Otherwise it will assume you are trying to move a file named Big to Huge and it will fail.

It's been a while since I used the Unix shell in anger, but doesn't the single quote (') still work as a grouping character?  In NT batch the double quote (") fulfills that function.

When I generate filenames for my own use, I limit myself to lowercase letters (a-z), the ten digits (0-9), period only as the extension separator, and hyphen to separate words without whitespace.  (I don't use the underscore character to eliminate whitespace because it won't necessarily show up against hyperlink underlining if the file is subsequently uploaded to the Web.)  When I am working with files others have named, however, I tend to retain the original filenames--even with whitespace and problematic characters--to maintain traceability.  If I am sent a file through email and have to try to find it again (e.g., sender lost it and wants me to send it back), the original filename is an easy search term.  If I downloaded the file years ago and the website hosting it later disappears or moves and someone wants to know where the resource can be found if it is still available online, Googling the original filename is one way to find an answer.

This said, I absolutely hate filenames with characters that are reserved in any OS because they cause all kinds of problems with downloading and archiving.  I've seen wget act strange with URLs that have an octothorp (#) or dollar sign ($) in the filename.  In Windows environments, a tarball that is copied with robocopy will not pass elementary validation (number of files in copy matches number of files in the original) if one of the files copied has a tilde (~).

"Why don't you just use a graphical file manager so you don't have to worry about spaces?" Ever had to rename 1300+ files in a graphical file manager?

Some GUI file choosers do have batch renaming capability--Windows Explorer does, for example.  However, I tend not to use them if order matters.  Windows Explorer's batch-renaming mechanism basically substitutes the base filename you type in for the filenames of the original files, with an underscore followed by the number in the sequence in which Windows thinks a given file was selected.  This is often (always?) something like (first file), (last file), (files between first and last along direction of selection), or some such nonsense.  The sequence numbers are not zero-filled either.

I do not actually spend much time sitting at my computer typing in names for files.  If I didn't create the data stream and it comes in without a filename, the name I use for storing it locally is typically generated by an algorithm.  I also have a script that generates timestamp filenames (YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS) for diary entries before opening them in Notepad++ for composition.

[kkt]

I have a colleague who insists on naming electronic files using title case. She's the only one who does it, and we don't normally use title case for anything except centered section headings, so I'm not sure why she insists on it.

As someone who uses a case-sensitive filesystem, I hate your coworker.

That's like half my files until I got over using spaces in long filenames a few years ago.

Spaces are even worse, since command-line arguments use spaces as separators. For example mv file1 file2 moves/renames file1 to file2. So if you have a file called Big Huge Long Name With Caps.pdf and want to rename it sensible_name.pdf you have to do mv Big\ Huge\ Long\ Name\ With\ Caps.pdf sensible_name.pdf. Otherwise it will assume you are trying to move a file named Big to Huge and it will fail.

All files I create are all lowercase with hyphens or underscores in place of spaces.

"Wouldn't a case-insensitive filesystem be better?" No, because if you're procedurally generating files whose filenames will never be used by a human, having  "7gpxhY" and "7gpxhy" refer to different files doubles the amount of file names you can have in the same number of characters. (Also, changing it now would break compatibility going back to the 1970s.)

"Why don't you just use a graphical file manager so you don't have to worry about spaces?" Ever had to rename 1300+ files in a graphical file manager?

Case-sensitive file names MORE than double the possible file names.  It doubles the possible names for EACH LETTER in the file name, so if your filenames are, say, 8 letters long instead of 26^8 possibilities (about 208 billion) you have 52^8 possibilities (about 50 trillion).

However, 208 billion files in the same directory will hit all sorts of other limits.  Filespace, inodes...

There are lots and lots of OSs, each with their own special demands for characters in the filenames.  It's very hard to make all of them happy.  At least Unix lets you use almost all of them, even if it makes typing it to the shell a living hell.

[1995hoo]

I have a colleague who insists on naming electronic files using title case. She's the only one who does it, and we don't normally use title case for anything except centered section headings, so I'm not sure why she insists on it.

As someone who uses a case-sensitive filesystem, I hate your coworker.

I have my issues with her, but part of that was just due to being in close proximity for too long last week and having to put up with annoying foibles. Might be my turning into a grumpy old man, too (I will hit 49 later this month; my colleague is 31).

[1995hoo]

Unrelated to the above (and hence the reason for the double post):

The woman who sits in front of us at Verizon Center always wears jeans that don't fit properly and invariably exposes buttcrack at some point during a game when she stands up. It's become a running joke among our season-ticket group. My wife and I know her name, but our season ticket partners apparently don't and they've taken to calling her "Buttcrack" and viewing her as the team's lucky charm (e.g., "No Buttcrack tonight, we're sunk.").

This has become so pervasive that my phone has discovered it:

[abefroman329]

Verizon Center

If you're gonna do this, go all the way.  Call it the MCI Center.

[kphoger]

All files I create are all lowercase with hyphens or underscores in place of spaces.

I tend to do this as well.  Especially the underscore.

[Max Rockatansky]

People who get bent out of shape when I use official terminology in writing over local slang.  Example: a person got on my case today for using "California State Route 90,"  "Yorba Linda Freeway,"  and "Richard Nixon Parkway"  over SoCal-slang "The 90."  

[formulanone]

I have a colleague who insists on naming electronic files using title case. She's the only one who does it, and we don't normally use title case for anything except centered section headings, so I'm not sure why she insists on it.

As someone who uses a case-sensitive filesystem, I hate your coworker.

That's like half my files until I got over using spaces in long filenames a few years ago.

Spaces are even worse, since command-line arguments use spaces as separators. For example mv file1 file2 moves/renames file1 to file2. So if you have a file called Big Huge Long Name With Caps.pdf and want to rename it sensible_name.pdf you have to do mv Big\ Huge\ Long\ Name\ With\ Caps.pdf sensible_name.pdf. Otherwise it will assume you are trying to move a file named Big to Huge and it will fail.

All files I create are all lowercase with hyphens or underscores in place of spaces.

"Wouldn't a case-insensitive filesystem be better?" No, because if you're procedurally generating files whose filenames will never be used by a human, having  "7gpxhY" and "7gpxhy" refer to different files doubles the amount of file names you can have in the same number of characters. (Also, changing it now would break compatibility going back to the 1970s.)

"Why don't you just use a graphical file manager so you don't have to worry about spaces?" Ever had to rename 1300+ files in a graphical file manager?

I literally don't have this problem but I get your point.

I also hate the "extra work" of having an underscore character and despised how you couldn't see them back in the dark days of web design. Spaces were no better because they were annoying "%20" turds in the URL. In short, I plugged along with all-lower case filenames for ages, moved onto TitleCase since Windows permitted it, but stopped doing it since I haven't seriously hosted anything in the last half-decade.

I'll only use underscores if the file name must have a visual space to prevent ambiguity and the application won't allow spaces in filenames, but that's a really short list.

TL;DR there's always a reason and it's usually lame but that's also added job security.

[Scott5114]

When someone you did business with sends you a bill, and you pay them, but their billing cycle is such that they send you another bill for the same transaction before they get around to applying your payment to your account. Then you have to dig into your records and see if they're trying to charge you twice, or if they're just sending you an unnecessary reminder to pay the bill you already paid.

[GaryV]

Similarly, when you schedule an automatic payment for a bill on the date it is due. A week before the payment, they send you another email telling you about the bill that is due. Uhh, couldn't your fancy computer check to see that the payment is already scheduled?

[1995hoo]

Similarly, when you schedule an automatic payment for a bill on the date it is due. A week before the payment, they send you another email telling you about the bill that is due. Uhh, couldn't your fancy computer check to see that the payment is already scheduled?

I thought your comment sounded familiar, and indeed it was. Since I use my bank's system, I guess the creditor can't tell that I scheduled the payment. What mildly irks me about the messages you cite is the way they're written–like somehow you're expected to pay your bill super-early. As I said in reply to your comment linked above, they don't reward you for paying early. The one time a creditor did, I did pay early (our HOA used to give a 5% discount if you paid the full year in a lump sum, so I did so; when they stopped the discount, I stopped paying the lump sum).

With that said, I can understand why some people might schedule bill payments on a different basis, such as to coincide with payday or the like. I consider myself fortunate that I don't normally need to do that; the most I sometimes do is I either "time" purchases based on when a card statement will close or I use a different card if I want a later payment due date.

[index]

People projecting their obsessions on to you!

My mother always uses things I did and things that happened a decade and a half ago to justify her obsessions about me. I'm home for the summer and now she always freaks out when I'm not at the house, telling me stuff like "how do I know you're not psychotic and in the hospital?" or "how do I know you're not buying drugs?" because I experimented with weed and ended up going to the hospital this one time (of my own volition, I had a friend take care of it for me), which is when she found out I had schizoaffective (I did not tell her either). I used to tell a lot of white lies when I was 5-9 years old, and that was what she used to justify the fact she was obsessed over the idea whenever I'm not home, I'm in some sort of grave danger and I'm not telling her the truth about it. As if I'm still a six-year-old.

Ever since then,  she scrutinizes every single thing I do, looking for signs of psychosis/drug use and constantly talks about it nonstop in every single topic she brings up, regardless if it's relevant or not. Me doing that one thing didn't cause her to worry, she's been like that pretty much her entire life and only does this to me, not any other of her children. When I went to the Hampton Roads last year, she tried to convince me not to go because I could get "kidnapped and/or raped by pedophiles", despite the fact I was 18 years old, and look much older than my age. When I was 12 years old she called the police and insisted they search my computer and press charges because I was being "hunted by child predators." What was I actually doing? Making crude sex jokes on the phone with a friend from middle school, as 12-year-olds do. She referred to that kind of stuff as "mentally disturbed". She refused to let me see friends whose parents she didn't know, which may seem normal, except when you consider that her justification was that they "might kill me". Her justification for that is that I almost died as an infant due to a birth defect, even though that's completely unrelated to anything that she worries about.

I could go on and on about this. This is why I need to move out for good...

Now that I finish typing this, I'm not so sure it's just something "minor" that bothers me but oh well. She just did this again and I guess I'm pissed off about it.

[snowc]

People projecting their obsessions on to you!

My mother always uses things I did and things that happened a decade and a half ago to justify her obsessions about me. I'm home for the summer and now she always freaks out when I'm not at the house, telling me stuff like "how do I know you're not psychotic and in the hospital?" or "how do I know you're not buying drugs?" because I experimented with weed and ended up going to the hospital this one time (of my own volition, I had a friend take care of it for me), which is when she found out I had schizoaffective (I did not tell her either). I used to tell a lot of white lies when I was 5-9 years old, and that was what she used to justify the fact she was obsessed over the idea whenever I'm not home, I'm in some sort of grave danger and I'm not telling her the truth about it. As if I'm still a six-year-old.

Ever since then,  she scrutinizes every single thing I do, looking for signs of psychosis/drug use and constantly talks about it nonstop in every single topic she brings up, regardless if it's relevant or not. Me doing that one thing didn't cause her to worry, she's been like that pretty much her entire life and only does this to me, not any other of her children. When I went to the Hampton Roads last year, she tried to convince me not to go because I could get "kidnapped and/or raped by pedophiles", despite the fact I was 18 years old, and look much older than my age. When I was 12 years old she called the police and insisted they search my computer and press charges because I was being "hunted by child predators." What was I actually doing? Making crude sex jokes on the phone with a friend from middle school, as 12-year-olds do. She referred to that kind of stuff as "mentally disturbed". She refused to let me see friends whose parents she didn't know, which may seem normal, except when you consider that her justification was that they "might kill me". Her justification for that is that I almost died as an infant due to a birth defect, even though that's completely unrelated to anything that she worries about.

I could go on and on about this. This is why I need to move out for good...

Now that I finish typing this, I'm not so sure it's just something "minor" that bothers me but oh well. She just did this again and I guess I'm pissed off about it.

I've had my days too.
Let me explain about my parents. They are good in some way, but you know what in the other.
When I was 12 years old, I started performing criminal activity, resulting in credit card damage, financial losses and other things to the point of changing locks on their phones, computers, and even locking up my computers at night. I can't even get my own phone due to the lack of responsibility. I have, however, an old phone of my fathers, a Samsung Galaxy On5, which I have to use. My parents even lock up their food in the fridge or now a locker! They even have separate keys. Every morning, I have to get my father's pants to go unlock the fridge and locker.
How pathetic is this, that my behavior has been going ever since I was 2.5 years old.
Bryce

[kkt]

Such is the nature of reputation.  Decades to build a good one, and a day to destroy it.