Minor things that bother you

[1995hoo]

Some British newspapers, like the Guardian, have a style convention of using title case for initialisms that are pronounced as a word, e.g. Aids rather than AIDS.

The New York Times does that as well, notably as to what they call "Nascar," because of their stylebook requiring the use of periods (e.g., they insist on "N.H.L." and "N.B.A."). I guess even they realize that "N.A.S.C.A.R." looks absurd. I can't say as I've noticed whether they do that as to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

[kphoger]

Calling them "something else" might offend them.

I tell you what, man:  she's something else!

Some British newspapers, like the Guardian, have a style convention of using title case for initialisms that are pronounced as a word, e.g. Aids rather than AIDS.

The New York Times does that as well, notably as to what they call "Nascar," because of their stylebook requiring the use of periods (e.g., they insist on "N.H.L." and "N.B.A."). I guess even they realize that "N.A.S.C.A.R." looks absurd. I can't say as I've noticed whether they do that as to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

S.C.U.B.A. diving

B.A.S.E. jumping

L.A.S.E.R. pointer

C.A.R.E. package

[kphoger]

Live song recordings that start with a whole bunch of applause at the beginning of the track.  Sorry, but, if I'm 40 seconds in and the music hasn't even started yet, then all you've done is recorded your ego and I'm no longer interested.

[JayhawkCO]

Live song recordings that start with a whole bunch of applause at the beginning of the track.  Sorry, but, if I'm 40 seconds in and the music hasn't even started yet, then all you've done is recorded your ego and I'm no longer interested.

I generally dislike live albums in general. I think the only two I've actually enjoyed were Nirvana Unplugged and Eagles - Hell Freezes Over.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Some British newspapers, like the Guardian, have a style convention of using title case for initialisms that are pronounced as a word, e.g. Aids rather than AIDS.

The New York Times does that as well, notably as to what they call "Nascar," because of their stylebook requiring the use of periods (e.g., they insist on "N.H.L." and "N.B.A."). I guess even they realize that "N.A.S.C.A.R." looks absurd. I can't say as I've noticed whether they do that as to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

AIDS is not, but "H.I.V." is.

[CtrlAltDel]

The problem with abbreviations and acronyms is that you need to know what they mean. It's terrible in IT becase there is so many of them. Anyone know what l10n or i18n means? It's short for localization and internationalization .

This is my main beef with them as well. With the older style Greek and Latin compounds you get some sort of clue to the meaning, but with these, there's nothing and you just have to know. Many articles often have a list of initialisms/acronyms at the end for this reason, which in my view underscores their limited semantic utility.

[Scott5114]

The problem with abbreviations and acronyms is that you need to know what they mean. It's terrible in IT becase there is so many of them. Anyone know what l10n or i18n means? It's short for localization and internationalization .

Then again, I think the conceit is that if you're deep enough into software engineering to have to worry about l10n or i18n, you've doubtlessly been exposed to the abbreviation before. They are not exactly something a hobbyist will come across; I only know about them because I used to follow KDE dev blogs back when RSS was a thing. (And I'm not really sure that there's any abbreviation for either of those words that would be anything other than arbitrary, since they're very long single words.)

[webny99]

This one doesn't really "bother" me so much as I just find it a bit odd. On an email I sometimes get from a company, a line of the fine print reads as follows: If you cannot relate to this email, please feel free to delete it.

Usually the fine print takes a much more serious tone, but this one always strikes me as very dismissive.

[kurumi]

In-flight announcements (probably waking up a few passengers) about the airline's duty-free shopping. In case you missed the several duty-free stores in both airports.

(worse than this was the domestic airlines that would have a 3-minute spiel over the loudspeaker about their co-branded credit card. Talk about a captive audience)

TBH there could be an entire airline/airport peeve thread

[SSOWorld]

In-flight announcements (probably waking up a few passengers) about the airline's duty-free shopping. In case you missed the several duty-free stores in both airports.

(worse than this was the domestic airlines that would have a 3-minute spiel over the loudspeaker about their co-branded credit card. Talk about a captive audience)

TBH there could be an entire airline/airport peeve thread

OK

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=31698

[skluth]

Some British newspapers, like the Guardian, have a style convention of using title case for initialisms that are pronounced as a word, e.g. Aids rather than AIDS.

BBC does that as well

[vdeane]

The fact that the news and interests widget in Windows will change the stories after clicking just one.  If there's more than one you want to check out, too bad, it goes bye bye right after clicking the first.

[J N Winkler]

This is IT-related, and I am not sure it counts as minor:  website redesigns that seem aimed at frustrating automated retrieval of content.

My latest case in point is the public resource trading platform for Gansu province in China, from which I have retrieved many gigabytes' worth of expressway construction and traffic signing plans over the past four years.  It used to be quite simple to work with:  one postback to search on a given keyword (e.g., "高速公路" for expressway), one more for each additional page of 10 search results, and then one to load a page with document download links for each search result.  Searching was the only part of the retrieval process that required obtaining and retaining session cookies--the project pages and the documentation could all be fetched without them.  The site ran on HTTP rather than HTTPS, a rarity these days.

About a month ago, the site was redesigned to run on HTTPS and to require a cookie that changes with each page request.  Moreover, the server does not supply the key part of each cookie to the client.  It merely makes a JavaScript file (200 KB in length and hideously complex-looking even when de-minified) available to the client browser to calculate the cookie value before sending each page request.

Now, if you attempt to load the first page of the contract notice listing in a browser, you get a HTTP 412 Precondition Failed error message and the browser fetches a page that points at the 200-KB JavaScript file.  Then the browser either stalls (it may be necessary to hit F5 to force reload) or runs the JavaScript to generate the cookie that will elicit actual search results.  Once it is generated, the cookie remains valid only for a brief period of time (experimentation suggests one minute).  If the cookie expires or is not valid to begin with, the server loops back to HTTP 412 and the pointer to the JavaScript file.

If you then click on an individual search result, the browser runs JavaScript again to generate a new cookie to load that result (it's a simple postback--each contract has a sequence number and for recent advertisements this is in the 36000's or so).  If the cookie is not correct, the server returns HTTP 400 Bad Request.  If you open the Network tab in Firefox Developer Tools and right-click "Resend request," you get HTTP 400 too, apparently because each cookie can be used only once to fetch a project page.

To make a long story short:  one of the easiest sites to script has now become one of the hardest.  I think it might be possible to restore full automation by spaghetti-ing something together in Selenium to run Chrome or Firefox in headless mode, but it is a significant learning curve just to get started.

[thspfc]

People trying the handle of a bathroom door, realizing it's locked, and then knocking on the door. If the door is locked then there's someone in there (or, in rare cases, there's another good reason such as the toilet is not in working order). The door wouldn't just be locked for no reason. The stupid "is someone in there"  question that you already know the answer to is not entitled to a response from someone sitting on a toilet who probably doesn't hear what you're saying anyways.

And knocking does not make people speed up.

[kkt]

People trying the handle of a bathroom door, realizing it's locked, and then knocking on the door. If the door is locked then there's someone in there (or, in rare cases, there's another good reason such as the toilet is not in working order). The door wouldn't just be locked for no reason. The stupid "is someone in there"  question that you already know the answer to is not entitled to a response from someone sitting on a toilet who probably doesn't hear what you're saying anyways.

And knocking does not make people speed up.

It can, if the reason they are in there is to vape or use other recreational drugs, which seems to be the most common reason people take more than 5 minutes.

[webny99]

People trying the handle of a bathroom door, realizing it's locked, and then knocking on the door. If the door is locked then there's someone in there (or, in rare cases, there's another good reason such as the toilet is not in working order). The door wouldn't just be locked for no reason. The stupid "is someone in there"  question that you already know the answer to is not entitled to a response from someone sitting on a toilet who probably doesn't hear what you're saying anyways.

And knocking does not make people speed up.

Oh, I can't stand that when I'm the one in the stall (or bathroom if it's a single unit). I feel like not responding, but I usually at least grumble or something to confirm that I am indeed there. The last thing I need is someone banging the door down. If it's a bathroom with more than one toilet, it sure doesn't make me speed up, in fact it usually makes me wait until they leave. 

[Scott5114]

It's still annoying when it's a staff member that does it. That used to happen to me a lot at the casino...I'd be in there doing my business and hear a loud knock, accompanied by "HOUSEKEEPING!" I'd usually yell back "CASHIER!" They never really seemed sure how to respond to that.

[SSOWorld]

Stores rearranging product.


(Long story short - they do it to "keep it fresh" and get people thinking about what else to buy)

[Scott5114]

Stores rearranging product.


(Long story short - they do it to "keep it fresh" and get people thinking about what else to buy)

This is one of the reasons I like my current grocery store–the only substantial rearranging they've done since it opened 8 years ago is when they added a liquor section.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

The trend of the cast and crew spoiling 70% of an upcoming movie/TV show in interviews before it ever hits the screen. Even if you're not looking for it it's tough to avoid every single headline that pops up due to algorithm-based suggestions.

[kphoger]

When a bar of soap gets down to just a little sliver.  Throwing it away makes me feel like I'm wasteful, but I know at some point it's going to break apart and be practically useless.  And, when it does, I'm inevitable going to be in the shower and in no mood to go hunt down another bar of soap.

[1995hoo]

When a bar of soap gets down to just a little sliver.  Throwing it away makes me feel like I'm wasteful, but I know at some point it's going to break apart and be practically useless.  And, when it does, I'm inevitable going to be in the shower and in no mood to go hunt down another bar of soap.

When my bar of soap reaches that point, I try to remember to bring in another bar of soap and stick the old bar to the underside of the new bar before it gets too thin. That's the goal, anyway. But I more or less have to try to remember to do that right after I get out of the shower (otherwise I wind up in the situation you mention), and because the spare bars of soap are in a different bathroom (for reasons of space in the cabinet), I tend to forget about it after I finish drying off, brushing my hair, etc.

Speaking of showers, a mild annoyance to me is when I stay in a hotel and the bathroom doesn't have a towel hook or towel shelf right outside the shower. The hotel room in which I was staying earlier this week had the towels across the bathroom from the shower underneath the sink, and the only place easily accessible from the shower (without stepping out) to place a towel was on top of the toilet seat if you lowered the lid. That doesn't seem all that sanitary, so I had to hang the towel over the shower glass at the end closer to the showerhead. Did the job, but I don't see what's so hard about installing a simple towel hook outside the shower door.

[kphoger]

Speaking of showers, a mild annoyance to me is when I stay in a hotel and the bathroom doesn't have a towel hook or towel shelf right outside the shower. The hotel room in which I was staying earlier this week had the towels across the bathroom from the shower underneath the sink, and the only place easily accessible from the shower (without stepping out) to place a towel was on top of the toilet seat if you lowered the lid. That doesn't seem all that sanitary, so I had to hang the towel over the shower glass at the end closer to the showerhead. Did the job, but I don't see what's so hard about installing a simple towel hook outside the shower door.

Just put it on the floor, on top of the bathmat.

[1995hoo]

Speaking of showers, a mild annoyance to me is when I stay in a hotel and the bathroom doesn't have a towel hook or towel shelf right outside the shower. The hotel room in which I was staying earlier this week had the towels across the bathroom from the shower underneath the sink, and the only place easily accessible from the shower (without stepping out) to place a towel was on top of the toilet seat if you lowered the lid. That doesn't seem all that sanitary, so I had to hang the towel over the shower glass at the end closer to the showerhead. Did the job, but I don't see what's so hard about installing a simple towel hook outside the shower door.

Just put it on the floor, on top of the bathmat.

I didn't want to do that in this case because the shower was the type with a door that swings out over the bathmat and invariably drips water on whatever is below it.

[kphoger]

I'm a tea drinker.  Recently, I've started having a cup of coffee before we head to church, but that's it;  otherwise, it's always tea.  It's annoying when a place like a hotel breakfast area pretends to offer tea by having a selection of teabags–but when you actually poke through it, they're all actually herbal infusions like chamomile or ginger or hibiscus or whatever.

Imagine the uproar if none of the coffee on offer had caffeine!  And didn't even taste like coffee...