Minor things that bother you

[JayhawkCO]

I just always have a water bottle with me. Never had someone even blink when I filled it up from the soda fountain.

[J N Winkler]

Ugh.  I don't go to Popeyes, but I hope nobody else gets any ideas.  If I'm ordering to go to eat at home or a hotel, why do I need one of their drinks?  I usually only order drinks if I'm on the road and dining in.

Unfortunately, Popeyes was the last of the major chicken chains to offer a no-drinks combo option, at least for online ordering.

Personally, I tend not to get even water when dining in as I dislike chilled liquids unless it is really hot out.  For a time, I used to request water without ice in sit-down restaurants, but felt I had to give that up because it makes full glasses heavier and thus more difficult for waiters to carry.

[SEWIGuy]

Ugh.  I don't go to Popeyes, but I hope nobody else gets any ideas.  If I'm ordering to go to eat at home or a hotel, why do I need one of their drinks?  I usually only order drinks if I'm on the road and dining in.

Unfortunately, Popeyes was the last of the major chicken chains to offer a no-drinks combo option, at least for online ordering.

Personally, I tend not to get even water when dining in as I dislike chilled liquids unless it is really hot out.  For a time, I used to request water without ice in sit-down restaurants, but felt I had to give that up because it makes full glasses heavier and thus more difficult for waiters to carry.

A glass full of water with no ice is indeed heavier, but not markedly so. What makes it harder to carry is that the ice acts as a ballast and reduces "sloshing."

[NE2]

Has anyone said kids yet? They are literally minor things that bother me.

[formulanone]

Has anyone said kids yet? They are literally minor things that bother me.

Dead canaries are miner things that bother me.

[LilianaUwU]

Has anyone said kids yet? They are literally minor things that bother me.

I thought this was common sense? That's why there's a chance no one said it.

[Big John]

Has anyone said kids yet? They are literally minor things that bother me.

They got my goat.

[CtrlAltDel]

Ugh.  I don't go to Popeyes, but I hope nobody else gets any ideas.  If I'm ordering to go to eat at home or a hotel, why do I need one of their drinks?  I usually only order drinks if I'm on the road and dining in.

I've been known to order the drink and then tell them not to actually make it if the price works better that way.

Personally, I tend not to get even water when dining in as I dislike chilled liquids unless it is really hot out.  For a time, I used to request water without ice in sit-down restaurants, but felt I had to give that up because it makes full glasses heavier and thus more difficult for waiters to carry.

I can't imagine that this would be an issue for most servers. It depends on the specific restaurant obviously, but they most likely carry beer and wine, neither of which usually comes with ice, continually throughout their shifts.

ETA: Doing some math, I find that a pint of water weighs about 16.7 ounces and doing some measuring I find that the pint glass I have in my cabinet weighs about 14 ounces, which would make for a total of 30.7 ounces. Now, replacing a third of the volume of the water with ice gives me a total of about 30.2 ounces. So, assuming all this is correct, this makes for a difference of about half an ounce of weight, which is an increase of less than 2 percent for the ice-free water.

[LilianaUwU]

Needing a credit card to pay with PayPal despite having sufficient balance in my account.

[Plutonic Panda]

I've never been refused a free water cup at any fast food establishment. 

I've been charged for one a couple of times.

Sonic will charge you.

[Scott5114]

I've never been refused a free water cup at any fast food establishment. 

I've been charged for one a couple of times.

Sonic will charge you.

I'm guessing that's because they have to have someone bring it out to your car.

Unrelated Sonic observation: the Sonic at Sahara and Torrey Pines in Las Vegas stops having carhop service after like 10 or 11pm, I assume for safety reasons. I don't remember that ever being a thing in Oklahoma (although I normally just did drive thru anyway because I don't really like eating in the car—the only reason I was trying to do carhop service was because we were going to the Strip afterward rather than eating at home).

[Plutonic Panda]

I've never been refused a free water cup at any fast food establishment. 

I've been charged for one a couple of times.

Sonic will charge you.

I'm guessing that's because they have to have someone bring it out to your car.

Unrelated Sonic observation: the Sonic at Sahara and Torrey Pines in Las Vegas stops having carhop service after like 10 or 11pm, I assume for safety reasons. I don't remember that ever being a thing in Oklahoma (although I normally just did drive thru anyway because I don't really like eating in the car—the only reason I was trying to do carhop service was because we were going to the Strip afterward rather than eating at home).

Well, some of them do have drive-thru. What I asked about it. The explanation it was given to me is that they use Styrofoam cups, which are more expensive. I don't know what it is about just basic water from sonic but it hits the spot for me.

[Rothman]

I'm finding that the number of Sonics that actually bring it out to the car are greatly diminishing in number.

[mgk920]

Sonic tried and failed to establish themselves in NE Wisconsin a few years ago

Mike

[ZLoth]

The Sonics in my area have removed the menu boards from some of the parking spaces and make them app-only spaces. No doubt a cost-savings measure.

[wxfree]

Web pages, and other online interfaces, that don't load all at once

I hate this.  And it isn't rare.  Many interfaces load quickly and efficiently, which I guess is a bad thing, because they're evidently programmed to load, and then wait for a second, and then add something to the top, pushing everything down.  It takes exactly the amount of time required to identify and click or tap on the thing you want, which happens exactly when the page moves down so you end up clicking the wrong thing.  Then you go back, and it happens again unless you either move faster or wait for the extra element to load, except for the times when it doesn't.

I remember waiting for pages to load over a dial-up connection, and that was expected and understandable due to the speed limitations.  That isn't happening now.  The same thing always loads last, even if it was just loaded and in cache, and it's always at the top so that everything on the page is moved by it.  It reminds me of the sleazy old-style web sites with unavoidable ads and dialog box traps, but it's being done by major organizations that profit from consistent use, not garbage you didn't mean to go to.

[algorerhythms]

Sonic tried and failed to establish themselves in NE Wisconsin a few years ago

Mike

They opened a location in Madison (technically Middleton, but whatever), and it was horrifically bad. Like, the time I went, I was the only car in the lot, it took them an hour to get me my food, and the order was wrong. It closed after a few months. Though my experience with Sonic in general is that you should never go to one outside of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, they're okay (but nothing special), but outside of Oklahoma I get the feeling that the franchises just don't give a shit.

[SEWIGuy]

Sonic tried and failed to establish themselves in NE Wisconsin a few years ago

Mike

They opened a location in Madison (technically Middleton, but whatever), and it was horrifically bad. Like, the time I went, I was the only car in the lot, it took them an hour to get me my food, and the order was wrong. It closed after a few months. Though my experience with Sonic in general is that you should never go to one outside of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, they're okay (but nothing special), but outside of Oklahoma I get the feeling that the franchises just don't give a shit.

Steak and Shake also didn't do well in Wisconsin. Culver's is just too much of an institution.

[Scott5114]

Web pages, and other online interfaces, that don't load all at once

I hate this.  And it isn't rare.  Many interfaces load quickly and efficiently, which I guess is a bad thing, because they're evidently programmed to load, and then wait for a second, and then add something to the top, pushing everything down.  It takes exactly the amount of time required to identify and click or tap on the thing you want, which happens exactly when the page moves down so you end up clicking the wrong thing.  Then you go back, and it happens again unless you either move faster or wait for the extra element to load, except for the times when it doesn't.

I remember waiting for pages to load over a dial-up connection, and that was expected and understandable due to the speed limitations.  That isn't happening now.  The same thing always loads last, even if it was just loaded and in cache, and it's always at the top so that everything on the page is moved by it.  It reminds me of the sleazy old-style web sites with unavoidable ads and dialog box traps, but it's being done by major organizations that profit from consistent use, not garbage you didn't mean to go to.

The underlying problem here is that HTML is a markup language designed for text (that's what the damn T stands for!), not an user interface specification language, but ever since JavaScript has come out we have been forcing it to do unnatural things it's not actually as good at as a traditional C++ widget toolkit. Because the cloud. Connectivity. Synergy. Responsiveness. Or some shit.

Visual Basic is an abomination, but at least it was designed for the purpose of creating a UI, which is more than anyone can say for HTML/JavaScript.

[Plutonic Panda]

Sonic tried and failed to establish themselves in NE Wisconsin a few years ago

Mike

In my opinion, sonic is complete trash now. It is an absolute former shell of itself.

[J N Winkler]

I remember waiting for pages to load over a dial-up connection, and that was expected and understandable due to the speed limitations.  That isn't happening now.  The same thing always loads last, even if it was just loaded and in cache, and it's always at the top so that everything on the page is moved by it.  It reminds me of the sleazy old-style web sites with unavoidable ads and dialog box traps, but it's being done by major organizations that profit from consistent use, not garbage you didn't mean to go to.

I haven't actually dug into code to verify this impression, but my starting assumption is always that loading behavior that leads to false clicks is deliberate and amounts to the same old sleaze in a different package.  It is trivially simple to program a delay in JavaScript and I am sure this and similar tricks are in play.

One solution I highly recommend is to use an ad-blocking HOSTS file (I have the one from MVPS.org installed on my laptop).  It not only blocks nearly all separately hosted advertising on newspaper sites and the like, but also settles down odd loading behavior.  Unfortunately, it cannot be used on devices with locked-down bootloaders like tablets and smartphones without rooting or jailbreaking them, which comes with the risk of bricking them.  Other options I have heard talked about but not yet seriously investigated include using a Raspberry Pi hole or installing an ad-blocking HOSTS file on a router that will allow it.

[ZLoth]

One solution I highly recommend is to use an ad-blocking HOSTS file (I have the one from MVPS.org installed on my laptop).  It not only blocks nearly all separately hosted advertising on newspaper sites and the like, but also settles down odd loading behavior.  Unfortunately, it cannot be used on devices with locked-down bootloaders like tablets and smartphones without rooting or jailbreaking them, which comes with the risk of bricking them.  Other options I have heard talked about but not yet seriously investigated include using a Raspberry Pi hole or installing an ad-blocking HOSTS file on a router that will allow it.

Because Google wants to do away with any sort of Adblock extensions "in the name of safety and security", I installed AdGuard Home on a always-on server, then set up my DHCP rules on my router so that the clients are using Adguard Home as the DNS server. Adguard handles all the updates. It was pretty simple.

[LilianaUwU]

In my opinion, sonic is complete trash now. It is an absolute former shell of itself.

This also applies to the video game franchise.

[Max Rockatansky]

In my opinion, sonic is complete trash now. It is an absolute former shell of itself.

This also applies to the video game franchise.

Sonic Mania was pretty outstanding. 

[LilianaUwU]

In my opinion, sonic is complete trash now. It is an absolute former shell of itself.

This also applies to the video game franchise.

Sonic Mania was pretty outstanding. 

Still, his days as Mario's main rival are long gone.