Minor things that bother you

[ZLoth]

Wow, you do realize that the authors can't actually predict the future, right?

They can make educated guesses based upon the knowledge of existing technology. It's just that what actually occurs can take a much different path.

From 1993:

[Max Rockatansky]

What exactly is "serious sci-fi?"  People used to say things like that about the early Dune novels but even those are pretty fantastical and full of implausible things. 

[SEWIGuy]

The inconsistent level of technology in science fiction. In Cyberpunk 2077, cars still have internal combustion engines and people still have chauffeurs (the latter is made even sillier when you consider that there is a feature in the game where your car will drive itself to you).  In Star Wars, they have robots advanced enough to serve as doctors but still Uncle Owen needs his nephew to provide labor on the moisture farm.

Wow, you do realize that the authors can't actually predict the future, right?

In the Jetsons, they have video calls, but they're on CRT television sets with an external antenna.  And George was employed as a digital index operator, which you'd think could be handled by AI.

These things really bother you?

It's called world building.

You do realize the Jetsons is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon? 

I wasn't referring to the Jetsons, I was referring to more serious sci-fi stuff.

Like the use of tape decks on Star Trek computers?

Seriously though, you expect the writers to predict something about the future that isn't germaine to the storyline?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

In Star Wars, they have robots advanced enough to serve as doctors but still Uncle Owen needs his nephew to provide labor on the moisture farm.

Did absolutely anything at all about Luke's family suggest to you they were, by any means, well off or lived in luxury?

[formulanone]

In Star Wars, they have robots advanced enough to serve as doctors but still Uncle Owen needs his nephew to provide labor on the moisture farm.

Did absolutely anything at all about Luke's family suggest to you they were, by any means, well off or lived in luxury?

They had to buy used robots; luckily there were some interplanetary warranties and trans-federation safety recalls regarding bad motivators.

See Zeerust. Reading through the Foundation trilogy again and realizing there's still bank notes and paper newspapers way off thousands of years from now (well, society did collapse). All well and good when publishing it in the 1950s, still made sense reading it in the early-1990s, but sounds archaic today.

[Scott5114]

The inconsistent level of technology in science fiction. In Cyberpunk 2077, cars still have internal combustion engines and people still have chauffeurs (the latter is made even sillier when you consider that there is a feature in the game where your car will drive itself to you).  In Star Wars, they have robots advanced enough to serve as doctors but still Uncle Owen needs his nephew to provide labor on the moisture farm.

Wow, you do realize that the authors can't actually predict the future, right?

In the Jetsons, they have video calls, but they're on CRT television sets with an external antenna.  And George was employed as a digital index operator, which you'd think could be handled by AI.

These things really bother you?

It's called world building.

Different authors build worlds different ways. Different worlds have different histories and different power structures so different outcomes result.

This is fantasy instead of sci-fi, but...the setting my writing takes place in is a medieval kingdom (as you do in fantasy) that has the anachronism of indoor plumbing. But it's run by gnomes instead of humans; we reasoned that the gnomes, being more academically minded (the state coat of arms features a book!), probably would have discovered the link between sanitation and illnesses like cholera earlier on than humans did.

That's how worldbuilding works.

[mgk920]

I do wish that they'd hurry it up with those warp field calculations so we could check out some of those 'exoplanets' that astronomers have been finding lately!

 

Mike

[kphoger]

— Stay home from work today due to inclement weather.

— Oh, OK, thank you.  See you tomorrow.

— You have to use PTO for the day you didn't work.

[Scott5114]

— Stay home from work today due to inclement weather.

— Oh, OK, thank you.  See you tomorrow.

— You have to use PTO for the day you didn't work.

You might run that one by HR...

[1995hoo]

I do wish that they'd hurry it up with those warp field calculations so we could check out some of those 'exoplanets' that astronomers have been finding lately!

 

Mike

You may find what you need just northeast of Dulles Airport off VA-28.

[kphoger]

You might run that one by HR...

No such department.  But the closest people we have to that role are the ones who made the decision, so running it by them would be kind of pointless.

[kkt]

— Stay home from work today due to inclement weather.

— Oh, OK, thank you.  See you tomorrow.

— You have to use PTO for the day you didn't work.

That was the expectation in our workplace.  If you stay home because the kid's school is cancelled or you can't safely get to work, you have to take annual leave.

[kphoger]

That was the expectation in our workplace.  If you stay home because the kid's school is cancelled or you can't safely get to work, you have to take annual leave.

To me, there should be a difference between (a) my decision to not come to work due to driving conditions and (b) my boss's telling me not to come to work due to driving conditions.

[GaryV]

— Stay home from work today due to inclement weather.

— Oh, OK, thank you.  See you tomorrow.

— You have to use PTO for the day you didn't work.

I had a place tell us that the office was going to be closed Christmas Eve afternoon. You had to take vacation if you wanted to be paid for it. I don't know how that ended up working out, as I had already scheduled a whole vacation day.

[kkt]

That was the expectation in our workplace.  If you stay home because the kid's school is cancelled or you can't safely get to work, you have to take annual leave.

To me, there should be a difference between (a) my decision to not come to work due to driving conditions and (b) my boss's telling me not to come to work due to driving conditions.

Ah.  Suspended operations for us were very rare.  Most of the students were within walking distance of campus and so were enough faculty and staff to get by.  All were instructed to be lenient about time off, missing classes, etc.  When we did have suspended operations we were allowed to make up the time if we didn't want to use annual leave.  We could work extra hours each week over a few months.  For full-time staff who were already scheduled for 40 hour weeks, that meant that the extra hours beyond that were overtime and each such hour worked made up for 1 1/2 hours.

[GaryV]

I'm not sure if this should be counted as a minor thing or major thing. Is it unreasonable to expect that someone on a technical call center help line should be able to understand basic English? To the point that she couldn't figure out how to spell simple things like my name (Gary) or street name (Wilson)?

My 3-month-old printer (under warranty, thank goodness) ran out of black ink for the first time. I replaced the cartridge, but no black. Tried a few things, but no luck. Replaced it with another cartridge, just in case the first one was faulty, but still no printing in black.

I spent an hour and a half on the phone with this person. I had to provide my address at least 3 times, and verify it once or twice more. Spelling out each word individually, and then she still didn't get it right. She couldn't understand "G as in Goat" - kept saying "J as in Jar".

Then she needed my email so she could send an email to me, so that I could send a photo of the receipt and a photo of the printer serial number and the installed ink cartridges. She kept asking me to reply to her email. I asked her what email address she was sending it to, but she only asked me again and again to tell her my email. I kept trying to tell her, "I. DID. NOT. GET. AN. EMAIL. FROM. YOU." After about 3 or 4 tries, the email finally came through.

I should have probably asked to be switched to someone who could understand me, but I didn't want to be "that guy".

At least the shipping confirmation email came through this morning and they are sending the replacement to my correct address. I lost more than an hour of sleep last night worrying about how I was going to track down the shipment if she hadn't gotten my address right.

[JayhawkCO]

I just find a polite "thanks for your time", and then hanging up and calling back works wonders.

[GaryV]

hanging up and calling back

I'd been transferred to Epson from Staples warranty company, so I didn't have a number to call back. Else I might have.

[JayhawkCO]

hanging up and calling back

I'd been transferred to Epson from Staples warranty company, so I didn't have a number to call back. Else I might have.

If the language barrier was enough so that it was a really bad experience, I probably just would have called Staples back and gotten transferred again.

[Scott5114]

I'm not sure if this should be counted as a minor thing or major thing. Is it unreasonable to expect that someone on a technical call center help line should be able to understand basic English?

Warranty claims cost the company money. The more people they can get to give up in frustration and not have to process the claim, the less money the company has to spend.

[kurumi]

Search engines that prioritize quantity of results, even when they're not trying to sell you something.

I got a possible spam phone call (silenced), let's call it 415-867-5308, and typed the number into Google. A bunch of canned "looking for $phone_number? We have information on $phone_number!" results, or pages that matched 415-867-something_else; and several results that were noted:

Missing: 415-867-5308 ‎| Show results with: 415-867-5308

As in, we know this result does not have what you're searching for, but we're going to show it to you anyway.

[kphoger]

I was driving home from work yesterday on I-135.  Three lanes of traffic each direction.  Up ahead, there was a police car on the shoulder with its lights flashing, having pulled a car over on the shoulder.  Two vehicles ahead of me moved over to the left.

But here's what bothered me:  those two vehicles weren't even in the right lane.  They were in the middle lane.  WHY MOVER OVER?  I was already in the left lane and driving faster than they were, so, in order to pass them, I had to move from the left lane into the center lane.  Grr.

[1995hoo]

I was driving home from work yesterday on I-135.  Three lanes of traffic each direction.  Up ahead, there was a police car on the shoulder with its lights flashing, having pulled a car over on the shoulder.  Two vehicles ahead of me moved over to the left.

But here's what bothered me:  those two vehicles weren't even in the right lane.  They were in the middle lane.  WHY MOVER OVER?  I was already in the left lane and driving faster than they were, so, in order to pass them, I had to move from the left lane into the center lane.  Grr.

Was there enough traffic in the far right lane that their moving over made it easier for those people in turn to move over one lane? That might be a reason to do something like that.

[kphoger]

Was there enough traffic in the far right lane that their moving over made it easier for those people in turn to move over one lane? That might be a reason to do something like that.

There was NOBODY in the right lane.  It was just me, those two up ahead, and basically nobody else around.

[hbelkins]

Search engines that prioritize quantity of results, even when they're not trying to sell you something.

I got a possible spam phone call (silenced), let's call it 415-867-5308, and typed the number into Google. A bunch of canned "looking for $phone_number? We have information on $phone_number!" results, or pages that matched 415-867-something_else; and several results that were noted:

Missing: 415-867-5308 ‎| Show results with: 415-867-5308

As in, we know this result does not have what you're searching for, but we're going to show it to you anyway.

I'm surprised that it didn't redirect to a Rickroll with Tommy Tutone instead.