Minor things that bother you

[hotdogPi]

Software companies say 'Hi'. They charge more than they need to because of perceived value

Microsoft informed me that they were raising my subscription cost by 30%. Because of increased costs and improved content. Sure, they added in some crappy AI stuff but took out Publisher. That's an improvement?

The old option is still available (same price and features as if there was no change), just hidden. I don't remember the details, but I think they're easy enough to look up.

[Rothman]

Problem: there are absolutely people who would go for a more basic/less expensive car or house (I don't even WANT that much space to clean or yard to take care of; a 2-3 bedroom ranch house with a garage and central HVAC system on a small lot would be my ideal, but they don't build those any more - if they ever did).  But there's more profit to be made in telling those prospective customers to pound sand because the margins are higher on luxury cars and McMansions.

I wonder if this is partly because most of those people are also willing to buy used instead of new.

From what I gather on this forum it seems like most who buy similar compact cars as me get them on the used market.  All well and good I suppose but that supply will gradually dwindle since automakers are pulling away from more entry level segments.

Meanwhile, I'm leery of the used market because you don't know how the car was maintained and what issues are lurking under the surface.  And reliability is very important to me, given that there's nothing worse than having car trouble when you're on the road.  Alas, I'll probably be forced to at some point given that even the automakers that still make sedans are including a bunch of stuff I don't want and hooking the cars in to surveillance capitalism with connectivity and data selling.

I forget which thread I noted it in but as much as I like the 2024 Corolla I bought some of the standard safety features are frustrating to live with.  The adaptive cruise control is something I can now manage but is easily the worst feature on the car. 

Perish the thought over a similar basic car costing 30k with another 6-8 years of inflation.

Toyotas have a way of shutting the adaptive off and just having regular cruise control though.  Just hold down the button.

[Max Rockatansky]

Problem: there are absolutely people who would go for a more basic/less expensive car or house (I don't even WANT that much space to clean or yard to take care of; a 2-3 bedroom ranch house with a garage and central HVAC system on a small lot would be my ideal, but they don't build those any more - if they ever did).  But there's more profit to be made in telling those prospective customers to pound sand because the margins are higher on luxury cars and McMansions.

I wonder if this is partly because most of those people are also willing to buy used instead of new.

From what I gather on this forum it seems like most who buy similar compact cars as me get them on the used market.  All well and good I suppose but that supply will gradually dwindle since automakers are pulling away from more entry level segments.

Meanwhile, I'm leery of the used market because you don't know how the car was maintained and what issues are lurking under the surface.  And reliability is very important to me, given that there's nothing worse than having car trouble when you're on the road.  Alas, I'll probably be forced to at some point given that even the automakers that still make sedans are including a bunch of stuff I don't want and hooking the cars in to surveillance capitalism with connectivity and data selling.

I forget which thread I noted it in but as much as I like the 2024 Corolla I bought some of the standard safety features are frustrating to live with.  The adaptive cruise control is something I can now manage but is easily the worst feature on the car. 

Perish the thought over a similar basic car costing 30k with another 6-8 years of inflation.

Toyotas have a way of shutting the adaptive off and just having regular cruise control though.  Just hold down the button.

I have to do it every time you start the car.  When the collision system is shut off a yellow light appears on the gauge cluster.  I do it for longer drives but not really for driving to work.  There isn't much opportunity to use cruise control on drives into work anyway.

[JayhawkCO]

Software companies say 'Hi'. They charge more than they need to because of perceived value

Microsoft informed me that they were raising my subscription cost by 30%. Because of increased costs and improved content. Sure, they added in some crappy AI stuff but took out Publisher. That's an improvement?

AI -- the technology that no one is asking for but everyone is providing.

[hotdogPi]

What I expected the next generation of AI to do:

* Attempt to send a text saying you'll be somewhere at 5. It's 5:44. Before sending, it asks whether you mean 6.
* Attempt to send something to your boss intended for your significant other. Before sending, it warns you it might be going to the wrong person.
* Autocomplete several full words ahead because it knows what you're talking about, plus it could e.g. suggest "Albany" after just one letter if I said "junction of US 9 and US 20 in A".
* In a text, say "I can't find the video, but it's about [whatever]", and it brings up what you're looking for.
* You open your calculator and type "20*1.07", but you're just across the state line, and it knows 7% is the tax rate where you live but it's different where you currently are. It notifies you.
* You try to call someone at 6 PM, and it's been established that that person lives in a place where it's midnight there. It warns you first.

[Scott5114]

The guy here who get banned from reddit had to make a thread with a similar title to this and made solely to discuss something regarding his sexuality.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=35812.0

I read that as more of a bit of amusement at the street rather than says "look at me, I'm gay!", but I guess that's probably the first most people heard about it if they weren't following the Mac discussion on the humanoid robot thread.  Kinds reminds me of how people accuse gay people of "shoving their sexuality down our throats" when the gay person is simply existing and doing nothing that straight people don't do all the time.

Yeah, that old "what do you like on your body" thread where someone answered "a woman" is certainly "shoehorn[ing] into forum conversation random things about what gender of people they choose to have sex with". It's just that when straight people do it, nobody realizes that's what's happening, because it's "normal".

There are a couple other aspects of this that may not be immediately obvious to straight people. One is that one's sexuality influences so many things about a person's life that it actually is pretty difficult, if not impossible, to separate it from the rest of one's personality. Given that non-straight orientations are not accepted everywhere, people will move across the country or even to different countries to pursue a life they feel happy with living. It seems sort of dumb to me to say "Yeah, you know that part of you that caused you to move across a continent so you could feel accepted and not in danger? Don't bring that up in conversation." This is doubly true these days when the state of the world is in such flux that things that have been considered normal and legally acceptable in the last ten years or so might no longer be so, and people are worried about that.

Also, non-straight people often carry that aspect of themselves as a deeply personal secret for a very long time, and sometimes go a long period of time uncomfortable acknowledging it to themselves, much less sharing it with others. It is very difficult to describe the euphoria that results from finally throwing off that burden to those who haven't experienced it. (This is part of what makes pride events what they are—lots of people are reveling in that feeling together.) And without that frame of reference, it's hard to grasp why someone would potentially err on the side of oversharing. Also, being in such a situation means you're less likely to organically learn how to discuss these sorts of things in a "normal" way, so you're more likely to fuck up and cross boundaries talking about things you "shouldn't". (That should be something most people on this forum can sympathize with, since we've probably all accidentally gotten a bit too deep in the weeds on some road-related topic and alienated the person we were talking to as a result.)

[hbelkins]

When you miss logging on to the forum for a day and have to scroll through four pages of new posts in a thread, particularly the "Minor Things That Bother You" thread.

[JayhawkCO]

When you miss logging on to the forum for a day and have to scroll through four pages of new posts in a thread, particularly the "Minor Things That Bother You" thread.

More content should mean better, no?

[Max Rockatansky]

If it isn't a highway related thread that has four pages of new content then I'm probably not reading all of it.  I clear out my unread messages all the time without looking several threads.

[jeffandnicole]

When you miss logging on to the forum for a day and have to scroll through four pages of new posts in a thread, particularly the "Minor Things That Bother You" thread.

More content should mean better, no?

Scroll and find the post with the most nested posts usually is good enough.

[JayhawkCO]

Scroll and find the post with the most nested posts usually is good enough.

When I'm on my computer instead of my phone, I actively "prune" my posts so as not to have nested quotes. Makes everything really unreadable.

[Rothman]

When you miss logging on to the forum for a day and have to scroll through four pages of new posts in a thread, particularly the "Minor Things That Bother You" thread.

More content should mean better, no?

Oh no.  Nonononononono.  No.  And that goes twice for this forum.

[D-Dey65]

The lack of CD players in New automobiles.

Tape decks stopped being included in cars in 2009, and CD players around 2021 per a quick Google search. CD players and tape players had to be engineered differently from home models because of space constraints as well as the more harsh environment whether it be the Minnesota winter or the Arizona summer. Thats around five points of weight and mechanics that is easily replaced by an extremely light Bluetooth chip.

While both my 2013 and 2016 model year vehicles have Bluetooth, USB connectivity, and CD players, I haven't use the USB or CD players in ages, as I prefer to stream everything through my phone to my radio. This includes my media server which has "rips" of all my CDs.

To me I choose not to link my phone to my car radio.  I have set reasons why I don't want to the two devices communicating to each other. 

I don't like my phone to tell me where I'm driving to as I crank the starter.  I also don't like my song I'm listening to interrupted due to a telemarketer calling me as I drive.

I get that. Like ZLoth, I haven't used the CD player on my car stereo in a while, but I have used the USB, mostly for flash drives and card readers. One time I even tried to use my iPod classic on the USB drive, and I saw a message on the screen suggesting I get certain software for the car stereo. By the time I tried to find it, I found out it didn't exist anymore.

I may have tried to use the bluetooth function, but considering my history with bluetooth, I don't bother with it at all.

[kernals12]

The only known way we have to build muscle mass is to intentionally injure ourselves in the hopes that the muscle will grow back slightly bigger.

[thspfc]

The only known way we have to build muscle mass is to intentionally injure ourselves in the hopes that the muscle will grow back slightly bigger.

This is only true if you believe that a muscle's primary purpose is to get injured.

[Max Rockatansky]

The only known way we have to build muscle mass is to intentionally injure ourselves in the hopes that the muscle will grow back slightly bigger.

This is only true if you believe that a muscle's primary purpose is to get injured.

Given K12's well known stance on exertion I wouldn't look to him for exercise advice.

[kphoger]

None the less, his description of building muscle is accurate.

[Max Rockatansky]

None the less, his description of building muscle is accurate.

As my brother found out when he was doing cycles of steroids about twenty years ago.  He was thinking by using them that it would somehow entail less time in the weight room.  The reality was that he didn't get the maximum effect until he began lifting more frequently.

[CtrlAltDel]

The only known way we have to build muscle mass is to intentionally injure ourselves in the hopes that the muscle will grow back slightly bigger.

None the less, his description of building muscle is accurate.

My understanding is that muscle growth does not really come from microtears. That said, I'm far from an expert.

[kphoger]

My understanding is that muscle growth does not really come from microtears. That said, I'm far from an expert.

I'm not either.  I guess I should have said that too.

[Max Rockatansky]

My understanding is that muscle growth does not really come from microtears. That said, I'm far from an expert.

I'm not either.  I guess I should have said that too.

A lot of it depends on what you are trying to do.  Strength and cardio/endurance training are different disciplines. 

One misconception I've found with strength training that almost everyone engages in is high weight and short repetition sets.  Controlled lengthy sets at lower weights I've found to be way more effective and generally result in less strains from poor lifting form. 

[kphoger]

One misconception I've found with strength training that almost everyone engages in is high weight and short repetition sets.  Controlled lengthy sets at lower weights I've found to be way more effective and generally result in less strains from poor lifting form. 

Agreed.  What we were discussing is what actually happens to your muscles on the microscopic level in order for them to grow.

[Max Rockatansky]

One misconception I've found with strength training that almost everyone engages in is high weight and short repetition sets.  Controlled lengthy sets at lower weights I've found to be way more effective and generally result in less strains from poor lifting form. 

Agreed.  What we were discussing is what actually happens to your muscles on the microscopic level in order for them to grow.

I recall trying to explain that to him before he got started.  I also warned him about what was likely going to happen with his testosterone levels.  At the time he wasn't worried because he wasn't married and didn't want kids.  Five years later he was married and had all sorts of issues with conceiving. 

[Scott5114]

I recall trying to explain that to him before he got started.  I also warned him about what was likely going to happen with his testosterone levels.  At the time he wasn't worried because he wasn't married and didn't want kids.  Five years later he was married and had all sorts of issues with conceiving. 

Due to the steroids, you mean, or the weight training?

[Max Rockatansky]

I recall trying to explain that to him before he got started.  I also warned him about what was likely going to happen with his testosterone levels.  At the time he wasn't worried because he wasn't married and didn't want kids.  Five years later he was married and had all sorts of issues with conceiving. 

Due to the steroids, you mean, or the weight training?

Steroid use fucked his testosterone production.  My brother needed proscribed testosterone injections for years afterwards.  Some additional issues he had post steroids were shrunken testicles and low sperm motility.