Minor things that bother you

[GaryV]

New topic: People who can't do basic research.

Today's Detroit Free Press / News has a travel story reprinted from the Iowa City Citizen-Press on the Iowa 80 truck stop. It begins:

Traveling on Interstate 80 is an exercise of endurance. ● The country's second-longest interstate stretches slightly over 2,900 miles from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. The interstate's longest stretch within a single state is in Iowa, 303 miles from the Quad Cities to Council Bluffs.

Excuse me? Longest stretch? Not by a long shot. Not 2nd place, not 3rd place, not 4th place (PA beats IA by a handful of miles). This writer from Iowa doesn't even realize that Nebraska, right next door, is half again as wide?  Sigh.

[formulanone]

People complaining about the price tag Mario Kart World is going to have. When accounting for inflation there have been past games as expensive or more at launch.

A SNES cartridge costs about $130 in modern money.  No wonder we had a Blockbuster account and rented so much back in the era.  I recall being elated during the PS1 and PS2 era over how cheap new games were because of the CD based format. 

My dad paid $34 for an Atari 2600 Pac-Man cart when it came out in 1982. That's like $113 in today's money, for Atari 2600 Pac-Man.

I recall most of the cartridges being around $30-40, but we bought Yars' Revenge for an eye-watering $52 at a Toys R Us near New York City in 1982, during a family trip. (To be fair, I got a lot of mileage out of that game compared to most. It took me about 15 years to finally achieve the purple/pink waves!) So sometimes I cringe for a moment when today's new-release games are $50-60, but then I think back that it's relatively cheaper than when I was kid.

15 years?  Dear heavens...

Still have the system.  Still play Yars on it.

I wouldn't say I played Atari every day or even every month for a while there...something I fire up perhaps once very 2-4 years at the most in the last 20 years. (The PlayStations might get booted up twice a year). Circling back, there's now free games on your phone so complaining about $50 one's seems like a steep difference even though that number has been a pretty stable threshold for decades.

To be fair, the Atari 2600 release of Pac-Man was one of the biggest disappointments, and was seen as one of the instigators of the "Video Game Crash of 1983". Had I spent my own cash on that (which would have been like a year's worth of allowance and birthday money), I'd probably have sworn off buying video games for life.

[Rothman]

People complaining about the price tag Mario Kart World is going to have. When accounting for inflation there have been past games as expensive or more at launch.

A SNES cartridge costs about $130 in modern money.  No wonder we had a Blockbuster account and rented so much back in the era.  I recall being elated during the PS1 and PS2 era over how cheap new games were because of the CD based format. 

My dad paid $34 for an Atari 2600 Pac-Man cart when it came out in 1982. That's like $113 in today's money, for Atari 2600 Pac-Man.

I recall most of the cartridges being around $30-40, but we bought Yars' Revenge for an eye-watering $52 at a Toys R Us near New York City in 1982, during a family trip. (To be fair, I got a lot of mileage out of that game compared to most. It took me about 15 years to finally achieve the purple/pink waves!) So sometimes I cringe for a moment when today's new-release games are $50-60, but then I think back that it's relatively cheaper than when I was kid.

15 years?  Dear heavens...

Still have the system.  Still play Yars on it.

I wouldn't say I played Atari every day or even every month for a while there...something I fire up perhaps once very 2-4 years at the most in the last 20 years. (The PlayStations might get booted up twice a year). Circling back, there's now free games on your phone so complaining about $50 one's seems like a steep difference even though that number has been a pretty stable threshold for decades.

To be fair, the Atari 2600 release of Pac-Man was one of the biggest disappointments, and was seen as one of the instigators of the "Video Game Crash of 1983". Had I spent my own cash on that (which would have been like a year's worth of allowance and birthday money), I'd probably have sworn off buying video games for life.

I've got E.T. as well.

Ms. Pac-Man was a better port for the Atari.  Not sure about the lousy port of Pac-Man's effect on video games.

Weird thing is, as a kid, I didn't even notice the "crash" since I kept getting cartridges for my system well beyond 1983.

[kkt]

New topic: People who can't do basic research.

Today's Detroit Free Press / News has a travel story reprinted from the Iowa City Citizen-Press on the Iowa 80 truck stop. It begins:

Traveling on Interstate 80 is an exercise of endurance. ● The country's second-longest interstate stretches slightly over 2,900 miles from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. The interstate's longest stretch within a single state is in Iowa, 303 miles from the Quad Cities to Council Bluffs.

Excuse me? Longest stretch? Not by a long shot. Not 2nd place, not 3rd place, not 4th place (PA beats IA by a handful of miles). This writer from Iowa doesn't even realize that Nebraska, right next door, is half again as wide?  Sigh.

Even though copy editors aren't paid a lot, they're still more expensive than NO copy editors.

[wanderer2575]

Food Network's Tournament of Champions this year.  "Best chef in the world" has always meant "Best chef signed to Food Network who is willing to compete," but this year's competition not allowing previous winners to compete puts a huge asterisk on the whole thing and I therefore have no interest in watching any of it.

[Molandfreak]

Food Network's Tournament of Champions this year.  "Best chef in the world" has always meant "Best chef signed to Food Network who is willing to compete," but this year's competition not allowing previous winners to compete puts a huge asterisk on the whole thing and I therefore have no interest in watching any of it.

If Bobby Flay wins every time, where's the suspense in that?

[GaryV]

but this year's competition not allowing previous winners to compete puts a huge asterisk on the whole thing and I therefore have no interest in watching any of it.

That's not what stopped me from watching it.

[JayhawkCO]

Speaking of cooking shows, one of my good friends is on this season of Top Chef and killing it.

[kphoger]

The only part of it that really concerns me is the digital art. Given that I'm a wannabe actor and a music producer in LA and I'm still a nobody at that, it gives me a lot of cause for concern to see just how easily AI could take over my career one day.

The problem that AI in general has is that it can generate words, sentences, images, sounds, etc. and sometimes it is even pretty close to the real thing in form, but it has no substance to it. An AI novel cannot precisely choose words to convey the emotion of its characters, because the AI feels none. An AI can generate a drawing of two people holding hands, but it cannot draw a couple in love because it has no concept of what that means. And as a result, AI art tends to feel samey, rote, and boring if you look at it for too long. As far as I can tell, this is a fundamental limitation that cannot be worked around, no matter how fancy the model gets.

No matter how good AI gets at creating music, it cannot create the experience of a live concert.  Human musicians looking at the audience, little jokes in between songs, the sip the guitarist takes from his cup of beer sitting on the amp, seeing the bassist stoop down to adjust something on his pedal board, re-tuning a string now and then, little timing mistakes, sideways glances between musicians because of who knows what, etc, etc.  AI cannot mimic any of that.

I think eventually we will see AI be harnessed as a tool for artistic creation in much the same way that Photoshop or 3D modeling was. It could become a tool to help automate repetitive or tedious parts of the creation process. Humans will always be in the driver's seat when it comes to true art. But generating an image and treating that as a finished product will become the province of the lazy, and it will garner much the same reaction as someone publishing a bad drawing, or ignored entirely.

Exactly. Who needs accurate images to put into a business presentation (unless you're trying to show the product)?

It can also be used for generic background music. Think elevator music or on-hold music. Who needs sophisticated scores for that?

Yes, this use of AI will cause some graphic designers or some musicians to lose work. But if it's throw-away graphics or music, it's a whole lot cheaper to say, "Create me an image of a boy playing with a dog."

Yep.  Think of a real human doing a tutorial on YouTube, but he uses AI to create the background images for his video.  He didn't hire a real person to design that background for him, but that was the 'true art' portion of the video.

[wanderer2575]

Being told repeatedly over many minutes at a restaurant (whether sit-down or at the counter for fast food) that my order is "coming right up."  Is it too much for the customer to expect an honest statement?  If it's going to be 10 minutes then tell me it's going to be 10 minutes.  Then I know.

[wanderer2575]

Food Network's Tournament of Champions this year.  "Best chef in the world" has always meant "Best chef signed to Food Network who is willing to compete," but this year's competition not allowing previous winners to compete puts a huge asterisk on the whole thing and I therefore have no interest in watching any of it.

If Bobby Flay wins every time, where's the suspense in that?

A once-a-year competition that makes a big issue of bragging rights for the winner is hardly the same as the weekly (more often with reruns) tone of Beat Bobby Flay, especially when a big part of the entertainment value (?) of the latter is about the guest judges harassing Flay.

[JayhawkCO]

Being told repeatedly over many minutes at a restaurant (whether sit-down or at the counter for fast food) that my order is "coming right up."  Is it too much for the customer to expect an honest statement?  If it's going to be 10 minutes then tell me it's going to be 10 minutes.  Then I know.

In most restaurants that keep you waiting that long, the employees aren't knowledgeable enough to give you an honest statement.

[thenetwork]

Being told repeatedly over many minutes at a restaurant (whether sit-down or at the counter for fast food) that my order is "coming right up."  Is it too much for the customer to expect an honest statement?  If it's going to be 10 minutes then tell me it's going to be 10 minutes.  Then I know.

If the meals come out in a reasonable amount of time (15 - 20 minutes is considered average in most restaurants), constant reminders is not necessary.

Especially if I am in an extended conversation with other members at the table:  If someone said our food is "coming up" multiple times, I would be more likely to end the conversation early, to prepare for the distribution of meals ritual. Then you are more cognizant of how long it's taking instead of being in a deeper conversation and letting time fly by. 

I only notice later-than-average arriving meals if I start seeing others around me getting their food first before me or if my waitstaff hasn't been by in a while to bring/refill our waters or other beverages or to give us our appetizers.

[kphoger]

YouTube made me sign in today.

I listen to music on YouTube in the background all day long at work, using Incognito mode in Chrome.  I've never had to sign in before today.  Anyone else?

[SEWIGuy]

YouTube made me sign in today.

I listen to music on YouTube in the background all day long at work, using Incognito mode in Chrome.  I've never had to sign in before today.  Anyone else?

Yes. Only occasionally

[CtrlAltDel]

YouTube made me sign in today.

I listen to music on YouTube in the background all day long at work, using Incognito mode in Chrome.  I've never had to sign in before today.  Anyone else?

It asked me to do so for the first time yesterday as well. I was so tired and annoyed, I just went to another web site.

[roadman65]

Being told repeatedly over many minutes at a restaurant (whether sit-down or at the counter for fast food) that my order is "coming right up."  Is it too much for the customer to expect an honest statement?  If it's going to be 10 minutes then tell me it's going to be 10 minutes.  Then I know.

In most restaurants that keep you waiting that long, the employees aren't knowledgeable enough to give you an honest statement.

Or it's the cooks fault. Sometimes the server is dumbfounded on what to say.  Remember the cooks don't get tip sharing so they take their own time. They don't have to hear the complaints about them as the server does.  I even had a cook say that us servers losing tip money isn't his concern and he doesn't care one way or the other especially this particular cook was always mad when two or more parties entered the restaurant as it was killing him.

[JayhawkCO]

Being told repeatedly over many minutes at a restaurant (whether sit-down or at the counter for fast food) that my order is "coming right up."  Is it too much for the customer to expect an honest statement?  If it's going to be 10 minutes then tell me it's going to be 10 minutes.  Then I know.

In most restaurants that keep you waiting that long, the employees aren't knowledgeable enough to give you an honest statement.

Or it's the cooks fault. Sometimes the server is dumbfounded on what to say.  Remember the cooks don't get tip sharing so they take their own time. They don't have to hear the complaints about them as the server does.  I even had a cook say that us servers losing tip money isn't his concern and he doesn't care one way or the other especially this particular cook was always mad when two or more parties entered the restaurant as it was killing him.

Sure, it's most often kitchen issues that delay your food. My point is that good servers are able to mitigate long ticket times with little tricks (small snacks, free drinks, etc.) and/or a good server understands kitchen timing well enough to be able to actually provide a realistic estimate as opposed to just saying "coming".

[Mav94]

YouTube made me sign in today.

I listen to music on YouTube in the background all day long at work, using Incognito mode in Chrome.  I've never had to sign in before today.  Anyone else?

I always sign in because I have Premium and I don't want to hear the ads. Best $12 I spend every month!

[Rothman]

YouTube made me sign in today.

I listen to music on YouTube in the background all day long at work, using Incognito mode in Chrome.  I've never had to sign in before today.  Anyone else?

I always sign in because I have Premium and I don't want to hear the ads. Best $12 I spend every month!

*snickers*

I get adless YouTube for free.

[thenetwork]

I like to use YouTube for a lot of things, including listening to and making music playlists. I don't spend money on no-ad formats, either.

But what I hate about YouTube when playing music is that on occasion, you get a long‐form ad (usually a boring "snake oil" ad) that is longer than the song you hear!!!

[kphoger]

But what I hate about YouTube when playing music is that on occasion, you get a long‐form ad (usually a boring "snake oil" ad) that is longer than the song you hear!!!

I never get one that long without a 'skip' option.

[Max Rockatansky]

The majority of those long YouTube ads seem to be about erectile disfunction or having 15-20 pounds of compacted shit in your digestive system.

[kphoger]

The majority of those long YouTube ads seem to be about erectile disfunction or having 15-20 pounds of compacted shit in your digestive system.

Or "The Independent Order of Odd Fellows Jackson Lodge #8 can't stand it when you do this, but there's nothing they can do about it..."

[kkt]

Caps of vanilla extract are so hard to open.  Small cap that's hard to grip.  I used a pliers once, and it did open it, but it also bent the cap so it never closed right again.