Minor things that bother you

[kkt]

Historically, West Virginians drove across the center line in every curve to round out and tack on another 5 MPH in speed.  The extra speed was also necessary to help avoid in the opposing lane doing the opposite manuever in the same curve (both vehicles manuevering at the same time).  Amazingly, I never ever heard of any head-on collisions in curves.  Cannot imagine anyone doing this today without tragic consequences.

On the other hand, this same driving technique was used on narrow hilly roads without pavement striping.  There were plenty of occasions where folks ran off the road to avoid a sideswipe.  After I had graduated, my sisters were riding a school bus that "got run off the road" and got stuck in the mud alongside a 30-foot cliff above the creek.  After a few minutes, the bus flipped onto its side and braced up against a bunch trees suspended over the creek.  In the aftermath, it became clear that it was the bus driver that got a little too aggressive riding the inside of the curve (ergo, the other side of the road) and needed to overcompensate to avoid collision.

I saw the aftermath of such a collision.  It was after a rafting trip in the Sierra Nevada foothills.  We were with a group that raften down a stretch of river that's now part of the New Melones Reservoir.  Anyway, the rafting company was busing all the rafters back to the launch point in the river where we started and where our cars were.  One of the people on our trip was a doctor and called on us to stop so they pulled the bus over.  A motorcyclist and a car had come too close to each other on a blind curve.  The car ended up about 30 feet down the hill.  The bike was so far down I never even saw it, but the first people on the scene had already got the biker back up to the road rather than try to do CPR on a steep slope with bushes all around.  We stopped for about an hour while the doctor did what she could.  As it turned out, not much for the guy but did tell the group that had been doing CPR for a couple of hours already that they could stop and recorded his time of death.  The doctor did stay for the ambulance to come and get him since she signed the paperwork.

[LilianaUwU]

I'm stretching the definition of "minor", but the fact that a triple digit number of people who are paid over $35/hour can take the entire city hostage with a bus strike.

[thspfc]

I'm stretching the definition of "minor", but the fact that a triple digit number of people who are paid over $35/hour can take the entire city hostage with a bus strike.

At that hourly rate how is a strike effective, other than the strikers essentially firing themselves?

[Max Rockatansky]

When people hit "reply all" on congratulations emails.  Just email the affected person directly.

[kphoger]

I have heard in rural Nevada it's common to just straddle the yellow line because that makes it easier to not go off the road at triple-digit speeds.

On a lot of Missouri's lettered routes, I routinely straddle the centerline on purpose because they're narrow, have no edge line, and/or aren't well maintained.  Yes, I find it's easy to tack on an additional 5 to 10 mph that way.

Historically, West Virginians drove across the center line in every curve to round out and tack on another 5 MPH in speed.  The extra speed was also necessary to help avoid in the opposing lane doing the opposite manuever in the same curve (both vehicles manuevering at the same time).  Amazingly, I never ever heard of any head-on collisions in curves.  Cannot imagine anyone doing this today without tragic consequences.

I've never driven in West Virginia, but I do this all the time when driving in the Ozarks.

[on_wisconsin]

Tree based interference of distant TV signals and rando patches of Wood Sorrel in the lawn.

[kurumi]

early morning birdcalls that are just trills of the same note, over and over and over again. We have nice weather, but all the birds seem to be belligerent crows and these things. All cranked up to 10.

[GaryV]

People that post a poll, then give statistics that give the answer to said poll.

[tchafe1978]

When you eat something (like an apple or popcorn) and get bits of food stuck in your teeth, but you don't have a toothpick handy, so you end up playing with the bit of food with your toungue for half a day until you finally get home and can get a toothpick to get the bit of food out.

[kphoger]

When you eat something (like an apple or popcorn) and get bits of food stuck in your teeth, but you don't have a toothpick handy, so you end up playing with the bit of food with your toungue for half a day until you finally get home and can get a toothpick to get the bit of food out.

I had a filling fall out fifteen years ago.  Food gets stuck in the hole every day, so I end up doing the tongue-tip game every day, multiple times a day.

[bugo]

Tree based interference of distant TV signals and rando patches of Wood Sorrel in the lawn.

I have satellite internet, and I lose signal every time it rains hard.

[1995hoo]

Our AC compressor died. And, of course, the EPA banned Puron, so replacements are no longer manufactured. Have to replace the entire AC system. Going to be a long several days with no AC. It's 82° in the house at 8:06 AM, although I slept better than I thought I would last night.

Window units violate community rules, and I'm not sure they make any small enough for our narrow bedroom windows, but I think if I can find one that fits I may just go get one anyway if it gets much warmer in the house. Trying to sleep downstairs where it's coolest would be tricky (there is a couch and a recliner down there).

[Molandfreak]

Our AC compressor died. And, of course, the EPA banned Puron, so replacements are no longer manufactured. Have to replace the entire AC system. Going to be a long several days with no AC. It's 82° in the house at 8:06 AM, although I slept better than I thought I would last night.

Window units violate community rules, and I'm not sure they make any small enough for our narrow bedroom windows, but I think if I can find one that fits I may just go get one anyway if it gets much warmer in the house. Trying to sleep downstairs where it's coolest would be tricky (there is a couch and a recliner down there).

Portable air conditioners have a tube or two which only need a small window opening for a plastic connector. It takes about five minutes to install the connector, and the result is not typically any more noticeable than a window fan from the outside since there is no part of the unit sticking out of the window.

[Rothman]

"Community rules"?  HOA?

[vdeane]

Stores that don't have A/C, or set it high enough that it feels like it doesn't.  I'm working on trying to get some of my favorite shows on DVD/BluRay, and was sweating like a pig just waiting in line to check out.  I couldn't wait to get home to somewhere properly cool (and to take off my bra - there's nothing worse than a sweaty bra, especially since they take a day to dry out properly).

[Max Rockatansky]

Our AC compressor died. And, of course, the EPA banned Puron, so replacements are no longer manufactured. Have to replace the entire AC system. Going to be a long several days with no AC. It's 82° in the house at 8:06 AM, although I slept better than I thought I would last night.

Window units violate community rules, and I'm not sure they make any small enough for our narrow bedroom windows, but I think if I can find one that fits I may just go get one anyway if it gets much warmer in the house. Trying to sleep downstairs where it's coolest would be tricky (there is a couch and a recliner down there).

Amusingly I keep the house at 82F during the summer daytime hours in Fresno.  My wife didn't grow up with AC and I've gotten accustomed to the heat over the last couple decades.  Neither of us is willing to pay astronomically higher energy bills just to be slightly more comfortable.

The fan bearing on our AC went seized up last summer.  The unit was original to the house and like your AC it also used Puron.  It wasn't substantially more expensive to replace the entire HVAC rather than just repair the existing system.  It took about a week to get the new system in which meant having to sit through 93-98F days inside the living room. 

[1995hoo]

The thermostat is now showing 86°. We spent most of the afternoon downstairs in the basement (ground floor) with a fan cranking and it was tolerable. Just came upstairs to cook dinner (on the grill, of course) and it is miserable up here. We wound up opening the windows because it feels cooler outside than it does in here.

[kphoger]

Stores that don't have A/C, or set it high enough that it feels like it doesn't.

When I drive to Mexico, the customs office is not air-conditioned, but the part where the vehicle paperwork people sit behind plexiglass windows is air-conditioned.  Somehow, that makes it worse.  The brief puffs of cool air I can feel every so often:  that just makes the stagnant warm air on my side even more annoying.

Similarly, there was no a/c in school growing up—except in the library, where we didn't have any classes.

there's nothing worse than a sweaty bra

My wife disagrees.  She hates underboob sweat even more.  She'd rather the bra soak it up.

[1995hoo]

Heh. I'm hot enough that I've thought about wearing swim trunks around the house because the mesh liner means no need for underwear.

[kphoger]

I'm hot

You're so vain.

the mesh liner means no need for underwear.

You're an adult now.  If you don't want to wear underwear, then don't wear underwear.

[freebrickproductions]

So I'm currently taking an online Pre-Calc Trig class this summer at a local university. One of the things we just went over in this class was on vectors.
Now, as part of the section on vectors, we went over the formula for writing a vector in the form of v = i + j (i.e. v = 7i + 3j) when you only have the magnitude (||v||) and the angle (θ) to work with, which is:
||v||(cosθi + sinθj)
This is the exact formula that's written in the textbook and in the online app we use for homework.

The textbooks the university I'm attending uses are from Pearson, which also means that we get to use Pearson's online apps for doing things like homework. Now, I don't entirely know the back-end of how this works, but, from what I can tell, when it loads a new problem, it gives randomized numbers (more or less) for the problem, internally solves it using the pre-programmed formulas, and then checks any inputted answers in against what it got. Unfortunately, it seems that whomever programmed the above formula into the app accidentally swapped-around the cosine and sine, so instead of ||v||(cosθi + sinθj), the computer does ||v||(sinθi + cosθj). As a result, if the answer to a question would be 10i + 3j, the "correct" answer Pearson's app looks for is 3i + 10j. You'd think the person who coded it would've been able to see that it was asking for the wrong answer when being tested.

[Scott5114]

Math classes are hard enough without tech-company bullshit injected into them.

[kkt]

Though it's not like there were never any errors in the plain old printed math books.  10th grade geometry, we had fun finding the answers in the back of the book that were wrong, or proofs that leaped over a few missing steps.

[Scott5114]

Sure, but at least with a printed book, you could tell your teacher that it was wrong, and if they were any good they'd work it out themselves and correct your grade. These days, if the questions are randomized, who knows if there's even any way to prove what the questions you got were.

[hotdogPi]

When I was doing my class on surveying, the professor discarded the online Pearson homework halfway through because it had way too many errors.