Minor things that bother you

[interstatefan990]

I'm a traditionalist, I like Times New Roman, I like printed newspapers and paper books.

You're no old school enough if you don't prefer Fraktur.

And you're an idiot if you prefer Comic Sans MS

Just no Calibri, please. The most overused font on the planet- that now it just screams "The person who made this has zero creative sense whatsoever".

[Scott5114]

I'm a traditionalist, I like Times New Roman, I like printed newspapers and paper books.

You're no old school enough if you don't prefer Fraktur.

And you're an idiot if you prefer Comic Sans MS

Just no Calibri, please. The most overused font on the planet- that now it just screams "The person who made this has zero creative sense whatsoever".

Which used to be Times New Roman's role.

[elsmere241]

When your wife asks you to go through the drive-thru because she's hungry. You order a meal and she gets one little thing.  She immediately starts in on the fries you got as part of the meal, and "jokes" that she's going to eat them all.  By the time she gives you the cup, they're almost all gone.

We've been working harder on our relationship since that incident.

Yesterday, she asked to go through the same drive-thru again.  This time she ordered a full meal like I did, let me keep my French fries, and gave me some of hers.

[kphoger]

I've kind of grown fond of the truck stop restrooms that have toilet paper dispensers outside between the men's and women's entrances.

So you have to predict in advance how much you'll need?

I mean...  I guess you could waddle back out again with your pants around your ankles to get some more if you didn't grab enough on your way in...

[Max Rockatansky]

I've kind of grown fond of the truck stop restrooms that have toilet paper dispensers outside between the men's and women's entrances.

So you have to predict in advance how much you'll need?

I mean...  I guess you could waddle back out again with your pants around your ankles to get some more if you didn't grab enough on your way in...

I just assumed the truckers carried their own TP.  We have a couple rolls and some soap in the Suburban.

[kphoger]

I just assumed the truckers carried their own TP.  We have a couple rolls and some soap in the Suburban.

When driving in Mexico, I always have a roll of TP and a metal coat hanger.  The TP for obvious reasons, the coat hanger in case someone forgets to not put their TP in the toilet and we have to fish anything out or otherwise unplug the toilet.

[LilianaUwU]

The fact there is a temporary bike lane on Grande Allée replacing the bus lane, which caused an entire hour of delays for my bus.

[gonealookin]

I've kind of grown fond of the truck stop restrooms that have toilet paper dispensers outside between the men's and women's entrances.

So you have to predict in advance how much you'll need?

I mean...  I guess you could waddle back out again with your pants around your ankles to get some more if you didn't grab enough on your way in...

I usually keep a few folded-up Kleenex in my back pocket (or I have a travel pack of them if I'm carrying a backpack), plus one of those 2 oz. bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizer.  That's all you need to deal with these situations.

[kphoger]

Truth be told, I hardly ever actually use those out-in-front TP dispensers myself, because I'm always prepared with my own roll of TP before I ever get to that point.

[kurumi]

"Just go to example.com backslash register..."

-- sounds good except it's not a backslash; just slash

"Oh! Just go to example.com forward slash register..."

-- Thanks Microsoft

[kphoger]

backslash

Translation:  I'm old enough to remember DOS but never actually used it.

[1995hoo]

I was once trying to explain the difference to someone who couldn't seem to understand the difference between a regular (forward) slash and a backslash and I wound up resorting to this rather absurd analogy: "Imagine if Evel Knievel were riding his motorcycle along your sentence in the same order you read the words, and imagine he wanted to jump over part of it. He'd use a forward slash / as his launch ramp. It's 'forward' because its top points forward along your sentence. He'd use a backslash \ as his attempted landing ramp, and again it's a 'backslash' because its top points back to the beginning."

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the only time Evel Knievel has been used as a way of explaining punctuation marks. The analogy seemed to work for the person to whom I was trying to explain it, anyway. Of course the backslash is not actually used in standard writing, but whatever. My understanding, based on what I read somewhere, is that it was selected for use in directory paths because the standard slash had already been chosen for command-line delimiters (like "dir /p"), but that might not actually be correct.

With all that said, I get annoyed when I hear people (usually radio advertisers) using "backslash" when reciting URLs. It's similar to the people who say "EST" when referring to the time, thinking they're being precise, despite EDT being in effect. (The rejoinder to both, I suppose, would be "harmless error" under the assumption everyone knows what they mean.)

[kphoger]

(The rejoinder to both, I suppose, would be "harmless error" under the assumption everyone knows what they mean.)

Not for me.

Carrie sells Scentsy, and monthly specials often drop in the middle of the night on the first of the month.  These times are announced as "Mountain Standard Time", no matter what time of year it is.  Considering that she has to wake up in the middle of the night in order to order stuff before it sells out, it's kind of important to know what time the system opens up for sales.

The reason I refuse to chalk this up as "harmless error" because "everyone knows what they mean" is that Arizona is on actual Mountain Standard Time all year round.  I'm sure it would tick me off even more if we lived in Arizona.

[1995hoo]

^^^^

Fair point, and I imagine if I lived in that part of the country it would likely bother me more. We don't have that issue around here, although some people do get confused as to time differences (e.g., my wife has a brother in Phoenix and she can never remember whether the difference is two hours or three, although that's not really a terminology issue).

[kphoger]

Fair point, and I imagine if I lived in that part of the country it would likely bother me more. We don't have that issue around here, although some people do get confused as to time differences (e.g., my wife has a brother in Phoenix and she can never remember whether the difference is two hours or three, although that's not really a terminology issue).

Likewise, most of Mexico stopped observing DST a couple of years ago.  Our best friends live in Coahuila, which means they're on CST year-round, while we're on CST or CDT depending on time of year.  But, also likewise, that's not a terminology issue.

[formulanone]

"Just go to example.com backslash register..."

-- sounds good except it's not a backslash; just slash

"Oh! Just go to example.com forward slash register..."

-- Thanks Microsoft

Oops

[DenverBrian]

I'm a traditionalist, I like Times New Roman, I like printed newspapers and paper books.

You're no old school enough if you don't prefer Fraktur.

And you're an idiot if you prefer Comic Sans MS

Just no Calibri, please. The most overused font on the planet- that now it just screams "The person who made this has zero creative sense whatsoever".

Not all text or print needs to scream "I'm creative!" either. 

[kphoger]

Not all text or print needs to scream "I'm creative!" either. 

Word.

I don't bother changing the font from the default in Excel, for example, unless I need something that's monospaced.

[1995hoo]

Not all text or print needs to scream "I'm creative!" either. 

Heh. Two years ago, Judge Easterbrook smacked down an attorney who thought it was appropriate to set his brief in Bernhard Modern. If you want to see the actual opinion, which includes a couple of paragraphs set in Bernhard Modern to illustrate why the judges were not pleased, here's a .PDF link. (While I agree with Judge Easterbrook's point of view, I don't think he needed to chide counsel by name.)

[vdeane]

It's similar to the people who say "EST" when referring to the time

Obviously that's bad because "EST" stands for Empire State Trail, and telling someone "we'll meet at 6:00 PM Empire State Trail" makes zero sense (even if you're meeting on the trail, you still need to specify where on the trail).

(yes, I know what you actually meant)

[kphoger]

EST is just French for EAST.  You know, Eastern Atlantic Standard Time.

[wxfree]

"Just go to example.com backslash register..."

-- sounds good except it's not a backslash; just slash

"Oh! Just go to example.com forward slash register..."

-- Thanks Microsoft

This reminds me of the old days, before NOAA weather radio had computer voices.  One of the meteorologists who recorded messages, when giving a web address, would say "solidus," sounding somewhat like "slide us."  I'd never heard that before, and haven't heard it since.  I knew what it was because of how it was used in addresses.

It also bothers me when people think that every slash is a backslash.

[1995hoo]

It's similar to the people who say "EST" when referring to the time

Obviously that's bad because "EST" stands for Empire State Trail, and telling someone "we'll meet at 6:00 PM Empire State Trail" makes zero sense (even if you're meeting on the trail, you still need to specify where on the trail).

(yes, I know what you actually meant)

I vaguely remember a book from when I was a kid in which "EST" stood for "Empty Sea Time." I'm thinking it may have been Fat Men from Space or something else by the same author, but either way, it would be something I would have read when I was in kindergarten or first grade, which means late 1970s (and thus why I'm unsure).

[wxfree]

Fair point, and I imagine if I lived in that part of the country it would likely bother me more. We don't have that issue around here, although some people do get confused as to time differences (e.g., my wife has a brother in Phoenix and she can never remember whether the difference is two hours or three, although that's not really a terminology issue).

Likewise, most of Mexico stopped observing DST a couple of years ago.  Our best friends live in Coahuila, which means they're on CST year-round, while we're on CST or CDT depending on time of year.  But, also likewise, that's not a terminology issue.

I knew someone who did an online radio show, so rather than just giving a time, he would follow with "Central Standard Time."  Always Central Standard Time, no matter what part of the year it is.  I tried to explain when to say Central Daylight Time, or just say Central, but he was someone who couldn't be corrected.

On a different topic, since most of the year is not standard, standard time should be an hour ahead, and the shorter part of the year should be non-standard, something like Central Laggard Time.  (Yes, I understand that it's standard because of the sun.  My suggestion is a joke.)

[kphoger]

One of the meteorologists who recorded messages, when giving a web address, would say "solidus," sounding somewhat like "slide us."

That would be especially annoying because the word is actually pronounced like "solid us".

It's theorized that the solidus represents the British shilling because it's just a straightened-out long s ( ſ ).  The letter s was used for shillings in the first place not because it's the first letter in shilling, but because £–s–d (pound–shilling–pence) come from the ancient Roman coins libra–solidus–denarius.  Thus, calling a forward slash a 'solidus' is actually calling it a shilling.

That meteorologist should have just called it a 'virgule' instead.  That would have been much clearer.