Minor things that bother you

[kkt]

But the ad was memorable to you.

[oscar]

But the ad was memorable to you.

Doesn't make me want to run out and get a Dell, though. I have some old Dells I don't use anymore, but my current notebook PCs are other brands.

[kphoger]

A recent TV ad by Dell Technologies, featuring a woman dragging her desk into the middle of a city street, and pounding away at her laptop, soon joined by others doing likewise (one of them towing a worktable behind a vehicle, apparently from a rural location). The ad theme is "there's an innovator in all of us". But I don't get why this "innovation" was portrayed as being on a busy non-closed city street, apparently blocking traffic (including a bus), rather than inside an office, or on a sidewalk, or in a park. Kind of baffling, and not exactly a display of productive innovation, IMHO.

How about that ... what was it? ... an Old Navy commercial? ... that had a lady playing electric guitar in the middle of the street, with the quarter-inch cable plugged into the guitar but not leading anywhere at the other end.

That minor thing bothered both my wife and me.

[hbelkins]

People who make things harder or more complicated than they need to be.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

People who make things harder or more complicated than they need to be.

I've found a lot of times it's people with a self-interest in something who won't trust or allow someone else who is capable to just do the damn thing.

[kphoger]

A little while ago, I was typing at my computer here at work, and I saw a spider up near the F8 key.  I freaked out for a second.  Then I reached for my can of compressed air, to blow it off the keyboard.  Well, all I succeeded in doing was to scare the spider, and it then crawled down in between the keys.  No amount of digging between the keys with a letter opener, or banging the keyboard upside-down on the desk, or spraying air between every row of keys–none of that has had any effect of getting the little bugger back up again.  So now I'm typing on a keyboard that surely has a spider somewhere in it.  Maybe alive, maybe dead by now, I don't know.

[vdeane]

Converting labels to annotation in ArcGIS Pro, big time.  While there are advantages (moving annotation is MUCH faster due to ArcGIS Pro being 64 bit and no longer locking everything up and re-rendering everything for every tiny change, and one can convert all layer labels to annotation all at once; the project-based geodatabse even makes not being able to store them in the map document less of an annoyance than it could be), overall they completely broke the feature for how my coworker and I use it.  Placing unplaced annotation is HARD.  Before, we could just use the labeling toolbar, click on a feature, and have a lable (annotation) appear.  Now, we have to click though and find which annotation item is the one we need, and edit the attributes to say "Placed" instead of "Unplaced" - all the while it's bouncing around the map, completely obliterating any pan/zoom settings we had for out map.  Same story for removal and editing text - can no longer just click to select and then hit the delete key on the keyboard or right click to open a text window to edit.  Earlier today, I edited the text for the wrong one, as I had hoped that going into attributes after clicking the annotation would get rid of the pan/zoom obliteration.  No dice, it didn't change which one was active for editing there and I edited the wrong one - so I had to obliterate all my edits and now I need to start from scratch again.

Esri should really get some feedback from people who actually use GIS before they try to design something that is completely unintuitive and makes everything worse.  The only reason we need annotation in the first place is because the labeling engine is completely broken and places labels in horrible locations no matter how many times we try to tweak the settings.

They also removed data driven pages for whatever reason.  Map series is cool, but doesn't do everything data driven pages did.  No, Esri, 8 1/2 x 11 paper will not work with tessellated squares!

[ethanhopkin14]

I hate when people don't realize a marathon is a fixed distance.  I can't stand it when I tell people I used to run marathons competitively and they ask "how long was your longest one?"  They were all 26.2 miles. 

[kphoger]

Back on spiders...

When you're about ready to go to bed, then you see a spider, so you get up to turn the light on or get a Kleenex or whatever, and when you come back in it isn't there.  Great, now I can't sleep.

[snowc]

Back on spiders...

When you're about ready to go to bed, then you see a spider, so you get up to turn the light on or get a Kleenex or whatever, and when you come back in it isn't there.  Great, now I can't sleep.

Agree with this! Cockroaches are the same. We have a house that was built in the 20s and we have NUMEROUS cockroaches that have to be slayed by my cat or my father, cause I'm scared of them! 

[jakeroot]

I hate when people don't realize a marathon is a fixed distance.  I can't stand it when I tell people I used to run marathons competitively and they ask "how long was your longest one?"  They were all 26.2 miles.

I doubt many non-marathoners realize that it's always the same distance. Races that aren't 26.2 miles are fairly common. Eg, the Rainier to Ruston Relay here in the Seattle region is 50 miles.

[J N Winkler]

Today's computer-related minor annoyance is a download that is taking forever.

In Norway, the Public Road Administration recently advertised package E102 of an ongoing improvement to the E18 in Lysaker, near Oslo.  (Lysaker is to Oslo what Tysons Corner is to Washington, DC--an edge city/transport hub with the local HQs of many multinationals.)  It is complex, with high structure content (including several tunnels), and the server where this material is hosted does not support high single-thread download speeds, so I have had a script running for 15 hours to pull in 9 GB and counting, one file at a time.

I've considered rewriting the script so that it can download multiple files at the same time, but there is no guarantee this would actually increase throughput.

[Scott5114]

I wonder if, at that point, it might be worth using a general-purpose (i.e. interactive) download manager for that task. I've used DownThemAll (a Firefox extension) for similar purposes before. However, my need for it is so infrequent, I don't remember the details of how it works well enough to comment on whether it would be particularly well-suited to that particular task.

[J N Winkler]

I wonder if, at that point, it might be worth using a general-purpose (i.e. interactive) download manager for that task. I've used DownThemAll (a Firefox extension) for similar purposes before. However, my need for it is so infrequent, I don't remember the details of how it works well enough to comment on whether it would be particularly well-suited to that particular task.

I have used Internet Download Manager, which offers integration with major browsers and works quite well for grabbing not just links (especially on servers which allow interrupted downloads to be resumed--not all do) but also videos.  This type of software can indeed be a big help in various niche cases.

To my mind, there are a couple of issues with using an off-the-shelf download manager in this particular situation.  The first is that there is no file listing that loads all at once--there is a document tree in JSON with file listings for individual folders in XML.  My script actually downloads these first and resolves them into a set of download parameters for all files in the project.  The second is that the server does not permit multiple concurrent downloads using the same session cookie and also times out each cookie after ten minutes of inactivity (defined as no new page loads or download requests--ongoing downloads don't count).  I get around this by having a "timer" script that launches at the start of each download, runs for eight minutes, and then terminates.  If the downloader can't "see" the timer once download finishes, it logs back in for the next file.

I think I could probably implement multithreaded downloading by making an union list of all files for all chosen projects and forwarding it to a "download engine" that runs in multiple sessions, each with its own login and working on its own part of the file list.  I do this with PennDOT's ECMS and it works well.  I haven't with this particular provider because there's just enough of a time gap between the big contracts to drain my motivation to tinker with something that already sort of works--hence, categorization as a "minor thing."

[kkt]

Back on spiders...

When you're about ready to go to bed, then you see a spider, so you get up to turn the light on or get a Kleenex or whatever, and when you come back in it isn't there.  Great, now I can't sleep.

Doesn't bother me.  We're about a million times the size of a spider, they're a lot more scared of us than we need to be of them.
Very very few species of spider are poisonous*.

* may not be true in Australia.

[snowc]

I wonder if, at that point, it might be worth using a general-purpose (i.e. interactive) download manager for that task. I've used DownThemAll (a Firefox extension) for similar purposes before. However, my need for it is so infrequent, I don't remember the details of how it works well enough to comment on whether it would be particularly well-suited to that particular task.

I have used Internet Download Manager, which offers integration with major browsers and works quite well for grabbing not just links (especially on servers which allow interrupted downloads to be resumed--not all do) but also videos.  This type of software can indeed be a big help in various niche cases.

To my mind, there are a couple of issues with using an off-the-shelf download manager in this particular situation.  The first is that there is no file listing that loads all at once--there is a document tree in JSON with file listings for individual folders in XML.  My script actually downloads these first and resolves them into a set of download parameters for all files in the project.  The second is that the server does not permit multiple concurrent downloads using the same session cookie and also times out each cookie after ten minutes of inactivity (defined as no new page loads or download requests--ongoing downloads don't count).  I get around this by having a "timer" script that launches at the start of each download, runs for eight minutes, and then terminates.  If the downloader can't "see" the timer once download finishes, it logs back in for the next file.

I think I could probably implement multithreaded downloading by making an union list of all files for all chosen projects and forwarding it to a "download engine" that runs in multiple sessions, each with its own login and working on its own part of the file list.  I do this with PennDOT's ECMS and it works well.  I haven't with this particular provider because there's just enough of a time gap between the big contracts to drain my motivation to tinker with something that already sort of works--hence, categorization as a "minor thing."

I have fast internet speeds. However, my computers are running at 2.4GHz speed, rather than 5GHz speed. This causes the internet to be SLOW and unresponsive. Now I use Chrome and Edge because of the slow speeds. My phone is not on 2.4GHz cause the internet cant go to 802.11ac rather the three slow standards of 802.11 (b, g, n)

[J N Winkler]

I have fast internet speeds. However, my computers are running at 2.4GHz speed, rather than 5GHz speed. This causes the internet to be SLOW and unresponsive. Now I use Chrome and Edge because of the slow speeds. My phone is not on 2.4GHz cause the internet cant go to 802.11ac rather the three slow standards of 802.11 (b, g, n)

For downloads managed by script, I generally find throughput is controlled by factors lying beyond my connection to my ISP.  We have cable Internet and I have a hard connection (via Ethernet cable) to the router, so for certain servers I see files come in as rapidly as 5 MB/sec, while others average a piddly 100 KB/sec.

Implementing multi-threaded downloading also does not always improve throughput since the existing bandwidth is sometimes split among the parallel downloads.  So rewriting a script to implement multi-threading is often a speculative exercise.

[Scott5114]

I would also be worried that the site may detect a certain number of downloads originating from one IP address (especially an overseas one) and cut off access in toto in order to prevent excess use of resources or a possible DDOS attack. Granted, I would think that number would probably be much higher than would be necessary for downloading a single project, but it would be something that would worry me.

[LilianaUwU]

Not really a minor thing, but ever since version 1.18.30, Minecraft has become unplayable thanks to major lag. And they released a new patch, 1.18.31, that didn't fix the most important bug despite them saying they did.

[snowc]

I would also be worried that the site may detect a certain number of downloads originating from one IP address (especially an overseas one) and cut off access in toto in order to prevent excess use of resources or a possible DDOS attack. Granted, I would think that number would probably be much higher than would be necessary for downloading a single project, but it would be something that would worry me.

My former webhost, HelioHost, had a DDoS attack recently due to large amounts of hosting. Tommy, the web server I used, was the fastest and most reliable, went down on the day of my trip to NY (August 9-15 2019). Luckily I had a backup of it. 

[snowc]

Just when I posted the last post. 
WARNING: While you were typing, a new post has been posted.
You may wish to review your post.

That bugs me cause I think somebody, such as road sign UNO, plays in front of me, when posting a OSC image from my street view recordings. Any way to turn it off Scott?

[webny99]

Twice recently, I've received an email from a company asking me to take a survey about my customer experience before the interaction was complete. In both cases, I had been waiting more than 24 hours for a response from them, and in both cases, I was annoyed and immediately thought of this thread (the second one being just a few minutes ago).

Why on earth would I take the survey now, and even if I did, how could the feedback possibly positive if I'm doing it while I wait to hear back from them? "Yeah, this incomplete interaction really was great, I hope I hear back from you someday!"

[Scott5114]

Just when I posted the last post. 
WARNING: While you were typing, a new post has been posted.
You may wish to review your post.

That bugs me cause I think somebody, such as road sign UNO, plays in front of me, when posting a OSC image from my street view recordings. Any way to turn it off Scott?

NOTABUG WONTFIX

Edit: The purpose of the notification is to allow you to see if someone else has posted something that would be the same thing as you were about to post (solution: now you don't post, because it would be a useless duplicate of the same idea), or provides more information that you didn't have when you wrote your post (solution: revise your post if necessary). Basically, it's there to keep you from posting something that makes you look stupid. I would imagine the vast majority of members of the forum find this useful, so we're not going to turn it off.

Posting Google Street View in game threads (including the Road Sign Uno thread) is normally disallowed anyway, since the whole point of game threads is to give people who enjoy taking their own photos an opportunity to share them with others (and for others to enjoy those photos). Google Street View imagery is boring because we all know perfectly well where to find it if we wanted to. It's more special seeing a photo someone on the forum created themselves.

[formulanone]

Just when I posted the last post. 
WARNING: While you were typing, a new post has been posted.
You may wish to review your post.

That bugs me cause I think somebody, such as road sign UNO, plays in front of me, when posting a OSC image from my street view recordings. Any way to turn it off Scott?

NOTABUG WONTFIX

Admittedly, it's kind of annoying.

[Scott5114]

I edited my previous post to provide a further elaboration as to what the feature is attempting to achieve.

Edit: On further investigation, you can turn off this notification on a per-user basis by going to Profile, Look and Layout, then checking "Don't warn on new replies made while posting." Be forewarned, though: turning off this warning may result in you making posts that make you look silly. Don't be surprised if people point and laugh, or express irritation with you, if you do.