Minor things that bother you

[Scott5114]

The thing that bothers me is when you have a building that is custom built to match a certain brand, like a McDonalds. Then the McDonalds goes out of business and Wendy's buys the property. But they can't use the building because it looks too much like a McDonalds, so they tear down the fast food restaurant to build a fast food restaurant.

[hotdogPi]

Changing the topic: Both "Giants -3" and "Biden +3" mean the listed one is favored over the opponent. Why doesn't the minus sign mean anything?

[jeffandnicole]

Changing the topic: Both "Giants -3" and "Biden +3" mean the listed one is favored over the opponent. Why doesn't the minus sign mean anything?

In normal sports betting, the favorite is shown with a - and the underdog with a +. So if the Giants were playing the Bidens, the -3 next to the Giants or +3 next to the Bidens tells the betters the Giants are Favored and the Bidens are the Underdogs.

[Scott5114]

Changing the topic: Both "Giants -3" and "Biden +3" mean the listed one is favored over the opponent. Why doesn't the minus sign mean anything?

In normal sports betting, the favorite is shown with a - and the underdog with a +. So if the Giants were playing the Bidens, the -3 next to the Giants or +3 next to the Bidens tells the betters the Giants are Favored and the Bidens are the Underdogs.

What if there were a team made of giant Bidens?

Wait, uh, that's against the forum rules, don't answer that.

[1995hoo]

Changing the topic: Both "Giants -3" and "Biden +3" mean the listed one is favored over the opponent. Why doesn't the minus sign mean anything?

In normal sports betting, the favorite is shown with a - and the underdog with a +. So if the Giants were playing the Bidens, the -3 next to the Giants or +3 next to the Bidens tells the betters the Giants are Favored and the Bidens are the Underdogs.

But that doesn't really explain the reason why they write it that way. If the Giants are favored to win by three, someone might say "Giants by 3" and that's clear enough, but why the minus? I assume it's intended to denote the other team's expected margin of defeat, but what prompted them to do it that way? (I am not at all into sports betting, so while this may seem obvious to people who are, it's the reasoning behind the system that interests me.)

[GaryV]

When your phone beeps in the middle of the night to remind you that some aps are slotted for deep sleep mode. What about my deep sleep?

[jeffandnicole]

Changing the topic: Both "Giants -3" and "Biden +3" mean the listed one is favored over the opponent. Why doesn't the minus sign mean anything?

In normal sports betting, the favorite is shown with a - and the underdog with a +. So if the Giants were playing the Bidens, the -3 next to the Giants or +3 next to the Bidens tells the betters the Giants are Favored and the Bidens are the Underdogs.

But that doesn't really explain the reason why they write it that way. If the Giants are favored to win by three, someone might say "Giants by 3" and that's clear enough, but why the minus? I assume it's intended to denote the other team's expected margin of defeat, but what prompted them to do it that way? (I am not at all into sports betting, so while this may seem obvious to people who are, it's the reasoning behind the system that interests me.)

I'm not sure of the history, and honestly it seems a bit backwards to me sometimes. A lot of times a better will say the Giants are giving the Bidens 3, so maybe the +3 indicates that the Bidens can lose by 3 and still 'win' on the books.

And then, is the 3 a push, where no one wins or loses? Often better to have the break at 2.5 or 3.5, so it's clear a better won or lost based on the team picked.

The written form is just the standard written term of how to print a betting sheet or slip. Sorts like when some agencies will call the left lane the 1 lane. There probably isn't much history behind it. Just how terminology evolved.

[roadman65]

The way Axel Rose on G & R's cover of Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door says door.  He pronounces it as Daw Or whether it's in his falsetto or low voice as he uses both his singing voices in that one.

[zachary_amaryllis]

Sorry if this is bumping, but I found another one: Going out of your way to draw special attention to yourself! These are situations where it's like, "look at me! look at how special I am!"

I don't know how much of this bled over into my personality, but for a summer, I worked as a sign-spinner. I'm not much for the moves, but can whale on the air guitar like nobodys business.

It started feeding itself a little bit - in that the people I advertised for, told me that I was getting noticed and the phones were ringing, so I started upping my game, doing weird outfits, etc, etc.

Turns out, I was just good at what I did and I already had the personality.

[ZLoth]

The "joy" of discovering that somehow, my DHCP range changed from 192.168.1.100-255 to 192.168.185.100-255 ... which effectively shutdown my network overnight as 12 Hour DHCP leases came up for renewal. Since my NAS server and my network printer are both on fixed IP addresses, those devices became inaccessible.... especially when the daily backups kicked in.

[kirbykart]

On another forum I am a member of, clicking a link does not open it in a new tab, so I usually end up closing the tab and have to go back to the forum again. It is habit because links open in a new tab here.

[kphoger]

On another forum I am a member of, clicking a link does not open it in a new tab, so I usually end up closing the tab and have to go back to the forum again. It is habit because links open in a new tab here.

I almost always Ctrl-click for that very reason.

[J N Winkler]

The "joy" of discovering that somehow, my DHCP range changed from 192.168.1.100-255 to 192.168.185.100-255 ... which effectively shutdown my network overnight as 12 Hour DHCP leases came up for renewal. Since my NAS server and my network printer are both on fixed IP addresses, those devices became inaccessible.... especially when the daily backups kicked in.

Are you using an enterprise-grade router?  I just Googled and it seems the Class C private IP range runs from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255, but my router (consumer-grade) addresses just 192.168.1.0-255.

[kirbykart]

On another forum I am a member of, clicking a link does not open it in a new tab, so I usually end up closing the tab and have to go back to the forum again. It is habit because links open in a new tab here.

I almost always Ctrl-click for that very reason.

Very helpful. I didn't know about that trick.

[ZLoth]

The "joy" of discovering that somehow, my DHCP range changed from 192.168.1.100-255 to 192.168.185.100-255 ... which effectively shutdown my network overnight as 12 Hour DHCP leases came up for renewal. Since my NAS server and my network printer are both on fixed IP addresses, those devices became inaccessible.... especially when the daily backups kicked in.

Are you using an enterprise-grade router?  I just Googled and it seems the Class C private IP range runs from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255, but my router (consumer-grade) addresses just 192.168.1.0-255.

Negative, just a AmpliFi Mesh system which I got in 2017, then added a mesh point in 2019. It is up to date with the firmware upgrades (4.0.0). I just have it set with 192.168.1.x with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 .

[hbelkins]

Here's something that bugs me, and once again it's language-related.

I don't like how the word "troll" has become a noun in the particular sense of someone who posts to online forums to fish for reactions. And that's exactly what it is. It's trolling, and the person who does it is a troller, not a troll.

You wouldn't call someone who holds a fishing pole with a lure trailing behind a slow-moving boat, hoping to catch whatever bites, a troll. You'd call them a troller. So why call a person who metaphorically does that on the Internet a troll?

[formulanone]

You wouldn't call someone who holds a fishing pole with a lure trailing behind a slow-moving boat, hoping to catch whatever bites, a troll. You'd call them a troller. So why call a person who metaphorically does that on the Internet a troll?

Shouldn't it be trawler or trawling?

[JayhawkCO]

Here's something that bugs me, and once again it's language-related.

I don't like how the word "troll" has become a noun in the particular sense of someone who posts to online forums to fish for reactions. And that's exactly what it is. It's trolling, and the person who does it is a troller, not a troll.

You wouldn't call someone who holds a fishing pole with a lure trailing behind a slow-moving boat, hoping to catch whatever bites, a troll. You'd call them a troller. So why call a person who metaphorically does that on the Internet a troll?

I think you have the genesis of the term wrong chronologically. It started with calling people who did dumb stuff online trolls. Then the verb to describe what they're doing was created.

[J N Winkler]

You wouldn't call someone who holds a fishing pole with a lure trailing behind a slow-moving boat, hoping to catch whatever bites, a troll. You'd call them a troller.

Shouldn't it be trawler or trawling?

They sound similar, but trawling is different--it involves nets.

[Scott5114]

I replaced my garage door opener earlier this year. I got a cheap model because I didn't have a lot of money at the time. So it is very slow. It also has those annoying lasers that will force the door to re-open if they detect anything (I should have bribed the installer to just mount them next to the garage door 1 cm away from each other), and I don't trust it to go all the way down, so I wait in the driveway to verify that the door opener is in the mood to do its job today before backing out onto the street. (I've come back from shopping before to find the door open because a blade of grass or a bug or something caused it to abort the closure after I pulled out onto the street.)

The really minor thing that bothers me is that inevitably, whenever I back out of the garage and into the driveway, the street will be clear in both directions. By the time the garage door closes, three or four cars that weren't there before inevitably appear and I have to wait even longer to get out of my driveway.

[1995hoo]

^^^^

I always wait in the driveway to make sure the door stays down. It's a habit I picked up from my late father, who always did it, and it's proven worthwhile the time or two when one of the electric eye sensors had been knocked slightly out of position such that the door was not going to stay down unless and until I either adjusted it or pulled the handle to lower the door manually.

[ZLoth]

When my garage door opener disintegrated three years ago, I got a new MyQ model that had the following features:

• Battery backup in case of power failure.
• Connects to WiFi and Internet - So I can open/close the door remotely via my phone. Also allows for Amazon packages to be delivered to my garage.
• Timer - So that my garage door closes 1-10 minutes after being open. I have it set to five minutes.

There is a LCD panel which displays the time and temperature as well as the status of the garage door system. What bothers me is that, even though the garage door has Internet connectivity, it apparently cannot reach out to a NTP server to get the current time, so time drift builds up over time. Since this weekend is when saving time starts, time to reset the clocks.

[hbelkins]

You wouldn't call someone who holds a fishing pole with a lure trailing behind a slow-moving boat, hoping to catch whatever bites, a troll. You'd call them a troller.

Shouldn't it be trawler or trawling?

They sound similar, but trawling is different--it involves nets.

The little battery-powered motors that mount to the side of a boat are called trolling motors. They're quiet and move the boat slowly and without noise, or without disturbing the water the way the big gas-powered motors do.

[webny99]

You wouldn't call someone who holds a fishing pole with a lure trailing behind a slow-moving boat, hoping to catch whatever bites, a troll. You'd call them a troller.

Shouldn't it be trawler or trawling?

They sound similar, but trawling is different--it involves nets.

The little battery-powered motors that mount to the side of a boat are called trolling motors. They're quiet and move the boat slowly and without noise, or without disturbing the water the way the big gas-powered motors do.

But as jayhawkco noted, online trolling is derived from a different definition of troll.

What you're referring to is a verb, meaning "fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat".

An online troll is a noun, meaning "a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post", which I tend to associate with the type of troll in folklore more than the verb 'to troll'.

[hbelkins]

It may be because I grew up fishing a lot, but I always associated baiting online discussion groups with trolling. In fact, the other major newsgroup in which I participated besides MTR was rec.autos.sport.nascar. It got the nickname "Lake RASN" or just "the lake" and people would often ask how the fishing was, or if anything was biting.

I always associated the troll who lives under a bridge as a gnome-like creature.