Minor things that bother you

[kkt]

Thanks.  I hope the flag on mine is the flag they mean and that it's in the right place and all.  I still wish there were words and symbols on all the RealIDs so we could tell what we had without guessing.

[jeffandnicole]

Thanks.  I hope the flag on mine is the flag they mean and that it's in the right place and all.  I still wish there were words and symbols on all the RealIDs so we could tell what we had without guessing.

Hopefully it's a fairly universal symbol.  There's a lot of agents throughout the country that need to know the specifics.

[vdeane]

Was at Wegmans yesterday for lunch.  I've seen them have tomato pie slices before, so I went around looking for them.  I didn't see them where they sell the pre-packaged stuff, so I gave up and ordered a small sub instead.  After I got the sub, I finally found the tomato pie - sitting on the pizza counter where people order slices of regular pizza, the very last place I'd expect to find pre-packaged anything.  So much for that. 

Thanks.  I hope the flag on mine is the flag they mean and that it's in the right place and all.  I still wish there were words and symbols on all the RealIDs so we could tell what we had without guessing.

They can vary - see NY's version and how it moved within the last couple years.

[ZLoth]

We have Wifi on our Fridge, Washer & Dryer.  We don't use it on any of those devices, and nothing requires upgrading.

Both my washer and dryer have WiFi, and is Alexa-integrated. Considering that I work on one side of the house and the washer/dryer is on the other side, it is nice to have the announcement that either is done, and to track the wash/dryer cycle, including when I have to run the cleaning cycle on the washer.

However, I would not replace a washer or dryer just to get that capability.

[kkt]

Thanks.  I hope the flag on mine is the flag they mean and that it's in the right place and all.  I still wish there were words and symbols on all the RealIDs so we could tell what we had without guessing.

So I was able to fly with a Washington State Enhanced Driver's License.  At least from Seattle, I guess we'll see if it works in Virginia too.

[mgk920]

For several years now Wisconsin has issued them as default. The cards have a somewhat fancy star on them.

Mike

[Scott5114]

Re: the discussion about smart appliances, I've been mildly amused by some of the things in our new house, since it was built in the early 1990s and the first owners seemed to have enjoyed putting money into the 90s-2000s equivalent of "smart" tech. Everything has remote controls, including several things that don't really need them. The pool has a remote control, which must have been the height of luxury when George W. Bush was president. I can check the pool temperature on its LCD dot matrix screen, change the color of the pool lights, and fiddle with the pump from upstairs, which would be really cool and convenient, if not for the fact that it takes about 60 seconds to boot up and connect to the control box.

[ZLoth]

The pool has a remote control, which must have been the height of luxury when George W. Bush was president. I can check the pool temperature on its LCD dot matrix screen, change the color of the pool lights, and fiddle with the pump from upstairs, which would be really cool and convenient, if not for the fact that it takes about 60 seconds to boot up and connect to the control box.

I'm actually thinking of, and saving up for, some automated controls for my pool to make it easier to maintain and switch from "pool" mode to "hot tub" mode. It's at the "nice-to-have" level at the moment.

[Max Rockatansky]

Recently I replaced the HVAC and garage door opener at my house.  Both have remote options which have found some minor use by me over the last year.  In particular it is kind of nice not needing to order an extra garage door opened for my third car when the phone will suffice.

[wxfree]

"Fair" weather

I seem to remember fair skies referring to clear or nearly clear.  It meant the sky may not be completely clear, but has too few clouds to be partly cloudy.  I read the definition and it had something to do with how high the clouds are.

There's a new definition.  Fair is used to describe anything from completely clear to completely overcast.  It's the most useless meteorology term I know of.  The official definition is: "It is usually used at night to describe less than 3/8 opaque clouds, no precipitation, no extremes of visibility, temperature or winds. It describes generally pleasant weather conditions."

https://forecast.weather.gov/glossary.php?word=Fair

I like the 3/8 part of it.  That much or less cloudiness is fair.  I'm not a fan of the extremes part.  Is 95 extremely hot?  Does that mean it can't be fair?  Some people think it is, and some people think it's just regular hot.  They should tell me what the sky is doing and what the temperature is, and I'll decide if I think it's hot.  There shouldn't be a word covering sky, wind, and temperature conditions.  There's no word for "moderately cold, humid, patchy fog, thin high clouds, and gale force winds."  There isn't, and there shouldn't be.

What I really don't like is the opacity part of the definition.  I've seen the sky fully overcast, covered by moderate stratiform clouds, a dreary day, called "fair," because the clouds aren't opaque.  I would propose a definition like this: Fair - No more than 3/8 sky coverage of thick or moderate clouds, and no more than 31/64 coverage of high, thin cirrus.

This is a new thing.  A long-time gripe is about "partly sunny."  The sky categorization is based on majority and minority.  "Partly cloudy" means mostly clear.  It doesn't mean "partly sunny" during the day.  During the day, mostly cloudy means partly sunny and partly cloudy means mostly sunny.

A comedian joked about never walking outside and thinking "It's very mild today."  Many years ago, I don't think NWS did this, but television meteorologists would forecast "considerable cloudiness."  I never knew what that meant.  I can only assume it means more than partly cloudy and less than mostly cloudy.  It seems like a term we don't need.  Just pick one, averaging out the whole day, or call it variable if it's going to change a lot.  I've never looked up at the sky and thought "This cloudiness is significant enough to consider."

[vdeane]

Since we're discussing "smart" things, I got annoyed at my "smart" TV (from 2013, so thankfully it doesn't watch or listen to me like modern ones do) yesterday.  When I turned it on, I noticed that CBS 6 was no longer in my favorites.  I assume it must have deleted it when the signal dropped for about 10 seconds or so on Wednesday.  I hate that it assumes I would want a channel removed when it detects no signal, forcing me to add them back.  "No signal" for me 99% of the time means "the antenna needs to be adjusted because the multipath interference around my apartment has shifted and I need to move it again", not "the channel moved or is no longer broadcasting" like it assumes.

[ZLoth]

Two technical things that bothered me...

Google Apps discontinuing username/password authentication for email - At the beginning of the month, all my notifications broke for my devices because Google no longer allowed Username/Password authentication for sending email, instead, requiring the use of OAUTH. While my TrueNAS server supports OAUTH, the other stuff doesn't. I ended up using a third party email sending solution as a workaround.

Unwanted apps on a new tablet - After some frustration with the low amount of internal storage in my tablet, I ended up splurging on a new tablet through my wireless provider which includes unlimited 5G connectivity. However, that tablet also decided to download about 15 games when it connected to 5G. Uh, no thank you to mobile gaming and microtransactions. All of those games were promptly deleted.

[ZLoth]

Recently I replaced the HVAC and garage door opener at my house.  Both have remote options which have found some minor use by me over the last year.  In particular it is kind of nice not needing to order an extra garage door opened for my third car when the phone will suffice.

Did that garage door opener include an option to automatically close the door after a certain amount of time? Mine does.

The ability to check the app to see if the garage door is closed has come in handy several times.

[Max Rockatansky]

Yes, I've just haven't had the occasion to program it.

[kphoger]

While we're talking about appliances...

We have an old dishwasher.  A few months ago, the little plastic nib that holds the detergent tray lid closed finally wore away down to nothing.  So now it's impossible to keep detergent in the tray because, as soon as you close the door, it immediately begins to seep out.  Ideally that should only happen with the smaller, uncovered, pre-wash section.  The tray is supposed to stay covered until the machine has drained its dirty pre-wash water and is filling up again for the real wash cycle.  So, the question we had to answer was how to make sure there was detergent in there for both the pre-wash and wash cycles without a closing detergent tray lid.

So I timed the pre-wash cycle, and it was about 29 minutes long.  Next time I ran the dishwasher, I tossed some detergent in the bottom, set the microwave's kitchen timer for just under 29 minutes, waited for the timer to go off, made sure the dishwasher completely drained and then started filling back up, opened the door, and then tossed some more detergent in the bottom.  Perfect, as long as (1) we're not planning to start the dishwasher less than a half-hour before leaving the house and (2) we actually hear the timer go off from the other room.

But here's the minor thing that bothers me:  we've since learned that the pre-rinse cycle isn't always the same length of time.  It might be 30 minutes, it might be 24 minutes, or anywhere in between.  And we have no idea what makes the difference.  Maybe it's based on how full it's loaded, but how could it sense that?  So now, whenever I hear the timer go off and I hear water swooshing around in there, I always wonder if (a) I'm too late and it's already started running the wash cycle so I might as well add detergent, or (b) I'm too early and I need to wait a few more minutes before adding detergent.

[Scott5114]

The pool has a remote control, which must have been the height of luxury when George W. Bush was president. I can check the pool temperature on its LCD dot matrix screen, change the color of the pool lights, and fiddle with the pump from upstairs, which would be really cool and convenient, if not for the fact that it takes about 60 seconds to boot up and connect to the control box.

I'm actually thinking of, and saving up for, some automated controls for my pool to make it easier to maintain and switch from "pool" mode to "hot tub" mode. It's at the "nice-to-have" level at the moment.

The kind I have is made by a company called AquaLink. These days, they of course have a phone app for controlling the pool instead of a standalone remote control.

[Scott5114]

Recently I replaced the HVAC and garage door opener at my house.  Both have remote options which have found some minor use by me over the last year.  In particular it is kind of nice not needing to order an extra garage door opened for my third car when the phone will suffice.

I read a horror story on Reddit recently posted by someone in SW Las Vegas who had one of those (from Ryobi) and it would just randomly open the garage door. It opened the door at 1am when they were asleep and a homeless person was able to come into their house and start going through their stuff. They called 911 and Metro, of course, didn't bother to show up. The homeless person ended up leaving with one of their shirts.

[mgk920]

Realllly old films (at least 110 or so YO) that all seem to be run at 2x normal speed.

Mike