Little things that annoy the hell out of you

[orange808]

It annoyed the fuck out of me when the kids agreed to pay for online. Pay up sucka, indeed. I still can't believe you people pay a monthly fee to play games. I refuse.

I went PC and Nintendo because of the Sony/Microsoft paywall shit. It was obvious where this would lead.

[neorichieb1971]

HDR placement in movies and TV shows.

So yesterday I was a bit under the weather, bit of a headache. Thought i'd put on Rebel moon on Netflix. In the first 45 minutes I encountered at least 10 occurrences where Sun flares, fire places, torches, even light from the windows were scorching my eyes.

I mean, use HDR yes. But not in a way where its obviously placed there on purpose. I'm not convinced HDR is really needed unless the director says "I want this scene really fucking bright"

[Lander]

Worse that I was one of those dumb kids, for a time; caved to peer pressure for continued participation in fun 'n' games during higher education. Abstraction via indirection is a powerful thing

Though in the end it's just another EEE; Embrace online console gaming, Extend with conveniently closed-off infrastructure, Extinguish any hope of it not being shit for the foreseeable by way of standardization. Pah. That one generation of Sony getting to be golden boys for offering it free wasn't worth it!

I mean, use HDR yes. But not in a way where its obviously placed there on purpose. I'm not convinced HDR is really needed unless the director says "I want this scene really fucking bright"

If the loudness war is anything to go by, there'll come a time where the fancy 3D glasses they hand out at IMAX are just regular shades

[Udderdude]

I don't get the point of HDR. I don't want to burn my eyeballs out just trying to watch a movie or play a game. I have my monitor brightness turned down to 18, ffs.

[spmbx]

It annoyed the fuck out of me when the kids agreed to pay for online. Pay up sucka, indeed. I still can't believe you people pay a monthly fee to play games. I refuse.

I went PC and Nintendo because of the Sony/Microsoft paywall shit. It was obvious where this would lead.

Lamest thing was that the actual multiplayer gameplay in a lot of cases was p2p anyway so you were just paying a lot of money for a matchmaking service
Not sure how that is nowadays since i stopped paying for online services a long time ago.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The first time I get COVID and it's immediately before xmas, thus ruining both xmas and new year's plans. :/

[RGC]

COVID

Ah sorry to hear that, Roo. :/ I caught it for the second time the week before xmas and it totally flattened me for 24 hours. After that I felt way better but still extremely lethargic. It was no less severe than my first encounter, but thankfully much shorter lived.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I felt like I had a mild to moderate flu that was really long-lasting. Also really lethargic for a week and a half... and then basically back to normal. I'm fortunate there's no serious symptoms or inconvenient ones like permanent smell loss so I'm lucky that way. I couldn't risk seeing my parents on the tail end of recovery though as my mom has a compromised immune system, so I'm waiting extra long before any visits to be safe. My parents have never had it and I don't want to be the one to pass it on!

Can only imagine how much worse it'd potentially be if I hadn't gotten regularly vaccinated!

[AGermanArtist]

The first time I get COVID and it's immediately before xmas, thus ruining both xmas and new year's plans. :/

Myself and my g/f were both in the same boat. We spent Xmas eve/Day/Boxing day sweating profusely while shivering cold. Luckily her daughter does Xmas at her grandparents' on her dad's side, because we didn't get around to dinner until 9pm and even that was out of a sense of obligation to the holiday. Most symptoms seem to have cleared now, but still very lethargic.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's a hell of a disease and the fact that we as a society utterly failed to take it seriously despite all the warning signs gives me little hope for the next major pandemic.

[ryu]

The first time I get COVID and it's immediately before xmas, thus ruining both xmas and new year's plans. :/

Same here. Only it was a bit better already around new years so I still had friends over for my birthday. Was a terrible idea. I only ended up getting awfuly sick again right away.

[AGermanArtist]

Felt good enough to take some exercise yesterday and Monday and woke up this morning dosed again. Attempted to get out of bed and it was like someone sat on me fml

[neorichieb1971]

Broadband contracts.

I've been with the same company for 16+ years and every 18 months they text me my bill is going up by almost double. Which means the inevitable phone call, the inevitable "we will try to lower your billing amount" which by the way takes an hour of horrendous music listening to get hold of a person.

In the end I am forced to pay for a package to get discounts which means keeping a TV box (Don't need), a phone (I don't need). After all that they gave me a price of £3 cheaper than before.

So it went from double, to £3 less. I mean, why can't we just get all that without the call? Apparently, when your entering a new contract you need to call. Its a load of bollocks.

All of this in a cost of living crisis. People just want to be left alone.

[AGermanArtist]

And that is what they hope to exploit.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

The first time I get COVID and it's immediately before xmas, thus ruining both xmas and new year's plans. :/

Same here. Only it was a bit better already around new years so I still had friends over for my birthday. Was a terrible idea. I only ended up getting awfuly sick again right away.

Same here. Slipped into a sinusitis, then, after that was over, I caught the flu. Haven't been ill this long in my entire life...
Anyway, are you back to full health again?

[ryu]

The first time I get COVID and it's immediately before xmas, thus ruining both xmas and new year's plans. :/

Same here. Only it was a bit better already around new years so I still had friends over for my birthday. Was a terrible idea. I only ended up getting awfuly sick again right away.

Same here. Slipped into a sinusitis, then, after that was over, I caught the flu. Haven't been ill this long in my entire life...
Anyway, are you back to full health again?

Ouch, sorry to hear that. Yeah I've started to feel better since the weekend. Still not great though.

Here's a real annoyance: I have an exam coming up in 3 weeks and missed 6 weeks of university because of work and illness. I might not even bother at this point.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Here's a real annoyance: I have an exam coming up in 3 weeks and missed 6 weeks of university because of work and illness. I might not even bother at this point.

Ugh, that's awful. Is it possible to talk to the university and get an extension? You've gotta have some options available, right?

Never Give Up!!

[ryu]

Here's a real annoyance: I have an exam coming up in 3 weeks and missed 6 weeks of university because of work and illness. I might not even bother at this point.

Ugh, that's awful. Is it possible to talk to the university and get an extension? You've gotta have some options available, right?

I could ask them to let me skip the first exam and just let me take the exam for those that didn't pass the first one a month or so later. But I'll be working full time between semesters so there's like no real time to study anyways.

[Lander]

*sigh* Technology. Computers. Software Maintainers.

Ran a system update today, since I'm on a machine that will happily sit without them, but refuses to install new software unless everything is up to date. I needed some virtual machine stuff, so finished the upgrade, rebooted, and lo and behold - nothing. POSTs directly into a black screen.

Luckily I have a backup boot path that's miraculously unscathed, but foregoes various low-level performance optimizations. Naturally, nobody else seems to have the same problem, so the choice is to live with suboptimal until it maybe gets fixed in a future update, or sink an undefined amount of extra hours into digging system logs out of a non-booting install, and hoping they're clear enough to help fix the problem.

Sweaty bollocks to the lot of it, I tell ya!

[TransatlanticFoe]

Broadband contracts.

I've been with the same company for 16+ years and every 18 months they text me my bill is going up by almost double. Which means the inevitable phone call, the inevitable "we will try to lower your billing amount" which by the way takes an hour of horrendous music listening to get hold of a person.

In the end I am forced to pay for a package to get discounts which means keeping a TV box (Don't need), a phone (I don't need). After all that they gave me a price of £3 cheaper than before.

So it went from double, to £3 less. I mean, why can't we just get all that without the call? Apparently, when your entering a new contract you need to call. Its a load of bollocks.

All of this in a cost of living crisis. People just want to be left alone.

Yeah the entire thing is a false economy of loss leaders to get new customers. If you're on a fixed contract you'll be on some ultra-cheap deal with jumps up to the "regular customer" price when it finishes.

Every so often I check out the deals, and they all go onto a new plan at the end of it which is about £5 a month more than the current default price. They suck you in and you either end up swapping back and forth between providers or you do what I do - sit on a legacy rolling contract that's always cheaper than what the deals default to when they expire.

The latter might be a bit more in the long run than chopping and changing every 18 months but frankly I find it worth it not to have potential disruption to the service (largely work from home) and not to have to navigate an awful call centre system that leads to an aggressive offshore upseller. I wanted to get rid of BT Sport when they stopped showing German footy and the lunchtime kickoff always seemed to be Liverpool or Burnley (or both) - it was like the Spanish Inquisition to get shot of it!

Same as with trains (frankly just average cost per mile over the network and that's your ticket), ditch the myraid of different rates that subsidise each other and just confuse the fuck out of a customer - or punish one who can't commit (18 month broadband contracts when rental contracts are typically 12 months? Arseholes). False economy, overseen by toothless regulators.

[neorichieb1971]

Had my Auto (Car) insurance renewel the other day. Again, double last years quotation, no claims but double the price.

I had 4 years of loyalty with the company and I wanted to stay, but even after the phone call they knocked off about £100. Went elsewhere and got it cheaper than last year.
The UK is supposed to have this law where a company cannot charge you more than a new customer for the same product. I find this very hard to believe.

In this day and age I believe broadband and car renewel on insurance are just made up figures. Nobody gives you reasons why the figures are so high. Personally I find it depressing that a company has taken your money and had your loyalty for years and they throw a wrench in the works with an incredibly high quotation.

Imagine you went to a restaurant and got a bill for $250 for 2 people and you ask why its so high!!! Then they say "well you've been coming here for years so we thought we would charge 6x the rate".

I drive a Ford not a fucking Maclaren. So yeah, the company I gave loyalty to has just cut off the arm that feeds it, and I don't understand why at all.

[RGC]

...the company I gave loyalty to has just cut off the arm that feeds it, and I don't understand why at all.

I think it's just down to the fact they can make more net profit via the people who delay in switching, or who never think to switch despite the rate hikes, than they would by trying to hang onto their loyal customers. Same principle at play with interest free credit cards. The providers (literally) bank on people's inability to manage their finances and make repayments on time.

[neorichieb1971]

...the company I gave loyalty to has just cut off the arm that feeds it, and I don't understand why at all.

I think it's just down to the fact they can make more net profit via the people who delay in switching, or who never think to switch despite the rate hikes, than they would by trying to hang onto their loyal customers. Same principle at play with interest free credit cards. The providers (literally) bank on people's inability to manage their finances and make repayments on time.

New age customer service then. Its a shame none of those insurance companies have the balls to put a "do not renew" notice on the account.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Very little point in the customer having loyalty to a business to whom you are legally obliged to pay money for a service they'll find any way possible to wriggle out of their responsibility for. Who's cheapest at any given time whilst also offering comprehensive services (not just legal and injury stuff, this year I noticed you can pay less if you want to be restricted to an app and be barred from speaking to a human WTF) - that's who you go with. The regulator is weak, so they love just slapping bizarro high prices on existing customers in the hope they can't be arsed to look around. Not helping are all these price comparison sites who let you feed in requirements only to completely ignore them. Oh look, a great price.... oh it's because it's a £700 excess at what point did I tell you that was okay? Or all the legal extras I asked for are optional and massively bump the premium. Brilliant.

[BulletMagnet]

In this day and age I believe broadband and car renewel on insurance are just made up figures. Nobody gives you reasons why the figures are so high.

Just wait if your country ends up privatizing its health care system and you have no way whatsoever of even knowing what a medical procedure will cost until after it's been done and the bill eventually arrives in the mail.

[neorichieb1971]

Very little point in the customer having loyalty to a business to whom you are legally obliged to pay money for a service they'll find any way possible to wriggle out of their responsibility for. Who's cheapest at any given time whilst also offering comprehensive services (not just legal and injury stuff, this year I noticed you can pay less if you want to be restricted to an app and be barred from speaking to a human WTF) - that's who you go with. The regulator is weak, so they love just slapping bizarro high prices on existing customers in the hope they can't be arsed to look around. Not helping are all these price comparison sites who let you feed in requirements only to completely ignore them. Oh look, a great price.... oh it's because it's a £700 excess at what point did I tell you that was okay? Or all the legal extras I asked for are optional and massively bump the premium. Brilliant.

I just want to feel like driving record got me a bonus, its called a No claims bonus. Which means nothing. All the jargon means nothing. The comparison websites even ask you if you claimed in the last 5 years to see if you protected your no claims and claimed anyway. And that rhetoric in the letter "Thank you for being a loyal customer, we have taken into consideration your great record of driving and loyalty to our company, here is a quote that will take the shirt off your back, thank you very much".

In this day and age I believe broadband and car renewel on insurance are just made up figures. Nobody gives you reasons why the figures are so high.

Just wait if your country ends up privatizing its health care system and you have no way whatsoever of even knowing what a medical procedure will cost until after it's been done and the bill eventually arrives in the mail.

Lived in the USA for 6 years. The country where you bet your life savings on black or red. I was young then, not much wrong with me in those days. I even worked for Bristol Myers Squibb, a drug company no less. My insurance was good. My mom almost died over Xmas (in the UK) and spent 2 weeks in hospital. If that happened in the USA her 30 year mortgage which she just paid off would of been in vain. USA is still the wild west, its just that the victims only amount to about 3% and are seen as the weaklings and can be hidden. I also noticed the USA hates "averages", as it falls from grace in most stats when you introduce the mighty word.

[BulletMagnet]

I've never lived in the UK, but the impression I've always gotten is that, despite its shortcomings, British citizens are generally proud of the NHS and what it's accomplished; moreover, whenever the US's system would come up in conversation, the tone would be "how in the world haven't the Americans revolted over this and demanded something better?"

Nowadays, as I mentioned in a different thread, the shoe almost seems to be on the other foot as the NHS is gradually privatized and summarily desecrated; I find myself wondering "how in heaven's name have the Brits not tarred and feathered anyone who even jokes about taking away a system that not only covers everyone but does so with lower costs and better results than ours?" Seems we're more or less even on that front, in the worst way possible.

[neorichieb1971]

I've never lived in the UK, but the impression I've always gotten is that, despite its shortcomings, British citizens are generally proud of the NHS and what it's accomplished; moreover, whenever the US's system would come up in conversation, the tone would be "how in the world haven't the Americans revolted over this and demanded something better?"

Nowadays, as I mentioned in a different thread, the shoe almost seems to be on the other foot as the NHS is gradually privatized and summarily desecrated; I find myself wondering "how in heaven's name have the Brits not tarred and feathered anyone who even jokes about taking away a system that not only covers everyone but does so with lower costs and better results than ours?" Seems we're more or less even on that front, in the worst way possible.

The NHS will largely stay put simply because no government will stand if it privatized completely. The UK is a bit messy because all the privatization of the past has gone quite badly to be fair.

Look at British Gas/Electric, got privatized all profits into share holders hands. 40 years later a Russian/Ukraine war starts, Russian gas doesn't get into Europe, Europe starts bidding higher from the same sources the UK uses. France still has a government ran energy system which dictates that reserves must be kept high, wind farms have battery stores of power. UK, no way, all profits went into share holders hands they had no reason for resiliency. So folk are getting extortionate billing from energy companies and the companies are just filling the pockets of shareholders and doing the least possible to secure the country from another war. Currently getting by on American sourced LPG.

Look at British water companies. Sewage spilled into oceans and rivers all over the place so that share holders can milk the cow 100%. Now that the government is pressureized to do something about it the water companies are doubling the billing of the customers in London and other places.

Look at British Rail, there is a sense of pride of our nation had until 1997, which was ropey but at least there was resiliency built into the system. All main stations had stationed locomotives, depots had even more stationed locomotives, there was always available rolling stock and an adundance of drivers. If a train failed, a loco came and pulled the train to its journeys end. These days under privatization each railway is share held, there is enough passenger stock to run the schedule (if you're lucky) and 2 extra trains in maintenance at any time. If a train fails there is no replacement train and no replacement driver, so they invented a thunderbird system where a loco is stationed every 150 miles or so to rescue a dead train. In some circumstances a bus service is replacing the train service. In the freight sector, under British rail all rolling stock and locos were under 1 umbrella. Nowadays you have one company with 100 contracts and 90 locos and another company with 100 locos and 10 contracts. They do not share but can sublease but its messy.
The railways are over priced to the tune of being 1-1 with car travel up to 1 person. If 2 people are in the car, train is 2x as much, 3 people 3x as much. Its not economically financially viable.
Drivers are doing forced overtime on Sundays so are striking. As they want a better worklife balance, but the share holding bastards want to auto mate the railway so unions cannot fight for their jobs or rights. As for Trans Pennine rail, they needed to train new drivers, but there just wasn't any time or spare drivers to train anyone, so half the trains got cancelled to enable the training. Its just bollocks.

I don't have any hope for any service that people actually need in life being ran by share holding entities. They just milk it until its broken and expect the government to pick up the pieces at a later date.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

I've never lived in the UK, but the impression I've always gotten is that, despite its shortcomings, British citizens are generally proud of the NHS and what it's accomplished; moreover, whenever the US's system would come up in conversation, the tone would be "how in the world haven't the Americans revolted over this and demanded something better?"

Nowadays, as I mentioned in a different thread, the shoe almost seems to be on the other foot as the NHS is gradually privatized and summarily desecrated; I find myself wondering "how in heaven's name have the Brits not tarred and feathered anyone who even jokes about taking away a system that not only covers everyone but does so with lower costs and better results than ours?" Seems we're more or less even on that front, in the worst way possible.

The NHS will largely stay put simply because no government will stand if it privatized completely. The UK is a bit messy because all the privatization of the past has gone quite badly to be fair.

Look at British Gas/Electric, got privatized all profits into share holders hands. 40 years later a Russian/Ukraine war starts, Russian gas doesn't get into Europe, Europe starts bidding higher from the same sources the UK uses. France still has a government ran energy system which dictates that reserves must be kept high, wind farms have battery stores of power. UK, no way, all profits went into share holders hands they had no reason for resiliency. So folk are getting extortionate billing from energy companies and the companies are just filling the pockets of shareholders and doing the least possible to secure the country from another war. Currently getting by on American sourced LPG.

Look at British water companies. Sewage spilled into oceans and rivers all over the place so that share holders can milk the cow 100%. Now that the government is pressureized to do something about it the water companies are doubling the billing of the customers in London and other places.

Look at British Rail, there is a sense of pride of our nation had until 1997, which was ropey but at least there was resiliency built into the system. All main stations had stationed locomotives, depots had even more stationed locomotives, there was always available rolling stock and an adundance of drivers. If a train failed, a loco came and pulled the train to its journeys end. These days under privatization each railway is share held, there is enough passenger stock to run the schedule (if you're lucky) and 2 extra trains in maintenance at any time. If a train fails there is no replacement train and no replacement driver, so they invented a thunderbird system where a loco is stationed every 150 miles or so to rescue a dead train. In some circumstances a bus service is replacing the train service. In the freight sector, under British rail all rolling stock and locos were under 1 umbrella. Nowadays you have one company with 100 contracts and 90 locos and another company with 100 locos and 10 contracts. They do not share but can sublease but its messy.
The railways are over priced to the tune of being 1-1 with car travel up to 1 person. If 2 people are in the car, train is 2x as much, 3 people 3x as much. Its not economically financially viable.
Drivers are doing forced overtime on Sundays so are striking. As they want a better worklife balance, but the share holding bastards want to auto mate the railway so unions cannot fight for their jobs or rights. As for Trans Pennine rail, they needed to train new drivers, but there just wasn't any time or spare drivers to train anyone, so half the trains got cancelled to enable the training. Its just bollocks.

I don't have any hope for any service that people actually need in life being ran by share holding entities. They just milk it until its broken and expect the government to pick up the pieces at a later date.

Similar thing happened in Germany, where the train system was privatized in the 90s. The state, however, kept the rail system (as in the stuff fastened to the ground that trains need to get to places), which is incredibly expensive to maintain. For decades now, being German means
a) you fucking love German bread and tell everybody how relieved you are when you return to Germany after a longer holiday since you missed German bread so much
b) talk shit about the Deutsche Bahn (German railways), because it fucking sucks.

Anyways... many Japanese videogame names annoy me to no end, particularly if they use German words. Take, for example, Elementaly Elexfalter (what the fuck is that even supposed to mean), it actually causes me real physical pain just to write this bullshit down. I get goosebumps and everything, raaaaawwr

[neorichieb1971]

I got some Loreal face wash stuff for Xmas, its really good shit it tightens up your wrinkles, makes you feel fresh and you look younger.

So why does it annoy the hell out of me? Because of 2 things.

1) I cannot open the fucking thing especially in the shower when my hands are wet. Its got sharp edges on the harder plastic where it opens.
2) Its quite thick to press in, if you do a snot bubble and let go whatever came out of the nozzle goes back in.

I could write a book about terrible packaging.