Random Rants LXXXVI: OH, FUDDLE-DUDDLE!

[Birdjaguar]

They have a song for every occasion!

 

[Cutlass]

@haroon, I’d never heard of Zoom until about two weeks ago. I’m so isolated from tech stuff these days.

Another rant: how come they don’t have good general interest magazines like Life anymore? Big glossy pages of pictures with interesting stories or information. Television, yeah, you flick it on and forget about it. I have a TV but it’s not plugged in.

Not enough money in it. But National Geographic is still around. I think Discover and Popular Science public bi-monthly now.

 

[Synobun]

Yo whose bright idea was it to glue parts together in laptops to prevent their repair?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yo whose bright idea was it to glue parts together in laptops to prevent their repair?

Manufacturers who want you to buy new ones instead

 

[cardgame]

Also I think there was something about making laptops thinner, not sure if that's just an excuse though

 

[Takhisis]

That's probably one of my top fears right now (after getting dick)

???????? is this a massive freudian slip or smth?

Before I read the correction I just thought that The_J was having weight issues.

 

[cardgame]

RANT: I need a flash drive to upgrade my BIOS so I can upgrade my processor

Despite having owned 4 of them simultaneously at one point in the recent past, I can find zero.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yo whose bright idea was it to glue parts together in laptops to prevent their repair?

I read on the internet that if you dump coca cola on the parts that are glued, it will dissolve the glue for easy removal.

 

[cardgame]

And that has no adverse effects on the circuit board at all, huh?

 

[H4run]

salary cut 50 percent, except the low pyramid from our organization they got subside. I'm not bother about the cut, what I'm bother is what await us after the cut.

 

[amadeus]

Not enough money in it. But National Geographic is still around. I think Discover and Popular Science public bi-monthly now.

I know I’m in the minority of people that like old print magazines like that.

I feel like there’s too much nature and not enough geography in National Geographic nowadays. I guess their readers wanted more environmental news or what have you, but it doesn’t click with me like the old magazines did.

And all this science? I don’t understand. It’s just a job, five days a week.

 

[Synobun]

I cannot for the life of me figure out why people don't know how to close doors. I had to ask my roommate over a month ago to close the door when he comes home late at night, and he acted bewildered about it, as though I were requesting a mighty feat.

But thankfully, he listened! He started closing the door so I wouldn't have to get out of bed at 3 in the morning to make sure nobody can just saunter into our apartment. #blessed

But now the upstairs neighbours are doing it. And that one in particular is frustrating, because their door is visible from the street, while ours is at least at the back and not easily visible from the alley. I went for a walk early this morning, noticed it, and figured hey, maybe they were on their way out. But I came back from my walk and it was still open, so I got to be the guy ringing the doorbell at 6 in the morning and having them come down the stairs to a door that's already open, and they're women, so, worst-case scenario running through their mind. Once they knew why I was there they were grateful, but like, really? Front door? Open? Don't you make sure to hear the click? At least look it over with your peepers to make sure it's shut? I can't fathom going through life with no awareness of what you're doing (or not doing).

On another note, the construction business is booming despite the quarantine. There are five houses under construction within a hundred meters, and they get started at 6:30 AM every day except for Sunday, and they go until 7 PM at night. The hammers, excavators, drills, and what-have-you going off on five different sites every day for months has been trying.

This belongs in the raves, but it's connected to the above, so I'll just share it here. There's been sob stories here about how real estate investment from China has plummeted here, and it's really putting a hamper on the bubble. My only response is "thoughts and prayers." I wish we'd just go ahead and ban foreign ownership entirely unless the owner actively lives in Canada and has at least permanent residency. We're doing half-measures with empty-home taxes and such, and while that's helping a little bit, it's not enough. Our city's zoning is silly and doesn't help, but having valuable stock eaten up by people who don't live in Canada and who just see property as investments is a little drab. The worst part is that we're complicit, since many foreign investors go through Canada-owned firms to purchase property to obscure ownership. The system is perfectly designed for abuse.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

There was an active shooter in my county earlier. The police have him in custody now.

I don't know why they didn't use Alert Ready for this, though. They were perfectly happy using it a week or two ago to tell me to stay home due to COVID-19.

 

[Cutlass]

Feels like half my tastebuds have gone on strike. Past couple days, everything tastes off.

 

[Traitorfish]

Feels like half my tastebuds have gone on strike. Past couple days, everything tastes off.

Drink lots of coffee. It won't help, but it means everything will taste of coffee anyway so you won't notice.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I know I’m in the minority of people that like old print magazines like that.

I feel like there’s too much nature and not enough geography in National Geographic nowadays. I guess their readers wanted more environmental news or what have you, but it doesn’t click with me like the old magazines did.

Geography isn't just maps and scenery and pictures of animals. I minored in geography in college, and while they're all interconnected, the courses were divided up among physical and cultural geography, and urban geography was a subdivide of cultural geography.

Environmental news is part of all of that now; you just need to consider the places that are in imminent danger of being literally swallowed up by the ocean due to climate change. It's changing everything.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why people don't know how to close doors. I had to ask my roommate over a month ago to close the door when he comes home late at night, and he acted bewildered about it, as though I were requesting a mighty feat.

But thankfully, he listened! He started closing the door so I wouldn't have to get out of bed at 3 in the morning to make sure nobody can just saunter into our apartment. #blessed

But now the upstairs neighbours are doing it. And that one in particular is frustrating, because their door is visible from the street, while ours is at least at the back and not easily visible from the alley. I went for a walk early this morning, noticed it, and figured hey, maybe they were on their way out. But I came back from my walk and it was still open, so I got to be the guy ringing the doorbell at 6 in the morning and having them come down the stairs to a door that's already open, and they're women, so, worst-case scenario running through their mind. Once they knew why I was there they were grateful, but like, really? Front door? Open? Don't you make sure to hear the click? At least look it over with your peepers to make sure it's shut? I can't fathom going through life with no awareness of what you're doing (or not doing).

Once or twice I've knocked on the across-the-hall neighbor's door when I noticed the door was open and nobody seemed to be coming or going. The only reason I did that was because I knew they had a cat who might take the chance to escape and have to be chased down. This isn't as hard on the upper floors since the cat can't just wander into the elevator, the stairwell, or the laundry, storage room, or garbage room... but on the ground floor where I am, it would be too easy for someone to see Maddy, assume she wandered into the building, and toss her outside. She has a collar and the manager knows her, but I should really get her a tag with address and phone number. It's annoying when I have to remind the maintenance people who come here to close the door because I have a cat.

What else is sometimes left open is people's mailboxes. Over the years I've reminded quite a few people to take their keys with them when I see them left in the mailbox door (I did that myself once, and thankfully my neighbor knocked on the door to remind me).

But I can't fathom people who don't shut the door to the apartment on purpose. Do they think they live in a larger house where everyone is safe from everyone else?

On another note, the construction business is booming despite the quarantine. There are five houses under construction within a hundred meters, and they get started at 6:30 AM every day except for Sunday, and they go until 7 PM at night. The hammers, excavators, drills, and what-have-you going off on five different sites every day for months has been trying.

This belongs in the raves, but it's connected to the above, so I'll just share it here. There's been sob stories here about how real estate investment from China has plummeted here, and it's really putting a hamper on the bubble. My only response is "thoughts and prayers." I wish we'd just go ahead and ban foreign ownership entirely unless the owner actively lives in Canada and has at least permanent residency. We're doing half-measures with empty-home taxes and such, and while that's helping a little bit, it's not enough. Our city's zoning is silly and doesn't help, but having valuable stock eaten up by people who don't live in Canada and who just see property as investments is a little drab. The worst part is that we're complicit, since many foreign investors go through Canada-owned firms to purchase property to obscure ownership. The system is perfectly designed for abuse.

The system is perfectly designed for corruption. I have zero sympathy for the people caught in mid-transaction when the foreign ownership tax went in there. One young student went on CBC, wailing and whining that she'd come to Canada for university and now her family didn't have enough money to buy her a house.

In what universe does someone who is barely 20 years old need a whole house to live in when she's just there for university and will scamper back home afterward? An apartment isn't good enough? Back in the '90s, some of my typing clients were living 3 or 4 people to an apartment (I found this out when I acquired them and their roommates as clients and sometimes they would drop each others' papers off as well as their own).

The empty-home tax is catching real Canadians, though, in situations where the major breadwinner of a couple is employed outside of Canada and the spouse stays home to take care of the kids. I read about a bizarre situation where a woman and her kids were officially not considered to be living in the home where they were living, because the husband was living and working in another country and therefore the house was "empty." They got hit with the 'empty home' tax because he was considered a 'foreign owner' who wasn't living there (he was sending money home to help support them; she was working as well, but made considerably less than he did).

There was an active shooter in my county earlier. The police have him in custody now.

I don't know why they didn't use Alert Ready for this, though. They were perfectly happy using it a week or two ago to tell me to stay home due to COVID-19.

Oh, come now. Alerts are only for things people either already know or they're for missing kids that are a thousand miles away and you're supposed to jump out of bed at 3 am (when the alarm goes off) and join a search party - or at least go to the nearest 24-hour gas/convenience store on the off-chance that the perpetrator and kidnapped child will be there and you can phone the cops.

I've been flamed on CBC for making it clear that I would make an effort if the alert was for something local, but if it's hundreds of miles away, there's nothing I can do so sending an alert is pointless. The excuse that "people can travel a long distance in a few hours" just tells me that they'd better send these alerts worldwide, then, because planes go places outside the country - even now, when nonessential air travel is supposed to not be happening.

Feels like half my tastebuds have gone on strike. Past couple days, everything tastes off.

Seriously, if you have any symptoms - cough, runny nose, fever, sore throat - call your local health line, or whatever is in your area for COVID testing. Loss of ability to taste or smell is one of the symptoms quite a number of people have been reporting. It's worth at least asking about this.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Oh, come now. Alerts are only for things people either already know or they're for missing kids that are a thousand miles away and you're supposed to jump out of bed at 3 am (when the alarm goes off) and join a search party - or at least go to the nearest 24-hour gas/convenience store on the off-chance that the perpetrator and kidnapped child will be there and you can phone the cops.

I've been flamed on CBC for making it clear that I would make an effort if the alert was for something local, but if it's hundreds of miles away, there's nothing I can do so sending an alert is pointless. The excuse that "people can travel a long distance in a few hours" just tells me that they'd better send these alerts worldwide, then, because planes go places outside the country - even now, when nonessential air travel is supposed to not be happening.

My main problem with the Alert Ready system is that every single alert is sent at presidential level, which can't be disabled in the phone settings (at least without hacking it). So the "missing kid" alert is sent with the same urgency as "incoming nuclear bombs," leading to desensitization.

 

[Synobun]

The empty-home tax is catching real Canadians, though, in situations where the major breadwinner of a couple is employed outside of Canada and the spouse stays home to take care of the kids. I read about a bizarre situation where a woman and her kids were officially not considered to be living in the home where they were living, because the husband was living and working in another country and therefore the house was "empty." They got hit with the 'empty home' tax because he was considered a 'foreign owner' who wasn't living there (he was sending money home to help support them; she was working as well, but made considerably less than he did).

This is surprising. Usually, the tax can be circumvented with utilities usage (although neighbours can report houses they suspect are empty despite utilities being on a timer) or renting the house out, and I imagine the wife and kids fulfill both those.

 

[amadeus]

Environmental news is part of all of that now; you just need to consider the places that are in imminent danger of being literally swallowed up by the ocean due to climate change. It's changing everything.

I can’t read about bad news all the time. I don’t need to spend $6.95 plus tax on a magazine to be miserable—I can do that for free!

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

There was an active shooter in my county earlier. The police have him in custody now.

I don't know why they didn't use Alert Ready for this, though. They were perfectly happy using it a week or two ago to tell me to stay home due to COVID-19.

Multiple people (including one RCMP officer) died. According to Global News, the shooter also got dead.