Things that make you :-(

[MJI]

27 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Since you mention 'X', how much longer are we going to be told 'formerly known as Twitter'? Was it really such a bad choice?

 

Never before have I heard of a business, that changed it's name, continue to remind us of it's former name.

x.org

 

windowing system for unix like systems

 

So twitter it remains

[MJI]

19 minutes ago, Reorte said:

It did improve for a while, but hit a peak with XP, least on the user-facing side (although I'll guiltily confess to actually liking the look of Vista). There have been under the bonnet improvements that are worth having, such as support for newer hardware, and security being less non-existent is a necessity when so many machines are connected to the internet.

 

 

11 is so bad my new PC runs Mint

[J. S. Bach]

Win 3.11 for workgroups was so stable I could not crash it. I still have the original Microsoft floppies for it somewhere. XP Pro with service packs 2 and 3 was the pinnacle of Windows!

My gripe with windows (no experience with other operating systems) is not making existing drivers work with the "new" versions. I have some hardware that does things that I can not

afford to replace; I am thinking about having an XP box built with all new hardware to support these devices. Note that I have original XP pro and SP 2 & 3 discs. They came with a laptop

that I bought from an IT manager.

[MartynJPearson]

XP was brilliant, second that. At the opposite end of the scale, Windows Me was appalling. The only positive was that you didn't need a virus checker, the virus writers felt that the owners had suffered enough.

[Hroth]

I've just managed to provoke a Win 11 BSoD....

 

[melmerby]

On 09/06/2024 at 16:05, Dagworth said:

Feedback requests. 
 

Every company that you have dealings with now seems to email you a couple of days later asking how they did and wanting you to rate their service etc. Just no! Grrrrrr

I joined Lakeland because there was a product that fitted the bill and I hadn't found elsewhere, however it then turned out it was currently OOS.

I found the same product online and available from Amazon at the Lakeland shopfront!

However I now get pestered by Lakeland e-mails asking me how they have done?

Done what? Apart from my opening an account they have done precisely nil, zilch, zippo!

Edited June 11 by melmerby

[Dagworth]

On 09/06/2024 at 16:05, Dagworth said:

Feedback requests. 
 

Every company that you have dealings with now seems to email you a couple of days later asking how they did and wanting you to rate their service etc. Just no! Grrrrrr

I took Jessica to the vet on Thursday last week for a pre-op check up. Since then I've had two emails asking how they are doing, do I reply or get Jessica to reply?

 

Andi

[melmerby]

Amazon

After you buy a product for £500 which is obviously a one time purchase, you then get a "Purchase Again" recommendation.

Buy a product that is disposable for say £30, go to the purchase again when you want a replacement and it says "no longer available.

[melmerby]

30 minutes ago, Hroth said:

I've just managed to provoke a Win 11 BSoD....

 

That's quite a feat

I haven't manage to fault it, however it is abused.

All the previous editions up to Win 7 were breakable quite easily, since then they have got remakably resilient to abuse, such as turning the power off (accidently) whilst the disk is being used to boot it up, or during an update (when it says keep the power on)

Just re-boots as normal on Win 11.

[melmerby]

On 09/06/2024 at 15:55, PatB said:

OK, I'll start. Maybe I'm a terrible person, but I'm becoming increasingly irritated that donating to pretty much any charity is no longer a case of dropping a few coins, or even a note or two, into a rattled tin, but now involves handing over most of your personal details and more or less open ended access to your bank account. No thank you, I would not like to sign up for a lifetime of spam and begging emails, interspersed with leaks of my data when, not if, your organisation cocks up their digital security.

Oxfam started that and also have got far to professional in their approach to donations of stuff.

"Sorry don't want that, doesn't sell well."*

"Yes we'll have that, let's get it registered for Gift Aid" - pushy pushy.

Also the shops don't have any "bargains" these days as everything is priced at top whack.

 

*Go next door to the British Heart Foundation, same items welcomed and later seen on sale in the shop.

[Matt37268]

Love Island, what a load of boll*#ks 

and guess what I’ve come home to? 

[PatB]

9 hours ago, melmerby said:

Oxfam started that and also have got far to professional in their approach to donations of stuff.

"Sorry don't want that, doesn't sell well."*

"Yes we'll have that, let's get it registered for Gift Aid" - pushy pushy.

Also the shops don't have any "bargains" these days as everything is priced at top whack.

 

*Go next door to the British Heart Foundation, same items welcomed and later seen on sale in the shop.

The charity shops here have also largely moved from bargain basement pricing to "market rates", which has much reduced their usefulness. However, I'm not sure it's entirely the fault of the charities in this case. I suspect it is more reflective of the now terrifying cost of maintaining a retail shopfront. 

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, PatB said:

The charity shops here have also largely moved from bargain basement pricing to "market rates", which has much reduced their usefulness.

 

Pricing is apparently tied to the apparent going rate for similar items on eBay, though comparison is not carried out in a sophisticated manner.

 

[The Johnster]

Chinese drones on eBay.  Brand new, claiming all sorts of features that they very likely do not have (particularly GPS) and with Chinglish descriptions that defy precise interpretation, and there's hundreds of them priced between £15 and £40, often the same drone claiming to be made by different companies or by the same company with different specifications and different prices.  'English Supplier' and union flag on the descriptions does not mean that the details are not in Chinglish.  I'm in the market for a GPS drone, and naturally want the best I can manage for the least money, which takes research.  But this is a morass of poor description and Chinglish, AI Chinglish at that! 

 

As things stand, I'm discounting anything below a cutoff price of £60 as rubbish, but there is plenty of stuff above that price level that looks like rubbish as well.  The drone I want is a DJI Mini 2SE, but that costs £250 and I can't afford it.  I am concerned that trudging through the sludge of misinformation will result in my buying a dog, or failing to spot a reasonable bargain.  How dare these mendactious chisellers (seriously, Gostude looks like the shopper's friend after this lot) assume that I have time to waste on their nonsense; it's the reverse of effective marketing and putting me off what might for all I know be decent products at reasonable prices.

 

Even DJI and Holy Stone, which appear to be reputable producers in this field, are not immune for hyperbole and Chinglish.  Please, guys, get an English speaker, preferably a natural speaker, to write the blurbs and instructions if you're going to sell in the Anglophone world.

[melmerby]

Asda home delivery's stupid substitutions.

 

e.g. Today

Ordered: Plant based Butternut Squash Curry.

Substitute. Chicken Pesto Penne Pasta.

 

Exactly where is the connection between the two?

☹️

[franciswilliamwebb]

4 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Exactly where is the connection between the two?

 

Don't get me started.  The whackiest Asda sub I had was 16 litres of apple juice instead of 16 litres of orange juice.  There's even a saying about comparing apples with oranges, but have they heard of it?

 

Then, to add insult to injury, after I'd returned the unwanted items to the driver Asda Brain-Central actually refused to refund me🤬

[melmerby]

On 14/06/2024 at 17:51, The Johnster said:

Please, guys, get an English speaker, preferably a natural speaker, to write the blurbs and instructions if you're going to sell in the Anglophone world.

That's assuming the English speaker is sufficiently versed in Chinese technical jargon to produce an accurate English version.

 

Even good English can end up with some silly descriptions

 

I bought a 10" monitor to use with Raspberry Pi and the description on Amazon quite clearly stated no touch screen.

However I was puzzled that the manual gave a full description in decent English of how to connect and use the touch screen, only at the end of the lengthy paragraph, in the same typeface, stating. "No touch fitted". It's quite obvious that the statement was not an overprinted addition, it was there at the time of printing.

Why even print the paragraph?

[melmerby]

4 minutes ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

The whackiest Asda sub I had was 16 litres of apple juice instead of 16 litres of orange juice.

That's not whacky, they are both juices😄

[The Johnster]

On 14/06/2024 at 17:51, The Johnster said:

l.  The drone I want is a DJI Mini 2SE, but that costs £250 and I can't afford it. 

So guess what I ordered last night from DJI, whether I can afford it or not…

[eastglosmog]

6 minutes ago, melmerby said:

That's assuming the English speaker is sufficiently versed in Chinese technical jargon to produce an accurate English version.

 

Even good English can end up with some silly descriptions

 

I bought a 10" monitor to use with Raspberry Pi and the description on Amazon quite clearly stated no touch screen.

However I was puzzled that the manual gave a full description in decent English of how to connect and use the touch screen, only at the end of the lengthy paragraph, in the same typeface, stating. "No touch fitted". It's quite obvious that the statement was not an overprinted addition, it was there at the time of printing.

Why even print the paragraph?

I recently had need to consult the Gibraltar Highway Code.  It appears to be a direct copy of the UK version, except that the drawings are reversed to cover driving on the right.  It also included motorway driving and railway level crossings, neither of which are present in Gibraltar!  What it does not have, and probably should, is crossing an airfield on the level.

[The Johnster]

15 minutes ago, melmerby said:

That's assuming the English speaker is sufficiently versed in Chinese technical jargon to produce an accurate English version.

 

Even good English can end up with some silly descriptions

 

I bought a 10" monitor to use with Raspberry Pi and the description on Amazon quite clearly stated no touch screen.

However I was puzzled that the manual gave a full description in decent English of how to connect and use the touch screen, only at the end of the lengthy paragraph, in the same typeface, stating. "No touch fitted". It's quite obvious that the statement was not an overprinted addition, it was there at the time of printing.

Why even print the paragraph?

I’d say this is a general problem with instructions.  They are written by somebody who knows how to assemble/operate/use the whateveritis, but doesn’t quite understand that you don’t, and may not be good at explaining it.  Pass that through legal, who modify it to cover the company’s @rse claim-wise, then the bean-counters insist that the same instruction sheet covers several similar but not identical products, and the trouble starts even before it is put through auto-translate!

[kevinlms]

36 minutes ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Don't get me started.  The whackiest Asda sub I had was 16 litres of apple juice instead of 16 litres of orange juice.  There's even a saying about comparing apples with oranges, but have they heard of it?

 

Then, to add insult to injury, after I'd returned the unwanted items to the driver Asda Brain-Central actually refused to refund me🤬

Probably because there are laws about returning chilled/frozen products. I do agree that they shouldn't have sent you the alternative product, but I guess I'm looking at it from the perspective of someone, who prefers supermarket shopping in person. That way I can choose a suitable alternative or nothing at all.

[kevinlms]

28 minutes ago, eastglosmog said:

I recently had need to consult the Gibraltar Highway Code.  It appears to be a direct copy of the UK version, except that the drawings are reversed to cover driving on the right.  It also included motorway driving and railway level crossings, neither of which are present in Gibraltar!  What it does not have, and probably should, is crossing an airfield on the level.

I dunno, the runway would make a good, if short, motorway!

There is the potential disadvantage of a ride in a nice police car!

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Probably because there are laws about returning chilled/frozen products.

Normally they take back anything not wanted as a substitute, chilled, frozen or fresh.

My incorrect chilled meal went straight back and the driver put the refund through before he left.

(Everything's on smartphones)

 

I assume if something can't be put back to stock, it goes to waste.

 

Another bonkers sub was 3x 1litre organic full milk as a sub for 3 x 4pt normal semi-skimmed.

5¼ pints v 12pints and no price adjustment for the shortage.

 

Edited June 19 by melmerby

[57xx]

5 hours ago, melmerby said:

 

Ordered: Plant based Butternut Squash Curry.

 

 

The "Plant based" bandwagon.  The product above is a classic case of pointless branding. Butternut squash, plant based? No sh*t sherlock!