First world problems

[Tiffany]

I suppose I'll clarify my registration process on the other side

You have an excellent registration process!!

 

[live627]

One of my pet hates are members who join and then never log in again. Why the hell join in the first place then?! That's most of them, too.

And they're not spammers either, because there's simply no activity at all. Are they bots, maybe?

Those accounts can sit dormant for months before the flood gates open.

 

[Retro]

Alas, those floodgates have never opened, sigh. I've had the odd one or two come alive, but they weren't especially active.

 

[live627]

Count your blessings. The spam farms probably deem your forum to not be worth the follow up.

 

[Retro]

I actually used to get quite a lot of it, in terms of dodgy registrations. They never got as far as posting their garbage in the forum for others to see though. It still meant a fair bit of work for me however with manual evaluation. A while back I improved automated spam controls and now I get almost nothing, only genuine registrations.

 

[Retro]

Just had a very annoying first world problem slap me in the face: my Sky Q box malfunctioned horribly and then crashed.

I'd just started a program download and had continued to watch a recording, when it suddenly became only semi responsive to the remote control. I could sort of do a little with it and tried to pause or cancel the download, but it wasn't having it and the download was stuck at 12% with the red light on. It soon locked up solid, with a half drawn screen, where no amount of button pushing on the remote could make it respond any more.

Now, I've had it do weirdness in the past, but never quite this serious. Normally, I can do a hard reset, by pressing and holding the power switch until the light goes red, indicating safe to pull the power and then simply restarting it, but it couldn't even manage that this time. Nope, I was forced to pull the plug while it was powered up and the fan had become audible, so no controlled shutdown which is pretty important for computers. At least, when it came back up, it started working properly and I hope none of the recordings are corrupted.

It's never clear what causes such malfunctions, but it's a few years old now, so it's possible that it's a developing hardware fault that caused it. If so, I can expect more of these, becoming more frequent and more serious as time goes on. At that point, I'll have to call Sky to swap out the box, but I hope I don't have to as I'll have downtime and lose all the programs recorded on it. Note that it's running the latest firmware as that's automagically downloaded, with no chance to override it. Heck, it doesn't even tell you when it's been upgraded, that's how crap the interface is, but that's something that I could bitch about in another thread.

 

[FF]

Just caught a cold today, for second time since the pandemic started. Sometimes I do miss masks!

 

[Retro]

Hope you get well soon, FF.

 

[aussiefooty]

Was at an umpiring function last night which was a presentation night. Food was yummy. But there were people at our table who would not stop farting. They were dropping silent but deadly farts at our table. It stunk!

 

[Retro]

That's gross. If I'd been there and I knew who it was, I'd shame them publicly about it and hopefully that would make them stop.

If they've got some stomach upset causing it that they can't control, or they just need to take a dump, then they shouldn't be there in the first place. Bottom line is that no one should have to put up with their disgusting farts.

 

[aussiefooty]

That's gross. If I'd been there and I knew who it was, I'd shame them publicly about it and hopefully that would make them stop.

If they've got some stomach upset causing it that they can't control, or they just need to take a dump, then they shouldn't be there in the first place. Bottom line is that no one should have to put up with their disgusting farts.

It was totally gross!

 

[Tiffany]

@FF Hope your cold passes quickly; feel better!

@aussiefooty Gross on your dinner mates! How rude of those people, it's just not funny and it's actually unhealthy to be take in methane gas!!

@Retro How's your SkyQ? Totally get your frustration. We have satellite services and want to change too, but like you, everything we like is saved. If there's a problem, you are on the phone with them for an hour while they are reading from their manual making you do stuff on your receiver. Waste of time. We are going to change at some point. It's over $200 a month and I think that's outrageous.

 

[Retro]

@Retro How's your SkyQ? Totally get your frustration. We have satellite services and want to change too, but like you, everything we like is saved. If there's a problem, you are on the phone with them for an hour while they are reading from their manual making you do stuff on your receiver. Waste of time. We are going to change at some point. It's over $200 a month and I think that's outrageous.

It's still working properly now, it just had a spasm. Hopefully, won't be too many more. I'd love to know if that was just a software glitch or hardware. It did start within a minute or so of starting that download, so I think that choked it somehow. I restarted that download afterwards and it completed ok.

$200 is outrageous, even with the exchange rate between our currencies. Do you just renew, or haggle?

Sky have 18 month contracts as standard, so when it runs out, the price doubles every time, even on a recontract if one isn't active in getting that price down. Thankfully, Sky's business model is predicated on that haggling, so I managed to renew it for a couple of pounds less than previously, without losing anything!

 

[aussiefooty]

It's still working properly now, it just had a spasm. Hopefully, won't be too many more. I'd love to know if that was just a software glitch or hardware. It did start within a minute or so of starting that download, so I think that choked it somehow. I restarted that download afterwards and it completed ok.

$200 is outrageous, even with the exchange rate between our currencies. Do you just renew, or haggle?

Sky have 18 month contracts as standard, so when it runs out, the price doubles every time, even on a recontract if one isn't active in getting that price down. Thankfully, Sky's business model is predicated on that haggling, so I managed to renew it for a couple of pounds less than previously, without losing anything!

Let sky know that your old machine had an issue.

 

[Retro]

Let sky know that your old machine had an issue.

Nah, there's no point, they won't be able to do anything. These consumer grade devices are buggy and sometimes do these things. If it gets more serious problems then I'll do that.

 

[Retro]

Right, first problem: my Sky Q box lost signal multiple times tonight during the storm and for long periods. Having this happen during an important Champions League football match is very inconsiderate of storm Nigel, tsk. Thankfully, I was able to continue watching using the discovery+ app on the box, but even that was a bit glitchy despite it working off internet streaming.

Secondly, I bought some small tins of tuna in oil the other day. Went to put them in the cupboard and noticed that the tins were very light. Looked at the weight which showed a mere 110g. They used to be 200g, then 185g and now this - with a price increase per tin. That means I'll have to use two tins to make up the difference and then some, which increases my costs massively for tuna. I wonder how many products have been reduced by similar amounts.

 

[Crims]

I'm so bored by people in the suburbs here in London. Stereotypes of conversation like endless 'no you' responses, for starters, as a buffer for lack of intellectual talk resorting to acting like parrots. I've had great conversations with people when I was working in central, though the majority of people in the suburbs require a lot of talk to get through this bluntness. At the shops I basilly just go in and out as efficiently as possible. Also scrolller and websites keep showing me animal pics lol, usually jellyfish and stuff like that.

 

[Mars]

Right, first problem: my Sky Q box lost signal multiple times tonight during the storm and for long periods. Having this happen during an important Champions League football match is very inconsiderate of storm Nigel, tsk. Thankfully, I was able to continue watching using the discovery+ app on the box, but even that was a bit glitchy despite it working off internet streaming.

Secondly, I bought some small tins of tuna in oil the other day. Went to put them in the cupboard and noticed that the tins were very light. Looked at the weight which showed a mere 110g. They used to be 200g, then 185g and now this - with a price increase per tin. That means I'll have to use two tins to make up the difference and then some, which increases my costs massively for tuna. I wonder how many products have been reduced by similar amounts.

Reducing weight by almost a half is brazen, to say the least. The only reason they get away with it, is that it is not against the law, so they milk that fact. They can always say 'well, the weight is noted on the tin/ bag/whatever, it is up to the consumer to check'. Yes, true, but let's face it, they know damn well people are just going to reach for their favorite items, not scrutinizing ingredients or weight every single time.
It is annoying, checking and re-checking, who wants to do that? Nobody does. And the truth is, unless we vote with our feet and go to another supermarket, or switch brands, we are obliged to pay the increased price.

I'm so bored by people in the suburbs here in London. Stereotypes of conversation like endless 'no you' responses, for starters, as a buffer for lack of intellectual talk resorting to acting like parrots. I've had great conversations with people when I was working in central, though the majority of people in the suburbs require a lot of talk to get through this bluntness. At the shops I basilly just go in and out as efficiently as possible. Also scrolller and websites keep showing me animal pics lol, usually jellyfish and stuff like that.

It is true, the habit of casual, friendly conversation is dying out. People have no time, attention span is akin to that of a rabbit, (sorry bunnies no offence meant ), what's app. is beckoning.
Although I must say, I do not see it as a malaise of the suburbs only, it is just that general attitudes have changed.

 

[Tiffany]

@Retro, I've noticed prices have gone up and prepared food sizes of bags or boxes have gotten smaller too. I bought pretzels the other day for the first time in a long time. The bag is half the size it was and $2.00 more. Very irritating. Makes you just want to make your own. Move on over Betty Crocker, there's a new chef in town!

To @Crims and @Mars chatting on substantive subjects shouldn't be an art, it seems though now that it is.... but I do get what you are saying, very few have the tolerance to have a spirited conversation on anything. Blame Twitter and their idea to write something in 143 characters or whatever it is now. No one seems to be able to put in the effort to concentrate just a bit more either.

 

[Retro]

Reducing weight by almost a half is brazen, to say the least. The only reason they get away with it, is that it is not against the law, so they milk that fact. They can always say 'well, the weight is noted on the tin/ bag/whatever, it is up to the consumer to check'. Yes, true, but let's face it, they know damn well people are just going to reach for their favorite items, not scrutinizing ingredients or weight every single time.
It is annoying, checking and re-checking, who wants to do that? Nobody does. And the truth is, unless we vote with our feet and go to another supermarket, or switch brands, we are obliged to pay the increased price.

The situation with that bloody tuna just got even worse. It was the sunflower oil variety, which normally has the food covered in the oil to the point one must be careful not to spill it. These tins have no such oil and the fish looked really dry, like it had been dipped in it and then all the excess flushed away.

This made the fish really dry and spoiled the dish somewhat. Looking carefully at the label, I can see it says in small, hard to read print, "skipjack tuna steak with a little sunflower oil". So that's alright then. Next time I go shopping, I'm gonna look at alternate brands to Tesco and see if they've got more oil in them.

@Retro, I've noticed prices have gone up and prepared food sizes of bags or boxes have gotten smaller too. I bought pretzels the other day for the first time in a long time. The bag is half the size it was and $2.00 more. Very irritating. Makes you just want to make your own. Move on over Betty Crocker, there's a new chef in town!

I'll bet this is happening all over the world. The food industry is effectively acting like one giant cartel, fixing prices, quantities and reducing quality. I wish I knew how this can be tackled.

 

[Tiffany]

The situation with that bloody tuna just got even worse. It was the sunflower oil variety, which normally has the food covered in the oil to the point one must be careful not to spill it. These tins have no such oil and the fish looked really dry, like it had been dipped in it and then all the excess flushed away.

This made the fish really dry and spoiled the dish somewhat. Looking carefully at the label, I can see it says in small, hard to read print, "skipjack tuna steak with a little sunflower oil". So that's alright then. Next time I go shopping, I'm gonna look at alternate brands to Tesco and see if they've got more oil in them.


I'll bet this is happening all over the world. The food industry is effectively acting like one giant cartel, fixing prices, quantities and reducing quality. I wish I knew how this can be tackled.

Maddening when the product is not what it's supposed to be when you open it.

I'm so tired of this whole monopoly on food. I liked when I used to be able to get the quantity of a food item I wanted and now I can only have limited quantities. That aggravates me too.

 

[Tiffany]

First world problem ~ when you expect your week to go one way and it turns out another way...that was my week last week.

 

[Tiffany]

Soooo.... my next first world problem happened yesterday. I was emptying the dishwasher, my mom called and I continued my task while I was talking to her....then I decided I could quietly add the dirty dishes while talking to her (she hates when I stay busy while talking to her)....I proceeded to do that and then when I was finished, I realized I forget to remove the clean cutlery/utensils. OMG

 

[Retro]

I've done facepalmers like that. I've washed clothes in my washing machine forgetting the soap power. Horrible, manky clothes resulted so had to do it all again - with soap.

 

[Tiffany]

I've done facepalmers like that. I've washed clothes in my washing machine forgetting the soap power. Horrible, manky clothes resulted so had to do it all again - with soap.

Yep, it was truly a facepalmer and I think I've done that to clothes too, forgetting to add the soap.

I had just cooked a big dinner, used 3 skillets and one pot and had very little clean dishes left. Which reminds me, I now have to empty that dishwasher again and I just called my mom. She didn't pick up, but I'll have to be super aware if she calls back while I'm doing dishes again...lol