Random thing you loathe right now.

People on reddit who say things with absolute certainty, despite being completely wrong. This then causes people who legitimately don't know better to trust Mr Certain and shower him with upvotes. Thus a falsehood becomes a kind of shared truth.

The thing I really loathe is that I see it happen to things I have good knowledge on and can call it out, but when it's something I know very little about, I have no idea if Mr Certain actually does have expertise or is just talking out of his arse.

I guess the easy answer is to just lay off reddit.

For me, Reddit is akin to Instagram or Tik Tok wherein I just browse for entertainment and never engage. The only other thing I do is post the occasional tech support question. Trying to actually engage there as a community seems fruitless.

Reddit is exactly the same as any other social media platform. It just allows longer posts / discussions. A lot of the stuff there is actually extremely interesting, if you have the wherewithal to filter out the political / self interest / bat sh*t insane angles. The gamestop share price manipulation episode being a big case in point.

halfwaywrong wrote:

People on reddit who say things with absolute certainty, despite being completely wrong.

don't worry, Reddit has a solution to the problem they created!

New loathes:

  • People who don't silence their phones at an art museum
  • People who answer their phones while walking around said museum

Reminds me of a time in college - in my last semester I lived off campus, so I would stick around on campus on days when my classes were relatively close together, and kill time in the library - either doing some work, or just reading for pleasure. One day this girl comes into one of the study areas specifically to make a phone call. Seriously. There are signs everywhere about being quiet. STFU, and GTFO. The library is not your personal phone booth.

I understand that the Youtube algorithm must know that I am white and single. What I don't understand is why it keeps recommending rightwing shouting videos and fox news bits when all I've been clicking on these last few months has been various kdrama clips, Stellaris 3.0 empire management videos, and Dragon Age Inquisition build guides?

Grenn wrote:

I understand that the Youtube algorithm must know that I am white and single. What I don't understand is why it keeps recommending rightwing shouting videos and fox news bits when all I've been clicking on these last few months has been various kdrama clips, Stellaris 3.0 empire management videos, and Dragon Age Inquisition build guides?

I have clicked on "Not interested" or "Don't recommend channel" on so much stuff that most of what Youtube shows me is stuff I have already seen. It got super excited the other day when I watch some videos about Genesis games and a Minecraft video so now it is flooding the page with those.

Yeah I got the habit of opening one off YouTube videos in private mode to avoid cluttering my feed with junk. Helps a bit.

Rykin wrote:

I have clicked on "Not interested" or "Don't recommend channel" on so much stuff that most of what Youtube shows me is stuff I have already seen. It got super excited the other day when I watch some videos about Genesis games and a Minecraft video so now it is flooding the page with those.

Is that why that happens?! YouTube always shows me stuff I’ve watched before. Same as you Rykin, now my suggestions are all plumbing how-tos (I fixed the problem already), 80s music videos (I watched one), and engineering disasters because my wife hadn’t heard of the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

master0 wrote:

Yeah I got the habit of opening one off YouTube videos in private mode to avoid cluttering my feed with junk. Helps a bit.

You can also delete them from your watch history I think.

Grenn wrote:

I understand that the Youtube algorithm must know that I am white and single. What I don't understand is why it keeps recommending rightwing shouting videos and fox news bits when all I've been clicking on these last few months has been various kdrama clips, Stellaris 3.0 empire management videos, and Dragon Age Inquisition build guides?

Because inevitably the YouTube algorithm drives people to alt-right shouting videos. No matter what.

Rykin wrote:
master0 wrote:

Yeah I got the habit of opening one off YouTube videos in private mode to avoid cluttering my feed with junk. Helps a bit.

You can also delete them from your watch history I think.

It helps somewhat, but Google is Google and will monitor everything you do as much as that can.

I personally have set YouTube to not save any of my watch history, so in theory they have no watch history to pull from.

Well, the other day I got distracted looking up live cams of Tokyo*. But I must have touched a Google service at some point, since I wasn’t logged into YouTube, because today, when I finally went to my YouTube account, I found full of recommendations for other live cams around Tokyo.

*There was a middle aged man dressed as a Saiyan warrior striking poses on one of the corners of Shibuya Crossing for reasons no one could figure out

We’re you using a google browser to look at Tokyo?

Nope, just my usual Firefox browser with an excessive number of ad and tracking blocker extensions.

Bought two random snacks/sweets that were on sale. One was fine. Other is pretty awful. Why am I still eating it...

Grenn wrote:

I understand that the Youtube algorithm must know that I am white and single. What I don't understand is why it keeps recommending rightwing shouting videos and fox news bits when all I've been clicking on these last few months has been various kdrama clips, Stellaris 3.0 empire management videos, and Dragon Age Inquisition build guides?

Short answer: money. Long answer: greed and money.

I’ve run out of “You’re Wrong About” podcasts to listen to.

master0 wrote:

Bought two random snacks/sweets that were on sale. One was fine. Other is pretty awful. Why am I still eating it...

Mixolyde wrote:
Grenn wrote:

I understand that the Youtube algorithm must know that I am white and single. What I don't understand is why it keeps recommending rightwing shouting videos and fox news bits when all I've been clicking on these last few months has been various kdrama clips, Stellaris 3.0 empire management videos, and Dragon Age Inquisition build guides?

Short answer: money. Long answer: greed and money.

I read these two back to back without pausing to see what was quoted in between and had myself a nice giggle.

Being bombarded by stupid pictures from the Met Gala.

MaxShrek wrote:

Being bombarded by stupid pictures from the Met Gala.

Aside from seeing many bad takes on AOC’s Tax the Rich dress on Twitter, and the two Kpop stars that attended (CL from 2NE1 and Rosé from Blackpink) I’ve been pretty isolated from those.

However I was subjected to DojaCat’s chair hat and chicken feet from this weekend’s VMAs.

Finally reading that book you’ve been looking forward to… and it’s incredibly disappointing.

Instruction manuals!

I'm putting together this giant outdoor kitchen set for my kids (thanks, mom). And already between step 2 and 16, there's a typo, and an impossible diagram.

Step 2 has parts A and B, with F going in between them. A on the left, B on the right, F at the top.

A F B
A - B
A - B

Then some steps have you put doors on A, and another part on B.

Then in step 16 you connect A and B with part H... except... the diagram has H on the bottom, but the door (A) on the right and other side, (B), on the left, completely opposite of the first diagram. And also impossible, because the parts face each other, so they can't be flipped like that.

B - A
B - A
B H A

And to top it off, step 16 has both A and B labeled as A! First I thought that was the worst problem, so I would just look closer and see which side was doors and which was the other... but alas... they have a picture that can't exist instead. WTF!

They make more sense with copious amounts of alcohol

Ego Man wrote:

They make more sense with copious amounts of alcohol

Weed ultimately takes away my ability to work in a three dimensional environment… which makes me think that weed might be exactly what you need in order to finish this build.

Your cousin from Boston.

We’ve recently started watching a UK “how it’s made” food show, which tours factories and shows (and times) the entire process to make things like bread, Kit Kats and milk chocolate. In the latter episode, they surprised me by taking a few minutes to denigrate Hershey’s and other American chocolates generally, by noting they contained butyric acid as a byproduct of partial fermentation, which when the Hershey company was founded was a decent way of getting a “free” preservative.

Butyric acid, you know, the compound renowned for producing the “corpse smell”. Horrific, no? Various British people were quoted as being disgusted by the flavor in chocolate.

Which is, of course, brainwashing marketing and a case of liking what you are used to. Butyric acid is found in all fermented milk products - yogurt, soft cheeses, butter, all sorts of things - and give them varying degrees of flavor “tang” just like American chocolate. And I know these are enjoyed in the UK. But because their chocolate industry is younger - mass market milk chocolates, that is - they don’t use the fermentation of milk to preserve it, so there is a sweeter, more mild taste to it.

But describing all American chocolates as tasting like “vomit”? Yeah no. Not unless yogurt, cheese, butter, sour cream, etc all get tagged with the same label.

Bah.

Robear wrote:

But describing all American chocolates as tasting like “vomit”? Yeah no. Not unless yogurt, cheese, butter, sour cream, etc all get tagged with the same label.

YOU can't taste the vomitey undertones because that's what you grew up with, so that's your default flavor profile for chocolate. But it's absolutely there in Hersheys.

Certainly "all american chocolate" doesn't fall into the same flavor bracket for me, but Hersheys is it's own level of awfulness.

On topic - next time you make s'mores, try it with Dairy Milk instead of Hersheys, and tell me that isn't an improvement.

So does yogurt taste like vomit? Many foods have unpleasant undertones *until you get used to them*, at which point they are normal. American chocolate could be an interesting alternative in the UK, if it were not for the marketing, in my opinion.

I was just horrified by the level of snark and condescension involved in the comparison.

Robear wrote:

snark and condescension

Why the hell else would you watch British TV?