Random thing you loathe right now.

My rather ancient pc power supply kicked the bucket. Not surprising but the timing is really annoying as I've been sick for over a week. Spending a Saturday while coughing and trying to remember which cable goes where was not my plan. Still it's done with only a moderate amount of swearing.

I did lose the ability to use my CD drive, but in the 15+ years I had it. I used it twice. I built the PC right when orange box came out and steam took off. Took me 5ish years to realize the CD drive was slightly broken. Rather funny in hindsight.

RIP Oreo Paris. (My daughter’s hedgehog)

You were an awesome little spiked ball of hatred, spite and poop, but my daughter loved you with all her heart. You gave her 4 great years.

Your suffering is over. Rest easy now.

Despite bitter resistance at times, it looks like I'm going to have to join Twitter.

This is because mini-sorb is off to London for a couple of days at the end of the month for a school trip - See some West End shows (Wicked & Lion King), see some of the London Tourist sites and locations (Madame Tussauds, Science Museum, Tower of London) and spend a day at the Harry Potter studios.

Apart from being really quite jealous - I never got to go on anything like that when I was at school. The best I got was a French exchange trip with a lovely Family who got lumbered with me - they are also banning the kids taking any form of communication device, so we can't keep in touch. And as it's only for a couple of days they don't feel the need for the kids to call home at any point. This is part of the experience apparently, teaching the kids a little independence and learning how to get themselves ready etc by themselves, that sort of stuff. They will however be posting everything to Twitter so we can see what they have been up to.

I'm quite happy about this, but it is the first time Mini-Sorb will be away from myself and Mrs Sorb since she was born. Seriously, I don't think we've both been apart from her for longer than about 12 hours at the same time. There is a certain amount of seperation anxiety going on (not from mini-sorb) So, Twitter it is.

Sorbicol wrote:

They will however be posting everything to Twitter so we can see what they have been up to.

Can't you visit the Twitter feed through the website without having to log in?

Yeah you don't have to login to Twitter to see tweets most times. Unless their account is protected and then only followers can see the posts

Stele wrote:

Yeah you don't have to login to Twitter to see tweets most times. Unless their account is protected and then only followers can see the posts

It’s the school account. I believe you have to be a follower to see anything or some such.

Listening to some random neighbors fight. I have no idea what caused this but it is very hard to not land on dump his a**.

I think I am old.

Inflation has killed my plans to start putting extra money into my retirement plan each month after my promotion. There are a few things in the apartment that badly need replacing but I've already got $3K in my credit line to pay off first due to unexpected expenses last year. I've pretty much given up ever buying a home.

Don't get me wrong - many people are struggling way more than me. A.I. hasn't replaced my job (yet), I still make a decent income, and while we eat out far less these days, we're nowhere close to going hungry.

It just bugs me that at 43, worrying about money is still part of my daily routine.

It just bugs me that at 43, worrying about money is still part of my daily routine.

I just turned 53 and I don't think it gets better

Biggest lie the owning class ever pulled was convincing the working class that there was a difference between middle and lower class and that it even mattered.

Running a 5K and going on a tough hike the following day is a great reminder that I'm not 30 anymore.

My work computer just got Microsoft’s new weather app. With ads.

misplacedbravado wrote:

My work computer just got Microsoft’s new weather app. With ads.

That’ll be an insta-uninstall for me when I get it. The old app was fantastic.

I also tried the new Outlook on Windows this morning. Not only did it replace desktop Outlook but it also replaced the stock Mail and Calendar apps. (I use and very much like the Calendar app because Outlook doesn’t allow me to add my iCloud calendar for some reason and I also use the Mail app as sort of a preview app to quickly triage my incoming email.)

The “new” app is basically just a wrapper to the Outlook web app which I am not a fan of. I lasted all of twelve seconds before I switched back.

I really hope that the Outlook desktop sticks around.

PaladinTom wrote:
misplacedbravado wrote:

My work computer just got Microsoft’s new weather app. With ads.

That’ll be an insta-uninstall for me when I get it. The old app was fantastic.

I also tried the new Outlook on Windows this morning. Not only did it replace desktop Outlook but it also replaced the stock Mail and Calendar apps. (I use and very much like the Calendar app because Outlook doesn’t allow me to add my iCloud calendar for some reason and I also use the Mail app as sort of a preview app to quickly triage my incoming email.)

The “new” app is basically just a wrapper to the Outlook web app which I am not a fan of. I lasted all of twelve seconds before I switched back.

I really hope that the Outlook desktop sticks around.

Oh god don’t say this. I base my whole work life around outlook’s calendar any changes would break my poor little brain.

bbk1980 wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:
misplacedbravado wrote:

My work computer just got Microsoft’s new weather app. With ads.

That’ll be an insta-uninstall for me when I get it. The old app was fantastic.

I also tried the new Outlook on Windows this morning. Not only did it replace desktop Outlook but it also replaced the stock Mail and Calendar apps. (I use and very much like the Calendar app because Outlook doesn’t allow me to add my iCloud calendar for some reason and I also use the Mail app as sort of a preview app to quickly triage my incoming email.)

The “new” app is basically just a wrapper to the Outlook web app which I am not a fan of. I lasted all of twelve seconds before I switched back.

I really hope that the Outlook desktop sticks around.

Oh god don’t say this. I base my whole work life around outlook’s calendar any changes would break my poor little brain.

Me too. I’m the “weirdo” who doesn’t use a reading pane and prefers to open my emails as separate windows. I also make extensive use of drag and drop and have highly curated and customized my toolbar buttons. I really hate this push away from native apps nowadays (which is why I prefer iPadOS for most of my personal needs - except of course for PC games.)

PaladinTom wrote:
misplacedbravado wrote:

My work computer just got Microsoft’s new weather app. With ads.

That’ll be an insta-uninstall for me when I get it. The old app was fantastic.

I also tried the new Outlook on Windows this morning. Not only did it replace desktop Outlook but it also replaced the stock Mail and Calendar apps. (I use and very much like the Calendar app because Outlook doesn’t allow me to add my iCloud calendar for some reason and I also use the Mail app as sort of a preview app to quickly triage my incoming email.)

The “new” app is basically just a wrapper to the Outlook web app which I am not a fan of. I lasted all of twelve seconds before I switched back.

I really hope that the Outlook desktop sticks around.

I still use OneNote 2016 since. The new Windows 10 version (and the web app) are terrible (especially the search).

Spotify's slow transformation into a TikTok-like.

Prederick wrote:

Spotify's slow transformation into a TikTok-like.

Can you explain more about this? I've tried a lot of streaming music services and like Spotify the best. I hit play on a playlist, it plays for the day (I WFH and like to have music playing throughout the day). No ads, no nonsense, just music.

However, I could be completely unaware of any changes that are coming or were made from what Spotify was long ago as I've only been using it for 4-5 months.

When will my co-workers grow up? I mean, they can't both be victims, right?

Prederick wrote:

Spotify's slow transformation into a TikTok-like.

Every app on my phone is turning into TikTok but worse.

DeThroned wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Spotify's slow transformation into a TikTok-like.

Can you explain more about this?

This will do much better.

Spotify revamps its app with TikTok-style discovery feeds, Smart Shuffle for playlists and more

Spotify says the changes are meant to make its user interface feel more alive and interactive. However, the move could serve other purposes, as well. Most notably, it introduces a new surface in the app where the company could introduce ads, much as Instagram has done with the addition of Reels. Officially, Spotify doesn’t have anything to announce on this front today, but in an email with TechCrunch said it’s “excited” about how the offerings could evolve over time. (In the meantime, artists can pay Spotify when using discovery-boosting tools, like Discovery Mode and Showcase).

I’m glad I quit Spotify back during the podcast saga.

Door dash.
I can't believe I can't cancel my order within a minute of placing it without losing half my money.
Aside from the fact that a $14 item is $28 after fees.

Um, that is highway robbery!

I cancelled a spotify premium sub and switched over to Deezer because of the changes they've made recently. The visual stuff (autoplaying videos on the main page, etc.) is annoying, but what actually made me switch was a change in how they surface liked songs.

Previously, if you were looking at a tracklist for an album or playlist or something, any song you had liked previously would have a heart next to it to indicate it was in your liked songs. Because of how many songs I've liked over the years, this was how I would evaluate if I was likely to enjoy a new playlist or not--I could quickly scroll through a whole playlist and get a gist of if the whole thing was likely to be enjoyable or not based on how many songs I'd already liked were on it.

They removed this feature recently--you now have to dig down through a couple of menus to see if you've liked a song. This and the podcast stuff was enough to overcome inertia and get me to switch to Deezer, which I've been very happy with thus far.

Minor loathe but MLB really needs to catch up with the other sports leagues on getting its condensed game videos up on YouTube more quickly.

Reborn dolls are straight up nightmare material.

Facebook posts about news and other things, when you try to post nonsensical crap and people try to engage you in intelligent conversation over the nonsensical nonsense I posted.

Waited all day for amazon package. Turns out they let me order something that was out of stock. Waste of my time. And they were only willing to tell me that until I contacted support.

master0 wrote:

Waited all day for amazon package. Turns out they let me order something that was out of stock. Waste of my time. And they were only willing to tell me that until I contacted support.

Amazon has gotten really bad lately. In the last month we've received a book that had a food stain inside the book itself, two packages where the item was broken (the packaging was pristine, the item inside the packaging itself was scratched up or broken), and three separate deliveries containing shoes or clothing that had clearly already been worn and in two instances were stained. In all of these cases it was fairly obvious that the item had been purchased, used, returned - and then shipped right back out again to the next buyer as if the item was new.

At this point we've stopped buying anything clothing oriented from Amazon, and think twice before purchasing anything at all from them. It's been a tough pill to swallow on our side, as we're fairly deep into the Amazon ecosystem.

Sorbicol wrote:

Despite bitter resistance at times, it looks like I'm going to have to join Twitter.

I highly recommend the minimal twitter chrome extension (if you use chrome). Basically it cuts out the 'For you'/'trending tweets' stuff that is only there to make you angry.