Dat’s ow klevah are akkadumiks ar theez daiz.

True, but whenever Windows is having a mini-meltdown the NMI from the three finger salute is often enough to jar it out of its fixation. Plus my computer has learnt that if I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del 30 times the next time is the big red switch.

Decimals are usually spelt out a digit at a time. 3.14159 would be three point one four one five nine, not three point fourteen thousand one hundred and fifty nine. 37.32 would be thirty-seven point three two. If it’s not a decimal but something like a version string then you could say v3.14 is version three point fourteen, and three point one four might be confused with 3.1.4 even though you didn’t say the second point. IP addresses are a bit mixed; I’d say ten ten, but also one nine two dot one six eight.

If CIVO are in the UK then why the fuck are their prices in dollars!!!

(yeah probably for easier comparison with the US stuff but even so)

Star Treks Voyager and Lower Decks.

You’re not crazy. Nobody wants their grammar correcting; they lash out and call people who do that “grammar nazis” instead of thanking them for helping them improve. So they get to post whatever they like, and of course as more people see stuff spelt incorrectly they assume that’s correct and use those errors themselves, but intentionally. And of course the dictionary writers realise they are descriptive, not proscriptive, so the argument “the dictionary says…” is voided.

Autocorrect is OK to an extent but it’s not smart enough yet to understand what people are actually saying. So it gets switched off.

Also it is worth mentioning that English is a complex language with many inconsistencies. “extream” is incorrect, but “stream” isn’t, and that “eam/eme” is pronounced the same way. So “extream” is at least understandable. It’s similar to “ect” instead of “etc”, which is commonly mispronounced as “ek-setera” so you can see why people think the C is after the E.

I used to try to help people a lot but just got a whole load of abuse back. These days I only query something if I genuinely can’t grok what they’re trying to say. Or I just ignore it. If the question is so badly garbled that I can’t understand it I just assume they won’t be able to understand may answer, which will probably be quite detailed.

If it makes a difference to someone, yes. Otherwise I don’t bother.

Plot twist: NHTSA are the only people that approve new designs, so Tesla can’t sell any more cars.

Well we can dream.

Just because you can make phones with an army of cheap Chinese labour doesn’t mean that’s the only or best way. With suitable “design for manufacture”, pick and place robots like those used in PCB design could relatively easily be adopted to screw screws in where needed. Use plugs instead of those flat cable things, then the whole lot could be easily automated. Remove any aspect of the design that needs fingers and the whole process can be automated.

It annoys the heck out of me too. Generally what I do is reply with the remaining questions they haven’t answered; sometimes they get the message and answer all of them, sometimes we go round and round until I have all the answers I need.

I work in IT so for the most part, if I have 5 questions, that’s because there are 5 things I need to know. And I need to know because they want me to solve their problem, so if they want to do this one question at a time that’s fine, but if I start out going one at a time I get complained at for being too slow.

I’ve also tried everything I can think of short of being explicitly rude in my messages. Numbering them doesn’t work. Bullet-points don’t work. One question per paragraph doesn’t work. Asking them explicitly to answer all questions doesn’t work (how did these people ever pass an exam?).

(And yes I’m aware I haven’t answered all your questions (-: )

Do it. Who cares what girls think! But if you’re trying to attract one then maybe wait a bit before showing her the dumb shit you like doing with your mates.

Funny I was just wondering the other day if companies that practice vibe programming also practice vibe management.

Is that a really big fork or a really small cat?

(Questions I never thought I’d ask #327.)

These are the lyrics Lennon rejected.

Eh, maybe it was our fault a while back but these places have been independent long enough for their problems to be their own fault now. They only blame us as a distraction, pretty much like the pre-Brexit British govt used to blame the EU.

Just about anything by Betterware. The one that sticks in my mind was the non-stick stick-on hook that lasted for all of a minute before falling off under its own weight. I ended up second guessing how the thing they were selling could possibly go wrong, and if I could think of something then I wouldn’t get it.

There is one Betterware item that’s lasted the years though. A hair trap for the sink. It’s a metal disk with holes punched in it. Hard for that not to work, really.

Also, increasingly, tat off Scamazon.

Very good but can someone please invent a 4TB drive that costs less than it did five years ago?

Any company that does that needs to be sent on a mandatory awareness training for failing an obvious fake phishing exercise. It’s far too easy to whitelist that and send it to an “ignore” folder.

It’s a place where you can ask questions that need an answer along the lines of “all men are bastards and need to be kicked to the curb immediately, can’t ever change, and no woman has ever done anything wrong”.

Depends where you’re going. Anywhere first world with a robust democracy that invites opposition and criticism will be safe. Heck in the UK we’ve even got people who openly hate our way of life and want to destroy it.

But if you’re going to one of the less tolerant places where opposing the incumbent can get you in serious trouble, like Russia, North Korea, Iran, or the USA, probably best take a burner phone with some basic stuff on it that can’t possibly be interpreted as any kind of negativity towards the delicate leader and leave your main one switched off somewhere safe at home. In fact unless you enjoy risk it’s probably best to avoid places like that until they get some proper freedoms in place.