I think the techwriters at my company are mostly editors that review the documentation that is majority written by the test team. This is unfortunate that the test team writes it though since it takes away time that could have been spent monkey testing.
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I am confused by the guy on 1st shift. He's basically always late, but he stayed at the hotel the last two nights and still managed to be 5 minutes late each day.He wasn't 5 minutes late today. He was 6.
Hey, you can't expect a six year old to be perfectly on time!
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Mephisto Diss of the Day: "You're so dim even astronomers can't see you!"
So the black holes ARE really string fuzzballs!
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GothBard: So I guess the new fountain is a success.
EDIT: Even worse, I just brought Morrigan in and showed her the fountain and her whole reaction was, "What? It's just a new fountain. Why are you bothering me with it?"
Random stupid survey: Do you like it when service personnel address you by name?
I personally hate it when I go to a counter and the person behind it keeps using my name as if invoking it enough times will somehow make me more amenable to them. "Yes, Mr. Home. I found your reservation right here, Mr. Home. Yes, everything is in order, Mr. Home. Here are your keys, Mr. Home. Have a nice day, Mr. Home!"
It's like, "FFS. We've never met before. You don't know me. I don't know you. Stop using my f***ing name like I'm the Candyman or something!"
So now the hotel sent their feedback survey and almost every question is, "Did the front desk staff address you by name?" Did the wait staff address you by name?" "Did the valets address you by name?"
And on every single survey question, if staff members didn't address you by name you're supposed to give them a 1 out of 7 rating. So somehow the execs got obsessed with calling people by name, even though I suspect every introvert on this thread would hate having someone saying their name after every. Fricking. Sentence.
Or am I wrong? Hence the survey.
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Random stupid survey: Do you like it when service personnel address you by name?
Nope. No. Why do you even know my name?!
I don't really use my legal name aside of things like dentist or doctor visit. Unless you are an acquaintance (which likely means you are a fellow gamer or sf/fantasy fan, or a partner of a fellow gamer or sf/fantasy fan), we don't really need to interact on a name basis, and they know better than using my name (aside of jokes).
And yes that includes my my current job colleagues - who are almost all if not all (not sure about one or two folks) either gamers and/or fans of roleplaying games and refer to me as Drejk.
I personally hate it when I go to a counter and the person behind it keeps using my name as if invoking it enough times will somehow make me more amenable to them. "Yes, Mr. Home. I found your reservation right here, Mr. Home. Yes, everything is in order, Mr. Home. Here are your keys, Mr. Home. Have a nice day, Mr. Home!"
Knowing your actual surname, I suspect it might be even more annoying for you than for others... No one likes the constant pressure.
Sorry, sorry, I will be in the naughty corner.
And more seriously, I think that is misguided form of marketing manipulation that is taught to service personnel intended to create false sense of familiarity and closeness that isn't there.
It's like, "FFS. We've never met before. You don't know me. I don't know you. Stop using my f***ing name like I'm the Candyman or something!"
Candyman, Candyman, Black Nosferatu!
So now the hotel sent their feedback survey and almost every question is, "Did the front desk staff address you by name?" Did the wait staff address you by name?"
See, stupid policy.
"Did the valets address you by name?"
And on every single survey question, if staff members didn't address you by name you're supposed to give them a 1 out of 7 rating. So somehow the execs got obsessed with calling people by name, even though I suspect every introvert on this thread would hate having someone saying their name after every. Fricking. Sentence.
Of course I am weirdly old-school being raised to refer to strangers (and still somewhat expect to be referred to by others) using Polish customary idiom "Proszę Pana/Pani" [proshen pana/panyi], which literally means "please sir/mr/ma'm".
In fact my friend laughed when we were in a coffee shop and I used that form speaking to (definitely somewhat younger) barista.
- The "tech" writers aren't technical; years ago one of them admitted that over 80% of the writers he knew had never signed into the application at all. How can you possibly write about software you've never used? So their entire "job", in their mind, was to accept whatever the Product Manager (PM) said as the gospel truth, then format it according to "learning theory" (an execrable subject), and call it good. The closest we ever came to firing someone on our team was when we made the mistake of hiring a tech writer and he absolutely refused to change things when the PM said one thing and we could actively demonstrate to him that the PM was wrong in the application. He literally refused to believe that PMs could be wrong. (We started the firing process and they moved him back to tech writing instead.)
......Jesus Christ.
Random stupid survey: Do you like it when service personnel address you by name?
I personally hate it when I go to a counter and the person behind it keeps using my name as if invoking it enough times will somehow make me more amenable to them. "Yes, Mr. Home. I found your reservation right here, Mr. Home. Yes, everything is in order, Mr. Home. Here are your keys, Mr. Home. Have a nice day, Mr. Home!"
It's like, "FFS. We've never met before. You don't know me. I don't know you. Stop using my f***ing name like I'm the Candyman or something!"
But...how else will they get you to stay? Forever?
So now the hotel sent their feedback survey and almost every question is, "Did the front desk staff address you by name?" Did the wait staff address you by name?" "Did the valets address you by name?"
Hmm...
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It's like, "FFS. We've never met before. You don't know me. I don't know you. Stop using my f***ing name like I'm the Candyman or something!"But...how else will they get you to stay? Forever?
You can check out any time, but you can never leave...
I'm indifferent to service personnel using my name. Granted i've been friends with people in meat space for years before learning their names.
I know regularly repeating someone's name is a method to remembering names. I also imagine there are big money narcissists that would enjoy saying something along the lines of "see everyone here knows me by name"
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Random stupid survey: Do you like it when service personnel address you by name?
Not particularly fussed, but they mispronounce pretty frequently (it often gets spelled wrong in emails, too).
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So few people call me by my first name I often don't notice when people say it.
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In my experience, the "higher quality" of establishment, particularly hotels because they already have your name from the booking, the more they use your name. I've also seen this at car dealerships, particularly in the service department. It's meant to make you feel more important. And... almost shockingly...rich people have a tendency to like to be made to feel important.
Do I like it? Meh. It's usually forced, unnatural, clearly mandated, and overused. Fix that part. Don't make it feel weird for the customer and the employee being forced to behave this way, and I think the overall experience will lead to better customer retention.
Hey look! I used business speak words! Goddammit I hate myself when I do that.
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I took it for irony.
Things you learn when you're an obsessive-compulsive: I'm going through all our Hawaii receipts and recording categories for all our purchases (food, souvenirs, tips, etc.). And it turns out that in Hawaii, sales tax applies to food.
This surprised me; I thought it was some kind of federal policy that food is tax-exempt, but apparently not.
No, in fact in many places restaurants have additional taxes on sales above and beyond state sales tax.
No, in fact in many places restaurants have additional taxes on sales above and beyond state sales tax.
Oh, even here in CA restaurant food is taxed. But if I go to the grocery store and buy some steaks, seasonings, baking potatoes, and broccoli I might spend $40-$50 on dinner for the family and it would be completely tax-free. And my surprise is that that isn't countrywide.
Yeah, sales tax on food seems wrong. We did find the grocery store prices in Hawaii to be kind of high. Of course now the local stores have similar pricing. I’d hate to imagine what they are in Hawaii.
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So few people call me by my first name I often don't notice when people say it.
Presumably, like the 80s soul titan Colonel Abrams, your rank is also your first name.
There was a news story on TV about the recall of wire brush grill cleaners being recalled. Apparently, some people got wires in their food. When I brush my grill, it has been burned. The fat residue just crumbles off, leaving nothing behind for wire bristles to lodge in. The bristles do come loose from the brush, that’s why I replaced my old one. They never stuck to the grill though.
*Remembers how you couldn’t get a hot cup of coffee for a while after McDonalds got sued because someone spilled hot coffee on themselves.*
I hope I can get a new brush when the time comes…
Yeah, sales tax on food seems wrong. We did find the grocery store prices in Hawaii to be kind of high. Of course now the local stores have similar pricing. I’d hate to imagine what they are in Hawaii.
The best way to describe it is that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to the "3x rule" of pricing: Whatever you pay, we pay 3x as much. (Used to be 5x, but it's gotten better.)
We went to Hawaii and didn't notice any difference in pricing, except sunscreen, which was exorbitant. ($40 for 4-ounce tube.) So since it's completely normal to us, it's probably stupid expensive to normal people.
OK, here's a rather alarming data point: I just bought a cabbage. A plain old ordinary run-of-the-mill green cabbage.
Here in the Bay Area, cabbage is apparently $1.99/pound, so my cabbage ran me $6.81.
I did not ever think I'd see the day where a fricking cabbage was almost $7. But here we are.
Here cabbage goes for 1.79 up to 3.5 złoty (a dollar is 3.80 at the moment, and seems to be on the rise) per kilogram (or 2.2 pounds).
It can get much higher out of season, though.
In my neck of the woods, carrots are two thirds again more expensive (167%) than I last noticed, which doesn't bode well. I'm not sure if it's just the producers trying to get ahead of (gestures towards everything in the world making farming more wretched than usual), but I hardly expect things are going to get better anytime soon.
I've not yet ever really scrutinized what gets taxed here. Mostly the more processed stuff, is my instinct, so that feels normal, but probably more staples than I think.
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Fantasy Monster: Sliming Desert
Is it just me, or has that dune followed us for the last day or so?
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Here cabbage goes for 1.79 up to 3.5 złoty (a dollar is 3.80 at the moment, and seems to be on the rise) per kilogram (or 2.2 pounds).
It can get much higher out of season, though.
Are you trying to make Freehold do math?
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Are you trying to make Freehold do math?Here cabbage goes for 1.79 up to 3.5 złoty (a dollar is 3.80 at the moment, and seems to be on the rise) per kilogram (or 2.2 pounds).
It can get much higher out of season, though.
But how many beer cans is the length of the cabbage?
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I used to buy a head of cabbage for 45 cents and 5 packages of ramen noodles for a dollar. Evening meals for the work week for a buck forty five.
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But how many beer cans is the length of the cabbage?Are you trying to make Freehold do math?Here cabbage goes for 1.79 up to 3.5 złoty (a dollar is 3.80 at the moment, and seems to be on the rise) per kilogram (or 2.2 pounds).
It can get much higher out of season, though.
Could we throw in a non-decimal system, too? After all,
"Multiplication is vexation,
Division is as bad;
The Rule of Three doth puzzle me,
and Practice drives me mad."
What's that in shillings, then? ;)
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OK, here's a rather alarming data point: I just bought a cabbage. A plain old ordinary run-of-the-mill green cabbage.
Here in the Bay Area, cabbage is apparently $1.99/pound, so my cabbage ran me $6.81.
I did not ever think I'd see the day where a fricking cabbage was almost $7. But here we are.
Now you know why the avatar guy was so upset about his cabbages.
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OK, here's a rather alarming data point: I just bought a cabbage. A plain old ordinary run-of-the-mill green cabbage.
Here in the Bay Area, cabbage is apparently $1.99/pound, so my cabbage ran me $6.81.
I did not ever think I'd see the day where a fricking cabbage was almost $7. But here we are.
I know gas is pricey but you have to be able to make a monthly trip to the outside world fill up a minivan and drive back. The minivan would pay for itself rather quickly...
Awww...
Sam Neil is gone.
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I know gas is pricey but you have to be able to make a monthly trip to the outside world fill up a minivan and drive back. The minivan would pay for itself rather quickly...OK, here's a rather alarming data point: I just bought a cabbage. A plain old ordinary run-of-the-mill green cabbage.
Here in the Bay Area, cabbage is apparently $1.99/pound, so my cabbage ran me $6.81.
I did not ever think I'd see the day where a fricking cabbage was almost $7. But here we are.
I was going to pooh-pooh you but according to Google (not 100% reliable, but the store's web site isn't any better) the Nugget Market in Davis (where I shopped during grad school) has cabbages at $0.49/pound. A trip would cost me $40 in time (I rate my time at $20/hour), $8.50 bridge toll, and approximately $26 in mileage ($0.20/mile, which is likely quite high for the Honda). So, can I save $84.50 by shopping there? Definitely not on a weekly basis, but on a monthly basis, very likely.
(I have tracked my budget for many, many years, and I remember when I moved from Davis back to Albany my monthly grocery bill tripled. And it looks like that hasn't changed.)
Isn't it funny when you propose an obvious solution only to find out it's already in the works?
Are you trying to make Freehold do math?Here cabbage goes for 1.79 up to 3.5 złoty (a dollar is 3.80 at the moment, and seems to be on the rise) per kilogram (or 2.2 pounds).
It can get much higher out of season, though.
Oh, yeah, I loaded a shotgun a few times today...
I spent the first half of day on shooting range where we were being subject to continuous attempts to convince us to start getting gun permits.
The second half was a vampire session, finally taking place after three (four?) week hiatus because people were doing other things...
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But how many beer cans is the length of the cabbage?Are you trying to make Freehold do math?Here cabbage goes for 1.79 up to 3.5 złoty (a dollar is 3.80 at the moment, and seems to be on the rise) per kilogram (or 2.2 pounds).
It can get much higher out of season, though.
I thought you folks measured things in burgers.
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Have I bashed AI yet today?
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hundreds of economists say in an open letter that institutions “must act now” to address how artificial intelligence could transform the economy and could put many people out of work...
“AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years. This could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame. It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.”
And I read that last bit. "major gains in living standards"
And I have to ask, "Exactly. F***ing. HOW?"
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A trip would cost me $40 in time (I rate my time at $20/hour), $8.50 bridge toll, and approximately $26 in mileage ($0.20/mile, which is likely quite high for the Honda).
A penny saved is a penny and a half earned. You don't pay taxes on money you don't spend.
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I was left unsupervised with sharp objects
T rex walking stick for my nephew.
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Wha....
Oh...
Welcome back for your annual visit!
Thanks! A year later!
I made a thread about frustrating news and am sharing it here but am not—I repeat I AM NOT—suggesting wild outrage or umbrage.
It’s disappointing and seems to be an unforced error from what little information I have to go on, but it’s possible that there is something else at play.
Rather there absolutely is something at play and I don’t know what that is, but as it stands it just seems like a bad idea for no gain at the cost of good will.
Ugh. Legacy prd was what I kept using while making my blog posts. Now I will have to switch. Do not like.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Air Pollution.
Maybe it's from growing up in the 1970s with the whole Silent Spring vibe, but in general, since I live on a small residential street in a basically suburban area, I expect to be able to open my windows to get some fresh air.
So of course, old cars and gardening tools are my standard bane; we have a guy across the street with a 1980s diesel truck that he uses to commute to his white-collar job. In order to get it running he has to sit there for 2-3 minutes revving the he** out of the engine and sending plumes of diesel exhaust throughout the neighborhood. For a truck that he doesn't use as a truck. Only one of the many neighborhood gardeners uses electric tools. I bless him every time he's around.
But this brings us to the decriminalization and social acceptance of weed. Back in the tobacco days, people smoked indoors. Their houses reeked, but the outdoors were fine. California banned indoor smoking in public buildings, and smokers learned that, "Hey, smoking outdoors prevents my house from reeking!"
So now I open my windows and every so often the house fills with weed smoke, like it did yesterday. And it really annoys me because:
(a) There are now edibles that don't give you lung cancer or have you blowing smoke into your neighbor's window, and
(b) back when it was illegal, people were amazingly good at hiding the smoke. So weed smoke in my house was never a problem until it was generally accepted behavior.
My *entire* ask is that other people not blow smoke into my windows. And apparently it's too much to ask for.
Thanks! A year later!
Wha....
Oh...
Welcome back for your annual visit!
Welcome back! See you next year!
And finally, in more AI bashing, the studies are in: AI chatbots significantly impact learning, mental health, and social abilities. Using an AI chatbot is equivalent to intentionally taking INT, WIS, and CHA drain.