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Fair enough, but it was my intent to put a note on the offending car that set off this conversation in the first place.
The crying toddler is a far more complex situation: When the family moved here, they admitted that they'd been thrown out of their old place for being too noisy: The neighbors kept complaining to the landlords about the screaming kids. I personally like the sound of kids playing, so I'm usually happy to hear them running around like little maniacs next door. -AND- they can't/don't complain about Impus Minor's ludicrous bellowing at all hours. (It's come to be known as the 'neighborhood foghorn' -- if Impus Minor is bellowing, all is right with the world. But I did check with every neighbor around me to find out whether I needed to shut him up, and I was frankly astonished that the entire attitude was, "Oh, please no! We love hearing him!" Not what I expected when I made the rounds to find out.) The toddler will grow and stop crying and I'll get to keep listening to the kids as they grow up, so it's a conscious decision based on knowing their past history and knowing that it's a finite problem that, in spite of the fact that I consider it extremely rude, I don't confront them because I don't want to drive them out of another house.
But yeah, I am of the opinion that one of the downfalls of society has been the loss of public shaming for poor behavior. Being able to chastise someone with "cover your mouth when you cough", or, "Don't cross against a red light and make cars stop for you!" is an important aspect of maintaining societal norms. The problem, as always, is that people took it too far. "You can't wear pants! (to a woman)" or "It's a sin to work on a Sunday!" are things I saw in the 1970s and I'm glad they're gone.
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LOL. Got so caught up in responding that I forgot why I came here! On Friday I posted about how i always report links in emails. This morning I got a very official-looking email from Bank of America titled "Review your account security" with a link to sign in.
I went to the raw source and it really is from Bank of America.
If I had any power at all in the world, I'd see the person who created that email fired.
EDIT: I sent a very polite note.
Really? It's 2025 and you're sending links in an email? I had to parse the raw source to verify that this email really WAS from Bank of America.
Please fire whatever buffoon generated this email. Phishing has been the #1 attack vector for unauthorized access for decades now. Seeing a bank send login links in an email is an embarrassment.
I'm glad I don't bank with you. An email like this destroys my trust in your entire security division.
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It does sound nonsensical.
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Nothing like signing in on a Monday morning to find a storm of "urgent" messages on Slack...
...only to find out that some a$$hat started the thread with, "Hi, @channel!"
I'll say it again: Charge $1 per recipient for all @channel or Reply All posts and you'd be doing your company a massive favor.
And fun foils with Freehold (that should be a band) notwithstanding, I think his reactions to my complaints really indicate why I could never live on the East Coast.
In broad generality (with many exceptions, especially among newcomers), the West Coast attitude is, "Don't be a jerk. Be considerate of others." As far as I've been able to ascertain, the East Coast attitude is, "If I have a right to do it, I'm gonna do it, and if you have an issue with it then f*** you!"
[snip]
So yes, around here, doing something like honking your horn in front of your friend's house at 5:00 am or parking in front of someone else's house for days on end is greatly disapproved of, because you're trampling on others, whether or not you have a "right" to do so. Apparently that's not a thing east of the Mississippi.
It basically comes down to a difference in the idea of what "freedom" means.
In the East and South, "Freedom" generally means "The ability to do what I want to do."
In other areas, it often instead means "the ability to not experience or suffer things I dislike".
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And fun foils with Freehold (that should be a band) notwithstanding, I think his reactions to my complaints really indicate why I could never live on the East Coast.
In broad generality (with many exceptions, especially among newcomers), the West Coast attitude is, "Don't be a jerk. Be considerate of others." As far as I've been able to ascertain, the East Coast attitude is, "If I have a right to do it, I'm gonna do it, and if you have an issue with it then f*** you!"
[snip]
So yes, around here, doing something like honking your horn in front of your friend's house at 5:00 am or parking in front of someone else's house for days on end is greatly disapproved of, because you're trampling on others, whether or not you have a "right" to do so. Apparently that's not a thing east of the Mississippi.
It basically comes down to a difference in the idea of what "freedom" means.
In the East and South, "Freedom" generally means "The ability to do what I want to do."
In other areas, it often instead means "the ability to not experience or suffer things I dislike".
That's a portrayal of liberals that always grates on me. Yes, the first statement is also a broad overgeneralization so I'm sure there are Easterners and Southerners who would call it out as excessive. And yes, there are far too many people around here who will huff up and get incredibly offended and demand, "Did you just gender me?!?!?"
But there's the old gem that I love so much: "Your right to swing your fist stops at the other guy's nose."
Most liberals I know draw the line not as, "I don't want to experience or suffer things I dislike," but rather, "I don't want other people to do things that negatively impact me in a measurable way."
The car horn's a good one. People honking their horns outside of houses to get their friends' attention is annoying as crap. I've advocated for removing car horns so that people will stop doing it. But do we need a law to ban car horns in the city limits? No. We already have a noise ordinance from 10 pm to 6 am. This is a reasonable amount of time for people to sleep. And yes, I support that noise ordinance because it very clearly stomps on someone's right to do whatever they want in favor of allowing other people to get their needed sleep.
So tons of noise during daylight hours? I don't like it and I complain about it all the time. But I wouldn't ban it because I do believe people have a right to be noisy on their properties, whether I like it or not. But:
(1) I consider it rude and I think less of them as human beings if they don't take others into consideration. I am a strong believer in empathy, even if conservative Christians have moved to make it an official deadly sin.
(2) Once we move into sleeping hours, I do believe in curtailing their right to make noise in favor of public well-being.
EDIT: I see it very much like starting the first day of kindergarten by handing each student a hammer and then being surprised at the results. In my nearly 60 years in this country, I've found that in general if you ask, "How would a toddler react to this?", you'll nail the reaction of roughly half our entire population. Which I consider sad.
EDIT 2: And even the generalizations aren't necessarily "conservative/liberal": My father was a staunch opponent of gay marriage "because it disgusts me". I mean, at least he was honest. But really?
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Nothing like signing in on a Monday morning to find a storm of "urgent" messages on Slack...
...only to find out that some a$$hat started the thread with, "Hi, @channel!"I'll say it again: Charge $1 per recipient for all @channel or Reply All posts and you'd be doing your company a massive favor.
The storm continues, and what really gets to me is that I complained to IT about it and they responded that people who try to use @channel DO get a warning. So I tested and it's insane: IF you do @channel you get a pop-up that says, "You are about to send this message to hundreds of recipients. This can be disruptive and a waste of company resources. Do you want to continue (Y/N)?"
And people are so inured to click-throughs that they go ahead and click through and do it anyway.
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My kids really are masters at picking the wrong classes. Impus Minor was late to his math class this morning. His professor is one of those people who locks the door the minute class starts and won't allow tardy students into his class, in his own little petty tyranny.
I have no (polite) words.
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What he should do is secure the door with a puzzle lock that only opens if the latecomer solves some fiendishly difficult equation, and also plays a tinny 8-bit fanfare when it releases, and the triumphant student finally enters the hall.
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What he should do is secure the door with a puzzle lock that only opens if the latecomer solves some fiendishly difficult equation, and also plays a tinny 8-bit fanfare when it releases, and the triumphant student finally enters the hall.
Impus Minor did almost that. The end-of-class quiz is online, so he sat right outside the classroom with his laptop, connected to the WiFi, and took and aced the quiz even without being allowed into the classroom.
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That's just appalling, on the prof.'s part, and I say that with a succubus' appreciation for petty tyranny. :(
Life happens, and sometimes one runs just a minute late for reasons that it wouldn't be fair to hold against someone, even if others might try to wangle that into breezing in whenever.
But in the latter case, isn't that what teacher training includes practice at withering, venomous stares and a few choice words for? I don't think I've ever had a class where enough people were trying to sneak in late and disruptively enough that I would think the sensible course of action was just to lock the door.
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That's just appalling, on the prof.'s part, and I say that with a succubus' appreciation for petty tyranny. :(
Life happens, and sometimes one runs just a minute late for reasons that it wouldn't be fair to hold against someone, even if others might try to wangle that into breezing in whenever.
But in the latter case, isn't that what teacher training includes practice at withering, venomous stares and a few choice words for? I don't think I've ever had a class where enough people were trying to sneak in late and disruptively enough that I would think the sensible course of action was just to lock the door.
In Impus Minor's case he got stuck behind a car whose tire was literally on fire on the freeway, making him 15 minutes late to class.
And yeah, back when I was a professor and we were doing peer reviews, any professor with a "lock the door and screw the students" policy got bottom marks from me. Are you there to teach, or to be a petty tyrant?
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Petty tyranny is very popular these days.
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But there's the old gem that I love so much: "Your right to swing your fist stops at the other guy's nose."
Most liberals I know draw the line not as, "I don't want to experience or suffer things I dislike," but rather, "I don't want other people to do things that negatively impact me in a measurable way."
That would be a more accurate way to put it, yeah. That's what I was trying to get at.
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They're allowed to lock the doors? None of my professors ever did, and I'm pretty sure they would have gotten into trouble if they did. Have you, or better Impus Minor, complained to administration about it?My kids really are masters at picking the wrong classes. Impus Minor was late to his math class this morning. His professor is one of those people who locks the door the minute class starts and won't allow tardy students into his class, in his own little petty tyranny.
I have no (polite) words.
Here in California, when I was a high schooler it was remarkably common among the "mean" teachers. When I was a math professor I had a handful of colleagues who did it and the administration was well aware of it. Fast forward 25 years and at DVC Impus Major encountered a couple of them. So as far as I know, it's legal in California and somewhere probably a little below 5% of instructors do it.
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It's always nice when little things in life just happen to work out for you.
We have our first rain of the season this morning. In the Bay Area this is significant because our last measurable precipitation was likely in April or May, meaning the roads have had months to accumulate oil, dust, and other muck. The first rain always comes in light, dampening the entire road system but not washing anything clean. It's not as bad as driving on ice, but it's very much like driving on loose mud or dry powder. Collisions are inevitable, because drivers are idiots, so traffic today is going to be a horrific snarl of stupidity.
And no one in the house has anywhere to be today. *Phew*.
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And, once again, I get home from work and am greeted by a river flowing down the street, originating from my yard. Or rather, the water main running through my yard. I think this is the 4th time is the last 5 years.
We have some kind of "secret river" in our yard that's defied a surprisingly thorough attempt at analysis: Every August all three houses (us and both neighbors) start getting 1"-3" of standing water in our back yards. It smells bad, but no worse than the water from the nearby creek. We first blamed our uphill neighbor with the roses. Nope; she wasn't watering at the time. We checked the creek. Being August, it was at its lowest point of the year, and unlikely to overflow. Our neighbor contacted our local water district. They checked for leaks and didn't find any. He then took a sample of the water to them for analysis. Their findings were inconclusive.
So, somehow in a drought-stricken state that goes for months without significant precipitation, water is coming from somewhere to flood our yards, and the uphill neighbors, water utility, and creek all deny that it's them. So our yards flood, and it remains a mystery as to why.
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As with so many things about U.S. culture, I vehemently wish tipping would go away and die in a corner.
Impus Minor hosts a Friday game for all his friends, and Impus Major picks up the food. So it's always, "Call in. Drive to the restaurant. Pick up the order. Drive home."
Impus Major has consistently tipped 15%, because just because they're not all sitting in the restaurant proper doesn't mean all the waitstaff staffing the restaurant aren't still getting less than minimum wage.
Unfortunately, his friends pointed out to him that none of them are full-time employed, and all of them make less than even a part-time burger flipper at the moment. So, rationally, he's going to stop tipping. And I'm sure there's going to be resentment from the restaurant staff about the kids who constantly put in huge orders and never tip. And it just shouldn't be like that.
But even in ultra-liberal San Francisco, we've had multiple restaurants go to a "No tipping, no tax, you pay exactly the price that's listed on the menu," model and they've all gone out of business due to lack of customers, and all of them reported customers bitterly complaining about their prices.
People hate tipping until they see what their meals actually cost.
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Owls well that ends well.Man, you guys are a hoot.
... one year later...
God bless you all, and hope you're doing well!
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IT'S TOOOOOOZZZZZ~!
celebrations ensue
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Wha....
Oh...
Welcome back for your annual visit!
Owls well that ends well.Man, you guys are a hoot.
... one year later...
God bless you all, and hope you're doing well!
Likewise - lovely to see you!
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I got called to check on water bubbling up out of the ground and running down the street. I checked on it; sure enough, it’s a main break. So I call 811 and wait. We can’t excavate until the other utilities mark their facilities.
So I was standing there watching the water bubble up. We didn’t want to shut the water off until we had to, because people were still in service until we closed the valves.
Anyway I heard this noise. I turned to look just in time to see a big fluffy yellow cat scramble up a big pine tree. So I looked around to see what was chasing it. A coyote? No. A fox? Oh, no. A little fawn.
Now, I didn’t actually see the fawn chasing the cat, but they were there. Only one of the fawns was in a position to look guilty.
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Technically deer ARE the most lethal animal in new york by far...
Technically deer ARE the most lethal animal in new york by far...
Isn't that true of the entire U.S.?
Almost. Being a lawyer site, they point out that dogs and humans cause more deaths.
Owls well that ends well.Man, you guys are a hoot.
... one year later...
God bless you all, and hope you're doing well!
BWAH! Where did you come from?
BWAH! Where did you come from?Owls well that ends well.Man, you guys are a hoot.
... one year later...
God bless you all, and hope you're doing well!
Owls well that ends well.Man, you guys are a hoot.
... one year later...
God bless you all, and hope you're doing well!
Oh dear. There he is again. Just when I was convinced it was all a hallucination, the voices come back to say "Hi." And then they wave. Just like a lunatic. And I always wave back. I can't stop myself. Not even sure if I want to. Not all of the voices are bad you know.
No I don't know where this came from. Why would you ask?
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Technically deer ARE the most lethal animal in new york by far...Isn't that true of the entire U.S.?
Almost. Being a lawyer site, they point out that dogs and humans cause more deaths.
ALRIGHT! You squirrels! That will be enough of YOUR slacking!
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ALRIGHT! You squirrels! That will be enough of YOUR slacking!
Don't get the red squirrels/larval wolverines started.
(for those wondering, the deer deaths are from car crashes. its amazing what a 150 pound animal can do when you smack a car into it, especially if the deer is up higher than the driver. their habbit of waiting till the last second and then leaping out does. not. help. )
New guy's first day at a job on the park. Deer jumps out. he slams the breaks. starts to go again.
"Nope. Just stay right there"
"Why? "
thudud ud thudud ud. thud udud.
"Deer is plural for a reason"
" Can we go now?
"nope. gotta wait for the slow poke
"The what?"
clop clop clop clop stops and looks at us. clop clop clop clop
"Ok good now"
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ALRIGHT! You squirrels! That will be enough of YOUR slacking!Don't get the red squirrels/larval wolverines started.
(for those wondering, the deer deaths are from car crashes. its amazing what a 150 pound animal can do when you smack a car into it, especially if the deer is up higher than the driver. their habbit of waiting till the last second and then leaping out does. not. help. )
New guy's first day at a job on the park. Deer jumps out. he slams the breaks. starts to go again.
"Nope. Just stay right there"
"Why? "
thudud ud thudud ud. thud udud.
"Deer is plural for a reason"
" Can we go now?
"nope. gotta wait for the slow poke
"The what?"
clop clop clop clop stops and looks at us. clop clop clop clop
"Ok good now"
Ooooo deer!
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*squelorches around hungrily in search of deer that have received personal introductions to cars*
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ALRIGHT! You squirrels! That will be enough of YOUR slacking!Don't get the red squirrels/larval wolverines started.
(for those wondering, the deer deaths are from car crashes. its amazing what a 150 pound animal can do when you smack a car into it, especially if the deer is up higher than the driver. their habbit of waiting till the last second and then leaping out does. not. help. )
New guy's first day at a job on the park. Deer jumps out. he slams the breaks. starts to go again.
"Nope. Just stay right there"
"Why? "
thudud ud thudud ud. thud udud.
"Deer is plural for a reason"
" Can we go now?
"nope. gotta wait for the slow poke
"The what?"
clop clop clop clop stops and looks at us. clop clop clop clop
"Ok good now"
Don't forget the hooves. Deer also have incredibly sharp hooves and one of their escape instincts is, "Jump over my attacker". People, being taller than typical predators, get clipped in the head by those hooves while the deer's trying to escape.
When I was a kid we had a deer escape "over" our 1970 Volvo -- clipped the heck out of the roof.
I like deer.
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My kids really are masters at picking the wrong classes. Impus Minor was late to his math class this morning. His professor is one of those people who locks the door the minute class starts and won't allow tardy students into his class, in his own little petty tyranny.
I have no (polite) words.
MATH! MATH!!! MAAAAAAAAAATH!!!!
Owls well that ends well.Man, you guys are a hoot.
... one year later...
God bless you all, and hope you're doing well!
TACTICSLION! TACTICSLION!!!!! TACTICSLIOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS IS OUT SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!
I BLAME YOU, GOD FOR THIS!!!!!!!!!!
One year later indeed…
TOZ! TOZ!!!! TOOOOOOOOOOOZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!
...I got nothing.
So, I know I've complained about it before, but I still don't get it, and it still drives me nuts: Popular song variants.
I'm an unabashed K-Pop Demon Hunters sound track fan; it got added to my Pandora mix pretty much as soon as the credits rolled. Unlike Spotify, Pandora will give you all kinds of songs that are "similar" to things you've added to your list. I usually consider it an excellent feature: I don't need to search for new bands, Pandora's algorithm throws crap into my feed. Even better, they're cheap, so I frequently get indie bands I've never heard before.
But then a song hits it big. Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid. Let It Go from Frozen. Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters. And suddenly they have to release every possible variation of the song imaginable. And they all end up in my feed. And I hate it. And I have yet to meet anyone who likes anything other than the dance mixes. So, why do they do it?
I've had to downvote Golden:
- The a cappella version
- The instrumental version
- The extended chorus version
- At least three different dance mixes
So, at least six variants of the song. Who makes money off of this? I don't get it. Playing the original at me seven times would have generated just as many listens and wouldn't have irritated me nearly as much.
OK, I'm ornery.
On Monday I got a suspicious email from Microsoft telling me my corporate OneDrive account had expired, I reported it as Phishing, and I got a gold star from security; they'd sent the email to test employees.
On Tuesday I got an email saying that I'd be receiving a notification about the annual employee survey soon.
On Wednesday I received another suspicious email from Microsoft telling me that all I needed to do to complete the employee survey was to click the link (to a Microsoft domain, not a Global Megacorporation domain) and put in my Global Megacorporation login credentials.
I immediately reported it as phishing.