Little Things That BUG Me #13

When people refer to every cough, sniffle, and cold as "the flu."

Just because you're feeling ill doesn't mean you have the flu. "The flu" refers to a specific type of virus called influenza, and it's a severe disease, as in people actually die of it— and if you don't die, you'll still be more or less unable to function for a week or two. At the moment, my mum is currently in hospital with the flu and it'll be awhile before she's feeling well again.

But the habit of claiming to have "the flu" whenever you're feeling poorly is more than just a linguistic nitpick. The flu is largely vaccine-preventable as long as you get a new jab every year to protect against the most recent strain. However, all too many people don't bother to get vaccinated against influenza— and calling every little cough "the flu" may well contribute to that by incorrectly convincing people that the flu is no big deal. After all, if you've had a minor case of the sniffles and think that's "the flu" why bother with a vaccine?

So don't say you have the flu unless you actually have the flu. And in that case, you'd better be wearing a face mask.

On Vertical Videos And Idiot-Proof Phones

If you're on the internet, as most of you are (except Steve; I have to print my posts and send them to him by carrier pigeon), you've no doubt seen (and been bugged by) vertical videos— videos that are about 66% letterbox because they were taken by some nob who couldn't figure out how to hold their phone correctly.

So imagine my surprise when my own father sent me a vertical video he took. And then another. He clearly knew better— he insisted quite vehemently that he definitely took the videos correctly and had no idea why they came out the way they did.

Then for the first time, I finally got a chance to actually look at his mobile to ascertain the problem. The problem? He has a completely idiot-proof phone whose makers attempted to combat VVS by physically building the camera "sideways" so that when people held their phones upright while recording, they end up with proper horizontal videos. Unfortunately, because my father knows better than to record vertically, he made a point of turning his phone— and, of course, ended up with vertical videos because the "idiot-proof" sideways camera records vertical videos when the phone is held correctly.

Oops.

Little Things That BUG Me #12

With global warming posing an imminent threat to the thin veneer of superficial tolerance that we pretend is a civilisation, I, as a person what takes surveys for money, have been getting a lot of surveys about what I personally have done or would be willing to do to help the environment, as if global warming could be solved through consumer choices.

These surveys very often ask: "In order to help protect the environment, would you consider driving a hybrid car?"

My dude, I don't currently drive at all. If I started driving a hybrid car, I would be using considerably more petrol than I do now. It's bad enough that you're treating a global threat as a potential new fad in advertising; did you seriously need to assume I'm actively worsening the problem and then ask if I'd be willing to partially mitigate a bad thing I don't currently do at all?

You're worse than the people who ask if I'd consider no longer paying money for television service.

PS— Apparently an election may potentially have just happened. I'm not talking about it. LTTBM posts are deliberately petty; this isn't the place for serious things no matter how impactful they may be, and I've already had to mention global warming.

Little Things That BUG Me #11

Still not up for a proper post but I can probably manage a LTTBM so here goes.

When a work featuring non-human characters (alien, robot, talking animal, etc) neglects to replace human-specific language with more appropriate terms, that bugs me a bit. Why, exactly, is the alien who has never even seen a human before excusing his faults by saying: "I'm only human?" It doesn't make sense.

But what bugs me more is when such a work replaces species-agnostic terms with derivatives that specifically refer to the non-human nature of the speakers. The word "everybody" does not make any reference to species, so if you are an adult who is creepily obsessed with a certain children's cartoon, be very careful with your language or I might have to sever your leg.

Just to make things a little more complicated, all of my writing assumes the word "person" is a species-neutral term for any social sapient who might be present; mandraga are clearly not human but they'd be quite upset if a bigot declared they're not people. Not everyone shares this assessment (being as humans are the only people we know of IRL, it's not like the matter is easily settled by common usage), but I've been using it that way so long that seeing a non-human character replace "person" with a species-specific term just bugs me.

Fuck You, Safari

This is basically an addendum to my last "Little Things That Bug Me" post because I made a horrible oversight in failing to include it.

In addition to the usual instabilities and bugs (and the fact that it has just disabled Flash Player with no way to reactivate it), I've discovered a problem I find remarkably annoying: Every now and then, I'll try to open a page and Safari will pop up a box saying, essentially, "There was a problem loading new pages. You have to reload every page in every tab you currently have open." Agreeing to this results in a long annoying delay as Safari strains itself trying to reload the twenty-odd pages I had open; refusing to agree renders Safari completely nonfunctional, as attempting to load any page in any tab ever will simply result in the message reappearing.

Seriously, even Internet Exploder doesn't do that (as far as I know). Apple really sucks.

Addendum: Some research has turned up the cause of this annoyance. Apparently, it finally occurred to Apple that Safari tends to crash on ordinary web content. The masterful designers in Cupertino attempted to rectify this problem by splitting Safari into two independent processes— one to manage the application's inner workings and another to handle the web content. The "you must reload all tabs" message appears whenever the "Safari Web Content" process crashes.

So basically, Apple "fixed" the problem of Safari crashing a lot by isolating the part that crashes so that it merely gives an annoying error upon crashing rather than taking down the entire application, and saving me the trouble of having to click once to reload the program before waiting for all of my tabs to come back. Not, you know, by making it not crash simply by trying to display ordinary web content. I stand by my previous snark— somehow, Internet Exploder manages to load web pages without crashing.

At least I got Flash working again.

Little Things That BUG Me #10

Complaining about Internet Exploder has already been done to death, and the only people who still use it are old people who don't know what Firefox is and need their grandsons to install it anyway. That said, I'm a Mac user, so I get to complain about Safari instead.

It's rubbish. There. Got that out of the way. Version 4 had a remarkable tendency to crash every time I visited certain websites which is not a very good feature in a browser by and large. Version 4 was the version I had because I hadn't bothered to install system updates— it's a Mac so (a) there's no malware that needs to be patched against and (b) if there were, there would be no patch released because Apple dropped support in 1987.

Well I finally got around to installing the system updates and Safari 5.0.6 came with them. This version no longer crashes, but it's extremely slow and tends to go unresponsive for a minute or two whenever I try to load most web pages, and unlike the earlier version, it is not capable of playing netflix videos without dropping frames. So yeah, not a very good browser. But then, it makes sense that Safari would be crap— it's made by Apple.

Besides, I expect Mac users, as a group, contain a much higher percentage of old people who would need their granddaughters to install Firefox for them, given that Apple products have this bizarre reputation of "user-friendliness" (which ten minutes of using an iPhone would trivially disprove). Personally, I use Apple products because I'm allergic to paying money for things and I keep finding Macs for free in various bins.

Web Design Commandments

Here are the commandments for web design. I may add to this list as I think of new stuff.

1. Thou shalt not have autoplay videos or sounds.

Seriously. It's annoying. Any web designer who violates this commandment shall be sentenced to have the video or audio play in their house simultaneous with each time it autoplays for a visitor to their website.

2. Thou shalt not use Javascript exit popups.

Here, I'm talking about "var exitsplashmessage." It causes a dialog box to pop up when the user tries to navigate away from the page. Don't do this. Ever. Doing so carries a sentence of being locked into every retail outlet you visit until you agree to hear a lengthy sales pitch.

3. Thou shalt not hijack system commands.

Here's a relatively innocent example. In Fruit OS, typing command-N opens a new window in Firefox. Unless, of course, I happen to have Hotmail open, in which case Hotmail hijacks that command and opens a new email within the browser tab. Don't. Just don't do this. The command key is reserved for local applications, and is not to be used by web content. Microsoft's web designers and anyone else who violates this commandment will be sentenced to have a smarmy-looking bloke follow them around who deliberately misinterprets everything they say as a solicitation for sex directed at him.

Little Things That BUG Me #9

When astronomers discover a new planet at the right distance from its star to have temperatures that can support liquid water and mainstream news sources report: "Astronomers discover habitable planet!"

First of all, distance from the star is not a guarantee of survivable temperatures; Venus is within the Sun's so-called "habitable zone" but its atmosphere full of greenhouse gases (96% carbon dioxide) make it the hottest planet in the solar system.

Even leaving that aside, just because a planet isn't hot or cold enough to quickly melt/freeze any human who lands on it doesn't mean it fits any meaningful definition of "habitable." The presence of water is hardly guaranteed, atmospheric oxygen is unlikely, and an atmosphere can be poisonous even if adequate oxygen is present.

And then of course, there's the issue of size. In a choice of language so appalling it really should have been in the opening sentence (or its own entry), many reporters have chosen the term "super-Earth" for a planet which is in its star's habitable zone but much larger than Earth. For example, the (relatively) recently discovered planets in the Gliese 667 system are maybe 10 times the size of Earth, so even leaving aside the issues of surface temperature, water, and oxygen, they're "habitable" only by a definition that forgets how gravitational forces are proportional to mass.

The discovery of a new planet is always interesting but badly-written headlines just bug me.

Addendum: This post was sitting unpublished in my drafts for some time, so it's gone a bit stale; the discovery of planets orbiting Gliese 667C was some time ago. Still, the principle remains unchanged so what the hell, up this one goes. If stale posts bug you, put that on your own blog.

Little Things That BUG Me #8

Any form of communication that says I can find/buy/save money on "my favourite brands."

Look, copy writers, just because you're obsessed with the idea of "brands" doesn't mean John C. Consumer cares what name or logo is printed on the side of the jam jar.

Sensible people don't care about what is effectively the civilised version of which dog pissed on a particular tree, and yet high street shops that want a hand in my wallet will promise "we offer discounts on your favourite brands" with such consistency that I think it may be required by law.

But even if it were, it would still bug me.

Little Things That BUG Me #7

Websites that hijack well-known keyboard shortcuts to do things they aren't supposed to.

Notable examples: On a website, pressing delete takes you back a page. That's what the key does and it's often more convenient than clicking the "back" button. However, in Yahoo Mail, pressing delete deletes the message you're currently reading— and just to add insult to injury, it doesn't even return you to the message list as a result, choosing instead to open the next message automatically. Meanwhile, in any page of Google search results, pressing delete will automatically select the search query box and delete the last letter of your search query, automatically updating the results accordingly.

This wasn't always the case, but apparently Google's corporate charter requires them to replace every user interface every few months with one that's just a little more shit.

Meanwhile, anyone who has ever had to use a Mac knows that command-C is "copy" when using FruitOS. Except Microsoft (which is fitting enough), because in Hotmail, pressing command-C opens some obscure menu that no one ever needs and the only way to copy text is to select "copy" from the edit menu which no one ever does because it's stupid.

I'd give Microsoft a pass except they're a massive developer of Mac software so they should know better.

Apparently, the Hotmail command-C problem has now been rectified but only because Microsoft decided to rip off Google (in ways other than Bing) and has replaced Hotmail outright with "Outlook" which is exactly the same except that the user interface is pants.

Lactose-Free Milk Is Not Horrible

So I may have mentioned previously that I was particularly miffed at the dearth of decent lactose-free dairy products despite all the effort the food industry has put into "gluten-free" cake, pasta, etc.

I must now update that position slightly: Lactose-free milk is not horrible. According to the lactose-tolerant milk-chugging people I know, it's much sweeter than regular milk, but I can't taste any appreciable difference between the hot chocolate or egg creams I can drink and the ones that will make me miserable, and if my experience is anything, the lactose-free milk has a much longer shelf life than the unmodified equivalent.

Also, while I know hard cheese (gruyere) is lactose-free, it turns out even softer cheeses (mozzarella) are also pretty much fine. (And I never liked brie anyway.)

That just leaves ice cream. I need my lactose-free ice cream! No one makes lactose-free ice cream. And that the food industry is ignoring the majority of us who are lactose intolerant but require ice cream while making sure to accommodate the <1% of the population with gluten allergies/coeliac disease/etc just bugs me, so that entry can stay up.

Vital stats:

Retraction: Partial
Date: Today
Current Mood: Tasty
Sleep Status: Too much!
Word of the Day: Suzerainty
Egg Cream: Milk, chocolate syrup, soda water. (Not disgusting.)
Sugars: Glucose and galactose. Probably sucrose too from the syrup.
Trans Fat: Yes; preferred gender pronoun = "she"
Gluten: Plant protein
Nation: Obsolete as a social construct.
Rapture: Obsolete as a constructed society.
Bioshock: Apparently it's decent. Doesn't run on my computer. I prefer older games.
Marathon: I play that.
ShadowWraith: That too.
Halo: Revoked due to banishment from Celestial Realm.
WOW: I know! Totally unfair! I didn't even do it.

Little Things That BUG Me #6

The companies that produce food for public consumption collectively expend approximately zero effort producing lactose-free dairy products (except for straight-up milk) and exactly zero effort making lactose-free dairy products that actually taste authentic (seriously, lactose-free milk is disgusting). Proper, good-tasting, real-tasting lactose-free milk, cheese, and ice cream just aren't priorities for the food industry; none of them bother trying.

And yet, they readily churn out gluten-free pasta and gluten-free bread and gluten-free versions of anything that may potentially be made from wheat, and although they may be more expensive, they usually make their gluten-free items taste like the real thing.

Gluten intolerance is a very rare condition, affecting less than 1% of the population.

Lactose intolerance is the default condition, with the mutation that causes lactose tolerance in adulthood present and effective in less than half the population.

Little Things That BUG Me #5

Pet food commercials that use the advertising tropes used to sell human food.

I'm starting to worry that this blog is turning into Why Marketers Suck rather than a sort of general collection of the wide variety of ideas I actually have, but pet food commercials which tout ingredients and tastiness and have detailed close-ups just bug me.

Yes, humans make the purchase decisions not pets, but I refuse to believe that the neural pathways by which people think about feeding their pets and those they use for enjoying their own food are the same. When I see such a commercial, the similarity between pet food and human food is just enough that trying to make me view the former in terms of the latter mentally "works" just enough to be really disgusting.

Sort of like how arsenic is toxic because it's chemically similar enough to phosphorous to insert itself into our important phosphates but different enough that the resulting arsenates can't replace their function. Or why it's really disturbing when people try to make me think of children as cute in the same way kittens are.

Pro tip: My dog will eat anything. Therefore, I buy her the cheapest food.

Little Things That BUG Me #4

First-time breeders who are overly proud of their success.

There are some feats so amazing they seem at first to be impossible. There are some achievements that seem ordinary only because they happened long ago. There are some things that require a lot of skill even if they're not mind-bendingly difficult.

Reproducing, however, is something so basic and so unskilled that being able to do it is inherent to all life by definition. Yet many humans who successfully reproduce act as though this were some amazing achievement that no one in the history of the planet has ever even dreamed of, as opposed to something slime moulds can do.

I'm not saying you can't love your offspring or even that you shouldn't have any; just don't act like producing them was some mystical magical thing that defies our very notion of what's possible. And definitely don't try to claim you're somehow better than me for having done it.

If you tell me that I'm incomplete for not breeding or that I'm missing out on something sooo wonderful or amazing, then I am going to invite you out to your favourite restaurant on a day I know you can't get a babysitter.

Little Things That BUG Me #3

People who say "empañadas" when they mean "empanadas."

Call them empanadas, samosas, dumplings, or calzones but none of the variations on the concept of stuff inside dough is spelled with an ñ.

Little Things That BUG Me #2

Media (movies, books, etc), whose stories offer "morals" that have already received near universal acceptance by society before the work was written. Gee, District 9, apartheid is bad? You know, South African society kind of figured that out about a decade before the short film that was later expanded into the movie bothered to tell them but thanks anyway. Sure it took them long enough but delivering sermons that far after the fact just bugs me.

Little Things That BUG Me #1

Coupon code sites with listings trying to pass off the existence of an entity as a coupon for that entity.

I'm on the site because I want coupons for free shipping or sales on an online store; posting a link to their front page with a note claiming they have "everyday low prices" is spamming and people who do it bug me.