Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Appleseed said:

If your phone (Pixel 3a) is obsolete after 2 years of ownership, then your phone is a chunk of crap. You've had 3 Pixels in the 7 years I've known you.  It's either operator error or E36 M3ty phones.

I'm rocking an S8. It was a 2 year old used phone when I picked it up. It has been nearly flawless.

Be honest. You want a new phone. Because reasons.

I don't want to yuck your yum. If you're happy, great, but your S8 is obsolete. So is the Pixel 3a. Both have reached end of support, and neither manufacturer is releasing new security updates.

Security Updates Scope | Samsung Mobile Security
Learn when you'll get software updates on Google Pixel phones - Nexus Help

Both Google and Samsung are doing a better job of committing to update duration and actually shipping security updates on time, so the next phone should have a lot more life.

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

I sure hope she gets more than 2 years out of it before Google forces her to by another phone due to "obsolescence."  I do like how they've convinced everyone that this is perfectly normal.

5:30am, woken right the berkeley up by a Charlie horse. Second tine this week. 

Di. Not. Reccomend. 

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

This is one big reason my family and I stick to iPhones. People like to rant about apples prices but we use phones for a long time and Apple phones keep getting updated for a long time. I think I got a security update on my iPhone 6 when it was seven years old! The Pixel 3a was only released 3 years ago! That's ridiculous. I have an android tablet thing that is completely useless because it wont update anything and can't even connect to secure web pages any more due to certificate expirations. I can't connect to the google play store due to its age. Talk about engineering in obsolescence! Ugh. 
 

My current phone is an iPhone 11 which is 3 years old and it feels modern to me and even keeps getting functionality updates (recently added the live ocr in photos which I love) and works great. This stuff should not be disposable on such a rapid basis. 
 

Hell, when I went to get rid of my iPhone 6 I sold it for $75. Try that with a seven year old android phone. 

Just out of curiosity, I was perusing Facebook Marketplace for MR-2 Spyders and every single one of them was in the $7k-9k range and had the line of "Needs an engine, smokes badly, burns lots of oil." A vehicle that needs an engine is not a $9k vehicle, sorry. And the most expensive one also needed the convertible top replaced.

In reply to NickD :

The market only depreciated ~10% since it's peak last year, and Facebook users are typically the last to accept reality. Couple that with tax season nearly upon us, and you'll continue to see optomistic pricing for quite some time

In reply to dculberson :

I'll agree with that.  It was one of the reasons I switched to an iPhone.  My first smartphone was a fancy droid razor max, that made it about 2 years or so before it was slow as hell, and at the time, Android's privacy settings were crap, so I switched to a Windows phone.  Loved it, but Verizon kept holding off on approving a major OS update, and of course some common apps were unavailable.  I gave up on it after 3 years.  My base model iPhone 8 has been fine for over 5 years now.

I finally caved and went through the process to spin up a VM that is used for absolutely nothing else so that I could create a stupid facebook account in order to use marketplace since craigslist is basically dead.  About 90 seconds after I posted the Goldwing for sale, I get the "Is this still available" followed by the "I can pick it up today.."

So tell me..  why do I have to go through all this rigamarole to get a facebook account approved by sending a picture of myself and crap and yet these scammers can just waltz on through the front door?

In reply to wae :

You are a braver man than I.

In reply to dculberson :

I agree with all of this. My wife cling to non iPhones for years and had a lot of issues. She switched and all was good. Little NYN got an iPhone to handle his diabetes tools (CGM and insulin pump) all was good then Insulet releases (the absolutely amazing) Omnipod 5 that isn't compatible with iPhone yet so we had to get a Samsung Galaxy 10. The phone is just a piece of E36 M3 compared to an iPhone. The tactile feel is awful and it's super glitchy. The day they approve iPhones for the 5 I am at the store. 

I posted about this in my own personal ignore thread (har-har-har) but I'll make it a mainstream rant. There is a group running a charter trip that seemed really neat. Only way to get tickets is to mail them a check with a pre-stamped, pre-adressed return envelope. C'mon, it's the year 2023, set up a website.

So I send them a check, it took three weeks for them, or someone, to cash it. And keep in mind, I'm in NY and the address is PA, we are not talking cross-country distances here. And two weeks later I'm still waiting for tickets.

Similarly, there's a local-ish group that is always asking for donations and complaining that fundraising for their big project is going really slow. The only way to donate? You guessed it, mail them a check. Guarantee if they set up a website, they'd have better luck.

It kind of dawned on me today, why when I get my RN license I'm gonna bounce from my current hospital- and also why this one can't seem to break it's current patient limit.

These bitches have no berkeleying discipline. I have, for years, been steadily waltzing into a role of "proto-manager" because I was the only one on the floor willing to to force phones or contact methods onto the nurses, and like any other today its the same problems we've had ever since I was hired. Again I had to be king dick and order a nurse to get a working phone. Again I get whiny horseE36 M3 when I'm asking why their call lights are 20 minutes long. Again I have a doctor who couldn't talk to a berkeleystick like you because you can't do a basic task of your job.

My nursing program literally kicked a dude out because he wasn't answering lights on his clinical rotations, and I'm literally working 12s Sat/Sun/Thurs, School Mon/Wed and clinical Thurs/Fri. I do not care, nor do I have the time, to listen to some crusty bitch is gonna whine at me because her needy patient is calling again and "I can't be expected to do everything!!!!" Go fellate a cactus, literally half these problems I can now firmly say is because you suck.

I've now worked 4+ other hospitals and only this one has that problem.

NickD said:

Just out of curiosity, I was perusing Facebook Marketplace for MR-2 Spyders and every single one of them was in the $7k-9k range and had the line of "Needs an engine, smokes badly, burns lots of oil." A vehicle that needs an engine is not a $9k vehicle, sorry. And the most expensive one also needed the convertible top replaced.

The bike market is the same. Every day I see an ad that reads something like 2012 CRF250 (it's always a Honda) mint condition, engine needs complete rebuild $4250. 
Even if it really was perfect ... and running, it's an 11 year old 4 stroke mx bike, it wouldn't be worth what you're asking, or anything, really. 
There was always a certain group of people that thought their stuff was worth more than it actually is. I think they're taking the return to price normalcy particularly hard. It's going to be an interesting spring 

Re phones - I usually have a Droid for work as I keep semi-separate phones for that (legacy of an ex-employer who expected people to hook up their personal phones to the company systems and then reserved the rights to wipe them remotely). I don't need a full on top of the line phone, just a nice one, but I also need regular security updates. Some of the promised updates for my current phone haven't materialized and given that I'm getting close to six months with no security updates, I probably need to upgrade the phone again. I'm trying really hard to not give Tim Apple more money as I already have a personal iPhone, but it's hard to make a compelling case for another Droid that will get a max of 3-4 years of security updates and potentially even less if I get one of the ones I actually would like (looking at you, S*ny).

Given that more recent advances in cellphone tech have been very incremental there really isn't a good reason for the short lifespan.

Apple does tend to support phones longer, but they don't do a great job of managing and communicating specific terms. There are a handful of Apple devices that have been left out in the cold, and some that have gotten absolutely epic support cycles, depending on whether you were unlucky or luck about what the compatibility was with the next chip was. iPods sold in, what, may of last year don't get the iOS version announced in June of last year. At the same time, there have been devices occasionally getting a patch 8 years on. My sole gripe is Apple doesn't really have a formal standard published for when the last update will come.

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

Does anybody even buy an iPod any more?

Duke said:

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

Does anybody even buy an iPod any more?

 

If they sold and supported the iPod Touch still, I'd probably buy one just for work related apps to get them off my personal phone.  

eastsideTim said:

Duke said:

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

Does anybody even buy an iPod any more?

 

If they sold and supported the iPod Touch still, I'd probably buy one just for work related apps to get them off my personal phone.  

An iPod Touch was the first i-device that I got The Dancer like 12 years ago, back before she would even accept getting a smartphone- and she has since then used them for setting up playlists for the music she needs for teaching dance classes. I picked up a newer, larger one for her 3-4 years ago, but its battery has been having issues and of course, they no longer make the Touch. Heck, I don't think they make iPods at all any more.

Our solution? Given how many pictures/videos she takes and that we're going on a trip in a month and a half where having a better camera in one of our phones so I'm not dragging the DSLR all over the place, we picked up an iPhone 13 Mini for her (her hands are just too small to use the now-'normal-sized' phones) and are planning on just not having a SIM card in her old SE2 and she's going to use that as her 'iPod' for music.

My rant? We got the new phone in early last week. We can't set up the new phone because she won't let me back up the old phone (because she thinks it will take forever). We were supposed to back the phone up last night, but she was busy with something on it. Since it's been a while I decided to test it by backing up my phone just now- admittedly my iMac is much faster than her MacMini- but we have the same capacity and model phones, and it took like 10 minutes...

Finally thought I was going to wrap up the paperwork for my car wreck two months ago. Just have to send the title to the insurance co and they send me a check. Except I can't find the title. Filed for a replacement which should have been in my mailbox last Saturday....except some berkeleyer stole our mail. I'm sure the "DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE" return address gave the thief hope it was a tax return check. So now I have to go BACK to the DMV and get them to mail the replacement replacement title to my PO box.

It's just one thing after another with every single car wreck I've ever been in. Nothing ever goes right and I get screwed....every....single...time.

Not so minor rant.. that railroad derailment here in Ohio has polluted the waters of a creek system that is basically my 8 year old's happy place in this world. She absolutely loves Little Beaver Creek and we've been there several times in the last six months despite a three hour drive to get there. I don't even know how I'm going to tell her. Norfolk & Southern also had a derailment next to my office building about 25 years ago, severed our power lines and inundated the ground around our building - fortunately with coconut oil but it could have just as easily been as hazardous as the East Palestine stuff they're spewing. I'm so done with hazardous chemicals being toted around basically unmonitored.

My 22 year old nephew is a conductor for NS hoping to move up to an engineer in his career.  They are pushing for one guy alone to operate those locomotives.  It might get scarier.....

dculberson said:

Not so minor rant.. that railroad derailment here in Ohio has polluted the waters of a creek system that is basically my 8 year old's happy place in this world. She absolutely loves Little Beaver Creek and we've been there several times in the last six months despite a three hour drive to get there. I don't even know how I'm going to tell her. Norfolk & Southern also had a derailment next to my office building about 25 years ago, severed our power lines and inundated the ground around our building - fortunately with coconut oil but it could have just as easily been as hazardous as the East Palestine stuff they're spewing. I'm so done with hazardous chemicals being toted around basically unmonitored.

It's okay!  Nobody knows about it because the police are arresting reporters.

(which is the only reason I know about it)

I realize that not everyone is a mechanic, but if car rental is your job you should know something.

I rented a Turo while on Oahu so it didn't look like a rental car since theft is so high. I chose a Challenger just because I wanted to drive one for an extended period of time to see if I liked it. The car was ok, but too big for the garages here.

The main problem is it desperately needed maintenance. The guy put big wide tires on it that scrubbed at any bump and the tires were ancient and cracked heavily. Plus they had been scrubbing forever and had little threads hanging off them. He put an exhaust cutout on it that just rattled like hell and didn't really sound all that nice at idle really. The cherry on top is the wipers didn't have any blades left, really.....how do you rent this out? An alignment would have been nice too.

And he was hours late for pickup, there's some obvious reasons why this is a problem for people traveling. Hopefully not all Turo is like this

23 years out of this crappy HF impact socket set. One lug nut too many. The replacement socket will probably cost more than the entire set cost originally. ;^)
 

We've got a planned 3 day - 2 night company retreat next week, and I'm getting anxious about it.

This just feels like Mandatory Fun that is going to berkeley up my schedule without support to untangle the mess.

It's right smack dab in the middle of a super busy production cycle. Beer is a living thing, it takes time, and things don't sit still. Taking time away doesn't mean I get to set aside or put off work. It means I have the stress of carefully juggling scheduling.

This is against the backdrop that we got rid of my assistant back in November. I made it clear to the owner, that there are not 80 hours worth of work back here, and I don't need a full time person, but I do need occasional help back here, usually for a few minutes at a time.

Owner made noises like he would be able to help out, but I since realize he was being intentionally vague and never explicitly committed to anything. He continues to be gone from the building. Says he's "too busy".

I like the other people I work with, and I even like the owner as a friend, and these issues are resolvable.

My big frustration is, I'll be there with him while I'm frustrated with him, AND with lower people at the company (bar staff) who it would not be appropriate for me to call him out on his bullE36 M3 in front of.

I also feel like I've been put in the position where I am being wronged by someone, but I am being put into a situation where I'm expected to smile and play nice and pretend nothing's wrong, and that I'm the bad guy if I don't.

Fortunately, I have my first appointment with a counselor to help deal with my anxiety scheduled for tomorrow morning.