Petty annoyances

[Jennifer]

Ooh, I didn't know there was a lunchDIL these days! Cool!

I was slightly amused last night, when I finally got around to watching last Sunday's "Bob's Burgers" episode and learning that he too had problems with this year's Thanksgiving because his oven gave out. (And his problem was even worse: 'twas a gas shutoff to the entire neighborhood so he couldn't even use his stovetop.)

[Aresen]

I happen to live near a fairly large shopping mall. Traffic is horrid around my place today.

Buck Flack Briday.

[Jennifer]

I happen to live near a fairly large shopping mall. Traffic is horrid around my place today.

Buck Flack Briday.

I didn't know it was a thing in Canada too! I thought it was only a post-American Thanksgiving horror.

[Aresen]

I happen to live near a fairly large shopping mall. Traffic is horrid around my place today.

Buck Flack Briday.

I didn't know it was a thing in Canada too! I thought it was only a post-American Thanksgiving horror.

Canadian Cultural Appropriation.

[Jennifer]

I happen to live near a fairly large shopping mall. Traffic is horrid around my place today.

Buck Flack Briday.

I didn't know it was a thing in Canada too! I thought it was only a post-American Thanksgiving horror.

Canadian Cultural Appropriation.

Except where Black Friday is concerned, it's less "appropriating someone else's culture" than "appropriating someone else's infestation of lice." I mean, you could, but why the hell would you want to?

[Aresen]

I happen to live near a fairly large shopping mall. Traffic is horrid around my place today.

Buck Flack Briday.

I didn't know it was a thing in Canada too! I thought it was only a post-American Thanksgiving horror.

Canadian Cultural Appropriation.

Except where Black Friday is concerned, it's less "appropriating someone else's culture" than "appropriating someone else's infestation of lice." I mean, you could, but why the hell would you want to?

You took Boxing Day.

[Warren]

I happen to live near a fairly large shopping mall. Traffic is horrid around my place today.

Buck Flack Briday.

I didn't know it was a thing in Canada too! I thought it was only a post-American Thanksgiving horror.

Canadian Cultural Appropriation.

Except where Black Friday is concerned, it's less "appropriating someone else's culture" than "appropriating someone else's infestation of lice." I mean, you could, but why the hell would you want to?

You took Boxing Day.

ha ha ha Who told you that?

[D.A. Ridgely]

I happen to live near a fairly large shopping mall. Traffic is horrid around my place today.

Buck Flack Briday.

I didn't know it was a thing in Canada too! I thought it was only a post-American Thanksgiving horror.

Canadian Cultural Appropriation.

Except where Black Friday is concerned, it's less "appropriating someone else's culture" than "appropriating someone else's infestation of lice." I mean, you could, but why the hell would you want to?

You took Boxing Day.

ha ha ha Who told you that?

No one. The first rule of Boxing Day is there is no Boxing Day.

[Hugh Akston]

I am ~8 seasons into Frasier and Netflix is dropping it on January 1st. There is no way I'm going to make it.

[Warren]

I am ~8 seasons into Frasier and Netflix is dropping it on January 1st. There is no way I'm going to make it.

I don't think I made it past season 8 when it first aired. Frasier was a cut above, but few shows are worth watching past season 5. Even if they're still firing on all cylinders, the show either gets stale or becomes something else.

[Masked Grylliader]

Mesh reusable coffee filters are such a stupid idea from a "sustainability" standpoint. I am sure that I use more water/resources rinsing the damn thing out than are used to create a paper filter.

-Ellie

[Warren]

Mesh reusable coffee filters are such a stupid idea from a "sustainability" standpoint. I am sure that I use more water/resources rinsing the damn thing out than are used to create a paper filter.

-Ellie

Uhg. "Sustainability" is nonsense at the retail level. The problem with mesh filters is they let fines through.

[Jennifer]

Mesh reusable coffee filters are such a stupid idea from a "sustainability" standpoint. I am sure that I use more water/resources rinsing the damn thing out than are used to create a paper filter.

-Ellie

When I was still drinking hot coffee rather than coldbrew I once bought a reusable filter (not from an "environmental" perspective, merely thinking to save money over the cost of paper) -- damn thing ended up RIPPING within a week.

[Eric the .5b]

Are there metal mesh coffee filters, or is that what we're taking about?

[Masked Grylliader]

Yes, this kind of thing -- the one we have at work is made out of stainless steel. IT IS DUMB



-Ellie

[Jennifer]

Ironically, there's an argument to be made that using disposable, non-recycled paper products actually helps the environment (provided those products are NOT disposed of via burning). It was a long looong time ago when I read the article arguing this, so I don't recall ALL the details (I mainly recall a workplace discussion when I was at the Advocate; IIRC he asked if I recycled and was shocked when, instead of "yes," I said it depends on what the item is) -- but the gist I remember is, paper products are generally made from trees specifically planted for that purpose: the raw material is not derived by cutting down old-growth forests, but by harvesting crops. (The long-ago article I read made an analogy along the lines of, "Saying you won't use paper because you want to 'save the forests' is like saying you won't eat corn because you want to 'save the cornfields'.") And trees, like all plants, are made largely of carbon derived from atmospheric CO2. So those paper coffee filters absorbed a weensy bit of carbon out of the atmosphere, and if they ultimately end up in a landfill -- or better yet, if like some organic-gardening type buries the filters and grounds in their garden to derive whatever benefits that's supposed to give the soil -- that atmospheric carbon is now sequestered somewhere in the ground.

(Also the article mentioned that "recycled paper" is actually produced by a manufacturing process that causes environmental or pollution problems on its own, so don't bother recycling paper. However, it IS worthwhile to recycle aluminum and other metals: re-melting and re-using processed aluminum is definitely better for the environment -- and cheaper -- than getting the same amount of aluminum from "raw" sources. And IIRC it's worth recycling MOST types of glass IF the glass is already clean when it arrives at the recycling plant. It may also have said something about the then-current problem some glass recyclers were having regarding what to do with all this special radiation-blocking glass which used to be necessary in cathode-ray TVs but is useless now that these high-tech flatscreens are becoming commonplace ... or I may be confusing the "it's okay to use paper" article with some other long-ago one.)

[Eric the .5b]

I find the paper argument plausible, Jennifer. Given how little things decompose once buried, the carbon's not going anywhere. But then, I use so little paper I don't tend to worry about recycling it...

[Jennifer]

I generally avoid using certain disposable paper products (such as plates) for financial rather than environmental reasons. But even if I were a recycling nut AND it were worthwhile to recycle paper, most of the paper products I use get dirty enough that you couldn't recycle them anyway: TP, grease-soaked paper towels, etc. (Although I do keep a clean dish towel for the specific purpose of absorbing that last drop or two of water from an almost-dry dish, so I can empty and re-load the dishwasher right now rather than wait for the water to finish evaporating. And it drives me nuts when Jeff will instead use a paper towel to dry those last drops when the dish towel is literally right there; when you are standing next to the open dishwasher, putting things in their respective cabinets, the little "towel rack" on the front of the oven is literally closer to you than the paper-towel roll.)

We do still get paper copies of The Economist and a couple other magazines, mainly Jeff's British or European prog-rock stuff. The Economist is the only one that gets thrown away, along with the copious amounts of paper junk mail we get. But at least I have a lot of carbon sequestered in my giganto collection of books, and the looseleaf paper I'll still sometimes use for writing ideas in longhand.

[Hugh Akston]

Just received my first public safety alert on my phone, and just learned how to disable public safety alerts on my phone.

[Warren]

Just received my first public safety alert on my phone, and just learned how to disable public safety alerts on my phone.

You see with your inner eye and it has shown you the way.

[Aresen]

This has probably been mentioned before, but I hate spell-checkers that call you out just because a word is not in the database. I realize the databases would have to be the size of the OED to get every single English language word, but it is annoying to get the red underline on a word you damned well have spelled correctly. [FB just tagged 'intersectionality' (and so is the Gryll, right now.)]

[Hugh Akston]

This has probably been mentioned before, but I hate spell-checkers that call you out just because a word is not in the database.

I mean, that's the only way spell-checkers work, and I'm pretty sure that's the only way they can work.

[Aresen]

This has probably been mentioned before, but I hate spell-checkers that call you out just because a word is not in the database.

I mean, that's the only way spell-checkers work, and I'm pretty sure that's the only way they can work.

Noted. But it is still annoying. I have just enough self-doubt to made me click over to google to confirm the correct spelling.

[Eric the .5b]

This has probably been mentioned before, but I hate spell-checkers that call you out just because a word is not in the database. I realize the databases would have to be the size of the OED to get every single English language word, but it is annoying to get the red underline on a word you damned well have spelled correctly. [FB just tagged 'intersectionality' (and so is the Gryll, right now.)]

I'd have to check whether an OED-sized spelling database would be noticeable compared to most of the Javascript and other assets on your average forum or blog site. You wouldn't need the definitions, pronunciations, etymologies, etc., after all.

(Nit: that's probably your browser complaining about spelling online, not sites.)

ETA: At 4.7 characters average word length in English and 600K words in the OED, you could naively pack that into less than four megabytes with separators. Half that or less with compression, since there would be a lot of duplication among related words. So on a lot of heavier sites, hardly noticeable among all the other crap. Pretty much nothing for a desktop app. The real trick there is getting a free/cheap database more comprehensive than commonly used, as the OED ain't giving it away.

[Mo]

This has probably been mentioned before, but I hate spell-checkers that call you out just because a word is not in the database.

I mean, that's the only way spell-checkers work, and I'm pretty sure that's the only way they can work.

Noted. But it is still annoying. I have just enough self-doubt to made me click over to google to confirm the correct spelling.

I updated the language settings in my work PC so I would stop getting red underlines for ‘color’, ‘center’ and ‘program’.