Innocuous things that make you irrationally angry (a list thread)

Most (London) Oxfam Bookshops I've been in do beat London secondhand prices for at least the stuff I look at (poetry, classic lit). Like I'm more maddened by the prices in Skoob than I am the Portobello Oxfam Bookshop. If they spot something that looks collectible, they'll overprice it, but a lot of decent things slip by.

the sort of things i was describing are academic press humanities stuff....i've found some surprising things in a branch of oxfam

also tho i doubt i spend as much time in secondhand bookshops as ilb hierarch woof, i'd concur with his observations

don't think it's quite correct/'fair' to compare oxfam bookshops to places like (yeah, the hideously overpriced) skoobs - non-charity shops have to buy their stock, and in theory are staffed by ppl who know something abt bks, so can, to some extent, justify higher prices than the likes of PDSA, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research etc. etc. - oxfam's real competitors, who make them look like robbers in comparison.

Skoob can bite me - they pay very little for secondhand books.

Fair enough on the real competitors - I guess stock just feels a lot more limited in most other charity shops, so I'm less likely to find something interesting in the first place than I am in an Oxfam shop (in an area with ailing academics). I'm aware of the book-trade anger about Oxfam (this would be about that Bookseller article?), but from a buying end, I'm ok with it - a range of good stock, at prices that are still ok.

the article i was talking abt was actually in book collector magazine, but yeah essentially the same complaints - unfair advantage, aggressive targetting of towns/areas where secondhand bookshops already exist etc. the bc article also claimed that oxfam favour certain book dealers who buy stuff from them (first editions and the like) well before the dregs reach the oxfam shops.

I don't remember mentioning this in here:

News sites that recognise you as a foreign visitor and show you an "international" version by default. It happens all over the place but I'm talking specifically about the BBC. When I go to a UK news site I want UK news, NOT what the BBC calls its "international" version but is in actual fact just a load of shit about America. If I want American news I'll fucking well go to CNN (which btw hassles me about ITS "international" version).

This only counts as irrational because I don't use news sites like the BBC anymore specifically because of this crap.

Oh and also the BBC's sociopathic obsession with America.

You probably know this already but on the BBC news site for the UK you can click on UK or England/Scotland/Wales and get the news for that location. Maybe that's not available outside the UK, in which case I apologise for what may seem as patronising...

No, we can see that too, I frequently look at specific-area news on the BBC site (for local lulz)

xp oit's there and it's easy to click (hence the ia) but we go to a UK news site for UK news, so defaulting to an "international" version is ridiculous.

It's like "oh you're from somewhere else are you? well here's some news that suits YOU!!", the two obvious problems with that being (1) 95% of us are not american kthx and (2) we're going all the way to a UK news site for news about THAT country, otherwise we'd stick with our own local agencies.

The BBC used to at least do a CNN-style "this is all UK news, would you like to see the international edition y/n" but at some point they pulled that option completely, citing unnecessary maintenance requirements or similar dumb shit.

people who make right turns on red when the sign says no right turn on red. today me and this other dude are in the left and right lanes at a light with one of those signs, after coming off a toll road. Dude's coming up behind us, sees us sitting there, decides he doesn't want to wait, and jumps into the two lanes nearest us, which are left turn lanes, then illegally makes a right turn out of it in front of us.

probably shouldn't have thrown a molotov cock. in his car but hey

lolol Molotov cock

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/1682649966_645aeea158.jpg

There is, officially, an image for everything.

people who double click hyper links

ia: my fear of going to the doctor because i hate when they weigh me. look, i know, ok? let's just get to why i came here.

tbh right now my ia is against doctors full stop. Is there such a thing as a GP that's worth a shit? OK I've had one good doctor in the last 10 years, but I don't live there any more. This week she might as well have just told me to fuck off as soon as I walked in the door. I'm not even gonna go into how they could've let my wife die from TB "it's just a chest infection you'll be fine"

i have irrational anger at people who tell unfunny jokes in public, then when nobody laughs, say it again at twice the volume because obviously, we didn't laugh because we didn't hear it the first time.

I mean that's not innocuous, but the irrational anger is that I want to impale these people with a bayonet.

tbh right now my ia is against doctors full stop. Is there such a thing as a GP that's worth a shit?

not when their sole motivation is to save the insurance company money -- no, you don't need an MRI or a referral to a specialist or anything, we'll just give you some generic pills.

I've had several good, dedicated, concerned and diligent GPs look after me. I've always been impressed. I've also had some who were indifferent or just plain clueless, but I wouldn't want to have an IA against GPs. Some of them have been superb, and much needed.

not when their sole motivation is to save the insurance company money

Thankful that doesnt come into play here really due to our medicare system. That said, we get the problem where GPs cram as manuy patients into a day as possible cos their givt subsidies arent great. So you're shoved in and out in 15 mins tops, and if you need more? Double appointment, that'll be $80 thanks. Grrr. I have something in the order of 5 unrelated, fairly pressing health issues I should address but Ive put it off cos fuck landing it all on a GPs head all at once.

givt? Govt. Damn bandaided finger.

people who double click hyper links

― smh (cozen), Friday, 6 May 2011 09:33 (2 days ago) Bookmark

ha, and people who type a full url into google

people who use yahoo or msn as their search engine instead of google

I kind of admire people stubbornly avoiding Google.

(just went to alta-vista and discovered it's now yahoo. I found it by googling)

My dog insists on using Dogpile.

Both Altavista and Lycos used to have features that weren't in Google (Altavista had wildcard search and Lycos had proximity search, i.e. you could specify that your search terms had to appear within n words of each other), but then they decided that the way to survive against Google was to make themselves dumber and easier to use instead of having features

I only use Google now but sometimes when it is autocorrecting things to something I didn't want to search for, or taking over the keyboard commands in my browser so that I can't scroll normally or press backspace to go back, I miss the Altavista days...

(also once upon a time there was a very handy ftp search engine based somewhere in Norway which doesn't exist any more, but then I suppose ftp barely exists any more)

That wasn't very well phrased. As far as I know, Norway still exists.

Altavista was the bomb pre-google...I used to do photo research for a publisher and it was my best friend.

- corporate social clubs that do bugger-all with your $5/mth then lay on a massive guilt trip when you try to leave
- people who end all their sentences with "...so yeeeeeeeeeeah"

Noisy little bastard shouting the name of every car that passes the bus while his brother climbs on the seat next to me. All while the mum is browsing Facebook on her phone, completely ignoring their behaviour. Still half an hour of this to go before i can get off.

people who double click hyper links
― smh (cozen), Friday, 6 May 2011 09:33 (2 days ago) Bookmark

They're annoying, but what REALLY FUCKING DRIVES ME NUTS is that the three attorneys I work most closely with all only ever* open documents by first opening Word, clicking File, then Open, then exploring folders from there. If they need to open a PDF? Go to Word! A photo? Word! A spreadsheet? WORD.

Also, two of them can't learn that you can copy and paste documents. This is because they only open documents through the File menu and they can't remember how right-clicking works. >:(

*If they have an Excel doc open already and they want to open another Excel doc, they might sometimes use Excel to open it, but not always.

Reminds me of this.

http://d3uwin5q170wpc.cloudfront.net/photo/101671_700b.jpg

totally true, but I feel like I become this guy when I'm using a computer in front of other people

When they see me go through My Computer they think I've done some Harry Potter "hacker" shit. And frequently when faced with a PDF, she calls me and gripes that some jerk sent her "another one of those stupid protected Word documents," could I please "unlock" it?

The younger one asked me for help with something or other and when I told him about Ctrl+C (or V or X) he said "Oh...but I don't do that." Right clicking is another thing he "doesn't do."

totally true, but I feel like I become this guy when I'm using a computer in front of other people

― mh, Tuesday, 10 May 2011 23:03 (52 minutes ago) Bookmark

Just started a new job and have people looking over my shoulder directing me around stuff, it's like i can't type or even move the mouse when there is someone watching.
I had to send one e-mail today to HR, and i managed to fuck that up, all they wanted was my NI number and some spell check changed it just before it sent. Managed to cc my team leader in as requested, so not only is he probably wondering what he's hired, HR are probably doubting his ability to hire people.

Way to go me :(

30% of our cast is late, and we open next week.

We haven't timed it once and there's an hour time limit and they turn the lights and play you off stage.

UGH!

The younger one asked me for help with something or other and when I told him about Ctrl+C (or V or X) he said "Oh...but I don't do that." Right clicking is another thing he "doesn't do."

Wkiw

(Would kill in womb)

Yeah I'd be like "well guess what, helping people who cant even grasp the BASICS of using a computer is something I dont do. You go bye bye now".

LOOOOL Phil D!

Also - that guy's desktop icons are about 1" square! Not only WHY??? but HOW??? What is going on?

And he doesn't use a to-do list or Tasks on Outlook. No, that's too fancy. He leaves open docs and emails that he is currently working on. He makes me bananas, but I don't hate the guy, and we hang out after work sometimes, but I still am sick with pleasure when his computer crashes or we have a power failure.

(I'm sorry, it's all coming to the surface at once ;__;)

I've showed some people in the past the simplest of PC tasks and they're like OH MY GOD WOW YOU HAVE JUST CHANGED THE WAY I WORK HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS and I'm thinking o_0

Don't run into that much now, working in IT. I'd be a wee bit worried if someone here didnt know how to use Windows.

I was working on a project today that I split with my coworker. I'd minimized excel into a smaller window so I could copy and paste data into another lookup program, which was also in a small window so I could see both and use both at the same time. Coworker saw me working as he was leaving and came over and was like "Whoa! How did you do that? I should do that too!!"

Fuck yeah you should, because clicking back and forth between two full-screen windows is fucking ridiculous and slow!

u_u

Eh I fullscreen everything and employ a shit load of alt-tab :D

alt-tab is the way to go

this dude wouldn't know alt tab if it spat in his eye

people are so stupid.