Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

yeah that's one reason I used to give bullshit answers because of my fear of exactly that, but then when I lock my account, I can't remember whether the answer is "What is your father's middle name" is "Butthole" or "Go fuck yourself".

just ask your mom

i've long thought that subjective security questions like "what is your favorite book?" reveal a lot about the people who create them

http://zachscott.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/subjectivesecurity.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/t6dJ1zA.jpg

lmao

I just have a mental list of favorite movie, book, band, meaning of life that I use specifically for these questions.

I'd love if at some point there was some data dump of what the most common answers are for these questions.

lol karl

omg that list is great ...

xxxp Neando -- I had this issue a little while ago where it asked for name of childhood best friend, and I couldn't remember whether I had chosen the name of the biggest asshole at the City Building & Planning Dept or Godot

or maybe it was Fluffy?

Y'know it really gives you a sense of perspective about age and time and the relative duration of human existence compared to that of a cat, because this guy who is the biggest asshole at the City Building & Planning Department, has been the biggest asshole longer than Fluffy was alive ... and she had a pretty long life for a cat!

Just found the worst google result of all time. Probably due to my location but a search for "sketch" returns:

1) THREE SCREENS (on my phone) of details about sketch london restaurant (description, contact info including link to website, opening times, covid info, popular times, critics reviews)
2) one standard search result for the same restaurant's webpage already linked above
3) links to six subpages of THE SAME website, on six separate lines
4) four 'people also ask' questions, three of which are about the restaurant
5) a search result for a design app with a huge but pointless thumbnail
6) a link to the restaurant's instagram page, huge thumbnail
7) a horizontal scrolling list of youtube links
8) four 'people also search for' results
9) three app store results with large thumbnails
10) two rows of images, extra large thumbnails
11) a link to the restaurants facebook page
13) three rows of giant scrolling thumbnail results for for 'afternoon tea', lively places', 'best places to eat'
14) see results for sketch (software), sketch (drawing)
15) related searches

Obviously searching for a single term means google thinks that I am a cretin who needs my food pre chewed but that doesn't excuse this shitshow of wrong tree barking, repetition, social media pushing, and near total lack of actual web search results.

otm

Yes, Google’s attempts to move behind boring old links to web pages is quite frustrating at times.

Out of interest, what were you actually looking for?

also, i spotted a new backward step yesterday. maybe we can nip it in the bud before we all just accept it. the cooler cases at a Walgreens, instead of having glass or clear plastic fronts so you can see what's inside, are entirely faced with a video screen showing a depiction of the kind of shelves found inside, stocked with the kind of drink products or frozen foods that might, or might not, actually be on those shelves once you swing open the door to find out for sure. obviously the goal is to find more places to stick video advertising.

the list of fundamental flaws with this approach basically writes itself, but obviously that is no guarantee that this will die a quiet death before being rolled out to millions of coolers nationwide.

My local Walgreen’s are all in a state of ever-worsening decay, they’re going to have to cool the coolers below 62 degrees before getting into the video screen game.

Finally hit a restaurant that pulled the ol' "scan this card to see our menu" trick on me.

I tried, but the ol' Galaxy Android just couldn't pull anything out of the white code on red background stuck behind clear acrylic.

On the video screen front: counter service restaurants where the menu is on screens, but maybe not all of it is shown at once, or maybe the whole menu just disappears for a while in order to advertise one particular item.

Out of interest, what were you actually looking for?

An online sketchpad, I fully admit it wasn't the best search term for that.

Made me curious if you can even do like a location/search history-neutral Google search now. Any info I could find on that seems outdated. One article recommended using another search engine that uses Google, that won't do the customization stuff (at least not so much). Startpage.com seems worth a shot.

I don't think a completely location-neutral Google search is possible. Though you can hack what country you're in by adding &gl=us or whatever other country you want to specify to the url. Doing that in an Incognito window is probably the best you can do, ideally also doing it through a VPN connection for that same country if you want to lose all personalisation.

Well I had a dream just before I woke up that I was trying to search Andy Griffith’s “what it was, was football” routine and failing to get any relevant results. Fortunately in the waking world I can find it.

i had to get gas and the gas pump had a touch screen instead of analog buttons. but the touch screen was so unresponsive (i'm guessing they have to use some kind of "tough" screen since it's on a gas pump outside) that it took me twice as long to pay for my gas as it would have on a regular pump.

oh god, so otm. touch screens have been a disaster for gas pumps.

somewhat relatedly, chips on debit cards have just made everything more complicated and flimsy.

My experience with unresponsive touch screens is the more frustrated you get, the harder and harder you jab, which makes the jabbing less and less effective. It’s like a zen challenge.

Lost track of how many times a touch screen was frozen which required me to move to another pump

you have to softly paw it and wait 30 seconds between each gesture, after which you will be subjected to some godawful tv channel and the mute button will not work.

i would not be surprised if new gas pump software is recording and collecting data about you

I like the inconsistency between gas station machines too where some want you to quickly insert and remove your card versus others where you are supposed to leave the card inserted, but nowhere does it state which kind and you only find out when the reader just shuts down and says "see cashier" so you have to move to another pump entirely.

Video is always "Here's today's feel.good footage from Generic Hugh's state championship football game from 1989 where the cornerback almost intercepted the ball but gave up the winning touchdown yet showed good hustle"

*High

I feel like I have to pick up that useless stylus about 50% of the time now, on the touch screens at Trader joe's

today at office max i had to be told to use the stylus rather than my finger 2 times, and then inserted the chip upside-down. then it asked me if I wanted to donate $2 to charity and I went ahead and did it, to atone. i was making the cashier laugh a bit, though, it felt good

some future novelist will know how to evoke and exploit a very specific feeling of this era through the hated phrase "see cashier."

I leave the gas station in defiance hwen I get that, with the gas cap off and everything

"see cashier", who probably has ten people in line, eight of whom are asking for directions to a place that doesn't exist, two of whom want 7 different packs of cigarettes which 5 are out of stock.

I've mentioned these before:

• Having to press "Cancel" to use the "Credit" option.
• Removing card quickly by swiping very slowly?
• STILL HAVING TO SCAN MY KROGER REWARDS CARD UNDER THE LASER SCANNER IN THE YEAR 2021.
• After somehow successfully scanning card, a big "OK" light flashes ... red.

hey hurry up with those cigs up there cashier, i'm trying to play the lottery here

"Insert with the chip down"
OK does that mean down as in furthest from me or down as in face down?

I feel like the UK was ahead of the UK in the rollout of unresponsive touchscreen machines with terrible UI. There was some perfectly good rail ticket machines with buttons that got replaced with a load of touchscreen versions that more than once sent me into a jabbing frenzy just as I was about to miss a train.

ahead of the US, d'oh.

This action can't be completed because the file is open
Close the file and try again

Why say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'... just the change the fucking file name for fuckssake, I command you

I vastly prefer the Chip system to swiping. Lot less damaging to the card too
And Chip is always slide face up from what i understand, it only gets confusing on those rotating counter ipad kiosks or a vertical slot

yeah I used to have cards magnetic strips get worn out real fast from all of the swiping and required replacing whereas I only have to replace my cards for 'suspected fraud' now.

some of the machines that tell you to leave your card in do so only after you've inserted it, and years of muscle memory causes you to jerk out the card before it's ready

Wrong thread but the credit card tap option is a nice step forward

i only just figured out how to do that and felt pretty dumb, it's fast

Yeah, I vastly prefer the tap option for sure, but even with that I sometimes get "wait, not yet.... okay, now go ahead and tap it... wait the light isn't coming on... oh, there it is, go ahead now".

I don't like it when you insert a card into the chip reader and the screen flashes a series of messages that are variations on "do not remove card" like it's trying to fake you out for that eventual "remove card" message.

are you enrolled in 7/11 frequent gas program