What is your pet peeve of the day?

[CRLLS]

Easy solution. Avoid fast food places .

Seriously, on the rare occasion we stop at one, usually on a road trip, they ARE annoying, but they are catering to their normal clientel, not a 61 yo. Besides, DW will have a coupon, so I know what I will get .

But the modern day alternative is going to the sit-down place and then gently forced to order and pay via a tabletop kiosk. I hate it when that happens.

 

[hgm735]

Getting outsourced technical support. Not too long ago had a problem with router. The lady had me turn off PC, turn on. Turn off modem, turn on. Rinse, repeat. (I wouldn't normally have a problem with this b/c I understand the logic, but I told her from the outset that I did it all already! But it was aggravating, because it didn't fix the problem!

 

[folivier]

Amazon's search function is pretty bad. Just did a search for ethernet cable 10' and all of the results are HDMI cables! Why have a search function if it doesn't work?

 

[Rustward]

This seems to work well: 10 foot ethernet cable

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=10+foot+ethernet+cable

 

[samclem]

Smoke Alarm Battery Utilization

A minor peeve: Why don't designers of battery-operated consumer devices make their stuff to use batteries efficiently?

One of our smoke alarms started the "low battery" beeping last night (it's always at night, right?). So, I put new AA alkaline batteries in all the detectors, and the three in the "offending" detector showed 1.25v, all the other detectors showed 1.3V

An AA alkaline battery showing 1.25V typically has used up only about 22% of its total capacity (.5 Ah of 2.3Ah, per graph below). Even if we assume a 1V cutoff voltage for the device, a cell showing 1.25 V has 75% of its usable capacity remaining (.5 Ah of 2.0 Ah). Why is the "low battery" chirp going off?

This device takes three batteries, wired in series. If it really can't operate below 3.75 v (1.25v x 3), then why not build it to take 4 batteries so they can all discharge down to 1.15V and we can get a lot more of the available capacity (twice as much) from all of them? Likewise, if the constraint is the need for sufficient onboard capacity to run the buzzer and RF transmitter (these are interlinked wireless alarms) when smoke is detected, having 4 batteries onboard and letting them discharge to a lower level would achieve the same result with less hassle for the user. As a bonus, with a 1.15V "chirp" voltage, the new low-self-discharge rechargeable NiMH batteries could be used (see the blue line below), they are a lot more economical and more "green" than alkaline batteries.

I suspect the reason the detectors are designed this way is that it is a conservative approach for a "must work" application. Change the three batteries every year and there's sure to be enough "oomph" in the batteries to get the job done, and that's the important thing. It doesn't matter if the users are throwing away batteries every year with 75% of their useful life remaining.

For now I'll just put these slightly-used batteries from the detectors into flashlights and other things that can use them.

 

[broadway]

For now I'll just put these slightly-used batteries from the detectors into flashlights and other things that can use them.

Unfortunately, all the smoke detectors in my house use 9V batteries, so I can't re-appropriate them to remote controls or flashlights.

 

[razztazz]

I thought I was one of the few who disliked these menu boards! I find myself watching them for up to three or four cycles to finally make up my mind. Yes, these boards allow more items to be displayed in a limited space but they drive me crazy too!

Those boards are designed for young people. People the age of most of the people on this board are not given a cluck about. Read it? Got it? Good. Order. Can't read it Pop? Outta da way. NEXT!

 

[braumeister]

Maybe we should have a thread for "What to do with batteries that still have some life but are no longer strong enough for their original device?"

With all the engineers around here I'd bet it would leave those dryer sheet Martha Stewarts in the dust!

 

[samclem]

Maybe we should have a thread for "What to do with batteries that still have some life but are no longer strong enough for their original device?"

With all the engineers around here I'd bet it would leave those dryer sheet Martha Stewarts in the dust!

Three of them seem to work okay in the little AA LED "puck" lights. But for the future I'm thinking of:
Project 1: A homebrew LED flashlight or lantern. Use LED heads from those free Harbor Freight flashlights, a body of 1/2" PVC to hold 4 AA batteries of nominal 1.25V each (5V total). Challenges: These flashlights are designed for 3 AAA batteries (4.5V) and I think they have circuits designed to keep from running too much current through the LEDs. I'm not sure if I can run two of them (i.e. 18 LEDs) in parallel from this pack of 4x AA batteries that have about twice the capacity of 3xAAAs.

"What do you do all day?"

 

[John Galt III]

Road maps on the internet that don't have North, South, East, West indicators. Not even a North by itself. If you're lucky you can figure it out by some other info on the map, but often are left to guess. And the "top" side of the map is not always North.

 

[folivier]

Good one JG. Where the heck is the compass rose? My DW rolls her eyes and looks away....

Road maps on the internet that don't have North, South, East, West indicators. Not even a North by itself. If you're lucky you can figure it out by some other info on the map, but often are left to guess. And the "top" side of the map is not always North.

 

[exnavynuke]

I don't mind the lack of magnetic direction shown on maps these days. I can't really recall the last time I needed to navigate by compass direction anyway. Perhaps if I were traveling by foot through the woods or something I'd feel differently, but roads take me to other roads and destinations without the need for compass direction quite adequately.

 

[ERD50]

Three of them seem to work okay in the little AA LED "puck" lights. But for the future I'm thinking of:
Project 1: A homebrew LED flashlight or lantern. Use LED heads from those free Harbor Freight flashlights, a body of 1/2" PVC to hold 4 AA batteries of nominal 1.25V each (5V total). Challenges: These flashlights are designed for 3 AAA batteries (4.5V) and I think they have circuits designed to keep from running too much current through the LEDs. I'm not sure if I can run two of them (i.e. 18 LEDs) in parallel from this pack of 4x AA batteries that have about twice the capacity of 3xAAAs.

"What do you do all day?"

The cheap LED flashlights just have a resistor in series with the LEDs, and the ones I've seen from Harbor Freight just put the LEDs in parallel with a single series resistor (or maybe no R, they just let the batteries self-limit?). Technically, that's not ideal - LEDs are current devices, in parallel they get the same voltage, so if one has a slightly lower voltage threshold, it get the most current. But as a practical matter, the LEDs probably come from the same batch and are fairly closely matched, so it works OK. The resistor wastes some energy, and in high power devices they use switching circuits with reactive components to match voltages and currents with little loss.

If you want to run 2 groups of those LED/R in parallel, on 4 cells rather than 3, cells, you might want to add an R to each group.

I did some measurements a while back, those 9 LEDs in HF lights draw .25A @ 4.5 V. So to drop another 1/2 V to get 4 old cells ~ 3 new cells, you would want R ~ 2 ohms on each group of 9 LEDs. You could switch it out as the cells go lower.

You might be better off putting the two LED groups in series and use 8 cells in series. Add a selector switch - 6 cells for new cells, 7 as they are used, all eight for low batteries?

Have fun.

-ERD50

 

[Starsky]

My pet peeve of the day is a nosy government. We bought a car on Saturday with cash and they wanted to run a credit check and OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control) report. Evidently, the Feds are now tracking $10K+ cash transactions for terrorist ties, not just for the IRS.

At the Dealer they told me it was a dealership requirement - no, it's a Federal Government requirement and they are told they can lie about it in the IRS bulletin. I told them no and paid with a cashier's check.

 

[samclem]

Road maps on the internet that don't have North, South, East, West indicators. Not even a North by itself. If you're lucky you can figure it out by some other info on the map, but often are left to guess. And the "top" side of the map is not always North.

And how about a scale bar? IIRC, Mapquest and Google Maps used to have one by default, but now it seems the scale bar is frequently missing, especially on views that are included on another web page. It's nice to be able to estimate if it is 5 miles or 20 miles between two towns shown on the map.

 

[aaronc879]

My pet peeve is people being loud in a place where no one should ever be loud like the rehab clinic I am currently in while trying to recover from a broken hip and arm. The person next to me has had his door open while being on the phone on what must be the highest speaker phone volume possible for over an hour. When the nurse brought me my night time meds I asked if she could ask him to turn it down or close his door and she said she would but she didn't. That kind of noise really bugs me and is ridiculously inconsiderate. I'm now considering the pros and cons of going out there and closing the door myself. I would likely get in trouble by the staff for going into his room to close the door. He would not get in any trouble for being so inconsiderate. I may do it any way. It's nearly my bed time.

 

[6miths]

I got one today. People who turn off the street to enter a parking lot or business that has a low curb and do so as if there car was made of glass and had no suspension. Come to almost a complete stop in the road and then daintily make the turn. I can understand if someone were drive a Lamborghini but it seems just a likely if someone is driving a off-roading jeep or such. It brought back something my daughter told me about her driver's licence test. She passed but the one thing that her examiner told her was that when driving on a four lane street (two lanes in each direction) in the city that she should keep to the right lane... for several reasons, including the above phenomenon, I disagree.

 

[Amethyst]

Such a nuisance. It's always the noisy people who assert their "rights," and quiet people who have to put up with it. I know one of the reasons you bought a house was for privacy and quiet, so this must be especially annoying for you. Hope you are getting better in spite of it.

Amethyst

My pet peeve is people being loud in a place where no one should ever be loud like the rehab clinic I am currently in while trying to recover from a broken hip and arm. The person next to me has had his door open while being on the phone on what must be the highest speaker phone volume possible for over an hour. When the nurse brought me my night time meds I asked if she could ask him to turn it down or close his door and she said she would but she didn't. That kind of noise really bugs me and is ridiculously inconsiderate. I'm now considering the pros and cons of going out there and closing the door myself. I would likely get in trouble by the staff for going into his room to close the door. He would not get in any trouble for being so inconsiderate. I may do it any way. It's nearly my bed time.

 

[Amethyst]

Haven't had that happen yet, but I think I would actually like it. You don't have to catch the kiosk's eye to place your order, do you?

But the modern day alternative is going to the sit-down place and then gently forced to order and pay via a tabletop kiosk. I hate it when that happens.

 

[aaronc879]

Such a nuisance. It's always the noisy people who assert their "rights," and quiet people who have to put up with it. I know one of the reasons you bought a house was for privacy and quiet, so this must be especially annoying for you. Hope you are getting better in spite of it.

Amethyst

I'm getting better but slower than I was hoping. This will be a months long process. I just hope I have a steady job at the end of it so I don't lose my new home.

 

[Amethyst]

I hope so too. I wish you could start to pick up a skill, like fixing computers, while you are recuperating. Not saying that's easy or even feasible, but at least you could sit down, and would not have to balance on dangerous platforms any more.

I'm getting better but slower than I was hoping. This will be a months long process. I just hope I have a steady job at the end of it so I don't lose my new home.

 

[Sojourner]

My pet peeve is people being loud in a place where no one should ever be loud like the rehab clinic I am currently in while trying to recover from a broken hip and arm. The person next to me has had his door open while being on the phone on what must be the highest speaker phone volume possible for over an hour. When the nurse brought me my night time meds I asked if she could ask him to turn it down or close his door and she said she would but she didn't. That kind of noise really bugs me and is ridiculously inconsiderate. I'm now considering the pros and cons of going out there and closing the door myself. I would likely get in trouble by the staff for going into his room to close the door. He would not get in any trouble for being so inconsiderate. I may do it any way. It's nearly my bed time.

+1000

I am one of those people who finds these kinds of blatant "noise intrusions" incredibly annoying and, sometimes, just plain infuriating. It continues to boggle my mind how people can be so oblivious to the loud, obnoxious noises they make that can easily carry through walls between hotel rooms or other semi-shared spaces. In your situation, I would have undoubtedly gotten up and closed that guy's door after it was clear no other remedy was forthcoming, and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Nightcap]

My pet peeve is people being loud in a place where no one should ever be loud like the rehab clinic I am currently in while trying to recover from a broken hip and arm. The person next to me has had his door open while being on the phone on what must be the highest speaker phone volume possible for over an hour. When the nurse brought me my night time meds I asked if she could ask him to turn it down or close his door and she said she would but she didn't. That kind of noise really bugs me and is ridiculously inconsiderate. I'm now considering the pros and cons of going out there and closing the door myself. I would likely get in trouble by the staff for going into his room to close the door. He would not get in any trouble for being so inconsiderate. I may do it any way. It's nearly my bed time.

Oh gods, yes. I was in hospital a couple years ago, and ended up with a "roomie" whose first action was to turn on the TV. Then he made phone calls. And received lots of visitors. The TV was on from the time the nurses did their vitals checks at oh-dark-thirty until after midnight. Even though I mitigated the noise by listening to audiobooks through headphones, the flickering TV light in the same room made it difficult to sleep.

I'm singularly fortunate, I kept reminding myself. I have resources he lacks. I don't need to have a TV blaring to provide constant distraction. But it was wearing.

DW found me a sleep mask and foam earplugs, which were a great help. Just before I was discharged, I got a new roomie. This poor man was suffering from the mother of all migraines, and his father came over to apologetically ask that I not turn on my TV as the light and noise would be painful to him. Since I'd never even thought of turning on the tube, I was more than happy to comply. It was just a pity he hadn't checked in earlier - we'd have been great for each other.

 

[Chuckanut]

Speaking of noise, how about modern restaurant design? A few weeks ago I was in a restaruant with what appeared to be concrete walls and solid tile floor and very little of anything that might absorb sound. The conversations of the patrons literally echoed through the place. In order to be heard by the person sitting across the table, the patrons had to raise their voices to what most would call a very loud level.

Rather than put up with this we left.

 

[Texas Proud]

Speaking of noise, how about modern restaurant design? A few weeks ago I was in a restaruant with what appeared to be concrete walls and solid tile floor and very little of anything that might absorb sound. The conversations of the patrons literally echoed through the place. In order to be heard by the person sitting across the table, the patrons had to raise their voices to what most would call a very loud level.

Rather than put up with this we left.

Yea, this is the new trend.... they can have a few people and have a 'buzz'.... I do not like them either... now, I do go to Chipolte which does this, so I will put up with it at times...