Category: Aggravation

My Whole Life is Crappy Web Sites

This Nonsense

This is a snapshot of my inbox. I think it tells the story well enough that it doesn’t need explanation. This is my life: battling crappy web sites. All day. Every day. This is all of our lives now. We gloss over this constant, digital friction in our lives, but I remember when it wasn’t like this, and it drives me crazy.

The best part is that all of this nonsense was to figure out that this account has been closed, and the remaining whopping $8 has been moved to another, similar service, where I don’t even know how to get started to get to this point with that service. So there’s another battle looming. I’m not done. I’m never done.

Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds | Ars Technica

Single-vehicle, single-pedestrian crash data for 2016-2021 finds hoods a problem.

When Tyndall controlled the data for vehicle body type, the effect of vehicle hood heights became more clear, actually increasing “the partial effect of front-end vehicle height, suggesting high-front-end designs are specifically culpable for higher pedestrian death rates, and this is not driven by other characteristics that are correlated with front-end height,” he writes. In fact, the study estimates that a 4-inch (100-mm) increase in front end height translates to a 28 percent increase in pedestrian death.

Source: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds | Ars Technica

I’m glad that more people are starting to fuss about this. What I really want to know is how and why it seems that everyone in the automotive industry pivoted in this direction at once. Back when I worked in the market, the tier-1’s worked fairly diligently to disguise and, at least, nominally, not telegraph their design moves, and yet all the US makers have done this, and at basically the same time. It feels conspiratorial, but I can’t imagine a motivation that would account for it.

Same Truck Models, 40 Years Apart

Dell/Windows Display Malfeasance

Apparently, no power in Heaven or Earth can make a Dell Windows “mobile workstation” display 4K@60Hz on an external monitor, using any of its ports, cables, connectors, or adapters, despite every piece in the chain assuring me that it can.

Who do I bill for the last half hour?

Bonus points for Windows losing its patience through the process, and not allowing me to resize the graphics options window after some point.

UPDATE: In desperation, I dug around in all my storage, and found the tiny USB-C-to-USB-A/HDMI adapter that came with the laptop. BEHOLD! That one works. I guess my “certified” Anker converter was not, in fact, up to spec.

Our Lives are Run by Bad Software: Verizon Edition

My son broke his phone, front and back. Instead of fixing it, I went to a local Digital Replay store, and bought a second hand phone. We logged into the phone with his Apple account, which wanted to send a text message to confirm the login. I swapped the SIM card, and it showed up on the new phone, and we were done.

Verizon correctly detected that I replaced his phone, and “helpfully” wanted me to “confirm” it on their service. I get a text on my phone. I log in. It wants to verify me, by sending me another text to the same number that they sent the first one to. If this was supposed to be some sort of security measure, they “dun goofed” already. But this is the experience of all of our lives, at this point, and I play along.

On the web site, I now try to confirm the swap, and it asks me to “confirm” my identity again, with another text message, not 10 seconds after the last time. This time, the web site prompt includes a second code. What’s this code, you ask? I have no freaking clue. I fumble around trying to give it PIN’s and codes that I think it might be looking for, and wind up here:

Verizon Wireless’ Web Site “Experience”

Remember, Verizon, you asked for this. My son’s phone was working just fine, yet you inserted yourself into my texts, and interrupted my work to hassle me to keep your database correct, and then the process was unnavigable, even for someone with 30 years experience as a “full stack” engineer. Well done. You have to work pretty hard to make this process this frustrating.

Corporate IT “Automated Systems”

Today, I was contacted by #CorporateIT as to whether I was still using <expensive software>. I said no, and that I had tried to uninstall it, but it didn’t work. And, by the way, I’ve tried to “surrender” several other applications, so that my department is no longer billed for them, and NONE of them have worked.

So #CorporateIT guy forwards my email to <IT Director>. I’ve worked at Cummins for 10 years, and still can’t figure out the organizational structure. Anyway, he explains that their systems are great, and process 12,000 requests per month without any problems. I thank him for the considerate response, but this doesn’t change the fact that this has never worked for me, not even once.

Then I get dressed, go into the office, and try to “surrender” one VERY expensive piece of software from a machine that needs to be retired, and I get this error message. Now, I understand that these are (probably) not the same systems under the skin, but it’s the same aggravation, and I just wish that the people running these systems lived in the same IT world that the rest of us do.

Corporate IT “Support”

Suppose you have a problem on your company laptop, for which you contact #CorporateIT, using Microsoft Teams. Now, you’re already logged in as yourself, in Teams, but the first thing they always ask is to confirm that it’s… you, who is contacting them. Then they always ask whether you’re at a company site or home, and what your phone number is. Now, about 90% of everyone is working from home, and with the VPN, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Also, they have no need to call you on the phone. In the rare event they want to use voice, they’ll just use Teams!

So, given the lag of getting a person from the queue, and the normal flow of question and response, you’re about 5-10-15 minutes into the process, and you have wasted the entire time by answering three stupid questions. But if you don’t respond in about 10 seconds, you’ll be badgered with, “Are we still connected?”

After your chat, you’ll get prompted to rate support’s “help” in Teams, and then you’ll get about a dozen emails — whether or not they helped you in any way — including ANOTHER prompt to rate their helpfulness. And they are judged on this. I once rated a support tech poorly, because he was completely unhelpful, and didn’t even try to escalate the problem. He contacted me back to argue about it, and couldn’t disagree with my rating, but pleaded with me to change it, because that’s how they stay employed. I did, but I just don’t bother with the ratings any more.

Our Lives are Run by Bad Software: Discord Edition

A friend invites me to a watch a stream of him playing a game on Discord. I’m not at my computer, so I install the app on my iPad. It asks for credentials, but the login process doesn’t seem to work with 1Password. So I open 1Pass, remember the email I need to type, and copy the password.

I log in on the Discord app, and it puts me through some CAPTCHA thing, and then tells me this is a new device, that needs to be “registered” or something, and sends me an email. I click the link, and a Safari window opens… and goes nowhere. It’s gotten blocked by 1Blocker.

So I copy-paste the URL into Firefox — where I do NOT have an ad blocker, for precisely these scenarios — and it asks me to log in again. Again, 1Password is unhelpful. Again, it sends me through a CAPTCHA…

And I say to myself, you know what? I don’t care any more. I don’t want to see it now. And I close all the browser tabs and I remove Discord from my device, and I complain about it on Twitter.

I go through this ridiculous, digital dance with various services, every single day. EVERY. DAY. I’m sick of it. And I’m just going to stop using every service under the sun, just because they’re free. There’s NOTHING in Discord worth this level of “security” to me.

So, alright, Discord, keep your secrets.