Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Took our NC Miata in for an alignment today.  Nothing special, just a touch more camber than stock and zero toe up front... street cruiser stuff.  Four and a half hours, and two techs later, I finally drove it home.  Heard a rattle in the right front, so I put it up on my lift to look things over.  One of the right front lower control arm bolts was barely finger tight.  Then I looked at the numbers.  Yes, should have done that at the shop, but they had to have the tech email a picture to the front desk, because they couldn't print at the machine and I was already frustrated by having to wait so long.  .5 camber difference left to right, and significant toe out in the front...  WTF?

A 'shop' alignment should be quicker and more accurate than me crawling around the shop with hub stands and string, but this is why I have trust issues with letting anyone else work on my vehicles.

Made dinner.  Enjoyed the fish.  Got 3 bites into my veggies and enjoyed that.

4th forkful came up with fuzzy black spots.

I'm going to stop eating anything for two damned weeks while the stores clear out their inventory.
berkeleying hurricane.

When I find  good, conscientious tradesmen, techs, repair shops, etc., I feel grateful. Such a load off my mind. Sadly, few and far between.

Hot take: While AI does some neat stuff and is going to do really amazing stuff, the way we're leading with spreading it on everything and selling it ASAP is like "full self driving" for thinking, and just as much in pre-Alpha where the builders should be getting the dangerous bugs out, not foisting it on consumers (and worse, bystanders who are just unfortunate enough to live in the same world as those consumers).

It would absolutely "leak" and avoiding commercial roll-out won't avoid deepfakes and so forth, but reducing the sheer volume should also make it less intractable to find and use the large hammer on malfeasance.

In reply to Rodan :

i have gotten exactly 0 alignments that i've been happy with. Even with the shops that everyone swears are different from the rest. Next time i need one i'm buying turnplates and a caster gauge myself

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Much like "full self driving", AI needs to hoover up data from as many users as possible for it to advance quickly.  I agree a more measured release would be better, but sadly it isn't commercially viable.  Heck, it may not be viable as it is anyways.  AI systems have already started eating up bad AI-generated data, creating an ouroboros of crap.  I hate the stupid google AI results.  I can tell some of the answers are wrong, so I'm left wondering what I might miss, so it just becomes harder to trust any of it.

In reply to eastsideTim :

Between the ouroboros of crap and the environmental impact... I don't think it will be a net positive on society.

tangent: is ouroboros a word? I like the sound of it but have never heard of it before. 

mtn said:

In reply to eastsideTim :

Between the ouroboros of crap and the environmental impact... I don't think it will be a net positive on society.

 

tangent: is ouroboros a word? I like the sound of it but have never heard of it before. 

Yup:

1. a circular symbol depicting a snake, or less commonly a dragon, swallowing its tail, as an emblem of wholeness or infinity.

Maybe not the perfect description, but it sure seems fitting.

Evidently "ouroboros" is indeed a word. And evidently "ouroboros of crap and environmental impact" also describes this weak-suck GoodCook meal prep bowl, which, having given me all of four days of service and survived as many gentle hand washings, decided it was time to break down worse than Tom Petty and/or the Heartbreakers ever thought possible.

Garbage. Literally garbage.

budget_bandit said:

In reply to Rodan :

i have gotten exactly 0 alignments that i've been happy with. Even with the shops that everyone swears are different from the rest. Next time i need one i'm buying turnplates and a caster gauge myself

I was lucky to have had a really good local shop for years.  Then we retired and moved.  Being outside a big metro area (no real performance/race shops) doesn't help.  I have hub stands and everything needed for alignments, and do the race car myself but crawling around on the shop floor for 3-4 hours isn't worth the resulting back/knee pain if I can pay a local shop $150 for a basic street alignment.  Took the car back and they fixed it today... got a lot closer, but still not perfect.  So, I'm back on the hunt for a good shop.

In reply to eastsideTim :

Agreed on the point of data-hoovering (and regurgitation, and subsequent re-hoovering... ick), and it's another facet that comes down to "what's the societal benefit, and what's the direct economic benefit to the users whose data is being hoovered?" We know it's benefiting the shareholders of the Hoover Corps, but it seems like users/the public are paying a lot in intangibles and deleterious effects in exchange for the opportunity to pay money for the product they/we helped produce without opting in.

I live close to Atlantic City. It seems like I can't do yard work anymore without some salesman coming by and trying to sell me Solar, roof, siding, windows, doors, or their daughter's hand in marriage (I kid on the last) and they won't go away. I actually had to tell the last one to "go the berkeley away" before he got the hint that I want to be left alone to kill the weeds growing in the cracks in my driveway.

I even had one show up after it had gotten dark, ringing my door bell. I slammed the door in his face.

I don't like being mean, it is totally opposite of who I am. I do not even like to curse. But these people do not take No for an answer.

Rodan said:

this is why I have trust issues with letting anyone else work on my vehicles.

It's January in Chicago and the 200SX needs a clutch.  Lady at work has a cousin that works at a trans shop - he's good, she tells me. 

Pick it up after the clutch is changed and it won't go into gear.  Must be the throw out bearing mechanic cousin says.  I'll pull trans again in the morning.  All good later that day and I drive home.  

I tell wife I'm going to check out the work -  the four bolts that holds the trans mount are all just started - loose bolts I gotta tighten up.

Who looks under a car after getting work done?

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Data hoovering isn't just an AI problem.  Very few journalists do actual research.  I read an article a while back about situation "A", (which I forget) and the entire history of articles on A were based off one flawed study a decade or more prior.  There was one source, ever, and that source had been wrong.  The googles, however, added every non researched paper to the original when searched, which formed critical mass...

It is astounding how far down the rabbit hole [someone I know] has gone. We can be talking about anything - toddlers acting like toddlers, hockey, whiskey - and within 2 sentences this person will have  a xenophobic, racist, sexist, or political statement about how [the topic] has gone downhill. And ignoring that these are objectively false statements that this person is making, they don't even make sense. 

I ordered a couple more cheap 24qt milk crates from the eBay. The listing said that it was being shipped from Indiana. I got the shipping notification today. 

Then I noticed the seller's address:

WTF is this?  I didn't see where I could add a 'tip'.  Is this an involuntary 'tip'?  Really, Walmart?

mad_machine said:

I live close to Atlantic City. It seems like I can't do yard work anymore without some salesman coming by and trying to sell me Solar, roof, siding, windows, doors, or their daughter's hand in marriage (I kid on the last) and they won't go away. I actually had to tell the last one to "go the berkeley away" before he got the hint that I want to be left alone to kill the weeds growing in the cracks in my driveway.

I even had one show up after it had gotten dark, ringing my door bell. I slammed the door in his face.

I don't like being mean, it is totally opposite of who I am. I do not even like to curse. But these people do not take No for an answer.

We have one of these that hangs on the doorbell button. It actually works for most salespeople. The rest of them you ask if they can read. Then you point at the sign. 

It's 2024.  How do people still not know how to use BCC?  I was in charge of the local region of my Star Wars group last year, and just got an announcement for a holiday parade next month that she copied 100+ people & now I'm getting inundated with replies of "I'll be bringing my daughter with me!"

The house is a mess. 

I've applied to... hundreds? thousands? of jobs and keep hearing crickets, except for the one that offered me less than what I was making 10 years ago (and when you looked at the cost of insurance, I'd be better off at Costco)

Our insurance through my wife's job sucks and the medication I need that it covers isn't actually in stock anywhere.

My knee hurts, for no reason.

Political stuff has me on edge, and it actually is directly impacting me (most of it is local).

The toilet is running, again. 

I've got a lot to be thankful and grateful for. But right now, life really doesn't feel great. 

Jerry said:

It's 2024.  How do people still not know how to use BCC?  I was in charge of the local region of my Star Wars group last year, and just got an announcement for a holiday parade next month that she copied 100+ people & now I'm getting inundated with replies of "I'll be bringing my daughter with me!"

People still don't know when not to use "Reply All", either.  Hint:  most of the time, DON'T.

I will wager that 80% of the people using email don't know that BCC even exists, let alone what it's for.

Facebook auto classified is getting wrecked. At this point there appear to be as many scammers as there are legit. I wish that people would pony up for Craigslist, because it's a superior product, and scammers are less likley to ply their trade where they have to pay for the privledge.

Duke said:

Jerry said:

It's 2024.  How do people still not know how to use BCC?  I was in charge of the local region of my Star Wars group last year, and just got an announcement for a holiday parade next month that she copied 100+ people & now I'm getting inundated with replies of "I'll be bringing my daughter with me!"

People still don't know when not to use "Reply All", either.  Hint:  most of the time, DON'T.

I will wager that 80% of the people using email don't know that BCC even exists, let alone what it's for.

 

I will admit I don't have a clue what BCC is. Should I?

In reply to Toyman! :

Blind Carbon Copy. You can include people on an email, but they won't see who else it is sent to and can only reply to the sender (and other people it is addressed to, or cc'd, aka carbon copied)

So it my email has 

from: mtn   
to: duke, jerry   
cc: kreb   
Bcc: Bob, Frank, toyman, Lisa, Ralph, John

nobody, except for mtn, can see the people in the BCC. Bob could reply all and mtn, Duke, jerry, and kreb would get it, but not Frank, toyman, Lisa, Ralph, or John. 
 

Edit: when I was sending weekly reports to  125 people, I'd have 120 of them in the BCC line. 

In reply to Toyman! :

BCC should be used for group mailing lists made up of individuals, because it hides their names and private email addresses.

You don't really need it for intra-company emails because theoretically everyone in your company should know everyone else's business emails already.

But, for example, my Brandywine Motorsport Club monthly newsletter is sent with no direct recipient, and the address list is put into the BCC field.  That way, recipient X can't see who else is receiving it, or anyone's private email address.  That may or may not be important, but it a courtesy that protects everyone's privacy.  So say, if member F had a problem with member P on autocross day, F can't get a hold of P's email address that way.