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Perhaps you share some of them. Perhaps you have others that annoy you. Send your suggestions --- see below. I don't promise to add everything suggested but I'll at least consider what you suggest.
Last updated 16 October, 2009The problem of telemarketing has been very much alleviated by the national "Do Not Call" register but politicians, charities, and anyone you've ever dealt with are exempted from the constraints of that registry.
I think the rules should be tightened:
Computer-generated phone calls and those from "unknown name/unknown number" drive me up the wall. It's my policy never to return calls from the former nor to answer the latter but it's still annoying, especially those that are early in the morning or in the evening when I want to relax.
Mice and trackballs, the buttons of which have springs so weak that merely brushing one's hand over the button while reaching for something allows the button to be pressed. Just resting the fingers on the buttons is usually enough to press the button(s). Sometimes it almost seems as though merely breathing on the bloody thing will press a button.
Do the manufacturers of these devices believe that we're all so weak that we can't manage to press a mouse button if the spring is made strong enough to minimize pressing the button by accident?
Spammers in general but especially those who think that I'm too bloody stupid to realize that I'm not a previous customer and those who purport to be an acquaintance forwarding the spam.
HTML in e-mail. MIME is bad enough for routine e-mail but HTML... If you don't believe it's bad, take a look at "Why HTML in e-mail is evil" and if you agree but don't know how to turn it off, look here.
And speaking of spam and e-mail, there're also all the on-line businesses who insist upon sending e-mail that looks like spam (usually raw HTML or, at best, MIME when neither is needed for the intended purpose). It's ironic that, as the spammers have learnt to make their e-mail not look like spam (mostly by not using either HTML or MIME), legitimate correspondents send stuff that does (by sending either or both).
Oh, yeah... There're also the businesses or other correspondents who prefix their spam-looking e-mail with instructions to put an e-mail address in one's address book so that their correspondence won't be trapped by spam filters. Think about it.
Isn't that kind of like sending someone postal mail that says "If you don't receive this, please let me know."?
Here's an example, a direct quotation from a recent message that I received from a firm with whom I've dealt. (Naturally, names and domains have been changed to protect the guilty):
This email was sent to you by XXXX. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add merchant@some.domain.com to your address book.
And, while in the e-mail vein, there are the modern mail user agents (MUAs, AKA mail clients) that hide, from the user, the fact that the joke they're forwarding contains several, often many, sets of e-mail headers complete with the e-mail addresses of everyone to whom that message has been sent in past, violating the privacy of each of those people.
At first I thought that the problem is that some correspondents just can't be bothered to delete the headers but I no longer believe that.
I believe that "modern" MUAs simply don't display that information and the person simply doesn't realize that those headers are there. For curiosity, I once counted over a hundred e-mail addresses in something like half a dozen or more obsolete e-mail headers in a single message that had been forwarded to me.
Had a power outage recently and, of course, the brain-dead DVD recorder lost all it's programming.
Why must video recorders, now DVD, previously VCR, lose all programming when there's a power outage? I mean everything! They don't even remember the time and date! How hard would it be for them to put flash memory and a battery-powered clock into the bloody things so that, if the power goes out, when it comes back on, they at least remember the time and date and, ideally, also any programmed recording times and channels?
You can get cell phones that are practically too small to use that include, not only the phone but cameras, GPS receivers, games, calendars, ..., programs ("apps") to do almost anything and everything but wash your dishes. But something the size and cost of a DVD recorder that can't remember what time and date it is when power is lost? That can't turn itself back on after a power failure and be ready to record what you've laboriously programmed it to record?
Have the people who design thes things never tried to use them? Or do they simply live where there are never power outages?
Digital TV: Comments to be added when time permits.
I remember when the TV season ran from about the time that kids went back to school until they were released for summer vacation at the end of the school year.
They've gradually been shortened over the years by first having short periods of re-runs during various holidays such as Thanksgiving Day, Christmas, Easter. Those periods have gradually been lengthened to the point of having largely merged so that now it seems that there's bloody little new on TV from about Hallowe'en until well into the new year.
Now, several series either end their "season" at about the start of or begin it after the end of the "holiday" hiatus.
"Reality" shows --- Enough said!
Those of you who live in the Mountain (and possibly in the Central) time zone(s) will have experienced this one. Does it occur in the "important" time zones as well? Instead of keeping each show "within" the hour (or the half hour) in which it is scheduled, the local stations frequently begin them between one and several minutes before the hour (or the half hour).
I've been wrong before but I believe that they do this to make recording the shows more difficult. Never mind that some of us have other things to do besides watch TV and may like to time shift some (or even all) of the shows that we'd like to watch. I think the FCC should require that all shows be fully contained within the hour or the half hour in which they are scheduled.
I'm sure that the sports fans who read this will think that I'm being unreasonable about this one but there are a few shows that I like to watch each week. I can't always do so at the scheduled time so I set my VCR to record them so that I can watch them at a time that is more convenient for me. But let there be some ball game or other spectator sports event and that show either goes away, begins late, or is moved to the wee hours of the morning.
And then there's the seemingly random rearrangment of the schedule. Shows are moved to a different day or a different time on the same day or a different time on a different day ...
But it isn't just the sports events that produce this effect. It occurs with each of the myriad "awards" shows, Christmas (or to be more politically correct, "Holiday") specials, and such as well.
Both the early-start policy and the frequent preemption make it very difficult to record for time shifting.
And, as if that isn't bad enough, the other networks then broadcast re-runs instead of current programming when there's a game or a special on their competition's network. So, even if the show I want to watch isn't even on the network with the pre-emption, my viewing is disrupted.
I'm told that their reasoning is that hardly anyone will watch their show if there's a game or a special on another network so why waste a fresh episode.
Well DUH!!! Of course we're not going to watch the show if it's a re-run!
And, of course, there are the "Olympic years." Every two years either the programming in winter or that in summer is not worth viewing. Summer is mostly no loss but winter... And, again, it is not only the network broadcasting the Olympic Games. Again, the competing networks switch to re-runs or specials. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy the Olympics as much as the next person. But not every single event. Some I'm interested in; some I'm not. I'd watch another network during those events that I'm not interested in --- if they weren't re-runs.
Speaking of the Olympics --- more specifically, the TV network coverage of them --- many of the events that I am interested in are usually not even mentioned, much less shown. I've long been interested in the shooting sports but those aren't politically correct enough to be shown on --- GASP! --- TV!
The US sometimes does quite well in them but even a gold medal in one of the shooting sports usually doesn't so much as merit mention on TV --- much less broadcast of the event.
I guess the networks believe that their viewers are too stupid to notice. Maybe they're right.
What we need is for a significant fraction of the TV-viewing public to forego ALL TV for a month --- hell, even a week --- to get their attention.
Of course there are the cretins who run stop signs to get in front of one --- and then slow down!
And pedestrians who think that motorists should bring 3 or 4 tons of machinery to a stop so that they don't have to stop walking for the 2 or 3 seconds that it would take the vehicle to pass even with the vehicle traveling at walking speed.
The brain-dead politicians and bureaucrats who cater for such people.
And those too busy talking on a cell phone to be bothered paying the slightest attention to what they try to pass off as "driving."
And why is it that, on a four (or more) lane highway, it's the passing lane that's chosen for use as a phone booth?
Have any of you ever encountered a "driver" (often traveling at open-highway or freeway speeds) who is busy reading a book, a magazine, or a news paper?
Pop-tops on food cans --- I have a can opener. I know how to use it. It's often easier to use than the pop-top. And even when it isn't, I prefer it.
Drawn food cans that are inappropriately used. For example, those that contain stuff that one may want to push out of the can by cutting the bottom loose with the can opener so that it can be used to push out the contents (gelled cranberry sauce, or tomato paste for example).
If you have suggestions for additions to this list of annoyances, please send them to me at the feedback address below.