totm nov 2023 Thread to discuss negative things in a very general way, just see where it goes y'know?

[Nuke]

cats. yesterday i decided to give the floor a good cleaning. the house was starting to stink. this morning one of my cats managed to create no fewer than a dozen piles of vomit on the floor. there is some law of physics that says that no floor may stay clean for more than 24 hours. had it not been the cats it would have just as well been mom, or some unexpected visitor with mud boots (like the maintenance man for the building). this is the kind of bs that makes me not want to clean house.

[AlamoVampire]

@Nuke i hope kitty is ok!

 

i have a sign by my front door stating i charge 50$ per minute with an 11 minute minimum time for door to door solicitation/religious bs and yes its plain view directly above my door bell. Says you acknowledge and accept these charges by ringing my bell or knocking on my door yet they still do it anyway. I hate solicitors!

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[Nuke]

like most food poisoning once you get it out of your system you are usually fine. she seems ok today. idk what she ate though, the other cat ate the same food and didnt have a problem. maybe she had some unauthorized fast food. i doubt it though, she is incredibly lazy.

Edited December 13 by Nuke

[AlamoVampire]

@Nuke maybe she ate super fast and gave herself an upset stomach?

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[Nuke]

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Nuke maybe she ate super fast and gave herself an upset stomach?

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yea probibly, she is quite fat.

today she belly flopped right on top of my lego star wars advent calendar in an attempt to cuddle.  she also knocked my coke off the desk.

Edited December 14 by Nuke

[AlamoVampire]

Im going to scream. Im having an issue with paramount plus where it wasnt recording my progress with a show. No big deal web says a quick relog into my paramount plus account should fix it. Well i cant log back in on the ONE device i need it on. My ps5. The throbber just circles endlessly. Been 15 freaking minutes of this. Ive rebooted, restarted, tried from the web. You name it. It wont complete the log in on my ps5. Yes my account is in good standing, yes i can log into my account on the web. I need it to connect via ps5. Yes its an active device 4 times over at this point. It has no reason beyond upsetting me to not connect.

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<screams in frustration> now it connects… still no idea why its like this but its still refusing to log progress…. <screams in frustration again then weeps in frustration and loneliness>
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Edited December 15 by AlamoVampire

[Mr. Kerbin]

@AlamoVampire
You can have paramount plus…

On a PlayStation 5???

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Edited December 15 by Mr. Kerbin

[AlamoVampire]

1 minute ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

@AlamoVampire
You can have paramount plus…

On a PlayStation 5???

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Yup! Ive had it for a while. I forget when it was added to the app catalog for ps5.

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[Mr. Kerbin]

Just now, AlamoVampire said:

Yup! Ive had it for a while. I forget when it was added to the app catalog for ps5.

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Huh.

Yeah, sometimes I have the same problem with Peacock, and then I have to figure out what episode I was watching.

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[AlamoVampire]

Im frustrated. I needed to borrow my dads wifi since spectrum hard coded my wifi antennas off because my cable modem is 6ish years old and they dont want to support it any more. Why did i need to borrow wifi? Because apple demanded my cell use wifi to update my ios because god forbid i use cellular data to download something. Then after updating to 18.2 i find its force installed a password app that i removed, and it screwed with my email. Then lets not forget im debating involving 3 attorneys general in my other problem.

ugh

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[Nuke]

there is a local custom why by local businesses and organizations put free snacks and sometimes booze out for their patrons in the prelude up till christmas. a custom i usually avoid like the plague for its uncanny ability to draw uncomfortable crowds. turns out today there is such a thing across the street from the place i for for my weekly therapy session. at first mom wanted to go to it. and initially im fine with it, its only across the street and a minor diversion from my usual routine. i told her i could drop her off and join her after my session (she has a mobility scooter, she could go to any of them by herself if she wanted). then she decided she didnt feel well and that she wanted to stay home. then i said in that case i probibly wouldn't go at all, as extra snacks are not worth the anxiety (not to mention the calories, i just lost 10 pounds, i dont want them back). then she changes her mind and decides she wants to go. its up in the air whether she goes or not. but it bugs the hell out of me that me not going is not an option.

Edited December 19 by Nuke

[Nuke]

looks like youtube finally committed seppuku. now blocking after 3 videos. ball is in your court adblockers. i will not watch youtube again unless i can block ads. especially when my adblocker is blocking over 300 items. thats a lot of script i dont want running in my browser.

Edited Friday at 07:42 PM by Nuke

[Lisias]

There~s more ads on YouTube right now than on "alternative sources" for similar content nowadays.

Heck. Even... Hum... "Not Exactly Family Neither Forum Friendly Video Streaming Sites" have less ads than YouTube nowadays - and, believe it or not, less scam and bet ads too.

Got figure it out...

[Nuke]

looks like youtube relented, i can watch videos again.

[Superfluous J]

Yeah YouTube killed my Video Downloader, about a month after I finally (after using it for free for years) finally paid for it. I don't mind paying for it and losing it because I got so much value from it over the years, but I do mind losing it because it was so wonderful. It's been down for months though and doesn't look to be coming back.

At least my adblocker still works, so I can still watch ad-free.

[SunlitZelkova]

Eh, it doesn’t upset me as much. It must cost a lot to maintain nearly 2 decades worth of videos. Plus YouTube is so popular it might as well be present day TV. And lots of people rely on it for their livelihoods (YouTube is their career).

I was able to wait 1-2 minutes for commercials to end while watching TV as a kid and I am able to wait 1-2 minutes to skip ads on YouTube.

What does upset me is people’s data being harvested to “personalize” the ad experience.

[AlamoVampire]

The thing about the ads is they are getting worse. Ad blockers are fine if you can use them, but for those like me who watch youtube on a console like ps5 for myself you have no ad blocker. Even youtube premium is not ad free anymore. Sure it calls itself ad free but if youtube thinks an ad is relevant to it it will force the ad on you from what ive heard. Worse are the ones that force 5-6 ads on you before enabling skip. Its done under the guise of “fewer ad breaks for this longer video” but its forcing more ads on you. 
 

Im seeing a trend in society that scares me…

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Edited Sunday at 10:24 AM by AlamoVampire

[Lisias]

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I was able to wait 1-2 minutes for commercials to end while watching TV as a kid and I am able to wait 1-2 minutes to skip ads on YouTube.

And this is precisely the point: YouTube was intended to provide us a better user experiente, it was their whole selling point - to be different from TVs.

yes, we had  about 2 minutes of commercials each 20 minutes of show on a 1 hour program - so 60 / 20 = 3 intervals, summing about 6 minutes - a bit more for 90 minutes show. On YouTube I'm getting at least 2 30 secs ads to watch a 5 minute video! I'm arbitrarily interrupted at any point of a video for ads, without any previous warning - severely hindering my attention! It's like someone yelling "I'm selling donuts!" in a library on random times, it's just enervating and annoying.

YouTube, today, is one of the worst user experience I ever had. The only thing that still adds some value to me is that some very interesting videos are only available there. For while.

 

6 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Im seeing a trend in society that scares me…

I couldn't agree more!

Edited Sunday at 03:38 PM by Lisias
Tyops, as usulla...

[Nuke]

17 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Eh, it doesn’t upset me as much. It must cost a lot to maintain nearly 2 decades worth of videos. Plus YouTube is so popular it might as well be present day TV. And lots of people rely on it for their livelihoods (YouTube is their career).

I was able to wait 1-2 minutes for commercials to end while watching TV as a kid and I am able to wait 1-2 minutes to skip ads on YouTube.

What does upset me is people’s data being harvested to “personalize” the ad experience.

its not so much the ads but the 300+ items they want to run in the background. i take my cyber security seriously. i have no proiblem watching the sponsor ads that youtubers inject, and i can skip them if im not interested. id rather support the content creators directly instead of through an evil empire company. if its about cost of doing business they could just limit higher resolutions to premium subscribers, moderate bitrates for ads, and dont force the issue at lower bitrates. they farm personal info and make money off of it, that ought to pay for something.

[SunlitZelkova]

9 hours ago, Lisias said:

And this is precisely the point: YouTube was intended to provide us a better user experiente, it was their whole selling point - to be different from TVs.

I’d argue because TV has been sidelined, YouTube is the new TV, and the costs associated with maintaining a platform billions use requires them to use methods of gaining revenue.

9 hours ago, Lisias said:

yes, we had  about 2 minutes of commercials each 20 minutes of show on a 1 hour program - so 60 / 20 = 3 intervals, summing about 6 minutes - a bit more for 90 minutes show. On YouTube I'm getting at least 2 30 secs ads to watch a 5 minute video! I'm arbitrarily interrupted at any point of a video for ads, without any previous warning - severely hindering my attention! It's like someone yelling "I'm selling donuts!" in a library on random times, it's just enervating and annoying.

I agree with this. Also, I don’t think ads should be placed on uploads of albums that just have the cover on the screen and no movement. People don’t watch those so it’s ridiculous to put visual ads on them.

That said, I disagree with the library analogy. YouTube is not a library; in the two countries I’m familiar with (Japan & US) virtually all libraries (apart from private universities’) are publicly owned. YouTube is privately owned and is able to do whatever it wants, they have no obligation to listen to some users’ requests.

It could be argued that YouTube is so ubiquitous and important as a source of information that it shouldn’t be treated like a normal private business, but existing beliefs about business practice don’t require YouTube to do anything.

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I’d argue because TV has been sidelined, YouTube is the new TV, and the costs associated with maintaining a platform billions use requires them to use methods of gaining revenue.

So had to do TVs in the past. There was a reason we had a 2 minute interval each 20 minutes, and not a 5 minute interval each 10 minutes: people would give them the one finger salute and go watch another channel.

Expect to see similar happenings on YouTube. AI is getting good to the point that soon we will be able to capture the video stream using AI and it will strip off the commercial from the stream before saving it on the harddisk.

It's an arm's race - in which everybody will loose, because in the end YouTube failing to make enough money means that we will lose it.

 

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It could be argued that YouTube is so ubiquitous and important as a source of information that it shouldn’t be treated like a normal private business, but existing beliefs about business practice don’t require YouTube to do anything.

Current, not existing. In the past the FTC had intervened and even broke apart companies to prevent monopolies to thrive.

I wonder if the recent harsh hardening of the YT's rules would not be related to it: since they concluded they are doomed, they want to milk the cow the most before losing, disregarding if the cow will survive healthy enough to be profitable to the new owner...

[boriz]

I use FreeTube. Can be configured to seamlessly auto-skip all ad's, promotions, embedded sponsorship, intros and outros. Basically everything but the content.  Also bypasses the annoying 'sign in' wall for adult content, which is a big bugbear of mine. Can't watch a sexy music video without creating a YT account and providing PHOTO ID?! Have you read Googles (no)privacy agreement? LOL, no thanks.

Once in a while YT figures out a way to break FT, but FT quickly issues an update. I've been enjoying YT ad-free for years.

I don't know about other countries, but here in the UK, TV ads used to be 'announced' by a small flickering square in the top corner of the screen. As a teenager, I designed a device that would look for this (literally an ORP12 stuck onto the screen) and automatically cut the volume

[AlamoVampire]

right now i am equal parts livid beyond measure and confused. I am playing Elite Dangerous and was trying to do a Power Restoration mission in the Sol System. We just <the players of Elite Dangerous> defeated a Thargoid Titan named Cocijo and are in the midst of recovering from the second Thargoid war. So anyway, I am doing a mission that is partly for me <trying to locate some very rare materials to unlock an engineer, so doing these power restore missions gives me unfettered access to ground bases so that I can scavenge for what I am looking for. Well, mid search 2 ships arrive and drop pirates. I am permitted by mission rights to be there, the pirates not so much. So, I take up arms to ya know, eliminate the pirate forces and I get killed. Really cruddy to have subpar weapons, which is why I am working on unlocking engineers. Well, for reasons unknown to me, I end up on a prison ship called the Pillar of Fortitude and have to pay a restitution to the prison ship. WHY? WHAT DID I DO WRONG??????????????????????????????????????????? Worse, because I died, the mission auto failed and my SRV Scarab <rover> is now destroyed as well... This folks is what I get for doing anything OTHER than take my ship way out into the black away from people. Why do I bother?

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[Fizzlebop Smith]

I discovered that I can watch YouTube with my phone off & not have to have YouTube premium.

As long as I log onto YouTube through browser / Google & use a BT ear pieces I can close my web browser and still listen.

I can put it to sleep and still listen. Why does this suck? Because it was not discovered sooner.

[AlamoVampire]

i am getting more and more irritated and disenfranchised by pokemon go and the alleged rules enforcement that game says it has. I am seriously considering quitting it. I know I have said that before, but, after reporting the same 2 players north of 100 times for breaking the rules, namely the following rule from section 3 subsection 3.1 of their terms of service: "Using any techniques to alter or falsify a device’s location (for example through GPS spoofing)". I witnessed these 2 players do exactly this, got video documentation OF the incident, gave it to their support staff and these 2 players <one of whom is breaking another rule regarding the use of shared or having multiple accounts with proof of that as well> and they refuse to ban these players. Cheat in a single player game all you like. Cheat in one where you are playing against other humans? NO! I have been considering whether or not to file a complaint with the attorney general of my state and california where pokemon go is head quartered <for more than the fact they wont ban the cheaters which violates the contractual agreement of the terms of service>, but, the fact that you can simply google how to cheat and not get banned and get hundreds of results sickens me. I hate it. I have played pokemon go since 2019 and the joy is being taken away by cheaters and people in power refuse to do anything about it. I have been stalked by players, harassed by players, and cannot enjoy the game because of the cheaters and reported this all to them yet they do nothing. 

SO, I ask this: should I just delete the game or keep fighting a sisyphean battle knowing that the cheaters are ultimately going to go unpunished and I am just going to lose my mind?

Also, for the mods: i have no other place to vent to, and ive kept this as benign as i can redacting certain details to keep this in the realm of venting and asking for advice.

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