I work at a roadhouse and art gallery. It’s a cloud-based app that manages our bookings. My list of complaints includes, but is not limited to:

• The software is just a shell for a VM, running on a server in Canada. This was their solution for “cloud” access… Because why bother coding an actual locally-run program to connect to an external server, when you can just connect the user directly to the server and have it run in a VM? It means everything we do is bogged down by round-trip latency to and from Canada, plus the server’s processing lag because it’s running a VM for every user that is connected. Opening an event’s detail page easily takes 15-20 seconds. So does adding/changing anything in an event. In an average day, I manage anywhere from 10-30 events. We joke that all of our events are planned via carrier pigeon, because of the latency and long load times.
• It cannot send an alert to users when specific things are changed on a booking. Our labor manager wants to be able to get an alert whenever an event planner changes the labor. Makes sense, right? This was marketed as a key feature of the software, and it was why the labor manager originally wanted to use the software. It is entirely broken.
• The software also features a website, for the part timers to be able to access the event data… The website is completely broken.
• The website cannot show event drawings or floor plans, despite the fact that the floor plans are a large part of the part-timers’ jobs. They set the rooms up prior to events, but they can’t see what they’re supposed to set up, because the website doesn’t support that feature. This was marketed as a feature when we purchased the software.
• To work around the lack of room diagrams on the website, I tried to set up an automated report to compile the day’s event setups, and email them to everyone. I set up a filter to ignore events without a diagram, so only events with listed drawings would show up in the report. The filter works when I run it manually. The automated report ignores the filter, and spits out a ton of blank pages for each empty event. This has resulted in a “boy who cried wolf” effect, where the part-timers don’t bother checking the automated report because they assume it will be like 40 empty pages.
• the server has a 20 minute session timer. You’d think this means you can be logged in for 20 minutes at a time… Maybe even that it starts counting after your last activity, so you can remain logged in while active, then get automatically logged out after you walk away… You would be incorrect. The server logs every user out, on a rolling 20 minute timer. You just logged in 60 seconds before the timer tripped? Fuck you, log in again. It isn’t even on a nice round number, (like every hour on the :00, :20, and :40 marks), because the timer is based on whenever the server was last rebooted. Logging in easily takes 45-60 seconds for the VM to load.

Again, this is a non-exhaustive list. These are simply the more mind-numbingly frustrating things I have to deal with on a daily basis.

There’s always a trade-off in some way, though. For instance, Toyota is one of the best in regards to keeping physical controls. But they’re basically the worst offender in regards to data privacy. “Insist” is fine on paper, but (unless you’re a millionaire who can afford a custom-built car) you’re inevitably going to have to purchase one on the existing market. And the existing market is all about digital controls and privacy violations.

Saying “just don’t get one that has those things” is a little like saying “just don’t get a house that catches on fire” after a wildfire rips through an area. It’s not exactly up to the customer, and the average person could never hope to afford the custom work that those kinds of requirements would entail.

Yeah, replacing the motherboard is when I begin to consider building a new one and repurposing my current one. Because if I’m replacing the mobo, I’m probably going to have to replace the CPU and RAM, because the sockets will be different. And at that point, I might as well just go ahead and replace the PSU too, so the rating is up to date. Now I can rip out my old GPU and move it over, but that would leave my old build without one… And what if I wanted to use it for something that would potentially need a GPU, like a 4k Plex/Jellyfin server? My cooler can probably be repurposed, at least?

Even worse, one of those two votes is often enough to kill the entire thing, because they have unilateral “it has to be unanimous” or “this one specific country can overrule everyone else” rules on the important shit.

you don’t have to say shit to law enforcement without a warrant.

FTFY. The fifth amendment doesn’t have any kind of “unless a judge says so” clause in it. You cannot be compelled to testify against yourself. Period, end of statement, full stop, do not pass Go or collect $200. A warrant gives them the ability to compel a search of your stuff, but it doesn’t compel you to talk.

Ask for their name and badge number. They should write it down so you can have a copy. Ask for a warrant signed by a judge. Don’t say anything. Don’t sign anything. Ask if you’re free to go. If they say you’re free to go, then fucking go. They don’t need to read your miranda rights unless you’re actually detained, but they can still use everything against you. If you’re not free to go, you’re being detained and should ask for a lawyer.

Cops will try to “interview” you in a casual setting, (where you’re technically free to go, but most people won’t think to ask), meaning they can use everything against you without reading your miranda rights. And they WILL use it against you.

Your computer was working overtime to send all the data via that cups-and-string connection.

Reminds me of when I ended up playing a changeling. Five players plus the DM; two players were transgender, and one was non-binary. We were going around the table introducing our characters. They had all finished, and I was last. Notably, when I introduced my character, I didn’t bother saying their pronouns. One of the other players asked, and I just deadpanned “Changeling…”

The collective lightbulb moment was like that one scene in 22 Jump Street. All three of them took a beat, then immediately crashed out when they realized the straight cis dude was the one playing a changeling, and that they hadn’t thought of it first.

Even worse, many data agencies will use the Do Not Track flag as an additional datapoint to add to your fingerprint.

This shit should be mandated, with strict “the company has been burned to the ground and the ashes have been salted” levels of penalties for violating it.

I personally use Cleanuparr, but the idea is the same. It monitors your downloads, and issues strikes for anything that fails certain criteria (like being stalled, or downloading metadata, or downloading too slow). If a download collects too many strikes, Cleanuparr will remove it and automatically tell the *arr service to block the download and retry the search. It also includes file extension blocking, to automatically block and retry the junk “Fantastic_Four_First_Steps_(1080p).mkv.exe” types of scam posts.

Unfortunately, the Sonarr devs have specifically said that they have no interest in including a “delay searching until after the official release date” option. Their response to the issue has basically been “use better trackers where those fakes don’t get posted.”

I used to only pirate things that I owned in different formats, (like owning a DVD, but wanting to watch it on my iPad), or planned on buying in the near future. But nowadays, it feels more like stealing from billionaires is a moral imperative.

It’s honestly amazing how many crackers and media uploaders are Russian. I’ve always joked that if another Iron Curtain happens, America will have to start paying for Netflix again.

Thank god for user tags. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this user being confidently wrong on multiple levels.

For the unaware: Kape has a history of bundling malware into software that they have purchased. Like they’ll buy out an existing piece of software, then bundle malware into updates for that purchased sodtware. I remember a lot of PIA users fled when Kape bought it a while ago. PIA hasn’t had any bad updates yet, but it’s still putting a lot of trust into a company with a rocky history.

Notably, PIA is one of the few VPNs that still provides port forwarding. Most VPNs dropped port forwarding support a while ago.

Lighting is only part of the issue. In order to get a consistently reproducible product, growers also try to maintain a consistent temperature, humidity, and airflow. All of which quickly adds up to massive energy consumption. Weed grows best in mild humidity and pretty high temperatures. Which means that in the winter, they end up heating and humidifying the entire house to what would essentially be tropical levels. And in the summer, they’re worried about consistent airflow and dehumidifying. And dehumidifiers eat a lot of energy.

There’s a reason cops use thermal imaging to find grow houses. Under infrared, they light up like a beacon. Cops can just fly a helicopter around town, and flag any houses that look abnormal:

And the bike route is actually crossing several major roads.

It’s worse: The bike route is on a two lane highway with no shoulder. I’d be dead on Day 1 if I actually tried to walk/ride a bike.

Out of curiosity, which book?

Yeah, my ratios skyrocketed when I finally got access to fiber. Went from struggling to hit 1.0, to easily hitting 150.0. My highest ratio is nearly 1000.

If it exists, it is better than American public transit. Here is my daily commute to work, as estimated by Google Maps:

Even Google goes “lmao use a fucking car, peasant.”

It’s technically possible for me to take public transit, but it would be about the same as walking. Here is a quick sketch of the route I’d need to take, compared to my drive:

That route is because there are no east/west lines between me and my job. It starts by walking/riding my bike the wrong direction to get to the nearest bus stop. Then it takes me south-west through two cities, then north-west through two more cities. Then I’d have a ~20 minute walk to transfer rail lines, because my job is serviced by a different rail system than the one that my bus service touches. After that walk (and waiting for the next train) I take it north and then have to walk another 10-15 minutes to finally get to work.

Not counting wait times, it would take me nearly 2.5 hours to use public transit. When you consider the fact that some busses and trains only run once every 20-45 minutes, it actually stretches closer to 3-4 hours, if the schedules don’t line up. Or I could just fucking drive 10 minutes. Yeah, it’s no wonder Americans use cars for everything.

LazyLibrarian seems to be the most viable alternative. It has always been overshadowed by Readarr, mostly because everyone wanted to stay within the *arr stack. But maybe with Readarr shutting down, we’ll get some more community support for LL.