Venting thread

[Ahzoh]

Yesterday and today are agony. We are moving today but nothing is going our way. Whether that's scheduling time to get a storage pod in for some of our stuff and scheduling movers and then we see that we don't have enough space in either the 15 foot moving truck or the 16 foot pod (somehow the moving and packing company when we first moved here could fit it into a 26 foot truck but now we have more than 31 feet of stuff?). And we're tired and stressed.

[Raphael]

Yesterday and today are agony. We are moving today but nothing is going our way. Whether that's scheduling time to get a storage pod in for some of our stuff and scheduling movers and then we see that we don't have enough space in either the 15 foot moving truck or the 16 foot pod (somehow the moving and packing company when we first moved here could fit it into a 26 foot truck but now we have more than 31 feet of stuff?). And we're tired and stressed.

Good luck, Ahzoh.

[WeepingElf]

The big thing is the whole project is outside my competencies. It asks for a knowledgeable hardware engineer, something I am not. The guy did not even say he already had a spec written down, meaning I would have to work with him (and bill him) to draw one out. But for this kind of thing I would not know where to start on creating a spec.

I do know a guy (who is a hardware engineer) who, from talking with him, said that at a time in the past he'd jump on this sort of project. But he's now retired and works on hardware projects as a personal hobby now, and has no interest in taking commissions these days.

Do you have to take that job, if you are not the right person to do it? Why don't you just turn it down?

I did turn it down, and I explained the above as why.

A good decision, I think. I recently turned down a job I was offered, too, because I felt I was the wrong person for it.

[xxx]

yesterday I considered a retirement date...
I'll have to consider not drowning in conlanging then...

[malloc]

Stuff in my apartment keeps breaking for some reason. The blinds have tangled strings that make raising and lowering them nearly impossible. The kitchen sink faucet drips even when off. The toilet tank doesn't hold water because the flap has somehow morphed and no longer covers the opening to the tube that fills the bowl. Sometimes the refrigerator makes a grinding noise.

[bradrn]

Stuff in my apartment keeps breaking for some reason. The blinds have tangled strings that make raising and lowering them nearly impossible. The kitchen sink faucet drips even when off. The toilet tank doesn't hold water because the flap has somehow morphed and no longer covers the opening to the tube that fills the bowl.

Ugh, my sympathies.

Sometimes the refrigerator makes a grinding noise.

…although, isn’t this perfectly normal for refrigerators? It’s the sound of the cooling fluid being compressed and expanded, I believe.

(My parents still tell the story of how, when I was younger, I woke them up in the middle of the night saying, ‘someone’s saying my name!’. It turned out to be the grinding noise of the refrigerator, sounding like: ‘Braaaaaaaaad… Braaaaaaaaaaaaaad… Braaaaaaaaaaaaaad…’.)

[Travis B.]

You know, about your toilet, oftentimes hardware stores sell kits to repair toilets which do just that. We've done that a few times on my end.

[Travis B.]

This is very much a First World problem, but there's a nasty silicon bug in the new RP2350 I'm targeting. Someone didn't check with actual silicon that the pads worked properly in input mode with internal pull-downs set, and relied on the (incorrect) simulation model provided by the vendor of the pads, until it went out the door. Now what happens is that when pads in input mode have pull-downs set after they receive a high input they get stuck around 2.2V, which is treated as being high, until the next time they are switched out of input mode and then back into input mode. An alternative solution is to use external pull-down resistors, but that requires hardware redesign and is inconvenient. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next re-spin.

[malloc]

You know, about your toilet, oftentimes hardware stores sell kits to repair toilets which do just that. We've done that a few times on my end.

I'll look into that. For now it seems like the flap keeping the water in the tank has somehow shrunk or changed shape and no longer covers the opening adequately. Not sure how something made of plastic could do that though.

[Torco]

You know, about your toilet, oftentimes hardware stores sell kits to repair toilets which do just that. We've done that a few times on my end.

I'll look into that. For now it seems like the flap keeping the water in the tank has somehow shrunk or changed shape and no longer covers the opening adequately. Not sure how something made of plastic could do that though.

many plastics lose their flexibility with time, especially acidic, chlorinated or alkaline water, or just through thermal cycling, thus becoming more brittle and less gummy over time and making a worse seal. many home improvement stores will sell the piece to you, or an equivalent one, if you bring the old and crummy one for reference. it's preferable, as travis says, to but the whole assembly, o-rings and all

[doctor shark]

many plastics lose their flexibility with time, especially acidic, chlorinated or alkaline water, or just through thermal cycling, thus becoming more brittle and less gummy over time and making a worse seal. many home improvement stores will sell the piece to you, or an equivalent one, if you bring the old and crummy one for reference. it's preferable, as travis says, to but the whole assembly, o-rings and all

Very many do, and particularly rubbers and elastomers (which many of those parts are made from). Plus, for example, you don't know how old it was before you got into the apartment. And for a number of things, many of those things are fixable with minimal effort: our kittens, for example, love chewing on the blinds, so we recently replaced some of them. That said, I'm also used to the situation here in Europe where there are defined things that the landlord has to take care of versus what the tenant's responsible for: the blinds would be a tenant responsibility, though the fridge might be a landlord responsibility depending on whose fridge it was.


Vent: Have I mentioned how much I hate the font Aptos?

[xxx]

in my region, the water is very hard
and damages everything it passes through...
white vinegar is our friend...

[Torco]

landlords are a parasitic class overall, but mine is not as gulag-worthy as others: in generall whatever i spend on repairing the apartment i discount from the rent and that's that. I'm currently fixing a big water leak that's pissing my downstairs neighbour off, and it's nice that it won't come out of my pocket.

what's wrong with aptos ?

[malloc]

what's wrong with aptos ?

Just as importantly, what is aptos, aside from being a font I guess?

[Ares Land]

in my region, the water is very hard
and damages everything it passes through...
white vinegar is our friend...

Same here.

That said, I'm also used to the situation here in Europe where there are defined things that the landlord has to take care of versus what the tenant's responsible for: the blinds would be a tenant responsibility, though the fridge might be a landlord responsibility depending on whose fridge it was.

Oh, how does it work in the US? Who pays when something breaks?

Responsabilities are pretty well-defined here -- a minor issue with the toilet is the tenant's problem; a huge water leak would be the landlord's.

I'm currently fixing a big water leak that's pissing my downstairs neighbour off, and it's nice that it won't come out of my pocket.

Typically -- that would be the landlord's responsability; not that you can't fix it yourself, but the landlord would have to pay for it one way or another.

Though of course getting the landlord to pay can be annoying, depending on how high they are on the parasitic landlord scale. In my experience individuals renting out a house or an apartment can be lovely or insanely miserly (more often the latter, alas), huge investment funds are surprisingly honest and very easy to deal with. With public sector housing, your problem will get fixed... eventually.

what's wrong with aptos ?

Just as importantly, what is aptos, aside from being a font I guess?

Apparently it replaces Calibri in the lastest Office releases.

[doctor shark]

Oh, how does it work in the US? Who pays when something breaks?

It often depends on what's written in the lease, but, in my experience, it's very often that the tenant's on the hook unless it's due to gross negligence on the landlord's part (and, even then, good luck trying to get the landlord to fix things!).

what's wrong with aptos ?

Apparently it replaces Calibri in the lastest Office releases.

Aptos is, indeed, the new default Microsquish Office and application font. However, Aptos is, at least to my eyes, badly proportioned and poorly designed, and it's also not a nice font at all to see for/in presentations. Plus, as often happens with Microsquish software, they rolled out that change without any warning to people who were already using the software, and it's close to impossible to disable Aptos! (Well, fortunately, I normally use a Mac for most things, so I can use alternatives to Office that don't default to that font.)

[bradrn]

what's wrong with aptos ?

Apparently it replaces Calibri in the lastest Office releases.

Aptos is, indeed, the new default Microsquish Office and application font. However, Aptos is, at least to my eyes, badly proportioned and poorly designed, and it's also not a nice font at all to see for/in presentations.

I don’t think it’s badly designed, as such — it’s quite similar to Google’s Roboto. To my eyes it’s just a bit overly squarish.

Plus, as often happens with Microsquish software, they rolled out that change without any warning to people who were already using the software, and it's close to impossible to disable Aptos! (Well, fortunately, I normally use a Mac for most things, so I can use alternatives to Office that don't default to that font.)

I dunno, I saw plenty of warning before they made the switch. As I recall, they even asked people to vote on which typeface should be made default.

[doctor shark]

what's wrong with aptos ?

Apparently it replaces Calibri in the lastest Office releases.

Aptos is, indeed, the new default Microsquish Office and application font. However, Aptos is, at least to my eyes, badly proportioned and poorly designed, and it's also not a nice font at all to see for/in presentations.

I don’t think it’s badly designed, as such — it’s quite similar to Google’s Roboto. To my eyes it’s just a bit overly squarish.

For me, my main gripe is that I find it quite hideous in presentations and e-mails, and that's mostly where I see it (because it's the default font). Though also maybe I'm just not used to the font, while I am used to things like Helvetica and Arial much more. (And, as another important property, I would never use it in banknote or document design. :P)

Plus, as often happens with Microsquish software, they rolled out that change without any warning to people who were already using the software, and it's close to impossible to disable Aptos! (Well, fortunately, I normally use a Mac for most things, so I can use alternatives to Office that don't default to that font.)

I dunno, I saw plenty of warning before they made the switch. As I recall, they even asked people to vote on which typeface should be made default.

I don't often follow Microsquish's (anti-)social media, and while I'd heard rumblings of a new font being introduced, I didn't know it'd happened until I'd logged into web Office stuff one day and saw that the interface font had changed. Just like the implementation of myriad other changes to Microsoft applications, and without any warning of "hey, we're going to be changing things!".

[malloc]

For some reason, my dentist is out of town on the day I was supposed to get my biannual checkup and cleaning. The soonest they could reschedule is February, four months after my original appointment.

Also it turns out I missed the newest episode of one of my favorite shows and don't have any streaming services to watch it.

[bradrn]

I decided to count how many words I’ve written for the latest version of my documentation for Brassica. Not counting previous versions, it comes out to nearly half the length of my Master’s thesis — and I’m not even done yet! Lucky I enjoy writing… but even so, I’m getting quite sick of it.

(And before you ask why I bother, it’s mostly for the new Index Diachronica. I’m never going to have a hope of people contributing sound changes directly if I don’t give them some kind of solid guide to the sound change syntax. Also, I’m a perfectionist.)