Whine like a baby, now with 500% more drama!
- Thread starter strawman
- Start date
USPS and many other national postal services (Canada Post in my case) only need to exist as so far as to assign addresses to postal codes (zip codes in your cases) and to make sure they don't intersect badly. But beyond that, parcels are HANDLED by private companies. Not needed. And virtually all (if not all) lettermail can be better handled by online interactions. Actually I'll give Canada Post some credit on this one, in that you can associate your physical address with a verified email inbox for official stuff, like bills. It's not perfect, but it's not a "real" email address, so it's not spammable either. So it fulfills the "we need a way to get you a bill that you can't say 'I didn't get' so you can not pay us."
But 99% of the functions of the post office are not needed IMO. Only some very VERY corner cases with "very" international weird shipping need other co-ordination, which I'd argue could be done as well via the UN agency for it interacting with the private companies.
We are not yet at the point where we can 100% trust digital delivery for official mail IMO. Just ask every person scammed by spoof emails, or the amount of "trusted companies" that get passwords stolen. We still can't even 100% trust our voting machines to be digital.
I don't recall saying I should trust voting machines, I was talking about how you can't replace the USPS with digital mail yet, and used voting as an example (Colorado is a mail in ballot state).
This looks like you're arguing against your position that online interactions can replace physical delivery.
Getting your bank bill is a HELL of a lot different than voting. All parcel service of the federal "post offices" can be replicated by private companies. Virtually all lettermail can be replicated by email. You do not need the massive structures that exist for the edge cases (like as I mentioned, assignment of non-duplicating addresses & postal codes). Most of the rest of lettermail is bills, which online versions of have replaced for most, and "junk mail" of which spam has more than replaced as well, the benefit being most email providers filter out the spam FOR you! Already ahead of the paper mail system! Voting by mail... I'm just surprised it happens at all. I don't consider the post office all that secure.This looks like you're arguing against your position that online interactions can replace physical delivery.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'm getting pretty tired of GIFs I post from imgur not animating. And it's not our media embed system, even going direct to the URL is making the offending pictures not animate. Giphy's started sucking absolute balls now, too. The time is ripe for the next big hosting whatever to come along.
I think it's actually the tendency for newer browsers to not autoplay media content (because ads) requiring an explicit click to start.
Here's the procedure I have to follow every time someone posts an animated .GIF on the board:
"Check out this cat it's so cuuuute! <post>"
-Right-click on picture.
-Choose "show controls"
-Play/pause controls appear.
-Click play button.
-Instead of video playing, clicking the play button causes the associated imgur page to open in a new tab but with a still image.
-Right-click exact same picture in new tab.
-Choose "show controls"
-Play/pause controls appear.
-Press play button.
-Video finally starts playing OR nothing happens.
-If nothing happens, click button to convert video to PiP version
-Video zooms out to small rect in upper right corner which is finally playing.
-Quickly click button to return tiny video back to normal size.
-Watch video.
And then when I close the new tab, the embedded video in the forum is sitting there playing just fine, but unless I go through ALL THE STEPS ABOVE, it won't be.
Stupid.
--Patrick
Here's the procedure I have to follow every time someone posts an animated .GIF on the board:
"Check out this cat it's so cuuuute! <post>"
-Right-click on picture.
-Choose "show controls"
-Play/pause controls appear.
-Click play button.
-Instead of video playing, clicking the play button causes the associated imgur page to open in a new tab but with a still image.
-Right-click exact same picture in new tab.
-Choose "show controls"
-Play/pause controls appear.
-Press play button.
-Video finally starts playing OR nothing happens.
-If nothing happens, click button to convert video to PiP version
-Video zooms out to small rect in upper right corner which is finally playing.
-Quickly click button to return tiny video back to normal size.
-Watch video.
And then when I close the new tab, the embedded video in the forum is sitting there playing just fine, but unless I go through ALL THE STEPS ABOVE, it won't be.
Stupid.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
Mine's not set up to need those steps. It's seemingly random which ones work and which ones don't. This is definitely on Imgur's end.
For as much as I love booze and brew 50 gallons of mead a year, I don’t really drink much. My wife always makes fun of me about it. I have a bottle of gin in there that’s been there since we got the house built and it’s still three quarters full
If you look at my picture in last year's Santa thread, some of those bottles of booze (or some of the ones I didn't show) have been in my collection > 20 or even > 30 years. Gotta wait for just the right time, y'know?
--Patrick
My ex broke mine. Would always push on the armrests to stand up. snapped the transverse brace in half. Now my chair arms have about 3in vertical play. Fixing it would require welding the two halves back together. It’s been this way now for almost twenty years, but really until I started playing Overwatch it wasn’t a big deal.
—Patrick
Stuck in a small car and hobo-metal is blasting 
Stuck in a small car and hobo-metal is blasting
"Time to go do something outdoors tomorrow. Maybe the beach, since Lily's ankle feels better."
It's been raining since about 6am.
It's been raining since about 6am.
I picked up The Black Guard (A.J Smith) for cheap, as a hardcover. I mean, $4 or something, new. So, sure, why not give it a chance.
Pro: it's pretty good, and apparently, the author finished the series, which, for Epic Fantasy, is pretty rare these days.
Con: I can find the sequels in a similar hard cover version, for about €30 each. Or I can by mass market paperbacks, which, I mean, I often do, but then they won't look good in my library sitting next to the big hardcover first book. And it looks nice, I'd love to add three more books like that. But crap, they're expensive.
Pro: it's pretty good, and apparently, the author finished the series, which, for Epic Fantasy, is pretty rare these days.
Con: I can find the sequels in a similar hard cover version, for about €30 each. Or I can by mass market paperbacks, which, I mean, I often do, but then they won't look good in my library sitting next to the big hardcover first book. And it looks nice, I'd love to add three more books like that. But crap, they're expensive.
This may or may not become a minor win...I took a chance and bought all three in "mint" or "near mint" condition through AbeBooks, for a total price of €34, including shipping. This may turn out great or bite me in the ass. I fully expect gluteal pain soon, given how things have been going lately.
Aren't you in AZ now, anyway?
So, let's recap 2017 for me, shall we?
-Gained back the weight I'd lost, so I'm back to 230 lbs.
-Unable able to get or keep a job that was either barely above part-time or seasonal
-Decided to completely give up on my writing
-Started a yoga teacher training program that I'm growingly feeling like it'll just be another failure for me
-Turning 40 in 2018 and I just think it's been 40 years of a wasted, pathetic life
-As of next year, I'll have lived with my parents for four years
Why am I still even bothering?
-Gained back the weight I'd lost, so I'm back to 230 lbs.
-Unable able to get or keep a job that was either barely above part-time or seasonal
-Decided to completely give up on my writing
-Started a yoga teacher training program that I'm growingly feeling like it'll just be another failure for me
-Turning 40 in 2018 and I just think it's been 40 years of a wasted, pathetic life
-As of next year, I'll have lived with my parents for four years
Why am I still even bothering?
-Yippee skippy.
-Yeah, of two shit books that no one bought.
-No I don't. I said I'm in TEACHER TRAINING. I'm not certified and I'm not teaching.
Also, just had this lovely conversation with someone on Facebook that only made me more upset.
I was hoping last night that maybe it would feel fine in the morning, but NOPE. *grumble*Yesterday morning, my father-in-law went into the hospital because he was too weak to get out of bed (diagnosed as walking pneumonia, btw. They cleaned him up and told him to stop trying to prove he’s still young and then sent him home).
Prior to his return, I had to clear about 800ft^2 of 18in deep snow off the driveway and sidewalk last night.
The snowblower we have (a 2005 Tecumseh Snow King) is finicky and hard to keep running. I got most of the sidewalk done...and then the pull-cord broke.
So I started shoveling the driveway out by hand but then my ~20yr-old snowshovel broke on the ice that’d been plowed up into our driveway.
So I thought I’d go buy another one at the store (it was obviously overdue), but y’know...driveway not cleared yet.
So I “made do” until I could get the car out, bought a new shovel, then came back.
My back hurts.
My arms hurt.
My legs hurt.
But replacement 2-stage snowblowers are 800-1500 so at least my wallet survived.
...which is good because the upstairs plumbing started leaking through our ceiling a few weeks ago and we just got the bill for having that fixed — it’s gonna be $1500.
Buuut at least the foreclosure on my old house is finally final as of Dec 7 so I don’t have to pay that bill any more to make up for it, right? Shame about my credit score, though.
...CURSE YOU, 2017!
—Patrick
Prior to his return, I had to clear about 800ft^2 of 18in deep snow off the driveway and sidewalk last night.
The snowblower we have (a 2005 Tecumseh Snow King) is finicky and hard to keep running. I got most of the sidewalk done...and then the pull-cord broke.
So I started shoveling the driveway out by hand but then my ~20yr-old snowshovel broke on the ice that’d been plowed up into our driveway.
So I thought I’d go buy another one at the store (it was obviously overdue), but y’know...driveway not cleared yet.
So I “made do” until I could get the car out, bought a new shovel, then came back.
My back hurts.
My arms hurt.
My legs hurt.
But replacement 2-stage snowblowers are 800-1500 so at least my wallet survived.
...which is good because the upstairs plumbing started leaking through our ceiling a few weeks ago and we just got the bill for having that fixed — it’s gonna be $1500.
Buuut at least the foreclosure on my old house is finally final as of Dec 7 so I don’t have to pay that bill any more to make up for it, right? Shame about my credit score, though.
...CURSE YOU, 2017!
—Patrick