The little things that piss you off

[allegro]

Ring Pro video doorbell.

Whoa man that sucks.

FWIW we have had a SkyBell HD for about a year and we LOVE it. We had a bit of trouble with it for a few weeks, initially, but I called customer service and they updated the firmware remotely and it’s been flawless ever since. We use an Apple Extreme wireless router that’s pretty far away from the front door (in the basement), so we also have an Airport Express in the living room that bumps it up to what SkyBell deems “fair” which is average for most users. It works great with our Apple watches, too.

The freakiest part was in the summer, when my phone would make that distinctive “BrrrrrEEEEEENG” sound meaning the SkyBell detected movement ... and it was, like, THREE A.M. I’d be like OMG then I’d look at the porch, nothing.

Then I’d look at the recorded footage AT A SPIDER CRAWLING ACROSS THE CAMERA omg lol. Happened all friggin’ summer.

The power supply IS an important issue with these doorbell cameras, though. It's why we had ours professionally installed with our security system. I had NO idea if the power supply to our old doorbell (house was built in 1956) was adequate (it was), but if you look this up online the power supply issue is HUGE. (You should also be able to control the camera sensitivity as well as the night vision sensitivity in your phone app.)

.

[klyrish]

Then I’d look at the recorded footage AT A SPIDER CRAWLING ACROSS THE CAMERA omg lol. Happened all friggin’ summer.

Gross.

The power supply IS an important issue with these doorbell cameras, though. It's why we had ours professionally installed with our security system. I had NO idea if the power supply to our old doorbell (house was built in 1956) was adequate (it was), but if you look this up online the power supply issue is HUGE.

Yeah, and it's definitely not an issue with WiFi signal strength or power levels. Minimum voltage required is 3900mV and at the moment, it's at 4,048mV and I've seen it as high as ~4,500mV. Maybe it was due to massive power draws yesterday because we were having the insulation in both attics (never buy a split-level house) removed and replaced and they had a number of high-powered lights and blowing/sucking units running, one of which required the 220v outlet the dryer uses. Now that I'm thinking about it, that does make sense. Maybe it was a momentary drop in voltage because there were numerous parts throughout the day where lights dimmed/flickered due to power draw and the furnace was running pretty much nonstop due to the open doors and and windows.

The WiFi there's no excuse for. We've got 250Mbps Blast Pro Xtreme (or something equally lame) from Comcast through an AirPort Extreme. The chime has 100% signal and is in 25 feet back in a straight, unobstructed line from the doorbell. It's infuriating.

(You should also be able to control the camera sensitivity as well as the night vision sensitivity in your phone app.)

They must've changed something then because there are absolutely no controls for night vision and the only other control besides setting the motion zones it should focus on is a 5-point slider ranging from "people only" to "all activity" and I've spent way more time than I care to admit with that slider. From what I've gathered on Reddit, they introduced an update back in August that forces night vision whereas before, oftentimes it would stay on the daytime camera which actually works. It used to be great before that update but since then, there have been nonstop complaints very similar to mine. It's very frustrating.

Everything I read about competitors seems like there are similar or different-but-equally-frustrating issues with them and there's no perfect solution. I feel like the only real option is to either get rid of it and go back to a regular doorbell or stick with the known the quantity unless it gets substantially worse. Regarding the night vision, I'm considering jury rigging a mirror to reflect more light onto the Ring so that it keeps the regular daytime camera on. My wife put a ribbon on the light right above the Ring and for the first few days, one of the pieces hanging down was reflecting enough light that it kept the daytime camera on and it actually worked throughout the night. Of course a slight breeze shifted the ribbon ever so slightly and now it's back to night vision.

[allegro]

I have a porch light that I leave on so lighting is not an issue for us and the picture is gorgeous. FWIW.

[klyrish]

Same. The Ring is directly beneath it but it's not enough light somehow.

[allegro]

Same. The Ring is directly beneath it but it's not enough light somehow.

Here is a download from my SkyBell HD from a few minutes ago (6:58 pm): https://imgur.com/a/Jj6qzuZ

Don’t know if this is the quality you’re looking for or not.

I can see across the street. My porch light isn’t very bright. SkyBell allows me to change the color of its built-in light, so right now it’s red for Christmas

[klyrish]

Here is a download from my SkyBell HD from a few minutes ago (6:58 pm): https://imgur.com/a/Jj6qzuZ

Don’t know if this is the quality you’re looking for or not.

I can see across the street. My porch light isn’t very bright. SkyBell allows me to change the color of its built-in light, so right now it’s red for Christmas

Damn, that's what I want. That's how the Ring is when the regular camera stays on at night. I tried to find an archived video from nighttime but of course there aren't any. Sigh. If I wasn't so hamstrung with the placement of this thing being right next to the brick column, I don't think I'd have any issues. I suppose we could always have someone come out and rewire the doorbell, placing it elsewhere.

[allegro]

Yeah, that might be a good idea. Ours is right next to our door. The SkyBell archives our footage for, like, EVER I think. I have to go into my app and delete them so they don't gunk up my app, LOL.

I had some pretty funny ones from Halloween.

It's currently set on the highest HD, and I'm really surprised at how CLEAR it is. Really, if you saw how friggin' DIM my porch light is, you'd shit. We don't want tons of bugs in the summer. It isn't nearly as bright as it looks in that download footage. And it was already pretty damned dark out when that was captured at 6:58 pm.

Edit: It archives about a week.

[Demogorgon]

Ignorant, judgemental people who invent stereotypes for you where none exist.

[Krazy]

Glitter. Seriously, fuck that shit that embeds in your skin/desk top, clothes, steering wheel, etc.

I hope the masochist who invented that crap ended their final breath by choking on it. Heh.

[ImTheWiseJanitor]

Glitter. Seriously, fuck that shit that embeds in your skin/desk top, clothes, steering wheel, etc.

I hope the masochist who invented that crap ended their final breath by choking on it. Heh.

Two years ago, for Christmas, one of the office staff here thought it would be cute to shoot a slow-mo video of her blowing a full handful glitter into the air in front of a Christmas tree. Inside the main lobby. On textured tile floor.

I was livid, and (without exploding on her or anything like that) I made sure she knew why, as the person who CLEANS THAT FLOOR, I wasn’t happy with it. To this day there’s still bits of it in the cracks and creases of the tile. That shit NEVER goes away.

[Krazy]

Two years ago, for Christmas, one of the office staff here thought it would be cute to shoot a slow-mo video of her blowing a full handful glitter into the air in front of a Christmas tree. Inside the main lobby. On textured tile floor.

I was livid, and (without exploding on her or anything like that) I made sure she knew why, as the person who CLEANS THAT FLOOR, I wasn’t happy with it. To this day there’s still bits of it in the cracks and creases of the tile. That shit NEVER goes away.

I never liked it, but the tipping point for me was about 15 years ago. I was working part time at a dollar store during the holidays and that crap would stick to my hands and is near impossible to get ALL of it off. Shit embedded to the steering wheel of my Jeep. I traded the Jeep in back in March of 2012, with glitter still on the steering wheel. I couldn't wipe it off, and wasn't about to put pock marks in the wheel by attempting to stab it with a scalpel. Ugh.

[Krazy]

^^ tape.

I tried stuff, after awhile it was just embedded. Didn’t wanna goncrazy with cleaning products and turn the steering wheel into mush.

[tfang]

There is a guy in the office that brought in a xmas clock. Fine, great decorate for the holidays, more power to ya. This fucking thing goes off every hour on the hour playing xmas music... It is taking every ounce of my patience not to smash that tinny, obnoxious noise maker into a thousand pieces.

[heavenly_bearded]

Why the hell are we abbreviating "Private Messages" as "DM" here and everywhere else? Instagram is stupid...

[theimage13]

Why the hell are we abbreviating "Private Messages" as "DM" here and everywhere else? Instagram is stupid...

Because they're direct messages, and given how rampant phishing attacks are, "private" can be a bit of a misnomer.

[ImTheWiseJanitor]

By all means, take your hour-long lunch break and then show up with two bags of food to loudly eat them in a quiet room 5 feet from me.

Not like your lunch break is meant for you to eat your lunch or anything.

[Halo Infinity]

Why the hell are we abbreviating "Private Messages" as "DM" here and everywhere else? Instagram is stupid...

I was also wondering about that for quite some time. That's also the same exact case with Twitter.

Because they're direct messages, and given how rampant phishing attacks are, "private" can be a bit of a misnomer.

Thanks for letting me know, since there is a stance that they're both the same thing. But anyway, it's good to know even though I also got used to using the terms "Direct Message/DM" on Instagram and Twitter.

By all means, take your hour-long lunch break and then show up with two bags of food to loudly eat them in a quiet room 5 feet from me.

Not like your lunch break is meant for you to eat your lunch or anything.

I see what you mean, not just because of the way the time was blatantly misused, but also because I've been brought up to eat as quietly as possible, and even as far away from others as possible if given the chance, and that also went beyond schools and workplaces.

I like that you brought this up, since this is a work-related type of gripe involving food/eating. My gripe concerning lunch is the fact that there are people that will not just openly ask what you're eating and put you on blast for what you're eating when it isn't even their business, but will also have the nerve to get way too close, stare at your food and then ask if you'd share it with them, or ask why you aren't sharing it with them.

From having an upbringing that taught me not to discuss others' food, and taught me to also not look at it, it's very grating on me. I'll admit that I also used to think it was okay to ask for food to be shared until I saw it from the other way around, and well, I either forgot or just didn't listen, but even my parents were of the opinion that you don't ask for people to share their food, no matter how polite your requests are worded and sound. If anything, it is up to the other person to offer you some of their food instead, and that you might as well just mind your own business and let them eat in peace.

But yeah. I never got this and even being offered food, as nice as it is, is something I'm still not used to.

I'm not necessarily talking about food that's being originally offered/agreed/intended to be shared in advance. I'm talking about people that also always offer the rest of their food or some of their food because they can't finish it, which wasn't originally intended to be shared. As much as possible, I always try my best to never order more than I can finish.

As for a non-work-related issue I have with the way food is sometimes offered, it's also hard for me to get used to have food being constantly offered to me at parties where I can also get the food myself. I've been told time and time again that's a part Filipino culture though, but all I could think of is, "If I wanted it, I would've gotten it already." to "I'm taking my time here. If anything I should pace myself properly as I'm eating, unless I want to get too full on gluttony and run the risk of getting heartburn. I also don't want everything on my plate all at once either. I might not want it now, but I probably might want it later on."

[ImTheWiseJanitor]

I see what you mean, not just because of the way the time was blatantly misused, but also because I've been brought up to eat as quietly as possible, and even as far away from others as possible if given the chance, and that also went beyond schools and workplaces.

I like that you brought this up, since this is a work-related type of gripe involving food/eating. My gripe concerning lunch is the fact that there are people that will not just openly ask what you're eating and put you on blast for what you're eating when it isn't even their business, but will also have the nerve to get way too close, stare at your food and then ask if you'd share it with them, or ask why you aren't sharing it with them.

From having an upbringing that taught me not to discuss others' food, and taught me to also not look at it, it's very grating on me. I'll admit that I also used to think it was okay to ask for food to be shared until I saw it from the other way around, and well, I either forgot or just didn't listen, but even my parents were of the opinion that you don't ask for people to share their food, no matter how polite your requests are worded and sound. If anything, it is up to the other person to offer you some of their food instead, and that you might as well just mind your own business and let them eat in peace.

But yeah. I never got this and even being offered food, as nice as it is, is something I'm still not used to.

I'm not necessarily talking about food that's being originally offered/agreed/intended to be shared in advance. I'm talking about people that also always offer the rest of their food or some of their food because they can't finish it, which wasn't originally intended to be shared. As much as possible, I always try my best to never order more than I can finish.

As for a non-work-related issue I have with the way food is sometimes offered, it's also hard for me to get used to have food being constantly offered to me at parties where I can also get the food myself. I've been told time and time again that's a part Filipino culture though, but all I could think of is, "If I wanted it, I would've gotten it already." to "I'm taking my time here. If anything I should pace myself properly as I'm eating, unless I want to get too full on gluttony and run the risk of getting heartburn. I also don't want everything on my plate all at once either. I might not want it now, but I probably might want it later on."

I feel like I wasn't necessarily raised similarly in that regard, but I DID pick up that tendency on my own as I grew older. I generally don't like to eat around others if there isn't some kind of ambient noise going on, and I especially get bothered when a room is dead silent to the point that I can hear the other person chewing and swallowing. Even if they aren't being overly loud about it, it drives me nuuuts, so I think that flips back onto me and I feel like anyone near me would hear me eating, too. It's completely different in a restaurant setting or in a case where we're both eating, but in other cases it makes me feel like I'm being rude to the other person, even if they've expressed they don't mind. I mind, especially if they're the type of person I know wouldn't say anything if they COULD hear me eating.

On that same topic of people hovering too close/asking for some of my food: There was a person I used to work with - she was generally very nice, but one thing I noticed that she liked to do was look over someone's food and literally just pick pieces off without asking first, without any pretense that would suggest they were okay with that. The time that really got to me was in the middle of our "Turn" period at work (two weeks in August where we flip every empty room on property to prepare for new residents, 60-80 hours per week, EXTREMELY stressful time). We'd had a ton of pizza delivered for everyone to eat on our break, so I'd gone into the office when it was my turn to get something to eat. Been busy all day, starving, ready to refuel and just sit in peace for a minute before I went back to work. She was working in the office the entire time just watching the front desk, so the food was actually available to her practically any time she wanted it. However, despite that, she waited until I came to get my own food after working all morning, and took it upon herself to pick pepperonis off my pizza while the plate was in my hand . After I hadn't eaten all morning, and WHOLE slices of it were available to her. I don't need to elaborate on how aggravated I was about that, heh, but it was definitely frustrating to say the least. "Look...I'm only going to ask this one time, but PLEASE don't do that again. There are whole boxes of pizza available, you don't need any of mine." We didn't talk so much after that, heh. I tried to be polite, absolutely, but when you're that drained after a week of day-long labor and lack of sleep, composure tends to erode slightly. ^^'

[elevenism]

Facebook is so fucking creepy.
All this rheumatoid arthritis stuff is coming up in my feed. I got that diagnosis like 4 days ago and did NOT post anything about it on Facebook.
I told @thelastdisciple and a couple of other people on messenger though.

So it reads our messages to find out what we might buy, and God knows what else.

Imagine the type of personality profile that could be compiled from your Facebook info, plus geolocations, plus all the info in your "private" messages. I bet the CIA would like to build a database like that.

Privacy is officially over, it would seem.

[Jinsai]

I’m trying to explain to an acquaintance that his use of the term NPC as a pejorative is playing into 4Chan-troll drift discourse, especially since he seems unaware that the term NPC is originally derived from geeky gamer/RPG stuff rerendered as “social commentary.” I don’t think he gets it, and now I’m starting to see why these nerd coded “passwords” are so effective

[theimage13]

Facebook is so fucking creepy.
All this rheumatoid arthritis stuff is coming up in my feed. I got that diagnosis like 4 days ago and did NOT post anything about it on Facebook.
I told @thelastdisciple and a couple of other people on messenger though.

So it reads our messages to find out what we might buy, and God knows what else.

Imagine the type of personality profile that could be compiled from your Facebook info, plus geolocations, plus all the info in your "private" messages. I bet the CIA would like to build a database like that.

Privacy is officially over, it would seem.

Doesn't even need to be written down. A colleague and I were talking about houses in catering the other day, and one of the things we're talking about is how a dishwasher (or rather, lack thereof) wouldn't be a dealbreaker as long as a house looked like it could easily accommodate an installation, or at least a portable dishwasher.

Five minutes later, he pulls his phone out to browse facebook (via Safari, no less...doesn't even have the app) and he's got all these ads for portable dishwashers. He has literally never talked about them or looked at them before.

Oh, and I have Google Fi for my cell service (for now). You know how I get my voicemail? They have an automated speech-to-text algorithm that listens to it and sends me a text of the transcript. Yeah, Google is literally reading my voicemail. (Of which I get roughly two a year, both from some auto insurance scams, which is why I'm not personally bothered by it.)

[halo eighteen]

Tumblr's gone in full on censorship mode with all adult content today, but hate speech and nazis are still totally okay.

[Sarah K]

Sounds like Tumbler is the new Fetlife.

[eversonpoe]

Tumblr's gone in full on censorship mode with all adult content today, but hate speech and nazis are still totally okay.

Sounds like Tumbler is the new Fetlife.

i've been on tumblr for nine and a half years and i've spelled it that way for so long that the actual word "tumbler" looks wrong, to me. like my fingers try to avoid hitting the E in there haha

also, some of the posts it flagged on my old nude self portrait tumblr are so tame (like, some of them are literally just my upper torso...or my back), and there are others where you can almost clearly see my junk that didn't get flagged. what a fucking joke.

[Haysey_Draws]

While i don't agree with removing the adult content on Tumblr my understanding is it was to tackle child porn on the site. From what i've heard, kids have been using the site to sext and otherwise share nudes publicly, and tumblr has been so fucking bad at trying (or lack there of) to moderate the site that once Apple removed the app from the store due to it they had no choice but to remove adult content whole sale it stop it.
If they'd just moderate the site correctly to begin with this (and many MANY other problems on the site) wouldn't have be an issue...but they've pretty much just killed themselves for their own laziness...brilliant.

[halo eighteen]

i've been on tumblr for nine and a half years and i've spelled it that way for so long that the actual word "tumbler" looks wrong, to me. like my fingers try to avoid hitting the E in there haha

also, some of the posts it flagged on my old nude self portrait tumblr are so tame (like, some of them are literally just my upper torso...or my back), and there are others where you can almost clearly see my junk that didn't get flagged. what a fucking joke.

I second this. My second account is expectedly stunted as of yesterday, however there's stuff that's flagged/removed for me on my main account that really shouldn't be according to the rules. Then again, I've made some test/protest posts that are still totally there, so whatever. It is a joke and at this point I'm just gonna continue treating it as such until I get bored. Which is probably already happening. Also, color me intrigued haha.

While i don't agree with removing the adult content on Tumblr my understanding is it was to tackle child porn on the site. From what i've heard, kids have been using the site to sext and otherwise share nudes publicly, and tumblr has been so fucking bad at trying (or lack there of) to moderate the site that once Apple removed the app from the store due to it they had no choice but to remove adult content whole sale it stop it.

I think the Apple thing is way more the reason. Kids aren't using tumblr, they're using snapchat and kik or whatever else is hip lol.

[Haysey_Draws]

I think the Apple thing is way more the reason. Kids aren't using tumblr, they're using snapchat and kik or whatever else is hip lol.

I could be wrong, but from the few bits i heard from various podcasts that touched on it Apple removed the app because of the CP on the site, rather then just because of the adult content, though they may have just used the CP issue as a way to get them to remove adult stuff. Either way, CP was a major issue on the site.

[theimage13]

FedEx just fucked up two of my presents that will now go from being comfortably early to arriving after Christmas.

And I just overfilled a fluid in my car and have no straws, tubing, basters, pumps, etc, which means I have to walk half an hour in this wonderful sub-freezing windchill to go buy something to get this shit out of the car.

Merry fucking Christmas to me.

[elevenism]

So I got the autoimmune disorder for xmas, and NOW, the FLU!

I currently have a fever of 103.

Fuuuuuuck sake. I hope I can get it down without going to the hospital.

I WONDERED why I felt so strange and emotional and shit!

[Pillfred]

If the phone is only the the price the tag says it is if it's activated in store with a new account, make it more obvious. Don't make me wait 25 minutes to find out. Also Best Buy why have 50 employees but only one able to do phone shit? Sent from my freshly cracked screen phone.

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