But… I thought WE were friends… ASSHOLE!!!
sinnick
1862
Forget it Blips, it’s Glandertown.
Boring thread derails induce nerd rage in me.
Me too… Where the flying fuck is Allistar? He was the only person on here besides me that has ever gotten laid :/
So, Tom… You thought you could IP ban me eh? Wont work!
Why don’t we all get live’s? We’re all Internet geeks!
My external hard drive has a power on button which often interprets my click to turn it off as turn off-turn on :(
Any web site or app or whatever that won’t give you a useful error message. Telling me that the operation failed does nothing, NOTHING, to help me address it. The other day I tried to log into my mortgage loan and was informed, “The loan is inaccessible”. Cool! Meaning WHAT exactly? I need to call you? I need to wait an hour and try again? It’s gone? WHAT?!
Fuck. Turns out that error message means wait a while and try again later. But I guess that’s too much text to store on their server or something.
Generic error messages are generic.
The other day I saw an error page that read:
"An error occured. Please see below for details.
No detail information available."
The Qt3 book threads.
Sometimes people actually talk about the books they’re reading but a lot of time people just list a bunch of titles. Why do people do that? Are lists just that inherently fascinating? Perhaps I am missing something.
Here is a book I read this year:
Cosm.
I’ve provided no author name, no description and no opinion but now you know that I read a book and it was called Cosm, so you have knowledge that you did not have before: that I have read a book called Cosm. Hooray!
Also, people providing incomplete impressions of books while they are still reading them and said impressions often vary wildly from day to day (“I really like this book so far!” “Eh, it’s still OK.” “This book sucks.”) Even better if they neglect to follow-up with their final opinions after they finish reading the books.
But because I do not wish to raise the ire of list-loving people, I will also go against the theme of this thread and point out that many do provide good commentary on what they’ve read and give me reasons to either investigate further or perhaps approach with caution (China Miéville seems to fall into this category a lot). So thanks to BTG, Jeff Green and others who have inspired me to look beyond my usual favorites to try out new stuff.
I can’t get this line out of my head. I want to use it in everyday situations.
“The machine just ate my change! It ate my damn change!”
“Forget it Blips, it’s Glandertown.”
If you haven’t started the book yet or you’re like 3 pages in, you still want to list it in case someone has an opinion (“DON’T DO IT!” or “ZOMG FAVORITE BOOK EVER!”). I tend to post what I’ve finished and what I’m starting, but obviously if I post what I finished I’ll try to add SOME commentary, but sometimes it’s a lot of effort if basically all you can say is “I read this book, I liked it enough to finish it, otherwise…meh”.
And sometimes I just forget (like if I finish a book a few days ago and forget about the thread). Speaking of which, just remembered I finished a book…
But I’ll still list it in case it fosters discussion (and very often saying “Meh” about someone else’s favorite book/author is enough to get a fun discussion going).
Also, people providing incomplete impressions of books while they are still reading them and said impressions often vary wildly from day to day (“I really like this book so far!” “Eh, it’s still OK.” “This book sucks.”) Even better if they neglect to follow-up with their final opinions after they finish reading the books.
If a book is bad, very often it doesn’t even deserve the amount of effort involved into writing WHY it’s bad. Sometimes I’m so irate with a book that I don’t want to give it that much more time. “I stopped reading like 10 pages into the book, the characters were assholes and unbelievable”. That’s about as much energy as I’m willing to put into it unless someone else posts a question.
People who can’t parse all of the information they are given via email and instead hit reply and react at the first item that prompts a neuron to fire in their brain.
Example…
They write “… So when can you come out to fix this problem?”
I reply “Well I’d like to do it tomorrow. I’ll be free after noon or 1pm. Is there a time after that you’d prefer; what would work best for you?”
They reply “What time tomorrow?”
DUDE. Help me help you.
Zylon
1877
Wouldn’t it be infinitely better to use the original quote?
Aw, you’re one of the people whose opinions in the book threads I find informative and entertaining! I’ve picked up a couple of books based on your feedback on them.
This is pretty mild nerd rage on my part, really. It’s more like nerd irritation.
But yes, you do highlight how lists can be useful even just as a way of sparking discussion, though I haven’t noticed a lot of that specifically. Unless the discussion has been over Steven Erikson’s books. I tend to skip those. :P
I have no problem with someone simply stating a book is bad – that’s a legit opinion, just an especially succinct one. I still don’t care for the running commentary while reading a book. If someone ends up not finishing the book, I’d prefer the person to post something like “I tried to read Brian Herbert’s Lord of the Dune but after 50 pages of ringworms I couldn’t stand it anymore and set it down” instead of:
“I just started reading Lord of the Dune. 10 pages in and looks good so far.”
“40 pages into LOTD and it’s starting to drag.”
“I think I’m nearly done with LOTD.”
“LOTD really sucks.”
But that’s just a preference, really.
YES!!! Mr. Peach, I’m high-fiving you right now.
I actually had a manager tell me once that I shouldn’t bother writing emails of more than one sentence to the sales and marketing folks because they wouldn’t read them. While I respect the practicality of that solution, I weep for a world where people don’t/won’t read.
The corollary to this one is colleagues who send you an email and then walk over to speak you the contents of their email. Why did you send me an email if you were just going to come talk to me?!
