Seemingly trivial things that annoy you

me-109 said:

briantrumpet said:

me-109 said:

No different to the paywall used by many media businesses to access content.

Except that the type of quality media that can afford restrict access yet still get new subscribers is different from Twitter, in that Twitter relies on people contributing at no cost to Twitter, and on mass contribution and distribution, in order to get advertising reach. Users know it's 99% shït, but you tolerate (and learn to filter) it for the useful stuff. People are only willing to pay a subsciption if the quality-to-shït ratio is high, and even then it's quite a tough sell. Twitter is nowhere near that.

OK, as a means to block content from the plebs it's the same as a paywall, but obviously there is no charged subscription. You are supposed to be interested enough to want to sign up to the platform completely free, as they want to monetise your data. There is quite bit of online content that is fully restricted in the same way or, like Roadcc mentioned somewhere above in this thread, has a limited viewing to entice you, either letting you get so far through the article or giving you X views per month.

But that only works if people trying out the restricted free articles assess that it's worth unlocking the hidden stuff. Twitter is all surface: there's nothing behind the shop window display... that's really its USP, and why it succeeded in its bite-size-chunk delivery.

me-109 said:

I've never been interested / interesting enough to register.

I initially registered so I could use it to get responses to complaints, but for more into it during the Trump era as a way of getting more unfiltered reactions to what was going on there.

People trying to plan an anniversary for our running club. Someone suggested hog roast, cue a vegetarian complaining and a response that there’ll be a vegetarian option as well. Not good enough as the vegetarian cannot bear to be in the same room as a hog roast so that’s been scrapped.

Hold two events and count the number of attendees at the veggie event for future reference. 😂

TheBigBean said:

Being vomited on, again. Seems like a specialist skill of mine.

This one again.

TheBigBean said:

TheBigBean said:

Being vomited on, again. Seems like a specialist skill of mine.

This one again.

One of your own or random stranger?

Pross said:

People trying to plan an anniversary for our running club. Someone suggested hog roast, cue a vegetarian complaining and a response that there’ll be a vegetarian option as well. Not good enough as the vegetarian cannot bear to be in the same room as a hog roast so that’s been scrapped.

Or as Frankie Boyle put it: "There is a vegetarian option - you can f@ck off!"

Munsford0 said:

Pross said:

People trying to plan an anniversary for our running club. Someone suggested hog roast, cue a vegetarian complaining and a response that there’ll be a vegetarian option as well. Not good enough as the vegetarian cannot bear to be in the same room as a hog roast so that’s been scrapped.

Or as Frankie Boyle put it: "There is a vegetarian option - you can f@ck off!"

I recall a scenario years ago when I was helping organise a youth music tour, and we had an enquiry from a parent whose child's extreme nut allergy meant that a single nut on a coach would (supposedly) have been enough to trigger a severe allergic reaction. It would have been really tricky (if not impossible) to sort out 100%, but thankfully the child in question decided not to come in the end.

Had one of those announcements on a flight once. Passenger with and extreme and potentially fatal nut allergy. No nuts being given out, passengers asked not to open / eat anything of their own in case it contained traces of nuts. General paranoia about the smallest of particles getting into the aircon system.

Of course it turned out I was sitting next to said individual. Spent the entire flight nervously glancing to my left and wondering if I'd need to put my epipen training to the test

Munsford0 said:

Had one of those announcements on a flight once. Passenger with and extreme and potentially fatal nut allergy. No nuts being given out, passengers asked not to open / eat anything of their own in case it contained traces of nuts. General paranoia about the smallest of particles getting into the aircon system.

Of course it turned out I was sitting next to said individual. Spent the entire flight nervously glancing to my left and wondering if I'd need to put my epipen training to the test

Yes, I had one of those announcements on an Easyjet flight too. But rather easier to control on a single flight than a week of children jumping on and off coaches and public transport and in public venues.

surrey_commuter said:

briantrumpet said:

Dear clever people, I've got a friend who's 66, and is trying to work out if it's worth topping up her state pension contributions as she's got a gap... she's trying to find out by phone, but...

I've tried numerous times trying to get through to the Future Pensions Team to ask if it is worthwhile topping up... But they ways cut you off.. Doing this for months. If you phone DWP they say they don't deal with this!

Is there a reasonably simple online way to work it out and do it, if it does make sense for her to do so?

TIA

The simple answer is to do it as it is buying money (unless she has a life shortening illness) as it only takes about 3 years to break even

longer answer is that she may have maxed out so she needs to go on the website which will tell her the gaps and what she needs to max out

Thanks SC - I'll pass that on.

surrey_commuter said:

briantrumpet said:

Dear clever people, I've got a friend who's 66, and is trying to work out if it's worth topping up her state pension contributions as she's got a gap... she's trying to find out by phone, but...

I've tried numerous times trying to get through to the Future Pensions Team to ask if it is worthwhile topping up... But they ways cut you off.. Doing this for months. If you phone DWP they say they don't deal with this!

Is there a reasonably simple online way to work it out and do it, if it does make sense for her to do so?

TIA

The simple answer is to do it as it is buying money (unless she has a life shortening illness) as it only takes about 3 years to break even

longer answer is that she may have maxed out so she needs to go on the website which will tell her the gaps and what she needs to max out

Glad you agree with my break even estimate SC.

First.Aspect said:

Website tells me I will max out if I carry on paying in.

I assume there's no point if you are just over educated and started contributions late, like me?

Probably not, provided you're comfortable that you will eventually hit the 35 qualifying years required to max out on the state pension.

briantrumpet said:

TheBigBean said:

The main issue is that deciding whether to do it is considerably easier than buying the actual years as you have to phone them to do it.

Ah, that's probably the bit she's getting stuck on. The only way of contacting them is by post or phoning them. It's almost like they don't want to be contacted.

I remember that when DVLC were explaining why, during covid, that there was such a delay, they said that they receive 15,000 items of post per day... just why, in in the 2020s?

They've extended the deadline, so there is still plenty of time to do it. Although I like the idea of writing.