The grumpy thread

[Rustybullethole]

4 minutes ago, myglaren said:

I went out to 'test' a new weed rake, got talking him next door so was a while.

About an hour after coming in I felt a tickle in my left lug, poked it and loads of soil fell out.

Can't imagine how it got there.

Not as bad as invading arachnids of course.

So after research on my better halfs part the technique is to fill your lug with water or oil and they then float to the top. Ears fine today so got there in the end. 

[myglaren]

⇑

Used the shower head to sluice it out.

[goosey]

The simple things 

arrived on site this morning to fit this, got it out the box and found it doesn’t come with an o-ring fitted you have to order that separately ( should be in the recessed area) 

So now I have to piss about finding somewhere to get an a bloody o-ring from 🙄

[barefoot]

I've just been reminded about queuing up in pubs. What the actual fuck is that all about?

The last time I nipped in for a lunchtime pint, I followed a bloke through the door who stopped abruptly in what turned out to be a queue for the bar. Obviously, I pushed past him and went to sit down with my mate who was already there. We watched as the queue went down... I got up, walked to the bar and was served in the fashion to which a normal, mature gentleman has grown accustomed. Now, I've stopped drinking, as is customary for me until April (with a short break for xmas lunch, obviously), but when I resume drinking in the new year, I shall only visit the pub on one occasion if that is to become the new norm, and I shall drink exclusively in restaurants with table service, at home and of course, in my campity van.

What is the world coming to?

[Saabnut]

Not sure whether this grin or a grump but overall I think that grump wins

Grin - nice curry, couple of beers and a bottle of cheap (for Norway) red

Grump - got completely soaked both ways and cost of a 10 min taxi ride each way and the above grin components a mere £247 at todays exchange rate

Gotta love Norway 😀

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Saabnut said:

Not sure whether this grin or a grump but overall I think that grump wins

Grin - nice curry, couple of beers and a bottle of cheap (for Norway) red

Grump - got completely soaked both ways and cost of a 10 min taxi ride each way and the above grin components a mere £247 at todays exchange rate

Gotta love Norway 😀

HFM? You get paid well tho, ISTR

[loserone]

2 hours ago, Saabnut said:

£247

If that includes a cheap* bottle of wine you have done well.  

[New POD]

20 hours ago, goosey said:

The simple things 

arrived on site this morning to fit this, got it out the box and found it doesn’t come with an o-ring fitted you have to order that separately ( should be in the recessed area) 

So now I have to piss about finding somewhere to get an a bloody o-ring from 🙄

Do you not have  Random sized O rings some of which are used that you've taken off other jobs loose at the bottom of your tool box.  What sort of maintenance tech are you ?  

Cental aisle of Aldi usually has a box. 

[Jazoli]

19 minutes ago, New POD said:

Do you not have  Random sized O rings some of which are used that you've taken off other jobs loose at the bottom of your tool box.  What sort of maintenance tech are you ?  

Cental aisle of Aldi usually has a box. 

 @goosey

Also screwfix

https://www.screwfix.com/search?search=O ring

 

 

[davehedgehog31]

Last Monday morning the woman next door reversed into the Fabia with her Audi Qsomething. She came to the door to let me know and was very apologetic. No ill feeling and I had a look at options for getting it fixed. Local body shops were only interested in insurance work. I couldn't really be bothered going to the insurance and declaring it for the next five years.

 

 

A painted wing was £177 from eBay. I bought this and will fit it myself. Let her know this and gave her the receipt with my bank details written on it. Have saved her a pretty penny and potentially a lot of hassle. You guessed it, the bint still hasn't paid me, they're not short a bob or two either. 

 

The moral of this story, fuck people. Just get things done properly. As it stands I'm £180 out of pocket, have a bashed car which will shortly have a poorly colour matched wing and I'll have to spend my own time fitting it. I bet the liberty taking bastard sends me the exact amount when I eventually get it too. 

 

I'll be asking for insurance details after work, I'm sure this will hasten the transfer of funds. 

[New POD]

Wankers.

You should have gone through insurance. 

And should threaten to now.  Its not too late. 

They would have attempted to write it off,  you'd have been forced to argue about its value, forced to argue about the cost to buy it back with an insurance marker on it, but you would end up with an extra £££££. In the bank. Probably. 

[reb]

I have to get the bus into town for an appointment, I usually get one at quarter past the hour on the main road outside the farm. I waited and waited and it didn't turn up. It got to 20 to and I decided to walk down to the village to get the one at 10 to. As soon as I've crossed the road to walk across the field what turns up but the bus I was waiting for in the first place. What an utter bastard the universe is.

[DavieW]

I have Microsft "news" page as my homepage on the PC. The number of "copy and paste" articles written by so called journalists is what makes my grumpy. Do modern journalists just sit and scroll through TikTok to get their stories? Get out there and do some proper journalistic research.

[vulgalour]

Unfortunately it's becoming increasingly common for there to be no journalist involved at all with the rise of AI generated content taking their place.  It's all part of the enshittification of the internet, you see.

[goosey]

16 hours ago, New POD said:

Do you not have  Random sized O rings some of which are used that you've taken off other jobs loose at the bottom of your tool box.  What sort of maintenance tech are you ?  

Cental aisle of Aldi usually has a box. 

I just transferred the clear bowl part onto the customers old water separator in the end so there was no need to dismantle anything

[High Jetter]

53 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Unfortunately it's becoming increasingly common for there to be no journalist involved at all with the rise of AI generated content taking their place.  It's all part of the enshittification of the internet, you see.

Yea, ok. You AI'd that post, shirley?

[vulgalour]

I know, it sounds like proper conspiracy theorist stuff, but it's true.  Generative text programmes are being used to manufacture articles that seems legitimate but are in fact created using things like Chat GPT.  I suppose saying no journalist is involved is slightly misleading since these programmes rely on consuming vast quantities of content originally created by journalist, who are never credited, so that then an article can be generated.  People already use these programmes to create perfectly convincing job application letters and even essays with bogus content.

Content online is becoming more automated than ever as the tools to do so make it easier.  Rules against plagiarism are difficult to enforce, and the willingness to do so seems to be in short supply.  Everything from news articles that seem as though they're copy-pasted, to clip compilations on Youtube, and even deepfake videos on Tiktok... the examples are endless.  AI is being used primarily, it seems, for disinformation and a way to plagiarise and avoid paying actual journalists.

This comes from a place of experience too.  The rise of AI has directly impacted my own artwork.  I've seen fellow artists whose style is closer to the popular AI generated styles have to find alternative work.  Writers I know aren't getting commissions and in general the creative industries are struggling to find a way to compete with these level of plagiarism and lazy content creation.  Hopefully this craze will go the way of NFTs, hopefully it proves very difficult to make any money from and the people pushing it get bored of it so the real people doing the real work can get back on with earning a wage again.

Might be worth doing a little hunt for articles about how Google is altering search terms so whenever you put anything in on Google you get a lot of adverts instead of the thing you're looking for too, that's been something that's been getting reported on in the last week or so.  My work is based almost exclusively online, I have to keep as much of an eye as I can on these things to figure out why sales and interest are dropping, and they have been since the rise in the AI trend.  However, I've found that places like Autoshite, Mastodon, and other 'indie' sites haven't suffered the same as, say, Google, anything related to Chrome, or the bigger social media platforms.

I've never knowingly used an AI generator for content and that's a trend I intend to continue with until I can feel comfortable that it's an ethically sound option.

[AnnoyingPentium]

21 hours ago, davehedgehog31 said:

Last Monday morning the woman next door reversed into the Fabia with her Audi Qsomething. She came to the door to let me know and was very apologetic. No ill feeling and I had a look at options for getting it fixed. Local body shops were only interested in insurance work. I couldn't really be bothered going to the insurance and declaring it for the next five years.

 

 

A painted wing was £177 from eBay. I bought this and will fit it myself. Let her know this and gave her the receipt with my bank details written on it. Have saved her a pretty penny and potentially a lot of hassle. You guessed it, the bint still hasn't paid me, they're not short a bob or two either. 

 

The moral of this story, fuck people. Just get things done properly. As it stands I'm £180 out of pocket, have a bashed car which will shortly have a poorly colour matched wing and I'll have to spend my own time fitting it. I bet the liberty taking bastard sends me the exact amount when I eventually get it too. 

 

I'll be asking for insurance details after work, I'm sure this will hasten the transfer of funds. 

That's a bummer.

Happy to help with replacing the wing if you need a hand. It's not too bad to do, but there's a few bits where they're glued on too. 

[barefoot]

I used it to write an article about a heavily modified VW. As you can imagine, the info sheets sent in by the owners of such vehicles are just soulless lists of what they've upgraded so I asked ai to condense it from 8000 words to 2000. Then I did my usual editing / formatting with the much reduced piece. 

[artdjones]

23 hours ago, davehedgehog31 said:

Last Monday morning the woman next door reversed into the Fabia with her Audi Qsomething. She came to the door to let me know and was very apologetic. No ill feeling and I had a look at options for getting it fixed. Local body shops were only interested in insurance work. I couldn't really be bothered going to the insurance and declaring it for the next five years.

 

 

A painted wing was £177 from eBay. I bought this and will fit it myself. Let her know this and gave her the receipt with my bank details written on it. Have saved her a pretty penny and potentially a lot of hassle. You guessed it, the bint still hasn't paid me, they're not short a bob or two either. 

 

The moral of this story, fuck people. Just get things done properly. As it stands I'm £180 out of pocket, have a bashed car which will shortly have a poorly colour matched wing and I'll have to spend my own time fitting it. I bet the liberty taking bastard sends me the exact amount when I eventually get it too. 

 

I'll be asking for insurance details after work, I'm sure this will hasten the transfer of funds. 

When she talked to her old man:-

"He wants £180 for a scratch on that old banger?"

"That's a cheek, it's only worth £450 and he wants nearly half of that for tiny damage!"

"Stuff him".

[myglaren]

18 hours ago, reb said:

I have to get the bus into town for an appointment, I usually get one at quarter past the hour on the main road outside the farm. I waited and waited and it didn't turn up. It got to 20 to and I decided to walk down to the village to get the one at 10 to. As soon as I've crossed the road to walk across the field what turns up but the bus I was waiting for in the first place. What an utter bastard the universe is.

Around here at least there are QR codes at all the bus stops.  Use your phone to read it and it will give you live info on busses due in the next half hour or so.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, myglaren said:

Around here at least there are QR codes at all the bus stops.  Use your phone to read it and it will give you live info on busses due in the next half hour or so.

IIRC reb's phone is from the last century so that wouldn't help him. We have the QR codes round here, seem to work well.

[warch]

On 10/5/2023 at 10:14 AM, davehedgehog31 said:

Last Monday morning the woman next door reversed into the Fabia with her Audi Qsomething. She came to the door to let me know and was very apologetic. No ill feeling and I had a look at options for getting it fixed. Local body shops were only interested in insurance work. I couldn't really be bothered going to the insurance and declaring it for the next five years.

A painted wing was £177 from eBay. I bought this and will fit it myself. Let her know this and gave her the receipt with my bank details written on it. Have saved her a pretty penny and potentially a lot of hassle. You guessed it, the bint still hasn't paid me, they're not short a bob or two either. 

The moral of this story, fuck people. Just get things done properly. As it stands I'm £180 out of pocket, have a bashed car which will shortly have a poorly colour matched wing and I'll have to spend my own time fitting it. I bet the liberty taking bastard sends me the exact amount when I eventually get it too. 

I'll be asking for insurance details after work, I'm sure this will hasten the transfer of funds. 

This was the same sort of thing as that woman who stuffed her RAV4 into the front of my Landrover. She started off talking about avoiding using insurance, so I suggested about 800 quid to repair it myself (an insurance repair would have been several thousand at least). She then said she probably will go through insurance, then decided that she wasn't at fault and dragged the whole issue on for two years until her insurance finally agreed she was at fault and found in my favour. 

There is no sense of decency or honour with some people. I can remember backing my old Omega into the passenger side door of a Transit van in Wales once. I exchanged details, then the bloke rang up and said he could a secondhand door from a breakers for 80 quid. I presented him with the money the next day and we were all good. 

[High Jetter]

Just received my first ever NIP, for 38 in a 30 on the way back from Stansted on Monday.

[goosey]

20mins late this morning as I had to follow this big oversized heavy yellow thing 

[Talbot]

On 10/5/2023 at 10:14 AM, davehedgehog31 said:

A painted wing was £177 from eBay. I bought this and will fit it myself. Let her know this and gave her the receipt with my bank details written on it. Have saved her a pretty penny and potentially a lot of hassle. You guessed it, the bint still hasn't paid me, they're not short a bob or two either. 

Now present them with a bill that includes the damage to the bumper, at £500, with a comment that they either pay up, or you'll be following up with insurers.

The only bump I have ever had that was my fault, I sorted the damage to the other person's car myself.  Scrapyard bumper, and I fitted it that weekend for her.

[reb]

5 hours ago, myglaren said:

Around here at least there are QR codes at all the bus stops.  Use your phone to read it and it will give you live info on busses due in the next half hour or so.

We don't have that around here alas! The capability must exist because at bus stations there's screens with the info, but no way to see it yourself. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

Sprog reduced to commuting in the Bini this morning as the FreeLoader FTP. Apparently it's been a bit hesitant of late?
It's pissing down all day and I cannot be arsed looking to see if it's just needing a clean up or a new sensor so I've stung her for one (sale or return) so I can look at the blighter tomorrow, or Sunday, or Monday - whenever the rain stops....

[MikeR]

Post office letter tracking ... the one time I use it , it's not working , and now I have notification the parcel has arrived off the receiver , as for the PO , still tits up ... 

[myglaren]

17 hours ago, reb said:

We don't have that around here alas! The capability must exist because at bus stations there's screens with the info, but no way to see it yourself. 

Have a look and see if there is an 'app' for your phone.  They have that option here that shows live data on the busses.

I haven't purely as I dislike the term 'app'.