Stuff That Annoys Me

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that there's a lot of stuff that annoys the !@#$ out of me. Here's what I've come up with so far:

Parking in my "buffer zone" (7.10.03)

(Inexplicably, I keep hearing from people who like this rants page. So after a long hiatus I've decided to add to it.)

Whenver I park in a lot, I look for a space at the end of an aisle if possible, so I can park right on the outside edge of the space and get the biggest possible buffer zone between my car and the next. (Yes, I know this is a going a little overboard, since I'm driving a 1994 Toyota Tercel. Not the point.) Inevitably, when I do this, someone comes along and does the same thing in the space next to me, so he gets a big buffer zone and I get the same as everyone else. So, listen carefully, people who park next to me: This is not a Communist state where the fruits of everyone's labor are divided equally. I got the end space; I walked an extra half mile; I get the buffer zone. Clear?

Bad Web sites (10.3.01)

Another long-overdue rant: poorly designed Web sites. I'm sick and tired of sites that:

• Were obviously created in Dreamweaver by people who obviously don't know HTML.
• Look great, on the owner's 22", 3840x2400 LCD, but look like crap everywhere else.
• Use Flash to make buttons change color, when JavaScript would do just as well.
• Use JavaScript to spawn random windows all over my screen.
• Have broken images because the page refers to some windows-ugly local path like "file://c:/My Documents/My Pictures/My ugly face.bmp". (I favor the death penalty for this.)

Advertising (6.1.01)

Watching game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals last night, I was struck by how much advertising the TV people cramming down our throats. First of all, the rink is naturally surrounded by ads. Next, the players are all essentially walking billboards. Now that's just part of sports, but TV makes it worse. At one point, there was an ABC logo above the scoreboard and a Mastercard logo below it. Then, in the opposite corner were both an ABC logo and a WTEN logo. Now, even if I were so stupid that I didn't know what channel I was watching even though it's mentioned about every 38 nanoseconds, I wouldn't be wondering "is this ABC-10 or ABC-11"? There's only one ABC! GET THIS CRAP OFF MY SCREEN! And don't get me started on commercials.

Ren-suh-leer (5.16.01)

Don't ask me why I didn't think of this rant before. Anyway, what is this nonsense about calling RPI "Rensselaer"? My myriad objections include:

• As I've said many times, being a polytechnic institute is what RPI is all about. "Rensselaer" is really the least significant of the three words.
• TLAs are cool. As it is, RPI is one of a very few schools to have one.
• RPI is shorter. Think of all the bandwidth and processor time that would be wasted if, for example, anything with rpi.edu became rensselaer.edu.
• As I understand it, the reason for saying "Rensselaer" is to have a three-syllable name, on the grounds that the full name is too long. I think the folly herein is obvious...
• Lastly, I continue to assert that the correct pronunciation is not "Ren-suh-leer" but "Ren-suh-lur."

Windows (11.17.00)

This one probably goes without saying, but what's the matter with Microsoft? There are plenty of good, free operating systems but I'm supposed to pay for an inferior one?!?

Redundant acronyms (7.26.00)

The M in ATM stands for machine, so it doesn't make sense to say "ATM machine." Similarly, I don't want to hear about a PIN number or the HIV virus. And no, I will not "please RSVP".

People who call 1,000,000,000 bytes a gigabyte (5.14.00)

A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes, and so on. 1024 is 2¹⁰ for those who care, but the point is that it's 1024, not 1000. (Don't ask me why they went back to powers of 1000 for processor speeds.) A gigabyte is therefore 1,073,741,824 bytes, not 1,000,000,000. So don't tell me my 6,400,000,000 byte hard disk is 6.4 GB.

People who signal wrong (2.9.00)

Signalling as you change lanes or turn in front of me isn't any better than not signalling at all. (No signal at all might be another rant.) The point is to let me know what you're doing (assuming you even know yourself), hence the word signal.

People who walk on the left (2.3.00)

What is this, Britain? Walk on the right like you're supposed to. You drive on the right, you walk on the right. Simple.

"I could care less" (2.3.00)

If you don't care at all, you couldn't care less. If you could care less (and don't) then you do care.