The Cellar / Technology pissing me off today..

**Posted by Flint** 2/26/2025 9:00 pm

Note to Microsoft, how NOT to inspire confidence in an OS upgrade that people didn't ask for:

Include, by default, something stupid like moving the taskbar to a center alignment instead of the left alignment we've all been using for 40 years.

Here's what people will think, "This upgrade didn't do anything useful except force me to adapt to something that I immediately have to waste the time to figure out how to undo, so WHY did I need this whole thing anyway??"

I think this is called "bad optics"

Source: I work with people and their reaction to technology every day

**Posted by Diaphone Jim** 2/27/2025 12:22 pm

"Progress" in the IT world is moving backwards.
I am currently using a mishmash of Mircosoft, HP, Bing and more.
It is constantly trying sell me something that I can't live without (like McAfee).
I have basically hated this POS since I discovered it didn't come with word processing, the basis of home computing.

**Posted by Flint** 2/27/2025 12:44 pm

Diaphone Jim wrote:
... constantly trying sell me something that I can't live without (like McAfee).

McAfee was considered a good suite of products like 30 years ago, now it's just a pre-installed junkware whose main function is to constantly beg for you to pay attention to it. McAfee hasn't done anything within memory but write increasingly more panicky pop-ups, "the security you never asked for and never clicked on one single time is about to expire and your computer might ƒUCKING EXPLODE if you don't TAKE ACTION NOW! RIGHT NOW!"

But that's yesterday's complaint.

The new scourge of humanity is that every single application by every single vendor has forced itself to upgrade to a version that has "AI tools" that nobody asked for. The motherƒuckers are undoubtedly scraping every single keystroke of your personal information to feed the plagiarism machine designed to end human civilization.

Diaphone Jim wrote:
I have basically hated this POS since I discovered it didn't come with word processing, the basis of home computing.

I think that "Google Docs" does everything that "MS Office" does, and I think it's free. I mean, all you have to do is link up all your devices with an account beaming all of your personal information to the dark overlord, but I think you can get a free word processor in the bargain.

**Posted by Flint** 3/25/2025 12:05 pm

Pasted something in Word lately?
Annoying ƒucking rEsEaRcH panel pops up EVERY TIME.

Wondering how to turn off this AI slop that nobody asked for?
Ever clicked around looking for the settings, only to be mystified?

Well, it's so simple and uSeR fRiEnDLy!1

Start Word.
Press Alt+F11 to activate the Visual Basic Editor.
Press Ctrl+G to activate the Immediate window.
Enter the following line, or copy/paste it from this post into the Immediate window:

With the insertion point anywhere in the line, press Enter.
Press Alt+F4 to close the Visual Basic Editor.
The Research task pane shouldn't appear any more.

The ƒucking thing is designed to be impossible for regular users to turn off.
The executive that pushed for this useless feature will be happy to see how many people are using it*

*because they can't figure out how to turn it off

**Posted by Flint** 3/31/2025 12:14 pm

OH BOY!

I can get AI to help me with my taxes!
Thank you, daddy H&R Block!

The amazing technology that, when asked what popular films were released in the 1980s, will confidently tell you-- Toy Story 1, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, Toy Story 4, Toy Story 5, Toy Story 6, Toy Story 7, Toy Story 8, Toy Story 9, and Toy Story 10.

What else could be better suited to doing my ƒUCKING TAXES?!

**Posted by DanaC** 3/31/2025 2:21 pm

the Audible app is doing my head in. the most recent update has left it so unstable. so annoying whne you are totally immersed in the story and then it goes silent.

**Posted by Flint** 3/31/2025 2:26 pm

oh crap. this is bad news. how are you listening? me = phone, android

**Posted by DanaC** 3/31/2025 4:36 pm

same - android phone. what's annoying is that the only way to solve is to restart the phone

**Posted by Flint** 3/31/2025 6:31 pm

#@$!&#$

**Posted by DanaC** 4/04/2025 1:41 pm

agreed

**Posted by tw** 4/04/2025 7:09 pm

Flint wrote:
I can get AI to help me with my taxes!

In countries where innovators are allowed to innovate, government computers calculate your taxes. Then sent to you for approval. Then the taxpayer either signs it or submits a modified version.

But that means anti-innovative companies such as H&R Block would be replaced by innovative and therefore patriotic solutions. Instead, best is to keep all Americans less productive. And at the mercy of expensive tax accountant or software. Where H&R Block then also own your data. To use as they please. Only limited by certain laws.

**Posted by Flint** 4/11/2025 4:18 pm

The new generation of applications that natively autosave your work. Microsoft OneNote is so sophisticated that it doesn't even have a save button! This is really cool because all you can do is dictate a note and then back out of it and hope that it saved a copy of it, which is a 50/50 proposition. I just dictated the same note five times in a row, I cannot get it to save. There is no option to manually save. There are no configs you can adjust for the auto saving feature.

Oh well, guess I wanted something that's worse than notepad.

**Posted by Flint** 4/14/2025 2:55 am

Oh good, 24 hours later I have five copies of that note. This is really useful for when you're 100% sure that you're dictating a note you won't want to edit, and you won't need to read again until the next day. Totally common use case.

**Posted by fargon** 4/14/2025 12:54 pm

I just received a text from my landlord with his new phone number. Now my fucking phone won't add the new number to my contacts. Back in 1974 my high school got a computer and they told me that this computer was going to make our lives easier. THEY LIED.

**Posted by Flint** 5/22/2025 11:47 am

Nobody asked for curved screens on phones. What is the expected benefit of this?

50% of the time I pick up my phone, while watching a YouTube video, my fingers, grasping the sides of the phone, touch the portion of the screen that is ON THE SIDE OF THE PHONE --and "click on" a different video.

What is the payoff that outweighs this huge problem that is obviously going to happen? And how are we supposed to pick up our phones? Knock them over with a gust of wind and attach a suction cup to the back?

**Posted by Anon** 5/22/2025 6:52 pm

The curved screen enables holding the phone in your mouth while still being able to activate some of the touch screen (edge) functions with the tip of your tongue for silent hands-free operation. They’re working on next gen flavored curved screens and a harmonica app for the kids; also, a blue-light teeth whitening app for the adults. Future devices, when fully equipped, will be known as smartmouthphones.

**Posted by fargon** 5/22/2025 7:00 pm

LOL.

**Posted by tw** 5/23/2025 4:19 pm

fargon wrote:
Back in 1974 my high school got a computer and they told me that this computer was going to make our lives easier.

They did not lie. It made life easier for scammers.

Apparently they whispered the last few words.

**Posted by Flint** 6/03/2025 8:49 pm

emails like this break my brain

Re: 6308976521|DCAD 5 B & P Upgr - In cntr|

**Posted by Flint** 6/04/2025 8:31 pm

MOTHERFUCKING COPILOT IN MICROSOFT WORD FOLLOWS MY CURSOR AROUND. YOU CAN'T TURN IT OFF, YOU CAN'T DISABLE IT, YOU CAN'T UNINSTALL IT. I'VE WASTED THREE HOURS OF MY LIFE ON THIS INSTEAD OF THE FUCKING THING I WANTED TO TYPE INTO A BLANK FUCKING DOCUMENT NOT HAVE A MOTHERFUCKER AI PIECE OF SHIT THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR FOLLOW MY FUCKING CURSOR AROUND THE ENTIRE TIME I'M TRYING TO CONCENTRATE ON TYPING IN A FUCKING B L A N K W O R D P R O C E S S O R D O C U M E N T

HOW COULD YOU FUCK THIS UP SO BAD??
DO I HAVE TO USE NOTEPAD TO TYPE ANYTHING NOW?!1

Last edited by Flint (6/04/2025 8:37 pm)

**Posted by tw** 6/04/2025 10:14 pm

You were warned fifty years ago.

**Posted by Flint** 6/05/2025 6:59 pm

Yeah, hey so my organization doesn't even have licensing for Copilot on their Office enterprise.

My instance of Word was logged into my personal Microsoft account, somehow?? There's no possible scenario where I could have manually done that, especially because I don't even know my MS login, I've only ever used it to log into Minecraft.. ON MY HOME COMPUTER. And my instance of Word at home does have the Copilot option in Word/Options, and it is DISABLED. So Microsoft decided to magically log my work Word into my home account and TURN ON the feature (THAT'S TURNED OFF ON THAT ACCOUNT), while NOT having the option in Word/Options to FUCKING TURN IT OFF ON THIS COMPUTER. Myself and the whole IT department couldn't figure this out for nearly an entire 24 hours.

AND NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON IN THE FUCKING WORLD EVER ASKED FOR ANY AI BULLSHIT TO BE INSTALLED ON THEIR FUCKING W O R D P R O C E S S O R

And I guess you're completely fucked if this happens to you and you're a University student who gets failed out of their class for using AI.

Last edited by Flint (6/05/2025 7:01 pm)

**Posted by fargon** 6/06/2025 3:25 pm

AI is about the most fucked up thing there is. Now when I click on the share button on Zillow I get a little pop up that says link shared to clipboard. What The Fuck is a clipboard. do I even have one and how do I share the house with Keryx. FUCKING computers SUCK!!!

**Posted by Happy Monkey** 6/06/2025 6:21 pm

That has nothing to do with AI. Clipboard is just where something goes after you cut when you cut and paste. That button lets you paste the link into an email or another website.

**Posted by fargon** 6/06/2025 7:15 pm

thank You. I just wish these people would speak English. And it would be nice if some school would have a class for us old people who didn't have computers in the classroom or worked with them.