Miscellaneous Rants by Dr. Cheap

Warning: This page can be quite cynical at times, and humorous at others!

Rantyest Rant of all Rants:

Other main things I find in the world that I rant about a lot:

Category: Computer Lusers

Email Rant: If you're gonna forward chain-mail, take off the > > > > > > chain quoting. It's really easy if you copy to a text editor, block select, delete, copy back to email. But, as a computer luser, I bet you don't have one like that.
As if the amount of emails that get chain-forwarded wasn't enough, now people are making WAVs of themselves reading the text and now chain-quote sending the WAV as an attachment! I CAN READ email...and if I WAS blind, which you know I'm not, I'd use a text-to-speech synthesizer. But, as a computer luser, I bet you didn't know those existed.
...what's worse, is that all the WAVs are readings of the chain-mail that started like 10 to 15 years ago...such as "The Glorious Word 'Fuck'" and "Kiki the Gerbil"
Following directions: Given a very simple, step by step process, a computer luser will manage to screw something up. Just follow the instructions as given and it will probably work!

Category: Driving/Road Rage

...I get to a stop sign and the person directly across from me, who got there first, just sits there and waits for me to go. THEN, after I go past the intersection, I see them in my rear view mirror, turning left with no signal.
"Glad I read your mind!"
...people who brake for green lights, even when there is nobody in front of them.
"Okay, you be the one to spend the most time in the intersection!"
...people in front of you who ride their brakes, or hover one foot over the pedal and one on the gas, as they drive down the highway. This is particularly annoying when they are tailgating the car in front of them. Or when lights flicker at every bump in the road, although sometimes that's just a electrical problem.
"Either fix your brake lights or your foot!"
...people who turn onto a main road, which you are driving down, and cannot seem to choose a lane to drive in. This leaves you no where to drive!
"Lanes ARE useful"
And a corollary...
...people who turn onto a main road, which you are driving down, and take forever and a day to get themselves up to speed with the flow of traffic on the main road...
"The car won't fall apart if you push the gas pedal down a little harder."
Cell phones...I don't need to say much here, you've probably experienced the joy of the person who can't chew gum and walk at the same time, but thinks they can simultaneously operate a telephone and a high-velocity, two-ton block of metal.
"Two words: Hands free." or "Four words: I'll call you back."

Category: Y2K, Millennia, and the 21st Century

IT'S NOT A NEW MILLENNIUM!!! Yes, that's right, the 'new' millennium occurred on January 1, 2001. This is because there WAS NO YEAR ZERO!
The year 2000 was not in the 21st century!!! For the same reason as above.
Before Y2K I wondered if that ball in New York was Y2K compliant. I guess it made it!
Y2K The Movie...O N P! That was so cheesy and had so many inconsistencies, why did I even watch it?
Y2K is not a bug. It is simply a matter of people not thinking ahead and making their hardware and/or software use 4 digit years. It is, however, a major problem in some areas, but the world sure didn't turn into a chaotic anarchy in 24 incremental steps.
When doing Y2K testing on my computer before the real event, it didn't make it through 100% glitch free. When the real date change occurred my computer had no problems at all, not even needing a manual date/time adjustment. Go figure.

Category: Customer Support, what a joke.

I really hate the front-line of defense (after the automated phone system) usually called the "1st level support" or something of that nature. If a company implements one of these to deflect angry customers, they KNOW how bad their product or service is. If they would just dispense with this expensive department, most companies could provide a better product or service with the money saved.
The Answering Service. Oh there is nothing more annoying than calling up a company when you think there would be staff available. Someone answers the phone "Good afternoon, thank you for calling [Name of Company], how may I help you?" You spend 2 minutes explaining the situation that prompted you to make the phone call in the first place. Then they get around to telling you, "I'm sorry, this is just the answering service, you'll have to call back during [days/hours]." Why don't they just put up an automated phone system that says exactly that? And if they NEED to take messages they can have it use voicemail (not that they'd check it). Or maybe the answering service could mention up front that they are one, and not the company you called. I used to work somewhere that hired an answering service for after hours...it was the most expensive and useless thing ever.
Form letter responses that clearly demonstrate that the support personel has no time to actually listen to and help customers with their responses. I could make a whole page for this one, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

So-called Marketing Geniuses (aka, Social Engineers, aka. Masters of the Obvious)

The general public must be really stupid to believe some of the ridiculous stuff these people come up with!
No matter how you slice it, even a 10GHz CPU isn't going to speed up a 56K modem!
New and Improved! Okay, now how can you improve something that didn't exist before?
Save up to XX% or more! Great, even the people selling the product don't know how much I will save!
I like to apply a fun math trick to this one:
1. Given: X=Amount you could save "up to" "or more" & Y=Amount you actually save
2. The "up to" part implies that Y <= X
3. The "or more" part implies that X <= Y
4. Thus X <= Y <= X
5. Thus X = Y
  Or in plain English: Whatever X is MUST be the amount you save, so don't accept anything less than X!
Revolutionary New Product Uhh, what is it revolving around? If it's going to 'turn my world around' maybe it should be 'rotational' instead?
Vanity Domains Umm, it's just a hostname.
We put the inter in Internet (Old MCI slogan) I don't think MCI is the one that replaced arpa with inter.
"...the new Chrysler Sebring...with...a multi-valve engine..." Wow an engine with more than one valve!? American technology is so far ahead, look out Japan!