So apparently now this is a thing, so here I go:
- Websites that are just blank pages if the JavaScript doesn’t load from the CDN.1
- The misunderstanding that LLMs can somehow be a route to AGI.
- Computer systems that say my name is too short or my password is too long.2
- People being unwilling to discuss their wild claims later using the lack of discussion as evidence of widespread acceptance.
- When people balance the new toilet roll one atop the old one’s tube.3
- Shellfish. Why would you eat that!?
- People assuming my interest in computers and technology means I want to talk to them about cryptocurrencies.4
- Websites that nag you to install their shitty app. (I know you have an app. I’m choosing to use your website. Stop with the banners!)
- People who seem to only be able to drive at one speed.5
- The assumption that the fact I’m “sharing” my partner is some kind of compromise on my part; a concession; something that I’d “wish away” if I could. (It’s very much not.)
- Brexit.
Wow, that was strangely cathartic.
Footnotes
1 I have a special pet hate for websites that require JavaScript to render their images.
Like… we’d had the <img> tag since 1993! Why are you throwing it away and replacing it with something objectively slower, more-brittle, and
less-accessible?
2 Or, worse yet, claiming that my long, random password is insecure because it contains my surname. I get that composition-based password rules, while terrible (even when they’re correctly implemented, which they’re often not), are a moderately useful model for people to whom you’d otherwise struggle to explain password complexity. I get that a password composed entirely of personal information about the owner is a bad idea too. But there’s a correct way to do this, and it’s not “ban passwords with forbidden words in them”. Here’s what you should do: first, strip any forbidden words from the password: you might need to make multiple passes. Second, validate the resulting password against your composition rules. If it fails, then yes: the password isn’t good enough. If it passes, then it doesn’t matter that forbidden words were in it: a properly-stored and used password is never made less-secure by the addition of extra information into it!
3 This is the worst of the toilet paper crimes, but there’s a lesser but more-common offence.
4 Also: I’m uninterested in whatever multiplayer shooter game you’re playing, and no I won’t fix your printer.
5 “You were doing 35mph in the 60mph limit, then you were doing 35mph in the 40mph limit, now you’re doing 35mph in the 20mph limit. Argh!”
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