Daily Annoyances

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by me in the smiles thread

The A7 the Galashiels today - sunny day, twisty road more or less empty all the way there, however...

the drive back was spoilt by a muppet towing a caravan. No issue with caravans as long as they pull in a let the queue pass every now and again, but in this case no.

[esmith2039]

Originally Posted by RH77

An armchair nearly took-out the Insight.

That sentence alone may sound oddly funny, but it really wasn't. All 3 vehicles in our fleet have been pummeled by road debris: The TSX on the way home from the dealer got pelted with gravel from a dumptruck and later stove burners blew off from the back of a pickup and tore-up the grille and hood, Teggy was slammed with a large sheet of ice from a truck-trailer (over $2000 in damage), and the Insight took a direct hit from roofing material from a big rig (luckily only the license plate and frame took the brunt).

So my Wife and I are driving along at night on Saturday, in the Insight (on I-470 here in Lee's Summit where the stove burner incident happened), when bam! A pickup truck lost something. In the 1 second of brain processing time, I hit the brakes and went for the right shoulder. It was a full-sized arm chair! Meanwhile behind us, the following car wasn't stopping quick enough (now on the shoulder as well), so we went for the grass and allowed braking distance for them. We bumped along, hit the gas and made it back onto the highway. The pickup was backing up to go back and get the chair. So the guy is going to walk onto the highway to get it? I hope the police got there a the same time.

My message to everyone carrying crap around the Kansas City area (or anywhere) secure your load!!!! At 60 that chair would have deployed the airbags, and could have entered the cabin + other resultant accidents.

</rant>

RH77

That reminds me.. years ago 2005 I think I was going home from Lenexa to Butler via 69 at night and I hit a full-size couch with my Festiva at 75mph. Didn't do any damage though which is surprising wasn't much left of the couch though!

[320touring]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

the drive back was spoilt by a muppet towing a caravan. No issue with caravans as long as they pull in a let the queue pass every now and again, but in this case no.

5 mins stairing at an atlas ( a book where satnav has been printed out!) would have yeilded some tasty Broads, thoroughly devoid of traffic- and ideal for diseasal shenanigry

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by 320touring

5 mins stairing at an atlas ( a book where satnav has been printed out!) would have yeilded some tasty Broads, thoroughly devoid of traffic- and ideal for diseasal shenanigry

I was against some of a time limit, but I know what you mean. The slack-nav was trying to get me across to the A68 all the time...

[Arragonis]

Not so much of a daily annoyance this one but a disappointment all the same. I've been a fan of netbooks since they came out - in fact since before they came out - Atari Portfolio or Psion MX anyone ?

Anyhow I usually run a flavour of Linux on them just because its free and I like to fiddle. Did I mention all my unfinished projects

I had XP on my netbook recently as I was using it for testing an install package for a colleague however as that is done I thought I would take it back to Linux and did what I normally do which is check Distrowatch and see if there is anything interesting. I decided a safe bet for now would be Ubuntu and there is a new version out - woo! I downloaded it, prepared a USB key install and went ahead, Ubuntu has always been good so far with few problems and loads of support. Plus a dead simple method of installing new software. But...

What a pile of pants 11.04 is.

Now I am not having a go at the developers who do this partly for free and they are far more clever than I am but there are some poor choices here.

It comes with something called Unity which is like those naff front end menu things that PC makers circa 1992 put onto their machines because Windows (3.0) was too complicated - click here for the Internet, here for email, here to write a letter and so on. I'm sure some people would love this but there is a reason why Packard Bell stopped installing it all those years ago.

And nowadays a lot of people do know what packages they want to use for these purposes.

Also turning it off was not at all obvious.

I eventually found out how to swap back to a normal menu and all seemed well until I plugged the netbook into my home monitor - nothing happened. Tried to detect monitors - nope. Switched back and forth from the standard to the NVidia 'closed' driver (the netbook has an ION graphics card) - nope, nothing. It acts as if nothing is there.

A quick google to find a solution finds...

...loads of people with the same problem and no solution.

So I gave up.

Instead I'm now running a much older copy of Mint which is Ubuntu but with evil, nasty, selfish closed software added - I like Linux for the technical aspects, not the politics so that is fine with me. My external monitor works, my effects work, my wireless works - its all good. But this has wasted a lot of browsing and project time.

But I suppose that was the point

BTW My netbook of choice at the moment is the Asus 1201N with a 4GB Upgrade - noice.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

And nowadays a lot of people do know what packages they want to use for these purposes.

Not just nowadays. There are still those of us who (severely dating self) first used Unix when we got it on a magnetic tape from Bell Labs, and ran it on the university's Vax or PDP-11. If we wanted a Windows-like interface, we're perfectly capable of installing Windows to get one.

I blame the socialist faction of Linux developers/users myself. They're the people who want to turn Linux into a Windows work-alike, because they think Bill Gates has too much money, which makes life difficult for people like me who use Linux because the Windows interface is a major PITA to work with. (/rant)

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

...I blame the socialist faction of Linux developers/users myself...

I bow to your experience with *ix OS's - mine started with XENIX in a limited way in the late 1980s and after that it was my own 'fiddling' with Linux.

TBH I blame the cult of "dumbing down" generally and don't apply any kind of politics to it - those PC makers in the 1990s who included this nonsense did so to get an advantage but really it worked against them.

Some additional fiddling points towards the Nvidia driver as being the main cause.

[320touring]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

I was against some of a time limit, but I know what you mean. The slack-nav was trying to get me across to the A68 all the time...

Man UP!

Its easy to keep up an average of 60mph if you get into the flow!

I hate the a68 with all my heart- it drains the will to live from my soul..

Give me the a7 and a tractor in front any day!

[Arragonis]

If you have 250 lb/ft the A68 is a fine road South to North until it reaches Midlothian.

Midlothian is a little like Sainsbury's - time seems to slow down so much you almost feel like you are not moving at all.

Especially in the cafe.

Plus of course have you driven a Fabia VRS ? They don't like corners much

[320touring]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

If you have 250 lb/ft the A68 is a fine road South to North until it reaches Midlothian.

Midlothian is a little like Sainsbury's - time seems to slow down so much you almost feel like you are not moving at all.

Especially in the cafe.

Plus of course have you driven a Fabia VRS ? They don't like corners much

TBH those roads can be fast in a 1.3 Felicia if you can keep up the momentum!

I lived in Mid, and worked for the Council- its a touch "Deliverance"

Good roads though- esp the one from gorebridge to Penicuik- I used to be demon down that road in a Transit Connect

As for the Fabia- Get it on coilovers then- you're "conserving momentum" so you dont have to brake and waste fuel