Mildly Infuriating

Got a second sim to trial coverage around my city. It's not even been a full week and I am bombarded with spam calls and texts. Unsure if it is election related or just everyday spam.

Before I start, yes I know this is my fault for being cheap and I'm an idiot for using Apple products.

Now...

Some time ago, I realized that the only way I could make sure my kid would get up in the morning since she refuses to use an alarm clock was to shine a bright light on her. Since she has apparently become a nudist while in her room, this means I need a way to turn that light on without opening her door. In comes the smart bulb. I also decide to get a second for my office light because what the hell, but I'm not really interested in any other home automation.

iOS’ Homekit does not play well with many smart bulbs, so you have to be careful about what you buy- as I found out.

The first ones we got were Sylvania and it did say Homekit on the box, and they worked fine, except they were Bluetooth and I sometimes wasn’t able to get close enough for it to work. I kept at it for a few weeks, but I finally decided to spend a little extra on the WiFi bulbs.

So the first ones I bought at Menards, where I saved big money. It said there was an iOS app, but it did not say Homekit on the side. I assumed. Stupid me. No, if you want to do things like have it work with Siri, you have to do a bunch of individual commands and they are slow. No way. You also can't put it in Control Center to turn it on and off without using Siri. That only works with Homekit.

Next, I decided to order some online, but since I’m poor and cheap, I decided to save some money.

This is why you become at least marginally computer-savvy, kids. Although it will involve a great deal of swearing:

I got a decent deal on a couple of bulbs from what was obviously a Chinese company on Amazon. It said they were Homekit compatible and the reviews said they worked fine.

So, I order them. They come in a couple of days later. “AIYATO” brand smart bulbs. Maybe? I don’t remember the name. The instructions are two lines and suggest you just need Homekit, which you didn’t from the Sylvania bulb, you also need an installation app. But what the hell. Tried a few times. Didn’t work.

Clearly I need an app. So I go to the app store. No AIYATO app listed. Okay, I’ll go back to the order and see if anyone talks about how to get it to work in the reviews. Wait a second… it says the bulb is DoHome brand. I wonder if THEY have an app?

Yes. Yes they do.

I download the app, do the stupid registration thing so that China now has access to everything I own, and it tells me to look for the name of the bulb brand as a Wifi access point. There are only two access points available. My router, and another one which starts with CozyLife. That’s the only thing it could possibly be. So I join it and tell the app.

It doesn’t work. That’s not the right Wifi name. ARGH. I try a couple of times. I do a hard reset of the light like the horrible Engrish troubleshooting says to. Still no. Finally I think: maybe there is a CozyLife app? Oh. There is. Download and install that? I create a new login for the Chinese to have access to everything I own and...

It installs the light? Yes! Homekit installs the light after I annoyingly have to unscrew the bulb, take a picture of the QR code on the side and then screw it back in? Yes!

Does it work with Siri? Yes!

Does it work with Siri on my watch? Well… nothing’s perfect. But it works with the home app on my watch. Close enough.

But yes. Clearly the same Chinese smart bulb company has at least three different names and I had to figure out the right name to use but that was never made clear anywhere, along with instructions on the box that did not work.

Now the really scary part: they also, according to their app, make a smart space heater.

Which is it?!

This headline came up in my news feed, from a very dubious source so I decided to investigate.

Headline after headline, many from identical sources, about how Walmart and Bank of America are either going to stop taking $1 bills or keep accepting them. The headlines read like a FUD article and I refuse to click through to read the details.

I can't find a reputable news source for this story so I'm assuming it's fake news.

It shouldn't be this easy to manipulate news feeds.

I hate this scale, it says low battery and shuts off after just 3 months of sitting in the drawer. It infuriates me that there's still a lot of energy in the battery, I can use that in remote controls with no issues

If there's enough battery to say "low battery", then there's enough battery to show the measurements!

My salary didn't change at all, but homes went up 82%. The money I saved for a down payment and my salary no longer are good enough for this home and many others. This ain't even a "good" home either. It was a 200k meh average ok home before. Now it's simply unaffordable

(ignore the old TV)

an ESPN+ exclusive fight has literally nothing to do with the football

I unsubscribed from a company's mailing list and then they added me to a new "unsubscribers" list and spammed me again. I then unsubscribed from that list and was added to another "unsubscriber" list. At least this new unsubscriber list was labelled "new". That makes it so much better. /s*

For years now, I've been watching most of the trick-or-treaters go to the house on one side of me, take one look at my house and walk right past it, and then go to the house on the other side.

I had no clue why. Maybe they were scared of my house or thought I'd give cheap candy (my house is a bit of a fixer-upper)? I completed my "curb appeal" projects; didn't help.

Maybe they thought nobody was home? I not only have the porch light on, but also have the living room TV on, clearly visible through the (open!) front window, and it makes no difference.

Maybe they think I'm not participating (despite the clear signal of the porch light and jack-o'-lantern)? I put up a bunch of Halloween decorations this year, and it still didn't help!

Well, I finally found out the reason, after hearing one kid scouting ahead yelling to tell his friends to skip my house: "there's no bowl on the porch!"

...You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Yep, unlike my neighbors, who had apparently just left unattended bowls of candy on their porches, I was actually sitting there inside the house, with the bowl of candy, waiting for kids to knock or ring the doorbell before I opened the door and handed it out. You know, like how trick-or-treating is supposed to work.

This is ridiculous. Kids these days are skipping viable houses with candy because they can't be bothered to actually knock on the damn door and say "trick or treat" to the person who answers? Residents are expected to be too lazy to answer the door, and just put out the candy without even receiving the traditional threat first? With no actual interaction with the neighbors for the kids to show off their costumes, what's even the point‽

I finally stuck a sign on the door saying "yes, you have to knock or ring for candy!" and that helped, but even then, some kids are still skipping my house because they apparently can't be bothered to read the sign.

Had to install this app which then made me sign in (using my work PC) to update the firmware on my damn controller. Wish there was a way to do this in Linux. I'm so over Microsoft's crap.

Honestly, I find these emails more amusing than infuriating. Is that $800 per week? Total? I guess I'll never know, because I didn't become a software developer just to work in a warehouse.

Check-in after 4pm, Check-out before 11:00am

There is enough confusion between horizontal resolutions (2K, 4K etc.) and vertical ones (1080p, 2160p etc.). This is not helping; why even print a promotional sticker with a number of pixels smaller than what it should be?

Example, Mr. and Mrs. John Smith

I hate this for the obvious reasons but it's especially annoying to me because my wife didn't take my surname!

The best part is that fully half of these are addressed to my mom…

I got a voicemail from the Kroger pharmacist who told me to call her back. It was definitely the Kroger pharmacy number because I've had to call it before, so that was not part of the scam.

However, some scammer who knew who my health insurance company was (I get it through my wife, which ads to the creepiness here) tried to get my personal health data from the Kroger pharmacy. They asked for personal info and the pharmacist said she wouldn’t give it to them but would have me call them back.

She told me all of this when I called her to find out what was up. She gave me the number and the first thing I did was look it up to see if it was legitimate because that just sounded off to me.

Sure enough, the first link that came up was a Facebook post (Why Facebook as the first link in the search? No idea.) warning about that number specifically scamming people by pretending to be my insurance company, followed by other links on other websites talking about it being a scammer source, and not just just for health insurance scamming.

They've also somehow fucked with the SEO because in between those were legitimate links to my health insurance company, but that phone number is not on the pages.

I feel really bad for anyone who falls for this, because it was clearly just legitimate enough for the pharmacist to not suggest to me that I should be careful about being scammed. I know exactly who I talked to and she's a cool lady, so I'm pretty sure she would have if she was sure enough.

Update if anyone is still around: Contacted the state pharmacy board and also went to the local pharmacy and told them about it. I couldn't figure out the right people to get in touch with at the FBI, but I have a feeling I'm going to have to contact the state attorney general next and ick.

Parents.of teenagers, the BeReal app is advertising cigarettes to your children. My 17 year old son, at breakfast this morning, showed me an ad for Newport cigarettes for $11.05 per pack. Please monitor your children's online activities!

Edit: Oh for fuck's sake.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21109313

I went to vote today in Georgia USA. People showed up wearing bed sheets over them. What is this supposed to communicate exactly??

Why, God?

Edit/Update: It turns out that my last name has a capitol letter in the middle and they put a space in it. Thank god. I can actually vote this year.

wtf mullenweg, you're a and the founder of #wordpress for chrissakes