Online Annoyances

[The_Doc_Man]

There's no telling what people will do with Access when having fun.

I'm an amateur writer, specializing in adventure-oriented fantasy or sci-fi. My main fantasy series involves a world with four moons at different distances and thus different orbital periods. So, for shiggles I set up code to simulate the orbits of each of the moons to derive approximate rise/fall times, complete with special cases of having two or more moons full at the same time. When I did the math using DOUBLE for everything orbit-related, I realized two interesting things - 1, that a four-moons-full night would only happen once every 3300 years on my fantasy world, and 2, one such night was going to happen in the middle of my 3rd story in the series. So OF COURSE that had be a major plot-point.

I am also working on a "scene" builder where I have Access "read" the chapters of the novel and as I pass through each paragraph in each chapter, I can mark the point of a "new scene" so that if I ever needed to write a screenplay, I have it all defined and delimited. It's amazing to think of what some people do for fun.

 

[DickyP]

After almost thirty years of programming for a living and enjoying nearly all of it, I kept going with Access to 'keep-my-hand-in'.

My Access lottery db I started when running a syndicate at work back in the days of Access 2 and it has been, changing, expanding (but not necessarily improving) ever since.

 

[Mark_]

There's no telling what people will do with Access when having fun.

I'm an amateur writer, specializing in adventure-oriented fantasy or sci-fi. My main fantasy series involves a world with four moons at different distances and thus different orbital periods. So, for shiggles I set up code to simulate the orbits of each of the moons to derive approximate rise/fall times, complete with special cases of having two or more moons full at the same time. When I did the math using DOUBLE for everything orbit-related, I realized two interesting things - 1, that a four-moons-full night would only happen once every 3300 years on my fantasy world, and 2, one such night was going to happen in the middle of my 3rd story in the series. So OF COURSE that had be a major plot-point.

I am also working on a "scene" builder where I have Access "read" the chapters of the novel and as I pass through each paragraph in each chapter, I can mark the point of a "new scene" so that if I ever needed to write a screenplay, I have it all defined and delimited. It's amazing to think of what some people do for fun.

For fun, try working out "Sunrise" on a moon tidally locked to a hot Jupiter. Depending on which side of the moon you are on, you get one or TWO per rotation around the main planet!

 

[Isaac]

Best of all reasons - FUN. I enjoy keeping records.

You are what we would call a true Nerd.
And that is NOT an insult, it's a borderline compliment

 

[DickyP]

Had an even better one today - Went to log in to one of my credit card's web site and they had swapped the position of the 'Continue' and 'Go Back' buttons during the login process. Everything else appeared unchanged just the buttons. Luckily the Continue was still the default if you use the Enter of Return keys.

 

[Isaac]

Had an even better one today - Went to log in to one of my credit card's web site and they had swapped the position of the 'Continue' and 'Go Back' buttons during the login process. Everything else appeared unchanged just the buttons. Luckily the Continue was still the default if you use the Enter of Return keys.

i am constantly AMAZED and appalled at how many designers don't even set the tab order on basic web forms - it's crazy, some of these web programmers are lazy as hell.

but dont you agree that there is way too much "changing stuff just to change stuff" going on? my Chase banking app changes its appearance like clockwork every 3-4 months and it's absolute nonsense - changing dumb stuff that matters not just to change it , and it's never an improvement.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

And yet when you complain, it doesn't seem to do any good. Case in point:

I pay our cable TV bill online. I can print a copy of the bill. When I click "pay", it produces an acknowledgement page. Except... it is more like one page REPEATED three times. When I flip through the print-page preview, there are three acknowledgement pages EXACTLY alike. The same bill number, amount, and transaction ID code. (And date.) Nothing else on the page, but if you casually just click "Print" in the dialog, you get three copies of the same info. So I have to click the print option that says "Only the currently viewed page" and then click Print. I have called the service provider more than once but apparently they didn't understand. Though, to be fair, it used to be FOUR copies until I called them down on it. Maybe if I call them twice more...?

 

[DickyP]

...
but dont you agree that there is way too much "changing stuff just to change stuff" going on?
......

Hence my complaints on the changed message box thread. Change for the sake of change instead of fixing the bits that need fixing.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Working as I did with the U.S. Navy, I have seen "change for the sake of change" many times.

'Change for the sake of change' is nothing more than an illusion of progress - Vince Peart

Part of the problem of change is that you may recognize the need for change but might not recognize the nature of the needed change. That is often the problem with military offices where the commander of the division knows something is wrong but not WHAT is wrong. And so they start the inevitable cycle of 'change to see if we can find a better way' - as opposed to "this IS a better way, let's change to it."

 

[DickyP]

You'd often hear the cry - 'change or die'. This has always been meaningless, as 'change and die' is equally likely: a diferrent platitude - 'hang in there ' - is as often just as valid.

As doc man says, you need to know what needs changing.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In the specific case of military changes, I may have a PARTIAL and very uncertain insight relative to "change for change's sake."

The military mind is steeped in discipline and conformity. They want soldiers to be expendable (in the sense of "easily replaced"). This means that officers must try to make every soldier like ever other soldier, as in "functionally indistinguishable." Now, I know that isn't 100% true because otherwise enlisted military wouldn't have designations like aircraft mechanic or personnel clerk or radio specialist. But when it comes to "cannon fodder" they tend to push conformity. The problem is that people DON'T conform, given the opportunity. And therein lies a major part of the problem. Their goal of conformity is being filled by drawing from a pool of the most stubborn non-conforming types on the planet, i.e. people. And so OF COURSE when you try to force conformity it does work. But you can't undermine military philosophy even though modern business HAS recognized the issue of (it used to be called Theory X/Theory Y management; now it is People-Oriented Management) the spectrum of abilities, from workers who need nearly constant hand-holding to workers to whom you give a five-minute talk and turn them loose. When they are done they come back and drop a neat little package on your desk containing the finished and polished and fully-functional project.

Theory X/Theory Y doesn't fit anywhere into a world of conformity. Changing a department or restructuring a command won't address that problem. But it is the only thing an officer has the legal or practical ability to do, because s/he CAN'T abandon military requirements for conformity and blind obedience.

 

[Isaac]

And yet when you complain, it doesn't seem to do any good. Case in point:

I pay our cable TV bill online. I can print a copy of the bill. When I click "pay", it produces an acknowledgement page. Except... it is more like one page REPEATED three times. When I flip through the print-page preview, there are three acknowledgement pages EXACTLY alike. The same bill number, amount, and transaction ID code. (And date.) Nothing else on the page, but if you casually just click "Print" in the dialog, you get three copies of the same info. So I have to click the print option that says "Only the currently viewed page" and then click Print. I have called the service provider more than once but apparently they didn't understand. Though, to be fair, it used to be FOUR copies until I called them down on it. Maybe if I call them twice more...?

The chances that a responsible party will answer your call who will send the feedback to their manager, who will then send the feedback to the director, who will figure out which I.T. pm needs to get it, who will then prioritize it in their next sprint ...................is slim to none unfortunately. It would require too many responsive and reliable people in a chain of command consecutively, the odds are zero.

You'd often hear the cry - 'change or die'. This has always been meaningless, as 'change and die' is equally likely: a diferrent platitude - 'hang in there ' - is as often just as valid.

As doc man says, you need to know what needs changing.

And we're all going to die anyway. The only big questions are When, How [painful], and Do you have a relationship with God?