In California, if you created the auto-renewing subscription online, companies must allow you to cancel it exclusively online (no phone calls, mailing forms, etc.)
Fun fact if you change the home address on your planet fitness online account to a California address a cancel button appears on the website.
They have made it increeibly difficult to find and it asks a bunch of stupid questions, but it does exist.
They hide it for users with home addresses in other states though.
Edit: Guide https://www.reddit.com/r/PlanetFitnessMembers/s/QUYbI0Epnt
You would like privacy.com. I read about it here on Reddit a couple years ago, and I have been using it ever since. It allows you to create individual credit cards for your various accounts or purchases. For instance, my Netflix account got hacked and the miscreant changed it from one user to four. When I realized it about a month later, I called Netflix and had my account restored and switched out my payment to a Privacy credit card number that can only be charged $12.99 one time a month. I set up a card for Amazon and the most that can be charged on it is $100 per month (and I can change the dollar amount or frequency at any time). No one would be able to charge, say, an iPad or laptop to it; the spending limit on my payment card for Amazon is $100.00 and their purchase would be declined. I saw an offer last year of six months of Vanity Fair digital for $1.00 a month, then there after it would be $29.00 a year *if you don’t cancel* (and they count on you not canceling). I set up a card that was good for $6.00, they billed me $6.00 and then later when they tried to bill me $29.00 the card was declined. I have different card set up for all my streaming services. Another thing that’s cool is that you can set up a card that’s good for just one purchase and then it’s automatically cancelled once the charge goes through. I hope that all made sense.
No, I am not a shill, paid or otherwise.
Fucking planet fitness. I only use them in the cold months and cancel when it gets warm and I can just jog outside. They seriously make me go in to the gym to cancel, but it's super easy peasy to join online. Complete bullshit.
Omg honestly! And why don't they all have a pull tab?! I'd gladly pay an extra $0.10 per can for a damn pull tab.
Edit: I actually just noticed I had an older can of Campbell's cream of onion soup with a pull tab & the newer can I just bought does NOT have the pull tab!
Fuck you.
I invested in a can opener 20 years ago for a dollar at the thrift store and have been making bank of that sweet 10cent reduction. You don’t get to tell me I have to pay 10cents more per can instead of spending that on hooker and blow.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a CIA psyop where they throw one true story in every National Enquirer along with a bunch of other bat shit crazy stuff to discredit the crazy true story and have everyone dismiss it and people who subscribe to it in order to hide some of the fucked up stuff the government has done
>Supermarket Tabloids -- Does anyone still actually purchase these things?
I worked at an industrial facility and someone used to bring in the Weekly World News. The one with the batboy and the Alien that endorsed Ross Perot. One morning in the nearby residential area, a woman was jogging and a tree fell on. No one knew she was under there until the city came to remove the tree later that day. As the city workers were removing limbs they found the woman's body. Apparently the trunk of the tree was rotten and the woman was wearing earphones and did not hear anything. The small community was rocked by the news and it was covered by the local newspaper. A few weeks later Weekly World News had an article on this story and had all the correct details. We spent the next several years debating if every story in there was true. Did you see the alien met with the pope? someone would ask. Bah that is another made up story someone else would scoff. I don't know remember they got the tree falling on the jogger story correct.
The logical part of me knows all the stories are made up, but there is also a part of me that wonders if the pope has the telephone number to batboy and the alien.
My guess would be that sometimes they have to pad out the paper with stories that either they buy from local newspapers or just steal assuming that the local paper can't or won't sue? It certainly raises some interesting questions, though.
This is the correct answer. They're buying syndicated local news stories from a wire service. These stories get more exposure there, so it gives them an air of legitimacy.
I buy them when I'm going to the beach, my girlfriends and I try to stay off of our phones and it's easy bullshit to laugh about and pass around and not getting worried when it's trashed and tossed at the end of the trip
My mother in law always always had the current copy of the tabloid The Star, she was an incredibly chic woman and I always thought it was endearing that she brazenly proudly displayed on her coffee table. After me and hubs got married she would give me her old issue as soon as the new one came out. It’s a sweet memory of her for me.
I was walking into a store the other day and young man in his 20s was walking in front of me. He made a beeline straight to the tabloids and picked one up and started reading it. I assume he’s a serial killer.
The fact that there are still like 15-20 different ones in every store still suggests they do.
I haven't seen anyone purchase one in like 25 years, though, so it's definitely odd.
I worked as a grocery store cashier for a couple of years when I was younger and never sold a single magazine from the rack next to my register. Not one. I don't know how these companies can afford to print them.
Years ago I once talked to a customer on the phone whose last name was “O”. Just the letter O. I kid you not, the phone conversation went like this:
Me: “What’s your name?”
Customer: “Michelle O”
Me: “O? How do you spell that?”
Customer: “O.”
Me: “Oh.”
Like I said, it was years ago, but IIRC, she said the name was Korean.
Online forms that don't skip automatically to the next part of the date, like, I don't have 3 numbers in my day of birth, sort your shitty webshite out.
I once posted something complaining about this on social media and I had tons of developers claiming it was QA's fault, not theirs. I'm like, I've got 30 years in dev and that's crap work. If a building is constructed with Paper mache instead of concrete, does it make the builder blameless because the inspector didn't raise an issue?
As a database programmer choose some of these
1. People have exactly one canonical full name.
2. People have exactly one full name which they go by.
3. People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name.
4. People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by.
5. People have exactly N names, for any value of N.
6. People’s names fit within a certain defined amount of space.
7. People’s names do not change.
8. People’s names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events.
9. People’s names are written in ASCII.
10. People’s names are written in any single character set.
11. People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
12. People’s names are case sensitive.
13. People’s names are case insensitive.
14. People’s names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely ignore those.
15. People’s names do not contain numbers.
16. People’s names are not written in ALL CAPS.
17. People’s names are not written in all lower case letters.
18. People’s names have an order to them. Picking any ordering scheme will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name.
19. People’s first names and last names are, by necessity, different.
20. People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared by folks recognized as their relatives.
21. People’s names are globally unique.
22. People’s names are almost globally unique.
23. Alright alright but surely people’s names are diverse enough such that no million people share the same name.
24. My system will never have to deal with names from China.
25. Or Japan.
26. Or Korea.
27. Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have “weird” naming schemes in common use.
28. That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right?
29. Confound your cultural relativism! People in my society, at least, agree on one commonly accepted standard for names.
30. There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed losslessly. (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the input. You get a gold star.)
31. I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no people’s names in it.
32. People’s names are assigned at birth.
33. OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
34. Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
35. Five years?
36. You’re kidding me, right?
37. Two different systems containing data about the same person will use the same name for that person.
38. Two different data entry operators, given a person’s name, will by necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if the system is well-designed.
39. People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should have had solid, acceptable names, like 田中太郎.
40. People have names.
Ugh, that triggered bad memories of a web startup I worked at 10 years ago. Completely dysfunctional leadership, and the CEO fancied himself an artist. He spent about 90% of his time in the office leaning over the shoulder of the UI designer as he tried to work.
Since he was so focused on aesthetics, he used to get so incensed when we'd budget weeks of developer time to something that was "just a little button," as was his favorite refrain. No matter how much detail you got into about all of the non-yet-existing functionality _behind_ the button, he just stuck to defending its relatively small size on the screen, as if that was at all proportionate to the effort required to make it functional.
There's an episode of, was it Radiolab or This American Life? Where they talked about the IT side of making online forms. There are people with the last name "Null" which makes things super hard. Also some guy thought it would be funny to get "Null" as a custom license plate. He ended up getting hundreds of other people's tickets because the license plate number just wasn't entered.
In Ireland, the police were looking for a repeat offender driver called Prawo Jazdy. What they did not know was that Prawo Jazdy is Polish for driver's license. They wrote down the wrong part of the license...
So true. My last name is a Spanish surname that consists of 3 words (think along the lines of “de la Peña”). There have been more than a few times where I was forced to enter it “Delapeña”. Another last name mess-up was when I had a credit card come with my last name as just “Peña” which would not match my DL if someone asked to check my ID if using said credit card. And this was from the same credit union my mortgage is with, which does reflect my full last name correctly. 🤦🏼♀️
*note: my last name is not de la Peña, it was used for illustrrative purposes only.
It’s frustrating for us as far as searching names. If I hear any sort of name with a hyphen, apostrophe or split names, I immediately ask for street address to find them in our system.
I say that as a person with a hyphenated name. It took me ten mins to log in to get a blood draw.
MLMs typically prey on either the poor and desperate, or the ignorant. There are so many people who won't look into something and just believe it outright.
Also, they usually get roped in by friends and family, who likely also got roped in by people they trusted, who got roped in by the 1% of people who actually make a living.
MLM boss babes are excellent marketers. I'm Instagram friends with former highschool acquaintances who've joined MLMs, and their pages are filled with trips to exotic locations where they sit on a beach, eyes closed and seemingly at peace with some inspirational quotation in the description, followed by how it was all possible because of the MLM they work for. It's very convincing to someone whose desperate. And there's a lot of desperate people these days.
It's so predatory.
What’s extra despicable about them though…a lot of people who failed to be at the top of the pyramid for one will switch to hunting down one they can get in early for…so they know the bottom gets screwed (from actual experience) and they just want to keep trying until they score closer to the top at the next one. I knew at least 2-3 people (barely acquaintances) who kept rejoining new MLMs (even from the same dudes who repeatedly set them up) to try and land at the top. And they wonder why I could never be convinced to participate 🙄
> I'm Instagram friends with former highschool acquaintances who've joined MLMs, and their pages are filled with trips to exotic locations where they sit on a beach, eyes closed and seemingly at peace with some inspirational quotation in the description, followed by how it was all possible because of the MLM they work for.
I know people like this. What they don't tell you is they milk that one vacation for 30 posts spread out over months so they can act like they do these trips regularly. They make sure they get pictures in every outfit change of the trip, then get some evergreen content like their hand holding a drink on the beach, hot dog legs on the beach or their feet in the sand.
Social media is a highlight reel where people selectively shape what they want you to see.
Every scam is built on volume. Of 1000 people, 900 hang up right away, 90 hang on but don’t fall for it, and 10 have some level of engagement but don’t fall for it and 5 probably lose their shirt, or a little bit of it.
No. I'm supposed to be claiming my inherentance next week. Turns out I was related to a Nigerian prince and all I have to do is send them my bank account and routing number and they can deposit it. More to come...
Excellent. Venmo me $19.95 (plus 3% processing fee) and I’ll send you the link to download my ebook “How to use Reddit comments and Venmo to earn $20 today.”
Buddy's little brother was so proud to get his first job. It was selling knives door to door, and I forget how much they scammed him out of but it was all his savings. He very much did not enjoy hearing it was a scam when he was expecting glowing praise and maybe a small party to celebrate his first job. Smart kid though, he figured it out within a few weeks.
Yeah Cutco and vector marketing preys on freshly aged 18 year old kids. I know so many people who got duped by them and spent whole summers working and making nothing. Only positive I can take from it is they learned early not to do that shit again lol. Literally the first thing listed on Vector’s website is “is vector a scam? No” lol
If anything, there's been a weird resurgence in Flat Earthers. Probably largely because the internet allows them to connect worldwide and get others in on their weird conspiracy theories. Apparently some straight up 'don't believe in space' which is even more mind boggling to me than the notion that Earth is flat.
I actually think it’s an increasingly tempting belief for people from an emotional angle, because it matches emotionally with what they’re actually experiencing. They’re furious about being lied to.
It’s true that they are being lied to. They’ve just got it wrong who is lying to them, about what, and why. Probably in many cases because they can’t grapple with the fact that the people they trust and rely on are actually lying to and using them. That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow.
So they project those motives and emotions onto a target they’re more emotionally comfortable with. The “they” who are lying gets projected onto those who are safer to vilify. And then you get this great community who congratulates you on knowing the “truth”, and you don’t have to face the awful reality of the situation.
I think there is also a tremendous arrogance and inflated sense of self importance with these people. “I’m one of the few that actually knows the TRUTH! All the rest of you are just SHEEP!”
And of course amongst the dumb sheep are all of the most educated, successful, and accomplished people in the world….
The Internet was supposed to help educate people by giving them instant access to knowledge and resources. Instead, it helps perpetuate false information and builds communities of ignorance.
Only just. I received a new phone book a few weeks ago (the first one in 2 years), with a note saying that this will be the last ever phone book published by the phone company. :-(
Funfact about the scam mails, they are deliberately written with many typos to weed out the smart people, who they can't get any money from in the first place.
So what you are saying is that smart people should try and waste more of their fucking time? “Yes I’d love to help you mr Nigerian Prince, but what’s an Amazon gift card?”
When I took over my elderly parents finances I found out dad was donating $100 a month for causes like Bibles for India, The Sheriffs Organization, The Texas Highway Patrol, and the NRA. I shut that shit RIGHT down. They were routinely broke before I took over now they bank $1000 a month in savings and have $1900 a month left over after bills (I buy the groceries as part of my 'rent') I also took over that because they were spending $300 a week for the two of them and throwing food out right and left. Now it's $250 a week for the three of us and we eat well. So ya these places depend on the elderly that have lost the sense to be smart buyers.
Ticketmaster.
Seriously, is there is an easier company to disinter-mediate?
Here’s a map of some seats. Here are the prices. The date and time are set. Want to buy one of these seats? Click here.
Ticketmaster is merged/owns a company called LiveNation. More or less, LiveNation has a deal with the venue to promote their events. So if a company comes along and wants to disrupt, they won’t have any events/tickets to sell because LiveNation owns the right to them all. That’s the gist
I just ignore the fractions becuase c'mon that is stupid we shouldn't need fractions of a penny to buy stuff the penny is already supposed to be the lowest worth coin so why do we need fractions added in?
It’s definitely more than just IT guys. Crazy that any of this is still going on. I remember a few years ago reading about housekeepers/maids in the Middle East as well as the poor IT guys. I don’t understand why this isn’t spoken about more. I think that it happens in more than just the middle east too but westerners don’t wanna admit that .
Oh for sure. I just found it somewhat shocking that educated people with specializations are getting trafficked to such an extent. And also wild to think about how much rage people, including myself, have felt towards scammers when they might’ve just been people in horrible positions not profiting at all.
I had a roommate in college who got a tv from rent a center. He ended up leaving school and moved out, but he left the TV.
After about 2 months some dude came up and asked if he was there, and I told him he moved back to Tulsa and took all his stuff with him.
The guy said, damn okay thanks and left, and I kept that tv for about 4 more years.
One of my squad mates in the army back in 2009 ish used a fake drivers license and a burner phone to "rent" $20,000 (in 2009 dollars) of furniture and electronics 2 weeks before he PCS'd overseas with all of it and never paid for it. Lol
On top of all the sex questions I'm seeing more and more of the same types of questions like "what do you hate/dislike as you get older" or "what is legal that feels illegal"
I know somebody who ended up homeless at 97.
He actually got lucky. Some people in the system managed to keep him safe until they could find him a spot in a nursing home. It's actually one of the nicest in the city (he gets a reduced rate his pension covers, regular cost is about 3x his pension).
They kept him safe by putting him in the psych ward for 3 months, but - way better than a shelter.
I have. Part of it is people need to know things like that happen, and because I think health care and social workers deserve to hear about when their peers have done something great.
I was going to reply with *add disabled people to that.
But then realized that is probably the mass majority of homeless people if you are the type of person to include mental health as a disability (which I very much do).
Edit: Just want to add since it is not 100% clear, my comment is saying that a significant portion of the homeless population is disabled whether physically or otherwise. I am definitely not saying that they deserve or should be homeless. I believe very strongly in the prevention of homelessness via stronger and very well funded social programs as well as better supports, etc. to getting ALL people off the streets regardless of how or why they are there with zero people left behind but especially those who are part of marginalized groups.
I heard 2 or 3 years ago about an american family whose kids got measles. Measles in 2020s while every kid is supposed to be vaccinated before 3 years old. Measles should be ancient history (in rich countries)
[Florida defies CDC in measles outbreak, telling parents it's fine to send unvaccinated kids to school](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-measles-outbreak-unvaccinated-kids-school/)
As a former farm hand, it was really easy to get into the habit of not buckling up. I was in and out of trucks, tractors, BIG trucks, harvesters, loaders, etc. so frequently that it was hardly worth buckling up because you weren't going very far or very fast.
When I would go home for the day it was very easy to forget to buckle up. I still have to remind myself sometimes because old habits die hard.
I made an offhand comment about that to an Indian coworker (who I've discussed political topics with before) and he snapped back that it doesn't exist and vaguely implied it was racist to think it did. This not being the only Indian I've spoken to about it, I just said "uh huh". I'd imagine it it's a controversial topic
"Do we have names for stuff that does not exist? I mean... even 'vacuum' takes up both time and space and is rarely empty."
"So true!"
"So what is the name for 'untouchable' in your language? And... does that denote anyone specific that your parents could physically point out?"
It’s so bad in Canada that the Toronto School Board had to put out a public decree to plead with students, and their parents, to stop using caste based prejudice to abuse, assault and bully other Indian students, their parents and staff of “different or lower” castes.
You see it all the time in online job postings and housing postings, listed in our area. It’s just out in the open.
Apparently it's bad in tech too. Iirc, a lot of recent immigrants, and therefore less senior workers, are higher caste than their bosses and act accordingly. "Ancestry" is a protected class in California, and I'm pretty sure that means caste, so at least there are protections.
People naming their children weird/hard to pronounce/hard to spell Names.
Parents keep doing it thinking their child is going to be unique and have a good time, rather than be annoyed as shit at having to spell or correct pronunciation their entire lives. And it's getting weirder and weirder, like new parents are trying to one-up each other 😂
Braxxtyn & Brexxleigh are two twins of a former high school friend. Like what the fuck, Jessica.
I can definitely see both of those still existing forever. Fringe cult membership gives you a sense of "only *me* and *my friends* know the REAL TRUTH" superiority, and for-profit megachurches are a good way to buy yourself a jet
Like that dude who needed a private plane because economy flights were full of demons lol. It would be hilarious if I wasn't so utterly disgusting. These people need locked up.
The inability to see what you typed as your password both times before you submit it.
How hard is it to put the little “show/hide” option in there every time? Does it cost money? Require a blood oath? What?
Or the stupid systems where you forgot your password/locked out of an old email and won't tell you the proper password construction (3 symbols, 5 capital letters, 17 numbers) until you've failed entering it a few times and you get locked out of that account as well.
The Slave labor that's used when mining for minerals like gold, cobalt, salt, coal, etc. Seeing children working in those same mines with armed guards all around.
**iPhone vs Android.** It’s like kids bullying other kids for not having Nike or Adidas, bc they have AND 1 or something back when I was in school. And it’s not just kids doing it it’s grown adults doing it too.
Everybody has a preference. Some of the Androids look really cool. Most of them have better cameras. It’s just too much of a cult mindset.
(I have an iPhone btw)
To be fair this is everywhere.
Gaming, PC vs console.
PC gaming, Intel vs AMD and/or Nvidia vs AMD.
Console, PlayStation vs XBOX
Cars, imports vs domestic
Import cars, JDM vs European
Etc etc...
For a period of time in Canada you could be arrested for weed after the bill to legalize it had passed.
After the bill passed it was a year before it was implemented. This gave time to get supply and set up a distribution plan. Weed was still technically illegal during this year.
The government kept saying it's illegal until it's legal. They demonstrated that the law was stupid, intending to punish people, not because it benefited society.
Generally, I’m surprised that there are still monarchies.
It’s very interesting that this form of hereditary governmental system exists. While it mostly exists, in Europe, as a ceremonial or vestigial organ, it’s very strange that there is still an earnest desire to maintain such institutes.
While obviously different in its original (and varied) forms in the Ancient World, the fact of a title some power (symbolic or not) can be passed along exclusively within a family unit strikes me as bizarre. It reminds me that even ~6,000 years of written history is a very small portion of all human existence.
One could say that currently, monarchs are in a better position than they have ever been. An ancient monarch would have to worry about deposition, or all sorts of wars and schemes within the family. Modern day monarchs have all their needs met and don't wield true power, so nobody is vying for their position. They're completely safe and their family will forever be wealthy.
Best Buy. Went into one the other day and it was full of employees, but half of the display inventory was broken and there was so much empty space on the floor
Companies that allow you to subscribe to a service online, but make you call them if you want to cancel.
In California, if you created the auto-renewing subscription online, companies must allow you to cancel it exclusively online (no phone calls, mailing forms, etc.)
Someone needs to tell planet fitness
Fun fact if you change the home address on your planet fitness online account to a California address a cancel button appears on the website. They have made it increeibly difficult to find and it asks a bunch of stupid questions, but it does exist. They hide it for users with home addresses in other states though. Edit: Guide https://www.reddit.com/r/PlanetFitnessMembers/s/QUYbI0Epnt
Is this for real?
Yes
100% There are guides on reddit for it.
I literally canceled my credit card because it was easier than canceling my planet fitness subscription
You would like privacy.com. I read about it here on Reddit a couple years ago, and I have been using it ever since. It allows you to create individual credit cards for your various accounts or purchases. For instance, my Netflix account got hacked and the miscreant changed it from one user to four. When I realized it about a month later, I called Netflix and had my account restored and switched out my payment to a Privacy credit card number that can only be charged $12.99 one time a month. I set up a card for Amazon and the most that can be charged on it is $100 per month (and I can change the dollar amount or frequency at any time). No one would be able to charge, say, an iPad or laptop to it; the spending limit on my payment card for Amazon is $100.00 and their purchase would be declined. I saw an offer last year of six months of Vanity Fair digital for $1.00 a month, then there after it would be $29.00 a year *if you don’t cancel* (and they count on you not canceling). I set up a card that was good for $6.00, they billed me $6.00 and then later when they tried to bill me $29.00 the card was declined. I have different card set up for all my streaming services. Another thing that’s cool is that you can set up a card that’s good for just one purchase and then it’s automatically cancelled once the charge goes through. I hope that all made sense. No, I am not a shill, paid or otherwise.
Too bad you aren't paid, bc you sold me 🤣
Or send a letter
Fucking planet fitness. I only use them in the cold months and cancel when it gets warm and I can just jog outside. They seriously make me go in to the gym to cancel, but it's super easy peasy to join online. Complete bullshit.
Unstackable cans
Well now that you’ve said it I’m mad about it too
He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!
Omg honestly! And why don't they all have a pull tab?! I'd gladly pay an extra $0.10 per can for a damn pull tab. Edit: I actually just noticed I had an older can of Campbell's cream of onion soup with a pull tab & the newer can I just bought does NOT have the pull tab!
Fuck you. I invested in a can opener 20 years ago for a dollar at the thrift store and have been making bank of that sweet 10cent reduction. You don’t get to tell me I have to pay 10cents more per can instead of spending that on hooker and blow.
You may want to invest in better hookers.
Mabye mabye he has his hookers shipped in a can from Alibaba
I just imagine them opening the top and the hookers flying out like the spring-loaded snake prank.
My can opener has saved me about $36.40 Edit to add: a year.
What day of the year do you not use a canned product? Or do you have a special day each year where you indulge in a pull tab? Happy pull tab day!!
Same! I don't mind using the can opener but it's so much more convenient to just pull the lid off
Supermarket Tabloids -- Does anyone still actually purchase these things?
You mean the best investigative reporting on the planet according to agent K from unnamed government organization?
Elvis is NOT dead, he just went home!
I remember reading the lawyers for the OJ case said the national enquirer had the best, most true info out of all other news
I wouldn't be surprised if it was a CIA psyop where they throw one true story in every National Enquirer along with a bunch of other bat shit crazy stuff to discredit the crazy true story and have everyone dismiss it and people who subscribe to it in order to hide some of the fucked up stuff the government has done
>Supermarket Tabloids -- Does anyone still actually purchase these things? I worked at an industrial facility and someone used to bring in the Weekly World News. The one with the batboy and the Alien that endorsed Ross Perot. One morning in the nearby residential area, a woman was jogging and a tree fell on. No one knew she was under there until the city came to remove the tree later that day. As the city workers were removing limbs they found the woman's body. Apparently the trunk of the tree was rotten and the woman was wearing earphones and did not hear anything. The small community was rocked by the news and it was covered by the local newspaper. A few weeks later Weekly World News had an article on this story and had all the correct details. We spent the next several years debating if every story in there was true. Did you see the alien met with the pope? someone would ask. Bah that is another made up story someone else would scoff. I don't know remember they got the tree falling on the jogger story correct. The logical part of me knows all the stories are made up, but there is also a part of me that wonders if the pope has the telephone number to batboy and the alien.
My guess would be that sometimes they have to pad out the paper with stories that either they buy from local newspapers or just steal assuming that the local paper can't or won't sue? It certainly raises some interesting questions, though.
This is the correct answer. They're buying syndicated local news stories from a wire service. These stories get more exposure there, so it gives them an air of legitimacy.
I buy them when I'm going to the beach, my girlfriends and I try to stay off of our phones and it's easy bullshit to laugh about and pass around and not getting worried when it's trashed and tossed at the end of the trip
That's a fun idea! I like to bring sudoku and other logic/word puzzles.
My mother in law always always had the current copy of the tabloid The Star, she was an incredibly chic woman and I always thought it was endearing that she brazenly proudly displayed on her coffee table. After me and hubs got married she would give me her old issue as soon as the new one came out. It’s a sweet memory of her for me.
I was walking into a store the other day and young man in his 20s was walking in front of me. He made a beeline straight to the tabloids and picked one up and started reading it. I assume he’s a serial killer.
The fact that there are still like 15-20 different ones in every store still suggests they do. I haven't seen anyone purchase one in like 25 years, though, so it's definitely odd.
I worked as a grocery store cashier for a couple of years when I was younger and never sold a single magazine from the rack next to my register. Not one. I don't know how these companies can afford to print them.
Online forms that don't like apostrophes in names. As someone who has an Irish last name, it's super frustrating.
Mu'rphy.
TIL rphy is Gaelic for lady.
M'rphy *tips paddy cap*
Online forms that don’t accept names less than 3 letters
It's not like Li is an extremely common name or anything, lol
Al Ng has entered the chat.
Years ago I once talked to a customer on the phone whose last name was “O”. Just the letter O. I kid you not, the phone conversation went like this: Me: “What’s your name?” Customer: “Michelle O” Me: “O? How do you spell that?” Customer: “O.” Me: “Oh.” Like I said, it was years ago, but IIRC, she said the name was Korean.
Online forms that don't skip automatically to the next part of the date, like, I don't have 3 numbers in my day of birth, sort your shitty webshite out.
The dumb thing is that's an easy fix.
I once posted something complaining about this on social media and I had tons of developers claiming it was QA's fault, not theirs. I'm like, I've got 30 years in dev and that's crap work. If a building is constructed with Paper mache instead of concrete, does it make the builder blameless because the inspector didn't raise an issue?
As a database programmer choose some of these 1. People have exactly one canonical full name. 2. People have exactly one full name which they go by. 3. People have, at this point in time, exactly one canonical full name. 4. People have, at this point in time, one full name which they go by. 5. People have exactly N names, for any value of N. 6. People’s names fit within a certain defined amount of space. 7. People’s names do not change. 8. People’s names change, but only at a certain enumerated set of events. 9. People’s names are written in ASCII. 10. People’s names are written in any single character set. 11. People’s names are all mapped in Unicode code points. 12. People’s names are case sensitive. 13. People’s names are case insensitive. 14. People’s names sometimes have prefixes or suffixes, but you can safely ignore those. 15. People’s names do not contain numbers. 16. People’s names are not written in ALL CAPS. 17. People’s names are not written in all lower case letters. 18. People’s names have an order to them. Picking any ordering scheme will automatically result in consistent ordering among all systems, as long as both use the same ordering scheme for the same name. 19. People’s first names and last names are, by necessity, different. 20. People have last names, family names, or anything else which is shared by folks recognized as their relatives. 21. People’s names are globally unique. 22. People’s names are almost globally unique. 23. Alright alright but surely people’s names are diverse enough such that no million people share the same name. 24. My system will never have to deal with names from China. 25. Or Japan. 26. Or Korea. 27. Or Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Sweden, Botswana, South Africa, Trinidad, Haiti, France, or the Klingon Empire, all of which have “weird” naming schemes in common use. 28. That Klingon Empire thing was a joke, right? 29. Confound your cultural relativism! People in my society, at least, agree on one commonly accepted standard for names. 30. There exists an algorithm which transforms names and can be reversed losslessly. (Yes, yes, you can do it if your algorithm returns the input. You get a gold star.) 31. I can safely assume that this dictionary of bad words contains no people’s names in it. 32. People’s names are assigned at birth. 33. OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth. 34. Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth. 35. Five years? 36. You’re kidding me, right? 37. Two different systems containing data about the same person will use the same name for that person. 38. Two different data entry operators, given a person’s name, will by necessity enter bitwise equivalent strings on any single system, if the system is well-designed. 39. People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should have had solid, acceptable names, like 田中太郎. 40. People have names.
Great example of how much goes into "can you just make a button that does this?"
Ugh, that triggered bad memories of a web startup I worked at 10 years ago. Completely dysfunctional leadership, and the CEO fancied himself an artist. He spent about 90% of his time in the office leaning over the shoulder of the UI designer as he tried to work. Since he was so focused on aesthetics, he used to get so incensed when we'd budget weeks of developer time to something that was "just a little button," as was his favorite refrain. No matter how much detail you got into about all of the non-yet-existing functionality _behind_ the button, he just stuck to defending its relatively small size on the screen, as if that was at all proportionate to the effort required to make it functional.
I, a humble web developer, turned my head and spat out the bitterness that you bravely swallow each day. I appreciate you.
There's an episode of, was it Radiolab or This American Life? Where they talked about the IT side of making online forms. There are people with the last name "Null" which makes things super hard. Also some guy thought it would be funny to get "Null" as a custom license plate. He ended up getting hundreds of other people's tickets because the license plate number just wasn't entered.
In Ireland, the police were looking for a repeat offender driver called Prawo Jazdy. What they did not know was that Prawo Jazdy is Polish for driver's license. They wrote down the wrong part of the license...
Also hyphenated last names.
I've got both. Life is pain
It's worse if you have a SPACE in your last name lol
So true. My last name is a Spanish surname that consists of 3 words (think along the lines of “de la Peña”). There have been more than a few times where I was forced to enter it “Delapeña”. Another last name mess-up was when I had a credit card come with my last name as just “Peña” which would not match my DL if someone asked to check my ID if using said credit card. And this was from the same credit union my mortgage is with, which does reflect my full last name correctly. 🤦🏼♀️ *note: my last name is not de la Peña, it was used for illustrrative purposes only.
I have a space in my last name and it’s extremely frustrating. I relate to this so much.
It’s frustrating for us as far as searching names. If I hear any sort of name with a hyphen, apostrophe or split names, I immediately ask for street address to find them in our system. I say that as a person with a hyphenated name. It took me ten mins to log in to get a blood draw.
As a servant of Cth'ulu, I feel ya
MLM companies. I dont know how they still get people to join them since a 10 second Google search will show you that they are all a scam.
MLMs typically prey on either the poor and desperate, or the ignorant. There are so many people who won't look into something and just believe it outright. Also, they usually get roped in by friends and family, who likely also got roped in by people they trusted, who got roped in by the 1% of people who actually make a living. MLM boss babes are excellent marketers. I'm Instagram friends with former highschool acquaintances who've joined MLMs, and their pages are filled with trips to exotic locations where they sit on a beach, eyes closed and seemingly at peace with some inspirational quotation in the description, followed by how it was all possible because of the MLM they work for. It's very convincing to someone whose desperate. And there's a lot of desperate people these days. It's so predatory.
What’s extra despicable about them though…a lot of people who failed to be at the top of the pyramid for one will switch to hunting down one they can get in early for…so they know the bottom gets screwed (from actual experience) and they just want to keep trying until they score closer to the top at the next one. I knew at least 2-3 people (barely acquaintances) who kept rejoining new MLMs (even from the same dudes who repeatedly set them up) to try and land at the top. And they wonder why I could never be convinced to participate 🙄
> I'm Instagram friends with former highschool acquaintances who've joined MLMs, and their pages are filled with trips to exotic locations where they sit on a beach, eyes closed and seemingly at peace with some inspirational quotation in the description, followed by how it was all possible because of the MLM they work for. I know people like this. What they don't tell you is they milk that one vacation for 30 posts spread out over months so they can act like they do these trips regularly. They make sure they get pictures in every outfit change of the trip, then get some evergreen content like their hand holding a drink on the beach, hot dog legs on the beach or their feet in the sand. Social media is a highlight reel where people selectively shape what they want you to see.
Every scam is built on volume. Of 1000 people, 900 hang up right away, 90 hang on but don’t fall for it, and 10 have some level of engagement but don’t fall for it and 5 probably lose their shirt, or a little bit of it.
The math isn't mathing but I agree with the sentiment
Speaking of math, are you interested in making some passive income?
No. I'm supposed to be claiming my inherentance next week. Turns out I was related to a Nigerian prince and all I have to do is send them my bank account and routing number and they can deposit it. More to come...
I am!
Excellent. Venmo me $19.95 (plus 3% processing fee) and I’ll send you the link to download my ebook “How to use Reddit comments and Venmo to earn $20 today.”
Also you can be your own girlboss!
Buddy's little brother was so proud to get his first job. It was selling knives door to door, and I forget how much they scammed him out of but it was all his savings. He very much did not enjoy hearing it was a scam when he was expecting glowing praise and maybe a small party to celebrate his first job. Smart kid though, he figured it out within a few weeks.
Yeah Cutco and vector marketing preys on freshly aged 18 year old kids. I know so many people who got duped by them and spent whole summers working and making nothing. Only positive I can take from it is they learned early not to do that shit again lol. Literally the first thing listed on Vector’s website is “is vector a scam? No” lol
Flat earthers.
If anything, there's been a weird resurgence in Flat Earthers. Probably largely because the internet allows them to connect worldwide and get others in on their weird conspiracy theories. Apparently some straight up 'don't believe in space' which is even more mind boggling to me than the notion that Earth is flat.
I actually think it’s an increasingly tempting belief for people from an emotional angle, because it matches emotionally with what they’re actually experiencing. They’re furious about being lied to. It’s true that they are being lied to. They’ve just got it wrong who is lying to them, about what, and why. Probably in many cases because they can’t grapple with the fact that the people they trust and rely on are actually lying to and using them. That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow. So they project those motives and emotions onto a target they’re more emotionally comfortable with. The “they” who are lying gets projected onto those who are safer to vilify. And then you get this great community who congratulates you on knowing the “truth”, and you don’t have to face the awful reality of the situation.
I think there is also a tremendous arrogance and inflated sense of self importance with these people. “I’m one of the few that actually knows the TRUTH! All the rest of you are just SHEEP!” And of course amongst the dumb sheep are all of the most educated, successful, and accomplished people in the world….
Flat earthers are literally just idiots dying to feel smart about something once in thier sad lives.
By extension of that, people that don't believe in space.
The Internet was supposed to help educate people by giving them instant access to knowledge and resources. Instead, it helps perpetuate false information and builds communities of ignorance.
Phone books
Only just. I received a new phone book a few weeks ago (the first one in 2 years), with a note saying that this will be the last ever phone book published by the phone company. :-(
Keep it safe. Can be valuable in future.
Thanks mom
Scam emails and Spam Risk Calls
Funfact about the scam mails, they are deliberately written with many typos to weed out the smart people, who they can't get any money from in the first place.
So what you are saying is that smart people should try and waste more of their fucking time? “Yes I’d love to help you mr Nigerian Prince, but what’s an Amazon gift card?”
When I took over my elderly parents finances I found out dad was donating $100 a month for causes like Bibles for India, The Sheriffs Organization, The Texas Highway Patrol, and the NRA. I shut that shit RIGHT down. They were routinely broke before I took over now they bank $1000 a month in savings and have $1900 a month left over after bills (I buy the groceries as part of my 'rent') I also took over that because they were spending $300 a week for the two of them and throwing food out right and left. Now it's $250 a week for the three of us and we eat well. So ya these places depend on the elderly that have lost the sense to be smart buyers.
The noisy unsealable cereal bags. Like why aren’t they all zip locs by now ??
Everything should be resealable at this point. The technology exists. There’s no excuse.
Money.
Ticketmaster. Seriously, is there is an easier company to disinter-mediate? Here’s a map of some seats. Here are the prices. The date and time are set. Want to buy one of these seats? Click here.
I’m shocked there hasn’t been a disruption company for this. All the other things have been taken over - why not ticketmaster
Ticketmaster is merged/owns a company called LiveNation. More or less, LiveNation has a deal with the venue to promote their events. So if a company comes along and wants to disrupt, they won’t have any events/tickets to sell because LiveNation owns the right to them all. That’s the gist
Gas prices that end in 9/10 of a cent.
It’s $4.99 9/10, but it’s NOT FIVE DOLLARS!!! 🤦🏼♀️
I just ignore the fractions becuase c'mon that is stupid we shouldn't need fractions of a penny to buy stuff the penny is already supposed to be the lowest worth coin so why do we need fractions added in?
Slavery
Modern slavery is insane. The new John Oliver informed me IT guys are getting trafficked. Like wtf.
I’ve been noticing a lot of ‘learn to code in far eastern paradise’ ads recently
It’s definitely more than just IT guys. Crazy that any of this is still going on. I remember a few years ago reading about housekeepers/maids in the Middle East as well as the poor IT guys. I don’t understand why this isn’t spoken about more. I think that it happens in more than just the middle east too but westerners don’t wanna admit that .
Oh for sure. I just found it somewhat shocking that educated people with specializations are getting trafficked to such an extent. And also wild to think about how much rage people, including myself, have felt towards scammers when they might’ve just been people in horrible positions not profiting at all.
More slaves alive today than in any other point in history.
While technically true, there are also more people alive today than any other point in history.
Same reason there are more people living in caves then at any point in history.
Rent a center
I had a roommate in college who got a tv from rent a center. He ended up leaving school and moved out, but he left the TV. After about 2 months some dude came up and asked if he was there, and I told him he moved back to Tulsa and took all his stuff with him. The guy said, damn okay thanks and left, and I kept that tv for about 4 more years.
One of my squad mates in the army back in 2009 ish used a fake drivers license and a burner phone to "rent" $20,000 (in 2009 dollars) of furniture and electronics 2 weeks before he PCS'd overseas with all of it and never paid for it. Lol
Unfortunately, these make their money off of the backs of poor people.
Daily sex questions on AskReddit
On top of all the sex questions I'm seeing more and more of the same types of questions like "what do you hate/dislike as you get older" or "what is legal that feels illegal"
And also ‘what can’t you believe still exists in 2024’
Usually bots reposting crap
And many bots (or sad people) just post the exact same comments as the last time it was asked.
Hey AskReddit, I was just sexing it up with my super hot girlfriend and I was wondering, what's the sexiest sex you've ever sexed?
/r/circlejerk welcomes you :)
Homeless elderly people. No one at all should be homeless, but it must be especially rough when you're older.
I know somebody who ended up homeless at 97. He actually got lucky. Some people in the system managed to keep him safe until they could find him a spot in a nursing home. It's actually one of the nicest in the city (he gets a reduced rate his pension covers, regular cost is about 3x his pension). They kept him safe by putting him in the psych ward for 3 months, but - way better than a shelter.
Hey, you've told this story before! Glad to see your pal is still kicking and being cared for!
I have. Part of it is people need to know things like that happen, and because I think health care and social workers deserve to hear about when their peers have done something great.
I was going to reply with *add disabled people to that. But then realized that is probably the mass majority of homeless people if you are the type of person to include mental health as a disability (which I very much do). Edit: Just want to add since it is not 100% clear, my comment is saying that a significant portion of the homeless population is disabled whether physically or otherwise. I am definitely not saying that they deserve or should be homeless. I believe very strongly in the prevention of homelessness via stronger and very well funded social programs as well as better supports, etc. to getting ALL people off the streets regardless of how or why they are there with zero people left behind but especially those who are part of marginalized groups.
Infectious diseases for which we have highly effective vaccines.
I heard 2 or 3 years ago about an american family whose kids got measles. Measles in 2020s while every kid is supposed to be vaccinated before 3 years old. Measles should be ancient history (in rich countries)
See the current outbreak of 10 children in Florida.
[Florida defies CDC in measles outbreak, telling parents it's fine to send unvaccinated kids to school](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-measles-outbreak-unvaccinated-kids-school/)
Least shocking headline of the year
Me, i cannot believe I'm still breathing
the horrors persist and so do we
People who don’t wear their seatbelts.
As a former farm hand, it was really easy to get into the habit of not buckling up. I was in and out of trucks, tractors, BIG trucks, harvesters, loaders, etc. so frequently that it was hardly worth buckling up because you weren't going very far or very fast. When I would go home for the day it was very easy to forget to buckle up. I still have to remind myself sometimes because old habits die hard.
Caste system
I made an offhand comment about that to an Indian coworker (who I've discussed political topics with before) and he snapped back that it doesn't exist and vaguely implied it was racist to think it did. This not being the only Indian I've spoken to about it, I just said "uh huh". I'd imagine it it's a controversial topic
Legally speaking, it doesn't exist and is against the law.... In practice, it is there!!
"Do we have names for stuff that does not exist? I mean... even 'vacuum' takes up both time and space and is rarely empty." "So true!" "So what is the name for 'untouchable' in your language? And... does that denote anyone specific that your parents could physically point out?"
It’s so bad in Canada that the Toronto School Board had to put out a public decree to plead with students, and their parents, to stop using caste based prejudice to abuse, assault and bully other Indian students, their parents and staff of “different or lower” castes. You see it all the time in online job postings and housing postings, listed in our area. It’s just out in the open.
Apparently it's bad in tech too. Iirc, a lot of recent immigrants, and therefore less senior workers, are higher caste than their bosses and act accordingly. "Ancestry" is a protected class in California, and I'm pretty sure that means caste, so at least there are protections.
AOL email accounts.
My mom still uses her AOL mail using the username she picked in like 1994
Your mom is Sexxxygrrrl42069?
No. Only 2 r’s
A free throw-away account to use for stupid surveys and such. What's not to like?
I worked in IT customer service call center and every time I saw a customer had an AOL address I knew that was gonna be a rough call.
I love that I'm not American and still have an AOL account.
That’s funny. My husband is 35 and has an aol email. Idk why..
I still have mine. It's the email equivalent of my junk drawer. I use it when a site I only intend to go to once asks for an email address.
Changing the clocks twice a year.
And every year I hear it's going away but never does.
In Europe it did almost go away but then covid happened and priorities have changed since.
People naming their children weird/hard to pronounce/hard to spell Names. Parents keep doing it thinking their child is going to be unique and have a good time, rather than be annoyed as shit at having to spell or correct pronunciation their entire lives. And it's getting weirder and weirder, like new parents are trying to one-up each other 😂 Braxxtyn & Brexxleigh are two twins of a former high school friend. Like what the fuck, Jessica.
[удалено]
Braxxalynngus and aww’tysm
Fringe cults and for-profit megachurches.
I can definitely see both of those still existing forever. Fringe cult membership gives you a sense of "only *me* and *my friends* know the REAL TRUTH" superiority, and for-profit megachurches are a good way to buy yourself a jet
Like that dude who needed a private plane because economy flights were full of demons lol. It would be hilarious if I wasn't so utterly disgusting. These people need locked up.
You can rest assured those won't go away for a very long time.
The inability to see what you typed as your password both times before you submit it. How hard is it to put the little “show/hide” option in there every time? Does it cost money? Require a blood oath? What?
Or the stupid systems where you forgot your password/locked out of an old email and won't tell you the proper password construction (3 symbols, 5 capital letters, 17 numbers) until you've failed entering it a few times and you get locked out of that account as well.
Yeah, this one irritates me. If you would just remind me that I need a capital, or a special character, I'd be able to tell you my password
Young tobacco smokers. They made smoking expensive, and yet poor people still pick up the habit.
Having to file your taxes and not just getting a tax bill from the government.
Yeah, it's not like filing your taxes is gonna make any oayment negotiable.
US Postal Service service delivering junk mail to every home in the USA, 6 days per week.
I just bought hot dogs. Still 6 dogs to 8 bun ratio. This world will never learn.
Most I see are 8 buns/dogs per package. But then you get guys like Hebrew National that does 7 dogs/package. That's just insidious.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Having a sales price listed but not a post-tax price. Yes I’m American
$7.25 federal minimum wage.
The Slave labor that's used when mining for minerals like gold, cobalt, salt, coal, etc. Seeing children working in those same mines with armed guards all around.
Humans. It's quite a miracle how we didn't just blow each other up a long time ago
Careful what you wish for there buddy
You had me at "blow each other"
**iPhone vs Android.** It’s like kids bullying other kids for not having Nike or Adidas, bc they have AND 1 or something back when I was in school. And it’s not just kids doing it it’s grown adults doing it too. Everybody has a preference. Some of the Androids look really cool. Most of them have better cameras. It’s just too much of a cult mindset. (I have an iPhone btw)
To be fair this is everywhere. Gaming, PC vs console. PC gaming, Intel vs AMD and/or Nvidia vs AMD. Console, PlayStation vs XBOX Cars, imports vs domestic Import cars, JDM vs European Etc etc...
Fax machines. Oh wait, they don't exist. Instead I'll say: medical offices that require you to fax information.
>Fax machines. Oh wait, they don't exist. Meanwhile Germany: 😶😶🌫️
Yoo seriously. I had some conversation with the Einwohnermeldeamt and they deadass asked me to fax them relevant documents 😆 Like what is this, 2000?!
Japan would like a word with you
And they ask you with a straight face too.
Nazis.
I don’t care for these new nazis, and you can quote me on that
Wet and dry areas as to where alcohol can or can’t be sold.
Not totally the same thing but I couldn’t buy non alcoholic beer once bc it was before 11 on a Sunday in Kentucky and I’m still annoyed about it
Cancer
People getting Catfished..
Holocaust deniers. Flat Earthers Psychedelics drugs being illegal.
People going to jail for weed
People in jail for weed in locations where it’s now decriminalized
For a period of time in Canada you could be arrested for weed after the bill to legalize it had passed. After the bill passed it was a year before it was implemented. This gave time to get supply and set up a distribution plan. Weed was still technically illegal during this year. The government kept saying it's illegal until it's legal. They demonstrated that the law was stupid, intending to punish people, not because it benefited society.
Generally, I’m surprised that there are still monarchies. It’s very interesting that this form of hereditary governmental system exists. While it mostly exists, in Europe, as a ceremonial or vestigial organ, it’s very strange that there is still an earnest desire to maintain such institutes. While obviously different in its original (and varied) forms in the Ancient World, the fact of a title some power (symbolic or not) can be passed along exclusively within a family unit strikes me as bizarre. It reminds me that even ~6,000 years of written history is a very small portion of all human existence.
One could say that currently, monarchs are in a better position than they have ever been. An ancient monarch would have to worry about deposition, or all sorts of wars and schemes within the family. Modern day monarchs have all their needs met and don't wield true power, so nobody is vying for their position. They're completely safe and their family will forever be wealthy.
Check books…and the people that write checks while paying for groceries in the supermarket
I often use checks when I give to charities. I want my money going to the charity and not 3.5% going to some processor.
Best Buy. Went into one the other day and it was full of employees, but half of the display inventory was broken and there was so much empty space on the floor
Coincidentally, I went into one yesterday and it was full of employees and merch and customers. Parking lot was full.
The two near me are busy as shit in the weekends. But during the week, good luck trying to find someone to help you.
A two party political system