The real price is the discount

I’ve learned that the real price is usually the discount. A seller will display a high price and then show you what you could be paying if you were a member or had a loyalty card. Or maybe they just display a discounted price but where the reduced price is the real price to make you think that you are getting a bargain.

It pays to be informed, to do your research. To look at what others are selling at, to compare the market. Don’t leave it till the last minute, when you are in front of the discounted special price item. Pulling out your phone to compare the market before buying may not work as some stores kill phone signals on premises to prevent you from calling up Amazon or Google. You could always step outside, or come back later. Don’t be forced into buying until you know the real market price.

Most people don’t pay retail any more. Retail prices are guidelines, targets to get below. Everyone loves a deal. It pays to do your research.

The progress bar

Sometimes it feels like we live our lives by the progress bar, just one pixel at a time. Just endless waiting for digital completion. In my youth it was watching D-copy or X-copy slowly copy an 880MB or 1.44HD floppy. Later, when I started testing software for a living it was animated progress bars of all kinds. One developer thought it would be fun to add an animated gif as a progress bar to keep us testers entertained. It just looped forever until the activity was complete. Its only job was to let you know that something was happening, unless the software had crashed in the background of course, then you would be watching that animation forever.

We can waste our life just watching progress bars.

The art of walking and talking

I haven’t yet mastered the art of walking and talking. It sounds strange to say that out loud but it’s true. When I’m out and about, especially in crowds, I tend to focus my attention on my surroundings and who is near me. When I receive a phone call that all goes to pot. My situational awareness is reduced. I try to find a place to the side, an alley or alcove, somewhere I can focus on the phone call while remaining aware of who is around me and who is listening.

Somehow both my attention to the caller and my surroundings is reduced. It’s worse if I continue talking. You shouldn’t use the phone while driving, and I definitely shouldn’t use one while walking. I lose half the conversation and get in peoples’ way.

The exception to this rule is when I’m in the countryside. With no one around I can enjoy both the walk and the conversation. With a hands-free kit the experience is even better.

I’m sure there is an art to walking and talking but I have yet to master it.

Something went wrong

Something went wrong.

I hate that message. It’s both a statement of fact and unhelpful at the same time.

Your laptop, device, car, whatever piece of technology that you are currently using has failed to complete the requested task and instead is showing you those three words: something went wrong.

What went wrong? How do I fix it? There is no help because it does not know. The exact scenario has not been catered for in advance. There is no exception handler for this particular exception. Instead you’ve fallen down to the bottom of the switch case and landed at the default, if nothing else show them those three words code branch.

Something went wrong.

Political music in minutes

You can now create professional sounding music in minutes thanks to AI.

You can write a country song for your girlfriend on your anniversary with careful written lyrics with meaning only to the both of you. And it can sound like a professional singer and band recorded it. All from the comfort of your own home, and laptop.

A new trend is political music. Music with a political message or bias complete with propaganda lyrics designed to resonate with your target audience. Available in all musical genres and styles. Rock, metal, jazz, classical, pop, you name it, whatever you want. Type in your message and the AI will create the track for you faster than you can make a cup of coffee. Fine-tune it and release. Voila! Your political message or viewpoint is injected into the music streams of your choice ready for the masses to consume.

Amazon takes responsibility for the delivery

I hate it when you leave feedback on Amazon for a problem with the delivery and the response is always:

Amazon takes responsibility for the delivery.

Except they don’t.

They don’t take any responsibility. They just post that useless statement.

Do they reach out to you and offer compensation? No.

Do they issue you a refund, discount, or ask for feedback? No.

Nothing happens other than them posting that useless statement.

And we just accept it.

The bad delivery. The package tossed over your fence into your garden, the dents and rips, the excess of packaging, no packaging.

Amazon does not take responsibility for delivery.

I wish I knew

When I was younger I wish I’d understood finance more. I wish I knew how pensions worked, and taxes. I wish I’d understood how I could have made up years towards the state pension, how I could have reduced taxes with self assessments, paid off a mortgage faster, and benefited from tax-free investments.

I learned all of the above the hard way. By being overly taxed and having a rubbish pension. By learning what I should have done after-the-fact from others.

They should have taught this stuff in school, but they didn’t. Instead we are taught maths that we will never use. Why not teach us how to balance an account, how bank accounts work, about loans, pensions, and investing? Teach us something that will be useful when we enter the world of adulthood and financial obligations. Or at least point us in the right direction.

Error not found

There’s a fault with my car so I took it to a garage. They said it was too complicated for them and to try another with more technical equipment. I did. They said it has no fault codes.

I find this concept very strange. That cars have gotten so complex that a mechanic’s first impulse is to connect a tablet to your car to determine what is wrong. The problem is that when the car says nothing the mechanic gives up, they don’t even look at it.

There’s nothing they can do without a fault code they say. Come back when it has an error.

The car generated an error. I had multiple lights on the dash. The garage said bring it in tomorrow. I did. No fault codes are stored in your ECU they said, so there is nothing we can do. Clearly there is a problem. I describe it. I’m talking to myself. The mechanic has a glazed expression across his face.

I phone the dealer. We can run diagnostics, they say. There is a diagnostics fee. They’ll connect it to their more expensive computer. It’s much better than non dealer garages they say.

I’m not sure if I’m driving a car or a laptop.

Problem empathy

I suffer from problem empathy.

It’s where you worry and stress about problems that are not your own, but those of friends or family.

When catching up with a friend or family member and they tell you about their woes, something that happened to them recently, maybe they were ripped off, scammed, or threatened, and are obviously upset. You begin to feel angry as if the problem has befallen you and not them. That you were the person that was wronged or threatened and you need to sort it, to make things right.

This is problem empathy.

You get worked up about this thing that has not happened to you, yet somehow feels as if it has. It can be really frustrating. Your loved ones may not even understand, telling you that you are worrying and stressing over nothing.

OSINT on old TV shows

I found myself carrying out OSINT on old TV shows. I didn’t realise I was doing it at first. I was watching an old episode of one of my favourite shows and I wanted to know where it was filmed. IMDB and a quick Google returned no information.

I started freeze-framing one scene, advancing frames looking at the geography, buildings, and business names, phone numbers, anything. I was geolocating the scene. It took me minutes. I had it.

Google street view confirmed it. Some minor changes to the buildings and layout but definitely the right location. I had the location, obtained out of mere curiosity and some OSINT skills. Information that the show’s wiki and even IMDB did not have.

There is data in these old TV shows if you know how to extract it.