Great Moments in Computer Programming

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I have to use an iPhone 13 and a Safari browser for work.

I cannot believe how FUCKING SHITTY it is to navigate around with Safari.

I don't know how many times I need to do something and there's just.... nothing.... on the fucking screen in terms of control.

Jonny Ive is the worst designer in human history and all of the little worms that want to be like him have failed. Horrendously. I would never allow this garbage in my house otherwise. These simpletons have succeeded in creating a browser experience where multiple times you just cannot do anything unless you already know what to do. Oh and the URL entry field is at the bottom for some reason.

What absolute SHITWARE.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

It's now called by these cretins the fucking "Tab Bar." They moved it AGAIN in iOS17. Everything I was looking for in terms of how to set it back to where it should be was out of date because they removed the original way to do it. They are so GOD DAMN WORTHLESS.



Shoot everyone over there that worked on it in the head with a bullet and then shoot them again in the dick and see if they can tell the difference. What a bunch of fucking losers.

[Casual Observer]

Jonny Ive is the worst designer in human history and all of the little worms that want to be like him have failed.

Johnny Ive can suck my fucking dick. He and his "war on buttons" is why all devices suck now. Shit, my fucking LG soundbar doesn't even have real buttons. Something that sits across the fucking room and I can barely see apparently can't have buttons that I can see and touch. Fuck Johnny Ive.

[Da King]

I was a pure Android user until 3 years ago. I have owned an iPhone for 3 years now. I, personally, have never struggled to navigate Safari. I would love to sit down with you and understand your concerns.

And his name is Jony.

[Tdarcos]

I have tried several of the on-line games that are advertised on YouTube videos, and while I am am atheist, their performance/behavior can best be described by this Bible quote: "“And this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN." (Daniel 5:25) which means, roughly, "You have been judged and found not just wanting, but utter garbage."

First, let's take a look at "Evony: The King's Return," only in my case, I returned the disk space this piece of trash wasted. Now, I'm not referring to the oft-repeated methods in the game to push in-app purchases; it's a free game, I understand the whole idea is to get you to pay something. That, I don't have a problem with. That the game is more-or-less a "bait and switch" since the game as offered is not the same, is not a big issue, but it's still an issue.

No, those are not what puts this game into the "get rid of this immediately" territory. For a large game - the full app is about 1.2 gigabytes - typical practice is you download either the whole app package, or you download a small 2-3 megabyte installer, that installs the whole app. Then it creates a shortcut to the application, and you run the installed app. If there are updates, they are usually "small" at 20 megabytes or less. But this is not how this app works.

Instead, the "boot" installer downloads the full 180 megabyte primary installer, which installs the rest of the 1.1 gigabyte game! And if you quit the program, you have to reload the entire 1.2 gb to play it again! While this is ridiculous, and unacceptable, it's nothing compared to the other game.

Our star offender in my small Rogues Gallery is "Call of Dragons," which I discovered was not quite usable because I was unable to figure out how to play. So I might have simply closed it from the task bar, only it goes full screen. Okay, I'll just use task manager to terminate it. I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete to bring up the abort task menu, and... nothing. Multiple invocations of the 3-finger-salute are ignored. Fortunately I figured the menu option to exit, then having done so, uninstalled it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I don't care if your application cures cancer and AIDS, solves world hunger, and causes world peace, if I can't close your application except in ways you permit, your application is malware! What on earth is a supposed game doing that it has to trap me? Bitcoin mining? Sending spam emails? I don't know, but when your program does everything it can to prevent me from leaving except on its terms, I can only presume misconduct.

There is no justification for a game to commit such behavior. Avoid both of these programs as unacceptable, and especially Call of Dragons, as the plague it is.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I was a pure Android user until 3 years ago. I have owned an iPhone for 3 years now. I, personally, have never struggled to navigate Safari. I would love to sit down with you and understand your concerns.

And his name is Jony.

I genuinely did not intend to get that pretentious dickwad's name wrong. My mistake.

Let's start with the first thing. Address bars have been at the top of the screen since address bars were invented. That is where they go. That is where they belong. Clearly there is no practical reason for moving it to the bottom because Apple doesn't care about practicality in anything. And it's not the default for the web version of Safari, mostly likely because the shitheads that work on the mobile version can't infect the desktop version with their horrible ideas.

There is no reason to put it at the bottom. But even if you think there is, I hope you can agree that there is no earthly reason to have the option to move it where it belongs be removed from iOS 15 to 17. I do truly hope you can agree that moving the option to make the browser work normally is dumb, pretentious and horrible beyond mankind's ability to measure such things.

1. Slavery
2. The Holocaust
3. This fucking thing

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

In doing some reading, I have to quote this comment.

Apparently Jony Ive's designed his own car. It looks incredible, but you have to turn it over to fill it up.

[Da King]

Let's start with the first thing. Address bars have been at the top of the screen since address bars were invented. That is where they go. That is where they belong. Clearly there is no practical reason for moving it to the bottom because Apple doesn't care about practicality in anything. And it's not the default for the web version of Safari, mostly likely because the shitheads that work on the mobile version can't infect the desktop version with their horrible ideas.

Counterpoint:

Lets say that you generally operate your phone with one hand (I know I do, probably 80% of the time).
Now open your browser of choice.
Now tap on the address bar with that one hand (presumably, your thumb?) so that you can type in a new url.

Does your thumb reach the address bar?
If it is at the top of the screen, I can reach it if I balance my phone on my pinky, and stretch up to it.
If it is at the bottom of the screen, I can reach it regardless of hand configuration.

So... is it a terrible design choice? I kinda like it.

And of course it's not at the bottom for the desktop version of the app. Its not an issue on non-mobile versions.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Counterpoint

On the iPhone 13, the phone itself is so small that you can get anywhere and I do not have particularly large hands.

It's not that I want to lower the misery rankings of slavery and the Holocaust. It's more that I want to raise the awfulness of this. You can hopefully see my quandary.

[Casual Observer]

I do not have particularly large hands.

Shh, you're not supposed to admit that.

[Da King]

On the iPhone 13, the phone itself is so small that you can get anywhere and I do not have particularly large hands.

The 13 and 15 are within .03" of each other.

On my 15, I have to strain my hand to reach up to where the address bar is. It can be done with my likely smaller-than-average hands (draw your own conclusions, they're probably true), but it is not comfortable.

I rather enjoy having it at the bottom of the screen. :shrug

[Casual Observer]

My Moto G Play is too small for my hands, gonna need a tablet.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

My wife and I renewed her Costco membership last year. They charged us $120. It is supposed to be $60. We didn't get anything worth the extra sixty bucks. They sent us a check for $12 to be used at Costco for some reason.

They intentionally create no way to downgrade your membership online. What a bunch of fucking assholes.

[Da King]

My wife and I renewed her Costco membership last year. They charged us $120. It is supposed to be $60. We didn't get anything worth the extra sixty bucks. They sent us a check for $12 to be used at Costco for some reason.

They have two levels of membership.

The "basic" one is $60/year. The "executive" one is $120/year.

At the "executive" level, you get 2% cash back on everything you spend (as opposed to 1% with the basic). They will guarantee that the extra $60 is worth it to you. You must have qualified for $108 in cash back rewards, leaving you $12 short, so they cut you a check. How nice of them, eh?

We have a Costco 5 minutes from home. We get 99% of our gas there. The membership more than pays for itself, especially when you get their credit card (4% back on gas, 3% on travel and restaurants, 2% at Costco, 1% everywhere else).

We normally get about $650 cash back every year.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

"You must have qualified for $108 in cash back rewards, leaving you $12 short, so they cut you a check. How nice of them, eh?"

I don't understand. I paid an extra $60 and got a check for $12. Shouldn't I get a check for $60?

[Da King]

"You must have qualified for $108 in cash back rewards, leaving you $12 short, so they cut you a check. How nice of them, eh?"

I don't understand. I paid an extra $60 and got a check for $12. Shouldn't I get a check for $60?

No. You probably got $108 in cash back already. They cut you a check for an extra $12 to make sure you got $120 back, which was the cost of your membership.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

When you say $108 in cash back already, what do you mean? Not trolling. I honestly don't know.

[Flack]

I just launched a new YouTube channel. This now requires a phone number, so I gave them my cell phone number. Over the next several hours, YouTube used my cell phone number at least 10 times for MFA nonsense. I get using it once, that's fine. But using it nearly a dozen times during the same session is stupid. With every change, every update, it sends you a new code. Anyway, the punchline is that the final step said, "this phone number is associated with too many accounts and cannot be used, please provide another." The phone number that is good enough to establish a YouTube account is not good enough to verify it. I ultimately fed it a Google Voice number (which forwards to my cell number) which it was pleased as punch with and verified the channel. I'd love to stab the person who came up with this logic and have them explain it to me as they slowly bled out.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Every time a computer professional hates text based 2FA, the wings on my back grow stronger.

Buddy of mine told me a story the other day where his daughter left the car while he went into a convenience store. His keyfob's signal wasn't strong enough to tell the car, hey, I'm in here! So the car automatically locked itself. Fob, wallet and phone inside.

He borrows the phone of a random woman and tries to get his insurance to send someone out to open the car. The insurance place wants to make sure it's him, so they send him a code.... to the phone locked inside the car.

I get frustrated in my line of work when people don't spend enough time thinking "what if...." before coding. But 2FA makes people's brains shut off. They don't think about ANYTHING involving it.

[Da King]

When you say $108 in cash back already, what do you mean? Not trolling. I honestly don't know.

From their website (https://www.costco.com/executive-rewards.html):

The 2% Reward is issued approximately three months prior to the member’s renewal date, in the Renewal Statement, and reflects the Reward earned up until the issue date.

Sounds like prior to your renewal, you get a rewards certificate that you bring back to the store and redeem for cash. (Mine works slightly differently only because I have their credit card, but it's the same idea.... once a year, you get actual cash back from them).