Stupidity Exposed!

Einstein was right – stupidity IS infinite!

Archive for category Pet Peeves

YouTube (a.k.a. Google) makes reporting abuse (nearly) impossible!

May 3

Posted by admin in 800-Pound Gorillas, Internet Service Provders, Pet Peeves | Comments off

I am SO TIRED of large companies like Google who don’t want to provide support for their own products and would rather you check with the “community” support board for your answers!  I attempted to send an email to YouTube’s abuse email address (abuse@youtube.com) to report a video that I believe was violating their terms of service, and I got back the following reply:

This is an automated response to let you know that your message has been
caught by our spam filter and won't be read. It appears that you have
reached us at an incorrect address. The best way to get a hold of us is by
visiting the Help Resources page at
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/static.py?page=start.cs&hl=en_US
or checking out our Contact Us page: http://youtube.com/t/contact_us

Please don't reply to this message -- we won't get your response.

By looking through our Help Center, you should be able to find a solution
to, or report your problem. You'll also be able to gather the information
we need to best assist you.

Anyone with half a brain knows that putting a spam filter on an abuse mailbox is a stupid idea.  Of course what I’m sending you may look like spam BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I’M TRYING TO REPORT TO YOU!!!  Google seems to do everything in their power to not have to read emails from their customers!

What driver do I need?

Apr 8

Posted by admin in General Rant, Pet Peeves | Comments off

I guess I just don’t get it.  I want to update my notebook’s video drivers to see if it’ll make some issues I have go away.  I go to the manufacturer’s support web site and type in my Service Tag, which is supposed to narrow down my selections to just the hardware I have, and I get this list of 5 different video drivers for my notebook:

Driver Selection

Driver Selection

Yet the site provides no clues to tell me WHICH driver(s) my specific notebook needs?!?  What is the difference between the “Discrete” driver and the “Switchable” driver??  How am I supposed to know which one I’m supposed to use???

The Do Not Call Registry is a joke!

Apr 7

Posted by admin in Government Stupidity, Pet Peeves | 1 Comment

Despite having all our phone numbers registered with the United States Government’s Do Not Call Registry, we are still getting plenty of calls from “Rachael at Credit Card Services” and the “Higher Impact” (the “Work At Home” people), among many others, including the bunch that use automated systems that don’t even respond when you answer the phone!

National Do Not Call Registry

National Do Not Call Registry

Why can’t (won’t) the phone companies let you block calls on which the caller ID information is clearly bogus?!?  (how many times do you get all zeros, or just zeros in the exchange?)

What good is this registry if the government isn’t willing to:

  1. Enact laws that require the phone companies to provide ONLY valid caller ID information (or the word PRIVATE for people who want/need to disable their number from being viewed).  No one should be allowed to place arbitrary caller ID information on the phone line when making calls.
  2. Go after these companies that abuse the Do Not Call List?!?  (of course, this would be easier if they implemented #1 above!!!)

I have to wonder how much money it’s costing the American taxpayers to maintain a registry that is BARELY (if at all) being enforced?!?

Print what I see!

Nov 24

Posted by admin in Consumer Products, Pet Peeves | Comments off

I hate it when I visit a web site, see something I like or some details I want to keep, then print the web page, only to find that the printed version of the web page looks nothing like the screen version!  What’s up with that???  And why would someone write a browser (I use FireFox) that doesn’t just give you WYSIWYP (what you see is what you print)?!?  Geez!

Isn’t it too early for snow-blowers?!?

Aug 22

Posted by admin in Pet Peeves | Comments off

I was walking through Lowes yesterday and noticed that the lawn equipment area was filled with SNOW BLOWERS!  Really?  August 21st is when people start breaking out the snow blowers???  I’m not in Alaska – I’m in southern New Hampshire!  We won’t have snow for another 2 to 3 months!  I guess it’s only fair since they put the riding mowers out in February when we have 18 inches of snow on the ground!!!

Orange is yellow? Yellow is white??

Aug 16

Posted by admin in Pet Peeves | Comments off

Why do they call orange American Cheese “yellow”?  And then they call yellow American Cheese “white”?!?  I don’t get it.  Is that just a trick to get husbands in trouble for trying to be nice and do the grocery shopping??  Can anyone really taste the difference between orange American Cheese and yellow American Cheese???

Legitimate businesses don’t need to block their Caller-IDs!

Jun 26

Posted by admin in Internet Service Provders, Pet Peeves | Comments off

Why does ANY legitimate business think they need to block their Caller-ID?!?

I just received a call from Network Solutions “Technical Support” about a complaint I filed with them.  Aside from the fact that they were passing the buck on the problem I reported to them, what possible reason could they have compelling them to block their Caller-ID?!?  I just don’t get it!

Blogspot (Google) does it’s best NOT to help!

Jun 24

Posted by admin in Internet Service Provders, Pet Peeves | Comments off

If you read my previous post about the PayPal scam, you may have noticed that the blog was posted on a ‘blogspot.com’ blog, which is owned by Google.

I went to the Blogspot web site to see where I can report the scam blog?  Here’s a page with a heading “How can I report abuse?”:

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=76315&ctx=sibling

Near the bottom of the page is the line “If you’ve read the Terms of Service and believe that you’ve found a blog that violates our Terms of Service, please click here to report abuse.”  The link goes to here:

http://help.blogger.com/?page=troubleshooter.cs&problem=&contact_type=main_tos&Submit=Submit

Note that the new page has no other obvious link to report the abuse except the link near the bottom:

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=76315

That link takes you back to the first “Report Abuse” page! (see above)

There’s no real way to report an abusive blog – this is nothing but a “Google circle-jerk”!

I hate blog spammers!

Jun 12

Posted by admin in Pet Peeves | Comments off

I hate spammers!  Especially those who would try to take advantage of my new blog!!!

Stupid spammer

Stupid spammer

Please feel free to add “mikesmoney9984@gmail.com” to all your spam mailing lists!!  :o)