OT: Modern Life Rant

Companies pretending to be green and replacing plastic containers with cardboard. What they don't tell you is that it often has a thin coating of plastic to prevent moisture ingress and its a PITA when composting to find fine sheets of plastic in the final product.

Child proof or tamper proof containers that are impossible to open without some water pliers :) Bleach seems to be the favourite welded on cap but recently I purchased some small containers of drinkable yogurt where it was difficult to remove the cap even using tools. And then there was the packet of snack peanuts that no-one in the group I was with could open by hand.

On-line forms that will not accept certain common formats such as the space in your post code, phone number or bank sort code. Software that insists on strong passwords but then will not accept characters such as a dollar sign or an underscore. Worse with all of these is the red text saying that one of the completed fields in the form is incorrect without telling you why.

On-line retailers having hidden postal charges that cannot be seen until you have put something in the basket and gone 75% through the checkout process, including having to enter a delivery address etc. You then find that there is a £20 post and packing charge for something that fits in a small jiffy bag.

Fry or Togsvig?

Agreed with all of those.

Yes, the problem of replacing plastic packaging with alternatives that are waterproof and/or transparent and sufficently lightweight and robust, as needed, is some way off a solution.

My wife has both osteo-arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Some of her meds can only be prescribed by a consultant and supplied by the hospital pharmacy - one of them comes in child-proof containers that no-one with her condition can open ... even with tools.

Yes. I prefer to put the area code in parentheses, follow it with the 3 digit local exchange code and then the 4 digit individual number - (0161)747-1234 or similar - exactly as we we taught to put it by the phone companies. Almost every site rejects that format.

Often with an arbitrary number of special characters, meaning that you will never remember the password either, unless you use the same one everywhere.

I've had number of those recently. Sometimes they also blank out other lines, that you have previously filled in, and you have to re-enter those too - in the name of security.

Then they keep emailing you to complete the transaction that you decided to abandon at that point.

To add to those, sites that require you to leave the page and click numerous boxes to disable cookies, instead of simply placing a REJECT ALL button on the page.

Another one is companies (GuffGaff is one) who don't understand that a parent may be paying for their children's mobile phones and so won't let you register more than one phone on an account and each account has to have a different email address. My children are now old enough that they each have their own active email address, so it is no longer a problem for me at least. At one point I had to have 3 extra email addresses, simply to run their mobile phone accounts.

it is even worse when you get one of those on an aircraft and you have had to pack the Swiss Army knife in the hold baggage.

The Ghostery extension can now be set to automatically reply to all those popups in the negative for you :-)

And when you reach 4 they get twitchy if they are all linked to the same card even if they have unique email addresses!

Davey snipped-for-privacy@example.invalid wrote

Some have chosen not to do that, basically because it is very expensive and some of us prefer ot have the cheaper service.

Ditto.

We have a problem with quite a few from Ireland with that problem.

You aren't. I can't think of any operation that matters where you are forced to use an app because there is no web site. In fact with some you can do more on the web site.

Then you need to change banks.

But are very convenient.

Again, can't think of any operation that matters where there isnt.

That's like claiming that there should always be a bricks and mortar local branch for every operation. No thanks, much too expensive.

I'll take a look at that. There shouldn't be a need though - the EU could have mandated a single button or, even better, a requirement to honour the "Do not track request" setting

Similarly, a requirement for wesites to identify their age rating, allowing for parents to set age limits on children's local accounts or at the ISP - which would remove a lot (certainly not all) of the worry about inappropriate content and remove the problems and fears that impending legislation on age verification may bring.

I've not had a problem there, as two of the kids are on the same card as me and the third is on my wife's card - same bank account though.

two stage verification boils my blood

who actually own ghostery nowadays? used to be a german SEO company I think, similarly worrying to AVG recently snapping up IdontCareAboutCookies

What material was used for the packaging ?

That one is more difficult to fix because they need the address to calculate the postal charge.

NatWest use one of those boxes that generates an authorisation code; they're used by a number of banks and have several modes of operation. They generate a code with a space in it, for for a long time the website would reject a code with a space, telling you to "remove the space"!

For quite a while, I had problems with the NHS app/account. I set a password of about 16 characters, but it was never accepted. I am pretty sure it hashed the password and compared the hashes, but truncated the entered password to a shorter length.

Don't believe that last bit. It must be possible to devise a tool that those individuals can use for those containers.

Or get radical and use a password manager.

Wait till you get to blister packs of pills designed to e,g. treat arthritis that need a small hydraulic press to extract.

Farcical software upgrade. I have been buying for a big chinese site for some years., It now says that it no longer allows punctuation marks or spaces of any sort in my last name. So good bye Farrah Fawcett-Major and Jim O'Flaherty.

Of course, when I try to change it, it wont allow you to alter the already registered name.

The postage on an item from china exceeded the cost of i t. I thought if I were to order two, it would be more worthwhile. No, the postage MORE than DOUBLED for two.

To be fair, the site was upfront. I tried to leave feedback because the item was in fact great. "Server Busy". I gave up

Here is a message I received when a software upgrade to my share trading account removed the 'show daily price change' column

"Thank you for your secure message.

I can confirm that if you click 'portfolio', then go to the investments tab and click the 3 dots next to "group by", it comes up with "column configurator", you will see another pop up box and you can choose what you like to appear on the banner, including the option you have mentioned in your query."

Yeah, Three dots. Totally intuitive. Nothing to do with 'group by' Just randomly located. Not everyone has a screen the size of a piece of toilet paper and needs software to match, including wipe actions....

The problem is possibly the ability to grip/hold a tool and or have enough strength to operate it.

The B and Q web site seems to accept any password when you sign up but if you subsequently try and use one that had a "special" characters it will always reject you.

I get prescribed pills the size of a pin head in a blister pack. The problem with these is that they are so small and light releasing them from the pack and they are likely to fly to the other side of the room.

Exactly - she is currently in severe pain with a "flare up" and wearing splints on each hand. She can take a splint off, but she has very little gripping strength and is physically unable to make a fist.

But they do have to do that stuff with food and drink unless someone feeds them etc in which case that other individual can get the medication out too.