h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good luck with that.

We currently have hot, dry sunny weather. Haven't counted the pollen yet.

I haven't had a decent night's sleep since this hot weather began. I have a fan going all night, which seems to be aggravating my tinnitus. If I don't use it, the bedroom is too hot and stuffy. Opening a window doesn't help because there's no breeze to speak of. The house faces south so the sun is on the bedroom window all day. We keep the curtains closed, but the room still gets unbearably hot.

Another fan may be better. Maybe you could get one of those futuristic Dyson "bladeless" fans. They're stupidly expensive new, but refurbished ones can be purchased for a reasonable price.

I live on the Texas gulf coast, so I know how miserable it can be to sleep in the heat. Before everyone got A/C we learned a few tricks. One, of course, is to have a line of deciduous trees South of the house (to block the sun's heat in the summer, but let it warm the house in the winter.) That's obviously not a short term solution.
When there is a breeze, it's better to only crack open the windward window and open wide the leeward window to create a low pressure in the home which will cool it by a few more degrees. When there isn't wind, the same effect can be achieved by pointing a box window fan in one window and crack another on the other side of the room.

Screen doors, dog runs, and Sun porches are hallmarks of pre-airconditioned homes in Texas, Louisiana, and the other gulf states.

I'll go with A/C any day.

I forgot to a word...

The box fan points outward rather than inward. Also, oscillating and ceiling fans are iconic in Southern homes.

Interesting about the fan & tinnitus. Having sound to mask it is one of the advice strategies - but then the tinnitus is more noticeable when the sound stops.

Today: Fed up with all the adverts for smart meters. They will not in themselves save you money. Only if you heed what they are telling you & switch stuff off, will you save.

Oddly enough, the headline on my BBC news page this morning is about smart meters which will save you £11 per year......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44903471

PP.

There's also the implication that anyone can have a smart meter. A few months ago I went to the website for our gas supplier. I found that we can't have a smart meter from them. (Hubby doesn't want one and I was just curious about them.) I presume that we're not eligible for one because we have gas and electricity from different suppliers. It makes me wonder what will happen to people like us. The UK government wants suppliers to offer smart meters to all homes by 2020. The suppliers will have to start offering single fuel smart meters, whether they like it or not.

We're with different suppliers too. I notice when we have to change tariff (another PH) some options are only available if you have dual fuel.
Now that's discriminatory if eg you use electricity & oil.

There seems to be a glitch. I can't access the last page of posts on this thread. I've tried several methods, but all I see is a page with no posts and no navigation LEDs.

I'm hoping by posting this response to a post from the penultimate page, it'll "fix the glitch".

(And this time I'll remember to copy this text in case I get the stupid "you're not logged in" glitch again.)

Car indicators. When you use them they click until you turn the corner, then when you straighten up they stop.

But there is a roundabout near me that bends back on itself, so when you come off the roundabout the indicator doesn't click off. But it requires a lot of concentration at that point (looking out for pedestrians, cyclists, cars coming at you from a junction right next to the roundabout and so the indicator clicks on for ages until I can pay enough attention to it and switch it off.

I have the reverse of that at one roundabout I use - I signal right, but somehow as I enter the traffic flow, it cancels so I have to activate it again as I go round.
Signalling in general is an issue. I think my hubby signals far too early which can be misleading, then there are people who don't bother to signal at all...

My recent driving related hate is pigeons. They sit in the road until the last minute, then fly up unpredictably. I've never hit one yet, but always feel I need to try & dodge them.

I've recently curtailed some of my signalling. I decided to stop signalling for turns when I'm in turn only lanes. I'll signal to enter those lanes, but I turn them off before I get to the intersection. My intentions to turn are obvious from my lane choice.

Don't.

Someone may think you've changed your mind and decided to drive straight through despite the turning lane.

Regarding indicating in a marked lane, the Institute of Advanced Motorists used to tell drivers not to. The choice of a marked lane should be all the information other drivers need in order to know which way you'll be going, according to them. I don't know if this is still the case. It's a long time since hubby did the IAM advanced driving test.

Today's PH is Technical/Customer Support who respond to a query with the answer to a different problem. I have an app that works on my tablet but exits when I try to access the sign-in page on my phone. I contacted Customer Support who replied with detailed information on how to sign in! I know that I mentioned being unable to sign in when I first contacted them, but that was in connection with the fact that the app exits before I get that far. It seems like someone didn't read my help request thoroughly and just latched on to the "can't sign in" part of it.

This one will sound really petty - ads that refer to life insurance. You insure against something that *might* happen. Death and taxes are the only things in the world that are guaranteed. What the ads are selling is life *assurance*. Just saying.

Less petty is the concept of selling "life insurance" in elementary school classrooms. I hope their not still doing this, but since I still occasionally see the Gerber company (primarily known for baby food) advertising children's life insurance policies on TV, I'll assume their still also sending elementary school children home with forms to be filled out by their parents to take out policies on their kids. What a morbid and heinous business. Life insurance should be to protect a family against a loss of income, not a bet on an early death.


Several years ago, Walmart got busted taking out life insurance policies on their elderly employees, without their express knowledge. They would just slip the forms in with all the other forms new employees fill out hoping they wouldn't notice they just made their employer a beneficiary.

I'm not sure which policies were worse.

^*they're x 2*^

PH – Charity shops that dump books, CDs and DVDs etc in wire baskets.
I love a good charity shop, the not knowing what can be found inside, the cheap bargains and the idea that maybe, just maybe, the 50p you spend on a DVD today will be the final 50p needed to finally find a cure for cancer.
But what I can't stand are when instead of lining books, DVDs, CDs etc up neatly in order on a bookcase or other shelving, they just dump it all higgledy-piggledy in wire baskets. I find that annoying and makes me feel that they don't really look after the goods they are selling. Unless the charity shop is selling something I really want I always prefer to buy it in a different shop that uses shelves, not baskets, as otherwise by spending money in that shop it implies that I approve of how they are treating their products.

Oh, and yes, I have been known to rearrange messy second hand shop bookshelves into order, putting duplicate copies of DVDs next to each other and ensuring they are all the right way up. It's a great way to relax at lunchtime on a stressful day.

<BB<

Multiple Petty Hates today.

1. Advertisements dubbed into English.The latest Calgon as is one example - the lip movements don't match the worded. If a company wants me to buy their product they should make the advert using English-speaking actors. Dubbing the advert makes the company look cheap, IMO.

2. Companies that change food packaging in a way that makes it hard to tell the difference between flavours. Hubby and I drink a supermarket's own brand yogurt drinks. He likes strawberry flavour, I like peach & apricot flavour. The bottles were different colours so it was easy to tell which was which. Recently the packaging was changed. Now you have to look more carefully to see which flavour you're getting.
E
3. Knowing that there was a third PH that I wanted to moan about but not being able to remember what it was. I may post it later if I remember it.