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

PH: a software update that presumably made some improvements, but also means that everything I usually do (receiving an e-mail, checking the calendar and replying to the e-mail) now takes twice as many clicks as before...

PH: I closed a bank account at least 6 years ago, but the bank still insists on sending me statements with £0.00 in them...

Maybe they are planning to fill it up for you later?

Is an update that makes things worse a downdate?

"New and Improved"

I recently read an article about the new toilet for the space station and they used this horrible but way too common phrase, "new and improved".

This triggers my pedantry nerve. If something is new, it's original. If something is improved, it is, by definition, not new.

If a product is described as new or improved, it means the price has gone up. If it's described as new and improved, the price went way up. If it's all new or great new, not only has the price gone up but the product bears little relation to the original.

People who don't answer their phones. Could be they're not at home of course, but some people appear to be out a lot. I'm trying to notify my Mum's friends & neighbours etc of her death & am fed up repeatedly calling. Not the sort of message you want to leave 'after the tone'.

Condolences Teasswill. Can you give one of the neighbours you have managed to reach permission to pass it on if someone asks? Otherwise, all the best with this as it is only one of the myriad jobs now facing you.

Ta - making slow progress.

The name of the University of Oxford's RECOVERY trial. RECOVERY apparently stands for 'Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 thERapY'. Just call it RECVDT standing for 'Randomised Evaluation of Corona Virus Disease 19 Therapy', or 'RECT'.

<BB<

Condolences Teasswill. I hope you will find the strength to cope with your loss.

PH: When you know exactly where something is, until you actually need it, and then it's not there after all...

There's an Entry in h2g2 somewhere about just that - the gremlins that come out at night and move things when you're not looking - but of course I can't find that, either...

That's what happens when I tidy up or do some sorting & move something from where it's been for ages, then I can't remember where I moved it to.

Yes, I think that's what happened to me - months ago I tidied the drawer the stuff was in, and must have moved things to somewhere safe, then I promptly forgot...

I know what you mean. We have some metal mini funnels for filling hip flasks. They're not the kind of things you get rid of when decluttering, so they must be in the house somewhere. Can we find them? No! We've looked in all the logical places and a few illogical ones. In the end we bought some cheap plastic funnels to use instead. That should make the metal ones turn up.

My current petty hates are: wool shops + no will power, and RSI. The first combination has given me a yarn stash that will take me years to get through. Trying to use some of the yarn for crochet projects has given me RSI. Maybe I should stick to knitting - that doesn't give me RSI. But amigurumi is fun, and crocheted creatures don't need as much sewing up as knitted ones.

One of the sure-fire ways to find something misplaced, especially something specifically misplaced by putting it somewhere specific is to buy replacements.

Well, that didn't work for me recently. I have a pet watering fountain. It requires replacement filters. I had left the filters on the counter for nearly a year and then put them away someplace "logical". So after a few weeks I resorted to buying a small batch of replacement filters. I thought that surely I'd be able to find the original stash and searched diligently and repeatedly. So, I bought a larger resupply order. And again, before I finally found an absolutely logical place to store them (hint, when putting something away, think about where you would look for it first) I searched thoroughly again and they're still missing.

I think they're on that planet populated by Biros.

Perhaps you'd already used them & forgotten!

Nah... It came with just 4, I believe so I ordered at least a dozen after getting it and put them away... somewhere.

I'm also eternally missing the magnetic clip-on sunglasses for my trifocals, my original copy of the film _Untitled_ (aka _Also Famous_), and a few other things I absolutely know will turn up someday.

Oh, and the clip-on sunglasses should turn up any day as I just got a new pair of trifocals.