Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)

[HerlockSholmes]

Changing the subject slightly but still talking about things that annoy. As a confirmed Luddite I hate predictive text with a passion. When I’m typing I know what I want to say because I’m saying it. I hate it when the pad steps in. Why does it exist apart from being a gimmick? I just can’t get into the habit of not looking at the words in the actual text.

And another thing......how do people type on a mobile phone with their thumbs?! Its impossible. The pads are so small! I was on the Metro yesterday typing a short text. The tram was rocking and rolling a bit and it took me ages to text because I kept hitting the wrong keys. Even if I’m sitting at home texting using a stylus I STILL hit the wrong keys. But with thumbs......

[Arcadia]

I always thought predictive text was for those people -- and there seem to be quite a lot of them -- who can't actually spell. Isn't there a way to turn it off, though? I remember when I used word processing, that was always the first thing I did, find a way to turn off the predictive text and autocorrect. I admit, that got harder as time went on.

As for thumbs and cell phones, your guess is as good as mine, kid. Yet another in a long list of reasons why I don't have text enabled on my phone.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hey, I'm with you, Herlock!  And I'm not even a Luddite (I'm a retired software engineer, for Pete's sake!), it's because I'm a control freak.  I like the spell checker on my laptop -- if I type something it doesn't recognize, it underlines the word in red, so I can either say oops and fix it or add it to the dictionary.  It leaves me in control, and to me, that is the proper function of such software.

Considering how hard it is to hit the right key on a phone, though, I do appreciate its spelling suggestions, and will even grudgingly admit that I find autocorrect generally helpful.

But -- as you say -- that infernal predictive nonsense has got to go!  I'm typing along (looking at the keys 'cause who can touch type on those dinky little things), and then I look up and see that it had guessed at what I wanted to say about two letters into the word -- say I typed "gi" and it thought aha! giraffe! and meanwhile I've gone ahead and typed the rest of the word I actually had in mind, so now I've got "giraffe blets," which is of course sheer nonsense, so I have to go back and fix it.

I find that it's particularly insistent with hyphenated words.  As soon as I type that hyphen, it fills in the second part.  How in blazes can it know what I intend to type after "self-"?  It could be motivated or starter or adhesive or fulfilling or heaven knows what.  Maybe it rolls dice, I dunno, but it picks some seemingly random word.

Oh, and one odd little thing.  In general it's pretty good at deducing what a misspelt word was intended to be.  But every now and then it seems to go braindead.  Like just now I accidentally typed "inow" -- but did it guess that I meant "know"?  Nope, it had no guesses at all.  It generally recognizes when I've hit a letter adjacent to the one I intended, but every now and then that algorithm seems to be ignored.

As for the thumbs thing, I'm pretty sure it started back when cell phones had just the regular phone-type keypad, and when you were texting there was apparently some way to indicate whether "2" was supposed to mean A, B, C, or in fact 2.  You had only ten or twelve keys to deal with, so it was just easier to hit the right one (and therefore thumbs would work pretty well), but you presumably needed two or three keystrokes per letter (so thumbs worked really well because you could use both of them).  And people got into that habit and kept using their thumbs even after phones developed typewriter-style keyboards.  Which may explain predictive text -- thumbs are even bigger than fingers, plus they're generally not as accurate.

Arcadia, if you know a way to turn off predictive texting, please let me know.  This brings up another of my pet peeves, the death of the instruction manual.  In many cases there doesn't even seem to be much of an online version.  And in order to look up the answer anywhere  online, you have to know the exact type and model, and if you don't know what that is, how do you find out how to find it? 

Sorry to go on so -- I guess all that is more of a sore point than I realized!

[T.o.b.y]

Oh, I sympathize. My phone always turns "my" into "Mycroft". I guess it knows I am a Sherlock fan, which is cute but very inconvenient for communicating with ordinary people... 

[Arcadia]

Oh, I don't know anything about texting. I don't do it. But you can turn it off in some PC programs, that's all I know. It just makes sense (to me) they would give you that option. Have you explored your settings?

[Pseudonym]

I type with my thumbs sometimes but usually just use my index finger. Predictive text is annoying at times but generally it works for me - means I don’t have to stress if I hit the wrong key.

[Carol the Dabbler]

11 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

Predictive text is annoying at times but generally it works for me - means I don’t have to stress if I hit the wrong key.

Aren't you talking about autocorrect here?  There seem to be two different functions, namely 1) autocorrect ,(e g., you type "tupe" and it's automatically corrected to "type") and 2) autocomplete or what we've been calling predictive text (e.g., you type "exa" and it's automatically completed to "example" -- so if you were actually wanting "exact" or "examination" you have to erase the last few letters before you can finish the word -- and even if you really do mean "example" but don't notice that the ending has already been typed for you, you'll end up with "example mple" and need to do some erasing anyhow).

Like you, I generally appreciate having my errors corrected  (even though every now and then it "corrects" a perfectly good word and I have to go fix it).  It's the autocomplete that I could really do without -- as Tobe says, "my" isn't always the beginning of "Mycroft."

Arcadia, I am off to check my settings, but I think I've looked before without finding anything.

[Pseudonym]

I mean both actually. Autocorrect is handy for wrong buttons, but sometimes I don't bother finishing typing the word and let the predictive text finish it. It tells me on my phone what the word is it'll put in, if it's right I just go along to the next word. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

How do you see what its choice of words is if you're looking at the keyboard?

OK, I checked my settings and all I could find was spellchecker, which I had turned off (presumably the last time I went looking for how to turn off the autocomplete). I've turned it back on, just for kicks.  So far I don't notice any difference at all.

[Pseudonym]

As I'm typing a white line comes up above the keyboard with suggested words, the one it's currently going to use if I stop typing is in the middle. If I don't want it to autocomplete the option to use what I've actually typed is on the left. 

[T.o.b.y]

36 minutes ago, Pseudonym said:

As I'm typing a white line comes up above the keyboard with suggested words, the one it's currently going to use if I stop typing is in the middle. If I don't want it to autocomplete the option to use what I've actually typed is on the left. 

Mine does the same thing. But I often mess up anyway and people I communicate with are like, who the heck is Mycroft? 

[HerlockSholmes]

17 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I always thought predictive text was for those people -- and there seem to be quite a lot of them -- who can't actually spell. Isn't there a way to turn it off, though? I remember when I used word processing, that was always the first thing I did, find a way to turn off the predictive text and autocorrect. I admit, that got harder as time went on.

As for thumbs and cell phones, your guess is as good as mine, kid. Yet another in a long list of reasons why I don't have text enabled on my phone.

Your probably right about the spelling but I don’t know how to turn it off. I think that my iPad gets ‘offended’ if you turn things off. Its like HAL9000  “what are you doing Herlock?”😃

[Pseudonym]

17 minutes ago, T.o.b.y said:

Mine does the same thing. But I often mess up anyway and people I communicate with are like, who the heck is Mycroft? 

 What are these people doing with their lives?!

[HerlockSholmes]

I think that we should have a word for people who are ignorant of Sherlock Holmes. JK Rowling had her ‘muggles.’

Think of a word someone👍

‘Doesn’t time fly?

This is my 1000th post😃

[Carol the Dabbler]

Congratulations, Herlock!

I'm not sure *what* my autocomplete is doing right before it throws an entire word in.  It happens often enough to be annoying but not often enough that I can predict when it's going to happen and watch for it.

My autocorrect apparently works the same as everyone else's, though.

[Pseudonym]

Urgh Netflix is down, internationally apparently. I was watching something on it damn it. 

Some people are idiots. 'Oh it's net neutrality! It's because of an Obama deal!' It's down in Mozambique, Israel, all over the world, but clearly Obama is to blame, what with him being the anti-Christ and all. Morons. 

[Arcadia]

Lessee, what did I see the right was blaming Obama for recently? Oh yeah … the rise in gas prices. Before that it was the fall in the stock market. I never knew Obama had such magical powers, did you?  

[Pseudonym]

Nope. He's Gandalf and Dumbledore rolled into one. Amazing. 

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

I think that we should have a word for people who are ignorant of Sherlock Holmes. JK Rowling had her ‘muggles.’

Think of a word someone👍

 

Abominable?

Quote

 

‘Doesn’t time fly?

This is my 1000th post😃

 

I would say "congratulations" but I'm never sure if that's the right word in these circumstances...

 

[Arcadia]

2 minutes ago, Pseudonym said:

Nope. He's Gandalf and Dumbledore rolled into one. Amazing. 

I think "they" would say Sauron and Voldemort.....

[Pseudonym]

*Gasp* I was unable to conceive of such horror!

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Pseudonym said:

... clearly Obama is to blame, what with him being the anti-Christ and all. Morons.

Hey, I thought Dubya was supposed to be the anti-Christ?

This is exactly what I was referring to on some thread the other day -- the current polarization of politics and resultant demonization of the opposition (from both sides).  Whatever happened to polite and respectful disagreement?

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

 Whatever happened to polite and respectful disagreement?

Obviously it's Obama's fault.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

Or Dubya's. 

[Sheerluck]

18 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

I think that we should have a word for people who are ignorant of Sherlock Holmes. JK Rowling had her ‘muggles.’

Think of a word someone👍

‘Doesn’t time fly?

This is my 1000th post😃

Obtuse.

On another note, I came within a hair's breadth of quitting my job today. After following rules and guidelines set down by my boss and employer I received a dressing down for following said guidelines because, apparently, they didn't work as intended when applied. Apparently I was supposed to follow the guidelines, but 'know' they were wrong and correct accordingly. Wanker.