Ask Lemmy

I got nothing recent, but here are a few from the past.

I was once reading a magazine and tried to pinch-zoom a photo. I tried multiple times before I understood the depths of my stupidity.

I once took my new car into the dealer about a month after I got it for warranty work because the washer fluid wasn't working anymore. This was after I looked it over and couldn't find the cause, so I assumed it was a body control module or maybe the stalk was bad. I was pushing the stalk forward instead of pulling it backwards. The tech, service writer, and myself had a good laugh about how I had forgotten how to use the damn thing. There is a freaking icon with "pull" on the stalk. I had been using it just fine and then caught the stupid one day.

I once remarked that they should invent vizine, but for your mouth while I had cottonmouth. Before anyone steals my idea, water was invented over 12 billion years ago.

I tried to take photos of hallucinations to show others. Yes, photos, plural.

Before you worry, I am dedicated child-free.

I'm a programmer, so this is pretty much a constant thing haha. Sometimes you write the smartest shit imaginable, and sometimes you waste 4 hours on something extremely simple.

Added an extra shelf to my shoe rack today. After measuring, cutting, drilling, even made little notches below the shelf, barely putting the shelf in because of hinges in the way, vacuuming the mess, halfway packing up my tools and call it a successful day and... doors won't close because of the hinges on the doors hitting the shelf. Moved it 5mm lower after drilling another set of holes.

Asked my dad's permission to go see the eclipse next month

I'm almost 30

My job involves opening boxes, getting serial numbers from the contents, and resealing the boxes. I have repeatedly done the last two steps in the opposite order.

I got lost and almost stuck out on a hiking trail in the desert after dark. It was raining, I was soaked through, and so was my dog. It wasn't supposed to rain, and I'd taken this hike before. Granted, never by myself, but still.

Luckily I found my way back to the trail head just as it was getting pitch black, but I was seriously scared there for a bit. I kept apologizing to my dog for being so fucking stupid to go on a two hour hike in the late afternoon with no emergency gear and no "just in case" rain protection.

...this happened 5 hour ago, btw, I can't sleep, I think I'm still in shock a bit at how close I came to possibly dying. And for bringing my dog down with me.

While trying to mount a speaker:

Where's my drill bit?

Where's the mount?

Where's my pencil?

Where's my level?

Where's the mount?

WHERE ARE THE SCISSORS?

I JUST HAD MY FUCKING DRILL BIT!

GOD DAMNIT, JUST LET ME MOUNT THIS THING, WHERE IS MY PENCIL?

Every time I try to do anything. I'm probably undiagnosed ADHD, tbh.

I was laid off this year. I'm a 25 year veteran programmer, and not to brag in the sea of tech folks we have here, but I am rather proud of my skills I have picked up over the years.

My first interview this year, they set up an online development environment and had me solve a fairly simple array sort problem, and I completely choked. Something about being watched and judged while I worked broke my brain.

I managed to ace my next interview, but they didn't bother with the programming exercise at all.

Opens Reddit.

I tried taking a new route through a familiar building. Automatic actions took over and led me back to the entrance I came from.

Woke up.

Spent weeks without pepper because I thought the grinder thing wasn’t working. Turns out I hadn’t screwed off the cap and removed the foil. I was just about to give up and buy a new pepper grinder.

I have pepper again.

Every day I wake up and go to work and realize just how stupid of an idea that was.

Starting to do tasks that other employees wouldn't touch with a 10' pole due to complexity and now having to deal with the consequences including being assigned more complex tasks... I'm making myself essential I guess, but in a union job it's not as if I can negotiate for a better salary...

For some reason, I wanted to try the new Dutchman burger that people were talking about online, and right as I took the first bit, I instantly remembered that the buns are replaced with onions and my body doesn't like that much onion all at once.

Looking for my phone... while holding the damn thing in my hand.

About half the things I said in an interview for a new job.

Going over my life savings and investments with a CFP.

Fortunately, the pros will be taking over from me soon.

Did the same mistake three times

Nearly executed wrong rsync command which would have overwrote/deleted the wrong files.

I don't remember what exactly it was, I just didn't want to rewrite the whole command so I took it from history, quickly checked it and executed it. Then I've suddenly seen the output and quickly killed it. I know my heartbeat went up, "Oh no! What the fuck did I do? I do have this backed up, right?"

Thankfully, the wrong rsync command I copied had -n in it. That means dry-run - display what would be done but don't perform the actions.
I guess I should always first do the dry-run and see if I am satisfied.
This time I was just lucky.

Everything that I've ever done

Failed just about all my school tests except the ones I cheated on.

Be an iPhone enjoyer and defend Apple here on Lemmy.

There’s no beating the hive mind.

Looking at my phone, I verbally asked myself, "Where's my phone??"

I asked lemmy users what a tankie is.