The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

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Wrathbone
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:40 pm

Alan wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:33 pm
Headphone button placement. Can we just get some sort of committee to standardise it? XM4s power buttons on the left, Steel Series its on the right for example. It breaks my brain. Yes it might be easily broken but have some sympathy. Also can said committee outlaw swipe controls? Theres no world a button isnt better than swooshing your finger up and down your bloody ear! Microsoft and Apple have come up with very nice ways of controlling volume if you dont like buttons but stop the bloody swipe garbage!
I upgraded my XM3s to XM5s recently and the two buttons on the left have shifted marginally so that I usually press the wrong button after several years of muscle memory. I've also got the in-ear equivalents of the XM3 which have the touch surfaces right in the place where you need to hold them to adjust them in your ear, which almost always results in accidentally playing/pausing or cycling through the various modes.

To be fair, I do use the swipe gestures on the over-ear headphones, but I've never got them to work as intended on the in-ears. Terrible design.

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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Raid » Thu Sep 08, 2022 1:35 pm

Alan wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:33 pm
Also can said committee outlaw swipe controls? Theres no world a button isnt better than swooshing your finger up and down your bloody ear!
I disagree, but the touch controls need to be good. I think you'd need several buttons to replicate the touch functions on the XM3s (I assume the XM4s are much the same), or you'd be pressing the same button multiple times. If you have multiple buttons they need to be distinct enough in their position to be able to find them without looking at them, and I don't really want to be using texture to differentiate multiple buttons if it means I have to be feeling around on the side of my head to locate the right one. A good swipe gesture feels more natural to me. The only issue is when those controls are too sensitive - case in point my XM3s used to be a pain to wear in the autumn and winter when it rained because any moisture would activate the touch controls. It meant that if my jacket didn't dry out after my walk to work in the rain by the time I went home, the inside lining of my jacket hood would be swiping backward, restarting whatever song I was listening to.

As another use case, I don't see how you could have physical buttons on a wireless earbud, because the force used to actuate it would move the earbud in your ear. I recently got a pair of Pixel Bud Pros to wear when it's too warm to wear the XM3s, or when it's raining (the XM3s aren't waterproof), and the touch gestures are fine. I've never needed to readjust them in my ear, so I've never encountered the issue Wrath describes.

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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:03 pm

It's probably just me - my ear hair has become aggressive in recent years. :lol:

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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Hatredsheart » Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:48 pm

Wrathbone wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:03 pm
It's probably just me - my ear hair has become aggressive in recent years. :lol:
It's not just you.
I'm thinking of plaiting it and pretending to people it's a viking style.
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Alan » Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:02 pm

Raid wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 1:35 pm
Alan wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:33 pm
Also can said committee outlaw swipe controls? Theres no world a button isnt better than swooshing your finger up and down your bloody ear!
I disagree, but the touch controls need to be good. I think you'd need several buttons to replicate the touch functions on the XM3s (I assume the XM4s are much the same), or you'd be pressing the same button multiple times. If you have multiple buttons they need to be distinct enough in their position to be able to find them without looking at them, and I don't really want to be using texture to differentiate multiple buttons if it means I have to be feeling around on the side of my head to locate the right one. .
See the only way I can see them being any good is to add haptics and have the bottom of the cup be mute and be responsive enough to have the volume increase as you move your finger up to the max volume at the top with haptic feedback every 10%. Maybe. It’s pretty crap on the xm4 and I doubt they’ve fixed it on the 5s. I’d much rather have buttons or even a roller like my steel series though that’s quite easily knocked.

Surface headphones have the best solution, you twiddle a ring round the entire cup and it feels great. Apples crown is also pretty good but not as good as the surface.
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Raid » Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:22 pm

I'm not sure when I'd ever want to have the entire volume range accessible that quickly. With ANC headphones I usually find I can adjust them to a comfortable volume and just leave them there, because background noise doesn't interfere. The Pixel Buds are a little different as the volume seems spikier using them, which is possibly a firmware thing (they're basically brand new releases at this point), so I do need to adjust them more frequently.

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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Alan » Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:58 am

So here’s how my work is handling the queens funeral bank holiday. There will be 7 people working to cover things that are urgent, the rest of the workers shall be docked one day of anual leave and be made to take the day off.

What fucking horse shit.
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Drarok » Fri Sep 16, 2022 10:11 am

Oof. My workplace are just making us work, or we can book it off if we want.

Didn't tell us until Wednesday though!
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by arqueturus » Fri Sep 16, 2022 1:16 pm

Mine's accepted it as a bank holiday which we all get on top of holiday allowance. I might burn some car tyres to show my respect.

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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Achtung Englander » Fri Sep 16, 2022 1:28 pm

Alan wrote:
Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:58 am
So here’s how my work is handling the queens funeral bank holiday. There will be 7 people working to cover things that are urgent, the rest of the workers shall be docked one day of anual leave and be made to take the day off.

What fucking horse shit.
I think that is illegal.
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Alan » Fri Sep 16, 2022 2:57 pm

Nah, I’m pretty sure holidays can be controlled by the employer at their convenience. Probably so everyone can’t demand the same time off and leave a place understaffed. It’s an incredibly shitty way of handling it though. Giving the 7 guys working a day in lieu would have been the least they could have done, I would have thought….
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Drarok » Fri Sep 16, 2022 3:39 pm

It's probably the same rule they use for closing at Xmas and making people use up holiday days to cover those (which is shitty, but common).
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Thu Jan 28, 2021 2:24 pm
And that's the story of why I'm not allowed near pregnant women for the next few weeks.

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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Snowy » Sun Sep 18, 2022 3:45 pm

arqueturus wrote:
Fri Sep 16, 2022 1:16 pm
Mine's accepted it as a bank holiday which we all get on top of holiday allowance. I might burn some car tyres to show my respect.
I am thinking the same, I am very tempted to indulge in a little cross-country blast, maybe to Goodwood and back (some great roads that way) while the majority of the country watches the funeral.
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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Wrathbone » Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:47 am

Mandatory box-ticker training courses, so an employer can claim they've trained their employees on things like diversity, anti-bribery, security, etc. We have a series of these which we have to repeat annually.

Today it was workstation safety. I've learned that I should keep good posture while pregnant and that blinking is important. :|

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Re: The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

Post by Hatredsheart » Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:44 am

"I love blinking I do".
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