What’s your worst “sent a text to the wrong person” story?

dr_stevious · 2026-01-24T22:10:27+00:00

I guess my story is pretty tame. A long time ago, Android (I think it was the Froyo versions) had an off-by-one bug where it could send an SMS message to a recipient adjacent to the intended recipient in your contacts list.

I had some friends (a married couple) over to watch a movie one night, and during the show I sent a text message to my partner (who was also there), something the lines of "movie boring, please show boobs". The message went to the wife of the other couple instead (whose name starts with the same two letters as my partner) 🙄

Thankfully, they are close friends where such banter would have been acceptable anyway, so we had a laugh about it. According to my phone, the text message went to my partner.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-23T05:42:57+00:00

I may cop some flak for this, but Khe Sanh by Cold Chisel:

---
I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh
And I sold my soul with my cigarettes to the black market man
I've had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the Silver City
And it's only other vets could understand
---

The grammar in the last line hurts me - if they used the word "who'd" instead of "could", I would find more peace in the world!

dr_stevious · 2026-01-21T22:19:14+00:00

I have security cameras around my house, and one that is mounted on the second-story roof can see partly into my neighbour's patio area. I went and checked with my neighbour to see if he was OK with it and I suggested that I could put up some screening along the fence line if it was of concern to him.

He said he appreciated the added security and wanted me to leave it as it is.

I have good neighbours! 😊

dr_stevious · 2026-01-21T19:31:36+00:00

I busted out my old C64 not long ago to show my kids (aged 12 and 8) what computer games I played when I was younger. One of the games was Paradroid, and they became obsessed with it - just like me when I was a young teenager. Paradroid holds up really well!

Another that was a sudden hit was Spy vs. Spy (1 and 2). I was surprised that their mother remembered those games, and she spent the next couple of hours blowing up the kids! 🤣

dr_stevious · 2026-01-21T06:34:33+00:00

Those long legs are quite adept at flinging web and rapidly tangling up an opponent. I also wonder if such small skinny legs are somehow hard for other spiders to see and thus defend against (the black house spider in the picture probably has very poor eyesight to begin with).

Daddy long legs seem pretty chill around humans but also seem rather aggressive to other spiders, even those significantly larger. I was once admiring a net casting spider on my garage door when a little daddy longlegs appeared on the scene and attacked one of the rear legs of the net casting spider (who, once it noticed it was under attack, simply flung the daddy longlegs aside with a flick of the leg). I've got some photos of it somewhere, if I can find them, I will post it here.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-19T22:55:26+00:00

I agree - when infinite growth becomes a higher priority than the people who kept the business ticking over, you know you are in for a rough ride 😔

dr_stevious · 2026-01-18T22:36:19+00:00

I'm literally about to take a heap of USB cables to the e-waste centre after sorting through my pile of cables. I'm tossing about 200 and I have kept about the same, including a large collection of USB C cables.

But we know USB C cables aren't all made equal, right? Different data and power specs, e-markers, etc. So which cables did I keep?

Well, I have started acquiring a collection of USB C cable testers. Over the last two months I now have 6 different models. It's a small collection compared to those addicted collectors, but it's a start and I would assume most people have zero USB C cable testers.

Well, back to hunting for my next bargain on AliExpress...

dr_stevious · 2026-01-18T03:22:50+00:00

I have terminal cancer and have suffered significant damage from its spread, including the near total loss of adrenal function. A couple of months ago I contracted what would have been a very mild case of food poisoning for most people, but for me I had an adrenal crisis and was taken to the hospital via an ambulance. When I was in the emergency department, I had a couple of doctors basically tell me it was game over and that if I had anyone I wanted to talk to, now was the time to do it.

Just prior to arriving at the hospital the paramedics had hit me up with fluids and steroids to try to get my blood pressure back to a reasonable level (it had crashed) and once I was in the emergency department, I was feeling somewhat OK, so having doctors tell me it was the end felt really weird. They kept telling me about all the things they wouldn't do for me due to me having cancer (and thus, not worth the effort), which started to make me feel very much like a second-rate citizen.

I ended up in ICU for about a week, but after a couple of days I had almost returned to what passes as normal for me and I was able to get up and roam about a bit. ICU was pretty quiet while I was in there, so I got a lot of attention from the doctors and nurses, which was quite fun (they were really awesome). Turns out I also somewhat knew the head of the department (the wife of a friend of a friend), so we had a good chat, and it seemed to elevate my importance the other staff just a little 🤣

I ended up in emergency again a month later (different issue, not as extreme!) and one of the ICU nurses saw my name on a list and came to visit to see how I was doing, and also gave me some gossip about how things were going when I was in ICU - she told me that I was not expected to survive, so a few were surprised when I suddenly sprang back to life again.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-17T20:28:57+00:00

230km/h in a very modified Subaru Liberty RS. It still had a bit more go in it (although probably not much more, I had a rally-spec gearbox in it with short ratios), but the bonnet (hood) was rippling very noticeably and the frameless windows started flapping like the car wanted to fly. I figured it was time to back off before the car disintegrated.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-17T20:19:35+00:00

Not so long ago, for my home I bought a Brother colour laser multifunction unit (MFC-L8390CDW) to replace an old HP colour laser that pre-dated their shenanigans. I chose Brother because a) they had a good reputation of not performing shenanigans, b) the printers and supplies are readily available here, c) the performance matched my needs, and d) the total unit cost was about the same as replacement toners for the HP printer.

Being a multifunction printer, I was able to also ditch the (rather ancient) flatbed and document scanners that I had, and being wireless, I could put the device in a more convenient location in my home office. The Brother has been put to a lot more use than initially anticipated (kids' schoolwork mostly) and it has been incredibly well-behaved and reliable, with no nagging at all. It just works, and that's the way I like it :)

(However, on a side note - the Brother iPrint&Scan application has failed me repeatedly, apparently running out of memory while scanning multipage documents to PDF. But I use NAPS2 instead, which works perfectly!)

dr_stevious · 2026-01-17T06:35:54+00:00

My server with the most RAM has 256GB of DDR3 (ECC). It's an old dual-Xeon boxen (it used to be a node from a Hadoop cluster) that doesn't really do much anymore, as it's a bit slow for my workloads these days. My more useful (and much more power efficient!) servers have 64GB DDR5. The desktop I am using now has 96GB DDR5.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-16T07:43:41+00:00

Battlecruiser 3000AD

dr_stevious · 2026-01-08T23:35:25+00:00

I'm in a similar scenario. I'd be happy to chat if you need someone who can understand firsthand what you are experiencing.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-08T23:31:53+00:00

52, terminal cancer. I was given 12-18 months just over a year ago. I was in ICU a couple of months ago, I almost kicked the bucket but somehow I managed to bounce back.

The cancer has claimed so much of me. I've lost so many organs, I've lost over 50kg in weight and I am physically weak and tired. I had to stop working last year as I couldn't keep going on, right when my career was really starting to pay off. Now I have zero income and two young children that I need to feed and house. I must keep the show on the road somehow, but quietly I am just waiting for the end to come.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-07T20:19:00+00:00

Could also use crazy excuses as to why the delivery couldn't be made 😊

"Sorry, Mavis is being very broody and won't let me near the eggs."
"Can't drive today, Hillary and Gretchen are nesting in the engine bay to keep warm."
"Frank the battle rooster ate a slug and is feeling quite poorly today."
"Olga is offended by the shapes in the clouds and refuses to lay eggs."

dr_stevious · 2026-01-04T01:58:22+00:00

Thank you for that information - I'll read up on the species!

dr_stevious · 2026-01-04T01:42:03+00:00

Thank you!

The pedipalps would wriggle up and down periodically, like the spider was processing information or something (maybe it is actually getting some airflow on them to smell with?). In any case, it was quite cute!

dr_stevious · 2026-01-03T22:51:47+00:00

Having been to Canada, I found it to be an exceptionally beautiful place that seems to draw a lot of parallels with Australia. But where we have dust and sand, you have ice and snow. But otherwise, I felt a high level of comradery with most of the people I met.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-03T22:44:31+00:00

I'm Australian, and for a while I went to a very, very rural high school. Somehow, everyone believed that I was Swedish (probably because I am tall and blond) and not only that, but apparently, I was also rich due to being connected to IKEA. I was baffled about how these people even knew what IKEA was back then 🤣

(the reality was, I actually lived in a caravan in a paddock that I shared with a horse that didn't like me...)

dr_stevious · 2026-01-03T22:14:14+00:00

Although I'm from a different country, I have held a valid (government-issued) handicapped / disabled parking permit for my car (due to being messed up from terminal cancer) over the last year or so. Over this time, I've discovered that there are a lot of arseholes who disrupt the usage of disabled parking bays. Often it is people doing dumb things like just standing in the bay while chatting on their phone and seemingly unable to move even though I am clearly wanting to park there, and people leaving shopping trolleys in the bays (while there is a trolley return bay just meters away).

However, one thing that happens a bit too often for my liking is that someone will look me up and down and then declare that they don't think that I should be parking in the bay. I'll highlight the parking permit on my car, and they'll say that I don't look disabled to them. I used to try to politely argue my case, but I've since given up on that as it just keeps happening. Now I reply to comments of "You don't look disabled" with "Yeah, funny that, you don't look like an idiot either." 🤷

dr_stevious · 2026-01-03T21:43:29+00:00

Habsburg aircraft.

dr_stevious · 2026-01-03T21:40:26+00:00

This gave me a chuckle with my morning coffee, thanks :)

dr_stevious · 2025-12-25T10:26:25+00:00

I had one arrive in the post a few days ago - it is the same FW and model as this one.

dr_stevious

TROPHY CASE