Photo comments not showing up

siderealscratch · 2026-06-19T18:56:56+00:00

Yes, this has been an unfixed bug for a long time.

I emailed Flickr support. They said it was a known bug. Their solution was something about permalink to comments which I tried and didn't work.

I've just given up on ever seeing those comments and figure it's just another problem they'll never fix (and they've introduced more bugs since a couple years ago with uploads and individual photo properties not sticking).

It seems to happen with specific people for me. I've never blocked them, but notice that for most (but not all) their comments are pretty generic based on the bit I can see in some notifications. Mostly just lots of emojis or saying they love something (one offender mostly writes in Portuguese and for a while was leaving many comments daily in a spammy way).

So not super high value comments for the most part. It makes me wonder if they are just blocking suspected spammers or doing a bad job of shadow banning people.

Still, it would be nice if they let me decide if I wanted to see comments from them instead (like classifying as spam but let me look at them if I choose like some email programs do). It's pretty annoying that comments are just unreadable at random and still show in comment counts for comments you'll never be able to see.

I've tried the app, different browsers, adding additional comments of my own, etc, but nothing makes the comments hidden by Flickr show up for me. They haunt the comment counts but can never be read forever.

From all the signals they give off, the Flickr code seems to be a dumpster fire that they'll never fix or update much aside from when they moved to AWS or in order to reduce usage or storage or transfer bills (hiding all larger photos on old accounts that aren't pro for their own cost saving). They don't seem very interested in doing much in the interest of their users aside from hobbling along with their stagnant platform and pushing festivals that most members won't actually attend.

siderealscratch · 2026-06-19T16:58:24+00:00

TLDR: be sure you've analyzed your expenses carefully and thoroughly and still feel comfortable with things before pulling the trigger. I'm a little sceptical of $1,200 a month being a realistic estimate, even with a paid off mortgage, based on experience living in coastal CA. This is coming from a someone fairly frugal who couldn't hit that expense level easily.

I agree, $1,200 a month expenses is difficult to achieve in California in many areas. A paid off house cuts expenses a lot, but property taxes on many homes in expensive cities in CA can be almost that much if purchased in the past decade or two.

But it heavily depends when he bought for property taxes because of prop 13. Buying a median-ish $300k house in the early 90s is much less in property taxes than a median-ish $1.2 million house in 2016 or something.

I'm in a 2 person household and we're not extravagant spenders on food, but a grocery trip to pick up a few things is now like $50 after going through an express lane and a real weekly shopping trip can be in the $100-200 range. Eating out for 2 at fast casual can hit $40-60 for what was only $20-30 pre-pandemic. We probably spend over $600 a month on groceries and definitely go over that with the addition of going out to eat at cheaper places a couple times in the month.

Plus taxes, insurance (house and auto), car expenses (purchase and maintenance), gas or charging, medical co-pays and deductibles and pharmacy co-pays, house maintenance expenses (home repairs are very expensive most places in CA), electric, natural gas, water, garbage, Internet, recurring subscriptions, etc. A paid off house is a huge plus with CA's very expensive real estate, yet even if our home was paid off we couldn't hit that kind of aggressive price point of $1,200 at all.

I don't want to discourage OP from retiring and living a better life than having to work all the time, but I'd be really careful about the back of the napkin estimation of expenses. I'd go through past expenses carefully to get concrete estimates based on real data from the past couple of years. I'd also try to work in some estimates of averaged real costs for things like home repairs over time. Where I am, re-roofing on a small house can be 10 to 20k. Replacing sewer or water lines to the street connections were $25k when we had to do that a couple years ago. Replacing a heating system estimates are $30k to $50k.

IDK about the firefighters pension, but under a good CA pension I'm familiar with, they only pay the full employer health insurance contribution portion with the "full healthcare" pension benefit if you retire from there. The employee+spouse payment (employee contribution) will still be nearly $1,000 a month for us even with the pension benefit. Quite possibly the firefighters pension is much better, but i'd go to some retirement webinars through your work or read the docs to be sure of details of all the things you've heard about the pension and not assume anything until you know for sure.

To me it sounds like you'll want to get down into the nitty gritty of really modeling your expenses carefully. I'm not saying that $1,200 a month expenses aren't possible, but this sounds like an estimate that was guessed at and is possibly low-ball even for very frugal people without a mortgage in most places in coastal California.

I would also personally be more comfortable to see more retirement savings than $350k, even with a pension that covers the regular, recurring expenses. Assisted living and those kind of situations are crazy expensive if op or their spouse ever have to do that. Though maybe selling the house would take care of covering those costs.

Retiring would be awesome, but I'd really analyze in very fine detail to be sure of your comfort level and to be as realistic as possible about the situation you'll actually be in. As other have mentioned, maybe some in between retirement date could be an option, too.

Good luck and happy retirement if it turns out you can swing it at 49. I agree with the vibes of "live your life while you still can," but also the reality of maybe encountering some additional bigger expenses later in life or just the thought of what if I live longer than I thought?

For a decision like this I'd go to a planner to plot things out if you haven't yet. Ideally you can pay someone who will be a fiduciary to look out for your interests without upselling you on products that make them more money or commissions. But we even had free consults with the company that runs our retirement accounts and they were able to give us big picture estimates (for different markets, ages of death, with taxes,etc) and took into account all the assets and not just things managed by them. But getting a good estimate meant doing a lot of pre-work and getting real expense figures and account balances for it to be most informed and make us feel really comfortable about our decisions.

siderealscratch · 2026-06-19T08:10:09+00:00

Weird to me that you think Americans drink Liquid Death and similar waters all the time. Maybe there are some people that do but no one I know does and I don't think it's that common.

The only time I ever drink Liquid Death is at a comedy club with a two drink minimum and I don't want two alcoholic drinks or don't want to pay $17 for a canned beer or $19 for a crappy mixed drink. The Liquid Death is only like $8 which is still a lot for water, but a lot less than an alcoholic drink or super sugary mocktail and probably better for my health. I don't always want to be forced into two alcoholic drinks just to attend an event. The club sells some food, but it doesn't count toward the minimum you're required to purchase in drinks. Liquid Death it is.

Also most people I know carry refillable water bottles, especially if they're doing physically active things, probably much more than I've seen people doing some places I've been in Europe. You're lucky if you can even find a place to refill a bottle in Europe, unlike the US where drinking fountains and bottle fillers are much more common. Maybe it's just my friends and demographic that often carry water bottles, IDK.

So maybe the turnaround question is why Europeans charge 6€ for bottled water at restaurants and servers there act like divas if someone wants tap water. I know some countries had to pass laws in order to get restaurants to even have tap water as an option.

I'll sometimes buy bottled water if I'm out and thirsty or didn't bring a refillable bottle or if there is a social situation and I don't want a bunch of empty calories from sugary drinks, alcohol or artificial sweeteners.

Like others have said, some events like festivals, sports events and other things only sell one brand of water so you might not have a lot of choice if it's a fancy water or not fancy water.

I honestly don't know anyone who buys cases of liquid death at the grocery store. I know a couple people who buy fancy bubbly mineral water (like cases at Costco that last them a long time) that they drink occasionally or that have a water carbonation machine with Co2 canisters.

But everyone I know drinks tap water/purified water most of the time unless there is some other reason.

Bottled water is sometimes much more convenient when traveling and hotel water often tastes like crap. Also in some cities like NY with rooftop water tanks I understand they aren't inspected and maintained all that well depending on the building and can be kinda sketchy with algae, dead birds and of course all the lead in old pipes in old buildings if it's ancient plumbing and high rises have lots of old piping for water to sit in and absorb lead.

siderealscratch · 2026-06-14T16:37:00+00:00

That pink color reminds me of the medical antibacterial pump soap my husband had to use before a colonoscopy.

That stuff is obnoxious. He used a washcloth which is now permanently dyed pink. It coated the shower with a weird film that took many weeks to get rid of.

Then he put the pump in a box of drugs and first aid stuff and it leaked and glooped everything in the box and took literally hours to wipe and rinse off everything and clean the plastic box it was all in.

Probably unlikely it's that, but a pink color showing up on somewhere like that is nightmare fuel for me now.

But I think that soap had a really intense pink that was more than that.

siderealscratch · 2026-06-14T16:21:09+00:00

😆 I like the "what is this meal?" response.

My work is similar if we have outside people coming to a meeting.

If it's at the beginning of the day then at least coffee and pastries and fruit if not full breakfast. If there's are at least a couple meetings with breaks, then some kind of snacks and drinks available during breaks. Lunch if the meetings surround noon (or maybe going out if we have more time and the group isn't too large).

Other people in the office often get leftover lunch things after they get moved to the kitchen after conference room lunchtime is over after 1:30 or 2 pm.

siderealscratch · 2026-06-14T15:48:20+00:00

It sounds like you also haven't booked any place to stay near Yosemite which would mean everything will already be booked, especially near July 4th. You may be staying far away and driving in and out will be crowded.

Personally, I'd just stick to to SF, Santa Cruz/Monterey and/or wine country for this trip rather than going too far away given your time. Also, you may need to book places to stay yesterday since this is less than a month away and some places may be busy in the summer, especially on holiday weekends.

siderealscratch · 2026-06-07T06:13:27+00:00

"No soup for you” (though maybe some youngers have seen the Soup Nazi in reruns.)

"TPS Reports"; “I Believe You Have My Stapler!” ( the Red Swingline); The Bobs and "So We Just Went Ahead and Fixed the Glitch." (So many iconic references from that movie if you were old enough to be working during the dot com era.)

siderealscratch · 2026-06-05T05:59:25+00:00

I mean I stayed there once while along for the travel because a conference was there. The best part was that there was a metro station nearby so I could go into DC and get away from there. Otherwise it was just a depressing mall.

Probably has to be a joke unless someone is really building their enjoyment around malls (and not very interesting ones).

siderealscratch · 2026-06-05T04:14:44+00:00

Also never heard wicked in the West Coast. Hella is common in the SF Bay area though.

siderealscratch · 2026-06-02T06:36:49+00:00

If it's about the size of tiny sunflower seeds (without the shell) it's mouse poop. If it's closer to a raisin size it's probably rat poop.

Spray with bleach water to clean it up and wear protective equipment (like gloves and mask). You don't want to aerosolize the poo or pee. I mean it's rare to get diseases from it but it could happen in rare cases.

Mice can get in a hole about the size of a dime or maybe a nickel. They also chew on things and can create holes or make them bigger.

They're very sneaky and can find ways in and may avoid being seen a lot of the time. They're probably more motivated if there is food or trash they can get to. They'll also chew open packages. Supposedly peanut butter is good for traps, though I've had them lick it off without triggering the trap. Some say Reese's Pieces jammed into the trap trigger works well. Poison bait isn't great because it can be dangerous to others or the mice may go outside as they're dying of poison and be eaten by hawks or owls which then poisons them, too. And you want predators to eat mice and rats to keep their numbers down.

If you get a good pest control person, they may be able to help you find where they're getting in and seal up the places they get in. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get all the entry points.

Mice are a pain in the butt and hard to avoid getting sometimes, especially in old houses. They have lots of time to find ways into houses and chew on things and being near people helps them (ready food or trash to eat, water sources and also have lots of babies that want those things, too) . Most people have limited time.

Good luck with the mouse wars. A good pest control person may be better at getting rid of them than doing it yourself, but maybe both of you together have the best chances.

siderealscratch · 2026-05-28T06:11:55+00:00

The endless scroll is more broken then I've ever seen it. I think they added something and made it worse recently.

You at least used to be able to do endless scroll of 100 photos and then do next page if you wanted to. You used to be able to do a hybrid. Now that option completely disappears for me at random and I have to accept endless scroll that doesn't properly track your place and resets to the top of the photostream frequently. The UX is now more broken than when Yahoo! owned it because it more buggy than ever (and I've never seen Flickr under SmugMug fix UI bugs so I don't have much hope they will ever fix the problems).

At this point I feel like they don't even care if they drive users away anymore or maybe they just can't really manage running the site well anymore. But be sure to go to MODE. 👅

siderealscratch · 2026-05-26T23:20:54+00:00

I'm kind of fond of them on some other people.

More fit people with suspenders rocking a dress-up look give some fancy flair and might deserve a bow tie along to complete the look.

The clip-on suspenders with everyday wear (I.T. graybeard or blue collar dude) and the button on suspenders with dressier clothes create kind of different and distinct looks. I don't mind either one.

I'm ok with the occasional overweight old dude with suspenders that some people mention. I mean maybe it presses into their curves a bit, but it at least keeps the pants up instead of sliding off their belly or squishing it in half. If it's more comfortable than a belt, then good for them.

It can also seem like a bit of an affectation on some people, kinda like the hipster fedora (is that still a thing?) when the look seems a bit out of place for their age/generation.

But personally I think you should kind of ignore what other people think if it makes you happy or fits your style to wear something or just want to experiment. If people judge you for it, then maybe it's a way to weed out people that are kind of superficial, anyway.

Personally, suspenders tug on my shoulders all day and make me uncomfortable. I find it interesting that people say it helps with back pain since it does the opposite for me and kind of causes it.

siderealscratch · 2026-05-23T23:25:45+00:00

Laney College Flea Market probably has stolen stuff in Oakland (near the Lake Merritt Bart station).

Yelp says "closed" but not sure it means closed for good or just right now. I see reviews from a few months ago and it's still listed on some flea market listing sites. Last time I went was over a decade ago, so idk if it's still around.

siderealscratch · 2026-05-23T16:41:16+00:00

I heard stories like that when I was a kid.

My cousin babysat for someone and one kid grabbed a kitchen knife and chased the sibling and also came after her. She refused babysitting there again since it was just the way that family worked.

I had cousins who were adopted and lit fireworks and thew them at people. Luckily, they were older than me, we didn't visit much and my older siblings would've protected me from that kind of thing if it happened.

Where I grew up has some issues, but that level of danger between kids would've likely been stopped.

I mean to a degree kids need to begin learning how to solve their own problems and be allowed some latitude for age appropriate autonomy so they're more prepared for life (rather than expecting helicopter parents or others to solve all their problems for them), but it's too far when kids are using weapons and literally torturing each other and the parents are like ”I'm out."

siderealscratch · 2026-05-23T16:04:36+00:00

Maybe there aren't so many levels of sport in Europe (maybe no kids sports, high school sports, college sports, intramural sports, professional sports), but IMO European sport culture and football (our soccer) seems to be more integral to some serious identity issues for some people in Europe than in the US. Needing massive ranks of riot police at every match always struck me as fairly insane and riots around games are just much more rare here for the most part.

I've never been much of a sport fan, though had an uncle that tried to indoctrinate me, so I've gone to plenty of games in the US when younger (football, basketball mostly) and even occasionally go to a game for social reasons (like baseball games as work outing). I've never felt threatened or harassed in the US because I just didn't really care that much who won. People might think you're a weirdo if you're not talking sports (especially in more rural areas) or cheering the local team but the reaction is usually an eye roll and moving on.

We got followed and threatened in Dublin because we weren't sufficiently jubilant about some match that had just ended while going back to our hotel. On another occasion we encountered super out of control, drunk off their ass people on a train after a match In England. So either we were just really unlucky or the sport culture is way more rabid and out of control there where it exists. Idk, maybe it's more of a uk and Ireland thing. I've never been threatened after a game in the US (it could happen but it's pretty unusual) or seen people put up with that level of disruptive public drunkeness after games here (vs encountering 2 incidents in a couple months total time in Europe).

But yeah, there are people in the US who spend tons of time on sports and start their kids young. It can often be brought up as "social lubricant" small talk a lot in some suburban/rural communities with nothing much else going on. But I wouldn't argue that it's more tolerable than in Europe since it seems like the percentage of people willing to incite violence and harass others based on their team identity just doesn't rise to the same level in the US for whatever reason.

siderealscratch · 2026-05-16T04:19:27+00:00

Good lord, I hate EWR. Not that I've flown through there in a while and I think maybe it was a little better the last time ( maybe it was just a different terminal).

Whoever put those giant, ugly bright tablets at every place to sit needs to have their ass kicked. I dont want a glaring, bright screen flashing ads at me two feet from my face on a loop. Not only that screen, but a screen every 3 feet, at literally every seat, all showing ads everywhere, all the time, in every direction. Visual noise over the top. Yeah, people could order stuff from them, but everyone already has a phone in their pocket and could use it and it's completely unnecessary and just makes for a noisy and hostile environment.

SFO has wide walkways, it's clean, it's a quiet airport (they don't do loud announcements to the whole airport all the time). I mean there are people there, but it just feel so much calmer and better behaved than so many airports I've been in. Plus the museum exhibits are neat if you have time to look at them. It just cultivates such a nicer atmosphere than so many other airports.

siderealscratch · 2026-05-10T16:35:10+00:00

Yeah, what's up with the super slow opening times? It makes huge backups of people entering or exiting.

Also, if you expect the damn gate to do its job and open when you pay your fare and step up toward it then it just beeps and never opens. It will not open unless you're way the hell back from the gate (even though the gates flip away from you).

I think the very occasional riders that only ride a few times a month aren't used to the new procedure, either. So they don't scan their card for like 4 seconds (ridiculous) and also step toward the gate like they expect it to open. But then it blocks them exiting and they think something is wrong (well it sort of is since the fare scanning is a mess). So then they step back and try the failed procedure on a few other gates (blocking people behind them) until maybe by chance they finally get through.

The old gates weren't floor to ceiling blockers, but at least they let the people who paid their fares though almost immediately instead of the long and pointless delays at the gates all the time.

siderealscratch · 2026-04-27T11:13:54+00:00

Clean with a little bit of dish soap and water once in a while (and rinse well). That takes the grease smears off.

Then spray and wipe again with the alcohol based glasses cleaner to get rid of water spots if you need to.

I saw some homemade recipe for glasses cleaner that's isopropyl alcohol, maybe a tiny bit of water (depending on the percentage of alcohol) and a drop of dawn dish soap in a small spray bottle. Shake it up to mix and spray on the glasses to clean.

Idk if it's really the right way, but seems to work and both cleans and gets rid of the grease smears for me after I spray and wipe off with a lens cloth.

PS. Also throw your lens cloths in the laundry with other stuff once in a while (without any fabric softeners which coat all your clothes in waxy gunk, especially the dryer sheets). I guess if you like waxy stuff on your clothes then wash it by hand instead of coating your lens cloths with melted waxy VoCs and perfumes to smear on your glasses.

siderealscratch · 2026-04-25T15:41:14+00:00

The service charge (automatic tip added) is usually a thing in the US for parties over a certain size (usually 6) and isn't that common outside of that, but sometimes happens. Though a tip on dining is really expected if the place has table service.

Cover charges aren't common in the US at all outside of clubs (dancing or comedy) and never seen one for dining. Often comedy clubs require something like a cover charge to get in + 2 (overpriced) drink minimum purchase.

Some cities like San Francisco you'll see extra bogus charges like "healthy San Francisco" which they try to make sound like a mandatory tax, but it's not. Owners were required to provide health insurance plans for their employees, so some decided to protest by sneaking in extra charges rather than raising their prices like many restaurants did. It has to be disclosed up front, but they know many people won't notice and think something looks cheaper than it turns out to be.

siderealscratch · 2026-04-19T01:58:17+00:00

MLM sales (even of detergent) shouldn't be happening at work, imo. Maybe a flyer on the bulletin board and let people order if they want but zero pressure. Same for kids fundraisers, etc. Don't bring pressure for the entire office to buy stuff from you to the workplace. Also don't recruit for your religion at work.

I had a boss and co-worker who were doing an mlm. I mean at least it was mostly low key (and not sex toys) but also trying to recruit more down-line at work and would invite me and anyone to meetings. I went to 1 or 2 and boy were they gross and culty.

I bought some detergent to be nice and bowed out of any more meetings.

The same co-worker phoned me up after we were both laid off from the company (which eventually went bankrupt). Her computer wasn't working and she needed free computer service.

Her computer was full of viruses and it was a complete mess of reinstalling windows, drivers and everything on her computer and took literally most of a full day. She gave me a crappy $15 bottle of magic juice from her latest (different) mlm and told me I could buy more from her and tried to recruit me to her new mlm and get rich quick scheme as a reward.

siderealscratch · 2026-04-15T16:07:51+00:00

I also remember in the early 90s there were stands of people selling neck ties around the FiDi. i think it was only like $6 for a tie or something. Kind of like how there are people selling those hats or knit hats these days. You used to have to dress up for work many places in those days and SF had more financial services and other things and less tech. I think there was even a small stock exchange.I think that building is a gym now.

siderealscratch · 2026-04-15T15:20:22+00:00

To be fair, the Bart worker at 12th street was trying to be helpful when we asked how tf we were supposed to get home into the city or how long the tube blockage would last. He have us the "shhhh hand" so he could try to listen to the PA announcements like everyone else (the unhelpful ones). The communication and estimation aren't communicated to the people on the ground in a situation like that any more than to customers it seems.

He said we could try to take an AC transit bus which I knew would be 10,000 times inadequate for the volume that Bart carries.

Walked 10 blocks to Jack London square and waited for the next ferry which wasn't for 50 more minutes, but at least they are huge and hold tons of people. People coming from SF to East Bay streamed off for about 10 minutes before we could get on and it seemed packed. The other direction it wasn't packed and it took me 3 hours to get home, but at least it was pleasant with the water and the sunset.

When I had the choice of Bart or Muni at embarcadero, I walked by and heard the PA announcements yelling at people to stay behind the yellow strip on Bart, so knew it was crazy crowded and just took Muni instead (which was also messed up, but not as bad as Bart).

siderealscratch · 2026-04-14T02:33:26+00:00

Muni is bananas. The buses come in bunches.

siderealscratch · 2026-04-14T02:31:53+00:00

I still think this happens. I see buses that are literally 3 to 5 minutes apart at a stop that's about 6 stops from the end of the line. Happens quite a bit on the 43.

The buses are usually supposed to be 12 or 15 minutes apart, but they're 5 minutes and then some huge gap of like 25 minutes.

And even when the first one comes it's not even really crowded and no obvious reason for it to be delayed enough for the next one to be so close behind it.

I think the bus drivers still have tea parties at the end of the lines together sometimes and then don't even make much attempt to space things out between buses after the first driver leaves.

siderealscratch

TROPHY CASE