I had a TV that had a global reset button on the remote. Press the button, and the TV would go into “Are you my mommy?” mode - all favorite channel presets, color, tint, bright, etc was wiped clean. Why was this button on the remote? I wound up popping the remote apart and slicing the rubber nub off so it was recessed into the remote’s case.
Similar to the OP’s coffee mug, Kitchen Aid made one big design clunker on their food processor. A noble machine otherwise, but the bowl has a ring around the underside of its base. After a trip through the dishwasher, there will always be water in this moat - there is no way to position the bowl so it can drain out. One of these days, I need to take the Dremel and grind out a drainage slot.
Oh, no problem. All you need to simplify your life is the handy Logitech Harmony remote. Put away those remotes and replace them with this one, simple remote.
Sure, it has 53 buttons and an LCD screen, and to program it you’ll need to connect it to the internet. Did I mention that it has 53 buttons? Well, not to worry. Many of them are nearly invisible and so hard to press it’s almost like they’re not there at all!
Short window-AC cords versus electrical outlet locations. I’ve got one troublesome window located a few feet too far from the outlet for, apparently, most window AC units. (Whether that’s a cord problem or an outlet problem is a matter for debate. Personally, I’d like to string up the contractor and electrician who worked on this house by the short cords of AC units.)
It’d be nice if you could ascertain the length of the cord from, say, the box the unit comes in, but that info isn’t always listed. Ditto for the location of the cord; if your outlet is, say, six feet from the window on the right side, and the cord is six feet long, it needs to originate from the right side of the unit or it won’t reach (and even then it won’t reach unless the outlet is on the same level, height-wise, as the unit’s bottom – and fat chance of that).
OTOH, my TV remote control is absolutely wonderful. It’s ergonomic, a comfy fit for my hand, and it’s durable, having survived many drops onto the floor. The button layout is intuitive and rational, and I’m able to comfortably navigate the entire thing in the dark. And I know that I’ll never find its like again.
A lot of laptops have those ridiculous damned internet switches that turn on the wireless network adapter. I guess the switch is supposed to be more convenient somehow but it is just too easy to break the switch or have it hit against something and mess up the wireless when you could have just turned on with a couple clicks of the mouse.
My current daily annoyance is the carafe from my coffee maker…it has a similar problem to the OP’s mug. The handle is hollow, and the bottom is open. It fills up with water in the dishwasher, and so every day I have to remember to carry it upside-down to the sink, and pour the water out. I usually empty the dishwasher in the morning before work, and in my half-asleep state, I don’t tend to remember. I take the carafe out first, so I can use it to make my coffee, and end up getting the water all over the other dishes in the dishwasher, and usually on the floor, as well.
The biggest design flaw I have to deal with daily is the gear shift / cup holder / ashtray set up in my Metro. OK, it’s a small car, and they didn’t have a lot of room to work with. The cup holder is right in front of the ashtray, and keeps it from opening, if occupied. To stub out a cig. (as opposed to pitching it out the window, which I *don’t * do) I have to move my beverage and hold it in my crotch, then shut the ashtray to replace the beverage. Also, I can’t shift into park if the cupholder has a cup in it. I’ve gotten used to it, but it’s still annoying.
I was a technical writer. Once I had a client who wanted me to put all the user instructions for a piece of software into a help file–and I mean all the instructions. Even when I pointed out the uselessness of putting certain instructions into online help, and that paper instructions might be better for certain tasks, the client was adamant. Absolutely everything was to be in online help.
Well, he who pays the piper (or the writer) calls the tune, so I got to work. In the end, the client received a fine set of user instructions, all in an online help file. Of course, this also resulted in installation instructions that couldn’t be referenced until after the installation.
This reminds me of another gripe I have. My husband’s car is a 10-year-old Sebring convertible. The cupholders are underneath the radio, right in front of the gearshift. The gearshift is so close to the dash that if you have a cup in the cupholder, you can’t put the car in park.
The cupholders are also about an inch & a half deep, so every time you go around a corner, the cup falls out onto the floor. So if you have a drink in there, you have to either take it out of the cupholder & put it in between your legs, or hold it into the cupholder and steer with one hand. Sort of defeats the purpose of the cupholder, doesn’t it?
The cable remotes I can deal with. It’s the cable consoles that leave so much wanting. If you should misplace your cable remote and want to change channels using the digital cable box, you need to repeatedly press the channel up or down button. A 0-9 keypad would make it so much easier to surf using the cable box itself.
VCRs that are useless without the remote. Sure, you can hit “play” on the VCR, but unless it has a TV/VCR button you could be screweed.
Both are reasons to never never lose the remote. But sometimes you misplace it and you need to turn the channel in a hurry.
Checks. We used to get them with the little “19” in the upper right to ease writing the date. For some reason it seems completely impossible to put a “20” where the “19” was. Why?
Thirded. What dummy came up with this? (FYI, I have Cox) I actually had this conversation with a friend once.
Friend: Hey, go up one channel.
Me: Do you want to go to 15 or 13?
F: What the hell are you talking about, just go up one channel.
Me: Listen carefully. I can either go up numerically to 15 or up on the screen to 13. Which do you want?
F: :eek:
Also, I can’t believe it is so slow. I tell the cable to do something and it takes at least 4 seconds to do it. I know this doesn’t seem like a lot, but trust me, when you are flipping through 7 screens it gets rather aggrevating.
My pocket is constantly calling people and taking pictures. I got a flip phone specifically so that all the buttons would be on the inside where my mischievious pocket gremlin couldn’t get to them. Why put any buttons on the outside?
I can’t believe my two biggest pet peeves in this category were taken already.
Television/entertainment center stands, which are designed to both hold up a television set and to contain the VCR, DVD player and other assorted technical ware. All the technical stuff is down there a foot or two off the floor, and it is necessary to grovel around on all fours to insert a DVD. Also complicating matters is the fact you need to use an ELECTRON MICROSCOPE to read a lot of the button labels, and the buttons are the size of GRAINS OF RICE. God, I hate our TV stand.
Thanks for mentioning the button lables. Look at the back of your VCR, DVD, whatever console. Chances are you need a bright light shone on the case to discern which is the cable in, cable out, audio, whatever. Raised lettering with no difference in color as the rest of the box is nearly impossible to see in the situation you usually encounter the back of the box- in a cramped dimly lit space.
Holy crap. My cell phone has a button on the outside. If it’s in my pants, everyone knows, because as I walk, the button is hit constantly, and my pockets start making R2D2 noises.
My biggest peeve is kitchen appliances designed by someone who obviously never had to clean anything in their lives. The flat panel controls are becoming more common, thank goodness, but every appliance, big and small, still seems to include some knobs, crevices or switches that get gunked up and are terrifically hard to get to.
My university uses our school ID cards for almost everything: you swipe to get into your dorm, uni buildings after hours, the cafeteria, the library, etc. You can even put money on your card and use it for laundry or vending machines. However, whatever piece of machinery reads the magnetic strip when you swipe also rubs off the part of your card with your name on it. I’ve gone through at least 6 cards in the last 3 years simply cause you couldn’t read my name anymore.
R2D2 noises? That’s pretty funny. The first time it happened to me, it sounded like a baby bird chirping. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the noise was.
:eek: