When I worked on a top-secret program, we’d have security “fads” come sweeping through every now and then. In one, we were asked to sign a form which essentially said, “I am not a spy and I don’t know anyone who is.” :rolleyes: Boy, I’ll bet that rooted out a lot of nogoodniks!
Can that not also be interpreted to mean that you were persecuted by Nazi germany? it does say ‘involved in any way’ … ?
I used to take some infernal psych test when badging in to work at nuke plants … all true false questions. After about the 10th one I took in 2 years I started doing patterns [tfftftfftf was a common one for me] until i got told to knock it off. honestly, how many psych evals do I need to take before I go nuts and blow up the plant so I dont have to take any more of the infernal things?
I have an ironing board that has an “iron holder” affixed to the broad end.
I imagine this might be considered a useful feature, if your household either went shirtless year-round or if nobody in it had shoulders broader than six inches, and the house itself contained no horizontal surfaces on which an iron might be placed.
As it is, I don’t think that the benefit of having a place for the iron to rest (until you are ready to fold the ironing board up and put it away, which is generally… uh… immediately after you are finished ironing) is worth the annoyance of trying to iron the back of your shirt on the narrow end, like some asshole who doesn’t know how to iron a shirt. God help you if the back is pleated.
I think you got a bad unit. Mine doesn’t have that problem at all.
I specifically buy ironing boards with that holder.
Often I iron large amounts of clothing at the same time, or large pieces. And I like to place the board directly in front of the French doors (if a pair is available) as that’s usually a well-lit spot. That means the only place where I can leave the iron horizontal (ie, stable) while shuffling the flax tablecloth around, turning a shirt’s arm in its miniboard or going for another batch of tops is the holder. I could leave it on the floor I guess, but that doesn’t work too well with most floors.
You’ll take that holder away from my hot iron with your bare hands…
Maybe that’s a massage “feature”?
If only there was a way for them to use a different voltage.
My ISP’s email page places the “report spam” button right next to the “delete” button. Way to go, guys… IMHO the “report spam” button should be located in a more peripheral location, and/or be subject to a secondary feedback page, like “are you sure you wish to report this as spam email?”. As it is, it’s too easy to mistakenly put a good email source on your permanent shit list.
Eco-friendly cardboard slipcases for CDs. If you actually play that CD with any frequency whatsoever, the cardboard is going to micro-scratch it up over time. Then you’ll have to replace it, which is definitely not user-friendly or eco-friendly, and which may be all but impossible if the title’s gone OOP. :mad:
The first thing I did after unwrapping my special-edition copy of Muse’s The Resistance was to grab two blank cases for storing the discs in permanently.
Also, my DVD player has lousy visual feedback and slow, sludgy response times. It’s hard to tell by looking at it if it’s on (but inactive) or actively on. When slow-backtracking on a chapter, it tends to jump the gun and zip back a whole chapter or two. Getting it to simply play a disc involves an extra-long wait, and hitting “Play” a second time after hitting “Play” after putting the disc into the player. And any stop-plays or disc changes, or switching to TV viewing and then switching back to DVD mode necessitates turning the TV off and on again, to keep the picture from flickering into a lo-fi mode every couple of seconds. And this problem is all the more annoying because the DVD/VCR player and TV are of the same brand (Samsung), so why couldn’t they have anticipated this and engineered around it somehow?
The design of YouTube’s interface sucks, big time.
When playing a video, it’d be nice to be able to scroll through the comments while watching the video. Unfortunately, that’s impossible given their layout. They waste five lines of critical space between the video-playback screen and the comments proper, with a bunch of options that could be tacked onto the side or bottom of the screen. Relocate all that crap, and you’d have a tiny but servicable window for reading comments under the video-playback screen. But really, that’s a moot point because their comments are arranged in a page-view format (with those buttons at the bottom instead of at the top, or in both locations) rather than on a scroller (off to the side) anyway. And god help you if you should hit “view all comments” rather than the next page’s worth; you get shunted to a comments-only screen and lose your video playback! WTF?!
Given the kind of sophisticated text-analyzing software available, YouTube should be able to offer a “substantial info only” comment-screener as an option, which would allow you to eliminate all the vacuous “+1” and “omigod, these guys are awesome!”-type blather. I’m actually interested in song origins, performance/set trivia, fingerings, key sigs, alternate lyrics, and so forth, and I don’t want to scroll through 20-50 comments of nothing for every substantial nugget of info or insight, thanks!
YouTube offers something roughly approximating this – in theory, anyway – under the “comments options,” where you can exercise greater selectivity in viewers’ comments, even limiting comments viewed to those rated “excellent… plus 10 or better”. The problem is this doesn’t actually work. It doesn’t limit selected comments as chosen, and it doesn’t then display those comments either! UTTER FAIL, YouTube!
I just bought two Beatles stereo re-masters, where they apparently spent a ton of time making really nice cardboard fold-out cases and fancy booklets. Only you absolutely cannot get the discs out of the case without putting your finger(s) somewhere on the back of the disc.
I think the cardboard is wax coated enough not to scratch the discs but if I have to wipe smudges off every time I want to listen, I am going to scratch it myself!
Oops, wrong thread.
Oh, don’t misunderstand. The problem wasn’t in the design of our washing machine. It was that we’d been doing other stuff with the sink that caused the hose to fall to the floor and point at the dog’s head.
But in any case, the lesson was still there to be learned: do not turn on appliances that can destroy your house or soak your dog, unless you are there to come to the rescue.
British three pin plugs are big for a number of reasons, most of them actually the result of good, careful design, including:
They are built to accommodate a fuse
They have always had three pins - one of them being the earth connection
The earth pin is longer and thus engages the socket first, moving a pair of shutters out of the way of the live and neutral socket holes
The earth pin is at the top, so as to be most likely to catch any thin conductive object falling behind a not-fully-inserted plug
They are designed to accommodate slack in the earth and neutral wires inside, so that if the cable is accidentally pulled out of the plug (due to someone tripping over it), the live, then neutral wires are pulled free of their terminals before the earth
They are designed to be opened and maintained with a single size of screwdriver
So someone put a fair bit of design thinking into UK three pin mains plugs (there are more deliberate safety features than listed here) - we might not have done it exactly that way today, given the advantage of modern materials and methods of protection, etc, but for their time (1946), they are a remarkably diligent bit of design.
This is an oldie, but a goodie: In my 1995 Honda del Sol, there is a ding ding when you leave the keys in the ignition. This is a stupid and useless ding ding because you have to have the keys in your hand to lock the car. If you flip the lock and slam the door, it will not be locked unless you’ve held the handle out. I always lock the car with my keys and have never once locked the keys in the car.
However, if you leave the lights on, pristine silence. Florida has a law that you have to turn on your lights if the wipers are on. Consequently, I find myself driving with the lights on during the day quite frequently. And I consistently forget that the damn lights are on, walk away from the car for a few hours and then return to a dead battery.
I actually purchased jumper cables (and learned how to use them), because I cannot tell you how many times I’ve killed my battery because the chime was designed for the wrong bone-headed move. I can now jump start my car in under 30 seconds, which generally surprises whatever kind soul has volunteered their car to be the starter for me.
At least I got rid of the stupid factory radio that had a code you had to enter if the battery was disconnected (or died) to make the radio work again. It was supposed to be theft prevention, but it just meant that I had to drive home in silence until I could find the stupid little piece of paper that had the code on it…
It is, actually. If it didn’t search the middle of stuff, the search wouldn’t be nearly as useful. If you were searching for the dope, and typed in ‘straightdope’ nothing would come up, you would have to remember that the url started with ‘boards’.
(sorry if it’s been mentioned)
The numbers and letters on phone and remote buttons wear off after less than a year.
My digital-tv-converter has no buttons. You can only change channel or volume with the remote.
Cellphones that beep while you’re turning down the volume.
Agreed. I can’t believe anyone mentioned British plugs as a bad design. They actually fit snugly into the socket, and are “flat”, i.e. wider than they are deep. American and European plugs never feel like they’re in the wall securely, and they waggle. Plus they look horribly cheap and old-fashioned, like the old two-pin British plugs my grandad used to have.
We don’t get too many things right in Britain, but by God electrical plugs are one of them!
I’m always frustrated by designers that make things completely symmetrical when that makes them harder to use. The type of thing is my oven door. Slides up off its hinges for removal. But putting it back requires both sides be attached at exactly the same time. My furnace cover, storm windows, and many large bulky objects are the same. Also the alignment screws on a door knob. If one of those hinge prongs or knob screws were just a bit longer than the other, you could get it set first and then the second side would be easy, but to get them both at exactly the same time is a real trick.
Ever have to move a washer, dryer, refrigerator? There is absolutely no way to hold onto them. Why not have some indentations or handles. so you can actually grip them?
Also, those new wiper blacdes (the wide ones)-what was wrong with the old blades? they only cost $6-$8 each, the new ones are >$25!