Last night I was trying to cover a small bowl of mixed fruit slices and realizing how lame Saran Wrap is these days. This really did work much better in the past, but was bad for the environment so it was reformulated into an inferior product.
For me, this describes microwave ovens. I just want to warm up my food, why do I have to press fifteen buttons before it starts humming?
At least on the microwave front I found an expensive solution: search for microwave ovens rated for commercial food service. Of those, browse through the light duty ones meant for places like break rooms.
My current microwave has one knob. You put your food in and twist the knob until the time you want lights up on the dots around the dial–it comes on instantly as the dial rotates. There is no platter inside; this one is designed with a hidden internal mechanism that rotates the microwave energy so the food does not need to move.
Bonus: it’s designed for commercial cleaning, so the inside wipes down super easy.
Even so, modern LED “dimmable” bulbs are shite compared to incandescents when it comes to dimming. With LED dimmables, you’re lucky if the lowest output is 50% of full brightness. With incandescents you could/can dim to maybe 10% of full brightness.
As well, incandescents become much more yellow at lower power levels. LEDs don’t do that. That yellowing is one of the most desirable features of dimming IMO.
I’m generally all for progress, tech, and greenery. But in no sense are even the latest and greatest LEDs a suitable substitute for incandescents in applications where dimming matters.
I disagree. My whole house is done with dimmable LEDs and I get total range with them, from “Don’t wake up anybody who is sleeping” to “Freeze, asshole!” Maybe not the complete range of incandescents, but pretty damn close.
Yeah, there was a stretch there where low-flow toilets really weren’t up to the task. Modern ones from reputable manufacturers are just fine though. I’ve actually seen this within my own home- as part of renovations, we replaced a couple of older (1990s-early 2000s) low flow toilets with more modern ones, and there’s a world of difference.
I used to have a 1976 Suburban, and got hit in a parking garage by a guy driving a early 1990s Honda Civic. I doubt he was going all that fast honestly… I got out and had two yellow stripes on the large steel bumper of my Suburban- no denting, no bending, etc… just paint stripes that came right off with a little polishing compound.
His front bumper was about 3 feet from the rest of the car, and was messed up enough that it looked like it might not actually be able to be put back on.
Exactly this. The first generation of low-flow toilets in the U.S. were, for the most part, essentially the old toilet designs, but simply used less water per flush – with less water (and the corresponding reduction in pressure), they simply didn’t work very well.
More modern low-flow toilets incorporate pressure assist mechanisms, and/or retooled water channels, to provide better pressure despite the reduced amount of water being used.
It’s just a matter of time. It’s already true here. I have several friends who, at least for a time, drove an EV without home charging. One could call their approach “grazing”, where you just plug in when a charger is available. Maybe on occasion they’d have to visit a fast DC charger, but for the most part the normal rounds of shopping and such were enough to keep things topped off.
Not everywhere has the same level of infrastructure, but we’re talking about the 10+ year timeframe. It’s clear that EVs are popular, even at the currently high prices. Stores will want to cater to EV drivers as soon as they’re a non-negligible share of the drivers in the area.
I stayed at a motel last fall where the toilet had one of those pressure assists. It was almost like flushing an airplane toilet. It didn’t use much water, but there was a whole lot of oomph.
When we had our upstairs bathroom remodeled in 2009, we had a new Kohler toilet put in, which has the pressure-assist system. It’s kind of loud, but that toilet has never clogged!
A not-obvious one is texting on phones. Now, texting is great, excellent for sending quick messages, reminders etc.
But now I see people (eg wife, daughters, mates) having actual conversations via text. The phrase ‘I just have to answer this text’ is poison to me - the point about a text is that it doesn’t have to be answered right now - if it did, the texter would have called instead.
So now, I have to stand around awkwardly while the person I am socially interacting with spends minutes typing out some long stream of text (on a phone keyboard, so many mistakes are made). Then 5 minutes after sending, they will receive a reply, and repeat.
Texting, as I said, can be great and useful. Using it to type out what should be a phone call is not progress, in my opinion.
My wife’s sister wants her to text so they can “keep in touch”. My wife says email is fine, but her sister insists on texting. No problem, my wife’s phone is only turned on Mondays from 9 to 3 when she’s at her volunteer job. I hope her sister doesn’t mind waiting a week or so for responses. Email’s done on the computer which is always on.
My wife freaks if she texts one of the boys (age 27-30) and doesn’t hear back within 15 minutes. They are of the generation that doesn’t talk on the phone except for special occasions (especially the youngest, who is also the most likely to not respond immediately to a text from mom (I think he is trying to train her out of expecting immediate replies)).
I feel much the same way. The whole point of texting or emailing is so the recipient can choose to read it and respond at their leisure, instead of being pinned in place by a phone call and expected answers.
“Grandma’s on the phone. Get on the phone in the bedroom so we can both talk to her!”
Today’s cellphones can do multi-person calls, and I’m sure the people who do them at least semi-regularly have the process down pat. But I bet the majority of people toting around a cell phone don’t know how to get Susan on the call once it’s already in process, aside from switching to speakersphone and broadcasting the conversation to everyone within earshot (and picking up all the ambient noise, too).
I mean, I’ve got a couple of dimmable fixtures, and I routinely find myself wishing that they were just regular old switches, because we NEVER use the dimming feature. And that’s pretty much true for everyone I know. Lights are always on or off, not somewhere in between.
YMMV. I use the dimmer switch in my office and bedroom a lot. The former for video calls and the latter to avoid piles of cat puke in the middle of the night without having to completely wake up.
