I blame Bill Gates. MS Word would be a fine product if I didn’t have to spend hours trying to undo its “smart” features. For instance, when I type 01/02, that is exactly how I’d like it to appear on the printed page, thankyouverymuch. I don’t want Word to substitute a cute little symbol for one half. Because, you see, it doesn’t make sense for my sentence to read, “We are are on target to meet market expectations for fiscal year one half.”
And then we have the geniuses at BMW who thought “magical moving mirrors” would be a swell idea. Each time I put my husband’s X5 into reverse, the mirrors, inexplicably, bow down. What the hell. I don’t know how Germans back out of their driveways, but here in the good ole U.S. of A., we generally use the mirrors to make sure that there’s nothing BEHIND us. It does me no good to stare at the freaking ground.
And then we have the Dodge Caravan with its smart seatbelt enforcer. If it detects that someone is sitting in the passenger seat without having the seatbelt engaged, it starts making a loud, obnoxious beep. And it doesn’t shut up until you’ve satisfied it because it thinks it’s smarter than you. Trouble is, the seat isn’t smart enough to differentiate between a human and a canine. So you’ll be rolling up the street and suddenly “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!” And you’re trying to figure out why the van is whining, and the dog is getting nervous by the beeping, and suddenly Dodge has turned a peaceful drive into a safety hazard.
And finally I have my Toshiba laptop that I’m tippy-tappying on right now. It has this swell feature where if my cursor hovers too long over an area that can be clicked, it decides to go ahead an click it for me! Clever, huh? So after spending 45 minutes trying to create a new thread, it suddenly clicks somewhere else and I’ve lost everything!
I hear ya! The more “advanced” we make stuff the stupider it seems to get…
Although I have to say, I have a Toshiba laptop as well and I’ve never heard of that clicking problem… are you sure there’s not a way to turn that off?
I have a Lexus. At the grocery store, I load the groceries in my car, then walk the cart the 15 yards to the cart corral (I’m the guy that actually does that, instead of leaving it where it sits for an unsuspecting driver to smash into it, or until the wind decides to make it play pinball with all the cars in the lot), and by the time I return, all the doors are locked. I don’t need this. If I want the doors locked, all I have to do is to push a button on my keyring!
I don’t blame Bill. I blame the entire industry’s incredible drive to make every last buck, vis a vis the ignorance of the consumer public.
The problem, simply, is this: Computers are not easy. We’d like them to be. We demand that they be. But they are not. No matter how you try and dress up the software to make it appear as though there’s not much to it by hiding all the really useful features in sub-menus, that doesn’t make it any easier. No matter how you try and make the software do things for you that it thinks you want it to do, thus saving you time and energy and keeping you ignorant of the more complicated steps it would have taken ordinarily to achieve that thing, that doesn’t make it any more helpful to the consumer. Just the same, OS developers and software developers alike all cater to that audience that wants their computer to do absolutely bloody well everything by touching exactly two keys, one of which is the “on” button. They do this because then these people, seeing how absurdly easy everything is, will go and buy this stuff without ever realizing that it’s all window dressing and, when you get right down to it, it really is a little more complicated than programming your VCR, a skill most still haven’t mastered.
Not that it matters to the industry. They got their buck. Now it’s up to the pay-per-incident tech support industry to make theirs. Hey. Ignorance is big business.
Don’t get me started on cellphones. I want to be able to hear my calls, a basic phone book, and a clock. The clock is even optional. I don’t want to store birthdays, email addresses and shoe sizes. I don’t want to be able to play games. No camera. No MP3 playing. No 8x10 color glossies with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back. (I will take the Sim chip though.)
I’m with you on this. My last phone had 5 stupid buttons and even more menu options for things like internet access. I didn’t want them so I didn’t pay for them. So, I had all these buttons and menu options taking up space and confusing me.
When I got my new phone, I paid $100 for a phone when I could have had a better one for free. Why? Bcecause the most unusual thing my phone does is text message. I didn’t want a camera. I didn’t want an MP3 player. I don’t need internet access or games or any other kind of downloadable crap. That’s why I have a computer at home. The only reason I got the texting is because I detest actually talking on the phone.
[hijack] Good for you! I wish more people would do this. [/hijack]
My pet peeve is Bitchy the Paper Clip. You know, that stupid paper clip icon that pops up when you use Microsoft Word or Excel? I can’t type more that three words before ol’ Bitchy pops up and says “It looks like you’re writing a letter. Can I help?” And this is in Excel! Stupid flurkin’ paper clip.
PunditLisa, I’ve had the same problem with my Dell notebook. I always make sure that the cursor is at the bottom of the screen when I step away from my desk so that I don’t end up with quadruple posts.
I’ve got a Ford Taurus with horrible heater controls. Instead of having knobs for the temperature and fan controls, it has rocker switches. If you want to change either of those settings, you have to either hold the button down, which moves the temp/fan setting at a glacial pace, or you gotta hit the damn buttons a zillion friggin’ times to get the right setting, one increment at a time. Plus, the A/C comes on whenever it decides too…there’s no override to either turn the A/C on or off. Not only that, but there’s no feedback that the A/C is on (many cars have an indicator light); you have to put your hands near the vents to figure out if it’s on or not. Finally, the “vent only” setting won’t turn the A/C on at all (checked owner’s manual, that’s “normal”).
I write a lot of stuff (in Word) about indigenous this and indigenous that, so if the notes are not for others to see, I’ll always abbreviate it as “indig”…which means I end up with “indigo” all over the place, thanks to the darn automatic spelling corrector! I’m about ready to give up and become a botanist instead.
Don’t know about Germany, but Japanese routinely back into narrow parking spaces. With my (cheap) Nissan, I have to move the mirrors down so that I can see the lines to make sure I’m in. My old GF had a Benz with the moving mirrors, and I loved that. They should make these features overridable, though.
I don’t like the autocorrect for spelling. We use tons of TLAs, and Word wants to change them all to something it’s seen before.
I wish more people would do this. [/hijack]