I was just going to post this. Micro Center tags everything it sells with stickers that won’t come off even when subjected to a pool of Goof-Off for an hour.
How about my old Samsung cell phone, which has a super-sensitive button on the side that would activate the camera and take photos. Just sitting in my pocket, the thing would take five or ten photos in a row, without any prompting from me. A five step process is needed to delete a photo, which included the now-ubiquitous “Are you sure?” prompt.
My CTO lurves them. He feels it promotes “interaction” with the menu. I say, people don’t want to interact, they want to KNOW WHERE STUFF IS (I’m creative director). I think programmers sometimes just see the world different than everyone else.
Heh. Actually those freaking-out kids are my nephews, and my brother has the perfect solution to the problem of opening toy packaging: me (the engineer).
It’s kind of like a comedy routine. I say “How the heck do you get these things open?” and he says “I say: ‘Don’t worry, Uncle Lightray will get it open.’ That usually works.”
I thought it was bad before but then I got this several months ago. I picked it as my 15 year anniversary present from work.
I have to adjust the volume anywhere from 2 to 30 but right in the middle of a volume 20 DVD I get some dramatic music blazing through which seems at volume 50.
God forbid I put in a volume 2 DVD and forget the last setting was 23. I get a busted eardrum while I scramble for the remote and the second I hit the volume even one notch it skips down to 1 and then I can’t hear anything and have to adjust the volume again.
Oh just because we are bitching the remote for that player has no on/off switch. :mad:
Regarding hard-to-open pill packaging: My regular prescriptions from the local Pathmark pharmacy come in bottles that incorporate a wonderfully simple and elegant solution to the problem I don’t know why it’s not used more elsewhere. Let me try to explain.
It’s a regular translucent orange prescription bottle with the kind of child-resistant cap where you push down on the tab at the edge of the cap to release and unscrew. But it ALSO has threads molded onto the inside of the bottle, and the top of the cap is molded such that if you flip it over, it screws right into those inside threads. Presto! A regular screw cap.
If you had problems with the standard way of opening it, you’d only have to flip it once, or I’m sure the pharmacist would close it the “easy way” for you if asked.
I wish I had a place to host online pictures. I’d just take a photo and upload it for you. It’s really neat. And I suspect it adds very little to the cost of the bottle.
Those plastic cases don’t stop thieves anyway; at a store I once worked at, they would simply steal some scissors, then steal whatever they wanted that was sealed up. On the one hand it pissed me off, but on the other hand, I rather admired the ingenuity.
If they would, then it suggests there’s no concerns about litigation etc., and so they could just put it in a regular bottle for anyone who asked? It’s what mine does.
See, the thing is, it’s in Grade 1. Usually the signs are in Grade 2. Also, I didn’t actually have too much time on my hands; I hardly had any time at all, seeing as I was teaching it to myself while attending Navy boot camp in 1980. My Company Commander was kind enough to let me have an hour in his office after lights out, so I could work on it.
Still, the cartoon would have taken less of my time if it had been in Grade 2…
The Walgreens where I used to get prescriptions filled had those dual-closure bottles. I think it solved the problem of the pharmacy having to keep two types of bottles on hand, or having to worry about people asking for non-childproof caps after the bottles had been filled. I know that before they switched I had a standing request for non-childproof caps on file with Walgreens.
I’ve used one of these things for years. They have a little blade which slices right through all the cellophane and the sticky plastic along the top. If you keep one in the car, it’s very handy if you want to listen to a new CD right away.
They make an opener for DVD’s, too. They’re available at most shops like Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble, Comp USA, Best Buy, etc.
Those little tiny stickers that come on plums and nectarines. Is it really that imperative that I see the name of the farm(?) every time I want a plum? And then have to try to peel it off without peeling off the skin, which is next to impossible? Come to think of it, maybe I will start to pay attention to the names on those labels, so I can vent my frustration to the appropriate people.
Also, as was touched upon. When I get cold cuts or anything else that comes in those resealable zip-lock type bags, most of the time I can’t re-open them. When I pull the opening apart to release the seal, the big rips open—the zip-lock part perfectly intact.
Actually, yes, yes it is. Welcome to the world of marketing and branding, where they would manufacture their food product to make you poop in the shape of their brand name, if it were possible and they could force you to look at it before you flushed.
More likely the packer/shipper - the middleman between the farmer and the store. For example, here where I am (Washington apple country) there are lots of independent orchardists, and a few packing houses. So the orchardists sell their crop to, say, Stemilt Growers, and Stemilt sticks their own little sticker on every piece of fruit before sending it on to the retail channel.
In the case of apples, they’ll probably also get a Washington State Apple Commission sticker, to verify that it’s a grown-in-Washington apple.
If it makes you feel better, fruit processors don’t like those little stickers either. They are a pain to apply en mass. They are working on laser alternatives.
If you look close those little stickers have a three or four digit code on them for the checker to input so the computerized register will know you are buying small Washington delicious apples and not the large ones. Or you are buying organic navel oranges, and not the regular ones.
Trying using your fingernail. I have never had a problem removing these labels.
