My car had a third party alarm installed before I bought it because it was a former rental. The manual had a method of turning off the alarm permanently by opening the car door, hitting the door unlock button, the turning the ignition IIRC. This worked for a couple of years until my car ran out of power for unrelated reasons, we jumped it, and jumping it caused the alarm to turn back on. In the years since I had lost the original alarm manual and when I tried to Google search for the manual online using the brand/model I found a manual but it was only the manual for the NEWEST version of the alarm and the bad seemingly deleted the old manual, and the method of disabling the alarm was completely different, and using both my half-remebered old alarm code and the new manual alarm codes both failed to work. Had to spend $300 to get a professional mechanic to completely gut the alarm system because it was this weird 3rd party thing to get it into the car by the rental company.
This is inherent in the design of scissors. You can’t have such a thing as non-chiral scissors.
But why is that a problem? I have scissors here on my desk that are totally symmetrical, both the handles and the blades are the same in size and form. What difference does it make if I use them with my left or my right hand?
How about the teeny-tiny letters on my cable box that go on forever (typically: 394gHei87fFtil1l0o0o12GMb) that I have to read to the cable company whenever my cable service goes out. The letters in addition to the tiny font are typically in blue letters against a black background and the box itself is affixed to the wall where I can pull it out a few inches so I can read it upside down while laying on the floor.
This is just bad customer service, not a product design error. Your provider should know which model of cable box they gave you.
Your left vs. right hands put different forces on the scissors. Hold a right-handed pair of scissors in your right hand, and “push” with your thumb (toward your other hand). This will cause the blades to be compressed together slightly due to slop in the hinge.
Do the same with your left hand, and the blades will tend to separate (possibly causing paper to slip between the blades when you cut).
Ah, that’s an aspect I would never have considered, and yes I tested it, and you’re right. But the blades on my scissors are so tight that with a slight pull of my left thumb, I can still use them quite well with my left hand.
No, you don’t.
Open the scissors slightly, and place them on your desk with the handles towards you, and the blades away from you. One blade is on the left, and the other is on the right. If it’s a right-handed scissors, then the left blade is on top of the right blade. If it’s a left-handed scissors, then the right blade is on top of the left blade.
I think those long numbers are serial numbers , not model numbers . In any event, the cable company certainly does know which model boxes they gave me - but at the moment I have three boxes and there are two different models. They don’t know which box I am calling about unless I give them a number.
Ah, understood. (that applies to both posts above, though I still can use my right-handed scissors well with my left)
The scissors on my Swiss army knife work with either hand.
I can usually do the same, though I’ve found some pairs where it remains difficult. Probably I could do so with a little practice, but despite being left-handed, I generally use scissors with my right hand. The bin of scissors we had in grade school always had a bunch labeled LEFTY, so it wasn’t that (or maybe I didn’t like digging through the bin for them).
It is a little surprising that the action of scissors isn’t just a simple closing and opening like, say, a pair of pliers. The tension on the hinge and a bunch of other things have a dramatic effect on the action. They’re designed so that our weirdly asymmetrical hands put just the right forces on the blades so that they work effectively.
Oh yes, I can imagine that for the shitty worn-out scissors you got in art class at school it made a difference.
This was a PITA until the recent generations of smart phones. Grab your phone, take a picture of the label, zoom in and casually read the tiniest low contrast text.
My complaint is a recent UI “innovation” (at least new to me). I recently had to renew my drivers license, which require filling out an online application. There’s an entry for you date of birth. It’s a pulldown that shows a little month calendar, with the year in the top center and forward and reverse arrows to move to other months. Easy peasy, right?
But…there is no way to arrow back through the years, only month by month (and no way to type in a date). That’s right. If you are 50 years old, getting back to the month of your birth requires about 600 clicks! And if, during this click-a-thon, your mouse should shift a little outside of the little month, the system resets to display the current month (ask me how I know).
But that’s the DMV. right? No way other software does this…My company introduced a new piece of HR software and wanted us to fill out what is essentially a resume. As part of this, they want your job history, including when you started and ended each position, including internal moves. Guess how you enter the start and end dates? Right the first time. And do they default the end date to the start date you’ve laboriously entered so the clicks for that are reduced? Don’t be silly!
Ever try to look at the serial number on an Apple laptop, iPad or iMac? Better grab your old man magnifying glass. Or, try really hard to get your phone’s camera to focus on it so you can use that image. Fuck you Apple.
Settings–General–About–Serial Number
Works wonderfully on a functional system. Non-functional…not so much.
Ahhh, gotcha.
And it’s not just old me complaining. Young techs, with young eyes in our support group also complain.
It would not be difficult for Apple (and others) to put the serial number in barcode or QR code format, in addition to tiny plain text. Or Apple could print the serial number in something larger than two-point text.