At work we have a horrid internal document reader app that results in 3 levels of nested scroll bars, and the mouse wheel will inevitably have the wrong sub-window active forcing you to flail the mouse-pointer about randomly until you finally find the hot-pixels to grab the nested scroll bar that actually does something.
Have to tell this story: About 15 - 20 years ago, if you wanted an independent printer at school, you bought it yourself. I stumbled across a basically BOGO sale at Staples and grabbed 2 HP ink jet printers, one for me and one for my Department Chair, who was a buddy and taught next door to me. Those printers were nothing but frustration. (What did I expect for the price?) One day, in the middle of class when I was trying to print a quiz for some student or something, the printer problems made me snap. I started ripping the cables off the back, yelling at the kid closest to the door to get that sucker open! When the printer was clear, I walked to the door and heaved it about 10’ out on to the sidewalk, where is shattered.
Then I went back to teaching my class.
2 minutes later, we heard a primal scream from next door and Steve’s printer joined mine in a pile of junk. Fast forward about 5 minutes…
The vice-principal and the head of Security ease into my classroom with rather nervous expressions on their faces.
“Is everything…OK?”
They kinda expected that shit from me, but Steve was a Baptist deacon, his kids were all Valedictorians, etc. We threw them a bit. I was told later that we were the subject of about an hours worth of discussion at the next private School Board meeting. 
Half the Board was laughing their asses off, the other half were suggesting more funding for Employee Mental Health checks.
I guess more funding for real printers was seen as beyond the pale. Unsurprising. Saddening, but unsurprising.
Real printers are quite capable of deserving the same treatment, if a bit more difficult to heave. c.f. “PC LOAD LETTER”
The heating element in our venerable Hamilton Beach coffeemaker burnt out a couple weeks ago, and we NEED MORNING COFFEE so I snagged what looked like a suitable replacement, a Cuisinart of roughly the same footprint and capacity and lack of unwanted bells & whistles.
Like the old one, it is set up so there’s a lid covering the interior basket and basin where you scoop in the loose ground coffee and pour in the water.
Unlike the old one, the lid is hinged to lift UP, making it ineligible to stay under the shelves where we want it (and our kitchen is small and cramped so it kind of has to live there anyway). We tug it out to the edge long enough to put in the ground coffee and water, then close it and slide it back, but this has already cost us one broken carafe. The old coffee maker’s lid was hinged in such a way that it would rotate to the SIDE. Hence not requiring the additional vertical clearance.
Damn Cuisinart needs a full TWO FEET of vertical space from base to apex of the open lid.
OH, and also: to replace the broken carafe, I wanted to get the model number. Would you believe it’s printed on the fucking BASE, small embossed black plastic letters against black background?
I have tried them all.
Today I have an oddball coffee maker from Zojirushi: Fresh Brew Plus Thermal Carafe Coffee Maker EC-YTC100 | Zojirushi.com
This coffee maker is no-frills, just push the button and go, and it has a big metal insulated carafe that is just like those carafes that waitresses leave at your table at IHOP. I bring the carafe to my work desk along with cream and sugar and spend the morning enjoying hot coffee.
The dumb part? Just like your own machine, it can’t be used under a cabinet.
The problem is not caused by a flip-up lid though. In my coffee maker there are steam vents at the top that vent copious amounts of water vaper during the brewing process.
If I were to leave this under the cabinet, it would damage the paint and possibly damage the LED lighting strips–I already have several dead lights, like a gap-toothed smile, right near where the coffee maker goes.
Still, to have a carafe of blazing hot coffee at my desk all morning (it isn’t being warmed/burnt), it is worth that weirdness. I drag it out from under the cabinet for each use and slide it back when I’m done.
We bought a Cuisinart last year to replace our old Kitchen Aid. I, too, hate the flip-up lid over the filter basket and water reservoir*. Another thing I hate is the water level indicator in the reservoir, which is black plastic surrounded by black plastic, so it’s nearly impossible to see without a flashlight. White plastic with black lettering would have been a much better design choice.
* The Kitchen Aid had a removable reservoir, which was awesome. Especially when making a second pot, so you didn’t have to pour cold water into a hot coffee maker.
Speaking of which…
There is a medical building not far from our house, in fact they have a day surgery center, where I’ve had several procedures over the years.
Back in 2018, I had wrist surgery and was in a sling. My husband had knee surgery and was on crutches. We had frequent appointments at that facility, for orthopedist visits and physical therapy.
The main entrance had an automatic door opener. No problem.
The individual suites - ALL of them - had the spring closing door that requires a healthy arm and two functioning feet to navigate.
Solo, I could JUST manage - by pulling it open with my good arm, and hastily body-blocking the door as I scooted in. Someone on crutches, not so much.
Maybe they don’t want patients wandering around.
In my neck of the world, there are a lot of newer duplexes that have a configuration whereby the double garages are on either end, and the front doors share a mutual walkway. And there are always big windows. The privacy factor would be nil. If the garages were together, each end could have its own front yard.
I’m not exactly sure what you are talking about - I think what you are talking about is a configuration that in my area would be called semi-detached houses. Around here, it’s two separate houses on two separate lots ( usually with two different ) that share a wall but other places could have the same configuration for a two -unit building on a single lot. Anyway, I think the reason is having the houses share a wall saves more money on construction, heat, etc than having the garages share a wall.
Yeah, if you’re just connecting the buildings at the garage, there’s no purpose to connecting the buildings at all.
The fundamenal issue with inkjet printers is that ink dries out if you aren’t using it basically continuously. It clogs the heads, or it evaporates from the cartridge, or both. No one has ever really solved this. If you aren’t printing photos every day, your inket printer is going to have this problem. That’s a technological issue even before you get into the loss-leader sales model. Selling inkjets as cheap document printers for home use was always misleading.
It’s not that hard to find a laser printer that doesn’t software-block you from using cheaper cartridges, but even paying full price for a manufacturer cartridge is better in the long run than dealing with an inkjet - even more so if you don’t print all that often. A $200 Brother machine with a high-capacity cartridge (maybe $130 if you buy name brand) will get you 3500 pages, stretched out over however long it takes you to need to print that many, and it will always work when you need it without maintenance.
a squirt of water into the bottle (chances are - you are already messing with water in the shower) … and a good shake is all that it needs.
I do the same with mustard, ketchup, etc… that is too thick to flow towards the opening … works great (on all water-based products) …
mayonaise - not so much 
ditto for “Not-Kansas”
We have a mixed marriage. I drive older cars where everything’s manual, but my wife likes to drive cars made in this century. When she starts her Buick, the radio automatically connects to her phone (EVEN if we turn the radio to NPR and are quietly listening to the news)… and starts loudly playing any mp3 file on it in alphabetical order.
I purposely put a nice French instrumental piece on, that starts with À … because I lived in fear of starting a road trip with her by hearing the radio blasting Achy Breaky Heart.
With me, it’s that stupid U2 album.
In the winter, when I start my car and let it warm up, it immediately connects to my phone which is in the house and will play whatever podcast, book or music I was last listening to. By doing this, I’m not able to listen to anything on my phone while I’m still in the house. Also, it means that I have to “rewind” whatever started playing and try to find where I left off. So, I have to remember to turn the radio off after I park in the garage at the end of the day - and that’s hit or miss.
And yea - I’m sick of the U2 album. That will come on if I start the car and push 'Bluetooth" before I have what I want to listen to on my phone ready to go.
Annoying
And, since I just went back and read the whole thread…
Since I just had my DNA tested and I’m surprisingly from Liverpool, I’m now going to call miscreants: “Ya bloody spurgers…” [/thick scouse accent]
…And, aesthetically speaking, not always in aesthetics.
Cite:
As a designer, if I make sure everything is based on the Golden Mean/Rectangle/Ratio, sometimes it just looks off.
So I start over, ignore classical rules and quit being a spurger… and just try to make it look good.
Mine will always start a Renaissance song - “a.Can You Hear Me?” from the 1999 BBC sessions. It’s that lower case “a” that trumps anything.
I had a car that did that when my chihuahua rode with me. I just routed the seat belt around behind the seat and buckled it. Going behind the seat with the belt might not work on some vehicles. In that case you can just pull it across the front of the seat.