After 30 years or so of service, my bedroom clock died. The old one was the basic 7 segment red LED type you would buy in 1990.
The only requirements I had for the new one were viewable in the dark, large enough numbers to read from across the room, sets the time automatically, and doesn’t cost a fortune. The only one I could find has fake 7 segment LEDs made up of blue LEDs. It is plenty bright during the day in its dim mode, which means it is barely tolerable at night. Perhaps someday they will release an RGB model where the color can be changed, and a light sensor automatically adjusts the brightness.
I stay in a lot of hotel rooms. Which means I deal with a bewildering variety of clock / alarm clock / clock radio thingies. Most of which are fairly new, say last 3-5 years.
Damn near all of the modern ones have adjustable display brightness. Typically you tap the [snooze] bar and the display dims in steps. Most have a lowest setting that is completely off. Those where lowest isn’t completely off usually have a lowest setting that’s real, real dim, even in dark room when you’re eyes are dark-adapted.
I spent many years turning clocks face down or stuffing them in a nightstand drawer. Haven’t had to do that for a couple years now.
If anyone is looking to replace a bedside clock, consider looking for the dimmable display feature.
I’ve been traveling for business a lot over the past year or two, mostly in mid-price Hilton hotels. I turn the digital clock face down and use my iPhone as an alarm clock (using a MagSafe charging stand to keep it vertical). That lets me avoid having to figure out how their clock works.
Yeah. My only interaction with hotel room clocks is to ensure the alarm feature is off and the display is dim. My phone handles all my timekeeping and wake-up needs.
Our newish Farberware toaster has to be turned on before you push the lever to toast bread. The on button is not lit until you press it. Toasters used to start when you pushed down the toast lever. No amount of use has trained me to turn on this new one. I push down the levers and the bread immediately pops back, leaving me momentarily stumped. Then I remember: Turn the thing on.
It has been few mornings I remember to turn it on. Then I have three seconds to set the toasting level. When I do remember, there is rejoicing.
A toaster driven by software that was clearly written by Mr. Farber’s ninth grade son, that then gives me a deadline to select the darkness. I generally miss that three-second deadline and have to press cancel and start over. If I’m toasting for Mrs. Cincy I have three more seconds to select her toast level.
I’m generally alone in this morning ritual, sparing me daily embarrassment.
Really, over the years I have tackled intricate software writing and complicated computer servers, but this damned toaster stumps me most days.
And don’t get me started on coffee vending machines that require multiple steps to get a lousy cup of coffee, really lousy, when I was at work. I needed somebody beside me to recite the needed steps. Used to be I put money in and pressed a coffee button. My former boss, an IT master, found that I swore less if he was beside me to guide me through morning coffee making. I finally got Mrs. Cincy to buy me a one-cup drip coffee maker.
New materials are the biggies here, but there have also been relatively recent innovations in switchable shock absorbers and different kinds of gearshift controls. Foldable bikes also offer a lot of variety. And that’s not even counting the whole new world of e-bikes.
Yeah, different just for the sake of different is almost always a bad idea, but that doesn’t mean that there are no new improvements possible.
That’s true. Back in the 1960s my brother was involved in serious cycling; one guy he knew used to make bike frames lighter by drilling holes in the tubes until they looked like swiss cheese. That was successful at reducing the weight - but the bike frame was considerably less aerodynamic, so the advantage was much reduced.
Have we discussed seat belt design in this thread yet?
The last few cars I’ve owned have located the point to attach the seat belt to the car WAY behind my (the driver’s) right hip. I can’t see it (without dislocating my neck) and must feel for the spot to hook the two parts of the seat belt together.
Is there something inherent to seat belt design that makes this necessary? Is there some reason they couldn’t extend the female part of the connection a few inches (or even six inches) higher so I could connect them much more easily? Seems to me this difficulty is behind my reason for not using a seat belt on very short drives (to the garbage room, to my swimming pool, etc.), preferring to hear the WARNING!!! DANGER!!! beeps for a few seconds to the annoyance of making the two parts connect.
One of the first things I do after buying a new car is to shut off the annoying beep. You can search for “year/make/model turn off seat belt warning”. It’s one of those turn key/push brake to floor twice/turn wheel all the way to right/start car type of things.
If the female fitting was on a longer stalk or belt it would end up connecting to many smaller people more in the middle of their abdomen. In a crash, better to have just belt, not belt plus blob-o-metal for your innards to smash forwards against.
Also, that would affect whether the shoulder belt goes fully across their torso, or just across the outboard 2/3rd or 3/4th of their torso before reaching the buckle.
Nowadays it seems the female end of the seat belt isn’t connected to belting. It’s (at least for front seats) on the end of a stiff but flexible steel shaft / cable thingy. if that was longer, it’d have to be flexible enough to bend around the small girth of a small person. At which point it’d probably be very prone to falling between the seat and console. And be real hard to fish back out.
I think a bunch of these "is it easy to reach or use?" problems with seatbelts and otherwise, can be laid at the feet of the vast array of sizes, shapes, and flexibilities people come in, versus the practical reality that damn near everything mechanical is "one size fits most"; they don't make petite screwdrivers or toilets or Chevrolets.
Add in some serous safety engineering requirements and “easy” for folks near the edges of the size / shape / flexibility envelope get prioritized below “safe (enough) for all”
I wouldn’t think padding the blob-o-metal would be difficult.
Since I’m finding the female part tucked way down behind my right hip, I can’t imagine that extending it a few helpful inches would place it anywhere near anyone’s abdomen.
Does everyone find this a problem, or have I just picked the wrong cars the last few times? I’ve bought only three cars (Toyota, Volvo, Toyota) in this century.
I for one don’t have that problem. The bottom of female end is basically flush with the inboard rear corner of the seat pan. The top where I insert the male buckle (and where the orange release button is) sits a couple inches above that.
Demographically, I’m a bit short for a man, but slender bordering on scrawny & fully flexible. Turning my head see behind my hip, or reaching down there with either hand isn’t hard. For me. I can easily imagine it’d be a lot more difficult for a girthy person or someone of limited flexibility.
I believe that in most cars the support for the female half is bolted to the floor, not to the seat. So where it appears in relation to the seat depends on how far fore or aft you have the seat. If that’s true on your car, you may find that first running the seat aft gives you more slack to work with reaching the buckle, then once you are buckled, you can readjust the seat forward again.
I’ve been taking Ubers a lot lately and sometimes have trouble buckling the seat belt in the back seat, where the female end is basically flush with the seat.
