On our old CRV (2006), the gear you are in displays in a vertical column on the dashboard. There’s a shift lever next to it. It can be sort of hard to tell whether you’re in Drive, or in 2 or 1. 42401932.jpg (1024×768) (gtcarlot.com)
In our 2020 CRV, it’s a row of buttons, down on the console area. 2020-honda-cr-v-hybrid-trg-5.jpg (900×615) (gofatherhood.com)
There’s no “gear shift lever” of any sort. I’ve frequently hit the wrong button, absentmindedly, though I think the turning-knob approach (like in the Ford) is way easier to make the wrong selection. Interestingly, googling “2020 CRV” shows a number of models with a lever there, versus the row of buttons.
The lever version is much more intuitive; failing that, the row of buttons (which I do grant you, leaves more “air space” in the car).
Ooooh - on that Ford: As noted, we were stuck in the snow. We were frantically trying to find out how to put it in 4WD (before we realized that was not an option). To try to change the driving mode, you press a button (‘M’, I think) in the middle of that dial, then look at the dashboard and use the steering wheel buttons to try to select the mode. The display suggested we could put it in any of 10 gears, though 1 was the only option. So instead of one quick selection on a knob or lever, you have to 1) push a button, 2) look at the dashboard, and 3) look at the steering wheel to make the selection. Not at ALL intuitive, or safe if you’re actually in a moving vehicle. We were, of course, NOT moving, so it did not endanger us, but it was stupid nonetheless.
I actually liked the Expedition when we drove one in 2018. After this experience, I would not be so eager to have another one.
Back in the 1950s, when automatic transmissions were still a relatively new feature, there was no standard ordering for the gearshift. Some cars put reverse up next to park (if it even had park; a lot of cars didn’t back then), other cars put reverse all the way down at the bottom. As you might imagine, this let to a lot of accidents where someone would get into an unfamiliar car and absentmindedly select the wrong gear. This led the federal government to force carmakers to standardize on the now familiar PRNDL ordering.
I feel like we’re going back to the situation we had in the 50s, with different cars using different methods of selecting gears, and people absentmindedly selecting the wrong one when they’re in a car they’re not used to. Even though they do all place the buttons, or knob positions, or whatever, in the required PRNDL order.
or even faster: assuming the planter is made of plastic, punch a couple of holes with something pointy (swiss army knives have lots of options).
My planters have the holes semi-ready (thinner plastic circles at the bottom) - for the same reason … so you can choose how much drainage you want, or need.
One thing that annoys me with Windows logins (both local and VPN):
Since the 1990 I have been familiar with login screens, on computers and Web sites, with two text input fields and one button to log in (usually you can replace the button action with the enter key in the second field)
At some point in the past Microsoft changed the Windows login to
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ username │
└───────────────────────────────────┘
┌───────────────────────────────┬────┐
│ password │ 🡆 │
└───────────────────────────────┴────┘
╭───────────────────────────────╮
│ some action other than login │
╰───────────────────────────────╯
with the result that I still often enter username and password, then click on the button below (as opposed to the arrow in the password field, of hitting enter) and get unexpected behaviour.
We have credit cards at several financial institutions. All but 2 of them can auto-download to Quicken.
For one of those 2, it’s relatively straightforward to go to the download / export page.
For the other: I can look at recent transactions. No download button.
I have to do something like go from there to Accounts, to a different flavor of transaction history, and from THERE, there’s an export button. Completely counterintuitive. I have to use their “help” function to find it, every time.
Another banking grump: With our credit union, we have a shared account, then I have a single account (that never has more than a few dollars in it, but we use that for stuff like Paypal / Venmo), and small savings accounts for both kids.
When I go to the page to download statements, it lists them like this:
xxxxx00
xxxxx00
xxxxx00
xxxxx00
Yes, it shows just the trailing zeroes from the account numbers. No other way to tell which is which. So I have to click on the first one, download a statement, look at the PDF, and say “whoops, that’s Dweezil’s account, lemme try the next one”.
Can you apply “nicknames” to the accounts? A few of my banking sites allow that and suddenly the rest of their UI is far more user-friendly as we used to say.
Fidelity, on the other hand, DOES let me do that. Makes things a lot simpler given the number of individual accounts we have (his ‘n’ hers regular and Roth IRAs, an inherited IRA and so on).
My bank allows this, as does Fidelity, Vanguard, and my wife’s bank.
But the small credit union where my parents had their money did not. Fortunately, however, it showed the last 4 digits of the account numbers, so it was fairly trivial to ascertain which was checking and which was savings.
Ha! I was just going to mention this exact thing! Last week my family was on vacation and we rented a Nissan Rogue, my dad had that very issue trying to reverse! Took a few minutes to figure out how to leave the parking garage. Also in that same car, there was a touch button volume control for the radio on the side of the steering wheel directly where one would normally put their hands so inevitably multiples times per ride he’d end up touching the volume up button cause it to suddenly BLAST LOUDLY!
I really didn’t know what thread to drop this into, but I think my main complaint is about a stupid product (website) design, so it’s coming here. But maybe it’s some kind of stupid business practice, mini-rant, or general car talk?
Next week I’m renting a box truck with a lift gate. I want to make sure I’m appropriately insured while driving it. My recollection is that my auto policy does not cover moving trucks, but maybe it just doesn’t cover moving trailers? Go to my insurance website, but I can’t find a copy of my actual policy agreement anywhere. I can find lots of other documents, but not the actual legal stuff.
What about the credit card? It definitely offers secondary insurance on rental cars, but how is that defined? Go to their website, but I can’t find a copy of the legal stuff, either.
Both actually have brief, readable summaries of what is covered, but it doesn’t go into adequate detail, “cars you are driving,” “does not cover damage if you are intoxicated,” etc. Great, is a 16 foot truck a car? If not, is an SUV a car?
I know credit card agreements tend to be horrible legal documents that even contract lawyers say are uninterruptible, but I’ve always found insurance policies to be reasonably straightforward, even if dense legalese.
Actually, in my lexicon that is the difference between a pot and a planter. The pot has holes for drainage and the planter does not. The planter is meant to be decorative and go outside the pot.
Not sure if you ever found the answer but, in my experience, coverage for non-owned vehicles, if you have it on your policy, is limited to private passenger vehicles. Cube vans and such are not usually covered.
ETA: my experience is in Canada so, obviously, your jurisdiction may be different.
Regarding websites, I get very annoyed by the search feature in Instacart. I started using Instacart for grocery deliveries during the early days of Covid and decided I really like the convenience of spending 10 minutes shopping instead of 2 hours driving to the store, walking around the aisles, etc. But the website’s search feature is just baffling.
For example, I am now doing a test search for “chicken thighs” in my local Safeway. The results, in order:
a package of ground turkey
a package of ground turkey breast
chicken broth
(the next three are actually chicken thighs)
frozen chicken tempura
chicken bacon pasta
turkey patties
orange chicken tempura
plant-based chicken nuggets
Impossible chicken nuggets
(four more actual chicken thighs)
Impossiblel chicken nuggets
plant-based chicken nuggets
(two more actual chicken thighs)
It’s bad enough that they show you stuff you didn’t ask for, but the fact that they scatter the actual results randomly through the un-asked-for junk makes it very difficult to find what you’re looking for. If I don’t see what I want in the first 15 results, I can’t assume it’s not available; I have to keep scrolling and scrolling until I get tired of looking, but it may still be available way down in the part of the list that I didn’t see.
The store has several different brands (Open Nature, Foster Farms, Signature Farms, Petaluma Poultry) in boneless and bone-in forms, and in different package sizes. I’m puzzled as to why that surprises you so maybe I’m not understanding your question.
Huh. Around here, basic mostly-unprocessed meats like chicken thighs are never branded, or at most, you might get one that’s labeled special for being organic.
Really? The meat section of your supermarket doesn’t have Perdue, Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride, Empire Kosher, Foster Farms, or whatever store brand chicken pieces?
Where are you shopping? If I’m at the warehouse club, they will have only store brand and Perdue. At the supermarket there’s the store brand ,three different lines of Perdue (cage free and Perfect Portions), Nature’s Promise and Bell and Evans.
But the warehouse club generally has at most two brands of most items. I can get store brand ketchup or Heinz , not Hunt’s. Barilla pasta, not Ronzoni or De Cecco
