Are there any common household items or products that you think are designed incredibly poorly?
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light bulbs that die too often.
those pots and sauce pans that use a screw to connect the handle. the screw head generally places inside the pot and will get to all your food.
chopping boards. plastic chopping boards enhance your meals with microplastic. composite wood enhances your food with bacteria lodged in-between wood pieces. bamboo -- too thin and ends up similar to composite.
I think there are glass cutting boards wouldn't that work for you
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Reusable water bottles, especially their lids. They build up microorganisms faster than a petri dish and the more complex the bottles are, the worse it is.
Worst offender are the ones with integrated straws. Sure, they look nice and are a good idea, but cleaning them thoroughly is a nightmare. Also, I don't know how people tolerate the ones with exposed straws or mouthpieces. Isn't that incredibly unsanitary?
More generally, why doesn't anyone except for Nalgene make reusable bottles without rubber gaskets? Gaskets get stinky, then you have to peel them out, scrub like mad, and then awkwardly stretch them back in. I've been looking for a metal water bottle without a gasket for ages. They literally just need to shove the Nalgene-type screw-on top into a metal body.
Bonus points if someone designs a gasket-less bottle that opens in the middle so I don't have to fiddle with a bottle brush every time I wash it.
The issue you're highlighting is due to the different between metal and plastic. I have an Orca bottle that has a plastic lid that screws on without any rubber gasket and I end up with shreds of plastic in the bottle.
Plastic rubbing on metal leads to the plastic degrading and metal on metal does not make a good seal, so I think a rubber gasket is your only option.
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Overtime, our kitchen knives. Knives need to be thin, as thinner knives cut through ingredients more easily. Today's knives are designed instead to be marketed. Something incredibly thick, and sturdy, to make it feel "premium", when all its doing is tiring you out, since using a heavy knife gets exhausting, especially when its so thick it wedges in ingredients.
Vintage European knives are slim, and almost petite, because they knew how to make a good knife, in the same manner japanese knives are ground extremely thin, sometimes thinner than a postcard.
There's a balance that needs to be maintained. A general purpose knife like a chef's knife needs some thickness to it, otherwise it can't effectively chop through tougher things. It's also not a knife you are supposed to hold the full weight of when cutting most things. Thin knives are awful for things like cutting a cabbage in half or cutting chicken bones.
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I think there are glass cutting boards wouldn't that work for you
They dull knives
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Most clothes, oddly gendered and sexist and it's fucking weird having different clothes for people who identify differently, like clothes are clothes. Make them for everyone. It's fucking wild.
Yeah I hate having button downs that tuck only one inch into my waist (I'm a man)
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Reusable water bottles, especially their lids. They build up microorganisms faster than a petri dish and the more complex the bottles are, the worse it is.
Worst offender are the ones with integrated straws. Sure, they look nice and are a good idea, but cleaning them thoroughly is a nightmare. Also, I don't know how people tolerate the ones with exposed straws or mouthpieces. Isn't that incredibly unsanitary?
More generally, why doesn't anyone except for Nalgene make reusable bottles without rubber gaskets? Gaskets get stinky, then you have to peel them out, scrub like mad, and then awkwardly stretch them back in. I've been looking for a metal water bottle without a gasket for ages. They literally just need to shove the Nalgene-type screw-on top into a metal body.
Bonus points if someone designs a gasket-less bottle that opens in the middle so I don't have to fiddle with a bottle brush every time I wash it.
I love my simple metal Yeti bottles.
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For example, I'm incredibly confused about how you're supposedly to measure liquid laundry detergent with the cap. At least the kind that I have sits on it's side, so if you measure it with the cap it just leaks everywhere and makes a mess.
Or at my parents house they have a bag of captain crunch berries that has a new design, where instead of zipping along the top of the bag like normal, it has a zipper in the front slightly beneath the top. That way when you poor it you can't see what you're doing cuz the bag is in the way. Like what the heck who's idea was that?
Chairs and tables. Why do I have to squeeze my thighs between the chair and the dinner table and then bend down awkwardly when I eat to not splatter all over? Why are chairs so high and tables so low? Just put the table higher so the food is closer to my mouth and why do we even need chairs anyway?
Milk cartons suck now. I'm the 90s, we could fold and push to open. Why do we need scissors to open them now? Oh and half of them now have a plastic lid in the middle so you can't even pour out the last drops anymore.
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For example, I'm incredibly confused about how you're supposedly to measure liquid laundry detergent with the cap. At least the kind that I have sits on it's side, so if you measure it with the cap it just leaks everywhere and makes a mess.
Or at my parents house they have a bag of captain crunch berries that has a new design, where instead of zipping along the top of the bag like normal, it has a zipper in the front slightly beneath the top. That way when you poor it you can't see what you're doing cuz the bag is in the way. Like what the heck who's idea was that?
A lot of OTC meds that are in boxes have annoying packaging where you have to peel off the little paper before you can push the pill through the wrapping. The paper doesn't always like to peel off properly and it makes it harder to get the pill out of the packaging.
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Chairs and tables. Why do I have to squeeze my thighs between the chair and the dinner table and then bend down awkwardly when I eat to not splatter all over? Why are chairs so high and tables so low? Just put the table higher so the food is closer to my mouth and why do we even need chairs anyway?
Milk cartons suck now. I'm the 90s, we could fold and push to open. Why do we need scissors to open them now? Oh and half of them now have a plastic lid in the middle so you can't even pour out the last drops anymore.
Chairs and tables will always feel right for some and bad for others. My legs are long so if there are table supports I need to back away from it and I end up sitting too far from the table. Then casual restaurants all seem to be using those horrible metal chairs that feel like they are made for prisons that have these constricting backs. We need chairs to sit.
I always hated those glued and folded top milk cartons. Every other one would be a struggle to get the seam to open and sometimes I ended up taking a knife to hack it open.
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light bulbs that die too often.
those pots and sauce pans that use a screw to connect the handle. the screw head generally places inside the pot and will get to all your food.
chopping boards. plastic chopping boards enhance your meals with microplastic. composite wood enhances your food with bacteria lodged in-between wood pieces. bamboo -- too thin and ends up similar to composite.
Wood boards don't harbor bacteria assuming you wash them. The wood dries out and the bacteria die with it. They need moist surfaces with some food supply to grow.
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I think there are glass cutting boards wouldn't that work for you
They ruin knives
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To be fair, most are. At the end of the day, today's economy makes it far more profitable to choose either extremely cheap or extremely expensive, making good, lasting, but not perfect products is just not what consumers seem to want. People eother want something cheap that works okay, or something really well made that justifies the price.
I feel like 99% of products I interact with get me frustrated with their simple-to-fix design flaws.
But as for your question: fucking toothpaste containers! Could you make a more frustrating and intentionally bad design?? Why is it that if I cut them open I can get like another few days to a week of brushing? Why not put tooth paste in a jar with a little spoon? Or an opening that is small so that the amount that is left after squeezing your best, is truly insignificant? Why. Must. I. Suffer?
Why not put tooth paste in a jar with a little spoon?
Yah, I want a nice crusty jar of toothpaste with a nasty spoon and then I need a spatula to dig out the last bits vs just squeezing a tube. Just push on the tube with you thumb into the back of the opening and the last bits come out.
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I think there are glass cutting boards wouldn't that work for you
i use a solid wood one, but this suggestion works as well!
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Wood boards don't harbor bacteria assuming you wash them. The wood dries out and the bacteria die with it. They need moist surfaces with some food supply to grow.
yup, there's no problem with wood. there's only risk when it starts to wear.
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For example, I'm incredibly confused about how you're supposedly to measure liquid laundry detergent with the cap. At least the kind that I have sits on it's side, so if you measure it with the cap it just leaks everywhere and makes a mess.
Or at my parents house they have a bag of captain crunch berries that has a new design, where instead of zipping along the top of the bag like normal, it has a zipper in the front slightly beneath the top. That way when you poor it you can't see what you're doing cuz the bag is in the way. Like what the heck who's idea was that?
I always run into the common problems with my plumbus, no further explanations needed it think.
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Some toilets have a perfectly round bowl so they don't stick out as far and take up bathroom floor space - and they work fine, but only in bathrooms that anticipate the vast majority of its occupants to be equipped with a vagina. For those of us rocking a penis, those fucking toilets are horrible - sitting on that damn thing requires you to contort your junk around like some sausage-Houdini as you're sitting, so that you can guide it through the remaining 2 square inches of open space not occupied by your legs or ass. Then when you're actually seated, you still have to sit there and awkwardly hold the thing so it stays pointed straight down.
Fuck up any part of that, and the tip of your dick hits the seat or the inside of the bowl.
...and they must be like $3 cheaper than an oval toilet or something, cuz 99% of US apartments seem to be equipped with the round, vagina-only toilets.
Oval bowls are the way. No matter what's in your pants, it gets the job done without the significantly increased biohazard risk.
I guess in fairness, the problem isn't with their design, it's with the people who purchase the toilets treating them as sex-neutral when no the fuck they aren't!
When your dick hits the bowl and you wonder what STD you just picked up.
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I am a vagina owner from birth, I never imagined the toilet bowl shape would pose an issue to penis owners. From reading your comment I'm still unsure of which toilet bowls you're talking about, I would appreciate if you (or anyone, really) could point to images of both so I, and potentially others, can compare. TIA
Tape a dildo to your vulva now sit down on a round bowl and see if it touches the rim. Now imagine you have to pee while taking a poop and you now have to shove the end down so it pees into the bowl. Do this without touching the rim.
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Overtime, our kitchen knives. Knives need to be thin, as thinner knives cut through ingredients more easily. Today's knives are designed instead to be marketed. Something incredibly thick, and sturdy, to make it feel "premium", when all its doing is tiring you out, since using a heavy knife gets exhausting, especially when its so thick it wedges in ingredients.
Vintage European knives are slim, and almost petite, because they knew how to make a good knife, in the same manner japanese knives are ground extremely thin, sometimes thinner than a postcard.
Thicker helps with balance in the hand. Cheap knives usually are too light in the handle or the blade is so thin it flexes. A sharp knife is what helps cut and you shouldn't work with dull knives.
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My oven’s vents point directly up my face. So when you stand in front of the stovetop while baking something, you’re directly exposed to the fumes of burning gas.
Uhhhh what?
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Water has both adhesive and cohesive properties, and this bullshit is one of the results. I hate it so much. Basically the bit of wwater in contact with the surface of the spout likes to stick to that spot; and the above that likes to stick to the water stuck to the surface and so on, making it kinda roll along angled surfaces even when it seems like gravity should be yanking it right off.
And they absolutely could shape the spout in a way that stops this - they just choose not to.
Never heard of the oil coating trick @DontRedditMyLemmy mentioned, but it makes sense - oil is hydrophobic, so that could eliminate the adhesion part of the equation; and without that moving the stream initially, its cohesion won't be an issue either.
Or do what they do in chemistry which is to take a rod (or in the kitchen anything like a dinner knife or handle) and place it against the spout and let the liquid then run down the rod.
