Are there any common household items or products that you think are designed incredibly poorly?
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I bought this can opener after watching a Technology Connections video, and I kinda love my can opener.
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Planned obsolescence. When the battery finally dies, you can't use it wired.
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I have a truck where the oil drain plug is directly over the axle. I have to strap an offset funnel under the drain to get it to not splash all over the fuck, and of course, it's not easy to get that stay put so inevitably I have oil everywhere. Same truck has the oil filter tucked up where I need a special oil filter wrench with a ratchet and extensions to remove it, and when you pull the filter out, you have to tip it so it spills the oil inside everywhere.
I had an idea a long time ago of a website where you can crowdfund a private investigator to find engineers that do shit like this, and a crew to go over to their house and beat them halfway to death.
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Or just going outside and ejecting that puppy without touching anything except the other side of your nose. Farmer blow FTW.
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I learned long ago when something like this bothers me that it is irrational to get angry at objects, then I connected I am not angry at the object, I am angry at the dumb ass turd who designed it.
btw, I drill a hole in my oil filter before I remove it to drain it so it doesn't spill all over the front of my engine.
Maybe all engineers should have to sign their work. Like have their license number or something embossed on it. That way we can find them and inform them of their idiocy.
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I get this one but I also don’t mind. It’s mostly done for aerodynamics and fuel efficiency. Tucking the wipers gives a decent bit of drag reduction so it has a real purpose at least.
Then again on some luxury cars they do it just so you don’t see them and that’s boring but those losers probably don’t change their own wipers.
Now, my gripe is: Around here ehen it’s going to ice over in winter we’ll lift wipers off the glass so you can scrape the windshield afterward without hitting frozen down wipers. But some wiper designs you can’t lift the wiper off the glass and it’ll stay off. Those suck.
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We went to an auto parts store a while back to get some wipers and got a plain set but couldn’t get it on somehow. Asked the staff for help, they ended up going through 4 or 5 sets of different brands and price levels just to find us a wiper that could actually fit the car. The only one that fit was the most expensive option, too. They were so frustrated they didn’t even charge us the extra and just sent us on our way. Stupid wipers, great staff.
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Or you could be my house, previously owned by a maniac, with counters in the kitchen at 3 different heights. I wish I could say that was the stupidest thing the previous owner did.
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I used it for years but when I got a replace t computer just never bothered changing keys around and stopped. It was neat and I typed reasonably faster but at the time many programs wouldn’t handle the mapping and I’d have to remap controls in every game and was just kind of annoying.
The single best part was the loom on people’s faces when they used it. They’d go to type, it wouldn’t do what they expect and then they’d look at the keys and then to me like I was an alien. So good.
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Stupid question. With a bag clip bag bag clip, obviously.
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I was going to bring up the Herman miller Arron, but that released in 1994!
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It's not a brand name. Two American companies picked different compound abbreviations at roughly the same time, and somehow one name spread here and the other name spread everywhere else.
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I've found one that seems to suck less. It is at least sensibly designed, easy to clean, and hefty enough where I'm not going to break it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WHLDMNX
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I will often drive a screwdriver into the bottom a filter, but this one is impossible to get to and even if I did, it would dribble on the exhaust pipe.
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I had to get a stupid round one because it was the only one with a 10" rough-in (distance from wall to toilet drain), standard is 12".
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If we're also talking about vehicles... I'm about average height (~180 cm) but have long-ish legs, and this means that I simply don't fit well into the driver's seat of most cars. Even with the steering wheel adjusted all the way up, seat slid all the way back and reclined all the way forward, my legs are hitting the steering wheel and yet I can barely reach it with my hands. Because of this, I sometimes have to take my shoes off while driving.
Also, almost every car has some annoying things like your oil plug; simply because a modern combustion engine is really quite complicated and there's not enough space under the hood to give every component a convenient place. E.g. my Delica has the starter located below the engine and quite far back, so it's mostly covered by the engine protection plate. Good luck banging on that starter relay if it sticks in the off position and refuses to start, while you're stuck in the mud! However I do agree that making periodic maintenance painful, like in your case, is way worse.
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I don't know what "other countries" you're talking about, but where I'm from, a "can opener" looks like this:
(I've been using one just like this for my entire adult life, and guess what - it's ok!)
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Same. I should really learn to use a simpler one, but I love this model and it still seems rock-solid to me after years of use. The best part is not ending up with sharp, dangerous edges on the lid!
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About cars, and not necessarily designed poorly, but definitely designed by a man for men: cars that, by default, automatically, immediately unlock all doors when the engine is turned off. A man might be car jacked or robbed, a woman might be car jacked, robbed, or raped.
(Of course men can be raped too, but it's not as likely to happen by a strange woman threatening violence than a woman is to be raped by a strange man threatening the same.)
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Office chairs, no, but massage chairs have.
