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?
US can openers. In other countries, they cut the sides of the can not the top, so the lid has no chance of falling in while dulling the edges. It also allows them to be much smaller and easier to use.
You can buy good can openers and bad ones in any country.
I bought this can opener after watching a Technology Connections video, and I kinda love my can opener.
Came here to say can opener too. Not for the same reason as you mentioned just that more often than not a can opener is just plain shoddy. Slips, doesn’t fully cut, hard to grip, etc….
There are many, but my current bugbear is the wireless Apple mouse. It has a built in rechargeable battery and and a tiny little port for you to plug the recharging cable in. The port is mounted on the bottom of the mouse rendering it useless while it’s being charged. I guess it’s to make it look nicer but it’s so stupid.
Planned obsolescence. When the battery finally dies, you can’t use it wired.
That was a design decision by Steve Jobs to keep people from using them as wired mice.
If this is true what a dumb reason. Basically decided to make a device that could be used 100% of the time unusable for some fraction of time just because it looks the way he wanted it too.
It’s like that to push you to buy two of them.
Alec from Technology Connections is known for his extensive rants about household appliances: https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections
As for me, I’m just trying to avoid things in general, and things I don’t enjoy in particular. Perhaps the only things that I find annoying at my home are:
- An awful flow-through gas water heater, which requires me to wait for like a minute before water gets up to temperature every time I need hot water (I’d go with an electric one myself, but unfortunately I’m a renter for now). It’s also a poor design because it’s going to fuck over humanity in a couple decades via climate change.
- Packaging on almost all processed food. I don’t need everything I buy to be in a plastic bag. It’s an incredibly poor design because it is almost always non-recyleable, either because it has a thin foil layer or it’s a mix of plastics or both, filling the landfills forever and contaminating everything with microplastics.
- Poor window frame design, combined with inevitable building settling, has resulted in a cracked window twice within the last year.
I have many more gripes about things, some of the most prominent:
- Most modern smartphones just suck. Gimme back the headphone jack, an SD card slot, and a back that I can open with my fingernails! (thankfully my current phone has all of those despite being only a couple years old and very cheap)
- Generally everything that has a battery which I can’t replace
- Bluetooth headphones without a headphone jack or at least audio-over-USB are an awful design, it would cost the manufacturer like a dollar do add that functionality that can come in really handy and yet they don’t
- Fuck clothes without pockets!
- Cheap plastic crap from wish.com or similar that’s designed to fail after one use, it just shouldn’t exist. I hope CPC bans this shit soon. (although I find it fun to pull out broken christmas lights from recycling, fix them and then get free christmas lights for every New Year’s)
- “Teflon” or similar frying pans. Just get a cast iron one. Lasts forever, doesn’t poison you, also allegedly enriches your food with iron
cups, glasses, bowls, anything that doesn’t have a spout and makes a mess every time you transfer liquids
Every time I spill something I’m reminded how much better lab glassware is (beakers etc)
Garlic crushers. All of them suck.
Buy jarlick. Join us in convenient garlic-in-a-jar nirvana.
Keep looking. Find one with a thick stainless steel construction. I have two that you could break a window with.
I switched to using a microplane (or similar super fine grater) for garlic a few years back, it’s far easier to clean and I like it for ginger, nutmeg, hard cheeses etc.
When I was a kid cereal didn’t have no zippas! We rolled up the one end of the bag and watched it partially unfurl when we let go, and we were satisfied with that.
Roll the bag. Flip the box upside down. Put it in going up. Hold it in place and flip the box back over. Gravity holds the bag closed. This is a bad idea if anyone else accesses the box and isn’t on the same page as you.
I just fold it up and use a clothes peg ha ha
Y’know, I bought a bag of bag clips from Ikea years ago and I’m only now realising that they’re less suited to the job than a clothes peg. Smart.
How do you hold closed the bag that holds the bag clips?
The gravity-assisted bag roll is a staple for me. Cereal, bread, veggies, anything too big for a bag clip.
Laptops with no intake dust filters.
Actually, no, any computer with fans that doesn’t have a dust filter is a terrible design.
My laptop doesn’t have dust filters, but the fan almost never runs anyway. Like the heatsink is way overbuilt for the CPU it’s attached to. It’s actually quite nice. I’ve never seen it hit 70 degrees. I’ve cleaned it maybe three times since 2016. It really only spins the fan up when I’m watching 60 fps YouTube videos or playing games. And even then, it kicks hard for a very short time and shuts off again.
And again, I bought this thing nine years ago. It’s just a little Acer. And it’s not even a nice one. I paid like 500 bucks for this thing.
Now, my wife’s MacBook that she games on…yeah, I need to figure out how to get the back off so it can get a proper dusting. Fuck you, Apple. Let me work on my stuff, dammit.
A twelve year old computer in 2013 would have been utterly useless. Doesn’t matter how good is was in 2001 it would die under even a modest 2013 workload. But a decent computer from 2013 is still useful today. Not for triple-A gaming, VR, or 8K video editing, but still a decent productivity and media machine. I just bought my first handheld gaming PC and I made sure it had eGPU support since that’s the likely bottleneck in the future (i7 and 32GB RAM, so that should be good for a long while) and I fully intend to get a decade out of it. There’s no real appetite to upgrade your machine regularly any more, and the manufacturers hate that.
Any time there’s a ready meal from the supermarket and for some reason the adhesive is way stronger than the plastic film. You end up with loads of bits of film just sort of stuck to the rim of it. Super annoying.
I’ve dropped brands for that shit
Got a local one that puffs up to like 3x height in the microwave though and that pulls off a lot of the adhesive.
The glue gets weaker when it’s heated. They use the same film for oven meals as well. It comes off fine when you finished heating, but it’s a pain in the arse when cold.
Our president
Yeah, why do people blow their noses into PAPER when you can just go to the bathroom sink and hork in your hands, and then wash up afterwards??? Why would people walk around with dried boogies on they face when they can wash?? Why? Why, Mister Anderson, why, why?
Because it is not always possible… Also, take your time to clean the sink afterwards or you might get in trouble with you SO (I am speaking out of experience).
It’s probably habit, but it just feels somehow wrong to blow my nose without a piece of paper snugly against my nostrils. Like trying to poop without being seated on a toilet bowl.
Just tell me that you turn the water on pre-hork instead of touching the fixtures with hork hands, and I’m totally fine with your suggestion.
Of course! You need the hork-lube to do it right
OMG I thought I might be the only one!
I do this too and it drives everyone nuts but it’s so much better!
Only thing is sometimes I miss a snot rocket that goes astray.
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.
After pouring the detergent into the appropriate receptacle, toss the cap in with your laundry to be washed like everything else. No mess.
I’m going to go with that horrendous, non-absorbent, 1/8th ply toilet paper that gets stocked in public and office bathrooms.
I’m on Team Bidet now, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it once did… but the stuff should not exist.
I’m guessing that one day, the people who buy the stuff will figure out that it they’re not winning if it costs one-third the price of normal TP when everyone has to use ten times more of it, but who knows when that day will happen. Because it hasn’t happened yet.
Even with a bidet that paper sucks. Drying off you ass with it leaves so much paper crumble everywhere that you’ll need the bidet again…
Okay Team Bidet, how are they actually supposed work?
Just dont try to spray up your ass, its pretty hard but you dont wanna.
But now you only use three or four squares of TP to dry off instead of fingerpainting shit all up your asscrack until the point you’ve been conditioned to believe is clean enough.
One problem though, shitting at your workplace or anywhere else will be insufferable. My LPT is to take one of the better hand towels and wet it in a sink before hitting up a stall. Thank me later.
A water bottle with a sport cap is a sufficient travel bidet.
- Spray bum
- Pat dry with TP
The tricky part with phase 1 is managing water pressure. Too little is ineffective. Too much blasts shit everywhere.
Do a test squirt into the bowl so you know what you’ve got to work with. Start with low pressure to get most of it, adjust angle of necessary, then hit it with everything.
I get that’s the principle, but how long are you supposed to spray for? How much pressure? Is there a trick to it? In my own limited experience, it doesn’t actually do much more than dampen the poo.
You know you’re supposed to use the bidet after you’re done pooping, right?
Any mug that has a really hemispherical, smooth handle. You put a hot beverage in there, and the weight is enough to make your fingers slide down the handle, and then you burn yourself on the main body of the mug unless you really squeeze.
Any faucet that just barely sticks out over the sink, so you have to touch the back of the sink to wash your hands (british sinks are even worse, though).
I’ve had these dual wall glass mugs at home for a few years. So civilised.
https://www.house.com.au/products/baccarat-barista-cafe-double-wall-thermal-glass-mug-2-pack
I bought a set of mugs like that recently. It’s a shame because they are pretty nice looking, and comfortable to hold when empty. But when full of hot liquid, the handle just is totally inadequate.
They are from IKEA, so at least they didn’t cost too much, but I am a little surprised because their stuff is generally pretty well thought out from an ergonomics and usability perspective–it’s only really the sturdiness/durability I ever worry about.
The best mugs I have are still a pair of the stereotypical featureless cylinder type I got from a giveaway 10 or 15 years ago–they are utterly boring, but the handle fits 3 fingers for a perfectly stable grip!
If you only put distilled water in it it really doesn’t seem like an issue
Humidifiers.
It’s just a pool of water with a little nebulizer and a fan to blow the mist out a chimney.
Trouble is, they’re all made by the fucking plague demon Nurgle with the sole purpose of aerosolizing mold and bacteria by having the tiniest nooks and crannies than cannot be reached to be physically cleaned.
And before I get the “you gotta clean it with vinegar every week” comment, two points:
- You don’t soak your hands in soap and rinse them off and call them clean. You gotta scrub them.
- Am I supposed to fill a 5 gallon bucket with vinegar to soak the whole water tank every week? Because the chimney goes right through that bitch.
You better start showing Plague Daddy, Prince of Decay, God of Chaos Nurgle some goddamn respect
I’ve taken to using an old cake pan, a desk fan, and a towel. Fill up the pan with water, stick one end of the towel in the water, drape and clip the other end to the fan and let it sit running for a few days. Before the towel gets gross, toss it in the laundry when it’s dry and grab another towel
It works so well I’m completely confused as to how/why there isn’t a commercialized product like that, it completely solves the cleaning/highschool biology experiments problem
That’s pretty much a swamp cooler
Lol yup, got the idea from a Technology Connections video on how one of the common humidifier designs are literally just large swamp coolers
Don’t use a mist humidifier. They suck. Use an evaporative one and add bacteriostat to the water.
Mine is a tub of water with a wick in it. It has a fan that blows air across the wick. That’s it.
i have a venta lw45. same principle, but instead of a wick, it has these rotating disks that the water sticks to (with a little soap in the water). Works incredibly well, still uses next to no energy (<8W) and the disks are super easy to clean. It’s a beast, goes through 9 liters of water in a bit over a day. All the parts are easily accessible for maintenance and there’s replacement parts if anything ever were to break (though i havent needed those yet).
the disks are especially nice when you have hard water, the calcium can be a pain to remove from a wick, but you can put the venta plastic disks (and lower housing, if you can fit it) in the dishwasher to get them good as new. And calcium does not stick to them weld, so a quick rinse under a strong showerhead is usually enough to clean the disks. Definitely one of the best appliance purchases i ever made.
You literally just use a sponge and some bleach spray and like a minute of your time. If you replenish it daily your normal water chlorine should keep most of the bad shit at bay.
Toilets seem to be getting smaller and I’m having trouble sitting on it without my penis touching the front.
Hey everyone get a load of this guy with his massive hog
Rounded toilets are the worst for this. Elongated is the way to go.
Given your instance, I’m guessing you’re not from the US… but here there are two generally standard shapes for residential toilets–round and oblong. The round ones fit better in small bathrooms, but man when you are used to the oblong shape it feels like sitting on a child-size toilet or something.
