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 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.
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.
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.
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
Garlic crushers. All of them suck.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Or just going outside and ejecting that puppy without touching anything except the other side of your nose. Farmer blow FTW.
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).
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.
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.
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…
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 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
Wine bottles. After thousands of years of drinking you would think humans would develop a bottle design that doesn’t dribble down the side after pouring.
That’s why you should just drink it straight from the bottle.
I just replaced my windshield wipers last night and it was a nightmare. The wipers I got are supposed to be universal, which means the little plastic bit that connects to the wiper arms has a bunch of little sub parts that you’re supposed to remove based on what wiper arm connection your car uses. Well, considering I’m not well versed in modern wiper arm connection standards, and I’m also stubborn and don’t think you should need to dig out your car manual just to change your fucking wipers, coupled with the fact that the instructions that came with the wipers are just 6 wordless diagrams vaguely showing you what bits to remove based on which esoteric wiper style your car uses, I struggled with those sons of bitches for like 20 minutes in below freezing weather.
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.
Not even just that, but modern vehicles make it a pain in the ass to just put your wipers up before a snow storm. Used to be you just lift them up and they’re done. Now you have to get in the car, hold the wiper stalk up to the manual wipe mode and let them go up before you can get back out and lift them. I know it’s for aerodynamics hiding them under the cowel but it’s still a pain in the ass. My last 2 cars have had this feature.
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.
Countertops should be just a couple of inches higher, they are calibrated for a 1930s housewife but most of us aren’t 5’2" and it’s easier to stand on a stool if it’s too high than to stoop because it’s too low.
OP I hate those low ziploc bag openings too, they are so stupid.
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.
I have beef with counter tops too, especially where I’m at right now. I’m around 6 foot so and on top of that I live in a handicap accessible apartment (although i am not handicapped, i think they just gave it to me because it was the one that was available i guess), so they’re lowered even more. Anytime I’m in the kitchen cooking or doing dishes i always leave with back pain
Everyone seems to have a cup plunger made for sinks next to their toilet instead of a toilet plunger near their toilet.
A toilet plunger has flanges:
I have seen this plunger close to zero times when visiting people and using their bathroom.
Every toilet should have these next to them. They are cheap and useful, so there’s no excuse to not have one. Especially if you plan on having guests over! :p
I have one of those…in my bathroom and I really don’t care for it. It turns itself inside out when you use it.
Do you have a multi use one? Some can invert the flanges into itself to become sink plungers.
