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Technology pet peeves

3K views 39 replies 8 participants last post by  Johnny b 
#1 ·
We all have to deal with technology more and more. Sometimes the way some devices are designed really annoy us. I am started this thread for people to air their grips about this.

I will start with how I am annoyed with AC adapters. I have no problem with ones that have a separate AC cable to plug in. The ones that I detest are the bricks you you have to plug in to an AC socket. I have a number of them that will each take up 2-3 sockets in a power strip.
 
#4 ·
Going back to wall warts.... and bricks.....why can't there be a greater commonality of voltages and polarity.
I've got a box full saved from past dead gadgets and wonder if I'll ever find something in the future they'll fit. The collection just keeps growing and growing :D
I just 'know' if I throw them away I'll need one of them tomorrow and can't find one online lol.
 
#5 ·
Some people think as long as the AC adapter plug fits it should work with any gadget. Plugging in an adapter with the wrong voltage and/or polarity could result in a dead gadget.

I wish they would at least label the adapters as to what gadget they are for. It is annoying to have several adapters with the same plug but not know what gadgets they are for. Sometimes I will have to do a little Google searching to try and match the adapters with the correct gadgets based on power requirements.
 
#9 ·
That Westclox is nice and quiet, but another travel clock I have is a tic-toc er that I can't stand because it's impossible to sleep anywhere near it.

A Sharp SPC844, also battery powered.



:down:
 
#10 ·
How accurate are the these battery operated alarm clocks? The ones I have usually run a little fast and have to be set every few months.

The advantage of an AC powered clock is that once set the time will continue to be correct to the second. Many of these AC powered clocks have a battery to save the settings and power the clock when AC power is lost. If the AC power is off for a long enough period of time then the time may need to be set again. That is because on battery power the clock may have gained a little time.

BTW, your Westclox brings back memories for me. I grew up near the world headquarters of Westclox at Peru Illinois. I had several family members that had worked there during the mid 20th century including my mother and grandmother. That was the biggest employer during that time. It was sad to see the company sell out and move it manufacturing to Mexico. Now the only thing left is the trademarked name that has been sold several times.
 
#11 ·
How accurate are the these battery operated alarm clocks? The ones I have usually run a little fast and have to be set every few months.

..................
My Westclox has only been reset for daylight savings changes.
No moving parts, only a digital display. I haven't noticed accuracy problems.

The Sharp, maybe a minute in several months, it also only gets reset with daylight savings changes.

I have several wall mounted battery powered clocks. Analog with mechanicals and they do lose several minutes a month.

But they don't trail exposed wiring all over my walls and clog receptacles.

The advantage of an AC powered clock is that once set the time will continue to be correct to the second.
Some do, some don't.

And as far as ac goes, unless a computer is checking time across the Internet and correcting itself, it's own clock can vary. I see that in several of my stand alone units. :)
 
#14 ·
.................

BTW, it seems that most if not all the battery powered clocks I have had always gained time not lose it. I wonder if the thinking is that it is better to be early than late? :unsure:
I suspect accuracy goes beyond the stability of an AC sine wave.
The quality/design of the electronic components of a digital clock are sure to factor in.

As far as better late or early?
Depends on what you want to do.
For me, a time piece being off several minutes has no impact on my life or what I'm doing.
Geolocation would be a different matter, even to the point of having to adjust for relativistic satellite corrections.

For an alarm clock or a household time piece, I rather doubt seconds or minutes here or there, lost or gained, hold much importance for many people.

And think how long that extension cord would have to be when/if you jump into your car and go somewhere :D

I have a wrist watch.
But since I graduated from college, I doubt I've worn one for even a total of 24 hours.
I'll be 75 in a few weeks :D
Tempus fugit.
Except when that darn clock loudly tic-tocs when you're trying to sleep :mad:
 
#15 ·
I suspect accuracy goes beyond the stability of an AC sine wave.
The quality/design of the electronic components of a digital clock are sure to factor in.

As far as better late or early?
Depends on what you want to do.
For me, a time piece being off several minutes has no impact on my life or what I'm doing.
Geolocation would be a different matter, even to the point of having to adjust for relativistic satellite corrections.

For an alarm clock or a household time piece, I rather doubt seconds or minutes here or there, lost or gained, hold much importance for many people.

And think how long that extension cord would have to be when/if you jump into your car and go somewhere :D

I have a wrist watch.
But since I graduated from college, I doubt I've worn one for even a total of 24 hours.
I'll be 75 in a few weeks :D
Tempus fugit.
Except when that darn clock loudly tic-tocs when you're trying to sleep :mad:
When it was mandated that the 60Hz from the power companies would be used to regulate the accuracy of clocks it was known that there was no way to keep the frequency at exactly 60Hz. At a fixed interval (maybe once a day?) the inaccuracy was determined and the AC frequency changed slightly either up or down to offset the error. Over long periods of time the average was sufficient to keep the clocks within a second or two of actual time. This means the accuracy of the clocks has nothing with their components. All the clocks have to do is keep in sync with the 60Hz from the power company to keep accurate time.

I will be 70 in a few months so time is not as important as it used to. Nowadays the only things I have to keep up accurately are doctors appointments and Zoom meetings.

BTW, my old alarm clock apparently lost the 60Hz sync ability and gains at least 3-4 hours per day. That is too much even for my laid back life style. :(
 
#16 ·
#18 ·
For me, sunrise and sunset has been working out pretty well.
If I get hungry, I eat.
When it's warm outside, I ride a motorcycle.

:D


As far as failed tech goes, I ride an Austrian 2014 690 KTM Duke.
Lots of examples from plastic gas tanks that melt from contact with gasoline, clogging the fuel pump........to electronic fuel injection most owners need to modify.
And then there's the overheat problem in summer because of an exhaust pipe that's placed too near the radiator and a thermo switch set to kick the fan on at too high a temperature. I've read of a lot of engine damage with my model from that issue.

It won't be replaced with another KTM :cool:

But it is fun to ride when it runs.
 
#19 ·
For me, sunrise and sunset has been working out pretty well.
If I get hungry, I eat.
When it's warm outside, I ride a motorcycle.
And when ye be tired, 20 winks may suffice ;)
The ol' natural clock is a good one to go by.
Though I sometimes wonder if I'm on Martian or perhaps Jovian time ;)
These days I only dream of riding again >sigh<

Had a Fiat 124 that was much like your KTM, bliss when engaged on a nice road, pain in the seat to maintain :)
 
#20 ·
There was a time when I owned a 1972(?) 850 Fiat Spyder.
LOL....fun car when it ran.

Even though I serviced several Fiats in my repair shop, until I owned one I wasn't aware of how many things could go wrong/wear out so quickly.
I didn't keep it very long lol!
 
#21 ·
A lot of phone apps really annoy me. I've lost track how many I times I tried some only to give up in disgust. With some the ads are so much in your face that you are at a loss to figure out how to get past them and actually try out the app.

It is apparent that some people don't care if you actually use the apps at all. Their purpose seems to be only a means to draw people in so they might click on an add.
 
#22 ·
That's one reason why I only keep a flip phone handy. Less intrusive and I really don't have the need for a smart phone.

My Tracfone cost $25 at Walmart with service and minutes charges costing ...maybe something on the order of $100-120 a year. I don't use it often.
I've accumulated enough minutes I only need the service for the next few years.
Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to buy the service separately.
 
#24 ·
flip phones...
off topic comment, read those were designed to resemble the communicators from Star Trek :cool:
My friend had one and programmed the sounds from the original show .
But it wasn't the same when he flipped it and answered with
"Steve here...go ahead."
:D
 
#25 ·
One slight peeve I have about some of today's tech is that when you turn something "off" it's not really off.

My TV, for example. Turn it off but a little red LED comes on to remind me that it's not on.
Something's got to power that little bulb.
Same for the Blu-ray and couple of space heaters and some other devices with digital controls - the power lights never go out when the unit is "off" unless you actually unplug it.
It's like "off" really means "standby" or something.

No big deal I guess, and there must be a reason for that behavior.
Just annoying to see that thing silently trickling electricity when it's doing nothing but waiting for your next command.
 
#26 ·
I have a 'Lacrosse' alarm clock that runs on 2 aaa cells. Also, it is Atomic time set. At midnight it resets itself, (usually only off by 10-15 seconds). Batteries go dead? Replace batteries & do nothing = resets time, date, time zone, etc at midnight. Or push reset button = resets time etc etc. right now!

https://www.lacrossetechnology.com/products/617-1280

(dont know if they still sell 'em, says sold out)

I also have two analog [hour, minute, second hands] 'Atomic Time' clocks from Lacrosse, reset at midnight also.
 
#27 ·
Forgot! "Pet Peeves"
I have a Sony TV & a Sony AV stereo receiver. Either ones remote turns on both at once. (cable box remote also turns both on at once) My peeve is the AVR ALWAYS asks (in so many words), The [input selected] do you want to view - listen - setup stereo - configure speakers - etc ? So, I have to pick up AVR remote & press another button. No option to just turn on and thats it. Stupid! They left out option of 'I dont want to do anything, I just want to needlessly waste electricity!'

this is the 1st stereo I ever had that asks this. How many here want to change settings every time they turn theirs on??

-c-
 
#28 ·
No option to just turn on and thats it. Stupid! They left out option of 'I dont want to do anything, I just want to needlessly waste electricity!'
The next thing ya know, and this goes against everything I've been taught...
(I can't prove this, but there are cameras everywhere)
You close the refridgerator door and the light stays ON! (n)
:unsure::LOL:
 
#30 ·
No option to just turn on and thats it. Stupid! They left out option of 'I dont want to do anything, I just want to needlessly waste electricity!'
Years ago it made sense to have some things partially on to make it faster to turn on. For example that made sense for TVs back then. That meant taking seconds to turn on rather than minutes.

My current TVs only have one red LED lit when off. I guess that is to let you know the TV is plugged in and turned off. I guess that keeps people from getting upset when they try to use a remote to turn of an unplugged TV.🤯

It does make sense for my cable boxes to be always on so they can be updated every night.(y)
 
#34 ·
My current TVs only have one red LED lit when off. I guess that is to let you know the TV is plugged in and turned off. I guess that keeps people from getting upset when they try to use a remote to turn of an unplugged TV.🤯

It does make sense for my cable boxes to be always on so they can be updated every night.
Yeah, that was kinda what I was referring to in my previous post.
Electricity sucking vampires, a light is lit when the device is 'off'....

I tend to leave my cable box on (and TV "off" while attempting to sleep) so as to buffer some things to watch later, but an update switches the channel and sometimes deletes a DVR recording previously scheduled...
frustrating.
 
#33 ·
I have a Kenmore refrigerator that not only turns the light off when you close the doors, but it also turns the light off if I leave one open for more than about 30 seconds. Annoying as all heck when I am trying to clean it.
 
#37 ·
I have the following

XG1v3 X1 HD X1 DVR
• Arris AX013ANM
• Up to 6 simultaneous DVR recordings
• Up to 1000 hours of SD recording
• Up to 500 hours of HD recording

2 x XiD X1 Cable Boxes
• Cisco CXD01ANI
• HD Capable

One night I was watching one program live on the DVR and recording 4 others. No problem 1 tuner to spare.

My wife came into the living room to yell at me saying the TV in her bedroom had switched to another program. She had tried but could not change the channel. I noticed her TV was switched to one of the programs I was recording. It became apparent that the XiD X1 Cable Box did not have its own tuner and was using one of the tuners on the X1 DVR. That meant since I had two XiD X1 cable boxes then the X1 DVR really only had 4 tuners left for itself. I complained to Comcast after I found out that they actually had an X1 cable box with its own tuner but unfortunately the local Comcast store would not give me one.

Recently my DVR went from 60% full down to 40% overnight. I then got a notification that for an additional $10 per month I could increase my storage. I passed on that. The numbers shown above for hours of SD and HD recordings now seem meaningless since it is apparent they can increase the amount to whatever they want since the storage is actually in the cloud. With my old non-X1 DVR there actually was a hard limit since the recordings were on a hard drive in the DVR.
 
#38 ·
I bought a new HP printer.
First, let me state, so far I like it.
It does what I need. It prints what I want and does it well.
There is even an option to turn off monitoring the cartridges so they can be refilled ( of course, that little option isn't well documented :D )

But.
HP wants it connected to the Internet. Supposedly to order ink automatically and report back on usability and any newly found potential issues.
But I'll be using it in a situation with a standalone computer. No Internet connectivity will be allowed.
The printer did not come with a cd/dvd. So the drivers and software along with setup/manual have to be downloaded from HP.
It seemed to me that I had to do a lot of unnecessary searching and reading to find an explicit manual that detailed a setup without a connection to the Internet.
The luck of the search?

It wasn't that it was difficult to set up, it wasn't. It's just the idea of following instructions appealed to me :D
 
#39 ·
When you go to the HP site they want you to believe that you need to use HP Easy Start to install the printer. Out of curiosity I tried it. I immediately uninstalled it because it encouraged you to buy ink from HP. I used the regular HP driver software instead.

How do you get away with refilling the cartridges? What model is it? Where do you get the ink?

I used to have an HP Deskjet 970cse ($300). I used to refill its cartridges all the time. I did that until the cartridges could not be refilled and then bought new ones. I then repeated the refilling process with the new cartridges. One time even new cartridges would not work. After wasting $85 on new cartridges I threw the printer away. I have had two printers since but have not tried to refill the cartridges. The place I bought the ink does not even have ink for the new printers.

The printers I have had since then are:
  • HP Photosmart 6510 e-All-in-One
  • HP OfficeJet Pro 6975 All-in-One
The main thing I miss are printing photos. All three printers could print photos but the HP Deskjet 970cse was by far the best at doing so.
 
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