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What's the Worst Technical Feature You've Used?
kooky45 asks: "In an effort to make our lives easier and more entertaining, technology designers pack more and more features into electronic devices, but often they're more nuisance than they're worth. An earlier article on LEDs discussed some of these. Another example is my Nokia 6320i mobile phone which has a back lit screen that drains the battery life at an alarming rate. When the phone is not in use the back light is off; if the battery starts to run low, it gives me regular warnings by beeping and turning the back light on! What other examples of designer stupidity have you seen?"
Clippy.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
My honda, and I think many others - have a security feature for the entertainment system. If the power is ever out to the unit, the owner must punch in a 4 digit code to turn it back on, after power is restored. If you forget the code, and don't have it written down somewhere - you can get it. You just need to remove the unit from the dash and call a dealer with a number written on the outside of it. This is not an easy process - and dealers will do it for you but it costs around $200 last time I checked. In other words - the only person who can easily get at the information necessary to the code is someone who already has the stereo out- like say a thief.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
There's a computer on my desk. Doesn't that make a metaphorical stack-overflow?
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
I don't know about the LED thing.
I sometimes plug in my USB flash drive, which has a very bright blue LED on the end, just for the light.
The sales person made it sound like a great feature. Never miss another call he said. Alerts you no matter how distracted you might be or how noisy the environment, he said. That may be true, but let me tell you, it is not nearly as useful and convenient as the sales people would have you believe.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean?
My Motorola v260 beeps loudly ever few minutes when the battery is low. I know when it starts beeping I have another 12 hours. There is no way to shut off the beeping.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Fuck Context Menus /mac user
thats right, i said: "fuck context menus"
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
My cell phone has a Camera button on the outside edge. Every now and then, I hear the fake shutter sound that lets me know my cell phone just took a picture of the inside of my pocket.
I'm surprised no one else has mention the worst feature ever: DRM.
Education is the silver bullet.
Cancel or Allow? feature.
A vending machine in my building does something similar. There are no "out of product" lights, there's only a single line display. If you select something that's out, it scrolls "NO PRODUCT TO DISPENSE - PLEASE TRY ANOTHER PRODUCT OR CALL 1-800-XXX-XXXX FOR REFILLS - NO PRODUCT TO DISPENSE" one letter at a time. During which time you cannot select another product, get your change back, or do anything at all. Pressing any buttons helpfully resets it to scroll from the start.
Oy!
I just called that number to complain about the vending machine being out of taco pellets. They were very helpful and understanding. They also have a website
Man, you really need that seminar!
It obviously needs the date so it can properly adjust leap seconds at the beginning of the year. And how else is it supposed to adjust for DST?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
But, who the hell thought it was important for a microwave to store the date?
Didn't you read the manual? Chickens cook differently in odd years than they do in even years.Why the hell would I want to mix folders and files, all ordered alphabetically??
Not to mention the hockey puck mouse.
Oh and hardware locked DVD drives.
If you have the same microwave that I do, it's an easy fix. Press the start button, then open and close the door quickly, then press the start button again. It will start immediately.
They don't call it American enginerring (sic) for nothing. :-D
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The hassle of resetting the date every time is widely compensated by that warm feeling you get when you notice that your microwave has adjusted the time on it's own...
I had a friend who was remarkably good at mimicking the voice on my machine. She called and left a message that repeated the menu commands, and I was sitting there trying to figure out what was wrong with the damn thing.
It is absolutely pointless to be able to eject a DVD from across the room. You still have to get up and walk over to the device. Unless you are strong with the Force. Then you wouldn't need the remote for anything.
My boss has a Mercedes SUV that will not start the engine if the engine computer detects that any of the three brake light bulbs have burned out. Now, there's a good idea -- when you burn out a brake light, you can't even drive to the store to buy a replacement.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Fuse: a $3 part protecting a $0.01 piece of electronics.
I don't like brands, i prefer to build clones myself, even for servers.
For some crappy services, like a small router, or some backup DNS/Mailserver you just pick some cheap motherboard, and most tend to NOT have an option to just boot even when no keyboard is plugged.
Now it doesn't happend that often, but I used to fix this by using a crafted keyboard DIN or mini-DIN conector with no actual cable or keyboard attached to it.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
My last phone was a samsung, and it was just terrible. Made me swear off samsung phones forever due to the inane number of bugs and random shutdowns. Worst design feature, though - there were two identical buttons right next to each other on the same side of the phone, and if a call came in, one of the buttons silenced the ring and the other answered the call on speakerphone.
There were all too many times when my phone went off in a class and suddenly a voice emerged from my pocket crying "hello? are you there?"
p.
free music
In this category: I had a car, an Opel Astra. When I wanted to use the windshield wiper fluid it would first use the windshield wiper to scratch all the dirt into the window and then add some fluid to wipe all of it away. The window had a ton of scratches.
nosig today
I like the LED on my UPS that tells me the power in my home is off.
You don't say!