Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[SilverSolder]

It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.

In an inflationary environment, it can make sense to buy old stock and/or older items that haven't yet been jacked up in price.

Wages are lagging the price increases, which will mean a lowering of the average person's standard of living...   they only have so much money and can't afford to pay 25% - 50% more for everything...   so they will cut down out of necessity.

[james_s]

It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.

You are Not describing me here   

Nor me, but we don't really matter. It's the masses that drive the market, and most people shop almost purely by price.

Speaking of pet peeves, I may have mentioned this already but one of my peeves is that there is often nothing on the market in the gap between the cheapest of cheap garbage and high end professional gear costing an order of magnitude more.

[Cubdriver]

It's our fault. We are pretty much obsessed with getting the most bang for buck, and even buy stuff we don't need if seems to be a bargain (i.e. a few pennies cheaper). Manufacturers are just pandering to our greed.

You are Not describing me here   

Nor me, but we don't really matter. It's the masses that drive the market, and most people shop almost purely by price.

Speaking of pet peeves, I may have mentioned this already but one of my peeves is that there is often nothing on the market in the gap between the cheapest of cheap garbage and high end professional gear costing an order of magnitude more.

That by and large seems to be the case for DSLR lenses - seems you can get kit lenses or pro grade, but little or nothing in between.

-Pat

[Siwastaja]

My pet peeve?

Everybody's complaining how "nowadays" electronics last shorter than ever, but it's been the same song for decades and decades, as long as I can remember.

Obviously this is just impossible, given limitations of physical reality, such as product lifetime having to be a positive number. It's the same story how certain people can't stand how Christmas advertising "starts earlier every year", have complained about this for decades. What, does it start in January now?

If you look at the advertisements from 1950's, consumer electronics was always about price. It always was race to the bottom.

Really the only actual reason why people erroneously think that old electronics was more reliable, is the selection bias, those products, or very simple products, that somehow ended up lasting long are here to stay. All crap was thrown away after fixing them become non-option.

I do accept the argument that relying on software ecosystem on the cloud makes "bricking" otherwise functional devices a real possibility and this has actually happened. But this is not what people complain about, they complain about build quality and component quality, which in reality is better than ever. 1960's television sets required constant servicing, it was completely normal to have repairmen come over and replace components, fix solder joints etc, and people were relieved when they could upgrade to a newer gadget, for example color television.

Someone somewhere said well that today's commercial grade components are equivalent to the military grade of two decades past and this is easy to believe. A $0.005 part of today includes more qualifications, data points and design guidance than a $100 military part of 1970's. While failures do still happen, the sheer number of electronic gadgets in an average household has skyrocketed. This is all enabled by the fact that devices are surprisingly long-lasting. Heck, I can't remember when I last time had a failed electronic device. Oh, I had a capacitor failure in an ATX PSU 15 years ago. Capacitor problems were common back then. This problem has nearly been solved as well.

[PlainName]

Really the only actual reason why people erroneously think that old electronics was more reliable, is the selection bias

Good point.

[mc172]

Obviously this is just impossible, given limitations of physical reality, such as product lifetime having to be a positive number.

Well it'd be pretty crap if product lifetime was a negative number.

BTW I get the essence of your message and I do agree. I'd actually go one further with the selection bias and factor in complexity, or lack of complexity as items get older relative to the current date.

[mansaxel]

Obviously this is just impossible, given limitations of physical reality, such as product lifetime having to be a positive number.

Well it'd be pretty crap if product lifetime was a negative number.

BTW I get the essence of your message and I do agree. I'd actually go one further with the selection bias and factor in complexity, or lack of complexity as items get older relative to the current date.

The problem is that the vendors have a business expectation of this short life, in order to sell new gear. Thus we get artificial life span termination -- software bricking et c. Associated to this is non-repairability. In some devices it is defensible, because the device is so complex and miniaturised that most repairs aren't possible. In other cases the lure of selling a new one obviously got too strong and artificial limits were introduced.

[Kasper]

People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me. 

I know we say it in a different order but if you really love words so much then use words.  By using numbers, you are acknowledging their superiority while simultaneously reducing their greatness by making them not sort properly and be ambiguous sometimes.

[DrG]

Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.

[themadhippy]

Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.

no substitutions required if you grab a copy of this, possible Australia's  greatest export

[IDEngineer]

People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me.

This is an area of conflict for me too. Your formats are obviously the best, and I use YYYY-MM-DD as the prefix to filenames to make them easy to sort regardless of when last "touched". However, in written communication I use "DDMMMYYYY" as in 23DEC2021 because it eliminates the possibility of confusing the month and day. Those are ordered differently in different countries, but no one will confuse two numbers with three letters. Also, using the three letters to separate the digit fields provides further demarcation without requiring hyphens.

[Cubdriver]

Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.

I'm so glad I don't work retail - THOSE are the people I feel sorry for - they've been subjected to it on the store Muzak since at least Thanksgiving in late November, if not longer.  I was sick of it after a 45 minute shopping trip a few weeks back - surprised they don't go insane.

-Pat

[Kasper]

Enough with the holiday music! I am now two weeks beyond substituting pornographic lyrics as a coping mechanism.

I'm so glad I don't work retail - THOSE are the people I feel sorry for - they've been subjected to it on the store Muzak since at least Thanksgiving in late November, if not longer.  I was sick of it after a 45 minute shopping trip a few weeks back - surprised they don't go insane.

-Pat

Normally I get sick of the bright lights and crappy music after 10 minutes.  About 5 minutes during xmas.  Ironic thing is they supposedly put effort into making stores comfortable so people will spend more time there and buy more stuff.

[Bud]

People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me. 

I know we say it in a different order but if you really love words so much then use words.  By using numbers, you are acknowledging their superiority while simultaneously reducing their greatness by making them not sort properly and be ambiguous sometimes.

This one is a cultural thing. Same as 'AM'/'PM' vs 24hrs time format .

[Kasper]

People who write numeric date in any format other than YYYY MM DD or YYYYMMDD bother me. 

I know we say it in a different order but if you really love words so much then use words.  By using numbers, you are acknowledging their superiority while simultaneously reducing their greatness by making them not sort properly and be ambiguous sometimes.

This one is a cultural thing. Same as 'AM'/'PM' vs 24hrs time format .

It seems that way.  Engineers seem to use YYYY MM DD, but an industrial designer / artist just gave me a bunch of files that are MMDDYY.  I think this is worse than using AM/PM or 24hrs format.  It is like saying 11:00 but not saying AM/PM or indicating it is 24 hrs format.

[IDEngineer]

WRT time, I also drop the trailing "m" as being entirely redundant. It's the same letter whether morning or night. "11a" (when on the hour) or "5:32p" (when minute resolution is needed) is unambiguous without the trailing "m".

[Kasper]

WRT time, I also drop the trailing "m" as being entirely redundant. It's the same letter whether morning or night. "11a" (when on the hour) or "5:32p" (when minute resolution is needed) is unambiguous without the trailing "m".

So efficient. I like it.

What I dont like is people who use MA for may or march.  If they're really stuck with 2 letters, it should be should be MY and MR.

[IDEngineer]

What I dont like is people who use MA for may or march.  If they're really stuck with 2 letters, it should be should be MY and MR.

That's why you can't drop to two letters. JUne and JUly have the same problem. You can use JN and JL but then is JN "January"? JA is common for January but if JN is just sitting there by itself, with nothing to compare, which is it?

Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!! 

[Kasper]

What I dont like is people who use MA for may or march.  If they're really stuck with 2 letters, it should be should be MY and MR.

That's why you can't drop to two letters. JUne and JUly have the same problem. You can use JN and JL but then is JN "January"? JA is common for January but if JN is just sitting there by itself, with nothing to compare, which is it?

Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!! 

I prefer 3 letters to 2 but theoretically, I think 2 is possible

January: JA
June: JE
July: JL

[SiliconWizard]

My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others.

[IDEngineer]

My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others.

Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!! 

[TimFox]

My related peeve is undefined abbreviations.  Careful writing, e.g., meeting author’s requirements for American Physical Society (APS) publications, is to spell it out on first appearance, and then abbreviate on later occurrences (as in this example).

[Kasper]

My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others.

Kevin's attempt to use small talk and the resulting discussion was one of my favorite parts in 'The Office'.

Kevin's Small Talk - The Office US

[Ed.Kloonk]

My pet peeve is people trying to shorten words and acronyms to the point of making them unreadable to others.

Make things as simple as possible (three letters) but no simpler (two letters)!!!

Pilots are the worst:  "We'll be flying ABC with SUX under TARD until FML localizer established."
FMD.

And my two cents, metric calendar and time keeping.

[james_s]

It seems that way.  Engineers seem to use YYYY MM DD, but an industrial designer / artist just gave me a bunch of files that are MMDDYY.  I think this is worse than using AM/PM or 24hrs format.  It is like saying 11:00 but not saying AM/PM or indicating it is 24 hrs format.

MMDDYY is correct to me, but that's just the convention in my country, other places people have different conventions. You are essentially complaining about the fact that people speak a different language in other countries than your own.