Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[shapirus]

Yeah, search these days is totally idiotic.

Made to fit the majority of internet users, I guess.

[Ranayna]

Made to take up as much of your time as possible to be able to show you more ads.

[armandine2]

Today after watching Ben Eater's video where he tests his EEPROM Arduino programme and confirms 2's complement with his HP16C, I find my used versions are faulty using SET COMPL.

Today after reading the manual I find they are working ok   

hadn't set the WSIZE I guess

https://jrpn.jovial.com/

[helius]

Surely that's a seller issue, not an Ebay one.

Quite so. And you can do something about it: report the item for the policy violation
"Listing practices" --> "Search and browse manipulation" --> "Keyword spamming"

[armandine2]

 but I find there is a PX-16C kit to build 

.. that's worth deconstructing?


I, got one myself the other day - I'm sure a kid could [eventually] assemble it, but I'd be surprised if it was unsupervised 

[mendip_discovery]

Software engineers

This week I have been tasked with calibrating stuff on two machines from the same factory and made at the same time but for two very similar unit.

First the customer didn't have the password for me to log into the system. So that took two hours. Then I get into the internal procedure and first was trying to get the pressure transducers done, after doing the adjustment using the software we have to log out of 4 screens and shut the program down, start it up and work my way through the menus. Not great fun when you have 30ish transducers to do. All of them needed adjusting and we tried to adjust a bunch at a time only to find ome would actually save.

At one point we found an adjustment screen that would just shut itself down with no reason, after talking with germany where they have the same machines they repeated the problem and took a few hours to realise that you need to press the physical button that occasionally switches off when you shut down the software but you have to do this on the first part of opening the program or it doesn't work, this is only an issue for 3 valves.

The best bit was swapping to the other machine to find the buttons for Start and Shutdown have swapped place so some fun was expected.

They have some more new units in boxes waiting to be unpacked. I look forward to what new things they have put in there for me to do this time.

[ArdWar]

What's with the obsession with overly minimalist to the point of losing usefulness web design?
Who thought the new ADI website layout is a good idea?

[antenna]

Rechargeable flashlight manufacturers that are smart enough to make a long press turn off the flashlight but dumb enough not to realize I'd rather long-press the button for the flashing feature rather than to avoid it.  A flashlight should not need 7 clicks to turn off.

If flashlight designers are reading this, try using a short click to turn on normally, a 1 second button press for dim, a 2 second button press for blinking and a single click when in any mode turns it back off.

[mendip_discovery]

Rechargeable flashlight manufacturers that are smart enough to make a long press turn off the flashlight but dumb enough not to realize I'd rather long-press the button for the flashing feature rather than to avoid it.  A flashlight should not need 7 clicks to turn off.

If flashlight designers are reading this, try using a short click to turn on normally, a 1 second button press for dim, a 2 second button press for blinking and a single click when in any mode turns it back off.

I have been known to go into a bit of a rant about torches. I just want a on/off button. I DGAF about flashing, SOS, or even half brightness mode.

How did he Get spotted by the T-Rex?
Well he touched a torch.
Eh?
Well, as he frantically tried to turn the thing off but had to cycle through multiple different flash patterns. This took time and as he finally got it to turn off, she was right there and he had nowhere to run.

On a side note it also annoys me when you come across something where the clever designer has managed to just use 1 button on a device but you need the manual there to work out what you need to do. Long press to get into the menu, then >1sec but <3sec to scroll otherwise it kicks you out etc. Seen this on pressure gauges and temp controllers a few times.

[PlainName]

The single-button multi-option thing is taken to the extreme with some Sofirn SC31 torch which runs the Anduril OS (yes, really). But it actually works OK - there are two main modes: simple and "I'm bored", but in either it's really just a case of remembering the button sequence for the feature you want to use. So, for instance, I know that four presses will get it to display battery voltage, two presses and hold will go to 'burn their eyes out' brightness (for when oncoming cars don't dip when I am out walking), etc.

https://ivanthinking.net/thoughts/anduril2-manual/

[SiliconWizard]

How about a full keyboard with just a single button? And you'd type in characters in Morse code.

[PlainName]

Oh noes, that's going to pop up on Crowd Supply soon.

[SiliconWizard]

That kind of stuff can be useful for people with limited motor abilities though.

The idea is not new, although it wasn't quite juste one key:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard

[PlainName]

Kind of - it's one click, albeit several buttons together. And you can't pretend it might save your life someday.

[Circlotron]

When the instructions for a Covid test kit tell you to put five drops of liquid in the test cassette but they only give you enough liquid for two drops, or in my case this morning, one and a half drops.   

[vk6zgo]

When the instructions for a Covid test kit tell you to put five drops of liquid in the test cassette but they only give you enough liquid for two drops, or in my case this morning, one and a half drops.   

I hate the ones that have the test liquid separate from the part you have to use to dip your snotty cottonbud.
The little container tends to just produce bubbles.

[Circlotron]

When the instructions for a Covid test kit tell you to put five drops of liquid in the test cassette but they only give you enough liquid for two drops, or in my case this morning, one and a half drops.   

I hate the ones that have the test liquid separate from the part you have to use to dip your snotty cottonbud.
The little container tends to just produce bubbles.

That's the type I had.

[PlainName]

All the ones I've used have required just two drops in the test cassette.

[Circlotron]

Idiotic government departments.

The morons that look after car registration where I live give you the option of paying every 12, 6 or 3 months. Someone I know pays every 3 months. The thing is, they give you the mutually exclusive option of either getting a reminder by email or text 6 weeks before it becomes due, or by post 6 weeks AFTER it was due. The second option is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard. What use is that as a reminder???

https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/registration/registration-fees/short-term-rego

[PlainName]

Reminds me of some H&S yearly tests I had to take where the answer is one of a selection, and all the wrong ones are really very obviously stupid to make sure you pick the right one and pass. Maybe they are hinting they don't want to do post but can't actually refuse.

[RJSV]

ArdWar, you were commenting on the reduction of buttons (extreme case to one button), well I just was reading about HEADSET competition between Meta and Apple, with details on what the differences in approach are;  seemed like Apple more interested in augmenting the scene in front of you, while Meta had goal of completely artificial views, for gaming.
But one developer commented that he was ' designing for single button functionality'.

   One of my battery clocks has a horrible convoluted button function, with 2 buttons.
Such as "Press f2 three times to exit menu"

[themadhippy]

Reminds me of some H&S yearly tests I had to take where the answer is one of a selection, and all the wrong ones are really very obviously stupid to make sure you pick the right one and pass

wasnt for a cscs  card by any chance? What a joke that was.

[jonovid]

I have had to contend with the lack of buttons on many microcontroller type household consumer gadgets. 
somehow industrial designers seek to make it look cool , minimalist & cut costs at the same time. but in doing so
make it more complicated to use by removing buttons from the user interface.
once the complicated user instructions are lost, the gadget is a nightmare to use.
add to that many gadgets, use phone app,s as the user interface. that in time can be discontinued.

[SiliconWizard]

Anything requiring a mobile app to function is by nature planned obsolescence.

[PlainName]

Anything requiring a mobile app to function is by nature planned obsolescence.

Disagree. It's just simplifying the number of products they need to support, in much the same way that a web UI removes the need to program for Mac, Windows, Linux one version, Linux another distro, etc. So while it may well cause premature obsolescence, it's not planned per se.