Rant Thread - What really grinds your gears?

[Bearsyzf]

It helps them sell more equipment to robb us even further.

 

[olbriar]

I read a book in the late sixties - early seventies called The Waste Makers by Vance Packard. The book points out how wasteful a society we are and how we've been groomed by marketing and manufacturing to waste and not feel badly about it. That was written over fifty years ago and has become far worse since the book was published. We are a toss it and get a new one society be it broken or outdated or simply out of style. All manufacturers have to do is either design it to fail, make a better faster widget, or show us how silly we look using older stuff to remain very profitable.

 

[Bearsyzf]

is he part of Hewwitt / Packard ?

 

[olbriar]

is he part of Hewwitt / Packard ?

I think he was simply a writer who had some valid points to be made. I honestly don't know.

 

[nickdalzell]

Most everything today is designed to fail in short order. It's sad when a certain limited number of cycles is considered enough when much more could be incorporated at very little additional expense.
Greed my friend. When designed failure just beyond a warranty period is the norm, we live in a wicked greedy world.

Back in the '60s if you pulled a stunt like that your company would go bankrupt in short order because unsatisfied customers tend to talk to other people. That's why brand loyalty tended to work. Nobody would buy the cheap-o Craig over a more expensive but better reputable brand like Magnavox, RCA, or Fisher. People WANTED things to last, and 'you get what you pay for' meant something. Those satisfied folks who bought the Kenmore washer in the '60s and having it last 30 plus years then had kids, those kids were future customers. That system worked fine. It was the closest to 'free-market capitalism' we had. Younger kids who had grandparents tended to be taught basic maintenance and repair skills to help product longevity and most folks actually bothered to RTFM.

I remember the day mom picked up a Curtis-Mathes top-loading VCR in the '80s after it being recommended by folks on the street she knew, most in our own neighborhood. That behemoth lasted 35 years and only rewind stopped working. It still played a tape. Back then, 'reviews' were your friends and other neighbors, not those untrusty, often fake reviews on Amazon or other sites. That VCR cost $650 new. It lasted 35 years. Only rewind failed. If you do the math, that many years for that money is a pretty damn good deal. Also less e-waste and better for the planet.

Problem with today is that 1) we have the illusion of choice because everything's a damn corporation, so they make sure only two or three brands/options exist(and eliminate all others, see the death of WebOS and BlackBerry), 2) that they're ALL made in China, and 3) customers are so docile/complacent and do what they're told. Covid-19's whole lockdowns should have instigated a revolt, but we just sat there and did what we were told. Anyone who even dared question the narrative was silenced. How we got there is a mystery though. It seemed to start sometime in the Carter era after NAFTA was signed. Most people refuse to read anything longer than a Tweet, so reading manuals also went by the wayside, and nobody teaches kids to work on things anymore. Schematics are no longer inside of TV sets or radios.

then you have the added problem of 'newer is always better'. People throw out perfectly good TVs and things like toasters even though toasters never really become obsolete, as they only do one job. But nobody can stand having one with woodgrain accents from the '70s over a 'modern' one for some reason, even though both toast bread the same. Worse, the modern one often fails after the warranty runs out. So now it's all about styling, not function. Finding working LCD TVs by the curb is common, and the only reason it's there isn't because of a failure, but because 'the bezels are too thick'.

It's a strange world today where you can't even give a Plasma TV, something that cost $2,000+ brand new, away for free.

 

[Milo Williamson]

Back fully with my windows ten home, I noticed this:

No external hard drive plugged in.. Anyone know how to get rid of it, I am in Windows Home.

 

[AugieTN]

Back fully with my windows ten home, I noticed this:View attachment 171835



No external hard drive plugged in.. Anyone know how to get rid of it, I am in Windows Home.

Answer below
Redirecting

 

[Milo Williamson]

Answer below
Redirecting

Thanks man.

 

[Milo Williamson]

Does anyone know about the little plastic underneath each keyboard, need to quickly fix up my "O" key on my bluetooth keyboard..

 

[olbriar]

Some nice warm day in the future I plan to attack the old blower. I work a lot cheaper than $125 an hour. I'll pull the muffler off and check for carbon at its intake. If I should be so lucky to put the blower back into service, I'll likely take it to the cabin if my son doesn't want it. As long as I keep it close so it can be pressed into a backup role if needed seems like good insurance. If I can't breath life into the old blower I'll simply toss it.

That nice day came and went. Two of the four bolts that held the muffler on were seized. I let them soak a while in liquid wrench. I then took a crescent wrench to the short 90 of a metric allen wrench and gave it all the torque I could muster. I snapped the end off of my allen wrench. I need to find a long allen key that I can chuck into an impact gun. Meanwhile, the two stuck bolts sit in penetrating oil.

Next I removed the spark arrester from the new blower. I'm far more worried about the back pressure they can cause on an engine than I'm concerned about setting the world on fire. I adjusted the backpack straps to fit me as well as locked the segments of blower pipes together. I adjust the angle and distance of the throttle control and gassed up the unit. It started the second pull after following the recommended cold start procedure. The blower weighs right at a pound less than the old one but is specked to out perform it. I cleaned off the back patio while I had it running and I think it was a good purchase.

I started my string trimmer. It is ready for service. I then changed the oil, lubed, and cleaned filters in my 36" Toror Grandstand. It's ready for the summer. If I can just get my Grasshopper mower back within a couple of weeks, I'll be dancin!

 

[AugieTN]

........ I snapped the end off of my allen wrench.......

Back when I was 18 I bought a car that came from Northern Minnesota. The car had terrible rust from all the salt that they use up there in the winter. I broke more sockets and had more screw and bolt heads break off than I could count.

 

[rootabaga]

That nice day came and went. Two of the four bolts that held the muffler on were seized. I let them soak a while in liquid wrench. I then took a crescent wrench to the short 90 of a metric allen wrench and gave it all the torque I could muster. I snapped the end off of my allen wrench. I need to find a long allen key that I can chuck into an impact gun. Meanwhile, the two stuck bolts sit in penetrating oil.

Next I removed the spark arrester from the new blower. I'm far more worried about the back pressure they can cause on an engine than I'm concerned about setting the world on fire. I adjusted the backpack straps to fit me as well as locked the segments of blower pipes together. I adjust the angle and distance of the throttle control and gassed up the unit. It started the second pull after following the recommended cold start procedure. The blower weighs right at a pound less than the old one but is specked to out perform it. I cleaned off the back patio while I had it running and I think it was a good purchase.

I started my string trimmer. It is ready for service. I then changed the oil, lubed, and cleaned filters in my 36" Toror Grandstand. It's ready for the summer. If I can just get my Grasshopper mower back within a couple of weeks, I'll be dancin!

May I recommend some Kroil penetrating oil? It is hands-down the best stuff there is, and no one who knows what to do with tools should be without it.
Good luck, ob!

 

[olbriar]

May I recommend some Kroil penetrating oil? It is hands-down the best stuff there is, and no one who knows what to do with tools should be without it.
Good luck, ob!

The two seized bolts sit in recesses that require a rather long key to reach. Naturally, the long end of my keys are a ball end and that is what snapped off. It is stuck inside the bolt where it broke. I turned the blower over and tapped on the muffler hoping that gravity and vibration would free the tip with no luck. There is a big chance that the problem is not in the exhaust port. I'll mess with it again one of these days. It's too much tool to trash.
Appreciate the penetrating oil suggestion.

 

[olbriar]

Another lawn equipment related rant. Last summer, early summer actually, I mowed a cast iron water meter cover with my 36" Toro Grandstand. The cover must have only been half on and I hit it with left blade. It shattered the cover and tightened the blade so that I couldn't take it off to sharpen. I took the other blade off regularly with my impact gun but the other blade mowed all summer without seeing the grinder. Today I decided it was coming off, somehow. I had the mower on my mow-jack and I hosed the frozen bolt down with liquid wrench. I removed the other blade, sharpened it, and replaced it. Then I set about to remove the other blade. The impact wrench just chattered on the bolt with no luck. I then found my two foot breaker bar and gave it all the effort I had without any luck. Lastly I added a four foot pipe to my two foot breaker bar and gave it hell. It was so loud when it broke loose that I thought the bolt had shattered. I turned the bolt over 360° before the impact wrench would remove it.
My little mower is starting the season with sharp blades... both of them.

 

[AugieTN]

I was waiting for the bolt to break when you added a 4 ft pipe

 

[olbriar]

I was waiting for the bolt to break when you added a 4 ft pipe

It certainly sounded like it exploded when it broke loose. I had a great fear that I would shatter the bolt or break the head out of my breaker bar. I was using a hardened impact socket that I figured would be the last thing to break. I was sitting on the ground with my feet against the back tire of the mower with the breaker bar at my waist like an oar I pulled with all of my might feeling the breaker bar bending. All at once it snapped free. I got lucky!

 

[olbriar]

At least once a year I have an expensive problem with one of my mowers. This year it is my Grasshopper. I'm going give another season a try so I'm taking my mower in for repair in the morning.

That was the morning of the 26th of February. The shop called this afternoon with an estimate cost of repair. It's always good when they call... you are in the final stages of being worked on. I anticipate the mower back within a week. That's a good thing because I start mowing tomorrow. I can mow all of my lawns with the smaller mower, it just takes a lot longer. I'm anxious to get the big mower back.

 

[treb1797]

When a company says you will receive your order by so and so date ( in my case today ) and you see the order hasn't even been shipped yet

 

[Milo Williamson]

When a company says you will receive your order by so and so date ( in my case today ) and you see the order hasn't even been shipped yet

Yeah same way as I waited for my quilt from Project Repeat, I wish they would not have you put the package and then before that have a sale for that,ffs,not right in the head, make me wait forever for my quilt. I am still angry at them.

 

[Milo Williamson]

My currency is another man's talking through, I do not want to think of my friend's financal status, and has his mIRA already going to cash it in and check it in within whencan get, but he also needs an occupation just to have and hold, to stablised in that lost and take in a "Tomorrow
does not resist in here" dream, but I never even consider what I did in the past or take play in the sunrise rethinking of that events either, I always focused on the ""Here and now" Only when I can write it down and pinned in my room without re thinking that event.

Anyways I am doing okay for that matter, just something deeply buggine me forever.

 

[nickdalzell]

When a company says you will receive your order by so and so date ( in my case today ) and you see the order hasn't even been shipped yet

I never understood the point of tracking a packge online. It seems to only cause anxiety. Back in MY day, you got it WHEN you got it. Sometimes 3-5 weeks after placing the order (yes, we were THAT patient!)

 

[joe71]

I think the longest thing I waited for was the nexus 6. Originally I was supposed to get it for Christmas of 2014 didn't get it until the last week of January 2015.
The wife originally order it the day of or right after pre orders became available

 

[nickdalzell]

I just picked up my Nexus 6 at Best Buy the same day. I also never understood why anyone would prefer to order online, wait, and possibly be scammed in that what they got was not what was pictured on the site. I prefer to know what I'm getting and be able to physically pick up and examine before purchase. I'm just old school like that. The only times I had to order anything online was 1) during lockdown which I had no say in, and 2) if there was something vintage or retro that couldn't be had locally.

It also creeps me out that some people order food online. Who knows what sort of tampering can happen in transit? Never knowing the country of origin since that's a lie often, I mean I never forgave Amazon for scamming me on 'Made in USA' DeWalt tools that were just so-called 'Professionally Made in China' by Black and Decker and painted DeWalt colours. What an oxymoron, 'Professionally made in China'. You ain't foolin' anyone. Nothing 'Made in China' is anything other than landfill fodder.

Oh, and BTW, I still think it was an awful decision to replace the whole Nexus series with the iPhone clone Pixel.

 

[mikedt]

I just picked up my Nexus 6 at Best Buy the same day. I also never understood why anyone would prefer to order online, wait, and possibly be scammed in that what they got was not what was pictured on the site. I prefer to know what I'm getting and be able to physically pick up and examine before purchase. I'm just old school like that. The only times I had to order anything online was 1) during lockdown which I had no say in, and 2) if there was something vintage or retro that couldn't be had locally.

It also creeps me out that some people order food online. Who knows what sort of tampering can happen in transit? Never knowing the country of origin since that's a lie often, I mean I never forgave Amazon for scamming me on 'Made in USA' DeWalt tools that were just so-called 'Professionally Made in China' by Black and Decker and painted DeWalt colours. What an oxymoron, 'Professionally made in China'. You ain't foolin' anyone. Nothing 'Made in China' is anything other than landfill fodder.

That Nexus 6 was professionally made in China. They're made by Lenovo.

 

[nickdalzell]

Yeah that's why I only buy secondhand these days. I haven't purchased anything new since the Z Flip 4 (and that was planned to be the last phone I buy). I would have preferred to keep using my Thunderbolt (that was purchased secondhand) but the carriers forced me against my will to upgrade to something VoLTE related I didn't have any interest in and I settled for the most unique model I could find. So much for freedom of choice. That was after battling with them (and legally too) including offering to support keeping 3G up since I always paid my bill on time and even offered to add $100 more per month to help, all so I could use what made ME happy. Companies are supposed to cater to customer demand, not the other way around. NOBODY asked for VoLTE or 5G. Nobody. It's not like they all couldn't exist, they did until Feb 2022.

Sadly I still was a fool in 2014 and figured 'Motorola' was a U.S. company. I still think it's unethical, illegal and deceiving to have once-great American names obtained by Chinese crap companies who only seek to run them into the mud by making them cheap garbage. Where was the demand for that? Just make up your own name and sell that. If it's Lenovo just call it Lenovo. What does someone gain by deceiving a customer by calling it a Motorola when it ain't? Not only is that false advertising, it's also a violation of U.S. trademark law. Trademarks are supposed to protect companies against illegal seizure from foreign or pirate companies.

Believe me, I learned from that experience. I now look closely to find the country of origin, or buy secondhand. Even secondhand I would go to the lengths to find a USA-made product. If the manufacturer doesn't even mention where it came from, they're not worth my time or money.