I drove to visit my Mom yesterday (Saturday) for Mother’s Day. It was a beautiful day, nice weather to and fro. I set the climate control in my truck to AC
with a temperature setting of 72. In 10
minutes I was still hot. I lowered the
temperature to 70, and the AC continued to blow luke warm air. I cranked it down to 60 and finally got cold
air blowing out of the vents. Somewhere
some engineer decided it would be cool, pun intended, if my truck decided the
amount of coolness to blow out of my vents rather than allowing me to do
so. I remember previous vehicles that
had a manual sliding control knob that slid from all blue cold to all red hot
and I simply placed the knob where I wanted it.
Worked all the time. Now I have
to circumvent, pun intended, the automatic climate control to get the
temperature I want. I guess auto
engineers think I do not have enough sense to know when I am hot and when I am
cold and they must make that decision for me.
Drives me nuts.
I have a new string trimmer with automatic line advance. Really?
My old weed eater was bump and go; every time I bumped the head of the
trimmer on the ground more line came out.
It was great, never failed me, until I burned up the motor. The new trimmer is more powerful and lighter,
but the trimmer decides when I need more line, I don’t. It has some kind of centrifugal force
mechanism that senses when the line is too short and releases the gear that
keeps the line wound on the spool.
Problem is, of course, this automatic mechanism is not the one trimming
weeds and edging driveways. I am. If I leave it alone the line will eventually
get so short I cannot cut, or worse, breaks off altogether and I must stop,
remove the cover, pull off more line manually, push it through the hole in the
housing and put it all back together again.
Or, I can rev the motor and let it stop when the device releases a
quarter inch of line. I must tell you I
feel pretty stupid standing in my yard, revving the motor, letting it stop, revving
the motor and letting it stop 8 times to get 2 more inches of line. Or, I can turn the trimmer over, manually
release the spool and pull out the line I need one little click at a time. None of these steps is nearly as efficient as
bumping the head on the ground while I am trimming and never miss a beat. I have no idea why this automatic line
advance system was implemented. Sounds
great, it just never works. I guess the
trimmer engineers think I do not have enough sense to know when I need more line
or not. Drives me nuts.
We had big thunderstorm Friday night and it not only knocked out the
power, it fried my DSL modem. Fortunately
computer, printer, etc. are all OK. I
happened to have a back-up modem and I unplugged the old modem and plugged in
the new one. I attempted to connect to the
internet, but no such luck. The lights
on the modem let me know it was not connecting.
I went to my control panel (also a misnomer as I really do not control
this at all – it is the computer’s control panel) and clicked on “install new
hardware.” After many searches, clicks
and troubleshoots my computer informed me I had no new hardware to
install. Everything is fine, it told
me. All network connections were
connected and I was both sending and receiving information bytes to and from the
internet. Great! So why can’t I get on the internet via either
Explorer or Firefox? I guess the
computer knows more than I do about whether I just plugged in some new hardware
or not. Drives me nuts.
I am a believer in trying all the latest and greatest. I am not of the digital generation but I am a
well-established immigrant. I am not
totally stupid. I can read directions
and follow them. With new devices I
always do so. (I am one of those nerds
who will not leave the dealer parking lot until I have read the owner’s manual
for a new car.) I support innovation,
change and improvement. I love not
having to manually fill ice trays anymore.
I love setting my coffee pot to brew the coffee before I get up. I love punching a couple of buttons on the
microwave to get food warm. I love the back-up
camera in my truck. I love answering
machines, automatic redial, smart phones, computers, etc. All these and many more are labor saving
devices that have improved my life.
However, It appears to me that some of the engineers who are designing
some innovations have held a secret meeting to conclude that we are all idiots
and we must have our devices make decisions for us. And that drives me nuts.
Such design innovations that do not work, such newly installed
automatic features that in fact are less efficient and effective than the
previous model should somehow be banned.
None of the innovations I have struggled with recently were in any way
labor saving or more effective than the previous model. Did anyone complain about their bump and go weed
eaters? Did anyone complain about
setting the coolness of the air in their vehicles using an analog sliding
control knob? And how in the world does
my computer have the audacity to tell me I have no new hardware when I just
took it out of the box and plugged it in?
I have yet to find the control panel application that allows me to say, “Windows,
it is you who are stupid, not me. Do as
I direct you. I own you.”
Such decisions remind me of legislative decisions, made by lay people,
regarding how to improve schools. Such
decisions do not work, such decisions are engineered to fill a need that does
not exist, and such decisions make things worse. Such decisions assume the users and
practitioners are idiots and must be controlled and directed by others. Schools cannot be improved via mandated automatic
innovations and measuring devices designed by billionaires and politicos any
more than my truck is now better at keeping me cool with an automatic AC.
When I cool off, finish the yard and reconnect to the internet I will
post this. Until then know I have been
driven nuts by the automatics that are not.
Up to you to decide if my trip to “nuts” was long or short.
Great blog today!
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