Design just *drips* off this thing. The designer put the make-toast lever on one end, with the power cord coming out. And then the how-dark-do-you-want-your-toast control he decided to make look exactly the same, so it's a slider that goes up and down and looks just like the make-toast lever. And then he put it on the opposite end, so it's #symmetrical.

So long and thin and it's got controls on *both* ends. If you want to be able to access both controls, you have to keep the toaster "sideways" / width-ways, and because it's 15" long, it takes up a huge amount of counterspace.

And if you decide you want to keep it length-ways instead, and can live without having easy access to the how-dark control (because it's against the wall), then the end you definitely do need access to, the make-toast lever, has the power cord sticking straight out at you from the toaster. And you have to curl it around and then plug it back in at the wall, and it will constantly get in the way and take up space and you'll keep catching the cord and knocking the toaster around, because like all modern toasters it weighs nothing.

So it's a #usability / #UX / #UI nightmare.

But at least it's shiny and swoopy and has A Shape and doesn't just look like Any Toaster and is clearly competing for a Design Prize, and in the product glamour photos they'll crop out the cord anyways.

2/x

[Edit: typo]

#design #DesignPrize #Designer #UserInterface #disaster #awful #unusable

After-action report on the #Regina Repair Cafe of Sunday, 8 November 2026. Well, at least my station and maybe my friend and partner-in-~~crime~~repair Ralph.

It was incredibly busy today. We had over 100 bookings plus dozens of walkins. We had tons of repair volunteers - probably close to 20 if not over - and pretty much everyone was busy all day. But we got through them all! I don't think anyone was turned away for lack of time etc.

My personal success rate today was not great. Two items took ages to work on - one because it was almost impossible to get into, and the other simply because of the size of the task - dozens of screws holding tens of components to different backplates and heatsinks and subframes and chassis components - and it all had to come out to get access to the underside of the main circuit board.

But I mostly want to complain about a #toaster.

We get a lot of #toasters. 95% of the time, the client reports "if you hold the lever down it heats up and toasts fine, but it won't stay down on its own". There are a couple common causes of that, and one of them is generally an easy #fix.

This was a Special Toaster. You could tell, because it was all brushed stainless steel, and a bizarre one-long-slot-for-two-pieces-of-bread #design so the thing is 10cm / 4 inches wide and 35cm / 15 inches long, and all swoopy-oval. This one screamed "I was created by a #Designer, and I am #Art".

1/x

#RepairCafe #SmallAppliance #appliance #repair #ApplianceRepair

Scam Altman's very #boostalicious quote about how he deserves all your DRAM, rather than you, is just the latest bit of vapidity from an "`AI` thought leader". But he's still annoying.

I am fully willing to burn him from both ends, for science [1]. We can measure what lovely light it gives, and time how long it lasts.

[1] So, not at the stake, then. It would have to be like a spit-roast or something.

#AI #ScamAltman #SamAltman #ThoughtLeader #BurnedAtTheStake #DRAM #smack #annoying

The fact that they default you into receiving all their spam, when they haven't even asked for permission to create the account on your behalf, is the most offensive thing about this (to me).

I'm an email guy, and a privacy guy, and a been-on-the-net-for-about-40-years guy, and the fact that someone - a whole chain of someones - in some "legitimate" for-profit company just decided to add me to a bunch of spam they send out makes me want to introduce them to the residents of the Mariana trench.

#spam #argh #IMDB #Amazon

They updated their info about this "feature" today (27 October 2026):

https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/general-information/use-your-amazon-account-for-imdb/

> What's changing?
>
> IMDb uses Amazon's account system for sign-in and new account creation, on both
> IMDb.com and the IMDb iOS and Android apps. If you sign in with alternative methods,
> you will be prompted to migrate your account to sign in with Amazon going forward.
> In some cases, you may be automatically signed in with your Amazon account.

"In some cases"... ya, right. I bet that's "unless you've already linked your Amazon and IMDB accounts".

I confirmed they transferred the name and email address from my Amazon account to IMDB.

There is a "request deletion" function, which I selected. They want to confirm that via email, despite the fact that they had no problem creating the account without confirmation, or even consent.

This would be wildly illegal under GDPR so I suspect people in the EU will not see this behaviour, but I'd be curious to hear from people there.

It might even be illegal under PIPEDA in Canada, but hey, what's one more USAnian company violating our privacy laws...

#confirmation #GDPR #EU #PIPEDA #Canada #illegal #USA #USAnian

Oh, *this* is scummy.

Amazon, owner of IMDB (The Internet Movie Database), has decided that being logged into Amazon when you visit IMDB automatically means you consent to them auto-creating an account on IMDB for you. And, of course, transferring your personal info from Amazon to IMDB to populate that account.

And *that* account is by default signed up to all of their spam and marketing preferences.

All of this happens with zero clicks - no consent whatsoever.

I'm going through and turning it all off, and will try to see if I can just delete it completely afterwards.

#Amazon #IMDB #spam #marketing #consent #privacy #violation

Since #PHP is at the top of peoples minds, a short diversion.

In the Before Times of 20+ years ago, I worked for a smallish tech company that did some of everything. One of the #consulting jobs we took on was to #audit a #codebase for a company that was buying another company - the application was the acquiree's crown jewels, and the purchaser wanted a good solid analysis of it.

It was in PHP. I was not looking forward to it. As a betting person you are unlikely to go wrong with "very #niche market-specific software application developed in-house by small company working in that space is likely to be pretty terribly #designed and #implemented", and most of the PHP I had looked at by that point was, well, bad.

And it absolutely was not. It was in the then-new PHP v.5. And it was cleanly designed, nicely modular, very #readable #code and well documented, good #development practices. Sure, there were some things in it that could be improved, mostly more efficient algorithms / data structures IIRC, but all software can be improved *somewhere*. The final report was fairly glowing about it.

Anyone who tells you all code written in $LANGUAGE is awful, or all #programmers who use it are idiots, is showing you their whole ass. Languages are #tools. Some are easier to use for certain purposes than others, but they're all useful for something. Don't be closed-minded.

#engineering #software #SoftwareEngineering #RightToolForTheRightJob #homily

We had a really good turnout - there were apparently over a hundred appointments booked, along with walkins, so it was pretty constant until late in the day. The final hour was slower, which was good, because I was #reassembling a really #fiddly #mechanism. It was a stupidly-expensive <object identifying data deleted> received by the client as a gift, and oh boy did it fit the profile for these sorts of things.

If I had one piece of advice to give people about buying household "stuff", it's that super-duper-everyone's-talking-about-it very-expensive Thing that does what many other common cheap equivalent Things do is probably not worth the money.

In general, they turn out to be #expensive not because they are made better - in fact, they're frequently made much worse, because it's by small companies that either don't know how to make a product in that category, or they don't care to know. They end up designing it very strangely and inefficiently, in a way that's difficult to manufacture and with strange choices of parts which cost far more than the standard versions used in virtually every similar product. They're expensive because (a) they're not designed for ease of manufacture, and (b) they put all their money into marketing.

e.g. the $500 #Dyson hair dryer, or the $1000 #Juicero bag-squeezer (really).

Anyway, this Thing was overcomplicated, did one thing with just an on-off switch, no controls - but contained a computer, for no reason.

1/x

#BadDesign #design

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the #RepairCafe in #Regina for this month. Wish me / us luck!

If you have something you want fixed and live here, come on down. We're at the YWCA on 12th Avenue this time, open from 10am - 4pm. It's going to be a busy one!

#YQR #SK #Canada #repair #recycle #reuse

So, Firefox's new version makes the new UI the default - maybe only? - option.

Its fundamental design principle, like way too much newer software, seems to be "Remove everything you can from the UI because users are stupid". Thanks, I hate it already.

I'm trying to give it an honest try, and it keeps fighting me. It seems, for example, there's no way to delete the preconfigured search engines. I added a custom one, and that can be deleted, but the Google, Bing, etc ones simply can't be, either through the settings UI or from about:config. Note: I don't want them just disabled - which I've done - I want them removed completely, but I can't even find them in about:config to do that. Have they really hardcoded these in the code?

They've also done the thing where they get rid of the window header and the menu bar, which I (*#@%$& hate with a passion. And Tabs at the top of the window, above the URL bar, which I used to be able to revert with the (now discontinued) revert-to-old-firefox-ui custom CSS package.

Mozilla are making it very, very difficult for me to keep being a Firefox user. I've been using Mozilla (and before that, Netscape) for 30 years, so this is an extremely high annoyance bar for them to have exceeded.

Well done. Bonuses all around.

New Mozilla motto: "If it ain't broken, it ain't ready yet."

#Firefox #FFS #Mozilla #broken #breakage #UI #UX #StopFuckingWithIt

As is my wont, a random #tangent, this time about people and #music.

A local pop/rock radio station, apparently the most popular here, does a free-form requests program once a week. People call in, the host asks them what they want to hear and why, and it gets played, even if it's from outside their typical program area.

Twice in recent months that I've heard, someone has called in and requested Frank Mills' "Music Box Dancer", and explained that they wanted to hear it because it was their mother's " #favourite song ever".

I don't mind #FrankMills; I grew up hearing it, though to my mind "Peter Piper" was a much better #song.

My point being anyone saying his stuff was their favourite #music. If you're not familiar with it, it's got pop hooks and absolutely bland, #generic everything else. It is #inoffensive. It does not stand up and slap you in the face. It slides in one ear and out the other, leaving no trace.

It is basically elevator #muzak played over higher-fidelity stereo systems. For someone to say it is their favourite music appears to be a category error. It is sad. It's like someone claiming their favourite food is McDonalds or Taco Bell -- technically food, but not something you should compare to anything created by a knowledgable chef who gives a damn what she puts her name to.

If you know someone who thinks Frank Mills is the pinnacle of song, please help show them the wider world of actual music.

#mediocre #average #MVP #popular #pianist #Canadian

AliExpress listing for full-litre jugs of red threadlock -- for when your aircraft carrier or Eiffel Tower has a squeak you can't localize, and you're just gonna Fix It For Sure.

#AliExpress #threadlock #litre #overkill #Overkill9000 #squeak #rattle #DIY #EiffelTower

Inside you are two wolves. And a goose and a bag of grain.

I think I may be mixing my metaphors.

#FoxGooseGrain

Today was this month's Repair Cafe in my city. I think it also marks a full year I've been volunteering at them. I enjoy it a lot.

After last months good results - everything brought to me successfully fixed *except* one item - I got exactly the same result today. A bunch of successes, and one failure. And it's a weird and annoying coincidence - they are basically the same thing, #Sony all-in-one bookshelf #stereo systems. You know the type, they're on the order of a cubic foot and look like a small stack of stereo equipment units, but it's just a cosmetic look. Inside, the tuner, preamp, amp, CD player / changer, tape deck are all one thing. #Boombox in a suit, basically.

Both times, I figured out what was wrong - but I couldn't get to the bits I needed to actually fix them. I got stumped trying to take the front #fascia off the chassis. There's usually a few screws to take the back and/or top off, and then some #clips holding the front fascia to the (usually) one-piece sheet metal sides and bottom. Taking a #spudger to them releases all along the top and sides, but at the bottom of the fascia, it doesn't release - there's something weird about the clips I can't see, and I don't see any #screws responsible, inside or out. I don't want to force it more than I have because it will break.

Any Sony-heads out there know the secret with these things? They're from the 80s and 90s, at least the ones brought into me.

#RepairCafe #YQR #repair #fix #FixDontReplace

"5-point Torx bit set" is either incorrectly labelled, or alarmingly poorly made.

#AliExpress #ThatWord #ProductListing

It has not escaped my irony detector that this post was also mass-boosted by several tag bots on this problematic instance.

#irony #bots

This new "tags.pub" instance that just blasts out boosts of anything with a matching hashtag is ... annoying.

Pointless.

Practically abuse.

It just boosted a post of mine with *seven* different accounts. Didn't ask for permission to follow/do things with my content.

Its account overviews say "You can opt out!", which is absolutely *not* how bots should be interacting with people in the Fediverse. This should be opt-*in* only.

How is this okay? Frankly, I think it should be completely defederated, it's not operating in good faith.

#Fediblock #OptOut #consent

"What do you get when, in 2026, you tell a 19-year-old underpaid graphic artist to 3D-render you a scene for a cheap product listing, in which a Walkman-type portable cassette player is shown alongside another cassette standing on end, and the artist is too young to have ever actually seen a cassette, much less used one?"

See also alt. text.

#horror #HorrorShow #cassette #legacy #Walkman #1980s #1970s #AudioEquipment #YoungPeople #young #OldMan #WhatWasThatGrandpa

So, with Google announcing "Search is going full-AI, we won't be sending traffic to the original sites any more", someone else pointed out that this eradication of the traditional search-engine compact - we let you crawl our sites to create your index, and you send visitors to our sites when relevant - means that we can, and should, block all of Google's crawlers now. If they're going to just take, take, take and give nothing back, why let them access your content at all?

But this is cute. Besides the fact that Google documents that some of their crawlers ignore robots.txt, there's this bit of fun. On this page (https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/robots-txt/create-robots-txt), they link to "the Google list of user agents" (https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/overview-google-crawlers).

However, that links to 3 separate pages of them, and *each of those pages explicitly states that is not comprehensive, but only the ones they commonly get questions about*. And of course, none of the "User-triggered fetchers" obey robots.txt, along with some others.

So Google isn't even reporting the full list of user-agents that can be used to stop their crawling.

That is some bullshit.

#Google #crawler #RobotsTxt #UserAgent #bullshit #antisocial #web #search #WebSearch #LLM #AI