Objects should shut the fuck up

What does a squelch switch do?

I've had to put a layer of electric tape, sometimes two of them, on some of those just to get the bedroom to a level where it's dark enough to sleep in comfortably.

They're so bright, you can see the damn blue circles on the ceiling. Blue moon rising, invited by no one.

It's pretty much never changing.

It's the kind of flaw we don't notice until after we've bought the products and lived with them for a while. Therefore, it doesn't hurt sales and therefore, there is no pressure for manufacturers to change.

It sucks.

As a workaround, these work great. Note that these particular ones are partial blackout stickers. They are 50-80% opaque. You can still see the light, but it won't be bright enough to annoy. If you want to darken even further you can just layer two of the stickers.

https://www.amazon.com/FLANCCI-Blocking-Stickers-Dimming-Bla...

If you need total blackout, there are similar ones available that are 100% opaque, although at that point I'm not sure why a person would buy a specialty product instead of just using regular tape...

Yes, seconding this one too. I've opted for ugly black electrical tape squares over the worst offenders in sleeping spaces, but why is that the only option?

I now have a small amount of electrical tape in my travel bag, and I use it at practically every place I stay. I just rewrapped some around a bit of plastic - no need for it to be very sticky anyway as I take it off when I leave.

I have a monitor with a bright blue / dull orange LED. I found that stacking layers of kapton tape turns the blue into a dull green, while leaving the orange mostly unaffected.

Fun fact, this is why nail polish was invented.

yes plz && ty, I listen to audiobooks at bedtime and I can't put my earbuds back in the case without them turning on a super bright blue light that has actually woken up my partner in the past. Why? I can see a little pinhole status light to show me that the connection is made correctly but why outline the whole case in blue and then start flashing the percentage charge remaining in the case while also animating charging bars to show that the buds themselves are also charging? Why turn my bedroom into the landing scene from the movie ET?

I rented a car in the UK a few years ago and by the end of the trip I was ready to set it on fire.

- Adaptive cruise control would randomly slam on the brakes on the motorway (just passed a 30 kph exit, the speed limit must be 30 now!), or match speed with a car in the next lane that was I trying to pass

- Emergency braking would trigger if I got too close to a car that was turning out of my lane, or a shrub while parking

- Lane assist reenabled itself every time I started the car

- Radar system would fail every ~3 starts, which would disable adaptive cruise control (ok) and blast a warning sound (bad)

At least now I know that if I'm shopping for a car in the future, one of my criteria needs to be "won't actively try to kill me".

Thanks, looks like I'll be repairing my 2010 Honda Fit (Jazz in EU markets) forever to avoid getting anything of the sort of antifeatures you describe.

That, or the manufacturers and regulators wisening up, but I ain't holding my breath for that.

Same with touchscreen controls in a vehicle.

In a lot of places in the world you can return new cars. I would return one that did that. Manufacturers won't get the hints until they start seeing returns wreck their bottom line.

My subaru will beep and flash a signal to let me know that it can’t see the lanes well enough to use the lane departure warning.

A safety feature takes my eyes and ears off of the road to let me know that it is not keeping me safe for the moment.

I've found that disabling the lane assist in my 2020 Civic permanently disables that too. It's an EU model. For anyone looking for a solution, try if this solves it (if you wouldn't miss the lane assist, of course).

The assist to keep you in the lane that also auto turns on has been the only cause of 3 near crashes I've had, when renting cars. Never have I even had a slightly dangerous situation other than this bullshit turning the fucking wheel for me. Who the heck thinks that a machine knows best if it should turn the wheel than a human, with eyes, driving? I cannot understand how it ever helped anyone and it's much worse than just a beep, literally trying to steer against you.

I'm generally pro-EU but they sure know how to not fix things by annoying people as much as possible. C.f. the cookie laws, headphone volume warnings, etc.

I've disabled the entire notification stack on macOS and Windows 10 with some tweaks and couldn't be happier. It's not like I'm going to miss out on anything of value as Slack, Discord, Mail will just indicate new messages with a dock/taskbar icon change.

But it's sure as hell annoying to have unsolicited popups randomly appearing ("Java update available! Apple Music now 50% off! GeForce Experience driver update! Windows Defender scan results! USB drive not ejected properly!..."). They're also often embarrassing when screen sharing.

But do you want these cookies?

I was curious, so I just checked the FMVSS requirements for these[0]:

Must be activated when the ignition switch is energized and reverse gear is engaged. Must not be energized when the vehicle is in forward motion.

Seems that should be amended to not allow use when the vehicle is in park, just as they are prohibited while in drive. I'm tempted to write to the NHTSA and propose this change.

[0]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p...

I think this might be a disconnect between what those lights are "really" for, and how they're actually used (de jure vs de facto, in a sense).

They aren't meant to have a specific meaning, they're just headlights, but when going in reverse. So if the car has a feature to "turn on the headights" it makes sense to activate the ones on the back too.

Though that's just pedantry that kicks the can down the road to the question, why are the headlights turning on with nobody in the car?

I don't understand why this doesn't exist.

It seems to me the market for "no bullshit" appliances is HUGE, and waiting for a company to grab it and make billions.

This basically exists in "Speed Queen". They've expanded offerings to try to capture the market that wants aesthetics and screens, but you can still get their old reliable: https://speedqueen.com/products/top-load-washers/tr3003wn/

This is something that has been bouncing around my head for a very long time. A company that manufactured even halfway decent products that don't have endless amounts of dark patterns/planned obsolescence would quickly drive me bankrupt.

I don't think we will ever see it though, at least not en masse. No startup would be able to afford the sheer number of lawsuits filed by the companies we have slowly allowed to become fat by selling products rife with consumer-hostile "features". Not to mention traditional advertising platforms would refuse to promote their products. Too much money already flowing in from the usual bad actors.

More likely the following products will pop up:

  * Noise cancelling earplugs
  * Smart glasses with blink/strobe/seizure-filters

I'm renting an apartment that came with a "nest" smoke detector. The thing ate through around 8 AA batteries every few months. We finally got sick of it and bought our own dumb 10€ smoke / CO detector.

Yes. I have a family member that has had many hospital stays over the last few years, and one of the most obnoxious things is that the staff just lets everything beep. The last time we were in the emergency room the blood pressure monitor did not work and the staff didn't notice for over an hour. Even when it does work, they're constantly in an alarm state because patient has chronic high blood pressure. They either can't or won't silence the alarms, so every room is beeping, the nurse's station is beeping, their phones are beeping, and it's all being ignored. It's the very definition of alert fatigue.

From time in hospitals I've gotten very good at disabling them. Most nurses are fine with it but every now and then one would come on shift and tut tut at me for having done it. They usually shut up when I point out that they don't respond to the alarms in any sort of prompt way - as I'm sure if I were to continue pointing that out up their chain of command they would then find some trouble.

I always tell people though that being in the hospital doesn't make you healthier, mainly because you can't sleep. The hospital should be the absolute last resort, and your first priority on finding yourself in one should be to figure out how to get out of it, even if it involves nursing care at home.

And in my experience (not surprisingly) they have all developed a good sense of what alarms can be ignored, so like a pump beeping because it's done delivering some medicine doesn't matter so they ignore it and let it beep, but it matters to the parents with new baby trying to get some sleep.

I know it's annoying to suggest that consumer preferences will fix stuff like this when clearly it comes from some corporate design culture that completely ignores consumer preference.

But in this case (a $50 device rather than a washing machine or something) why wouldn't you just get a different pair made by a different company?

Oh yeah. My headphones scream "battery low" every few minutes when they go to 20 mins of charge too. It's fucking annoying.