Author Topic: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!  (Read 20748 times)

Offline Testlund

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Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
« on: January 03, 2008, 04:05:52 AM »
...because there is nothing that works well nowadays! It's all about making customers waste as much money as possible and no care for producer-consumer relationship. Every single thing you buy has this problem! Technical apparatuses are DESIGNED to break within a few years, usually after two years just when the warrenty run out. It can be a crappy button or something that ruins the ability to use the product, and NO reserve parts to buy! You can just forget about sending it to repair too. I swear there is a conspiracy between service centers and manufacturers. How many times haven't you heard (or experienced yourself) about products sent for repair and get them back and the problem is still there? I'm almost afraid of touching a product fearing I'm going to ruin it. Just simple normal use breaks it!
Right now I was going to print a document on my printer and found there was no paper and I've forgot to buy printing papers. But could I abort the job? NOO!! I bet there isn't a single printer existing where you can get a printing job right, without every so often it gets screwd up, it doesn't get printed or the jobs stays in the damn printer! All designed so you should waste as much paper and ink as possible! I bet printers are programmed to screw up every once in awhile to waste resorces!
This printer has an automatic cleaning that happens every week, which wastes a little ink ofcourse, but according to the salesman you still need to print EVERY WEEK or the cartridges will dry out! I haven't printed for more than a month so you can bet I'll found out after I've purchased papers it won't print the damn document as it should!
Now I can't even turn off the printer because it demands I put paper into it and print the document first! Aborting the job in Windows didn't clear the job! How often haven't you seen that??
I'm sick and tired of every product is a waste of money! Better to go back to the stone age in make your own stuff with wood and stone!
You can't even trust the toilet paper any more!
The various strategies they use to fool the consumers is astounding!

Here's a few examples of toilet papers:

1. Changed interval between the ripping line to make you draw out more of the paper.

2. Make it lose wrapped to contain more air in between the papers.

3. Make 3 papers sticked together instead of 2 to make you waste more.

4. THEN later go back again to previous quantity with a higher price to make you think 'OH, more paper! That's worth paying extra for!' BAH!

And then you have all the other products with smaller and smaller packages with the same price, and every now and then they put out a previous sized package for higher price to fool you.
If this continues people will give up buying stuff, because you get nothing for the money and products will break too soon to be of any use!
Well...In 50 years from now there won't be any resorces left on the planet to make stuff anyway. Everything is going to be used up and the planet is going to be turned into a waste land! No food left to feed all the people and it's going to be a world war about resorces and living space!

Well, I'll be too old then to bother, so... Good luck to the next generation!  
« Last Edit: January 03, 2008, 04:09:59 AM by Testlund »
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Offline googlyeyesultra

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Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2008, 04:35:27 AM »
Try power cycling the printer (unplug it for a minute and plug it back in). If the printer job is gone in Windoze, then that might fix the problem.

What brand of printers do you use? I've had some good experiences with HP (although if you turn the printer off in the middle of a job, it will print unintelligeable junk when you flip it back on).

Anyways, there are some products that do that. Really, you've just got to find good companies and good products. Just keep a list of companies to buy stuff from and a list of ones to avoid. Although there are a lot of awful companies, there are some real gems.

Offline Peter

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« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2008, 04:57:38 AM »
Ok, have you calmed down.  

About the printers, well they don't seem to like me very much, so I couldn't agree more.  

Well it isn't really a fact that there are no recources will be left in 50 years. There are other recources besides petroleum, like tar sands in Canada there is enough of it for another 20 or 30 years. The estimation of when there aren't any recources left like petroleum is set at 200years.

There are also products that keep a little longer, like RAM-memory, I see a lifetime warrentys standing there, not everthing is bad.
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Offline Numsgil

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Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2008, 05:25:37 AM »
While this is true every now and then, there are still products and services out there that are running top notch and reliable.  My printer, for example, was a 15 year old HP LaserJet 4L.  A laser printer.  It ran for 15 years without a problem until my house got hit by lightning and all my electronics got fried, printer included.

If you're looking for a reliable printer, a laser one is the way to go.  You don't get color unless you're willing to spend A LOT, but for document printing it's the way to go.  I ended up getting a replacement laserjet on ebay for like $50.

And I'm still using the ink cartridge I bought 5 years ago.  They're good for like 10K prints or something crazy like that.

My new LCD monitor is the same way.  I got it almost a year ago.  It was on sale, by far the cheapest monitor, with the best specs.  I love it, I've had no problems with it, except maybe that it's so good that I have to lower the contrast and brightness way down to prevent eye strain

Of course, for every thing I've bought that's good there's like 5 things that cause buyer's remorse the next day because they're just crap.

Offline Testlund

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Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2008, 05:28:49 AM »
Yeah, I've calmed down.    It appears I had some luck with the cartridges, at least the black one. Maybe the cleaning process prolongs their life, like printing every week.

My printer is a 'Brother MFC-240C', but it doesn't matter much. Haven't seen a single printer which doesn't have this problem in my 20 years of printer experience. You should just have to click on ABORT JOB to stop and clear it, not having to be a technical genious!

The assumption about the resorces being gone in 50 years is from the documentary ''The planet', where scientists have calculated that we need 5 planets to sustain the population. Simple math, probably. Just think about it. It's not like you can cover the planet with crops and cows. You need different kind of environments to keep some balance in nature, or you'll end up with a desert if there are too little trees for instance. I think only a great plague or something can stop the problems we're facing.
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Offline Testlund

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« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2008, 05:37:51 AM »
Quote from: Numsgil
If you're looking for a reliable printer, a laser one is the way to go.  You don't get color unless you're willing to spend A LOT, but for document printing it's the way to go.  I ended up getting a replacement laserjet on ebay for like $50.

Yeah, laser printers are pretty good printers. I haven't looked at it for some times, thinking they have been so expensive and you only get to print in black. For home use you need color printing every once in awhile. $50 seems like a bargain though.

I think the only way to affect the bad trend with lesser quality is to not buy a product from the same manufacturer. If this printer breaks within 5 years I won't buy any single thing from 'Brothersoft' again!  
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Offline Numsgil

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« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2008, 08:19:53 AM »
HP make good printers (and crappy computers) in my experience.  I haven't ever had problems with a HP printer.

Offline Peter

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« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2008, 08:25:54 AM »
Quote from: Testlund
The assumption about the resorces being gone in 50 years is from the documentary ''The planet', where scientists have calculated that we need 5 planets to sustain the population. Simple math, probably. Just think about it. It's not like you can cover the planet with crops and cows. You need different kind of environments to keep some balance in nature, or you'll end up with a desert if there are too little trees for instance. I think only a great plague or something can stop the problems we're facing.
Well, sorry but this sounds like a buch of crap. With simple calculations of me, it seems that the population like it is now exists and therefore is able to sustain.(simple calculation: it exists=it is possible)
You need different things, come on be serious.
No trees ----> Desert ??????? When I look at the petato-field I don't see any desert, and there aren't any trees.

I can imagine this in tropical enviroments, there are places where as a farmer you have to use some more complicated technologies. There are places where there have to be plants to stop the desert from spreiding. There are nomads with goats that eat the complete plants together with the wortel. And that way spreiding out the sahara. (Stupid nomads)

My point simply you can cover the planet with plants and cows, what else will you cover over it(speaking as the sun of a farmer). And if there isn't enough land you just polder some extra land. We have done it in the Netherlands.

Maybe I am going to look at the documentary, it seems to be on belgium television next week, I googled.
Edit : oh, not relly is was last month.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2008, 08:30:34 AM by Peter »
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Offline Testlund

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« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2008, 11:37:02 AM »
It's not like the relationship between people and the planet is a stable one. The exploitation is faster than the planet can recover and I was talking about 50 years from now. You should really get a hold of that documentary. I got it on a DVD attached to a newspaper so maybe it's not hard to get it. It may come back on TV too.
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Offline EricL

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Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2008, 01:37:17 PM »
I'll call attention to the distiction between stand alone products where reliability/reputation/service/relationship is a larger part of the business model (cars for example) and products where the business model is based primarily on selling accompanying consumables.   Printers for a long time have used the razor/ razor blade business model which is why printers are sold so cheaply (at a loss in many cases actually) when they are sold at all (many come for free with a new PC) and why ink cartridges are so expensive and of course, different for every printer and manufacturor.   Printers, like razors, are mearly sockets into which the high-margin consumables are sold.  You'd be surprised at how many products follow this model.  Dell sells low end PCs below cost for example.  The kick backs from all that included junk software are where their margins are (the kickback is like >$50 per PC on average).  The Xbox is the same way.  Last I checked, it took an attach rate of over 9 games per console before Microsoft breaks even.

In general, products are mearly a reflection of what the consumer wants.   Capitalism is another term for darwinism really - what people buy survives.  It doesn;t matter why they buy, only that they do.  Companies make cheap, wasteful, disposable junk because that is what people want as evidenced by their buying habits.  

People, like all organisms and evolution in general, will always make locally optimal decisions over globally optimal decisions.  Selection and/or capitalism tends to illiminate those who don't.  If you think about it, this very bad news for most other species in the short run and our species in the long run.  There's actually a therory that bascially says the reason SETI hasn't found anything is because inteligent species tend to destroy themselves soon after they evolve primarily because the locally optimal decision making which led to their evolution, which was necessary for their emergence in the first place, necessarily leads to global catastrophy at scale.
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Offline Testlund

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« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2008, 03:51:47 AM »
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HP make good printers (and crappy computers) in my experience.

Really? I've always thought that HP is a good hardware business all over, but I haven't own an HP product myself though. It's an old company and I remember seeing HP computers at my first job I had back in the 80's where they were working with military related technology.

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The kick backs from all that included junk software are where their margins are (the kickback is like >$50 per PC on average). The Xbox is the same way. Last I checked, it took an attach rate of over 9 games per console before Microsoft breaks even.

Sorry for my limited understanding of english... You're saying they lose $50 per PC they sell and earn it back with software? ..and XBox has to sell 9 games per console to be able to compete with Microsoft?

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Companies make cheap, wasteful, disposable junk because that is what people want as evidenced by their buying habits.

Yeah, the consumer has the power to affect the world with what they chose to pay for, but when most businesses go for the same strategy it's getting harder to find a product that stands out from the junk.
I saw a TV program once about the problem to reach the customers with commersials in the ever increasing commersial jungle, because people have started to get tired of it and learned to filter out and ignore. Companies use more and more weird ways to draw attention to their products. I find often when I watch a commersial on TV that it appears to be totally unrelated to the product. Just being something silly to draw attention.I find it very strange that they don't understand WHY they don't get through. Instead of inventing more sophisticated lies about their products that is supposed to improve your life and make you happy they should start making good quality products instead so they can JUST TELL THE TRUTH about them! Good products sell themselves!

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There's actually a therory that bascially says the reason SETI hasn't found anything is because inteligent species tend to destroy themselves...

I expect that most scientists and people interested about biology and evolution don't agree with the popular opinion that humans are the ultimate end goal for evolution. In fact most species that just shows up tend to get extinct rather quickly through some catastrophy or missadopting and evolution starts over with some key species, and I think self awareness and intelligence is bad for a species. The only way for a species to survive is if everyone think alike and do alike and live in perfect balance with nature.
I would go so far as to say that Homo Sapiens is just a temporary catastrophy that has shown up, like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. The key species for mammals after the dinosaurs was a small rat. I guess the Rattus Norvegicus will be the next one.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2008, 03:56:22 AM by Testlund »
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Offline Peter

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Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
« Reply #11 on: January 04, 2008, 05:18:11 AM »
Quote from: Testlund
Quote
The kick backs from all that included junk software are where their margins are (the kickback is like >$50 per PC on average). The Xbox is the same way. Last I checked, it took an attach rate of over 9 games per console before Microsoft breaks even.

Sorry for my limited understanding of english... You're saying they lose $50 per PC they sell and earn it back with software? ..and XBox has to sell 9 games per console to be able to compete with Microsoft?
Microsoft owns the Xbox-console, microsoft is losing money for every Xbox where they haven't sold 9 Xbox games for.
I understand that if you didn't knew that Xbox was part of microsoft you didn't understand this.

But is it serious that there are 9games needed to break even, I thought it was just one or two games. I have a feeling they are losing money on the Xbox if this is true. Atleast they don't make a lot of profit of it.
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Offline EricL

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Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
« Reply #12 on: January 04, 2008, 01:00:36 PM »
Quote from: Testlund
You're saying they lose $50 per PC they sell and earn it back with software? ..and XBox has to sell 9 games per console to be able to compete with Microsoft?
Correct on the first.  If Dell had to sell PCs without any pre-installed software, they would have to rasie prices just to break even.  (They have tried this actually - their current "small business" offerrings make a big deal out of coming without any "trialware".  Of course, those units cost more for the same hardware with the trial stuff.)  The kick they get not just from shipping units with the software but when someone actually clikcs through and converts that 60-day trial anti-virus stuff to the real deal is very significant.  Dell isn't really a PC business at least at the low end.  They sell sockets for subscription software conduit and ink cartridges.

As Peter says, Microsft makes the Xbox and yes, they have to sell a large number of games (not just any games, but games made by Microsoft's game studios, which includes Bungee - it was like 8.6 games per console 3 years ago prior to the 360) just to break even.  The larger xbox/games studio business unit has yet to break even.  It's a multi-billion dollar company taken alone, but it's not profitable, not yet.  You may have heard Bungee is spinning off after the success of Halo 3.  This is because the folks there don't want their success to be shackled to the losing business of selling consoles.  They want their compensation and stock options to reflect them as a stand alone business.  Can you blame them?   Local optomization.

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Instead of inventing more sophisticated lies about their products that is supposed to improve your life and make you happy they should start making good quality products instead so they can JUST TELL THE TRUTH about them! Good products sell themselves!
This is true in some cases and of course not at all true in other cases.  It takes an educated consumer with the resorces to pay more in the short run for longevity and quality for this to be true.   So, this is works for high-end products targeted at high end consumers - Porsches and Mercedes and perhaps IPhones and such.  But the rise of cheap crap from China is testimony to the fact that the Wal-mart shopper generally prefers to save $5 in the near term even if they have to buy it twice in the longer term.  Local optomization.

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I expect that most scientists and people interested about biology and evolution don't agree with the popular opinion that humans are the ultimate end goal for evolution.
I certainly am not implying that.  I was mearly pointing out a therory to support my point about evolution necessitating local optomization.  THe point is that once a species gains power to change their own environment through climate change, making other species extict, nuclear bombs or whatever, local optomization make lead to it's destruction.  Its a theory without evidence.  I netiher agree nor dispute it.  

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In fact most species that just shows up tend to get extinct rather quickly through some catastrophy or missadopting and evolution starts over with some key species,
There are many examples of species which last a very long time with little change.  Evolution favors change where change is favorred and favors stasis where stasis is favorred.  It may be that environmental flexability and tool-using intelligence represents incredibly usefull and novel adaptations which change the game.  Certainly extensive tool-using is a relativly recent adaptation in evolutionary terms.

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and I think self awareness and intelligence is bad for a species. ,
I disagree with the first.  I challenge you to show that my dog is not self aware.  I challenge you to show that a single celled bacteria is not self aware.  Forst you must define self aware, which is hard to do.  Certainly anything with even a primitve nervous system is self aware in some respect in that it is "aware" of where it ends and everything else begins.    

The jury is still out on the second point.  Certainly one can make a case either way but you first have to define "good" and "bad".  If "good" means population numbers, surely intelligence has done well for humans to date....

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The only way for a species to survive is if everyone think alike and do alike and live in perfect balance with nature.,
Now your just spouting human-centric tree-hugging mystical nonsense.  No species delibertly tries to live "in balance with nature".  Every organism - every gene - makes localy optimal choices which serve to maximize their own fitness.  Period.  If the sum of these choices appear to result in some sort of balance when viewed from an external frame of reference - our frame of reference - that may be a necessary side effect of all that locally optimal behaviour, but it certainly is not intentional on the part of speceis or organisms or genes.

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I would go so far as to say that Homo Sapiens is just a temporary catastrophy that has shown up, like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. The key species for mammals after the dinosaurs was a small rat. I guess the Rattus Norvegicus will be the next one.
You may be right.  The jury is still out.  Chinese curse:  May you live in interesting times....
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Offline Peter

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« Reply #13 on: January 04, 2008, 02:01:02 PM »
Quote from: EricL
The jury is still out on the second point.  Certainly one can make a case either way but you first have to define "good" and "bad".  If "good" means population numbers, surely intelligence has done well for humans to date....
We live so my idea is that intelligence is a good point(it is in our case). But what is good in evolution, we humans live now but will the specie survive, that can only be told far far in the future. There was a mammel that survived the dinosaurs. Well mammals are overall in animal species smart. And most species that survive nowadays are warmbloaded smart or coldbloaded energiesaving, I thought, could be wrong. So smart survives that's good isn't it.

Doesn't intellingence in evolution meanly mean.
More intelligence ----> more energy usage/quicker adoption to changing enviroment.
What means if enviroment changes fast inteligence is good.
If enviroment stays desame, intelligence is bad.
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Offline Testlund

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« Reply #14 on: January 04, 2008, 02:36:24 PM »
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No species delibertly tries to live "in balance with nature".

No, but they don't try to separate themselves from nature either. What I mean is that humans must agree to live in balance with nature, while other species just do it instinctively. Humans is a species that just suddenly appeared and went crazy on the planet, while other species makes slow progress and changes just a little so nature can keep up, and other species can keep up.

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I disagree with the first. I challenge you to show that my dog is not self aware. I challenge you to show that a single celled bacteria is not self aware. Forst you must define self aware, which is hard to do. Certainly anything with even a primitve nervous system is self aware in some respect in that it is "aware" of where it ends and everything else begins.

How I define self awareness is to understand yourself and what you are. I doubt a dog think about itself, or even knowing it's a different species. It just sees itself as a flock member.
If your dog became self aware it would probably demand to sit at the table and eat with you, because it would compare itself with you, wondering why you get a bunch or extra priviliges while he/she don't.
Bacterias and critters are little more than biological machines imo. Saying those are self aware is like saying your computer is self aware, or your car.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2008, 02:38:43 PM by Testlund »
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