Things that technology should have solved by now

[Halian]

Why not Japanese-style squat toilets? The human butt is designed to do its thing squatting down, after all...

[kkt]

Adobe Flash.

[Scott5114]

Adobe Flash.

We have a solution for that. It's called HTML 5. Not everyone has caught on yet, though.

[empirestate]

#43. Ugh, getting the last dregs of peanut butter out of the jar.

[1995hoo]

Speaking of toilets, I want to know why plungers are still round even though the holes in modern toilets are rectangular.  Seriously, a round plunger for a rectangular toilet is useless... in fact, it can make a clog even WORSE if you don't give up quickly enough and call a plumber.

Get a toilet snake (also called an auger, but the snake is a particular design). It'll often do the job where a plunger won't, though it does leave you with having to pull the wad of TP off the end. Our toilets have more of an oval-shaped hole. I have a purple plastic plunger that looks totally unlike the round rubber things most people use. It's quite effective and almost always does the job, but once or twice it hasn't worked and the snake has solved the problem those times.

I have occasionally reached in, without a glove, to yank out some TP when I can see the clog. I figure I'm going to wash my hands thoroughly anyway, so what difference does it make.



Returning to things I would have thought technology would solve, how about weeds in the flower bed. None of the various products you can buy at the garden center seem to do the job of keeping it weed-free and eventually you wind up having to pull some out by hand.

Another: Some kind of metal that would be impervious to rust and wear, such as that caused by winter road treatments, thereby eliminating the need to use an undercarriage wash if your car-washing hose is inadequate to do a thorough job and you don't have the ability to put the car up on ramps (our driveway is sloped–not much, but enough to make ramps impractical).

[kkt]

Another: Some kind of metal that would be impervious to rust and wear, such as that caused by winter road treatments, thereby eliminating the need to use an undercarriage wash if your car-washing hose is inadequate to do a thorough job and you don't have the ability to put the car up on ramps (our driveway is sloped–not much, but enough to make ramps impractical).

Aluminum?

[Pete from Boston]

Returning to things I would have thought technology would solve, how about weeds in the flower bed. None of the various products you can buy at the garden center seem to do the job of keeping it weed-free and eventually you wind up having to pull some out by hand.

Black plastic.  Cut contractor bags into sheets, and overlap them with holes only where you intend to plant.  Beyond this, expecting technology to allow you to dictate which plants grow and which do not is a little unrealistic, even if you resort to dumping chemicals in the soil.

Another: Some kind of metal that would be impervious to rust and wear, such as that caused by winter road treatments, thereby eliminating the need to use an undercarriage wash if your car-washing hose is inadequate to do a thorough job and you don't have the ability to put the car up on ramps (our driveway is sloped–not much, but enough to make ramps impractical).

Interesting–most folks I know in climates that necessitate salt shut off and drain the hose for the winter.

[tribar]

I agree on the Toliet thing. 

Also Tornadoes. They need the right ingredients for them to happen.  Figure out a way to take one or more of the ingredients away: 

[1995hoo]

Another: Some kind of metal that would be impervious to rust and wear, such as that caused by winter road treatments, thereby eliminating the need to use an undercarriage wash if your car-washing hose is inadequate to do a thorough job and you don't have the ability to put the car up on ramps (our driveway is sloped–not much, but enough to make ramps impractical).

Interesting–most folks I know in climates that necessitate salt shut off and drain the hose for the winter.

I definitely shut ours off and drain it. Your comment just underscores the point.

[empirestate]

#101. Broadcast TV

Chalk this up to something that technology had solved, then somehow became unsolved (like the paper towels problem). Here it is 2015, I live in the biggest urban area in the U.S., and I can't receive free, over-the-air TV broadcasts.

Yes, I can pay to receive it–I used to pay Aereo for this, but antenna rental was outlawed by the Supreme Court. I can watch the channel over the network's online stream, but I have to pay a cable company for TV service first.

Somehow, I don't recall this being an issue in the 80s...

[Pete from Boston]

#101. Broadcast TV

Chalk this up to something that technology had solved, then somehow became unsolved (like the paper towels problem). Here it is 2015, I live in the biggest urban area in the U.S., and I can't receive free, over-the-air TV broadcasts.

Yes, I can pay to receive it–I used to pay Aereo for this, but antenna rental was outlawed by the Supreme Court. I can watch the channel over the network's online stream, but I have to pay a cable company for TV service first.

Somehow, I don't recall this being an issue in the 80s...

I watch free, over-the-air TV on a box the government paid for.

[vdeane]

I don't need a converter because my TV was made after the digital conversion, but reception can be inconsistent.  ABC can be strong one moment but drop out the next.  It doesn't help that I have a ground floor apartment, and the room with the antenna is actually partially underground, such that the antenna has a direct sight line to the grass (or it would, if pointed out the window... the TV stations in the Albany area broadcast from the south, and the only wall I have facing south is a windowless wall the divides my apartment from the one next door).  I can't even get PBS at all... thankfully, the only stations I actually care about are ABC and CBS.  It's USUALLY fine, but if the signal starts pixelating during Once Upon a Time, I'm not a happy camper.  I don't see why I should pay a cable company lots of money when most of my time spent watching TV is just the local news.

[1995hoo]

We use DirecTV for our two primary TVs due to the amount of sports we watch (yes, "we," my wife is every bit as rabid–and far less cynical!–a hockey fan as I am). The other two TVs, in the master bedroom and guest room, are on rabbit ears because it isn't worth paying for satellite service on TVs we watch for maybe half an hour each night and for maybe an hour on weekends. Depending on your location (we live around 12 miles south of the White House as the crow flies), an antenna can be outstanding, but in the wrong location it's worthless.

The funny thing, though, is that in our area if you want to use an antenna, it is vital that it receive both UHF and VHF due to where the networks broadcast. In many areas, all the networks now use UHF, which is a total reversal from how it used to be. Many of us probably remember how annoying it was as a kid when you wanted to watch Sesame Street and you had to turn the dial to "U" and then twizzle the top knob all over the place. UHF reception stunk! Nowadays, in most cities all the networks moved their digital feeds to UHF but virtually "mapped" them to their old channel numbers. Here, some of them still use VHF. I find it pretty amusing that in 2015 we still have to think about UHF and VHF after all these years.

[cjk374]

The funny thing, though, is that in our area if you want to use an antenna, it is vital that it receive both UHF and VHF due to where the networks broadcast. In many areas, all the networks now use UHF, which is a total reversal from how it used to be. Many of us probably remember how annoying it was as a kid when you wanted to watch Sesame Street and you had to turn the dial to "U" and then twizzle the top knob all over the place. UHF reception stunk! Nowadays, in most cities all the networks moved their digital feeds to UHF but virtually "mapped" them to their old channel numbers. Here, some of them still use VHF. I find it pretty amusing that in 2015 we still have to think about UHF and VHF after all these years.

As a child growing up in a small rural town, I could pick up channels from 2 cities...Shreveport & Monroe.  We could get 2 channels of CBS & NBC and 1 channel of ABC & PBS.  If reception was poor due to weather, we had to go out and turn the antenna to the other direction.  Everyone in the living room would holler GOOD when reception was as good as it would get. 

Our old RCA TV had the second UHF dial on it.  The channel number went as high as 83.  I never got a single channel on the UHF setting.

[jwolfer]

Flying cars and jet packs on our backs

How is that a 'thing that technology should have solved'?

Many health problems and diseases that are prevalent now are a matter of behavior not microbes. Examples diabetes mellitus, obesity, heart disease etc. People need to eat better and move more.

The approach of looking for a pill, vaccine or medicine for everything. Better diet and exercise also increases immune function so you don't succumb to sickness

Honestly it's inexcusable that we don't have cures for every disease by now.  We've know about cancer for centuries and nothing.  Same with ALS and heart disease.  Not only should we have cures by know but there should have been cures for decades.

BTW, chemo is not a cure, it's a treatment and a costly one.

[jwolfer]

Cancer is less disease than it is malfunction.  We can't vaccinate against ourselves, unfortunately.  And it's such a diverse array of conditions that there is no single solution.  We'll be working on that one for generations.

What's infuriating is the rebellion against public health, where people decline to vaccinate or even wash their hands because they think this is just an individual choice rather than an important component of a system of actions that work together.

If the immune system is functioning at its optimum it will eliminate cancer cells. Cancer is cells that are not working right. Caused by chemical or environmental assault. The immunes system recognizes it as not right and eliminates the cell. BTW cancer needs an acidic enviromenrl to grow.

A pathogen needs an unhealthy host tissue to take hold. The great advances in disease treatment had more to do with improvements in sanitation than vaccines themselves. The incidence of pertussis, polio etc were declining before the introduction of vaccines.

[triplemultiplex]

Stupidity.
I thought having access to nearly all of the world's information was going to make everyone smarter, but results have been tepid.
Turns out, some people use this information portal to make themselves stupider.  Rather than finding objective reality, they seek out anything that will reinforce their established biases, thus making them not only stupider, but louder about their stupidity.  And honestly, it can be hard to not do.  Especially if one is not aware of their biases.

[The Nature Boy]

I tend to think of the internet like a giant buffet. If I took you to an all you can eat, you'd probably still only eat the foods that you like and would probably only sample the things that you're unclear on. The vast availability of something doesn't change consumption habits, it just leads you to seek out more things that confirm what you already believe or know you like.

The internet also allows people with fringe beliefs to seek out others with those same fringe beliefs. Whereas 50 years ago, we all got our news from ABC, CBS and NBC only, today any wacko can get their news from whatever news source validates their beliefs. The fact that we only had three news sources seemed to have a moderating effect on our country because you couldn't just get your news filtered by whatever ideological prism that you prefer to see through.

[J N Winkler]

Another: Some kind of metal that would be impervious to rust and wear, such as that caused by winter road treatments, thereby eliminating the need to use an undercarriage wash if your car-washing hose is inadequate to do a thorough job and you don't have the ability to put the car up on ramps (our driveway is sloped–not much, but enough to make ramps impractical).

Aluminum?

Aluminum does corrode, as anyone who has attempted to remove steel bolts from a cast aluminum engine block can tell you.  Plus steel is pretty hard to beat for tensile strength.  If I wished to produce the ultimate corrosion-proof car, I would look long and hard at composites for the spaceframe and plastic for outer body panels, but this would entail accepting a long list of compromises, starting with a completely revamped production process for the spaceframe and gaps between body panels as wide as the Grand Canyon to accommodate thermal expansion.  (Body panel gaps are one reason the Saturn S-Series lost customer appeal in its later production years.)

Steel-bodied cars have in any case improved greatly in rust resistance since 1980.  Nowadays, in many parts of the country--though not, admittedly, the salt belt states of the Northeast and upper Midwest--it is routine to find cars 20 years or older that have no visible cosmetic or underbody rust at all.  Weldable electrodeposited primers, anti-corrosion waxes for enclosed sections, and chip-resistant paints for the underbody and lower body are major reasons for this, as is air filtration inside auto production plants.  (Dirt in the paint in new cars is one reason the US automakers hemorrhaged market share to the Japanese in the 1980's.)

This is what I do to prevent underbody and lower-body rust:

*  When it is snowing and deicing salts are in use in an attempt to defend a bare-pavement policy, we often try to use just one vehicle for errands.

*  As soon as the snow stops (it never lasts long in these parts) and the roads dry out sufficiently that we can be sure salt won't just be redeposited on the underbody, I take the designated "snow car" to a DIY car wash and spray-wash it from top to bottom, rinsing the underbody twice with high-pressure water.  It doesn't matter if temperatures are still well below freezing--I have washed cars in this way at night in temperatures as low as 20° F.

*  In this area sand and fine gravel is often laid down for traction.  When the roads dry out, this material becomes a chip hazard, so we avoid tracking through it whenever possible and try to slow down to less than 20 MPH when we absolutely have to drive through it (it is also a major skid hazard).

*  After the last snow of the season, and preferably after a rainstorm has come along to leach the remaining salt out of the sand and gravel in the streets, I take each of the cars to the DIY wash for a thorough exterior cleaning, including a double rinse of the underbody.  (A single rinse of the underbody is otherwise part of the year-round routine.)

*  Factory mudguards are an "of course" option for new cars.  About dealer-installed mudguards I am less certain since there is less quality control and no guarantee that the approved installation procedure does not include drilling new holes in the steel and thus compromising the factory rust protection.

*  I remain aware of the temperature range when rust is most likely to occur--32° F to 40° F--and try to do the first salt-removal wash when it is still just under freezing (it doesn't matter that much if the wash water transiently raises underbody temperature above freezing as long as the salt gets off).

*  We avoid driving on gravel and loose-surfaced roads and try to limit speeds to under 30 MPH when we have to do so.

I have gotten two cars to 22 and 21 years respectively with no underbody rust, though both have been domiciled in Kansas with little winter exposure to the salt belt.  The 22-year-old car was starting to develop some wheel arch rust toward the end, however, and it had triple-layer welds at the back of each rear wheel arch, which were common rust initiation points for this model.  (This experience prompts me to think twice about buying any car that has triple-layer welds.)  It did have factory-approved mudguards installed as a retrofit when it was 11 years old and received an extensive application of aftermarket rustproofing on the underbody at approximately the same time.  The 21-year-old car has plastic outer panels that cannot rust and has no underbody rust, though it has rust in the passenger-side rear door sill, a well-known problem in this model that has to do with leaky weatherstripping and primer in the dip bath not being able to reach the inside of the door sill while water intrudes with little difficulty during rainstorms.

[mgk920]

IMHO, the biggest factor in cars lasting so much longer now in the 'north' is the auto makers converting to non-porous paint primers.  Porous primers were AWFUL, as no matter what you did, should anything (ie, a stone that was kicked over by another vehicle) break the paint and salt water get in, there was nothing that could be done to slow down the corrosion and in fact washing the car made things worse in that the act of washing the car added moisture to that rusty blotch.

Mike

[hbelkins]

Whereas 50 years ago, we all got our news from ABC, CBS and NBC only, today any wacko can get their news from whatever news source validates their beliefs. The fact that we only had three news sources seemed to have a moderating effect on our country because you couldn't just get your news filtered by whatever ideological prism that you prefer to see through.

Actually, those three networks all filtered the news by the same ideological prism (they still do today) and until the 1980s, there really weren't any broadcast alternatives.

[roadman65]

I tend to think of the internet like a giant buffet. If I took you to an all you can eat, you'd probably still only eat the foods that you like and would probably only sample the things that you're unclear on. The vast availability of something doesn't change consumption habits, it just leads you to seek out more things that confirm what you already believe or know you like.

The internet also allows people with fringe beliefs to seek out others with those same fringe beliefs. Whereas 50 years ago, we all got our news from ABC, CBS and NBC only, today any wacko can get their news from whatever news source validates their beliefs. The fact that we only had three news sources seemed to have a moderating effect on our country because you couldn't just get your news filtered by whatever ideological prism that you prefer to see through.

That is maybe why we have so many taking sides nowadays.  At one time we all did not use the term conservative or liberal at all.  We loved or hated a president, governor, senator, etc. by the person and not so much by the party.

Now its the party or the stereotypes we make as parties what we judge by not the person.  All because the number of endless outlets we take sides as each different outlet pushes their personal views on us.  For example Fox, which should not be called Fox News at all,  because they do not report the news like traditional journalists do, but give out commentary to the viewers and get them to join the bandwagon that they are on.  Sean Hanity for one, only reports news that exposes his own political views and not events that are for public knowledge is the perfect example.  Though I respect his right to free speech and commentary, still you cannot say he is a true news reporter.

Other outlets whether on cable, internet, or some other new means is always reporting with bias using the politically correct term to describe them and getting the public all wild up about their convictions which end up either being conservative, moderate, tea party, progressive or whatever.

[hm insulators]

Keeping those tiny model car/airplane/ship parts from becoming lost in the carpet while building the model.

[empirestate]

Politics aside, I definitely agree that communication in general has been more hindered that aided by technology. Just look at any Facebook or YouTube comments thread.


iPhone

[hotdogPi]

Politics aside, I definitely agree that communication in general has been more hindered that aided by technology. Just look at any Facebook or YouTube comments thread.


iPhone

Maybe not originally, but when people started to type (mostly typing on the Internet and texting) as a replacement for talking, that's when it got worse.