h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As the jar slipped to the floor and smashed, I considered how poor is the solution to the "disposable carrier-bag" litter problem. Having them biodegradable is all good and well, but not if they fail to function adequately as bags. Other poor compromises IMO are speed-humps (build a smooth road and then make the surface bad?) and energy-saving lightbulbs.

What else?

Most of the renewable energy business could probably fall under this.

Nuclear deterrents are a little over-engineered, in my opinion.

Biodegradible bags are a neuscience..... - I keep finding hundreds of them, biodegraded, all over the floor in the walk in cupboard, I store bags in, for re-use as bin bags; Just about given up; now I have to buy, new little bin bags, for the bathroom and bedroom bins double production!

Still think bath/shower designs, are poorly done, yet no one seems ot have come up with a better solution; seems every wo years I have to have bathroom retiled, as the sealant just doens't work whichever they use, or indeed whichever I try myself

On a slightly differnt tangetnt.... from recent expeirence I have to say some of the drug treatments for cancer could do with better solutions they're a bit....... non-specific in their ability to kill cells Mind, the fact they do seem to work at all, is a bit of a bonus, IMO.

hmm. shoelaces. rubbish idea1; they fray so quickly.... yet, velcro is less tan useless, IMO, I wonder why so few shoes, (only seemingly boots), have buckles, they useuall work so much better, and are a lot more hardwearing (of course, I guess keep re-buying shoelaces, is a boom to the shoelace manfacturing base )

The Irish solution to the plastic bag problem was to charge 22 cents tax on every plastic bag. The problem was solved overnight, because Irish people will do anything to avoid paying tax. We all use recyclable bags now, or heavy duty paper bags.

What's the problem with energy-saving lightbulbs?

Energy-saving lightbulbs are fine. The earlier ones took about fifteen minutes to warm up to more than a dim glow, but the ones I use now are every bit as good as the old incandescent ones were.

They don't last as was suggested when the decision was to go to Energy Saving Lightbulbs and as they cost more I'm really rather peeved.I'm constantly replacing them almost as quickly as I did with the old ones.

I'm interested in the lightbulb thing because mine are as bright as the old ones, and I have only replaced one so far (we've been using them for around 10 years)

Are you buying cheap ones though? does that make a difference? (mine were blooming expensive, but they have amortised themselves by now)

E-S lightbulbs were bulkier if you wanted the same brightness - they wouldn't always fit into the fittings. Also, they had a different luminescence - less 'cosy'.

But these things are minor - they're a great invention.

All of mine are now LED ones, which are expensive but the first ones I put in have now been in for over 5 years with no failures.

Didn't really like the compact fluorescent ones, the makers were over claiming on their output and the lighting colour was off from my point of view, the delay on startup was a bit of a pain as well.
So I started replacing them as they failed (about 3 -5 years depending on how much they are on each day).

Yeah, the florescent bulbs were/are rather crap. In my office, they ill-advisedly installed track lighting that used flood lights over decade ago. I would have preferred the typical florescent tubes that are ubiquitous in office settings. The track lighting was installed with variable switches. As soon as I could, I requested energy efficient replacements to those hot floods. We learned that compact florescents don't like to be dimmed. They burn out in months rather than years. So, we ordered dimmable compact florescent bulbs. Some worked, some didn't. I also preferred daylight (bluish) bulbs as I work in imaging and don't want to bias my color vision. Daylight balanced dimmable compact florescent bulbs are stupid expensive only to burn out in a couple of months. I currently have a mix of daylight and tungsten balanced non-dimmable CFs and have taped over the dimmer slider switch so they're always full-on. I personally have replaced almost every light at my home with LEDs. They've finally gotten bright enough and cheap enough. I've only had one early LED die on me so far.


Speaking of which, as of May LED lights are too cheap to pass up. (At least here in the States where one can find Home Depot stores.) http://www.wired.com/2015/04/philips-cheap-led-bulbs/

Philips is selling LED bulbs 2 for $5.

Most kitchen gadgets are more bother to clean than the time and effort they save unless you're, say, grating a whole sackful of carrots (although the motor would probably give up and start smoking before you're a third of the way down the bag in that case)

They take up too much room if stored in assembled form, but
Putting them together, especially for the first time, requires patience, time and nerves of steel - especially if they have a thread which can easily get crossed.
Using them is often messy and inefficient, but you can't try them out in the shop.
Switching them on can often be awkward (so I'm told) if you have longer fingernails.
Taking them apart can be dangerous and fiddly and there are large chunks of not-yet-grated, not-mixed-in or not-chopped food.
Cleaning them is time-consuming: The bit with the motor has to be wiped because it always gets splashes and bits of gunge on it, the other bits are often not suitable for the dishwasher and anything made of plastic will break after a couple of months. The cost of replacing it is out of proportion with buying a whole new gadget. Most have nooks and crannies that can only be properly cleaned with a wooden cocktail-stick or a tiny brush as used for the teat of a baby's bottle.

A friend of mine once had a gadget (a deep-fat fryer from Tefal) which she said was absolutely perfect - all those things had been thought through and it was all easy to use, dismantle, wash and re-assemble even with woman-sized hands. So why can't they all be like that?

Is that the sort of thing you mean?

There is a class of simplistic solutions to performance measurement that deserves particular attention.

I recall, in my youth, reading a science fiction story in which the seers of a certain planet were highly renowned for their accuracy. A position that they maintained by frequently predicting early and violent death for their customers. This was of course the easiest outcome to manipulate.

Simple targets lead to stupidly skewed responses, such as the 4 hour accident and emergency treatment threshold in the NHS, which results in a flood of admissions after 3:58 minutes of waiting. Similarly the targets for British pupils to achieve numbers of grade A-C to GCSE focusses attention on those that are struggling to get the C, not those capable of the A.

Gaming systems of measurement like these is only human nature.

Those one-cup coffee cartridges are a needless contributor to landfill problems, and the coffee in them tends to get stale faster than if you measured coffee grounds into a conventional basket or percolator.

I've noticed that the fluorescent lightbulbs don't last much longer than the incandescent ones, and presumably they are hazardous waste, except that there are few opportunities here for disposing of hazardous waste. I expect that most people put them in the trash.

Rechargeable batteries were supposed to be a good thing, but I charged some the other day and the recharging didn't work.

Yep. The one-cup coffee things generate a shitload of waste plastic.

Someone got me one as a present, and I have to admit I don't really like it. The coffee always seems to have a faint tang of burnt rubber.

I have to disagree. I've had mine for two years and use it only for my first cup of (very) strong coffee in the morning. I clean it twice a month and the coffee always tastes good. I'm sorry about the landfill, but there are worse culprits (see my recent posts on adult nappies)

Taste is a matter of opinion. That's why we talk about eg., "my taste in music" and say things like "I find that distasteful".

That's also the reason why I'm a dissenter when I hear people talking about the "correct" way to cook steak or fish. It's a matter of taste.

You have a point, KB. The odds of those coffee cartridges containing fresh coffee are not terribly good, though. If you don't mind, it's find, but if you could compare the same coffee at different stages of freshness, do you really think you'd prefer the staler version? It's a big world, and there are probably a few people who would, but my money's on the ones who would prefer fresh.

Like running but hate to be stuck on the treadmill in the gym?

http://youtu.be/XUuwEq98ByM