Stupid Design

[AngryZealot]

The other day I had to use some enzyme in my lab that came in an unusually shaped tube. I couldn't fit the tip of my pipet all the way into the tube .

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Plastic knives. Forks not so much.

 

[Serutan]

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

And pretty much any software put out by Micro$oft.

 

[Arwon]

Age of Empires was pretty fun.

 

[Phlegmak]

Stupid design:

Leaded gasoline

Something that annoys me a lot in general:
Music playing software. I despise the interface that's intended to look my real world stereo. I don't want the cute buttons that are all incredibly tiny that mean something on a real world stereo that have completely different meanings on a computer program interface.

 

[Chazumi]

"Convenient" Self-Checkout Registers.

 

[Phlegmak]

The interface hall of shame.

That's an incredibly good website.

 

[AngryZealot]

"Convenient" Self-Checkout Registers.

Totally yes. They're always screwing up at my local supermarket.

 

[Great Librarian]

Totally yes. They're always screwing up at my local supermarket.

I believe the people who work at the grocer's call that experience 'job security'.

Laptop keyboards on pretty much every laptop. I still can't figure out what the convenience is of having virtually useless keys, like the famous offset numpad or why the function key is situated so far from every key it activates as to make it a nuisance to use. I appreciate that there is limited space on laptops, but the keys certain necessary features of keyboards could at least be made usable.

 

[nonconformist]

Stupid design:

Leaded gasoline

At the time, leaded gasoline was a necessity to stop Pinking

 

[Narz]

Suburbia.

xcl

 

[History_Buff]

Some other examples: Car bumpers. They are damaged to easily, requiring exchanging the whole part. Important business for the manufactures, but very annoying.

Not as bad an idea as you might think. Bumpers are designed to break, as they absorb shock, and prevent damage to the actual body, which is typically more expensive to replace.

 

[Alpine Trooper]

Not as bad an idea as you might think. Bumpers are designed to break, as they absorb shock, and prevent damage to the actual body, which is typically more expensive to replace.

He might be correct, Canadian bumper standards are sticter, many vehicles sold in the U.S. are not sold here for just that reason.

 

[WICKLC1]

Boston's Big Dig, as soon as I figured out how to effectively navigate the city, they just had to go and change it! It went billions of dollars over budget, the tunnels leak, and the roof of a tunnel even collapsed once.

Basically, the old rusty bridges were replaced by new leaky tunnels. It has been improving recently though.

 

[gangleri2001]

Women's vagina: Do you really want to make a baby pass throw that hole? Really?

Men's penis: Why do we need a musucule and a bone when we have cartilages and blood pressure that give us lots erection problems?

 

[Cathy]

Household appliances with unnecessary "decorative" details that do nothing but collect all kinds of yucky goo, impossible to get rid of.
Anything where you break a < 1$ detail that would be easy to replace, but have to replace the whole > 50$ thing, because you can't get spare parts.

 

[Great Librarian]

Men's penis: Why do we need a musucule and a bone when we have cartilages and blood pressure that give us lots erection problems?

WHAT?!!!!!

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The males of pretty much all other mammal species have that feature (muscle and bone) whereas the system we have is prone to failure.

Or so I hear.

 

[RedRalph]

The males of pretty much all other mammal species have that feature (muscle and bone) whereas the system we have is prone to failure.

Or so I hear.

Yeah, it happened to someone I know when I was really drunk... whoops

 

[Erik Mesoy]

The blind spot.

The stupid cord on my USB stick which is a cloth loop right through a non-polished metal hook, causing it to abrade rapidly.

Whatever thing on Elfwood it is that makes my browser close without warning or error message when I view certain pages.

Every fencepost/off-by-one error, ever.