Machines that are too smart for their own good.

[Agammamon]

I was reading a small article on Ars-Technica about RFID tags and how they can be used to tell your washing machine how to wash a garment or what settings your microwave should be set on to cook food when I realized that isn't necessarily a useful feature.
As an example, here at work I have a copier that is "intelligent" meaning that it is supposed to know what I want to copy. What really happens is if I put a large sheet of paper in, it refuses to copy until I put the same size paper in the tray. Nevermind that I only want part of the large sheet copied, it "knows"better. Or using Word. When writing documents, Word tries to force me into using its built in templates, regardless of what I want to do.

I think what would solve these types of problems is a nice big overide button, one that will tell the machineto stop argueing and just do as its told, I mean if I wanted back talk I'd just hire a person.

 

[scribble]

I was reading a small article on Ars-Technica about RFID tags and how they can be used to tell your washing machine how to wash a garment or what settings your microwave should be set on to cook food when I realized that isn't necessarily a useful feature.
As an example, here at work I have a copier that is "intelligent" meaning that it is supposed to know what I want to copy. What really happens is if I put a large sheet of paper in, it refuses to copy until I put the same size paper in the tray. Nevermind that I only want part of the large sheet copied, it "knows"better. Or using Word. When writing documents, Word tries to force me into using its built in templates, regardless of what I want to do.

You, Sir, are a Linux zealot just waiting to happen.

 

[Dancing David]

Or the copier changes the orientation sometimes...

 

[Soapy Sam]

Consult a Feng Shui Master.

 

[fishbob]

At least they stopped putting the automatic seat belts in cars (most cars?). I hated those.
And those car doors that lock themselves. Those are evil.
Many of the smart copiers are easily fixed by judicious use of a ball peen hammer.

I found it interesting that the US Army Corps of Engineers selected MS Word as their standard for documents, at the same time that the US Justice Dept was investigating MicroSoft for unfair trade practices.

 

[Ove]

I must admit that i agree 100% with you. My compagny has just switched from Lotus Smart Suite, to Monopoly$oft office package and the first 14 days had me in hysterics several times trying to tell the blasted programme that I and I alone would decide how my document should look. I have (almost) succeded now but boy what a struggle.

If they only had ONE check of box: "Do you wan't help writing your letter"?? that could turn ALL "help" functions off but most are hidden in some obscure parts of the programme not easily found.

 

[FXT]

Sorry I don't have anything to add to this thread, I just wanted to say:

Old Skool, man!

I haven't seen Ars linked with a hyphen for years.
Do you frequent the fora there?