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Dumb and dumber
Jon Honeyball’s account of being tired of dumb items (see issue 368, p110) certainly resonates with me as the race to get something to market and “sort out the bugs later” increasingly becomes the norm.
My own “smart” Sony TV will only grudgingly talk to my LG sound bar after a lot of messing with setup procedures (and clearing the cache, for some reason). Apparently this is due to Sony and LG jointly throwing their toys out of their respective prams.
My two printers often work flawlessly until they suddenly either decide to sulk or try to pick paper from a non-existent paper tray or (very often with the Epson) to print everything across several sheets.
Add to this, a managerial necessity by Microsoft for constant unwanted updates to provide “an enhanced experience” and extract even more billions from the public and we find ourselves at the same state that car manufacture was in the 1950s – you couldn’t simply buy a car and drive it, you had to be very knowledgeable in fault finding and maintenance, too.