dripping pains
High quality and well designed things are nice. Since these are usually more expensive (but not always!) it is good to know how to deal with bad design and how to live with it.
The previous sentence was meant as a kind of excuse, since I am feeling already bad that I criticise again a design over here (and Japan has actually a high culture of design!), however I feel these things have to be spoken out at one point.
The topic of this post is a design, which already went on my nerves, when I was living in the US…it is the issue of socalled dripping pans on a stove (please see images). A dripping pan is a device, which is intended for keeping the splattered food away from the internal mechanics of a stove.
Dripping pans are usual in (porcelain) enamel and thus quite easily stained (especially with a dripping Espressomachine, like in the below pictures :)). In the US I had once the fun of caring for dripping pans in CREAM COLORED enamel.
Being of enamel means in particular that YOU SHOULDNT CLEAN DRIPPING PANS WITH SAND! (since of course this would destroy the smooth enamel surface) – In other words: It is quite a pain to keep these things clean and buying new dripping pans is expensive. Thats why I called them “dripping pains”.
In the US we got the advice to cover the pan with aluminium foil. In the super market over here I found even an extra-made aluminium cover to buy (see image below). A cover for a cover and then in highly expensive aluminium. What a waste of energy. Moreover according to the below leaflet there seem to be companies who clean dripping pans for you. Nevertheless – in Berlin we have a stove (which has an integrated electrical oven and which is from a swedish company called Juno, but there are also other companies) which needs no dripping pans at all and which is easy to clean, since the top had been cut planar. No dripping pain any more! (apart from this it is mostly smooth stainless steel, which is not necessary but quite a luxury).
So can anybody tell me – why is this strange design of “dripping pains” still alive – given the existence of an “information highway”?
June 15th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
They are there because people like the lady in the blue overall (see your pics) enjoy cleaning them. It is pure madness.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
how is your current stove ?
January 28th, 2010 at 10:17 am
“A cover for a cover and then in highly expensive aluminium. What a waste of energy.”
OK – it is may be a waste of energy but on the other hand the aluminium industry wants to thrive too. and there are just people who want enamel. You have to accept this. Form not always follows function.
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Rosalynn says: “OK – it is may be a waste of energy but on the other hand the aluminium industry wants to thrive too. and there are just people who want enamel. You have to accept this. Form not always follows function.”
I understand that there are people who like enamel. And they may like it even for “dripping pains.” I accept that for some people this is more important than the functionality of for example easy cleaning. A product may not be suitable for everybody.
It is my personal opinion that the above design of “dripping pains” is bad.
This is to a great part so because the functionality of easy cleaning is not there, but also for pure aesthetic reasons. Some people may find this critisism harsh. But I usually do not critisize for the fun of critizising. I usually critisize if I think that with this critisism bad things could be prevented or at least mitigated or if I know of (in my point of view) better solutions. Some people prefer to refrain from critisizing because someone may feel insulted. But often there are rather clear matter of fact arguments (like in the above case) which need to be said in order to improve a situation or condition. In the best of worlds this shouldnt be seen as an insult.
Concerning the aluminium industry – I actually could imagine that people there prefer to see their products in a well-suited environment and not for waste.
Regarding your “Form not always follows function” remark – it is also my opinion that a pure “form” may of course exists for itself (so to say even without function). However if a product promises some function than this function should be met appropriately. It is highly disappointing if you buy a “beautiful” object, which then turns out to be, not functioning or breaking apart.
A good product may be a good friend for a life time – a bad product however feels rather like a good friend who teams up with what you find rather unsympathetic.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
HOHOHO a bad burner is teaming up with the bad enamymal!!!
February 7th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
It is quite arrogant to say that such a design is bad – just because you have other criteria! You say your comment shouldnt be seen as an insult, but of course it is an insult! Even worse you discredit the makings of a different country than your country of origin, you should have a better respect of other cultures! Your comment may sound very disheartening!
February 9th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Nad wrote: “a bad product however feels rather like a good friend who teams up with what you find rather unsympathetic.”
I know that situation – my last lover just went off with the worst girl I know. She bullied me in school, she told weird things about me, she stole things and so on. I am freaking out.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
@Zaza
Sounds not good. As said it is already not pleasant if a good friend teams up with what you find unsympathetic,but if you were in love than this could be worse. The worst point in these kind of cases is probably that one has to acknowledge to oneself that one had been terribly wrong with one’s own perception of that person in question. In mild cases this may merely be irritating, but the more you were dependent on that person the more this gets frightening and maybe even fearsome. I hope you have a group of people around you can rely on, these kind of cases usually should not occur that often.
February 15th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
“…but the more you were dependent on that person the more this gets frightening and maybe even fearsome. ”
I am not dependent on him, I have my own income. I am so jealous but I dont want him back!
February 15th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@Zaza
Zaza:“I am not dependent on him, I have my own income.”
I was thinking of dependency in a more general sense. It is good if you have your own income that makes you certainly less dependent and things less bad!
But if – as you wrote – you were in love than this can mean that there was a great emotional dependency and maybe it is helpful to know that in most of the cases the condition of “falling in love” or passionate love (vs. companionate love) usually doesnt hold too long.
Less emotional bonds can appear everywhere like in friendship or in religion, where one has to emphasize and warn that some religious sects often create strong emotional dependency with sleeky methods.
Zaza:“I am so jealous but I dont want him back!”
I think that jealousy is rather related to envy, i.e. that for example the new partner of your lover has something to offer which you dont have, like youth, beauty etc. and which you believe is important in order to get your partner back (sometimes actually a false assumption). In your case though it doesnt seem that you want to be like that new partner – it seems more that you are shocked about how wrong you were in your perception about your former lover. I dont know though how much it helps if you see it like this. It is also clear that in this case you indeed may have not much in common with him anymore.
But this is just my opinion, some professionals may see this differently.
February 16th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
nad wrote: …”in this case you indeed may have not much in common with him anymore.”
So you think it is better if I don’t talk to him anymore? May be he is from one of these religious sects?
February 18th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Zaza says: “So you think it is better if I don’t talk to him anymore? May be he is from one of these religious sects?”
By what you wrote you seem to feel highly involved – but maybe I am wrong with that. But if you feel involved than I think it is important that you realize that you may be rather sensitive right now. I.e. if you speak to him then there may be some danger that you may overreact, I dont know. In principle I find talking helps, but if you repeat the old arguments over and over again it may not. It is useful to think beforehand what you expect from talking to him.
Usually a break up leads to a kind of alienation, that is simply speaking the partner who you thought was a soul mate isnt a soul mate anymore, like for example alone for the reason that he left. In your case – as I understood – he seemed to have left you for a “kind of enemy” (?) So -due to this- your alienation might be very strong and as I wrote above it may even be fearsome. If you would talk to him you could find that there is still something left which you may share and which is unrelated to old sexual bonds and which makes you feel less alienated, but likewise you may feel even more alienated after speaking to him.
I dont know your situation, so it is hard to tell why you may feel so involved. As said simple passionate love can be a very strong emotion, it is enough to make someone stand in the center of the world. And one cant do much about it…its a pretty common disease :). It can be painful if unanswered, but one can neither do much about that either.
It is sometimes not so obvious to notice if you are lured into a religious sect.
In general a religious sect tries first to give you the feeling of being welcome, of being something valuable and that there is a community who cares about you. Then they pull back a bit and this goes often together with the suggestion that you should take part in special (often rather costly) seminars etc. which make you a better member of the community. If you follow their suggestions they’ll provide incentives, but if you show less engagement they may even use punishments, like exclusion from meetings etc. They’ll keep luring you into their world. They usually try to alienate you from your old friends and family. They will try to impose their way of living on your way of living and they may get increasingly intolerant if you have other opinions. Most often such sects try to make money with you. So if your partner made you visit costly seminars which for example deal with advices how to live your life this may be a first indication, but of course this could also be harmless. If you feel somewhat pressured by him with regard to such committments than this could be a further indication.
February 20th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Doesn’t have a religious sect something like a guru?
He made me join a fan club of Lady Gaga, but this is probably what you consider harmless – isn’t it?
February 26th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Isn’t Lady Gaga in one song crying for God Ra? The music reminds me of an australian band called Boney Em.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
nadvorniy sovyetnik said: “Isn’t Lady Gaga in one song crying for God Ra? “
You probably mean the song: Bad Romance. I think the “Ra” is rather “Ro” for “Romance”, but may be I am wrong.
nadvorniy sovyetnik said: The music reminds me of an australian band called Boney Em.
You probably haven’t had this french band called Bonnet M. in mind;) but probably a disco group called Boney M.. The song “Bad romance” by Lady Gaga actually also reminded me of the late seventy songs of that group, but I don’t know wether Lady Gaga really knows about Boney M. I think this group was mostly popular in Europe.
June 14th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
She is sort of attacking me now.
Why don’t you answer?
June 15th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Zaza said: She is sort of attacking me now. Why don’t you answer?
I assume with “She” you mean the worst girl you know i.e. the one who ran off with your last lover?”
Part of why I haven’t answered yet is because I am busy, I hope randform readers may forgive me if I do not answer every comment.
To another part I have hesitated to answer this comment because I feel a bit uneasy about making comments without really knowing what situation you and the people you talk about are in. Thus I have no idea what your reactions to my comments may be. Alas I reply to you now because I hope it may encourage you to look for someone real to speak to. I am aware that nowadays it is more and more difficult to find people who are listening to your problems. People are stressed out, the working and social conditions are getting tougher and finally listening to someone’s problems takes additional energy, which a lot people just don’t have. Not even for a couple of minutes. I don’t know which country you are from but sometimes there are still institutions where you can seek advice, these institutions are usually also giving anonymous advice.
I don’t know what sort of attack you mean here. She probably didn’t attack you in an open manner – otherwise this would be a case for the police. So I assume you have a verbal attack in mind. Is that right?
Verbal attacks can be mean on the other hand it is often not so easy to assess the severeness of an attack. What do I mean by that?
In general one can say that people have a tendency to attribute a phrase from someone else and a phrase of which they do not know the exact context of to themselves. That is if you hear someone saying: “Here someone is holding up progress!” than -especially if you are under stress- you may feel inclined to attribute that as a reference to you, but it could be meant for somebody else or it could be meant as a general critique which may have included you to a part etc. On the other hand if you hear someone say: “Someone stole my purse” with a side glance to you than this could of course eventually be seen as an affront. So one really needs to know the circumstances and the exact wording.
By what you have mentioned sofar I got the impression that you seem to be quite under emotional stress – well maybe not as much as this woman which was mentioned in an article on boingboing, who probably feels like an animal in a Zoo – but still – any kind of emotional stress can lead to what other people may see as “overreactions”.
And even if you “just” see everything a bit too negative, this may be or may be seen as an “overreaction.” Thus you may have interprested a simple comment or critique as an attack – due to the stress you are in.
On the other hand given the situation you described “she” may indeed have something against you, last not least you may have still some influence on your former lover. Unfortunately to scotch someone is the most unfair and weak but on the other hand most efficient method to get rid of potential rivals or people seen as such. So she may have for example tried to mob you (->wikipedia link to mobbing). I don’t know.
June 16th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I have a little o-shaped bandy-leg so she walked behind me while imitating my gait in a distorted manner.
August 22nd, 2010 at 8:28 pm
nad wrote: “In principle I find talking helps, but if you repeat the old arguments over and over again it may not.”
Zaza — if you want to hear my experiences you may not even get to talk with that guy – especially if there is this bitch around! I had once a date who was pulling out because there was another guy. I wanted to talk things over with her. I surprised her by taking her instead to a cafe to a fine weekend resort, but she was stiff as iron. She wanted to get out already in the car, even if I put on nice music – so I should have been warned. She wouldn’t even get more talkative when I was driving a bit more sportive. She was neither warming up in the resort! The whole trip was just a lot of wasted money!
So much to “talking things over”!
August 24th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
André wrote: “She wanted to get out already in the car”
André, I can’t believe that you don’t know, what this means –
– last but not least already in juridicial terms.
Frankly speaking you can be happy that your above described disregard and -as it sounds by your description- humilation of her will had no further consequences.
August 26th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Ohoo, it looks as if I am here on an emanseepatoric website!
Look – Women often say something and mean something else. Like the woman
I was talking about above was in fact saying in the car that she wanted to get out, but else she didn’t scream or something but was rather quiet and while driving she even asked normal questions about the music and so on. Altogether she behaved just catty and stiff thats it.
August 31st, 2010 at 1:34 pm
André Says:
Rejection and/or the feeling of jealousy can lead to strong emotional reactions. In some sense these or other kinds of negative emotions can have even a stronger impact than positive emotions. I wrote a bit on the neurobiological side of this in that randform post.
Already the loss of attention or the feeling of having judged a setting inappropriately may challenge the way you form your identity and it may give a negative feeling which one would like to avoid at the first place (this and similar emotions in the turn may lead to things like e.g. loss aversion (see also the writings of neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer on this)). Negative feelings may lead to denial and aggression.
Your claim “Women often say something and mean something else” can also be stated for men for the simple reason that language may be ambiguous. And thus in particular – if one is not sure about how something is meant- and if one needs to know – then one has to ask. If one doesn’t ask in case of doubt then this can be already seen as a form of denial. I know a woman who was rather good looking in her youth and it was quite disturbing what men desired and projected into her, like she was accused for making advances, where this was definitely not the case, men wanted to capture her, put her in a cage etc. and they got sometimes quite aggressive, when they became aware that it was all only their own wishful thinking or when there was no way to get her affection.
The woman you were talking about said that she didn’t want to continue the way you were going and it is in my opinion a violent act to take someone along against her or his will. This has nothing to do with emancipation. And if I think about how I would react in this case, you had described, I would probably act similar like this woman did, i.e. I would try to behave as normal as possible in order to cool you down. She was probably quite scared.
January 9th, 2011 at 10:32 am
Zaza and Andre and Nad,
I think you are right – it makes no sense to try to win someone who doesn’t
want to be won.
I was once in a similar situation as Zaza and Andre and I really tried hard
to make a good impression on him. I even won a Chess competition!
But it didn’t help.
January 9th, 2011 at 11:43 am
Cindy! ….you tried to win a man by taking part in a chess competition?! Oh my God!
January 9th, 2011 at 11:48 am
Zaza wrote: “Cindy! ….you tried to win a man by taking part in a chess competition?! Oh my God!”
Zaza — -So what’s so strange about that?!?!?!??!??!??!
January 9th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Surely you are joking Cindy. I mean – if this would have been a beauty contest! – but to go to a Chess competition! – this is quite stupid in my mind.
Every man likes to be admired for his smartness and power. If you go too much into playing the smartie chick than you will get no men at all! This is such a common place that I really wonder on which planet you are living.
January 10th, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Zaza, I don’t know what whimpy men you are talking about! The man I was talking about didn’t wanted to be won as I said.
In fact “the” man after him fell instantly in love with me after (he told me this in a very romatic moment….) guess what!! — when he saw all my publications!!!
Note on the side: my publication index is 403.
June 25th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
nad wrote: “…where one has to emphasize and warn that some religious sects often create strong emotional dependency with sleeky methods. ”
This reminds me of these men who make young girls feel important, seduce them, let them take drugs and then let them work for them.
June 27th, 2011 at 9:28 pm
@ Titania:
You probably mean what’s called in Belgium, Netherland and Germany a Loverboy (A Loverboy is a pimp in a form of sexual slavery where especially young teenagers are abused). (I don’t know how they are called in English). Incidentally I just recently heard a radio special on that issue. It seems to be a growing problem. I think something like this was described in the novel “Der eiserne Gustav”, bei Fallada but I may be wrong ( my resource of this knowledge is that I saw as a child a tv emission which I think was a film from that novel by Fallada…), so the phenomen may not be novel per se. However what seems to be novel is the number of cases, so that around the year 2000 the term “Loverboy” was coined in the Netherlands . According to the radio emission it is meanwhile not only affecting young teenagers but also women around 20 and also 30 somethings with young kids who are alone. Here the Loverboy first lures the woman into believing that he wants to have a family with her….if only his debts are paid, then when she is emotionally dependent (and eventually addicted) he threatens to use the kids in order to make the woman work for him.
Loverboys recrute their victims mainly via the Internet, if I understood correctly. There are meanwhile also Lovergirls, which are often themselves victims who help in recruting.
June 29th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
It seems Loverboys do not only find their victimes via the Internet, but also in Cafe’s etc.:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/29/abused-girl-police-grooming-gangs
September 9th, 2011 at 9:23 am
Nad wrote:
“…it was quite disturbing what men desired and projected into her, like she was accused for making advances, where this was definitely not the case, men wanted to capture her, put her in a cage etc. and they got sometimes quite aggressive, when they became aware that it was all only their own wishful thinking or when there was no way to get her affection. ”
It is interesting to hear, what women account for as “making no advances.” I mean if you run around in a mini-skirt then you shouldn’t wonder.
August 6th, 2016 at 9:18 am
What’s all this fuss about? Sure there are bubbleheads who may become a little obtrusive, but a good looking gal has a way easier time than an ugly duckling….at least with the right kind of guys ;)
August 10th, 2016 at 11:40 am
@Chuck
Right. It’s better to be infected with an athletes foot/tinea fungus than with HIV.
January 17th, 2017 at 9:48 am
@Zaza
“Every man likes to be admired for his smartness and power. If you go too much into playing the smartie chick than you will get no men at all!”
ick hoffe du sprichst ooch deutsch un valinke mal hierzu uff die diskussion hia.
January 17th, 2017 at 10:42 am
@außerirdischer
Sorry, but I don’t understand a word. Is this german?