I don’t know what “other countries” you’re talking about, but where I’m from, a “can opener” looks like this:

(I’ve been using one just like this for my entire adult life, and guess what - it’s ok!)

If we’re also talking about vehicles… I’m about average height (~180 cm) but have long-ish legs, and this means that I simply don’t fit well into the driver’s seat of most cars. Even with the steering wheel adjusted all the way up, seat slid all the way back and reclined all the way forward, my legs are hitting the steering wheel and yet I can barely reach it with my hands. Because of this, I sometimes have to take my shoes off while driving.

Also, almost every car has some annoying things like your oil plug; simply because a modern combustion engine is really quite complicated and there’s not enough space under the hood to give every component a convenient place. E.g. my Delica has the starter located below the engine and quite far back, so it’s mostly covered by the engine protection plate. Good luck banging on that starter relay if it sticks in the off position and refuses to start, while you’re stuck in the mud! However I do agree that making periodic maintenance painful, like in your case, is way worse.

I was also surprised about this, but I took this quote directly from the judgement in question. As I think about it, it starts to make more sense - literally, defamation is dis (break into pieces/remove/…) + famo (fame/reputation). The word itself only conveys that someone’s reputation was injured, not that it was injured unjustly. IIUC the words for “unjust defamation” are specifically libel and slander, under common law. I think it’s similar to how there’s “homicide” (the act of one person killing another) which can be legal (e.g. self-defense) or criminal (e.g. murder). At least that’s my understanding of it.

I think the headline is incorrect - it didn’t win the lawsuit, it just got past the preliminary hearing and to substantive arguments (https://caseboard.io/cases/75bb8071-86c7-4032-bd34-e9d66eed1249). AFAIU now both parties will argue whether the contents of the report are true.

I don’t think it does necessarily,

Meanings will be considered defamatory at common law if they “substantially affect in an adverse manner the attitude of other people towards a Claimant, or have a tendency to do so”

This definition doesn’t consider the truth of the statement or even whether it is provable, merely whether it affects opinion.

AFAIU this ruling just means that the lawsuit can carry forward to substantive arguments.

I’ve found the entire text of the judgement here: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2024/3276.html

It’s also full of legalese, but as far as I understand the court did not rule on the verity of the statements, only on whether they are defamatory:

14. Meanings will be considered defamatory at common law if they “substantially affect in an adverse manner the attitude of other people towards a Claimant, or have a tendency to do so”

…

Conclusion:

…

54. The meanings of both publications are of fact and both are defamatory at common law with a Chase level 2 meaning.

This just means that a lawsuit can move on to factual arguments (i.e. arguments about the truth of those statements). Whoever is more convincing to the judge will win. So IIUC at least, the headline of this post is incorrect.

Alec from Technology Connections is known for his extensive rants about household appliances: https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections

As for me, I’m just trying to avoid things in general, and things I don’t enjoy in particular. Perhaps the only things that I find annoying at my home are:

• An awful flow-through gas water heater, which requires me to wait for like a minute before water gets up to temperature every time I need hot water (I’d go with an electric one myself, but unfortunately I’m a renter for now). It’s also a poor design because it’s going to fuck over humanity in a couple decades via climate change.
• Packaging on almost all processed food. I don’t need everything I buy to be in a plastic bag. It’s an incredibly poor design because it is almost always non-recyleable, either because it has a thin foil layer or it’s a mix of plastics or both, filling the landfills forever and contaminating everything with microplastics.
• Poor window frame design, combined with inevitable building settling, has resulted in a cracked window twice within the last year.

I have many more gripes about things, some of the most prominent:

• Most modern smartphones just suck. Gimme back the headphone jack, an SD card slot, and a back that I can open with my fingernails! (thankfully my current phone has all of those despite being only a couple years old and very cheap)
• Generally everything that has a battery which I can’t replace
• Bluetooth headphones without a headphone jack or at least audio-over-USB are an awful design, it would cost the manufacturer like a dollar do add that functionality that can come in really handy and yet they don’t
• Fuck clothes without pockets!
• Cheap plastic crap from wish.com or similar that’s designed to fail after one use, it just shouldn’t exist. I hope CPC bans this shit soon. (although I find it fun to pull out broken christmas lights from recycling, fix them and then get free christmas lights for every New Year’s)
• “Teflon” or similar frying pans. Just get a cast iron one. Lasts forever, doesn’t poison you, also allegedly enriches your food with iron

Yep, NixOS as a base + some Flatpak store for installing apps. In fact, use impermanence to just drop all OS state apart from logs, network settings and flatpaks. That way, “turn it off and then on again” will almost always work to fix the OS.

Since this actually sounds like a good decision… Over/under on Trump promising to double the amount of nukes and turn China into a nuclear wasteland unless they do something for him, by the end of next week?