Tag Remote Controls

Lighten Up! (Hospital Style)

Michael

It’s high time to lighten things up around here. Just because I am still, yes still(!) in the hospital doesn’t mean there aren’t things to poke fun at. In fact, much of what goes on around here is worth poking fun at.

So far, nobody woke me to offer me a sleeping pill. Yes it has been done. However I have had the same person offer me a laxative literally (seriously I’m going to use literally as it literally is intended) right after helping me back from the bathroom with … well, you figure it out but Adrian Cronauer would have credited it to a cup of strong cappuccino.

Diets are an interesting phenomenon in hospitals particularly when one has abdominal surgery. You start out with nothing but sips of water. You progress through clear liquids to full liquids to soft and then regular food. All the while each step gets modified to meet your specific health needs like a cardiac or renal or diabetic diet. I have yet to figure out why. When you’re on clear liquids you barely have the strength to left spoon to mouth so that goes right back barely touched. By the time you can eat solid food you’re chowing down on the sandwiches and cookies your family is smuggling past the nurses station and you’re too full to bother with the hospital’s offerings. And their food always tastes bad. You know it’s bad but if you had to describe what is bad about it you find those words have yet to be invented. I’m on Day 17 of this hospitalization so I’ve had some time to think about this. I’ve decided it’s the taste equivalent of when you walk into an elevator and you know somebody was there wearing a cologne more suited to a Turkish whorehouse than anywhere else on earth. So I suspect.

20190610_185905-2You recall my rants regarding remote controls. Too many buttons, too little function! Back in the 70s (yes, I really am that old) nurse call bells were pretty much that. In fact, the first hospital I worked at kept actual bells to distribute to patients in the event of a power failure. Today’s call bell alert mechanisms control lights, television power channel and volume, bed position, sleeping alarms, and might actually summon assistance by way of a two-way radio communication with a disembodied voice from somewhere deep in the building. My particular remote control/Dick Tracy wrist radio gets a lot of abuse pulled across the room, dropped on the floor, and otherwise tortured. This is an absolute true story. All of them are but you are going to say “Oh come on now!” when you read this so just keep in mind, this is an absolute true story. Among other things, my call button controls the room light (button A), controls a reading lamp (button B), controls the TV (TV), and summons assistance (stick figure of some bald dude). I was ready to call it another unsuccessful day and pressed button B to turn the reading lamp off but instead the main room light came on. Checking that I was indeed pressing the right button I tried again and the main light went off. Then I pushed button A because why not and the TV came on. Pressing button A a second time yielded no results so I pressed the stick figure button to report my equipment malfunction but instead of lighting up indicating a call had been initiated, the TV went off and the reading lamp came on. At this point I was back to having the reading lamp on and everything else off. I figured I could fall asleep under those circumstances and left well enough alone. Eventually someone would be in to check my blood pressure and I would report the broken control then.

I could go on with other curiosities like footwear particularly among the anesthesia staff, status boards, and isolation procedures but I might need some lighter topics next week too.

By the way, if I follow you and you haven’t heard a peep from me and are concerned, some sites I can reach through the hospital guest WiFi, some I cannot, and some change day to day. I am better and just waiting for some labs to stabilizer before I can be set free on the world again. I’ll catch up with my required reading then.

Remotely Technological

Michael 3 Comments

If I had to describe myself I would avoid it. But if I couldn’t, depending on the context, I would say I am a technologically aware luddite. I’m not anti-progress, I’m just don’t care about it. Actually, most other things I care about more. Work had the necessary bells and whistles. Home had bells. And whistles. And too many of them sometimes.

I wouldn’t be the first to say we’re advancing in the wrong direction. Take a look at your wrist. If it’s not there, on the wrist of somebody you know is a smart watch doing all the things Dick Tracy’s did in the 40s looking remarkable like what Kojak wore in the 70s. In fact, if you’ve got a spare $500 laying around, you can get a brand new Dick Tracy watch.

I don’t. But what I do have laying around is a new remote that might finally be progressing to where I suggested they go six years ago. Look at the remote on the left. Ignoring those 4 shortcut buttons toward the bottom, there are only 10 buttons on it. That’s the voice remote for my Roku Stick.

Remotes

Compare that the to the voice remote for my cable with its 39 buttons which is actually 14 buttons less than the cable remote that sparked my post six years ago. Eventually we might get to power, volume, and the one that looks like a cross.

Oh, I didn’t get the more slender if not more fashion forward remote to join the entertainment streaming masses here in the 21st century. I just got tired spending $130 for cable. Like I said (as I said?), I’m not anti-progress. But I can be cheap.

Automatically Yours

Michael Leave a comment

It’s funny how much television and radio commercials shape the modern landscape.  But then, isn’t that the point?  Very recently there was a commercial on the radio for remote controlled window blinds for the home.  For a large meeting room or conference center, or for a series of office suites that somebody wants to look all the same from the outside, the remote controlled blind could be, and in some cases probably is, a good idea.  But for your home?  Unless your living room windows are in Jack Nicholson’s house, your blinds probably aren’t that far away from where you’re sitting.

Remote window blinds might seem to be the height of lazy right now, but if we look at some of the remote and automatically controlled conveniences – and some necessities even – we might see how our landscape has changed over the past not too many years.

There could be some of you who have never seen a television without remote control.  There used to be a time when the remote was optional.  It was there but the set still had all of its power, volume, and channel buttons right out in the open.  Before that, if you wanted remote control you had to have children.

Cars are a treasure trove of automation.  Some don’t even need their keys.  You get close to the vehicle and it unlocks, you press a button and it starts, you stop long enough and it stops.  Now that might still be a pretty fancy car but even daily drivers do stuff for their drivers daily.  When was the last time you turned on your car headlights?  Most cars now come with light sensors that automatically turn on the lights when needed and off when not.  They also know to turn off airbags protecting an unoccupied seat.  Doors lock and unlock, trunks and hatches open and close at the touch of the right button.

Automation has been with our major household appliances for years.  Consider the self-cleaning oven.  It’s hard to find one now that isn’t.  Need ice?  Probably your freezer handles that chore on its own.  Generations have grown up not ever knowing when to stop a cycle to put the fabric softener in the washer.  You put the pretreatment, bleach, detergent, and softener all before you start it up and the machine doses them to your clothes at the appropriate times.

Probably someone thought it was laziness when each of these conveniences hit the landscape.  Today, even those critics rely on an inanimate object to get their clothes clean; even the daily jogger isn’t so wrapped up in physical exercise that he or she actually walks across a room to change the channel on a television set.  So blinds that open and close at the push of a button aren’t all that unexpected.  Now the real challenge is for someone to invent blinds that know when to open and close.  Until that happens, if you want to handle that chore remotely you better have more kids.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

Buttons, Buttons, Self-Controlling Buttons

Michael Leave a comment

In our last post we riled for a bit about buttons.  Buttons on the remote controls that we’re certain on there just to frustrate us when we’re trying to change channels in a dark room. We’ve discovered another set of buttons that are out to rule the world.  Unlike the irritating but basically innocent buttons of remote controls, household appliances, even car radio and climate controls, these buttons pose threats and real danger.  They are the buttons on your hand held electronic devices.

Phones, readers, and tablets all have those cunning buttons along their edges, built into the seams separating the front and back pieces, hiding where nobdoy with fat fingers or long nails can reach but are pushovers for a little pressure from a nearby pen in a briefcase.  Yes, they are…turned on remotely.

Consider these real life examples.  On a recent trip, He of We dutifully turned off his phone before boarding and slipped it into his carry-on soon to be stowed under the seat in front of him.  When arriving at his destination, he took it out to text his progress to She of We and discovered it was already on.  It was on without him having to have held the power button in until his finger went numb. Not long ago at a food court a young lady a couple tables away shrieked (yes, shrieked) in horror and dismay that her tablet not only turned itself on in the depths of her classic messenger bag, but had also drank up the last of the juice in its battery.

Power switches work both ways.  Both of We have had readers and phones turn themselves off.  Usually He of We’s phone magically turns itself off sometime before She of We calls, thus prompting wonderings of why he bothers to carry a phone that he never answers.

Turning electronics on or off isn’t all these device controllers do for themselves.  No, these pieces of silicon and solder switch modes, take pictures, open files, and call friends or relatives with no human assistance.  Remember that the next time your phone rings and you’re standing in the middle of an intersection yelling “Hello, hello.  You pocket dialed me again!” into it.

Buttons, buttons.  If they aren’t frustrating you when you can’t figure out what they do, they’re frustrating you by doing things on their own.  Maybe when the day of everything being voice activated comes along it wil all be better.  Yeah, right.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

 

Buttons, Buttons, They Have Too Many Buttons

Michael 1 Comment

He of We never thought of them as too many until She of We brought it up.  After all, there were only three of them.  But to be honest about it, one was confusing, one didn’t make any changes, and one nobody really knew what it did.  But still, how confusing could it be.  After all, it’s only a toaster.

She of We has been on an anti-button quest for as long as He of We has known her. “All you need is power, volume, and channel,” she often says of the TV remote.  He of We secretly agrees with her but sometimes really just wishes for one remote. The one for the cable that’s suppsoed to run everything never does and the one for the DVD is never there when you need it.  But fewer remotes mean more buttons.  Or does it.  Even if one remote is running three or even four entertainment devices, the commands are as universal as the remotes are supposed to be.  Power, volume, channel, and for the DVD, play and stop.  Throw a “menu” button in for the DVD and the cable and that’s still only 10 buttons.

The point of too many buttons was hammered home the day She of We counted them.  Fifty-three buttons on the cable remote, 32 on the TV remote, 19 on the microwave, and 10 on the coffee maker. Do they all have to be so complicated.  It’s like all of the appliances were designerd by committee.  Perhaps they were.  Hopefully they won’t revolt.

As we’re typing this, we’re counting buttons.  Excluding those for the letters and numbers, this computer has 27 additional buttons.  That’s 27 more buttons than a classic Underwood typewriter of 85 years ago.  And it gets us to the Internet and around the world.  Yet the cable remote has twice as many buttons and it barely gets us around the channel guide.  Like that third mystery button on the toaster, we aren’t actually even certain that they all do anything.

Se here’s our advice for the electrical engineer who is charged with designing people friendly accessories.  Power.  Channel.  Volume.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?