[conspire] Flashing twelves (was: Twitter successors)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> Early on, kitchen appliances tended to have buttons labeled "clock
> set".  Not so the typical VCR.  And the manual, assuming you could
> find it, was often not well written, at least for English readers.
> The industry has come a long way in making better user interfaces.

The inevitable race to the bottom on cost stands in the way, because
although the electronics to support decent user interfaces has long been
part of the baseline "chip with enough grunt to control a clock-radio"
spec, it's always tempting to omit the physical buttons and panel
markings to provide a clear UI, not to mention likewise not-free
designer time and effort.

So, the "set the time" UI gets shoehorned onto already-needed controls 
overloaded with little "H" and "M" notations to indicate "if switched
into a specific mode, your volume control can adjust minutes, and your
tuning knob can adjust hours".

The resulting puzzle is typically not brain surgery, yet a very large
fraction of the public cannot be bothered.  Whether there's a manual and
whether it makes sense is immaterial, to them.