Engineering. Questions, questions.

[Frank Hipper]

Having a couple engineers arund these parts, I was just wondering what, in your professional opinions, are the most assinine, dangerous, or downright stupid ideas and creations out there? Non professional opinions welcome, also.

[Sea Skimmer]

Foam-cored composite hulls
Short fat warship designs
FAC's after missile armed heilcopters entered service
The entire Chelyabinsk-40 complex. I'm not sure how it could have been worse without an intentional effort to make it so.

[Durandal]

The streets of Chicago.

[aerius]

Funky full suspension mountain bike designs. There's a fair number of designs out there where the layout makes it damn near impossible to do regular maintenance on the bike. Everything gets in the way and it you can't reach the damn bolts to tighten and adjust things for example. A 2 minute job on a normal bike ends up taking the better part of an hour with these damn convoluted designs.

2003 Shimano XTR integrated shifter/brake levers. The brake lever on your bike now does double duty as a gear shifter. There's a zillion parts in there just waiting to break down, and when you crash your bike and snap the lever off you'll be out at least 3-400 bucks. Did I mention that I snapped a lever off just playing with the display sample?

There's lots more, the bicycle world is filled with shitty designs, and I'm the mechanic that has to deal with the shit when they break down.

[Colonel Olrik]

Funky full suspension mountain bike designs. There's a fair number of designs out there where the layout makes it damn near impossible to do regular maintenance on the bike.

Still, things are getting better. The most shitty designs of the First Age are being abandoned.

Anyway, when I have a problem I can't solve I leave it to my.. mechanic.

2003 Shimano XTR integrated shifter/brake levers. The brake lever on your bike now does double duty as a gear shifter. There's a zillion parts in there just waiting to break down, and when you crash your bike and snap the lever off you'll be out at least 3-400 bucks. Did I mention that I snapped a lever off just playing with the display sample?

Bastard. I haven't even seen the Shimano 2003 XTR, except in magazines.
Anyway, XTR is high too complicated. I've never seen a reason to buy higher than XT. The price difference is very big, just to lose a few grams

There's lots more, the bicycle world is filled with shitty designs, and I'm the mechanic that has to deal with the shit when they break down.

And I'm the client who comes too you after really messing up the bike. I also contribute to pay your salary, so don't complain too much

[TrailerParkJawa]

Kitchen appliances with an IP address.
If I need milk I will find out by opening the fridge.

[aerius]

Bastard. I haven't even seen the Shimano 2003 XTR, except in magazines.
Anyway, XTR is high too complicated. I've never seen a reason to buy higher than XT. The price difference is very big, just to lose a few grams

Heh heh heh, one of the perks of my job is that I get to go to industry shows and play with all the new stuff. I've had 3 months of hands on with the 2003 XTR stuff now, and the only half decent parts are the crank/bottom bracket assembly and the disc brakes. The XTR disc brakes are compatible with the XT levers. Even then, the only reason to get those parts is if you somehow had a bunch of money lying around and your bike's been upgraded to the point where there's nothing to spend it on. The parts are pretty though, the shiny polished look is real nice, but that's about the only good thing I can say about it.

I completely agree that there's no real reason to have XTR parts on your bike, unless you're a high level racer who needs the lightest possible bike or you work for a bike shop like I do and get stuff for dealer cost.
Yup, I'm a bastard, and I also have a full '98 XTR kit spread out among 3 bikes!

[Enlightenment]

Kitchen appliances with an IP address.
If I need milk I will find out by opening the fridge.

You've gotta think Big Picture. If your kitchen equipment doesn't have an IP address how will Microsoft know when you've run out of milk and be most vulnerable to house-wide ads (on every device from your fridge to your TV) for the Microsoft House automatic grocery delivery service?

More to the point, if your kitchen equipment doesn't have an IP address how will the Office of Homeland Security know if your trip to the supermarket is a perfectly normal part of your weekly routine or an abnormal trip that could be a warning flag for terrorist activity?

IP-enabled kitchen appliances make perfect sense given the commercial and security objectives of the corporations and republican quasi-humans that are currently in power.

[neoolong]

Spoilers on FWD cars. And other rice features.

Not an engineering problem per se, but still damn stupid.

[Darth Wong]

Unit-body/MacPherson strut suspension. Deployed in tens of millions of cars around the world. It's cheap and it gets the job done, but I hate it. Force-loading from the wrong direction makes the whole thing collapse into the unit-body and you've got to replace half of the front of the car.

Slide into the curb on ice in a car with an A-arm suspension and frame, and you'll be out a few hundred bucks. In a car with a Macpherson strut and unit-body, and you're out thousands, or the car might even be a write-off.

Mind you, this invention is not so idiotic when viewed from the perspective of the car companies, which want to sell you a new car.

[victorhadin]

To add my personal and possibly slightly off-topic opinion as a hobbyist archer, I say loose poorly-designed arm guards. Ideally an arm guard should (although I have never seen any like it) be significant and attached with velcro, and thus able to fit snugly around the forearm and would not easily slip. There isn't much that's more painful than having your bowstring slice off some skin when you are distracted as a result of your incompetance and a loose guard.

Other things....

Its not really a design flaw, as it increases fuel efficiency and serves a good purpose, but propfans on engines mounted close to the fuselage of airliners. In reality they are little more dangerous then standard turbofans, as though a blade loss could result in the rear of the plane being sliced off, it is very, very unlikely to do so and a shorn turbine blade could fly out of the engine and pierce the fuselage just as easily.
-However it is an aesthetic nightmare, and one of many reasons they are not more common is the typical person will picture the image of the rear of the aircraft getting shorn off should a blade be lost and fly into the fuselage.