I really hate it when shit's badly made. I find so many shottily made products, sometimes I just need to vent. Like most people, I've used many products made by various manufacturers, and I've narrowed my brand allegance to the few that I believe bulid decent products. For instance, I've used many a laptop in my time and I can honestly say many brands are just plain shit. There are many ways to spot a brand that doesn't care about their products. As example, my old laptop was a Dell Latitude LM something something... Although this laptop performed reasonably well, it had some serious problems staying together. The hinge for the LCD monitor had broken after a few years. At first the hinge just got loose and the monitor would flop around when it was moved, then it broke all together and a bracket behind the LCD unit began pressing against the screen almost destrying it. I dissassembled the laptop to discover the enginners probably found the worst possible way of mounting a screen on a laptop. The hinges from the base of the laptop would were screwed to a thin metal sheet that was sandwitched between the LCD and the plastic casing. The plastic casing had plastic tabs that fit into holes in the metal sheet, and were melted so the metal sheet would be secured to the plastic then the LCD would mount on top. At first the hinge for the screen got loose, which put alot of stress on this metal sheet. The sheet bent thus breaking all the tabs and it came loose between the plastic casing and the monitor. I once went to push the monitor back and the bracked pushed against the back of the LCD almost destroying it. I was not too impressed.Upon a bit of investigation I found that this is a very comomn problem with Dell laptops and has been for many years. My laptop is now 8 years old. Of the 4 friends I know who have Dell laptops, two have broken hinges like mine and one had his LCD destroyed. One other friend had their CD-rom & sound break, while another had his PCMCIA and sound break. Both of these broken laptops are only a few years old. Go Dell... You should get an award for not fixing the same problem for 8 years running.

This vacuum above is a typical household vacuum. It was probably a wall-mart purchase and it shows. After a few years the handle broke off the base. It was held in place by 2 inches of crapy plastic casing and a single screw. The shot above is the fixed vacuum since I did this to it:
I pushed the handle further down into the vacuum and bulit this metal bracket. 8 screws later and one tie-wrap later and the handle is back on. Yay, it's fixed! But this could totally be avoided...Good design is really something to appreciate and admire. Some companies excel and building products that are totally dope, while others build stuff that will last. Some of the most sucessful companies do both... Ahem.. Apple Ahem! I guess where I'm going with this is; take a moment to discover what's well made before you spend your hard earned dollar on stuff like electronics, ski gear or clothes. Companies that build crappy things that ends up in landfills within a few years are just making a few people rich at the expense of us and the environment and don't deserve to be supported. If you buy good stuff that lasts, you'll spend less money in the long run, and your shit won't always be breaking!On a slightly related topic, I'm working on a new Picture gallery for NS!
The reason I mention this after my rant, is that it's taking me a while because I want to do it properly! I've totally blown past my deadline for this (Sorry CK!), but when it's done, it's going to be good! Here is a sample of the new Picture gallery.. still in Beta:
The Gallery Type is a new concept on NS. You will be able to upload images to our server, that won't be automatically made available to the public. But you can then post the image in the forum or comments. Members will be able to change this setting to see their own private images when browsing the gallery. The Image Status setting allows mods to view deleted images so they can discuss them and re-enable if it was deleted by mistake.So we have some good stuff coming... But it will only be release when it's perfect. ;)~Paul