I’m always baffled about people looking at things like this compartment and don’t think it has any kind of significance whatsoever.
Like do they think it’s just put there fore giggles? How uninterested in the world around you can you be?
It drives me nuts when i encounter people like this.
Not quite fair, since once you know it’s a compartment it’s obvious that it’s for something, but with all the sensors and access panels appliances have that are not user serviceable it’s not that surprising that there could be a plastic panel in the door of your dishwasher that appeared to do nothing.
Really the only thing that might raise an eyebrow is that it is in a door that gets wet so limiting extra things like that would be good, but perfectly reasonable to assume it was for some type of sensor if you didn’t notice the little latch for the door.
There’s a little protrusion in the base to check the height of the water, have you ever closely examined that to see if it says ‘put bleach in here’ or something?
but the door usually snaps and stays open after wasching, so it’s clear that you cand put something in there
My 15 year old dishwasher has a hanging basket for tablets… It also has your standard drawer for tablets / powders / liquids.
The impression it’s given me is, you do you; I’ll spin the hot water and give it my best.
obligatory technology connections comment
Seconded, however:
WARNING:
if you go to Technology Connections YT channel, we are not responsible
ifwhen you find yourself watching a 6 hour play list on light bulbsOr even worse, six hours of video making LED christmas lights look like the incandescent light from 30 years ago.
At least that particular quest is finally at an end
It finally ended‽
Yes, hopefully. For his own sanity. Someone finally made commercially available LED bulbs the way he was trying to DIY it.
But they were a tad pricey…
Should a cheaper alternative come along, won’t we all be curious whether it might suffice? 😇
That was already addressed in his latest video: his local home center (Menards, I think?) came out with a cheaper version (it tried to have old-timey colors, but still used colored LEDs underneath instead of white), and no, it didn’t suffice.
The series about the RCA video disc player thing is WILD. That they made that fucking thing work at all is a testament to what can be accomplished if you throw a huge sum of money and enough smart people at a problem .
I also have strong opinions about Christmas lights.
Unfortunately, they do not perfectly align with Technology Connections. We agree is almost all respects: flickering is bad, purple is not a valid Christmas color, white lights should be warm and not bluish. I just can’t agree about this one thing though, I LOVE the super saturated colors of LEDs for the red, blue, and green lights. I care much less about the saturation of the yellow and/or orange lights.
I agree with you, but my excuse is being in the southern hemisphere where Christmas lights must compete with summer evenings. The bold colours do better at early twilight
Indoors though I like the less saturated colours, and lack of options has had my tree lit with warm white only for the last decade - I get colour only where the white light plays off transparent and reflective baubles (decorations, I think they’re called in America) and tinsel
being in the southern hemisphere where Christmas lights must compete with summer evenings.
That must suck. I don’t even turn on my Christmas lights until the sun’s gone.
It’s all decorations, baubles specifically are ‘ornaments,’ though in the deep south you’ll sometimes hear baubles, but generally only when referencing something as frivolous and stupidly expensive, not in reference to Christmas ornaments.
When I say bauble I’m always referring to one of two things:
-
A mock scepter carried by a court jester.
-
A trifling piece of finery; a gewgaw; that which is gay and showy without real value; a cheap, showy plaything.
😉
In Australia all the ball style things you hang from the tree are definitely baubles, other hanging things are mostly still baubles, candy canes are candy canes and tree toppers are tree toppers varying between stars, angels, and anything else for the non-religious
-
WHY is it so hypnotic??
The subjects are interesting, the script is tight and packed with insight, and he uses the magic of buying two of them
I now say that damn phrase whenever I buy two of anything. No one gets it :(
There’s a third video now (A condensed version I think)
Nice! Thanks for that
Well now I’ve gotta see if he’s on Nebula.
Sadly no. I wish he was.
We all came here to say this ^
The most annoying thing for me is that i can’t find any powder detergent where I live which worked best in his videos, and the compartment is so poorly designed that i frequently find half the detergent pod still in the compartment after the dishes are done.
Wait until he discovers that you can clean the filters at the bottom and get things even cleaner.
This guy clearly doesn’t subscribe to technology connections
…or has much common sense—what did he think that thing on the door was all about.
Wait till this guy discovers he should probably use rinse aid and salt too
Edit: oh…and he’s definitely never cleaned the filter
This guy clearly doesn’t subscribe to technology connections
Guys, guys…guys…
LET’S TALK ABOUT HEAT PUMPS!!! :D
Did you know that most central heaters are over sized and inefficient?
Did you know most residential “car chargers” are just glorified extension cords?
Did you know all but one specific brand of LED Christmas lights fucking suck?
Two brands now! He did it!
Everyone saying to rtfm has not lived in rental housing with the landlord special dish washer. You can only rtfm when you have tm.
But anyway, putting a bit of soap in with your pre wash isn’t a bad idea. Maybe not a whole tablet but then again, maybe they never thought to look for powdered soap before. I certainly didnt until I watched the technology connections video.
In this day and age, a manual pdf is only a search away. All you need is the model number which should be easy to find for any appliance.
I bought a new Bosch dishwasher this year, we’d been using our old broken one as a place to dry dishes for about 2 years. Supposedly this new one has wifi and whatnot. Only ever pushed the “start” button. Yes, I work in IT. 🤷🏽♀️
I refuse to buy a dishwasher with any kind of wifi or network connection in it. This is a hill I will die on. I will wash my clothes with a god-damned washboard before I buy a washing machine with wifi in it.
It’s pretty obvious where they want to take these things. The clothes washer and dish washer companies look at the printer companies with envy. Why do you think they’ve been pushing dish and clothes pods so heavily? Eventually your washing machine or dishwasher will not work off of generic powder or liquid at all. Instead it will only use “cartridges,” plastic boxes maybe the size of 1-lb box of butter. Such a thing would have enough detergent to supply a dishwasher or washing machine for many months. But if they really want to pull the printer game, they need the devices to be wifi enabled so they can let them phone home to keep the DRM working properly.
They are trying to turn dishwashers and clothes washers into printers. That is the ultimate goal of connecting these devices to the net.
I would argue that your career has given you the wisdom to understand how the phrase “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” applies to technology. So you just instinctively know that a dishwasher doesn’t need a network stack to do the job it was built for. And adding one is creating a lot more complexity for very demising returns.
obligatory Technology Connections video on dishwashers
Was gonna say, someone’s not subscribed to Dishwasher and Christmas Lights Rants.
You forgot about the heat pumps! The man LOVES his heat pumps!
Chest freezers
Really anything that involves a bi-metallic strip.
Anything that the budget says can be bought in pairs.
Through the magic of buying two of them…
For good reason. I don’t live in the family home anymore, but last winter when I did move back in for a while, I had approximately half as much work to do keeping the damn place warm, thanks to the heat pump. But I mean sure, I could also just buy one of those fancy newer automatic furnaces to replace the old furnace, and there’d be no work at all! Except that costs at least 5x as much as I paid for a single air to air heat pump that also makes summers bearable.
All this for a relatively modest cost in terms of electricity because yo what the hell, heat pumps are more than 100% efficient when heating. It seems like we hacked physics, honestly.
My parents have a heat pump and they hate it. It can either provide hot water or heating, but not both at the same time. If someone has just had a shower then the heating switches off for hours while it refills the hot water tank. Bullshit in winter.
How big is their accumulation tank? Or did they skimp on getting one?
They’re dope as hell. I got one on my dryer. Shit works fine and uses so much less energy.
Well since nobody else is giving away the spoiler on the 6 hours of technology connections videos( didn’t know there was a third now), it’s to fill the little compartment with the dishwasher manufacturers(not the detergent bottles) recommended amount of detergent and to also add a little bit in the bottom of the dishwasher too to help that pre rinse cycle before the main cycle begins.
I love watching his videos but not everybody does. To those people, you’re welcome
Note that this is only true when not using eco mode, which opens the door right away so you can just chuck the tablet in like a caveman. Mine happens to work well enough in eco mode and the little door tends to get stuck on things, so that’s what I usually do.
If your (modern) dishwasher isn’t cleaning properly in eco mode, either you have very hard water, or you should clean the filter more often.
If you don’t remember when the last time you cleaned the filter is, go clean it now.
As Tech Connections points out, knowing what your water is like is crucial.
I use powdered detergent - 1 Tablespoon in the wash door, one in the prewash. This is about 1/3 of what I’m told to use.
I pretty much trust Technology Connections and their advice is to use the machine’s smart setting (or whatever it’s called on your brand) as the main job of eco is to score well on water and energy usage. Mine has “6th sense” as its second program which is the only program that does a pre-wash
Eco on my machine doesn’t dry the dishes well. We have pretty soft water
Ah, mine straight up doesn’t have a smart setting, but eco mode works for me so I’m using that, no need to waste water and electricity if it works…
Thank you. I got about 1/3 through, checked to see if it was almost over, and proceeded to close the tab.
Technology connections would like to know your location
One of the most useful videos on YouTube that EVERYONE in the world should watch.
- The money saved. I bought a pack of tablets for 10$ a month, now its 15$ a year for the powder. That’s 6.300$ saved in a lifetime
- The amount of waste reduced since there is no individual packaging of the tablets
- The dishes are cleaner than ever
- NO downsides. It’s less work to pour some powder than it is to grab a tablet. Well at least almost no downside: It’s hard to find powder, there are like 15 different tablets in the supermarket and maybe 1 package of powder.
Still, this video improved my dishwasher-life soooo much.
A cheap liquid also works just fine.
That though his episode about can openers also has had improvements to my life
I watched the video and was not really convinced
- 5€ pack of tablets lasts about 3 months for me
- The tablets I buy don’t have a wrapper. They are covered in a clear, plastic like material that dissolve in water
- Can’t comment on this
- Tablets are zero effort compared to powder
Powder is objectively cheaper though.
- Powder is still cheaper. Just less cheap for you since you probably don’t use your dishwasher that much, but it’s cheaper
- The dissolved material is still waste material, the waste is just in the sewage and not in your bin
- I just add this point because of the formatting
- This is subjective, but I think it’s slightly less work. You either have to make sure your hands are dry to not dissolve the wrapper or you have to throw away the wrapper. Either way it’s not a lot of difference
Such a good episode! Or…entry into his YouTube series? Idk what to call it. Just “video” seems wrong.
Additional advice: Clean the dishwasher filter regularly.
the what?
You may want gloves for this one…
Not all of them have one, if yours does and you’re just learning about it, I’m very sorry. But you have a truly terrible job ahead of you.
Ooooooh! Do the washing machine filter next!
Assuming you don’t have a manual to read: First, start with a freshly -emptied clean dishwasher, no spills in the bottom. Wear rubber gloves if you’re easily grossed out. Pull out the bottom drawer. Look in the bottom, you see anything that looks like you could turn it 🛞, with maybe a couple arrows ▶️ ◀️ to line up? Lefty-loosey it, pull it out and take it to the sink, along with any screenlike thingamabobs that come out with it. Run warm water and use hands, sink brush, or scrunge to gently remove all the gunk. You don’t have to abuse it, you want it to last the life of the machine. Also feel in the hole, removing any gunk left behind. If the filter pieces come apart easily, do that, but put them back as they were before reinserting into the machine. Fit it back into the hole and righty-tighty to match up the arrows. Don’t over-tighten! Go rinse out your sink, dry your hands, and set a monthly notification on your phone. It’s much less gross if you do it monthly.
oh that doesn’t sound as bad as i was expecting. thank you for the explanation. i believe i have found the wheel and i will give it a go this coming weekend after i secure some gloves and prepare myself mentally for what’s to come. the reminder thing sounds like a good idea, i have a poor habit of letting some of these home maintenance things slip my mind and the new year might be a good excuse to try to do those things more routinely. we’ll see how it goes.
Even if you find a lot of gunk, remember it’s had hot soapy water washing through it every time you ran the dishwasher, killing a lot of the germs at least.
Oh no
Don’t forget about the seal ring around the washing machine door!
And the HVAC and cabin air, huge laundry list of them it seems
angry Alec noises
We had a new washing machine that for the first two washes smelled really bad and made a screeching noise as well. Just before sending it back I noticed that we forgot to remove the styrofoam around the drum…
Just RTFM?
I read somewhere that around ⅓ of people (at least in my country) are effectively illiterate. They can read but they can’t really understand what they read. They can’t solve logical tasks and would fail for example to take medication according to written instruction. It does explain a lot.
Is your country the USA?
This is a way broader phenomenon than just the US, though granted the US educational system might skew things a bit in a negative direction versus most other supposedly “Developed” Nations.
IMHO, in general very few people have to really think things through in their life or work and most people can live life in what’s pretty much an auto-pilot of habits most of which were picked up in childhood, teen and early adult years, and such people simply don’t have any “training” on figuring complex things out by themselves and will have trouble understanding complex subjects.
Further, the instructions for advanced domain stuff (for example Medicine and some kinds of Tech) are often riddled with domain specific language that people without a broader vocabulary won’t understand.
I call all the autopilot people “Listers” aka, they need a list of steps. If anything happens that the steps do not account for, they get stuck and cannot proceed.
I work in IT support and the number of times I’ve gotten a call from a lister who hit a random, benign dialog during a routine process, called me, and I only clicked “ok” to resolve the concern… Well, it’s too damn high.
The fact that we don’t teach people critical thinking and problem solving in standard (and generally mandatory) education, is baffling to me. Education has become a list of things to memorize in order to pass.
I think that’s less due to low intelligence or poor education it’s just being completely out of their depth. I could probably do a car engine rebuild if I had perfect instructions that tell me EXACTLY what to do (and the right tools). But as soon as I got off track I’d be pretty clueless.
Don’t get started on UI updates to their most used programs.
I’ve worked with sysadmins all over the world and I agree it’s not just a US problem. Lots of people will remember the exact sequence of steps to accomplish a task, but when something goes wrong they don’t know how to read what’s on screen and adapt to it.
that people without a broader vocabulary won’t understand.
That’s why dictionary exists.
If you’ve ever tried to read a foreign language book when your knowledge of the language is merely basic and tried to use a dictionary to solve the problem of many words being unknown, you’ll know how frustrating that becomes and fast - one actually learns faster at the beginning by just keeping on reading even if not understanding a lot of things.
Further some of the “words” are often not words but acronyms, so not likely to be in a dictionary, plus a lot of domain specific words aren’t in general dictionaries either (good luck finding the names of certain chemical chains and their properties in a general dictionary when trying to understand the booklet in a box of medicine).
Last but not least often even the explanations for some words require understanding of some concepts that people do not understand (most people probably know what “analgesic” is, but how many know what “antipyretic” - a not to far away concept given how many common medicines have both - is?).
Things which are supposed to be simple can turn into veritable dives down the rabbit hole to fully understand for those outside that expert domain if they were not simplified for ease of access to the general population, so it’s hardly surprising if many people just chose to blindly use something as advised without even trying to understand it (which, let’s be honest, it’s probably the correct way for most people to used things like for example medicine if the source of the advice is a medical doctor).
Don’t get me wrong: people should be more curious and more often trying and figure things out beyond the merely “how to use”. At the same time, the information that comes with from expert domains in things targeted at non-experts should be as much as possible reduced to common language (though even that is a balance, since a ton of things required several layers of explanation to fully explain to non-experts).
foreign language book when your knowledge of the language is merely basic
There are dictionaries for this too.
one actually learns faster at the beginning by just keeping on reading even if not understanding a lot of things.
Yes and no. I used to do this, but when I sat down with dictionaries and translated one giant chapter of fanfic without skipping unknown words and preserving all jokes, I greatly improved my understanding of foreign language.
so it’s hardly surprising if many people just chose to blindly use something as advised
Many people don’t even have RTFM skill, so they can’t follow advises they didn’t read.
At the same time, the information that comes with from expert domains in things targeted at non-experts should be as much as possible reduced to common language (though even that is a balance,
If you don’t, then expert domain becomes common language. How many people don’t know what voltage is?
since a ton of things required several layers of explanation to fully explain to non-experts).
Try to open wikipedia article for something very common. Soon you will end up reading 5 articles about scientific disciplines and 6 articles about mathematical fields.
It’s funny because i learned 6 foreign languages, 2 of which to fluent level and another 2 to good level (and the other 2 to “I manage to get away with it” level ;)), and the approach of using of a dictionary to learn the meaning of the words which I tried at first didn’t work at all well (it was slower and way more frustrating) and what did work best was just exposing myself to the language (in two different ways for two different languages, one by just consuming media of that language whilst the other by living in a country were people spoke the language) and going along with the flow without worrying about the words I didn’t know, so quite a different experience from that.
Anyways, my point isn’t that most people can’t dig down on things by for example going into Wikipedia or that I wouldn’t prefer if they did, it’s that most people either don’t have the time or the inclination to do so, and expecting them to be different is denying human nature.
In my experience with explaining expert domains to non-experts, you have to try and meet them in the middle, which will pull more people in to try and understand it that merely standing fast on my side of the domain language barrier and demand that the climb that mountain to get to me.
That said, some people will never even try, no matter how much effort you put in making it easy for them, and sometimes it’s not even stupidity (which, as something one is born with, it’s kinda excusable, IMHO), it’s just laziness.
Which other country believes Earth is Flat?
That’s a tiny minority of people and an ultra-specific belief.
I would say that the prevalence of the belief in fairy stories being real (aka Religions, Cults and so on) would be a pretty good indication of just how common and widely spread the Comprehension Handicapped are all over the World.
I think the modern flat earth idea started in the UK but I don’t actually know of anyone who believes it, it’s still very much a “village idiot” thing.
Your username 🥺
For the love of God, and all that is holy…
The ones I know have been born-agains.
Which kinda tracks.
If believing one thing with every fibre of your being is your new foundation stone, dismissing another belief that doesn’t contradict your first one can become tricky.
Even of the literate people, far too few bother reading instructions. People who can read and interpret law texts, but they still click away a pop-up unread when setting up a new phone for example. The only people who I’ve only ever had a good experience with when it came to diligently reading and following instructions + escalating the problem when the instructions were unclear, were professional accountants.
Call communists, they are good at illiteracy elimination.
Powder detergent is much better.
Unfortunately it’s getting hard to find at this point
It makes it really easy to add the tablespoon of detergent to the tub for the prewash as well as the needed dose for the dishes (which is really not much unless you have it loaded with greasy plates)
Technology Connections on YouTube has several relevant videos
I’m getting more and more concerned about microplastics coating the dishes afterwards: powdered detergent helps me feel better about that.
The dissolvable packets of a dishwasher detergent are very different than the forever microplastics that people are worried about. Those are designed to be durable and last while the detergent pods are made to dissolve.
That said the powder detergent is great and SO much cheaper per wash. Also you can put some in the prewash for better washing.
I agree that powdered is better and cheaper.
The microplastics issue is more contentious, and while many say it’s bad that it enters the water supply, I suspect the smallest of the particles do not wash away so well
It’s not the microplastic people are concerned about but it’s a plastic that sticks around in the environment and bioaccumulates.
There are properties we’re good at designing plastics around like hardness, stiffness, and environmental resistance. But there are properties we’re very bad at designing plastics for decomposition, especially alongside niche other traits like water solubility
What is the material coating the pods?
That makes zero sense. Powder is obviously much better, but not because of microplastics.
Target has a store brand detergent that works well. But I find it’s easier to use too much with powder. Compared to gel, It’s harder to control the pour, and if you have too much it leaves a residue.
I’ve never even heard of powdered detergent for the dishwasher. Where does it go in the machine?
the little compartment. and ideally a little just in the machine for the prewash.
as others noted: check the technology connections video(s)
Pretty much every dishwasher has a little door that opens mid cycle.
Plus a little indent for pre-wash detergent
Walmart
If that fails
Amazon, tons of brands for about the same price (yeah yeah I know, Amazon)
I get one with dried goats milk to help with smells edit- this is my laundry soap I am a silly lad sometimes, but the rest applies
I’m confused about what possible reason you could have to say “yeah yeah I know” about Amazon that doesn’t apply at least as much to Walmart.
On a related note, I would like to switch to powdered dish detergent after watching the Technology Connections video, but have stuck with liquid because Costco doesn’t carry powder.
The Bezos make the Walton’s look like good people. That’s not saying much for the Walton’s. It’s saying a lot less for the Bezos. Like grading on a curve and the class was already dogshit but then somebody else came a long and somehow scored negative points on a test.
I’m confused about what possible reason you could have to say “yeah yeah I know” about Amazon that doesn’t apply at least as much to Walmart.
Internet behaviour. Ime people hate Amazon more by default, but they’re both terrible
Yeah Walmart usually has just the one box of Cascade
The one by me (rural) and by my parents (city) both carry Great Value powder, though my local one only carries the smaller box with a pour spout and not the scoop box you can get in the city
I have a friend who does this. I tried explaining to her that she’s doing it wrong. She told me I’m wrong and she won’t discuss it further. I don’t get some people.
Most people hate being wrong, or corrected. They seem to see it as an affront to their very existence, and will often fight back tooth and nail when confronted with any evidence that the things they believe about the world might not be 100% correct.
Source: Any substantial comment thread on any social media platform, ever.
People who are readily willing to admit they’re wrong and learn why, and on the flip side be able to correct others in an educational/non-condescending way, are the best people.
I love those people.
Shut up, nerd.
/s jk <3.
She might be right, it depends on the type of the dishwasher.
Maybe she thinks it’s just vibes.
Mix both worlds. Like I have learned from a very investigative YT video. He tested and measured dishwashing in many different ways, and came to the result that a) tablet in that place in the door is the thing to do, but also b) a bit of dishwasher powder into the little compartment right next to it under the flap. This is for the first cleaning stage, and since we use this trick, our dishwasher runtime (which is dynamically depending on cleanlyness of the dishes) has gone down by about 20 minutes.
Are you referring to Technology Connections video on dish washers? This video
If so, it’s a bad summary. The video advocates against tablets
because they don’t do prewash, if you’re putting a tablet in main wash and powder in prewash, should be fine.
Nope, the one I’ve seen is way older than just six months.
Obviously.
how was that obvious? do you know how much information is on YouTube with 29 different ways to do something?
Tongue in cheek
Yeah exactly, that guy above you is a fucking idiot who brought nothing to the discussion. I’d hate to be related to them, or even use the same brand of cigarettes
How does a machine know whether the dishes in it are clean?
Ask the machine, I don’t know, but it works.
