Time saved

Take off, scrape and grease the car battery terminals.

Oddly house related jobs have remained much the same IME - only cars have got easier (apart from the radio recording you mentioned).

But now I have:

Hoover and blow dust out of computers;

Check wallwarts for overheating and damage;

Tim Watts wrote in news:46d3tb-4bf.ln1 @squidward.dionic.net:

And the keboard needs hoovering!

And Check Remote Controls for corroding batteries.

That's something thats mising from modern TV's. No horizontal hold horizontal form, vertical hold and vertical form to play around with. In the old days there was sometimes a real sense of achievement, with maybe extra points when using an indoor aerial in just being able to get a decent picture. Never mind the quality of the programmes.

Maybe one of the manufacturers could bring out a retro model which simulated all of the old faults in software which nostalgic punters could rectify by getting down on their hands and knees and twiddling tiny knobs around the back of the set/screen.

michael adams

...

Every 6 months.

Talking of which - replacing the car brake pads seemed to be a yearly event.

I just had mine checked today after some previous observations they were running thin (based on cursory inspection as part of some tyre changes).

Turns out still got 50% left, 70% on the fronts! After 54,000 miles!!!!

By the time the pads have gone the discs will be shot too (1-1.5mm wear right now).

If time is money, the OP should have saved a lot by now

Don't forget to simulate a selenium rectifier going bad

NT

Winding up a watch or clock.

Although to be fair I still do that.

Replacing discs seems to be a money spinner for the garages. If they are not worn then they are warped.

TVs - many old colour sets had a panel of knobs that could be hinged up to the top pf the set so you could see what you were doing. The trouble was that the wires were a bit brittle.

I believe its par for the course now; disks every other set of pads. I was told this has come about since asbestos was taken out of the pads - they are now much more abrasive.

On the plus side this has made disks relatively cheap - I had a set of warped ones replaced back when they weren't changed as regularly. It cost a (relative) fortune.

Clean and gap spark plugs.

Don?t agree with that with timber windows alone.

I never do that at all.

I don?t do that either. I don?t even have them fail anymore.

Do have to change the battery in laptops tho at times.

And have to charge the damned smartphone a lot more than I ever had to with stupid phones.

Still have to keep replacing toasters as they die.

And I've now got 6 convection ovens, tho 3 of them are still working.

Don?t have to waste considerable time washing dishes every day, the dishwasher does all that now.

Pressure washers leave the alternatives for dead.

Don?t have to fart around with a map writing down the numbered routes to follow when moving around a big city that you aren't familiar with, let the smartphone tell you what to do at each intersection instead.

Sat-nav has been the biggest time-saver of all in my life. I havn't studied a paper map in a lay-by since 2006.

That's not at all what I usaed to study in lay-bys...and probably Adam didn't either.

The dishwasher was a much bigger time saver for me, essentially because it was a daily chore that I hated as a kid and when I got to do what I liked, it still wasted a lot more time than the paper maps or map book did.

Last time I did it must have been in the mid 80s.

And I do it a lot more now I do the garage/yard sale run weekly.

Still not as much as daily washing the dishes by hand tho.

The smartphone charging is nothing like as much of a nuisance.

You don't need a new set, just an app for your smart TV ;)

Maybe there is a market for a USB plugin accelerometer, so you can practice some percussive maintenance.

In message , Tim Watts writes

Read and post to Usenet :-)