Hmm... so the neurologist was feeding me an urban legend/industry joke rather than an actual (but anonymous) patient account...
Chadnliz, and anybody else who does actually use a remote, my intent was NOT to castigate anybody who uses a remote for any kind of real purpose-- My rant concerns an otherwise very intelligently-designed piece of two-channel audio gear that has a standard remote with 57 buttons, including 14 dual-function ones and four videos. If I can find anybody who has ever taken advantage of even half this number on a given remote, I will be satisfied that there is some niche of the market that actually finds this a real selling point that would tip his purchasing decision toward this device over, say, an identical unit with a rational remote that provided only the basic, useful functions. My invective is driven by my pessimism that NOBODY wants this kind of complexity and overkill in his personal life and it is being forced on us by marketers and designers who subscribe to a phenomenon known as "feature creep." The "drooling idiot" is a character that I am positive does not exist in real life excepting the imaginations of the marketers and designers, a character that they must think characterizes us. The inadequacy I am lampooning is our collective inability to memorize and utilize a 71-function remote on which the only useful buttons are quite small and will be worn out long before the majority are ever touched, except by accident. I do apologize if anybody feels personally attacked. My goal is to encourage anybody who agrees to comment about this insidious trend at point of sale in an effort to influence the marketers and designers-- That would make me happy! The style of my rant reflects the absolute sillyness of the whole subject.
