My three year old daughter wanted a radio controlled car, so I go to the toy store and take a look at some of the cheaper models.
The cheapest cars do not have proportional steering, which means that, as you use the steering wheel on the radio transmitter nothing happens to the front wheels until you reach almost the extreme position of the steering wheel, then the front wheels snap to an extreme position. This make them harder to steer, but cheaper to manufacture.
So, I was looking for the cheapest model with proportional steering. And I pick out one with stickers on the transmitter saying “digital proportional”.
I made the purchase, got it wrapped and brought it home. She imidiately fell in love with it. When I got to try it, I soon discovered that it did not have proportional steering at all.
So why did it have stickers saying “digital proportional”? I guess that words in the English language are just decorations to the Chinese that make these toys. The semantics (and often the syntax) are of no consequence to these people. I can’t imagine that they would lie to us, just to move products. Can you?
I guess I could have taken it back to the shop and made a fuss, got my money back and soon become forgotten.
What I would really like is to make enough fuss to actually change the practice of using semantic elements as decorations. But then my friend who runs the store would think I was a freak for getting upset over a stupid sticker.
Besides, the owner of the car loves it, so she would cry if I took it away from her, even if it lacks proportional steering.
So all I can do is to try and forget the whole thing and ignore the threeposition steering.
Aaah. Sweet apathy, come and take me into thy bosom, protect me always from myself.
