• RBWells@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Well, my youngest child saw me opening a can recently and yelled “THAT’S how you use it?!” They had apparently been holding it horizontally and thinking the can opener sucked.

    • vrek@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      How old are they? If they are 4 that’s cute, if they are 24 I’m concerned for their safety.

      • Mothra@mander.xyz
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        11 months ago

        In their defense, some models of horizontally held can openers look very similar to the vertical ones and it takes me a few attempts until I figure out I’m holding it wrong… No can opener I’ve used worked by suction though

      • RBWells@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Teenager. I think the one in their culinary class in school must have worked horizontal, or perhaps people in tiktok videos and they were somehow managing to use mine that way, painfully slowly. I didn’t know there even were horizontal can openers until I saw them trying to open a can. Mine is an ancient OXO one that still works great. Vertically.

    • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      They most certainly learned to use one of those top-cutting types rather then the vertical cutters. Completely different tool and I can see how that would be confusing.

    • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 months ago

      I haven’t seen a can that needs an opener in decades. I don’t even think I have an opener.

      • vladmech@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Do you not buy canned goods? Most everything we get needs an opener: veggies, beans, tomato paste/sauce, basically nothing has a pull tab.

        • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          11 months ago

          All my cans have pull tabs. I just checked: tomato, chickpeas, beans…

          Not one can without a pull tab.

          • vladmech@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            That’s so weird to me; whereabouts are you from? I’m in California and just looked through my cans and maybe 10% of them have pull tabs. Apparently we have the jank can tech here haha

            • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              11 months ago

              I’m in the Netherlands. I thought globalized supply chains would keep our canned produce in sync, but apparently I thought wrong!

              I wonder if it’s some weird patent issue.

              • vladmech@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Big Can Opener is keeping the US down apparently! Really interesting to find these differences, have a great day and a nice time opening your more convenient cans!

              • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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                11 months ago

                It’s certainly to do with the fact that nobody wants to pay for new machinery when the old ones still work. As things break, I should think that we’ll see more items use pull tabs. FWIW Europe is way ahead of North America on this.

            • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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              11 months ago

              Having to use a can opener is really a North American thing. The rest of the world moved past that long ago.