The automatic-drip electric coffeemaker is the source of so much poor craftsmanship and so many good-but-obviously-not-fully-thought-through ideas that I can't look at one without shaking my head.

Most obviously, the carafes seldom pour worth a damn. Being able to pour a cup of coffee without making a mess is a feat worthy of a standing ovation. Having made hundreds of ceramic pitchers myself, I can tell you that it's not that hard to make a spout that works. How the coffeemaker folks can manage to make millions of them that don't is a mystery.

Then there are the coffeemakers with the little spring-operated drip-stop features that let you pour a cup before the batch has completely finished brewing without making a mess. They do that job pretty well, but they regularly hang up, overfill the brewing basket, and make a royal mess. The worst offenders are the ones with removable carafe lids that must be put on properly to prevent basket overflows. Don't the morons who design these things realize that the people who are going to be using them have usually just woken up and that they're not fully capable of doing anything that requires memory, logic, or more than three sequential steps? Granted, most carafes for drip-stop featured coffee-makers nowadays do have supposedly idiot-proof non-removable lids, but even they can create overflows if the carafe isn't fully inserted into its little nook.

And there's my current coffeemaker which exhibits a design flaw so fundamental that I can't imagine how the thing ever got on the market. The carafe holds more water than the water reservoir! I kid you not. If you fill the carafe anywhere near completely full of water and pour it into the reservoir, it overflows. If making something work involves filling A with a substance and pouring it into B, even the most lame-brained simpleton should know that B has to have at least the holding capacity of A!

And another thing that makes no sense to me is coffeemakers with a "dial-a-brew" type feature that allows you to make stronger or weaker coffee using the same amount of ground beans. If three scoops makes too strong a pot of coffee to suit you, just keep on putting three scoops in the basket, but turn the little knob to "less strong" and it performs some coffee weakening magic. Why not just put fewer scoops in the basket?