I was watching a programme about Nokia which mentioned how Apple came along with its massive touchscreen, which sacrificed battery life and durability i.e. we all now accept that a phone battery will need charging at least every night and if we drop the phone the screen will shatter, which wasn't the case before. There must be tons of these?
My own personal bugbear is how you used to be able to change the TV channel with a remote instantaneously rather than having to wait a couple of seconds after pressing the button and now that's seemingly impossible.
On a larger scale it's probably a backwards step that everyone is expected to have a recent smartphone to conveniently do loads of things (show your boarding pass, or whatever) and shit stops being supported within a few versions. Music compression too. But I guess I'm thinking of specific annoyances that shouldn't even be problems.
I was only half-watching the Nokia programme so please feel free to correct my comprehensive history of Apple there.
― kinder, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:14 (four years ago) link
the original gameboy lasted about eight years through new release support and actual durability of the hardware
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:17 (four years ago) link
Everybody's landline used to work in a blackout.
― mick signals, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:33 (four years ago) link
^^ good one, also you can no longer get DC power from landlines
― sleeve, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:34 (four years ago) link
taking the headphone jack away
Audio fidelity/quality was better with landlines too.
― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:39 (four years ago) link
sez you, "Telecom"
― kinder, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:41 (four years ago) link
:)
at my gym i have to log in on a giant touch screen to run on the fucking treadmill. the other day it asked me if i wanted to install updates. hl;kjalkjh;asgdhl;kasgd
― cheese canopy (map), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:44 (four years ago) link
― kinder, 14. august 2019 00:14 (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Wait, what?
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:51 (four years ago) link
oh god please just go away
― cheese canopy (map), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 22:54 (four years ago) link
iPod clickwheel RIP
― Come and Rock Me, Hot Potatoes (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:00 (four years ago) link
Audio fidelity/quality was better with landlines too
Right? It used to actually be enjoyable to talk on the phone (not to mention that handsets were much more ergonomic/comfortable/seemed less likely to induce brain cancer), no wonder phone calls seem like an intrusive nuisance now.
― change display name (Jordan), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:06 (four years ago) link
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/08/the-us-navy-says-no-to-touchscreens-maybe-automakers-should-too/
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:06 (four years ago) link
I realized too when I got an iPhone for xmas how much it suffered from an absence of the trackball on my old phone.
― Come and Rock Me, Hot Potatoes (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:12 (four years ago) link
The iPad was a bit of a stumble -techno beaver
― calstars, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:13 (four years ago) link
remote control thing is a great example. that drives me crazy any time i'm in a hotel or something and just want to enjoy the mindless zone-out of channel surfing. related: TVs coming with "motion smoothing" turned on by default and sometimes with no option to turn it off.* many websites/apps/etc. have gotten slower and junkier as they've added features, loaded up with data-draining graphics and videos and scripts. like, just trying to see what the hourly weather forecast for tomorrow is involves a lot more clicking and waiting than it did a few years ago. google maps is another one that's gotten a lot shittier.* new laptops with only USB-C ports so that to make this sleek, elegant thing fully functional and do basic things you need to buy an expensive dongle and have it hang awkwardly off the apple lust object.* also in general, laptops replacing desktops for a computer that remains at a desk at all times --- massively worse ergonomically and less computer for your money.* not to make this a physical media thread but def all the downsides of the streaming world belong here. but obv there are many tradeoffs.* general trend of offloading labor onto unpaid customers (self check out, surveys, pressure from amazon to answer support questions for products you've bought, etc.).* death of big-budget 2D animation (in hollywood anyway). history is littered with these of course, cf. invention of agriculture and human health/life expectancy/society. or cars replacing transit networks, all of those stories. or at a pettier level, all the changes in shaving since idk the 1960s or 70s.
― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:26 (four years ago) link
i hung onto my landline for longer than most people and in the early days of cellphones it was infuriating talking to anyone on theirs because the audio quality was terrible. it's better now but still not as good as landlines were.
― visiting, Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:50 (four years ago) link
the substitution of plastics for paper, cloth, wood, and metal (not as acceptable as it used to be but never more pervasive)
― Brad C., Tuesday, 13 August 2019 23:58 (four years ago) link
Color printer/scanners are a now an everyday cheapish appliance but their rate of malfunction makes them barely worth the trouble. A black and white laserjet that couldn’t scan shit would cost you an arm but you could be sure that sucker would turn out pages for ages, iirc.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:02 (four years ago) link
A lot of fast fashion type stuff bugs me, like having to actually look for cotton underwear.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:08 (four years ago) link
as someone who lives in a country where you wear gloves several months out of the year, i daily cursed the engineer who introduced thumbprint unlock as the default on the iPhone
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:10 (four years ago) link
the default of ‘pick up your phone and look at it before we reveal the content of a text’ on the iPhone ten also a v stupid idea
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:11 (four years ago) link
A black and white laserjet that couldn’t scan shit would cost you an arm but you could be sure that sucker would turn out pages for ages, iirc.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, August 13, 2019 5:02 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Brother still makes products of this caliber and they aren't disturbingly expensive.
― president of deluded fruitcakes anonymous (silby), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:18 (four years ago) link
at a pettier level, all the changes in shaving since idk the 1960s or 70s.
― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, August 13, 2019 4:26 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
development of laser hair removal is a big improvement tbh
― president of deluded fruitcakes anonymous (silby), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:19 (four years ago) link
Color printer/scanners are a now an everyday cheapish appliance but their rate of malfunction makes them barely worth the trouble.
Not to be a commercial but after years of having problems with inkjet printers and generally feeling like they were the most unreliable piece of technology in existence, I bought an Epson Eco-tank and it has been life-changing. I actually love my printer now and wouldn’t trade it for anything. 100% reliable, scans and prints great, I haven’t had to refill it yet and I’ve had it for... 2 years? No more of the seemingly constant cartridge replacements. /commercial
― epistantophus, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:22 (four years ago) link
Of course, that’s the opposite of what this thread is about.
― epistantophus, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:24 (four years ago) link
I just had a 1958 Grundig tube radio repaired, it sounds amazing; finding someone who could work on it was the hard part
it wasn't really so long ago that devices like radios, TVs, stereo components, and even personal computers were designed to be repaired and kept in service for many years; now the same kinds of devices go directly to the landfill as soon as they fail, if not sooner; the fact that the replacement devices are cheaper and more capable than the junked ones is not a particularly impressive sign of progress
― Brad C., Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:37 (four years ago) link
The loss of institutional knowledge about how to build heavy-duty, reliable liquid propellant rocket systems has had a massive impact on space programs around the world. Now somebody tell me they have a way to get to the moon just fine.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:45 (four years ago) link
I’m gonna be really anxious when the time comes to buy a new TV because the one I have has been so good for so long *raps on wooden table*
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:47 (four years ago) link
i was curious about buying a new tv - i haven't had one since the mid 90s, a portable black-and-white model from the 80s passed on to me from my parents - and the enormous variations in crazy features and too-good-to-be-credible prices just made me give up
― j., Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:53 (four years ago) link
I started with the knowledge that I wanted a Sony of a certain size with a certain number of HDMI inputs and went with that, I think?
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 00:59 (four years ago) link
i recently had ceiling fans installed, and we got the ones with lights built in
too late i realised that to turn the lights on and off we now need to fumble around with a dinky battery powered remote
curse a society that no longer understands that light switches should be easy to find in the dark
(also every button press is accompanied by an annoying beeping sound that can't be muted)
― umsworth (emsworth), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 01:00 (four years ago) link
that everything has a remote is ridiculous.
― Yerac, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 01:02 (four years ago) link
Wait, I've never turned lights on or off with a battery-powered remote. That is not a backward step I accept!
Landlines, though. Still had one until 2011. I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person who finds it physically difficult to converse satisfyingly on a smartphone.
― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 01:08 (four years ago) link
i hate talking on the phone now, it makes me antsy and eager to get off the phone. but i don't know if that is something abt the phone itself, or how my expectations and practices around phones have changed, esp thru texting taking the place of calls for almost all the things i used to make calls for. and the ppl on the other end feeling the same way and distracted and eager to get off the phone too.
― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 01:24 (four years ago) link
everyone hates talking on the phone now. it's social anxiety and because we have so many job related activities where one is on the phone all the time.
― Yerac, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 01:28 (four years ago) link
although my mom still chats away like she is teenager of the year.
It used to be that after CRT and plasma declined, televisions were a forced compromise: backlit LCD or nothing, which suck for watching films (bad shadow levels, motion smoothing, etc etc). I white-knuckled the gap between plasma and OLED by self-repairing my plasma when the power supply failed, and then buying a used plasma which got me through (barely, with lines on the screen and driver failures) just until the OLEDs came down enough for me to consider an end-of-line clearance price.Now of course I have the best TV of my life - it's kind of ironic because my film library is worth probably 5-10 times as much as the screen I watch them on.
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 02:05 (four years ago) link
Landlines were easier to have a conversation on because it was in real time. Cellphones have gotten better, but they're still bouncing audio off of metal towers like a pinball machine. Landlines were the technological final product of an evolution that began with two cans and a piece of string, and worked just fine.
I have the same tv remote problem with my microwave.
Are there really cars out there that combat drowsiness by not letting itself drift over any white or yellow line unless the blinker is on?] Because I will lose my shit, that's all there is to it.
― pplains, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 02:45 (four years ago) link
things have gotten a bit better, but even as the early playstation era was happening i remember thinking "wow it sucks that i have to wait 15 seconds for every other screen to load". that was in stark contrast to the near-instant load times of the cartridge based systems at the time and of the recent past.
of course, we were all more than willing to wait as long as it took to gedda load of them polygams
https://i.imgur.com/KKf0O1X.jpg
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 02:49 (four years ago) link
When you buy a new video game and it has to spend an assload of time downloading "updates" before you can play the fucking thing.
Also Denny's getting rid of the Breakfast Dagwood
― i'd rather zing like a man, than FP like a coward (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:00 (four years ago) link
“like, just trying to see what the hourly weather forecast for tomorrow is involves a lot more clicking and waiting than it did a few years ago”(since you’re not opposed to using google:) google “(city) weather” once, ctrl+h “wea” for every instance after
― quelle sprocket damage (sic), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:04 (four years ago) link
P much any form of watching tv now.
― i'd rather zing like a man, than FP like a coward (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:23 (four years ago) link
Are you guys saying landlines don't sound as good as they used to, or that cellphones don't sound as good as landlines? I agree with the latter, but as for the former, my landline still sounds great. I would never have a conversation on my cellphone unless I was away from home.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:30 (four years ago) link
We have a landline so we can put the number on paperwork, and for “just in case.” I think we turned the ringer off two years ago. It sits behind the dehumidifier in our master bedroom.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:55 (four years ago) link
xp saying that cellphones don't sound as good as landlines.
― visiting, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 04:56 (four years ago) link
Coca Cola Freestyle machines. Ok...i love em. But...
Soda fountains in the past, usually your biggest problem was the soda came out flat because the bag needed to be changed. So maybe your number one choice isn't available, but other stuff is. Also, multiple people can fill their shit at the same time.
But with these fuckin machines, if you are unlucky enough to go to a store with only one machine, you gotta wait behind the dummy who can't figure it out.
Then when you get there, sometimes they're out of like every diet product, but you don't find out until you click on it and try to pour it, it stops, and greys out.
And then sometimes the shit just malfunctions and nobody in the restaurant knows how to fix it because they gotta call some help line. And if none of the machines work, you gotta wait in kine and get someone at the counter to pour you a drink
― i'd rather zing like a man, than FP like a coward (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 14 August 2019 05:23 (four years ago) link
― gyac, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 05:26 (four years ago) link
Oh and inspired by Neanderthal’s post just now! Automated airport bag drops - just an awful scourge and take far more time than having someone check the suitcase and slap the sticker on it for you. Goes double if you’re stuck behind people who are confused by this (naturally). Waited fifteen minutes behind a family checking in three suitcases the other day - there should have been staff to help them.
― gyac, Wednesday, 14 August 2019 05:29 (four years ago) link
And maybe this qualifies as a backward step too! So the closest one is the price the yemeni market charges plus tax … as in the total I pay is the same as at the yemeni market… the second closest one actually adds tax to the amount the closest one charges for a pack plus tax … basically they double tax. The one in Berkeley across the street from the good donut shop actually does it as tax inclusive … so it ends up being 10% cheaper than most everywhere else except Walgreens… however I have to drive to el Cerrito to get to a Walgreens that sells cigarettes… Yea smoking is bad and I should quit.
― sarahell, Sunday, 28 April 2024 01:05 (one month ago) link
i see duckduckgo releases updates that breaks their search engine now
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Thursday, 23 May 2024 07:49 (one week ago) link
I was fairly enthusiastic about shifting to duckduckgo for a short while, but it's never really lived up to expectations at all and haven't bothered with it for a while.
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 23 May 2024 07:57 (one week ago) link
i've been using it pretty unthinkingly for a number of years but it isn't any better than google at finding relevant results afaict and is often worse. i put up with it out of google spite. but yes having your website not work at all not ideal
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 23 May 2024 09:09 (one week ago) link
I've been using duckduckgo the last couple of years, honestly seems pretty much equivalent to google for the kind of searches I do (90% coding related stuff), though not right now obviously
― silverfish, Thursday, 23 May 2024 13:17 (one week ago) link
i like a lot of the built in protections and functionality and probably use these as much or more than i do almost any other similar type of "you'll need to select and configure some stuff here" options in any other technology
but the search results are tbh trash
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Thursday, 23 May 2024 13:46 (one week ago) link
DDG & google seem about the same these days but that’s only because google deliberately broke google a while ago
― subpost master (wins), Thursday, 23 May 2024 13:50 (one week ago) link
I feel like this is completely insane but I'm paying $4/month for kagi for search now because it's the least bad.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 23 May 2024 14:17 (one week ago) link
isn't DDG essentially just a privacy-protecting interface for using Bing? meaning it's not that DDG is a bad search engine, it's that it's not really a search engine at all and Bing sucks (ftr I use DDG)
― rob, Thursday, 23 May 2024 14:32 (one week ago) link
DDG search results used to be good but took a turn for the worse at some point a while back.
Has anyone else been getting weird search results from DuckDuckGo lately? For example, I can enter the name of a website and none of the results will be the website's home page (whereas Google will give me the home page as first result). It's not always doing this but it's been happening enough lately for me to notice it.― visiting, Saturday, January 1, 2022
― visiting, Saturday, January 1, 2022
― Kim Kimberly, Thursday, 23 May 2024 14:38 (one week ago) link
Every time I watch a DVD I remember how much more of a pleasant and user-friendly medium it is, by every conceivable metric, for viewing films (as opposed to streaming)
― Paul Ponzi, Thursday, 23 May 2024 17:26 (one week ago) link
My opinion of DDG has never really shook its adoption by Pizzagate and associated nutters (which was the first and for a long time the last I heard of it)
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 23 May 2024 18:32 (one week ago) link
also using kagi now
― stet, Thursday, 23 May 2024 20:55 (one week ago) link
mmm have been mulling this
and orion, except it doesn't seem like it integrates with keychain
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 23 May 2024 22:40 (one week ago) link
I have heard both good and bad things about Kagi, may check it out.
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 23 May 2024 23:11 (one week ago) link
just learned that metacrawler still exists lol
― mookieproof, Friday, 24 May 2024 03:10 (six days ago) link
> I have heard both good and bad things about Kagi, may check it out.
i pay 10 bux a month for kagi and at first it felt refreshing but all they talk about is their AI shit now and their results feel less great after the honeymoon period
― paul mccartney and wigs (diamonddave85), Friday, 24 May 2024 03:13 (six days ago) link
I'm not paying for anything called Kagi
― Alba, Friday, 24 May 2024 06:21 (six days ago) link
Same
― z_tbd, Friday, 24 May 2024 06:25 (six days ago) link
iSearch.
Or mySearch
― z_tbd, Friday, 24 May 2024 06:26 (six days ago) link
occurs to me that while Google is terrible, it still may not be possible to go back to anything good, the internet is just so full of shit now that filtering it out seems like a sisyphean task.
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 24 May 2024 06:40 (six days ago) link
Does One Line Fix Google?
Forget AI. Google just created a version of its search engine free of all the extra junk it has added over the past decade-plus. All you have to do is add "udm=14" to the search URL.
― Kim Kimberly, Friday, 24 May 2024 06:55 (six days ago) link
Every time I watch a DVD I remember how much more of a pleasant and user-friendly medium it is, by every conceivable metric, for viewing films
Not sure I agree? Noisey; need to find it, take it out and put it back; unskippable copyright notice; unskippable trailers; unskippable anti-piracy video…
― Chewshabadoo, Friday, 24 May 2024 12:42 (six days ago) link
scratchable
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Friday, 24 May 2024 12:52 (six days ago) link
You wouldn't SCRATCH a DVD
― kinder, Friday, 24 May 2024 13:05 (six days ago) link
Trailers you can skip over though, I always do.
― henry s, Friday, 24 May 2024 13:20 (six days ago) link
find it out, take it out and put it back vs search every one of your services to see if they have it (or use justwatch, which is only accurate some of the time), fire up vpn to see if it's available in other territories...I'd say it's a toss up, and at least you can make your own dvd library more easy to find stuff in
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 24 May 2024 13:21 (six days ago) link
Also easier to impress people with the Criterion Collection titles on your shelf.
― henry s, Friday, 24 May 2024 13:36 (six days ago) link
I'm definitely tempted to go back to buying physical media for movies, but the one thing I dislike about physical media is that it takes up physical space.
― silverfish, Friday, 24 May 2024 14:50 (six days ago) link
Friends better appreciate my 4K of Tammy and the T-Rex or they're cut out of my life
― Nhex, Friday, 24 May 2024 15:19 (six days ago) link
I sometimes miss extras and outtakes / blooper reels. Don't miss unskippable anything.
Also using DVD chapters allowed one to watch Memento in forward sequence
― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 24 May 2024 15:54 (six days ago) link
physical media idgi
having drives full of the versions you want seems the best approach no?
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Friday, 24 May 2024 15:55 (six days ago) link
are drives not physical media?
― koogs, Friday, 24 May 2024 16:10 (six days ago) link
for whatever reason the "Web" option isn't available to me when i'm logged in, only when i'm logged out. what the fuck google?
― paul mccartney and wigs (diamonddave85), Friday, 24 May 2024 16:13 (six days ago) link
dealing with backing up drives is a pita
― brimstead, Friday, 24 May 2024 16:25 (six days ago) link
I guess it’s the more environmentally responsible approach
self-checkout lanes at stores are a problem, i've had so many instances where the scanner freaks out and freezes up because i supposedly didn't place an item in the bagging area (i always do, because it says PLEASE PLACE ITEM IN THE BAGGING AREA) and i stand there like a chump waiting for a store employee to come and fix it. it happened again the other day and i was told "it got confused because of the item's weight", and i have no idea what that meant.
― omar little, Friday, 24 May 2024 16:42 (six days ago) link
some very light things just don't register. it sometimes help to just press the bagging area with your hand briefly.
(you do realise the bagging area is scales, yes?)
― koogs, Friday, 24 May 2024 17:27 (six days ago) link
i think the confusing part is i'm not under the impression all bagging areas are scales, seems like several chains near me are just "areas" and others are scales. maybe i'll try the hand thing but what if i push too hard, or not hard enough?
https://giffiles.alphacoders.com/114/114236.gif
― omar little, Friday, 24 May 2024 17:36 (six days ago) link
Lol - I had a meltdown at a self-checkout recently where it was like "Choose One: A) Emailed Receipt B) Text Receipt C)Printed Receipt" and I didn't want ANY fucking receipt but that's not an option so the clerk had to come over and help me
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 24 May 2024 17:41 (six days ago) link
But I rarely deal with self-checkout as I'm invariably buying some form of booze
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 24 May 2024 17:42 (six days ago) link
option D) shove receipt up your AI-ass!
― Iacocca Cola (Neanderthal), Friday, 24 May 2024 17:45 (six days ago) link
Wait, the bagging area is SCALES
― just like Christopher Wray said (brownie), Saturday, 25 May 2024 01:12 (five days ago) link
Yea, Dorian
― Iacocca Cola (Neanderthal), Saturday, 25 May 2024 01:18 (five days ago) link
Would you like a receipt is functionally the "you've paid, you can go now" part of the experience, though?
― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 25 May 2024 09:33 (five days ago) link
in Sainsbury's if you answer the "receipt?" question before packing it starts nagging you soon afterwards. if you leave it hanging you get more time.
― koogs, Saturday, 25 May 2024 11:58 (five days ago) link
keep reading stories about stores like walmart getting rid of self-checkout because people just steal and steal and steal. which is funny. they put them in so they wouldn't have to pay people to be cashiers.
― scott seward, Saturday, 25 May 2024 12:26 (five days ago) link
in my local sainsburys now you need to scan the code on the receipt to open the gate and leave.
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 25 May 2024 12:35 (five days ago) link
― sarahell, Sunday, 26 May 2024 16:35 (four days ago) link