Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

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.

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.

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.

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

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

“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

P much any form of watching tv now.

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.

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.

xp saying that cellphones don't sound as good as landlines.

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

iPod clickwheel RIP

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.

I am terrible at affixing the tag that prints out to my own bag. They always have to redo it.

Neanderthal otm re soda machines. I hate those things to the point where I won’t eat at places that use them. Or if I do then def pass on a drink. I think they change the flavor of the drinks too.

I will never forget the day I dropped a newly fully loaded 256gb ipod classic between a Montreal subway car and platform, instantly assuring its doom

Flat screen TVs all sound terrible and require a sound bar or audio system

The smartphone/battery issue annoys me so much (especially as an IPhone user).
If you’re out for meetings/conferences etc a half day, you’re basically done.
I like their design and all (although I don’t like the big ass big screens, circa iPhone 5 it was fine for me) but it requires to also carry a power plug/alt battery at all time so not really an improvement ...

I really miss those trackballs that bolted onto the side of a laptop and which you controlled with your thumb. I am hopeless at pointing and clicking with a trackpad.

Also, trains with doors that can only be opened when the driver releases them and windows that can't be opened at all.

Flat screen TVs all sound terrible and require a sound bar or audio system

Also, trains with doors that can only be opened when the driver releases them and windows that can't be opened at all.

There is a positive side to that second one...

https://metro.co.uk/2016/08/07/man-decapitated-after-sticking-head-out-of-train-window-6053666/

do landlines really not work during power outages now? because that's the main reason I still pay for one.

We drove to Cardiff to buy the last decent plasma TV before they all went LED. don't ask me but my husband Knows About These Things. So yeah, no idea what we'll do when it goes kaput.

* 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

(xpost to self: lcd not LED; don't emit the crystals)

and yes the classic ipod was great. had one of the first editions - so sleek! so futuristic! it lasted ages although perhaps not 18 years later.

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.

It's also crappy for the staff who have to work these now. They used to sit behind a desk, close to their other colleagues, where they could keep a glass of water or tissues or whatever they needed. Now they have to stand in the middle of the machines and only speak to people who are already annoyed. It is a major inconvenience, and one of the many reasons I cba to fly very much anymore.

Also, maybe it's just the televisions my family buys, but you can no longer see the screen properly unless you are sitting right in front of it.

I will never forget the day I dropped a newly fully loaded 256gb ipod classic between a Montreal subway car and platform, instantly assuring its doom

On that note, the continuing erosion of anonymous/pseudonymous space online. This is bad and people will realise how bad when it’s eventually gone.

― gyac

i mean this was doomed when the internet got taken over by nazis, right? i find a great deal of value in having places to talk about personal stuff that doesn't instantly notify every single person i have ever met, but a large percentage of people who also find a great deal of value in it are nazis and pedophiles. i can't think of any way to protect me without also protecting them.

thru texting taking the place of calls for almost all the things i used to make calls for

I don't find texting comfortable either! It wasn't as bad when my phone's keyboard looked like this: https://www.lg.com/ca_en/images/cell-phones/lg260/gallery/medium02.jpg . (Admittedly, switching languages is easier now.)

those touchscreen menu-based coke machines suuuuuuck and are increasingly common at multiplex theaters, places where you are usually there trying to make a specific time of something and really don't want to wait behind someone figuring out a machine

re: weather: my issue is that any given page I bookmark for weather is filled with all kinds of junked-up shit, OR is way too basic. the absent functional midlde may be a running theme for this thread idk.

agreed about most low-end flatscreen TVs and their built-in speakers - every apartment i've been to to watch a movie in the last couple years, it's been constant "too quiet during dialogue, too loud during explosions" volume adjustment. you can turn on some kind of curve-flattening normalize function on some of them. couldn't say how they compare versus the days of big clunky cabinet TVs with *basically* functional speakers built in, it's been too long and i don't remember how they really sounded.

yeah i bought a blackberry two years ago because my last, clinging-to-life slider phone from like 2011 finally gave up the ghost and thank god, someone extended this slim hope for the physical keyboard.

DC a lot of it is down to how these shows get mixed. a lot of times they're sitting in million dollar rooms and mixing for 5.1 and in that setting it sounds amazing.

sure but the point is everyone else has accepted it sounding like crap

I had to use a cable between my seemingly good LG TV and the router just a few metres away because the...preload(?) compression would get so bad streaming Netflix. Even with the cable it was a problem watching shows on NOW TV for the first few seconds (particularly annoying with e.g. old Futuramas where you would literally not be able to read the joke message at the start. NOW 'solved' the problem by just removing the old Futuramas from their service...).

I will never forget the day I dropped a newly fully loaded 256gb ipod classic between a Montreal subway car and platform, instantly assuring its doom

this post made me break into a cold sweat

― (Appears only as a corpse) (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, August 14, 2019 4:03 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, I cling stubbornly to mine and freak every time my grip slips in the slightest (particularly since that one ridiculous time when I was getting out of a cab and my phone somehow fell out of my pocket and 'nothing but net'-ed directly into a storm drain). It's like walking around with a priceless relic I borrowed from a museum except that my life will basically be over once it's gone from my life.

I finally switched over to listening to podcasts on my phone, instead of taking my ipod classic with me every day.

It's great, except for when I want to listen to music. I was basically using my ipod as a repository for New Orleans music (much of which is not on Spotify), which is usually what I feel like listening to in the car.

This may not count but:

Passport scanning at airports where people can't figure out which way to place them on the glass so it ends up taking the same or more time than a human person looking at it.

Boarding public transport by scanning/beeping your card at a reader taking the same or more time than having to show your ticket to a driver because your card is too close in your wallet to your debit card so the reader gets confused.

Also:

RACIST hand-driers etc.

There is an automatic paper towel dispenser at my daughter's gymnastics gym that will only give me one towel. And I mean I will stand there for up to a minute afterward trying to get a second towel to no avail.

Shaving. Took me years of picking out the minuscule gaps in wilkinson sword 6-bladed monstrosities with a pin before I realised that safety razors were still available, about 10 times cheaper, and never clogged.

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, August 14, 2019 2:45 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

BRING THIS ON. I will stan for forcing EACH AND EVERY DRIVER to use turn signals EVERY TIME.

xp

I've never liked the trend toward the giant, flat Mach 3 style razors. There's a total lack of precision with those.

the really annoying thing abt shaving is that switching over to a safety razor + soap + brush model, which overall is saving me a fortune and giving me a better and less irritating shave, requires wading through sites and instructional videos all completely steeped in obnoxious "culture of old-fashioned masculinity" stuff.

i mean this was doomed when the internet got taken over by nazis, right? i find a great deal of value in having places to talk about personal stuff that doesn't instantly notify every single person i have ever met, but a large percentage of people who also find a great deal of value in it are nazis and pedophiles. i can't think of any way to protect me without also protecting them.

Honestly 90% of my time online is pseudonymous and I generally keep to myself for much this reason because it’s often...not great?...being female online (esp when you’re opinionated like I am.)

Shaving is going to be a lot better once they add that 7th blade, though

Also Simon H’s iPod classic story upset me as I left mine in a taxi a few years back and am still never over it :(

The lesson of self-checkouts isn’t “automation will create machines that work better than humans, destroying jobs in the process.” It’s “automation will create machines that work worse than humans, but in a way that shifts the remaining labour on to the users.”

— alex hern @ santa clara (@alexhern) August 13, 2019

otm

may I offer you an ink “subscription “????

ha I worked one day in a toner pirate call center in the early 90s, I quit right before they fired me

https://i.postimg.cc/Mn6kvKqT/2ZA4sv-C.jpg

ha I worked one day in a toner pirate call center in the early 90s, I quit right before they fired me

oh shit the kind that would send spam faxes?

can’t believe people still send spam faxes in 2026

Spam Faxes are a m/f synth duo operating out of...etc

I might have said it before, quite possibly in this life, but the organisation I work for moved from old-fashioned telephones to new, internet-enabled voice-over-IP phones a year or so ago.

At first it was fine! Then the phone messages started to have a peculiar autotuned quality, as if they were being compressed to high heck and back. And then last week our internet connection completely broke, which meant that we basically had to cancel everything and go home. We couldn't phone anybody because the phones didn't work. We couldn't have lunch because the cafe only accepted digital payments, which weren't working because the phones were down. We had no faith that anything we uploaded to our computer system would stick. Our email client wouldn't send or received anything.

We tried using old-fashioned pen and paper, but our motor skills had deteriorated so thoroughly that the only thing we could write was disjointed, meaningless squiggles. I found a calculator in one of the store cupboards, but despite entering several numbers and pressing the equals sign nothing happened. One of my co-workers remembered that she had once been happy, but that was long ago and she couldn't remember what it was like to have an emotion.

It was like the end of Threads. I turned to one of my co-workers and said "like and subscribe" and she said "hi guys" and I said "like and subscribe" but nothing happened. As we looked at the torn paper and meaningless squiggles I began to feel an emotion, except that I didn't know how to do that any more so there was just sadness. Then the IT people fixed it and it was okay. But for a moment there I felt the cold chill of not being on the internet.

oh shit the kind that would send spam faxes?

the place was unbelievably primitive... a vacant store front, a longhair/skinny tie manager named 'Wolf', shabby cubicles... we would grab yellow pages and just cold call random businesses: "Just wanted to let you know that we're expecting a price hike on toner, you've been a great customer and wanted to do a courtesy call to... " and they would generally hang up. But I got an old guy that said "Well, I guess I better order some" so I hung up on him instead and quit. Total racket, seven bucks an hour or something like that

amazing

reminds me of the Telemarketers documentary

I did some legit political survey calling in Sydney but that was a walk in the park... they weren't trying to trick anyone or sell anything, and I remember most of the people I reached were almost pleased to be called ("Your opinion counts!")... I'm sure those halcyon days are long gone

My husband manages a call center team for a civil rights non-profit. They get paid $18/hr and he makes a decent enough salary, for where we live.

In fall 1993 I made cold calls from the phone book for an insurance salesman who paid me and my friend per appointment we set.

The only thing that made him memorable was that he gave us CDs for a Xmas present and that was our introduction to Uncle Tupelo. I got Buffalo Tom and was disappointed.

After that I worked at the Santa booth taking Polaroids!

One of my odder jobs was when Australia licensed a second telecommunications company alongside the government Telecom/Telstra in the early 90s - I answered a newspaper ad for short term work requiring a home PC (I had something like a 386 DX that I'd put together from components). The job was calling from my home (using their network) to numbers in each of the exchanges across the country - a few hundred I think - and listening to a recording, to rate quality, speed of connection etc. A selection of overseas numbers too, generally hotels where I'd just call the front desk and say hello. It was both interesting and boring, paid pretty well, and I felt an odd sense of ownership when Optus debuted in 1991.