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

The iPad was a bit of a stumble
-techno beaver

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.

Audio fidelity/quality was better with landlines too.

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.

the substitution of plastics for paper, cloth, wood, and metal (not as acceptable as it used to be but never more pervasive)

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.

A lot of fast fashion type stuff bugs me, like having to actually look for cotton underwear.

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 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

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.

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

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

Of course, that’s the opposite of what this thread is about.

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

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.

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*

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

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?

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)

that everything has a remote is ridiculous.

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.

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.

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

Watch five or six great ape (gorilla, orangutan) videos in a row and you will be deluged with gorilla content forever.

And clothing… though I will resent getting ads for clothes that don’t come in plus sizes… especially since so much of purchasing and search history is “plus size”…. Today I got an ad telling me I should book a hotel for when I go see Pulp … I live 8 miles away. They should know this

but at least it prompted you to organise the pre-Pulp fap (in the future)

Space bar makes the video pause. Except when it instead selects the buttons on the video, a thing I have never once wanted to do.

* The web gradually filling up with images in strange, nonstandard formats, indigestible by a lot of very widely-used software: .webp, .heic, .avif...

that’s what people used to say about .png files, a format that was partially adopted as an alternative to the patent-encumbered .gif
(gif’s default compression scheme fell out of patent in 2003)
also at least one of those you mentioned was developed by a working group of note and is an ISO standard. my guess is you’re referring to Adobe’s heel-dragging on any format that’s not a new camera raw format

.webp can go straight to hell, back where it came from.

there's an entire realm of people shouting about google's creation of webp, their refusal to contribute to or implement jpegxl, all kinds of nonsense. the kind of circular nerd fight that goes on forever

i did eventually get a plugin working for importing webp into gimp. with avif i still have to run a converter from the command line before editing.

(avif is the still images version of some video format iirc, has been around for ages, just not used for this. webp apparently technically very good. both still annoying when i'm trying to filch book covers or album covers for ereader / media player)

i fucking hate webp but i guess it's a thing now and we all just have to learn to deal with it. technologically it probably _is_ a forward step... i'm just getting old and hate change. why can't we bring back DOS 5.0? i knew how to use DOS 5.0, and even more importantly, _no one else did_. knowing how to edit a config.sys file made me feel smart.

I am fucking delighted to find out that the working group mh mentioned is the Moving Pictures Expert Group, as I'd never realised what that acronym was till now.

The impossibility of dropping these things into PowerPoint or, yes, Adobe software is my main gripe. Every webp I inadvertently download, I have to open in Paint to resave as a jpeg.

My years-old version of Photoshop Elements can display my edits and modify WEBPs, but not save them as a JPG or anything else. Is the current version still like this? There are some WEBP to JPG (or other common format) converters out there, some as browser plug-ins but have no experience with these yet. Some programs/sites I use don't accept WEBPs as uploads.

https://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/ if you all need to batch a bunch of these, I suggest using Imagemagick

If that's too much, I think you can create a Quick Action in Mac OS to convert them using the right click of your mouse/trackpad

One trick that I also use (mostly with Google Slides/PPT stuff, not documents for press) is I use screenshots way more now than before, but with the shortcut to capture the image to my pasteboard directly instead of saving to file – but both strategies pay off.

And if you're using InDesign, I think there's a script that after you place non-compliant Links/Imgs to the Document, you can select them all and export/convert them all as JPEGs in their current size/needed DPI

I use the snip function on Windows so much cause Image saving is such a pain.

^^^^ otm

I am fucking delighted to find out that the working group mh mentioned is the Moving Pictures Expert Group, as I'd never realised what that acronym was till now.

this is why the mp in mp3 stands for moving pictures. (mpeg audio layer 3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kaIXkImCAM

just want to download images as full canvas paintings

lol thanks for that video

I use the snip function on Windows so much cause Image saving is such a pain.

― Slorg is not on the Slerf Team, you idiot, you moron (Boring, Maryland), Friday, April 12, 2024 10:54 AM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^^ otm

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, April 12, 2024 10:56 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes!

yep I use Preview screenshot on a Mac, same idea

I highly recommend all that ffmpeg guy's videos

+1

I have finally come to terms with the new way to save screenshots on a PC … it’s actually an improvement over the ms paint way

(Greenshot is free, and great?)

^^^

there was a bug report for ffmpeg from someone frantically requesting a fix for some captioning issues with the plea that it was needed for very important software and it turns out it was a Microsoft employee freaking out

(the very important software was Teams, lol)

Websites that make me log in again even though I've ticked the box that says "remember me". I was under the impression that ticking the box sets a cookie but I never clear cookies and this happens to me all the time regardless.

why can't we bring back DOS 5.0? i knew how to use DOS 5.0

rusho OTM

The single most annoying tech thing for me is when I log into the site for my kid's 529 account, which I do five times a week. It has 2FA, which is fine, but when I get the code from text and go to paste it in the box, CMD/CTRL+V doesn't work! I have to right click and then select paste for it to work. I hate it so much, disrupts my whole flow.

what browser do you use? there are extensions that will fix that.

Chrome. I never thought of an extension, but I will investigate. It will save me seconds every day!!