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

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

Regarding ipods : did they really sound better than today’s iphones ? I don’t remember noticing a difference switching from one to the other.

the Bluetooth connectivity in my car sucks...takes a good minute to get going, and it'll randomly stop or cut the first few seconds off of songs. not problems I ever had using an AUX cord but it looks like this problem has been 'solved' via removing the headphone jack altogether

think i'm just gonna buy another ipod classic on ebay once this one goes kaput

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.

Our paper towel dispensers do that too, to save the environment. Even better is when the batteries go dead and you have to wipe your hands off on your pants.

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

If there's another car within 500 yards of you, sure. But being forced to do it out on the open road with nobody around?

And it's one thing for the damn chime to keep going off until you put on your seatbelt. Having some weird "safety" function affect the performance of the vehicle could cause major problems. "Sorry, I killed your cat! I tried to swerve, but in the heat of the moment, I forgot to turn on my blinker!"

What about protecting you from them? See: loads of people cool about Obama expanding the surveillance state and being all hand wavey about implications finally making the connection that the Trump admin now has all that data. Particularly when you consider the government tried to identify people who looked at a Trump protest site.

― gyac

See this is a weird one because I'm very familiar with the culture of white male paranoia - the belief that everyone is out to get you despite everybody all the time stacking the deck in your favor. And now that I'm out as a member of a group that is legitimately, uh, targeted, I'm less paranoid? If anything it's driven me to be more out. Privacy would be nice, but if I can't have privacy they can't have their secrecy.

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.

― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, August 14, 2019 1:18 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I tried using safety razors last year. They were obviously better at shaving my face, but I couldn't stop slicing up my head. So I went back to cartridge razors, but kept going with the soap and brush.

Sainsbury's are really determined to make everyone adopt the "scan as you shop" thing, but I can't see the point.

OTOH I was happy not to have to chat with the cashier at the co op who always does the same banter about "are you saving your points for Christmas?" every time I go there, ideally this would be resolved by him being told to stop doing that by his boss.

Regarding ipods : did they really sound better than today’s iphones ? I don’t remember noticing a difference switching from one to the other.

v skeptical of this tbh, not an expert but can't see a reason for this to be true

_Flat screen TVs all sound terrible and require a sound bar or audio system_

not mine - Sony A1E uses actuators so that the screen is a speaker and there is a small subwoofer in the stand, it sounds pretty excellent (and I am fussy)

xp to self oh unless this is because of them removing the headphone socket?

Regarding ipods : did they really sound better than today’s iphones

Not really, they definitely impart a color to the sound (maybe a lot of muddy low mids?). It was pretty striking when I compared some of my own rough mixes (although you still have to wonder about the differences between the Dropbox player vs the Soundcloud player etc). I'm used to the 'ipod sound' though, and I still like them for carrying around a ton of music.

tbh some of these issues can be resolved by just not buying iPhones, I mean I know people like them for some reason but my phone costs 1/5 as much but has a battery just under twice the size of an iPhone X

Regarding ipods : did they really sound better than today’s iphones ?

well they had this warmth to them

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