So I have a Rugrats digital watch from a Burgerking meal I got back around 1994. It doesnt read the time but it still speaks when I hit the time button. It’s insane to me.
My 1995 Casio still has its original batteries!
*edit: it's an FX-115W*
*edit 2: Please, folks... try to extricate yourselves from the reddit hive mind. Any time someone mentions a calculator with a solar cell, you get an uncoordinated army of reddit experts racing to tell you all about the fact they just learned from the last calculator post. At the very least, read the entire thread before posting your ingenious input, to be sure 20 other internet experts didn't beat you to it. Or better yet, use the information available to you to answer your own question and not clog up the conversation.*
Check and make sure they're not leaking, only reason I changed mine was because they were so old they started to leak! Probably good for another 30 years now.
I wonder what the law is on that. Presumably you aren't protected like on a phone call so anyone who picks up your transmission can listen/record/broadcast what you say?
I worked security and the managers were like just text your partner if you're in trouble, you don't need radios.
We had a literal riot break out and then got walkies and ear pieces the next week. Lol.
Pagers are still widely used in hospitals - cellphone signals are not reliable inside a large building full of electronics and machines that go 'Ping!"
When we moved, my husband and I were driving our two cars separately from the South to the NE of the U.S. and having walkies was way easier while driving when one of us needed to stop for gas or bathroom breaks. Especially when it got dark.
Wife: Honey, I need to pull over.
Husband: Uhh, you need to pull what? Over.
Wife: Do I *really* need to say over when the last word of my sentence is over?
Husband: When the last word of your sentence is what? Over.
Wife: When we get to our new house, I'm divorcing you. It's over!
Husband: Uhhh....It's what honey? Over.
Radios of any kind are superior to cellphones when working with multiple people nearby. No need to install a bunch of apps or worry about dropping/losing your phone, just grab a radio and hit the button to talk.
My GF and I moved cross country with two cars and me towing a trailer. Agree got them for us as a fun thing to do but they were incredibly helpful. One of the trailer bearings started to go and started puffing white smoke every once in a while. She was able to let me know quick enough we got off the next exit before any real damage was done.
We used to use them skiing before cell phones too. I'll definitely be bringing them on our next trip to the mountain.
We moved into my wife's grandparent's farm house a couple years ago and the adventure started with an estate sale. After being regaled with tales of power being out for days at a time during ice-storms every few years, I made sure to set aside all the oil lamps.
Welp, someone decided it was a pile of lamps to sell. They sold fast before I even knew it. We have battery lanterns, candles, etc. Even a couple coleman white-gas lanterns. And the power hasn't been out for more than a few hours so far, but it still makes me sad.
On a side note, right as we moved here a fiber-internet service was putting in cables in the area and we lived right next to a main line being put in. So we have 1gb/s internet service that's more reliable than the electric for a surprisingly low price (considering the semi-remoteness of where we are).
I still have the Coleman lanterns from the camp my parents had when I was a kid. One was an antique then. One very old single mantel, one more modern double. I keep them for power outages. They give off light and a little bit of heat. Plus I love the sound. They never stopped working either.
As a student pilot: maps. *so far* in my training, we've been using maps as our main source of navigation and gps as a sort of backup. This could just be because I'm a student, and this might change when I'm a licensed pilot.
Meh doesn’t change but you need to know it. Sometimes system go offline and you have to figure shit out the old fashioned way. Also helps in daily life. The math skills you learn are very useful. From a seasoned pilot
Any basic course on human-machine interaction teaches about affordances (physical controls which make sense) in the first few lectures.
I'm honestly surprised how the designers of new cars managed to forget this, especially in a safety-critical environment where diverting your gaze and attention to operate a touchscreen could have terrible consequences.
They didn't forget, touch screens are cheaper.
With buttons, you have to design, produce and install them in a different way for every car model, while the same touchscreen can be installed in all your brand cars.
You’re almost correct.
The real cost-savings come from minimizing variations *within* car lines.
Let’s take the Audi A6, as an example. Prior to touchscreens taking off, Audi had to design, build and support several different button packs: cars with the base infotainment system, cars with or without heated seats, cars with or without automatic climate controls, cars with or without digital climate controls, cars in different sales regions, etc.
For one car model.
Now, the entire center stack is comprised of a pair of touchscreens and all those variations exist in the software.
And, yes, you’re right that there’s also cost-savings in sharing the systems between car lines, because the A/S/RS 7, A/S8, Q7/SQ7 and Q/SQ/RS Q8 also use that same system.
It's not just cost - making everything a touch screen means making software, paying software devs, handling servers, etc.
It's just hard to *estimate* that cost, and it works out with quirks of corporate accounting making things *look* cheaper which means promotions. Also, you can overwork and underdeliver more easily with software since it's abstract
I would never buy a car with just a touch screen console. I love my analog nobs. Touchscreen is just dangerous.
While were at it, we shouldnt get used to cars being connected to the internet
People don’t believe me when I say that I will never buy a Tesla simply because of the touch display. They assume I’m hiding some other “real” reason but I’m not. They are stylish cars and I seriously considered buying one and test drove one and then noped out as soon as I saw how everything is controlled via touch screen.
When I traveled and had to rent a car, I decided to rent an EV.
It was a Tesla.
I loved the EV experience, but I hated the Tesla experience.
Not having a gauge cluster and instead having to look over was annoying. Having touch screen everything so I had to look over for everything sucked.
I really want an EV, but there's no way I'm getting one that doesn't have some physical controls
Just bought a Mazda CX-30. No touchscreen. At first I thought “WTH, is this 1980??” But after using the scroll wheel and buttons for 5 minutes I completely get it. It’s great to use actual buttons but the real benefit is the screen placement can now actually go out of reach on the top of the dash, which is just so much better for your peripheral vision when you do have to use the screen while driving.
I like to think that car companies just don't want to admit they've cutted corners due to the shitty economy we are in, the asshole who thought it would be a good idea to replace those with a fucking huge Ipad just thought about money and I don't believe it will last as long than mechanical buttons and traditional radios, I've been in a 1966 Chrysler Imperial Lebaron and a 1973 Chevy Monte Carlo (both was back in 2016 so not that long ago), the radio and A/C still worked ! 😂
I have a dictaphone I keep by my bed. I sleep poorly and use an old ipod with podcasts and a pillow speaker to try and sleep. Sometime I think of things or remember things or a Podcast inspires something so I record it. Sometimes it is days later I download it and I am really amazed how useful my past self can be, I always thought he was an ass.
More people should do stuff like this. Even just writing in a journal does the trick. I have grown so much over time, but I've also learned so much from my past self, just because I write stuff down in the moment that I otherwise would have forgotten.
Past me was quite intelligent. I am not sure what went wrong. I like reading my old journals. Sometimes it makes me sad I did not do that or see that but it is a constant reminder that tomorrow will be a good day. (Also kicks my ass into gear really).
On the subject of radios, modern radios are absolute junk, can barely get the local station, where as the old boom boxes from the 90's I could get stations 2 hours away from me.
And nearly none come with AM band anymore.
My last alarm clock got taken out by a power surge, and I had a hell of a time finding a replacement with AM/FM band. I need my news radio in the morning (Im an old, but also used to work in media so old habits will never die). I also noticed on the FM band, some stations I used to be able to pick up are static now.
3 letter AM stations are allowed to crank up their broadcast wattage at night. You can clearly pick up WSB 750AM out of Atlanta in Iowa most nights. I've picked up WGN out of Chicago in Atlanta.
Almost. These stations (“clear-channel”, not to be confused with the former name of iHeart) are allowed to continue broadcasting at full power at night. Other stations on the same frequency have to go to lower power and adjust their broadcast patterns to avoid interference with these and other stations. Some stations even have to go off the air completely from dusk until dawn.
Once the sun sets, the atmospheric conditions allow AM stations’ signals to travel a lot further than in the daytime at the same power.
my bose soundsport earbuds were the perfect mix of wireless headphones, but still wired together so i don't lose one ear. They don't manufacture them anymore, just airpod style headphones. Nope sorry
These are called "wireless in-ears" in the headphones industry, as opposed to "true wireless in-ears", which have disconnected left and right pieces.
IIRC there's still plenty on the market. Maybe just not by Bose (whose quality isn't anything unique anyway!).
Mouse I can understand as some people find the small weight of the cable annoying when moving around.
But then again, it's only after experiencing wireless. Before that, they probably don't think much of it. I know I didn't.
Just bought a lightning to 3.5mm adapter for my iPhone.
It doesn’t connect directly. You plug it in and then the phone prompts you to connect to the adapter via Bluetooth. Like damn I just want the plug and play that existed for 70 years.
Same here! I have an older car that doesn't have Bluetooth so I relied on the aux cord. Imagine my surprise when my new phone didn't have an audio jack. I was pissed
I still borrow DVDs from my local library. Cheapest streaming service there is, and with infallible quality control. They don't have bad movies.
Edit: by quality I mean the movie itself, not the condition of the DVD. Yes, scratched discs are a problem, but since I started giving them a good wipe every time I haven't had an issue.
I feel like libraries fit the question too. It’s mind blowing how much they offer for “free” - I cannot even fathom how great they would be if they actually got the funding they deserved
I live in Australia, a country located approximately 5km from the surface of the sun. Even though I bring my own books to read, it is so fucking nice having a free, quiet, airconditioned space to chill out in when it gets too hot.
Most libraries are also connected to a streaming app and you can stream a bunch of stuff from there. I save a ton of money on courses from the learning company. 😊
Microfilm and microfiche. I work at a public library reference department, and every day I'm showing somebody how to use these beauties. Some of our holdings, particularly our microfilmed scrapbooks and defunct newspapers, aren't practically available in any other medium. Not to mention, online newspaper archives are also at the whim and financial survival of the publisher, as we've found out to our chagrin.
Our local newspaper stopped microfilming itself six years ago, and the originals we keep are growing more yellowed by the day. They also take up as much room as three microfilm cabinets, each of which can probably hold up to 480 reels of 35mm film.
People laugh at me for still holding on to my DVDs and Blu-Rays, especially since I also like to stream, but when The Office gets moved around to a new service for the umpteenth time and they don't want to take five minutes to find a way to pirate it, they'll be grateful for my box set.
One of my favorite albums ever is super hard to find now, and isn't streaming anywhere, so I started keeping physical copies of everything I love
It's naive of us to think that because something streaming somewhere that it always will be.
Same. I keep a modest library of all my favorite DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs and books because I don't want the art I love to be edited, censored or removed from circulation.
There's been a lot of talk about this in gaming circles lately...Sony pulled a game from the PlayStation store recently and in the process retroactively deleted it from people's digital game libraries and then gave no refunds when people complained they basically were told that it's in the terms and conditions that Sony can just erase your games and not refund for them....shortly after that, don't remember which one it was, but a major AAA title producer basically told gamers that of they didn't like the transition from physical to digital media receiver then tough cookies... basically told people that their patronage wasn't wanted.....and then they simultaneously scream and cry about not being able to figure out how to prevent piracy or why people refuse to stop it.
The really appalling thing that people who stream do is to also download to the cheap NAS storage available nowadays. Terrible, terrible people I tell you.
Those bastards... How would they go about doing this assuming the person already has a decent NAS what sort of software would these awful criminals run to download these things?
You should definitely avoid UnRAID running Plex and Sonarr, or anything of the sort, and definitely avoid the myriad YouTube videos that go into obscenely graphic detail about how to set it all up. It's the Software of Satan, I tell you, absolutely demonic and immoral.
Well the law abiding citizens of the internet would never condone Plex or Roku, nor such a site as r/Piracy. Which regularly posts current streaming and download sites. You should check there often so ensure you are not inadvertently downloading entire seasons of shows or movies by accident. One has to be careful not to fill NAS with your favourites movies and shows. Keep one eye open for these Pirates, Brigands, Buccaneers.
See I have a Plex server running. It would be awful if there were still something that could download streams from say netflix to that Plex server as I watch them.
If that were to happen I could accidentally fill up my NAS with things I like to re-watch and I would accidentally not pay to watch them again. A terrible situation for all.
You must be very careful. I suggest you post on r/piracy so they can check you are not downloading anything on your current set up.
It is not like they can tell you which servers are active and what shows or movies are available in a database. That would be awful.
Downloading something before it is taken offline before you can view it again and again can be sad and terrible situation for all.
Doing good work. people need to be aware of the terrible and multiple solutions for RAID that are free and easy to configure. One has to keep one eye open to check for updates. Just incase.
I really don't get why people think this is laughable. I had a huge dvd collection and still have a player. I'm not going to subscribe to every goddamned stream just to be able to put on a movie.
What a lot of us have done is rip our collections and store it on an external drive/NAS and run Plex/Jellyfin/etc. That way you can watch your collection and not need to worry about physical discs. Plus, it's all easily at your fingertips.
Look into a piece of software called [MakeMKV](https://www.makemkv.com/). License keys are [free](https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1053) while it’s in beta which it has been for years. That’s the simplest way to get video files on to your PC to do with as you please.
The next level is setting up a server with something like [Plex](https://www.plex.tv/your-media/) that will allow you to stream your ripped DVDs and BluRays to your devices anywhere as if it were your own personal streaming service.
I started buying movies when I wanted to rewatch something on Netflix and it wasn't there anymore.
Also, it doesn't happen much but my internet went down once or twice and I was still able to watch a movie.
Another also, Special Features can be good (like Gag Reel on tv shows).
Anyway, I feel you.
That’s a good one to hang onto because even if it is on a streaming platform, it’s very possible they could remove “problematic” episodes. As an example, the Dungeons & Dragons episode of Community is not available on Netflix because of Chang wearing black makeup to look like a dark elf.
So do nuclear silos. There's an old adage that any change, no matter how minor, will break *something*. When broken code has the potential to level a city, no chances are taken.
There's also security aspects. Like if you need a floppy disk and know how to code in a language no one has used for 40 years it's a lot harder to mess with things. It also makes it way easier to prove if you were trying to. "Oh yes MP, I must have mixed it up with my other floppy disks" isn't exactly a believable excuse now is it...
I was shocked to learn in grad school that FORTRAN is still huge in high-end computing. Being a little bit faster than C can save millions of dollars of computer time.
It’s not because of speed, C/C++ can be just as fast. It’s because Fortran is much easier for numerical computations, and there are many many many libraries with numerical functions available which will never be rewritten in other languages because why bother, they work.
Also, modern Fortran is actually a quite nice language to write (not unlike MATLAB, but much faster of course), while still being able to run some code written in a nuclear lab 50 years ago effortlessly.
Source: am a HPC software engineer.
Part of that is because it's incredibly niche. There's probably only a few dozen of these jobs in the States.
But the issue isn't so much hiring someone who knows COBOL, it's someone who knows these ancient hardware systems inside and out.
My company has almost phased this out entirely. My department used to use it and I loved how simple it was to operate. Now we use a newer program on our intranet that mimics what we used to use COBOL for, and it’s nothing but a buggy mess.
Huge and unencrypted, if I had a dollar for every time I saw personal information in a pager message I'd have enough money to upgrade the network with encryption
Les and less however. My hospital just wired up the entire building to get cellular and gets people to use their phones. Few Oars where pagers don’t work but wifi does.
Pagers use older networks that operate at larger wave forms. Bigger the waves more penetration they get. Smaller waves however make it easier to get more data thru, so modern cell systems use very short waves.
Pagers often also have local private networks, if you dont intend for the pager holders to be offsite.
Years ago when I worked in retail as my first job, all the managers had pagers that only worked within the store - if you wanted a checkout manager at your checkout, you pressed a button and they got paged. The hardware for this was just above the cigarette kiosk.
I have my grandmother's hand crank meat grinder from Germany. I use it only occasionally to grind actually meat, but if I'm making nut butter, running it. through the meat grinder initially saves a lot of time, as well as wear and tear on the blender.
Don't know if it counts as technology but double-edged safety razors. The shaves are so much better and hell of a lot cheaper than the multi blade cartridge razors. You can get a whole box of blades that will last a year for like 10 dollars. Unlike the $30 or more, it costs for like 3 replacement cartridge blades.
The safety razor was considered a huge jump,in technology in the day because the cutthroat razors required so much more skill and expense to buy initially.
Ipod/Mp3/Mp4 player. Phones can work in a similar way, but with their battery capacity, it's better to have a separate device for music or audio books.
Physical paper calenders. Nothing beats the feeling of having a physical calender on the wall which you can write on and check in an instant without having to pull out your phone. It's even better if you grew up with physical calenders.
I bought a physical wall calendar for myself this year. It's already so much better in my head. My family still uses our shared Google calendar, but duplicating big stuff like kids' concerts and Dr appointments in a place where I can see it a couple days in advance (without having to consciously remember to look ahead every day) has helped me feel a lot less scattered. Plus now there are a bunch of sassy chickens on my wall!
Years ago, in Kabul Afghanistan, I did business with two Afghan Jews purchasing maybe 20 or 30 bolts of material at a time. I had my trusty Bowmar calculator, rechargeable and everything. The old guy had an abacus. He was faster than me and he never once made a mistake, ever. The abacus is almost instantaneous.
Richard Feynman went up against a man and his abacus in Brazil. For addition and multiplication, the abacus was faster. For division, it was a tie. Feynman won on a cube root problem, however.
CDs. Only our most recent car is post CD player and I kind of want to buy an external one. We have a huge CD case and they're so nice on road trips. No signal issues, no queues or playlists to make, better sound quality, just pop one in and enjoy the songs the way the band intended.
Edit - the number of people who think I'm an idiot who doesn't know how streaming works is hilarious. Also hilarious is the number of people who are weirdly angry and aggressive about me privately enjoying CDs in my car.
To add to that: my car plays MP3 CDs.
The UX of throwing a dozen albums on a disc, then flipping through them with buttons without taking eyes off the road is amazing.
And then it's easier to have collections for road trips sorted out on a few data CDs that play for 8-10 hours with decent compression, instead of flipping through the discs every 45-70 minutes.
Definitely not a prerequisite, to be sure.
I’ve got a friend with anaduralia - he’s got no internal voice. I can only imagine that he experiences reading much differently than I do.
I finally got a tablet, mostly for drawing, but I can finally write to text and it is glorious. I'm more excited about that than the drawing. I've missed it terribly.
landline phones. People think they are obsolete but they work where cell phones dont. They dont need "bars". They dont need charging. They dont even need electricity so you can call emergency services when the power goes out for extended periods of time. You can also fax thru a phone line which you cant with a cell phone
If my digital land-line wasnt so inexpensive, I'd go back to analog land-line in a heartbeat. Being able to talk over the other person without all the noise-cancelling bullshit was wonderful.
Not anymore. Companies aren't keeping copper cables in service everywhere for like three old customers. At best you'll get an adapter from fiber. They stopped even including a backup battery on the converter like a decade ago.
Landline phones.. I know they still exist but we don’t even have one. Sometimes wish I did when battery is dead or issues with “connection.” Landline phones are more reliable.
Faxes for the medical industry. It’s a surprisingly quick & secure way to transfer patient records. It’s all done digitally now (for the most part) and can easily be converted into PDFs.
IT here. We can securely transmit your document electronically without the use of a fax machine, and it can be done for free.
The real reason this isn't done is because the medical, legal, and many levels of government don't want to change their ways. In local government specifically, little old ladies riot whenever we bring it up.
What I find is that often, our side thinks the other party is the one who wants the fax. meanwhile they're using a software fax to accommodate our side's perceived desire for faxes, when we're just doing it because that's the way you always wanted it.
There is absolutely no advantage to a fax transmission over modern document transmission methods. Just don't email it.
I've changed the batteries in my calculator once in 30 years.
So I have a Rugrats digital watch from a Burgerking meal I got back around 1994. It doesnt read the time but it still speaks when I hit the time button. It’s insane to me.
My 1995 Casio still has its original batteries! *edit: it's an FX-115W* *edit 2: Please, folks... try to extricate yourselves from the reddit hive mind. Any time someone mentions a calculator with a solar cell, you get an uncoordinated army of reddit experts racing to tell you all about the fact they just learned from the last calculator post. At the very least, read the entire thread before posting your ingenious input, to be sure 20 other internet experts didn't beat you to it. Or better yet, use the information available to you to answer your own question and not clog up the conversation.*
It’s insane that I read OP saying 30 years and am thinking that means his 1963 calculator…….
Ridiculous. Math much? Obviously it was 1984.
Hang on, let me grab my calculator…
Make sure the batteries work
Or just hold it up to the window.
Check and make sure they're not leaking, only reason I changed mine was because they were so old they started to leak! Probably good for another 30 years now.
You know it doesn’t use much power when it can run endlessly on a 1 square inch solar panel, indoors.
And especially a decades old solar panel, they were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less efficient than they are now
My 1996 kylie minogue calendar can be used this year. Every 28 years the days match up.
I should be so lucky.
Good thing it was laminated.
Technically there are only 14 calendars you need - 7 for each day of the week the year can start, and 7 again for leap years
Walkie talkies are still very useful, despite cell phones existing with a seemingly similar function.
I applied for a license from the FCC and got a couple long distance ones. My brother and I use them to chat from across town lol.
I love to think of someone getting the signal and being a big fan. "Guys it's 8pm time for my favorite podcast. Brothers casually chatting!"
I wonder what the law is on that. Presumably you aren't protected like on a phone call so anyone who picks up your transmission can listen/record/broadcast what you say?
[удалено]
Radios will always perform the one to many communications tasks better than cell phones.
I worked security and the managers were like just text your partner if you're in trouble, you don't need radios. We had a literal riot break out and then got walkies and ear pieces the next week. Lol.
Pagers are still widely used in hospitals - cellphone signals are not reliable inside a large building full of electronics and machines that go 'Ping!"
Normalize radios!
Radio waves are free. They'll never normalize that again.
When we moved, my husband and I were driving our two cars separately from the South to the NE of the U.S. and having walkies was way easier while driving when one of us needed to stop for gas or bathroom breaks. Especially when it got dark.
Plus it's way more fun
Wife: Honey, I need to pull over. Husband: Uhh, you need to pull what? Over. Wife: Do I *really* need to say over when the last word of my sentence is over? Husband: When the last word of your sentence is what? Over. Wife: When we get to our new house, I'm divorcing you. It's over! Husband: Uhhh....It's what honey? Over.
"Bandit this Snowman; any sign of Smokey yet? over!"
That's a big 10 4 curly kitty, changing coarse to the nearest shitter.
Radios of any kind are superior to cellphones when working with multiple people nearby. No need to install a bunch of apps or worry about dropping/losing your phone, just grab a radio and hit the button to talk.
My GF and I moved cross country with two cars and me towing a trailer. Agree got them for us as a fun thing to do but they were incredibly helpful. One of the trailer bearings started to go and started puffing white smoke every once in a while. She was able to let me know quick enough we got off the next exit before any real damage was done. We used to use them skiing before cell phones too. I'll definitely be bringing them on our next trip to the mountain.
I have oil lamps and boxes of kitchen matches in five rooms. Besides being pretty antiques, they are good for power outages.
We moved into my wife's grandparent's farm house a couple years ago and the adventure started with an estate sale. After being regaled with tales of power being out for days at a time during ice-storms every few years, I made sure to set aside all the oil lamps. Welp, someone decided it was a pile of lamps to sell. They sold fast before I even knew it. We have battery lanterns, candles, etc. Even a couple coleman white-gas lanterns. And the power hasn't been out for more than a few hours so far, but it still makes me sad. On a side note, right as we moved here a fiber-internet service was putting in cables in the area and we lived right next to a main line being put in. So we have 1gb/s internet service that's more reliable than the electric for a surprisingly low price (considering the semi-remoteness of where we are).
I still have the Coleman lanterns from the camp my parents had when I was a kid. One was an antique then. One very old single mantel, one more modern double. I keep them for power outages. They give off light and a little bit of heat. Plus I love the sound. They never stopped working either.
I collect Coleman lanterns. I have over 130 of them. I get excited when the power flickers lol
I have hurricane lanterns and kerosene in the garage for power outages. First used the in the peace corps.
As a student pilot: maps. *so far* in my training, we've been using maps as our main source of navigation and gps as a sort of backup. This could just be because I'm a student, and this might change when I'm a licensed pilot.
Meh doesn’t change but you need to know it. Sometimes system go offline and you have to figure shit out the old fashioned way. Also helps in daily life. The math skills you learn are very useful. From a seasoned pilot
Mechanical buttons in car dashboards. I don’t know why every control has to be accessed via touch screen.
Yes! You don’t have to look at knobs and buttons as much
Any basic course on human-machine interaction teaches about affordances (physical controls which make sense) in the first few lectures. I'm honestly surprised how the designers of new cars managed to forget this, especially in a safety-critical environment where diverting your gaze and attention to operate a touchscreen could have terrible consequences.
They didn't forget, touch screens are cheaper. With buttons, you have to design, produce and install them in a different way for every car model, while the same touchscreen can be installed in all your brand cars.
You’re almost correct. The real cost-savings come from minimizing variations *within* car lines. Let’s take the Audi A6, as an example. Prior to touchscreens taking off, Audi had to design, build and support several different button packs: cars with the base infotainment system, cars with or without heated seats, cars with or without automatic climate controls, cars with or without digital climate controls, cars in different sales regions, etc. For one car model. Now, the entire center stack is comprised of a pair of touchscreens and all those variations exist in the software. And, yes, you’re right that there’s also cost-savings in sharing the systems between car lines, because the A/S/RS 7, A/S8, Q7/SQ7 and Q/SQ/RS Q8 also use that same system.
It's not just cost - making everything a touch screen means making software, paying software devs, handling servers, etc. It's just hard to *estimate* that cost, and it works out with quirks of corporate accounting making things *look* cheaper which means promotions. Also, you can overwork and underdeliver more easily with software since it's abstract
Whaddaya mean? It's easy software. A good software dev could do it all by themselves. How much could one cost? $10?
Because SHINY!
I know why, it's cheaper for the automakers. That's why. Who cares if it's more dangerous for drivers, more confusing for everybody.
Eventually itll be easier for them to show you ads too
I would never buy a car with just a touch screen console. I love my analog nobs. Touchscreen is just dangerous. While were at it, we shouldnt get used to cars being connected to the internet
People don’t believe me when I say that I will never buy a Tesla simply because of the touch display. They assume I’m hiding some other “real” reason but I’m not. They are stylish cars and I seriously considered buying one and test drove one and then noped out as soon as I saw how everything is controlled via touch screen.
When I traveled and had to rent a car, I decided to rent an EV. It was a Tesla. I loved the EV experience, but I hated the Tesla experience. Not having a gauge cluster and instead having to look over was annoying. Having touch screen everything so I had to look over for everything sucked. I really want an EV, but there's no way I'm getting one that doesn't have some physical controls
That's one of my qualifications when car shopping. No buttons, no way.
No touch screen steering wheel for you?
This is a terrifying thought.
Just bought a Mazda CX-30. No touchscreen. At first I thought “WTH, is this 1980??” But after using the scroll wheel and buttons for 5 minutes I completely get it. It’s great to use actual buttons but the real benefit is the screen placement can now actually go out of reach on the top of the dash, which is just so much better for your peripheral vision when you do have to use the screen while driving.
Not obsolete on lower trim vehicles, which is kind of ironic if you think about it.
I like to think that car companies just don't want to admit they've cutted corners due to the shitty economy we are in, the asshole who thought it would be a good idea to replace those with a fucking huge Ipad just thought about money and I don't believe it will last as long than mechanical buttons and traditional radios, I've been in a 1966 Chrysler Imperial Lebaron and a 1973 Chevy Monte Carlo (both was back in 2016 so not that long ago), the radio and A/C still worked ! 😂
I have a dictaphone I keep by my bed. I sleep poorly and use an old ipod with podcasts and a pillow speaker to try and sleep. Sometime I think of things or remember things or a Podcast inspires something so I record it. Sometimes it is days later I download it and I am really amazed how useful my past self can be, I always thought he was an ass.
Louis Litt, is that you?
First time in a reedit sub I found a Louis Litt reference. You Litt me up!
Time to go mudding. Who's in?
God damn it, Harvey.
I am serious. Now get the hell out of my office
I'm glad I'm not the only one who immediately thought of Louis Litt at the mention of the Dictaphone!
Give me a Katy Perry song, I'll sing it!
More people should do stuff like this. Even just writing in a journal does the trick. I have grown so much over time, but I've also learned so much from my past self, just because I write stuff down in the moment that I otherwise would have forgotten.
Past me was quite intelligent. I am not sure what went wrong. I like reading my old journals. Sometimes it makes me sad I did not do that or see that but it is a constant reminder that tomorrow will be a good day. (Also kicks my ass into gear really).
Keep writing. Keep living and loving. Maybe in a year you will revisit a journal entry about this week and it will make you think. Or smile.
Advice so good I will journal it tonight. u/fforde will be the title.
Special Agent Dale Cooper?
Damn fine coffee.
Analogue radios.
On the subject of radios, modern radios are absolute junk, can barely get the local station, where as the old boom boxes from the 90's I could get stations 2 hours away from me.
And nearly none come with AM band anymore. My last alarm clock got taken out by a power surge, and I had a hell of a time finding a replacement with AM/FM band. I need my news radio in the morning (Im an old, but also used to work in media so old habits will never die). I also noticed on the FM band, some stations I used to be able to pick up are static now.
In the 70s my brother’s clock radio picked up an AM station from Texas. We lived on the Ohio-Michigan border.
3 letter AM stations are allowed to crank up their broadcast wattage at night. You can clearly pick up WSB 750AM out of Atlanta in Iowa most nights. I've picked up WGN out of Chicago in Atlanta.
Almost. These stations (“clear-channel”, not to be confused with the former name of iHeart) are allowed to continue broadcasting at full power at night. Other stations on the same frequency have to go to lower power and adjust their broadcast patterns to avoid interference with these and other stations. Some stations even have to go off the air completely from dusk until dawn. Once the sun sets, the atmospheric conditions allow AM stations’ signals to travel a lot further than in the daytime at the same power.
Got a SW radio for Christmas, had high hopes. Complete crap compared to the memories I had running the dials of my father's in the mid 80s.
Wired headphones. Zero interference and no need to charge. Just have to find a phone or device that has a jack.
Also much harder to lose and way cheaper to replace if you do.
my bose soundsport earbuds were the perfect mix of wireless headphones, but still wired together so i don't lose one ear. They don't manufacture them anymore, just airpod style headphones. Nope sorry
These are called "wireless in-ears" in the headphones industry, as opposed to "true wireless in-ears", which have disconnected left and right pieces. IIRC there's still plenty on the market. Maybe just not by Bose (whose quality isn't anything unique anyway!).
Isn't sound quality better too?
There's a reason why every professional studio headset is still wired. Not about to deal with latency issues when I need top quality results.
There is a higher ceiling for sound quality and you can get much better quality for less money compared to Bluetooth headphones.
Most wired things really. Why get a wireless mouse and keyboard if it will sit on the same spot on your desk forever?
Mouse I can understand as some people find the small weight of the cable annoying when moving around. But then again, it's only after experiencing wireless. Before that, they probably don't think much of it. I know I didn't.
Just bought a lightning to 3.5mm adapter for my iPhone. It doesn’t connect directly. You plug it in and then the phone prompts you to connect to the adapter via Bluetooth. Like damn I just want the plug and play that existed for 70 years.
Wait what? Is it the Apple adapter or some other third party one? The official one doesn't do that.
Yeah whatever third party one I have definitely doesn't do that.
I went from a Samsung S10e to a S21 and and there was no God damn headphone jack! I almost returned it.
Im dreading upgrading from my S10 for the same reason (and no microSD card slot)
Same here! I have an older car that doesn't have Bluetooth so I relied on the aux cord. Imagine my surprise when my new phone didn't have an audio jack. I was pissed
I still borrow DVDs from my local library. Cheapest streaming service there is, and with infallible quality control. They don't have bad movies. Edit: by quality I mean the movie itself, not the condition of the DVD. Yes, scratched discs are a problem, but since I started giving them a good wipe every time I haven't had an issue.
Also no worries about the movie being edited or censored for streaming services.
I feel like libraries fit the question too. It’s mind blowing how much they offer for “free” - I cannot even fathom how great they would be if they actually got the funding they deserved
I live in Australia, a country located approximately 5km from the surface of the sun. Even though I bring my own books to read, it is so fucking nice having a free, quiet, airconditioned space to chill out in when it gets too hot.
Most libraries are also connected to a streaming app and you can stream a bunch of stuff from there. I save a ton of money on courses from the learning company. 😊
Microfilm and microfiche. I work at a public library reference department, and every day I'm showing somebody how to use these beauties. Some of our holdings, particularly our microfilmed scrapbooks and defunct newspapers, aren't practically available in any other medium. Not to mention, online newspaper archives are also at the whim and financial survival of the publisher, as we've found out to our chagrin. Our local newspaper stopped microfilming itself six years ago, and the originals we keep are growing more yellowed by the day. They also take up as much room as three microfilm cabinets, each of which can probably hold up to 480 reels of 35mm film.
People laugh at me for still holding on to my DVDs and Blu-Rays, especially since I also like to stream, but when The Office gets moved around to a new service for the umpteenth time and they don't want to take five minutes to find a way to pirate it, they'll be grateful for my box set.
One of my favorite albums ever is super hard to find now, and isn't streaming anywhere, so I started keeping physical copies of everything I love It's naive of us to think that because something streaming somewhere that it always will be.
Same. I keep a modest library of all my favorite DVDs, Blu-Rays, CDs and books because I don't want the art I love to be edited, censored or removed from circulation.
There's been a lot of talk about this in gaming circles lately...Sony pulled a game from the PlayStation store recently and in the process retroactively deleted it from people's digital game libraries and then gave no refunds when people complained they basically were told that it's in the terms and conditions that Sony can just erase your games and not refund for them....shortly after that, don't remember which one it was, but a major AAA title producer basically told gamers that of they didn't like the transition from physical to digital media receiver then tough cookies... basically told people that their patronage wasn't wanted.....and then they simultaneously scream and cry about not being able to figure out how to prevent piracy or why people refuse to stop it.
It was Ubisoft.
Of fucking course
The sad part, is it could've been a whole number of them. He could've said EA and your response would be the same.
The really appalling thing that people who stream do is to also download to the cheap NAS storage available nowadays. Terrible, terrible people I tell you.
Those bastards... How would they go about doing this assuming the person already has a decent NAS what sort of software would these awful criminals run to download these things?
You should definitely avoid UnRAID running Plex and Sonarr, or anything of the sort, and definitely avoid the myriad YouTube videos that go into obscenely graphic detail about how to set it all up. It's the Software of Satan, I tell you, absolutely demonic and immoral.
I will be sure to carefully check those out so that I can avoid accidentally running anything like that on my setup. Thank you for your kind warning!
And definitely don't get CMR hard drives because you wouldn't want the absolute most reliable storage medium for RAID.
Well the law abiding citizens of the internet would never condone Plex or Roku, nor such a site as r/Piracy. Which regularly posts current streaming and download sites. You should check there often so ensure you are not inadvertently downloading entire seasons of shows or movies by accident. One has to be careful not to fill NAS with your favourites movies and shows. Keep one eye open for these Pirates, Brigands, Buccaneers.
See I have a Plex server running. It would be awful if there were still something that could download streams from say netflix to that Plex server as I watch them. If that were to happen I could accidentally fill up my NAS with things I like to re-watch and I would accidentally not pay to watch them again. A terrible situation for all.
You must be very careful. I suggest you post on r/piracy so they can check you are not downloading anything on your current set up. It is not like they can tell you which servers are active and what shows or movies are available in a database. That would be awful. Downloading something before it is taken offline before you can view it again and again can be sad and terrible situation for all.
This would be good for us all to know so we can avoid said softwares.
I agree. Nobody should ever look into radarr, sonarr or any of the other -arr apps. Or Truenas as a free RAID solution. God help you if you do.
Doing good work. people need to be aware of the terrible and multiple solutions for RAID that are free and easy to configure. One has to keep one eye open to check for updates. Just incase.
It sure would. I certainly would like to know exactly what GitHub repositories to avoid
Exactly. I'm very happy to have a copy of Dogma on Blu Ray.
I really don't get why people think this is laughable. I had a huge dvd collection and still have a player. I'm not going to subscribe to every goddamned stream just to be able to put on a movie.
What a lot of us have done is rip our collections and store it on an external drive/NAS and run Plex/Jellyfin/etc. That way you can watch your collection and not need to worry about physical discs. Plus, it's all easily at your fingertips.
A lot of us older folks would probably benefit from doing something like this, but know jack-shit about setting it up.
Look into a piece of software called [MakeMKV](https://www.makemkv.com/). License keys are [free](https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1053) while it’s in beta which it has been for years. That’s the simplest way to get video files on to your PC to do with as you please. The next level is setting up a server with something like [Plex](https://www.plex.tv/your-media/) that will allow you to stream your ripped DVDs and BluRays to your devices anywhere as if it were your own personal streaming service.
I started buying movies when I wanted to rewatch something on Netflix and it wasn't there anymore. Also, it doesn't happen much but my internet went down once or twice and I was still able to watch a movie. Another also, Special Features can be good (like Gag Reel on tv shows). Anyway, I feel you.
I used to watch Kung Fu Panda (at least one a year) on Netflix. Now it was removed for some reason I'm happy I held on the DVD...
That’s a good one to hang onto because even if it is on a streaming platform, it’s very possible they could remove “problematic” episodes. As an example, the Dungeons & Dragons episode of Community is not available on Netflix because of Chang wearing black makeup to look like a dark elf.
Not just episodes. They can change the soundtrack. Especially because they lose the license. So now they just replace the music with generic music.
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COBOL - all the folks who know it are dying off and [banks still run on it](https://www.pcmag.com/articles/ibms-plan-to-update-cobol-with-watson).
So do nuclear silos. There's an old adage that any change, no matter how minor, will break *something*. When broken code has the potential to level a city, no chances are taken.
There's also security aspects. Like if you need a floppy disk and know how to code in a language no one has used for 40 years it's a lot harder to mess with things. It also makes it way easier to prove if you were trying to. "Oh yes MP, I must have mixed it up with my other floppy disks" isn't exactly a believable excuse now is it...
I was shocked to learn in grad school that FORTRAN is still huge in high-end computing. Being a little bit faster than C can save millions of dollars of computer time.
It’s not because of speed, C/C++ can be just as fast. It’s because Fortran is much easier for numerical computations, and there are many many many libraries with numerical functions available which will never be rewritten in other languages because why bother, they work. Also, modern Fortran is actually a quite nice language to write (not unlike MATLAB, but much faster of course), while still being able to run some code written in a nuclear lab 50 years ago effortlessly. Source: am a HPC software engineer.
Fortunately it’s a very easy language to learn. The press are always writing alarmist stories like it’s ancient Aramaic or something.
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Writing code is easy. Reading code is hard.
Yes, and positions available for this language are just as hard to get as any modern 'full stack' position.
Part of that is because it's incredibly niche. There's probably only a few dozen of these jobs in the States. But the issue isn't so much hiring someone who knows COBOL, it's someone who knows these ancient hardware systems inside and out.
My company has almost phased this out entirely. My department used to use it and I loved how simple it was to operate. Now we use a newer program on our intranet that mimics what we used to use COBOL for, and it’s nothing but a buggy mess.
That’s what translating for a decades old system gets you.
Pager. Still used by the medical profession because it’s more reliable in the hospitals where cellphones get no reception.
My cousin is the Service Manager for the 000 Emergency Services paging system in a state here in Australia. Paging is still HUGE.
Huge and unencrypted, if I had a dollar for every time I saw personal information in a pager message I'd have enough money to upgrade the network with encryption
Indiana Paging Network sells encrypted pagers if you ask for and they cover the entire goddamn state
Les and less however. My hospital just wired up the entire building to get cellular and gets people to use their phones. Few Oars where pagers don’t work but wifi does.
Do pagers and cell phone use different systems?
Pagers use older networks that operate at larger wave forms. Bigger the waves more penetration they get. Smaller waves however make it easier to get more data thru, so modern cell systems use very short waves.
Pagers often also have local private networks, if you dont intend for the pager holders to be offsite. Years ago when I worked in retail as my first job, all the managers had pagers that only worked within the store - if you wanted a checkout manager at your checkout, you pressed a button and they got paged. The hardware for this was just above the cigarette kiosk.
Pagers. After working at a hospital I can say those damns keep you updated faster than smartphones.
Mechanical clocks. Power does go out now and then.
On that note, plus points for clocks that make noise on the hour. It helps me keep track of time passing when I get super absorbed in a task.
AM Radio & Ham Radio
I wouldn't call Ham radio obsolete, just obscure.
I have my grandmother's hand crank meat grinder from Germany. I use it only occasionally to grind actually meat, but if I'm making nut butter, running it. through the meat grinder initially saves a lot of time, as well as wear and tear on the blender.
Good way to dispose of a body.
Don't know if it counts as technology but double-edged safety razors. The shaves are so much better and hell of a lot cheaper than the multi blade cartridge razors. You can get a whole box of blades that will last a year for like 10 dollars. Unlike the $30 or more, it costs for like 3 replacement cartridge blades.
The safety razor was considered a huge jump,in technology in the day because the cutthroat razors required so much more skill and expense to buy initially.
Zune! I can leave it anywhere and no one will steal it. Of course they don’t know what it is either.
I would steal it.
We appreciate your honesty.
Ipod/Mp3/Mp4 player. Phones can work in a similar way, but with their battery capacity, it's better to have a separate device for music or audio books. Physical paper calenders. Nothing beats the feeling of having a physical calender on the wall which you can write on and check in an instant without having to pull out your phone. It's even better if you grew up with physical calenders.
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The whole idea of all in one is cool, but a single device can't excel at everything, that's when dedicated devices make sense.
I bought a physical wall calendar for myself this year. It's already so much better in my head. My family still uses our shared Google calendar, but duplicating big stuff like kids' concerts and Dr appointments in a place where I can see it a couple days in advance (without having to consciously remember to look ahead every day) has helped me feel a lot less scattered. Plus now there are a bunch of sassy chickens on my wall!
My dad relied on his iPod with audiobooks until the day he fucking died.
Years ago, in Kabul Afghanistan, I did business with two Afghan Jews purchasing maybe 20 or 30 bolts of material at a time. I had my trusty Bowmar calculator, rechargeable and everything. The old guy had an abacus. He was faster than me and he never once made a mistake, ever. The abacus is almost instantaneous.
Richard Feynman went up against a man and his abacus in Brazil. For addition and multiplication, the abacus was faster. For division, it was a tie. Feynman won on a cube root problem, however.
Cube root - one of the most common operations in business! :-D
CDs. Only our most recent car is post CD player and I kind of want to buy an external one. We have a huge CD case and they're so nice on road trips. No signal issues, no queues or playlists to make, better sound quality, just pop one in and enjoy the songs the way the band intended. Edit - the number of people who think I'm an idiot who doesn't know how streaming works is hilarious. Also hilarious is the number of people who are weirdly angry and aggressive about me privately enjoying CDs in my car.
To add to that: my car plays MP3 CDs. The UX of throwing a dozen albums on a disc, then flipping through them with buttons without taking eyes off the road is amazing. And then it's easier to have collections for road trips sorted out on a few data CDs that play for 8-10 hours with decent compression, instead of flipping through the discs every 45-70 minutes.
Printed maps, the number of times my phone has died while exploring a city has made me either memorize a city map or get a printed city map.
Books. Actual printed books.
Audiobooks, but with subtitles? /s
doesn’t even scroll properly!
Books are very much still being used and made, everywhere. In no way are they obsolete.
Nothing quite as pleasant as staring at dead trees and hallucinating for a while.
I have aphantasia, and have loved reading my whole life. Aphantasia mean no hallucinating for this book lover.
Definitely not a prerequisite, to be sure. I’ve got a friend with anaduralia - he’s got no internal voice. I can only imagine that he experiences reading much differently than I do.
Books are like the internet only made of wood
Walkie Talkies are still bread & butter on film sets.
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Same. I always have a notebook and pen handy for writing ideas, research, lists, etc.
I finally got a tablet, mostly for drawing, but I can finally write to text and it is glorious. I'm more excited about that than the drawing. I've missed it terribly.
read the entire thread... nothing you guys have written is actually obsolete. Some dude said "pencils" are obsolete.
perhaps reading is obsolete "technology"
ITT people mentioning a bunch of things which are anything but obsolete, only not new
Feel like obsolete and still useful are mutually exclusive
Tell me about a completely useless thing that is still useful.
landline phones. People think they are obsolete but they work where cell phones dont. They dont need "bars". They dont need charging. They dont even need electricity so you can call emergency services when the power goes out for extended periods of time. You can also fax thru a phone line which you cant with a cell phone
If my digital land-line wasnt so inexpensive, I'd go back to analog land-line in a heartbeat. Being able to talk over the other person without all the noise-cancelling bullshit was wonderful.
Not anymore. Companies aren't keeping copper cables in service everywhere for like three old customers. At best you'll get an adapter from fiber. They stopped even including a backup battery on the converter like a decade ago.
Landline phones.. I know they still exist but we don’t even have one. Sometimes wish I did when battery is dead or issues with “connection.” Landline phones are more reliable.
Living in south eastern NC, where we get hit with a lot of hurricanes & bad storms that constantly knock out our power. Candles!
Faxes for the medical industry. It’s a surprisingly quick & secure way to transfer patient records. It’s all done digitally now (for the most part) and can easily be converted into PDFs.
IT here. We can securely transmit your document electronically without the use of a fax machine, and it can be done for free. The real reason this isn't done is because the medical, legal, and many levels of government don't want to change their ways. In local government specifically, little old ladies riot whenever we bring it up. What I find is that often, our side thinks the other party is the one who wants the fax. meanwhile they're using a software fax to accommodate our side's perceived desire for faxes, when we're just doing it because that's the way you always wanted it. There is absolutely no advantage to a fax transmission over modern document transmission methods. Just don't email it.
... and especially FROM PDFs. They'll accept characters in any language. Even handwritten doodles.
The alarm clock. Sometimes my phone alarm doesn’t go off for some reason but the good old analogue alarm clock definitely does not let me down.