Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

[Ginger Piglet]

steer-by-wire in the Model S

Oh wow. That can't possibly end well. Your car computer bluescreens, and you lose all control. Renault attempted this in one version of the Vel Satis (a very weird car that can't decide whether it's a Chrysler Voyager or a hatchback) and one bloke caused a major incident when all the controls fell over apart from the accelerator and he was physically unable to do anything other than go faster.

 

[NOMYBITCASH]

Everything past 2010

 

[⠠⠠⠅⠑⠋⠋⠁⠇⠎ ⠠⠠⠊⠎ ⠠⠠⠁ ⠠⠠⠋⠁⠛]

Oh wow. That can't possibly end well. Your car computer bluescreens, and you lose all control. Renault attempted this in one version of the Vel Satis (a very weird car that can't decide whether it's a Chrysler Voyager or a hatchback) and one bloke caused a major incident when all the controls fell over apart from the accelerator and he was physically unable to do anything other than go faster.

So a few thoughts on this:

1. I think the claim with the Renault driver is that the throttle-by-wire system failed. This is already pretty standard on many new cars- it's why you can have a cruise control system that works without it moving your gas pedal up and down to change the throttle import (much less fun than pre-90s cruise control systems). In that case, at least, the driver was able to stop by cutting the ignition of the vehicle.
2. Steer-by-wire is a somewhat different matter. Obviously, any keen driver should prefer full manual steering, if you can't drag your steering wheel from full left to full right lock at a dead stop without any assistance, you shouldn't be driving a car. Of course, if you've ever driven a car with failed hydraulic power steering, you know that is much harder work than steering with a nicely setup manual rack- I'd be interested to see if there's a list somewhere of accidents caused by those systems failing in full spontaneously. And electric power steering is supposedly even more vulnerable to rapid full failure (as opposed to gradual failure) than hydraulic systems are.
3. Depending on the vehicle you drive, you can already have problems with most modern vehicles if you have to cycle the ignition while driving down the road- I wouldn't recommend anyone 'testing' how long it takes for the steering wheel lock to kick in. It could be dangerous.
4. Steer-by-wire systems have been installed in some vehicles already, admittedly only some Infinitis for 6 years or so, and admittedly with a manual backup system (which did see a small recall over a concern it might not kick in in some cases). If they have a discrete seperate system for doing steer-by-wire that can operate without the main computer and just takes inputs telling it to intensify or reduce steering speed from the main computer, with a a manual-steering backup system that can kick in if that fails, I don't see it being that much more risky than any regular power steering system.

Honestly I'd be more comfortable with a normal turn signal stalk and 100% steer-by-wire with no manual backup than absolutely anything else but these stupid touch turn signal controls.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Another car tech that I dislike is start-stop systems, which automatically turn off your car's engine when you come to a stop, and automatically starts up the car again when you either release the brakes or press the accelerator from a stop. Auto makers have implemented these for fuel conservation, but the fuel savings is very minimal, compared to the extra wear and tear on parts, namely the starter motor. There's also the delay on waiting for the car to start up when going from a stop, and there's the what-if when the start-stop function fails and your car doesn't start up, making the drivers behind you honk angrily. And some auto makers, i.e. Chevrolet, don't even allow you to disable the feature, without the use of third-party fixes, which probably would void the car's warranty. (Does it?)

 

[Totally Awesome]

I hate when I'm trying to search for places in my town, and I get nothing but results for places that are near my town instead. Fuck companies like Google and Yelp for not letting me look exclusively in my town. If what I'm looking for doesn't exist in my town, just say so.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Auto makers have implemented these for fuel conservation, but the fuel savings is very minimal, compared to the extra wear and tear on parts, namely the starter motor.

Back to my pet hate of how throwaway modern tech (and society) is: they don't care, because you're going to trade it in and get the latest model next year. Consoome product, then get excited for next product.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Didn't know where to put this but it seem fit into this thread.

"On today's menu it's Commodore 64 vs. MacBook Pro! Let's see if Wirth's Law is true - that software is getting slower more rapidly that hardware becomes faster - & pit 1982 against today in an epic race, with help from GEOS(graphical OS for the C64)," - only old parts and software are allowed for the C64 so no cheatin'! It was honestly interesting and kind of soothing.

It's a pretty chill channel, runned by a man and his wife, making mildly stupid challanges and designing/3D printing things useful for the C64 or Amige from time to time and then putting the CAD files up somewhere for others to use.

Trigger warning: his voice and puns might drive you to suicide, but when I say it's chill I really mean it.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Didn't know where to put this but it seem fit into this thread.

I think a retro thread would be cool. The other day I found out a small industrial computer from around late '90s early '00s I have has an option for the inbuilt graphics in the bios that lets me set a fixed resolution it'll put all DOS graphics modes into, probably to work well with LCD panels that showed up on industrial machines around that time. Anyone that ever tried (and failed) to make old DOS stuff look good on a modern screen will understand what big a convenience that is. I know the earlier GeForce cards kinda auto-detected the screen resolution via DVI and did something similar but it was always kinda iffy and those cards aren't really DOS appropriate anymore, while this is in the medium-Pentium range technology-wise and feels a lot more appropriate to run DOS with. No retro enthusiasts to share this with because all the usual spots on the internet of that particular community are pure cancer.

This is by the way also a new tech trend I hate, (to stay on topic) fixed native resolutions. Shit's incredibly annoying although admittedly, for 99% of people it doesn't matter. I wouldn't want to go back to CRTs because they did have a lot of downsides and a good LCD screen is very nice but in some ways it's a pity so many of the other alternative screen technologies failed. I'm especially salty about SED screens and epaper, although the latter isn't really dead just never got a proper chance outside it's niche. I had an 13" epaper tablet and it was amazing for the eyes as linux console only text screen. With a framerate from around ~13 fps (iirc) in it's fast drawing mode it was also more than fast enough. (and yes I heard there's an epaper screen you can buy but from all I read it's overpriced chink garbage, pretty much like that tablet was)

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

No retro enthusiasts to share this with because all the usual spots on the internet of that particular community are pure cancer.

For being a far-right stalker hate-site people here are very happy to help, share what they know, have and find, like the guy with MediaGX and Crusoe, that was super informative and interesting. Maybe it is both hindered and helped by keeping power-leveling down?

SED finally being put down was a real bummer. Toshiba showed a working set in 2006...

 

[The Real SVP]

Didn't know where to put this but it seem fit into this thread.

"On today's menu it's Commodore 64 vs. MacBook Pro! Let's see if Wirth's Law is true - that software is getting slower more rapidly that hardware becomes faster - & pit 1982 against today in an epic race, with help from GEOS(graphical OS for the C64)," - only old parts and software are allowed for the C64 so no cheatin'! It was honestly interesting and kind of soothing.

It's a pretty chill channel, runned by a man and his wife, making mildly stupid challanges and designing/3D printing things useful for the C64 or Amige from time to time and then putting the CAD files up somewhere for others to use.

Trigger warning: his voice and puns might drive you to suicide, but when I say it's chill I really mean it.

The video shows something I miss: Line printing and draft mode. Modern printers only let you print a whole page, and print quality settings only save ink/toner but not time.

I think a retro thread would be cool.

I'd rather call it old hardware and software, rather than retro. Retro is one of those words strongly associated with soy and cancer.

 

[Fools Idol]

I miss 4:3 and I hate it when old TV shows or movies are "remastered" and their aspect ratio is changed to widescreen.

 

[AnOminous]

I miss 4:3 and I hate it when old TV shows or movies are "remastered" and their aspect ratio is changed to widescreen.

In the same general vein, I hate when movies are converted to other formats like pan & scan shit, instead of letterboxed.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Not a new tech trend, but it sucks when software is made to be very difficult and counter-intuitive to use. Like one clicks on something thinking it'll do something, and nothing happens - turns out one hase to do like 2-3 other things.

A notable example of poor UI design is Blender (3D rendering software). So many buttons and stuff. It looks like the Space Shuttle cockpit controls. Just about all I could figure out was making a render of a grey cube in a blueish-grey void. wow

The insane difficulty of using Blender can be really obvious when comparing it with Bryce, another 3D rendering software (the one I used to make this avatar). In Bryce, everything does what one expects, it's easy to use, but can still do quite a bit.

How can software get designed to be so user-unfriendly, let alone released?

 

[Cupronickel]

Cases like this.

 

[A Thick Piece of Meat]

By the time I realize what a trend is it's already over

 

[AnOminous]

Cases like this.View attachment 1907690

I liked this too.

The only problem is if you smoked a lot this would turn yellow after a few years.

 

[seri0us]

I liked this too.

View attachment 1907769
The only problem is if you smoked a lot this would turn yellow after a few years.

Smoking is for dumb people.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

The insane difficulty of using Blender can be really obvious when comparing it with Bryce, another 3D rendering software (the one I used to make this avatar). In Bryce, everything does what one expects, it's easy to use, but can still do quite a bit.

Ah yes, Bryce, the program where you spin the crystal and touch the pearl to open up the dialogue window to set an output directory, because the program is using a GUI created by german lunatic Kai Krause that called his own interface "a padded cell". (There was an interesting (short) documentary on Krause on youtube but I can't find it right now.)

It still makes way more sense than Blender though. To its credit it is way better now than it used to be but it still feels like trying to peel potatoes with your non-dominant foot using inverted controls. 3d programs used to have programmer moon-logic in their GUIs but Blender was the worst.

 

[byuu]

3d programs used to have programmer moon-logic in their GUIs but Blender was the worst.

Blender started as an internal tool by an animation studio. So they didn't care about how "intuitive" it was.
I used blender before they made the UI friendlier, and it was actually very efficient and nice to use once you got the hang of it and understood how you are meant to use it. It was actually well thought-out and internally consistent for the most part.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

3d programs used to have programmer moon-logic

Another terrible UI of 3D software I once tried was in this old one called "Simply 3D". "Simply" my ass. I remember buttons with icons of what looked like refrigerators that (supposedly) controlled the lighting, and convoluted menus. Couldn't change the default "void" at all.

Also Macromedia Flash was a pain in the ass to learn back in the day. Not as bad as Blender, but still difficult to learn.

(also the version of Bryce I use isn't that abstract lol)