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

[Ginger Piglet]

The interesting thing is that buying less plastic crap from China is never on the table. Like you don't hear them complain about all the landfill rated things like funkopops etc. Also all consumer electronics become less and less repairable and artificially obsoleted. That's green too somehow.

Heck, how would vegans even live without their precious fruits and nuts etc being transported across the globe. etc. I would gladly give up coffee and chocolate, if I can have fresh pork and locally sourced veggies etc. A vegan diet without soy is rather complicated to get together.

nu-Greens are really weird and are just corporate lobby at this point.

They really are. A friend of a friend's son just got a job at this place. It is an "eco consultancy" but it uses language that is as obfuscatory and as meaningless as, well, the sort of bullshit that Enron used to baffle its investors into not thinking it was a ponzi scheme. I quote:

Offsetting 2.0​

BeZero offers a more sophisticated approach to Carbon Neutrality via our proprietary BeZero Ratings Framework. Our Carbon Credit team ensures clients that offset residual emissions are genuinely achieving climate action.

01 Competitor analysis​

We assess existing offset strategies & recommend higher-quality alternatives.

02 Custom baskets​

We build diversified offset portfolios tailored to clients’ emissions exposures & business needs.

03 Optimised outcomes​

We use modern portfolio-theory to ensure BeZero credits remove or avoid a tonne of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions for every tonne claimed.

04 Execution services​

We purchase and retire credits for clients via global carbon exchanges offering our clients deeper liquidity and access to projects from all major certifiers. BeZero acts as a Retail Aggregator.

05 ESG-resilience​

Our evidence-based approach mitigates the market, regulatory, balance sheet, & reputational risks associated with buying carbon credits to claim Carbon Neutrality.
The BeZero Ratings are a top-down, risk-based framework for assessing the carbon efficacy of the global Voluntary Offset Market. It has been designed by our team of earth scientists & economists. We rate projects from any of the major accreditors (VCS, Gold Standard, ACR, CAR, Plan Vivo and others) using our six-factor model, including additionality & over-crediting risks. Our objective is to drive standards in the market by promoting information & price discovery.

Notwithstanding that emissions trading, carbon offsets, carbon credits, etc. are all fucking snake oil in the first place, this basically is more about avoiding being called out for greenwashing than actually, you know, polluting less. Also "modern portfolio theory" sounds like weasel words for "ackchually."

Meanwhile, mountains of plastic tat and throwaway barely-functional electronics and other shite you don't need emerges from China every day, which is consoomed by people who give up meat and foreign holidays because the Swedish Doom Goblin glowered at them, and then said mountains of tat ends up in landfill because recycling is nowhere near as economical as it's spun to be.

Oh, and all those solar panels? Made using rare earth metals that are only economical to mine in China because they don't give a shit about the environment there with energy from coal power plants, lasts 15 years, then chucked on the heap. And the Swedish Doom Goblin decries nuclear energy (which is far less pollutive and wasteful in terms of volume of waste produced, and some reactors or chemical processes can even turn the waste into more fuel for fuck's sake) because "muh Chernobyl" and hobnobs with that terrible fraud Vandana "Fertilisers are rape" Shiva. You could be forgiven for thinking that "ecological responsibility" is a smokescreen for "rationing for the plebs so us important people can carry on as normal" given all the circumstances.

In April 2020 I speculated that the coof and lockdowns because thereof were being used as dry runs for net zero.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Ever miss that cute little knocking sound a 5.25" floppy drive made when you powered up the computer?

You will never hear anything like that again because it symbolized the sheer charm of early computer technology and being one of the people first in on it.

"oh for fucks sake I clicked on or entered A:/B: by mistake"
Time to kick back and let your blood boil.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Amigas clicked the drive constantly when empty and the function not specifically turned off. I remember many a night reading blurry text on a tiny CRT with only the whirring of the power supply fan and the harddrive and the clicking of the 3,5" drive to accompany me. The clicking was useful to tell if the computer had crashed, a heartbeat if you will. It was actually there to detect if a disk has been inserted, the drives do have a signal on one of their pins that tells you if the disk state has changed, but it's only updated when the motor is actually stepped.

Miss me with the fans today though, I can't stand that stuff.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Ever miss that cute little knocking sound a 5.25" floppy drive made when you powered up the computer?

You will never hear anything like that again because it symbolized the sheer charm of early computer technology and being one of the people first in on it.

The really fun one was the Apple 2 and the horrendous angry second-long grind the drive would make when it failed to read a disk. I'm not sure if it was the drive physically smashing the head against the wall by overdriving the stepper or not but it sure sounded like it.

In a similar vein the Hayes modem authentication exchange and how you could tell the shittiness of your connection based on the last couple seconds being a downwards arpeggio or not.

 

[moocow]

The really fun one was the Apple 2 and the horrendous angry second-long grind the drive would make when it failed to read a disk. I'm not sure if it was the drive physically smashing the head against the wall by overdriving the stepper or not but it sure sounded like it.

I still wish I knew what the hell that noise actually was. It also made that sound when it was formatting a disk, too, so it wasn't just a sound it made when something was going wrong.

 

[Gamepad]

I still wish I knew what the hell that noise actually was. It also made that sound when it was formatting a disk, too, so it wasn't just a sound it made when something was going wrong.

Apple omitted a track 40 sensor on the disc drives for cost saving. So it will have a tendency of doing a headbanging noise for various operations, especially if it does something that would cause it to lose track of where it is.

 

[Uncle Ted's Cabin]

The worst aren't necessarily even bad coders, but they often deliberately obfuscate their code so only they can possibly understand it and thereby guarantee their continued employment

I think there are a lot of developers out there like this now. I can't blame them much either. When you work 60 hour weeks at a software megacorp to meet some absurd deadline and your reward is a layoff notice at the end, what is the conclusion to be reached? I read somewhere that the average software development job only lasts around 2 years. There is virtually no job security at these companies unless you create it.

 

[byuu]

Oh, and all those solar panels? Made using rare earth metals

People keep saying that but I've never found a source for that claim.
Only one paper that studies using Yb in trace amounts for doping.

 

[Vague]

Tech trend I hate: Infantile or """funny""" error messages. "Woopsie doopsie, the program made a boo-boo!", "The gerbils running our server are struggling to keep up! Try again in a minute."

I only have seen that in the degenerative shit hole known as discord. Can you give any other examples ?

 

[Uncle Ted's Cabin]

"Ecological" lightbulbs.

So, instead of a piece of glass and metal costing half a dollar, producing semi-natural light and easily disposable, you have a $3 apiece monstrosity producing sickly, weak light and pray to all that is holy it won't slip and break on the carpet or crack while still screwed in the lamp, because then you have mercury fumes polluting your apartment basically forever. It's extra fun when you have little kids who by their very nature break stuff all the time and will be crippled for life if they smash one of these while you're not in the house. Nobody I know bothers to dispose of them properly, they just dump them in communal dumpsters. It almost feels like some kind of cruel joke. And yeah, still produced en-masse by the PRC, who live by the "you get what you pay for" rule.

You can still buy old-style wolfram lightbulbs, but they're of the "safety light" variety previously sold in gardening stores, and their quality is so legendarily bad they deserve an article on Sankaku Complex. 1 in 3 have snapped wires out of the box, then you have 1 in 3 chance it will burn out instantly you turn it on, then it works for a week, tops. All made by PRC, too.


"Ecological" cars, and carbon emission limits.

Tankers transporting Chinesium all over the globe dwarf car CO2 emission by an order of magnitude. Idiots.

When I moved into my current place, I went on a light-bulb replacement spree because the apartment complex put them in every room. I don't understand why people are still buying CFLs when LED bulbs are superior by every measure.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

My current hard drive makes loud noises whenever I access stuff on it, and when the computer boots up. A lot of people would rather have it be silent but I think the mechanical sounds of it give it a certain charm. Getting feedback is always nice, modern day products remove feedback from things too much, such as cars.

You might want to download Crystal Disk Info and run it. A loud hard drive means something is wrong.

The interesting thing is that buying less plastic crap from China is never on the table. Like you don't hear them complain about all the landfill rated things like funkopops etc. Also all consumer electronics become less and less repairable and artificially obsoleted. That's green too somehow.

Heck, how would vegans even live without their precious fruits and nuts etc being transported across the globe. etc. I would gladly give up coffee and chocolate, if I can have fresh pork and locally sourced veggies etc. A vegan diet without soy is rather complicated to get together.

nu-Greens are really weird and are just corporate lobby at this point.

My favorite "green" thing is bonded leather. When I think green, I think of a chair peeling after a year or two of regular use. I think of constant fruitless attempts at repairing that peeling material with adhesives and even more bonded leather. It shouldn't be on anything intended to sit on.

 

[Puff]

The major thing is you could have a part of the gas station lot you pull up to, it pulls your battery out, and replaces it with an identical but fully charged set. It would make 'charging' practically instant, and completely skip over the issues with speed. But it will never likely happen because of the corporate issue compounded with figuring out how to store batteries properly under hot concrete and having the loading mechanism not constantly jam or run out of usable batteries.

Tesla was planning this early on, but it never panned out. It was a technical issue, not an adoption issue. Further, the newer designs are moving batteries into the frame (nice fire hazard) and render that idea useless..

The amount of energy waste from inductive charging a car while it's driving. It hurts to think about. That's why I can imagine green retards attempting it. Just look at how many people fell for solar freakin' roadways.

I work in automotive. The "smart" side of it, and I have greenie coworkers who should know better pushing for this. Like the fucking engineers.

Better for the business environment! Carbon counters and hipsters only care about the emissions during the operation, not the overall.

Same coworkers. Same deal. They buy their own marketing hype. Not sure how much is denial and how much is actual retardation.

Also, it is not a good idea to keep ports etc open. I am not aware if they could do anything bad to that car via wireless but assholes happen.

There was a shitstorm when someone hacked a Jeep a year or two ago. https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/
Also the engineers used to screw with each other by remote accessing vehicles and disabling AC during hot environment testing trips and the like. These were engineering (i.e. not production) vehicles and the functionality was removed, but I figure you could figure it out with some effort.

 

[seri0us]

Also the engineers used to screw with each other by remote accessing vehicles and disabling AC during hot environment testing trips and the like.

Hilarious.

 

[Picklechu]

"Ecological" lightbulbs.

So, instead of a piece of glass and metal costing half a dollar, producing semi-natural light and easily disposable, you have a $3 apiece monstrosity producing sickly, weak light and pray to all that is holy it won't slip and break on the carpet or crack while still screwed in the lamp, because then you have mercury fumes polluting your apartment basically forever. It's extra fun when you have little kids who by their very nature break stuff all the time and will be crippled for life if they smash one of these while you're not in the house. Nobody I know bothers to dispose of them properly, they just dump them in communal dumpsters. It almost feels like some kind of cruel joke. And yeah, still produced en-masse by the PRC, who live by the "you get what you pay for" rule.

Do people still even buy CFLs? I don't think I've seen one in like 7 years. Just buy cheap "daylight" LED bulbs like a normal person in 2021.

Ever miss that cute little knocking sound a 5.25" floppy drive made when you powered up the computer?

You will never hear anything like that again because it symbolized the sheer charm of early computer technology and being one of the people first in on it.

That, the old-school Windows startup sound, the dial-up modem sound...

I was interested in getting a Model 3 Tesla, but holy hell are there so many features that I just don’t want. They have an app you can use to remote control the car. And of course, it has a big ass tablet in the middle of the screen that you use to control half the functions in the car. I wish it had actual buttons and not touchscreen bullshit. I’m only considering getting this car because it has a decent range, is electric, and will last me at least a decade. I despise all this bullshit they’re bundling into it.

I started casually looking into a new vehicle last year, and the Model 3 was one of the things I looked into. I honestly don't think that there's anything on the market made within the past decade that doesn't have touchscreen buttons. I saw a handful that had screens instead of gauges and stuff (speedometer, odometer, fuel gauge, etc). It was horrifying.

I can keep driving my truck for a few more years - as long as I continue to take care of it, I could easily still be driving it in 2030 - but it's kind of frustrating to see the way things are going.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Do people still even buy CFLs?

I've got a few left in places that needed a shorter "neck" than what was available on LEDs at the time. I ought to check if that's still the case.

 

[Toolbox]

I've got a few left in places that needed a shorter "neck" than what was available on LEDs at the time. I ought to check if that's still the case.

There are so many variations at this point that it's almost impossible not to have one that would fit if it's one of a few standardized sockets. Thought it might be a crappier bulb.

 

[The Last Stand]

Does every car need a screen on the dashboard?

 

[Toolbox]

Does every car need a screen on the dashboard?

How else can you prevent deaths from that pesky distracting smart phone? Make it much larger and permanently on, mounted in the middle of your car and mandatory to use if you want to use your cars radio and gps, along with most settings. This is necessary.

 

[AnOminous]

I've got a few left in places that needed a shorter "neck" than what was available on LEDs at the time. I ought to check if that's still the case.

I have a few left too that haven't burned out yet. I really dislike the light they emit, though. LEDs have a lot better output for the wattage, but there's still something about an incandescent 120 watt bulb with a clear glass bulb.

 

[Sprocket]

I miss 3dfx. Wonder where they would be now if they had some foresight.

And SEGA. Wonder where they would be if SEGA Japan listened to SEGA US.