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

[ToroidalBoat]

Where there's still incandescent bulbs sold, prices have really shot up. While in the 1990s a lightbulb could cost less than $1, now a single 25 watt can cost ~ $4 to $8.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Youtube is unusable now. Kiwifarms is a better browsing experience.

Not sure if it's the 100s of anti-adblock measures or backend is just shit, but, even navigating the website is ass. It takes 3 seconds to load the frontend, stuff constantly freezes and features half-work. Like, clicking the shorts button breaks the site and you have to reload it; the search and subscribers just refuse to load at that point. Clicking a video will buffer for 10 seconds, THEN start at a super-slow pace, and you can tell this is a back-end/hampering measure because ads load smoothly without any buffering. Watching playlists is impossible now. Wait 1 min for song to load, plays 5 seconds, buffers, etc.

Like, do they really think customers will go like "uhhh I use internet explorer and Youtube is shit. Maybe if I change to chrome..." and switch to Chrome? This is not how it works, out-of-touch Google employees. People will not go "Hail Google! My subpar browser hampers my Youtube viewing experience! Oh what shall I do! I shall never abstract from Alphabet any longer", they will just go back to TikTok or Rumble or whatever. Youtube is ass.

 

[BulletSpongeRTR]

Scented thermal paste, kill me now.

 

[Womble of Wimbledon]

I hate that every piece of software these days nags the shit out of you for updates. Now, I could understand if there was major bug or an exploit they're patching, or they're adding a new feature, and they communicated that through a changelog, but nearly everything I used that demands I update it never tells me why I need to update. It's just "Updates, updates, updates, updates, updates, UPDATES"

The worst offender I have found is PotPlayer. It updates like twice a week, literally every time I use it there is a new update, and I have no idea why because it has barely changed since I first installed it. If you skip the update too many times it will just update automatically without even asking.

If it wasn't the best video player I could find I would get rid of it just to avoid the update nagging.

 

[seri0us]

The worst offender I have found is PotPlayer. It updates like twice a week, literally every time I use it there is a new update, and I have no idea why because it has barely changed since I first installed it. If you skip the update too many times it will just update automatically without even asking.

If it wasn't the best video player I could find I would get rid of it just to avoid the update nagging.

What does PotPlayer do better than MPV or VLC?

 

[Gargamel]

The worst offender I have found is PotPlayer. It updates like twice a week, literally every time I use it there is a new update, and I have no idea why because it has barely changed since I first installed it. If you skip the update too many times it will just update automatically without even asking.

If it wasn't the best video player I could find I would get rid of it just to avoid the update nagging.

What does PotPlayer do better than MPV or VLC?

...or Media Player Classic? Since we're apparently talking about Windows.

Maybe he just likes gook-developed software.

 

[Womble of Wimbledon]

What does PotPlayer do better than MPV or VLC?

Nothing but it's super lightweight and fast so I like it

 

[GNU Abyss]

Youtube is unusable now. Kiwifarms is a better browsing experience.

Not sure if it's the 100s of anti-adblock measures or backend is just shit, but, even navigating the website is ass. It takes 3 seconds to load the frontend, stuff constantly freezes and features half-work. Like, clicking the shorts button breaks the site and you have to reload it; the search and subscribers just refuse to load at that point. Clicking a video will buffer for 10 seconds, THEN start at a super-slow pace, and you can tell this is a back-end/hampering measure because ads load smoothly without any buffering. Watching playlists is impossible now. Wait 1 min for song to load, plays 5 seconds, buffers, etc.

Like, do they really think customers will go like "uhhh I use internet explorer and Youtube is shit. Maybe if I change to chrome..." and switch to Chrome? This is not how it works, out-of-touch Google employees. People will not go "Hail Google! My subpar browser hampers my Youtube viewing experience! Oh what shall I do! I shall never abstract from Alphabet any longer", they will just go back to TikTok or Rumble or whatever. Youtube is ass.

I can vouch for uBlock Origin's advanced mode on Firefox, it's pretty good at debloating webshit. You don't really need to change any of the advanced settings, just the mode itself being on gives you the ability to dynamically filter site content a la uMatrix and RequestPolicy. My default setting for JS is off. When it's needed, I first enable it on the target website through the dashboard, refresh and start filtering down while refreshing again until I find a minimal subset of that doesn't make the page break completely. Autistic, but works pretty good.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

I update it never tells me why I need to update. It's just "Updates, updates, updates, updates, updates, UPDATES"

WHAT AM I UPDATING FOR?

I agree in principle. It's one thing to update software upon discovery of a bug/security flaw, add new functionality that has a purpose, and fix broken or incomplete functionality. But updating for the sake of updating is the main source of scope creep and what turns software into useless bloatware over time.

Based on past experience, some of the functionality added in dubious updates is the product of busywork or bad brainstorms made by execs who lack a review process where someone could say "No, that's a bad idea," when it's the correct decision to be made.

I'll talk about my gripes about phone app updates with the next quote:

Second, and much more recently, my phone will sometimes nag me to update it, preventing me from using it unless I press "Remind me later" in which case it gives me a few more days before it asks again. Oh, and I can only do this so many times before my phone holds itself hostage and prevents me from using it at all until I agree to install the "updates" that never seem to do anything useful.

While my phone won't lock itself if I don't update apps timely, it will reach a point where it will self-download and install all pending updates if I don't do it after a while and it has an internet connection long enough to fetch the updates.

What concerns me with phone/mobile apps is how frequently some of them have updates. Many times have I updated an app only to have another update appear for the same app within 48 hours. If mobile apps are that buggy or poorly-coded to require near-daily updates, it doesn't give me confidence about the people coding and testing them - and it's also why I refuse to install apps on my phone unless I have no choice.

I have professional software that, when it needs updates, has two options for moving forward: update now, or cancelling which disallows using the software until it's updated. There's no option for, "I'm using it now and can't update it, let it update the next time it loads," which would be convenient even though I understand why it wants users to install updates as timely as possible.

The text editor I'm using saw it's last serious update about two years ago and that's fine because it has a very set scope of features, already does everything I need and doesn't have any bugs I would've noticed.

I also use older programs in a similar state. The software was either discontinued or hasn't been updated in years, but the last versions I've installed do what I need, they don't have any glaring bugs, and I have neither interest nor desire to use anything else more current that has more features than I'll ever need or use. I intend to keep using the programs in question until I can't any more.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

LED lightbulbs are the only thing available nowadays, and they’re shit.

Put up a new light fixture last July. Bought LEDs for it. Fuckers are expensive. Says “13 year lifespan” on box. Fixture is in a bathroom, where the light is off 90% of the time. Had to buy new LED lightbulb this week… yeah that whole “13 year” bullshit was a lie.

This is why I will NEVER buy any fixture with a built-in LED light. I have lamps that with a new socket every 40 years have been heirlooms, the built-in LED stuff you’re lucky to get 5 years out of.

I just laugh when I see dumbasses putting fancy, expensive, all-one-piece lighting in their house because it’s programmable and pretty, especially when three days later it’s off color because one diode shit the bed.

LED bulbs now have EXTREMELY similar color temperatures to incandescents and I have LED bulbs going on 10 years old that I haven't replaced

 

[ToroidalBoat]

LED bulbs now have EXTREMELY similar color temperatures to incandescents and I have LED bulbs going on 10 years old that I haven't replaced

I used one of the first warm white general purpose LED bulbs years ago. The color rendering was crap: I recall a blue bedsheet looked purple-ish. Also, due to some heating issue, it lost brightness dramatically. At least warm white LEDs now do better color rendering.

 

[Never Scored]

I've found incandescent bulbs at the dollar store, but they're poorly made and burn out very quickly.

 

[neverendingmidi]

LED bulbs now have EXTREMELY similar color temperatures to incandescents and I have LED bulbs going on 10 years old that I haven't replaced

I don't have problems with the color temperatures, I'm annoyed that something that costs 4x as much (compared to old incandescents or even halogens) only lasted 6 months.

 

[Dick Mason]

Having to see 5-10 seconds of the Cloudflare 'are you human?' screen on before loading almost every website is making me very very irritated. They must be stopped.

I am once again asking to use the KF Litigation Fund to finance my personal smitings.

What does PotPlayer do better than MPV or VLC?

The GUI is general better, imo. Especially the menus and settings area. VLC, though very capable and nice looking, is still retarded in that respect. There is great utility in its simplicity though. I'd recommend VLC to someone before I'd recommend Potplayer. Potplayer imo is more like a power user tool, because on how expansive and fine-grained its options are.

Personally, I have specific settings I've been using in Potplayer (and Kmplayer, its cousin. Why there are two of same software with different GUI, from different people, I don't know, as it snot open source) for a decade, settings that make it so I can have everything exactly how I want.

The worst offender I have found is PotPlayer

The thing with Potplayer is that you can never let it have internet access. I only update via Choco, and as soon as it installs it is denied all internet access via Simplewall. Then I'm cozy forever.

 

[skjora]

LED bulbs now have EXTREMELY similar color temperatures to incandescents and I have LED bulbs going on 10 years old that I haven't replaced

Yeah, I've a low power one that I've never ever turned off in ~6 years that keeps working like a champ. I don't count bulbs as a consumable any more. I think there's a huge difference in quality between LED bulb brands though, and it doesn't correlate much at all with price. They're probably also a lot more sensitive to power surges and bad wiring, so that may affect one's experience.

 

[Moths]

noticing a lot of programs I've installed recently will set themselves as startup programs on installation without asking despite not being necessary on startup.

This vexes me.

 

[Gargamel]

noticing a lot of programs I've installed recently will set themselves as startup programs on installation without asking despite not being necessary on startup.

This vexes me.

Nothing new. I remember this being the case 20 years ago. Still annoying as fuck though.

 

[Morning Alarm]

noticing a lot of programs I've installed recently will set themselves as startup programs on installation without asking despite not being necessary on startup.

This vexes me.

Windows with index exe's more than any other filetype. Half of them probably aren't in the registry as startup programs, rather they're simply indexed by window's shitty indexing into startup. Also KYS Gargamel, you're a retard. My indexing works flawlessly, you're just a drooling idiot. If you're bored check out the powershell scripts to change your startup registry programs. Here's a good place to start:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/how-to-access-or-modify-startup-items-in-the-window-registry/

 

[AnOminous]

The funniest thing about DOS was that it was stuck in legacy hell basically from day two, having absolutely ass memory layout because some machines that were barely relevant for 3-4 years demanded it. Paid that price for way to long. Other things back then just broke backwards compatibility as they pleased and all the time. Sometimes it was for the better.

I'm pretty sure emm386 and himem.sys are in the list of tech nobody at all misses.

 

[hl2_linux]

Where there's still incandescent bulbs sold, prices have really shot up. While in the 1990s a lightbulb could cost less than $1, now a single 25 watt can cost ~ $4 to $8.

I live in the UK and can still get a pack of 6 incandenscent bulbs for about £5. Why are they so expensive where you live? Have they all been replaced by shitty LED lights because "muh enviroment". Because apparently a piece of wire glowing is causing a major impact on the world.
Pretty much every LED light I've had has always mysteriously burned out. Maybe it's because of my house's dubious wiring but I've never had this issue with incandescent bulbs.