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

[56 others]

I got a popup on Youtube that my comment was removed for harassment and cyberbullying, but wont fucking show what the comment was. How am I supposed to "do better" if you wont show me my fuckup? Honestly it was probably because I commented the cops should just end someone on a Police Activity video, or a comment I made about PirateSoftware

Also, Youtube deleted my favorites playlist last year because of no-no hate videos in it. This account is over 10 years old, that playlist had thousands of videos in it. Retarded.

Anyways, one tech thing I like: my 2020 LG smart TV can play any video file I got from sailing the high seas, even ones with subtitles and multiple audio tracks, straight from a portable hard drive. VLC player of TVs

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

I got a popup on Youtube that my comment was removed for harassment and cyberbullying, but wont fucking show what the comment was. How am I supposed to "do better" if you wont show me my fuckup? Honestly it was probably because I commented the cops should just end someone on a Police Activity video, or a comment I made about PirateSoftware

Also, Youtube deleted my favorites playlist last year because of no-no hate videos in it. This account is over 10 years old, that playlist had thousands of videos in it. Retarded.

Anyways, one tech thing I like: my 2020 LG smart TV can play any video file I got from sailing the high seas, even ones with subtitles and multiple audio tracks, straight from a portable hard drive. VLC player of TVs

I’d reply back and let them know google needs to do better by not canceling dope ass shit like Google Play Music.

 

[555777555]

I hate debit cards and credit cards.
I hate VR.
I hate AI images.
I hate Windows 11.
I hate anything Apple.
I hate streaming services.
I hate software updates.
I hate Adobe.
I hate cloud storage.
I hate games that require internet connection.
I hate QR codes.
I hate smart appliances.
I hate smart watches.
I hate electric cars.
I hate wireless earphones.
I hate wireless mice and keyboards.

 

[AnOminous]

I hate absolutely anything electronic that also gets rid of something you used to be able to do by pushing a button, turning a knob, pulling on a handle, or otherwise physically interacting with something, so now if some shitty chinkware PCB blows out, you can't do it at all.

I can't think of a single one of these things that actually improve anything.

 

[9th year in hell]

When you just could buy hardware and it would "just work" without an internet connection. out of the box. Now the first thing every PC, phone and tablet does is to ask you about WiFi and then an email.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I had to take the bus (this is in europe, so it's slightly more acceptable than in the US) the other day and in the bus, there was a toddler in a pram. The pram had a small tablet installed on a hinge and the toddler was watching some youtube thing, completely still and fixed to the screen. It's been days and that image is still burned into my mind. It especially came to mind today seeing zoomers having a complete meltdown over tiktok being banned in the US.

 

[2mm and 99 others]

Simplification of the dashes is getting popular and as result, they are harder to read. I had to drive on one of those mini cars from Renault and looking at this cluster while using it made me angry.

View attachment 6828835

Is the engine overheating? Do I really have 2/6th of a gas tank left? Why do the rpm counter needs a light show everytime it revs up and down? Why do I need to be reminded constantly that I'm driving a Renault? And good luck if the sun hits directly the cluster, now it got harder to read. And in the night it's uncomfortable to look at thanks to all the lights it has.

I'll also stick to old cars for now.

At least the RPM gauge is there in some form. I had to drive a 90's Ford Ka in the driving school once or twice and when I got inside, I stared at the dashboard and the RPM gauge was not there at all (how 'convenient' for a driving school car....)

 

[The Last Stand]

Half the time, my SMART TV cannot even display the input menu but it can swarm me with ads and useless apps upon booting up the television.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

I can't believe I forgot to mention the loss of microSD card slots and user serviceable batteries in phones. Also making them needlessly painful to service.

I had 2 Google Pixels, a 4A and a 5A, that I got to sideload GrapheneOS onto. Pixels are kinda fragile and notoriously a pain to fix. Lost 1 to the bastards at UBreakIFix when they """ repaired""" my busted screen and screwed up my sim card slot in the process, the other just bricked on me and nothing I did to fix it worked. Tried the battery, the PCB for the charge port, and something else I don't remember. Nothing worked, and I completely lost my data on both because neither had an SD card slot. I don't care about cloud storage being a "thing", I want to have a local backup I can just pop out and swap over to my new phone in 2 minutes. Thankfully my current used Samsung Galaxy S20 FE does have expandable storage and that will be a requirement for any future phone I buy going forward. I'm kinda tempted by the Fairphone with its modular design, but I don't know much about them.

Yeah IMHO the Galaxy S5 or maybe the Galaxy S10 were the peak in smartphone design.

These days with under screen fingerprint sensors the chin bezel can go away.

The only reason to kill microsd card support and 3.5mm jacks were mindless apple copycatting or being greedy storage SOBs.

 

[jeff7989]

At least the RPM gauge is there in some form. I had to drive a 90's Ford Ka in the driving school once or twice and when I got inside, I stared at the dashboard and the RPM gauge was not there at all (how 'convenient' for a driving school car....)

My old car had no RPM gauge. Fun fact, you can judge RPM by listening to the engine.

 

[2mm and 99 others]

Of course you can, but how much would you like to hear this while learning to drive stick (and cars in general)?

 

[Sharpeteer]

Personally I don't want the storage for on-phone generated content, just content I want with me. So I don't much mind that it's not removable, just the rip-off price and limited storage.

Backups are limited to Photos and Videos created which NextCloud syncs to my home server and my TOTP app file which also syncs to NextCloud. Everything else is already cloudshit like my email, my email, my other email. We'll see what I've forgotten to move over, luckily the old phone isn't dead.

My main phone is only 64GB, and even that is too much to me. Lol

The only crucial things I keep on my phone are my encrypted kdbx file for my local Keepass password manager, and the Obtainium .json file so I can import it into Obtainium and pull all the github repos for apps I like. Otherwise it's some music I listen to the most.

I understand that for people that use their phones for actually filming stuff, or actually use their camera for things beyond taking pictures of shit I need to remember later (like screw placement for whatever computer/game system I'm taking apart that day), they need a lot more storage and it would be nice to have local backups beyond copying the files to a computer, but my critical files can be easily sent to myself, so it was never a big deal to me. My issue with the whole "no micro SD card slot" thing was not that the increased storage isn't there, because I don't need a lot of it, but it was, to me, clearly a means to get those that need more storage to pay out the ass for it.

I will say for those that want a phone that has a MicroSD slot, headphone jack, the ability to unlock the bootloader and install a FOSS operating system, and you can't get a Fairphone, consider the Sony Xperia 5 III, or similar model.

Jumping on the smart tech hate bandwagon, my TV begging me for a fucking update every single fucking time I turn it on. I don't know what's worse, that the manufacturers had the gall to make the TV do this or the fact that they actually kinda have a point because these retarded smart devices do present security vulnerabilities you need constant patching to prevent. I unironically predict within the next 5 years they'll loop back to 'dumb' devices. Brand a 90s Nokia as an 'unhackable' device because it's literally just too simple, watch the niggercattle tech-illiterate zoomie-zooms eat it up with a goddamn spoon.

Actually, this started as a joke but the more I think, they should totally do that. Anyone else remember those indestructible bricks?

Years ago before I realized how fucking awful these smart TVs are, I had an LG WebOS smart TV, and brand new out of the box it was fairly decent. I let it update over the internet whenever it needed it, which was a terrible error on my part - by the time I hated it, it had more unavoidable advertisements after all the updates, and the boot up times to get from pressing power on to the point you could navigate to the input device you wanted went from a few seconds to OVER 30 SECONDS after all the updates.

I sold it, and after that never let any of my TVs since connect to the internet ever again. If I want to watch movies, shows or YouTube on my TV, I'll connect one of my Linux computers to it and do it that way. It's easy, painless, and never gives me any trouble.

 

[Critical Raxx Theory]

Of course you can, but how much would you like to hear this while learning to drive stick (and cars in general)?

It was never a concern when I was learning in old cars, by ear is probably better as its one less thing for a learner to be looking at instead of the road. A day or two of practising where the clutch starts to grab for taking off, and then what a lugging engine sounds/feels like as it hops down the road is probably good enough.
I used to drive a truck with straight cut gears, no syncromesh at all, so you had to double clutch up and down gears, I don't think an rpm gauge would help learn that either.

Interestingly, you were more likely to get a gauge on automatics, you wouldn't get one on a poverty pack manual, just the sporty ones, but the majority of 1980s+ auto cars seemed to have them

 

[Green Man]

I like doing soldering projects in my spare time, fun little hobby and you get something neat out of the deal typically, but now just about any projects you can look up will say: "NO SOLDERING REQUIRED", what the fuck is that shit? That's the fun part. Is it a Zoomer thing where they're terrified of soldering irons? I have noticed a lot of Zoomers popping on to ask how they can fix their Xbox controller's stick drift and when people suggest that a replacement needs to be soldered they give up immediately. They act like it's some sort of inaccessible dark art. Practice soldering/desoldering on some shitty junk board with blown caps for a few days and you'll be fine, might not look pretty but it'll probably work.

Not to mention the people over on Reddit, who behave as if you need a laboratory fume extractor and a hazmat suit to solder, not to mention a $300 hot air setup or you might as well be 'soldering' with a Bic lighter and a paperclip. Lead is apparently just as dangerous as plutonium to these people. All of the fuming is just flux burning off, no more dangerous than burning a pizza in the oven and the kitchen gets smoked up.

 

[Intel® Core™2 Duo E8400]

I like doing soldering projects in my spare time, fun little hobby and you get something neat out of the deal typically, but now just about any projects you can look up will say: "NO SOLDERING REQUIRED", what the fuck is that shit? That's the fun part. Is it a Zoomer thing where they're terrified of soldering irons? I have noticed a lot of Zoomers popping on to ask how they can fix their Xbox controller's stick drift and when people suggest that a replacement needs to be soldered they give up immediately. They act like it's some sort of inaccessible dark art. Practice soldering/desoldering on some shitty junk board with blown caps for a few days and you'll be fine, might not look pretty but it'll probably work.

Not to mention the people over on Reddit, who behave as if you need a laboratory fume extractor and a hazmat suit to solder, not to mention a $300 hot air setup or you might as well be 'soldering' with a Bic lighter and a paperclip. Lead is apparently just as dangerous as plutonium to these people. All of the fuming is just flux burning off, no more dangerous than burning a pizza in the oven and the kitchen gets smoked up.

There's no difference between soldering something for two evenings once every couple months and pulling 12h shifts at GUAZHINGXOU ELECTRICAL CO LTD by the boiling pool of molten solder. If it's dangerous then it's dangerous, trust the science bro

 

[AmpleApricots]

Solder nowadays is lead-free, this was basically enforced by the EU worldwide via RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive. It's not so much that you VCR gave you cancer, but you'll eventually throw that VCR away and the things it consists of will end up in the environment, and that might give you cancer. It doesn't make sense to use leaded solder anymore on anything, as all electronics you buy these days also were soldered lead-free. The only place where I still use leaded solder is old computers and other vintage electronics, as everything there is leaded and mixing these two is usually a bad idea that'll lead to tears.

Depending on where you live, it might be even difficult to still get leaded solder, not because it's forbidden (for private use it usually isn't) but because just nobody makes it anymore. Leaded solder is usually easier to work with because lead has a lower melting point, but I personally don't find either to be difficult to work it. You just need a good soldering station. There's also lead-free soldering tin with Bismuth, which has a really low melting point and gives the soldering tin similar properties as leaded soldering tin. Bismuth is non-toxic and food safe, it's even used in medication.

The lead isn't the big problem anyways, as it never turns gaseous when you work with it. You just need to clean properly after soldering, as even flecks of lead dropped from the soldering iron or whatever you worked on eventually just has the tendency to turn into dust with wear and tear and has the capability to absolutely contaminate everything, which is especially a concern for the average hobbist who solders at his dining table. Then you'll end up breathing it, eating it, drinking it. Not a problem as long as you clean, but you do need to clean and clean well.

The bigger problem is the worked in flux you tend to breathe in and that really is not healthy over a long time if you do a lot of soldering. Flux and flux fumes contain often things that are carcinogenic, so skin contact and breathing it in is not healthy, especially organic, acid based fluxes are just nasty and will stick in your throat for days. These are usually used on things that are difficult to solder and need to be cleaned off afterwards. When in doubt as a hobbyist, reach for "no-clean" flux-infused soldering tin, these are usually the least nasty and also don't need to be cleaned off, as the name implies. The good ones smell like almost nothing.

Many people build these small air-filter fan thingies and they're not bad, especially if you solder regularily or on a bigger project over days, for a one off, I personally would not bother. Walking through your nearest city at rush hour is probably a lot nastier for your lungs. An old trick is to gently blow on whatever you are soldering while the flux makes contact with your soldering iron, that way the flux fumes won't go directly to your face.

I think for most people it's the upfront investment and that was always a thing, not only with zoomers. They want to fix a $30 thing and don't want to buy $120+ in equipment to do so. Also plain laziness and then every excuse is a good one. It is a good investment though.

 

[DavidS877]

lead

I think for most people it's the upfront investment and that was always a thing, not only with zoomers. They want to fix a $30 thing and don't want to buy $120+ in equipment to do so. Also plain laziness and then every excuse is a good one. It is a good investment though.

Leaded solder is still easy to find here, and cheaper than the other stuff($40 vs $70). I go through a spool about every 20 years so we'll see next time I have to buy some. And on the equipment side, there's little excuse these days, a Pinecil is $26. Probably cheaper than my parents paid for my Radio Shack iron back in the day and way more versatile.

I keep the Pinecil at my desk to do quick stuff when I'm bored with work and a proper Hakko on my bench but the Pinecil can do 95% of what I want. The only real precaution I take with the lead solder is to remember to wipe my hands on my pants before eating lunch.

Now, I just need to figure out how to make a little box for my USB-C trigger and boost converter for a device that only does 12v and need to make sure it can work with USB that is incapable of 12v with the trigger. Now 3d printing, yea, those are more expensive than a soldering iron and I expect many of these retards have them.

 

[AmpleApricots]

still easy to find here

I remember people here FREAKING OUT when RoHS came around and stacking up in ways that made some of the toilet paper panic buying seem sensible. You can still get it here too, just not everywhere. Prices are about the same and kind of too high. It's one of the few goods that are still produced in my country though and if given that option, I'll always pick it over chinesium. As you said, every 20 years etc.. I do admit I was sort of apprehensive myself about lead-free soldering, but I really don't see the issue.

Pinecil

I keep hearing about this thing, I guess one of these days I need to try one. Some of my equipment is older than most of the posters on kiwifarms. But if it works...

Now, I just need to figure out how to make a little box for my USB-C trigger and boost converter for a device that only does 12v and need to make sure it can work with USB that is incapable of 12v with the trigger.

Schottky? Basically, two paths and then OR it (If I understand correctly). If you have a 12V device though and the USB source can't supply 12V my guess is it probably won't be able do deliver enough watts for whichever device anyways. 12V/0.5A are already 6W, so if we assume 80% efficiency after all is said and done, your 5V source would need to be at least a 1.5A 5V port. I mean it exists but eh.

3d printing

I might need one for an upcoming project but once again, I assume it'll be cheaper and more hassle-free to just send the files in somewhere. It's mostly about the hassle for me, I don't want to deal with maintaining one.

 

[DavidS877]

Schottky? Basically, two paths and then OR it (If I understand correctly). If you have a 12V device though and the USB source can't supply 12V my guess is it probably won't be able do deliver enough watts for whichever device anyways. 12V/0.5A are already 6W, so if we assume 80% efficiency after all is said and done, your 5V source would need to be at least a 1.5A 5V port. I mean it exists but eh.

Nah, far simpler than that.
USB-C trigger to request 9v, if that doesn't work I'll at least get 5v.
Wired to a boost converter to bump it to 12.
Max draw is 8W. So as long as the "2A rating" on Amazon's finest cheap boost converter is for the input side then all is well. And I'll just have to make sure whatever I plug it into is either USB-PD which always gives 10W minimum or old-school and rated 2A.

Worst case, well, it starts another forest fire.

It's annoying because it came out just before USB became standard for power and every other similar model made today is USB powered and also requires 5v at 2A.

 

[Green Man]

Many people build these small air-filter fan thingies and they're not bad, especially if you solder regularily or on a bigger project over days, for a one off, I personally would not bother. Walking through your nearest city at rush hour is probably a lot nastier for your lungs. An old trick is to gently blow on whatever you are soldering while the flux makes contact with your soldering iron, that way the flux fumes won't go directly to your face.

Yup, I'll turn on my box fan so it's blowing the visible fumes away from my face and call it good for the most part. I don't begrudge anyone who would rather not breathe that shit in, I smoke cigarettes so that ship's sailed for me but people over on Reddit act like you need a gas mask, Tyvek suit and an extractor fan in a dedicated negative pressure room to solder and it's just ridiculous overkill. I keep one of those trays people use for bolts/screws for all of the stray chunks of solder that like to fly around.

It's a great hobby honestly. I guess for me it's sort of like painting miniatures or something where it takes so much of your undivided attention that you just don't think about anything else for the duration, inducing a sort of 'zen state' I suppose. Now that I've finally learned the skill I'm kicking my own ass for throwing out electronics before that were very likely repairable if I'd just learned it earlier. I had done some very rudimentary stuff during the 'Capacitor Plague' era, popping off blown or leaky caps and replacing them but it was anything but pretty. I guess for today that's my tech trend that I hate: realizing that the broken keyboard or bad HDD controller I threw out years ago could have been repaired if I had expanded my skillset earlier.