Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

cars are overly complicated, you can't DIY repairs much if it all
in US, homes & small biz buildings used to be built using sturdy, durable materials and constructed by very skilled craftsmen. now they're made out of plywood and siding. Uglier, don't last as long, not as energy efficient, won't survive storms as well.

Jim in Vancouver otm though it is actually incredibly easy to grow your own as long as you water them. fuck a supermarket tomato FOREVER

of course the tradeoff is cars are now MUCH more reliable and thus need repairs much less often than back in the day

yeah the tomato one is def endemic at this point. the first "what has happened to our tomatoes?" exposes date from the late 60s and early 70s as question-the-establishment and/or naderite consumer advocate journos started realizing what sort of research the USDA had actually been subsidizing for years, oldsters and produce-trade veterans were able to notice the difference etc.

for even earlier "what has happened to our bread?" concern, check out sigfried giedion's amazing /mechanization takes command/ from the 1940s. fascinating as he was a major cheerleader of modernization and modern life but (likely influenced by the context of WW2) was, like lewis mumford around the same time, increasingly aware of the downsides and hoping for some humanist technological synthesis around the corner. he also has long passages about the decline of bathing, the "mechanization of death" in the slaughterhouses, etc., and a million cockamamie old inventions illustrated courtesy of the US patent office.

i neither need nor want televisions in airports, taxi cabs, subway cars, buses, restrooms etc

and if cvs insists on making me do the labor of scanning my own stuff (probably after waiting extra to use one of the machines that take cash), i'm gonna periodically take a cut

Florida applies more than eight times the amount of pesticide and herbicides as does California, the next leading tomato grower in the country. Part of this has to do with the fact that California processes tomatoes that are used for canning — and therefore don't have to look as good as their Florida counterparts. But part of this also has to do with consumers.

As a Californian, who eats predominantly California tomatoes, I am happy that this is not my problem. ... also the economics of tomato growers is something I've been aware of/complained about since the 90s, so like, late pass to everyone but me.

the automatic baggage dropoff at CDG for Air France is good, you walk up to long row of hand scanners, it takes 20 seconds, don’t have to wait in line or talk to anyone

the automatic supermarket checkouts in the Czech Republic seemed better than what I’m used to. nb I am a former supermarket cashier so I loathe the old way

I was actually thinking about tasteless blueberries when I started this thread! some vague memory of possibly a Twitter thread about how we could all have luscious jammy-tasting berries instead of mushy blue crap

i actually like self-checkout at the grocery store ... sorry.

Automated phone systems where you have to speak your response ... if I wanted to actually speak responses, I would talk to a person, just let me press stupid buttons, ok.

of course the tradeoff is cars are now MUCH more reliable and thus need repairs much less often than back in the day

Also far safer for the occupants

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT%2C_VMT%2C_per_capita%2C_and_total_annual_deaths.png

counterpoints: the trend in supersizing SUVs has made it far worse for pedestrians and fuel efficiency

technological change anthropology, live as it happened: PLEASE PLACE THE ITEM IN THE BAG: Supermarket Self-Serve Checkout Poll

in US, homes & small biz buildings used to be built using sturdy, durable materials and constructed by very skilled craftsmen. now they're made out of plywood and siding. Uglier, don't last as long, not as energy efficient, won't survive storms as well.

one could argue this is something that can be improved/enforced by changes to building codes. There are newer energy efficiency standards for buildings that actually a lot of older buildings don't meet, and thus there are arguments regarding the use of the historical building code and lower standards for historic buildings ... obviously there are regional differences for these things, and you probably live somewhere with laxer standards.

in US, homes & small biz buildings used to be built using sturdy, durable materials and constructed by very skilled craftsmen. now they're made out of plywood and siding. Uglier, don't last as long, not as energy efficient, won't survive storms as well.

A contractor succinctly explained this to me as: "the owners are going to flip the place in five to six years and the owners after them are going to tear it all out anyway, so durability is a liability"

you can stay in the same rental apartment for 10-20 years, even!

you'd think, but the trick is for the landlord to keep raising prices every year so you have to keep downgrading to shittier apartments. the plus side is that the shittier apartments feature appliances that are even more outdated than the regularly outdated appliances, ensuring that the tenant will never have to use their phone to open the refrigerator

Peaches, strawberries, blueberries. There are a bunch of fruit I avoid buying other than specific times of the year when the more local versions are available, which are generally still pretty good.

lots of xps

I was under the mistaken impression that I had the skill and wherewithal to learn how to repair iPod classics prior to the inevitable death of my own but I think I've decided I'm going to figure out how to make an iTunes-based music server happen so I can still access all my songs and playlists through my phone when the day of sorrow finally arrives. Hence my 'RIP clickwheel' post way upthread as this is the one innovation which is basically just gone forever at this point and which I will truly miss.

"the owners are going to flip the place in five to six years and the owners after them are going to tear it all out anyway, so durability is a liability"

some things yes, other things no ...

you'd think, but the trick is for the landlord to keep raising prices every year so you have to keep downgrading to shittier apartments

one weird trick!

i am totally fine with my 20+ year old stove and 10+ year old fridge

me too, although i am considering inviting an amazon representative over to my place on a daily basis so they can check the items in my fridge, re-order the low stock items via Amazon Fresh, and then sell all my product preference data to everyone who will pay for it without telling me (except on pg 562 of the revised privacy policy plan)

thinking of replacing my walls with transparent nu-glass, moving my apartment into my workplace and then taking a bunch of soma until i die

no easy way to view a big chunk of the movies made before the 21st century

in US, homes & small biz buildings used to be built using sturdy, durable materials and constructed by very skilled craftsmen. now they're made out of plywood and siding. Uglier, don't last as long, not as energy efficient, won't survive storms as well.

uglier maybe. the rest eh... not really. it depends. and cheaper? yes (this matters a lot in environments where it's already extremely difficult to build housing for various reasons, e.g. the US).

http://planphilly.com/articles/2019/08/09/we-don-t-build-them-like-we-use-to-why-new-houses-aren-t-made-of-brick

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same

To avoid the draconian locks that John Deere puts on the tractors they buy, farmers throughout America's heartland have started hacking their equipment with firmware that's cracked in Eastern Europe and traded on invite-only, paid online forums.

Tractor hacking is growing increasingly popular because John Deere and other manufacturers have made it impossible to perform "unauthorized" repair on farm equipment, which farmers see as an attack on their sovereignty and quite possibly an existential threat to their livelihood if their tractor breaks at an inopportune time.

A license agreement John Deere required farmers to sign in October forbids nearly all repair and modification to farming equipment, and prevents farmers from suing for "crop loss, lost profits, loss of goodwill, loss of use of equipment … arising from the performance or non-performance of any aspect of the software." The agreement applies to anyone who turns the key or otherwise uses a John Deere tractor with embedded software. It means that only John Deere dealerships and "authorized" repair shops can work on newer tractors.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware

House technology in the new century: it will eventually be faster and cheaper to keep adding solar panels to a house than it will be to replace the single-pane inefficient windows that have been on it for 60+ years

xp - oooooh! I should ask my mom about that one!

NA extremely otm re: movies

so are y'all saying that I am not stupid and hoarder-y for keeping the hundred or so VHS tapes and DVDs I accumulated as of 10 years ago?

Bbut streaming means everything ever made is available surely!

we call those "Popcorn Classics"

movie streaming exemplifies the buffet model and why it sucks
in order to benefit from the neverendless buffet you have to want to eat what they're serving and apparently they are serving up a bunch of bullshit unless you subscribe to the criterion or shudder or some other niche outlet, which is fine but hardly an improvement on the a la carte model

you can stay in the same rental apartment for 10-20 years, even!

I have been in the same apartment for over 15 years. My rent has gone up about 3% every 3 years. I believe I'm currently paying about what I'd pay if I lived in, say, St. Louis, but I live in a two-bedroom in suburban NJ with an off-street parking space.

We replaced the refrigerator a few years ago - just bought one ($600 or so at Lowe's) rather than ask the landlord. He has replaced our stove, our toilet, and the bathroom sink, though.

I have been in the same apartment for over 15 years. My rent has gone up about 3% every 3 years. I believe I'm currently paying about what I'd pay if I lived in, say, St. Louis, but I live in a two-bedroom in suburban NJ with an off-street parking space.

yeah, my situation is similar -- rent control is what makes it possible. I've been in the same apartment (2 bedroom, off-street parking) for almost 22 years now ... the landlord finally replaced the 20+ year old washing machine that was constantly breaking.

UX tip: When this happens, you have to solve it, even if you don’t feel like it’s your fault. pic.twitter.com/4mV8EwEhxe

— Nathan Lawrence 🌈 (@NathanBLawrence) August 14, 2019

maybe they can add a quick "are you sure you want to burn down your house?" prompt

prob specific to the SW US: buildings were designed with the local environment & climate in mind, and constructed with native materials. Now, for the most part only very recent and very expensive homes/buildings incorporate design elements and materials that allow for less reliance on AC to keep interior cool.

having to tell twitter i want "latest tweets" and not "top tweets" every single time i open it

^^ FB as well

The hilarious thing is the oven preheating disaster was accurately predicted in the Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom.

FB and Twitter, period

People really overestimate how easy it was to watch movies back in the day, though. I miss the video store as much as the next guy, but I never had a chance to watch for instance Hou Hsiao-hsien until the internet came along. It wasn't even that easy to learn who Hou Hsiao-hsien even was.

otoh, think of the children who put their baby sibling in the oven and cooked her until she was deceased

Fred B if you lived in New York there were great video stores everywhere. sure there wasn't everything but there were lovingly accumulated collections that were based on something other than marketing, promotion, rights deals, etc

i neither need nor want televisions in airports, taxi cabs, subway cars, buses, restrooms etc

― mookieproof, Wednesday, August 14, 2019 6:59 PM (fifty-one minutes ago)

this has definitely made the world a much more annoying place. it's a lot harder to read or just zone out with a fucking tv blaring wherever you might be sitting.

Fred B if you lived in New York there were great video stores everywhere. sure there wasn't everything but there were lovingly accumulated collections that were based on something other than marketing, promotion, rights deals, etc

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), 14. august 2019 22:14 (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

But if I lived in New York I'd never use any video store, since I'd be at a repertory theater every night.

hat_doff.gif

i neither need nor want televisions in airports, taxi cabs, subway cars, buses, restrooms etc

― mookieproof, Wednesday, August 14, 2019 6:59 PM (fifty-one minutes ago)

this has definitely made the world a much more annoying place. it's a lot harder to read or just zone out with a fucking tv blaring wherever you might be sitting.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, August 14, 2019 4:19 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Or how about at the fucking gas pump? Starting to pump gas, and then a TV screen magically pops on and starts loudly playing commercials or cable news - just what the world needed

omg really? ... sorry, that seems like unrealistic fronting

I miss the video store as much as the next guy

ugh what I most remember is walking the aisles w/a friend or relative on a Fri night and all 100 copies of the good new release are checked out and there not being anything we both could agree on and getting depressed by that, and then getting more depressed cause we were forced to settle on some shitty movie.

Or how about at the fucking gas pump? Starting to pump gas, and then a TV screen magically pops on and starts loudly playing commercials or cable news - just what the world needed

I HATE THIS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!