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

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!!!!!!!!!!!!

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

tvs at gas stations really are the worst though

but you see, those movies you couldn't watch, it made you value them more

I just wish when the video stores closed and were selling their inventory I had more money to buy everything I wanted.

I don't even own a gas station

A very specific step backwards is Netflix going from being a repertory service, to now not having anything. When I lived in the US in 2010, a lot of people around me were getting into weird films they got send by mail.

_no easy way to view a big chunk of the movies made before the 21st century_

yeah I highly prefer this to "no easy way to view _all_ of the movies made before the 21st century," which prevailed before 1990 or so.

not sure how recent a development this is but i am convinced nobody knows how to use the defrost mode on their microwave, much less the models where you can punch in a code for baked potato, frozen vegetables, etc. totally needless features and sort of stultifying. especially in an apartment where the owners manual isn't provided. i honestly don't think i need that much control and level of detail over anything

last time i was at the gas station the Tv\V in the pump was playing Chive TV, a new level of cursed

nice

*TV

Wait no it isn’t I read that backwards

guys how am i going to watch back episodes of what was on at the gas pumps

When I lived in the US in 2010, a lot of people around me were getting into weird films they got send by mail.

They still offer this service you know

I guess I haven't been super thorough in testing out this assertion, but it seems like these movies are still available, you just have to search for the channels that have them? Maybe you end up paying to watch a specific thing if you don't have a subscription or special plan, but like ... that's what you used to do at the video store so ...?