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

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 ...?

yeah i have no idea how to use any of the functions on my microwave besides, like, start and stop and "instant minute" or whatever

like, I can pay $8.99 to watch State of Siege ... before it was just not available.

We replaced the old microwave with the new microwave a few months ago.

Pretty much the same class and style, but on the old microwave, I could hit "1" and "30 SECONDS" in a fluid doot-doot motion to set the timer for 90 seconds.

On the new microwave, I can just about do the same thing except instead of a fluid doot-doot, it's more like doot-(pause)-doot since once I hit the "1", the new microwave feels the need to display the letters

E X P R E S S

up in the window before allowing me to hit the "30 SECONDS" button.

I can sort of get back my rhythm by typing "TIME COOK", "1", "30 SECONDS" in a fluid doot-doot-doot motion, but it still ain't the same like the old microwave.

Also, in typing that last sentence, I just noticed that the CEO of Apple Inc. very nearly has name on every microwave sold in North America.

― pplains, Tuesday, August 30, 2016 7:38 PM bookmarkflaglink

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

― na (NA), Wednesday, August 14, 2019 12:22 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM

i live in L.A. and there were several really excellent DVD rental spots within walking distance that have all closed now, i'm sure almost 100% due to streaming taking over. And it's all a trick, we get conned by those articles rhapsodizing about what movies are going to be available this month/which ones we have to watch because oh no they're expiring this month. and it's like The Whole Nine Yards or Red 2 or Another Stakeout. Maybe Deep Impact or High Fidelity, if they're feeling generous. and yeah LL also otm, then you have to sign up for niche premium services to see other films. Even if I want to pay to rent something from Amazon streaming, sometimes it's not available.

however we also have a very good library system in L.A. with a lot of movies, but sometimes they're not always available. I miss going down to the rental place and just browsing their foreign film section or classic noir collection or whatever.

i don't think it's impossible to see something you want to see but it's definitely that backwards step.

the owners manual isn't provided

if you can find a model number, a Google search will usually turn up a PDF manual

(PDF manuals might be a backward step we all just accept now)

movies I hear about and wanna see: check Netflix---> check library ----> check YouTube. There's only a couple in last 10 yrs that I couldn't find one of these 3 ways.

A lot of films are only available to stream in shitty versions which def feels like a step backward from dvd/br where you could be confident you’d get the right aspect ratio at least

Was pleasantly surprised by amount of movies available in my central AZ library system. Browse online, get notified when it's been shipped to my branch...v cool.

i tried to watch RONIN streaming awhile back and it was the goddamned pan n scan. decided to buy the recent blu-ray special edition instead,

pdf manuals are a fucking godsend

a lot of these, like the video store one, could be understood through the ruin-but-not-replace model, which i think i got from one of the canonical los angeles histories (fogelson?) describing the short boom of jitney bus service in the early 20th century, quashed by law because it was recognized that jitneys could skim off just enough cream of the business to ruin the streetcar network, but would not actually replace them in terms of what the public wanted the network to do.

i think this model's useful because it allows us to turn a critical eye even on developments that have many defenders and which do seem to solve some problems for some people. in LA, for many people the jitneys were a huge improvement and solved tons of problems. and that's true of streaming services, even ones with increasingly pathetic back catalogs. but their success ruined video stores which served all kinds of other needs and have not been replaced, full stop. countless articles about the death of the video store make clear how even middling ones in fact had far deeper catalogs than the major streaming services today, surprisingly deep to those of us who remember that era but have forgotten how many VHS tapes actually do fit on a shelf, and how once a store acquired, on release, a copy of Strange Days or Beyond Rangoon or My Dinner With Andre or Critters 2, it was there pretty much eternally. in a beat-up tape with pan-n-scanned picture, but, yknow, THERE! (obviously they would unload the surplus twenty copies of big new releases after their initial heyday.). bringing up the slim pickings for most indie or foreign directors at blockbuster doesn't refute this, because they're not on netflix either!

xxp netflix dvd subscriptions are not that expensive and they have a huge selection of films from the 20th Century!

and yes, libraries remain the greatest of resources to the film enthusiast

have you guys heard of torrentz

thing I love about Gas Station TV is that it has its own anchors and bumper music and it calls itself "GSTV" like a real channel that real people would really watch