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

In our expensive new kitchen I can't grill food, or roast or bake it at temperatures much over 200 degrees celcius without activating the smoke alram, which in turn sets off every smoke alarm in the house, at deafening volume for about five minutes.
The house is not burning down, its inhabitants are in no danger, I am preparing dinner.

I hate my smoke alarm deeply. It it ever saves my life it won't be enough

Oh, and then one of them starts beeping becuase the battery is low. At 3am. Again. Didn't I change it a couple of months ago? Oh wait, it's not the one in the hall beeping, it's the one on the landing, etc. etc.

well you joke but

i have in the past smashed one up with a broom but that was before our fire which refocused my priorities somewhat

Batteries in my smoke detectors are fine, the carbon monoxide detector needs new ones every two months though, is this normal? Maybe I should stop buying cheap batteries.

this is off-topic btw, I do appreciate having a co detector, someone I knew died from co poisoning because they didn't have one

I appreciate they might save me from dying in my sleep, but do I have to forego a browned topping on my cauliflower cheese?

i mean isn't that a ventilation issue with yr cooking setup tbrrwu

my smoke detectors are wired to the mains yet also have batteries that need replacing (i guess an electrical fire could short them out?). the little covers are absolute murder to remove

yep, dealt with one at the weekend and noticed that the actual removable part itself also has an expiry date, which was news to me.

(three years out of date if yer asking)

Websites that only load as one scrolls down, rendering ctrl-f useless

Otm

Yes

I'm shopping for a phone now and who decided that all phones need to have huge screens? This is ridiculous, a phone should fit comfortably in your pants front pocket

I want a keyboard on a phone, I have fat clumsy arthritic fingers and autocorrect hates me.

xp Right?? I've had the same phone for 4 years & even that one is too big. I'm not sure there are any iPhones available now that are smaller than the 6s.

https://www.palm.com

damn that actually looks pretty sick

tell me about palm tombot

I just heard some nerds talking about it. I avoid Android phones

ugh. i am chained to ios

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Logging into an account and getting asked how many traffic lights/buses/cars etc I can see.

why have these people bought the Palm name and then got completely different branding and no reference to the old Palm anywhere

why not just... have a new name, for your new company with new tech and new branding and entirely new staff

I guess it gets old British nerds like me to click on it

(seriously I get mad daily at my 2017 phone not fitting in my jeans pocket like the 2012 one did so I should be target market anyway, except the "crew" pics are full of hiply bearish dudes whose leather jacket pockets are surely bigger than any ladies' clothing pockets, so maybe I am not target market after all)

mah big phone

my phoon is too big

The palm thing is daft, it’s not meant to be a ‘main’ phone it’s meant to be a companion phone for you main phone for those times when your main phone is too big, or you don’t want to loose or drop a $1500 phone.

I'd take it as my main phone tbh, it's weird they advertise it as a "companion piece".

I believe this review, which says it's terrible.

Almost no apps, which they pitch as a feature, but would be tough to lose coming from a full-featured phone.

"What if instead of a watch..."

"Yes?"

"We made it into a phone that you could put inside your pocket?"

Is there a case for buying a cheap, small phone for phone stuff and a tablet for tablet stuff? Where's the dividing line, I wonder? Or is having two devices the problem that they are trying to solve with bigger phones?

As for the main question, cloud computing in general, specifically the new reliance on a decent network connection in order to do things.

Also, the rise of Netflix and Spotify rule out most of my easy gift ideas - can't buy the kids the new Pixar movie for Christmas because it's only a click away now. (Luckily the kids still enjoy books)

Or is having two devices the problem that they are trying to solve with bigger phones?

right you are. putting all the connectivity and computing into one rather awkwardly sized device seems to solve more problems than it causes, at least for most people. Not me, but most people.

But the tablet would be dumb and use the WiFi hotspot from the phone so wouldn't need connectivity itself, and the phone could have less computing power, and not cost 1000 pounds, if that makes a difference.

Oddly when they've gone with paired devices like this they've gone the other way - big, connected phone, tiny, unconnected watch.

As a journalist I've always used a call recording app to record phone interviews. I recently got myself a new Android phone and found none of the call recording apps work anymore. Even if you put the call on loudspeaker. Apparently Google has blocked them all for legal reasons, as in some states it's illegal to record calls without the other person's permission. Something I've never done - I always asked people if they mind me recording for note-taking purposes. It's damned annoying and I haven't worked out a solution yet, other than to continue using my old phone which has no storage left. Journalists who record phone interviews: don't buy any phone that runs the latest Android operating system!

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― YouGov to see it (wins)

😔

xp - i thought android phones came with some basic audio recording app? (i switched to iphone about 1 1/2 yrs ago) I know I had one on my android phone somehow -- maybe look for a music app designed for recording?

I think this is specifically about recording phone calls. I'm sure there are plenty of audio recording apps.

you can use an audio recording app to record a phone call

Apple’s been doing this for years. If the mic is on for a phone call, you can’t use it for anything else.

The workaround is to get a service where you conference in a second number that records the call, I believe.

(or have another device for recording, like back in the day)

tv commercials being about fifty-thousand times louder than the actual show

this is a longstanding complaint.

it has gotten gradually worse though

I remember reading it’s not really louder (due to regulations, at least in france) but more compressed. Another example of how evil compression is !

There's nothing evil about compression, only its misapplication.

I was joking (re: the classic thread on that matter)

definitely more compression (from what I remember), but the commercials are pre-made and then edited into the programs -- at least they used to be -- my stupid theory about the current increase in this disparity is that this is the result of reduced quality control akin to publications getting rid of copy editors ...

Meh, good riddance. It wasn't like those cops needed to be yedited.

https://en.akinator.mobi/game

Longstanding ILXors will perhaps remember Akinator, the uncanny 20 questions Internet robot who wowed you by guessing what person you were thinking of

He is a dumbass who only knows about vloggers now

And he has a GDPR prompt