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

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)

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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

You're thinking about an Italian legal professional who was murdered in the 20th century? Logan Paul, baby!

I saw a blurb somewhere about how to forestall the inevitable death of one's EarPods and realized that wireless headphones absolutely do have a limited lifespan.

so do wired headphones?
no one has made everlasting ear speakers yet

I have those Bose over the ear ones and even they apparently have very hard-to-replace batteries, which seems completely unnecessary.

As long as the speakers don't blow, it's relatively easy to repair wired headphones. Whether it's actually worth one's while to do so is a different question, of course.

Increasingly feeling this way about certain kinds of online shopping -- clothing especially. Order something, get it in two days, it doesn't fit right, take it to the post office to return, wait another few days for a different size. It's a lot more work than just going to a store and trying stuff on until you find what you like, only problem being that it's increasingly hard to find good clothing stores with adequate stock now that retail is killing them.

Online bookshopping will also never be as enjoyable as going to a bookstore.

Agreed re clothes shopping, it's a massive headache. Sometimes I'll look online ahead of going to the shop, make a mental note of what I want to look at, and 9 times out of 10 it's not in the shop. So then I've both gone to the shop AND had to order and send it back. This is why all my clothes are old.

i loathe online apparel shopping but i have gotten better at it with time. (i also just generally loathe the act of apparel shopping)

main beef is related to vocabulary. you have to know what the items are called to look for the items you want -- how do you search for the type of thing you want if you don't know what the retailers are calling it? you don't! at least when shopping irl you see something, you like it, you never need to know what it's called by the vendor, you just buy it and wear it.

scrolling page after page after page of H&M's website looking for vocabulary is not my idea of a good time

the alternative is to stay up to date on fashion terms via fashion publications, which i have strenuously avoided for decades

Search for "puffy Seinfeld shirt" yielded 10 results

were any of them what you were looking for?

my most recent online shopping adventure involved finding a brand of shoe i liked. looking at retail prices and offerings, then going to ebay and searching for my size (which i had to search more to find out) to see what pops up. i bought some new (and another pair of near-new) on ebay for a fraction of the retail price and they are great. this took a significant amount of time and effort and know-how. i don't see how this is better than going to the shoe outlet and just hoping to find something acceptable aside from the fact that i hate shopping and walking into a store is some kind of insurance that i will walk out emptyhanded. at least i got my two pairs of shoes and paid like 1/4 of what i would have if i had bought them from zappos.

this is where lumpen masculinity finally comes out on top, we don't do any of that, we just go to target and eyeball the sizes to figure out how many Xes of L to get in one of the four colors they have

ah yes, I still have no idea what a "slubby tee" is

figure out how many Xes of L to get in one of the four colors they have

Wrong. Figure out your size then get it in ALL the colors.

Once I know what I want I get it in all the colors. When those clothes wear out I buy them again. It is very convenient.

lucky you that they keep making the same things for you to buy over and over
doesn't work like that for women's clothes 99% of the time
if you like it and you get 4 of something, by the time you go to buy 4 more they are loooooong gone and you're searching ebay again

There are a couple brands that I can just reliably buy online, like I know my favorite levi's jeans fit so I can just buy the color I like. Those don't change much over time. J. Crew sizes and fits are also pretty predictable.

LL, I quite agree that the way women's clothes are sized and sold is a travesty. In the meantime, yeah, men can just buy the same khakis over and over and the pockets are great and they are sized reasonably by things like a standardized measurement in two dimensions.

If I knew what economic levers to push to change it I would be doing so.

women's pants can't be counted on to remain the same cut/shape/color selection for very long
if there are brands that can be relied on, tell me what they are and i will shop for them on ebay

embrace middlebrow east-coast basicness: Land's End, LL Bean

i've completely stopped shopping unless I have a specific thing I need to get for a job or I am already out somewhere and need to kill time. Some sites like asos are a whole day's work trying to sift through.

Land's End and LL Bean always seemed like 100m from the parked car camping clothes.

yes i don't shop unless i need something. in this case, i needed 2 pairs of shoes.
it is a waste of time

pre-transition: just go wherever and buy however many pairs of 36x42 pants

post-transition: try on six dresses, all the same size, no two of which fit the same. also no stores carry your shoe size because women above sz 10 are sideshow freaks.

buying women's shoes online is not a matter of "will they fit" but "how badly will the fit be off, and is it more of a hassle to exchange them or just put up with it?"

zappos has the best customer service and return policy i've ever found in an online retailer fwiw
the struggle is extremely real!

no one has made everlasting ear speakers yet

Hah, just to gloat, I am right now wearing the Koss K6/ALC headphones I got in the 1970s, having once sent them in to the manufacturer along with a $6 check for repair. I vote wires.

I went on a whole long rant this morning to one of my coworkers, who does the "capsule wardrobe" thing, about how much of a fucking mess clothes shopping is when you're transitioning. All you have to do as a man is buy some clothes that fit reasonably well and fucking half of the guys don't even do that and nobody fucking cares. Since I haven't transitioned yet at work I come in wearing these clothes from before I lost 50 pounds, they're fucking clown clothes and nobody goddamn cares because that's just how cis guys DRESS. It's not just that people are looking at you and judging you it's that women have all sorts of different shapes whereas men apparently come in either the "stick" or "stick with big belly" variety and no two designers seem to have a shared idea of what shape a woman is, and despite that somehow whatever your shape is it seems like all the clothing designers have collectively decided that literally no woman in the world is shaped like you. And then there's the idea that you can own a really cute top but not wear it because it doesn't go with anything, which is literally impossible for any article of men's clothing.

And yeah shoes are a whole different level of bullshit, I'm short and so am only a size eleven so I get a whole three pairs of shoes to choose from in stores, and I'm so delighted I buy them and then when it's time to wear them out realize they are way less comfortable than I thought and, again, don't fucking go with anything I own, and also for the only shoes they had were suede and since I live in Portland it's going to rain for the next three months straight which for some reason I didn't think about when I was buying them, so I just wear my damn men's shoes out again. I'm probably wrong, but I feel like nobody in the history of time has ever been clocked for wearing men's shoes.

I'm sorry, this is probably an I Love Style post, I should be complaining about how online shopping is so much worse than shopping in person, but if you're a woman, it seems like even if you like shopping for clothes you also think it's bullshit.

As someone who wears size 15 or 14EE shoes, I’m thankful for online shopping.

I don't like buying clothes or shoes online. Partly because I can never tell what something really looks like, and because it's such a pain to return things. Mostly I just wear the old stuff I already have. I bought some shoes online recently for the first time, a size and brand that I already owned, but they still weren't exactly what I was expecting.

the GAP

if you're a woman, it seems like even if you like shopping for clothes you also think it's bullshit.

My wife has thoroughly educated me about how much bullshit the women's clothing industry imposes on women and I wish there were some escape hatch I could show her, other than telling her whatever she does to come to terms with it, I'll support her. This doesn't help much with her anger and frustration, but it does help a little.

i'm a 'stick' cis man and i love clothes and i love shopping for clothes. i do it maybe twice a year though. things rarely fit right, particularly trousers, but honestly.... it's not like some great burden