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Things you loved that technology has killed off or r00ined.

Started by Crazy Volvo Guy, April 21, 2015, 03:16:27 PM

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Crazy Volvo Guy

CB radios and audio cassettes, for me.

At least with the latter, it's not a big deal.  I know where to get cassettes and cassette decks.  With CB radios, however, there need to be people to talk to on them, and there just aren't anymore.  Even many of my fellow truckers no longer actively use them.  Perhaps I should move the eastern Ohio Valley area to rectify this?  Much of it is not served by any of the cellular carriers, and as such, CB radios seem to still be popular in the area.
I hate Clearview, because it looks like a cheap Chinese ripoff.

I'm for the Red Sox and whoever's playing against the Yankees.


silverback1065

Google maps replacing paper maps/atlases.  I love to collect paper maps and have them around, but for convenience and everyday use, having Google maps on a phone/ computer is infinitely better.

OCGuy81

Vinyl records, irrelevant with things like MP3 files, but luckily there is a large subculture of collectors and vinyl enthusiasts out there.

Pete from Boston


Quote from: silverback1065 on April 21, 2015, 03:23:24 PM
Google maps replacing paper maps/atlases.  I love to collect paper maps and have them around, but for convenience and everyday use, having Google maps on a phone/ computer is infinitely better.

I'd expand this to include an historical paper trail in general.  Old, outdated information is only semi-preserved online.  It's very valuable to understand how and why information has evolved, and when there are not old editions of things to compare, that richness of the record is lost.

NE2

pre-1945 Florida route log

I accept and respect your identity as long as it's not dumb shit like "identifying as a vaccinated attack helicopter".

OCGuy81


txstateends

Quote from: Crazy Volvo Guy on April 21, 2015, 03:16:27 PM
CB radios and audio cassettes, for me.

At least with the latter, it's not a big deal.  I know where to get cassettes and cassette decks.  With CB radios, however, there need to be people to talk to on them, and there just aren't anymore.  Even many of my fellow truckers no longer actively use them.  Perhaps I should move the eastern Ohio Valley area to rectify this?  Much of it is not served by any of the cellular carriers, and as such, CB radios seem to still be popular in the area.

My dad, in his last years, could not get the reason why no one was answering him on his CB.  Could not.  He was in a tech rut that seemed to happen about the time CB's and VCR's first came out.  I kept telling him that only truckers use CB's, and he was nowhere near an interstate.  Even in the early 90's, he still had CB's wired in his cars.  I've often wondered what he would think of the presence of cell phones, much less the smartphone-and-app technology.  If he knew what some phones go for these days, he'd have an s- fit like he did when cigarrettes went over $1 a pack.
\/ \/ click for a bigger image \/ \/

kkt

Quote from: Pete from Boston on April 21, 2015, 03:48:02 PM

Quote from: silverback1065 on April 21, 2015, 03:23:24 PM
Google maps replacing paper maps/atlases.  I love to collect paper maps and have them around, but for convenience and everyday use, having Google maps on a phone/ computer is infinitely better.

I'd expand this to include an historical paper trail in general.  Old, outdated information is only semi-preserved online.  It's very valuable to understand how and why information has evolved, and when there are not old editions of things to compare, that richness of the record is lost.

This.  When some small organization printed and mailed a newsletter, it was easy for a library to just hold on to a copy.  Now that they're on the web, the news depends on having picture files and style files and they're no longer self-contained.  If the organization kept an archive at all, they don't bother to preserve it after the organization moves on.

Individuals no longer correspond on paper, and who bothers to keep their parents' emails or text messages when they are cleaning out their estate?

NJRoadfan

PDF solves the newsletter problem by containing everything in one file.

As for CB, I recall about a year ago I tried to listen on one of my handhelds and got nobody. I live in one of the most densely populated regions of the country, you'd think there would have been some traffic. 15 years ago channel 19 used to be chock full of traffic, not anymore.

Brian556

Driving ... was way more pleasant in the old days when people weren't on the phone all the time and actually drove the proper speed and used turn signals.

Paper Maps.

Music...for the most part. EDM sucks. At least disco had lyrics and meaning.

Barricade Lights. No longer used in Texas. Less need due to brighter sheeting.

School. Paper homework and exams were better, especially in math because you could do your work on the paper and not have to re-write the problem. Also, teachers would give partial credit. Now, if on a multi-step problem, you get 1 part out of 10 wrong, the whole thing is counted wrong. A human grader would give partial credit. Online math homework and exams are very unfair for this reason, and should be abolished.


kkt

Quote from: Brian556 on April 21, 2015, 06:33:08 PM
School. Paper homework and exams were better, especially in math because you could do your work on the paper and not have to re-write the problem. Also, teachers would give partial credit. Now, if on a multi-step problem, you get 1 part out of 10 wrong, the whole thing is counted wrong. A human grader would give partial credit. Online math homework and exams are very unfair for this reason, and should be abolished.

Depending on the level of school.  My friend the aeronautical engineering major said the department policy was no partial credit, because if the wings fall off nobody cares that you had the theory right.

I-39

Quote from: OCGuy81 on April 21, 2015, 03:34:18 PM
Vinyl records, irrelevant with things like MP3 files, but luckily there is a large subculture of collectors and vinyl enthusiasts out there.

Vinyl records are making a comeback. The sound quality is much better than these digitized mp3 files.

kkt

Quote from: NJRoadfan on April 21, 2015, 05:02:10 PM
PDF solves the newsletter problem by containing everything in one file.

That was the original idea, but actually PDF is a ridiculously complex, constantly changing format.  That allows Adobe to continue to sell new versions of PDF creation programs.  In order to preserve readability for the ages, you'd need to save a PDF reader from the year along with the document.  And probably a contemporary computer, too.

Mr_Northside

Quote from: I-39 on April 21, 2015, 07:17:56 PM
Quote from: OCGuy81 on April 21, 2015, 03:34:18 PM
Vinyl records, irrelevant with things like MP3 files, but luckily there is a large subculture of collectors and vinyl enthusiasts out there.

Vinyl records are making a comeback. The sound quality is much better than these digitized mp3 files.

I would agree with this.  The guitar player in our band was determined enough to have our album put out on vinyl that he shelled out a pretty penny to press 300 copies (Of course, the fact it was double-vinyl made it pretty $$$) - and then mostly gave them away to the people we know who might actually pay for it.  Putting out a vinyl album was something, as he described, on his "bucket list" (not that he is THAT old yet)
I don't have opinions anymore. All I know is that no one is better than anyone else, and everyone is the best at everything

silverback1065

Quote from: Mr_Northside on April 21, 2015, 07:48:43 PM
Quote from: I-39 on April 21, 2015, 07:17:56 PM
Quote from: OCGuy81 on April 21, 2015, 03:34:18 PM
Vinyl records, irrelevant with things like MP3 files, but luckily there is a large subculture of collectors and vinyl enthusiasts out there.

Vinyl records are making a comeback. The sound quality is much better than these digitized mp3 files.

I would agree with this.  The guitar player in our band was determined enough to have our album put out on vinyl that he shelled out a pretty penny to press 300 copies (Of course, the fact it was double-vinyl made it pretty $$$) - and then mostly gave them away to the people we know who might actually pay for it.  Putting out a vinyl album was something, as he described, on his "bucket list" (not that he is THAT old yet)

vinyl is coming back, of course it won't ever be big again, but new die hard collectors are born everyday. 

ZLoth

Remember when watching a movie on television was an "event", and if you missed it, you had to wait a year?

To further clarify.... prior to the 1980s, it was very unusual for a household to have more than one television. Plus, this was before VCRs (never mind DVDs, BluRays, and streaming media), so you had to catch the movie at the appointed time on television. Some movies, such as Sound of Music, The Ten Commandments, and The Wizard Of Oz were considered "event" films, and were shown only once a year at best. Thus, the viewing of the film was "special".

Now, of course, we have DVDs and BluRays, and collecting movies was, for quite a while, considered fashionable. We are able to view the films at any time we can, in the original aspect ratios and unmodified by broadcast standards or edited to fill a time slot. In some cases, you can find an obscure film that is rarely shown on television. Still, there is that specialness of the event that is missing.
I'm an Engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like "What is beauty?", because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems and call them "paychecks".

Roadrunner75

Quote from: NJRoadfan on April 21, 2015, 05:02:10 PM
As for CB, I recall about a year ago I tried to listen on one of my handhelds and got nobody. I live in one of the most densely populated regions of the country, you'd think there would have been some traffic. 15 years ago channel 19 used to be chock full of traffic, not anymore.
I had the same experience around the same time.  I used to use CBs with my friends back in the early 90s, and there was a lot of local non-trucker use in my area of NJ then (Philly burbs).  I went many years without a CB and about a year or so ago my wife bought me a handheld CB after hearing me talking about my old CB days.  Absolutely nothing out here (closer to the shore).  No trucks, no locals, nothing - even after a few rides up and down the GSP.  I still have it in the car, but it's relegated to the glovebox.


NJRoadfan

Quote from: kkt on April 21, 2015, 07:36:58 PM
That was the original idea, but actually PDF is a ridiculously complex, constantly changing format.  That allows Adobe to continue to sell new versions of PDF creation programs.  In order to preserve readability for the ages, you'd need to save a PDF reader from the year along with the document.  And probably a contemporary computer, too.

The PDF 1.7 format has been standardized as ISO standard 32000-1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format#ISO_Standardization

There are plenty of readers and source code out there to work with it. Adobe has added extensions to it, but most people don't actually use them.

formulanone

#18
Quote from: Brian556 on April 21, 2015, 06:33:08 PM
EDM sucks. At least disco had lyrics and meaning.

Actually, I feel the lyrics have become more disposable as I age, so the removal of cliches, discarding overused themes, and avoiding predictable statements/rhymes altogether permits the listener to decide for themselves what the music means on a more personal level. Maybe dance music isn't really the avenue for that, but there was lots of instrumental 1950s-1960s rock/pop music with no lyrics, plenty of jazz standards without a single spoken word, and centuries of classical music that preceded this trend. Whether it's made by a few pushbuttons, entirely sampled, covered in its entirety, composed in a broom closet, or performed by an orchestra of over one hundred musicians in tuxedos makes no difference to me...if you like that piece enough. That's not to say I write off all music with lyrics, but it's far from required to make it enjoyable.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on April 21, 2015, 03:48:02 PM
I'd expand this to include an historical paper trail in general.  Old, outdated information is only semi-preserved online.  It's very valuable to understand how and why information has evolved, and when there are not old editions of things to compare, that richness of the record is lost.

While I echo the sentiment that a lot of recorded history might miss preservation, I assume it's always been that way...there's millions of untold and lost stories and things consigned to landfills of dust which have been long-gone throughout the ages, since either records weren't kept, were not required in the long term, physical space reasons, or just discarded for a lack of interest.

The question remains, won't most of it be boring ephemera anyhow? Do ten thousand people all need to collect the same exact things? And will anyone two generations in the future care, or need to know everything? I suppose that depends on how much present information is stored, backed-up, and shared in the future - as well as when (or if) that data becomes public domain information.

Quote from: ZLoth on April 21, 2015, 08:45:50 PM
Remember when watching a movie on television was an "event", and if you missed it, you had to wait a year?

Yes...but having premium movie channels when I was a kid sort of changed all of that, along with getting a VCR. Sporting events are about the only types of events like that, although musical performances and theatrical productions could make a case for it as well. People still enjoy concerts, and arenas or stadiums are still packed in some cities.

It's kind of less of an event, but if you're still excited or interested to see a movie, I still get about the same enjoyment (probably because I'll only find time for a half-dozen a year). While going to the movies as child was an event that also occurred maybe 5-6 times a year, and that made those a little more "special", the excitement wasn't dulled by hundreds of action movies, comedies, and other films which kind of evens out the nostalgia factor a bit.

Having movies and the like ready on an easily-reusable format are tremendously helpful when you have kids, or tremendously enjoy the movie or series. You couldn't reasonably do that 35-40 years ago, and the idea of "selling" the movie 6 months after it left the theaters (or sooner) is really only 25 years old. but I guess that kind of made the movie event something more important, rather than a thing you can idly pay attention to while doing something else.

Other than that, there's not a lot I feel is genuinely lost by technology. It hasn't kept all of its "promises" anyhow, so we fall back to nostalgia and old ways of doing things. I think the biggest disappointment is a general lack of backward-compatibility for old games or software, due to copyright laws. It's a disposable medium once the player or console no longer functions, which has turned me off from the whole process for about a decade now.

DeaconG

Reel to reel recorders.  I wanted one badly in the 80s but could never afford one...there's a small niche market out there for them but there's a good chance the unit will have to be overhauled to get it to work right.

If I had the cash I'd still get one...
Dawnstar: "You're an ape! And you can talk!"
King Solovar: "And you're a human with wings! Reality holds surprises for everyone!"
-Crisis On Infinite Earths #2

bugo

Quote from: Brian556 on April 21, 2015, 06:33:08 PM
Driving ... was way more pleasant in the old days when people weren't on the phone all the time and actually drove the proper speed and used turn signals.

Drivers have been terrible since long before the cell phone came along.

Quote
Music...for the most part. EDM sucks. At least disco had lyrics and meaning.

Why am I not surprised that you hate electronic music? As far as lyrics go, there are a lot of electronic songs that are very meaningful. Listen to some of BT's lyrics sometime. You simply don't understand the genre and have made broad generalizations about it. Go back and listen to your Garth Brooks and Metallica.

bugo

Lots of electronic music is either instrumental or uses short repeating vocal samples with no verses and choruses.

Scott5114

Have we really almost gotten through an entire page without button copy being mentioned? And photocopiers made the 1928—1995 design of US currency too easy to copy, so we had to endure the trauma of Series 1996. Of course, cash in general is nowhere near as important as it used to be.

But for real, I love technology. Wouldn't want to live in any other time period but the 2010's. I can't wait to see what neat stuff we invent in the next 50 years.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

english si

#23
Quote from: kkt on April 21, 2015, 07:16:07 PMDepending on the level of school.  My friend the aeronautical engineering major said the department policy was no partial credit, because if the wings fall off nobody cares that you had the theory right.
I had an engineering physics test: no calculators, no formula sheets, no working marks.

When we asked (I wasn't too fussed) we were told that in the real world, in a jam, you wouldn't get any of that. Lecturer took our points about the real world being very different to exam conditions (in the real world, an electronic engineer would be able to talk and eat, and above all be next to a computer and thus have calculator and formula sheet) but said that the test is the way it is.


I had a nasty exam where the differential equations were so long that they took up more than a line, and working marks stopped as soon as you went off piste by making a tiny mistake. This was really so they could be lazy marking it: they have 4 or 5 lines in the mark scheme and if you have a line in your working identical (hopefully functionally identical) you got a mark, but no effort to follow your thought process that at lower levels (even nationally marked ones) we'd have been given all but one mark if not.

They couldn't care less about whether we understood the theory, or not. I'd have preferred no working marks at, as then the exam would have had to have been about the theory, rather than epic algebraic calculation that no one would ever do without a computer in the real world. Partially as I just scrapped a pass thanks to the exam, having got 2 or 3 working marks on every question, and about 2 questions right. But I understood the theory perfectly well!

silverback1065

Quote from: english si on April 22, 2015, 04:37:19 AM
Quote from: kkt on April 21, 2015, 07:16:07 PMDepending on the level of school.  My friend the aeronautical engineering major said the department policy was no partial credit, because if the wings fall off nobody cares that you had the theory right.
I had an engineering physics test: no calculators, no formula sheets, no working marks.

When we asked (I wasn't too fussed) we were told that in the real world, in a jam, you wouldn't get any of that. Lecturer took our points about the real world being very different to exam conditions (in the real world, an electronic engineer would be able to talk and eat, and above all be next to a computer and thus have calculator and formula sheet) but said that the test is the way it is.


I had a nasty exam where the differential equations were so long that they took up more than a line, and working marks stopped as soon as you went off piste by making a tiny mistake. This was really so they could be lazy marking it: they have 4 or 5 lines in the mark scheme and if you have a line in your working identical (hopefully functionally identical) you got a mark, but no effort to follow your thought process that at lower levels (even nationally marked ones) we'd have been given all but one mark if not.

They couldn't care less about whether we understood the theory, or not. I'd have preferred no working marks at, as then the exam would have had to have been about the theory, rather than epic algebraic calculation that no one would ever do without a computer in the real world. Partially as I just scrapped a pass thanks to the exam, having got 2 or 3 working marks on every question, and about 2 questions right. But I understood the theory perfectly well!

i just graduated with a degree in civil engineering, and had a similar experience in all of my math classes not allowing calculators, it was very annoying!



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