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Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#871

Post by sotojuan »

bitwize wrote: post #405
kome wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> E-Mail before we lost the "text should be text and not goddamn HTML" war. I am still fighting, and the war is not over.

You're pretty much the equivalent of the Japanese soldier who got stranded in the Philippines and kept fighting WWII until the 1970s. HTML mail won . If you work in an office they will use either Exchange or Google Apps; Exchange's default configuration is a fuck you to text-based mail clients.   Hope you like all your email looking like this, because the only response you’ll get from your sysadmin should…

> You're pretty much the equivalent of the Japanese soldier who got stranded in the Philippines and kept fighting WWII until the 1970s.

Never hear about this—thanks for the entertaining research. For those interested, it might be this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#872

Post by patrickk »

davemac8 wrote: post #844
nanoverge wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Microsoft IntelliMouse was so good. This was something I realized at the time and hoarded them. I now have a wonderful stash of that mouse.

I'm down to my last one, and can't source them anywhere now. Want to sell any?

€90 on amazon, holy shit!

Maybe there would be a demand for a website that lists where you can buy obsoleted programmer gear like the IntelliMouse and Thinkpads.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#873

Post by J_Darnley »

rsync wrote: post #761
avar wrote: post #116

A few things: Everything not being 4:3 screens. I found it better for programming than everything being cinematic screens. Back when monitor manufacturers were racing to make better / higher resolution monitors, instead of just leaving it at 1080p / 4k / whatever the current standard good enough for movies is. The GMail interface before it started auto-converting the textarea to HTML when edited externally. Console g…

"Everything not being 4:3 screens. I found it better for programming than everything being cinematic screens." It may interest you to know that there is a new, modern, 1:1 screen for sale from a reputable company, today - the EIZO FlexScan EV2730QFX: http://www.amazon.com/FlexScan-EV2730QFX-Monitor-1920x1920-E... Please, please buy one (or three) of these, as I did, and place your dollar votes for screen innovation l…

Thank you for the suggestion. If I ever have that kind of money for a display I will get one.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#874

Post by cableshaft »

davb wrote: post #444
mathgeek wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were still be patches and online services involved. You can also bet that they won't eschew online purchases and digital downloads. I know I won't buy it if I have to go back to physical media.

Oh absolutely, and that's the way it is with the 3DS. But keep in mind that Nintendo home consoles have always been the favoured split-screen multiplayer - they're the consoles you play when your friends come round (and they work equally well for solo gamers). Consequently, forced online patches aren't really as obvious as they are on Xbox or Playstation. On the 3DS, the only forced patches that affect me are OS patc…

If I remember correctly, a major limiting factor of cartridges is the time it takes to get them manufactured. If I remember right only one company was allowed to make those official cartridges, and you had to reserve a specific timeslot 8 months or more in advance, that you couldn't slip that date, in order to get your cartridges made.

I can't remember if I read this or if I was told this by veterans of the game industry (I used to work with some guys that have been in the industry for a long time). I think I was told this, but there's probably articles that mention this out there somewhere.

Anyway, they said it was a nightmare for scheduling, and sometimes you'd have a game finished but have to sit on it for months because that's the earliest you could get a slot reserved.

I think this is still an issue with the 3DS (I think they were complaining about it for DS at the time, why they didn't really want to work on another DS game).

Not sure if publishers would be as keen on this nowadays, especially compared to the speed and immediacy of the mobile world. Might make them stay with Microsoft and Sony, yet again.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#875

Post by tim333 »

SilasX wrote: post #631
tim333 wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's not allowed. I can make a bit of paper saying "I, Tim will pay the bearer on demand US$1 * the current CPI / 238" and sell it to you for a dollar. Some reasons why inflation free currencies don't work very well in practice are if there is a lot of debt in society and the economy turns down it can be useful to inflate the debt away a bit. Otherwise you get Greece. If they were still on the Drachma wi…

Yeah, I know there are benefits to the government if it can expropriate people's liquidity; I'm wondering why there aren't mechanisms to fight that.

It's not really about benefits to the government - they can grab what they want as taxes. It's about bailing out the over indebted. Sure you could let them go bust and let the banks that lent to them go bust etc. like they used to in the gold standard days but the majority of people don't want to go back to that.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#876

Post by dandelion_lover »

exDM69 wrote: post #639
frik wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain me more. You fall for the propaganda without background knowledge. The statistics says otherwise. Fake money is mostly smaller notes (like 20, 50, 100 notes). Higher value notes like 1000 francs note won't get eliminated anytime soon. Criminals already use electronic money, real estate, fake companies, etc.

500 eur note is most value in the least volume and mass of any (?) bank note in the world. That's why it's preferred by international crime. They say an honest man never saw a 500 eur bill. I sure never have.

Would you count me unhonest for buying bitcoins with 500-eur banknotes?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#878

Post by id122015 »

- parted - used to have a feature to resize partitions, now I only know about Gparted Live

- Google Bookmarks (Toolbar for Firefox)

- "maps" app for OSX that could use offline Google Maps

- Opera Mini - I used to have a super lightweight and fast opera mini on Symbian, then something changed

Re: Ask HN: What's the best tool you used to use that doesn't exist anymore?

#880

Post by sly010 »

digi_owl wrote: post #462
sly010 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubiquity was ppioneered by Aza Raskin (son of Jess Rasking, designer the original Mac interface). I always had the feeling that uqiquity never was a Mozilla project per say, it was more his personal project that he happened to do inside Mozilla. Perhaps he left or got promoted and the project stopped. I am only guessing.

The Mac interface has little to do with Ubiquity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDfpw97Tz0 This is Aza demoing the beta version, and to me it seems to build more on Archy than anything WIMP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy

Apologies, I wasn't trying to imply a connection between the Mac interface and Ubiquity, just wanted to put Aza's love for UX in context by mentioning his father's work. I also didn't know about Archy.
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