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People expect technology to suck because it sucks

tonsky.me

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Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#261

Post by nicbou »

fma wrote: post #198
nicbou wrote: post #121

As an experiment, I logged every bug I encountered for a few days. I averaged 5 bugs a day, not counting dark patterns or bad design. Everything is broken, and nobody is upset. [1] Some of the software I use is so unreliable that I expect it to fail. I expect the Vodafone login page not to work properly. I expect one of my airpods not to connect on the first try. I expect my banking app to show random error messages,…

I rsearched the ReMarkable 1 and 2. I ended up just getting a Rocketbook. It's very simple concept. "Paper" in the form of hard plastic. The pen it uses is the Pilot Frixion, which is an erasable pen. Hence you have a notebook to record notes for a while. If there's anything important I'll manually transfer it to my OneNote (I don't use Rocketbook's picture taking app). Most notes I take only need to exist for a few…

I was looking to replace the A6 sketchbook I carry everywhere, and the A5 notebook that always sits in front of my keyboard.

I thought it would be nice to access my notes when I don't have my notebook on me, and to have layers, zooming, undos etc. However, the more I look into it, the more absurd it seems.

I'm replacing a 15€ notebook and a 2€ mechanical pencil by a 400€ gadget that doesn't quite work. Why? So that I can spend my time organising notes in a digital space. Why? I don't really know.

It would be cool to have layers, zooming and an undo button. It would also be cool to have access to my notes even when I don't have my notebook. However, it would just be cool. It doesn't actually solve a serious problem.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#262

Post by emteycz »

thewebcount wrote: post #257
hrktb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t reality suck the same ? My gas car stinks, destroys the planet, needs yearly maintenance, crashes in everything the second I stop paying attention. My house decays days after day. Floors need constant cleaning, wall have holes from small impacts, paint contains inedible fragments and disperse nocive gas. Bees are building nests on my balcony and it’s definitely not what it was built for, nor where they should…

> Doesn’t reality suck the same ? No. A hardware product like a car has predictable wear and tear governed mainly by the laws of physics. The fact that I can no longer use my smart speaker because the manufacturer decided to stop supporting it, went out of business, or got bought is not at all the same. My car will still work through all of those things in the exact same way. It also doesn't throw up random dialogs (…

> It also doesn't throw up random dialogs (or whatever a physical equivalent would be) that stop the product from working until I interact with it.

I see you never had a (EU) Ford.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#263

Post by rightbyte »

cedilla wrote: post #150
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing that has changed is updates can be delivered easily. This takes some of the pressure off in terms of QA because rolling out a fix to a centralised service delivered through the browser is quick and painless. The cost of pressing millions of CD's kept developers in check in the past.

That's really not the only thing that changed. Games are also massively more complicated today. It's one thing for three people getting a 2.5 MB single player DOS game reasonably bug free. It's an entirely different thing to get the 5 GB game made by a team of 100 or 1,000 people.

Most of the size difference is assets anyway, right? Games today use off the shelf engines. It should be alot easier to make rubust games when most of the techincally hard parts are allready done.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#264

Post by tomc1985 »

thewebcount wrote: post #256
ballenf wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t imagine you never slapped the door of your fridge and it didn’t properly close. You gave it a nudge when you realized it, and it was fine, but it must have happened. And your whole food supply would be rotten if you didn’t notice in time. But if the fridge was software it would randomly turn off and ruin all your food. The light would sometimes stay on, except when you open the door. It would require you to…

We saw a failure case like this with a microwave in the workplace kitchen. It somehow got into a mode where it only turned on when the door opened . Needless to say we threw it out shortly after that was discovered. We didn't bother debugging it, but my guess is it was a hardware problem because the interlock should have obviously made it work the opposite of how it was and you'd hope that a software glitch couldn't…

Oh crap. That could blind a person. I thought microwaves had to have a hardware interlock for that reason

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#265

Post by cblconfederate »

When i find bugs or 'featues' that make me waste time i blame developers. They clearly don't care anymore. So ordinary users have resorted to quiet desperation through learned helplessness. Like all those 'redesigns' that remove features and turn what used to be a few memorized keystrokes to an agonizing series of scrollers, popups and "UX" animations.

I just think developers don't care anymore. They don't yell enough at their marketing teams when they push for obvious bullshit features. They make so much money that they have no interest for the users, in fact nobody does.

There's no way out of this, until AI replaces developers. When users can talk to their apps and customize them to 100% fit their needs, without the need for any developers, the users will have got their revenge

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#266

Post by rightbyte »

ashtonkem wrote: post #249
TeMPOraL wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only have a number of devices that used to be purely electro-mechanical been reworked to use microcontrollers (cars, everything in the kitchen), Yup, and in most cases this not only did not improve them, but made them less useful and more fragile . Let's be honest: the software is there only because it can save on manufacturing costs, and sometimes can be used for extra marketing benefit. No attention is being…

Depends on what you’re talking about. Car engines are vastly improved in both reliability, cleanliness, and efficiency by the introduction of computers into them. You might not like that when it goes wrong, but we all appreciate not breathing in pre-computerized car engine exhaust. And that’s the rub. While shoddily written software shoehorned into cheap consumer goods obviously degrades the experience, there are ton…

Yes but at the same time the auto makers let another team make Electron apps for the dashboard. Engine ECUs are nice and decoupled. Maybe the hard realtime requirements is what saves them and keep all the novell crap out?

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#267

Post by vkou »

cblconfederate wrote: post #265

When i find bugs or 'featues' that make me waste time i blame developers. They clearly don't care anymore. So ordinary users have resorted to quiet desperation through learned helplessness. Like all those 'redesigns' that remove features and turn what used to be a few memorized keystrokes to an agonizing series of scrollers, popups and "UX" animations. I just think developers don't care anymore. They don't yell enoug…

The grass was greener when I was younger, and the sugar is sweeter.

Most software has always been crap. There never was a golden age, when developers 'cared'.

The truth is, some developers produced polished, well-working, well-made software. Some developers still do that.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#268

Post by cblconfederate »

vkou wrote: post #267
cblconfederate wrote: post #265

When i find bugs or 'featues' that make me waste time i blame developers. They clearly don't care anymore. So ordinary users have resorted to quiet desperation through learned helplessness. Like all those 'redesigns' that remove features and turn what used to be a few memorized keystrokes to an agonizing series of scrollers, popups and "UX" animations. I just think developers don't care anymore. They don't yell enoug…

The grass was greener when I was younger, and the sugar is sweeter. Most software has always been crap. There never was a golden age, when developers 'cared'. The truth is, some developers produced polished, well-working, well-made software. Some developers still do that.

Try using some old software. Like windows 7 or vim or emacs , or PHP or old reddit. Due to their age , they 've accumulated a lot of fixes to their bugs. They may look weird and old , but they waste less of my time.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#269

Post by heavyset_go »

cblconfederate wrote: post #265

When i find bugs or 'featues' that make me waste time i blame developers. They clearly don't care anymore. So ordinary users have resorted to quiet desperation through learned helplessness. Like all those 'redesigns' that remove features and turn what used to be a few memorized keystrokes to an agonizing series of scrollers, popups and "UX" animations. I just think developers don't care anymore. They don't yell enoug…

I disagree. The role of software engineers has become so commoditized that engineer input doesn't mean much to management, and for every engineer that goes against a decision, there are another dozen who will do what needs to be done without complaints.

I see this as a symptom of the lack of democracy in the workplace.

Re: People expect technology to suck because it sucks

#270

Post by sabujp »

cblconfederate wrote: post #268
vkou wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grass was greener when I was younger, and the sugar is sweeter. Most software has always been crap. There never was a golden age, when developers 'cared'. The truth is, some developers produced polished, well-working, well-made software. Some developers still do that.

Try using some old software. Like windows 7 or vim or emacs , or PHP or old reddit. Due to their age , they 've accumulated a lot of fixes to their bugs. They may look weird and old , but they waste less of my time.

old.reddit.com is the best, is there a plugin/extension or some script to force chrome to always redirect to old.reddit.com for all reddit urls?

edit: found https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redirector/pajiege...

and https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redirector/pajiege...

this one seems to be pretty popular (requestly) :

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/requestly-redirect...

anyone have better solutions?

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