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Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#321

Post by Freak_NL »

swozey wrote: post #67

Read receipts make me not even want to talk to people. I want to be able to walk away and go do my own thing and not possibly offend someone that it took me hours to reply or didn't reply at all. It feels so invasive to me and my time.

Fortunately, it can be turned off in a lot of applications. I hate it the other way around too: someone's read it, but isn't answering. Why? What's wrong? Did something I typed make you hesitate? All irrational niggling thoughts when the other person probably just got called away by a crying kid, or sudden explosive diarrhoea, or their house is on fire — you know, normal stuff.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#323

Post by jhickok »

math_denial wrote: post #37

1. Information hoarding, distraction and FOMO The Internet has generated in me an habit of information hoarding. At the beginning I would bookmark useful information and then take notes on paper of the useful things; with the passing of time distraction has started to creep in: more and more useless information, more and more FOMO. 2. Omnipresence of tech and privacy concerns An increasing number of actions require e…

>Information hoarding, distraction and FOMO

You know, I used to jump from one thing to the next never giving anything enough time. I would attend digital conferences, watch PARTS of courses on Pluralsight, LinuxAcademy (RIP) and youtube, hoard books, bookmark websites etc.

Something happened a few years ago where I was able to just turn it all off. I deleted all my pdfs and removed all my bookmarks. I began focusing on single thing at a time (usually in reference to certifications or new skills), and it made such a difference.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#324

Post by dharmab »

ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

I'd just like to point out there was a lot of easily broken crap back in the day, too. Durable items from the past are over represented in both our memory and in the physical world.

Furthermore, truly durable items still exist. One of my favorites are my Osprey packs, which I have had for nearly a decade and expect to last for another few decades.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#325

Post by spurgu »

chrismorgan wrote: post #35
ok_dad wrote: post #4

Advertising. I know this is an extreme view, but I think any advertising other than a spec sheet style ad (just facts) should be banned. I feel like it steals your attention and mindshare day after day. The ads I see on TV now (rarely, as I don't watch live TV much) are just so horrible. Dripping with emotions and trying to tug on your heartstrings to sell some toilet bowl cleaner or some other garbage. Social media.…

I basically don’t encounter any ads in my day-to-day life, digital or physical. I have no TV, and use uBlock Origin (including annoyances lists) on laptop and phone. I live in a tiny rural town so that practically the only advertising posters within a 35km radius are first-party advertising on two or three Telstra public phone booths, and in the decent-sized towns 40km away in either direction there’s barely any more…

> I basically don’t encounter any ads in my day-to-day life, digital or physical.

The only ads I encounter are physical. Adblockers don't work for billboards. :D

> As for television ads, ugh! Maybe once every year or two I happen to be in the same room as a television that’s turned on, and how anyone can stand to watch the stuff when such ads are part of it, I don’t know.

This I realized when I was 19 while on LSD and it was a revelation. I put the TV in the closet and never had one since (or, well, one that I only used through HDMI so it was a monitor rather than a TV).

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#326

Post by Freak_NL »

jtwaleson wrote: post #124

Spending way too many resources and making it seem fine. Driving 100s of km every week like it's normal. Flying 10x per year. Turning the heat up in winter while wearing a t-shirt. This is an age of extreme luxury and we don't realize it. That and addiction to my smartphone. I hardly read books anymore, while that has always been one of the great pleasures in my life

Reading in bed before going to sleep works for me (and my wife). It's a fixed moment where you unwind and relax, and with a good book it is something to look forward to every day. It also stimulates going to bed at a decent time instead of starting another episode on Netflix or gaming into the small hours.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#327

Post by ceejayoz »

duderific wrote: post #266
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you'll love these before-and-after photos of Sao Paolo after their outdoor advertising ban: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret... Anti-advertising was one of the pet causes of Generation X, back before more pressing things like "the war on terror" and a financial collapse and health care crisis took the stage. And those are bigger deals, but man, advertising is just awful too.

If you happen to live in or visit the SF Bay Area, and drive on the 280 freeway between San Jose and San Francisco, you'll notice it feels a bit...odd. That's because billboards are banned along that stretch [1], and all you see is the beautiful green rolling hills. [1] https://www.kqed.org/news/11805469/why-arent-any-billboards-...

Tasmania in Australia has pretty strict rules on billboards and other signage. It's lovely.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#328

Post by uoaei »

4ggr0 wrote: post #173
nja wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, until I happened across FullStory. With that tool you can replay a website visitor's exact session as if it was recorded live on video -- everything they typed (even if it was cleared and never sent in a request), where/when clicks happened, the contents and response of every request, etc. As a backend engineer, I had no idea that frontend monitoring was this advanced, but apparently it is. So n…

> everything they typed (even if it was cleared and never sent in a request) Okay, wow, that sounds rough...so in a way, phishing attacks don't even require you to login anymore, just typing the password or maybe 75% of it is enough to get you.

Back when Facebook made their huge update to convert to a one-page-app, it was pretty obvious they were doing this because on tenuous connections the interactions with the text would be very strange, as if they are caching your text and operating on it server-side using commands sent from client-side.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#329

Post by par »

4ggr0 wrote: post #177
aimor wrote: post #133

Logging in. First I need to make an account for nearly everything. Then I need to link that account to a phone number or email. Then every time I use the service I need to wait for them to text or email me a password. If they email me the password then I have to log in to my email, which means getting another password texted to me. Alternatively if it's work related I have a physical key card, a physical password gen…

What's a physical password generator? Sounds interesting.

I use 1password for everything, and as great as it is, it isnt a seamless and bulletproof solution. No password manager is. The log in experience is EVERYWHERE and I have to generate new passwords seemingly everyday for new sites and apps.

Re: Ask HN: What things has tech made worse in your life?

#330

Post by jfrunyon »

burlesona wrote: post #307
jliptzin wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems strange to me someone would be allowed to put up billboards to begin with along public property. I assume the freeway is public property correct? It should be illegal to begin with without approval from the public.

This may not be obvious, but the public land (Right of Way) for a freeway is very small compared to the visual range of a driver in a car, and the scale of "things you see while driving" is much larger than you would think. (Go stand next to an ordinary residential stop sign and then think about how big and high up it actually is compared to your mental model of it.) I'm not aware of any bill boards that are on publi…

There's also enormous pressure from the public to be able to find things, especially in the case of... you know, a McDonalds on the interstate with people driving by who are from the other side of the country. ;)

I don't think most people have a problem with honest ads. The issue is the billboards that tell you "There's something amazing ahead!" and you pay $10 to get in and it's a stupid doll. Or the collections of a billion billboards for different things on a single building. Or the TV ads that use every trick in the book to try and manipulate you into buying a crappy product.

Sadly businesses seem to be moving more and more towards "just spend all our money on marketing" rather than "just spend all our money on the product". (I'm looking at you, Plex.)

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