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Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

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Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

#41

Post by karpierz »

commonlisper wrote: post #11

Programming languages! It is ironic because I am a programmer and I write programs and develop software for a living. But proliferation of programming languages has made my life worse. Too many programming languages and every company has their own favorites! It may be an unpopular opinion on HN but I don't enjoy learning new syntaxes every year for relatively few benefits in new concepts or paradigms. In my ideal wor…

If you only had one programming language, this problem would turn into an issue of too many frameworks. The problem isn't that there are too many programming languages; the issue is that there are many ways to structure code around a problem. Different problems incentivize different structures and so you end up with different languages.

Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

#42

Post by ratww »

napolux wrote: post #9

IMHO Juicero was a scam. Here's my list. * Too many remote controls. One for TV, one for AppleTv, one for PS5 if I want to see a movie on bluray, one for the Denon AMP, etc... There should be a standard for that. Something with a touchscreen and an API manufacturers should support. * Touchscreens in cars (already mentioned). My Toyota is not even capacitive and it's a car from 2017. More generally... Touchscreens whe…

> Too many remote controls. One for TV, one for AppleTv, one for PS5 if I want to see a movie on bluray, one for the Denon AMP, etc... There should be a standard for that. Something with a touchscreen and an API manufacturers should support

There is a standard where you can use some keys in your TV remote to control your device via HDMI, but I never had a device compatible with it.

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

Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

#44

Post by fmitchell0 »

School's curriculum and grading system being connected to email alerts + doing standardized testing 3-4 times a year.

It takes a lot of energy to raise children and be a good partner. The anxiety introduced by constantly getting notified of what is being taught, what the grades are, what is missing EVERYDAY is not only overkill, but I think harmful.

My philosophy is that school (elementary, middle, high school) is a time to explore, be a kid, make mistakes, and do your best to navigate puberty.

The constant reminder of grades, grades, grades puts too much emphasis on my more school-inclined child to be obsessed with their identity as an "A" student, and my art-inclined child to rebel at every turn with us constantly stressing if she's "missed" anything.

Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

#45

Post by silverPoodle »

Literally every IoT device! These things are terrible. My dishwasher can't wash dishes once it does a software update. My TV spies on me and shows me targeted ads. Every useless piece of hardware has a microphone and camera in it.... Heck, I've spent countless days breaking the microphones and cameras on my new "smart" devices before I feel comfortable using them.

Even after spending thousands of dollars on a car, I'm not allowed to install alternative privacy friendly firmware on it. It's bad enough that there are AI-powered cameras with facial recognition everywhere, but thanks to HD cameras in every $100 phone, it's hard to walk in a public place without being in the background of an Instagram story.

Everyone is spying on me and every damn "smart" device is turned against me..

Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

#46

Post by jedberg »

causi wrote: post #12

Automatic vehicle climate control. If the ambient temperature is hotter than the setting I get blasted with frozen air and if it's colder I have to sit in an oven until the car decides it's the correct temperature. I much preferred twisting a knob until the air hitting my face was comfortable. What is comfortable is altered by how active I've been, the time of day, the temperature I've been in before getting into the…

In my 1979 BMW, there was a dial for the fan speed, a dial for the temperature, and a slider to control how much outside air came in. It was the best climate control ever.

In the snow I could blast the heat at full fan speed with max temp at my feet while allowing the icy air from outside to blow at my face at the same time to keep me awake.

Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

#49

Post by bluescrn »

Glued-in, designed-to-be-non-replaceable batteries, when we all know that they'll start to degrade after a year or two of heavy use.

We should have rejected it in phones. We should certainly have rejected it in laptops.

I don't have much hope for EVs. With the battery making up maybe half of the value of the vehicle, a top design priority should have been standardised 'battery modules' shared between as many vehicle models as possible, to allow for easy replacement (including swapping out just 1 of N modules after minor damage rather than writing the whole car off), upgrade, salvage, and recycling.

Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?

#50

Post by [deleted] »

karpierz wrote: post #41
commonlisper wrote: post #11

Programming languages! It is ironic because I am a programmer and I write programs and develop software for a living. But proliferation of programming languages has made my life worse. Too many programming languages and every company has their own favorites! It may be an unpopular opinion on HN but I don't enjoy learning new syntaxes every year for relatively few benefits in new concepts or paradigms. In my ideal wor…

If you only had one programming language, this problem would turn into an issue of too many frameworks. The problem isn't that there are too many programming languages; the issue is that there are many ways to structure code around a problem. Different problems incentivize different structures and so you end up with different languages.

[deleted]
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