LED vehicle headlights. How long will it take before they figure out how to make them without burning out the retinas of the general public?
The number of times I've flashed someone thinking their brights are on only to get a blast of true brights.
Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
91–100 of 125 posts
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#92Soft buttons and software-mediated knobs replacing real buttons and real knobs that actually do things. Best microwave I've ever used was made in, I think, the late 70s. Didn't even have a turntable, and worked just fine without it, somehow. No clock at all. The "UI" was two heavy-feeling knobs, one for power and one for time. Turn the time knob, and it starts cooking at your selected power until the time runs down,…
I remember my grandmother having one of those. The name of it was radar range. Had a pretty heavy hum when you ran it.
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#93Apple FaceID in general but definitely when driving, wearing sunglasses, or outside in bright sunlight. I have a mount for the phone at center dash of my car and FaceID rarely works from there. I have to lean over while trying to drive to put my face in front of the phone to get it to work … sometimes. Usually the phone insists on the passcode which is insecure when mounted on dash for passengers to easily view and p…
FaceID adds friction to using my phone. Plus, looking at my phone doesn't necessarily mean I want it unlocked. I'll often glance at my phone to see a recent text, put it back in my pocket and then a few minutes later wonder why my pocket is warm...oh right it's probably sitting there unlocked with an app open.
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#94Literally 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'…
Why do you keep presumably buying these devices?
There aren't much alternatives anymore.
If I go to a physical shop I won't get any dumb dishwasher anymore. That's how I got my current "smart" one.
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#95huge changes in SAAS or app UIs. When every a company totally changes the UI, they rarely think of all the time users put into learning the original UI.
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#96Mobile parking apps
The concept of mobile parking apps is good, but the execution is pretty crappy. But then, i think, hey the fact that i have to drive a car because transit infrastructure is crap in America, and then i have to park said car (and all the annoyances that come with finding parking in some cities without getting tickets or worse towed away due to awfully written parking signage), and then to use a crappy mobile app to pay for said parking...it all makes me feel crappy all over. So, i submit that the crappy "tech" that has worsened our lives is the poor-planning of our American cities with their *car first* approach to design. Sure, the car can be considered both good and bad, mobile apps can be considered good and bad...but the design of our American cities itself that seemingly places cars above all else...wow, that takes the cake!
I do apologize for launching into a mild rant there...i guess i have deeper issues with mobile parking apps than i originally thought. ;-)
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#97Soft buttons and software-mediated knobs replacing real buttons and real knobs that actually do things. Best microwave I've ever used was made in, I think, the late 70s. Didn't even have a turntable, and worked just fine without it, somehow. No clock at all. The "UI" was two heavy-feeling knobs, one for power and one for time. Turn the time knob, and it starts cooking at your selected power until the time runs down,…
This, in cars.
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#98Soft buttons and software-mediated knobs replacing real buttons and real knobs that actually do things. Best microwave I've ever used was made in, I think, the late 70s. Didn't even have a turntable, and worked just fine without it, somehow. No clock at all. The "UI" was two heavy-feeling knobs, one for power and one for time. Turn the time knob, and it starts cooking at your selected power until the time runs down,…
> Didn't even have a turntable, and worked just fine without it, somehow.
It probably had a microwave "stirrer" -- basically just a rotating metal-bladed fan that the microwaves bounce off and get reflected to all parts of the oven cavity.
I believe large commercial microwaves may still use these. Residential models tend to use turntables because they're somewhat more compact.
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the bulk of this problem is just people not aiming their lights correctly.
Drivers shouldn't have to and generally cannot aim their headlights. Cars come like that from the manufacturer and/or garage after maintenance.
Sure, but after market kits for LED lights are pretty common and often are installed by the end user.
Re: Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
#100The aggressive push towards thin devices with questionable cooling combined with the ever increasing bloat in windows/office. Seems to have eaten up all the gains from SSDs and more modern CPUs. The hardware gets better and excel stays slow
Windows was actually getting more resource efficient for a while around Windows 8 and 10 due to the emphasis on running Windows on low powered tablet devices. Then heartbleed etc hit and we lost a bunch of performance due to mitigation patches.