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Everything's broken and nobody's upset

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Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#111

Post by conradfr »

flexie wrote: post #100
edw519 wrote: post #73

My sentiments exactly. I got so tired of being upset with the horrendous human design in modern technology that I took action. What I've done: - Buy 2 $350 laptops every year. Move all data. Give away old ones. - All contacts in one .txt document. - Memorize most frequently used contacts. - No smart phone. - No tablet. - No Kindle. - No palm pilot. - No Facebook. - New car ('12 Hyandai) with minimal technology. - Was…

Smart phones add so much value. In fact, I think it would be hard for most who have lived through the iphone age to go back to the world before. Almost like going back to the times before electricity :-)

I don't have a smartphone (yet) and the only thing I really miss is GPS/Maps (I suck at direction ...).

But I agree they are fantastic, except the prices for the high end are usually ridiculous.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#112

Post by jiggy2011 »

ksmiley wrote: post #80
smutticus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know the product is broken before you buy it?

You can eliminate some of the uncertainty by googling the product name and see if there are any complaints of the "Everyone has seen this issue" variety. Of course, even a product with 100% consumer satisfaction can have "No one has ever seen this before" issues.

Problem is that you're going to find people bitching about just about every product out there.

Some of these problem reports are just going to written by people who are all doing something wrong. Others might be legit bugs.

I can't think of any technology that I own that doesn't have some issue that drives me nuts.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#113

Post by icebraining »

edw519 wrote: post #73

My sentiments exactly. I got so tired of being upset with the horrendous human design in modern technology that I took action. What I've done: - Buy 2 $350 laptops every year. Move all data. Give away old ones. - All contacts in one .txt document. - Memorize most frequently used contacts. - No smart phone. - No tablet. - No Kindle. - No palm pilot. - No Facebook. - New car ('12 Hyandai) with minimal technology. - Was…

Wash dishes by hand. (Fuck the 48 buttons on the dishwasher.)

There are one button dishwashers out there.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#114

Post by rjzzleep »

while I do feel the same, it's not like there isn't a solution to most of those problems.

have problems with stock roms on devices since you don't know what they do? Try android custom roms.

Have problems with Operating systems doing insane amounts of work without you ever knowing what that is? Try rolling your own Distro.

Problem with gmail? Try running mutt somewhere and give yourself pub key access to the server.

But more generally don't fucking rely on the cloud.

Oh dear, skype, I have to use it for work purposes, but man, how I wish I didn't. He forgot to add android and linux to the list. Compared to that you can at least just use an older skype version on windows and be done with it.

My notebook runs a heavily customized linux and it boots in under 10 second. Updating my system? Still boots in under 10 seconds. All my linux distro setups lasted for years.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#115

Post by takluyver »

prof_hobart wrote: post #88
tomflack wrote: post #16

I've been thinking for some years now, I wish everyone would stop implementing features and perfect the ones that are already there. Optimise. Improve. This is why I was so upset at Sparrow throwing in the towel - they concentrated on one thing, email, and did it better than I'd seen it done before. By specialising they were able to spend the time to get it right.

Can I ask what mobile phone you currently use? Companies like Nokia made some great phone products that did the one thing (well, two if you include SMS) remarkably well in small packages, that had fantastic battery life. But then the iPhone, and Android, came out and virtually no-one was interested in the old, reliable phones anymore. They wanted the latest, shiniest gadget that they could get their hands on, regardl…

Of course, plenty of people still do use 'dumb' phones, myself included. Worldwide, we're probably still in a majority. But smartphones are gradually taking over, and it would be a brave company now that decided to put their focus on making a simple, flawless phone, rather than competing for the top end of the market.

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#118

Post by pbhjpbhj »

momotomo wrote: post #22
mootothemax wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking for some years now, I wish everyone would stop implementing features and perfect the ones that are already there. Look at the iPhone 5 discussions taking place. The most common topic you'll see is: it doesn't have enough new features . That kind of thinking is one of the reasons that refinement doesn't take place as often as you and I would like.

Crux of the discussion? It's become a market norm to have more, new, novelty. If the only selling point of an iPhone iteration was bugfixes, stability and refinement of the workflows it would just be interpreted as a list of things that were wrong with the previous product. I think from one perspective advertising refinement is perceived as perpetual incompetence with respect to your capability to deliver a quality p…

>it would just be interpreted as a list of things that were wrong with the previous product //

It would actually be a list of things that were wrong with the previous product - so what's wrong with that?

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#119

Post by fmax30 »

philjohn wrote: post #102
taude wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was complaining to someone the other day about how needlessly complex washing machines, driers, and other home appliances have gotten. I bought a luxury refrigerator (LG) about 5 or 6 years ago. The motherboard/controller unit had to get replaced 3 times in the first year. I'm still using a washing machine and dryer from the early '80s that I somehow inherited. No one's ever said to me my clothes aren't clean. When…

On the other hand, I've got an 8 year old fridge freezer that's still going strong, and a 5 year old dishwasher that's still going strong. Sounds like you got a dodgy model that had problems, but don't tar every modern appliance with the same brush. I also haven't seen a dishwasher with 40 buttons, as claimed in the parent post, and my modern Bosch washing machine doesn't look any more complex than the Miele one my m…

I have got an LG washing machine that is 10 years old and works. A 20 year old sony tv that works. And a General fridge and a microwave bought in 1985 that still works. So basically the new pieces of technology keep breaking and we have to use these backups. At least the get the stuff done. Alas! , we cannot say the same for old software .... ( actually the older it is, the crappier it is).

Re: Everything's broken and nobody's upset

#120

Post by windsurfer »

edw519 wrote: post #73

My sentiments exactly. I got so tired of being upset with the horrendous human design in modern technology that I took action. What I've done: - Buy 2 $350 laptops every year. Move all data. Give away old ones. - All contacts in one .txt document. - Memorize most frequently used contacts. - No smart phone. - No tablet. - No Kindle. - No palm pilot. - No Facebook. - New car ('12 Hyandai) with minimal technology. - Was…

May I ask what laptops you recently purchased?
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