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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?

#351

Post by jfrunyon »

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…

Reddit used to be amazing. "Just pick a username and password. Give us your email if you want to be able to do a password reset."

Now an email (with verification) is required and you'll still get insta-shadow-banned.

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

#352

Post by stevenicr »

postsantum wrote: post #27

Not for me (I'm in LTR), but casual dating life. Tinder is distorting the market making it "winner(s) takes it all" type

I've noticed it's not just 'casual' dating - but also relationships.

Much like when the landline phone and personal automobile increased access to cheating partners..

technology / social media especially - increases access to 'better rung (like a ladder)' sex partners, relationship, social status, money, etc. - all a click / tap away, and likely coming to you via dms/pms..

I'll add that these auto-filters on cameras seem to make a lot of people, (especially girls from what I have seen, anecdotal for sure) - think they are more attractive than they really are.. which increases attention they get via insta/tik/fbk, whatever.. but also gives them false sense of where they could be in the ladder.. which leads them to discount 'average guy is good' -

ads make this worst too many times.

There is much more to add to this - but these things are noticeable in the data as well right? isn't like 80% of women only trying to attract the top 20% of men.

with tech making it easy to have 'a grass is greener here' profile to attract, it's harder to keep a relationship in general than it used to be, even if they don't run away, I think women are less happy / take it out on the average man when they don't have the kardashian/insert reality whatever here, type of life they see others 'living their best life' on reality-social.. I don't mean to say similar affects don't occur with men vs women - I'm just pointing to what I have seen a lot of.

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

#353

Post by piperswe »

jfrunyon wrote: post #330
burlesona wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think that logo signs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_sign) are sufficient for helping the public find things.

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

#354

Post by WalterBright »

Unicode. Unicode started out as a marvelous improvement. But then, it was infected by dementia. For example, check out this madness:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/hiding-vulner...

where Unicode added code points that would cause the renderer to go backwards.

Unicode looniness has also infected C++23:

http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2020/p194...

which is absurdly overcomplicated.

Using emoji as C++ identifier names?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30130806/using-emoji-as-...

What a clowny "feature".

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

#355

Post by rglullis »

sokoloff wrote: post #131
rglullis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's tech can be cheap and repairable. Buying a PC in parts is not that more expensive than buying than a box from a retailer. The framework laptop is completely competitively priced with laptops of equivalent specs. DIY audio enthusiasts can buy speaker kits that have amazing performance for one third of the price of the "ready" one, and if a speaker or the amp goes bad, they don't need to buy a whole new kit. It…

I bought a low-end Chromebook for $92.44 delivered last week. Other than the charge adapter or USB-C cable, there's literally nothing that makes any economic sense to attempt to repair. Even something as bounded as replacing the battery is likely to make no sense several years down the road.

Because everything is integrated, and like I said you are not paying for the cost of disposing it. If electronics are getting to the point that they are as disposable as a plastic bottle, perhaps we should start treating them as such.

In Germany, every recyclable (plastic/glass/aluminum) container has a surcharge of a few cents, which you get back by returning them to any supermarket. Imagine if we made something similar for consumer electronics. A tax on electronics products, it being higher in correlation with the level of integration, the difficulty to repair. Your chromebook would be taxed at 100% if sold as a whole package, but if Google decided to produce modules that are independently sold, the tax would drop.

Suddenly the whole equation changes for everyone. Manufacturers will have the incentive to produce less integrated products and consumers will have more choice to upgrade/replace only parts of their equipment. Your first-time cost is "higher", but onward you realize that you can upgrade the every three years and the board for $20, the screen last 5 years and costs $40, the battery is $15, etc.

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

#356

Post by jfrunyon »

stnmtn wrote: post #292
psyc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like no matter what improves in this area, something else breaks it. At first using a password manager helped. So now everyone wants to email or text a code if they don’t recognize the device/browser. But there’s a checkbox to remember the device/browser! And I find more than half the time the checkbox has no apparent effect. There’s like a Murphy’s Law of Logins: Whatever frustration can be caused, will be.

For logins that are important, I appreciate the extra security of 2FA and am not frustrated by it. Also, for many people they re-use the same password for everything, so enforcing 2FA makes sense for them as well

I don't think anyone is complaining about the option of 2FA on logins that are important. What people are complaining about is the requirement of 2FA which only supports email, text, or call. All of those options take significantly more time and distraction than my normal 2FA processes (TOTP or WebAuthn). Furthermore all of those options add next to no security because all you have to do is get physical access to someone's phone (not unlocked, just access to the lock screen!) to receive the codes. And even if that's not possible you can just bribe or SE a $telco employee.

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

#357

Post by psyc »

stnmtn wrote: post #292
psyc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like no matter what improves in this area, something else breaks it. At first using a password manager helped. So now everyone wants to email or text a code if they don’t recognize the device/browser. But there’s a checkbox to remember the device/browser! And I find more than half the time the checkbox has no apparent effect. There’s like a Murphy’s Law of Logins: Whatever frustration can be caused, will be.

For logins that are important, I appreciate the extra security of 2FA and am not frustrated by it. Also, for many people they re-use the same password for everything, so enforcing 2FA makes sense for them as well

Complaining that my car key weighs 10 pounds isn’t a prompt to remind me that people steal cars.

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

#358

Post by jfrunyon »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #257
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…

This is why I love Reddit and Wikipedia. You can make an account, but you don’t have to. Compared to say Pinterest, where content can’t really be accessed at all unless you make an account.

First off, you absolutely do have to make an account to participate on Reddit. Second, screw Reddit, between shadowbans and required external IDs to register and the various new anti-user design updates... No, they're not a positive example of anything anymore.

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

#359

Post by jfrunyon »

WalterBright wrote: post #354

Unicode. Unicode started out as a marvelous improvement. But then, it was infected by dementia. For example, check out this madness: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/hiding-vulner... where Unicode added code points that would cause the renderer to go backwards. Unicode looniness has also infected C++23: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2020/p194... which is absurdly overcomplicated. Us…

> where Unicode added code points that would cause the renderer to go backwards.

No. That's not even slightly accurate to what those codepoints do and those codepoints are necessary for the correct presentation of LTR and RTL scripts.

And what is that link? https://trojansource.codes/trojan-source.pdf

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

#360

Post by rokhayakebe »

lobocinza wrote: post #161
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.…

Ads are pointless. No matter how much human capital was invested in making targeted ads possible, only very rarely I see something that I might be interested in buying. And I can't remember a thing that I bought due to ads. They are a better signal of what to not buy.

No matter how much human capital was invested in making targeted ads possible, only very rarely I

There is the issue. "I." You may be one in 100,000. Also there is a trickle-down effect. A brand will spend enough dollars to attract a certain number of fans, then those fans attract others organically. Many will say you "Ads do not work on me," but unless you know exactly why you choose product X or Y, it is difficult to say with confidence.

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