Ask HN: What technologies have made your life worse?
I'll give just one example. A few weeks ago I took my baby to the doctor for a routine exam, which includes weighing.
Scales are an ancient, pretty straightforward technology. If a skilled craftsman built a scale 300 years ago and it was well maintained over the centuries, I think its reasonable to expect it to still work adequately, and a minimally trained person would be able to operate it.
However, this electronic scale was so complicated and full of gadgetry (including bluetooth) that the hospital staff were unable to weigh my child and we had to go back home and reschedule.
I can think of a million other examples (Juicero...) but I'm more curious to hear of real-life examples like the one I shared.
124 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 190 ms ] threadAt least in Tesla's, it seems like a win for safety. No switching channels, no loading CDs/switching stations (just say "play pink floyd"), no playing with volume (it's on the steering wheel), automatic wipers, (with manual do it now on the stalk), automatic temp control, voice based nav that works well. Seat adjustments are on the seat. Cruise control following distances are on the steering wheel. Pause music is on the steering wheel (or automatic when you receive a call or ask for voice control).
Car's without touchscreens still often require looking, can you change your channel to preset #3 without looking? Switch from heat to AC mode? Defrost your front/rear windshield? Seems about the same as a touch screen, and relatively infrequent.
Not sure what people are doing on their touch screens, but I rarely touch mine, and when I look it's for more info about my environment, not less.
The Tesla does have a touch screen, but you don't need them to change the volume, the cruise control follow distance, play a new song, pause a song, make a phone call, use voice nav, manually overwrite the wipers (wipe now), etc.
The minimalist smartphone market is developing but still rather anemic in its offering. I continue to watch companies like humane and blloc to see if they can ultimately produce something that is more compelling. Time will tell, but I feel like this is a market we really need more investment in.
I used to dream about getting rid of both completely when I retire, but the way society and tech are going I expect that means I'd almost never see or hear from my kids or future grandkids or whoever. So, stuck with the crap still, I guess.
I miss the discoverability of the old internet, and I hate having to do 90% of my searches in Incognito.
inb4 DuckDuckGo, etc.
* 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 where they're not needed, like ATMs or vending machines: with all this covid fear, they're not hygienic. * Wireless headphones: battery, quality of sound... I fear the day there will be no wired headphones available on consumer market. I don't care about high quality wireless headphones, I don't want to charge my headphones * Messaging apps. I have to keep iMessage, Telegram, Whatsapp & Signal on my phone because I have different contacts using different apps. It was easier in the SMS era
Totally agree, although just as an anecdotal experience: I was very surprised this weekend when I set up a soundbar with my TV, which immediately recognized it and did some configuration which allowed me to control the soundbar volume with my normal TV remote.
---
[0] They are, however, very open and publish the remote codes.
I'll go one further and say touch controls. I hate my stove with a passion. It's absolutely horrible to use if my fingers are a tiny bit wet (I know, who has wet hands in the kitchen, right?!). Sometimes, even with dry hands, the on/off button will not register.
I need to press 3 different buttons to turn it on. I need to press two different buttons to change the power, one of which repeatedly if I want to change by more than one step – say to turn one burner off, if I want the others to stay on.
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
I still use their dedicated remotes though, as they have the full functionality whereas CEC only deals with some.
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 world everyone would be using Lisp (my username checks out!) but so much power. It has a simple syntax (some say it has no syntax but I think that is a little hyperbole). In my ideal world new concepts and paradigms are implemented in Lisp using Lisp. I'd much rather spend time solving real problems that real human beings care about. I'd much rather learning new ways of solving problems with new paradigms. I don't want to waste hours learning new syntaxes and their gotchas and edge-cases!
That was always my impression, you're writing the AST directly, then manipulating it with fancy macros.
I'm convinced that Clojure will be the lisp-uber-language.
EDIT: I shouldn't have said "simple"; nothing ever is. I was being arrogant.
The best one I’ve used so far is Kotlin, which is a pleasure to use in comparison to Java, but this might be because I used it in an IDE written by the language designers themselves.
I don't understand why you need to pick up every new language that comes out. Can't you just hold down one job for longer than a year?
people can't stop reinventing the wheel. everyone thinks they know better.
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.
Chatbots - as others mentioned.
Laptops - encourage bad posture, lots of PT and exercise to improve that. Self-control as well.
Smart watches - same reasons as phone. Lot of good and a lot of bad.
I do apologize for launching into a mild rant there...i guess i have deeper issues with mobile parking apps than i originally thought. ;-)
Seems to have eaten up all the gains from SSDs and more modern CPUs. The hardware gets better and excel stays slow
FTFY
when you need to get to a person and you don't fall within their voice prompt system you end up saying "operator" 7 times and then the computer is like "Did you want to talk to an operator?" and it says please enter your 10 digit phone number.. And you're stuck in hell for 10 minutes.
I bought already a couple of them, and somehow none of them seems to work well, or they are too sensitive and I can't figure out where to measure my temperature and what counts as fever.
I finally found some thermometers that I used when I was younger, and now I can reliably measure my temperature and I can tell what counts as fever.
They didn't actually made my life worse, I don't want to be that dramatic, but I definitely dislike them.
I shouldn't have to avoid driving after sunset because 80% of the general population are idiots who put LEDs in housings where LEDs shouldn't be used.