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I bought a minidisc player as the first MP3 players were coming out because I could encode MP3s onto a minidisc and fit a bunch of them on there. However, in typical Sony consumer product fashion it stopped working in less than two weeks. I bought it refurbed so I was screwed. Not to mention my Sony miniDV camcorder I bought that stopped working after a few uses (over a long enough period of time that the warranty was no longer valid). In short: gently caress you sony.
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Jul 31, 2012 13:23
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Geoj posted:When my wife was still living in the dorms when she was in college all of the bathrooms were equipped with these...the secret was sticking your finger up into the dispenser and rocking the blade forwards (it sits on a hinge) which trips a sensor telling the PCB that runs the thing its OK to dispense another 6" of towel.
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Jul 31, 2012 15:23
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ZanderZ posted:It's a horrible failure! Your hands are already clean! Who cares if you touch a handle? I miss the regular old ones with the lever you pull. Instant results! Pull lever, receive paper towel. Pull lever more for more paper towels. This thing is a delayed reaction. Stop wasting paper towels.
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Jul 31, 2012 15:57
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ZanderZ posted:It's a horrible failure! Your hands are already clean! Who cares if you touch a handle? Thanks to working in a Mcdonalds in High School I use the handle for the paper towel dispensers before I wash my hands, then wash my hands, then use the little bit that I stuck out to shut off the sink and get another towel. I even use the towel I used to dry my hands to open the door because I just washed my hands and there's people who don't and then use the door handle. Yay for paranoia! I will say automatic sinks are the devil though because they never stay on long enough.
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Jul 31, 2012 16:39
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Len posted:I will say automatic sinks are the devil though because they never stay on long enough. The ones in the building where I work run on batteries. The faucets start beeping when they get low, and when they inevitably run out, the faucets stop working. We tell the commercial landlord, but it takes them forever to do anything (gently caress you forever Morguard, you limp-dicked assholes), so sometimes there are no faucets to wash your hands in, and you have to go to another bathroom to clean up. It's disgusting. Plus the pressure settings get hosed up a lot too, sometimes they open at waterpik levels of "try to strip the enamel off the sink" pressure and send a literal ultrafine mist into the air. Usually they're pretty good though, in other buildings run by competent people.
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Jul 31, 2012 16:56
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I always found those machines spit out the perfect amount of paper towel. Some people apparently need like 6 sheets that they ball up into a little nest for their hands for a few seconds then throw away, half the sheets never feeling a hint of moisture. I manage to dry my hands, turn off the water, and open the door fine with the little half size pieces they give. And they wouldn't have to exist if people weren't loving animals that actually properly washed their hands. At least most bathrooms now always have a garbage right at the door so you can open it with the paper towel. So many people don't wash their hands at all, even after a poo poo. "I know wur my penis been it ain't dirty, and I don't wipe my rear end with my fingers I use toilet paper so why wash my hand???" I'd almost say soap is an obsolete and failed technology. So many diseases and outbreaks spread just because sub-humans can't be arsed to wash their hands. Wrap it up soap no one wants you. Baronjutter has a new favorite as of 17:01 on Jul 31, 2012 |
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Jul 31, 2012 16:59
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D C posted:
I had this rear end in a top hat: the SLVR L7. What a piece of poo poo. I got an iPhone 2 years later and managed to sell the SLVR for 80 bucks. What an idiot that guy was.
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Jul 31, 2012 18:00
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E never mind I'm really dumb
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Jul 31, 2012 18:58
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Jul 31, 2012 19:20
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They bought their only competitor and are still in business though?
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Jul 31, 2012 19:24
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Athenry posted:They bought their only competitor and are still in business though? Sirius was beating XM but both companies merged because they were both loosing money pretty quickly. XM had really great channels and Sirius got rid of most them when they took over. The company is run by people who made a career in radio so of course they are applying to same business model which makes it a horrible service. There are a few really good channels but most are what you'd expect from your local FM. Three songs are played then the DJ talks for 30 - 45 seconds about why you should listen to one of the other channels. Since services like Pandora and Last.fm are around plus unlimited data plans, it really makes Satellite radio pointless.
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Jul 31, 2012 19:35
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I got a free year XM sub with my car and it runs out next month. They called me on the phone to get me to renew and I told them if I'm paying a monthly fee for the service I shouldn't have to listen to more ads than on regular radio. Especially when those ads are for sex toys and poo poo.
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Jul 31, 2012 19:44
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If you ever want to scare the hell out of yourself, turn to the trucker channel and listen to the call in shows.
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Jul 31, 2012 19:54
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Bonzo posted:Since services like Pandora and Last.fm are around plus unlimited data plans, it really makes Satellite radio pointless. Yeah that's where I was going with it. Sat radio is doomed.
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Jul 31, 2012 21:01
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re: cassette adapters, mine would always crap out on one side within a few months. I must've bought at least 10. I'm sure driving a 1991 Dodge Spirit had something to do with it.D C posted:I'm sure a lot of people forget that iTunes was around pre-iPhone. Not really, there was a ~6 year gap between iPod and iPhone. I never owned an iPod but bought a phone that could play mp3s, and so many people could't grasp the concept of playing songs from your phone. I remember being one of the few people on the bus with only one device in my hand. Although Nokia hadn't thought of common sense features like having the mp3 player stop playing when the phone rang... UnfortunateSexFart has a new favorite as of 21:15 on Jul 31, 2012 |
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Jul 31, 2012 21:11
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I actually miss the first generation iPod with the real scroll wheel and buttons. When they released it with the updated scroll wheel that doesn't actually rotate, both myself and all my friends were amazed at the fact that it felt like the wheel was actually rotating. Kinda bummed they didn't stick with "Parachute" as a default game, just for nostalgia/tradition. I dunno, I always thought Parachute would be Apple's little default software/games MEME, that would advance and upgrade as mobile devices became more robust. ZanderZ has a new favorite as of 22:43 on Jul 31, 2012 |
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Jul 31, 2012 22:37
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I know the minidisc party is over, but I remember seeing something about a guy trying to build minidiscs the size of postage stamps. Imagine rummaging through a bag of those at a traffic light!
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Jul 31, 2012 23:15
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mrkillboy posted:They're coming back into the public consciousness with things like the Pebble getting huge publicity, though now they're paired with smartphones and pretty much act as secondary displays and inputs rather than be standalone devices. I still use that phone. 
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Jul 31, 2012 23:45
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Trebek posted:Yeah that's where I was going with it. Sat radio is doomed. It came with a few free months when I bought my car, and it's been great. The only ads I've heard are for other stations, and those aren't frequent. The only talk radio I listen to is NPR and BBC world service, so that's pretty much exactly what you'd expect.
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Aug 1, 2012 00:25
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Trebek posted:Yeah that's where I was going with it. Sat radio is doomed. Does satellite radio presumably have enough technical power to maybe introduce a mobile satellite video service in response to that? Sure, you'd have fixed schedules and programming, but I could maybe see something like that having an audience who would be interested in a little box that hooks up into the portable DVD player in their backseat or family van that gets something like Sirius XM Nick, Sirius XM Disney Channel, Sirius XM ESPN, etc. if HD and on-demand wasn't an issue.
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Aug 1, 2012 00:31
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JediTalentAgent posted:Does satellite radio presumably have enough technical power to maybe introduce a mobile satellite video service in response to that? Sure, you'd have fixed schedules and programming, but I could maybe see something like that having an audience who would be interested in a little box that hooks up into the portable DVD player in their backseat or family van that gets something like Sirius XM Nick, Sirius XM Disney Channel, Sirius XM ESPN, etc. if HD and on-demand wasn't an issue. They wanted to include video content but could never get compression to match the quality of the audio.
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Aug 1, 2012 01:06
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Here's something I had in high school, although I have no idea exactly why I thought I needed one: the Sony Magic Link PIC-1000! Like a PDA only huge and heavy. Released in 1994, it ran the Magic Cap operating system by General Magic, a spin-off of early-90s Apple, and, like pretty much everything developed at Apple in the early 90s, it completely failed in the market. The company was run by Bill Atkinson (original Mac developer, creator of the Mac's QuickDraw API, MacPaint, and HyperCard) and Andy Hertzfeld (also one of the original Mac developers). The operating system started with the Desktop Metaphor and took it to its illogical conclusion:  Magic Cap user's manual posted:The geography of the Magic Cap software is modeled on that of the world, with rooms along a Hallway and buildings along a street Downtown. To perform different activities in the world you move from place to place. [...] There are three main scenes in Magic Cap: the Desk, the Hallway, and Downtown. Beyond that, there are scenes for other places in Magic Cap like the Telephone, Datebook, File cabinet, and so on. For example, let's say that we want to access the Internet. Well, the Internet is the world outside of our house, of course, so first we step out of our office into the hallway...  and then out of the hallway to the outdoors...  and then into your ISP's office building!  Then you could set up your Internet access and plug the built-in 2400 baud modem into a phone line and exchange e-mail and stuff. Fancy e-mail written on post cards with pictures and animations! Provided, that is, that your recipients also had a Magic Cap system. What was supposed to be a distinguishing feature was a built in GUI designer and scripting language, TeleScript, so that you could develop applications directly on the device. Sony, who licensed Magic Cap for their Magic Link devices, decided to leave in the GUI designer...  but disable the scripting language, on the grounds that customers wouldn't understand programming. So you could stick buttons all over the place, but had no way to actually make them do anything.
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Aug 1, 2012 02:12
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cowtown posted:Here's something I had in high school, although I have no idea exactly why I thought I needed one: the Sony Magic Link PIC-1000! Like a PDA only huge and heavy. Wow it's like an early point and click game. Yeah I can see why that failed, it'd get tedious in a hurry.
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Aug 1, 2012 02:26
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Geoj posted:When my wife was still living in the dorms when she was in college all of the bathrooms were equipped with these...the secret was sticking your finger up into the dispenser and rocking the blade forwards (it sits on a hinge) which trips a sensor telling the PCB that runs the thing its OK to dispense another 6" of towel. 
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Aug 1, 2012 03:11
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Disproportionation posted:I still use that phone. My last 2 dumb phones were Sony Ericssons. They're really great phones. And the decision to eschew dedicated "call" and "end call" buttons in favor of a "back" and "delete" key made their UIs easier to navigate and texting easier.
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Aug 1, 2012 03:31
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Analogous interface design was fantastically terrible, I recall reading a study by IBM that cinched the deal over how confusing they were. The biggest problem was attempting to replicate tried and true methods from life, such as in the case of an IBM phone software that would be used to dial people. The phone was on a desk which also had a drawer built in for settings, so IBM had to figure out the right angle to highlight the fact the drawer existed. The design was expecting people to mimic real life actions in the program - in this case pick up the headset to dial. You were expected to click on the headset and then dial, where people were simply dialing in numbers and getting confused to why it wasn't dialing as the assumption was the graphics were simply there to carry over the concept of a phone at a desk. The same with other let's make an office in 3D interfaces, you burnt through tons of white space having to strategically arrange objects at the right angle as so not to confuse a box speaker with a filing cabinet. I also recall DVD software having interfaces that mimicked the exact front of a Sony DVD player which became the ultimate button hunt.
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Aug 1, 2012 03:59
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QEMM It was the ducks nuts. Then it wasn't.
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Aug 1, 2012 04:23
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Sat radio had to have some level of popularity based on just how lovely terrestrial radio is. I'd love to add regular radio into the list of doomed technologies, but I think there will always be a place for mediocre top 40 crap and the idea of paying for satellite radio to hear a Nicky Minaj song is just horrible. I haven't even used my iPod since better cell data coverage made Pandora a possibility almost everywhere I ever go. Any other radio goons can attest to how much ancient technology is still currently in-use in mid-powered radio stations, including MiniDisc, 8-track, Arrakis, and more. I worked at a radio station for 7 years that still had solid state tube amps in use and a computer in reception that ran on Windows '98.
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Aug 1, 2012 04:46
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brain739 posted:had solid state tube amps in use Huh? That must be another obsolete technology I missed out on. I've been doing a campus radio show for a few years, I'm really glad they haven't done a lot to modernize it. Old equipment like that can be kept going basically forever with a little maintenance, and the big plus is that it's reliable as hell. Big rear end analog mixer isn't going to get a virus.
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Aug 1, 2012 16:06
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brain739 posted:Sat radio had to have some level of popularity based on just how lovely terrestrial radio is. I'd love to add regular radio into the list of doomed technologies, but I think there will always be a place for mediocre top 40 crap and the idea of paying for satellite radio to hear a Nicky Minaj song is just horrible. I haven't even used my iPod since better cell data coverage made Pandora a possibility almost everywhere I ever go. I'm in Canada where unlimited data plans barely exist and data rates are laughable. Plus if I got up north I won't get a cell signal to the sat radio came in handy then.
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Aug 1, 2012 16:27
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Bonzo posted:I'm in Canada where unlimited data plans barely exist and data rates are laughable. Plus if I got up north I won't get a cell signal to the sat radio came in handy then. I hope to god we can quote this in 10 years and all have a laugh about "limited data plans," but I feel like it's gonna go in the opposite direction.
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Aug 1, 2012 16:28
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ZanderZ posted:I hope to god we can quote this in 10 years and all have a laugh about "limited data plans," but I feel like it's gonna go in the opposite direction. Yes. Also I nominate the CRTC as a failed and obsolete technology.
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Aug 1, 2012 16:40
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Bonzo posted:Yes. Also I nominate the CRTC as a failed and obsolete technology. But now you can get 6 whole gigs for only 60 bucks a month* *doesn't include any minutes, texting, voicemail or call display.
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Aug 1, 2012 17:22
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Datasmurf posted:My first phone was this old beauty though. Hey, that was my first phone too. I thought I was the only person in the world who actually bought one. Loved the way it lit up, and the buttons were wonderful.  I found it in a box a couple of months ago, the battery had expired so I chopped the case around a bit so it would run off a Sony Ericsson battery. Enjoyed a bit of nostalgia sending text messages from it.
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Aug 1, 2012 17:42
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Anyone remember those "spy watches" with the supposed lie detectors on them? It was a digital watch with two metal pieces that the liar was supposed to place their fingers on and the watch would somehow tell you if they were telling the truth or not. That sounded loving awesome if you were a kid. Problem is that you'd pretty much never be in a situation where you could use it. and if you were: "oh really? Well why don't you put your fingers on my watch for a sec? No...the two metal parts. With the indents. Ok hold on for a sec. Uh...how do I use this thing. Dammit push a bit harder no not that hard!" at least they worked well as cheap digital watches.
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Aug 1, 2012 19:29
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Bonzo posted:Sirius was beating XM but both companies merged because they were both loosing money pretty quickly. Seriously gently caress Sirius. I had an xm that came with my car, and I still have it now that its Sirius because my car has garbage regular radio reception, and the radio channel selection is basically trash in my area, but their channels have gone to hell. You could listen to XM daily and hear the same song maybe once every week or a so. Sirius plays junk nearly as frequently as standard radio and for some reason feel the need to have dj banter between everything where XM just kept the music coming. You'd find so much good new music listening to some fairly vaguely titled channels, and now all gone. My biggest complaint is that they got rid of Fungus (the punk channel) and the closest replacement is Faction, which is talk radio half the time. Obsolete Technology time! Cybiko:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CybikoI remember thinking how cool this was when I saw it as a prize on some kids gameshow, and I really wanted one. In retrospect it's basically a text walkie talkie, with a similar range. I'm sure I'd have had no one to use it with, so I'm glad I never asked for one for a gift or something. Just the idea that it was possible to market a device that would send texts to only people with the exact same not-cheap device within a mile or so range is pretty ridiculous now. Edit: Oh god, it's a .2 mile range. You can run that far in 2 minutes or less- there's literally no point to this. It would have basically only been useful to chat while in class, and there's no way you'd have been able to get away with that with how huge it is. Ninja Toast! has a new favorite as of 04:16 on Aug 2, 2012 |
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Aug 2, 2012 04:05
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I was waiting for this. I got one when I was in 9th grade, and I was so excited to bring it to school and talk to other people. Problem was I was the only person who had one. Also Satellite Radio owns, had Sirius since around 2004, still going strong, I have two accounts as well. Sirius took a downward turn once they merged with XM. Also Faction is talk half the time, but I could listen to Jason Ellis all day long.
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Aug 2, 2012 06:06
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I don't mind him sometimes, I just wish he were on another channel so I could actually listen to music on that channel occasionally when I'm normally driving.
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Aug 2, 2012 06:58
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Too many boring-rear end phones, not enough strange post-90s technology. Here, have some Zeiss Projectors.  This one's a Mark IV. I remember it from my city's Planetarium as a kid. When I was six, I called it the "giant ant." Sitting in the dark, I watched that thing's shadow move more than the stars it projected. It hummed and whirred as it tilted on it's insect-like legs. I thought it was creepy as hell and loved the poo poo out of it. It looks and moves like something out of an old 50s horror movie. Installed in the late 60s, our Planetarium replaced it in the mid-90s with some boring digital projector. It was the end of an era. Zeiss still makes projectors, and some of them are cool as hell. The old Mark I - !V models are dinosaurs. I wonder what happened to them all. Stuporstar has a new favorite as of 07:23 on Aug 2, 2012 |
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Aug 2, 2012 07:18
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For $1800 in 1994, you could bring home one of these babies. This horrid piece of crap ran a GUI on top of Win 3.1 called Packard Bell Navigator. It was one of those awful "make the desktop look like a real desktop  " sort of programs.Our machine looked exactly like this one. Even as an idiot kid I hated the gaudy design of the thing.
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Aug 2, 2012 10:54
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