Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

p-hop posted:

edit: beaten on the fact that it's a button not a port

I have a cassette player in my 2007 car, and I still use a cassette to headphone jack adapter to connect phones/ipod to the stereo. I had it laying around and figured why buy something new if I can just plop it into the tape deck and be done?

I need to fix my tape deck adapter, the wire is horribly frayed because it is a bad design. Until then I must suffer radio 2.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 13:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:48

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

There's a huge market for super-cheap small cars in the UK - I can't think what the model's called, but the one I'm thinking of has a rear 'door' that just lifts the back windscreen with a single gas strut. It was designed to BE cheap, without cutting corners, so it includes details like that, as well as obvious cost-cutting like manual windows.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 21:28

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

DigitalRaven posted:

Hah. I've had to drive those before, they're basically a lawnmower with bodywork made of recycled beer cans. Press the accelerator and in the lower gears you stand a chance of speeding up sometime tomorrow.

This isn't my experience of them, albeit I've driven in one with I think the 1.4 engine - even with four people, one of whom is around 200lb, it still have a god amount of go to it.

I thought it was the Aygo, but the newer models are a lot bigger and less cheap-looking.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 22:03

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Trap one end in one corner with your foot?

A buddy?

# ¿ May 19, 2015 20:40

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Vanagoon posted:

VHS.

I know at least some of you, like me, had to remove the lid of a VCR repeatedly to disentangle the tape from all the clockwork, and then from thereafter that spot in the tape would play a little funny.

gently caress Video tape.

Man I did NOT know it did that. I assumed it read like cassette tape, by sticking the reader head against the tape in situ.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 14:54

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

pookel posted:

Here's something I miss doing:

My smartphone is great for texting, surfing the internet, and playing games, but it kind of sucks as an actual phone. Hands-free is basically impossible.

Most smartphones ship with headphones with a built in mic these days, use that.

Or bluetooth...

# ¿ Jun 16, 2015 17:55

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Yeah I almost forgot LAME.

LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder

Which is even more special in that it...uh...is.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

Nerds lover recursive acronyms.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 17:57

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Capn Jobe posted:

One thing that I find hilarious, many of these time cannons around the world have Twitter accounts. They, of course, use these to tweet BANG or BOOM at exactly noon, every day.

@big_ben_clock is better :colbert:

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 23:22

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

I use mine, mostly because i get free evening and weekend calls, and I can actually hear it at home whereas my mobile stays on vibrate the entire time so I often can't. And the mobile doesn't get free calls at all - though I almost never use all my minutes. It's also frequently cheaper for calling commercial numbers for which mobile networks often charge.

But I'm something of a throwback from that perspective.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 17:36

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Jedit posted:

Counterpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_dWpCy8rdc

Every time I see the diagram of the 22.2 surround setup, I find myself thinking that the people behind it did not consider the importance of doors in room design.

You enter the room via a fireman's pole from the ceiling. You die there, because the glorious sound from your speaker setup liquifies your brain..

# ¿ Aug 30, 2015 14:09

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Drone_Fragger posted:

Correct, except actually in this case it's the amazon kindle and ipads that are to blame for book stores going out of buisness. Yet another demonstration of right wing lunatics blaming public institutions for the failure of capitalism.

It's also not actually correct. Public libraries are a fast-dying breed partly for this reason (partly, also, because their use as a means of referring to material that's not often required and to text books that are too expensive to buy has largely been replaced by the internet).

# ¿ Sep 27, 2015 15:15

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

If 1/4 the number of people come into the library per week, is it worth the money and space to keep it running? What about 1/10? 1/100?

Libraries are swiftly becoming obsolete for a lot of their original purposes. Which is a huge shame for the small percentage of the population who DO still use them for their original purposes.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2015 18:35

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

KozmoNaut posted:

Which is why a lot of places are looking at modernizing the function of the library.

A library is not by definition a place to store books or any other specific storage medium. It is a source of information in generals, whether that be from old books, Internet access, music, newspapers, microforms or any other format.

Sure, anything digital can be accessed from home, but the library also exists as an important source of information and help for those who cannot or will not use the Internet. Old people in particular need help with that sort of thing, especially when basically all communication with public services happen online. Librarians are the custodians of knowledge, and will continue to be important for any kind of information query that cannot be summed up as a simple phrase for a search engine.

I did a project on the subject a little while back on a course I took, and it's a subject that's very dear to me, since I spent a huge part of my childhood in the library and with my face buried in books.

Yeah, I'm really supportive of them diversifying and finding new avenues to be places where people can go to use media they wouldn't ordinarily be able to afford, I'm aware that a lot of libraries are doing things like 3d printing and laser cutting now which I think is great.

Sadly, there's gently caress-all and shrinking funding for UK libraries so we're losing them left right and centre :smith:

# ¿ Sep 27, 2015 19:03

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

No, most libraries near me are still repositories for bits of dead tree. The ones that still exist at all, that is. The bigger ones have computers people can use, but limited printing services, and very limited staffing to help people with them.

But our current government is taking a disturbing glee in starving public services of funds so

# ¿ Sep 27, 2015 20:54

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

JediTalentAgent posted:

Speaking of this whole thing: Return date stamps inside library books. There was something I found sort of interesting to see the chronological check-out history of a book over the years. Now its all digital receipts and print outs.

This all over. My local libraries have been using RFID systems to check out books for years, and I'm pretty sure they don't actually HAVE any date stamps any more, but all the new books still get date stamp cards put in them.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2015 18:24

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

doodlebugs posted:

The Rhino, a 1950s all terrain vehicle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XABpd8IXBPI

Oh my GOD I want one of those where can I get one of those give me one NOW.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2015 11:56

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Humphreys posted:

I was presented with a VHS/DVD combo unit that when plugged in would trip the safety breakers in the owners house. Upon opening suspecting a lovely power supply board (Sony were horrible for this at the time) I didn't find a lovely capacitor as was the for a lot of work I was doing. But a god damned SNAKE had wiggled through the rear fan port and arced itself on the mains terminals. A few photos of this and a call to Sony and the whole out of warranty job was done free of cost to the customer mainly because the guys at the spares department had such a laugh out of it.

Do you still have said photos?

If you do :justpost:

# ¿ Nov 22, 2015 12:33

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:48

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Lizard Combatant posted:

I think that's a trend born out of bad choreography or directors (studios more likely) not able or willing to commit to the kind of precision you get from Hong Kong flicks. CA Civil War actually does have great choreography but they intentionally went for a chaotic style, which to me worked for the most part. Especially when they actually let the take roll. Lots of quick cuts and close ups usually means the fight scene didn't look great on the day. It's also much cheaper.

Cinema's all smoke and mirrors, upping the frame rate certainly removes a lot of the smoke which is most of the problem for me. A high frame rate kung fu movie could look incredible, if they nail it.

Or to put it another way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ

# ¿ Aug 21, 2016 12:04

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology