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WebDog posted:Cash Converters in Australia got stung for having an interest rate of 633%. They're just not trying. Wonga, a payday lender over here, got stung for not mentioning the actual interest rate in one of its ads. To be fair, that rate was 5,853%
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Jan 4, 2015 12:01
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ElwoodCuse posted:The floppy sucked after AOL stopped coming on them and you couldn't just reformat and use those for whatever But with an AOL CD, a Leatherman (or other multitool), a steady hand, and a laser pointer, you can perform the double-split experiment, proving wave-particle duality.
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Jan 24, 2015 00:50
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All of this is making me nostalgic enough to dig out my first smartphone. Back in 2003-2005 this was my memory, and not just due to drinking heavily. It was the first phone I'd had that could handle more than contacts. I wrote a half-dozen short stories on it using the external keyboard, read ebooks from Project Gutenberg, checked email and IRC... it was everything I wanted from a computer and a phone all at the same time. The camera was poo poo, syncing with a desktop was a pain in the arse, but it had proper threaded texts, a keyboard that was surprisingly useable, and was fun to write code for. I remember during the iPhone launch event being one of those dweebs moaning about how it could do just a handful of what the Treo could do, so what's so great about it anyway (I grew up). But then Palm started making devices with Windows Mobile — an OS that was better-named as "WinCE" — and HTC made better hardware for lower prices, Palm went down the shitter, and people moved on to iOS and Android. Every now and then, I remember how natural that Treo felt to take notes of things that I wanted to remember in the morning, or to tell me where to be and when, and I get nostalgic. I don't even know if it powers up.
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Feb 17, 2015 21:58
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Zwille posted:Here in Germany we call them Handys. You know, because they're phones you hold in your hand. As opposed to landline phones that you don't. That's one of the things I loved about living & working in Germany. Friends & family come to visit, and it's the word you reach for. "Don't worry, I've got mein handy with me, just give me a call." Haven't lived there for 13 years, I still call my phone a handy.
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Mar 3, 2015 16:30
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KozmoNaut posted:Toyota Aygo aka Peugeot 107 aka Citroën C1, though most of the sales were probably of the higher-spec model with electric windows and a radio etc. 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.
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Mar 3, 2015 21:35
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thespaceinvader posted: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. The car club here has the lowest possible spec from about 2012. It's fine 0-25, but beyond that it refuses to do anything. Worse, as soon as you start going up a hill (and everywhere here is uphill), forget it.
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Mar 3, 2015 22:40
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Dick Trauma posted:How about the Greenwich time ball? Edinburgh has a similar thing, with a time ball on top of the Nelson Monument for ships in the Port of Leith and the Firth of Forth. But what to do when the fog obscures it?  The One O'Clock Gun is exactly what the name implies: a gun at Edinburgh Castle that fires at one o'clock (13:00) each day. The boom is audible right out into the Firth of Forth. It also leads to hilarity as tourists walking down the street suddenly hear the BOOM of the gun, or as more well-informed (pron. 'brain-damaged') tourists ask us "What time does the one o'clock gun go off?"
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Jun 28, 2015 22:43
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Boiled Water posted:The us very much is behind the times. I believe banking software written in cobol is to blame. It's really not a software problem. The UK's banking infrastructure is COBOL on Z/OS mainframes, yet we have direct debit, standing orders, and inter-bank transfers and have for decades. "Writing a physical cheque to pay a bill" is a quaint thing that old people did back when the world was black & white.
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Jul 2, 2015 15:59
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Old-phone-chat makes me want to see if my Nokia 8110 still works. I got it because of the Matrix. I even drew up the plans to retro-fit the spring slider. Never got around to doing it, which is good because I'd have trashed the thing.
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Aug 7, 2015 09:04
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Pham Nuwen posted:actually it seems like a lot of the interesting (read: not completely over-played) movies come on late at night, like at 2 in the morning. Infomercials. Which are sadly not obsolete or failed, but did inspire a brilliant Steve Goodman song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnqtGjHJjs8
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Aug 17, 2015 19:21
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Non Serviam posted:I have a Bulgarian friend who still, to this day, uses ICQ regularly. I saw the UI on his dekstop, and it hasn't changed that much since the early 2000s. I could remember my ICQ number when I was at university but not my flat's phone number (this was 1999-2001; I didn't get a mobile until the end of my second year). Still can, 48398994. The contact list is a litany of people I haven't heard of in twelve+ years and at least half of them are now Russian spambots.
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Aug 25, 2015 14:21
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SubG posted:SPARCprinter with NeWSprint fonts. Citrix WinFrame printing to an LP queue. AppleTalk printer on ATM. I think just writing those words caused me to have some kind of seizure. 
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Sep 3, 2015 14:45
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Phanatic posted:Lots of places aren't entirely metric. Get into a car in the UK, and you'll see miles on the speedometer, miles on the speed limit signs and distance markers in miles. Beer's still sold in pints. A Canadian football field is still 110 yards long. Worth noting that though Britain and America use the pint as a measure for beer, the pints aren't the same. The US seems to think a mere 16oz is a pint, when everyone knows that a pint of beer is rightfully 20oz, and Americans broke the system to sell short measures. 
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Oct 15, 2015 21:07
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Intoluene posted:I'm Australia, they're repurposing payphones as WiFi hotspots. Only if you're with a certain ISP but still, neat idea to refresh something so obsolete. In some parts of Scotland (and possibly the rest of the UK), some old phone booths are used to hold defibrillators. Handy to know that it's there, shielded from the elements but easy enough to get even if nobody local is about.
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Mar 15, 2016 00:50
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The beautiful world of ekranoplans.  DigitalRaven has a new favorite as of 10:42 on May 2, 2016 |
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May 2, 2016 10:39
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KozmoNaut posted:By that point, it absolutely isn't a game from 23 years ago anymore.
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Jun 11, 2016 11:26
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Jedit posted:Also technically the Scottish notes are not legal tender. The Bank of England has an agreement that it will honour them on presentation, but shops can and outside Scotland often will refuse them. Automated supermarket checkout lanes will accept them, though, as the software is universal. Shops can refuse them, but not because they're not legal tender. Legal tender has gently caress-all to do with shops, it's to do with settlement of debts. When it comes to straight buying things, Scottish money is the same as English money, and the shopkeeper can refuse either and insist on using shiny buttons and it's entirely legal. I spent too long studying for a banking qualification in Scotland.
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Dec 19, 2016 20:21
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Der Kyhe posted:Red stripe makes it faster, but the yellow one is more expensive. With blue stripe, you get better results. Ahh, choices. At first, there was no choice. Salesman: “Alright, this is it. It’s big and grey and it sometimes catches fire.” Customer: “Right! Do you have any that aren’t grey?” Salesman: “No.” Customer: “Or that don’t catch fire?” Salesman: “No.” Customer: “Alright! I’ll take it.” Salesman: “Right you are. Do you want a fire extinguisher with that?” Customer: “Eh...” Salesman: “Trust me, you do.” Then, there was not enough choice. Salesman: “Alright, there’s two kinds. There’s the big grey ones which sometimes catch fire or the small brown ones which don’t work.” Customer: “Right! I’ll take the big grey one I suppose!” Salesman: “And your usual fire extinguisher?” Customer: “Please.” Then, for about five minutes, there was just enough choice. Salesman: “Alright, you can have a big one or a small one and you can have it red, blue, or green. The red ones sometimes catch fire, the small ones don’t work, the big green one only works in Russian and the small red one comes with a cupholder!” Customer: “Right! Well I want one that works and doesn’t catch fire and I don’t speak Russian so I’ll take the big blue one!” Salesman: “Ok but you did hear me say the red small one has a cupholder?” Customer: “But it catches fire and doesn’t work...” Salesman: “The cupholder works. Until it burns off.” Customer: “I’ll take the big blue one.” And then, almost immediately, there was too much choice. Salesman: “Alright, you can have a red one, a blue one, a yellow one, a purple one, an ochre one or an invisible one. That come in big, small, medium, extra medium, micro, giga and vast. The medium and above ones in primary colors have semi-rotating arms, but aren’t waterproof except for the vast yellow ones which are waterproof but explode. They all have cupholders, except the ochre ones, but none of them have cups, except the giga ones. The cupholders on the invisible ones aren’t invisible, unless you buy online, in which case the cupholder goes invisible but the thing itself stops being invisible. As in that case the invisible one is now visible you can have it in any of the above colors except purple unless you have an extra medium but the formerly invisible purple extra medium ones with invisible cupholders are... evil. Which would you like?” Customer: “I’ve no idea! And I’ve spend three days comparing them all on ‘which thing dot com’. And I’ve done a spreadsheet but I don’t understand the spreadsheet. And all I know is whichever one I get I won’t enjoy it because I’ll be constantly worrying whether I should’ve got one of the others instead!” Salesman: “Aha! Then perhaps you’ll be interested in this! This is from our classic range!” Customer: “Oh look, a big grey one! My mum used to have one like that! Awh! Does it still catch fire?” Salesman: “Only if you pay extra.” Customer: “I’ll take it.”
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Aug 11, 2017 11:39
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Platystemon posted:“The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.” "The question of whether Machines Can Think... is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim."
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Sep 20, 2017 10:36
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ladron posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RmuY-ufyhM 36 and I hear it just fine. Using some reference tones I top out at 16 KHz. No tinnitus, but I am a drummer...
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Dec 8, 2017 11:25
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My Lovely Horse posted:But then you would put the milk into the tea rather than the correct way around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDc4Ql40nJI
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Apr 20, 2020 14:52
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TotalLossBrain posted:Over the years, I've acquired the ability to wake up five minutes before any alarm I set goes off. For the longest time I had a clock radio that would wake me up to Radio 4’s Today programme. Shortly after 2015, I started waking up two minutes before my alarm because the sound of John Humphries interviewing another loving politician made me scream obscenities at the radio. Haven’t changed the tuning yet. I can’t stand music on the radio, and one day the news may be worth listening to again.
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Oct 7, 2020 13:55
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It's Foone. About half of their twitter threads are like that.
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Oct 30, 2021 12:20
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It's the old-fashioned form of "You can't dry your balls in a Dyson airblade".
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Nov 24, 2021 16:04
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GreenNight posted:I like the BS key. Needs to come back. Insert obligatory "I thought it had, with your posting" joke here
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May 12, 2022 16:31
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