Wired headphones
measles..
Tape drives. Remember those big reels of tape on mainframes in the 80s? They don't look exactly like that anymore, but tape is still used for backups/long term archival because they offer the lowest cost per gigabyte and decent longevity without needing to be powered, as long as you don't need to access the data all that fast or often.
Those dank memes and cat videos you posted in 2010 are probably on tape in a data centre somewhere
Im obsessed with tape storage, but for audio. Nothing more real than audio on tape! Luckily it's catching on again. Music is so disposable now, I hope we can keep physical formats alive and keep corporations away from it (digital offers them unlimited control over us).
Tape itself is cheap, but buying the other equipment for it costs a fortune.
Tape is rad for long term storage
Guillotines
Apparently trains for some people
Pretty much anything in a machine shop made in the last 80 years or so. So many people turn up their noses at anything that isn't computer controlled anymore. Yknow what a big old mill can do that a CNC can't? It can make every single part needed to make a new mill. It's a self replicating machine with the right know how. People don't respect that kind of quality anymore.
I don't think a mill can make the copper windings in the motor and isolate them. Same with the power cable.
You don't need an electric motor. You just need enough spin. I've seen old mills and lathes that run on steam. An electric motor just happens to be very convenient with our current technology.
Can a CNC not do that for just the mechanical parts?
(I know way too much about bootstrapping semiconductor production at small scale, which seems to be viable but highly impractical)
Handtools in woodworking. There are some people who refuse use a tool without a cord.
Trackballs
You might think of them as this old mouse that you had 20 years ago, but actually the technology is still being used for all kinds of things, including ergonomic mouse
I can actually game with one, and I've outright worn out 3. They last longer than traditional mice too.
Fax machines. Government and medical offices would grind to a halt without them. That's just reality.
Came to say this. Fax just refuses to die.
Because it can do something that the alternatives can't do or because they refuse to use something more modern?
Because it works. Every part needed to run those machines, even line of code, every possible cause of failure is well documented and there are layers and layers of redundant protocol to ensure that if something does go wrong downtime is minimal.
The entire purpose of these machines are designed to run for as long as they’re needed. They’re not replaced or upgraded because they were never meant to be. A lot of effort went into this being the case.
That's basically the answer to the opposite question: what is something that someone thinks isn't obsolete, but really is?
Even worse, the US military, at least, is still using teletype machines and COBOL.
IRC
Ota analog signals.
Darcs VCS
Printing out tickets as a backup. I do this for concerts and travel because then I don't have to worry about batteries dying, wifi/roaming not being available, getting logged out and having trouble getting back to the ticket, etc.
I also print out maps when doing wilderness backpacks because even if you download the map you'll burn through your battery life well before the hike is over but a paper map is just as good. If I really need to confirm my location I can occasionally turn on the app and shut it off. I keep the maps in a gallon ziplock so water isn't an issue.
Ticketmaster is doing their very best to make paper tickets unusable with refreshing barcodes. Funny thing is that "anti-theft" feature is needed because of their own systemic failures. I do like tickets that are just sent to my email or similar (e.g. as an attachment that I can save to my phone) though, it's better than wasting paper when I know my phone won't fail me.
Writing your passwords in a piece of paper. Safer than storing it digitally and easier for people that don't know how to use password managers or computers in general to understand what to do to access your stuff if you're under a difficult situation or dead.
Also, physical photos. Yes yes, we all have gigabytes of photos, but almost never check any of them. Physicals catch my glance at home very often, great decoration. I've also took to writing the day, place and people on the back, plus any other important bits of context.
I have a reel of photos from our kids' album on our TV. Cycles every minute or so. Subs for printed photos fairly well.
Gave a digital photo frame, cycling the same pictures to great grandpa though and he died the next day. Make of this what you will.
Grandma approved 😂
I want to throw a shout out to the site that cloned the old Google reader by making theoldreader.com
Thanks for this, I was so disappointed when Google cancelled Reader.
Being kind to one another
Magnetic tape. Datacenters use it for long term storage.
Wrist watches. Extremely convenient, even when your phone is buried or you don't want to be distracted.
Yep. And it doesn't need to be charged every night like apple watch or similar.
Am looking for a new one if you have any recommendations.
If you find a G-Shock that doesnt incorporate bluetooth and you happen to think of me, pass the name along will ya?
The one I have goes like this. Start stopwatch... Stop stopwatch... Choose between save/delete/resume.........................deleting..........................................................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand deleted... *returns to watch function.
I wear a cheapish waterproof one while swimming. The pool has a clock but I can't see it without my specs.
I have one that uses the gaps between chain links to form a 7-segment display and it's dope.
Fax machines and overhead projectors, if you live in Germany. Basically every office here still has a (frequently used) Fax machine and all schools still use overhead projectors.
It was actually quite a shock to me when my University retired their projectors in 2023. They sent an email to each and every student as a warning. Life‘s crazy here.
Projectors that use actual acetates? Wow.
As a stupid american that took a few German classes in highschool many years ago, I must know, do you call it "der Projektor" or "der Bildwerfer"?
100% „der Projektor“. Bildwerfer makes sense as well, but I have never heard anyone use that word before.
It actually reminds me of the German version of me_irl (ich_iel) where they try to use German words exclusively even if it sounds completely silly.
IRC: simplest way of communicating online, and a bouncer can be availed for free
Forums: great store of knowledge and friendly, helpful people. If you ask a question in discord, nobody will ever see the answer again.
Forums: great store of knowledge and friendly, helpful people. If you ask a question in discord, nobody will ever see the answer again.
The search functions in forums are notoriously terrible though (although someone will inevitably ask you to try using it), so finding anything useful relies on "outside" search engines.
And the linear thread format has been terrible since it was invented (which is probably why discord uses it). You basically need to ignore half the posts to follow the one interesting side line that might end up with a solution.
I can't related more on the second one. Slack and Microsoft Teams seems to be the default way to communicate in corporate environments.
Why use IRC when you could use matrix
Because setting up an IRC server is way, way easier than setting up a matrix server. It's also a lot more reliable. The downside is that it's text only
Man, I really want to get back into IRC. Is there any good client you can recommend?
Halloy seems to be a popular choice on desktop. Goguma on android according to https://libera.chat/guides/clients
I'd probably say something like my Sony Discman or any other CD player, if we're talking the general public. CDs aren't anywhere near as popular as they used to be thanks to streaming, but if you're collecting like I am, a dedicated CD player is a necessity.
I fucking hate that everyone is selling vinyls not CDs. I don't want to buy something that I do not have space for and would have to spend even more money to get a good player. My favorite bands sell vinyls but not CDs.
The first ever concert I ever went to November of last year I got super lucky. Headliner band, a local hometown Rock group, had a few different CDs for merch sales. All the other acts had vinyl if they were selling their music on physical media, which was a real bummer because I would have totally gotten a CD from one of the other acts I really liked.
I've also been seeing vinyl at walmart any time I am unfortunate enough to have to go there. It doesn't feel right. Totally agree on the space thing since I can currently fit all my CDs (for now) in a small drawer in my desk but would absolutely struggle to fit vinyl just about anywhere on/in my desk without it sticking out like a sore thumb.
I hate that music nowadays is supposed to go through my phone. I'm on my phone constantly. It's ridiculous that I can't do that while listening to music. A dedicated music player is essential.
Although I eventually gave up on CDs and now I just use an old phone.
Those impracticaly large fragile things, failing in cars with the slightest shock? Never cared for them.
Casettes you could throw around, tape them if necessary.
Later minidisc for a short time and digital mp3/flac... So no thank you, like DVD's spoiling plenty of movies by giving up in the middle due to a tiny scratch these things were a mistake.
Buttons, knobs, plastic bezels.
At least according to the industry those are all in the past. The future is screens that go to the very edge of the device and absolutely nothing tactile.
And it is bullshit. It is less reliable, less convenient, less cool -- To say nothing of the safety disaster that nailing a tablet computer to the dashboard of every car has been.
Absolutely hate cars with those stupid big screens on the console. Give me buttons and knobs any day.
I used to be able to send my girlfriend a T9 text just by feel, without taking my eyes off the road. Probably had a 95% accuracy rate, but "I like your bombs" still makes sense.
Eliminating an entire sense (touch) from being used to control things seems to be foolish.
I'm just waiting for tactile screens to show up in this role.
OP doesn't like them, but screens have the huge advantage they can display an unlimited amount of widgets organised any way you like.
Edit: sorry. Not less knobs and buttons. More knobs and buttons, less touchscreen bs.
One of my problems with phones over the last few years is touchscreens that go all the way to the edge combined with UX elements that require swiping from the very edge. It basically becomes impossible to use if you have a case.
Wii console: remote controler plus informatic knowledge make this a trustfull smartTV
I know, crazy right? The thing must be 20 years old now. Shows how versatile it is.
The Wii can only do 480p though
Isn’t Wii 720p? Raspberry pi 4 would be better
480p
CDs/DVDs/BluRays
I don't want to support Spotify, which is owned by tencent. I don't want to spend a fortune on streaming services. I don't want to sell my data to google by using YouTube, and I want to be able to listen to music/ watch movies when offline.
Spotify is not owned by Tencent. It’s publicly traded, and tencent owns part of it.
There are a lot of reasons to hate Spotify (and Daniel Ek) but this is not one of it.
The short version: Tencent Holdings is about to own 10 percent of Universal, which in turns owns around 3.5 percent in Spotify, which in turn owns around nine percent in Tencent Music Entertainment, which in turn is part-owned by Universal’s two main rivals (Warner and Sony), but remains majority owned by Tencent Holdings, which in turn owns 9.1 percent of Spotify. (And, yes, no kidding, that’s the short version.)
https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/who-really-owns-spotify-955388/
I collect all them. Want to get into Laserdisc as well
I want a new Blu-ray format but with the size of Laserdisc. Vinyl coming back into style shows that a large disc doesn't matter if playing at home. Would be fun to have the Laserdisc vibe for movies and even whole seasons of TV using the tech of Blu-ray. Just think of how much uncompressed media could fit on something that size! It has no chance of happening of course, but Laserdiscs look sick. I loved when teachers would show educational stuff on them and see the size of those things. I plan to get a player sometime if I have the spare funds, but I did get Aliens on LD just to have and show off.
RSS feeds
I started self hosting my own RSS feed a few years ago, and I couldn't live without it. It's the best way to get timely info.
And then you can be the first one to post it on lemmy.
Came here to say this
I loved netvibes to get daily comics and blog posts. Unfortunately people stopped writing blogs and netvibes is also gone
Blogs are having a timid resurgence I would say. Also not everyone stopped writing blogs, I have been following some since 2008 or so... When Google Reader was a thing lol
I think they are a lot more obscure because we prioritise social networks over blogs, so do search indexers. But they are still there!
Comics are now mostly on Instagram, but you can make Instagram RSS feeds with things like rss-bridge
Writing down your thoughts! It’s not the same as typing things down, writing really makes me feel lighter and somehow reduces my stress levels.
Mediums matter. I think it's because a laptop or phone can sometimes be heavier and slower than a single post it or piece of paper. Just a thought though.
Interesting take. Thanks for sharing.
Safty razors! Why would anyone spend 20$ on the new fangled 30 million blade razor that mighy last one shave? When you can spend pennies even if you change blades every shave.
Safety* $20* newfangled* might*
It's like you consciously added misspellings and bad grammar.
I don not know of no 30 million blad razor to.
Switched to a safety razor recently after years of using Gillette’s… It’s life changing! No more bumps or breaking out. Also it’s cheap!
I recently switched to a Leaf one and love it. It's about the same as my Harry's razor, but a hell of a lot less expensive when even Costco is selling their reloads at $27. The leaf blades are way less expensive, and they aren't even proprietary.
Every single leaf I or my wife has had broke. Very good when they worked though. I still use the twig on occasion.
Oh that is a BEAUTY
At some point about a decade ago I realized I'm much happier just paying the extra $8 every couple months when I go to get a haircut and otherwise just letting it grow out.
Pencils. The ones where you need a pencil sharpener to sharpen them every so often. Mechanical pencils just aren't the same.
Have you tried an auto rotating mechanical pencil?
Other mechanical pencils suck because you get a flat side on the lead. An auto rotating one fixes this problem and makes it like new everytime you pick up and put down the tip to write.
Oh man reading the previous comment instantly reminded me of this problem I haven't had any encounter with since I left high school. I've never heard of that, but if I ever had any reason to write anything I would love it to be one of these.
The only writing I've done in YEARS is signing my name on screens at doctor offices and pharmacies.
Aren't mechanical pencils incompatible with scantrons?
Shouldn't be. As long as you are on the same hardness scale it should be fine. The standard number 2 pencil just means its a medium-hardness graphite or HB on the grading scale. An argument can be made for the finer tip of the mechanical pencil can damage the scantron paper, but one should be able to fill in a circle without pressing so hard it damages the paper.
Your caveman brain. People think they're educated an enlightened and everything they do now is so well thought out. Nope, the caveman is in the driving seat for all of us. Even your most high level meetings and interviews are influenced by how hungry, horny, or hurt you are by a teasing comment yesterday. Everyone is looking to establish dominance at any cost, when you don't really need to.
Everyone is looking to establish dominance at any cost, when you don’t really need to.
You know, I see the rest, but I don't see this. A lot of people are straight-up doormats.
Measles
Developers. Yes, AI can sling a lot of code, but it can't make business decisions and it can't please a difficult customer.
Honestly, developers shouldn't be the front line for that if you're medium-sized or bigger anyway.
It's even simpler: AI can't really even begin with architecting, and will stubbornly defend nonsense code 5% of the time when you need >99% correctness for the thing to run at a basic level.
Paper; Notebooks. Key only physical door locks. Manual transmission cars. Not having any IoT appliances, and not connecting everything you own to WiFi. Hard drive full of MP3s. Cash. Not being available for a call if you're not at home.
Source: work tangential enough to cybersecurity.
Hard drive full of MP3s is love, hard drive full of MP3s is life.
Although ATM my folder is just 1.1GB including the music videos, so I could probably store it on a thumb drive or carefully-chosen dishwasher; it doesn't have to be a hard drive.
Magnetic tape. It's one of the better long-term offline backup solutions. It is compact, inexpensive, has no moving parts (bearings, motors, reader heads), no scratchable surfaces, and can last for decades in a moderately climate-controlled room.
Just keep it away from magnets... or iron vaults. According to an anecdote (that I can't find right now), a large bank vault was repurposed as an offsite backup storage, except it kept wiping the magnetic tapes because the thick iron walls reacted to changes in the geomagnetic field.
Correlary: always test your backups and don't just assume that they will work when you need them.
If you aren't testing your backups then you don't have backups.
I'd love to get into tape backups for my stuff. But the price for the drives is absolutely unjustifiable for hobbyists unfortunately.
We used to do tape backups up until about 6 years ago, but our higher headquarters decided they wanted to go all in on Rubrik instead. I will say that it is a lot easier to maintain and conduct restores from, and we have all of our various sites' Rubriks backing up to each other for redundancy. But you're definitely right that tape is far cheaper per GiB of storage than anything else.
Fortran, probably
Alive and... well alive in scientific computing
Just look at all these r packages! https://github.com/cran?q=&type=&language=fortran&sort=
Phones from 2000-2010. Linux/PostmarketOS allows you to run these as mini webservers with webcam's built-in (depending on chip support)
Also PostmarketOS are looking for a new name, so if you've got a suggestion put it here: https://nextcloud.postmarketos.org/apps/forms/s/cAYZZrCqLnrfMPEMAAonCWwx
Leeches are still used in some surgeries.
Letting maggots into wounds, too. And bloodletting in certian niche cases. You could make the case for trephination (putting a hole in the skull), even if they put you back together once your brain stops swelling now.
However, mercury as a medicine is right out.
Obligatory thought to cobol, which is stil the backbone of banking computers.
I would also think to the good old electromechanical relay which are still pretty common
More political, but whatever what imperator Musk thinks Privacy isn't obsolete
The latest version of COBOL came out in 2023.
Grace Hopper lives on
Not only is privacy not obsolete, it's easier now than eight years ago when I started degoogling, there are so many decent alternatives nowadays to all kinds of services and apps.
Analogue clocks, particularly clock towers in towns, but also just basic clocks on the wall in your home. With smart devices everywhere, it seems like they're not needed and probably old-fashioned. The circular 12-hour clock face probably feels like the floppy disk icon or the rotary telephone, in terms of how 'of another era' it is, but it's still a fantastic and resilient form factor for the purpose of visualising the passage of time. Digital is great, but analogue will be with us for the foreseeable future (and I'm including in that the representation of analogue in a digital form, e.g. on smartwatches that provide a classic clock face graphic).
I'd say vinyl. Looks like a thing from the 60s but it's still pretty relevant today
I put vinyl siding on my house 15 years ago. Still looks brand new. Vinyl is here to stay.
I want tot go one further and say music cassettes. Love their sound and way more compact than vinyl. Sadly, there's no good new hardware being made at the moment, although I really like my We Are Rewind player, it's far from HiFi.
Nah, gotta got vinyl because cassettes deteriorate just sitting in their cases while vinyl stays pristine ... until you actually play it, anyway -- but if you want to store an audio recording for longevity, press a gold version of a vinyl album.
I love Technology Connections
Small phones, structuralism, and Mr. Rogers.
Me
I agree.
clapper. plug it in and its good to go. don't want to block it in to much though and muffle sound getting to it.
Fax machines. Phone lines are pretty private, and sending a fax is usually more secure than emailing something, especially if someone else manages your email.
Counterpoint, fax is not encrypted and wire taps are very easy. At least e-mail can be encrypted so Joe shmoe on the street can't see it.
Besides, all faxing these days is going through VOIP and computers anyways.
Having to physically wire tap the phone line is a lot more difficult and requires local bad actors. Email’s exposure to the internet makes it easier to hack. Yes, email can be encrypted, but if your server is compromised, that doesn’t matter. End to end encryption for email is much harder, and isn’t really used by any institutions (and usually can’t be because of data retention regulations), so the server has complete access to the unencrypted email in almost all cases. Compromising a fax machine that isn’t connected to the internet is a lot harder.
Not all faxes go through VoIP. Your everyday home fax machine probably uses VoIP, because having a landline installed in your home is stupid expensive and unnecessary, but faxes in institutions probably use the PSTN. These institutions most likely need landlines anyway, so having a dedicated fax line makes a lot more sense.
And if a fax goes through VoIP, it’ll be encrypted the same way email is. So in that case, it’s the same level of security as email, which is to say, easier to compromise. At least you can’t trick someone into clicking a link in a fax though.
Also all of german bureaucracy still works only with fax
NATO according to the previous article
Me.
Your mom
