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Tech that needs to die.

DaikunDaikun
edited April 2013 in Technology
After listening to the recent Geeknights on how RSS is dying, that got me thinking: Are there any other types of tech that you feel are obsolete or wasted potential?
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Comments

  • George PatchesGeorge Patches
    Cable television.
  • johndisjohndis
    Google Glass
  • AxelAxel
    Wired headphones. We need people to make wireless ones cheaper, because the amount of cord untangling the average person has to do is becoming ludicrous.
  • johndisjohndis
    Android
  • trogdor9trogdor9
    The ask.com toolbar
  • ArcadianArcadian
    SMS messaging ought to be obsolete by now except that nobody wants to agree on a new inter-OS standard for phone messaging.
  • trogdor9trogdor9
    The fact that we still use phone numbers for anything at all is pretty outdated.
  • CremlianCremlian
    ALL TOOLBARS.
  • ProfPanglossProfPangloss
    Hubs for networking. Fuck those things.

    Similarly, non-intelligent NICs that can't automatically account for crossover or straight-through cables.
  • DaikunDaikun
    edited April 2013
    For me, it's CDs.

    I'm doing a video production internship and, for whatever reason, the people up top want me to burn my projects to CDs. WTF WHY?!? Haven't they heard of USB drives or cloud storage?

    Also, the CDs are annoyingly picky whenever I try to burn them. If I was doing this for music, I would be fine with that, but video? What's wrong with this picture?
    Post edited by Daikun on
  • RymRym
    Hubs for networking. Fuck those things.

    Similarly, non-intelligent NICs that can't automatically account for crossover or straight-through cables.
    Hubs don't exist anymore and haven't for some time. Where the fuck do you run into hubs?

    As for crossover cable shenanigans, network devices mostly do this automatically. When are you ever plugging crossover cables into things?
  • AxelAxel
    There are hubs in RIT Networking labs, I believe.
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    Wired headphones. We need people to make wireless ones cheaper, because the amount of cord untangling the average person has to do is becoming ludicrous.
    We're a long way from being able to make a really good DAC and amp that can fit into the cups of a set of headphones.

    For a nice headphone experience, get a soundcard (No need to go crazy, a Xonar DG (PCI) or DGX (PCI-E x1) can be had for $30.), a 3.5mm extender cable and run it up to next to your keyboard and a good set of headphones of your choosing.
  • AxelAxel
    I meant for portable listening. Wireless earbuds.
  • RymRym
    In my experience, internal sound cards have a lot of noise, even high quality ones. External is almost always a better idea.
  • AxelAxel
    Interesting. If I get a sound card for my Desktop beyond what's installed on my Mobo, I'll take that into account.
  • theknoxinatortheknoxinator
    The fact that we still use phone numbers for anything at all is pretty outdated.
    Disagree. While it would be nice if there was a universal standard for phone numbers, there is no other form of address that is quicker to give to other people with the same amount of accuracy (except maybe physical addresses, but even those get misheard/misread more often).
  • ColdguyColdguy
    Feature Phones
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    In my experience, internal sound cards have a lot of noise, even high quality ones. External is almost always a better idea.
    What soundcards have you used? I'm using a Xonar DX which doesn't produce any at all. It's notable that the DX uses power directly from the PSU so it could be the motherboard that was introducing noise.
  • AxelAxel
    Feature Phones
    Noooooo. I don't want to pay for a data plan. Why should I have to suddenly pay a lot of extra money per month if I don't want to? I would only accept feature phones dying if the requirement to get a data plan when purchasing a smart phone did too. If I could just turn roaming data off on my smartphone and not have to upgrade my plan to get a new phone, that would be fine.

  • ColdguyColdguy
    Feature Phones
    Noooooo. I don't want to pay for a data plan. Why should I have to suddenly pay a lot of extra money per month if I don't want to? I would only accept feature phones dying if the requirement to get a data plan when purchasing a smart phone did too. If I could just turn roaming data off on my smartphone and not have to upgrade my plan to get a new phone, that would be fine.

    Virgin Mobile 300 Minutes, unlimited Text and Data on 3G/4G - $35 / month


  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    Well the mobile networks in America need to get with the 2000s. Unlimited data and calls that don't drop in cities for about £20/mo sim only was what I had back home, though I had about 5hrs worth of calls and 100 texts with it.
  • RymRym
    ... It's notable that the DX uses power directly from the PSU...
    I never even thought of that. I bailed to external so long ago, I never realized anything consumer-affordable did that now.

    I will look into this further. I still need my Firestudio for recording (for a variety of reasons), but replacing my low-end USB external with a good card might be worth it. I'll bet you're right on the source of the noise, since I recall a shielded internal card I had that still had pretty heavy line noise back in the 00s.
  • AxelAxel
    Feature Phones
    Noooooo. I don't want to pay for a data plan. Why should I have to suddenly pay a lot of extra money per month if I don't want to? I would only accept feature phones dying if the requirement to get a data plan when purchasing a smart phone did too. If I could just turn roaming data off on my smartphone and not have to upgrade my plan to get a new phone, that would be fine.

    Virgin Mobile 300 Minutes, unlimited Text and Data on 3G/4G - $35 / month


    Reception around here is only really good on Verizon. They have domination in Rochester, at least.
    I mean, I would consider that if I was on my own, but I'm with my parents, and upgrading a family line to data costs a lot.

  • ProfPanglossProfPangloss
    Yeah, tl;dr RIT networking labs making us use deprecated hardware. They'll be phasing all that out in the fall, but good god man.
  • HMTKSteveHMTKSteve
    Feature Phones
    Noooooo. I don't want to pay for a data plan. Why should I have to suddenly pay a lot of extra money per month if I don't want to? I would only accept feature phones dying if the requirement to get a data plan when purchasing a smart phone did too. If I could just turn roaming data off on my smartphone and not have to upgrade my plan to get a new phone, that would be fine.

    Virgin Mobile 300 Minutes, unlimited Text and Data on 3G/4G - $35 / month


    T-Mobile 100 minutes, unlimited Text and 5GB of 4G data that drops to 2G after that - $30 a month.

  • AxelAxel
    Yeah, tl;dr RIT networking labs making us use deprecated hardware. They'll be phasing all that out in the fall, but good god man.
    Yeah. It makes SOHO Networking the dumbest class in GCCIS.
  • OmnutiaOmnutia
    edited April 2013
    ... It's notable that the DX uses power directly from the PSU...
    I never even thought of that. I bailed to external so long ago, I never realized anything consumer-affordable did that now.

    I will look into this further. I still need my Firestudio for recording (for a variety of reasons), but replacing my low-end USB external with a good card might be worth it. I'll bet you're right on the source of the noise, since I recall a shielded internal card I had that still had pretty heavy line noise back in the 00s.
    The DX is one of the few that do, as I've seen many comments from people forgetting to plug in the FPC so I think they took it out of cards after that.

    While I've heard Scott dump on virtualized surround, using it with an internal sound card gives good eight point location.
    Unfortunately, there was never a widely adopted standard to do things that EAX used to so it has to take the eight audio streams from each game's audio server then analyse and process it into two, meaning you'll get different results from different games.
    Post edited by Omnutia on
  • DaikunDaikun
    The fact that we still use phone numbers for anything at all is pretty outdated.
    What would you suggest we use instead?
  • trogdor9trogdor9
    The fact that we still use phone numbers for anything at all is pretty outdated.
    What would you suggest we use instead?
    We've already solved this problem. Email address would probably be the easiest solution.
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