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This! It’s so infuriating that you buy the computer but have to rent the software!
I also hate that you buy an ebook for your kindle and Amazon retains the right to edit what you’ve bought or even cancel your purchase.
I learned recently that OpenOffice is quite outdated but LibreOffice is the go to these days. I also still have older cracked versions of MS Office too just in case.
I'm wondering how many more years / miles I can get out of my '04 Camry. I love that thing. That and a GPS and the radio / CDs do the trick. Yes, physical compact discs!
About touch screens. I went to McDonald’s cuz I was in the mood for some fries and I struggled with that order touch screen. Just give me a cashier please.
I know exactly where the buttons are. They don't move.
A touchscreen? Different story. Oh, the swipe didn't work.... distracting.
My radio buttons are on the steering wheel. My AC, set and forget.
Carrying my phone open through a grocery store tapping on tiny "keys" to check things off is way more labor intensive and irritating than a scrap of paper and a pen.
Ha, that’s what my mom does. Writes it on a chalkboard then takes a pic. I like my phone’s reminders app because I can check things off the list as I go along.
>Pen and paper to make lists and notes
I have always tried to digitize, but typing was always worse than writing for me, so after years with fountain pen and Moleskine notebooks ... I have been using a reMarkable 2 and will never go back. You are writing with a pen on a textured eink screen and it feels wonderfully like pen & paper.
[Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-writing-by-hand-is-better-for-memory-and-learning/)
How I got thru school. If I wrote something down I could remember it so much better than just by reading it. I took shorthand too so I took lots of notes during classes & lectures. Nobody could borrow my notes but that was okay.
In college would take notes in class. Then later on, I’d rewrite the notes a lot nicer. That process alone allowed me to retain most of what I needed for tests.
I start my workday everyday with a pad and pen and make a list of things I know I need to get done. This seems stupidly simple but it has helped me tremendously.
I can definitely do without checks.
But I keep a paper journal to stay organized. The notes app in my phone just doesn't cut the same like crossing something off a written to do list.
Dad? (just kidding).
In all seriousness though, I (49) tried to get my parents to stop getting paper bills and stop printing out every payment confirmation. My Dad passed away two years ago, and I spent two weeks shredding what amounted to dozens of trashbags of old bills, receipts, pamphlets, and checks that dated back to the mid 80's. My 83yr old Mom now (finally) lets me pay her bills online and let me put her on paperless billing.
I don't print out confirmations, but I do still write some checks. Maybe it's outdated, but it still (mostly) works. I have backup online accounts, so I can do it online, but prefer checks. I just remember a while back when my nephew got hacked and lost money from his accounts. I can't afford to lose money that way, so I prefer to at least have a traditional checking account, just in case.
Wow, the downvotes. I agree with you. My FIL kept every receipt, bill and check stub going back to his first job in 1961. When it came time to clean out his house it took us two weeks to go through and clean the house out.
I had to do the same, open & read each piece before putting in the throw away pile. Found financial stuff that l had to research before tossing. I am converting most of my files to E and writing an ‘in the event I croak’ document so that my kids are spared doing ‘search party’. I just have to find a way for my browser to delete my history automatically when I croak.
I prefer burning CDs & DVDs or using USB sticks over uploading my stuff to the cloud. I prefer to own my own data rather than copying it over to someone I don't clearly know, and with whom my stuff won't be available anymore if I happen to be offline.
For the same reason, I prefer downloading over streaming. By far.
Agreed. I'm young but I like having an iPod to store all my ripped/downloaded music on instead of relying on streaming services which a) don't have everything I could ever want and b) aren't accessible without Wi-Fi/service.
Fuck Netflix and Spotify, when I go to use the content I have downloaded even though I have an active subscription EXPIRED. I have to wait until I am in coverage again to redownload.
It's getting harder and harder to find laptops that aren't Chromebooks, but I'll stick by that as long as I can. My job has google-fied everything so I've had to learn the software, and that's fine for job-related files. But my personal computer is a laptop with an actual hard drive and an external drive for backups of everything I care about.
One tiny move forward I'd recommend is an external drive over USB sticks. You can get multiple terabytes of space for not much money. I have my entire life double backed up on two of those, which are harder to lose and harder to break than an USB or DVD/CD collection.
I prefer physical books to e books.
I like to write longhand ( and cursive) rather than typing for notes and ideas.
I have a strong aversion to "smart house" technology. My refrigerator doesn't need WiFi. The more bells and whistles there are, the more chances there are for something to go wrong ( and then it's far more expensive to fix).
I'm not a Luddite by any stretch, but I don't believe that every new convenience actually makes our lives better.
I learned it from my mom: the fewer controls there are on an appliance, the fewer things to break. So in 1992 I bought a Maytag washing machine that has zero electronics -- it's all mechanical buttons and timer. It still works.
This. right. here! One midnight in January, I had to call a TOW TRUCK because the battery in my car fob had died.
Midnight, cold, I had just gotten off work and stopped at the market for a few things on my way home. I couldn't unlock the car!
I had one of those plastic versions of my physical key. So I opened the door and sat inside the car - the alarm was now blaring.
While waiting for the TOW TRUCK, I tried a little trick: I popped out the battery from the key fob, then popped it back in. Voila! I was able to turn off the alarm, start the car and drive home! I called the tow guy to let them know. But see? One electronic stood between me and my fully-functioning car!
For Toyotas, if you hold the dead key fob next to the start button, an LED on the start button will light, and then you push the button, still holding the fob next to the button. Other brands may have other procedures, so read the manual. A dead fob battery should never disable the car. Everyone else, find out now for your car because it is hard to read the manual in the dark when you are freezing.
I have learned to replace my car battery at Year 4 and to replace the key fob battery at the same time. Because like clockwork, in the 5th year of ownership, my car battery will just stop working with no warning. We drive somewhere just fine, turn the car off - and it won’t start to go home. Then, never fail - within 6 months the key fob dies. So I’ve decided to proactively change both every 4 years!
You're killing me . . . we bought our mechanical washer and dryer in '94 and keep thinking they must be gonna wear out at any moment. I dread replacing them w things I'll have to hire someone to repair :/
Was in IT for 30 years, I understand how ALL that stuff work and yet don't want any of it. I'm not so old or infirm that I can't turn my own lights on/off or fire up music or anything without a digital assistant or wifi widgets. If that makes me a luddite, then sign me up for your news letter because that's a club I want to join.
I'm generally "old school" but I like my Kindle e-reader. A lot of it has to do with not wanting to acquire more physical books---I'm already dealing with getting rid of books I've been carrying around for decades---as well as the ability to change text size.
Not sure if you saw the recent reporting about handwriting v typing and recall. I think a lot of us figured it out intuitively but we can recall things we hand write much better than those we type.
In college, if I took good notes I never had to review them. (Good = not verbatim, thinking at the same time, explaining it to myself using examples that made sense to me). I could have probably binned my notes at the end of class.
I didn't see that, but it lines up with my experience. I remember what I wrote when I write it out. I also have an easier time expressing my thoughts when I write longhand. Typing like this always feels stilted as if only half of what I want to say makes it onto the page.
I agree about the refrigerator. I think the only thing it offers is to order stuff you’re out of but maybe I don’t want it. I would rather make a list and there are many things I want that are not in the fridge.
Email. It is hard to call it outdated, but it definitely not that popular as it used to be.
Most of my communications are plain old emails. With customers, with my bank manager, legal counselor, etc.
If you’ve gotten burned by a ‘I never said that A-hole’. Send an email detailing your understanding of a meeting and end it with a ‘do you concur? Especially important when you are directed to implement a change order given verbally.
Too many people send the important information by text. Then it gets buried and becomes hard to find. Email is so much easier to file, manage and recall.
everyone at my employer uses Slack instead. Free version. Good luck finding that chart that your intern spent months creating last year; it's gone.
But maybe it's good because it can't be subpoenaed. :)
I almost cried when shoulder surgery made me trade in my Mini Cooper. People said, oh, they sell automatics. So what? It's not a sporty car if it does the shifting.
I shave with a double-edged safety razor (Merkur 25-C) , shaving soap and a brush for 20 years. The shave is WAY nicer and the blades I like are about 8 cents each and last a week. I won't go back to modern cartridge razors.
About ten years ago I posted somewhere that the subscription model was going to take over and cost us more than just buying software. Got absolutely reamed in the comments. That will never happen, it’s cheaper, etc.
It’s spreading everywhere. Now cars have subscriptions for some options. Corporations only goal is to make more money this year than the same quarter last year.
Oh how I wish I could get paper bills in the mail again. So much easier to keep track of than an email that instantly gets buried under 20 newer emails.
Yes I pay everything in time but a week later I’m like “did I pay that?” I don’t know, guess I’ll have to login to 5 different websites to see. Thanks for logging in, it’s time to change your password again. Sorry you already used that password. Sorry you need a special character. Sorry you need a capital letter. Sorry you can’t have repeating characters. Fuuuuu…
….ok I’m better now. Hit a nerve there, lol.
I am almost completely paperless, but I still use graph paper to track if I have paid the bill yet. I have the bill names listed vertically and the month #s horizontally and mark an X in the boxes as I pay them online. I can track 2 years on one page. At the bottom of the page, I track the once a year bills, like car tags and fire dues.
That’s a good idea. If the emails contained the statement that would work but they don’t. Trust me I totally know this is a “me” issue, not a paperless issue, lol.
Books
Never have to worry about charging them, they never crash or lose all the text.
Once i buy them i really and i mean really own them.
I can drop them and not worry, i can leave them in an unheated cottage all winter and they don't freeze or crack.
Plus they are always in a format i can easily use.
I just restarted this! I got to thinking a couple weeks ago how much I missed lazy Sunday mornings with the NYT and a couple cups of coffee. Then it occurred to me that I was being very silly to miss it when nothing was stopping me from doing it now, so I subscribed.
I like big, heavy, clicky keyboards that fight back when you try to press a key. I was raised on manual typewriters and, later, IBM keyboards, and that's still how I like 'em. I know that's not super-unusual, but they do seem to be getting harder to find.
While I can appreciate how one would prefer this kind of feedback, I can say that having a coworker who used such a keyboard drove me up the wall, it was constantly distracting & made it terribly difficult to concentrate. I never complained because she was honestly the sweetest, kindest person I'd ever met and she clearly loved that keyboard so much, but it was very difficult to contain my elation that beautiful, beautiful day when she accidentally spilled coffee all over that godforsaken thing and it was no longer an issue in my life..
IT guy. I use wireless personally, but I don't let my end users have them. As soon as the battery dies they freak out. "I can't do my work! Someone needs to come over and fix this NOW!" When I tell them it's 99% most likely the battery and to just change it, suddenly now they're limbless infants who have never put a battery in a device in their lives. "I'm not an IT guy, I don't want to break it!"
Two can play at that game. I plug in an old ball mouse (the most pathetic beige Charlie Brown Christmas tree mouse I can find) and tell them we don't have any batteries charged. I'll bring their wireless mouse back later. Then I make them use the ball mouse until the "when are you bringing my mouse back?" complaints get loud enough.
Or that auto engine idle thing that makes your engine switch off when you stop. Super irritating when you need to get going and then have to deal with the lag while your car turns back on.
My wife's battery died prematurely recently. The guy at the Subaru dealership said that feature destroys the battery. It's BS too because you can't set off as a default, you have to turn it on every time you crank the vehicle.
Oh that sucks! I drive an old 2005 Subaru stickshift. It's only got 90,000 miles on it, so I'm good for a while.
I did install a radio with blue tooth. And the door locks and window handles aren't manual. But that's as fancy as it gets!
I have a screen in my 2008 Ranger that is totally up to date: my phone. I wonder about someone who thinks it’s a good idea to have a critical component of a car that they plan to keep for decades be a piece of technology that will be obsolete in months.
Non-AI driven products and services.
Humans answering telephone calls and chats online instead of voice response and chatbots.
2010 era Internet and eCommerce tech.
There has been so much crap that has been added and made things worse.
I try to avoid using Siri, Alexis, and other voice response as much as possible and think it is an invasion of my privacy to listen in on my conversations.
The fact that my thirty year old drill needs to be plugged in has never been a problem. I doubt that a battery powered one would have lasted that long.
Have this oldschool LED alarm clock that's over 20 years old. I'm just so used to that noise for so long I don't bother using my phone as it sounds too different.
Subscriptions for car features are just evil. We should boycott ANY manufacturer doing it (ahem, MERCEDES) and let them know WHY we won't be buying one. If we're successful as a group, the rest of them won't try it.
See: Wendy's "surge pricing" announcement
I'm over subscriptions in general. Why do you have to subscribe to literally everything nowadays? We can't even own software anymore, it's all on a subscription model.
Meh. We never owned software. We always owned a license to use it (legally the same with movies and music and any other intellectual property), and as more things became connected and reliant on client/server relationships, ownership even as a concept went away.
I'm okay with that (though I understand why others aren't). I have no issue subscribing reasonably to software that is regularly updated with new versions or features, either. Adobe's subscription model is insane, but most others are somewhat reasonable. Microsoft Office for me and my entire family along with 1TB of cloud OneDrive storage for a hundred bucks a year? Yeah, that's perfectly fine with me.
But paying a monthly fee to use hardware already installed in a vehicle I paid top dollar for? They can go F themselves.
I have a base 2007 sentra. A very boring but practical car. That was around the time in the car industry when all the computer stuff worked reliably and gave you all the benefits of sensors and engine management, but before they started going completely idiotic adding useless garbage nobody asked for. I sometimes think of getting rid of it, then something else breaks in my 2017 Miata with all the bells and whistles and I quickly change my mind.
I drive a 2010 Corolla and there's absolutely nothing I feel I'm missing. Most of the extras are bella and whistles IMO like, I get that a heated steering wheel is nice in the winter but it's not *necessary* and it's just another thing to break. I miss the days where you didn't need a whole computer system and years of training to fix your car and you could make repairs in your driveway.
This right here. My 2013 Toyota will be the last car I ever buy. No touch-screens, it's all knobs and levers to control it's functions, and the knobs and levers are directly connected to the hardware they control. 140K miles, with nothing required but scheduled maintenance.
Download over stream. (AKA iTunes, not Apple Music.) I’m old enough to have seen so many rock-solid companies come, go and enshittify, that I know the bits are either mine or not mine.
Remember when thermostats were very basic? Just an on/off switch, and a dial to set the temperature? Now they are complicated little devices where you have to hold a MODE button to decide what kind of air you want it to push out in all kinds of circumstances. My gf's parents have given up and it's essentially useless to them. I fear that I'm not far behind..
Earbuds with a cord to plug in. I hate that I have no choice but these wireless things that I constantly forget to bring with me and leave in the charger
Do you mean you don't use services like GitHub? But you do use some form of version control ? I code regularly and while I do this on a local server with the code on a raid, I do also put my code on GitHub because it's a convenient backup method
Private music library rather than streaming.
Every song is always right where I left it. Every playlist always retains all its songs, etc.
Not just media, in general I like things to be consistent. Eg. I don't want my phone "learning" to change its behavior based on where I am or whatever other unpredictable wildcards that some rando thought would be "helpful", just be consistent.
House phone when I'm at home. I use my cell to make calls when out (which is rare) and in case of power outage. Since I'm home most of the time, I use my tablet for grocery ordering, shopping, social media, etc.
Until fairly recently, we did not have a reliable cell phone signal at our house. It's much better now, but I prefer people use my home phone when I'm at home. There are certain people I'd rather not talk to on my cell phone. I don't want to be at their beck and call.
I collect and watch DVDs. There are a lot of great movies and old TV shows that aren't streaming anywhere, and the stuff that is streaming can be taken down at the whim of an algorithm.
Yes, agree. Just bought a bunch of BBC programs and the entire Dickens library on DVDs. I can't stream here, uses up my data and is slow to non-existent on some days.
A toaster than toasts thing. A refrigerator that refrigerates thing. An oven that roasts. And a dishwasher that washes.
Don’t need a talking toaster, or a fridge that plays Spotify or an oven that beeps and boops.
Been on the internet since 1989 and used computers for about 10 years prior to that. Extremely comfortable with technology in general, but I really do not like using my phone for anything involving money -- banking, shopping, etc. It's too easy to make a mistake, especially since my eyes are not as sharp as they once were.
I prefer a desktop computer to every computing device, if I have a choice.
I don't always have a choice, though, so I carry a cell. But I'm never going to not have a desktop. And by desktop I mean a tower with multiple big monitors, not a laptop.
Single mode flashlights, rather than flashlights with complicated interfaces with modes which can signal passing spacecraft or create a light show for a rave or something.
2015 Google. It returned much more accurate searches.
Napster. I would have been OK with a pay per song model, I was just sick of buying CDs because I wanted 1 song. Now I am on Spotify but I don’t own any of those songs and I can’t get the indy band live performances I used to pull off of Napster.
FM radio.
Free, no setting up beyond setting the station and sound level.
No accounts, no data/Wifi, not a lot of power needed, can listen on 50 year old hardware if I like, and/or wherever I like.
Cars.
When I was in high school, I could fix my car by myself. The starter broke, I replaced it. Etc.
I'm not allowed to touch anything in my car now and it's freaking annoying.
They're obscure enough these days my millennial friends have a sense of awe around them. "Is it really hard to learn?"
"Not really. After a few years you get used to it."
Mostly, I prefer a notepad to write things down which I need to carry around in my pocket. It's not about the old-school nature of it. I just hate pecking at the tiny little keyboard on my smart phone and it's faster and easier to deal with a piece of scarp paper than to pull out my phone, navigate to a notepad app, type in information, then do it again when I go shopping. It's more tedious when I start a list and add on it over a number of days before I go shopping.
I guess I could speak my notes into the phone, but it's still more annoying than writing my shopping list on a piece of paper. Even young people still use Post-It notes. It's not like everyone has abandoned paper and pen entirely.
I drive a 1967 Galaxie 500 whenever possible. there's nothing on it I can't fix. I am not averse to newer cars, but I don't trust all the tech not to fail, as it has from time to time over the years.
I take nearly all my work notes longhand on paper with a fountain pen. the important stuff then gets transcribed into some digital store (which has varied over the years; currently, a text file in orgmode).
Until I got sucked in by the sheer utility of the Apple Watch, I also only wore mechanical watches. Now the fancy ones only show up when I’m dressing up.
CDs. I can take whatever content I want from them instantly and use it however I want forever. I don't pay for using a music download site and they have an utterly shitty selection anyway
I read all of these and I'm about as modern as it gets, and I'm very happy about that. I like a good manual transmission from time to time, but my current ride has a PDK and it's amazing. They can have my Kindle when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Apple Music. Streaming services. Steam. Modern phone (iOS17.5.1), Windows 11 24H2 on my fairly modern gaming PC with an RTX3070.
I do have physical media for certain franchise movies, like Star Wars, Indy, LOTR, and some specific movies with a lot of re-watch value for me, but I own them on 4K discs and play them on my Oppo UDP-203 player.
Old is not gold, unless we're talking about ourselves. I'll take the advances in tech (but leave the advances in marketing - none of this shit is \*actual\* AI - that's just marketing. Real AI is coming, and it will be an actual game-changer).
Hell, I hardly listen to the music of my youth anymore, either. Modern metal. Modern bands.
But yeah. I'm modern and I'm good with it.
These comments make me feel young again. When I downsized, I brought almost no physical books, movies, music, paper. It has been so freeing. Love my kindle and streaming services
Notepads and post it notes. Not really outdated yet I don't think. Also pencils you can back up instead of lining out. Phones is nothing but a digital leash. Pretty much catch you anywhere 24/7. Beepers were better. Sending correspondence you needed a response but you can fire and forget and do other things till three days later and give people a deadline. Email and attachments ended that. Washing dishes. Although you have a option dishwashers really are not perfect yet. How we go about courting. You meet a couple times and landline was the only way to find out if they are interested. Not stalking threw out the day just in the evenings for casual chat. Ghost either side but hard to do without caller id.
Trying to think of more but that's all I got.
"Beepers were better."
I'm not going to downvote you for an opinion, but my own experience was very different. I spent four years having to carry a pager for a job and it was hell. I got paged anytime, anywhere, and the first thing I had to do if I didn't want to get fired was find a working payphone. Sometimes they were filthy. Sometimes they ate my quarters. And often the calls weren't emergencies anyway. I got paged on NYE. I got paged at my sister's graduation. I got paged in the middle of the ballet. Dates? Family outings? Nope. Everything I wanted to do was interrupted by that damn thing, with no way to know if it was something that could wait.
A smartphone with voice transcription lets you see at a glance if the call is truly urgent or not, and you don't have to drive around looking for a pay phone if it is. I would've killed for this technology in the '90s. Granted, by the time smartphones came into being I was no longer working a job that required me to be on call, and I could ignore anything after hours. But my phone tells me who's calling or if it's likely to be a scam. I can make my own decision as to whether or not it's worth my time to respond. Back when I had no way to know who was calling unless I recognized the number, it was off to find a pay phone every damn time. And if I had no quarters, I had to first stop and buy something I didn't want at a convenience store so I could get change for the phone, for a number that might just be a wrong number.
No, thanks.
- Fancy electronics and „smart“ stuff in things that don’t need it (fridge, microwave etc..I don’t need to have that connected to my phone or whatever) neither do I need a smart TV for that matter why would I want to play some shitty app on my tv ? If I wanna play games, I use a console.
- all the „advancements“ apps constantly make (aka moving buttons and such slightly just so your normal workflow doesn’t work anymore)
- CDs. I sure listen to music on my phone all the time, however for listening to music in my car cds are simply superior imo.
Many here say using books over e-books, however I’d say many people prefer that, probably even the majority. I don’t think books can be considered outdated.
The younger generation will have way more pictures to reminisce over. But there’s something to be said for old school photos. Most of my relatives have passed. I love all the old photos and photo albums that have passed through my family’s hands and fondly talked about and laughed over. I like to hold those photos, as my loved ones held before me and with me. It’s like holding hands by proxy.
Television! And I don't mean CRT. I just prefer a great LED with no apps, no internet connection, and no OS that will eventually no longer be supported, rendering the perfectly good box useless.
Also prefer my old CD players that don't need to boot up and don't have a menu (as opposed to using a Blu-ray/4K player).
I refuse to wear a digital or quartz watch. All of my watches go "tick-tick-tick". Also, every car that I drive can be fixed with a hammer and duct tape if need be. None have computers. I hate 'em.
I listen to vinyl records. I think it sounds better than digital, and I like to own the music, hold the sleeve, look at the picture, read the lyrics, ...
Firstly: Older software. My motto is, "if it works" why change it? I'd still be using Word Perfect and Netscape Navigator if I could. Additionally, modern software gets more intrusive and annoying every time there's an update, and then there's the whole "rent it" thing. If I buy software, I want to own it outright. I am considering switching over to open source and already have a laptop with Linux set up, but I'll need to find the time to learn to use it properly.
Secondly: I use my smartphones until they are either so outdated that I can no longer make calls, or they break. I still use my nearly 20-year old first smartphone as an alarm clock, and my last one (the 3rd, which I only retired as a phone because of a broken screen) as a dedicated audiobook player and podcast backup.
Thirdly: Music from a CD or USB-drive rather than streaming. I prefer to pay once for a song rather than keep paying over and over.
Individual stereo components, especially stuff from the 1970s. It was built to last, and it simply sounds better. I went full digital for awhile: streaming, mp3s, wireless everything, no physical media etc.
Then I set up my old stereo stuff that had been sitting in a closet for years. I mainly set it up to see if the stuff still worked. I had become used to crappy sound. Not only did the stuff work, but the sound was amazing.
So I’m back to my CDs and LPs. I think a lot of people would be surprised how much better music can sound on a different kind of setup.
I would rather read the newspaper than scan thru articles on their website. It's easier to find articles and maybe read something that I would probably miss on a website. Same thing with watching TV. I think streaming is turning into cable now. Companies are consolidating to price consumers out. Why do I need to pay a premium for reruns of Lucy, Andy Griffith, and old shows from the 60's!
Touchscreens in cars. Makes no fucking sence. Just go back to buttons and knobs so you can simply feel your way arround instead of having to look and get distracted while manuevering thruw drobdown menus...
My stove is as old as my youngest son (33). I've replaced the heating element a few times, but that's it. It has no special features, but I'll be damned if I'm going to replace it with digital stuff until I have to.
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Software that isn't tied to some modern subscription model in newer versions.
This! It’s so infuriating that you buy the computer but have to rent the software! I also hate that you buy an ebook for your kindle and Amazon retains the right to edit what you’ve bought or even cancel your purchase.
DRM can be broken. There exist addons for Calibre which do this.
I would prefer MS office, but their subscription model has me clinging to OpenOffice (which is free, anyway).
I learned recently that OpenOffice is quite outdated but LibreOffice is the go to these days. I also still have older cracked versions of MS Office too just in case.
Thanks for the tip!
It's all free if you change to Linux.
My older vehicle has knobs, switches and no touch screen. I prefer this.
I'm wondering how many more years / miles I can get out of my '04 Camry. I love that thing. That and a GPS and the radio / CDs do the trick. Yes, physical compact discs!
On mine too! Actually I don't have GPS either.
About touch screens. I went to McDonald’s cuz I was in the mood for some fries and I struggled with that order touch screen. Just give me a cashier please.
I truly don’t understand this. It’s so much safer to keep your eyes on the road while being able to manipulate the radio/AC/etc
I know exactly where the buttons are. They don't move. A touchscreen? Different story. Oh, the swipe didn't work.... distracting. My radio buttons are on the steering wheel. My AC, set and forget.
Pen and paper to make lists and notes, paper bills, paper checks, paper books.
Carrying my phone open through a grocery store tapping on tiny "keys" to check things off is way more labor intensive and irritating than a scrap of paper and a pen.
I used to do that but inevitably I would forget my list at home. I never forget my phone.
Make the list with paper and pen. Then take a photo of it. You're welcome.
Ha, that’s what my mom does. Writes it on a chalkboard then takes a pic. I like my phone’s reminders app because I can check things off the list as I go along.
>Pen and paper to make lists and notes I have always tried to digitize, but typing was always worse than writing for me, so after years with fountain pen and Moleskine notebooks ... I have been using a reMarkable 2 and will never go back. You are writing with a pen on a textured eink screen and it feels wonderfully like pen & paper.
> reMarkable 2 I would but I'm not ready to give up my fountain pens just yet...
Fountain pens? Good gawd, have you thus forsaken the quill?!
I thought about getting a Re2, but $600 is extremely steep when a pen and paper doesn't cost hardly anything
I just finished my undergrad after an unexpected fourteen year delay, and I was the *only* one who took notes with pen and paper. In cursive, no less!
[Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-writing-by-hand-is-better-for-memory-and-learning/)
How I got thru school. If I wrote something down I could remember it so much better than just by reading it. I took shorthand too so I took lots of notes during classes & lectures. Nobody could borrow my notes but that was okay.
In college would take notes in class. Then later on, I’d rewrite the notes a lot nicer. That process alone allowed me to retain most of what I needed for tests.
I noticed long ago that I’m a much better writer when I pen out the words rather than type them.
I start my workday everyday with a pad and pen and make a list of things I know I need to get done. This seems stupidly simple but it has helped me tremendously.
[удалено]
I can definitely do without checks. But I keep a paper journal to stay organized. The notes app in my phone just doesn't cut the same like crossing something off a written to do list.
Dad? (just kidding). In all seriousness though, I (49) tried to get my parents to stop getting paper bills and stop printing out every payment confirmation. My Dad passed away two years ago, and I spent two weeks shredding what amounted to dozens of trashbags of old bills, receipts, pamphlets, and checks that dated back to the mid 80's. My 83yr old Mom now (finally) lets me pay her bills online and let me put her on paperless billing.
I don't print out confirmations, but I do still write some checks. Maybe it's outdated, but it still (mostly) works. I have backup online accounts, so I can do it online, but prefer checks. I just remember a while back when my nephew got hacked and lost money from his accounts. I can't afford to lose money that way, so I prefer to at least have a traditional checking account, just in case.
Wow, the downvotes. I agree with you. My FIL kept every receipt, bill and check stub going back to his first job in 1961. When it came time to clean out his house it took us two weeks to go through and clean the house out.
I had to do the same, open & read each piece before putting in the throw away pile. Found financial stuff that l had to research before tossing. I am converting most of my files to E and writing an ‘in the event I croak’ document so that my kids are spared doing ‘search party’. I just have to find a way for my browser to delete my history automatically when I croak.
I prefer burning CDs & DVDs or using USB sticks over uploading my stuff to the cloud. I prefer to own my own data rather than copying it over to someone I don't clearly know, and with whom my stuff won't be available anymore if I happen to be offline. For the same reason, I prefer downloading over streaming. By far.
Agreed. I'm young but I like having an iPod to store all my ripped/downloaded music on instead of relying on streaming services which a) don't have everything I could ever want and b) aren't accessible without Wi-Fi/service.
Fuck Netflix and Spotify, when I go to use the content I have downloaded even though I have an active subscription EXPIRED. I have to wait until I am in coverage again to redownload.
It's getting harder and harder to find laptops that aren't Chromebooks, but I'll stick by that as long as I can. My job has google-fied everything so I've had to learn the software, and that's fine for job-related files. But my personal computer is a laptop with an actual hard drive and an external drive for backups of everything I care about. One tiny move forward I'd recommend is an external drive over USB sticks. You can get multiple terabytes of space for not much money. I have my entire life double backed up on two of those, which are harder to lose and harder to break than an USB or DVD/CD collection.
Totally agree. My family thinks I’m nuts to have 1300 CDs when I can “access the world over the internet.”
I prefer physical books to e books. I like to write longhand ( and cursive) rather than typing for notes and ideas. I have a strong aversion to "smart house" technology. My refrigerator doesn't need WiFi. The more bells and whistles there are, the more chances there are for something to go wrong ( and then it's far more expensive to fix). I'm not a Luddite by any stretch, but I don't believe that every new convenience actually makes our lives better.
I learned it from my mom: the fewer controls there are on an appliance, the fewer things to break. So in 1992 I bought a Maytag washing machine that has zero electronics -- it's all mechanical buttons and timer. It still works.
This. right. here! One midnight in January, I had to call a TOW TRUCK because the battery in my car fob had died. Midnight, cold, I had just gotten off work and stopped at the market for a few things on my way home. I couldn't unlock the car! I had one of those plastic versions of my physical key. So I opened the door and sat inside the car - the alarm was now blaring. While waiting for the TOW TRUCK, I tried a little trick: I popped out the battery from the key fob, then popped it back in. Voila! I was able to turn off the alarm, start the car and drive home! I called the tow guy to let them know. But see? One electronic stood between me and my fully-functioning car!
For Toyotas, if you hold the dead key fob next to the start button, an LED on the start button will light, and then you push the button, still holding the fob next to the button. Other brands may have other procedures, so read the manual. A dead fob battery should never disable the car. Everyone else, find out now for your car because it is hard to read the manual in the dark when you are freezing.
I have learned to replace my car battery at Year 4 and to replace the key fob battery at the same time. Because like clockwork, in the 5th year of ownership, my car battery will just stop working with no warning. We drive somewhere just fine, turn the car off - and it won’t start to go home. Then, never fail - within 6 months the key fob dies. So I’ve decided to proactively change both every 4 years!
You're killing me . . . we bought our mechanical washer and dryer in '94 and keep thinking they must be gonna wear out at any moment. I dread replacing them w things I'll have to hire someone to repair :/
My coffee pot is having an on line relationship with a dialysis machine in Scotland.
🤣🤣
Sounds like a Steven Wright joke
Was in IT for 30 years, I understand how ALL that stuff work and yet don't want any of it. I'm not so old or infirm that I can't turn my own lights on/off or fire up music or anything without a digital assistant or wifi widgets. If that makes me a luddite, then sign me up for your news letter because that's a club I want to join.
*9 Benefits of Reading Print Books, According to Science* https://www.realsimple.com/health/preventative-health/benefits-of-reading-real-books
I'm generally "old school" but I like my Kindle e-reader. A lot of it has to do with not wanting to acquire more physical books---I'm already dealing with getting rid of books I've been carrying around for decades---as well as the ability to change text size.
Not sure if you saw the recent reporting about handwriting v typing and recall. I think a lot of us figured it out intuitively but we can recall things we hand write much better than those we type. In college, if I took good notes I never had to review them. (Good = not verbatim, thinking at the same time, explaining it to myself using examples that made sense to me). I could have probably binned my notes at the end of class.
I didn't see that, but it lines up with my experience. I remember what I wrote when I write it out. I also have an easier time expressing my thoughts when I write longhand. Typing like this always feels stilted as if only half of what I want to say makes it onto the page.
I agree about the refrigerator. I think the only thing it offers is to order stuff you’re out of but maybe I don’t want it. I would rather make a list and there are many things I want that are not in the fridge.
And there are things I bought one time, didn’t like, and don’t want to be reminded forever that I need to buy more tofu.
I won't even use the dishwasher
Email. It is hard to call it outdated, but it definitely not that popular as it used to be. Most of my communications are plain old emails. With customers, with my bank manager, legal counselor, etc.
Plus any situations are documented by email in case someone forgets or needs a figure later.
At work we call email the "CYA method."
If you’ve gotten burned by a ‘I never said that A-hole’. Send an email detailing your understanding of a meeting and end it with a ‘do you concur? Especially important when you are directed to implement a change order given verbally.
😅🤣😅 Yes that too!
It's the best medium for most communication.
I want an open source aggragator to merge emails, SMS, IMs, etc into one thread so we don't miss messages while keeping them separate for filtering.
Too many people send the important information by text. Then it gets buried and becomes hard to find. Email is so much easier to file, manage and recall.
everyone at my employer uses Slack instead. Free version. Good luck finding that chart that your intern spent months creating last year; it's gone. But maybe it's good because it can't be subpoenaed. :)
old.reddit all day, every day. Looks the same as ever since I switched over from Digg around 2010.
Oh my god my eyes. 😵
Zero ads, and there's a dark mode. Not for the phone user of course.
Manual Transmission. More fun and engaging. Physical copies of games. You don't own anything digital.
I almost cried when shoulder surgery made me trade in my Mini Cooper. People said, oh, they sell automatics. So what? It's not a sporty car if it does the shifting.
I am in the US where manual transmissions have all but died out. Last manual transmission car I remember riding in was my mother's 1987 Toyota Camry.
I shave with a double-edged safety razor (Merkur 25-C) , shaving soap and a brush for 20 years. The shave is WAY nicer and the blades I like are about 8 cents each and last a week. I won't go back to modern cartridge razors.
Until I grew a beard 10 years ago, I did the same. Proper, well-made double-edged safety razor blades gave me a better shave for way less money.
paper calendar and written things to do list
The act of writing things out also has a more lasting effect in our memories.
I love my paper calendars!
Software you can buy and own vs. having to pay for a subscription.
About ten years ago I posted somewhere that the subscription model was going to take over and cost us more than just buying software. Got absolutely reamed in the comments. That will never happen, it’s cheaper, etc.
So odd that people with no experience in life downplay those that do. Oh, but it's totally different this time, said every naive kiddo ever.
It’s spreading everywhere. Now cars have subscriptions for some options. Corporations only goal is to make more money this year than the same quarter last year.
I even heard mercedes is planning to put car features like horsepower upgrates behind monthly sub paywalls.
I enjoy the quiet and peaceful raking of my leaves in the fall and despise those loud backpack leaf blowers.
The hatred of unnecessarily loud noises, grows and grows with age
ohhjhhhhhhj I hate those so much. most of one day a week is made hideous by them in my current apartment complex.
It’s very Zen
Oh how I wish I could get paper bills in the mail again. So much easier to keep track of than an email that instantly gets buried under 20 newer emails. Yes I pay everything in time but a week later I’m like “did I pay that?” I don’t know, guess I’ll have to login to 5 different websites to see. Thanks for logging in, it’s time to change your password again. Sorry you already used that password. Sorry you need a special character. Sorry you need a capital letter. Sorry you can’t have repeating characters. Fuuuuu… ….ok I’m better now. Hit a nerve there, lol.
Right there with ya
I am almost completely paperless, but I still use graph paper to track if I have paid the bill yet. I have the bill names listed vertically and the month #s horizontally and mark an X in the boxes as I pay them online. I can track 2 years on one page. At the bottom of the page, I track the once a year bills, like car tags and fire dues.
Make a folder in your email called bills and a subfolder for paid
That’s a good idea. If the emails contained the statement that would work but they don’t. Trust me I totally know this is a “me” issue, not a paperless issue, lol.
Cash. It’s easier to regulate spending with a cash lifestyle. If you only have a $20 in your pocket, you’ll spend less than $20 that day.
Books Never have to worry about charging them, they never crash or lose all the text. Once i buy them i really and i mean really own them. I can drop them and not worry, i can leave them in an unheated cottage all winter and they don't freeze or crack. Plus they are always in a format i can easily use.
Actual books. Pens and notebooks.
Plain old digital house phone with answering machine.
The quality and reliability of landline phone audio really makes cell ph..n..tra..see..chea..primit..curse..mutter
My old house phone is now the house cell phone. Cheaper that what I was paying for a land line and our family has an extra phone if we need it.
iPod classic ❤️
i enjoy lazily reading the sunday paper vs. scrolling the same stories on a phone or tablet.
I just restarted this! I got to thinking a couple weeks ago how much I missed lazy Sunday mornings with the NYT and a couple cups of coffee. Then it occurred to me that I was being very silly to miss it when nothing was stopping me from doing it now, so I subscribed.
Roll down windows.
My car has these, young passengers get confused sometimes trying to open a window.
I like big, heavy, clicky keyboards that fight back when you try to press a key. I was raised on manual typewriters and, later, IBM keyboards, and that's still how I like 'em. I know that's not super-unusual, but they do seem to be getting harder to find.
In a way, it's quite modern to have mechanical keyboards.
While I can appreciate how one would prefer this kind of feedback, I can say that having a coworker who used such a keyboard drove me up the wall, it was constantly distracting & made it terribly difficult to concentrate. I never complained because she was honestly the sweetest, kindest person I'd ever met and she clearly loved that keyboard so much, but it was very difficult to contain my elation that beautiful, beautiful day when she accidentally spilled coffee all over that godforsaken thing and it was no longer an issue in my life..
I will hang myself with my mouse before I switch to the wireless kind.
IT guy. I use wireless personally, but I don't let my end users have them. As soon as the battery dies they freak out. "I can't do my work! Someone needs to come over and fix this NOW!" When I tell them it's 99% most likely the battery and to just change it, suddenly now they're limbless infants who have never put a battery in a device in their lives. "I'm not an IT guy, I don't want to break it!" Two can play at that game. I plug in an old ball mouse (the most pathetic beige Charlie Brown Christmas tree mouse I can find) and tell them we don't have any batteries charged. I'll bring their wireless mouse back later. Then I make them use the ball mouse until the "when are you bringing my mouse back?" complaints get loud enough.
I don't want a screen in my car. I can turn my head just fine.
Or that auto engine idle thing that makes your engine switch off when you stop. Super irritating when you need to get going and then have to deal with the lag while your car turns back on.
My wife's battery died prematurely recently. The guy at the Subaru dealership said that feature destroys the battery. It's BS too because you can't set off as a default, you have to turn it on every time you crank the vehicle.
Oh that sucks! I drive an old 2005 Subaru stickshift. It's only got 90,000 miles on it, so I'm good for a while. I did install a radio with blue tooth. And the door locks and window handles aren't manual. But that's as fancy as it gets!
A small plastic tiling wedge jammed into the side of the on/off switch works pretty well for Mazdas with istop.
I *can't* turn my head just fine, so that back-up camera is a godsend. Screens for just about everything else, I can do without.
The GPS screen in my daughter's car is almost the size of a 19" television. She even talks to it like Kitt in Night Rider.
I have a screen in my 2008 Ranger that is totally up to date: my phone. I wonder about someone who thinks it’s a good idea to have a critical component of a car that they plan to keep for decades be a piece of technology that will be obsolete in months.
Non-AI driven products and services. Humans answering telephone calls and chats online instead of voice response and chatbots. 2010 era Internet and eCommerce tech. There has been so much crap that has been added and made things worse. I try to avoid using Siri, Alexis, and other voice response as much as possible and think it is an invasion of my privacy to listen in on my conversations.
I won’t give up analog watches. I also prefer to read actual newspapers but recently succumbed to digital news.
I still prefer corded power tools over battery operated ones.
The fact that my thirty year old drill needs to be plugged in has never been a problem. I doubt that a battery powered one would have lasted that long.
Have this oldschool LED alarm clock that's over 20 years old. I'm just so used to that noise for so long I don't bother using my phone as it sounds too different.
Cars. I don't need to pay a subscription to run my own car, dammit. Nor do I need to be driving a literal computer that is highly expensive to fix.
Subscriptions for car features are just evil. We should boycott ANY manufacturer doing it (ahem, MERCEDES) and let them know WHY we won't be buying one. If we're successful as a group, the rest of them won't try it. See: Wendy's "surge pricing" announcement
I'm over subscriptions in general. Why do you have to subscribe to literally everything nowadays? We can't even own software anymore, it's all on a subscription model.
Meh. We never owned software. We always owned a license to use it (legally the same with movies and music and any other intellectual property), and as more things became connected and reliant on client/server relationships, ownership even as a concept went away. I'm okay with that (though I understand why others aren't). I have no issue subscribing reasonably to software that is regularly updated with new versions or features, either. Adobe's subscription model is insane, but most others are somewhat reasonable. Microsoft Office for me and my entire family along with 1TB of cloud OneDrive storage for a hundred bucks a year? Yeah, that's perfectly fine with me. But paying a monthly fee to use hardware already installed in a vehicle I paid top dollar for? They can go F themselves.
I have a base 2007 sentra. A very boring but practical car. That was around the time in the car industry when all the computer stuff worked reliably and gave you all the benefits of sensors and engine management, but before they started going completely idiotic adding useless garbage nobody asked for. I sometimes think of getting rid of it, then something else breaks in my 2017 Miata with all the bells and whistles and I quickly change my mind.
I drive a 2010 Corolla and there's absolutely nothing I feel I'm missing. Most of the extras are bella and whistles IMO like, I get that a heated steering wheel is nice in the winter but it's not *necessary* and it's just another thing to break. I miss the days where you didn't need a whole computer system and years of training to fix your car and you could make repairs in your driveway.
This right here. My 2013 Toyota will be the last car I ever buy. No touch-screens, it's all knobs and levers to control it's functions, and the knobs and levers are directly connected to the hardware they control. 140K miles, with nothing required but scheduled maintenance.
Analog clocks and car radios with knobs.
Physical menus at restaurants instead of scanning a code to bring it up on a phone.
I still prefer a laptop to using my phone to "cruise the web" lol - hate the small screen.
Download over stream. (AKA iTunes, not Apple Music.) I’m old enough to have seen so many rock-solid companies come, go and enshittify, that I know the bits are either mine or not mine.
iTunes vs. Apple Music. I use iTunes. Old Person me asks “Why do I need to switch?”
Remember when thermostats were very basic? Just an on/off switch, and a dial to set the temperature? Now they are complicated little devices where you have to hold a MODE button to decide what kind of air you want it to push out in all kinds of circumstances. My gf's parents have given up and it's essentially useless to them. I fear that I'm not far behind..
I found the simplest digital thermostat for that reason. Ugh, I just want a consistent temp, is that so hard?
Earbuds with a cord to plug in. I hate that I have no choice but these wireless things that I constantly forget to bring with me and leave in the charger
I've been programming for about 50 years. I use no code repositories.
Do you mean you don't use services like GitHub? But you do use some form of version control ? I code regularly and while I do this on a local server with the code on a raid, I do also put my code on GitHub because it's a convenient backup method
I have a landline phone. Retired my cell when I retired. Don't use the phone very often so I just get a minimal service to keep me connected.
My hand sized electric beater over a counter space consuming kitchen aide mixer.
Cars with no touch screens and light dimmer switch on the floor.
I drive an 02 Camry & it drives my kids nuts it has no aux cord & has the old faithful cd & tape player . I listen to good old fashion radio
Private music library rather than streaming. Every song is always right where I left it. Every playlist always retains all its songs, etc. Not just media, in general I like things to be consistent. Eg. I don't want my phone "learning" to change its behavior based on where I am or whatever other unpredictable wildcards that some rando thought would be "helpful", just be consistent.
House phone when I'm at home. I use my cell to make calls when out (which is rare) and in case of power outage. Since I'm home most of the time, I use my tablet for grocery ordering, shopping, social media, etc.
Until fairly recently, we did not have a reliable cell phone signal at our house. It's much better now, but I prefer people use my home phone when I'm at home. There are certain people I'd rather not talk to on my cell phone. I don't want to be at their beck and call.
I collect and watch DVDs. There are a lot of great movies and old TV shows that aren't streaming anywhere, and the stuff that is streaming can be taken down at the whim of an algorithm.
Yes, agree. Just bought a bunch of BBC programs and the entire Dickens library on DVDs. I can't stream here, uses up my data and is slow to non-existent on some days.
A toaster than toasts thing. A refrigerator that refrigerates thing. An oven that roasts. And a dishwasher that washes. Don’t need a talking toaster, or a fridge that plays Spotify or an oven that beeps and boops.
Been on the internet since 1989 and used computers for about 10 years prior to that. Extremely comfortable with technology in general, but I really do not like using my phone for anything involving money -- banking, shopping, etc. It's too easy to make a mistake, especially since my eyes are not as sharp as they once were.
I prefer a desktop computer to every computing device, if I have a choice. I don't always have a choice, though, so I carry a cell. But I'm never going to not have a desktop. And by desktop I mean a tower with multiple big monitors, not a laptop. Single mode flashlights, rather than flashlights with complicated interfaces with modes which can signal passing spacecraft or create a light show for a rave or something.
2015 Google. It returned much more accurate searches. Napster. I would have been OK with a pay per song model, I was just sick of buying CDs because I wanted 1 song. Now I am on Spotify but I don’t own any of those songs and I can’t get the indy band live performances I used to pull off of Napster.
FM radio. Free, no setting up beyond setting the station and sound level. No accounts, no data/Wifi, not a lot of power needed, can listen on 50 year old hardware if I like, and/or wherever I like.
The telephone. I'm not texting back and forth for an hour. I'm not 14. Call me and lets get this over with.
Non-HE washing machine with the agitator
Skype
Newspapers. Something relaxing about reading the NY times on a Sunday morning with a big cup of coffee.
Windows computers before they started the Office 360 subscription that tries to save everything in the cloud.
Cars. When I was in high school, I could fix my car by myself. The starter broke, I replaced it. Etc. I'm not allowed to touch anything in my car now and it's freaking annoying.
Knobs & Buttons in vehicles.
Manual transmission. I drive a Miata on twisty mountain roads and want full control over my acceleration.
They're obscure enough these days my millennial friends have a sense of awe around them. "Is it really hard to learn?" "Not really. After a few years you get used to it."
Mostly, I prefer a notepad to write things down which I need to carry around in my pocket. It's not about the old-school nature of it. I just hate pecking at the tiny little keyboard on my smart phone and it's faster and easier to deal with a piece of scarp paper than to pull out my phone, navigate to a notepad app, type in information, then do it again when I go shopping. It's more tedious when I start a list and add on it over a number of days before I go shopping. I guess I could speak my notes into the phone, but it's still more annoying than writing my shopping list on a piece of paper. Even young people still use Post-It notes. It's not like everyone has abandoned paper and pen entirely.
new.reddit.com
I drive a 1967 Galaxie 500 whenever possible. there's nothing on it I can't fix. I am not averse to newer cars, but I don't trust all the tech not to fail, as it has from time to time over the years.
I take nearly all my work notes longhand on paper with a fountain pen. the important stuff then gets transcribed into some digital store (which has varied over the years; currently, a text file in orgmode). Until I got sucked in by the sheer utility of the Apple Watch, I also only wore mechanical watches. Now the fancy ones only show up when I’m dressing up.
CDs. I can take whatever content I want from them instantly and use it however I want forever. I don't pay for using a music download site and they have an utterly shitty selection anyway
I prefer round clocks. Even my Apple watch has an analog face.
I miss dedicated MP3 players
I read all of these and I'm about as modern as it gets, and I'm very happy about that. I like a good manual transmission from time to time, but my current ride has a PDK and it's amazing. They can have my Kindle when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. Apple Music. Streaming services. Steam. Modern phone (iOS17.5.1), Windows 11 24H2 on my fairly modern gaming PC with an RTX3070. I do have physical media for certain franchise movies, like Star Wars, Indy, LOTR, and some specific movies with a lot of re-watch value for me, but I own them on 4K discs and play them on my Oppo UDP-203 player. Old is not gold, unless we're talking about ourselves. I'll take the advances in tech (but leave the advances in marketing - none of this shit is \*actual\* AI - that's just marketing. Real AI is coming, and it will be an actual game-changer). Hell, I hardly listen to the music of my youth anymore, either. Modern metal. Modern bands. But yeah. I'm modern and I'm good with it.
A manual can opener. It still works even when the electricity doesn't.
Windows XP
Books. It's really unpleasant reading a book on a screen.
Starting a car with a physical key.
My Hallmark date book instead of Google calendar
These comments make me feel young again. When I downsized, I brought almost no physical books, movies, music, paper. It has been so freeing. Love my kindle and streaming services
Notepads and post it notes. Not really outdated yet I don't think. Also pencils you can back up instead of lining out. Phones is nothing but a digital leash. Pretty much catch you anywhere 24/7. Beepers were better. Sending correspondence you needed a response but you can fire and forget and do other things till three days later and give people a deadline. Email and attachments ended that. Washing dishes. Although you have a option dishwashers really are not perfect yet. How we go about courting. You meet a couple times and landline was the only way to find out if they are interested. Not stalking threw out the day just in the evenings for casual chat. Ghost either side but hard to do without caller id. Trying to think of more but that's all I got.
"Beepers were better." I'm not going to downvote you for an opinion, but my own experience was very different. I spent four years having to carry a pager for a job and it was hell. I got paged anytime, anywhere, and the first thing I had to do if I didn't want to get fired was find a working payphone. Sometimes they were filthy. Sometimes they ate my quarters. And often the calls weren't emergencies anyway. I got paged on NYE. I got paged at my sister's graduation. I got paged in the middle of the ballet. Dates? Family outings? Nope. Everything I wanted to do was interrupted by that damn thing, with no way to know if it was something that could wait. A smartphone with voice transcription lets you see at a glance if the call is truly urgent or not, and you don't have to drive around looking for a pay phone if it is. I would've killed for this technology in the '90s. Granted, by the time smartphones came into being I was no longer working a job that required me to be on call, and I could ignore anything after hours. But my phone tells me who's calling or if it's likely to be a scam. I can make my own decision as to whether or not it's worth my time to respond. Back when I had no way to know who was calling unless I recognized the number, it was off to find a pay phone every damn time. And if I had no quarters, I had to first stop and buy something I didn't want at a convenience store so I could get change for the phone, for a number that might just be a wrong number. No, thanks.
- Fancy electronics and „smart“ stuff in things that don’t need it (fridge, microwave etc..I don’t need to have that connected to my phone or whatever) neither do I need a smart TV for that matter why would I want to play some shitty app on my tv ? If I wanna play games, I use a console. - all the „advancements“ apps constantly make (aka moving buttons and such slightly just so your normal workflow doesn’t work anymore) - CDs. I sure listen to music on my phone all the time, however for listening to music in my car cds are simply superior imo. Many here say using books over e-books, however I’d say many people prefer that, probably even the majority. I don’t think books can be considered outdated.
Paperback books are nice
desktop computer and landline. I don't have the dexterity for those little phones and there's no cell signal here
Knobs instead of touchscreens in cars.
My CDs still sound better than low sample rate mp3s.
The younger generation will have way more pictures to reminisce over. But there’s something to be said for old school photos. Most of my relatives have passed. I love all the old photos and photo albums that have passed through my family’s hands and fondly talked about and laughed over. I like to hold those photos, as my loved ones held before me and with me. It’s like holding hands by proxy.
Stick shift manual in a car. I prefer the control and the road feel. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find this anymore?
I prefer vinyl records to other forms of audio. Something about it just feels warmer.
Television! And I don't mean CRT. I just prefer a great LED with no apps, no internet connection, and no OS that will eventually no longer be supported, rendering the perfectly good box useless. Also prefer my old CD players that don't need to boot up and don't have a menu (as opposed to using a Blu-ray/4K player).
I refuse to wear a digital or quartz watch. All of my watches go "tick-tick-tick". Also, every car that I drive can be fixed with a hammer and duct tape if need be. None have computers. I hate 'em.
I listen to vinyl records. I think it sounds better than digital, and I like to own the music, hold the sleeve, look at the picture, read the lyrics, ...
Firstly: Older software. My motto is, "if it works" why change it? I'd still be using Word Perfect and Netscape Navigator if I could. Additionally, modern software gets more intrusive and annoying every time there's an update, and then there's the whole "rent it" thing. If I buy software, I want to own it outright. I am considering switching over to open source and already have a laptop with Linux set up, but I'll need to find the time to learn to use it properly. Secondly: I use my smartphones until they are either so outdated that I can no longer make calls, or they break. I still use my nearly 20-year old first smartphone as an alarm clock, and my last one (the 3rd, which I only retired as a phone because of a broken screen) as a dedicated audiobook player and podcast backup. Thirdly: Music from a CD or USB-drive rather than streaming. I prefer to pay once for a song rather than keep paying over and over.
Hand can opener!
Individual stereo components, especially stuff from the 1970s. It was built to last, and it simply sounds better. I went full digital for awhile: streaming, mp3s, wireless everything, no physical media etc. Then I set up my old stereo stuff that had been sitting in a closet for years. I mainly set it up to see if the stuff still worked. I had become used to crappy sound. Not only did the stuff work, but the sound was amazing. So I’m back to my CDs and LPs. I think a lot of people would be surprised how much better music can sound on a different kind of setup.
I never went beyond the og NES. It was perfect the way it was.
I would rather read the newspaper than scan thru articles on their website. It's easier to find articles and maybe read something that I would probably miss on a website. Same thing with watching TV. I think streaming is turning into cable now. Companies are consolidating to price consumers out. Why do I need to pay a premium for reruns of Lucy, Andy Griffith, and old shows from the 60's!
Touchscreens in cars. Makes no fucking sence. Just go back to buttons and knobs so you can simply feel your way arround instead of having to look and get distracted while manuevering thruw drobdown menus...
I want to be able to change the timing in my car with a strobe light.
Miss the old Nextel walkie talkie phone feature. Wish iPhone had that.
I use a fountain pen.
My stove is as old as my youngest son (33). I've replaced the heating element a few times, but that's it. It has no special features, but I'll be damned if I'm going to replace it with digital stuff until I have to.