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).
Can you drop some tape player recs to save me on tape spaghetti?
Oh sorry, I meant more reel tape not really casettes, but I love the otari mx5050, and the teac 2340sx. Good machines and 1/4" tape is still affordable. PM me if you’d like more tape info, I love to share.
Ah okay haha. Ive been buying vinyls lately and there’s a lot of people with casette merch too. I didnt remember tape being that amazing but was willing to give it a shot. I don’t have reel to reel space at my place unfortunately. Thanks for putting it out there though!
Well I’ll say cassette quality can never really be good becaise of the slow speed and narrow width. . But 1/4" tape is about the best analog quality you can get (feasibly cost wise) if you go 15 IPS and half track (1 way play, no flipping).
If you want good sound for cassettes you can’t beat a Nakamichi deck, best there are.
Tape is rad for long term storage
Tape itself is cheap, but buying the other equipment for it costs a fortune.
IRC
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.
Grandma approved 😂
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.
Wrist watches. Extremely convenient, even when your phone is buried or you don’t want to be distracted.
I wear a cheapish waterproof one while swimming. The pool has a clock but I can’t see it without my specs.
Yep plus if you take your phone out you leave yourself vulnerable to being robbed.
- for the wristwatch, if you wear a 10$ casio people will think you’re poor
Oooh nice one. Bonus points if it’s a dirty strap.
Or a terrorist
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.
Don’t get the one I got, lol. I’m probably going back to a non-smartwatch after problems with my tic watch.
Oh yeah for sure it’ll be an old fashioned normal watch. Ditched my smartwatch last year.
I have one that uses the gaps between chain links to form a 7-segment display and it’s dope.
Being kind to one another
Magnetic tape. Datacenters use it for long term storage.
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 setup tinyrss a month or so ago, I just can’t get into it. Any tips?
Into your instance or into RSS in general?
Generally what are you using it for? I’ve had trouble finding uses outside of youtube and a handful of news sites.
I follow some blogs, news sites, and GitHub project releases so I’m up to date to what I’m interested in.
github is a good one, I didn’t think of that. Thank you
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
Friends stopped writing their blogs. I slowly stopped reading most comics, now only Questionable Content and the occasional xkcd remains
He really should bring back blogging and that shit was awesome
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.
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
Thank you!
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.
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.
Edit: sorry. Not less knobs and buttons. More knobs and buttons, less touchscreen bs.
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.
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.
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.
Absolutely hate cars with those stupid big screens on the console. Give me buttons and knobs any day.
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.
Is that a recent development?
For me personally? I have been steadily changing the way I source media over the past 2-3 years. Also I lately read more of other ppl going back to physical media for the same-ish reasons.
Just pirate it after you have subscribed to it a few times. The author has got their share. The only party you’re harming by doing this is the streaming platform. Illegal, but not immoral.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Oh that is a BEAUTY
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I got two of these security razors back in 2017 for less than $50 bucks altogether. Best investment ever. Then, last year I got a Philip razor but I have since just stopped shaving at home. I ask the barber from time to time
That leaf one appears to be $120 lol
But I suppose if you find yourself on the Harry’s marketing train, jumping off for anything that’s actually recyclable is good.
Yeah, expensive up front, but the blades are cheap. I got on the Harry’s train before they got bought up and were cheap. Now, whoever bought them has been jacking up prices, which had me looking for a cheaper alternative.
Harry’s also gave me plastic guilt. There is a lot of waste. :p
Every single leaf I or my wife has had broke. Very good when they worked though. I still use the twig on occasion.
Uh oh, what broke on it?
The thumb screw bit.I still have one of the broken ones I can take a picture of. They did replace it without complaint the first time but just felt not worth it going forward.
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.
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.
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.
Projectors that use actual acetates? Wow.
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.
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 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.minidisc still seems futuristic to me.
It was so cool. Until that moment the train doors close and you realise your very expensive player is on its way to the next station… Yes, it’s still a trauma.
I loved minidisc. It was just too late to the game with mp3s hot on its heels.
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.
