These eventually might turn into full articles, idk
Feels weird to think that kids born these days will never see the beauty of the internet and how it used to be a priviledge and not something mundane that everyone has in their hands. Sure, it's amazing that you can have all the information you want any time you want, and that's something good, but that's about it.
There're also a bunch of distractions, things to burn time, time that doesn't go back. Imagine reading a newspaper, but not actually getting anything useuful from it. At least on the newspapers you had some quizzes that made you think a bit. You know, develop that grey think on top of you.
Web used to be about exploring (which is what I'm trying to contribute and bringing back with this website), but now it's just 3 or 4 walled gardened platforms (in no particular order, youtube, facebook, instagram, tiktok, etc) that you are basically stuck to because you know no better
Ahhh, DRM, what not like on it, as a consumer, you get treated as if you were a pirate. You pay and you get a worse experience than those who pay.
But why? Perhaps they think that DRM would make their game/video/audio impossible to copy? What a joke!
I like paying for the software I use and the movies I watch, but these days it gets more and more complicated as you don't actually "own" anything, you just own a license to watch the content! It's quite fun, isn't it?! Sure, you can rip Bluray disks with some fancy BR reader that can be modified to "ignore" DRM, but why does the consumer even have to take this effort? I don't own any BR as i don't have a reader and don't agree with the DRM they put on the disks, but still have some DVDs laying around, some still before CSS (the dvd copy protection thingy) was a thing, those were the best, you could rip them and store the data somewhere safe, being preserved and safe from disk rot. Meanwhile, to follow their "rules", if i wanna watch a DVD with CSS in the future I would need to:
On the other hand, if I pirate the content (or find ways around the DRM/copy protection) I can encode it in a format that's future proof and make however many backups I want. Also i can watch it wherever I want, not having the limitation of carrying a DVD player when i want to watch a movie on my phone
Now you say... but there's streaming! Sure, there is, but... DRM spoils it all. You know, there's this tag called <video> on HTML5, it allows you to, guess what, play videos on the browser, any browser! What an inovation! But then you have the DRM, which the streaming industry believes is the "solution to piracy", there's just a small problem with that. You consume more processing power as you have to decrypt in adition to decoding the stream. Also, because they require "high security" for higher qualities, you are locked out if you use a device and software that respects you. In summary, you are better off just finding the content online and downloading it, similarly to the previous statements on dvd ripping, once you have the file, you can watch it wherever and however you want. Wanna watch it in a goddamn tamagochi? Sure! Wanna watch it on a fridge? Why not!? But you wont be able to watch it in any of those places if you play by their rules and use their DRM...
Until you can buy a movie and you actually get the mkv/mp4 I will very likely not buy a "revocable license to watch content"
You own nothing and you will be happy!
These days most cars, even cheap ones, have some sort of touch screen to control the "confort" system. This is all fun and games until you are the driver and you want to change the temperature of the cabin. For that you need to spend time (sometimes going through 2 or even 3 "virtual buttons") that you should be using paying attention to you know... driving...
Meanwhile, on "old" cars you have knobs that you can just throw your hand at, even without looking, and change the temperature! Imagine how handy that could be? Same goes for the radio, you have a knob that adjusts the audio and buttons to change station (tbf, most of these "tablet" interfaces have some sort of knob to change the volume).
I've been to cars where you only had two buttons, which I'm pretty sure they left because there was some law that forced them to. It was the defog on front window and the hazard lights buttons. This car in particular had a very clunky tablet interface i might add.
But not all is bad. Some cars let you install applications (altough running on a proprietary system) so it allows some flexibility. But know what also allows you to install applications?! Your phone! And that thing can be stuck on the window, vent, wherever you want. And it doesn't nag you about what you can or can't do while driving... (kids, you shouldn't use your phones while driving, but that shouldn't be the task of the car to tell you what you can or can't do)
A fun thing about riding as a passenger on one of these cars was trying to pair my phone through bluetooth (because that thing didn't even have an AUX jack, long live AUX jacks) and it wouldn't let me because it was moving... We were just commenting on "this is too silent, let's get some *proper* music", after starting the drive, but apparently we needed to stop just to pair the bluetooth... As we were somewhat in a rush, we just tuned some radio and listened to some anoying advertisement with breaks for music...
My daily driver is a somewhat old car (2003, I don't consider it old, as long as it serves it's purpose) , it has what's necessary for a car to work. Now I've driven newer family cars or rented cars and that reminds me how good old cars are...
Besides the previous discussed "tablet" interfaces, there's a bunch of features that if they work, seem amazing, but otherwise they are just anoying, for example (in order of anoyance IMO):
Most of these just add extra complexity for basically no gain, so let's start:
Electronic Parking Brake - As the name implies, this replaces the cable parking brake with an electronic button that controls an electric pump that puts pressure into the hydraulic system, locking the brakes. It's very fun and games until you want to keep it on and the car (thinking you are dumb) forces it off. Also in some conditions which I haven't fully understood, it enables itself automatically at parking, some other times it doesn't, so I always have to look at the small, barely visible light to see if it's enabled or not. Also, when the car is powered off, you can't see if the parking brake is engaged or not.
Auto Hold - Imagine you don't know how to drive, you failed your driving lessons but still want to go to the road. This is the best feature for you! First time I stumbled upon this thing, I was trying to start the car normally on a hill, so raising the clutch slowly until you hear the engine with load, then you let go of the brake and go to the accelerator (a super simple procedure that everyone should know how to do on a manual car), but something was weird, the engine was indeed roaring, due to being on load, as it should, but no matter how much I would let go of the clutch, the car wouldn't start moving, even letting go of the brake. Even let the engine stall, raising the clutch very slowly, on a almost flat incline it should have moved without any effort. Apparently, you'd need to press the accelerator, otherwise it wouldn't release the brake on you... WHY?! Just Why... That's super inconvinient...
Seat belt warning - This is just an anoyance. I know that for my safety I should use the seatbelt, I even get fined if i don't, why does the car have to "force" me to use it? Just but the belt behind your back into the buckle... Happier? Seems like it...
Rev limiter (in certain conditions) - There's some cars that wont let you rev more than a certain amount if you don't have a gear engaged. This is amazing if you want to use your car to jump start another car (usually, to not let the alternator work so hard and the battery go down much, you accelerate a bit). If it was while raising the clutch I could somehow buy it, on on neutral not letting me accelerate how much I want?It's even more dangerous because you need to have your feet on the clutch, if you let go for some reason at high rev it won't end well...
Automatic braking when close to some object - This one gets in hand with the parking sensors. I've had the car surprise brake at me (with a similar force as if i hit a wall) because it thought some high grass was an obstacle. Very fun!
Parking sensors - Fuck off, I have mirrors, don't beep at me like there's no tomorrow. (If it's a big vehicle i *could* understand it has some use, but on a small car? really? If you can't even be aware of the place you are parking how can you drive on the road?)
Automatic High Beams - Would be quite cool if it worked properly, I've been across other vehicles where it wouldn't automatically turn off... So... I need to take extra care about that one. Better just leave it off.
Auto Increase in Throttle - Mixed feelings, somehow helps, but somehow anoying. Not much to complain on this one, altough I don't particularly like it
Automatic Wipers - Cool feature, not much to complain, but sometimes has a life of it's own when it's sunny and sometimes it doesn't enable when it's raining. Same as the high beams, need extra care, why even have that?