this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.

If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.

That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Video games. Way back then there was imagination involved, and companies took risks. Nowadays every game seems to iterate on the same tired formula. The only recent entry I can think of that bucked this trend in the past few decades was maybe Portal, but there have been few to no other recent games that come to mind. Fight me.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The imagination came from the limitations of the hardware.

Computers today are too powerful for gaming. Its resulted all the famous studios racing to the bottom with graphics their primary and generally only concern, and everything else coming a distant second.

But at least it left the door open for indie devs, whose lack of resources and experience are still capable of keeping that ember of imagination and innovation burning.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

You're talking about the AAA space. Fuck those games. Play indies. There are so many creators carrying out the legacy of game development you're talking about. Don't buy the games directed by suits. Currently I'm playing Factorio: Space Age, which is great. I recently played Lorelie and the Laser Eyes, which is a really cool puzzle game where you're actually going to want to write notes on paper, which feels very classic. There are so many out there, but you actually have to look because the don't have the marketing budget of Ubisoft or EA.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Along with the others I'd also mention Outer Wilds and Viewfinder

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

If you're only talking about AAA games, sure.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm a sucker for Nixie Tubes

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Razors. Back in the day you could buy a razor and expect to shave with it every day for the rest of your life. I still have my first razor, a Gillette Slim Adjustable and it still shaves as well as it did the first day I brought it home. The heft and balance are something those new plastic razors and multi bladed monsters can never match.

Thankfully, internet shopping allows me to buy blades from around the world and now I can enjoy my old razor again.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

This may not apply, (as I know I'm simply saying a commercial product got worse as it had revisions) but Jawbone's first earbud/headset used a small rubber conductor to evaluate skull vibration for noise canceling ( and likely there was some ANC using incoming mic audio from external sources). They continued to include a rubber bumper but I think the device leaned more on incoming audio from mics rather than from the rubber bumper. The oldest device presented the best noise canceling even after 3 product changes. I used every version until they stopped making headsets. I miss my Jawbone. I still have my OG.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Ooh, rotary phone switches. This YouTube channel (THIS MUSEUM IS NOT OBSOLETE) has a bunch of videos on them. I can only imagine how a massive exchange full of them must have sounded. They're so satisfyingly mechanical.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKnS0AB2CTN_eu8k8rgaOW0PWFH2Qv9Ui

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

BlackBerry (RIM)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Web browsers about 10 years ago

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (11 children)

Sex toys and local multiplayer is a way better combination than cybersex and online matchmaking

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The Apple II is still such a fucking cool computer.

Sure, my watch is about a billion times more powerful, but my watch will never be as cool as the Apple II.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Portable consoles. They're dead now or replaced by indie shit. No, the switch doesn't count, if it can't fit in my pocket isn't portable.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The indie shit is great tho. Analogue Pocket is an outstanding gaming device to run a whole bunch of portable console games (and some originally non-portable consoles too, like Genesis/Megadrive)

And folks are still making and sometimes even selling Gameboy games right now in 2024

Indie is great, and honestly vital when so much mainstream/AAA shit is such shit

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Video game consoles.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Most weapons. Bows and swords are cooler than guns and knives. Trebuchets and catapults are cooler than any form of modern artillery.

Modern warfare, when it becomes necessary, should be fought purely with weapons designed prior to the 16th century. Just replace horses with dirtbikes and ATVs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I disagree, firearms are way cooler than bows or swords. Sure, swords are cool but there's only so many ways you can make a pointy sharp metal stick, or put a string on a piece of wood. But firearms in the early 1900s where absolutely wild when it comes to internal mechanics. Same thing goes for siege weapons and artillery, a trebuchet, catapult or ballista are cool at a medieval exhibit, but they ain't a Schwerer Gustav railway canon.

But this is a statement on its own. Now every gas operated gun is either a AR-15 or AK. Every "new" gun is a "Tactitech Eaglefire XK-34-1050-Superbadger Ultradog", and at the end its just another AR-15 with some sharp bits added to it.

Older firearms where way cooler an they don't make them like that anymore.

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