Random Fun - Useless Trends and Features in Technology

[PineyCreek]

I figured it may be fun to make a general thread regarding all the useless features or trends in technology.  Not necessarily bad things, just items that you think are useless for most purposes in your opinion.

 

I'll start.

 

Progress bars/percentage indicators.  They're never accurate.  The rotating beach ball or progress 'circle' indicator is just as good.  Since you can't depend on a progress indicator to give accurate information, the only thing you really need is something to watch so you can be sure the computer or application hasn't frozen.  Example: Windows 10 update percentage after a reboot.  Sometimes you need multiple reboots, other times it will show 0%, then 35% about a second later, then 100% about 2 seconds after that, then sit at 100% for another 3 minutes.

[Firewrath9]

lol when installing something its stuck at 99% for 15-20min,

 

Wifi/Router speeds. Says up to 1300 Megabits! woah thats faster than ethernet

irl its more like 13 megabits

[Fasauceome]

Umm RGB much?

[mxk]

3 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Umm RGB much?

agreed. I love some light rgb, and I'll take it if something comes with it, but there it's over saturating the market and its pretty overpriced too.

[ATFink]

The notch on basically all new smart phones.

 

Bezels with approximately rectangular screen > Cutout in the middle of the display

 

EDIT:

I literally NEVER use the front facing camera anyways. I wish I could get rid of it completely and replace it with a higher quality front facing speaker.

Edited December 1, 2018 by ATFink

[corrado33]

22 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

I figured it may be fun to make a general thread regarding all the useless features or trends in technology.  Not necessarily bad things, just items that you think are useless for most purposes in your opinion.

 

I'll start.

 

Progress bars/percentage indicators.  

I extremely disagree. Progress bars may not be accurate, but they DO indicate that the process is progressing and hasn't frozen. The beach ball doesn't do that. (However the way windows installer does it with the repeating "..." is fine. Not quite a progress bar, but it serves the same purpose.)

[PineyCreek]

3 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

I extremely disagree. Progress bars may not be accurate, but they DO indicate that the process is progressing and hasn't frozen. The beach ball doesn't do that. (However the way windows installer does it with the repeating "..." is fine. Not quite a progress bar, but it serves the same purpose.)

Not really sure what you're complaining about...you didn't quote this part, but two sentences after that last part of my original post that you actually quoted, I said: " Since you can't depend on a progress indicator to give accurate information, the only thing you really need is something to watch so you can be sure the computer or application hasn't frozen."

 

That aside, I'm not saying you don't have a right to disagree...this IS an opinion thread.

[corrado33]

4 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

Not really sure what you're complaining about...you didn't quote this part, but two sentences after that last part of my original post that you actually quoted, I said: " Since you can't depend on a progress indicator to give accurate information, the only thing you really need is something to watch so you can be sure the computer or application hasn't frozen."

 

That aside, I'm not saying you don't have a right to disagree...this IS an opinion thread.

You're right, I didn't read the whole thing.   But honestly I do appreciate a indicator of progress, whether it's a bar or a %. Having a "progress indicator" that does not increment doesn't tell you much about what's going on. 

[PineyCreek]

1 minute ago, corrado33 said:

You're right, I didn't read the whole thing.   But honestly I do appreciate a indicator of progress, whether it's a bar or a %. Having a "progress indicator" that does not increment doesn't tell you much about what's going on. 

Well, yeah.  I wholeheartedly agree.  I'm just railing against the fact that I've never seen a progress bar or percentage that's ever actually accurate.

[aezakmi]

shit VRM cooling that is only there because it "looks cool"

 

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like

[FloRolf]

Because I'm currently in the process of building a NAS, I find the trend of removing HDD cages from cases extremely annoying, lol. 

There's only a small amount of affordable cases out there rn that fit 8 or even more drives. 

At least make it an option, manufacturers. 

[ATFink]

1 minute ago, aezakmi said:

shit VRM cooling that is only there because it "looks cool"

 

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like

IF it is passively cooled.

 

THIS is what peak performance looks like (without liquid/exotic methods):

(It's actively cooled... yes, I agree pins would work better than plates from a surface area point of view, but heat pipes can't easily be integrated in a pinned cooler)

[corrado33]

2 minutes ago, ATFink said:

IF it is passively cooled.

 

THIS is what peak performance looks like (without liquid/exotic methods):

-snip-

(It's actively cooled... yes, I agree pins would work better than plates from a surface area point of view, but heat pipes can't easily be integrated in a pinned cooler)

Geeze that board (775?) looks like an absolute nightmare to get a CPU tower cooler to fit on. 

 

I'd argue that most VRMs ARE passively cooled now-a-day. 

[ATFink]

7 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Geeze that board (775?) looks like an absolute nightmare to get a CPU tower cooler to fit on. 

 

I'd argue that most VRMs ARE passively cooled now-a-day. 

I agree, my point was passive vs active cooling. That image was just one of the first things that popped up in a Google search.

 

Yes, most VRMs are passively cooled, but that doesn't make passive cooling capability superior to active cooling capability. Passive is just superior in other ways (cheaper, quieter, less stuff that can break, more inconspicuous, etc.)

[corrado33]

4 minutes ago, ATFink said:

I agree, my point was passive vs active cooling. That image was just one of the first things that popped up in a Google search.

 

Yes, most VRMs are passively cooled, but that doesn't make passive cooling capability superior to active cooling capability. Passive is just superior in other ways (cheaper, quieter, less stuff that can break, more inconspicuous, etc.)

Interestingly, my mobo came with a tiny little fan (like 40 mm) that you slot into the back near the ports (and under the plastic shroud that is all too common now-a-day) and is supposed to cool the VRMs

 

EDIT for pic.

 

[aezakmi]

28 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Interestingly, my mobo came with a tiny little fan (like 40 mm) that you slot into the back near the ports (and under the plastic shroud that is all too common now-a-day) and is supposed to cool the VRMs

 

EDIT for pic.

 

Absolutely hideous. The tiny amount of air pushed by that fan is instantly sucked by the rear or top exhaust fan so is one of the most useless things you could put on a board, not to mention the chunk of plastic, really fits the topic tho.

[corrado33]

1 minute ago, aezakmi said:

Absolutely hideous. The tiny amount of air pushed by that fan is instantly sucked by the rear or top exhaust fan so is one of the most useless things you could put on a board, not to mention the chunk of plastic, really fits the topic tho.

I couldn't tell you, I never actually installed it. But yes, the plastic shrouds are stupid. 

[Soppro]

People covering their webcams, especially on laptops ... I fail to see its effectiveness at all, especially when literally everyone also carries a camera around in their pockets all day. I don't even know what kind of information people want to gain from accessing my webcam. Heck, they're better off accessing the files on my computer than my webcam. I think there's very few people trying to hack into people's webcams and so there's little reason to cover it up. People's paranoia is better off somewhere else. 

[corrado33]

27 minutes ago, Soppro said:

People covering their webcams, especially on laptops ... I fail to see its effectiveness at all, especially when literally everyone also carries a camera around in their pockets all day. I don't even know what kind of information people want to gain from accessing my webcam. Heck, they're better off accessing the files on my computer than my webcam. I think there's very few people trying to hack into people's webcams and so there's little reason to cover it up. People's paranoia is better off somewhere else. 

This is a hilarious one. Every time I see something like this I say "Wow that person is an idiot." 

 

Even IF, and that's a huge fucking IF, someone could activate your webcam, what would they see? You sitting there blankly for hours at a time? Maybe if they waited for 12 hours or more they'd see you get changed or jack off? Who cares? There's much easier ways to look at porn. Hell, there is an entire porn subgenre dedicated to stuff exactly like that. 

[corrado33]

As for my contribution.

 

THINNER AND LIGHTER

 

Fuck thinner and lighter things. Give me a reasonably sturdy ass laptop/phone that has awesome battery life and performance because you could fill the remainder of the space with batteries and GPUs/cooling. Not full on gaming laptop, but I definitely hate the trend of extremely thin phones/laptops.  

[mariushm]

4 hours ago, Firewrath9 said:

 

Wifi/Router speeds. Says up to 1300 Megabits! woah thats faster than ethernet

irl its more like 13 megabits

a bit off topic but ... irl it really depends on what wireless network card you have. If you cheap out on your card, or your hardware is limited... your fault really. 

 

[Phentos]

1 hour ago, Soppro said:

People covering their webcams, especially on laptops ... I fail to see its effectiveness at all, especially when literally everyone also carries a camera around in their pockets all day. I don't even know what kind of information people want to gain from accessing my webcam. Heck, they're better off accessing the files on my computer than my webcam. I think there's very few people trying to hack into people's webcams and so there's little reason to cover it up. People's paranoia is better off somewhere else. 

This x10000000.

 

People buy sleek looking laptops or Macbooks then stick a big strip of duct tape or masking tape over their webcam. Why? It's like you said, paranoia clouding their judgment.

 

Something related is something a friend of mine told me about their dorm-mate. The guy was sitting in his bed jerking it fiercely to some hentai porn when all of a sudden his webcam light came on. The guy was scared so much he fell off the bed onto the floor, causing him to hit his head on his table, which knocked him out for a bit. He came to only to find out the webcam was still going. Needless to say he covers up his webcam with a thick strip of duct tape with some electrical tape for good measure.

[Amazonsucks]

12 hours ago, Soppro said:

People covering their webcams, especially on laptops ... I fail to see its effectiveness at all, especially when literally everyone also carries a camera around in their pockets all day. I don't even know what kind of information people want to gain from accessing my webcam. Heck, they're better off accessing the files on my computer than my webcam. I think there's very few people trying to hack into people's webcams and so there's little reason to cover it up. People's paranoia is better off somewhere else. 

Even zuckerberg covers his.

 

 

[DataEmo]

• CGNAT without using the 100.64.0.0/10 subnet by A1 Telecom Austria and on the top missing IPv6
• notched displays
• automatic stopping car engines without official way to disable this "feature" permanently
• power saving features of newer phones. Perfect in combination with sip apps to get now disturbed by incoming calls.Still using an old P9 as daily driver because of troubles with my Mate 10
• Windows Update on Windows 10 without WSUS Server
• lossy download only music releases without physical or lossless options.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Most "gaming" branded things. Some companies do put objectively better quality in their gamer oriented stuff. But most of the time, it's just "let's take some 10 year old's idea of a stealth fighter and make that our industrial design" along with some fetish for the color red and an inflated price tag.