I miss physically owning software, movies, and music, not having to pay a subscription for car features like heated seats or more horsepower. I miss getting a complete game that was usually mostly glitch free on day one you got it on CD/DVD.
Socializing.
No social media to distract people. Nobody staring a phones. Nobody recording themselves for streaming.
You memorized phone numbers or wrote them down. You called or got called to meet up at some place and everyone went from there.
True
I prefer how Nazis were dealt with in the past
Photography. Film was so advanced, having a layer for each major colour, every film stock has a different feeling. The only downside was cost, but you only took a picture when you were sure it is a good picture. Now we have tons of digital garbage because we take 100 pictures at once.
I feel the opposite. Film sucked so bad. I love pointing my phone at things and shooting a hundred shots and finding something good there or not finding anything and continueing with my day. Old photography was a pointless torture.
I’m a big fan of manual machining over CNC.
I liked connecting to irc servers and setting up a znc bouncer (also an on ramp into self hosting!) way better than anything matrix and discord do.
We had mumble for voice chat and that was perfectly serviceable.
In the 90s, I felt like I knew so much about computers, both the hardware and the software, but I’ve definitely fallen off from all the improvements in the past 20 years, and I’m so Goddamn lost now. I miss those simpler times when it was more about the physical aspects of a PC and less about the technical aspects.
What do you feel like you’re out of the loop on?
Just pop in a magnetic screwdriver bit holder and you have strong power and perfect control.
It countersinks with ease but without the risk of screwing too deep like its electric counterpart all too easily does.
Japan mostly skipped PCs (outside of offices). Since their phones were ahead of the curve, a lot of stuff was designed for them. That means that a bunch of stuff is either exclusively done through some shitty mobile app, fax, or in person. There was a brief phase where PC versions did exist, but those are almost all being neglected or decommissioned now. I much prefer to do things on a PC with a nice, clear, big screen, especially if I need to use some translation tool since the text tends to expand (learning thousands of kanji for stuff like legal and taxes is hard).
I do miss physically owning media. A lot of physical media still decays, though, so not a panacea.
Software programs that were much more tested and completed before release.
Software development where we think things through, define requirements, define states, etc. before any code is committed. I do think PoCs are fine to throw something against a wall but, if it works, the proper version should go through those design phases before anyone writes a line of code. Cheap components and fast machines and networks have made people lazy which makes software worse in a number of ways quite often. No vibecoding. No AI/LLM shoved into everything. I think they can have uses in certain contexts (rephrasing questions, generating examples/docs in projects with bad/no docs, etc.), but hate how they are being shoved into everything.
An internet not run by corporations. I think a lot of people do see it through rose-tinted glasses (we still had trolls on BBS, UseNet, IRC, etc. and other bad actors), but a lot of things were much better.
Third spaces. Places where people of different backgrounds would interact in some common way. Sure, some were echo chambers just like online communities today, but many were not and let people interact together rather than just being othered to the point of fear and reviling.
I much prefer AD&D 2.5 rules to anything around today (and TSR still existing, but that ship has sailed).
I do miss physically owning media. A lot of physical media still decays, though, so not a panacea.
I prefer digital media that is locally stored. Many complaints I see about digital media revolves around DRM or a service’s ability to remove media that you think you “own”.
I think locally stored media solves that without taking us back to the days of a shelf of hundreds of DVDs.
I do own some physical media like certain very old PC games but only because there is no good digital option available that’s more convenient.
What is the point of tubeless tyres on bicycles ?
They’re rock hard to put on, then you have to add sealant otherwise they leak.
Because of the beading and the sealant they are much heavier, and rotational weight is the worst sort of weight.
People say they don’t get punctures, but that’s because of reinforcing, you can get tube tyres with reinforcing so what is the benefit ?
Not having a tube allows the tire to flex more so it’s more compliant. It’s not that you’ll avoid punctures, but that they often seal themselves. Tubeless definitely isn’t necessary and probably isn’t super beneficial for most people but there are definite advantages for some uses.
Modern tabletop miniature painting is dominated by contrast paints and airbrushes. This is especially true of small time commission painters.
I personally only use my airbrush for priming, and only use contrast paints for intensely limited purposes like glazing. For the vast majority of my painting I use methods taught in the 80s and 90s.
I personally like the results, and I like to think my methods give my pieces a “voice” that helps me stand out from other local commission painters which deliver interchangeable looking results.
I don’t dislike airbrushes (which I know were used by certain niche painters back in the day, but weren’t in common use generally) or contrast paints. I know some people take the time to get good results with them, however I think the majority of people applying them do it in a sloppy manner and the effort it would take to prep or clean up the results to a standard I would accept seems like more work than just doing it traditionally.
I got into painting minis back in the day but didn’t stick with it. I miss it a lot though.
What types of paints and methods are you reminiscing about? I’m not knowledgeable enough to even know what you’re saying you prefer, or how it’s different from the off the shelf stuff, even assuming that what’s on the shelf today is the same as it was 20 years ago when I painted.
I skimmed your post history and saw a couple OC minis you painted, they look great, but what’s different about them? I don’t have a trained eye so forgive me I’m not trying to be rude.
And uh, ignore the Aliens minis and GCPD. Those were self admittedly a rush job.
Here’s some better examples of what techniques I try to apply look like.
Contrast paints are a new formulation that’s gotten popular in the market. They are like a glaze with wash properties. The idea is that you can simply paint them over a white priming and you’re done, all the shading is done for you.
I find the average results I see in real life to be underwhelming. The colors can often be patchy especially if applied to large flat surfaces like for example Space Marine armor. What is more is that contrast paints only contain one shade of pigment and the darker or lighter portions on the model just relate to pigment concentration. I prefer to shade and highlight by adding different colors to the base paint. I find that it offers more control and greater range over the colors. The control relates also to how highlights are placed. Many people either skip them entirely by relying on contrast paint, or they copy the modern GW Box Art style which highlights pretty much every single hard edge rather than trying to give the impression of a light source. I like to give the impression of a light source.
For traditional touches, blacklining is a practice of tracing a thinned black or near black paint on the borders of different objects of the mini to help give them definition. This can be especially important when painting in bright and saturated color schemes to keep them from assaulting the eyes with too much brightness.
I underpaint, which is related to mixing for shading but means to paint certain areas a particular color in preparation for another color to support it. For example Caucasian skin is usually a red-brown or purple before the first actual flesh tones go on.
Sometimes it’s just things I consider absolutely basic like basing a mini at all in any way. All I my minis are based with texture in some way (any you see in my history that don’t have basing texture were specifically requested such by other people) and have at least basic drybrushing or flock. A lot of people just paint the bases now, or simply just leave them bare.
I also like putting segmented colors, camo patterns, or other simple freehanding on minis. This draws a lot of attention in real life as many people are so used to just contrast painting that they never learn fine control and as such never even attempt freehand.
I do have a few paper copies of older painting books I reference along with various PDF scans. All the the exact paint recommendations are out of date, but the general concepts are still valid.
I partially blame army bloat and the FOMO treadmill in Warhammer 40k for creating unmanageably large armies that cause people to treat the painting as a chore to be finished with rather than something to enjoy and get better at.
mail ! I mean, email is great, but mail is fantastic. It doesn’t make a bunch of sense in this isntantaneous world of ours, but if you just slow down a little, and write letters, and WAIT for a reply, you find yourself more attuned to your own pace, if that makes any sense
I learned about postcrossing (.com?) off Lemmy - you might want to take a look!
Okay yes, but only if it could implement the ‘unsubscribe’ feature from email.
I want back my Dumb TVs!! I dont want everything to be connected!
I want a phone where I am able to reach the top and the bottom of the screen without shifting my grip. Also being able to comfortably store in a pocket would be nice
Pixel 10 Pro or Galaxy S25 both fit that bill
Those are both big phones. they do not
The S25 Plus/Ultra, and the Pixel 10 and 10 Pro XL are. The S25 and Pixel 10 Pro are small phones that can easily be used with one hand.
I would disagree. I have the pixel 4a5g which is pretty much the same size as the pixel 10, and in a normal grip there’s like an inch above and a centimetre below my thumb
Also I’m not even in the market for buying a new phone, I’m going to wait until this phone is dead before I buy one.
Yes! Make smaller phones! Why do they all have to be getting bigger and bigger?
I like the bigger phones (at least however big a pixel 6 is – that seems about a perfect balance to me). Good to view web pages and videos as well as to use as the nav for my motorbike and still fits in the pocket. I find the smaller phones just too cramped.
I think we all know the answer to that one.
i’m actually this close to just going back to a dumb phone.
Buy one
I love a manual shift car, feels so much better to drive than automatic. Make bread from just flour, water, and salt, sourdough is an older method than dry yeast but it works better for me.
I also love radio, literal airwaves, works when the wifi goes down, battery radios can work during emergencies but also I just love the tech it is so old and so cool. And getting music curated by humans (we have a local community station) is great.
Community radio is so good. I just discovered it earlier this year but it is truly a breath of fresh air from the repetitive top charts being played on most public radio.
