Man I love being forced into technology that isn't better than the old thing and solves no problem (rather creating new ones) for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses because everyone was told this is the cool new thing so eat up piggies or FOMO.

Call me old (I'm not), call me a Luddite (I'm not), I don't care. You're wrong.

Sometimes new things being pushed by the market aren't the next leap in technology. Sometimes they are shit or pointless and should be abandoned, like 3D TVs. NEW DOESN'T ALWAYS EQUAL PROGRESS.

I feel the same about AI or touch screens being bundled into everything. Instead of the products they infect becoming better, they simply waste processing power that could have make the product perform better at the job it was originally designed to do.

A good example of this is when I once house sitted for a wealthy person. Their stovetop was all touch controlled. You want to know what doesn't work well with touch controls? Heat and water. What do kitchens and cooking on stove tops involve a lot of? FUCKING HEAT AND WATER.

So here I am cooking, shit, waters coming to boil. Shit, a tiny droplet of boiling landed on the touch controls and it thinks it's a finger. Shit, it thinks the finger is turning the temperature to max. Shit, it's not responding to my actual finger now until I wipe the water off. Shit, the pasta is now starting to overcook. I could just turn the element off, but shit, the off button is also touch operated. I how have remove the pot off the element. Wipe the control. Wait for it to cool. Hold my finger on the touch controls to readjust it to how I want. And turn this fucking thing off. It's all so slow. Why do this when a physical dial is so much cheaper and gives you instant control over the temperature with none of these problems?

Fuck it. Roast me for complaining about this. You know I'm right.

The annoying thing is there is a lot of cool things we could be developing, I actually like the progress of technology when it's done right. But the problem is it's all being developed with impressing the market in mind, not for actually making things better.

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[–] Super_Lumalo@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago

I also had this fascination, but recently it died down and I can't for the love of me start it back up again. When my wings got clipped the only thing that really keeps me going in all of this is hate.

I'm planning to study either applied physics or electrical engineering and for the latter it's about learning the trade so I can grapple these things better or fix/make my own stuff if need be.

But I also like science more broadly and physics was my best subject, so it's very hard for me to choose. Do you perhaps have some advice?

You don't need professional education to be able to fix your own stuff, will it help? Of course, at least I think so. But remember that you can do anything, with enough time and patience. Myself I also have a fascination with the mechanical, partly because of the "hate" I have towards computers. I would kill to own a Comptometer, but those are nonexistent in Poland. At the same time, this "hatred" sparked love for paper and the physical, nothing beats the feeling of writing with a fountain pen and paper for me. No tablet can surpass this. However regarding what you should choose? I have no clue, just don't think of your career as your whole life. Have hobbies you don't monetize, just for your own self fulfillment, for me it's tinkering with anything mechanical.