Wired headphones
measles…
xmpp
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Handtools in woodworking. There are some people who refuse use a tool without a cord.
Darcs VCS
Apparently trains for some people
Tape drives. Remember those big reels of tape on mainframes in the 80s? They don’t look exactly like that anymore, but tape is still used for backups/long term archival because they offer the lowest cost per gigabyte and decent longevity without needing to be powered, as long as you don’t need to access the data all that fast or often.
Those dank memes and cat videos you posted in 2010 are probably on tape in a data centre somewhere
Tape is rad for long term storage
Tape itself is cheap, but buying the other equipment for it costs a fortune.
Trackballs
You might think of them as this old mouse that you had 20 years ago, but actually the technology is still being used for all kinds of things, including ergonomic mouse
I can actually game with one, and I’ve outright worn out 3. They last longer than traditional mice too.
Guillotines
Pretty much anything in a machine shop made in the last 80 years or so. So many people turn up their noses at anything that isn’t computer controlled anymore. Yknow what a big old mill can do that a CNC can’t? It can make every single part needed to make a new mill. It’s a self replicating machine with the right know how. People don’t respect that kind of quality anymore.
Can a CNC not do that for just the mechanical parts?
(I know way too much about bootstrapping semiconductor production at small scale, which seems to be viable but highly impractical)
Yes, they make massive CNCs.
Ota analog signals.
Fax machines. Government and medical offices would grind to a halt without them. That’s just reality.
Came to say this. Fax just refuses to die.
That’s basically the answer to the opposite question: what is something that someone thinks isn’t obsolete, but really is?
Because it can do something that the alternatives can’t do or because they refuse to use something more modern?
“It can’t be hacked”
Of course, it can, and a lot more easily than a TLS stream, but try convincing them of that. So, more like they refuse to use something more modern.
Everyone even tangentially related to healthcare is terrified of violating HIPAA in a way that leaves evidence that can be traced back to them. So the corps force dumb shit like this, while the employees are perfectly happy to tell all kinds of private health information to anyone who will listen. Especially if it’s funny or gross.
Because it works. Every part needed to run those machines, even line of code, every possible cause of failure is well documented and there are layers and layers of redundant protocol to ensure that if something does go wrong downtime is minimal.
The entire purpose of these machines are designed to run for as long as they’re needed. They’re not replaced or upgraded because they were never meant to be. A lot of effort went into this being the case.
Even worse, the US military, at least, is still using teletype machines and COBOL.
IRC
I want to throw a shout out to the site that cloned the old Google reader by making theoldreader.com
Thanks for this, I was so disappointed when Google cancelled Reader.
Printing out tickets as a backup. I do this for concerts and travel because then I don’t have to worry about batteries dying, wifi/roaming not being available, getting logged out and having trouble getting back to the ticket, etc.
I also print out maps when doing wilderness backpacks because even if you download the map you’ll burn through your battery life well before the hike is over but a paper map is just as good. If I really need to confirm my location I can occasionally turn on the app and shut it off. I keep the maps in a gallon ziplock so water isn’t an issue.
Ticketmaster is doing their very best to make paper tickets unusable with refreshing barcodes. Funny thing is that “anti-theft” feature is needed because of their own systemic failures. I do like tickets that are just sent to my email or similar (e.g. as an attachment that I can save to my phone) though, it’s better than wasting paper when I know my phone won’t fail me.
