Good Stuff about Technology and the Internet

[Drago]

CDs are underrated. They give you a reasonably good quality backup of the music tracks, and can be played even when your internet access isn't working. This is why I still buy any new music on CDs, rather than paying for a Spotify account or something similar. I'm a software engineer, so am familiar with a lot of new technologies, so nothing surprises me there. But CDs are still sold in stores because people still think they're worth buying.

Plus they're 1440bps. No commercial codec comes close for faithful reproduction.

 

[Drago]

I buy the CDs, but most of my listening is streamed from Amazon music, via Alexa, through Bluetooth to amplified speakers built into the ceiling.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I'm still amazed that you can get a 512GB on an SD card, for a little over £100.

 

[Drago]

Software defined radio. Its turned ham radio on its head, and has rendered all but the most robust comms encryption (usually only governments) null and void.

All these folk that switched to digital radio for the supposed 'privacy' are getting a shock. Not only is it easy to crack, but the equipment needed in addition to a PC, tablet, Raspberry Pi or mobile phone can be bought for under a tenner, so in terms of ease and cost they're less secure than ever.

For a big eared nosey Parker radio enthusiast like me this is awesome.

Also acquisition and decryption of radio data is a snap - pagers, dispatch systems, location data on hospital pagers, taxis, even aircraft, is now easily and cheaply accessible to nosey parkers with the inclination.

'Sniffing' of everything from car security systems to internet connected lightbulbs is also sooooo easy.

Good times!

 

[swee'pea99]

I don't know if it's 'good' as such, but I found myself reading up about hard drives t'other night, and came across:

"In modern drives, the small size of the magnetic regions creates the danger that their magnetic state might be lost because of thermal effects, thermally induced magnetic instability which is commonly known as the "superparamagnetic limit". To counter this, the platters are coated with two parallel magnetic layers, separated by a 3-atom layer of the non-magnetic element ruthenium, and the two layers are magnetized in opposite orientation, thus reinforcing each other."

A 3-atom layer?

 

[KneesUp]

As someone who was introduced to computers as a kid with Sinclair and BBC Micro and then to basic internet in my twenties, what stuff amazes you. My kids aren't phased by any of it as tech was advanced.

PS they both think Space Invaders is hard.

Whenever I get a new laptop am I slightly in awe of it's potential, perhaps as a result of spent a long time using a BBC computer as a kid. You can do so much with a laptop - you could write a novel, start a business, plan a world trip, find out about basically anything there is to know. Or, you know, just post on cyclechat.

 

[Rezillo]

I can remember my family being the only one in the street to own a TV (small, unreliable, 405 lines, B&W, and 2 channels (BBC/ITV) which were only broadcast a few hours a day!).
.

I like the way that in period films, TVs (or TV sets, as they were) have a picture the moment they are switched on and a b&w picture of a quality that no TV possessed then. No two minute wait, no fine tuning and no wrestling with the horizontal and vertical hold to stop the picture rolling and distorting either.

I can also remember a programme in the late 60s or early 70s that demonstrated a prototype remote control for a TV. Our family thought this was both ridiculous and funny - who could possibly be so lazy as to not get up and walk to the set to change channels?

My vote, therefore is related to this. 1970s home catalogues and store brochures had in their TV sections, pictures of colour TVs that had pin sharp photos of racing yachts, trooping of the colour etc., superimposed on the screens. These were nothing like the actual blurry images they could display; everyone knew this but they had to put something on the screens, I suppose. Today, TVs finallly have a picture quality that, given the right source, can match the claims of the 1970s advertisers!

 

[KneesUp]

I like the way that in period films, TVs (or TV sets, as they were) have a picture the moment they are switched on and a b&w picture of a quality that no TV possessed then. No two minute wait,

We bought a new 'smart TV' last Christmas but it's too smart. The older TV just came on and boosh, you were straight into deciding what you were least disinclined to watch, but the new one evidently has an operating system it has to load, so it's fine if you want the same input as last time you used it, but if you want to swap you have to leave it for a few minutes before the menu responds.

 

[Rezillo]

We bought a new 'smart TV' last Christmas but it's too smart. The older TV just came on and boosh, you were straight into deciding what you were least disinclined to watch, but the new one evidently has an operating system it has to load, so it's fine if you want the same input as last time you used it, but if you want to swap you have to leave it for a few minutes before the menu responds.

I know what you mean. We have a Sony TV in the kitchen that gives a picture in seconds but you can't change channels for nearly a minute. By that time, you have already jabbed a series of numbers into the remote that then tune to Radio Newton Poppleford.

 

[Rezillo]

[QUOTE 4894815, member: 259"]...and I mainly watch dodgy low-res seventies TV series on ITV3 on mine![/QUOTE]

Live international sports programmes were incredibly blurry. Some football matches you could barely work out what was going on and if it cut to a cheering crowd, you assumed someone had scored. No-one complained because the whole process of satellite transmission seemed miraculous in itself.

Then for sport generally, there was "action replay" in which you could see a repeat of key action only slower, much, much blurrier and smeared with white streaks.

 

[Drago]

I can remember my Dad watching the snooker in black and white.

 

[KneesUp]

[QUOTE 4894897, member: 9609"]my all singing all dancing lap top is just a piece of utter crap that probably spends 99% of its time updating itself - thankyou HP[/QUOTE]
I have an HP too. You might like this link.

http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/

 

[alicat]

I miss technology you could fix with a hammer.

Nothing to stop you fixing your Citroen with a hammer, just don't expect to be able to drive it afterwards.

 

[swee'pea99]

Live international sports programmes were incredibly blurry.

Mate was raving recently about a new dodgy feed he'd found to watch the cricket: "You can see the ball & everything!"

 

[Kestevan]

Nothing to stop you fixing your Citroen with a hammer, just don't expect to be able to drive it afterwards.

Trust me, the temptation to take a hammer to the blessed thing has been almost unbearable on more than 1 occasion.

It's a shame really, as it's a lovely practical, comfortable car. The only real fault with is it was built out of recycled egg boxes, by itinerant French peasants. The "electronics" were developed by a half blind hermit, following a water damaged schematic badly translated from the original Mandarin. Oh, and for some reason the gearbox (electronic, computer controlled bollox natch) doesn't like it when it rains, or when you go uphill.... which living in Holmfirth, where both states are not exactly rare means it's permanently on the blink.