Ask Lemmy

Would love to pay a mortgage instead of paying rent

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

Driving manual (stick). I have an automatic now only because the model/trim I wanted doesn’t come any other way but if I could have got it in manual I would have. This car has less personality than my last one because I operate it rather than driving it. I literally have less of a connection with it.

Playing music on a record player. The ritual of removing the record from the sleeve, placing it on the deck, cleaning it, landing the needle. Listening to an album.

Cooking on gas instead of a halogen hob. Sure halogen is great and super easy to clean but gas is visceral and ‘real’. I also like to cook over charcoal or, even better, wood.

Dating. It's hard to manufacture that initial spark in an app.

Using Windows - before onedrive, online integration, new control panel, telemetry. Using the internet - before tracking, bloated sites, paywalls, cookie boxes and ai garbage. Using my car - before telemetry, beep, driver "aid" systems.

This is kind of niche, but I mix concerts for a living and newer consoles and shows are all scene based, every song has a scene, and most of the time every verse and chorus in the song has a sub scene. It is a breath of fresh air to be able to mix with no scenes and have to rely on pure skill and intuition. Those shows tend to have a better feel and be more energetic, albeit less polished. They are also more fun, and a little bit more stressful.

The sensation of physically holding and reading a book made from dead trees.

Yes they take up space, yes I use my phone as an e reader when at sea or travelling. No I will not give up physical books at home.

Ordering at Subway. I used to be involved in the entire process of making my sub. More jalapenos! More olives! Now, I have to punch in my order on a screen, I don't even know when they're making my sub, and if I go up and police their every move, I'm a jerk. Not to mention for whatever fucking inane reason, all Subways in Korea have removed yellow mustard from their menu. The only sauces that remain are sweet or mayo. Fuck!

I don’t like electric can openers. I strongly prefer to just use a manual one. I just see an appliance that has but one use and requires electricity to be tremendous waste.

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 ?

I'm a big fan of manual machining over CNC.

As a software and electrical engineer who has worked in life system critical projects as well as foundational financial systems with strict uptime and performance requirements....

My home is as basic as humanly possible, no automation, manual systems for everything. Anything that must be digital is untrusted, isolated, and has a backup. A cabin in the woods off grid is the only way I feel comfortable

Dating, though i have met my partner online too. Not dating app but a forum.

Data, i LOVE PHYSICAL STUFF. TRY TO TAKE THAT AWAY STREAMING SERVICES!

And politics. Used to actually be honorable and people across the board worked together for the good of their country.

Buying stuff online using a phone or app. I still feel safer and more secure on a desktop browser with uBO.

Anything to do with the internet. I'd go back to 2010 in a heartbeat.

I've never brought a computer/laptop to class in uni except when I needed to do a presentation. I vastly prefer to take notes by hand because I find that I retain info much better. And I'm a massive doodler. I'm pretty pen and paper playing ttrpgs as well.

Physically possessing the music that you bought, having the actual vinyl records (or later, CDs and DVDs of shows). That you don't have to keep renewing subscriptions for to continue being able to listen to (or watch), that you can lend out or pass down to your kids or sell to a used record store, where you can buy the ones someone else sold to them. Those were the days.

I daily drive a clapped out 80s sports car with no AC and a broken radio. The true connection you can feel to a classically engineered machine when there's zero distraction or convenience is hard to describe. You learn every noise, every smell, every quirk of handling and weight transfer, gain intuition about how the chassis will react to every abnormality in the road surface, have the shifter and clutch become subconscious muscle memory where you don't even realize you're doing it, etc. There's a variety of reasons the average person should drive a newer car but I personally love an old hooptie.

coffee. specifically, preparation of the drink. simple mechanical devices for grinding the coffee beans by hand, boiling a kettle of water and pouring over the grounds, or preparing in a press, or a moka, or a turkish coffee pot thing. This new keurig pod / nespresso bullshit sucks.

I want mobile phones with actual keyboards back. I hate touch screen keyboards with the passion of a thousand suns and I swear they're getting worse.

The only commercial technological advancement from the last ~30 years I think I would miss if it were all to revert to how it was before then would be GPS navigation. I don’t like the prevalence of technology in classrooms, dating, shopping, and vehicles today.

I would have liked discovering music, film, and events by word of mouth or just playing a tape I borrowed/rented even though a lot of people would probably defend the convenience of having it all readily available today.

• I prefer to operate the clutch and shifting on my truck myself.
• I'll rather do manual labor than any work that involves sitting on a computer.
• I'm chronically online but without a smartphone addiction.
• I prefer long-form media.