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submitted 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) by VinesNFluff@pawb.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.

If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.

That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.

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[-] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 hours ago

Sex toys and local multiplayer is a way better combination than cybersex and online matchmaking

[-] Sabata11792@ani.social 3 points 9 hours ago

cybersex and online matchmaking

For when your team literally gets fucked.

[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 2 points 9 hours ago

I generally can't be arsed with online multiplayer -- Just as a concept.

But I made great memories with my cousins playing Wii/GameCube local multiplayer titles. Smash, Mario Kart, Sonic Adventure 2, et cetera.

[-] psycotica0@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 hours ago

I have never played a game with random strangers ever. But! My brother and sister both live hours away from me (and each other), and we keep in touch by playing online co-op games every week.

I have a group of friends that I have mostly kept in touch with by playing online games too.

So I agree with what I think you meant, but I'm very glad online multiplayer exists in some form.

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[-] myopic_menace@reddthat.com 69 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

In the near to mid future, I think an answer to this question are Internal Combustion Engines. I love electric vehicles and look forward to the tech improving. But the sheer coolness factor of moving a large machine through perfectly timed and calibrated explosions is tough to beat.

[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 19 points 13 hours ago

I fucking hate cars, including electric ones... And I still agree. Combustion engines are cool as hell.

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[-] fossphi@lemm.ee 12 points 13 hours ago

Suck, squeeze, bang, blow

[-] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 7 points 12 hours ago

Drag disagrees. If you want transportation with fire, ride a dragon. No need to pollute the earth. The emissions make it uncool, just like the ridiculous Mad Max cars.

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[-] waz@lemmy.world 12 points 15 hours ago

As a subset of this, the fact that carburators worked as well as they did, until we had the technology to invent the simpler fuel injector, I think is pretty cool.

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[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 127 points 19 hours ago

Pneumatic tubes were way, way cooler than email.

Of course, you could only use them to send a message to someone in the same office building, so the comparison isn’t perfect… but you know what I mean.

[-] SGforce@lemmy.ca 25 points 17 hours ago

Some downtown big cities had the buildings interconnected.

[-] thehatfox@lemmy.world 22 points 14 hours ago

Prague had a large pneumatic post system which operated for 100+ years.

Prague pneumatic post.

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[-] Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca 39 points 19 hours ago

I'm not crazy old, but I'm old enough that the supermarket I went to as a kid had these at all the checkout aisles and the cashiers would use them to send cheques/reciepts/ whatever.

It was awesome to see.

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[-] Oaksey@lemmy.world 7 points 11 hours ago

BlackBerry (RIM)

[-] superkret@feddit.org 44 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Bicycle shifters.

The first iteration that could be operated without stopping was the Campagnolo Cambio Corsa.
To shift, you had to reach behind you, where there were 2 levers.

The first one loosened the rear axle so it could move freely back and forth in the dropouts.
The second one had an eyelet you could use to move the chain sideways.
You put the chain on a different cog, and the rear wheel jumped forward or back due to the changed chain length.
Then you tightened the rear axle again.

It's terrifyingly beautiful:

[-] ace_garp@lemmy.world 9 points 11 hours ago
[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 9 points 12 hours ago
[-] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 31 points 16 hours ago

To make sure I understand, you reached back and grabbed those levers while pedaling and riding the bike?

How many people lost fingers by sticking them into the spokes, I wonder?

[-] superkret@feddit.org 17 points 15 hours ago
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[-] CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago

Most weapons. Bows and swords are cooler than guns and knives. Trebuchets and catapults are cooler than any form of modern artillery.

Modern warfare, when it becomes necessary, should be fought purely with weapons designed prior to the 16th century. Just replace horses with dirtbikes and ATVs.

[-] LouNeko@lemmy.world 7 points 11 hours ago

I disagree, firearms are way cooler than bows or swords. Sure, swords are cool but there's only so many ways you can make a pointy sharp metal stick, or put a string on a piece of wood. But firearms in the early 1900s where absolutely wild when it comes to internal mechanics. Same thing goes for siege weapons and artillery, a trebuchet, catapult or ballista are cool at a medieval exhibit, but they ain't a Schwerer Gustav railway canon.

But this is a statement on its own. Now every gas operated gun is either a AR-15 or AK. Every "new" gun is a "Tactitech Eaglefire XK-34-1050-Superbadger Ultradog", and at the end its just another AR-15 with some sharp bits added to it.

Older firearms where way cooler an they don't make them like that anymore.

[-] TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

When you break it down, yeeting a small piece of metal, accurately, up to a mile, through the use of handheld controlled explosions, is way cooler than just yeeting a pointy stick with another stick and a string. So, I am inclined to agree with you.

From an engineering standpoint, firearms are so much more fascinating.

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[-] PyroNeurosis 1 points 7 hours ago

While yeah, AR and AK patterns are everywhere, there're still neat things to find. The Kriss Vector has their innovative approach to recoil control, the Boberg pistol reverses the usual way rounds are stripped drom the mag.

The magic is still out there, but it never was nor will it ever be common.

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[-] weeeeum@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

Guns are pretty neat once you start to understand the engineering and extremely precise tolerances that go into them.

[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 4 points 11 hours ago

Dune style personal shields can't be invented soon enough.

Then knife fighting will make a big comeback.

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[-] bruhbeans@lemmy.ml 73 points 18 hours ago

Steam locomotives. The crazy streamlining, the size of some of those motherfuckers. 6 foot tall wheels, 100 tons moving at 125mph and all that shit accomplished 80+ years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4468_Mallard

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[-] QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 79 points 19 hours ago

Disney lost their old camera tech used to make a "yellow screen" with sodium vapor lights.

It's actually better than a green screen because the yellow light is so specific that even if you remove that particular frequency of light, everything else still looks fine. You can do all sorts of things that would normally be very difficult to pull off with any of our green screen tech (like drinking water in a clear bottle or wearing a rainbow dress).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQuIVsNzqDk

[-] brygphilomena@lemmy.world 6 points 12 hours ago

Considering LEDs are so good at producing a very tight wavelength, I wonder if this could be replicated with more energy efficient lamps.

Or if non visible spectrum lights can be used to make similar alpha channel masks that don't affect lighting the scene.

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[-] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 22 points 16 hours ago
[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 12 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Computers making Fennec Fox noises at each other over the telephone line. And that connected you to the world.

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[-] Pyflixia@kbin.melroy.org 67 points 20 hours ago

Cell phones, when they had personality. The 2000s was such a good time for them, you had so many designs. Slide out keyboard, panels that can slide, sleek designs, some had actual buttons .etc

But we're now relegated to just a varying series of rectangles and squares. Yay...

[-] Hexarei@programming.dev 2 points 8 hours ago

Mine folds in half, so that's kinda cool

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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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