I dislike the homogenisation of content, as computing has become mainstream. That is, the very fact of mainstream trends (the most extreme of which society now labels "viral") themselves now having a greater hold upon the world of computing in general, a world which was formerly an imaginary sanctum of greater nerds.

I have another disliked trend, tangential to that. And correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm not the most up-to-date about the personalities of the modern computing scene. But here it is : the end of the holy-crap-how-did-he-do-that, nerd's-nerd, super-programmer (i.e. The Carmack). The need for one such has been downgraded by the modern reality of rote teams of identical programming-degree clones churning out "saleable content" <shudder>.

[but then, in my ideal world, the really kickass programmers would be celebrated like music and movie stars are, if not moreso - the stuff they do is so much more worthy of role-modelling than prancing around in front of cameras and microphones]

I'm not here to say if these things are good or bad for the world, but they are things I nostalgically miss and consider to have changed in flavour from what they were.

Oh, and I really hate the trend of Sega struggling as a business for the past umpteen years despite having a widespread and glorious legacy of creations, but that's an entire topic of it's own...

Cyberdyne wrote on 2020-12-17, 13:25:

Laws have to change, that software and games will become public domain earlier.

Am I the only one who suspect that the hidden purpose of copyright law is to implement forced obsolescence, to prevent competition with older contents and/or orphaned works, instead of protecting the artists?
[/quote]

Copywrite law was written by Disney to guarantee a near endless profit center.

The artists working for said company get a one time check and gain no downstream profits

So yes it’s not about protecting the people making the product but providing profit protection to the entity who owns the rights.

That is why holding companies are generally all around bad news for everyone

OT, but I notice that the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) no longer allows download of its images. This is a return to its original policy, many years ago, but worse, because you can no longer bypass it by disabling JavaScript, and the source code doesn't contain any obvious image URLs. I'm having to screenshot the page in order to grab images.

Related issue: How are people recording Windows audio nowadays? In the XP era you would use the Stereo Mix/"What U Hear" recording device as an audio input. This has been entirely removed from modern Windows versions though.

I normally just launch one of my retro machines when I want to do this, but with more and more websites/programs refusing to run on XP, this is becoming a problem.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:35:

Related issue: How are people recording Windows audio nowadays? In the XP era you would use the Stereo Mix/"What U Hear" recording device as an audio input. This has been entirely removed from modern Windows versions though.

I normally just launch one of my retro machines when I want to do this, but with more and more websites/programs refusing to run on XP, this is becoming a problem.

a) Using a second machine to record is one option, preferably through S/PDIF .

b) Using a second sound card is another : loop the output from the first sound card into the second through S/PDIF, if available.

c) If S/PDIF output is not available for a or b, an HDMI switch or splitter with digital audio de-embedder and S/PDIF out can be used .

A cheap S/PDIF in/out capable USB sound card is about 20-30 US$ .

Right, optical is lossless.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:47:

Right, optical is lossless.

As is coaxial S/PDIF, as long the recording sound device

a) does not resample (looking at you, SB Live! and Audigy variants )

b) properly synchronizes with the source's clock .

AFAICT, cheap CMI CM6206 based USB sound cards fit the bill and support both 44.1KHz and 48KHz playback and recording . They only support 16-bit audio, AFAICT, however .

rmay635703 wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:23:

Copywrite law was written by Disney to guarantee a near endless profit center. […]
Show full quote

Copywrite law was written by Disney to guarantee a near endless profit center.

The artists working for said company get a one time check and gain no downstream profits

So yes it’s not about protecting the people making the product but providing profit protection to the entity who owns the rights.

That is why holding companies are generally all around bad news for everyone

I also share the fear that computing is heading towards such profound technical lockdowns, there will no longer be any liberated platform than can run non SaaS legacy code.

I imagine all the same "trusted code" mechanics will just escalate to the point where every platform, even windows, just becomes a walled garden. For your "safety". An olive branch will be extended to places like Github, which might be able to sign your code for you so it's "trusted". But I can imagine a scheme were Github just squeezes the vice tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until only established interest can use their platform anymore. Everyone else finds their code flagged as "malicious" by algorithms that are never reviewed by an actual human ever.

Might not happen in 5 years. Might not happen in 10 years. But I'm pretty sure that's the direction things are going in my lifetime.

Oh I suspect, that future keyboards and future Android versions just disable the Print Screen function 😁

Who are these Alamy people, and how are they slapping image copyright on every freaking image ever, even stuff like 19th century prints and old paintings.

Richard Stallman is on the fringes in many ways, but having listened to his opinion on copyrights, I found it mostly spot on. He had said something like the below in one of his talks (not an exact quote, from memory):

The original intent of copyright laws was to protect the authors, by limiting the publishers, for the benefit of the people. Current implementations, on the other hand, are more focused on limiting the people, and the authors, for the benefit of the publishers.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:35:

Related issue: How are people recording Windows audio nowadays? In the XP era you would use the Stereo Mix/"What U Hear" recording device as an audio input. This has been entirely removed from modern Windows versions though.

I normally just launch one of my retro machines when I want to do this, but with more and more websites/programs refusing to run on XP, this is becoming a problem.

You can still do this, use for example audacity and enable the WASAPI input. Then you'll have a loopback device to record from, it's the equivalent of "stereo mix/what you hear" and will record what's playing on the speakers

an interesting thread, I notice themes that I've thought over too

attempts at creating marketing profiles / niches out of everything: e.g. gamer-this gamer-that. It's a cynical exploitation of human desire to feel a sense of belonging and identity

disregard for the past, or at best charged twice. Sure I don't like it, but I just don't pay attention, I don't buy anything

SAAS and all that - it's because of advancement in tech that this happens. VHS>DVD>Blu-ray - all replaced by streaming, same with music (mostly) and same with software. It only came on physical media in the past without lots of online required drm because it wasn't possible to do it that way

I can live without a game and be just as happy - if I don't like the conditions of use I just don't buy it no matter how good the game might be, I choose to miss out knowing full well that most people will sign up and spend spend spend ensuring that the era of 'owning' software is gone forever. I have no illusions, old games are no threat to new games and the new way of buying things is already 'normal' to the people spending the most money on it, so its only going to grow

Namrok wrote on 2020-12-18, 05:16:

But I can imagine a scheme were Github just squeezes the vice tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until only established interest can use their platform anymore. Everyone else finds their code flagged as "malicious" by algorithms that are never reviewed by an actual human ever.

Might not happen in 5 years. Might not happen in 10 years. But I'm pretty sure that's the direction things are going in my lifetime.

"Established interest"? Github has millions of individuals/small businesses paying to use their services, they're not going to throw that income away.

I like downloading games without needing physical media. Not sure if it's worth the fact that I might not be able to replay them in 20 years, but it's nice that patches are automatically applied, that my savegames automatically synced between computers/reinstalls, and that it's easier to find good deals than back in the physical media era. Cloud storage in general, I hate how it's shoved down your throat all the time, but sometimes it's nice, such as Fusion 360 automatically saving all versions of my 3D print designs meaning I can easily revert to an earlier version or continue work on another machine. When something is done I export a backup for personal safe keeping.

As for modern programmers being noobs who can't optimize etc, I'm divided on that. Some things nowadays are just unacceptable, such as 100+GB game installs with patches in tens of GBs, applications that are a glorified website but need a large amount of install space, etc.
But on the other hand, people have been complaining about this for as long as I can remember, and after some point it's just not feasible to build a perfectly optimized monolithic piece of software. Past some level of complexity, especially if you want to keep things understandable, you end up introducing e.g. redundant copies of data, especially if you're using frameworks. And without using frameworks software would have less features and be more buggy.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:35:

Related issue: How are people recording Windows audio nowadays? In the XP era you would use the Stereo Mix/"What U Hear" recording device as an audio input. This has been entirely removed from modern Windows versions though.

I normally just launch one of my retro machines when I want to do this, but with more and more websites/programs refusing to run on XP, this is becoming a problem.

you can still use "Stereo Mix" on windows 10 just fine (I did just that this week for streaming something)
but yeah, audio in general in new windows versions is just a chore, some things were so much easier in XP.

one of my biggest hated trends is to make UI more accessible for "inexperienced users" by massively gimping usability and efficiency for experienced users, especially the "Ribbon" interface is one of my biggest hatreds of the recent decades, and then not even making interfaces customizable anymore (looking at you firefox quantum).
hand in hand with that go UIs that are getting designed primarily for mobile devices for programs that are meant to be used on desktop.

also as others have mentioned already software subscriptions in general, but enough has been said about them.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:35:

Related issue: How are people recording Windows audio nowadays? In the XP era you would use the Stereo Mix/"What U Hear" recording device as an audio input. This has been entirely removed from modern Windows versions though.

I normally just launch one of my retro machines when I want to do this, but with more and more websites/programs refusing to run on XP, this is becoming a problem.

Hi,
As Imi stated above this functionality is still available even on Win7/8/10. The only problem is that the default HD audio driver provided my MS is missing this functionality. But e.g. Creative drivers still provide 'What U Hear' and Realtek drivers provide 'Stereo Mix'.

imi wrote on 2020-12-18, 13:43:

you can still use "Stereo Mix" on windows 10 just fine (I did just that this week for streaming something)

Falcosoft wrote on 2020-12-18, 14:01:

As Imi stated above this functionality is still available even on Win7/8/10. The only problem is that the default HD audio driver provided my MS is missing this functionality. But e.g. Creative drivers still provide 'What U Hear' and Realtek drivers provide 'Stereo Mix'.

Exactly, this (hidden & disabled by default) recording device is driver-dependant. Not all audio cards provide it.
The loopback WASAPI provides is always there.

Here's one old trend I DON'T miss......

Flame resistant plastic, particularly on Japanese products (Apple, Nintendo, NEC.....just to name a few). That stuff has the weird tendency to crumble like a cookie. Kind of annoying. I've done so much engineering around that stuff on certain devices I could literally design and build my own enclosures at this point.

Errius wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:24:

OT, but I notice that the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) no longer allows download of its images. This is a return to its original policy, many years ago, but worse, because you can no longer bypass it by disabling JavaScript, and the source code doesn't contain any obvious image URLs. I'm having to screenshot the page in order to grab images.

I noticed that quite a while ago. I don't know what browser you're using. For me; in Firefox, even with all scripts disabled: View Page Info > Media and the images can be grabbed. Tools > Web Developer > Network > Images can also be used. I'd link to a recent TorrenFreak article, but I suspect that might be legally problematic for the forum.