I tend to not really care for most new things, as most of it feels cheap, inauthentic or a scam to further the surviellance facist oligarchy state. Id be completely content with time frozen in 2004.
So, to be a little more positive, what are some new things that are actually good?
Note, to me, new is within the last 10 years.
I’ll start. The fediverse concept is neat.
My favorite 3 things of the last decade
Electric cars, Incredible performance, low maintenance.
Steam deck, great fun in a small package, great to play games before bed
Podcasts, seriously there’s one that will speak to you.
Bonus: taskmaster, it’s entirely free on YouTube, it’s a worldwide phenomena, simple low stakes fun, akin to the great British baking show without the manufactured drama (not that there’s much in gbb)
Induction burners for cooking are pretty cool. All the heat of gas with none of the “slowly poisoning you and may explode”.
Batteries are about to get really good. Solid-state is close and that should be huge.
And for those not aware, by “close” they meam that solid-state batteries are being manufactured in mass this year.
Plus sodium batteries are going online too, though at a much lower rate due to the cost of lithium going down causing many sodoum battery manufacturers to declare bankruptcy since they’re having trouble with sales
Are we talking about the Donut Labs battery, or is someone alse promising to bring solid state batteries to market this year? My gut says Donut Labs is like 1/8 odds of coming through.
Andor is arguably the best Star Wars content since the original movies
Heat pump technology has come a long way recently. In locations that stay above 0F (-18C) they’re now competitive with fossil gas furnaces for performance and cost (cost results may vary based on local incentives). Many units now work below 0F too, but they get more expensive/less efficient
Personalized mRNA vaccines to prevent pancreatic cancer recurrence after surgery have had some promising early results in clinical trials. This is one of the hardest cancers to treat, so this could be huge.
Heat pumps work great and are super common to install on homes where winter temps drop well below that. They’re so efficient they’re worth it even if you use supplemental heat for the coldest part of the year.
Andor was indeed great
Andor is arguably the best Star Wars content since the original movies
I’ll get down voted for this, but remove the nostalgia goggles, and the original Star Wars trilogy are 7/10 movies at best. MAYBE Empire would get an 8.
A 7/10 is great when most of what hollywood shits out these days is a 1 or a 0.
You also don’t get to just “ignore” the historical impact a series like Star Wars had on the entire medium.
I don’t think it’s even an argument. It’s just better than the original trilogy IMO. They need more Star wars movies with the same feel.
Comments like yours reinforce my idea that I’m simply not part of the target audience for most of the modern renditions of what I liked in the past.
Gaming:
- Steam Deck and Linux gaming altogether
- Solo TTRPGs
- The TTRPG space in general
- Board games
Music making:
- Dirtywave M8
- Synthstrom Deluge
- Elektron Digitakt
- An absolute flood of amazing software and plugins
- Tons of pedals from boutique manufacturers
- Music software for mobile devices
- Import guitars are top notch without breaking the bank
PS: A ten year old GTX 1080ti can still run most modern games at 1080p…which is still a very popular entry level monitor resolution.
Still running a 980ti Classified, there’s only a handful in the overlap of “Games I want to play” and “Games I can’t play” diagram at 1440.
I’m intrigued by solo TTRPGs. Is there a particular one you can recommend?
I’d start with the one that really kicked the segment into high gear; Ironsworn. More specifically, its sci-fi (western in space) sequel, Ironsworn:Starforged.
Also, most Free League games that have been released lately have included a solo mode. Also a solo mode for Cyberpunk Red has also been recently released. Most if not all of these solo modes have been inspired or heavily influenced by Ironsworn.
Also, the PDF of the original Ironsworn is free to download. Although the setting (think viking) is not to everyone’s liking, there are hundreds of re-skins and hacks for it.
Cell phone service.
$25/month for unlimited data at >100mpbs is definitely being taken for granted.
For sure. I remember the 5 cents per text…or whatever it was
protected bike lanes
air fryer
advances in solar energyThe only new thing of air fryers is calling them air fryers, they’ve been around for decades.
What were they called? I’d love to know, as apparently through decades of rv-ing, cottaging, and travelling, I don’t recall encountering them! And none of the rv industry’s resources mentioned this decades-old technology! Do you have any images of them on store shelves? Air Fryer recipes from the 90s?
Convection ovens
Exactly the same! Portable! Can be plugged into any standard household outlet! Preheat in 5 minutes! Fully roast a 2kg chicken in 45 minutes! Fit on the counter! Operate for pennies!
Boy, do I feel dumb!
Dropout TV! I like Make Some Noise, it’s got the old Whose Line feel.
Dirty Laundry, Gastronauts, and Game Changer is where it’s at.
Solar panels combined with House batteries or Vehicle to grid is cheaper and more reliable than a backup generator, and in many cases, is even cheaper than using energy from the grid.
The majority of materials in each battery and solar panel can be recycled into new batteries and solar panels at end of life (often after 25+ years), so the raw resources are only needed once.
Most new batteries don’t use rare or controversial materials.
Webb space telescope
Fully homomorphic encryption doing useful things
Higgs boson detected (oops, 2013)
Solar power and battery storage cheap enough to displace fossil energy and let ordinary people go off grid
New tacqueria in my neighborhood is actually pretty good.
What more could you want?
New tacqueria in my neighborhood is actually pretty good.
And I’m only finding out about this NOW?!
EGPWS - stops airliners accidentally flying into mountains.
Home Assistant - full control over your smart devices, internet optional.
Sierra Leone hospital - their first hospital that has a neonatal unit, already drastically reducing the maternal mortality rate.
PMSM - electric motor that can exceed 95% efficiency.
Proton - allows almost any game to run on Linux.
3D printing - much cheaper rapid prototyping and custom parts. Even used on the ISS.
I think that the TinyTapeout concept is super cool (https://tinytapeout.com/). In the past, it was not really feasible to design and manufacture a semiconductor device as a hobbyist… Unless maybe an extremely wealthy one.
Now, we have open source design tools, open process design kit, and the ability but small part of a manufactured wafer.
There are also now multi-project wafer runs for photonic chips at reasonable prices for startup/academia. I think these developments are pretty cool.
SBCs like Rasberry Pi. To have easy to use low cost computers be this powerful truly is the future. We have so many tools available to us these days. With open source software, low cost hard and a bit of learning we can save $1000s of dollars that would have gone straight into the pockets of tech companies.
Electric bikes are cool, I see them growing in popularity around my city and its getting people used to biking who never would have before. Because there are a ton of hills people would hand wave and say oh im not fit enough to bike. Its having a flow on effect, they realise they enjoy biking so they do it more and lose weight. Gov sees people using the bike lanes and invests more in them.
Id be completely content with time frozen in 2004.
You mean when the US had just invaded Iraq based on lies and greed for oil? Fabricated entirely from a bullshit “global war on terror”?
I do like highlighting things that have gotten better (and thank you for the thread), but rose-tinted glasses and all.
99 then ;)
There’s always shit going on.
