Ask Lemmy

Damn.

Not much to say other than -- "Damn."

You're right, though.

Old camera lenses are awesome. I've got some steel and glass rokkors that are beautiful. They render in such a wonderful way too, so painterly. They have thorium in the glass! Not enough to be sketchy to use but something that obviously isn't done anymore. Bonus points that they can be fixed with a hammer.

Old camera stuff in general is subjectively cooler. The leaf shutters in my 4x5 lenses are incredible little machines. Film in general is cooler than whatever sensor the latest and greatest has. Actual bits of silver suspended in emulsion, with colour filters and dye couplers that react in development. There's a great three part video on YouTube breaking down Kodak's manufacturing process. It's mind boggling that stuff even works. Ohhhh and actually darkroom optical prints! Don't get me started there!

I'm going to develop some rolls I think. Got me in the mood.

My house is decorated with either items from the antique store or from IKEA. There are reasons for both but you need to have unique and mass produced things. We have turned too much for the mass produced

Yes. I'd rather smash my femur at a pop up headlight while lounching over the engine hood than being dragged underneath an SUV street tank and being squashed.

I suspect that some of this in the US was due to the strict liability imposed on civil aviation manufacturers in the US. It increased civil aviation safety, but demolished a lot of the civil aviation manufacturers.

In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant.

It made manufacturers very risk-adverse, placed overwhelming weight on being a known, mature design.

GARA later rolled back some of this, but things never really returned to their original state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Aviation_Revitalization_Act

The General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994, also known by its initials GARA, is Public Law 103-298, an Act of Congress on Senate Bill S. 1458 (103rd Congress), amending the Federal Aviation Act of 1958.

General aviation aircraft production in the U.S. -- following its 30-year peak in the late 1970s—dropped sharply over the next few years to a fraction of its original volume—from approximately 18,000 units in 1978 to 4,000 units in 1986. to 928 units in 1994. (In a 1993 speech, Sen. John McCain said "nearly 500 last year [1992]".)

General aviation aircraft manufacturers in the 1980s and 1990s began to terminate or reduce production of their piston-powered propeller aircraft, or struggled with solvency.

At the time, industry analysts estimated that the U.S. decline in general aviation aircraft manufacturing eliminated somewhere between 28,000 and 100,000 jobs—as unit production dropped by 95% between the 1970s peak and the early 1990s—sharply different from other segments of the global aerospace industry, where U.S. market share was still strong.

Product liability costs

Those manufacturers reported rapidly rising product liability costs, driving aircraft prices beyond the market, and they said their production cuts were in response to that growing liability.

Average cost of manufacturer's liability insurance for each airplane manufactured in the U.S. had risen from approximately $50 per plane in 1962 to $100,000 per plane in 1988, according to a report cited by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 2,000-fold increase in 24 years.

Rising claims against the industry triggered a rapid increase in manufacturers' liability insurance premiums during the 1980s. Industry-wide, in just 7 years, the manufacturers' liability premiums increased nearly nine-fold, from approximately $24 million in 1978 to $210 million in 1985.

Insurance underwriters, worldwide, began to refuse to sell product liability insurance to U.S. general aviation manufacturers. By 1987, the three largest GA manufacturers claimed their annual costs for product liability ranged from $70,000 to $100,000 per airplane built and shipped that year.

I think that some of that is fuel efficiency requirements forcing convergence.

The sedan thing weirded me out too -- I mean, when I think of a "car", I think of a sedan -- but as I understand from reading, that related to people wanting larger maximum cargo space in the car, like if they had to shove a piece of furniture or something in it. I'm in the sedan camp -- in the very rare case that I need to move something really large, I'm just gonna U-Haul it. But I can at least understand the concern people have.

The truck and generally-large vehicle thing, I think, related to a combination of:

• The chicken tax. American auto manufacturers have a 25% protective tariff covering the "light truck" class, making it much more profitable for domestic sales.

• Fuel efficiency exemptions granted that class (which I suspect may have something to do with regulations resulting from lobbying from said manufacturers and them having incentives surrounding the above chicken tax).

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy

  CAFE standards signaled the end of the traditional long station wagon, but Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca developed the idea of marketing the minivan as a station wagon alternative, while certifying it in the separate truck category to allow compliance with less-strict CAFE standards. Eventually, this same idea led to the promotion of the SUV.[106][107]

  The definitions for cars and trucks are not the same for fuel economy and emission standards. For example, a Chrysler PT Cruiser was defined as a car for emissions purposes and a truck for fuel economy purposes.[2] Under then light truck fuel economy rules, the PT Cruiser had have a lower fuel economy target (28.05 mpg beginning in 2011) than it would if it were classified as a passenger car.

• High American towing requirements. That is, American vehicles have far more restrictive towing requirements than in most other countries -- you need a larger vehicle to legally tow a given load than in many other countries. I suspect that the regulations may also have something to do with American automakers lobbying for protective regulation; it pushes American consumers to buy from that protected class of vehicles.

Long story short -- I think that you can probably chalk a lot of that up to rent-seeking out of Detroit.

People don’t buy station wagons so they don’t make them.

Hatchbacks are just renamed station wagons. Change my mind.

And we can't get small trucks due to a loophole in EPA regulations. I just want something like an old-school Ranger, light, easy on gas, two jump seats in the back for the kids.

You could try Gemini or gopher web, it reminds me a lot of web 1.0, both style and community feel.

Counterpoint: A modern SBC Console from China (Retroid, Anbernic, whatever) will play a library in the thousands of titles, WHILE fitting in your pocket AND having a modern screen.

The indie shit is great tho. Analogue Pocket is an outstanding gaming device to run a whole bunch of portable console games (and some originally non-portable consoles too, like Genesis/Megadrive)

And folks are still making and sometimes even selling Gameboy games right now in 2024

Indie is great, and honestly vital when so much mainstream/AAA shit is such shit

Have you tried a Steam Deck?

I think indie is pretty cool. Its at the point where you can basically design a console by yourself. You can emulate up to ps2 on some of them so you got all the classics in your pocket.