Ask Lemmy

27254 readers

1384 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

candyman337

[email protected]

451

What's a technology that was cooler in its older iterations? (pawb.social)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

481 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Clothing and towels made with asbestos fabric. During the middle ages you could clean them by throwing them in the fire and they would come out clean. Eventually your lungs would give up on you but for a while you had a very cool way to impress your guests.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago (1 children)

.... We (as in humanity) made a lot of cool shit before we realised it was slowly killing us.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

And we’re still making stuff and slowly realizing it’s slowly killing us. Isn’t that neat?

Maybe one day we’ll have it all figured out. :p

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Usually it’s killing us slower though. I don’t know if that’s progress

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Or we'll keep chasing horizons that will forever be deadly but cool.

But now we're leaving "this old invention is cool" territory and getting into "humans are space orcs" waters.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Can someone find a video of that, I have to see it!