#cursed tech

[firstoccupier]

The Data Graveyard

October 20, 2025 – 23:00 They called it the Data Graveyard. Officially, it was Archive Server 9, a DEC Alpha server running Windows NT Server, patched, and patched, and patched again, since 1998. A hulking relic stashed in the sub-basement of the old municipal building downtown—where the city kept its records, some dating back to the early ’90s. Payroll files. Permit requests. Zoning appeals.…

The Data Graveyard

[a-completely-ethical-scientist]

Say what you will about how low-quality tech has been flooding the market, but I once had a pair of wireless sports earbuds (The sort that have a wire between the two to hold them together) that went through a washing machine and came out perfectly fine.

They aren't waterproof earbuds, they have no rubber seal, they are literally composed of a few pieces of plastic holding together using pins and holes.

They have about the same construction as a 50c plastic toy but are by far some of my most reliable earphones.

[sinsinewave]

i should not be allowed near the python interpreter i am currently working on a script that is approaching 400 lines, and contains things such as HTML templating using a pile of carefully crafted lambdas in a dictionary

[sinsinewave]

oh right did i ever mention that even my phone is cursed it's an oneplus 6 running de-googled LineageOS, which is just weird but not cursed, as is the fact that the original battery is still somehow fine as for the cursed parts; first off, it borderline died a while ago, refusing to accept OS updates other than with a factory flashing tool, and even with those the phone app crashing repeatedly making it unuseable so i tried installing PostmarketOS on it, i mean, why not use it as a PDA or something then, it's still a 6.3" computer that mostly works-ish well, i didn't like PmOS that much, so i flashed android back on there, and somehow that whole escapade fixed the whole thing? it's been working fine on that front ever since meanwhile, currently, there's some other software cursedness; for one, the back camera works in a modded Google Camera app fine, but the front one crashes when you try to take a photo, and also the back one can't focus unless it's in 16:9 aspect ratio mode which is actually cropped from the full sensor, so i have two camera apps; one for front and one for back also, the entire UI crashes if i turn on WLAN; it's fine when turning off, but when turned on, regardless of the method, SystemUI crashes immediately

[sinsinewave]

the FOSSbros keep saying everyone should use Matrix instead of Discord, and wondering why nobody does so

meanwhile the Matrix experience for me; a relatively competent techy person: nobody is, inexplicably, able to decrypt any of my messages. i can decrypt theirs fine, they just can't read mine

oh and also it did work for a while specifically with messages sent on one client on one specific currently broken phone

this is why FOSS stuff isn't going to become mainstream any time soon

[sinsinewave]

only at Sinewave Technologies does an Intel CPU develop an issue specific to AMD CPUs

[sinsinewave]

my computer has managed to invent a brand new, seemingly unique audio issue

[sinsinewave]

Behold, the (arguably) worst keyboard

It has features such as some working keys, a two thirds dead function row, non-functional modifier keys, and I have zero idea why I made it