It was bright carpeted floors that inspired this post.
You mean apart from myself right?
This guy lording over us that they don’t hate their appearance. /s
The PowerMac G4 Cube. Absolutely gorgeous design, arguably the best looking computer ever. Horribly impractical even for the time and especially nowadays.
Even just looking at them is a problem. The main computer is held in place with two screws? Posts? and the weight of the machine can make the acrylic crack. I have two of them, but I store them upside down. I 3d printer some support braces, but my printer at the time sucked so they weren’t a perfect fit and it took a ton of work to file them down to the right size to fit, but not fall out immediately.
This is the exact kind of answer I was hoping to find. I had to look it up; it’s definitely a sleek and innovative design, especially for its time.
Shaved legs, there’s literally no practical benefit and it’s so much effort but even if I wear long pants just having the knowledge I haven’t shaved makes me so uncomfortable.
Laser hair removal is a good long term solution for this.
Yeah that’s very high on my list of things to do once I have more money. Hopefully my hair is dark enough for it to work
If you can spare a spa day once every couple of months, you can try sugar waxing at home. The smoothness lasts way longer than shaving and it’s more gentle on the skin (and easier to clean) than normal waxing. After a few years of that my hair stopped growing back on my calves, and I haven’t had to shave there in a long time.
Shaved legs, there’s literally no practical benefit
Pro cyclists would argue with you on that point. Probably swimmers and runners, too.
Hairless bodies have less wind/water resistance. 💁♂️
My Filipino wife was joking with her friend this weekend about how mystified I was that she never shaves her legs. On our first date her legs were so shiny I thought she had oiled them.
Orange. Shag. Carpet.
Yes, it’s a bitch to clean. Yes, it traps every particle of dirt that wafts into the room. Yes, to almost everyone other than me and some equally damaged enthusiasts, it looks god awful.
But if I could carpet my whole house with it without that being grounds for divorce, I’d be doing it right now. It’s the feeling between the toes, top-tier. I can’t explain it - it’s not like I grew up with it - but there’s something about orange shag specifically that screams “comfy” to me.
My kind of people 🤝
Love a good shag.
“Lookin’ for a good shag with the missus, gov’ner?”
Me, with my wife in the carpet store “Please leave us alone, it was hard enough getting her to come”.
“But didja manage?”
“Hell yeah!”
And then we high five, I buy my carpet, and turn around only to notice both my wife and car are gone and never coming back. And I’m left to hump that shag down the road myself.
[This was fun]
Your comments and posts are a great contribution to Lemmy :)
If not friend, why friend shaped?
He’ll kill you on sight just to take the first word in your username without the s.
You talking that weird orange with the bits of brown in it they used in the 70s?
You talking that high maintenance, orange brown shag?
You talking that deranged, I’ll never-have-to-clean-it-myself carpeting?
Best shit ever.
My best friend bought a house that was last redecorated in the 70s, and had been unoccupied (but maintained and cleaned regularly) since the early 80s. I loved that carpet so much. Eventually we pulled it up and redid her hardwood floors, but my God did I miss that carpet when it was gone
Awwww yeaahh…that’s the good shit.
In my very last move with my parents, I almost got to have my dream room - wood paneling, old 70s orange-brown shag with pilling like a lawn in need of mowing, the works. I was staying behind in the old city a month longer than them, but I begged them to keep it exactly as is.
I moved in to find it was replaced with beige, boring carpet, with almost no pill to speak of. I was devastated.
They did you dirty, my friend. I’m so sorry. I will observe a moment of silence for your loss
Lots of dog breeds with anything but the lowest of maintenance needs. I would love to have one but know the fur in my house would drive me up the wall.
I don’t mind hair everywhere (although I wouldn’t get a dog with long fur because they overheat so easily) but I don’t understand how people who don’t live on a ranch take care of herding breeds. Australian cattle dogs are really popular in New York City but I would never dare to get one in an apartment. It was hard enough to have a dog with a strong prey drive - he could not be off-leash anywhere without a tall fence and double-layer gates, and he would forget that he was on a leash and take off at full speed whenever he saw a squirrel. I admit I envied the people with guarding breeds a little - my sister’s pit bull mix looked like a crossbreed between a crocodile and a pig but that dog just followed my sister everywhere, even indoors, leash or no leash.
Australian cattle dogs… in NYC? People are so dumb when it comes to dog breeds. What poor dogs.
I’m guessing they must walk them constantly? Like, otherwise your apartment gets trashed.
Gothic architecture. So much extra work to sculpt all the spires, gables, grotesques and archways, for zero added functionality. But they look dope as fuck.
Incidentally I hate brutalist architecture.
That’s a good one! The level of detail in gothic architecture is insane and gorgeous. I love seeing curves and rounded shapes in architecture in general. As for brutalism, I’ve seen some creative things done with this style too, although of course its advantages are durability and affordability rather than aesthetics. The modern minimalist trend in architecture where everything is beige/white/grey is what I dislike most.
Fully agree! It’s so much work and so incredible to look at and admire. Art deco too for the same reasons.
Relatively old cars. I’m not talking about antiques. I just don’t want a screen or an automatic transmission in my car. Right now I need to buy a car and frankly the only ones I want are a manual-transmission BMW or a late-90’s pickup. Either one would be a rather impractical choice.
I used to own a 2008 BMW 328i with a manual transmission and sport suspension. It broke down, fixing it would have cost more than it was worth, but I think I should have just paid for the repairs because at least then I would have the same car I had been driving for 14 years rather than a car with the same problems of old age but no nostalgia value. (2018 was the last year than BMW made a manual 3-series, and also coincidentally the year that backup cameras and therefore computer screens became legally required in US cars.)
Edit: I accidentally wrote that I didn’t want a manual transmission. Totally wrong!
Maybe I’m biased, but the late 90s were just about perfect for cars. If you could get your hands on something like a Ranger or S10, it would be extremely practical. Automatic transmission, air conditioning, great fuel economy, and extremely easy to maintain and repair. And if it’s made after ‘96, it would have a OBD2 port that any modern scanner could read codes from.
I actually owned a 1998 S10 before I got that BMW. It was the most basic trim, with a manual transmission, a regular cab, and hand-cranked windows. That truck was a lot of fun because of how poor the traction was. I could skid around corners at 25 mph and one time I did a burnout accidentally when trying to start moving up a steep hill after stopping for a crossing guard letting a bunch of little kids across the street. I would love to have an S10 again but mine had the brakes fail in 2011 (to be fair, I had bought it used with 200k miles on it) and I wasn’t comfortable driving it after that. I can’t imagine how many problems it would have after 14 more years.
It’s too bad that there are exactly zero options for a truck like that these days. A truck would actually be very practical for me (I live alone so I don’t need passenger space but I do move big stuff sometimes) but there are no fun models that aren’t already old enough to drink.
You might be interested in the Slate, if that ever enters production. It’s electric but very basic, the size of a classic 1980s small pickup. No big fancy screens but they plan to offer a tablet mount for the dashboard in case you want to bring your own.
I definitely am interested in it, although I’m worried about buying a car from a new company’s first production run. I haven’t driven an electric car before but maybe it’ll be fun.
Yeah, I’m not even confident most new electric brands I see will ever reach prototype stage, let alone become a successful business that can sustain operations. I really like the idea in this of a very basic vehicle, though, so I hope they succeed.
Both of those trucks get as good as their counterpart today or worse. Great mpg is a stretch if you compare to a Maverick - hybrid or not.
I’m not sure how common they are in the US. But check if you can get your hands on a fiat panda/punto/500. Anything but the very latest models have manual options with at most an lcd for the radio. And that’s it. And outside of italy there shouldn’t be all the problems that accompany a model of car being that common.
I don’t know how recent you’re considering recent, but the Fiat 500 only came to the US in December 2010 and was the first new Fiat sold in the US since the early 1980s. The last model year sold for the normal 500 was 2019, although the L and X are still sold according to Wikipedia (I think the X is sold rebadged as a Jeep, though).
Thing is. I have no clue how or if they reached america. I’m italian so i’m just going off of my experience with them. And how easily i found spare parts on the web for them. Not their availability in America.
I would go even older, back to the 60s-70s. Some absolutely gorgeous cars, but the thought of actually driving one puts me off. Horribly inefficient, no modern safety features or comforts. It would be little more than an expensive driveway trophy, and that’s just wasteful.
Man I have an old VW syncro from 1986, and a 93 Miata. I feel this pain so much. The only practical aspect is the fun, analog feel of driving them
You could even go into the 2000s for pickups without all the tech. I have an 07 Silverado Classic and its great as I get all the reliability, power, and better fuel economy out of the GM 5.3L while still having a truck that’s super easy to work on. I also have a 76 K10 pickup but I’m preparing to sell it because it’s essentially a bottomless pit of work and it’d still not be super reliable, powerful, or get okay mileage without a bunch of expensive mods. If you want something smaller the Ranger is still quite common, decent, and easy to obtain.
The Cybertruck. It’s dangerous, wasteful, impractical, and sold by a Nazi, but I actually like the appearance.
Liked the look until I got up close and personal. It’s all bulk! The inside is cramped, for what it is, and the “bed” is laughable.
I agree for the front and side profiles, but from the back it is identical to a dumpster.
Awww
The little hand prints!
I think it looks like shit and I LIKE that it looks like shit. I’ll never have one, but maybe there is a parallel reality where we have woke Musk, and I can also afford one.
There are plenty of ugly cars that dont cost nearly as much and are still offensive.
Nissan Juke seems to make people unhappy, as does a Pontiac Aztek. Older and weirder, a GM u-body van like a Chevy Lumina APV, Buick’s last Riveria was shaped like a nicely tapered turd, Acura had the original ZDX that looked like a dog scrunched up to take a crap and the ugly beaky nose. People really hate the BMW 7 series that came out in 2001 for being ugly too. I’m guessing that they’re all broken by now since they were horrific junk, but if you do find one, they’re cheap.
None of those cars look like Playstation 1 cars. These are Playstation 2 AT WORST. I lust for a low poly SACK OF SHIT
From the very first one I saw in person, the wildly variable steps and gaps between panels was a big “nope”. The very long single wiper blade on the windshield also tickled my engineer brain as “nightmare to maintain”.
Interesting how many upvotes this got. Mostly you just hear about how ugly they are.
It’s legitimately an out-of-the-box, eye-catching design. Probably because it’s so terrible for the actual purpose of the thing nobody else would have bothered.
An antique Victorian or Queen Anne house. I love the towers, the gingerbread charm, the corbels and fascias and all the little crinkly bits. The rich old wood interiors with tin ceilings and plaster medallions, hand carved staircases and crown mouldings.
However I am never going to be able to afford the absurd cost of retrofitting one to be energy efficient, and I know the quirks of odd room sizes, antiquated floor plans and non-standard sized things like weird door heights and window widths would drive me absolutely insane. So I’ll admire them from afar
However I am never going to be able to afford the absurd cost of retrofitting one to be energy efficient,
Is that even an option? In my experience they leak so much it’s more like a pile of sticks than a modern envelope. You’d have to, like, add a whole other layer to the inside or outside, or take it all apart and rebuild it to actual geometric standards.
You’d have to, like, add a whole other layer to the inside or outside
That is, actually what they do, by my understanding. If the house isn’t brick, then when you need to replace the siding they will actually put an entirely new layer of sheathing on over the outside, something like Zip R that has poly-iso foam insulation and acts as an air barrier. They then can put siding back on that fits the original look of the house, hopefully using architectural elements and details that were saved from teardown.
Another way is to go from the inside, and rip out the walls to the studs while saving trim pieces and put in new insulation and replace the horsehair plaster with drywall. Then you’ll be dealing with special ordering non-standard modern double glazed windows in weird sizes, because if you wanted to use the standard window sizes you can’t use your beautiful old growth mahogany trim pieces lovingly carved for your whacky leaky windows.
The attic is often not that bad to insulate because there should be relatively few cut-ins and blown in cellulose can go everywhere, but then you miss out on your perfect gothic “Wednesday’s room” unless you want to spend even more money trying to figure out how to get all of those turret towers and vaulting and weird rooflines into your envelope.
So, it’s possible, just prohibitively expensive
I would love to have a pet raccoon, but it’d probably take up a large portion of my time entertaining it and running after it, making sure it doesn’t destroy my entire house.
Steam locomotives!!! Maybe not the full intent of this thread, but they’re terrible for the environment, inefficient, complicated as hell, and SO COOL!
I’m guessing that in 50 years people will feel this way about internal combustion engines as well. A lot of the time the more efficient technologies get, the more boring, as all the energy is going into their actual purpose and not chugga-chugga sounds.
Indeed, you’re surely right. Pour one out for the big boys.
related, steam turbine locomotives! they never really took off, but they’re amazing!
cyberdecks. they’re basically unusable as daily devices since they’re just made to look cool… but they look cool
This is the exact thought I had as I saw this post.
I’m currently building one out of an ammo can with a raspberry pi and an ungodly amount of squeezing and CAD work.
Very much inspired by this guy’s buiild:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qo-nNeZTQE
My current progress:
https://i.imgur.com/k1WUoJb.png
that’s sick
Agreed. I’ve been obsessed with it. And I Made it extra challenging for myself by using a bigger screen, a whole whopping 9 inches. And then to add insult to injury I’m making removable batteries, a locking mechanism so it can be taken apart on the fly, a full mouse and keyboard, and a fan for airflow.
Eventually I might also add a GPS unit inside it too for the hell of it.
Fursuits.
They’re all 3 of those negatives, plus also super expensive!
My orange cat
OP’s description of bright carpeted floors reminded me of my childhood bedroom. I grew up in the '80s, but my home was built in the mid-'70s and every room was a different color. My bedroom happened to have bright orange-painted walls and thick shag carpet that was orange and yellow. When the sun shone through the window over the carpet, it almost looked like the floor was on fire at first glance.
I loved that carpet, but my parents made me replace it with a thin, ugly, dark brown carpet when I was a teenager. As an adult, I understand why. That old carpet must’ve been impossible to vacuum, as thick as it was.
Regarding the color scheme of the house, my parents’ bedroom was light blue with a patchy blue carpet (varying patches of blue between borderline white and vibrant blue). My sister’s bedroom was pale green with green carpet. The bathroom was half yellow, half light green, with yellow flower wallpaper on one wall and pale green carpet. It had a matching green toilet and green plastic shower/tub insert.
The living room was pale yellow, the dining room was a vibrant red, and the kitchen was just white walls (with some wallpaper designs in places) with dark brown wood cabinetry and white laminate countertops. The hallways and living room/dining room had a reddish-brown carpet that bleached in the sunlight and looked pale and awful by the time I was a teenager.
The kitchen and entryway had tan laminate flooring with designs; the only non-carpeted space in the whole house. Oh! And the entryway had white walls, but the bottom 4 feet of the wall had that brown wood paneling that was everywhere in the '70s and '80s.
The first floor of my house, which was built as a separate apartment, was almost exclusively wood paneling for the walls, except the bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen, which were just white. The carpet was an ugly tan and the kitchen and bathroom had white laminate tile floors.
My sister and her husband, who lived in our childhood home for a while, remodeled and repainted/recarpeted the whole house, but she kept the different color scheme for each room. Now my bedroom walls are tan, master bedroom is light green, her old bedroom is a bright peach color, the bathroom is a light green, the living room is light blue, and the dining room is still red.
She put tiles on the kitchen walls to bring some color to that room, laminate wood paneling on the floor for the entryway, kitchen, and dining room, white laminate tiles on the bathroom floor, and the rest of the house got an off-white/tan carpet with brownish speckles throughout it.
The first-floor apartment had all the wood paneling on the walls removed and the walls were just painted white. One wall of the living room down there was painted a dark bluish-gray by a tenant we had, and I just re-did all the carpets down there with a light blush-gray color. I added a large gray laminate square by their front door so people aren’t stepping immediately onto carpet when they enter into that apartment, and my sister did an awful job with black ceramic tiles in the kitchen. I need to tear those up and replace them sometime; they’re a bit uneven. The bathroom is still white laminate tiles.
I love, love, love this comment! So interesting to see and read how styles have changed over time and I appreciate the detail you put into your descriptions.
This was the exact picture I was looking at as an example of how I would want one of the rooms in my dream house to look and what led to the creation of this post, haha. I would also want each room to be a different color, and I desperately want a conversation pit in my living room.
That kind of looks like my childhood bedroom, except the carpet needs a lot more bright yellow mixed into the orange. And I didn’t have furniture like that. My walls were definitely that vibrant orange color though.
