Bunch of cute contrarians in here today.
I got a 4k TV from Paycor stadium for $10 per k.
Otamatone.
It’s a synthesizer shaped like a note with a mouth and eyes.
You can buy a drone for, like, $5. So a swarm of drones for $100 seems pretty futuristic.
where can I buy a drone for 5$?
As long as you don’t ask any questions… I got you. Meet me beside the dumpster at wendys. I prefer to be paid directly in drugs but cash app is fine to.
Poop knife, it’s the future I tell ya!
Get one in damascus for really deluxe poop cutting experience!
A COVID vaccine (offer not good inside the US)
OP said buy though.
Sous vide
Is a cooking method from the 70s really… futuristic?
Not saying it isn’t worth it, though.
It’s rare (intended) for me to find someone who knows what sous vide is. So I suspect for the majority it would seem futuristic.
A full working computer, more powerful than what we used to go to the moon, and using less power than a light bulb.
It can take many forms, like smartphones, SBCs or older PCs/laptops.
or mini pcs
You can buy an ESP board that meets all those qualifications from AliExpress for less than $3CAD shipped.
Setting one of those up was the first time in a while I’ve been so impressed with just how cheap and accessible tech has gotten. It’s a web server with WiFi and Bluetooth shipped to my door all for the price of a chocolate bar.
By that logic, a lighter. Better than smashing two rocks together, that’s how we used to make fire.
One of those fancy plasma lighters, sure. But butane lighters have been around for decades
lighters. fire on demand! for all of preindustrial human history these things would be worth more than gold
Still this thing, 20 years on:
Kinda true, how this thing even worked, nobody knows
The tape head is basically a small and really sensitive electromagnet. Magnetized tape creates small disturbances in the magnetic signal. Amplify those disturbances and you get sound. Similar to an antenna, but only works in close proximity.
This also works in reverse. Feed an audio signal through the electromagnet, and the electromagnet will create the disturbances in whatever is next to it. You can do this to record to a tape, or you can do this to pass sound to another tape head, which is how these aux cassettes work.
You can build one yourself really easily. Just take the tape head from a broken player and solder to an aux cable. Take a cassette, remove the tape, and put the tape head in the middle portion so it comes into contact with the player tape head.
Of course it’s Technology Connections. Who else would make a video about a (now) useless piece of 80’s tech with enough content to satisfy any level of curiosity.
I think of it as extremely 00s. It’s the “I only have an mp3 player/phone and my computer doesn’t take aux” device
Amazon and Walmart have microwaves under $100
Raspberry Pis and other microcomputers can be had for pretty cheap, and they can be put to a surprising variety of tasks. You need to be a bit of a jack of all trades to fully embrace that DIY element, but I’d bet that showing off a project that you mostly built yourself would be seen as futuristic by most people.
The RPI400 is basically a full solution. You just need a display and a mouse, and you have a fully functional desktop computer. Not very powerful, but good enough for basic tasks like writing documents or browsing the web, coding etc.
Does web browsing count as a “basic” task these days?
I think it does so for nearly two decades
I think the deauther watch is pretty cool if we’re thinking cyberpunk-esque
I’m not sure what that’s for but it looks cool as hell
Deauther is generally used for kicking clients off WiFi networks.
You can setup a mirror network, kick clients off the real one, they’ll try to reconnect to yours, by which you can steal the WiFi credentials, or even listen in on the traffic.
Or just for testing, obviously.
A screw driver. Cause everything seems so much screwed.
If you shop around you can find a Brother (B&W) laser printer for about $100.
Imagine this weird future: Printers that always just work no matter what type of computer you have or how long they’ve sat since you last used them. And the “ink” cartridges last forever. And you can buy 3rd party refills or even refill them yourself. Plus it’s completely reliant on microplastics to do its job, what’s more futuristic than that?
I’ve got one of those and I’m pretty sure I’ve been using the same toner cartridge for like a dozen years.
Even better, if you scour your local thrift stores you can occasionally find them for as little as $10 and all they typically need is a cleanup and a new toner cartridge.
I bought mine for $7 4 years ago and it’s still working on the toner cartridge that was in the printer when I bought it.
Admittedly, I only print about 40 or 50 pages a year but that’s a hell of a deal.
so wish I had bought my brother laser earlier.
Imagine this weird future: Printers that always just work no matter what type of computer you have or how long they’ve sat since you last used them. And the “ink” cartridges last forever. And you can buy 3rd party refills or even refill them yourself. Plus it’s completely reliant on microplastics to do its job, what’s more futuristic than that?
I lived in the 90’s, when office work was a tad more reliant on printers and late stage capitalism wasn’t as bad. My dad had a laser printer for his business. Very reliable, fast, never needed anything.
I remember that as the past, is my point.
I was thinking this too, but consider some improvements:
- wireless printing seems to “just work” now. Besides having to painfully enter my wifi password with up and down arrows on my printer, it seems like my windows and Mac laptops are able to print to it wirelessly without any initial setup. (I use Linux on my desktop but haven’t tried printing from it yet). I think it even works from phones.
- cables: I don’t remember what type of cable printers used, but I remember the big keyboard cable, then the smaller purple and green PS/2 ones (I think keyboard and mouse were different?)… I vaguely remember multiple different peripheral cables, like FireWire? Giant parallel ports for things like scanners?
I hate that most printers don’t come with the USB (B?) cable that seemingly only printers need now, but I’m glad that it’s standard and that everything supports
<strikethrough>
USB-A</strikethrough>
I mean USB-C (except my PC) now. Such a utopia.
A smartphone
What smartphones are you buying for under $100?
… So am I the only one that whenever I want a new phone, I just look for highest rated phone under 100 dollars? Been doing that for years, generally it’s just always just like top of the line models from 3-4 years ago.
Been doing it for years and I’ve never really had any complaint with my phones.
I normally check whatever was the flagship 2-3 years ago and buy it refurbished.
Not a bad strat!
How often do you buy phones?
I’ve had maybe 3 phones in last 10 years?
Stolen iPhones
the Walmart special can be had for $20, it sucks and is locked to a useless carrier, but can load web pages on WiFi.
A stolen one
“previously owned”
Low end phones aren’t that bad, if you are willing to make some sacrifices, like an uglier screen, worse camera.
For example, the Samsung Galaxy A05
This would have to be some burner or 2nd/3rd phone cuz there’s a lot more than worse screen or worse camera. The only A series phone i would consider using would be the A54/55/73.
Well no shit it’s not great.
It’s still pretty damn impressive that you can buy smartphones for that cheap at all.
Honestly the sacrifices they make are pretty reasonable for every day use too. I used ultra cheap Umidigi smartphones for four years as a student and they held up quite well with a huge upside being shockingly good repairability. The biggest downside is the rear camera usually, I wish I had better photos from those times.
You can get the Umidigi G9 5G for just $99 shipped on aliexpress. Even budget phones under $100 get 8gb RAM, 128GB storage , and 90hz displays now. There really aren’t as many sacrifices as you’d expect, and by the time you spend $200 you even get plenty respectable cameras that would be flagship quality just a few years ago.