Computer passwords are obnoxious

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Rant incoming.

Passwords are f*****g annoying...you have to change them constantly from hackers and unless you write them down vital things can't be used. I am so damn sick of losing passwords and having to spend an hour getting them back because of email changes.

If we really want to make our lives simpler computers sure as hell aren't the answer.

Screw accounts...

What we should do is try to simplify things in computers, not make them so powerful and fragile. There's no reason that we can send a man to the moon but not make a damn flash player well!

My relationship with technology is very love-hate because I see all the potential but notice that nobody perfects older aspects before adding new variables to the system. They should work every damned kink out so that it works as well as its max potential. I am aware not everything will be possible with this, but can't we get FLASH to do this!?

If we stopped focusing on touch screens and more on basics and keeping website formats as simple as needed like Wrong Planet Forums, Google etc we will be well off as a society. Instead I just see clutter similar to Myspace often...those pages used to take like 3 minutes to load on high speed...that's what all pages are like these days for those with slow internet.

Also, in regards to the fragility, why can't we fix that? The original NES was nearly indestructible...now the PS3 is far larger with stronger materials and is still rendered unusable if left outside for a week or so.

It's all just baffling how humans consider technology and how poorly executed it is for us...

I agree, but nobody has come up with a better way yet.

I do find it amusing that you began by explaining your frustration with passwords and end by suggesting the NES is in some ways superior to modern technology, considering that the NES is somewhat notorious for often having games that used random passwords that you were required to write down and re-enter every time you wanted to resume your game.

That's an awesome image ShatBat, laughed for minutes after seeing it.

Deuterium, I didn't like the passwords system; I liked the durability of the system. The successor, the SNES, started having save files, which are a far better idea. But yes, it is ironic.

I think it is important to recognize that it is the nature of why these systems are, by current day's standards, slow, that is what gives them their durable properties. If you compare the constituents of the NES to modern circuit manufacturing processes, everything is enormous. There is a much higher tolerance for flaws. When miniaturizing any device, your tolerances for errors reduce accordingly; now we are down to 22 nanometer processes, able to fit over 2 billion transistors in a CPU. In the lab we have created wires that are 4 atoms wide and transistors that are a single atom; these will likely be making their ways into the devices in our homes in the relatively near future.

Our desktops/laptops/consoles also put enormous thermal stresses on these components to the point that without proper cooling they will either automatically shut-down or, failing that, destroy themselves. Over time the constant variations from cold to hot can introduce microscopic flaws in these parts that already have low tolerances for error; it is no surprise that they can end up failing. The NES is ice-cold by comparison. It lasts for so long because it doesn't have to put up with the byproducts of our increasing computational demands. I think it is important to recognize just how many of our modern devices, which operate on molecular scales, exist and actually work - the fact that any do, never mind that billions of them do, to me is a testament of just how capable we are. I get a crash/reset about twice a month, running my computer for 12+ hours per day, I'd say that's a pretty acceptable level of faults and an amazing achievement of the invisible orchestra of electricity happening under my fingers.

Website clutter/bad web engineering/bad web optimization isn't the fault of the technologies they utilize, though; no more than blaming paint manufacturers for ugly paintings by artists. It's up to whomever is building with them to use them appropriately and to provide a usable experience. It is exponentially more likely that slow performance/bugs/crashes are the cause of a programmer handling data in a way that could have been more intelligent than a bug in the libraries and tools he is using; in this way it is not a matter of choosing between making faster software or devoting more resources into creating more durable hardware less prone to failure; they are two disciplines done by two different types of people, the software engineer and the hardware engineer, though they are working toward a common goal - they both just need to do their jobs correctly and we can have both fast and stable things. But since anyone can program there's no real regulatory system to make sure that every programmer knows exactly what he/she is doing.

Maybe we can't really expect to be able to leave computers outside for weeks anymore (though I'm not sure it was ever recommended), but I think most of us have apartments/houses so I'd rather have my computer cost less than be paying for some kind of ultra-durable, moisture-proof, insulated casing that I'll likely never need, just so I can one day boot the machine up again in the future when it's long past obsolete.

You raise some very good points Deuterium.

In regards to how small the components are, I don't like how small they are. We don't need electronics super small; hell, I can't even put in numbers on some of the newer cell phones because of how much we condense things.

We could go back to having large boxes with high tech hardware built to last and encourage more patches/software updates to make sure things are compatible. Not sure what kind of campaigning would be needed for that though.

If we can find a balance between small and large we will be able to have fast and reliable.

Your mention of programming makes a good point, but it still doesn't explain why Windows Media Player 12 is a train wreck on multiple levels.

Well, by smaller components I mean the physical circuitry, not necessarily the size of the interface that you make contact with. Even if you had a smart phone the size of a desk, the components that power it would still use nano-scale circuitry. Not only does it let us fit more transistors into a given processing unit, but it is also electrically efficient to use very tiny circuits which can operate on lower power and generate less waste energy. High-tech is nearly synonymous with nanotech.

Again, I don't think there is any reason to view an immediately concerning correlation between size<->reliability, it is the stresses that these parts undergo or their supporting components failing that leads to their downfall. Being small makes them more vulnerable, but removing those stresses wearing them out makes their size a non-issue (past the initial difficulties in manufacturing them). There are incredibly reliable systems that operate on latest-tech; they tend to be lower TDP and thus don't require active components like fans to keep them stable. If you require fans to keep your CPU stable, then the lifetime of your CPU becomes limited by the lifetime of the fans. If you want a computer that will last 10+ years you want one that has no moving parts. Reliable, modern computers do exist.

What is a common factor between the NES, SNES, Genesis, GameBoy, and most other 'old school' electronics that have operated for decades? They tend to have no moving parts. They don't generate enough heat to stress the components or require fans and use solid-state storage so they cannot fail due to mechanical stress like platter-based hard drives can. However, cartridge-based save games tended to be saved using low-power volatile memory kept alive via a button-cell battery - saved games and the ability to save new games ends when these batteries die. Now we have non-volatile flash storage which does not have this issue.

If the general public all owned tank-durable systems that lasted for 10 years we wouldn't be able to do 1/10th of what we can compared to the ones we are currently using at the ease in which we use them. Software updates are great and can make things run smoother, but rarely afford a speed increase comparable to the additional power that new hardware provides. If we were all using decade-old computers we would have a decade-old Internet (though we'd at least have better design-sense than we did), there would be no YouTube or Skype Video because nobody could stream videos at resolutions larger than their pinkies, our games would never amaze us in their realism, and I would still be stuck having to sleep overnight waiting for a 3D render to finish in the quality I can now get in under five seconds. Forget all of the creative projects that have been released based on interpreted/JIT-compiled technology, we wouldn't have the resources to operate these beyond text manipulation and other rudimentary operations let alone games and scientific processing. You could also say goodbye to the semiconductor industry as a whole, which relies on phasing-out the old and buying the new every 2-5 years, to stay profitable.

If the hardware was to blame on Windows Media Player 12 and Internet Explorer being bad, then VLC/Foober2000 and Firefox/Chrome/Opera would be bad, too. But they aren't. It is programming and interface decisions that make applications good or bad, not the hardware, in the same way that it is the way you drive that makes you a good driver, not how fast your car is.

In conclusion:
1. Modern, reliable computers do exist. Most people do not buy them because they tend not to be the fastest/cheapest available (however netbooks, which are usually entirely solid-state, no moving parts, are increasingly popular and I would expect that many will last quite a while). Smart phones and other mobile devices are often solid state as well, but these tend to undergo much more physical abuse in daily life so we cannot expect them to remain pristine just due to their internals.

2. If everyone used computers that lasted for a very long time it would prevent us from achieving all of the benefits that more system resources provide our modern life.

3. Faulty/bad applications are the result of faulty/bad ways of thinking while creating them; rarely by an issue in hardware. For every application that doesn't run well, you'll be able to find another that does the same thing and runs just fine because it was created by people who know what they are doing and who have the quality of the program as their main interest, not incorporating more attention into rights management/treating the user as a thief/trying to lock the user into using proprietary/closed file formats that aren't as well designed as open ones.

4. It isn't hard to keep your computer indoors and out of the heat/rain.

I think the construction of a failsafe cryptosystem is comparable to solving the halting problem. Doesn't mean there aren't better solutions that passwords, just that whatever that may be still sucks. =/