top 5 unsolved problems in computer science

My other pet peeves besides these:

Android locking screen a second before I jab the screen, every single time
YouTube app. Android and smart TVs. What's wrong with it? (Vague overall gesturing) It's garbage. How is one of the biggest tech companies in the world able to ship this and expect people to pay money for subscriptions is beyond me.

Android in general is trash.

Getting users to post text instead of screenshots of text.

There's ALT text.
- Not in the OP. For primarily text content, images of them are pretty pointless: there are links to source, quotes, etc.
Would be cool, if we could cross-post Mastodon posts...
- [mbin has entered the chat]
- Like this?
- If only there was a way to copy text, and then paste it someplace else. Sigh... unsolved problems.

Relevant xkcd

Nice, a relevant xkcd that I didn't guess before clicking the link! Well done!

Applications that steal focus more than once in their startup are the real devil

My own pet peeve is UI components whose associated action is divorced from the components interaction feedback.

For example, a button that seems visibly pressed (even lights up! Maybe there's even audio or haptic feedback!) but once you release, nothing actually happens because you were supposed to press it or hold it down for slightly longer.

This even happens with physical controls: in some elevators you can press a floor button such that it lights up momentarily, and even beeps, and yet the elevator doesn't register the command and you have to press again, longer.

I have this experience with a certain type of pedestrian traffic light "button".
I quote button, because nothing physically moves when you press it. I'm not sure if it registers pressure or heat, but you don't even feel anything move when you press it.
Usually when you press the button, a red text lights up on the button, telling you to wait. This text gives you feedback that the button registered your press, and the traffic light will schedule a green light for you.
However, sometimes you didn't press hard enough, and the text doesn't light up. Simple solution: press harder.
But there is a scenario where it doesn't matter how hard you press, the button won't light up. You keep staring at it, while slamming the damn thing with the fury of a Hulk wealding Mjolnir. Still, nothing lights up. The reason: the light instantly went green, so it never needed to light up the text telling you to wait. And all that time slamming your fist on the button, could have been spend crossing the intersection. Instead you have been standing there, looking like a drunk person having a fistfight with an inanimate object.
I've actually noticed this exact thing with elevators before... I was kind of amazed the beep and light were hooked up completely independently from the actual floor selection logic.
It sort of makes sense that the light in the button would just be hooked directly up to the button contacts. The computer would then be polling the buttons separately and it's possible to miss a button press... These sorts of buttons shouldn't need a debounce period since pressing any of them a second time doesn't do anything. If the buttons were interrupt based, this probably wouldn't happen.

I’m pretty sure that 5 is a feature because the button that moved is usually replaced with a clickable ad.

Discord steals focus 3 separate times on startup. It's so goddam infuriating. Battle.net does at least twice.

Steam does as well.
I found out recently that KDE has a "Focus stealing prevention" in their settings and it has been glorious.
- Ooh! I need to look that up.
- Happy cake day!

I wanna... I have a dream where computers don't create their own problems to solve and are not used to shoehorn in the desires of rich people and give us a future that we didn't ask for.

As with all open problems in computer science, we solved these back in the 80s.

I recently wanted to send a file from Linux to an old tablet over Bluetooth. Can't be done apparently. I can send it to my phone, a windows laptop can send it to the tablet, but my Linux PC apparently can't. Still baffled about it.

Printers.

Printers are solved now, you just don't have one.
Printers are a fucking gawd damn scam

Yes I hate this so much.
Use a better window manager.
Use a better web stack.
Don't most browsers support this?
https://wormhole.app/

I love it so much when ~~reddit~~ lemmy clients think they are smarter and they renumber points 5 to 1 as 5 to 9..
edit: oops, still sometimes writing reddit instead of lemmy after almost 2 years..
- It's not the client, it's markup.
Don't most browsers support this?
but not all web servers. often it's disabled
- Oof, that's unfortunate. I can't say I've run into this problem though.

My favorite way to share files is to compose an email and attach the file. I then save it as a draft and then go to another computer and open that draft and download the file. Its the best method and it has worked for at least a decade. Sometimes you have to send it to yourself but the method is perfect

Another quick fix is to set up a "Note to Self" group in Signal (make a group with 2 people then remove the other member). Nice tidy way to move things around, with a history of things you moved earlier
- I don't use Signal (gasp I know). But this is a great workaround.

For 2, one of the few pieces of Windows software that I haven't been able to replace in Linux is GetRight. Many HTTP servers support downloads starting at an offset from the beginning of the file, and GetRight uses that to allow download pausing and resumption.

It was a real life saver back when I had an extremely flaky Internet connection.

EDIT: Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll definitely take a look at them. Simply resuming downloads is why I initally started using GetRight, but it also came with a bunch of other useful tools that I came to rely on. While I've been able to replicate some of the basic functionality with individual browser plugins or programs, I haven't seen anything that integrates it all so well, with such a smooth interface. I haven't looked for a long time, though, so maybe one of your suggestions will be the one!

Firefox does that out of the box.
Wow, getright! That's a throwback. I used that in the 90s.
On linux I use aria2c for similar tasks. It can resume http downloads, as well as split them up into multiple threads for faster downloading.
It's cli-based and powerful (therefore perhaps a bit confusing at first), but there are UIs for it as well for a more get-rightty experience.
I think jdownloader also has some application here, though it's mostly for getting things from those ad-filled file hosting sites frequently used by those on the high seas
- Why would you multithread it except for heaving mutiple paths of entry to your home connection or you are getting a throttle from the file hoster?
https://aria2.github.io/
Have you tried JDownloader?

Honestly, when I open a new application I normally want to interact with it now. Always drove me nuts , when I opened a Powershell window in a folder and then had to click on it again.

Until its a popup and you're entering a password.
Or it took several seconds to load.
I think it'd be nice if there was an OS-app version of the web browser middle-click. I never feel confused about whether an opened link is or is not taking focus because I shared my intent by which mouse button I used (left: open and switch, middle: just open).

for 1: kdeconnect or warpinator

is it right that both of these only work on LAN?
- I think so, at least Warpinator. Try Syncthing, it operates on pure magic.