
List of hilarious and useless things at CES - seapunk
https://threader.app/thread/1083476320808398849
======
benj111
The smart rod made me think.

What is it about competitive hobbies and having the best kit. If you go
fishing and have the best rod, bait, hooks, where's the upside? You cant be
sure that massive fish you caught is your skill or just tech. Everyone would
expect you to catch a big fish because you have all the kit.

If on the other hand you just have a cheap rod etc, that big fish you catch,
you caught because of your skill. The guy sitting next to you with all the
kit, that's just caught a massive fish is ok, because he has all the kit.

I've noticed the same thing with cycling and golf.

I suppose you could say its to prove you're part of a group, but isn't being
sat in the rain, next to a muddy pond proof enough?

~~~
claudius
Even though a hobby may be competitive, you don’t have to do it competitively.
Maybe you just want to go fishing and catch fish and you’re happy if you
caught one and want to catch more.

As a hobbyist cyclist, I like having a decent bike simply because it’s more
fun to cycle with less effort. Of course I could get an old crappy one to show
off my skill and constitution, but that’s not the point for me. The point is
to have some fun and while part of this fun is due to achieving goals,
achieving a hard goal with a little help such as a good bike is still more fun
than not achieving the hard goal, especially if it’s due to comparably-bad
tech.

Whether your threshold for bad tech is now a really old bike or a not-newest
bike is merely a quantitative difference and in the end subject to personal
preferences.

~~~
benj111
Where do ebikes fit into that picture?

~~~
jdietrich
They fit a different niche. Some people cycle for fitness or sporting reasons;
a motor might compromise the sense of achievement of going faster and further
under your own power. A lot of people cycle just to enjoy the outdoors; the
idea of going faster and further for the same effort might seem perfectly
logical. Ebikes are a great solution if you're just using a bicycle as
functional transport, serving as a convenient halfway house between a bicycle
and motorcycle.

------
idoco
I don't know. Some of the tweets are funny, but it's effortless to be cynical
about other peoples work. (Especially when presented by non-native English
speakers)

Similar lines could have been written about once crazy ideas that we take for
granted today.

~~~
ranit
> Similar lines could have been written about once crazy ideas that we take
> for granted today.

The post mocks the presentation of the products, not the products. Submitted
title here in HN makes it look like it is about mocking the things.

~~~
mimixco
Actually, the guy is spot-on. Not only are the ads dumb, the actual products
are dumb, too. Is there one thing on that list that the world needs?

------
OkGoDoIt
There’s so much weird stuff at CES, but I feel like it’s almost Darwinian. 90%
of it is crap but sometimes the zany stuff works. I’d recommend people in the
tech world attend at least once just to see the intensity of it all. It’s free
if you register far enough in advance. CES is an experience!

This blog post is mostly just making fun of bad English marketing copy though.
Yeah lots of international companies have trouble describing things well in
English, but that isn’t really the right metric to judge them on.

~~~
seapunk
I plan to go there one day, and see it with my own eyes. A lot of cases
presented are "french tech" startups which means these startups are invited
with the money of the France taxpayers. It became a subject of mockery in
France because institutional folks who never launched anything give business
lessons to entrepreneurs and we see the result in Vegas each year.

~~~
SyneRyder
I thought you were exaggerating until I got about halfway through and
discovered the French Tech section. I honestly can't tell if La French Tech
are being knowingly ironic. Their website [1] is a gloriously detailed coming
soon page ("Our site is undergoing renovation, and will be back online with in
2019") and the idea of starting an English language local French Tech
community in your own country is perplexing. I'm fascinated, thanks for
mentioning it.

[1] [https://www.lafrenchtech.com/en/](https://www.lafrenchtech.com/en/)

~~~
realusername
It's an alright community but it's targeted at business people in IT, not
developers, the one in my local area does not have any tech people for
example.

------
majewsky
This is how ordinary people see tech people.

------
docdeek
A lot of French Tech in those photos - I suspect there’s a mix of ‘useless
tech’ and ‘bad marketing copy in a second language’ behind that.

~~~
kabes
Not sure if those 'La French Tech' signs are supposed to be marketing or
warnings.

------
CharlesDodgson
Some of those are genuinely terrible, many others are a great example of why
it's as important to sell your idea well!

------
jonathanstrange
"The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later."

That's all I get instead of pictures.

~~~
fabrixxm
Images are from twitter. Is the browser blocking tracking content? (for me, on
firefox, that's the case).

original twitter thread
[https://twitter.com/edzitron/status/1083476320808398849](https://twitter.com/edzitron/status/1083476320808398849)

------
tinus_hn
It a reformatted version of this:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/edzitron/status/10834763208083988...](https://mobile.twitter.com/edzitron/status/1083476320808398849)

------
chx
You know what's missing? NBASE-T USB adapters. What's going on? They were
announced last summer and they are nowhere to be found.

~~~
voltagex_
I don't think Aquantia is "consumer focused" enough.

Looks like the next presentation is January 16.

[https://investors.aquantia.com/news/2019/01-07-2019-14002744...](https://investors.aquantia.com/news/2019/01-07-2019-140027448)

~~~
chx
Well, there is the Realtek RTL8156 at 2.5gbit as well and there are no
products AFAICS.

[https://www.realtek.com/en/component/zoo/category/network-
in...](https://www.realtek.com/en/component/zoo/category/network-interface-
controllers-10-100-1000m-gigabit-ethernet-usb-3-0-software)

------
hawski
The World's First Smart Sofa reminds me of The World's Most Comfortable Chair
from The Tick:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ah7GxKHGHPg](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ah7GxKHGHPg)

That would've been something.

------
SJSque
I think that I should take inspiration from some of these and add some new
possibilities to my Idea Generator:
[http://www.stevesque.com/ideas](http://www.stevesque.com/ideas)

~~~
kaybe
Needs more Alexa and Youtube in everything! (Yes of course I want Alexa in my
toilet, what a fantastic idea! </s>)

------
k4ch0w
Thank you OP I haven't laughed that hard in a while. I honestly have no words
for some of them. Water 2.0?!

------
anonu
The WowCube - The World's first Twisty Games Console... I am actually
intrigued.

~~~
mimixco
I agree. That's the only one that seemed worth looking up.

[https://wowcube.com/](https://wowcube.com/)

------
Jhndb
I can't see any of these images in Firefox.

Edit: Works in Safari.

It's a good thing the internet has enough ad space to sell all this crap

~~~
duckerude
Firefox's tracking protection blocks hotlinked Twitter images.

------
_pmf_
It's missing the Google Assistant Ride:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRHdhj-
imA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRHdhj-imA)

