Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

I think your basic bottom of the range 4 burner gas hob/oven is all anybody needs, there is barely anything that can go wrong with them short of your gas getting cut off because of non-payment or the apocalypse. They lack flame power, but if you want a an industrial kitchen in your house then you need to win the lottery.

we have one of those at home, yes extremely annoying.

I have arthritis in both hands, not severely but enough that it's a pain to operate, also cannot open twist-top "child-proof" containers, and yes, writing on a smartphone (as I'm doing now) is a very frustrating process. But nobody building these things has apparently ever considered this.

apologies for the ableism there, but these smart cookers are something I'm going to avoid for as long as possible

sorry calz, that was an xpost, I would love to have a basic 4-ring gas hob, unfortunately the landlady does not agree.

the best low-tech kitchen investment I've made in recent times was buying a steel garlic press. It looks indestructible, is easy to clean, doesn't have any removable parts and you can squeeze 4/5 cloves in it. It's fucking amazing!

We have one and the plastic grip came off and vanished in the maw of the kitchen god. Still usable and amazing but leaves some deep indentation marks in my fingers!

I shamefully buy jars of pureed garlic now

I still buy jars of pureed garlic/ginger every few weeks, because my hands and skin get worn out from too much mincing and need a break sometimes

You can get induction hobs (which ARE a technological forward step compared to gas) with dial controls - but they tend to be more expensive ones for the professional kitchen marker. I’m stuck with a cheaper one with touch displays which is a bit of a pain - but it honestly is much better than the gas hob we had before and also does not emit loads of pollutants.

I assumed having dials would be much less expensive and resource intensive than touch controls. is that wrong? I don't know how any of these things actually work. I hope there are more affordable home versions available eventually though

I assume now it‘s much simpler to stick in a touch screen which can be made in another factory and then just plugged in with one-click of a cable connector as opposed to a multi step process with manual controls.

A couple of nice things people probably like about the touchscreen interface is that it makes cleaning really really easy, and also allows things like timers to visual show the hob is off - with a dial it would appear the hob was still on and be confusing.

Yeah but if I wipe it or move a pot across it or anything it turns off, it's really annoying to use even after a year or so.

I was staying at a hotel last week with touchscreen bedroom lights – impossible to turn the light on to find the bathroom in the middle of the night when there’s no switch to feel for.

I was teaching a class with 18-20-year-old students from all around the world this week, asked them to make a single powerpoint slide and email it to me as an attachment. More than 50% were unable to complete this very simple task!

that was me when my manager asked me to fax something to somewhere about 10 years ago

when i started teaching in 2003 i used ohp slides, still have a folder full of them, superior in every sense to every interactive whiteboard ever made.

I was teaching a class with 18-20-year-old students from all around the world this week, asked them to make a single powerpoint slide and email it to me as an attachment. More than 50% were unable to complete this very simple task!

do you think the problem was "files" (i.e. experience with computers rather than phones/tablets/chromebooks) or "powerpoint" (iiuc ms office is basically no longer used at all by kids)? would it have gone better if you'd asked them to send you a link to a google slides presentation?

it would have been smoother, for sure - but these young people are preparing for university and will soon have to submit .pptx files through turnitin, so they absolutely have to learn this

i think a deeper issue with touchscreens for me is that afaict hands just aren't designed to lightly graze a smooth hard surface with no resultant or antagonistic physical movement involved for hours on end. so not only is the touchscreen being horribly misapplied to every situation where the perfect interface was achieved pre-internet a question of losing an incredible amount of efficiency, but the entire experience of using them is physically one of the worst things we can do with our hands and fingers.

at least it feels that way to me, i'm no expert, everything about using touchscreens just feels incredibly bad to me.

it would have been smoother, for sure - but these young people are preparing for university and will soon have to submit .pptx files through turnitin, so they absolutely have to learn this

imo universities are going to have to deal with the facts that 1) schoolkids learn on chromebooks and tablets 2) chromebooks and tablets are not actually poor preparation for the "real world of work" in 2023 (i.e. gsuite and web apps). it's just poor preparation for universities staffed by professors in their 50s that are captive to IT education vendors.

until they do, however, you have my sympathies!

I kind of agree, but also it really sucks that people don't seem to have a grasp on the file architecture of their computers or other devices, just an indirect relationship mediated through apps, relying on google/apple/whoever to keep their photos / documents there. I don't trust these companies to be good custodians of our personal archives.

fair

i mailed in all my application materials for college, then wrote all my essays in the computer lab in the library. in the early 2010s.

the idea that people shouldn't be allowed to go to college because they don't know how to mail you a power point slide is insane.

i realize that's not exactly what you're saying, but imo it's totally fine to accept that a lot of adults have and will continue to want their computers to "just work," same as their cars. it doesn't make them incompetent or less able to succeed in the world, it just means they focus on other things

also digital archiving sucked before 'the cloud' as much as it sucks after it.

I get it though. I'm finding I frequently have to include search strings when I set tasks/homework that involve 'Googling something'. Let alone writing an email.

Digital natives my arse.

xxxp I'm not any kind of gatekeeper to university or anything else, but it's just a simple skill, basic digital literacy, something really useful that takes at most 10 minutes to learn

xp it sucked 20 years ago, it sucks a lot more now, but the megaupload era in the middle was by far the suckiest

I don't think everyone needs to know how to code, or even use ms office, just think it's concerning that everyone just has to completely trust apple/google/etc. to take care of all of their photos & videos, and rely on streaming services not to take down a tv show or a film.

people would be better off learning how to pirate

nothing about using a specific software solution to do something that can be done a million other ways is basic digital literacy

I'm talking about attaching a file to an email, what are the million alternatives here?

Left at 10:37 11 Nov 23

people would be better off learning how to pirate

Millions Now Living Will Never Attach A File To An Email

i've been a gmail user for over ten years but within the past two years had to start using MS teams for work. it was definitely frustrating to realize i could not, in fact, figure out how to attach a file to an email

all of which is to say, it may be tempting to blame user error, but what about the knobs who design this absolute dogshit

I like to have a few USB hard drives around, and periodically save all my historical stuff to them. Every few years I buy two more and save the same few thousand files to both, figuring that at least one will survive.

Inevitably, some will stop working or lose compatability. I accept this risk. But it's also why I buy a couple drives every few years.

In the olden days, whenever I got a new computer, I would transfer huge numbers of files... which would inevitably become obsolete and/or unreadable.

So I totally understand the skepticism about cloud storage. No, I don't trust Google Drive or OneDrive or whomsoever to keep my shiz intact in perpetuity. But I can have reasonable confidence that if I've posted something to social media, emailed it to myself, printed it out, and saved it to two or three hard drives, it has a decent chance of survival.

nobody knows how to use a card catalog anymore

Also, even given these precautions, it is probably okay if I occasionally lose a picture of my girlfriend from 1988, or an essay I wrote about Virginia Woolf in 1991, or a bootleg live REM recording from 1993. Not to mention a couple hundred articles about social marketing and health education from 2004-2008.

I try to strike a balance between keeping what matters and sometimes just letting stuff go.

i'm with you, ymp, i'm just into embracing the impermanence of all things.

i don't ever put anything in my phone. everything is on files on my hard drive and when i'm out somewhere and somebody asks me, say, what medications i'm on, i can't answer, because my list of medications is on a file on my hard drive. for me the cloud isn't about preservation, it's about accessibility. do people in younger generations care as much about keeping their old stuff? i'm a hoarder. i spent decades painstakingly collecting a whole lot of stuff i can now instantaneously stream. all this stuff i thought was precious and valuable just isn't anymore. this box i have with all this stuff on it, when i'm gone i'm pretty sure it's going to get trashed. who's going to want to keep it? who's going to be able to find the password to it?

i get irritable about ten varying versions of everything on usb sticks and drives im trying to become digitally clean and efficient tbh

I have begrudgingly had to learn how to use Microsoft products and it isn’t that hard, imho, but as everyone notes, they are just unspeakably ugly. No matter the rest of the work environment, they just give “suburban government office” vibes no matter how one adjusts settings. Bland, ugly, not intuitive.

i've been a gmail user for over ten years but within the past two years had to start using MS teams for work. it was definitely frustrating to realize i could not, in fact, figure out how to attach a file to an email

On the same track and in tune with this thread, I have to downgrade Outlook to create a contacts list since the new version can't assign a dozen email addresses to one contact list/group.

There's even a button on the window that says something like "downgrade" because even Microsoft knows it sucks.

nobody knows how to use a card catalog anymore

― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 12 November 2023 00:38 bookmarkflaglink

I was reading an old detective story the other day (Murder in Mind by PD James) and was fascinated by a scene involving data management/metadata and information retrieval, where the detective (Dalgliesh) is trying to find a blackmailer in a psychiatric clinic:

In the medical director’s room two hours later, Dalgliesh placed three black metal boxes on Dr Etherege’s desk. The boxes, which had small round holes punched in each of the shorter sides, were packed with buff-coloured cards. It was the clinic diagnostic index. Dalgliesh said:

‘Mrs Bostock has explained this to me. If I’ve understood her correctly, each of these cards represents a patient. The information on the case record is coded and the patient’s code punched on the card. The cards are punched with even rows of small holes and the space between each hole is numbered. By punching any number with the hand machine I cut out the card between the two adjacent holes to form an oblong slit. If this metal rod is then inserted through, say, hole number 20 on the outside of the box, and pushed right through the cards, and the box is rotated, any card which has been punched through that number will stand out. It is, in fact, one of the simplest of the many punch-card systems on the market.’

‘You appreciate, Superintendent, that the case records are confidential?’ ‘I’m not asking to see a single case record. But if I did I don’t think either you or the patient need worry. Shall we get started? We can take out our class 1 patients. Perhaps you would call out the codes for me.’

A considerable number of the Steen patients were in class 1. ‘Upper-class neuroses catered for only,’ thought Dalgliesh. He surveyed the field for a moment and then said:

‘If I were the blackmailer would I choose a man or a woman? It would depend on my own sex probably. A woman might pick on a woman. But, if it’s a question of a regular income a man is probably a better bet. Let’s take out the males next. I imagine our victim will live out of London. It would be risky to select an ex-patient who could too easily succumb to the temptation to pop into the clinic and let you know what was going on. I think I’d select my victim from a small town or village.’

The medical director said:

‘We only coded the country if it were an out-London address. London patients are coded by borough. Our best plan will be to take out all the London addresses and see what’s left.’

This was done. The number of cards still in the survey was now only a few dozen. Most of the Steen patients, as might be expected, came from the county of London. Dalgliesh said:

‘Married or single? It’s difficult to decide whether one or the other would be most vulnerable. Let’s leave it open and start on the diagnosis. This is where I need your help particularly, Doctor. I realize this is highly confidential information. I suggest that you call out the codes for the diagnoses or symptoms which might interest a blackmailer. I don’t want details.’

Again the medical director paused. Dalgliesh waited patiently, metal rod in hand, while the doctor sat in silence, the code book open before him. He seemed not to be seeing it. After a minute he roused himself and focused his eyes on the page. He said quietly:

‘Try codes 23, 68, 69 and 71.’

There were now only eleven cards remaining. Each of them bore a case record number on the top right-hand margin.

a minor theme or piece of interest in the (excellent) '70s TV thriller Edge of Darkness is that detection takes place in the period where paper records and communications are transitioning to computer databases:

The Sources of Information
This is very noticeable watching it now. It's in a middle place between computer databases and everything still being on a hard copy somewhere. Phone calls still needed. Having to go to places to collect information. It made me wonder how modern writers manage to move their characters about at all. What is the motivation to move someone from one place to another when an awful lot of essential information can be garnered online. It becomes more esoteric. Less about necessity.

This is from a time just before that conundrum is posed, so that phone calls and rendezvous and travel are all required. People may not be contactable when you need them. How Craven navigates the world of information is interesting. Detection doesn't happen as such – he is just *driven* (as Jedburgh says of him in the final episode) to acquire whatever he needs to get to the centre of the web. Craven finds recordings, notes, interrogates, interviews, a computer database, he uses psychic contact with his dead daughter, Emma, and talks to himself, he exists in a web of surveillance, data security and information secrecy, odd secret service functions. Colleagues consider him on the edge of sanity – one version of the 'edge of darkness' at play – and he himself wonders what territories he is walking in, especially when he loses the link with his Emma. It is becomes increasingly clear his role as a policeman is becoming entirely absorbed by an emotional quest. Quest? Yes, the motives behind the drive are sexualised, animistic, mythic, arthurian.

its one of the things that any modern day bond/MI thriller steuggles with alright- theres only so many times (once, tbh) you can hack a network in a series before im done with your computer network hacking schtick

the best thing about yr smileys is the absolute centrality of the need for management of human contacts for big and small purposes, and the injection of urgency and danger and criticality in the minor processes of moving people and signals about

Nicholson Baker wrote

...at least a book and a half on card catalogs anyhow much lore was being lost when they fell out of favor.

I can personally remember the dominant smells of at least three different card catalogs, as if they were vintage wines.

Falls Church, Virginia had a slightly musty smell. The cards had rounder corners, whether through design or use. Fairfax County? A little sharper and drier. The cards themselves had a more edgy crispness. Webster Groves, Missouri had a robust hint of mushrooms. They were a bit more yellow, I think.

...St. Louis County's felt a bit cheap. Virginia Commonwealth University's cards were on their way out in the late 80s but the drawers still felt substantial and made a nice ratchets sound when you pulled the drawer all the way out.

I love when you click on an article or a task or something, and it prompts you to log in, and after you log in, it doesn't actually take you to the thing you wanted to open, but back to the home screen.