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

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.

fizzles - that PD James excerpt is actually rather excellent... this is actually the most challenging part of what i do professionally. (i'm a data analyst working in healthcare fraud investigation). what this means is that the tools i start with provide a surfeit of information, way too much to meaningfully investigate, and my job is to try and weed out the parts of it that are unlikely to be interesting or worthy of investigation - the dead ends, you might say. it's _very_ similar to what dalgliesh is doing here. whether the records are stored in a paper file (and a lot of them still are, these days... I was working in an office which kept their records as paper as recently as 2011) or electronically, the process doesn't change as much as you might think!

james doesn't quite get the theory of unauthorized medical disclosure right, mind. from a healthcare information management perspective, disclosing the diagnosis codes and their meanings wouldn't be a problem at all... at that time, i guess the facility could come up with unique diagnosis codes. fucking nightmare. i shudder to think of it. if you're collecting healthcare data you need a standard clinical framework, and that's not going to be confidential. patient data, that's the confidential bit... whether you disclose one patient's information or all of it, even in 1963, i'd think an ethical medical director would balk at that request.

i really should watch _edge of darkness_ at some point. i get it confused either with the US mystery soap opera _edge of night_ (cancelled in 1984) or else _threads_. it's taken me quite some time to get to the point where i can take joe don baker seriously as an actor. my first encounter with him was in _mitchell_ (yes, the MST3K version) which is, uh, perhaps not his finest work. i feel like it's one of the reasons a show like MST3K would only work outside of hollywood... actors like Joe Don Baker and Kim Cattrall went on to have quite respectable acting careers after they were ridiculed on the puppet show. Even the ones who didn't... Timothy van Patten is a well-respected director who's done some good stuff. In 1990s Minneapolis, who's going to know or care about things like that?

james doesn't quite get the theory of unauthorized medical disclosure right, mind. from a healthcare information management perspective, disclosing the diagnosis codes and their meanings wouldn't be a problem at all... at that time, i guess the facility could come up with unique diagnosis codes. fucking nightmare. i shudder to think of it. if you're collecting healthcare data you need a standard clinical framework, and that's not going to be confidential. patient data, that's the confidential bit... whether you disclose one patient's information or all of it, even in 1963, i'd think an ethical medical director would balk at that request.

― Kate (rushomancy)

oh i forgot to add, in practical terms it wouldn't much make a difference. it's baked into american healthcare law that there are exemptions to patient confidentiality. investigating a crime is one of those exemptions. i mean it's easier if you have a subpoena, that way there's nothing to contest in court, but someone from scotland yard comes around investigating a murder, that's a strong case for making an exception to patient confidentiality guidelines - even moreso when there's nothing explicit about those circumstances written into law!

nobody knows how to use a card catalog anymore

i'm sure this is true but also i recall, under mrs riehl in grade six, having to write reports with each book citation written (in *very* strict order that was some Style) on separate 3x5 cards which should then be gathered and placed into a pouch/wee envelope(?) at the end of the report

also there were -- i can't remember the official name, but i feel like they were red -- annual indexes of the articles in (major) periodicals. fucking amazing

also mrs riehl was *awesome* and in her class i learned that the world population had just crossed four billion. and now it's twice that, which is absolutely crazy

also there were -- i can't remember the official name, but i feel like they were red -- annual indexes of the articles in (major) periodicals. fucking amazing

I remember those. They were called the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature or something eye-glazing like that.

yes!

could use that these days not gonna lie

And iirc major newspapers like the NY Times had their own separate sets of those periodical indexes. It's funny to think how recently I used those - in the early 2000s I researched a murder that had happened in my apartment building some 20 years prior which someone had told me about in passing. Those books helped me nail down the exact date and other details of the case.

They were called the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature or something eye-glazing like that.

I used to work for a company that made this kind of thing. I worked in the social sciences department, writing abstracts of academic articles for library catalogs. God, it was a great job. Stupid internet ruined it, of course.

trishyb, it’s funny because when remembering card catalogs and those publications— which were on their way out as i grew up (i am 39)— all i could think to myself was “the internet really fucked up some of the coolest shit we had”

allow me to vent for a moment about goddamn touch screens and moving everything into a computer

I drive a 2013 Ford that I can't in good conscience call a lemon because it has been surprisingly durable in the big ways, hasn't needed any major repairs in the 5 years I've owned it. And at the same time, the electronic system is such a piece of shit, it is constantly surprising me with new ways to malfunction. Today I turned on my car to drive to work, radio was on from last night, fine. But none of the audio controls were working and I couldn't adjust station, volume, input source, anything. There are a few actual buttons - power is one, can scroll through stations or adjust volume on the steering wheel -- so I pushed the power button to try the old on-off. The touchscreen display changed to now acknowledge that I had turned the whole audio system off, but the radio kept merrily playing away. Now nothing is working, can't turn the audio back "on" in order to access controls, guess this is what I'm listening to for the remainder of the drive! Then when I arrive at work and turn the car off, the radio is STILL playing even after I open the car door (which is normally what shuts off all the electronics). I was running late for a meeting and really thought I was going to have to leave my locked, turned off car in the parking lot blasting the radio. Thankfully it did shut off once I used my fob to fully lock all the doors. Various pieces of this shitshow have happened in the past, but not quite to this extent. I should also note that this car has an infuriating habit of the battery dying randomly - has probably happened ~10-15 times in the time I've owned it. This was a good reminder that the electronic system is such a dysfunctional independent operator that of course there is probably all kinds of shit going on that I can't even see that's draining the battery.

While we're on the topic and perfect for this thread, I should also mention that none of the electronics that adjust the driver seat work. Just stopped one day, maybe 3 months ago. I am sure it's fixable but probably for $$$ and the seat froze in my preferred position so I'm just living with it. Needless to say, the manual crank and lever that adjust the passenger seat work fine and dandy.

I should also note that this car has an infuriating habit of the battery dying randomly

hmm. is it a ford focus? this has happened to us twice since we bought our 2010 focus a year ago.

it's a cmax energi but i think when i have researched, the same issue does exist with the focus. is it a plug-in hybrid? i think it can be mitigated somewhat by turning off as many things as possible (radio, ventilation, etc.) before turning off the car. which is absurd.

as a rule i believe its considered good battery management to turn off the main electronic drains before the ignition, likewise dont run them without the car running

is that absurd? idk.

ok ours is a cmax as well (and a focus?? confused) but not a hybrid. i don't turn usually turn the radio etc off, will do now for superstitious reasons. i looked into just getting a new battery but jesus they don't make it easy to replace.

imre halfords are your frugal friend there

not to be that guy but you know the old acronym about Fords.

lol I know at least two

yeah this is my first and last ford

xps dmac, in a car in which the headlights stay on when the car is off, you need to turn the headlights off when you leave the car, the manual will say as much, and that's not absurd. when everything shuts off once the car is off, i think it's pretty wild for the battery to keep draining and then die. it's never been an issue in any other car i've owned.

gotta be a short somewhere, the battery is just draining to ground i.e. the chassis

easier to say than to find, though

yeah fords are just shitty cars, i have a '14 ford focus and goddamn i'm amazed that it still runs. for like each of the first six years i owned it there was another recall on it. i think they eventually stopped doing recalls because nobody owned one. the last time i saw another '14 focus someone was dealing out of it. my advice? do not, under any circumstances, go to your local ford dealer.

anyway the trans (i don't know if i've mentioned it, but damn near everybody calls them "trans" here. yes, i've had cis friends verify this.) goes out, on a regular basis. design issue. it was supposed to make it "sportier". maybe i just don't drive "sporty". i guess i should love it more. the way i drive it, it's bad at passing. that's fine. passing isn't important to me. anyway, i've had to have the, uh, trans replaced twice now. it's got something like 35,000 miles on it.

jfc— my 2005 Outback has 195k on it, still rolling

jfc— my 2005 Outback has 195k on it, still rolling

There are *so many* Subarus on the road in Montana (and Idaho).

yeah, rural California too, which is where I lived when i bought this guy 70,000 miles and eight years ago for 5 grand

There are *so many* Subarus on the road in Montana (and Idaho).

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson)

about a billion of them out here too... they're reliable cars, good outdoor cars, _and_ the official car of lesbians. i am choosing not to share the deliberately infuriating and obnoxious nickname some trans people (who love them as much as much as lesbians do) give them.