technology Archives - Page 3 of 8

Everything takes longer than I think

dancing snowman

snowman Except for the fortnightly link post, I’ve all but stopped blogging in the past couple weeks. There are several reasons for this:

UNO. I’ve started to do genealogical research. It’s very interesting, but it is a massive time suck. In addition to Ancestry.com, I’ve gotten my results from 23andMe. These have lead me onto some fascinating journeys. I’ve since gotten trials with Archives.com and Newspapers.com, and tripped over more things.

The curse when you find one piece of information is that it’s difficult to decide which one to pursue next. Something about high, low road, and Scotland. Do you go for depth or breadth in a certain area?

I wrote a blog post about my findings. I’m going to have to rewrite that one and create another one, or two.

DOS. I had end of the year financial insurance stuff to do. It’s stuff where frankly, MEGO. This, in particular, is the source of the title Everything takes longer than I think.

TRES. I’ve had technological problems. It generated a “well, stuff happens” post. But then one of them became a major snafu. One element is that I’m unable to print from my copier, which has made the first two items on this list incrementally more difficult. So I need to rewrite TWO more posts.

CUATRO. The holidays. It’s hard for me to write when there are people I love in the house. Blogging is a solitary task, and I don’t want to be up in the office when the family is up and about.

This post, BTW, I wrote after I woke up at 3 a.m. Thank goodness for my vaunted writing ahead. About a month ago, I had 55 completed posts. Now I have, ostensibly, 42, and probably fewer since I’ll have to recreate a few. This is not a complaint, just a fact.

A legitimate use of Q-Tips

So expect a lot of movies reviews in the beginning of 2020, four movies I saw in December I haven’t even had time to evaluate.

Lest this entirely become navel-gazing, I want to point out Arthur’s solution to a corrosive problem: “I worked out that one of the batteries had leaked, and, I thought, that was that: I’d have to replace the unit.

“But then I decided to Google it to see if there was a way to clean the contacts, and there is: White vinegar or lemon juice removes the battery gunge from the contact—or so the Internet told me. And, it actually did. I put the batteries in again, and the unit worked perfectly.”

I did exactly the same thing with my daughter’s dancing snowman that she loved as a child. Fortunately, she didn’t play 14 times in a row, the way she used to.

Technology does not like me – really, it doesn’t

The techie guy pointed out that my computer repeatedly needed replacement far earlier than anyone else’s

i-love-technology-but-technology-hates-me I believe i may have misrepresented myself in this blog. It is not that I dislike technology. Rather, it’s that technology does not like me.

Two or three work techies ago, the guy pointed out that my computer repeatedly needed replacement far earlier than anyone else’s. He told me that some folks just have “ions” or whatever that irritate machines. I’m not sure I believe that, but it WOULD explain things.

I have a printer on my desk, which worked for a short time, then inexplicably stopped. That was no big deal. i could print to one of the printers on the Local Area Network. Eventually, though, they too ceased working for me, but not for anyone else.

It’s now the folks who are at SUNY Central who tend to our machines. I called the help desk, who generally are very good at what they do. The techie took over my machine remotely.

In the beginning, no luck. Then a sample page was published, followed by 691 sheets of paper with merely one or two lines of gibberish. Finally, after 111 minutes, my local printer, and at least one of the LAN ones were working for me.

Other people don’t understand. When I’m walking back and forth to the various LAN printers, someone said, “Well, I’M not having any problems.” Diagnostically, that was actually useful information, but emotionally, not so much. Nearly two hours wasted – grrrr.

The good news is that because I know that technology does not like me, I’ve developed coping skills. For instance, there are two elevators in our building. We were told NOT to use the left elevator, with paper messages on each of the four floors. But it took them two days to TURN THE ELEVATOR OFF.

When one summons a lift, the left one would inevitably arrive first. This was actually frustrating to some people, but not to me. I’d get on the left elevator just enough to send it from the 1st to the 4th floor, then get out. THEN I’d summon the elevator again, and get on the right one.

Technology and I are still dating. I’m definitely not married to it.

For ABC Wednesday

Self-monitoring toilets and other modern conveniences

I think of HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the characters in the movie Westworld.

There is this article that Dan Lewis of Now I Know pointed to: Why Nothing Works Anymore, with the subtitle “Technology has its own purposes.”

“The contemporary public restroom offers an example. Infrared-sensor flush toilets, fixtures, and towel dispensers are sometimes endorsed on ecological grounds—they are said to save resources by regulating them. But thanks to their overzealous sensors, these toilets increase water or paper consumption substantially. Toilets flush three times instead of one. Faucets open at full-blast. Towel dispensers mete out papers so miserly that people take more than they need.

“Instead of saving resources, these apparatuses mostly save labor and management costs. When a toilet flushes incessantly, or when a faucet shuts off on its own, or when a towel dispenser discharges only six inches of paper when a hand waves under it, it reduces the need for human workers to oversee, clean, and supply the restroom.”

Surely I have experienced this. In the previous building I worked in, the toilet flushed an average of 2.5 times every time. Not only would the faucets only turn on with proper distance wave, they would often fail to turn off even ten minutes later. And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I’m not the handiest person in the world, but I have opened the back of a standard toilet to get it to work again. I think this is the same frustration car owners have with everything so calibrated that they can’t fix what’s under the hood. It gives me an uneasy feeling.

I went to this home show maybe decade or so ago, and we marveled how wonderful a “smart” house would be, knowing how efficient it would be. Likewise the driverless car. These would be particular wonders to the elderly and the disabled. But can they be hacked?

Or go rogue? I think of HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the characters in the movie Westworld. I don’t think I’m just being a Luddite when I get wary that technology will always make our lives easier. Maybe paranoid, though.

The Lydster, Part 143: playing with Fire

My loving child regularly mocks me.

ALL of her friends had some sort of electronic device, and she did not, so someone (Santa? The Wife, and I? I forget) gave The Daughter an Amazon Fire for Christmas. It was one of the best presents I ever got.

For one thing, it ended the fussing over The Wife’s work iPad. It was entrusted to the adult, of course, but the child knew far better how to actually USE the thing. I was of no help in this arena either.

The Daughter getting her own device means The Wife doesn’t complain that her device is not charged, or not in her school bag in the morning as she heads off to work. Not hearing this repeated disagreement is GREAT, for ME, and for them as well.

Another thing: it made MY Amazon Fire, purchased some months ago, actually usable. For some reason, I had to change the password in our home WiFi last summer, and the Time Warner Cable guy said, “You’d better write it down because it’s unretrievable.” Well, I DID lose it, in fairly short order. I had my device but couldn’t use it at home.

Since The Daughter wanted to use her new machine at home, I called TWC anyway – something I wouldn’t have bothered to do for myself – and, lo and behold, was able to reset the password to something this Census geek can actually remember.

Oh, yeah. The Wife has a habit of putting all the plugs for all the devices in a drawer, but somehow, my Fire charger went MIA. Now, I can use The Daughter’s charger; yeah, I could have bought a new one, but I did not. My loving child regularly mocks me when she realizes things she can do after two days that I never figured out in four months.

Endangered skills?

I find it online banking so much easier than the paper version.

When you know you’re going to be unavailable, and you want to write ahead, you do list thingies. Thanks to fillyjonk:

20 Skills Facing Extinction
According to a survey, “younger generations have a lack of interest in things like reading maps, tying knots and remembering phone numbers. They don’t know how to knit, use a compass, darn a sock or write in cursive. Here are the following 20 skills facing extinction.”

1. Reading a map: Yes, I can do this; I often serve as a navigator, going back to my childhood. What I CAN’T do, apparently, is refold a road map properly. But I have loved maps since my grandfather gave me maps from his National Geographic magazines; still have a few of them.
2. Using a compass: I have, but haven’t had much need.
3. Tie a specific knot: Depends. I was excruciatingly slow learning to tie my shoes; I wore penny loafers until I was nine. On one particular job, I had to tie boxes in bundles of 20, and I had a bear of a time; I quit after two weeks. Ah, let’s say no; literally, I was no Boy Scout.
4. Darn socks: I never have.
5. Looking something up in a book using an index rather than ‘Googling it’: I AM a librarian, and in my office is a shelf of reference books, which I find not only easier to use than Google, but far more reliable.

6. Correct letter-writing technique: I DO know this, but haven’t much need of late.
7. Understanding pounds and ounces: I know a ton about this.
8. Knowing your spelling and grammar: Despite the typos in this blog, I really am quite good at this. I’ve even been known to offer correction to others, and they correct me.
9. Converting pounds and ounces to grams and kilograms: 2.2 pounds is a kilogram; knew without looking it up.
10. Starting a fire from nothing: Well, I’ve done it with a piece of glass and dried grass, but not in a long while. But NOTHING nothing? No.

11. Handwriting: I know the rules, but the truth is my handwriting is terrible. Thank goodness for the computer.
12. Understanding feet and inches: It helps to have a young daughter who is learning this anew, but yes, and fathoms, and furlongs, and miles.
13. Knitting: No, nor any of those other fine arts, such as crocheting.
14. Remembering a friend or relative’s phone number. Several of them, if they haven’t changed, including both of my sisters. The problem is that people get cellphones, and get new numbers. Then I NEVER remember the new numbers.
15. Remembering a partner’s phone number. I know The Wife’s cellphone number. I also remember her Social Security number.

16. Identifying trees, insects, flowers: Not my strength, except for the really obvious ones. Ah, a purple flower…
17. Touch typing. I’m a terrible typist.
18. Baking bread from scratch. I’ve done it, don’t particular enjoy it.
19. Taking up trousers. No.
20. Wiring a plug. A qualified no. I’ve actually done it from modeling another, but not my strength.

I also have changed a car tire, though it’s been years. I can figure out square root by hand and occasionally do so, just as a mental exercise. I hate automatic bowling scoring because I’d rather do it myself.

They also apparently listed “10 essential skills for modern life”

1. Searching the Internet: Evidently, I have figured this out, and not just Google.
2. Using/ connecting to WiFi: Done that. It’s fun traveling on a bus and finding the goofy hot spot names.
3. Using a smartphone. Rarely have done this. And I so seldom use my dumb phone.
4. Online banking. Actually, I find it so much easier than the paper version.
5. Knowing about privacy settings online: I probably should do more.

6. Searching and applying for jobs online; I’ve actually been on the other side of this, on search committees. Don’t much like it, but it’s “efficient.”
7. Being able to turn the water off at the mains. Haven’t had the need.
8. Using and following a sat-nav: You mean GPS? I’m inherently suspicious of it, ever since I was in my brother-in-law’s car some years ago and we literally drove around in circles. I like road signs, directions, maps. Mark Evanier has a good example of blind reliance on GPS.
9. Updating and installing computer programs. I’ve done it. There’s usually something wrong, and I have to reinstall.
10. Working a tablet: I like them. I can work them. The problem is that I tend to kill them.