Two podcasts and a column

12 Replies to “Two podcasts and a column”

1. dumb mode. ha ha ha!!!
   l have a BSc in computer science, which came with a knack for digital tech.
   l detest my tv provider, kept getting confused between the ‘set up’ on the tv and the fact l needed a COMPUTER ACCOUNT of some sort to deal with the provider menu.
   l kept having to ‘reset password’ unsure of much of the whole process. lm still confused l cant recollect wtf it exactly was, if l knew that no problemo.
   and forget about ‘synchronizing’ anything. thats like how one nations economy can tank and bring down all the rest around it.
   the posting is sadly all too true.

2. Dumb mode, yeah. I started on the DEC mainframe in the 1970s, my first PC was the original IBM PC with two 5″ floppies, I’ve been doing computers since forever. I used to fix them too.

   Figure out my phone? Or a Mac? Nope.

   Because they -hide- the functions. You’re supposed to “discover” them, like one finger swipe does this, two finger does that, three finger does the other, and four doesn’t do anything. Maybe. Unless there’s been an update.

   Cars? Do not get me started with cars. Having studied ergonomics as part of physical therapy, there are certain principles involved. Pinching, turning, twisting, pull, push, these are all things that mechanical objects do. A monkey can figure out knobs and levers, buttons, etc.

   The flat slab of glass breaks ALL the rules. Screen in a car? Nightmare!

   But we will see a lot more of this before we see less, because flat slab of glass is cheaper, and every moveable button or port costs money.

   I would settle for an OFF!!! switch. You turn the switch, the device is OFF. Zero electricity flows, can’t be remote-booted, isn’t sitting there doing something when you think its off.

   Ever wonder why there isn’t an off switch? Because the government doesn’t want one, that’s why. You’ll be able to tell when freedom and personal liberty become government policy again by the sudden appearance of an off-switch on electronic devices.

   1. Try adjusting your AC while driving on a bumpy road with a flat screen

3. @Brian re the Dumb Mode:

   I just replaced my old flip phone with a… new flip phone! They are getting hard to find and yes, they are very easy to use if you just want to talk.

   I have a voice and text only plan, which is quite inexpensive. I make calls, I get calls, and I check voicemail when notified I have a message. I read text messages but do not text replies other than ‘WDP’ on occasion. (WDP is 937 which is YES on a keypad without doing the shift or whatever it is that gets you to the other letters the key represents. I just don’t care.)

   When you use a smartphone, you are giving away the store. Everything you say, surf, or take pictures of is recorded and added to the database which profiles ‘You’. Anything I do with my flip phone is recorded as well, but it doesn’t yield much info. Anything I wish to say and keep private, I say it in person.

   There are other reasons to have a dumb phone besides ease of use.

   Whatever your level of paranoia might be, you are not paranoid enough.

4. I guess I am dumb.
   I don’t have TV.
   Only a land line, which I hardly use. Trashed my cell phone 2 years ago.
   I have an old truck.
   Don’t go out much, just for food and booze and the odd scenic drive.
   Simple luddism works for me and the wife.

5. I recently restored an ancient RCA Victor pedestal radio from 1941. It was an expensive home appliance back then, equivalent to about $3000 now. It has four knobs: volume, off-on-tone, frequency band selector, and tuning. And it works now, still brings in far-off AM stations as was necessary here on the prairies in the 1940s.

   There’s an attitude problem here. We think that if technology makes something possible, we have to use it. So we get a thousand options and apps we will never use. The other problem is that the flat-screen phones and TVs are all assembled by robotic machinery. Much cheaper than hand-made like my old RCA. So the profit margins on the modern stuff are huge.

   When I was still flying, the glass cockpits became possible and popular. Steep learning curve for us old guys. When a micro-SD update chip showed up, I’d get the young guys to do it. I used to get lost in the dozens of pages in just the one display. But it sure made navigation and IFR flight a lot easier, so much so that students that get all their training on it are sorta lost with the old round instruments in older aircraft. What do young drivers do now with road navigation with no GPS or cellphone service?

6. The movement of regularly accessed controls, on cars, to a touch screen is something that Car & Driver has routinely scorned. Radio, HVAC, etc. My Ram can access radio volume and channels with the touchscreen, dial, and buttons on the back of the steering wheel. HVAC is both dial and screen. My daughter will default to using the touch screen, every time. Radio, heat/AC, even the seat heaters.

7. I have a dumb TV. Flat panel monitor for a security system. Doesn’t even have a TV tuner. Just a pair of HDMI inputs. It takes some searching but you can find them cheap.

8. I truly believe that when it comes to a lot of technology that we are all taken in by a very clever marketing ploy. Increasing the complexity of all this equipment allows the manufacturers to produce one machine that serves all and charge an outrageous price for this complex equipment. Equipment that is very expensive simply because it is complicated. Who could argue the expense of something so sophisticated? Somebody somewhere might have use for each function but none use it all.The sad part is most of us will barely need or use 10% of the functionality. It was not a too steep learning curve to figure out how to turn on and off my new Samsung Smart TV and how to maneuver through the various apps. But I don’t want the matching phone that allows me to read my email on my TV. Why? Its already on the phone and I can read it there. A very knowledgeable young man from the retailer set the TV up and walked me through the various functions . Little did he know that all the while I was thinking, “ sure hope I remember how to turn this on when he leaves.” But a very great deal of what he showed me, I will never use nor do I have any functional need or wish to use much of it. I just needed a new TV. I confess I like some of the apps like Apple tv etc. Nice but hardly necessary. He had the grace to say at the end of it that he had likely gone into too much detail and he noticed people’s eyes tended to gloss over by the end of his spiel. A technician with a sense of humor and some insight! I had casually mentioned to another technician at another time , a young man in his twenties that I was both embarrassed and irritated by what a small fraction of the capability of my i-phone that I actually used and I listed the few things I did with it. He agreed and said that was about all he used his for too. And he is technically competent and of a generation that grew up with technology He earns his living being competent at it. But again even he had little practical use for much of the capability. And yet here we are, all paying out thousands for TV’s and phones, more machine than we need or want, all of which need to be regularly replaced to remain current and functional with advancing technology. As I said clever marketing. You can’t get basic without buying the accompanying complexity. And so we all shell out for it. Yes I agree. some of us, even most of us just need a dumb phone, cheap and easy to use with a few basic functions

   1. Katie,

      See my post above. Come over to the Dark Side. We have cookies.

9. The trouble with modern devices is that many engineers are poorly trained in interface design. Since they understand the technical terms and can tolerate considerable complication, they think everyone does. It doesn’t occur to them that most users do not want to dedicate their lives to learning complex techologies.

   1. The trouble with kissing scenes in films these days is that many cinematographers are poorly trained in interface design.