Posts by Terry 6 5609 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Jul 2009
Oh God! The Horror. The Nightmare. The number of times a staff member had to call me because the internet wasn't working. They'd accidentally hit the key combination that turned it off. And it was seldom obvious. And not quite frequent enough for me to immediately remember it, at first.
For many users the fear of doing the wrong thing and killing the computer is paralysing.
When PCs were still expensive and rare that was a very common problem. Users wouldn't dare touch the thing in case they broke it. Some of those early machines in small offices never never got used. No one dared to take the responsibility.
You may think you've explained which button to press. What they've heard is "I have to remember to press the right scary button".
Before you've left the building they'll be thinking "Oh God, did he say that one or this one?"
This is true.It went through the school systems a decade or so back. At one point some schools ( with the do-the-latest-thing-look-at-me type heads and senior staff) had kids wearing badges saying "I'm a visual learner" etc. But, the weakness in that became instantly obvious- as in how the fuck do you know that little Johnny is a so called visual learner? Let alone where on the scale he is, i.e. even advocates for that concept couldn't say that it was absolute every one - or almost everyone having just one learning style And in fact the whole idea turned out to be unscientific faddy bollocks any way, as previous post noted..
Updates, maybe. But mostly I'd say impatience. It's a work machine. .They're working. A dialogue about cookies appears with the choice of "Accept" or "Go though a long winded routine of turning stuff off". They choose accept. And get on with working on the boss's machine. It's not their problem anymore once they've clicked.
There's an overlap in the Excel/Access workspace. It's where a small and simple database is needed. Flat not relational. No complexity, just a few fields and some very simple calculations. An example, when Mrs 6 took over the Brownies' waiting list - previously held in an old exercise book- I created a new waiting list in Excel- Access would have been well over the top. All it needed to do was list the kids with their DOBs and the date they went on the list. Kids on the list who weren't old enough to actually join were in plain black font. Conditional formatting turned that to green when they reached enrolment age and so on.
Never more than a few dozen entries.
In the days when flat form DBs were around- often on the cover discs of magazines - I used one for the mildly more elaborate record keeping I needed for work. Same principle but with fields for who was assigned to work with the kids, recent test scores etc.
I've never really mastered Access, because it's far too complicated for anything I've needed to do. The cost/benefit ratio isn't there to justify it.
There's a wider issue there. Common in public service, where an item or even a whole building is supplied often with great fanfare and phrases like "state of the art". But none of the high-ups who've taken the credit have bothered to budget for the ongoing costs of materials, maintenance or, sometimes, even the essential start-up costs. So you get that lovely flower bed outside the door - that hasn't got any plants in it. The fountain that stopped working because the pipe blocked and there was no budget to get them unblocked. The window blinds that keep the sun off the lovely South facing windows- but which no one can afford to repair when they start to tear or get stuck 18 months later. And infamously the 20 storey tower blocks where the amazing lifts never work because there's no money for maintenance.
Ah now, as it happens....
I was a specialist teacher ( literacy) supporting a bunch of schools and their kids. Specialised training for years post qualification, promoted teacher salary scale and in enormous demand to get through the waiting lists of kids and schools.
One morning I arrived in a local open plan primary school. I was supporting about 4 kids and had 3 on the waiting list, with just one teaching slot allocated to that school. To be greeted by the headteacher who told me that there was a terrible smell in the open area and could I sort it out. When I pointed out that this was not my job, I had kids to see- and that there was a caretaker for that he told me that the caretaker was too busy to do it.
People do still click on links.
One reason may well be that the large companies still send out emails with clickable marketing links. Some of which go to an account log-in. VM send out monthly "See how much good stuff we've supplied to you" email that directly links to their users accounts. Which I'm sure the users will click on- I do myself. But one day it'll be a poisoned link or just a straight fake. In the meantime we get trained to trust links. I think teh banks have got the message, I don't see that any more (go on tell me I'm wrong and that they still do it, I won't be surprised).
But it can't just be that. Has any psychological research been done to see why people will click on links- or how companies can deter risky behaviour?
Has WORD still got the annoying bug that stops you inserting text above a table/image at the top of the page.e.g. if you start with the table, because you've created that first, or simply copied it from elsewhere, and then want to go back and insert your actual writing above it you can't (unless you remembered to leave a line or two first.)
I've not had to do this for a few years - but it was a real pain. Workaround was to insert a page break instead,first. And delete that later.
I don't think Win 10 or even 11 is ugly. But then I don't much care what it looks like- I see programmes and a desktop. The programmes look how their publishers make them.
The desktop is my background with my icons ( I do wish they'd fix the recycle bin refresh bug though, so that I don't have to amend the registry each time I change the icons).
I'm more bothered with practicalities. Each successive version of Windows has made it more difficult for me to change and organise.
I do not want a start menu made up of an alphabetic list of programme names and other crap that the software publisher sees fit to throw into it. I don't even remember the names of some of the programmes-or what they do when I see the names. I want my software grouped by function so that if I need a programme that does something I can look in the right start menu folder, e.g. Graphics for an icon editor. I've nothing against calling a programme "Greenfish" - but it's hardly a helpful name when I need to use it in 18 months time and have to remember what it's called. Or Wise if I want to find my programme to set my PC to turn off in a couple of hours.
And so on
Especially with the "make last printer used the default" option selected.
One of the first things I turn off. And I have two actual printers as well as the pdf virtual one.
(Not being greedy. A trusty old brother HL-1110 laser mono job for routine stuff and a nice shiny Canon multifunction inkjet for fancy stuff)
That's a thing with FOSS encryption software. While open source and with standard encryption methods they all have a proprietary interface/engine so that a document encrypted with [programme ] can't be decrypted with an alternative programme if the original one isn't available. - because maybe it became obsolete in the interim, or you want to give the data to someone who doesn't have that programme.
So we're pretty much stuck locked in to certain programmes that seem to be safe. Vera Crypt etc.
Thunderbird works fine for me, but, to get calendar integration with my mobile phone I have to use a third party add-on. Because the ability to sync to a calendar used with an Android programme such as MS' Outlook.com isn't built into it. And when TB does an update the add-on may well break. (It did months ago and is only just getting through beta testing- I use the Beta, gratefully). Once an essential add-on is broken we rely on the (volunteer) dev having the time and inclination to fix it.
All FOSS software relies on the goodwill of the devs. Sometimes they can't or won't fix a problem. Sometimes they create a problem - because they want their software to function in a certain way that isn't actually great for plain users*. And if users point out that this bit of functionality isn't very good we'll be told to just fork it, it's open source. But as the article notes, reading and modifying someone else's code isn't trivial for a coder. And an irrelevance for a non-programming user.
*An example being the devs for Pale Moon point blank refusal to display add-ons by date so users would be able to see if anything new has appeared. So we can only find an add-on if we know we have a pressing need for something and explicitly go to look to see if there is something to meet that need. If something that would be useful if we knew about it gets added we'll likely never find out about it.
This is 2022. This kind of scam and related ones have been around for a long time. Grandma wasn't a grandma when we first started to hear about technology scams from mobile phones, computers and landline calls. This is no longer a surprise.Why are people still falling for these? What does it take for people to start to realise that no, they don't need to pay Fedex/UPS for a parcel (especially one that they know they haven't ordered), that they haven't won a lottery they didn't enter and that lawyers don't send random messages about legal claims that they can share in.
Exactly that. After a lecture you end up with sheets of unreadable notes and no clue as to what they were meant to say.
A good lecture provides useful information that you can add to what you already know, with notes that give you an aide memoir for significant details. If you're copying down a text book you're just wasting valuable learning time.
There's that. And also an establishment (MPs' and senior civil servants') mistrust of anyone who actually has knowledge and interest in a subject. It has its roots in a mixture of the culture of amateurism -cf Chariots of Fire- that has never quite gone away at the high society levels imho, and a fear of anyone who knows more than themselves.
I think the difference is between having that stuff and seeing it as being the keystone in future development. Hence the time that Microsoft almost missed the Internet bus. And Politicians, like generals, do tend to be fighting the last war, not the next one.
I have to agree. The emphasis in policy and self-congratulatory speeches since the 1980s even, has been on The City and Financial Services. Mostly centred on London, of course, so not adding much employment elsewhere. And in recent years has employed fewer people using more tech, even here.
Yeah, sadly we used a broker, recommended to us. My previous mortgage I'd done myself. Luckily we only faced a small manageable shortfall- ( after the extra the endowment provider gave us to make up some of the difference) switched to a repayment mortgage and kept the endowment as a straight savings plan.
We were still quite angry about that definition of risk. Because we were prepared to accept the risk that the endowment might not offer growth needed to give us a lump sum. But we'd no idea that our regular payments might not be enough to pay off the actual mortgage.
Err no. Kosher fish rules are very specific.
And haven't changed.
https://forward.com/food/377933/wtf-is-shark-kosher/ says...
Deuteronomy, the fifth book in the Torah, lays out the letter of the law:
“These you may eat of all that live in water: you may eat anything that has fins and scales. But you may not eat anything that has no fins and scales: it is unclean for you.”
Is Shark Kosher?
Fins — check! Scales? It’s complicated. If you’re the sciencey type, there’s a good guide to scale types here. But the short answer is no — as the respected kosher certification agency the Chicago Rabbinical Council puts it, “The scales must be true scales that can be removed without damaging the skin of the fish.” As such, “eels, lumpfish, shark, sturgeon, and swordfish, are not kosher.”
Us too. When we took out our with profits endowment mortgage the "risk" discussed with the mortgage expert/broker was that it might not give as much profit as was expected. And we happily accepted that level of risk. When we sought compensation for misselling we were told by the regulator that we'd accepted a moderate level of risk- which was the criterion. And was true. Except that apparently the regulations specified we had to be told the degree of risk ( which was- moderate- whatever than meant) but apparently not the depth of risk ( failing to actually pay off the mortgage)- which was never even breathed as a possibility. It was a "with profits" mortgage, i.e would pay off the loan and give us some cash as well. Not a hope to at least pay off the loan and maybe give a bit more mortgage. We'd have been happy with a normal repayment mortgage. That was what we'd asked for when we went to the guy. We were young and he'd been recommended.
There is, I'm sure a degree of truth in that. Making 50% the target for university entrance and removing student grants in effect means that a lot of young people perceive that they are forced into debt. (arguably, as per Martin Lewis' argument, that isn't quite so because they may never need to repay it). The result is, arguably, that universities provide courses that either are designed for entrance to highly paid jobs or are just degree mills- and students choose these rather than traditional academic courses that provide the skills we need. Not just STEM but also languages.
....around corridors with some paper in my hand avoiding work.
Only IT related in as much as it was absent.
After Uni, in 1979 and not having decided what I wanted to do with my future yet*, I worked for a few weeks for a mail order catalogue company. My humble job was to fit tiny scraps of paper into plastic wallets, so tightly packed that the wallet would cut into our fingers as we tried. So that they could save space in the filing cabinets. I quickly saw that the paper was in segments, some was in order, then random, then in order. It didn't take an archaeologist to work out that every few weeks the clerks would just give up trying, they'd fire the latest batch of slaves and hire a new batch, who'd do the job properly for a brief while and then they'd in turn get bored and just stick the paper in randomly..They used no IT there. We were cheap labour- and the fact that the job was rarely done properly didn't seem to bother anyone. Least of all the manager of our little department. It was sooo tedious.
So I started to slip off. No one seemed to notice. I'd grab a handful of A4 sheets and wander round the building, chatting to bored clerks in various rooms. I didn't get fired until we all did. I don't know why they wanted to get rid of the other guys- they still appeared to be persevering.
*I was really torn between computing and teaching. Eventually went into special education as a literacy difficulties specialist with the Psychology Service. Which gave me teaching and problem solving.
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