Really.....

[JamesVincent]

How about phones with a crank?
Car radios that had to warm up?
Carbon paper?
CB radios?
Round-screen B&W televisions with 13 channels and no remotes?
Lard?
Vehicles with a choke?
Telephone 'operators'?
Polaroid cameras?
CRT O'scopes?
Kerosene lanterns?
Merthiolate?
Long-distance calls?
Mimeograph machines?
Autoharps?

Vehicles with a choke? Oh yes. Man, I am gettin' old.......

You're getting old? Hate to tell you but I've used everything on that list except the Merthiolate, don't even know what that is. As far as chokes I remember installing my chromed Holley choke pull on my Chevelle since the bigger carb had a manual choke instead of a vacuum choke. The phone with a crank was a real, operating phone in a store I worked at years ago, not the old ring up an operator type but an adaption of one.

[Pottapaug1938]

How about phones with a crank?
Car radios that had to warm up?
Carbon paper?
CB radios?
Round-screen B&W televisions with 13 channels and no remotes?
Lard?
Vehicles with a choke?
Telephone 'operators'?
Polaroid cameras?
CRT O'scopes?
Kerosene lanterns?
Merthiolate?
Long-distance calls?
Mimeograph machines?
Autoharps?

I've seen them all with the exception of a hand-cranked phone. I can still remember the smell of a freshly-mimeographed school worksheet or church leaflet; and autoharps were regular features of music classes in my earliest years.

[webhick]

Hibernation is when the computer saves the state to the hard drive and then shuts itself off. It's just like turning the computer off except it won't need to go through the boot process when you turn it on and everything you were working on will come right back up on the screen. Coming out of hibernation can take a few minutes as it loads the state from the hard drive but it takes far less time than booting up. Should the computer not come out of hibernation when you hit the power button, disconnecting the power source will fix it a lot of the time and runs no risk of damaging your system. Then again, if your computer turns on but throws an error about hibernation, you can hit F8 during the boot process and it gives an option to bypass it, which will cause the computer to boot normally. You'll lose any of your unsaved work, but such is life.

Sleep mode is when the computer stays powered, but only enough to preserve the state in RAM. Most systems will come back almost instantly when you press a button or wiggle the mouse. Laptops will often sleep when you close the lid and wake up when you open it again. Should you remove the power source while a system is in sleep mode, you'll totally lose any unsaved work. Nothing else bad will happen.

And if you like hibernation or sleep mode, please do an actual shut down on your computer at least once a month (weekly if you use it a lot) so all your updates install, so system changes can properly set and so the POST error checks can discover your impending catastrophic hard drive failure BEFORE it actually becomes a catastrophic hard drive failure.

[The Observer]

The other side of the coin on this issue of explaining technology to the user is the fact that the engineers designing this stuff have their own problems with using the English language to communicate. In my state, the university system was turning out bumper crops of electrical and software engineers, but started getting complaints back from employers. The complaints were not about their technical skills and creativity, but about their inability to communicate with their peers. The employers had the expectation that these engineers would be able to explain, document, and assist in creating manuals, instruction guides, and other tools that would go in the packages being marketed to consumers. Instead, they found out that most of the engineers were basically illiterate when it came down to communicating at the user level. For some, it was definitely an issue of English being their second language, but for most of the pack, they could not break out of geek mode and communicate verbally or in writing.

In the end, the universities agreed to start requiring that all graduates had to pass what was essentially a literacy test before wallking up for their diploma.

[The Observer]

And if you like hibernation or sleep mode,...

I won't even ask about coma mode.

[Judge Roy Bean]

The other side of the coin on this issue of explaining technology to the user is the fact that the engineers designing this stuff have their own problems with using the English language to communicate. ... For some, it was definitely an issue of English being their second language, but for most of the pack, they could not break out of geek mode and communicate verbally or in writing.
...

Part of it is communication but there is also the pressure to put a product into the market by some date without full regard for all of the "undocumented features" (read: bugs).

We have had two machines that suffered from the hibernation bug. Both HP's laptops and both were running XP. The thing that really bothered us was the darn things would usually turn on for me (with sufficient gripping force and various amounts of hold-time) but they wouldn't come to life for my wife. It gave me various opportunities for smart-ass looks as if it was just her.

[webhick]

And if you like hibernation or sleep mode,...

I won't even ask about coma mode.

Usually involves a motherboard replacement, which because most manufacturers encode the Windows license to the motherboard also involves the purchase of a new Windows license. When all is said and done, it would have been cheaper to buy a new computer.

So, coma mode means you pull the plug and move on with your life.

[Famspear]

The other side of the coin on this issue of explaining technology to the user is the fact that the engineers designing this stuff have their own problems with using the English language to communicate. In my state, the university system was turning out bumper crops of electrical and software engineers, but started getting complaints back from employers. The complaints were not about their technical skills and creativity, but about their inability to communicate with their peers. The employers had the expectation that these engineers would be able to explain, document, and assist in creating manuals, instruction guides, and other tools that would go in the packages being marketed to consumers. Instead, they found out that most of the engineers were basically illiterate when it came down to communicating at the user level. For some, it was definitely an issue of English being their second language, but for most of the pack, they could not break out of geek mode and communicate verbally or in writing.

In the end, the universities agreed to start requiring that all graduates had to pass what was essentially a literacy test before wallking up for their diploma.

One of my more useful courses in college was an English course. It was entitled: "Technical Writing." The course dealt with writing reports for science and business, including things such as instruction manuals. A very distinguished gentleman, a full professor with a Ph.D. in English, taught the course. On the first day, he said something to the class that I would have never thought an English teacher would say. Just from my memory, the statement went roughly like this:

I will consider myself a success in this class if, by the time the course is almost over, I can give this entire class a writing assignment, and each of you will produce a paper written so similarly in style to the style of every other paper of everyone else in this class that I will not be able to tell which student wrote which paper.

We did things like write an instruction manual for how to use an iron (e.g., an iron you use to press the wrinkles from clothes).

One of the basic tenets he taught us was that when you are writing a technical paper, you consider your audience. If you are an engineer who is writing for other engineers, you do not write the paper the same way that you would write if you were an engineer writing an instruction manual for non-engineers.

This course held me in good stead after I graduated with my accounting degree and went to work as an auditor in a CPA firm. At the conclusion of the audit, aside from the formal audit report (which was usually only two paragraphs -- the standard unqualified opinion in the format prescribed by the American Institute of CPAs) we always issued a separate letter to management regarding material weaknesses (if any) in internal control and other useful comments. Although the end user of this letter was often a reasonably sophisticated chief executive officer or the experienced members of a corporate board of directors, most of these folks were not certified public accountants familiar with the intricacies of what constitutes a weakness in internal control.

Much of the writing that I see today is larded with junk that violates the standards for good technical writing. The rules for technical writing are often just the opposite of the rules for writing a short story or an essay.

Examples of trite, over-used words that should be avoided like the plague in technical writing:

"Methodology." About 99% of the time, the word that should be used is "method," not "methodology." Don't use a five syllable word where a two syllable word will work just as well. The fact that someone can use a five syllable word does not impress me.

"Utilize." The word should be "use," not "utilize." The word "utilize" is so "over-utilized" (gotcha!) that it should be abolished for a while.

In technical writing, the rules are somewhat counter-intuitive. What impresses the reader most is not the use of long words, but rather the use of language that takes the purpose of the end product and the characteristics of the most probable readers into consideration.

Speaking of the counter-intuitive aspects of the rules of technical writing, clarity is not always the proper, primary goal of a good technical writer, or of good technical writing. Despite what many people think, for example, the Internal Revenue Code is (in my opinion) actually one of the greatest pieces of technical writing. For the most part, it is actually well written, especially compared to other statutes (such as the Uniform Commercial Code, for example).

Statutes are not designed to be entertaining, or emotionally powerful, or beautiful, or profound. Some writers, primarily adherents of the plain language school, have claimed that statutes' primary virtue is the same as that of a good deal of expository prose: clarity. But common sense demands rejection of that position. Because statutes are written to effect policy decisions, their main virtue is accuracy in the sense of precisely effecting the desired policy. If a statute is difficult to comprehend but accomplishes its purpose it is a success. If its meaning can be discerned instantaneously but its effect is the opposite of the one intended, it is a failure.

--Jack Stark, ''Teaching Statutory Law'', 44 J. Legal Educ. 579, 583 (1994), as quoted in: Timothy R. Zinnecker, ''When Worlds Collide: Resolving Priority Disputes Between the IRS and the Article Nine Secured Creditor'', 63 Tenn. L. Rev. 585, 586, n.5 (Spring 1996) (italics added).

[JamesVincent]

Then again, if your computer turns on but throws an error about hibernation, you can hit F8 during the boot process and it gives an option to bypass it, which will cause the computer to boot normally. You'll lose any of your unsaved work, but such is life.

F8 doesn't always work. If you have your computer setup to bypass the post-boot memory check screen F8 won't work, you would have to go to F2, or whatever the setup button is for that machine, enable the post-boot memory screen (or, conversely, disable the quick boot function), and then reboot to get to that screen to get to the F8 screen. At least in 98 and XP that was the case, I never played with those functions in 7 or 8. From what I understand 8 doesn't need the F8 button to get into the boot tab at all. Quite a few people did do this since it allowed the machine to boot faster since it was not running all of the post boot checks. Just went through this working on a Dell laptop running XP that someone gave me since it didn't boot.

Also, some manufacturers, like Dell, changed the function key assignments around so F8 is moved to F12 and a separate button was assigned to the boot menu, like F11. Have to check to see which key is which on your particular machine.

edit: Which is one of the reasons I said a manual of everything needed to know about a machine would be 800 pages and still be incomplete. Even though a lot of things are standardized coming from Microsoft the computer manufacturers themselves change things all the time to make each one "their own".

[webhick]

Engineers are an entirely different breed of human. We have one working retail. She did fulfillment for a time (when you order something online, it doesn't always ship from the warehouse but from a brick and mortar store). When mailing a suit we mail it with the coat hanger, but the boxes we use are just a hair too small for the coat hanger, so you slide the suit in at a slight angle. Still looks good and it works. Instead of doing that, she hunts down a tape measure, measures the coat hanger and then measures every fucking box in fulfillment's stock until she finds one that has the perfect dimensions. If she doesn't find one, and she's guaranteed not to because there's no such box in that we can order (anymore) that will fit that stupid coat hanger perfectly without being far too large in every other dimension, she will go down to the dock. The only boxes on the dock were used on the truck to ship stuff to us and we're not allowed to use them in fulfillment because it looks like shit for the customer. On the dock, she'll measure like every busted and broken down box there - going so far as to rummage in the compactor and of course turn up nothing because NOTHING EVER FITS THE COAT HANGER. So, she'll head back up to fulfillment and call up the boss and ask where the suit boxes are and when told that there aren't any, she'll bitch for fifteen minutes until the boss comes up there and solves the problem for her while she argues that it's not right.

When she's in charge of fulfillment, your suit takes like an hour and two people to pack it. That's service, bitches!

She's also equally brilliant at markdowns. You can physically stand at a table full of shit she has to sticker, point to it and tell her that it's all markdowns and she'll walk to a table three aisles over and go "This one?"

Engineers. ENGINEERS.

[webhick]

Then again, if your computer turns on but throws an error about hibernation, you can hit F8 during the boot process and it gives an option to bypass it, which will cause the computer to boot normally. You'll lose any of your unsaved work, but such is life.

F8 doesn't always work. If you have your computer setup to bypass the post-boot memory check screen F8 won't work

Stopping you right there. I didn't say it to use it to bypass POST checks. If the computer gets to a point where it's throwing errors about hibernation, it's already past POST. Those errors come from Windows. Mashing the F8 key allows you to pull up the Windows advanced menu which will let you bypass the hibernation file. F5 can also work, but it auto-loads safe mode and is a holdover from 95, so F8 it is. Hibernation is more an operating system thing and the only time you have to involve POST is if Windows jacked your bios in which case you have to crack open the system to clear the CMOS. And that's more a last ditch effort.

[webhick]

Also, some manufacturers, like Dell, changed the function key assignments around so F8 is moved to F12 and a separate button was assigned to the boot menu, like F11. Have to check to see which key is which on your particular machine.

I don't recall ever coming across a system that used F8 to get into the BIOS and I mash the shit out of that bastard when I want into the advanced menu because some systems throw to Windows faster than others. Most common keys for BIOS are F1, F2, F11 and F12. As a rule on a system where I don't already know the key, I mash all of them the second the computer gets power.

I call it brute force computing. And if it ain't beeping back at you in anger, then you haven't showed it who's boss.

ETA: There may have been a few systems that use F10 for BIOS. My fingers know which keys to mash.

[Duke2Earl]

Kind of make you wonder how us old f-rts ever managed to survive. I'm still not sure all these "improvements" really are better. Do most people really need to be plugged in 24-7? I am not so sure evolution ever prepared us for this much stress.

[Famspear]

Kind of make you wonder how us old f-rts ever managed to survive. I'm still not sure all these "improvements" really are better. Do most people really need to be plugged in 24-7? I am not so sure evolution ever prepared us for this much stress.

Yeah I'm with you on that. I visit this web site several times a day, and I watch some tax-related articles at Wikipedia to try to keep the nutballs at bay. I have an unused "Facebook" account but I set it up for some reason I don't even remember -- because I needed the account to do something else on the internet. I don't much see the need for "Social Media." I guess Quatloos is my "Social Medium."



Heaven help me!

[The Observer]

The fact that someone can use a five syllable word does not impress me.

Yeah? How about if they used it in an instructional limerick?

So, coma mode means you pull the plug and move on with your life.

I was afraid you would say that.

I call it brute force computing. And if it ain't beeping back at you in anger, then you haven't showed it who's boss.

Which is why they invented coma mode. Because even computers are entitled to some form of ethical treatment.

Engineers.

You may want to consider taking her and throwing her into a metal scrap pile. I hear they thrive in that type of environment and actually will make some wonderful things, given enough time.

[AndyK]

Vehicles with a manual choke:

Once upon a time, a long-since-ex girlfriend asked me why her car kept stalling.

She refused to believe me when I told her the little knob was NOT the pocketbook hanger.

[Cpt Banjo]

Allow me to add to the list:

78 rpm records
Record changers
Coca Cola bottles with the name of the bottling city on the bottom
Heathkits
Wringer washers
Washboards (unless you’re into jug band or zydeco music)
Pushbutton car radios (and how to set stations on them)
Crystal radio sets
Air mail stamps

I still have a TEAC open reel tape recorder that I bought in 1972 (it still works!) and an autoharp I got after seeing Mike Seeger of the New Lost City Ramblers play the heck out of one. Warning: don’t ever try to restring an autoharp.

[AndyK]

Allow me to add to the list:

...
Heathkits -- In a previous life, I built a Heathkit color television, transistor (AM/FM) radio in a neat leather case, amateur radio transceiver, 150 watt stereo amplifier & AM tuner & FM tuner & five-input pre-amp. Except for the first two, all are still in service -- but it's getting to be a major pain to find replacement TUBES (remember them ?) for the amplifier

...

Pushbutton car radios (and how to set stations on them) ?? Pull the cover off and turn the little knob under it ??

And what about DITTO machines? Or the primitive DITTO gelatin trays -- one copy at a time

[JamesVincent]

I call it brute force computing. And if it ain't beeping back at you in anger, then you haven't showed it who's boss.

There was a website I ran across a long, long time ago, long enough that it may have been Netscape Navigator ago, that listed a bunch of the ways to bypass an automated telephone answering system. You know, press 1 for English? There was a bunch of different techniques, including that works on a lot of them, simply pressing 0 to get an operator. The one that stuck out the most however was:

Smashing all the buttons on the phone pad...... three (3) times.

Visions of someone getting pissed off after trying to get through to a live operator and smashing their head three times onto the phone pad and, viola someone answers danced in my head. What was even more apropos was that, IIRC, it was the way to get a real person after calling Baltimore Gas and Electric, a utility company notorious for not wanting to answer anything.

[JamesVincent]

Yeah I'm with you on that. I visit this web site several times a day, and I watch some tax-related articles at Wikipedia to try to keep the nutballs at bay. I have an unused "Facebook" account but I set it up for some reason I don't even remember -- because I needed the account to do something else on the internet. I don't much see the need for "Social Media." I guess Quatloos is my "Social Medium."



Heaven help me!

That's because you're not using the internet for what it was intended for:

To stream porn. Get with the program.