Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

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ChrisGreaves
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Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

I am feeling particularly stupid today. Two weeks ago I set my smartphone (MOTO-X/Android) wallpaper to “Live Wallpapers”, got an awful geometric design, downloaded two images from my personal collection, couldn’t get access to them.

I’ve used personal pictures before – maps of Bonavista, maps of Île de France, photos of plants etc.

I thought: maybe a re-boot would do the trick. :nope:
I thought: maybe a re-boot tomorrow morning would do the trick. :nope:
I thought: maybe a power-off, walk outside to barrow two loads of compost, then power-on would do the trick. :nope:
Finally this (Monday) morning I gave in and did a Factory Reset.
And saw immediately the “awful geometric design”.

Finally dawned on me: the Moto-X Android doesn’t “do” Windows BMP images. JPEG only, please and thank you.
I am now partway through disabling from a list of useless aps and installing from a list of useful aps.

Thank heavens for my step-by-step of accumulated knowledge in “T:\Pers\Things\Moto-X\Rebuild20191014.doc”

Cheers
Chris
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William
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by William »

You shouldn't be too hard on yourself Chris, as I'm convinced that nowadays there's an inverse relationship between the sophistication of our technology and the existence of readily-available information about how it works. I remember earlier versions of Word, which didn't have half the functionality and pizazz of the current version, but which did have help that was immediate.

I suspect that the robot takeover will occur not because they've become smarter than humans, but because the humans didn't bother to write a user manual.

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Rudi
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by Rudi »

Based on your experience I can sadly concur that today's modern tech does not magically get fixed with the trusty ol' reboot. :sad:
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Rudi

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

William wrote:... I suspect that the robot takeover will occur not because they've become smarter than humans, but because the humans didn't bother to write a user manual.
I agree. My new all-singing all-dancing washing machine (the cheapest in the store) is programmed beyond what I could have imagined with 80-column accounting machine technology fifty years ago.
I started doing laundry in 1956, and have done my own laundry for about half of my time since then.
Now I am no longer allowed to put clothes to soak in the washing machine, and start it up the next morning.

Soaking clothes overnight used "time" which our Physics teacher taught us was "the great cleanser".

I confess to spending too many years enthralled with technology, writing programs that demonstrated my skills, instead of simple tools that helped the use with 95% of their workload.

Technology has turned tail and bitten ME in the tail.

Cheers
Chris
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Rudi wrote:Based on your experience I can sadly concur that today's modern tech does not magically get fixed with the trusty ol' reboot. :sad:
:double sad:
I am still trying to find the command-line interface on my Android Smart phone
I determined a year or two ago that the phone is not wide enough for an 80-column card-reader.
:flee: :flee:

Cheers
Chris
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Rudi
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by Rudi »

ChrisGreaves wrote:... an 80-column card-reader...
Yikes! That's a galaxy apart!
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Rudi

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BobH
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by BobH »

I've still got a box of 2000 IBM 5081 80-column punch cards.

Everything goes out of style then comes back into style - if one lives long enough! :fanfare: :fanfare: :flee:
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Argus
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by Argus »

Here is something for you to play with, Chris.
Think-A-Tron.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXwUiogMd_4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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BobArch2
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by BobArch2 »

BobH wrote:I've still got a box of 2000 IBM 5081 80-column punch cards.

Everything goes out of style then comes back into style - if one lives long enough! :fanfare: :fanfare: :flee:
What colour? I always found that the coloured ones absorbed moisture and did not last as long as the manila ones. Blue was the worst! :hairout:
Regards,
Bob

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

William wrote:You shouldn't be too hard on yourself Chris, as I'm convinced that nowadays there's an inverse relationship between the sophistication of our technology and the existence of readily-available information about how it works. ...
Bankers are the worst culprits. In “Catch me if you can” Tom Hanks points out that cheques from 12 federal (USA) regions had to be shipped across the country. So, semi-trailer trucks, say four days New York to Los Angeles, two days for the weekend, and a day to batch-process cheques against dozens of reels of magnetic tape. But today with server farms and online banking, the Canadian banks hang on to a US (major firm) cheque for five weeks to clear it.

Yesterday I went to link my Scotiabank account to two online (!!!) savings bank accounts. Both savings institutions make two small deposits – cents – into my Scotiabank account as a means of convincing ourselves that I really have seen their randomized numbers. “Allow two business days ...” which staggers me. I can email $1,000 to you in seconds, and you can deposit that $1,000 in seconds. Why business DAYS to transmit from one bank to another bank?
And I don’t buy that argument that “banks are huge, and tapes are slow” argument because fifty years ago tapes (and cards) were loaded onto disks by a slave CPU whose sole job was to buffer input/output to hard disk. That was of course a hard disk much slower than the one that yesterday let me put $20 for bread flour on my debit card down at Swyers Grocery Emporium.

To make matters worse, one of the two online banks is part of the family (Scotiabank) to which I belong.
(signed) “Still disgusted” of Bonavista
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Rudi wrote:
ChrisGreaves wrote:... an 80-column card-reader...
Yikes! That's a galaxy apart!
Actually, quite fresh in some of our memories.
1,200 cards per minute.
Some machine!
Cheers
Chris
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Argus wrote:Here is something for you to play with, Chris.
He had me up to the point when he mentioned Notches, and I said "Hah! That's in the Deep South, Adams County, Mississippi", but that wasn't an option on any of the cards. :evilgrin:
Cheers
Chris
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Smart Phones and Stupid Humans.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

BobArch2 wrote:What colour? I always found that the coloured ones absorbed moisture and did not last as long as the manila ones. Blue was the worst! :hairout:
Back in 1969, the Systems Engineers for the twin CDC-3300s at BHP Newcastle (NSW) maintained a box of Coca-Cola coloured cards.
They claimed it was a result of one of their System Tests.

Seems that one of them had placed his can of Coke on the card-reader, and the vibrations (1200cpm) waddled the can until it fell on the ingoing deck. :laugh: :rofl:
Cheers
Chris
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