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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Post Your Favorite (or Request) > Post the very best in obsolete and failed technology - starring the paperless office
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Aug 2, 2016 11:28
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 21:07 |
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mostlygray posted:Can we just agree that sometimes email is easier and sometimes fax is easier? We'll all be OK. I like emailing PDFs that I already have, and if the contract has to be filled out by hand, I like to fax them. Easier =/= thing I like. And in what world is an email not realiable?
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Aug 2, 2016 12:06
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Jabor posted:"Memorizing and typing in 10 digit numbers is easier than just picking someone from my contacts list" - a real person, apparently "Phone numbers are too hard" - a millennial, apparently
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Aug 2, 2016 12:46
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If a vendor makes me deal with faxes they better be the absolute best in their field or I will never use them again. I can carry a laptop and a printer/scanner on site super easily but gently caress trying to find a fax machine.
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Aug 2, 2016 13:19
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I love the old fax scams. Send an invoice for $52.35 for "Office Supplies" on a official looking letter head, and watch accounts payable pay them. We got a new AP at a dealership I work at, and she found the last person just payed them, amounting to about $1100 a year. Not bad if you send it to 500 offices a week, and 10 of them payed it.
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Aug 2, 2016 13:24
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Nice, so it's like the grandfather of the fake invoice spam you get today.
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Aug 2, 2016 13:28
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WebDog posted:Nice, so it's like the grandfather of the fake invoice spam you get today. Was "fax a looped roll of black paper to waste someone's ink" the grandfather of trolling, or was that stdh
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Aug 2, 2016 13:52
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WebDog posted:Nice, so it's like the grandfather of the fake invoice spam you get today. I'd say that it is the father of email spam. The grandfather was mailed fake invoice and chain letters in actual envelopes. Presumably, someone will find cave wall markings that translate to 'me chief of neighbouring tribe and have 10,000 buffalo to share with you'
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Aug 2, 2016 14:23
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ElwoodCuse posted:Was "fax a looped roll of black paper to waste someone's ink" the grandfather of trolling, or was that stdh Before computer-based faxes, I would fax several sheets of black construction paper to spammers as many times as I could. I would eventually get a response telling me I had been removed from their list.
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Aug 2, 2016 14:25
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titties posted:"Phone numbers are too hard" - a millennial, apparently At what point did anyone memorize more than a few of their most important phone numbers? Before I had a cell phone I had the house phone, my mom's number, and one friend's number memorized. Add my own cell number after I got a phone in high school, and my first girlfriend's number before it got changed. Why do you think rolodexes and phone books were invented? At no point was anyone expected to just memorize every phone and fax number they needed. As soon as phones got contact lists, people jumped all over it.
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Aug 2, 2016 14:51
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mostlygray posted:Can we just agree that sometimes email is easier and sometimes fax is easier? We'll all be OK. I like emailing PDFs that I already have, and if the contract has to be filled out by hand, I like to fax them. No, we must now and forever be adversaries, our arguments a battle echoing into eternity It's okay to have both. Nobody's gonna break your leg or anything. Hell, the only way to get a copy of your tax return transcripts from the IRS without having to wait up to three months is via fax. They insist that you be on the phone with them and stand next to the fax machine before they will begin sending them, which is a deliciously low-tech way of making sure you're the only one who receives such sensitive information. I love it. It's so IRS. "Cyber security? Network firewalls? Digital encryption? Email? What the hell is any of that poo poo? Why bother? It's easier to have him stand by the fax where we can guarantee he'll be the only one who gets it." 
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Aug 2, 2016 15:53
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chitoryu12 posted:At what point did anyone memorize more than a few of their most important phone numbers? Before I had a cell phone I had the house phone, my mom's number, and one friend's number memorized. Add my own cell number after I got a phone in high school, and my first girlfriend's number before it got changed. Yeah, the only number I have memorized at this point is my own. Every other important number is in my contact list or can be googled. Mine is the only one I would have to routinely look up (for paperwork, contact info for something I'm buying online, giving it to others, etc.), so it's the only one I need to be able to rattle off at a moment's notice.
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Aug 2, 2016 15:56
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Zonekeeper posted:Yeah, the only number I have memorized at this point is my own. Every other important number is in my contact list or can be googled. Mine is the only one I would have to routinely look up (for paperwork, contact info for something I'm buying online, giving it to others, etc.), so it's the only one I need to be able to rattle off at a moment's notice. Apart from my own number, I've only memorized my mom's and one of the two offices I work at. I've even taken to using my phone's Contacts list as an improvised Rolodex, putting numbers in it for storage even if I never call them "just in case" or if I only call them off a work phone.
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Aug 2, 2016 16:16
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Tunicate posted:Well I mean logically if you want a BMP of the image you're not going to be able to cram it into anything smaller than the image itself. This made me wonder... The best lossless encoders (FLIF and the like) can supposedly get something like 1:9 compression over BMP. The best printed data encoder I can find (PaperBack) claims to store ~0.5MB on an A4 sheet of paper at 600dpi, as a huge number of DataMatrix blocks. That 0.5MB should then uncompress to about 4.5MB of BMP, which at 3 bytes per pixel is a 1.5 Mpix image. That's just low enough that I think I'd prefer a scan of an old print - not to mention that most photos are printed on much smaller paper. (If you can live with a little bit of lossy compression it might actually be viable.)
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Aug 2, 2016 17:23
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I like to tell people that the fax predates telephones. Blows their mind. Faxing will never die.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:24
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:
 In my country the tax return transcripts is 100% electronic. I could go to their site and download it right now if I wanted to.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:35
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Dick Trauma posted:I like to tell people that the fax predates telephones. Blows their mind. Well I mean that seems obvious, we had realtime video recording before we had audio too.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:42
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Dick Trauma posted:I like to tell people that the fax predates telephones. Blows their mind. quote:Which reminded me of the apocryphal story of the High Court Judge sitting in a Court far away from London, reaching the end of the case and realising that he has left all of his notes and preparation for delivery of his imminent judgment back at his London home. He mentions this dilemma, and someone helpfully suggests, “Fax it up, m’lord” – to which the Judge sadly responds, “yes, I’m afraid it rather does”
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Aug 2, 2016 17:51
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Alhazred posted:
Tax preparation/software companies lobby to make the IRS inconvenient and terrible on purpose so you use them instead
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Aug 2, 2016 18:00
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mostlygray posted:Can we just agree that sometimes email is easier and sometimes fax is easier? We'll all be OK. I like emailing PDFs that I already have, and if the contract has to be filled out by hand, I like to fax them. Beat me to it. I have nothing against emailing poo poo that's already in the computer, but if I already have a stack of papers in my hand and a business card with both an email address and a fax number printed on it, its slightly less work to send it as a fax than as an attachment on an email. Business cards are obsolete, just save a QR code to your phone and have someone scan it with theirs. I typed that as a joke, but its not a bad idea for some use cases
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Aug 2, 2016 18:06
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Cat Hatter posted:Business cards are obsolete, just save a QR code to your phone and have someone scan it with theirs. I typed that as a joke, but its not a bad idea for some use cases Just transmit your vCard via NFC/Bluetooth.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:11
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Dick Trauma posted:I like to tell people that the fax predates telephones. Blows their mind. And the electric car predates the ICE car.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:13
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ElwoodCuse posted:Tax preparation/software companies lobby to make the IRS inconvenient and terrible on purpose so you use them instead Yeop. Though it's mostly the fuckers who make Turbotax, H&R Block et al. are also to blame. Really, why make your citizens' tax returns simple and painless when a few people can make a shitton of money if you make the process as convoluted as possible? Deliberately refusing to modernize your nation's income tax processing system while spending millions annually to support volunteer programs like VITA and TCE is Freedomland as gently caress
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Aug 2, 2016 18:41
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Cat Hatter posted:Business cards are obsolete, just save a QR code to your phone and have someone scan it with theirs. I typed that as a joke, but its not a bad idea for some use cases Not gonna lie: I wish QRcodes on business cards took off.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:41
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I will say, as someone whose had to call the IRS more times than I care to admit, there agents are the nicest government workers I've ever encountered. I guess it's easy to be nice when you know you have all the power.
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Aug 2, 2016 19:52
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Phanatic posted:And the electric car predates the ICE car.  Next you're going to tell me the electric chair came before regular chairs. 
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Aug 2, 2016 20:28
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Krispy Kareem posted:I will say, as someone whose had to call the IRS more times than I care to admit, there agents are the nicest government workers I've ever encountered. Yea, I was a dumb dumb fucker and hosed my taxes for years and they were incredibly easy to deal with when I was sorting it out.
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Aug 2, 2016 22:03
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:No, we must now and forever be adversaries, our arguments a battle echoing into eternity You can get an electronic transcript. The link is right on the IRS homepage: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript It may have been turned off at one point because it was too easy or something. It's working now, I just downloaded my transcript.
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Aug 2, 2016 22:14
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Email is secure enough to be used for court documents, but some lawyers and judges prefer faxes. I think a reason is signing is generally "I sign this" rather than your actual signature like if you faxed it. The feds can also serve(friendly as in for their side) subpeonas via email which was kind of shocking, no need for a couple of suits to show up unless they can't get ahold of you or you would prefer a hard copy handed to you
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Aug 2, 2016 23:08
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Dick Trauma posted:I like to tell people that the fax predates telephones. Blows their mind. Can't believe no one posted this yet https://youtu.be/IaCfs5Xb-EI
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Aug 3, 2016 00:56
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chitoryu12 posted:At what point did anyone memorize more than a few of their most important phone numbers? Before I had a cell phone I had the house phone, my mom's number, and one friend's number memorized. Add my own cell number after I got a phone in high school, and my first girlfriend's number before it got changed. Remember how you would have to figure out what phone numbers were important enough to put on your speed dial? I wonder how confusing that episode of Seinfeld would be to the modern generation.
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Aug 3, 2016 04:34
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Powerlurker posted:Remember how you would have to figure out what phone numbers were important enough to put on your speed dial? I wonder how confusing that episode of Seinfeld would be to the modern generation. My old Ericsson A1018s could store 10 SMS in it's memory. Really sucked if you needed to keep a couple for a few days. It also counted sent SMS too. I was forever deleting and triaging which information was more important.
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Aug 3, 2016 08:51
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Arsenic Lupin posted:This matters in particular because, according to an LA Times article archived at lathetrolls.com, a big chunk of the post-WWII war crimes trials was recorded on Recordgraph.
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Aug 3, 2016 10:34
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I think that comment isn't about a contemporary civilization, it's talking about "what happens if someone from the vast future or an alien discovers a disc and somehow disc rot doesn't exist?" It's simple to get audio signals out of a record (I think the Voyager probe even includes pictograph instructions on it for the gold record?), but not so much for optical, USB, or probably digital magnetic media
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Aug 3, 2016 10:45
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The issue with faxes is staying behind 2 hours after the store shuts on a Sunday trying to fax through staff timesheets to payroll's one machine when the other 79 stores are also attempting to do the same, and the company demands you do it after you've shut.
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Aug 3, 2016 11:36
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Pilsner posted:That quote about not being able to build a DVD player in the future isn't true, it's perfectly possible to re-invent or reverse engineer hardware, software and/or firmware in order to read digital media and data. The concept of reading an optical disc is unlikely to disappear for quite a while. I think that a key benefit with digital is the separation of format(encoding) and media i.e. it is likely that as time progresses, floppy disc drives disappear and we are unable to read anything stored on floppy discs. However, if someone were to make a copy of the digital data and store it on a new medium (DVD, flash drives, holocubes, etc) it is pretty trivial to extract the original data and recreate a perfect copy of it. e.g. my Great American Novel was stored on a floppy disc that I have long since lost the ability to read, but I can still open it on my new PC, reading a copy that exists on my SSD.
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Aug 3, 2016 11:46
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On the other hand, you have to go through that process every couple of, let's say decades, and each time the amount of material will have increased. It requires active maintenance.
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Aug 3, 2016 12:15
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duffmensch posted:Can't believe no one posted this yet I loved that show. I wish he'd make more.
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Aug 3, 2016 12:20
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Guy Axlerod posted:You can get an electronic transcript. The link is right on the IRS homepage: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript what The last time I checked was at the end of tax season this year. I volunteer for one of the free tax assistance programs I mentioned earlier. One of our most frustrating bottlenecks has been a line of people sitting in the lobby on their phones, waiting to get through to the IRS so they can come in and stand by our only fax machine, one at a goddamn time. So this is what it's like to live in the twentieth century?
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Aug 3, 2016 14:18
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 21:07 |
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:No, we must now and forever be adversaries, our arguments a battle echoing into eternity internet.txt You should spend time in Cinema Discusso. I recently dropped a vendor because they insisted on faxes for certain processes -- generally ones that resulted in money going from them to me, and not the other way around. Fuckers. I accommodate my customers' needs whenever I can, because that's how I retain customers. If one insisted on sending a fax, I'd find a way to make it happen. That's the exact opposite of requiring a fax. One option results in more business, one results in less.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:23
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