UKMT Spring 2024 - Panic! in the Tea Room - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT Spring 2024 - Panic! in the Tea Room

(Thread IKs: OwlFancier, crispix)

smellmycheese: Feb 1, 2016

justcola posted:

old goons: what was working in an office like before the internet/computers? Was it just rooms of people typing and smoking cigarettes? I imagine it would be such a clatter that it'd make me spring from my desk to see what was the matter.

Also; did meetings happen with less regularity as it was more of a pain to organise, or did a telephone and a switchboard do all that work?

I have worked with some older people who used to work for councils etc. who have hinted at such things, like filing cabinets, and similar skeuomorphs, but I want the real deal. I was thinking of these boxes earlier and made me wonder what the differences would have been having to do everything analogue style.

Download and play �Control�

# ? Mar 8, 2024 22:04

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# ? May 25, 2024 12:48

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Floating redheads shooting the place to bits and throwing desks at people were a common feature of mid 20th century offices.

# ? Mar 8, 2024 22:08

NotJustANumber99: Feb 15, 2012; somehow that last av was even worse than your posting

Angrymog posted:

Random quote

Got a text today from a passing dude. Offering me 4k� for my 70k miles 20 years old smart car. It looks like poo poo too. Not tarted up.

# ? Mar 8, 2024 22:35

Isomermaid: Dec 3, 2019; Swish swish, like a fish

justcola posted:

old goons: what was working in an office like before the internet/computers? Was it just rooms of people typing and smoking cigarettes? I imagine it would be such a clatter that it'd make me spring from my desk to see what was the matter.

Also; did meetings happen with less regularity as it was more of a pain to organise, or did a telephone and a switchboard do all that work?

I have worked with some older people who used to work for councils etc. who have hinted at such things, like filing cabinets, and similar skeuomorphs, but I want the real deal. I was thinking of these boxes earlier and made me wonder what the differences would have been having to do everything analogue style.

My dad did an office job in the 70s and was proper old school vibes "defer to the boss" kind of thing. It was a financial company still in its old victorian offices, brass nameplates on the door, metal filing cabinets, green glass desk lamps, furniture that looked like it had had the building built around it. All the customer records lived on these weird square cards and came home with him in a metal box about a foot cubed that hinged open like a packet of fags. He was issued a mechanical typewriter for doing work on and a mechanical adding machine - we were still finding stashes of the rolls of paper for that when we cleared their house.

Mum was still working at the deaf school in those days and I have memories of being told to sit in this massive draughty office and wait for him to finish and that it was very important I was quiet because of the boss, you see. Didn't want to get Dad in trouble. Part of me thinks that was just a thing they said to keep me quiet but it really did feel like there was this strict hierarchy there, seeped into the walls of the building. Don't remember smoke except EVERYTHING look like it had had smoke in it for 100 years.

They cleared out and moved into "modern" 80s offices not long after which had Computers and he was given a ruggedized thing that looked like a ZX spectrum with a LCD screen that he had to connect up to a modem to talk to the mainframe. (Till he died, he pronounced it "modum"). Dad didn't get on with it, hated the electronic typewriter, hated the company's sans serif rebrand, hated the surreal adverts on TV but especially hated having to call his new boss by his first name. Man was analogue as gently caress.

# ? Mar 8, 2024 22:41

Starbucks: Jul 7, 2002; Your daily cup of fuck you.

Hard pressed to find many goons who worked in an office before computers, I have worked with people who worked in offices before computers.

Mostly filing systems, index cards, telephones, typists, a lot more people doing the search for information, storage of information than what you would have now.

That and smoking at your desk.

My earliest was doing work experience for Airbus where I worked on improving a procurement system (form in outlook / excel lookup / someone putting the data in SAP) right around the A380 public launch. Even then there was internet and stuff.

# ? Mar 8, 2024 22:44

Oh dear me: Aug 14, 2012; I have burned numerous saucepans, sometimes right through the metal

The entry level office job was 'filing clerk'. I didn't work in an office before computers, but I did work in a library. I spent many hours putting little slips of paper in alphabetical order.

# ? Mar 8, 2024 22:49

Nuclear Spoon: Aug 18, 2010; I want to cry out
but I don’t scream and I don’t shout
And I feel so proud
to be alive

just remembered working in a boots opticians 10 years ago, which had taken over another chain some years before that and was running parallel computer systems, with the old one on some terminal commandline poo poo. also filing cabinets full of uncomputerised records

# ? Mar 8, 2024 23:23

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

I do have a fondness for all the specialized crap that was developed before everything got streamlined into universal computers that could store and do anything.

Even down to stuff like those archive shelves with the cranks on the end that have one aisle shared between dozens of shelving units and you have to move the shelves to get the aisle where you want it.

Absolutely stupid to use but there's something about that kind of design that I like.

Of course now I work somewhere where the archive is "a room full of plastic totes full of papers and hope nobody ever needs to look anything up"

# ? Mar 8, 2024 23:24

smellmycheese: Feb 1, 2016

One area where pre computer Britain sorely lacked was installing Paternosters

# ? Mar 8, 2024 23:32

kingturnip: Apr 18, 2008

I'm grateful that at work, we're only a couple of years away from having had electronic records for 10 years, because that means we can free up half a storage room.
I work for the NHS, and space is at a premium, so presumably some poor sod will have their exciting new office in half a storage room that can only be accessed from a toilet. Welcome to the team!

# ? Mar 8, 2024 23:34

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

smellmycheese posted:

One area where pre computer Britain sorely lacked was installing Paternosters

I am not confident that the public would be able to use those without getting mulched.

E: though I suppose it is appropriate that the UK should have the same access technology as blighttown.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Mar 8, 2024

# ? Mar 8, 2024 23:43

Nuclear Spoon: Aug 18, 2010; I want to cry out
but I don’t scream and I don’t shout
And I feel so proud
to be alive

my favourite kind of study is the one which gets commissioned by rightwing dickheads to find a specific conclusion and ends up finding the opposite. hope it does get properly released.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-generally-popular-report-ordered-by-sunak-finds

quote:

An official study of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) ordered by Rishi Sunak amid efforts to stop them being built has instead concluded they are generally popular and effective and the report was initially buried, the Guardian has learned.

The long-delayed review by Department for Transport (DfT) officials was commissioned by the prime minister last July, as Sunak sought to capitalise on controversy about the schemes by promising drivers he was �on their side�.

Downing Street had hoped that the study would bolster their arguments against LTNs, which are mainly installed by Labour-run councils, but it largely points the other way.

The report, which applies only to England as transport is devolved, had been scheduled for publication in January. However, after its findings emerged, government advisers asked that it be permanently shelved, the Guardian was told.

One government source disputed this, saying the report would be published soon, and it was �categorically not the case� that it had been suppressed.

A copy of the report seen by the Guardian said that polling carried out inside four sample LTNs for the DfT found that overall, twice as many local people supported them as opposed them.

A review of evidence of their effectiveness said that although formal studies were limited, they did not support the contention of opponents that LTNs simply displaced traffic to other streets rather than easing overall congestion.

�The available evidence from the UK indicates that LTNs are effective in achieving outcomes of reducing traffic volumes within their zones while adverse impacts on boundary roads appear to be limited,� it read.

The study also seems to dispel the argument that LTNs are deeply unpopular. Surveys of 1,800-plus residents in four sample schemes, in London, Birmingham, Wigan and York, found an average of 45% support and 21% opposition.

In each of the schemes, the percentage of people backing the LTNs was between 19 points and 31 points higher than the percentage opposed. In a sign that the controversy about the schemes might be largely generated by politicians and the media, 58% of people did not even know they lived in an LTN.

The report is another blow to Sunak in his attempt to attract votes by blocking schemes that encourage active travel, set out in September in a �plan for drivers�, promising a clampdown on LTNs, bus lanes and 20mph speed limits, and moves to prevent councils from fining people for infractions.

As part of the latter policy, it is understood that the DfT plans to launch a consultation on denying councils access to centrally held data from automatic number-plate recognition cameras if it is felt that they are enforcing road rules too vigorously.

In January, the Guardian revealed that the plan for drivers was guided in part by government worries about so-called 15-minute cities, an urban planning concept that has become the focus of conspiracy theories.

LTNs are modal filters, a common traffic management tool used for decades that stops motor vehicles from using smaller, residential streets as cut-throughs, using camera-enforced signs or physical barriers but allowing full access for pedestrians and bikes.

They became controversial after a large number were installed at speed, many in London, during the Covid lockdowns of 2020, in an attempt to help people travel around more safely and easily on bike or foot.

The DfT report, which covers only schemes installed from 2020 onwards, noted that where there had been problems, for example with emergency services, this tended to be when schemes had been rushed through or were new, and the issues tended to ease over time.

While the Met police and one ambulance service reported initial problems, overall �LTNs do not adversely affect response times for emergency vehicles�, the report said.

Critics of LTNs argue that they benefit people living inside them largely by pushing traffic on to nearby roads. However, the DfT said this did not seem to be the case.

�There are tensions between evidence and perceptions,� the report said. �There appears to be limited evidence of adverse impacts on boundary roads, but residents are more likely than not to think that schemes have added traffic congestion and queues to these nearby roads.�

The report found some evidence of the schemes encouraging people to walk and cycle, as well as interim findings that LTNs tended to lead to a reduction in road danger and street crime, while saying more research was needed.

It did note mixed findings among people with disabilities. Some said LTNs had made their journeys longer, while others said the opposite.

A wider survey of councils found that of 42 LTNs where the local authority responded, an average of 31,000 penalty charge notices had been issued. However, this varied greatly, ranging from 170,000 in one LTN to 83 in another.

A DfT spokesperson said: �We are clear that many local authorities have not put local residents first when implementing low-traffic neighbourhoods. We are backing motorists and will produce new guidance focused on the importance of securing strong local support.�

# ? Mar 8, 2024 23:49

escapegoat: Aug 18, 2013

OwlFancier posted:

I'm trying to think of a musical instrument that didn't get invented outside of western europe and I'm struggling. I think it would have to be some sort of modern electronic thing because I feel like the rest of the world already invented all the ways to get noise out of bits of tree and animals and rocks.

I guess you could go with independent invention but I can't think of anything unique.

Apart from very single orchestral instrument you mean?

# ? Mar 8, 2024 23:53

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

escapegoat posted:

Apart from very single orchestral instrument you mean?

I'm drawing a somewhat arbitrary line where I'm looking for things I think are actually significantly different. The concept of a bowed string instrument for example is a lot older so I'm just saying everything like that are variations on the same thing. Or at least conceivably developed from earlier things through sufficient iteration that the particular species are themselves arbitrary.

So I guess I'm looking for some original primary method of getting sound out of an original arrangement of components. So like, drums are a thing. Plucked strings are a thing. Bowed strings are a thing because I would consider the use of the bow to be an addition of a new original component and method of getting sound out compared to plucking.

I'd probably say that keyboard controls do count, as possibly does the concept of hammered strings, so I might accept the piano-type instrument if that's a euro thing.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 00:03

Wolfsbane: Jul 29, 2009; What time is it, Eccles?

Nuclear Spoon posted:

my favourite kind of study is the one which gets commissioned by rightwing dickheads to find a specific conclusion and ends up finding the opposite. hope it does get properly released.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-generally-popular-report-ordered-by-sunak-finds

I like “there are tensions between evidence and perceptions” as a euphemism for "these people believe some absurd nonsense".

# ? Mar 9, 2024 00:09

Dabir: Nov 10, 2012

Anecdotally, I'm in an LTN and the main effect I've noticed is that none of the assholes who drive around in really loud cars advertising their tiny dicks get to go down the road where the local councillor lives. My hairdresser has told me footfall to her business has cratered since the scheme went through, and a local sports shop that had been there for 80 years upped sticks and moved to the Jewellery Quarter. And also one of the main roads feeding into the high street is even more jammed up with traffic at busy hours than it used to be, and all the residents along there have signs in their windows saying NO TO LTN, WE DESERVE CLEAN AIR TOO. And it's not related, but while I'm griping about traffic management, another local street has jams three times daily, because nobody parking there bothers to get their loving wheels on the pavement, so it's effectively a one lane road with traffic trying to go both ways.

Doesn't affect me much though, I was already walking and taking buses.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 00:20

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

You are not, strictly, supposed to have your wheels on the pavement.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 00:22

Dabir: Nov 10, 2012

That's only true in London.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 00:28

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

OwlFancier posted:

I'm drawing a somewhat arbitrary line where I'm looking for things I think are actually significantly different. The concept of a bowed string instrument for example is a lot older so I'm just saying everything like that are variations on the same thing. Or at least conceivably developed from earlier things through sufficient iteration that the particular species are themselves arbitrary.

So I guess I'm looking for some original primary method of getting sound out of an original arrangement of components. So like, drums are a thing. Plucked s
trings are a thing. Bowed strings are a thing because I would consider the use of the bow to be an addition of a new original component and method of getting sound out compared to plucking.

I'd probably say that keyboard controls do count, as possibly does the concept of hammered strings, so I might accept the piano-type instrument if that's a euro thing.

quote:

The Piano Has the Same Mechanism as the Dulcimer
Although the piano can be classified as a string instrument due to the fact that the sounds come from the vibration of strings, it can also be classified as a percussion instrument because a hammer strikes those strings. In this way it is similar to a dulcimer.
The dulcimer is an instrument that originated in the Middle East and spread to Europe in the 11th century. It features a simple resonating box with strings stretched on top of it. Much like a piano, a small hammer is used to hit the strings, which is why the dulcimer is considered to be a direct ancestor of the piano.

source: https://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/piano/structure/

# ? Mar 9, 2024 00:32

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Dabir posted:

Anecdotally, I'm in an LTN and the main effect I've noticed is that none of the assholes who drive around in really loud cars advertising their tiny dicks get to go down the road where the local councillor lives. My hairdresser has told me footfall to her business has cratered since the scheme went through, and a local sports shop that had been there for 80 years upped sticks and moved to the Jewellery Quarter. And also one of the main roads feeding into the high street is even more jammed up with traffic at busy hours than it used to be, and all the residents along there have signs in their windows saying NO TO LTN, WE DESERVE CLEAN AIR TOO. And it's not related, but while I'm griping about traffic management, another local street has jams three times daily, because nobody parking there bothers to get their loving wheels on the pavement, so it's effectively a one lane road with traffic trying to go both ways.

Doesn't affect me much though, I was already walking and taking buses.

You should see the complaints and photos of cars with their wheels on the pavements in our local FB group! Especially people using wheelchairs, mobility scooters or with prams / strollers being forced into the rather narrow roads taking their lives into their hands because loads of people round here - especially youngsters with new licences - drive like lunatics, despite the 20mph speed limit in built-up areas.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 00:35

Albinator: Mar 31, 2010

There's someone in our office who started in 1970. I should ask her about her memories of office life while she's still around.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 01:06

Angepain: Jul 13, 2012; what keeps happening to my clothes

About ten years ago (christ...) when I first worked in an office I kept wondering what that weird old-computer-looking thing was in one corner that nobody ever seemed to use. Turned out it was an old microfilm reader - I had never seen one of them before in my life. I wonder if it ever got used since then.

Dabir posted:

That's only true in London.

Scotland too, now!

# ? Mar 9, 2024 01:11

Lady Demelza: Dec 29, 2009; Lipstick Apathy

OwlFancier posted:

I do have a fondness for all the specialized crap that was developed before everything got streamlined into universal computers that could store and do anything.

Even down to stuff like those archive shelves with the cranks on the end that have one aisle shared between dozens of shelving units and you have to move the shelves to get the aisle where you want it.

Absolutely stupid to use but there's something about that kind of design that I like.

Of course now I work somewhere where the archive is "a room full of plastic totes full of papers and hope nobody ever needs to look anything up"

I work in an actual archive and we have rolling stacks, they're great. They even have clicky brakes so nobody can move the shelves and crush you to death.

There are still lots of departments that tell us their records are too important to be sent to the archive, where we will label and box them and put them on their own little rolling shelf. They are such important documents that they must stay higgledy piggeldy in a room with a leaking roof. We can't even bear to start taking to them about archiving their electronic records.

Edit: we have a microfilm reader too!

# ? Mar 9, 2024 01:18

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I think one of the worst things about the digitisation of archives is that there aren't so many physical archives, and I can no longer apply to be the Portrait Goblin that lives under the office.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 01:28

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Angepain posted:

About ten years ago (christ...) when I first worked in an office I kept wondering what that weird old-computer-looking thing was in one corner that nobody ever seemed to use. Turned out it was an old microfilm reader - I had never seen one of them before in my life. I wonder if it ever got used since then.

Scotland too, now!

Oh gosh, the microfiche reader, I'd forgotten all about that! All our invoices where photographed on to that plus all sorts of contracts etc & every month we would get a new pack of the blue postcard sized film circulated from HQ. I figured out how to have a secret few minutes shut eye using the microfiche reader at the back of the office with my pen suspended over a pad where I had some old notes already scrawled in case of prying eyes, prop my head up with one hand and just shut my eyes for 5 minutes. (Afternoon/early evening naps are the joy of my life and have been since childhood).

I think lots of newspaper archives are still on those if you want to go more than 20-30 years back. Digitizing everything is a slow & costly process.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 02:03

Unkempt: May 24, 2003; ...perfect spiral, scientists are still figuring it out...

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

I think lots of newspaper archives are still on those if you want to go more than 20-30 years back. Digitizing everything is a slow & costly process.

I went to university in 1983 and they had the whole Times archive on microfiche, and it was pretty amazing to just be able to read contemporary reporting of victorian stuff. Jack the Ripper murders as they happened, that sort of thing. Can you even get that on the internet now? Libraries are great.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 02:56

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Unkempt posted:

I went to university in 1983 and they had the whole Times archive on microfiche, and it was pretty amazing to just be able to read contemporary reporting of victorian stuff. Jack the Ripper murders as they happened, that sort of thing. Can you even get that on the internet now? Libraries are great.

Some is.

https://www.digitisednewspapers.net/histories/tda/#:~:text=The%20Times%20Digital%20Archive%20can,or%20a%20specific%20digitised%20collection.

https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ has other more local newspapers - not complete sets but big chunks.

I've used this quite a bit looking into issues in the 1940s regarding Palestine (Belfast Telegraph in particular has a lot). You have to pay to read more than just the headlines though.

References to Palestine in their archives go right back to 1727 (which IMHO puts to bed the nonsense argument I see from some sections of the pro-Israel zionist camp that 'There's never been any such place as Palestine'.)

One of the things that strikes me is how much more "literate" for want of a better word all these various local newspapers seem to have been than they are now.
Also intrigued there is a newspaper that lasted just over a year 1800-1801 that was part taken over by another one called True Briton that existed. Was Fromage around then?

Anyway, here's a search I did from 1/1/1935 to 31/12/1953 on Palestine:

https://britishnewspaperarchive.co....dayearly&page=0

Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Mar 9, 2024

# ? Mar 9, 2024 03:31

serious gaylord: Sep 16, 2007; what.

Dabir posted:

Anecdotally, I'm in an LTN and the main effect I've noticed is that none of the assholes who drive around in really loud cars advertising their tiny dicks get to go down the road where the local councillor lives. My hairdresser has told me footfall to her business has cratered since the scheme went through, and a local sports shop that had been there for 80 years upped sticks and moved to the Jewellery Quarter. And also one of the main roads feeding into the high street is even more jammed up with traffic at busy hours than it used to be, and all the residents along there have signs in their windows saying NO TO LTN, WE DESERVE CLEAN AIR TOO. And it's not related, but while I'm griping about traffic management, another local street has jams three times daily, because nobody parking there bothers to get their loving wheels on the pavement, so it's effectively a one lane road with traffic trying to go both ways.

Doesn't affect me much though, I was already walking and taking buses.

LTNs get blamed for these things whether it's true or not. Your hairdressers business has cratered but then so has most service industry in the last few months.

Traffic is busy, but it always has been. You just notice it now.

This is literally what the study has found.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 04:18

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

NotJustANumber99 posted:

Got a text today from a passing dude. Offering me 4k£ for my 70k miles 20 years old smart car. It looks like poo poo too. Not tarted up.

You have a roadster though don't you? They're a bit rarer than the fortwos.

Office chat: my first real job we had computers and wyse terminals to connect to our mainframe with. (most depts just had the terminals, but IT had both)

We had an internet connection, but it wasn't always on - it got connected in the morning, at lunch time, and in the afternoon, for email collection.

As it was all set up in our office we'd sometimes run it for longer or at ad-hoc times if we wanted to do a little bit of browsing.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 08:14

Bozza: Mar 5, 2004; "I'm a really useful engine!"

up until the pandemic there were still railway signalling master records on linen and negatives that needed changed by hand on a drawing board

all finally got digitised (badly) in 2020

# ? Mar 9, 2024 09:16

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Bozza posted:

digitised (badly) in 2020

We're going to have an amazing year (badly)

# ? Mar 9, 2024 09:45

Azza Bamboo: Apr 7, 2018; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021

Has Britain ever had a fantastic year?

# ? Mar 9, 2024 09:53

The Saviour: Feb 19, 2006

ThomasPaine posted:

There is literally no obviously misleading propaganda from the Palestinian side though. Oct 7th happened, and Hamas + its allies are very open about claiming responsibility. Obviously we can argue back and forth about the long term context it happened within and the various rights and wrongs of that kind of anti-colonial resistance, but it's pretty straightforward and makes sense if terrorism, in the very strict sense of the word, is part of your overall strategy (and really, given Israeli policy, what other options do Palestinians have?)

That was bad, insofar as civilians were killed, injured, and abducted, but nobody is denying that. Every single thing Israel has claimed on top of that, that people were raped and tortured and babies were beheaded and all the rest of it, has had zero evidence to back it up. Israel does however have a long history of using disinformation strategies, claiming whatever the hell atrocity it wants has happened, and then weaponising the outrage before shrugging when it's later proven they were full of poo poo. Maybe it did happen this time - it's a bit of a boy who cried wolf scenario - and I'm sure the Hamas forces did do some shady poo poo beyond the fact of the attack itself because that happens in war, but it's pretty suspect how Israel has immediately jumped to the most heinous and unbelievable accusations in their PR.

Then you get to the attack on Gaza, and we see those same, still unsubstantiated accusations being used to deflect any criticism. But we have daily evidence of the atrocities being conducted by the IDF. If anything, what we see in the west is probably relatively sanitised. We're seeing mass starvation and murder and we're seeing Israel's forces act with more brutality than even they accuse Hamas of - literally leaving newborn babies to decompose in incubators, for example. In any just world, Israel's actions would have prompted international military intervention in defence of Gaza months ago, but with the USA swinging its dick over the whole thing as an Israeli ally, that can't happen, and given that even our nominally left wing politicians can't even bring themselves to call for a ceasefire I doubt it would have happened anyway.

I'm not meaning to be aggressive here, but I'm thinking of the international brigades in Spain and the broader fight against European fascism in the twentieth century, and then I'm looking at our clown world with utter despair, and I feel like any effort to 'both sides' this particular conflict, when it's so obviously about as morally complex as the most simplistic and banal fantasy story, is just massively part of the problem. Sometimes there's room for nuance, but, and I say this as an actual, apparently qualified, historian, sometimes endlessly invoking the need for it when dealing with current events serves to obfuscate the reality that sometimes, things really are just as simple as they look, and embracing that broad simplicity is important. There'll be room to examine and unpack the fine details down the line, but now isn't the time for it at the political level.

I appreciate this post. Thankfully here is a much better place to lurk and get info on the situation than the other isreal/palestine thread in DnD. I guess im not as informed on Hamas as I thought.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 10:18

NotJustANumber99: Feb 15, 2012; somehow that last av was even worse than your posting

Azza Bamboo posted:

Has Britain ever had a fantastic year?

1966 and 2012

# ? Mar 9, 2024 10:20

Soricidus: Oct 21, 2010; freedom-hating statist shill

Azza Bamboo posted:

Has Britain ever had a fantastic year?

1842, when we invented the dinosaur

# ? Mar 9, 2024 10:25

Jakabite: Jul 31, 2010

The Saviour posted:

I appreciate this post. Thankfully here is a much better place to lurk and get info on the situation than the other isreal/palestine thread in DnD. I guess im not as informed on Hamas as I thought.

Definitely a good post that. If you want more regular updates in Something Awful Posts format, the C-SPAM thread is actually pretty good.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 10:28

Miftan: Mar 31, 2012; Terry knows what he can do with his bloody chocolate orange...

My office only digitised during COVID. Oh sure people had computers and emailed, but files were printed out, work was written on a board and then ticked off by people when it was picked up, filing cabinets for old work, giant calendar for people to write their appointments in, etc. I tried to get them to do more stuff digitally, but the youngest person in the office was in their 50s and none of them were having it. I once had to explain to someone the difference between a single and a double click with their computer mouse.

The job manual I got when I joined was a big binder that detailed helpful things such as how to mail merge and then instructing you to print out the merged file and file it away in the proper filing cabinet. Saving it on the computer just Wasn't Done.

The staff were all also very uninterested in learning. I set up systems to make everything quicker and less analog, but nobody could be bothered to learn how to log in to their outlook365 account until they absolutely had to. Theres a shared digital calendar that most people refuse to use.

They're also still working on digitising out actual, physical archives full of box of paper but I suspect that's just to save on storage costs. All the boxes just sit in a disused office instead now.

We're now mostly digital, but the systems in place for it are mostly hodge podge nonsense I put together and our new filing cabinet is just me saving files on my computer and emailing them out to people when requested. Still better than paper. I'm glad we don't have any of the specialised machines, though there is a letter stuffer machine and a dusty fax somewhere in the mail room.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 10:36

killerwhat: May 13, 2010

frytechnician posted:

Afternoon everyone.

Last call reminder, for all London / near London people who want to join myself and thousands of others tomorrow the march begins at noon in Hyde Park.

More info here: https://palestinecampaign.org/events/national-demonstration-ceasefire-now-stop-the-genocide-in-gaza/

Hope you can make it or go to your nearest alternative protest, wherever you are.

Thanks for this, assuming it was you posting a couple of weeks ago too. I probably wouldn�t have been aware of it otherwise. On my way there now

# ? Mar 9, 2024 11:33

His Divine Shadow: Aug 7, 2000; I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.

OwlFancier posted:

Acoustic modems are hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmBLsKV7Sx0

If you like old tech stuff that's a cool channel btw.

As a last ditch attempt to see if it was worth keeping our FAX number at work I tried getting some life into a 90s era US robotics modem with the idea of using that to receive faxes, but it just didn't want to work properly. So we got rid of the fax entirely and honestly never needed it in over a decade. I used to have an office room full of 90s and even late 80s stuff and old computers and poo poo. Until a few years ago when 99% of things got cleaned out. Too bad I really liked the old computers for components. Built a powersupply from one of the PSUs.

I did save a t on of stuff like Corel Draw boxes, Win 95 UPGRADE box, Netware 3.x something boxes, a Nokia 1610 phone with charger and extra battery. Keep them on the shelves as display pieces.

# ? Mar 9, 2024 11:45

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# ? May 25, 2024 12:48

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Miftan posted:

My office

Christ alive, I couldn't work in a place like that. I would murder everyone

# ? Mar 9, 2024 12:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT Spring 2024 - Panic! in the Tea Room

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