Re: PF gallery could use a few more words

[karl shah-jenner <shahjen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jan wrote
> I don’t think we’re run out of things to say exactly, but more that we’ve 
> finally fallen into the morass predicted by Vance Packard in the 1950’s, 
> and caused by total overload by visual media.

<clipped>

agreed.  I am no technophobe, but I just want an audio recorder with as few 
buttons as possible, preferably big ones, with standardized symbols I 
recognise on them..   I loathe scrolling through menus trying to interpret 
vague 'new' methods of describing things.  There was once a standard menu 
structure for computing , but it seems that's 'old' and needed updating and 
now I'm a bit fuddled.

Digital - yeah.. I liked film.  I could take my time with film and I found a 
great satisfaction working with the confounded stuff.  Digital however 
promised an 'ease and convenience' that has resulted in vastly more effort - 
and yet, I find it near impossible to return to film.  I do not understand 
digital the same way, it does not always behave - it's like the choke in a 
car. a manual choke is easily mastered if you put the time in and you can 
develop a finesse in it's operation.  An automatic choke is SO much easier 
though.. when it works.  When it doesn't it's a royal pain - but try going 
back to a manual choke after an automatic..

I heard an interesting story about the rental car market in the US, and how 
exasperated customers were returning cars asking for 'simple' ones.  It 
seems while the novelty of ownership allows people to accept the automation 
and electronics of modern cars, jumping into something that is NOT yours and 
having to troll thru the myriad unfamiliar and non-standard menu structure 
to try to work out how to turn on the blasted de-mister (de-fogger?) drives 
people nuts.  All I want is a button please.  A switch, a button with a 
clunky tactile feel.  I am but a mere ape, and I need physical feedback. 
How the heck will I be expected to operate the next-gen media player?  You 
know the one - it's the size of a postage stamp you wave at your wall sized 
quantum projection screen, but first you have to read the 1/2 point font on 
the destruction manual before you can use it.

Then you need to install the software to your computer, oh you have that old 
OS, sorry.. you need to 'upgrade' that first.. oh yeah sorry, we deleted all 
those old audio files during the upgrade as the digital rights management 
software was unable to determine whether you had a license to use it.. 
What's that you say?  That was your pHD thesis you'd spent a year recording 
and mixing with the local orchestra.. well how could we be expected to know 
that?  You should have paid the $35,000 to obtain a license to produce your 
own music.. it's for your own good you know.

So future-you decides to write a letter to complain but you don't have a 
touch screen and the new smart software won't accept keyboard input - you're 
supposed to smear your finger around in vague shapes to make word sound 
things that the software will translate to script for you.. look, here's an 
example old timer -  "dr mista jOnes, irly Wantedtobuy youR dg a 8 but we 
waz loling abot hte prc & dcded not 2 thnx  <3 u bai!!'

Future-you could resort to pen and paper but it just isn't convenient any 
more, not since you first discovered how much easier it was to type it on a 
computer.. save it, print it, email it.. but that's just you thinking of the 
way it once was, not the way it has become.  So you muddle on .. The splash 
screen loads and you try all 10 digits 15 times before the biosensor accepts 
your smear and welcomes you with a gleeful 'hello mrs Banshai' (you are 
neither gleeful, nor Mrs Banshai)  then loads Angry Birds every time you try 
to type the letter E .

it all seems too hard!  But everyone else seems to be doing OK, so you 
muddle on.  No one tells you that all those kids with their heads down for 
hours on end, hunched over their phones tapping away are not writing their 
great treatise on human behavior but are in fact just pratting about with 
settings, trying to get the alrm clock to work..

So yeah sorry Andy, I'd love to be able to comment on whatever the heck it 
is you're talking about but I'm a bit distracted - got a new android phone 
and I can't seem to get the music player set up right. Reading anything I 
can find on the web but it's not helping, I tried a couple of suggestions by 
some young wiz kids following their instructions without really 
understanding them and now every time the phone rings, Kate Bush's Babooshka 
goes off.. every keypad button - Babooshka.. every tap, Babooshka.. it's 
driving me nuts!

<3 u alls K