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Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

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Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#191

Post by pmarreck »

Macha wrote: post #101
fuball63 wrote: post #80

I'm sure many people here have experienced frustration helping older relatives or friends use computers. Recently though, I realized, that computers are just way too hard to use. In our pursuit to avoid cryptic black screens with command prompts, a user must now understand that their computer has Windows with all of its menus and functions, a browser window with all of its menus and functions, running a webapp, with…

Even appliance computers are not immune to this. Had an elderly neighbour asking for help after struggling to forward a message sent by one contact on whatsapp to another contact on facebook. Having to explain: > Well there's usually an icon that looks like this, and sometimes it will bring up the android share menu, but sometimes it opens up something that only shows you contact in that app, and having someone on fa…

> Well there's usually an icon that looks like this, and sometimes it will bring up the android share menu, but sometimes it opens up something that only shows you contact in that app, and having someone on facebook is not the same as on whatsapp.

Back in my day, Apple had something called the Human Interface Guidelines and they adhered to them religiously, and IMHO it made computing a lot more approachable for a neophyte, compared to the mess we have today with "hamburger menus" vs. "triple-dot menus" (REALLY??), no general way to access the settings of any app, no general way to do anything really save for typing in text (and sometimes not even then!)

Instagram and Snapchat (the worst offender here, you literally won't learn some inputs unless someone tells you about them!) have not made anything better.

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#192

Post by iso1631 »

Farbklex wrote: post #7

In contrast, I am sure we all know some older people who were not in prisson for the past 30 years and still don't know how to write an email, what a zoom call is or when it's appropriate to double-click vs single click items on a computer. I know people in their 50s who pretend that "they don't need this technology" or "I can just go to the bank if I need something". Sure, if you're in your 80s you might want to dod…

If you were in your 50s in the 90s I could understand avoiding technology. I have some sympathy for those in their 90s who had retired before the 1990s, but in the late 1990s Terry Wogan (b 1938) and his producer Paul Walters (b1947), with a breakfast radio show reaching 20% of the UK and aimed at fairly old people, showing that it wasn't too late for people their age to learn computing and send emails, watch webcams, etc.

If you're a boomer, you were in your 40s when windows 95 came out, and internet was common in average households in your 50s - no excuse.

For prisoners who were incarcerated, surely the rehabilitation and release process educates on basic information age technology like going to a library and using a computer to access public services

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#193

Post by jpindar »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #131
drewzero1 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but my bank keeps pushing me to get their app to deposit checks. My phone doesn't do apps and I don't feel like taking up space on my tablet. Besides, there's a branch with a drive-through three minutes away from my house and another one a block away from work, so it's not that much time or travel and I get to talk to somebody outside of home or work for a few minutes. (Even if some of that time is spent decl…

Wait, your bank's drive-through is staffed ? Every drive-through at a bank I've seen is just an ATM.

TD Banks drive-throughs are staffed. I recently had to get something notarized and it was good to be able to do it without going in to the bank.

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#194

Post by flohofwoe »

notJim wrote: post #189
flohofwoe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer yet I don't do online banking (I literally "just go to the bank if I need something"). I don't consider myself a "luddite", I just don't see the advantage over traditional "offline banking". Same with shopping and all the other little nuisances of daily life.

As someone who has never really done "offline banking", I don't really understand how this works? Do you maintain your own ledger of all your accounts and their balances? Or are you driving over to the bank to check on things once or twice a month? If you have to transfer between accounts, do you go to one bank, get a check, then go to another bank? And this means you're entirely excluded from low-cost banks that don…

Honestly, I'm not sure if you're trolling or not :) But in case not: I have one account at one bank. I think there's a monthly fee on the account, but TBH I don't know how much, in any case it's not nearly enough to consider changing to other banks.

Recurring payments (e.g. rent, internet, power etc...) are handled through automatic orders which I had setup once. For the very rare cases where I need to pay a bill "manually" there are service machines in the branch office's lobby, which is about 5 minutes walking distance from my home.

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#195

Post by npteljes »

Farbklex wrote: post #149
npteljes wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ffs sit down and learn the in-depth tools and tricks in the tools over the span of two weekends Even IT people don't know their tools as much as I'd like them to. Taking time out like this, to get to know the tools, is a worthy effort for all.

True. There are just too many. I should still improve my knowledge of git, gradle, intelij, various command line tools, docker and so on. That by itself isn't to much but all this stuff comes on top of just staying up to date with the plattform you are working on and learning the next framework or library which you immediately need. Looking at you, android and your yearly updates, Kotlin, and a dozen jetpack librarie…

I get that, there's too much and changes too often. But there are cases where going a little deeper improves productivity a lot. Where I work we're assigned to projects that last at least a couple of years, so it pays off to spend some time learning the tools.

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#196

Post by DoreenMichele »

notJim wrote: post #189
flohofwoe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer yet I don't do online banking (I literally "just go to the bank if I need something"). I don't consider myself a "luddite", I just don't see the advantage over traditional "offline banking". Same with shopping and all the other little nuisances of daily life.

As someone who has never really done "offline banking", I don't really understand how this works? Do you maintain your own ledger of all your accounts and their balances? Or are you driving over to the bank to check on things once or twice a month? If you have to transfer between accounts, do you go to one bank, get a check, then go to another bank? And this means you're entirely excluded from low-cost banks that don…

You get paper statements. Yes, you keep a ledger (ye olde "checkbook") and you write checks, use your debit card or get cash.

(No, I no longer do this. I'm just old enough to remember a time before online banking existed when the hot new thing was being able to check your balance via the automated phone system.)

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#197

Post by npteljes »

gambler wrote: post #177
npteljes wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ffs sit down and learn the in-depth tools and tricks in the tools over the span of two weekends Even IT people don't know their tools as much as I'd like them to. Taking time out like this, to get to know the tools, is a worthy effort for all.

Very few tools designed today have any features that facilitate learning. Developers don't understand how learning works and don't really care. Operating systems mostly washed their hands of this issue as well. It's a mess.

I agree. Jetbrains did well with their IDE I think, they show context aware suggestions often, but in a non-obtrusive way. This is effective because the information is there when you need it, not when you have no idea what to do with it.

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#198

Post by alexashka »

ballenf wrote: post #48

Unpopular opinion: I think government services and offices should remain offline-first forever. They should offer online equivalents, but they should never assume or require digital adoption. I think this has two big benefits: - Minor point: Greater resilience to downtime, interruptions to service - Major point: a check on becoming a faceless entity with no exposure to the public. Think Google or FB if you get flagge…

You've forgotten to include cost, in your cost/benefit analysis.

That's kind of important.

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#199

Post by pessimizer »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #137
TrueGeek wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government services are available offline or via phone as well The US Embassy FBU in London has recently switched to email only. They no longer accept postal mail. [1] The FBU handles social security related matters for those out of the country. You can visit in person only for urgent visits with an appointment which they point out are limited. [2] They no longer list a phone number of their site so appointments mu…

The probably don't accept telegrams either. Maybe email is now easier/quicker/more cost effective than processing letter mail?

Not offering any way to communicate with them would be even more cost effective, but might cause difficulties for some citizens.

Re: Out of prison after 30 years and people telling him to find forms on the web

#200

Post by 95014_refugee »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #67

It’s in fathomable that the government would put a person in jail for 30 years and dump them back into society without even a PowerPoint briefing on the state of the world. Isn’t incarceration a two way street? If government takes away (for good reason or not) your personal freedom aren’t they liable for your well-being during that time? And more importantly, responsible for the person “their” system returns to socie…

Morally? It certainly seems like it.

Practically? If there is no accountability, no loop closure on the delivery of such a thing, then no.

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