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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

#121

Post by drewzero1 »

sunir wrote: post #31
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.

I would imagine you do understand the advantage of 30 seconds of time from anywhere in the world versus a 20-60min round trip to the bank. I imagine there are other reasons you value than time and space convenience. Why do you feel the physical trip is more valuable?

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 declining their suggestion to get the app.)

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

#122

Post by beowulfey »

Toutouxc wrote: post #21

While I agree that this is a huge failure of the prison system, I'm also convinced that it shouldn't take more than a month for an ex-convict to catch up with the average computer user. Most people I know are borderline computer illiterate. Even the educated ones.

it sounds like this particular person did so and figured it out relatively quickly, based on the thread. the things being done were more complex than what some of my relatives can do.

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

#123

Post by EGreg »

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…

UK thinks like you

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-35569281

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

#124

Post by Arrath »

nickysielicki wrote: post #103
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…

My drivers license expires later this year, which is the first time that I have ever needed to renew it. Due to COVID, my license could be renewed online. I did it last night. The problem? I couldn’t update any of my info from when I was 16 unless I went in person. What this ultimately means is that I will be 34 when this new license expires, using a baby faced teenage photo from 18 years prior, with physical descrip…

Same here. I'm nearing 32, with a baby-faced ill-advised high school ponytail headshot on my license.

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

#125

Post by adamrt »

gpvos wrote: post #69
adamrt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few: - being able to mange banking while traveling internationally (or to a state/province that does't have a branch) - 30 second transfers between accounts (or to other banks) - few minutes to open a new account - see posted (and pending) charges within a day or two instead of a month (I regularly import for my budgeting software) I'm a developer and actually do consider myself a little bit of a luddite. But onlin…

Open an account in minutes? How many accounts do you use per month? I have had six in 49 years. Only the first and last of your list seem very useful to me.

Not many, but I switched banks two months ago and doing it online made it trivial.

I didn’t say each point was of equal value or frequency. I was just trying to list some benefits for someone that asked.

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

#126

Post by gambiting »

TrueGeek wrote: post #114
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government services are available offline or via phone as well. The government has some of the strictest accessibility requirements for everything they do. It’s one of the reasons that it’s so expensive to roll out new government services. People are directed to the online versions first because it’s fastest for everyone involved. We should be pushing everyone toward efficient online self-service first, while leaving…

> 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…

Polish consulates everywhere have also switched to an online-only appointment system, you can't visit if you haven't got an appointment(except for emergencies), you can't book an appointment over the phone, you have to use the website.

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

#127

Post by alpaca128 »

mankyd wrote: post #99
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government services are available offline or via phone as well. The government has some of the strictest accessibility requirements for everything they do. It’s one of the reasons that it’s so expensive to roll out new government services. People are directed to the online versions first because it’s fastest for everyone involved. We should be pushing everyone toward efficient online self-service first, while leaving…

> We should be pushing everyone toward efficient online self-service first I was with you until that statement. If we push online, self-service first , then the offline, in person services will languish. This is what OP was driving at. Establish effective offline services _first_, with the intention of online, self-service, and you will end up in a place that better serves everyone.

A few months ago I had to go fetch a simple registration form. Usually a matter of like 15 minutes at rush hour.

Due to the pandemic, they had strict rules and required me to first book an appointment one week later for a specific time slot. Reserving that time slot was only possible via phone call.

So I basically had to wait a full week for a one-page printout with a stamp on it. Should this be possible offline? Yes, but why not save most people the drive and waiting times if this could also be done instantly via a simple digital signature?

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

#128

Post by Verdex »

pas wrote: post #111
Verdex wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it makes accountability easier as well. And this is actually the reason why I don't do online billing as much as possible. A stack of papers going back years showing that the corporate entity you're dealing with confirms that you payed them on time for years feels a lot better defense than: Me: your honor, I swear I paid them Corp: our computer thingy says you didn't. also it's a tangle of 50 different sql da…

I get digitally signed PDFs from service providers each month, similarly from various gov agencies. Sure, there are still a lot of people who simply isn't comfortable handling this, and for them send them printed versions. Auditors and reporters should audit the end-result, not look at paper baskets. We already know "oops liberty not found" happens in a lot of cases yet the powers that be does nothing. (Because it ca…

> Auditors and reporters should audit the end-result

I mean, sure. It's just that it's really hard to know how we got to any given end-result. Hey, we see a guy who is really having problems getting services for his kids from the state. Investigation time! Oh, it turns out he's got a bunch of money but he just doesn't want to spend it on his kids. So the reason why he's not getting the services is legit.

MEANWHILE

A guy isn't getting services for his kids AND we see that his forms are all in the trash outside of the statehouse. And there's Jimmy from the service department emptying some more filled out forms into the trash. Ah ha!

If it was an electronic form, then Jimmy could just hit delete (maybe even accidentally) and we would never know.

The point of paper is to make it harder for people in government to get away with not helping. Yeah, ideally we would investigate everything, but we just don't have the resources for that. Forcing someone to throw away paper into a basket is a shortcut to help people investigate.

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

#129

Post by Arrath »

wongarsu wrote: post #50
PascLeRasc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will brushing up help when Microsoft moves all the menus in the next edition? How about when they add in new errors and make File Explorer not return correct results and Windows Search just searches Bing instead of your computer? Or when they add stuff like “you aren’t allowed to attach that file to an email. It’s because it’s open in Word, but we’re not telling you that. Yes, we know this only happens in Outlook and…

Microsoft moves the menus in office at most once a decade. They just kept adding onto the Office 95 menus for twelve years, then they introduced ribbons, now 13 years later they move away from ribbons. They aren't some SaaS company that moves things for fun

All of which largely became unimportant when they introduced the "Tell me what you want to do" search box to Office programs. Blessed be its name.

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

#130

Post by msla »

flohofwoe wrote: post #25
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…

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.

> I just don't see the advantage over traditional "offline banking".

You must live somewhere with an extremely temperate climate.

SUBTEXT: If you live somewhere with things like "snow" or "ice" or "Winter Storms" you'll change your tune once you begin to seriously worry how slowly you'd die after you break your hip on a sidewalk that's more snow-covered ice than concrete.

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