More efficient means for going backwards?

Completely lost in technology, but making good time

Photo: Gijsbert van der Wal

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Election night, I was with a group of people, with skin in the game in a local elections, as they waited for results. Big screens surrounded the group overhead but about 70 percent of the heads were down everywhere, watching the feed on their phone. Several of them even commented on how bad they thought that was, considering how hard they tried to get their teen-age kids to look up from the phones, on a daily basis.

“It seems every generation of parents has a collective freak-out when it comes to kids and new technologies; television and video games each inspired widespread hand-wringing among grownups. But the inescapability of today’s mobile devices — combined with allure of social media — seems to separate smartphones from older screen-based media. Parents, teenagers and researchers agree that smartphones are having a profound impact on the way adolescents today communicate with one another and spend their free time,” notes Time magazine in a Nov. 6 story.

“And while some experts say it is too soon to ring alarm bells about smart phones, others argue that we understand enough about young people’s emotional and developmental vulnerabilities to recommend restricting kids’ escalating phone habits.”

According to Time, the latest statistics on teenage mental health reinforce the concern.

“Between 2010 and 2016, the number of adolescents who experienced at least one major depressive episode leaped by 60%,” citing a nationwide survey conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services.

“The 2016 HHS survey of 17,000 kids found that about 13% of them had at least one major depressive episode per year, compared with 8% of the kids surveyed in 2010. Suicide deaths among people ages 10 to 19 have also risen sharply; among teenage girls, suicide has reached 40-year highs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All this follows a period during the late 1990s and early 2000s when rates of adolescent depression and suicide mostly held steady or declined.”

I personally have always tried to treat technology like an unfamiliar dog, that might easily become a new friend, but always carries with it the potential to bite you and others around you if not approached correctly.

And it appears local educators have a similar approach.

Lewis Palmer District 38 Superintendent Karen Brofft, and the Parent Community Technology Advisory Committee earlier this week presented SCREENAGERS: Growing Up in the Digital Age, a documentary about one of the biggest parenting issues of our time.

“Are you watching kids scroll through life, with their rapid-fire thumbs and a six-second attention span? Physician and award-winning documentary filmmaker Delaney Ruston saw that happening with her own kids and began a quest to uncover how it might impact their development. Ruston takes a deeply personal approach as she probes into the vulnerable corners of family life, including her own, to explore struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction,” said a release about the Nov. 13 presentation.

A recent article by Louisville, Ky., writer and teacher Paul Barnwell in The Atlantic explores the issue.

“The phone could be a great equalizer, in terms of giving children from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds the same device, with the same advantages. But using phones for learning requires students to synthesize information and stay focused on a lesson or a discussion. For students with low literacy skills and the frequent urge to multitask on social media or entertainment, incorporating purposeful smartphone use into classroom activity can be especially challenging. The potential advantage of the tool often goes to waste,” he says

“It’s like giving kids equal access to cigarettes and candy ... teens are not as adept at understanding risk and cause and effect,” he says.

“And I know smartphones do have wonderful learning potential, having had occasional success with them in my own classroom. I’ve had students engage in peer-editing using cloud-based word processing on their phones, for example. I’ve also heard and read about other educators using phones for exciting applications: connecting students to content experts via social media, recording practice presentations, and creating ‘how-to’ videos for science experiments.

We also know that other school districts across the country are in the midst of trying to incorporate technology to enhance learning, and to close the so-called digital divide—to ensure all students have access to an Internet-enabled device. One way to solve the access issue is to allow students to use smartphones in class,” Barnwell says.

I suppose it is appropriate that we consider smartphones and other technology like renowned science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark. “Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.” Or like another such writer, Aldous Huxley said. “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”

The technology of living with machines

Basic tools to disrupt the disrupters

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The simplest form of technology is the development and basic use of tools.
We have a whole lot more, and different tools in the toolchest, since I was a kid.
Old guys like me lounge around and tell stories about the early 1990s, when there was no world wide web, and very limited internet, drones were still bees, libraries still used card files, and phones hung on the wall. They were not that smart.
That is why I marvel at how fast disrupters are changing things on us. I have been through alot.
Also, that is why I am not that surprised to hear some of those same disrupters have hacked baseball.
Investigators for Major League Baseball have determined that the Red Sox, who are in first place in the American League East and very likely headed to the playoffs, executed a scheme to illicitly steal hand signals from opponents’ catchers in games against the second-place Yankees and other teams, according to the New York Times.
“The baseball inquiry began about two weeks ago, after the Yankees’ general manager, Brian Cashman, filed a detailed complaint with the commissioner’s office that included video the Yankees shot of the Red Sox dugout during a three-game series between the two teams in Boston last month,” the Times said.
The Yankees, who had long been suspicious of the Red Sox’ stealing catchers’ signs in Fenway Park, contended the video showed a member of the Red Sox training staff looking at his Apple Watch in the dugout. The trainer then relayed a message to other players in the dugout, who, in turn, would signal teammates on the field about the type of pitch that was about to be thrown. Investigators agreed.
As you can see, us old guys are starting to try to disrupt the disrupters.
Another example, also having to do with Apple, I am afraid, has farmers and the company fighting over the toolbox.
Farmers say that part of the problem is that equipment manufacturers like Deere & Co, maker of John Deere tractors, make it difficult for consumers and independent repair shops to get the tools needed to fix today’s high tech tractors and other machinery, which run on copyright-protected software, according to Time Magazine. “Instead, customers must work with company-approved technicians, who can be far flung and charge expensive rates.”
My dad worked as line mechanic for International Harvester, and then Chevy, and Ford dealerships all his life, and he started complaining about the required thousands-of dollar tools required to work various models and makes of cars and trucks, back in the 1990s. It was no longer easy to work on those vehicles. In fact, it got really aggravating for the old guy.
But interestingly, the technology migrates.
Personal computers were once reserved for institutions like the military, and academia, then filtered down and became affordable for wealthy clients, and finally, to almost everyone. That cycle happened even faster with the use of smart phones. Not so much yet on the rights to repair, however. Apparently, forces out there think we can’t be trusted to fix those same phones or modify them. But being able to pop the hood, so to speak, and change the spark plugs, adjust the fuel delivery system like the old-fashioned carburetor, is a basic human need in some cases. Open it up, take a look, and take care of it. Without having to have a million bucks worth of tools in the tool chest. Sure, we need rules that keep us from trying to steal signals from the catcher unfairly. But if everyone has access to those tools and rules, then, what is unfair? The simplest form of technology is the development and basic use of tools.

Redundancy and other needless, no-longer-useful, and otherwise worthless skills

Somehow, someday, somewhere, I might benefit from all this useless knowledge and expertise

 By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

“Last month we had to sit through a presentation on eliminating redundancy, and it was a bunch of Power Point slides, plus a guy reading out what was on the slides, and then he gave us all hard copies. I don’t understand these things.”
― Max Barry, Company

Personally, I am always surprised by how much worthless information I have been able to collect in the last 50, or so, years. And skills that are no longer useful.
Because of years of practice at an early age, and countless hours holed-up in a dark room winding film around stainless-steel spools, I was once known as a master of the roll up.
Until about 1999 or so, the skill was valuable in the newspaper business. Mostly 35-millimeter strips of transparent plastic film, base-coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals, had to be rolled on the spools so that liquid chemicals could move freely between all surfaces, without marrying it together in clumps that destroyed the images.  The sizes and other characteristics of the silver halide crystals determined the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the images.  The trick, of course, was to put just the right arc on the film by applying pressure on both outside edges simultaneously as it was rolled. 
Easier said, than done. 
The spools, once rolled and usually gathered in groups of four or eight, were then dropped, under the cover of night (even in the middle of the day), into stainless steel cylinders and shaken or agitated in a circular motion every few seconds for a precisely prescribed amount of time. 
With any luck at all, and after years of practice, the right chemistry, temperature and prescribed amount of time, you would hardly ever destroy an image by film marriage, too much or too little time, or bad chemistry and dark room conditions — except by light leakage.
Today, all my acquired skills, practice and expertise in this field, has been rendered virtually useless by digital photo technology.
In another acquisition of hard-won expertise and practiced development — while working in a retail hardware store that only had the mashed-button keys on an old-fashioned 19th-century cash register to signify the amount of a sale, I learned, with better-than-average aplomb, count-back protocol for making change.
A customer could come into the store, select and purchase a 10-inch flat bastard, priced $3.58. I would add four percent sales tax, total to $3.68, take his twenty-dollar bill and count back "$3.68 out of $20, $3.68 and two pennies is $3.70, nickel more is $3.75, and a quarter is $4, and $1 is $5, and $5 is $10, plus $10 is $20. 
Totally worthless now that the register (and register tape) tells you exactly what change to hand a customer.
One final particular adroitness for which I might boast, was the way I knew my way around the card catalogs at various libraries, back in the days when the small drawers full of index cards still existed.
The card catalog was a familiar sight to library users for generations, but it has been effectively replaced by online public access catalogs. Though the online catalog may still be called a "card catalog," and some libraries still have real card catalogs (small drawers) on site, the old dinosaur types are now completely a secondary resource and are seldom updated. Many of the libraries that have hung on to their physical card catalog, post signs advising the last year that the card catalog was updated. I saw one the other day that referred to the last update in 1993.
That was just about the same time I remember an aging reporter in a newsroom in which I worked in, ask another reporter (younger and more technically savvy) to "help them get on the Google."
I wonder if somehow, someday, somewhere, I will ever benefit from all this useless knowledge and expertise. If I do, I will not only tell you about it, but make some Power Point slides, and be sure you get the handouts.

Taking care of business with a button

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”
― Pablo Picasso

Merton believed in technology, he just didn't like to deal with it.

 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Years ago, you couldn't talk to Merton Taylor on Monday afternoons.
He would hole himself up, back at the check-in stand, working on an order for Amarillo Hardware's truck coming in on Thursdays. Mostly, he would cuss the state of the nation, slur half the people in that nation, and then start in on the other half.
But the biggest problem with the world at that time, according to him, was technology.
Having experienced the turmoil he went through dealing with a microfiche reader, I can't imagine what kind of cussing would have went on — if he had to deal with the Internet.
Merton believed in technology. He just didn't like to deal with it.
Those were different days.
The Post Office and the Bank were on opposing corners of the center block of Sixth Street, and business was still a face-to-face affair in our little town. Every day, at 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., the entire population would converge between the two landmarks and do that business.
Though, Merton often sent a 'red dog' representative to conduct his.
Which means, one of his Irish Setters took the bank bag down and dropped it off with a teller, (slobber and all) with someone following to take care of the paper work.
But, back to the technology.
World War II was the last time any of this technology crap made sense, he said.
And to prove it, he would have you mark every one of any of the 40,000 common retail hardware items in Taylor Hardware, via black or red grease pencil, with his own secret cost code, that took employees about seven years to learn how to read.
That code had all kinds of blind alleys and blocks, repeaters and switches in it. It was similar to the one he used during the war, in the Philippines.
When I first worked there, the Amarillo Hardware salesman, carrying two leather-bound, foot-thick, catalogs (one in each hand suspended by tooled leather handles) into the store once a month, to take care of "problems."
Seems like there was always a "problem" or two to resolve.
The rest of the time, (weeks without a salesman) on Monday, Merton, after gathering up the seven or eight 'Want Books' off of counters throughout the store, creating a list, then would painstakingly look up and transpose numbers out of the microfiche cards.
Which was all well and good, as long as the 'fiche bulb didn't burn out. Or, the numbers matched up, or the quantities were acceptable, or the illustration correctly identified an item. All of whch, almost never happened.
But at least, at the end of the day, all five of the red dogs, and grey one, or perhaps a black one, would lumber out the side door after 5:30 p.m., load up in the old International Scout, frailest to most agile by order, and head home at the end of the day.
Ready to come back and do the same thing tomorrow.
Still, it is sort of like that today, with the use of computers, the Internet, and all business taken care of with a button. Maybe we haven't learned a thing in 40 years.
It is in this environment that I've have heard the common discussion among writers, and customers, sources, and co-workers, etc... the common discussion that goes something like this.
"You can't talk to Rob Carrigan on Monday afternoons. He'll cuss the state of the nation, slur half the people in that nation ... then start in on the other half.
The biggest problem in the world today is technology.
I have the answers.  What we really need ...  the questions.

On type lice and pouring pigs

"Madame, we are the press. You know our power. We fix all values. We set all standards. Your entire future depends on us." — Jean Giraudoux, The Mad Woman of Chaillot (1945)

I enjoyed recent discussions with another "ink-stained wretch" on the "old days" of hot type. The weathered newspaper veteran seemed to enjoy it as well.
"It was refreshing to hear words like "Elrod, Ludlow, type lice and one of my favorites, pouring pigs," noted Rich Leinbach, Director of Publishing Systems for the Goshen News in Goshen, Indiana. For the uninitiated, a "pig" was a lead casting used in Linotype typesetting machines. And, on hearing of our common reference points, he told the following story.
"This brings me to a fond memory of pig pouring, back in the late 70s. I was fresh out of high school and although our newspaper had already converted to offset, we still used a decent amount of hot type in our commercial printing department.
"It was late one day and I had the job of firing up the lead furnace to pour a fresh batch of pigs. I had the pot filled with molten lead, had skimmed off the dross and was just beginning to pour the pigs when the valve broke, in the open position.
"Needless to say, gravity took over and the entire pot of lead became one giant pig on the floor, in a matter of a few minutes.
"To make matters even worse, just after my masterpiece had cooled into a solid mass, the entire staff of "Big Wigs" came parading through, after a late meeting. There I stood, pry bar in hand, trying to get rid of the evidence before anyone could find out. Ah . . . those WERE the good old days."

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Twain on risk vs. return in tech investing

Well-known author invested as much as $300,000 in compositor before pulling the plug

“Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.” __ Mark Twain

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

When considering printing technology, no one knew those risks better than Mark Twain. His pet project, the Paige Compositor, nearly sent him and his family tumbling into bankruptcy and never did see mass production. But the former printer’s devil would never give up on the idea of using new inventions to enhance the presentation of the written word.
He would have been awe-struck with the possibilities of news aggregators, interactive novels, and new and improved display technology. But he most certainly would have wanted to get in on the ground floor of the most promising of the lot. And he would have promoted it vigorously.
“All other inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly into commonplaces contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle. Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton gins sewing machines, Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, Arkwright’s frames – all toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone and in the far lead of human inventions,” wrote Twain in letter to his brother Orion, in 1889.
The Paige Compositor, an automatic-typesetting machine invented by James W. Paige, was designed to save time in the printing process. The well-known author invested as much as $300,000 in it before pulling the plug on the project.
“Though the Paige Compositor was faster than the Linotype, its 18,000 parts were prone to malfunction. Paige’s invention exhibited superior technological achievement, but its price and temperamental nature made it unattractive to a business world that had already embraced the Linotype. Still, it is regarded today as one of the finest examples of nineteenth century mechanical engineering,” notes The Mark Twain House & Museum, where the only remaining one in existence resides in the basement. It has never been taken apart since it was loaned to the museum by the Merganthaler Linotype Company and installed there in 1958, for fear it may be impossible to put together again.
In addition to his investment in the compositor, Twain is also credited with writing the first novel in America to be written on a typewriter. Twain, in his autobiography remembered that first as the manuscript for “Tom Sawyer” in 1874 but typewriter historian Darryl Rehr holds that it was “Life on the Mississippi” in 1882. Regardless, the Remington Typewriter Company seized the opportunity to drop his name to promote its product for years following the disclosure in his autobiography.
The Twain (Clemens) House in Hartford Connecticut was one of the first to have a telephone in that city and revered author was known to pal around with eccentric inventor of alternating current, Nikola Tesla.
“I have just seen the drawing and description of an electrical machine lately patented by Mr. Tesla and sold to Westinghouse Company, which will revolutionize the whole electric business of the world,” wrote Twain in his notebook in 1888.
Later Twain visited Tesla’s lab and they both frequented The Players Club in New York and attended parties with contemporaries such as a Teddy Roosevelt, Rudyard Kipling, and John Muir.
Tesla’s inventions, of course, have made possible some of the wondrous developments of the modern day. Like a “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” Twain already saw such possibilities. But, as he was also fond of mentioning, “The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.”
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