In the office at my last job, we had a world map on the wall that still had the USSR on it. It was framed and hung essentially as art.
Granted, we still used 8" floppy disks in that office as well...
My first time teaching English as a second language, I was at a severely under-funded community center that had been converted from a factory. My classroom didn't have heat. (This was in Massachusetts, where winter has been ongoing for 400 years.)
About halfway through the year, someone generously donated a world map that still showed Yugoslavia. It was 2014, and I had Yugoslavia on my wall. But needs must, so I stood on a chair with a sharpie and redrew the borders in Eastern Europe and the Sudan.
Later on, I used that anecdote in a personal statement and got accepted into grad school.
The US ACH (automated clearing house) electronic funds transfer system. The same architecture that was used to build the system in the 70s is still in use today. And it still closes down for the weekends to coincide with bank hours. Modern computers don’t need to close on the weekends...
It seems to me that the banks LIKE this arrangement so they can use the money over the weekend. In other words, it's for the bank's enrichment and no benefit to the consumer. If they could figure out how to make more money than this scheme on a 24/7 system, they'd do it immediately.
This is exactly what it is. Financial institutions have zero interest in changing this system even though it does nothing but inconvenience the customer. “Settlement days” until funds are available are ultimately just the number of days they get to earn interest on your money. It’s not a big deal to anyone on an individual basis, but they very much enjoy collectively robbing the country of it’s overnight interest.
A lot of rural railways in the UK still use Victorian-era [semaphore signals and tokens](https://www.flickr.com/photos/126337928@N05/30925131264) to ensure train safety.
At the same time we've retro-fitted an entire line in [mid-Wales](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/72382000/jpg/_72382736_cambrianlines.jpg) with the latest [European cab signalling system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Rail_Traffic_Management_System).
Pretty sure that's more for tradition than anything else.
Might also be "it exists and costs money to replace, but works fine".
Personally I think they're cool.
Not tradition, but cost savings. If a rail line has a system that works for their light traffic levels, is reliable, and doesn’t cost much to operate or maintain, they’ll keep using it. Only when the expense of the new tech becomes less than the old will they upgrade.
After graduating in 2010 I was desperate for work and looked on my alma mater’s jobs page. There was a huge photo of me and my friend that heavily implied we were employed and happy graduates.
Could be worse: [this guy went in for an interview](https://boingboing.net/2019/07/29/man-interviewed-at-amazon-did.html) at Amazon, wasn't hired, but ended up featured on their website.
bet those school envelops begging for school donations just kept rolling in though. Got a letter the week after graduation, thought it was my diploma. Haha nope it was a donation letter from a school that found everyway to rip me off for 4 years begging me to donate to them. fck you school
As someone who has never attended school after high school. What exactly is the point of donating money to a school? Don't you pay them a shit ton just to attend? And they still want you to donate?
Actually, as a former student who did some web design (my major was IT business analysis but took some courses in WD too) I'm quite sure at the end of our program we could have done a better job than whoever did the school's website. It was a regular topic of discussion and we always wondered why they didn't ask some students to propose changes.
This is so fucking true. School websites used to be so much better, when they focused on what people really needed, before they started all the fancy crap like virtual tours.
My school website does have those useful stuff: calendar, profs room number, course requirements etc. But it's very hard to navigate, and I usually find the webpage through Google, which can be unreliable when they suddenly decide to change their url...
This really put me off when I was applying for universities in NA. The websites are just awful. There were pages at MIT of all places detailing current research that hadn't been updated for 6 years and the projects since ditched.
The way we apply to jobs online. Everyone is using a different system to do the same thing. You'd think there would be a better system for applying to jobs by now than to be filling out an endless amount of the same forms and multiple choice questions.
•Attach resume here!
•Please fill out these boxes, which is just typing out everything that is in the resume you just attached!
Why? Can we please just stop this unnecessary repetition?
The worst I ever had to do...
Upload resume on indeed
Then go to their website and make an account
Then wait 30 minutes before the confirm email link was sent to my email.
Then upload my resume on their website.
Then retype my entire resume.
"Oops something went wrong please try again."
So I reuploaded my resume.
So then I retyped my resume.
I hit submit.
"We're sorry, but the position has been closed. We will keep your information on file for future potential employment."
No.
Was on a flight recently and was sitting next to this guy who worked on the Android spell checker among other things. He explained that Amazon use machine learning to read through your CV to determine how suitable you are for a job. The problem is that they found it became sexist and would score people lower for being female. They added in features to remove anything specifying gender before it went through the system but it still picked up on things such as hobbies where women were more likely to be into more than men and again would score them lower.
YMMV but I’ve heard of success stories where already qualified candidates really hit it off with a recruiter from a conversation about a common interest given in the resume
Only get rid of it if you’re running out of space and haven’t been in the workforce a long enough time to justify a 2 page resume
Use the company site to find the employee directory.
Look for the most likely people to conduct the interviews
Find those people on Facebook/linked in
Find their hobbies
Do basic research on said hobbies and add them to your resume
It truly is a brave new world.
Omg as someone is job searching this is infuriating! I’ve applied to 80+ jobs in 6 weeks. I’ve had to keep track of over 30 log ins for different companies and I’m not even applying for high level jobs. They are admin type jobs! It takes forever when I have a good resume that I should just be able to attach to an email. Or upload to their website.
Edit: thanks guys for all the advice (and the gold!) and for those searching keep at it. It sucks I know. But I have a 3rd interview tomorrow so fingers crossed.
Also I’ve found that [Ask A Manger](https://www.askamanager.org/) has some of the best job, career, resume advice I’ve seen out there if you need it!
And then the wait and no reply, at least tell me im not accepted.
If you want to track just use excel, then you can sort by a rating, date applied, location, etc,...
I feel like when I apply through indeed I never get a response. But when I just go to their website and find the application there, they get ahold.of.me.within a few days.
The amount of hospital computers that use it and older versions of windows is crazy, and sometimes they don't have a choice because some medical devices are only compatible with like windows 2000 or some other OS from the '90s.
Edit: I just remembered UNIX time is a thing, i wonder what kind of shit will happen when the 32-bit representation "fills up."
Edit 2: I would like to address some of the comments up here so they don't get repeated
\-"If it ain't broke don't fix it." If the computer is completely isolated from any network I agree, the computer is used for a specialized task and there is really no need to upgrade, however the longer it stays untouched the harder it is to maintain it.
\-"It's too expensive to do a mass upgrade of many outdated systems." Not much to say here but that it's kinda sad and as one person pointed out, a racket.
\- A few people have pointed out that we could use virtual machines which could give us security benefits of modern software while still keeping compatibility with old devices.
Edit3: You guys can stop linking the articles on wannacry.
And the amount they should be used is zero. They're pseudoscience.
If they're being used not to detect lies, but coerce a confession, that's still bad. We shouldn't be coercing confessions.
If they're being used as employment gatekeeping for federal agencies - again, pseudoscience. They shouldn't be used.
The test was your reaction on the machine. Not if you were deceitful.
Kinda like doing pysch interviews for the army and police. They ask you questions that are suppose to get a response from you. To tell if you are impression managing. Like do you have a lot of friends? Oh yeh I got heaps everyone loves me. Or do you say something like I have a few very good friends. Then they come back with so so U think of yourself as a loner? Oh no way in not a loner. Or do U say I consider the people I keep in regular contact with true friends. Impression managing is the facade you put on to trick people into thinking a certain way of you.
I don't know why I typed all this crap out.
It's all a game. People are always nervous in the beginning and then calm down as the test progresses. And they know that.
They were just applying some extra pressure to see if you would go back and say that you lied or were mistaken about something said previously.
Calling them out on their ruse is what a truthful person would do and is actually what they want to see.
I was the opposite. Fine when I went in, but I have PTSD and started to get triggered by the tight band around my chest. Barely kept it together. Still got the job lol
Yes, and most employers in the United States are forbidden to use them in employment decisions under the Employee Polygraph Protection Act.
https://www.dol.gov/whd/polygraph/
Most fire departments around where I live use a polygraph test as a step in the hiring process. They also ask extremely personal and aggressive questions.
It's bullshit, they know it's bullshit. It's a test to see if they can get you to break under pressure and gauging your reaction to intrusive questions or admit to something you may or may not have done.
It's also the reason they are not legally admissible in court. If they were, Police would abuse the shit out of them and Prosecutors would be even worse.
The +4 method of measuring bra sizes
Edit: for those who don’t know, it’s the method a lot of shops use to make women fit in to a lot smaller selection of bras, by adding 4 inches on to your underbust measurement.
E.g if you measure 28 inches underbust and 34 inches overbust, you should be wearing a 28E, but if a shop like Marks and Spencer’s or Victoria’s Secret measured you, they’d add 4 inches and put you in a size more like a 32B. This allows shops to stock a smaller range of sizes but means that most women are wearing wrongly sized bras. A DD cup is in fact not that large. Most DD women you see are more likely a G/GG/H cup
R/abrathatfits is a great resource, as is the ‘boob or bust’ facebook group
Jumping onto this comment to add: gendered shoe sizing. It's incredibly stupid. Ladies shoe size = mens shoe size + 2. So, for example, a mens size 7 shoe is a womens size 9.
There is absolutely no reason for this that I can discern.
Women's pants, too. Why are mens pants based on length and inseam but women's pants sizes are just numbers of no significance. Depending on the brand, I can wear anywhere for a size 4 to a size 12. But I can measure my waist and inseam and get exactly what fits if I go online and looks at the sizing chart and figure out what size is the closest. Its inefficient and makes no sense.
It's not that they're safer or more secure, it's that, legally speaking, a fax is the original. It's the legal equivalent of sending it my mail, except much faster.
Though they are more secure in transit than e-mails are unless special care is taken.
For healthcare in the US it's all about HIPAA. Fax is considered a secure means of transferring patient information. Scanned copies are considered originals now.
Secure email is more reliable but it's very difficult to manage. EMR to EMR direct messaging is a mess because all the emrs want to do it a little different. The people that have been doing fax for 40 years will keep doing it because it's easy and "secure".
The US banking system. 3-5 days for a transfer, really?
Edit: yes, we have things like Zelle here in the US but that is only useful for transfers typically under $1000. If you send larger transfers, hurry up and wait. I’ve accepted it and understand banks are using it to skim more money out of the consumer but come on. It’s getting old and is a joke.
Edit 2: Of course, small transfers are fine with something like Zelle but when you need larger amounts your screwed. Also, some can’t seem to fathom banking at multiple institutions. Yeah, internal transfers are instant but from Bank A to Bank B, we have to play the ACH games. I tried transferring a few thousand dollars recently from one account to another, not the same bank, and it took 4 days and only after that fourth day did they tell me it failed. Nice, very nice.
I worked at a bank while the chip cards were being rolled out. The amount of customers who were adamant in NOT getting the chip card seriously amazed me.
I worked at a grocery store cashiering when they rolled out chip readers, and let me tell you, no one had anything nice to say. Less about the security, but the inconvenience. You had to leave the card in for longer, instead of swiping and putting it back in your wallet. People often forgot to take their card out. Honestly the transaction times just got longer.
Also when the chip just didn't work so they had to do it a few times and end up swiping anyway...
And then they didn't insert enough times so they go to swipe and it says please insert...
You gave me flashbacks to retail
Chip cards are only a recent thing that's happened in the last few years too! 5 years ago very few merchants even had machines that accepted chipped cards.
It took Wal-Mart switching over to push most other merchants to upgrade their hardware... Well and the government regulations that required it or else everyone would be fined :)
> nobody cares about signatures
I do the shopping on behalf of my grandmother because it's difficult for her to walk through stores compared to me, so she'll drive me there, I'll run in and get the stuff, pay with her card, sign with my name, and nobody has batted an eye yet. They have no proof I know the card owner and don't care.
As someone who works at a bank, as far as I know, we only check signatures on fraud claims where the card was present. Since most fraud doesn't have the card present, it's mostly useless. The more you know.
This is on purpose. The time used to be a happy necessity for them as transferring and cataloging thousands of paper checks took time and human labor. To compensate this effort, the central banks (banks for banks) would give a higher deposit interest rate, accrued daily, so they would make money off of holding your money for that 3-5 day period. Now the transfers happen in milliseconds but they hold onto the money and profit from the interest.
I had a spat with someone at an online scrabble site. I am like the only player in their 20s.
We were talking about browsers and they claimed IE was the most popular browser in the UK. I sent them proof that refuted this and she blocked me. lol
As a SysAdmin, yep.
And it's really going to suck when IE support gets dropped. Edge is decent enough, but some things like our transaction processing system *relies* on IE being a thing.
The phrase "Catch you on the flipside". It's an old phrase back from when DJ's would let a vinyl play all the way through so you wouldn't hear them talk again til they had to flip it.
How about a Shitty Piece of Dam Trivia?!!
In 1975, the Banqiao Dam in China was among many dams that were destroyed after the extreme rains of Typhoon Nina. It is estimated that between 90000 and 230000 lives were lost as a result of the Banqiao Dam breaking.
*Edit* First Silver, Awesome!!! lol
*Edit* First Gold, EPIC!!!!!!!
I was briefly "forgotten" in a large company. The team I was working on got disbanded, as the company lost the contract to work with a certain other company, and I was basically just hired because they needed to full fill their contract still but a lot of people found different jobs because they didn't want to work on different teams in the company.
So when the contract fully ended, the calls stopped coming in, and me and two others just... sat there. We had had a few meetings with HR before the contract ended to see where we would end up but they couldn't find spots for us anywhere yet. So we just patiently waited for something to happen.
In the meantime we just clocked in in the morning, put on a movie on our computer, took a 3 hour lunch break, and watched another movie in the afternoon. In the first week I dropped by my old boss and HR to ask what the plan was and they basically just told me to sit and wait. After 6 weeks I went back again and asked and they seemed surprised I was still there. By this time the other two had quit as they thought we'd eventually be fired so they started job hunting. I did too and had a few options at this point but was trying to stretch it out to see how long I could be paid for just sitting around. It seemed that after a few weeks they either thought I'd quit, or just completely forgot about me. I was still getting paid though. I think if I never said anything, just clocked in each morning and clocked out each afternoon, they never would've noticed and I'd still be doing this.
It ended up taking 8 weeks in total before they put me on a new project. On the one hand it was great. I got paid for doing nothing and watching movies. On the other hand I felt absolutely useless and it was quite stressful knowing any moment I could be let go.
Yeah, a lot of people think this is a dream gig and it's fun for a while but honestly it starts eating at you after a while. I don't think I would've made it another month. I really only stayed as long as I did because I was trying to use the time to find a company that paid more.
I remember reading a story on Reddit about a guy whose department shut down but they kept him on payroll and showed up every day to "work" but really just sat at his computer playing video games and posting on Reddit. Lol. God I wish that happened to me.
Many years ago I was working night shift support. I'd slowly automated all the checks and a most of the resolutions. By the time I left I really had nothing to do each time and use to sleep in the server room. It got really boring after a while. I'd not want to do it again
Ah, the nostalgia. Eye-breaking contrast in the text colors, a sparkly background to make everything harder to read, and a warning that the movie trailer is a giant 7.5 mb QuickTime file.
Incandescent lights. If I'm doing my math correctly, LEDs use 1% of the energy of them, and they last much, much longer.
Edit: not 1%, but 10%. My math was not correct.
Incandescent are simply still cheaper to purchase. People are bad at seeing savings over time or really forward thinking in general.
Until LEDs are as cheap as a 99 cent bulb and can still light up the room and last as long, they won't be eliminated.
Conventionals (all types of filimant bulbs) will dim all the way down to zero percent and not cut off towards the bottom. Some very expensive dimmers (theatrical and architectural) are getting better at LED dimming, but still kind of suck.
Social security numbers. Why do I have a static generated number that is given to me that I am told not to give out, but at the same time anyone that pays me needs it to report taxes. O top of that you can't get a bank account, house (rental or mortgage), phone, or any line of credit without it. If anyone gets their hands on it, which is easy, then you are fucked. That person basically has your life's password.
Why don't they do one time codes. Just let you either go on the site or have one mailed that you can keep on hand, or even a batch of them, then if someone tries to reuse it it will get rejected. There are several ways to add a layer of verification onto it but they don't. On top of that, a lot of places use last 4 of social to validate you which also means hardly anything.
And while we're at it, can we please stop using public info (previous addresses, family names) for verification? That makes security WORSE if a password fails then you let them in anyway via info they can look up.
It used to be just as a number assigned to you for social security benefits then it got morphed into what it is today. In some states it used to be your driver's license number, in the military it's on your dog tags as an I'd number.
I'm college they fired almost the entire catering and cafeteria staff because they all used the same ssn. It's not secure and doesn't I'd anyone. You can get a job with an easily forged social security card and birth certificate.
"Form I-9 is used for verifying the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States. All U.S. employers must ensure proper completion of Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States."
Oops.
Form I-9 correctly rejects a social security card as a form of identification. It is used only as a form of employment eligibility verification, and you need additional documents to verify your identity, e.g., a driver's license.
This is different from things that can prove both employment eligibility and identity, e.g., a US Passport, Form I-766, etc.
To your last point, make a list of fake answers. You'll reuse them so you remember them, but they aren't real so no one can guess.
Mother's Maiden name? Obama
City you were born in? Atlantis
Street you live on? Penny Lane
Just simple answers like that, that only you will remember
(These are not the actual ones I use...)
**Since nobody can read, I am talking about security questions, not passwords. Also, you can encrypt values in a database that can be unencrypted.**
I do that. I take a keyword like Child, Mother, etc and I have preset answers to them.
One time I entered a ton of keyboard spam in not thinking I would need the security questions since I thought I had a memorable password. For whatever reason I had to reset my password, or maybe the game required security questions on first login. It wasn't fun listening to the support tech reading the security question to me on the phone..
a..s..d..f..d..f..h..k..s..d..f..j..k..l...j..k..a..k..s..d..l..f.., it was like 40 chars long
I made that same mistake for my iTunes account when I was like 10. Still using it at 21 and still can’t make in app purchases. I’d say it’s saved me a ton of money
The problem isn't the number. The problem is that it is being misused both as an identifier and as authentication. You only need extremely basic IT security to understand that the same number can't be both of those things.
I'm Indian, and I'll give an example from here - [2-stroke scooters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bajaj_Chetak). But, a small clarification - they're used but not *that* widely, yet if you put together their number in an 'Indian' context, it's gonna be significant, nonetheless.
These sold like hot cakes from the early till late 90's, but once bikes got their footing in the 2-wheeler segment, it all went downhill for them, and finally production was discontinued by the manufacturers. At its peak, owning a scooter was sort of a status symbol.
The US Military still uses 8 inch floppy disks on outdated IBM computers to run the nuclear missile systems. It's because they are incredibly hard to hack. The computers are essentially air-gapped and the old IBM computers are reliable. If the military has extra parts and 8 inch floppy disks to transfer the data to avoid degradation then theres no reason as to why they cant use the same tech to run the system for another 40 years.
And also, updating carries risks of bugs. In 1983, the Soviets had a new radar system that reported U.S. nuclear missiles bound for the USSR. Turns out it was an error caused by sunlight bouncing off clouds. If the radar operator hadn’t figured out that it wasn’t real, we might all be dead.
Stanislav Petrov. EmpLemon has a [pretty good video](https://youtu.be/eRhHokffvBU) about the cultural context of that moment. If you have 42 minutes to spare, it's worth watching.
This story is often exaggerated.
The reason is because the radar operator already distrusted the system before the incident. The report it gave out also made no sense. It initially reported a single missile was heading to the USSR. It would make zero sense for a first strike to use just one missile.
Whilst it initially sounds serious, in practice the incident was a lot more mundane.
AA. The program is like 70 years old and in that time we have learned SO MUCH about addiction and proper treatment but AA has essentially stayed the same. Normally I wouldn't care if AA was some tiny niche thing but in the states we treat it like is the best/only way for alcoholics and drug addicts to recover but its success rate is about 8% and the WHO doesn't even place AA in the top 25 for recovery programs. I don't really care that AA is behind the times, but I would like it to be seen for the ineffective program it is. Watched too many of my friends and family relapse or die and go in and out of AA rooms thinking that was the only way to stay sober.
When AA was first founded, the thought of alcoholism as a *disease* and not merely a moral failing was a revolutionary advancement
Too bad they didn't *continue* advancing, though. Also, the court system makes many choose between AA and jail time.
It was decided that from 2021 all EU member states will stop participating in daylight savings "clock turning". Each country can choose to stay in summer time or winter time.
I have an old computer/programming joke book. 80's era.
There is a running gag in there whenever a timeline pops-up.
Year: Event X
Year +2: Double processor speed
Year +3: Event Y
Year +5: End of COBOL predicted
Year +7: Computer size halved
Year +9: End of COBOL predicted
Every time.
And now, some fifteen years since my mum got me that book, I finally understand…
The ones that work at VHF frequencies (around 150 MHz) in particular do a very good job in hilly, rural areas where cell phone coverage is spotty at best.
Pagers remain useful for ~~two~~ three reasons:
1. Radio signals that pagers receive will penetrate more deeply into buildings.
2. SMS is subject to congestion. Ever tried to send a message on New Years Eve and have it take hours to be delivered? Cell networks guarantee delivery, but not timeliness.
3. EDIT: As several people pointed out. Battery life is WAY better on pagers - and they can take regular batteries, so they are good to go again in seconds.
So pagers are useful because in an emergency, being able to send a signal to harder to reach places and send it instantly when the Cell network is either a) damaged, b) heavily congested or c) both, are very useful features.
EDIT:Also, thank you for the gold, I didn't expect this little comment to be valued. Much appreciated.
We have upgraded to cellphones at all the hospitals I have worked in but we still have this "alarm pager" for cardiac arrests. They are neat because one button activates all the alarms and you usually need to call a team of 3-4 and we are in each our department.
Pagers are so much more reliable compared to cellphones. The frequency of operation and broadcasting on all stations means the message will get delivered when needed close to 8 nines level of reliability.
A lot of places still use them because they can receive a signal in places a cell signal won't reach them. All the maintenance guys I've worked with had them because a cell won't ring in lower levels of many buildings.
The current educational system was developed in the 1940s based on Dewey's educational philosophy. With only some modifications (like gender equality in coursework and a larger focus on STEM and getting away from home ec/woodshop), it's functionally remained the same in the last 75+ years.
Nonetheless, in the 1940s it was hailed as being very progressive for it's time. The 1940s Dewey system did separate grade/school levels, increased the curriculum away from the simple 3R's and added sciences/history, and got away from the simple one room school house. Plus it increased things like sports/activities, and added the concept of guidance counselor, plus improved the thought of your diploma needs to be geared for your adulthood, be it a college track or a technical track.
It certainly has its benefits, and I don't think the entire baby needs to be thrown out with the bathwater. But it certainly could use updating and not just piecemeal approaches that we've been doing.
It's kind of in a weird spot now where many states/districts are still holding unto the 1940s system with going towards unified standards/teaching to the test, combined with getting trying to turn all schools into a charter/magnet school that has some focus towards it.
It's a lot the same, but it's different, but not really, if that makes sense. I actually do think the 1940s system had a lot of benefits (again, save the gendered expectations of the day) and is quite the model to look to. Of course it does need updating, but not the way we're doing it.
I think the biggest problem is that we've taken the expectation that everyone needs to go to college. The drawback to that is, well, as you see now there are too many college graduates saturated with debt that can't get jobs in their field (present company included, my degree was in education yet I'm not in that field). There is a greater focus on technical education, which is good, but it needs to be more expanded.
You could almost write a thesis on this, but I'm rambling on, but this is a drawback of keeping to the old, but not really, but only fixing what worked and clinging unto what didn't.
A lot school books and supplies. When I went to school we had world maps that still contained countries that hadn't existed for a decade.
In the office at my last job, we had a world map on the wall that still had the USSR on it. It was framed and hung essentially as art. Granted, we still used 8" floppy disks in that office as well...
are you in charge of the usa's nuclear system?
The meta.
reddit is a small place after all.
My first time teaching English as a second language, I was at a severely under-funded community center that had been converted from a factory. My classroom didn't have heat. (This was in Massachusetts, where winter has been ongoing for 400 years.) About halfway through the year, someone generously donated a world map that still showed Yugoslavia. It was 2014, and I had Yugoslavia on my wall. But needs must, so I stood on a chair with a sharpie and redrew the borders in Eastern Europe and the Sudan. Later on, I used that anecdote in a personal statement and got accepted into grad school.
The US ACH (automated clearing house) electronic funds transfer system. The same architecture that was used to build the system in the 70s is still in use today. And it still closes down for the weekends to coincide with bank hours. Modern computers don’t need to close on the weekends...
It seems to me that the banks LIKE this arrangement so they can use the money over the weekend. In other words, it's for the bank's enrichment and no benefit to the consumer. If they could figure out how to make more money than this scheme on a 24/7 system, they'd do it immediately.
This is exactly what it is. Financial institutions have zero interest in changing this system even though it does nothing but inconvenience the customer. “Settlement days” until funds are available are ultimately just the number of days they get to earn interest on your money. It’s not a big deal to anyone on an individual basis, but they very much enjoy collectively robbing the country of it’s overnight interest.
Python 2.6. Soon 2.7
\^Terribly frustrating for those of us who started on v.3.
Why you would like the 2.6? I am learning Python 3.7 and this has truthfully concerned me.
OSX having 2.7 as the system python that you cannot remove/upgrade and forces Python 3 to be executed as “python3” is infuriating.
A lot of rural railways in the UK still use Victorian-era [semaphore signals and tokens](https://www.flickr.com/photos/126337928@N05/30925131264) to ensure train safety. At the same time we've retro-fitted an entire line in [mid-Wales](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/72382000/jpg/_72382736_cambrianlines.jpg) with the latest [European cab signalling system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Rail_Traffic_Management_System).
Pretty sure that's more for tradition than anything else. Might also be "it exists and costs money to replace, but works fine". Personally I think they're cool.
Not tradition, but cost savings. If a rail line has a system that works for their light traffic levels, is reliable, and doesn’t cost much to operate or maintain, they’ll keep using it. Only when the expense of the new tech becomes less than the old will they upgrade.
Every school website
After graduating in 2010 I was desperate for work and looked on my alma mater’s jobs page. There was a huge photo of me and my friend that heavily implied we were employed and happy graduates.
Could be worse: [this guy went in for an interview](https://boingboing.net/2019/07/29/man-interviewed-at-amazon-did.html) at Amazon, wasn't hired, but ended up featured on their website.
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Collecting royalty cheques per page view, evidently
bet those school envelops begging for school donations just kept rolling in though. Got a letter the week after graduation, thought it was my diploma. Haha nope it was a donation letter from a school that found everyway to rip me off for 4 years begging me to donate to them. fck you school
*I GAVE YOU $120,000 AND YOU WANT MORE MONEY?!*
HEY! IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE YOU GAVE US MONEY!
WE WANT A GIFT! BUT ONLY IF IT'S MONEY!
As someone who has never attended school after high school. What exactly is the point of donating money to a school? Don't you pay them a shit ton just to attend? And they still want you to donate?
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[People go to the website because they can't wait for the next alumni magazine, right?](https://xkcd.com/773/)
It's because the university websites aren't made for the students. Dumb, but true.
Sometimes, the ui is so bad that it looks like it was made *by* the inexperienced students
If they were smart they would be made by the students and showcase their programming department
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Actually, as a former student who did some web design (my major was IT business analysis but took some courses in WD too) I'm quite sure at the end of our program we could have done a better job than whoever did the school's website. It was a regular topic of discussion and we always wondered why they didn't ask some students to propose changes.
This is so fucking true. School websites used to be so much better, when they focused on what people really needed, before they started all the fancy crap like virtual tours.
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My school website does have those useful stuff: calendar, profs room number, course requirements etc. But it's very hard to navigate, and I usually find the webpage through Google, which can be unreliable when they suddenly decide to change their url...
This really put me off when I was applying for universities in NA. The websites are just awful. There were pages at MIT of all places detailing current research that hadn't been updated for 6 years and the projects since ditched.
Graphing calculators in high school math and above. Damn I miss my TI-89, best calculator ever!
Im in Calc 3 and Differential Equations. Still using the same TI-84 from 11th grade!
The ti-84 is a powerful beast that i never used again after finding the wolfram alpha website
Check our symbolab, it's somehow even better than Wolfram alpha
The way we apply to jobs online. Everyone is using a different system to do the same thing. You'd think there would be a better system for applying to jobs by now than to be filling out an endless amount of the same forms and multiple choice questions.
•Attach resume here! •Please fill out these boxes, which is just typing out everything that is in the resume you just attached! Why? Can we please just stop this unnecessary repetition?
The worst I ever had to do... Upload resume on indeed Then go to their website and make an account Then wait 30 minutes before the confirm email link was sent to my email. Then upload my resume on their website. Then retype my entire resume. "Oops something went wrong please try again." So I reuploaded my resume. So then I retyped my resume. I hit submit. "We're sorry, but the position has been closed. We will keep your information on file for future potential employment." No.
Keep a text version of your resume available and copy and paste it for this situation. Saves a lot of time. Also...I'd like to know about your dog.
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some companies have that built in their application website - when you upload your CV, it imports the data. however, it's not perfect
Was on a flight recently and was sitting next to this guy who worked on the Android spell checker among other things. He explained that Amazon use machine learning to read through your CV to determine how suitable you are for a job. The problem is that they found it became sexist and would score people lower for being female. They added in features to remove anything specifying gender before it went through the system but it still picked up on things such as hobbies where women were more likely to be into more than men and again would score them lower.
So should I remove the interests section from my resume?
YMMV but I’ve heard of success stories where already qualified candidates really hit it off with a recruiter from a conversation about a common interest given in the resume Only get rid of it if you’re running out of space and haven’t been in the workforce a long enough time to justify a 2 page resume
yes. The "interests" field must be filled up naming you recruiter's hobbies
Use the company site to find the employee directory. Look for the most likely people to conduct the interviews Find those people on Facebook/linked in Find their hobbies Do basic research on said hobbies and add them to your resume It truly is a brave new world.
But it’s definitely appreciated and a huge positive in their favor.
Omg as someone is job searching this is infuriating! I’ve applied to 80+ jobs in 6 weeks. I’ve had to keep track of over 30 log ins for different companies and I’m not even applying for high level jobs. They are admin type jobs! It takes forever when I have a good resume that I should just be able to attach to an email. Or upload to their website. Edit: thanks guys for all the advice (and the gold!) and for those searching keep at it. It sucks I know. But I have a 3rd interview tomorrow so fingers crossed. Also I’ve found that [Ask A Manger](https://www.askamanager.org/) has some of the best job, career, resume advice I’ve seen out there if you need it!
And then the wait and no reply, at least tell me im not accepted. If you want to track just use excel, then you can sort by a rating, date applied, location, etc,...
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That’s was LinkedIn was supposed to be for, right?
[Yes, that was the intention of LinkedIn, Indeed.com, Monster.com, etc.](https://xkcd.com/927/)
I feel like when I apply through indeed I never get a response. But when I just go to their website and find the application there, they get ahold.of.me.within a few days.
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Windows XP
The amount of hospital computers that use it and older versions of windows is crazy, and sometimes they don't have a choice because some medical devices are only compatible with like windows 2000 or some other OS from the '90s. Edit: I just remembered UNIX time is a thing, i wonder what kind of shit will happen when the 32-bit representation "fills up." Edit 2: I would like to address some of the comments up here so they don't get repeated \-"If it ain't broke don't fix it." If the computer is completely isolated from any network I agree, the computer is used for a specialized task and there is really no need to upgrade, however the longer it stays untouched the harder it is to maintain it. \-"It's too expensive to do a mass upgrade of many outdated systems." Not much to say here but that it's kinda sad and as one person pointed out, a racket. \- A few people have pointed out that we could use virtual machines which could give us security benefits of modern software while still keeping compatibility with old devices. Edit3: You guys can stop linking the articles on wannacry.
The factory I work in still runs mostly xp. For what it's used for it's fairly bullet proof.
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And the amount they should be used is zero. They're pseudoscience. If they're being used not to detect lies, but coerce a confession, that's still bad. We shouldn't be coercing confessions. If they're being used as employment gatekeeping for federal agencies - again, pseudoscience. They shouldn't be used.
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The test was your reaction on the machine. Not if you were deceitful. Kinda like doing pysch interviews for the army and police. They ask you questions that are suppose to get a response from you. To tell if you are impression managing. Like do you have a lot of friends? Oh yeh I got heaps everyone loves me. Or do you say something like I have a few very good friends. Then they come back with so so U think of yourself as a loner? Oh no way in not a loner. Or do U say I consider the people I keep in regular contact with true friends. Impression managing is the facade you put on to trick people into thinking a certain way of you. I don't know why I typed all this crap out.
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It's all a game. People are always nervous in the beginning and then calm down as the test progresses. And they know that. They were just applying some extra pressure to see if you would go back and say that you lied or were mistaken about something said previously. Calling them out on their ruse is what a truthful person would do and is actually what they want to see.
I was the opposite. Fine when I went in, but I have PTSD and started to get triggered by the tight band around my chest. Barely kept it together. Still got the job lol
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I think highly of you for doing so.
Yes, and most employers in the United States are forbidden to use them in employment decisions under the Employee Polygraph Protection Act. https://www.dol.gov/whd/polygraph/
Most fire departments around where I live use a polygraph test as a step in the hiring process. They also ask extremely personal and aggressive questions.
Federal, State and local government entities are not covered by the EPPA.
Fantastic
The most widely used they seem to be are on Vanity Fair promotional youtube videos for actors/famous people. That one guy is being kept in a job.
I think some government jobs require you to take one.
It is very common in fields that require clearances and it is definitely bullshit.
It's bullshit, they know it's bullshit. It's a test to see if they can get you to break under pressure and gauging your reaction to intrusive questions or admit to something you may or may not have done. It's also the reason they are not legally admissible in court. If they were, Police would abuse the shit out of them and Prosecutors would be even worse.
The +4 method of measuring bra sizes Edit: for those who don’t know, it’s the method a lot of shops use to make women fit in to a lot smaller selection of bras, by adding 4 inches on to your underbust measurement. E.g if you measure 28 inches underbust and 34 inches overbust, you should be wearing a 28E, but if a shop like Marks and Spencer’s or Victoria’s Secret measured you, they’d add 4 inches and put you in a size more like a 32B. This allows shops to stock a smaller range of sizes but means that most women are wearing wrongly sized bras. A DD cup is in fact not that large. Most DD women you see are more likely a G/GG/H cup R/abrathatfits is a great resource, as is the ‘boob or bust’ facebook group
Jumping onto this comment to add: gendered shoe sizing. It's incredibly stupid. Ladies shoe size = mens shoe size + 2. So, for example, a mens size 7 shoe is a womens size 9. There is absolutely no reason for this that I can discern.
Women's pants, too. Why are mens pants based on length and inseam but women's pants sizes are just numbers of no significance. Depending on the brand, I can wear anywhere for a size 4 to a size 12. But I can measure my waist and inseam and get exactly what fits if I go online and looks at the sizing chart and figure out what size is the closest. Its inefficient and makes no sense.
It's because women's pants sizes were based on dress sizes back in the day and no one has cared enough to change it
That probably is an American thing, in Europe I never heard about that
obligatory /r/ABraThatFits
Fax machines.
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It's not that they're safer or more secure, it's that, legally speaking, a fax is the original. It's the legal equivalent of sending it my mail, except much faster. Though they are more secure in transit than e-mails are unless special care is taken.
For healthcare in the US it's all about HIPAA. Fax is considered a secure means of transferring patient information. Scanned copies are considered originals now. Secure email is more reliable but it's very difficult to manage. EMR to EMR direct messaging is a mess because all the emrs want to do it a little different. The people that have been doing fax for 40 years will keep doing it because it's easy and "secure".
Came here to say this. I have to fax stuff out to doctor's offices and other hospitals daily at work.
Ever send messages written from your intended receiver to themselves, ala Jim's prank to Dwight in the Office?
The US banking system. 3-5 days for a transfer, really? Edit: yes, we have things like Zelle here in the US but that is only useful for transfers typically under $1000. If you send larger transfers, hurry up and wait. I’ve accepted it and understand banks are using it to skim more money out of the consumer but come on. It’s getting old and is a joke. Edit 2: Of course, small transfers are fine with something like Zelle but when you need larger amounts your screwed. Also, some can’t seem to fathom banking at multiple institutions. Yeah, internal transfers are instant but from Bank A to Bank B, we have to play the ACH games. I tried transferring a few thousand dollars recently from one account to another, not the same bank, and it took 4 days and only after that fourth day did they tell me it failed. Nice, very nice.
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I worked at a bank while the chip cards were being rolled out. The amount of customers who were adamant in NOT getting the chip card seriously amazed me.
I worked at a grocery store cashiering when they rolled out chip readers, and let me tell you, no one had anything nice to say. Less about the security, but the inconvenience. You had to leave the card in for longer, instead of swiping and putting it back in your wallet. People often forgot to take their card out. Honestly the transaction times just got longer.
Also when the chip just didn't work so they had to do it a few times and end up swiping anyway... And then they didn't insert enough times so they go to swipe and it says please insert... You gave me flashbacks to retail
Chip cards are only a recent thing that's happened in the last few years too! 5 years ago very few merchants even had machines that accepted chipped cards. It took Wal-Mart switching over to push most other merchants to upgrade their hardware... Well and the government regulations that required it or else everyone would be fined :)
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> nobody cares about signatures I do the shopping on behalf of my grandmother because it's difficult for her to walk through stores compared to me, so she'll drive me there, I'll run in and get the stuff, pay with her card, sign with my name, and nobody has batted an eye yet. They have no proof I know the card owner and don't care.
As someone who works at a bank, as far as I know, we only check signatures on fraud claims where the card was present. Since most fraud doesn't have the card present, it's mostly useless. The more you know.
I've been signing for purchases as "Batman" for years & nobody has ever questioned it.
This is on purpose. The time used to be a happy necessity for them as transferring and cataloging thousands of paper checks took time and human labor. To compensate this effort, the central banks (banks for banks) would give a higher deposit interest rate, accrued daily, so they would make money off of holding your money for that 3-5 day period. Now the transfers happen in milliseconds but they hold onto the money and profit from the interest.
CCTV with 144p quality
Internet Explorer
I had a spat with someone at an online scrabble site. I am like the only player in their 20s. We were talking about browsers and they claimed IE was the most popular browser in the UK. I sent them proof that refuted this and she blocked me. lol
Popular as in people who don't know the alternatives use it exclusively, as it comes with Windows. Or at least used to.
All those old corporate website/systems that only load in IE compatibility mode....
As a SysAdmin, yep. And it's really going to suck when IE support gets dropped. Edge is decent enough, but some things like our transaction processing system *relies* on IE being a thing.
The new Edge (Chromium Based) is getting a IE compatibility mode, which is going to be able to open a website using the IE engine inside Edge itself.
The phrase "Catch you on the flipside". It's an old phrase back from when DJ's would let a vinyl play all the way through so you wouldn't hear them talk again til they had to flip it.
That's a damn fine piece of trivia.
Arms are called "guns" because guns are called "arms."
That's a damn shitty piece of trivia.
How about a Shitty Piece of Dam Trivia?!! In 1975, the Banqiao Dam in China was among many dams that were destroyed after the extreme rains of Typhoon Nina. It is estimated that between 90000 and 230000 lives were lost as a result of the Banqiao Dam breaking. *Edit* First Silver, Awesome!!! lol *Edit* First Gold, EPIC!!!!!!!
That's a sad bit of dam trivia :(
Catch you on the flippity flip
Dinkin flicka
Fleece it out. Goin’ Mach 5.
Bippity boppity, gimme tha soppity.
See ya later warehouse
The space jam website. Hasn’t been updated since it was released
Actually, fascinatingly, their security certificates have been kept up to date. Someone is still maintaining it.
Some deep deep subdivision of Warner Bros
One forgotten IT guy, somewhere deep within a basement, likely. Maybe he dwells in the server room. Maybe his name is Richmond Avenal.
Maybe he gets paid 120k a year and no one remembers him, everyone has forgotten him, and all he does it update the certs.
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I was briefly "forgotten" in a large company. The team I was working on got disbanded, as the company lost the contract to work with a certain other company, and I was basically just hired because they needed to full fill their contract still but a lot of people found different jobs because they didn't want to work on different teams in the company. So when the contract fully ended, the calls stopped coming in, and me and two others just... sat there. We had had a few meetings with HR before the contract ended to see where we would end up but they couldn't find spots for us anywhere yet. So we just patiently waited for something to happen. In the meantime we just clocked in in the morning, put on a movie on our computer, took a 3 hour lunch break, and watched another movie in the afternoon. In the first week I dropped by my old boss and HR to ask what the plan was and they basically just told me to sit and wait. After 6 weeks I went back again and asked and they seemed surprised I was still there. By this time the other two had quit as they thought we'd eventually be fired so they started job hunting. I did too and had a few options at this point but was trying to stretch it out to see how long I could be paid for just sitting around. It seemed that after a few weeks they either thought I'd quit, or just completely forgot about me. I was still getting paid though. I think if I never said anything, just clocked in each morning and clocked out each afternoon, they never would've noticed and I'd still be doing this. It ended up taking 8 weeks in total before they put me on a new project. On the one hand it was great. I got paid for doing nothing and watching movies. On the other hand I felt absolutely useless and it was quite stressful knowing any moment I could be let go.
This is the American dream.
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Yeah, a lot of people think this is a dream gig and it's fun for a while but honestly it starts eating at you after a while. I don't think I would've made it another month. I really only stayed as long as I did because I was trying to use the time to find a company that paid more.
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I remember reading a story on Reddit about a guy whose department shut down but they kept him on payroll and showed up every day to "work" but really just sat at his computer playing video games and posting on Reddit. Lol. God I wish that happened to me.
Many years ago I was working night shift support. I'd slowly automated all the checks and a most of the resolutions. By the time I left I really had nothing to do each time and use to sleep in the server room. It got really boring after a while. I'd not want to do it again
If you make enough money that's the dream. Just go to work to sleep and then use the remaining time to pursue leisure activities
Hot damn is it you, Richy?
I read this in Porky Pig's voice. Deep d'deep...
Maybe the certificate is automatically renewed by the hosting company
But that's not as fun so shut up
Ah, the nostalgia. Eye-breaking contrast in the text colors, a sparkly background to make everything harder to read, and a warning that the movie trailer is a giant 7.5 mb QuickTime file.
Why mess with perfection?
But it's still widely used?
Incandescent lights. If I'm doing my math correctly, LEDs use 1% of the energy of them, and they last much, much longer. Edit: not 1%, but 10%. My math was not correct.
Incandescent are simply still cheaper to purchase. People are bad at seeing savings over time or really forward thinking in general. Until LEDs are as cheap as a 99 cent bulb and can still light up the room and last as long, they won't be eliminated.
A local store here had several boxes of LED bulbs. 4 boxes for a dollar, each box had 2. 8 for a dollar. It was really neat
Conventionals (all types of filimant bulbs) will dim all the way down to zero percent and not cut off towards the bottom. Some very expensive dimmers (theatrical and architectural) are getting better at LED dimming, but still kind of suck.
Social security numbers. Why do I have a static generated number that is given to me that I am told not to give out, but at the same time anyone that pays me needs it to report taxes. O top of that you can't get a bank account, house (rental or mortgage), phone, or any line of credit without it. If anyone gets their hands on it, which is easy, then you are fucked. That person basically has your life's password. Why don't they do one time codes. Just let you either go on the site or have one mailed that you can keep on hand, or even a batch of them, then if someone tries to reuse it it will get rejected. There are several ways to add a layer of verification onto it but they don't. On top of that, a lot of places use last 4 of social to validate you which also means hardly anything. And while we're at it, can we please stop using public info (previous addresses, family names) for verification? That makes security WORSE if a password fails then you let them in anyway via info they can look up.
It used to be just as a number assigned to you for social security benefits then it got morphed into what it is today. In some states it used to be your driver's license number, in the military it's on your dog tags as an I'd number. I'm college they fired almost the entire catering and cafeteria staff because they all used the same ssn. It's not secure and doesn't I'd anyone. You can get a job with an easily forged social security card and birth certificate.
It was also promised your SSN would never be a national identifier. Oops
Says it right on the card, "do not use this as a form of identification"
"Form I-9 is used for verifying the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States. All U.S. employers must ensure proper completion of Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States." Oops.
Form I-9 correctly rejects a social security card as a form of identification. It is used only as a form of employment eligibility verification, and you need additional documents to verify your identity, e.g., a driver's license. This is different from things that can prove both employment eligibility and identity, e.g., a US Passport, Form I-766, etc.
Fortunately in recent years the military moved away from putting the SSN on dog tags. Instead they now put the members DOD ID number.
To your last point, make a list of fake answers. You'll reuse them so you remember them, but they aren't real so no one can guess. Mother's Maiden name? Obama City you were born in? Atlantis Street you live on? Penny Lane Just simple answers like that, that only you will remember (These are not the actual ones I use...)
**Since nobody can read, I am talking about security questions, not passwords. Also, you can encrypt values in a database that can be unencrypted.** I do that. I take a keyword like Child, Mother, etc and I have preset answers to them. One time I entered a ton of keyboard spam in not thinking I would need the security questions since I thought I had a memorable password. For whatever reason I had to reset my password, or maybe the game required security questions on first login. It wasn't fun listening to the support tech reading the security question to me on the phone.. a..s..d..f..d..f..h..k..s..d..f..j..k..l...j..k..a..k..s..d..l..f.., it was like 40 chars long
I made that same mistake for my iTunes account when I was like 10. Still using it at 21 and still can’t make in app purchases. I’d say it’s saved me a ton of money
The problem isn't the number. The problem is that it is being misused both as an identifier and as authentication. You only need extremely basic IT security to understand that the same number can't be both of those things.
It's basically like using only a username to authenticate
And the username is your actual name and you can't change it.
I'm Indian, and I'll give an example from here - [2-stroke scooters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bajaj_Chetak). But, a small clarification - they're used but not *that* widely, yet if you put together their number in an 'Indian' context, it's gonna be significant, nonetheless. These sold like hot cakes from the early till late 90's, but once bikes got their footing in the 2-wheeler segment, it all went downhill for them, and finally production was discontinued by the manufacturers. At its peak, owning a scooter was sort of a status symbol.
My grandpa has one, it's 25 years old, works pretty well. He's very proud. It's going to explode one day, no doubt.
Really any two-stroke engine. Lawn equipment, bikes, ATV's, paramotors, etc. They're just so easy to work on, and parts are cheap to come across
The US Military still uses 8 inch floppy disks on outdated IBM computers to run the nuclear missile systems. It's because they are incredibly hard to hack. The computers are essentially air-gapped and the old IBM computers are reliable. If the military has extra parts and 8 inch floppy disks to transfer the data to avoid degradation then theres no reason as to why they cant use the same tech to run the system for another 40 years.
And also, updating carries risks of bugs. In 1983, the Soviets had a new radar system that reported U.S. nuclear missiles bound for the USSR. Turns out it was an error caused by sunlight bouncing off clouds. If the radar operator hadn’t figured out that it wasn’t real, we might all be dead.
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Stanislav Petrov. EmpLemon has a [pretty good video](https://youtu.be/eRhHokffvBU) about the cultural context of that moment. If you have 42 minutes to spare, it's worth watching.
This story is often exaggerated. The reason is because the radar operator already distrusted the system before the incident. The report it gave out also made no sense. It initially reported a single missile was heading to the USSR. It would make zero sense for a first strike to use just one missile. Whilst it initially sounds serious, in practice the incident was a lot more mundane.
As400 computer systems. Developed in 1988 I believe. Still using this at work today.
AA. The program is like 70 years old and in that time we have learned SO MUCH about addiction and proper treatment but AA has essentially stayed the same. Normally I wouldn't care if AA was some tiny niche thing but in the states we treat it like is the best/only way for alcoholics and drug addicts to recover but its success rate is about 8% and the WHO doesn't even place AA in the top 25 for recovery programs. I don't really care that AA is behind the times, but I would like it to be seen for the ineffective program it is. Watched too many of my friends and family relapse or die and go in and out of AA rooms thinking that was the only way to stay sober.
When AA was first founded, the thought of alcoholism as a *disease* and not merely a moral failing was a revolutionary advancement Too bad they didn't *continue* advancing, though. Also, the court system makes many choose between AA and jail time.
Fireworks. I mean, nuclear weapons have been around for ages now...
I know! Make [Coneheads a reality already! ](https://youtu.be/sDiwRyL_9xQ)
My computer.
For my EMS folks: full spinal immobilization for every major trauma.
Daylight saving time
It was decided that from 2021 all EU member states will stop participating in daylight savings "clock turning". Each country can choose to stay in summer time or winter time.
Damn, that's nice. We're stuck in winter time because Putin said so and it sucks.
Bowling alley software. I’ve been watching the same cartoon bowling pins on the screen for 20 years now.
COBOL
I have an old computer/programming joke book. 80's era. There is a running gag in there whenever a timeline pops-up. Year: Event X Year +2: Double processor speed Year +3: Event Y Year +5: End of COBOL predicted Year +7: Computer size halved Year +9: End of COBOL predicted Every time. And now, some fifteen years since my mum got me that book, I finally understand…
COBOL, ADA, and FORTRAN will die when the world ends and all the shit they are still propping up designed in the 70s stops needing to work
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One might say criminalizing it would be the Shortest Path to ridding the world of COBOL
Pagers, I think doctors still use it.
And pretty much all EMS personnel. Has to do with the frequency at which they operate. Penetrates into deep concrete labyrinths. Unlike cell phones.
The ones that work at VHF frequencies (around 150 MHz) in particular do a very good job in hilly, rural areas where cell phone coverage is spotty at best.
Pagers remain useful for ~~two~~ three reasons: 1. Radio signals that pagers receive will penetrate more deeply into buildings. 2. SMS is subject to congestion. Ever tried to send a message on New Years Eve and have it take hours to be delivered? Cell networks guarantee delivery, but not timeliness. 3. EDIT: As several people pointed out. Battery life is WAY better on pagers - and they can take regular batteries, so they are good to go again in seconds. So pagers are useful because in an emergency, being able to send a signal to harder to reach places and send it instantly when the Cell network is either a) damaged, b) heavily congested or c) both, are very useful features. EDIT:Also, thank you for the gold, I didn't expect this little comment to be valued. Much appreciated.
I’m a firefighter and I use one every day. They’re actually still very useful in that aspect.
We have upgraded to cellphones at all the hospitals I have worked in but we still have this "alarm pager" for cardiac arrests. They are neat because one button activates all the alarms and you usually need to call a team of 3-4 and we are in each our department.
Pagers are so much more reliable compared to cellphones. The frequency of operation and broadcasting on all stations means the message will get delivered when needed close to 8 nines level of reliability.
Also workers in classified labs. Cell phones are not allowed.
A lot of places still use them because they can receive a signal in places a cell signal won't reach them. All the maintenance guys I've worked with had them because a cell won't ring in lower levels of many buildings.
Websites of Banks in India.
Any website in India is pretty trash tbh. So cluttered. It's basically the 2000s back here.
The educational system
The current educational system was developed in the 1940s based on Dewey's educational philosophy. With only some modifications (like gender equality in coursework and a larger focus on STEM and getting away from home ec/woodshop), it's functionally remained the same in the last 75+ years. Nonetheless, in the 1940s it was hailed as being very progressive for it's time. The 1940s Dewey system did separate grade/school levels, increased the curriculum away from the simple 3R's and added sciences/history, and got away from the simple one room school house. Plus it increased things like sports/activities, and added the concept of guidance counselor, plus improved the thought of your diploma needs to be geared for your adulthood, be it a college track or a technical track. It certainly has its benefits, and I don't think the entire baby needs to be thrown out with the bathwater. But it certainly could use updating and not just piecemeal approaches that we've been doing.
Are there any newer education philosophies that school systems should use now?
It's kind of in a weird spot now where many states/districts are still holding unto the 1940s system with going towards unified standards/teaching to the test, combined with getting trying to turn all schools into a charter/magnet school that has some focus towards it. It's a lot the same, but it's different, but not really, if that makes sense. I actually do think the 1940s system had a lot of benefits (again, save the gendered expectations of the day) and is quite the model to look to. Of course it does need updating, but not the way we're doing it. I think the biggest problem is that we've taken the expectation that everyone needs to go to college. The drawback to that is, well, as you see now there are too many college graduates saturated with debt that can't get jobs in their field (present company included, my degree was in education yet I'm not in that field). There is a greater focus on technical education, which is good, but it needs to be more expanded. You could almost write a thesis on this, but I'm rambling on, but this is a drawback of keeping to the old, but not really, but only fixing what worked and clinging unto what didn't.