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12 outdated technologies that refuse to die - discuss and how many do you use?

chazix said:
Just wanted to say welcome to AK. I thought that was a nice post.

To stay on topic - but, I confess, without reading to see how many times this might have been mentioned: I have more than one slide rule, and I use them once in a while. They don't even require winding up!
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Thanks I‘m new to the forum. It’s great to discuss the history of technology and I didn’t know there were so many like minded people with the same passion.

When it comes to slide rules, I think my year group in 1979 where the last kids to answer slide rule questions in their O level maths exams when you leave secondary school at 16 in the UK. After that date the use of slide rules in schools was dropped.

i trained as a civil engineer pre personal computer age so got used to carrying out the complex equations we have to use by hand, the only saving grace was my Casio calculator.

Now there’s computer modelling, so things that would taken a day to calculate by hand can be done in a few minutes!
 
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chazix said:
To tempt GChief even further, let me just say that I think anyone who routinely uses "modern" online methods to interact with their main bank is tempting fate, not to mention tempting uncountable millions of hackers. If you're a user of online banking, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the only reason you haven't been hacked yet is because you're relatively "small fry". I think AI will change that pretty soon, but that's a different OMYAC thread.
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Your stuff is online. How do you think your bank services your accounts? It's not all at the local bldg on a closed system ;)
 
I still use my brain and I think it's a safe bet that most of my fellow AKers do the same. Oldest piece of technology as far as I know.
 
GChief said:
Your stuff is online. How do you think your bank services your accounts? It's not all at the local bldg on a closed system ;)
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Good point, for sure. But I think end points of the system (user access) are by far the main concern. Certainly it's the only aspect that I can control, so I control it as much as I can, and using archaic tech is part of my brilliant strategy.

"Security through obscurity" is A Thing, and I reckon it works more often than not. Might be a case of the old joke about how wearing pink pants (or whatever) keeps the lions away, and if someone mentions that there are no lions around, I point out that that's a testimony to how well the pink pants are working.

As long as I'm bloviating, I'll mention that I get paper statements from my bank. Yeah, paper. Sent by snail mail. Caught some mistakes on a credit card statement that I doubt would have been detected by the bank's internal auditing. I'll never know that for sure, of course. Still, I'm saying: pink pants for the win!

Cheers:beerchug:
 
chazix said:
Good point, for sure. But I think end points of the system (user access) are by far the main concern. Certainly it's the only aspect that I can control, so I control it as much as I can, and using archaic tech is part of my brilliant strategy.
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But most individuals are effected by institutional hacks, not end user hacks.

That said I use complex passwords that I change every 5 or 6 weeks.

Cool thing is, too each there own :thumbsup:
 
highvoltage_ said:
So it was doing the conversion, but you just had faulty equipment.
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As I said above, these phones had been able to dial out correctly when we still got our telephone service via an old-fashioned copper wire pair from Verizon; it's when we switched to FiOS and their ONT's pulse-to-tone converter that I started having issues with many of them. Whatever Verizon used for pulse-to-tone conversion at their central office seems to have been more tolerant of slightly slow pulsing rates; it also let me use the hookswitch on my phones to dial the leading '1' for 11-digit numbers, as I sometimes did for fun. One benefit the ONT's converter may have is being able to use a rotary dial to advance the 'For English, press 1' menu trees one sometimes runs into, but this doesn't always work.
-Adam
 
GChief said:
Your stuff is online. How do you think your bank services your accounts? It's not all at the local bldg on a closed system ;)
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No they don`t, but banks, big business` & corporations use multi tens of thousands of dollars purchased firewall software, and very HQ inhouse IT personally monitored and managed systems, unlike the comparably low rent cellphone home computer based security versions we all use !
I maintain too large amounts of money in my 2 banks, to risk even thinking about using the computer for my banking needs, or my stock market portfolio, thus all banking needs are done with checks and at the personally at the 2 different banks ~ 3 miles from my house.
No E-billing will I do either!
I`ve had friends who had their bank accounts seriously pilfered with no recovery, when some system glitch happened !
No thank you !
 
If you say so. :thumbsup:

Your accounts are still being serviced over the internet internally at the banks.

And as I said in the part you failed to quote... to each their own :thumbsup:

Love banking from my phone :rockon::rockon::rockon:
 
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GChief said:
If you say so. :thumbsup:

Your accounts are still being serviced over the internet internally at the banks.
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Yes, that`s true, but with very, very HQ data communication encryption techniques, plus the system is constantly monitored by warm bodies and HQ security software, at mega levels above Joe and Jane six packs endpoint attempts!
 
Bill Ferris said:
Yes, that`s true, but with very, very HQ data communication encryption techniques, plus the system is constantly monitored by warm bodies and HQ security software, at mega levels above Joe and Jane six packs endpoint attempts!
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If your using your financial institutions apps and site you have the same protections. It is up to "us" not to be morons with the security setup on our end... passwords etc.
 
We have a Fiskar with a counter weight. Cuts nice and easy.

Bought it when my daughters excuse for not cutting the grass was that they couldn't get the mower started.

I need to put the handle back on it and use it!!!

Damn it's almost 18 yrs old :oops:

20240419_150012.jpg
 
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