(no subject)

[which_chick]

Over at the list of Obsolete Skills are a bunch of things that make me feel old.



* AT commands for dial-up modems
* Autoexec.bat editing
* BASIC
* Be Kind - Rewind
* Booting off a floppy disk
* Calling collect on a payphone
* Changing the ribbon on a typewriter
* Changing tracks on an eight-track tape
* Cleaning the balls inside a computer mouse for better traction
* Clicking on the up and down arrows of a vertical scrollbar
* Compiling source code by hand
* Configuring Trumpet Winsock
* Config.sys editing
* Cranking up or down a car-window
* Cursive handwriting
* Dewey decimal system
* Dialing a rotary phone
* Drafting with pencils and T-square?
* Drive a manual transmission
* Focusing a camera
* Formatting a floppy
* FTP from a command line
* Handwriting
* Handling cash
* Hayes Command Set
* Manually loading ink on a fountain pen from an bottle
* Opening a can of beer or soda with a church key
* PASCAL-TurboPASCAL
* Popping corn in a pot with oil
* Punching a hole in the shell of a single-sided 5.25" floppy disc to make it double-sided
* Reading a paper map
* Remembering passwords
* Rolling down the car window
* Setting the choke or pumping the accelerator to start a car
* Sharpening a pencil
* Starting a car that has a manual choke
* Switching to high beams by stomping on a button in the floor
* Using a manual choke in cold weather
* Using a DOS window on a computer
* Walking long distances
* Whipping cream with a whisk

Also, in the most recent round of new music, I got Orff's Carmina Burana, which you have probably heard somewhere for something. It's in a lot of stuff. The *actual* words for Carmina Burana are something to do with God and they're in Latin. However, some smart person on the internets has provided new, English words for Carmina Burana. They're here. Also, YTMND means "You're The Man Now, Dog" in case anyone else out there is as totally not up to speed as I am on the internet slang of kids these days. (I'm allowed. I'll be thirty-eight in another month and change. It's not cute or cool or trendy for me to be up to speed on the doings of the fifteen year old set. It'd be mildly alarming, just as if I spent all my time texting my beaux or working on my myspace/facebook page.)

Comments

Carmina Burana

[moeckie.livejournal.com]

Latin, yes. God, no. Orff wrote it to be secular music. First track is "O,Fortuna". It opens "Oh, Fortune, like the moon you are changeable, ever waxing and waning; hateful life first oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it;"

the rest has to do with spring, dancing, taverns, cupid, love. I think Orff wanted to have cool Latin music that *wasn't* God. Bless him.

Re: Carmina Burana

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. (I was assuming on the grounds that almost all the other latin music I have ever heard was about God. Probably should have read wikipedia or something.)

Re: Carmina Burana

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

Orff only selected and orchestrated it. The Carmina Burana are actual medieval secular songs in a variety of languages ("Manda liet, manda liet, min giselle kumet niet" isn't Latin, whatever it is).

I was obsessed with this in one period in highschool, spending several evenings on an abortive attempt to copy out all the lyrics to the Orff version.

(Non-Orff versions are available in painfully correct medieval reconstruction. They are not as enjoyable.)

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

Cursive handwriting will never be obsolete. I DECREE IT.

[ladyivy.livejournal.com]

Driving a manual transmission may no longer be a REQUIRED skill, but since they still sell cars with manual transmissions, and there is a small but thriving market for them (I can think of half a dozen of our set that won't get anything else, and several more that have the ability)

Changing the ribbon on a typewriter is also not yet obsolete (though getting there). Our bank still has typewriters for use with official checks in 2 situations - 1 when both the automatic printers are broken at the same time (rare but can happen) and 2 when the number of characters in the Payee name exceeds the capability of the automatic printers (max # of characters it takes is 32 I think?) I see a typewriter used about 1 every 2-3 months. Which granted is very rare, and the need to change the printer ribbon would be even more infrequent, but it is not yet obsolete.

And don't even get me started on handling cash, though I will say from the crop of young people who are hired in as tellers I can certainly see why it showed up on the list, because none of them know how to do it.

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

As long as there are fleet MPG requirements, manual transmissions will continue to be sold. :D

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

I've pretty much stopped paying in cash, even for small purchases, at big stores because me inconveniencing everyone else in line using the machine is no longer an inconvenience compared to the cashier having to count change... which is kind of annoying.

AGH AGH AGH KILL KILL KILL

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

"Remembering passwords" is an obsolete skill, not because we have some better form of authentication, but because people pick shitty passwords.

I have personally had to use BASIC (well, VBScript) in the last week. And there are people who have to use Pascal (well, Delphi) and some who even like it.

And manual focus matters a lot if you do big enlargements.

And I got my 1996 manual-transmission car started after being parked for a long time by pumping the gas pedal just before I sold it last month.¹

And pant pant pant pant pant

On the bright side, at least half of those skills were quite deservedly taken out and shot and I'm glad I can recycle those neurons.

¹And if I ever buy another gasoline-powered vehicle it will have a manual, unless perhaps it has a DSG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-Shift_Gearbox) (but never a Tiptronic, dammit, those mushy fuckers)

[gwangi.livejournal.com]

I work under a government contract, which is really a pain in the ass to make changes to, which is why we still use the operating system we used when we first got the contracts. Which was in 1996, which is why every day at work, I use a Windows95 computer.

Which is why, every single day, I do pretty much every one of the computery things in this list. Frickin' government.