OT Answering machine is so 20th century (Re: Mac OS X Leopard)
This is unrelated to your context but it's just my personal rant triggered by what you said. I think answering machine hurts productivity. I want an option to disable this function on my cellular phone so that people can't leave any message for me (at least from other cellular phones). About 80% of people can't summarize important bits of information into a 30 second message. If I have to call back to figure out how important the message was, I probably forget to call back. I used to check voice mail to find about the 15% of useful messages. (This is counting strictly goal-oriented communication, not counting personal friends trying to figure out if I feel like going for drink with them, etc.) Plus, when I use voice mail from cellular phone, why do I have to go through the stupid voice guided menu options every time? That's already 30 seconds! There are companies that apply speech recognition to the voice message and send it via text message, but if people don't say a summary of their information in the message, the service is useless. My prediction is that there is an Indian company who calls back the callers a couple of times a day and figure out what the matter was, summarize the info and send me email summaries no more than 3 times a day. But I think most people can safely ignore voice mails. I stopped checking my voice mail last year. I haven't lost anything so far. Next thing is why people call me about important issues while they are paying money to a cashier or bumping into strangers on streets or in subway. They get mad at me when I hang up because of lack of their focus, because they don't understand my frustration. I believe a lot of the 21st century communication technology can be useful if used effectively, but they can be really annoying in the hands of people who can't process information in their brain before putting into the "output" stream. From: Diana Bloomfield <dhbloomfield@bellsouth.net> Subject: Re: Mac OS X Leopard (Re: new problem) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:26:26 -0500 > Thanks, Judy. > > As to your question, "why do we keep falling for bigger and more complicated items" -- isn't it almost impossible to avoid? None of us is forced to wire our homes and purchase all this equipment-- that's certainly true-- but once we decide to take that route, we're quickly propelled, it seems to me, along a path that moves in only one direction. > > I do have a few friends who have steadfastly refused to go over to the dark side; at least two don't even own telephone answering machines. Truth be told, their lives might be happier and simpler. Of course, I wouldn't know-- I can't seem to get in touch with them. ;) > > Seriously, though, I've had to work with a couple of those folks on photography events, and though I like these individuals very much and appreciate the work they do-- dealing with them was a royal pain in the, uh, neck. I'd never do it again if I could help it-- unless they got themselves firmly situated somewhere in the 21st C. I guess that's another topic altogether, though. > > Anyway-- thanks again, Judy-- and to everyone else-- for listening and for your replies. When Leopard and my Epson 3800 are fully functional/compatible, I'll let you know-- and let you know if it was worth all this grief. :) > > Diana > > > On Feb 6, 2008, at 12:12 AM, Judy Seigel wrote: > > > > > On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Diana Bloomfield wrote: > > > >> Anyway, I feel so bad this has gone so far off-topic for alt processes (well, not that bad), but at this point, I think we've all become dependent on computers and printers in one form or another for our work (even if it's simply having a website)-- that I sometimes really do long for the pre- household computer days. I felt my life was much simpler then. > > > > Strictly speaking it's probably off topic, but in fact, since we depend on our computers one way or another and use them probably in similar ways (especially now for digital negs), it doesn't make sense to go to yet another "list" where they're using computers for *different* things (like playing chess or forecasting the weather) & you probably can't hash out the issues of, say, "Time Machine," at your average cocktail party. > > > > There's also the fact that (intentionally or not !) Diana has "educated" some 500 people through her hassles. Our problems won't be exactly the same maybe, but still excellent background for us "civilians." And clearly Apple has one helluva nerve, making you pay to send back a defective part. (I also read that Apple's fancy new store in the NYC meatmarket district has no restroom, ie., toilet, for customers.... so unheard of & obnoxious, it got at least two mentions in city press -- or two that I saw, possibly more.) > > > > As for "life was simpler," true probably, so why do we keep falling for bigger and more complicated (toothier) items ? > > > > J. > > >
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