I was listening to the podcast the Kunstlercast a few weeks ago. James Howard Kunstler and Duncan Crary “have a ramble ‘n rant episode on the robotification of our communications landscape, that wasteland of overcomplexity and hyperdependence of modern technology.” I so related.
In my job, I use a lot of computer databases. But inevitably, I need to call various government and association contact by phone. Talking with someone, I often find information that an entity possesses, and it is NOT on the website. Ironically, a lot of government agencies initially set up their pages so they could offload staff.
Of course, GETTING to that person is a treacherous thing. I swear that half the people who perform those long-winded introductions never actually tried to then call their own office to see how frustrating it is to use. Worse, I’ll get to the “if you want X, dial 1” part, and, as often as not, I don’t want ANY of those choices; I generally pick something at random. Others give a bunch of names, often without titles; generally, I’ll pick the second one, for no reason except that the first is often the CEO and probably can’t answer my question anyway.
The real problem is that, in the state budget cuts, a lot of institutional memory is being lost; NO ONE, at least that I could find, knows the answer to the question.
Oh No! Gilligan Is Dead! I Read It On Facebook! True enough: Bob Denver died – SEVEN years ago this week. Whereas Art Modell, who “enraged fans when he moved the Cleveland Browns franchise to Baltimore,” where they became the Ravens, actually died THIS week.
Some Led Zeppelin.