Posted on 08/06/2016 1:34:34 PM PDT by PROCON
Have you had to write a rent check lately? Or maybe fax some important documents? Despite things like Venmo and email that normal people use every day, these ancient bits of tech and culture just keep hanging on. There's clearly better technology, it's just that not everyone is using it.
Here are nine outmoded technologies that just won't disappear.
Fax Machine
When they were invented: 1843
Purpose: Sending copies of physical documents over phone lines
Where they're still used: Doctors' offices, lawyers, the CIA (which demands the FOI requests be faxed, rather than mailed or sent online), people in Japan
Why they're still used: Sometimes you have to send a paper document, and sometimes you have to send it where there is a phone line but no internet access. Faxing can also be more secure than email; faxes are hard to intercept because they are a direct communication from the sender to the receiver, while emails get moved through a central server. That means you need physical access to a specific phone line at just the right moment to intercept a fax instead of being able to just access the main server everything goes through. Though if it's just left on the machine, a fax is particularly easy for any random person in the office to pick up. Nowadays, fax machines are most widely used in Japan, where 1.7 million fax machines were purchased in 2013 for use in for business transactions, restaurant orders, and other communication.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Thanks. Its a Yamaha PX-3 turntable with a Grado cartridge. Its jumped into Yammy A/V Receiver, but I still run it in pure stereo thru a pair of JBL L112s and L-15s. The M-70 amp and C-70 pre-amp are in the shop for midlife rebuild.
Its the real deal and I prove it to anyone that will stop and listen. Just ask my neighbors.
I can’t argue with that.
Half the secret is just knowing what you’ve got.
Checks give you an instant, hard copy of you use carbon copies. And sometimes it just feels good to write something down instead of just tap, tap, tapping all the time.
Well, we can see from the PIAPS debacle the dangers of doing this stuff via email.
The weird thing is the fax machine must have been some remote, highly technical black box for many years because it didn’t seem to become readily available until the 1980s. Very strange.
There are people who can make a custom drive to read it if necessary. That’s how they do a lot of disk recovery for badly damaged drives. Gooberments would have access to them.
newspapers
journalists
CNN is obsolete
MSNBC is obsolete
FNC is a joke as long as oriely and Kelly and shep are present.
Vinyl records were invented in 1948? What did they play on those old Victrolas in the 1920s?
That wasn’t a joke. A guy figured out a way to send fax over telegraph, but it never caught on.
“Fax machines are the only accepted way of transmitting medical records. that or the mail.”
Actually, this isn’t correct.
Medical records can be transmitted over the internet if they’re FIPS140 AES256 encrypted. The systems sending and receiving the medical data must be HIPAA compliant, which is a very strict set of rules about how the data is treated. The data must be encrypted at rest (e.g. in a database) or in transit (ANY transmission, even machine-to-machine over a closed, private network). Any machine which does processing of the data CANNOT be on a shared-resident system, e.g. a shared-tenancy AWS instance.
It’s very hard to do, very strict, and the fines if you mess it up are high.
Source: I’m the HIPAA security officer for my company, and built our HIPAA compliant software and AWS server infrastructure.
One other possible candidate for the Japanese “love affair” with faxes, calligraphy, etc: Did you ever see an oriental language “typewriter”, see one actually in operation or (better yet) sit down and doodle up a design for one?
...looks to me like the Mother of All Migranes for that last item.
However, (returning to topic) my year-old Epson printer has a very nice fax capability built in, I’ve got it connected to the world and the only use I’ve had from it is the occasional test-or-maybe-some-wrong-number that causes the machine to squeak at me a couple of times and then shut off in deep disgust.
If I have some spare time some evening, I think I’ll generate a message and fax it just to tip my hat to the designers.
Doctors/hospitals require faxing of info because of fear of data security breaches. If they were to have a patient’s medical records sent to the wrong place, their liability could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to HIPAA. They need the security of a fax vs. internet. IF a patient authorizes internet transmission of records, that’s another story altogether.
All I know is we DID have episodes where we sent a fax and it connected, and ended up at the wrong place. Maybe in the 80’s and 90’s there were just a lot more fax machines around...
Companies are allowed to transmit medical records over the internet WITHOUT patient consent IF both the sending and receiving parties are HIPAA compliant and have signed a BAA (Business Associate Agreement). Happens all the time with insurance companies.
Okay made me laugh. I was examining the picture for all the background arrangements too.
I am glad 1FreeAmerican posted his picture. I have my records from junior high and play them (well they are in storage right now, we are on the road), even though my hubby says I should just store them in the clouds or in rainbows or something:)
Besides if I am going to keep the covers with the autographs Maria Muldar ( Midnight at the Oasis) and Steven Bishop (On and On), I might as well keep the records inside.
That is where I got my slide projectors. Got to hunt for them though.
First patent for “Electric Printing Telegraph.” issued in England in 1843. I had to google it.
Not a tech item but I got a printed telephone book yesterday.
When was the last time I used a printed telephone book? Maybe 15 years ago.
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