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 ...
We use DocuSign extensively to sign our contracts. No need to print out, ink sign, then scan back in — all done with secure electronic signature.
If you do print out and ink sign, you can take a picture with your phone and send it to us. We accept that as the signed contract. No scanner necessary.
Lastly, most modern office printers double as scanners and often as fax machines. Or you can scan and directly email.
Lots of ways around it without having a fax machine.
There are few things that need to be done fast.
Without checks and cash, a substantial portion of the population become slaves and pariahs.
Lot of people are concrete in their understanding of money. Bits do not do it for them. I have seen this happen often enough and recommend cash and checks.
I’m impressed with how immaculate everything is. I wish that my house was that dust-free.
You obviously don’t work in high tech. We can negotiate a master services contract and scope of work, execute it and have our crack engineering team solving your problem in less than a day.
With paper ballots, punch cards you can have witnesses do the count and sign-off per precinct, doesn't take that long. With electronics you don't have hanging bytes.
What computer or external drive within the last 10 years would accept 8” floppy disks? Amount of data?
Fountains of Wayne. Much underrated band.
That is true. But there is nothing that makes an 8" floppy inherently more hack-resistant than a USB thumb drive. Neither of these is stored in a machine.
Nope. First, the receiver has to be a FAX machine; and, they operated on the telephone circuit. Odds are you would have connected to an ordinary telephone. Second, a FAX machine can be setup to identify the receiving station. It won’t send if the ID is invalid.
You must have had a bad drive. I used then quite a lot with very few problems.
I get it. I did work in high tech years ago. We had it faxed. Don’t have to go any faster than that.
I get it. I did work in high tech years ago. We had it faxed. Don’t have to go any faster than that.
Why would the Japanese be in love with fax machines?
The funny thing is, that with fractional reserve banking, even if you put your trust in paper checks, your money isn’t in the vault. It’s all a ledger entry, nothing more. So it doesn’t matter if you trust ink in your checkbook or the bits that show up on your screen...they are all backed by the same nearly empty bank vault! It’s been that way from WAY before bits and bytes stored value.
Yeah, that 1800s machine probably had a miserable resolution.
Except the rather nearly complete absence of 8-inch floppy drives in the general public.
I have 100s of thousands of equipment that take floppies. Until someone offers to buy me new equipment to the tune of 1 million bucks I’ll stick to floppies.
Yes we understand that it is all smoke and mirrors.
But what is in the account and is usable is concrete.
Many people need concrete.
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