Posted on 02/14/2006 2:45:26 AM PST by Marius3188
We spend our working days tapping into computers. We communicate with each other via email rather than letter. And today, as chip and pin technology becomes compulsory on the high street, even our signatures have become obsolete. Could it really all be over for handwriting? Stuart Jeffries reports
Patrick McGoohan's words are becoming less and less true as technology extends its cheerless remit. "I am not a number," he declared in The Prisoner, "I am a free man." But increasingly we are numbers - digitised and quantified, rewritten as algorithms and asked for our personal codes to confirm who we are before call centre workers will deign to bandy words with us. As if to prove the point, from this morning anyone with a chip and pin card will be obliged to use their pin number and not their signature when making a purchase. It seems odd that the powers-that-be have used Valentine's Day as the deadline for their unromantic automatisation project. Who, after all, writes poetry about pin cards? Let's have a go. "Roses are red, violets are blue, my pin number is 3, 5, 4, 2" (It isn't, incidentally. I'm not that daft).
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I must confess that my spelling has gotten worse since using Word. It's my fault for being lazy.
Having had my right index finger's first joint amputated without anesthetic when I was 11 years old, my use of the 'puter is a godsend. I can still communicate!
I wonder what Gilbert and Sullivan, the famed Victorian era British operetta writers, were talking about in the song "When I Was A Lad" in H. M. S. Pinafore, penned in the late 1800s, when they wrote "... and I copied all the letters in a big round hand."
My handwriting is so pathetic.....i'm glad i learned to type in highschool....best elective i ever took.
Plus I just wanted to get onto this thread because I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered...
prisoner6
I always tease the clerks in the store when they capture my signature electronically that we have all that technology and yet they can't make my handwriting any better. They never get it.
"He has revolted. Resisted. Fought. Held fast. Maintained. Destroyed resistance.
Overcome coercion. The right to be a person, someone or individual. We applaud his private war, and concede that despite materialistic efforts, he has
survived intact and secure!"
My signature has gotten worse since using those machines. It doesn't look anything like my driver's license signature.
:->
My handwriting is so bad it would have to be euthanasia.
I print because I can't read my handwriting. Does that count?
But I won't ...insted I direct you to...
Retroweb
and
6 of 1
Do a little Google and you'll find LOTS of others sites.
BCNU, prisoner6
agreed
you should see what 18-25 yr olds put on job aps these days.
most here would shake their heads in dismay.
some can barely write their own names.
worse some kids use netspeak on aps.
I hated trying to decipher someone else's script. My Mom's script is particularly difficult to read.
I had horrible script handwriting myself .
On the other hand, once I learned to draft, and worked in the industry for a few years, had excellent block letters, and it was almost as fast as writing script.
I wrote everything in block draft after that.
I even learned to draft left-handed when I almost chopped off my right arm in a motorcycle accident.
It messed with my brain a bit to have to work with the opposite side, but I got pretty good at it.
As far as spelling goes, I was raised mostly in the pre-computer era, so I rarely have spelling errors, but still spell-check everything.
I wish some of the kids on FR would hit that "Spell" button more often, as it annoys me when I see horrible spelling errors, and denigrates their posts.
p|2i50N3|26
This is just plane ridikulus. |
Yikes! That sucks!
I've had my scrapes, and hopsital stays, but I still have all my pieces-parts attached. Sorry about your loss.
Mine are all (luckily) still attached and still work, well, the right arm is about 95 percent.
Forget about the shoulders, they pop like kernels, but who's counting? At least I can still run like a MF, except when my ankle is broken (like right now).
Always take care of that lower half is my philosophy
Just got back from x-rays and found out my ankle was broken, after 2 weeks of slipping on the ice then walking on it. Stupid me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.