Emergent Digital Practices

dataanxiety:

fastcompany:

A symphony of (obsolete) printers and fax machines perform Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin’”.

Cute video!

Problem

There’s a major error in the caption from FastCompany: Those are NOT obsolete printers and fax machines.

I don’t know what they use at FastCompany’s offices. However, every place I worked during the past five years used the same type of multi-tray printer-copying machines and fax-printers as in the video. The line printers are less common. They have such a distinctive, LOUD, sound!

Do I seem fussy? There’s a reason for that. It is elitist, and out of touch with reality, to describe office equipment that the majority of people (in the U.S., and everywhere else) currently use at home or work as “obsolete”.

Also, I’ve seen too many bottom-feeder websites that exist only to churn out those lists of “X whatever’s that are blahblah” e.g. “10 Sounds That You’ll Never Hear Again”, starting with a dial tone. Guess what:

• Not everyone has broadband internet service.
• Some people still use land lines. The sound quality is great. 
• Attorneys and courts, as well as physicians and pharmacists, use faxes every day, right now.

The present and the future remain unevenly distributed. The past and the present intermingle as the past persists. To be ignorant of this is to reveal a position of unexamined privilege. Thanks for the moment of critical thinking @dataanxiety :)