To the student who said that a text was in a "cool X-files font." That is an electric typewriter. People still use those. In fact, you will find one in the office. You might want to check it out before you embarrass yourself again.
Um...didn't the opening scene of X-Files contain font of an electric typewriter? Usually the date or location of the episode, which had a typewriter noise as it came on screen...
The X-Files are a television show while a typewriter is a ubiquitous piece of office equipment. You would think that when someone sees something that came off a typewriter, they would say, "Oh, that came off a typewriter," not that it is a font that they used in an obscure television program.
I had to explain to my kid that "dialing the phone" meant pushing buttons, and "hanging up" meant pushing the "off" button, and no, that didn't make sense. So, you know, who knows what kind of weird multiple temporalities kids live in when it comes to technology?
If he'd said "cool Courier font," would you have let him off the hook?
College Boy, I hear you on this one. To the average student, typewriting may be more retro/obscure than you'd realize--but one would hope our students would have enough cultural literacy to realize the X-Files "font" is simply typewritten text.
When students arrive at college, many of them are old enough to vote, and many of them consider themselves intelligent and experienced enough to make demands about what and how they should be taught (er, coddled) by both their adjunct and their tenured servants. Yet they can't be expected to know about technology that was ubiquitous a mere 10 years before they were born? Or about anything else that is not on non-obscure TV programs?
Even by that miserable standard, shouldn't students know about typewriters, which I assume are visible on that non-obscure TV program "Mad Men"?
Besides, Wackipedia has an article on typewriters that is, zOMG, even longer than its article on Lady Gaga.
I certainly concur with Dude (although let's be serious: most of the snowiest of snowflakes would never stoop to watch Mad Men), but I have found myself too often in Marcia's place by having to explain, in detail and with pictures, technologies ubiquitous in older pop culture shows that my contemporaneous students never paid attention enough to figure out:
Like that TVs used to huge (length, width *and* depth), took a while to "warm up" and even then only had channels 2-13 ON A DIAL for most of the tech's history.
Like that phones used to require long cords (I wanna scream "Watch episodes of Roseanne, you little flakes!"), most families had 1 in the house, and don't even get me started about their lack of awareness of the party-line phenomenon.
That radio and TV used to FREE so long as you had the tech. That's always the hard one. They can't grasp that the rise of cable and satellite radio are really striking changes to the idea that the airwaves were supposed to be free (and how these new techs aren't really the same anyway).
I am writing a novel set in 1991-93 and I am finding that young people have the hardest time with it. (You have to go to a university to get on the Internet? Duuuude! I get it on my cellphone. What do you mean no one had cellphones?).
Think of the freshmen-sophmore (sometimes junior-senior) group as dogs. Dogs have poor personal memories so they live in the Now....for a dog what happened an hour ago could have taken place in the Edwardian period. Remember also that students live in a culture that loathes thinking, has no true historical memory, and values money over culture. You could probably blow their tiny minds talking about how people only had mix tapes and no iPods, or how in the Soviet Union they only had one line per phone, so an official would have a "telephone table" with multiple phones*, and Google Maps-style satellite photos were for government use only. Be certain to say these things and walk away quickly to avoid the blood and brain matter spray. _____________________________ * In the 1998 Russian film "Okraina" (released as "The Outskirts" by Facets Video) the bad guy has one of these tables in his office, so this may still be the case in the Russian Federation.
Who uses a typewriter anymore? Can you even buy new typewriters these days? If you want to be a Luddite, it's your choice, but you have to expect some people to be taken aback by it. Especially college students, who've likely never seen a typewriter.
Many older source materials were written on typewriters. If you go into you department office, you will likely find a typewriter that is used for filling out forms. There is really no excuse for even the freshest freshman not to know what a typewriter is.
I'm afraid I have no patience with anyone taking issue with College Boy's post. If it's on Cracked (http://www.cracked.com/funny-5647-fonts/), the flakes don't have any excuse.
"Who uses a typewriter anymore? Can you even buy new typewriters these days? If you want to be a Luddite, it's your choice, but you have to expect some people to be taken aback by it. Especially college students, who've likely never seen a typewriter."
I own two, and I wasn't around to witness 1964 personally. You can't buy new typewriters, but you can find older manual typewriters on eBay - the best of them have steel guts and thus are still usable 50-60 years later. There are rare places where you can get new ribbons for them. I find tpewriters extremely usefull in filling out forms because I have horrible penmanship.
The question isn't whether people should own typewriters. The question is whether people should know that they (and other non-21st-century technologies) existed.
We probably agree that people shouldn't own slaves, but that issue is irrelevant to the question of whether college students should be expected to know that slavery used to exist in the U.S., and that its former existence continues to have effects in today's society.
Not sure what the context of this was, but... in his defense (as much as I hate to), I do have a font on my computer called "X-Files."
ReplyDeletehttp://content.altfonts.com/img/X/0/X-FilesA.png
ReplyDeleteThat looks nothing like the typeface in the text that I distributed.
ReplyDeleteAll righty, but a font with that name does exist. I didn't see the text you distributed. Apologies.
ReplyDeleteUm...didn't the opening scene of X-Files contain font of an electric typewriter? Usually the date or location of the episode, which had a typewriter noise as it came on screen...
ReplyDeleteThe X-Files are a television show while a typewriter is a ubiquitous piece of office equipment. You would think that when someone sees something that came off a typewriter, they would say, "Oh, that came off a typewriter," not that it is a font that they used in an obscure television program.
ReplyDeleteObscure? Really?
ReplyDeleteAnd I would say that typewriters are hardly ubiquitous these days.
I had to explain to my kid that "dialing the phone" meant pushing buttons, and "hanging up" meant pushing the "off" button, and no, that didn't make sense. So, you know, who knows what kind of weird multiple temporalities kids live in when it comes to technology?
ReplyDeleteIf he'd said "cool Courier font," would you have let him off the hook?
College Boy, I hear you on this one. To the average student, typewriting may be more retro/obscure than you'd realize--but one would hope our students would have enough cultural literacy to realize the X-Files "font" is simply typewritten text.
ReplyDeleteWhen students arrive at college, many of them are old enough to vote, and many of them consider themselves intelligent and experienced enough to make demands about what and how they should be taught (er, coddled) by both their adjunct and their tenured servants. Yet they can't be expected to know about technology that was ubiquitous a mere 10 years before they were born? Or about anything else that is not on non-obscure TV programs?
ReplyDeleteEven by that miserable standard, shouldn't students know about typewriters, which I assume are visible on that non-obscure TV program "Mad Men"?
Besides, Wackipedia has an article on typewriters that is, zOMG, even longer than its article on Lady Gaga.
I certainly concur with Dude (although let's be serious: most of the snowiest of snowflakes would never stoop to watch Mad Men), but I have found myself too often in Marcia's place by having to explain, in detail and with pictures, technologies ubiquitous in older pop culture shows that my contemporaneous students never paid attention enough to figure out:
ReplyDeleteLike that TVs used to huge (length, width *and* depth), took a while to "warm up" and even then only had channels 2-13 ON A DIAL for most of the tech's history.
Like that phones used to require long cords (I wanna scream "Watch episodes of Roseanne, you little flakes!"), most families had 1 in the house, and don't even get me started about their lack of awareness of the party-line phenomenon.
That radio and TV used to FREE so long as you had the tech. That's always the hard one. They can't grasp that the rise of cable and satellite radio are really striking changes to the idea that the airwaves were supposed to be free (and how these new techs aren't really the same anyway).
I am writing a novel set in 1991-93 and I am finding that young people have the hardest time with it. (You have to go to a university to get on the Internet? Duuuude! I get it on my cellphone. What do you mean no one had cellphones?).
ReplyDelete-Mike
Think of the freshmen-sophmore (sometimes junior-senior) group as dogs. Dogs have poor personal memories so they live in the Now....for a dog what happened an hour ago could have taken place in the Edwardian period. Remember also that students live in a culture that loathes thinking, has no true historical memory, and values money over culture. You could probably blow their tiny minds talking about how people only had mix tapes and no iPods, or how in the Soviet Union they only had one line per phone, so an official would have a "telephone table" with multiple phones*, and Google Maps-style satellite photos were for government use only. Be certain to say these things and walk away quickly to avoid the blood and brain matter spray.
ReplyDelete_____________________________
* In the 1998 Russian film "Okraina" (released as "The Outskirts" by Facets Video) the bad guy has one of these tables in his office, so this may still be the case in the Russian Federation.
Who uses a typewriter anymore? Can you even buy new typewriters these days? If you want to be a Luddite, it's your choice, but you have to expect some people to be taken aback by it. Especially college students, who've likely never seen a typewriter.
ReplyDeleteMany older source materials were written on typewriters. If you go into you department office, you will likely find a typewriter that is used for filling out forms. There is really no excuse for even the freshest freshman not to know what a typewriter is.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I have no patience with anyone taking issue with College Boy's post. If it's on Cracked (http://www.cracked.com/funny-5647-fonts/), the flakes don't have any excuse.
ReplyDelete@The Spare Queen - I doubt he was talking about Courier New. All students know Courier New: it's the font that makes papers longer.
ReplyDelete"Who uses a typewriter anymore? Can you even buy new typewriters these days? If you want to be a Luddite, it's your choice, but you have to expect some people to be taken aback by it. Especially college students, who've likely never seen a typewriter."
ReplyDeleteI own two, and I wasn't around to witness 1964 personally. You can't buy new typewriters, but you can find older manual typewriters on eBay - the best of them have steel guts and thus are still usable 50-60 years later. There are rare places where you can get new ribbons for them. I find tpewriters extremely usefull in filling out forms because I have horrible penmanship.
The question isn't whether people should own typewriters. The question is whether people should know that they (and other non-21st-century technologies) existed.
ReplyDeleteWe probably agree that people shouldn't own slaves, but that issue is irrelevant to the question of whether college students should be expected to know that slavery used to exist in the U.S., and that its former existence continues to have effects in today's society.