Cyd Harrell
@cydharrell.bsky.social
4.1K followers 1.7K following 1.8K posts
cyberpunk is a warning, not a manual she/her. dayjob & usual location: City & County of San Francisco (this is a personal account) ex-18F; on the board @ Technologists for the Public Good; wrote a small book about doing this: https://cydharrell.com/book/
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cydharrell.bsky.social
oh yes! & for ours, you only had to dial 5 numbers for an on-campus phone. someone was very excited to get the number 6-0SEX 🙄😆
cydharrell.bsky.social
yesss! (I also liked the weird clickclickbrrrr-clickclickbrrrr mechanical sound of an actual dial, but you couldn't really memorize it)
cydharrell.bsky.social
yeah, this!
rincewind.run
the funniest thing about this is that those of us who grew up in the divide all have a bunch of pre-cell phone numbers memorized and almost none afterwards

I know the home phone numbers of two of my childhood best friends from thirty years ago and none of the cell numbers of my college friends
bleary.off-the-records.com
If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.
cydharrell.bsky.social
Now pouring in the upper Haight
cydharrell.bsky.social
was a big deal when they started to sell phones with "speed dial" features where it could save a few - mom's office, dad's office, grandma, & the local pizza place, for example - but actually inputting A Number rather than A Contact, along with them being shorter, made memorizing just normal
cydharrell.bsky.social
sooo much was different about the 70s-80s phone ecosystem. I mean, yes, you memorized a few key 7-digit numbers (my best friend's was 392-2280) but it wasn't hard because you also dialed them, one number at a time, every time you made a call - lots of physical practice of any number you called often
bleary.off-the-records.com
If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.
Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?
cydharrell.bsky.social
there's got to be something specific in how many people want to AI-ify MLK (lots this week about his family being sent fake videos of him & understandably unhappy about it)
samred.com
this is the same event in which current Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell suggested creating a video wall in the city, on which people could talk to an AI version of Martin Luther King Jr and ask it what he ate for breakfast

for the love of Cal I need some local TV stations to air the stuff he is saying
Reposted by Cyd Harrell
pixelfish.bsky.social
At night the ghost children come out to play.
A light blurry translucent shape appears in front of a playground at night. Long shadows of trees cast by the lights of the parking lot lamps stretch across the grass.
cydharrell.bsky.social
oh man, there was a philosophy of language class I took around 1991...
Reposted by Cyd Harrell
evacide.bsky.social
Rolled my own crypto.
impavid.us
In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.
Reposted by Cyd Harrell
kirabug.com
A request: please repost.
If there are poems out of copyright you would like to hear me read angrily on YouTube or in a podcast, send me the titles. I have a lot of anger available and we’re going to bring a lot of poetry to life.
Reposted by Cyd Harrell
faineg.bsky.social
I really wouldn’t be shining lasers at helicopters if I were you. It’s illegal and could cause an aircraft to crash - and that could kill a LOT of people, in the air and on the ground.

And the ICE goons appear to be *salivating* at the chance to claim people that they arrest were doing this:
cydharrell.bsky.social
yeaahhhh then there's the whole way those ones support an expectation of parents monitoring their child constantly, as well!
cydharrell.bsky.social
no, you didn't! I'm always interested to know & I also hope writers with mainstream platforms will talk about it more, because it's a current huge burden making life worse for a lot of people) (& of course intersects with other factors like scam culture)
cydharrell.bsky.social
that's good to hear, thank you! I don't follow enough academics clearly - I'll go look for "digital shift" resources
Reposted by Cyd Harrell
cydharrell.bsky.social
2FA, more often than not! & logs you out regularly for security reasons

& health charts send you an email notification that you have a message, which you then have to 2FA to see, & half the time it's some stupid "tip" & nothing to do with your actual care
cydharrell.bsky.social
oh ffs the "Bari Weiss elevation is feminist actually" piece is by Caitlin Flanagan? let me go find my eyeballs, they just rolled onto the floor
cydharrell.bsky.social
it is so bananas - aside from @jessicacalarco.com I don't see anyone talking about the *level* of bureaucratic capacity necessary to navigate a job & family responsibilities these days
Reposted by Cyd Harrell
mondomascots.bsky.social
Kani Bucho, an office boss with an entire crab for a head, is the mascot for Yokobiki, a company that makes metal roller shutters for store windows.
A mascot in a blue suit with a red crab for a head enters a building.