{"id":11375,"date":"2026-02-04T10:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T10:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=11375"},"modified":"2026-02-04T10:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T10:39:08","slug":"howls-of-a-technoprat-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=11375","title":{"rendered":"Howls of a Technoprat #3"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Pit of Techno-Despair\/Digital Visual Facilitation<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the baker\u2019s the other day and they asked, \u2019Would you like to get our app?\u2019 Fortunately I was polite enough not to say \u2018No, I\u2019d rather stick pins in my eyes.\u2019 But honestly, why would I? I ought to be able to rock up to the bakers, groats in hand, and buy the staff of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sneaky thing is, though, that their loyalty scheme has moved online. A fellow-customer produced her well-stamped loyalty card, only to be told that it was no longer accepted, having been superseded by the app. So the fun of seeing your loyalty card accruing little loaf-shaped stamps and anticipating the pleasure of a free loaf has disappeared at a stroke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I\u2019d started seething about this, I couldn\u2019t stop. I remembered the Great Christmas Present Debacle: filled with anxiety that the present I\u2019d ordered for my granddaughter wouldn\u2019t arrive on time (a fear fuelled by a succession of doom-laden emails I\u2019d received from the sellers), I rushed out to an actual toyshop the day before Christmas Eve to buy something \u2013 anything \u2013 as a replacement. I snatched up three modelling kits for making comedy animals.  They weren\u2019t pink, there wasn\u2019t a unicorn in sight, and the woman behind the counter assured me they had had great feedback about them.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I bore them home in triumph and it wasn\u2019t until I was about to wrap them up that I noticed the QR code and the weasel words \u2018Sculpt with the app\u2019, followed by \u2018App that makes sculpting easy\u2019. Do we really want toys that drive children onto screens? Surely the whole point of sculpting and modelling is to get lost in the whole tactile experience, and who cares whether what you produce looks anything like the picture on the box? You might end up producing something ten times more imaginative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final straw came in the form of an email from the City Lit, where I\u2019d signed up to do a beginners\u2019 flamenco course. Just the thing, I thought, to counteract the January blues. The mail contained the dread words \u2018Your course will use Google Classroom for sharing resources. <\/strong>Please log into your Google Classroom at least a few days before your course starts to make sure we can help you with any problems before your first session.\u2019 What could I possibly get from Google Classroom that could possibly help with this course? It will not be able to deliver the sinuous wrists, nifty footwork, and fiery spirit of duende <\/em>that a ginge of a certain age like myself would really need to excel at flamenco. Fortunately our lovely teacher has plenty of all this to share \u2013 and appreciates that many of her flock love nothing better than a photocopied handout!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a daily basis BBC Sounds exhorts me to get the app, because \u2018listening is better in the app\u2019. Why, I wonder, and \u2013 credit where it\u2019s due \u2013\u2013 consult AI. It turns out that listening in the app offers me the opportunity to do a lot of things I don\u2019t actually want to do. The actual listening experience remains the same\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I promise to not indulge in another techno-whinge until next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yours, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Analog Throwback<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can I get fiery Latin passion off Google Classroom?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,419,63,67,55,56,334],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11375"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11391,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11375\/revisions\/11391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}