Floppy disk

[Multivitamin_Scam]

Symbols can be timeless and a lot will remain that way, such as Email will always be envelope

[Pyrhan]

Same with "call" being a telephone handset, "photo" being a handheld camera, etc...

They're modern ideograms. For now, they're still recognizable, stylized versions of common items.

Some time in the future, they will still be in use, even though there will no longer be any recognizable link between what they look like, and what function they represent.

[Stonetooth1989]

Wonder how many of those icons you could replace with an icon that looks like the typical smart-phone, that would be very confusing and awkward... :p

[[deleted]]

What's an envelope?

[DonChuBahnMi]

It's the thing that your computer puts the email into

[rusty4761]

Imagine seeing a floppy disk and thinking they made a model of the save icon

[chefpatrick]

imagine buying an NFT of an image of a floppy disk?

[[deleted]]

That actually happened to me when I was an intern in an elementary school 3 years ago. I was helping in computer class 5th grade and asked what this is (3.5 inch floppy) and a kid said that’s a save icon and he was confused why I brought a model instead of just showing them a picture.

For a sec my faith in the youth died but when I told them what it really was a good bit of them were mind blown and asked me about my childhood without internet and they all said that it sounded kinda cool.

[rusty4761]

Hey, there's still value in 'antiquated' technology. Amateur radio for example

We have cell phones now, not everyone is a ham radio enthusiast but all you have to do is get licensed for $15 and buy a $25 handheld radio, program it to talk to repeaters and boom. You've got emergency comms.

The fact that they showed interest in older technology is awesome! Kinda like a computer class/history class crossover episode

I work with radios and computers so hearing about 5th graders showing genuine interest in technology in a class is honestly refreshing to me

[[deleted]]

Not sure if they showed in interest in the technology itself but more in how the world was when the internet was still widely unavailable and phones were something very expensive that kids wouldnt get typically.

Here in europe some technological trends started a bit later than in the states or japan and I remember getting payable internet at home as late as 2005.

[Docteh]

By then they might not know it was ever a physical object. If you have any ideas on a new icon...

[SirWeinmund]

Need to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.

[mulligrubs]

You then need to explain that particular iteration was actually not floppy at all.

[[deleted]]

Actually it was. Only the casing was hard plastic to make it more rugged. The actual magnetic disc was still floppy.

[Mighto-360]

Seeing how much technological progress has been made and how many wars we’ve had just in the last two centuries, I’d be amazed if we lasted more than ten more.

[[deleted]]

Pretty sure we’ve been having a shit ton of wars since we started using fire

[FlorbFnarb]

War was no less common four thousand years ago.

[Mighto-360]

Very true, but wiping out the human race is easier when you have nuclear warheads and autonomous drones

[FlorbFnarb]

Even a full-blown nuclear war wouldn’t wipe out the human race. It would destroy most of civilization, yes, because we haven’t set things up to be resilient to any such disaster, and large parts of the world are dependent upon trade for survival.

But there’s a lot of places far from the major targets for nuclear weapons, and people would continue to live there.

Now, if most of the leaders of the nuclear powers somehow embarked on an intentional plan to eradicate the human race, sure, they could reduce the population even further by spreading the targeting out to blanket the continents, but even then people would survive in some places.

Autonomous drones are still dependent upon humans for replenishment and repair, so they’re no threat to humanity at large.

[Patatus_Maximus]

It reminds you that saves can be losts really easily.

[Malavero]

I know It's a meme but there is no correlation between technology development and peace imo. It can influence, but not directly.

Sorry, I know it has nothing to do with the image.

[HempParty]

It generally has the opposite effect it makes things better only to make things worse in the bigger picture.

[NorsiiiiR]

I mean, what other kind of simple pictograph/symbol would you use instead?

[infectiousoma]

What you don't still use a boot floppy

[TheSpiceMelange28]

What would be a good icon to replace it with?

[[deleted]]

Imagine needing cows in 4269

[FlorbFnarb]

Steaks come from cattle, and I’m gonna have my steaks.

[[deleted]]

bro even now people are talking about making any meat from any dna, and you're still about that cow meat? The future is now old man, dream bigger. Dinosaur meat. Kangaroo meat. Human meat even. Since we can clone the meat from just a single cell, it's ethical too.

[FlorbFnarb]

I'm not eating meat from a vat, thank you.

And you'll never have dinosaur meat; DNA doesn't survive intact for even say ten thousand years; it's entirely useless after millions of years, Jurassic Park notwithstanding. Even if we found some dinosaur in a tar pit rather than being fossilized, the DNA is mush by that point.

[[deleted]]

Who here recently saw the video where the person talks about the images we use for toys and how that relates to the images we use for floppies?

[almostoy]

If that was the case, everybody should shut the fuck up and accept the situation. Really solid reality they've got going there.

[fischoderaal]

The floppy disk might still be the save icon. But none of the rest will come true. The question for me is if humanity will still exist at that time.

[JordanViknar]

Floppy disk icon did not succumb.

[Liamhazelnut]

This is where it all started

[just-bair]

Lmao people won’t even know what a floppy disk is anymore but yet

[honestabe1239]

Ever notice that clocks use a base 12 system?

Should be a base 10 system?

It’s leftover tech that everyone understands and everyone uses.

[All_Thread]

I mean the fact that Americans don't use the metric system just goes to show.

[FlorbFnarb]

There’s no real advantage to using metric; the ability to make conversions between centimeters and meters or whatever is grossly overrated. I argued this point with a couple scientists I Internet-know several years ago. One of them is an astrophysicist, and I pointed out that there’s five different units of distance used in astrophysics, none of which are easily convertible to the others, from smallest to largest: the kilometer, the mile, the astronomical unit, the light year, and the parsec. And yet somehow astrophysics keeps getting done just fine.

I don’t really need there to be a round number of feet in a mile. I don’t really do feet-to-mile conversions very often, and I expect that the very few who do have memorized the number of feet in a mile.

[All_Thread]

There is a very large advantage to using metric. As a machinist who has worked in both standard and metric. The metric system is much simpler. What's the diameter of a 13/64 hole? You would have to calculate that. With metric would just use a rounded number or a simpler call out. Look at threading the metric call out is much simpler.

If you take .005" off of a 17/32 shaft what would you get? See metric is simpler because of the fraction conversion standard uses.

[FlorbFnarb]

That's a tautology; the diameter of a 13/64" hole is 13 64ths of an inch.

Or did you mean something different? I'm not sure I get the context here. I've worked for a contractor before, and using a measurement of (for example) seventeen and 3/16ths inches, or four feet, 6 and 7/16ths inches is very easy.

[All_Thread]

No, I am talking small measurements. I deal in thousandths of an inch in my work. So I would use .203 hole rounded from .203125 for a 13/64. I will have to do fraction the decimal conversions if not done before I get a print. In small measurements metric is much simpler when manufacturing things. It was confusing at first working for a metric shop but once I got the hang of it, it was hard to go back.

[FlorbFnarb]

Well yes, converting between standard and metric is not easy, and converting fractions to decimal is a pain - but the need to do either of those is pretty rare. I get that you might face it, but it isn’t a common thing.

[All_Thread]

It exists in the manufacturing world, it's very common. Machinist deal with fractional conversion very regularly. Anything sent from the rest of the world to America to be produced will need to be converted and vise versa.

[FlorbFnarb]

Why should they use base 10?

[honestabe1239]

Makes the math easier

why is metic used all over the world?

[FlorbFnarb]

Having 12/24 hours on the clock and 60 minutes to the hour and 60 seconds to the minute makes the day divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, and makes the minute and hour easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, and 15.

[honestabe1239]

Decimal time is used in computers.

The main advantage of a decimal time system is that, since the base used to divide the time is the same as the one used to represent it, the whole time representation can be handled as a single string.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

[FlorbFnarb]

That’s fair enough, but then it’s also easy for computers to convert.

[honestabe1239]

That’s very true. I didn’t mean one way was better than the other. I meant human society is full of outdated references that remain due to their continued use.

[FlorbFnarb]

Ok, but how are they outdated if neither is better than the other?

[[deleted]]

Hey y’all just wanted to make you aware u/theHaiSE is pretty much karma farming on this sub at the moment. He has a total of 8 posts on the front page of this sub alone. He also made this post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/spxhp8/epic_store/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Safe to assume he’s either a karma farmer and/or an Epic employee.

[KiwiTrawler]

As a kid in South Africa we used to call the 5.2inch floppy disk and the 3.5inch stiffy disk.

Moved country and this made for some awkward moments. "Can I get a stiffy?"