If one technology is good, five technologies must be better.
There is something Rube-Goldberg-esque about this that is equal parts charming and appalling.
I feel like I must be doing the equivalent of some of these things when I'm making websites in bootcamp. Sorry, web apps. But (and this is the first and only time I'll say anything to absolve a school administrator) could it be that all the parents have phones/phone numbers but not email addresses (or he doesn't have their email addresses) so he uses this workaround? (Additionally, he's constrained as to message length, so he can't just text the contents of the email.)
Good point, Ogged. This makes it understandable. I suppose he could screenshot on his computer, send it to his phone, and then send that screenshot, but that's more work to accomplish the same thing.
Is the email a draft that he has written but not sent, or something he received and wants to forward?
The lawyer version of this--and it drives me nuts--is people who print their papers and then scan for filing on the electronic docket, instead of generating a pdf directly from Word or whatever. The latter is generally the rule in most courts (because they want to be able to search/copy, plus the file size is much smaller) but so many lawyers ignore it.
Back when there was that big cosmic background radiation finding from the telescope in antarctica (the BICEP2 thing) the first indications that it might be dust, and thus spurious, was a figure in a PDF of a keynote presentation by one of the scientists working on a different calculation. So there were all these physicists furiously working to publish papers showing that a screenshot of a pdf of a gif pasted into a keynote presentation had enough fidelity to the original data to be useful as a measurement. So technical incompetence is not the only reason this happens, is what I'm saying!
It also reminds me of shitpics on Instagram.
But (and this is the first and only time I'll say anything to absolve a school administrator) could it be that all the parents have phones/phone numbers but not email addresses (or he doesn't have their email addresses) so he uses this workaround?
Probably yes - there is a publicized effort to have parents contribute their telephone numbers to get school updates, but not a similar effort for our email addresses. So they have our email addresses on various forms, but not on one tidy list on which we've all opted in.
Is the email a draft that he has written but not sent, or something he received and wants to forward?
Usually something he received and wants to forward.
Charitably, I guess that he can't see how to bridge the email to text border.
On the print and then scan to get a PDF, that is a peeve of mine too. It became clear to me (at least with one employee/co-worker) that the PDF was seen as being the result of scanning. It took some time for that definition to get erased.
I think it's probably a device problem - he can't (or isn't in the habit of) checking his email on his phone, and he can't (or hasn't been shown how to) send a text message from his computer.
Also today's email is probably under 140 characters - it's just a single sentence telling us to attend some kids' performances tonight at 6 pm, in the cafeteria.
re: 13
People ask us for PDFs of manuscripts all the time. We do create them, but they are disappointed that they are either HUGE, or terrible. Because, obviously, they are scanned, and scanned images at any reasonable quality level, even with elite ninja level compression fu, are gigantic.
I had an admin at Berkeley print me out a webpage (with no URL) and circle the spot that said "click here." When I inquired about how I was supposed to go about getting to the webpage since I can't click on a piece of paper, she told me it was a webpage only staff could go to. It was very sad (especially since her predecessor was fantastic).
So, he assumes (at least when sending a link) that all the parents have smartphones? Seems kind of classist, etc., etc. to this old fogey (who can barely recall when his own kids were were in school).
It's a better guess that the parents have smartphones than that they have some other computer and email access. It's also not as classist as you suspect - lower-end phones are cheap, as are prepaid plans. I actually suspect "I don't have a smartphone" is closer in class implications to "I don't even /own/ a television".
For some reason we have "memos" in my organization, and for some reason they have to be printed out, signed, and scanned. So, so bad.
19: I disagree. I think here it's maybe a good line between poor (and young) but functioning and really doing badly, but there are definite class implications. I see clear gradations in the girls' families.
The recorded message I got when I phoned the Canadian consulate thinking I might get useful information on getting a study permit consisted mostly of someone slowly reading out the URL of the webpage they wantrd you to use instead of phoning.
But (and this is the first and only time I'll say anything to absolve a school administrator) could it be that all the parents have phones/phone numbers but not email addresses (or he doesn't have their email addresses) so he uses this workaround?
He could text them to ask them for their email address.
Usually something he received and wants to forward.
!!!
This is totally understandable to me, and ogged is right. When I've worked with low-income parents, they have ALL had phones (and yes, that often includes smartphones), and that was by far the best way to reach them -- either via a robocall or text. Many of them didn't have, or rarely checked, their e-mail.
Thsi may be an artifact of a major metropolitan area, but I've seen it across ethnic groups, in both US-born and immigrant communities, city and close-in suburbs, and income levels down to families making probably $12,000 cash income per year.
19/21: The lurkers support Thorn innationwide surveys.
Where are the images hosted? Are they something you download in the text message and view on the phone's photo app? Or do they open in a browser? If it's a browser, it seems like you could turn the messages into html, but maybe that's more trouble than it's worth.
9: About half of the patent examiners require that you fax them an agenda, which is so stupid because I use computer software to fax the agenda to the USPTO where the fax is converted into an email that is sent to the examiner. Or, you know, I could have just emailed the agenda but there's some code that says email is insecure.
28: it definitely does, because it comes into series 5 of The Wire.
That's what I mean by downloads in the message. On my phone, at least, if you want to see a texted image full-size, it opens in an image viewer app.
27: There's a similar rule that government purchase card numbers have to be provided by phone or fax, not e-mail, for security reasons.
Vaguely falling under the category heading of "Technologically Dim": Man Taking Selfies With Gun Fatally Shoots Himself
Well that's his mistake right there. He should have used a camera.
26: The images are opened in a browser, for me.