Reading For Treasure: An End of the Year Digital Grab Bag!

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles (and other readings) that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Since we are all sending so much time on our digital devices, here is a grab bag of articles to make both your online and offline life safer, healthier, and better.

If you use an iPhone, it is time to retire those old “in case of emergency” designations in favor of the phone’s built-in emergency contacts. You can make any contact an emergency contact by editing it and selecting “emergency contact.” In addition, this article from Apple World goes one step further and explains “How to Send Your Medical ID to First Responders in an iPhone Emergency Call.” During a pandemic, this seems like a feature to activate. 

Many of us are spending hours and hours on our devices. If these devices break or lose our data, we may have significant problems. That is why it is critical to back up everything – and I mean everything. Wired Magazine has a good overview of this: “How to Back Up Your Digital Life.” If your answer to “what would happen if your computer crashed?” Is that you would be up the creek, consider reading this and backing up everything! Remember, you probably want to back up your phone, too! 

Often the weakest link in your digital armor is your password. Some of us use the same password all the time. Some of our passwords are easy to guess, even if you don’t know us well. Some of us have answered quizzes or done those Facebook questionnaires and shared the answers to every possible security question with the world. The key to good passwords is making them long and complex, but that means they are difficult to remember (and to crack). The key to making long passwords usable is a good password manager. I use 1Password, but there are many to choose from. Here is an Engadget article to get help you start using one: “It’s time to start using a password manager: Here’s how”

Finally, two good pieces from one of my favorites, Lifehacker. First and most important, “Never Email Your Social Security Number, I Am Begging You.” The title says it all, but I will add this: please think of any unencrypted email (which is probably all of our emails) as a postcard, not a letter. There is no envelope and anyone on all the systems it passes through (and there are many) could look at it. 

Finally, since we are sitting in front of screens all the time, we need to protect our necks, backs, wrists, eyes, and the rest of our bodies. Lifehacker also provided a good guide to make sure that you are not making yourself sick by the way you are using your computer: “How to Ergonomically Optimize Your Workspace”

I am currently reading The Peripheral by William Gibson

VHS Time Capsule

Staying at home during the time of COVID has provided me with time to start to clean out all those old things stored in the basement. My family and I have thrown things away, packed up things for donations, and done a ton of recycling. 

Recently, we pulled four huge bins of VHS tapes out of the crawl space. In them were hundreds of recordings of Star Trek and other television shows I adore. I remember watching the first run of each series with a remote in my hand to edit out the commercials. I was certain that these tapes were going to be the way I got to watch these shows again. 

I had carefully labeled every tape. Each one had a list of the episodes inside the cover. I really felt like I was preparing my future viewing. I did not predict streaming services or DVDs. I no longer even own a video cassette player of any kind. 

So why is it so difficult to part with these tapes? 

It is not as if I am going to sit down and use the tapes, even though I do continue to watch much of the content that is on them. I don’t need old grainy analog tapes to do it. For several of the series, I have purchased DVDs that include closed captions and special features. 

The eldest of the tapes date back to the early 80s. My family was one of the last to purchase a VHS machine. I had been recording Star Trek on audiocassettes because listening was the only way I had to experience an episode other than when it was broadcast. So when that first VHS deck came into my house, there was no doubt what I was recording. 

I knew that the episodes I was recording were edited. I was aware that they had a few minutes cut from them for additional commercials, but at the time, there was no alternative. Even when I could purchase store-bought tapes of the episodes (which I did), they were expensive and I bought them slowly and savored each one. 

As I got older, these became my exercise tapes. I would watch them to make working out interesting and take my mind from the sweat and discomfort of riding a stationary bicycle at 5 in the morning. I still watch Star Trek while working out! 

I bought my own VHS recorder as a gift to myself for my college graduation. Star Trek: The Next Generation was being made and I recorded entertainment shows and tried to find any clip or glimpse of information about this new Trek. 

When the show finally premiered, I made sure that I was in front of the TV, remote in hand, for every episode. I recorded each one twice: once with commercials edited out and one with them left in. I am a big believer in backups. 

I did this for a very long time. 

I recorded The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, The Original Series, and the Animated Series on these tapes. By the time Voyager and Enterprise premiered, my life had become too complex to edit them live. But now I had a host of other shows: Babylon Five, Earth Final Conflict, Farscape, Alien Nation, and even some I had forgotten (remember Seven Days?).  I have not rewatched all of these series, although as I write about them, I am eager to find the services that stream them, even if I don’t know when I will have time to watch all I would want to. 

I know that these tapes are not the way I will now see these shows. I know that there is no problem with throwing them away or recycling them. But doing so feels like losing something special; something that feels both far away and very dear and important. They are a kind of time portal into a distant past which I don’t want to lose. 

The technology may be obsolete, but the feelings and attachments are not. These tapes are mementos of watching these shows broadcast for the very first time. They are relics of a distant time, heavy relics that are taking up lots of space in my basement. Unlike my affections for these shows, basement space is not infinite. I am going to have to come to terms with letting go of these tapes and being content with the feelings they engender when I watch what was on them. 

The tapes did not record my wonder, joy, and delight in these stories and sagas. Those can never be lost! 

To Open Schools or Not To Open Schools

That is the question. It is a fiery debate in my community and across the nation and the world. The largest school districts in the United States have gone fully remote. Communities with under 3% infection rates are closed, but others with 50% rates are open! Some European schools are open, but Israeli schools look like they are about to close. Evidence suggests that younger children may not spread the infection like older students, but concerns for staff members, who are often older, makes navigating in-person schooling extremely challenging. 

And then there is another argument: remote learning is uneven at best and remote learning disadvantages the most vulnerable students. However, you roll the data, whatever proof you provide about the dangers (or lack of them) of bringing children back into school, blaming teachers’ ability to teach remotely is not only the weakest rationalization but also a gross oversimplification of the problem. Some classes and teachers are doing a fantastic job with remote learning, while others continue to struggle. Why? Schools and classrooms are systems; the teacher is only one piece of that picture. 

The devil is in the details. 

With rising infection rates in most communities, it is difficult to argue that bringing people of any age together is a good idea right now. The logistics of having a percentage of students rotate through in-person classes have also proven problematic. Teachers in many districts are teaching a handful of students in their classrooms and the rest online. For many of these, what this really means is teaching all of them online, but some of them online in person. Is that better? Many students in these districts would prefer to be on their computers without their masks at home, rather than sitting in school doing the same thing. 

There is also the schedule question: Some schools have to change students' teachers and schedules in order to balance the numbers in each class of students who are coming in with those who are staying home. Is it worth changing teachers, times, and even courses so that students can be in the building? I can hear the complaints now, “Yes, I want my child in school, but she has to still be in Mr. Green’s class!” 

Then there is the piece that is so contentious that no one wants to touch it: even if we make schools completely safe and infection-free, what happens in the community may sabotage our precautions. On one of my many walks, I chatted with a neighbor who is a medical doctor. Although he would like to see his kids in school, he is aware of parties and gatherings going on in the community that are dangerous and defy safe practices. We may seal the schools, but the community creates leaks! 

I have seen evidence of this as I walk the neighborhood: gatherings of bikes in driveways, groups of cars picking up and dropping off at homes, and backyard parties. Some of the parents and children are wearing masks, but often they are not. 

Learning is a social and emotional experience. Anxious people don’t function well. They don’t learn or teach well. People do not thrive in stressful situations. Even if you say, just bring in those students and staff who are okay coming in, that has problems, too. We need specific numbers of certain people to come in or school doesn’t work. What if we get too many of some and not enough of others? The math teachers will come in, but the science teachers won’t. We don’t have enough custodians, secretaries, technology staff – you get the idea. How does that help? Should the burden be placed only on a few? 

Kids need to be in school. Teachers want to be in school. Right now, it is a knot we are unable to untangle. School staff should be at the front of the line to receive vaccines. Will those screaming for schools to open support closing everything else (bars, restaurants, gyms, stores, etc.) and abide by a lockdown order? That is how Europe opened schools! Can we trust our neighbors to play by the rules? 

Only once community transmission of this illness falls and staff and students are protected, can schools can. Americans don’t seem to be willing to make the trade-offs to open them any sooner.