this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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HistoryPorn

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 hours ago

This must unironically be the first "big data", where it is cheaper to move the computation than the data.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

wes Anderson, is all I'm saying

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

Or Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

[–] [email protected] 113 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

This is what SQL took away from us. Never forget.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Now the drop table is merely a database command instead of a table actually falling down from an elevator failure.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It’s less fun, but ultimately saved lives

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

But at what cost...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

But how? This looks way more efficient.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

^DAMNIT^ ^KEVIN^ ^STOP^ ^LEAVING^ ^THE^ ^FUCKING^ ^DRAWERS^ ^OPEN^

[–] [email protected] 26 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I can see how that'd inspire Kafka

[–] [email protected] 13 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Made in 1936 and Kafka died in 1924. He would probably have died in a concentration camp if he lived to see this. Nazis did not give special treatment to Jewish writers, for example Josef Čapek (✝ approx. 14 April 1945 Bergen-Belsen). Still, there must have been other bizarre filing systems in his era, a multi-story vertical conveyor belt of filing cabinets is used in some town halls to this day.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Nazis did not give special treatment to Jewish writers, for example Josef Čapek

They kind of did. The Nazis started out by hunting down and imprisoning or killing academics. If you were smart and educated, and not well connected inside the Nazi party, then you were enemy number one at the start of their takeover.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Yeah, that kind of special treatment, absolutely. But once in a concentration camp, they'd be just another subject with a number, albeit likely a lower one.

[–] [email protected] 95 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (3 children)

Scientists in 1985: "This data can now all fit on a computer thanks to CDs. Get a few of them pressed at Gramozávody Loděnice every year and keep the index plus updates on a HDD or tape."

Scientists in 1990: "With CD-R, you don't have to pay a fortune to have a few copies of the database pressed every year. You don't need the magnetic storage buffer either, updates can be written on the disks."

Scientists in 2000: "Screw CDs. Many-gigabyte HDDs are decently cheap. You can store full scans rather than transcripts."

Scientists in 2010: "You can afford terabytes in SSDs now, and keep a few copies off-site for backup, all in a cloud solution with access from anywhere with less latency than the HDDs."

Central Social Insurance Institute Card File in Prague-Smíchov in 2013:
Gonna pretend I didn't hear that

[–] [email protected] 28 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

No shit? I always wondered where Futurama got the floating buerocrats from.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I'm glad they kept the cabinets grey

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[–] [email protected] 107 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

What Futurama level bureaucrat do I need to be to get assigned this post?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Just gotta be able to limbo!

[–] [email protected] 40 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

That looks kinda dope ngl.
I'd be a 1937 file clerk

[–] [email protected] 22 points 17 hours ago (12 children)

You're gonna have a real blast in 5 years

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

It is still in use. I had to revisit this video where you can see it. (It has eng subtitles)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Amazing. They say the records are digitized but they still use the paper version as the authority for court cases and things like that. That's amazing because the rest of the world is rushing to jettison the idea of paper as authority and everyone accepts easily faked electronic documents.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 17 hours ago (25 children)

Cryptography and PKI makes it pretty feasible to authenticate digital documents.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 13 hours ago (7 children)

Because paper and ink are impossible to Forge...

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

seems like it came straight from harry potter

[–] [email protected] 59 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Part of me wistfully mourns for the loss of edifices like this, caused by computers. Another part recognizes that those guys would probably have given their left nut to get out of those desks and in front of a computer.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

The guys got replaced by a needle

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

What Terry Gilliam movie is this from?

[–] [email protected] 49 points 20 hours ago (8 children)
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[–] [email protected] 40 points 19 hours ago

“The offices of the Central Social Institution of Prague, Czechoslovakia with the largest vertical letter file in the world. Consisting of cabinets arranged from floor to ceiling tiers covering over 4000 square feet containing over 3000 drawers 10 feet long. It has electric operated elevator desks which rise, fall and move left or right at the push of a button. to stop just before drawer desired. The drawers also open and close electronically. Thus work which formerly taxed 400 workers is now done by 20 with a minimum of effort.

Source

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