Living With Computers In 1982

Interesting article from the Atlantic on this thing the kids are calling “computer”:

When I sit down to write a letter or start the first draft of an article, I simply type on the keyboard and the words appear on the screen. For six months, I found it awkward to compose first drafts on the computer. Now I can hardly do it any other way. It is faster to type this way than with a normal typewriter, because you don’t need to stop at the end of the line for a carriage return (the computer automatically “wraps” the words onto the next line when you reach the right-hand margin), and you never come to the end of the page, because the material on the screen keeps sliding up to make room for each new line. It is also more satisfying to the soul, because each maimed and misconceived passage can be made to vanish instantly, by the word or by the paragraph, leaving a pristine green field on which to make the next attempt.

It’s difficult imagining we did it any other way.

The Cliche Sewer Level

A writer tags along a team of sewer workers operating under London:

The ladder is rusty and damp. With each rung, I expect to smell the smell. It never comes. ‘That’s what people do,’ says Smith. ‘They get down, take a sniff, say: “Is that poo?” I say yes. They say: “It doesn’t smell much does it?” They think that because when they go to the toilet, it smells, that this will too. They think it’ll smell like three million toilets.’ But it doesn’t. An average toilet flush uses seven gallons of water. Down here, the water content of the flow is 98 per cent. After a storm, it’s sometimes 99.9 per cent. Some sewers do stink, of faeces and chemicals and paint resins, but not this one. With no stink to distract me, I take in the sights: the bricks, the drips, the Fleet stretching away in both directions. I would stop in my tracks, if there weren’t three men behind me, and a job to be done.