Sunday, March 4, 2012

Not alphabetical order...

What significance has alphabetical order in your daily activities? It came to me that I could nowadays do pretty well although I hadn't learnt alphabetical order in the school. Again one another skill doomed to oblivion like the ability to do sums without a calculator or remember person's phone number.

Where I used to need that was in many occasions related to searching information. Went to a library, locating right book required mastering alphabetical order. And when the book was found, using the index required that as well. Now that I use google instead, where do I still need alphabets?

When I really think this through, I still use alphabetical order in some occasions.
- many times parking lots have guide letters designating the are in which you parked your car.
- at the airports terminals have letters (I'm not sure, does their order help you in any way)
- in Washington DC you have streets named "E", "F",... and located conveniently in alphabetical order

Why are these all related to place and location? Could it be that it is the one realm where information technology has not yet really left it's mark? Waiting for GIS, internet of things and augmented reality to kick in.

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Quote from a movie: High fidelity
 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/High_Fidelity

Dick: It guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope.
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fuckin' way.