Editorial—It’s Been a Bit!

It’s been a heck of a start to the year so far.  Fun with computers, having to replace a new one almost immediately, and then finding out I couldn’t just move the Voice hard-drive over directly between Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems have been keeping be up at nights.  Fortunately, I’ve got multiple redundancies, but that doesn’t mean that using them is that easy.

Still, I think everything is back in place now, and aside from some minor hiccoughs with getting used to how they’ve regressed Windows in the latest version (hey Microsoft, I don’t care if you choose to hide more and more of the system from users to make it “easier”, but stop making it harder for users who use those features to, well, use them) I feel like everything is up and running again.

What do I mean?  There’s a feature in Windows 10 to change the “tags” property of a file (if it exists) directly from the folder window.  I use this extensively to track where things are in the editing process, whether it is at the copyright, substantive, copy-edit, image, or layout stage.   I can still do that, but it now takes an extra right-click and select, adding a little bit of extra time to a process I do every day that didn’t need to be added.

I really don’t understand why companies will do these kind of updates.  What’s even crazier, is I eventually found a way that I can bring back the exact functionality I used to have, without having to download anything or change any settings.  So it’s still there, just made inaccessible unless I perform a specific set of actions, a techno-ritual to the Microsoft Gods, if you will.  Unfortunately, it only remains active within that particular window.  Once you close it, you have to redo the ritual again when you next open a folder.  With this in mind, Blythe Appleby’s article this week about our over-reliance on technology hits particularly hard.  If only there was a better solution.

At any rate, this week, we come to you with some interesting material to read.  Alek has been attending the Foreign Interference Commission, and he’s brought us reporting on the policy and stage 2 meetings of the commission.  It’s an inside view on a topic most of us don’t think about, but one that takes on increasing importance as more and more people bypass the regular fact-checking and editing that occurs in the media, often diving deep into their own bubbles of like-minded social mediots.  Of course, there are some positive results to this, in that it’s harder for oppressors to control your access to information, but I believe that’s more than balanced with the negatives of being unable to trust that any information found is actually true without making additional effort to verify it yourself.  Some may argue mainstream and corporate media controlled what we saw, but what we did see at least was likely to reflect some portion of reality, rather than being completely made up, whether simply for the views, or for darker purposes.

In addition, Jaydan Harrison brings us an opinion on something AU could do to make assignments both easier and more useful for the students, and our feature article is a brief interview with Dr. Alvin Finkel.   Dr. Finkel was one of the first professors at AU, and has put out a new book.  You’ll be able to speak with Dr. Finkel yourself if you so wish, as AUSU has arranged a discussion with Dr. Finkel for members to attend on the 21st.

Of course, we also have music reviews, scholarships, events, and other inspirational or interesting and perhaps even educational articles.  So enjoy the read!