I've had my bills drafted from my acct or paid electronically for almost three decades. Taxes (Fed & state) online forever too.

A few checks that I need to send....via my CU bill pay...they send a paper check.

Never an issue...not one.

I finally convinced my parents years ago.... same for them.

It's just painless and something I don't have to deal with.... so I don't :)

edited: Oh yeah.... all banks suck :D

I believe that a physical letter has greater impact than an email or text. It takes more time and effort than to just rip off a text or e-mail. If I am communicating with a company on a complaint they get an old fashioned typed letter with a stamp on the envelope. I have found I get a better response rate than if I e-mail them and never hear from them again.

Likewise, we send cards for special events, well wishes, and holidays. I make my own and put a lot of time and energy into the content to make it personal and still hand sign all our Christmas cards.

BSOD. They sure do. GIGO.

Whenever I've gotten tenant turnover I have to deal with the utility company. An account or sometimes two listed at that address (in my name as owner) gets automatically turned when they cancel their personal apartment account. Sometimes it takes a full day to turn back on. The tenant shouldn't legally be able to touch the account but it happens.

And I just called regarding my own house which I've owned for more than a decade. Turns out my own phone number is not associated with my own house. It got automatically switched at some point in time as well. WTH. These people.

None of these changes were enacted on paper with a traceable authorizing signature.
They just happened like magic in the ether. No tangible trace.
Maybe someone impersonated me playing games.

Good thing it was not too important, or someone's entire life could be gone with a major glitch..which has happened more than once..
And the entire world is supposed to operate of that type of system?

Those are bad programming and really bad employees operating them. Most cities own the water system, and usually some government bureaucrat department person that does not care about customer service just makes a decision and does it because no one can stop them.

It is not like the computer decided to do it. Some human bag of water did it.

I fought with the IRS for 4 years and sent countless faxes and spent hours on the phone trying to get a error on my withholding statement on my Social Security earning statement corrected. Finally they set up an appointment. I had to go see them in person, show a human the pile of documentation and she said, this is easy. 10 seconds on the computer and it was fixed. There is a log that shows when the file was opened. It had never been touched since it was put in wrong by a human. The other paperwork I sent was never touched by anyone as they did not care. Human error, not the computer. Everyone blames the computer because a computer can't argue the facts.

Computers & Humans....

Dumb & Dumber :D

A friend of mine is a programmer and writes specialized software. One of his expressions is "Our software doesn't have bugs, it has undocumented features."
Computers do have errors.

Most “computer issue” are actually wetware issues. (Slang for computer user). Or EBKAC, error between keyboard and chair.

Computer Errors ... but only because humans screwed up :D. My degree was in computer science four decades ago and no one will ever win that argument with me...because I am correct :D. All they do is follow instructions...

I have gotten into a habit of writing letters to my Mom with pics of my grandkids. She's in assisted living and visits were verbotten for a while. Now we can visit outside. I've realized though she doesn't remember much visit to visit. A letter with photos printed from my home computer of her great grandkids hopefully helps to pass the time as she spends way too much of it alone. Hopefully the pics will reinforce the fact she has family and remind her of who they are.

computer error rate is quite low, but non-zero - cosmic rays are one source, and - of course - the original bug was a moth

you're a software guy, I bet

usually it's human - true; and some bozo tries to escape responsibility by blaming an innocent machine

AI will fix THAT problem !!

Computers are nothing but fancy binary adding machines. Yea, in theory a computer circuit can get hit with a cosmic ray and have a error. But the software should catch it and fix the error.

Humans get hit with cosmic rays as well. On Earth is is not a issue to worry about.

Naw... the original "bug", and even modern hardware failures don't produce "errors", they cause "crashes". Even "bit polarity errors" are detected and corrected... except when CD audio is involved....

Renember our discussion on that eons ago ;)

And computers are not "binary adding machines" either Glen.

Computers just do what they are instructed to do....nothing more, nothing less.

It's not voodoo .... no do do :D