5 ms·
I wonder if that explains the stereotype of old people licking their fingers to turn pages
by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
I wonder if that explains the stereotype of old people licking their fingers to turn pages
- phrenq 2y agoThat’s funny, I hadn’t thought of that. It very well might be true that turning pages is easier for people with more moisture in their skin.
- arccy 2y agoso books are not accessible: kindles are better
- kibwen 2y agoI'm unclear if this was intended to be sarcastic, but it's certainly possible for e-readers to be more accessible than books, at least for models that actually have physical buttons (and especially considering that e-readers can have zoomable text).
- dotancohen 2y agoI am actually reading this on an e-reader. I find it more accessible than either my phone or my desktop. And easier on the eyes.
- InsideOutSanta 2y agoAs far as I can tell, none of the current Kindle models have physical page turn buttons anymore, which is insane to me. Turning the page is the main thing I do on an ebook, having a button on the side is so much more convenient than touching the screen, I don't obscure what I'm looking at, and I don't smudge the screen.
- kridsdale3 2y agoThe BOOX Palma is an e-ink Android device (not a phone) that I run the Kindle app on. It has physical page buttons, and is better than any of the Kindle devices I've used. Also tunable ink speed and color temperature.
- freedomben 2y agoMaybe not accessible in the a11y sense, but definitely accessible in the "can read without DRM" sense. I'll take a book I can keep and read whenever and however I want to one that has to phone home and ask a giant corporation if it's ok.
- grues-dinner 2y agoGet a Kobo and install KoReader.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zxexz 2y agoYes this is very much the reason. It gets dry where I am in the winter, and it never occurred to me to do this. An older gent in a coffee shop once watched me try to turn a page, and enlightened me. I’ve met more than a few people who have a dedicated finger glove for turning pages :)
- buran77 2y agoWet sponges [0] for people counting money were a very common sight some decades ago before money counting machines and mostly electronic payments. Probably still being used just not so obvious anymore. Regardless of age fingertips will eventually get too dry as the paper absorbs all the moisture and flipping pages or separating banknotes becomes hard. For touchscreens dry fingers are also called "zombie finger" [1]. The screen registers the too minute change in electrical field as noise and rejects the touch event. Some sweat (but not too much) on the fingers makes all the difference. [0] https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sponge-finger-wet-money-damper-260nw-1276035634.jpg https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sponge-finger-wet... [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-finger-and-touchscreens/index.htm https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-fing...
- freedomben 2y agoI'm also in a dry climate, and even as a teenager I often had to lick my fingers in order to get the plastic bags at the grocery store open (I was a bagger so had to do it all day). Eventually we got smart and started putting wet sponges by the bags, which is also an amazing life hack if you have trouble turning pages.
- pndy 2y agoThat sounds more like a soft percussive maintenance
- kgwgk 2y agoOld people?
- MikeTheGreat 2y agoYes, it does. Source: when I was 5 I saw my grandmother, RIP, doing that and asked her about it. She explained that as she got older her fingers got drier, and now it's just easier to flip pages that way.
- mrkstu 2y agoIts also the only way I can open a plastic bag in the meat section of Costco.
- gessha 2y agoI was shopping at a grocery store and a lady saw me visible distraught by not being able to open a clear bag and she told me to touch some of the produce I’m about to pick up or the moisture around them. Never had the problem again. Thank you, random lady!
- hn72774 2y agoRubbing the opening side of the bag between your palms generates static and opens it too. Learned that from a meat department employee who saw me struggling one day.
- Moru 2y agoI used to do that too. But now the plastic bags are gone and there is these paper bags with slightly offset edges att he opening. Really neat invention, why didn't we do that before? :-)
- smsm42 2y agoRubbing and then blowing on it to enlarge whatever opening has been created usually works just fine.
- Tagbert 2y ago
- wruza 2y agoThere’s a whole “fingertip moistener [pad]” thingy if you need it often. Cashiers and secretaries often use them at work.
- thih9 2y agoOff topic, a dog’s wet nose also works. Surprisingly useful on walks, e.g. when a poop bag won’t cooperate in a critical moment and licking your fingers is not an option.
- Arrath 2y agoWell I'm filing this tip away for future use.
- girvo 2y agoThat is a genuinely useful tip, considering the circumstances I've run into! Don't _really_ want to lick my fingers while dealing with dog poop, but the bags are a pain to open sometimes
- konfusinomicon 2y agoexpert level dog poo management tip!
- eru 2y agoThe dog's nose is wet, because the dog licks it.
- loco5niner 2y agoDog poop is often also wet, and it's right there.
- wruza 2y agoExactly. You turn a bag inside out afterwards anyway, so the dirty part stays inside.
- 2y ago
- coldtea 2y agoIt's not a stereotype and it's not really a mystery. Licking or wetting your fingers for this purpose has been a standard practice across the globe, when people are dealing with turning pages (e.g. for accounting), counting tickets, coupons, paper money, etc. It was never just something older people did (except in the sense that the practice is not as common now, as people in the US and Europe don't need to do it that much anymore, due to changes like reduced use of cash, etc.). So, you might not have seen it since the need is mostly obsolete in most of the west, but it's still a thing elsewhere, and was very much a thing in the US and Europe too until a few decades back. So much so, that there were office gadgets made for this, basically a base holding a small sponge, that you would add water to, and use it to wet your fingers for counting/changing pages. They're still very much sold: https://www.amazon.com/money-counting-sponge/s?k=money+counting+sponge https://www.amazon.com/money-counting-sponge/s?k=money+count...
- TeMPOraL 2y agoI'm not stranger to licking my fingers when dealing with cash, or licking stamps and envelopes, etc. but the way some old people do it was always a little mystery to me. I'd see them taking a second or three to quite conspicuously stick their tongue out and slowly lick their finger every single time before turning a page or a banknote. I always figured it's just a force of habit, but they're doing it in maximum power-save mode, and are way past giving a fuck about how gross it looks to everyone around them. I never considered that maybe they really need to do it this way to keep their fingers moist. (That realization scares me, as it means I too might become an obnoxious finger-licker in a few years.)
- justinclift 2y agoMaybe a key chain instead with a moistened pad that doesn't easily go dry? :)
- TeMPOraL 2y agoHonestly, and in line with a reply upthread[0], fresh saliva may be more sanitary. I mean, it has some non-zero antimicrobial properties, plus it doesn't accumulate random stuff that could grow over time. Yeah, I'm starting to understand why old people may be past the point of giving a damn about the optics. -- [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42036400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42036400
- BlandDuck 2y agoI can also be used to poison people who read forbidden books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose
- denotational 2y agoI just finished reading this last night at 01:30; what a book!
- abakker 2y agoTruly an incredible work.
- ttepasse 2y agoI'm a little bit envious. Reading such a great book for the first time. I recommend re-reading it in a few years. Ecos books grow with you; the more you learn about the world and history, the more you'll find in nuance in that book. Maybe more true for me - as a teenager I've read it first as a mostly weird detective story. Later re-reads made me more interested in the weird parts. There is, by the way, a separately published Postscript to the Name of the Rose with some notes on writing the book.
- markman 2y agoI get it now: Jorge had laced its pages with poison, correctly assuming that a reader would have to lick his fingers in order to turn them. Nice pull.
- permo-w 2y agothat's for stickiness, this is for conductivity