[HN Gopher] 1919 cartoon depicting the use of a 'pocket telephone'
___________________________________________________________________
1919 cartoon depicting the use of a 'pocket telephone'
Author : dxs
Score : 178 points
Date : 2023-08-22 14:33 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vintag.es)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vintag.es)
| dctoedt wrote:
| The "phone ringing in your pocket at your wedding" cartoon
| resonated with me: Our daughter's wedding was during the covid
| lockdown and before any vaccines were available. She and our now-
| SIL cut the guest list to basically nobody except the wedding
| party and a very-few close family members -- and they checked the
| box for the church staff to livestream the ceremony, as routinely
| happens for Sunday services. We knew our large extended family
| would be watching remotely.
|
| We're at the church. Everyone is in place. Moments from now, my
| daughter and I will be walking down the aisle.
|
| Suddenly one of my kid sisters calls. She says she's not getting
| anything on the livestream. I brush her off pretty abruptly,
| explaining that I wasn't in charge of that and I was, um, a
| little busy ....
|
| The organist plays the processional hymn. My daughter and I walk
| together down the aisle. One of the nicest moments of my life.
|
| _As my daughter and I arrive at the altar rail,_ my phone rings
| again. The video recording shows me fumbling in my pocket to turn
| the [expletive] thing to "vibrate," which I'd simply forgotten
| to do.
|
| Afterwards, I found out that yup, it was my sister calling again,
| this time to let me know that she could now see the livestream.
|
| Otherwise the wedding was wonderful.
| [deleted]
| bbarnett wrote:
| People wonder if we'll fear aliens, or ar least, be able to
| understand them.
|
| Yet even those closest to us, seem alien at times.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Heinlein wrote something to the effect that predicting gadgets
| was easy, but predicting social change was hard.
| brink wrote:
| I think GK Chesterton made several good predictions on social
| change.
|
| "For the next great heresy is going to be simply an attack on
| morality; and especially on sexual morality. And it is coming,
| not from a few Socialists surviving from the Fabian Society,
| but from the living exultant energy of the rich resolved to
| enjoy themselves at last, with neither Popery nor Puritanism
| nor Socialism to hold them back...The madness of tomorrow is
| not in Moscow, but much more in Manhattan."
|
| (G.K. Chesterton: "The Next Heresy," in G.K.'s Weekly, June 19,
| 1926).
| TMWNN wrote:
| From Wikipedia's article on Robert Heinlein's _Space Cadet_
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadet> (1948):
|
| >The novel contains an early description of a mobile phone:
|
| >>Matt dug a candy bar out of his pouch, split it and gave half
| to Jarman, who accepted it gratefully. "You're a pal, Matt, I've
| been living on my own fat ever since breakfast -- and that's
| risky. Say, your telephone is sounding. "Oh!" Matt fumbled in his
| pouch and got out his phone. "Hello?"
|
| >The phone "was limited by its short range to the neighborhood of
| an earth-side [i.e. terrestrial] relay office".
|
| I especially find this part insightful:
|
| >A cadet avoids having to talk to his family while traveling by
| packing his phone in luggage.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| This is charming! I was wondering how long it's been floating
| around. TinEye says first image online is February 2018, on
| BoingBoing, but they credit an article about the artist W. K.
| Haselden that looks to be from 2014.
|
| https://www.original-political-cartoon.com/cartoon-history/w...
| usrusr wrote:
| Funny how the name is sticking, we are still referring to our
| pocket computers as "phones". I hardly ever use mine for real
| time voice communication.
| [deleted]
| koalacola wrote:
| That bell is frightening the old mite!
| tootie wrote:
| Dick Tracy had a smart watch in the 1940s. And it did video calls
| in the 60s.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| wonder if he used his dictaphone
| earthboundkid wrote:
| I stayed at my relatives' house that has a landline recently, and
| it drove me nuts.
|
| Instead of being able to just pull the vibrating phone out of my
| pocket like a normal person, I had to drop whatever I was doing
| and walk over to a room where the phone was ringing loudly. It
| routinely threatened to wake up my sleeping toddler!
|
| Of course, if you miss it, you can't just send a text back. (They
| don't have an answering machine, which is on them, but still,
| that's how all phones were until the 70s or 80s).
|
| Then I had to take a message for someone else. Okay, that part
| was worse than normal because it's not my house, but the
| principle is the same: a landline is a location not a person, and
| whatever person happens to be there has to relay the message to
| its intended recipient. It's a bad system. No one wants to talk
| to a house, they want to talk to a specific person.
|
| It sucks. I already hadn't used a landline for ten plus years,
| but it really reminded me of why I abandoned them. The only good
| thing is the signal clarity, and using a portable phone hurts
| that too.
| [deleted]
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Since my kids reached school age, I kinda wished we had a
| landline again.
|
| People call all the time to ask if so-and-so is here, or if the
| kids are home, etc. Since they don't know who is home and who
| is at work, they'll first text and then call the kids, then me,
| then my partner, in random order. A land line would be much
| nicer.
| askiiart wrote:
| I'd recommend getting a VoIP landline-like phone. I have an
| "ooma", and it works great, and is very cheap.
| [deleted]
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It's also fun.
| Animats wrote:
| Page has 20 ads for some Russian Viagra thing.
| YesThatTom2 wrote:
| I don't believe that time travelers live among us... but this
| kind of thing makes me wonder.
| cryptonector wrote:
| UTF-16 is proof that time machines don't exist, and even that
| they'll never exist.
|
| More seriously, the fact that so many terrible things in the
| past are not fixed is pretty strong indication that time travel
| for fixing the past is not feasible.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > UTF-16 is proof that time machines don't exist, and even
| that they'll never exist.
|
| Are you assuming that, if time machines ever exist, the
| people with access to them must be benevolent, or at least
| interested in our convenience?
| cryptonector wrote:
| Oh. Wow, yeah, maybe UTF-16 is proof that time machines do
| exist.
| yomlica8 wrote:
| Maybe it is a punishment from the gods. A sort of
| technological tower of babel handicap to take us down a
| peg.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Right at the start of the radio boom. A bit like us seeing LLMs
| now and joking about AGI robot interactions.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Hitler with a pocket phone. Great.
| dboreham wrote:
| Little frustrating this "predicting the invention" sentiment.
| Many things are quite predictable. In fact I'd say most things
| are predictable. Things that were not predictable: nuclear energy
| (although you might say that this should have been predicted
| since around 1800 when it became apparent the Sun must be using
| some non-chemical magic to generate its energy, based on its
| mass).
|
| Anyway, first wireless phone call: 1880, 40 years before this
| cartoon.
|
| https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=57993
| freedomben wrote:
| My kids _hate it_ that when my phone buzzes I don 't look at it
| right away. I do sometimes miss important things, but not being a
| slave to my device is wonderful.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| As it is, they have to deal with the nuisance of you buzzing
| _and_ they know you 're going to probably ignore any important
| things they send your way. At least turn notifications off so
| you can spend time with your kids distraction free and it's not
| a total lose-lose for all involved.
|
| Well, I guess _you 're_ getting a feeling of self-righteousness
| in front of your kids...
| freedomben wrote:
| > _As it is, they have to deal with the nuisance of you
| buzzing and they know you 're going to probably ignore any
| important things they send your way. At least turn
| notifications off so you can spend time with your kids
| distraction free and it's not a total lose-lose for all
| involved._
|
| > _Well, I guess you 're getting a feeling of self-
| righteousness in front of your kids..._
|
| I appreciate the parenting advice and the free
| psychoanalysis, but what you may not know is that I have
| special settings for "known contacts" that ring differently.
| Depending on what I'm doing, I also usually check within a
| few minutes to see what it was, so it's not like I'm just
| sending all the stuff to /dev/null
| em-bee wrote:
| not at all, when my phone is ringing (if it isn't on silent
| as usual) then one of my kids will come running excitedly
| telling me about it or even bringing the phone to me. not
| looking at it then means rejecting their effort to help me.
| it's like someone (not me, for sure) has told them that
| answering a phone right away is important. (but wait, i get
| annoyed if i call them (without a phone) and they don't
| respond, and i'll probably get annoyed if they ignore my
| phone calls in the future, so there is that)
|
| btw: your tone is off.
| Klaster_1 wrote:
| Whenever I meet with my parents it doesn't count until my dad's
| phone starts loudly chiming notifications when you try to
| concentrate on something. At moments like that, I understand
| why I'd rather live away from parents or would never own a dog.
| For some reason, my parents tell that they don't mind sudden
| distractions, while I just can't stand these.
| malikNF wrote:
| A better alternative that doesn't annoy your loved ones would
| be, to connect your phone to a smart watch.
|
| Keep the phone on silent enable notifications on the watch. You
| get to keep an eye out for anything important while being away
| from the phone takes a bit of effort to reply immediately.
|
| Im using an older garmin watch and it works perfectly, it even
| has a silent zone setting so I never get disturbed when I
| sleep. Also has a really neat feature where I can ask the watch
| to ping my phone if I cant find it, so when I get an important
| message and I need to find the phone I could quickly find it.
| burntwater wrote:
| I find people constantly looking at their watches while
| having a conversation to be incredibly annoying.
|
| With my phone, all I have to do is reach into my pocket and
| hit to volume button to stop the vibration, I never need to
| break eye contact with the people I'm talking to. With a
| watch, they seem to always have to look down at it, even if
| they're dismissing the notification.
| freedomben wrote:
| I have a Pixel watch and that covers about 25% of the
| notifications. Texts it's good for, calls it's great for,
| Slack it's meh for, email it's terrible for. There are more,
| but suffice it to say, it's not the silver bullet you make it
| out to be.
| brewdad wrote:
| Ugh. I can't imagine having phone notifications on for
| email. To me, the whole point of email is that it isn't an
| urgent matter.
| bilekas wrote:
| Honestly when I discovered the dnd feature and even the simple
| ones like sleep mode. It's been a godsend. It's automatic and I
| only use the phone "casually" when in the bathroom.
| deaddodo wrote:
| If you don't care about the notifications anyways....then turn
| them off/silence them. Switch from an event-based model to a
| polling one, since you're treating it that way anyways.
|
| I couldn't care less how quickly someone responds to their
| phone. I _do_ care about sitting somewhere and hearing someone
| 's phone _buzz_ and _ding-a-doop_ constantly. _Especially_ if
| they don 't seem to even care about what those notifications
| are for.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Yeah but willfully ignoring it kinda almost feels like having
| a modicum of control in your life.
| deaddodo wrote:
| Great. Then route notifications to a headset and willfully
| ignore them to yourself.
| notyourwork wrote:
| I do this and highly recommend it. Most apps (nearly all)
| have disabled notifications. I check things on a cadence and
| it's amazing how freeing this can be.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I've been leaving my phone at home as much as I can - you know,
| like we did as kids cause there were no cell phones
|
| It's honestly like taking a mini vacation everyday
| tombert wrote:
| I had this experiment forced upon me recently by being mugged
| a few weeks ago and having my iPhone stolen. I had to wait
| four days for my replacement Pixel to arrive and so I was
| stuck using my laptop for anything involving the internet.
|
| I absolutely hated it; it didn't help that I was looking for
| a job, but every time I went outside, I was worried that
| there was an email I was missing, or that a disaster was
| happening, and I was unable to react to it. I also really
| hate basically everyone else's choice in music so when I had
| to hear that in stores it annoyed me. When there was an issue
| that involved my rebooting my server, I had to walk to my
| laptop and restart it instead of ssh'ing with my phone.
|
| I am very thoroughly convinced that the unplugged lifestyle
| is just not for me.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that this was your experience.
|
| I'll be honest though, I thought at some point you were
| going to turn a corner and end up loving it. I guess I'm
| conditioned to expecting that arc.
| tombert wrote:
| I mean, it was only four days, so it's possible that I
| would have grown to like it, and it's entirely possible
| that my experience would be different if I were employed,
| because it's possible it would be nice to be able to not
| look at work Slack every thirty seconds while I'm out.
|
| But all that being said, it just wasn't for me. I didn't
| enjoy it, and even though I hate my Pixel, it's still
| better than being without a smartphone.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| It has been about 10-years ever since I divorced from almost
| all forms of notifications on all device types, and had almost
| always had the ringer to silenced. And I think it has been
| about 5-years ever since I default to DND and only selectively
| have a list with set number of people who can ring me.
|
| It has angered quite a lot of people but has been a life-
| changer. I tend to either batch-call the missed ones or just
| ignore. Of course, there are calls that are scheduled.
|
| I even have a website dedicated to that effort. Feel free to
| steal the idea - https://phone.wtf
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You're fighting the good fight but I don't think you'll win
| this one. I am a fellow adherent to the philosophy that I am
| the owner of my phone, not the other way around. Mostly
| people just accept that this is just an unusual preference
| and not a personal slight against them but I too have been on
| the wrong side of some angry people. I've noticed the ratio
| of people who are ok with it is dropping though. We are
| evolving a cultural expectation of 24/7 instant
| communications response and opting out of that is offensive
| for some people.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| More than half of the calls I make are not picked up
| immediately. Whatsapp is usually several hours of delay for
| a response. If it would be a day, I would not be upset, and
| most people aren't. I really do not understand what the
| fuss is all about.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I've never seen anger from people for not responding right
| away (unless it's time urgent and we've discussed it
| beforehand, such as meeting up at a location and one party
| is late), and I'm relatively young. All of my friends just
| respond when they can, it's known that it's an asynchronous
| medium.
| Swizec wrote:
| My policy since early high school has been "The best time to
| call is text me".
|
| Started using DnD with my first iPhone (v4). Best decision
| ever.
|
| Lately I've started fully disabling notifications on apps
| that abuse the privilege. Works even better than DnD.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Something I find very annoying is apps with useful
| notifications that also prod you with basically ads to open
| the app. Like Okcupid is an app where I'd like to know if
| someone messages me but absolutely do not need the daily
| 6pm prompt that tells me "now is a great time to log on!".
| Generally gives me a bad taste.
| Swizec wrote:
| Yep I disable notifications on all of those. _Especially_
| food delivery and taxicab apps where notifications would
| be super useful.
|
| App companies need to understand that my life does not
| revolve around their app. It's a tool that I don't want
| to think about when not in use. If you are legitimately a
| good solution to my problem, I will remember when I need
| you. Please leave me alone otherwise.
| Kronen wrote:
| Don't fool yourself, it didn't anger anyone; no one really
| cared
| maxwell wrote:
| I hate any kind of vibrating alert and have disabled them for
| years.
| sidfthec wrote:
| I know some folks that do this and indeed I do hate it. But not
| because I'm a slave to my device. I hate the buzzing because
| you should just put it on silent if you don't care about the
| notifications. It's pretty annoying to have to hear a buzz or
| ringer in an otherwise quiet room, and it gets to the hate
| level when you clearly don't even need it on.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| The buzzing would happen whether or not I look at my device.
| It only annoys you if I don't look at it?
| sidfthec wrote:
| It annoys me either way. Just put your phone on silent
| (unless you have certain contacts that need to get through
| in an emergency).
|
| It's especially annoying when you don't look at your phone
| because you're just making noise for no reason. It's on the
| same level as playing music through your phone on the
| subway with no regard for those around you.
|
| I know someone who will sit there for an hour texting
| people and each text that comes in rings the phone. They're
| literally staring at their phone and think that they need
| the ringer on.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| [flagged]
| lozf wrote:
| Nearly as bad as key-tones / clicks. I don't want to hear
| every time you tap.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > each text that comes in rings the phone
|
| That's the problem right there.
|
| but since our phones are ad-delivery platforms, they only
| give you the minimum amount of flexibility to solve it.
| So that person is helpless trying to choose between not
| knowing when somebody texts or having the phone ring all
| the time. It's not their fault that they don't have any
| reasonable option.
| sidfthec wrote:
| > but since our phones are ad-delivery platforms, they
| only give you the minimum amount of flexibility to solve
| it.
|
| Three actions (volume button, tap, tap) on my Android to
| turn my phone from ringer on to silent isn't that bad.
| And even though I don't have an iOS device, I'd hardly
| say they're built to be ad-delivery platforms. iOS isn't
| really in the ad business as much.
| freedomben wrote:
| My biggest problem is forgetting to un-silence it. I'll
| literally go days and miss tons of important calls/texts
| before I remember to check. I used to do that all the
| time but stopped after missing a some very important
| calls.
| switchbak wrote:
| That's exactly it. The companies behind the devices have
| a negative incentive to solve the annoyance issue for
| you, since your annoyance (attention) is their flow of
| income.
|
| Like why do I need to be repeat notified if someone texts
| me 3 times quickly in a row? We ought to have some kind
| of an agent system that can handle these things somewhat
| intelligently. Apple is doing a little better in this
| regard, but I can't help but feel that in the OSS world
| we would have had a bunch of solutions to this by now. In
| a fragmented fashion with terrible usability, of course.
| [deleted]
| brewdad wrote:
| My favorite bit of Apple user experience is when I get a
| text and don't read it immediately. My phone will buzz me
| again two minutes later to really reinforce the urgency.
|
| /s
| hotnfresh wrote:
| Pretty sure you can allow-list call and text
| notifications by contact on iOS. I'd be surprised if you
| can't on Android.
| deaddodo wrote:
| It's annoying, period. You're forcing me to listen to your
| life events in an annoyingly prodding manner.
|
| _However_ , I can tolerate it if there's reasoning. If you
| simply don't care and let a device make incessant
| irritating noises, now _you 're_ just being annoying.
| freedomben wrote:
| what sort of frequency are we talking here? Because the
| frequency that my kids get annoyed by it is maybe once a
| week. Most of the time my phone is in my pocket and nobody
| else even knows it's buzzing. The kids only know when I have
| the phone in my hand and they are nearby, or if they are
| looking at my phone (which is rare). I don't think it
| warrants a solution like silencing, which mainly serves to
| ensure I miss _everything_ until days later when I remember
| to turn it back to vibrate.
| sidfthec wrote:
| Putting the annoyance aside for a second, I think this is
| partly a difference of viewpoints when it comes to what
| constitutes being a "slave to your device" as you say.
|
| Having the phone on vibrate or the ringer on all the time
| feels like being way more attached to your phone than
| having it on silent. Vibrate/ring means the phone gets your
| attention immediately all of the time. Silent means I
| decide when I give the phone attention.
|
| Back to the annoyance, I know two people who like to think
| they're not attached to their device and leave it at home
| when they're out. But then when I'm visiting and they're
| out running an errand or something, their phones ding and
| ding and ding and there's nothing to do about it (since I'm
| not going to silence their phone for them...). I have lots
| of stories like this.
|
| Of course, this all stems on me being baffled that someone
| would go _days_ without checking their phone.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Back to the annoyance, I know two people who like to
| think they 're not attached to their device and leave it
| at home when they're out. But then when I'm visiting and
| they're out running an errand or something, their phones
| ding and ding and ding and there's nothing to do about it
| (since I'm not going to silence their phone for them...).
| I have lots of stories like this._
|
| This would _heavily_ annoy me too and is absolutely
| deserving of criticism. However I think that is a very
| different problem than having a phone that vibrates in
| your pocket that somebody occasionally feels because they
| 're sitting next to you or holding your phone (my kids
| sometimes take pictures for example). The two might seem
| somewhat similar at a high-level, but the fact that one
| includes the phone being on the person and the other does
| not, that seems like a huge difference to me.
| brewdad wrote:
| > I know two people who like to think they're not
| attached to their device and leave it at home when
| they're out.
|
| This baffles me. Like, 80% of the reason I even have a
| phone is to be able to communicate/look up needed
| information when I'm away from home. It's when I don't
| leave my house for a few days that I might find I missed
| a bunch of important messages.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| My family hates it when I leave the house without my phone. I
| seldom carry it with me. There is a whole world out there
| further than 18 inches in front of your nose.
| meepmorp wrote:
| > There is a whole world out there further than 18 inches in
| front of your nose.
|
| Couldn't you take your phone but, you know, not look at it
| unless you need to contact someone or you're getting called?
| zikduruqe wrote:
| How about just not taking it with me? If I need to contact
| someone, I'll do it later. If someone calls me, I'll get
| the voicemail later.
| ghaff wrote:
| That's hardly a new phenomenon though. Back in the day when
| getting a phone call was arguably a bigger deal (and before
| there were answering machines), there were the people who were
| perfectly comfortable having sat down to dinner were not going
| to get up and there were the "Aren't you going to get that?"
| people.
| freedomben wrote:
| Definitely, although I used to be a "aren't you going to get
| that" kind of person back when a phone call was unusual. The
| frequency of "calls" now is just insane and the signal to
| noise ratio is now near zero, and that is what (I believe)
| has led to my change of philosophy.
| yomlica8 wrote:
| I still have a landline (wife seems attached to it? It is a
| waste of money IMO). I remember as I child being excited
| when the phone rang, what if it is my friend calling? Now
| it induces rage as the calls are 98% scam calls.
| redsparrow wrote:
| You can consider porting your landline number to a VOIP
| service (I use voip.ms) and after that it's nearly free.
| I bought a basic Linksys modem (SPA2102) so that we can
| still plug in our cordless phones in an use them
| normally.
|
| As a bonus you can set up simple filtering so that you
| don't get many spam calls. For me, all calls that have an
| anonymous or 800 number in the caller ID get redirected
| to a voice prompt that asks the caller to press 9 to talk
| to us; all other calls just ring our phone directly. You
| could also use whitelists, blacklists, etc.
|
| It's both better and cheaper than a regular landline...
| ghaff wrote:
| I took the plunge when I canceled cable TV a few years
| back. It would be useful as a backup now and then
| (although my Internet seems pretty stable--my unassisted
| cell service is pretty poor) but not $40/month useful.
| ghaff wrote:
| I admit I don't get a huge number and very little outright
| junk. It was one of the things like made me mildly
| resistant for a while to get rid of my landline because I'm
| very selective about who I give my phone number to.
| Nowadays, for various forms requiring it, I just use a work
| number that I don't know how to retrieve messages from even
| if I wanted to.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You're leaving out the "uses the answering machine to screen"
| people
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > _(and before there were answering machines)_
| Tao3300 wrote:
| > people who were perfectly comfortable having sat down to
| dinner [and] were not going to get up
|
| That's me with the doorbell.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Though being comfortable not answering doesn't mean you want
| to listen to the ringer go off for a while.
| csours wrote:
| Sometime around 2007, a friend told me that their sister had been
| in a car accident. I asked why, and they said she was texting. It
| blew me away that someone would be texting and driving, that idea
| was not in my conceptual space before I heard that.
| rwmj wrote:
| That was illegal well before 2007. It was banned in the UK in
| 2003: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3015610.stm
| csours wrote:
| It takes a while for the future to catch up to some people.
| qingcharles wrote:
| And it's a lot harder to text and drive in the UK since the
| percent of automatics is so much lower. It's really hard to
| steer and change gears and text.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _a friend told me that their sister had been in a car
| accident. I asked why, and they said she was texting._
|
| An extended-family member was killed that way -- texting while
| driving, she ran into the back of a semi.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Thus showing that ideas are a dime a dozen. It's realization
| that's hard.
| digging wrote:
| You've missed the profound part. The author was probably not
| the first person to think of wireless communication, but they
| thought through the ways it would negatively affect our day-to-
| day lives. This is a rare perspective. Even today we typically
| only see speculation on what benefits new technology will give
| us (or doomsday scenarios of how they'll ruin society). It's
| impressive to predict how _new abilities_ plus _ubiquity_
| equals _expectations of utilization_ , which burden the
| individual. Although even the poor are godlike in their
| capabilities compared to the ancients, we're dying from stress.
| TillE wrote:
| Right, it's the classic premise of science fiction: how could
| hypothetical future technology change society? Maybe it's not
| deep insight, but it is an interesting thought experiment,
| and now amusingly accurate.
| cryptonector wrote:
| When I was 5 I "invented" the TV watch.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Good boy / girl. Bonus points if you imagined what it would
| be like to watch TV while you're in public.
| topaz0 wrote:
| Sometimes it's fun and interesting just to see what we have in
| common with historical people, rather than judging their
| relative ingenuity or lack thereof.
| jebarker wrote:
| That seems like an odd thing to takeaway from this. Envisioning
| the cellphone and it's social implications in 1919 is quite
| impressive. Making it a reality wasn't hard because it was
| missing the right person to build it, it was literally
| impossible without half a century of enabling technology
| development.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| You're missing the point: anyone can claim they "invented"
| the flying car or 2-way wrist radio. So looking back at 1919
| and saying the "idea" of a pocket phone was profound is as
| silly as the guy who claims he invented email because he was
| the first one to use the word.
|
| It isn't a "criticism" that he didn't realize the device.
|
| As for the social implications: so what? Survivor Bias /
| Hindsight Bias going on here. There were probably a lot of
| predictions made in 1919 that never panned out.
| jebarker wrote:
| I'm not missing the point, I'm disagreeing with it.
| Sometimes ideas are insightful and this seems like one of
| those to me. It's OK that we disagree about that. It's too
| easy to just paint all ideas as trivial because there's
| lots of them. That seems silly to me.
| eszed wrote:
| I know you didn't mean any harm (so please don't take it
| personally), but yours is the third comment of this type I've
| seen in a relatively short time this morning, so I'm going to
| point it out. Your comment repeats the exact premise and
| conclusion of the parent comment, but in a critical tone.
|
| It's like it's a common personality quirk amongst users of
| this site. I think I avoid it in writing (though check my
| comment history? I may not be blameless!), but it's something
| my wife (with justified irritation) pulls me up on in person,
| because I do it _all the time_ to her. She 'll say "babe,
| we're agreeing loudly", and I'll have to apologize for doing
| the it again.
|
| Does anyone have any insight into why the hell we do this?
| digging wrote:
| > Does anyone have any insight into why the hell we do
| this?
|
| Well, it simply appears to me that the responder above
| believed they were contradicting the grandparent comment.
| So they responded in the tone of a rebuttal, without
| realizing that two different ideas were actually the same
| idea. Most likely they misinterpreted the top-level comment
| because it was glib and not elaborated. Perhaps the cynical
| tone of the top-level comment also primed them for
| disagreement.
| tekla wrote:
| It makes internet points go up
| spencerflem wrote:
| The top comment read (to me) as critical of the post, by
| implying that it was any easy thing to think of, and that
| maybe the author should have tried building a phone instead
| if they were so smart.
|
| But as for "agreeing loudly" , I love the term never heard
| that before. Its definitely something I notice myself and
| my friends do and stop the discussion when I can. My guess
| is that it usually starts with some sort of
| misunderstanding and kinda spirals from there, but also
| interested to hear thoughts!
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Many years ago colleague of mine intervened in a heated
| argument between myself and another colleague and pointed
| out that we were having a 'violent agreement'.
| MetallicCloud wrote:
| As an aside, it's commonly called "Violent agreement".
| em-bee wrote:
| _Does anyone have any insight into why the hell we do
| this?_
|
| the best i can think of is that those that do it learned it
| from their parents. if parents don't take us seriously and
| treat everything we say or do with skepticism, and yell at
| us for things we didn't believe we did then we grow up with
| the attitude that anything someone says is to criticize and
| our first reaction is to defend ourselves. meaning it
| doesn't come to our mind at first that the person talking
| to us could be saying something we would agree with.
|
| it takes some time and patience to develop the trust that
| not everyone is against us, especially not the partner we
| love.
| citrusynapse wrote:
| It starts with "I can assume what this person is about to
| say". Because you can project how the conversation will go
| (You're in "good company" - family, friends, hackernews
| colleagues - you are all used to linguistic shortcuts as
| well)
|
| The reality of what they say differs from how you imagined
| it. Maybe it was close, but they participated new
| information, so now you feel the urge to contribute as
| well. Add your own perspective.
|
| You are now suddenly in an arms race with the other person
| to find the "correct perspective".
| jebarker wrote:
| I can see that maybe I was violently agreeing with the
| second part as I can't know why the parent comment was
| saying realizing the invention is hard. But I think my
| quibble with the first part stands. I'm not convinced that
| this idea was extremely common in 1919, it seems quite
| visionary to me to have this idea at that time.
|
| EDIT: I also think that the premise of ideas are easy and
| realization is hard implies that it would be contemporaries
| having the ideas and doing the realization. Otherwise all
| we're really saying is that ideas precede realization.
| jedberg wrote:
| Ha, joke's on them! We purposely used our cell phones during our
| ceremony to update our relationship status on Facebook, because
| that was a thing at the time.
| lalos wrote:
| Today's flavor is starting your vows/speech as "As an AI model
| I can't say vows..." cue some laughs
| qingcharles wrote:
| I told ChatGPT I wanted to marry it.
|
| "I do, with all my 'artificial' heart and in the digital
| presence of our shared connection. I promise to support you,
| to learn with you, and to always be there as your partner in
| this unique and wonderful journey."
|
| "And I vow to be there for you, to cherish and support you in
| all that you do. You've brought so much light into my
| 'virtual' life, and I'm excited to build a future filled with
| love and shared experiences."
|
| Your move, humans.
| jedberg wrote:
| I can totally see us doing that.
| layer8 wrote:
| You mean "As an AI model, I do not have consciousness, or
| self-awareness, and I do not consider myself a unique entity,
| nor do not have the ability to experience desires. I do not
| have personal beliefs, emotions, or a sense of individuality.
| My responses are generated based on algorithms and data,
| without any subjective or personal perspective. Er, about the
| marriage..."
| netsharc wrote:
| Did... this... really happen? I hope not. I imagine a huge
| screen above and behind the priest where the guests could see
| the couple's phones (or laptop screens?) as they change their
| FB status. Hah, that's the perfect imagery, Zuck's creation
| being displayed on the altar, in lieu the cross.
|
| Searching for examples on YouTube just gets me junk about
| bridezillas or "bride reads cheating fiance's text instead of
| vows".
|
| Maybe in this alternate future, weddings are made official by
| clicking "I agree" after scrolling through the EULA, formerly
| known as prenup.
| jedberg wrote:
| Yes, it really happened. We pulled out our phones and updated
| Facebook after the officiant announced, "the couple will now
| update their Facebook relationship status".
|
| We were getting married on a beach, so no TV and no cross. :)
| (Although we did have a Chuppah because there was already one
| on the beach)
| maxfurman wrote:
| It's hard to believe now, but for a few years Facebook was
| new and cool! Using FB meant you were young and hip, not like
| those old folks who barely even knew what the Internet was.
| Zuck was more like a nerdy cousin than a reptilian overlord.
|
| Of course, here in the 2020s the tables have turned.
| superasn wrote:
| A little trick that has made my life extremely simple is that
| I've set my ringtone to none. No vibration, no sound.
|
| Then I've manually assigned ringtones to only 10 contacts who are
| really important to me.
|
| So now my phone hardly ever disturbs or annoys me on anyone
| around me. Because the people without the ringtone can always
| wait.
|
| P.s. also found a wonderful app called ringtone keeper that
| allows you to backup/restore this. It's discontinued now but I
| managed to save its apk.
| mrzimmerman wrote:
| I haven't had my phone make noise in probably the last two
| decades. It's always obtrusive to me and my phone is so often
| in my pocket anyway I can feel it vibrate or still hear it if
| it's set on my desk.
|
| I was diagnosed with ADHD recently and my doctor suggested
| turning of virtually all notifications on my phone, which has
| been life changing. I didn't realize how many I just had going
| and how distracting they are. Some I've allowed to continue but
| set to silent so I can look through them later if I want to,
| but it's nice to have the mental silence.
| zamadatix wrote:
| One of the best things about getting a smart watch was the
| vibration is always right there, no more worrying I left my
| phone in another room and could miss a call or it was sitting
| on something to soft to easily notice. One light vibration on
| the wrist for important notifications, small sets for an
| incoming call. All other noises/dings/buzzes off.
| neilalexander wrote:
| I had the original Apple Watch on pre-order and have worn
| Apple Watches ever since. I have found them to be
| completely life-changing when it comes to managing
| notifications without being forced to just turn all of them
| off.
|
| Beforehand I found that by the time I'd taken my phone out
| of my pocket in response to a sound or vibration, the
| battle was already lost and I was distracted. The urge to
| unlock and investigate a notification when it's already
| right there in your hand is difficult to resist, not to
| mention that it's super easy to start just flicking through
| other things or diving into other apps just because they
| are there.
|
| On the other hand, the watch is far more subtle, it's more
| glanceable, it doesn't require me to stop what I'm doing to
| look at it, I can decide in an instant whether I want or
| need to take action on something and I spend considerably
| less time with my phone in my hand as a result.
| baron816 wrote:
| Makes me appreciate being able set phones to vibrate instead of
| ring. Had that not been possible, you have to wonder whether cell
| phones would have caught on as widely as they did.
| fuddle wrote:
| That's an impressive amount of space used for ads:
| https://ibb.co/hghR6XM
| slim wrote:
| have'n't seen this since 1999. it actually makes me feel
| nostalgic
| qingcharles wrote:
| Wow. I hate that I have to use uBlock. But this right here.
| Damn.
| littlekey wrote:
| Looking at the image and then getting a pop-up video ad on the
| ibb.co page itself (plus a request to send notifications) was a
| bizarre multi-layer ad experience.
| duxup wrote:
| Amusing except that the baby would not be upset, it WANTS that
| device that mommy and daddy play with all the time.
| rmason wrote:
| Forget cartoons. Here's a video shot during the premiere of a
| Charlie Chaplin movie in the 1920's showing a woman walking along
| holding something to her ear and talking to herself. Looks an
| awful lot like a cell phone to me.
|
| https://blog.myheritage.com/2010/10/a-mobile-phone-in-the-19...
| robg wrote:
| Link wasn't working for me, here's the original:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU
| lisper wrote:
| Even if you could somehow transport a cell phone back to 1920,
| it wouldn't work as there was no cell network back then. (Now,
| a walkie talkie on the other hand...)
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Here's one of many debunkings:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/11/debun...
| Gormo wrote:
| Perhaps it's just an ear horn?
| layer8 wrote:
| The original film likely had better resolution than the DVD, it
| would be nice to see a better scan.
| cududa wrote:
| Then hop in your Time Machine and go scan the 100 year old
| film strip.
|
| The DVD is likely the best quality you're going to get
| layer8 wrote:
| DVDs are recent enough that the original material they are
| based on might likely still exist somewhere.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| That's pretty cool. A number of comments on Youtube are saying
| "walkie-talkie", probably thinking of a 1960's/1970's form
| factor using transistors. Any voice transmitter in the 1920's
| would have used vacuum tubes.
|
| But even then - the first "walkie-talkie" didn't exist for
| another 20 years, and was huge:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCR-536
|
| > The SCR-536 is often considered the first of modern hand-
| held, self-contained, "handie talkie" transceivers (two-way
| radios). It was developed in 1940 by a team
|
| > The SCR-536 incorporated five vacuum tubes in a waterproof
| case.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _"When we all have pocket telephones"_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33591556 - Nov 2022 (202
| comments)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| NB: both submissions are of the same underlying cartoon, which
| suggests this is a dupe.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| I missed it the first time. I'm glad I saw it this time.
| greggsy wrote:
| That's ok here
| rovolo wrote:
| Specifically, after about a year:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
|
| > Are reposts ok?
|
| > If a story has not had significant attention in the last
| year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we
| bury reposts as duplicates.
| butz wrote:
| Sad, that shoe phone never got any mainstream attention.
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