[HN Gopher] Surveillance and the history of 19th-century wearabl...
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       Surveillance and the history of 19th-century wearable tech
        
       Author : lapetitejort
       Score  : 17 points
       Date   : 2024-11-15 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
        
       | lukan wrote:
       | "Another story in the Railway and Engineering Review included a
       | similar hack attempt by a Portland night watchman. Having
       | previously been caught mechanically rigging the button-pushing
       | work of his nightly rounds, the watchman was given a pedometer to
       | ensure that he was manually completing his work. Although this
       | use of quantum media -- media that count, quantify, or enumerate
       | -- to more closely monitor the watchman's activities seemed to
       | work for several nights, he was eventually found sleeping in the
       | engine room, having attached the pedometer to a piston rod"
       | 
       | Having worked briefly in security - I found it hilarious. Nowdays
       | it works by scanning RFID chips on the guarded areas with a
       | smartphone, so cheating here is way harder (I considered it of
       | course), it would have included hacking the work smartphone and
       | the surveillance software.
       | 
       | Either way - the other nightguards there complained a lot because
       | of their recent high raise in workload - which now meant
       | patrolling by car and foot for 2 hours, instead of 1 - then you
       | checked in all the points - and could sleep or play consoles for
       | the next 10 hours (or in my case programming on my projects), as
       | long as you could wake up if an actual alarm happened. So not
       | that much stress ..
        
       | storyinmemo wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchclock
       | 
       | I found the pre-electronic way of having a portable audit clock
       | that had keys attached to buildings with numbers that would stamp
       | the clock rather fascinating.
        
         | gerikson wrote:
         | It's weird that the Wiki article doesn't have an image of the
         | actual clocks, only of the stations.
        
       | lapetitejort wrote:
       | The article mentions that carriages had odometers, which I found
       | just as surprising as pedometers existing in that era. I'd love
       | to see more tech that we consider beginning in the 20th century
       | that is actually older.
        
         | syndicatedjelly wrote:
         | The loom and invention of punch cards come to mind
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-15 23:00 UTC)