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1919 cartoon depicting the use of a ‘pocket telephone’
- dang 3y agoRelated: “When we all have pocket telephones” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33591556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33591556 - Nov 2022 (202 comments)
- dredmorbius 3y agoNB: both submissions are of the same underlying cartoon, which suggests this is a dupe.
- greggsy 3y agoThat’s ok here
- rovolo 3y agoSpecifically, after about a year: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html 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.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoYeah, this is weak, not recent even, content tho from a spammy/listicle type site. Once in awhile fine, but every day? Nope
- dredmorbius 3y agoNine months would be less than one year. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668605>
- Name_Chawps 3y agoWhile we're citing the rules: > Be kind. Don't be snarky.
- dredmorbius 3y agoFor the record, given the substantial discussion, late notice, and fact that HN's mod had already engaged with the discussion without marking it a dupe, my initial point was largely advisory, and the issue mostly moot. I hadn't flagged the item myself. That said, I was commenting without any snark at all that discussions within a year are typically noted as dupe, linked a prior comment by dang which states this for an instance with an eleven month prior mention, and was simply stating that flatly and factually. You might want to de-tune your snark detector a bit.
- Tao3300 3y agoI missed it the first time. I'm glad I saw it this time.
- usrusr 3y agoFunny 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 3y ago[deleted]
- csours 3y agoSometime 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 3y agoThat was illegal well before 2007. It was banned in the UK in 2003: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3015610.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3015610.stm
- csours 3y agoIt takes a while for the future to catch up to some people.
- qingcharles 3y agoAnd 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 3y ago> 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 3y agoThus showing that ideas are a dime a dozen. It's realization that's hard.
- jebarker 3y agoThat 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.
- eszed 3y agoI 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 3y ago> 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.
- spencerflem 3y agoThe 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!
- jedberg 3y agoHa, 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 3y agoToday's flavor is starting your vows/speech as "As an AI model I can't say vows..." cue some laughs
- jedberg 3y agoI can totally see us doing that.
- layer8 3y agoYou 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..."
- qingcharles 3y agoI 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.
- netsharc 3y agoDid... 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.
- freedomben 3y agoMy 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 3y agoAs 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 3y ago> 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 3y agonot 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.
- malikNF 3y agoA 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.
- NelsonMinar 3y agoThis 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-k-haselden-1872-1953-memoir/ https://www.original-political-cartoon.com/cartoon-history/w...
- YesThatTom2 3y agoI don’t believe that time travelers live among us… but this kind of thing makes me wonder.
- cryptonector 3y agoUTF-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 3y ago> 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 3y agoOh. Wow, yeah, maybe UTF-16 is proof that time machines do exist.
- yomlica8 3y agoMaybe it is a punishment from the gods. A sort of technological tower of babel handicap to take us down a peg.
- zamadatix 3y agoRight at the start of the radio boom. A bit like us seeing LLMs now and joking about AGI robot interactions.
- baron816 3y agoMakes 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.
- rmason 3y agoForget 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-1920s/ https://blog.myheritage.com/2010/10/a-mobile-phone-in-the-19...
- robg 3y agoLink wasn’t working for me, here’s the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6a4T2tJaSU
- layer8 3y agoThe original film likely had better resolution than the DVD, it would be nice to see a better scan.
- lisper 3y agoEven 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...)
- hn8305823 3y agoThat'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 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.
- duxup 3y agoAmusing except that the baby would not be upset, it WANTS that device that mommy and daddy play with all the time.
- KerrAvon 3y agoHeinlein wrote something to the effect that predicting gadgets was easy, but predicting social change was hard.
- brink 3y agoI 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).
- koalacola 3y agoThat bell is frightening the old mite!
- tootie 3y agoDick Tracy had a smart watch in the 1940s. And it did video calls in the 60s.
- 867-5309 3y agowonder if he used his dictaphone
- fuddle 3y agoThat's an impressive amount of space used for ads: https://ibb.co/hghR6XM https://ibb.co/hghR6XM
- qingcharles 3y agoWow. I hate that I have to use uBlock. But this right here. Damn.
- slim 3y agohave'n't seen this since 1999. it actually makes me feel nostalgic
- littlekey 3y agoLooking 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.
- earthboundkid 3y agoI 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.
- newaccount74 3y agoSince 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 3y agoI'd recommend getting a VoIP landline-like phone. I have an "ooma", and it works great, and is very cheap.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- actionfromafar 3y agoIt's also fun.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- superasn 3y agoA 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 3y agoI 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 3y agoOne 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 3y agoI 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.
- dctoedt 3y agoThe "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.
- b112 3y agoPeople wonder if we'll fear aliens, or ar least, be able to understand them. Yet even those closest to us, seem alien at times.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- butz 3y agoSad, that shoe phone never got any mainstream attention.
- TMWNN 3y agoFrom Wikipedia's article on Robert Heinlein's Space Cadet <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.
- datavirtue 3y agoHitler with a pocket phone. Great.
- Animats 3y agoPage has 20 ads for some Russian Viagra thing.
- dboreham 3y agoLittle 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 https://www.hmdb.org/PhotoFullSize.asp?PhotoID=57993
- vjulian 3y agoWhen did “ting” become “ding” for the sound of a bell?
- Agraillo 3y agoSir George Thomson (Nobel Laureate) wrote a book "The Foreseeable Future" in 1955 predicting different things. But as I discovered there are another editions with revised texts (The 1955 edition is searchable in Google Books). After talking about the outcome of inventing germanium transistor (1955) or germanium and silicon Transistors (1957) he predicted the mobile phone. It is possible that a short-range ‘walkie-talkie’, light enough to be carried regularly, may in the course of a few decades replace a good deal of telephoning over wires. But what's interesting regarding the topic is that 1957 edition has the following line It is already in use for communication inside a large building, such as a factory, between members of the staff. If in course of time it is developed to cover longer ranges and a much larger group, one must hope that personal liberty will be respected to the modest extent of providing the wearers with a switch rejecting incoming calls if they want to be at peace!