hard-boiled

August 10th 2011

AT&T’s ‘Long Distance!’ (1941)

The Prelinger Archives is a vast and wonderful collection of “ephemeral” films: documentaries, educational films, advertisements, and industrial footage, all in the public domain. Rick Prelinger, founder of the Archives, shares one of his favorites, a promotional film for AT&T, made in 1941. Although the first lasting transatlantic cable was laid in 1866, it’s not hard to feel a thrill as the film’s narrator compares the expansion of AT&T’s network to the explorers who made their way to the American west.

Rick Prelinger: Long Distance! is a hymn to the combined efforts of communication engineers and the “alert young women” who provide the “watchful feminine presence at the switchboard.”

This video is both fascinating and a riot. Read more at The Atlantic.

Posted at 11:26am and tagged with: video, tech, black and white, history, at&t, long distance,.

December 28th 2009

Top 7 Disruptions of the Year

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I agree with most of the ones listed but augmented reality as one of the top 7? I don’t think it is ready for wide use yet. I’d call it more proof of concept than “disruption.”

Maybe next year.

Posted at 10:47am and tagged with: wired, disruptions, tech,.

July 22nd 2009

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A Facebook message from a former coworker that I haven’t seen or heard from in nearly 2 years

Posted at 8:00am and tagged with: facebook, tech, support, email, mac, Genius, Bar,.

“

I know this is the most annoying thing ever… because people do it to me all the time, but this is just how life is when you are a super tech whiz and you should just accept it and do your part to help the less fortunate, less competent common people of the world. Like those whose os x is corrupt and will not boot up and will not mount on another machine in target disk mode, but they MUST save their data, and they know it’s there somewhere, but when trying to archive and install it said I MUST erase and install, and have no idea what else to try and don’t know anything about tech tool pro except how to download it from pirate bay and request desperate favors out of the blue from people who barely liked me in the first place after years of silence and have a SERIOUS problem with run on sentences and if you ignore me I will know you’re ignoring me because even though you haven’t updated your picture or your quote in a very VERY long time, I am still your friend and can still see your status updates and know you are alive and still as sarcastic as ever and don’t we at least have THAT in common so what do ya say old pal, I’ll do anything and I know you know I mean that when I say it and if you say make a Genius Bar appointment I might have an aneursym and I have no idea what to do…

”

June 8th 2008

Keyboard Jeans

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I think my girlfriend and my family would disown me if I wore these, but come on. You know you would like to try them. There is more information over on Bruce Sterling’s site (here).

I do like the idea of integrating already widely used devices into a more accessible medium, but I am sure this is going a bit too far for many people. Not me though, I would try these out, with pride.

Posted at 7:29pm and tagged with: Erik De Nijs, keyboard, jeans, tech, wired, sterling,.