Just gotta find a friendly middle aged white man and you can have this service for free
You carry around a universal translator, and a global atlas in your pocket. Leave me alone.
This is not the friendly middle aged man you are looking for
I lived in Chicago from 2004 to 2007 and NYC from 2007 to 2009 and I did not have a smartphone not even sure if they were around then. There was a number you could text the cross streets you were at and the cross streets you wanted to go to and it would give you step by step directions to get there with public transportation. I used it daily.
That looks like a map of Thy.
The hairstyle is a bit different today, but the technology is at the same level.
For a good time, call 1194.
This graffiti was seen, around 1993, in various toilets, referencing the national talking-clock service.
1194 == “On the third tone it will be 3:45 and 30 seconds, beep beep beeep.”
These still exist, except it’s not a number you call, it’s a shortwave station that you tune into.
Check out http://websdr.org/ if you don’t have your own. From there you can play with various shortwave radios from around the world. The first one on my list is my favorite cause it picks up a lot of stuff.
Specifically 5, 10, and 15mhz AM. There are others, but you’ll really hear NIST WWV/WWVH if you’re in North America/Pacific.
The irony being how much the standard quality of life has dropped compared to the people seen working in this photo. At some point, expect to be just another pest barely tolerated within the urban environment. For many homeless, that’s what they already are.
I disagree. It has changed and morphed. The weights have shifted, some parts have gotten better, while others have dropped. Overall, quality of life is better now than it was in 1960. Of course this is all immensely subjective and the viewpoint of a homeless person in Moskou cannot be compared to a family man working middle management in Los Angeles.
Yes, the quality of life is certainly better not being able to afford a home with two working couples and being forced to go into debt for decades… That’s why no one ever has any beef with boomers who regurgitate things like your comment.
Life being more expensive is one of the things that has gotten worse, but it is not the only factor that determines quality of life.
Think of medical advances. Many conditions aren’t an immediate death sentence now, like cancer or aids. Life expectancy has grown by a decade since 1960. Old people can be independant for longer. Women can vote and have rights. Black people don’t have to ride in the back of the bus. There’s tons of technological advances that make life better. The first one that comes to mind are video games. Ergonomics clearly wasn’t a thing back in the 60’s, judging from those chairs. There weren’t many other labour rights either, black lung was just a necessary evil.
Today’s financial landscape certainly sucks. It’s practically been a constant crisis since 2008. Life sucks. Always has and always will. I’m not denying that, there’s just nothing I or you can do about it. If life wants to fuck you it’s going to fuck you. Best you can do is enjoy the diner and the movie.
Medical advances do not matter if they make you bankrupt or you cannot get access to them. Living a longer life with worse power of acquisition is both a load for society and a drain on their longterm quality of life (nevermind how it depends on a system of infinitely increasing population growth). Women voting and blacks riding in the back of buses is a US thing, one that is regressing. Videogames are an improvement on the quality of entertainment, if you are going to judge that as quality of life put yourself in a tube and live in VR, Now we export black lung to raw goods providers in China and Africa.
You’ve lost a huge amount of power of acquisition, but at least even though those things you can acquire are on the cheaper side, there’s more and newer options to choose from. The loss of those jobs have consequences, even if they bring advancement.
Another one of life’s simple pleasures ruined by the government lizard overlords.
“Hot single navigators in your area waiting for you call – call now & let them guide you!!”
(I had a car on early 2000s in which the oem satnav lady pronounced the local names of towns kinda extra seductively)
here is a cool article on a few different jobs lost with photos https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/jobs-that-no-longer-exist/
my favorite is the human alarm clock and went and shot your window with a pea shooter to wake you up
I will still do this. What does an alarm clock cost? $500? $1,000? I’ll do it for half that.
I never ever heard of this, I don’t think it was a thing here, father always asked locals or already had a map he bought from a car magazine.
I’m getting Godzilla-nervous-system vibes from the front-most map, not gonna lie…
Haha that is a new way to look at roadmaps of the Netherlands, I love it
That’s a map of the NL, is it not?
France+Iberia in the background
How widespread was this? I grew up in the 80s/90s and pre GPS we just had a map in the car. I’ve never heard of such a hotline until seeing this post.
Yeah, it sounds like the kind of thing you could do but would pay out the butt for as a private service. Road map books and asking directions were my go-to.
Of course, post-internet but pre-GPS there was always mapquest.
Maybe a call centre operated by map producers, intended more for questions about routes and conditions rather than “take the third left” kind of navigation.
This still exists, at least in Mexico
“Se encuentra en méxico.”
“Muchas gracias!”
i can see this causing so marriage arguments
you should call the hotline John
I got this Margaret!
Sure we lost that particular job, but we also gained the job of driving around with a cam car collecting data. Then there’s who ever takes all those pictures and compiles them into street view. Sure its highly automated, but someone had to automate it…
Imgine what the hunters thought when they lost their jobs to farms.
Also rembered what community this was on after I typed all that out…
