Comments on: Young people and the net net http://www.daveswhiteboard.com/archives/81 Dave Ferguson's interests, ideas, notions, tangents Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:43:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Dave http://www.daveswhiteboard.com/archives/81/comment-page-1#comment-614 Dave Sun, 13 May 2007 14:59:51 +0000 http://www.daveswhiteboard.com/archives/81#comment-614 I loved the photo, too, Harold. And after reading your comment, I went back to Flickr and looked closely at the large-size original (which the photographer apparently scanned from a calendar). The <i>backs</i> of the chairs don't look very ergonomic, but the seats swivel to change the height, and the rung near the bottom allows each operator to rest her feet. (I also like the drinking-horn microphone the supervisor is wearing; in the large photo, you can see several of the operators using them as well.) This morning the photo seems to me like an X-ray of connectivity. By 1950 phones were like the atmosphere: pervasive, unnoticed. Everybody had one, everybody expected to find one when needed, local calls were inexpensive enough that you didn't think at all about the cost. Here we're looking behind the curtain; what's integrating the circuits is human effort. The caption reads "Toll Room operators at work, 1950s," so these operators work on toll calls -- costs you <i>did</i> think about. The world was being knit together, stitch by stitch, and this is one glimpse of the needles in action. I loved the photo, too, Harold. And after reading your comment, I went back to Flickr and looked closely at the large-size original (which the photographer apparently scanned from a calendar). The backs of the chairs don’t look very ergonomic, but the seats swivel to change the height, and the rung near the bottom allows each operator to rest her feet. (I also like the drinking-horn microphone the supervisor is wearing; in the large photo, you can see several of the operators using them as well.)

This morning the photo seems to me like an X-ray of connectivity. By 1950 phones were like the atmosphere: pervasive, unnoticed. Everybody had one, everybody expected to find one when needed, local calls were inexpensive enough that you didn’t think at all about the cost. Here we’re looking behind the curtain; what’s integrating the circuits is human effort.

The caption reads “Toll Room operators at work, 1950s,” so these operators work on toll calls — costs you did think about. The world was being knit together, stitch by stitch, and this is one glimpse of the needles in action.

]]> By: Harold Jarche http://www.daveswhiteboard.com/archives/81/comment-page-1#comment-611 Harold Jarche Sun, 13 May 2007 11:28:56 +0000 http://www.daveswhiteboard.com/archives/81#comment-611 Love the photo. My how we've changed in our use of communication technologies. Are those ergonomic chairs? Love the photo. My how we’ve changed in our use of communication technologies. Are those ergonomic chairs?

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