It did take forever. Rotary phones work by sending clicks down the phone line that automation equipment listens to. If clicks came too fast the equipment wouldn’t understand it correctly. This was one of the big improvements the touch tone phone brought: it was much faster to dial. Instead of clicks each button generated a tone at a specific frequency and the automated switching equipment could interpret it much faster. At least some of the early phones had a switch to make them send clicks instead, in case the local phone company didn’t support tones yet.

I don’t really see what smart glasses bring to the table that aren’t pretty adequately covered by my smartphone and smartwatch. I can take a quick glance at my watch as a message comes in and easily ignore it when I can’t look. Simple tasks can be done from the watch; more complicated things I’ll want to get out my phone (or maybe even computer). The smartwatch is less obtrusive and likely has better battery life, screen, and intuitive interface. There are plenty of times when I would not want a notification popping up in my glasses. I continue to not want to use voice controls except in very limited situations, like driving my car.

I remember that when Google Glass had its initial failure with the general public they continued to have use for years in job-related roles. I can see augmented reality having use-cases there, but the more I think about it I don’t see any use-case for augmented reality in everyday life that really improves on what I can already do. Sure, it sounds cool, but the reality seems worse than what we already have.

As for the cameras, there have already been camera glasses for years now. The quality continues to improve but the use cases for them seem pretty limited. I like roller coasters and while some parks allow people to record rides with action cameras, many do not. I’ve seen some people using camera glasses to get around those restrictions. Still, “secretly recording videos in places that are restricted” has some clear legal and ethical risks.

Makes me feel positive about Crucial’s support, though

You also need to keep in mind that there were not nearly as many phone numbers back then. While today a family of 4 might have a cell phone for each person (especially by the time the kids are teenagers), in the 20th century most families just had one number for the whole household (and the earlier you go there might have even been just one actual phone in the house).

Acme has the added benefit of meaning “peak” so it could convey the connotation of being “best”

His real innovation was a less expensive method to produce milk chocolate (although this process seems to produce butyric acid which is an unpleasant taste in chocolate if you’re not used to it) and becoming the first mass-produced chocolate in the US. The Hershey Kiss was just one of many products he made.

No, do it sequentially. To dial 515-2400 you put your finger in the 5, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 1, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 5, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 2, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 4, drag it to the stop, then release. Next put your finger in the 0, drag it to the stop, then release. Finally put your finger in the 0 again, drag it to the stop, then release.

The story is real in the American Voices features but the commentary is satirical

Or, you know, don’t buy HP printers

//laughs in low battery

“l’ll give you an idea. Why as a pup, l myself fetched $30,000 on the black market. That was 1954 dollars. Now, for 50 grand, l’ll track him and l’ll find him. And the people that took him, l’ll kick their butts. No extra charge.”

I think in the US I’ve heard ETF/ACH transaction fees are usually around $2.50? It might be possible to have that apply across a batch, though, as in if you submit 10 payments to 10 different people as a single transaction it’s still just $2.50, or 25¢ per person. I’m only getting this from hearing accountants complain at companies I’ve worked with, so I don’t understand the details. But I’ve seen it pretty common with companies doing payouts to want to see a minimum amount before they actually send the payment, otherwise it’s not worth doing.

They can bring some nice benefits like remote starting in cold (or hot) climates, but there needs to be much better design to minimize the exploitability of these systems.

Are these AI? Or really terrible image compression?

Separately, bottom left looks like it would start a fire if they drive long enough dragging that wood on the pavement!

I haven’t seen one of these in a long time

I have off-and-on searched for alternative software for personal blogs that can be self-hosted and it doesn’t seem like there are many options anymore. The only ones I’ve seen are WriteFreely and FlatPress. Are there any other options you’re aware of?

I was an early adopter of Firefox 20+ years ago. It started going downhill more than 15 years ago and I bailed to Chrome when that launched. It really was better than Firefox at the time. Then Chrome got worse and I wound up back on Firefox, not because Firefox had gotten better in that time but because everything else had gotten worse than Firefox in the intervening time. Also, if going from 48% market share in 2009 to a barely relevant <5% in 2024 doesn’t count as a downfall I’m not sure what does.

This process has been underway since the project switched their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox. Early Firefox was lightweight with limited features and the idea that you would add your own as extensions for the features you wanted. Then it started gaining traction and the Mozilla developers started forcing features in that should’ve been extensions. It’s been downhill ever since!

I guess how new are you talking? I think this said it was based on the 2019 release, but I haven’t heard much about recent releases. Winamp 2 was the classic one most people remember. Winamp 3 was a rewrite that was supposed to be better under the hood but a lot of people didn’t like it, mainly for the new interface it seemed. They jumped to Winamp 5 (2+3) to restore much of the old interface while keeping the capabilities of 3. I never had issues with 5 and continued to use it through Windows 7. Haven’t used Windows much since then so I don’t know how it runs now. There have been very rare point updates since AOL took over and later sold it, mostly bugfixes.

Are you sure this isn’t a scam?