0 outgoing, nobody knows numbers anymore and even if you could look it up you won't punch numbers like its 1992.
With that said, amazing project. super cool that people can call in
Playa Phone
131–140 of 247 posts
Re: Playa Phone
#132The real-time stats on the website are fascinating. Did you set those up to satisfy your own curiosity, or to give remote callers a sense of "presence" at the playa?
A little of both. It was popular enough off of a Reddit post last year that people were hearing a lot of busy signals. I thought it might entertain some folks to see just how busy the phone has been in the last hour.
Re: Playa Phone
#133Burning man livestream here, still early and setting up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BgytKvsORM Page says it's on "Chomolungma" but it's "Ceiba" on the maps, just in case you can spot the phone on the stream.
Thanks for the report. Fixed.
I figured out where the bad street name came from; it's apparently a Google AI Search hallucination. It's apparently what I get for not clicking through to read the relevant page on Burning Man's site.
Re: Playa Phone
#134Is Burning Man fun? I got the rather cynical impression that it's mostly very well off tech people and even better off finance/political people. Not trying to be flippant, genuinely curious if my impression is based on reality or am I making things up.
I've been a dozen or so times, dating back to 1994. It's changed over the years - price has gone up, scale has gone up, and rules have become more strict. Not surprising when there are 70k people instead of 3k. Some people (fairly) don't like these changes. And some people like to badmouth things they've never experienced. It's still the best party going on anywhere in the world that week. Most people you meet are no…
I should add - if you want the "old school burning man experience" without big crowds and big expense, go to the exact same place for 4th of Juplaya. The art is smaller but still present; there are people who either got fed up with the bureaucracy, or are field-trialing their projects. You can go to the hot springs and explore the hills. Good place for dirt bikes, if you have them.
It's great both ways.
Re: Playa Phone
#135This phone is my project. I'm happy to answer questions.
Can you update the "did not answer" flow to, instead of six busy signals and hanging up, be the dialog to end of the Matrix (1999)? The film concludes with Neo talking into a phone booth phone to the audience and I think it would be fitting here as an Easter egg.
Yes, that wouldn't be hard with the normal voip.ms call routing.
But my intent was for it to be as visually and functionally identical as possible to a phone booth you would've found on a street corner a few decades ago, just in an unusual place (and free). I've avoided anything in the normal usage of it that would deviate from that.
Re: Playa Phone
#1360 outgoing, nobody knows numbers anymore and even if you could look it up you won't punch numbers like its 1992. With that said, amazing project. super cool that people can call in
It has changed a bit in recent years, but there's still only very spotty cell service at Burning Man. Enough people can figure out how to look up a phone number that this phone still dials out thousands of times during the week.
The bigger problem for this project is because of phone spam, fewer people will answer calls from unknown numbers, so a lot of those calls go to voice mail.
Re: Playa Phone
#137I always wanted to build a local mesh network of pay phones on the playa and call it Black Rock Telecom. Maybe 12 or more phones set on plazas. Geographically not being located in the US made this project tricky to realise.
Re: Playa Phone
#138No phonebooks there. Just a map. Oper-a-tor?
Re: Playa Phone
#139What do you even talk about on a phone call like this?
I have both intense social anxiety and FOMO. Knowing that this thing exists for a week and then no more is torture.
Re: Playa Phone
#140Is Burning Man fun? I got the rather cynical impression that it's mostly very well off tech people and even better off finance/political people. Not trying to be flippant, genuinely curious if my impression is based on reality or am I making things up.
Related: I co-founded Burning Man. The festival has lost its soul https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49494151
The cool kids went to Wasteland Weekend as of a few years ago. Don't know what the cool place is now.