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Playa Phone

playaphone.com

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Re: Playa Phone

#161

Post by satvikpendem »

serf wrote: post #95
satvikpendem wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get what you curate. If the maintainers of Burning Man wanted to, they could ban those sorts of people from coming. But until then, expect that people will continue to do such things as my friend (and to be fair to him, he went half for the music and experience too, but he didn't willfully ignore the networking opportunities either, both can be true).

show me how to blend "radical self expression" with "carefully curated guest list" and make it work.

Just ban tech bros, not everyone's self expression is equally valid.

Re: Playa Phone

#162

Post by retired »

perarneng wrote: post #131

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

Is it possible that people don’t realize you can make free calls? Perhaps they think you need coins, which they don’t have on them.

Similar to interactive installations in museums. People are afraid to touch things in museums. You really need a big sign to tell them it is the purpose to play with it.

Re: Playa Phone

#163

Post by solfox »

aaron42net wrote: post #48

This phone is my project. I'm happy to answer questions.

How has it evolved over the years? Certainly internet access on the playa has gotten easier than when you first launched it. What was the first connectivity solution?

Re: Playa Phone

#164

Post by sebastiennight »

nilamo wrote: post #141
tucnak wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point if not to make it official? Otherwise there are no stakes, no benefit, and the whole thing would amount to cosplay, right?

What's the point of going to a murder mystery diner party, if no one gets arrested at the end?

I love how your idea of the failed murder dinner party seems to still include an actual murder ; the problem is only the absence of an arrest.

Re: Playa Phone

#165

Post by aaron42net »

solfox wrote: post #163
aaron42net wrote: post #48

This phone is my project. I'm happy to answer questions.

How has it evolved over the years? Certainly internet access on the playa has gotten easier than when you first launched it. What was the first connectivity solution?

I've had to replace the handset (mic and speaker) and the LEDs in the sign a few times since 2013, but I've mostly left the hardware alone otherwise except switching to Starlink in 2022.

Until then, it got Internet via Burning Man itself through what they call the "participant network", which they still provide: https://internet.burningman.org/

This consisted of setting up a Ubiquiti NanoBridge (then later NanoBeam) with their supplied config on top of a 20 foot tower aimed at the 60 foot radio tower near Center Camp. Sometimes they wouldn't provide the config or get the participant network running until like Tuesday or Wednesday of event week, it might at best provide 400kbit/sec total or have permanent 50% packet loss, or just be down for days at a time. It wasn't great.

I hear it has drastically improved in recent years, but I haven't tried using it.

Re: Playa Phone

#166

Post by sebastiennight »

cjflog wrote: post #118

This is a great project! I've been to Burning Man 10x and interactive projects are my favorite part. Also, if I may, for folks that might appreciate more phone-based spontaneity, I've built an app to revive the social phone call. It works like a bat signal. Light your beacon and it reaches all your friends at once. The first friend to answer connects 1-1 and every other signal quietly drops. Check it out at trybeacon…

That... is a great idea. Does the audio call go through your app? Or the regular network?

Re: Playa Phone

#167

Post by supern0va »

radley wrote: post #155
supern0va wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many out of 80k do you think are hanging out with a political operative and two billionaires?

Technically, all of them ;-)

I guess that means by living in Seattle, I also technically hang out with Bill Gates. Neat. ;)

Re: Playa Phone

#169

Post by bigfatkitten »

echelon wrote: post #72
aaron42net wrote: post #48

This phone is my project. I'm happy to answer questions.

This is amazing and has me wishing we had pay phones again. Maybe they could come back and offer "free" service in high-density areas and fund via pre-roll ads or something. But perhaps the culture of remembering phone numbers is too far gone and it's easy enough to find charging. Thank you for making and posting about this!

Payphones in Australia have free national calls.

Telstra, the formerly state owned incumbent telco is obliged under their universal service obligation to provide a certain number of payphones, but it costs more to collect the coins than the phones earn in revenue.

Re: Playa Phone

#170

Post by notatoad »

throwayay4929 wrote: post #7

Is 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.

>Is 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 sure what answer you expect to get here, on the forum hosted by the most noteworthy VC firm in silicon valley. the people why say burning man sucks now will usually say it sucks because of the ycombinator types

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