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Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

bbc.com

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Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#11

Post by nick3443 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #3

A hangover from this, mid-late 90’s boarding school in the U.K., one of the fags (household duties for first and second years - one-on-one fagging no longer officially existed, but did) was knocking up. Just comprised walking the corridors and banging on everyone’s doors at 7:00-7:15 (seniors later, head of house last), as the bells weren’t audible in much of the house. It was a doss fag - by mutual agreement we came…

Ah pledging/hazing, a double edged sword. A possibility for camaraderie and mentorship which is often misused for abusive and degrading activities. I went through pledging/hazing in a college fraternity in the US and it was mostly harmless if immature and crass, but for activities or challenges involving alcohol I could see it easy to go overboard especially at fraternities with a more macho/party reputation or with the wrong people involved.

Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#12

Post by oersted »

mk_stjames wrote: post #5

The last time I read about this I kept wondering how many times the person accidentally broke a window pane with the big long stick. Some of the houses were already 80+ years old at that point, and I've lived in houses with original window glass from pre-1900 - just single pane, wavy, very thin glass. You could breathe on them wrong and break a pane. I'd never have trusted myself to with a 3 meter long stick to poke…

He seems quite gentle in the video, he uses the windowsill as support and just vibrate the thin stick a bit.

The pea shooter method looks quite fun :)

Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#14

Post by jefffoster »

mk_stjames wrote: post #5

The last time I read about this I kept wondering how many times the person accidentally broke a window pane with the big long stick. Some of the houses were already 80+ years old at that point, and I've lived in houses with original window glass from pre-1900 - just single pane, wavy, very thin glass. You could breathe on them wrong and break a pane. I'd never have trusted myself to with a 3 meter long stick to poke…

Interestingly they used to attach a sponge to the end. You might think that was because it doesn’t break the glass, but really it was to ensure the nearby houses don’t get woken up for free!

Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#15

Post by espadrine »

At this week’s dotAI conference, Ines Montani (who works on the SpaCy project) highlighted this ex-job as a warning to AI builders, so that they do not work on systems that have no future, because better and cheaper alarm clocks (for knocker-uppers) are coming.

In particular, she saw chatbots as being an inefficient user interface that would eventually be replaced by better integration between assistants and conventional UI.

Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#16

Post by keiferski »

The philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford argued that the origin of modern industrial machines goes back further than the Industrial Revolution and Renaissance, all the way back to the regimented and time-based lives of medieval monks. Knocker uppers seem like a direct obvious example of this phenomenon of humans as proto machines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford

https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.psu.edu/dist/f/153578/fi...

As a funny personal note: one of my ancestors actually had the last name (Polish budzik) translated as “alarm clock,” which I assume means they had a similar sort of job as knocker uppers. I couldn’t find any equivalent last names in English though.

Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#17

Post by lsaferite »

ahoka wrote: post #9
madaxe_again wrote: post #3

A hangover from this, mid-late 90’s boarding school in the U.K., one of the fags (household duties for first and second years - one-on-one fagging no longer officially existed, but did) was knocking up. Just comprised walking the corridors and banging on everyone’s doors at 7:00-7:15 (seniors later, head of house last), as the bells weren’t audible in much of the house. It was a doss fag - by mutual agreement we came…

I find it fascinating that I don’t understand a sentence of this.

In this case 'fag' seems to follow the definition: an English public-school boy who acts as servant to an older schoolmate

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fag

Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#18

Post by zinckiwi »

ahoka wrote: post #9
madaxe_again wrote: post #3

A hangover from this, mid-late 90’s boarding school in the U.K., one of the fags (household duties for first and second years - one-on-one fagging no longer officially existed, but did) was knocking up. Just comprised walking the corridors and banging on everyone’s doors at 7:00-7:15 (seniors later, head of house last), as the bells weren’t audible in much of the house. It was a doss fag - by mutual agreement we came…

I find it fascinating that I don’t understand a sentence of this.

Recommend Roald Dahl's "Boy" for a fascinating glimpse.

Re: Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

#19

Post by cut3 »

jefffoster wrote: post #14
mk_stjames wrote: post #5

The last time I read about this I kept wondering how many times the person accidentally broke a window pane with the big long stick. Some of the houses were already 80+ years old at that point, and I've lived in houses with original window glass from pre-1900 - just single pane, wavy, very thin glass. You could breathe on them wrong and break a pane. I'd never have trusted myself to with a 3 meter long stick to poke…

Interestingly they used to attach a sponge to the end. You might think that was because it doesn’t break the glass, but really it was to ensure the nearby houses don’t get woken up for free!

Interesting solution to limit to one device or household.
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