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Installing a payphone in my house

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Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#271

Post by stevenjgarner »

autoexec wrote: post #259
stevenjgarner wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going through the grueling immigration process, Homeland Security eventually sits across the table from you, looks you in the eye, and asks "have you ever committed a crime for which you have not been convicted?"

I doubt there's a single person alive who could answer "no" to that question with certainty and still be telling the truth. What is the purpose of a question like that?

Exactly. It bothers me every day. It defines much of my self-image in being present in the US. I was confronted with that question in my citizenship interview, and more recently in my global entry interview. I know of many others who have been asked the same thing. I'm thinking "heck I drove 9% over the speed limit driving to this interview. They probably know that. When I parked the car, I jay-walked across the empty street into the building. They have that on video!". If I say no, if I say yes, either way I have committed perjury. All just because I wanted my slice of the American dream. I had a friend (deceased) who was a federal agent. He explained to me years ago that the US code is intentionally drafted so that EVERYONE is a criminal (sorry @ClumsyPilot, a "suspect"). If you are in compliance with one section of code you are automatically in violation of another. If the 3-letter agency wants to get you, they can ALWAYS get you. I'm not sure that I believe that. I'm not sure I want to believe that. But he certainly believed that.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#272

Post by blippage »

franga2000 wrote: post #113
AlbertCory wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. The old-fashioned telephone handset was a masterpiece of human engineering. I bet with state-of-the-art mic and speakers, it would still be way better than a smartphone for actual phone calls. Of course, I have to admit that my Bluetooth headset is pretty good, and a first-class gaming headset would be even better.

The mic and speaker in the 90s Iskra payphones are far superior in sound quality to anything you'd find in a cheap phone these days. I hooked one up to Discord last month for an art instalation and could not believe my ears when it sounded way better than the 3 other people in the call using flagship smartphones.

"The mic and speaker in the 90s Iskra payphones are far superior"

Someone made an interesting observation the other day: it used to be that you rented the phone from the telephone company. Those phones never broke. Now that you buy phones, they do. And the moral is: always look for the incentives. Or, put another way: follow the money.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#273

Post by payphonefiend »

barbs wrote: post #81

I always found it interesting that payphones could receive calls in America. Australian payphones can't receive calls (at least, not to my knowledge), and it always seemed like it would be ripe for abuse if they could.

You can 100% call Australian payphones. Last week I stood next one in the Sydney CBD and called it, it rung - I didn't pick up.

Here's a list with physical addresses and phone numbers. Enjoy.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/B15mu7h/Payphones/master/P...

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#274

Post by wildmanx »

hyperdimension wrote: post #212
duckmysick wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past you turned on your C64 and could start write away code, average Joe Teenager needs to install some IDE and pull in hundreds of NPM dependencies from shady places just to show a hello world. Or he could open a console in his web browser.

What about the kids in school districts that issue locked-down Chromebooks? They probably can't even do that! I, for one, learned how to bcdedit my way into booting from a .vhd on my school-issued laptop. And how to SSH tunnel on port 443 to get past the proxy. How LSPs worked on Windows. Messing around is how kids get their start in computers, and I couldn't agree with the parent comment more.

> Messing around is how kids get their start in computers

And, sadly, they tend to get punished for it, once it's found out.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#275

Post by wildmanx »

pwg wrote: post #196
duckmysick wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past you turned on your C64 and could start write away code, average Joe Teenager needs to install some IDE and pull in hundreds of NPM dependencies from shady places just to show a hello world. Or he could open a console in his web browser.

Or average Joe Teenager installs a Linux distribution, which then provides bash, perl, awk, Python, C, C++, often Tcl/Tk, etc. and usually includes one or more editors for creating source files. All without "pull[ing] in hundreds of NPM dependencies from shady places"

That's a lot of work just to show a "hello world".

The point was that it's hard to do it with the thing you already have. Of course it's easier if you just get a new thing -- which installing a new OS corresponds to in the software world.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#276

Post by entropie »

iancmceachern wrote: post #265
entropie wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not sure. My GFs blog is like in its 6th year now and every year its more visitors. Its not that much in internet terms (we are at ~700 visitors a day) but its serious content (dogs and science around dogs). No clickbaits, no cookies, no nothing.

Can younshare the Url? My wife would love her blog sounds like...

https://fluffology.de/

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#277

Post by hnbad »

ck2 wrote: post #268
hnbad wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie is infinitely better if you understand it within its real world context. The Wachowskis did not want to make another Matrix movie but the studio approached them and said that they would make the movie either way but they would be given full artistic freedom if they agreed. They basically had the choice of doing this themselves or letting the studio turn it into a soulless franchise detached from their own v…

They put their name on it. They made appearances. They took a huge paycheck despite already being millionaires and not needing it. So they own it as much as the 1st 2nd or 3rd. They did not have to do that. In fact it would have been an even stronger statement if every review of the 4th started off with "done without the original creators input or approval". But now the 4th has been done with the original creators in…

I don't disagree that they own it, but I disagree that it's a bad movie. I actually found the movie largely enjoyable even without its real world context, but I acknowledge that this is a matter of personal taste.

The Wachowskis not being involved wouldn't have affected the movie's commercial success. There are plenty of examples of "franchises" being carried on by different directors even in directions the original director never intended and to still be successful.

What the Wachowskis did was take a story that had nothing left to tell and then make a movie about the experience of having to keep adding to that story, drive home the point of the original story and provide an ending to the story that is impossible to write around without discarding the source material and starting over (not that that stopped e.g. Star Wars Rise of Skywalker from doing pretty much this with The Last Jedi).

The Matrix is intrinsically anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian and queer. But much of its fanbase likes it entirely for cosmetic reasons (cool slomo fights and explosions and sunglasses). WB would have been entirely happy to cater to that crowd and would likely have gotten away with it. Instead the movie ended up amplifying those themes and alienating anyone who just wanted another film with cool slomo fights and explosions and sunglasses. And IMO they did it in an interesting way nevertheless.

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#278

Post by barbs »

payphonefiend wrote: post #273
barbs wrote: post #81

I always found it interesting that payphones could receive calls in America. Australian payphones can't receive calls (at least, not to my knowledge), and it always seemed like it would be ripe for abuse if they could.

You can 100% call Australian payphones. Last week I stood next one in the Sydney CBD and called it, it rung - I didn't pick up. Here's a list with physical addresses and phone numbers. Enjoy. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/B15mu7h/Payphones/master/P...

Username checks out!

Wow, didn't know about this at all. Will be experimenting with these for sure. Thanks!

Re: Installing a payphone in my house

#279

Post by Breza »

jjeaff wrote: post #37
Mobil1 wrote: post #28

I found that if you had 2 adjacent pay phones you could make free calls by inverting the 2 handsets and placing the call on one phone, but putting your money in the other so the sound of the money dropping would make the operator think that you had paid for your call. Your money would be returned to you when you hung up the second phone.

Was it literally just the sound of money dropping that validated the call? Presumably this was before automatic switching and a live operator had to connect you?

Reminds me of this Seinfeld bit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/seinfeld/comments/4chcmp/seinfeld_e...

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