Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by TRiG_Ireland » Sat, Oct 19, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

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.

I found it fairly transparent, maybe because I've read more than one novel in that setting.

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

#62

Post by TomatoCo » Sat, Oct 19, 2024, 10:49 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #59

KineticLensman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All that with slide rules, typewriters, mimeographs, and filing cabinets. Well they did have radios, telephones and radar as well. The fire control systems of battleships and anti-aircraft guns led to massive advances in distributed analogue computing that provided early insights into human/machine interactions as well as the beginnings of system-level architecting. The Brits during the Battle of Britain exploited…

Everyone reading this right now needs to check out this 1950s naval training video on the mechanical fire control computers of battleships: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4 For fun, before you watch, think for yourself how you'd implement addition, multiplication, squaring, etc. with only gears and other mechanisms.

It's amazing what you can do with just gears, cams, and levers. Project-Rho provides a quick survey of mechanisms. https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/astrodeck.php#...

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

#63

Post by etcd » Sat, Oct 19, 2024, 10:54 PM UTC

cut3 wrote: post #23

etcd wrote: post #4

The waker uppers are up all night. Were there no alarm clocks at all? Can't a grandfather clock wake the waker upper?

Clocks were expensive.

One should be enough to wake a million people, with fan out.

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

#64

Post by d0gsg0w00f » Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 1:09 AM UTC

gerdesj wrote: post #58

aivisol wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NTP server.

I configured timesync (using NTP) for the GWR office networks many years ago. Some years later I used theirs to act as a stable source for Scotrail's office network too. As I'm sure we all know here: The four horsemen of the IT apocalypse are NTP, DNS and BGP.

Who's the fourth horseman? Or did I miss a joke?

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

#65

Post by dyauspitr » Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 2:15 AM UTC

markx2 wrote: post #27

Time related: "Elizabeth Ruth Naomi Belville (5 March 1854 – 7 December 1943), also known as the Greenwich Time Lady, was a businesswoman from London. She, her mother Maria Elizabeth, and her father John Henry, sold people the time. This was done by setting Belville's watch to Greenwich Mean Time, as shown by the Greenwich clock, each day and then "selling" people the time by letting them look at the watch and adjust…

People got to have such idyllic jobs back then. Drive into town, then go set some watches. Are there any idyllic jobs left in the modern world?

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

#66

Post by sriram_malhar » Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 2:27 AM UTC

And to this day, being knocked up is a wake up call!

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

#67

Post by madaxe_again » Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 6:15 AM UTC

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #47

oersted wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta love british boarding school jargon. In the 90s no less! Sounds like 18th century.

My school still exists: founded in 15xx. Fags still fagging in '24.

Bloody red-bricks. My school had its 1400th anniversary while I was there.

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

#68

Post by fdb345 » Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 6:20 AM UTC

[dead]

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

#69

Post by Loughla » Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 6:34 AM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #20

My mom used to do this with a spray bottle.

I wake my children up by turning off the fans/white noise machines they may use and then gently rubbing their backs while whispering things like, "time to wake up buddy."

This is in direct response to my parents' preferred method of waking us up during my childhood of a cold cup of water thrown onto your sleeping body if you were not awake in time.

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

#70

Post by xanderlewis » Sun, Oct 20, 2024, 8:37 AM UTC

hallway_monitor wrote: post #32

lsaferite wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It’s listed on that page as a synonym for toil or drudgery. So basically a chore is a fag. It seems like the definition you mention is likely the origin of today’s gay pejorative.