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

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

#71

Post by animal531 »

keiferski wrote: post #16

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.…

Following that train of thought back one can go all the way to the Roman Empire which used slaves as proto machines as you call them.

>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.

Surnames are funny, I always thought we had a cool one, but apparently it just means someone that lives next to a hedge.

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

#72

Post by mglz »

animal531 wrote: post #71
keiferski wrote: post #16

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.…

Following that train of thought back one can go all the way to the Roman Empire which used slaves as proto machines as you call them. >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. Surnames are funny, I always though…

> Following that train of thought back one can go all the way to the Roman Empire which used slaves as proto machines as you call them.

All the way to the deepest depth of history actually: Sumer and Elam left behind records of slavery and later on in Ur we find laws seting up a framework for slavery.

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

#73

Post by aaronmdjones »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #64
gerdesj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are only 3 hard things in computing: naming things, and off-by-one errors.

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

#74

Post by pinkmuffinere »

Loughla wrote: post #69
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.

I do the same —- I’m extremely gentle waking up my friends, because I remember all the shocks I’ve had from my brother’s abrupt wakeups

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

#75

Post by madaxe_again »

dTal wrote: post #56
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ironically, whoever was on knocking up used to get to lie in for the week. I need to know more about "mandatory milk at the same time" to understand this

Translation: It appears that milk was delivered to the dormitories first thing in the morning, after the same fashion as "the milkman". Distributing said milk was a separate duty from waking up the students, but occurred around the same time; both duties being on a weekly rotation. Therefore it was mutually agreed that the student on milk duty would also bang on the doors as he went, thus relieving the student on Off…

You underestimate the perversity of boarding school. The important thing is that you are woken - nobody actually checks that you got up, however, until your absence for assembly is noted. If you were good at wriggling into full penguin in 30 seconds while running down the stairs, you could sleep in until 8:38.

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

#76

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

morkalork wrote: post #39
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…

Coming from a north american public school, I can't imagine one's family paying large sums of money to send you to a boarding school... just to be some older boy's servant. Get your own ass up, or don't, not my problem. I am by no means a rabid libertarian but that kind of environment would drive me to it.

I would pay large sums of money to have my kids learn the lesson that there is a hierarchy and one must always start on the bottom to understand every layer.

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

#77

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

Loughla wrote: post #69
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.

You should mix it up. The world won't be as gentle as you.

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

#78

Post by twobitshifter »

Some thoughts:

This could not have had very much precision - you can’t wake up at 725 if your neighbor is up at 715.

The knocker uppers client base would be limited by the density of housing and their walking speed.

With today’s suburban housing there’s no way to access everyone’s bedroom windows and walk from client to client. Even in urban areas, buildings must have eventually been too tall for a stick to reach.

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

#79

Post by jcgrillo »

dyauspitr wrote: post #65
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?

Computer programming is pretty idyllic when you're in a decent department with a good team.
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