Interesting Links for 25-07-2013

[andrewducker]

• Say Goodbye to the Tech Sounds You'll Never Hear Again (although at least two of these are wrong)
  (tags: history technology sounds )
• You can now make a living playing video games on YouTube
  Well, a few people can. I suspect it's a very small niche.
  (tags: games youtube )
• What Happens When People in Pakistan Start Taking MIT Classes?
  (tags:

Comments

[makyo]

Say Goodbye to the Tech Sounds You'll Never Hear Again (although at least two of these are wrong)
In last Friday morning's graduation ceremony here at Warwick (maths and psychology) we gave an honorary doctorate to Robert Calderbank, who amongst other things is credited with helping to invent voiceband coding and thereby, as the professor introducing him put it, responsible for that strange buzzing and beeping sound that modems used to make.

[momentsmusicaux]

I'm wondering which two are wrong.

[alitheapipkin]

Well, landlines are by no means dead, and you still find payphones in a lot of rural places in the UK which are too hilly for decent mobile phone coverage. (I also still have a tape deck and CD player but I'm a self confessed luddite). Also I don't think that type of bike gears are as rare as they seem to think... Also film cameras possibly?

[a_pawson]

CD players are a long way from being extinct, which is hardly surprising as in 2012 CD sales were still larger those of digital downloads.

[woodpijn]

Landlines are common, but IME the physical phone plugged into them is more normally a small portable thing that looks like a mobile, with lots of buttons and a screen, and which you hang up by pressing a little button; not a big chunky thing with a receiver and cradle which you can hang up by slamming.

[andrewducker]

My office has a phone on every desk, and every one is a big chunky thing with a receiver, cradle, and LCD interface to allow you to log into it, display caller ID, etc.

[strawberryfrog]

Most bikes here have gears that "click". I don't know anyone who has the electronic shifters that they talk about.

Phones that one can slam down are less common, but aren't dead yet either.

[naath]

I do know some people with friction shifters; but between "friction" and "electronic" there are other sorts of indexed shifters - which may or may not click, but you don't have to listen out for the sound of the chain engaging.

Those people who do still have friction shifters appear to contend that the indexing on indexed shifters often sucks; and when it fails it just fails.

(But I have hub gears)

[strawberryfrog]

If friction shifters are these then yes, they're obsolete. This kind are what I have, and they seem to be common. But I do hear the chain engaging, and I do listen out for it since it goes wrong once in a long while (which indicates time to tune it again to get ride of that "obsolete" clacking sound). The Boris bikes and some others have the kind where you twist a ring on the handlebar. None of these are electronic at all. I assumed that was a pro racing thing. Maybe it's a USA thing too?

Also from TFA - I really wouldn't recommend "pause your iPod" while cycling. For basic avoidance on unnecessary safety risks, you should *not* be playing it in the first place.

[naath]

The electronic kind are, as far as I can tell expensive and rare. But maybe not in the US.

The first picture you link is friction shifters; which I don't think are as obsolete as all that.

With the kind you have if you listen and it goes wrong is there anything you can do other than stop? (because with friction shifters you fiddle until it is right).

The twisty ones are basically the same as the ones you have, just with a different input system.

[strawberryfrog]

If it goes wrong and is clacking, then you click it again so that it shifts and mutter that it's time to fiddle with the adjustments.

If it goes wrong and the chain comes off, then it's time to stop and get your hands dirty.

[momentsmusicaux]

I borrowed a friend's bike about 3 years ago which had derailleur gears. Instead of levers to control them, it had a sort of widget the size of a bike bell, with two buttons that clicked each way, and a little dial that told you the gear number. I don't know if it was an especially top-of-the-range bike though.

My bike has hub gears, so it has a clicky thing too but for different reasons.

[andrewducker]

Judging from the conversation downstream, several of them!

The two I was thinking of were phones and CDs. As more albums are still sold on CD than MP3 and my office is full of phones you can slam down.

[momentsmusicaux]

Modern plastic phones don't do a very good slam though. The handset is too light, and it tends to rest at an angle in the cradle, so if you slam too hard it slides.

Also, no bell inside I presume?

[andrewducker]

Sadly lacking the bell!

[andrewducker]

It's a noise that will forever have emotional resonance for me.