Objects
Paper timetables and the skill of reading one
A folded card of columns and symbols encoded an entire transport network. Reading it was a genuine competence, and it has gone.
What People Miss — On the things we let go of without noticing
Objects
The answering machine and the last era of asynchronous voice
For about thirty years, a small tape in a hallway was how households handled being unavailable. Nothing quite replaced what it did.
Places
The video shop and the value of a constrained choice
A shelf of a few thousand titles produced better decisions than an infinite catalogue does. That is not only nostalgia.
Places
Phone boxes are being removed, and a few are being kept
The kiosk is now mostly a defibrillator cabinet or a book exchange. What it used to be was infrastructure for people without…
Objects
All objects →Objects
The answering machine and the last era of asynchronous voice
For about thirty years, a small tape in a hallway was how households handled being unavailable. Nothing quite replaced what it did.
Objects
Paper timetables and the skill of reading one
A folded card of columns and symbols encoded an entire transport network. Reading it was a genuine competence, and it has gone.
Objects
The phone book and the last universal address list
A free book delivered to every household listed almost everyone in a town by name, number and street. Nothing has replaced its…
Places
All places →Places
The video shop and the value of a constrained choice
A shelf of a few thousand titles produced better decisions than an infinite catalogue does. That is not only nostalgia.
Places
Phone boxes are being removed, and a few are being kept
The kiosk is now mostly a defibrillator cabinet or a book exchange. What it used to be was infrastructure for people without…
Places
The reference desk and the question you had to ask out loud
A librarian's first job was working out what you actually wanted to know, which is the step search engines skip.
Work
All work →
Work
The compositor, the typesetter and the trades that print lost
Newspaper production employed thousands of people in skilled trades that ceased to exist within about a decade.
Work
Switchboard operators and the last human layer in a network
For most of the telephone's history, connecting a call required a person. What they knew about a town was extraordinary and…
Work
The typing pool and the office that ran on a room of women
Documents were produced by a centralised room of typists working from dictation. The room disappeared and the work redistributed…
Rituals
All rituals →
Rituals
The Sunday when everything was shut
Closing laws structured the week for most of the twentieth century. Their removal changed more than shopping hours.
Rituals
Letter writing did not die, it changed genre
Personal correspondence declined, but the deeper change is what happened to the record it used to leave behind.
Rituals
Appointment television and the last time everyone watched at once
Scheduled broadcast forced an entire population to watch the same thing at the same moment. On-demand fixed the inconvenience and…
Sound & Signal
All sound & signal →
Sound & Signal
Dial-up, and the sound of a machine negotiating
The handshake tone was an audible protocol negotiation. For a decade it was the sound of the internet arriving in a house.
Sound & Signal
Church bells, factory horns and the acoustic clock
Before everyone carried a clock, time was distributed through sound. The infrastructure for that is mostly silent now.
Sound & Signal
The engaged tone and the information a failed call used to give you
A busy signal told you someone was home and on the phone. Every replacement gives you less than that did.
Memory
All memory →
Memory
Why the recent past is harder to verify than the distant one
The 1990s are, in several practical ways, less well documented than the 1890s. The reasons are structural.
Memory
Nostalgia is not what it used to be, and it is measurable
The word once described an illness. Its journey to a marketing category is short, documented and slightly alarming.
Memory
The photograph that cost nothing and what abundance did to remembering
People now take more images in a week than a household once produced in a decade. More pictures has not meant more memory.
Also this month
- The compositor, the typesetter and the trades that print lostWork
- Switchboard operators and the last human layer in a networkWork
- The Sunday when everything was shutRituals
- Letter writing did not die, it changed genreRituals
- Dial-up, and the sound of a machine negotiatingSound & Signal
- Church bells, factory horns and the acoustic clockSound & Signal
- Why the recent past is harder to verify than the distant oneMemory
- Nostalgia is not what it used to be, and it is measurableMemory