20 条评论
- joezydeco 20小时前The box in Meols, Merseyside has been turned into a small museum honoring the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The box was their makeshift booking office in the early days and the box's number (6323003) was used in the song "Red Frame White Light"
"To this day, it is still likely the highest-charting song entirely about a public phone box."
https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2022/08/30/meols-merseyside-c...
- jamiek88 16小时前I grew up on the Wirral and and moved to USA in my early twenties I’m nearly 50 now and that 632 3003 gave me absolute frisson mate, nice one.
- HarHarVeryFunny 20小时前I grew up with these things, but they look so weird now, like a Tardis.
I remember having fun as a kid placing a reverse charge call from one phone booth to another across the street. Apparently the operator didn't have a way of knowing the number you were asking to make a call to was a phone booth, so your buddy across the street answers the operators call and graciously agrees to accept the reverse charge call (which is then free - no need to put any money in).
- GJim 8小时前> Apparently the operator didn't have a way of knowing the number you were asking to make a call to was a phone booth,
They did.
In the UK, when a payphone _answered_ a call, the payphone played a "cuckoo" tone (beep-boop) for about ten seconds. This alerted the operator not to allow reverse charge calls. Of course in more recent yeas an operator probably hasn't a clue what the payphone cuckoo means, hence you getting away with it.
- HarHarVeryFunny 4小时前I'm talking mid-late 1970's
- dwd 14小时前The few iconic blue police boxes that are left also need to be protected.
- Kaibeezy 20小时前If curious why I posted this:
- someone told me about a fish—n-chip buffet in Arbroath, Scotland - I told my team, one of them asked “just fish?” - I replied “batter fried pizza too” - one of them made the inevitable comment about defibrillators - I pointed out many of these red kiosks have been repurposed to hold defibrillators and went looking for images- dijksterhuis 20小时前> someone told me about a fish-n-chip buffet in Arbroath, Scotland
if it’s the fish and chip shop (buffet is a different thing here), i’ve been there and they do a banging fish supper.
- Kaibeezy 20小时前The Bellrock lunch buffet, £15 weekdays.
“3 courses including Soup, Pizzas, Haddock, Spicy Fish, White pudding, King Rib, Chefs dish of the day. Hot desserts with Custard, Cold desserts i.e trifle and cakes, Cold Meats, Pasta, Salad, Whippy Ice cream.”
- tonylucas 20小时前I think OP is referring to this https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet which does appear to be a fish-n-chip buffet of sorts (amongst other things) which has been in various tabloid newspapers in the last month or so.
- davnicwil 21小时前I was just thinking how it'd be great if there were newer, modern things like this that had sprung up in response to newer technologies.
I guess it's one downside of dematerialisation with digital tech - I can't think of a single thing that would make sense. Everyone's got their own virtual portal to all the new technologies that come out, there's not much to look at out in the world.
Maybe as more progress happens in physical 'world of atoms' type things we'll see a bit of this come back.
- arximboldi 21小时前As someone that tries to survive (every day more difficult) with just a dumbphone with me, I just fantasized about a parallel universe where all those kiosks still existed, and they were somehow like computer that you can briefly rent, to do the things people do with a smartphone. Perhaps you tap a card, and it picks your accounts, and you can quickly Whatsapp someone, check your email, call an Uber or use Google Maps (maybe even check hacker news, but with time limit?!)
Maybe then many people would stop carrying their own portals, as you can briefly use the public ones for the one-off situation where you need it, but enjoy a portal-free mind the rest of the time. Also quite useful in case emergencies as it seems those portable-portals tend to run out of battery, or get lost or damaged...
- xp84 20小时前There was a brief moment around the turn of the millennium where that was what some of us were expecting. I was in college just after that and there were some free Internet kiosks, which combined with the ubiquitous free-to-use computer labs on campus, did a pretty good job of making this type of lifestyle possible, to the extent you could store your important documents online (much harder though in a pre-Dropbox, pre-Google Docs world!). Or another thing that was a big trend then was Portable Apps. On a flash drive on your keychain, you'd have installs of apps that you needed, together with their data and whatever documents you might need.
- wrs 20小时前There was a brief period before that where some airports had pay phones with text terminals and modems built in, so you could dial up your corporate email or CompuServe. I swear I did not dream this.
- andrewl 15小时前“They have phones in booths now? Finally! I don’t have to lug this cell phone around.”
Hermes Conrad, Futurama Season 6, Episode 6: Lethal Inspection
- stuaxo 9小时前For a moment they put phones that had the ability to do text messages in them (but still looked very ordinary), which feels a little retro futuristic.
Looked better than the weird ad screen monstrosities you get now with a token phone on them.
- reaperducer 13小时前a parallel universe where all those kiosks still existed, and they were somehow like computer that you can briefly rent, to do the things people do with a smartphone
In the early days of the Internet, this existed somewhere in western Europe where I was traveling.
There was a phone booth down the block from my hotel and a couple of times I popped in and used it to check my email.
Maybe Vienna or Amsterdam? It was a long time ago. Swiping one's own credit card would have been unusual then, so I have no idea how I paid for it. Especially since I mostly used travelers checks.
- jdsnape 2小时前
- c7b 20小时前Some suggestions:
- Not sure what they're called, but I've seen a lot of fully automated outdoor "locker stations" for packet deliveries
- Power bank "banks" or charging stations for smartphones in indoor spaces like malls
- QR codes on stickers/ads in public spaces are a sort of bridge between the physical and digital worlds
- HarHarVeryFunny 20小时前In some Asian countries electric scooters with swappable battery packs are very common, and they have roadside battery swap stations where (for a subscription fee?) you can take a freshly charged battery and leave your old one. Seems like a great idea.
- toyg 16小时前Just went through Orlando airport and saw something called "power rod" that is basically that for small power banks: you drop your depleted bank and pick up a fully charged one. If I were a US-only traveller, I can see myself using it.
- pibaker 13小时前> QR codes on stickers/ads in public spaces are a sort of bridge between the physical and digital worlds
They are already like that for at least a decade. The last time I visited London the phone booths all had ads for escort services pasted inside.
- Jenk 17小时前> - Not sure what they're called, but I've seen a lot of fully automated outdoor "locker stations" for packet deliveries
Drop boxes!
I was part of a team prototyping these some 20 years ago. I highly doubt we were the only team doing so, but we were certainly unaware of any commercially available/deployed stations at the time. I was writing the software, in particular the orchestration of the locks and event bus for the transmissions.
Lots of fun from trying to fathom how undocumented solenoids operated, to trips to various countries for remote and environmental testing, and destructive tests simulating someone driving a truck into an installation (i.e., by deliberately driving a truck into one!)
The nerdiest moment was taking a mainboard model that we were getting intermittent faults with and recreating the exact environmental conditions to recreate the problem. This involved incubating the mainboard in a sealed environment chamber to control temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure. The fault was bit-flipping because electrons were jumping rails when the microchip(s) were cold and damp.
- Kaibeezy 20小时前How about:
- tap-to-pay paypoints - drive-under toll collection readers - signal-blocking phone pouches at concerts - anti-facial-recognition dazzle makeup - wireless chargers in the table at McDonald’s- doublerabbit 19小时前
If we are making lists. I'm still waiting for IRL Patch 2.0 and the fix for collision detection of eye lash to eye ball.- a tree that grows money - harmony between worlds- jagged-chisel 15小时前Maybe we’re not running the same system version, but I’m quite certain my eyelash to eyeball collision detection works great (and the alert can be anywhere from annoying to quite painful.)
A collision prevention enhancement would be fabulous!
- HarHarVeryFunny 20小时前I don't know if they still exist, but for a while when pay phones were disappearing in the US, NYC converted a number of them into free WiFi access points.
- robotresearcher 20小时前Tesla Supercharger stations.
- roebk 20小时前I love seeing the occasional phone box in a quaint village which has been converted into a super compact library. It reminds me that community spirit and trust are alive.
- davedevelopment 21小时前The ones in Hull are all cream coloured: https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2023/07/13/hull-university-ea...
The crowns are also ground off I think
- alexchamberlain 21小时前https://www.kcom.com/about-us/history/ they were operated by a separate company, so the crown wasn't appropriate.
- Jenk 17小时前https://www.thek6project.co.uk/the-crowns-on-k6-telephone-bo... there's a note about Hull's phone boxes at the bottom of this page.
- Stevvo 9小时前It's referred to as a "telephone box". Never heard anyone call it a Kiosk.
- lewispollard 7小时前The red phone box is a type of phone kiosk. The design of the phone box is designated as K1-K6, where the K stands for kiosk. I believe the term comes from the time before phone boxes were ubiquitous, and public phones were found in small buildings/rooms called kiosks.
- Self-Perfection 18小时前Hopefully this database is integrated with OpenStreetMap.
OSM has extensive tagging scheme for phone booths: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dtelephone
- alexfoo 21小时前Someone pushed them all over:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rxcGDAc8Dv924zkv8
(It's art: https://secretldn.com/telephone-box-installation-kingston/)
- ktallett 19小时前Without even looking I assume this is the art installation in Kingston Upon Thames (a lovely town outside London, and next to Hampton Court). I remember this from childhood as I used to get my haircut opposite these phone boxes and regularly shopped with my nan at the Wilkinson's on the corner (an everything shop like a small Walmart).
- n4r9 19小时前Wilkinson's is no longer there. Replaced by an arcade style venue called Urban Fun, I think.
Many Kingstoners probably think of themselves as being in London. There's some graffiti on the way in to London on the A3 that says "Surrey not Surrey".
- ktallett 18小时前Guess that makes sense assuming the cinema is still round the corner.
I miss the days of the CEX store when it sold import games just round the corner as well.
Considering you have to travel through New Malden, Raynes Park (which for me is the border), and Norbiton to get to London, they would be wrong. I always assume many think like that as it potentially increases house prices but just having a TFL tap and go bus doesn't make somewhere London.
- cosmobiosis 11小时前I know a Kiosk seller in California. It's always pretty separate from telephony system. Not integrated at all.
- trebligdivad 14小时前Wasn't there a short period where they changed the colour? I'm thinking it was a beige thing - in the 80s???
- lawlorino 13小时前There was some trial where they painted <100 yellow, as part of some rebranding and privatisation of British Telecom. There was a public outcry and they reverted
- trebligdivad 4小时前Ah yes, that would be what I was thinking of; I think I saw one somewhere in Manchester as a kid.
- phyzix5761 21小时前Nice! Would be great if this had a map view as well.
- vages 21小时前Check the split by regions: https://www.thek6project.co.uk/where-are-all-the-boxes/
- phyzix5761 21小时前Love it!
- iamalizard 16小时前The connection has timed out
The operation timed out when attempting to contact www.thek6project.co.uk.
- eszed 11小时前Browsing these made me unreasonably nostalgic.
- youngNed 4小时前nostalgia is a wonderful thing. Its actually not a wonderful thing, its a weird human condition that seems to have been converted into a psy-op by shady facebook accounts that have gone from posting 'who remembers white dog-shit and spangles' into AI generated pictures of london in various guises.
Yes, i suppose i am saying 'nostalgia is not what it once was' go figure.
But anyway. Phone boxes were shit. Often literally. Depending on where you were, they often stank of human waste of one form or another, and even in a time before fear of contagion, you were still reticent to hold that manky ear piece too close to your ear. The ones in london were plastered in pornography from the local people trafficers.
A phone box was somewhere that you went as a last resort. Or, judging by the smell in most of them, if you needed a piss.
- aussieguy1234 16小时前Here in Australia, public payphones, instead of being removed were all made free.
They provide a lifeline to women fleeing domestic abuse, who need to contact services without their phone being tracked. Also to homeless and other vulnerable people who may not have access to a phone.
Statistics show lots of calls to emergency services, centrelink (Australia's welfare agency) etc...
- anthk 10小时前In Spain there is one in Artxanda, about literal 5 minutes from Bilbao by cable car. Take the cable car, literally turn right and walk a little, it's pretty much near the slope.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/cabina-inglesa-donde-menos-te-...
- dbbk 19小时前Everywhere?
- nailer 21小时前There's one near the Houses of Parliament, tourists often shoot photos there, and are surprised when the inside is filled with stickers advertising prostitutes.
- muglug 21小时前To be fair, that's the authentic London telephone box experience of old.
- varispeed 21小时前I think the actual experience was stepping into human poo, needles and overwhelming stench of piss and let's not go into why the telephone was sticky.
- nephihaha 20小时前Those are the urban ones. The ones in the countryside were useful sometimes if you were trying to get a taxi or a lift. They often had plants growing in them.
- alexfoo 19小时前And some were in very remote locations. The Nant y Maen phonebox in Wales springs to mind although I think it no longer has a working phone in it.
- nephihaha 19小时前Some of them were indeed. They were very handy in pre-mobile phone days for when your car broke down, or you had to contact someone.
- indianbunghole 16小时前[flagged]