Telephones
Ads between telephone rings
I can only imagine how annoying it would be to have to listen to advertisements between rings whenever you phoned someone. And unfortunately the technology to do this has been developed. Neil Sleevi was granted a patent for it in 1989 (Patent No. 4,811,382), and Bell Atlantic promptly bought the rights to it.
Faced with public outcry, Bell Atlantic subsequently claimed that, even though they did buy the rights to the patent, they never had any intention of inserting ads between telephone rings, dismissing the entire notion as a silly rumor. But I'm pretty sure they would have done it if they had thought they could get away with it.
Baltimore Sun - Dec 14, 1991
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 02, 2022 -
Comments (5)
Category: Technology, Telephones, Advertising, Patents, 1990s
Accidental Prophets
From 1966.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jul 31, 2020 -
Comments (8)
Category: Fashion, Technology, Telephones, Zeitgeist, Advertising, Anomie, Exhaustion, and General Malaise
The Phone Thing
Those of us who are old enough might recall that in addition to linear slide rules, there were circular slide rules.Such an arrangement of movable circular parts was extrapolated to a variety of other gadgets for calculating different things.
You can see a museum of such "disk or wheel" charts here.
I set out on this search thanks to the 1979 ad below.
I wonder if anyone relies on such devices nowadays, or if businesses create them for promotional purposes, as Bell Telephones did in 1979.
Phone Thing source. (Page 6)
Posted By: Paul - Thu May 28, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Telephones, Instruments and Measuring Devices, 1970s
Telephones
The term "supercut" did not exist in 1995 when Christian Marclay created this video.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 22, 2019 -
Comments (5)
Category: Movies, Avant Garde, Telephones, 1990s
Yellow Pages Dress
The Yellow Pages? What are those?
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 22, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Fashion, Telephones, 1970s
The man who phoned for peace
In 1936, American businessman Abraham Pickus started calling world leaders, trying to convince them to seek peaceful solutions. Amazingly, he got through to quite a few of them, including Hitler.Of course, his efforts didn't produce any tangible results, but you can't fault him for trying.
Newsweek - Apr 18, 1938
Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 08, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: War, Telephones, 1930s
Mobile Phone Throwing
It's a sport that got its start in Finland in 2000. From wikipedia: "participants throw mobile phones and are judged on distance or technique. World record holder is Tom Philipp Reinhardt from Germany with a throw of 136,75m."But the competitions seem to have ended. The last title winners listed on wikipedia are from 2014. I can't find any more recent elsewhere. Perhaps people are reluctant to throw their smart phones?
Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 16, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Sports, Telephones
Ankle phone-holder
From French fashion house Maison Margiela.
If you have the tolerance for it, you can check out the video of their runway show in which a few of the models are wearing the ankle phone-holder. Though the phone holder may be the least weird part of the show. I think at least one of the models was wrapped in fiberglass insulation (see picture below). Others seemed to be wrapped in carpets.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 26, 2018 -
Comments (8)
Category: Fashion, Technology, Telephones
Western Electric Design Line Phones
Introduced in 1974, these phones were intended to spice up the boring old device that had been around for decades.I would have gone for the Chestphone, because then I would have felt like I was a member of U.N.C.L.E. or SMERSH.
Full set of pics and other info here.
Posted By: Paul - Tue May 15, 2018 -
Comments (8)
Category: Business, Advertising, Telephones, 1970s
Follies of the Madmen #365
Posted By: Paul - Sat May 12, 2018 -
Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Tobacco and Smoking, Telephones, 1960s
| Who We Are |
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |