- 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
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.
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...
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.
If curious why I posted this:
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.
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...
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
https://www.kcom.com/about-us/history/ they were operated by a separate company, so the crown wasn't appropriate.
Someone pushed them all over:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rxcGDAc8Dv924zkv8
(It's art: https://secretldn.com/telephone-box-installation-kingston/)
Nice! Would be great if this had a map view as well.
Check the split by regions: https://www.thek6project.co.uk/where-are-all-the-boxes/
Love it!
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.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zLRxTFUXErcsrkCi7
To be fair, that's the authentic London telephone box experience of old.
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.