MetaFilter posts tagged with telephones

Ladies in Waiting...

hadjiboy — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:10:33 -0800

Before the advent of Cellular phones and the internet, cities around the world were entwined with a series of webs hanging precariously overhead. Their function: to relay messages from one part of town to the next. And the pioneers who were put in charge of this arduous task--the Switchboard Operators. The first choice for this new source of employment was a disappointing failure, not surprisingly, but then a new breed of worker emerged on the scene. These hardworking individuals were the epitome of good behaviour and gritty determination. Patient and understanding, they were always expected to fulfill their tasks, no matter what the cost. And, to their credit--they are still remembered today for the unique place they held in some peoples hearts.

Flashy Friday

Mr Bluesky — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:28:40 -0800

Badgers and Bananas. A Flashy Friday contribution mon amis. So we got the Badgers, here's the Cussing CeleBriteez (Yes re-post and NSFW) and finally Fingertips! Do I really need to explain the connection..come on!

Collections

grumblebee — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 12:20:04 -0800

Collections: Bakelite telephones, beercans, modified rubix cubes, radios and tubes, insulators (1) (2), minature cars, pens, novelty lamps, nativities (warning: serious eyesore!), bobble heads and handcuffs.

Cheaters' days are numbered

LinusMines — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 09:08:35 -0800

Dial-A-Cheater "proved what I couldn't. After he answered the call I scheduled, I asked him who it was. He lied. I totally busted him out. He was cheating with my best friend!" Kill the illusion of joy with a cell phone (and $1.95 USD).

The Old Telephone Company

hama7 — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 13:41:19 -0800

The Old Telephone Company, Essex, England

P2P Telephony

davehat — Tue, 23 Sep 2003 06:08:38 -0800

Skype, a new P2P Telephony service from the people who created KaZaA. [more inside]

Everything about telephones

carter — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 06:08:05 -0800

Everything you ever wanted to know about telephones. Really. I went to the list of History of the Telephone links first.

damn telemarketers

djspicerack — Thu, 27 Feb 2003 05:31:16 -0800

Thought you were rid of the telemarketers? Perhaps not. It looks like they're fighting back to items like the TeleZapper that fake telemarketers into thinking your phone is disconnected by playing the three tones you get if your phone doesn't work. Castel, Inc claims their DirectQuest software defeats devices like Telezapper by reading the connect messages delivered by your public switched telephone network. Fave quote - “It’s a privacy arms race.." Will this ever end?

Choosing a Cell Phone Service

grrarrgh00 — Thu, 23 Jan 2003 10:00:38 -0800

Among the most confusing dilemmas facing today's consumer is the question of which cell phone carrier is right for you. Even though Consumer Reports just published an article rating different carriers, the results are far from conclusive. I've been searching for web resources to cut through all the crap, and I thought I'd share a couple with the MeFi community, since typing "compare cell phone plans" into Google brings up a load of pop-up laden vendors thinly disguised as dispensers of advice.

PhoneScoop.com offers the most comprehensive lists of cell phone features I've seen, a handy comparison tool, and a good number of intelligent user reviews.
LetsTalk.com suffers from a bit of that thinly-disguised-vendor syndrome, but it is useful for comparing different services and getting clearly presented, itemized lists of each service's features. Be wary of the service comparison tool, because it's rather incomplete, but it's a good starting point to compare plans.

Free Electricity from the phone company

shecky57 — Wed, 04 Dec 2002 06:20:37 -0800

Free electricity from the phone company. I already knew that phone lines carry an electrical current, but using it to power devices other than telephones is a new one on me. Some of these are useful, some are interesting, and some are pretty ironic. [via boingboing]

WolfDaddy — Mon, 14 Oct 2002 11:04:15 -0800

Tools you can use. In my line of work, I'm often tasked with finding out information about local telephone numbers. This website is an invaluable aid to that end such as the ability to type in someone's area code and prefix and find out where the number is located, or to find out all the prefixes in a given area (ratecenter). Now you too can identify strange unidentified phone numbers your Caller ID reports to you.

Lanternjmk — Mon, 11 Mar 2002 08:25:04 -0800

Hackers target Cell Phones With the connectivity of cell phones to the internet, hackers have begun to target cell phones, programming prank calls, placing calls to wherever and erasing the software in the phone.

Niahmas — Sat, 12 Jan 2002 13:29:44 -0800

555-LIST Insane Collection of 555 phone numbers from TV-Movies-cartoons. 555-6542 Rev. Lovejoy The Simpsons 555-4044 Tanners residence ALF

atfrost — Wed, 01 Aug 2001 20:11:32 -0800

Call the Vatican. Or Boston Public Library. Or Grand Central Station. A few friends of mine used to use this tactic to see what the weather is like. This is a database of public pay-phone numbers, along with location and occasional sundry information. Read, call, and contribute!

john — Thu, 12 Oct 2000 10:49:12 -0800

The next time you someone with a finger in their ear they might be on the phone.

alan — Tue, 11 Jul 2000 13:50:18 -0800

Kill all the phones. Kill all the phones.

plinth — Wed, 17 May 2000 07:33:15 -0800

Two great products that needed a warped mind to join them into one.

plinth — Mon, 10 Apr 2000 07:20:41 -0800

I hate telemarketing calls. I've done a number of things to amuse myself in the process of dealing with such calls but that doesn't stop them. Here's how to cut down the calls you receive.

mathowie — Sun, 16 Jan 2000 13:50:37 -0800

MovieFone (or 777film.com, or AOL/Moviefone if you want to be official) has long been my favorite place to look up movie showtimes, but lately I've been running into problems. The biggest one is this: if you search for movies by theater, then hit "more" a couple times, it reaches a limit of about 12 theaters. Here in LA, that limit corresponds to a 4-5 mile radius. The theater I want to look up movie times at is maybe 7-8 miles away, but no where in the interface is a real "search." It's all just lists and lists. Eventually, I found a list of local theaters (covering about a 20 mile radius) in the theater codes section, but it's not a real search engine, so looking up times at out of town theaters requires you to know the zip code of the place you're going to. I know they're trying to simplify their site by taking out a search engine, but what about the people that know exactly what they want? I use moviefone on the web because using it on a telephone requires you to navigate convoluted menu systems, but they've transferred the phone experience to the web quite well.

mathowie — Thu, 13 Jan 2000 01:08:46 -0800

This past summer, I bought a Microsoft Cordless Phone, which I fell in love with after seeing all its cool features. My friends snickered when I bought it and they made little jokes about my 'proprietary' phone that would 'crash' during calls, but I defended my MS phone. So now the time has come to upgrade my home win98 box to Win2k, but apparently MS has no intentions of making the phone compatible with Win2k, nor will they ever support it. This phone is less than a year old, and it's going to be useless soon (all the answering and caller ID is software based). Anyone want to buy this $150 paperweight I have sitting here on my desk?

tdecius — Mon, 11 Oct 1999 09:32:17 -0800

Find the distance between two American telephone exchanges with the Interoffice Mileage Calculator. Find the distance between any two cities in the world with How Far Is It?. The latter also has a full database of American and Canadian towns, so I know that my hometown is 4864 miles from Athens, Greece, and 768 miles from Athens, Georgia.

tdecius — Thu, 07 Oct 1999 17:11:15 -0800

The Phone Losers of America have recently been floating a bunch of interesting telephony links. First, there's a great tutorial on How Telephones Work. LincMad Telephone Area Codes & Splits covers the Balkanization of American area codes. And of course, there's the ever-present Pay Phone Directory and the Telephone Prefix Location List. Lastly, those ten codes (e.g. 10-10-220, 10-10-321) are covered at The Ten Project.