Jobs that appeared and disappeared in 100 years
Alexander Graham Bell may have invented the telephone but conceiving the network was an enormous undertaking.
Right now, mobile telephone networks allow you the luxury of a choice of personal numbers when you first apply for a connection.
Back in 1878, there was no 'telephone' instrument. It had to start from there.
There was no system of telephone numbers. There were no networks. And there was no way to initiate a call or end it. The concepts had to be first conceived, then put into practice.
It had to be a system that people could easily understand, or else they would not make the effort.
And people took to it precisely because it saved the time and effort of physically going to every place to conduct a business.
They realized it could be done by simply talking on a phone.
The earliest phone users had to hand crank a magneto, which connected them to a switchboard manned by groups of women.
They would physically make the connection to the desired number.
Women were hired because they were courteous on the phone. They quickly picked up the skills necessary. As networks were upgraded from local to regional to national and international, they were the ones who kept the conversations buzzing.
They probably knew what several businesses was going through. Or the personal strife in people's lives.
As technology improved, switching became automatic and the jobs began to disappear. The exchanges no longer needed women to man it.
And the job's last holdout folded in 1983.
In Bryant Pond, Maine, Susan Glines became the last switchboard operator for a hand-crank phone when that exchange was converted.
A career came to life in the early age of telephones and the sun set on it with the arrival of the mobile phone network.
A short immersion in God's Own Country
The landscapes are effortless.
They gently undulate in waves of green, and the clouds act as softboxes, diffusing the late evening light.
Smoke rises from a point like tufts of long grey hair blowing skywards.
A solitary building, probably a church, stands in splendour breaking into the palette of green.
And all this was at a vantage point that passes faster than a scroll through a social media feed.
The only other place where you get this feeling of being dwarfed by the vastness of nature is at sea, with water as far as the eye can focus.
Photographs hardly do it justice.
No matter how expensive the camera or the skill in framing.
The deep silence is broken by the chirping of birds, an uneven rustling of the breeze in staccato bursts through the foliage and the high-pitched whine of a motorized vehicle climbing the slopes..
You don't need pollution meters to tell you how good the air quality is.
Not even triple filtered air-conditioners can fill your lungs with this pristine goodness.
It can't be bottled, even if you try.
Along the winding roads, you chase the dipping sun, hoping to get the precise moment at which it sinks between mountains.
And hope the clouds don't play spoilsport.
But they do. Getting the perfect angle, without the streaks of light is a job for the patient seeker of happenstance.
Not for the visitor trying his luck to be at the right place at the right time.
What you do get, however, is that magic window of twilight.
Transforming, in a short while from verdant green to inky black.
Are we carrying advertising too far?
We've got used to intrusive advertising popping up in unexpected places.
The backs of moving cabs, restrooms and metro station walls and animated ads at bus stops.
However, this move by Walgreens may be particularly frustrating.
They have replaced the clear doors of freezers holding soft drinks and beverages with screens displaying advertising.
But people can't be sure that the shelf contains what's advertised on the screen.
The logic sems to be - pitch a product at the exact point when a purchase is initiated. And try to change the customer's mind.
Instead, it's going to get people angry.
It's like a salesman sidles up to you when you've already made up your mind and tells you - hey, I've got a better deal.
First of all, it goes against behavior that customers follow at the store.
They just want to get their shopping done. Minds have been made up much earlier. And it's not going to change because of a last-minute ad.
The more advertising people see, the more they block it out.
A solution is not finding more places to put advertising - There are times when people are receptive. And times when they are not.
As it is, there are already several screens at the store advertising discounts, playing new commercials and pitching store offers through loudspeakers.
The startup, Cooler Screens already has over 10000 screens installed and the stats are impressive. Over 90 million people see them every month.
What the stats don't reveal is whether sales have increased, or whether people find this helpful.
For Walgreens, this is another point of generating revenue - and they assume that people will get used to it.
But if the ads interfere with purchase, what's the benefit?