GeoGuessr mfs inventing the first time machine to have this job:
Another job lost because of technology 👿
Submitted 2 months ago by ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to [deleted]
https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/aab93766-61ea-4eaf-aedf-3c978a2e0286.png
Comments
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 2 months ago
LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
GeoGuessr person:“ok, now which directions are the shadows pointing? Any wildflowers or birds in the area?”
Caller: “I’m just looking for a gas station”
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
“Just tell me what type of material is the road. Come on!”
LesserAbe@lemmy.world 2 months ago
How widespread was this? I grew up in the 80s/90s and pre GPS we just had a map in the car. I’ve never heard of such a hotline until seeing this post.
fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 2 months ago
Maybe a call centre operated by map producers, intended more for questions about routes and conditions rather than “take the third left” kind of navigation.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, it sounds like the kind of thing you could do but would pay out the butt for as a private service. Road map books and asking directions were my go-to.
Of course, post-internet but pre-GPS there was always mapquest.
Hasherm0n@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I always made sure I had Thomas guide book for any areas I went through in my car.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
But, when would you use this? Stop at a gas station, and instead of getting a map, you make a phonecall?
Quill7513@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Rest area payphones. Its why most rest areas have a huge blown up atlas map these days
rhacer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yes, but what gorgeous country to get fucked in! When my wife PCSd from Long Island to Fort Knox, we drove through that country several times.
She would also spend a lot of time at Fort Lee (now Gregg-Adams) and the drive from Fort Knox to Fort Lee also crossed amazing parts of WV.
solsangraal@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
everyone had maps, but they weren’t always current
Jivebunny@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This is actually a map of the Netherlands and I’m from there. I’m also old enough to remember a time without mobile phones. This was probably the call centre for triple AAA, in Dutch the ANWB. We had these emergency telephone poles along the highways. When stranded and without a map you could easily call aid through them with these phones, which they also knew where they were, for easy dispatching.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I’m also dutch, and Im pretty sure you couldn’t call for route advice from the ANWB poles. Or at least, you couldn’t in the later years, maybe it was different in the 60s.
It does make a lot more sense these people are planners, not general navigation advisers.
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 2 months ago
I mean, payphones were at most stops. Rest areas, etc.
tipicaldik@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I would think using that service to plan a route ahead of time would be optimal…
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
That’s what a AAA TripTik was for.
variants@possumpat.io 2 months ago
here is a cool article on a few different jobs lost with photos rarehistoricalphotos.com/jobs-that-no-longer-exis…
my favorite is the human alarm clock and went and shot your window with a pea shooter to wake you up
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I will still do this. What does an alarm clock cost? $500? $1,000? I’ll do it for half that.
ace_garp@lemmy.world 2 months ago
For a good time, call 1194.
This graffiti was seen, around 1993, in various toilets, referencing the national talking-clock service.
1194 == “On the third tone it will be 3:45 and 30 seconds, beep beep beeep.”
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 months ago
These still exist, except it’s not a number you call, it’s a shortwave station that you tune into.
Check out websdr.org if you don’t have your own. From there you can play with various shortwave radios from around the world. The first one on my list is my favorite cause it picks up a lot of stuff.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You can still call wwv and wwvh.
pc486@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Specifically 5, 10, and 15mhz AM. There are others, but you’ll really hear NIST WWV/WWVH if you’re in North America/Pacific.
ikidd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
555-1212 was the number where I was.
I still use it on websites that ask for my phone number for some gods unknown reason.
expatriado@lemmy.world 2 months ago
i can see this causing so marriage arguments
you should call the hotline John
I got this Margaret!
HK65@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
That’s a map of the NL, is it not?
Zwiebel@feddit.org 2 months ago
France+Iberia in the background
Megabazos@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Yep!
NiPfi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think so too
niktemadur@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Another one of life’s simple pleasures ruined by the government lizard overlords.
hate2bme@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I lived in Chicago from 2004 to 2007 and NYC from 2007 to 2009 and I did not have a smartphone not even sure if they were around then. There was a number you could text the cross streets you were at and the cross streets you wanted to go to and it would give you step by step directions to get there with public transportation. I used it daily.
Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 2 months ago
“Hot single navigators in your area waiting for you call; – call now!!”
Asifall@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Just gotta find a friendly middle aged white man and you can have this service for free
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You carry around a universal translator, and a global atlas in your pocket. Leave me alone.
BluesF@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This is not the friendly middle aged man you are looking for
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The irony being how much the standard quality of life has dropped compared to the people seen working in this photo. At some point, expect to be just another pest barely tolerated within the urban environment. For many homeless, that’s what they already are.
abbadon420@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I disagree. It has changed and morphed. The weights have shifted, some parts have gotten better, while others have dropped. Overall, quality of life is better now than it was in 1960. Of course this is all immensely subjective and the viewpoint of a homeless person in Moskou cannot be compared to a family man working middle management in Los Angeles.
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Yes, the quality of life is certainly better not being able to afford a home with two working couples and being forced to go into debt for decades… That’s why no one ever has any beef with boomers who regurgitate things like your comment.
phorq@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I’m getting Godzilla-nervous-system vibes from the front-most map, not gonna lie…
nonagonOrc@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Haha that is a new way to look at roadmaps of the Netherlands, I love it
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Sure we lost that particular job, but we also gained the job of driving around with a cam car collecting data. Then there’s who ever takes all those pictures and compiles them into street view. Sure its highly automated, but someone had to automate it…
Imgine what the hunters thought when they lost their jobs to farms.
CircuitSpells@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This still exists, at least in Mexico
superkret@feddit.org 2 months ago
“Se encuentra en méxico.”
“Muchas gracias!”
yamanii@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I never ever heard of this, I don’t think it was a thing here, father always asked locals or already had a map he bought from a car magazine.
Hedin@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That looks like a map of Thy.
The hairstyle is a bit different today, but the technology is at the same level.
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 2 months ago
It’s the Netherlands.
son_named_bort@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I wonder if they charged per minute like a lot of hot lines did back in the day.
solsangraal@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
in the 80s you could call AAA and tell them where you’re planning to go on a road trip and they would send you a spiralbound roadmap of the route with gas stations, hotels, and construction zones highlighted
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Part of me still misses TripTiks. It was fun to go through them ahead of trips and always have that nicely printed, spiral bound book with you on the road.
At some point in the 90s they automated TripTiks with the idea that you’d print them at home yourself. It was all the same info but the magic was gone.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Nice!
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I wonder if there is a print-on-demand service that will still make these for you. Could certainly DIY.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Wonder if a day will come when they stop making road atlases:
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SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Remake it and call it TripToks
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
My grandma actually recommended I do this last year. I was already contacting AAA about some other thing, and jokingly brought up road trips. They went, “Yeah we can help!” I was kinda adorable.
rhacer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My father was an itinerant minister. He traveled all over the country. We made great use of TripTik (I think that’s what it was called).