In the days of poor information diffusion I guess content marketing was even more important than today: the Michelin Guide was similar: the tyre company wanted to encourage people to drive more, and figured the guide book would not only help with that but people would have the name Michelin in front of them. Hence the star ranking (go if you’re in town; if you’re in the area, worth diverting your trip a bit; worth making a special trip).
I actually used to jokingly call the iPhone “the destroyer of bar bets” but after a year or so on the market those discussions had pretty much died off, so maybe it wasn’t a joke.
And I'm saddened when I have to say "Well, we went to the library, and we hoped their encyclopaedia wasn't too racist".
In fact, as a kid I learned to use certain countries as a sort of metric of an encyclopaedia's relevance - if it discussed Rhodesia in the current tense, be very careful with anything else in it.
cw: nsfw
…
It is probably the first time I thank someone for showing me a duck’s penis. Feels a bit weird.
From the Goodreads blurb: ”a novel focused on the letters exchanged between Tina, a hardworking farm wife of three children and a museum curator and widower named Anders in Denmark. Their unlikely correspondence begins when Tina's seeks more information about the museum's most famous exhibit.”
I find it hard to recall a contact number today. We get to use names, so that skill drops off quick.
Growing up, we had a wall mounted phone with an insane cord. Something like 15 to 20 feet so people could take a call and walk into the adjacent room.
One day, I wrote an important number next to the phone on the wall, and it started! Mom asked about it, and said something about writing on the wall being bad. I said something about the difference, because it is easy, right there, won't get lost..
She then put the school, family, few other things next to it. Instant buy in! I remember feeling good about that, like we did something that matters and was unorthodox.
I took one last look at it before moving out and into my life:
There it was. Our lives on the wall next to the phone. That pizza place, family, services, church, schools, friends, and other bits: birthdays, various identifiers, locations.
When I left, that on the wall directory was damn near a square meter!
A phone book was right below on a little stand. Actually two: the local one, very small. And the yellow pages. Huge.
One day, my brother drank gasoline! I was the only one home and sure enough! The little green poison control sticker was on that wall, next to the phone. Called them and they told me what to do, until someone could respond.
My friend works there. She loves interesting questions -- probably even about penises. Unfortunately she says a lot of old folks use it just ease their loneliness and to ask tech support questions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Of course I don't want to be a dick about this...
I imagine they were a fun place to work at 2am.
I remember once calling and asking how much Vitamin C was in an orange, waiting on hold for a minute or two, and then getting the answer.
My Mum was a big fan of it, I've still got a copy of their telegram response to her question of "Why don't we see birds flying overhead with a penis flopping around?"
The answer was simple.
"Most birds don't have penises. They press cloaca to cloaca. Birds that do have penises store them in their bodies when not mating. Please stop sending questions about penises"
...it wasn't her first animal penis question submitted, and I'm assuming she'd developed a reputation.