I love this. When I give presentations this is exactly the kind of opening gambit I look for!

I wonder, what took place in the last few years that in 100 years time will be defined as “pedestrian”.

> I wonder, what took place in the last few years that in 100 years time will be defined as “pedestrian”.

mRNA vaccines

Deep fakes

Training a trillion parameter model.

> Alexander Graham Bell then gave a few words in greeting and remarked that he was glad to see how far the telephone had gone beyond his initial idea

Nice keynote speaker they got!

TFA saved the best line until the end.

> "And I suspect no one in attendance would have predicted that in the 21st century, people groan at the thought of another virtual meeting."

It's not a good joke I think: some people actually like meetings, while others don't. It doesn't matter if they're virtual or not. People have been complaining about meetings at work since workplaces with meetings were invented. The key is that some people actually like those meetings (namely managers).

The same people who liked calling or attending meetings (managers) before virtual meetings are the same people who like virtual meetings now. The people who didn't like them back then are the same people who don't like them now. Nothing's actually changed.

It’s very surprising they didn’t continue this style of meeting, some sort of internal IEEE disagreement seems the most likely reason to me, but the evidence is probably lost to time now…

Extremely expensive long distance fees seem much more likely and also explains why it didn't catch on with other groups.

Hence, an internal disagreement between the original promoters and the accountants/other factions.

No, I think they all agreed not to waste the association's money on vanity long distance calls.

As the article pointed out at the end, it's very likely this special conference call was only possible due to special sponsorship from a big donor or telephone companies.

Hence… an internal disgareement… between the original faction that convinced the sponsors/budgeting groups/etc… and the naysayers.

Despite the apparently glowing write-up from the time, hailing it as a success, no doubt there were constant cringeworthy "technical issues", of crackly lines, poor volume, calls dropping off, etc - I can well imagine the organisers saying: "we pulled it off once, for the lolz, but only just... Never again!"

I was wondering how they managed such an impressive signal fan-out - I thought that telephones at that time were purely powered by acoustic energy moving the coil in the microphone. Turns out that the amplifying telephone repeater had just been invented a few years previously, enabling transcontinental phone calls and - in this case - splitting a signal to be played in many places.

It must have been an incredibly exciting time to be alive.

https://ethw.org/First_Telephone_Repeater

Bear in mind, before this there was a mechanical repeater as well, which was a transmitter and receiver which were mechanically coupled.

A carbon mic is somewhat self-exciting and does provide an amplification factor.

Aha! For some reason I had it in my mind that early telephones were moving coil type, and the carbon mic came along later. You're absolutely correct - thanks for setting me right.

Its really an ingenious device, I've wanted to build one, just because I'm a phone nerd, think its cool.

If a king sends messenger to another king who also carries back the reply. Will that be a virtual meeting?

If the messenger is a salesman you can bet it is!

Ea-nāṣir sold sub-standard copper to the servant of Nassi. Nassi had not accepted it and his servant was treated very rudely by Ea-nāṣir, and inscribed a letter to be delivered to Ea-nāṣir. Was this a virtual meeting?

Underrated reference

meeting implies near real time and more than two participants.

> Due to limited seating in New York and Philadelphia, members were allowed only a single admission ticket, and ladies were explicitly not invited. (Boo.)

We get it, different times had different morals and ethics. But I'm sure the author would have been above all that if they were around in those times.

The whole article is very explicit about looking at the past through the lenses of today, and it is written in a informal style. The 'Boo' fits right in, and I don't understand why it somehow triggered a response. It would be pretty weird if they mentioned to 'no girls allowed' without any commentary.