Comment Improved formatting: (Score 1) 250
Speaking of "doing my bit for human communication", let's try that with the formatting set to "plain old text". And preview it, too. B-b
As long as people are claiming things, I claim the invention of the "Bearded Bulletin". This is the hardcopy bulletin-board posting with a fringe of precut tear-offs with contact information (typically a phone number and a word or two to indicate what this particular one is about).
This occurred in the winter of about 1969 or 1970. (I could go through some old records and figure it out exactly.) I was in Ann Arbor at the time and needed to move to Lansing and sublet my current apartment.
I first went to the University of Michigan's Student Union housing bulletin board to see if anybody was looking, before making my own posting. At that time I noticed that the contact information had been torn off from many of the postings there (rendering the remainder useless B-( ). One poster had taken this into account and defended by writing the number along the bottom of the 3x5 card four times.
So I decided to turn a downside into an asset. I made up my posting, wrote the phone number repeatedly along the bottom in "landscape mode", and precut the entries into a fringe so they'd be easy to tear off without destroying the main message or the other tear-offs. It was intended to emulate printed postings with the pad of tear-off coupons, but much more cheaply. And I figured that a dozen or so tear-offs would be more than enough. (If they were all torn away at least one should produce a hit.)
I made up maybe 4 of these and posted one on the student union housing board and the others in similar places. And I checked it daily to make sure the bulletin didn't get buried or taken down and lost.
Next day there was another like it.
Day after there were four.
By the end of the week more of the new postings used the technique than didn't.
And of course the meme had spread to the OTHER bulletin boards, too. Like the next one over - the "ride to other cities" board.
This was just before a major holiday (Thanksgiving, I think, though it might have been Christmas.) I figure the college students hitching rides cross-country or going home on vacation spread it to other campuses across the country (and world) within a matter of weeks. (I know it was pervasive at Michigan State in Lansing by mid-January.)
So I figure that, even if nothing else I ever do or did is useful or long-lasting, I've definitely done my bit to improve the technology of human communication with that one invention. B-)
As long as people are claiming things, I claim the invention of the "Bearded Bulletin". This is the hardcopy bulletin-board posting with a fringe of precut tear-offs with contact information (typically a phone number and a word or two to indicate what this particular one is about).
This occurred in the winter of about 1969 or 1970. (I could go through some old records and figure it out exactly.) I was in Ann Arbor at the time and needed to move to Lansing and sublet my current apartment.
I first went to the University of Michigan's Student Union housing bulletin board to see if anybody was looking, before making my own posting. At that time I noticed that the contact information had been torn off from many of the postings there (rendering the remainder useless B-( ). One poster had taken this into account and defended by writing the number along the bottom of the 3x5 card four times.
So I decided to turn a downside into an asset. I made up my posting, wrote the phone number repeatedly along the bottom in "landscape mode", and precut the entries into a fringe so they'd be easy to tear off without destroying the main message or the other tear-offs. It was intended to emulate printed postings with the pad of tear-off coupons, but much more cheaply. And I figured that a dozen or so tear-offs would be more than enough. (If they were all torn away at least one should produce a hit.)
I made up maybe 4 of these and posted one on the student union housing board and the others in similar places. And I checked it daily to make sure the bulletin didn't get buried or taken down and lost.
Next day there was another like it.
Day after there were four.
By the end of the week more of the new postings used the technique than didn't.
And of course the meme had spread to the OTHER bulletin boards, too. Like the next one over - the "ride to other cities" board.
This was just before a major holiday (Thanksgiving, I think, though it might have been Christmas.) I figure the college students hitching rides cross-country or going home on vacation spread it to other campuses across the country (and world) within a matter of weeks. (I know it was pervasive at Michigan State in Lansing by mid-January.)
So I figure that, even if nothing else I ever do or did is useful or long-lasting, I've definitely done my bit to improve the technology of human communication with that one invention. B-)
