Some little thoughts

[brainwane]

I wonder whether area code redlining was a thing (a very hasty search does not turn up anything) stopping people in different neighborhoods from easily talking with each other across racial lines.

Maybe TNG : Ramayana : DS9 :: Mahabharata? And Data is a bit like Hanuman and Odo is a bit like Karna.... But Picard : Rama :: Sisko : ?

In an era of very low media/consumer choice and availability, Book Of The Month and monthly record subscription clubs were popular. The rise of subscription box services comes as consumers have so much choice and availability that we desire better discoverability and curation for that choice. And book clubs also provide some of the same value; "this is the book we're reading" also helps the reader say no to other new books (for now) and ignore the rest of the To Be Read pile.

Some people are actually fine, most of the time, with probabilistic communication and not being certain that they're hearing or being heard properly. This is tough for me to grasp.

Comments

[ckd]

I wouldn't think area codes would be the issue, but rather long distance vs local call areas which depended on the particular Bell company and/or state regulators. When I was a kid, Seattle and Tacoma were both in the same area code (and are still part of the same LATA) but Seattle was intra-LATA long distance (you had to dial 1 before the number and would be charged per-minute/per-call, but you didn't need the area code) so I couldn't call Seattle BBSes.

[brainwane]

Oh yeah - I dealt with a similar issue at one point, where another city was in my area code but calling it still racked up charges.