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Knocker uppers: Waking up the workers in industrial Britain (2016)

109 点作者 DrZootron8 个月前

16 条评论

keiferski8 个月前
The philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford argued that the origin of modern industrial machines goes back further than the Industrial Revolution and Renaissance, all the way back to the regimented and time-based lives of medieval monks. Knocker uppers seem like a direct obvious example of this phenomenon of humans as proto machines.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lewis_Mumford" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lewis_Mumford</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com&#x2F;sites.psu.edu&#x2F;dist&#x2F;f&#x2F;153578&#x2F;files&#x2F;2022&#x2F;08&#x2F;Mumford-Clock.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com&#x2F;sites.psu.edu&#x2F;dist&#x2F;f&#x2F;153578&#x2F;fi...</a><p>As a funny personal note: one of my ancestors actually had the last name (Polish <i>budzik</i>) translated as “alarm clock,” which I assume means they had a similar sort of job as knocker uppers. I couldn’t find any equivalent last names in English though.
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madaxe_again8 个月前
A hangover from this, mid-late 90’s boarding school in the U.K., one of the fags (household duties for first and second years - one-on-one fagging no longer officially existed, but did) was knocking up. Just comprised walking the corridors and banging on everyone’s doors at 7:00-7:15 (seniors later, head of house last), as the bells weren’t audible in much of the house.<p>It was a doss fag - by mutual agreement we came to the arrangement that whoever was on milk would also do the knocking up, as everyone got mandatory milk at the same time anyway, so ironically, whoever was on knocking up used to get to lie in for the week.
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markx28 个月前
Time related:<p>&quot;Elizabeth Ruth Naomi Belville (5 March 1854 – 7 December 1943), also known as the Greenwich Time Lady, was a businesswoman from London. She, her mother Maria Elizabeth, and her father John Henry, sold people the time. This was done by setting Belville&#x27;s watch to Greenwich Mean Time, as shown by the Greenwich clock, each day and then &quot;selling&quot; people the time by letting them look at the watch and adjust theirs&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ruth_Belville#History" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ruth_Belville#History</a>
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espadrine8 个月前
At this week’s dotAI conference, Ines Montani (who works on the SpaCy project) highlighted this ex-job as a warning to AI builders, so that they do not work on systems that have no future, because better and cheaper alarm clocks (for knocker-uppers) are coming.<p>In particular, she saw chatbots as being an inefficient user interface that would eventually be replaced by better integration between assistants and conventional UI.
mk_stjames8 个月前
The last time I read about this I kept wondering how many times the person accidentally broke a window pane with the big long stick. Some of the houses were already 80+ years old at that point, and I&#x27;ve lived in houses with original window glass from pre-1900 - just single pane, wavy, very thin glass. You could breathe on them wrong and break a pane. I&#x27;d never have trusted myself to with a 3 meter long stick to poke up at a 2nd story window pane loud enough to wake someone up but not so hard as to break a thin windowpane...
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Simon_ORourke8 个月前
Lazy Edwardian industrial workers demanding 8 hours sleep after 16 hours work!<p>&quot;Oooohh we used to dream of living in a corridor...&quot; - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE</a>
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litoE8 个月前
Back in 1969 I had a summer job at a textile mill in the south of Chile. Time was regulated by the loud steam whistles of the three large textile factories that were the only industry in town. They could be heard throughout the town. A specific sequence (e.g. short-short-long) was the 6 AM wake-up call. There were different sequences for the start of shift, lunch break, etc. It definitely had the feeling of living in a Dickens novel.
nimbius8 个月前
this is a fascinating delve into the rich tapestry of british history and tradition spanning the ages, and i think it merits preservation at some level.<p>however as an American i nearly dropped a pot of coffee hearing my wife shout something about &quot;knocking up charles dickens&quot; from across the kitchen in front of our kids..
wiradikusuma8 个月前
&quot;the knocker-up soon found out that while he knocked up one who paid him, he knocked up several on each side who did not&quot; -- I thought it was the employer who paid the knockers!<p>I guess it makes sense, otherwise you can pretend you don&#x27;t hear it and excuse yourself from working that day.
datavirtue8 个月前
My mom used to do this with a spray bottle.
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gurjeet8 个月前
I find it very interesting how the same phrase is now used for a completely different meaning. Others might see a connection between this use and the one meant in the movie &#x27;Knocked Up&#x27; [1], but not being a native speaker of the language, I don&#x27;t.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0478311&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0478311&#x2F;</a>
twobitshifter8 个月前
Some thoughts:<p>This could not have had very much precision - you can’t wake up at 725 if your neighbor is up at 715.<p>The knocker uppers client base would be limited by the density of housing and their walking speed.<p>With today’s suburban housing there’s no way to access everyone’s bedroom windows and walk from client to client. Even in urban areas, buildings must have eventually been too tall for a stick to reach.
etcd8 个月前
The waker uppers are up all night. Were there no alarm clocks at all? Can&#x27;t a grandfather clock wake the waker upper?
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sriram_malhar8 个月前
And to this day, being knocked up is a wake up call!
megaloblasto8 个月前
who up-knocks the knocker uppers?
Xophmeister8 个月前
I’m glad the subtitle was included. “Knocker upper” has a very different meaning to me.
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