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.

Training a trillion parameter model.

Deep fakes

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

mRNA vaccines

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?

meeting implies near real time and more than two participants.

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

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

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!"

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.

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.