Yeah, I was expecting Tom to recuse himself as I was sure I learned of this from one of his videos. The only other place that comes to mind I might have learned about it is QI.
I knew this one as soon as I saw the thumbnail, and before Tom read out the question. Can't remember where I heard about it, but I do remember the phrase 'In the funeral business you can't do much to expand the market - success is all about market share!'
Well.. you can technically expand the market I suppose.. During the pandemic I saw this add that said something like 'don't get vaccinated -some funeral home'
@@christafranken9170 That's more moving the custom forward in time (or should that be back?) than it is expanding the business. Getting people's business a bit sooner than you otherwise would have done, with the tradeoff that you now can''t have that trade when it otherwise would have occured.The maximum amount of funerals you can sell is still equal to the number of living people in your area. If you are selling, say, eggs, you can expand the business by marketing in such a way that you persuade people to have more eggs a week (e.g. 'Go to work on a egg' which directly encourages people to eat at least 7 eggs a week), but you can't persuade someone that they should have more than one funeral (well not without massively changing society's current views on funerals).
Me too! I came to say exactly this. FYI, from what I know of them (and this is confirmed by the description) they have their own podcast, called Let's Learn Everything
Wait I thought that laziness was the mother of invention. As someone who is lazy might find a way to make his/her job more easy (and in return more efficient often )
I heard this story for what I believe was the first time on the Secret Life of Machines, a wonderful old program made by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, I think it was originally a channel 4 show in the UK but I saw it here in the US on the Learning Channel when I was a kid. All the old episodes are on Tim Hunkin's RUclips channel, he's still going, but unfortunately Rex passed away a number of years ago.
I still remember seeing the old mechanical exchanges in racks at the Hamilton exchange in Newcastle. It still baffles me how someone figured it out, but now knowing it was out of spite, well, that's a great motivator.
Ex-BT Telephone operator (yes, I've had as many different jobs as Homer Simpson, apart from never working in a nuclear power station. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island don't really count...). In the 1980s the Withdean Telephone Exchange was still using Strowger switches and I had an opportunity to "sample" the noise. It was extreme. Fortunately at that time they were just moving to digital exchanges. (I think this was 1989)
Every telecom engineer of a particular age I ever worked with had a piece of a dedcommissioned Strowger enchange either on their desk or in their office.
I love this story - I was first told it when I joined a telephone exchange manufacturer years ago - strowger exchanges were starting to be replaced at the time, but have always remembered it. Hence it is the first (and last) Lateral video where I guessed the answer before clicking on the video!
Fans of that ole BBC, imported by Discovery, program, "The Secret Life of Machines: The Telephone," knew this one. Thanks, Tim and Rex, for teaching us about this and so many other things.
I knew the answer having visited Seattle's Telephone museum and had no idea how this group was going to make the lateral move needed to figure it out. Good job!
I'd suspect that wasn't for technical reasons, suitcase sized PABX systems were available then. More a simple way to keep an eye on shenanigans. Room 27 called 5 other rooms then the beer keg rental place. Let's keep an eye on that.
I love these ones where I know the answer already just from the title, so you can follow along from the quizmasters position. Flips the whole game on its head. I also like that it's something I assumed to be common knowledge, but obviously that's cos most of the people I hang out with are electronic and history nerds. It's just such a good story. The thought of this bloke being awake at 3am, knowing this is happening, n coming up with a way to thwart it is inspiring. And it's a fairly complex but good design. Didn't get used for so long by accident. I also love it as a sign of that time, "pfft, humans, I shall build a MACHINE!"
Shoutout to Ask A Mortician for some of the asides I was able to provide for my partner while watching this. "Did she make cakes?" Cue me pausing the video and turning to my partner to describe Sin Eaters!
I had no clue this time what the answer would be:) up till the last moment my guesses were colpletely off. Great episode Thank you all for the entertainment :) i used to install pbx systems when i was a student but haven't had a clue how they were invented😂
A really neat bit of trivia. But I do wonder about how telephone operators didn't automatically become obsolete right away with the invention. Because if he invented that switch in the 1890, then why were there operators still being used into the 1960s? In 1959's "The Apartment," there's a whole bunch of telephone operators in the office building. And I think I remember seeing operators in "Mad Men." Jim Croce never would have penned is amazing hit song "Operator" had they gone away in the 1890s. So if anyone is a big telecommunications history buff & know the answer, I'd love to hear it.
Prestige? "We employ real humans, not these soulless switches!" Also, there might be technical limitations to the number of connection that could be handled by the mechanical switches and such. I'll have to google this now... :)
On top of manual, regional exchanges, some of which were operating as late as 1983, a lot of companies and buildings would also have internal, manual exchanges. These were used right up until the late 20th century. It's the old "Could I have 'extension 321', please?" issue, which still happens today in some ways.
The automatic switch was revolutionary, but it was also expensive, and it had to compete with humans who were being paid very low wages (since minimum wage laws didn't yet exist and few other companies would hire women at all). As a result, it took several decades for automatic switches to completely replace human operators.
I assumed had something to do with the hospital, like she worked as a nurse. "So sad Grandpa passed away. Do you have funeral arrangements? I recommend..."
This is one of those facts that is very well known to those nerdy types of my age. The name alone is unusual enough to trigger recall of the equipment named after him. See also Tim Hunkin's program 'Secret Life of Machines' where he tells this story.
Yes, I remember articles in Wireless World that mentioned Strowger back in the late 1970s, so the name was familiar. But I was buying it for the articles on audio, and had no idea how to pronounce "Strowger" until quite recently.
I haven't heard of the buried alive/coffin bell creepypastas but I did read a Mary Higgins Clark mystery in my early teen years that involved one of those and I'd say it was probably equally as scarring lmao
Not related, but funny. At a church I used to go to, our (bivocational) pastor had somewhat recently become a funeral director. One Sunday morning they're going over prayer requests and he's like "I don't know what to ask you to pray for, but business has been really slow lately and as the most recent hire I would probably be the first to be let go."
My guess after their initial round of things that were said...: did she offer some spiritualist service alongside the funeral itself, and did that guy patent something to compete with that side of the business, like the Ouija board or something? (but I might be a bit biased, because I just came from watching the new WILTY clip where Henning was telling a story involving Derek Acorah (and coincidentally, I knew who that was bacause I've seen the TechDiff guys mention him in one of their episodes, so there's a full circle to this) Edit after seeing the rest of the video: Wow, I was not expecting the answer to be about .... (that, no spoiler)
Initial thoughts: I think I've heard something along the lines of: the wife bad-mouthed that Strowger was "cursed/evil", doing nefarious deeds, bringing misfortunes upon the town, etc.? But what did he PATENT to solve the problem? I don't know. But it's probably not a simple service upgrade through improvements of coffins/caskets, better embalming fluids, pre-arrangements, or the likes; that would not be Lateral. So maybe some form of cages put around the grave to "trap" people in; so he won't be able to raise them from the dead or other "bad/occult" stuff that was bad-mouthed. Perhaps the bell and rope alert system so newly buried people could broadcast they were still alive and dug up? If it has nothing to do with bad-mouthing, ... no idea.
5:10 She's a switchboard operator: she would connect calls about both businesses to her husband's. Now, what did he PATENT? Line-specific numbering, pulse dialing, and automated call-connecting, like using electro-mechanical relays, in order to push her out of the loop? You can't patent using a greeting message such as "thank you for reaching X business", or verification/rebate codes. Nor can you patent laws, best-practices, and ethic rules. I can't figure it out.
I wouldn't have thought the switchboard started that early. But with the Australian lens things at that time took a while to reach us. I guess if you have a problem to solve your find a solution.
Weren’t there still switch board operators till a lot later than that? 1891 seems really early for this to be making an effect for his funeral business.
Yes, of course there were switch board operators later. It would have been hard for this scheme to work before 1891, since it relies on telephones being common and widely used.
Even as late as 1989 BT was still using manual switchboards for 999 calls. I know this because I was trained to handle 999 calls (as all telephone operators needed to be).
I'm pretty sure I know exactly what this is from the thumbnail alone lol (Undertaker creating... something telephone related because his competitor's wife was the town's phone operator)
I worked in Telecoms before Marconi management's incompetence put me on the slippery slope to a much better job. I'd know where this is going from the name even if I didn't know the story.
The "patented" part threw me off. I feel like it should've been what did he invent. The fact that it was patented didn't stop the scam, it's just that it was invented and used at all that stopped the scam. If it wasn't patented the scam still isn't possible.
It seems this would be a difficult business to get repeat customers. After all, you only need the services one. Not even once in your life, as by the time you need the service you are no longer alive.
True as far as it goes, but for the operator she doesn't need repeat guests of honor, she needs to be inside the community's communications system so what whenever funeral needs appear she can route the person where she wants them to go.
"We support women's wrongs."
I died. And then was buried at the funeral home of my choosing.
underrated comment
Omg he ACTUALLY said imma end this woman’s whole entire career.
And let's be honest: she had it coming.
Yeah, for what she was doing she deserved to be fired. Every other operator also losing their job was collateral damage. 😅
I'm genuinely surprised Tom Scott didn't already know this one - I don't know where I learned it, but for once I knew it from the start
This does sound like a Tom Scott video, doesn't it?
Tom is too young, he grew up in an age when these things had already gone digital.
@@donaldasayersI'm in my 20s and I've heard of this before, age doesn't mean a lot in trivia answers imo
Yeah, I was expecting Tom to recuse himself as I was sure I learned of this from one of his videos. The only other place that comes to mind I might have learned about it is QI.
Tom did do a video at a telephone museum.
“You take my business, I’ll destroy your whole industry!”
I knew this one as soon as I saw the thumbnail, and before Tom read out the question. Can't remember where I heard about it, but I do remember the phrase 'In the funeral business you can't do much to expand the market - success is all about market share!'
Well.. you can technically expand the market I suppose..
During the pandemic I saw this add that said something like
'don't get vaccinated
-some funeral home'
@@christafranken9170 That's more moving the custom forward in time (or should that be back?) than it is expanding the business. Getting people's business a bit sooner than you otherwise would have done, with the tradeoff that you now can''t have that trade when it otherwise would have occured.The maximum amount of funerals you can sell is still equal to the number of living people in your area.
If you are selling, say, eggs, you can expand the business by marketing in such a way that you persuade people to have more eggs a week (e.g. 'Go to work on a egg' which directly encourages people to eat at least 7 eggs a week), but you can't persuade someone that they should have more than one funeral (well not without massively changing society's current views on funerals).
@@christafranken9170 Wikipedia: "This list of serial killers is incomplete. You can help by expanding it"
@@christafranken9170 Although it is generally frowned upon for them to actively take a role in increasing the demand.
@@christafranken9170Murder also works.
I love these 3 guests together, and I love that they're a recurring trio.
(Paused about 2 minutes in to type this. Now, back to the video!)
Me too! I came to say exactly this.
FYI, from what I know of them (and this is confirmed by the description) they have their own podcast, called Let's Learn Everything
Revenge is the mother of invention.
Wait I thought that laziness was the mother of invention. As someone who is lazy might find a way to make his/her job more easy (and in return more efficient often )
@@sirBrouwer But that's not what today's video was about, Gary.
"We support women's wrongs" had me literally spit a chunk of bread across my desk. That was brilliant!
I heard this story for what I believe was the first time on the Secret Life of Machines, a wonderful old program made by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, I think it was originally a channel 4 show in the UK but I saw it here in the US on the Learning Channel when I was a kid. All the old episodes are on Tim Hunkin's RUclips channel, he's still going, but unfortunately Rex passed away a number of years ago.
Always good to hear people talking about Rex!
That might be where I heard about this first, The Secret Life of Machine is brilliant.
I still remember seeing the old mechanical exchanges in racks at the Hamilton exchange in Newcastle. It still baffles me how someone figured it out, but now knowing it was out of spite, well, that's a great motivator.
The undertaker wasn't fkn around
In a way, the undertaker threw mankind off hell into cell towers.
I know, the last part is way too forced
Hello Ella, please tell your cat I love them.
He says "brrrp"
@@ellahubber Haha, excellent , thank you
I love this exchange.
Ex-BT Telephone operator (yes, I've had as many different jobs as Homer Simpson, apart from never working in a nuclear power station. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island don't really count...). In the 1980s the Withdean Telephone Exchange was still using Strowger switches and I had an opportunity to "sample" the noise. It was extreme. Fortunately at that time they were just moving to digital exchanges. (I think this was 1989)
Every telecom engineer of a particular age I ever worked with had a piece of a dedcommissioned Strowger enchange either on their desk or in their office.
2:35 I laughed this one out: "those damn physicians keeping my clientele away" *vainly shakes fist in the air*.
I love this story - I was first told it when I joined a telephone exchange manufacturer years ago - strowger exchanges were starting to be replaced at the time, but have always remembered it. Hence it is the first (and last) Lateral video where I guessed the answer before clicking on the video!
Fans of that ole BBC, imported by Discovery, program, "The Secret Life of Machines: The Telephone," knew this one. Thanks, Tim and Rex, for teaching us about this and so many other things.
If I were one of the participants, I would have started by saying. "Hmm, I think this story rings a bell..."
Potentially of the Alexander Graham variety
I knew the answer having visited Seattle's Telephone museum and had no idea how this group was going to make the lateral move needed to figure it out. Good job!
When I was in collage in the 1980's
...my dormitory had an antique, still in use, manual switchboard.
I'd suspect that wasn't for technical reasons, suitcase sized PABX systems were available then. More a simple way to keep an eye on shenanigans. Room 27 called 5 other rooms then the beer keg rental place. Let's keep an eye on that.
Ella has such a beautiful cat!
I think this is one of my favorite facts so far!
This group of guests is so fun. Always enjoy these clips.
0:15 Oh, I know this already.. Anyone else watch the Secret Life of Machines growing up in the 80s/90s?
I love these ones where I know the answer already just from the title, so you can follow along from the quizmasters position. Flips the whole game on its head. I also like that it's something I assumed to be common knowledge, but obviously that's cos most of the people I hang out with are electronic and history nerds. It's just such a good story. The thought of this bloke being awake at 3am, knowing this is happening, n coming up with a way to thwart it is inspiring. And it's a fairly complex but good design. Didn't get used for so long by accident. I also love it as a sign of that time, "pfft, humans, I shall build a MACHINE!"
This is a great story/fact. It took me by surprise like it did for Caroline, Ella and Tom. Thank you!
Shoutout to Ask A Mortician for some of the asides I was able to provide for my partner while watching this. "Did she make cakes?" Cue me pausing the video and turning to my partner to describe Sin Eaters!
are sin eaters like death eaters?
I literally got this one from the title alone!
I think this is the first Lateral Highlight where I've known the answer going in, which makes for a nice change!
Daaaaaamn that's 𝑝𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑦 and I love it. Truly inspired.
I had no clue this time what the answer would be:) up till the last moment my guesses were colpletely off. Great episode Thank you all for the entertainment :) i used to install pbx systems when i was a student but haven't had a clue how they were invented😂
"A dead cheeky way to steal business" sounds like an Educating Ricky headline
Being around Tom (but with a bit less gray hair), I couldn't help but shake my head at the 3:34 mark.
I have heard of this of, but I misremembered what the tech was and thought the year was too early.
WOW! What an awesome question! History is cool.
I heard that story several times, the first one was maybe 10 years ago in a monthly French science magazine for young teenagers
I knew this one! learned it from my grandmother who had a similar job with the competitor's wife!
I knew the name Strowger from watching Look Mum No Computer, but I didn't put two and two together straight away
Oooh, for the first time I knew the answer to this at the start!
Probably the first time just coming in and go "Ah, yep, I know exactly what you're on about."
A really neat bit of trivia. But I do wonder about how telephone operators didn't automatically become obsolete right away with the invention. Because if he invented that switch in the 1890, then why were there operators still being used into the 1960s? In 1959's "The Apartment," there's a whole bunch of telephone operators in the office building. And I think I remember seeing operators in "Mad Men." Jim Croce never would have penned is amazing hit song "Operator" had they gone away in the 1890s. So if anyone is a big telecommunications history buff & know the answer, I'd love to hear it.
Prestige? "We employ real humans, not these soulless switches!" Also, there might be technical limitations to the number of connection that could be handled by the mechanical switches and such. I'll have to google this now... :)
cost was one factor. also calling a different town/state/country still required going through an operator at the time.
On top of manual, regional exchanges, some of which were operating as late as 1983, a lot of companies and buildings would also have internal, manual exchanges. These were used right up until the late 20th century. It's the old "Could I have 'extension 321', please?" issue, which still happens today in some ways.
Same reason why we still have manually driven trains despite fully automatic trains having been a thing for decades.
The automatic switch was revolutionary, but it was also expensive, and it had to compete with humans who were being paid very low wages (since minimum wage laws didn't yet exist and few other companies would hire women at all). As a result, it took several decades for automatic switches to completely replace human operators.
This was a fun one! I did not see that coming.
Late-Nighteral!
Love it! And it's one I know!!
I just spent the last five minutes trying to pet Ella’s cat…
I assumed had something to do with the hospital, like she worked as a nurse. "So sad Grandpa passed away. Do you have funeral arrangements? I recommend..."
Finally watching Look Mum No Computer / This Museum Is (Not) Obsolete paid of! 😁
I believe Strow it's pronounced like throw.
I actually knew this one. Although, I have no idea where I heard about it
Adam Conover?
I'm like 90% certain Tom himself has a video up on his channel where he visited the solution or something similar.
Pretty sure it was on QI, or possibly their podcast.
Learned this one courtesy Tim Hunkin.
"Was she giving birth?" Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that is still done predominantly by women.
I also think that would kinda benefit his business eventually.
@@mk_rexx In 1891? Pretty often, sadly.
I knew this before clicking play! I think his name is usually pronounced Strow as German "Frau" and ger as in the first syllable of "gerbil".
As soon as phones came up, I realized what this was. I heard this story from somewhere and I can't remember where.
Maybe a Half as Interesting.
I had absolutely no clue, what an interesting story :o
A machine can't be biased (At least, not at the time)
All i could think of was The Undertaker the wrestler
This is one of those facts that is very well known to those nerdy types of my age. The name alone is unusual enough to trigger recall of the equipment named after him.
See also Tim Hunkin's program 'Secret Life of Machines' where he tells this story.
When I heard the answer I was embarrassed and thought, "Oh, of course, STROWGER!"
Yes, I remember articles in Wireless World that mentioned Strowger back in the late 1970s, so the name was familiar. But I was buying it for the articles on audio, and had no idea how to pronounce "Strowger" until quite recently.
wow it's the first one I've heard the answer of before (saw a doug sharpe tiktok about it before)
Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin patented a...
*GUN*
Strowger gave it away for me (Strowger switch/exchange)
I haven't heard of the buried alive/coffin bell creepypastas but I did read a Mary Higgins Clark mystery in my early teen years that involved one of those and I'd say it was probably equally as scarring lmao
Not related, but funny. At a church I used to go to, our (bivocational) pastor had somewhat recently become a funeral director. One Sunday morning they're going over prayer requests and he's like "I don't know what to ask you to pray for, but business has been really slow lately and as the most recent hire I would probably be the first to be let go."
a holy handgranaten might work.
My guess after their initial round of things that were said...:
did she offer some spiritualist service alongside the funeral itself, and did that guy patent something to compete with that side of the business, like the Ouija board or something?
(but I might be a bit biased, because I just came from watching the new WILTY clip where Henning was telling a story involving Derek Acorah (and coincidentally, I knew who that was bacause I've seen the TechDiff guys mention him in one of their episodes, so there's a full circle to this)
Edit after seeing the rest of the video: Wow, I was not expecting the answer to be about .... (that, no spoiler)
I knew this one
I sat it out
:)
I've read that it was him leaving the phone off the hook and not the competitors wife.
Initial thoughts: I think I've heard something along the lines of: the wife bad-mouthed that Strowger was "cursed/evil", doing nefarious deeds, bringing misfortunes upon the town, etc.? But what did he PATENT to solve the problem? I don't know. But it's probably not a simple service upgrade through improvements of coffins/caskets, better embalming fluids, pre-arrangements, or the likes; that would not be Lateral.
So maybe some form of cages put around the grave to "trap" people in; so he won't be able to raise them from the dead or other "bad/occult" stuff that was bad-mouthed. Perhaps the bell and rope alert system so newly buried people could broadcast they were still alive and dug up?
If it has nothing to do with bad-mouthing, ... no idea.
5:10 She's a switchboard operator: she would connect calls about both businesses to her husband's. Now, what did he PATENT? Line-specific numbering, pulse dialing, and automated call-connecting, like using electro-mechanical relays, in order to push her out of the loop?
You can't patent using a greeting message such as "thank you for reaching X business", or verification/rebate codes. Nor can you patent laws, best-practices, and ethic rules. I can't figure it out.
Results: The first part was lost on me. But, I did get the second part. Always a fun one with this gang.
I wouldn't have thought the switchboard started that early. But with the Australian lens things at that time took a while to reach us. I guess if you have a problem to solve your find a solution.
I am stopping this to say "the telephone dial" system. The wife worked for the phone company. I don't remember where I first heard about it.
Also invented: Net neutrality
I knew that answer straight away. Surprised it took Tom S so long.
Weren’t there still switch board operators till a lot later than that? 1891 seems really early for this to be making an effect for his funeral business.
Yes, of course there were switch board operators later. It would have been hard for this scheme to work before 1891, since it relies on telephones being common and widely used.
Even as late as 1989 BT was still using manual switchboards for 999 calls. I know this because I was trained to handle 999 calls (as all telephone operators needed to be).
Has anybody shared this information with Look Mum No Computer (This Museum is (not) Obsolete)?
Istfg if this was an actual quiz show I'd do so well
My man took away thousands of jobs for getting wronged. Respect
I'm pretty sure I know exactly what this is from the thumbnail alone lol
(Undertaker creating... something telephone related because his competitor's wife was the town's phone operator)
Photographs on headstones?
I worked in Telecoms before Marconi management's incompetence put me on the slippery slope to a much better job. I'd know where this is going from the name even if I didn't know the story.
Ella's got a kitty
“Done mostly by women at the time” is kinda tricky hint
...and since then, undertakers have seen a rather steep drop in technological patents.
I wonder how the guy figured out she was doing this
knew it 20 seconds in
Every time I watch this one, I want the answer to be that the wife founded the London Necropolis Railway
First one I was like. I know this
4:50 because today giving birth is pretty much evenly split between men and women 😂
No one's going to comment on the fact that Tom was only a year off with his guess and it never gets mentioned again? OK, then I'll do it...
He's buried in St. Petersburg.
The "patented" part threw me off. I feel like it should've been what did he invent. The fact that it was patented didn't stop the scam, it's just that it was invented and used at all that stopped the scam. If it wasn't patented the scam still isn't possible.
Other people helped with the invention, he got the patent. Stop whining about semantics, especially when you're wrong.
@@wta1518 Nobody is whining and theres no need to act like an ass unessesarily. Be a nicer person
@@walker1054 I'm sorry, I was half asleep when I wrote that.
wow, god forbid a girl does *anything* smh
let a queen slay
BRING OUT YOUR DEAD! BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!
It seems this would be a difficult business to get repeat customers. After all, you only need the services one. Not even once in your life, as by the time you need the service you are no longer alive.
Funerals aren't for the dead, it's for the living.
True as far as it goes, but for the operator she doesn't need repeat guests of honor, she needs to be inside the community's communications system so what whenever funeral needs appear she can route the person where she wants them to go.
"We support women's wrongs"
Very funny - as so often! The story might be a little different though en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch?