Berlin had one of the largest pneumatic mail systems in the world. A (highly recommended) Berlin Unterwelten tour covers it. There is still a big, beautiful Rohrpost building in Mitte close to the big Synagogue.

The Real store at Leopoldplatz has a pneumatic tube system that reaches every cash register. You can see the tubes go up and along the ceiling. I believe that it's one of the failed Walmart stores from their disastrous attempts to conquer the German market.

Chaos Communication Congress often features the “Silk Road” network of pneumatic tubes, powered by regular vacuum cleaners. People obviously send a lot of viagra spam, but I’ve even seen vodka shots delivered through it.

You build your own tube capsule that first needs to be “certified” by running through a test track.

Lots of detail for example in https://events.ccc.de/congress/2014/wiki/Projects:Seidenstra...

The early Blue Man Group [0] shows off-Broadway (before they were the Intel guys) were billed as "Blue Man/Tubes"

They'd run corrugated pipe from each seat in the theater to the waiting hall.

Which meant that while you were waiting for the next show, you could talk to someone who was watching the current show.

Was pretty neat.

PS: Also walked out of the show with a nice black eye, after my pre-teen self went down in the final toilet paper wave and caught the heel of the guy in front of me. Still worth it!

[0] E.g. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R1N_r2J5hek

Reminds me, there was a nightclub in Newcastle-upon-Tyne way back in the 1980s which had a telephone on each table. If you fancied someone on another table you'd dial their table phone and strike up a chat. Can't remember the name of the club but it was on Market Street somewhere. Good times!

For RPGers, this is one of the many elements from that time that show up in "Berlin: The Wicked City" for Call of Cthulhu. It doesn't get the attention that it deserves as a module and setting. Weimar Berlin is practically mythos-tastic in and of itself.

Virgin America offered a service like this when I flew with them a decade ago.

If you saw someone you liked, you could make a note of their seat number and buy them a drink from your seatback display.

If they accepted the drink, you could start texting with them.

I never got lucky, but it was a fun concept!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2013/04/25/virg...

Is it time to bring up the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel again?

https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...

This is a titillating combination of remote (don’t know the person) and in-person (you can see them right there across the room. Something that’s impossible to recreate with Tender, etc.

There are two fatal flaws to the system that’s described in the article and the more recent examples mentioned the comments, though: (1) first call takes all, you wouldn’t know how many people would be interested in you; and (2) denial of date, where your first caller can keep you on the call indefinitely, ruining your chances with others.

And what if you receive no calls in a reasonable amount of time, e.g., 10 minutes? In a modern implementation one of these call-less people can be chosen at random and displayed on a big screen, to increase their chances.

I would totally go to a club like this, both the 20s Charleston version or a 80s version.

Oh yea this is a lot of fun imagine a club where there’s color coded phones on the wall based on what you’re looking for and when you pick one up you are connected to someone else on the other end and you can talk and maybe meet up with them if you like what you hear.

Just happened to read about pneumatic tubes around the world in The Victorian Internet. Even though pneumatic tubes were invented after the telegraph, they didn't suffer the same congestion issues as the telegraph (because you could send messages in bulk, I guess?). And unlike how telegram were charged by-the-word, pneumatic tube messages were charged a fixed price. The book focused more on the Paris pneumatic tube network than the Berlin one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet

https://parisianfields.com/2018/05/20/les-petits-bleus/

The main character in The Innocent meets his love interest in this manner. But the book took place in the 1950s.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6868.The_Innocent

I had an office job ca. 1985-1988 during which my manager asked me for my thoughts on installing a pneumatic tube system. The office was located on 2 floors, ie, the 18th and the 39th. I don't quite recall her motivation and reasoning, other than to speed up the transfer of paper docs. Up until then, this was mainly the domain of the mail clerk. I think my manager intended for the tubes to transit between the 2 mailrooms on both floors, so the onus would be put on each employee check the tube room for anything that was due to them. At least the mail clerk delivered straight to everyone's desks.

I was less enthusiastic about it, and told her so. Ultimately, no tube system was installed.

One might romanticize how nice it would be to meet dates outside an app again.

In Tokyo, there are bars specifically tailored for people who are seeking dates. The bar even has displays outside showing the number of men and women currently in the venue. When you get inside, you get to chat to cohorts of the opposite gender for a given amount of time (e.g. 15 min) before you move to the next round.

How do these bars get women to come? The men have to pay for all their drinks. In my only experience (dragged by my friends), the women kept ordering more drinks while chatting amongst themselves. I saw the tab and never went back in again.

One thing not mentioned in the article is whether the semi-anonymous nature of the tubes allowed for safer same-sex flirtation. I must imagine that it did, especially given what I've heard of 1920s Berlin.

Oh yeah? In NYC in the early 2000’s we used crude little close circuit TV things.

Anyone remember the Remote Lounge?

I love getting pneumail!

My grandpa lived in Berlin in the 20s but I'm sure he was too square to participate in something cool like this. When he was in his 80s, though, he was a early adopter of "Bildschirmtext".

Du wünschst shakin' das bootie, ja?

100 years later and with supercomputers in our pockets, we can't do any better - because these devices are so locked down.

How many guys are now thinking "Will my wife let me build one in the house?"?

I was very disappointed when I clicked and it wasn't about how people in 1920s Berlin flitted via pneumatic tubes.

This should make a come back

This needs to come back.

Sounds way better tbh

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This sounds like just the Hyperloop crossover to relaunch er... X with.