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[moon_custafer]

Made this to be an LJ icon, but if I shrink it to 100 pixels square, the text is too small to read:


I don't want to change the text because that's an actual newspaper story; a slightly letter setting than the picture, but I imagine telegraph operators had been chatting between official messages for a few decades before the rest of the world noticed.

Comments

[donald hutton (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah, the InterNet after this one was Ham Radio. WIRED had a great article at one point reprinting the "dot-com" boosterism in the press releases of the Ham enthusiasts. One guy was sure that it was going to end war as all mankind would soon be able to instantaneously communicate!

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Contrariwise, I read an argument once from an historian in the 1930s that WWI wouldn't have happened w/o instantaneous communications, because everyone would've had time to calm down about the Archduke.

I'm a bit dubious, though, because wars had been breaking out for centuries without the help of telegraph, and also in hindsight it looks like many Europeans in the early 20th century were spoiling for a fight, though I've never been sure why.