How Smartphones Would Have Changed World History
1889
DOCTOR: It’s a boy! Herr and Frau Hitler, what are you calling him?
HERR HITLER: Adolf. It means “noble wolf.”
FRAU HITLER: Wait, I just looked it up on Wikipedia. A tenth-century earl named Adulf had the surname “Evil-child.”
HERR HITLER: We certainly don’t want that association for our son. Let’s name him Keefer, or “barrelmaker.”
FRAU HITLER: That is a wonderful name. It means our son will definitely make barrels when he grows up.
HERR HITLER: It’s a well-respected profession. Being a barrelmaker in Austria will satisfy all his psychological needs, and he will trade so many of his wares with Germany in the nineteen-twenties and thirties that its government will not need to scapegoat anyone for the country’s financial woes, even if it happens to lose a great war.
DOCTOR: To your son, Keefer Hitler, the future barrelmaker, and to Germany’s unassailable barrel-trade-based political and economic stability!
2000
TECHNICIAN: There you go—the last voting machine I needed to install here in Palm Beach County, Florida.
ELECTION OFFICIAL: Hold on. I just texted a photo of a sample ballot to my elderly mother, and she was confused by the butterfly layout. She thought the section for Bush was actually for Gore.
TECHNICIAN: I’m glad you told me. Let’s reinstall all of the machines in the state.
OFFICIAL: That’s a prudent measure, although I’m sure nothing bad would have come of it.
TECHNICIAN: Yes, I can’t imagine anything would really be different based on a few Florida seniors misunderstanding the ballot and accidentally voting for George W. Bush.
OFFICIAL: And, even if he won mistakenly, I’m sure he’d make a thoughtful, on-top-of-everything President.
TECHNICIAN: To a completely fair election, and to America’s unassailable political and economic stability!
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/how-smartphones-would-have-changed-world-history?intcid=mod-latest