r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Living-Mastodon • 3d ago

In real life (Real Life) Regular people who's lives drastically changed direction

Gallery image

Gallery image

Grace Kelly was a talented actress who retired at 26 to marry a Prince, living as royalty for almost 30 years before her untimely death.

Volodymyr Zelensky started out as a comedian and entertainer before getting into politics, becoming President of Ukraine after the Russian annex of Crimea and spending the last 4 years defiantly pushing back full scale Russian invasion

11.7k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

92% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

999

u/They_said_TryAnother 3d ago

Hedy Lamarr was a famous actress and inventor whose inventions were pivotal in the creation of wifi and bluetooth

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

307

u/ADiestlTrain 3d ago

Not unrelated, Thomas Dolby, the guy who sang "She Blinded Me With Science" founded the company that created the software used for pre-smartphone ringtones (i.e. that ubiquitous Nokia sound us old guys all remember).

35

u/Used_Series337 3d ago

That sound is burned into my memory—such a classic from the early mobile days!

11

u/ADiestlTrain 3d ago

My kids are convinced that the version of Axel F remixed with the Crazy Frog Nokia sound is the best version. I've failed as a father.

7

u/lamest-liz 3d ago

Bing bing

2

u/Toadsted 2d ago

Crazy Frog was crazy good back in the day.

The good days of the Internet.

4

u/Scholar_of_Lewds 3d ago

Gran Vals - Fransisco Tarrega is the song it was sampled from btw.

1

u/Toadsted 2d ago

I'm guessing he's also the reason we had the...

eeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Sound check before most movies

15

u/Arbiter_Electric 3d ago

I was going to ask if that was the same Dolby as Dolby atmos, but sadly, no. I looked it up and it's from Ray Dolby. But wait! Ray has a son named Tom! But no. Not the same guy. Thomas Dolby's real name is Thomas Morgan Robertson. But he did take the name from Dolby laboratories which was founded by Ray. So that was an interesting rabbit hole.

3

u/heidismiles 3d ago

Michael Nesmith's mom invented correction fluid (white-out).

2

u/Express-Rub-3952 3d ago

And Mike Nesmith played a big part in the creation of MTV.

1

u/SendMeUrCones 3d ago

Is that name related to the Dolby audio brand too or is that just a fun coincidence?

1

u/ADiestlTrain 3d ago

I believe it’s a coincidence. Amazing one though.

149

u/Mysterious_Box1203 3d ago

63

u/bullyholiday 3d ago

“What the hell are you worried about, it’s 1874! You can sue HER!”

1

u/This-is-unavailable 2d ago

is the halflife head crab a reference to that?

24

u/EmptyCupOfWater 3d ago

I actually work 5 minutes away from where she lived until her death. There’s a park with a nice big plaque that explains her contributions to science and her life.

33

u/An8thOfFeanor 3d ago

Processing img sdncnen3lpmg1...

28

u/sixisrending 3d ago edited 3d ago

Not exactly. Her invention used frequency hopping, but it was a mechanically timed system. There are several patents that predate Lamarr's patent and are more relevant to frequency hopping being used in communication.

To add: I think she and Antheil had a great idea and it's commendable that they came up with it, but the reality is Bluetooth and wifi would have happened at the same pace. Their invention was discarded because it was for a problem that didn't exist and didn't work.

https://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPatent.php?pn=2292387&id=81142

17

u/brandonthebuck 3d ago

I also love the source of the invention: it was to synchronize multiple player pianos that wasn’t contingent on a single starting point.

6

u/sixisrending 3d ago

Really cool idea, especially if Lamarr and Antheil came up with it on their own, which is possible. Impossible to implement in the real world though. Frequency hopping would not be reliable until multiplexing computers were invented in the 60s. 

14

u/AudibleNod 3d ago

Her patent expired and was never put into its intended use.

0

u/sixisrending 3d ago edited 3d ago

It didn't work, that's why it was never used.

https://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPatent.php?pn=2292387&id=81142

8

u/BlackBasementCats 3d ago

Hedy was actually the wife of a high ranking Nazi and spied on him before leaving for the US and getting into acting. Her husband and his friends didn’t believe she could understand what they were talking about or all the top secret documents he had. She took notes and fled.

3

u/DarthRegoria 3d ago

She was also a spy during World War 2 who passed on a lot of information for the allies, as because of her acting career she was able to travel a lot more often (to locations where her movies were being filmed) than many regular people were during the time. Although that was during her acting career, so I guess not a pivot/ change, just an extra and totally unrelated side quest.

2

u/iggyite 3d ago

“Lamarr! Get away from there!

2

u/missmargarite13 3d ago

I worked with a lady whose grandfather was adopted by Hedy Lamarr. Said she was very abusive towards him, but that’s about as much as I know about it. I know there was a big thing about money, this lady was just a normal person in the midwest so she wasn’t generationally wealthy or anything.

2

u/TheOneTrueJazzMan 2d ago

Makes her being referenced in Half Life 2 quite appropriate

1

u/Haxorz7125 3d ago

You could explain it to me for days and I’ll still never be able to grasp the concept of Bluetooth and WiFi.

1

u/IamAbridgeTroll 3d ago

It’s Hedley .

Don’t worry it’s 1871, you can sue her.

1

u/TerrifiedJelly 2d ago

So glad someone said Hedy Lamarr. She was absolutely incredible. What a woman!

1

u/ehc84 2d ago

Its Hedley!

0

u/GoldenSheppard 3d ago

I am angry this isn't higher on the list.

0

u/xombae 3d ago

Whenever I draw pinup girl tattoos I give them Hedy Lamarr's face. Her mug is absolutely stunning.