O brave new world?

For a tool that is supposed to help communicate...as I sit at watch this...

http://thoughtcatalog.files.wordpres...pg?w=700&h=553


I really begin to wonder......

^Hopefully not while you're cruising in your Buick :D

Markus

Sir, it is all the time. Our state law for cell phone usage is hands free only.

My state:

http://image1.masterfile.com/getImag...riving-car.jpg

Cell phones are utterly life changing and life taking. As I stated, it is an electronic leash. It is life taking....one is never but a phone call away from work. We, as a working society, are always at work as a result of the cell phone.

I only use my cellphones for:
- receving rare calls.
- reading SMS messages (ie two factor ID).
- wifi hot spot for my laptop.

/rant on

Bluetooth ear pieces.

First of all, you look ridiculous. You may have Lt Uhura fantasies, and that's great, dress up all you want. But unless you are in some command center, you look ridiculous.

Second, if you are standing there, not obviously holding a cell phone and you, suddenly say "hello, what's up?" don't act surprised if the actual human in front of you turns around and says hello back. There are still some of us who engage in human to human communication in public. This is how humans used to engage in communication. One person says hello and the other person says hello back. It's tradition.

This woman gave the dirtiest look as if *I* were intruding into *her* privacy when I thought I was returning a civil "hello" directed at me... a fellow human. What was I thinking?

Now I fear that if a real human actually engages me in communication by saying "hello", I will just assume they have a stupid thing in their ear and ignore them.

Then that person will whine on an Internets Tubes forum "I was standing in line at the grocery store and I decided to be sociable, so I said hello to this old fat bald guy and the jerk ignored me. What happened to human to human communication?"

And I can't win.

/rant off

:up:

When I retire I will use my cell phone for:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...bran111%29.jpg

Then promptly flush it.

When I retire (If I retire)

https://s14-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/...ticache=519795

I am retired (technically anyway), and the cell phone is my only phone. My sister calls me a great once-in-a-while, sometimes a bandmate calls me to say rehearsal is cancelled (he still works as a flooring contractor), and I like to have it with me in the car in case of emergencies.

I don't text unless I absolutely have to, it's not modern enough to effectively use online, and my average call time runs between five and thirty minutes per month.

It's a handy tool, nothing more.

It's a handy tool to be at the boss' bidding 24/7. That is what it has become. Decades ago one would leave work and go home to the paper and coffee. Work as left at work. No longer. The cell phone has brought many good things. It has also brought a tool to run a life off the clock with no compensation.

As I said, I don't have a boss. I therefore see no need to destroy or discard my phone.

I wonder if it is because you let your employer to exploit you.

I work my hours, sure I may work on long term projects in my own time, or help out in emergencies, but people that know me also know that calling me without an emergency is useless.

But I guess it is also because I hate phonecalls, so trying to work with me through the phone would be less productive than through emails and IM.

The Frau, when she was a contractor used to literally sleep with her cell phone. It was in the bed, not just on the night stand. She used to get E-mails and other messages in the middle of the night from her boss and she would get up and handle them.

She did not have a time critical job. Had to lay down the law on that one. No cell phones in the bed room. She slept better and surprising enough, her company survived just nicely.


Carlo Bounaparte's kid Napoleon