I'm an absolute Luddite! My cell phone is for talking, and then only to arrange a time to do it face-to-face. I'm perfectly happy with my...phone. It's not even a flip-phone!:cool:

Good for you Sailor Steve. Last time I went to get a mobile phone (after the 9 key went U/S on my old one, which was nearly ten years old) the 12 year-old that was attempting to serve me in the shop started bleating on something like this...

Shop person: 'this one has a 10 billion megapixel camera on it and it does your laundry for you and...'
Me: 'Can you make and receive calls on it?'
Shop person: 'What?'
Me: 'I came in for a phone, not a camera, I have a digital camera'
Shop person: 'Yes but..'
Me: 'If I want to take a photograph, I will use my camera, I don't want a phone that can take pictures, in the same way as I don't want a kettle that can record television programmes, am I getting through to you?'
Shop person: 'But...'
Me: 'bye'

Ten minutes later I bought a pay as you go phone in Tesco for 30 quid.

:D Chock

French civil servants and state officials have been forbidden to use Blackberrys for office communications, since their servers are located in the US and Britain and French government has been warned that this makes it easy for US intel to spy on internal information of the French government and departments.

But since you are Ancient British, you are forgiven. :smug:

Luddite? :D My wife and I are the only two people in California without cellphones.:D

She's taking our nephew to Disneyland when he comes for a visit this summer.

Someone said to her, how could she take a child all the way to Los Angeles without a cellphone.

Her answer. "In a car.":rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

:rotfl: That's great!

I refused to have one at all until I was in a situation where I couldn't use the landlady's phone, so I got one just to not bother her. I like it now just because it has a built-in phone book, so I don't have to look up friends' numbers or carry paper around.

I have at least one friend who still won't have one. He even hates to use his home phone except for absolutely necessary calls.

Hear hear! :lol:

His name isn't Paulie Vario is it?:lol:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099685/

"Paulie hated telephones. He wouldn't have one in his house. There were guys, that was all they did, was handle Paulie's phonecalls."

Yeah, ok, very interesting.

There was an old aunt of mine, years ago she refused to let her son put one of those new-fangled porcelain "toilets" in her house. Who in their right mind would allow such unsanitary behavior right next to the family room?! She finally gave in and let him build an enclosure on the porch :lol:

I think it is interesting when people push so hard against some new tech that is accepted by the majority of the population. Probably many of us do it in some form or another. I confess to being like that, back about 8 years ago. The cell phone was still somewhat new, and since I really didn't feel the need for one, I didn't see what all the fuss was over. It got to be such a hassle not having one, though. Like Steve says, it is great to have your complete phone book built in (mine has 300 names, family, friends, business, Subsim).

I'm pretty flexible when it comes to the type of phone. I had gotten the premier super version that the carrier gives you when you sign up, with the camera, video, streaming news, mp3 player, etc. One day I got caught in a thunderstorm and soaked it. I found it would cost $289 to replace, or I could wait 8 months for my plan to renew. Pfft, I went to Walmart and got this phone for $18. The features are very basic, no camera, no fancy ring tones, and a really plain display, but I actually like it better. It is the perfect shape, has a gret rubber edge to help secure it in the hand, no antennea nub to snag in my pants pocket, it works fine--and it is only $18! It's disposable. I bought an extra so I should be good for several years, or until I buy the iPhone 2.0.

I sell cell phones to people daily.

I also refer to these morons with their Mac Books waiting in line for a couple days to buy an iPhone as "iIdiots".

There are plenty 'smartphones' out there that would do the job just fine, however, add an "i" in front of the name and have Apple make it.. you're golden for all the iIdiots who buy into the iCulture.

Not to mention.. electronics are the only things coming down in price... however, anything from Apple is "price protected" which means that while all the others go down in price, they'll be raping you handily at the exact same price for a long time to come.

btw... Steve Jobs and Apple isn't some kind of saviour... they're exactly what their customers think they're fighting against in @ssholish capitalism.

Poor hippies.. I can only laugh at the irony. :rotfl:

Actually, I am on no crusade aganst cell phones. It's just that very often I see people (in the warehouse) talk on the phone, while dealing with another person in front of them "en passant". This is simply extremely unpolite behavior. Or people not switching off that damn thing even in the most wanted situations (cinema, speeches, church, etc). the rest of what I said - is my personal business only. And I do not like to be at service to everybody 24 hours around the clock. Cell phones, imo, led to some very clear detoriation of social manners and polite behavior - on both ends of the line.

When working in that warehouse, I do the cashdesk job often. You would be surprised how many people are cursing their phones when you have the chance to see several hundred customers during a day. No joke. I think many do not have it becasue they want it, but they follow a trend to be trendy.

where it becomes absurd is when handies turn into status sym bols. when people sit down,. they imemdiately put their phones on the table, whhcih socialpsychologically has three messages: 1. "Look how important I am." 2. "The world cannot do without me - I expect to be called every moment." 3. "Look how much money I have - this is the latest model, isn't it."

Add this to the problem of jueveniles tapping blindly into the cost trap and ending up with financial debts, handies being used to exchange pornos and violent videos and to film beating-ups of class mates or sexual harassing of schoolgirls, and trading these videos via bluetooth and internet, and you see why I think that at schools handies should be banned. These problems are very great problems in germany, I know from first hand. And first schools have forbidden handies indeed, a despareate decision since nothing else worked.

BTW, is the term "handy" even used in English for cell phones?

On occasion, I agree with you Skybird. This is one.

Little will piss me off more than being mid-conversation with someone - especially when they're asking my advice or help - and they pick up their cell and start talking mid-sentence. I have almost killed people. Very rude.

Sad thing is... I've had my phone ringing mid-conversation and I shut it off... even the person I'm speaking to is thrown off and seems to think I'm a freak for not answering my phone. Even though I'd been talking to them for some time.

Have some fvckin manners, people.

:dead: Make a start.

Sounds worse than the days when they'd just vandalize pay phones.

No, not at all. We call them cell phones.

I agree, 100% about the behavior issue. Especially in the movies. :nope:

I've got an Ipod that I use in the car instead of cd's. The problem is, the battery is gone so I need to constantly have it charging and the other day one of the sound channels stopped working so i'm only getting mono sound. Don't know if it's my cables or the actual IPOD yet. but...

I won't be too quick to buy another Apple product. Not unless I can easily replace the battery myself.

Why would you want something locked into Apple's stupid music format? Do i need to teach you a thing or two about music playback quality?

-S

Well, if it was solely a music player, no...but there's a lot of functions on that gadget.

Still, I don't even remotely desire one. Don't like the touchscreen, keyboard, size, cost or format

woo :)

Buy a Pocket PC with integrated phone - you'll be much happier.

Well...

I apologize for having my way with your sensitive sensibilities Skybird. :roll:

I got one of these, printed out on nice shiny card, for my birthday yesterday from a mate:

http://www.buyappleiphone.com/images/iphone.jpg

From: http://www.buyappleiphone.com/