You need a cellphones (how to respond)

[George the original one]

> So why the hate? Seriously--I'm kind of curious.
It's not really directed at cellphones themselves. The dislike is directed at the sales pitch and everyone else being shocked that we're not buying into that sales pitch.
Cellphones have weak points: they don't work everywhere (elevators, underground parking garages, mountainous countryside, tunnels, deep in the center of some buildings) and reception is spotty when not stationary and voice quality is highly variable and the battery charge may not be sufficient and they don't work when they're soaking wet after your boat capsizes. When a lot of cellular calls are made in a single cell site, then they don't go through even when the local landline switch has the capacity (Californians have experienced this when there's an earthquake and Oregonians, also, when there's a significant event).

[dragoncar]

mikeBOS, you must be avoiding all the other threads where we talk about how to prepare for apocalyptic civilization collapse, and other extremely low probability events
Personally, I keep two or three extra kidneys in my basement, just in case I'll need one later.

[mikeBOS]

@dragoncar I am often absent from those threads

[KevinW]

I dunno, when I was a teenager I didn't have a car or cell phone. I made preparations and contingency plans but still had a need to make an unexpected phone call every month or two. These weren't really 911 "emergencies;" more of "predicaments" such as getting sick and needing to be brought home, missing my bus, or letting people at home know to expect me hours late.
In the 1980s and 1990s I felt confident that a payphone was always within a city block, so I was able to handle "predicaments" by carrying $2 in quarters at a yearly cost of ~$5.
Now I've noticed that payphones are much sparser, so I feel I need to carry a paygo phone to handle "predicaments." The phone is bulkier than the quarters and needs to be charged, and costs ~$100/year. Still inexpensive in my book, but worse overall than payphones.
What do you no-cellphone guys do about "predicaments?" Can you really avoid them flawlessly? Or do you use wifi hotspots the way I used payphones? Or just muddle through without the ability to contact anyone?

[George the original one]

I can't say that I totally avoid the unexpected, but I do have to think real hard about the last time there was a situation of inconvenience.
8 or 9 years ago, the fan belt broke when 60 miles from home... drove to the nearest gas station (2 or 3 miles) by firing the car up, getting up to speed, and shutting down when the temperature climbed. Called from a pay phone for a tow truck. Cellphone would have allowed me to call a tow truck 30 minutes sooner.
2 years ago I was in the woods fishing with a buddy and we were terribly overheated after running out of water. Asked other hikers for water and ride. Alternative plan was to drink creek water and wait for the evening. In this case, there was no cell phone service and the nearest highway was 15 miles away.
Last fall I got a fishhook embedded deeply in my thumb by my first steelhead. Couldn't drive it through or push it back, so trimmed it down and drove 90 miles back to Oregon City through a snowstorm and then had my wife drive me to the emergency room. Didn't get to keep the steelhead, either, since it was a native. Cellphone wouldn't have removed the hook.
And back on the 2nd of July, while kayaking, my buddy and I were very late getting to the kayak takeout point. It got dark. Had to abandon the river, beat through the brush with the kayak paddles and walk the last 1/4 mile through a lumberyard. Cellphone we had, but my wife didn't have one. She wasn't too concerned since we were only a few hours late and has faith in my selfpreservation skills.

[HSpencer]

Met for dinner, the five high school couples of us like we do about twice a year. We are all now in our 60's. The first few minutes was ordering drinks, and then the "cell phone" stuff started. One of the couples had a white cased iPhone, another the Windows 7 techno @Focus model. Another a Blackberry, and yet another had a strawberry or whatever. "We just got this one". "Yup, us too!" "We don't know how to work it yet". This crap went on for an hour. Passing them around and using fingers to enlarge the photos of the grand kids. "Mine has the weather bug app". (I ordered another ice cold Fosters on draft and turned to one of the guys.) I leaned over and said "I hate these "friggin" things.

He looked at me like I was either already drunk or deluded.

He says "Our new Toyota has navigation." I think, "so what does that make me, a pregnant roller skate?"

Screw cell phones.

[Chris L]

@HSpencer lol. Was at a bar for drinks after baseball. 5 people in the bar. I look over and my two buddies are surfing. I look over and the other couple are both on phones. I say to them how odd it is to have just 5 with 4 on phones. One...I'm just trying to find the video I just told you about, other...no response. Probably texting the wife.
A moment on a cellphone is a moment missed and detached from reality....whatever that reality is, even if boring, it's still real.
Nothing against technology, but it's still a huge distraction from real living life. Whatever your values are, I guess.

[dragoncar]

Chris L -- Oh man, I'm sure that guy texting his wife will later regret that moment missed. Why was he wasting his time communicating with the woman he loves when he could have been talking to someone who judges him for it?

[jennypenny]

OK, I get the cellphone thing now. You don't hate the phones, just the people who use them

[Chris L]

"Chris L -- Oh man, I'm sure that guy texting his wife will later regret that moment missed. Why was he wasting his time communicating with the woman he loves when he could have been talking to someone who judges him for it?"
What's the point in going out with the guys if you're just going to be texting your wife? Why not just leave the tv running all day long to spoil more intimate human face-to-face interactions? Let. me. finish. my, sentence.
What were we talking about again. Love it when people zone out into a cellphone. Maybe non-cellphone users can just start scribbling on a pad of paper mid conversation...save those notes for later and hand them out.
Sorry, I'm just writing my wife a note for later. This thought I'm having at this very moment can't wait for when we meet again after our 30 mins away from one another.

[HSpencer]

@Jennypenny
"OK, I get the cellphone thing now. You don't hate the phones, just the people who use them "
No, I don't really dislike anyone or anything. I dislike the nature of what people do and how they think they have to "be" in the big mix all the time. With cellphones, it is the rudeness of the use of them that has infected people. The cellphone is a great invention, just like the hand hatchet. It is a tool to use to accomplish an end. What commerce has done (as with everything else) is to push that item out there, making many people feel inferior if they don't spring the money to have them. Like in the post I made above where the guy tells me his new car has "navigation" in it. I also hope it has an engine in it, so the car will take him from "A" to "B" even without the navigation device. I would bet a shiny dime the couple has not learned to use that device either. But, society dictates to them that not only will they buy the cell phone and show it off as the latest and greatest, but they will buy the Toyota and show it off as well. Toyota is a nice SUV, but the Sequoia is terribly expensive, whereby a clean one or two year old Highlander would cost a whole lot less, and would be a great "A to B" vehicle, navigation or not. So what we hate here is the "personality trait driving forces" that people don't seem to know how to be free from. I could have ruined the Toyota owners whole day if I had a 2011 Lexus or BMW and walked him out to see "my" navigation in "it". He would have probably choked on his baby backed rib order. That is what we hate, not the people, not the technology. We hate the brainwashing in what is normally probably pretty good folks.

I won't write about cell phone rudeness, as all of us see that every day.

[HSpencer]

@JennyPenny
For further tack and talk on this subject we did a thread on it a while back:
viewtopic.php?t=755

[jennypenny]

OK, I obviously need to learn the widgit to type to indicate that my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek.
I get avoiding people who feel the need to be in the big mix. I live in a very nice version of Stepford and I encounter this all of the time. Last year a close friend lectured me because (gasp) my daughter was the only girl in her class without a Vera Bradley lunch bag. I politely said maybe we'd get her one someday (my DD didn't even want one--she hates following the crowd). So my friend took it upon herself to buy my DD the stupid bag and told me I didn't have to pay her back, I could consider it a gift. And my friend is one of the more reasonable people I know in this town.
At least my friend is polite when using her cell phone. [insert snark widgit here]

[SF]

My observations about the "need" for cell phones, for those who don't get it:
1) This isn't about you. It's about the people who know you wanting to get in touch with you immediately. Some might think of this as an electronic leash, others a way to get in touch with a loved one in an emergency.
2) They are a useful tool for spontaneous and efficient communication.
3) There's no payphones in my small town, so cell coverage, while spotty, is better than nothing.
The situation for is even more true out where the deer outnumber the people. It's cheaper to put up a tower vs running phone lines the last mile. (I know people who use a cell phone only because the cost to run a land line is in the tens of thousands of dollars - some of these folks are also off the grid for the same reason.)
4) Smartphones are a wonderfully portable personal computer, and should be treated as such (faux pas included).

[George the original one]

The people who know me can already call me on the land line at work or at home. If I'm mobile, I'm most likely not available for something spontaneous, so just go ahead and leave a message on the answering machine.
It obviously makes sense to have a cellphone when other options aren't available. I don't think anyone has said differently.
Smartphones, in my experience, have keys that are too small for any serious use as a portable computer unless they're at least the size of a paperback book. Obviously that's a highly subjective opinion because there are a million people out there typing on those things as write this

[dragoncar]

Most of my posts here are from a smartphone. Can't have the employer seeing that in my browsing history. So yeah, I guess smartphones aren't for serious use

[george]

Ive always avoided using a cell phone, now I carry a fully charged cellphone with me at all times only for emergencies. I probably use it about once a year. It has contact details of close friends and family.
We had a 7.1 earthquake in the centre of the city, and subsquent aftershocks destroyed our central business district and parts of suburbs. The only utility that had some use after the most powerful shock was the cell phone Some people trapped in buildings had kept their phone in a survival belt, along with their keys and identification. Some people were lucky enough to phone for help, others were able to leave a last message I did hear some cellphones were also used to identify remains and give some closure). BTW If you are involved in a disaster situation, only send text messages, keep the lines open for emergencies.
And thankfully people did immediately swarm around to help, desperately trying to help strangers next to them, and risking their own safety. We've experienced the worst and best of humanity. (sorry to be dramatic)

[sshawnn]

@Hspencer. I share your aggravation with the robotic cell phone behavior in social situations. Especially in tight knit gatherings like a group dinner. I have become very forward about my feelings, likely to a fault. I have no qualms asking who someone is texting, or what on earth they are looking up in between bites of food. I suppose if they take offense to my direct questioning and indirect harassment, and don't want to be around me any longer, we are likely both better off. That being said, my contention is that a mini computer (smart phone) is a useful on the fly adjunct to problem solving.

[tmp]

[off topic]
I have some problem when posting. I made a post in thread

viewtopic.php?t=1335
but it's only visible when I'm signed in.
Anyone know something about this, what am I doing wrong?

Jacob, feel free to delete this post when solved.