trapping people into spending... a cel phone ringer rant

[renderman]

If you weren't being a smart ass I wouldn't believe it was you

Did you get the email?

Recieved and managed to break my cable in the same minute. Off to the over priced 'up the arse' accesories store.

That's another thing:

People who buy phones with every feature on the planet and don't buy a clue how to use them. Usully those same people are the ones asking people like us how to make thier ringer a chicken or setup bluetooth or transfer photo's of thier ass to thier PC. At least I can charge them my hourly rate as well as the added vengance of abusing thier airtime.

[mfreeck]

Ages ago, I realized a cell phone is designed to make it easier for people to contact me, and the burden of buying, carrying, upgrading, paying for, and dealing with the annoyance of a cell phone was for the benefit of other people. (When people call, they usually want something.) If I was into

I resisted getting a cellphone until I went to defcon and I realized I'd have no way of getting ahold of folks to coordinate. I got myself a prepaid and gave the number out only to those who needed it. I give my home number (which I always let the answering machine get) to everyone else. I use sms 99% of the time, so it avoids many of the phone snafus folks have been ranting about. I also have few friends so that avoids people calling me wanting things or wanting to talk about nothing.

A couple years back I was on the bus and I saw a young asian girl cupping her hand over her mouth. I thought this was odd so I looked closer and saw that she was talking on a cell phone. I have since borrowed this technique if I need to talk on the bus for some reason. I speak in a low voice and cover my mouth... it really does help sound contamination to a certain degree.

My pet annoyance is the guys who talk VERY LOUDLY ABOUT NOTHING on the bus. Someone taking an important call and keeping it short is ok, but I can't stand the people who won't keep it short in public. I've always wanted to have a linux book or an rfc or anything that would sound highly technical and boring to most folks that I could read very loudly if I found myself sitting (again) next to this person. And if he says to me "Hey, I'm on the phone," I could say "YES, WE KNOW."

Another boring anecdote: I once went on a date with a fellow who answered his cellphone no less than 3 times in the restaraunt. Now, some people need to answer their phone, so ok, but this guy went on to have a full convo with each person. Not only was he ignoring me, but other people were angrily staring at us. He did not get another date.

I did once look into building a cellphone jammer, but apparently it is more difficult to build ones for digital phones.

[Deviant Ollam]

a person using a cellphone without a handsfree set has just about the same increase in accident rate as a person driving with a BAC above the legal limit

i dispute this statistic and challenge people to provide legitimate and credible studies that back it up. i'm not saying that phone driving is a good idea (i'm certainly not going to condemn it outright, since i do it a lot... but 99% of the time it's when i'm on long straight highways with no other cars around) but this isn't the first time i've heard this statistic bandied about and it certainly doesn't seem valid to me.

i think that it could be somewhat valid since people drive worse than they generally realize when on the phone. i also think that the stat could be considered slightly valid in another way... the fact that people don't drive like absolute shit at a mere .08 BAC. however, it's such an apples and oranges situation that i think the whole comparison is off. it's roughly akin to saying, "you know... people being hit over the head with pillows perform just as poorly on geometry exams as people who are rolling on ecstasy." one is a distraction, the other is an impairment.

[TheCotMan]

i dispute this statistic and challenge people to provide legitimate and credible studies that back it up.

For you, is Mythbusters credible?
They had a run where they tried to compared DUI of cell phones vs. alcohol. They mention a British Study.

News story about hands free sets being like DUI of alcohol cites a NY Times article "Hands-Free Cellphone Devices Don't Aid Road Safety, Study Concludes"

Other sites cite or mention one of these: an Austrailian study, a Toronto study, a British study,

Even the military is banning use of cell phones while driving government vehicles.

[simple3]

No sudies? are you kidding. Some studies have shown it to be worse, some say the opposite way. as with many topics the results will vary depending on many factors. the point is it's bad. it may be as bad as driving drunk. don't do it.

I'd have to say (or at least I'd like to think) that you are at least slightly better off when using a handsfree kit. If for no other reason except that your arm is not blocking your peripheral vision.

[Deviant Ollam]

i'm familiar with the mythbusters episode, it resides in my collection of downloaded shows... mythbusters is one of about six programs on TV that i consider worthy of attention.

my whole take on the matter is as follows: what type of a driver you are in general is the biggest factor in how safe you are on the road. i know many people who i don't trust behind the wheel under any circumstances because they're completely scatterbrained and can't focus on what they're doing. on the other hand, some of my friends (myself among them) tend to be über-focused behind the wheel, to the point that it's rather impossible to have a detailed or involved conversation with us while we're driving. i tend to be this way when on the phone, it's often a secondary focus, taking a back seat to anything going on right in front of me. does that make me a safe cel phone driver than others? i don't know. i do know that i've never had an accident while talking on the phone, nor have i ever even had a close call. chances are that's because, in a given week which might involve 10 - 15 hours of total time behind the wheel i'd guess that 20 to 30 minutes involves a cel phone at the same time.

[noid]

I am also a safe, uber-focused driver. I have no accidents and have only gotten 2 tickets in my life. I am what anyone would resonably consider to be a good driver. However, when I am on the cell phone my attention is split. As a result I begin to do what drunk people do. I speed up for no reason, slow down for no reason. I swerve around in my lane. I didnt even realize I did these things till I had someone tell me after seeing me on the road. One minute I was driving just fine, then all of a sudden I looked like a drunk. I took the advice to heart and stopped using my cell phone. As a result I pay a lot of attention to how people drive now. Evil and I like to play 'Drunk or on the Phone?' when we spot people on the road. Folks may not even realize it, but they drive so badly we can see you driving badly from quite a distance and openly wonder 'is he/she drunk? or on the phone'. Most of the time, they're on the phone.

I've seen a lot of people take the attitude of 'if I drive poorly, then why havent I gotten into an accident'. Its a shit arguement. I dont tend to pay attention when I walk my neighborhod, why havent I been hit by a car? Its because you're lucky. Or in the case of Seattle we have what can only be described as the 'idiot dynamic'. Theres so many people on the road doing so many stupid things at the same time that they negate each other. You didnt hit the car on your right when you abruptly changed lanes without looking because they accidently drifted to their right lane because they were searching for a Blind Melon CD on their floorboards. That person didnt cream the VW bus to their right because that guy had abruptly slammed on his breaks when he dropped his roach between his legs, ad naseum.

[Beginner]

I know a guy who drives drunk while text messaging. This is the most wreckless possible example though. He both drunk dials and drunk texts while driving. People who do this do not deserve a license. The guys dad owns a construction company and he never gets in trouble for anything though.

Also take into account I live in northern WV. People almost have to stay off the interstate at night on fridays to avoid people like this.

[converge]

yeah, I generally don't use the cell phone at all.. With no tickets, only two accidents ever (caused by other people being dumbasses), and a good feel for maintaining control over my vehicle in any weather, I generally consider myself as safe behind the wheel as I'm gonna get.

I tried the cell phone while driving thing on my last trip to Seattle. I was conferenced in with some folks that were wrapping up a meeting while trying to cross the city... bad idea.. would have been a better idea to wait until the convo was done because it could have impaired me enough to cause an accident. Traffic was minimal and relatively moving at slow speeds, the conference came to an end and I was prompted by someone on the other end to terminate the call cordially. In order to accomplish this I had to unmute my cell. The split second between my thumb going to hit the button through muscle memory, my eye glancing down to make sure I was in the right general area, and my eyes popping back up to see another car merging into my lane.. could have been problematic. I have witnessed countless morons driving horribly while talking.. so I should have thought better, but in that moment my judgement erred in attempt to get more accomplished than I should.. I highly recommend against it.. whatever your philosophical arguments about it or how it relates to being intoxicated. Just a bad idea.

[bascule]

I'm a vibe then ring fan

[Ellipsis]

I keep every alert on vibrate except for when I am recieving a call. Then it plays that all-so-common Nokia tune. That tune where, if you are getting the call in lets say a WalMart, it causes two or three people close to you to whip out their phones and give it that look of 'Damn, no one likes me right now, Mr. Popular over there.' This is almost a good source of entertainment.

[Twigman]

My phone vibrates for 2 seconds then goes "ring ring" like a phone should.
People laugh at me because my phone makes the sound a normal phone makes?!?!?!...

I hate the novelty ring tones. I dont know if it attacked america, but "Crazy Frog" has truely pissed off a lot of people here.
I would go into details, but if you dont know, in this case ignorance is complete bliss.

[alklloyd]

I have a Samsung i730, so I just load my SD card and click on any wav as "set as ringtone".
I was using "you are in the iridium satellite network" at first; then did a job in wavelab and produced "<stattaco beeps><stattaco beeps><stattaco beeps>Thank you for using AT&T!" That was my favorite, then switched to the "global frequency" ringtone; everyone else hates it, but it is very distinctive.

Al

[noid]

I'm currently using the Tuned Nokia ring from the Trifinite site and a couple of MP3s of 'numbers stations' from the CONET project.

[INIT_6]

... personally, i'd love to see a phone that does the following: vibrate for all alerts when you're carrying it around, but ring audibly with whatever sounds you've selected while it's attached to a charger (and hence the phone realizes that it's not likely in your pocket at that particular moment).

do any vendors put a feature like that into their equipment?

Yes, the Moto, v551 has that option. When you plug in the phone it changes to loud. It's nice.

Also the phone has a lot of "hacks" via USB cable. www.hackaday.com has a long list of hacks for all the Vxxx phones. The software for the phone can be downloaded with easy. I take any song I want and cut it up in acid pro and transfer it over to the phone. I agree all phones come with stupid ring tones. They also lock them so you can't delete them. What is up with that. I want that space for my games and mp3 ring tones. So I was forced to hack the phone and delete all of them.