BS: Mobile phones are dummies

15 Sep 11 - 09:18 AM (#3223556)
Subject: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Bonzo3legs

Travelling from Waterloo to Clapham junction last night, I noticed that perhaps 95% of the passengers had one arm out in front clutching a mobile phone......unbelievable. A high proportion of people walk along in that pose.

One wonders if they badly broke the mobile phone arm, would they have it set out in front so they could still see their mobile???

After all Les Paul had his arm set so that he could still play guitar!

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15 Sep 11 - 11:52 AM (#3223626)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Jim Dixon

I remember a cartoon from the New Yorker. A railroad car. Three passengers with mobile phones held up to their ears. At one end of the car, a passenger is saying, "I'm getting on the train now." The middle one is saying, "I'm on the train now." The passenger at the other end is saying, "I'm getting off the train now."

That was a long time ago, when mobile phones were fairly new, but the cartoonist had it all figured out!

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15 Sep 11 - 12:10 PM (#3223630)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Bill D

"One wonders if they badly broke the mobile phone arm, would they have it set out in front so they could still see their mobile???

Bluetooth...no hands, except to put it on.

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15 Sep 11 - 12:21 PM (#3223633)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: olddude

I loved the guy that had the device that looked like a mobile phone but when he pushed it, it cancelled out all the calls around him ... Well it was illegal as hell and the company could not sell them ...

I tell ya, it is something to see the high school kids walking by my house after school every single one has the cell phone stuck to their ears. Ya think they would want to talk to the kid walking next to them instead ... Live and in living color

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15 Sep 11 - 01:39 PM (#3223678)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: jonm

I went to a motorsport show a few years back and one guy was outside in the coffee area with his mobile to his ear, talking loudly about getting tyres delivered to Imola or some such, when his phone rang! Suddenly not so impressive.

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15 Sep 11 - 01:51 PM (#3223687)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: gnu

I condsider tham an eletronic leash.

I always chuckle when I see a guy in a grocery store obviously trying to explain to wifey that he can't find what she has wriiten on the grocery list.

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15 Sep 11 - 01:51 PM (#3223688)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: gnu

or thEm an eleCtronic leash... sheesh!

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15 Sep 11 - 02:32 PM (#3223713)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: GUEST,Eliza

No signal at all in our village...bliss!
I never switch mine on, it's in the car and for emergency use only. But as there are few places round here where there's any signal at all, I hope the car breaks down nearer to the town!

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15 Sep 11 - 06:41 PM (#3223817)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Sandra in Sydney

I collect cartoons & have a few good mobile phone ones -

my favourite is the group of people in the street all looking in their bags/pockets cos a phone is ringing.

I'm one of the few Australians who doesn't have one

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16 Sep 11 - 01:26 AM (#3223991)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: GUEST,Lindy

To Bonzo3legs:

I know what you mean. I take a train and buses 3 times a week and sit in different places, but really I would have to say that I rarely, rarely ever see anyone without a cell phone in their hands. When I go to lunch I look around the restaurant and everyone has the phone (not in their pocket or in a purse) but right on the table where their food is.

When I am crossing a road in dtwn. I see everyone walking with their phone, looking down at it as they cross the road. Today while in the bank line, everyone had their phone in their hands and just staring at the screen. One guy who was at the teller counter, even had the nerve and rude manners to talk on his cell phone while the teller was trying to help him.

Is it a compulsion that most people have now when it comes to cell phones, smart phones, and all these new electronic gadgets? They seem oblivious to everyone around them - but of course everyone around them are doing the same thing.

At concerts, theatres, etc. it is so annoying to see the bright light of these phones in a dark room.

A few years back people in libraries were told not to speak on their cell phones inside the library, but the librarians no longer say anything - and people are TALKING ON CELL PHONES IN LIBRARIES NOW.

I guess I am in the minority about this. I am not elderly but it seems that the elderly (even if they have a cell phone) are at least more courteous in public places and don't use their cell phones in the manner that most other people do.

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16 Sep 11 - 09:57 AM (#3224183)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: GUEST,Uncle_DaveO

I carry a prepaid-service cell phone (Trac-Fone). The screen of the phone tells me how many prepaid minutes remain in my account, and how many remaining days I have within which those minutes must be used.

I pay attention to those times, and I find that my average actual use of the cell phone is one and a half minutes per day (a large portion being to my wife), which comes out to just about the days I have available.

Dave Oesterreich

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16 Sep 11 - 10:48 AM (#3224211)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Musket

On one hand, they are a nuisance, whether somebody else's or indeed your own...

On the other, I have relied on them since the first UK car phones back in 1987. You may well ask why, as civilisation carried on long enough without them, but my answer is simple; they have helped me in my business from the beginning, free time up to stop working when I get home rather than bury myself in the study for the next three hours calling back other sad business colleagues, and on the personal front have been invaluable over the years.

The problem isn't mobile phones, the problem is people as ever. The phones themselves I have found to be liberating rather than a burden, and from the beginning, I relied on the vibrate in your pocket rather than irritating ring tone, and if more people did so, they wouldn't wind up the rest of us...

Of course, "phone" is one, perhaps not the most used feature of mobiles these days. My iPhone is also my personal phone and I run down the battery most days without a single call, it is my kindle reader, music source, satnav, news provider, email reader, shopping tool, weather & traffic updater.... Occasionally a phone.

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16 Sep 11 - 11:08 AM (#3224216)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: GUEST,PeterC

Bluetooth...no hands
These days you can't tell if it is Tourette's Syndrome or a phone conversation.

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16 Sep 11 - 07:31 PM (#3224456)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T

Or both!

Don T.

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18 Sep 11 - 12:21 AM (#3224986)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: ChanteyLass

I love my smartphone, but I rarely use it to make calls. I often use it to look up information and to make notes. I keep my shopping lists on it!

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18 Sep 11 - 02:21 AM (#3225004)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: MGM·Lion

Pedantry alert ~

What does the title of this thread mean? It is surely the mobile phoners who are the dummies. The phone is merely the innocent instrument [unless it is a shop-window one with no internal mechanism; but that doesn't seem to be what the OP meant, or what posters have taken it to mean].

Or did he perhaps mean "Mobile phones are for dummies"?

~Michael~

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18 Sep 11 - 07:27 AM (#3225078)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Bonzo3legs

Quite a mystery!!!

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18 Sep 11 - 02:21 PM (#3225223)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Van

Many years ago when mobile phones were a rarity and came attached to large battery achap came into the pub with a young woman. Both dressed in tennis gear. Without a word they parked themselves at the table my girlfriend and I were sharing. He then started a conversation with his employer explaning how he would be unable to work that afternoon. Not mentioning pubs, young women, or tennis. The table was covered in empty glasses so we took great pleasure in nudging or kicking the table in order that they rattled during his entire conversation.

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18 Sep 11 - 03:40 PM (#3225239)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Jim Dixon

In Britain, this is called a dummy.

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18 Sep 11 - 05:37 PM (#3225277)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Bonzo3legs

Indeed it is, and I intend to carry a box with me so I can give one to the mother of the next brat who insists on screaming at the checkout!!!

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19 Sep 11 - 02:37 AM (#3225410)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: DMcG

I've moved house recently into an area with poor reception and I work at a place with poor reception. So almost the only time my phone works is in the 20 minutes or so driving to and from work ... cancelling the contract is v expensive ... feeling a bit of a dummy myself!

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19 Sep 11 - 03:30 AM (#3225422)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: MGM·Lion

Ah, but Bonzo, was Jim's definition [dummy = 'comforter'] what you had in mind in titling the thread? ~~ a viable interpretation certainly. In which case, OK. Or is that merely adventitious; in which case I still think your title needs an additional 'r' in 'phone[r]s'.

~M~

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19 Sep 11 - 08:18 AM (#3225494)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: GUEST,Patsy

As an alarm clock and timepiece I find my mobile phone invaluable. But I do prefer to get a text message rather than a call. A call tends to put you on the spot whereas a text gives you time to think of an answer (or excuse).

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19 Sep 11 - 09:45 AM (#3225529)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Jim Dixon

In my weekly trips to the supermarket, I nearly always see someone (usually a man), say, staring at an array of canned tomatoes and saying into his mobile phone, "Did you want stewed tomatoes, or diced tomatoes, or whole tomatoes, or...." Now that's a practical use for a phone that I can sympathize with. I could say, "Been there, wished I could have done that."

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19 Sep 11 - 02:39 PM (#3225667)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Acorn4

Gobbindownmimobile

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19 Sep 11 - 03:02 PM (#3225684)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: JohnInKansas

My only use for a "mobile" phone is my requirement that when "we" go shopping we both must carry our exceedingly basic phones. She frequently resists, so stern insistence is necessary.

This is because "she of short attention span" also is somewhat short in stature and is able to instantly disappear in most shops.

Due to her limited mobility, she almost always grabs one of the stores' "scooters" so she can disappear with extreme rapidity. Sitting on the scooter makes her even more "invisible" from an adjacent aisle. (I've sometimes had to listen for the "warning beeper" when she decides to back up on the scooter, as the only means of detecting her location. Fortunately she's sometimes a bit unaware of which direction she's going(?).)

Due to my limited ability to walk long distances rapidly (up one aisle and down the next ad infinitum) she can stay "disappeared" almost indefinitely (at least until the scooter battery dies).

I've considered a leash, but she manages to snake out of the harness faster than one of our cats, and that most likely would end up with me dragging in the dust behind her scooter should I happen to find an inescapable harness.

Although in very rare circumstances while "out alone" I might "call home" with a question about what she might want, this invariably leads to a separate store (or four or five) in different parts of town (the town is about 20 miles wide, and of course you must get the quilting accessories before you get the ice cream if you want to get both home safely, which may mean crossing town multiple times). It's quicker to go home and ask her there.

(Of course I'm only joking a bit here ...)

OUCH!

John

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19 Sep 11 - 05:53 PM (#3225783)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Jim Dixon

"dummy = comforter"?

No, I'd say:

dummy = pacifier

duvet = comforter

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20 Sep 11 - 02:01 AM (#3225929)
Subject: RE: BS: Mobile phones are dummies
From: Doug Chadwick

Ah, but Bonzo, was Jim's definition [dummy = 'comforter'] what you had in mind in titling the thread?

That's how I interpreted it.

To add an "r" to give "mobile phoners ….."   gives a word that I would never use. "mobile 'phone users …."   or "people on mobile 'phones …."   perhaps, but never "mobile phoners".   Even if, in grammatical terms, "phoners"   is allowed, it oughtn't to be. It's just plain ugly.

The opening thread title makes perfect sense to me.


DC

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