December 09, 2004

• This is a bad idea.
• It would certainly be profitable for GTE or whichever vendor puts in those Airfones.
• Sorry, not profitable.
• Seems like a bad idea for this reason alone: "...the FAA is focused on whether cell phone use will interfere with a plane's navigation system." also: The World is a Noisy Place. You Aren't Helping Any. (PDF)
• RTFA. ;) "Once you get to a certain height, you are no longer in the range of the cellular network" because cell phone towers aren't built to project their signals that high, she said. However, the article also states that technology would make it possible in the future. Satellite phones I suppose could do it now, but hopefully those are rare.
• Use Bugmenot to get around the compulsory web registration. Yes, the Washington Post is on there.
• "I'm passing over Ohio now... now I'm over the western part of Ohio... yeah, we'll be there in oh, maybe four more hours. We're just passing over the border now... yeah, the ground is down there. It's really far. What? What? You're breaking up. Yeah, we're out of Ohio now. What?"
• Yet another reason I am so glad I do not have to fly much.
• Maybe I just have shitty service, but I left my phone on during my last cross country flight--purely for experimental purposes, of course--and was unable to ever get a signal.
• Anything that will get those inclined to talk on planes to talk to someone besides me is a great idea as far as I'm concerned.
• I'd like to just weigh in and balance out everyone who thinks this is bad because they will be annoyed by obnoxious talkers. There are annoying people everywhere. Banning cell phones on planes just hides their identities for a while. And I find people who constantly bemoan the downfall of civilized society because they're being inconvenienced by someone talking on a phone nearby to be much more annoying, personally. Why don't you just ask them to shut up? Nicely, politely, or just as loud and obnoxiously as you think they are. Up to you. Why does there need to be laws governing tactfulness? Remember when people talked to each other, when something was bothering them? I had to sit next to this woman on a flight recently, who really was shouting very loudly into her phone, right up until they forced her to turn it off for take-off. People several rows away were turning around to look. No doubt, she would've done it for the entirety of the 5 hour flight, if she could have. I am willing to accept the responsibility to ask her to quiet down, if it gives me the flexibility to make and receive calls while in the air.
• So all this time they've been telling us that cellphones interfere with navigational equipment, they've been lying to us?! And I trusted them?! Man, this is an eye-opener. I'll never ever put my seatback in an upright position or stow the tray table again!
• Or eat the airline so called "food". Oh, wait. I don't. Never mind.
• Daniel, I'm all for people speaking their minds when it comes to invasion of personal space, be it physically or auditory (I'm a notorious "shoosher" in movie theaters), but I've never had luck telling someone talking loudly on their cell phone to quiet down. The scenarios I envision if this takes effect are business men and women using the time to conduct business calls. It's "business" therefore it's "important" and it's now their "right" to make calls on planes, so fuck off with your "You're talking too loud for my comfort" plea. I think that's the issue with cell phone use anywhere - it is now a right rather than a privilege, surroundings be damned.
• Especially pleased: the Native Americans, who traditionally must stoke up those large fires and smoke signals to talk with their people down on the ground.
• Meet my best friends. Verily, I tell you they have saved the lives of many airplane-dwelling small noise-making machines (known as offspring) and obnoxotrons.
• Daniel, perhaps you've never been physically threatened for asking someone to take their cell phone conversation outside or to end it.
• So all this time they've been telling us that cellphones interfere with navigational equipment, they've been lying to us?!</q> This is something I've wondered about, since there were several accounts of people on the 9/11 planes using cell phones, and I don't recall anything about the phones interfering with the equipment.
• I happened to be on a plane recently, sitting next to a woman who had her cell phone about six inches from my head. She was talking very loudly, obviously to her husband. I turned toward her and said "oh yeah, baby, just like that, a little harder now..." She jumped out of her seat and ran off and I didn't see her again. Nasty, evil, and all that, yes, but some times the bad hicinbaby just wins out. I'm very ashamed but it still makes me giggle every time I think about it.
• That is great, hicinbaby. I was watching The Incredible recently and the theatre was filled with kids, who can certainly be a bit chatty. But right in the middle of the movie there was a kid behind me who was being very, very loud. I turned around and was stunned to see an 8 year old (best guess) seated by himself talking on the cell phone. In my most authoritative voice (and loud enough that many, many people heard me) I pointed at him and commanded, "Get off the phone." He looked up but did not get off the phone immediately. "NOW," I added. He looked terrified and hung up at once. Just wanted to share that story. As for people talking on cell phones on planes....no.
• *gives some kind of award to hicinbaby*
• To be a techno-dork for a moment, the reason cellphones don't work while in the air isn't so much that the towers are out of range (after all, they have a range of at least a few miles), but that your phone is in the line-of-sight of multiple towers, and it doesn't know which one to pick. Or something like that.
• Why can't it non-deterministically pick one? Does it not believe in the right to choose an element from a set?
• My problem with the prevalent attitude is that it's so passive aggressive. If we as a society deem it unacceptable to have loud, distracting conversations in certain places, we should let those offending members of our society know. Right, so you were physically threatened when you called someone out for their inconsiderate behavior. Maybe you should've threatened him right back. Or gone the thoroughly impressive hicinbaby route. Maybe it'll take a few fistfights (or a few minutes of steamy talk), but that guy will learn eventually. But passive aggressive solutions to problems of courtesy--like banning cell phones, or phone jammers, or that tv-be-gone remote--punish a lot of responsible people. Why shouldn't I be able to make a call? Because people are unable or unwilling to handle on their own, the few problem cases that come up? It irks me when people don't know how to share the armrest on the plane; should we just ban armrests altogether?
• exactly, Daniel. My personal experience with "cell phone rudeness" is that it barely exists. I have never in my life heard someone answer the phone in a movie theatre, or talk in a restaurant. And if they did, how is it any worse than talking to the person next to them? It started as railing against "those rich people" (and I still see that stereotype in this thread), but the idea that only rich or business people have cell phones is absurdly outdated. We can all work up hate for the evil rich guy, yakking on the phone and running down poor minority children in his big evil Mercedes, but it's a caricature.
• Daniel, keep in mind this (incomplete) list of things most monkeys hate: (in no particular order) George Bush Cell Phones Christians McDonalds SUVs The RIAA Microsoft The 'Red' States Defending any of the above may get you some nasty responses.
• A coworker and I had a talk (prompted by that PDF from SHHH mentioned above) about why cell phone use is more annoying than a two-person conversation. She's not much bothered, but finds she can't ignore the former as she can a pair of, say, seatmates in a discussion, and it's not just the decibel level. It might be that a pair of voices in conversation can be reduced to background noise, because the notes and tones that pair produces answer each other. The notes a single cell user gives us leaves listeners hanging - I certainly am used to hearing a question tone (high note at the end) being answered by an answer tone (low note at the end, perhaps followed by a question) - not to mention the silence after a cell user finishes gets us used to the ambient sounds of the bus, train, plane. And then when we're used to that level, the cell user's voice bursts in again and forces us to pay renewed attention. Sorry, I don't phrase it well. But constant noise is easier to ignore. Constant machine noise is less jarring than bursts of same. Figures that would work for human voices, too.
• I use a cell phone, so I'm annoying, too, but MUCH less annoying because MY conversation is important. I'm with the good DrJimmy: Cells don't bother me that much, except I think people look silly/pretentious on them, mostly yacking about nothing. I hate to use them in public because IIII feel that way, at any rate. I do have to confess I left mine on* in a theater once--but the call really WAS important--daughter and grandbaby trying to figure out where to hide from a tornado in Albuerque*--unfortunately, she kept calling back again for reasurance/tell the story after it passed, and I couldn't find the damn OFF button in the dark. I will never live down the embarrassment or recover from the "shushing" I hate myself.
• I hate cell phones. I do have one, as I feel it makes me more productive at work. My phone never makes a noise. It is always set on vibrate. If it is on my person, I can feel it. It is very near me, I can hear it. If it is not very near me, then I can get the message. I never have to worry about turning off the ringer because I never have the ringer on. When I am on the phone, I immediately retreat to a private place. If I cannot, I call the person back when I can. Usually it is easy to take a conversation to a hallway or something like that where it will not disturb other people. As for other's conversations, I agree with what goofyfoot was saying, although I would add that I think that people talk much, much more loudly on the telephone than they do in person. As a teen, I talked on the telephone all the time. So did most of the people that I knew. In college and law school, I found that people rarely talked on the phone at all. I figured that casual telephone chatting was something that one sort of grew out of after high school. Since the advent of cell phones, I find that everyone is on the phone all the time. Watch passing cars and observe how many people who are alone in the car on the phone. Are people afraid of silence? Are they afraid of having to think on their own? I really don't know. But I know that they didn't seem to want to be on the phone nearly as much when cell phones were not around. I also enjoy typing lengthy comments like this on posts that are so old that no one will probably even read my comment. Makes me feel like I got the last word in, or something.
• A few weeks ago I was on my way to town to meet some friends at a bar. I was on the bus and decided to call them and see where they were. There was one other person on the bus, aside from the driver, and I felt like a total dickwad sitting there talking on my cellphone. I get so irritated by others doing it that I've obviously conditioned myself.
• I'm amazed that anyone would think that a loud/problem talker would pipe down if someone asked them nicely. They obviously don't care that they're annoying, or they wouldn't be shouting into the phone in the first place. They'd be having a normally toned conversation or some other sign of civilized thought. Why would a little "Hey, could you take it outside?" [note: not applicable in airplanes] magically give them a sense of courtesy? "Well, I was an inconsiderate jackass who decided to start screaming about my genital warts in the middle of the theater/plane/funeral parlor, but since someone asked me to please be more quiet..." The sort of person who will respond well to a polite request is the sort of person who won't cause a problem in the first place. They're considerate already.
• Here I came hoping for yaks.
• here ya go bees
• I don't know about yaks, but this flash contains important facts about the musk ox, set to music. Maybe it will help you.