Quote:
“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.
Isn't that discrimination, based on the fact he finds her mode of speech irritating?
Quote:
Investigators from the F.C.C. and Verizon Wireless visited an upscale restaurant in Maryland over the last year, the restaurant owner said. The owner, who declined to be named, said he bought a powerful jammer for $1,000 because he was tired of his employees focusing on their phones rather than customers.
“I told them: put away your phones, put away your phones, put away your phones,” he said. They ignored him.
Simple and easy solutions: Workplace policy.. No mobile phones on the "shop floor". Phones should be secured in the staff's lockers. (And if they havent got them, get them.) Any memeber of staff found breaching this rule will be subject to disciplinary proceedings (whatever those might be.) If this guy was anything other than a completely ineffectual employer, he wouldnt have had to resort to jamming. What would he do if they were stealing from him? "Please dont steal my stock, Please dont steal my stock."?
Quote:
Kumaar Thakkar, who lives in Mumbai, India, and sells jammers online, said he exported 20 a month to the United States, twice as many as a year ago. Clients, he said, include owners of cafes and hair salons, and a New York school bus driver named Dan.
“The kids think they are sneaky by hiding low in the seats and using their phones,” Dan wrote in an e-mail message to Mr. Thakkar thanking him for selling the jammer. “Now the kids can’t figure out why their phones don’t work, but can’t ask because they will get in trouble! It’s fun to watch them try to get a signal.”
Is there any particularly good reason why they should be disallowed from using their phones on the bus in the first place?Is it standard policy for the New York school system to employ sadistis who enjoy watching children trapped in a moral dilemma not of their making? Who no doubt believe that all manner of terrible things might be occuring at the other end of the line? Who may well believe they are in for a beating when they get hme because they just broke their phone?
Quote:
Wrackspurt wrote:
They should install these in vehicles so nobody can talk & drive. That's the only thing I can see these devices would be good for.
The people who buy these just to cut people off the phone are on a power trip, who are they to attempt to control someone else?
In which case the device should cover only the confines of the car, and be deactivated when stationary. There are far too many reasons why being cut off from outside contact in a car is a very bad thing. (Think woman alone on dark road at midnight, who wishes to call for assistance from INSIDE the safety of her car. Or a recent case in the UK where drivers alerted the police to small children playing on the motorway from inside their vehicles as they passed.)
Quote:
Why isn't urinating in the middle of the street allowed? Or why isn't public nudity given the go-ahead in public schools? They're public places. It's a free country. Nobody is getting outright hurt by it.
Because urinating in the street breeds potential for disease? Because the sight of nudity can shock and alarm those not prepared for it?
There is nothing here that anyone has mentioned as a problem that isnt already a crime, or against policies, or that couldnt be solved with some politeness on somebodies part. This is not a problem to be solved by blanket blocking of signals, but by simple education that in certain places, it is rude or dangerous to use a mobile phone.
Blanket blocking leads to all manner of problems. Emergency calls have been mentioned, and are a bloody good reason. How many lives have been saved because someone in situ could contact the correct emergency services without having to search for a functioning payphone? Bear in mind that even places where phones should not be used can rapidly become danger zones. Fire, flood, earthquake, terrorist action.. all of these things can happen anywhere, and result in a need to contact someone using a mobile. Consider 9/11 .. some of the most moving material to be found were the last calls made on mobiles to loved ones. These people would have been denied that last simple humanity by some s**thead who doesnt like ringtones.
Or moving beyond "emergency services" calls.. how about the more immediate family issues? Would you care to spend all day ignorant of the fact that your partner was in labour because some jerk didnt like some chicks accent? Wouldnt you like to know that grandpa was on his last legs and wanted to see you before the cancer took him? But you miss the last seconds of his life because someone thinks your ringtone is too loud?
Or even the day to day events? you're down to your last tenner, and you have to spend it wisely.. but you cant remember if your wife already bought milk, and if you buy it then you might not be able to afford something else you havent got. So you ring her. Or maybe you dont, because some wiseass thinks its rude to use a mobile in a supermarket.
Besides which.. who knows what else you might be jamming in the process? Fancy a quiet time on the ferry? Stick on the jammer.. but oh no, now the ferry has no GPS and youve just run the ship into a sandbar. Well Done You. Or the valley girl on the train is pissing you off.. on goes the jammer, and off goes the businessmans wireless link to his laptop, where he was just about to finalise a deal... and so forth.
Buy an mp3 player or some earplugs already.
_________________
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can't take part" [Mario Savo, 1964]
08 Nov 2007, 6:03 am
)
