Cell phones are *evil* (except, of course, for the J2ME-enabled ones, but only if you don't actually get service for those. I've got a perfectly non-evil Motorola i85s on my desk right now with no service.)
So you could've saved yourself this trip, but the next thing you know you'd be constantly talking REALLY LOUDLY on the phone wherever you were, you'd forget to turn it off and so it would ring during choral rehersals, concerts, shul, etc...
I've never owned a cell phone (or palm or similar device). What I really want is portable instant messaging with everyone I care about connected, but that's not going to happen. A cell phone would seem to be a reasonable substitute at my end.
What's J2ME, and why do you want it to be enabled but not actually in service?
Rude people bug me, so while I don't know that I wouldn't end up being rude at times, I'd certainly strive to avoid it. My husband had to get a cell phone as part of his job almost a year ago, and he uses it very little -- so there's hope.
By the way, I can assure you that if I ever did get a cell phone, it wouldn't ring during Shabbat or Yom Tov services. :-) (Well, it could ring at home, which would be technically "during", but it wouldn't be present...)
I think it *is* possible to have a cell phone without rudeness -- I did for years (or at least I like to think so...):-)
And, just because you have a cell phone doesn't mean it has to be on...most have free voice mail, so you can leave it off and periodically check messages.
I am contemplating getting one too -- mostly so Ralph and I can reach each other while I'm at school.
Ok, I will accept that theoretically, one can avoid having ones manners dissapear while one owns a cellphone. Perhaps the people who I see every day being incredibly rude were that way all along, and I just don't notice the people using cellphones politely, because they're not in my face. But I'm not totally convinced about this...
What's J2ME, and why do you want it to be enabled but not actually in service?
J2ME = Java 2 Micro Edition. I should've written "J2ME/MIDP", which would specify Java that will run on your cell phone. Not every phone out there can run J2ME/MIDP; in fact, very few in the US can. And Java's cool, so of course it should be turned on.
By the way, I can assure you that if I ever did get a cell phone, it wouldn't ring during Shabbat or Yom Tov services.
Of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I think I was getting a bit carried away. :-)
Well, polite people who use cell phones unobtrusively fade out of view pretty much by definition, yes? You'd have to make a conscious effort to pay attention to everyone around you in order to tally up what proportion of users are rude about it (at least when you're watching).
Mind, I suspect that the results of such a study would be depressing. I think I'd rather not actually know...
Ah. So if you don't want the phone service anyway, why not just get a PDA instead? (I'm blithely assuming that at least some of them support Java by now...)
And I will agree that there are many, many rude people with cell phones. Like my classmates (I'm in grad school) who are so important that they can't turn their phones off in class, folks who answer their phones in the library computer lab and proceed to have a conversation...it's very frustrating.
I don't have a cell phone due to lack of money, but I certainly wouldn't act rudely with it if I did. My fiance, for example, pretty much never does with his; he doesn't talk while driving, he doesn't talk loudly into it, he finds a place to stand out of people's way while he's talking on it, he turns it off in movies, etc.
Any tool can be misused; many, such as cellphones, are misused often. But I don't think that makes them *evil*. They certainly weren't evil when my fiance could reach me pretty much anywhere and anywhen during his trip last year.
Cellio: yeah, I have also wished for a cellphone at certain points. Maybe i'll actually get one one day.
OK, I should've prefaced my remarks by saying something like, "Of course, Monica, or any friend of hers, would never have their minds sucked out like a slurpee and replaced with a poor substitute which thinks that it's OK to rudely talk loudly about all sorts of things in all sorts of public and semi-public spaces, even to the point of interrupting actual interactions with people in the same space to talk with someone on the other end of the phone who could probably quite happily have waited another five or ten minutes to hear about the details of your date the other week with someone who might or might not be going to Margalite's little party on Saturday night."
Any tool can be misused; many, such as cellphones, are misused often. But I don't think that makes them *evil*.
OK, I'm willing to concede that maybe cell phones are just annoying. If I were pressed, I would probably say that on the other hand, plastic handguns loaded with tefalon-coated armor-piercing bullets are *evil*. The NRA would probably disagree.
Part of what bothers me is the "constantly reachable" aspect of it. There are times when I don't want to be reachable. Sure, I don't want to miss important messages -- but that's why I have a very functional answering machine. I can even check its messages remotely, if I remember what the secret code is, and what buttons to press. (I think I carry around a card from my previous answering machine, which is not the most helpful thing to have in ones wallet.)
my fiance could reach me pretty much anywhere and anywhen during his trip last year.
I'm assuming that since your fiancee has the phone, he was calling you during his trip. So having a cellphone meant that he could call you whenever he wanted. That's nice; if, for example, he was on a long train ride and missing you, he could talk to you. On the other hand, pre-cellphone days, he'd have written you a romantic letter of longing which you could have saved and shown your grandchildren. And while I agree that sometimes you need the immediacy of a phone call, in this hypothetical situation, had he not had a cellphone he could've called you from a payphone at the end of the train ride (in addition to writing that letter).
So I see the benefits of this new technology as being real, but small, while the pitfalls as being quite a bit larger.
"Of course, Monica, or any friend of hers, would never have their minds sucked out like a slurpee and replaced with a poor substitute which thinks that it's OK to rudely talk loudly about all sorts of things in all sorts of public and semi-public spaces, even to the point of interrupting actual interactions with people in the same space to talk with someone on the other end of the phone who could probably quite happily have waited another five or ten minutes to hear about the details of your date the other week with someone who might or might not be going to Margalite's little party on Saturday night."
:-)
I agree that cell phones are often used when they didn't really need to be. What I really want is a portable way to check messages (implied: and a way for people to leave messages). Asychronous access would be fine in 90% of the cases.
I wonder if my current answering machine can be queried remotely. Its predecessor claimed this ability but didn't deliver (or maybe the code they gave me was wrong; I never tried all 10,000 options), so I never got into the habit. Of course, in this case I wouldn't have known that I had a message warning me of a cancellation, where if I had something that blinked or vibrated or whatever to let me know, I'd then know to check.
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cellio
Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 10:32 am (UTC)So you could've saved yourself this trip, but the next thing you know you'd be constantly talking REALLY LOUDLY on the phone wherever you were, you'd forget to turn it off and so it would ring during choral rehersals, concerts, shul, etc...
Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 10:56 am (UTC)What's J2ME, and why do you want it to be enabled but not actually in service?
Rude people bug me, so while I don't know that I wouldn't end up being rude at times, I'd certainly strive to avoid it. My husband had to get a cell phone as part of his job almost a year ago, and he uses it very little -- so there's hope.
By the way, I can assure you that if I ever did get a cell phone, it wouldn't ring during Shabbat or Yom Tov services. :-) (Well, it could ring at home, which would be technically "during", but it wouldn't be present...)
Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 01:04 pm (UTC)And, just because you have a cell phone doesn't mean it has to be on...most have free voice mail, so you can leave it off and periodically check messages.
I am contemplating getting one too -- mostly so Ralph and I can reach each other while I'm at school.
Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 01:35 pm (UTC)Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 01:39 pm (UTC)J2ME = Java 2 Micro Edition. I should've written "J2ME/MIDP", which would specify Java that will run on your cell phone. Not every phone out there can run J2ME/MIDP; in fact, very few in the US can. And Java's cool, so of course it should be turned on.
By the way, I can assure you that if I ever did get a cell phone, it wouldn't ring during Shabbat or Yom Tov services.
Of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I think I was getting a bit carried away. :-)
Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 01:50 pm (UTC)Mind, I suspect that the results of such a study would be depressing. I think I'd rather not actually know...
Java
Date: 2002-02-13 01:52 pm (UTC)Ah. So if you don't want the phone service anyway, why not just get a PDA instead? (I'm blithely assuming that at least some of them support Java by now...)
Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 04:15 pm (UTC)Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-13 08:31 pm (UTC)Any tool can be misused; many, such as cellphones, are misused often. But I don't think that makes them *evil*. They certainly weren't evil when my fiance could reach me pretty much anywhere and anywhen during his trip last year.
Cellio: yeah, I have also wished for a cellphone at certain points. Maybe i'll actually get one one day.
Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-14 07:52 am (UTC)Any tool can be misused; many, such as cellphones, are misused often. But I don't think that makes them *evil*.
OK, I'm willing to concede that maybe cell phones are just annoying. If I were pressed, I would probably say that on the other hand, plastic handguns loaded with tefalon-coated armor-piercing bullets are *evil*. The NRA would probably disagree.
Part of what bothers me is the "constantly reachable" aspect of it. There are times when I don't want to be reachable. Sure, I don't want to miss important messages -- but that's why I have a very functional answering machine. I can even check its messages remotely, if I remember what the secret code is, and what buttons to press. (I think I carry around a card from my previous answering machine, which is not the most helpful thing to have in ones wallet.)
my fiance could reach me pretty much anywhere and anywhen during his trip last year.
I'm assuming that since your fiancee has the phone, he was calling you during his trip. So having a cellphone meant that he could call you whenever he wanted. That's nice; if, for example, he was on a long train ride and missing you, he could talk to you. On the other hand, pre-cellphone days, he'd have written you a romantic letter of longing which you could have saved and shown your grandchildren. And while I agree that sometimes you need the immediacy of a phone call, in this hypothetical situation, had he not had a cellphone he could've called you from a payphone at the end of the train ride (in addition to writing that letter).
So I see the benefits of this new technology as being real, but small, while the pitfalls as being quite a bit larger.
Re: Cell phones are *evil*
Date: 2002-02-14 08:02 am (UTC):-)
I agree that cell phones are often used when they didn't really need to be. What I really want is a portable way to check messages (implied: and a way for people to leave messages). Asychronous access would be fine in 90% of the cases.
I wonder if my current answering machine can be queried remotely. Its predecessor claimed this ability but didn't deliver (or maybe the code they gave me was wrong; I never tried all 10,000 options), so I never got into the habit. Of course, in this case I wouldn't have known that I had a message warning me of a cancellation, where if I had something that blinked or vibrated or whatever to let me know, I'd then know to check.
Re: Java
Date: 2002-02-18 11:21 am (UTC)