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Low-Tech Cell Phone Blocking
nigelc writes: "This BBC story reports on Japanese work to come up with a low-tech solution to cell phones in cinemas! Hey, if it can stop the person next to me from going 'Hey, dude, guess where I am?,' I'm all in favor of it."
But what if someone can't call 911 because of the blocker?
I would fear installing these things because of liabilities. What's annoyance compared to the safety value of being able to use a phone anywhere.
I'm sorry, but like most of the /. posters I keep my cell phone on vibrate ALL THE TIME. I'm not going to be rude and talk in the theater, but I HAVE TO GET MY TEXT MESSAGES.
"Dude, the servers are down" is the most important message I can get from mon!!!! If I can't get to one or the other data center things start going to shit fast.
Note to owners: This is a great way to get me to stay way the fsck away from your theater if you install it.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
So if I read this right, this paneling also blocks 97% of Wi-Fi (802.11b) signal strength? So if I want to secure my wireless network, I panel the outside walls of my building with this type of paneling, making it so that the warchalkers of the world can't get the signal? And any time I need to go building-to-building, I wire it.
(Yes, I realize this only works if you don't need access outside the building, but many applications wouldn't anyway.)
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington."
Everyone who wants to avoid cell phones will create "pockets" of "no-phone-zones" around public places, making the mobile nature of the phones useless. "Not in my theater", "not in my restaurant", "not in my pub", etc. That will also create interference for phones in "legit" areas. (Right outside that theater, restaurant, etc.)
So the phone companies will, of course, modify their system with "new and improved, block-proof service!" Higher power, different frequency, more sensitive equipment, etc. All at a higher price for consumers. So we have buildings that make it difficult to use cell phones, and expensive phones that will work despite the buildings designed to keep them from working. And what have we gained, exactly?
The solution is so much simplier. Tell the jerk next to you in the theater to get a phone with a vibrate mode and to actually use it, and to have some repect for those around him. Turn off your own phone in the theater. In general, use common sense and common courtesy.
You can't solve a the problem of people being rude with technology. They'll find some way to be rude anyway.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
...until now, there has been no way of enforcing silence.
Ever heard a GSM phone, blasting at full power trying to reach a base station, interfere with a powerful amplifier?
Better cover your ears if you're sitting close to the speakers.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Panel your interior with this stuff. It'll be crap for getting cell calls in the house, but hell for anyonetrying to get your data short of tapping your net feed. And mount an exterior antenna (something liek a cheapo repeater) to "pipe in" the signals you want. A real RF Firewall. Heh.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Now, I understand that you get reflection and you can normally see more than one antenna, but this could cause whole other problems with people sheilding other areas as a side effect. I mean, what if I live next door to a cinema and they install this? Suddenly I can't receive mobile phone calls in my house because I'm in the shadow of the cinema!
This raises all kinds of interesting issues. Can I force another property to stop blocking my radio waves? Does it devalue my property (probably, in today's modern soceity, yes.) I know whenever I've looked for places to live in the last few years one of the first things I do when I walk in is see if I can get mobile reception.
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
...is a personal cell-phone anesthetizer. So I can reach into my pocket and push a button, and every cell phone within 10 meters stops working for 30 seconds (or at least long enough to drop the current call). It doesn't completely solve the problem but it would be very, very satisfying :P
The first place I saw the idea was AskTog, May, 2000. But he has an update saying the technology has been developed by a company called bluelinx.
"In my values, freedom is more important than 'serving users' in a mere practical sense." -- RMS
Yup, why, in the days before mobiles, people would DIE!
Oh, wait, no they wouldn't, somebody would locomote the fifty feet to the nearest landline.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
For cinemas, concerts et c. I prefer a low-tech solution like this.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
I have an even lower-tech solution:
"Sir: Please turn your cell phone off or leave the cinema" - the usher
or:
"Turn that damn thing OFF!" - me
I remember reading a story of about a man talking on a cell phone on a ski gondola at a resort in Aspen. Another man, sitting next to him, asked him quietly how much the phone (a new, state of the art model) had cost. When the first man replied "Four hundred dollars," the second snatched it, threw it out the window of the gondola, and calmly handed him four Ben Franklins.
It seems to me that active jamming would be much easier than having to repanel the entire room in this stuff. I think the real use could be for shielding RF sensitive equipment, acting like a low cost Faraday cage.
Of course having magnetic wall around your sensitive equipment might not be a good idea either.
Give me a break people. Many of you are saying your so good that you don't have to be on call all the time.
:/).
I wasn't on call last night, but I still had to answer the page because the problem fell into my lap by default.
Our security guy made changes to the firewall which altered the routing table without fully understanding what he was doing. (Don't get me started on this, I keep telling my boss that this guy can have as many degrees as a thermomiter in securty but still should be given user access to my firewall, much less root!
One commit on his config changes and my whole datacenter went down. Thanks to a quick check by me I told them to fix their own problem and went back to sleep. If they want to have a n00b in a position to kill the datacenters then it's not my problem.
But this is the real world and I had to PROVE it wasn't my problem or my butt would've been fried.
Wake up people, no data center is perfect and the sysadmin is ALWAYS responsible, reguardless of who's on call.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Japan has one lawyer for every 10,000 people. The US has one lawyer for every 300 people.
"I didn't see the sign saying the theater was blocked and I missed my big interview / wife in labor / server going down / mother dying / stockmarket crashing / etc."
US lawyers would have a field day. "Was the sign displayed properly? What font was it in? Was it also written in Swahili? What about the literacy impared?"
I just can't see it.
=brian
A sign at the door reminding people to turn it off?
I know the theaters I go to don't have them. I'm sure a lot of it is people forgetting to turn them off (happens at school during classes too)
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
"Oh, wait, no they wouldn't, somebody would locomote the fifty feet to the nearest landline."
...and since payphones have a monopoly inside a theater, they'd have to pull out $1.50 in quarters. It's similar to banning outside drinks from a theater.
If a theater jams cell phone signals, I'm going to stop going to it. They need to take extremist action. We're not little kids.
"Derp de derp."
I'm sorry, but like most of the /. posters I keep my cell phone on vibrate ALL THE TIME. I'm not going to be rude and talk in the theater, but I HAVE TO GET MY TEXT MESSAGES.
/. posters don't keep their cell phones on vibrate "ALL THE TIME"? I don't. I normally leave mine in the car when I go in a public place.
If you can't be without your cell phone long enough to see a movie, then wait until the movie shows up at Blockbuster, rent it, and watch it at home. I do not buy movie tickets so that I can listen to your cell phone doing the vibrate/buzz thing. Neither do I want to see your glaring backlit display while you read your text messages. I don't want you tripping over my feet or my girlfriend's while you stumble out of the theatre because of your oh-so-important message. Your job does not concern me in the slightest. I would sooner see you fired than have you interrupt a movie that I paid to see.
Clue: Important people don't have to carry cell phones into movie theatres. Schmucks that work for important people are the ones on call 24/7.
P.S. Who told you that most
" They need to take extremist action. We're not little kids. "
I mean to say " They don't need to take extremist action..."
Sorry, the submit and preview buttons are too close together. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
I used to have a job where I was on call 24x7, for some reasonably critical stuff. There'd usually be a call a day; some days more, some days none. Late-night calls were less common, partly because the group of people who took the calls was distributed around the planet. However, there were calls at 3 AM now and then.
Why did I accept that? Because there was a quid pro quo. As long as I kept myself available for those calls, and as long as I got a certain amount of total work done on some other things, my employer asked NO QUESTIONS about where I was. I could go anywhere, any time. I didn't even have to be in any specific town.
Well, OK, I did have meetings once or twice a week (on no fixed schedule), but that was about it. If I was in my office, it was because I wanted to be there at that time.
No, I wasn't the only person who could handle the calls. You need backup, always, because there's always a chance that something will keep you from taking a call. If we'd had fixed shifts, we'd have had to have at least two people chained to desks all the time, covering each other. That's six people total, instead of three people with each taking point for her own time zone and the other two backing her up.
By the way, I never, once permitted my phone to ring audibly in a movie theater. That's what vibrate mode is for. Sit near a door, and you can quietly and unobtrusively get outside in plenty of time to take the call.
The arrangement had plenty of problems, many of them caused by my own failure to hire enough people to keep up with expanding load. On the whole, though, it worked. I can see the appeal of having "my time" and "their time", but I also know the appeal of being able to go home and prune my roses if I feel like it.
Actually, except for digitally projected movies (which I simply don't know about) "rewinding" a movie simply isn't possible. To rewind would take approximately an hour. Most theaters these days splice all the reels of a film onto a single, continuous reel that is just replayed constantly. Rewinding isn't an option, most places, because it is very time consuming.
So let's say one of these theatres with RF-shielded walls caught fire. The firefighters rush in, with their VHF two-way radios. But they are now blocked! So if they have to radio warnings, like, "Get out of there, the roof is about to collaps!", they don't hear it, because the wood part of the walls may be on fire, but they are still standing, ferrite intact.
Firefighters died in the World Trade Center *because* the building's construction (the shell had steel vertical beams very close together) blocked the signals from the command on the ground, telling them to evacuate. (This was written up in IEEE Spectrum, I think in April.) Now you want theatres to have this problem, just because some jerks are too tacky to put there phones on "vibrate" or go to the lobby when they get a call?
I'm a parent, and as somebody else noted, we sometimes need to be reached on an emergency basis. I have had to leave a movie because my cell phone *vibrated* and the babysitter told me, while I was standing in the lobby, that there was a problem. I would be hard-pressed to patronize a theater that didn't allow me that luxury.
Back in the sixties, my father was a physician who was often "on call" during his few hours of not actually working. He had an answering service that he checked in with all the time. I think he had occasion to leave them the phone number of the theatre (reserved seat stage, not movie), and his seat, so that an usher could fetch him. We don't do that nowadays; we expect radio waves to do the job. It can be done with minimum annoyance to fellow theatergoers. Blocking is a bad idea.
This will really help my dating life. I always notice my date's cellphone rings in the middle of the date and then she "suddenly" has to go.
:-)
But now their phones won't be able to ring...
My wife and I always go to the movies (and dinner dates, and theaters, and concerts) with our cellphone set to vibrate simply so that if things go horribly wrong at home with the baby sitter and our children, we can be reached. Just because my wife and I are having a date out doesn't mean that everyone back at home (children and/or babysitter) need to have a miserable evening.
Only once did the babysitter call during the theater. I got up, walked out, and took the call and told the babysitter that my daughter's teddy bear was probably under the couch (it was) and waited until they found it. Without a cell phone our daughter who was two and half would have been miserable. And there's no reason when we are a mere cellphone call away to help.
Honestly, if they blocked our cellphone we wouldn't go there. We'd find something else to do on our rare dates and wait until it came out on video. I'm sensitive to the noise issue during public performances, and I would no more take a call during a movie than I would talk loudly to my wife during the same movie. But we need the phone if only to have the peace of mind that everything is ok at home.
Theaters should just implement a spotlight system a-la the Movementarians' indoctrination video in The Simpsons. As soon as you pick up your phone, the movie stops, and you are nailed by a high-power spotlight until you hang up. This should serve as a nice deterrent. For added fun, intercept their signal and play their call over the sound system for everyone to hear. Hell, I'd pay extra for a seat if theaters around here did that!
You're joking, right? 911 is a free call from any phone, anywhere in North America. And the theatres don't own the phone lines, they rent them from the phone company, who I think, would have some words to say to the theatre if they started charging for emergency 911 calls.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Similarly, sheets or mesh screens of conductive material are routinely used to block unwanted RF interference generated by devices like computers and televisions which would otherwise create a great deal of "leakage".
So I ask again: What's new here? Why is this guy getting attention? I think any electrical engineer could figure out how to wrap a Faraday cage around a theater; the question is whether theater owners want to do it.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
The active part here is the metal, not the wood, which is just for decoration. Maybe you young folks don't remember "panelling" from the 70s, but if this technology takes off here, it won't be some clean natural-looking Japanese aesthetics, it'll be cheap-plastic-looking fake wood. Might as well stick to straight metal.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Very good idea, IMHO.
Vibrating phones are no better if you're still going to answer the bloody thing and start talking into it.
If you're on-call, part of that deal is that you've not just got the phone with you, but are capable of answering in. In a cinema, you are not capable of answering it - if you're sitting next to me, you'll be LARTed and unable to speak at all!
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Cellphones already work badly inside many buildings, so people who need pagers and cellphones for life-threatening emergencies don't just have problems in electrically-shielded theaters, they have problems in lots of buildings with too much metal. Pagers put up with this kind of restriction better than cell phones; people who have cellphones work around the problem by stepping outside and YELLING A LOT SO THE OTHER PEOPLE CAN HEAR THEM, AND SHIELDING THAT MAKES MORE PEOPLE YELL MORE OFTEN IS JUST A BAD IDEA....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've gone to 4 different movies in the last couple of months, I heard a phone ring once. Didn't bother anybody.
Boy that theater better start cell-proofing the theaters right away!
"Derp de derp."
Okay, if my objections are so stupid, tell me how they can justify jamming the signals totally. C'mon smart ass. "Oh phones ring in theaters" isnt a good answer. People talk in theaters. People cough in theaters. Babies cry in theaters. Watches beep. People get up to go to the bathroom.
Amazingly though, theaters don't put gags in people's mouthes, they don't do health checks when you enter, they don't ban babies, they don't make you remove your watch, and they don't lock the doors when the movie starts.
So please tell me how jamming the cell phone signal is even remotely acceptable?
"Derp de derp."
Faraday, Michael (1791-1867)
Invented the concept of a metal box sheilding radio waves (Faraday Cage). All these guys did was add paneling (a 1960's technology, found in many basement family rooms). So what exactly in new 1867+1960=???
Passive signal attenuation does not.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Heh, I know who you are. ;)
"Those of us who are responsible enough and have common courtesy might be punished for it."
Yep, and worse, once it's acceptable in theaters, it'll be acceptable in other places too. First they'll do theaters. Then they'll move on to Libraries, afterall you must be quiet tehre. Soon you won't be able to use it in the mall. The mall will figure out that they can easily and legally jam the signals, and suddenly payphone usage will increase.
Yet, this is all acceptable when it means you can go to the theater and not hear an occasional phone beep.
"Derp de derp."
This sounds great, but I want it to protect me from the orbital mind-control lasers. It's such a hassle wrapping the tinfoil around my head, especially when I forget to leave my eyes uncovered.
This might also help when the Goldeneye satellite blasts EMP everywhere. At least my computer will still work so I can play Quake, Unreal Tournament, and Barbie's Fashion Designer after all the banks collapse.
Will it also work against telepathy and remote viewing? Got to call Art Bell and ask.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
And as many others have pointed out - LEAVE A NUMBER where you can be reached.
/side rant >
Guess what - that's what millions of people do today and what most of us GREW UP WITH. And we're still here.
If you are that concerned about your child's safety/health/well-being or you don't trust your babysitter then STAY HOME or take the child with you - IF the kid has manners.
< side rant >
If the kid doesn't have manners, both of you stay home. I'm so tired of ill-mannered, disgusting, rude children in public I could slap them and their parents silly. It's as bad as cell phones, only worse because it propagates.
I'm not a child hater - I have 3 and they are always complimented on their manners. Not because they're perfect but because most people's children are so horrifying.
<
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
"Even cell phones without a service package have to let you make a 911 call. No dice on your argument. "
My girlfriend has a condition where she gets migraines so powerful they can prevent her from walking. I don't call 911 when she has an attack like that, I'd have to call her specialist to find out what to do.
That's why you can't generalize on that type of thing. It's incredibly silly that a theater would even consider this.
"Derp de derp."
Secondly, I believe there are FCC regs or _something_ that prohibit jammers. I just remember reading/hearing somebody from the U.S. govt. say that in an interview. It also kind of makes sense ... jammers are being deployed all over the world, but not in the states.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
"Just as Jesus was crucified to pay for the sins of all mankind, you and I, and other responsible cell phone users will have our phones forcibly shut off to pay for the sins of those who talk on the phone during a movie."
Amen.
I wonder how much trouble I'd get into if I alluded to the RIAA's attempt to force CD's to only play in CD players. You'd think some people would be sympathetic by saying "Well, the RIAA has the right to stop MP3 trading because it hurts legitimate sales." Instead, what people say is "Hold on, not everybody who puts a CD into a computer is doing anything illegal. There's no reason to use extremist measures to stop that."
Yet, when it comes to cell phone jamming, people are all for it: "Uh yah, jam the phones cos I think it'll improve my moviegoing experience."
Instead of saying: "Whoah, hold up, don't take extremist measures to block my phone. The vast majority of cell phones in theaters are off or don't ring at all."
Fun, eh?
"Derp de derp."
a cell fone blocking system could be potentially life threatening, some doctors are allways on call, but does that mean they shouldn't enjoy a night out, if their cell fone is blocked and its an emergency a patient of theirs could die, this is why at a theatre if someones fone or pager goes off i ask them if their a doctor, if not i chuck ice at them for the rest of the show
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I'm shocked that with all of these posts no /. readers have pointed out that use of such communication jamming devices isn't kosher with the old FCC. Any US theater trying to use this will find the feds knocking at their door... and that is a shame.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
They don't need to justify it. It's private property, and you do not have the right to send and recieve radio transmissions at will.
Or do you also think you should be allowed to keep your phone on in hospitals, on airplanes, and other places?
Cell phones are pretty convenient, and useful, but they're not an inalienable right. And if you have a medical condition that means you cannot be out of contact, then it's your responsibility to not be out of contact, not random public buildings to make sure you're in contact. Or do you also think that underground parking lots, say, should install cell phone boosters?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The article quotes 97% attenuation, which is 15dB, which is little enough that there's no point in doing it.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
This story would have you believe that you need this ferrite material to make a microwave shield. But that is nonsense. Any sort of screen will greatly attenuate the signal also. In fact, stucco houses (populare in SW US) use "chicken wire" as the base for the material to cling to.
So... why would they be pushing this ferromagnetic material for shielding? Doesn't make sense.
Most likely, this is a typical example of journalism misreporting a technical story. OR, it is a con man trying to make people buy an expensive solution for a simple problem.
The only good weather is bad weather.
What i'd like to see, and haven't seen mentioned yet, is a standard for cell phones to switch to vibrate/standby/whatever upon recieving a 'silence beacon' signal. The phone would just have a 3rd setting: ring, silent, or auto. If it comes in range of a silence beacon, it switches to silent. When it goes out of range, it can switch back to ring. It's voluntary, so if you're expecting life or death communications you can leave it on ring, but people are still free to take you phone and throw it. This, along with a ringer schedule to switch to vibrate during meetings and classes, should help a lot if people are willing to use them.
"Get your yuppie ass off our website! "
:)
Nope! You'll have to interrupt my internet connection with wood. That's obviously the only way to solve your problem.
"Derp de derp."
D'oh...
A solution to the problem with music today
The point of napster is to trade legal files for which you have gotten permission of the copyright holder... But the point of cell phones in movie theatres is to disturb the person next to you by not using vibrate mode?
The idiocy of slashdotters amazes me.
"Can you hear me now?"
(silence)
"Damn!"
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I would, aye. If they are at risk of dying with thirty seconds warning, then they'd best make sure they're within thirty seconds of communication.
Cellphones are not a guarenteed communication method, unlike landlines, which do have uptime guarentees. So don't treat cellphones as such. They're a convenience, but there are times and places they should be off, period. A place where silence is expected, and an admission fee is charged, is such a place. If you can't trust your babysitter to be alone with your kids for two hours, you shouldn't go to the movies. Yes, it sucks, but it's part and parcel of having children. And yes, I have young children. I also have a good home theater setup, and a depressing collection of Disney movies. :-)
No, because she's not exactly going to be able to make a call in the middle of being assaulted.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
- I need to get my pages
- I can no longer get pages at the movies; therefore
- I may no longer go to the movies (or, by extension, anywhere else I can't get pages)
Notice the use of the word "may". That's right, you can still go to the movies, but your job doesn't permit you to any more.What's usually added to the 'argument', and what pisses me off, is:
- I'm a whiny bitch who thinks I have a God-given right to play with my toys, any time, anywhere
You made a life decision to be in that career, you signed the contract, now SUCK IT UP. It's your fault for getting yourself involved in something that you can't deal with. Lawsuits based on the "whiny bitch" premise will get thrown out. Entertainment is NOT a right you possess. It's a priviledge that you now may no longer enjoy. If the movie theatres want to throw away doctor and tech business, that's their choice. They're private businesses, they are not required to cater to you.I personally think that the theatres are well within their rights to do this. They're trying to provide a service, they make money based on people's experience of that service. I don't like that they're considering it, I would much rather have all the 'whiny bitches' exhibit a little self-restraint, but I've already resigned myself to the fact that hoping for this to spontaneously occur is a lost cause. Look for movie theatres to plaster this stuff up at the earliest possible moment.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
I will probably be modded down for "redundant", but I'd just like to say, I wish there were a (Score: 6) for posts like this. Kudos to you.
To the OP: dude, like fmaxwell said, it's not our problem that your servers are down. Feel important on your own time.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
You will get a small fraction of polite people that simply forgot to turn their device to silent. All the other polite people will have already turned theirs off.
Then theres the small fraction of people who REALLY need to leave their device on. They, like the polite ones, have already taken care of this.
This leaves the jerks. They will whine/bitch/lie and won't turn their phone off.
Result? Same as it is now, without spending the money on the detectors.
Your
I'd like you to see what happens when all the 'peons' go on strike.
... Surely you jest!
In the tech industry?
Tech has the weakest unions of any major industry and the worst track record of organization and job actions.
P.S. Nice troll.
Back atcha.
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
This technology has far more use than merely making phones not work in theatres, especially if the panels are cheap, reasonably light and can be cut to size with standard power tools.
If it was adapted for computer cases, then you would cut most of the electromagnetic interference originating from your case. It won't stop the interference from the cables, but there are other ways of shielding cables. Cable conduits could be made out of this stuff.
Aircraft could cover the interior of the cabins with this stuff, to keep the avionics from playing up because of someone's Gameboy.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
"The magnetic ferrite absorbs much of the energy of the radio signal, cutting the phone dead in most cases."
This is a passive jamming scheme that the FCC has no juristiction on. It's not the FCC's job to regulate how RF permeable your offices wall is any more it is to regulate the theaters. If it were broadcasting an active jamming signal, then I could see the FCC getting their shorts in a bind, but this? Nah. It does what any wall does- absorbs RF energy, only more so. No worries for an idea who's time has come. A notice to the effect of "This is a cell/pager dampening zone. Your devices will not work past this point" should do the trick nicely.
Now if they could only have guaranteed child free theaters...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
If you're that worried something is about to go wrong, what are you doing watching a movie? Like another poster said, millions of people survive without a cellphone implanted into the side of their face.
As far as going to another theater for your coverage, I'm don't think you'll hear too many complaints. The same with people who like to tote their kids to the movies, only to have them yell and cry at certain scenes. Sorry, but people don't pay $8.50 a ticket to hear your cell phone ring "Do-Mi-So" while you fumble around to answer it or listen to little Tommy bawl his head off because the parent didn't have the discretion NOT to bring him.
You have the right to be connected at the hip to your child just like you have the right to choose a non-interference theater. Excercise it. Please. We're begging you.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Aluminum won't block enough signal.
Personally, I find Aluminum more than adequate for stopping annoying cell phones, if you apply a little ingenuity. Here's how:
You should start with a long aluminum rod, preferably 20 grain, weighing in between 7-15 pounds. I recommend a piece between 37 and 45 inches long and 2-3 inches in diameter.
Shopping tip: while you can obtain such a bar from any conventional hardware store, one of my faithful readers, T. Harding, maintains you may purchase such economy hardware at a Big 5 or Play It Again Sports. For our purposes, she recommends the following brand names: Easton, Demarini, or Louisville Slugger.
Bring this item with you the next time you go to a movie. When one of your fellow theater patrons' cell phone rings and he acquires the unmitigated audacity to answer it, do as follows:
1. Move in front of him with your aluminum rod.
2. Stand very close to him.
3. Quietly wave your toy over his phone.
Voila! His phone call will die out without warning! It happens so suddenly, neither party has a chance to even say goodbye! It works nine times out of ten*.
* One time out of ten, you require a liberal, repeated application of your aluminum against that subject's patella, in a downwards motion towards the bottom of the femur. Once the device is on the ground, firm (and direct) impact from your aluminum will terminate its functionality.
Solomon
"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!"
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Geez. What the hell did people do before cell phones? That's right. They enjoyed their lives just the same. If Billy's mom can't part with her phone for an hour and a half, she shouldn't be going to the movies in the first place.
Firefighters died in the World Trade Center *because* the building's construction (the shell had steel vertical beams very close together) blocked the signals from the command on the ground, telling them to evacuate.
What do you suppose those steel vertical beams were used for? Take a guess. Go on. You're right! Just to block fire fighters RF transmissions! Bad, bad, bad analogy, Tex. They couldn't have been used to hold the building up or anything, right? Sorry, but not every structure hundreds of feet high with the ability to withstand minor quakes can be conveniently cell accessable. I would expect firefighters to realize that there is ALWAYS the potential for such risks because of the buildings structual makeup. Using your logic, we shouldn't build buildings hundreds of feet high because they have the potential to collapse and really give somebody an ouchy.
As for being a parent, millions of people actually- get this -survive on a regular basis without a cell permanently imbedded in their face. Some of them are even parents! Go figure. As for you father, something tells me an usher wasn't half as intrusive as your cell playing the Hawaii 5-0 theme. I'd like to think everybody had the forsight to set their phones to vibrate and answer the phone outside the theater, but they don't. You expecting a life or death call? Maybe you shouldn't be watching a movie in the first place. Flame all you want, could care less.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I'm so tired of ill-mannered, disgusting, rude children in public I could slap them and their parents silly. It's as bad as cell phones, only worse because it propagates.
:)
Dude, I empathise, but seeing them on the street's nothing. I used to work in a toy store. Actually, it was the mother of all toy Stores - FAO Schwarz on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. On Christmas Eve.
Picture this - hundreds of parents with hundreds of kids. None of the adults giving a rat's ass what their children're up to - they're throwing things, tripping each other, running around. Half of these parents are on cells, the other half are foreign (usually German) tourists with little to no English comprehension. They're all in a rush, they're all stressed out, and they're all extremely loud.
And what did I get to do to these people? I had to smile and be nice to them. My mouth muscles still haven't returned to their normal shape. I firmly believe that it wasn't the kids' fault - I liked most of the kids, or at least I could see how in different circumstances I might've liked them. I despised the parents for not watching their children, for thinking the store was a public place, and for treating us like babysitters and yelling at us when little timmy whacked his sister over the head with a large stuffed gopher.
I work in a library now. Much better class of people.
Triv
...the magnetic stripe card in my wallet?
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
This technology might have been useful a few years ago, but in the last couple years I haven't heard any phones go off in the cinema (which I do frequent).
/SMSes/etc).
It seems everyone (including myself) knows the drill of switching their phone into a silent profile - or if they can't figure that out they turn it off.
And the problem has been solved - without losing any contact with the GSM network (so phones can still register missed calls
I don't know what the situation is like in the US - obviously it's still a problem I gather based on the posts I have seen - but educating people - friendly reminders etc, does seem to work
I'd respond, but not in a public forum. Suffice it to say that I'm not being flippant or heartless.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
He made it clear that it is on VIBRATE, not RING.
Therefor you don't have to listen to it and in fact CANNOT HEAR IT!
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
There are other ways to block signals.
:)
Metal works pretty well.
Or if you need to see through it, there are some forms of glass that have trace amounts of a conductive substance that will give it a mild tint to visible light but make it impassable for RF. Also fine-mesh screen works too.
I'm not sure exactly what they use in the windows, but because the company I work at makes RF power amplifiers, mainly ones for cell phone use, the building is heavily shielded to keep signals INSIDE. (Not for security, but to prevent us from interfering with nearby cellular systems, but security would be an additional benefit if we ran 802.11b) - We do make sure to use dummy loads, but even dummy loads aren't perfect. I've been working with some FM broadcast-band equipment - I'm sure it radiates somewhat, but I can walk out to my car (50 feet away from the lab), turn on my radio, and hear pure static with no sign of a carrier anywhere nearby.
This just happens to be a form of RF shielding for places where they can't afford to shield the room totally with metal/can't design such shielding in as an afterthought.
Conductive paint (perhaps containing graphite, or maybe powdered ferrite) would work well too.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Multiple layers of ferrite will block ANYTHING... Not just gigahertz signals.
Most materials (wood, etc.) have RF blocking power that is dependent on the frequency.
Sandwiched ferrite and pure conductors, on the other hand, are a different story.
You might be able to get around the problem with a passive reradiator coupled with a low-pass filter. (Will leak certain signals very well - Something similar to the Radiax used to give cell coverage in subways.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Since when each piece of private property needs to gurrantee you can make your living by hindering the costumers that make possible that the landlord makes a living?
If anything, cinemas, theatres and any other public fora like those should be suing the hell out of those unconsiderate enough to take those instruments of hell in public places. Such anoyance surely must be puting off possible cinemagoers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So everyone on call should just give up their social lives, eh?
No, just movies in theaters.
(ok, so you don't *have* to go to the movies, but I can imagine the reactions of my friends if I refused every time they wanted to go)
If your friends can't understand a desire to not annoy others, you need new friends.
Please stop staring at my crotch and watch the screen instead.
If you weren't running a glaring backlit mobile phone to draw attention to your crotch, it would be a lot easier for those around you to watch the film.
What makes you think you'll hear my phone doing the vibrate/buzz-thing?
Because it makes noise and I have heard them in meetings, theaters, offices, and restaurants.
You'd be right if it weren't for the fact that anyone voluntarily leaving a movie they've paid for probably has such a damn good reason it would override your momentary discomfort.
It's not up to you to decide whether you should inconvenience and discomfort me. Your hypothetical data center? Couldn't care less. Your company can hire multiple people to rotate the "on-call" responsibilities. Then you can go to movies when you're not on call.
Or perhaps you'd also object to sysadmins running through crowds because a vital datacenter's gone down?
And I suppose you think it's fine if some idiot sysadmin running through a crowd runs into a pregnant woman, small child, handicapped, or elderly person while rushing to get www.petfoodmart.com back online?
If you choose to treat your mobile phone as if it weren't mobile, why did you get one?
Obviously, your car is on cinder blocks in your front yard, but rest assured that my car is perfectly mobile.
Personally, I'm concentrating on the movie, and just tune little things like that out. If your concentration ability is that bad, you might want to consider medication.
I did not say that I can't follow a movie when that happens. But when you are immersed in a movie, something like that can quickly snap you back from the illusion of being there. Obviously, that's not a big issue if you are watching something like Men In Black II, but when you are watching a cinematic masterpiece, it's a different matter.
And it's the sum total of annoyances. One watch? Minor annoyance. 4 watches, 8 cell phones, 9 backlit pagers, 2 PDAs, a Blackberry, some infant wailing away, and a guy two seats down that sounds like he has tuberculosis and the movie is ruined.
What the hell did all these essential people do for entertainment ten years ago?
They got real expensive cellphones/pages.
30 years ago they had to stay home by the phone.
100 years ago they had a guy on a horse come or they stayed at the hosipital.