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Requiem for the Disappearing Pay Phone
StarEmperor writes "This Washington Post article describes the steady disappearance of pay phones as cell phones become more commonplace. Many pay phones, which used to generate hundreds of dollars per month in revenue, are now used so infrequently that they cost money to operate. I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?"
What if I, say, want to buy these payphones they're throwing out? I'd love to have an ACTUAL payphone in my house or something.
Without pay phones pictures the back cover of 2600 will seem sooooo boring.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
they cost less. $.50 cents for one phone call is ridiculous
Where will Clark Kent change into his Superman costume?!
... all the spilled oil, gas, antifreeze and other automotive gook from the accidents caused by people using their cell phones while driving...
-RickTheWizKid
..."Just hang up and DRIVE!"
Maybe they could replace them with Suicide Booths :)
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
... payphones are great to have in an emergency - and there are tens of millions of people in the US w/o a cellphone.
The real question is: are they going to keep operating those phones that lose them money? Should payphones be thought of as something essential like public transportation, and possibly subsidized by the govt?
I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?
Ummmm. How about approximately 0? How many pay phones per person? Like 1/100 at best. Now think about all of the diapers and soda bottles and old tires and other crap that people throw out without thinking. There are things worth worrying about and then there is the noise.
As for getting rid of pay phones, I'm fine with it. I mean, when was the last time you saw a working pay phone?
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
When I recently opened the Back to the Future DVD trilogy and watched the second movie, there was one scene where Marty Jr. was using some kind of futuristic-looking pay phone. I laughed to myself and said, "I guess they didn't see the end of that one coming!"
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
A lot of the young kids here on /. will be saying - 'I'm old enough to remember payphones'...
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Pay phones still have some use... doesn't anyone watch The Sopranos?
-Berj
How come this always gets brought up on slashdot?
How is junking old phones any different then any other waste? Are there uranium pay phones out there? Admit it the u.s. wastes tons pay phone is a tiny tiny part of a very larger picture
***I GOT NUTHIN***
>I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones
Probably not worse than the millions of home phones that break down or are replaced by newer models. And DEFINITELY not worse than the millions of cell phones - and proprietary batteries - that are starting to be thrown out (what was the statistic I read? Kids in Japan who keep up with "fashion" replace their cell phone every 3 months, and in North America every 18 months? I know, I know, no link, no proof, etc... whatever.)
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
the payphone out in the Middle of Nowhere already disappeared. Here is a link to the going-away of it and why. Basically, the National Park Service and the Mojave National Preserve thought that there would be too much environmental impact if the booth remained too much longer.
--Fuzz
I only agree if the cell user is not using a headset and using a phone with special hands free dialing features. Otherwise, we might as well ban conversation between 2 or more occupants of a car.
the last time I used a payphone I was playing quarter tones into it trying to trick the operator into giving me a free phone call. Also stuffing the coin returns. What else are you supposed to do in high school?
I'm thinking that payphone operators are making it harder to get a call thru, and subsequently lose your 50 cents. I came across a phone that took 1.50 from me on busy signals! No other phone was to be found (this was a half mile from the U of MN)
I was pissed. If I had been driving my big shitty van, I would've GTA'd the fucker in a heartbeat. Enjoy my illgotten buck fifty, phone bastards.
Bell Canada has announced that they are converting some of their thousands of pay phones into 802.11 access points to extend their new WiFi service offering. WiFi-only companies like FatPort would be wise to follow suit. PayPhones are in the best possible locations for WiFi -- think AirPorts, hotel lobbies, train stations...
No more of a threat than everyone having to buy a new cell phone every freakin' year.
-Milinar
Think about it, that's 25 cents a minute, most cellular phone contractual plans are LOWER than this price.
Here's the irony of the story, I didn't have any change either, so I stopped a gentleman to ask him for some change to use the phone, he said he was on his lunch break and had no problem with me using his phone.
I think the saying "everyone has a cell phone" is wrong, but not so untrue, like the computer most people have at least one in their family, if not three or four.
Moral of the story, I got a car charger now and don't try to see if the lithium ion battery can hold a charge for more than 4 days. Totally off topic but motorolla's new phones with a Lithium Ion battery are hella nice and last a rather long time (just not longer than 4 days).
In closing of a long post, it's the price of the payphone that has made them less appealing, and what gets me even more is most of these phone companies who supply payphones ALSO have a division that supply celluar phones. So they really aren't "losing" money as a whole, just certain departments.
I say more emergency solar based Cell Phones Stations on Highways, Interstates, and Rest Stops because technically Cell Phones have to be free when dialing emergency numbers, and being solar you can put them anywhere.
I'm sure "phreakers" and 2600 will be upset though...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Why not just turn them into toilets, and handy pinboards for ladies of the night to ply their wares? Oh wait...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
They should convert them into WiFi hotspots.
How will we make anonymous calls without a payphone?
Rather than throw out all those pay phones, I think it would be much more interesting to see them reused. Perhaps as 802.11 access points or something. Just replace the phone with a digital pay box with an antenna on top. Simply swipe your credit card, hook into the network, and roam around with 20 or 30 minutes of wireless access.
There are still vast regions of the country that have limited cell phone coverage, especially for newer networks that provide high(er)-speed wireless data services.
I recently switched cell phone providers from Verizon to T-Mobile so I could utilize their GPRS/GSM-based wireless internet service on my laptop (~115Kbps) using my new bluetooth-enabled phone. While CDMA coverage in the U.S. is rather extensive, the GPRS networks that AT&T and T-Mobile have deployed are still very much confined to highly-populated regions of the country.
There I was in Westchester County, NY (about 50 miles N of Manhattan) trying to locate a client's office and imagine my frustration when my brand new GPRS-based phone was out of range. I had to stop at a supermarket and find enough change to call from a payphone - it saved my day.
I don't really use the telephone a whole lot. I've never seen a need for a mobile phone, and part of the argument against one went kind of like this: Well, if I'm stuck somewhere and I really need to get in touch with someone, I can always use a pay phone. And if its not important enough to spend 35 cents I really don't need to make the call anyway. I guess not eh? At some point in the future I might have to spend $(minimum cell phone cost) every month just to get the same service I would have formerly gotten from the once-ubiquitous (and free if I don't actually have to use them) public pay phones.
The same thing happened to rail transit in most American cities about 40-50 years ago as road systems improved and more people bought automobiles.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
This is bad news for all the people who can't justify paying $30+/month for a cell phone. With ubiquitous pay phones in case of emergency, knowing you could find a near by pay phone. From this article, it could soon become very hard to find a pay-phone when one is needed. This will be big problem for the lower middle class, who can't justify paying for a cell phone, but live areas, where cell toting yuppies, have caused most of the pat phones to be removed. The poor may be less effected, as, according to the article, phones in poorer areas are still profitable.
aren't the best way to win the support of the administration.
It isn't hard to replace the handset with one that has a sereo jack for a pda/ipod red box. I know, I know, I know: it isn't really a red box unless you solder it from scratch, but still a cool idea.
Disclaimer: This is neither a confession nor a suggestion. I am not admitting to any wrongdoing, accompliship in wrongdoing or premeditation of wrongoing.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
How can the government ensure your security if you use public pay phones?
Use your cell phone, or get one! That way your phone records are just a computer away from the people protecting your safety.
Do not assist the Terrorists!
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
In general, pay phones were mandated by public safety regulations, not profit motive. Problems ranging from smashed handsets to stolen phone books to smashed window glass plagued public phones constantly.
If pay phones were profitable, why did the Baby Bells allow anyone to start running them? It would have been a very strange business decision given their history of profiteering in the post Ma Bell era.
--Gus
I could go on and on... it will be sad to see the payphone go. I swear I could strangle the jackass who actually took a call in the theater during the Two Towers last week.
I can't stand cell phones, I don't need or want one, and I don't plan on getting one now. Maybe I have become truly die hard cynical, but this smacks of another case where I am being herded into buying something I don't need, because the public (read free or optional) alternative was taken away from me. I am so moving to Canada or Australia.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
Maybe it's time for a new topic for mods to vote on "How appropriate, in the slashdot tradition, do you think this article/news item is?" Meaningless and/or uninteressting stuff are more and more frequent on the slashdot frontpage (or maybe I should change my profile to display less entries?).
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
You mean I've been putting my money into them for all this time for nothing?!
Seriously though, perhaps if phone companies want to perpetuate the phone booth they should do more stuff like this.
Sure, it can't be that good for profit, but it's bound to increase the popularity. But if you want to increase profit, there was a scheme a few years back where people listened to an advertisement at the start of a call to increase telco revenue. I've never seen (or heard) this done. Why not?
Hmm. I've never seen a payphone equipped automobile. Is that part of GM's On* offering?
In high school i worked at a Mail Boxes etc on a street corner in downtown Fremont CA. My boss used to complain about the pay phone in front of the store because the kids coming home from school hung around next to it for hours everyday to the disturbance of everyone around. We talked about it once and the gist of it was that the phone companies come to small businesses like liquor stores and offer a set amount of cash over a period of time to lease the store front spot for the phone. You sign a binding contract, usually 10 years, sometimes more. You can not back out of the contract no matter how badly you want it gone.
So no they dont own the land, it's leased. At least here in CA that seems to be the case.
I'm still a little bitter that I can't pop in a quarter and call when I need to.
Honestly the only time I really ever used payphones was from high school to call mom to pick me up after sporting events.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
1. Terrorists and other street criminals don't use public telephones -- mostly they don't work, it's inconvenient and there's no privacy.
2. Criminals use stolen cell phones to make their calls and throw them away every couple of days.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Payphones have all but disappeared around London, since so few calls are made on them and almost everyone has a cell phone. This trend started years ago. When I was last in London cellphones even worked down in the Tube.
One thing disappearing payphones would mean: One more parking place available at finer gas stations and 7-11's everywhere.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Most ANY cellular phone that's properly charged and within range of a compatible tower may be used to call 911...NO service plan of any kind is required...none!
:;
There are even various organizations that collect old cell phones and distribute them for emergency 911 use.
In fact it's against the law for a carrier to knowingly block any 911 cellular call regardless of the tower(s) (assuming it's compatible with the phone being used) it's routed through nor the phone its dialed from.
Bottom line is that absolutely NO service plan of any kind is necessary for 911 access and thus the "we need to save pay phones for 911 use" is a mute argument...now in regards to Clark Kent/Superman...not sure what he'll do now
San Jose Mercury story: hundreds of mailboxes removed from San Francisco bay area, due to low usage, garbage thrown in mailboxes, fear of more anthrax attacks, etc. etc. I can't help worrying about all anonymous means of communication shutting down.
That's really what was missing from that show "Lois and Clark".
Not ONCE In a phone booth!
I mean they went at it on the ceiling, in outer space, on clouds above the city, but not ONCE In a phone booth!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Many municipalities require that telcos provide payphones within the region they serve as an understood cost of having control of the local area. NYC is a good example of this; Verizon is required to provide a certain number of payphones within a certain area, etc.
Additionally, the cost is offset greatly by the advertising revenue generated by payphones. The REAL issue isn't the telcos killing off Payphones, but putting up booths with no phones IN them for months at a time. Verizon got nailed for doing this in an NYT articlea while back.
Either the WP post is totally off base, or other municipalities andthe baby bells that serve them are friggin' morons.
-rt
Like this one.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Does anyone here remenber Antitrack?
And probably even his misery resulting from old-scool (but nonetheless impressive) phone phreaking?
as for me, I bow for you, antitrack.
my
I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?
How about junking hundreds of thousands or millions of cellphones. Plus the batteries each unit may go through in a lifetime. There's no way those things last as long as a nice clunky pay phone. I know we have a couple of dead ones around here somewhere, and a lot of people upgrade simply for fashion or features.
Yes, people are looking into recycling the phones. It's difficult because the materials are so heterogeneous, and though a few like tantalum are quite valuable, the labor to break up the phones can outweigh that. A nicer idea -- hand-me-downs to less wealthy developing countries, for sale or parts. Cellular phones have a disproportionate value in countries that never got the telephone line infrastructure in the first place.
Can't get out of the Matrix with a cell phone, it has to be a land line or Tank can't get me out of here!
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
Pay phones would make more money if they, like, accepted lots of it, in large denominations, when being begged to.
Oh, do I have a rant for y'all.
===
Gather 'round the pixels, folks, and let a still green traveller relate a story from the olden days...
End of September, actually. Toorcon -- I flew out to San Diego to join Hikari's bad ass hackfest. Was so excited that I'd actually gotten my degree three days previous (not -- but that's another story entirely) that I didn't even think to check *where* in San Diego I was going.
Lesson #1: For f*ck's sake, know where you're going after the airport.
Figured I'd just check the net when I got there. *laughs*
Lesson #2: For f*ck's sake, KNOW you'll never get a net connection when you really, really need one. (Reference: "The Inverse Square Law vs. The Presence of Microsoft Powerpoint: May The Enemy Never Discover The Network Cloaking Power of Talking To People When Powerpoint Is On")
So. Rumor has it San Diego's Airport got a new water fountain once...it's talked about in hushed whispers, the emergency budget excess of 1983 brought a quenched thirst upon every traveler since. According to legend, other plumbing amenities relating to the invention of running water shall someday visit themselves upon this fine structure.
No friendly arrows, no Internet Cafe's -- and though the Starbucks served coffee, it came in Disass only. There wasn't even a poorly secured baggage handling network waiting to provide me with my next stop (not that I'd ever poke around an airport network; for God sakes lad, they have guns! And Latex Gloves! I plead Joey's Soverignty!)
So what could I do? Went to call my apartment.
On a Pay Phone.
Lesson #3: For f*ck's sake, buy a cell phone. Seven Eleven has them. They're FREE(after many rebates you'll never recieve). There's a REASON they're so profitable -- because PAY PHONES NOW SUCK.
Proof:
You want proof? My previous ranting is insufficient to show that I indeed know large scale suckitude when I recognize it in my cold, not quite dead flesh?
Got some overpriced food. Requested change in quarters -- I was off to the telephone to get fully ripped off, but there's a LOT of hotels in SD and I didn't much prefer to check each one.
"Bzzzzzz. I'm sorry, this phone doesn't accept coins for long distance calls."
Lesson #4: Remember how you heard that pay phones weren't making money? They mispelled "taking".
After bitching and moaning, I remembered I could charge my card to my credit card. Yes! Maybe my legal tender, unconstitutional to refuse (but we'll ignore that) couldn't get me moving, but surely the mighty power of Visa -- it's everywhere I want to be, and I want to be in a nice bed, and in that bed...er, anyway.
"Thank you for calling 1-800-CALL-ATT. For a credit card call, press this number or we'll sic Carrot Top on you."
"Thank you for selecting a credit card call. If you have a Mastercard, press 1. If you have an American Express, press 2. If you have a Discover Card, press 3. If you have a Visa, get a very strange look on your face."
"Thank you for getting a very strange look on your face. An operator will be with you shortly to further refuse payment for services."
You have to understand. I just graduated, I've got a LONG trip ahead of me -- this is right before the Singapore trip -- of all the problems I imagined possible, not having enough to pay for a single phone call was rather disconcerting.
I briefly considered my options for having myself placed under arrest. I hear those guys get a phone call. But then I realized their call is on a pay phone too. Oops.
Ended up calling my mother's company on their 800 number, tail between my legs, begging for info off a single web page. You'd THINK it ends here...
'cept the person I reach, despite the net connection on her desk, doesn't particularly know what to do with it. So she calls her husband. To access the net. For me.
Ever browsed the web through a listener that doesn't know what she's hearing but has to translate it into something she's saying? You Will, and the company that will bring it to you...
Anyway, no reason to rant further -- it was one heck of a trip, an absolute blast -- but indeed, no matter what country I ended up in, the pay phones were as spastic as an epiliptic monkey with a broken pacemaker.
I did like the 90 second pay phones, that took 75 seconds to establish a call. talkfastdoesn'tevenbegintocoverit
Needless to say, I am now vastly more knowledgable about that which is GSM.
--Dan
Recently, the authorities forced Bell Canada to keep one lone payphone located in an isolated village, so to insure that someone stranded there could call for help. Doubtlessly, one will see this scenario repeat itself more and more.
I could go on and on too. I swear I could strangle the jackasses who confuse the tools people use with the stupid things they do with the tools. I could also strangle the jackasses who have cellphone envy and try to mask it as some kind of superiority.
I work hard to make sure I have the resources to live the kind of life I want to live. I want the ability to stay in touch with people I go shopping with so we don't have to agree to meet at the food court. If my girlfriend is in a car accident again, I want her to be able to reach me as soon as possible. If there's an earthquake and I'm trapped in a building, I want to be able to call for help and tell them I'm alive but bleeding and running out of air. If I'm on an airplane and hostages take over with box cutters, I want to say goodbye to my girlfriend before the plane runs into a building.
I'm tired of anti-cellphone BS. There are no legitimate complaints against the phones themselves, and the complaints about the users have nothing to do with the phones.
Grow up, people.
I remember some of the monkey-wrenching articles you could find back in the BBS days.
There was one in particular I remember called "Phone Phun", written by an individual named "Mr. Death" who lived in NYC. The article gave ruthless and detailed instructions on all kinds of things to do with pay phones... ripping them off, blowing them up, etc.
It was an amusing read, despite the incredibly antisocial behavior it espoused. Still... I sometimes wonder what cellblock "Mr Death" might be inhabiting today.
Heh... It's a wonder any of us survive to adulthood.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Just because a cat has four legs doesn't mean that all four-legged animals are cats.
The environmental hazard assoicated with payphone removal is that which results from the disposal of the payphones. The prolific use of cell phones are what's causing the revenue drought for the payphone companies. Decreased revenue equalls decreased reason to keep the phones in service. Thus some of the payphones are taken out of service.
To reiterate: People will not be obliged to use cell phones instead of the now non-existent payphones. They already are using the cell phones. That's why the companies are digging up the payphones.
In mathematics, one does not understand things, one merely gets used to them.
--VonNeumann
Does that mean you wouldnt have use for these fine products? ;-)
;-) Hehehe..
Based on your statement, is it fair to assume you have a sign like on a Greyhound bus that says not to talk to the driver while the vehicle is in motion?
Seriously though, of course, paying attention to anything in addition to your driving when you are moving is hazardous. But you know that occasionally, you *will* have something else you are giving some attention to- talking to passenger, turning off Rush Limbaugh, scratching itchy balls, swatting an errant bee, whatever. You can't always have 100% attention to your driving no matter how much you try. I think laws trying to totally ban cell phone use in a car are way overboard. Ban CB and 2-way radios in cars then. "Must cleanse ourselves- save us from ourselves!"
People who smoke damn well better not do so in my presence, because I value my health. And people who feel compelled to chat with their significant other on their cellphones at any given time can stay the fuck off the road when I'm trying to get from point A to point B.
--sdem
Actually, there's a third type: the people like you who will loudly defend their right to use a cell phone wherever and whenever - in a theater, in their car, etc.
Some people can multitask safely with a phone and a car. Many others can't. I, for one, get quite annoyed when someone sits in a green light, not moving, 'cause they're yakking on their phone.
Let us face the facts...the Line-driven phone system is surprisingly obsolete.
.com people back into a profitable battle. A phone booth today gives me no reason to visit it...unless I can download the latest linux kernel in less than 100 seconds for $1.00. With such a more efficient data network, membership would be based on unlimited use, bandwidth/quality that you desire, congestion status of the network, and/or a random non-member use that is payable at the node (aka receptacle/phone).
In Poland, and many other countries I don't remember, the Phone system consists of a cellular network! Many people disagree with cellular systems, out of fear of medical influences; that is reasonable. Yet ther is no other ethical wireless alternative to microwave other than what? Pick somthing that doesn't need to be ran through a medium; fiber optice need not apply, infrared could imply somthing good, wire is back to stage1. The total cost of ownership of modern phone booths on an out-dated phone system is the problem. They take too much space, too much maintenance, and are generally not reliable in all situations of elemental emergency (vehicles that smash into them, storms, vandelism,etc). What they need is a more ethical data-networked system. Future phone booths may as well be a service provided by a local internet cafe, that is the technology I think will reserect the layed-off
Total cost of ownership of computer hardware is much lower than qualified line installers running around an area creating ground loops and phucking with a phreaking system of accousticly line-driven phones. Can you imagine, maybe membership of your internet service provider could provide access to such a future communication booth. That is worth the clustered effort for such as wireless system!
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Payfones arent quite dead yet, i have a cell fone, but i still carry around a keychain recorder with red-box tones on it. A free fone call is cheaper than my pre-payed cellular. ^_^
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I realize that it's all the rage to worry about the environment everytime someone sneezes. But......
Why would these things be a threat. I thought the would contain all sorts of valuable metal that would be recycled. I guess my thought was that would make sense for financial reasons (recover some $$$) if not for feel good enviro whacko reasons.
Am I missing something here?
.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
i disagree. When you have the occupants sitting inside the car its easier for both of you to adjust your conversation level depending on how tight the traffic is or how much of attention level is required. It would be difficult to expect the person on the other end of the phone to have similar understanding.
Besides that the difference between using a headset and talking to someone beside you is same as that between listening to your favourite song using a headphone and listening to it on a stereo. Which of the two do you think has a easier chance of having you preoccupied ?
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
"I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?"
That's a truly stupid question, because all those payphones would hardly be a drop in the bucket compared to everything else in terms of the environment.
Repeal the DMCA!
Is the hired a thinly veiled euphemism for prostitutes?
That's a choice demographic for payphone operators, I guess.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
There is another big difference between talking to a passenger and talking to someone on the phone. If I'm talking to a passenger, there is some chance that they will cause me to look at them, to make eye contact. My wife often complains that I don't look at her when I talk to her enough, but even once while driving is too many times.
I also have often wondered about how the laws about cellphones are written such that they cover cell phones but not cb's. And for some reason it really bothers me that there is almost certainly an explicit or implicit exclusion for police.
But, in a vain effort to swerve this post from its current tangent back towards on-topicness, the one thing that seems to bother me the most about the disappearance of payphones is that they're often very usefull in emergencies. Not everyone has a cellphone, and there are often circumstances which render them useless (bad signal reception, low battery, etc...) It's nice to have a hardline here and there where 911 can be dialed with ease, if you happen to see an accident or a fire, or a lynch mob, or perhaps if you're experiencing a heart attack or just went into labor. Granted, these are not common occurences, and the telco's certainly shouldn't be forced to maintain costly infrastructure at a loss, but at the same time that payphones are being pulled down, local and state governments are erecting emergency call boxes. Would it be all that hard to have the government agencies that are erecting the call boxes just use that money to pay the telco's to maintain their payphones? It seems like there should be a middle ground here....
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
Oh c'mon, is the Slashdot crowd so young that it doesn't know the Jolly Roger or Anarchist cookbooks? The more "well read" of us all know what thermite is said to be capable of, regarding payphones... plenty of good use, there!;)
If you work on some sort of project requiring a power source, you could use your old phone and battery as a power source. The phone becomes a very fancy charger. The cell battery itself is pretty nifty, and it's basically free since you were going to throw it out anyway.
Ok, you guys have some good points. I will send the subject back to brain for further tests. :-)
Here's my theory;
When talking to a passenger, the passenger is actually there with you. They know when you're not paying attention because you need to focus elsewhere. When you're on a cellphone the other person will keep talking at times when a passenger would know to stop. They'll ask "are you still there?" when you're trying to concentrate on something else and don't reply to them.
Handsfree phones don't solve this problem. After a while you learn to just ignore the phone when you need to focus elsewhere; some people never learn; some people have a few accidents in the process.
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
I'd agree with this EXCEPT that a person talking to the driver knows when the driver has to concentrate on something coming up and instinctively SHUTS UP.
:)
Concentrating on Talking while driving actually distracts people from driving well. Bad drivers can often be seen doing all the talking while driving. Basic natural instinct, you cannot devote concentration power to upcoming events (getting cut off and allowing the extra space) and hold a full blown 2 way all out conversation.
Drivers do their best thinking/working shit out because the mind is alive with activity while driving, just don't ask them to concentrate on a conversation with someone else.
Think about it the next time you're driving
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering.
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
The main reason why CB's and Ham radio users are exempt from this is mainly because they lobby a lot so their interests are reflected in the legislation. Really. I am a member of the ARRL (National Ham Radio Organization) and they have people in Washington who prevent legislation like the cell phone bans applying to them. Another reason is that most Ham users are involved in one sort of community service utilizing their radio and their vehicle, so it would be pretty detrimental to prevent that. Also, if you ban two way radios, what will the cops do?
None. Just auction them online, and whatever is left send to Third World countries. When even them have no use for them, junkyard and recycling. After all, what's bad about iron?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
IMO, the cause is obvious: most pay phones these days do not permit incoming calls.
...about as well as the airport security being raised made it so the armed officers didn't need to come onto American Airlines flight 1731 out of Dallas/Forth Worth last Saturday, and yank people off the plane after it returned to the gate. Yeah, those rights we've given up have really bought us something, haven't they?
This is to stop drug trafficing. Looks like it's really working...
It seems to me that the only thing it has done is make pay phones less useful to legitimate callers (for example, I needed to call someone from a pay phone recently, and talk to them for an extended period, but the inability to give them the payphone number so I could call them, give the number, and be called back, made it impossible).
-- Terry
"I own a cell phone and know damn well that I'd better use it while I'm not driving"
Wow - okay okay, you can use your phone while not driving. Will you use it while you are driving tho?
....they made blue boxing work again! Infact, I guarantee payphone use will dramatically rise! ;-)
-psy
Because they're the most idiotic idea ever dreampt up. Why buy a NEW phone each time you need more credit when you can keep a higher quality phone, and merely buy credit at the store?? Can you think of the waste caused by 'disposable cellphones'?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
What do you do with the huge adress book in your cell phone? I fill it with pay phone numbers. See, sometimes I want to dial a person. Other times I want to dial a place, and the person is not important.
...And some more... ..and some from the airport in my hometown, Vigra
I have collected about a hundred or so I suppose. Shared them with my friends of course. We sometimes dial them to ask some stranger what the weather is like there, whether the bakery has some nice offers etc. Sometimes we play music at them.
Responses have been entirely positive (it's not harassement, after all, if you actually take a pay phone that's ringing, you're expecting to be suprised).
Wardriving sounds fun, and a lot more useful than this, but hey, not everyone can afford a wireless card...
Want to try? I'll share some of my numbers with you. They're in norway. so it's expensive for most of you, but... just remeber to put 047 in front of them to get out of your own country.
Some boxes near Bislett stadium in Oslo:
22565586
22607202
Box near (a duious) pub in my hometown. Call it at midnight on a friday for an interesting chat.
70132334
A mall in Oslo, Byporten:
22171821
Airports are full of bored travelers. Here are some numbers for Gardermoen, Oslo:
63975924
63983701
63982832
63983706
63983703
63982831
70183623
70183622
Karl Johan is the main street in Oslo, always a busy place:
22834080
22834978
22835775
22835777
A subway station in Oslo, Grønland:
22174166
22175106
22175563
22175567
The school where I'm trying to become a software engineer (phone boxes outside the toilets):
70126928
70128975
OK, that's it for now. I can't guarantee no typos, or that some boxes may have been taken down. If someone could post numbers for boxes in their surroundings, I'd be grateful (preferrably in a more relevant/permanent forum than this slashdot thread)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
US payphones, European payphones and UK payphones.
Good riddance.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
"I wonder what kind of environmental hazard is posed by junking thousands of pay phones?"
I don't know about other things in pay phones, but I've heard that quite a few kinds of birds can easily choke while eating quarters.
root@aio:~# nmap -sX -iR -p1- # Ho, ho, ho! Merry Xmas, everyone!
I had mine turned off after wanting to be LESS accessable.. No PDA, no PAGER, nothin..
So if i need a WORKING booth, they are hard to find..
A lot that are still out there are in dis-repair.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I would imagine not nearly the environmental hazard posed by all the cell-phone people who upgrade their phones each time a new plan comes out with a free phone. Pay phones do not, that I know of, have batteries in them, and are fairly recyclable. (Aluminum, or in older cases, cast iron cases, which translate nicely to melting down). The plastics are recyclable as well.
The fact that large companies (like phone companies or even large corporations) are now being watched closely when disposing of potentially dangerous materials (including computers) means they will probably be stripped, recycled, or waste-reclaimed in China somewhere.
Not many of these phones would hit landfills as "phones" at any rate, unlike the thousands of Cell Phones that people tend to toss out like household garbage, complete with batteries, etc.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
The design specs for payphones are histerically funny to read. If I remember correctly, the coin boxes need to be able to withstand repeated blows from a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. Many that are used in "high risk" areas also have the ET function. They "phone home" when jostled too much or when they have been damaged (failing certain diagnostics) and alert the company that they are in need of service.
My aunt was a switch technician for a while back in the early nineties and the red light district of her town generated a ton of calls for service from "customers." It seems when a payphone was having problems, it affected business and people needed it fixed pronto. They were also some of the most abused phones around. The stuff they would hear during a line test would melt your ears, supposedly.
This is the logical endpoint.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Actually, they are the problem, according to carefully designed scientific* studies:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/08/16/cell.phone.drivin g/index.html
I see your point, that rude, stupid people wil continue to do rude, stupid things with or without cell phones, but to say that cell phones are not a problem is simply wrong.
* - Oh, I'm sorry, are you one of those conservatives who circumvents science when it doesn't support your personal opinions and the political process has failed you?
To quote Jenny Holzer, "the future is stupid".
One simple rule for its versus it's
Why does this class envy exist when cell phones are cheap enough for even homeless people to afford?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Keep in mind that not all people who have money are intelligent. And by this I mean more than just a few.
There are 5 ways to come into money/wealth.
1. Earn it by working for it. This includes starting your own business, or inventing something that sells well. Good money management is necessary here.
2. Inherit it. Nuff said.
3. Marry into it. Nuff said.
4. Win it. Either from a lottery or a court settlement.
5. Steal it or gain it via fraud.
If there are any other ways please let me know. In my opinion which is in no way professional I would say that the bulk of rich folks are in categories 1, 3 and 5 with intelligence being a big factor in those categories. Number 2 would come in second but requires no intelligence and number 4 would come in last requiring very little intelligence.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I'd like something more than guessing when you say that there is a correlation :)
Without payphones, is there any way an anonymous call can be made?
.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Hands-free sets do not make driving while talking on a cell-phone any safer. See this paper from the New England Journal of Medicine for details. Basically, they cross-correlated traffic accident reports with cell phone logs and found that talking on a cell phone while driving quadruples the risk of getting in an accident, regardless of whether or not the phone is hands-free. This increased risk of accident is comparable to the increased risk of accident while driving drunk.
The difference between talking on a cell phone and talking with a passenger is that the passenger is aware of the driving situation and can halt the conversation and/or call the driver's attention to the road in case of emergency.
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Small annoyances like cell phones or crying children do not bother me.
That depends on how small an annoyance it is. A short ringing of a phone followed by a muffled "oh, shit" from the owner as he rushes to stifle it is a small annoyance (and not worth making an issue of). The person who gets a call in a theatre, lets it ring long enough to read the caller ID, then answers it and proceeds to carry on a conversation during the movie is more than a small annoyance. They are a nuisance.
Also, I've never once complained to a parent about a crying baby if the show was a kid's movie. If you go to see Ice Age, you'd better expect to see children there, and to accept the social effects that children create. Now, the parent who brings a baby to a 9pm show of Two Towers is just an inconsiderate piece of human shit. Especially when the baby starts howling during the battle at Helm's Deep and the parents refuse to take the baby out (because THEY don't want to miss anything). Can you tell I've been there..?
It's much worse to have a bozo making a big deal of those things.
I think it is because NOT ENOUGH people make a big deal about these things that rudeness and discourtesy are allowed to flourish. Our societal structure works on about 10% legislation and 90% peer pressure. You can't legislate courtesy and police rude behavior. You can only use peer pressure to correct the behavior. Often, verbal censure is enough to do that. In general, people want to be thought well of. If they suddenly realize that their behavior has caused them to be cast in an ill light, they will alter their behavior to fit into society's boundaries of polite behavior. I think there are a lot of people who simply don't realize their behavior is inappropriate, because no one has ever said anything to them.
Like a neighbor who threatens to talk to my manager because I use a dance pad at 8pm.
Here's a perfect example. Your neighbor is a bozo because you think YOU should be able to DDR anytime you like. Take a minute to put yourself in your neighbor's position: you work all day, come home, eat dinner, get the kids off working on their homework, sit down in your comfy chair to watch a little ESPN before you pass out from exhaustion, and your neighbor starts jumping up and down on the floor above. Don't you think your neighbor is entitled to watch ESPN in relative peace whenever they want?
If you want to be able to DDR whenever you feel like it, simply get an apartment on the ground floor (I assume you are second story plus, because a concrete slab doesn't reverberate). You can put on headphones and DDR at 3am and no one will complain. All it takes is a little awareness of how your behavior impacts those around you, and a small amount of accomodation. If you happen to be the Lord of the Dance, well then (DUH!) don't get an apartment on the second floor! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
It's no fun to live if you have to be polite and considerate all the time, in every aspect.
I don't think that's true. I think you can be very happy and have a lot of fun while still being considerate of those around you. Unless you simply can't have fun without jumping up and screaming "Yeeehaaww!!" in the middle of a crowded restaurant because you just beat your friend at that peg game thing. Maybe your mommy never taught you this, but we have "indoor voices" and "outdoor voices"...
If you want to be regarded by society as an adult, you have to act like an adult. Unfortunately, there are a lot of 21+ children running around in our society today.
Sometimes needs of a few or one outweigh the needs of the many.
That's never true. Just ask any Vulcan.
has been stealing them...
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
sooo i pay 30 bucks a month to have something in my car that is turned off, and doesnt get used for months on end.. ya.. im made of money.. good idea... I think ill keep looking for to occasional phonebooth.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think a big part of freedom in US is that we can all annoy each other ... Those who give up freedom for quite...
Freedom taken to it's ultimate extreme is anarchy. There's an old saying that goes well in this topic:
"Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose."
social engineering is stupid:
Years ago they started taking pay phones out of poor neighborhoods. Why? Because drug dealers were using them to take orders and sell drugs. Advocates for the poor said removing pay phones would not stop drug dealing and would only hurt poor folk who could not afford phones in their homes and used pay phones instead.
Now everyone uses cell phones to buy and sell drugs. And the poor folk STILL don't have pay phones because now there is not money in maintaining them.
Oh wait...this just in...local governments are now taking down cell towers in and around poor neighborhoods so drug dealers cannot use cell phones to take orders and sell drugs. Advocates for the poor are claiming this will only hurt poor people, who cannot afford phones in their home and instead buy prepaid throw away cell phones.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
I guarantee that more people than those "right next" to you are aware when your phone vibrates (say, during a meaningful quiet point in any movie), let alone when you pull it out to check the caller ID.
No, it really is very quiet. I've been standing around having a conversation with someone before and the phone rang, and they looked surprised when I pulled it out to answer it, because they never heard it go off. Now, there was one time when I happened to be leaning against a plate glass window when it went off, and a lot of people heard that. In fact, that's a real difficult noise to explain...
Now, the backlit LCD might be a distraction, but it's pretty dim, and sometimes a little hard to read in the dark. I can't imagine anyone except those to my immediate left or right even noticing it if I pulled it out of my jacket pocket.
But you go further, depending on the call's "importance" (to you and the caller only) and, by your own admission, answer some calls.
It would have to be a pretty important call from someone I was expecting a call from (ie my doctor with lab results or something). I've had a cellphone for about 8 or 9 years, and I think the total number of times I have answered the phone in a theatre was two. One was to hear whether a relative 1000 miles away made it through surgery okay, and the other was from a client who was calling to tell me whether or not I got a big contract. And my idea of "answering a call" is to pick up the phone, quietly say, "Hi. Hold on just a second, okay.." and then step out of the theatre to take the call. That is no more disturbing than quietly saying to your wife, "I'll be right back" and then stepping out to use the restroom.
You condemn the woman for being "above any petty social convention", but then proceed act virtually identically, ignoring the "Cellphone Free Zone" sign yourself, to answer a call if you "absolutely need to speak" to that caller. Wha...? What part of "No Cellphones" did you not understand?
Actually, I said I "often" carry my cellphone at a theatre, but I don't always do it. That time, I DID turn off my cellphone and even reminded my wife to turn off hers, BECAUSE they had actually posted a sign (and that's the first time I've ever seen a sign like that at a theatre, although I expect they'll probably become a lot more common). If they hadn't had a sign, I probably would have left it on vibrate, if I had even brought it in to the theatre in the first place.