h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

LONG POST ALERT!!!!!

Before I got a mobile, I didn’t really like them, but was willing to accept that they might come in useful for some people. Now that I have one, I see I was being delusional. They are the worst piece of technology ever foisted on the general public (weapons do not count, since the general public cannot obtain them.) Here are my reasons:

*First of all is the image. If mobiles were marketed as a useful tool (like, say, a spanner) then I would have considered getting one. I would still have said no, but I would have thought about it. As it is, they are marketed as desirable fashion items, and anyone who does not own the latest one is a fair target for bullying. For this reason, I was dead set against getting one, and had to be bullied into owning on by my mother. To add insult to injury, this occurred just after I started college, a time at which people are supposed to make their own decisions. I tried to salvage some good out of it by making a bargain whereby if I got a mobile, I would get a laptop as well. This fell through when my dad said he never heard about this deal despite the fact that he had. To be fair, he did recently manage to get me an allegedly obsolete one from his work, but it’s only mine on loan and he can take it back whenever he wants. Not really the same, now, is it?

*Credit. The entire credit system is total bullshit. Any amount of credit only lasts for six f***ing months, then they don’t let you use it until you buy more. Mobile phone proponents say that it’s OK because once you get some more, you can then use that you didn’t use already. To this I reply, what the f*** is the point of having extra credit if you’re not going to use it? Then, of course, unless you buy credit, people can only >call you< for a year. This is ridiculous. Phone companies don’t disconnect you if you don’t use their phones for a while, and ISPs won’t disconnect you for leaving the Internet alone for a few months. Credit card companies would prefer if you didn’t use their cards, because they don’t gain anything unless you’re late, but every purchase makes more paperwork for them. Why are mobile companies allowed to do this? If any other type of company did it, they would be brought to court for unfair business practices.

*Do I need one? No. In six years, I have never had any problems finding a payphone. In four months, I have encountered three cases where my mobile was useless to me. On two occasions, I ran out of credit and was unable to obtain more. The other occasion was when it ran out of battery, which led to an unfortunate series of events that led to me standing in the cold for over two hours and my entire family got very mad at me.

*In secondary school, I did rowing, and on one occasion we were supposed to go up the river at 7:00am. This was rescheduled to 11:00am because the seniors wanted to use the same boat as us. No problem here, I get four extra hours of sleep…except the guy who was supposed to tell me ran out of mobile phone credit. He also apparently was unable to use a landline.

*Ringtones. Is there anything more obnoxious than a beepy version of a bad pop tune? If you want to hear music, get a CD player or iPod, you dole

*Games. Why the f*** would I want to play Atari 2600 games on a tiny screen with annoying sounds and an unusable control system? If you want to play games on the move, get a Game Boy, DS, or PSP, you fiddlestickswit.

*This leads us neatly on to those annoying special offers. No thanks, I really don’t want to pay money for yet more annoying ringtones, games, and images, especially when I don’t even like the free ones.

*Continuing this trend is a series of ‘competitions’ run via text message that cost E1 per message received. They send several messages per day, which really adds up. This is what ate up 90% of my credit, and I’m not sure how legal it is. The worst thing about this is that the texts are routinely spelt wrong and use excessive abbreviation, yet this is expected. With email, you at least know that a clumsily typed, txt like message is a scam.

*Speaking of text messaging, what precisely it the point of it? Let’s look at it. It costs money to send each individual text message, and they must all be sent seperately. They are also limited to 160 characters each. Alternatively, there is email, which allows me to send a whole bunch of messages simultaneously for free. The only cost is a local phone call which lasts a few seconds. Emails are not restricted to any number of characters, plus I can send pictures, documents, etc with them. They are easier to read and can be punctuated properly. They are also much more secure, since you can’t be charged simply for receiving an email, plus computers have virus checkers to get rid of anything nasty. Mobiles don’t.

*Another thing about texts is that, despite very few texts requiring the full 160 characters when properly written and punctuated, people still insist on abbreviating everything. Whenever I send a text, I type it as if I was typing an essay, and it has never gone over 150 characters – and my texts tend to be longer than most people’s. on the other hand, people reply with a single word, which they abbreviate.

*Proponents of text messaging make the case that the English language is always evolving, words change their meanings and spelling, and certain rules of grammar occasionally reverse. This is certainly true; the definition of the word ‘nemesis’ is actually an act of revenge, yet it is exclusively used to mean ‘great enemy.’ This is an example of language evolution. However, evolution proceeds by favourable mutations. Take American English; we may find it distasteful the way they spell some words, but you have to admit that some of their spellings are easier. However, to extend this dubious analogy, txting is a cancer, subverting cells (speaking people) around it to make a lump that is very harmful to the host organism – language. Txting is the compete breakdown of grammar and syntax, which makes the entire language unreadable. To make matters worse, txt spellings are starting to appear in various unrelated locations. For example, a poster for a children’s creative writing competition asked “RU gud at ritng?” I read an opinion piece in a paper which mentioned a teacher who got the following essay from a pupil about her summer holidays: “my smmr hold wr a CWOT.we usd go2c my bro nhis 2 =O kidz…” etc. he couldn’t read it. Txt messaging has been compared to hieroglyphics, but this is a false analogy. One can read hieroglyphics like any other language, whereas txt requires more imagination and intuition than the logic upon which language is based.

*Another annoying thing about txt messaging is when people have an entire conversation in txt. If you want to have a 2-way conversation, call the other person and communicate with your voice. It is possible. Press the ‘back’ button until it says ‘names’ instead of ‘back.’ Onw enter the person’s phone number, or press ‘names’ and search for their name. Press the green button. When the ringing tops, you may speak to them using your vocal chords. This is what mobiles were invented for. The proper name is ‘mobile telephone,’ which comes from three words: >mobile<, meaning moveable; >tele<, meaning across distances; and >phonos<, meaning sound. Hence, its true purpose is to transmit waves of not light, but sound.

*Another annoying thing about txt messaging is that people who use it nowadays think that they cam up with all the abbreviations. They did not. The majorit were invented by computer engineers in the 1960s and 1970s, when they were using intranets and messages were restricted to 50 characters or so. This is not so much a flaw with mobiles as with users.

*The absolute most annoying thing about txt is that people insist on spelling ‘was’ as ‘woz.’ This misspelling does not save ant space and in fact takes longer to type – proof that txters are not so much trying to save space as aiming to make their messages as incomprehensible as possible.

*Misspelling ‘what’ as ‘wot’ is also very annoying, and becoming depressingly common.

*Some mobiles have buttons that are to small to press and require a special stylus to do so. There is such thing as being too Japanese, though I reckon that even the Japanese would have trouble with such tiny mobiles.

*WAP. Even die hard mobile enthusiasts hate this. It therefore deserves no further comment.

*The clock is useless. A watch is far more convenient and versatile, plus a digital watch has extra features like alarm, stopwatch, countdown, etc.

*GPRS. I have no idea what this is, but my mobile has it and it took a huge swathe out of my credit. I only found out I had it when my sister got suspicious as to my credit loss and located it.

*Phone book. A list of commonly used numbers stored for easy access sounds like a good idea, but then you discover that it is easier and faster to dial the number manually than to hunt through the poorly designed menus for a particular number.

*Text anticipation. Actually, this is useful if you can figure it out, but few people can. The best consequence of it is that it might stop people texting so much.

*They are bad for your health. A girl in Italy recently had to receive medical attention when she injured her thumbs from texting too much. Also, many people would rather risk cancer than surrender their mobiles. The fact that anyone took the cancer scare seriously does not speak well for our overall intelligence.

*Equipment. My mobile cam with a lot of shiny brochures featuring pictures of fashionable, ‘beautiful’ people having a great time with their mobiles and asking me to spend precious money on useless, annoying extra features. It did not come with a charger.

*Interruptions. Often, I have been having a very nice conversation with someone when thir mobile goes off and they spend the next ten minutes talking to someone far away. Mine also once went off in chemistry lab and I almost got thrown out.

*Calculator. Useless and impossible to use.

Good rant - I have sympathy with most of those points.

Since I'm bored at work, I am going to be pedantic though...

>>Hence, its true purpose is to transmit waves of not light, but sound.

Mobile phones transmit waves of 'light' rather than sound even if you're talking on them. They use electromagnetic radiation not vibrations in the air gases to transmit their signals.

OK... I'll go do some work now...

Have you read the article in mobiles in the <./>thepost</.> this week?

It's at A3765701.


Geggs

Bet you're glad you got that off your chest! Great rant! Actually I think a lot of your beef is not so much with the phones, but with the bipedal organic accessories (with opposable thumbs) that seem to be perpetually attached to mobile phones wherever they are found in the natural environment.

Whilst your rant does make some good points, I know of at least three people whose life has been saved by having mobile phones. They do not think that they suck.

I think that 3g and video mobiles are an excellent idea and hope that they come down in price quickly and that their video resolution etc is increased. Most of the videos will be trash - people just leaving a message sort of thing, but some of them will be important stuff - abuses of power, argybargy in the street. Imagine everyone having the potential to be a journalist. If they were around in 1963 you would know what happened to a certain man in Dallas.

Yes, most of the functions in them are not of the best quality, but they are good enough for a quick usage. If you just want to add up your reciept, or pass 10 mins on a bus playing a game, or dictate a message. There are products out there that do the same, and if you do a lot of something then you probably already have something to help you out. However for small usage they are ideal - does it, in one small and easy package (that you probably will already have).

Morons on trains, yelling into them and their poor, poor sound are irritants, but that is an IOK problem, and most people are annoying anyway so it is not that bad Mobile phones going off inappropriatly is also an IOK problem, I am sorry to say.

Health issues, yes it is a concern but look around at where you live - it is probably in town where vehicles are pumping out masses of cracked hydrocarbons, soot particulates, heavy metals. You are proabably never more than 10 meters from some large electrical device, you probably eat some form of processed food. All bad for you.

I am on the other side for the texting argument too - you can talk to someone without having the bother of actually talking to them What more do you want The conversation is pared right down to what is important and all the dross is skipped

I have had a mobile for a few years now - not a big fan, but can see the flip side - and there are things that you can do to make them safer and better. You do not have them on all the time, this saves power, saves you from being microwaved and stops 'them' tracking you My texts are always in the fairly good English.

As with most technology the problem is not with the product it is with the people who use it Until later....
BCNU - Crescent
BCNU - Crescent

I work free-lance, so I am often out of the house. But, as I have a couple of businesses going, I do need to be 'contactable' at all times. Often business contacts have happened while I was out in the street - between on place or another. If I had missed those calls they may have simply gone down the list of ads until they found the first person to answer and offer them a good deal.

I find that text messages are an efficient and non-intrusive way of sending someone information so they can read it when they are free - it doesn't interrupt them when they are perhaps in a meeting or otherwise busy.

As for 'fashion' I'm neither interested nor bothered by this - I only change my phone when it stops working, not because I want the latest model with tons of gadgets. My new phone - bought last week - doesn't have a camera or any other gewgaws attached. It is simply a phone with a user-friendly menu.

As for other people being 'annoying' with their phones, well this only bothers me at the cinema. Otherwise I just don't pay attention.

I've had a mobile phone for about six years now and it has made my life a lot easier.


az

"I've had a mobile phone for about six years now and it has made my life a lot easier"

It's made my life significantly more annoying.

"I know of at least three people whose life has been saved by having mobile phones"

How?

"If you just want to add up your reciept, or pass 10 mins on a bus playing a game, or dictate a message"

I can add a receipt in my head. The games are annoying and not a fun way to pass time. How can one dictate a message on a mobile?

"look around at where you live - it is probably in town where vehicles are pumping out masses of cracked hydrocarbons, soot particulates, heavy metals. You are proabably never more than 10 meters from some large electrical device, you probably eat some form of processed food. All bad for you"

I live in the country where there are relatively few vehicles pumping out masses of cracked hydrocarbons, etc. I am rarely close to a >large< electrical device and never eat processed food, is it is disgusting.

"you can talk to someone without having the bother of actually talking to them"

Yes but I prefer to talk to people because it's faster and ends up cheaper, plus you can iron out any uncertainties.

I'm half way through buying a new mobile I've got the PAC number and everything

They can also be used for talking to other people.

Apparently.

RF

Ahh but now I'll have a new one when I get it, I'll be able to ue it to talk to computers as well.

<imagines all the other inanimate objects 2legs might be found talking to after a few


Your rant about phones made me feel a little angry. Not with you at you.

The contracts are the contracts if people dont like them they dont enter inot them by now there are enough people being stung or ripped off if that what they want to call it that everyone should know the hidden catches if you dont get out from under your rock and talkto ther people.

Yes airtime sots a lot but you get the hardware at subsidised prices it is a bit of a honey trap but if you dont know this it really is your own fault.

Predictive text can be a pain at first but so is riding a bike but after a while if you cant do it its your fault not the phones.

The text alerts are expensive but I thought EVERYONE was aware of that. I am and that's why I dont have them. "TEXT BACK FOR FREE..." all unsolicited texts are deleted immediately and if I want info I go to a computer library or text book.

Your friend who didnt call you is the one to blame no the phone.

When Hitler rolled his tanks into Poland did anyone blame the roads? Anyone blame the tanks

Get used to it and you'll find them useful. Bit like knives treat them right and they're very handy treat them wrong and you lose a finger.

"The contracts are the contracts if people dont like them they dont enter inot them by now there are enough people being stung or ripped off if that what they want to call it that everyone should know the hidden catches if you dont get out from under your rock and talkto ther people."

First of all, I never wanted my mobile and have no desire to enter into a contract. I was never told about any catches, hidden or otherwise. All anyone ever told me was about all the things it could do.

"Yes airtime sots a lot but you get the hardware at subsidised prices it is a bit of a honey trap but if you dont know this it really is your own fault."

What?

"Predictive text can be a pain at first but so is riding a bike but after a while if you cant do it its your fault not the phones"

Please re-read my rant. I think that predictive text is good, but it's much harder to figure out than a bicycle.

"The text alerts are expensive but I thought EVERYONE was aware of that. I am and that's why I dont have them. "TEXT BACK FOR FREE..." all unsolicited texts are deleted immediately and if I want info I go to a computer library or text book"

I didn't, and there are plenty of other people who don't know about them. I ended up with a few after responding to TV ads, and my dad had to go to someone high up in a mobile company to sort things out. This lady was later hit by the same scam.

Where does getting info come into this?

"Your friend who didnt call you is the one to blame no the phone"

Again, what? When did I mention a friend not calling me?

"When Hitler rolled his tanks into Poland did anyone blame the roads? Anyone blame the tanks"

I think most people blamed Hitler. Cars and roads also suck, but that is not the point of this thread.

"Get used to it and you'll find them useful"

I am used to it, and I don't find it useful.

Actually, I think mobiles were at their best when the first GSM (2G?) ones came out. They were like early DOS computers; easy to use and reliable. Now sadly, they have gone the way of the PC and have a plethora of useless features that eat up limited memory and battery power, and of course bow have complex operating systems which means they're difficult to understand, don't do what you expect them to, and sometimes crash

Oh, and they can get viruses now of course. Why can't technology these these just do what you want it to reliably?

I feel a compeletly different rant coming on...

I bought my mobile phone about eight years ago and it is still going strong. That was at a time when mobile phones were used for talking to people.

I believe it does text messaging but have never got round to using it. Why send a text message when for next to nothing you can send an e-mail. Even if you want to communicate with someone who is not available then there is voice mail. Infinitely easier to use than text messages.

It has a screen that tells me the number I am talking to or the number that is contacting me. It also tells me how long I have been talking. At the end of the conversation it tells me how much the call cost. For the life of me I cannot think of what other information I would like from a mobile phone.

It does have a ring-tone - a few bars of the Sailors Hornpipe. Just one of half a dozen built into the machine. That does me. Unusual enough so that if I am in a crowd and a mobile phone rings, I know immediately whether it is mine and not someone else's.

However, when you break down on some desolate country lane at 3:00 AM with only an owl for company, a mobile phone is the most useful piece of technology ever invented.

Donald

I know of at least three people whose life has been saved by having mobile phones. How? I know someone who works on the Highlands and Islands Air Ambulance.

You live in the country, and you do not like mobile phones because of all you reasons (which are mainly down to bad use - it went off in your chemistry class? Well maybe you should have turned it off, eh?). The reason people do not like them in the country is because of bad reception. You have never had any problem finding a payphone? Are you sure you live in the country?

You do not live near any large electrical device, I am dubious as you are posting on the internet so you probably have at least one elctric heater near you right now. No CRT's in your house then, possible in this modern day and age I suppose. But no refridgerator? No washing machine? You will not need to remind me to stay upwind

I can understand that you 'prefer to talk to people because it's faster and ends up cheaper, plus you can iron out any uncertainties'. However, with a little thought there are no uncertanties, as for cheaper, I do not know which package you have

You 'can add a receipt in my head', well done but maybe not every one is so lucky. 'The games are annoying and not a fun way to pass time', I would say that is a judgement call, and that you just have not found a good game 'How can one dictate a message on a mobile?' Well mobile phones have a microphone and some memory, so dictation would have been one of the first things that would have been done. Also once you have done it you could send it to a secretary to type out properly, ideal if you are a solicitor-type living a hectic lifestyle, or out on the road somewhere

Most of your problems are still because of Idiots on Keypads, not the technology itself. For most people these things are THE technology of the first decade of the this millenium and, for me, those three lives outweigh all of your ranting and whinging by a big margin Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

Dave - I pretty much agree with you.

Crescent:

"I know someone who works on the Highlands and Islands Air Ambulance."

Fair enough.

"The reason people do not like them in the country is because of bad reception. You have never had any problem finding a payphone? Are you sure you live in the country?"

Yes I do live in the country, and reception is pretty good. When I say I can always find a payphone, I generally mean when I happen to visit the city, though most local shops would have them as well.

"You do not live near any large electrical device, I am dubious as you are posting on the internet so you probably have at least one elctric heater near you right now. No CRT's in your house then, possible in this modern day and age I suppose. But no refridgerator? No washing machine? You will not need to remind me to stay upwind "

I was using a college computer, though I do have one in my house. I don't have any electrical heaters, I use a coal fire and radiator system.

The only way you're going to get electrocuted by a fridge or washing machine is if you attack them with a screwdriver and knife, after using a good bit of manual dexterity and a partner to get them out of their cubbyholes.

"However, with a little thought there are no uncertanties, as for cheaper, I do not know which package you have "

It is cheaper to send a single text message than to call someone. However, it is far cheaper to call soemone than to have an entire conversation in text message.

"You 'can add a receipt in my head', well done but maybe not every one is so lucky"

, they teach people to do that in primary school. If you find it really hard, you can always get a calculator, which is cheaper, easier to use, and has a longer battery life.

(On the other hand, most receipts are totalled up by the machine that issues them, though I suppose this is not always the case.)

"Well mobile phones have a microphone and some memory"

Mine doesn't. Neither does the mobile of anyone I know.

"Most of your problems are still because of Idiots on Keypads, not the technology itself"

OK some of my problems are with idiots, but many others are in fact to do with the technology itself.

The danger from large electrical devices was not so much electrocution as the electromagnetic fields produced, which are in the same sort of health/danger league as mobile phone usage. The electric heater was an oblique jab at the computer itself, which if less than 4 years old is going to be in the same ballpark power usage as the bar on an electric heater.

If you have a lot of maths to do then I would definately recommend getting a decent, dedicated calculator, but if it is just the odd thing you need to tot up, then there is no need to be lugging around two gadgets

All mobile phones have microphones, and all made in the past 10 years have memory. It is just a matter of getting them configured to work together and bingo, a dictation machine Until later...
BCNU - Crescent

>>I know of at least three people whose life has been saved by having mobile phones. How? I know someone who works on the Highlands and Islands Air Ambulance.<<

Crescent, if you get the chance to ask the person you know I'd be interested if the number of emergency rescues have gone up in the past say 10 years?

(I realise that the Highlands and Islands Air Ambulance will do more than backcountry rescues and so the following won't necessarily apply)

I haven't asked anyone in NZ, but I've spent alot of time in the backcountry here and the number of idiots going into the bush has definitely increased. In this I include people who think they are safer because they have a mobile phone, and therefore either don't prepare properly, or do things they wouldn't normally do because they think that it'll be easy to get someone to rescue them if they get into trouble.

There are lots of reasons for more idiots in the bush (tourism is a big one), and I have no creditable evidence that mobile phones have made the problem worse. But I'm guessing that it has. This is my problem with technology - it is promoted as inherenlty desireable, but there are often problems created by it that get ignored.

Fortunately in NZ there are still places where you can't get cell phone reception


I've never owned a mobile phone. It's interesting how many people expect that I do have one - often it comes up when I am on a landline and people want my cellphone number so they can get hold of me when they want to.