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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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Posted: 26 Jul 2006 12:27 am |
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I used to own, and actively use, a cellphone.
I used to think the calls I made on it were necessary - i.e. that they made a difference of a positive kind in my life and the lives of others.
Now that I won't own a cellphone or use one any more I'm not so sure.
Does the cellphone deserve the title of The Worst Invention of the Twentieth Century?
I think it does.
Yes, it has some serious competitors:
* The deep bowl of latte, supped with a spoon.
* Germ warfare.
* Television game shows.
* Nuclear fission.
* Culottes.
* The New Zealand Labour Party.
* Gaming machines.
* Land mines.
* Rap music.
* Chewing gum.
* And did I mention the New Zealand Labour Party?
Yes, these are truly awful things, but consider the impact of the cellphone.
You are having a conversation and your companion's cellphone rings, burps or farts.
Do they then take the damned thing and turn it off?
Do they (much better) throw it into a dark and soundproofed place from which there is no escape?
Do they accept with a radiant smile your offer of a deep bucket of iced water into which to immerse their phone?
Sadly, in virtually all cases the answer is "No". The machine is answered, and a conversation like the following ensues:
"Gidday!"
[Pause while the parrot at the other end of the line squawks.]
"I'm in a restaurant."
[Another pause.]
"Cafe 93."
[Another pause.]
"In Molesworth Street."
[Another pause.]
"The top end, near the New World Supermarket."
[ditto]
"It's very nice."
[ditto]
"Just a salad."
[ditto]
"David Harcourt."
[ditto]
"Someone I used to know."
[The squawking continues.]
And so on and on and on and on and on and on until the end of time ...
Meanwhile, the other person - in this case, as you may have guessed, it was me - goes stark, staring mad.
The cellphone is tyrannising the planet, incessantly demanding attention, like a newborn child clamouring for the teat.
Everywhere about me I see people walking along, their bodies hunched forward, staring into their hands.
They are reading or sending text messages.
Messages which must be answered or dispatched immediately.
Translated into demi-English - I disdain to write or speak TXT - these messages go something like this:
HIYA. HOWYA DOIN.
IM FINE. WOTCHA UPTO?
NOTHIN MUCH. U?
SAMEOLD SAMEOLD.
SEEN PETE?
NAH. U?
And so on and on and on and on and on and on until the end of Time ...
My question, gentle reader, is this:
Would the world not be a better place if all of the people who are currently involved in the manufacture, distribution and sale of cellphones were given a stark choice:
Make, distribute and/or sell another cellphone and you will have to eat three. You may have them raw or cooked in any way you like, and you may have your own choice from a wide range of condiments, but eat the cellphones you must, or cease to have any connection with the wretched things forever.
I think I should be told.
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giraffeinfall
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | Australia |
| Posts: | 191 |
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Posted: 26 Jul 2006 09:58 am |
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I have a cellphone, or mobile as they are called here.
I can't remember its number, though I do have it written down.
If I fill out a form that asks me my mobile phone number, I leave that blank.
If anyone asks me my mobile number, I truthfully say I don't know it.
Can I send text mesages from it ? I don't know.
In the unlikely event that one of the very few people I've rung with it over the years still happens to have my number and has tried to ring me on it for practice, or to drum up business, or something: they must by now be sick of hearing that nasal Telstra voice tell them it's turned off, or whatever platitude it is that she mumurs in the shell-like ear of the Unanswered.
I pay Telstra $10 a month for the privilege of almost never using it.
Shortly I will have to buy a new one, as also was the case when we went from analogue to digital, from digital to CDMA and now from CDMA to some other fancy pancy thing that will in its turn make CDMA obsolete
I wouldn't be without it on the occasions I take it with me. Driving over desolate roads by myself late at night, for instance.
Works for me. 
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giraffeinfall
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | Australia |
| Posts: | 191 |
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Posted: 26 Jul 2006 10:02 am |
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By the way, what did culottes do to get on that (otherwise largely no-contest) list?
?
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 26 Jul 2006 08:34 pm |
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giraffeinfall wrote: By the way, what did culottes do to get on that (otherwise largely no-contest) list?
?
They're hideous.
They're neither skirts (yay!) nor trousers.
When Rob Moodie starts wearing culottes I'll remove them from my list, but not until.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 27 Jul 2006 08:28 pm |
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I have good news for all celliphobes: the animal kingdom is beginning to join the fight!
Yes, it's true. The Press Association reports as follows this morning:
Seagull flies off with cellphone
A university professor has told how a seagull swooped down and flew off with his mobile phone. Joe Watson, a music tutor at the University of Sussex in southern England, was eating a baguette when he noticed the bird staring at his lunch. He watched helplessly as the bird swooped down and took flight with his phone in its beak. "I saw it go over a roof, so I got some help, went up and had a look. I thought it might still be up there. I tried to phone it from there but couldn't hear it and there was a nest of young seagulls up there. Some of the adult seagulls were circling angrily so I got down again."
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giraffeinfall
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | Australia |
| Posts: | 191 |
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Posted: 27 Jul 2006 10:24 pm |
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David Harcourt wrote: Some of the adult seagulls were circling angrily...
They'd probably just been rung by a telemarketer.. 
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 27 Jul 2006 10:46 pm |
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The thoughts which uppermost in my mind while I was reading this news story were:
* Ye Gods! Tutors are "professors" now!
and
* I bet he couldn't see the seagull coming because he was trying to eat the baguette sideways.
and
* What a wuss! If he's frightened of seagulls it's a wonder he can summon up enough courage to leave the house in the morning.
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TopRank
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Posted: 28 Jul 2006 06:49 am |
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I have the coolest cellphone in the world but I dont really ring anyone on it nor do I give out my number.
It's enough to make Peter Sinclair (god rest his retyred soul) brown with envy!
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 2 Aug 2006 03:41 am |
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I am indebted to a member who's too shy to post here for the following information:
Six out of 10 Americans find people yakking on their cellphones in public "a major irritation", according to a study carried out by the University of Michigan, which also found that:
- 40% said there should be a law that prohibits people from talking on cell phones in public places such as museums, movie theaters and restaurants.
- 80% said cell phones are a major safety hazard if used while driving.
These facts are interesting, but I have one of my own that I think is even more so. It is that if you search Google for the phrase "I hate cell phones" you get 17,400 results.
Yes, it's true.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 2 Aug 2006 03:44 am |
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PS
In the interests of fairness I just searched Google for the phrase "I love cell phones".
And got 364 results.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 25 Aug 2006 12:06 am |
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There is an interesting article about cellphones in the latest issue of Wired. In discussing a new book entitled Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life the American magazine reports that cell phones in Japan:
"... became a source of pervasive connectedness to friends, family, lovers and co-workers -- a completely different kind of connectivity from the "other-world" internet space experienced through personal computers. The Japanese word for cell phone -- keitai, meaning "something you carry with you" -- provides a hint about its role within Japanese culture. Over time, mobile devices in Japan have come to be perceived not so much as bundles of technical features, or tools for replicating PC functions from the road, but personal accessories that help users sustain constant social links with others. In one essay, Ichiyo Habuchi describes that always-on state of wireless closeness as a "telecocoon" -- "a zone of intimacy in which people maintain relationships with others who they have already encountered." And contributor Kenichi Fujimoto refers to the devices themselves as "territory machines" capable of transforming any space -- a subway train seat, a grocery store aisle, a street corner -- into "(one's) own room and personal paradise."
Cell phones, then, are electronic captors of lebensraum, enabling the user to colonise the space about her/him. The cell phone user who announces loudly "Hello, I'm on the train" is staking a claim of ownership over the immediate environment.
We may be sure that, had he lived in the Third Millenium, Adolf Hitler would have understood this very well, and ensured that every Aryan child both had a cellphone and was encouraged to use it constantly, especially in synagogues and during travel to other countries.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 17 Feb 2007 07:29 pm |
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The BBC's science and technology magazine Focus has commissioned a survey of 4000 people to establish what those polled considered to be "the worst inventions of the 20th century". Here's the list, in case you missed it:
#1 Weapons
#2 Mobile phones
#3= Nuclear power
#3= the Sinclair C5 electronic car
#3= Television
#6 The car
#7 Cigarettes
#8 Fast Food
#9 Speed cameras
#10 Religion
Yes, I entirely agree with you: the people interviewed were obviously morons. If this had been a sample of four or even forty, chosen from among middle managers of the BBC, these results might have made more sense.
Apparently, for example, these people believed that "religion" was invented in the past hundred years! (Maybe, and entirely understandably, they were all possessed by hatred of the diminutive and palpably deranged American actor Tom Cruise, and blamed Scientology for the worst of his excesses. Yes, I think that must have been it.)
Anyway, I see that mobile phones are right up there with nuclear and biological weapons as the most hated products of the 20th century, so it would seem that I am not alone in my hatred of these wretched things. ("No, you are not alone," I hear you cry. "You have the company of 4000 complete morons.")
As the editor of Focus said when releasing these results:
"When contemporary inventions such as the car and the mobile phone, which apparently enhance modern living, get voted as the worst inventions ever, it makes you realise that technologies and 'objects of desire' that seem to play an integral and important part in our lives may not in fact be pleasing the masses."
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 17 Feb 2007 07:41 pm |
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So what, I also hear you cry, is this Sinclair C5 electric car of which you speak?
It is this:
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 17 Feb 2007 07:43 pm |
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| Looking at photographs of the car, I can't help thinking that what irritated people most was the smug self-satisfaction of the kind of people who chose to buy and drive these peculiar vehicles. Attached Image (viewed 356 times):
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 17 Feb 2007 07:47 pm |
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They have established clubs for themselves, where they can smirk into their warm beer together, and this is of course as it should be. I am indebted to Wikipedia for the following, none of which I knew:
Launched in Britain on 10 January 1985, the Sinclair C5 was a three-wheeled personal transport battery electric vehicle invented by Sir Clive Sinclair. Relatively cheap to purchase (it sold for £399 + £29 for delivery), it quickly became an object of popular ridicule, and was a commercial disaster, with only around 17,000 being sold.
Sinclair had first started to think about electric vehicles as a teenager and it was an idea he toyed with over the coming decades. In the early 1970s Sinclair Radionics was working on the project. Sinclair considered that the problem would be best addressed by working on the electric motor and he had Chris Curry work on the problem. However, the company's focus shifted onto calculators and no further work was done on vehicles until the late 1970s. Development work began again in 1979 and progressed erratically until, in 1983, it became apparent that new legislation would alter the market considerably and make it possible to sell a vehicle very closely resembling their development efforts.
As time went on, the Sinclair C5 gradually grew more and more expensive.
In March 1983, Sinclair sold some of his shares in Sinclair Research and raised £12 million to finance vehicle development. In May a new company, Sinclair Vehicles Ltd, was spun out of Sinclair Research and a development contract was entered into with Lotus to take the basic C5 design through to production. Around the same time, Hoover Ltd at Merthyr Tydfil entered into a contract to manufacture the C5. The engines were made by Polymotor in Italy, starting the urban legend that the C5 was powered by washing machine motors. In 1984 Sinclair Vehicles set up its head office at the University of Warwick Science Park. Despite a promotional campaign involving former formula one racing driver Stirling Moss, the immediate reaction after the launch was that the C5 was impractical in the British climate and possibly dangerous on busy roads. On 13 August 1985 Hoover stopped production. Fewer than 17,000 C5s were sold. Sinclair Vehicles was put into receivership on 12 October 1985.
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jaybee2003
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| Posts: | 272 |
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Posted: 18 Feb 2007 06:34 pm |
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Did you see "Sunday" last night? The section on the Coast to Coast endurance race focusing on Mike Ward at 64 competing for his 25th year in a row....and his bike....yes, he is a former Green MP. The pic isn't from the Coast to Coast this year, but the bike is similar.
And I've just noticed - he was wearing the same leggings. Perhaps they are his lucky pants...
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jaybee2003
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Posted: 18 Feb 2007 06:38 pm |
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| The secret to successful cell phone ownership is to live rural...where there is no cell phone reception.
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David Harcourt
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Posted: 18 Feb 2007 09:36 pm |
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I thought you were going to say that if you live in the country you can plant them in the ground and hope that they won't grow.
I suppose I shouldn't knock mobile phones. I have used them more in the past 24 hours - as Emma unsettles into Otago University - than I have at any time in the past 20 years.
Joys of Parenthood (#9468986860-294960596-069429669-096878 in a series...)
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jaybee2003
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Posted: 18 Feb 2007 10:28 pm |
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David Harcourt wrote: I thought you were going to say that if you live in the country you can plant them in the ground and hope that they won't grow.
I suppose I shouldn't knock mobile phones. I have used them more in the past 24 hours - as Emma unsettles into Otago University - than I have at any time in the past 20 years.
Joys of Parenthood (#9468986860-294960596-069429669-096878 in a series...)
Which raises the question of where do old cell phones end up? - aside from being 'dumped' on TradeMe. Considering the number of times you hear of people upgrading their phones to the very latest, I wonder how many billions of cell phones are lying around unused and unwanted worldwide. Perhaps one day we will see the biodegradeable cell phone...or a market for cell phone sculptures/art works.
If you are talking text messages...I don't know about Telescum, but I do know that with Vodafone you can go online to send text messages instead of having to use your phone.
I got stuck into my dad the other day. At 70plus he has started texting in text speak, which drives me nuts...but later, seeing the time and effort it took him to type in a text message, I grudgingly forgave him. Last edited on 18 Feb 2007 10:31 pm by jaybee2003
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jaybee2003
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Posted: 18 Feb 2007 10:43 pm |
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Arno's Wall, a rather quirky 'attraction' in Winton (Outback Queensland) suggests a use for old cell phones. The Wall is a 70 metre long work in progress...
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