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I hate telephones

jameshfisher.com

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Re: I hate telephones

#111

Post by anotherevan »

I’m probably a bit the other way in that I get frustrated with text messages going back and forth and back and forth when a one minute phone call will sort everything out far more efficiently. Probably also has something to do with hating tapping away at tiny virtual keyboard on the phone, too.

My teenage daughter seems very reluctant to make a phone call. Watching her try and organise something with her friends drives me a bit spare as it involves hours of waiting for poorly worded, ambiguous messages on Facebook or texts, with me suggesting several times, “Why don’t you just call them, and get it all figured out right now?”

On the other hand, watching my Dad buy a new mobile phone is really fun. The salesperson is trying to up-sell him on all the features of a phone, “You have unlimited texts, and it has an app to make you taller, and…” and my Dad just keeps asking, “Yeah, but can it make phone calls?”

I guess I fall somewhere in between.

I do find, when there is a scene in a TV show or movie where someone’s phone keeps ringing incessantly and they keep cancelling it while trying to have the deep and meaningful conversation with someone wanting to yell, “Don’t you know how to turn your phone off?!”

I do hate voicemail. Not so much leaving them, but having to check them. Probably because I hate any “interactive” system that involves sentences like, “To hear a list of all the ways technology has improved your life, please press one…”

Unsolicited calls to mobiles is not a big thing in Australia (yet) so I’m lucky there.

On the home line, I have an old analogue modem to pick up caller ID information for incoming phone calls using NCID[1].

When a call comes in:

* Automatically pauses the music player on my PC.

* Looks up the number in my address book, and displays the information on my screen. Also sends to the two Kodi/OSMC servers, for people watching TV.

This assumes it is not on my block-list. If it is on my block-list of known scammer and telemarketer numbers then it as automatically answered with a recording of the “This number has been disconnected…” message to try and trick them.

[1] http://ncid.sourceforge.net/

Re: I hate telephones

#112

Post by mabynogy »

kibwen wrote: post #37

I receive about 20 spam calls per day. In contrast, I receive about 0.2 legitimate calls per day. Google itself suspects that these are spam calls, because it pops up a bright red "SUSPECTED SPAM CALLER" warning when the phone begins ringing. And yet, I have found no option to have the phone automatically decline the call. There's not even an option to silence the ringer for any call not from my contacts; I actually…

I have an antispam for phone calls with my ISP (free.fr). It works very well.

I advertise for that around me. Operators can stop that if they want.

Re: I hate telephones

#113

Post by pm215 »

brightsize wrote: post #55
georgespencer wrote: post #2

Same for doorbell. I flat out won't answer the front door if someone rings it and I'm not expecting anyone.

Same here. Anyone at my door who I don't expect is either proselytizing for their religion (looking at you Mormons and JWs), begging for money, or trying to sell me something.

I think the most common unexpected caller for me these days is a delivery person asking me to take in a parcel for some neighbour who isn't in...

Re: I hate telephones

#114

Post by Feniks »

brightsize wrote: post #70
hnarn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiousity, when were you born? I was born in the 80's, and among my friends literally noone has a landline, not even the older ones. There's simply no argument for it. I'm in northern Europe by the way.

There IS an argument for it. Around a year ago we had a freak windstorm here. It was an amazing experience - took down trees and tore apart roofs all over. I'd never seen houses crushed by trees before. The power was out for days in some places, including mine. My phone battery died after a day, ditto the laptop's battery. My landline continued to function throughout. As I recall the service was also extremely inexpe…

Natural disasters that cut off power for more than a few hours are unlikely in Northern Europe. Cell towers have their own emergency power supply to deal with the once in a decade brown out.

If the power is off for days it means the Apocalypse or WW3 has happened.

Re: I hate telephones

#115

Post by [deleted] »

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #17
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #13

Unsolicited or unexpected phone calls are annoying, but this guy has an anxiety disorder and should probably attend CBT or psychotherapy as it is obviously significantly impacting his life in a negative way. Also, text is not always a the best way of communicating- a lot of information is conveyed in someone’s voice which is often difficult to put on paper. It can also be way faster to speak to someone, particularly…

The lack of information in voice is sometimes a boon. If I am annoyed, I can nevertheless always write perfectly politely, but I cannot always keep the annoyance out of my voice.

[deleted]

Re: I hate telephones

#116

Post by ketralnis »

kibwen wrote: post #37

I receive about 20 spam calls per day. In contrast, I receive about 0.2 legitimate calls per day. Google itself suspects that these are spam calls, because it pops up a bright red "SUSPECTED SPAM CALLER" warning when the phone begins ringing. And yet, I have found no option to have the phone automatically decline the call. There's not even an option to silence the ringer for any call not from my contacts; I actually…

I receive a similar number of spam calls per day and have turned off my ringer entirely as a result. At first I used a feature that enables the ringer for the second call from the same number in a short period, but then the calls started coming in batches of 3 (usually all from the same number, but always from the same area code and prefix).

Very frustrating

Re: I hate telephones

#117

Post by reificator »

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #17
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #13

Unsolicited or unexpected phone calls are annoying, but this guy has an anxiety disorder and should probably attend CBT or psychotherapy as it is obviously significantly impacting his life in a negative way. Also, text is not always a the best way of communicating- a lot of information is conveyed in someone’s voice which is often difficult to put on paper. It can also be way faster to speak to someone, particularly…

The lack of information in voice is sometimes a boon. If I am annoyed, I can nevertheless always write perfectly politely, but I cannot always keep the annoyance out of my voice.

Most of the time I'm with you, but it works both ways.

I accidentally started a fight on HN by typing the exact opposite of my views, or at least something that could apparently be interpreted that way. I don't think I would have been misunderstood in the same manner in speech.

In speech your voice determines your tone. In text your reader determines your tone.

Re: I hate telephones

#118

Post by eitland »

anotherevan wrote: post #111

I’m probably a bit the other way in that I get frustrated with text messages going back and forth and back and forth when a one minute phone call will sort everything out far more efficiently. Probably also has something to do with hating tapping away at tiny virtual keyboard on the phone, too. My teenage daughter seems very reluctant to make a phone call. Watching her try and organise something with her friends driv…

I love text.

I don’t have to remember it or write it down - it's already written down.

Also I have a feeling that a lot of the "have a meeting" guys are the same that will try to tell another version of what was said in the meeting.

You aren’t sure even with text though - at some point I had an ex-colleague telling me what I had written, so I found the actual mail that proved my version.

His answer: but that was not what you meant...

Re: I hate telephones

#119

Post by rhapsodic »

dang wrote: post #106
rhapsodic wrote: post #26

Usually, posts like this, where the submitter's username matches the domain name of the posted article, get flagged and killed pretty quickly.

Nothing wrong with someone posting their own stuff, if it's good. I haven't read this article, but presumably lots of HN upvoters have assessed it that way.

>Nothing wrong with someone posting their own stuff, if it's good. I haven't read this article, but presumably lots of HN upvoters have assessed it that way.

I didn't intend to imply there was anything wrong with it, I was only sharing an observation.

And yet, a number of people felt compelled to downvote me because of it.

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