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The forgotten war on beepers

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Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#111

Post by karma_pharmer »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #59
wolverine876 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which companies? Where can we read more about the no-TX design?

I heard about it years ago probably from WP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager#Security It's very inefficient because every tower must broadcast every message. This is why you can find an archive of pages from the morning of September 11th online, they transmitted unencrypted to a huge area. So that raises costs and limits the coverage area. Fine for a hospital with 100 idk doctors who need paged, not fine for cont…

It's very inefficient because every tower must broadcast every message.

No, it's incredibly efficient because the messages are tiny.

If you need to send a long message, then you page the person with "you have a long message from XYZ, please use higher-bandwidth mechanisms to retrieve it".

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#112

Post by b112 »

exe34 wrote: post #85
lazide wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it shows no remorse. The reason for reduced sentences for juvenile offenders is the idea that they ‘didn’t know any better’. That they can learn and grow and NOT be a menace to society soon. If they still refuse to take any ownership or show any contrition even after being clearly shown something was a major problem (hence the court case), then why reduce the penalty? Who would it be helping, exactly?

So you want them to lie? My dad was like that. I admitted to several things I didn't do in order to reduce the amount of caning. This led to a funny incident at school. Somebody did something, and another grassed. The bully came to question me - I had no memory of telling on him, but the way he described the comments, I though oh that does sound like something I'd say. I took the beating. Then the actual grass came u…

Unclear what a 'grass' is. Are you referring to falling down?

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#113

Post by asveikau »

arp242 wrote: post #63
afandian wrote: post #45

Forget the beeper. The idea of arresting a child at school for anything (short of maybe violent assault) seems to be madness.

I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime, but this sort of thing is shockingly common, even when dealing with children. Here's another case I encountered a few weeks ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Brown_case – there are so many things wrong with the entire thing, starting with charging an 11-year old as an adult…

> I don't know what it is in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards anyone and anything even vaguely suspected of a crime,

In a lot of cases I think it's a proxy for racism.

I think there's also a tendency towards black and white thinking, where people are either good or bad, and they're very willing to bucket people as bad rather than considering shades of gray or that authorities did something wrong.

Additionally, in a lot of threads about crime I also sense a lot of jealousy. The sentiment resembles "I work hard to pay my bills like a chump and this guy has such a sweet and easy life not playing by the rules." They might feel their working life has them too stressed and they want to hurt "criminals" as some kind of revenge fantasy.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#115

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #110
ubermonkey wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were several years where having BOTH was desirable. Cell service was expensive, and battery life was short, so many folks carried a beeper that was always on, and a phone they turned on if they needed to make a call and had no land line option. I've never understood the "it's a leash" thing. Pagers and phones are MY devices, and I get to decide how I will respond to them.

> Pagers and phones are MY devices, and I get to decide how I will respond to them. Oh, so you've never had the "why didn't you pick up/ call back/ answer my text/ etc" conversation with your partner? Lucky...

Not at our house. We decided early on that the phone was for the owner not everybody else. One of my sons even leaves it in a drawer, takes it out once a day to check.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#116

Post by armada651 »

ubermonkey wrote: post #104
munchler wrote: post #96

In the 90's, I was a project manager for a software consulting company. I carried a beeper onsite so my superiors could reach me when needed (e.g. to discuss growing the account). During a lunch meeting one day, two of my bosses at the consulting company suggested that I upgrade to a cell phone, like they had done. I said I was reluctant to do that, because I valued my independence and didn't want to be on a short le…

There were several years where having BOTH was desirable. Cell service was expensive, and battery life was short, so many folks carried a beeper that was always on, and a phone they turned on if they needed to make a call and had no land line option. I've never understood the "it's a leash" thing. Pagers and phones are MY devices, and I get to decide how I will respond to them.

> Pagers and phones are MY devices, and I get to decide how I will respond to them.

Do you though? Because people on the other end will often demand you respond to them if you have your mobile phone with you. This is why people consider it a leash.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#117

Post by b112 »

toast0 wrote: post #20
drdaeman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> confiscated and held until the end of the school year. How things like that were even remotely legal?

My kid's school now just confiscates until the end of the day. Even that might not be strictly legal, but it's unlikely to get challenged.

I don't see how it wouldn't be legal. The school has a variety of responsibilities surrounding its students, going back hundreds of years. They aren't a 'guardian', but the school is entrusted with a child's safety, and has responsibility. For example, a school may tell a child to "be quiet" and "sit down" and "sit in this seat" and "why are you not in class", even forcing you to go to school.

The school is allowed to dole out punishments, such as detention or even denying access to the school itself. This isn't a normal "a bunch of random adults are around" relationship.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#118

Post by ale42 »

karma_pharmer wrote: post #106

It really upsets me that the VHF pager networks were shut down. VHF pagers were the last way you could recieve notifications without having to offer up your location to surveillance. All satellite pagers require transmit-before-receive, and of course LTE requires that plus actively cooperating with the towers' triangulation of the receiver. VHF POCSAG over large urban areas is something we never should have let go of…

Plus, VHF signals can get where no LTE or satellite can arrive, even if you are two floors underground. Downside is that anybody can read POCSAG, especially nowadays with inexpensive SDR receivers...

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#119

Post by rrr_oh_man »

mongol wrote: post #34
mttpgn wrote: post #10

In the late 1990s, my dad attended night classes with other adult learners to earn his MBA. Everywhere he went during those years, my dad had a beeper clipped to his belt for an on-call hospital rotation. During his first week of class, my dad's beeper loudly went off during the middle of the lecture. As my dad scrambled out of the lecture hall to call the number on the little screen, the professor accurately guessed…

That is funny, in a way that I feel hard to explain. Something about it being a simpler, more innocent time?

> Something about it being a simpler, more innocent time?

Unfortunately, we will probably think the same about 2024 in thirty years...

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#120

Post by ghaff »

karma_pharmer wrote: post #109
Nicholas_C wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious about your desire to not own a phone. Have you written about the experience anywhere?

There are lots of us. But I've learned that, aside from mentioning "I don't have a phone" it's really not useful to discuss it any further on the internet. There seems to be a large cohort of trolls who love arguing with anybody who doesn't have a phone. I guess it bothers them that some of us can be free from what so many are addicted to.

I wouldn't argue with you. I'd just observe that you cut yourself off from a lot of modern conveniences. (I certainly grew up without cell phone until well into my adult life and largely without Internet as well.) You don't need electricity or indoor plumbing either--although those are arguably at a different level.
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