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The forgotten war on beepers

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Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#151

Post by codedokode »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #55
lagniappe wrote: post #31

I dont own a phone, but to me a beeper is an okay compromise. During the quest to find one, I came across some really cool things. - Some beepers are made to only RX, not TX, as to not skew results of medical equipment - Basically 2 companies, operating with antequated websites (and prices) still provide service at the historic prices - Beepers are still sold today, new in box - Two-way pagers have been almost totall…

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

Maybe because phones allow to track people? It is a spy in your pocket.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#152

Post by hughesjj »

armada651 wrote: post #116
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. 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.

Fuck 'em.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#153

Post by 486sx33 »

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…

Definitely reminds me of “Dr. Beeper” in Caddyshack

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#154

Post by hughesjj »

themaninthedark wrote: post #100
dylan604 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in US culture and society that makes it so hostile towards As far as schools go, zero tolerance policies have been put in place. The concept of zero tolerance is something that just makes no sense to me. Not every thing that happens in a school needs police involvement, but because the rules/laws that have been put in place removes common sense and power from principals so that everything is now a police matter. Le…

Zero tolerance policies are a direct response to discrimination claims. If you allow people to have discretion, then it will be used(and abused). Also some of the stories I hear about school in the 70's and 80's make me think that the current claim that "schools were always authoritarian and used to subjugate children to turn them into compliant workers" is probably BS. Probably current administration needs to justif…

> Zero tolerance policies are a direct response to discrimination claims.

Source? Because if that's true, that's the wrong implementation of a great policy (anti-discrimination).

That's basically saying "well instead of having a policy of reasonable punishment for a given situation, we'd rather be as extreme in our punishment as possible so that we can still hurt kids we hate"

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#155

Post by asdff »

lagniappe wrote: post #31

I dont own a phone, but to me a beeper is an okay compromise. During the quest to find one, I came across some really cool things. - Some beepers are made to only RX, not TX, as to not skew results of medical equipment - Basically 2 companies, operating with antequated websites (and prices) still provide service at the historic prices - Beepers are still sold today, new in box - Two-way pagers have been almost totall…

Hospitals have become a sort of a standardized customer

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#156

Post by noodlesUK »

lazide wrote: post #135
arp242 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one found him guilty of anything at this point. How can they when deciding in which court he should be judged? That happens before the trail. You're talking complete bollocks utterly disconnected from anything to do with this case.

You might want to actually read my comment. He was arrested pending trial. They have to decide where to put him, pending trial. If the judge expects to try him as an adult for the reasons I listed, then they're going to put him in an adult jail. If the judge expects to try him as a juvenile for the reasons I listed, then they're going to put him in a juvenile jail. Either way, someone does have to make the call. And…

> What else do you propose is going to happen though?

Not parent but I don’t think that we should be holding anyone pending trial when what they’re accused of is so minor, child or otherwise.

Furthermore any decisions about pre-trial detention shouldn’t hinge on remorse or contrition, they should hinge on the alleged offenders risk of flight and their potential risk to the community.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#157

Post by asdff »

ghaff wrote: post #120
karma_pharmer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Modern conveniences is right. Everything is two factor authenticated now. Even if you avoid that in your private life your workplace is liable to roll it out if they haven't already.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#158

Post by buran77 »

swores wrote: post #149
buran77 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and battery life was short In the mid-'90s and 2000s phone batteries lasted longer than they do today, assuming the regular usage of the day.

Pretty sure they're talking a few years earlier than mid-90s. Think brick-like phones, not phones that fit in your pockets.

Maybe, it's not out of the question that some would do that but I've never had the feeling it was common or desirable even then. GP referenced the '90s hence my guess.

A late '80s Micro TAC, especially with the fat battery, still easily qualified for my previous description. You'd have to go to the early '80s brick phones to get just 1h of talk time from a charge but then again realistically very few people actually talked that much on the mobile in those days when even the networks would have severely limited you. The real sticking point is more that turning off the phone to cut standby time wouldn't have really saved anything for talking time within a day, until you had the time to recharge.

I think the worst thing was the memory effect, where instead of conserving battery you'd actively try to drain it when you had the time so you could charge it from 0.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#159

Post by op00to »

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...

Sure, we have that discussion and I answer and we set clear boundaries.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#160

Post by noodlesUK »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #150
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.

Treating public school as public space with public rules creates a huge class divide with the private schools. Short of actively shooting up the place, I can't think of a single rule you could break at the private university I went to that could result in law enforcement getting involved. I knew of at least one kid who got caught with most of a kilogram of cocaine, who got off with little more than a slap on the wris…

It doesn’t need to be this way. Essentially all UK universities are “public” and none operate this way. There aren’t special police forces that roam their campuses (Oxford had this for a time, but I think it was the only one). Violation of university rules is no more serious from a legal perspective than violating any other private rules.

I think campus police are an insane idea. There should obviously be a good relationship between any university and the police in their area, but the idea that they should report to the university leadership is nonsensical.

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