The forgotten war on beepers • Hacker News Board

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#231

Post by chowells » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:02 AM UTC

cdchn wrote: post #226

chowells wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think fentanyl is magic killing dust? What are you, one of those moronic cops who thinks they'll die from seeing fentanyl? They only way you're injuring someone with fentanyl is getting them to ingest an unsafe amount of it one way or another. That's not really different from a lot of prescription drugs. Or some OTC ones, like Tylenol. Or lye and many other cleaning agents.

The dose makes the poison. The LD50 for lye is 4,090 (rats) - 6,600 mg/kg (mice). The LD50 for fentanyl is 3.1 mg/kg in rats and 0.03 mg/kg in monkeys. So, very different.

And?

The only way someone is ingesting that accidentally is if a classmate is attempting to poison them. There are a lot of other poisons that can be ingested in small doses if someone is trying to injure you. Fentanyl is not going to leap out of someone's pocket and fly down your throat. It's not magic killing dust.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#232

Post by cdchn » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:03 AM UTC

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…

Its not too bad when you only need 30 kHz of bandwidth per channel.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#233

Post by wkat4242 » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:04 AM UTC

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 guess in the US there's still companies providing service but here in Europe (Spain in my case) we're straight out of luck, sadly.

Ps I would not want a two way pager anyway as that defeats the privacy purpose.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#234

Post by cdchn » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:05 AM UTC

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.

People cutting themselves off from modern convenience for moral reasons only gets interesting to me when it approaches Amish levels of commitment.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#235

Post by cdchn » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:06 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #188

asdff wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my workplace it was a choice of downloading duo on the phone or getting sms codes. In the past year they cut out the sms codes, now you get a temporary code from the duo app you need to enter into the login portal vs just a push to duo.

There are hardware tokens. But, yes, not everyone supports them.

Maybe there is a market for minuscule TOTP devices. Just 7 segment displays for the code and the lowest res camera that can decode a QR code.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#236

Post by wkat4242 » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:08 AM UTC

micheljansen wrote: post #121

In the Netherlands there was a brief period where “Maxers” [1] were all the rage. They were like pagers, except you could send text messages to them by calling to a specific service number and leaving spoken messages. It was outrageously expensive and GSM came shortly after so they rapidly faded into obscurity. [1] https://www.mobilecollectors.net/phone/5064/philips-prg+2140...

The "buzzer" was also popular. The maxer got popular because pepsi gave them away. But the buzzer network was way more reliable (160 MHz Vs 400 something) and cheaper.

The reason maxers were so expensive was that a real person would transcribe your message from voice.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#237

Post by cdchn » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:13 AM UTC

noodlesUK wrote: post #165

I’m sad that radio pagers are going away. They’re a much more reliable way of getting an emergency call out than a multifunction mobile phone. Their battery life is much longer and you won’t put it on do not disturb or silent mode. Being on a separate radio network also means that in a real emergency when mobile signal is degraded, the pagers still work. The other thing that’s convenient is that you can hand them off…

>They’re a much more reliable way of getting an emergency call out than a multifunction mobile phone.

More reliable than a landline?

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#238

Post by cdchn » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:14 AM UTC

adamomada wrote: post #38

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #2

Beepers with text were peak technology.

A 386 in your pocket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry_950

I never knew the Blackberry pagers were 386s. I know they've made a variety of portable 386s (and still do) but had no idea they made them into Blackberries.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#239

Post by cdchn » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:16 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #56

I bet there’s at least one person reading this thread who has heard of the company “PagerDuty” but does not know that it’s referring to a beeper.

I have people on PagerDuty who weren't alive when pagers were a thing.

Re: The forgotten war on beepers

#240

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 1:24 AM UTC

nvy wrote: post #195

throw_pm23 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thought process in the 90s, and it is the reason why I still don't have a smartphone :)

Isn't it difficult to exist in modern society without one?

Only because people like you keep repeating that lie.