391–400 of 405 posts
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A lot of doctors still prefer to carry beepers
More to do with the fact a pager will reach places a phone won't. Operating theatres are often in the basement or the middle of the building where mobile signals don't reach but pager signals do. They're super high power and lower frequency so they penetrate further.
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I resisted having a phone at all until 2013. People were amazed even then. I ended up getting one for development. It proved useful enough that I used it myself, but I've managed to limit usage to WhatsApp (and SMS), web reading (like HN now) and not much else. Lots of Web stuff (especially financial stuff) requires 2FA so SMS is now more-or-less required. People have learnt though that my phone is always on silent,…
As someone younger who grew up in a time where you would get a cell phone during teenage years, I can't say I empathize with your view of "my device" vs "interruption device". Although there are likely an overwhelming majority of my peers who do have an interruption device phone, I refuse my phone not be My device, and I explicitly buy phones that I know I can customize (unlock bootloaders, flash roms, or simply just…
I'm notoriously unreachable, perhaps even offensively unreachable, and I'm starting to look for time and money savings to justify getting a new one/repairing the SE if possible. Eg. I'd save $10+/mo in Starbucks refills if I had that app, enough of those cases to cover the bill.
My next phone will be like parent poster's. I had iOS setup with no notifications except Venmo and a priority email alias. Currently I'm using an Unbuntu laptop where I can get to Google Voice that was activated with a Mint Mobile trial on Starbucks wifi. Am homeless, actually been able to secure and hold a couple labor/hospitality jobs like this.
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.
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“we” — you mean that you decided for your family, removing agency from other humans
If you can't decide what is better for your kid, maybe you shouldn't be a parent.
Everybody else seems to accept that it's an endless series of tweaks, adjustments and highly context-specific compromises
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Hams still have and use them.[1] I'm not a ham, because I don't want to hang out with self-appointed cops, so I got a new Chinese pager made up with a center frequency of 433.5MHz (ISM, unlicensed), then configured it to work with a Pi-Star rig radiating well under the EU/Irish legal power limit, and receive messages infrequently enough not to run afoul of duty cycle limits. Because I know there's some ham who's just…
I’m not sure I understand the bit about cops. I’m interested though, please do tell.
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…
Submit to authority or face the consequences future wage slave.
add payload addressing per message and you can speak oneway to an unbounded number of pagers/devices, for only a few bucks a month. try doing that with cellular.
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Have you found any that still have service over a significant area in the US? Particularly the one-way (RX only) pagers. Very interested in this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40070092 > - Basically 2 companies, operating with antequated websites (and prices) still provide service at the historic prices If you get a chance to add the names/links of these companies I would really appreciate it.
For posterity: one of the services appears to be https://spok.com Still would like to know what the other one is.
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I had the same thought process in the 90s, and it is the reason why I still don't have a smartphone :)
This is always such a weird flex. There are so many things I use my smartphone for, 99.9% of which is NOT being a short leash for anyone to communicate with me. I can't remember the last time I had a conversation on my phone. Spotify/Audible/etc in my car. Google maps/Apple maps. When I go camping I have overlanding/camping/blm apps that are constantly updated with openings, etc. Weather apps so I know to put the top…
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> Hospitals in my area of the US still use POCSAG pagers, totally unencrypted. They do mention patient information, but I guess the obscurity makes it ok. Nope, the obscurity doesn't make it okay. If it takes place over the phone lines, it is arguably exempt from encryption requirements under HIPAA (much like a fax). Otherwise, they're just turning a blind eye and hoping nobody notices (which is surprisingly common w…
It's over the air, not even phone lines. PDW, SDRSharp, and an rtl-sdr dongle is all that's needed. And yes, there is a lot of patient info in that traffic. It's not illegal for the hospital to broadcast this, and it's not illegal to listen in and decode the signals, but it is very much illegal to do anything with the information gathered.