Distraction can be deadly

[tbm3fan]

At first I thought this was a test to see if people were paying attention. However, I get to the middle and immediately recognize that it wasn't as this was an assault a few weeks ago.

To be honest while computers are nice I really hate tech especially smart phones and tablets. I was in the city 2 weeks ago for the first time since 2004 even though I lived there from 1986-1998. Boy, it was like I had been asleep for 100 years. Everybody is walking around that town with their heads buried in smart phones. Coffee shops, I went to back in 2000, was dead quiet. Not empty at all it was just that every table was filled with people into their phones. Not only that but they sat there for hours taking up space and only having one drink early on. No conversations even among several sitting at one table. The loudest person in the place was my 4 year old.

I could have knocked off so many people on the street, taken their phone, and they would never know what hit them. This, in contrast to me, I eyeball everyone within a block around me on the streets. Sometimes, even street people, will come up and ask if I am a cop when I was walking around downtown. The fact that street people noticed me noticing everyone ought to tell you something.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Absorbed-device-users-oblivious-to-danger-4876709.php

 

[70NPORT]

It is kind of scary isn't it, BUT I simply can not live without mine. absolutely.

 

[cm23uoc]

First phone we ever had which will also be the last and only one I'll ever have.

 

[70NPORT]

Rotary phones, imagine that.

 

[cm23uoc]

I know young people who wouldn't know how to phone somebody with this, even if their lives would be at stake.

 

[70NPORT]

Well, it is kind of ancient, now that you have phones with touch sensitive surfaces and/or recognize speech commands. Plus you could get your poor finger mangled all up if the bearings in the rotary dial froze up or malfunctioned suddenly.

Weren't these things steam powered or something by the way?

 

[cm23uoc]

Yeah, they would have to recall them today due to being too dangerous for operators.
And don't forget, objects in the rear view mirror can be closer than they appear.

 

[70NPORT]

That definitely is for sure, things being closer than they appear in the mirror.

 

[fc7_plumcrazy]

I don't have a smart phone.
I even don't have a cell phone.

I am old ))

 

[70NPORT]

No cell? I don't believe it.

 

[cm23uoc]

No cell either, I actually threw out the printer at home as the ink was always dry from rare use and do my private correspondence apart from E-mails with a typewriter from 1956.

 

[Wollfen]

It gets annoying when you want to share some time with your better half and she keeps checking and responding to incoming txts like they are ongoing conversations, it isnt going away! You can answer it later at any time!

 

[70NPORT]

Wow. I just bought an Epson XP-400 after my old HP gave out. Writing/typing letters is a dying art what with email, twitter, and instantaneous worldwide communications. Er....how about that.

 

[fc7_plumcrazy]

like I wrote no cell.
I don't want to hang out with it like a junky like most others do.

If you don't catch me on the phone at home you can sent me an e-mail and I will get back when I am at the computer at home (no tablets etc).

 

[cm23uoc]

. Writing/typing letters is a dying art what with email, twitter, and instantaneous worldwide communications. Er....how about that.

I refuse to take part in most of these forced on progress by big companies and institutions that try to make you part of their ongoing selling machinery for the pure sake of profit. This whole industry is such a gigantic waste of resources with all that crap being replaced and destroyed every couple of years at best, no repairs or overhauling, just throw it away. I never considered myself an environmentalist but I think we're actually beyond such a stage. I give myself another decade or so in this kind of environment, job and society in general till I go somewhere in remote reclusion.

Some different way of working with the old typewriter, have to think up precisely before writing, no easy altering by the touch of a button; besides that these old typewriters a some fascinating little mechanicals marvels in itself.

 

[tbm3fan]

I have two cell phones. A basic Nokia, bought in 2000 in the Philippines, for use only in the Philippines. No other way to get in contact with friends as land line phones are few and far between. Sits in a drawer here. Another Virgin Mobile, bought 5 years ago, and required by an insurance company I deal with. Number, which I don't know, is on my answering machine at work as an emergency. Only called 2 times in that period and I have only used 2 times outside that. The phone sits in the drawer every day. The only time it is with me is when I drive the Polara just in case.

If a person wants me they call my office or call home. When I am out of the house/office I am not interested in talking to anybody for any reason. My time to drive, shop or relax and I want to do it in complete silence and privacy. When I am on the Hornet, on Wednesdays, I am completely out of touch. I can work up on O11 where it is me, the sun, the wind, and a 360 view of the entire Bay Area with no human in sight or voice to listen to unless I want. Ah, silence is golden!

Oh, and at home all phones are rotary dating back to 1938 with the exception of one Western Electric touch tone 2500 since my wife can't deal with a rotary.

 

[70NPORT]

Yeah, but would we not all be in the stone age (literally) if it were not for the march of progress or technology?

 

[70bigblockdodge]

Ahhhh working with no voices around just the whine of a turbo and the hum of 15 liters of American diesel, crack.the window open and hear a little unmuffled straight stacks. Now you know why I go to work in the morning. When I was in navy underway with port and starboard watches would go outside and take daylight rest period with just the ocean going by and the whine of the forced draft blowers best sleep on the ship.

 

[cm23uoc]

Yeah, but would we not all be in the stone age (literally) if it were not for the march of progress or technology?

Marching to the wrong drummer though as of lately, at least to my understanding.

 

[70NPORT]

If I were to enlist tomorrow it would be with the Navy.