A new nanotech paint can be "activated" to block or permit the passage of cell phone signals:
A Rochester, N.Y., company has developed paint that can switch between blocking cell phone signals and allowing them through.
"You could use this in a concert hall, allowing cell phones to work before the concert and during breaks, but shutting them down during the performance," said Michael Riedlinger, president of NaturalNano.
Using nanotechnology, particles of copper are inserted into nanotubes, which are ultra-tiny tubes that occur naturally in halloysite clay mined in Utah. Combined with a radio-filtering device that collects phone signals from outside a shielded space, certain transmissions can proceed while others are blocked, the Chicago Tribune reported.
But the assholes already have a response:
However, the wireless phone industry is up in arms over the development.
"We oppose any kind of blocking technology," said Joe Farren, spokesman for The Wireless Association, the leading cell phone trade group. "What about the young parents whose baby-sitter is trying to call them, or the brain surgeon who needs notification of emergency surgery? These calls need to get through."
For God's sakes, people. The human race managed to survive for centuries without cell phones. You know what cell phones are good for? Only one thing: preventing fuck-ups than can also be prevented by an ancient practice known as advance planning.
So, what they're saying above is: "Scandal! We in the phone industry reserve the right to shoot cosmic rays through your brain and gonads! You'll be hearing from our lawyers!"
Joe Farren, some advice: take twenty cell phones. Give me their numbers. Set all the phones on "vibrate" mode. Stuff them up your ass. Wait for my call. By the time I'm done with you, your insides'll be so loose that you'll be ready to shit out your prostate.
_
I agree with Joe Farren but not for the same reasons. His reasons are business-based.
ReplyDeleteIn the pre-cell phone past, we planned things in greater detail and life in general was not as "real-time" as it is these days. Mail took days to receive, not seconds. So folks planned their lives around existing technology.
Today, folks still plan their lives around existing technology. That means cell phones, email, and now the widespread use of instant-contact walkie-talkie style cell phones. So how people live goes hand-in-hand with the state of existing technology. Life as we know it has sped up. An average person's life demands use of existing technology to keep pace with the lives of other average people.
So having a cell phone (on vibrate) at a concert should be acceptable. As should having a cell phone (on vibrate) at a nice restaurant(birdies). This kind of existing technology is now a way of life, and by restricting the use of that form of communication you are restricting certain individual freedom. It also disconnects that person from a source of information that is now a normal way of life for most people.
Dear Anonymous (birdies),
ReplyDeleteI disagree that cell phones should be on during concerts and movies. In my opinion, they should be off-- period. Even when set to vibrate, cell phone use at those times is extremely rude: people don't simply let their phones vibrate-- they answer the calls they receive, or at least check their text messages. In a dark cinema or theater, the light of a phone screen is bright, and the person speaking into the cell phone is disturbing others.
Here, too, advance planning is key: tell the people closest to you that you'll be unavailable for X length of time, and they'll know what to do. In fact, the cell phone can be used for making just that sort of advance warning.
The "what if there's an emergency?" question posed by Farren is somewhat disingenuous: true emergencies happen so rarely that they don't constitute justification for the daily, habitual rudeness caused by normal cell phone usage. If we used that "what if?" logic about other forms of technology (or other rude habits we modern people have), we'd see an even ruder society-- in both the States and Korea-- than we already do.
As for the "freedom" issue... I see what you're saying, but it's also a freedom issue for the people who have to endure unwanted cell phone blather. Cell phones go off in Korean movie theaters all the time, and I've never seen a single person suddenly leap up because they've heard news of an emergency. Quite the opposite: these idiots talk on the phone for minutes on end, without even the decency to move their conversation out of the movie theater.
Granted, cell phone technology is so recent that we're still forming "rules of etiquette" about its use. But enough people have complained about the down-side of cell phone use for us to know that, in public, certain kinds of conduct are right while other kinds are plain wrong.
Farren's argumentative strategy is little more than a scare tactic. It's actually pretty sloppy to argue one's case by resorting to extreme examples.
Anyway, birdies, your own points are good, but I respectfully disagree with your view re: public conduct and the "vibrate" setting.
Dr. Bigglesworth
BIRDIE IS RIGHT!!!
ReplyDeleteOh noyeah??!?!?