Tool for troubleshooting hidden problems

[Toolmaker51]

Comment originally Posted by Frank S; I've often wondered if there was an actual reason to own a selfie stick. You may have come up with one.

Replied to

I haven't. I don't.

And if any of my grandchildren comes up with a smart comment about using them: she is out of my will.

I offer both gentlemen a thought for their young ones.....
Occurred to me, selfie-sticks are a buy-product of sellphones. Created for and not really applicable to other usage. Evidence of a great marketing ploy, as a very high percentage of us are born with two...you know, an appendage with opposing digits.

[ranald]

In 80's & 90's, I remember driving down to a phone-box (not a tardis) with a pocket of coins and ringing tradies (who were the target of mob. marketing (as well as the yuppies & very serious buisness folk) after pub time to coordinste work on my home construction. I'm now only 100 miles (160k) from a capital city & live in a mob. ph. black spot. People can't believe i dont have a "smart" phone with aps etc. Government folk always saying log in to .......& use app. For a contract in the 90's , I had to have an anologue phone & I reckon it was as good as the new techno stuff but I love where we live & 5 acres, cant see another neighbour & have a beautiful view of "the king of the mountain" race mountain. All pros & cons . I can fire up table saw, routers, grinders & no complaints=even the birds keep singing.

Cheers

[Jon]

Simplified cellphones are coming back in vogue. Both in regard to the rising campy coolness of flip phones, and custom made ultra-simple phones branded as "minimalist": https://www.thelightphone.com/ .

[mklotz]

How about that! I'm becoming kewl again without ever having suffered the agony of being unkewl because I don't have a smart phone. I may just buy a selfie-stick to wave in celebration.

Long ago I got a Consumer Cellular flip phone (free with signup) that I keep in the car. I use it to rendezvous with the wife at shopping malls and as a means of calling emergency services in the event of accidents (on the road or in the home or shop). I pay $12/month and $0.25/minute. Even at that latter outrageous rate, I doubt I've spent $10 in phone charges in the five or so years I've owned it.

It has a camera but, since I don't try to make phone calls on my cameras, I don't try to take photographs with my phone.

Today, at lunch on a charming verandah overlooking the blue Pacific, I watched a woman at an adjoining table finger-farking her fone the whole time she was eating her lunch. Before she dug into her sandwich, she used her phone to photograph it, no doubt to add to the shallowness quotient on Farcebook or some such. People, women especially, are becoming their stereotypes.

[ranald]

I had an android, but it always tried to net connect when I tried to make or even receive a call. threw it in drawer (along with several others=maybe use 'em as door stops) . I bought a $20 phone (camera is lousy) & it does the trick when out & about. My wife is 10 years younger & she doesn't have one at all. LOL. Idid buy her a notebook thingy which she uses to follow our 17 yo. daughter on face book or twits or sum ping. ha ha. glad to know we're not the only dinos for fred flintstone to harasse.
Cheers
Ranald

[Frank S]

I never liked the flip phones they were easier for me to break than the thing I have now. And I only have it because it was a gift so I could use it as a hot spot to have internet on my laptop. until I got a land line that would support SDSL or better. Now I'd just as soon have a Nokia 6061 no flip screen and nothing to show up on the screen but the persons name or number. I've been back in the states now for 5 years and still haven't become accustomed to the protectionism of the phone carriers.
Never heard of the way they do business while in the middle East or in other countries My last cube phone I bought in Italy or Spain had a place for 2 sim cards I could buy a sim card and have local ph number in any country I was in for a few Euros and still have my Kuwait number so I could call Q8 anywhere I was and it wasn't an international call Come home to the States only to learn that I had to buy a new phone because my European phone wouldn't work, Then they wanted me to pledge allegiance to a phone carrier most wanted a 2 year blood contract. Or go with one of those to-go type companies and pay per minute. I didn't mind that but I got charged for incoming as well as out going NOPE NOT MY BAG. Wound up going under a friend's business plan my phone cost's him all of 5.00 a month to include me

[Jon]

We do the Tracfones with pay-as-you-go minutes. The phones themselves are under $50; the trick is that certain phones have "triple minutes for life" - every time you buy more minutes, they're tripled for your phone. This comes out to $100/year for minutes, and if you break or lose a phone, the replacements are inexpensive. Tracfones used to be ultra-basic, but you can now get them in Android if you want.

You can also get a free Google Voice number, plus a $50 Obihai VOIP unit for your home. Then you can set the Google Voice number to ring both your house and cell phone (if you live in the mountains, cell phone service can be spotty).

I'm going to hunt around for mklotz's deal, because I think Tracfone is phasing out the triple minutes option.

[Frank S]

My wife has a trac phone double minutes, she buys the 200 minute cards 1 about every 3, months Serves her purpose. the only person she ever calls is a couple of her sisters and brothers, or me when I'mm out in the woods or fields on the tractor which is a waste of time because I can't hear mine ring while on 1 of the machines

[ranald]

Interesting, we have several carriers (some piggy back the larger carriers) but if you buy, say a telstra phone you cant slip in a optus sim card when changing carriers so have to buy another phone: have us by the short & curleys. Maybe they treat us as stoogers or mushrooms.

[Jon]

Despite the ubiquity of the selfie stick, we have not yet reached peak selfie annoyance: