It's illegal to act upon or repeat anything you hear on the radio. Of course, it's not exactly enforceable.
The Cell Phone; A great example on how morons destroy...
- Thread starter Thespeckledkiwi
- Start date
It's illegal to act upon or repeat anything you hear on the radio. Of course, it's not exactly enforceable.
If I found that a restaurant, theatre whatever had a jammer I'd walk right out. I'm not one for the stupid meaningless phone calls but I do need my mobile for work. I (self employed IT consultant) support a medical service that provides out of hours locum doctors and operates 24 hours a day so while I don't get many calls out of hours I still need to be available.
In such a place the phone is on silent and I will walk out to take the call but I don't find jamming acceptable.
Come again?
As for cellphones: While they do have legitimate uses, and there are many users who only use them for specific, practical purposes, also a lot of people use them simply because they want to be *seen* using them. If cellphones were invisible, they'd be a lot less popular. The whole point is for passersby to see how busy, how chic, how 'cool' the cellphone user is (or wants to appear as being).
But if cellphone jamming devices were widely available? Count me in. We'd have them in our store inside of an hour. There's no practical reason that anybody should be talking on a cellphone when they're in a place like that. You want to talk? Go the fuck outside. When you're in our store, your sole function is to be a customer. Don't talk on your fucking phone when we're trying to help you. That's rude and inconsiderate.
Definitely cellphone use should be completely banned while driving (unless it's a handsfree set). That's just too dangerous to allow. Not only does it make the driver look like a douchebag, but it distracts them from the road. Ban the sonsabitches.
That being said, I had a hilarious (or, from my POV, embarrassing) experience with a cellphone. One day I'm in NYC and I'm coming up out of a subway station on Lexington Avenue and I get a call. (I borrow a cellphone when I'm in NYC, for emergency use.) There were too many people around and it was too noisy, so I didn't answer, but the ringtone was enough to set the crowd to hysterics - because it was the Trek communicator noise.
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Active jamming devices have a potential of interfering with radio communications outside the tenant's (many retail businesses rent their locations) space. That could interfere with communications on the street, in parking lots and nearby businesses (like a web cafe, wireless credit/debit card terminals or a neighboring business that has chosen cells for their telephone service).
I don't think there's any regulation/law in the US preventing a theater or restaurant from installing conductive materials in the walls and ceilings (like the lining of a microwave oven) to passively block the signals. Windows could be equipped with screens similar to those in microwave oven doors (aluminum insect screening might work). Many retail roofs are corrugated steel anyway. Grounded foil behind wallpaper would probably work for the walls.
I think this might apply when you are operating your own receiver to eavesdrop on communications, probably unfeasible or difficult with today's encrypted digital phones and digital emergency services radios (some departments do some dispatching with text to terminals in the squad cars) . If an authorized person is careless enough to use a speaker phone or allow someone to shoulder surf (includes terminals at the nurse's station) that's covered by other regulations.
The only sure way to limit an active jammer's range would be to shield/screen the business's walls, windows and doors, which would by itself prevent the use of radios inside without requiring active electronic jamming devices. If the lobby area is located on the side towards the cell tower, phones could be used there with the shielding installed between the lobby and the serving/performance area.
Cell phones are taking so much traffic away from pay phones the pay phone operators can't even pay their monthly bill for the dial tone. They are getting rare and you should expect them to get rarer.
There's still that curb side carry out, your home satellite/cable subscription, satellite radio, your CD collection and DVD/Blue Ray. Then there's the potential of a professional giving the restaurant/theater's phone number to their receptionist/ answering service/dispatcher so that a waiter or usher can discreetly summon the professional to call back from the lobby.
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I wholeheartedly agree with everyone who has mentioned people on their cellphones in stores.
Dear young lady that I had the pleasure of helping a few weeks ago:
It's horrible when you're ordering food on a cell phone. It's even worse when you are talking to the phone, then talking to me, then after the person on the phone asks what you're doing, you tell them you're ordering Chinese food. Really? You can't hang up the phone long enough to order your damned orange chicken, fried rice, and a crab rangoon? I'm sure you can f'ing call them back the second you're done ordering. People like you are assholes.
If it was legal, I'd PAY for the grocery store I work in to have a cell phone jamming device. If someone needs to contact you, they can call the grocery store like they did before cell phones were commonplace. In fact, old people still do this when one person is shopping and the other person needs them to pick up an extra loaf of bread or something. Yes, it takes a little more effort, but it's way more polite than having customers talking on their cell phones about stupid stuff while going through the checkout or ordering food.
On a related note, I wish there was a way to ban employees using cell phones while on the clock. When you're punched in, the company you work for is paying you for giving them your time and effort. When you use your cell phone, you're not giving your time and effort, and you shouldn't get paid for that. It also looks very unprofessional to customers, and there's no way you should ever, ever, ever use your cell phone at work. The only possible reason I can even think of is when someone is on a delivery away from their place of work and needs to call for directions or because they got stuck in the ditch. Cell phones and work (retail, anyways) do not mix.
I'm so glad I could get that out of my system.
Dear young lady that I had the pleasure of helping a few weeks ago:
It's horrible when you're ordering food on a cell phone. It's even worse when you are talking to the phone, then talking to me, then after the person on the phone asks what you're doing, you tell them you're ordering Chinese food. Really? You can't hang up the phone long enough to order your damned orange chicken, fried rice, and a crab rangoon? I'm sure you can f'ing call them back the second you're done ordering. People like you are assholes.
If it was legal, I'd PAY for the grocery store I work in to have a cell phone jamming device. If someone needs to contact you, they can call the grocery store like they did before cell phones were commonplace. In fact, old people still do this when one person is shopping and the other person needs them to pick up an extra loaf of bread or something. Yes, it takes a little more effort, but it's way more polite than having customers talking on their cell phones about stupid stuff while going through the checkout or ordering food.
On a related note, I wish there was a way to ban employees using cell phones while on the clock. When you're punched in, the company you work for is paying you for giving them your time and effort. When you use your cell phone, you're not giving your time and effort, and you shouldn't get paid for that. It also looks very unprofessional to customers, and there's no way you should ever, ever, ever use your cell phone at work. The only possible reason I can even think of is when someone is on a delivery away from their place of work and needs to call for directions or because they got stuck in the ditch. Cell phones and work (retail, anyways) do not mix.
I'm so glad I could get that out of my system.
If we can't have cellphone jammers in my store, I wish we could have the next best thing: The option to simply refuse service to anyone talking on a cellphone.
I mean, it's simple logic, really; anyone talking on a phone, by definition does not want to talk to us, and therefore must not need our help.
I mean, it's simple logic, really; anyone talking on a phone, by definition does not want to talk to us, and therefore must not need our help.
As we did before indoor plumbing, bathing regularly, electricity, the horseless carriage, and the flying machine.
That's highly debatable.
No, the whole point is to be reachable for either real or perceived needs as well as feeling like you can reach someone else if there is a real or perceived need.
I can think of a couple"
To me, grocery shopping is the most mind numbing experience I can think of. I want to get in and out quickly. If talking to my wife, sister, mother, or a friend helps pass the time, I'm in.
How many times have you gone to a store and either forgotten what you're supposed to get or have a question about it? I call my wife frequently from the store to confirm something or ask her about something.
Cell phones are tools, and like all tools can be used wisely or poorly. What's appropriate in society is fluid and changes often.
In the US an employer who allows their emloyees to display posters of women in revealing clothes or sexually explicit conversations between employees can be fined for violating federal equal employment regulations/laws. Such conditions have been ruled as an oppressive and discriminatory work place. It occurs to me that the same restrictions should apply to employer preventing retail employees or their crew leaders/managers from demanding customers to keep their cell phone conversations respectable or leave the premises.
Also:
I believe there was a recent story about a teen (under 18) being prosecuted on child pornography charges for producing or distributing photos of his inadequately clothed peers. If that case leads to a serious enough penalty perhaps it will discourage those juveniles from misusing their phones' photographic functions.
Also:
I believe there was a recent story about a teen (under 18) being prosecuted on child pornography charges for producing or distributing photos of his inadequately clothed peers. If that case leads to a serious enough penalty perhaps it will discourage those juveniles from misusing their phones' photographic functions.
I was with the complaining until it turned in to advocating jammers.
When you pay for my cell phone, then you get to decide what calls and texts I may or may not receive. I might not answer, but I'm damn well entitled to know that I've been called or texted. Yeah, on the job is one thing, but on my own time I'm not inclined to be ordered around by a peon.
I was inclined to be sympathetic to the retail folks since I used to be one myself, but you're not entitled to decide what conversations are worthy of being had in your presence. If a customer pretends to listen to you or forces laughter at your bad joke, it's a courtesy. They don't have to do it.
When you pay for my cell phone, then you get to decide what calls and texts I may or may not receive. I might not answer, but I'm damn well entitled to know that I've been called or texted. Yeah, on the job is one thing, but on my own time I'm not inclined to be ordered around by a peon.
I was inclined to be sympathetic to the retail folks since I used to be one myself, but you're not entitled to decide what conversations are worthy of being had in your presence. If a customer pretends to listen to you or forces laughter at your bad joke, it's a courtesy. They don't have to do it.
So maybe signal jamming is a bit extreme, but when a customer talking on their cell phone impedes my ability to do my job effectively, then I think it's a legitimate problem. There ought to be moral codes for this kind of stuff.
Suggestions:
1. Don't try to have a conversation on the phone and talk to someone in person at the same time; hang up the phone and call them back later.
2. Driving and cell phone usage do not go hand in hand.
3. When you're watching a movie, play, musical or any other performance that is done in front of an audience, don't use your cell phone.
4. When you're in a store and wish to converse with an employee or an employee is conversing with you, don't be using your cell phone at the same time. Whether it's a second-hand goods shop or a luxury goods store, show some respect to the employees when you're trying to buy something and hang up the phone.
Somebody call the UN, I think we've got a solution in the works!
And you can't wait till you leave the store?You come in my store, you'll be ordered around whenever we deem it proper. That's true in ANY store - you abide by the rules of the store owner.
No, see, actually, we do. We don't have to let people just stand around and have meaningless conversations when we're trying to help them. If they talk while they're shopping, that's one thing. That doesn't inconvenience us to any great degree. But if you come through the checkout line, is it really that hard to shut the fuck up for just a minute or two?
Nor do we have to let the customers be dicks in our presence, really.
One Shanghai shopping mall in particular attracts gangs of gay male prostitutes, who loiter in all the bathrooms. When they see someone come in, you can bet one or two of them will saunter over to the wall overlooking the urinals and pretend to text message, while they take photos of customers using the urinals. Of course, there are no security guards to be found anywhere, probably because they get a cut of the action.
It's enough to make a man go cro-magnon on them. But I didn't go to the mall to teach criminally immoral idiots how to function in civilization.
Someone asked why should it matter if people text in the theater. Because a show is a hypnotic experience, and the theater is where we go to watch that illusion. People paid money for it and phone lights and sounds are artifacts that break the spell of the show. They are visual and noise pollution. In the cinema, the phone lights are obvious, and of course light naturally attracts the eye. In the theater, you also have the interplay between audience and players, and a distracted audience may effect the quality of the production for everyone.
Furthermore, the play, I'm sorry to say, is more important than someone's personal communications at that time. It is a shared social experience, which one inconsiderate person can trivialize and undermine by making themselves a distraction for everyone. It's called ruining it for everyone, and frankly, you're just not that important. If you're not into the experience, if you can't manage to sit in silent and polite attention for two hours and concentrate on something other than yourself, then don't go to the theater, go to a high school football game.
It's not about "you". In fact, no public space is about you. Phone calls should be private, period. People don't go around banging a drum or blowing smoke in other people's faces, or punching their arms, or shining laserpointers in their eyes, and the same should go for noise pollution. Guess what? Get in touch and hang the bloody thing up. If you must chat, for goodness sake chat at conversational volumes! "Cell yell" has no place in public.
And if you think it's bad, you ought to see it in Shanghai - you'll really see it abused to extremes.
Finally, I would like to just say that some of us are thinking; just because people are quiet doesn't mean someone has the right to fill the room with noise and trivial chatter. I didn't pay five bucks for a cup of coffee to hear them broadcast every little detail of their lives. Public conversation should be at murmur level, only becoming distinct when in personal space with other people. The person at the next table should not have to be forced to follow along.
Especially when you get a few (American?) college girls together. It's offensive, an assault on the senses. Sorry honies, you personalities are just not that interesting.
It's enough to make a man go cro-magnon on them. But I didn't go to the mall to teach criminally immoral idiots how to function in civilization.
Someone asked why should it matter if people text in the theater. Because a show is a hypnotic experience, and the theater is where we go to watch that illusion. People paid money for it and phone lights and sounds are artifacts that break the spell of the show. They are visual and noise pollution. In the cinema, the phone lights are obvious, and of course light naturally attracts the eye. In the theater, you also have the interplay between audience and players, and a distracted audience may effect the quality of the production for everyone.
Furthermore, the play, I'm sorry to say, is more important than someone's personal communications at that time. It is a shared social experience, which one inconsiderate person can trivialize and undermine by making themselves a distraction for everyone. It's called ruining it for everyone, and frankly, you're just not that important. If you're not into the experience, if you can't manage to sit in silent and polite attention for two hours and concentrate on something other than yourself, then don't go to the theater, go to a high school football game.
It's not about "you". In fact, no public space is about you. Phone calls should be private, period. People don't go around banging a drum or blowing smoke in other people's faces, or punching their arms, or shining laserpointers in their eyes, and the same should go for noise pollution. Guess what? Get in touch and hang the bloody thing up. If you must chat, for goodness sake chat at conversational volumes! "Cell yell" has no place in public.
And if you think it's bad, you ought to see it in Shanghai - you'll really see it abused to extremes.
Finally, I would like to just say that some of us are thinking; just because people are quiet doesn't mean someone has the right to fill the room with noise and trivial chatter. I didn't pay five bucks for a cup of coffee to hear them broadcast every little detail of their lives. Public conversation should be at murmur level, only becoming distinct when in personal space with other people. The person at the next table should not have to be forced to follow along.
Especially when you get a few (American?) college girls together. It's offensive, an assault on the senses. Sorry honies, you personalities are just not that interesting.
What I said was "Genuine query here - what's wrong with texting/calling during the interval of a show? It's not disturbing anyone's enjoyment of the show so long as the phone is turned off again for the second act.". I wasn't saying it was okay to text during the show, but doing it in a brightly-lit bar or foyer area isn't harming anyone. Of course people shouldn't text/call during the time the actors are onstage, or during a film.
If we can't have cellphone jammers in my store, I wish we could have the next best thing: The option to simply refuse service to anyone talking on a cellphone.
I mean, it's simple logic, really; anyone talking on a phone, by definition does not want to talk to us, and therefore must not need our help.
It would depend on the type of shop of course but what if it was someone doing remote shopping? A sick relative who was housebound asking someone to shop for them, and a question came up?
Its a problem with manners rather than the technology.
Back to trains, in the UK we have quiet coaches no MP3 players or mobiles allowed. But even then parts of my journeys to London I get no reception anyway!
I actually got more annoyed on a train recently with two people (who were related) having a loud conversation more than people talking on the phone. Especially since they were moaning about the train being full and people being inconsiderate!
Yes, I see your kind out there all the time. You're a zombie on the phone, not paying attention to where you're going, aiming your cart in the middle of the aisle making it impossible for other customers to pass. Then, the zombie has the never to render a dirty look at the other customer who is trying to get past or reach for something on the shelf.
The problem is that people need to consciously "step away" rather than stand in the middle of the world to make their damned phone call.
Personally, I'm all for jammers in theaters, stores, and I sure as hell would love to be able to broadcast a jamming signal from my car while driving.
There's this myth that mobile telephones disrupt important equipment and monitoring signals in certain departments such as intensive care, coronary care (which rely on telemetry a lot nowadays) etc. This might have been true of older models, but current mobile phones are used a lot by all medical, nursing, and ancillary staff nowadays, wth little to no disruption to said medical equipment. In some hospitals they are even standard issue, especially the old easy-to-use Philips handsets, and have replaced the older radio pagers for most applications (except cardiac and trauma emergencies) providing direct access to all the people you need to contact in a hurry. There are even stories of X-rays being sent by picture-message for quick diagnosis (of course, the picure quality is far inferior to looking at the original and isn't really a substitute). Where I work, the intensive care doctor has their own "on-call" mobile, and every consultant is usually contactable (sometimes it's the only way to speak to them) via their own magical talking stones.
To be honest, the only real reason not to use your phone in hospitals nowadays is as a courtesy measure. Even senior doctors would either switch their phones off or give it to someone responsible (e.g. the secretary or a middle-grade doctor) if they required some privacy to talk to relatives or patients.
Oh I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. Perhaps I wasn't saying anything you already didn't know.
That's okay.
I worked as an Usher at a theatre for a few months while I was at Uni, and during a Shakespeare performance I was stunned at how many students and even TEACHERS were using their phones on silent during the show. I had to remind them several times, even during the performance, to turn them off as per the pre-show announcement. I think we were lucky that show that all the phones were on silent. These students were talking all the way through the show too.
