Tag Archives: cell phones

Reality Check: Coming up with Reasons why Life Sucks

Life is incredible right now. To keep myself grounded, let’s review why life sucks:
* My favorite and most used cardigan (no, not the one most seen by others) developed a hole in the elbow. Replacing this cardigan will require serious research. Patched!

* I lost my phone over the weekend, and it was a bit of a hassle to replace.

* My coffee situation is precarious; I’m nearly out of good beans, but I’m not likely to be near a good bean buying opportunity for a couple days. I haven’t figured out the optimal rationing solution. (RP, ignore this item for the sake of entertaining the people) YM bought me some so so solid coffee from Europe!

* I’m out of eggs from the chickens of one of my friends. Farmer’s Market eggs bought!

* My car needs gas. Gassed!

I guess that’s it.

Cool Re-appropriation Of Common Practices

I love reading about how various cultures (e.g., local, youth, etc.) re-appropriate common practices and transform them into something that is essentially different. In this Reuters article about cell phone usage in Africa, missed calls are being transformed into something useful:

You beep someone when you call them up on their mobile phone — setting its display screen briefly flashing — then hang up half a second later, before they have had a chance to answer. Your friend — you hope — sees your name and number on their list of ‘Missed Calls’ and calls you back at his or her expense.

It is a tactic born out of ingenuity and necessity, say analysts who have tracked an explosion in miskin calls by cash-strapped cellphone users from Cape Town to Cairo.

As an FYI, this missed call phenomenon also happens in the UK, at least in the context of (pirate) radios and DJ sessions where calling and hanging up represents a request to reload (start the song over). I forget what they call it.

Answering Machine Antics

Decades after answering machines show up on the scene and years after cell phones have become mainstream, why are we still burdened with instructions on how to leave a voicemail on a cell phone?

Nearly every cell phone has a set of instructions from the provider that you have to sit through after already hearing the person your calling explain what to do after the beep. Aren’t two sets of instructions on top of an already socialized populace (i.e., we know what the beep means; so much so that characters in movies suggest we “know what to do”) unnecessary?

A friend RKP, and I to a lesser extent, have requested Cingular remove the woman’s instructions that follow our beep. They say it’s not possible and that, because people aren’t used to cell phones, they need instructions. Um, voicemail is voicemail is voicemail. (Also, there was a short moment in time that RKP found success; apparently his voicemail account was moved to another server, although we’re not sure how to duplicate this).

Now, RKP, through the options menus in his voicemail account, has switched this woman’s instructions to be in Spanish (Note: We don’t speak Spanish). I like it and think it’s an effective signal highlighting the voicemail instruction absurdity.

Alternative strategies could include having no personalized message (i.e., recording a second of silence) so that callers jump into the company provided instructions. Or, and as I have done, select one of the messages your provider, well, provides and they will not include the standard instructions; apparently, they think their voicemail messages offer more guidance than yours ever could.

Make like a shoe company with labor problems and just do it.