OT: drowning devices

Folks who *know* me with invariably tolerate my eccentricities; and, probably get a laugh out of them!

Folks who *don't* should be intimidated, "put off", inconvenienced, etc. I.e., I have a video record of your visit and there are no "instructions" for how you can "ring the doorbell" (deposit 25c?)

The HAL interface also gives me an authentication mechanism that I can use to allow trusted individuals to gain entry to the house in my absence: it "recognizes" them and will unlock the door and disable the alarm to allow them entry. Of course, it will also record this event so it's unlikely any of these trusted individuals are going to avail themselves of this capability unnecessarily!

We have a neighbor next street over (same house number) who often gets our mail while we get theirs. It's happened often enough that we simply drop it in each other's mailbox when that happens.

Exactly. You don't *need* to field each call/SMS *as* it comes in.

OTOH, if you knew one of your kids was driving to East Nowhere, you might be a bit more sensitive to incoming messages while you knew they were on-the-road.

Years ago, if they had called and you didn't consider their activities important/worrisome enough to "stay by the phone", their call would have been unanswered (or routed to an answering machine). So, little reason why it can't do that *now*, as well!

OK. So, in effect, you're saying folks who own expensive bits of personal kit shouldn't let them get into potentially "dangerous" situations. I.e., don't bring your phone/camera/etc into the bathroom, on a boat, etc. AVOID the situation that can lead to loss.

I always told people to put what they needed me to do in an email, too. It means that I have a trail so when/if they come back later wanting to know why I didn't do "Y", I can show them their email where they told me to do "X".

I think I'd be the first neighbor who'd enjoy your eccentricities! That would be cool.

Yep! I also don't answer the phone if I don't recognize the number, and that goes with our land line, too. All msgs of the land line go to voice mail, and sometimes we'll get repeated calls from confirmed spam calls and I'll just disconnect the call before it gets to the 'leave a msg' part because I'm sitting by the phone and can see the caller ID.

Yes. Come up with a routine that's smart in taking care of it, and stick to it.

Exactly. In my case, clients are often looking for "ball park estimates" for future projects. But, they give "ball park requirements" and all sorts of platitudes about "Just give me a general idea -- I won't hold you to it...".

Of course, when the time comes, they only remember the number you gave them and not the lack of specificity on THEIR part:

"What???! You told me it would cost $3000 and now you're looking to charge me $250K? (red faced, steam coming out ears)"

"Well, when I gave you the $3K estimate, you were looking for a 'tool shed' in which to store your riding lawnmower. Now, you're asking for a 4 bedroom house!"

(Ah, you forgot those "little details", eh?)

Good notes do more than cover your *ss -- they also help maintain healthy relationships. ("Yeah, I guess I *did* ask for a tool shed when we were talking about this back in July...") No one wants to admit they have "selective memory".

One time I had someone blame me for something that never got done 8 months ago, so I went into my email archive and found the 5 emails that were sent to them asking for instructions on what they needed done, and the 2 emails of them telling me the client had not made up their mind, yet, and they'd let me know when they found something out. After 5 follow-up emails inquiring if the client made up their mind and no instructions from the boss, I GAVE UP because the time frame in which the task would have needed to be done was 2 weeks in the past. The boss just said "oh, ok" ...

We consider the phone an "interruption"; it exists for the convenience of the CALLER! It makes no concessions to the CALLEE -- except if you elect NOT to respond to its demands! :>

So, we like to discourage folks from using it -- in "passive" ways (i.e., by not answering, not returning calls promptly, etc.)

We're far too old to be enamored with the idea of sitting on the phone for an hour blabbering about nothing important. Too many things to do that are more interesting, personal, interactive, etc. than to waste time on the phone!

I have no problem letting a machine "tie up" the caller -- and then automatically discarding the message. It's relatively easy to detect robocalls -- if the other party doesn't "pause" in their speech as a response to *your* spoken words, then its obviously a dumb machine. You can ignore whatever it says.

I've been thinking about totally removing the answering msg so when the machine answers, it's just empty air. It's just a short blurb right now like 'leave a msg', but the majority of the time the calling part hangs up. Occasionally, we'll get some type of msg that is obviously spam of some sort.

I think they find many of these things "entertaining" (i.e., they;ve never encountered anyone who applies technology in the ways I do). I find them "excellent test subjects" (aka guinea pigs).

I brought a prototype of my "speaker identification" system ("who is speaking") to one of our get-togethers and had them all amused that a machine could differentiate between them so easily just by listening to the characteristics of their voices.

Years ago, I had my home phone *listed* -- but under a bogus name (this allows folks who KNOW ME to find my phone number but folks who just know my REAL *name* are left facing an effectively "unlisted" number. And, it doesn't cost extra as unlisting does!). The answering machine had no outgoing message so a caller would just hear "beep".

You'd be surprised how many (incoming) messages were: "Hello? Is anyone there??" followed by a hangup. Friends, of course, would know what to expect and would leave a message or "announce themselves" if I was waiting for their call (using the machine to "screen" calls)

I always considered it amusing that folks required the outgoing message to KNOW that they were talking to an answering machine. I.e., the beep by itself wasn't enough of a (reassuring) cue!

Time to juice some more lemons...

That's so cool. You're the real deal when it comes to thinking outside the box! I love the idea of doing that even if I don't have all the skills that you have to make new ideas technically work. I suppose I do it on a scale that my skill set allows me to, but it's cool when I come across someone who has more skill than I have and they actually can make things happen that ARE outside of the box.

The only caveat I can think of to not have an answering machine msg, is our Dr's office sometimes calls and leaves msgs there.

A somewhat viable approach is to program the answering machine to start with the IC SIT code, followed by a couple of seconds of silence before you record the message. This may trigger some autodialers to remove the number from their list.

Audio samples at

My experience was having a mobile in a shirt pocket and putting it in a washing machine, came out spotless but never worked again despite dismantling and drying it with a hairdryer.

Kenny Cargill

A week or two back, a friend lamented "drowning" her cell phone (accidentally, of course). I recounted this story to a few other friends and was surprised at how many expressed similar events (personally or among their family members).

By far, the toilet claimed the most victims. A couple lost items "over the side" on (small) boats.

No one complained about dropping anything in a *sink* (perhaps because few folks ever have a sink full of water?). And, no one complained of "death in a snow bank" (I guess snow doesn't melt quick enough to do damage?)

Cell phones are the typical victims. And, "falling out of their back pocket" (while lowering or raising pants, "before" or "after") was the typical cause. (Men's wallets seemed to suffer similar fates)

I assume PDA's are too "yesterday" to make the list. And, earpieces probably don't make it *into* the bathroom (site of most malfeasance).

But, wonder how often this happens and, considering the dollars involved in some of these devices...

Yes. You can't "win" -- show them proof and they get indignant (as if you're calling them a liar -- even though they may have honestly "misremembered").

But, if you make it "general knowledge" that you keep detailed notes (i.e., archive emails), folks are far less aggressive in pursuing an "opinion" when they hear you CONFIDENTLY stating otherwise! ("Hmmm... he can probably pull up a written record of this so I'd better not be TOO insistent as I may well be wrong!")