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I never answer my landline. It all goes on the answering machine. Old school press-one-button-to-listen machine. No electronic VM, even though it's available form my carrier. Too much trouble to use just to erase a bunch of crap.

Neither the greeting on my landline nor my cell voicemail announce my name.

My theory is this. Phone numbers are sold and shared between telemarketers, "3rd party partners" and scammers. I figure that some numbers are worth more than others. You've got companies that use computers to call numbers and hang up just to verify numbers. Happens to me all the time. I believe that they rank the results of the calls and then sell the lists based on the ranking.

Tier 1: Verified as working, but no answer. Not worth much. Tier 2: Verified as answered by a voicemail system. Worth a little more. Tier 3: Verified as answered by a voicemail system with a name. Worth a little more. Tier 4: Verified as answered by a live person. Top dollar.

I'm in Tier 2. No one gets my name.

My "favorite " is the use of spoofing technology where the number is made to not only appear as local via the area code, but also has the same first

It is a communications device. Used properly it allows for various forms of communications with others that a plain phone would never allow. Unfortunately, people seem to get addicted and abuse it. Need a wiring diagram? Someone can take a photo of theirs and send it to you.

There are times that a text or sending a photo can be a big help. Say a problem with one of your cars. Not sure of something? Send a photo of the part to someone that knows and have an answer in seconds.

Very interesting! My grandmother used to work on punch card machines at Westinghouse in the 50's/60's. We used to have some laying around the house... some might still be in use as bookmarks.

That's the balance that's easy to upset... how much is too much? A big part of the reason that my ex is now my ex is that I couldn't stand someone who's face was buried in a smart phone all day. She couldn't put it down, even to watch a movie... had to check whatever notification came up every few minutes some times.

There were quite a few other reasons it didn't work out, but I refuse to even try to date someone that can't put their phone down. Not doing that again.

I've considered this, but I don't get a considerable amount of spam. I've had my cell number since 2005, and even before I had it ignore unknown numbers, I maybe got 1-2 spam calls per week - tops. I simply never gave out the number unless I know the person.

I always answer my home phone. I don't have caller ID, I just have a basic "bell" land line with corded phones. I didn't want to pay an extra $12/mo for caller ID or call waiting. Believe it or not (maybe you will) but my several house phones are rotary - including my kitchen wall phone. Only one touch tone phone for when I need to "press 1 for..."

However, I am aware of this "spoofing", because I once had someone call me upset that I called them and left and annoying business message... I said it wasn't me, but they stated it came up with my number on the caller ID. I think it was spoofed. I also had someone call me about this same issue some time later, but insisted that my number was "hacked"... he sounded quite paranoid.

"RAMAC" aka "The washing machine"

The first micro I worked on was a National PACE (16 bit, 8-bit ALU). Must have been '76, or so. The only peripheral we had was an ASR-33, like that. W would load the assembler and linker with the tape reader. It drove everyone else in the lab crazy. The thing would chunk away for 30min loading the tape. We used mylar tapes so it would eat them.

She and you obviously had different priorities. If the schism is too wide, it's a reason to split. It seems like a petty difference, though. Maybe I just can't see it. Our 50th anniversary was the 19th and something as petty as phone use wouldn't even have registered on the list of grievances we've had and passed.

Seems like a small issue in the grand scheme of things. Not good getting to know someone though. We use them at the table all the time, though mostly to find information that's come up in conversation.

You can connect phones to your cell phone too, which can do WiFi calling. I don't but...

The only reason to have a land line is reliability. Land lines are still battery powered from the central office so they'll still work after a widespread power outage. I'm told that some cell towers have this capability too but I don't know it for a fact.

I get ten per day but 9.5 of them are from the same area code as my phone. The only person in that area code who would call me, is my son and he's in my contacts list.

Yes, see above. ;-)

I'm surprised that they haven't deprecated rotary systems. For a while they were charging a premium but I didn't know that it was still available.

No, spoofed. There is no protection for VoIP.

Back in 75/76 while in the USCG in AK, we were a relay station for other stations along Bering Sea. We would received news feeds via teletype. Pages and pages and pages of news from around the world.

As we were receiving the news, we would cut a tape and use it to relay the news to the other stations. If we were feeling adventurous, we'd wait until we had a decent pile of received tape, load the leading edge into another machine and send it out while it was still coming in. That worked fine until there was long pause on the original sender's end. We may have ripped a tape or two. ;-)

I also remember the late night teletype-texting sessions with other guys that were stuck in their radio rooms - a thousand plus miles away - at 2AM. Sometimes the sessions were fun and lively, sometimes someone was missing their wife or having some other problem and needed someone to talk to. Isolated duty has its ups and downs.

Did you know that you can use a rotary phone without using the rotor? At least you could when I was young.

If you tapped the switch hook at the right speed, you could dial a complete phone number.

tap tap pause tap pause tap tap pause tap-tap-tap-tap-tap pause etc.

That's really all that the rotor did - open and close the connection.

You didn't want to be standing neer a DASD when the heads crashed. The sise of a drier - spinning 50 24 inch disks at 1200 RPM for 3.75MB of storage for the RAMAC 355. Not sure how much of the nearly 1 ton was rotating assembly - but if they got loose they could do a LOT of damage to the computer room!!!

A small issue, yes, but compounded with other things irrelevant now, it was just a specific irritation that I recall when I think of smart phones.

Phones at the table is not my cup of tea, but to each their own. People don't stop and wonder any more, critical thought seems to be dying. Everyone says "oh wait let me check" and pulls a phone out. I think that technology is just too far entwined into people's lives now. I enjoy stopping down and talking to my 67 year old neighbor every now and again. He lives alone, and basically has changed nothing since the

Cell towers are *supposed* to... T-Mobile loses service here when the power goes out, but my land line always works. DSL too -- if I hook up my generator.

No premium changed - just an old fashioned "bell" AT&T land line. I had it set up in 2015, and I had to fight them even then. It was a strong sales push for a VoIP phone and digital U-Verse DSL internet. I wanted no part of that - might as well use Magic-jack if I'm using VoIP.

I still have to dial "1" first if I call long distance... an old scratchy Bell era recording of Jane Barbe comes on to instructing me to dial one before dialing beyond the local calling area if I forget (5 cents/min). Rotary phones have always worked fine, I assume that there is no sense in disabling the pulse equipment if it's set up.

I've done this as well in recent years. If the number has a lot of pulses, it's not an easy task.

For many years I paid, as I recall, a $0.50 surcharge every month for the privilege of tone dialing. Of course I was not alone, just another monopolist scam. I was tempted to try to drop tone dialing, but never worked up the energy necessary to go through with it. (Most phones at the time had a switch to select either tone or pulse dial, just in case the phone company was actually capable of turning off tone dialing).

I once soldered the wires back onto the heads of an HP 7906 drive. Kodak Research Labs, circa 1985.

The client didn't have a backup of the fixed disk and replacing the heads would have meant realigning them, making them unable to read the disk. I told him I'd give it a shot, but obviously no guarantees. I told him there were 3 possible outcomes:

Tiniest wire I ever soldered. I did the unthinkable and filed the tip of my smallest soldering tip to an even finer point.

It worked. We basically held our collective breath for over 2 hours while the back-up was running. After it was completed, I changed the heads and restored the back-up onto the fixed disk. I kept the old heads hanging on my work bench for quite a few years.

Apparently what I saved was important enough that the director of the Research Labs wrote a nice letter to my supervisor and gave me a $100 gift certificate to one of the fanciest restaurants in town. That's $100 in 1985 dollars. $250-ish today. SWMBO and I figured out how to spend it. ;-)