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I know all of us have experienced this: You set your cell phone ring to a loud volume, to make sure you'll always hear it. Later, you're sitting in some kind of meeting, and your boss is making a speech. The room is totally silent except for your boss's voice. Suddenly your phone rings. The ring now
seems RIDICULOUSLY loud compared to the quietness of the meeting room. Now you have to fish it out of your pocket, flip it open, and find the volume button, or the button that diverts it to voicemail, or whatever the hell you have to do to just make the damn thing stop ringing. By the time you make it stop, it's already been ringing really loud for like 30 seconds, and everyone else in the room is annoyed, and you're totally embarrassed.
To solve this problem, I propose a cell phone that instantly becomes silent whenever you smack it really hard with your hand. If it rings in the middle of a meeting, you don't even have to take it out of your pocket. Just smack the outside of your pants pocket with your hand. The cell phone will "feel" the smack through the fabric and instantly stop ringing. The phone would be designed so that only a hard smack will silence it, so it won't get silenced by bumping into someone in the elevator.
Now, if your phone rings in the middle of a meeting, and if you think the call might be urgent, go ahead and smack it, just to stop the sound. After you've smacked it, you can then quietly take it out of your pocket and check who's calling, without drawing attention to yourself. The smack would only silence the ringer, it wouldn't divert the call or anything, so the call could still be answered after a smack.
My mobile is unlikely to be upset by a little slap
http://www.vertu.co...ent/ascent-ti/tests
Check "Controlled Free-fall" - look carefully at the slate :-) [AbsintheWithoutLeave, Aug 25 2009]
[link]
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//go ahead and smack it// |
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I have a strong urge to turn this phrase into the title for a
song. [=] |
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"Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it..." |
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Given that most phones will go silent simply by pressing any
key... and that most phones have external keys... all you have to
do is smack the part of the phone with the external keys. This is
not a good idea, though, unless you rather like filing insurance
claims. At my job you can get fired for your phone ringing in a
meeting, regardless of how long it rings. I got placed on 90-day
probation for my phone's alarm going off, and I silenced it very
quickly. That was 3 and a half months ago. It hasn't happened
since. |
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So my point is, by the time it rings in the middle of a meeting,
the damage is already done, so you better just remember to
check it before the meeting starts. Or you can download the
'Locale' app, which allows you to set day and time ranges during
which certain settings, such as volume, are effective. Set the
weekdays and hours of your shift and it'll silence your phone
automatically every day. I've been using this app for 3 months,
and it hasn't failed yet. You don't have to use day and time,
either. You can also set the changes to take effect when a certain
wifi network is detected, or GPS location, in case you get called
to a meeting outside your normal shift. |
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And Norm, it's funny you should mention that song. I have Weird
Al's parody of the song, called Eat it, set as my default ringtone. |
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Being a HUGE fan of slapping, I must bun this. I also
thought as a decoy movement you might want to slap your
head a few times first, then go for the phone. People will
fear you in the future, but that is good. |
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A sideways slap for ya +++++. Good job. In fact I'd clap but
I can't. I'm too busy slapping myself. |
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Turns out this also Baked. There's an app available for the iPhone and all the Android phones that lets you mute an incoming call by shaking, or bumping, the phone. I saw a TV commercial for the iPhone version last night. |
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21 Quest inadvertantly must have missed the part
about "smacking". |
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Shaking and bumping are in a whole different genre of
noises, along with other soundless sound effects and
stuff? |
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Bliss, smacking your cellphone 'really hard' is a really good way
to break it, especially if there's anything else in your pocket
alongside it, and the poster didn't say it was the sound that
triggered it. I work with cellphones for a living, and just got
promoted to tier 2 tech support. I'm telling you, there is nothing
advisable about smacking your cellphone. What makes more
sense is to have the head honchos at the meeting pass a bowl
around the room collecting everyone's cellphones before the
meeting starts, and locking them in a soundproof box. Or simply
download one of several apps, one of which I described already,
that are designed to prevent the phone from ringing in the first
place. |
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How about inventing an on/off mechanism for mobiles? |
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I think you'll find this is baked, but a single slap is rarely effective - generally, you'll need a double slap.
A single slap could just mean you'd dropped it. |
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"Given that most phones will go silent simply by pressing any key... and that most phones have external keys... all you have to do is smack the part of the phone with the external keys."
My phone has external keys, but they're small, and they can't be easily pressed by smacking. If I wanted to press them while my phone was in my pocket, I'd have to put my fingers in just the right spot and sort of squeeze the phone. |
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"At my job you can get fired for your phone ringing in a meeting."
Seriously? That seems really harsh. I've heard people's phones ring during meetings at two different jobs I've had, and the person faced no negative consequences (except embarrassment). Maybe your company has higher standards for you, simply because you're a cell phone support person. But still, it seems harsh. What company do you work at? |
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"Smacking your cellphone 'really hard' is a really good way to break it."
I thought almost every cell phone these days is entirely solid-state, with no easily breakable mechanical parts. If I have an electronic device that contains a hard drive, and I smack it really hard, that could definitely break the hard drive. But most cell phones don't have hard drives. Also, aren't most cell phones designed to be sturdy, so that they'll still be fine if you accidentally drop them on the floor? |
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"...especially if there's anything else in your pocket alongside it."
Yeah, that's a good point. Users of a smack-silent phone would have to be told to be careful about keeping other things in the same pocket as the phone. I think certain objects would be ok, though, like a driver's license. |
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"21 Quest inadvertantly must have missed the part about "smacking". Shaking and bumping are in a whole different genre of noises, along with other soundless sound effects and stuff?"
"The poster didn't say it was the sound that triggered it."
Yeah, I was thinking that the sound wouldn't trigger it, just the force of the slap. I think blissmiss understood that the sound wouldn't trigger it, but I think she was just saying that she'd enjoy hearing the sound of her hand slapping her leg. :) It could be a form of stress relief too. :) |
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//I know all of us have experienced this//
No you don't! |
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[navigatr85], you may want to check into your
nearest mental hospital. You actually understood
everything I meant. I thought [21] would as well. |
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(Uh...I thought the "soundless sounds" was a dead
give away...but I guess not ;-) |
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Being dropped is one of the most frequent causes of permanent
damage to cellphones. While it's true that most phones can
withstand a few drops throughout the life of the device, frequent
impacts make it far more likely to fail. All cellphones have
internal circuit boards and wires that can be jarred loose, as well
as those shiny gold battery contacts, which can be bent or
broken. Another common failure point is the charging receptacle,
which can actually fall out completely. On flip and swivel phones,
the hinge can be broken easily. On slider phones, the screen and
keypad can be separated by the runners being knocked out of
alignment, like a closet door. On touchscreen phones, the screen
itself is susceptible to being cracked. |
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//At my job you can get fired for your phone ringing in a meeting, regardless of how long it rings.// |
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Fuck that noise. Tell them to shove their job right up there beside their heads. |
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I don't know you too well, but I've no doubt you deserve better than that. |
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Personally, I'd be going to meetings with phones programmed to call the other phones in my many pockets. Bring a party popper or two and maybe one of those rape alarms. See how the unfair dismissals claim goes. |
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Well I could always find another job, CG, that's never been an
issue for me. But the pay and hours make the job too valuable
to give up over something so petty. I did almost quit, however,
when I got chastised for using my phone to call 911 when a
coworker had a siezure. |
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"[navigatr85], you may want to check into your nearest mental hospital. You actually understood everything I meant." I'll take that as a compliment. :) |
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Now that I think about it, slapping a phone in your pocket would actually be very different from dropping it on the floor, in terms of physics. When you drop a phone on the floor, it's a collision at a much higher velocity, which means much higher kinetic energy, which means more energy to damage the phone. When you slap a phone in your pants pocket, the velocity of your hand is what's important, and your hand wouldn't be moving as fast as the phone would be moving during a drop. Imagine someone holding a cell phone five feet above your leg and dropping it directly onto your leg. That would hurt a lot. That's similar to accidentally dropping the phone on the floor from a height of five feet. But if you slap yourself on the leg, you wouldn't slap hard enough to cause yourself that much pain. [Well, maybe blissmiss would. :) Just kidding.] |
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Also, some of the energy of the slap would be absorbed by your leg and your hand, since they're not very rigid. But the floor, being very rigid, would absorb very little energy, putting more energy into damaging the phone. |
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"I got placed on 90-day probation for my phone's alarm going off, and I silenced it very quickly." "I got chastised for using my phone to call 911 when a coworker had a siezure." "But the pay and hours make the job too valuable to give up over something so petty." If you ask me, I wouldn't put up with that kind of treatment at a job, unless the pay and the hours were REALLY good, like, say, 15 hours a week and a six-figure salary. (That would average out to about $130 an hour.) But, to each his own. I'm digressing. |
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I'm trying to figure out how you can smack yourself on the leg in a meeting without drawing attention to yourself. |
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Money or time has nothing to do with being paid to halfbake for hours. |
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Hmmm... party popper cell phones... |
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You said to slap the phone 'really hard'. Those are your words,
Navigatr. Slapping a phone in your pocket 'really hard' is going
to hurt your hand, and possibly your leg. If it doesn't hurt your
leg, then the phone has absorbed the kinetic energy of the slap
and likely incurred some damage. Try clocking the speed of a
falling cellphone, then the speed of a slapping hand. I guarantee
the hand is moving faster. |
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Who besides me has a visual of [21] doing all night
experiments, trying to disprove this idea? |
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Speed is only part of the equation, 21. |
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i tested it on the neighbor's cat. The hand definitely moves faster, and elicits a greater YOWL from the cat. Will test on neighbor's annoying kid tmorrow night. |
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I guess the theory goes that to punish 21Q as a kid his mother made the same physics mistake and prefered to drop him on his head rather than administer a good slap. The resulting brain damage has perpetuated the misunderstanding. |
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"You said to slap the phone 'really hard'. Those are your words, Navigatr." Yes, I said "really hard", but I didn't mean hard enough to cause intense pain to your own leg and hand. Looking back, I made a bad choice of words when I said "really hard". The reason I said that was because I wanted to emphasize that the phone wouldn't be silenced by a gentle bump, like bumping into a wall or another person. |
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"Try clocking the speed of a falling cellphone, then the speed of a slapping hand. I guarantee the hand is moving faster." I don't have any devices to measure the speed of an object. But I did some rough calculations, and I got that the cell phone would be moving at about 12.2 miles per hour when it hits the ground, if it's dropped from 5 feet. Now, it IS possible for a human hand to move faster than than that. For example, in pro baseball, pitches are often clocked at 90 mph, which means the the pitcher's hand is also moving at about that speed when he releases the ball. But just because people CAN slap themselves hard, that doesn't mean they WILL. A person could slap at 90 mph if they wanted to, but they could also slap at 8 mph if they wanted to. You can't "guarantee the hand is moving faster", because slaps can be done at many different speeds. So what I'm saying is, the cell phone could be designed so that the required slapping force would be more than a gentle bump, but still less than a painful injury. |
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My point was that those bumps you don't want to set it off are
not usually so gentle as you think, and a hand slap that's any
harder is going to be painful and possibly damaging. |
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"Say, is that a monkey in your pocket?" |
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//so that the required slapping force would be more than a gentle bump// |
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G's !!! The phone can't measure the speed of the impacting object but just the rate at which it itself accelerates or decelerates. Now a phone falling onto a hard surface is going to experience way more G's than a hand impacting through clothing, soft hand tissue and soft leg tissue - quite a lot of give there. I'd say the hard floor scores 5-50 times higher. |
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Then there's also the integral of acceleration. This device is look for a relatively hard acceleration and deceleration within 10cm. This is easy to bake. |
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