Carrying a mobile phone can be tiresome (and potentially dangerous) but without one you are hard to reach.
So my proposed solution is to take out a subscription that provides you with a hat that possesses a unique symbol that can be read by a spy satellite. This allows you to be tracked you as you walk around outside.
When someone tries to phone you (each subscription provides you with a number) the closest phone to you, whether it be a phone booth or someone else's mobile, goes off and if you don't answer it the other person can potentially be persuaded to pass on a message or hand it over.
Remember all switched on mobiles are tracked and all phone booths are usually plotted on a geographic database to make maintenance easier.-- Aristotle, Apr 21 2009 Absolutely not. I would pop you in the mouth if my phone rang and my minutes got charged so I could pass a message to a total stranger, and you happened to be that stranger. I'd get a message across to you, alright. You can be assured of that.
On the other hand, I have and will continue to (as long as I'm not in a hurry) let strangers who ask politely use my phone to make a very brief call out. I also go into my phone's settings and hide the number before I hand it to them, too. Theft doesn't worry me, because I can send a text message to my phone that locks it, activates the GPS chip, and sends me via e-mail and text message its location on a map. It also e-mails me if they change the SIM card. But calls in? Absolutely not.-- 21 Quest, Apr 21 2009 Obviously getting people, to hand over their phones (or pass on messages) would be challenging but one hopes that the wearers of these hats would be seen as a better class of person that can be trusted ...
After all are we not just minions to carry phones for our betters, who are supported by spy satellites?-- Aristotle, Apr 21 2009 I'm with 21 on this.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and hats produce neither betters nor minions.
Your spy-sattelite hat-wearers can get calls on public phones all they want, and I'll applaud them for giving pay phones relevance once more, but anybody trying to answer my cell phone will get more than a message from me.-- ye_river_xiv, Apr 22 2009 But that's patently ridiculous. All men clearly aren't created equal - where'd you get that nonsense from? It's absurd to say that - look around you. Some people are created in countries that have a dominant hold on the global south. Others are created in countries that are exploited by the global north. How anyone can refer to the opposite of reality as a 'truth' and get away with calling it ''self-evident' (what is that weasel phrase supposed to mean anyway - a self-documented form follows function kind of thinking?) when it's pretty obvious to all that it's not evident at all, is a mystery. And what about women?-- Ian Tindale, Apr 22 2009 I wasn't created equal.-- hippo, Apr 22 2009 People carrying donor mobile phones would probably be eligible for discounts (for when they next buy diamonds, caviar or hire a butler) if they passed over their phone or a message.
Practically the design of the hat would have been protected from illegal copying due to the prestige that wearing such a hat would bring. Maybe local laws could be adjusted to make wearing a fake hat a similiar crime to wearing purple, imperial robes in Ancient Rome.-- Aristotle, Apr 22 2009 halfbakery