Noise Pollution is Environmental Pollution
What’s more annoying than a crying baby? Ruder than tossing a butt on the street? More disgusting than an airsick neighbor on a plane?
Cell phone chatter.
BLAH, BLAH BLAH….why don’t people GET it? Nobody wants to hear what you’re saying into your mobile phone! I don’t care if you grandfather is dying, your dog pooped on the floor, or that you got a raise. I JUST WANT SOME QUIET!!!!!
And now that I know these details of your life, I HATE YOU. Even though I’m sure if I met you at a party over a wine or three, you’d be my new best friend.
Yes, I know I should be a more zen person, content to let life’s annoyances float over my head with nothing more than a nod and a beautific smile, but damn it, no matter how hard I try to achieve the zen there’s always a person on a phone to challenge me anew. And it’s a battle I rarely win.
If noise pollution is environmental pollution, then inappropriate cell phone chit-chat should be treated like the toxic crap it is. Shut it down and contain it. But how? These people rarely respond to rude looks and shushing.
Now there’s a pollution solution.
Jammers Unite!
This article in the NYTimes (OK, so I’m now officially behind the times, yuk, yuk, but I really didn’t know about these being so easily available) shows us how we can all start blocking cell phone signals in a significant area around our persons. Cell phone jammers block the signal between the tower and the phones within a given area and calls are cut off. I can’t wait to use this on the train, judiciously, of course. Only obnoxious a**holes who can’t follow the rules (on my train it’s simple; speak in a low and civil tone, and go into the vestibule for extended conversations).
If a significant percentage of the population does this, soon we’ll have a little peace and quiet where before there was just constant jabber. Let’s do it!
Shout out to Bri for hooking me up with this article.
What about emergencies? You and all your babbling on about how rude people are is whats really annoying about the whole situation. Get some headphones and shut up.
11/04/07 » 3:08 pm »
Um, yeah, because I would totally turn it on when there’s a fire on the train or whatever. Come on, Wardo, I specifically said this would be a useful device for people who can’t respect basic rules of living around other people- I’m not against all cell phone conversations all the time. There’s a time and a place…like emergencies, or to let people know you’re going to be late, or to check up on your kid, and nobody has a problem with that. But they guy yelling about how he’s on the train and about last night’s game? I have NO sympathy. I think it’s a little obscene that I need to use my headphones as defense against people who can’t mind their manners.It’s ludicrous to behave as if you don’t live around other people. We are here and we don’t want to hear your raised voice for 45 minutes on the phone.
11/04/07 » 3:56 pm »
The idea that a bunch of people who have no problem with illegal downloads want to get all sanctimonious and say that people shouldn’t block cell phone calls cause it is illegal is pathetic. On all sites addressing the issue pulling the safety card is the final resort of the self-phone fascists who fashion themselves the minions of Verizon et al. There is no safety issue. You turn on your device. The offending call is neutralized. You turn off your device. Also I think it is pretty crazy that I can’t use a device like this in my own home according to FCC regulations. Why shouldn’t libraries and movie theatres have a proprietary right to the control of radio wave signals passing through their premises? The cell-phone jammer is, as the Eco-Chick points out, the naturally evolved mechanism for correcting a runaway process in the social environment — to wit — loud, one sided, conversations in no way calibrated to their social surround. Their use and (subsequently) the possibility of their use would make people talking on their cell-phones think about the people around them when talking.
11/05/07 » 3:05 am »
This debate encapsulates a fundamental principle that has somehow got lost in contemporary American life – that your liberty ends when it impinges on that of others. For example, you have the right to listen to whatever music you like. You don’t have a right to force others to listen to it, by blaring it out of your car in the park while others are having a quiet picnic. The same applies to cell phones. You can talk to who you like – in privacy (putting aside Dick Cheney’s desire to listen in). But when you start bringing other people into your conversation involuntarily your freedom terminates. You’ve abused it. Now if we could only apply that to the strip miners and slaughter house operators, we’d really have an evolved society. The fact that cell phone jammers are illegal is proof that we have bartered our fine balance of freedom versus license for trinkets and instant anywhere gratification. Who profits? Corporatists – aka Fascists – a select few who claim to be capitalists but are in fact using the force of government for their own ends.
11/05/07 » 8:21 pm »
While I think cellphone jammers are wonderful devices, they are a bit too passive agressive for me. I prefer to calmy take the cell phone out of the offending party’s hands, hang up and tell them to mind their manners.
11/14/07 » 6:30 pm »
has anybody USED one of these devices? i’d like to interview you for an article i’m writing for the las vegas review-journal newspaper. i’ll keep your name unpublished. thanks!
12/13/07 » 7:47 pm »
after tonights latest episode on the public transit ride home, of “lets see how loud I can talk on my cell phone and piss everyone off on the public transportation”….this has come to mind, my search for others who are beyond fed up, that they would sign up immediately to become a paid cell phone jammer! And if I were a wealthy man (sadly I am not, anyone that is and cares to take up this heroic deed, and forever crowned a hero in my book), to pay for 1000’s of these(jammers) and pass them out in a subversive (since they are illegal) grass roots underground attempt at the combating of the cell phone crapoid loudmouths, even paying others to use the jammer and any potential fine that they may incure, O LORD grant me this one request, please dear soveriegn and merciful creator of the universe, I ask in Jesus name amen. It is an infringement on any public transportation stated policy already, in that as it is written you are not to do anything that is disrupting of other passengers, so why not state implicetly the ban of (obviously loud cell phone use, and it is only NOT obvious to these dorks who speak at decibels that are so penetrating you still can hear them through your head phones even when turned up considerably of which only exhasperates the problem I am sure) think about that for a second, i still can hear these selfish inconsiderate self serving God hating (you choose the adjective) ***** idiots with my headphones cranked up! unbelievable,
12/19/07 » 12:45 am »
I got a cell phone jammer, use it all the time on anyone and everyone and dont think twice about doing it… My rationale is Im saving themselves and myself from future harm.. Google Dr George Carlo and see what I mean in terms of the potential (actually very real) health dangers of excessive cell phone usage. Prediction : When its all said and done, cell phones will be more dangerous to your health than cigerates ever were
02/07/08 » 11:12 pm »
The doofus with the “emergencies” argument seems not to realize that none of us had mobile phones 20 years ago and we all survived somehow. The cellular phone not a critical emergency device. Think about it — who the hell would rely on one of these things in an emergency with how well they work just in an ordinary situation? First responders have different equipment anyhow.
Get some headphone and shut up? Get some manners, or stay in your home, I say.
However, to Kevin: If a cell phone is dangerous because of radiation, don’t you imagine a jammer on the same frequencies might also be?
04/10/08 » 9:01 pm »