smartphone – Life In A Word

Curtains for Calls

Denver’s getting a new area code next month!

No, I’m not short on blog topics – stay with me here.

“983” will be added to 303 and 720 because Denver’s rapid growth means they’re running out of new phone numbers. But it’s not our state’s fifth area code itself that has my attention (by comparison, California blows us away with 36). It’s the 25 years “983” is expected to last before Colorado needs a sixth area code. Seriously? Will we even have phones in 25 years?

“Area code” feels like an old-fashioned term. I associate area codes with the physical act of “dialing” (also an old-fashioned term). Sure, we need area codes to establish new numbers the first time we get smartphones (as preschoolers?) but then they become more labels than three-digit numbers, don’t they? Think about it. If you need to call someone these days, forget about their area code because you already have it in their profile. You either tell your phone to call the person or you pull them up in “Contacts” and simply touch the number on the screen. In other words, your phone dials the area code but you do not. Not anymore.

Before smartphones, area codes had more prestige. They were required to make “long-distance” phone calls, which meant you had to dial an extra three digits. Outside of toll-free numbers, area codes conjured up exotic destinations, as if dialing halfway around the world instead of somewhere else in your state. Area codes made you feel like you were calling someone important. Today, they’re just labels.

If I really wanted to date myself, I could be talking about telephone exchange numbers instead of area codes. KLondike, WRigley, and TEmpleton all referred to the central offices of telephone exchanges, with every phone number in an exchange starting with the first two letters of the central office. PEnnsylvania 6-5000 was a memorable example because it connected you with the famous Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City, and Glenn Miller made the number into a popular swing jazz tune in the 1940s. I wasn’t around in the 1940s (or even the 1950s), so enough with this topic.

Let’s flush “dialing” out of conversations about phones, shall we? Nobody “dials” anymore. Dialing (for you preschoolers) hearkens back to a time when phones were phones. You picked up the corded “handset” from the “cradle” on the “base”, nestled it against your jaw so the “receiver” lined up with the ear and the “microphone” with the mouth, toggled the “switchhook” for “dial tone”, and placed a call by spinning the rotary dial once for each digit in the phone number (got all that, kids?) The dial would rotate back to its original position after each digit so you could dial the next one. The whole process took 30-45 seconds, followed by a long pause, and then the “ringer” sounded on the receiving phone. With that in mind, do you take the ease of your smartphone touchscreen for granted? Of course you do.

[Author’s Note: The mechanics of rotary phones (base, dial, ringer, handset) made them HEAVY. You can find movies from the 1940s or 1950s where a character uses a rotary phone as a weapon simply by clocking someone over the head with it.]

Dialing eventually gave way to “touch-tones” (thanks to the invention of the transistor). The rotary dial was replaced with a grid of plastic pushbuttons, one for each digit. Yes, we still “dialed” area codes but with buttons instead. The buttons then migrated from the phone base to the handset. The handset then went cordless. Finally, the base disappeared altogether, and voila! – you had the first “mobile” phone.

Area codes make me nostalgic because I associate them with actual phone calls, one voice talking to another. Today we’d sooner text than talk. Delivered mail to your box on the street isn’t long for this world. One of these days it’ll be curtains for phone calls as well. Which re-begs the question about Denver’s latest area code. Do we really need bright and shiny-new “983”?

Phone calls of the future may simply be mind games where we’re able to “ring” each other brain-to-brain. A little far-fetched, you say? Probably, and the idea of thought control makes me squeamish anyway. Call it old-fashioned, but I hope we’re still talking about area codes in 25 years after all.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #19

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Today’s section of the symphony was short and entirely predictable. Bag #19 – of 21 bags of pieces – assembled the rest of the piano’s top lid, shown completed in the photos below. I simply picked up where I left off from last week’s Bag #18, continuing to build up the “wall” of the lid until it was complete. It’s a repetitive process using pieces of similar sizes and shapes. Now, all we are left with – my patient audience members – is the support structure of the piano lid (so it can be raised to its very elegant angle when open), and the free-standing pianist’s bench.

Today’s build took less than twenty minutes. (I could’ve built Bag #20 as well, but why change my weekly pace this late in the game?) As I was finishing the piano lid it occurred to me using Mr. Instruction Manual is a lot like using sheet music. You shift your eyes between the manual and the piano itself constantly as you work, step-by-step-by-step. Just as you would when playing the piano from a sheet of music.

Running Build Time: 13.3 hours. Musical accompaniment: Brahams’ Violin Concerto in D. Leftover pieces: None again!

Conductor’s Note: Johannes Brahms had to be included in the list of musical accompaniments for my Lego Grand Piano build because, well, he’s one of the “bigs” in classical music. His Violin Concerto in D Major sits on Germany’s Mount Rushmore of violin concertos, beside Beethoven’s, Mendelssohn’s, and Max Bruch’s. You, however, know Brahms best for his beloved lullaby “Cradle Song”, which starts “Lullaby, and goodnight, with roses bedight…”

Mixed Messages

My dad called the other day for a chat, but not before letting me know my answering machine was full. Since he couldn’t leave a message he just called over and over ’til I finally picked up. But here’s the thing: I don’t have any messages on my answering machine. It’s not full at all. So after the call I said to my wife, “Dad’s almost 92. I’ll forgive him a little confusion now and then. Probably mixed me up with one of my brothers.”

Do you still have a landline in your house, the one with a bulky handset and built-in answering machine? If you do, it’s tethered to the wall with wires, which then connect to a march of telephone poles outside (more wires), which eventually route your call to wherever it needs to go. Imagine – in a world of wireless – a phone call with a physical connection from one end all the way to the other. It’s positively antique.

[Random thought: once the world is fully wireless what’ll we do with all those telephone poles. Caber toss, anyone?]

Go ahead and mock my out-land-ish outdated phone – at least I don’t have a party line. Back in the day, if you lived in the sticks you shared a single physical line with your neighbors. You were a “party” of subscribers who often found themselves talking over each other (“crosstalk”) or connected to the wrong party at the other end. Party lines it is said, were the birthplace of gossip.

The reason I stubbornly cling to my landline is probably not the same as yours. I keep my landline exclusively for those calls with my dad (er, and to divert telemarketers from my smartphone). My dad can’t hear very well so anything wireless is a challenge, especially when you get the occasional syncing issue in the conversation. On a landline Dad hears LOUD and CLEAR… even if he doesn’t always acknowledge what I say. Are his calls worth the monthly subscription fee? He’s 92! You bet they are.

Now let me ask you this. How often do you call your own phone number? Why would you? Pick up the phone and you get dial tone – all good. Set the answering machine to “on” so people can leave messages – even better. Except when they can’t. Let’s suppose – “hypothetically” – your phone company redirects your phone number to a random voicemail box. And that mailbox is already full. How would you know? Only if you called your own phone number, right? Or, only if the one person who calls you (“hypothetically” your dad) insists he can’t leave a message.

Damn. Dad was right after all.

Here’s the best part. I can’t even call my phone company to fix the problem. Why? Because I “bundled”. You know, where you combine TV, Internet, wireless, landline, and whatever else you have so they’re all billed and serviced through a single provider? Mis-take. Try calling your satellite TV provider to ask about landline phone service. After you explain what a landline IS, the young person at the far end transfers you to a “specialist” (someone much older who actually understands landlines). That person acts as intermediary between you and the phone company. There’s a lot of, “Can I put you on hold for a sec?” and, “You still there? and, “Hold tight, we’re still working on it” and even the occasional, “You did say this was a landline, right? Y’know, you really should get rid of your landline…”.

Long story short, it took me the better part of a week but now my dad can leave messages on my answering machine again. He also says I should listen to my father more often. (For younger readers, this is an excellent example of “eating crow”. Look it up.)

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) – the English band of the ’70’s who somehow fused pop, rock, and classical – had their biggest U.S. hit with Telephone Line. Its final verse begins, “Okay… so no one’s answering. Well can’t you just let it ring a little longer, longer, longer?” No ELO, I can’t let it ring a little longer – the phone company rerouted my number to a full voicemail box.

But hey, thanks for calling.

Cause for Alarms

A headline in this morning’s news feed announced , “Flaming Condoms are the Newest Threat to Southern Israel!” Just wanted you to be aware.

Now that I have your attention, let’s turn to a timelier topic. Big Ben, the iconic clock and tower at the north end of London’s Palace of Westminster, has been silent for almost a year now. In case you missed the news, Ben’s Great Bell and Quarter Chimes no longer toll – for another three years in fact – while much-needed repairs are made to the clock mechanics behind his massive face. At least the damage was simply wear-and-tear, and not the result of flaming condoms.

For Londoners, I have to believe the muting of Big Ben took some getting used to. Imagine, heard on miles of city streets, the Great Bell bonging every hour on the hour, and the Quarter Chimes playing every fifteen minutes (a stuck-in-your-head repeating melody of twenty notes). Now take all that away; replaced by uncomfortable silence. I’m sure city-dwellers subconsciously depended on Ben to remind them they had, say, thirty minutes to get to the office, or fifteen minutes left in the lunch hour, or no minutes before church (better start running). How will these people cope for the next three years?

In the absence of Ben, Londoners surely turn to alarm clocks more than they used to. Not comfortable relying on their own senses (or the sun’s position in the sky), the English probably carry “Baby Ben’s” if you will – whether mobile phones or other portable devices. I expect the additional chorus of beeps and chimes and other musical bites make a ride on the Tube even more enjoyable, as you’re left to wonder whether your neighbor’s getting a phone call or simply late for an appointment.

Alarms have come a long way since the basic digital LED box-clocks of old. I wish those old bedside Ben’s were gone forever, but a visit to any Walmart or Radio Shack proves they’re more prevalent than ever. My wife used to own one of the more potent models – with an enhhh…enhhh…ENHHH screech capable of levitating me out of a deep sleep, my pulse racing faster than an Indy car. I’ll hear that murderous alarm even after I’m six feet under.

Today – mercifully – we have several alarm clocks designed not so much to levitate but rather to ameliorate your transition into the conscious world. Beddi – a “designer smart-clock” – is a sleek enough bedside companion. Along with charging your phone, Beddi controls the dawning of your bedroom lights or the gradual amplification of your favorite playlist or even the pleasing aroma of your coffeemaker. You choose how you wish to wake up.

Kello is the spitting image of a toaster, but it’s really a partner for your body clock, with sleep-training modes to wake you a little earlier each day, or guided breathing exercises to help you nod off faster each night. Kello also offers music in place of an alarm and can restrict the number of times you can whack the snooze button.

Some people demand a little more, uh – torture – to get themselves up and out of bed. Ruggie is exactly what it sounds like – an innocent-looking rug placed just to the side of the bed. Ruggie is all about blasting music in louder and louder bursts, and the only way to shut the blessed thing up is to stand – full body-weight – atop of its fleeced surface for at least thirty seconds. Then there’s Pavlok, a wearable alarm clock programmed via smart phone app. Pavlok begins with a beep or a vibration (my advice – get up NOW) – but left to its own “devices” matures into a pulsing, zapping electric shock when you still don’t respond. Pavlok is also happy to electrocute for trivial pursuits like biting your nails, smoking, or too much time on the Web.

Don’t know about you, but I have no interest in meeting Pavlok’s inventor. Mr. Shock Clock is one messed-up sadistic soul, and probably has a host of other torture devices at the ready. Like flaming condoms.

Office Space Capsule

Yesterday I was thinking about my dorm-room desk from the mid-eighties. On it sat the following essentials: a typewriter, a desk lamp, a month-to-month calendar, a clock-radio, a family photo or two, a few pieces of mail, and the latest edition of the campus newspaper. In the desk drawers I could find a small selection of pens, pencils and highlighters, a stack of spiral-bound notebooks, some textbooks, a calculator, stationery (including envelopes and stamps), a copy of the “Yellow Pages”, my camera, my checkbook, and a few menus from nearby restaurants. Dorm-room desks were solid, but my “office supplies” probably doubled the weight. They were my band of brothers, helping wage battle on that ever-elusive college degree.

If I recreate that same desk setup today, I would lug a huge box into my home office (bend the knees so you don’t hurt your back), drop slowly into my chair, reach into the box, and first pull out… a smartphone. I’d set it in the middle of the vast empty space of my desktop, reach into the box again, and pull out… nothing else. Whoa. My entire college setup has been condensed into the confines of a shiny 2″ x 5″ silicon wafer.

I forgot to mention the “telephone”. My college provided a wired phone with the room – (one of those fancy new touch-tone models – ha). Since my roommate and I positioned our desks to face each other, the phone straddled both desks. That way either one of us could reach the corded handset when all those girls would call (okay, I think that was a fictional memory boost).

Sadly, only a few of my college-era office supplies have survived the advent of technology. I have family photos on my desk, but they’re in the form of a digital frame, scrolling every several seconds. I have pens and pencils in the top drawer, but I only seem to need them for my signature. Finally, I have a wall calendar, but I really only glance at the monthly photos (of my college campus, ironically). Heck, I don’t even need my desk. I can just sit back in my chair with my smartphone and choose any item or activity I was geared for in college.

The convenience of having a desk’s worth of productivity inside a smartphone comes with a drawback. It is the convenience itself. When I woke up in the morning in college, my first thought was breakfast; not sitting down to the various tasks at my desk. In today’s world, we wake up to the instant access and undeniable craving for Facebook and text and email. The capsule may be slightly larger than those in the pill bottle, but the addiction to the contents can be just as powerful.

Here is my nugget of advice. Take a lesson from my college days and choose breakfast first. Avoid the temptation of the smartphone when you first wake up (and the premature stimulation to blood flow – see this Finnish study). For me, it means simply charging my smartphone within the confines of my home office. This forces the inconvenience of opening the door and considering the several other temptations and distractions of my work. Those can wait – bacon and eggs not so much.