Archive for the Cell Phones Category

“Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” Revisited:  The “Fondle Slab” Enslaves Us All (January 28, 2019)

Posted in Apple, Banks and Banking System, Cell Phones, Credit Unions, Privacy, Technology on January 28, 2019 by e-commentary.org

. . .

X          “We are doing it to ourselves.  The ‘Chip’ is not even implanted; the ‘Card’ is never discarded.  The ‘Chip’ and the ‘Card’ are consolidated into the ‘Fondle Slab’ we call our Cell Phone, our electronic love machine.”

Y          “The Cell Phone is a hard ‘Card’ embedded with the ‘Chip’ and cherished and adored as the most important possession and appendage of each and every subject.”

X          “The ‘Fondle Slab’ is the first thing we scramble for in the morning, the constant companion we clutch and caress throughout the day, and the last thing we embrace at night.”

Y          “They can access and assess the pictures we take and see who and what we saw and what we did and where we were when we took the pictures.  Who, what, when, where . . . and surely why.  And without asking us or paying us.”        

X          “We pass on buying infant formula to pay for the Slab.”

Y          “The enemy has been met.”

. . .

[See the article “Holding U.S. Treasurys?  Beware: Uncle Sam Can’t Account For $21 Trillion” in “Forbes” magazine by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff dated January 9, 2019 and an acknowledgement of his and Professor Mark Skidmore’s pioneering work looking behind the curtain at dodgy government accounting at “Third Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (October 8, 2018)”.]

[See the article discussing excessive spending and trust betrayed by J. Mark Watters and Sarah Vega with the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) titled “A $450 dinner, $45 whisky: Political appointee, aide ring up the expenses” in “The Washington Post” by Robert O’Harrow, Jr. dated January 19, 2019.]

[See the e-commentary at “Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” and “The Mandibles, FRNs, SDRs, IMF, G20, WTD! (September 5, 2016)”.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Big Brother in a little box

We have met . . .

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Cell Phones On The Line Again (August 24, 2009)

Posted in Cell Phones, Health Care on August 24, 2009 by e-commentary.org

Some suggest that implanting a cell phone against the side of one’s head may produce brain tumors in the intermediate run.  Try this.  Place a cell phone next to the computer speakers and dial a call.  The speakers hum like a Geiger counter.  Something does not seem right.  Enough studies are raising concerns.  Will the cell phone enter the pantheon of pernicious products along with lead paint and asbestos brakes?

The remedy is cheap.  Cheap remedies are appealing.  Use an ear piece and keep the cell phone away from the brain.  And all the while you look like a secret agent or an international spy.

Bumper stickers of the week:

A word to the wise; a few words to the less wise

This is your brain on a cell phone

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Less Government Regulation Series: Cell Phones And Driving (August 10, 2009)

Posted in Cell Phones, Less Government Regulation Series on August 10, 2009 by e-commentary.org

Her left hand skillfully dangled a glowing butt just outside the window at such an angle that the slipstream did not extinguish it.  Her right hand clutched a cup of java, an eyeliner brush and the cell phone.  Her eyes appeared glued to the rear view mirror and to the task of gluing plaster to her eye lashes.  All the while negotiating a civilian urban assault vehicle at just under 35 miles an hour while merging into or possibly colliding with traffic.  Unless her knees had fingers, who was at the wheel of the four wheeled beast?  She managed to muster an outwardly friendly smile and another hand to wave thanks to the drivers diving into the ditch and median.  Quite a performance.

Bastante; Enough.

Self interest is not acting as a governor of bad behavior.  The Feds should step in and ban all cell phone usage and texting by the driver of any vehicle on any road at any time.  If a person is caught using a cell phone, the cell phone should be confiscated immediately and be subject to forfeiture or a payment of a $500 fine to obtain its release.  Drivers will continue to eat, sleep, crochet, change diapers, hit the kids, work on crossword puzzles, perform open heart surgery, etc. while driving.  However, cell phone usage is so widespread and dangerous and so easy to detect and deter that we as a society need to ban the use of cell phones in vehicles by the driver immediately.

Bumper stickers of the week:

Hang up and drive

This morning in the interstate I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a brand new Cadillac with her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner.  I looked away for a couple seconds.  When I looked back she was halfway over in my lane still working on that makeup.  As a man, I do not scare easily, but she scared me so much that I dropped my electric shaver which knocked the doughnut out of my hand.  In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, my cell phone got knocked away from my ear, which feel into the coffee between my legs, ruined the damn phone, soaked my trousers and disconnected an important call.  Damn women drivers.

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