The Blog is fascinated to hear about Mobile Phone Jammers which are now very popular in the US, although completely illegal. Handheld devices as small as a cigarette packet can be used to cut off a call at the click of a button. They would be perfect for ICIS conferences and EPL after-dinner speeches, not to mention train journeys, cinemas, concerts and school meetings. And today I read that there is now a conspiracy theory that it was the use of jammers that brought down the British Airways plane from Beijing which crashed at London Heathrow on Friday.
(Photo from coolgadgetszone.com)
This line is interesting: "The cell phone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights." Actually, I think the cell phone talker is often simply oblivious. Some don't care what other people think, but many others can't even imagine that others would be bothered--they're completely insensitive to noise. The jammer, on the other hand, is a passive-aggressive type who is certainly arrogant, although he has too little character simply to ask the talker to lower his voice. I'm tempted to place these people on a spectrum with those who put pipe bombs in trash cans, despite the fact that I, too, can't stand loud talking on cell phones. Me, I carry ear plugs, essential for modern city life. An mp3 player with noise-isolating headphones also helps.