sweasel.com

I’m sorry, you’ll have to speak up, I can’t hear you over these damn ocean waves!

Cell phones use analog[ue] signals to transmit & receive, modern mobile phones are digital[ue?]. I vaguely remember reading that most of the old cellular network is defunct or dismantled. Ah, language.

Nothing to fret about…
hyuckhyuckhyuck

Cell phone be damned! I’m going to have my Cadillac plated with this stuff!

I’m already nacred

What I want to know is how long mobile phones will all be called “cell phones”. As Stark D noted, the term is technically obsolete. A lot of people (mostly outside the US, AFAICT) refer to “a mobile” instead.

OTOH, when a motion picture of an event is recorded, people say it has been “filmed”, and one still sees references to “footage”. Those terms may stay around a long time, as there are no obvious replacements. (“Videotaped” was occasionally used in place of “filmed”, but it’s nearly as obsolete.)

Hmm. Google Ngrams shows “footage” declining a lot after 2004; “filmed” falls off a cliff in 2008 (the last year of data). What are the new terms?

Of course, you realize that one of the first applications will be Mother of Pearl Dildos. Which is going to result in a calamity when they run into someone who still uses vinegar douches……

Yes, I am sick, twisted and Evyl. Just like you want me…

Imagery.

Dude, we still dial phones. How many kids have no idea why?

I have a friend whose old phone number ended in 8090. Fucker took forever to dial on those old rotary phones.

& if you think modern technology is crazy: http://youtu.be/MCgCSMq5Xpo

Actually, I think that would be great if someone put out a working line of gag rotary cell phones…..

In Mother of Pearl!

Ya, just like the ‘Save’ icon looks like a floppy disk…how many kids even know what that is?

Our digital cameras still make shutter snapping sounds. Here in Las Vegas most of the slot machines no longer pay in coins but they play a coin tingling sound when you cash out a ticket. We live in strange times.

Now as for cell phones, I thought the “cell” part referred to the area covered and serviced by each tower. Even if they don’t use analog anymore you’re still being serviced by a network of cells no?

BTW, they really need to work on making that artificial MoP stuff prettier. Something more like this

@stark Dickflussig…when hubby and I were first married, we lived in rural KS and had a party line. We’ve been married 28 years, this was early 80’s and I shit you not about the party line. Our ring was 2 long, 2 short. We would pick up the phone, cough once or twice to wake up the operator and say “can you dial me……..”.

And of course inlays for the instrument of choice. Or grips for your handgun, if you live in a free country.

Actually, I think that would be great if someone put out a working line of gag rotary cell phones…..

https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/96

Sorry, no Mother-of-Pearl option.

When I was a pup, and we were still next to Pinecastle AFB, the party line for our house was 2 long, one short. We had hours of entertainment just picking up the receiver and listening in on what was going on.

Oh, I thought you said mother of pearl calliopes. Which I could go for.

Evil Kiwis Set Up Facebook Race Relations Disaster in Australia

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/contents-removed-from-racist-facebook–page-20120808-23tr1.html

🙂

I hope this experiment will continue giving results.
Jogos de matematica

All mobile telephony, with the exception of satphones, is based on cell technology. The first versions used AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) which was an analogue system using frequency division multiplexing. It morphed into a semi-digital standard using TDMA called D-AMPS. This was superseded in the 90’s by GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications, originally Groupe Spécial Mobile), which was fully digital. Currently 3G technology is based around code division multiple access, which is a spread-spectrum technology allowing a lot more frequency re-use, noise immunity and higher bandwidth. The emerging global standard is UMTS, for universal mobile telecommunications system. 4G will also be some form of CDMA with a multilevel modulation scheme and some exotic antenna diversity scheme like MIMO. But all systems use the idea of a radio cell being the link between the handset and system as a whole. It would probably be most accurate to say that mobile phones are what users employ to access the cellular network.

^AKA “Cellphones”

What about Father of Pearl? A sad tale of a broken family, no doubt…

I’ve become interested lately in phrases that have outlasted their original context. Some of the ones that I’ve noticed recently are:

Not worth candling
Whipped himself into a frenzy
Cut loose
Hobson’s Choice

Oh, and the receptionist actually said “Sweet Mother of Pearl” just now when the printer jammed. Wonder if she knows who Pearl is standing in for?

I’ll sign off now.

Mojo –

I suspect no one is sure who Pearl’s father really is…. but her Mother’s name is Minnie.

😉

That was my mom’s favorite cuss word.

Some Vegetable, I could help with those if you like.

I love “Hobson’s Choice”, meaning “no choice at all”.

Hobson rented horses, and didn’t want customers wandering around and taking forever to choose. So he made them take whichever nag was up front at the time.

Beats walking.

Not worth candling? Haven’t encountered that one. I wonder if it is a corruption of “The game isn’t worth the candle”? And, yes, I do know what “to candle” is.

Nuttier than a fruitcake. (actually, fruitcakes are make with rocks & horse bladders)
Drunk as a skunk. (skunks are muslims & thus shun all forms of alcohol)
Inchoate. (the 14th amendment made it illegal to use horses as draught animals, unless you pay them & horses can’t get ID or vote)

Stark,

After decades of mocking fruitcakes, I actually tried one…the monks at The Jampot make the most sinfully delicious fruitcakes and rum cakes. I am a convert to…the pastry. Bring on the horse bladders!

Honestly, the best fruitcake I ever had was still far too sweet for my palate. A horse bladder filled with oats & barley & slow roasted might be pretty good, though.

“not worth candeling” come from the method by with people determine weather an egg is fertilized and how far along a chick might be. cracked or small eggs with never hatch and aren’t worth candeling.

A phrase I’ve always loved and pondered the etymology oft an eve at closing time is:

“Drunker than Cooter Brown”

Anybody ever actually met good ol’ Cooter? Seems like my kinda guy as I get compared to him so often.

🙂

Bob Mulroy, yes, I got that, but, see, it doesn’t seem to be very common in print. If you Google the phrase “not worth candling” and the phrase “not worth the candle,” well, see for yourself: http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=not+worth+candling%2C+not+worth+the+candle&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
If you Google “not worth candling” by itself, it is a total flatline.

I’m not suggesting it isn’t a real idiom; but I can’t help but think that it was a back-formation from “game not worth the candle,” influenced by the other idiom.

I hear “Well, I’ll swan…” a lot around these parts. Only from grey haired women over 70, though.

It might be Flatt and Scruggs’ Pearl. An all time favorite lyric:

Pearl, Pearl, Pearl, come be my loving girl
Don’t you marry Lester Flatt, He slicks his hair with possum fat
Change your name to Mrs. Earl Scruggs

🙂

Our ring was a long and a short. We still have the rotary phone. My nieces’ friends couldn’t figure out how to use it…..

What a very interesting tool.

The ngram viewer? Agreed–thank you Stoaty for introducing me to it some time back; I end up using it almost daily.

Feynmangroupie: …the monks at The Jampot make the most sinfully delicious fruitcakes and rum cakes.

Heh… I passed by the Jampot a few weeks ago – did not get a fruitcake. Maybe next year.