3 ms·

I don't. That sounds like an anti-solution, i.e., something that seems to solve a problem, doesn't, but does create new ones. Is there a real problem that it

by cxr 6y ago

I don't. That sounds like an anti-solution, i.e., something that seems to solve a problem, doesn't, but does create new ones. Is there a real problem that it does solve? Is there a geographic/cultural aspect to it?

dheera 6y ago
Interrupted sleep, and sleeping next to an EM radiation source. I don't care what they say, cell phones haven't been around long enough for us to know whether or not there are long term effects. Also I tend to charge my phone during the daytime so at night I just put it in airplane mode to conserve batteries and make sure it can pull itself through the night to be able to sound the alarm in the morning. The charging port on my phone is busted and the cable needs to be jiggled every now and then, so it's not feasible to charge it reliably at night. Thanks, USB-C, for your horrible, non-rugged design that can't get through 3 years of use.
- copperx 6y ago
  Because EM radiation follows the inverse square law, placing your phone 3-6 feet away from your bed should decrease the radiation enough to make such concerns moot. And if you place it on airplane mode and then turn on WiFi (assuming you have WiFi calling), then you both save battery and make radiation insignificant.
  - dheera 6y ago
    > Because EM radiation follows the inverse square law Unfortunately sound follows the inverse square law as well, and alarms don't wake me up when they are 6 feet away.
    - em-bee 6y ago
      can you increase the volume of the alarm? it should be possible to make it loud enough so you can hear it across the room
    - zaarn 6y ago
      There should be no concern with your phone being 1 meter or less away from you. Even at full wattage, a phone transceiver will give off around 100mW, in most realistic scenarios it will be less than a tenth of that. Even if you used the maximum band power of 1 watt, that isn't really enough to do anything. At rest your body will produce about 80 Watts of heat energy, which is a much higher frequency than what your phone gives off and hence has much more energy per quanta. Also keep in mind that 1 Watt is going in all directions, at best you cover half the hemisphere and even assuming phone manufacturers aren't optimizing for phones to radiate away because that gives better reception at lower power, you'd be getting half a watt of energy from a device going maximum transmit power. A standard phone will likely give you less than 5mW of energy dosage. The most that your phone can do is warm up your ear a bit if you put it under your pillow. By an amount that is likely to be not measurable with modern equipment. And before noting about ionizing radiation; phones aren't high enough frequency or power to really do that at any appreciable level. Only high frequencies are capable of ionizing since it requires an atom receiving a certain amount of energy per quantum, and the energy per quantum is only related to the frequency, not the transmit power.
      - bipson 6y ago
        That and does GP have a WiFi router a few meters from the bedroom, which they always unplug at night (disclaimer: I used to do that). And the clock next to the bed? Battery or socket? You also cannot unplug all of your neighbours routers, TVs and other devices. It is very easy to get paranoid about specific wireless technologies, it is almost impossible nowadays to avoid "electrosmog" or particularly wireless emitters entirely though.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ghaff 6y ago
I have absolutely gotten very late night calls in Europe when I've been traveling, mostly SPAM, some wrong numbers, but also idiot people at my company which could have been dealt with using a text or email. (Haven't actually gotten the latter for a while; people don't randomly call someone outside of specific circumstances at this point.) My contacts go through, there's the call twice workaround, and honestly I'm from a period when you just couldn't always reach someone immediately and I'm fine with that.
- cxr 6y ago
  > I'm from a period when you just couldn't always reach someone immediately Sure, me too, but that's exactly where I'm coming from when I ask. It's the same set of sensibilities that says that if there's going to be a call in the middle of the night, it's probably for a good reason. I would think we'd have to fast forward from there to reach the place that views regularly taking the phone off the hook as the natural solution, due to e.g. jadedness/cynicism/etc.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I'd definitely be open to an argument that it may be reasonable to DND my phone when I'm traveling to Europe/Asia but not otherwise especially given that I no longer have a landline. In fact, given that isn't happening anytime soon maybe I'll turn it off. (I have very few notifications on anyway.)
austhrow743 6y ago
The real problem it's solving is people living different lifestyles and existing in different timezones, wanting to talk to each other on the phone, and not wanting their work or sleep interrupted.

by cxr 6y ago

dheera 6y ago

Interrupted sleep, and sleeping next to an EM radiation source. I don't care what they say, cell phones haven't been around long enough for us to know whether or not there are long term effects. Also I tend to charge my phone during the daytime so at night I just put it in airplane mode to conserve batteries and make sure it can pull itself through the night to be able to sound the alarm in the morning. The charging port on my phone is busted and the cable needs to be jiggled every now and then, so it's not feasible to charge it reliably at night. Thanks, USB-C, for your horrible, non-rugged design that can't get through 3 years of use.

copperx 6y ago
Because EM radiation follows the inverse square law, placing your phone 3-6 feet away from your bed should decrease the radiation enough to make such concerns moot. And if you place it on airplane mode and then turn on WiFi (assuming you have WiFi calling), then you both save battery and make radiation insignificant.
- dheera 6y ago
  > Because EM radiation follows the inverse square law Unfortunately sound follows the inverse square law as well, and alarms don't wake me up when they are 6 feet away.
  - em-bee 6y ago
    can you increase the volume of the alarm? it should be possible to make it loud enough so you can hear it across the room
  - zaarn 6y ago
    There should be no concern with your phone being 1 meter or less away from you. Even at full wattage, a phone transceiver will give off around 100mW, in most realistic scenarios it will be less than a tenth of that. Even if you used the maximum band power of 1 watt, that isn't really enough to do anything. At rest your body will produce about 80 Watts of heat energy, which is a much higher frequency than what your phone gives off and hence has much more energy per quanta. Also keep in mind that 1 Watt is going in all directions, at best you cover half the hemisphere and even assuming phone manufacturers aren't optimizing for phones to radiate away because that gives better reception at lower power, you'd be getting half a watt of energy from a device going maximum transmit power. A standard phone will likely give you less than 5mW of energy dosage. The most that your phone can do is warm up your ear a bit if you put it under your pillow. By an amount that is likely to be not measurable with modern equipment. And before noting about ionizing radiation; phones aren't high enough frequency or power to really do that at any appreciable level. Only high frequencies are capable of ionizing since it requires an atom receiving a certain amount of energy per quantum, and the energy per quantum is only related to the frequency, not the transmit power.
    - bipson 6y ago
      That and does GP have a WiFi router a few meters from the bedroom, which they always unplug at night (disclaimer: I used to do that). And the clock next to the bed? Battery or socket? You also cannot unplug all of your neighbours routers, TVs and other devices. It is very easy to get paranoid about specific wireless technologies, it is almost impossible nowadays to avoid "electrosmog" or particularly wireless emitters entirely though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ghaff 6y ago

I have absolutely gotten very late night calls in Europe when I've been traveling, mostly SPAM, some wrong numbers, but also idiot people at my company which could have been dealt with using a text or email. (Haven't actually gotten the latter for a while; people don't randomly call someone outside of specific circumstances at this point.) My contacts go through, there's the call twice workaround, and honestly I'm from a period when you just couldn't always reach someone immediately and I'm fine with that.

cxr 6y ago
> I'm from a period when you just couldn't always reach someone immediately Sure, me too, but that's exactly where I'm coming from when I ask. It's the same set of sensibilities that says that if there's going to be a call in the middle of the night, it's probably for a good reason. I would think we'd have to fast forward from there to reach the place that views regularly taking the phone off the hook as the natural solution, due to e.g. jadedness/cynicism/etc.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I'd definitely be open to an argument that it may be reasonable to DND my phone when I'm traveling to Europe/Asia but not otherwise especially given that I no longer have a landline. In fact, given that isn't happening anytime soon maybe I'll turn it off. (I have very few notifications on anyway.)

austhrow743 6y ago

The real problem it's solving is people living different lifestyles and existing in different timezones, wanting to talk to each other on the phone, and not wanting their work or sleep interrupted.