NPR has an interesting and fun article on their website today titled Pay Phones Are Suddenly Important Again Because Of Sandy. The article is fun because of a typo – and as NPR may well catch the typo and revise the text before you read it – here is what the caption currently says under the photo on the NPR technology page – as of 9:55 EST Saturday morning (11-3-12) it reads: “As some New Yorkers try to stay connected with others, they’ve had to search for pay phones because their cellphones have run out of juice. Question: When was the last time you sued a pay phone?”
Now I don’t know about anyone else but I can’t honestly say that I have ever sued a pay phone.
I’ve never encountered a pay phone that was threatening in any way or in the least bit obnoxious or condescending.
The worst that can be said of any pay phones that I have ever encountered is that I occasionally encountered one that didn’t work or was one that was inconvenient located on the other side of the street.
However, I have never sued a pay phone! How about you?
Here is the link to the NPR Technology page with its charming “sue a pay phone” caption:
http://www.npr.org/sections/technology/
And pasted below is the link to the article itself – which is interesting as it illustrates the point that technological advancement has sped up and really changed our lives in last ten years. And indeed, I can’t remember the last time I used a pay phone but I’d guess it was back in the pre-cell phone days of the 1990s.
And as much as I love technology I do have to say Hurricane and then Storm Sandy gave me pause; because, like many people I didn’t even have a battery operated radio in the house – and if the power had gone out in the City of Corning I’d really have been in the dark.
I do think we should all purchase battery operated radios (and change the batteries in them when we put new batteries in our smoke detectors) and pick up a copy of The New Way Things Work book by David Macaulay just in case we need to operate without electricity for any length of time!
Have a great day!
Linda R.
And as a post script – since that NPR article on cell phone usage in New York City after Hurricane Sandy was rather brief – albeit humorous – here’s a link to a longer New York Times article on the same subject titled Cellphone Users Steaming at Hit-or-Miss Service:
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 