Rise of the cell phone

[Hawkmoon]

I was in Big Bend National Park for a few days last month. In much of the park, cell coverage was nonexistent. The lodge DID have WiFi you could use for talk and text. I found out my lady friend's IPhone could pick it up about 75 yards further away than my Samsung phone would.

About 30 years ago I dropped AT&T as my cell carrier because AT&T didn't give me any signal at my house, or in several areas around the town where I live. Verizon did. It was only a very few years ago (just before the pandemic) when I had to make weekly visits to two project sites in the northeast corner of my home state. There are no cities in that corner; it's referred to as the "quiet corner." There's also very sparse cellular coverage. I had no signal at all at one site, and at the other site I could get one or two bars in a stepped out of the field office and walked about 20 yards south. The guys with AT&T didn't have it any better on either site.

Verizon coverage map: https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/

AT&T coverage map: https://www.att.com/maps/wireless-coverage.html

[JTHunter]

Most people I see having conversations over Bluetooth earbuds are white. Now those having the loudest and lively animated ones are usually black.

When I see a PoC on their phones, they are frequently holding it flat in front of their face and talking (usually too loudly) with NO buds so we are hearing BOTH sides of the conversation.   

[Cliffh]

I make at least 4 calls a day, all of them using a Bluetooth ear bud.  They could use my legs as the standard in "how white is it?" tests.

[MechAg94]

When I see a PoC on their phones, they are frequently holding it flat in front of their face and talking (usually too loudly) with NO buds so we are hearing BOTH sides of the conversation.   

I see people playing stuff on their phone or talking to someone here and there.  It is kids the majority of the time.  The parents have them watching something on the phone while they talk.
 Thankfully, phone speakers normally don't carry a long ways and are easy for me to tune out. 

For myself, I am watching youtube stuff on my phone pretty much every lunch break.  I use ear buds.  But I can listen to something on my phone while walking and looking where I am going.

[MechAg94]

On the reception issue these days:  On the routes I normally drive (central Texas and the coast), I can get good enough reception most places to watch youtube.  I occasionally drive through dead zones, but normally Youtube buffers enough I may not even notice unless I choose the wrong time to start a new video. 

It wasn't that long ago the only choices were CD's or FM/AM radio.  Now it is mostly something like a 2 hour Drachinifel video or some livestream.  There are a number of SciFi short story channels also.  I did finally get a bunch of my CD's ripped to mp3's for my phone so music is back on the menu. 

[Ben]

It wasn't that long ago the only choices were CD's or FM/AM radio.

I saw an image the other day that cracked me up. It was regarding people of my age group and why we're so cranky. It's because we had to trade in our record collections for cassettes, then trade those in for CDs, then trade those in for MP3s, then still had to sign up for music subscriptions, and now everybody that's hip is listening to records again. 

Of note, I may be cranky for other reasons, as I still have and listen to like 80% of the record collection I started in Junior High through High School. I actually didn't buy many cassettes, as I just recorded my albums to blank tapes. I do still have a shitload of CDs.

[MechAg94]

I grew up in the 80's.  Records were the old format by the time I bought anything.  I had a number of cassettes, but not that many.  Once I had a CD player in the truck, cassettes went away.  I think portable and vehicle CD's players got a lot better in the 90's (no skipping) and cassettes fell off fast.

I have never really understood the appeal of records.  I am sure some people like the analog sound.  When I was a kid, records always had a lot of background static and CD's were as good as the original recording.  I guess it depends on how good the digital transfer is for mp3 files.

[Brad Johnson]

I do still have a shitload of CDs.

As do I. Few years back I took the time to rip them all. Turned out to be an excellent time investment. Lets me set up flash drives for the vehicles in a snap, plus generally being a lot more convenient to find something than going through a closet full of CDs. It also lets me back up everything so that if the CDs start to degrade, I still have the music.

Brad

[Ben]

I have never really understood the appeal of records.  I am sure some people like the analog sound.  When I was a kid, records always had a lot of background static and CD's were as good as the original recording.  I guess it depends on how good the digital transfer is for mp3 files.

For me it's nostalgia. Most of my "everyday music" is coming from my phone or Kindle Fire, or some USB drives that have various music on them (like ripped CDs, similar to Brad). However I occasionally like to listen to some of my old music on albums. Including old German albums I found that my parents had from back in the 50s. Those are just really cool for me to listen to, scratches and all. They bring back a lot of memories of Sunday afternoons when I was a kid.

[Kingcreek]

I just ordered 2 new iPhone 16s on my business account. No service contract. Free to change month by month. Our iPhone 8 Plus work just fine but it’s one of my last business expenses.
Retired sept 27 but trailing out some accounts receivable to Dec 31st.
I need to spend some time organizing music. I need a vinyl to digital pathway and some cd to digital also.

[Ben]

I need to spend some time organizing music. I need a vinyl to digital pathway and some cd to digital also.

There's actually some pretty inexpensive USB turntables that will capture your records to MP3. I have one of those old-timey 1940s looking wood cabinets that's phono/CD/radio/USB and it's a one button transfer from an album to a USB drive.

For CDs, I just ripped them all on my confuser. One thing I really found helpful after ripping was running the entire folder of ripped songs through MP3Gain to normalize volume and avoid having to fiddle with volume controls on playtlist of songs from different CDs, where one song would be super loud, and the other one very low volume. MP3Gain has a batch setting to make it one click.

[HeroHog]

We have some 400+ CDs and DVDs here.