One Cell to Rule them all
I headed down to OSCON a few weeks ago, both to enjoy the conference and meet up with many of the people I have talked online with with phpBB. Douglas Bell, the lead host of the excellent phpBB podcast phpBB Weekly was able to organize an OSCONvasion, the largest phpBB meetup in the United States.
I headed out after work Wednesday, and as most of my trips start, it was already off on a bad foot; I left my cell phone at home. Luckily, I had purchased a netbook specifically for this trip, a Eee PC 1005HA. With it’s bluetooth capabilities, I was able to get a headset and use skype as my phone for the entire conference.
This was obviously not ideal, but made me realize how much we depend on our cell phones. I could not accept incoming calls (well, I could through a chain of Google voice -> Gizmo -> Skype, but I did not have my netbook on all the time). I had none of my contacts. I was almost completely stranded.
I’ve heard the elder generations discuss how they didn’t have cell phones when they were young, but I wonder how they were able to deal with so little communication, non constant. How were parents able to cope?
Well, enough about my random rant.