[HN Gopher] Using a Pager in the 21st Century
___________________________________________________________________
Using a Pager in the 21st Century
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 113 points
Date : 2021-05-02 14:23 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dmitryelj.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (dmitryelj.medium.com)
| minimuffins wrote:
| I honestly thought this was going to be about alternatives to
| less and more.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| There's the Internet Archive for old pages (though it's not
| guaranteed to have them of course).
| mike_d wrote:
| Do you have a link?
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| A link for what ?
|
| I'm commenting about :
|
| > Alas, many pages and links, created 20 years ago, are now
| not available -- a well known "link rot" problem occurs when
| it's going about things made 20 years ago.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I'm guessing that 7-bit means ASCII with no Unicode support ?
| (What about pagers with non-latin alphabets ?)
| andrewshadura wrote:
| I'm not sure about 7-bit or 8-bit, but e.g. my NEC pager
| supported full uppercase ASCII and, in addition, a full set of
| uppercase Cyrillic. Could have been KOI-7, but then some of the
| punctuation symbols would be missing, so I reckon it was
| actually using an 8-bit encoding underneath, e.g. KOI-8.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| The article shows "(7 bit/symbol)", but I guess that some
| pagers were more advanced ?
| zabzonk wrote:
| > In the 90th
|
| What does that mean?
|
| The only time I've had to use a pager was to support a static
| data server for an investment bank (partly written by me) which
| was used by London, Tokyo, HK and NY. Being woken up in the
| middle of the night I could take (grumpily) but logging on to the
| bank's systems from home was a thing of Byzantine horror. Anyway,
| we re-wrote the scripts to page someone who would be at the desk
| in the appropriate timezone, and all they normally had to do was
| the classic "turn it off and on again" reboot of the server, or
| phone one of us in London in extremis.
| vageli wrote:
| It seems a typo for "In the 90s".
| jedimastert wrote:
| I'm guess they meant to say "90s"
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| supernova87a wrote:
| One issue he doesn't talk about is that the sender can never for
| sure know that the pager received the message.
|
| At one point I was interested to know if there were versions of
| the paging technology (for some critical application?) that tried
| to solve this by issuing multiple redundant messages over some
| amount of time, and the pager ignoring the redundant ones after
| the 1st one had been received?
|
| Also would be interesting to hear how the many companies "divided
| up" cities, etc. to create a network.
|
| I remember there used to be some convoluted way of dialing into a
| pager service and keying the numbers/text that you wanted to be
| shown on the recipient's screen, but have long forgotten it.
| markrages wrote:
| > At one point I was interested to know if there were versions
| of the paging technology (for some critical application?) that
| tried to solve this by issuing multiple redundant messages over
| some amount of time, and the pager ignoring the redundant ones
| after the 1st one had been received?
|
| This is in fact how pagers work.
| croes wrote:
| "That's it. It's a one-way communication, there is no
| confirmation sending back, the pager has only the receiver and
| no transmitter at all." Implies the issue of not knowing if the
| message is received.
| walshemj wrote:
| Possibly for older networks - the remining one in the UK does
| encrypt.
|
| I used to have a basic pager in the 80's when I was on call for
| BT / Dialcom
| nemo1618 wrote:
| I looked into getting a pager recently; my plan was to disable my
| household internet completely for some number of hours per day
| (by plugging the router into a Christmas tree timer!), keeping
| the pager around for when my team needs to reach me in an
| emergency.
|
| I was surprised to find that, as the article mentions, there's
| basically only one place to buy new pagers -- and they're quite
| expensive. After thinking about it some more, I realized that
| what I really wanted was a separate phone number that my team
| could send SMS messages to. And I didn't even need to build my
| own pager-like device out of a RasPi or something; I could just
| buy a cheap flip phone. Total cost for phone and 1000 SMS
| messages is <$100.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >Total cost for phone and 1000 SMS messages is <$100.
|
| That's a good plan. Tracfone is roughly $10 a month for a
| smartphone, but what I wish existed was (a) a really cheap
| device and plan that was SMS-only and (b) people would only use
| SMS.
|
| I'm damn sick of Fidelity leaving messages for no doubt
| wondrous investment advice and robocalls for appliance and car
| warranty programs. That's 99% of the voice calls that I get.
| mcny wrote:
| Assuming you are in the US or want a US number, I recommend
| Google Voice and turn on spam protection.
|
| While the SMS integration is going away soon, you will still
| be able to use (I think) SMS from within the app and while
| the terms of service disallow automation, my understanding is
| that is mostly only for outgoing texts (they don't want
| Google Voice users spamming the world) rather than incoming
| (I don't see why Google Voice would be against you doing
| whatever you want with the texts you receive).
|
| I suspect the reason why carriers allow these spam calls and
| texts is they make money from all calls and texts and have no
| incentive to fix things.
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| "While the SMS integration is going away soon" - thank you
| for the warning!
|
| https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/03/09/google-voice-
| wont-f...
|
| I use SMS-via-email very frequently, and was rather
| worried. Thankfully that will stay.
|
| SMS forwarding to a local number's SMS hasn't been possible
| for me anyway, because my local number is not in the US. At
| one point I had a setup with Google Calendar forwarding my
| emails to SMS, but that got shut down in 2019 (to my
| dismay).
|
| https://www.ghacks.net/2018/11/19/google-removes-sms-
| notific...
| cheezymoogle wrote:
| Here's a solution for $60/year, plus the cost of whatever
| budget Android device you want or have on hand:
|
| A year of unlimited talk/text from Liberty Wireless (a
| T-Mobile MVNO) costs $60.^1 Then, use call barring/do not
| disturb to disable incoming calls and USSD codes^2 to turn
| off call forwarding. You now have a phone number that
| effectively only supports SMS.
|
| I'd also recommend going with this plan if you are addicted
| to the Internet and just want a phone, but don't want to pay
| through the nose for something like the Punkt^3.
|
| As far as only using SMS, sending/forwarding emails through
| SMS is doable (for now), so if your people's comms can be
| converted to email, you can use SMS for those as well.
|
| Unfortunately, the naive solution of sending outgoing mail
| requires MMS (and therefore data), but you can send SMS to a
| Google Voice number, for example, which can be set up to
| forward a copy of the message to an email, which can then be
| used for triggering control events locally. YMMV.
|
| ---
|
| 1 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/174582899616
|
| 2 - https://www.t-mobile.com/support/plans-features/self-
| service...
|
| 3 - https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/
| dqv wrote:
| I wish someone would make a low powered cellular pager using an
| e-ink display, but then I realize only 3 people would use it.
| Pagers seem to be designed to actually wake you up if you get
| paged. I think the beeping hardware is different from the
| speaker hardware in cell phones. The vibration in phones
| nowadays seems weak.
|
| The issues other people are describing with insecurity and lack
| of ack could also be resolved. The backend server that accepts
| messages could even support WCTP for backwards compatibility.
| alexjplant wrote:
| Couldn't you just get a router running some type of *nix
| (pfSense, DD-WRT, etc) and accomplish this via cron? Maybe
| perform a dig on whatever API endpoints you still want to talk
| to (PagerDuty, Slack) then have a set of ACLs that only allows
| traffic to those on the WAN interface during your "blackout"
| period?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Does this really seem easier than a simple timer?
| xmprt wrote:
| Probably not easier, but it is free and much more
| configurable.
| sigg3 wrote:
| "When you have root, everything is a cron job."
|
| BSOH proverb
| nemo1618 wrote:
| This is peak Hacker News right here lmao
| nemo1618 wrote:
| To elaborate on my snark, this doesn't work because:
|
| - Whitelisting my messaging app means I'd still get pinged
| for non-emergency messages
|
| - Enforcing the block at the software level makes it too
| easy for me to disable it when the temptation arises. My
| current setup forces me to walk upstairs, flip the switch,
| then wait multiple minutes for the router to boot.
|
| It would also take a lot more effort to set up, and time is
| money!
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| A very important note: Pages are _plaintext_ , they are not
| encrypted. Anyone with a radio can receive and decode all pages
| sent within reception range of that radio.
|
| (which is evident when you read the article, but not called out
| explicitly)
|
| This is a big deal for any use which involves
| private/sensitive/confidential data, as it can inform
| eavesdroppers about current issues, internal tools/architecture,
| personnel status, etc.
|
| For example, do you want to know when a major cloud company is
| having an internal outage? Listen for pages which follow their
| internal notification format. Or maybe you want to know if a
| critical patient at a hospital is having troubles - listen for
| pages to their doctor. Does the military command center use
| pagers (I hope not) - that could be interesting too...
|
| If your employer is using pagers, raise this issue to their
| security team (and share this great page showing how easy it is
| to eavesdrop). At the least, the pager messages should be as
| vague/simple as possible while still being useful. At the
| best...don't use pagers.
|
| Pagers are already a poor choice - messages are delivered "with
| best effort" but there's no guaranteed sending, no receipt, no
| retries. If you're out of range (or signal blocked), the message
| is lost, and it's up to the sender to implement their own ack &
| retry system.
|
| (I carried a pager for work for almost 15yrs)
| tyingq wrote:
| >Pagers are already a poor choice - messages are delivered
| "with best effort" but there's no guaranteed sending, no
| receipt, no retries.
|
| They were pretty good towards the end of their reign when 2-way
| pagers came out. We were able to easily implement something
| where the system would keep paging you until you responded with
| an "I've got it" ack or a "Hand it off to the secondary"
| response, both of them an easy pick-list item.
| dmd wrote:
| My employer (a large healthcare company) has been shown over
| and over that they're broadcasting PHI in the clear over
| pagers, and that this is bad, and their response every time has
| been "the paging company assures us it is secure". Evidence
| doesn't matter, only the word 'secure' in their contract with
| the paging company does, so it's "not their fault".
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Worse. If you show that it's trivially insecure, you are now
| the suspect/perpetrator.
|
| Never break these illusions. Keep your mouth shut.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Even as the dedicated security contact whose job is it to
| test this shit, you will be looked at as a dickhead for
| pointing that we just spent 30k on something we can't use.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| When did we all become so paranoid?
|
| Pagers used to be used by millions of people, in thousands of
| companies. 99.999% of the messages sent would have been utterly
| mundane. Stuff like 'call the office' or 'go to place x'.
|
| Just like our chat platforms of today, the data just isn't that
| interesting.
|
| Pagers were good for the era they were invented for, and at
| scale ended up being almost free to operate for the companies
| that used them.
|
| Encrypting stuff requires CPU grunt that pagers simply did not
| have, especially when the driver was to have as long battery
| life as possible.
|
| If anything, I miss that simpler era when we didn't have to
| assume that everybody in the chain was a bad actor trying steal
| our information.
| minitoar wrote:
| Even Caesar encrypted his pages.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| We didn't assume because of ignorance. Innocence lost.
|
| Plenty of people were listening - there's an archive from
| 9/11/01 that was released with many of the pages in lower
| Manhattan that day.
|
| Police routinely monitored this stuff, and it's reputed that
| PIs, ambulance chasing attorneys, etc did the same. Was it
| relevant/meaningful to when my mom was going to pick me up
| from work at the mall was a page? Probably not.
| klyrs wrote:
| > When did we all become so paranoid?
|
| One industry that makes extensive use of pagers is health
| care. Frequently, personal and identifying information (PII)
| is transmitted over pages. By all rights, this is a violation
| of privacy laws (e.g. HIPAA).
|
| Why does a desire for privacy constitute paranoia?
|
| Pagers aren't only a technology of yesteryear -- they're
| still in use by millions of hospital staff. Despite the
| availability of cheap & easy strong crypto today, the
| technology is still stuck in the past. I'd wonder why, but
| upgrading infrastructure is expensive and it will probably
| take a class-action suit to make continued privacy violations
| more expensive than upgrades.
| [deleted]
| mikecsh wrote:
| >> I'd wonder why
|
| I'm a doctor, and whilst I despise carrying a pager it does
| have some benefits over more modern alternatives in some
| scenarios.
|
| Mobile (cell) reception in hospitals is generally very poor
| and wifi connectivity is also generally poor. Trying to
| rely on either of those to deliver _critical_ communication
| (e.g. bleeps to the crash team to respond to a cardiac
| arrest) is more unreliable than the hospital blasting a
| simple radio signal that any pagers within a few mile
| radius will always receive and decode appropriately.
|
| For less critical communications (e.g. where you might
| bleep someone to contact them to a refer a patient to their
| specialty) there is a (slow) move towards messaging apps or
| email. These solutions do not yet have the immediacy and
| reliability of a simple pager for critical applications.
| nataz wrote:
| I'm curious about the use of pagers in healthcare. I work
| in an industry that would love to have pagers for on call
| events, but service has proven unreliable (especially
| indoors) unless you build out your own dedicated wireless
| infrastructure for every building you are working in.
|
| We have alternative secure voice/data communication, but
| they tend to either be bulky or have strict storage and
| carry restrictions.
|
| Would love a small reliable pager system to carry on our
| person that would simply let us know to check in.
|
| All of the pager architecture in the US seems to have
| disappeared in the marketplace.
| Fogest wrote:
| I'm curious what personal health information would be
| transmitted via a pager anyway? I assume a doctor would
| only need to know a room number and maybe code or chief
| complaint in the page?
|
| I see other commenters mentioning some PHI is being
| shared via pagers and I am unclear what that may be ?
| mikecsh wrote:
| In my experience (UK) there is no personal information
| transmitted. There are two main types of bleeps:
|
| 1. Sending the number of a telephone extension you want
| the recipient of the bleep to call. For example, if I
| need a cardiology opinion, I will bleep the cardiologist
| with a telephone extension and wait for them to
| (hopefully) call back while I am still but he phone and
| before it is called by anyone else. This data is not
| sensitive. These are the types of bleeps which are being
| replaced slowly by asynchronous communication via apps
|
| 2. Emergency bleeps which are designed to alert a
| specific group of people on the arrest team to respond to
| an emergency. These usually work quite differently.
| Instead of 1:1 they are 1:many and usually carry a
| different alert tone, followed by a (generally poor
| quality) audio alert of the operator saying something
| like "paediatric cardiac arrest inbound to ED, ETA, 5
| minutes". Again these carry no sensitive data.
| Fogest wrote:
| Yeah from what I have heard from Canadian based doctors
| the pagers are used for almost identically the same as
| what you described for the UK.
| detaro wrote:
| here's an article with examples:
| https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/health-
| care/article...
|
| basically, they broadcast patient name, initial diagnosis
| etc
| Fogest wrote:
| Weird, as the other commenter mentioned their's in the UK
| don't have patient information in them. In fact the
| medical professional I know in Canada have pagers that
| give essentially the same information about the UK
| commenters. It's either an extension to call, or for a
| code.
|
| Maybe countries like the UK and Canada are more strict
| about personal health information and have kept personal
| info out of pagers? I know working in healthcare systems
| in Canada I would get in trouble even if I used a medical
| software to look myself up in it.
| detaro wrote:
| Here's a Canada example (apparently patient transport
| coordination, fixed after media attention):
| https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/pager-systems-used-in-
| healthca...
| Fogest wrote:
| Ah, interesting. The only people I've actually talked to
| before about the pagers were from Ontario and the
| healthcare is mostly managed at the provincial level. So
| not sure if this was a problem in Ontario or not. I am
| sure at some point all the hospitals were doing this and
| eventually switched over to the new way that doesn't do
| this.
|
| However being a 911 dispatcher for the EMS system here I
| can say that our radios are not encrypted and can be
| listened to online by anyone. We mention addresses, chief
| complaints, and anything else that may be relevant for
| the paramedics. Patient names would not be given over
| radios nor would other private info like if the building
| has an access code. Anything that is private like that is
| indicated to the paramedics by saying something like
| "call for access code". Then they call the landline and
| get the info that way.
|
| In my opinion though, knowing addresses and medical
| conditions going on can still be a bit sensitive in
| nature. The police here recently switched to encrypted
| radios. It was nice sometimes to listen to the scanner,
| but at the same time it's understandable why it's less
| than ideal having open radios.
| klyrs wrote:
| If you reread me, you'll find my "why" isn't "why use
| pagers", it's "why don't pagers implement even basic
| crypto"
| mikecsh wrote:
| Ah yes - sorry, I read that too quickly. The answer to
| that (at least limited to my experience of pagers in many
| UK hospitals) is that they don't carry any sensitive data
| at all.
|
| There are a lot of other issues with them though. There
| are few companies supplying them so they are actually
| very expensive. Consequently in our publicly funded
| health service they are not replaced often and many are
| in a poor state with batteries held in by tape etc.
|
| The main issues from perspective as a user is the
| synchronous model of communication that they enforce.
| Unless something is an emergency, it's an unnecessarily
| disruptive workflow.
|
| There are usually a limited number of phones on a ward,
| which are usually very busy lines. Using pagers for
| routine communication means:
|
| 1. Physically move myself to a location with a phone 2.
| Wait for phone to be free 3. Call a number to send the
| bleep 4. Wait for a response (bearing in mind the
| recipient needs to be free, move to a phone, wait for
| that phone to be free, and call back) 5. Guard the phone
| from others using it until I receive the call 6. Hope
| that no one else calls the phone in the meantime
|
| Bearing in mind that everyone is always busy in hospital
| this is a huge source of frustration and wasted time,
| hence the move towards secure messaging apps for these
| scenarios. Unfortunately these are mostly being built as
| silos rather than interoperable communication networks.
|
| As mentioned above, for actually alerting a group of
| people to an emergency when you need an immediate
| response, pagers are still hard to beat.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| I use a pager. AMA
| seumars wrote:
| As an add-on to your smartphone? I like the idea of using a
| pager, not for the sake of romanticizing old tech, but to
| reduce the mental overload of being constantly online.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Yes. I got it two years ago since I hate my phone and having
| to always worry its charged etc. Pager takes 1 AA that lasts
| about a month. Its hooked into work to ping me if I need to
| flip out my laptop. Dead reliable and the service is great.
| paulz_ wrote:
| I have considered doing this exact thing. Any tips?
|
| One thing I've wondered about is if there is even any pager
| network coverage where I live. I suspect yes but I don't
| know of any coverage maps or that sort of thing.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Coverage is good in all us metro areas. directpage has
| good coverage maps as there's basically only two networks
| these days
| [deleted]
| reaperducer wrote:
| How much is a pager and service these days? Who provides the
| service?
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Its ~$10 a month. The pagers are free with my service. I use
| direct page but I forget which network I am on, never had a
| problem! with service even out in Amish Country
| cpach wrote:
| Why? Have you considered replacing it?
|
| Just curious :)
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| No but I have considered dropping my mobile phone entirely
| cpach wrote:
| Yeah same here
| dawnerd wrote:
| Universal Studios Hollywood was using them up to about 7 years
| ago? Cell service wasn't the best and they hadn't rolled out wifi
| everywhere so tour guides would have them to keep up on what was
| going on.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| This article is great. I use a pager for work, as it's the only
| device allowed in some sensitive areas. When it get paged while
| I'm out and about I get the strangest looks, like I'm some sort
| of time traveler.
| chrisandchris wrote:
| In Switzerland some voluntary emergency services (like
| firefighters) have pagers because it just works better than
| phone/sms. However most alsrms then still go out by phone and
| sms.
| wheybags wrote:
| Does it work while you're out and about? My understanding was
| they were generally limited to a small range, like the area
| inside and near a major hospital.
| dm319 wrote:
| I just looked this up for the UK, and noticed that there is
| still a single national paging network. I use pager at work,
| but, as you say, the network is limited to the site.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Back in the day many countries had nationwide paging
| networks. Nowhere was safe from getting a page.
|
| You couldnt just use the 'I had no signal' excuse.
|
| There wasn't cross country roaming for pagers though, I don't
| think.
| reaperducer wrote:
| There was in the United States. But it was pretty
| expensive.
|
| Pagers hung in for a long time because they had far better
| coverage than cell phones. I don't know if that's still the
| case.
| dlgeek wrote:
| Not at all. There are a some very large pager networks in the
| US. As a bonus, since the messages are so simple, they have
| better penetration in a given area than GSM would. (I've had
| my pager go off in a deep parking garage for example).
|
| Ex, here are the coverage maps for SPOK who bought out USA
| Mobility: https://www.spok.com/solutions/paging-
| services/wide-area-pag...
| justusthane wrote:
| The only problem is there's no indication on the pager
| whether or not you're in range, and no way to know whether
| you missed a page due to being out of range.
|
| At the same time, the reason they're still used is there's
| no good modern alternative in a lot of ways (battery life,
| range).
|
| Troubleshooting paging issues is one thing I do not miss
| from my time in healthcare I.T.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _The only problem is there's no indication on the pager
| whether or not you're in range_
|
| The pager I had in 2003 has a signal strength indicator
| just like a cell phone so you know if you are in range.
|
| The pager was also able to let the network know if the
| message was received. If it didn't, the network would
| keep retrying until it got an ACK.
| owenversteeg wrote:
| Is the coverage really that bad? Looking at that map it
| seems like you're really only covered inside major cities.
| Even somewhere like Connecticut seems to have most of the
| state with zero coverage!
| c22 wrote:
| I always thought it'd be cool if someone put a pager chipset into
| my smart phone so I could configure it to receive a page whenever
| someone was calling me and only connect to the cellular network
| if I wanted to take the call.
| samgranieri wrote:
| My dad is a doctor and has had pagers the entire time, from the
| bulky brick one you can see Dr. Beeper using in Caddyshack to the
| ones you'd see in this article.
|
| Outside of work, I've actually had to page him a few times: my
| family has season tickets for Northwestern Wildcats football
| games, and he has the tickets. If I arrive to the game late, I'd
| need to call or page him to come down and give me the tickets.
| It's not a problem when the opponent is a small school that
| doesn't travel well, but when a school like Nebraska or Ohio
| State show up in Evanston, cell service goes to shit (imagine
| having 47000 people in a suburban neighborhood).
|
| I page him and it works like a charm.
| bminusl wrote:
| I would like to use a pager-like device as a grocery shopping
| list. But a pager isn't quite what I'm looking for (I think).
|
| Basically, I need a small device that can fit in a pocket, with a
| long battery life, a simple display, and a few buttons. Bonus
| points if it's cheap and easily hackable.
|
| What are the options?
| dm319 wrote:
| I would love for a modern low-power LCD/e-ink palmtop, but
| sadly I haven't seen the likes of it since the old Psions.
| kator wrote:
| Palm Pilot? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot
| bminusl wrote:
| Not exactly, I'm looking for something more minimalist.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Find an old palm pilot on eBay with a refurbished battery.
| Instant digital notebook for the cost of a few dollars/pounds.
| fencepost wrote:
| Might as well go for one of the even older models that ran on
| 2xAAA. Not like you're losing compatibility with modern
| hardware.
| dudul wrote:
| How about a small notepad made of paper? What would be the
| benefit of a "pager-like device" over it?
| bminusl wrote:
| > What would be the benefit of a "pager-like device" over it?
|
| - Adding items remotely
|
| - Automatic item sorting
|
| - Pre-made lists
| elliekelly wrote:
| What about a raspberry pi + thermal receipt printer? You
| could have a way (or several ways) to add items remotely
| and automatically sort items and then print the list just
| as you're about to head into the store. And with thermal
| receipt tape you could mark off that you've got the item in
| your cart with your fingernail.
| bminusl wrote:
| Interesting idea. I'll keep that in mind.
| stevewillows wrote:
| this is my dream! I used to use a Pebble watch for grocery
| lists, but the display is just too small for a larger list.
|
| It would be fantastic to have something that is basically a
| half-sized palm pilot (say, 4" tall, 2" wide), eink/memory lcd,
| and the ability to rotate (not automatically.) There's probably
| a digital price tag that could work for the screen.
|
| When I was using my Pebbles more often, it was great to be out
| and never check my phone for anything. Back in the day we could
| have set responses -- but as the years go on, we lose some
| functionality. The Rebble project will probably fix this one
| day.
| zestros wrote:
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor
| [deleted]
| hoka-one-one wrote:
| Tamagotchi?
| bminusl wrote:
| Perfection.
| [deleted]
| dkersten wrote:
| If you don't mind a bit of work, you could look into one of the
| DIY smart watches on hackaday or whatever. Since you don't need
| a watch form factor, that should give you a little extra room
| in terms of size or components. I found them a little too bulky
| as a watch for my taste, but they might work as a pager-like
| device.
| bminusl wrote:
| You reminded me of Watchy[1] (which I completely forgot
| about). It is a good contender.
|
| [1]: https://watchy.sqfmi.com/
| swiley wrote:
| This sounds exactly like an older palm pilot.
|
| They used ram for persistent storage because the battery life
| was so long (due to a very slow dragon ball CPU and those dot-
| matrix displays.)
|
| The palm III was probably one of the best hand-held computers
| ever made, if there were a way to put a modern modem in it to
| get texts I would probably use that instead of my phone.
| madengr wrote:
| I actually had a pager add-on PCB in my Palm Pilot. Worked
| great.
| caturopath wrote:
| May I ask why you don't want to use a phone? You don't want to
| carry/look at it for the other stuff that a phone has?
| bminusl wrote:
| Phones are generally too bulky for my liking. I prefer to
| have something simple and light. And I care way less if it's
| stolen or lost.
| [deleted]
| im3w1l wrote:
| Is pickpocketing still a thing? My perception is that
| between wallets full of plastic and phones that can be
| remotely locked, it has almost completely disappeared. I
| remember being told to be wary in crowded places as a kid,
| but nowadays I'm very careless and nothing happens.
|
| Bike thefts though, they are a serious issue that I plan my
| life around.
| jen20 wrote:
| In 2019, I had my phone and wallet stolen in Barcelona
| via pickpocketing. I know of someone who had their wallet
| stolen in the Madrid subway the same way. I've not heard
| of it recently in the US though.
| caturopath wrote:
| The wallets full of plastic remark doesn't really apply
| in Spain, where tons more people carry real amounts of
| cash.
| caturopath wrote:
| Note that crime in the US overall has gone wayyyy down
| since you were likely a kid. We're at Leave It To Beaver
| levels.
| croes wrote:
| Overall yes, single states no.
| https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-
| state...
| reaperducer wrote:
| You should try to find something more .gov to link to for
| statistics, rather than a PR company that flogs home
| security systems and devices.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| And yet a lot of people think that it's gone up because
| of skewed reporting.
| croes wrote:
| Depends on the state where you live. If you live in New
| Mexico it doesn't matter if the crime rate in Mew York
| goes down. https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-
| statistics-by-state...
| benjohnson wrote:
| If your of an older demographic, that may potentially
| have a wad of cash, pickpocketing is still very much a
| problem. Especially in tourist spots.
| walshemj wrote:
| Oddly the Vatican has a high crime rate because of this
| spaceisballer wrote:
| I like the idea of the Lightphone 2. E ink display and minimal
| functionality. Plus it's small and has a long battery life.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I'm not trying to be a jerk, but have you considered going back
| to paper?
|
| After unending frustration with Siri and grocery lists, I just
| went back to paper. It works brilliantly. The "shared list" is
| my wife texting me things to add to the list, and I immediately
| take the piece of paper out of my wallet and write stuff on it.
|
| I've been using phones, computers, PDA's, and electronic
| organizers for grocery lists for decades, and none have worked
| as well, or been as useful as a piece of folded paper.
| fencepost wrote:
| The return of the "Hipster PDA" (speaking as one who did this
| for a few years).
|
| I believe see also "bullet journal."
| bminusl wrote:
| I have always used paper.
|
| But there are some things I would like to improve, see [1].
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27016068
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