Crazy. Today at work I accidentally pressed the intercom button on my phone and approximately 600 people unexpectedly heard a really loud “BOOP” with no message or followup whatsoever, all at the same time, and it made me think of this.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986).

Not much, leak. What’s a dawg with you?

He’s got a bit of that patented Mr Beast Combo of vacant gaze and simulated smile, too.

I was really surprised at first that it was a woman, but then it became pretty clear that she was an old, white woman, and then it at least made more sense. She’s (presently) unaffected by any of the bullshit that is being thrust upon women of child-bearing age, the persons of color, the non-binary folk, the young people hurt most by skyrocketing housing costs, etc; and she’s thoroughly unapologetic about her lack of empathy for any of those groups of her fellow Americans. Goddamn, what a bummer.

EDIT: Then I made the mistake of continuing to listen, and half or more all of the callers for the next 20 minutes are brainwashed boomers ranting about how Biden was the devil and Trump is going to save us from the illegal immigrants who are ruining all of our lives. Yeesh.

This is what I was advocating for, with the additional caveat of the admin doing their part.

My friend who teaches at a local high school told me about at least two instances where parents berated her when they came to retrieve the phone, and having no backing from the school administration. It’s easy to imagine that, at some point, it’s not worth it to enforce rules if you’re just going to get screamed at for it.

Right, why stop at banning cell phones when you can ban emergency services altogether?

Wait till you see the comments on any thread about Florida.

People like to broadly label strangers, putting them away into neatly-labeled boxes in their minds. It makes it easy to ignore the suffering of the innocent, because there are no innocents in [insert location here].

But what I think would be more important would be for there to be fines.

I like this, it seems like a very practical approach that takes on the root issue. Parents need to address their kids’ conduct in school, it can’t solely be on the teachers and staff.

Just to play devil’s advocate; what if the parents ultimately refuse to pay the fines?

You think teachers will ever do any teaching if they spend their whole day playing phone police?

Assuming they’re struggling to get any teaching done while there are no rules in place, this still seems like a step in the right direction to me. But to answer your question, I suppose that depends on what the rules are, and how they’re enforced. One infraction could mean your phone is taken away for the rest of the day, or until a parent comes to get it – For example. The biggest problem I see with this approach would be that it foists a lot of liability onto the teacher – As in, if there were an emergency situation for the student following the teacher taking their phone away, perhaps the teacher could be held liable in some way. Then again, I think this comes down to the administrative staff having a very clearly defined policy in place.

And the emergency reasoning is bogus. The teacher has a phone, an intercom, and a panic button.

And if the teacher is subdued? Or if the emergency takes place on school grounds, but outside of the classroom? Etc.

I have several friends who teach at middle- and high-school grade levels, and they all tell me the same thing: There aren’t really clear rules in place governing cell phone use during class so kids are just fucking around with them all day, and even where the rules are clear, they have no authority to actually take a cell phone from a kid, even if they’re being disruptive to the rest of the students.

On the other hand, an all-out ban (and even “phone storage solutions”) just creates a new problem; keeping a potentially life-saving tool out of the hands of students in emergency situations.

I’m almost certainly over-simplifying this, but why not:

1. Let the kids keep their phones
2. Set forth strict guidelines for their use while on school property, and
3. Ensure teachers have the authority to enforce those guidelines.

To add on to the other replies here, both of the two closest libraries to me have several small rooms for this as well.

My fiancee got a Starbucks gift card from work, so we stopped by the one nearest us. The drive-through wrapped all the way around the building, so we went inside. Inside, there was only one huge table, with only one spot with an electrical outlet, and the music and cafe atmosphere were so loud… I can’t imagine anybody trying to bring a laptop and “work” there.

But if I did, I guess I’d buy a coffee? That seems fair. I definitely prefer my local library for remote working outside of the house, though.

I believe they are referring to the snack that smiles back.

App Update: Fitness tracker permissions can now tell when you are sleeping, so the app only plays ads when you are awake and actively looking at your device.

Coming Soon: A subscription model where you pay $10 a month for the ability to use your $450 battery swapper.

The only “real” album that came out in 2024 that I listened to start-to-finish was Hyperdrama by Justice. It got a lot of flak online for being “uninspired” etc etc, but I think that mostly speaks to how great their first two studio albums were. The opening track on this one features Tame Impala and has an equally awesome music video.

After that, second place would be a tie between two 2024 live albums: ¡Blow it … at Madison’s Quinceañera! by Me First and The Gimme Gimmes and Beast of Horns by They Might Be Giants. I got the latter on vinyl for Christmas and it’s a lot of fun if you’re a fan.

Antenna-Pod does it this way as well.

I dunno, sounds pretty statimated to me.

Also, Happy New Year! Have fun and be safe.

Big overlap with the “I liked Rage Against The Machine, until they started getting political” crowd.