Ditch that cell phone

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I once had a cel phone, and long since ditched it. Not worth what it cost to operate, I didn't need insta-comm with everybody 24/7, and in fact, it was a pain that any bored soul with my number could waste my time because *they* were bored. Just wasn't worth it to me. My car has a built in cel phone - I don't even know my number, I use it to order pizza when I'm heading towards the pizza place on the way home from errands.

I'm way into freedom - my time is MINE, damnit. While I might look "green" due to my "prepping" (solar, farm land etc) - it's still all about freedom from bills - having to come up with bucks to hand one of "the man" all the darn time. One way to get there is to eliminate things like cel phones and their bills. Do you really need one? I find I don't, and I really don't need yet another bill to have to pay every month.

Of course, now they are saying that the *lack* of a facebook account makes you suspicious - you might be a potential mass murderer or something....and I plead guilty there - it's waste of my time, which is the single most valuable thing I command.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/07/29/1627203/facebook-abstainers-could-be-labeled-suspicious
 
no cell phone

no facebook

never was a social butterfly.
 
in some countries, it is actually cheaper to have a cell phone, than a fixed line (which, if you think about that, actually makes economical sense - I think it IS cheaper to operate radio waves, than a network of cables, once you have both infrastructures in place), and not even mention the flexibility...

But it is quite an Orwellian shit, what is happening around us...

BTW: oh, the glorious NatSec Agents figured out, that people are using Skype broadly, so let's add Skype to the surveillance mix???? Are you serious??? So that's how they try to catch "the baddies"??? By going after what "everybody" is using??? So, if you are the bad one, all you have to do now, is to switch to one of gadzillions other, free, Voice Over IP solutions, to continue doing you dirty stuff undisturbed - but the whole population is being spied on now, for the sake of it???

What a bunch of a nonsense....
 
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Cell isn't cheap unless a country is very dense - people in Europe have actual competition among carriers as well, resulting in prices roughly 1/4th of what we pay here (so I hear on Slashdot). My landline + high speed internet is under 80 bucks. Few cel plans (esp smartphones with data) come close, in my experience, and all come with nasty contract terms that lock you in hard - no competition allowed.

CALEA here already exists, which forces all forms of communication providers to make available the ability to tap any communication going through them. Other laws make that possible widely (FISA, Patriot Act, NDAA, various executive orders). A loophole in all these laws makes it legal for various agencies to listen to everyone anyway - as long as they use speech->text on computers - hence no human is listening...great deal for them, they don't have enough humans anyway.

I do have an account at google +, which I'm finding very useful for meeting other people at my intellectual level - not that they are common, it's just a larger pool to fish in. I don't spend much time in public hangouts, though - once you know a couple good people, that 6 degrees of separation thing takes over and it becomes easy to find the rest and skip the contact with the jerks.

Frog already boiled past medium rare. Only question now is the taste of the chef - are we going for medium, or well done?
 
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My son is a manager at a local grocery store. he said yesterday the lot attendant found a cellphone and failed to turn it in. They traced it with GPS to his house and arrested him for theft. Brave New World. Its on.
 
I have a basic prepaid... $10 a month. It is so if my car breaks down- or so I can confirm things when I am out and about. It can be a long walk to a pay phone. I use it if my landline is tied up. I use it to text when I am waiting in a waiting room.

On the landline I have lifeline- every call is billed- and on that program- my monthly bill runs $7.47. No features are on the landline.

For long distance- I use google voice- or the cell phone.

My DSL is $19.99. I do not have cable.

So $37.46 a month is all I spend on "services".

On electric I have a kill-o-watt meter. I have the energy light bulbs- I manage to have the lowest electric bill on the block.

I have gas heat- I am on the budget plan for that- and it runs $66 a month.

I have gotten good at managing water bill. We had a flat rate of $70.75; my usual bill now is 1000 gallons, $42.10.

I cut my insurances to the bare bones. So that cost is down too.

I shop at Aldis- and a surplus store. I use the main store for milk and eggs.

I also bike some errands. Add up all the bike rides and that does save on gas, and wear and tear on the car.

For hair cuts I go to the beauty school- that runs $5- and I tip $1. So $6 for a hair cut.

I pay a neighbor to cut my grass- he provides the tools-and is ok with $10, $15 if the grass is real high. He does 6 houses here- so he brings in at least an extra $60 a week.

I give away tomatoes from my garden. I planted extra- figure $12 on plants- and $10 extra on the water bill. So $22 and I have all the tomotoes I can eat- and give them away to 6 neighbors. I saved at least $22 buy growing it myself- and the good will from the neighbors will help me.

I buy almost everything second hand. One thrift store near the college- has shirts/pants 3 for $1. (hit or miss) I can go 2 months and not have to do any laundry.
 
Penn, we have near-identical plans...interesting.

I cut wood for heat (or buy it if I'm flush and the guy selling it isn't). I also have an 8 ton pile of coal out there "just in case". And a few tanks of propane if I get lazy.
I don't have an electric bill at all. I drive my solar powered car completely without gasoline most of the time.
The guy who mows my "yard" does it for "free" as it's hard to use my shooting range if the grass is too high.
That's about the extent of the difference.
 
Our sewer bill is figured on water usage Dec, Jan and Feb (average.) So in order to raise money for a new wastewater treatment plant (that they admitted they already had the money for) they raised out sewer to 80.00 a month. So when winter came around, we reduced our water usage and our bill dropped to 72.00. So they increased our wastewater bill 17% because of "rising costs". So now I'm paying WAY more for sewer than I am for water (although i expect that to change REAL soon.) Every aspect of energy is like this here. I imagine we are about to suffer death by a thousand cuts. We have a woodstove for heat in the winter, etc. etc. Since we split out time between the US and Mindanao (the US is MUCH worse) we can get by with very little, but the writing is on the wall.

my question to Penn s how did you get your minimun usage below your flat rate? (for water)
 
Oh- we went from no meter to everyone has a meter now. So the old rate was based on no meter-
 
Back to phones for a second:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/find-...among-12-million-units-hacked-and-tracked-fbi

12 million ios devices hacked and tracked by FBI - data found on just one agent's laptop, it can't be all there is.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/04/1241258/anonymous-leaks-1m-apple-device-udids

This guy says just leave it at home. What good is a celphone left at home?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/04/1552228/leave-your-cellphone-at-home-says-jacob-appelbaum


Glad I don't have one.
 
Heck, while of course it'll be abused by .gov, the real push behind this was the MPAA and bootlegged movies from phones. Follow the money as usual.

I just wish they'd make them not work at restaurants and bars, myself. The only thing worse than hearing all of a drivel-emotional conversation is hearing half of it.

Edit, BTW, a friend of mine who recently went to off-grid solar has the same issue - his sewer bill is based on his water usage. So we installed a rain collection system on his roof/solar array, heh...now he uses very little city water and both bills went to near zero.
 
Or the onstar in my car, which of course, I learned how to shut off real quick should I want to - they didn't make that easy btw....it's not just pulling one fuse anymore, accding to the internet data I have on that. Guess I'd have to take the truck if I planned anything truly nefarious (which I don't).
 
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