Caller control of phone ringer

February 8th, 2012
ideas, phone, tech
I want this as my voicemail message:
This phone is set to vibrate. If this is really important [1] dial '73' to make the phone ring. Otherwise, please leave a message.
I leave my phone set on vibrate and often ignore it: just because I have a box in my pocket doesn't mean that people elsewhere should take priority over people in the same room. In person, if B comes up while I'm talking to A they will politely wait until A is done. If it's urgent, they can say "excuse me, but this is really important", and seize priority. Phones should have this too. It wouldn't have to go into full ringing: a brief sound following a vibrating ring that I had ignored would tell me that someone had claimed urgency.

(Would people claim urgency excessively? I don't think so, but if they did in practice I could make this available only to people I trusted not to abuse it.)

This is part of my general retrogrouch outlook.


[1] And possibly: "... and you're willing to pay $1 if I disagree ..."

Referenced in: Phone Update: 3 months In

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Exercises in benchmarking and evals, part 7: DeepSWE, Senior SWE-Bench, napkin math, and winter tires

This is part of a series of exercises on benchmarking, evals, and experimental design (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)1. We're going to look at three questions, which are presented before the answers to give you time to think about the questions before seeing the a…

via Posts on July 23, 2026

Donation recommendations for effective altruists (July 2026)

My recommendation for donors who are American citizens or permanent residents is that they donate directly to high-value political candidates.

via Thing of Things July 22, 2026

Let's Taboo the V-Word

Read this post on Substack.

via Home July 12, 2026

more     (via openring)