Every Day Is Special: cell phones

Showing posts with label cell phones. Show all posts

January 24 - Mobile Recycling Day

Posted on January 24, 2019

For some reason, I couldn't confirm the actual date for the 2019 Mobile Recycling Day, but it's such an important topic, I decided to take a chance on the limited sources I could find:

The Jane Goodall Institute is sponsoring an effort to recycle and reuse electronic devices in order to minimize impact on already threatened habitats - habitats that happen to be important for chimpanzees - and also to minimize the wars between groups who want to control the lands where we've found important metals and minerals used in creating electronics.

Also, if people throw used or broken electronic devices into landfills, toxic metals that they contain cause environmental problems.

The late-January date for this special day is perfectly designed to be well after all the various gift-giving holidays of November through early January. The people of the world are asked to gather electronics that are no longer going to be used in their homes - especially cell (mobile) phones - and send them to one of JGI's recycling partners.

Do you have a pile of old cell phones that
you don't know what to do with?
Today's your lucky day!

We're also asked to spread the word!

This is important because it's actually not that easy to dispose of e-waste; just turning old devices over to anybody who uses the words "recycle your e-waste" doesn't guarantee that the electronics will be dealt with in a responsible way. Loads of recyclers just send old electronics in containers to developing nations where there aren't laws to protect workers; the workers are asked to remove the metals and otherwise mine the waste for valuable materials in ways that guarantee that they will be breathing in toxic fumes or will be otherwise poisoning their own bodies.

ECO-CELL, the JGI institutes recycling partner in the US, actually refurbishes phones whenever possible. These phones are then sold or donated to conservation non-profits (Non-Governmental Organizations). This is an example of reuse rather than recycling, and that is especially valuable when we're talking about e-waste.

Apparently ECO-CELL recycles whatever cannot be fixed in ways that take into consideration workers' health and the environment.

If you live in the U.S., check out this link from the Jane Goodall Institute website linked to above.

Here's a glimpse of what we're trying to protect...

Also on this date:

Global Belly Laugh Day

Physicist Michio Kaku's birthday

National Peanut Butter Day

Pioneer in the study of memory Hermann Ebbinghaus's birthday

Beginning of the Sundance Film Festival

Economic Liberation Day in Togo

Ballerina Maria Tallchief's birthday

Anniversary of gold discovery in California

AND Talk Like a Grizzled Prospector Day

Alasitas Fair in Bolivia

Woodworker / furniture maker Sam Maloof's birthday

Plan ahead:

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And here are my Pinterest boards for:

February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

March 10 - National Landline Telephone Day

Posted on March 10, 2018

Do you still have a landline?

If you don't know what a "landline" is, you probably don't have one LOL!

You see, way back when, a bajillion years ago (well, okay, just from 1847 to 1973), there were no such things as cell phones or mobile phones. ALL telephones were landlines. You couldn't take your telephone with you. It was basically attached to your house.

Back in the old days, everyone
would understand that this photo
shows a little brother listening
in on a phone call - and, almost for
sure, he is not supposed to be
doing that!!!

And, yes, that meant that everyone in a house shared ONE phone line. I guess there were some rich or brave folks, plus a lot of work-at-home types, who paid for a second line, but almost everybody had one. If your big brother was tying up the line for hours, talking to his buddy or his crush, you might complain, or you might want to listen in on an extension (which was another phone, ALSO tied to the house, that was on the same line), but one thing you couldn't do was just make your own call on that extension.

It also meant that just anybody could answer the telephone. If your own friend or crush were to call you, it was possible that your parent or sibling would answer - and maybe grill them, or you, or tease them, or you!

Not to mention the problem of someone answering the landline, finding out the call was for you - and you weren't home. Oh, the horrors of your friend or crush trying to leave a message with your nosy sister or obnoxious uncle!

Most of us didn't grow up having phones in our bedrooms. Our families had one line and maybe two or three telephones - but kids almost always had to talk on the phone in front of the family - in the hall or the kitchen or living room...

Unless we got looooooong cords:

Even the looooooooong cords were never
long enough!

There were a lot of family fights, in some families, over phone calls and forgotten messages and spying on the extensions and will-you-please-get-off-the-phone-my-call-is-so-much-more-important!!!!

You probably know all that, because of movies and TV shows. Right?

Well, it was all true...

Good things about landlines...

Okay, there are some good things about landlines! For example, in an emergency, a neighbor might just want to reach whoever is in the house. And it's so much easier to make one call to say, "Did you know that your sprinkler seems to have become a geyser, and your yard is starting to become a lake?" or "Get out of the house! I've called 9-1-1 because it looks like ____" rather than leaving voicemail messages on three different phone lines and worrying because you don't have the phone numbers of two of the people living there...

Some of this is probably out of date.
I think landlines are even more obsolete
now than three years ago, when this graphic
was made...

My community has "security" gates, and it's better to have the gate-opening powers be attached to the landline than to a particular cell phone line, since more than one person lives in the house!

And those family holiday calls seem more friendly when you are calling "the house," and the phone passes from hand to hand to hand as you wish your uncle well, thank your aunt for the present she sent, and say hi to each cousin before catching up with the cousin that's just about your age.