Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Can We Outlaw Junk Calls? Message-ID: Date: 17 Sep 89 13:45:42 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: Brian Kantor Organization: The Avant-Garde of the Now, Ltd. Lines: 28 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 383, message 5 of 7 [Our moderator writes:] >.... As a purely pragmatic thing, it just makes sense to have a >phone in a place where you don't want to be subject to a quick, untimely >exit. Either that, or an answering machine. PT] Or just let the damn phone ring. I installed the telephone for my convenience; when it is inconvenient to answer it, I don't. I often don't answer my front door either. Around here, most people who come to my door without appointment are either selling candy or religion, and they've clearly already ignored my "no soliciting" sign. Only my own overinflated respect for human life and the law keeps me from killing them on the spot and relieving the world of yet another pest. If there were a "kill calling party" button on your phone.... An interesting exercise: put a scorepad next to your phone. Each time you answer an incoming call, put a check in either the column "important" or "not important" (perhaps "worth answering" or "not worth answering" would be better categories). At the end of a month or so, count up the checks and you'll have some statistical basis for the "but it might be important" argument for your almost-Pavlovian response to a ringing phone. If the bell annoys you, stuff cotton into it so that it's a pleasant and unobtrusive sound. Perhaps this is the wrong newsgroup for rational(?) arguments about the importance of telephones to modern home life (grin). - Brian