Beep
Posted: Sat 17 February, 2007 Filed under: Travel 2 Comments »Of all the really annoying things when it comes to public transport (and trains in particular) I still think mobile phones have to pretty much at the top of the list. I don’t mind the devices themselves, and I don’t (in general) have a problem with people taking/making calls on them. I mean obviously there’s exceptions to that (super-loud ringtones going off repeatedly, and constant ‘I’m on the train’ calls, like it’s some newly invented miracle)
Yesterday, though, I was reminded of one of the things I really, really loathe. Key-press sounds. Particularly loud ones, but any phone that’s set to fucking beep every time you press a key – that’ll drive me crackers every time.
And it’ll definitely send me crackers when the owner of said phone is sending a text message, and doesn’t even have predictive text on.
BeepBeepBeep BeepBeep BeepBeepBeep BeepBeep
That’s what it takes just to type “fuck”. (and probably some others as well, but it’s definitely ‘Fuck’) As it is, I’ve no idea what the woman beside me was typing, but it went on for what seemed like hours. Whatever, it took her from Cambridge to Ely to send what looked like one message. Thankfully, she got off at Ely. Otherwise there might’ve been some truly gory murder on the 17.12…
For scientific purposes, I’ve just tested to see how long it would take to type “fuck” on my phone WITH predictive text.
Because I’m a nice boy and haven’t used this word before (in a text, at least), it took eleven key presses rather than the PT-less ten.
That’s a little ironic.
A bit like the “contacts” option on my dad’s home phone, where it takes about 15 key presses to find my number and then dial it, rather than the eleven digits to actually dial the number.
I love technology.
However, now that I’m no longer a nice boy it only takes four.
Must be careful the next time I text someone to say I’m hoping to get a duck in my garden …