Re: "'Scammers stole £40k after EDF gave out my number"

On 2025-03-06 16:42, Frank Slootweg wrote:

Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:

On 3/5/2025 1:03 PM, Andy Burns wrote:

Newyana2 wrote:

>

calling them "computer cellphones" just sounds odd.

>
     Not as silly as "smartphone". :)

    Doesn't matter. It's the common, accepted, <whatever> name. Using some
*other* made up name (like "computer cellphones") is silly. (BTW, most
non-US countries say 'mobile phone' instead of 'cellphone'. The 'cell'
aspect is mostly irrelevant and often hardly applies.)
    Analogy: I have a laptop, which hardly ever if ever, is on my lap.
'Notebook' isn't really ay better. So everybody says 'laptop', end of
story.

"portable", at least in one of those places where we say 'mobile phone' ;-)

It's basically a computer that can make phone calls.

    And many, many things which a normal computer can't do, so while it
obviously is a computer - many non-computer things are - it's only
confusing to call it a computer.

It is a hand held computer that can make calls, is connected to internet, is aware of its location, orientation and movements. It can also take photos. And it runs applications that use any of that, even in the middle of nowhere.
  :-)
And we call it "smartphone".
For example, a computer that knows the location and the current movement can give you instructions in the middle of a forest. You can take a photo of a plant and it identifies it. There is a large amount of new applications that make sense inside a smartphone, but not in a computer.

 

Mainly they're used for apps and online operations. Mine
has Firefox installed.
>

Before smartphones, there were e.g. the Nokia 9000 series
"communicators" which had email and web-browsing in mid '90s.

>
    I'm sure there were all sorts of niche items. But that's not
the context here. The point was that only in recent years
have most people been using texting and apps on computer
phones, to such an extent that everyone is assumed to
have one handy at all times. That's what we've been talking
about -- how hard it is to not use a cellphone. Some Brits and
Spanish people are claiming they can't live at all in the modern
worls without a cellphone. I don't believe that's true, but I
do know that more and more things require a cellphone.

    I don't think "Some Brits and Spanish people" have claimed that, but
yes, many say that smartphones have a lot of useful functionality, which
is often not available in other devices / by other means. So that's why
they buy them and use them.

Yep.

    See Carlos' resonse where he describes that at first he was 'against'
smartphones and smartwatches and now he has his (at least) second
generation of both.

:-)
I think I have developed the strategy of initially buying a cheap version of these gadgets, explore their usage to me, then perhaps buy a better one, with more knowledge of what I want and need.

   My story is about the same and so is my wife's.
    All this brings me to your frequent [1] 'smartphone-addicts' rants:
    Could you please explain how it's OK for you to use your computer 'all
the time', but in some mysterious way, it's not OK for others to use
their smartphone 'all the time'?
    I use my car 'all the time'. I use my watch 'all the time'. I watch TV
'all the time'. I read the newspaper 'all the time'. I hope that's
allright with you.

:-)

[1] Not so much the one I'm responding to, but also that has a bit of
it. To be fair, I seem to notice a slight change to the positive.

--
Cheers, Carlos.