The bottom line for me is: Is it a context where somebody could speak with the person next to them? If yes, you’ve got no complaint if they’re speaking to somebody not next to them in a reasonable tone of voice. If no, THEN I see some basis for complaining.

Really, if you want silence in public, get earplugs.

Sounds like that salesman got a good read off you, Brett.

Shutter sound
Choose between four different shutter sounds. The shutter sound will be turned off if the phone is set
to silent. Press and hold [button image] to set the phone to silent.

Just goes to show you shouldn’t trust everything a bigot tells you about Japan, Brett. But I fear we’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?

Second, I am issuing a fair warning: First obnoxious asshole sitting next to me on a plane that starts yakking during the flight, dies.

I am not kidding.

Obviously (I thought) posted in jest. When the Commons becomes other than civilly social, such as sitting restrictively confined next to someone conversing, even in a moderate tone, with their hand then such things do become more likely. If airlines feel the need to allow for phone use then put in a phone booth (just don’t take away the last of the bathrooms for the chattel class). As annoying as the constantly crying baby can be, we are much more accepting of that aspect of the human condition – cell phones don’t have to be. It’s the same argument as with the neighborhood motorhead that likes to share all 130 db’s of his car stereo while while sitting in his yard. Does his “right” to listen preclude those within a block or two from not?

Which leads me to the depressing conclusion that we may in the near future see some people paying a premium to sit up front in the talking business section, and some paying a premium to sit in the ‘quiet’ cattle seats.

If airlines could further figure out how to charge the remainder a premium, too—the ‘don’t follow the crowd’ fare?—then they’d have the greed trifecta. Of course, at that point the density of their greed would be so great that not even light could escape its gravity.

Fran Lebowitz once wrote that your teens are the last stage in your life when you’ll be glad to hear that the phone is for you.

Either her remark is completely out of date or people’s teens now extend into their 60s.

That explaination I gave for the shutter sound was straight from the Cingular dealer explaining why there was no way to shut off the shutter sound on the w600i, a few years back. Gee, if you can’t trust a salesman…

Since this is the very simple solution, I hold out very little hope that it will actually come about.

In my line of work which involves a fair amount of long haul international travel, the few hours you’re on the plan are a magical bubble when you can’t be contacted. It’s a relief because you can get a few hours of peace before all hell breaks loose on landing.

As soon as you can be contacted while flying, there’s an expectation that you should be contactable, and there goes your precious few hours of peace. I know people who already avoid Lufthansa because it has wireless. Any airline that introduces mobile phone service and doesn’t restrict it – to a couple of hours at the beginning and end of a long flight, or to a specific area like near the galley – has already lost my business.