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Comment by stretchwithme | Hacker News Reader

So true. And in-car GPS keeps your sense of direction from developing.

I've seen people stymied as to how they could possibly make a phone call without their phones. Payphone. Borrow someone else's. Not that hard.

I used to think this would only ever happen to geeks like me. Boy, was I wrong.

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After I lost my phone to a robber late at night, I walked home (which was about 15 minutes away) so I could look up the nearest police precinct station. The detectives looked at me like I was the biggest idiot for not calling 911 from the nearest pay phone (this was before NYC converted their pay phones into whatever they are these days).

Is it really considered okay to call 911 for a stolen phone? I thought 911 was for emergencies (e.g. imminent danger to property or someone's life or health). If your phone's already stolen, what can the police do urgently? This assumes they can respond quickly. I wouldn't have thought a stolen phone would result in a quick response in NYC.

It was a robbery by gunpoint. I wouldn't have reported it if it were just a theft.

No, you can call 911 for basically any crime. It's not like they are gonna get there in under 10-15 minutes even if it is an exigency.

But you won't know the number. You'd need to go to as library first, log into whatever service you keep your contacts on (I run my own radicalie carddav, but most people use Google or Apple's services) and find their number.

I use to have most of my friend's phone numbers memorized by the shape they made on the keypad. Today we stay in contact with a lot more people, or at least I do, and it helps to no need to memorize numbers.

> it helps to no need to memorize numbers.

actually it does not. if you had to memorize numbers you would have better memory and would have little to no issue remembering them.

What other numbers would you like the parent to memorize, besides those of his friends? Numbers to local restaurants, car services? Why should he have to?

You would be better at memorizing numbers but worse at something else. Maybe you'd remember fewer contacts. Also, we have become worse at adding big numbers in our head, but we actually make fewer mistakes and are faster with big numbers since we have started using tools for that.

> I've seen people stymied as to how they could possibly make a phone call without their phones. Payphone.

Ubiquitous cell phones have caused most of these to be removed.

> Borrow someone else's.

Phones becoming more loaded with sensitive personal material than wallets have made people reluctant to loan them to anyone not a close friend.

true.

Reminds me of the first time i got the "no cars in your area" message on Uber.

Mild panic, how do I get home?!

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