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Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

  <rant type="indignant" intensity="105%">

Mind your own damn business and I'll do the same. If I'm carrying a phone to a nice restaurant, it's because I'm on call. No, I do not raise my voice to talk, because I've mastered the arcane art known as "volume settings".

If my phone rings, there's a high likelihood I won't be there for long anyways. And in the meantime, if me texting at my own table bothers you, or a couple of low volume buzzes bother you, I highly suggest you disinvolve yourself in the actions of other people's personal lives. Failing that, I invite you to attempt airborne fornication with a gyrating piece of pastry.

  </rant>

More on topic, how much do you want to bet this is just an excuse to raise prices by 5%? Furthermore, the day I give my phone away to some random in a restaurant is the day I've taken full leave of my senses.

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The proprietor of the restaurant is literally minding his own business since a business is just a vehicle for achieving the ends of its owners [1].

In this case, the owners want to create a world in which dining is a more sacrosanct activity. If you don't like it then you don't have to dine there thus it is, in fact, none of your business.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3392357

Considering they're penalizing me to the tune of 5% to give up a very expensive device containing untold amounts of personal and business data to an unknown person of questionable trustworthiness, I wouldn't be caught dead there anyways.

I'm a little shocked that people seem okay with this on a site full of people that regularly berate companies for privacy gaffes.

I have the same privacy concern. In the NPR interview, when asked if they'd ever lost a phone, the owner replied "non yet".

But the small chance of losing my phone and personal data (which is something I can easily mitigate) is the price of admission that I'm eager to pay.

when you go to a restaurant, aren't you implicitly trusting most of their staff? if i couldn't trust some company to take care of my phone for an hour, i certainly wouldn't trust them to serve me food.

You'd trust the people at an average fast food joint (predominantly minimum-wage teenagers) to keep track of your phone? You have much more faith than me...

Maybe it's just a difference in interpretation of language, but for me, a fast food joint is definitely NOT a restaurant. The tone of the story also clearly implied it was an actual restaurant, nothing fast about it.

Ah, I'm kind of used to conflating them. Still, the average restaurant worker, at least around here, is very young, and by definition, unless you're going to an upscale restaurant, likely not getting much money.

I'm not sure where you're from, but in the united states, employers can pay an hourly rate of $2-ish to people who are expected to collect tips. The stereotypical fast food kid actually has a better hourly rate.

>Still, the average restaurant worker, at least around here, is very young, and by definition, unless you're going to an upscale restaurant, likely not getting much money.

Since when is the definition of a restaurant worker someone who does not make much money? Especially those not working fast food?

Note "likely". Remember what I said about minimum wage for tipped employees?

Naturally this only applies to the waiting staff, but then again, the chefs aren't going to be the ones handling your phone.

My experience is that most people using phones in restaurants have not mastered the arcane art of volume settings, either on their phone's ring tone, or on their voice when speaking on it.

Maybe you are the one non-annoying cell phone user at restaurants.

>> No, I do not raise my voice to talk, because I've mastered the arcane art known as "volume settings".

This is usually true, but my experience with people who have naturally loud voices is that they have no clue how loud their voice is even when lowering their volume.

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