Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/20/uk-government-wants-to-ban-thi.html
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I realize that whacking moles is great fun; and posturing about it afterwards is even better; but surely attempts to control the sales of an otherwise legal item that hits some vague standard of excessive smallitude are transparently insane?
Doubly so when, in order to function the contraband you are worried about has to emit some fairly distinctive RF chatter?
The minimum metal models presumably sail right past whatever antique magnetometers and/or faith based anal dowsing apparatus seemed adequate to keep Gordon Gekko phones at bay; but that’s a problem solvable by some comparatively inexpensive RF gear; not a futile war against the tides of fleabay.
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Turn one into the handle of a knife and you’ve got two birds with one stone!
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I’d hate to be the UK bureaucrat who has to attempt to insert every phone on the market up his anus to determine which should be banned.
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It is completely insane. The phones are already being illegally smuggled into prisons, after all, so preventing legal sales only means the smugglers have to buy them on the black market, which they do already anyhow.
These things are usualy just fly-by efforts to be seen to do something, triggered by faux outrage in the tabloid press.
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Couldn’t they just set a standard Imperial Anus unit, and measure against that?
I nominate Prince Charles.
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I believe that the NPL still has BIPM National Prototype Metre Bar #16 stashed away somewhere(for some reason most of the photos are of #27, thanks NIST).
It seems like access to one of the world’s most standard sticks could be of some use in crafting this definition; up which said standard would surely fit.
I have a better idea, issue inmate smart phones. Let them communicate for free.
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I’d put that in my butt!
That’s not tRumps hand that is being used for comparison.
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No matter how stupid you are, you can always have a future in politics.
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I’m not defending the ban, but you can’t really effectively police cell phone use in a prison just by sniffing for cell phone frequencies. Plenty of non-inmate users around, and even if you knew any given blip on your cell phone detector was a contraband one, I doubt you could narrow it down quickly enough to be worthwhile.
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This may be a naive question, but how hard is it to engineer a cell phone dead zone around a prison? I’m constantly finding myself in these accidentally…
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Prince Charles actually does some good in the world. I’d nominate someone with way too much time on their hands, who just ends up getting up to mischief. Say, perhaps, Theresa May.
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When asshole phones are banned, only assholes will have phones.
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So the concern is that inmates will stick these in a body orifice to smuggle them in or to hide them?..well that’s just silly because no way could that fit in your nose…they just worry about nothing these days
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gives a-hole new meaning to being butt dialed.
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I like the idea of a standard Imperial Anus unit and you are definitely right that Theresa May would be a great candidate except that she’s such an asshole a whole goddam bright red phone booth would be the gauge.
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make sure to put it on vibrate before insertion so it can activate your 4G spot.
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