I agree with your entire post, but your statements following are so revealing
of the 21st century citizen. Simple concepts of technology that so many people
are oblivious to.

Probably an urban legend, an e-mail that I have received on occasion is a
story about a woman standing by her car, the woman is crying. She's holding a
small plastic electronic implement, trying to goad the implement into working.
A concerned stranger approaches, and asks her about her problem. She asks him
if he knows of a store where she can buy watch size batteries, it's seems that
her automatic car door unlocker is no longer working. The stranger asks if the
small electronic device is in fact attached to her key chain, to which she
replies yes. He takes the key chain, finds the correct key, and unlocks her
car door.

Problem solved.

Why is this story so easy to believe in the modern world?


In article , The Group wrote:

Power went out here at about 4:15 PM, came back on at about 6:30 PM.
However, two blocks from here, the power still isn't on yet, and as
I'm writing this it's now past 11PM. On my way home, saw lots of folks
sitting out on their porches with gas lamps. Some of them even think
the phones aren't working. If they tried a real phone instead of their
$5 drugstore cordless whose base unit is without power, they'd find
that the phones are working just fine - the landline phones that is.
As for the cell networks, well...see the remark by the assistant
director of emergency management, that I quoted above.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ
Co-Coordinator
ARATS Emergency & Public Service Operations Team
North Tonawanda, New York


Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.