Reason To Have A Distinct Ringtone? So You Can Find Your Mobile Phone At The Dump

from the that's-not-my-normal-ringtone dept

Tue, Nov 3rd 2009 9:55pm — Mike Masnick

A guy in Aspen accidentally dropped his mobile phone into the piles of leaves he was raking up, and scooped up the phone and sent it off to the dump... But, amazingly, he was reunited with the phone by calling it and hearing it ring in the piles and piles of recyclables. Apparently, it took about half an hour of dialing/listening/sifting. Of course, there are times when you wonder if it wouldn't just be smarter to go get another phone...

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Filed Under: garbage dump, ringtones

22 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 3 Nov 2009 @ 10:38pm

how many ringing phones were in the dump at the time?

I bet that was the only one so it didn't matter what the ring tone was or if it was distinct or not.
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trench0r (profile), 3 Nov 2009 @ 10:55pm

half an hour?
how much does the average iphone cost? hundreds of dollars? worth a half hour's work to me!! don't be so spoiled techy mr techtech!
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me2, 4 Nov 2009 @ 12:02am

Re:
Heh, I was just thinking the same thing.
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What a waste, 4 Nov 2009 @ 12:59am

Reasons to have.......
Reason To Have such stupid news on techdirt?

Reason To Have such stupid news on techdirt whose title did not matches with the content?

Reason To Have such stupid news on techdirt whose title did not matches with the content and sending it to its thousands of loyal newsletter subscribers?

Reason To Have such stupid news on techdirt whose title did not matches with the content and sending it to its thousands of loyal newsletter subscribers for wasting their time?

Reason To Have such stupid news on techdirt whose title did not matches with the content and sending it to its thousands of loyal newsletter subscribers for wasting their time and losing credibility on Techdirt updates?

Reasons for Telling this to Mike Masnick for the sake of all above mentioned reasons that there is no reason to send such reasons on newsletter and there is no such reason to think that "Too Much Free Time" does not provides any reason for "Waste of Time".

:-)
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Ilfar, 4 Nov 2009 @ 2:04am

Re: half an hour?
More to the point in my eyes, how much is your mobile number worth to you? Depending what the phone got dumped in, I'd probably ditch it for a new one after finding it, but I'd want the SIM card and contacts list out of it first.

He'd have been buggered if he had it on vibrate only mode... :P
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Mike Masnick (profile), 4 Nov 2009 @ 2:07am

Re: Reasons to have.......
Heh. It was just an amusing story. We post stories like this all the time.
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trench0r (profile), 4 Nov 2009 @ 2:46am

Re: Re: Reasons to have.......
ignore them, they think they're entitled to blog posts that interest only them and serve only their interests
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Peet McKimmie (profile), 4 Nov 2009 @ 3:13am

Re: Re: half an hour?
"He'd have been buggered if he had it on vibrate only mode... :P"

Nah, he'd just have to be more patient - sit quietly until the seagulls all settled on the landfill, ring it and see where they all took off from suddenly.
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Anonymous Hero, 4 Nov 2009 @ 4:06am

"Landfill manager Chris Hoofnagle says it's the first time he can remember anyone finding a lost item at the dump."

Obviously his staff normally get to the goodies first and claim it must have been compacted already >;-)

(apologies for the cheap shot poking fun at the people who make our trash go away, but cheap is how I feel)
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Poddys (profile), 4 Nov 2009 @ 4:51am

I can understand if he maybe had contact details on the phone that were not stored anywhere else - many of us are guilty of that right!

Of course there could also be some candid photos or texts on the phone that he didn't want to fall into the wrong hands... A lot of people are guilty of that these days too!
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2009 @ 5:08am

Another reason to have a ringtone....
being stuck in a back room with 20+ other programmers with no land line. When a phone it rings it is important to know that someone really wants to talk to at least one of us!
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Sergio, 4 Nov 2009 @ 6:52am

Think of the music!
It could be that he had some heavily DRM'd music on the phone that he couldn't transfer off because it was locked to that device. If someone had found the phone and listed to the music, he could have been sued by the RIAA for making the music available!
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Xris (profile), 4 Nov 2009 @ 7:57am

Re: Reasons to have.......
Cell phones are technology and dumps are dirty. Seems like a perfect match for this site. heh.
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Buster, 4 Nov 2009 @ 8:08am

Because trash likes to call each other...
"Reason To Have A Distinct Ringtone"? Because they were on a trash pile full of old cell phones that wouldn't stop ringing right?
Wait wait no, the pieces of trash were calling and texting each other right?
Or maybe you really meant that everyone's ringtone sounds like trash, but this guy's was unique. Haha I get it now, quite funny.
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Sean T Henry (profile), 4 Nov 2009 @ 8:28am

Re: Re:
That would suck for me, my phone is always set to vibrate.
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Jessica (profile), 4 Nov 2009 @ 8:44am

Re: all the complaints
C'mon guys it's a good lesson in thinking creatively about recovering your items instead of giving up. Also makes us contemplate what lengths we'd go through to hold onto these things! I'm impressed with the man's determination, I'm sure he didn't regret getting dirty at the dump.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Nov 2009 @ 8:48am

Re: Re: Reasons to have.......
Well Played, my man, well played
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Yakko Warner, 4 Nov 2009 @ 10:16am

Must've been a fresh battery
Usually, by the time I've realized I misplaced my phone and decide to call it to find it (in his case, add in the time taken to figure out what happened, get to the dump, and begin his search), the battery is so far gone that it wouldn't hold up to a half hour of ringing.
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Jason, 4 Nov 2009 @ 11:00am

Sniff, sniff
I smell a commercial for replacement insurance brewing.
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CN, 4 Nov 2009 @ 11:36am

How many ring?
how many ringing phones were in the dump at the time?

A better question might be "How many different phones ring when his number is dialed?"
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r4ds, 5 Nov 2009 @ 4:13am

You are right Different rig tone make our work easy that in meeting our public place we get the idea that call is on our mobile or not.
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What a waste, 5 Nov 2009 @ 8:32pm

Re: Re: Reasons to have.......
Hey Mike
ple'z don't feel bad about my comments....it was written with the same mood you having while quoting this story...:-)

anyways...I am really sorry, if i offended you...

I don't feel anything wrong about the story. The only thing, I didn't liked was the Title

"Reason To Have A Distinct Ringtone? So You Can Find Your Mobile Phone At The Dump"

I really don't understand the connection. Did the guy got his ph. back coz' he was having a different ringtone :-)

ha ha ha .... i would say, the poor guy got the phone back coz' he was having the ringtone facility in his phone.... :-)

never mind...this was really nice and funny story that made my day.......
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