Ha, one of the best posts I've read in a while but this last sentence is absolutely classic! If we meet some day, I'll buy you a beer - as long as it's some place free of Bluetooth and Star Drek cellphones!

My full-keyboard phone arrives today. I'm a fairly recent convert to texting, and I like it better than talking on the phone.

It's also cheaper, and, more importantly for a survival situation, in a large-scale emergency you can get texts out even when the cell/land lines are completely crashed by the panicked crowds.

On the day of the Virginia Tech shootings the local cell system and the campus phone system were completely overwhelmed. I was still able to text my brothers almost instantaneously and receive their replies. You can also enter a text message and hit send when there's no signal. The phone will continue to search for a signal, and get the message out as soon as it finds one. I do that while hiking, to let my wife know when/where to come and pick me up.

If you are texting on a delay, isn't that pretty much email? I'd rather type from my laptop than my phone anyways.

My blackberry has email service, but corporate won't allow us text messaging service, so I email people. If my connection is fuzzy, then it will try and re-send the email repeatedly until it finally goes through. Pretty much the same thing to me in an emergency situation I reckon.

I think the only difference is that people have their phones with them more often than a computer, and all modern phones can handle text. If everyone had blackberries, then I agree that emailing is the same as texting.

"Looks like this guy had everything going for him but the weather and geography."

Skiing off a cliff in a blizzard...

The weather, geography and a few working brain cells involving self-preservation.

Smart does not equal sense.

Sue

I think we are missing the part of the report where Jason Tavaria used his phone with his GPS location and was found.
Mr Williams was likely dead within minutes of going over the cliff, but he was still located 7 hours later.

I am not saying that traveling in a blizzard through hazardous terrain is very smart, but I will give them credit for using a piece of technology well and effectively after the catastrophe happened.

Other news reports don't actually report a blizzard but just heavy fog. So again this was really just an exercise in navigating off the mountain without falling of it, back to the hotel. Both men were equipped with electronic GPS and mapping kit i.e. google maps and GPS embedded Iphones. The 'Twitter' part of the story really just seems to be down to some 'Internet entrepreneurs' attempting to get themselves some publicity.

True but then again, it looks like that was pretty much the only skill they had. Besides, what good did it do apart from helping them mop up the remains of their buddy some hours later?

Not to be a smartass but I think some folks would be better off taking a wilderness survival, first aid or mountain climbing course instead of spending all their time playing with their newest gadget. The real problem is that the younger generations are getting so immersed in the entire virtual reality thing they have a hard time separating the real world from the virtual one. The outdoors is unforgiving.

The Roman Catholic church has suggested giving up texting for Lent.Meanwhile further investigation into the METRO trainwreck near me revealed the enginer was texting constantly, and had allowed his teenage friends TO DRIVE TEH TRAIN IN PAST MEETINGS.
<SIGH> I think for lent I will ADD chocolate back to my diet. I seem to have shunned so much 'stuff' already.

I heard a report that an engineer on the other train was also texting, but was not "in control" of the locomotive. Apparently using any communications device in the cab, besides the radio, is a no-no.