Comments on: I.C.E.

I.C.E.

azul — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:40:27 -0800

Have you got ICE in your mobile? "Following the disaster in London . . . East Anglian Ambulance Service have launched a national "In case of Emergency (ICE)" campaign with the support of Falklands war hero Simon Weston. The idea is that you store the word "ICE" in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency". LINK.

By: Balisong

Balisong — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:47:10 -0800

Assuming they can correlate your cellphone with your remains, this seems like an excelent idea.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:55:06 -0800

This seems like a pretty good idea in any case. I've just added ICE to my cell and hope that it'll never have to get used.

By: jsavimbi

jsavimbi — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:56:58 -0800

It would be a lot easier if we just had embedded microchips inside our skulls, complete with I/O functionality. Dating, for example, would be easier.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:57:54 -0800

By the way, why do the East Anglican Ambulance Service have the ugliest ambulances possible? jsavimbi, yeah, you want to let Microsoft write software to run your brain?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:59:05 -0800

Why just "ICE" why not "In case of emergency". What if people want to store "ICE" is their crystal meth dealer or something?

By: mmcg

mmcg — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:08:41 -0800

I'm with delmoi. The acronym seems needlessly opaque since most cellphones I see now-a-days could display the whole phrase. Aside from that, however, it's hard to use someone else's cell phone under ideal conditions, let alone during an emergency. I find that the interface is always just different enough from mine to throw me for a loop. Why not keep a clearly written card with instructions in your wallet or purse, near your ID? It'd probably take as long to do that by hand as it would to put an entry in your cellphone's address book.

By: squealy

squealy — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:20:58 -0800

Perhaps the colours of the East Anglian ambulances are in honour of Norwich City.

By: nervousfritz

nervousfritz — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:27:58 -0800

Why just "ICE" why not "In case of emergency". Either that or an allusion to Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics.

By: altolinguistic

altolinguistic — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:30:41 -0800

fenriq - that is a standard modern British ambulance. Still, you can't say they're not visible...

By: kaemaril

kaemaril — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:33:54 -0800

Um ... don't people usually "lock" their phones?

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:34:58 -0800

Ice ice baby vanilla Ice ice baby (oh-oh) vanilla Ice ice baby vanilla Ice ice baby vanilla ice Yo man let's get out of here

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:36:30 -0800

I put "ICE" and then the person's name. Harder to do when you spell out "in case of emergency." Um ... don't people usually "lock" their phones? People should but usually don't.

By: mkultra

mkultra — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:57:11 -0800

Somewhat related on the morbidity tip: Authorities asked those remaining along the Gulf Coast high-risk areas this weekend to write their names on their bodies in waterproof ink for identification. I wish I could remember where I read it...

By: fenriq

fenriq — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:59:57 -0800

altolinguistic, oh yeah, pretty easy to see, just pretty hard to look at. mkultra, one of the people in my office just back from Florida (not a high-risk area) and didn't hear anything like that. But I'm thinking, if they're telling me to do that, its time to go and seek some shelter, no?

By: undecided

undecided — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:08:55 -0800

Why would an ambulance need dazzle camouflage?

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:28:51 -0800

Don't most people already have an entry for either "home" or "mom" or "work" or some such thing on their phones? We've found lost phones several times in the past couple of years, and have always been able to reunite them with their owners just by scrolling through the address book until we found one of those three entries.

By: mkultra

mkultra — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:44:42 -0800

fenriq- Here it is.

By: Medieval Maven

Medieval Maven — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:45:43 -0800

Mine just says "Emergency Contacts," has my husband's cell, home, my dad's cell, and my parents' house. Of course, if mom and dad didn't live within one hour of me, I'd probably put someone else's number in there.

By: clevershark

clevershark — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 14:27:28 -0800

I also thought "why would you want to put crystal meth into your phone?" Maybe it'll help the battery last longer...

By: mleonard

mleonard — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 14:43:19 -0800

I'm limited to 10 character names for my phone entries, so I guess my family shouldn't be informed if I got blown up on the tube tomorrow. It's my own fault for having such an old phone. A Nokia 8210? What was I thinking?

By: freebird

freebird — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 15:51:08 -0800

There are war heros from the Falklands War?

By: bdk3clash

bdk3clash — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 16:33:23 -0800

Damn. I thought this was going to be a link about blinging out one's cell phone.

By: Joeforking

Joeforking — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:09:59 -0800

In-car entertainment?

By: kaemaril

kaemaril — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:27:32 -0800

freebird: There were two (sadly posthumous) VCs awarded during the Falklands, you've got Simon Weston, plus others ... so the answer's yes.

By: mosch

mosch — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 18:45:44 -0800

Great idea, though I think cell phone manufacturers should just include this as part of the 'stuff about the owner' that you can usually fill out. Um ... don't people usually "lock" their phones? Why would I do that? If I lose my phone and it's unlocked there's a finite chance that an honest person will find it, and be able to figure out how to give it back to me. If it's locked, it's 100% chance gone for good.

By: kaemaril

kaemaril — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 19:01:40 -0800

If I lose my phone and it's unlocked there's also a finite chance that a dishonest person will find it, and be able to figure out hot to make lots of lovely highly expensive phonecalls on it, too. Depending on how your account/coverage is set-up you might be liable for some of that, especially if your phone was unsecured... On my phone at least (Motorola T720) switching it on brings up a little screen which you can configure to show info on (mine has my e-mail address and home landline) before you are asked to enter the unlock code. My previous phones had a similar feature, so I assume it's not uncommon...

By: VulcanMike

VulcanMike — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 20:22:05 -0800

I put "ICE" and then the person's name. Harder to do when you spell out "in case of emergency." I just ICEd my mother. Since my Samsung doesn't allow multiple entries for one phone number, prepending the phrase was the best I could do. Emergency Contacts makes sense as well, I suppose -- I'll try to figure out a way to accomplish that. Um... You're all on notice now, too. In case of emergency, call my mom. Heck, if everyone that reads the article adds it and tells someone else what it means, we'll have helped push a helpful trend forward.

By: talitha_kumi

talitha_kumi — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 01:25:07 -0800

If I lose my phone and it's unlocked there's also a finite chance that a dishonest person will find it, and be able to figure out hot to make lots of lovely highly expensive phonecalls on it, too. Ah, the beauty of a pay-as-you-go contract. If it gets stolen, there's a pretty low limit to the cost of the calls a thief can rack up.

By: Hartster

Hartster — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 06:40:14 -0800

Don't most people already have an entry for either "home" or "mom" or "work" or some such thing on their phones? I'm guessing the reason is that if I'm in an accident at 2:30 in the morning, they don't phone my (ficitious) 94 year old mum as the first port of call, but instead my flatmate. I think it's a pretty good idea in that, while I doubt it will ever be used much by anyone, it's an incredibly easy way of potentially making things a bit easier in a bad situation.

By: skryche

skryche — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 08:29:59 -0800

VulcanMike, I had the same problem you did. I just put a "1" at the beginning of the number.