CALLER ID -- by Steve Nadis
Call me old-fashioned but I've never had a phone with caller ID until now. Last week, I used it for the first time. I got a call I was unable to pick up from England and did not recognize it. It wasn't my friends in Bristol or London, nor editors at London-based magazines I've worked with, nor physicists I know at Imperial College. So I did something I've never done before: I typed the phone number into Google to see what came up. To my surprise, the number came up at a website about unwanted phone calls called "800Notes.com" Here's what someone else had to say about my mystery number: "I have recieved (SIC) numerous calls from this number. they make you think it is one of your credit [card companies?]..." With that mystery solved, I did not bother to call the number in England to see whom or what I missed. Because what I'd missed was a nuisance call, and Caller ID--combined with the power of Al Gore's invention (aka, the internet)--spared me from some "important information concerning my credit cards."
