The Telecom Digest for January 21, 2011
Volume 30 : Issue 20 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
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Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:22:54 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Meet the frog that cut off 160 telco customers and EFTPOS
Message-ID: <pan.2011.01.20.05.22.52.633255@myrealbox.com>
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/meet-the-frog-that-cut-off-160-telco-customers-and-eftpos-20110120-19xi4.html
Meet the frog that cut off 160 telco customers and EFTPOS
January 20, 2011 - 2:36PM
Due to the wet weather, the frogs in Childers, Queensland have been
"breeding like crazy", with one cutting off hundreds of telecommunications
customers.
The one pictured managed to squeeze into a Telstra roadside cabinet
through a failed air filter and shorted out the power tracks of the main
board of a Remote Integrated Multiplexer (RIM) unit, according to Telstra
spokeswoman Karina Keisler.
It resulted in over 160 customers not able to receive incoming calls and
also took ISDN services (such as EFTPOS) "completely offline", she said.
smh.com.au
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:46:48 -0600
From: Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Auto(in)correct
Message-ID: <ih8p5v$tn6$1@news.eternal-september.org>
On 1/19/2011 10:15 PM, Lisa or Jeff wrote:
> Google and other search engines change search criteria around even if
> you don't want them too. Historically, putting text in quotes meant
> to use it exactly as entered, but today's search engines still massage
> it around even when you don't want it to.
>
> For example, I wanted to find out if there was any information about a
> police incident on Hartford Court, a local street. So I keyed
> "Hartford Court" including the quotes. But the search engine
> condensed it to "Hartford CT" and returned a ton of unwanted
> information about Hartford, Connecticut. It continued to do this even
> after I added qualifiers to narrow it down; it just ignored them.
Odd, I just tried that with Google, and on the first 3 pages of hits
there was only one ringer ("Hartford Courant", which was maybe an
offering in case I'd misslept the word). Or maybe they just throw in
one ringer to keep you on your toes, when I tried "telephone game"
(ever mindful of the ob.telecom) there was exactly one hit that only
had the word "telephone". Ixquick and DuckDuckGo (2 search engines
that claim not to track you) were 100%. OTOH, Bing/Yahoo (same
engine, I think) were pretty aggressive in pushing Connecticut.
Not all search engines are equal. And not all honor the quote rule,
although all these seemed to.
Dave
Date: 20 Jan 2011 05:43:19 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Of cell phones and freedom
Message-ID: <20110120054319.76710.qmail@joyce.lan>
>I do realize it's hard to make an apples to apples comparison. The US
>has free mobile-to-mobile calling while other countries do not. In
>Malaysia the rule is caller pays and all calls to mobile phones are
>billed as long distance. In the US someone can call me from their
>landline and it'll most likely be free for them. The US also has very
>inexpensive international calling options (pre-paid cards, Google
>Voice, Skype, etc.) while other countries do not.
It varies hugely from one country to another. I can tell you about
the UK where I lived for a year. I had a month-to-month plan for 20
pounds (about $30, and that was actually 20 pounds, the quoted price
includes the tax.) They offered me a variety of "bolt-ons" such as
unlimited calling to landlines or to other mobiles on the same
network, along with my bundle of more minutes than I ever used. For
international calls I used a dialaround service with a London landline
access number which charged 1 or 2 pence per minute to call the US.
That was from O2 (Telefonica), but T-Mo and Orange had similar offers.
When I left I switched to an Orange prepaid plan which gives me an
hour of free international calls with every 10 pound top up. Domestic
calls cost 20p. They have other plans with free mobile-to-mobile, or
texts or movie tickets, or an endless variety of other junk. In my
experience, everyone has a bundle of minutes on their mobile and/or
free calls to mobiles, so even though it's caller pays, the caller
pays little enough not to worry about it.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:35:29 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <pan.2011.01.20.05.35.25.851773@myrealbox.com>
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 23:00:10 -0600, John Mayson wrote:
> I grew up during the 1980s. I often wonder just how on earth I survived
> without the Internet. Today I think I would go without food before I'd go
> without Internet access.
I grew up a decade earlier and have always been in the
phone/computer/technology industries. I was telling people in the late
80's that one day everyone would have an e-mail address and be able to be
contacted almost immediately (although I never imagined the mobile devices
we have now) and I was looked at as some sort of kook by the vast majority
back then for saying that sort of stuff.
Now I dread being without Internet access for any period, not because I
like it but because there is so much to bloody well catch up on when you
do eventually get back on-line!
I'm personally over it now, it's like being pecked to death by ducks and
if it wasn't still necessary for my work I'd be heading into the anonymity
of occasional use when I can use it for something of value - like buying
stuff cheaper (and reading comp.dcom.telecom, of course).
--
Regards, David.
David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.
Date: 20 Jan 2011 03:16:09 -0400
From: Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <87zkqwyrie.fsf_-_@nudel.nodomain.nowhere>
John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote"
> I grew up during the 1980s. I often wonder just how on earth I
> survived without the Internet. Today I think I would go without
> food before I'd go without Internet access.
I grew up in the 50s and I wanted grep and Google decades before
either had been invented or imagined or were even possible.
It's been good since I got onto Unix and the net in '89 and my Linux
home box in '99.
Alas, after 15 years or so, grep began losing suitable substrate and
Google is returning everything-whatever. (See other c.d.t. topic,
Auto(un)correct.) Gradually, chunks of grepable text are giving way to
the Engineered Internet Experience(tm) employing interactive scripts,
built-on-the-fly pages, proprietary formats, gnarly mark-up formats,
video etc. (How do you grep in a video? You have to sit and, like,
just watch it.)
So, contrary to John's view, I might just revert to an all-analog [1]
life if the net gets very much more opaque, proprietary, depersonized
[2] and impenetrable.
- Mike
[1] A friend who worked on MIT's Project Athena once opined that, in
the future, digital would be for peons and only the rich and the
elite would have analog. Are we there yet?
ObTelecom: All my phones are 2500 sets. Gave up rotary only about
5 years ago. So I'm still pretty analog there.
[2] See http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-1101.html
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:10:19 -0800
From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Auto(in)correct
Message-ID: <i9kfj69oboo9r1doku7bbkpm7lfpkj3je1@4ax.com>
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:31:40 -0800 (PST), Wes Leatherock
<wleathus@yahoo.com> wrote:
>--- On Tue, 1/18/11, John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote:
>> My sister lives in Atlanta. As you know they had a snowstorm a
>> couple of weeks ago. She texted her boyfriend, "I'm stocked up on
>> Mountain Dew to survive the snow-in." But her phone auto-corrected
>> "snow-in" to "abortion".
>
>
>I am a writer and editor by trade and I find even more annoying the
>correction in style and syntax that Microsoft's "spell" check is
>continually interrupting with.
>
>Some of their proposed corrections are just plain wrong, others apply
>to some different style than I am writing in, and in other cases I
>particularly deivate from a style for effect.
>
>Their proposed corrections apparently are mainly applicable to
>scientific papers or the most formal type of writing, or follow some
>British style, and often following them would be obfuscatory to the
>reader. They would be fine for writing the documents, such as credit
>card and deposit account rules, that are now by law being commanded to
>be written in "plain English," which their style certainly is not.
In my version of Word (2003), you can turn off spelling and/or grammar
corrections:
Tools | Options | Spelling & Grammar
Dick
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:59:52 -0800 (PST)
From: SVU <brad.houser@gmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Auto(in)correct
Message-ID: <5530274b-a9cd-4cae-8549-72509eca91e9@r19g2000prm.googlegroups.com>
On Jan 19, 8:15 pm, Lisa or Jeff <hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
> Google and other search engines change search criteria around even if
> you don't want them too. Historically, putting text in quotes meant
> to use it exactly as entered, but today's search engines still massage
> it around even when you don't want it to.
>
> For example, I wanted to find out if there was any information about a
> police incident on Hartford Court, a local street. So I keyed
> "Hartford Court" including the quotes. But the search engine
> condensed it to "Hartford CT" and returned a ton of unwanted
> information about Hartford, Connecticut. It continued to do this even
> after I added qualifiers to narrow it down; it just ignored them.
>
> At other times they substitute unwanted synonyms or spellings.
>
> In other threads we talked about the mess in automated telephone
> directory websites--giving lots of listings from all over the place
> except the one you really want.
>
> I realize there is an advantage to fuzzy matches or correcting
> spelling; sometimes we do make spelling mistakes and the computer is
> correct in assuming what we really want. But many times the computer
> is wrong, and it's frustrating that it won't let us override its
> assumptions.
>
> Maybe the programmers of such things purposely want us to wade through
> lots of listings?
I tried "Hartford Court" on Google and got 135,000 results, none with
CT substituted for Court (at least on the first two pages). On the
other hand "Hartford Ct" got 3.9 million hits.
If you want to search for "Hartford Court" and not "Hartford Ct" you
can use Advanced search to specify "Find these" and "But don't show
these" .
Brad Houser
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:09:02 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Auto(in)correct
Message-ID: <euednai0VPZDuKXQnZ2dnUVZ_jKdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <5.1.0.14.2.20110119101912.0143ee48@pop-server.cfl.rr.com>,
Curt Bramblett <CurtBramblett@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>Eye halve a spelling chequer
[ sneck ]
>-Sauce unknown
>
*sigh*
The original "sause" is the Dean of the Graduate School at Northern
Illinois University. He compiled it from things he actually saw in
Graduate School submissions (applications and course-work). "Eye Halve"
is a corrupted version.
The *original*, properly attributed, "owed to a spell-chequer":
I have a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule
The checker pour o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Be fore a veiling checkers
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if were lacks or have a laps,
We wood be maid to wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know faults with in my cite,
Of non eye am a wear.
Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped words fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud.
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft ware four pea seas.
And why I brake in two averse
By righting want too pleas.
-- Jerry Zar, Dean of the Graduate School
Northwestern Illinois University
The original email is dated "29 June, 1992".
It was subsequently published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results,
January/February 1994, page 13. Reprinted (.by popular demand.) in the
Journal of Irreproducible Results, Vol. 45, No. 5/6, 2000, page 20.
See http://www.improbable.com the web-site of the "Annals of Improbable
Research", founded by a mass exodus of the entire staff of the original
"Journal of Irreproducible Results", in 1994/5.
The Journal, itself, first published in 1955(!!) also still exists...
http://www.jir.com I haven't read it in years -- it suffered badly when
Marc Abrahams, et al, bolted.
BOTH publications are extremely humorous reading. *Especially for any-
one who has had to deal with academic papers.
The best of "The Onion" might qualify for publication in one of them.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:23:05 -0600
From: bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Pay phone unplugged after costing Davison County $69 per call
Message-ID: <FsidnUX8_tK0tKXQnZ2dnUVZ_tednZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>
In article <hdGdnaK7CvylDqvQnZ2dnUVZ_gGdnZ2d@posted.nuvoxcommunications>,
>***** Moderator's Note *****
>
>Ah, but consider the environment: any phone accessible to the public
>in a court house will have to withstand punishment by those
>dissatisfied with the outcomes of their cases,
$700/year, or so, pays for a LOT of non-ruggedized replacement phones.
<grin>
> and must also be
>hearing-aid compatible, have access to multilingual operators, and
>must offer access to any carrier.
Baloney. For a _PAY_PHONE_, some such rules may apply. There no such
rule applicable to a simple 'house' "courtesy phone" extension made available
for local-only calls. In fact, it can be placarded for 'emergency only'
use, and be a hot ring-down to the county 'switchboard operator'.
BTW, the 'equal access' mandate for alternate carriers does -not- require
that a phone offer access to any (let alone every) carrier. If all
long-distance calls are blocked, the '_equal_ access' requirement is met,
since all are being treated equally. :)
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:00:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <566d90a1-760d-4e0a-bc2f-9fa2680fd3b3@i17g2000vbq.googlegroups.com>
On Jan 20, 12:00 am, John Mayson <j...@mayson.us> wrote:
> I grew up during the 1980s. I often wonder just how on earth I
> survived without the Internet. Today I think I would go without food
> before I'd go without Internet access.
The Internet does make things easier, but there were other information
sources in wide use before the Internet.
The telephone was a big help: One could call for train or plane
information and make reservations over the phone and a million other
examples. Organizations have saved a lot of money removing humans
from call center or front counter duty. Instead of calling in a
telephone order we type it in ourselves. Likewise with account
queries. Today, organizations discourage calling them via telephone
and push for customers to use the Internet.
What happened to all the money they saved? Is it reflected in better
customer service elsewhere or lower prices? For instance, my cable
TV provider has automated their telephone lines, so I can check my
payment status automatically. that saves them humans to do that, but
cable rates are still going up faster than inflation.
We used the newspaper: Almost everyone got a daily newspaper which
contained much of the information that we now get from the Internet,
such as the weather, movie showtimes, store ads, and features. We
forget many of the features that newspapers carried because in recent
years they have been eliminated to save money in response to declining
circulation. Indeed, in the early days of the Internet people were
proud of the fact they no longer depended on the daily newspaper.
We watched television and listened to the radio: The daily news
broadcasts had more listeners, such as to hear the weather. Radio
told us about school closings.
We used the mail and hard copy: If I were going to visit someplace,
I'd phone or write for information, and the destination would mail me
back a printed brochure. Every organization had printed material
about their services and the organization, be it a catalog, train
schedule, rate card, calendar-of-events, service description, etc.
Today we get all that information by going on-line. For instance,
many people print out tax forms via the Internet; before they would
have to request them; today some can file taxes via the Internet, too.
The Internet has devastated the US Postal Service in reduced mail
volumes for the above, and also e-mail payments and billing have
reduced the mail.
One thing the Internet has done has shifted printing costs to the
consumer instead of the organization. Today we print a brochure on
our own color printers, burning up expensive ink. Several hobbyists
organizations I belong to want to cease mailing out their newsletters
and send them by email instead.
We had to wait longer for information. If we mailed away for a
brochure we had to wait for it. Information in the newspaper may not
be up to date.
Going further back people used to communicate by mail and used the
telephone or telegraph only for critical exchanges because they were
expensive to use. As the telephone became cheap mail usage dropped
and people conducted more and more of their business and personal
communications by phone, saving time, and now the Internet is even
faster.
We have more information: We are flooded with information. Generally
that's helpful for us to make decisions, but at the same time there's
a lot of garbage information out there, either well-meaning
individuals putting out stuff which is inaccurate, or evil people
intentionally putting out garbage. Also, dangerous information is
more easily spread, such as encouragement and means towards violence.
Our socialization has changed. Many people have used the Internet as
a substitute for face-to-face interaction with other people for social
purposes. Internet dating is big, but other people retreat behind the
Internet instead of getting out in the world.
Is this sort of thing better or worse for society? In some ways
it's very beneficial. Shut-ins have much more communication options
thanks to the Internet. People can get to know a prospective suitor
via email conversations in advance to actually meeting them; this acts
as somewhat of a protective filter. But the flip side is the Internet
allows people with evil intent to meet others, especially vulnerable
people like youths.
IMHO, the "Information Superhighway" has some analogy to the
automobile. The invention and popularizaiton of the car helped
society in many ways by improving transportation. But the car also
created many problems such as highway crashes resulting in property
damage, injuries, and deaths; pollution, destruction of vast amounts
of the land for concrete, huge thirst for oil that we must import from
hostile places, etc.
The Internet has benefits, of course, but advocates have failed to
deal with or even acknowledge its dangers. Undoubtedly it has saved
lives, but it has killed people, too. Viruses are a big problem.
Identity theft, business fraud, and loss of privacy are big
problems.
Some people think pornography (or certain kinds of it) are a bigger
problem. (Though with porn I would think someone would prefer the old
way of paying cash discretely in a back alley store where no record is
kept as opposed to using the Internet where not only a credit card
record is kept, but also history logs on the PC itself as well as
ISPs. Lots of people have been fired from their jobs due to that.)
In summary, we had other means before the Internet, and many of them
have dried up. Returning to the car analogy, my mother's family
didn't have a car. But they didn't really miss one because they lived
in the city and numerous streetcar lines were within a few blocks of
their home, and the trolleys ran very frequently, even at night; and
frequent convenient railroad service was available for longer trips.
As automobiles became widespread, the streetcar routes were
consolidated and service frequency reduced. (In one old city
neighborhood the trolleys once ran every 90 seconds in the rush hour,
today's buses on the same route run only every 30 minutes).
Eventually the automobile ceased being a luxury and became a necessity
since it eliminated its competition. Likewise with the Internet.
Today, we have to have it because alternative means have dried up.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:56:04 -0600
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <AANLkTikXao-ocg3i=R3M0fQ7b1MLs9DtQeORiPBV1F=B@mail.gmail.com>
On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 12:00 PM, Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Jan 20, 12:00Â am, John Mayson <j...@mayson.us> wrote:
>> I grew up during the 1980s. Â I often wonder just how on earth I
>> survived without the Internet. Â Today I think I would go without food
>> before I'd go without Internet access.
>
> The Internet does make things easier, but there were other information
> sources in wide use before the Internet.
I had AP English and science classes in high school. My wife's school
didn't have an AP program, so she wasn't familiar with it. I spent
numerous weekends either at the downtown Tampa library or the USF
library doing research. While I didn't have to walk uphill in the
snow I often had to take the HART bus because my parents were unable
to take me.
This came up because she was complaining how unfair it was to make
kids today do research papers. I needed a forklift to raise my chin
off the floor. Today kids have this wonderful piece of coax that
comes into the house making those trips to the library on a bus
unnecessary.
A problem I have found with people under 25. They don't know how to
find information. I do wonder of being forced to use a card catalog
and flipping through journals does something to the brain.
Oh, speaking of card catalogs. A few years ago I was at the Austin
library and referred to the "card catalog" to the 20-something clerk
and she had no clue what I was talking about.
I still think though it's better today than in 1984 when I was
trudging to the library with a pocketful of dimes for the photocopier.
John
--
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
***** Moderator's Note *****
I wonder if today's kids do have it better. They have a lot more
information available to them, to be sure, but what information?
AFAICT, they stand under a waterfall of hype, and have to spend all
their time learning to tell the disinformation apart from the truth.
In times past, children had to rely on the experience of their elders
to discern the difference between caviar and carp, and that meant that
they grew up learning how to build and rely on person-to-person
relationships. Now, they have "everything" at their fingertips, but no
way to know which parts of it are important.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:01:01 -0800 (PST)
From: Wes Leatherock <wleathus@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <979265.53272.qm@web111703.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
--- On Thu, 1/20/11, Lisa or Jeff <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Jan 20, 12:00 am, John Mayson <j...@mayson.us> wrote:
> > I grew up during the 1980s. I often wonder just how on earth I
> > survived without the Internet. Today I think I would go without
> > food before I'd go without Internet access.
>
> The Internet does make things easier, but there were other
> information sources in wide use before the Internet.
>
> The telephone was a big help: One could call for train or plane
> information and make reservations over the phone and a million other
> examples. Organizations have saved a lot of money removing humans
> from call center or front counter duty. Instead of calling in a
> telephone order we type it in ourselves. Likewise with account
> queries. Today, organizations discourage calling them via telephone
> and push for customers to use the Internet.
>
> What happened to all the money they saved? Is it reflected in
> better customer service elsewhere or lower prices? For instance, my
> cable TV provider has automated their telephone lines, so I can
> check my payment status automatically. that saves them humans to do
> that, but cable rates are still going up faster than inflation.
>
> We used the newspaper: Almost everyone got a daily newspaper which
> contained much of the information that we now get from the Internet,
> such as the weather, movie showtimes, store ads, and features. We
> forget many of the features that newspapers carried because in
> recent years they have been eliminated to save money in response to
> declining circulation. Indeed, in the early days of the Internet
> people were proud of the fact they no longer depended on the daily
> newspaper.
> We watched television and listened to the radio: The daily news
> broadcasts had more listeners, such as to hear the weather. Radio
> told us about school closings.
My wife and I were in our late 20s when the first network
television came to Dallas, a single coax from Jackson, Miss. The
networks rotated for live feeds. It was just before a political
convention, one of the things we were looking for.
Later, now in Oklahoma City, I had a call from my counterpart in
Houston asking when we and they got live TV, because he knew I had
historical records and the date was the same becuase it was on
completion of a new microwave route from Omaha through Wichita,
Oklahoma City, Dallas and Waco to Houston. Before that only Dallas
had only one live channel and none in the other places.
I remember when they hired jet airplanes to bring the images of QE
II's coronation to the U.S. The CBC's arrived first, and so most of
the U.S. networks were using their feed until their own arrived. Life
magazine fitted out an airplane with darkrooms so the photos could be
developed en route over the Atlantic just before its weekly deadline.
Now, "we take you to breaking news in "Mumbai" line.
> We used the mail and hard copy: If I were going to visit someplace,
> I'd phone or write for information, and the destination would mail
> me back a printed brochure. Every organization had printed material
> about their services and the organization, be it a catalog, train
> schedule, rate card, calendar-of-events, service description, etc.
I remember when our office got its first fax machine. You put the
proginal or the sensitized paper around a roll and rolled it in by
hand.
> The Internet has devastated the US Postal Service in reduced mail
> volumes for the above, and also e-mail payments and billing have
> reduced the mail.
> One thing the Internet has done has shifted printing costs to the
> consumer instead of the organization. Today we print a brochure on
> our own color printers, burning up expensive ink. Several hobbyists
> organizations I belong to want to cease mailing out their
> newsletters and send them by email instead.
[ ... ]
> IMHO, the "Information Superhighway" has some analogy to the
> automobile. The invention and popularizaiton of the car helped
> society in many ways by improving transportation. But the car also
> created many problems such as highway crashes resulting in property
> damage, injuries, and deaths; pollution, destruction of vast amounts
> of the land for concrete, huge thirst for oil that we must import
> from hostile places, etc.
[ ... ]
> In summary, we had other means before the Internet, and many of
> them have dried up. Returning to the car analogy, my mother's
> family didn't have a car. But they didn't really miss one because
> they lived in the city and numerous streetcar lines were within a
> few blocks of their home, and the trolleys ran very frequently, even
> at night; and frequent convenient railroad service was available for
> longer trips. As automobiles became widespread, the streetcar
> routes were consolidated and service frequency reduced. (In one old
> city neighborhood the trolleys once ran every 90 seconds in the rush
> hour, today's buses on the same route run only every 30 minutes).
> Eventually the automobile ceased being a luxury and became a
> necessity since it eliminated its competition.
It eliminated the competition because it was much handier and less
time consuming for most people. I remember when we got our second
car--a beat up car that had been used in the oil fields but was
mechanically sound--and it changed out lives.
Wes Leatherock
wleathus@yahoo.com
wesrock@aol.com
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:04:33 -0800
From: Steven <diespammers@killspammers.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <iha103$kn9$1@news.eternal-september.org>
On 1/19/11 9:00 PM, John Mayson wrote:
> I grew up during the 1980s. I often wonder just how on earth I
> survived without the Internet. Today I think I would go without food
> before I'd go without Internet access.
I grew up in the 60's and we had CB, where a bunch of us teens hung out,
we did a lot of things together, it was like an early internet, I moved
on and got my Ham ticket and did not really us CB after that. I wish I
could live without The internet, but I have to do most of my work using
it. I remember when the beginnings in 1967 at UCLA when I worked on
what was one of the first Internet machines.
--
The only good spammer is a dead one!! Have you hunted one down today?
(c) 2011 I Kill Spammers, Inc. A Rot in Hell Co.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:07:22 -0500
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <MPG.27a28a36bcfd9acf989d14@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <iha103$kn9$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
diespammers@killspammers.com says...
>
> On 1/19/11 9:00 PM, John Mayson wrote:
> > I grew up during the 1980s. I often wonder just how on earth I
> > survived without the Internet. Today I think I would go without food
> > before I'd go without Internet access.
>
> I grew up in the 60's and we had CB, where a bunch of us teens hung out,
> we did a lot of things together, it was like an early internet, I moved
> on and got my Ham ticket and did not really us CB after that. I wish I
> could live without The internet, but I have to do most of my work using
> it. I remember when the beginnings in 1967 at UCLA when I worked on
> what was one of the first Internet machines.
I've been online in one way, shape of form since 1982 when I graduated
from high school and started in college.
>From 300 baud modems, to 2400, 9600 and on to broadband connections at
work and at home.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:59:30 -0500
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Restaurants Reach Out to Customers With Social Media
Message-ID: <p0624086ac95e4463d129@[10.0.1.2]>
Restaurants Reach Out to Customers With Social Media
By ELIZABETH OLSON
January 19, 2011
RESTAURANTS and bars thrive on repeat business, but customers
increasingly expect more than just good service, food and drinks.
They want to be engaged and entertained, and some food establishments
are turning to location-based social media to help keep customers
happy and loyal.
Buffalo Wild Wings, a national restaurant chain that offers casual
dining and televised sports, is embarking on a campaign, called "Home
Court Advantage," to involve customers beyond the smartphone
"check-in" they use to note their arrival.
The chain, which has 730 locations around the country, is known for
its wing-eating contests and trivia challenges. Beginning this month,
it is working with Scvngr, a location-based social media network, to
introduce contests and rewards for its customers. Its main target is
tech-savvy basketball fans, an important demographic for the chain.
Like the social media companies Gowalla, Foursquare and Loopt, Scvngr
is largely reaching the people in their 20s and 30s who frequently
use their mobile phones to flag their presence at a specific spot,
and to notify friends of their location. While millions of people
have signed onto such sites, it is estimated that just 4 percent of
smartphone users in the United States have tried these services, with
a mere 1 percent using them more than once a week, according to the
most recent Forrester Research survey. Most users are men, however,
and some 70 percent are between 19 and 35 - and that is the ideal
profile of a Buffalo Wild Wings customer.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/business/media/20adco.html
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:38:09 -0500
From: tlvp <tPlOvUpBErLeLsEs@hotmail.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Your most dangerous possession? Your smartphone
Message-ID: <op.vpmgtvafitl47o@acer250.gateway.2wire.net>
On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:56:48 -0500, Arthur Shapiro <art.shapiro@unisys.com> wrote:
>> ... ability to import
>> and *export* the directory ...
>
> Are you saying this isn't a facility available for every phone in the
> world???
Sure it's an available facility on most near every phone,
just as A/C is an available option on most automobiles.
But if it wasn't part of your phone's (or car's) equipment at purchase time,
good luck getting it installed after purchase -- sometimes you can, but
sometimes you can't (all depends how easy it is to find requisite drivers
and/or software -- and, perhaps, cables).
Case in point: LG cu400. I have that handset, and the matching USB data cable,
but neither Windows nor LG's web site seem to be able to provide appropriate
drivers for that cable.
'Nother case in point: the old Nokia 6610. Nokia actually offers phone-reading
software, and a serial data cable (with working Windows driver files), but the
phone-reading software only handles the primary number associated with a given
directory item; and for backing up messages, it handles only SMS messages, not
MMS ones; and as for Calendar or ToDo list items, "Fuhgeddit," it "don' do dat".
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:55:56 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Pay phone unplugged after costing Davison County $69 per call
Message-ID: <iha7gs$ku5$1@news.albasani.net>
Robert Bonomi <bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com> wrote:
>Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>Robert Bonomi <bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com> wrote:
>>>Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>>>John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote:
>>>>>http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/south-dakota/article_2e232f62-20b1-11e0-82e6-001cc4c03286.html
>>>>>MITCHELL, S.D. (AP) - A pay phone in the county courthouse in Mitchell
>>>>>will be unplugged after officials discovered it cost the county $69
>>>>>per call last year.
>>>>>County Maintenance Supervisor Mark Ruml told the Davison County
>>>>>Commission that he'd never seen anyone use the phone in more than
>>>>>three years and money to pay for it was coming out of his budget.
>>>>>It cost the county $763 a year to have the phone. Ruml said records
>>>>>showed only 11 calls were placed on the phone in 2010.
>>>>>The Daily Republic newspaper said the county commission voted to
>>>>>remove it.
>>>>Have they ever heard of the concept of competitive bidding? They might
>>>>have found a payphone services provider willing to place a phone there.
>>>With -that- volume of calls, nobody's going to be interested -- UNLESS
>>>the county pony's up for all the costs.
>>The owner of the office building doesn't guarantee a minimum number of
>>calls.
>True. However, a pay-phone operator is a businessman -- s/he's not
>going to put in a phone at his/her expense where the demonstrated call
>volume won't cover the phone line charges, not to mention depreciation
>or maintenance/servicing costs on the equipment.
He's not going to know what the previous call volume was. He's going to
look over the building, negotiate for a prominent location like near
the front door, and make an educated guess about what future traffic
might be. The phone in question was probably out of sight.
>>>They might find a cut-rate COCOTS operator to put one for a somewhat lower
>>>cost, but I really doubt they'd be able to get it to under $25/call, given
>>>the indicated traffic level.
>>It's still cheaper than installing an extension for emergency calls,
>>something you are really going to want available in a court house.
>Mail bovine excrement applies. IF the courthouse is open, there are
>county employees around who already have phones. In fact, for -most-
>of the courthouse,` said employees will be -closer- to the scene of an
>emergency than a pay phone is.
>Even if that wasn't the case, the 'cost' of running an 'extension' off the
>PBX, is a one-time expense of a few hundred dollars, at most, allowing
>several hundred dollars out of 'first year' costs for replacing damaged phone
>sets. Second year, after the one-time install costs have been amortized,
>the expense equivalent of that pay phone buys a new 'throw away' phone set
>every week or two.
For an emergency, we don't want a phone that requires a working electrical
connection or for the PBX to be up and running. You're not thinking about
what should be provided for emergency reasons.
Also, we really don't want a phone that dials the police emergency number
but nowhere else. People might need to make other calls.
The phone should have been charged to an emergency communication budget
or something like that so it didn't wind up as low hanging fruit on the
maintenance supervisor's budget.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:22:04 -0600
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: What did the USPTO really say about unlocking cell phones?
Message-ID: <AANLkTimrHS73s9LU3PLyrTTpzB2RrOvpm4J5xUiS7o2N@mail.gmail.com>
I am having a heck of a time finding a definitive answer on this subject.
Last year the USPTO issued an opinion/ruling/announcement that people
have the right to unlock their phones. Or at least I thought they
did. Am I crazy?
I was told by one of our two mobile companies they would give us the
unlock code for my daughter's phone before she leaves for Europe. No
it's NOT an iPhone. The code they provided didn't work. Called them
back and the service rep laughingly said they would NEVER unlock our
phone and refused to escalate the call. So, in short, we'll soon just
have ONE mobile company and that company has NEVER given me a hard
time about unlocking my phones to use in other countries.
--
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:01:11 -0600
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Celcom Axiata & DiGi agreed to share network infrastructure | Malaysian Wireless
Message-ID: <AANLkTikVphc21yQ44ftSzeRQXzzmR2d_sDw+EZEqntNW@mail.gmail.com>
DiGi & Celcom Axiata have agreed to share an initial of 218 sites or
base stations from each provider to save about 2.2 billion ringgit
($719 million) over 10 years.
More here: http://www.malaysianwireless.com/2011/01/celcom-axiata-digi-share-218-base-station/
How much sharing goes on in other countries?
John
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:00:20 -0500
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Auto(in)correct
Message-ID: <MPG.27a28890e0c26dd4989d12@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <887375.70586.qm@web111724.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>,
wleathus@yahoo.com says...
>
> --- On Tue, 1/18/11, John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote:
> > My sister lives in Atlanta. As you know they had a snowstorm a
> > couple of weeks ago. She texted her boyfriend, "I'm stocked up on
> > Mountain Dew to survive the snow-in." But her phone auto-corrected
> > "snow-in" to "abortion".
>
>
> I am a writer and editor by trade and I find even more annoying the
> correction in style and syntax that Microsoft's "spell" check is
> continually interrupting with.
>
> Some of their proposed corrections are just plain wrong, others apply
> to some different style than I am writing in, and in other cases I
> particularly deivate from a style for effect.
>
> Their proposed corrections apparently are mainly applicable to
> scientific papers or the most formal type of writing, or follow some
> British style, and often following them would be obfuscatory to the
> reader. They would be fine for writing the documents, such as credit
> card and deposit account rules, that are now by law being commanded to
> be written in "plain English," which their style certainly is not.
I'm not an editor but instead an I.T. pro. MS products can't
understand technical terms at all. I end up adding those that I use
frequently to the dictionary.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:04:21 -0500
From: T <kd1s.nospam@cox.nospam.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?
Message-ID: <MPG.27a2897cccce08ee989d13@news.eternal-september.org>
In article <AANLkTimeWmHeiekHhHvyvg-bEE4GuBvN6
=V_sUEGPscx@mail.gmail.com>, john@mayson.us says...
>
> I grew up during the 1980s. I often wonder just how on earth I
> survived without the Internet. Today I think I would go without food
> before I'd go without Internet access.
Agreed. I could not give up my net connection. It'd be the last thing to
go as much as I hate the incumbent providers around here.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:47:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Of cell phones and freedom
Message-ID: <332841.22610.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:40:23 -0600 John Mayson <john@mayson.us> wrote:
> Perhaps others can set me straight. Maybe the situation in the US
> isn't quite as bad as I'm making it out to be.
>
> I tend to think I'm right.
It's not all cut and dried. In many countries it's expensive to use
voice minutes which is why the culture of text messaging developed in
a big way a lot sooner than it did in North America.
> I bought my first cell phone in 1995. I was your typical American
> cell phone consumer who didn't think twice about the technology
> behind it. I was happy as a clam to take the free phone, or
> slightly nicer phone at a drastically reduced price, and pay my
> monthly bill.
But when you got that "free" or reduced cost phone the actual price
was being subsidized by the carrier to encourage you to use their
service.
> I started to hear from others how much better the situation was in
> Europe. They didn't settle for cheap low-quality phones. Consumers
> there bought the phone outright and owned it. They then could take
> it to any wireless company in the country and if they weren't happy
> could go across the street and get service from a competitor.
> Sounded too good to be true.
In theory. The truth is that in many countries the handsets were
locked and were subsidy driven because people didn't want to pay a
huge amount of money up front.
People like to point out that in Europe and Asia it "doesn't cost
anything to receive calls" which is of course right. What they don't
say is with a caller pays system someone pays for the call and it's
the person making the call. Very often they pay dearly for that free
call to you. They also don't have any control over what tariff they
pay either. They pay the rate that the called company has negotiated
with your company as compared to the called party pays system where
the receiving party can negotiate for a rate plan that suits their
need so if they need a lot of minutes they'll get that plan and if
they don't they'll get a plan with less minutes and pay less for
calls.
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:05:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Sounds like ...
Message-ID: <351715.10155.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:24:17 -0500 Curt Bramblett <CurtBramblett@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> Eye halve a spelling chequer
> It came with my pea sea
> It plainly marques four my revue
> Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Unfortunately many people must have been dosing off in school when it
was explained to them that even though several words may sound alike
they do have distinctive different meanings among them such as to/too,
your/you're, there, their, they're. I don't think I can count the
times when I've seen people make posts in on-line forums and used to
instead of too. If you bring up the word homophone most don't know
that it doesn't have anything to do with a gay guy's phone :)
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