The Telecom Digest for July 19, 2010
Volume 29 : Issue 195 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
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Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:41:11 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Tweet Less, Kiss More
Message-ID: <p0624080bc868c28d302c@[192.168.0.109]>
Tweet Less, Kiss More
By BOB HERBERT
The New York Times
July 16, 2010
I was driving from Washington to New York one afternoon on Interstate
95 when a car came zooming up behind me, really flying. I could see
in the rearview mirror that the driver was talking on her cellphone.
I was about to move to the center lane to get out of her way when she
suddenly swerved into that lane herself to pass me on the right -
still chatting away. She continued moving dangerously from one lane
to another as she sped up the highway.
A few days later, I was talking to a guy who commutes every day
between New York and New Jersey. He props up his laptop on the front
seat so he can watch DVDs while he's driving.
"I only do it in traffic," he said. "It's no big deal."
Beyond the obvious safety issues, why does anyone want, or need, to
be talking constantly on the phone or watching movies (or texting)
while driving? I hate to sound so 20th century, but what's wrong with
just listening to the radio? The blessed wonders of technology are
overwhelming us. We don't control them; they control us.
We've got cellphones and BlackBerrys and Kindles and iPads, and we're
e-mailing and text-messaging and chatting and tweeting - I used to
call it Twittering until I was corrected by high school kids who
patiently explained to me, as if I were the village idiot, that the
correct term is tweeting. Twittering, tweeting - whatever it is, it
sounds like a nervous disorder.
This is all part of what I think is one of the weirder aspects of our
culture: a heightened freneticism that seems to demand that we be
doing, at a minimum, two or three things every single moment of every
hour that we're awake. Why is multitasking considered an admirable
talent? We could just as easily think of it as a neurotic inability
to concentrate for more than three seconds.
...
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/opinion/17herbert.html
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:37:53 +1000
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Apple July 16 Press Conference video
Message-ID: <pan.2010.07.18.06.37.50.686751@myrealbox.com>
On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:30:41 +1000, David Clayton wrote:
.........
> I'm almost surprised that people use these things for voice calls any
> more, I thought that they were basically sold on all the other things
> apart from such old-fashioned use?
.........
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> "Old fashioned"? "OLD FASHIONED"??
>
> David, you just made my day. Cell calls are now "old fashioned".
>
> I can tell you how an SD 96251 works! Given a spark coil and a doorbell
> buzzer, I can make a transmitter that will blank out AM radios for
> hundreds of feet! I listened to "Pancho and Lefty" when Eric von Schmidt
> was singing it!
>
> I know the MORSE CODE, Dave!
>
> Bill "Moldy Oldy" Horne
> Moderator
Yeah, but I'm just waiting for the time when the "phone" function of these
things is an additional add-on feature that costs a bit more - let's see
how much of Apple's target market take that up in a few years.....
Isn't it the reality that Apple market these things on everything but
the phone function?
--
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: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:20:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: "harold@hallikainen.com" <harold@hallikainen.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Apple July 16 Press Conference video
Message-ID: <55975936-ce50-4059-8587-4e577d53d3ce@a4g2000prm.googlegroups.com>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> "Old fashioned"? "OLD FASHIONED"??
>
> David, you just made my day. Cell calls are now "old fashioned".
>
> I can tell you how an SD 96251 works! Given a spark coil and a
> doorbell buzzer, I can make a transmitter that will blank out AM
> radios for hundreds of feet! I listened to "Pancho and Lefty" when
> Eric von Schmidt was singing it!
>
> I know the MORSE CODE, Dave!
>
> Bill "Moldy Oldy" Horne
> Moderator
While in elementary school, I made a spark gap transmitter out of a
buzzer out of a toy battleship. One side of the interrupter went to a
water pipe. The other to a long wire in a tree. On the low end of AM,
it could be heard for at least a mile.
Now, I use this http://www.planetofnoise.com/midi/morse2mid.php for
ringtones on my cellphone. When my wife calls, I hear LH. When by
brother calls, I hear DH etc.
Harold
WA6FDN
***** Moderator's Note *****
Well, yeah, when you use an antenna the signal travels further. I
meant just a spark-gap without anything else.
Come to think of it, why are ham operators so competitive about their
signal strength?
Bill Horne, W1AC
Moderator
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:15:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: The iPhone 4 Redux: Analyzing Apple's iOS 4.0.1 Signal Fix
Message-ID: <776555.1909.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:17:41 -0700 Sam Spade <sam@coldmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Since those initial measurements, we've been working tirelessly to
>> both characterize the problem, fully understand the mechanisms behind
>> it, and report on a number of possible solutions.
>
> Thanks to Job's panic, I got sucked in today to a one-hour update to my
> old 3G iPhone. It didn't let me know that until I was trapped.
>
> I am not an Apple fan, even less so now.
You are never "trapped" and only if you choose to be. On all updates
you are asked whether you wish to download the update. It is not
foisted upon you. That's your decision alone whether you think it's
beneficial to you.
One has to ask though that if you're not a "fan" why did you bother
getting the device in the first place. It's not as if there aren't
lots of other choices by a myriad of other vendors. You need to take
responsibility for your own actions.
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:24:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Apple July 16 Press Conference video
Message-ID: <22752.82530.qm@web52708.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:30:41 +1000 David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>> Is it just me, or is it a bit bizarre that all this hoo-haa over a
>> little piece of technology is happening?
>
> I'm almost surprised that people use these things for voice calls
> any more, I thought that they were basically sold on all the other
> things apart from such old-fashioned use?
When you spend $200 on a device that's claimed to do what it claims to
do i.e. use as a phone, use as a web browser, use as a media player
etc. and the company markets it as such you have an expectation that
it will do the functions as promised. Voice calling may be "old
fashioned" but it's expected that functionality will work when it's
marketed as such. Voice calling is far from dead.
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:57:15 +1000
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Apple July 16 Press Conference video
Message-ID: <pan.2010.07.18.22.57.12.531995@myrealbox.com>
On Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:24:27 -0700, Joseph Singer wrote:
> Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:30:41 +1000 David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
> wrote:
>
>>> Is it just me, or is it a bit bizarre that all this hoo-haa over a
>>> little piece of technology is happening?
>>
>> I'm almost surprised that people use these things for voice calls any
>> more, I thought that they were basically sold on all the other things
>> apart from such old-fashioned use?
>
> When you spend $200 on a device that's claimed to do what it claims to do
> i.e. use as a phone, use as a web browser, use as a media player etc. and
> the company markets it as such you have an expectation that it will do the
> functions as promised. Voice calling may be "old fashioned" but it's
> expected that functionality will work when it's marketed as such. Voice
> calling is far from dead.
The point is that the voice function is not a "headline" feature of the
device, it seems to be just a basic underlying function that is not
marketed as anything special.
I believe there are other choices out there for people who want the best
voice calling performance from their mobile comms device.
The current hoo-haa seems to be about the voice function not working so
well in certain circumstances - my response is basically "Big deal", the
phone function seems to work ok and that should be good enough for
geek-o-sauruses who essentially buy these things for all the other "cool"
things that they do.
--
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.
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End of The Telecom Digest (6 messages)
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