You wouldn't be using that on a commercial device, though. If you're deploying a large quantity of GSM-enabled devices you'd organise with a provider to have a data-only card which costs some small amount and only allows SMS, for a fixed rate based on how much traffic you're likely to throw at it.
GSM data isn't cheap; but(at least in reasonably densely settled areas) it works more or less everywhere and the modules needed to add support for it are quite cheap.
In the UK, GSM works damn near everywhere (there are a few places where I need to break out a yagi, in the north of Scotland), and GSM and GPRS data is too cheap to be worth billing for. In many cases if you just want to send control and status messages you'd just use SMS, which is free.
But lets add heavy snow to the equation... Now you can't see crap, and the car just saved you from hitting 1 possibly 2 cars ahead.
If I "can't see crap", then I'm going to drive at a speed suitable for the conditions. I don't give a toss how safe the computer thinks it might be, I want it to go no faster than I can see and I want full manual control instantly available at all times.
I'm not even a fan of traction control, after having narrowly avoided a horrible accident when the engine management system it decided it wanted to take over the throttle from me in deep snow. Oh oops, now we're sideways with no power. Great.
Because they still won't be able to anticipate changing road conditions as well as a human. You'd just have all the cars in the surrounding 500 metres suddenly having a shitfit.
What a good job cars that drive themselves will never really be a realistic prospect. It's just plain too complex to get a computer to respond safely to the changing conditions on roads. Yes, you can make a car that can drive itself around quiet streets and even park itself. Yes, you can make an autonomous 4x4 that can race up a quiet hill track faster than a human driver. You're in your autonomous car, with another car a little close behind when an oncoming car swerves into your lane to avoid debris, just as an obstruction (let's say, a bloody great stag) jumps in front of your car. Which way does the computer steer? Hit the brakes so you get rear-ended? Head for the weeds?
I track down RF problems, and half the time they turn out to be a smart meter, or an ethernet-over-power adaptor.
When my next door neighbours got a smart meter, nothing RF-y worked any more. Worst hit was the HF part of the spectrum, so that was one of my hobbies (amateur radio) knackered. However, all was not lost, because I can just use a different band, right? So I concentrated my attention on 13cm, where I can legally crank out a few hundred watts and obliterate the whole wifi spectrum - thus depriving the twat next door of his hobby, fapping over very unpleasant pr0n on his laptop.
Radiation fear mongers are the same ones that want to shut down your wifi. The meter is on the outside of the house, any radiation they produce is no more than your neighbors wifi, which is on 24/7.
Actually, it's more to do with the crippling amount of interference these things crank out. Great, you've got your wireless "smart meter". Now say goodbye to off-air TV, FM radio, shortwave radio, AM radio, police and ambulance radios, and indeed damn near anything that uses RF below 5GHz. Garage door opener? Forget it, unless you're actually right inside your garage. That neat little wireless weather station? Sorry, can't hear you above the smart meter. Ethernet over powerlines? Well, they're pretty much relentlessly horrible for RF interference, but they'll probably be affected too.
My sister's car was prevented from being stolen once by a simple mechanical device - the manual choke. Her husband was woken up by the sound of a car revving and stalling repeatedly, but by that time my she was in the street in her pyjamas and steel-toecapped rigger boots, chasing the would-be thieves with a trolley-jack handle;-)
My own car (Citroën CX) is reasonably tricky to start even without the immobiliser, because once you've figured out that it has a manual choke that needs to be not quite all the way out (too far and it will flood, and not start), you then find that it maybe won't turn over because the ignition switch is worn - so you need to hold the key just right too. If you get that far, then you've got to remember to wait 30 seconds for the hydraulic pump to bring everything up to pressure, otherwise the steering is impossible to turn and you have no brakes so you'll just roll into whatever's in front and stall because by now it needs the choke pushed back in or it'll flood.
Once you get past the first minute it's fine. I've flown aircraft that have a less involved startup procedure. I'll get round to fixing the choke and the ignition switch one day...
I've already pointed out that vaccines are a Good Thing. But, the MMR vaccine is about as safe as stabbing your child with a rusty pitchfork. It's a huge amount of very very nasty stuff to inject directly into a very frail little creature, before they've had much of a chance to develop any immune system at all.
The MMR triple-jab is a dangerous experiment, but a profitable one. Don't buy into it.
"Herd Immunity" means "developing immunity from catching it from someone else". If she doesn't catch measles from someone, then she will never develop an immunity.
Before the vaccine schedule, the measles were routinely among the top 5 killers in our nation. Before the vaccine, everyone knew kids that had died of measles, and many that had nearly died.
Really? Because the MMR vaccine is a fairly new thing, and when I was child of about the age you'd give it (in the 1970s) no-one was even getting the single vaccine. If 5000 children a year were dying in the US because they weren't vaccinated for measles, then you must have a problem with the way you handle measles. Maybe your healthcare system is lacking something.
I haven't, and I can't think of anyone I know who has had them. I did have the chicken pox, but that's mild enough that they don't vaccinate against it.
Maybe you're younger than I am. When I was the kind of age that kids get measles etc. at, pretty much everyone had it at some point over the course of a week or two, and then it was all gone. Thus, herd immunity. There wasn't this big screaming hoo-hah about eleventy billion kids a second dying of measles, and no-one thought it was worth vaccinating against it. Like I mentioned in another post, teenage girls got German measles (that dates me, they call it Rubella now) at school even if they'd had it, because the consequences of getting that while pregnant are pretty horrific.
It's hardly a "battle". You get some wee spots and a snotty nose for a day or two. There are even perfectly effective single-vaccine shots for measles, mumps and German measles. Spiking up young children with the massive megadose of pathogens in the MMR vaccine is asking for trouble.
That's why you've never seen the measles or the mumps.
Does the vaccination affect your reading comprehension? I - and everyone I know - has at some point had measles or mumps. If you actually take the time to read what I wrote, you'll see that I said I have never heard of anyone who had died of measles or mumps.
How, exactly? I'd struggle to count how many people I know, and I can't think of anyone who died as a result of contracting measles, mumps or German measles. I don't even know anyone who has a sibling that died of these diseases.
Everyone I know has had all three. When I was at school in the 1980s, we all had TB and polio vaccinations - separately, not all on the same day and certainly not a combined shot - and the girls were vaccinated against German measles because that actually *is* quite nasty if you contract it when you're pregnant. I knew a few people who died in car accidents. I knew one guy who fell off his boat and drowned, and another who shot himself. I even knew someone who died of meningitis, but no-one who ever died of measles or mumps.
So some random person on the Internet who doesn't appear to have much to do with Android points out a couple of not-really-problems, and suddenly everyone is supposed to drop everything and fix them?
If you search for "charles ying android" every link comes back with a reference to this single blog post. I could take him seriously if I'd ever heard of him in the context of Android development, or even at all...
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You wouldn't be using that on a commercial device, though. If you're deploying a large quantity of GSM-enabled devices you'd organise with a provider to have a data-only card which costs some small amount and only allows SMS, for a fixed rate based on how much traffic you're likely to throw at it.
GSM data isn't cheap; but(at least in reasonably densely settled areas) it works more or less everywhere and the modules needed to add support for it are quite cheap.
In the UK, GSM works damn near everywhere (there are a few places where I need to break out a yagi, in the north of Scotland), and GSM and GPRS data is too cheap to be worth billing for. In many cases if you just want to send control and status messages you'd just use SMS, which is free.
Not always very good at detecting cyclists (I've once or twice had to jump red lights at night after waiting more than 5 minutes for them to change)
They have this at a junction near me, and quite often it can't detect *cars* never mind cyclists.
Well, at least, I'd hand them a gigantic picture of a whale. "Sorry, your legal standing is over capacity."
So, they go around beating the shit out of something and killing other animals for fun, *because they can*.
Sounds awfully like humans to me...
But lets add heavy snow to the equation... Now you can't see crap, and the car just saved you from hitting 1 possibly 2 cars ahead.
If I "can't see crap", then I'm going to drive at a speed suitable for the conditions. I don't give a toss how safe the computer thinks it might be, I want it to go no faster than I can see and I want full manual control instantly available at all times.
I'm not even a fan of traction control, after having narrowly avoided a horrible accident when the engine management system it decided it wanted to take over the throttle from me in deep snow. Oh oops, now we're sideways with no power. Great.
RRRrrrRRrrrRRRinnngg dingdingding RRring RrrRRRRRRRrrrrrRRRRING ding ding ding ding RRRRING ding ding
No, I'm not using The Annoying Thing (aka "Crazy Frog"), I ripped the electric motor out and fitted a Wartburg engine for a laugh.
The ones I've run across talk back to the central metering point using similar technology to BPL, but they cause *worse* interference.
Because they still won't be able to anticipate changing road conditions as well as a human. You'd just have all the cars in the surrounding 500 metres suddenly having a shitfit.
What a good job cars that drive themselves will never really be a realistic prospect. It's just plain too complex to get a computer to respond safely to the changing conditions on roads. Yes, you can make a car that can drive itself around quiet streets and even park itself. Yes, you can make an autonomous 4x4 that can race up a quiet hill track faster than a human driver. You're in your autonomous car, with another car a little close behind when an oncoming car swerves into your lane to avoid debris, just as an obstruction (let's say, a bloody great stag) jumps in front of your car. Which way does the computer steer? Hit the brakes so you get rear-ended? Head for the weeds?
Welcome to real-world driving.
Yeah, but just try getting Ofcom to stir from their sleepy comfort for anything that doesn't make them money.
I track down RF problems, and half the time they turn out to be a smart meter, or an ethernet-over-power adaptor.
When my next door neighbours got a smart meter, nothing RF-y worked any more. Worst hit was the HF part of the spectrum, so that was one of my hobbies (amateur radio) knackered. However, all was not lost, because I can just use a different band, right? So I concentrated my attention on 13cm, where I can legally crank out a few hundred watts and obliterate the whole wifi spectrum - thus depriving the twat next door of his hobby, fapping over very unpleasant pr0n on his laptop.
Radiation fear mongers are the same ones that want to shut down your wifi. The meter is on the outside of the house, any radiation they produce is no more than your neighbors wifi, which is on 24/7.
Actually, it's more to do with the crippling amount of interference these things crank out. Great, you've got your wireless "smart meter". Now say goodbye to off-air TV, FM radio, shortwave radio, AM radio, police and ambulance radios, and indeed damn near anything that uses RF below 5GHz. Garage door opener? Forget it, unless you're actually right inside your garage. That neat little wireless weather station? Sorry, can't hear you above the smart meter. Ethernet over powerlines? Well, they're pretty much relentlessly horrible for RF interference, but they'll probably be affected too.
My sister's car was prevented from being stolen once by a simple mechanical device - the manual choke. Her husband was woken up by the sound of a car revving and stalling repeatedly, but by that time my she was in the street in her pyjamas and steel-toecapped rigger boots, chasing the would-be thieves with a trolley-jack handle ;-)
My own car (Citroën CX) is reasonably tricky to start even without the immobiliser, because once you've figured out that it has a manual choke that needs to be not quite all the way out (too far and it will flood, and not start), you then find that it maybe won't turn over because the ignition switch is worn - so you need to hold the key just right too. If you get that far, then you've got to remember to wait 30 seconds for the hydraulic pump to bring everything up to pressure, otherwise the steering is impossible to turn and you have no brakes so you'll just roll into whatever's in front and stall because by now it needs the choke pushed back in or it'll flood.
Once you get past the first minute it's fine. I've flown aircraft that have a less involved startup procedure. I'll get round to fixing the choke and the ignition switch one day...
Herd immunity means that if enough of a population is immune
Wonder how they develop immunity? Oh, by actually having measles. Makes sense I suppose.
Again, with the poor reading comprehension.
I've already pointed out that vaccines are a Good Thing. But, the MMR vaccine is about as safe as stabbing your child with a rusty pitchfork. It's a huge amount of very very nasty stuff to inject directly into a very frail little creature, before they've had much of a chance to develop any immune system at all.
The MMR triple-jab is a dangerous experiment, but a profitable one. Don't buy into it.
Duid you stop to cinsider thatw as becasue they where vaccinated and are part odf a large vaccination program?
No-one was vaccinated for measles or mumps then. I guess if your spelling is that poor, your reading comprehension can't be much better.
"Herd Immunity" means "developing immunity from catching it from someone else". If she doesn't catch measles from someone, then she will never develop an immunity.
Before the vaccine schedule, the measles were routinely among the top 5 killers in our nation. Before the vaccine, everyone knew kids that had died of measles, and many that had nearly died.
Really? Because the MMR vaccine is a fairly new thing, and when I was child of about the age you'd give it (in the 1970s) no-one was even getting the single vaccine. If 5000 children a year were dying in the US because they weren't vaccinated for measles, then you must have a problem with the way you handle measles. Maybe your healthcare system is lacking something.
I haven't, and I can't think of anyone I know who has had them. I did have the chicken pox, but that's mild enough that they don't vaccinate against it.
Maybe you're younger than I am. When I was the kind of age that kids get measles etc. at, pretty much everyone had it at some point over the course of a week or two, and then it was all gone. Thus, herd immunity. There wasn't this big screaming hoo-hah about eleventy billion kids a second dying of measles, and no-one thought it was worth vaccinating against it. Like I mentioned in another post, teenage girls got German measles (that dates me, they call it Rubella now) at school even if they'd had it, because the consequences of getting that while pregnant are pretty horrific.
It's hardly a "battle". You get some wee spots and a snotty nose for a day or two. There are even perfectly effective single-vaccine shots for measles, mumps and German measles. Spiking up young children with the massive megadose of pathogens in the MMR vaccine is asking for trouble.
That's why you've never seen the measles or the mumps.
Does the vaccination affect your reading comprehension? I - and everyone I know - has at some point had measles or mumps. If you actually take the time to read what I wrote, you'll see that I said I have never heard of anyone who had died of measles or mumps.
How, exactly? I'd struggle to count how many people I know, and I can't think of anyone who died as a result of contracting measles, mumps or German measles. I don't even know anyone who has a sibling that died of these diseases.
Everyone I know has had all three. When I was at school in the 1980s, we all had TB and polio vaccinations - separately, not all on the same day and certainly not a combined shot - and the girls were vaccinated against German measles because that actually *is* quite nasty if you contract it when you're pregnant. I knew a few people who died in car accidents. I knew one guy who fell off his boat and drowned, and another who shot himself. I even knew someone who died of meningitis, but no-one who ever died of measles or mumps.
So, where's this big risk?
So some random person on the Internet who doesn't appear to have much to do with Android points out a couple of not-really-problems, and suddenly everyone is supposed to drop everything and fix them?
If you search for "charles ying android" every link comes back with a reference to this single blog post. I could take him seriously if I'd ever heard of him in the context of Android development, or even at all...
Right, but it doesn't tell you anything useful. You might as well base it on what size shoes they have and what colour car they turned up at work in.