I used to live in central Oregon, back in the day when cell phones were bricks. We were up riding horses in the Cascade Mountains, and one of our party fell and might have a back problem, so I rode back to our vehicle and called 911. The parking lot was down in a canyon, so I had to stand on top of the car to get a signal. I did get connected - to a 911 center 100 miles away, skipping over the nearest one in Bend (only 30 miles away)! They were a little confused for a while, but it all worked out with a three-step patch to the nearest EMT folks. Somehow I doubt that would work any more - today's phones have about 1/20 the transmit power as the old analog phones. But in that area there are many more towers, and reception up in the mountains is pretty good.
I remember thinking (with some glee), flying over the area east of Lake Powell, that you could dump the entire population of New York City out there, and... nobody would ever hear from them again!:D
Some folks, including me, like being 60 miles from the nearest quick-mart. I live in New England now (for a little while more), but it's nice not having all this human commotion around. Out in the desert, after a few days you start to realize how little humanity means in the grand scheme of things.
One interesting item - those rocks out in the desert, where it hasn't rained in months or years - carve into them an eighth of an inch (2 mm) and you will find living organisms. I forget if they are bacteria or algae but I think algae is right.
As my neighbors used to say back in 1999, "So, what will the cattle farmers do when Y2K hits? Probably go out and feed the cows, like the day before."
Exactly. Not to mention lack of power - everything is determined by bureaucrats in some office building, according to criteria that have nothing to do with the situation 'on the ground'. IMHO big city school districts are one of the worst ideas ever dreamed up with regard to education. Case in point - a while back in the big city near where I lived it was discovered by folks outside the district administration that the district had an entire five story building filled with certified teachers doing curriculum development. It was a significant fraction of the entire district teaching staff. Of course none of that curriculum work ever made it out of the building into actual classes. I surmise it was just a place to put teachers who couldn't or didn't want to teach but couldn't be fired due to the union. Once discovered, it was closed.
IMHO the maximum size of a 'district' should be one high school and its feeder elementary and middle school(s). Everything above that, such as special education services, can and in many places already is provided by a wider-area service organization, that works FOR the school districts. Eliminate all of the administration above the high school district superintendent.
It's worth noting that (as of when I was involved with schools back in the 90s and early 2000s), a study showed that in the US administrators (principals etc.) are paid much better compared to teachers than any other country, and oddly enough we have the highest ratio of admin/teacher. In Japan at that time, the pay differential for a principal was 5% and only 5% of the education force were admins, while (IIRC) in the US principals made from 20% to 50% more, and 20%+ of the force were admins.
I have experience as a student and parent in several school districts. One big factor was that the smaller, higher quality districts with lower number of students per class and first-name relationship between the superintendent and the parents (not to mention first-name between principals, teachers and parents) had waiting lists for teachers even though they paid substantially _less_ than the bigger districts. The big inner-city districts paid more, had much larger classes, crappy performance, horrific teaching environments, and cost more per student.
One small district (where I went to school) had (at the time) the lowest teacher pay in Multnomah County (Oregon, USA) but had a maximum of 15 students per class, and the teachers and parents ran the district together (WITHOUT the national PTA!!! or NEA!!!)
The district is now so popular that about 1/3 of the students are from other districts, and their parents are paying tuition just like they would at a private school. I have no idea what the teachers get paid these days.
Much like how everything was done in NeXTStep, in documents, mail, and everything else - in 1989. And then there was Ted Nelson. I have an autographed book from about 1991.
Sorry, this ain't gonna fly. The NeXT system was including video (and spreadsheets, and audio, and other stuff) in documents of all kinds including NextMail years before, and Tim Berners Lee was inspired by and based his WorldWideWeb program on the NeXT's comprehensive object-based system that made that easy. I used to have a copy of WorldWideWeb running on a NeXT, and I think it had video in it even then.
Back in 1990-1991 I also worked as a product manager for a product called PaperSight(tm) (surprise - it's still around, and now works on many platforms!) that provided network-based document management including change control, annotations, audio and video notes, access control, scanning, OCR and vectorizing, and many other features. (PaperSight, by the way, is also prior art for two of the patents that Microsoft is trying to enforce against Barnes and Noble).
An old friend said, "Horses have two purposes in life, to eat and get away." I added, "and one more thing every few weeks if there are any mares around..."
Actually Kodak invented the digital camera, came out with the first consumer models, but couldn't sell them - they just didn't hit the sweet spot. They saw the handwriting on the wall long ago, (I read articles about this probably 20 years ago) and tried for years to get a grip on the new market but never could.
Partly it's a standard problem when paradigm shifts come - the most successful companies in the old paradigm often have the hardest time adapting, because they have evolved to be so good at what they do by structuring the company in a particular way. That structure (everything from management, to engineering methods, to workplace and union rules) all has to be undone. It's probably harder than building a new company from scratch.
Partly it's the necessary manufacturing infrastructure required to build cheap digital cameras - the asian companies already had lots of experience with building a zillion cheap electronic devices, and also with throwing new models at the wall to see which ones would stick. That is completely different from the classic American product development and manufacturing model.
A related case in point - I don't know the details, but when Nissan first came to the US they spit out new models like confetti, trying things to see what US consumers would buy. Gradually the developed models that became hits. Oddly one of the early features that made a difference was a small thing on the console to put change for tolls - people loved that - it showed the company was interested in what customers really wanted.
:) Interesting - I never thought of that. With the magic of Google I found that it's apparently still available for download. Thanks!
The thing is getting pretty long in the tooth, so I'm probably going to replace it soon.
It's funny how such minor things that you wouldn't think of, can have such an effect on batteries. It shows how every little thing has to be just right to keep the batteries going longer. Then there's the odd phenomenon that we complain about the batteries on a handheld device that outperforms supercomputers of not-that-long-ago (that required a small river for cooling) and manages our entire lives (if we let it) - where's our sense of wonder and amazement?:D
the rules will inevitably vary according to jurisdiction, but there are some topics that are generally considered private, such as certain types of personnel matters - especially if the archival system is also retaining telephone, email and documents (as required by law in the US for many agencies). So there has to be a way for the data-generating agency (police dept. or whatever) to mark some things as private. That designation would be subject to the usual sorts of review such as are already in place, but the data would be protected out of the hands of the data generating agency.
And I think you really do need a time delay, for various reasons from the same reason they have a seven second delay on live TV (so they can bleep swear words), to a 15 minute delay to prevent bad guys from using the data, to time for automated and/or manual review to assure no privacy violations, to a 24 hour delay for 'free access' to the data. Police departments are already liable for inadvertent publishing of images or video of uninvolved citizens, victims, etc. So it's not as simple as it seems.
The cost of providing of serving the data is not high, though the cost of secure storage is significant. But consolidating this function to one entity for many agencies reduces the cost in many ways (as I mentioned, I think) so that I think the agencies would be willing to pay for the service. So providing the data to taxpayers might well be free. I just happen to like the idea of faster access being a 'premium' service, so the local TV station would pay a small amount, and help fund the whole thing.
Another reply triggered an idea that I discussed in my reply to that - a company (for-profit or non-profit) that provides the offsite archival storage of all such communications, thereby saving the department the cost, hassle and liability issues of maintaining their own archival servers, and makes the data available according to the rules and laws in place. This might work well for both the agency (police or whatever), and for the public. It could be paid for partly by the fees paid by the agency (since it would be cheaper than running their own archival, and insurance would be cheaper), and perhaps partly by fees paid by those such as media who want the fastest access to the information. For example, if you want it the same day, you pay. The agency would still have to have some form of review and prevention of release, such as for personnel-related matters, but that fact would also be apparent.
This would be something like a cross between archive.org and an escrow company. Seriously, I think this has the potential to become a significant business opportunity.
What bothers me is an increasing tendency to "lose" controversial footage.
Yes, this is why it should be immediately spooled to a neutral third party whose job it is to archive it for future access according to the law and policy.
In fact, I could see that being a good and useful business - providing guaranteed (so far as is possible) preservation of such data for public access at a later 'date' for many agencies and institutions. If such a business could achieve the proper reputation it could become a major force. Both the data sources (police or whatever) and sinks (media, citizenry, etc.) would have to trust it. Therefore it should probably be a non-profit entity with a widely distributed board. Its revenues could be partly income from payments by the sources (reducing their own liability, risk and data management costs), and partly income from supplying the data (those who want the data sooner might have to pay, or pay more). By using some form of pay-as-you-go funding, you can eliminate the compromises that a constant search for grant money or government funding might entail.
It could be like a very reliable and secure version of archive.org, and/or like an escrow company (data is saved but not released except according to the rules in place for that data.)
I wouldn't object to a delay, say 15 minutes, before public availability, if the data is streamed directly onto a public access server not controlled by the police force (perhaps a service bureau that acts as a neutral third party). That would meet the public's right to the information, and also the need for the police to not let the bank robbers listen in while the police are saying "you two go around the back, you go up on the roof, and we'll go in the front door on five... one... two... three... four... FIVE!".
Actually that would make for a really good App - an open data server that collects signal data from all the folks who have signed up and agreed to contribute the data, and constructs a dynamic map of coverage. There must be one already...... [rummage, rummage]...... Like this (first one found): Crowd Sourced CoverageMapper.:D
I suppose 'cause they first worked very hard to make the actual electronics very, very slim for design reasons.
I also suppose that the logical conclusion of this progression is a paper-thin, flexible, transparent phone that sticks to your wrist and is powered by the motion of your hand. Which means that those sessions in the bathroom with the Penthouse centerfold will serve two purposes!
My first day in high school, I was walking down the hall while reading a book - is that the ancient equivalent of staring at one's 4G phone? The main 'in crowd' girl - most popular etc., who had met me at a party a few weeks before, sang out, "Hi Gary!"... It took me about three steps before I was able to pop my attention stack and realize I had been addressed, and by then she was offended and my high school future was sealed. (But it would have happened soon enough anyway - I'm just not the social type even today. I _can_ be sociable but it's work.)
And I still sometimes read while walking - books, magazines, and web pages. Or I'm working out some interesting problem in my head.
I just thought I'd say thanks for actually using the proper grammar - "... uses the Internet much less than I" (with implied 'do'). Good job, good example!:)
I'm still running my five-year-old Treo 650. For most of that time I've had to charge it almost every night. But last summer the vendor (Nokia) that supplied email support to Verizon turned it off, so I couldn't receive email any more. Now I can go three or four days between charges!:)
Slashdot Mirror
Howdy neighbor! :D
I used to live in central Oregon, back in the day when cell phones were bricks. We were up riding horses in the Cascade Mountains, and one of our party fell and might have a back problem, so I rode back to our vehicle and called 911. The parking lot was down in a canyon, so I had to stand on top of the car to get a signal. I did get connected - to a 911 center 100 miles away, skipping over the nearest one in Bend (only 30 miles away)! They were a little confused for a while, but it all worked out with a three-step patch to the nearest EMT folks. Somehow I doubt that would work any more - today's phones have about 1/20 the transmit power as the old analog phones. But in that area there are many more towers, and reception up in the mountains is pretty good.
I remember thinking (with some glee), flying over the area east of Lake Powell, that you could dump the entire population of New York City out there, and ... nobody would ever hear from them again! :D
Some folks, including me, like being 60 miles from the nearest quick-mart. I live in New England now (for a little while more), but it's nice not having all this human commotion around. Out in the desert, after a few days you start to realize how little humanity means in the grand scheme of things.
One interesting item - those rocks out in the desert, where it hasn't rained in months or years - carve into them an eighth of an inch (2 mm) and you will find living organisms. I forget if they are bacteria or algae but I think algae is right.
As my neighbors used to say back in 1999, "So, what will the cattle farmers do when Y2K hits? Probably go out and feed the cows, like the day before."
Exactly. Not to mention lack of power - everything is determined by bureaucrats in some office building, according to criteria that have nothing to do with the situation 'on the ground'. IMHO big city school districts are one of the worst ideas ever dreamed up with regard to education. Case in point - a while back in the big city near where I lived it was discovered by folks outside the district administration that the district had an entire five story building filled with certified teachers doing curriculum development. It was a significant fraction of the entire district teaching staff. Of course none of that curriculum work ever made it out of the building into actual classes. I surmise it was just a place to put teachers who couldn't or didn't want to teach but couldn't be fired due to the union. Once discovered, it was closed.
IMHO the maximum size of a 'district' should be one high school and its feeder elementary and middle school(s). Everything above that, such as special education services, can and in many places already is provided by a wider-area service organization, that works FOR the school districts. Eliminate all of the administration above the high school district superintendent.
It's worth noting that (as of when I was involved with schools back in the 90s and early 2000s), a study showed that in the US administrators (principals etc.) are paid much better compared to teachers than any other country, and oddly enough we have the highest ratio of admin/teacher. In Japan at that time, the pay differential for a principal was 5% and only 5% of the education force were admins, while (IIRC) in the US principals made from 20% to 50% more, and 20%+ of the force were admins.
I have experience as a student and parent in several school districts. One big factor was that the smaller, higher quality districts with lower number of students per class and first-name relationship between the superintendent and the parents (not to mention first-name between principals, teachers and parents) had waiting lists for teachers even though they paid substantially _less_ than the bigger districts. The big inner-city districts paid more, had much larger classes, crappy performance, horrific teaching environments, and cost more per student.
One small district (where I went to school) had (at the time) the lowest teacher pay in Multnomah County (Oregon, USA) but had a maximum of 15 students per class, and the teachers and parents ran the district together (WITHOUT the national PTA!!! or NEA!!!)
The district is now so popular that about 1/3 of the students are from other districts, and their parents are paying tuition just like they would at a private school. I have no idea what the teachers get paid these days.
Much like how everything was done in NeXTStep, in documents, mail, and everything else - in 1989. And then there was Ted Nelson. I have an autographed book from about 1991.
Sorry, this ain't gonna fly. The NeXT system was including video (and spreadsheets, and audio, and other stuff) in documents of all kinds including NextMail years before, and Tim Berners Lee was inspired by and based his WorldWideWeb program on the NeXT's comprehensive object-based system that made that easy. I used to have a copy of WorldWideWeb running on a NeXT, and I think it had video in it even then.
Back in 1990-1991 I also worked as a product manager for a product called PaperSight(tm) (surprise - it's still around, and now works on many platforms!) that provided network-based document management including change control, annotations, audio and video notes, access control, scanning, OCR and vectorizing, and many other features. (PaperSight, by the way, is also prior art for two of the patents that Microsoft is trying to enforce against Barnes and Noble).
An old friend said, "Horses have two purposes in life, to eat and get away." I added, "and one more thing every few weeks if there are any mares around ..."
I was really, really looking forward to getting a WebOS phone, just waiting for a higher-quality hardware package than the Pre. Sigh.
Actually Kodak invented the digital camera, came out with the first consumer models, but couldn't sell them - they just didn't hit the sweet spot. They saw the handwriting on the wall long ago, (I read articles about this probably 20 years ago) and tried for years to get a grip on the new market but never could.
Partly it's a standard problem when paradigm shifts come - the most successful companies in the old paradigm often have the hardest time adapting, because they have evolved to be so good at what they do by structuring the company in a particular way. That structure (everything from management, to engineering methods, to workplace and union rules) all has to be undone. It's probably harder than building a new company from scratch.
Partly it's the necessary manufacturing infrastructure required to build cheap digital cameras - the asian companies already had lots of experience with building a zillion cheap electronic devices, and also with throwing new models at the wall to see which ones would stick. That is completely different from the classic American product development and manufacturing model.
A related case in point - I don't know the details, but when Nissan first came to the US they spit out new models like confetti, trying things to see what US consumers would buy. Gradually the developed models that became hits. Oddly one of the early features that made a difference was a small thing on the console to put change for tolls - people loved that - it showed the company was interested in what customers really wanted.
It probably saved AT&T's bacon at the time. They were on the downslide until then, IIRC.
:) Interesting - I never thought of that. With the magic of Google I found that it's apparently still available for download. Thanks!
The thing is getting pretty long in the tooth, so I'm probably going to replace it soon.
It's funny how such minor things that you wouldn't think of, can have such an effect on batteries. It shows how every little thing has to be just right to keep the batteries going longer. Then there's the odd phenomenon that we complain about the batteries on a handheld device that outperforms supercomputers of not-that-long-ago (that required a small river for cooling) and manages our entire lives (if we let it) - where's our sense of wonder and amazement? :D
the rules will inevitably vary according to jurisdiction, but there are some topics that are generally considered private, such as certain types of personnel matters - especially if the archival system is also retaining telephone, email and documents (as required by law in the US for many agencies). So there has to be a way for the data-generating agency (police dept. or whatever) to mark some things as private. That designation would be subject to the usual sorts of review such as are already in place, but the data would be protected out of the hands of the data generating agency.
And I think you really do need a time delay, for various reasons from the same reason they have a seven second delay on live TV (so they can bleep swear words), to a 15 minute delay to prevent bad guys from using the data, to time for automated and/or manual review to assure no privacy violations, to a 24 hour delay for 'free access' to the data. Police departments are already liable for inadvertent publishing of images or video of uninvolved citizens, victims, etc. So it's not as simple as it seems.
The cost of providing of serving the data is not high, though the cost of secure storage is significant. But consolidating this function to one entity for many agencies reduces the cost in many ways (as I mentioned, I think) so that I think the agencies would be willing to pay for the service. So providing the data to taxpayers might well be free. I just happen to like the idea of faster access being a 'premium' service, so the local TV station would pay a small amount, and help fund the whole thing.
Another reply triggered an idea that I discussed in my reply to that - a company (for-profit or non-profit) that provides the offsite archival storage of all such communications, thereby saving the department the cost, hassle and liability issues of maintaining their own archival servers, and makes the data available according to the rules and laws in place. This might work well for both the agency (police or whatever), and for the public. It could be paid for partly by the fees paid by the agency (since it would be cheaper than running their own archival, and insurance would be cheaper), and perhaps partly by fees paid by those such as media who want the fastest access to the information. For example, if you want it the same day, you pay. The agency would still have to have some form of review and prevention of release, such as for personnel-related matters, but that fact would also be apparent.
This would be something like a cross between archive.org and an escrow company. Seriously, I think this has the potential to become a significant business opportunity.
What bothers me is an increasing tendency to "lose" controversial footage.
Yes, this is why it should be immediately spooled to a neutral third party whose job it is to archive it for future access according to the law and policy.
In fact, I could see that being a good and useful business - providing guaranteed (so far as is possible) preservation of such data for public access at a later 'date' for many agencies and institutions. If such a business could achieve the proper reputation it could become a major force. Both the data sources (police or whatever) and sinks (media, citizenry, etc.) would have to trust it. Therefore it should probably be a non-profit entity with a widely distributed board. Its revenues could be partly income from payments by the sources (reducing their own liability, risk and data management costs), and partly income from supplying the data (those who want the data sooner might have to pay, or pay more). By using some form of pay-as-you-go funding, you can eliminate the compromises that a constant search for grant money or government funding might entail.
It could be like a very reliable and secure version of archive.org, and/or like an escrow company (data is saved but not released except according to the rules in place for that data.)
I wouldn't object to a delay, say 15 minutes, before public availability, if the data is streamed directly onto a public access server not controlled by the police force (perhaps a service bureau that acts as a neutral third party). That would meet the public's right to the information, and also the need for the police to not let the bank robbers listen in while the police are saying "you two go around the back, you go up on the roof, and we'll go in the front door on five ... one ... two ... three ... four ... FIVE!".
Rugby - just like a gang war, but occasionally involving a funny shaped ball.
Actually that would make for a really good App - an open data server that collects signal data from all the folks who have signed up and agreed to contribute the data, and constructs a dynamic map of coverage. There must be one already... ... [rummage, rummage] ... ... Like this (first one found): Crowd Sourced CoverageMapper. :D
I suppose 'cause they first worked very hard to make the actual electronics very, very slim for design reasons.
I also suppose that the logical conclusion of this progression is a paper-thin, flexible, transparent phone that sticks to your wrist and is powered by the motion of your hand. Which means that those sessions in the bathroom with the Penthouse centerfold will serve two purposes!
Oblig: Teeny tiny Liquid Thorium Fluoride Reactor FTW!!! :D
Yep, it's the radios that eat the juice, mostly. Unless you're doing raytracing on the phone! (Does anybody do that? It would be interesting....)
My first day in high school, I was walking down the hall while reading a book - is that the ancient equivalent of staring at one's 4G phone? The main 'in crowd' girl - most popular etc., who had met me at a party a few weeks before, sang out, "Hi Gary!" ... It took me about three steps before I was able to pop my attention stack and realize I had been addressed, and by then she was offended and my high school future was sealed. (But it would have happened soon enough anyway - I'm just not the social type even today. I _can_ be sociable but it's work.)
And I still sometimes read while walking - books, magazines, and web pages. Or I'm working out some interesting problem in my head.
I read somewhere that coming soon is the Moto Razr MAX, which is just the Razr only thicker, with a bigger battery. Gee, I wonder why? :D
I just thought I'd say thanks for actually using the proper grammar - "... uses the Internet much less than I" (with implied 'do'). Good job, good example! :)
I'm still running my five-year-old Treo 650. For most of that time I've had to charge it almost every night. But last summer the vendor (Nokia) that supplied email support to Verizon turned it off, so I couldn't receive email any more. Now I can go three or four days between charges! :)