There is an Android app developed by a mob of Australians which allows cell phones to talk directly to each other in emergency situations without using any cell service at all. Sorry I have no name either for the app or the developers. It was developed last year, released this year, and is intended for bushfire teams and search and rescue operators. I'm guessing it won't be in the app store and I know it works by dialling the number you want and if both phones have the app and are within range then they connect. I'm sorry I can't provide you with more information but it's just something I read about in the Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au) some months ago and it stuck in my mind because the main developer spoke at length about the incredible problems of getting the protocols to work.
The early 1980s was an interesting time. I remember Microsoft being our bulwark of defence against the evil IBM empire while Apple were playing panflutes in apple groves and suing the pants of anyone who made anything vaguely compaitible. By the late 1980s there was one very prescient scribe, I can't remember his name because all I get is Dvorak but that is a keyboard and not journalist, who said that he had seen the future and that MicroSoft (they spelled it that way then) would be the one Boss, the True Boss and the only Boss and that William Gates III would be the Dark Overlord. It seemed laughable at the time - but it nearly came to pass.
Yes, but they did die on the ground after all and in a simulator. If they'd died in space then the media could have easily decided that space was too dangerous and created a frenzy that stopped the manned space program. Nasa would still have gone to the moon and returned with rocks but they'd have doen it the way the Russians did, with an unmanned lander.
It's curious how the most significant astronauts of the space race, and in particular Gagarin and Armstrong, have been so thoroughly elegant in their greatness. That elegance that can almost seem like humility. It's easy to admire such people.
Actually Gnome 3 isn't bad, Gnome 3 is a pig and now they're talking about putting a bit of lipstick on it. Gnome 2 / Mate is still around so let the Gnome devlopers kiss the Gnome 3 pig that they clearly want to so much, it doesn't mean anyone else has to.
Hard to do without hands maybe but harder to do without determination and cussedness and harder again to do without brains but hardest of all to do without friends.
There is the Old World which is Europe and Asia and there is the New World which is the Americas. The Third World is that which is neither the new world nor the old world. Nowadays Third World just means poor countries and it has meant non-alighned countries in the past but there never has been a First World nor a Second World, there has only been the New World and the Old World.
From the gossip I've heard Jelly Bean is a different kind of beast and I doubt that any of the current phones is going to get it, but the HTC One X is a mighty powerful machine and it'll certainly be up to it if it happens. In the 1970s I had long arguments as to whether future computers would be developed through existing (then) big iron computers or handheld calculators. Well the future is here and it was developed through telephones...
Thanks for that. I haven't come across pre-paid moblies, only pre-paid plans and their SIMs. They sound interesting.
I have some experience with carrier locked phones and modems and they do indeed become either unlocked or unlockable after the contract ends, always two years in my own experience. Some unlock automatically but most require that request an unlock and I remember one Optus modem whose unlocking was so awkward that I threw it away wherupon it was rescued from the bin by a friend who used Optus anyway. I haven't heard that other people had my experience so perhaps I was just unlucky.
I'm on my fourth Android phone and I've received a full OS version upgrade with each of them, my current HTC One X excepted which is still in Ice Cream Sandwich and I doubt is ever going to go to Jelly Bean. But you are correct that the driver behind the upgrades does seem to be the carrier which is why I was astonished when my HTC Desire which I had bought outright and unlocked received an OS upgrade to Froyo from my carrier which didn't stock the HTC Desire at all.
Here in Australia virtually every phone is locked to the carrier you get it from and the carriers do everything they can to get exclusive rights to particular models. I wanted to keep my carrier Vodafone but use the HTC Desire which was only available through Telstra so I went to a speciality store and paid $700 outright for one that has a logo of pink squares for a carrier I've never heard of and which occasionally reverts to German when it panics (very rare fortunately).
I do wonder about that $199 you quote though. Is that per year because that seems ridiculously low and yet it is impossibly high for a monthly figure. An all calls and 1GB data per month and a Galaxt III or HTC One X thrown in would only be perhaps $55 per month with a 24 month contract here. My wife pays $79 per month and that's the highest of anyone I know.
I have considered this problem previously and what looks to be between doable and feasible quickly falls away in the chaotic face of reality. I believe AC has hit this one right on the head - the quest for grants and scholarships is the only basis for these claims.
I have many years ago seen beaches in New Zealand composed entirely of pumice. I saw them north of Gisborne on the North Island and pumice was quite literally the only thing you could see on the beach and it went at least as deep as my hand. On another small beach nearby the surface was covered entirely by pieces of abalone shell - an ancient Maori midden beach I assume but those beaches are all deserted and there's no-one around to ask.
If they're legal there have you seen one? Are they cool, ugly, or just like any other car? Do they drive smoothly - I mean more smoothly? Does anyone sit in the driver's seat or am I stuck in an antequated paradigm?
This will change once the cars get cell phones and can send and receive text messages. Later they'll get addicted to dirty electricity. Finally the cars will start to compete among themselves to see which among them can scare the most bios as dramatically as possible - with the inevitable occasional damage to paintwork and perhaps even bodywork.
We have to let our cars skid their way through youth.
Indeed, about six years ago one beautiful Tongan fakaleiti very famously knocked out cold a visiting sailor who reacted badly when he discovered that the local beauty had a bit of beast hidden away.
When I was last in New Zealand they used to call the Polynesian transvestites there "Kiwifruit" on the basis that they were brown and hairy and soft in the middle.
Sadly Tokelau will be the first nation to go under the waves when the waters rise. I've met a few Tokelauans and they are uniformly terrific people. Their culture will pretty much vanish when migrate to New Zealand.and their kids become Kiwis (New Zelanders - the fruit is named after the people who are named after the bird).
I loved that book! (Bored of the Rings by Henry Beard)
The funniest part was when they were selecting who would go to Fordor (Mordor) and people were choosing others to piss them off until Orlon (Elrond) called a halt before he was selcted by anyone.
It was Gnome that convinced me to jump over to Linux once I'd decided to abandon Windows completely. I'd looked at OS/X but I couldn't make head nor tail of it, everything was awkward on the Mac. Gnome 2 with all the eye candy working was a thing of beauty and everythiing either just worked or could be got to work with a quick web search - I can't believe I'm writing that about Linux but there it is.
It was Unity that pushed me away from Ubuntu, and Gnome 3 that pushed me away from Gnome. KDE is not easy and it's not logical but I've come to love it and it has grown up. Yesterday I plugged two monitors of different resolutions into a KDE machine and they just worked with no dead zone and wallpapers all fixed up for the new resolutions. That would not have happened even a year ago.
I'm installing Linux on a computer for a newbie this weekend and where once I would have put Gnome on it I am now putting Lubuntu onto it instead. If Gnome is staring into the abyss it is because it chose to - a lemming intent on its own demise. Ave atque vale, Gnome.
When I learned Spanish, over twenty years ago, "americano" meant anyone from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Now it means anyone from the US and no-one else. This change happened in English long ago and I think we're going to have just leave the word to the Yanks and live without a word for someone from either the North or South Amercas.
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There is an Android app developed by a mob of Australians which allows cell phones to talk directly to each other in emergency situations without using any cell service at all. Sorry I have no name either for the app or the developers. It was developed last year, released this year, and is intended for bushfire teams and search and rescue operators. I'm guessing it won't be in the app store and I know it works by dialling the number you want and if both phones have the app and are within range then they connect. I'm sorry I can't provide you with more information but it's just something I read about in the Sydney Morning Herald (www.smh.com.au) some months ago and it stuck in my mind because the main developer spoke at length about the incredible problems of getting the protocols to work.
The early 1980s was an interesting time. I remember Microsoft being our bulwark of defence against the evil IBM empire while Apple were playing panflutes in apple groves and suing the pants of anyone who made anything vaguely compaitible. By the late 1980s there was one very prescient scribe, I can't remember his name because all I get is Dvorak but that is a keyboard and not journalist, who said that he had seen the future and that MicroSoft (they spelled it that way then) would be the one Boss, the True Boss and the only Boss and that William Gates III would be the Dark Overlord. It seemed laughable at the time - but it nearly came to pass.
So many species! So little time!
Yes, but they did die on the ground after all and in a simulator. If they'd died in space then the media could have easily decided that space was too dangerous and created a frenzy that stopped the manned space program. Nasa would still have gone to the moon and returned with rocks but they'd have doen it the way the Russians did, with an unmanned lander.
It's curious how the most significant astronauts of the space race, and in particular Gagarin and Armstrong, have been so thoroughly elegant in their greatness. That elegance that can almost seem like humility. It's easy to admire such people.
Actually Gnome 3 isn't bad, Gnome 3 is a pig and now they're talking about putting a bit of lipstick on it. Gnome 2 / Mate is still around so let the Gnome devlopers kiss the Gnome 3 pig that they clearly want to so much, it doesn't mean anyone else has to.
I apologise in advance for this but imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
Who keeps a foot in every door.
Hard to do without hands maybe but harder to do without determination and cussedness and harder again to do without brains but hardest of all to do without friends.
There is the Old World which is Europe and Asia and there is the New World which is the Americas. The Third World is that which is neither the new world nor the old world. Nowadays Third World just means poor countries and it has meant non-alighned countries in the past but there never has been a First World nor a Second World, there has only been the New World and the Old World.
How about India putting a person into Earth orbit first. It's not so easy.
I thought the same too but this is even better, this is a fulcrum by which the world can be moved.
From the gossip I've heard Jelly Bean is a different kind of beast and I doubt that any of the current phones is going to get it, but the HTC One X is a mighty powerful machine and it'll certainly be up to it if it happens. In the 1970s I had long arguments as to whether future computers would be developed through existing (then) big iron computers or handheld calculators. Well the future is here and it was developed through telephones...
None of us saw that coming.
Thanks for that. I haven't come across pre-paid moblies, only pre-paid plans and their SIMs. They sound interesting.
I have some experience with carrier locked phones and modems and they do indeed become either unlocked or unlockable after the contract ends, always two years in my own experience. Some unlock automatically but most require that request an unlock and I remember one Optus modem whose unlocking was so awkward that I threw it away wherupon it was rescued from the bin by a friend who used Optus anyway. I haven't heard that other people had my experience so perhaps I was just unlucky.
I'm on my fourth Android phone and I've received a full OS version upgrade with each of them, my current HTC One X excepted which is still in Ice Cream Sandwich and I doubt is ever going to go to Jelly Bean. But you are correct that the driver behind the upgrades does seem to be the carrier which is why I was astonished when my HTC Desire which I had bought outright and unlocked received an OS upgrade to Froyo from my carrier which didn't stock the HTC Desire at all.
Here in Australia virtually every phone is locked to the carrier you get it from and the carriers do everything they can to get exclusive rights to particular models. I wanted to keep my carrier Vodafone but use the HTC Desire which was only available through Telstra so I went to a speciality store and paid $700 outright for one that has a logo of pink squares for a carrier I've never heard of and which occasionally reverts to German when it panics (very rare fortunately).
I do wonder about that $199 you quote though. Is that per year because that seems ridiculously low and yet it is impossibly high for a monthly figure. An all calls and 1GB data per month and a Galaxt III or HTC One X thrown in would only be perhaps $55 per month with a 24 month contract here. My wife pays $79 per month and that's the highest of anyone I know.
I have considered this problem previously and what looks to be between doable and feasible quickly falls away in the chaotic face of reality. I believe AC has hit this one right on the head - the quest for grants and scholarships is the only basis for these claims.
I believe you mean Iwo Jima which smells like it's been tipped over.
I have many years ago seen beaches in New Zealand composed entirely of pumice. I saw them north of Gisborne on the North Island and pumice was quite literally the only thing you could see on the beach and it went at least as deep as my hand. On another small beach nearby the surface was covered entirely by pieces of abalone shell - an ancient Maori midden beach I assume but those beaches are all deserted and there's no-one around to ask.
If they're legal there have you seen one? Are they cool, ugly, or just like any other car? Do they drive smoothly - I mean more smoothly? Does anyone sit in the driver's seat or am I stuck in an antequated paradigm?
This will change once the cars get cell phones and can send and receive text messages. Later they'll get addicted to dirty electricity. Finally the cars will start to compete among themselves to see which among them can scare the most bios as dramatically as possible - with the inevitable occasional damage to paintwork and perhaps even bodywork.
We have to let our cars skid their way through youth.
Indeed, about six years ago one beautiful Tongan fakaleiti very famously knocked out cold a visiting sailor who reacted badly when he discovered that the local beauty had a bit of beast hidden away.
When I was last in New Zealand they used to call the Polynesian transvestites there "Kiwifruit" on the basis that they were brown and hairy and soft in the middle.
Sadly Tokelau will be the first nation to go under the waves when the waters rise. I've met a few Tokelauans and they are uniformly terrific people. Their culture will pretty much vanish when migrate to New Zealand.and their kids become Kiwis (New Zelanders - the fruit is named after the people who are named after the bird).
I loved that book! (Bored of the Rings by Henry Beard)
The funniest part was when they were selecting who would go to Fordor (Mordor) and people were choosing others to piss them off until Orlon (Elrond) called a halt before he was selcted by anyone.
It was Gnome that convinced me to jump over to Linux once I'd decided to abandon Windows completely. I'd looked at OS/X but I couldn't make head nor tail of it, everything was awkward on the Mac. Gnome 2 with all the eye candy working was a thing of beauty and everythiing either just worked or could be got to work with a quick web search - I can't believe I'm writing that about Linux but there it is.
It was Unity that pushed me away from Ubuntu, and Gnome 3 that pushed me away from Gnome. KDE is not easy and it's not logical but I've come to love it and it has grown up. Yesterday I plugged two monitors of different resolutions into a KDE machine and they just worked with no dead zone and wallpapers all fixed up for the new resolutions. That would not have happened even a year ago.
I'm installing Linux on a computer for a newbie this weekend and where once I would have put Gnome on it I am now putting Lubuntu onto it instead. If Gnome is staring into the abyss it is because it chose to - a lemming intent on its own demise. Ave atque vale, Gnome.
When I learned Spanish, over twenty years ago, "americano" meant anyone from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Now it means anyone from the US and no-one else. This change happened in English long ago and I think we're going to have just leave the word to the Yanks and live without a word for someone from either the North or South Amercas.