I have a T-Mobile Motorola V66 triband GSM phone and I love it. I travel regularly to or through the UK, Spain, Taiwan, and Thailand (My phone is based in the US). I do have to change frequencies in most of the world but this is done easily through a menu selection in the phone.
T-Mob's phone are locked so that you can't put another company's SIM card in the phone, but you can find sites on the internet with instructions to unlock phones (I leave locating the sites as an exercise for the reader) . . . or many third party phone shops will do it for you, but they can charge as much as $30-$40. I unlocked my phone the day I got it and I never had any problems with the phone accidentally connecting to another GSM network while I was the standard area of my calling plan (as someone else on/. said may happen with an unlocked phone). However, I suppose if this should happen it should be EZ to correct because when I'm roaming, the phone allows me to scan for other networks and select the one that I want to connect to (I suppose I could reconnect to my home network if this ever happened).
Note that changing SIM cards changes your phone number. I use my phone for business so I can't afford be swapping numbers (unless I'm on vacation or something like that) . . . but normally, I hangup and call immediately on a landline to save on the expensive (USD$1 - $2) overseas roaming fees. I also really dig being able to get/send text messages on the phone . . . however, As a US T-Mobile customer, I have had significant difficulty getting and sending text msgs to/from people using European mobile phone providers. This happens even if I'm in the same country and roaming on the same service.
Though you may be considering buying a phone in your destination country and chucking it later, that's a lot of money (if you get a nice phone, the cost of 2 nice phone can easily exceed a triband and when you include chargers, that can be a lot of extra junk to carry around while traveling.)
Note that GSM phones do NOT work in Japan (they have their own standard. You can get a Japan friendly phone that also supports GSM tri-band (So that it will work inside and outside of Japan, but I think it's hard to find these phones outside of Japan).
Sorry for the confusion . . . The link you provided for DSM states that: Demand-side management (DSM) programs consist of the planning, implementing, and monitoring activities of electric utilities that are designed to encourage consumers to modify their level and pattern of electricity usage.
It doesn't state that the grid has the right to shutdown non-essential usage (Sidebar - Wouldn't cutting non-essential "supply" actually be "supply side management"?). The definition that you've contextualized is quite interesting. A number of questions immediately come to mind. Is a system like this being implemented elsewhere? How would a tiered system be implemented logistically on the existing grid? Whose use would be considered "non-essential" and how would one differentiate essential from non-essential? Pricing/Market pressures? Regulatory guidelines? A combination of these?
Also, a fault in the industrial sense is a root cause of a problem. A last resort to save the grid is a resultant action to mitigate a fault (however I empathize with you in that the way the grid is currently designed causes a rather extreme all or nothing response to mitigate the aforementioned problem). During HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Studies), FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis), and FTA (fault tree analysis) faults are defined as root causes of problems. Actions to mitigate faults whether right or wrong, ideal or extreme are not faults (though this does not mean that these actions are not problematic or that there is not a better way of mitigating the fault).
My friends and I swap loyalty cards regularly. This is especially EZ at shops where you can punch in a phone number or other info if you forget the card (no need to have the physical card).
Also, if there is no associated discount I don't use the card unless I am buying something particularly weird and out of the ordinary.
Perhaps it makes no real difference, but in some small corner of my mind I feel like I'm sticking it to the man. . .
Actually, demand side management does exist and has existed for as long as I can remember.
Large customers (I am speaking from industrial experience at large manufacturing clients) are contracted to consume a certain amount of electricity. If they consume more or less than this they are serverely penalized (much more so if they use too much electricity during periods peak demand). From the contracts I have seen, a single unscheduled shutdown/startup of a large chemical plant can cost more in electrical load penalties than the normal cost of electricity for the entire month. The magnitude of the penalty can be seasonal, and often there are also contractual penalities for the electricity provider should there be an unscheduled power outage.
Note that in all the contracts that I have seen a plant can shutdown or startup with modest penalties if they give advanced notice to their electricity vendor.
I've even seen contracts that permit the electricity provider to cause an intentional brownout with a specified period of advance notice for a substantial credit to the end user.
Demand side management does exist. Perhaps you feel it should be more widely implemented or more comprehensive . . . but it has existed for a long time in industry.
Fault detection is one thing. A faulty response to detection of a fault is another; if the system reacts to a shortage of generation capacity by cutting off generation rather than consumption, the protective systems act to decrease reliability.
Disengaging generational capacity as a failure mode can hardly be described as "another (fault)". It is important to consider the bigger picture. If disengaging generational capacity increases safety, reduces overall system downtime (by preventing damage to generating equipment), or reduces overall cost to customers and providers, it may be the most logical failure mode if there is insufficient generational capacity available.
I'd rather have a 1 day power outage than wait 3 months for the rebuild of several industrial dynamos.
There isn't a lot of available capacity on the powergrid . . . Imagine an internet running at near capacity . . . If a major trunk goes down, "Self healing" or routing around the problem isn't going to help because there is not enough latent capacity to reroute all the traffic in a timely fashion. On the powergrid, this would still lead to brownouts or blackouts or maybe overheated or vaporized powerlines.
To be able to reroute power effectively, we should first insure that there is adequate capacity to enable us to reroute power through alternate pathways.
There are a lot of posts here attacking the fine as too small . . . but does anyone know how the amount of the fine was determined? In the US, anti-competitive practices are fined "treble damages", that is, triple the amount of damage done to the market by the anti-competitive practice. The multiplier is a punitive deterrant.
In Europe, are the damages computed in a similar method? Also 497M Euros sounds small, but was this computed based on Microsoft's profits/revenues and anticompetitive practices only in the EU?
Microsoft will undoubtedly appeal . . . and this could take years. The market and the product mix could change a lot by then . . .
Anyone know how discrete the channels are? "Surround Sound" Codecs often do not support fully discrete channels.
If I remember correctly, Dolby ProLogic is four channels encoded in two audio channels and doesn't support fully discrete surround channels. I think to a lessor extent this is also true of Dolby Digital (AC3) (Combines channels at frequencies above 15kHz), but DTS does support fully discrete surround channels (This is part of the reason why DTS uses more bandwidth than AC3).
Anyone know if the surround implementation for MP3's will support fully discrete surround channels?
The method identifies a virus using an entire virus particle rather than viral components, can detect viruses in liquids, and does not need to destroy viruses during the identification process. This allows intact, identified viruses to be further analyzed, according to the researchers.
Can we not detect viruses now based on the "entire virus particle" if we have the proper antibody (which is also required for the ViriChip)?
Can we not detect viruses in a solution now? (Granted the antibody would have to be bound to something first . . . plastic, protein, etc)
Do we have to destroy a virus to detect it with current techniques? It sounds like the ViriChip binds to the virus by way of an antibody, and if the ViriChip doesnt destroy the virus one should be able to knock the virus off the antibody with a competing antigen . . . but this isnt this exactly what is done using traditional techniques?
The article doesnt say it, but it seems to imply that "intact, identified viruses" are not available now for "further research." (Hence the justification for the ViriChip.) This is preposterous! If the ViriChip was faster, cheaper, simpler, etc. This would be a justification . . . Is there really a clear business justification for commercializing the ViriChip? If so, I am not sure that I see it.
I always wondered how the Enterprise crew would have a private conversation . . . It looks like this thing has the same limitation . . . if your going to get a dressing down over the com, everyone around you is going to be able to listen in.
"Worf, how many times do I have to tell you "Hailing Frequencies Open" and "Fire Photon Torpedos" are NOT the same thing!"
There is something to be said for a little piece of plastic held up to the ear . . .
LASH uses a throat microphone. It straps to the throat and you have to speak (make noise) for the microphone to pickup. The advantage of a throat microphone is that ambient noise is not picked up by the microphone. According to one of the vendors ( swatheadsets.com ) you are supposed to be able to be understood through the microphone while under the beating rotors of a helicopter.
One disadvantage is that percussive sounds (In english, the sound of a "B", "T", "D" etc.) are not picked up by most throat mikes because these sounds are made mostly by the lips, not the throat.
You have working diesel power generators because you have screaming customers demanding uptime . . .
Articles like this are important because if we dont know that the triple redundant generators at Plum Island are not being maintained (because of scabs, bad maint., poor security, or whatever), then we as citizens dont know that we too should be going "apeshit."
Maybe a similar system could be used to automaticly seal off contaminated areas, in case power is lost?
We do that when designing safety systems in chemical plants and refineries . . . critical systems are designed to "fail open" or "fail closed" depending on the situation. By "fail", I mean if the system loses power (whether it be electric, pneumatic, etc.) For example, one would not want a fuel gas valve on a boiler to "fail open" and one would not want a chilled water quench system on that same boiler to "fail closed." Also, there are almost always manual block valves in the event of a more catastrophic failure.
If the doors cited in the article fail open, it would imply that it is impossible/impractical to design a fail closed system for sealing the doors, triple redundant backup generators were considered sufficient to address the failure mode, or the engineer that designed the system should be sent to remedial engineering school.
Maybe not all wave dynamics. Water waves can go right through one another and not slow down or be diminished!
So can sound waves. Waves are additive. They only cancel each other out when they are out of phase with one another. You can cancel out a water wave with another wave that is the opposite of the first wave (100% out of phase; same magnitude and direction) . . . but this probably does not happen very often in natural bodies of water (and if it did, there would not be much to see . ..)
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T-Mob's phone are locked so that you can't put another company's SIM card in the phone, but you can find sites on the internet with instructions to unlock phones (I leave locating the sites as an exercise for the reader) . . . or many third party phone shops will do it for you, but they can charge as much as $30-$40. I unlocked my phone the day I got it and I never had any problems with the phone accidentally connecting to another GSM network while I was the standard area of my calling plan (as someone else on /. said may happen with an unlocked phone). However, I suppose if this should happen it should be EZ to correct because when I'm roaming, the phone allows me to scan for other networks and select the one that I want to connect to (I suppose I could reconnect to my home network if this ever happened).
Note that changing SIM cards changes your phone number. I use my phone for business so I can't afford be swapping numbers (unless I'm on vacation or something like that) . . . but normally, I hangup and call immediately on a landline to save on the expensive (USD$1 - $2) overseas roaming fees. I also really dig being able to get/send text messages on the phone . . . however, As a US T-Mobile customer, I have had significant difficulty getting and sending text msgs to/from people using European mobile phone providers. This happens even if I'm in the same country and roaming on the same service. Though you may be considering buying a phone in your destination country and chucking it later, that's a lot of money (if you get a nice phone, the cost of 2 nice phone can easily exceed a triband and when you include chargers, that can be a lot of extra junk to carry around while traveling.)
Note that GSM phones do NOT work in Japan (they have their own standard. You can get a Japan friendly phone that also supports GSM tri-band (So that it will work inside and outside of Japan, but I think it's hard to find these phones outside of Japan).
What artist would possibly go exclusive with Walmart? The Whistling Yellow Smiley or The Walmart Carolers?
It doesn't state that the grid has the right to shutdown non-essential usage (Sidebar - Wouldn't cutting non-essential "supply" actually be "supply side management"?). The definition that you've contextualized is quite interesting. A number of questions immediately come to mind. Is a system like this being implemented elsewhere? How would a tiered system be implemented logistically on the existing grid? Whose use would be considered "non-essential" and how would one differentiate essential from non-essential? Pricing/Market pressures? Regulatory guidelines? A combination of these?
Also, a fault in the industrial sense is a root cause of a problem. A last resort to save the grid is a resultant action to mitigate a fault (however I empathize with you in that the way the grid is currently designed causes a rather extreme all or nothing response to mitigate the aforementioned problem). During HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Studies), FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis), and FTA (fault tree analysis) faults are defined as root causes of problems. Actions to mitigate faults whether right or wrong, ideal or extreme are not faults (though this does not mean that these actions are not problematic or that there is not a better way of mitigating the fault).
Also, if there is no associated discount I don't use the card unless I am buying something particularly weird and out of the ordinary.
Perhaps it makes no real difference, but in some small corner of my mind I feel like I'm sticking it to the man. . .
Note that in all the contracts that I have seen a plant can shutdown or startup with modest penalties if they give advanced notice to their electricity vendor.
I've even seen contracts that permit the electricity provider to cause an intentional brownout with a specified period of advance notice for a substantial credit to the end user. Demand side management does exist. Perhaps you feel it should be more widely implemented or more comprehensive . . . but it has existed for a long time in industry.
Fault detection is one thing. A faulty response to detection of a fault is another; if the system reacts to a shortage of generation capacity by cutting off generation rather than consumption, the protective systems act to decrease reliability.
Disengaging generational capacity as a failure mode can hardly be described as "another (fault)". It is important to consider the bigger picture. If disengaging generational capacity increases safety, reduces overall system downtime (by preventing damage to generating equipment), or reduces overall cost to customers and providers, it may be the most logical failure mode if there is insufficient generational capacity available.
I'd rather have a 1 day power outage than wait 3 months for the rebuild of several industrial dynamos.
To be able to reroute power effectively, we should first insure that there is adequate capacity to enable us to reroute power through alternate pathways.
In Europe, are the damages computed in a similar method? Also 497M Euros sounds small, but was this computed based on Microsoft's profits/revenues and anticompetitive practices only in the EU?
Microsoft will undoubtedly appeal . . . and this could take years. The market and the product mix could change a lot by then . . .
Anyone know how discrete the channels are? "Surround Sound" Codecs often do not support fully discrete channels. If I remember correctly, Dolby ProLogic is four channels encoded in two audio channels and doesn't support fully discrete surround channels. I think to a lessor extent this is also true of Dolby Digital (AC3) (Combines channels at frequencies above 15kHz), but DTS does support fully discrete surround channels (This is part of the reason why DTS uses more bandwidth than AC3). Anyone know if the surround implementation for MP3's will support fully discrete surround channels?
Can we not detect viruses now based on the "entire virus particle" if we have the proper antibody (which is also required for the ViriChip)?
Can we not detect viruses in a solution now? (Granted the antibody would have to be bound to something first . . . plastic, protein, etc)
Do we have to destroy a virus to detect it with current techniques? It sounds like the ViriChip binds to the virus by way of an antibody, and if the ViriChip doesnt destroy the virus one should be able to knock the virus off the antibody with a competing antigen . . . but this isnt this exactly what is done using traditional techniques?
The article doesnt say it, but it seems to imply that "intact, identified viruses" are not available now for "further research." (Hence the justification for the ViriChip.) This is preposterous! If the ViriChip was faster, cheaper, simpler, etc. This would be a justification . . . Is there really a clear business justification for commercializing the ViriChip? If so, I am not sure that I see it.
. . . And if the LCD cracks, should I call a HAZMAT team to clean it up?
"Worf, how many times do I have to tell you "Hailing Frequencies Open" and "Fire Photon Torpedos" are NOT the same thing!"
There is something to be said for a little piece of plastic held up to the ear . . .
One disadvantage is that percussive sounds (In english, the sound of a "B", "T", "D" etc.) are not picked up by most throat mikes because these sounds are made mostly by the lips, not the throat.
You have working diesel power generators because you have screaming customers demanding uptime . . . Articles like this are important because if we dont know that the triple redundant generators at Plum Island are not being maintained (because of scabs, bad maint., poor security, or whatever), then we as citizens dont know that we too should be going "apeshit."
Maybe a similar system could be used to automaticly seal off contaminated areas, in case power is lost?
We do that when designing safety systems in chemical plants and refineries . . . critical systems are designed to "fail open" or "fail closed" depending on the situation. By "fail", I mean if the system loses power (whether it be electric, pneumatic, etc.) For example, one would not want a fuel gas valve on a boiler to "fail open" and one would not want a chilled water quench system on that same boiler to "fail closed." Also, there are almost always manual block valves in the event of a more catastrophic failure.If the doors cited in the article fail open, it would imply that it is impossible/impractical to design a fail closed system for sealing the doors, triple redundant backup generators were considered sufficient to address the failure mode, or the engineer that designed the system should be sent to remedial engineering school.
Maybe not all wave dynamics. Water waves can go right through one another and not slow down or be diminished!
So can sound waves. Waves are additive. They only cancel each other out when they are out of phase with one another. You can cancel out a water wave with another wave that is the opposite of the first wave (100% out of phase; same magnitude and direction) . . . but this probably does not happen very often in natural bodies of water (and if it did, there would not be much to see . .