When the price of a company's stock goes up, how does that benefit the company directly? The stock market is a secondary market -- only the IPO actually earns money for the company. After that, it's just stockholders buying and selling from each other. Unless I misunderstand.
You could also sandwich RP screen material in some glass, or tape it to the bottom of the glass. I think a place like The Screen Works (www.thescreenworks.com) could just sell you RP material of various types -- I've used some screens that they custom-built.
If you want to help, donate cash. That is the best way to do it. Donate it to something like the international response fund of the American Red Cross (if you're in the US), or some other very well-known charity group. They can use cash to leverage very cheap buys of massive numbers of goods. And, more importantly, donating goods is great, but while doing so, perhaps you could also donate some free technology to teleport it over there. Getting the supplies to where they're needed is a significant part of the cost of relief. If a government like that of India is requested donations of goods and not cash, then let the Red Cross do the conversion in the most effecient way possible -- it's not like they're taking your cash and driving it around in trucks on the islands.
In fact, the Red Cross doesn't even take donations of goods. http://www.redcross.org/article/0,1072,0_312_3877, 00.html
I bought my PDA with good intentions of becoming organized. Of course, that didn't happen. However, I now have a job that requires me to travel for months at a time. As such, space in my suitcases is at a premium. As an avid reader, I immediately began looking into the concept of ebooks. I am completely hooked on this concept. My coworkers look at my book collection with jealousy. Their suitcases are weighed down by books, while I simply have my PDA. (Well, I also have a bunch of useless junk that I probably shouldn't be traveling with, too, but let's not discuss that.) Also, since it's backlit, I can read at night without bothering my roommate, even when the hotel has crappy lighting.
Maybe ebooks will eventually be read on e-ink paper and such. But for now the PDA is the best way to read them, and for a traveller like me, it's the best way to read in general.
On most of the flights I have been on lately they specifically disallow even "airplane mode." I assume this is so that flight attendants don't have to examine exactly how you're using your phone/pda. It's much simpler for them to be able to tell you to turn it off and stow it because it is a phone.
Of course, I think the whole thing with cell phones and airplanes needs to be addressed. If it is dangerous to use cell phone while the aircraft is in flight, it should be checked somehow. I follow the rules but have occasionally forgotten to turn off my phone while it was stowed in my carry-on. In fact I once forgot to shut it off, had my bag gate-checked (on a tiny commuter aircraft), and retrieved it at the destination to see that I had missed several calls. I know that cell phones emit RF noise even while just receiving the ringing signal, because my computer speakers have a crappy unshielded amp and picks it up -- a distinctive popping sound.
Maybe once they figure out this problem, combination cell phones/PDAs will be allowed to be used on flights again.
Of course, I just looked at American Airlines'policy and they say that you may use cell phone/PDA combinations if the flight attendant can verify that the transmitting capabilites are turned off.
Southwest Airlines'policy isn't so clear. So it apparantly varies by airline.
I wonder if there's anything that could be done to capture the power in lightning. Has anyone seen anything about this? Perhaps some sort of equipment attached to a lightning rod on a tall building?
I've given up in life on expecting customer service people to understand anything technical. If they knew technical stuff, for the most part, they would have a better job. So I call customer service to do basic things like change my plan and such. I travel to Europe a lot and usually change my plan to a really cheap one while I'm there (I have an unlocked GSM dual-band phone that I use in Europe -- I purchase pre-paid SIM cards for whatever country I'm in; Orange for the UK, Vodafone for Ireland, E-Plus for Germany, etc.) And I try to call at times when I think fewer people would be calling. But there aren't any times when they even claim to have a waiting time of less than 10 minutes -- which really means about 20 minutes. Do they specifically staff their call centers to a certain hold time? I'm not happy with my AT&T service in general, but waiting times improving alone would make me a much happier cell phone user.
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When the price of a company's stock goes up, how does that benefit the company directly? The stock market is a secondary market -- only the IPO actually earns money for the company. After that, it's just stockholders buying and selling from each other. Unless I misunderstand.
You could also sandwich RP screen material in some glass, or tape it to the bottom of the glass. I think a place like The Screen Works (www.thescreenworks.com) could just sell you RP material of various types -- I've used some screens that they custom-built.
If you want to help, donate cash. That is the best way to do it. Donate it to something like the international response fund of the American Red Cross (if you're in the US), or some other very well-known charity group. They can use cash to leverage very cheap buys of massive numbers of goods. And, more importantly, donating goods is great, but while doing so, perhaps you could also donate some free technology to teleport it over there. Getting the supplies to where they're needed is a significant part of the cost of relief. If a government like that of India is requested donations of goods and not cash, then let the Red Cross do the conversion in the most effecient way possible -- it's not like they're taking your cash and driving it around in trucks on the islands. In fact, the Red Cross doesn't even take donations of goods. http://www.redcross.org/article/0,1072,0_312_3877, 00.html
Maybe ebooks will eventually be read on e-ink paper and such. But for now the PDA is the best way to read them, and for a traveller like me, it's the best way to read in general.
Of course, I think the whole thing with cell phones and airplanes needs to be addressed. If it is dangerous to use cell phone while the aircraft is in flight, it should be checked somehow. I follow the rules but have occasionally forgotten to turn off my phone while it was stowed in my carry-on. In fact I once forgot to shut it off, had my bag gate-checked (on a tiny commuter aircraft), and retrieved it at the destination to see that I had missed several calls. I know that cell phones emit RF noise even while just receiving the ringing signal, because my computer speakers have a crappy unshielded amp and picks it up -- a distinctive popping sound.
Maybe once they figure out this problem, combination cell phones/PDAs will be allowed to be used on flights again.
Of course, I just looked at American Airlines' policy and they say that you may use cell phone/PDA combinations if the flight attendant can verify that the transmitting capabilites are turned off. Southwest Airlines' policy isn't so clear. So it apparantly varies by airline.
I wonder if there's anything that could be done to capture the power in lightning. Has anyone seen anything about this? Perhaps some sort of equipment attached to a lightning rod on a tall building?
I've given up in life on expecting customer service people to understand anything technical. If they knew technical stuff, for the most part, they would have a better job. So I call customer service to do basic things like change my plan and such. I travel to Europe a lot and usually change my plan to a really cheap one while I'm there (I have an unlocked GSM dual-band phone that I use in Europe -- I purchase pre-paid SIM cards for whatever country I'm in; Orange for the UK, Vodafone for Ireland, E-Plus for Germany, etc.) And I try to call at times when I think fewer people would be calling. But there aren't any times when they even claim to have a waiting time of less than 10 minutes -- which really means about 20 minutes. Do they specifically staff their call centers to a certain hold time? I'm not happy with my AT&T service in general, but waiting times improving alone would make me a much happier cell phone user.