Simply because many European countries already had local dialling phone numbers starting with 911, and at the point when 112 was decided apon, many countries already had 112 as an emergency number, and those that didn't had 112 available for use as an emergency number, which they parallel alongside their traditional emergency number (such as, for instance, 999 in the UK, which happens to be the first country to introduce an emergency assistance telephone number)
Well, what happens if you dial 911 (or whatever the emergency services number is in your country) from a cellphone when you're in another city? Simple. The call gets routed to an emergency dispatcher closest to the cellular base you're attached to, and the telco might also forward more detailed location (triangulated position) to the dispatcher, and possibly also the address the cellular phone is registered to. Some phones in the USA also attempt to forward GPS co-ordinates.
With PSTN, you dial the emergency number, the call gets routed to the local emergency dispatcher, who will match caller ID against the installation address for that phone line, and also provides the customer name.
With VoIP, things get a little more complicated. It's far harder to tell geographically where the caller is at the time. The best they could do, based on IP address might be from the ARIN/RIPE/APNIC databases, which may be the ISP address (in another city, or even country).. Or just provide the registered billing address of that VOIP customer. You call it from your phone while on vacation, and the emergency dispatcher thinks you're in another country. Clearly not brilliant. The VOIP providers would have to employ call screeners who work out who/where the caller is before manually routing the calls to the appropriate emergency dispatcher, which causes potentially life-threatening problems.
USD 2 per US Gallon?
Let me compare to the real world here:
USD 2 is approximately GBP 1.05, or EUR 1.53
1 US Gallon = 3.785 litres.
So you're complaining about USD 0.52 per litre, which is GBP 0.22 per litre, or EUR 0.40 per litre.
Typical unleaded 95RON pump price, including taxes in the UK, is GBP 0.80 per litre. (USD 1.51, EUR 1.15)
Typical unleaded 95RON pump price, including taxes in France is about EUR 1.05 per litre (USD 1.36, GBP 0.69)
(currency prices are inter-bank rates as per oanda.com)
So, to a European, (and for that matter, pretty much anywhere outside of the USA, and some oil-rich states with stable economies - yes there are some of those), 2 bucks a gallon is almost free anyway.
I have countless wall-warts trying to provide various flavours of low voltage stuff to charge / power my electronic gear.
I have things that have identical connectors that provide dangerously different voltages.
So, having a wireless charging mat you could just drop your mobile phone on is great; it would be far greater if the technology is sensibly licenced, for instance, the charging equipment could be patented, with royalty fees payable to the inventor (what is this? someone on Slashdot extolling the virtues of patents?).. But the receiving equipment could be royalty free, or maybe even subsidised.
This would mean that, for instance, Nokia phones might be able to charge with the same transmitting equipment as a Motorola walkie-talkie, as a Garmin GPS, as a no-named chinese portable DVD player... but providing the wireless charging was OPTIONAL, this wouldn't be a problem - you could still charge all the above equipment using traditional ugly wall-warts, but you could also charge with the standard wireless equipment.
The inventor could then sell funky wireless recharding pads to the end users, maybe at a premium price, because you'd only need one (or maybe two - one for the home, one for the office). You're paying for the incredible convenience of it all; in much the same way as mobile phone users tend to have to put up with phone rates an order of magnitude higher than fixed line phoned - they are paying for the convenience of it.
Black as a CRT? Take your standard CRT television set. Now switch it off (which is probably a good thing given the rubbish they broadcast these days). What colour is the screen? Most of them are a a medium-to-dark grey. It cannot get blacker than that, anything that appears blacker than that when in use is an illusion.
(CRTs used as computer monitors tend have a much better tube, and a darker aperture mask than your average TV set)
Self checkouts, or at least, the ones I have used, will weigh the output in the bagging area, and compare the added weight to the weight as declared in the shop inventory system. That stops you buying two litres of milk and tagging it as one litre, however, it wouldn't stop a 512MB flash card instead of a 256MB flash card. Mind you, the self check-outs that I've used will know that certain items (like 20 year old single malt whisky) are security tagged, and will automatically signal assistance from an attendant. Flash cards would probably be security tagged; hell, I've even seen a pack of two AA batteries security tagged - they're far too easy to pocket.
This is more a problem for Microsoft Word, and the filesystem used to write to the flash drive, than the actual drive technology itself.
Try this on olde-world technology:
Fire up a copy of Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 (yes, the version that pre-dated bloatware) on Windows 3.1. Open a word document from a floppy disk, start working on it, now remove floppy disk from drive with hardware eject button, and re-insert another floppy disk. Watch in awe as disks get corrupt and files irrevocably lost.
This proves that block level devices that have the ability to be hardware level removal from the system before any cache is flushed, and things like file locks removed is dangerous. With USB and/or firewire, it's all too tempting to unplug such removable media if you're in a hurry.
Now, use a sensible journalling file system, and an application that doesn't hold files open, and your worries are reduced.
There are already insurance companies that do this . Others are trialling the technology. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3573912.stm . If you opt-in to certain insurance plans, a condition is that the insurance company sticks a GPS based tracker on your car, and will discount your premium by amounts based on your style of driving; for instance, they can charge you less if you don't leave your vehicle parked in a rough neighbourhood where car theft is rampant. If you leave your vehicle parked in a locked garage for 11 months of the year, you get appropriate discounts.
Don't be daft. If you don't code to the 80 character line limit, your code would never fit on the punched card. Now, if everyone were to upgrade to paper tape, this wouldn't be a problem.
Oh, and all the VT100 and TVI925 terminals would need to be hardware upgraded.
Of course, in the UK we have esteemed meteorologists writing tabloid newspaper headlines regarding extreme weather. The choice of units of course is determined by how impressive it sounds.
Brrr. It's 12 below (which is of course in Celsius)
Phew! Wot a scorcher! 101 degrees (which is in Fahrenheit)
Is that statute miles per Imperial gallon, or statute miles per US Gallon. The difference between the two can be astonishing.
For further tweaking, you could quote miles per gallon in nautical miles per gallon, but that wouldn't make it look as good.
At least with litres per 100km, you know what units are being used.
Slashdot Mirror
Simply because many European countries already had local dialling phone numbers starting with 911, and at the point when 112 was decided apon, many countries already had 112 as an emergency number, and those that didn't had 112 available for use as an emergency number, which they parallel alongside their traditional emergency number (such as, for instance, 999 in the UK, which happens to be the first country to introduce an emergency assistance telephone number)
Well, what happens if you dial 911 (or whatever the emergency services number is in your country) from a cellphone when you're in another city? Simple. The call gets routed to an emergency dispatcher closest to the cellular base you're attached to, and the telco might also forward more detailed location (triangulated position) to the dispatcher, and possibly also the address the cellular phone is registered to. Some phones in the USA also attempt to forward GPS co-ordinates.
With PSTN, you dial the emergency number, the call gets routed to the local emergency dispatcher, who will match caller ID against the installation address for that phone line, and also provides the customer name.
With VoIP, things get a little more complicated. It's far harder to tell geographically where the caller is at the time. The best they could do, based on IP address might be from the ARIN/RIPE/APNIC databases, which may be the ISP address (in another city, or even country).. Or just provide the registered billing address of that VOIP customer. You call it from your phone while on vacation, and the emergency dispatcher thinks you're in another country. Clearly not brilliant. The VOIP providers would have to employ call screeners who work out who/where the caller is before manually routing the calls to the appropriate emergency dispatcher, which causes potentially life-threatening problems.
USD 2 per US Gallon? Let me compare to the real world here: USD 2 is approximately GBP 1.05, or EUR 1.53 1 US Gallon = 3.785 litres. So you're complaining about USD 0.52 per litre, which is GBP 0.22 per litre, or EUR 0.40 per litre. Typical unleaded 95RON pump price, including taxes in the UK, is GBP 0.80 per litre. (USD 1.51, EUR 1.15) Typical unleaded 95RON pump price, including taxes in France is about EUR 1.05 per litre (USD 1.36, GBP 0.69) (currency prices are inter-bank rates as per oanda.com) So, to a European, (and for that matter, pretty much anywhere outside of the USA, and some oil-rich states with stable economies - yes there are some of those), 2 bucks a gallon is almost free anyway.
I have countless wall-warts trying to provide various flavours of low voltage stuff to charge / power my electronic gear. I have things that have identical connectors that provide dangerously different voltages. So, having a wireless charging mat you could just drop your mobile phone on is great; it would be far greater if the technology is sensibly licenced, for instance, the charging equipment could be patented, with royalty fees payable to the inventor (what is this? someone on Slashdot extolling the virtues of patents?).. But the receiving equipment could be royalty free, or maybe even subsidised. This would mean that, for instance, Nokia phones might be able to charge with the same transmitting equipment as a Motorola walkie-talkie, as a Garmin GPS, as a no-named chinese portable DVD player. .. but providing the wireless charging was OPTIONAL, this wouldn't be a problem - you could still charge all the above equipment using traditional ugly wall-warts, but you could also charge with the standard wireless equipment.
The inventor could then sell funky wireless recharding pads to the end users, maybe at a premium price, because you'd only need one (or maybe two - one for the home, one for the office). You're paying for the incredible convenience of it all; in much the same way as mobile phone users tend to have to put up with phone rates an order of magnitude higher than fixed line phoned - they are paying for the convenience of it.
Black as a CRT? Take your standard CRT television set. Now switch it off (which is probably a good thing given the rubbish they broadcast these days). What colour is the screen? Most of them are a a medium-to-dark grey. It cannot get blacker than that, anything that appears blacker than that when in use is an illusion. (CRTs used as computer monitors tend have a much better tube, and a darker aperture mask than your average TV set)
Certainly, the use of "Legos" appears to be an Americanism (and an uninformed Americanism at that). I've never heard "Legos" used by a European.
Self checkouts, or at least, the ones I have used, will weigh the output in the bagging area, and compare the added weight to the weight as declared in the shop inventory system. That stops you buying two litres of milk and tagging it as one litre, however, it wouldn't stop a 512MB flash card instead of a 256MB flash card. Mind you, the self check-outs that I've used will know that certain items (like 20 year old single malt whisky) are security tagged, and will automatically signal assistance from an attendant. Flash cards would probably be security tagged; hell, I've even seen a pack of two AA batteries security tagged - they're far too easy to pocket.
This is more a problem for Microsoft Word, and the filesystem used to write to the flash drive, than the actual drive technology itself. Try this on olde-world technology: Fire up a copy of Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 (yes, the version that pre-dated bloatware) on Windows 3.1. Open a word document from a floppy disk, start working on it, now remove floppy disk from drive with hardware eject button, and re-insert another floppy disk. Watch in awe as disks get corrupt and files irrevocably lost. This proves that block level devices that have the ability to be hardware level removal from the system before any cache is flushed, and things like file locks removed is dangerous. With USB and/or firewire, it's all too tempting to unplug such removable media if you're in a hurry. Now, use a sensible journalling file system, and an application that doesn't hold files open, and your worries are reduced.
There are already insurance companies that do this . Others are trialling the technology. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3573912.stm . If you opt-in to certain insurance plans, a condition is that the insurance company sticks a GPS based tracker on your car, and will discount your premium by amounts based on your style of driving; for instance, they can charge you less if you don't leave your vehicle parked in a rough neighbourhood where car theft is rampant. If you leave your vehicle parked in a locked garage for 11 months of the year, you get appropriate discounts.
Don't be daft. If you don't code to the 80 character line limit,
your code would never fit on the punched card. Now, if everyone
were to upgrade to paper tape, this wouldn't be a problem.
Oh, and all the VT100 and TVI925 terminals would need to be hardware upgraded.
Of course, in the UK we have esteemed meteorologists writing tabloid newspaper headlines regarding extreme weather. The choice of units of course is determined by how impressive it sounds. Brrr. It's 12 below (which is of course in Celsius) Phew! Wot a scorcher! 101 degrees (which is in Fahrenheit)
Is that statute miles per Imperial gallon, or statute miles per US Gallon. The difference between the two can be astonishing. For further tweaking, you could quote miles per gallon in nautical miles per gallon, but that wouldn't make it look as good. At least with litres per 100km, you know what units are being used.