Another reason to carry your digital camera on a ride

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

If mobile phone service is seen primarily as a benefit or requirement for
the locals, then AMPS service can be justified. But if there's a greater
public need to be served, that of people driving through or visiting the
area, then AMPS has rapdily diminishing usefulness. Call it the tyrany of
the majority if you wish.

It's precisely for the people driving through or visiting that AMPS is
so valuable. Here's one example (besides all the bicycling examples). My
wife works for the home health and hospice division of large HMO that
covers all of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. They have to travel to
the outer reaches of the counties, including out to Pescadero, and up to
patients off of Skyline boulevard in San Mateo County, and they have to
stay in touch. For some bizarre reason, the HMO decided they should use
Nextel, which has the worst coverage of any carrier, so the employees
end up using their personal phones when in areas of no coverage. I
remember one time my wife was visiting a patient and as she drove up a
bunch of dogs came out to "greet" her. She couldn't get out of the car
until she called the patient, using AMPS (which is all that was up
there) from her car to tell her to call off the dogs. Without that AMPS
coverage, she just would have left, without making the visit. What
surprised me was that the employees actually understood the available
networks, and explicitly got service on Verizon because of the rural
coverage that AT&T lacks.

For the locals in the rural areas, they have landlines, so it's less of
a concern to have cell coverage in their own houses, but for people
driving through having coverage is a big plus.

Of course you don't care about AMPS, you can't use it, so you don't
believe anyone else should care about it either.

On Dec 17, 4:45 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:
Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much into too-tiny an
area and is almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass (think
typical Michelin map of just about any part of France, if you need an
example), and you don't carry a magnifying glass, but you are carrying your
digital camera, here's what I do-

Take a photo of the area of the map you need to deal with, using the macro
function. Then on playback, use the magify function to zoom in on what you
need to see. You'd be amazed how well this works. It's save my butt many
times.

Another nice use for digital cameras is simply to keep your maps on your
memory card. I wouldn't trust everything that way, as things can go wrong
with any electronic or mechanical piece of equipment. On the other hand,
maps can get lost too. If you've got a camera with a small amount of
internal memory, that's a handy place to store the maps (since they'll be
there even if you remove the memory card).

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycleswww.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

The cell phone I've carried for emergencies -- first a Treo and now an
iPhone -- has a digital camera in it. Not a very good one compared to
my Nikon DSLR, but serviceable to take a picture of something. A few
months ago I rode across the SF Golden Gate Bridge and sent to some
friends in the East a picture of myself doing just that. Cool. Make
them jealous.

In September I rode US 395 in the Eastern Sierra, and that made for an
even grander picture.

Dave

In article , Mike
Jacoubowsky wrote:

Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much

.....

snip

Getting lost is half the fun!

In article ,
Luke writes:
In article , Mike
Jacoubowsky wrote:

Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much

....

snip

Getting lost is half the fun!

How true!

There's a burger joint in Burnaby BC, somewhere near
Norland & Douglas Rd (where there's lots of commercial/
industrial truck traffic,) which I simply /must/ re-visit,
and, I hope, recall how to get there.

Space is most definitely not the final frontier.
We have tons of explorable realms right here at
our local avail.

A life of avoiding adventure is like watching
re-runs all the time.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Of course you don't care about AMPS, you can't use it, so you don't
believe anyone else should care about it either.

Are you just pretending to ignore my argument, or actually missed it?

AMPS serves such a tiny number of people that it has no future. The longer
it persists, the longer it will be that such areas remain out of touch to
the majority of people in need of cell phone service. AMPS might be just
barely enough to satisfy those who have had service in those areas for some
time, but unless you believe you can talk the major providers into adding
AMPS as a reasonable option to their existing plans, IT'S A DEAD END. And
the sooner we move on, the better everyone else will be.

This reminds me of the move from analog to digital TV. Yes, it will make a
bunch of people unhappy as it forces them to move on, but the sooner the
move, the better off everyone will be, as it frees up a ton of bandwidth for
other uses, and provides a higher quality picture.

(Oh, regarding my use of AMPS, I had it for years as a secondary option on
my Cell-One phone service. TDMA & AMPS. So yes, I've had it, I've moved on.
Is it possible that AMPS might have worked better in some remote parts of
Skyline? A couple years ago, ABSOLUTELY!!! But y'know what? They've built up
the GSM network such that I now get, on average, better coverage than I did
with AMPS/TDMA.)

Isn't this a bicycle group?

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"SMS ???. ?" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

If mobile phone service is seen primarily as a benefit or requirement
for the locals, then AMPS service can be justified. But if there's a
greater public need to be served, that of people driving through or
visiting the area, then AMPS has rapdily diminishing usefulness. Call it
the tyrany of the majority if you wish.

It's precisely for the people driving through or visiting that AMPS is so
valuable. Here's one example (besides all the bicycling examples). My wife
works for the home health and hospice division of large HMO that covers
all of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. They have to travel to the
outer reaches of the counties, including out to Pescadero, and up to
patients off of Skyline boulevard in San Mateo County, and they have to
stay in touch. For some bizarre reason, the HMO decided they should use
Nextel, which has the worst coverage of any carrier, so the employees end
up using their personal phones when in areas of no coverage. I remember
one time my wife was visiting a patient and as she drove up a bunch of
dogs came out to "greet" her. She couldn't get out of the car until she
called the patient, using AMPS (which is all that was up there) from her
car to tell her to call off the dogs. Without that AMPS coverage, she just
would have left, without making the visit. What surprised me was that the
employees actually understood the available networks, and explicitly got
service on Verizon because of the rural coverage that AT&T lacks.

For the locals in the rural areas, they have landlines, so it's less of a
concern to have cell coverage in their own houses, but for people driving
through having coverage is a big plus.

Of course you don't care about AMPS, you can't use it, so you don't
believe anyone else should care about it either.

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
...
This reminds me of the move from analog to digital TV. Yes, it will make a
bunch of people unhappy as it forces them to move on, but the sooner the
move, the better off everyone will be, as it frees up a ton of bandwidth for
other uses, and provides a higher quality picture....

You mean I will have to replace my 20-old TV with its "rabbit ears" and
300-ohm spade lug inputs? Next you will be trying to sell us bicycles
made out of polymers instead of proper metal!

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
POST FREE OR DIE!

This reminds me of the move from analog to digital TV. Yes, it will make
a bunch of people unhappy as it forces them to move on, but the sooner
the move, the better off everyone will be, as it frees up a ton of
bandwidth for other uses, and provides a higher quality picture....

You mean I will have to replace my 20-old TV with its "rabbit ears" and
300-ohm spade lug inputs? Next you will be trying to sell us bicycles made
out of polymers instead of proper metal!

Actually, no. I mean on the TV. You'll be able to buy pretty inexpensive
set-top converter boxes, but you may very well have a problem with your
rabbit ears. Might have to get a 300/75 ohm balun and a little UHF antenna.

But for the bike, sorry, it might not be carbon but more likely a refined
form of bauxite, the most-abundant element on the planet (from the
surface-down, not counting what's in the atmosphere... although not sure
that would matter). And if you're an American, you will even pronounce the
resulting material's name correctly.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
This reminds me of the move from analog to digital TV. Yes, it will make
a bunch of people unhappy as it forces them to move on, but the sooner
the move, the better off everyone will be, as it frees up a ton of
bandwidth for other uses, and provides a higher quality picture....
You mean I will have to replace my 20-old TV with its "rabbit ears" and
300-ohm spade lug inputs? Next you will be trying to sell us bicycles made
out of polymers instead of proper metal!

Actually, no. I mean on the TV. You'll be able to buy pretty inexpensive
set-top converter boxes, but you may very well have a problem with your
rabbit ears. Might have to get a 300/75 ohm balun and a little UHF antenna.

But for the bike, sorry, it might not be carbon but more likely a refined
form of bauxite, the most-abundant element on the planet (from the
surface-down, not counting what's in the atmosphere... although not sure
that would matter). And if you're an American, you will even pronounce the
resulting material's name correctly.

The correct spelling, by international standard, of Element 13 is aluminium.

Particularly heinous is the use of "aluminium" when the writer actually
means "aluminium alloy"; would we refer to steel as iron? Essentially
pure aluminium has good corrosion resistance, but little to recommend it
as a structural material. Unalloyed aluminium would be a poor material
indeed to construct a bicycle frame or other components from.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
POST FREE OR DIE!

In article ,
Tom Sherman writes:

And if you're an American, you will even pronounce the
resulting material's name correctly.

The correct spelling, by international standard, of Element 13 is aluminium.

Particularly heinous is the use of "aluminium" when the writer actually
means "aluminium alloy"; would we refer to steel as iron? Essentially
pure aluminium has good corrosion resistance, but little to recommend it
as a structural material. Unalloyed aluminium would be a poor material
indeed to construct a bicycle frame or other components from.

Thank you for being human enough to end a sentence with
a preposition :-)

I recall hearing or reading that unique Americanisms
such as the 120-ounce gallon, or phonetically dumbed-down
misspellings such as "neighbor," "favor" and "plow",
driving/riding on the wrong side of the road and the
preference of coffee over tea are manifestations of
Revolutionary bloody-mindedness and a desire to
distinguish colonial America from Britain. I think
maybe aluminum wasn't even on the Periodic Table at
the time of the American Revolution. Maybe Mendelev's
Periodic Table didn't exist then. I guess the American
bloody-minded spirit lives on, so that the American
spelling: "aluminum" takes root in common usage.

Alcan, in Kitimat, BC refines aluminum. Many kilograms
of it. They were a major supplier to the war in Viet Nam.

A lot of bauxite comes from some South American country,
but I forget which one. My brain is too full. I need
to dump some old facts outa there so I can stuff some
new ones in. FIFO.



cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Tom Keats wrote:
In article ,
Tom Sherman writes:

And if you're an American, you will even pronounce the
resulting material's name correctly.

The correct spelling, by international standard, of Element 13 is aluminium.

Particularly heinous is the use of "aluminium" when the writer actually
means "aluminium alloy"; would we refer to steel as iron? Essentially
pure aluminium has good corrosion resistance, but little to recommend it
as a structural material. Unalloyed aluminium would be a poor material
indeed to construct a bicycle frame or other components from.

Thank you for being human enough to end a sentence with
a preposition :-)

Ending a sentence with a preposition is unheard of!

I recall hearing or reading that unique Americanisms
such as the 120-ounce gallon, or phonetically dumbed-down
misspellings such as "neighbor," "favor" and "plow"...

These are improvements as they are closer to being phonetic. Similarly
"meter" and "center" make much more sense than "metre" and "centre".

What really bugs me is fake oldness, such as calling a strip mall in the
suburbs "Olde Towne Centre" or some such nonsense. I could never be a
developer, since they have to be shameless in coming up with silly names.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
POST FREE OR DIE!