Not Living in a Nineteenth-Century Future
Joy Beeson
When the protagonist of "The Machine Stops" wanted to take a nap,
she flipped a switch and was completely cut off from the outside
world. Nobody could wake her up to tell her that her spouse's boat
cover was ready.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
Nels Satterlund
> When the protagonist of "The Machine Stops" wanted to take a nap,
> she flipped a switch and was completely cut off from the outside
> world. Nobody could wake her up to tell her that her spouse's boat
> cover was ready.
>
Nels
--
Nels E Satterlund I don't speak for the company
Ne...@Starstream.net <-- Use this address please,
My Lurkers motto: I read much better than I type.
Dorothy J Heydt
Nels Satterlund <Ne...@starstream.net> wrote:
>Joy Beeson wrote:
>> When the protagonist of "The Machine Stops" wanted to take a nap,
>> she flipped a switch and was completely cut off from the outside
>> world. Nobody could wake her up to tell her that her spouse's boat
>> cover was ready.
>>
>And was your spouse's boat cover ready?
I think it must've been. That's why she's complaining. If
it hadn't been, nobody would've interrupted her nap; but as
it was ready, they woke her up to tell her something she
probably didn't give a damn about.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
William December Starr
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> said:
> When the protagonist of "The Machine Stops" wanted to take a nap,
> she flipped a switch and was completely cut off from the outside
> world. Nobody could wake her up to tell her that her spouse's
> boat cover was ready.
Not that anyone in that world would have had any use for a boat
cover in the first place. Or for a boat.
-- wds
netcat
jbe...@invalid.net.invalid says...
>
> When the protagonist of "The Machine Stops" wanted to take a nap,
> she flipped a switch and was completely cut off from the outside
> world. Nobody could wake her up to tell her that her spouse's boat
> cover was ready.
Well, in _my_ 21th-century present I can turn my phone off.
Completely. And nap as long as I want.
rgds,
netcat
Harry Mary Andruschak
> In article <858e3592qlh1vp6i3pidpb951etr6si...@4ax.com>,
> jbee...@invalid.net.invalid says...
>
>
>
> > When the protagonist of "The Machine Stops" wanted to take a nap,
> > she flipped a switch and was completely cut off from the outside
> > world. �Nobody could wake her up to tell her that her spouse's boat
> > cover was ready. �
>
> Well, in _my_ 21th-century present I can turn my phone off.
> Completely. And nap as long as I want.
I don't need to. My phone, and answering machine, is in Pumpkin's
bedroom. When I nap in my bedroom, I cannot hear the phone rings or
answering machine message. Nice
Keith F. Lynch
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>> Well, in _my_ 21th-century present I can turn my phone off.
>> Completely. And nap as long as I want.
I think "21th" is the first error in English netcat has made here.
> I don't need to. My phone, and answering machine, is in Pumpkin's
> bedroom. When I nap in my bedroom, I cannot hear the phone rings or
> answering machine message.
I removed the bell from my phone decades ago, after one too many
telemarketers called. I always leave my answering machine turned down
except while playing back messages, or when I'm expecting an important
call. So I can be right next to the phone and answering machine and
won't hear a thing.
I get more telemarketing calls now than ever before, even though I've
been on the federal do-not-call list since it began. That was the
last time I wasted time with any government program.
The majority of the calls are from Dish Network. They phoned me five
times yesterday, leaving an identical message each time: "Hi, this is
Lisa with Dish Network. We have you scheduled today to receive your
new satellite entertainment TV system. Our records indicate that you
should be receiving this system along with DVR in several rooms of
your home. Your installation and equipment are already paid for, and
it looks like you have one hundred dollars cash coming back to you.
Plus, by pressing one now, you will receive a free Disney planning
resort vacation to Orlando, Florida. Remember, everything has already
been paid for, so press one now." I also got three calls yesterday
from other telemarketers. Those were also "press one now," but didn't
give their company name. Occasionally I get a "Hello? Hello? Hello?"
call from someone who, based on the "boiler room" background noise,
is obviously a telemarketer. You'd think they'd all have heard of
answering machines. But I guess they're really scraping the bottom
of the barrel for employees.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>>> Well, in _my_ 21th-century present I can turn my phone off.
>>> Completely. And nap as long as I want.
>
>I think "21th" is the first error in English netcat has made here.
I think you're right. One of the big pluses about Usenet is
the number of people you meet online who learned English as a
second (or third or fourth) language and still speak it
better than you do.
Karl Johanson
news:h215p4$3cb$1...@panix3.panix.com...
> I get more telemarketing calls now than ever before,
If I don't just tell them I never buy anything based on phone solicitation,
I try to sell them magazine subscriptions.
Karl Johanson
Morris Keesan
wrote:
In _my_ 21st-century present, I would have to walk around my house
unplugging multiple phones (or turning off the ringers on those phones
with that ability), and that still wouldn't keep people from ringing
my doorbell.
GeekGirl
> On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:04:12 -0400, netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee>
> wrote:
>
> > jbee...@invalid.net.invalid says...
>
> >> When the protagonist of "The Machine Stops" wanted to take a nap,
> >> she flipped a switch and was completely cut off from the outside
> >> world. Nobody could wake her up to tell her that her spouse's boat
> >> cover was ready.
>
> > Well, in _my_ 21th-century present I can turn my phone off.
> > Completely. And nap as long as I want.
>
> In _my_ 21st-century present, I would have to walk around my house
> unplugging multiple phones (or turning off the ringers on those phones
> with that ability), and that still wouldn't keep people from ringing
> my doorbell.
Perhaps wolverines on the front porch would help.
GeekGirl
netcat
says...
That's one more reason why landlines suck.
I've only one of those to unplug but no one calls me on that, anyway.
> and that still wouldn't keep people from ringing my doorbell.
Can't turn doorbell off? Hmm.
Well, disconnecting the wires is a piece of cake anyways.
Btw I had a new apartment door installed a couple weeks ago and I told
the guy that helped me tear down the old one that I could reconnect the
bell myself. He said, I quote: "You're too practical. You should be more
womanly."
I didn't want to get into explaining this jerk that most of the ur-
womanly activities _are_ too practical if anything, so I just threw him
out after I was done being properly boggled.
rgds,
netcat
netcat
> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
> > netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> >> Well, in _my_ 21th-century present I can turn my phone off.
> >> Completely. And nap as long as I want.
>
> I think "21th" is the first error in English netcat has made here.
Do I get a cookie now?
Actually it looks more like a logic error. I was looking at the subject
when I wrote... But I had been running 38C fever for 3 days in a row at
that point. Can't exactly blame the brain for acting a bit soft-boiled
(that fever got worse and after last weekend I feel completely cooked).
> I get more telemarketing calls now than ever before,
We do not have telemarketers. Ah, bliss.
rgds,
netcat
Dorothy J Heydt
Heh. Reminds me of a guy my daughter dated a while back, who
presently dumped her with the comment: "You're not feminine
enough and you're smarter than me."
That the second was true probably explained the first. She
is now happily married to a guy who likes it that she's smart
-- and who, indeed, himself owns a T-shirt that proclaims,
"My brain is hung like a horse."
Paul Dormer
net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee (netcat) wrote:
>
> Can't turn doorbell off? Hmm.
> Well, disconnecting the wires is a piece of cake anyways.
At my old flat, I had a clockwork doorbell. Couldn't turn it off, but
you could let it run down.
Then I had the entryphone fitted. No way to turn that off. Not sure
what leaving it off the hook would have done.
netcat
p...@pauldormer.cix.co.uk says...
Ha! I know what it would do to mine. If you fail to completely place it
on its cradle the front door mike will emit an awful whine until you do.
Had to remind neighbors of it countless times.
_Also_, if the phone is off the hook, even slightly, the neighbors can
hear you if they pick up theirs.
Am still sure it can be easily disconnected even though it looks like
some breakage must be done first and I don't care to do that without no
reason.
rgds,
netcat
David Friedman
> I didn't want to get into explaining this jerk that most of the ur-
> womanly activities _are_ too practical if anything
I'll bite. Explain.
The most obviously ur-womanly activities I can think of are bearing
babies and nursing them, neither of which men can do. They are practical
but not, I would have thought, too practical.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
Morris Keesan
wrote:
>> > Well, in _my_ 21th-century present I can turn my phone off.
>> > Completely. And nap as long as I want.
>>
>> In _my_ 21st-century present, I would have to walk around my house
>> unplugging multiple phones (or turning off the ringers on those phones
>> with that ability),
>
> That's one more reason why landlines suck.
And if we didn't have the landline we'd have to get another mobile phone
for
home, and somehow magically arrange for it to be within easy reach of
whoever
was home and felt like answering it when it rang.
>> and that still wouldn't keep people from ringing my doorbell.
>
> Can't turn doorbell off? Hmm.
> Well, disconnecting the wires is a piece of cake anyways.
Which wouldn't keep persistent people from knocking loudly.
netcat
media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> In article <MPG.24b4637ec...@news.octanews.com>,
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>
> > I didn't want to get into explaining this jerk that most of the ur-
> > womanly activities _are_ too practical if anything
>
> I'll bite.
I believe you will. I don't want to get into an endless argument with
you, and you will make anything into an endless argument because you
like it.
> The most obviously ur-womanly activities I can think of are bearing
> babies and nursing them, neither of which men can do. They are practical
> but not, I would have thought, too practical.
Yes, no more than being able to connect two wires is too practical. And
the same for any other activity that is traditionally considered woman's
work. Exactly. So why were you asking again? You're certainly
intelligent enough to figure this out yourself.
rgds,
netcat
netcat
says...
> And if we didn't have the landline we'd have to get another mobile phone
> for
> home, and somehow magically arrange for it to be within easy reach of
> whoever
> was home and felt like answering it when it rang.
Another mobile for home? A mobile for a _household_? The mind boggles.
Isn't it sort of traditional to get one per person? Of course the
personal mobile is usually arranged to be within easy reach by said
person _if_ said person is interested in being able to answer it.
> >> and that still wouldn't keep people from ringing my doorbell.
> >
> > Can't turn doorbell off? Hmm.
> > Well, disconnecting the wires is a piece of cake anyways.
>
> Which wouldn't keep persistent people from knocking loudly.
I do presume people knew how to knock in the 19th century, also. But a
little before that, you could perhaps had moats and trap bridges, and no
one would have blamed you.
rgds,
netcat
David Friedman
netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
I was asking what activities you thought of as "ur-womanly" and in what
sense they were "too practical if anything."
It looked like a throwaway line designed to intrigue those who read it.
David Friedman
netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> I do presume people knew how to knock in the 19th century, also. But a
> little before that, you could perhaps had moats and trap bridges, and no
> one would have blamed you.
Is "trap bridges" a translation from another language? The term I'm
familiar with is "drawbridge," assuming that's what you meant.
netcat
media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> In article <MPG.24b49a0dc...@news.octanews.com>,
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>
> > In article <ddfr-A294D7.1...@newsfarm.ams.highwinds-
> > media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> > > In article <MPG.24b4637ec...@news.octanews.com>,
> > > netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I didn't want to get into explaining this jerk that most of the ur-
> > > > womanly activities _are_ too practical if anything
> > >
> > > I'll bite.
> >
> > I believe you will. I don't want to get into an endless argument with
> > you, and you will make anything into an endless argument because you
> > like it.
> >
> > > The most obviously ur-womanly activities I can think of are bearing
> > > babies and nursing them, neither of which men can do. They are practical
> > > but not, I would have thought, too practical.
>
> > Yes, no more than being able to connect two wires is too practical. And
> > the same for any other activity that is traditionally considered woman's
> > work. Exactly. So why were you asking again? You're certainly
> > intelligent enough to figure this out yourself.
>
> I was asking what activities you thought of as "ur-womanly" and in what
> sense they were "too practical if anything."
Oh gawd. In the sense that if he wanted a level of practicality less
than tying two wires in a knot, anything typically assumed a woman
should care about would not fit, as it would be more practical not less.
rgds,
netcat
netcat
media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> In article <MPG.24b49bfff...@news.octanews.com>,
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>
> > I do presume people knew how to knock in the 19th century, also. But a
> > little before that, you could perhaps had moats and trap bridges, and no
> > one would have blamed you.
>
> Is "trap bridges" a translation from another language? The term I'm
> familiar with is "drawbridge," assuming that's what you meant.
I _knew_ you would get you pants in a knot over this, I knew it. I
wanted to include an afterword to this effect but didn't want to be
mean.
No, trap bridge is just something I would build. A trapped bridge.
Looks like a bridge and you walk over it and wham! In the moat you go.
Doubtless they were called something else. I just took "trap door"
substituted "bridge" and went with that.
rgds,
netcat
David Friedman
netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> In article <ddfr-89C443.1...@newsfarm.ams.highwinds-
> media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> > In article <MPG.24b49bfff...@news.octanews.com>,
> > netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> >
> > > I do presume people knew how to knock in the 19th century, also. But a
> > > little before that, you could perhaps had moats and trap bridges, and no
> > > one would have blamed you.
> >
> > Is "trap bridges" a translation from another language? The term I'm
> > familiar with is "drawbridge," assuming that's what you meant.
>
> I _knew_ you would get you pants in a knot over this, I knew it.
I'm not getting my pants in a knot. I was just curious as to whether
"drawbridge" in one of the other languages you knew literally translated
as "trap bridge."
You seem very quick to take offense today--perhaps a side effect of
illness?
> I
> wanted to include an afterword to this effect but didn't want to be
> mean.
>
> No, trap bridge is just something I would build. A trapped bridge.
> Looks like a bridge and you walk over it and wham! In the moat you go.
>
> Doubtless they were called something else. I just took "trap door"
> substituted "bridge" and went with that.
I don't know of such things existing "a little before the 19th century."
There would perhaps have been practical difficulties. Some visitors,
after all, are desirable.
netcat
media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> In article <MPG.24b4a05b2...@news.octanews.com>,
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>
> > In article <ddfr-89C443.1...@newsfarm.ams.highwinds-
> > media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
> > > In article <MPG.24b49bfff...@news.octanews.com>,
> > > netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I do presume people knew how to knock in the 19th century, also. But a
> > > > little before that, you could perhaps had moats and trap bridges, and no
> > > > one would have blamed you.
> > >
> > > Is "trap bridges" a translation from another language? The term I'm
> > > familiar with is "drawbridge," assuming that's what you meant.
> >
> > I _knew_ you would get you pants in a knot over this, I knew it.
>
> I'm not getting my pants in a knot. I was just curious as to whether
> "drawbridge" in one of the other languages you knew literally translated
> as "trap bridge."
Frankly, right now I wouldn't even know how to translate drawbridge into
any of the other languages I know. Even though I know what a drawbridge
is. Maybe I should look it up. Doesn't do a body good to forget one's
native tongue. Nope, nothing to do with traps, certainly. In any case, I
do not do "direct translation", I know it leads to horrors. If I want to
use a specific term but I don't know what it is, I would look it up. I
was not using a specific term.
Nor was I aiming for historical accuracy with the time period of "a
little before", nor was I claiming this was widely practiced anywhere in
any specific time period. Have you heard of a joke before, David? Why do
you feel need to check jokes for historical and terminological accuracy?
> You seem very quick to take offense today--perhaps a side effect of
> illness?
I seem to have developed some sort of a paranoid hypersensitivity
towards you. I don't know what it's a side effect of.
I'm also probably in a too lousy mood to be polite which would otherwise
prevent this from showing, sorry.
Also, I was not offended at all since I thought as I was still typing
that post that you would no doubt say exactly something like this, and
you did, very predictably indeed.
rgds,
netcat
Kip Williams
> Also, I was not offended at all since I thought as I was still typing
> that post that you would no doubt say exactly something like this, and
> you did, very predictably indeed.
I might have asked the same questions as he did. I had them in mind, at
least, and was glad somebody else had inquired.
Kip W
Dorothy J Heydt
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <MPG.24b4637ec...@news.octanews.com>,
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>
>> I didn't want to get into explaining this jerk that most of the ur-
>> womanly activities _are_ too practical if anything
>
>I'll bite. Explain.
>
>The most obviously ur-womanly activities I can think of are bearing
>babies and nursing them, neither of which men can do. They are practical
>but not, I would have thought, too practical.
Except that, long before there were any businesses, child-bearing
and -rearing had a way of expanding to fill up ALL your time.
If there were twenty-five hours in a day, the kids would want
to be your exclusive concern during all of them. This is TOO
practical -- if you want to keep anything like your sanity.
Keith F. Lynch
> dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
>> Is "trap bridges" a translation from another language? The term
>> I'm familiar with is "drawbridge," assuming that's what you meant.
> I _knew_ you would get you pants in a knot over this, I knew it.
> I wanted to include an afterword to this effect but didn't want
> to be mean.
All he did was ask a question. If you don't want conversation, why
do you post here?
Keith F. Lynch
> Another mobile for home? A mobile for a _household_? The mind
> boggles. Isn't it sort of traditional to get one per person?
Perhaps they're more expensive in the US? People who don't make
frequent or lengthy calls don't need a phone line of their own. I can
remember when it was common for several homes to share one phone line.
It was called a party line.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>> Another mobile for home? A mobile for a _household_? The mind
>> boggles. Isn't it sort of traditional to get one per person?
>
>Perhaps they're more expensive in the US? People who don't make
>frequent or lengthy calls don't need a phone line of their own. I can
>remember when it was common for several homes to share one phone line.
>It was called a party line.
From where I sit (note, anecdote is not the plural of data):
My daughter has a cell phone, so does my son-in-law. Hal has
one and hardly ever uses it. I don't have one: I seldom
leave the house and besides I can't get the fiddly little
things to *work*. I answer the land-line.
Please note also that in case of earthquake (which could
happen any time now where I live) the cell phone towers will
probably all go down. But the landlines have a good chance
of restoring service after an hour or two: this happened
after the Loma Prieta. The Central Offices (typically
unmanned) ran for days and days on their backup generators
before technicians could get to them.
Keith F. Lynch
> Please note also that in case of earthquake (which could happen any
> time now where I live) the cell phone towers will probably all go
> down. But the landlines have a good chance of restoring service
> after an hour or two: this happened after the Loma Prieta. The
> Central Offices (typically unmanned) ran for days and days on their
> backup generators before technicians could get to them.
I'd think it would take less time to replace all the fallen cell phone
towers than all the fallen telephone poles. But for a real emergency,
I think an Iridium satellite phone would be the best choice.
Last weekend was ham radio's Field Day, in which radio hams set up,
off the grid, with no fixed infrastructure (e.g. any antenna towers
they use must be built at the start of the competition), and compete
to communicate with as many similar stations as possible, over as
great a distane as possible, on as many different frequency bands
as possible.
Steve Coltrin
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
> People who don't make frequent or lengthy calls don't need a phone
> line of their own.
I don't make frequent or lengthy calls, and I most certainly need
a phone line of my own.
> I can remember when it was common for several homes to share one
> phone line. It was called a party line.
I can't stick a party line in my pocket and take it to another city.
(Do they even exist any more?)
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press
Keith F. Lynch
> Do I get a cookie now?
Sure. Here's one:
.washingtonpost.com TRUE / FALSE 1877567457 WPPREF HP=0:VS=1
> Actually it looks more like a logic error.
I don't think so. The rules for which numbers are followed by st, nd,
rd, and th are completely arbitary. For instance it's 1st and 21st,
but 11th and 111th.
(ObFantasy: Tolkein used the term "eleventy-first" rather than the
standard "one-hundred-eleventh," no doubt for the quaint effect.)
>> I get more telemarketing calls now than ever before,
> We do not have telemarketers. Ah, bliss.
How do you manage that?
Steve Coltrin
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>
>> I _knew_ you would get you pants in a knot over this, I knew it.
>> I wanted to include an afterword to this effect but didn't want
>> to be mean.
>
> All he did was ask a question. If you don't want conversation, why
> do you post here?
There are people - I do not count netcat among them - who clearly post
here to throw their mean callous heartless exteriors into sharp relief.
Keith F. Lynch
> That's one more reason why landlines suck.
> I've only one of those to unplug but no one calls me on that, anyway.
Here in the US, phones used to be hardwired into the wall, and it was
illegal to disconnect one yourself, even temporarily, or to add an
extension. (If you wanted an extension, you'd ask the phone company
for one, they'd come and install it, and they'd raise your monthly
bill accordingly.) It was also illegal to open up a telephone (e.g.
to remove its bell), or to attach an answering machine, modem, or
anything else to a phone line.
ObSF: Heinlein argued at length with the phone company because he
wanted to add, or have added, an off switch, and they refused.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> Please note also that in case of earthquake (which could happen any
>> time now where I live) the cell phone towers will probably all go
>> down. But the landlines have a good chance of restoring service
>> after an hour or two: this happened after the Loma Prieta. The
>> Central Offices (typically unmanned) ran for days and days on their
>> backup generators before technicians could get to them.
>
>I'd think it would take less time to replace all the fallen cell phone
>towers than all the fallen telephone poles.
Maybe ... but that's NOT what happened after Loma Prieta.
Note also that because phone lines were up, USENET stayed up,
and for the first several days that's the only way news was
getting outside the epicentral area.
But for a real emergency,
>I think an Iridium satellite phone would be the best choice.
Um ... and how many people have these, and how expensive are
they?
Satellite phones are a great idea for the future, BUT we have
landlines in place already.
>Last weekend was ham radio's Field Day, in which radio hams set up,
>off the grid, with no fixed infrastructure (e.g. any antenna towers
>they use must be built at the start of the competition), and compete
>to communicate with as many similar stations as possible, over as
>great a distane as possible, on as many different frequency bands
>as possible.
Yes, when Hal and I took CERT training a couple of years ago,
ham radio was mentioned as one of the possible alternatives
to communications systems that might go down. I have no idea
of how many ham radio people there are in the Bay Area.
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> That's one more reason why landlines suck.
>> I've only one of those to unplug but no one calls me on that, anyway.
>
>Here in the US, phones used to be hardwired into the wall, and it was
>illegal to disconnect one yourself, even temporarily, or to add an
>extension. (If you wanted an extension, you'd ask the phone company
>for one, they'd come and install it, and they'd raise your monthly
>bill accordingly.) It was also illegal to open up a telephone (e.g.
>to remove its bell), or to attach an answering machine, modem, or
>anything else to a phone line.
>
>ObSF: Heinlein argued at length with the phone company because he
>wanted to add, or have added, an off switch, and they refused.
Until he had them install an extension in the garage, and
*then* they were willing to let that one ring and to disable
the ringer in the house.
Keith F. Lynch
> I can't stick a party line in my pocket and take it to another city.
You can't do that with a landline either, but landlines are still
extremely common.
> (Do they even exist any more?)
I don't think any local phone company here in Virginia still offers
them. Wikipedia says they still exist in parts of California.
Morris Keesan
wrote:
> In article <op.uwcrnvtlakl9p6@toshiba-laptop>, kee...@alum.bu.edu
> says...
>> And if we didn't have the landline we'd have to get another mobile phone
>> for
>> home, and somehow magically arrange for it to be within easy reach of
>> whoever
>> was home and felt like answering it when it rang.
>
> Another mobile for home? A mobile for a _household_? The mind boggles.
> Isn't it sort of traditional to get one per person? Of course the
> personal mobile is usually arranged to be within easy reach by said
> person _if_ said person is interested in being able to answer it.
Well, yes. And two of us carry them, sometimes, when we want to be able to
make calls that can't wait until we get home. And we leave them turned on
when
we want to be reachable while not at home, by each other, or by various
people acting in loco parentis, who might need to reach us for emergency
reasons.
But we like having a home phone, on which callers can reach any member
of the household when it's not an emergency, or leave a message if the
phone doesn't get answered, without disturbing us when we're in a theatre
with a mobile phone in silent mode so babysitters can reach us if
necessary.
Landlines are the traditional medium for home phones.
But you're the one who claimed that landlines suck, and I was pointing out
that in order to have the benefits of a landline without the actual
landline,
we'd need to get another non-landline phone for use as the shared home
phone,
and then it would be missing some of the useful features of the landline
phone,
such as multiple terminals. Personally, I don't find the inability to
turn off
the phone a major source of suckage. I don't nap during the day, and I
can choose
not to answer the phone if it rings.
Keith F. Lynch
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> But for a real emergency, I think an Iridium satellite phone would
>> be the best choice.
> Um ... and how many people have these, and how expensive are they?
My understanding is that they're more expensive than landlines or cell
phones, and that they're heavier than cell phones. It doesn't matter
how many people have them, as you can dial any number with one, not
just other Iridium users.
Their one big advantage is that since they talk directly to the
satellites, they can be used anywhere (except maybe in a basement or
a cave or deep underwater). People have made calls from the top of
Mount Everest, and from the middle of the ocean. People could make
calls from the middle of a devastated city that has *no* power and
*no* phone service.
Steve Coltrin
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
> Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org> wrote:
>> I can't stick a party line in my pocket and take it to another city.
>
> You can't do that with a landline either
Didn't say otherwise, but it does mean that a landline won't serve my
needs either.
> but landlines are still extremely common.
True. Why do you mention?
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> But for a real emergency, I think an Iridium satellite phone would
>>> be the best choice.
>
>> Um ... and how many people have these, and how expensive are they?
>
>My understanding is that they're more expensive than landlines or cell
>phones, and that they're heavier than cell phones. It doesn't matter
>how many people have them, as you can dial any number with one, not
>just other Iridium users.
Yes, I understand that. I don't mind their heaviness, since
-- and this is a personal characteristic -- I'm not going to be
carrying it around anywhere because I don't go out much, so
its weight doesn't matter. Also, if they're that big, maybe
they avoid some of the characteristics that make it
impossible for me to use the itty-bitty ones. Maybe.
>
>Their one big advantage is that since they talk directly to the
>satellites, they can be used anywhere (except maybe in a basement or
>a cave or deep underwater). People have made calls from the top of
>Mount Everest, and from the middle of the ocean. People could make
>calls from the middle of a devastated city that has *no* power and
>*no* phone service.
Yes. That would be good. As I tried to indicate, for some
their weight would be a problem, for others (me, for
instance) their price (not to mention the question of whether
I could make the durn thing work). I just googled and found
several pictures of the thing, none of which showed its size.
Though one bit of text said it was larger than a standard
cell phone but small enough to carry in a backpack. Hmmm.
netcat
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> > "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >> I think "21th" is the first error in English netcat has made here.
>
> > Do I get a cookie now?
>
> Sure. Here's one:
>
> .washingtonpost.com TRUE / FALSE 1877567457 WPPREF HP=0:VS=1
Mmmm. Needs more chocolate.
> >> I get more telemarketing calls now than ever before,
>
> > We do not have telemarketers. Ah, bliss.
>
> How do you manage that?
Maybe they're too shy.
rgds,
netcat
netcat
> begin fnord
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
> > netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> >
> >> I _knew_ you would get you pants in a knot over this, I knew it.
> >> I wanted to include an afterword to this effect but didn't want
> >> to be mean.
> >
> > All he did was ask a question. If you don't want conversation, why
> > do you post here?
>
> There are people - I do not count netcat among them - who clearly post
> here to throw their mean callous heartless exteriors into sharp relief.
Aren't all exteriors heartless given that the organ is actually situated
inside the body?
rgds,
netcat
netcat
says...
> But we like having a home phone, on which callers can reach any member
> of the household when it's not an emergency,
Why is that better than calling said member of the household directly on
their private phone? Or calling a number, that you own, and have routed
to a mobile of your current preference?
> or leave a message if the
> phone doesn't get answered,
Voicemail? SMS?
One great blank in my worldview that I never can perceive is the
importance of the answering machine. They're not an household object
here, they're something quaint from another world and time just as paper
cheques are, something only occurring in foreign movies. We went
straight from primitive rotary phones to cell networks and totally
skipped that step.
> Landlines are the traditional medium for home phones.
I'm aware of the concept but I've outgrown it, I suppose. I never think
of calling an 'household'. I call persons. I expect persons to answer
their personal numbers, personally just as anyone would answer to their
personal email address.
> that in order to have the benefits of a landline without the actual
> landline, we'd need to get another non-landline phone for use as the shared home
> phone, and then it would be missing some of the useful features of the landline
> phone, such as multiple terminals.
A mobile phone can have multiple terminals. You can actually replicate
most of the functionality with call routing and voice mail and number
groups and so on.
> Personally, I don't find the inability to turn off
> the phone a major source of suckage.
Neither do I. But looking at the subject line, I do believe we somehow
started with that conclusion. Also, I do believe the discussion was
meant somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as all my comments have also been.
rgds,
netcat
Steve Coltrin
netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> writes:
> In article <864otxu...@signy.omcl.org>, spco...@omcl.org says...
>>
>> There are people - I do not count netcat among them - who clearly post
>> here to throw their mean callous heartless exteriors into sharp relief.
>
> Aren't all exteriors heartless given that the organ is actually situated
> inside the body?
Believe it or not, I don't like Douglas Adams.
Philip Chee
> Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org> wrote:
>> I can't stick a party line in my pocket and take it to another city.
>
> You can't do that with a landline either, but landlines are still
> extremely common.
Well you can do that with the new Google phone service I think.
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]Hard work never killed anyone but why take a risk?
* TagZilla 0.066.6
Morris Keesan
wrote:
> In article <op.uwdbwud8akl9p6@toshiba-laptop>, kee...@alum.bu.edu
> says...
>> But we like having a home phone, on which callers can reach any member
>> of the household when it's not an emergency,
>
> Why is that better than calling said member of the household directly on
> their private phone? Or calling a number, that you own, and have routed
> to a mobile of your current preference?
Because often it doesn't matter which member of the household one reaches,
or because "whichever adult is home, if any" is the desired target.
And one of the members of the household is nine years old, and doesn't have
a private phone, and before you suggest getting one for him, I'll point out
that he can't be trusted to come home at the end of the day with all of the
items of clothing that he left with in the morning (in his first two days
of day camp this summer, he's lost a hat, a lunchbox, and a towel; the
lunchbox came home the next day; the hat, which he's had for six years, is
still missing).
>> or leave a message if the
>> phone doesn't get answered,
>
> Voicemail? SMS?
Voicemail on what phone number? I have two phones (one shared with the
rest of the household). One of them should generally only be called
in emergencies; and when I'm in a theatre, library, on a quiet walk in the
woods, driving in my car or riding a bicycle, etc., I don't want to even
know about the non-emergency calls -- non-emergency callers can call the
home phone, and talk to someone or leave a message.
> A mobile phone can have multiple terminals. You can actually replicate
> most of the functionality with call routing and voice mail and number
> groups and so on.
But it's much easier just to leave the landline phones connected as they
are.
> Also, I do believe the discussion was
> meant somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as all my comments have also been.
Totally unrelated anecdote: The director of the concert band I play in
is a composer, as well as a conductor. He was once conducting a group of
high school students in a composition of his own (a set of rather humorous
variations on a well-known folk tune). The sheet music directs the
principal
flautist to play a cadenza "tongue in cheek". During the rehearsals, the
young woman playing flute came to him, almost in tears, saying, -"I've
tried
and tried to play that part with my tongue in my cheek, and I just can't do
it. May I please use my regular embouchure?"-
Philip Chee
> In article <h2ehhb$83d$1...@panix1.panix.com>, k...@KeithLynch.net says...
>>> We do not have telemarketers. Ah, bliss.
>> How do you manage that?
> Maybe they're too shy.
I think some European countries have "do not call" laws (or at least "no
leafletting" laws) that are strictly enforced including jail terms.
netcat
> On Wed, 1 Jul 2009 17:39:18 +0300, netcat wrote:
> > In article <h2ehhb$83d$1...@panix1.panix.com>, k...@KeithLynch.net says...
>
> >>> We do not have telemarketers. Ah, bliss.
> >> How do you manage that?
>
> > Maybe they're too shy.
>
> I think some European countries have "do not call" laws (or at least "no
> leafletting" laws) that are strictly enforced including jail terms.
Very unlikely in this case. Certainly none of the local spammers have
the slightest respect for what slight shreds of law may exist concerning
them.
No, I just think that we as a culture are on the whole not disposed
towards door-to-door salesmanship, and lack of telemarketers is just
another example of that. Too bad it doesn't apply to email spam.
rgds,
netcat
Marcus L. Rowland
<net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> writes
>One great blank in my worldview that I never can perceive is the
>importance of the answering machine. They're not an household object
>here, they're something quaint from another world and time just as
>paper cheques are, something only occurring in foreign movies. We went
>straight from primitive rotary phones to cell networks and totally
>skipped that step.
They're a Turing test that is almost always failed by spam callers. My
answering message takes about twelve seconds - if the caller doesn't
hold that long it is either someone who doesn't know that my answering
machine is always on, e.g. someone cold-calling me, or an automated
dialler which has recognized that it is talking to an answering machine
and moved on to the next call. If someone starts talking after the
message I pick up pretty quickly if I'm around, if not they usually
leave a message.
As to mobile phones - I ride a motorbike, I really don't want to take
calls while I'm travelling, and I have a phone at work and at home. I
have a pay as you go mobile for emergencies, it is usually switched off
unless I have a particular reason to carry it switched on. The last time
was when I was expecting a text message to announce the arrival time of
a washing machine service engineer a couple of months ago.
--
Marcus L. Rowland http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
http://www.forgottenfutures.org/
LJ:ffutures http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/
Forgotten Futures - The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game
Diana: Warrior Princess & Elvis: The Legendary Tours
The Original Flatland Role Playing Game
netcat
forgotte...@ntlworld.com says...
> In message <MPG.24b5a72c2...@news.octanews.com>, netcat
> <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> writes
> >One great blank in my worldview that I never can perceive is the
> >importance of the answering machine. They're not an household object
> >here, they're something quaint from another world and time just as
> >paper cheques are, something only occurring in foreign movies. We went
> >straight from primitive rotary phones to cell networks and totally
> >skipped that step.
>
> They're a Turing test that is almost always failed by spam callers.
And yet, I note spam callers seem to proliferate most where answering
machines are most popular. The spam caller phenomenon is only a little
more known than the answering machine, around these parts. I've only
ever been spam called by 2 newspaper salespersons, one insurance agency
and, occasionally, my own bank (which I do not count). That is the
entire sum of it as far as I can recall.
Oh, and all of those calls happened on my landline work phone, when we
still had landline phones at work. Only my bank has called my cell
phone or my home phone and that's because I've checked a form somewhere
specifying it's ok, I suppose.
rgds,
netcat
dougberry
mysterious djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) spoke thusly in
rec.arts.sf.fandom:
>>I'd think it would take less time to replace all the fallen cell phone
>>towers than all the fallen telephone poles.
>
>Maybe ... but that's NOT what happened after Loma Prieta.
>
>Note also that because phone lines were up, USENET stayed up,
>and for the first several days that's the only way news was
>getting outside the epicentral area.
Of course cell phones were a lot less common in October, 1989, so
there weren't nearly as many transmitters in the quake's footprint.
Power was back in many areas within an hour, and the news was getting
out by phone, radio, and television transmissions. We were hardly cut
off from civilization. I was able to place a long-distance call from
my home just seven miles from the epicenter on the evening of the 17th
with no problems.
These days we bury utility lines whenever possible. As the conversion
to fiber optic cable progressed, more and more telephone poles have
been removed. This is an advantage in a tremor because the ground
tends to shake in one piece. The only threat is shear waves that can
cause breaks in cable, and there is flexibility built into the system
to allow for some bending and twisting.
The Big One is going to tear holes in the phone system, both cell and
landline.
--
Douglas E. Berry dberryOB...@gmail.com
http://gridlore.livejournal.com
http://www.facebook.com/douglas.berry
Do the OBVIOUS thing to email.
"Well I'm not evil, I'm just good looking." - Alice Cooper
dougberry
mysterious "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> spoke thusly in
rec.arts.sf.fandom:
>I don't think so. The rules for which numbers are followed by st, nd,
>rd, and th are completely arbitary. For instance it's 1st and 21st,
>but 11th and 111th.
Spell it out. Fir*st*
Seco*nd*
Thi*rd*
Eleven*th*
The suffix is the last two letters of the word when spelled out.
Simple, really.
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> nd, rd, and th are completely arbitary. For instance it's 1st and
>> 21st, but 11th and 111th.
> Spell it out. Fir*st*
> Seco*nd*
> Thi*rd*
> Eleven*th*
I know that, of course. As should have been obvious from my
next paragraph, about "one-hundred-eleventh" versus Tolkein's
"eleventy-first."
The question is what the general rule is in terms of the number.
Suppose you had to explain it to a non-English-speaker. Or (as
I've done) to a computer program.
Keith F. Lynch
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> writes
>> One great blank in my worldview that I never can perceive is the
>> importance of the answering machine. They're not an household
>> object here, they're something quaint from another world and time
>> just as paper cheques are, something only occurring in foreign
>> movies. We went straight from primitive rotary phones to cell
>> networks and totally skipped that step.
> They're a Turing test that is almost always failed by spam callers.
Presumably netcat's phone network has built-in answering-machine
capability, indistinguishable to the caller from a physical answering
machine attached to her phone.
> My answering message takes about twelve seconds - if the caller
> doesn't hold that long it is either someone who doesn't know that
> my answering machine is always on, e.g. someone cold-calling me, or
> an automated dialler which has recognized that it is talking to an
> answering machine and moved on to the next call. If someone starts
> talking after the message I pick up pretty quickly if I'm around, if
> not they usually leave a message.
We're called by a very different set of telmarketers. The ones who
call me usually leave a message. It's usually a completely useless
message. (Useless to them, I mean. Obviously any telemarketing
message is useless to me.) It's useless to them because it doesn't
identify the company, but instead says what they're selling, and asks
me to press one to learn more. My answering machine fails to press
one, so after a few seconds it hangs up.
An exception is Dish Network, who has figured out that the law is
completely toothless. So they don't mind identifying themselves.
It's not as if there was anything anyone could do about their
persistent lawbreaking.
I'm speaking of the automated messages. There are also telemarketers
who apparently never heard of answering machines, as they leave
a message consisting entirely of "Hello? Hello? Are you there?
Hello?" (I know it's a telemarketer because I can hear "boiler room"
noises in the background.)
Keith F. Lynch
> No, I just think that we as a culture are on the whole not disposed
> towards door-to-door salesmanship, and lack of telemarketers is just
> another example of that.
I wish it was the same here. I've always considered telemarketers and
door-to-door salesmen to be extremely rude and intrusive.
> Too bad it doesn't apply to email spam.
It only takes a tiny number of spammers to generate enormous amounts
of spam. And are you sure it's not coming from out of the country?
I've gotten so much spam from China, Taiwan, Argentina, South Korea,
and Nigera, that I've killfiled those whole countries.
rksh...@rosettacondot.com
> In article <uUf+4kEv...@00.d0.59.f5.d0.2a>,
> forgotte...@ntlworld.com says...
>> In message <MPG.24b5a72c2...@news.octanews.com>, netcat
>> <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> writes
>> >One great blank in my worldview that I never can perceive is the
>> >importance of the answering machine. They're not an household object
>> >here, they're something quaint from another world and time just as
>> >paper cheques are, something only occurring in foreign movies. We went
>> >straight from primitive rotary phones to cell networks and totally
>> >skipped that step.
>>
>> They're a Turing test that is almost always failed by spam callers.
>
> And yet, I note spam callers seem to proliferate most where answering
> machines are most popular. The spam caller phenomenon is only a little
> more known than the answering machine, around these parts. I've only
> ever been spam called by 2 newspaper salespersons, one insurance agency
> and, occasionally, my own bank (which I do not count). That is the
> entire sum of it as far as I can recall.
Other way around, I think... Answering machines, particularly those with
call screening, proliferated because cold-call phone sales was so popular.
My parents used to get 10-15 calls a day selling everything imaginable.
The no-call list has helped some, but there are too many exceptions (and
too many companies who just ignore it.)
Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com
Keith F. Lynch
>>> Do I get a cookie now?
>> Sure. Here's one:
>> .washingtonpost.com TRUE / FALSE 1877567457 WPPREF HP=0:VS=1
> Mmmm. Needs more chocolate.
Easily fixed:
www.chocolate.com FALSE / FALSE 1248916999 mut 166.84.1.2.1246497799787792
>>> We do not have telemarketers. Ah, bliss.
>> How do you manage that?
> Maybe they're too shy.
Maybe. On the other hand, I'm not at all shy, but I'd never consider
becoming a telemarketer or a door-to-door salesman any more than I'd
consider turning my stereo up all the way in the middle of the night.
I'm just too polite. (I'm sometimes rude to someone who is repeatedly
rude to me, but I never start it.)
Daniel R. Reitman
wrote:
>begin fnord
>netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> writes:
>
>> In article <864otxu...@signy.omcl.org>, spco...@omcl.org says...
>>>
>>> There are people - I do not count netcat among them - who clearly post
>>> here to throw their mean callous heartless exteriors into sharp relief.
>>
>> Aren't all exteriors heartless given that the organ is actually situated
>> inside the body?
>
>Believe it or not, I don't like Douglas Adams.
Perhaps you'd like to try something off his shoulder? Perhaps braised
in a white wine sauce?
Dan, ad nauseam
Steve Coltrin
Now you're making me peckish for a bit of Peter Davison.
Philip Chee
> It only takes a tiny number of spammers to generate enormous amounts
> of spam. And are you sure it's not coming from out of the country?
> I've gotten so much spam from China, Taiwan, Argentina, South Korea,
> and Nigera, that I've killfiled those whole countries.
Most of the spam comes (or came) from the US. Last year before Mccolo (a
rogue hosting provider in the US) was taken down. I was getting upwards
of 35k spam per day. After the takedown it dropped to about 1.5k per
day. Even now it's only crept up to about 4k per day.
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]The only thing shorter than a weekend is a vacation.
* TagZilla 0.066.6
David G. Bell
djh...@kithrup.com "Dorothy J Heydt" wrote:
> Yes. That would be good. As I tried to indicate, for some
> their weight would be a problem, for others (me, for
> instance) their price (not to mention the question of whether
> I could make the durn thing work). I just googled and found
> several pictures of the thing, none of which showed its size.
> Though one bit of text said it was larger than a standard
> cell phone but small enough to carry in a backpack. Hmmm.
I hope it's smaller than a Wireless Set No. 8 or an SCR-300.
--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
On the horizon, a carrier task force of the Salvation Navy was
turning into the wind, preparing to launch Zeppelins.
netcat
> Marcus L. Rowland <forgotte...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> writes
> >> One great blank in my worldview that I never can perceive is the
> >> importance of the answering machine. They're not an household
> >> object here, they're something quaint from another world and time
> >> just as paper cheques are, something only occurring in foreign
> >> movies. We went straight from primitive rotary phones to cell
> >> networks and totally skipped that step.
>
> > They're a Turing test that is almost always failed by spam callers.
>
> Presumably netcat's phone network has built-in answering-machine
> capability, indistinguishable to the caller from a physical answering
> machine attached to her phone.
Voice mail. Some people even use it. But it's not wildly popular. People
who were unable to reach you or did not want to bother you with a phone
call are more likely to send a text message. Those times I've stumbled
onto people's voice mail I've never left a message, I just hung up. I
presume lots of other people do the same. I dunno. A cultural preference
thing I guess.
rgds,
netcat
netcat
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> > No, I just think that we as a culture are on the whole not disposed
> > towards door-to-door salesmanship, and lack of telemarketers is just
> > another example of that.
>
> I wish it was the same here. I've always considered telemarketers and
> door-to-door salesmen to be extremely rude and intrusive.
>
> > Too bad it doesn't apply to email spam.
>
> It only takes a tiny number of spammers to generate enormous amounts
> of spam. And are you sure it's not coming from out of the country?
Of course _most_ of the spam is, as our country is merely a drop in the
ocean. But when I'm getting spam in Estonian from an Estonian company,
sent from an Estonian ISP's network I'm pretty sure it's not coming from
out of the country, yeah. You do tend to notice such things.
I used to have a rule that I never patronized institutions who spammed,
never voted for parties that had spammed me and so on. I had to relax
that rule. Otherwise I might have run out of restaurants to go to and
could not have voted for anybody. The list was getting too long to keep
up.
> I've gotten so much spam from China, Taiwan, Argentina, South Korea,
> and Nigera, that I've killfiled those whole countries.
Greylisting + a good filter for dynamic/dsl networks tends to take care
of 95% at least, without having to resort to geographical
discrimination. Number one leader in tries on my server are still the
U.S. dsl networks, right now, although Europe is catching up.
rgds,
netcat
Jette
I don't like leaving voicemail messages, any more than I used to like
leaving messages on answering machines (remember those?) - but when
someone has given their mobile (cellphone) number as a contact and
you're calling from a landline without the ability to send text
messages, you have to use the voicemail. My phone provider sends me a
text to let me know there's a voicemail message waiting for me.
--
Jette Goldie
je...@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfette/
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://wolfette.livejournal.com/
("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)
Michael Benveniste
wrote:
>Yes. That would be good. As I tried to indicate, for some
>their weight would be a problem, for others (me, for
>instance) their price (not to mention the question of whether
>I could make the durn thing work). I just googled and found
>several pictures of the thing, none of which showed its size.
>Though one bit of text said it was larger than a standard
>cell phone but small enough to carry in a backpack. Hmmm.
There have been several models, and as time goes by the Iridium phones
keep getting smaller. I believe the 9555 is one of the more recent
models, and it comes in at 143x55x30mm and 266 grams.
Source: http://www.iridium9555.com/20561_irridium9555_brochure.pdf
--
Mike Benveniste -- m...@murkyether.com (Clarification Required)
Don't succumb to the false authority of a tool or model. There
is no substitute for thinking.
dougberry
mysterious "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> spoke thusly in
rec.arts.sf.fandom:
><Doug Berry> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> I don't think so. The rules for which numbers are followed by st,
>>> nd, rd, and th are completely arbitary. For instance it's 1st and
>>> 21st, but 11th and 111th.
>
>> Spell it out. Fir*st*
>> Seco*nd*
>> Thi*rd*
>> Eleven*th*
>
>I know that, of course. As should have been obvious from my
>next paragraph, about "one-hundred-eleventh" versus Tolkein's
>"eleventy-first."
Then you admit the rule is not "completely arbitrary" but based on how
the spelling of the numbers.
>The question is what the general rule is in terms of the number.
>Suppose you had to explain it to a non-English-speaker. Or (as
>I've done) to a computer program.
Same way I explain it to anyone. The suffix is the last two letters of
the spelled out word.
--
Douglas E. Berry dberryOB...@gmail.com
http://gridlore.livejournal.com
http://www.facebook.com/douglas.berry
Do the OBVIOUS thing to email.
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
Jason Gastrich is praying for me on 8 January 2011
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the
source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a
stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein
Dorothy J Heydt
Michael Benveniste <m...@murkyether.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 1 Jul 2009 03:18:06 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>wrote:
>
>>Yes. That would be good. As I tried to indicate, for some
>>their weight would be a problem, for others (me, for
>>instance) their price (not to mention the question of whether
>>I could make the durn thing work). I just googled and found
>>several pictures of the thing, none of which showed its size.
>>Though one bit of text said it was larger than a standard
>>cell phone but small enough to carry in a backpack. Hmmm.
>
>There have been several models, and as time goes by the Iridium phones
>keep getting smaller. I believe the 9555 is one of the more recent
>models, and it comes in at 143x55x30mm and 266 grams.
Ah. I'm old enough that I don't *think* in metric, darnit.
However, Hal (who can do all this stuff in his head) tells me
143mm is about five and a half inches. So yes, that's still
not terribly big.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> The question is what the general rule is in terms of the number.
>> Suppose you had to explain it to a non-English-speaker. Or (as
>> I've done) to a computer program.
> Same way I explain it to anyone. The suffix is the last two letters
> of the spelled out word.
You miss my point. What's the rule for how to spell out the word?
Keith F. Lynch
> I used to have a rule that I never patronized institutions who
> spammed, never voted for parties that had spammed me and so on.
I too have such a rule. Not that I need it, since spammers seldom
advertise anything I have the slightest interest in, and even if they
did, they'd probably just take my money and keep it. The more general
rule is never to do business with a dishonest or unethical firm.
> I had to relax that rule. Otherwise I might have run out of
> restaurants to go to and could not have voted for anybody. The
> list was getting too long to keep up.
It sounds like a very different business environment there. Here,
businesses and candidates don't spam. Spammers often *pretend* to be
businesses, but they're firms nobody ever heard of, and none of them
last very long, at least under the same name. I doubt many of them
ever ship any actual products.
>> I've gotten so much spam from China, Taiwan, Argentina, South
>> Korea, and Nigeria, that I've killfiled those whole countries.
> Greylisting + a good filter for dynamic/dsl networks tends to take
> care of 95% at least, without having to resort to geographical
> discrimination.
There's little downside to geographical discrimination against the
places I mentioned, as I've never once gotten any legitimate email
from any of them. Or at least I hadn't as of when I started
filtering.
> Number one leader in tries on my server are still the U.S. dsl
> networks, right now, although Europe is catching up.
Unfortunately, it's not practical for me to block all email from
the US. Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I get more spam from China than
from the US, at least if I include Taiwan as part of China.
I also block any email that contains a URL in China. Those are very
common even in email from elsewhere. My filters have stopped 5,217
spams that mentioned .cn/ URLs so far today.
Keith F. Lynch
> k...@KeithLynch.net says...
>> Presumably netcat's phone network has built-in answering-machine
>> capability, indistinguishable to the caller from a physical
>> answering machine attached to her phone.
> Voice mail. Some people even use it. But it's not wildly popular.
> People who were unable to reach you or did not want to bother you
> with a phone call are more likely to send a text message. Those
> times I've stumbled onto people's voice mail I've never left a
> message, I just hung up. I presume lots of other people do the
> same. I dunno. A cultural preference thing I guess.
I too seldom leave a message on an answering machine (or voice mail
-- I can't tell the difference). I have no idea how to send a text
message from or to a landline phone. (I don't have a cell phone.)
Nor do I know if it's possible to send or receive text messages from
the net. (Text messages, in this context, are distinct from email,
right? Are they the same as SMS?)
Keith F. Lynch
> Most of the spam comes (or came) from the US. Last year before
> Mccolo (a rogue hosting provider in the US) was taken down. I was
> getting upwards of 35k spam per day. After the takedown it dropped
> to about 1.5k per day. Even now it's only crept up to about 4k
> per day.
I haven't had any drop, unfortunately.
Kip Williams
> <Doug Berry> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> The question is what the general rule is in terms of the number.
>>> Suppose you had to explain it to a non-English-speaker. Or (as
>>> I've done) to a computer program.
>
>> Same way I explain it to anyone. The suffix is the last two letters
>> of the spelled out word.
>
> You miss my point. What's the rule for how to spell out the word?
It was pretty much obvious to me, and I suspect to most others. I'll go
so far as to speculate that perhaps he doesn't want to see your point. I
won't speculate as to why.
Kip W
Philip Chee
> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>> Most of the spam comes (or came) from the US. Last year before
>> Mccolo (a rogue hosting provider in the US) was taken down. I was
>> getting upwards of 35k spam per day. After the takedown it dropped
>> to about 1.5k per day. Even now it's only crept up to about 4k
>> per day.
> I haven't had any drop, unfortunately.
When Mccolo was taken down around October last year, many security and
IT related blogs commented that they saw upwards of an 80% drop in spam
arriving in their personal inboxes. Do you still have your logs from
that time period? I don't expect you to see such a large drop but I'd
expect a sharp statistically significant reduction when their physical
infrastructure was taken off line (unfortunately not with a nuke), then
a gradual increase over the subsequent months as the crime syndicates
rebuilt their infrastructure in places like Rumania where the
authorities are more easily bribed to look the other way.
If you didn't see any drop at all then I'd start questioning your data
collection methodology.
netcat
> I too seldom leave a message on an answering machine (or voice mail
> -- I can't tell the difference). I have no idea how to send a text
> message from or to a landline phone. (I don't have a cell phone.)
> Nor do I know if it's possible to send or receive text messages from
> the net. (Text messages, in this context, are distinct from email,
> right? Are they the same as SMS?)
Yes. SMS can be sent from, um basically anywhere you can submit a string
of text, it's the gateways in the middle that turn it into an SMS. Web
portals that allow the user (usually authenticated, as the sender gets
billed) to send SMS via web forms are quite common. I expect every
provider has one for their customers. That's something I use quite a
lot, as I hate typing on the phone.
If you sent email to me using a specific address containing my phone
number, I would get it as a text message. The reverse is true: I can,
theoretically, send an SMS that will go through a gateway and end up as
a standard e-mail, but I've never bothered to do that.
rgds,
netcat
netcat
> message from or to a landline phone.
Gotta have something like this:
http://www.allproducts.com/manufacture98/xmytel/product1.html
SMS telephone ET-09
n Receive/send the message on PSTN, fixed-line to mobile phone
rgds,
netcat
netcat
> On 2 Jul 2009 22:15:45 -0400, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> > Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> >> Most of the spam comes (or came) from the US. Last year before
> >> Mccolo (a rogue hosting provider in the US) was taken down. I was
> >> getting upwards of 35k spam per day. After the takedown it dropped
> >> to about 1.5k per day. Even now it's only crept up to about 4k
> >> per day.
>
> > I haven't had any drop, unfortunately.
>
> When Mccolo was taken down around October last year, many security and
> IT related blogs commented that they saw upwards of an 80% drop in spam
> arriving in their personal inboxes.
I saw the drop alright, but it evened off in a couple of _weeks_.
rgds,
netcat
dougberry
mysterious "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> spoke thusly in
rec.arts.sf.fandom:
><Doug Berry> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> The question is what the general rule is in terms of the number.
>>> Suppose you had to explain it to a non-English-speaker. Or (as
>>> I've done) to a computer program.
>
>> Same way I explain it to anyone. The suffix is the last two letters
>> of the spelled out word.
>
>You miss my point. What's the rule for how to spell out the word?
I suggest a good course in the history of English to explain that.
English grammar is a bloody mess.
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> You miss my point. What's the rule for how to spell out the word?
> I suggest a good course in the history of English to explain that.
> English grammar is a bloody mess.
Right. In other words, the rule is arbitrary and non-trivial.
I think it's as follows:
Always end with th.
Exception 1: If the number ends with 1, end with st.
Exception 2: If the number ends with 2, end with nd.
Exception 3: If the number ends with 3, end with rd.
Exception 4: If the next to last digit is 1, ignore exception 1
through 3 and end with th.
Polite corrections, as always, are eagerly solicited.
Keith F. Lynch
> Yes. SMS can be sent from, um basically anywhere you can submit a
> string of text, it's the gateways in the middle that turn it into an
> SMS. Web portals that allow the user (usually authenticated, as the
> sender gets billed) to send SMS via web forms are quite common. I
> expect every provider has one for their customers.
Thanks. I'll have to check and see if Panix does.
Is every phone number a valid SMS destination? If so, what happens to
SMSs sent to landline phones? To modem lines? To fax lines? Does
it go nowhere? If so, is the sender still billed? Is the sender
informed that the message was never seen? Thanks.
Keith F. Lynch
> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> I haven't had any drop, unfortunately.
> When Mccolo was taken down around October last year, many security
> and IT related blogs commented that they saw upwards of an 80% drop
> in spam arriving in their personal inboxes. Do you still have your
> logs from that time period?
Certainly. With disk space and flash memory so cheap, there's no
longer any reason not to save my procmail logs forever. I even have
all of them on a thumbdrive on my keychain in my pocket.
> I don't expect you to see such a large drop but I'd expect a
> sharp statistically significant reduction when their physical
> infrastructure was taken off line (unfortunately not with a nuke),
> then a gradual increase over the subsequent months as the crime
> syndicates rebuilt their infrastructure in places like Rumania
> where the authorities are more easily bribed to look the other way.
I mostly see an upwards trend with a lot of fluctuation. I did get
less spam in November than October, but then I got more in December
than in October and November put together. And in every month of this
year I've gotten more spam than in any month of last year (except
February of last year, when spam volume was about double the trend
line, and except May of this year, when spam volume was about half
the trend line).
It does look like there was a sharp drop on or about November 11th.
Is that when Mccolo was taken down?
(I just checked Wikipedia, and it confirms November 11th. So I *do*
see the effect, but it's subtle enough that someone has to point it
out to me first. Kind of like seeing Venus in the daytime.)
Much of the wild fluctuations in my spam volume are due to blowback --
spammers forging an address on my domain in their spams, causing me to
get tens of millions of bounced mail notifications. The May dropoff
is due to the forger whose phone number is (210) 888-9089 giving up.
I hope they gave up because something terrible happened to them.
Andy Leighton
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>> Yes. SMS can be sent from, um basically anywhere you can submit a
>> string of text, it's the gateways in the middle that turn it into an
>> SMS. Web portals that allow the user (usually authenticated, as the
>> sender gets billed) to send SMS via web forms are quite common. I
>> expect every provider has one for their customers.
>
> Thanks. I'll have to check and see if Panix does.
>
> Is every phone number a valid SMS destination? If so, what happens to
> SMSs sent to landline phones?
In the UK BT have a text to phone service. When it started they had Tom
Baker doing the voice. People thought it was an excellent wheeze to
send rude text messages to phones just to record Tom Baker swearing at
them. There were also SMSes which took the piss out of BT and plenty
that had Tom Baker reciting lines from songs. Anyway BT weren't too
happy and soon replaced him with a posh woman.
I think there are two modes (for normal phones). Firstly, the service
phones you up and if you answer it reads out the text. Secondly, you
can call the service which is like a normal answer machine inbox.
> To modem lines? To fax lines? Does it go nowhere?
Those are normal phone lines. It will be the same as if a voice caller
called those numbers.
--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_
Jette
> On 3 Jul 2009 15:20:39 -0400, Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
>>> Yes. SMS can be sent from, um basically anywhere you can submit a
>>> string of text, it's the gateways in the middle that turn it into an
>>> SMS. Web portals that allow the user (usually authenticated, as the
>>> sender gets billed) to send SMS via web forms are quite common. I
>>> expect every provider has one for their customers.
>> Thanks. I'll have to check and see if Panix does.
>>
>> Is every phone number a valid SMS destination? If so, what happens to
>> SMSs sent to landline phones?
>
> In the UK BT have a text to phone service. When it started they had Tom
> Baker doing the voice. People thought it was an excellent wheeze to
> send rude text messages to phones just to record Tom Baker swearing at
> them. There were also SMSes which took the piss out of BT and plenty
> that had Tom Baker reciting lines from songs. Anyway BT weren't too
> happy and soon replaced him with a posh woman.
>
It was only ever going to be Tom for a limited period as a promotional
thing - they said so when they started it.
Keith F. Lynch
> In the UK BT have a text to phone service. When it started they
> had Tom Baker doing the voice. People thought it was an excellent
> wheeze to send rude text messages to phones just to record Tom Baker
> swearing at them. There were also SMSes which took the piss out of
> BT and plenty that had Tom Baker reciting lines from songs. Anyway
> BT weren't too happy and soon replaced him with a posh woman.
How did that work? Did he (and later the posh woman) read every
word from the dictionary, so that the words could all be separately
recorded and later played back in the appropriate order?
Does anyone know if there's a similar service in the US?
The DC Metro solicited for unpaid volunteers to record a small handful
of system messages, including increasingly irate "Stand clear of the
doors!" messages. The woman who was chosen is reportedly annoyed that
they only ended up using the most irate ones. So millions of people
hear her angry "Stand clear of the doors! Stand clear of the doors!"
message dozens of times every weekday. I wonder if that makes it hard
for her to get dates.
Andy Leighton
> Andy Leighton <an...@azaal.plus.com> wrote:
>> In the UK BT have a text to phone service. When it started they
>> had Tom Baker doing the voice. People thought it was an excellent
>> wheeze to send rude text messages to phones just to record Tom Baker
>> swearing at them. There were also SMSes which took the piss out of
>> BT and plenty that had Tom Baker reciting lines from songs. Anyway
>> BT weren't too happy and soon replaced him with a posh woman.
>
> How did that work? Did he (and later the posh woman) read every
> word from the dictionary, so that the words could all be separately
> recorded and later played back in the appropriate order?
I think some words were recorded for example "kiss kiss" for "xx"
and "lots of kisses" for more than 4x's in a row. According to
one report he recorded 11,593 different phrases, words and sounds
which took him 11 days. Listening to the recorded songs and stuff
(if you can play mp3s search for tom baker says) it is quite obvious
that some words are constructed from phonemes.
> The DC Metro solicited for unpaid volunteers to record a small handful
> of system messages, including increasingly irate "Stand clear of the
> doors!" messages. The woman who was chosen is reportedly annoyed that
> they only ended up using the most irate ones. So millions of people
> hear her angry "Stand clear of the doors! Stand clear of the doors!"
> message dozens of times every weekday. I wonder if that makes it hard
> for her to get dates.
I heard on the radio that they are giving Underground drivers a book
of quotations so that they can read one out from time to time. I
think it is supposed to give a more human experience to tube travel.
Keith F. Lynch
> I heard on the radio that they are giving Underground drivers a book
> of quotations so that they can read one out from time to time. I
> think it is supposed to give a more human experience to tube travel.
I'd rather have quiet, so I can read with fewer distractions. I could
wear earplugs or a music player, but what if the driver, or (obSF)
Tommy Lee Jones, says something *important*?
Metro used to have interesting quotes and mini-poetry mounted on the
trains and in the stations, but they've long since been replaced
with ads. As have most of the informative signs, leaving tourists
bewildered.
David G. Bell
phi...@aleytys.pc.my "Philip Chee" wrote:
> On 2 Jul 2009 22:15:45 -0400, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> > Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> >> Most of the spam comes (or came) from the US. Last year before
> >> Mccolo (a rogue hosting provider in the US) was taken down. I was
> >> getting upwards of 35k spam per day. After the takedown it dropped
> >> to about 1.5k per day. Even now it's only crept up to about 4k
> >> per day.
>
> > I haven't had any drop, unfortunately.
>
> When Mccolo was taken down around October last year, many security and
> IT related blogs commented that they saw upwards of an 80% drop in spam
> arriving in their personal inboxes. Do you still have your logs from
> that time period? I don't expect you to see such a large drop but I'd
> expect a sharp statistically significant reduction when their physical
> infrastructure was taken off line (unfortunately not with a nuke), then
> a gradual increase over the subsequent months as the crime syndicates
> rebuilt their infrastructure in places like Rumania where the
> authorities are more easily bribed to look the other way.
>
> If you didn't see any drop at all then I'd start questioning your data
> collection methodology.
There was pretty obvious drop in the size of the Spam folder for my
gmail account--it's a rolling average, so the suddenness was masked--but
things today seem to be worse than before the Mccolo takedown.
Seeing no drop is possible, I suppose, but the email address would have
to be rather unusual. It's rather astonishing.
netcat
> netcat <net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee> wrote:
> > Yes. SMS can be sent from, um basically anywhere you can submit a
> > string of text, it's the gateways in the middle that turn it into an
> > SMS. Web portals that allow the user (usually authenticated, as the
> > sender gets billed) to send SMS via web forms are quite common. I
> > expect every provider has one for their customers.
>
> Thanks. I'll have to check and see if Panix does.
Um. In this context, 'provider' should be read as 'mobile phone
carrier'.
> Is every phone number a valid SMS destination?
Depends on where the first check happens.
> If so, what happens to
> SMSs sent to landline phones?
Machine-room floor? Hm. I will look into what happens to them more
closely next week, when I go back to work.
> If so, is the sender still billed?
I'm sad to say it usually happens. The billing part of the system often
works without feedback of what happened to the message.
> Is the sender informed that the message was never seen?
If you request a delivery report, you'll get notified when the message
reaches the target.
rgds,
netcat
Karl Johanson
news:KM281...@kithrup.com...
> Heh. Reminds me of a guy my daughter dated a while back, who
> presently dumped her with the comment: "You're not feminine
> enough and you're smarter than me."
Waaaay better off without him.
> That the second was true probably explained the first. She
> is now happily married to a guy who likes it that she's smart
> -- and who, indeed, himself owns a T-shirt that proclaims,
> "My brain is hung like a horse."
Karl Johanson
netcat
net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee says...
> > SMSs sent to landline phones?
>
> Machine-room floor? Hm. I will look into what happens to them more
> closely next week, when I go back to work.
Okay, the inside scoop says that our SMSC will try to deliver the
message until it expires in 3 days. At that point, if delivery has not
worked and sender had status report turned on they'll know it never went
anywhere, otherwise not.
rgds,
netcat
Keith F. Lynch
> net...@devnull.eridani.eol.ee says...
>> k...@KeithLynch.net says...
>>> If so, what happens to SMSs sent to landline phones?
>> Machine-room floor? Hm. I will look into what happens to them
>> more closely next week, when I go back to work.
> Okay, the inside scoop says that our SMSC will try to deliver the
> message until it expires in 3 days. At that point, if delivery has
> not worked and sender had status report turned on they'll know it
> never went anywhere, otherwise not.
Thanks. Does anyone know if it's the same in the US?
Steve Coltrin
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> k...@KeithLynch.net says...
>>>> If so, what happens to SMSs sent to landline phones?
>
> Thanks. Does anyone know if it's the same in the US?
I just sent a text message to a landline phone. A few seconds later I
got a text "from" the landline number saying "Error Invalid Number.
Please re-send using a valid 10 digit mobile number or valid short
code.".
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press
Keith F. Lynch
> I just sent a text message to a landline phone. A few seconds
> later I got a text "from" the landline number saying "Error Invalid
> Number. Please re-send using a valid 10 digit mobile number or
> valid short code.".
Thanks.
Karl Johanson
> Ah. I'm old enough that I don't *think* in metric, darnit.
> However, Hal (who can do all this stuff in his head) tells me
> 143mm is about five and a half inches. So yes, that's still
> not terribly big.
Just type "111 milimeters in inches" or "4.3 kilograms in ounces" into
Google and it'll convert for you.
Karl Johanson
Michael Benveniste
<karljo...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>Just type "111 milimeters in inches" or "4.3 kilograms in ounces" into
>Google and it'll convert for you.
Or "speed of light in furlongs per fortnight"
--
Mike Benveniste -- m...@murkyether.com (Clarification Required)
Its name is Public opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles
everything.Some think it is the voice of God. -- Mark Twain
David Goldfarb
Michael Benveniste <m...@murkyether.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:44:10 -0700, "Karl Johanson"
><karljo...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>>Just type "111 milimeters in inches" or "4.3 kilograms in ounces" into
>>Google and it'll convert for you.
>
>Or "speed of light in furlongs per fortnight"
I actually once had occasion to use that for "100 megaparsecs in inches".
--
David Goldfarb |"Actually, I just enjoy bursting into flames...
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | You should try it sometime...relieves a lot
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | of stress."
| -- Jen Hill on rec.arts.tv.mst3k