Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Memorizing phone numbers

Hiro is chatting with an attractive girl on the platform. She asks for his telephone number but he can’t recall it.

...

Mimi: What’s your phone number?

Hiro: My phone number? Aw heck, I can never remember my phone number.

Mimi: Never mind.

Hiro: Hey, wait.

Mimi: Too late. The train’s going.

...

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Honey bees and Einstein

Species die-off. Happening to honey bees now too.
I read that, too. You know, someone has a theory that CCD is caused by ...
CCD?

Colony collapse disorder. The bees go out, look for pollen but just don't return.
And the bees waiting for the waggle dance get disappointed?

It's no joke. Hives in the United States, in Europe, have lost 60 to 70 percent of their bees. Some researchers reckon, get this, that cell phones are to blame.

Come
on! Cell phones? Hoax again! Conspiracy theory!
Listen, there are studies which show that bees are still going out to look for pollen, but never making it back home again. This happens wherever there are cell phone towers. The radiation interferes with the bees' navigation systems and m
ost never make it back.
So honey will be off the menu from... well when?
That's only the beginning. Bees pollinate crops. I read somewhere that Einstein said that if bees disappeared, man would have only only four years left on this planet.

Whoa! Wait a second. Where's the source for that? Let me google it.... Look, I can't find anything in Einstein quotes about bees. Lots on physics. no bees.
Still, if all the bees disappeared, it wouldn't be a good thing.
With you on that. Einstein or no. Like what the Easter Islanders did to Easter Island.
Sort of, except that their statues were a bit prettier than cell phone towers.

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Cell Phones on Planes


On last night’s (12 hour, gulp) flight I am next to a techie who has been upcountry rewiring choppers for the military.

He is in avionics and I ask him his opinion on whether cell phones are a serious danger to aircraft navigation systems.

“Jury’s still out,” he says.

“But if it were a really serious danger to aircraft safety, there’s always a few phones in bags that are not switched off. I’ve never seen flight attendants coming through checking bags for those.”

“It’s a question of numbers. If everyone started phoning up on take-off and landing it could confuse the navigation systems.”

“Hmmm. I saw somewhere the FCC and the FAA are looking into ways of letting people phone while flying.”

“Eventually they probably will find a way of letting people do that but there are other factors besides air safety. For example, astronomers don’t take to the idea of the skies being full of talk, like phoning to say you are on the plane could be interpreted by a radio telescope that a star had died, you know.”

“Yeah, and then there’s cabin society and the rage factor. I mean, who wants to listen to a hundred people on a flight yakking on their cell phones? That could lead to cases of irate passengers brandishing plastic knives at people having inane cell phone conversations.”

“But coming back to the actual danger, this probably is a bit overrated, wouldn’t you say? I mean you don’t see squadrons of aircraft crashing into each other and falling out of the skies all because of somebody phoning home.”

“Well there’s been one case I know of.”

“You mean, that pilot who was talking on his cell phone as he was landing? That wasn’t interference with navigation, it was because the human being got distracted.”

“Yeah, and then he destructed himself and the plane.”

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