It’s Only a Phone Box

I took this picture on Whitehall yesterday.

 

Two tourists were photographing themselves in and outside the box.

It’s Only a Phone Box

I can’t remember the last time I used a public phone, let alone one in a box. Possibly twelve years or so ago. Last time I needed to, when I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile and my car had broken down, a local resident let me use his land-line.

BBC Creates Addictive Viewing

According to the BBC, the amount of viewers of the Olympic Torch Relay has exceeded all expectations.  You could argue, that they would say that wouldn’t they. In fact Roger Mosey says it all here.

The coverage is not by satellite, but by mobile phone 3G technology, which gives the odd break in transmission.

Some are saying it’s addictive on Twitter and Facebook.  He’s one from Scotland.

Frances Chisholm on Facebook says: ‎”Kind of addictive” is an understatement. I am enjoying it all so much. Almost late for work this morning! I’m an ordinary working British Citizen, but “torchcam” makes me feel I can be part of it (the olympics) keep up the wonderful work! Will be cheering the flame when it passes through SELKIRK, Scottish Borders.

And I thought the Scots weren’t in favour of the Games.

 

Rupert Murdoch Drops Himself In It

Rupert Murdoch “is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”, MPs have said. I’m not going to argue with that, as I don’t have the detailed evidence.  However, I do know from the personal recollection of a friend of mine, who did a bit of business with Rupert, that he very much takes all the decisions.

So the buck stops with Mr. Murdoch! Unfortunately, there was no system of checks and balances to make sure he took the right decision!

Perhaps we need a rule, that all senior people in public companies are not above a certain age.

Pay-As-You-Go Solar Electricity

This system from Eight19, got a big plug in the Sunday Times today.

I think the company has got something here, as it can provide low-cost lighting to all of those places in the world that are off-grid.

The article shows how in places like Kenya it can be used to provide lighting and mobile-phone charging at a very affordable cost, by combining good solar technology with simple systems based on scratch cards and mobile phones.

But I think it has other applications,where you need a small amount of power in a difficult to get to place. Remember that even in the UK, we have a surprising amount of sunlight most of the time.  But of course not now!

A Course In Chugging?

They’ve just had a guy on the radio, who runs a course at South Bank University on charity fundraising. How to chug properly is a substantial part.

Surely, we can think of more worthwhile University courses?

Incidentally, they were chugging for Save The Tiger in Islington last week.  It would be better if they did this outside the Chinese Embassy!

After all we’ll only save the tiger, if we convince the Chinese to change their ways. I wonder if the Chinese are keen on saving pandas, is that they have no culinary or medicinal use for them!

There is a big piece in The Telegraph today about how the Local Government Association is getting a bit fed up with them and is calling for a clean up of legislation. A spokesman is quoted as saying.

“Government needs to remove the double standard which means volunteers collecting coins for a local hospice need a licence, but agency workers seeking pledges for national charities do not.”

I would agree as a local hospice is much more important than a big national charity. I think though that methods of donation like Just Giving are better. I regularly see an ad and send a small amount. The trouble is some ads are on the Underground and mobile phones don’t work down there.

Are Blackberries the Cause of the World’s Ills?

I have said that to me, as a very experienced keyboard user, that the Blackberry is a piece of very bad design.

But it is loved by the great and good in politics and business, from Barack Obama downwards.

So if they choose such an obscure device can we trust them to make the proper decisions, that affect us all?

No Wonder Research in Motion is Doing Badly

Research in Mition, the maker of Blackberry phones is not doing well according to this on the BBC. Unless of course, you consider a $125million loss to be doing well.

But after trying one of their products for free, which O2 were kind enough to give me I can understand why sales are falling.

For a start the keyboard has been designed by someone, who gives the impression he’s never done any substantial typing on a proper computer. Good design always builds on what your customers expect.  As an example, supposing a car manufacturer proved that left-hand-drive cars were safer and then said it wouldn’t make right hand drive ones for the UK.  Would they sell any?

As an example here, I wanted to enter the @ sign, which is above the P. Which in itself, is a pretty strange place to put it! But then with a small keyboard that might have been the only place they have left.

So you’d think that you would use Shift followed by P to enter it! But no, it’s Alt followed by P. If that is logical to someone with forty-plus years experience of a computer and sixty years of typing starting on a sit-up-and-beg Imperial, then I’m a Chinaman. (By the way, is it allowed to use that phrase today from the past. It is only descriptive and I could have used the alternative form of Dutchman!)

If I taken the trouble to check that the keyboard was so strange, I wouldn’t have had one. No wonder they aren’t selling to well.  Perhaps this keyboard means that new users aren’t impressed.  I’m not!

In the day I used it, I never managed to send a text message, although I did receive a few and read them. On my Nokia 6310i, I just hit one button, choose Reply and I’m replying.

Others may like their Blackberries, but it is definitely not for me, so I’ll stick with the Nokia 6310i.

I know that doesn’t take pictures, but I have a little and battered Nikon Coolpix in my pocket to do that and also act as a visual aide-memoire.

I’ve Got Myself A Blackberry

Not a fruit, but one of those new-fangled phones.

Quite frankly I’m not impressed!

Lessons From the Patrice Muamba Incident

Note that I’m calling it an incident, as hopefully after today’s hopefully promising news, things may get a lot better.

One of the reasons, I can call it an incident, may turn out to be the fact, that according to the Evening Standard a cardiologist was in the East Stand at White Hart Lane and he knew what was happening to poor Patrice, so he just told the Stewards, that he was going onto the pitch and did it! He also persuaded the paramedics to take Patrice to the London Chest Hospital, where they had the facilities to deal with such a serious heart attack. He even accompanied the footballer in the ambulance. Isn’t that what we think, we should expect from a doctor?

Someone, who was a friend of a friend, wasn’t so lucky.  He had a heart attack in the stand at a football match and the paramedics were unable to revive him. Perhaps, with help from a cardiologist, they might have succeeded. But my friend did say that he was well into his seventies and had already had one major heart attack and would have probably preferred to go out, watching his team.

So what are the chances of the right doctor being at the ground.

About ten years ago, I was in the circle of the theatre at Cambridge with C, when a rather worried usher asked if there was a doctor in the house. Whether there was a conference on, but out of about a hundred or so, she got at least ten doctors to come forward. I don’t know what happened afterwards, but hopefully they managed between them.

But White Hart Lane has a capacity of 50,000 or so and that greatly increases the odds of the right doctor being available.  And as the incident happened in front of him that helped too.

I am not saying Patrice was lucky, as to go through what he has is terrible, but can we increase the chances of getting the right sort of assistance in public events and even spaces.

For instance, the cardiologist was a season ticket holder and because of modern electronic ticketing, they could have found out he was at the game. So you can envisage systems, where doctors with particular specialities are texted, if something serious happens.  I can remember the day when Luc Nillis broke his leg at Portman Road, as it was in front of me. Would his treatment have been better, if they’d managed to find an orthopaedic consultant or two in the crowd of 20,000? They may have done, but I don’t know!

It does strike me that this could be an application for a smart phone!

A Question Answered

A few weeks, ago I asked how scammers got your phone number and other details.

The Sunday Times answers the question today and says it all down to corrupt Indian call centre workers, who sell the details for two pence a shot. Surely, I’m worth more than that?

If that is the case, we need a nice EU Law, which says that data from individuals of a particular company, must only be held and accessed in that country.

Companies might moan, but all we would need to do was boycott the moaning companies. As it is, I try to avoid companies with overseas call centres.  And that would include Spanish, German or French companies, that have their call centre, where they are head-quartered.