A reflection on Starbucks in the US: lack of cafe culture and the role of WiFi

Travels with an iPod Touch: Free WiFi experience in Asia

What do you conclude when you read the line “one of the nation’s largest wireless broadband operators”?

When I read that, I conclude that they have a large customer base. But since I have never heard of XYZ Wireless, I decided to ask them what they mean by “one of the largest”. It turns out they mean they cover an area of several thousand square miles, one of the largest areas of coverage for the kind of wireless service they offer.

Think about that for a minute. You could cover large swathes of the permafrost region and call yourself one of the largest wireless broadband operators in the world. But the people who write these breathless press releases know that if you say “one of the largest wireless operators in the world”, people will think you have one of the largest customer bases, which may not be true.

If they want to be accurate, they should write: “XYZ Wireless, a wireless broadband operator with one of the largest coverage areas in the nation . . .”

Unfortunately, the vast majority of press releases are written this way. Some are outright lies. They hope that the lazy press will simply copy their press releases. I don’t think I have to tell an adult who (I assume) is a native English speaker how to write a basic sentence in the English language.

So what is the problem with people who write these press releases? Do they need a remedial English writing course? Or are they (and their clients) just a bunch of liars?

http://www.muniwireless.com/2009/01/28/find-out-if-your-isp-is-a-bad-isp-with-glasnost/

“THIS Email is from Gmail Customer Care and we are sending it to every Gmail Email User Accounts Owner for safety. we are having congestions due to the anonymous registration of Gmail accounts so we are shutting down some Gmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted.We are sending you this email so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account.If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name,password,date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account. Due to the congestion in all Gmail users and removal of all unused Gmail Accounts, Gmail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, You will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button, or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.”

I immediately knew this was a phishing attempt so I sent an email to Google to alert them of what’s happening. Then, I went to the Calendar settings and changed it. Here’s what you do so that you don’t receive these event “invitations”:

• Go to your Google Calendar and click on Settings (upper right hand corner)
• Click on the General Tab
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a setting called Automatically add invitations to my calendar
• Click on “No, only display invitations to which I have replied”

I had this option on Yes and found out that this is how the phishers managed to put that message in my calendar.

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Make Skype calls from your iPhone and iPod Touch via Truphone

I went to the San Francisco map to see what’s broken in my neighborhood and what other people are saying in different parts of the city. In some cases, people complain about dangerous pedestrian crossings, in others, it’s graffiti, broken fire hydrants, and potholes.

Go to www.seeclickfix.com.

As oil prices climb, we’ve seen politicians call for a moratorium on the gasoline tax. In Europe, they’re calling for a lowering of the high benzine tax, too. Truck drivers and fishermen have gone on strike and set up blockades to pressure politicians to DO SOMETHING. Unfortunately, there’s not much any one country can do, even the United States, because the price of oil is determined by a variety of factors, most of which are out of the control of any one country. But people don’t want to change their lifestyle unless forced to and this is the time to make a very good case for changing one’s lifestyle. More people are open to it these days especially now that they see the terrible effects of our addiction to oil.

Plummer says that the high price of oil will do several things:

• kill the internal combustion engine: we don’t realize that this is ancient technology, artificially kept alive by the historically low price of oil;

• reduce the clout of the Middle East as well as oil-producing countries run by a dictator: the US and Europe (as well as China, Japan and India) won’t have to meddle in their internal affairs anymore;

• develop mass transit: far more efficient People Mover; and

• lead to better urban planning.

I would add another reason: high gas prices will force people to change their toxic lifestyles. This business of sitting in a car for a hour commute to and from work is not healthy for anybody. It’s stressful and wasteful. Hopping onto an airplane for a two-hour meeting is also wasteful but people don’t think about it, until now. Why can’t they use online video conferencing from Sightspeed or Skype? I have worked in a number of tech companies and for all their techiness and love of technology, tech executives will be the first ones to jump on an airplane for a two-hour meeting in London. They won’t use video. Again, why?

Europe has fallen in love with the automobile despite the high price of gas. In the Netherlands, I’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of SUVs just the in past five years. The traffic jams on the motorways are getting worse every year and the Ministry of Transportation’s response is to lay down more concrete. Not smart in a tiny, densely populated country that consistently violates EU norms for air pollution. In a place like the Netherlands, public transport is a perfect way to move people and by US standards, the public transport system here is excellent. But it needs to be improved: the trains need to run more efficiently and on time, the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-The Hague region should be treated as one metro area with ONE transport system, like the Paris Metro-RER. The government needs to stop delaying high-speed rail projects like the TGV (Thalys). The TGV has to slow down once it reaches the Dutch border (with Belgium) because of supposed problems with safety. Why is it in Belgium it’s been running at peak speeds for several years now? The Dutch and the Germans need to come together to build a high-speed rail network between Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Munich. Right now, Deutsche Bahn has excellent high-speed rail service, but in Germany. When the trains come to the Netherlands, they crawl.

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