Recycled Electrons - Blog of Keith Horowitz

So this past week's episode of Numb3rs seemed to be designed specifically to refute my previous log entry where I said GPS is not part of cell phones. It seems I was wrong. I am sorry Numb3rs for my misunderstanding. According to the show, it seems that when the decided that for emergency purposes, that cell phones should be trackable, the didn't use triangulation from cell towers. The actually put a tiny GPS chip inside all modern cell phones. Wow. So I guess they were right when they said they used GPS with the phone. Of course, in the episode, the person was in a library. Inside buildings is a very poor place for GPS reception, so I still have some doubts. Then a very short while later it hit me. There is a GPS inside most everyone cell phone. And they don't let you use it! It would be so simple to show locations and do some simple coordinates on a cell phone. The data is already there. It would only take a simple program! Man - think of all the people who coul...

I opened my Dish (satellite TV) bill last night. In the last year it has jumped $10.00. First it went from $21.99 for the low-end channel package to $23.99. Suddenly the package has a new name, and costs $31.99. This is the same crap the cable companies pulled, and why we wound up going with Dish. One of Dish's major selling strategies was to point out how the cable companies were treating people badly. Now they are doing the exact same thing. We will have to talk to them and let them know that we are not pleased. If they cannot drop the cost way back down, I think it is time to get rid of dish. I don't watch much broadcast TV. I am pretty sure I can get most of what I watch with an antenna. I'll miss MythBusters. But I could buy the season DVD for MythBusters and have a whole lot of money left over after canceling Dish. And MythBusters is neat to watch. But they have so many repeats. And spend a bunch of new episodes filled with old material. It is like they onl...

I've been watching the last few episodes of the TV show Numb3rs. It is pretty good. It is nice to see a positive view of techy stuff on TV. We need to promote the sciences. And they do a very good job of not getting way too techy. If anything, they are pretty good at explaining some advanced math concepts so that an average person can get a feel for the concepts. I think I get to thank my sister for recommending the show :) Watching the last episode, from this past Friday, I was taken a bit back. Here is a show that is trying to tech about the science of math, and they made a really careless error. They were talking about tracking a cell-phone. The cell-phone in question was used right near the investigators - and they say the GPS showed it was on campus. The GPS? Cell phones don't have GPS! GPS isn't how they track where cell phones are! They both use a similar methodology - triangulation. But a GPS receiver listens to 3 or more satellites in orbit to calculate...