Another reason to carry your digital camera on a ride

On Dec 17, 5:45 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much into too-tiny an
area and is almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass (think
typical Michelin map of just about any part of France, if you need an
example), and you don't carry a magnifying glass, but you are carrying your
digital camera, here's what I do-

Take a photo of the area of the map you need to deal with, using the macro
function. Then on playback, use the magify function to zoom in on what you
need to see. You'd be amazed how well this works. It's save my butt many
times.

Another nice use for digital cameras is simply to keep your maps on your
memory card. I wouldn't trust everything that way, as things can go wrong
with any electronic or mechanical piece of equipment. On the other hand,
maps can get lost too. If you've got a camera with a small amount of
internal memory, that's a handy place to store the maps (since they'll be
there even if you remove the memory card).

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycleswww.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

You could also read a map this way in the dark (which is something
I've tried to do by the light of a tiny bic in high winds in the
desert). As long as the batteries still have some juice that is.

Robert

even better is the camera that uses the same memory (SD) as your PDA,
of course downloading the maps to the PDA before you go makes more
sense - especially if you can plug your GPS into your PDA (delorme &
palm work well together - YMMV) . Conversely you could get a GPS that
lets you download maps directly to it, but I like the bigger screen on
the PDA, or the laptop if I'm forced to motor.

"DennisTheBald" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

even better is the camera that uses the same memory (SD) as your PDA,
of course downloading the maps to the PDA before you go makes more
sense - especially if you can plug your GPS into your PDA (delorme &
palm work well together - YMMV) . Conversely you could get a GPS that
lets you download maps directly to it, but I like the bigger screen on
the PDA, or the laptop if I'm forced to motor.

My iPhone has the maps right on it. Now I just need to remember to ride
where there is service:-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

even better is the camera that uses the same memory (SD) as your PDA,
of course downloading the maps to the PDA before you go makes more
sense - especially if you can plug your GPS into your PDA (delorme &
palm work well together - YMMV) . Conversely you could get a GPS that
lets you download maps directly to it, but I like the bigger screen on
the PDA, or the laptop if I'm forced to motor.

My iPhone has the maps right on it. Now I just need to remember to ride
where there is service:-)

Is service that sketchy 'round these (south SF peninsula) parts? I've been
surprised at how much AT&T service has improved over the last few years.
However, I don't use an iPhone, just standard GSM.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

In article <[email hidden]>,

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much into too-tiny an
area and is almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass (think
typical Michelin map of just about any part of France, if you need an
example), and you don't carry a magnifying glass, but you are carrying your
digital camera, here's what I do-

Magnifying glasses are very cheap, very obtainable at
any dollar store, and very portable. But if ya gotta
do it the hard way, I guess ya gotta.

cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

Or not. Requiring AMPS to be maintained would give a false sense of legit
coverage for an area. If AMPS were likely to be a continuing service widely
available, sure, but I think we're better off with zero coverage than
coverage for just a very small number of people. Why? Because zero coverage
is more likely to encourage bringing in current (digital) technology to the
area. It's important to recognize the severe limitations (bandwidth) offered
by AMPS... it is simply not a technology that can support large numbers of
users.

Right, but the places AMPS would be nice to keep around are those rural
areas that don't have large numbers of users, i.e. the San Mateo Coast,
the Santa Cruz mountains, etc. The carriers have overlaid digital on
every existing AMPS tower, but they can't possibly install enough towers
to equal the coverage that AMPS provides up in those areas.

When I look at the Verizon coverage maps, you used to be able to select
the date your plan was started (before or on/after 2/21/2005) because
the former included off-network extra-cost roaming which greatly
expanded the available coverage because it included non-Verizon AMPS
networks. When you looked at the maps of the Sierra, you gained vast
areas of coverage, including on some of the most popular bicycling
routes across the mountains where there is no other coverage, and
probably will not be for years to come. Remember, AMPS is _permitted_ to
be turned off, not required to be. Golden State Cellular, the carrier
for much of the Sierra, will keep it on for a long time.

Quoted message said:

Right, but the places AMPS would be nice to keep around are those rural
areas that don't have large numbers of users, i.e. the San Mateo Coast,
the Santa Cruz mountains, etc. The carriers have overlaid digital on every
existing AMPS tower, but they can't possibly install enough towers to
equal the coverage that AMPS provides up in those areas.

If mobile phone service is seen primarily as a benefit or requirement for
the locals, then AMPS service can be justified. But if there's a greater
public need to be served, that of people driving through or visiting the
area, then AMPS has rapdily diminishing usefulness. Call it the tyrany of
the majority if you wish.

Bringing this back to cycling, the most-convenient phone to have would be
one that would handle AMPS, GSM & CDMA, but a phone like that would be too
expensive for the rarely-used additional utility. And, of course, there were
prior generations that someone managed to get by without cell phones at all.
Hard to believe, I know!

--Mike--
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com

"SMS ???. ?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

Or not. Requiring AMPS to be maintained would give a false sense of legit
coverage for an area. If AMPS were likely to be a continuing service
widely available, sure, but I think we're better off with zero coverage
than coverage for just a very small number of people. Why? Because zero
coverage is more likely to encourage bringing in current (digital)
technology to the area. It's important to recognize the severe
limitations (bandwidth) offered by AMPS... it is simply not a technology
that can support large numbers of users.

Right, but the places AMPS would be nice to keep around are those rural
areas that don't have large numbers of users, i.e. the San Mateo Coast,
the Santa Cruz mountains, etc. The carriers have overlaid digital on every
existing AMPS tower, but they can't possibly install enough towers to
equal the coverage that AMPS provides up in those areas.

When I look at the Verizon coverage maps, you used to be able to select
the date your plan was started (before or on/after 2/21/2005) because the
former included off-network extra-cost roaming which greatly expanded the
available coverage because it included non-Verizon AMPS networks. When you
looked at the maps of the Sierra, you gained vast areas of coverage,
including on some of the most popular bicycling routes across the
mountains where there is no other coverage, and probably will not be for
years to come. Remember, AMPS is _permitted_ to be turned off, not
required to be. Golden State Cellular, the carrier for much of the Sierra,
will keep it on for a long time.

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

If mobile phone service is seen primarily as a benefit or requirement for
the locals, then AMPS service can be justified. But if there's a greater
public need to be served, that of people driving through or visiting the
area, then AMPS has rapdily diminishing usefulness. Call it the tyrany of
the majority if you wish.

It's precisely for the people driving through or visiting that AMPS is
so valuable. Here's one example (besides all the bicycling examples). My
wife works for the home health and hospice division of large HMO that
covers all of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. They have to travel to
the outer reaches of the counties, including out to Pescadero, and up to
patients off of Skyline boulevard in San Mateo County, and they have to
stay in touch. For some bizarre reason, the HMO decided they should use
Nextel, which has the worst coverage of any carrier, so the employees
end up using their personal phones when in areas of no coverage. I
remember one time my wife was visiting a patient and as she drove up a
bunch of dogs came out to "greet" her. She couldn't get out of the car
until she called the patient, using AMPS (which is all that was up
there) from her car to tell her to call off the dogs. Without that AMPS
coverage, she just would have left, without making the visit. What
surprised me was that the employees actually understood the available
networks, and explicitly got service on Verizon because of the rural
coverage that AT&T lacks.

For the locals in the rural areas, they have landlines, so it's less of
a concern to have cell coverage in their own houses, but for people
driving through having coverage is a big plus.

Of course you don't care about AMPS, you can't use it, so you don't
believe anyone else should care about it either.

On Dec 17, 4:45 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much into too-tiny an
area and is almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass (think
typical Michelin map of just about any part of France, if you need an
example), and you don't carry a magnifying glass, but you are carrying your
digital camera, here's what I do-

Take a photo of the area of the map you need to deal with, using the macro
function. Then on playback, use the magify function to zoom in on what you
need to see. You'd be amazed how well this works. It's save my butt many
times.

Another nice use for digital cameras is simply to keep your maps on your
memory card. I wouldn't trust everything that way, as things can go wrong
with any electronic or mechanical piece of equipment. On the other hand,
maps can get lost too. If you've got a camera with a small amount of
internal memory, that's a handy place to store the maps (since they'll be
there even if you remove the memory card).

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycleswww.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

The cell phone I've carried for emergencies -- first a Treo and now an
iPhone -- has a digital camera in it. Not a very good one compared to
my Nikon DSLR, but serviceable to take a picture of something. A few
months ago I rode across the SF Golden Gate Bridge and sent to some
friends in the East a picture of myself doing just that. Cool. Make
them jealous.

In September I rode US 395 in the Eastern Sierra, and that made for an
even grander picture.

Dave

In article <[email hidden]>, Mike

Jacoubowsky said:

Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much

.....

<snip>

Getting lost is half the fun!

In article <[email hidden]>,

Luke said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Mike

Jacoubowsky said:

Most under 35 or so can ignore this, but eventually life will catch up to
you, too.

If you've ever had to deal with a map that crammed too much

....

<snip>

Getting lost is half the fun!

How true!

There's a burger joint in Burnaby BC, somewhere near
Norland & Douglas Rd (where there's lots of commercial/
industrial truck traffic,) which I simply /must/ re-visit,
and, I hope, recall how to get there.

Space is most definitely not the final frontier.
We have tons of explorable realms right here at
our local avail.

A life of avoiding adventure is like watching
re-runs all the time.

cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tom Sherman said:

Quoted message said:

And if you're an American, you will even pronounce the
resulting material's name correctly.

The correct spelling, by international standard, of Element 13 is aluminium.

Particularly heinous is the use of "aluminium" when the writer actually
means "aluminium alloy"; would we refer to steel as iron? Essentially
pure aluminium has good corrosion resistance, but little to recommend it
as a structural material. Unalloyed aluminium would be a poor material
indeed to construct a bicycle frame or other components from.

Thank you for being human enough to end a sentence with
a preposition :-)

I recall hearing or reading that unique Americanisms
such as the 120-ounce gallon, or phonetically dumbed-down
misspellings such as "neighbor," "favor" and "plow",
driving/riding on the wrong side of the road and the
preference of coffee over tea are manifestations of
Revolutionary bloody-mindedness and a desire to
distinguish colonial America from Britain. I think
maybe aluminum wasn't even on the Periodic Table at
the time of the American Revolution. Maybe Mendelev's
Periodic Table didn't exist then. I guess the American
bloody-minded spirit lives on, so that the American
spelling: "aluminum" takes root in common usage.

Alcan, in Kitimat, BC refines aluminum. Many kilograms
of it. They were a major supplier to the war in Viet Nam.

A lot of bauxite comes from some South American country,
but I forget which one. My brain is too full. I need
to dump some old facts outa there so I can stuff some
new ones in. FIFO.

cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Tom Keats said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tom Sherman said:

Quoted message said:

And if you're an American, you will even pronounce the
resulting material's name correctly.

The correct spelling, by international standard, of Element 13 is aluminium.

Particularly heinous is the use of "aluminium" when the writer actually
means "aluminium alloy"; would we refer to steel as iron? Essentially
pure aluminium has good corrosion resistance, but little to recommend it
as a structural material. Unalloyed aluminium would be a poor material
indeed to construct a bicycle frame or other components from.

Thank you for being human enough to end a sentence with
a preposition :-)

Ending a sentence with a preposition is unheard of!

Quoted message said:

I recall hearing or reading that unique Americanisms
such as the 120-ounce gallon, or phonetically dumbed-down
misspellings such as "neighbor," "favor" and "plow"...

These are improvements as they are closer to being phonetic. Similarly
"meter" and "center" make much more sense than "metre" and "centre".

What really bugs me is fake oldness, such as calling a strip mall in the
suburbs "Olde Towne Centre" or some such nonsense. I could never be a
developer, since they have to be shameless in coming up with silly names.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
POST FREE OR DIE!

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tom Sherman said:

Quoted message said:

I recall hearing or reading that unique Americanisms
such as the 120-ounce gallon, or phonetically dumbed-down
misspellings such as "neighbor," "favor" and "plow"...

These are improvements as they are closer to being phonetic. Similarly
"meter" and "center" make much more sense than "metre" and "centre".

What really bugs me is fake oldness, such as calling a strip mall in the
suburbs "Olde Towne Centre" or some such nonsense.

That's simply a manifestation of Canadian insidious
infiltration into American culture. We're gradually
taking yez guys over, eh? We've already got Hollywood.
Next stop: Orem, Utah.

Quoted message said:

I could never be a
developer, since they have to be shameless in coming up with silly names.

I guess you could never be an advertising executive, either.

To come up with a silly name as a real estate developer,
all you have to do is pick a nearby street name, and
end it with "Heights". Or "Wynde".

cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Quoted message said:

What really bugs me is fake oldness, such as calling a strip mall in the
suburbs "Olde Towne Centre" or some such nonsense. I could never be a
developer, since they have to be shameless in coming up with silly names.

What about the faux clock towers every single new shopping mall must have?
Bizarre that there's such conformity these days, at least in that regard.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

"Tom Sherman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tom Keats said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Tom Sherman said:

> And if you're an American, you will even pronounce the resulting
> material's name correctly.

The correct spelling, by international standard, of Element 13 is
aluminium.

Particularly heinous is the use of "aluminium" when the writer actually
means "aluminium alloy"; would we refer to steel as iron? Essentially
pure aluminium has good corrosion resistance, but little to recommend it
as a structural material. Unalloyed aluminium would be a poor material
indeed to construct a bicycle frame or other components from.

Thank you for being human enough to end a sentence with
a preposition :-)

Ending a sentence with a preposition is unheard of!

Quoted message said:

I recall hearing or reading that unique Americanisms
such as the 120-ounce gallon, or phonetically dumbed-down
misspellings such as "neighbor," "favor" and "plow"...

These are improvements as they are closer to being phonetic. Similarly
"meter" and "center" make much more sense than "metre" and "centre".

What really bugs me is fake oldness, such as calling a strip mall in the
suburbs "Olde Towne Centre" or some such nonsense. I could never be a
developer, since they have to be shameless in coming up with silly names.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
POST FREE OR DIE!

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

Quoted message said:

What really bugs me is fake oldness, such as calling a strip mall in the
suburbs "Olde Towne Centre" or some such nonsense. I could never be a
developer, since they have to be shameless in coming up with silly names.

What about the faux clock towers every single new shopping mall must have?
Bizarre that there's such conformity these days, at least in that regard.

Part of the corporate homogenization of USian culture.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
POST FREE OR DIE!