In North America and Europe, it's common for motorcyclists to quickly layout routes when touring using google maps. They (google) have made a UX that makes it ridiculously easy (as compared to something like Garmins Basecamp -which should be used as shiny example of how not to design an UX) The issue is that you cannot directly save the maps in GPX format to upload to your GPS. So thiers a world of work arounds, some easy, some not, to get a KML file into your GPS.
If it supported GPX natively, you would likely capture the entire North American and European touring market in one fell swoop. I'm guessing you (google) never asked which kind of goes against the entire point of this article
It was my undertanding that the Bedouin wore full body clothes to SLOW evaporation. In the desert, your sweat evaporates to fast (because of the near 0 ambient humidity) not giving it enough time to pull heat out of your body. Thus, making you even hotter.
I've experienced this very thing riding a motorcycle through Arizona. Man, it takes some real willpower, but gearing up is what is required when the temps go over about 85F. Just don't stop!
Tip. On a motorcycle, wet your shirt. Zip up your coat. Unzip your wrist cuffs. This slows down the airflow giving time for the water to evaporate and cool you, while providing an intake and exhaust. You will be amazed at how well this works. You can actually regulate the temperature (air flow) by opening or closing the zipper by your neck.
This will not work in areas with high humidity like the deep south.
Yes, while hiking in dry hot climates I wear long sleeves and long pants, partly to keep the sun off but it also improves your water economy. Less water will be lost and you don't need to drink as much.
I think they wear it to protect their skin from the sun first and foremost, and the choice of fabric is then designed to alllow for good air circulation and evaporation. At least, that’s the point during the day, but it’s worth remembering that it can and does get damned cold at night, and the same garment works well then too. From a purely physical standpoint, If the sweat is evaporating from your skin, it is that action which moves heat, not the length of time the liquid stays on your skin. It’s a matter of the enthalpy of evaporation, so a high rate of evaporation can only be a good thing. A good light fabric to protect you from sunstroke and dust, breathable to allow for (ideally moderate) perspiration to evaporate rather than drench the fabric, and then the whole thing works to keep you warm at night. If you’re constantly on the move, it’s pretty efficient!
First off, I stand up and applaud the Gates Foundation, and everybody, who work to improve the lives of everybody on the planet.
WRT: Extreme Poverty, a few years back, we had a political party who tackled the problem of poverty by redefining the measuring stick of what constitutes poverty. POOF much celebration and self-handshaking when they announced that during their term, their efforts dropped the number of people living in poverty by a very significant amount.
This has left a bad taste in my mouth ever since to never trust claims from politicians.
So I wonder, in the case of this article, how many of those people no longer living at the adjusted poverty line and now only marginally above it and no longer included. They're still their, but buy grace of a single digit, are now considered much better off.
"Facts" and figures quoted by governments, or even by various organisations not only can be twisted seven ways till Sunday to present a nice or gloomy picture with statistics, but even the raw numbers themselves can also be very different than the truth on the ground.]
>So I wonder, in the case of this article, how many of those people no longer living at the adjusted poverty line and now only marginally above it and no longer included.
There are lots of subtleties there as well. A family with very little to no income, but living in a traditional e.g. African or Amazon community where income is not really required (even European rural communities lived perfectly well with making most of their own food and minimal actual "jobs" and money well into the 1950s), could be much better off than a family that now makes $2 a day, but has been driven out of their land and forced to live in piss poor conditions and work their bones off in some slum.
Extreme poverty, in this case, is a measure developed by economists and not by politicians, and AFAIK the definition hasn't changed significantly in many years.
As the parent says, not being in 'extreme poverty' doesn't tell us much about one individual. They could have $2.50 per day; they could be Bill Gates (of course, it tells us a lot if someone is living on less than $1.90/day; that's a much smaller range). But the aggregate measure is meaningful: The number is decreasing and has been for decades - a miracle relative to world history - bringing hundreds of millions of people of out hopeless poverty; just look at India, China, and Latin America. Yes, some are still very poor, but we can use other measures to examine that such as median income (which also has changed dramatically).
Also, 'poverty' in wealthy countries and 'extreme poverty' used in this measure are entirely different things. If you're reading this, $1.90/day probably won't pay for your electricity or water usage for the day, much less food, shelter, health care, education, transportation, etc.
> WRT: Extreme Poverty, a few years back, we had a political party who tackled the problem of poverty by redefining the measuring stick of what constitutes poverty. POOF much celebration and self-handshaking when they announced that during their term, their efforts dropped the number of people living in poverty by a very significant amount.
In other words, Goodhart's law - "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
It has been a while since I read it but I found it quite compelling. If i remember correctly, the measures are based on consumption of goods per day to try to avoid complications related to differing economic systems. Also while it is true that measures can be manipulated to tell the story you want, it does not appear that that has been done in a significant way here. Even if it had i doubt that, such an extreme 90% -> 10% drop could be shown even with the most crooked measuring stick if things had not been genuinely improving a lot. Incidentally, my brother used to be a full on marxist until he read this data and completely abandoned that belief system.
Good timing. I'm currently working on an existing app that is targeted specifically at those with accessibility issues as part of a larger service offering. More so towards those with hearing issues.
This is a good first step, I have been using the WAVE accessibility plug in for Firefox to identify missed issues in my first run through of the app.
Luckily, we have an employee with a visual impairment that we can utilize for real world testing of the app.
Yup. But the issue is a financial one, not a technological one. All manner of things can be accomplished at the origin. But all the other links in the chain must have access to the companion technology (read money). This is just not available on a widespread basis. Then, you have issues of adoption, and, competing services and standards.
We are experiencing this very thing with regards to Fire dispatch, with all manner of fireman 'apps'. All of which are different with different protocols. So much so, that we now refuse to support any of them.
I’d love to talk more, if you can. My email in my profile.
As stated in a comment above, I think that this should be a global nonprofit. Mapping tools should be made for free to emergency responders. That’s one way to go around the financial question.
Maybe this is what you meant, but it seems possible that you could just publish your data through your own protocol, and allow the apps to read it in that form if they want? Or perhaps I've misunderstood your position in this...
I work in 911, Telematics, alarm, PERS space. We are a PSAP (Public Safety Answer Point)
The device might send a Geocode, but reverse geo-coding (turning a long/lat into a human readable place) is a highly inaccurate thing. Secondly, most responders have no means of turning a long/lat into a point on the map, short of using their personal phone. Next, altitude is not factored in. Imagine being in a downtown office building. If nobody is downstairs to guide responders, or if the caller was unable to speak, they will have a really difficult time determining just which building/floor you are in.
Its all gotten much worse with the advent of mobile/VOIP and now, WIFI phone systems where your phone can move. Its a system ill equipped to handle it.
That helps with communicating the lat/long, but not with determining where that actually is. With what3words, not only are first responders still required to use some mobile device, but they're also reliant on a proprietary service (read: point of failure).
There should be no point of failure. By using the same hashing algorithm to produce 3 words worldwide, anyone with the same seed could produce coordinates for any words. Or the 3 words for any coordinates.
I was going to suggest this, or a standard like it, too.
Sure, it doesn't help with altitude, although maybe a fourth word could be added for that, and "what floor are you on?" is a simple question to ask and understand the answer to anyways.
If people can be dispatched to a location, getting the altitude a few minutes later is still a good use of time. Not to mention, if you're in a tall building you've also probably got extra coworkers or neighbors to go to the elevator or go to the ground floor to help the responders get to the victim quickly.
Also, phones could be configured to automatically and quickly read the 3 words as soon as they connect to 911 so if they're calling a 911 call center that has not adopted any location technology the information can still be transmitted quickly, accurately and automatically in under 2 seconds to any phone without proprietary software on the receiving end.
I learned to write on a blackboard with both arms at the same time (an ability which has had me labeled a freak!). In this case, it worked great so long as nobody saw you do it, and, the phrase wasn't two long.
my high school math teacher could
- write perfectly on the board while looking at the class
- write a complete sentence starting from both ends meeting perfectly in the middle
I can't tell you how many times I point out the data model is flawed (even when it should be obvious) only to have the project turn it into something you don't want to step in.
The most recent one was clearing of multiple work orders with one invoice. Yes you can, but you shouldn't.
If that was a business requirement then developers must find a way to implement it. All we can do is to point out the extra costs of the implementation.
Ha! Self-gloating. I cancelled my Visa just yesterday. Part of my self-imposed program to return to a simpler life. But it's some sort of weird Schadenfreude justification that it hasn't happened to me directly.
When my Nexus 5 dies, I plan on going back to my old Sony-Ericsson feature phone. Just before I retired it I put in a bigger battery. I can fit 3 of them in any pocket I care to choose. It ran 2 weeks on Standby before giving up the ghost. As for functionality. I'm old. Voice/Text/Camera. I've gone for years and years without having a data plan. I typically xfer about 10 texts a month and I might get 1 or two voice calls. Which leads to my next point; I even managed to get rid of my cell plan. I ported my number to my employers plan, he covers it all. I've got unlimited everything on the corporate account. So I save about $500/yr. Do you think I'm gonna invest double that in a new phone? Pfft.
Different strokes for different folks, but I wouldn't miss it at all.
In 2014, my phone got cut off[1] and I went without connectivity for about 6 months (I was poor, doing a startup right after a previous failed startup, maybe not the smartest circumstances). The phone was basically a wifi device during that time.
I could have got a prepay SIM easily enough, but, oddly, I found being unreachable weirdly liberating. Yes, it was awkward that I had to plan ahead by organising when and where to meet people, checking messages (and maps) on wifi and so forth, but knowing that once I stepped outside, that I would be completely disconnected, was actually a great feeling. I knew that while I travelled to the office, nobody would bother me, I knew when I was out shopping, nobody would bother me. It was my time, disconnected from work, from friends/family/random people, from news that I really didn’t need to read...
Nowadays, I have an iphone which I use for whatsapp/telegram/signal, email, idle browsing when I’m not at home, very very very rarely a phone call. I think when this phone eventually dies, I’ll replace it with a cheap emergency-only phone, basically, like when I didn’t have a phone except that family can reach me in emergency. I have an iPad for when I do need to access everything else but am not at home or in work. Although, I don’t bring it everywhere.
[1] it was a bill phone in the name of my back-then-newly-deceased startup, I had tried to change it to my name, the account manager and other people said yes no problem and I went home waiting for a bill, which never came, then a few months later they disconnected me and wanted more money than the phone or the contract were worth to get it reconnected. I decided its not worth it.
I find it a bit peculiar of you to even entertain a thought of buying a $1000 device when, as you said, a feature phone can easily serve you. Because you can easily buy a $200 (or cheaper) smartphone that would serve you nice with addition of standard extras of camera and navigation. Of course if you don't care about those, more power to you.
I personally start to think that once my phone will break, that maybe I'll buy one of those 4G feature-ish phones with KaiOS like the new banana Nokia and a netbook or a smallest Chromebook. But I have small hope in Libre 5 project.
If it supported GPX natively, you would likely capture the entire North American and European touring market in one fell swoop. I'm guessing you (google) never asked which kind of goes against the entire point of this article