Article1Society.com

GSM smart phones are the most widely used in the world. Estimations suggest that the standard includes some 80% of all cellular phones in use around the world. And while GSM cell phones devices are a all-pervasive feature of 1st world countries, it is their existence in far less “civilized” areas that best demonstrates the reach and influence of modern communications.

Picture Somalia: a huge, desert country on the eastern horn of Africa which for the past 20 years has been wracked by civil war and famine. Bombed out bullet riddled cities dot the barren landscape where for thousands of years, nomads have roamed the desert herding goats as well as camels across hundreds of miles from pastures in the damp season to market in the dry time of year. Even practical measures of distance here do not stick to the metric or imperial conditions employed by the rest of the world.

Nomad determine distance simply by units called a Gedi: the distance a browsing herd animal could travel in a day, which changes every season relying on the physical strength of each herd. Even working automobiles are hard to find here, not to mention something sophisticated as a GSM mobile phone. However the simple application of GSM cell phones, which we in the west have long taken for granted, has proven extremely practical to this nomadic way of life.

For generations, Somali herdsmen have followed an annual pattern. Towards the end of the year when the dry season occurs, they migrate from the more fertile areas elsewhere in the country, across the desert, to coastal cities where they can sell their stock in the markets to traders from the Middle East and in other places. Keeping their animals in pens inside the cities while they set up a sale is incredibly costly, as they must carry on and feed and water their herd with stores provided for by community merchants at obscene prices. They have no option. However, GSM cell phones have granted them to forego this course of action.

A Somali nomad, a man dressed up in hand sewn clothes he has most likely worn for most of his life, carrying a staff in the traditional posture – horizontally over his shoulders, his arms resting atop – a guy who sleeps on a mat of thatched grass under the stars, beside a fire he constructed himself, can now merely make a phone call and prepare the sale of his herd in advance. As opposed to lingering in the city for several days, expending what meager wealth he has on maintaining his herd there, hoping his sale can recoup his losses and also turn a profit, he can now simply arrange to have a buyer prepared for him the minute he arrives. Such high technology might seem incredibly unnatural in Somalia, but it’s application is flawlessly suited to the needs of a nomad.

Virtual reality tours have come a long way since something like the New York Skyride of serial entrepreneur Zalman Silber, which is an IMAX-like cinematic experience located at the city’s famous Empire State Building. Contrast that with the United States Army’s Virtual Army Experience, or VAE, which is an interactive multimedia virtual tour of what it is like to be an American soldier in the 21st Century.

The VAE was designed to capitalize on the appetite of today’s American youth for electronic entertainment. As opposed to continuing to run television commercials as was done before, it was decided to support classic forms of outreach with one that a lot more immediately and forcefully resonated with today’s young males. Some thing like the aforementioned Skyride by Zalman Silber is family entertainment and totally innocuous, G-rated to seat as many as feasible. It is mildly educational while the VAE is meant to showcase the most positive aspects of modern soldiering to action-oriented youths. The VAE presents a life-sized networked environment for guests to get a small taste of soldiering and battle. With a complicated setup that involves computers, video, motion sensors, and full surround sound, the VAE is definitely an engaging method to both entertain and educate, not to mention recruit. Through the use of conventional storytelling alongside familiar videogaming conventions, the VAE has been hailed for its innovative use of cutting-edge technology to inform as well as to sell.

Visitors gather from the “Assembly Area,” whereupon uniformed VAE staff shepherd website visitors on for the “Joint Operations Center.” There they meet former soldiers, now employees of Army partner Ignited Minds, a marketing firm, who serve as “team leaders.” An intelligence briefing ensues, which covers the upcoming virtual mission. Time is also taken to introduce Army rules of engagement together with right use of simulator equipment and proper deployment of Army tactical doctrine. Then it’s on towards the mission itself, which takes place inside “Mission Simulator” correct. The objective is to evacuate civilians, an unassailably righteous scenario that critics contend mask the far more likely and less innocuous duties of Army life and death in a time of war.

Upon completion from the mission participants are debriefed in an “After Action Area” where Army values are introduced within the context from the mission, values for example duty, honor, respect, and camaraderie. At specific venues, an actual war hero is on-hand to speak with participants, lending an inspirational air of authenticity that has several VAE website visitors applauding.

It is all extremely beguiling, specifically for young men still trying to prove themselves to themselves.

Since its development by Ericsson in 1994, Bluetooth technology is the go-to standard for joining stationary or mobile devices over short distances by way of short range, short wavelength radio transmissions. The most recognizable example to shoppers are Bluetooth headsets, those small devices you see connected to people’s ears when it looks almost as though they’re talking to themselves on the sidewalk. Nonetheless, the technology has far more applications than just Bluetooth headsets.

Bluetooth borrows its name from the nickname given to the Danish king Harald Gormsson, who reigned over as king of Denmark from around 958 AD, and later also as King of Norway from about 970 until he was driven out by Germans a while later. His nickname, “Blatand”, meaning Blue Tooth in English, is rumored to have come from many origins, two of the most popular being: His love of blue berries, which was so intense that his teeth were tainted blue (fanciful and unlikely), or that he had some kind of gum disease which converted his teeth and gums a bluish color (more likely for a tenth century Viking ruler).

Part of Harald’s legacy as a ruler was initiatives to unite many dissident tribes throughout Norway, Sweden and Denmark until a single king. These attempts at unification are the reason Bluetooth borrows its name from Harald: just as he’d united the tribes into a solitary working society, Bluetooth technology so unites electronic devices. In fact, logo for Bluetooth technology is a mixture of runes representing the first two letters of his name: H and B.

Technologies such as Bluetooth headsets work by chopping up data into fragments and then projecting that data in loads through up to 79 different channels. These packets of date are then sent out via short wavelength radio signals, which are then obtained by other Bluetooth compatible devices. The idea is that two, or even a number of Bluetooth devices can be synced up to work in cooperation with each other. Bluetooth headsets are in fact among the best examples.

A Bluetooth headset can be used to wirelessly communicate with any Bluetooth enabled phone, so that speaking and listening can be handled through the small, individually distinct headset, while the phone itself (still inside your pocket or purse) handles all of its own capabilities – like sending and receiving the actual call. Similarly, Bluetooth can also be used as a means to communicate with video game consoles, much like the Playstation 3. Headsets can be used to communicate with the console, which in turn forwards the voice data received from the headset to servers for distribution to other players in an online game – and their voices are similarly received by the PS3 and forwarded via Bluetooth to your headset.

It is hard getting educational toys because, well, how would you really measure whether something is educational, especially when it involves very young children even toddlers? In reality, numerous child psychologists believe that just about anything is “educational” for a child, especially at really young ages when practically by definition anything they come into contact with teaches them something about the world, about which they know practically nothing!

When you don’t know a lot to begin with, everything is educational, isn’t it? And so the world is full of educational toys as a result, as any object can be played with and, in the very playing with, help to develop the motor skills and cognitive abilities which toymakers claim their products foster in a child.

And yet clearly there are toys that do seem to somehow offer much more than entertainment value, for example programmable robot kits. So perhaps a better way to think about educational toys is to not regard them as being absolutely educational or not, in which case it is arguable that a plaything could be made of almost anything and that play itself is an inherently educational activity.

The confusion, as ever (according to most semanticists, anyway), concerns semantics, or meaning. If we mean by the term not merely something that can be played with such that skillsets of some kind are fostered, but instead those toys which are clearly a lot more capable of fostering a skillset, particularly one that’s not readily developed otherwise, then shopping becomes substantially easier!

Thus, it will turn out that puzzles like a Rubik’s Cube are very educational while alphabet blocks are a lot less so. And as parents, we want to encourage our kids to not only explore but push their intellectual envelope, so while good old-fashioned dolls and the like might stimulate the imagination, much more ingenious toys can also stimulate such higher-order faculties as pattern recognition and problem solving.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. And when in Sydney, Australia, you do the Skywalk, a one-of-a-kind experience from serial entrepreneur and success story Zalman Silber. It’s a must-see and must-experience that is first on many an out-of-towner’s itinerary, for nowhere else will you be able to walk outside a skyscraper and look straight down – literally.

Zalman Silber’s Skywalk is fundamentally a glass-floored catwalk, a bit like the fire-escapes of many an old-styled New York City walk-up. The only real difference, which makes all the difference in the world at almost a thousand feet up above the ground, is that instead of walking on metal grating you would be walking on nothing more than glass. Glass! The very thought might shatter some nerves, and indeed visitors are very careful to walk gingerly – though of course everything is as safe as can be, with guests outfitted in special “sky suits” that are securely tethered by cables to the metal handrails.

It’s easy to imagine the excitement, but altogether different when you experience it first-hand. But while first, as previously mentioned, on many a visitor’s agenda, it is by no means the last, for there are many, many other things to do and see in the Harbour City. Though not as heart-stopping as the Skywalk, the Sydney Opera House is much more famous and will also take your breath away, though in a rather more cerebral fashion.

As the site of the first British settlement on the island-continent, Sydney has had a long time to come up with a variety of interesting attractions for both residents and visitors alike. It is, after all, an international locus of commerce, arts, fashion, culture, entertainment, education, and of course tourism. Being the country’s largest and most heavily populated city, you would expect nothing less. And so the city hosts over two million guests a year with world-famous attractions such as the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Australian Museum, and the Sydney Tower, site of Zalman Silber’s Skywalk.

When in Sydney, don’t forget to take a walk on the Skywalk. It is the only way to see the city from the air with nothing between you and the air. No glass windows, no thick railing. Only the Sydney weather at a thousand feet above the street. Only at the Sydney Tower. Only on the Skywalk from Zalman Silber.

The Sydney Tower Skywalk. Bringing you to Sydney. Bringing Sydney to you.

For the hosts, the right wedding favors may be as difficult to find as wedding gifts may be to their guests. For while gifts have to reflect the social importance of the occasion while still accounting for the individual tastes of the recipients (both of them!), wedding favors need to satisfy one and all by being appropriate on many more levels. It may be tough enough to shop for one person, or even a couple – but how about for an entire guest list that may span some twenty to two hundred different tastes?

Of course, not very many folks put so much thought (and consternation!) into deciding upon the wedding favors they will give out, for those who do it is an crucial choice right up there alongside the type of food to serve as well as the kind of venue to use. A great idea, however, is both safely innocuous while being practical as well as elegant and reflective of the occasion: Wine glasses!

Of course, it may be cheesy to give precisely the very gifts you yourself would be receiving, but then again it may not, depending on the quality of the set you give and, let’s be honest, how “important” your wedding is socially – after all, such favors from a high-society wedding will most likely be more treasured than something from Aunt May’s sixth time up the aisle!

All kidding aside, however, the choice of favors is an important one as it is something by which you want your guests – your friends, family, and even colleagues – to remember you and your significant other at one of the high-points of your lives. It is like going to an exotic locale for vacation and bringing back a souvenir to your loved ones…a tee shirt. No, you will most likely want your wedding to be rather more noteworthy than that!

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A wind chime seems to be a necessary adornment of many a cabins in the woods. In the city one imagines that these objects are hung by the door and basically used to announce visitors or customers, but in the countryside, where the nearest neighbor can be a mile away and you could hear him coming from about the same distance, why the prevalence of such merry noise-makers?

If you are ever lucky enough to experience it, you may even stumble upon some hermit’s cozy hut of a cabin with a large collection of wind chimes displayed along his porch or main window. And then it’s no wonder whether the decorations keep him – or her – company instead of simply announcing it.

Wind chimes focus the voice of the wind. These objects are instruments by which the wind finds its voice. They speak for the wind. They’re the wind speaking to us in a language we comprehend, the language of music, of sounds and the silent pauses between them.

This other-worldly association with wind chimes goes back to their very origins as devices to ward off evil spirits, as if human inventions stand in opposition to the natural and supernatural. In Asia they are associated with good luck, and Japanese glass wind bells and chimes have a long and highly developed tradition.

In our own modern age, clever folks have now taken to harnessing the power of the sun instead of the wind to produce the soft melodious tones so beloved of mankind. Windless wind chimes – yes, that’s their name – offer continual protection against evil spirits even when winds are calm!

Country cottages and their wind chimes. Who would have ever thought that such seemingly simple objects of wood, metal, glass, or stone could have such a legacy?

Prescription eyeglasses are available in many different styles for many different uses. But despite the word “glasses” in the name, most of the lenses used in today’s prescription eyeglasses are in fact made of plastic. And thanks to modern technology, due mainly to advances in lens construction, they are a lot more affordable than ever before. In fact, redistribution programs exist for prescription eyeglasses that allow for the donation of gently used pairs to the poor and needy, a significant factor in reducing a worldwide public health issue.

Traditionally the most expensive part of a pair of prescription eyeglasses, modern lenses are constructed of plastic and are manufactured overseas. But despite the negative connotations surrounding the word “plastic,” lenses produced of the material are lighter weight and a lot more durable than the glass ones prior to use of plastic lenses.

And believe it or not, plastic lenses are optically more advantageous than glass, allowing light to pass through significantly better even as they absorb harmful ultraviolet rays in a much greater amount. They are thinner, too, vastly increasing wearer comfort while much more shatter-resistant. And now even flexible frames are obtainable for casual use at ordinary prices! Moreover, thanks to the web, cheap eyeglasses can be readily purchased.

However, it’s a great idea for an eye exam whenever you wish to get a new pair (unless, of course, you’ve already had your eyes examined quite recently – once a year is considered just fine, with no more than twice a year deemed necessary), and one convenient way to do both is to go to an old-fashioned brick-and-mortar eyeglass store.

Prescription eyeglasses are here to stay despite advances in laser eye correction surgery. While both methodology and technology continues to improve, they may soon reach their limit with guaranteed 20/20 vision for all still unachieved, necessitating the regular purchase of low-cost prescription eyeglasses.

Fishing is a popular sport even in our world of modern day conveniences. It seems simple enough, conceptually, but in reality there’s a lot technical knowledge involved. Even the simple fishing rod is not immune – there are, for instance, over three hundred various kinds of Lamiglas fishing pole available. Lamiglas is a specialty manufacturer with specific rods for specific breeds of fish.

To a layman, it may seem surprising, but given all of the different species of fish there are to be caught, it is logical for a rod to be produced with performance characteristics that will best help the angler get his or her catch! Such a variety of rods also makes sense when you consider that there are tens of millions of recreational fishermen and women around the world.

And so each Lamiglas fishing pole is made by hand, individually, with good old-fashioned craftsmanship right alongside the most modern advances in materials science. That’s over three hundred fly, surf, fresh and salt water rods for steelhead, salmon, bass, and just about any other type of fish. Lamiglas fishing poles are popular with recreational anglers. At fishing tournaments, it’s interesting to see all the various designs sported, each individually suited to all the different personal casting styles and fishing conditions possible!

This profusion of rods is most common to sport fishing, but their advanced technologies make them particularly appropriate for subsistence fishing, also known as artisan fishing, an ironic synonym that usually conveys connotations of upscale excess but which here in this context probably refers to the fact that such fishing, in order to be environmentally sustainable, takes the type of care more commonly associated with the endeavors of traditional artisans and craftsmen.

Subsistence of artisan fishing is almost always less intensive and less stressful on fish populations than are modern day industrial techniques, which fact is due in large part to its more traditional methods and individual scales.