The curious and unlikely nature of monopoly capitalist entities. No. 47: The airtime provider.

[hirez]

I [heart] my old 8110i, I really do. It's black, doesn't crash, fits my face (ie - is the correct size for a Telephonic Speaking Instrument), allows the user to slam it shut with an imprecation and thus end a call in a dramatic manner for the entertainment of the casual onlooker, and was the real Matrix phone.

But. Battery life is now down to six hours, the SMS capabilities are a bit weedy (a memory of ten messages and no predictive input) and you can't get bits or manuals since Nokia decreed it to be an Unphone in a tediously Orwellian manner.

Thus I determined that I was in requirement of a new telephone and that it would likely be a 7210i. A tedious afternoon of dealing with telephone vendors seemingly more used to the demands and financial practices of the lower orders resulted in the discovery that I would either have to pay full price for the device or engage the services of a new airtime provider. Since keeping the same phone-number was non-negotiable, (When there's a DNS for phones, I'll consider changing it. Until then - No Sale.) there was also an extra round of bureacracy to be played.

I called Cellnet and told the fellow that I needed a PAC.
"You want to change networks?"
"Not especially, but it's the only way I can get a new phone without being ripped off."
"Ok, what sort of deal are you being offered?"
"7210i for 50 notes plus airtime on Voda."
"Hm. How about one for 99 quid plus three months free line rental, delivered to you free Monday AM?"
"Jolly good. I'll take it."

Most odd. From this I infer that a lot of people are paying far too much for Shiny Toys.

In other news, these are the result of following a chance link from BoingBoing and a refusal to wander Camden without a firearm. And very fine they are too.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wires/]

Battery life is now down to six hours...

I *dream* of a six-hour battery life. I'm lucky if mine lasts three hours if I get a call. In fact, I think people are now buying the same model (http://www.denetdesign.com/centro/masol/productpics/savvydb.jpg) for nostalgia value...

fine trousers

[ex-wendles389.livejournal.com]

I shall have to refer eeymsmo to those later...

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

Ah, but does it have predictive sub-text features and make value judgements on your friends?

Nice strides.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think there's an API for the phonebook, so with a brief bit of Symbian-hackery one could flash up a message on incoming calls that relayed the caller's live LJ-gossip status. Labels such as "Twat", "Likely to be needing a shoulder to cry on", "In possession of actionable gossip" or "On the blag for crash-space" could be displayed under their most recent LJ icon.

(The depressing thing is that people would go for that like a pack of rats...)

[quercus.livejournal.com]

So write the bastard.

Mind you, yours would light up with either "Old pikey with incompatible phone (Nokia 502/8110) - probably Dingbat" or "His phone just crashed - it'll be Richard with some new beta-bugware"

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I dunno that I can write proper code these days. I write Perl instead.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Remember our motto - If it's out of beta, it's already obsolete.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I'll put that one with the others shall I? The ones like "It compiles? Ship it!" (Or indeed "Does it look like it should build? Demand money!"), "That's nowhere near ugly enough yet", "Here, I found this in the tip", "My grandad had one of those - it took his ear off unexpectedly" and "There is but one keyboard designed for mortal man and it is the IBM ATX item, if only because it can be used to hammer sense into unbelievers"

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Yes. And could you tuck 'Damn the torpedoes - we're on land!' in a corner somewhere, too ?

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

But not quite enough pockets, I think. We'll have to attempt a Mark II sometime.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes. I note that the Other Ones have an extra fixing below the knee, probably to stop the outers twisting too much.

The next set should be black.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

OK. Well, a couple of pairs of generic black combats should be enough to do it.

Where's the extra fixing ?

Oh - MdR thinks it would be practical to print our own sarcastic camo patterns on Roy's fabric printer, for a suitable fee....

[hirez.livejournal.com]

On the inside seam just below the knee - where the fabric restarts after the cutout, I think.

A couple of those tonneau fixings should do it. Actually, the whole thing could have been held together with them.

Though it would sound like someone rattling the teaspoon drawer when one walked anywhere.

You know, I'm quite partial to the idea of Berlin Pattern fabric. Or dazzle-pattern. Anyone got a tame Vorticist we could borrow?

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

I thought about that, but you'd knock holes in everything you passed. Plus, if we were using those, they should be in long shiny rows.

What's Berlin Pattern look like ?

I wonder if we could make any of these work ?
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/saishin-e.html

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Aha!
http://www.emlra.org/techtalk/berlin_brigade.htm

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Ballardian. (http://www.emlra.org/techtalk/berlin_brigade.htm) Another site calls it 'rectilinear'. It's the camo pattern of drained swimming pools and Lincoln Continentals driven by actresses across the concrete aprons of rocket test establishments.

(You bastard. I've been at the lager. I have to go lie down now.)

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

All your eyeballs are now belong to us.

Err - so what would it look like on clothes ? How big are the squares ?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

The squares appear to change size, depending on vehicle.

I suspect that the effect would not be unlike Copey's trousers on the back of '20 Mothers' - I'm still not entirely sure that would be a Good Thing, but it's probably a worthwhile experiment.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Well, what we (I) obviously really need is a DPM that's most effective against a background of g*ths. So that'll be mostly black with flashes of red, purple and white. Tweaking the colours on the blown-jpeg pattern should work.

[ex-wendles389.livejournal.com]

erk, that link should have a "do not look at if drunk warning" on it! *dizzy*

re: illig.dot.com

[godgirl.livejournal.com]

"We are currently not accepting international orders via the website. We are working hard to provide the best way to make international orders possible. As soon as we have a solution in place, we will be happy to begin taking orders. Thanks so much for your interest in our designs!"

oh arse. they had a nice dress too!!!

:(

Re: illig.dot.com

[hirez.livejournal.com]

That strapless thing?

Well, indeed. You'd look splendid in it.

Why d'you think I chained young jarkman to a sewing-machine?

If these commercial johnnies refuse to play ball, a chap must invoke the uneasy spirit of punk rock and have his tailor run up something on the spot.

Re: illig.dot.com

[godgirl.livejournal.com]

hmmm yes, strapless one!!! see tailoring is one thing, but when theres more than 3 seams invovled i get bored... now, how am i going tomake that hand sewn kimono if i dont get some motivation going???

Re: illig.dot.com

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

It doesn't say they won't accept international orders over the phone...

Re: illig.dot.com

[godgirl.livejournal.com]

im not phonoing the states!!! i like to deal with inpersonal computer interfaces for my shopping greed, having some cheery yankie voice greet me would turn my blood cold!!!

i'll just have to get some nice americans to buy it all for me...

:)

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Camera phone? You'll be needing this, then.

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# MMS DETACHER v2003-09-01-01 by www.andrew.oakley.net
# 1. Send picture message from your camera phone to email.
#    You may include a text comment with the message if you wish.
# 2. Use sendmail etc. to pipe email to this script
# 3. $outputdir will fill with JPG & TXT files named
#    YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.jpg YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.txt

use MIME::Parser;

$workdir='/home/aoakley/aomms/tmp';
$outputdir='/home/aoakley/aoakley.nam-vets.org/phonecam/pics';
while ( $tmpfile=glob("$workdir/*") )
{
  unlink $tmpfile;
}

$p = new MIME::Parser; 
$p->output_dir($workdir); 
$p->output_prefix("tmp");
$p->read(\*STDIN); 

($sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon, $year, $wday, $yday, $isdst) = localtime(time());
if ($isdst)
{
  ($sec, $min, $hour, $mday, $mon, $year, $wday, $yday, $isdst) = localtime(time()+3600);
}
$newfilename=sprintf("%4d%02d%02d-%02d%02d%02d",$year+1900, $mon+1, $mday, $hour, $min, $sec);

if ( $thisfilename=glob("$workdir/*.jpg") )
{
	rename $thisfilename,"$outputdir/$newfilename.jpg";
}
if ( $thisfilename=glob("$workdir/*-3.txt") )
{
	rename $thisfilename,"$outputdir/$newfilename.txt";
}

---

And then...

<!-- PHP to sort & show pictures from MMS Detacher -->
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>Phone Camera Pictures</TITLE>
</HEAD><BODY>

<P>
Phone Camera Pictures

<?
$picdir='pics'; # Eg. relative to /home/aoakley/aoakley.nam-vets.org/phonecam/
$imgwidth=160;
if ( explode ("\n",shell_exec("ls $picdir/*.jpg")) )
{
  ?>
  <P><TABLE BORDER=0>
  <?
  $files =  explode ("\n",shell_exec("ls $picdir/*.jpg"));
  rsort($files);
  foreach ($files as $thisfile)
  {
    if ( preg_match("/\/([^\/]+)\.jpg$/",$thisfile,$matches) )
    {
      $fileroot=$matches[1];
      $friendlytime=preg_replace("/([0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])([0-9][0-9])([0-9][0-9])\-([0-9][0-9])([0-9][0-9])([0-9][0-9])/","$1-$2-$3 $4:$5:$6",$fileroot);
      ?>
      <TR>
        <TD>
          <A HREF="<?=$picdir?>/<?=$fileroot?>.jpg"><IMG SRC="<?=$picdir?>/<?=$fileroot?>.jpg" WIDTH=<?=$imgwidth?> BORDER=0></A>
        </TD>
        <TD>
          <?=$friendlytime?>
          <P>
          <?
          if ( file_exists("$picdir/$fileroot.txt") )
          {
            include "$picdir/$fileroot.txt";
          }
          ?>
        </TD>
      </TR>
      <?
    }
  }
  ?>
  </TABLE>
  <?
}
?>

</BODY></HTML>

Eugh - filthy code.

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

SPOD!!!!!!

Re: Eugh - filthy code.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Looks OK from here. Though I don't do PHP...

[lproven.livejournal.com]

2003 geekphone of choice: 6310i.

Don't fight it.