Saturday, December 27, 2014

What Walkie Talkie Is Best For A Cruise?

Yes, two-way radios DO work on cruise ships. However, because the same channels tend to be a bit overused, passengers can expect a fair amount of chatter and signal interference whenusing their radios.

Here’s some advice from a Woot.com user,

“I suppose the two way radios/walkie talkies would be the best option. But, how important is being in constant communication with the rest of your family anyway? A ship, while large, isn't huge. If you know the general area where people will be, you could walk over and find them. Preset arranged meeting times and places would work as well. People were able to get along fairly well without being able to directly communicate with each other at every moment of the day”.

So, aside from the option of setting pre-arranged meeting times, a radio isn’t a terrible idea, especially if you have kids. Many people reading this might simply ask why they can’t use their mobile phones. That is a very good question, after all...

If you’re going on a cruise this summer (or anytime, really), you need to be aware that your mobile phone is going to cause some problems.

 

Many cruise passengers are unaware and/or totally ill prepared for this fact and the cruise companies themselves are at least partly to blame for the lack of information in this area.

So, will your mobile phone work at sea? To answer this, let’s take a look at the following excerpt from the website ‘Cellular Abroad.com...

“The answer is most often always “You can subscribe to our cruise line cell phone network.” What they won’t tell you is the rates you will be paying. You certainly won’t be able to find them online, and to get a proper answer, you’ll have to call the cruise line to get a full break down of what they charge for access to their cell networks. As a company that sets their own international calling rates for the Talk Abroad SIM Card, we can see the cruise ship networks in our list, and it does not look good. If you subscribe to their network, you’ll be paying anything from $4 ~ $8 per minute, depending on your location and who you are calling. Don’t forget also that they’ll be charging you for receiving inbound calls”.

As we’ll soon see, taking a mobile phone on a cruise can represent a logistical nightmare. At the same time, however, many of us feel naked without a phone?

More problems are presented in the form of scheduled stops (although these can also represent opportunities for a higher â€" and cheaper â€" level of connectivity). To return to Cellular Abroad,

“If the ship is close to the coastline, and has multiple port of call stops, you’ll typically be able to get a terrestrial signal from the nearest land cell phone tower â€" up to a mile from the coast. It’s highly unlikely that you will be connected with 3G speed signals, as evidenced in my previous blog, you will need to have a low-wave 3G frequency like 800 or 900 Mhz â€" frequencies not typically associated with phones manufactured for North American consumers. So what can be done? You can rent an international cell phone that works in port, and a short way out to sea. If you really must stay connected on your boat, get in touch with your cruise travel agency and request information about the on-board cell phone rates and subscription fees”. 

So, using mobile phones on a cruise is both difficult and supremely costly, but arranging a meeting time is also likely to cause more than a few headaches. Two way radios have their problems, but may in fact be the best way to keep in contact, depending, of course, on how important a factor this is for you.

SOURCES:

http://www.cellularabroad.com/blog/do-cell-phones-work-on-cruise-ships-2

http://www.cruisereviews.com/forum/royal-caribbean-cruise-line/12108-we-lose-our-children-regularly-do-two-way-radios-work-onboard.html#b

http://deals.woot.com/questions/details/83b01dc9-9318-4de4-9a2b-f16c18761de7/whats-the-best-way-to-communicate-with-others-on-a-cruise-ship

Monday, December 22, 2014

Kickstarter marketing campaign launched for an earpiece with biometric sensors

With a great deal of information on the net about earpiece's it is hard to discover the top and most direct articles. here’s a piece from a good website that i believe as factual, don't quote me on it but please read and enjoy

Research and development firm Sensogram Technologies announced it has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $250,000 to supplement the manufacturing and refine its wearable health and fitness device, SensoTRACK.

SensoTRACK is able to simultaneously measure and monitor heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation and blood pressure in real time, as well as many other parameters including calories burnt, step count and geophysical location.

Launched on October 14, the Kickstarter campaign is set to run for 60 days through December 12.

Available in six different colors, SensoTRACK will initially be offered in limited availability by February 2015, then expand to full-scale production in the second quarter of 2015.

Though the suggested list price is $245 per device, it is now available for pre-order on Kickstarter for $199.

Operating either as a stand-alone device or a tablet to upload data to a secure cloud server, SensoTRACK can be worn on the ear to wirelessly sense, monitor and track a user’s performance.

SensoTRACK’s algorithms analyze, interpret and present the data in a dashboard display, while the platform allows users to share fitness routines with other users via the cloud platform.

“Whether you are an elite athlete or someone who wishes to chart progress toward greater health, fitness, or just well-being, the feedback SensoTRACK provides can help motivate the owner of the device to reach her/his goal,” said Dr. Vahram Mouradian, founder and chief technical officer of Sensogram Technologies. “Information is power, and SensoTRACK offers users the power to sense, track and manage personal fitness and activities, motivated by the improving health results.”

After four years of development, testing and refinement, SensoTRACK will be manufactured by development partners in Plano, Texas who are in compliance with ISO Standards in both electronics and medical manufacturing.

http://www.biometricupdate.com/201410/kickstarter-campaign-launched-for-earpiece-with-biometric-sensors

Sunday, December 14, 2014

‘Jewel Encrusted Skeleton ‘Saints’ Make Headlines Round the World’

Paul Koudounaris, who is also well-known by his nickname ‘Indiana Bones’ is an novelist, photographer and leading professional on bone-decorated sites and ossuarys. Earlier this year, Koudounaris released a hardback featuring hd images of the 400-year-old ‘catacomb saints’ of Rome, a bunch of corpses that was painstakingly garlanded with jewels and finery prior to being offered as the remains of saints to congregations across Europe.

During the Protestant Overhaul of that 16th Century, Catholic church buildings were routinely stripped of their relics, cryptogram and finery. To be able to defy this, The Vatican had antique skeletons removed out of the Catacombs of Rome and generously bejeweled as a remnants of recognizable saints.

Even though typically forgotten until Koudounaris published his book, the catacomb saints still fascinate interested parties; they may also still inspire religious zeal. In 1977, the town of Ruttenbach in Bavaria labored hard to raise enough funds to purchase back two of their original saints from confidential collectors, the decorative skeletons had initially been auctioned off in 1803.

The book, that Koudounaris has slyly titled ‘Heavenly Bodies’ sees its author attempt to find and photograph each of the existing catacomb saints.

In his prime (a period that lasted over 200 years before decisively coming to a close in the nineteenth century), the saints traversed in all places, being transported at vast expense by the Church. They were respected as objects of care, or conduits for prayer.

Though the saints could appear odd to modern eyes (one Telegraph reporter described them as ‘ghastly’), it is crucial that you understand that those that prayed at the feet of the gilded cadavers were a great deal nearer to demise than their contemporary counterparts. In the wake of The Black Death (which recurred frequently throughout Europe from the 14th to the 17th Centuries), art, literature and also worship had moved to accept such ghoulish, macabre imagery.

The remnants were regularly adorned by nuns and sometimes positioned in various realistic poses, before being secured in glass cabinets. Some of our careful decoration took as long as five years to complete, with jewellery and costumes being exceptionally impressive.

Koudounaris’ book, ‘Heavenly Bodies’ is on the market now.

Want to get the original post look here

Saturday, December 13, 2014

British Actor ‘Outed’ by simple Guardian Blunder

Guardian columnist Jane Czyzselska, writing for the newspaper's companion website, mistakenly 'outed' Shakespearean actor and 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' star Patrick Stewart as being gay.

In a column celebrating 'Inception' actress Ellen Page actually coming out as gay, Czyzselska wrote "some gay people, such as Sir Patrick Stewart, think Page's coming out speech is newsworthy because a high-profile and surprisingly politically aware young actress has decided not to play by the rules that so many closeted Hollywood actors are advised to follow if they are to enjoy mainstream success,"

It just so happens that the 73-year-old Shakespearean actor, best known for his roles as Professor Charles Xavier in the 'X-Men' movies and as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the TV series 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and its companion films - isn't gay.

In fact, Stewart has been married - to Women - three times, most recently in September of last year, when he married American jazz singer Sunny Ozell. He also has two children from a previous marriage.

The Guardian rushed to correct its mistake, adding an addendum at the bottom of the page, but Stewart didn't seem to mind a bit.

"It makes a nice change" tweeted Stewart in response to the 'outing'. "At least I didn't wake up to the Internet telling me I was dead again". At the time of writing, that post has been 'retweeted' 1,181 times.

For those who don't know, Sir Patrick Stewart is a huge supporter of LGBT rights. He vocally supports gay marriage and was even given the 2013 'Straight Ally of The Year Award' from PFLAG.



Fellow 'Star Trek' star William Shatner joined in the fun, Tweeting, "I never get that kind of coverage! I'm jealous!"

The confusion may have arisen because Sir Patrick's best friend is openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen. If that was the case, Stewart tweeted this response: "I have, like, five or even SEVEN hetero friends and we totally drink beer and eat lots of chicken wings!" Is it just me, or is it impossible to read the above quote without hearing Captain Picard's voice in your head?

On a more serious note, Stewart has often spoken about civil rights, he once said, "From my earliest years as an actor I have always been proud of the support the creative community gives to all forms of human and civil rights,"

In fact, Patrick Stewart is no stranger to fighting the good fight, the actor has been a vocal opponent of domestic violence (working with Amnesty International) and he is also a patron for Refuge, a UK-based charity for abused Women.

... And no, he isn't dead.

you can find more info from this website here

Friday, December 12, 2014

Mars Rover Spots UFO...Or Does It?

After much global speculation, NASA has at last put out an official statement regarding the true identity of the ‘white spot’ or ‘UFO’ seen on Mars by the Curiosity Rover on June 20th.

...Sadly, the UFO in question turned out to be only as extraterrestrial as a camera glitch.

Interviewed by The Huffington Post, Justin Maki, the main camera operator for the rover, said, "This is a hot pixel that has been around since we started using the Right Navcam (...) In the thousands of images we've received from Curiosity, we see ones with bright spots nearly every week, these can be caused by cosmic-ray hits or sunlight glinting from rock surfaces, as the most likely explanations."

As any photographer will tell you, ‘hot pixels’ sometimes occur during long exposure shots. Such glitches are usually caused by the camera’s sensors momentarily overheating (although they pose no danger to the camera equipment itself).

Amateur photographers occasionally mistake hot pixels for paranormal phenomena as well. In fact, the ghost website ‘Photographing The Paranormal.com’ actually has a section on these little buggers. It warns potential ghost hunters that,

“A perfectly symmetric small red dot in your picture is probably nothing paranormal, especially if it is at the same spot in most of your pictures. That’s actually called a hot pixel, if you spot one, don’t call the press!”



Older astronomy enthusiasts will no doubt be reminded of the discovery of the ‘Martian face’, a famous image captured by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976.

Various theorists hurried to suggest that the ‘face’ was evidence of a long-lost Martian civilization (complete with ‘pyramids’ and everything), but it was actually just a large formation, captured by the relatively low-resolution cameras of the 1970’s, that looked a bit like a face.



Modern images, of course, reveal nothing so grand. The ‘Martian Face’ fiasco is now seen as an example of paraeidolia, a psychological phenomenon that sees people finding recognizable patterns in otherwise random sounds and images, examples of which include The Man in the Moon, Rorschach tests and those times when people see the faces of religious figures in ordinary household objects.

So it seems that there was no reason for us to get excited after all (except that pictures of Mars are unassailably cool).

...Of course, the conspiracy nutters are never going to buy it, but hey, what can you do?

Sunday, December 7, 2014

New Doctor Peter Capaldi’s First Day on Film set

Series 8 of the hit British TV series ‘Doctor Who’ has officially started production in Cardiff, Wales. This series will feature the first adventures of the new lead actor, Peter Capaldi, a prospect that has fans of the series very excited.

The show, which debuted in 1963, has starred 12 actors as the titular Doctor. Capaldi, a lifelong fan of the series, is to be the 13th (although he will be recognized as the 12th within the show’s storyline). Said Capaldi of the show, “I was five when the show started. I don’t remember Doctor Who not being part of my life, and it became a part of growing up, along with The Beatles, National Health spectacles, and fog. And it runs deep. It’s in my DNA...”



The character of the Twelfth Doctor briefly appeared in the 50th anniversary special ‘The Day of the Doctor’ last November and officially debuted on Christmas Day 2013 in the episode ‘The Time of the Doctor’, although he made his appearance only at the very end. Capaldi has replaced former Doctor Matt Smith, who had been the series’ lead actor since 2010.

Peter Capaldi, who is both a BAFTA and Academy Award winner, has appeared in Doctor Who before, playing the role of Lucius Caecilius Lucundus, a real-life banker who lived in the ancient Roman city of Pompei. He also featured in the Doctor Who spinoff series ‘Torchwood’, where he portrayed a civil servant. Outside of Who, he is well known for his roles in popular series such as ‘Skins’ and ‘The Thick of it’.

Expectations are high for the new series, which began filming this week and will behere. Upon arriving on set, Capaldi said “New job, first day, slightly nervous. Just like the Doctor, I'm emerging from the TARDIS into a whole other world”.

Showrunner Steven Moffat was obviously excited, saying, “The Capaldi era begins!” In an earlier interview, the series boss said of his newest star, "Of course, he's brilliant. And just seeing the energy and vitality that he brings to his performance, he works - he's like Matt - he works, he's a worker. And he's an extraordinary vital performer. The man is not at all elderly in style, he leaps around the place probably more than any other Doctor in that first scene."

Elsewhere, in an interview with ‘Doctor Who Magazine’, previous Executive Producer and Head Writer Russell T. Davies said that the casting of Capaldi as The Twelfth Doctor was “perfect”. He also said, “The moment Zoe Ball said his name was actually quite mind-blowing. I still find it difficult, even now to find adjectives big and bold enough to describe how brilliant this is!

When cast in the role of The Doctor, Capaldi was 55, making him the same age as the first actor to play the character, William Hartnell, when he was cast.

Series 8 of Doctor Who will be broadcast on BBC in the third quarter of this year.

Want to locate the original article take a look Here

Thursday, December 4, 2014

‘New’ Species of Mammal Discovered in South America

American Scientists from the Smithsonian Institute of Washington DC have discovered a new type of carnivorous mammal previously unknown to Western science.

The creature, known as the olinguito, is the first such animal to be discovered on the American continent in 35 years.

Zoologist Dr Kristofer Helgen, who works as the curator of mammals in Washington DC’s National Museum of Natural History, discovered some stored remains in a Chicago museum and was reportedly ‘stopped in his tracks’ upon seeing them.



Following further examination, Helgen says that, "The skins were a rich red colour and when I looked at the skulls I didn't recognize the anatomy. It was different to any similar animal I'd seen, and right away I thought it could be a species new to science."

DNA testing eventually proved that, whilst the 35-cm long olinguito is a type of olingo (a relative of raccoons), it is definitely a distinct species in its own right. However, not content with simply describing the species from the remains, the real challenge for Helgen was to attempt to observe this new mammal in the wild.

Using educated guesswork and clues obtained from the specimen drawer, Dr. Helgen and his team were able to theorize a possible habitat for the olinguito. Their ideas proved to be correct and the animal has since been established as inhabiting a number of protected areas from Central Columbia to Western Ecuador.

This is not the first time that Dr. Helgen has identified new species by examining museum remains. In fact, throughout his distinguished career, he has discovered around 100 new species of animals. As an example, Helgen’s work has demonstrated that the hog badger, presumed simply to be a single, widespread species, was in fact three different species, albeit with similar attributes.



Historical records show that Washington National Zoo actually had an olinguito specimen in the 1960’s, but it was never identified as such. The animal was exhibited as an olinga, but its keepers were puzzled when it failed to breed. Sadly, the captive olinguito died without ever being correctly identified.

It should also be noted that just because an animal is considered ‘new’ to Western science, the term rarely denotes a species completely unknown to Humankind. People native to the areas inhabited by these animals are usually well aware of its presence and indispensable in locating individuals for observation and study by Western researchers.

A host of other new species have already been discovered this year, including the Cambodian tailorbird, a new type of hero shrew, a reef fish from the Caribbean, a beautifully patterned bat from the Sudan and two new spider species (including a grey and black tarantula the size of an open palm).

To Dr. Helgen, this is hardly surprising, "Conventional wisdom would have it that we know all the mammals of the world. In fact, we know so little. Unique species, profoundly different from anything ever discovered, are out there waiting to be found.” He says.

the origin of this piece is here