What I Learnt Today

How much do you have to carry with you when you go out? Have you got your phone? How many cards have you got in your wallet? Your licence? And cash? Google and Apple want to take care of all that worry for you.

But first, some discussion of ‘contactless smartcards’.

Have you used the new “PayPass” system? New Mastercard and Visacards include a little chip, that let’s you wave your card in front of a special sensor. The purchase price is automatically taken from your account. No signing, no PIN. Ideal for small purchases from, say, the newsagent, or a coffee shop, or on the bus. The current upper transaction limit is $100.

The Japanese are very skilled at moving lots of people around quickly. Ski lift tickets in Japan use a smartcard technology, so that you just need to strap the card in a pouch to your upper arm. It is checked when you bump your arm against a sensor at each lift. No need to fumble with gloves to take the card out of its case.

At our local hospital, I can just  hold my wallet with my hospital ID card up to the boomgate – no need to take the card out.

And many transport systems use contactlesssmartcards so that passengers don’t have to muck around with coins and tickets. London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Melbourne have such systems – Sydney has spent a fortune without being able to achieve it. It was due before the Sydney Olympics- as reported this week in the SMH.

A contactless smartcard contains a coil of wire and a small antenna and a chip – but no battery. The electrical energy to power the chip and to send the signal is supplied by the receiver pad using an ‘Induction Loop’, sending small amounts of electrical charge wirelessly over a short distance (typically about 4-7cm). The coil converts the wireless signal to electricity, which powers the chip to send your details via the little antenna to the receiver.

Google has made some fanfare this week about the trail of an electronic wallet-phone using  ‘Near field communication (NFC)’.

NFC allows the use of contactless technology similar to that on the smartcards we have discussed, but in a mobile phone.

Using NFC, your phone will act as your wallet. Wave it next to the sensor, and your purchases are made. The advantage of a phone over a card is that it is ‘smarter’ – it can transmit more details. Potentially, you could select which credit card you wished to use. You could enter a PIN number so that you could transact more expensive purchases. You could link it with vouchers – say a 2 for 1 pizza offer, or your customer loyalty card. And it could contain your drivers licence, boarding pass, ‘bundy’ card, and car key.

Many predict that Apple will also include NFC in the iPhone 5.

Eventually, all you will need to carry with you when you leave home will be your phone. You will be able to make small and large purchases, and provide identification for all the services you need.

Just make sure you have it charged!

What I Learnt On 2nd June in other years

2nd June 2021 Seth and the Penguin

2nd June 2020 Be kind wherever possible …

Spooky. Today I learnt about the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon from my friend Andrew, and here it is mentioned again in this WILT post.

As defined by damninteresting.com, “Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one happens upon some obscure piece of information– often an unfamiliar word or name– and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase “That’s so weird, I just heard about that the other day” would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.”
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomenon

Damn interesting.

The BM Phenomenon is related to ‘synchronicty’. Have you ever been thinking about someone when the phone rings – and by chance it is that person? That’s synchronicty.

The Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon and synchronicity happen so often that they can’t be just co-incidence, can they?

Well, in fact, yes, they can.

Our brain likes to make patterns out of things. Think about how many thoughts we have each day – 99.999% of these are not remarkable for Baader-Meinhoff or synchronicity – they pass through to the keeper. We have so much data to take in each day that the odds are that there will be some matches sometimes – and our brain will spot the pattern and switch on the light globe of recognition. Ding! “That’s weird.”

This process is amplified by the recency effect. The more recent something has happened, the greater the significance we attach to it.

This phenomenon has nothing to do with the Badder-Meinhoff gang, or Red Army Faction, who were a German terrorist group, founded by Andre Baader and Ulrike Meinhoff in 1970. Whoever named this phenomenon must have heard that gang mentioned twice, and claimed the naming rights. I wish it had been an easier word to spell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction

radiolab.org have previously had a fascinating podcast on the role of randomness in our lives, Stochasticity, and our inescapable need to seek out patterns. You don’t want to miss the story of Laura Buxton, aged 10, who found a balloon with a message attached that had blown randomly from the other side of England, having been released by another little girl, also aged 10, and also called Laura Buxton! http://www.radiolab.org/2009/jun/15/

(in the next few days, you can expect to hear more about Bader-Meinhoff or radiolab or synchronicity or the recency effect or……….)

What I Learnt On 1st June in other years

1st June 2021 When Push Comes to Shove

Someone very close to me may always be late, but is always worth waiting for.

The same can be said for the Sydney Morning Herald (and Age) iPad app, released today.

On first testing, it is evident that it takes full advantage of the electronic medium.
A more magazine style approach is used than the broadsheet paper version, with glorious colour photos and liberal inclusion of video.

The app updates its news regularly, and includes the latest headlines in a special ticker.

Sports has extended coverage, including a live score feed.

Navigation is easy, and the Editor’s Choice page offers a selection of recommended articles.

The full range of articles from the last week are available, including those from the Good Weekend, Domain, Sunday Life, the Guide and Travel sections.

You can set which sections you want to be downloaded for offline reading, and ‘star’ articles for reading later. Pages can also be shared via meal, Twitter and Facebook.

Advertising is much less intrusive than it has become in The Australian app, which came to market very quickly after the iPad launched. Until now it has set set the standard. News Corp will need to raise the bar to catch up with this effort from Fairfax.

You can tell I’m pretty impressed, especially as thanks to sponsorship from Telstra it is free until December! After that it will be $8.99 a month. That gives them a good chance to make it an indispensable part of our ‘daily office’.

What I Learnt On 31st May in other years

31st May 2021 The Theory of Maximum Taste

When we first set out on the traditional Australian pilgrimage to The Old World, “Let’s Go Europe” was our friend. We wouldn’t stay at a pensione that han’t been ranked highly by their team of volunteer contributors, all American students.

You can still go with “Let’s Go“‘, but Lonely Planet has taken its place as the number one travel bible on the planet.

You can tell when you’re in a restaurant that has been reviewed favorably by Lonely Planet – no matter how isolated the village, everyone else in the place will also have  a copy sitting on their table.

Lonely Planet was established by Tony and Maureen Wheeler in 1973. Their first title was based on their own experiences traveling parts of the hippy route from London to Sydney, called “Across Asia on the Cheap”. Titles about other Asian destinations followed, and in the 1990s Europe and the USA were added to the stable. The Lonely Planet empire now includes more than 500 titles (in 8 languages), TV shows and magazines.

In February this year the Wheelers sold their remaining 25% share to the BBC, who now own the lot. This final sale earned them $67 million. They won’t have any more need for “South East Asia on a Shoestring”

The Lonely Planet empire  maintains it’s headquarters in Footscray, although It announced this month that much of it’s online business would be shifting to London – doing the hippy trail in reverse.

The sight of Lonely Planet books accompanying diners in restaurants may soon be quite rare. Increasingly, the future for Lonely Planet is digital. Most titles are available for iPhone and iPad, and that is certainly a much more muscle-friendly way of carting the information from country to country. And the interactive travel maps are excellent – a little moving blue dot shows where you are in relation to the quaint local eating spot you seek.

The Lonely Planet blog is a good source of information about the latest travel news, especially as certain travel guides will often be made available free of charge on special occasions. We picked up guides to 7 European cities free during the great volcanic ash shutdown last year.

And this leads us to “What I Learnt Today”.

For two weeks, Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2011 (normally $18) is available for free download from the iBooks store

So there’s no excuse. That’s a headstart of $18 on your next $10000 trip.

What are you waiting for?

What I Learnt On 30th May in other years

30th May 2021 Bitcoin explained 698 BC

It has been a big couple of weeks in Ireland, as our Rugby friend Kieran from Dublin has pointed out.

The Queens visit was the first ever by a reigning British monarch since the republic was established in 1922 (Queen Victoria had visited Dublin with similar security fears in 1900).

It was followed only a few days later by President O’bama having a pint of Guinness in his ancestral village, Moneygall.

It appears that against the odds both Heads of State ‘won the hearts’ of the Irish, and provided a much needed distraction from their economic problems.

Kieran points us to these slideshows from the Irish Times, which include the excellent speeches given by the visitors.

The Queens Visit – Slideshow

The President’s VIsit – Slideshow

What I Learnt On 29th May in other years

29th May 2021 The greatest inter-generational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next

29th May 2020 Dustyesky – songs of struggle from the tundra of Mullumgrad