Things your cell phone
CAN'T do.
Unlock your car
No one seems to know where this story came from, but it’s
been circulated in a number of emails. The basic idea is
that you’re out and about and in your frenzy to get things
done, you lock your keys in the car. Crap. But, being clever
and knowing you have a spare set complete with keyless entry
at home, you call home and have someone press the button on
your spare set to unlock your car over the phone. The signal
goes through the phone, to your car and you’re driving
again. Now that’s crafty.
So popular is this myth
that the Mythbusters themselves had to test it. Guess what
they discovered… you’re going to be pointing your phone at
your car for a long, long time.
The problem is the
phone uses an audio frequency while your keyless entry is on
a much higher radio frequency. Which is to say you’re
dealing with apples and oranges and once that keyless
frequency hits your cell phone, it’s not going to get
translated through to the other side at the same frequency.
So no, you can’t unlock your car with your cell phone,
unless you plan on using it to break a window.
Blow up a Gas Pump
This winner has become so ingrained in our minds that gas
stations actually have signs asking you to not use your
phone while at the pumps for fear of a massive fireball of
death and destruction, all because you needed to say
goodnight to grandma. But when’s the last time you saw this
happen on the news?
As it turns out, in the entire
history of the entire world, there has never been an
incident where someone blew themselves or any gas stations
up with a cell phone. It’s a complete fabrication.
According to Snopes, the story just showed up one day in
1999. And every time it got mentioned, they said the
explosion happened somewhere else. So basically it’s a
friend of a friend story, only in this case the friend is an
explosion, and no one’s ever seen it in person.
The
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and the
American Petroleum Institute both agree that phones just
don’t blow things up and they’ve never seen any evidence to
suggest they do. Any news reports that have attributed fires
to the use of phones were later proved false when someone,
you know, actually looked for the real cause.
Disrupt equipment at a hospital
Similar to no phones at the gas pumps, most hospitals
have signs in place telling you to turn off your phone.
While some have phone use in designated areas which us
regular folks assume must be lead shielded rooms or some
such, other hospitals ban them altogether. The fear is that
cell phone signals may interfere with the machines being
used to keep people alive. There are even reports that the
use of cell phones in hospitals has been a contributing
factor in the death or serious injury to patients as a
result of machines malfunctioning, delivering incorrect
amounts of medication and so on.
However, the FDA has
no information whatsoever on cell phones causing any deaths
in hospitals the FDA has no information whatsoever on cell
phones causing any deaths in hospitals, nor has any medical
journal mentioned it. Reports that cell phone interference
has caused incubators, heart monitors and IV pumps to go all
wonky are the main cause behind the cell phone bans in
hospitals, however the evidence for these is also sketchy.
Just what is it that would cause the problem, anyway?
In 2007, the Mayo Clinic decided to do a study to see
what the effect of cell phone interference was, so they used
phones near 200 different pieces of hospital equipment. The
end result was that the observed no clinically important
interference at all.
So are you safe using a phone in
a hospital? Probably, just keep in mind that if they have
signs up and you refuse to put the phone away, they can and
will have security take you out. In 1998, a man in
Massachusetts was pepper sprayed for not hanging up.
Probably best just to leave a message and call back later.
From an email
It seems she needs to look
in the dictionary again.
House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that Republicans
have left their mark on the healthcare bill and should
accept that the bill will go forward.
"They've had
plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard," she said
on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday morning.
"Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be
bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left
their imprint."
The public option, for example, has
been stripped from the bill because Republicans were so
adamantly against it, she said.
"They've had a field
day going out and misrepresenting what the bill says,"
Pelosi said. "But that's what they do."
On ABC's
"This Week," just a few days after the bipartisan healthcare
summit, Pelosi said, "What's the point of talking about it
any longer?"
MORE:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/84089-pelosi-gop-has-had-its-day-217-healthcare-votes-in-sight
Eh... if it HAD of gone
badly, they would be complaining they didn't do enough!
The warning was ominous, its predictions dire:
Oceanographers issued a bulletin telling Hawaii and other
Pacific islands that a killer wave was heading their way
with terrifying force and that "urgent action should be
taken to protect lives and property."
But the
devastating tidal surge predicted after Chile's magnitude
8.8-earthquake for areas far from the epicenter never
materialized and by Sunday, authorities had lifted the
warning after waves half the predicted size tickled the
shores of Hawaii and tourists once again jammed beaches and
restaurants.
Scientists acknowledged they overstated
the threat, but defended their actions, saying they took the
proper steps and learned the lessons of the 2004 Indonesian
tsunami that killed thousands of people who didn't get
enough warning.
"It's a key point to remember that we
cannot end the warnings. Failure to warn is not an option
for us," said Dai Lin Wang, an oceanographer at the Pacific
Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. "We cannot have a
situation that we thought was no problem and then it's
devastating. That just cannot happen."
Hundreds of
thousands of people fled shorelines for higher ground
Saturday in a panic that circled the Pacific Rim after
scientists warned 53 nations and territories that a tsunami
had been generated by the massive Chilean quake.
It
was the largest-scale evacuation in Hawaii in years, if not
decades. Emergency sirens blared throughout the day, the
Navy moved ships out of Pearl Harbor, and residents hoarded
gasoline, food and water in anticipation of a major
disaster. Some supermarkets even placed limits on items like
Spam because of the panic buying.
MORE:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jBrcBuf8vcRnbwe8MlMqRV1EnkOwD9E5DRS00
Greetings!
