| |
| Strange But True: Phones
use cell system |
Q: What's the "cellular" in "cellular
phone"?
A: Space in a wireless system is divided into local "cells,"
like polygons in a honeycomb. Travel to Lahore and call home
to your wife in Karachi on your cellular telephone, and your
phone communicates via RF (radio frequency) with the nearest
cell tower, which sends the signal into POTS (plain old telephone
system) to ring up your home telephone. If she's on her cellular
telephone, your signal goes to the Karachi tower with which
her telephone is communicating. Then as the two telephones roam
(venture outside their service providers' coverage), signals
pass from cell to cell. It's a honey of a system, really. Unlike
the old CB radio setup, where one person talks then must wait
while the other person replies, each cellular conversation goes
on two simultaneous frequencies, back and forth, so you could
sing a cell duet, if you please. Limiting talk is the number
of available frequencies per primary RF carrier and the number
of carriers at a given cell site. There may be hundreds of callers
in theory, but most systems don't achieve this many. Then these
same frequencies are reused a couple of cells away, which is
why cellular telephone broadcast ranges are short. So, if a
thousand people in a city block felt a simultaneous conversational
urge, some of them might be forced to forget wireless and make
do the plain old telephone service way.
Q: Their official taxonomic names are "Heerz tooya,"
"Heerzlukenatcha," "Verae peculya," "Mantis
religiosa," "Dicrotendipides thanatogratus" (thanatos
= dead, gratus = grateful), "Gretchena dulciana"--
sweet, "Gretchenaconcubitana"-- possessed and M. dizzydeani
(pitchernonpareil). What's being named?
A: Bugs. These are the formal -- if lighthearted -- designations
for three wasp species, the European praying mantis, a small
fly (named by its discoverer in honor of the rock band), two
insects named after taxonomist Carl Heinrich's love interest
Gretchen, and a "pitching" arachnid spider capable
of tossing pheromone-imbued balls to lure moths, says entomologist
May Berenbaum in "Bugs in the System: Insects and Their
Impact on Human Affairs." Even after a million or more
named bugs, the naming's far from done, as estimates are that
three-quarters of all animal species are insects, and for every
insect already named, there are three to 30 more awaiting appellations.
Q: A reader asks: "I'm 53 and don't understand why I can't
remember where I put my keys 15 minutes ago, but I can remember
every word of the theme from 'Gilligan's Island.'"
A: The problem's not all that mysterious. We all have good recall
of the "Gilligan's Island" song, because we were exposed
to it repeatedly, paid attention to it, and because the song
tells a story. On the other hand, we all forget where we put
our keys because placing them is a single event, we hardly pay
attention, today's placement gets easily confused with yesterday's
and in any case has no real meaning to us. Great keys-memory
would follow if we placed them the same every day, paid attention
as we did so and made up a little song. |
| The Magician’s Art |
Never a victim
of self-doubt, Crowley believed that he was a genius in the
arts as well as in sexual magic. As a painter, he compared himself
with the great French artist Paul Gauguin. As for his poetry,
he noted in his autobiographical confessions the remarkable
coincidence that his native county in England
produced the nation’s “two greatest poets, for one
must not forget Shakespeare." Yeats, who abhorred Crowley,
thought he may have written no more than one or two lines of
real poetry. More neutral critics characterized his work as
second-rate. In any event, Crowley was prolific, producing a
torrent of poetry about magic, sex, and the devil, as well as
several hardcore pornographic works with such names as White
Stains and Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden.
In 1922, he published a thinly veiled semiautobiographical novel,
The Diary of a Drug Fiend, in which an ex-airman named Sir Peter
Pendragon is rescued from heroin addiction by a Mr. King Lamus,
who lives in an Abbey of Thelema. Crowley borrowed the name
King Lamus from a Homeric character, the ruler of a tribe of
cannibal giants.
In later years, Crowley turned from poetry to painting, covering
the abbey’s walls with demonic and pornographic drawings.
Crowley himself was one of his favourite subjects. He admitted
that he lacked “mechanical precision.” But his paintings
had a primitive power ad a strong sense of colour. “His
pictures are interesting solely through their revelations of
a complex soul haunted by a multitude of fantastic visions,”
said a critic at a show of Crowley’s work in Berlin in
1930. The show may have received extra attention because of
Crowley’s disappearance months before. Earlier that year,
to annoy a quarrelsome mistress. Crowley had faked suicide,
leaving a note under a cigarette case at the edge of a steep
cliff. He resurfaced at the art gallery. In fact, Crowley’s
greatest contribution to the arts was second-hand. He was the
model for the title character in The Magician by W. Somerset
Maugham, a contemporary. More recently, some rock musicians
have embraced Crowley, perhaps for his Do What Thou Wilt message
or his use of drugs. Among the faces on the jacket of the Beatles’
“Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album
is the Beast’s. |
|
|
