The LA Times ran a story a couple of days ago which shed some light on the reason why the humble text message, or SMS, was restricted on its inception back in 1985 to 160 characters. There were technical reasons why the messaging protocol could only cope with 140 x 8-bits (or 160 of the GSM's 7-bit character set) but the burning question was whether this would be sufficient space to convey anything useful. Friedhelm Hillebrand, one of the researchers on the project, spent some time tapping out random sentences and questions, and came to the conclusion – despite the doubts of some colleagues – that 160 characters, including spaces and punctuation, would be "perfectly sufficient" for people to literally get their messages across. And so SMS was born. ( Read more... )

Most of us devote at least some subconscious time to dreaming up money-making schemes that might see us through the recession and allow us to be freed from the tyranny of mortgage payments and the questionable man-management skills of our bosses. Trouble is, few of us have any kind of entrepreneurial flair. Around the corner from my flat, a Sri Lankan chap recently opened a shop selling party accessories – hats, streamers, baubles and so on – and, according to the blackboard outside, he specialises in "puberty ceremonies". Now, I wish him well, but I have a horrible feeling that the demand for, uh, puberty-related bunting in this part of London is on the low side. I certainly don't recall any fanfare or fireworks when I passed into something resembling manhood. I just recall spending a lot of time listening to The Cure and crying for no reason, although that might have been because I was listening to The Cure. ( Read more... )

I've got a landline, but I never receive any exciting calls on it. This isn't because my social life is barren – seriously, my flat is like Notting Hill Carnival 365 days a year, with slightly fewer muggings – but because I don't really see the point of telling anyone the number. I've got a mobile phone in my pocket for 16 hours a day, so if someone wants to call me, they may as well use that. The only people who do call me on the landline are telemarketers and my mum, who are pretty similar in the way they try and get me to answer difficult questions.

And I don't use it for outgoing calls, either – mainly for the sake of convenience, because all the numbers I use are sitting in my mobile and only require me to scroll to the picture of someone's face and stab them in the nose with a grubby index finger in order to get put through. It's possible that I'm wasting money by not using a landline – BT certainly thought so in this utterly impartial survey – but the complexity of comparing landline rates (and their evening/weekend allowances and friends-family discounts) with mobile rates (free minutes, peak/off peak, home/away networks) just becomes impossible to do without a calculator, several months of previous bills, your own comprehensive call history for the month so far and a spreadsheet blu-tacked to the wall. ( Read more... )

You don't often hear people claiming that downing a bottle of gin has no effect on their driving skills. Unless they've already had the gin, they're motoring ferociously down the A24 and you're sitting in the passenger seat, in which case it would be advisable to get them pull over and take the wheel yourself. Unless you've had a similar amount of gin, in which case it might make sense to pull over and just quietly sit on the outskirts of Leatherhead for however many hours it takes for gin to stop messing with both your central nervous systems.

You do, however, hear people saying that using a mobile phone while they're at the wheel doesn't affect their ability to stop at red lights or avoid slaughtering innocent pedestrians. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, everyone is incredibly defensive about their ability to operate a motor vehicle; dare to suggest to someone that they drive too fast, and most of them will indignantly speed up by about 3mph while muttering something about never having had an accident. ( Read more... )