Comments on: Some more things about Taiwan

By: Yours Truly

Yours Truly — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 08:13:19 +0000

Charles, luke & M – Bone : unfortunately in asia, people here have the filthiest of habits. Long fingernails are indeed for the purpose of diggin’ their ears (god only knows what else). I used to live in this cosmopolitan state where I had to experience listenin’ to “symphonized hawkin’ ” early one mornin’ due to the fact the entire block was occupied by foreign workers from mainland china. Can’t blame ‘em, supposedly it “clears” their throats of germs accumulated durin’ sleep. A habit adopted since they’ve been kids, I guess.

By: luke

luke — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:29:48 +0000

Long fingernails in europe, especially the little finger, were an attempt to show off the fact that the grower didn’t do manual labour, you still see some people with extra long nose pickers. Ironically over here it also tends to be machinery operators and the like.
Cell phones work perfectly in the Prague subway (and not at all in other parts of the city!), in Milan they work on a handful of central stops on one line.

By: bryce

bryce — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:10:50 +0000

“Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train.”

Many stations in Japan have such devices too. They are called “clocks”.

By: M-Bone

M-Bone — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:09:37 +0000

“I also long for cell phone jamming inside movie theatres, but unfortunately the technology just isn’t that precise.”

That`s when the Touch of Death comes in handy.

By: Roy Berman

Roy Berman — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:00:51 +0000

“Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train.”
Yes, and so does the L in NYC. The rest of the lines should have it in a few years when the 100 year old mechanical relay based navigation systems are fully replaced with electronic systems. And Penn Station or Grand Central, and other major train hubs, also tell you when trains are leaving, but local stations pretty much never do, which is annoying as hell.

By: Saru

Saru — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:58:01 +0000

“Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train.”

One just has to hope that it’s not a darkened “no passengers” train or so full of people crammed in next to the doors that it’s impossible to get on and stand in the empty space near the center of the car…

By: Joe Jones

Joe Jones — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:53:38 +0000

Yeah, I would definitely not be in favor of allowing people to blab on their phones in a packed subway train. What I would like is the ability to, say, read news sites or update the blog during the 50 minutes a day I spend in subway tunnels.

It’s a pain even to send e-mails: so many times I hit “send,” the train goes out of the station just a second too early, and I end up standing around waiting for two REALLY long minutes, staring at the screen and waiting for the signal to return. Why should one have to chase bars on their phone in the middle of the city?

By: Edokko

Edokko — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:50:12 +0000

“the electronic signs telling you how much time remains before the next train that almost every system outside of the US seems to have.”

Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train. Also, decent cell coverage extends to the entire Metro (if you have Verizon as your carrier—in the future the system may be opened up to all carriers). As I recall, Verizon also has an exclusive in some of the tunnels leading into Manhattan.

By: Roy Berman

Roy Berman — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:09:21 +0000

Why block keitai signals on trains? In all my time in Japan I could probably count the number of times someone has had an annoyingly loud mobile phone conversation on one hand. Everybody just emails, or makes brief and quiet calls. There’s no problem with it here. Now, cell phone jamming IS something I wish New Jersey Transit had almost every time I ride into Manhattan, but of course I have found myself texting or looking at web sites many times.

I also long for cell phone jamming inside movie theatres, but unfortunately the technology just isn’t that precise. Radio waves propagate in a sphere, and I don’t think it would be feasible for a jammer to block the theatre without affecting part of the surrounding area, where you really would not want to jam signals.

By: M-Bone

M-Bone — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:10:17 +0000

I agree with Tomojiro here: they should be trying to block keitai signals on trains (and cinemas).