My children teach me things on a regular basis.  They don’t realize it most of the time, as most of life’s little lessons you can only learn by being caught in the moment.  Sometimes I learn things because I have to relearn things, like tonight when I had to recall the statistical definitions of median and mode. Every time I learn something from them it’s always a treat and frequently a surprise.

The other night, as I was tucking our daughter in bed, the two of us came upon a discovery.  Above her bed (which is a lofted bed and close to the ceiling) she has glow-in-the-dark stars.  When you turn out the light they glow, of course (hence the name).  Their effect is amplified, though, by the fact that you’re left amazingly blind right after the light is turned out and they’re the only things that you can see (assuming the room is dark enough of course).  In this environment is where we made our scientific discovery. (And no, that picture on the right is not of a glow in the dark star that we’re talking about. It’s a glow in the dark ball but it just looks cooler than a little dot on a wall would have looked and I just like the picture).

Right after the light was turned off, my daughter and I decided to reach out and touch the stars.  What we found was we couldn’t.  Or at least we couldn’t without multiple attempts.  When you can’t see your fingers (because your eyes adjust so slowly to darkness) and the only thing you can see in the star you’re trying to touch, it turns out that your brain just isn’t sure exactly where in space your finger is.  The end result is that you’ll likely miss the star and your finger won’t land right on it.  In fact, you’re sense of where-is-my-finger is so bad you’ll likely get it wrong multiple times in a row (at least until your finger passes between the star and your eyes and gives you a clue). It’s an amazingly frustrating and simultaneously fascinating experiment to try.

Somewhere there is a research paper, or better yet, a school science project waiting to be written on this subject.  Probably involving a large number of study participants randomly poking stars in a dark room and seeing how many times it takes them to really touch the stars.  And somewhere, of course, in the results will be an interesting bunch of statistical data.  Probably involving median and modes.

I expect a mad rush on glow in the dark stars because of this article. It’s an experiment you should definitely try. Preferably with kids, as they’ll make it much more entertaining.

Imagine it. You have a cell phone but get no bill.

Imagine it. You’re in the middle of nowhere Nevada and you get notified of incoming email from your sister three miles ahead, further into nowhere. (She wants to stop for a picnic).

The day is coming

Your mobile phone (or whatever we’ll call it then) will communicate through any local network it can find from the many in range. And it’ll be able to pick the best one without you even realizing it. (Just like cell phones now pick the best cell tower to communicate through).

In the nearish future bandwidth will be so pervasive it’ll be free or close to it. The number of network access spots is already exploding to the point you can find a connection today just about anywhere but the middle of nowhere.

There is, however, a bandwidth crunch coming. Many are concerned about it. There will be a point where you will watch all your “TV” (or whatever we call it) only over internet based sources, because it’ll be cheaper and easier to produce shows and infinitely more flexible to you. This, however, worries the network current carriers because of bandwidth concerns. But that too will pass as technology for delivering data continues to improve. And since video is the most bandwidth intensive service that’ll we’ll likely need for awhile, once the bandwidth problems of delivering lots of video are past there is little else on the horizon to worry about (until we get to the point of needing to ship around 3-D holograms).

Combine bandwidth with access

Eventually we will reach a point where access and bandwidth are everywhere and free or virtually free. there won’t be a reason to leave the fate of our communication in the hands of the few companies that are providing such poor service today.

The upcoming bandwidth availability will be a significant change in the way we live with information, as it will always be nearby.

Imagine getting into the car and it asking you “where are you heading to today?”. We already have cars that respond with a map when you say “longs”. But what we don’t have (and isn’t that far away) is a car that responds “please remember that Longs was bought out by CVS and its name has changed. Also, although the store is open, you should be aware that the pharmacy is closed. Do you still wish to go?” I wish I had that feature the other day…

Combine online inventory and pricing with instantly updating maps and when you ask your car to take you to buy a good quality socket wrench set, it’ll tell you which streets to turn on, what brand choices are “good quality” these days, what the prices will be when you get there and what isles they’re in for the store it has selected for you that carries them.

Or imagine chatting with your friend over a half-double-decaffeinated-half-calf with a twist about an old friend and wondering what they’re up to and suddenly having your phone pipe up with “Charlie is currently living in L.A. And is working as the senior manager of “Tomorrow Land” in Disneyland. How cool and creepy would that be?

Like any revolution, it’s hard to predict what “the other side” will look like. The shift to the internet meant suddenly having access at home to a wealth of information. But soon, with spreading access ability, we’ll get to the point where it will feel odd not to have access.

Imagine never not having information at your instant beck and call.

So, previously I got depressed about SMS conversations with AT&T. I was then consoled and warned at the same time by my friend that I was not alone. And after his advice, and some other random advice from google results I decided to try the magic “stop” word. It is supposed to work when “no” doesn’t. So, when the next message came around:

AT&T from #4436:
AT&T Free Tip: Get weather, movie or restaurant tips from Google
on your phnoe. Text HELP to 466453 to get started.
To end Tips send no to 4436

Ah ha! I got you now silly AT&T. I now know your magic key word!!!

me:
Stop

And then I waited. I’ve never waited so long for a text message. I felt like I was in high school again. Ok, not really.

AT&T from #4436:
You have Opted out of AT&T Tips messages.
Please do not REPLY to this message.

Victory! I stood up, danced around my office and laughed at the ceiling while beating my chest with my fists. Ok, not really either.

But I was happy. Finally an end!

And then…

And then…

5 days later:

AT&T from #1111301000:
AT&T Free Tip: You can check your
voice plan minutes used & sms
messages sent with My Account.
Click Go to try.  To end Tips no
to 4436

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Now, I don’t know if you caught it. Go back, look at that last message and catch the difference. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Done?

You didn’t cheat did you?

Good. You spotted it (I’m giving you the credit here): it’s from a different number. It’s no longer from 4436, it’s now from 1111301000. Now, lets do some quick math. 10 digit number, with 10 possible digits (1-9) in each spot. I actually think that first number is a 1 meaning country code one (+1 is how they write it in the rest of the world; that same “rest of the world” that uses metric and other standardized conventions). So, lets assume that there are only 9 numbers they can vary. That’s 10^9th possible combinations.

Or: 1,000,000,000 (1 billion to save you from counting zeros)

Now, assuming I can send 200 free text messages in a month under my plan (they say their messages are free. They never once say that sending back “no” or “stop” is free), then it would take me….

1000000000/200 = 5,000,000 months to cancel them all with “stop”
which is:
5,000,000/12 = 416,666 years!

Yes! I can actually calculate the days until freedom! (152,187,500 days)

And yes, I included leap years. Because I’m just that much of a geek.