sundries

[rm]

Two days ago Katie Allison Granju's 19-year-old son Henry died. Katie is someone very important to my friend sociallyawkrd and she would like you to know about what happened and how you can help the family.

NYC-area cat needs home ASAP.

Paul Cornell's pilot Pulse is airing tonight. Both Paul and the stuff he makes are good, so if you're in a place you can check out the program, you should.

Tonight, Ovo!

Ceremonies start for domestic partnership in New York. This is complicated, because first they aren't "civil union" they are "domestic partnership" and convey a very limited number of rights that are relevant only at the city level. They are also open to straight couples as well, and in fact more straight people in NYC than gay people register for DPs. On the other hand, it does acknowledge that we deserve better.

Unlimited data plans on mobiles go bye bye. Shit.

Legal protections coming for nannies and other domestic workers in NYC.

Catholic university Seton Hall weighs course on gay marriage.

Lt. Dan Choi and Capt. James Pietrangelo II end hunger strike over DADT.

Two people in Pakistan have been jailed for attempting to perform a 'gay' marriage ceremony. The pair, one of whom keeps having their gender-identity misreported (see comments on this post, not the linked article, for more info), deny they are in a relationship.

A Chinese has launched a program to turn boys into 'real men' amidst fears that boys are becoming 'sissies.' UGH.

Yesterday, the nuclear option for the oil spill briefly made the front page of the New York Times. Holy crap.

It's to Write Shit Like This That We Become Journalists #1: "The Brevard County doctor who was arrested for groping a woman while dressed as Captain America with a burrito in his pants will not go to jail." via womzilla

It's to Write Shit Like This That We Become Journalists #2: "A manhunt is under way today for a fired porn actor who went berserk at a Southern California production studio after he lost his job there, killing one co-worker and wounding two others with a sword that was used as a movie prop, police said." via coyotegoth

Last night on Buffy: Willow goes goth to avenge Tara's death. The opening of this with Willow sobbing over Tara's body, that was wrenching and got me far more than the previous episode. Also, shit, Osiris is scared of her. This is ... DON"T THEY HAVE WATCHERS FOR WITCHES WHO COULD BLOW UP THE WHOLE PLANET?

Comments

[sethg]

Two things to note about AT&T’s bye-bye-unlimited-data announcement.

AT&T’s high-speed (“3G”) high-speed cellular network is generally reputed to be awful; Verizon and Sprint (whose networks are not compatible with the iPhone) have built out their networks more. The exclusive deal with Apple for iPhones has been a godsend for AT&T, because it gives people an incentive to sign up for AT&T data plans in spite of the crappy network.

My Nokia N900 can connect to Wi-Fi hotspots, and if I’m in a place with such a hotspot, it can automatically send data through Wi-Fi rather than using the cellular network. Is this standard on iPhones and other Web-browsing phones? If so, the restriction on how many megabytes per month you can send through the cellphone network wouldn’t be so onerous.

(Disclaimer: I work for Nokia, which sells phones that work with AT&T’s network, and which competes with Apple in the smartphone market.)

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

Maybe. I can speak more to non iphone smart phones and blackberry devices. Specifically the blackberries can be set up to do that or if they are on enterprise servers they can be restricted. I will tell you that we have had much much better luck in Memphis with the ATT 3G than with Verizon which made me weep because we had so much data issues. In general outside of that area our users complain about ATT and worship Verizon.

I am pretty sure the iphones can be set up like that because the ipod touch does the same thing.

[tlatzomia.livejournal.com]

If the iPhone can be set up to do that automatically, I have no clue how.

[thorn]

Set up to do what automatically? If you mean joing Wi-Fi networks, all the options are under Settings->Wi-Fi. By default the iPhone asks to join any Wi-Fi networks it sees. If you turn off "Ask to Join Networks", you need to manually select the network.

[tlatzomia.livejournal.com]

Aha! Thanks. :)

[textileowl.livejournal.com]

And even if you don't have it set to automatically join Wi-Fi, when you go to use Safari or an app that requires an internet connection, the phone will ask if you want to connect as long as there is a network available.

[tlatzomia.livejournal.com]

I've never had that happen, but I generally have WiFi turned off for some reason. This should cut down on my AT&T charges....

[textileowl.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. looking at my settings, you have to have the Ask to Join Networks set to On for it to do that.

[tlatzomia.livejournal.com]

I'll play around with it. Currently, I'm on an unlimited plan, so it shouldn't change--I'm more concerned about it changing when I upgrade my phone in July to a different smartphone. If I can keep the usage under control, I can spend less. We checked the bill last night, though, and I was just over 2GB last month.

[textileowl.livejournal.com]

*nods* I've the unlimited as well, and am hoping to keep it for as long as possible though I haven't checked my usage lately.

[tlatzomia.livejournal.com]

I checked it when I heard about the plan changes. To be fair, it would be cheaper to get the cheaper limited plan, but I don't know if I can curb my usage that much! I'm 8 months pregnant, not supposed to be at my computer often, and don't have a laptop. *cries*