Interesting Links for 27-02-2012

• Paypal forces publisher to censor themselves
  (tags: writing censorship paypal )
• On feminism
  (tags: feminism )
• Scotland and Ireland in the British Parliament
  (tags: ireland independence politics uk scotland )
• Spain will not veto an independent Scotland joining EU
  (tags: independence uk scotland eu spain )
• Kripke resigns as report alleges that he faked results of thought experiments
  (tags: academia funny satire philosophy )
• New figures show low level of benefit fraud
  (tags: benefits welfare uk fraud )
• What happens to the cocain in Coca-Cola?
  (tags: manufacturing cocacola cocaine )
• Labour still pushing the Digital Economy Act. (And, for this and numerous other reasons, not getting my vote)
  (tags: politics uk copyright labour )
• Measuring fragmentation in Android
  (tags: mobile_phones software android )
• When misunderstanding slang causes a massive waste of resources
  (tags: usa funny lgbt slang )
• Would you like a phone with a 50" screen?
  (tags: Technology projector mobile_phones )
• FBI Turns Off Thousands of GPS Devices After Supreme Court Ruling
  (tags: law gps technology usa privacy )
• One of my favorite book-related stories ever
  (tags: awesome usa books )
• Like music? Go vote in the Rock And Roll March Madness. (This is the anchor post, click on to see more)
  (tags: BartCalendar music )
• A Steam Train on the London Underground
  (tags: london transport trains video )
• The Flying Baby Photos
  (tags: baby photos )
• Why I’m Not Discussing Politics Much Right Now
  (tags: uk politics )
• The Racist Tree, a parable
  (tags: story racism )

Android irks me

Android's location service does a very neat trick whereby it looks around for Wifi signals, and then checks to see if any of the nearby access points have a known location. If so it can tell where you are very accurately. If you're in range of 5 or 6 access points then it can get a very good idea of exactly where you're standing.

This is, sadly, bugger all use if your Wifi is off, as mine tends to be whenever I'm out, so I can save battery power*. While it will happily activate the GPS** which takes at least 30 seconds to locate me with any accuracy, turning on my Wifi for 5 seconds to spot where I am is apparently beyond them.

So I have raised a defect. And if this would ever have been useful to you, then feel free to go along and let them know.

Not that I expect any changes, but I can always live in hope.



*I have an enlarged battery in my phone, which means I could theoretically leave the Wifi and still last more than a day, but I'd rather not drain it unless necessary.
**thus draining the battery far faster than Wifi does.