General Thread For This and That!!....

[shaun]

Ronan, to answer your cell phone question.  Remembering back when mobile phones started they were called mobile phones.  Reception was not good because there were not many towers to cover all areas.  I can remember being notified that I was leaving a cell going into a roaming mode.  It either evolved to the term cell phone or was a marketing scheme telling customer that there were more cells with their service.  Now that I think about it a little more I am sure it was a marketing scheme.

By the way the few Chinese women I know call it a cell phone too.  I'm sticking with them. 

[Bee964]

?? Cell Phone: short for Cellular phone. Mobile was just another term for it. It may have started for the first cell/mobile phones were in automobiles?

Vince,

Showing my age here a little but the first time I saw a "mobile phone" in a car was in the tv show "Mannix" (1967 to 1975). He would pick up the handset and ask the "mobile operator" to get the number for him. There may have been one in one of the 007 films but I do not remember this for sure. The first truely mobile phone I remember was in "Get Smart" (the shoe phone).

Dave C

[zook144]

I hate to go off into another direction here. But I have a "this or that" question.   For some reason I have it in my head to always take $20 bills to exchange for Chinese RMB. I don't know if someone told me this or if i had a dream about it      But I was wondering if
$50 and $100 bills would work just as well.
Thanks for your help.
Don

[Arnold]

Don , as far as I know .. they love 100's ( nice and crisp ) , but for 50's is a NO . Their 50 RMB's are the most conterfeited in China I have heard , so I'm sure they don't like ours equally .

[maxx]

Don I've used it all 100,50,20,10,5,1, the only place i had any trouble changing bills was in a jewelery store in Zhuhai.The only way they would take them was if they all had the same mint mark.

I worked for a landscaping company in 1987.A couple of the company trucks had.Phones in them.They didn't work real well.You would dial the number you wanted to call.And it would connect with a complete stranger on a land line in the next city.Or it would go to the mobile operator.And she would dial the number.And the call would still go to the wrong person.The company pulled the phones out of the trucks after a couple of weeks.And sent the phones back to the guy they had bought them from.

If I remember right.The air time on one of thoose phones was way to expensive to make them practical.

[Bee964]

Vince,

Yeah, I know the shoe phone was a fake. It was the concept that I was meaning. The mobile phone. Even though it did not really work it was the idea of it that I was meaning.

I had a radio in the early 70's. I think it was a ham radio. There was a plug for a microphone but I had no microphone. There were 2 units to it. A power supply and the radio tuner. You had to power it up with a 12 volt car battery. There were 2 generators on the power supply part. One big one and one small one. It was all open too. Relays, generators.... The smaller generator was the only one that would ever work. It powered the radio up ok. Well being a curious young teenager I realised that if you hold the relay down for the big generator it would start up...... and as soon as you took your finger off..... you got zapped with several hundred volts!

Dave C

[Paul Todd]

China’s 2010 economic score card
January 19th, 2011


China’s National Bureau of Statistics has released the major figures for 2010.   Here is a snapshot.

GDP 2010:   10.3%, while for Q4 it was 9.8%

CPI 2010:   3.3%, with 4.6% in December.    Food inflation in December 7.2%, non-food 1.4%

Exports 2010: Up by 31.3%, imports up by 38.7.   Net trade balance 6.4% down.

Total investment in fixed assets:   grew by 23.8%

Industrial Production 2010:   up by 15.7%, but only by 13.3% in Q4

Domestic consumption 2010:   up by 18%

Money supply (M2):   up by 19.7%

Electricity consumption 2010:   up by 13.3%

[shaun]

Mike, that is good all the way to the last gag.  Funny.


Paul, I imagine that the 13.3% increase in the electric consumption was all of the western men coming over and trying to stay cool in the summer months.  I did my bit to contribute. 

I find it funny that Hu Jintao was in America last week and the American President was complaining that China didn't allow enough western imports into their country.  I wonder if he looked at these statistics?

[Willy The Londoner]

Hey Willy I just read your last post.And it had allot of spelling mistakes.You had the letter u all over the place.No worries mate I fixed the words for you.Wouldn't want the world to know that the Brits can't spell

Thanks Maxx,

That is extremely kind of you to favoUr this simple Brit because of my lack of the Queens English.  I like the humoUr behind it.
It could be more coloUrful but its OK. shall we move onto organise or rather organiSe my spelling in future years.

Willy

 

[maxx]

Willy no worries.We will set up your own area so you can practice the Queens English.I have a friend who lives in New Mexico.He is from a village just outside of London.Nobody could understand what he said till he had lived in New Mexico for 15 years.So I'm sure that we can help you learn good English.

On a side not thiere was a guy from the U.K. on the official forum.He made a couple of posts.But nobody could understand what he had posted.So after a couple of days.I translated what he posted.So everybody else could understand it. I have done a little work as a translator.And I could probably help you.Get it all sorted out.

Cheerio Willy God save the Queen.

Maxx

[Willy The Londoner]

Willy no worries.We will set up your own area so you can practice the Queens English.I have a friend who lives in New Mexico.He is from a village just outside of London.Nobody could understand what he said till he had lived in New Mexico for 15 years.So I'm sure that we can help you learn good English.

On a side not thiere was a guy from the U.K. on the official forum.He made a couple of posts.But nobody could understand what he had posted.So after a couple of days.I translated what he posted.So everybody else could understand it. I have done a little work as a translator.And I could probably help you.Get it all sorted out.

Cheerio Willy God save the Queen.

Maxx

Its a good thing that I did not come here for teaching then.  I would not last a week!.  I know some Chinese cannot understand every I say in English (they understand nothing I say in Chinese anyway).    When I was in West Africa ,where they speak English well, I needed a local translator to translate my English into their English, although I understood them very well.

So maybe I take up your offer Maxx to sponsor my course.  Of course I will need my sponsor to fork out for first class flight to USA to attend personally and also to allow at least a week in Vegas to get acclimatized (its working already - look acclimatised with a Z not an S.)

Willy

[maxx]

Willy see it is already working.We will have you speaking proper English in no time.I don't think you will have to fly all the way to the States.You seem to be doing very good learning English.So you will not have to make the dreadful flight.And you won't have to go to Las Vegas.And put up with all the noise.And the flashing lights.We have learned with are other students.That the noise and the flashing lights.Really hampers thiere learning ability.So we don't take are students to Las Vegas anymore.

What I can do for you is send you a bunch of English tests.So that we can really evaluate where your English level is.And I can also send you the bill.For my services

[wilsbrough]

You will also notice Willy, that to be able to speak 'proper English' as opposed to speaking English properly. Maxx will also have to teach you the correct grammar as well as the spelling of the words....

[David E]

Browsing through some of my China photos...I came across these two...

For your interest !!!

[Philip]

That's nothing David. In my local town, Sai Kung, there is a Fuk Man Road and a Wan King Passage.