When I took some time to become fammiliar with Mandarin, main goals were:

1. By understanding their grammar I am much better in understanding them speaking English.

2. Using few sentencies helps break some barriers when meeting Chinese.

3. It is fun to learn something new.

Now... A bit later all three goals are OK, it is first time I tried to learn non-indoeuropean language,
and point 3 definitily justifies time spend.

73
s62d

When I saw "book source", latex was expected.
(As I am incompetent artist, I seek latex book sources to take something consistent for my projects)

No, it is done in ASCIIDOC - yet another book making program.

While TeX and LaTeX are old, they are still excellent tools for the job.
What makes alternatives better? What can not be done properly by TeX?

BR
s52d

A year ago italians drove robot cars from Beograd to Shanghai.
In small russian city, policeman tried yo issue ticket to driver-less car,
while they were preparing for some show in the main city square.

Ticket was not issued: maybe policeman was impressed by several italians talking to him (in italian, not russian),
or he just could not find how to fill up the forms...

Nice article about the trip:
VIAC: An Out of Ordinary Experiment - Computer Engineering Group
www.ce.unipr.it/people/bertozzi/pap/cr/iv2011.pdf

Ciao,
Iztok

It happened to my friend. No hands, no legs.

First we fixed phone: after some research with Android (not really Linux) we ended up
with 5 year old bluetooth car installation: the only one where you can make calls without
any keys, just sound.

Computer is next: some tests were made using joystick (manipulated by head movement)
installed on wheelchair. Not really fun.
There are some expensive monitors with build in infrared cameras tracking eye movement.

Any experience on Linux desktop? Any advice what works?

Thanks,

s52d

At home, 1m from my PC.
And you have my home address from elsewhere, of course.

BR
s52d

Yes, GSM system needs to know the cell you are using during a call.
This seems to be known issue: How come phone exchange knows with whom I am talking?
It seems a bit silly to me, really. If cell is not known, connection can not be established.

On top of it: GSM is TDMA system, so it measures distance to the terminal in cca 550m steps.
It is called Timing Advance, it is needed in order to allign all incomming frames on cell receiver.

Now... Somebody looks at Abis (protocol between cell and Base Station Controller).
You can see measurement reports: with a cell, distance, measurement reports you can guess
approximate terminal location during a call. If you have enough neighbour cells.

They overlooked two minor details:
- you do not know whom you locate
- you have to monitor all possible cells
In fact, you have to double complete operator infrastructure: not an easy task.

On top of it: more and more GSM (BSS) is using IP as transport between cell and system,
especially if collocated with HSPA+ or LTE. IPsec is used on this interfaces.

Even operators, who need this data during system tuning and debugging, have problems to get it.
Special test SIM cards, protocol probes after SGW etc are used. Normally, such tests are prepred
and executed on selected cells: getting all data history for all users is beyond reach of most operators.

It is much easier to get my location using different methods, like asking me politely ;-)

BR
s52d