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justalurkr1. Last time I heard anything about GPS in the newer phones, I was given the impression it couldn't be turned off. Good on privacy advocates if that was true, and they squashed it. The whole GPS thing was just a little too Big Brother for me, except insofar as that poor sod whose phone it was probably would have appreciated a quicker rescue.
What the seem to have done instead sounds like an accurate representation of what we used to do before GPS came to wireless handsets. Someone with executive call processor access (old term for the switches that routed traffic from the tower network to the landline) searched the identifying information about the handset (mobile # and electronic serial #, back in the day) and traced the nearest three towers scanned for strongest signal, which all phones do periodically. From the strength of the ping to each of the three towers, the switch tech could narrow down the phone's location with scary awe-inspiring accuracy. In the pre-Patriot Act days, it wouldn't have done our guy much good; cops had to get the warrant, go through Supoena Compiance, then wait for the tech to work his or her magic.
Post-Patriot Act and post-GPS, there are standing systems to which only law enforcement has access. The wireless carrier hears about their activity only when those systems stop working, and law enforcement needs us to fix them. I understand the supoena scenario has been....streamlined considerably? Is that sufficiently tactful?
Don't yell at your wireless carrier. Most of this law enforcement works for the same organization that provides our license to do business, AKA the federal government.
2. Is incestuous Numb3rs slash so infamously dominant on the intarwebz that we need an entire season devoted to HOW VERY HAPPILY HETEROSEXUAL DA BRUDDERZ IZ, to the point at which they're double dating and squeezing Dad out of the end-of-show tender moment? Is this really necessary?
Does anyone else have the all but ungovernable desire to pull the writers aside, sit them down, take their hands gently and tenderly between one's own, and explain the concept of conduit fic or the fourgy as a beard for homoerotica? Does anyone on the Numb3rs staff really think slashers can't work around their silly, heteronormative machinations?
Anyone know of any fourgy fic out there? [innocent whistle]
3. Did I miss something about Megan's angst? I could have sworn they were working up to a horrific backstory of religious abuse for her, but then they got all topical and made it about current torture practices. Which, yeah, topical, but bitchez pleeeeeez.
4. Did anyone else want to GOUGE THEIR EYES OUT WITH A SHARP ROCK when Amita not only got the Magic Math Moment, but a fond, proud grin from Charlie? And verbal acknowledgement of how absitively posolutely marrrvelous she is? Am I oversensitive in attributing a battered and bruised feeling to how...enthusiastically...the writers are ramming the Princess of Het into every orifice of my brain?
Do the writers think this is actually doing the character any favors whatsoever? Is the less-sane portion of my brain over the line for flinging its body across the barriers, screaming "AMITA SUE! AMITA SUE!" ?
4.2 (addendum to the Het Horror) Was I meant to believe, even for five consecutive seconds, that Charles Mathematician, Esq., would look twice at a numerologist, even if she should make so bold as to strip naked and do a Fibonacci table dance for his scientific analysis? Srsly, doodz, y'all need to get out more.
Other than that, this ep was the most fun I've had with the plot + math so far this season.
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Date: 2007-10-20 11:09 pm (UTC)