airplane mode

How does Google Maps know my location when airplane mode is on?

On my phone, I don't turn on GPS, except when I want to use it for navigation. But I always thought that if GPS were on, that putting the phone in airplane mode would turn it off. It never occurred to me that since GPS receives signals instead of sending them, that airplane mode doesn't affect it.

Olympics opening ceremony

I missed the first broadcast of the opening ceremony last night. When I checked the NBC website, it wasn't yet available for streaming. But the TV schedule showed that it was being re-broadcast at 12:30am, so Qiao recorded it for me.

About half-way through watching the recording tonight (I fast-forwarded through some of the parade of athletes), one of the announcers said that what was being shown had some parts edited out, but that the full version would be available online "in the morning". Also, the online version wouldn't have the narration from the announcers.

Yay, because I really don't like hearing announcers talking over everything. And I did want to see the full version of the artistic performances. So at that point, I switched to the online version, streaming it to the TV with an HDMI cable. (I had tested out using MiraCast last week, but it didn't work well for me.) The NBC site lets you watch 30 minutes for free, and after that you have to login with a satellite or cable TV account (luckily Qiao has one of those too) to watch more. It seems the IOC is blocking other sites from showing any videos of it.

I rewatched the part with Kim Nam-Ki's haunting rendition of the song "Arirang" (it starts at 1:18:30 in the online version above); it was much better without the announcers talking over it.

After the part with the synchronized lighted flying drones, I temporarily switched back to the TV version to find out of those really were drones (they were, over 1200 of them!), and not just an edited video effect (because the announcers had earlier said there was some of that too). This part of the broadcast was pre-recorded, but it was still awesome. This was a part of the drone segment, but not the whole thing. A scaled-down live version of the drone show did not take place as had been planned.

The ceremony had a lot of fireworks and other dazzling light shows, very pretty to watch. (Though I wonder how long the fireworks smoke will linger in the area, and if it will affect the athletes.)

The best moments from the 2018 Olympics Opening Ceremony - this is a 3 minute clip with highlights from the ceremony - worth watching if you can't watch the whole thing. It doesn't have the original music, but shows a lot of the fantastic visuals.