It's a trend towards consolidating all the technology you use the most into one portable set. My phone (a Nokia 6210) is the only piece of technology that I have with me all the time - it's already replaced my watch, my diary, and my alarm clock for the mornings. For people that like to listen to music and record on the go, it will replace their MP3 player/recorders too. Simple as that.
From the main page of BoycottXP.com:Windows 2000 is the first stable piece of crap that microsoft put out and it isn't that bad.
As long as the people that run this site allow this kind of speech on their main page, they will never be taken seriously and will never get the media attention they're after. What a waste...
Re:Christmas isn't about presents
on
Gifts For Geeks
·
· Score: 1
On the subject of what is morally correct for us to be doing around Christmas-time, allow me to digress a little and share with you my Katz-style analysis of the good-will behind Christmas.
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Anyone that sees the words 'Christmas' and 'commercialism' in the same sentence will already have a pretty good idea of the mindless preachings to come. Or how about 'Christmas' and 'sellout'? Hm, let's analyze it and clear away some of the mystique.
What do we enjoy about Christmas? Firstly, Christmas boosts morale (to use the most horrible of sappy phrases) and gives us something to look forward to. I know this because of the feelings of anticipation that run through me when I think of leaving my wonderful place of study in the Greatest of Britain to venture on home to Luxembourg for the three-week family and friends event. Not that I'm a 'family' style cosy-on-the-couch-watching-the-9-o'clock-news sort of person at all, but, for me and others that I know, going back represents something exciting, an annual event the details of which remain under wraps (forgive the pun) until I'm actually there.
The more 'traditional' of us cry out that Christmas is simply a time where everyone spends and spends to each other's material gain. My oh my, what a horrible idea it must be to stimulate the (often depressed) economies of the Christian world for a couple of weeks. The religious meaning of Christmas is far from lost - on the contrary, it's something we are submerged in from beginning to end, from television broadcasts to omnipresent Christmas carols and Christmas-tree figureheads. In fact, one must wonder if the festive period is not simply the time deemed most appropriate by the more conservative Christians to air their frustration at the dwindling numbers of their flock, via the usual channels of accusations of distorting religious events into capitalist spending sprees.
'Peace and good will to all men' (okay, I've taken off the faded argyle pullover) is actually realized at Christmas, but perhaps not in the manner of which The Flock might approve. Instead of walking around with painted-on toothy grins and shaking hands with yesterday's enemies to form temporary pacts, we hit Christmas parties (oh, the shame) like it's everyone's birthday, reunite with old friends at such occasions and enjoy the double-hit of simulateously giving and receiving chosen items. What can do that, if not Christmas?
The worst of it is that, in the end, the majority of those that spoke out against the commercial side of Christmas (which, ultimately, is a means to a more noble end) also attend the gathering and reap the benefits I described. Wiping the words 'hypocrite' and 'bigot' from my vocabulary - at least for the next couple of weeks - I shall promptly opt for the Route of Good Will and party myself insane.
This debate has riled me for some time, because I view it as being fundamentally flawed. Violent imagery, whatever the mass-media through which it is portrayed, can at best serve as a facilitator - a catalyst - for violent acts to be committed. However, a prerequisite for this dangerous mixture is that the conditions are there in the first place for a child / adult / whatever to be sufficiently malleable to be incited to act by what is by any other definition something completely harmless.
No, the fire starts IN THE HOME. It's no secret that the familial environment has shamelessly decayed over recent decades, with divorce rates and domestic abuse seemingly forever on the increase. A stable family environment is the best starting point possible, and the best protection against being so easily influenced simply because it allows you to be more objective/rational and less subjective/emotional/acting on impulse, which is exactly how violence breeds.
As stated on the site, the watch (at least in its current 'ugly' incarnation) is only a research project to test the water for the inclusion of Linux across a wide range of devices. I wouldn't worry too much yet about how it looks.
For my part, the hype over the last few years has caused me simply not to bother about whether phones are really damaging to my health. Everyone has one, so at least we'll fry our brains en masse, if at all.
Perhaps it's not exactly on topic, but a far more worrying issue that doesn't seem to receive enough press is the distraction that mobile phones cause to their users. To my knowledge, several EU countries have already passed laws forbidding the use of mobiles while driving for example. We will never know the true statistics of fatal accidents due to mobile phones, but I'm willing to bet that they account for a lot more than we think.
That said, some of the reasons used to justify banning the use of mobile phones (e.g. on buses, in the cinema, at petrol stations (?)) are so ridiculous that it's obviously just for the reason that mobiles cause a public disturbance. How many times have YOU seen a movie projector getting shut down because the guy on the back row made a call?
I see the evolution of the mobile phone to be more like that of the automobile, but obviously within a much shorter timeframe. Just like cars in 20th century, they have gone from pretty-much-all-the-same to neatly segmented products like the jewelry-glitz model (Nokia 8890), youthful fashion statement ('look Mum, a zebra phone cover!') and gadget-laden tekkiebeast (WAP phones/voice dialling/etc). None of this is too surprising, given the extent to which both items allow us to 'do more'.
So how do automakers encourage us to buy new cars? They focus on the elements that surround the product: financing deals, leasing, insurance, branding, and so on. My guess is that it is in these areas that mobile phone manufacturers must pay attention to keep their products attractive to new and existing customers.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a trend towards consolidating all the technology you use the most into one portable set. My phone (a Nokia 6210) is the only piece of technology that I have with me all the time - it's already replaced my watch, my diary, and my alarm clock for the mornings. For people that like to listen to music and record on the go, it will replace their MP3 player/recorders too. Simple as that.
As long as the people that run this site allow this kind of speech on their main page, they will never be taken seriously and will never get the media attention they're after. What a waste...
______________________
Anyone that sees the words 'Christmas' and 'commercialism' in the same sentence will already have a pretty good idea of the mindless preachings to come. Or how about 'Christmas' and 'sellout'? Hm, let's analyze it and clear away some of the mystique.
What do we enjoy about Christmas? Firstly, Christmas boosts morale (to use the most horrible of sappy phrases) and gives us something to look forward to. I know this because of the feelings of anticipation that run through me when I think of leaving my wonderful place of study in the Greatest of Britain to venture on home to Luxembourg for the three-week family and friends event. Not that I'm a 'family' style cosy-on-the-couch-watching-the-9-o'clock-news sort of person at all, but, for me and others that I know, going back represents something exciting, an annual event the details of which remain under wraps (forgive the pun) until I'm actually there.
The more 'traditional' of us cry out that Christmas is simply a time where everyone spends and spends to each other's material gain. My oh my, what a horrible idea it must be to stimulate the (often depressed) economies of the Christian world for a couple of weeks. The religious meaning of Christmas is far from lost - on the contrary, it's something we are submerged in from beginning to end, from television broadcasts to omnipresent Christmas carols and Christmas-tree figureheads. In fact, one must wonder if the festive period is not simply the time deemed most appropriate by the more conservative Christians to air their frustration at the dwindling numbers of their flock, via the usual channels of accusations of distorting religious events into capitalist spending sprees.
'Peace and good will to all men' (okay, I've taken off the faded argyle pullover) is actually realized at Christmas, but perhaps not in the manner of which The Flock might approve. Instead of walking around with painted-on toothy grins and shaking hands with yesterday's enemies to form temporary pacts, we hit Christmas parties (oh, the shame) like it's everyone's birthday, reunite with old friends at such occasions and enjoy the double-hit of simulateously giving and receiving chosen items. What can do that, if not Christmas?
The worst of it is that, in the end, the majority of those that spoke out against the commercial side of Christmas (which, ultimately, is a means to a more noble end) also attend the gathering and reap the benefits I described. Wiping the words 'hypocrite' and 'bigot' from my vocabulary - at least for the next couple of weeks - I shall promptly opt for the Route of Good Will and party myself insane.
More where this came from at www.scandal.org.
You had a popular website, and the Internet killed it? Weird, I would have thought that the site depended on the Internet for its existence.
No, the fire starts IN THE HOME. It's no secret that the familial environment has shamelessly decayed over recent decades, with divorce rates and domestic abuse seemingly forever on the increase. A stable family environment is the best starting point possible, and the best protection against being so easily influenced simply because it allows you to be more objective/rational and less subjective/emotional/acting on impulse, which is exactly how violence breeds.
'Use of "copulate" in a gratuitous and sexually explicit context: 3 chilis, wash your keyboard out!'
As stated on the site, the watch (at least in its current 'ugly' incarnation) is only a research project to test the water for the inclusion of Linux across a wide range of devices. I wouldn't worry too much yet about how it looks.
For my part, the hype over the last few years has caused me simply not to bother about whether phones are really damaging to my health. Everyone has one, so at least we'll fry our brains en masse, if at all.
Perhaps it's not exactly on topic, but a far more worrying issue that doesn't seem to receive enough press is the distraction that mobile phones cause to their users. To my knowledge, several EU countries have already passed laws forbidding the use of mobiles while driving for example. We will never know the true statistics of fatal accidents due to mobile phones, but I'm willing to bet that they account for a lot more than we think.
That said, some of the reasons used to justify banning the use of mobile phones (e.g. on buses, in the cinema, at petrol stations (?)) are so ridiculous that it's obviously just for the reason that mobiles cause a public disturbance. How many times have YOU seen a movie projector getting shut down because the guy on the back row made a call?
So how do automakers encourage us to buy new cars? They focus on the elements that surround the product: financing deals, leasing, insurance, branding, and so on. My guess is that it is in these areas that mobile phone manufacturers must pay attention to keep their products attractive to new and existing customers.