Where's the innovation?
on
PDAs, PDAs
·
· Score: 1
This sounds like a great, new product, except I already have it: the Newton MP2000 I got in 1997. Two type-2 PC slots (modem in one, FlashRAM in the other), 320x240 screen with global HWR, serial, IRDa, keyboard, software out the wa-zoo (check www.amug.org for freeware). I use it everyday for planning, appointments, checking my e-mail, and doing inventory at work with the barCode reader I added on.
My wife uses a Palm Vx and she loves it, but it's not versatile enough for me. It seems that the PDA market is still trying to reach the bar placed by Apple in this market. What the industry is showing us is a bunch of standalones lego'd together like some Nokia/Rio/DayTimer Frankenstein's monster rather than a Handheld Computer that has these features very tightly integrated.
AAPL should be ashamed that the Newton project was killed so unceremoniously.
I AM a Fundamentalist Christian. I AM NOT a Hatemonger (Christianity, properly observed, leaves no room for hate: rather, it's Jesus first and everything else as it is appropriate--Galatians 5:1,13,14).
I DO NOT believe in filtering software. It is the responsibility of PARENTS to monitor their children's entertainments. MONITOR, I said, not surreptitiously log or track, and not abdicate parental responsibility to an inert mechanism which the parents can neither understand nor control, because TRUST and ACCOUNTABILITY are cornerstones of the parent/child relationship. If there is a bogey-man on the Web, on the TV, or on the CD, then the parents have the duty to be INVOLVED ENOUGH in their children's lives to confront the offensive influence, and even *gasp* COMMUNICATE their moral convictions in an age-appropriate manner. That being said, my wife and I watch TV and movies with our children, play video games with them, and surf the Web with them, as well as the more conventional family activity stuff.
I had several peers who grew up in no-alcohol Baptist homes with the simple mantra of "I forbid it" only to run off to college and be some of the wildest partying, hardest drinking folks on campus. Many of you know people who fit that description as well. Autocracy and arbitrary barriers are only as effective as the despot's arms are long. Children can learn to appreciate their parent's morals and convictions only if those beliefs are shared in a sincere and loving family setting. Even then, embracing those moral convictions are ultimately a free-will decision on the part of the children.
"The basic premise of these failings of the American parents is not that the average American is not 'good parenting' material, but that they do not spend enough time with their children. They would rather have restrictive laws governing what their children watch on TV and at the theatres, rating systems on video games, and software to help keep their children from downloading naughty things from the internet."
Although parental involvement is not the crux of this article, the same involvement issues relate to teachers, and by extension, librarians. Part of the responbility of being the classroom authority is being the proctor of classroom materials and equipment.
Is there a need for censorship on the Web? That is an open question which cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" for, while I have been the primary source of computer and Internet knowledge for my children and assume the same is true for most/.ers, there are many parents who are not as techno-savvy as the typical/. technophile, or even computer literate at all. They need and deserve help, and I feel that the best way to implement that help is through server-side age verification for pr0n sites. That way, people who wish to access such sites get to, and people who prefer not to access them aren't missing anything, but reliance on filters which are fallible at best and disastrously inept at worst is like trying to keep burglars out of one's house with a chair wedged under the front doorknob.
See there? I said all that without damning anybody for choosing to ogle pr0n or engage in any other "sinful" behavior. That falls under the topic of "ordering one's life" and that's another conversation altogether.
Leave it to our favorite snob-brand of cool gadgetry to adopt a standard, promulgate it, and then pull the STANDARDIZATION right out of it...a standard from APPLE, no less!
Embrace, extend, extinguish...this is M$ building hardware.
There is no contention that BG checks are generally beneficial, and imperative in some industries and occupations. The issue here is _third_party_ data harvesting. If an employer (or potential employer) desires information about your past, either it should do the search itself or use a secure service company (in much the same manner as drug screenings are conducted) that will surrender the results of the BG check without retaining a copy for its own commercial gain.
I _do_ have a right to privacy, precisely because of the Reserved Powers doctrine, and I intend to enforce and exercise that right. I bestow my patriotic allegiance to my Country, not the corporate collective that is so effectively and unethically striving to supplant it.
The truth is that the same information revolution in which all/.rs bask is being used to undermine our most fundamental freedoms.
At one time, the greatest fears private citizens held regarding their rights and protections were levelled at government, because no business entity had the wherewithal to stifle privacy or Constitutional Rights. Thus, the Constitution and Bill of Rights placed limitations on the Federal gov't; the Contstitution was amended to limit subordinate gov'ts, and so the problem was solved....until the information revolution. The time is ripe for the institution of a true commercial bill of rights as an addition to the Uniform Commercial Code for the protection of citizens both as consumers and employees. The first step is being considered now (maybe).
In July, two bills were introduced for deliberation in the Congress: S.2699 and HR.4611. These bills propose to strip SSNs from all government (at all levels) checks and records, PLUS they would prohibit businesses (generally) from refusing to service customers who withhold their SSNs.
The progress of these two bills has gotten away from me, so if anyone has an update, RSVP.
These bills are only the first step, mind you. Get active with your Rep and Senators, even if they are more interested in the next two years than in our rights now.
the DOG
"And operating systems like Windows NT compound the problem by not being easily remotely accessible."
Yeah, NT isn't easily remotely accessible for users who are AUTHORIZED to access it.:^P
Alert! Alert! The New World Order is already in place, and the cyber-state foretold by Davidson and Rees-Mogg already has no place left to exist.
Don't be duped by the UN's track record of ineptitude regarding administration and reconciliation of multinational affairs: The Year 2000 has ushered in changes that will forever and quickly render the entire world a single United Nation (no 's'). This week's Millennium Conference only ratifies the consolidation of political power into a single nationality that is less interested in American capitalism and the Bill of Rights than it is in the homogenization of Human Culture. The Rt Hon Tony Blair yesterday called for the establishment of a UN Army, to be implemented within the next 12 months (!) [think NATO for that quick startup], and this past June the United Religions Initiative [backed by the UN] ratified its charter, thereby doing for religious authority what the UN is trying to do for political authority: a single, pan-global union that leaves no alternative for individuals.
How to finance? The World Bank is already preparing for the inevitable transition to a handful of (or one) standard currencies and the inauguration of a global taxation authority to completely free the central government from the whims of the member states. Check your Anti-Federalist Papers.
The reality is simple: with the whole world under one governmental authority, there are no frontiers among which Merchant Republics can thrive. Even cyberspace will only be so much sand in which the incredulous can stick their heads.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife uses a Palm Vx and she loves it, but it's not versatile enough for me. It seems that the PDA market is still trying to reach the bar placed by Apple in this market. What the industry is showing us is a bunch of standalones lego'd together like some Nokia/Rio/DayTimer Frankenstein's monster rather than a Handheld Computer that has these features very tightly integrated.
AAPL should be ashamed that the Newton project was killed so unceremoniously.
I AM a Fundamentalist Christian. I AM NOT a Hatemonger (Christianity, properly observed, leaves no room for hate: rather, it's Jesus first and everything else as it is appropriate--Galatians 5:1,13,14).
I DO NOT believe in filtering software. It is the responsibility of PARENTS to monitor their children's entertainments. MONITOR, I said, not surreptitiously log or track, and not abdicate parental responsibility to an inert mechanism which the parents can neither understand nor control, because TRUST and ACCOUNTABILITY are cornerstones of the parent/child relationship. If there is a bogey-man on the Web, on the TV, or on the CD, then the parents have the duty to be INVOLVED ENOUGH in their children's lives to confront the offensive influence, and even *gasp* COMMUNICATE their moral convictions in an age-appropriate manner. That being said, my wife and I watch TV and movies with our children, play video games with them, and surf the Web with them, as well as the more conventional family activity stuff.
I had several peers who grew up in no-alcohol Baptist homes with the simple mantra of "I forbid it" only to run off to college and be some of the wildest partying, hardest drinking folks on campus. Many of you know people who fit that description as well. Autocracy and arbitrary barriers are only as effective as the despot's arms are long. Children can learn to appreciate their parent's morals and convictions only if those beliefs are shared in a sincere and loving family setting. Even then, embracing those moral convictions are ultimately a free-will decision on the part of the children.
kuro5hin has this to say in last week's article "Breeding Licenses" :
Although parental involvement is not the crux of this article, the same involvement issues relate to teachers, and by extension, librarians. Part of the responbility of being the classroom authority is being the proctor of classroom materials and equipment.
Is there a need for censorship on the Web? That is an open question which cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" for, while I have been the primary source of computer and Internet knowledge for my children and assume the same is true for most /.ers, there are many parents who are not as techno-savvy as the typical /. technophile, or even computer literate at all. They need and deserve help, and I feel that the best way to implement that help is through server-side age verification for pr0n sites. That way, people who wish to access such sites get to, and people who prefer not to access them aren't missing anything, but reliance on filters which are fallible at best and disastrously inept at worst is like trying to keep burglars out of one's house with a chair wedged under the front doorknob.
See there? I said all that without damning anybody for choosing to ogle pr0n or engage in any other "sinful" behavior. That falls under the topic of "ordering one's life" and that's another conversation altogether.
Embrace, extend, extinguish...this is M$ building hardware.
I _do_ have a right to privacy, precisely because of the Reserved Powers doctrine, and I intend to enforce and exercise that right. I bestow my patriotic allegiance to my Country, not the corporate collective that is so effectively and unethically striving to supplant it.
The truth is that the same information revolution in which all /.rs bask is being used to undermine our most fundamental freedoms.
At one time, the greatest fears private citizens held regarding their rights and protections were levelled at government, because no business entity had the wherewithal to stifle privacy or Constitutional Rights. Thus, the Constitution and Bill of Rights placed limitations on the Federal gov't; the Contstitution was amended to limit subordinate gov'ts, and so the problem was solved. ...until the information revolution. The time is ripe for the institution of a true commercial bill of rights as an addition to the Uniform Commercial Code for the protection of citizens both as consumers and employees. The first step is being considered now (maybe).
In July, two bills were introduced for deliberation in the Congress: S.2699 and HR.4611. These bills propose to strip SSNs from all government (at all levels) checks and records, PLUS they would prohibit businesses (generally) from refusing to service customers who withhold their SSNs.
The progress of these two bills has gotten away from me, so if anyone has an update, RSVP.
These bills are only the first step, mind you. Get active with your Rep and Senators, even if they are more interested in the next two years than in our rights now.
the DOG
Since when does sarcasm get modded down "just because"?
"And operating systems like Windows NT compound the problem by not being easily remotely accessible." Yeah, NT isn't easily remotely accessible for users who are AUTHORIZED to access it. :^P
Don't be duped by the UN's track record of ineptitude regarding administration and reconciliation of multinational affairs: The Year 2000 has ushered in changes that will forever and quickly render the entire world a single United Nation (no 's'). This week's Millennium Conference only ratifies the consolidation of political power into a single nationality that is less interested in American capitalism and the Bill of Rights than it is in the homogenization of Human Culture. The Rt Hon Tony Blair yesterday called for the establishment of a UN Army, to be implemented within the next 12 months (!) [think NATO for that quick startup], and this past June the United Religions Initiative [backed by the UN] ratified its charter, thereby doing for religious authority what the UN is trying to do for political authority: a single, pan-global union that leaves no alternative for individuals.
How to finance? The World Bank is already preparing for the inevitable transition to a handful of (or one) standard currencies and the inauguration of a global taxation authority to completely free the central government from the whims of the member states. Check your Anti-Federalist Papers.
The reality is simple: with the whole world under one governmental authority, there are no frontiers among which Merchant Republics can thrive. Even cyberspace will only be so much sand in which the incredulous can stick their heads.