It has almost everything an iPhone has (safe for camera)
Well, that's depressing. I'd really been looking forward to the neo as a platform that'd finally be the all in one phone/pda/camera/mp3player to free up my pocket. It never even occurred to me that a phone could come out in this day and age without a camera built in. Having a video recorder around at all times can be really nice.
Social networking. The kids, what with their rock n' roll, baggy pants, facebook and whatnot, love this kind of thing. I seriously think that if they manged to get this fashionable, the current middle/high school set would pay their parents money every which way to have "Mood: Crinkly forehead emo" automatically updating on their networking system of choice.
Later down the road, I could see this 'possibly' working with more wired environments. Think a smarthouse that's noticed when you come home feeling down that you immediately head for beer and a particular tv show. It could get that all set for you before you even open the door. Or if you're very happy, or very sad, your partner might get a quick alert sent to them. In a more wired world, it could also be helpful at restraunts and the like. The network could monitor the mood of the people eating there, and send out alerts to the staff for people either angry, or happy and more likely to leave a tip if approached that second. Though my money would be on the social networking angle far more than the latter situations.
which requires users to wear a futuristic head band
This is one of those few times when I find myself wishing for more female representation. For some reason, male geeks just don't seem to understand the publics fashion sense. Futuristic headband=dork headgear. The look is 'more' important than the functionality when it comes to getting anything which needs to be worn out the door. And if it means a headband, it's never going to get into public use.
Same here. It always struck me a bit like someone who'd prohibit minorities from having kids because they might face the hardships of racism. A kinder, gentler, eugenics movement. Though, even above that it always strikes me when people even think it's possible for it to happen in the conceivable future. The kind of hybrid's we're talking about aren't exactly the most viable fish in the sea.
The standard of science reporting is now so low that journalists should be deprived of access to modern medicine and technology until they do better, though given the usual standard of their education they would just end up banging rocks together and trying to brew cider from windfalls till the end of time.
One of the funniest comments I've ever seen on slashdot. I've thought the same thing myself, if a bit less eloquently, far too many times to count.
Just to balance the replies a bit, I prefer gmail over any desktop client. Then again, off of work IM has made a pretty big dent in my email use anyway.
Even aside from having similar behavior documented in the lab, it's not that surprising. The ratio of body mass to brain size, adjusted to the differences in birds, comes out extremely high for most in the corvid family. I don't mean to say it's not an amazing feat, either that of the birds or that we captured it. However, it's nothing that isn't in line with the data from the past ten years or so.
But if you are going to insist that everyone in the class is equally able to absorb the material just because they all somehow ended up in the same room together, then you are probably going to have a chunk of students tune out because they're too far behind, and a chunk tune out because they're too far ahead. It would not surprise me if those two groups together would add up to about 47%.
Well said. That, to me, is the single largest problem with the system. High schools are never going to meet their potential until they base class enrollment on ability, not age. It works pretty well in higher education, and I'd like to see it tried on the younger set as well. it'd sure take care of my worst memories of high school, each year spending the majority of the time going over the exact same things we'd already covered so the D students could get another D and move on again.
We can start with science journalism, which is now at nearly tabloid levels of accuracy.
The sad thing is, you're not exaggerating at all. I'm actually not surprised anymore when I see papers reporting on perpetual motion machines. It's happened often enough that the shock has gone away. It's even worse for the fact that the average person has never been taught the skills needed to weed out the crap from the truth, so most only have this level of reporting to go on when they have to form an opinion on science and technology.
Don't forget tossing in the word terrorism or war. OK, not quite as possible now, but I remember for a while you couldn't develop a new type of toothpick without detailing how sparkly white teeth would help soldiers.
It's not really being applied to that yet though. At the moment it's still just the promise of something on the horizon. I suspect the parent was just tired of too much hype with too little real world application.
Keep in mind that a vast repository of knowledge is already locally available for free for modest effort at your local library
Have you been to a public library recently? The largest in my state doesn't even have any journal subscriptions. I know the quality varies from place to place, but a fairly high percentage of them are struggling along with almost no budget at this point.
there is no fairness and justice in the natural world.
I think primatologists would disagree with you on that point. Most of the great apes, in particular, have fairly elaborate social constructs relating to those issues.
Kind of surprised not to see that in the linux section. I've never used it past trolltech's vmware demo, but I've looked at it with a lot of envy in the past. It's the main draw of the neo for me at the moment. Qtopia's always seemed like one of the most friendly environments out there, especially if someone's a fan of QT development.
There can't be anyone who couldn't get a female to pop onto the cam for a minute in order to spoof the system. Not even difficult enough to act as a preventative measure. The only point I could see is as a way of making sure that players 'know' it's part of the TOS, and for free advertising.
However, it's not possible if the reporter doesn't himself have a basic understanding of the field and scientific methodology in general. And those who do seem to be incredibly rare.
Schools have been told to confiscate mobile phones, and, more controversially, to investigate and get material removed from personal social-networking sites.
I've also heard there's this new fangled thing called paper that can be used to send nasty comments to people anonymously! Poo has also been known to be used in this manner, while sitting on a doorstep. So just remove paper, pens, hands, poo, and doors from the environment and our children can finally be safe!
As much as I applaud any attempt to improve the quality of a child's education, attacking the tools they use for bulling isn't going to do anything to the root causes of it. However, sending the kids to an island and having them fight to the death for our amusement....that could work.
I don't think there's any chance that google actually is going to be doing something like this at the present time, but there's a lot of reasons to think they could do it better than second life. The primary reason would be that they've got a huge amount of failures from SL to learn from. Additionally, they could probably do it with a better revenue source and more up to date infrastructure. If they built it up to a point where the average user could create a FPS fairly easily, and make it feel native instead of something hacked into a platform which never intended something like it to exist, I could see a lot of potential. Just as much if they allowed users access to real programming languages ingame. Personally, I'd hoped second life would be a good platform for playing around with alife. Being forced into an underpowered, underperforming scripting language or dealing with a crippled and latency ridden connection to a program running offserver made it more an exercise in tedium than entertainment. If someone could implement all that, and had the presence to get word of it out, I could see it doing much better than second life.
I'd totally forgotten about Megas XLR, thanks for the reminder. There's got to be at least a couple episodes of it that I missed on first airing. Pity that's going to be it, in terms of new content, from that point on though.
Slashdot Mirror
It has almost everything an iPhone has (safe for camera)
Well, that's depressing. I'd really been looking forward to the neo as a platform that'd finally be the all in one phone/pda/camera/mp3player to free up my pocket. It never even occurred to me that a phone could come out in this day and age without a camera built in. Having a video recorder around at all times can be really nice.
.. what would you use this for?
Social networking. The kids, what with their rock n' roll, baggy pants, facebook and whatnot, love this kind of thing. I seriously think that if they manged to get this fashionable, the current middle/high school set would pay their parents money every which way to have "Mood: Crinkly forehead emo" automatically updating on their networking system of choice.
Later down the road, I could see this 'possibly' working with more wired environments. Think a smarthouse that's noticed when you come home feeling down that you immediately head for beer and a particular tv show. It could get that all set for you before you even open the door. Or if you're very happy, or very sad, your partner might get a quick alert sent to them. In a more wired world, it could also be helpful at restraunts and the like. The network could monitor the mood of the people eating there, and send out alerts to the staff for people either angry, or happy and more likely to leave a tip if approached that second. Though my money would be on the social networking angle far more than the latter situations.
which requires users to wear a futuristic head band
This is one of those few times when I find myself wishing for more female representation. For some reason, male geeks just don't seem to understand the publics fashion sense. Futuristic headband=dork headgear. The look is 'more' important than the functionality when it comes to getting anything which needs to be worn out the door. And if it means a headband, it's never going to get into public use.
Same here. It always struck me a bit like someone who'd prohibit minorities from having kids because they might face the hardships of racism. A kinder, gentler, eugenics movement. Though, even above that it always strikes me when people even think it's possible for it to happen in the conceivable future. The kind of hybrid's we're talking about aren't exactly the most viable fish in the sea.
The standard of science reporting is now so low that journalists should be deprived of access to modern medicine and technology until they do better, though given the usual standard of their education they would just end up banging rocks together and trying to brew cider from windfalls till the end of time.
One of the funniest comments I've ever seen on slashdot. I've thought the same thing myself, if a bit less eloquently, far too many times to count.
Just to balance the replies a bit, I prefer gmail over any desktop client. Then again, off of work IM has made a pretty big dent in my email use anyway.
What does God need with a brain? Aren't religious experiences supposed to involve that special nonbiological soul thing?
Even aside from having similar behavior documented in the lab, it's not that surprising. The ratio of body mass to brain size, adjusted to the differences in birds, comes out extremely high for most in the corvid family. I don't mean to say it's not an amazing feat, either that of the birds or that we captured it. However, it's nothing that isn't in line with the data from the past ten years or so.
But if you are going to insist that everyone in the class is equally able to absorb the material just because they all somehow ended up in the same room together, then you are probably going to have a chunk of students tune out because they're too far behind, and a chunk tune out because they're too far ahead. It would not surprise me if those two groups together would add up to about 47%.
Well said. That, to me, is the single largest problem with the system. High schools are never going to meet their potential until they base class enrollment on ability, not age. It works pretty well in higher education, and I'd like to see it tried on the younger set as well. it'd sure take care of my worst memories of high school, each year spending the majority of the time going over the exact same things we'd already covered so the D students could get another D and move on again.
We can start with science journalism, which is now at nearly tabloid levels of accuracy.
The sad thing is, you're not exaggerating at all. I'm actually not surprised anymore when I see papers reporting on perpetual motion machines. It's happened often enough that the shock has gone away. It's even worse for the fact that the average person has never been taught the skills needed to weed out the crap from the truth, so most only have this level of reporting to go on when they have to form an opinion on science and technology.
Don't forget tossing in the word terrorism or war. OK, not quite as possible now, but I remember for a while you couldn't develop a new type of toothpick without detailing how sparkly white teeth would help soldiers.
It's not really being applied to that yet though. At the moment it's still just the promise of something on the horizon. I suspect the parent was just tired of too much hype with too little real world application.
That's the one thing I hate about sitting down with a tub of spicy whatever. It's like a pepper hangover.
I'd guess people would only make that mistake once though.
I think you're underestimating what addicts will do for their drug of choice.
Keep in mind that a vast repository of knowledge is already locally available for free for modest effort at your local library
Have you been to a public library recently? The largest in my state doesn't even have any journal subscriptions. I know the quality varies from place to place, but a fairly high percentage of them are struggling along with almost no budget at this point.
there is no fairness and justice in the natural world.
I think primatologists would disagree with you on that point. Most of the great apes, in particular, have fairly elaborate social constructs relating to those issues.
Kind of surprised not to see that in the linux section. I've never used it past trolltech's vmware demo, but I've looked at it with a lot of envy in the past. It's the main draw of the neo for me at the moment. Qtopia's always seemed like one of the most friendly environments out there, especially if someone's a fan of QT development.
If only for the fact that I get amused whenever I hear about it due to the descriptions of a similar system in 'world war z'.
There can't be anyone who couldn't get a female to pop onto the cam for a minute in order to spoof the system. Not even difficult enough to act as a preventative measure. The only point I could see is as a way of making sure that players 'know' it's part of the TOS, and for free advertising.
There's also a preliminary port of qtopia to the neo. Though hopefully trolltech gives someone the time to iron out the bugs before december.
You could try skype with skypein, I don't think it's unlimited, but at prices where it might as well be.
However, it's not possible if the reporter doesn't himself have a basic understanding of the field and scientific methodology in general. And those who do seem to be incredibly rare.
Schools have been told to confiscate mobile phones, and, more controversially, to investigate and get material removed from personal social-networking sites.
I've also heard there's this new fangled thing called paper that can be used to send nasty comments to people anonymously! Poo has also been known to be used in this manner, while sitting on a doorstep. So just remove paper, pens, hands, poo, and doors from the environment and our children can finally be safe!
As much as I applaud any attempt to improve the quality of a child's education, attacking the tools they use for bulling isn't going to do anything to the root causes of it. However, sending the kids to an island and having them fight to the death for our amusement....that could work.
Why would Google's offering be any different?
I don't think there's any chance that google actually is going to be doing something like this at the present time, but there's a lot of reasons to think they could do it better than second life. The primary reason would be that they've got a huge amount of failures from SL to learn from. Additionally, they could probably do it with a better revenue source and more up to date infrastructure. If they built it up to a point where the average user could create a FPS fairly easily, and make it feel native instead of something hacked into a platform which never intended something like it to exist, I could see a lot of potential. Just as much if they allowed users access to real programming languages ingame. Personally, I'd hoped second life would be a good platform for playing around with alife. Being forced into an underpowered, underperforming scripting language or dealing with a crippled and latency ridden connection to a program running offserver made it more an exercise in tedium than entertainment. If someone could implement all that, and had the presence to get word of it out, I could see it doing much better than second life.
I'd totally forgotten about Megas XLR, thanks for the reminder. There's got to be at least a couple episodes of it that I missed on first airing. Pity that's going to be it, in terms of new content, from that point on though.