My kid is now two years old and has been using an iPhone or iPad since a little earlier than one.
There are plenty of things they learn by using these devices -- fine motor control, color and shape recognition.
This is definitely a good thing and these people that are alarmists about these new devices are being ridiculous.
Yeah -- limit access to the device, don't let them sleep with it and play with it all day -- but they are fine for ten minutes at a time.
I think the first app that was useful to my son was a drum app. a flash card app that showed a picture and spoke its name were favorites for a long time (there were various a year ago, Food, Vehicles, Everyday Objects). Then a drawing apps and now number and letter apps
Books have been popular -- Sandra Boynton books and Dr. Suess mostly
I live in Boston, MA but was in in Fort Lauderdale, FL a couple of months ago and thought it would be nice to see what Zagat's Guide had to say about the restaurants. I openned up the danger device and added "Zagat" and "Zagats" to my instant messenger buddy list, and immediately I saw "zagats" online. Very cool.
The conversation went something like this:
Keith M Gabryelski: fort lauderdale, fl
[... moments pass...]
Zagats: ? Keith M Gabryelski: sushi Zagats: what do you want? Keith M Gabryelski: Well, missed opportunity me thinks. Have you never heard of Zagat's guide?
At this point it is obvious to me my relationship with zagats will not be going much further. I receive no reply and set my sights on trying to navigate the zagat website from my danger device.
A few days later, at lunch I notice "zagats" online again. I thought: hmmmm... let's play:
Keith M Gabryelski: recommend thai boston, ma
[... no response...]
About three minutes later:
Ginaleena03: why are you im'ing my friend... shes not the zagats guidebook, shes a law student Keith M Gabryelski: Ok, then can u suggest a good thai place in boston? Keith M Gabryelski: Somewhere around the theatre district Keith M Gabryelski: That's ok if you have to think about... Get back to me later please
[... time passes...]
Ginaleena03: no... god!... go on citysearch or something; we dont care where you dine Ginaleena03: we're not earning commissions over here Keith M Gabryelski: Ok. Well... I have a review for the zagat guide. Can I forward it to you and can you get it to them?
[... at this point ginaleena03 and zagats both log off; I suspect I have been blocked...]
If anyone knows of a restaurant guide on AIM could you please forward the screenname? I suspect both of these are real people.
Microsoft announcement of products before they are available are always 120% of the truth.
Their inability to get the gist of things they copy except for the superfical (i.e., I'm sure the MP3 Player will be a small white box) reminds me of the kid in school looking over my shoulder during a math test... copying all my answers onto his paper including my answer for the question "Name:"
yeah, i look like like a 6' 3" shaved head borg with the sony/ericsson ear piece (which is priceless) but... man what a pain in the butt.
you have to recharge the thing... and i don't know about you -- but i barely get the time to charge my phone as needed. it's also unfortunate you can't chain together charging devices like this -- but that is a whole different gripe.
you have to work with a new interface on the damn ear piece to answer the phone (or send the call back to phone) which is a hurdle. yeah laugh away smart boy... try three of these devices and for a few months and drop one important call and you will never use it again.
because of artifacts of digital transmission (jitter buffers and individual buffer sample size) the use of blue tooth headsets increases the end to end delay over a sometimes already intollerable cellphone network delay.
the price is insane.
reception with the phone is not perfect. I don't understand everything about interference but there is a lot of it... and, again, if you are on an important call you and can't hear the other person you are likely to just drop this thing in the trash.
blueTooth's transmission wave length is in the range of microwaves (i.e. water heating range). why would anyone want that radiation near their brain.
Simply put... god is a hack -- He had a week to make the universe -- instead he watched kung fu movies for 6 of the days and pulled in an all nighter...
when he was done he found galaxies weren't spinning perfectly with e = mc^2... (the bug is actually in the large_scale_effect() method -- but that is another story)... so he put in a couple of frobs to get things moving at the rate he thought satisfied his artistic needs.
Checked it in... no one QA'd it... packaged and shipped it... and we bought it en masse.
uhh... if you have a better explanation, bring it forward...
Bluetooth runs at the same frequency as a microwave oven (that is, meat cooking frequency) and somone is making bluetooth objects that are suppose to sit next to your head or in your pocket?
Intel is happy that their compiler can beat another compiler?
I'd hope so... They designed the damn chips, had a head start, have cash money to buy a few smart compiler dudes.. you'd think they'd have enough pride to work on a compiler until it was the best it could be.
It is interesting to see Intel pick on GCC. They are in the CHIP BUSINESS... A compiler (any compiler) helps them.
You'd think THEY would be the ones to release a compiler into open source so they could get the rest of the world looking at how to do even more optimizations for their chips.
GCC has been out there for well over a decade. Open to anyone to improve... or just stare at.
Intel could show us all how to make a better compiler. Open up their source code... but someone might improve on their techniques and that would make them sad. So, instead they berate a compiler that has done them only a service.
Slashdot Mirror
My kid is now two years old and has been using an iPhone or iPad since a little earlier than one.
There are plenty of things they learn by using these devices -- fine motor control, color and shape recognition.
This is definitely a good thing and these people that are alarmists about these new devices are being ridiculous.
Yeah -- limit access to the device, don't let them sleep with it and play with it all day -- but they are fine for ten minutes at a time.
I think the first app that was useful to my son was a drum app. a flash card app that showed a picture and spoke its name were
favorites for a long time (there were various a year ago, Food, Vehicles, Everyday Objects). Then a drawing apps and now number and
letter apps
Books have been popular -- Sandra Boynton books and Dr. Suess mostly
Seems like 4 areas.
The first (hashes) looks trinary is some way -- gut feel
The second (two sets of two lines) looks like base-16 (notice that 1 is not represented, there -- is that significant).
The third (three sybols) two are represented by the second area, the first is not -- maybe that is a translation.
The fourth looks binary.
working on it.
It's possible spammers are dropping email addresses they know are hosted by
filters that will successfully weed them out.
The half-life of a slashdot article is about an hour.
She'll block incoming messages for a 2 days and will have no other problems.
Sorry, Zagats and Gina.
Pax, Keith
I live in Boston, MA but was in in Fort Lauderdale, FL a couple of months ago and thought it would be nice to see what Zagat's Guide had to say about the restaurants. I openned up the danger device and added "Zagat" and "Zagats" to my instant messenger buddy list, and immediately I saw "zagats" online. Very cool.
...]
...]
...]
... god! ... go on citysearch or something; we dont care where you dine
...]
The conversation went something like this:
Keith M Gabryelski: fort lauderdale, fl
[... moments pass
Zagats: ?
Keith M Gabryelski: sushi
Zagats: what do you want?
Keith M Gabryelski: Well, missed opportunity me thinks. Have you never heard of Zagat's guide?
At this point it is obvious to me my relationship with zagats will not be going much further. I receive no reply and set my sights on trying to navigate the zagat website from my danger device.
A few days later, at lunch I notice "zagats" online again. I thought: hmmmm... let's play:
Keith M Gabryelski: recommend thai boston, ma
[... no response
About three minutes later:
Ginaleena03: why are you im'ing my friend... shes not the zagats guidebook, shes a law student
Keith M Gabryelski: Ok, then can u suggest a good thai place in boston?
Keith M Gabryelski: Somewhere around the theatre district
Keith M Gabryelski: That's ok if you have to think about... Get back to me later please
[... time passes
Ginaleena03: no
Ginaleena03: we're not earning commissions over here
Keith M Gabryelski: Ok. Well... I have a review for the zagat guide. Can I forward it to you and can you get it to them?
[... at this point ginaleena03 and zagats both log off; I suspect I have been blocked
If anyone knows of a restaurant guide on AIM could you please forward the screenname? I suspect both of these are real people.
Pax, Keith
Ps, Yes... this actually happened
PPs, Yes... I am an as*hole
Microsoft announcement of products before they are available are always 120% of the truth.
Their inability to get the gist of things they copy except for the superfical (i.e., I'm sure the MP3 Player will be a small white box) reminds me of the kid in school looking over my shoulder during a math test... copying all my answers onto his paper including my answer for the question "Name:"
Can someone send me the scrollbar widget code? I'll fix the damn thing and send diffs back to them.
uhhhh... there is a reason sunscreen and hats are often used in the sun...
cancer.
yeah, i look like like a 6' 3" shaved head borg with the sony/ericsson ear piece (which is priceless) but... man what a pain in the butt.
you have to recharge the thing... and i don't know about you -- but i barely get the time to charge my phone as needed. it's also unfortunate you can't chain together charging devices like this -- but that is a whole different gripe.
you have to work with a new interface on the damn ear piece to answer the phone (or send the call back to phone) which is a hurdle. yeah laugh away smart boy... try three of these devices and for a few months and drop one important call and you will never use it again.
because of artifacts of digital transmission (jitter buffers and individual buffer sample size) the use of blue tooth headsets increases the end to end delay over a sometimes already intollerable cellphone network delay.
the price is insane.
reception with the phone is not perfect. I don't understand everything about interference but there is a lot of it... and, again, if you are on an important call you and can't hear the other person you are likely to just drop this thing in the trash.
blueTooth's transmission wave length is in the range of microwaves (i.e. water heating range). why would anyone want that radiation near their brain.
to sum up: save your money...
Simply put... god is a hack -- He had a week to make the universe -- instead he watched kung fu movies for 6 of the days and pulled in an all nighter ...
... (the bug is actually in the large_scale_effect() method -- but that is another story) ... so he put in a couple of frobs to get things moving at the rate he thought satisfied his artistic needs.
... and we bought it en masse.
when he was done he found galaxies weren't spinning perfectly with e = mc^2
Checked it in... no one QA'd it... packaged and shipped it
uhh... if you have a better explanation, bring it forward...
Fantastic guidelines for a part of society that has influence over the direction of law and has no basis for understanding fact from fiction.
Bluetooth runs at the same frequency as a microwave oven (that is, meat cooking frequency) and somone is making bluetooth objects that are suppose to sit next to your head or in your pocket?
Who thought that was a good idea?
Let me get this straight.
.. you'd think they'd have enough pride to work on a compiler until it was the best it could be.
... or just stare at.
Intel is happy that their compiler can beat another compiler?
I'd hope so... They designed the damn chips, had a head start, have cash money to buy a few smart compiler dudes
It is interesting to see Intel pick on GCC. They are in the CHIP BUSINESS... A compiler (any compiler) helps them.
You'd think THEY would be the ones to release a compiler into open source so they could get the rest of the world looking at how to do even more optimizations for their chips.
GCC has been out there for well over a decade. Open to anyone to improve
Intel could show us all how to make a better compiler. Open up their source code... but someone might improve on their techniques and that would make them sad. So, instead they berate a compiler that has done them only a service.
Just my thoughts. Yours may vary.