The keyboard is not ideal, and I miss Grafitti, but it's more than usable
That's why I use Graffiti Anywhere on my Treo 600. It lets you do grafitti right on the screen. I have mine set to activate when I tap the upper right 5 pixels of the screen.
it's nice to be able to listen to mp3s on this once in a while but you're crazy if you want this to replace your music player
I'm curious. Why? I use my Treo 600 as my primary mp3 player and It's been great. What problems have you run into?
People laugh about the camera,
With qset, you can change the default jpeg quality (around 60 or so) all the way up to 99. Still, I've found the camera works much better in sunlight than indoors.
BTW, if you don't already have it installed, you ought to try out TCPMP. I use it to watch all kinds of video (divx, xvid, you name it). I can compress a full 2 hour movie down to about 70 megs. I've also installed several game console emulators on it (NES, GB, SG, etc.) and play them frequently. The digital camera can even be a video camera. I use it to take short home movies and then export to mpegs. Just thought you might be interested in some Treo apps I've found very helpful.
To answer your question... Yes I can and do control it with one hand. I only typically only break out the stylus when I do some drawing. The Treo has a very thumbs-friendly qwerty keyboard, and the touch screen works fine with fingers. All the controls for play/pause/ff/rw are located very prominently on the center of the device, just below the screen -- similar to where they would be on an iPod.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Apple-hater -- far from it. I use a Mac at work (designer) all day long, and you'd have to to pry my PowerBook® from my cold dead hands and all, but anyone that thinks it's earth-shattering is more than slightly behind the times. I've been watching video (divx, xvid, you name it), listening to mp3's *and* oggs for almost 2 years now on my Treo 600. It's also my cell phone, calendar, addressbook, yada-yada... I can even use it to ssh, vnc, ftp, or connect to Samba shares on my server at home and run several game console emulators on it (NES, GB, SG, etc.). The video iPod does have more disk space (although I've never had problems filling up my Treo's 2 Gig expansion card -- which card I can swap out for more space, if I ever *do* need it). Another key advantage is that my Treo 600 is also a digital camera and can even be a video camera. I use it to take short home movies of my kids when we're at the park or fair, or whatever and then export to mpegs. Not that the video iPod isn't cool and all, I'd just like to see more honesty in reporting the originality of the feature set.
I know you're joking, but I really fear for Jon's safety. I don't think he's thought this move through. all the way. Surely he could telecommute, instead!
Disclaimer: I'm not really from North Korea. I'm just making a point.
Actually, by North Korean standards most European "Socialists/Communists" are pretty comfortably to the right of the center in politics. Everytime I hear you Neocons accuse liberal or moderate right wing politicians in Europe of being Socialists I wonder what would happen if somebody introduced one of you European conservatives to a real live 24 carat way-left-of-center Socialist, never mind an acutal honest to goodness die hard Communist like we have them over here in North Korea? My pet theory is that you would go red in the face, then steam would shoot out of your ears and your eyes would bulge out followed by a massive bang as your head explodes. Many Europeans speak very warmly about Communists, Socialsits and how they are the greatest thing since sliced bread etc... but I get the feeling most Europeans have little or no idea what those words acutally mean.
You seem to hold up your views as the OneTruePOV® (you even base this on the farsical left-right political scale, but that's another story). This assumes you somehow occupy a neutral position and can suspend all prejudices. Sorry, but humans are incabable of a "view from nowhere". Far from objectivity, this really amounts to the projection of local values (in this case European) as neutrally universal, the globalizing of ethnocentric values*. The funny thing is, although you Europeans and Americans are always shouting past each other, you're exactly alike. You both have a foolish pride that leads you to believe that you can treat the rest of the world, and each other, like children.
BTW, the OP said socialist-wannabes. This already implied that he understood that the U.S. Democrats aren't real socialists. So you get a -1 Redundant here, too.
* This is paraphrased from the Introduction to the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It quoted someone else, but I don't remember the original source. If someone out there is familiar with it, please let me know.
I agree with you that selling or stealing them would likely not be an option, however, I think that most would simply wind up broken or lost in very short order. When you give something away with no effort on the part of the reciever, it is perceived as a thing of little worth, and treated accordingly (doubly so if it were as ubiquitous as you describe). People that always depend on a government for everything from food and shelter to their "security" will never learn to value somthing like they would if they had to work hard to obtain it -- that's just human nature.
Maybe you should reconsider thinking in terms of "camps". Evaluate ideas on their own merits without trying to force them into classifications you can easily digest. There is no real liberal vs. conservative. It's all just groupthink manipulation meant to keep us divided and at each others' throats.
...I would have liked to have seen more variety of products reviewed. If you're interested in emergency goods, this is one of the best sources for emergency items that I've found. They have a local retail store close to where I live. It's fun to just go in and see what they have. Some of it's the standard camping stuff, but a lot of it is pretty clever. I bought a solar battery charger that works very nicely. I also got a emergency radio that's similar to the one in the article, but that has 4 possible power sources and has a built-in flashlight.
Of course you realize the solution to this is to implement a standard, government-issue, all-in-one RFID card that includes all financial information for all of my accounts, medical information, criminal history, psycological profile, and library reading habits. Maybe it shouldn't be a card at all, but rather an implanted chip -- that way I won't have to face the terrible inconvenience of losing it. The forehead or back of the hand would make convenient locations for such an implant.
There can be no evolution without natural selection. We have tampered with natural selection.
It's been said before. Natural selection doesn't ever stop. The selection criteria simply change.
Technology has given people with hereditary conditions like diabetes and nearsightedness the same chance to pass its genes to the next generation.
We are a weaker race because of it...
Depends on your definition of "weaker". If the diabetic or nearsighted person that would have died off under the selection criteria of 500 years ago posseses attributes that allows him/her to contribute things to today's society that greatly outweigh the expense of the insulin or contact lenses consumed, how does that translate to a net loss? Technology and the new selection criteria have allowed this guy the ability to reproduce (3 children in this case). I don't think it would be very honest to write off his life as having the effect of weakening the race.
Think of the level of power generation you could get by combining these two technologies. A "Suspended-load Backpack" *with* a solarpanel on top. This could really get interesting.
"After more than 20 years of research, development and competition in the field of HCI, not one single leading operating system developing company has come up with an OS that utilizes the four corners of the screen."
They're based on observed and verified science, but also any existing records of religious experiences that many humans have had over the centuries. Some I consider complete bunk, but others are more compelling and worthy of consideration. Although such things cannot and should not be taken as hard "evidence" for religion, they basically amount to witness testimony, which I feel is not altogether invalid. Although having disparate origins, most religions have much in common. This can either be explained away as all humans having some primeval "need" for religion and coincidentally inventing similar concepts or It can be seen as a kind of "evidence" that much truth in the various religions of the world has a like origin with someone or something truly divine that has been communicating with humanity, on occasion, throughout history. As I mentioned, in the case of the Bible, even though I feel it contains much insight from divine sources, it has obviously been muddled by centuries of politics. Even the original authors passed any supernatural insights through their own all-too-human cultural filters. Any student of any scripture (Bible, Koran, whatever) should try to keep such things in mind -- cut through the cultural human crap and look for any divine wisdom that may survive.
Wait, I get it. People who accept speciation but not macroevolution are essentially saying that although we can show that speciation is known to occur naturally, they deny that it happened in the past to produce the species already known to us?
Isn't that like saying although people from Newton onwards can show that gravity makes apples fall to the ground, we can't prove that apples fell to the ground because of gravity before Newton's time?
It's more like seeing a lightning bolt strike a tree and knock some apples off and therefore coming to the conclusion that all the fallen apples I've ever observed must have been similarly knocked out of the trees by lightning bolts. Even though speciation has been shown to occur through evolution, some feel that the very limited observed occurances cannot account for the great diversity of life that currently exists on earth.
He describes himself as a Christian. I think it's fair to assume that he holds typical Christian beliefs. And, from his website:
The Bible (and other historical documents) teach that Jesus was mocked, beaten beyond recognition, and then crucified on a cross to endure the penalty for our sins so that we didn't have to suffer the fate of a very real hell we all deserve.
Not everyone that believes in a "hell" thinks that it involves a place where torture will be inflicted by God as punishment for not doing what He says. I'll try to explain my idea of hell. In order to fully grasp this I'll just say that I don't think sentient beings (including humans) just come into being at the moment of birth, conception, or whatever. I think our concscienceness existed in some form previous to this life. I even think and we knew each other and had friendships and interpersonal relationships (only intellectual and emotional, not physical) similar to the way we do things here. I don't have any hard evidence of this. It falls into the category of "I think but can't prove".
Now think of how you feel when you have something important to do and you fail at it. You might wish that you could travel back in time and do things differently. My idea of hell would be simply the feelings of dissappointment or even disgust with oneself that one feels after failing in something very important. This would be magnified many-fold if one's failure is their own life. Someone that lived a basically good life but not a spectacular one would might feel some minor hellishness, but someone that was a mass murderer and got p
That's completely asinine. It's also a straw man argument. So people filter what you say through their own beliefs system before responding - how does that in any way whatsoever tell you that they don't think you have a right to your own beliefs?
You're correct in pointing out that Zdziarski worded things poorly, but I think what he was trying to say is that people frequently attack him for doing nothing more than talking about his religious beliefs on his personal website. Since he's not actively going around trying to convince people that his is the One True Way®, he feels this is unjustified.
Correct me if I'm wrong (really). The Bible claims that it is the incorruptible word of God, and that you should believe this because the Bible says so. The Bible also says that if you don't believe, you go to hell.
I consider these two things to be antithetical to sound thinking. If, however, I am wrong, and the Bible doesn't claim these things, then you have to explain how vast numbers of Christians say that it does. The only explanation I can see is that they have misinterpreted it. In which case, you are left with the unenviable position of claiming that you are interpreting it right and they aren't - so much for the incorruptible word of God.
You got it right in the second paragraph. The claims of Bible infalliblility are pure dogma. The Bible itself never actually comes out and makes such a claim. Even though he says he's not religious, and I am, my thoughts on the Bible are pretty much in line with this guy's (skip to the largest paragraph). I think that anyone who's not either ignorant or being dishonest, after a careful study of the Bible would admit that it does contain errors and politics of men -- but my beliefs aren't based on the Bible alone. I would avoid any religion that does hold such tenets.
Everything that is taught is done so based on authority. But the practice of science is based upon the rejection of authority. You can't practice science if you blindly accept things as the truth. That's not how science works.
You're absolutely right. I don't think any reasonable person would have a problem with the genuinely unbiased practice of science. The problem lies in the imperfection of human beings. No one is capable of being genuinely unbiased 100% of the time. Everything we say, do, or even think has to pass through the filter of our own experiences. Even though in an ideal world that's not the way science works, it is the way the real world scientific establishment works. Follow the money trail whenever you read the results of "scientific" research -- especially research that is difficult or impracticle to duplicate and verify.
Speciation has been observed a number of times. If you aren't referring to speciation, then I suggest you use proper terminology instead of the terms cooked up by creationists.
You, on the other hand, have faith that a magical being in the sky makes things happen, who claims to love us all, but is willing to torture us for eternity if we don't do what he says.
I'm sure there are many Christians out there that hold such simplistic views of heaven and hell (you are correct that this is silly), There is no evidence that Zdziarski holds them, and to bring it up amounts to nothing more than name calling -- trying to herd him into a stereotypical group that you've been able to easily "deal with" in the past.
If I had mod points, I'd put you through the roof. Taking in society's neglected and unwanted orphans seems to me the most selfless and truly Christian thing to do. I'd like to know if there is any existing data on what has happened to the orphan/wards-of-the-state population in developed nations since the advent of in virtro fertilization. If anything I'd bet the problem of discarded, parentless children has been greatly exacerbated.
1. A zygote/fetus depends on the mother for sustenance. Without a source of nutrition in the form of blood from the mother through the placenta, the fetus dies. It is effectively a lump of flesh that fails the scientific definition of "life"
Wrong. Parasites depend on a host for sustenance, and yet science still considers them life.
2. Infantile Amnesia. This is a condition that affects everybody. The short version is that your earliest memory is probably somewhere between the ages of 3-5 years old. In a *very* small percentage of people, that first memory is in the 1.5-3 year range, but the fact of the matter is that personality is a function of your experiences and memories, and babies aren't forming permanent experiences/memories until they're at least a year old. While they're alive at this point, there lies in infantile amnesia an argument towards the infant not being sentient.
From this I gather that killing children younger than 1.5 years old doesn't really do any harm. Correct? I really don't want my government to be in the business of legislating who's sentient and who's not.
At 1-day after conception, how can you tell 4 cells apart, if they haven't differentiated themselves yet? Answer: You can't.
It would seem you meant to imply that the 4 cells 24 hours after conception are in all ways equal to a theoretical group of 4 tumor cells forming in some other part of the body. If that were the case, however, you could take these 4 tumor cells, put them in the uterus and they would then proceed to grow into a child just like the 4 original cells. Perhaps you should inform fertility doctors of your amazing discovery. I'm sure they'd be quite interested in this phenomenon.
The point is, even if you or I can't distinguish between these two groups of 4 cells (something I suspect to be not entirely accurate), they are, in fact, different.
...this is like tipping over someone in a wheelchair.
Correction... It's like tipping over a shifty multibillionare -- that evicts little old ladies from their apartment in order to bulldoze it and put up a shopping mall, all while amusing himself by pulling the wings off flies -- in his wheelchair.
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That's why I use Graffiti Anywhere on my Treo 600. It lets you do grafitti right on the screen. I have mine set to activate when I tap the upper right 5 pixels of the screen.
I'm curious. Why? I use my Treo 600 as my primary mp3 player and It's been great. What problems have you run into?
With qset, you can change the default jpeg quality (around 60 or so) all the way up to 99. Still, I've found the camera works much better in sunlight than indoors.
BTW, if you don't already have it installed, you ought to try out TCPMP. I use it to watch all kinds of video (divx, xvid, you name it). I can compress a full 2 hour movie down to about 70 megs. I've also installed several game console emulators on it (NES, GB, SG, etc.) and play them frequently. The digital camera can even be a video camera. I use it to take short home movies and then export to mpegs. Just thought you might be interested in some Treo apps I've found very helpful.
You took the words out of my mouth. I made a very similar point about my Treo 600 just a few days ago. I refer you to my post.
P.S. You might want to check out some of the apps I link to. They all work on the 650 (even better, actually), as well as the 600.
To answer your question... Yes I can and do control it with one hand. I only typically only break out the stylus when I do some drawing. The Treo has a very thumbs-friendly qwerty keyboard, and the touch screen works fine with fingers. All the controls for play/pause/ff/rw are located very prominently on the center of the device, just below the screen -- similar to where they would be on an iPod.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Apple-hater -- far from it. I use a Mac at work (designer) all day long, and you'd have to to pry my PowerBook® from my cold dead hands and all, but anyone that thinks it's earth-shattering is more than slightly behind the times. I've been watching video (divx, xvid, you name it), listening to mp3's *and* oggs for almost 2 years now on my Treo 600. It's also my cell phone, calendar, addressbook, yada-yada... I can even use it to ssh, vnc, ftp, or connect to Samba shares on my server at home and run several game console emulators on it (NES, GB, SG, etc.). The video iPod does have more disk space (although I've never had problems filling up my Treo's 2 Gig expansion card -- which card I can swap out for more space, if I ever *do* need it). Another key advantage is that my Treo 600 is also a digital camera and can even be a video camera. I use it to take short home movies of my kids when we're at the park or fair, or whatever and then export to mpegs. Not that the video iPod isn't cool and all, I'd just like to see more honesty in reporting the originality of the feature set.
I know you're joking, but I really fear for Jon's safety. I don't think he's thought this move through. all the way. Surely he could telecommute, instead!
Disclaimer: I'm not really from North Korea. I'm just making a point.
You seem to hold up your views as the OneTruePOV® (you even base this on the farsical left-right political scale, but that's another story). This assumes you somehow occupy a neutral position and can suspend all prejudices. Sorry, but humans are incabable of a "view from nowhere". Far from objectivity, this really amounts to the projection of local values (in this case European) as neutrally universal, the globalizing of ethnocentric values*. The funny thing is, although you Europeans and Americans are always shouting past each other, you're exactly alike. You both have a foolish pride that leads you to believe that you can treat the rest of the world, and each other, like children.
BTW, the OP said socialist-wannabes. This already implied that he understood that the U.S. Democrats aren't real socialists. So you get a -1 Redundant here, too.
* This is paraphrased from the Introduction to the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It quoted someone else, but I don't remember the original source. If someone out there is familiar with it, please let me know.
...an assault rifle. Keep your powder dry ;-)
I agree with you that selling or stealing them would likely not be an option, however, I think that most would simply wind up broken or lost in very short order. When you give something away with no effort on the part of the reciever, it is perceived as a thing of little worth, and treated accordingly (doubly so if it were as ubiquitous as you describe). People that always depend on a government for everything from food and shelter to their "security" will never learn to value somthing like they would if they had to work hard to obtain it -- that's just human nature.
Maybe you should reconsider thinking in terms of "camps". Evaluate ideas on their own merits without trying to force them into classifications you can easily digest. There is no real liberal vs. conservative. It's all just groupthink manipulation meant to keep us divided and at each others' throats.
...I forgot that you'll need a login to view the NYT article I linked to above.
There is more available, but the mainstream media has been giving little coverage to this important part of the story.
...I would have liked to have seen more variety of products reviewed. If you're interested in emergency goods, this is one of the best sources for emergency items that I've found. They have a local retail store close to where I live. It's fun to just go in and see what they have. Some of it's the standard camping stuff, but a lot of it is pretty clever. I bought a solar battery charger that works very nicely. I also got a emergency radio that's similar to the one in the article, but that has 4 possible power sources and has a built-in flashlight.
Of course you realize the solution to this is to implement a standard, government-issue, all-in-one RFID card that includes all financial information for all of my accounts, medical information, criminal history, psycological profile, and library reading habits. Maybe it shouldn't be a card at all, but rather an implanted chip -- that way I won't have to face the terrible inconvenience of losing it. The forehead or back of the hand would make convenient locations for such an implant.
It's been said before. Natural selection doesn't ever stop. The selection criteria simply change.
Depends on your definition of "weaker". If the diabetic or nearsighted person that would have died off under the selection criteria of 500 years ago posseses attributes that allows him/her to contribute things to today's society that greatly outweigh the expense of the insulin or contact lenses consumed, how does that translate to a net loss? Technology and the new selection criteria have allowed this guy the ability to reproduce (3 children in this case). I don't think it would be very honest to write off his life as having the effect of weakening the race.
Think of the level of power generation you could get by combining these two technologies. A "Suspended-load Backpack" *with* a solarpanel on top. This could really get interesting.
...I've done a little research into this and think I may just have stumbled upon some prior art that would invalidate their patent.
/. == family oriented!? Oh, I see... You must be new here :-)
From TFA:
This guy's obviously never used Symphony OS.
They're based on observed and verified science, but also any existing records of religious experiences that many humans have had over the centuries. Some I consider complete bunk, but others are more compelling and worthy of consideration. Although such things cannot and should not be taken as hard "evidence" for religion, they basically amount to witness testimony, which I feel is not altogether invalid. Although having disparate origins, most religions have much in common. This can either be explained away as all humans having some primeval "need" for religion and coincidentally inventing similar concepts or It can be seen as a kind of "evidence" that much truth in the various religions of the world has a like origin with someone or something truly divine that has been communicating with humanity, on occasion, throughout history. As I mentioned, in the case of the Bible, even though I feel it contains much insight from divine sources, it has obviously been muddled by centuries of politics. Even the original authors passed any supernatural insights through their own all-too-human cultural filters. Any student of any scripture (Bible, Koran, whatever) should try to keep such things in mind -- cut through the cultural human crap and look for any divine wisdom that may survive.
It's more like seeing a lightning bolt strike a tree and knock some apples off and therefore coming to the conclusion that all the fallen apples I've ever observed must have been similarly knocked out of the trees by lightning bolts. Even though speciation has been shown to occur through evolution, some feel that the very limited observed occurances cannot account for the great diversity of life that currently exists on earth.
Not everyone that believes in a "hell" thinks that it involves a place where torture will be inflicted by God as punishment for not doing what He says. I'll try to explain my idea of hell. In order to fully grasp this I'll just say that I don't think sentient beings (including humans) just come into being at the moment of birth, conception, or whatever. I think our concscienceness existed in some form previous to this life. I even think and we knew each other and had friendships and interpersonal relationships (only intellectual and emotional, not physical) similar to the way we do things here. I don't have any hard evidence of this. It falls into the category of "I think but can't prove".
Now think of how you feel when you have something important to do and you fail at it. You might wish that you could travel back in time and do things differently. My idea of hell would be simply the feelings of dissappointment or even disgust with oneself that one feels after failing in something very important. This would be magnified many-fold if one's failure is their own life. Someone that lived a basically good life but not a spectacular one would might feel some minor hellishness, but someone that was a mass murderer and got p
You're correct in pointing out that Zdziarski worded things poorly, but I think what he was trying to say is that people frequently attack him for doing nothing more than talking about his religious beliefs on his personal website. Since he's not actively going around trying to convince people that his is the One True Way®, he feels this is unjustified.
You got it right in the second paragraph. The claims of Bible infalliblility are pure dogma. The Bible itself never actually comes out and makes such a claim. Even though he says he's not religious, and I am, my thoughts on the Bible are pretty much in line with this guy's (skip to the largest paragraph). I think that anyone who's not either ignorant or being dishonest, after a careful study of the Bible would admit that it does contain errors and politics of men -- but my beliefs aren't based on the Bible alone. I would avoid any religion that does hold such tenets.
You're absolutely right. I don't think any reasonable person would have a problem with the genuinely unbiased practice of science. The problem lies in the imperfection of human beings. No one is capable of being genuinely unbiased 100% of the time. Everything we say, do, or even think has to pass through the filter of our own experiences. Even though in an ideal world that's not the way science works, it is the way the real world scientific establishment works. Follow the money trail whenever you read the results of "scientific" research -- especially research that is difficult or impracticle to duplicate and verify.
Macroevolution is more than just speciation. Observed speciation still doesn't resolve all the missing links in the chain.
I'm sure there are many Christians out there that hold such simplistic views of heaven and hell (you are correct that this is silly), There is no evidence that Zdziarski holds them, and to bring it up amounts to nothing more than name calling -- trying to herd him into a stereotypical group that you've been able to easily "deal with" in the past.
If I had mod points, I'd put you through the roof. Taking in society's neglected and unwanted orphans seems to me the most selfless and truly Christian thing to do. I'd like to know if there is any existing data on what has happened to the orphan/wards-of-the-state population in developed nations since the advent of in virtro fertilization. If anything I'd bet the problem of discarded, parentless children has been greatly exacerbated.
Wrong. Parasites depend on a host for sustenance, and yet science still considers them life.
From this I gather that killing children younger than 1.5 years old doesn't really do any harm. Correct? I really don't want my government to be in the business of legislating who's sentient and who's not.
It would seem you meant to imply that the 4 cells 24 hours after conception are in all ways equal to a theoretical group of 4 tumor cells forming in some other part of the body. If that were the case, however, you could take these 4 tumor cells, put them in the uterus and they would then proceed to grow into a child just like the 4 original cells. Perhaps you should inform fertility doctors of your amazing discovery. I'm sure they'd be quite interested in this phenomenon.
The point is, even if you or I can't distinguish between these two groups of 4 cells (something I suspect to be not entirely accurate), they are, in fact, different.
Don't be so sure.
Correction... It's like tipping over a shifty multibillionare -- that evicts little old ladies from their apartment in order to bulldoze it and put up a shopping mall, all while amusing himself by pulling the wings off flies -- in his wheelchair.