Analogies often are flawed. I agree, it's not "the same thing". You and I both feel pretty sure that evolution is much more certain and provable than fascism vs. personal freedom. However, one thing my life has taught me is that I've been wrong before. One thing that history has taught be is that whole scads of people, every pretty much the entire human population, has been wrong before. So however certain I feel about things, I like to preserve the possibility that some reasonable person might disagree (even if I might think they're wrong).
I do agree, by the way, that "intelligent design" under it's average conception is not a scientific theory. I also agree that many of the people I've heard advocating intelligent design had an awful lot of zeal, but so have an awful lot of those who argue against it. Zeal (or being a zealot) doesn't necessarily correlate, in any way, with being wrong.
Where I disagree is that I believe many people are accusing these people of being morons. It's one prejudice among many others that could benefit from better understanding.
Yes, that is what the first theory is about. The Special Theory of Relativity. Different accelerations mean that you cannot measure the events in one frame from the other.
No, the theory of special relativity claims that all measurements between different frames of reference can be reconciled through the lorentz (spelling?) transformation, but that this was only true regarding bodies which were at rest or traveling at constant speeds under their own inertia. General Relativity expanded the theory to include any system, including accelerating bodies, by linking acceleration to gravitation. I'm not sure what you're talking about with "measuring events in one frame from another" since all events occur in all the frames of reference, but are measured differently. Have you ever studied these things?
I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of your post, because the big bold thing doesn't seem to show much understanding of the theory:
No. Any frame of reference can be taken to be stationary ONLY FOR THOSE ITEMS WITHIN THAT FRAME OF REFERENCE.
Any frame of reference can be taken as stationary. All things are in that frame of reference, but only things stationary from the point of view of that frame of reference are stationary within that frame of reference. Everything else is still measurable in that frame of reference, but will be measured to be moving. I know it sounds absurd to be speaking in tautologies like this, but it seems to be necessary. FYI, I don't think I'll respond again, no matter how absurd your claims are.
I'm not saying that schools are good now. I'm saying that, in order to improve the social climate in schools, expelling any student that isn't doing well will, I'm certain, have lots of drawbacks. I agree that we should be giving kids more variety. Maybe throw more vocational classes into the mix in high school, and make more of the classes elective. Treat teachers better and try to attract more/better teachers, and give teachers more training. Definitely *smaller class sizes*. I also, personally, think schools should try to find ways to encourage parents to get involved in the school-- make it a community effort, and return more control to the community. I know, easier said than done.
When I was in high school, I certainly thought it'd be great if you could just "get rid of the stupid people". The years since then have demonstrated to me that our society would be better off trying to integrate in these supposed "stupid people" and help them find a role in society where they can contribute. Many of them really aren't so stupid, and most everyone has their talents. Most everyone would use those talents toward their own (and others') betterment, so long as they know how. We should be trying to motivate people to use those talents, and helping them to use their talents well, rather than shunning them because they aren't quite our model for perfect human beings.
Ok. Do a google search on "relativity" and pretend that this means you've studied and understood it. I could quickly link to the Wikipedia, it wouldn't make me more correct.
What it says, simplified, is that a uniform gravitational field is equivalent to a uniform acceleration.
And non-uniform acceleration would be equivalent to a non-uniform gravitational field. Inertial would be equivalent to being at rest. Therefore, any frame of reference can be taken to be stationary.
But ok. Don't listen. Stonewall. Ask people be convincing to you, and then claim they're wrong because you aren't interested in listening. Fine. Good thing you've refuted the evil of "stupid people" who claim things that they can't prove.
This is the attitude that many in the scientific community are fighting against. "I don't understand how evolution could work and I can't wrap my brain around number bigger than a million, so it must be God" is a fine attitude if you don't work in Biology -- but to pass that along to your children (who may someday want to work in that field) is a disservice.
I don't believe that's really what's happening. Most people who get upset about evolution are rarely upset about other scientific discoveries. I really don't think it's about "I can't understand the concept of evolution" so much as "I think you're trying to mount a direct attack on my religion, and therefore I'm going to fight back." For the record, I'm not religious, but I know some pretty reasonable religious people who are frustrated by the attempts to dismiss things that they find meaningful. I'm not saying they're right, but if you want to understand the issue, it doesn't help to pretend that they're all morons and hillbillies.
As a society we have deemed the scientific method, rather than the institution of the [cC]hurch the final arbiter of what is true and not true.
I disagree. Perhaps you have put the same kind of faith in the "scientific method" as the arbiter of truth that others have put in the church, but not me. I believe it's simply a method of approaching the world that has shown a certain level of reliability in answering questions (and that reliability is not 100%).
Your school system does not have that right.
Well, lets flip that around. What if the federal government wanted your local school system to teach something that you felt was entirely wrong. Let's make it a non-science issue. Let's say the federal government wanted to have all social studies courses claim that loyalty to your country was more important than personal freedom, and you disagreed. Let's say all the parents in your community agreed with you. Let's say your state and all the surrounding states agreed that the federal mandate seemed a bit fascist.
In my mind, some of it is an issue of who's right and who's wrong, but some of it is a question of, do local communities get to run themselves, decide what's ok in their own schools, etc. I think that very often, they should, even though this would mean that most schools would probably teach things I disagree with. Wouldn't you rather decide what your kids should learn rather than having me decide?
The rest of your post, I don't think it applies. We're not talking about "my God" or "my religion". I'm not demeaning people and judging people for disagreeing with me. In fact, I'm particularly not judging people for disagreeing. I'm asking you to refrain from calling the people that I disagree with "morons".
"your" is wrong too. You know, part of the joke. Not that I'm above typos. Check my other posts, and you'll see a bunch, but in this case, it did happen to be purposeful.
Unless you can provide support that the Sun does revolve around the Earth
Are you at all familiar with the theory of general relativity? True, it's only been around for about a hundred years, but it's pretty well accepted these days. The upshot of the whole thing is, any frame of reference can be taken as stationary (motionless) and the universe continues to make sense. Now, this doesn't mean that the earth has sufficient gravity to drag the sun around all over the place, however, within any bounded system, the motion of the unaccelerated objects within that system should be able to be accounted for (from any frame of reference) from inertia and sources of gravity. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.
So, according to Einstein, you can take the earth as a stationary object and speak of the sun as moving around it. Don't like that? Argue with Einstein, not me.
Further, even in Newtonian physics, the Earth doesn't properly revolve around the sun, but the earth and the sun both move around a common center. That's forgetting the other planets, asteroids, comets, galaxies, etc., which would, of course, complicate things.
Besides, what does "around" mean? If I were to say that "going around a tree" would mean being on the north side of the tree, then the east, south, west, and north again (or the other way around), wouldn't that be a pretty good definition? The way we decide whether I go around the tree or whether the tree goes around me depends on the fixed cardinal directions and the fixed nature of the ground. However, in space, there aren't fixed directions or a fixed ground. So what is "around"?
It's not like someone came up to them out of the blue, called them a moron, dropped some brand-new un-heard-of knowledge and expected them to accept it instantly.
No, instead your coming at them every day, calling them morons, dropping some information that they've already heard a thousand times and don't particularly care for, and expecting them to kiss your butt for showing them how stupid they are.
You owe us some:)
Not me. In fact, I wouldn't call myself "religious" at all, nor do I believe I'm speaking for religious people. I think I'll stick by the idea that insulting people and telling them that they're too stupid to run their own lives and raise their own children is by no means the optimal method for winning friends and influencing people.
Further, if you find it utterly impossible to value or respect the beliefs, culture, way of life of a group of people, you aren't the best person to lead them, let alone run their lives.
You're a moron. Listen. I'm write, your stupid. The quicker you just accept that, and realize I have better things to do than explain things to morons, the better off we'll both be.
(now, if you thought I really meant it, wouldn't you get annoyed at this sort of thing? Especially if it were on a topic you cared about?)
I think you're absolutely right. When people speak disparagingly of the "intellectual elite", they're trying to reference the phenomenon of egotistical elitists who believe themselves to be among the "smart people", and therefore fit to run everyone else's life, determine all truths, and assign all values. They believe that disagreeing with any of the self-aggrandizing over-simplified "truths" that they believe are obvious would necessarily relegate you to the status of "chimp", which means you have no standing to hold your own opinion on any topic, you should never present any arguments in a public forum, and you are fit to be ridiculed at every opportunity. Additionally, you should simply accept this role, and appreciate that you have such wise masters who are able to inform you of your chimpy nature.
That people dislike being treated this way is not strange. In fact, anyone who employs this "intellectual elitism" and is unable to understand the resentment he generates clearly has a failing in his intellectual being that prevents him from understanding simple human truths.
That "nerds" are harassed at school is a different issue. Big kids harass small kids because they can. Dumb kids harass smart kids because they're jealous. Kids who are picked on pick on other kids. It's not a serious devaluing of intelligence, it's just kids trying to exert power over each other. "Nerds" are an easy target, not because they're smart, but because they lack social skills. It's always been that way.
Ultimately, though, smart people are highly valued. In general, people want to be smart. People want to know the right thing to say and do in any situation, people like being correct, and they like being able to figure things out.
Schools are intellectual torture for the "intelligent" for an utterly different reason. Students who learn quickly are forced to sit through the same mish-mash over and over in order to provide an opportunity for slower students to pick up the same ideas. It's not necessarily a smart/dumb issue, but on a subject by subject basis, it's a slow/quick issue. Classes are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator, or else the lowest common denominator becomes totally lost. Often, this situation would be helped by lower class sizes and more personal attention for each student.
Well, their Talk service is still in beta, and doesn't appear to be done yet. We'll have to wait and see, but I'd be surprised if they don't open it up eventually.
Because that is an emotional reaction. If those people who still believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth have a problem with someone telling them they're wrong and using them as an example of why the US is losing in this field, why should I care?
A well justified emotional reaction. If someone came to you and said, "You're a moron, so I'm going to start telling you what's true," don't you think you'd be a little upset?
If you have a sort of "intelligence" that causes you to believe yourself to be superior to everyone else, and therefore causes to be self-righteous in steamrolling over others' lives, and to be indignant when those people don't appreciate your "guidance", that sort of "intelligence" entitles you to be in charge of exactly jack and sh*t.
BTW, study up on your relativity, my boy, because the people who believe that the sun goes around the Earth aren't necessarily wrong.
Remove all the buzzword-techno-political crap that's found it's way into teaching and just TEACH.
See? So it is political.
#2 Kids who aren't in school to learn need to be removed. Yeah, so be it, some kids don't get schooled. If they nor their parents can put forth the effort, then that's too bad. Sure, we'll hear sob stories about how some are going to get left behind. Let me clue you in to a little secret. If you hold back our best and brightest to make sure no one is "left behind" then you're going to DESTROY the best and brightest. Or at least you'll have managed to severely inhibit their potential.
No. This is a good reason for kids to get more individual attention (smaller class size). It's a good reason to divide the kids up into groups based on achievement, like honors classes and "gifted and talented" programs. However, kicking kids out of school outright because they aren't doing well and aren't motivated is just a good way to breed a low-class bunch of thugs who feel like they've never really had a chance.
Kids are kids. Most of them aren't going to see the value of their education at 13, but that's not sufficient reason to toss them out. I know it's not politically correct to separate out the "smart" kids from the "dumb" kids, because "it'll hurt their self esteem," but that's basically what needs to happen. As much as possible, students should be getting help targeted directly to their needs, and they should be allowed to learn at their own pace, even (especially) when that means they're excelling and outpacing the rest of their class. That's when you find rewards for that child, as well as more advanced/challenging work (but don't simply give them MORE work, as it's a disincentive to excel).
It's red pill vs. blue pill, and now that everybody has seen how the trilogy ends, blue pill wins every time.
So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that we should blame our intellectual deficiencies on the enormous suckage created by Matrix 2 and 3? Or are you claiming that the Wachowskis were obviously on a lot of blue pills when they wrote the ending?
Sorry, just not getting it. Oh, wait, you mean that we all wish we could take some sort of memory-erasing pills now that we've seen those movies, right?
If you RTFA, I think you'll find that the author agrees. In fact, one of the things he shows is that "realism" isn't even sufficient to describe the style of a game. Would "Live motion" (as opposed to animation) be sufficient to describe the style of a movie? No.
I think this particular article, rather, is indicating that "style" is a pretty complex thing, of which "realism" is only one aspect. Therefore, realism is not the end-all-be-all, nor need it be the chief goal. (I wouldn't say that this is a summary of the essay, but just one point I drew from what the author wrote)
As broadband picks up, AOL has become more focused, it seems, on sevices (AIM) and their web portal. That's some of the same territory Google owns and wants. If google could connect their new IM with AOL's network, it'd sure help its success (thought I'm not sure where the revenue in that is), and pushing google's ads to all the AOL customers must be attractive.
Not that I have any inside info or business knowledge, but yeah, I can see reasons why Google would be interested.
Do you work in the arts? Otherwise, and I'm not trolling here, how are music and photos relevant to what you call "real tasks"?
My point about "real tasks" is, you can say "You can use the Palm to show pictures and play music." Under controlled conditions, it "works". But try using to show off pictures of your last vacation, and it's not really going to work well for that task. Try actually using it as a portable mp3 player, and it's not really suitable for that. The only "real tasks" that I've found them suitable for are: calendar, address book, text notes.
I didn't say they were useless. I said that, in my experience, what Palm handhelds* did well were PDA functions (notes, calendar, address book), and that if that's all they're going to do well, they should stick with those and focus on making the devices cheaper, thinner, lighter, more energy efficient, and generally more refined rather than pasting on non-functional web browsers and WiFi. If they're going to go with WiFi, bluetooth, etc., then they should try to push the envelope and make real, useful, practical handheld computers that are easy/intuitive to use and generally problem-free.
And yes, I implied that if Palm wanted to be innovative, that they were on the right track by creating a unique device, and that if they wanted to be more innovative, they might want to continue on that path and make a device that does not, as of yet, exist. Wow. Imagine that, I associated the idea of "innovation" with "creating something unique which hadn't existed before". How moronic of me.
But you aren't really going to even listen to me, are you? It's too important to rage against the bad man who's saying Palm isn't perfect.
*Palm calls them "handhelds" these days, not PDAs. Whatever you think they're "designed for", the people designing them believe they're designed to be hendheld computers.
You really want to know? Let me put it this way: I could just as easily and just as accurately describe it as, "An act of strategic brilliance in which Apple bought an established, beloved, and technologically sound and yet technologically advanced operating system in order to dramatically improve the quality of product that they offered, followed by several years of dramatic improvement to every part of the OS, from it's most deeply buried guts all the way up to the most cosmetic aspects, as well as the addition of several new features and capabilities."
As far as the facts go, neither your statement nor mine is really "false"-- which you believe is more accurate is debatable, but yours most definitely sounds like flamebait.
One more time: Palm in my experience, Palm devices don't do anything particularly well except for simple calendaring/address book. I've tried the music player, I've tried the cameras, I've tried the wifi, email, web browsing, outlook connectivity, picture viewing, and lots of other features. These are all features that Palm advertises that these products do, and they don't, in my experience, do them well, easily, elegantly, or with much stability.
The most you can do is claim to have had different experiences, but you yourself seem to be claiming that these Palm advertised features are not what the device was designed for. Either way, I've shared my experience, and you have no grounds to argue that this has not been my experience.
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I do agree, by the way, that "intelligent design" under it's average conception is not a scientific theory. I also agree that many of the people I've heard advocating intelligent design had an awful lot of zeal, but so have an awful lot of those who argue against it. Zeal (or being a zealot) doesn't necessarily correlate, in any way, with being wrong.
Where I disagree is that I believe many people are accusing these people of being morons. It's one prejudice among many others that could benefit from better understanding.
No, the theory of special relativity claims that all measurements between different frames of reference can be reconciled through the lorentz (spelling?) transformation, but that this was only true regarding bodies which were at rest or traveling at constant speeds under their own inertia. General Relativity expanded the theory to include any system, including accelerating bodies, by linking acceleration to gravitation. I'm not sure what you're talking about with "measuring events in one frame from another" since all events occur in all the frames of reference, but are measured differently. Have you ever studied these things?
I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of your post, because the big bold thing doesn't seem to show much understanding of the theory: No. Any frame of reference can be taken to be stationary ONLY FOR THOSE ITEMS WITHIN THAT FRAME OF REFERENCE.
Any frame of reference can be taken as stationary. All things are in that frame of reference, but only things stationary from the point of view of that frame of reference are stationary within that frame of reference. Everything else is still measurable in that frame of reference, but will be measured to be moving. I know it sounds absurd to be speaking in tautologies like this, but it seems to be necessary. FYI, I don't think I'll respond again, no matter how absurd your claims are.
When I was in high school, I certainly thought it'd be great if you could just "get rid of the stupid people". The years since then have demonstrated to me that our society would be better off trying to integrate in these supposed "stupid people" and help them find a role in society where they can contribute. Many of them really aren't so stupid, and most everyone has their talents. Most everyone would use those talents toward their own (and others') betterment, so long as they know how. We should be trying to motivate people to use those talents, and helping them to use their talents well, rather than shunning them because they aren't quite our model for perfect human beings.
Sounds pretty smart to me. I might switch back to "Windows" then.
What it says, simplified, is that a uniform gravitational field is equivalent to a uniform acceleration.
And non-uniform acceleration would be equivalent to a non-uniform gravitational field. Inertial would be equivalent to being at rest. Therefore, any frame of reference can be taken to be stationary.
But ok. Don't listen. Stonewall. Ask people be convincing to you, and then claim they're wrong because you aren't interested in listening. Fine. Good thing you've refuted the evil of "stupid people" who claim things that they can't prove.
I don't believe that's really what's happening. Most people who get upset about evolution are rarely upset about other scientific discoveries. I really don't think it's about "I can't understand the concept of evolution" so much as "I think you're trying to mount a direct attack on my religion, and therefore I'm going to fight back." For the record, I'm not religious, but I know some pretty reasonable religious people who are frustrated by the attempts to dismiss things that they find meaningful. I'm not saying they're right, but if you want to understand the issue, it doesn't help to pretend that they're all morons and hillbillies.
As a society we have deemed the scientific method, rather than the institution of the [cC]hurch the final arbiter of what is true and not true.
I disagree. Perhaps you have put the same kind of faith in the "scientific method" as the arbiter of truth that others have put in the church, but not me. I believe it's simply a method of approaching the world that has shown a certain level of reliability in answering questions (and that reliability is not 100%).
Your school system does not have that right.
Well, lets flip that around. What if the federal government wanted your local school system to teach something that you felt was entirely wrong. Let's make it a non-science issue. Let's say the federal government wanted to have all social studies courses claim that loyalty to your country was more important than personal freedom, and you disagreed. Let's say all the parents in your community agreed with you. Let's say your state and all the surrounding states agreed that the federal mandate seemed a bit fascist.
In my mind, some of it is an issue of who's right and who's wrong, but some of it is a question of, do local communities get to run themselves, decide what's ok in their own schools, etc. I think that very often, they should, even though this would mean that most schools would probably teach things I disagree with. Wouldn't you rather decide what your kids should learn rather than having me decide?
The rest of your post, I don't think it applies. We're not talking about "my God" or "my religion". I'm not demeaning people and judging people for disagreeing with me. In fact, I'm particularly not judging people for disagreeing. I'm asking you to refrain from calling the people that I disagree with "morons".
"your" is wrong too. You know, part of the joke. Not that I'm above typos. Check my other posts, and you'll see a bunch, but in this case, it did happen to be purposeful.
Are you at all familiar with the theory of general relativity? True, it's only been around for about a hundred years, but it's pretty well accepted these days. The upshot of the whole thing is, any frame of reference can be taken as stationary (motionless) and the universe continues to make sense. Now, this doesn't mean that the earth has sufficient gravity to drag the sun around all over the place, however, within any bounded system, the motion of the unaccelerated objects within that system should be able to be accounted for (from any frame of reference) from inertia and sources of gravity. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here.
So, according to Einstein, you can take the earth as a stationary object and speak of the sun as moving around it. Don't like that? Argue with Einstein, not me.
Further, even in Newtonian physics, the Earth doesn't properly revolve around the sun, but the earth and the sun both move around a common center. That's forgetting the other planets, asteroids, comets, galaxies, etc., which would, of course, complicate things.
Besides, what does "around" mean? If I were to say that "going around a tree" would mean being on the north side of the tree, then the east, south, west, and north again (or the other way around), wouldn't that be a pretty good definition? The way we decide whether I go around the tree or whether the tree goes around me depends on the fixed cardinal directions and the fixed nature of the ground. However, in space, there aren't fixed directions or a fixed ground. So what is "around"?
Alright, I'm done here.
No, instead your coming at them every day, calling them morons, dropping some information that they've already heard a thousand times and don't particularly care for, and expecting them to kiss your butt for showing them how stupid they are.
You owe us some :)
Not me. In fact, I wouldn't call myself "religious" at all, nor do I believe I'm speaking for religious people. I think I'll stick by the idea that insulting people and telling them that they're too stupid to run their own lives and raise their own children is by no means the optimal method for winning friends and influencing people.
Further, if you find it utterly impossible to value or respect the beliefs, culture, way of life of a group of people, you aren't the best person to lead them, let alone run their lives.
(now, if you thought I really meant it, wouldn't you get annoyed at this sort of thing? Especially if it were on a topic you cared about?)
That people dislike being treated this way is not strange. In fact, anyone who employs this "intellectual elitism" and is unable to understand the resentment he generates clearly has a failing in his intellectual being that prevents him from understanding simple human truths.
That "nerds" are harassed at school is a different issue. Big kids harass small kids because they can. Dumb kids harass smart kids because they're jealous. Kids who are picked on pick on other kids. It's not a serious devaluing of intelligence, it's just kids trying to exert power over each other. "Nerds" are an easy target, not because they're smart, but because they lack social skills. It's always been that way.
Ultimately, though, smart people are highly valued. In general, people want to be smart. People want to know the right thing to say and do in any situation, people like being correct, and they like being able to figure things out.
Schools are intellectual torture for the "intelligent" for an utterly different reason. Students who learn quickly are forced to sit through the same mish-mash over and over in order to provide an opportunity for slower students to pick up the same ideas. It's not necessarily a smart/dumb issue, but on a subject by subject basis, it's a slow/quick issue. Classes are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator, or else the lowest common denominator becomes totally lost. Often, this situation would be helped by lower class sizes and more personal attention for each student.
Well, their Talk service is still in beta, and doesn't appear to be done yet. We'll have to wait and see, but I'd be surprised if they don't open it up eventually.
A well justified emotional reaction. If someone came to you and said, "You're a moron, so I'm going to start telling you what's true," don't you think you'd be a little upset?
If you have a sort of "intelligence" that causes you to believe yourself to be superior to everyone else, and therefore causes to be self-righteous in steamrolling over others' lives, and to be indignant when those people don't appreciate your "guidance", that sort of "intelligence" entitles you to be in charge of exactly jack and sh*t.
BTW, study up on your relativity, my boy, because the people who believe that the sun goes around the Earth aren't necessarily wrong.
See? So it is political. #2 Kids who aren't in school to learn need to be removed. Yeah, so be it, some kids don't get schooled. If they nor their parents can put forth the effort, then that's too bad. Sure, we'll hear sob stories about how some are going to get left behind. Let me clue you in to a little secret. If you hold back our best and brightest to make sure no one is "left behind" then you're going to DESTROY the best and brightest. Or at least you'll have managed to severely inhibit their potential.
No. This is a good reason for kids to get more individual attention (smaller class size). It's a good reason to divide the kids up into groups based on achievement, like honors classes and "gifted and talented" programs. However, kicking kids out of school outright because they aren't doing well and aren't motivated is just a good way to breed a low-class bunch of thugs who feel like they've never really had a chance.
Kids are kids. Most of them aren't going to see the value of their education at 13, but that's not sufficient reason to toss them out. I know it's not politically correct to separate out the "smart" kids from the "dumb" kids, because "it'll hurt their self esteem," but that's basically what needs to happen. As much as possible, students should be getting help targeted directly to their needs, and they should be allowed to learn at their own pace, even (especially) when that means they're excelling and outpacing the rest of their class. That's when you find rewards for that child, as well as more advanced/challenging work (but don't simply give them MORE work, as it's a disincentive to excel).
Yeah, yeah, his Noodly Appendage has touched more people than Colin Farrell's.
So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that we should blame our intellectual deficiencies on the enormous suckage created by Matrix 2 and 3? Or are you claiming that the Wachowskis were obviously on a lot of blue pills when they wrote the ending?
Sorry, just not getting it. Oh, wait, you mean that we all wish we could take some sort of memory-erasing pills now that we've seen those movies, right?
I think this particular article, rather, is indicating that "style" is a pretty complex thing, of which "realism" is only one aspect. Therefore, realism is not the end-all-be-all, nor need it be the chief goal. (I wouldn't say that this is a summary of the essay, but just one point I drew from what the author wrote)
Not that I have any inside info or business knowledge, but yeah, I can see reasons why Google would be interested.
My point about "real tasks" is, you can say "You can use the Palm to show pictures and play music." Under controlled conditions, it "works". But try using to show off pictures of your last vacation, and it's not really going to work well for that task. Try actually using it as a portable mp3 player, and it's not really suitable for that. The only "real tasks" that I've found them suitable for are: calendar, address book, text notes.
And yes, I implied that if Palm wanted to be innovative, that they were on the right track by creating a unique device, and that if they wanted to be more innovative, they might want to continue on that path and make a device that does not, as of yet, exist. Wow. Imagine that, I associated the idea of "innovation" with "creating something unique which hadn't existed before". How moronic of me.
But you aren't really going to even listen to me, are you? It's too important to rage against the bad man who's saying Palm isn't perfect.
*Palm calls them "handhelds" these days, not PDAs. Whatever you think they're "designed for", the people designing them believe they're designed to be hendheld computers.
As far as the facts go, neither your statement nor mine is really "false"-- which you believe is more accurate is debatable, but yours most definitely sounds like flamebait.
Gee, for the level you aren't arguing with anything I've said, you may as well have said, "Ok, you're right".
The most you can do is claim to have had different experiences, but you yourself seem to be claiming that these Palm advertised features are not what the device was designed for. Either way, I've shared my experience, and you have no grounds to argue that this has not been my experience.
Like I said, "If all you need is for the client to view the document , send a PDF."
Can I be an executive? I have no experience.