I have a part-time job working with kids between 6th grade and 8th grade, and I'm continually amazed at how clever and intelligent every single one of them can be...if you can find a way to motivate them to make the effort. I also used to work as a flight instructor, so I have first-hand experience teaching, too. I've had students that I was certain were either deliberately trying to kill me in the airplane or else were so uncoordinated that they would never be able to fly. One of those students ended up becoming one of my best students, once I figured out how to communicate flying concepts to him in a way he could understand.
Saying "normal people aren't clever enough to program" is a cop out. If a teacher can't motivate the student to make the effort to learn to program or can't communicate in a variety of styles so that people of all learning types can get that "Aha!" moment when it finally begins to make sense, it's a failure of the teacher. Here's a tip for you, though: if you're so insecure that the thought of "the masses" learning to code scares you, then you probably aren't one of the top 10%, either.
I have a Dell Streak 7, and while I initially had several apps force-close immediately upon launching them, my experience has otherwise been quite different than yours. Almost every app that I had problems with (Connectbot, I don't remember what all else) have been updated multiple times since install, and the only one that I still can't get to run on my Streak is Google Sky...not exactly mission critical, since I'm not a professional astronomer, and, FWIW, it works quite well on my Hero phone. As far as look and feel making you feel like you are back in the '90s...well, if you say so, but I didn't think so.
One other thing that I didn't expect, but with which I've been quite happy, is that my Streak 7 has a full size SD card slot that I've been able to use to upload images from my digital cameras to Picassa or to my blog while traveling...which was one of my requirements for a tablet. IIRC, the iPad doesn't have an SD card slot (source, but if I'm wrong, please correct me).
There are a few exceptions for the Android that I can think of off the top of my head: 1) Connectbot (SSH client) and 2) Wyse Pocket Cloud (RDP client). Both work pretty well and are tools I use at work on my Dell tablet. And, as you mentioned, the Google Maps/Navigator app is pretty useful. I've also been happy with Speedview, a GPS-based speedometer and odometer. I've got a mount for my HTC Hero on the handlebars of my motorcycle, and I use Speedview to give me an arguably more accurate speedometer than the analog gauge on my bike (the V-Strom speedometer is out by about 10% according to Internet wisdom and my own personal experience). Then, of course, I also added both the Kindle and Nook apps which seem to work pretty well. There are probably more apps, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head...but then, I tend not to be a games person.
While the MS-bashing was perhaps a little gratuitous (and I can bash MS with the best of them), his point remains valid, at least in my admittedly limited experience. I personally have seen this happen to a friend of mine who is a very conscientious, very talented programmer. The sales department at a company where we both worked came to IT to ask if it was possible to provide a feature that a particular, high-dollar customer had requested. The IT manager asked my friend if it was possible to implement the feature, and if so, how long it would take to develop it. My friend analyzed the requirements and said three months, but don't sell the feature until they had a chance to lock down the requirements a little tighter. The manager went back to sales and told them yes it was possible, it would take at least three months to implement and DO NOT sell the feature until all the details had been ironed out. So what did the sales department do? You guessed it -- they sold the feature to the customer with a due date of something like two weeks.
When your sales department is focused exclusively on getting a signature on a contract, rather than making the customer happy long term, you get impossible deadlines and pure fantasy feature requests. And why not? Sales doesn't have to build the app since IT does that, they don't have to deal with customers who are pissed off because what they bought doesn't work because customer service gets those calls, and since they got the sale, they got their commission.
I don't know...a pencil is pretty easy to use, but it's trivial to use the wrong end (thereby erasing the work you've already done) or to poke yourself with it, etc.
Then again, I'm one of those people that gets annoyed with devices that try too hard to protect me from myself. That's one of the reasons why I prefer stick-shift cars, manual focus cameras, Linux, and such.
This is exactly the mindset I am arguing against. Does the fact that we are using precision guided munitions make the "some civilian casualties" any less dead? Does it make the pain that their family members feel any less painful? Do the parents of children who died in the drone strikes in Libya and Pakistan and Iraq and...and...and... grieve any less because we weren't trying to kill their kids? Do the kids who grow up without moms and dads because of our precision guided munitions miss their parents any less because we are less "indescriminate" than al Qaeda?
Plato argued a long, long time ago that it is better for 100 guilty men to go free than for even a single just man to be imprisoned unjustly. Plato was right, and just a little enlightened self-interest will explain why. When we kill even a single innocent civilian overseas in our never-ending thirst for "justice" and revenge after 9/11, we provide fuel for al Qaeda. What happens when a grieving father or orphan in Pakistan or Iraq is approached by an al Qaeda recruiter? What happens when that recruiter asks them if they want to strike back at the country responsible for killing their family members? Who does a twelve year old orphan in the middle east see as the bad guy when an American "precision guided" bomb kills his mom, his dad, his brother, his sister, his best friend?
Revenge isn't the answer. We can't turn a blind eye towards the suffering that we are perpetuating around the world, just because they are "over there" or because it isn't anyone we know. And the argument that we are good because we are less bad than al Qaeda is a straw man. Good isn't relative. We aren't the good guys because we kill fewer civilians than someone else. We are the good guys IF and because the actions we are taking pass the ethical test. I am saying we are failing that test. Our actions are no longer ethical, and that deeply troubles me. We need to take a long hard look at the legacy we are building around the world, because it isn't right. Gandhi said, "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." We would be wise to heed his words.
No, we are just launching drone strikes there and getting involved in a revolution that doesn't concern us.:rolleyes:
...and furthermore Libya has nothing to do with 9/11.
Dangit...I was all set to argue that that isn't what I said, then I re-read my comment and found, "As a result of 9/11". Unfortunately, that's what happens when you cut and paste in a web form. I was trying to say something more along the lines of "since 9/11" You're right that Libya had nothing to do with 9/11, and I retract that comment.
The raid that killed OBL was not our first military action in Pakistan. See this Wikipedia article for references. While I don't have the links at hand, I remember reading about several drone strikes in the couple of weeks to couple of months before the raid and I remember reading about how the Pakistanis were becoming more and more irate that we were taking such military actions -- often resulting in deaths of non-combatants -- within their borders. That may not be a full-fledged "invasion" but it certainly is not engendering warm fuzzies for the U.S. among the Pakistani people.
Regarding Syria...well, that didn't exactly stop us from invading Iraq, did it?
You're probably right that our presence would not be welcomed in Yemen, but then again, our presence isn't really welcomed just about *anywhere* in the middle east. IMHO, a blanket strategy is *exactly* what we need for most of the middle east: GTFO! Unfortunately, we've involved ourselves in a morass of ethnic clashes and religious wars (Sunni vs. Shia, anyone? Wahabbism?) where we *CAN'T WIN*. That's just a Bad Idea.
We produce more oil than Libya. However, as I understand (someone who works in the petroleum industry, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), most places in the middle east produce higher quality oil than is found in the U.S...so we sell it to others and import it from the middle east for ourselves. I kind of doubt that if we switched from importing oil overseas to using what we pump out of the ground ourselves that we'd just collapse.
...what's stopping your latest dictator from re-defining "hostilities" for the same purpose?
The answer? You. And since _you_ aren't going to do any more than whine on the web, nothing is ever going to change.
What, are you waiting for someone to launch a drone over the Whitehouse and initiate a little "non-hostile" action, then? Would that satisfy your wish for someone here will do something more than "whine on the web"?
The Revolutionary War started with a bunch of people publishing flyers and pamphlets (the 1700's equivalent of "whining on the web") LONG before the first shots were ever fired. If you think the best way to effect change is to start shooting as soon as you get pissed off at your government, then you're a troll and a moron. Overthrowing the government would -- at best -- only result in yet another dictator sitting in office...and this one wouldn't give up his position in four years. More likely, it would get anyone foolish enough to try killed or shipped off to Guantanamo.
It may not be worse, but it's not much better either. Evil is evil, always. Claiming one flavor of evil is okay because it's less despicable than another flavor of evil is a logical fallacy.
The "hope and change" I'm waiting for is we stop torturing people AND we stop bombing other people overseas.
I won't argue the facts that you presented here; there is no doubt in my mind that you are far more acquainted with them than I. I will, however, argue that we are not on any moral high ground, nor are we building many friends around the world with our actions. As a result of 9/11, we have since pretty much invaded four sovereign countries -- one of which (Pakistan, the other three being Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya) is ostensibly our ally (at least for now). We at least had some legitimate claims to Afghanistan, since they were clearly in cahoots with OBL. Iraq was ostensibly about removing an power mad dictator who was allegedly creating weapons of mass destruction. When none were found, we changed out tune to "well, he was in league with the terr'ists, and killing his own people"...much like our justification for invading Libya. But if that were really our motivation, then why aren't we in Syria or Yemen? Why didn't we get involved in Egypt or Tunisia? Why did we send just a token presence into Somalia in the '90s? Why were Libya and Iraq the only countries where we care that the leaders are attacking their own people?
I'm sure it's just pure coincidence that both Libya (#17) and Iraq (#12) are much greater producers of oil than Syria (#32), Yemen (#36), Egypt (#28), or Tunisia (#53).
What if the entire problem could be solved by simply returning the worlds forests back to the levels we had in the 1800's? How come nobody is out screaming that as a solution.
Because back in the '90s, Rush Limbaugh said "The only good thing about a tree is all the things you can make from it." (Yes, I think he's an idiot, and yes, I think reforestation is something we definitely should be doing.)
Who would store anything incriminating on an internet service, public or private, encrypted or not?
Go to youtube sometime, and you'll find out. I was in kind of an odd mood the other day, and did a search for the terms "motorcycle" and "squid" which returned plenty of videos of people doing idiotic things on motorcycles -- frequently on public roads, surrounded by lots of other vehicles. At the very least, a large percentage of the videos I watched could result in charges of reckless driving and/or speeding if the police decided to get involved.
Queue people angry about our involvement in overseas conflicts in 3...2...1...
Well, yeah. Just because I want insurance to keep someone else from marching over to take my stuff doesn't mean I want my "insurance company" marching around taking other peoples' stuff. You'll get people making those comments because it's a valid point.
(and to be fair, as the latest Mercedes commercials featuring drivers crediting the car for bailing them out from being idiot drivers demonstrates, it's not just in electronics).
You're right, we'd all be better off if these people and their passengers were dead, or better yet, quadriplegics on disability.
There's a problem with that. I was reading an article recently -- I think it was in the most recent issue of Motorcyclist magazine -- that claimed that accident and accident fatality statistics don't seem to support the claim that improved technology actually makes the roads any safer. According to the article, safety equipment like seat belts, ABS, traction control, helmets, neck braces and body armor (the last three more for motorcyclists than drivers, obviously) can certainly have a pronounced affect upon motor safety IF PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE THEIR DRIVING HABITS. Unfortunately, the increased perception of safety causes people to drive in such a way as to escalate the risk back to approximately the same level it was before the safety equipment was installed. Now that people feel like they have a safety net that will "keep them out of trouble", they will tend to push the envelope harder, which ends up putting the risk level more or less back to where it was before the safety equipment was installed.
In other words, you can try to find a way to protect stupid people (and to be fair, I've been one myself more often than I'd like to admit) from themselves, but you're probably not going to be able to stop someone who is sufficiently stupid and/or motivated.
Elitism certainly is a black mark upon technical fields, you're right. But I'm not entirely sure I disagree with shadowfaxcrx. Here's the rub: if you want to use *ANY* product, there is a minimum skill set required to use it. Ever see toys with the label "Warning: not for use by children under three (or five, or seventeen) years of age!" or household appliances that say "Adult supervision required"? Or, to drive a car, you must first prove to the DMV that you have the necessary skills and judgment to do so safely. At some level, a smart phone -- or any networked computer, for that matter -- shouldn't really be any different. If you want to use the device, you should take the time to learn at least a little bit about how it works and what potential hazards there are to its use.
I'm not saying that everyone who wants to use a smart phone should obtain a professional network admin-level skill set before they are allowed to purchase one, but as shadowfaxcrx said, understanding that "a scientific calculator does not need to read your contacts or see your location" to work isn't exactly rocket science.
We could have much, much more efficient conventional cars. We had some in the 90's-- cars that got around 50 to 60 mpg. We can do 100 mpg, and we can do it cheaply and in comfort, no need for exotic lightweight alloys, rare earth magnets, cramped seating, and all that. But currently the best thing I can get only does 40 mpg? Not one, NOT ONE, manufacturer has stepped up and sold a nice little conventional gas sipper in the US at a reasonable price, or any price at all. Europeans have dozens of cars that do better than 50 mpg, and we in the US get nothing.
I haven't updated it in about 1500 miles, but here is my fuel burn log for my bought-brand-new-in-the-U.S.-last-year gas-sipper. Notice the peak of 63 MPG? For the record, I drive it really, really hard. The fuel economy is good enough that I'm not really trying to keep fuel burn low, and it's by far the sportiest, sprightliest vehicle I've ever owned.
Slashdot Mirror
ROFL.
Although, I switched to Linux because I wasn't masochistic enough to use Windows =)
Bovine Scatology (that's B.S. for short).
I have a part-time job working with kids between 6th grade and 8th grade, and I'm continually amazed at how clever and intelligent every single one of them can be...if you can find a way to motivate them to make the effort. I also used to work as a flight instructor, so I have first-hand experience teaching, too. I've had students that I was certain were either deliberately trying to kill me in the airplane or else were so uncoordinated that they would never be able to fly. One of those students ended up becoming one of my best students, once I figured out how to communicate flying concepts to him in a way he could understand.
Saying "normal people aren't clever enough to program" is a cop out. If a teacher can't motivate the student to make the effort to learn to program or can't communicate in a variety of styles so that people of all learning types can get that "Aha!" moment when it finally begins to make sense, it's a failure of the teacher. Here's a tip for you, though: if you're so insecure that the thought of "the masses" learning to code scares you, then you probably aren't one of the top 10%, either.
I have a Dell Streak 7, and while I initially had several apps force-close immediately upon launching them, my experience has otherwise been quite different than yours. Almost every app that I had problems with (Connectbot, I don't remember what all else) have been updated multiple times since install, and the only one that I still can't get to run on my Streak is Google Sky...not exactly mission critical, since I'm not a professional astronomer, and, FWIW, it works quite well on my Hero phone. As far as look and feel making you feel like you are back in the '90s...well, if you say so, but I didn't think so.
One other thing that I didn't expect, but with which I've been quite happy, is that my Streak 7 has a full size SD card slot that I've been able to use to upload images from my digital cameras to Picassa or to my blog while traveling...which was one of my requirements for a tablet. IIRC, the iPad doesn't have an SD card slot (source, but if I'm wrong, please correct me).
Ditto, Dell Streak 7 and HTC Hero running 2.2 and 2.1-update1, respectively.
There are a few exceptions for the Android that I can think of off the top of my head: 1) Connectbot (SSH client) and 2) Wyse Pocket Cloud (RDP client). Both work pretty well and are tools I use at work on my Dell tablet. And, as you mentioned, the Google Maps/Navigator app is pretty useful. I've also been happy with Speedview, a GPS-based speedometer and odometer. I've got a mount for my HTC Hero on the handlebars of my motorcycle, and I use Speedview to give me an arguably more accurate speedometer than the analog gauge on my bike (the V-Strom speedometer is out by about 10% according to Internet wisdom and my own personal experience). Then, of course, I also added both the Kindle and Nook apps which seem to work pretty well. There are probably more apps, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head...but then, I tend not to be a games person.
While the MS-bashing was perhaps a little gratuitous (and I can bash MS with the best of them), his point remains valid, at least in my admittedly limited experience. I personally have seen this happen to a friend of mine who is a very conscientious, very talented programmer. The sales department at a company where we both worked came to IT to ask if it was possible to provide a feature that a particular, high-dollar customer had requested. The IT manager asked my friend if it was possible to implement the feature, and if so, how long it would take to develop it. My friend analyzed the requirements and said three months, but don't sell the feature until they had a chance to lock down the requirements a little tighter. The manager went back to sales and told them yes it was possible, it would take at least three months to implement and DO NOT sell the feature until all the details had been ironed out. So what did the sales department do? You guessed it -- they sold the feature to the customer with a due date of something like two weeks.
When your sales department is focused exclusively on getting a signature on a contract, rather than making the customer happy long term, you get impossible deadlines and pure fantasy feature requests. And why not? Sales doesn't have to build the app since IT does that, they don't have to deal with customers who are pissed off because what they bought doesn't work because customer service gets those calls, and since they got the sale, they got their commission.
I know these comments are kind of old, but here's the info on the article I referenced in my comments above, just in case you are interested:
"Risk Compensation", in the "Street Savvy" section of Motorcyclist magazine, July 2011, by Ben Purvis.
I don't know...a pencil is pretty easy to use, but it's trivial to use the wrong end (thereby erasing the work you've already done) or to poke yourself with it, etc.
Then again, I'm one of those people that gets annoyed with devices that try too hard to protect me from myself. That's one of the reasons why I prefer stick-shift cars, manual focus cameras, Linux, and such.
At risk of being pedantic, sed "s/morals/mortals/". Everyone knows there is no one with morals here on /. (Q.E.D.).
This is exactly the mindset I am arguing against. Does the fact that we are using precision guided munitions make the "some civilian casualties" any less dead? Does it make the pain that their family members feel any less painful? Do the parents of children who died in the drone strikes in Libya and Pakistan and Iraq and...and...and... grieve any less because we weren't trying to kill their kids? Do the kids who grow up without moms and dads because of our precision guided munitions miss their parents any less because we are less "indescriminate" than al Qaeda?
Plato argued a long, long time ago that it is better for 100 guilty men to go free than for even a single just man to be imprisoned unjustly. Plato was right, and just a little enlightened self-interest will explain why. When we kill even a single innocent civilian overseas in our never-ending thirst for "justice" and revenge after 9/11, we provide fuel for al Qaeda. What happens when a grieving father or orphan in Pakistan or Iraq is approached by an al Qaeda recruiter? What happens when that recruiter asks them if they want to strike back at the country responsible for killing their family members? Who does a twelve year old orphan in the middle east see as the bad guy when an American "precision guided" bomb kills his mom, his dad, his brother, his sister, his best friend?
Revenge isn't the answer. We can't turn a blind eye towards the suffering that we are perpetuating around the world, just because they are "over there" or because it isn't anyone we know. And the argument that we are good because we are less bad than al Qaeda is a straw man. Good isn't relative. We aren't the good guys because we kill fewer civilians than someone else. We are the good guys IF and because the actions we are taking pass the ethical test. I am saying we are failing that test. Our actions are no longer ethical, and that deeply troubles me. We need to take a long hard look at the legacy we are building around the world, because it isn't right. Gandhi said, "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." We would be wise to heed his words.
The US has not invaded Libya...
No, we are just launching drone strikes there and getting involved in a revolution that doesn't concern us. :rolleyes:
...and furthermore Libya has nothing to do with 9/11.
Dangit...I was all set to argue that that isn't what I said, then I re-read my comment and found, "As a result of 9/11". Unfortunately, that's what happens when you cut and paste in a web form. I was trying to say something more along the lines of "since 9/11" You're right that Libya had nothing to do with 9/11, and I retract that comment.
The raid that killed OBL was not our first military action in Pakistan. See this Wikipedia article for references. While I don't have the links at hand, I remember reading about several drone strikes in the couple of weeks to couple of months before the raid and I remember reading about how the Pakistanis were becoming more and more irate that we were taking such military actions -- often resulting in deaths of non-combatants -- within their borders. That may not be a full-fledged "invasion" but it certainly is not engendering warm fuzzies for the U.S. among the Pakistani people.
Regarding Syria...well, that didn't exactly stop us from invading Iraq, did it?
You're probably right that our presence would not be welcomed in Yemen, but then again, our presence isn't really welcomed just about *anywhere* in the middle east. IMHO, a blanket strategy is *exactly* what we need for most of the middle east: GTFO! Unfortunately, we've involved ourselves in a morass of ethnic clashes and religious wars (Sunni vs. Shia, anyone? Wahabbism?) where we *CAN'T WIN*. That's just a Bad Idea.
We produce more oil than Libya. However, as I understand (someone who works in the petroleum industry, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), most places in the middle east produce higher quality oil than is found in the U.S...so we sell it to others and import it from the middle east for ourselves. I kind of doubt that if we switched from importing oil overseas to using what we pump out of the ground ourselves that we'd just collapse.
...what's stopping your latest dictator from re-defining "hostilities" for the same purpose?
The answer? You. And since _you_ aren't going to do any more than whine on the web, nothing is ever going to change.
What, are you waiting for someone to launch a drone over the Whitehouse and initiate a little "non-hostile" action, then? Would that satisfy your wish for someone here will do something more than "whine on the web"?
The Revolutionary War started with a bunch of people publishing flyers and pamphlets (the 1700's equivalent of "whining on the web") LONG before the first shots were ever fired. If you think the best way to effect change is to start shooting as soon as you get pissed off at your government, then you're a troll and a moron. Overthrowing the government would -- at best -- only result in yet another dictator sitting in office...and this one wouldn't give up his position in four years. More likely, it would get anyone foolish enough to try killed or shipped off to Guantanamo.
Nothing works in the U.S. anymore, I'm sad to say.
It may not be worse, but it's not much better either. Evil is evil, always. Claiming one flavor of evil is okay because it's less despicable than another flavor of evil is a logical fallacy.
The "hope and change" I'm waiting for is we stop torturing people AND we stop bombing other people overseas.
I won't argue the facts that you presented here; there is no doubt in my mind that you are far more acquainted with them than I. I will, however, argue that we are not on any moral high ground, nor are we building many friends around the world with our actions. As a result of 9/11, we have since pretty much invaded four sovereign countries -- one of which (Pakistan, the other three being Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya) is ostensibly our ally (at least for now). We at least had some legitimate claims to Afghanistan, since they were clearly in cahoots with OBL. Iraq was ostensibly about removing an power mad dictator who was allegedly creating weapons of mass destruction. When none were found, we changed out tune to "well, he was in league with the terr'ists, and killing his own people"...much like our justification for invading Libya. But if that were really our motivation, then why aren't we in Syria or Yemen? Why didn't we get involved in Egypt or Tunisia? Why did we send just a token presence into Somalia in the '90s? Why were Libya and Iraq the only countries where we care that the leaders are attacking their own people?
I'm sure it's just pure coincidence that both Libya (#17) and Iraq (#12) are much greater producers of oil than Syria (#32), Yemen (#36), Egypt (#28), or Tunisia (#53).
And of course, none of those "smart weapons, guided missiles or small...bombs" have ever killed anyone but the bad guys we were targeting. Ever.
Do I need to include the "</sarc>" tag at the end of this post, or is it obvious enough?
...and there's no way [Congress] can delegate the declaration of war, particularly if they do so ambiguously.
Technically, that's not quite true. It's not easy, but it can be done.
What if the entire problem could be solved by simply returning the worlds forests back to the levels we had in the 1800's? How come nobody is out screaming that as a solution.
Because back in the '90s, Rush Limbaugh said "The only good thing about a tree is all the things you can make from it." (Yes, I think he's an idiot, and yes, I think reforestation is something we definitely should be doing.)
Who would store anything incriminating on an internet service, public or private, encrypted or not?
Go to youtube sometime, and you'll find out. I was in kind of an odd mood the other day, and did a search for the terms "motorcycle" and "squid" which returned plenty of videos of people doing idiotic things on motorcycles -- frequently on public roads, surrounded by lots of other vehicles. At the very least, a large percentage of the videos I watched could result in charges of reckless driving and/or speeding if the police decided to get involved.
Queue people angry about our involvement in overseas conflicts in 3...2...1...
Well, yeah. Just because I want insurance to keep someone else from marching over to take my stuff doesn't mean I want my "insurance company" marching around taking other peoples' stuff. You'll get people making those comments because it's a valid point.
(and to be fair, as the latest Mercedes commercials featuring drivers crediting the car for bailing them out from being idiot drivers demonstrates, it's not just in electronics).
You're right, we'd all be better off if these people and their passengers were dead, or better yet, quadriplegics on disability.
There's a problem with that. I was reading an article recently -- I think it was in the most recent issue of Motorcyclist magazine -- that claimed that accident and accident fatality statistics don't seem to support the claim that improved technology actually makes the roads any safer. According to the article, safety equipment like seat belts, ABS, traction control, helmets, neck braces and body armor (the last three more for motorcyclists than drivers, obviously) can certainly have a pronounced affect upon motor safety IF PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE THEIR DRIVING HABITS . Unfortunately, the increased perception of safety causes people to drive in such a way as to escalate the risk back to approximately the same level it was before the safety equipment was installed. Now that people feel like they have a safety net that will "keep them out of trouble", they will tend to push the envelope harder, which ends up putting the risk level more or less back to where it was before the safety equipment was installed.
In other words, you can try to find a way to protect stupid people (and to be fair, I've been one myself more often than I'd like to admit) from themselves, but you're probably not going to be able to stop someone who is sufficiently stupid and/or motivated.
Elitism certainly is a black mark upon technical fields, you're right. But I'm not entirely sure I disagree with shadowfaxcrx. Here's the rub: if you want to use *ANY* product, there is a minimum skill set required to use it. Ever see toys with the label "Warning: not for use by children under three (or five, or seventeen) years of age!" or household appliances that say "Adult supervision required"? Or, to drive a car, you must first prove to the DMV that you have the necessary skills and judgment to do so safely. At some level, a smart phone -- or any networked computer, for that matter -- shouldn't really be any different. If you want to use the device, you should take the time to learn at least a little bit about how it works and what potential hazards there are to its use.
I'm not saying that everyone who wants to use a smart phone should obtain a professional network admin-level skill set before they are allowed to purchase one, but as shadowfaxcrx said, understanding that "a scientific calculator does not need to read your contacts or see your location" to work isn't exactly rocket science.
We could have much, much more efficient conventional cars. We had some in the 90's-- cars that got around 50 to 60 mpg. We can do 100 mpg, and we can do it cheaply and in comfort, no need for exotic lightweight alloys, rare earth magnets, cramped seating, and all that. But currently the best thing I can get only does 40 mpg? Not one, NOT ONE, manufacturer has stepped up and sold a nice little conventional gas sipper in the US at a reasonable price, or any price at all. Europeans have dozens of cars that do better than 50 mpg, and we in the US get nothing.
I haven't updated it in about 1500 miles, but here is my fuel burn log for my bought-brand-new-in-the-U.S.-last-year gas-sipper. Notice the peak of 63 MPG? For the record, I drive it really, really hard. The fuel economy is good enough that I'm not really trying to keep fuel burn low, and it's by far the sportiest, sprightliest vehicle I've ever owned.
It's only got two wheels, though...