'It anticipates my needs,'

Didn't Sirrus Cybernetics already do this with lifts?

Yeah, but intelligence can also determine the external context.

Absolutely. This would make it a Strange Loop indeed.

Intelligent -> working in a patent office.

Unintelligent -> falling into red-hot magma.

Society can therefore even flip a man's intelligence by overruling his personal choice of context.

Albert Einstein in patent office = Law of Photoelectric Effect.

Albert Einstein in red-hot ' 'magma' ' = "Tssssssh."

Thus external context is of equal importance to innate ability within the expression of intelligence.


Also, when the bars start flicking like that, from one side to another, that's how I know when I've had enough to drink.

You could go the other way to solve this problem: make the batts/caps smaller and able to hold *less* charge. :D You'd rely on ubiquitous charging.

Phone needs charge; Phone spends most of it's time in my jacket; Phone receives pwr from jacket pocket.

Jacket needs charge; Jacket spends most of it's time on the coat hook. Wire coat hooks to the mains electricity supply.

Planet needs charge; Planet spends most of it's time orbiting a star; Wire planet directly to sun;

Sun needs charge: Someone else's problem.

"A Computer on every desktop! Microsoft in every computer! We win!! Hey, where did everybody go?"

We're outside in the sunshine with wireless multi-touch internet enabled tablets and a million other places.

The world has outgrown MS's vision. If you want to make money you gotta either predict or create the future.

What does MS say to me these days?

"Other people's UIs are nice."
"You must use our software at work"
"Do you remember how much you liked XP?"
"DRM is good"
"We like your tablet - here's a cabinet sized version."
"We've cut our boot time to 30s!"
"Develop for our platform - that's where all the cool kids hang out!!"
Etc etc.


Get a clue MS!

Find someone who's been hidden away in a cave for the last 20 years and ask them what people will need *tomorrow*.

I bet I'll lose this bet.

I was really surprised by the huge number of negative replies in this thread. Actually I found it really depressing. Computers are tools. I don't see any difference between withholding a compo until some arbitrary age and withholding a pencil. You try to introduce them early so that your children have a chance to have a natural ability with the item rather than a forced education in later life.

My own children however gravitated to the technological devices in the house without any input from my wife or myself. We felt that as long as you can make the item in question safe and can accept the loss of that item then it is appropriate that they investigate.

To help them along I dug out an old touch screen. The joy on my, then, one year old's face when he realised that *he* could make the ducky appear and go "quack quack" by pressing the big green bush (on the screen) will stay with me for a long time.

The sad fact is however that much of modern computing isn't fun. Perhaps this is the reason that so many writers here want to shield children from what they see as drudgery and frustration. If you can remember that a compo can still be used to empower and bring a sense of achievement, that it can be a wonderful creative tool and provide pretty much instant feedback then maybe you can understand exactly why it's not a problem if it's a part of a younger child's day. Interestingly the same ideas go a long way to help us to understand where we've gone wrong in Software Engineering. Without any sense of irony I can say that much of what we do would be improved if it were designed to keep a 2 year old happy. Conversely, all of the things that frustrate and delay us in our every day usage of computers are things that a 2 year old simply wouldn't stand for!

I got 'I can press keys' for my two year old from http://www.icangames.com/ican/games/presskeys.html (I have no association with the author). The program prints up simple full screen animations in response to (almost) any key press. The result? It didn't take long for my kid to associate the M key with the mice - especially if you 'go nuts' every time there are mice all over the screen! I don't know how much intrinsic value this has but it is hard to see how it is harming him as other posts seem to suggest.

Mod up the parent!!