Walmart PC's are gone

[Darrin Chandler]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 11:11:23PM -0700, Carlos Macedo Gomes wrote:
> As the world becomes more distributed and virtual good communication
> skills (writing and speaking) will not decrease in importance.  Maybe
> I'm old school but I suspect the jargon of today will be the Valley
> Speak of tomorrow.  One can hope :-)

There are two parts to this that come to mind immediately. First,
younger generations are growing up with the ability to be "connected" to
their friends at all times. 10 years ago people were being rude by
talking on their cell phones at improper times. Now they text each other
almost continuously, not as a poor substitute for talking, but by
preference. Second, texting full length, properly thought out messages
is not practical and not nearly quick enough.

Neither the technologies nor the culture are anywhere close to mature.
I can easily relate to the desire to be always connected. But, being an
old fart, I'm usually at my office or at home. If I were 18 and always
out somewhere then a laptop and email would not work for me. My methods
are superior, but depend on me having my laptop on and connected to the
internet. But back to how I started this paragraph... Wireless phones
have a really, really bad UI. Horrible. But they fit in a pocket and are
always on and connected. For years now there's been a lot of thrashing
in the market trying to converge on something workable: phones are
trying to become computers and PDAs, and computers/PDAs trying to be
phones. Someday, maybe within the next 5-10 years, someone will really
find a sweet spot, and put a product there that has actual workable
tech.

When that happens, look for the next generation of products to extend
the ability to communicate *well*, rather than just communicating *at*
*all*.

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD User Group  |  MetaBUG
dwchandler at stilyagin.com   |  http://phxbug.org/      |  http://metabug.org/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |  Daemons in the Desert   |  Global BUG Federation