Robin Smith’s Techdirt Profile
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About Robin Smith
Born and raised feet from the cool waters of the eastern Pacific ocean and lived nearby for 53 years. Partook in all things ocean aquatic, mostly surfing and diving, and was a science/technology geek.
Spent the next 10 years in the Midwest helping a family member and dodging tornadoes.
In 2008, my wife and I finally made it to our retirement destination on the East coast, near the ocean, only to learn that she had terminal cancer. I lost her in March of 2009.
I'm working very hard to keep my mind and body active and hold my family together.
I have always been interested in technology of all kinds and, more recently, in the unfortunate, vicious legal intrusion into the tech world. Techdirt is a great place to keep up with the latest.
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Robin Smith’s Written Stories.
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Seniors or non tech savvy? (as Robin Smith)
I get the feeling Jitterbug is directed more at the non tech segment of the population regardless of age; the same people who couldn't, or wouldn't, set the time on a VCR with the instructions in their hand. Every generation has lots of folks who don't get tech or just don't care.
I just wish my Centro was hearing aid compliant like my old Ericsson.
And... (as Robin Smith)
It seems that Palm is now supporting PreDevCamp as well. Kudos to Palm for seeing the light.
SAETI (as Robin Smith)
Congratulations on your absolutely masterful cluelessness.
May the gods wrest your weary mind.
Re: Before video-games (as slimcat)
Yes! In the late '40s, I became a knife wielding assailant at the age of three or four with the encouragement of older neighborhood kids. Using a tiny folding knife which you could get in a penny gum-ball machine at the time, given me by the conspirators, I attacked the hood bully, stabbing him in the left biceps. I doubt I held anything that could be considered malice toward this individual and you'd probably have to chalk the attack up to peer pressure of sorts though I wasn't old enough to understand the concept. Got a stern talking to from Mom and Dad and was grounded for several days, as I recall. Imagine how knives in gum-ball machines would go over today.
Excellent, informative and thought provoking article, Mike. (as slimcat)
Occasionally, I can barely contain my anger when an online journalist makes some statement that I know is incorrect, that I can prove wrong, yet, there is no feedback system. Big Internet media seems to allow feedback for a few select articles that are rarely of any great importance but articles of social, economic or political interest to us all offer none. I have actually found a few small newspapers that are more responsive to comments made online regarding articles printed in their paper.
About a year after Dr Carl Sagan's death, information circulated that he occasionally smoked a joint to relax. A well known, syndicated, southern journalist, whose name escapes me right now, wrote an opinion piece that was in my local newspaper along the lines of 'no wonder Dr Sagan was way out there and blah, blah, haha'. I suppose he found the whole thing pretty amusing. I wanted so badly to respond to this guy, remind him of Dr Sagan's achievements, accolades and honors, but there was absolutely no way to contact him and I sincerely doubt he would have cared anyway.
Nowadays, I tend to ignore journalist who ignore their readers.
A small ray of future hope... (as slimcat)
As more of us retired northerners move to SC, perhaps some day we can drop-kick these bible-thumping, redneck morons out of office.
But for now, the good-ol'-boy system is well entrenched here. And, based on recent past headlines, would anybody be especially surprised if this guy turned out to be one of the pedophiles he's so worried about?
As for me, I'm attracted to women in their late 50's, early 60's. Mmm, gray babes!
She's trying for the 'streisand effect' I'll wager. (as slimcat)
You can't trademark the title of a book; pure and simple. Her lawyers must have gotten their degrees in the same place she did; a crackerjacks(tm) box.
PhD indeed, and the best she can do is write another two-bit self-help book nobody wants to read. What a waste of an education.
The attorney wasn't honest either! (as slimcat)
Sounds like he was trying to collect money he didn't deserve in the first place, assuming the clients of the fictitious Japanese company were also fictitious and he hadn't contacted the client that had supposedly agreed to pay his debt.
So... (as slimcat)
...next, classroom text publishers will demand that professors turn over their lecture material which, of course, is based on the book? Because, if a professors lectures are good enough, who needs the text?
From one of Mikes 'older folks' (as slimcat)
Anecdotal, I know, but... An interest in reading is instilled in a child primarily by the parent and it has been my experience that once that interest is there, it remains unaffected by tv, Google or anything else. My parents regularly read to me and my wife and I read to our children and grand children from the time they were able to sit up. Our kids and grand kids were/are all 'gifted' honor students not because there was anything particularly special about them but because we took an active interest in their education.
The grand kids, 12-16 year-olds, enjoy reading books, watching movies on the tube, playing WoW and Halo, texting their friends (It has been demonstrated by many qualified people that there is absolutely nothing wrong with texting slang. All you pedantic pricks get offa my lawn) and Googleing for new books and free stuff by their favorite authors.
~Mike: "... what older folks claim.."? You need a quantifier in there. Something like 'some' or 'many'. We 'older folks' aren't all stuck in the '50s, or even the '40s. ;) By the way, I'm, "...will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64..." years old.
Happiness (as slimcat)
Though Techdirt articles often fire my congenital cynicism, truth and light does shine through and that is cause for some modicum of joy, I suppose.
Keep up the great work and a better year to all.
I will continue my lifelong quest to be more positive.
Google is your friend (as slimcat)
Nowadays, I think most folks do varying degrees of research, depending on cost, before buying certain products; especially in this economy.
Some of the products in the article were kind of laughable: sesame oil - I look for 'Toasted'; bath towels - 100% cotton for me; I buy cameras and cell phones more by brand name than anything else.
The first one is always free. (as slimcat)
"I along with many others tried Linux during college"
Oh man, I feel for you. My first time was about thirteen years ago with Red Hat. It was great for a while but I, ya know, just needed something stronger. That was when I made the switch to Debian. Been hooked on that for twelve years. I can't begin to tell you what it's done to my life. Mindless hours configuring kernels and trying to get sound and printing to work in the early days, endless fiddling with C, Python, bash and emacs and the arguments with my wife over 'special' hardware. I know I need help. I've just gone too far and can't quit now.
Let me help you neighbor. (as slimcat)
Amen Brother! (as slimcat)
For all the sorrow, pain, death, social and physical destruction they have caused, they certainly deserve it. But,as my homicide detective sister points out to me, it is still illegal to eradicate scumbags. I would, at least, like to see their company crushed by social pressure.
acdc (as slimcat)
I didn't realize you were being ironic until I got to this bit.
Mongolians ! (as slimcat)
"Goddamn Mongorians break my shitty wall". ~With apologies to Trey and Matt.
It doesn't matter what kind of wall you put up to protect something or someone. There will always be 'mongolians' to find a way to exploit it in some way.
Re: Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha (as slimcat)
You didn't think he got where he is by (pl)ucking us chickens, did you .... oh, wait a minute, never mind.
Love the bogus test on bbc.co.uk (as slimcat)
Here
We learn by listening, reading, observing and application so it stands to reason that a person would do better on the second test after listening to the audio and reading the transcript, insuring the result they are looking for. Our British cousins certainly seem to have a lot of time for nonsense.
Please don't feed the troll! (as slimcat)
Patently obvious that this guy is in his early to mid 20's, high school education with a little community college, works a dead end job, lives with his parents and vents the anger of his failures by posting ignorant baloney on websites which are above his intellectual capacity to understand.