21–30 of 118 posts
I really like the observations his niece makes, specifically “When I play hide and seek with my friends I have to hide, but if I don’t want to be seen by grown-ups I just have to be quiet.”
Children are amazing. If you want to refocus your world, talk to one for half an hour. Wait! Not like that, you'll get arrested.
In all seriousness, it may be a trained assistance pet for the blind.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Children are amazing. If you want to refocus your world, talk to one for half an hour. Wait! Not like that, you'll get arrested.
I didn't understand children when I was one, so I doubt I'd understand them now.
I know it’s not the topic of the submission but I would have very much liked to get an explanation. Is it maybe a guide horse? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_horse
Yes it is an assistance animal[1]. It is kind of sad that the guy never figured it out. At least he didn't go and try to pet it or something. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04Creatures-t.htm...
Weirdly, actually having it doesn't seem to make a huge difference to me. The idea of something like a smartphone was pretty exciting when I read about it in the 1980s, and it was interesting to follow early PDA forays like the Newton. But now that they exist and work well, I haven't even gotten around to buying one yet; by the time reality caught up, it wasn't that exciting anymore.
Great article. The author coins the term "tiny pony" to describe the tendency of becoming acclimated to certain exceptional things. ie: There's a pony in the apple store and no one seems to care. Because its always there.. Maybe its because we're so focused on ourselves? I still have a regular brick-type cell phone. So its a lot of fun for me to play with an iPhone or iPad whenever I'm at the store, or when my friend…
I know it’s not the topic of the submission but I would have very much liked to get an explanation. Is it maybe a guide horse? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_horse
Yes it is an assistance animal[1]. It is kind of sad that the guy never figured it out. At least he didn't go and try to pet it or something. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04Creatures-t.htm...
For me personally, some of the not-being-that-excited-ness is that I grew up reading sci-fi and cyberpunk, and basically always assumed these things were possible and likely, just a matter of implementation details. A device that can translate any language at a button-push? Sure, I heard about it when I was eight. A device you carry around that instantly connects to some sort of communication network? Yeah, I've prob…
Apart from reference questions (like dictionary meanings, map look up, programming syntax, wikipedia), we are an awfully long way from this.
I really like the observations his niece makes, specifically “When I play hide and seek with my friends I have to hide, but if I don’t want to be seen by grown-ups I just have to be quiet.”
I was at the zoo with my girlfriend in the reptile section. A little boy was staring into the same tank that we were, his mom was maybe ten feet away. You know how reptiles are, they are always hiding behind some rock or branch or just blending in nefariously. So I ask the boy, "Do you see the snake?" It felt awkward to ignore another human being crowding around the glass with us and I figured I would give him a chance to feel good by showing off his superior reptile-spotting ability.
He seemed shocked that an adult he didn't know would talk to him. There's something weird about that being weird.