02-21-2003, 12:22 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Call Me a Luddite, But I Say Palm Pilots Must Die
This amusing little article highlights one important point: technology should never overtake common sense or customer service.
"We arrive at the trendy new restaurant 10 minutes after our reservation time. We wait at the door, bundled up in winter coats. No one looks our way for another 10 minutes. Finally, we are informed that our table isn't ready (don't worry, I haven't turned into a cranky restaurant reviewer), and we are ushered into "the bar," which is really just a low-slung bench along a wall.
We pile our coats into a mountain of Gore-Tex and wool that immediately whooshes onto the slushy floor. Whatever. We need drinks. A round of vodka mojitos, please. Hello? Finally, we manage to flag down the waitress, a tanned, sweetly smiling blonde with no peripheral vision. Could we have a round of vodka mojitos, please? She holds her hands up helplessly. "So sorry, but I can't get you a drink. I don't have a Palm Pilot," she says, as though she were informing us of some obvious and terrible disability, a disability so crushing that it prevents her from turning and taking three steps to the left to the service bar and speaking with the bartender."
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02-21-2003, 12:52 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 153
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Boy, if it wasn't on the internet, I'd think my father wrote this article. Of course, he's much more of a 'purist' luddite than the author.
Does anybody else find it ironic that the internet was used to distribute an article about how everything was better 'in the olden days'?
I like my ice dispenser (and the ice it dispenses)!
-Jim
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02-21-2003, 01:03 AM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 495
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if only he'd gone to a pocket pc restraunt, he'd be singing a different tune!
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02-21-2003, 01:29 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,468
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It's funny how people tend to extremes in so many areas. This guy sees a Palm being used in a silly, non-common sense way and so Palms are, by definition, silly and pointless. Yet at the same stroke I would bet that the owner of the bar firmly believes that using Palms for everything is the way forward and can't wait for the day when the waiters/waitresses/bartenders can be done away with completely...
My Pocket PCs changed my life. Literally. Day by day I make real practical use of them to do my job, to keep my life in order and to assist me in a way that a filofax (BTW - how many people, when filofaxes first appeared, said their diary was good enough for them :wink: ), or a note pad could never do. But if someone rings me and I need to take down an address I grab for the nearest piece of paper and a pen - I don't say - "I can't take your address right now because my Pocket PC is upstairs!"
An amusing article yes (though it aims at targets that are far too easy) - but I fear the writer is genuine in his belief that the diary, pen and paper etc. are in competition and using a technological device is silly - simply because he has seen it used in a silly way... sadly he echoes and reinforced the beliefs of many...
Jason hits the nail on the head with the term 'common sense'. With common sense we see the value of new tech like the Pocket PC (and even the Palm!) with all its value and uses - but also know when a pad and pencil makes sense.
For the record though -
Most people I know with filofaxes take ages to find anything in them, cope with crossings out, missing pages that have half hung out for months and finally come loose, stuff them so full of things they'll never need that they end up twice the size of the fattest Pocket PC.
Paper books are unbeatable - but if I want the definition of a word, to look up an encyclopaedia article, catch up on a digest of the days news - that adds up to a lot of books to carry around and a lot of time spent flicking through them, which doesn't happen with a Pocket PC e-book!
Traditional letters are great - but I don't have to wait days (or even weeks) to hear back from someone who I've e-mailed on the other side of the world!
Live pets poop on the carpet. When was the last time there was an electricity explosion in your town? I agree about the ice cubes though! 
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02-21-2003, 01:34 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 156
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Quote:
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if only he'd gone to a pocket pc restraunt, he'd be singing a different tune!
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She holds her hands up helplessly. "So sorry, but I can't get you a drink. Our WiFi connection is currently down, I haven't got my Bluetooth T68 handy, and to crown it all, my SD card's fallen into Table 5's soup," she says.
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02-21-2003, 01:43 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 103
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Very humorus article. Maybe not as humorus when you see someones palm (body part) and arms covered in notes and then they break out a Palm to look up something.
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02-21-2003, 02:00 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 78
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I think the name "Palm Pilot" should die before Palms die. :roll:
"Can I play with your Palm Pilot?"
"I wish I had a Palm Pilot like you!"
"How much was that Palm Pilot?"
"OOOOO...Is that a Palm Pilot?"
etc. etc.
If I had a nickel for every time one of those phrases were said...
DanInNJ
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02-21-2003, 02:02 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 156
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What's a vodka mojito? :?:
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02-21-2003, 02:08 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,468
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Mojito is a mint syrup - it makes Vodka (way too) drinkable! 8)
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02-21-2003, 02:17 AM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 399
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and it isnt drinkable w/o it cough cough cough :lol: :lol: :lol:
Yeah..............hmmmmmmm :roll:
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Linear Mode
