Every couple of months they pull their heads out of their monitors, stick a finger out the window and survey the desolate landscape below.

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This probably helps them to work out from which direction the vibrations are travelling rather as a person might stick a finger first in one ear and then in the other to work out the direction that a sound is coming from.

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Behold: the fish stick ("fish finger" in the U.K.).

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Particularly compared to the touchpad, which falters at single-finger navigation, the pointing stick is impeccably precise when it comes to moving the cursor around screen.

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With a virtual 6 x 9 inch color VGA display, a small joy stick and mouse buttons operable by the index finger when using the phone during a conversation the StarTac phone provided the ability to viewed shared subject matter, photos or documents while talking, 15 years ago.

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Mr. BOB VAN DER HORN (father of Chris): We decided to raise our children without guns until we found that every stick in the yard turned into a gun and every finger was gun.

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