I think Samsung have this unreasonable expectation that the so-called experts dug up by Apple would have something relevant to say about the patents Apple is defending.. for example can someone who created a second-rate OS for a black and white computer give expert testimony on whether or not Samsung ripped off Apple's touchscreen tech.
I'm sure Samsung are just as guilty of boring the judge to death with flowery, rose-tinted bullshit.. which is why they had a bunch of their fanbois thrown out already.
Actually it seems refreshing that experts are actually being called on their expertise. In most technology trials this is pretty much never done, with the courts just accepting claims of expertise by random people who have invented bullshit titles for themselves.
Yeah, then when I arrived in the US and tried my hand at cooking in an American kitchen I was presented with their weird measurement called.. CUPS..
WTF is a 'Cup'? Do two Cups make a mug? Why is there no place for saucers?
And then of course it took a while to realise American gallons are wrong, which partly explained why the fuel economy of a US hybrid couldn't match that of a 1970s Ford Capri.
Satellite and cable providers charge far too much money for TV these days, so I'm not sure I care whether Dish wins this or not. Over the last 8-10 years prices have been steadily pushed up while content has largely remained the same. All the premium channels have doubled in price along with the cost of a basic channel lineup.
Which is why I dumped cable and refused to sign up for satellite TV.
I have netflix and hulu plus, which has less than a top end basic cable/satellite package - but not by much - but it costs $44 less. $16 vs $60.
Of course it's conditional on having decent internet service, but as that is something I would be buying regardless of anything else, I don't include it as part of my costs.
With Hulu and Netflix I can't store shows on a DVR (at least not legally) but then they make having a DVR superfluous anyway, as you can do anything with streamed content that you can with DVR-stored content, except pause the live TV I don't get now. I don't need a box that stores 100-500 hrs of TV I'll never get around to watching. You watch what you record onto these things? I call bullshit on that immediately.
I've had mine for about 10 weeks now and I have to say it's a great phone. I used Dolphin Browser frequently throughout the day, stream netflix movies while I'm waiting at my kids volleyball training and of course use it for txting and phone calls. I charge the phone once every two to three days.
There are only 3 very minor quibbles as far as I'm concerned. First is there is a software bug affecting all RAZR phones, it will lose it's ability to auto-rotate the screen, requiring a power off/on to fix. Which apps cause this are currently unknown, but I suspect it is browser/internet access related. The issue is not entirely the fault of the apps as they don't cause the same errors on other Android phones. They are probably doing something naughty, but HTC and Samsung phones appear to have more robust versions of the OS. Very minor like I said and a quick "reboot" fixes the problem, which occurs maybe once or twice a week.
The second minor quibble is that you cannot remove the battery. So ok, this phone makes having a spare mostly irrelevant, but if the phone does lockup then you're in a bit of bind. Consider that the only way to clear many Android lockups is to power off the phone - and that most Android lockups mean that you cannot do this because the touch screen stops responding and pressing 'Power Off' is no longer possible. So that leaves removing the battering (you can't) or waiting for the battery to discharge.. You now have a phone that accepts no inputs, will automatically go into a power-saving smart action when it's battery reaches 50% life and a battery that lasts a month on standby. This could be a tiny issue. Fortunately the most common reason for this phone to lockup is simply that it's overheated, so a fan or a lump of ice in a baggy will return your phone to normal operation. But you can see where this might be a bit of problem later down the road as most smartphones last around 18 months before weird shit starts happening.
Last issue is that overheating. It's a minor thing but I now live in Vegas and the last thing I need in a 100-110 degree summer is a phone that acts like a heating pad sitting in my trouser pocket.
These things are hardly deal breakers though. I loved my old HTC Incredible, gave me 2 1/2 years of very decent service. But after trying the latest Samsung offering with ICS, I find this to be superior in every way. ICS itself is not a big deal to me as most of the features other people love are things I don't use. I have around 5 apps that I use on a daily basis, another 5 or so that I use a couple times a week and the rest of the phones functionality is wasted on me.
The important things are all checked - big screen, big battery, Netflix, Navigator and my apps work.
Blizzard have done something weird with their code recently. Those having issues with Diablo III should know that something happened around Christmas that causes machines (especially gaming laptops) to overheat and shut off.
WoW isn't exactly graphics intensive, and a machine that can play Crysis on close to max settings with only a few stutters should not have issues with cartoon graphics. But settings above fair cause my own laptop to die after 5 minutes and Diablo won't last that long on any settings so far.
These issues started just after the final content was released for Cataclysm, until then WoW didn't have anything that could cause my laptop to fall under 60 fps.
Crisis and the latest Call of Duty run fine, I can push those settings as high as I like for as long as I like and temps don't break quite reach 80 degrees.
This is not entirely the fault of the NHS, all government agencies in all countries are ripped off this way. People like to whinge about waste, but companies they work for (or companies they run) are all too happy to rip off tax payers.
When you buy from a government agency, you have rules you have to follow - usually under the pretence that this supports local business and creates jobs in your area. This of course is bullshit. All that happens is local campaign contributers who run all the businesses that have government contracts get their pockets lined by fat contracts and overpriced services. They have their pet politicians tying up government in red tape in such a way that you are NOT ALLOWED to just order things online, despite the fact you know very well what these things should cost.
So the very things bidding processes and approved contractors/vendors are supposed to protect us from are actually made easier for the worst perpetrators. Instead of making sure that government doesn't hand fat, overpriced contracts to a few greedy corporates, we are facilitating it. Instead of making sure we don't pay 3 times as much as we should for office supplies, we are actually making it easier for companies to rip off tax payers. You guys can figure out the answers, I'm too busy ordering new toner for $500 a pop.
Reading on things like the Kindle Fire or using a cell phone Kindle app at home works well and of course the screen is better, but outside these devices are crap. You spend your time looking for shade just to barely make out the text.
I know that outside of Bournemouth, not many people back home in Blighty might choose to read a book on the beach, but I've heard that one or two do make the perilous cross-channel journey during the summer. So after you've finished eating (or shouting at the waiting staff in English in the vain hope they will understand the universal words "LAGER", "TOMATO SAUCE" or PROPER CHIPS) there is nothing better than sitting on the beach, squinting at a 4" screen.
Naturally over here in the colonies, we prefer to squint at an 7" or 10" screen depending on your wallet size and whether you prefer your books in iTunes or Amazon Cloud format, having just spent an hour shouting at waiting staff who claim to speak English but don't understand the words "bottle", "water" and then bring you crisps instead of chips.
"Congestion on the roads wastes time, increases emissions from engines, and makes people unhappy."
I wonder how unhappy people will be when they find their teenagers played World of Warcraft all night instead of plugging in their cars..
And while I would hate to disagree with a wise professor with the reasons why we won't take to the skies tomorrow, I have to say the chief obstacle has been overlooked. People in this country are too fucking stupid. Okay we're not Americans, but we are pretty close to that level of moronic optimism in mechanical tech.
If you think Essex boys and girls pose a threat to your commuting life now, wait until their fluffy dice laden Ford Escorts hit the skies..
UK Immigration has always been a fuckup. They charge outrageous fees for paperwork which they sometimes take years to process. Compared to countries like the US we charge 2-3 times the amount for people whose visas and residency should be guaranteed - such as spouses and the children of spouses. I know when I married someone from the US, it was an easy decision as to which country we should settle in. She had two kids so paying 6 times the cost with no guarantee the paperwork would be dealt with correctly meant I took the decision to leave the country permanently. It's a shame really, my wife and kids loved England, but there was no way we could take the chance that they would be thrown out of the country by the inept simpletons that work in the immigration office.
Anyone whose had to go through the immigration process would be horrified at this story. Not because of a crashed system, but the fact these people are so fucking crap that they forced those who are already in a massive state of stress to have to go through the entire process again. It took some of them years to get to this point, finally seeing an end to the enormous stress and worry, wondering if their families will be torn apart by bureacratic cunts, only to be told, "Fuck off home and start again, our computers crashed and we didn't keep off-site backups". Because that's what I don't understand. Why do they have to start over?
Surely we could get someone from eastern Europe to take their place for a fraction of the cost? This entire branch of government should just be sacked for gross incompetence. Wouldn't matter if the replacements can speak the language or understand the job, literally anyone would be better.
Some people resort of beating the kid, some decide the best couse of action is talking to them others prefer making them sit in a corner and "think" about what they did. My humble opinion is the first action any parent should take with an unruly toddler is obvious.. restrict their smartphone's internet access. Just don't go too far, because while it might be tempting to pull the 50" LED 3D TV from their bedrooms, limit them to just one of their PS3, X-Box and Wii consoles or even threaten to cancel their World of Warcraft subscription for a week, what you should never do is cause permanent psychological damage by closing a Facebook account or restricting their texting. Some parents are just monsters, I've seen it.. you know there are children out there who well on the way to becoming serial killers by sadistic parents refusal to upgrade two-year old Androids?
Will they be letting us buy our own SD cards or will they continue to laugh at people who pay them $200 extra for something you can get at Walmart for $10.
Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy? Really? I seem to remember that one being pretty good, they even added a few very Adams-like additions to make it a little less predictable to the millions of people that read his books, watched the TV show or listened to the radio series. I've definitely been forced to endure far worse movies than several of the rest. Matrix Reloaded and Highlander 2 score special marks of course, but then that's sequels for you, after all witness the rest of the Highlander debacle with progressively worse movies released one after the other. But Phantom Menace.. poor and annoying I grant you, but for any "new" Star Wars movie you can place on the table, I will raise you one Ewok travesty. I have two for your viewing pleasure and no number of Jar Jar Binks can trump either of them.
Unless carriers drastically reduce their data charges there's no way they'll convince more people to pay actual money to connect their tablets to the internet. About the only place you can't get free wifi these days is on the beach.. you can find WiFi hotspots pretty much anywhere you travel, including the top of mountains in Alaska or in the rain forests of Maui. Why pay $30+ / month for a pathetic 2GB data when the alternative is unlimited for free. Even the airlines offer better data packages than that.
Stupidity on a grand scale. The US used to be the innovator, the world leader in most areas of technology. Now we lag behind because pretty much every area within IT has been off-shored to Asia. If you like the idea that we will eventually rely on countries like China for our technological expertise, that all the people working on systems at all levels are doing so from another country, cool, you go with that. After all what could go wrong with entrusting our financial, scientific and military systems to whatever country bids lowest. I don't care about immigrants working within our labor pool, I'm a strong believer in immigration, especially highly qualified people who help bring us advances in medicine and science. What I care about is ALL our jobs are being shifted outside of this country, where US Laws have absolutely no say in what goes on and who has access to what. Not to mention a rapidly growing trend of replacing high paying jobs with tempory contracts that have low pay and no benefits.
I think the point of the article was that Apple are worth more than the US Retail Sector, which (tongue-in-cheek) may point to an Apple market bubble..
The fact they sell more than the iPad - examples being the iPad mini (iPod), iPad mini 3G (iPhone) and a few strange iPads with broken upright touchscreens, arm rests with bumps decorated by letters and won't let me update to the latest iOS (Macbook / iMac) really doesn't matter in the context of what the article is trying to tell us...
The author is simply trying to give the world fair warning that the global financial market is about to go into melt down again when the Apple bubble bursts.. or something.
A pardon is used to forgive a crime for which you have been found guilty, therefore it would be completely appropriate in this case. Excuses really.. ruling classes cannot be wrong.. ever.. even when they are.
Really? They think the US has a better sense of humour about these things than we do? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't we recently send a bunch of smart arses to the big house for writing jolly japes like "let's start a riot in Basildon" on social media websites? Yeah, I get it, the comments were too moronic to be taken seriously, but when you consider they went to a country not well known for having too much on top.. hopefully we sent them right back to the US for being too stupid to be British.. they'll fit in nicely.
You can't be blinded watching the Northern Lights.. it's not the sun you're watching but a magnetic reaction to solar activity. The only possible harm you can get from watching the Northern Lights is to be beaten by your wife (or girlfriend) when you wake them up at 5am to watch it too.
It depends what you mean by 'where'. Mostly like they are on the same server, but occasionally a parent will roll for a different faction to keep their objectivity when disciplining their kids for hogging too much WoW bandwidth. If you mean 'where at 3am', my best guess would be farming mats or playing rated battlegrounds.
As long as Sony keep online functionality free I'll be sticking with Playstation for now. I understand the need to generate money for expensive R&D and loss making prices on hardware, but I balked at paying MS a fee just to use online services like Netflix. I don't understand why this isn't separate from the gaming side. Nintendo don't charge either. What puzzles me is why so many people are willing to give MS cash for something that comes free with any other console.
I believe this is a call to CAPTAIN CYBORG!! Just nail some ICs to the patients forehead as demo'd by the aforementioned Captain. Then simply use a carefully aimed tazer - mimmicking a handheld gadget that can read stuff. The jerky movement from the "patient" when the "tricorder" is energised will give the whole thing a 1960s SciFi feel too, so bonus right there.
It took WoW until BC to get the polish it has now. It's still far from perfect, no MMO could be, but Blizzard have smoothed out the worst of it's rough edges. Every year brings two steps forward and one back, so overall it advances in the right direction. Right now it's possible to play WoW for just a 2-3 hours a week and still participate in raids. They've made longer downtimes less frequent and better explained their reasoning behind changes.
The problem any new MMO has is that they don't have the 4, 5, 6 years of tweaking that allows them to rival WoW out of the box. Personally I'm willing to give this MMO a year or two to see how it progresses. I have a feeling the fact it is not just another medieval/fantasy MMO will give it longer legs than the last 4 or 5 that have been released.
a noob.. Fortunately age is no barrier, so you should immediately purchase a copy of World of Warcraft, become hopelessly addicted to online gaming in order to learn the required terminology.
To answer your question, most online games have mature language filters but nothing will prevent someone from teaching your kids how to disable it. Games like these are filled with people aged 10-99, with a range of personalities to match. So suitable for kids? Yes, but not under the age of 10 or 11 and not without supervision.
What some people do is play the game themselves for a while, join a family-friendly group of friends (usually called a "guild" or something similar) and then let the kids take over the account. Most guilds have their own website, and will let you know if they are family friendly, therefore limiting language and behaviour to social norms.
There maybe some PG-13 sexual inuendo, but unless the game is rated Mature (M) there will be no nudity. It's a Star Wars game so there will be violence at about PG / PG-13 level shown in the game, including blood.
So what your saying is to fix the problem the crew just needed to turn the computer off and on again.. I'm sure I've heard that mentioned before somewhere..
Place your phone in a bucket of cold water, the distortion will protect you from both sound and visual monitoring. Alternatively you could do as I do and that is give up technology completely (this is actually a written letter being typed in by some fool that still uses a computer).
Who remembers how long it took to render the apple image in Real3D on an Amiga A500? Or trying to get anything except BLACK to render in the first version of Imagine.. I still remember nights waiting for single frames to render on a 30s 900 frame animation, eating up hard disk space like nothing else could.
"devastate modern civilisation" blah blah, "bringing down power grids" yawn and "frying satellites en masse" /shrug. "Food would rot, trains wouldn't move, traffic would be gridlocked", who cares? crisps don't go off for months, "phones and THE INTERNET WOULDN'T WORK".. O.M.F.G.
So what you're saying is this could be the End of the World of Warcraft (tm)? And I notice none of the important questions have been asked.. Is the downtime expected to be more than an hour? Will deleting my WTF folder and running a repair restore my WoW connection? Does WoW have it's own backup of the internet just in case of catastrophic, world-wide destruction? Given we are forecasting solar flares, a solar genny for my WoW laptop will be just the ticket right? Do the Red Cross have adequate supplies of spare laptop batteries for all major manufacturers?
Interesting article, shame the study was done by a group that doesn't know what trolling is or the reasons people do it. Trolling is hardly ever aimed at corporations, trolls are looking for instant gratification and the easiest way to get that is to go after people who make comments. Fanbois and moral crusaders are by far the best targets for this, twisting their beliefs by making outrageously false statements, in an air of superiority and in as demeaning a manner as possible.
Pretty sure Harry Potter will be suing for IP infringement, demanding iGlasses be banned whilst championing Android glasses that offer more functionality without charging higher prices for stronger lenses.
I appreciate your comments, you're point of view is spot on - except on one, important point. You do have something to hide. We all do.. it's called your "privacy". Our private life, whether online, in the living room or whereever else is called that for a reason. We expect it, it's a human right recognised by many democratic constitutions as a necessity. We want our private lives private so we can do whatever we please without having the judgement of others impinging on our lifestyles, artistic expression or whatever else we choose to do with the limited time we have on this planet.
My own objection is that a politician of all people is going use the moral highground and say everyone should be watched in case we break the law.. I'm sorry, but does he not realise he's a politician? Does the term pot-kettle-black mean nothing to these people? There's a theory that thieves are the most paranoid about people stealing from them, which tells me a lot about paranoid politicians and the laws they want enacted. I'm thinking a quick gander at the photos he stores on his computer might be a good idea..
This is not a dig at Android, I have one and have no desire to change to something inferior like the Apple Chocolate-Clone, but I'm not sure why anyone would choose to install more than a handful of apps that aren't Netflix and a task killer. 99% of apps for ALL phones are just throwbacks to 1980s 4-bit software.
Truth is without newspapers there will be almost no real reporting of the kind we absolutely do need. TV news is almost non-existent. In the US in particular it has been completely replaced by tabloid and entertainment news shows. There are quite literally no news channels worthy of the name left there. Time and time again you'll see some bimbo (male or female) doing absolutely no fact checking, allowing so-called experts say whatever they please, misinforming whomever is watching to a staggering degree.
Which I suppose is fine if everyone is happy with politicians and the CEOs of large corporates doing exactly as they please without consequence. People in power tend to get away with whatever they like until someone loud points it out to the rest of us. Law enforcement has no interest in anything that looks complicated, and will pointedly ignore the rich and powerful until it becomes too embarrassing to do so. The people that bring these stories into the open work for newspapers. These stories are then picked up by TV (occasionally) or bloggers (if their research extends beyond Google searches to reading papers) and this forces a reaction.
So if there is a way to at least save the reporters that do the real work, find the real stories and force the rest of us to take notice, then we should absolutely do it even if it means paying a few pennies a day to view newspaper websites.
The answer is of course that Microsoft would end up proving they are the victim and extracting even more money from anyone that tried this. I still remember the lawsuit that had Microsoft paying the company that created software that doubled disk capacity (actually it was usually about a 30-40% increase) when they blatantly stole it and included it with MS-DOS 5. Microsoft were going to license the product, but the company involved backed out and then sued MS when they used it anyway. Microsoft then went back to court and won 10 times the amount from the same company for breaking the contract, which I believe ended up with Microsoft being allowed to include the software with the OS for free and the said company going bankrupt.
I have to admit that this anecdote comes largely from memory (which given the pharmaceutical abuse I've given my brain may not be exactly 100%) and there is a small pinch of hearsay added from old computer magazine articles. But what I do know is large corporates from that era (early 90s) got up to this kind of mischief on a regular basis, and it wouldn't surprise me if the patents many of today's corporates own come from the work of companies that were forced out of business back then.
Bad luck comes in threes, or so my mother-in-law keeps telling me.. so far we have the Windows was a ripoff of the Mac OS thing (which was proven by the fact it was just as shite and unreliable, even games machines like the Amiga, Atari ST and Archimedes were far superior to either) and then Android rips off the iPhone (allegedly).
So I wonder what is going to be no. 3. Who is going to do a number on them next.. iPad clones are just an extension of the Android vs iPhone thing, so that doesn't count and Vista/7/8 etc is just an extension of the ongoing OS clone issue. So my thought is Larry Ellison is going to try to out-martyr Steve Jobs. Perhaps make an attempt to recruit actual apostles or maybe orchestrate a genuine resurrection 3 days after his eventual passing.
Don't worry about the cache issue, just install an SD card and you could use that for storage.. oh wait.. nevermind. Still they're definitely worth the money, because while you may not be able to browse a website created after 1995, add 32GB RAM for $30 or see a movie on that tiny screen, at least you have an app that can say funny things. I suppose everyone is going to tell me it's a budget phone and you get what you pay for, after all there's no way you could find anything with those features in that price range..
Dolphin Browser - the only way to go for Android. It supports Flash and doesn't run like a snail thru treacle (Firefox). Also it wasn't created in 1993 (Safari) so it has actual features and can browse websites.
"Press TV's rant about Ofcom starts off dismissing the complaints, then gets down to accusing the regulator of being a mechanism of state censorship before concluding that Peter Mandelson is a Jew."
See - other countries do understand our sense of humour or they wouldn't broadcast these comedies on British TV. I can't wait to catch the latest episode or to finally catch the Russian version. I was thinking we really should write to the Iranians to see if they have anything else, but I doubt they can meet the standard of the original.
The US has the largest per capita jail population in the western hemisphere, sending people down for crimes that most countries would choose to hand out fines is normal practice. There is a fascination with sticking people in jail here and having spent time in the big house seems to be something that the majority of the adult population have done. It usually goes like this.
1/You commit a crime, the severity or actual harm done is of no real relevance
2/ You are then given a public lynching by media, which usually includes the inane droolings of someone like Nancy Grace, who has been given celebrity status for shouting the bloody obvious on CNN - eg "KILLING BABIES IS BAD".
3/You go to court which is televised live, the media then feeds angry-mob-inciting comments straight to hotel rooms juries will be staying at.
4/If you killed a baby you go home (remember people like Nancy Grace need something to shout about), if you smoked weed, used pepper spray or walked on cracks in the pavement you go to jail for the number of years the judge discovers in his big book of punishments. Those terms may seem odd to some, after all who knows what we were angry about yesterday, but there is usually something for everyone, maybe using a garden broom in a threatening manner will get you 20 years because a bully used one to poke a child in the eye - stuff like that. Common sense is not permitted in the US justice system, because they don't have any in this country. Attempts at common sense in the US usually end up in murderers being paid compensation and school children being put in the electric chair.
No, I get it, if a company let a 3 year old register their company name that's fine, but if the rest of us have the audacity to show a phone company how to spell the word phone, then by golly that isn't okay!!
Actually I do understand. They used the extremely clever technique of using the letter 'f' instead of 'ph' to give their brand a modern, yoof-friendly, leet-5pe@q, feel. I don't know why they didn't go all the way and just register themselves as v0d@p4on3.
So what you appear to be saying is kids these days are lazy and expect to be given everything for just about doing the minimum required for the job. That's a shocker. I can't imagine where they learned that life lesson, after all everyone knows that kids are taught by their parents and teachers that they don't get shiny rewards if they simply do what's expected of them. So what on earth went wrong?
But when you hold you're 52" LED LCD TV up to the radio, your jelly trouser app will have dancing jelly trousers.. also an annoying woman will constantly tell you to "Turn right on Sunset Blvd, then turn right"
When a corporate introduces something intrusive that will give you a "special rate" or a free mug or a $10 spa gift certificate please be aware that you are enabling something that will eventually become compulsory, under the "if you have nothing to hide" banner.
What provides a discount now will equate to "we won't insure you unless you agree to installing this" later. You might even find it becomes law if the right backhanders find their way into politicians pockets, along with prepared speeches about how much the public loves being spied on (after all a whole bunch volunteered to do it) and of course, won't someone please think of the children (sitting in the back seat).
Paranoid? Yes, but also very much a realist. Watching every little thing we do is the world we're heading towards, so I'd appreciate it if no one volunteers to help some smarmy cunt in an insurance suit charge me more because I refuse to install one of those black boxes.
A person's free-speech rights are only violated if a government body, say the police, force them to stop protesting on public land. Private security are absolutely allowed to physically remove protesters from private property. The problem with soldier's funerals is that they are indeed often buried on public/government owned land, which presents a problem for those soldier's families.
Presumably Steve Jobs will be buried at a cemetery owned by a private organisation and that means the company that owns the property can use hired security personnel to protect the dignity of families. In the US cemeteries are usually owned by private companies and as long as that is the case, it is perfectly legal for them to protect their private property from trespassers.
Why don't the airport/transportation authorities in the UK provide free WiFi at airports like they do in civilised society? Imagine arriving at an airport and actually having to PAY for WiFi.. the mind boggles.. that would be like paying some sort of license fee just to watch TV or listen to the radio..
Will Easter be moved to October? Also who is standing vigil outside the tomb, waiting for the resurrection.. oh that's right, it's a gay-bashing cult.. well I suppose they think of themselves as Christians even if they aren't very good at it.
I always found that amusing, people who are at heart the complete opposite of everything part 2 of the bible was supposed to be about vehemently insist they're the best at being Christians, even if they have to kill a few people to prove it - presumably not with swords.
Anyway I wonder how hard it will be chewing on broken up iPods when they're passed around at mass..
Even if you buy Samsung or HTC phones upon release they're $100 cheaper than old iPhones. Buying a new iPhone will cost at least another $100 - more if you want it unlocked.
Most droids price at around $200 with a two year contract. Most iPhones are priced at $300 under the same terms and almost every feature is worse. If having a phone that has access to iTunes but can't properly browse websites created after 1995, swap a dead battery or add more storage is for you, fine. Personally I prefer a smartphone with a full-size screen, a decent feature set and the ability to stay connected to a phone call for that kind of money.
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124 posts • joined Saturday 8th January 2011 23:54 GMT
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Unreasonable
I think Samsung have this unreasonable expectation that the so-called experts dug up by Apple would have something relevant to say about the patents Apple is defending.. for example can someone who created a second-rate OS for a black and white computer give expert testimony on whether or not Samsung ripped off Apple's touchscreen tech.
I'm sure Samsung are just as guilty of boring the judge to death with flowery, rose-tinted bullshit.. which is why they had a bunch of their fanbois thrown out already.
Actually it seems refreshing that experts are actually being called on their expertise. In most technology trials this is pretty much never done, with the courts just accepting claims of expertise by random people who have invented bullshit titles for themselves.
Re: Agree
Yeah, then when I arrived in the US and tried my hand at cooking in an American kitchen I was presented with their weird measurement called.. CUPS..
WTF is a 'Cup'? Do two Cups make a mug? Why is there no place for saucers?
And then of course it took a while to realise American gallons are wrong, which partly explained why the fuel economy of a US hybrid couldn't match that of a 1970s Ford Capri.
Too much money
Satellite and cable providers charge far too much money for TV these days, so I'm not sure I care whether Dish wins this or not. Over the last 8-10 years prices have been steadily pushed up while content has largely remained the same. All the premium channels have doubled in price along with the cost of a basic channel lineup.
Which is why I dumped cable and refused to sign up for satellite TV.
I have netflix and hulu plus, which has less than a top end basic cable/satellite package - but not by much - but it costs $44 less. $16 vs $60.
Of course it's conditional on having decent internet service, but as that is something I would be buying regardless of anything else, I don't include it as part of my costs.
With Hulu and Netflix I can't store shows on a DVR (at least not legally) but then they make having a DVR superfluous anyway, as you can do anything with streamed content that you can with DVR-stored content, except pause the live TV I don't get now. I don't need a box that stores 100-500 hrs of TV I'll never get around to watching. You watch what you record onto these things? I call bullshit on that immediately.
Battery Life
I've had mine for about 10 weeks now and I have to say it's a great phone. I used Dolphin Browser frequently throughout the day, stream netflix movies while I'm waiting at my kids volleyball training and of course use it for txting and phone calls. I charge the phone once every two to three days.
There are only 3 very minor quibbles as far as I'm concerned. First is there is a software bug affecting all RAZR phones, it will lose it's ability to auto-rotate the screen, requiring a power off/on to fix. Which apps cause this are currently unknown, but I suspect it is browser/internet access related. The issue is not entirely the fault of the apps as they don't cause the same errors on other Android phones. They are probably doing something naughty, but HTC and Samsung phones appear to have more robust versions of the OS. Very minor like I said and a quick "reboot" fixes the problem, which occurs maybe once or twice a week.
The second minor quibble is that you cannot remove the battery. So ok, this phone makes having a spare mostly irrelevant, but if the phone does lockup then you're in a bit of bind. Consider that the only way to clear many Android lockups is to power off the phone - and that most Android lockups mean that you cannot do this because the touch screen stops responding and pressing 'Power Off' is no longer possible. So that leaves removing the battering (you can't) or waiting for the battery to discharge.. You now have a phone that accepts no inputs, will automatically go into a power-saving smart action when it's battery reaches 50% life and a battery that lasts a month on standby. This could be a tiny issue. Fortunately the most common reason for this phone to lockup is simply that it's overheated, so a fan or a lump of ice in a baggy will return your phone to normal operation. But you can see where this might be a bit of problem later down the road as most smartphones last around 18 months before weird shit starts happening.
Last issue is that overheating. It's a minor thing but I now live in Vegas and the last thing I need in a 100-110 degree summer is a phone that acts like a heating pad sitting in my trouser pocket.
These things are hardly deal breakers though. I loved my old HTC Incredible, gave me 2 1/2 years of very decent service. But after trying the latest Samsung offering with ICS, I find this to be superior in every way. ICS itself is not a big deal to me as most of the features other people love are things I don't use. I have around 5 apps that I use on a daily basis, another 5 or so that I use a couple times a week and the rest of the phones functionality is wasted on me.
The important things are all checked - big screen, big battery, Netflix, Navigator and my apps work.
Crappy Blizzard GFX
Blizzard have done something weird with their code recently. Those having issues with Diablo III should know that something happened around Christmas that causes machines (especially gaming laptops) to overheat and shut off.
WoW isn't exactly graphics intensive, and a machine that can play Crysis on close to max settings with only a few stutters should not have issues with cartoon graphics. But settings above fair cause my own laptop to die after 5 minutes and Diablo won't last that long on any settings so far.
These issues started just after the final content was released for Cataclysm, until then WoW didn't have anything that could cause my laptop to fall under 60 fps.
Crisis and the latest Call of Duty run fine, I can push those settings as high as I like for as long as I like and temps don't break quite reach 80 degrees.
Typical Vendors
This is not entirely the fault of the NHS, all government agencies in all countries are ripped off this way. People like to whinge about waste, but companies they work for (or companies they run) are all too happy to rip off tax payers.
When you buy from a government agency, you have rules you have to follow - usually under the pretence that this supports local business and creates jobs in your area. This of course is bullshit. All that happens is local campaign contributers who run all the businesses that have government contracts get their pockets lined by fat contracts and overpriced services. They have their pet politicians tying up government in red tape in such a way that you are NOT ALLOWED to just order things online, despite the fact you know very well what these things should cost.
So the very things bidding processes and approved contractors/vendors are supposed to protect us from are actually made easier for the worst perpetrators. Instead of making sure that government doesn't hand fat, overpriced contracts to a few greedy corporates, we are facilitating it. Instead of making sure we don't pay 3 times as much as we should for office supplies, we are actually making it easier for companies to rip off tax payers. You guys can figure out the answers, I'm too busy ordering new toner for $500 a pop.
Outside Reading
Reading on things like the Kindle Fire or using a cell phone Kindle app at home works well and of course the screen is better, but outside these devices are crap. You spend your time looking for shade just to barely make out the text.
I know that outside of Bournemouth, not many people back home in Blighty might choose to read a book on the beach, but I've heard that one or two do make the perilous cross-channel journey during the summer. So after you've finished eating (or shouting at the waiting staff in English in the vain hope they will understand the universal words "LAGER", "TOMATO SAUCE" or PROPER CHIPS) there is nothing better than sitting on the beach, squinting at a 4" screen.
Naturally over here in the colonies, we prefer to squint at an 7" or 10" screen depending on your wallet size and whether you prefer your books in iTunes or Amazon Cloud format, having just spent an hour shouting at waiting staff who claim to speak English but don't understand the words "bottle", "water" and then bring you crisps instead of chips.
Makes People Unhappy?
"Congestion on the roads wastes time, increases emissions from engines, and makes people unhappy."
I wonder how unhappy people will be when they find their teenagers played World of Warcraft all night instead of plugging in their cars..
And while I would hate to disagree with a wise professor with the reasons why we won't take to the skies tomorrow, I have to say the chief obstacle has been overlooked. People in this country are too fucking stupid. Okay we're not Americans, but we are pretty close to that level of moronic optimism in mechanical tech.
If you think Essex boys and girls pose a threat to your commuting life now, wait until their fluffy dice laden Ford Escorts hit the skies..
Fail
UK Immigration has always been a fuckup. They charge outrageous fees for paperwork which they sometimes take years to process. Compared to countries like the US we charge 2-3 times the amount for people whose visas and residency should be guaranteed - such as spouses and the children of spouses. I know when I married someone from the US, it was an easy decision as to which country we should settle in. She had two kids so paying 6 times the cost with no guarantee the paperwork would be dealt with correctly meant I took the decision to leave the country permanently. It's a shame really, my wife and kids loved England, but there was no way we could take the chance that they would be thrown out of the country by the inept simpletons that work in the immigration office.
Anyone whose had to go through the immigration process would be horrified at this story. Not because of a crashed system, but the fact these people are so fucking crap that they forced those who are already in a massive state of stress to have to go through the entire process again. It took some of them years to get to this point, finally seeing an end to the enormous stress and worry, wondering if their families will be torn apart by bureacratic cunts, only to be told, "Fuck off home and start again, our computers crashed and we didn't keep off-site backups". Because that's what I don't understand. Why do they have to start over?
Surely we could get someone from eastern Europe to take their place for a fraction of the cost? This entire branch of government should just be sacked for gross incompetence. Wouldn't matter if the replacements can speak the language or understand the job, literally anyone would be better.
/rant off
Corporal Punishment? Time Out?
Some people resort of beating the kid, some decide the best couse of action is talking to them others prefer making them sit in a corner and "think" about what they did. My humble opinion is the first action any parent should take with an unruly toddler is obvious.. restrict their smartphone's internet access. Just don't go too far, because while it might be tempting to pull the 50" LED 3D TV from their bedrooms, limit them to just one of their PS3, X-Box and Wii consoles or even threaten to cancel their World of Warcraft subscription for a week, what you should never do is cause permanent psychological damage by closing a Facebook account or restricting their texting. Some parents are just monsters, I've seen it.. you know there are children out there who well on the way to becoming serial killers by sadistic parents refusal to upgrade two-year old Androids?
Revolutionary?
Will they be letting us buy our own SD cards or will they continue to laugh at people who pay them $200 extra for something you can get at Walmart for $10.
HHGTLG
Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy? Really? I seem to remember that one being pretty good, they even added a few very Adams-like additions to make it a little less predictable to the millions of people that read his books, watched the TV show or listened to the radio series. I've definitely been forced to endure far worse movies than several of the rest. Matrix Reloaded and Highlander 2 score special marks of course, but then that's sequels for you, after all witness the rest of the Highlander debacle with progressively worse movies released one after the other. But Phantom Menace.. poor and annoying I grant you, but for any "new" Star Wars movie you can place on the table, I will raise you one Ewok travesty. I have two for your viewing pleasure and no number of Jar Jar Binks can trump either of them.
No Chance
Unless carriers drastically reduce their data charges there's no way they'll convince more people to pay actual money to connect their tablets to the internet. About the only place you can't get free wifi these days is on the beach.. you can find WiFi hotspots pretty much anywhere you travel, including the top of mountains in Alaska or in the rain forests of Maui. Why pay $30+ / month for a pathetic 2GB data when the alternative is unlimited for free. Even the airlines offer better data packages than that.
Re: The National Socialist Pride Gap
Stupidity on a grand scale. The US used to be the innovator, the world leader in most areas of technology. Now we lag behind because pretty much every area within IT has been off-shored to Asia. If you like the idea that we will eventually rely on countries like China for our technological expertise, that all the people working on systems at all levels are doing so from another country, cool, you go with that. After all what could go wrong with entrusting our financial, scientific and military systems to whatever country bids lowest. I don't care about immigrants working within our labor pool, I'm a strong believer in immigration, especially highly qualified people who help bring us advances in medicine and science. What I care about is ALL our jobs are being shifted outside of this country, where US Laws have absolutely no say in what goes on and who has access to what. Not to mention a rapidly growing trend of replacing high paying jobs with tempory contracts that have low pay and no benefits.
You seem to have missed the point entirely
I think the point of the article was that Apple are worth more than the US Retail Sector, which (tongue-in-cheek) may point to an Apple market bubble..
The fact they sell more than the iPad - examples being the iPad mini (iPod), iPad mini 3G (iPhone) and a few strange iPads with broken upright touchscreens, arm rests with bumps decorated by letters and won't let me update to the latest iOS (Macbook / iMac) really doesn't matter in the context of what the article is trying to tell us...
The author is simply trying to give the world fair warning that the global financial market is about to go into melt down again when the Apple bubble bursts.. or something.
Pardon?
A pardon is used to forgive a crime for which you have been found guilty, therefore it would be completely appropriate in this case. Excuses really.. ruling classes cannot be wrong.. ever.. even when they are.
Sense of humour?
Really? They think the US has a better sense of humour about these things than we do? Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't we recently send a bunch of smart arses to the big house for writing jolly japes like "let's start a riot in Basildon" on social media websites? Yeah, I get it, the comments were too moronic to be taken seriously, but when you consider they went to a country not well known for having too much on top.. hopefully we sent them right back to the US for being too stupid to be British.. they'll fit in nicely.
Huh?
You can't be blinded watching the Northern Lights.. it's not the sun you're watching but a magnetic reaction to solar activity. The only possible harm you can get from watching the Northern Lights is to be beaten by your wife (or girlfriend) when you wake them up at 5am to watch it too.
Conservative
I reckon for someone 50 feet tall, 6 pints is pretty safe.
Where?
It depends what you mean by 'where'. Mostly like they are on the same server, but occasionally a parent will roll for a different faction to keep their objectivity when disciplining their kids for hogging too much WoW bandwidth. If you mean 'where at 3am', my best guess would be farming mats or playing rated battlegrounds.
Asleep?
I doubt they're asleep. Most parents I know would be farming Elementium at 3am.
Online functionality
As long as Sony keep online functionality free I'll be sticking with Playstation for now. I understand the need to generate money for expensive R&D and loss making prices on hardware, but I balked at paying MS a fee just to use online services like Netflix. I don't understand why this isn't separate from the gaming side. Nintendo don't charge either. What puzzles me is why so many people are willing to give MS cash for something that comes free with any other console.
Call To Arms
I believe this is a call to CAPTAIN CYBORG!! Just nail some ICs to the patients forehead as demo'd by the aforementioned Captain. Then simply use a carefully aimed tazer - mimmicking a handheld gadget that can read stuff. The jerky movement from the "patient" when the "tricorder" is energised will give the whole thing a 1960s SciFi feel too, so bonus right there.
Straight out of the Captain's handbook..
Just needs polish
It took WoW until BC to get the polish it has now. It's still far from perfect, no MMO could be, but Blizzard have smoothed out the worst of it's rough edges. Every year brings two steps forward and one back, so overall it advances in the right direction. Right now it's possible to play WoW for just a 2-3 hours a week and still participate in raids. They've made longer downtimes less frequent and better explained their reasoning behind changes.
The problem any new MMO has is that they don't have the 4, 5, 6 years of tweaking that allows them to rival WoW out of the box. Personally I'm willing to give this MMO a year or two to see how it progresses. I have a feeling the fact it is not just another medieval/fantasy MMO will give it longer legs than the last 4 or 5 that have been released.
Yes you are..
a noob.. Fortunately age is no barrier, so you should immediately purchase a copy of World of Warcraft, become hopelessly addicted to online gaming in order to learn the required terminology.
To answer your question, most online games have mature language filters but nothing will prevent someone from teaching your kids how to disable it. Games like these are filled with people aged 10-99, with a range of personalities to match. So suitable for kids? Yes, but not under the age of 10 or 11 and not without supervision.
What some people do is play the game themselves for a while, join a family-friendly group of friends (usually called a "guild" or something similar) and then let the kids take over the account. Most guilds have their own website, and will let you know if they are family friendly, therefore limiting language and behaviour to social norms.
There maybe some PG-13 sexual inuendo, but unless the game is rated Mature (M) there will be no nudity. It's a Star Wars game so there will be violence at about PG / PG-13 level shown in the game, including blood.
Did you try turning it off and on again?
So what your saying is to fix the problem the crew just needed to turn the computer off and on again.. I'm sure I've heard that mentioned before somewhere..
Safe? Easy
Place your phone in a bucket of cold water, the distortion will protect you from both sound and visual monitoring. Alternatively you could do as I do and that is give up technology completely (this is actually a written letter being typed in by some fool that still uses a computer).
Real3D
Who remembers how long it took to render the apple image in Real3D on an Amiga A500? Or trying to get anything except BLACK to render in the first version of Imagine.. I still remember nights waiting for single frames to render on a 30s 900 frame animation, eating up hard disk space like nothing else could.
Great news
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast..
Wait a minute..
"devastate modern civilisation" blah blah, "bringing down power grids" yawn and "frying satellites en masse" /shrug. "Food would rot, trains wouldn't move, traffic would be gridlocked", who cares? crisps don't go off for months, "phones and THE INTERNET WOULDN'T WORK".. O.M.F.G.
So what you're saying is this could be the End of the World of Warcraft (tm)? And I notice none of the important questions have been asked.. Is the downtime expected to be more than an hour? Will deleting my WTF folder and running a repair restore my WoW connection? Does WoW have it's own backup of the internet just in case of catastrophic, world-wide destruction? Given we are forecasting solar flares, a solar genny for my WoW laptop will be just the ticket right? Do the Red Cross have adequate supplies of spare laptop batteries for all major manufacturers?
No opiates?
Why not just smack them round the head with a bat and then provide oxycodone headache pills?
Trolling?
Interesting article, shame the study was done by a group that doesn't know what trolling is or the reasons people do it. Trolling is hardly ever aimed at corporations, trolls are looking for instant gratification and the easiest way to get that is to go after people who make comments. Fanbois and moral crusaders are by far the best targets for this, twisting their beliefs by making outrageously false statements, in an air of superiority and in as demeaning a manner as possible.
IP?
Pretty sure Harry Potter will be suing for IP infringement, demanding iGlasses be banned whilst championing Android glasses that offer more functionality without charging higher prices for stronger lenses.
I beg to differ, slightly
I appreciate your comments, you're point of view is spot on - except on one, important point. You do have something to hide. We all do.. it's called your "privacy". Our private life, whether online, in the living room or whereever else is called that for a reason. We expect it, it's a human right recognised by many democratic constitutions as a necessity. We want our private lives private so we can do whatever we please without having the judgement of others impinging on our lifestyles, artistic expression or whatever else we choose to do with the limited time we have on this planet.
My own objection is that a politician of all people is going use the moral highground and say everyone should be watched in case we break the law.. I'm sorry, but does he not realise he's a politician? Does the term pot-kettle-black mean nothing to these people? There's a theory that thieves are the most paranoid about people stealing from them, which tells me a lot about paranoid politicians and the laws they want enacted. I'm thinking a quick gander at the photos he stores on his computer might be a good idea..
Apps?
This is not a dig at Android, I have one and have no desire to change to something inferior like the Apple Chocolate-Clone, but I'm not sure why anyone would choose to install more than a handful of apps that aren't Netflix and a task killer. 99% of apps for ALL phones are just throwbacks to 1980s 4-bit software.
We do need them saved
Truth is without newspapers there will be almost no real reporting of the kind we absolutely do need. TV news is almost non-existent. In the US in particular it has been completely replaced by tabloid and entertainment news shows. There are quite literally no news channels worthy of the name left there. Time and time again you'll see some bimbo (male or female) doing absolutely no fact checking, allowing so-called experts say whatever they please, misinforming whomever is watching to a staggering degree.
Which I suppose is fine if everyone is happy with politicians and the CEOs of large corporates doing exactly as they please without consequence. People in power tend to get away with whatever they like until someone loud points it out to the rest of us. Law enforcement has no interest in anything that looks complicated, and will pointedly ignore the rich and powerful until it becomes too embarrassing to do so. The people that bring these stories into the open work for newspapers. These stories are then picked up by TV (occasionally) or bloggers (if their research extends beyond Google searches to reading papers) and this forces a reaction.
So if there is a way to at least save the reporters that do the real work, find the real stories and force the rest of us to take notice, then we should absolutely do it even if it means paying a few pennies a day to view newspaper websites.
Good question
The answer is of course that Microsoft would end up proving they are the victim and extracting even more money from anyone that tried this. I still remember the lawsuit that had Microsoft paying the company that created software that doubled disk capacity (actually it was usually about a 30-40% increase) when they blatantly stole it and included it with MS-DOS 5. Microsoft were going to license the product, but the company involved backed out and then sued MS when they used it anyway. Microsoft then went back to court and won 10 times the amount from the same company for breaking the contract, which I believe ended up with Microsoft being allowed to include the software with the OS for free and the said company going bankrupt.
I have to admit that this anecdote comes largely from memory (which given the pharmaceutical abuse I've given my brain may not be exactly 100%) and there is a small pinch of hearsay added from old computer magazine articles. But what I do know is large corporates from that era (early 90s) got up to this kind of mischief on a regular basis, and it wouldn't surprise me if the patents many of today's corporates own come from the work of companies that were forced out of business back then.
Heh
Bad luck comes in threes, or so my mother-in-law keeps telling me.. so far we have the Windows was a ripoff of the Mac OS thing (which was proven by the fact it was just as shite and unreliable, even games machines like the Amiga, Atari ST and Archimedes were far superior to either) and then Android rips off the iPhone (allegedly).
So I wonder what is going to be no. 3. Who is going to do a number on them next.. iPad clones are just an extension of the Android vs iPhone thing, so that doesn't count and Vista/7/8 etc is just an extension of the ongoing OS clone issue. So my thought is Larry Ellison is going to try to out-martyr Steve Jobs. Perhaps make an attempt to recruit actual apostles or maybe orchestrate a genuine resurrection 3 days after his eventual passing.
Easy to fix
Don't worry about the cache issue, just install an SD card and you could use that for storage.. oh wait.. nevermind. Still they're definitely worth the money, because while you may not be able to browse a website created after 1995, add 32GB RAM for $30 or see a movie on that tiny screen, at least you have an app that can say funny things. I suppose everyone is going to tell me it's a budget phone and you get what you pay for, after all there's no way you could find anything with those features in that price range..
Dolphin
Dolphin Browser - the only way to go for Android. It supports Flash and doesn't run like a snail thru treacle (Firefox). Also it wasn't created in 1993 (Safari) so it has actual features and can browse websites.
British Humour
"Press TV's rant about Ofcom starts off dismissing the complaints, then gets down to accusing the regulator of being a mechanism of state censorship before concluding that Peter Mandelson is a Jew."
See - other countries do understand our sense of humour or they wouldn't broadcast these comedies on British TV. I can't wait to catch the latest episode or to finally catch the Russian version. I was thinking we really should write to the Iranians to see if they have anything else, but I doubt they can meet the standard of the original.
Jail time
The US has the largest per capita jail population in the western hemisphere, sending people down for crimes that most countries would choose to hand out fines is normal practice. There is a fascination with sticking people in jail here and having spent time in the big house seems to be something that the majority of the adult population have done. It usually goes like this.
1/You commit a crime, the severity or actual harm done is of no real relevance
2/ You are then given a public lynching by media, which usually includes the inane droolings of someone like Nancy Grace, who has been given celebrity status for shouting the bloody obvious on CNN - eg "KILLING BABIES IS BAD".
3/You go to court which is televised live, the media then feeds angry-mob-inciting comments straight to hotel rooms juries will be staying at.
4/If you killed a baby you go home (remember people like Nancy Grace need something to shout about), if you smoked weed, used pepper spray or walked on cracks in the pavement you go to jail for the number of years the judge discovers in his big book of punishments. Those terms may seem odd to some, after all who knows what we were angry about yesterday, but there is usually something for everyone, maybe using a garden broom in a threatening manner will get you 20 years because a bully used one to poke a child in the eye - stuff like that. Common sense is not permitted in the US justice system, because they don't have any in this country. Attempts at common sense in the US usually end up in murderers being paid compensation and school children being put in the electric chair.
Vodafone..
No, I get it, if a company let a 3 year old register their company name that's fine, but if the rest of us have the audacity to show a phone company how to spell the word phone, then by golly that isn't okay!!
Actually I do understand. They used the extremely clever technique of using the letter 'f' instead of 'ph' to give their brand a modern, yoof-friendly, leet-5pe@q, feel. I don't know why they didn't go all the way and just register themselves as v0d@p4on3.
Really? That's wild!!
So what you appear to be saying is kids these days are lazy and expect to be given everything for just about doing the minimum required for the job. That's a shocker. I can't imagine where they learned that life lesson, after all everyone knows that kids are taught by their parents and teachers that they don't get shiny rewards if they simply do what's expected of them. So what on earth went wrong?
No.. not facebook
But when you hold you're 52" LED LCD TV up to the radio, your jelly trouser app will have dancing jelly trousers.. also an annoying woman will constantly tell you to "Turn right on Sunset Blvd, then turn right"
Not the point
When a corporate introduces something intrusive that will give you a "special rate" or a free mug or a $10 spa gift certificate please be aware that you are enabling something that will eventually become compulsory, under the "if you have nothing to hide" banner.
What provides a discount now will equate to "we won't insure you unless you agree to installing this" later. You might even find it becomes law if the right backhanders find their way into politicians pockets, along with prepared speeches about how much the public loves being spied on (after all a whole bunch volunteered to do it) and of course, won't someone please think of the children (sitting in the back seat).
Paranoid? Yes, but also very much a realist. Watching every little thing we do is the world we're heading towards, so I'd appreciate it if no one volunteers to help some smarmy cunt in an insurance suit charge me more because I refuse to install one of those black boxes.
Free Speach
A person's free-speech rights are only violated if a government body, say the police, force them to stop protesting on public land. Private security are absolutely allowed to physically remove protesters from private property. The problem with soldier's funerals is that they are indeed often buried on public/government owned land, which presents a problem for those soldier's families.
Presumably Steve Jobs will be buried at a cemetery owned by a private organisation and that means the company that owns the property can use hired security personnel to protect the dignity of families. In the US cemeteries are usually owned by private companies and as long as that is the case, it is perfectly legal for them to protect their private property from trespassers.
Paying for WiFi in airports !!!?@@
Why don't the airport/transportation authorities in the UK provide free WiFi at airports like they do in civilised society? Imagine arriving at an airport and actually having to PAY for WiFi.. the mind boggles.. that would be like paying some sort of license fee just to watch TV or listen to the radio..
Heh
Will Easter be moved to October? Also who is standing vigil outside the tomb, waiting for the resurrection.. oh that's right, it's a gay-bashing cult.. well I suppose they think of themselves as Christians even if they aren't very good at it.
I always found that amusing, people who are at heart the complete opposite of everything part 2 of the bible was supposed to be about vehemently insist they're the best at being Christians, even if they have to kill a few people to prove it - presumably not with swords.
Anyway I wonder how hard it will be chewing on broken up iPods when they're passed around at mass..
Completely true
Even if you buy Samsung or HTC phones upon release they're $100 cheaper than old iPhones. Buying a new iPhone will cost at least another $100 - more if you want it unlocked.
Most droids price at around $200 with a two year contract. Most iPhones are priced at $300 under the same terms and almost every feature is worse. If having a phone that has access to iTunes but can't properly browse websites created after 1995, swap a dead battery or add more storage is for you, fine. Personally I prefer a smartphone with a full-size screen, a decent feature set and the ability to stay connected to a phone call for that kind of money.
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