Well, since it's been more than one-minute-and-thirty-five seconds, I'm posting from somewhere a few million miles from earth - wait... just who are you, and how does this internet thing still exist?!? I knew it was all a conspiracy....
Actually, it's more like a force field that doesn't let you knock unless you are on the whitelist, but if you are not on the whitelist, a camera points at you, and the occupants of the house are made aware that you are outside, and they can then blacklist or whitelist you, clearly indicating whether or not your unsolicited knocking is acceptable today and in the future.
Sounds a lot like a standard security system to me, and those are minimally annoying, about the same as locked doors.
What about the solar systems being put into place, don't these naturally reduce the amount of heat due to converting the sunlight into energy instead of allowing it to be absorbed into the ground? Couldn't we simply blanket large areas of desert with solar systems, and effectively create "sunglasses" that block the sunlight from being absorbed into the ground as heat?
Disclaimer: I know very little about solar energy, and this is just wild speculation, so go easy on me, m'kay?
Thank you. I downloaded and installed Adblock Plus just because of this one post. Hear that Google? I was seeing Ads, then you screwed with the interface. Now? I see no ads. Nice way to kill the advertising market.
This is AJAX, you've got everything else moveable, why can't I choose where I want that tab menu to be?
Then, at this point, I think the only thing left is to agree to disagree. Thank you for your honest discourse. It has been refreshing to revisit the core of my beliefs.
Again, you are mistaking those who claim to be Christian with the actual religion of Christianity. Christ himself warned Christians about false teachers/preachers/prophets:
15"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
- The teachings of Jesus as recorded by Matthew 7:15-23 (NIV translation)
So, you see, those who do not practice the peaceful religion that Christ taught are not Christian, as is clearly demonstrated by the above passages. By his own admission, Christ knows that there will be people in power in the church who will not truly follow his teachings, and he warns other Christians to be on the watch out for those people. This is why I, as a true believer in the teachings of Jesus, refuse to accept these false prophets as Christians. This is why I believe the current day church in general is as corrupt as the Pharisees of Jesus' day. This is why I think that the scriptures preceding that passage needs to be read by more "Christians" so that they can see their own hypocrisy and correct it:
12"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
13"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
- The teachings of Jesus as recorded by Matthew 7:12-14 (NIV translation)
This is a key commandment by Christ. He says that we are to treat others as we would wish to be treated, and to do otherwise is to not be admitted into heaven. Combine this with my earlier scripture references, and you can clearly see that Christ was against the corruption you have seen, and what you call "Christianity" is not the religion Christianity, but is instead the twisted erroneous traditions of false prophets. So again, I say that it is clear that the Religion of Christianity is a peaceful religion.
Many (as was predicted by Christ) have twisted Christianity into their own version which encourages violence, but in doing so, they have walked away from the "narrow path" of Christ, and therefore are not Christian. Please don't judge Christianity based on people who are not truly practicing their faith.
Again, I judge each religion solely on its religious texts - an objective view, as opposed to judging the religion's peacefulness based on its practitioners. Anything else is less than objective.
Why can't we have an intelligent discussion instead of going for the throat every post?
First, let me address your comments. The actions of those who have raped children, killed doctors, or abused homosexuals are abhorrent to anyone who actually practices what the Christian faith preaches.
You see, people can say they are a Christian, but that does not mean that every action that person does is de facto a Christian action.
So, again, you see the difference here is that the Christian Religion does not condone the actions of those people (nor does it truly condone the Crusades or many other things that people in the church have done in the "name of God" over the centuries. The big point here is that our holy texts clearly show these actions to be abhorrent. The holy texts of Islam clearly show these actions to be not only accepted, but required to be a true follower. I have read the scriptures of the Qur'an that are often quoted and have looked at the context of the passages. It is clear that killing someone who is not of the faith is a common theme, and is expected of any practitioner of this faith. It is clear that this is not simply references to previous wars, but is clearly about a current war against all who will not choose to follow their way.
So how anyone can take a religion like Christianity that preaches turning the other cheek, has a leader (Christ) who saved a whore from the letter of the law (by not allowing the religious leaders of that day to follow the letter of the law and stone her to death), and teaches its followers to reach across racial, social, and economic barriers, and compare it to a religion like Islam that encourages killing those who refuse to follow their way is beyond me. There is no comparison. Christ taught that all of Christianity can be summed up as this: "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." I just don't see how this type of faith can be considered similar to the religion of Islam.
Before the flame wars begin again, please keep in mind that I am clearly talking about the religions not those who claim they follow that faith.
And to bring this whole comment back on topic, it is ridiculous that any faith should try to restrict the uses of their holy texts. This use was obviously one that fell under Fair Use, so the US copies should not have had to have this removed. What kind of religion wants to keep people from being introduced to it's holy scriptures? That kind of controlling attitude is what caused the Christian church to have so many problems back in the day (and only letting the "elite" see the scriptures was not part of the Christian faith, just some power hungry individuals not letting anyone else come to any conclusions about their faith). This kind of bullying should be fought back against, and with as much force as is needed.
You see, the difference here, is that we have admitted our crimes, apologized, and on the whole, have attempted to move on from these wrong actions which do not, in any way, come into alignment with the one we follow (Jesus).
The crimes of Islamic practitioners are neither hundreds of years in the past, nor have they been apologized for (nor have they ceased to occur for the most part). Islam is not a religion of peace. Some of the main tenants teach violence to all who do not follow Islam.
The Christian religion is clear, in the new testament, that we are to forgive, turn the other cheek, and leave the punishing and judgment to someone who has the ability to do the right thing (God).
If you think the Christian Religion is anything other than that, I encourage you to read my sig, and follow it's instructions.
I've lost 2 hours of my life, thanks to you. Now I'll never be bored on the internet again, so I'll never want to get off. And I thought Slashdot was sucking up enough of my time!
Now to go close that tab... wait, what was that? That looks interesting... hmm....
Perhaps it's time to start a petition for the Range Voting method to become the standard for all US voting that will put a person into a political office? Perhaps then we would see a more honest accounting of the opinions of those in the USA.
If we were to be able to actually vote for our top preferences, instead of just one option, then I'd finally be able to vote my real opinion, and not have to have my top vote be either a red or a blue. Instead of "throwing away" my vote, I could vote my conscience, giving highest marks to my preferred candidate, but still having the option of giving high marks to a good enough alternative. What this would mean is that I can give my preferred candidate a score of 100, a good alternate candidate a score of 85, score my two next favorites that I equally prefer over all others as scores of 50 for both, and score those I vehemently disagree with a score of zero. This system truly gives me my real vote (no wasted votes either), and gives me a better chance at being truly represented. The current system forces me to choose the lesser of two evils and only truly gives me 2 real choices.
<soapbox> I want my true representation! How long will we continue down this road of taxation without representation. 35% of my income goes to the government, and the system does not truly give me a way to be represented (in fact, it most often only gives 35-45% of voters representation by their chosen candidate. The rest of us are not represented). </soapbox>
Sorry for the rant, but I feel like it's time for the "tree of liberty" to be refreshed, so to speak, "by the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson had better insight that he could ever have imagined.
We've gone stale as a nation, and we are now like a rotting corpse.
Automated script to find the word Microsoft in a posted story, and auto post as anonymous coward with a pre-"recorded" tirade against Microsoft. Note how it didn't specifically address the Silverlight platform. This was a canned response, and one put in by someone with way to much time on their hands to code something to do this for them (or too much time to sit around while Firefox refreshes the page every minute until they see a Microsoft story and pounce).
Microsoft is not a single entity... Microsoft is made up of thousands of employees, and I'm sure there are some who work with Silverlight that really really want this to be the next Flash.
I personally would be very upset if Silverlight became a common tool, due to the frustrations with implementing it outside of IE.
I agree with the responsibility of molding children into healthy adults and putting them on the right path (obviously, from my sig), but I do not think it is or ever should be the government's job to raise our children. I block those things from my home that I do not want in my home. I will teach my children right and wrong, teach them to respect their elders, and as they grow older, teach them to question authority, question everything I have taught them (to gain critical thinking skills), and give them more and more freedom while reminding them that I have been there and done that, and it's not the best choice in the world.
If the government steps in, my children are raised with the government's moral code, and I really don't want that for my children.
Why not make this simple? There are already ratings for TV, Movies, Video games, etc. Why not simply do the following:
Create a list of ratings such as Safe for Children, Illegal Activities, Illegal Drugs, Profane Language, Hate Speech, Sexually Suggestive, Sexual Acts, Limited Nudity, Full Nudity, Violence, Mild Violence, Blood and Gore, etc. etc. etc.
Have (text) and (image) for all of the above
Have websites self assign defaults for the entire site based on those definitions, with add-ons to individual pages if going outside their "common" ratings.
Have a simple reporting system for violators of the system, with fines/penalties for not properly self-regulating.
Censor nothing
encourage software makers to offer software that allows parents to filter out based on those categories.
Not perfect, but it is a better system than blacklisting, whitelisting, word filtering, image filtering, etc. because it relies on human judgment of the content as opposed to a computer based recommendation or filtration.
Please don't go into all of the reasons why this will still allow people to access stuff they shouldn't, as I already know that it is not a perfect system, but it would allow the FCC to say "see, we're doing our job!" and allow parents to say "Thanks, we can block this now, just like the V-Chip!", and let's Joe Porno Guy to say "I can allow 100% in!! Thank you for not censoring me!"
The nice thing is, it is starting IE6. I've been able to test with IE7, Firefox, IE6 in a Firefox Tab, Safari, and Opera all at the same time. That's very convenient to be able to do from one machine (even if it has to be a windows box).
The problem with this statement "I don't think any one of them should be in exclusive control" is that this network was initially created for the sole purpose of protecting the swift transfer of data should a nuclear attack hit the US of A. It's gotten beyond that in a major way, but it started in the US, so I can understand why the US would want the keys.
Though at this point, I don't think any solution that gives any one person the literal key to the internet is a good one, so, on that point, I agree - find a way to split it up so that no one entity has it, and it requires cooperation to change it. How would this impact simple host creation and DNS transfers though?
Note: Though I'm tech savvy, it is not as an expert in the area of DNS.
My point is that they won't address it in time... they're against it (or was it AT&T that was against it? Can't remember), and since their platform is controlled, if AT&T doesn't want it, they just tell Apple to block it (or if Apple doesn't want it, they just block it themselves). If AT&T doesn't want it on their Android phones, Google just says "ok" and the community does it anyways, and with an open platform, it is freely available.
Apple's track record for noticing when they are wrong about a business decision is rather bad, and I don't see it changing rapidly with the market this time around either.
Who knows... maybe they will catch it before a year or two goes by (about the time people wait to get a new phone). If so, they may survive it as still being a dominant player in the smartphone category. If they don't, though, the myriad of Android phones and hacked phones with Android on them will increase greatly, and Apple will have a really hard time catching back up because of the same slowness of the market.
Can their phone department survive 4 years of slow sales?
A friend of mine used to be a test pilot for NW Airlines (His job was "Here's a plane, something's wrong with it. Can you fly it and figure out what isn't working?" - at least that's how he described it).
His comment on wireless devices?
"If a pilot can't tell the difference between a duck on their radar and a wireless device causing a ghosting effect, they shouldn't be flying a cesna, let alone a 747."
Based on this, I personally believe that their excuse is a load of crap. They just don't want to say "oops, our pilots didn't handle that air pocket well, here's a free flight on us."
If tethering your laptop/netbook/whatever is as simple as having the phone in proximity to the machine, and the bluetooth connection shares your smartphone internet with your laptop, I think that would be enough of a killer app to get people to start dropping their $300 phone to get another one.
Think of the ads: Man sits down in a Borders or something similar. Person next to him says, "Internet? You pay the high fees for access?" Man replies, "No, I have an HTC with Android. As long as my phone is with me, my computer has internet."
That will sell Android based phones. That is what people wanted with their iPhone, but Apple and/or AT&T wouldn't allow it.
With the Android, if AT&T says "no" the user says "screw you" and does it anyways.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, since it's been more than one-minute-and-thirty-five seconds, I'm posting from somewhere a few million miles from earth - wait... just who are you, and how does this internet thing still exist?!? I knew it was all a conspiracy....
Not in Sydney, you insensitive clod!
Actually, it's more like a force field that doesn't let you knock unless you are on the whitelist, but if you are not on the whitelist, a camera points at you, and the occupants of the house are made aware that you are outside, and they can then blacklist or whitelist you, clearly indicating whether or not your unsolicited knocking is acceptable today and in the future.
Sounds a lot like a standard security system to me, and those are minimally annoying, about the same as locked doors.
ARTHUR DENT: I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
What about the solar systems being put into place, don't these naturally reduce the amount of heat due to converting the sunlight into energy instead of allowing it to be absorbed into the ground? Couldn't we simply blanket large areas of desert with solar systems, and effectively create "sunglasses" that block the sunlight from being absorbed into the ground as heat?
Disclaimer: I know very little about solar energy, and this is just wild speculation, so go easy on me, m'kay?
It uses standard automotive unleaded fuel. Gets about 23 miles to the gallon in the air. Most pickup trucks get worse mileage than that.
Well designed web apps do implement the back button correctly. Try it out sometime when using GMail, for example.
Thank you. I downloaded and installed Adblock Plus just because of this one post. Hear that Google? I was seeing Ads, then you screwed with the interface. Now? I see no ads. Nice way to kill the advertising market.
This is AJAX, you've got everything else moveable, why can't I choose where I want that tab menu to be?
Then, at this point, I think the only thing left is to agree to disagree. Thank you for your honest discourse. It has been refreshing to revisit the core of my beliefs.
Sorry, took that one the wrong way, as was bound to happen sometime when communicating online. :-)
Again, you are mistaking those who claim to be Christian with the actual religion of Christianity. Christ himself warned Christians about false teachers/preachers/prophets:
15"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"
- The teachings of Jesus as recorded by Matthew 7:15-23 (NIV translation)
So, you see, those who do not practice the peaceful religion that Christ taught are not Christian , as is clearly demonstrated by the above passages. By his own admission, Christ knows that there will be people in power in the church who will not truly follow his teachings, and he warns other Christians to be on the watch out for those people. This is why I, as a true believer in the teachings of Jesus, refuse to accept these false prophets as Christians. This is why I believe the current day church in general is as corrupt as the Pharisees of Jesus' day. This is why I think that the scriptures preceding that passage needs to be read by more "Christians" so that they can see their own hypocrisy and correct it:
12"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
13"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
- The teachings of Jesus as recorded by Matthew 7:12-14 (NIV translation)
This is a key commandment by Christ. He says that we are to treat others as we would wish to be treated, and to do otherwise is to not be admitted into heaven. Combine this with my earlier scripture references, and you can clearly see that Christ was against the corruption you have seen, and what you call "Christianity" is not the religion Christianity, but is instead the twisted erroneous traditions of false prophets. So again, I say that it is clear that the Religion of Christianity is a peaceful religion.
Many (as was predicted by Christ) have twisted Christianity into their own version which encourages violence, but in doing so, they have walked away from the "narrow path" of Christ, and therefore are not Christian. Please don't judge Christianity based on people who are not truly practicing their faith.
Again, I judge each religion solely on its religious texts - an objective view, as opposed to judging the religion's peacefulness based on its practitioners. Anything else is less than objective.
Sigh.
Why can't we have an intelligent discussion instead of going for the throat every post?
First, let me address your comments. The actions of those who have raped children, killed doctors, or abused homosexuals are abhorrent to anyone who actually practices what the Christian faith preaches.
You see, people can say they are a Christian, but that does not mean that every action that person does is de facto a Christian action.
So, again, you see the difference here is that the Christian Religion does not condone the actions of those people (nor does it truly condone the Crusades or many other things that people in the church have done in the "name of God" over the centuries. The big point here is that our holy texts clearly show these actions to be abhorrent. The holy texts of Islam clearly show these actions to be not only accepted, but required to be a true follower. I have read the scriptures of the Qur'an that are often quoted and have looked at the context of the passages. It is clear that killing someone who is not of the faith is a common theme, and is expected of any practitioner of this faith. It is clear that this is not simply references to previous wars, but is clearly about a current war against all who will not choose to follow their way.
So how anyone can take a religion like Christianity that preaches turning the other cheek, has a leader (Christ) who saved a whore from the letter of the law (by not allowing the religious leaders of that day to follow the letter of the law and stone her to death), and teaches its followers to reach across racial, social, and economic barriers, and compare it to a religion like Islam that encourages killing those who refuse to follow their way is beyond me. There is no comparison. Christ taught that all of Christianity can be summed up as this: "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." I just don't see how this type of faith can be considered similar to the religion of Islam.
Before the flame wars begin again, please keep in mind that I am clearly talking about the religions not those who claim they follow that faith.
And to bring this whole comment back on topic, it is ridiculous that any faith should try to restrict the uses of their holy texts. This use was obviously one that fell under Fair Use, so the US copies should not have had to have this removed. What kind of religion wants to keep people from being introduced to it's holy scriptures? That kind of controlling attitude is what caused the Christian church to have so many problems back in the day (and only letting the "elite" see the scriptures was not part of the Christian faith, just some power hungry individuals not letting anyone else come to any conclusions about their faith). This kind of bullying should be fought back against, and with as much force as is needed.
You see, the difference here, is that we have admitted our crimes, apologized, and on the whole, have attempted to move on from these wrong actions which do not, in any way, come into alignment with the one we follow (Jesus).
The crimes of Islamic practitioners are neither hundreds of years in the past, nor have they been apologized for (nor have they ceased to occur for the most part). Islam is not a religion of peace. Some of the main tenants teach violence to all who do not follow Islam.
The Christian religion is clear, in the new testament, that we are to forgive, turn the other cheek, and leave the punishing and judgment to someone who has the ability to do the right thing (God).
If you think the Christian Religion is anything other than that, I encourage you to read my sig, and follow it's instructions.
why... Why? WHY?!?!?
I've lost 2 hours of my life, thanks to you. Now I'll never be bored on the internet again, so I'll never want to get off. And I thought Slashdot was sucking up enough of my time!
Now to go close that tab... wait, what was that? That looks interesting... hmm....
The same idiots that pay to use a BETA product.
Perhaps it's time to start a petition for the Range Voting method to become the standard for all US voting that will put a person into a political office? Perhaps then we would see a more honest accounting of the opinions of those in the USA.
If we were to be able to actually vote for our top preferences, instead of just one option, then I'd finally be able to vote my real opinion, and not have to have my top vote be either a red or a blue. Instead of "throwing away" my vote, I could vote my conscience, giving highest marks to my preferred candidate, but still having the option of giving high marks to a good enough alternative. What this would mean is that I can give my preferred candidate a score of 100, a good alternate candidate a score of 85, score my two next favorites that I equally prefer over all others as scores of 50 for both, and score those I vehemently disagree with a score of zero. This system truly gives me my real vote (no wasted votes either), and gives me a better chance at being truly represented. The current system forces me to choose the lesser of two evils and only truly gives me 2 real choices.
<soapbox>
I want my true representation! How long will we continue down this road of taxation without representation. 35% of my income goes to the government, and the system does not truly give me a way to be represented (in fact, it most often only gives 35-45% of voters representation by their chosen candidate. The rest of us are not represented).
</soapbox>
Sorry for the rant, but I feel like it's time for the "tree of liberty" to be refreshed, so to speak, "by the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson had better insight that he could ever have imagined.
We've gone stale as a nation, and we are now like a rotting corpse.
Automated script to find the word Microsoft in a posted story, and auto post as anonymous coward with a pre-"recorded" tirade against Microsoft. Note how it didn't specifically address the Silverlight platform. This was a canned response, and one put in by someone with way to much time on their hands to code something to do this for them (or too much time to sit around while Firefox refreshes the page every minute until they see a Microsoft story and pounce).
Microsoft is not a single entity... Microsoft is made up of thousands of employees, and I'm sure there are some who work with Silverlight that really really want this to be the next Flash.
I personally would be very upset if Silverlight became a common tool, due to the frustrations with implementing it outside of IE.
I agree with the responsibility of molding children into healthy adults and putting them on the right path (obviously, from my sig), but I do not think it is or ever should be the government's job to raise our children. I block those things from my home that I do not want in my home. I will teach my children right and wrong, teach them to respect their elders, and as they grow older, teach them to question authority, question everything I have taught them (to gain critical thinking skills), and give them more and more freedom while reminding them that I have been there and done that, and it's not the best choice in the world.
If the government steps in, my children are raised with the government's moral code, and I really don't want that for my children.
Not perfect, but it is a better system than blacklisting, whitelisting, word filtering, image filtering, etc. because it relies on human judgment of the content as opposed to a computer based recommendation or filtration.
Please don't go into all of the reasons why this will still allow people to access stuff they shouldn't, as I already know that it is not a perfect system, but it would allow the FCC to say "see, we're doing our job!" and allow parents to say "Thanks, we can block this now, just like the V-Chip!", and let's Joe Porno Guy to say "I can allow 100% in!! Thank you for not censoring me!"
Sounds like a good compromise for all.
The nice thing is, it is starting IE6. I've been able to test with IE7, Firefox, IE6 in a Firefox Tab, Safari, and Opera all at the same time. That's very convenient to be able to do from one machine (even if it has to be a windows box).
The problem with this statement "I don't think any one of them should be in exclusive control" is that this network was initially created for the sole purpose of protecting the swift transfer of data should a nuclear attack hit the US of A. It's gotten beyond that in a major way, but it started in the US, so I can understand why the US would want the keys.
Though at this point, I don't think any solution that gives any one person the literal key to the internet is a good one, so, on that point, I agree - find a way to split it up so that no one entity has it, and it requires cooperation to change it. How would this impact simple host creation and DNS transfers though?
Note: Though I'm tech savvy, it is not as an expert in the area of DNS.
They're just called it that (and named their company that) for the free publicity it will bring.
My point is that they won't address it in time... they're against it (or was it AT&T that was against it? Can't remember), and since their platform is controlled, if AT&T doesn't want it, they just tell Apple to block it (or if Apple doesn't want it, they just block it themselves). If AT&T doesn't want it on their Android phones, Google just says "ok" and the community does it anyways, and with an open platform, it is freely available.
Apple's track record for noticing when they are wrong about a business decision is rather bad, and I don't see it changing rapidly with the market this time around either.
Who knows... maybe they will catch it before a year or two goes by (about the time people wait to get a new phone). If so, they may survive it as still being a dominant player in the smartphone category. If they don't, though, the myriad of Android phones and hacked phones with Android on them will increase greatly, and Apple will have a really hard time catching back up because of the same slowness of the market.
Can their phone department survive 4 years of slow sales?
A friend of mine used to be a test pilot for NW Airlines (His job was "Here's a plane, something's wrong with it. Can you fly it and figure out what isn't working?" - at least that's how he described it).
His comment on wireless devices?
"If a pilot can't tell the difference between a duck on their radar and a wireless device causing a ghosting effect, they shouldn't be flying a cesna, let alone a 747."
Based on this, I personally believe that their excuse is a load of crap. They just don't want to say "oops, our pilots didn't handle that air pocket well, here's a free flight on us."
If tethering your laptop/netbook/whatever is as simple as having the phone in proximity to the machine, and the bluetooth connection shares your smartphone internet with your laptop, I think that would be enough of a killer app to get people to start dropping their $300 phone to get another one.
Think of the ads: Man sits down in a Borders or something similar. Person next to him says, "Internet? You pay the high fees for access?" Man replies, "No, I have an HTC with Android. As long as my phone is with me, my computer has internet."
That will sell Android based phones.
That is what people wanted with their iPhone, but Apple and/or AT&T wouldn't allow it.
With the Android, if AT&T says "no" the user says "screw you" and does it anyways.
Android. It's a game changer.