"Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for Abdul Rahman, calling him a "microbe".[12] Prosecutor Abdul Wasi demanded his repentance and called him a traitor: "He should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed." The Afghan Attorney General was quoted as saying that Abdul Rahman should be hanged.[15]....
....Ansarullah Mawlafizada also said "the Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back, Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told him if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him".
Except that there isn't anything in the new testament telling Christians to go out and bomb abortion clinics or to do any kind of violence, just isn't in there.
You are right. New Testament just contains stuff that supports slavery, but there's not that much killing in there. The killing (and incest) is in the Old Testament. You know, the part of the Bible you "conveniently" left out? Why is that? Last time I checked, the Old Testament is still a part of Christian scripture.
It often makes sense to standardize on something, as opposed to have several competing standards. Or would you like to have the "freedom" that several incompatible power-plugs in USA would bring you? Of course not, you would rather have one standard plug. Same thing here.
"HD-DVD has a triple-layer, 51-gig disc on the way. So, actually, HD-DVD has more capacity."
Is it fair to compare upcoming and currently unavailable HD-DVD-discs to BR-discs that are available as we speak? As it has been said, BR-folks are also working on more layers. Why shouldn't we compare triple-layer HD-DVD to those upcoming BR-discs instead?
IF we look at the situation right now, BR has more capacity. If we look at the situation in the future, BR is still going to have more capacity.
"When people actually intentionally buy a next generation media player, they overwhelmingly chose HD-DVD"
What kind of BS argument is that? fact of the matter is that PS3 is a great BR-player, and it's among the cheapest as well. And it has the bonus of being a game-console as well. If someone was thinking about buying a BR-player, PS3 would have been a good choice. Or are you saying that we should compare HD-DVD to standalone BR-players, players that cost more than PS3, while not being one bit better than PS3 at BR-playback? Like it or not, if someone wants a BR-player, PS3 is pretty much a no-brainer.
What does it matter that it happens to be a console as well? Why do we have these BS-discussion where people basically say "if we exclude the best-selling BR-player on the grounds that it can be used to play games as well, then we will see that HD-DVD was doing OK when compared to BR". Why on EARTH should PS3 be excluded? Because it's a console? It's also one of the best and cheapest BR-players on the market at the moment.
Why is it that when we have a discussion about SETI@Home, we get folding-folks come up and start telling how everyone should stop running SETI and run Folding instead? When there's a discussion about folding, the SETI-folks don't start whining.
I for one find that constant whining from Folding-people to be extremely off-putting. No, I will not start running a folding-client just because you or someone else tells me to. No, I won't listen to certain type of music either, just because you happen to like it. In fact, more you people whine about people running SET as opposed to running Folding@home, the more likely I am to stay away from Folding. And before you ask: no, I'm not running any distributed computing client. When I'm not using my computer, I put it to sleep, as opposed to leaving it running and consuming electricity (hey, that could be a neat distributed project: preventglobwarming@home: shut your computer down when you are not using it!)
You might feel that SETI is a waste of resources. Fine. There are lots of people who disagree with you. Why not simply let them choose what project they want to support? I'm quite certain that they are aware of Folding-project, yet they choose SETI. And they have that right.
Why aren't you whining to astrophysicists that they are just wasting their time, and that they should become medical doctors instead? Why aren't YOU a doctor? Why are YOU wasting your time doing whatever it is that you do?
Scouring of the Shire would have made for a terrible end for the movie. Think about it: For three movies we have watched the Fellowship in their struggle to defeat Sauron and destroy the Ring. In the climax of the ROTK, they finally do it. Aragorn is crowned King and everyone is happy. Then the hobbits have a fight with a bunch of thugs...
What would similar ending in "Return of the Jedi" look like? Anakin Skywalker kills the Emperor after a climatic battle, the Death Star is destoyed after a huge and desperate battle. As people are celebrating the fall of the Empire, Luke looks at the "ghosts" of Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin. He then turns away to join his friends in the celebration.... Only to be ambushed by the last surviving stormtrooper! We then get to watch 5 minutes of hand-to-hand combat, after which Luke joins his friends at the party and the credits start to roll.
Like it or not, the climax of the story was the destruction of the ring. That was the moment the three movies were aiming at. Having the scouring at the end would have made that the climax. It wouldn't have worked. Not at all. It works in the book, but it would not work in a movie. After they destroy the ring, they had to quickly wrap up the movie. Butting a minor battle at the end would have completely ruined the pacing of the movie.
"What is the default desktop of openSUSE - GNOME or KDE? openSUSE supports a number of popular desktop environments, including GNOME and KDE. During installation, the user is asked to choose between GNOME and KDE but no default is given. Both desktop environments are mature and feature-rich, which one a user chooses is a question of personal taste."
I feel that the question between volunteer-army and drafted army depends on many issues. I could see massive problems if drafted military was used for warfare in other countries (Like Iraq or Afganistan). But it would work just fine if you had to defend the country against an aggressor that was coming across the border.
Finland has conscription, and there are no major issues with it. And the purpose of the FDF is clearly defined as defense of the country. No wars of aggression, period. There ARE Finnish soldiers in places like Afganistan, and those are 100% volunteers. But as far as the defense of the homeland goes, there's no real alternative to conscription. Primary reason being population and size of the country. Volunteer-army would mean an army that was dramatically smaller in raw numbers than what we currently have. So we simply would not have enough troops to protect the entire country, even if those troops were superior to consripts. So if we had a volunteer-military, we would have to decide which areas are worth defending, and which are not, and that would put the population on unequal footing
Jiveman1: Sheeeet, man, that honkey mus' be messin' my old lady got to be runnin' col' upsihd down his head! Subtitle: GOLLY, THAT WHITE FELLOW SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM MY WIFE OR I WILL PUNCH HIM. Jiveman2: Hey Holm, I can dig it! You know he ain't gonna lay no mo' big rap upon you man! Subtitle: YES, HE IS WRONG FOR DOING THAT. Jiveman1: I say hey sky, s'other say I won say I pray to J I get the same ol' same ol. Subtitle: I KNEW A MAN IN A SIMILAR PREDICAMENT, AND HE ENDED UP BEING SORRY. Jiveman2: Knock yourself a pro slick. Gray matter back got perform' us' down I take TCBin, man'. Subtitle: DON'T BE NAIVE ARTHUR. EACH OF US FACES A CLEAR MORAL CHOICE. Jiveman1: You know wha' they say: See a broad to get that bodiac lay'er down an' smack 'em yack 'em. Subtitle: EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE, MAKES A MAN HEALTHY, WEALTHY AND WISE. Together: Col' got to be! Yo! Subtitle: HOW TRUE! Together: Sheeeeeeet! Subtitle: GOLLY.
"And sysadmins, doctors and other "on-call" professions have a right to eat, don't they?"
Sure. Is there anything stopping those people to put their phones on silent, and step outside the theater/restaurant/whatever if they receive an urgent call? If they see that it's just their friend calling, they could just close the call without answering it. Why couldn't they do that? Or are those chats with friends that much more important if you happen to be a doctor?
while there might be plans for non-English articles, the fact remains that the name of the website is in English. That is not the case with Wikipedia. That is my point. And lets face it: "Citizendium" doesn't really roll off the tongue like "Wikipedia" does.
Yes, non-English-speakers might routinely use websites with English names (like "Slashdot"). But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't mind something with a more universal name. "Citizendium" seems like a club for English-speakers that graciously allow no-english-speakers to attend their meetings, whereas "Wikipedia" sounds a lot more universal. "Citizen" is English, whereas "Wiki" has been adopted by several languages.
At least, that's the perception one gets. Looking at their main page, there are no non-English articles. And what about their name? "Citizen" is English. Yes, "Wiki" is Hawaiian, but it has been adopted by other languages as well. Wiki is "wiki" in Finnish as well, whereas "Citizen" is "kansalainen". "Wikipedia" is a lot more universal word languagewise than "Citizendium" is. Not to mention it being a lot easier to pronounce. Again: Wikipedia is "Wikipedia" in Finnish, what would Citizendium be? I have no idea. What I do know is that "Citizendium" would seem totally alien to someone who speaks Finnish.
Starting from their name, Citizendium has adopted a policy of "English-only!". Maybe it's deliberate, maybe it's not. But that's just how things are. That is one of the biggest reasons I really don't see Citizendium surpassing Wikipedia anytime soon.
"How is it in "the noblest tradition of science" to retract a scientific paper on the grounds that it supports a theory that you don't like?"
Um, he did not retract the paper because of creationists, he retracted it because he found several factual errors in it... It's not like he thought "Damn, my paper is used by creationists to support their agenda, I better retract it immediately!". What he did think is that "damn, I claimed A, B and C, and those claims have since been shown to be false. I better retract my paper since it's obviously flawed.".
NDE's could be explained by large amounts of hallucinogenic drugs being released from the pineal gland at the time of death, for example. There doesn't need to be anything "spiritual" about them.
"The fact is, you are a Spiritual Being in a Physical Body having a Human Experience."
"Come to think of it, nobody claimed that Saddam was connected to Al Queda in particular, but he was indeed a sponsor of terrorism."
In his "Mission Accomplished"-speec, GWB said this:
"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
Seems to me that he's claiming that Iraq and Al-Qaida were "allied"... So your claim is 100% WRONG.
Yep. And I fail to see that much differences between 770 and N800. Yes, N800 is a bit snappier, but I think that touch still has an edge there. Yes there are other extra features in the N800 (like a webcam), but I don't have use for those.
"The 810 has a slide-out keyboard, which doesn't require smearing your thumbs over the screen."
While the screen on the touch does smudge up a bit, it's not noticeable when using the device. You can notice the smudges when the screen if off, but not when it's in use.
"Btw, have you tried the 770's popup thumboard? No, not the stylus keyboard...)"
I have, and I find it somewhat clumsy. My typing-speed is simply way better on the touch than it is on the 770, thumb-board included.
"It also has youtube and is smaller than the 770 (while still have the huge screen)."
While it's smaller, it's still roughly twice as big as the touch is. I mean, let's look at the specs:
By my calculations, N810 has over twice the volume on the touch, while also being almost twice as heavy.
I carry touch in the "coin-pocket" (the same pocket Jobs used to demo the iPod nano), whereas 770, N800 and N810 could not fit there. And I would still have to carry my iPod AND my cell-phone with me. With touch, I can just take my cell-phone and my touch with me and be done with it.
And all this is without taking in to account the superior look and feel of the touch when compared to the Internet Tablets. The UI simply looks and feels superior. the UI on the tablets is a bit... clumsy and awkward. the tablets have all kinds of plastic buttons and unsmooth surfaces, whereas touch is smooth steel and glass.
Well, I own the 770 that has the same screen. A while ago I bought iPod touch. And while the touch has lower resolution, it has replaced the 770 as my internet-tablet of choice.
The browser and the entire experience is just superior on the touch than what it is on the 770. Yes, I do occasionally have to zoom in on the webpages, but that's not really an issue at all. Dataentry (like these textboxes) is a lot better on the touch than on the 770. Also, touch is maybe half the size of the 770, as well as being a lot lighter. I can take the touch with me wherever I go, I can't do that with the 770.
There are other things as well: touch plays back the video I find in the net, 770 does not. touch has youtube, 770 does not. I can use touch with my fingers, while 770 practically requires a stylus. The look and feel of the touch is miles ahead of the 770 (770 is not bad in this are, but still) and it just feels a lot snappier.
Yes, the screen on the 770 is bigger and it has better resolution that touch has. But that's not enough. the resolution on the touch is good enough, while it offers lots of other great features that are lacking in the 770.
"The claim that speed kills is an appeal to amotion."
No, it's an appeal for common sense. If you hit something doing 100mph, you are more likely to die, than if you were doing 60mph. Anyone who disputes that claim is an idiot, are you an idiot? And it takes a lot longer to brake to a standstill from 100mph than from 60mph. Again: common sense. Also, it's a lot easier to avoid hitting something if you are doing 60mph than if you were doing 100mph. Again: common sense.
seriously: this is not common sense.
"If it was my mum (oh, wait, it was) I'd rather have a safe high speed driver doing 140 barrelling down on her inattentive ass than a logging truck doing under the speed limit. The beamer can go around her."
Would you rather have a head-on collision with a car that is doing 100mph, or with a similar car that is doing 60mph? Remember: speed doesn't kill", right? By comparing a BMW doing 140mph to a logging-truck driving under the speed-limit, you are comparing apples and oranges. A valid comparison would be BMW doing 140mph or BMW going under the speed-limit. How about that comparison? Which would you rather have a collision with?
"Again, in spite of all your rhetoric the safety record of these rallies speaks for itself."
It's just statistics. If someone drives 140mph on a public road, and doesn't cause an accident, does that mean that it's somehow "safer" than obeying the speed-limit since there are lots of accidents that take place even though participant are obeying the speed-limit? No. The "races" are quite rare in the end. When compared to everyday-traffic these races compromise maybe 0.002% of all traffic on the roads. So is it any wonder that these races cause less accidents than the other 99.998% of traffic?
No it does not. When you drive fast, you have less time to react. That is a fact and common sense. So what would you do if you were doing 100+mph and something suddenly jumped in front of your car? Like a moose or something. You might have been the worlds most attentive driver up until that point, but it would still do you jack shit. At those speeds you simply would not have time to react. At those speeds you simply would not have the time to scan your entire surroundings all the time.
"The only poeple to die in one of these high speed thingies is a couple who ran a stop sign."
Or it might be that they drove in front of the other car because they thought that it was obeying the speed-limit, instead of driving like crazy. Maybe they thought that the other car was driving sensibly and they would therefore have more than enough time ? And should we now say that "hey, these races are safe! Only two people have died so far!".
"Other than that, they've proven to be safer than the average major highway on a holiday weekend with people doing the speed limit."
Driving on public roads like maniac is safer than driving sensibly? Uh, OK... And before you say "a lot more regular drivers than racers die in accidents!". Well, duh! Three are maybe 1-2 racers for every 10.000 regural drivers! So is it any wonder that there are more regular drivers dying than racers? And that still does not prove that driving like a maniac is somehow "safe".
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Truth is stranger than fiction. Few select quotes:
....Ansarullah Mawlafizada also said "the Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back, Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told him if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him".
"Prosecutors asked for the death penalty for Abdul Rahman, calling him a "microbe".[12] Prosecutor Abdul Wasi demanded his repentance and called him a traitor: "He should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed." The Afghan Attorney General was quoted as saying that Abdul Rahman should be hanged.[15]....
You are right. New Testament just contains stuff that supports slavery, but there's not that much killing in there. The killing (and incest) is in the Old Testament. You know, the part of the Bible you "conveniently" left out? Why is that? Last time I checked, the Old Testament is still a part of Christian scripture.
Yes. because names like "Yahoo!", "Google" and "Apple" sound a lot more serious....
It often makes sense to standardize on something, as opposed to have several competing standards. Or would you like to have the "freedom" that several incompatible power-plugs in USA would bring you? Of course not, you would rather have one standard plug. Same thing here.
"HD-DVD has a triple-layer, 51-gig disc on the way. So, actually, HD-DVD has more capacity."
Is it fair to compare upcoming and currently unavailable HD-DVD-discs to BR-discs that are available as we speak? As it has been said, BR-folks are also working on more layers. Why shouldn't we compare triple-layer HD-DVD to those upcoming BR-discs instead?
IF we look at the situation right now, BR has more capacity. If we look at the situation in the future, BR is still going to have more capacity.
"When people actually intentionally buy a next generation media player, they overwhelmingly chose HD-DVD"
What kind of BS argument is that? fact of the matter is that PS3 is a great BR-player, and it's among the cheapest as well. And it has the bonus of being a game-console as well. If someone was thinking about buying a BR-player, PS3 would have been a good choice. Or are you saying that we should compare HD-DVD to standalone BR-players, players that cost more than PS3, while not being one bit better than PS3 at BR-playback? Like it or not, if someone wants a BR-player, PS3 is pretty much a no-brainer.
What does it matter that it happens to be a console as well? Why do we have these BS-discussion where people basically say "if we exclude the best-selling BR-player on the grounds that it can be used to play games as well, then we will see that HD-DVD was doing OK when compared to BR". Why on EARTH should PS3 be excluded? Because it's a console? It's also one of the best and cheapest BR-players on the market at the moment.
Why is it that when we have a discussion about SETI@Home, we get folding-folks come up and start telling how everyone should stop running SETI and run Folding instead? When there's a discussion about folding, the SETI-folks don't start whining.
I for one find that constant whining from Folding-people to be extremely off-putting. No, I will not start running a folding-client just because you or someone else tells me to. No, I won't listen to certain type of music either, just because you happen to like it. In fact, more you people whine about people running SET as opposed to running Folding@home, the more likely I am to stay away from Folding. And before you ask: no, I'm not running any distributed computing client. When I'm not using my computer, I put it to sleep, as opposed to leaving it running and consuming electricity (hey, that could be a neat distributed project: preventglobwarming@home: shut your computer down when you are not using it!)
You might feel that SETI is a waste of resources. Fine. There are lots of people who disagree with you. Why not simply let them choose what project they want to support? I'm quite certain that they are aware of Folding-project, yet they choose SETI. And they have that right.
Why aren't you whining to astrophysicists that they are just wasting their time, and that they should become medical doctors instead? Why aren't YOU a doctor? Why are YOU wasting your time doing whatever it is that you do?
Scouring of the Shire would have made for a terrible end for the movie. Think about it: For three movies we have watched the Fellowship in their struggle to defeat Sauron and destroy the Ring. In the climax of the ROTK, they finally do it. Aragorn is crowned King and everyone is happy. Then the hobbits have a fight with a bunch of thugs...
What would similar ending in "Return of the Jedi" look like? Anakin Skywalker kills the Emperor after a climatic battle, the Death Star is destoyed after a huge and desperate battle. As people are celebrating the fall of the Empire, Luke looks at the "ghosts" of Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin. He then turns away to join his friends in the celebration.... Only to be ambushed by the last surviving stormtrooper! We then get to watch 5 minutes of hand-to-hand combat, after which Luke joins his friends at the party and the credits start to roll.
Like it or not, the climax of the story was the destruction of the ring. That was the moment the three movies were aiming at. Having the scouring at the end would have made that the climax. It wouldn't have worked. Not at all. It works in the book, but it would not work in a movie. After they destroy the ring, they had to quickly wrap up the movie. Butting a minor battle at the end would have completely ruined the pacing of the movie.
The OpenSUSE FAQ says this:
"What is the default desktop of openSUSE - GNOME or KDE?
openSUSE supports a number of popular desktop environments, including GNOME and KDE. During installation, the user is asked to choose between GNOME and KDE but no default is given. Both desktop environments are mature and feature-rich, which one a user chooses is a question of personal taste."
Tubbs: Look Edward a shooting star. Should we make a wish?
Edward: Yes Tubbs, wish for an end to this plague of strangers, for our futures to remain local and for new road to be totally destroyed.
Tubbs: And can I have a new dress please.
Maybe it was their way of showing the readers "Those capitalists in North-America are very easy targets from space".
I feel that the question between volunteer-army and drafted army depends on many issues. I could see massive problems if drafted military was used for warfare in other countries (Like Iraq or Afganistan). But it would work just fine if you had to defend the country against an aggressor that was coming across the border.
Finland has conscription, and there are no major issues with it. And the purpose of the FDF is clearly defined as defense of the country. No wars of aggression, period. There ARE Finnish soldiers in places like Afganistan, and those are 100% volunteers. But as far as the defense of the homeland goes, there's no real alternative to conscription. Primary reason being population and size of the country. Volunteer-army would mean an army that was dramatically smaller in raw numbers than what we currently have. So we simply would not have enough troops to protect the entire country, even if those troops were superior to consripts. So if we had a volunteer-military, we would have to decide which areas are worth defending, and which are not, and that would put the population on unequal footing
I prefer the earlier scene:
Jiveman1: Sheeeet, man, that honkey mus' be messin' my old lady
got to be runnin' col' upsihd down his head!
Subtitle: GOLLY, THAT WHITE FELLOW SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM MY WIFE
OR I WILL PUNCH HIM.
Jiveman2: Hey Holm, I can dig it! You know he ain't gonna lay no
mo' big rap upon you man!
Subtitle: YES, HE IS WRONG FOR DOING THAT.
Jiveman1: I say hey sky, s'other say I won say I pray to J I get
the same ol' same ol.
Subtitle: I KNEW A MAN IN A SIMILAR PREDICAMENT, AND HE ENDED UP
BEING SORRY.
Jiveman2: Knock yourself a pro slick. Gray matter back got
perform' us' down I take TCBin, man'.
Subtitle: DON'T BE NAIVE ARTHUR. EACH OF US FACES A CLEAR MORAL
CHOICE.
Jiveman1: You know wha' they say: See a broad to get that bodiac
lay'er down an' smack 'em yack 'em.
Subtitle: EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE, MAKES A MAN HEALTHY,
WEALTHY AND WISE.
Together: Col' got to be! Yo!
Subtitle: HOW TRUE!
Together: Sheeeeeeet!
Subtitle: GOLLY.
"And sysadmins, doctors and other "on-call" professions have a right to eat, don't they?"
Sure. Is there anything stopping those people to put their phones on silent, and step outside the theater/restaurant/whatever if they receive an urgent call? If they see that it's just their friend calling, they could just close the call without answering it. Why couldn't they do that? Or are those chats with friends that much more important if you happen to be a doctor?
while there might be plans for non-English articles, the fact remains that the name of the website is in English. That is not the case with Wikipedia. That is my point. And lets face it: "Citizendium" doesn't really roll off the tongue like "Wikipedia" does.
Yes, non-English-speakers might routinely use websites with English names (like "Slashdot"). But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't mind something with a more universal name. "Citizendium" seems like a club for English-speakers that graciously allow no-english-speakers to attend their meetings, whereas "Wikipedia" sounds a lot more universal. "Citizen" is English, whereas "Wiki" has been adopted by several languages.
At least, that's the perception one gets. Looking at their main page, there are no non-English articles. And what about their name? "Citizen" is English. Yes, "Wiki" is Hawaiian, but it has been adopted by other languages as well. Wiki is "wiki" in Finnish as well, whereas "Citizen" is "kansalainen". "Wikipedia" is a lot more universal word languagewise than "Citizendium" is. Not to mention it being a lot easier to pronounce. Again: Wikipedia is "Wikipedia" in Finnish, what would Citizendium be? I have no idea. What I do know is that "Citizendium" would seem totally alien to someone who speaks Finnish.
Starting from their name, Citizendium has adopted a policy of "English-only!". Maybe it's deliberate, maybe it's not. But that's just how things are. That is one of the biggest reasons I really don't see Citizendium surpassing Wikipedia anytime soon.
"How is it in "the noblest tradition of science" to retract a scientific paper on the grounds that it supports a theory that you don't like?"
Um, he did not retract the paper because of creationists, he retracted it because he found several factual errors in it... It's not like he thought "Damn, my paper is used by creationists to support their agenda, I better retract it immediately!". What he did think is that "damn, I claimed A, B and C, and those claims have since been shown to be false. I better retract my paper since it's obviously flawed.".
NDE's could be explained by large amounts of hallucinogenic drugs being released from the pineal gland at the time of death, for example. There doesn't need to be anything "spiritual" about them.
"The fact is, you are a Spiritual Being in a Physical Body having a Human Experience."
Um, what exactly makes that a fact?
"Come to think of it, nobody claimed that Saddam was connected to Al Queda in particular, but he was indeed a sponsor of terrorism."
In his "Mission Accomplished"-speec, GWB said this:
"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
Seems to me that he's claiming that Iraq and Al-Qaida were "allied"... So your claim is 100% WRONG.
"They shall not pass"
"The 770 was two models ago"
Yep. And I fail to see that much differences between 770 and N800. Yes, N800 is a bit snappier, but I think that touch still has an edge there. Yes there are other extra features in the N800 (like a webcam), but I don't have use for those.
"The 810 has a slide-out keyboard, which doesn't require smearing your thumbs over the screen."
While the screen on the touch does smudge up a bit, it's not noticeable when using the device. You can notice the smudges when the screen if off, but not when it's in use.
"Btw, have you tried the 770's popup thumboard? No, not the stylus keyboard...)"
I have, and I find it somewhat clumsy. My typing-speed is simply way better on the touch than it is on the 770, thumb-board included.
"It also has youtube and is smaller than the 770 (while still have the huge screen)."
While it's smaller, it's still roughly twice as big as the touch is. I mean, let's look at the specs:
Touch
Thickness: 8mm
Width: 62mm
Height: 110mm
Weight: 120g
N810
Thickness: 14mm
Width: 128mm
Height: 72mm
Weight: 226g
By my calculations, N810 has over twice the volume on the touch, while also being almost twice as heavy.
I carry touch in the "coin-pocket" (the same pocket Jobs used to demo the iPod nano), whereas 770, N800 and N810 could not fit there. And I would still have to carry my iPod AND my cell-phone with me. With touch, I can just take my cell-phone and my touch with me and be done with it.
And all this is without taking in to account the superior look and feel of the touch when compared to the Internet Tablets. The UI simply looks and feels superior. the UI on the tablets is a bit... clumsy and awkward. the tablets have all kinds of plastic buttons and unsmooth surfaces, whereas touch is smooth steel and glass.
Well, I own the 770 that has the same screen. A while ago I bought iPod touch. And while the touch has lower resolution, it has replaced the 770 as my internet-tablet of choice.
The browser and the entire experience is just superior on the touch than what it is on the 770. Yes, I do occasionally have to zoom in on the webpages, but that's not really an issue at all. Dataentry (like these textboxes) is a lot better on the touch than on the 770. Also, touch is maybe half the size of the 770, as well as being a lot lighter. I can take the touch with me wherever I go, I can't do that with the 770.
There are other things as well: touch plays back the video I find in the net, 770 does not. touch has youtube, 770 does not. I can use touch with my fingers, while 770 practically requires a stylus. The look and feel of the touch is miles ahead of the 770 (770 is not bad in this are, but still) and it just feels a lot snappier.
Yes, the screen on the 770 is bigger and it has better resolution that touch has. But that's not enough. the resolution on the touch is good enough, while it offers lots of other great features that are lacking in the 770.
"seriously: this is not common sense."
Uh, that was supposed to be "rocket science", not "common sense"...
"The claim that speed kills is an appeal to amotion."
No, it's an appeal for common sense. If you hit something doing 100mph, you are more likely to die, than if you were doing 60mph. Anyone who disputes that claim is an idiot, are you an idiot? And it takes a lot longer to brake to a standstill from 100mph than from 60mph. Again: common sense. Also, it's a lot easier to avoid hitting something if you are doing 60mph than if you were doing 100mph. Again: common sense.
seriously: this is not common sense.
"If it was my mum (oh, wait, it was) I'd rather have a safe high speed driver doing 140 barrelling down on her inattentive ass than a logging truck doing under the speed limit. The beamer can go around her."
Would you rather have a head-on collision with a car that is doing 100mph, or with a similar car that is doing 60mph? Remember: speed doesn't kill", right? By comparing a BMW doing 140mph to a logging-truck driving under the speed-limit, you are comparing apples and oranges. A valid comparison would be BMW doing 140mph or BMW going under the speed-limit. How about that comparison? Which would you rather have a collision with?
"Again, in spite of all your rhetoric the safety record of these rallies speaks for itself."
It's just statistics. If someone drives 140mph on a public road, and doesn't cause an accident, does that mean that it's somehow "safer" than obeying the speed-limit since there are lots of accidents that take place even though participant are obeying the speed-limit? No. The "races" are quite rare in the end. When compared to everyday-traffic these races compromise maybe 0.002% of all traffic on the roads. So is it any wonder that these races cause less accidents than the other 99.998% of traffic?
"Sounds more like an UNPROVED ASSERTION to me."
No it does not. When you drive fast, you have less time to react. That is a fact and common sense. So what would you do if you were doing 100+mph and something suddenly jumped in front of your car? Like a moose or something. You might have been the worlds most attentive driver up until that point, but it would still do you jack shit. At those speeds you simply would not have time to react. At those speeds you simply would not have the time to scan your entire surroundings all the time.
"The only poeple to die in one of these high speed thingies is a couple who ran a stop sign."
Or it might be that they drove in front of the other car because they thought that it was obeying the speed-limit, instead of driving like crazy. Maybe they thought that the other car was driving sensibly and they would therefore have more than enough time ? And should we now say that "hey, these races are safe! Only two people have died so far!".
"Other than that, they've proven to be safer than the average major highway on a holiday weekend with people doing the speed limit."
Driving on public roads like maniac is safer than driving sensibly? Uh, OK... And before you say "a lot more regular drivers than racers die in accidents!". Well, duh! Three are maybe 1-2 racers for every 10.000 regural drivers! So is it any wonder that there are more regular drivers dying than racers? And that still does not prove that driving like a maniac is somehow "safe".