I believe the Soviets also found a way to make cattle feed directly out of petroleum (though I haven't been able to source this),
It's not much of a stretch. In the West (probably everywhere), we use petroleum to make artificial flavors. For instance, strawberry flavored gum or strawberry flavored ice cream just wouldn't exist at the consumer level without faking it with Petroleum-based esterification (there are just not enough strawberries in the World to make that a viable option).
They use distance as a shield, and they don't have to face the customers first hand and experience the same shitty problems over and over.
No, not as a "shield", but as an obstacle. Speaking as an American (I was actually born in France, but I'm still an American by birth and I live here now), I can tell you that working remotely with someone even if they're just on the other side of the United States is difficult as it is.
A misunderstanding that usually can be resolved in one minute face-to-face may take hours if not days to resolve if it's done remotely. And don't get me started on the formality, if the customer is someone that I know well, that I've had lunch with, and that I visit on a regular basis, picking up the phone or firing off a quick one-line informal email to him is super easy. But if it's someone that I don't know well, and someone that I don't interact with on a daily basis, the communication becomes that much more formal, difficult, and longer to get any real feedback on anything.
And when it comes down to it, if you have the power to affect the environment of your customer, being able to face the customer is a bonus. Do not think for a minute that anyone likes to be disconnected from their customers like that.
The problem with bullet trains is not their achievable technical speed, it's the fact that some people always cross the railroads on foot, or walk along the rails, cutting fences or jumping over them, and then end up getting run down by those bullet trains (that they only hear at the last second).
This is why you should never take the metrics for bullet trains you hear at face value. Sure, they may go especially fast on opening day, but the rest of the time, they'll go much slower, since it's next to impossible to maintain perfect airtight security on the actual railroad all the time. The rails that go through the France-UK Tchunnel come close, but even there the Eurostar has to slow down whenever it's back into open air.
It's taken him three years to notice that his site has disappeared from the search results. And it will probably take him another three years to actually recognize it was actually his fault.
I keep my resume as a big lisp data structure which Emacs can use to emit into any markup language I care to write an emitter for (Currently HTML and plain text, but I've been pondering writing a LaTeX one as well.)
Clearly, this guy doesn't have a job yet.
For me, a paper napkin (it doesn't have to be clean), with whatever I can think of at the top of my head, usually does the job.
Why isn't Amazon getting into the publishing business to avoid all these greedy publisher problems?
What makes you think that Amazon isn't going to become as greedy as the little "greedy publishers" themselves? After all, this is essentially what happened the last time Amazon felt it had enough of a foothold with web affiliates. Once affiliates had invested enough time and money to build up their infrastructure customized around Amazon's technology, Amazon unilaterally decided to drastically cut down their commissions. And the price of the books themselves didn't go down, only their commissions did.
And don't get me started on their one-click shopping nonsense. That patent has been mostly defanged by now, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying on their part. And if prior history is any indication, once Amazon feels it has enough leverage that you can't do without them, it will tell you to bend over and just take it -- that's just how their management thinks.
If you're a book author, you better be really careful about that. If you ever deal with Amazon the publisher (or a publisher they own, or any publisher for that matter), don't ever just sign on the dotted line. Some contracts are written in such a way, that they are never in your interest to sign -- ever.
I'm almost at the end of my current 12 month contract and I can't see the point of changing the phone.
So don't. Renegotiate to pay a lesser monthly amount.
Just don't fall for the "Ohh shucks, your old plan is no longer available, you only have it now because you're grandfathered in." Don't be afraid to change your plan, your new plan will almost always be better, and cheaper (even if at first, they imply otherwise, and even if they make you pay a new activation fee just to change plans). Just make sure to do your research before you make your final decision. The new plans almost never have the exact same elements as the old plans, but that's just a way to confuse customers so they can't easily compare plans when they're being put on the spot to make a decision.
I'll play! When was the last time someone managed to bomb or hijack a plane originating out of Israel? Now how about the US? UK? India? Germany? France? Spin the globe. Pick a random country.
Correction: Wesley Snipes didn't say "originating out of Israel", he said "on Air Israel" (thought technically speaking, he should have said Israir Airlines). Air Israel (Israir) does its own security, even on foreign land (this includes its own baggage handling and passenger screening). As history has already proven itself with planes originating out of Israel, if you don't control your entire pipeline all the way through, you might as well not be in control of any of it. Security is only as good as its weakest link.
Even the American Secret Service follows that same principle when protecting the President. The US President doesn't go anywhere on foreign land, unless the Secret Service is totally in charge of every aspect of his security (perhaps, this is a counter-example of how good an idea this is, because this was also the reason why President Bush's motorcade got stuck for one hour in London traffic, the Secret Service had not informed the UK authorities of what route the President was taking, and the Secret Service had forgotten to take into account the possible (unlikely) event that the Tower Bridge might pull up just in front of his motorcade).
She had the following on herself -hand drawn map of downtown Jerusalem
She is Jewish after all (even if she's not religious apparently, that's not a crime). If she's going to Israel, then it sort of makes sense for her to have a map.
-Arabic stickers on laptop
You mean? The stamp/sticker of an Arabic/Gypsy woman with rather large bosoms in a red shirt??? Is that the sticker you're speaking of? In Afghanistan too, the Taliban would probably have shot her laptop as well for having such a disgraceful sticker on there.
-"Fuck Star of David" pic on phone
You make it sound like this was the main background picture on her phone, when in fact it was just one picture out of hundreds that the guard was flipping through (that she claims she took because she was as shocked by this "art" graffiti as they were). My Jewish roommate in College would certainly have done the same, he was big on documenting hate crimes and anything related to anti-Israeli sentiments.
-passport stamps from Arab countries -various Arab publications
She lives in Egypt (suspicious, yes, but should they shoot the laptop of every Jewish person that lives in the region but not in Israel?? I would hope not.)
-photos condemning Israeli military action in Gaza
Again, this was part of that same Art/Photo exhibit against the Gaza incursion, so I'm not sure why you're listing it separately from the picture of the Graffiti insulting the star of David. And again, my former roommate (a self-proclaimed Zionist) would have been documenting and taken pictures of all those photos himself.
Personally, I don't think there is any evidence that she might be anti-Israel, although I certainly wasn't there -- so without hearing the other side of the story -- I can't say things one way or another. But this is problematic, anti-Israel or not, it's important to have due process either way, otherwise you're giving way too much power to those young border guards (who may not know what the hell they're doing).
Same thing here. I turn off its sound. I don't need it most of the time anyway. I can just glance at it when I need it. With the sound on, it's much more distracting. Eventually, it would be nice to set the sound only for some events at a granular level, and not others, just like Nagios does it for IT infrastructure monitoring. Break me out of my slumber only when there is unforeseen traffic up-ahead, otherwise stay quiet and don't overload me with information I do not need.
My ISP is Google you insensitive clod! Seriously thought, Google also knows my real-time location through Google Latitude. This is what enables them to give you current traffic information on the smaller roads (on freeways, they use the data from the Caltrans sensors). Not that this bothers me, I'm also a paid user of Google Apps Premier, and I kind of wish they had better integration between their services (certainly not less of it).
What's the actual law in the UK??? In the US (in my State at least), it's legal to drive and be on the cell phone at the same time as long as your device is hands-free. If the UK has no provision for hands-free devices, then no wonder it's being ignored.
Also there is so little parking in London, there is no point in driving someone anywhere unless you can pick them up or drop them off (and a cell phone in the car is perfect for that).
A percentage? You're mistaken, Google doesn't get a percentage, it gets paid upfront a set fee for serving keywords. What if you got that information from calling 411 instead and just paid 50 cents upfront for you to get that information? Are you saying 411 should be held liable.
What part of being blind excuses you from having to pay for something the rest of us have to pay for?
Nothing excuses him for that, but if he purchased an ebook for instance. And then re-downloads a different version of that same book from p2p (one that's been OCR'd, re-indexed, and re-processed for accessibility by a volunteer), then please let's not make that an infraction (civil or criminal).
We used to have to throw pipes in the gutter and cover them with cement in the dead middle of the night, just so that people in wheelchairs could navigate the sidewalks of intersections. What was then illegal is now the law. I believe that this same issue with re-formatting and reprocessing for accessibility will get resolved legally that same way.
SixDegrees used to be a great social networking site until they got the idea that they should reward people having the most connections with free CD players/walkmans and free cheap trinkets (the type that credit cards give you when you sign up with them). As soon as they started doing that, I was really embarrassed that I had invited my former bosses, my college professors, and many of my friends, to it. I used to be really gung ho about that site.
And it's not that a few idiots didn't take the new incentives to heart, some did, and accumulated thousands of worthless connections from people they didn't even know. And eventually, the site just imploded on itself. The social networking diagrams, which used to be somewhat informative, became totally meaningless. The people that actually added value to the community all left. And the only ones that remained were the needy idiots that cross-spammed each other so that they could get the highest number of connections with the other idiots (that they didn't even know of course).
Now I realize that Microsoft isn't trying to replicate what SixDegrees did, but I am quite insulted that they would be so out of touch by the common folks that they would try to patent and freely publish such a manipulative and insulting study/process of an idea. Don't they have a PR Department or something? PR Departments shouldn't just vet the Press Releases and announcements, they should also vet and have veto powers against all potentially damaging patent applications, which can be just quite as public and damaging to the reputation of a company as company announcements can be (not only that, but it adds another fresh set of eyes to the process that's not under the direct line of command from where the patent idea originally came from).
And also, Microsoft should also take look at its own incentive structure for creating patents, just like with social-networking if the incentive system is too out of whack for its own employees, any idiot-researcher within the company will try to produce patent applications -- no matter how damaging those patents can be in PR terms -- to the sponsoring organization itself.
Intellectual Property? He has no patent, no contract, a trademark that apparently is not going to be used, and he says himself that everything is open sourced. What's preventing the manufacturer from continuing without him? Or him, proceeding without that particular manufacturer? In fact, what's preventing any manufacturer from taking the open source designs (after the first device is sold) and just running with it -- without either of them?
It would be like Microsoft having a board seat at Apple.
Microsoft did have a seat at Apple. It had to. If Apple had faltered, the Feds would have broken up Microsoft. Believe it or not, Microsoft tried really hard to keep Apple alive (during its non-Steve Jobs days).
Same goes with VISA and Mastercard, except there the threat was explicitly stated (in the case of Microsoft, the threat was implicit), the Feds ordered that both boards of VISA and MasterCard share board members (forcing its larger member banks to have membership in both), which in hindsight was a bad idea, now instead of having one monopoly called VISA International, now VISA and Mastercard are two monopolies that pretty much march in sync with each other (that the Feds don't really want to complain about, since it was basically their miscalculation that made the mess even bigger).
What made eBay and Craigslist different? Or think they were different?
Craigslist has large private investors. It's not a publicly traded company. If Microsoft tries going after Google. Microsoft would have to notify Google as soon as it accumulates 5% of the company. Plus, also the Feds would almost certainly block any attempt from Microsoft to get any board seat on Google.
And in the case of Google and Apple, the Google board member actually resigned from Apple's board citing conflicts of interests. Initially, the Google guy would just seat out the parts of the discussion on the board that involved the competing business units. Personally, I doubt Ebay gave the same courtesy to Craigslist, since Craigslist has essentially only one business unit and only twelve employees.
Who cares about Android anyway? It still can't install/run applications to/from its own memory card, the most severe limitation. Its own google map support is a joke compared to Nokia's support or Apple's support (don't ask me why, I don't know). And Nokia still makes tons of money for every iPhone that Apple sells because of the licensed Nokia technology it has in it.
Fine. Don't pay $500 now. Pay thousands of dollars later in additional cell fees, and lock yourself into a two-year contract that's probably ill-suited for you and purposefully crippled by your provider in many hidden and unforeseen ways. Go ahead, I'm not stopping you. Go buy a brand-new car on credit while you're at it. Get a mortgage you can barely afford. Get all your furniture at Rent-to-Own. And buy all your computers, plasma TVs, and monster cables at Best Buy. No one is stopping you from screwing yourself in the long-run -- if that's what you really want for yourself.
By the way, if anyone is thinking about buying the N900 through Nokia USA, realize that its maximum speed will only really work on T-mobile (it's some kind of frequency band thing, and T-Mobile's network is the only one that operates that band). Let's face it, Nokia is still not focusing on the US market right now, otherwise other providers would be supported -- not just T-Mobile's band. That being said, if you buy an unlocked N900 and get T-Mobile as your provider, you will have the fastest smart-phone on the US Market -- hands-down.
I'm assuming that only a few people will do that, at least in the US, in the rest of the world -- the N900 will be selling like hotcakes. So in that sense, the original article is right that the N900 won't be that big in the US, it's just not for the reasons it mentioned.
That being said, there are still many good reasons you should get yourself an unlocked phone, even if it's not the N900. There are many good quality smart-phones out there, and assuming the American currency goes back up to its previous level, and you do a little bit of research, you should be able to buy smart-phones directly from Asia, or directly from Europe, that should work just fine in the US and still make all your iPhone friends jealous.
They mention 'OVI maps pre-installed'. Is this the demo trial version? in other words will it include turn-by-turn talking directions? or live traffic updates for the US market??? (The last I checked, live traffic information was only available for Europe.)
I guess we can already get these things for free with Google Latitude running in the foreground -- with amAzeGPS running the background, but it would be nice if Nokia could give us all these things consolidated into one. Also, since Nokia owns the maps now, I'm guessing that it will be able to pre-load a lot of the mapping information (all their vector-based maps at least) without any cross-licensing issues, this would effectively turn Nokia phones into GPS navigators that don't always need to have cell reception -- a nice side-effect in my opinion (one that Google Android would have difficulties replicating since Google doesn't own its own maps -- it just licenses them).
Also, there is talk of better User Interface design, but as far as I'm aware, (and please, someone correct me if I'm wrong here) Nokia third party developers haven't been notified about any kind of recommended style sheet guides that they should be following (even if just voluntarily). So if the Nokia User Interface re-design hasn't been including third party developers into the mix (as of yet), I really doubt that the final design and user experience will feel as unified and as cohesive as the one offered by Apple.
Again, please someone correct me if I'm wrong on that last point. I actually wish I was wrong, or at the very least if it turns out I'm not wrong, I'd like to have Nokia take some quick corrective action on that.
Isn't it each time you dial 911 that it tries to get a gps lock on you???? I don't know if this is still the case now, but at least, that was the case being made when the law was originally passed to get all the new cell phones sold -- gps-enabled by a certain year.
Yeah, Its called freedom of speech, and it looks like someone in the administration got buddy buddy with google and had it removed, stepping all over the creators freedom of speech.
Yeah, it's called freedom of speech. It's the reason Google is allowed to filter its own speech, or Fox News is allowed to filter its own speech, or Walmart is allowed to filter its own speech/product lines. Besides, it's not like you can't pick a different search engine if you don't like it. Obviously, if they filter too much, they're bound to lose a significant part of their marketshare. The internet is incredibly self-regulating that way.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe the Soviets also found a way to make cattle feed directly out of petroleum (though I haven't been able to source this),
It's not much of a stretch. In the West (probably everywhere), we use petroleum to make artificial flavors. For instance, strawberry flavored gum or strawberry flavored ice cream just wouldn't exist at the consumer level without faking it with Petroleum-based esterification (there are just not enough strawberries in the World to make that a viable option).
CRAP.
> whatis CRAP
>>> IBM's CRAP:: Internally known as Consumer Research and Planning.
They use distance as a shield, and they don't have to face the customers first hand and experience the same shitty problems over and over.
No, not as a "shield", but as an obstacle. Speaking as an American (I was actually born in France, but I'm still an American by birth and I live here now), I can tell you that working remotely with someone even if they're just on the other side of the United States is difficult as it is.
A misunderstanding that usually can be resolved in one minute face-to-face may take hours if not days to resolve if it's done remotely. And don't get me started on the formality, if the customer is someone that I know well, that I've had lunch with, and that I visit on a regular basis, picking up the phone or firing off a quick one-line informal email to him is super easy. But if it's someone that I don't know well, and someone that I don't interact with on a daily basis, the communication becomes that much more formal, difficult, and longer to get any real feedback on anything.
And when it comes down to it, if you have the power to affect the environment of your customer, being able to face the customer is a bonus. Do not think for a minute that anyone likes to be disconnected from their customers like that.
The problem with bullet trains is not their achievable technical speed, it's the fact that some people always cross the railroads on foot, or walk along the rails, cutting fences or jumping over them, and then end up getting run down by those bullet trains (that they only hear at the last second).
This is why you should never take the metrics for bullet trains you hear at face value. Sure, they may go especially fast on opening day, but the rest of the time, they'll go much slower, since it's next to impossible to maintain perfect airtight security on the actual railroad all the time. The rails that go through the France-UK Tchunnel come close, but even there the Eurostar has to slow down whenever it's back into open air.
It's taken him three years to notice that his site has disappeared from the search results. And it will probably take him another three years to actually recognize it was actually his fault.
Clearly, this guy doesn't have a job yet.
For me, a paper napkin (it doesn't have to be clean), with whatever I can think of at the top of my head, usually does the job.
What makes you think that Amazon isn't going to become as greedy as the little "greedy publishers" themselves? After all, this is essentially what happened the last time Amazon felt it had enough of a foothold with web affiliates. Once affiliates had invested enough time and money to build up their infrastructure customized around Amazon's technology, Amazon unilaterally decided to drastically cut down their commissions. And the price of the books themselves didn't go down, only their commissions did.
And don't get me started on their one-click shopping nonsense. That patent has been mostly defanged by now, but it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying on their part. And if prior history is any indication, once Amazon feels it has enough leverage that you can't do without them, it will tell you to bend over and just take it -- that's just how their management thinks.
If you're a book author, you better be really careful about that. If you ever deal with Amazon the publisher (or a publisher they own, or any publisher for that matter), don't ever just sign on the dotted line. Some contracts are written in such a way, that they are never in your interest to sign -- ever.
Since some people may not believe that this is a real example, let me cite it for you: --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rap#cite_note-21
No need to thank me. I'm the citation fairy. I aim to please. Please go on.
So don't. Renegotiate to pay a lesser monthly amount.
Just don't fall for the "Ohh shucks, your old plan is no longer available, you only have it now because you're grandfathered in." Don't be afraid to change your plan, your new plan will almost always be better, and cheaper (even if at first, they imply otherwise, and even if they make you pay a new activation fee just to change plans). Just make sure to do your research before you make your final decision. The new plans almost never have the exact same elements as the old plans, but that's just a way to confuse customers so they can't easily compare plans when they're being put on the spot to make a decision.
Correction: Wesley Snipes didn't say "originating out of Israel", he said "on Air Israel" (thought technically speaking, he should have said Israir Airlines). Air Israel (Israir) does its own security, even on foreign land (this includes its own baggage handling and passenger screening). As history has already proven itself with planes originating out of Israel, if you don't control your entire pipeline all the way through, you might as well not be in control of any of it. Security is only as good as its weakest link.
Even the American Secret Service follows that same principle when protecting the President. The US President doesn't go anywhere on foreign land, unless the Secret Service is totally in charge of every aspect of his security (perhaps, this is a counter-example of how good an idea this is, because this was also the reason why President Bush's motorcade got stuck for one hour in London traffic, the Secret Service had not informed the UK authorities of what route the President was taking, and the Secret Service had forgotten to take into account the possible (unlikely) event that the Tower Bridge might pull up just in front of his motorcade).
She is Jewish after all (even if she's not religious apparently, that's not a crime). If she's going to Israel, then it sort of makes sense for her to have a map.
You mean? The stamp/sticker of an Arabic/Gypsy woman with rather large bosoms in a red shirt??? Is that the sticker you're speaking of? In Afghanistan too, the Taliban would probably have shot her laptop as well for having such a disgraceful sticker on there.
You make it sound like this was the main background picture on her phone, when in fact it was just one picture out of hundreds that the guard was flipping through (that she claims she took because she was as shocked by this "art" graffiti as they were). My Jewish roommate in College would certainly have done the same, he was big on documenting hate crimes and anything related to anti-Israeli sentiments.
She lives in Egypt (suspicious, yes, but should they shoot the laptop of every Jewish person that lives in the region but not in Israel?? I would hope not.)
Again, this was part of that same Art/Photo exhibit against the Gaza incursion, so I'm not sure why you're listing it separately from the picture of the Graffiti insulting the star of David. And again, my former roommate (a self-proclaimed Zionist) would have been documenting and taken pictures of all those photos himself.
Personally, I don't think there is any evidence that she might be anti-Israel, although I certainly wasn't there -- so without hearing the other side of the story -- I can't say things one way or another. But this is problematic, anti-Israel or not, it's important to have due process either way, otherwise you're giving way too much power to those young border guards (who may not know what the hell they're doing).
Same thing here. I turn off its sound. I don't need it most of the time anyway. I can just glance at it when I need it. With the sound on, it's much more distracting. Eventually, it would be nice to set the sound only for some events at a granular level, and not others, just like Nagios does it for IT infrastructure monitoring. Break me out of my slumber only when there is unforeseen traffic up-ahead, otherwise stay quiet and don't overload me with information I do not need.
My ISP is Google you insensitive clod! Seriously thought, Google also knows my real-time location through Google Latitude. This is what enables them to give you current traffic information on the smaller roads (on freeways, they use the data from the Caltrans sensors). Not that this bothers me, I'm also a paid user of Google Apps Premier, and I kind of wish they had better integration between their services (certainly not less of it).
What's the actual law in the UK??? In the US (in my State at least), it's legal to drive and be on the cell phone at the same time as long as your device is hands-free. If the UK has no provision for hands-free devices, then no wonder it's being ignored.
Also there is so little parking in London, there is no point in driving someone anywhere unless you can pick them up or drop them off (and a cell phone in the car is perfect for that).
A percentage? You're mistaken, Google doesn't get a percentage, it gets paid upfront a set fee for serving keywords. What if you got that information from calling 411 instead and just paid 50 cents upfront for you to get that information? Are you saying 411 should be held liable.
Nothing excuses him for that, but if he purchased an ebook for instance. And then re-downloads a different version of that same book from p2p (one that's been OCR'd, re-indexed, and re-processed for accessibility by a volunteer), then please let's not make that an infraction (civil or criminal).
We used to have to throw pipes in the gutter and cover them with cement in the dead middle of the night, just so that people in wheelchairs could navigate the sidewalks of intersections. What was then illegal is now the law. I believe that this same issue with re-formatting and reprocessing for accessibility will get resolved legally that same way.
Don't give them any idea. That's essentially what killed http://sixdegrees.com
SixDegrees used to be a great social networking site until they got the idea that they should reward people having the most connections with free CD players/walkmans and free cheap trinkets (the type that credit cards give you when you sign up with them). As soon as they started doing that, I was really embarrassed that I had invited my former bosses, my college professors, and many of my friends, to it. I used to be really gung ho about that site.
And it's not that a few idiots didn't take the new incentives to heart, some did, and accumulated thousands of worthless connections from people they didn't even know. And eventually, the site just imploded on itself. The social networking diagrams, which used to be somewhat informative, became totally meaningless. The people that actually added value to the community all left. And the only ones that remained were the needy idiots that cross-spammed each other so that they could get the highest number of connections with the other idiots (that they didn't even know of course).
Now I realize that Microsoft isn't trying to replicate what SixDegrees did, but I am quite insulted that they would be so out of touch by the common folks that they would try to patent and freely publish such a manipulative and insulting study/process of an idea. Don't they have a PR Department or something? PR Departments shouldn't just vet the Press Releases and announcements, they should also vet and have veto powers against all potentially damaging patent applications, which can be just quite as public and damaging to the reputation of a company as company announcements can be (not only that, but it adds another fresh set of eyes to the process that's not under the direct line of command from where the patent idea originally came from).
And also, Microsoft should also take look at its own incentive structure for creating patents, just like with social-networking if the incentive system is too out of whack for its own employees, any idiot-researcher within the company will try to produce patent applications -- no matter how damaging those patents can be in PR terms -- to the sponsoring organization itself.
Intellectual Property? He has no patent, no contract, a trademark that apparently is not going to be used, and he says himself that everything is open sourced. What's preventing the manufacturer from continuing without him? Or him, proceeding without that particular manufacturer? In fact, what's preventing any manufacturer from taking the open source designs (after the first device is sold) and just running with it -- without either of them?
Microsoft did have a seat at Apple. It had to. If Apple had faltered, the Feds would have broken up Microsoft. Believe it or not, Microsoft tried really hard to keep Apple alive (during its non-Steve Jobs days).
Same goes with VISA and Mastercard, except there the threat was explicitly stated (in the case of Microsoft, the threat was implicit), the Feds ordered that both boards of VISA and MasterCard share board members (forcing its larger member banks to have membership in both), which in hindsight was a bad idea, now instead of having one monopoly called VISA International, now VISA and Mastercard are two monopolies that pretty much march in sync with each other (that the Feds don't really want to complain about, since it was basically their miscalculation that made the mess even bigger).
Craigslist has large private investors. It's not a publicly traded company. If Microsoft tries going after Google. Microsoft would have to notify Google as soon as it accumulates 5% of the company. Plus, also the Feds would almost certainly block any attempt from Microsoft to get any board seat on Google.
And in the case of Google and Apple, the Google board member actually resigned from Apple's board citing conflicts of interests. Initially, the Google guy would just seat out the parts of the discussion on the board that involved the competing business units. Personally, I doubt Ebay gave the same courtesy to Craigslist, since Craigslist has essentially only one business unit and only twelve employees.
That was you!!!! You bastard!
Who cares about Android anyway? It still can't install/run applications to/from its own memory card, the most severe limitation. Its own google map support is a joke compared to Nokia's support or Apple's support (don't ask me why, I don't know). And Nokia still makes tons of money for every iPhone that Apple sells because of the licensed Nokia technology it has in it.
Fine. Don't pay $500 now. Pay thousands of dollars later in additional cell fees, and lock yourself into a two-year contract that's probably ill-suited for you and purposefully crippled by your provider in many hidden and unforeseen ways. Go ahead, I'm not stopping you. Go buy a brand-new car on credit while you're at it. Get a mortgage you can barely afford. Get all your furniture at Rent-to-Own. And buy all your computers, plasma TVs, and monster cables at Best Buy. No one is stopping you from screwing yourself in the long-run -- if that's what you really want for yourself.
By the way, if anyone is thinking about buying the N900 through Nokia USA, realize that its maximum speed will only really work on T-mobile (it's some kind of frequency band thing, and T-Mobile's network is the only one that operates that band). Let's face it, Nokia is still not focusing on the US market right now, otherwise other providers would be supported -- not just T-Mobile's band. That being said, if you buy an unlocked N900 and get T-Mobile as your provider, you will have the fastest smart-phone on the US Market -- hands-down.
I'm assuming that only a few people will do that, at least in the US, in the rest of the world -- the N900 will be selling like hotcakes. So in that sense, the original article is right that the N900 won't be that big in the US, it's just not for the reasons it mentioned.
That being said, there are still many good reasons you should get yourself an unlocked phone, even if it's not the N900. There are many good quality smart-phones out there, and assuming the American currency goes back up to its previous level, and you do a little bit of research, you should be able to buy smart-phones directly from Asia, or directly from Europe, that should work just fine in the US and still make all your iPhone friends jealous.
They mention 'OVI maps pre-installed'. Is this the demo trial version? in other words will it include turn-by-turn talking directions? or live traffic updates for the US market??? (The last I checked, live traffic information was only available for Europe.)
I guess we can already get these things for free with Google Latitude running in the foreground -- with amAzeGPS running the background, but it would be nice if Nokia could give us all these things consolidated into one. Also, since Nokia owns the maps now, I'm guessing that it will be able to pre-load a lot of the mapping information (all their vector-based maps at least) without any cross-licensing issues, this would effectively turn Nokia phones into GPS navigators that don't always need to have cell reception -- a nice side-effect in my opinion (one that Google Android would have difficulties replicating since Google doesn't own its own maps -- it just licenses them).
Also, there is talk of better User Interface design, but as far as I'm aware, (and please, someone correct me if I'm wrong here) Nokia third party developers haven't been notified about any kind of recommended style sheet guides that they should be following (even if just voluntarily). So if the Nokia User Interface re-design hasn't been including third party developers into the mix (as of yet), I really doubt that the final design and user experience will feel as unified and as cohesive as the one offered by Apple.
Again, please someone correct me if I'm wrong on that last point. I actually wish I was wrong, or at the very least if it turns out I'm not wrong, I'd like to have Nokia take some quick corrective action on that.
Isn't it each time you dial 911 that it tries to get a gps lock on you???? I don't know if this is still the case now, but at least, that was the case being made when the law was originally passed to get all the new cell phones sold -- gps-enabled by a certain year.
Yeah, it's called freedom of speech. It's the reason Google is allowed to filter its own speech, or Fox News is allowed to filter its own speech, or Walmart is allowed to filter its own speech/product lines. Besides, it's not like you can't pick a different search engine if you don't like it. Obviously, if they filter too much, they're bound to lose a significant part of their marketshare. The internet is incredibly self-regulating that way.