I admit I've also given up a phone number that I'd actually wanted to keep. I got it through a budget reseller, and when I wanted to switch, it turned out to be a corporate phone number, and they couldn't migrate it for me without permission from the owning company, whoever that was. Or something like that. I just gave up.
Switching your phone number to another network is a pain in the ass.
What? Switching a phone number to another network is easy as pie. People do it all the time. Porting your number is a standard part of the procedure for getting a new subscription. At least in the EU. Here, phone companies are required to support it, and it's a good thing too.
The only way customers are bound to networks is through their contracts, and phone companies pull some weird shit to keep existing customers in.
I'm currently writing software for mobile phone contracts. It's ridiculous how many different kinds of discounts existing customers can get for renewing their contract. (Of course the discounts are optional. You don't get them automatically, but only when you're planning to leave. Don't forget to renew your contract every time it ends, or you'll be missing out on tons of discounts!)
Not sure about multitasking, but tethering apps were indeed refused by Apple. To get tethering, you need to be able to install third-party apps, and for that you need to jailbreak.
Or pay for the SDK, get the source for the app, and install the app that way.
So the only way Symbian can be superior to the iPhone in this particular respect, is if anyone can get any app signed with a developer certificate, and others will be able to install that app on their phones without requiring the source or an SDK. (Although a free SDK would still be marginally better than the iPhone situation.)
I don't blame you for failing to imagine the ridiculous prices collectors pay for it nowadays.
I recently found an original Transformer toy from the '80s. I thought it might sell for as much as EUR 50, which is quite a bit more than it cost at the time. Turns out people were fighting each other to be allowed to pay me EUR 300 for it. Not a house, but certainly a nice weekend out in exchange for some childhood nostalgia. But I bet I'll regret it in a couple of decades.
Sending someone to college or starting a business is perfectly fine, but it is really a good idea to gamble away your home for that?
If you've got a house in the family for 50 years, it should be completely paid by now. Why risk something like that by getting a mortgage you can't afford?
It's not purely gambling. It's also a bit of pyramid scheme. As long as people keep putting more money into the stock market, stocks go up (to unreasonable heights), and when they get out because they need the money for something else, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. First one to get in and the first one to get out win. Others lose.
Note that the home in question had been in the family for 50 years. How is it possibly it still had a mortgage after all that time? Apparently the family had taken a mortgage to start a new business that failed, effectively gambling away their home. (It was a second mortgage even. TFA doesn't say why they still had a first mortgage.)
IP is a fabrication. It's a collection of three completely different things: copyright, patents and trademarks. Other than the intangibility of what they protect, they have very little in common.
The problem with overly broad and unchecked patents (which is what the US currently has), is that it stifles innovation and can make it practically impossible to do business. Unless you're the market leader, of course.
When you make a new product or write any kind of software, you need to hire patent lawyers to investigate if anyone has patented any part of that product already, figure out if those patents are still valid, and if they ever were meaningful patents at all. Basically you need to challenge them in court if you really want an answer.
Business works because in practice, almost everybody ignores patents most of the time. But if you cross somebody, or if a patent holder has nothing to lose, you're in for an expensive fight for no good reason.
For anyone smaller than IBM, that's just not an option. Patents kill competition and give patentholders practically a monopoly in that market.
What I don't understand is this: is NASA really trying to recruit astronauts through a game? Why the hell is that even necessary? Doesn't everybody want to become an astronaut? If they have a shortage, I'll gladly switch careers. I went into this programming business because I thought I wouldn't have a chance in hell of becoming an astronaut.
The main question is how you're supposed to see road signs and traffic lights when under there. As long as you know where your exit is, you can always wait until the thing is gone.
There seems to be a strong assumption that everyone is going to follow traffic laws...
That assumption has always been there, and people who ignore traffic laws are already a danger. Sure, there are situations when it's quiet enough on the road that you can safely ignore a few laws, but you need to be able to recognise those situations. When this thing is about, you'd better stick to your lane, or check very carefully before switching.
This is by far the biggest issue I see with it. If you're not used to it, I bet it can be quite startling when this thing overtakes you on all sides. And startling is never good in traffic.
- When you reach a street festival, you usually have to walk your bike.
But who ever does that? Well, when there's a big crowd, obviously, but at least you can walk your bike. Can;t do that with a car.
- You can get around gridlock on a highway, but mostly because you don't have anychoice being on a bike and all. So, what happens when there is major traffic on the regular roads? You'll be in the same situation as the cars, trying to find empty spots to move forward, switching lanes, etc etc etc
Isn't a highway like a motorway? What the hell are you doing with your bike in (potentially) highspeed traffic like that. (If a highway is not at all like a motorway, then I retract this comment.)
In any case, bikes are especially good at slipping through major traffic jams on regular (city) roads. Through the center of Amsterdam, bikes are way faster than cars.
- Montreal has the most bike lanes in North America and strongly encourages biking. Well, the result of that is, CONGESTED BIKE LANES.
Amsterdam has more bikes than people, and at traffic lights it can get pretty crowded on bike lanes. Still, it's not hard to slip around slower bikers and get out of the crowd. Can't do that with a car.
- You'll consume more calories biking
This is an advantage to anyone not living in a famine-stricken country.
You're right that generalized debris (leaves/branches) doesn't slow down railed vehicles, but major accidents like metal shrapnel thrown across the tracks WILL stop the railed vehicle.
But that's not a new problem. Accidents and major debris blocks all kinds of traffic, especially trams and similar vehicles that are stuck using one specific lane. Clean up the debris and traffic continues. This new Chinese "bus" (it sounds more like a kind of train) is no different there. But unlike trams and buses, it can go its own speed without blocking traffic.
There's only one reason to hack a Symbian phone - to add one's own root CA to the keystore for installing self signed apps (which are usually pirated).
Why are self-signed apps usually pirated? Who signs my app for me if I write one myself and want to test it? How do third-party app stores sign their apps?
The ability to install unapproved apps is the entire reason for jailbreaking, and from what you're saying, Symbian doesn't sound very different from iOS.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. I didn't have enough invited to invite everybody I knew, and that killed it as a potential email killer.
Also, I want a good native client, rather than being tied to a browser.
If Google wanted Wave to be a success, they should have put a standard Wave client on Android and give each Android user Wave.
I admit I've also given up a phone number that I'd actually wanted to keep. I got it through a budget reseller, and when I wanted to switch, it turned out to be a corporate phone number, and they couldn't migrate it for me without permission from the owning company, whoever that was. Or something like that. I just gave up.
But really, it's supposed to be easy.
Switching your phone number to another network is a pain in the ass.
What? Switching a phone number to another network is easy as pie. People do it all the time. Porting your number is a standard part of the procedure for getting a new subscription. At least in the EU. Here, phone companies are required to support it, and it's a good thing too.
The only way customers are bound to networks is through their contracts, and phone companies pull some weird shit to keep existing customers in.
I'm currently writing software for mobile phone contracts. It's ridiculous how many different kinds of discounts existing customers can get for renewing their contract. (Of course the discounts are optional. You don't get them automatically, but only when you're planning to leave. Don't forget to renew your contract every time it ends, or you'll be missing out on tons of discounts!)
Wasn't Google supposed to be the main party in favour of net neutrality? What happened?
Not sure about multitasking, but tethering apps were indeed refused by Apple. To get tethering, you need to be able to install third-party apps, and for that you need to jailbreak.
Or pay for the SDK, get the source for the app, and install the app that way.
So the only way Symbian can be superior to the iPhone in this particular respect, is if anyone can get any app signed with a developer certificate, and others will be able to install that app on their phones without requiring the source or an SDK. (Although a free SDK would still be marginally better than the iPhone situation.)
I'm assuming that after 50 years, kids or grandkids would have inherited the house.
I don't blame you for failing to imagine the ridiculous prices collectors pay for it nowadays.
I recently found an original Transformer toy from the '80s. I thought it might sell for as much as EUR 50, which is quite a bit more than it cost at the time. Turns out people were fighting each other to be allowed to pay me EUR 300 for it. Not a house, but certainly a nice weekend out in exchange for some childhood nostalgia. But I bet I'll regret it in a couple of decades.
Sending someone to college or starting a business is perfectly fine, but it is really a good idea to gamble away your home for that?
If you've got a house in the family for 50 years, it should be completely paid by now. Why risk something like that by getting a mortgage you can't afford?
It's not purely gambling. It's also a bit of pyramid scheme. As long as people keep putting more money into the stock market, stocks go up (to unreasonable heights), and when they get out because they need the money for something else, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. First one to get in and the first one to get out win. Others lose.
Note that the home in question had been in the family for 50 years. How is it possibly it still had a mortgage after all that time? Apparently the family had taken a mortgage to start a new business that failed, effectively gambling away their home. (It was a second mortgage even. TFA doesn't say why they still had a first mortgage.)
IP is a fabrication. It's a collection of three completely different things: copyright, patents and trademarks. Other than the intangibility of what they protect, they have very little in common.
The problem with overly broad and unchecked patents (which is what the US currently has), is that it stifles innovation and can make it practically impossible to do business. Unless you're the market leader, of course.
When you make a new product or write any kind of software, you need to hire patent lawyers to investigate if anyone has patented any part of that product already, figure out if those patents are still valid, and if they ever were meaningful patents at all. Basically you need to challenge them in court if you really want an answer.
Business works because in practice, almost everybody ignores patents most of the time. But if you cross somebody, or if a patent holder has nothing to lose, you're in for an expensive fight for no good reason.
For anyone smaller than IBM, that's just not an option. Patents kill competition and give patentholders practically a monopoly in that market.
What I don't understand is this: is NASA really trying to recruit astronauts through a game? Why the hell is that even necessary? Doesn't everybody want to become an astronaut? If they have a shortage, I'll gladly switch careers. I went into this programming business because I thought I wouldn't have a chance in hell of becoming an astronaut.
I guess I first need to learn to weld, though.
The main question is how you're supposed to see road signs and traffic lights when under there. As long as you know where your exit is, you can always wait until the thing is gone.
There seems to be a strong assumption that everyone is going to follow traffic laws...
That assumption has always been there, and people who ignore traffic laws are already a danger. Sure, there are situations when it's quiet enough on the road that you can safely ignore a few laws, but you need to be able to recognise those situations. When this thing is about, you'd better stick to your lane, or check very carefully before switching.
In the Amsterdam city center there's not enough room for dedicated lanes. Trams and cars share the same lane.
I could see the thing freaking out some drivers.
This is by far the biggest issue I see with it. If you're not used to it, I bet it can be quite startling when this thing overtakes you on all sides. And startling is never good in traffic.
- When you reach a street festival, you usually have to walk your bike.
But who ever does that? Well, when there's a big crowd, obviously, but at least you can walk your bike. Can;t do that with a car.
- You can get around gridlock on a highway, but mostly because you don't have anychoice being on a bike and all. So, what happens when there is major traffic on the regular roads? You'll be in the same situation as the cars, trying to find empty spots to move forward, switching lanes, etc etc etc
Isn't a highway like a motorway? What the hell are you doing with your bike in (potentially) highspeed traffic like that. (If a highway is not at all like a motorway, then I retract this comment.)
In any case, bikes are especially good at slipping through major traffic jams on regular (city) roads. Through the center of Amsterdam, bikes are way faster than cars.
- Montreal has the most bike lanes in North America and strongly encourages biking. Well, the result of that is, CONGESTED BIKE LANES.
Amsterdam has more bikes than people, and at traffic lights it can get pretty crowded on bike lanes. Still, it's not hard to slip around slower bikers and get out of the crowd. Can't do that with a car.
- You'll consume more calories biking
This is an advantage to anyone not living in a famine-stricken country.
You're right that generalized debris (leaves/branches) doesn't slow down railed vehicles, but major accidents like metal shrapnel thrown across the tracks WILL stop the railed vehicle.
But that's not a new problem. Accidents and major debris blocks all kinds of traffic, especially trams and similar vehicles that are stuck using one specific lane. Clean up the debris and traffic continues. This new Chinese "bus" (it sounds more like a kind of train) is no different there. But unlike trams and buses, it can go its own speed without blocking traffic.
There's only one reason to hack a Symbian phone - to add one's own root CA to the keystore for installing self signed apps (which are usually pirated).
Why are self-signed apps usually pirated? Who signs my app for me if I write one myself and want to test it? How do third-party app stores sign their apps?
The ability to install unapproved apps is the entire reason for jailbreaking, and from what you're saying, Symbian doesn't sound very different from iOS.
That it was my favourite? It was weird and different. I was a nonconformist even as a kid.
Of course the weird and different is what eventually cost it its planet status.
Ink can also be used to manufacture fake credentials. But it's not in itself a fake credential.
Well you know what they say, the grade C lawyers work for the government while the grade A lawyers work for everyone else.
No. C grade lawyers work for the government, B grade lawyers work for ideological organisations, and A grade lawyers work for criminals.
Exactly. That's why.
Oh come on! Do you really think anyone would ever have heard of the FBI seal if they hadn't threatened Wikipedia?