Why are Europeans so passionate about their Symbian phones? Have they really gotten that much better, or is it just random evangelism? I hope it's not random evangelism on my part, as I'd switch phone supplier in a heartbeat.
Personally, and from a consumer point of view, I like my current Symbian phone because I can do alot with it.
I'd like to get an iPhone 2.0 as my next phone as I want better Mac support (Nokia are reading that! (nope) ) but getting an iPhone right now would mean giving up at least three things I value:-
*I'd have to give up using the phone for sat-nav when I'm in the car. Google maps is OK on foot but it doesn't give turn by turn directions. Apple could easily sort that out with the SDK and a cheap bluetooth GPS unit which could then just live in my glove box.
*A better camera. Right now if you're thinking "why not just buy a real camera" you're missing the point. An SLR is no use to me if I haven't got it with me. Here all Apple really need to do is put autofocus and one of those crappy white LEDs on the iPhone and the camera would be good enough for my alcohol related snap shots but at the moment it's not. Should be sorted out in iPhone 2.0 (MMS support would also be nice too.)
*Thirdly, price. In Europe phones are almost disposable they're so cheap. I really want an iPhone but when an 8Gb Nokia N95 (or large number of alternatives) is free on any network I like, it's hard(er) to justify cost. If I loose that Nokia I've still got the phone I got free last year to use until I upgrade for free at the end of my contract. But if I loose my iPhone I'll have to fork out for another one and you can get a lot of cheap booze for the price of an iPhone....
The article specifically mentions Steve Jobs' worldwide ambitions in the opening paragraph.
So whether Slashdot is a US site or not is of no consequence here, the point still stands. Symbian is the dominant platform by considerable margin but still doesn't get a mention. Lazy journalism.
You are correct about the Omagh bombing but before you start thinking that the IRA are all fluffy perhaps you should consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day_Bombing..not to mention punishment beatings and other atrocities.
Well my Nokia N95 and older Nokia N80, both on Vodafone have both been screwed up by Vodafone. If you try to use the Nokia firmware update software to get the latest bug fixes from Nokia you will find you can't. That's because Vodafone insists that you install only their branded firmware, which they don't update. The end effect is that both phones needed to be 'debranded' in order to have any bugs fixed at all and in the case of the N80 there were a LOT of bugs in it at release time.
That's the sort of thing that's making me want to switch to an iPhone. If it was possible to use a bluetooth GPS with a current generation iPhone I'd be happier with that. (SMK why I Apple doesn't support that).
"Conservatives" in both societies push for maintaining the status quo, but because of the differing level of progress, their conservatives push to maintain a very different status quo than ours.
I really wish I had mod points right now. That seems, to me, to be a really insightful point.
The belief that God does not exist is just as unprovable as the belief that God does exist, so atheists "by definition" also believe in unprovable things.
Apple hasn't released a 3G iPhone yet because AT&T's 3G network stinks.
This is crux of the reason I haven't (yet) bought an iPhone. In Europe we've got good 3G networks. Where I live in the UK Vodafone is offering 7.5Mb/s HSDPA and I believe O2, the Apple preferred network, has similar.
My Mac also has design 'features' which probably make great sense in the US but are a bit weird when seen in the rest of the world. I can't believe that Apple's engineers are totally ignorant of this. It'll be interesting to see what sales figures for the iPhone in Europe are when the come out compared to the US, the market the phone is designed for.
They don't disable features but they do 'mess' with the firmware. Vodafone UK for example 'branded' the firmware which came with both my Nokia N80 and N95.
What this means is that Vodafone include lots of unwanted (by me) applications and themes with the phones. This in itself could be ignored except that you now can't update the firmware with bug fixes from Nokia until Vodafone rebrand the image from Nokia. The N80 in particular came with LOTS of bugs. As far as I'm aware, Vodafone have never released an update for the either the N95 or N80 so they're versions are still full of nasty bugs.
You can of course do what I did and hack the phones to the remove the branding lock and update as if the phone came direct from Nokia (but not from my Mac, Grrr!). I'm not sure of the legality of doing this but I recent having to do it for no good reason.
That's exactly the view I take, as well.
In fact even Dawkins takes that view, as stated in The God Delusion but that there's so little evidence for the existence of any gods that you can pretty much ignore the idea. If you don't you might as well believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden or The Emperor's New Clothes.
You make a good point but if you follow that logic you can end up saying that nothing can be disproved because you don't have an infinitely large set of experimental data.
To go further, if take the stance that God exists because God can't be proven to not exist then, well, you can justify anything.
Saying that Atheism is the null the religion might well be accurate but then going on to ask whether zero is not a number misses the point. Null and zero are not the same thing. Null is the absence of value. Null is the reason atheism isn't a religion.
To answer "if atheism isn't a religion, what is it, a taco?" I'd say it's not anything, its null. That is the point of null.
It would probably be like Intel trying to trademark '486' failing and then using Pentium from then on (and nothing to do with the fact the 486+100=485.9999999199191 on the P1).
Here's an interesting thought for those debating whether or not this guy qualifies as a musician.
What if, hypothetically, he can play both instruments to a high standard but has decided to use this technique to make the recording and to lye about his ability?
Does that change whether you think he's a musician or not?
I see your point about retail ISP size but BT is also by far the largest provider of wholesale broadband connections, which is what the article appears to allude to.
You can see that they provide around 8 million connections.
Re:CSS degrades far better than tables
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If I had mod points right now I would be giving them to you. This is exactly point of HTML, if it's written with standards in mind we can reformat it easily regardless of device.
Its also worth remembering that CSS support in browsers is only going to get better. Where as table based layout will always have problems associated with them.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to get an iPhone 2.0 as my next phone as I want better Mac support (Nokia are reading that! (nope) ) but getting an iPhone right now would mean giving up at least three things I value:-
That's my take on it anyway.
The article specifically mentions Steve Jobs' worldwide ambitions in the opening paragraph.
So whether Slashdot is a US site or not is of no consequence here, the point still stands. Symbian is the dominant platform by considerable margin but still doesn't get a mention. Lazy journalism.
You are correct about the Omagh bombing but before you start thinking that the IRA are all fluffy perhaps you should consider: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day_Bombing ..not to mention punishment beatings and other atrocities.
I'm afraid Murdock got there first.... http://www.sky.com/
Well my Nokia N95 and older Nokia N80, both on Vodafone have both been screwed up by Vodafone. If you try to use the Nokia firmware update software to get the latest bug fixes from Nokia you will find you can't. That's because Vodafone insists that you install only their branded firmware, which they don't update. The end effect is that both phones needed to be 'debranded' in order to have any bugs fixed at all and in the case of the N80 there were a LOT of bugs in it at release time. That's the sort of thing that's making me want to switch to an iPhone. If it was possible to use a bluetooth GPS with a current generation iPhone I'd be happier with that. (SMK why I Apple doesn't support that).
It's standard practice for ISPs to blame everything on BT as a way of passing the buck. The irony in this case is that BT owns PlusNet...
I really wish I had mod points right now. That seems, to me, to be a really insightful point.
But surely that just opens the door to believing anything anyone suggests, without a scrap of evidence to back it up. See http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot Bertrand Russell's Teapot.
This is crux of the reason I haven't (yet) bought an iPhone. In Europe we've got good 3G networks. Where I live in the UK Vodafone is offering 7.5Mb/s HSDPA and I believe O2, the Apple preferred network, has similar.
My Mac also has design 'features' which probably make great sense in the US but are a bit weird when seen in the rest of the world. I can't believe that Apple's engineers are totally ignorant of this. It'll be interesting to see what sales figures for the iPhone in Europe are when the come out compared to the US, the market the phone is designed for.
They don't disable features but they do 'mess' with the firmware. Vodafone UK for example 'branded' the firmware which came with both my Nokia N80 and N95. What this means is that Vodafone include lots of unwanted (by me) applications and themes with the phones. This in itself could be ignored except that you now can't update the firmware with bug fixes from Nokia until Vodafone rebrand the image from Nokia. The N80 in particular came with LOTS of bugs. As far as I'm aware, Vodafone have never released an update for the either the N95 or N80 so they're versions are still full of nasty bugs. You can of course do what I did and hack the phones to the remove the branding lock and update as if the phone came direct from Nokia (but not from my Mac, Grrr!). I'm not sure of the legality of doing this but I recent having to do it for no good reason.
...if only it came with a decent editor....
A Mac vs. Linux ad seems fairly unlikely. As far as I can tell, Apple don't often acknowledge the existence of Linux at all if they can help it.
That's exactly the view I take, as well. In fact even Dawkins takes that view, as stated in The God Delusion but that there's so little evidence for the existence of any gods that you can pretty much ignore the idea. If you don't you might as well believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden or The Emperor's New Clothes.
You make a good point but if you follow that logic you can end up saying that nothing can be disproved because you don't have an infinitely large set of experimental data. To go further, if take the stance that God exists because God can't be proven to not exist then, well, you can justify anything.
How dare you, you insensitive clod. As an agnostic dyslexic I resemble that remark!
Saying that Atheism is the null the religion might well be accurate but then going on to ask whether zero is not a number misses the point. Null and zero are not the same thing. Null is the absence of value. Null is the reason atheism isn't a religion. To answer "if atheism isn't a religion, what is it, a taco?" I'd say it's not anything, its null. That is the point of null.
DUMP TEA IN THE HARBOUR?!
The meer sugestion of making tea with cold, salty water, in a harbour in preferance to a teapot is, well, words fail me sir!
Actually transsexuals seem to be good at all aspects of computer science including designing ARM instruction sets... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson
You could or you couldn't care less? Make up your mind, don't get my hopes up in the subject and then dash them in the comment....
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/B7_s eason4_blake.jpg/
A striking resemblance for a box of bits. I wonder if it's got the same surly attitude.
Here's an interesting thought for those debating whether or not this guy qualifies as a musician.
What if, hypothetically, he can play both instruments to a high standard but has decided to use this technique to make the recording and to lye about his ability?
Does that change whether you think he's a musician or not?
I see your point about retail ISP size but BT is also by far the largest provider of wholesale broadband connections, which is what the article appears to allude to.
From the BT website: http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/Companyprofile/TheBT story/TheBTstory.htm
You can see that they provide around 8 million connections.If I had mod points right now I would be giving them to you. This is exactly point of HTML, if it's written with standards in mind we can reformat it easily regardless of device. Its also worth remembering that CSS support in browsers is only going to get better. Where as table based layout will always have problems associated with them.