but no-one ever said that Linux was immune to a virus, only that it's very hard to create one because of the restrictive user permissions.
Bingo, it's OS X users who claim an inherent immunity to virus and malware.
Linux users take threats seriously. But this one came in via the user, which is the weakest point of any computer systems security no matter which platform. An unused Windows XP box connected to the internet with AV and Auto Updates on is safer then a used Ubuntu or Mac as almost all security in this day and age is dependent on the user not being stupid.
And, in any case, wasn't it just a trojan rather than a virus? I don't remember it actively spreading anywhere.
I'd say it was neither, perhaps a Trojan with the wall paper being camouflage but it fits the definition of spyware better, like Gator, Bonzi Buddy or Facebook.
Developers bitch about the app store approval process but this is exactly why it exists. Yes it would be nice to sever ties with the app store but apple is doing a fairly good job of protecting it's ecosystem.
No, Developers bitch about the AppStore approval process because it's more about keeping out applications and developers that steve doesn't like rather then acutally checking applications. This is why developers can re-submit a rejected application with nothing more then a version number increment and get it approved. The process is so vague and inconsistent, this is what people are complaining about.
Further more, the "master Steve doesn't like your app" policy is what is driving end users to jailbreak which leaves the Iphone more vulnerable. With Android, even a rooted Android an application needs to ask permission to read the phone state (which is all this one did) so if you click through it's your own damn fault.
Has Apple caught one malicious application within the App store?
No.
Then how do we know it's working? At least Google and the Android community is watching out for me and I know they can spot problems.
an apple lover, but I believe there is a reason other than money, why appstore exists. It's because it offers people prevention exactly from cases like this one....
And everyone then jailbreaks because the platform does not allow them to do what they want, which of course makes them more vulnerable to social engineering attacks as well as maintaining exploitable vulnerabilities in the OS.
Jailbreaking on the Iphone I equate to showering in prison. It may seem like a good idea (from a hygene perspective) and you pretty much end up with no other choice but to do it due to the restriction of the warden but in the end you've just dropped you pants and left yourself exposed and very vulnerable.
and makes the platform "well bred".
The gentry of Europe tried this once, keeping the bloodlines pure and noble. In the end they became so inbred it's not funny (If you think this is a joke, think about Prince Charles and Camilla bumping uglies and there certainly is a lot of ugly to bump).
Microsoft do not have engineering talent nor software talents to pull something like that off, especially not in management. No matter how good of a phone the grunts make, management will kill its potential. It has happened countless of times before and it will happen again.
So Microsoft will do what most companies in this situation do. Buy the hardware off the shelf and install the software. This is what Google did with the Nexus One because it was in the same position. Internally the Nexus One is practically identical to the HTC Desire.
MS has a history of doing this, right back to the 80's when they used off the shelf IBM parts to make a market for MS DOS.
But MS wont do this because MS's mobile business model has been to license their product to third parties.
Apple is a hardware company, therefore they have 40% profit on sales.
Apple is a marketing company, Almost all of their software is either ripped from Open Source or acquired by buying up companies (Fingerworks being the biggest example). All of their manufacturing and testing is outsourced to china as well as most of the design (Foxconn designs the circuit board, ARM designs the proc). The first lost Iphone4 prototype was lost in China, the worker killed himself over it (note, that had more to do with Asian culture, not Apples oppressiveness although that is up there). All Cupertino does is make ads and own trademarks.
The fact you cant recognise any of this and still think they are a hardware company is evidence that they are a quite successful marketing company.
The reason that Microsoft makes more rev on it's products are because they dont outsource as much as Apple and can amortise the cost of the development over a pre-determined life cycle. 90% rev (a bit rich, I'd say 60-70%) is done by taking the cost of development and spreading it over 3 years, otherwise it will be something like 20% rev for year 1 and 99% rev for years 2 and 3. MS have very good accountants, not dodgy ones like Hollywood (it's the lawyers at MS who make them dodgy).
So they'll sink $4-5 billion building hardware, software, branding, and (presumably) a market/network? Yeah, maybe.
Didn't MS do this already, I think it was called the Kin and sold for about 3 weeks on one US network that operates a cellular technology that no-one else in the world uses.
Blue is for desktop errors,
Red is for gaming box errors,
Mobile errors will have to be a different colour, green perhaps, Maybe the Green LED of Death if MS decides to include an external LED.
So when the angry crowds form over the aid tent that was accidentally bombed, you have three options:
1) Fired into the crowd, dispersing them, but causing more crowds to form all over the world.
2) Hold you position and get torn to little pieces by the angry crowd or the actual enemy who is dispersed among the crowd, encouraging them.
3) Run, encouraging the enemy to stage protests at other strategic locations.
I prefer option four:
4) Utilize something like this heat ray and disperse the crowd in a harmless fashion until the local political leaders get control of the situation.
I much prefer options five and six.
5) Don't bomb the bloody aid tent.
6) Better yet don't even get into a position where you could even bomb the bloody aid tent, like starting a war where you invade an unpopular but sovereign nation for resources.
An ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure.
In the end, if you want to stop a violent protest, find out why the protesters are violent or better yet why they are protesting and fix that. Protesters are a symptom of the problem, not a cause so treat the cause of the problem. This weapon will not work in Iraq and Afghanistan because the population is already galvanised against the invaders, force of arms will not fix this and attempting to do so will only galvanise more people against you.
I think that's fair enough, if the soldiers in the field don't want it I would call that failing the final test. And besides that, it isn't really that great of a deterrence weapon, especially during a riot. Imagine you've got a thousand people, 20 rows deep moving in on an embassy and you shoot this off. Only the first row is going to get the full force of the weapon, people farther back might get little to none. Now you've got a bunch of people getting hit, probably trying to turn and run but can't because the people behind them keep pushing forward.
Exactly,
Besides being ineffective, it's expensive, difficult to maintain and inferior to current weapons that perform the same job such as CS gas and water cannons. Why deploy an expensive and large microwave device that has a not insignificant possibility of breaking down when you need it.
The irony is that the Cocoa devices are based on the idea that from a owner's point of view, "They[Apple] know what's best," rather than "I know what's best."
Hahahaha,
Have you paid attention to the Apple ad's?
The "owners" perspective is that it's a magical thing that has never been done before and changes everything in your world. Implied that is will make you more attractive to the opposite sex, appear smarter and more hip. Ask yourself, what kind of person does this advertising appeal to?
You would think selfish elites would be, well, too selfish to surrender their egos and walk through a corral like cattle, and would go for something that maximizes decision-making and self-determination instead.
You're associating selfishness with self-determination and independence?
Selfishness is about me,
ME ME ME ME ME
A selfish person rarely thinks about the consequences to themselves let alone to others. This is what characterised selfishness, they will do anything to get what they want and do not care who they hurt along the way as long as "they are happy". Self determination and rational decison making does not enter into it at all. Not ironically enough the excuse I hear most often from people who buy Mac's is "It makes me happy so I dont care" and for the most part this comes from middle managers.
"They[Apple] know what's best," rather than "I know what's best."
This part is 100% correct but the end iUser does not know or care. It's the ultimate Faustian bargain, They sell their freedom and independence for a shiny trinket and impossible to fulfil promises of popularity. So yes, selfish submission is not only possible, it's actually quite popular amongst selfish people. Dancing with the devil is seen as a way to get what they want, but they forget you do not dance with the devil, the devil dances with you.
With a relatively simple ruggedized case, and at only about $900 (as opposed to $5500), iPads would be a great alternative for officers on foot patrol, bike, Segway and the like
Having done IT for field services teams (geologists), they will absolutely wreck an Ipad. The Panasonic toughbooks are so bloody heavy because they are built to survive the harshest environments and the harshest people. Yes a cheaper, ruggardised tablet would be great, even at half the US$6K price for a toughbook but Apple cannot make devices that will survive the harsh Australian conditions (I.E. routinely above 45 Degrees C, red dust (high iron content) vibration from vehicles and equipment) and Apple products dont handle heat very well (macbooks and Iphones fail from the heat we get in Australian cities, the humidity in the Philippines gave one guys macbook the stability of Windows ME, it reset constantly). Even if they survive the environment, they wont survive a Geo. I think we'd have better luck looking for an extremely ruggardised EeePC.
COD4, that started the whole FPS as RPG experience,
You misspelled Battlefield 2 as far as online goes and RPG elements have been in FPS's for a very long time. My earliest example is System Shock 2 which really integrated the 2 genre's well.
I hate how some MP games have really turned into a grindfest for new unlocks. It manages to suck the fun out of many aspects. Valve has it right with TF2, trophy's are just for show, items get dropped randomly.
I virtually never play multiplayer online (I'll play multiplayer console games with friends, but virtually never with random people). Why? Two reasons. First, multiplayer is horribly repetitive and lacks originality. Secondly, when doing random matches online, the overwhelming majority of people are total asshats (see John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory) that completely ruin any fun.
PC vs Xbox.
I trust this is an Xbox experience, you mentioned consoles.
With the PC it's different. First dedicated servers get rid of the lag and "randomness" issues to a great extent. Moderators and auto-mod programs also cut down on the amount of GIFT in the game. Being able to set a scrip to auto eject anyone who swears or other offensive text is a godsend, as well as too many TK's or just standing around doing nothing. Further more a moderator can mod voice chat and anti-social behaviour. In addition to this I can select which server I want to go into, I have a list of BC2 servers which are primarily occupied by arsehats (about 3, 2 dont even have Punk Buster running) and just dont go there. TF2 is the same, for the most part it's people having fun and not being arsehats (I haven't been teabaged since CS).
The problem with multi-player is that it depends on an online server today which will shut down in time. Consider Super Mario Bros. a game made what? Nearly 30 years ago? It is still as playable today as is was in the 80s. Now consider Halo 2 made in 2004 which is now crippled in 2010 because Xbox live for the Xbox has been discontinued.
The issue is that Microsoft want to push the new Halo:Reach, this will be shut down when they want to push Halo:Around next year. they dont care about the previous Halo's as they are just a hole burning money. Nintendo wants to push the new Super Mario Galaxy game but doesn't give two hoots about Super Mario Bros. Nintendo's strategy is to use the brand name to lure exiting customers to new games rather then trying to deprive them of the previous games in order to force them to update.
This is also the danger with multi-player games and something that must be taken into account when buying them. I bought Bad Company 2, knowing it has a limited lifespan of another 2, maybe 3 years. Then again on the PC many old multi-player games have dedicated servers which can still be run. The other downside is that eventually cheaters catch up with the anti-cheat system (this is normally beyond the games useful life span, BF2 is still relatively safe), this is why LAN's are good, the best anti-cheat system still is "the mighty boot(TM)" and I live for the day where it can be delivered via TCP.
My droid says google on the back, it did run a stock 2.1, and now runs CM6. How much more google branded could it really get?
The Droid is a "Google Experience" phone which means it follows Google guidelines on UI design and a few other things. The Milestone (GSM Droid) is not "Google Experience" as it doesn't have the "with Google" branding but is pretty much the same as the Droid.
Things like the HTC Desire and HTC Hero (they have different names in the states) are not "Google Experience" phones.
Delta gave me 1000 bonus SkyMiles as an apology. For the *weather*.
You dont see how insidious this is, they gave you a reward you can only redeem with them. When Singapore Airlines overbooked my SIN-HKT flight, they upgraded me to business class and gave me SG$120 (about US$88) cash for 6 a six hour delay. When Air Asia delayed my KUL-HKT flight I managed to negotiate and upgrade to Premium economy on my return KUL-PER flight (about A$200 difference and Air Asia is a budget airline).
Granted, Singapore Airlines is one of the best airlines in the world and Air Asia are the best budget airline in the world.
... once you start babbling about the effect of capricious supernatural sky fairies on mass transportation.
What if you're and Atheist or Buddhist and dont believe in the sky fairy?
What is stopping the plane from falling apart?
This ladies and gentlemen, is why middle eastern airlines is are kicking arse. Allah is great and all but they are still paying Indians to maintain their planes for them (also I'll never fly Garuda Indonesia, I have an issue with an airline named after the bird ridden by Vishnu the Destroyer).
This is not a defense of Apple, but a statement about how large corporations work. I seriously doubt that the videos were completely faked. As with anything, the results can be spun or manipulated, but there has to be a least a shred of truth, or the lawyer attack dogs would be out by now.
I have a very good idea as to how marketing works, I used to work for a marketing^W, sorry Corporate Communications company.
It is far easier to fake the results you want then to go through an elaborate testing procedure and attempt to spin everything. When we need a picture that conveys a certain message we'll send it to the photoshop guys rather then waiting for the right time of day, hoping the weather is OK, meticulously establishing a set, taking a dozen pictures and hoping one is usable.
Faking images is standard operating procedure. I have no doubt the significant drop in bars was a complete fabrication. Apple could not afford to play this one by chance and seeing as no-one has been able to replicated the issue as Apple presented it I doubt the results they showed were real.
Apple's demo videos seem faked. I have a friend with a Droid X and another with an Eris (I personally have a Nexus One - which is very similar to the Eris) - both of which seem to have negligible signal loss no matter how I hold them (at first using their video as a reference).
Steve's only telling a half lie (half truth for the optimistic fanboys).
He's right in that all phones drop signal when being held but normally it's imperceptible. The effect tends to become less pronounced the closer you get to a signal source (the tower). Normally phones lose about 3-7 dBm when held, this can become as high as 10-15 dBm when you have a bad signal but the Iphone4 loses 20-25 dBm when other phones lose 3-7 dBm. This looks like the Iphone4 is suffering approximately 4 times the interference from the same source (but this also is not true, the Iphone has another problem). Other phones do not have the grip of death issue despite Apple's claims.
The Iphone4's biggest issue is it's external antenna. As the fanboys at Anandtech asserted just wearing a glove will reduce the signal loss to normal levels. This assertion is supported the popular theory that touching an exposed antenna with a bare hand increases the electrical length. Electrical length determines what frequencies an antenna receives and transmits on. This is where most of the signal is going, as a person touches the antenna the antenna changes frequency and has more difficulty transmitting and receiving. We've know about the affect of bare metal antenna's for some time. Those of us who predate digital TV remember adjusting antenna's and tuning them. Bare metal antenna's are great for receiving a poor signal but need to be fine tuned as they are also quite vulnerable to interference, you cannot do this with a mobile phone as it needs to transmit and receive on an very narrow frequency band. We've known about this since the 1930's, mobile phone antenna's have almost always been shielded because of this.
I'm guessing that you replied to the post you intended to because you posted part of it. But seriously, did you reply to the right post?
That part was a joke, perhaps you need a sense of humour.
My point was, however you need to compare like to like.
Comparing the Wii to the Xbox and PS of this generation is not comparing like to like. The Xbox360 and PS3 are trying to be PC's (for dedicated, in depth gaming) where as the Wii is trying to be a console (casual, fun, accessible gaming). So comparing the top selling Wii game which has far wider audience appeal then the top selling Xbox game is pointless as they have a massive difference in audience appeal. Now comparing the Xbox360 to what it's trying to be, a cheap PC then you see how badly most Xbox games sell.
You may say meh, but I fly into and out of various Asian airports on a six monthly basis and I've never been greeted with suspicion or contempt. Oddly enough the security forces of Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and Cambodia seem to welcome foreign travellers, which is a far sight from US security forces when confronted by a white male with a half dozen Thailand entry stamps on their passport.
Same with the Australian Customs Service, they are actually polite when asking you to comply with security procedures and the only issue I've had with them is that they seem to like scanning my guitar case (maybe I just dont look like a guitarist).
Scrutiny is one thing and it can be done politely. Absolute contempt is how I'd describe the way the TSA acts towards passengers, further more the TSA has no accountability or oversight (meaning they can get away with murder). Even my housemate got some guff going through LAX a few weeks back, his work sorted out all his visas and paperwork but he's Jewish and got mistaken for a Muslim so they stuck him in a holding area with a few others whilst they verified his birth place really was Melbourne (BTW, he's not even that Jewish, nothing is Kosher in my house).
If you think the TSA is benign, you haven't travelled enough.
Slashdot Mirror
Bingo, it's OS X users who claim an inherent immunity to virus and malware.
Linux users take threats seriously. But this one came in via the user, which is the weakest point of any computer systems security no matter which platform. An unused Windows XP box connected to the internet with AV and Auto Updates on is safer then a used Ubuntu or Mac as almost all security in this day and age is dependent on the user not being stupid.
I'd say it was neither, perhaps a Trojan with the wall paper being camouflage but it fits the definition of spyware better, like Gator, Bonzi Buddy or Facebook.
Oh for Mao's sake, this is /. what did you expect. Consider yourself lucky that the submitter ran the thing through an En_US spell checker.
Some of us have actually been to China and know this. Oh fuck it, /. is American (or so they tell me), knock yourself out.
No, Developers bitch about the AppStore approval process because it's more about keeping out applications and developers that steve doesn't like rather then acutally checking applications. This is why developers can re-submit a rejected application with nothing more then a version number increment and get it approved. The process is so vague and inconsistent, this is what people are complaining about.
Further more, the "master Steve doesn't like your app" policy is what is driving end users to jailbreak which leaves the Iphone more vulnerable. With Android, even a rooted Android an application needs to ask permission to read the phone state (which is all this one did) so if you click through it's your own damn fault.
Has Apple caught one malicious application within the App store?
No.
Then how do we know it's working? At least Google and the Android community is watching out for me and I know they can spot problems.
And everyone then jailbreaks because the platform does not allow them to do what they want, which of course makes them more vulnerable to social engineering attacks as well as maintaining exploitable vulnerabilities in the OS.
Jailbreaking on the Iphone I equate to showering in prison. It may seem like a good idea (from a hygene perspective) and you pretty much end up with no other choice but to do it due to the restriction of the warden but in the end you've just dropped you pants and left yourself exposed and very vulnerable.
The gentry of Europe tried this once, keeping the bloodlines pure and noble. In the end they became so inbred it's not funny (If you think this is a joke, think about Prince Charles and Camilla bumping uglies and there certainly is a lot of ugly to bump).
The application downloads the .jpg for you and sets it as your wallpaper.
So Microsoft will do what most companies in this situation do. Buy the hardware off the shelf and install the software. This is what Google did with the Nexus One because it was in the same position. Internally the Nexus One is practically identical to the HTC Desire.
MS has a history of doing this, right back to the 80's when they used off the shelf IBM parts to make a market for MS DOS.
But MS wont do this because MS's mobile business model has been to license their product to third parties.
Apple is a marketing company, Almost all of their software is either ripped from Open Source or acquired by buying up companies (Fingerworks being the biggest example). All of their manufacturing and testing is outsourced to china as well as most of the design (Foxconn designs the circuit board, ARM designs the proc). The first lost Iphone4 prototype was lost in China, the worker killed himself over it (note, that had more to do with Asian culture, not Apples oppressiveness although that is up there). All Cupertino does is make ads and own trademarks.
The fact you cant recognise any of this and still think they are a hardware company is evidence that they are a quite successful marketing company.
The reason that Microsoft makes more rev on it's products are because they dont outsource as much as Apple and can amortise the cost of the development over a pre-determined life cycle. 90% rev (a bit rich, I'd say 60-70%) is done by taking the cost of development and spreading it over 3 years, otherwise it will be something like 20% rev for year 1 and 99% rev for years 2 and 3. MS have very good accountants, not dodgy ones like Hollywood (it's the lawyers at MS who make them dodgy).
Didn't MS do this already, I think it was called the Kin and sold for about 3 weeks on one US network that operates a cellular technology that no-one else in the world uses.
Sigh, you dont get it at all.
Blue is for desktop errors,
Red is for gaming box errors,
Mobile errors will have to be a different colour, green perhaps, Maybe the Green LED of Death if MS decides to include an external LED.
I much prefer options five and six.
5) Don't bomb the bloody aid tent.
6) Better yet don't even get into a position where you could even bomb the bloody aid tent, like starting a war where you invade an unpopular but sovereign nation for resources.
An ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure.
In the end, if you want to stop a violent protest, find out why the protesters are violent or better yet why they are protesting and fix that. Protesters are a symptom of the problem, not a cause so treat the cause of the problem. This weapon will not work in Iraq and Afghanistan because the population is already galvanised against the invaders, force of arms will not fix this and attempting to do so will only galvanise more people against you.
Exactly,
Besides being ineffective, it's expensive, difficult to maintain and inferior to current weapons that perform the same job such as CS gas and water cannons. Why deploy an expensive and large microwave device that has a not insignificant possibility of breaking down when you need it.
Hahahaha,
Have you paid attention to the Apple ad's?
The "owners" perspective is that it's a magical thing that has never been done before and changes everything in your world. Implied that is will make you more attractive to the opposite sex, appear smarter and more hip. Ask yourself, what kind of person does this advertising appeal to?
You're associating selfishness with self-determination and independence?
Selfishness is about me,
ME ME ME ME ME
A selfish person rarely thinks about the consequences to themselves let alone to others. This is what characterised selfishness, they will do anything to get what they want and do not care who they hurt along the way as long as "they are happy". Self determination and rational decison making does not enter into it at all. Not ironically enough the excuse I hear most often from people who buy Mac's is "It makes me happy so I dont care" and for the most part this comes from middle managers.
This part is 100% correct but the end iUser does not know or care. It's the ultimate Faustian bargain, They sell their freedom and independence for a shiny trinket and impossible to fulfil promises of popularity. So yes, selfish submission is not only possible, it's actually quite popular amongst selfish people. Dancing with the devil is seen as a way to get what they want, but they forget you do not dance with the devil, the devil dances with you.
Having done IT for field services teams (geologists), they will absolutely wreck an Ipad. The Panasonic toughbooks are so bloody heavy because they are built to survive the harshest environments and the harshest people. Yes a cheaper, ruggardised tablet would be great, even at half the US$6K price for a toughbook but Apple cannot make devices that will survive the harsh Australian conditions (I.E. routinely above 45 Degrees C, red dust (high iron content) vibration from vehicles and equipment) and Apple products dont handle heat very well (macbooks and Iphones fail from the heat we get in Australian cities, the humidity in the Philippines gave one guys macbook the stability of Windows ME, it reset constantly). Even if they survive the environment, they wont survive a Geo. I think we'd have better luck looking for an extremely ruggardised EeePC.
You misspelled Battlefield 2 as far as online goes and RPG elements have been in FPS's for a very long time. My earliest example is System Shock 2 which really integrated the 2 genre's well.
I hate how some MP games have really turned into a grindfest for new unlocks. It manages to suck the fun out of many aspects. Valve has it right with TF2, trophy's are just for show, items get dropped randomly.
PC vs Xbox.
I trust this is an Xbox experience, you mentioned consoles.
With the PC it's different. First dedicated servers get rid of the lag and "randomness" issues to a great extent. Moderators and auto-mod programs also cut down on the amount of GIFT in the game. Being able to set a scrip to auto eject anyone who swears or other offensive text is a godsend, as well as too many TK's or just standing around doing nothing. Further more a moderator can mod voice chat and anti-social behaviour. In addition to this I can select which server I want to go into, I have a list of BC2 servers which are primarily occupied by arsehats (about 3, 2 dont even have Punk Buster running) and just dont go there. TF2 is the same, for the most part it's people having fun and not being arsehats (I haven't been teabaged since CS).
The issue is that Microsoft want to push the new Halo:Reach, this will be shut down when they want to push Halo:Around next year. they dont care about the previous Halo's as they are just a hole burning money. Nintendo wants to push the new Super Mario Galaxy game but doesn't give two hoots about Super Mario Bros. Nintendo's strategy is to use the brand name to lure exiting customers to new games rather then trying to deprive them of the previous games in order to force them to update.
This is also the danger with multi-player games and something that must be taken into account when buying them. I bought Bad Company 2, knowing it has a limited lifespan of another 2, maybe 3 years. Then again on the PC many old multi-player games have dedicated servers which can still be run. The other downside is that eventually cheaters catch up with the anti-cheat system (this is normally beyond the games useful life span, BF2 is still relatively safe), this is why LAN's are good, the best anti-cheat system still is "the mighty boot(TM)" and I live for the day where it can be delivered via TCP.
The Droid is a "Google Experience" phone which means it follows Google guidelines on UI design and a few other things. The Milestone (GSM Droid) is not "Google Experience" as it doesn't have the "with Google" branding but is pretty much the same as the Droid.
Things like the HTC Desire and HTC Hero (they have different names in the states) are not "Google Experience" phones.
You dont see how insidious this is, they gave you a reward you can only redeem with them. When Singapore Airlines overbooked my SIN-HKT flight, they upgraded me to business class and gave me SG$120 (about US$88) cash for 6 a six hour delay. When Air Asia delayed my KUL-HKT flight I managed to negotiate and upgrade to Premium economy on my return KUL-PER flight (about A$200 difference and Air Asia is a budget airline).
Granted, Singapore Airlines is one of the best airlines in the world and Air Asia are the best budget airline in the world.
Also Iran, Palestine, Lebenon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
What if you're and Atheist or Buddhist and dont believe in the sky fairy?
What is stopping the plane from falling apart?
This ladies and gentlemen, is why middle eastern airlines is are kicking arse. Allah is great and all but they are still paying Indians to maintain their planes for them (also I'll never fly Garuda Indonesia, I have an issue with an airline named after the bird ridden by Vishnu the Destroyer).
They were about to bring the anti-mass spectrometer up to 110% power when Steve had to cut the tour short.
However he promised to show them the Apple Enrichment Centre and provide cake on their next visit.
I have a very good idea as to how marketing works, I used to work for a marketing^W, sorry Corporate Communications company.
It is far easier to fake the results you want then to go through an elaborate testing procedure and attempt to spin everything. When we need a picture that conveys a certain message we'll send it to the photoshop guys rather then waiting for the right time of day, hoping the weather is OK, meticulously establishing a set, taking a dozen pictures and hoping one is usable.
Faking images is standard operating procedure. I have no doubt the significant drop in bars was a complete fabrication. Apple could not afford to play this one by chance and seeing as no-one has been able to replicated the issue as Apple presented it I doubt the results they showed were real.
Steve's only telling a half lie (half truth for the optimistic fanboys).
He's right in that all phones drop signal when being held but normally it's imperceptible. The effect tends to become less pronounced the closer you get to a signal source (the tower). Normally phones lose about 3-7 dBm when held, this can become as high as 10-15 dBm when you have a bad signal but the Iphone4 loses 20-25 dBm when other phones lose 3-7 dBm. This looks like the Iphone4 is suffering approximately 4 times the interference from the same source (but this also is not true, the Iphone has another problem). Other phones do not have the grip of death issue despite Apple's claims.
The Iphone4's biggest issue is it's external antenna. As the fanboys at Anandtech asserted just wearing a glove will reduce the signal loss to normal levels. This assertion is supported the popular theory that touching an exposed antenna with a bare hand increases the electrical length. Electrical length determines what frequencies an antenna receives and transmits on. This is where most of the signal is going, as a person touches the antenna the antenna changes frequency and has more difficulty transmitting and receiving. We've know about the affect of bare metal antenna's for some time. Those of us who predate digital TV remember adjusting antenna's and tuning them. Bare metal antenna's are great for receiving a poor signal but need to be fine tuned as they are also quite vulnerable to interference, you cannot do this with a mobile phone as it needs to transmit and receive on an very narrow frequency band. We've known about this since the 1930's, mobile phone antenna's have almost always been shielded because of this.
That part was a joke, perhaps you need a sense of humour.
My point was, however you need to compare like to like.
Comparing the Wii to the Xbox and PS of this generation is not comparing like to like. The Xbox360 and PS3 are trying to be PC's (for dedicated, in depth gaming) where as the Wii is trying to be a console (casual, fun, accessible gaming). So comparing the top selling Wii game which has far wider audience appeal then the top selling Xbox game is pointless as they have a massive difference in audience appeal. Now comparing the Xbox360 to what it's trying to be, a cheap PC then you see how badly most Xbox games sell.
You may say meh, but I fly into and out of various Asian airports on a six monthly basis and I've never been greeted with suspicion or contempt. Oddly enough the security forces of Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and Cambodia seem to welcome foreign travellers, which is a far sight from US security forces when confronted by a white male with a half dozen Thailand entry stamps on their passport.
Same with the Australian Customs Service, they are actually polite when asking you to comply with security procedures and the only issue I've had with them is that they seem to like scanning my guitar case (maybe I just dont look like a guitarist).
Scrutiny is one thing and it can be done politely. Absolute contempt is how I'd describe the way the TSA acts towards passengers, further more the TSA has no accountability or oversight (meaning they can get away with murder). Even my housemate got some guff going through LAX a few weeks back, his work sorted out all his visas and paperwork but he's Jewish and got mistaken for a Muslim so they stuck him in a holding area with a few others whilst they verified his birth place really was Melbourne (BTW, he's not even that Jewish, nothing is Kosher in my house).
If you think the TSA is benign, you haven't travelled enough.