Size.

The first from Google (21", 19,8" viewable, 2048x1536):

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpv07137/lpv07137.pdf

Weight: 30.5kg.
"30 minutes to reach optimum performance level".

Size: Gigantic.

Power consumption: 130W, not *that* bad when compared to living-room displays (but hey, sizes on them are not on 21" range) - a modern computer display (27", 2650x1440) from last year consumes 51,3 and the review calls it power hungry):

http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors/samsung-syncmaster-s27a850d/4505-3174_7-35018743-2.html

So yes, being able to move the display as an skinny nerd is a plus, not requiring a gigantic place is nice, and the power consumption...well, if you keep the monitor active 8 hours a day, take a calculator and see for yourself on your electricity prices how much a waste that CRT is.

And yes, the good ones are still used professionally because they still deliver, but the cheap big CRTs were shait also on geometry - on low end you get garbage anyway in some aspects.

-k

I do not see differentation on 32/64 bit here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/terms-conditions

It is $39,99 (for consumers) as an upgrade to existing system. I did an upgrade on 7 license acquired through Technet subscription which is no longer valid (because of changing employee) and it worked just fine. Some say that even installs with pirated product keys are accepted...

Your prices may be from brick & mortar store, but hey, usually you can get stuff cheaper online... ;)

You are missing the point - it is *very easy* to consume too much. One "normal size" (by US standards) soda requires easily 30-45 minutes of *extra* physical activity. Replacing that with water is way easier than getting up and doing the physical activity of choice.

This doesn't mean that I am against getting up and doing something - that has very real other benefits too apart from burning energy. But as a mean to control your weight the control of energy going in is much more efficient and easier. A friend of mine who is a doctor has said that when talking with patients who are obese and tell that they only eat carrots and drink water he sometimes resorts to dirty trick of saying "look, have you seen pictures of people in refugee camps and wartime prisons - have you seen fat people there?". All of them get the point. Not that a refugee camp is a healthy environment, but that if you don't eat more than you consume you are not going to get fat, no matter what you do. Consuming excess calories by physical activity is certainly possible, but it requires daily effort, on the other hand you could easily cut down the excess input just by skipping the daily sodas and not get extra weight.

Controlling energy intake just happens to be much more efficient way of fighting obesity than physical activity. Sure, it is not as nice because from time-to-time you will fee hungry and/or cannot eat large amounts of food with sugar / fat even though they taste good.

Eating less, but eating on regular intervals is the way to go. One 16 oz. soda (which is "large" here btw, - "normal" is 400 ml which is 13.5 oz) is worth about 45 min of jogging for a person weighting 75 kg (obese persons of course consume more, but they rarely can jog continuously for 45 minutes) And that is jogging, not walking or cycling.

You seen to know different teenagers than I do.

The N900 was big, clumsy and if you enabled WiFi, Skype and IM integration (which it did brilliantly, better than any other device) you would be lucky to get 12 hours of battery life out of it. The OS lacked portrait / landscape switching and responsibility was not good because of lack of memory.

Geeks loved it because it had a terminal and root access was easy, and you could scrap together a Ruby / Perl script to do very powerful things with it. But teenage girls? I think you are talking about N9 which was/is a very nice touchscreen phone (although it is starting show aging) but hardly a game-changer and delivered too little too late.

Oh, a link to blog post by Ahonen, with nothing really new.

I agree that execution by Elop has been sub-par. But calling that "SYMBIAN WAS WINNING" is even by wearing Symbian-goggles a very red-rosed opinion of what was going on. Nokia was in huge trouble, it's UI teams competing with each other and handset teams not building on the same platform as noted in in an article from yesterday. Symbian as it was was dead. Developers hated it, users disliked it compared to competition and why it did so good up until the end was good quality Nokia hardware.

Ahonen is right on some points, but he seems to totally disagree on that Nokia had to do something, by going on with Symbian without major rework was just not feasible, the whole MeeGo thing was really screwed up with competing package managers, UIs and teamwork with Intel so as a CEO what what would have he done - he doesn't tell. Maybe MeeGo strategy would have proved to be success.

I don't want to resort to ad-hominems but in case of Ahonen I would take his comments with a grain of salt - he clearly has an axe to grind with Nokia and the postings he has made and appearances on interviews smell like bitterness. And they always boil to one point: Profits before elop and profits after Elop.

They tried this with "Starter" edition of Windows which was marketed to the really cheap-o pc market (netbooks and low-end machines especially on markets where they cheapest compters are sold).

I don't have the figures but on Windows 7 starter they had to back up on the limitations even before sales started because backlash was so strong which is telling - the competition on the low end is not some other Windows version (ultimate and what else you have...) but pirated Windows. Simply not going to work. If you are big enough the OEM price of Windows per shipped unit is so low already that there really is no competition but piracy.

In corporate world this works - you can throw in SQL server or Sharepoint for free as a resource / feature limited version as a bait to get the customer to the full, paid version - this is because in general businesses tend to obey licensing rules (there are of course the usual exceptions...).

On the cheapo consumer pc market not so much - Windows is easily available pirated and people do not like arbitrary limitations (or even the thing that their startup-splashscreen reads "Starter" or "Basic").

Yes, but Visa Electron and Mastercard Maestro are always verified, you can't simply spend something you don't have.

Visa / MC Debit have an option to be verified, but it is not mandatory and when used in a non-instant way they will show up on your account either immediately or maybe 3 days later, depending on the chain of payment processing.

This is hilarious. On the first dock connector it was analog audio that was soooo important that it justified the dock connector no one else uses (or can use). Before that it was FireWire and USB connectivity on the same connector.

It can be only inserted in single orientation. And you can't tell the difference by looking at the connector (it seems like it could go in both ways, you have to spot the logo on the connector to know which way is up).

*Now* that Apple dropped the analog signals it is all about lack of "single orientation".

Yes, micro USB sucks if your eyesight is poor. The ability to plug the connector "both ways" is a good thing. But justifications to use proprietary connectors should be better than just using the current "must have" feature while ignoring that the "must have" feature changes when Apple decides that it is time to change...mindboggling.

The definition in the law is that you must "appeal to the public" and "provide no compensation" (translations mine). So donations can be accepted as long as you are not actively asking for them from the public at large.

The court has ruled (in the case of Electronic Frontier Finland) that stating that you can accept donations and providing an account number on website is not appealing to the public, so the line is somewhere between that and running running a nationwide ad campaign where you ask for money (definitely appealing to the public).

Actually, in this case the defense of Senja Larsen is that she is doing business, not collecting money without giving anything back - which is easier in Finland than getting a permit for asking money for "nothing" or a "good cause".

The law is considered by many associations a relic and it can be abused - for an example Electronic Frontier Finland was sued by the state because their website stated that according to their rules they can receive donations and there was an account number visible. State lost - but they "had to prosecute" because someone anonymously demanded so.

On the other hand the law:

- Prevents money laundering.
- Makes it easier to shut down shady operations which for an example state to collect money for cancer kids and the money goes actually to Thailand vacations of a few "charitable persons" and the kids get two used playstations - at least there is some oversight on who can publicly collect money.

For me as a consumer I would say that good product is number one, and cheap price is number two, and I can admit that order of those are sometimes reversed when making a purchase decision. And Apple is certainly not after the cheap price because they make a crapton of money with their current offering - and they certainly would not like cheap competition.

There is a fine line between rewarding success and protecting profits and Apple has clearly nowadays in my book stepped to the "protecting profits" side of things. And that will destroy competition if the game changes to patent wars where the patent holder will not license or demands too high license fees (the $20-30 per device Apple demanded for rounded corners (yes, Samsung was found infringing on this *on phones* - only the table patent was found not infringed) and bouncing scroll lists is ridiculous) because their target is to wipe competition, not license. And that is not an advantage to consumer. Apple has made hundreds of millions by being delivering the right product at the right time - should they be protected forever?

So why those phones did not sell? Some bits of success can be attributed to whats popular right now, and cell phone market can sometimes be like fashion - good product is not enough if it is not trendy. But I (maybe because I live in Europe) have never even heard of this phones before so maybe they were not *that* interesting (even the Nokia Maemo phones do get constant mentions on ./ and other tech forums and they are really fringe phones...).

This and the rest of your rant really described iTunes. My HTC works just fine without any "suites" or drivers - that is tethering and charging + usb storage. Can't do that with an iPhone.

Well, Jobs has been quoted saying "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion [£25bn] in the bank, to right this wrong."

I would think that could include using the courts, not just building a better product.

This just speculation, and maybe even in the tinfoil-hat category:

Assange is diplomatically too hot potato for the UK - yes, then can extradite the common alleged rapist to US, but Assange is in a different league. Maybe the UK doesn't want the international attention what his extradition would cause and have said through diplomatic channels that "You can have him but you have to use proxy.".

Sweden on the other hand - a relatively insignificant and small EU country, which has in the past looked the other way when CIA has been shuffling people around; earlier commentator provided link to Human Rights Watch (my country, Finland, right next to Sweden did so too, CIA used Helsinki for their "torture flights" - of course everybody in power denied that they knew about them). US might have been saying unofficially that "it would be really shame if the buyers of your Gripen fighters planes could not buy missiles from US" - extraditing Assange would cause protests, sure, but it would be a lot less hassle for Sweden than what it is for the UK. /me removes tinfoil hat