Here, here... where are my mod points when I need them.

Could not agree more. I'd also like to add one more detail most people are forgetting, from a software developer perspective. You see, when Vista came out, it broke a lot of poorly written or lazily written software that always assumed the user to be running as admin. Or software that put user-configuration files in the wrong place. We were just as guilty of this as nearly everyone else. But we learned and we fixed our code for Vista, and in the end made better software. And since 7 and 8 and the coming Blue and 9 are all based on the same security model as Vista, our software should work with minimal modification, into the future. In contrast, XP is now the lone one out there that is "different" from all the others. Having to continue support for XP in this day an age is painful from a development and testing standpoint. Additional difficulty comes from the fact that 64-bit XP was essentially a bastard born from an unholy marriage of XP and Windows Server 2003, and was never accepted by the mainstream market (for good reason). The first viable Windows desktop version supporting 64-bit was Vista. So in the end, we are stuck with an old 32-bit-only OS that will stop receiving security updates in the near future.

So, please, let XP die the death it deserves. It's had a prolonged and unnatural life, it's 12 freakin' years old FFS. It can't happen soon enough in my opinion.

You need a 9TB RAID for a "couple TV shows"?

Wow...

Care to explain what "lack of configurability" means?

I find quite the opposite, coming from iOS devices. WP8 is far more configurable, the start screen in particular. You can move and resize the tiles any way you want. Don't want a tile but don't want to uninstall? Fine, you can do that, just un-pin the tile, you can still launch the app from the app screen. In iOS, you must have all your icons on the home screen(s) at all times, and you have to "page" between multiple home screens to see all your stuff. Even if you group apps in folders by function, you can rarely fit them all in one home screen.

Your point about the centralized notifications is correct, but it's not a show stopper for me. Apple even survived without it for several years. I expect it will come with an update to WP8.

It just sounds like you are looking for excuses to bash WP8...

I live in Helsinki, and there are a fair amount of Nokias along with Samsung and Apple here. Recent numbers show Nokia gaining market share in Europe as others have commented. I can attest to that in my experience.

I've had my Lumia 820 for about 6 weeks now, and it's a really good handset so far. Apart from a few apps that are not available yet, it's a very solid platform. The only app I am really missing at the moment is Dropbox... but then Skydrive works great on WP8 and is at least as good as Dropbox in my opinion (and with better pricing for storage). There are regular app and OS updates to fix minor annoyances, unlike Apple where you wait a lot longer for OS-level fixes (I also heavily use an iPad, not talking out of my ass here). Note, I only started using my Lumia starting from the Portico update which fixed a lot of the launch issues in WP8. The only semi-issue is lack of a centralized notification system like iOS has (and presumably Android... sorry I don't own any Android devices). But Apple survived for several years without one and I expect it will be rolled out to WP8 via a future update.

I have no problem recommending Lumias or WP8, in fact I just did this morning to one of our engineers. I can't really think of a single show-stopper, it just works. And it has a removable battery and expandable storage via a MicroSDXC slot.

I always travel with my regs in my carry on. Apart from security opening the bag and looking at them, there has never been a problem. The only extra scrutiny I ever got while traveling with scuba gear was from my underwater camera housing while transferring through Frankfurt. They wanted to test it for residue using the sniffer. Took all of 60 seconds, no drama.

If it was in the US, I would be questioned WHY I am carrying this "device", what it is used for, where did I buy it from and how long ago. Did my neighbor ever touch it. Not to mention that we would be going to a resort location carrying only vacation clothes, wearing flip flops and shorts and well... you get the picture. Long live TSA!!!

Regulators should never be packed in your checked bags. They are semi-delicate and sensitive equipment that keeps you alive under water. They have many moving parts including a diaphragm that is sensitive to pressure changes. What do you think happens to the pressure in the cargo hold of an aircraft? I would not trust my life to a reg that has been "mis-handled" by checking it in bags going into the cargo hold.

Wow, sounds almost exactly like what we have had in Finland for years now!

I would counter this by saying the EU population does not rate GDP per capita as important as the US does.

Here in the EU, we like to have a life too, not everything is work, work, work and then you die. By the way, how many vacation days and paid-time-off holidays do you get each year?

(44 days/year here in Finland, including vacation and PTO)

Wrong. Recent numbers put Samsung quite far ahead of Apple globally. Please do your research.

Here in Finland it is illegal to tie the service and the phone together, that is unless you buy subsidized. And most people know what a horrible deal subsidized phones are, so few people buy them. In fact, subsidized phones only started appearing here around the time of the iPhone launch, not before (Apple, go figure).

Numbers must be portable also. And I can take my phone and pop in any SIM I want to and it will work just fine. Hell, my last phone (Lumia 820) I bought from a friend in Germany who was on T-Mobile, and I was able to simply put in my Elisa SIM and it works fine. I was even able to load the Finnish firmware on the phone without much trouble.

In comparison, the US cell market is very uncompetitive and anti-consumer. Prices are exorbitant and service quality is generally poor. Lock-ins via contract and via locked phones are a non-issue here and prices are much lower as a result. The US carriers have too much power, and even going so far as to actively disable features in the handset (tethering anyone?) and charging customers monthly to re-enable them. When I buy a phone here, I get ALL the features that the phone *manufacturer* decided were needed in that specific model. The carriers here do not disable features that are part of the handset.

And don't get me started on the gouging for data in the US... when I was there a few weeks ago, I was notified by my carrier that roaming data in the US would cost ~$15/MB. Are you fucking kidding me? We pay at most a few cents/MB at home, and about $1/MB when roaming anywhere in Europe.

A similar business case seems to work very well for Monsanto.

The Soviets tried that twice during WW II, it didn't go too well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War

Short version for those who don't want to read the link: The Soviets lost both times, to the tune of well over 1.1 million casualties, compared to ~300k for the Finns.

It wasn't pretty.

Hate to tell you this, but only a minority of Europeans actually live in France, there are a few other countries in the EU...

Thanks for your attention, I hope you enjoyed your geography lesson.

It won't take long before the books are structured in such a way as to make this impractical. Constant references to other parts of the book for example...

Sorry, but this is NOT a good idea, it will only be abused by the book sellers.

There is no such thing as "35mm size" in a DSLR. What you really intend to say is "full frame", which is equivalent to 24 x 36mm on film. 35mm was the width (actually vertical height) of the the film when loaded into a typical "35mm" camera. There is no "35mm" analog in a DSLR, the sensor area is more or less precisely 24 x 36mm (plus or minus a tenth of a mm or two).

The film for the original "35mm" cameras was re-purposed cinema film, it was not originally designed for still cameras. At the time, it was far cheaper to shoot 35mm film compared to medium and large format cameras which used much larger and more expensive sheet film. Then the Japanese camera makers started making cameras specifically for 35mm cinema film and the rest is history.

Ah... there's the catch. You see, in the gool 'ol US of A, this amounts to regulation. And everyone in the good 'ol US of A knows that regulation = bad. /sarcasm off

As an American who emigrated to another country, this difference is really visible after you have been out of the USA for some time. I live in the EU, and the consumer protections are so much stronger. Much of what goes on as "normal business" in the USA is illegal here, with regard to consumer protection. Apple learned this the hard way, when they got slapped hard in several EU countries for attempting to induce customers to buy AppleCare protection when under EU law, consumers are entitled to 2 years of warranty protection, not just a single year as in the USA. Yes, I know AppleCare is more than just normal warranty coverage, but they tried to imply that without it you get only 1 year warranty which is absolutely not according to EU law and misleading to the consumer.

As another example from the mobile phone industry, it is illegal here to tie the device to the service. You are free to buy your phone from anyone, and select the operator you want. You can change operators at any time, to any other operator. Your number is portable. All it takes is a new SIM card. Of course, this is only for un-subsidized phones, but subsidized phones are quite rare here. They certainly exist and major operators offer them, but the vast majority own un-subsidized since you are crazy to buy a subsidized phone (do the math, in every case, you are paying MUCH more to the operator over the life of the phone). Thanks to this freedom of unlocked phones and the ease of switching operators, there are literally dozens of operators to choose from, in this small country with only 5.2 million people. Compare that to the US where you have at most a handful of operators to select from and all of them are universally bad compared to the operators here. I would add that the prices for service here are much lower than in the US. It's quite easy to get a basic mobile service from about $10/month, and even service with data for not much more. Oh, and what are these things called data caps again?`We don't have those. Same for our internet service.

Now, someone will chime in about educating yourself as a consumer, but we all know that most companies do not want an educated consumer, because educated consumers won't fall for their marketing tricks. Companies have proven time and again that without some amount of regulation they will act only in their best interests, which is to make as much money for their stakeholders as possible. The absence of regulation, as in the USA, lets companies get away with a lot more at the expense and detriment of the consumer.

I'm also happy to live in a country (Finland) that has granted its citizens internet access as a right. Practically everything is done electronically here, from general banking to paying bills to shopping. Nearly all government services are handled electronically as well, so not having an internet connection severely limits you.