By that logic, the iPhone is open because you can jailbreak it and then "make all kinds of changes".

How is that an argument for DRM? You basically said

Well duh, but they have happier customers, which can't be a bad thing.

Did you get your N900 with PR1.2 already installed, did you install the PR1.2 update via SSU or did you install it via the firmware flasher?

When I installed PR1.2 via SSU (how most users install updates; it's essentially a nice GUI on top of APT), after the reboot up popped a modal dialog asking me to accept the MyNokia T&Cs. The *only* way to dismiss this dialog is to accept the T&Cs, at which point it sends an SMS to Nokia. Sure, you can opt-out later, but by that point Nokia already has the data...

Nope. You'll choose a phone based on the hardware, and put up with the shitty manufacturer+carrier customisations. One of the best things about the iPhone is that Apple doesn't allow carrier customisations.

One of the really crazy aspects of this system is the units used. You couldn't expect a normal person to understand "Watts" or "kW", so I've seen air conditioners labelled in "kWh per hour". As in "kiloWatt-hours per hour". I wish I took a photo.

One of the things we get right is how we label fuel consumption: litres per 100 km. Half the number means you use half as much fuel to drive the same distance. Twice the number means twice as much fuel to drive the same distance.

No, it's MATLAB. The comment character is %

Oh come on, Python was designed as a teaching language and in my experience students find it much easier to learn than Pascal (and it's much less limiting once you get past the basics).

As far as speed is concerned, according to the Programming Language Game Pascal is at best 60x faster than Python, and these sorts of competitions usually give you a few orders of magnitude in margin - the idea is to make sure your solution is in the right complexity class, not to try and enforce the most efficient possible solution.

The only problem that MySQL is having with its licensing model is that Monty is a fucking idiot who wants to have his cake and eat it too. I'm sorry, you sold it. It's not yours any more. What you want no longer matters. Now shut up and go away.

This is the answer. In starting off with pretty much any programming language, you screw around with strings, do some match, maybe make a GUI with some buttons and stuff... With PyGame, you can make games! Or at least, you can put graphics on the screen, move things around, make noises and it's easy... but not restrictive.

Logo (and programs like GameMaker and its ilk) get the first bit right, but once you want to do something that isn't moving a turtle around you're somewhat stuck. But with Python, you can do pretty much anything. And it's portable too! You can write a script in Python on your computer and run it on your phone (if you've got a Nokia, at least).