The 1974 to 2003 period was dominated by the old analog 800-850 Mhz AMP's tech.

Depends on the country.
In the UK, the above is completely bogus.

I know this because I was involved in two projects (for separate companies) where my job was to facilitate the migration of
traffic from the analogue bands to the digital spectrum. I wrote software that would allow the radio experts to predict what
would happen to traffic coverage if they increased/reduced power on specific sites, if they went from monopole to three-sector,
or if they took a band from analogue and gave it to the digital network, or if they increased site resolution.

We also did simulations to determine finer grained traffic analysis than the data provided and (in both cases) we identified
coverage holes (that turned out to be real) in central London, United Kingdom.

And that was in 1994 (for the UK) and 1996 (for the rest of the world, with the primary focus the US)

As far as the main carriers were concerned analogue was on the way out in 1994, expecting to be completely replaced a few years later.

Its possible they kept the networks running longer than anticipated (I don't know, I did other things after this), but the
idea that the analouge bands were not being migrated to digital in this time frame is totally incorrect, false and misleading.
And in the UK, we've been digital for at least 10 years. We had our 3G auction in 2001.

Aha! A 30 year long study of mobile phones usages shows they don't create cancer.

Pretty interesting since mobile phones were not available in 1979. The study is Swedish, analogue mobile phone market starts in Sweden in 1981.

A lady I know in this village, her partner is someone that has been studying mobile phones and their effects for a long time.
They know people that use mobiles day in, day out, all day (literally). Typically these people are "Mr White Van Man", driving a van all
day taking directions as what to do etc.

These people they are studying have no short term memory capability, whatsoever. They are convinced it is the mobile phone usage, combined
with the extreme (all the time) usage pattern these people have.

Then there are my friends that design mobile phones - they tell me they go out of their way to choose frequencies that do not resonate
with human tissue. Which runs counter to some of my other friends that have the much reported "mobile phone hot ear". It would only get
hot if it were resonating with the signal and therefore attenuating the signal.

The interesting thing is that the mobile circuit designers are genuinely interested and do not write these events off as "can't happen", or "nothing
to worry about" or "scaremongering". Unlike the folks that represent the mobile phone industry (and the billions they stand to make).

Disclaimer. I have been involved in improving GSM (and other related technology) traffic planning coverage in the UK and also for traffic planning products marketed worldwide, in particular the American cellular market.

And no, I do not own a mobile phone. Make of that what you will.

Paywalls are bad, so are Register Walls.

What is a Register Wall? The kind of nonesense you get if you go to the New York Times website.

I have no idea if they still require me to login to view their content, but they used to.
The fact that I have no idea if they still require me to login shows just how entrenced the damage to your reputation is..
I simply won't visit the New York Times website because I don't want YET ANOTHER PASSWORD to remember. Any site that wants me to register just to view content, I don't join.

Apart from Amazon, any site that wants to create an account just to purchase, I pass. I recently tried to purchase "Getting Real" but Lulu.com wanted me to register to make a purchase.
Why can't I just provide my name, address, credit card info, etc, then purchase? Why do I need to waste time creating an account, then have that information stored by them forever?
They did not get the sale. Their loss. I can read Getting Real online for free.

I pirate everything too, but I'm not an hypocrite

Yes you are. You want to be paid for your software works, but refuse to pay others for their software works.
That is the definition of hypocrisy. Say one thing, do the other.

I, on the other hand, want to be paid for my work. And I damn well pay for the software I use from other vendors.

That has caused many people on the other side of the transaction to believe the whole setup is bad, which leads to widespread rulebreaking.

You are right. A whole bunch of people have realised that people are benefiting from their work without being paid for it. And now they want to be paid for it. People steal my work daily. It does not help pay the mortgage, or cover the cost of creating the work. You seem to think its perfectly OK to steal from me. BTW, the software I create, you'd only want to use it if you are in business, and thus making money from using it. People steal because they think they can and should, not any other reason.

I abhore software patents and I do not wish for any extension of copyright law.

f you build a house you get paid ONCE by

Because only ONE group of people can use it at any one time!

You are missing basic and fundamental parts here:
a) Cost of creation. If creation cost X million, but sale of individual items is small fraction of X, then of course you need to sell many items b) Created item may benefit many people at once or only a few people at once, or one person at a time. If if benefits many people at once, and they get more from using than they pay, why is that wrong, why should the creator not be rewarded? They've still benefited each user of the item to a greater extent than the user of the item has paid.

When you finally get around to creating a digital work that takes much time (in my case, years) to create, you'll understand why your attitude is so ignorant. If you want my work, you can pay for it, or create it yourself.

Copyright is not theft.

Then you need to do some serious studying.

Using copyrighted material without paying for the right to do so (except for fair use situations), IS theft.

Your comments are not insightful, they are downright ignorant.

You forgot: 25 VOMIT

"owing in no small part on his insistence that his work be made available for unrestricted electronic distribution and copying."

The fundamental and basic point being, that is Cory's right to insist on those terms for his work, NOT FOR THE WORK OF OTHERS.

How long until you people get this? What works for one person does not necessarily work for another.

Windows 7 like a Cadillac

Like a Cadillac? That is an advertisment for speed? Blimey...

The Dell Precision laptop series all supporting docking (D-Dock port replicator).

The hardware is excellent, as is the build quality.

Mine (a Dell Precision M6300) has 4GB RAM, 1920x1200 17" screen, 110GB disk, Core 2 Centrino at 2.X Ghz. Good track pad, good keyboard, matte screen (despite some other comments on here about glossy being OK, they are wrong, you want the matte screen), lots of USB ports, will dual screen easily using the ports (even through the docking station), etc.

You can't buy them new for the price the OP wants, but you can buy them on Ebay, often in very good condition, for the price the user wants.

I concur with those that say widescreens and laptops suck for development. They do, but if you want/need a laptop for development and you don't want a Macbook Pro, this is the one to buy (currently its M6400, superceding the M6300).

My previous laptop, a Dell Inspiron 8000, purchased in 2000, is still working, the only niggles being shift and control keys that are slowing failing due to the aluminium oxide build up on the key contacts. Dell's are reliable and don't die (witness the tales of dying Macs elsewhere on this thread). And of course this machine has a proper 4:3 screen rather than a widescreen, so much nicer to use - sadly the market doesn't cater to developers in that respect.

Why is Firefox going backwards in usability? Despite all the publicity surrounding Microsoft's Ribbon bar, why do people put it in their software? Its horrible. It makes usability really suffer. What to do is not obvious. Where is the menu bar? Dunno, I can't see it. Hmm, well what do I do to get to see it? Dunno, its hidden. Try something. Like what? I dunno. Many minutes later after a lot of random mouse clicking (which does nothing) and key pressing, someone presses "Alt", at which point the menu magically appears. Wow, thats intuitive. NOT.

If I struggle with it, how on earth is my father, who is 70 soon, going to live with it? Well he isn't. He's self taught and I'm often surprised at the things he does on his own (installed Ubuntu without asking for any help +1 for Ubuntu the installer is that good), but Ribbons will floor him, for sure.

The Ribbon bar is about as a good a UI decision as Apple's single button mouse on the grounds that users aren't bright enough to understand multiple buttons. Doh!

Demon wanted all customers to take up eBilling several years ago. You had to opt out of eBilling. I opted out because I wanted a printed invoice to give to the accountants and because I thought sooner or later so cockup like this would happen. My choice has been vindicated. And no, I won't be looking for another vendor. Demon are more expensive than other vendors, but other than the eBilling foulup, they are generally good and no bandwidth restrictions or upper limits at all. And that is what I want.

Absolutely. A friend of mine once told me of a story where a band member friend had his violin case run over. He ran back to the case and was more concerned about the bow than the violin. He reckoned replacing the bow would be harder than replacing the violin.

As for instruments having off days - for sure. I play bagpipes. Some days they sing. Other days, best to put them down and not bother at all. Most days, somewhere in between :-)