http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

The use of the word crusty is an admission that your argument is slightly shite and requires a little dailymail'ing

I have a 2011 macbook air, with the malware bundled with it (macos something or other) removed and replaced with win 8, and its by far the fastest computer ive ever used.

I blame the SSD.

Apps open instantly, visual studio doesnt take forever to open a project, explorer is responsive, and even the start menu search thing (supplied by a start menu emulation app) can do searches instantly (as could built in win7 start menu search), which makes opening apps, docs etc easy and useful.

SSDs are defo the future for desktops, with NAS hard drives for large stuff that doesnt need loads of random access (mpgs etc).

It can. File copying is now a proper queue with pause / resume on each item. At. f'ing. Last. I actually like windows 8 explorer interface - its the best once since XP

As per usual in these UK-vs-troll cases, they fail to report if the alleged perp posted it to his own wall [innocent] or he/she went out of his/her way to post it somewhere deliberately offensive, such as in this case a soldier memorial page [guilty]. The forthcoming guidance from our dear leaders cant come soon enough... even if its wrong it will kick-start the debate. It also seems that re-tweets are exempt from punishment in these cases as demonstrated by Mr. Robin Hood Airport guy and the many, many people who retweeted it...

You end up with the best, most usable, most efficient logging class that the world has ever known, before which log4net can only cry with jealousy. However, your project doesnt depend on having good logging.... ooops!

Why do we still need a physical simcard ? it seems to me its essentially a private key stored on a chip (possibly in a non-extractable form). Why not just email digital certificate style keys to customers, and have them 'insert' them into phones using established file transfer techniques (protected by a password as well, which is required when installing the key). This would also make james bond style dual+ simcard phones very easy to implement (or maybe not if you need 2 radios...).

Even better, let any phone log onto any network, and auth the user at that stage (ie, unauthed phones can connect to auth server only, and only get phone service etc if they enter the correct creds).

Having physical simcards is wasteful as well - for example in the UK the cheapest way to get mobile broadband is a £80 12 month prepay simcard with 3, but every year i go in to the shop and ask if i can put another 12 months on, but they make me buy a new card and bin the old one...

awwww beat me to it...

I use Hyper-V at home . I was going to use ESXi (even bought a 'allowed' network card, and machine that was compatible), but after installing it I discovered that ESXi doesnt support dynamic disk images (ie you need to allocate the entire X Gb of space on physical disk), which makes simple backup tricky.
Switched over to Hyper-V (using my TechNet license), and its worked perfectly for several years. Ive not managed to crash it once, and it supports dynamic disks, AND dynamic memory (ie, you can tell it to always have 50% free ram in machine A and 25% in machine B), which is great.
Its also really nice to be able to RDP in for admin, rather than having to install special software on each client I may use. Of course I can also RDP in from my iPad / iPhone as well.
The only major feature that is missing from Hyper-V (for my home/geek use) is USB support / hardware passthrough, although my adventures with Xen trying to get that happening were fruitless...

I agree. I bought a European milestone last summer which was advertised as "flash ready", enabled by a software upgrade which was promised for mid 2010. Then it slipped to end of 2010, then early q1 2011. Current moto-lie is q1 2011.
Motorola outright lie about future upgrades. They do it on purpose to sell more devices. I would advise people to avoid motorola products like the plague, especially if they are buying on the basis of future promised upgrades. Check out forum on motorola europes Facebook page for evidence.
Oh, and they also lock the boot loader xbox/ps3 style (except the lock works) to prevent home brew roms from being used. I think this is deliberate obsolesce to force people to buy upgraded hardware.
Motorola - liars and fraudstars. Never again.

Because the actual radio bit is a separate chip, with a separate OS, which has an API called by the main OS (using modem AT commands AFAIK).

This baseband chip usually doesn't need to be tampered with, and is it this chip that actually communicates with the network.

You can install a totally different OS (eg Android on a windows mobile device), without altering how it talks to the cell network.

I believe the exception to this is to unlock phones which are network locked - i think that involves modying the baseband, which could well be illegal in some places???

It was not difficultto cause a dangerous situation with uk wiring before they started partially shielding the prongs on the UK socket.

A 1p piece fits perfectly between the live, neutral and earth, and the plug can be re-inserted into the socket.

Caused a lovely bang and lots of soot when the socket was turned on.

Now they are partially shielded though (to prevent electrocution while plugging / unplugging), and its getting really hard to find an 'old' plug that can be "Penny in plugged"

Worth the effort though

How about getting the phone for features advertised on the box?? The Motorola Milestone was advertised as 'Flash Ready' on the web, but that turned out to need Froyo, which STILL isnt released... It was supposed to be coming out mid 2010, then end of 2010, now its 'early 2011'... Im personally expecting it to be canned. I agree you shouldnt buy a gadget based on what it might do in future, but if its advertised as having a feature, its reasonable to expect it.

To a limited extent Microsoft do this already with the XNA stuff... except they give all the stuff away, and only charge you when you actually want to deploy on the 360 instead of a PC...