Half a dozen people with iPhones, at least nine friends and family with Androids (including me), and nobody with Windows Mobile since we went from the HTC Moguls (WM6.1) to Epic 4Gs on launch day (8/31). The Mogul was a good phone, but the Epic (and Android) blows it away. From what I've seen of Microsoft's latest mobile OS in their commercials (large, white-on-blue buttons for a few categories, to start), I'm not interested. It looks like one of those large-button old-school phones. I'm a techie and a fan of open source, so it's not surprising that I enjoy using the Android OS. What was pleasantly surprising is how easily my parents (competent Windows users, but not true geeks) have picked it up and are enjoying it.

...So now we'll be able to cure the common cold, but can't put a man on the Moon (anymore)?

Well, not really -- but she *can* see R'lyeh from her kitchen window!

Twelve, at least if you're making the Kessel run...

You could, of course, build such a USB "device" into the cable, if you're just interested in getting higher 5VDC current out. A small MCU in the cable does the negotiation for you, and a few ms later, instant current...

This sort of thing is exactly what the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag is for. I'm surprised it hasn't shown up yet...

If you have amps and volts (plus phase information for AC), you can calculate the impedance/resistance, so there's no need to specify it explicitly.

Yeah, yeah -- don't feed the trolls -- I know.

The iPad isn't crap. I'm by no means a fan of Apple, but the iPad is a very slick (if somewhat expensive) piece of hardware. Apps like Google Maps and some of the available games are very polished and work amazingly well. The problem isn't the iPad -- it's the Apple philosophy of our-way-or-no-way-at-all. Same for the iPhone; it looks like a very well-engineered piece of hardware (Grip-Of-Death issues notwithstanding), but it's horribly crippled by being tied to iTunes (which is, in my mind, has one of the worst user interfaces ever foisted on consumers -- made worse by the fact that it's rammed down our throats to use any Apple hardware.) I admire Apple's engineering, but their marketing policies have ensured that I would rather pay for a more open product (Samsung's Galaxy S series, for instance) than accept an Apple product for free.

I go for single-player games. For me, gaming is about escapism -- and the story / plot. This is why I love playing Oblivion but won't touch WoW or other MMORPGs. Sartre said it best: "L'enfer, c'est les autres." ("Hell is other people.")

**chk BEEP**

Sounds as if this might have a good correlation with transmitter power (yeah, yeah, assuming similar antennas and distance to skin etc). In that case, wouldn't there be some benefit to choosing a phone with a *higher* number, with the idea that the one with the lower number probably uses less transmit power (and could potentially drop more calls in marginal areas)?

Gold also happens to be an excellent conductor -- nearly as good as silver, but with the additional benefit that it is very corrosion and oxidation resistant. There's a very practical reason that many electronics connectors are gold-plated -- the gold-on-gold contact provides an extremely low-resistance connection, which is a good thing for many technical reasons.

(Plus, it is teh shiny!!!)

So you're either a troll, or interested in scholastic robotics competitions. I hope it's the latter...

No -- by turning dials to enter machine code in hex!

You imply that they're *not* the aforementioned J&k H@xx0r?