Also, I could see licensing being a reason for only including ogg. Ogg is Free, while a license for MP3 would cost money. Considering the audience of this phone, I would guess that they probably have more ogg files than the general population.

"What am I going to do, upgrade it?"

I would. The hardware radio is only GPRS. The phone could certainly do with a radio upgrade whenever someone figures out a Free UMTS/HSDPA radio that could fit in this thing.

He looks like a cylon now.

I'd prefer an MIU HDPC. It's of a similar size and shape, and much less sexy looking, but it manages to also have a full-on cellphone in the same box as everything you describe up there.

...I've imagined this watch.

I so very want this.

@upyoursix:

If the media is getting so much wrong, how about having China let them into Tibet to clear up all these misunderstandings.

#7:

Ex Post Facto only applies to laws which increase punishment after the fact. This bill will reduce penalties (to zero) and as such is considered legal.

I must stand by #7's comment. It is extremely annoying to have auto-playing video embedded like that. At the very least, please place that behind the cut.

Knife-wrench!

When do we get a post involving James May?

#10

I'm aware of that. By atheist Jews, I mean people who follow Jewish traditions and practices, but do not necessarily believe in a deity that lies behind those traditions.

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

#7 (Encarnacion)

Why would it be impossible for a Christian to be atheist? There are atheist Jews.

I wonder if he keeps a copy of the Jefferson Bible with him.

I wonder if Jeremy Clarkson has one.

How exactly are these water cans supposed to fight crickets?

Will Cohen be speaking to Tom Hanks for this movie?

Viagra pills, #2?

Hey look! Boobs!

At last! My Enterprise-D ready room can be complete!

I've just submitted an entry:

"Peaceful Gun Owner"

It wasn't promoting any illegal activity, as it is possible to own a gun in the U.K.

It wasn't hateful or violent.

It was not threatening.

It wasn't in any way discriminating.

It was certainly original.

Somehow though.. I don't think it'll be accepted.

Ass! Ass! Pepper out my Ass!

The barrier to entry to starting up a new newspaper is far lower than the one for making an entirely new internet, or even becoming an ISP. This very site started as a zine published by a couple people.

And TV is absolutely regulated to hell and back. The FCC places colossal limits on what can and can't be said, and, IIRC, requires at least some public service content in order to maintain a broadcast license.

The only options that I could possibly see as keeping the internet free are a truly free market and regulation. A truly free market requires, among other things, a low barrier to entry and an widely informed consumer base. I don't see either of these things happening, so I seriously don't see the ISP market as becoming truly free any time soon, so I see regulation as the only other alternative.

Well, now I look all nutty. :-P

#41

You say you're potentially in favor of regulation in case of monopoly. The current situation may not be a strict monopoly, but it seems very much like an oligopoly. You also say that the internet is the best means of starting a movement or organization (and i'm assuming you'd agree that it's the best way to disseminate important information).

Given the important nature of the medium and the inability for the free market to ensure fairness among the ISPs, why exactly do you say that there is no need for government regulation? Why should this medium not have legal protection to ensure unhindered speech over it?

#32:

You seriously underestimate the power of the internet. Yeah, sure, getting to know the local people is important for grassroots action. However, the internet is far more capable than you let on. There is no other medium that allows the common man to collaborate en masse over vast distances as this one. There is no other way as free of censorship and un-limiting to ideas as this one.

Do you seriously think it would have been nearly as easy for me to become an atheist had I not been as aware of others who thought as I did? Or knew of communities who were open enough to accept one who was?

Sure, local action is important. But knowledge and communication of national/worldwide action emboldens you to take local action. It tells you how you can help locally to do what is right. It means that knowledge of the wrong things in this world is much more difficult to squash down simply because it happened far away.

A non-neutral internet would seriously harm these things. It allows those a select few to quash down and get rid of whatever they don't want.

Something the libertarians in the audience don't seem to realize is that the free market *WILL NOT WORK* here. Picking and choosing your ISP *WILL NOT WORK*. If a free market system were to work here, you would need multiple Internets. You would need the ability to pick and choose between multiple entirely separate networks, and you would need the ability to make your own network if you felt that none in the market suited you. You would need to make *YOUR OWN INTERNET*. It would have to connect from you to any and every site you wanted. It would have to be available wherever you wanted. Right now, we only have the *one* internet. Picking and choosing the last person in this chain doesn't change the fact that you are connecting to the same, one internet that you always have been.

#17:

You bring up a truly valid point. Holy *crap*, you do.

I hope I'm not the only one who finds the basic idea of auctioning off our spectrum for money really sickening. It's taking something we all have a right to use to use and saying "here, this right will go to the highest bidder". I'm aware this is massive hyperbole, but it feels to me as if we were auctioning off some other, more important right. "Want exclusive (or in our case, any) habeas corpus? Have your company pay us $5 billion and you may have it"

#2 and #3:

Note that you can't really decide the network you're connecting to. You may be able to decide the person you're connecting directly to, but the internet does not consist solely of who you connect directly to.

you -> provider 1 -> provider 2-> provider 3-> boingboing

You may be able to change provider 1 at your whim. However, if provider 2 suddenly puts boingboing on their shitlist, changing provider 1 may not be all that helpful. There's no reason why both your cable and your DSL provider connect to boingboing through provider 2.

#27:

My cursive has always been atrocious. I consistently got terrible penmanship grades in elementary school.

Strangely though, my block lettering has improved *greatly* through college, where my computer use has increased dramatically. I suspect though that this has more to do with me teaching myself to write with my other hand.

Was there any indication that this is meant to be access control? I mean, given their history, I wouldn't entirely put it past them to claim such, but I'm not sure I see anything of the sort here.

This honestly doesn't strike me as something meant to specifically block non-iTunes synching, but just an internal change meant to fix some bug or other problem they had.

Still..

Hell yeah.