Except some policemen. Not all policemen. But anyway...

What defines a police state? And are you suggesting I was making a moral comparison? If you think I was, let me please help you see the light. You can't really make a comparison between an apple and an orange. You can't even say which country, in the grand scale of things...or in G_d's hypothetical scales...is more righteous. My point was simply that China's low violent crime rate has nothing to do with its political system, and nothing to do with the (actual scarcity) of police.

If you are in BJ like you allude to (you did say you talked to at least one person in BJ), you would know that how much people know, and what they know, is a function of their social network and status-group. And office worker who watches BBC to learn English will know different info than a hotel worker.

Likewise, if Krich thinks everyone is wearing a pass, its probably because he is spending all his time in parkinglots and whatnot failing to get into Olympic events, whereas you and others are actually living there.

Anyway, what I object to in your letter is this:

"There are, on any given day, half a dozen protests scattered across China. Taking to the streets is something that the Chinese people do regularly.....But arguing that the security surrounding the Olympics ...is to "prevent the Chinese people from rising" is just idiotic."

First of all, YOU generally don't see those protests, most taking place outside of the cities. And second of all, I agree with Krich. The walls are there...in part...to create mental barriers. To make people know that the Powers That Be want things to go according to their plan.

Hi Andrew,

I just had a really stupid idea, but I would like your opinion.

What if...what if the government enacted really really tough NATIONAL environmental standards on new housing developments for the next three years. And put all sorts of administrative blocks on building new houses. I mean...what if the government artificially froze the SUPPLY of houses for short period of time. Would that not make people think that what they have is more valuable or will become more valuable? And thus, decrease home foreclosures while increasing average prices? It would not even have to be all over...target restrictions in States that have high foreclosure rates.

Do you think this could have an effect?

Symbian phones have been able to use BT Keyboards for about 5 years as well. And now with the larger screen models, it will actually be practical to use a BT Keyboard with the bigger screen. I'm not a SW Engineer. But I believe the problem from Apple's perspective is much more complicated- FOR BUSINESS AND POSITIONING REASONS - than just putting some BT drivers on the phone.

The iPhone – the ones sold through official channels anyway - is really a feature phone, not a mobile computer (which is how Windows Mobile and to a lesser extent Symbian and Android sell themselves), and Apple wants to keep there phone in this category. I don’t even believe Apple refers to the iPhone as a smartphone.

On the iPhone, document management and customization are both limited. The file system is locked down so that you are forced to sync through iTunes. That does not work if you want the iPhone to be a laptop replacement… you would need to be able to create folders and sort documents on the device as well as on attached networks. Furthermore, developers are strongly discouraged from developing software which increases the functionality of the phone itself. As mentioned, cut and paste function is missing. So is landscape – mode text message editing. Why? In part because cut and paste is also a document management function. I do not believe there is a native Word-document editor for non-jail-broken iPhones either. This is all so that Apple can promote its online store and force users to use the iPhone as a content consumption device…Apple is, afterall, making money from content consumption.

For Apple to implement the BT keyboard driver would probably take exactly one engineer about 2 days of coding and 1 week of testing. After all, the drivers for Unix and OSX already exists and are free. But then, if people really tried to start using it as a computer replacement, they would VERY QUICKLY run into its other limitations (cut&paste being the least of them probably).

I started to use the Freshbooks app. Granted, the iPhone part just has time tracking and all other info (project, task, cost, invoice, etc) must first be set on the web. But that should be OK...the complicated stuff needs a full-UI anyway. Freshbooks is free for a version which supports 3 projects. After that, you need to pay (for the web-interface). Really seems to be good. Only thing I see it lack is a task management utility on the iphone itself.