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Showing posts from November, 2010

Super OLED!

After two years, the age of my Nokia E-71 showed.  The main shortcoming has been the display size.  The good and real keyboard has made it impossible to go higher than 320x240 without increasing the thickness of the phone. So I got myself the Samsung Galaxy S recently.  It is a very good copycat of the iPhone 3GS, down to the packing box.  What did they say about imitation and flattery?  I am speculating that the next version of the Galaxy would, like the iPhone 4, have rectangular instead of curvy edges on the sides. I have not used the iPhone other than testing it.  I find Android much more usable compared with my experience with the iPhone.  The menu and back buttons on the Galaxy S are really handy.  The Program Monitor gives me a very visible state of my phone.  If control equals power, I am power-drunk.  People like me would have difficultly living under the yoke of Mr Jobs. The biggest jump in capability has to be Swype.  I guess Samsung has to pay for it as one Motorola m

Why it is Peking and not Beijing

[As at January 2011, this web site cannot be viewed from within China.] Lord Carrington explained it most clearly when he said that English speakers do not call Moscow Mockba. I see two fundamental misunderstandings on names and languages. First, English speakers do not need the permission of the CCP to decide how to name the capital of China in English . English speakers do not seek Italy's permission when they call Roma Rome. The list goes on. Similarly, Britain does not, and cannot, insist that the Chinese do not call London 伦敦 but London. Britain cannot object the French from calling that same place Londres. President Obama cannot command that the Chinese call him 奥峇马 instead of 奥巴马. In summary, if users of a language decide to name something X, no one else from another language can come and say it must be Y instead. Second, the capital of China in Chinese is 北京, not Beijing. This second point may be a bit subtle.  "Beijing" is 100% not a Chinese word. C