FSM will answer your noodly dreams!

PS. I have to agree with Hary, although not so snarkily - jeez bro what kind of minutes plan does he have and does he really use them? I can only imagine its some crazy 2000 minutes deal because I pay $120 a month for two lines, unlimited text and data (G1/MTG3 plans) and 800 shared mins which I rarely get even close to using because of all the free off peak, w/end and mobile to mobile calling. Oh, and that includes all the taxes. That said I'm be more than happy if they drop prices, bring it on! Maybe it will be just in time to save your brother from switching to AT&T, tell him to try one of the latest Android phones - if he is considering the iPhone then clearly real keyboard isn't a requirement so there will be several alternatives by the end of the month!

I'll admit I've been less than pleased with my G1, its battery life, speed and internal memory are all less than what they should be. But hey it has a keyboard which is exactly what I wanted and exactly what iPhone will never give me. Plus as a geek I can revel in its "open-ness" and un-Appleness, I get to run Google Voice and all kinds of apps that Apple considers infringing on their territory or software apps, and I get to run them in the background too. We had a compass, focusing camera, end user upgradeable storage (16GB for $30, imagine that!) and many other features long before iPhone (yes we got to laugh about the MMS excitement too!). Even better the multiple firmware updates have been pumped out and produced many new features and significant improvement in battery life, speed and memory utilization and all this is with the same hardware. I have a lot of hope that the next gen of Android phones with even modesty increases in CPU, plus more internal memory will really make this platform shine and I'll never be stuck with someone elses idea of what is good for me, or locked into the big-brother of phone networks.

I'm with you to the extent that I don't want T-Mobile to implode, I've been a loyal customer of theirs since I left Sprint many moon ago and they truly have always been there for me. But I now pay $120 a month for two lines with unlimited data and text and as much voice minutes as we need to use, actually much more than enough most months. Admittedly I'm no voice power user but really that's what data is all about - you don't need voice minutes. As for data I surf, stream, download, upload as much as anyone but baring tethering to a laptop all day or doing something crazy like trying to replace my home DSL (not a chance, too much latency) I don't think I'll ever be in danger of doing serious damage to the T-Mo data network. There are just only so many minutes in the day you can be using data and even if you're streaming audio or video it will still only be a fraction of the capacity - I'm pretty sure it will be several years before any number of people are habitually streaming data for any length of time and even that will be a small fraction of the users - just think how many people you know that do it now, even among those that do have smartphones. Most are happy to get their email, download a game or two and watch the occasionaly YouTube video, and then there are still huge swaths of people who are more than happy with a plan old flip phone.

I also think you overestimate the speed at which new phones will be adopted - almost everyone who has wanted a smartphone in the past couple of year has gone over to AT&T and those people are now all locked into lengthy contracts that they wont be in a hurry to leave for, especially for what they would consider a less attractive phone - unless T-Mobile can somehow get the iPhone. The next most popular phone has taken over a year to get even 1 million users - don't you think T-Mobile's network can handle that, or even twice that? As with all new network roll outs the old will still be there and only a small fraction will get the high-speed initially and users and bandwidth usage will just grow organically.

So fingers crossed I'm right and you're wrong, but if I'm not then I guess you told me so!

The biggest problem for me is lack of A2DP stereo bluetooth and no standard headphone socket - isn't this a media rich phone, how could they leave this off? My WinMo device that is over three years old now has A2DP... Doh!

As for teathering well I think the idea of these smart phones is the experience is so good on the phone you don't need tethering. Tethering is for business users and they can pay for WWAN cards and true "unlimited" data plans - but I do take odds with T-Mobile calling the standard plans "unlimited" when they are not really, perhaps this is a law suit waiting to happen (as well as their insistence that they can impose a $200 early cancellation fee for breaking contract - even though I'm happy to pay for it because I have no intention of going over to ATT or some other non-GSM network).

Joost will be next...

Great, patience is rewarded - I've been waiting for the ATSC version of their dual-tuner PCIe card for a while now. I have their USB5 Gold tuner and it works well but I'd like it integrated and dual tuners - this will do the trick. And great news the MythTV will support it soon - this could finally allow me to ditch Windows (although BeyondTV works nicely for me if that is your thing)

Horrible, horrible and most horrible. I've stuck with T-Mobile as the underdog - good customer service, cheap data plan (slow but steady, fine for 95% of things I want to do) and all that GSM freedom goodness, putting up with their poor coverage. But if they merge with Sprint I'm sure it will just result in higher prices and worse customer service. I can't see the point in trying to mix GSM with CDMA - DT should let Sprint wither on the vine, that's a great strategy to eliminate competition. Unless they are afraid that Verizon will buy them - which is the only company that should.

I had the same experience - but fortunately I found out about the lower data plan price several months ago. I think if I'd been willing to spend enough time chasing it I would have got some kind of refund. But I did recent get a free month of service as my contract came up - without asking for it.

Personally I find the existing Edge service good enough for 90% of surfing and email purposes - even when tethered. If they gave me more bandwidth I'd just end up streaming more stuff over the connection, and doing VoIP etc. - if I get it with no increase in price then fine, otherwise I wont bother paying for an upgrade.

A simple low-tech Stirling engine that you can buy and build from a kit can easily spin at several hundred RPM with a big enough heat differential - like from a hot cup of coffee to ambient air temp. The overal efficiency of converting heat to mechanical energy of these machines is very low - a few percent. However a high tech manufactured one could be much higher, and really you're just looking for a few watts to spin a fan to send air over cooling fins which requires low torque. Suitably designed it could easily provide a the kind of RPM your average CPU cooler fan provides. The main problem is it would be way more expensive than a regular electric fan. There may also be problems with getting the fan to self-start - but it depends on the engine design.