For real? Man, you aren't kidding us, to make us jealous, right? If it really available to buy for you as of today, that is some reason to celebrate. Because that means, it can't be long until it appears in other markets, too...

and then we have to forget 5 october and go 15 october and.....

The N9 I used last night did not have the Swype keyboard - I was told it's not yet available but it definitely will be, probably in a few weeks time

I think the vkb in the N950 is excellent, and at least as good as that in an iPhone (I've got a 3GS here to compare it against). In fact I think the N950 vkb is so good that I stopped using the hardware keyboard after a few days, it's completely superfluous now yet I used the N900 keyboard all of the time.

I don't attempt to lay flamebait, I just take a light-hearted approach to addressing these things. It's just a phone, after all.

My view on Aegis is that what we have seen of it so far will inevitably be the thin end of the wedge. The possibility of Aegis being defeated is irrelevant to me, because I don't wish to give financial support to any company that is not prepared to trust me with the device that they are asking me to pay several hundred pounds for. That's why I would never buy an iPhone, jailbreak or no jailbreak. The only language corporations understand is cold, hard cash. Nothing will change unless we are prepared to vote with our wallets.

No tricks. But I'm not so friendly with the shopkeepers here yet and I have problems bargaining here(Abu Dhabi). There is some distance between Dubai and Abu Dhabi and unfortunately I'm too busy now to do so. Maybe it will take me about a day, week(s) or so. But if I fail to do so, I will buy it from right here. As you may know,N9 is enough expensive even after the discount.

OK. You're in the Aegis cave. You have the N9 in your hands, and the large stone ball is fast approaching from behind you. There is a gap in front of you that is too big to jump. The door is closing. On the floor, there lies a whip. Do you

A. Drop the N9, grab the whip and use it to cross the gap and leap under the door.

B. Keep the precious N9 idol, and attempt to dodge the large stone ball.

Press Escape for option A, or Scroll Lock for option B. Alternatively, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to fall into the gap and commit suicide.

Nooooo, of course you don't

Far too early to make that call...
Honestly, how can you in light of the responses we've had from Nokia?
The way I've seen it evolve so far, we must reserve judgment in the absence of final info.

Are you honestly surprised that something like this was inevitably implemented...
If maemo was to be truly competitive (aside from what happened in the interim) against the likes of iOS/Adroid et al?

Wait... what?!?

[Friends reference, I apologize in advance] -"Hey Joey, how did you get porn [windows] on that computer?"
-"I don't know man, I just opened the computer and it's there!"

Marxian, in my experience this is also how people think about windows. They don't think of them. They just open their PCs and there they are. So, they don't know they are jailed. They don't know, or care, about open OSes. Most of them don't know what an OS actually is. For 85-90% of the regular Joes, windows=pc. So I don't agree in your jail parable, because most of them don't know that they are in a jail.

Personally, I come from a completely non-technical background, and have an Ubuntu netbook and a Windows laptop, which I use about equally. I am writing my graduate thesis mostly on the netbook, and sync it on dropbox. Frankly, I prefer Ubuntu for non-demanding tasks. However, whenever I try to convince someone with an ancient PC and a 5 year old, imploding XP installation to try linux instead of downloading a cracked, non-supported W7 copy, I always get the same answer: I wanna actually do stuff, not just goof around. I have heard that even from nominally technical people (friends who study computer engineering) that CBFed to use a non-commercial, and in their minds unreliable, OS. We, the linux users, in their minds are just arsing around in our mothers' basements doing incomprehensible things in front of a dark screen with bright green code.

tl;dr: I would argue that their own narrative is:
-Serious windows users in power suits are busy making money.
-Fat, neckbearded, bespectacled and be-acned kiddies are goofin' around with their weird, open source toys while screaming "hey mister! hey mister! come out and play with us! be FREE!" at the honest wage-earners.
-Damn kids and your games, somebody's GETTING WORK DONE HERE!