WMC was a piece of junk. I for one am glad they are getting rid of it. There are better alternatives.

Part of what MS is doing is relinquishing certain things to the open source and third party community because they know other people can do those things better and they can focus more on the core products. That is a good thing in my opinion.

They may provide optional features for a fee, but they have stated at this point that service packs and patches will always be free. I was at the Build conference SF talking to some folks from he Windows team. They were talking about the "vision" for the product. That is basically to monetize the app store, which would be the profit source for the product. Similar to the Apple store, they take a small cut of ever app sold on the store.

That said, that plan may change, who knows? But it seems logical that if MS wants to stay relevant they can't simply be making the sort of ridiculous and illogical decisions that you're suggesting they will.

Wrong! Stop peddling that nonsense! Microsoft has repeatedly and specifically said you do not and will never have to pay a yearly subscription for Windows once you've purchased it. What it means is that there will be no more windows 'versions', that this will just be in place updates from this point.

Honestly, the only reason I haven't switched to IPv6 on my internal network is because I cant remember the damn IPv6 addresses. O_o

"...after a dozen years of explosive growth in cellphone usage here"

Interesting choice of words.... lol!

I've always believed that if something like this did happen, the majority of the folks in the armed forces would defect and join the people, because they would otherwise be fighting their family and friends. I am hoping we never have to find out. That said, when the armed forces is a fleet of drones only the consent of the few that control them is needed.

Not sure what you're getting at there. But, I will say that I own a hand gun and have a concealed carry permit, so no I don't think it only applies to militias. That said, if it ever came down to it; a million citizens revolting against their government with hand guns and rifles isn't even going to make a dent in armor of a fleet of tanks, jets, drones, long range missiles, lasers, rail guns, and whatever else they have cooking up at DARPA. I have no illusions about it... I'm glad to have the right to do so, but don't pretend that it makes any difference in regards to what was probably the original intent of the second amendment.

The patriot act was passed under Bush's watch, and is partially what has enabled this mess in the first place. I'm not defending Obama, he officially became a scum bag in my book after he campaigned on the premise that he would get rid the Patriot Act, but renewed it shortly after taking office. My point is, they are both equally responsible, and equally douchey.

Maybe its a queue for Linux developers to pull their heads out of their asses and start collaborating a little better for a easier user experience. Don't get me wrong, I use both OSs for different things, each on its own merits. But despite what the FOSS crowd seems to want to believe, most users aren't as smart (and masochistic), they don't want to use the command line, or have to wade through clunky confusing dialogs to do simple things. They don't care about customizing their window manager, or their boot process, they just want to get their work done and gtfo. Despite its aging and buggy code base Windows is just simply easier to use for the non tech savvy crowd, and until Linux devs stop trying to over engineer everything and give it funky names that make no sense, then linux will never be successful on at scale on the desktop. Its really not that complicated, and nerd raging on slashdot doesn't help the case (not speaking to you, but the guy a few threads up).

I'm with you. I will almost ALWAYS to see a movie in a theater first if it interests me, otherwise I might try do download it. If it sucks (i.e. Grown Ups 2), I would have neither bought it, nor gone to the theater to see it, no money lost no money gained for either party involved. However when I do go to the theater, I specifically go to the dinner theater, usually with my girlfriend, and order $50 dollars+ worth of food and drinks. I go there for the experience, of the theater; the nice big cushy comfortable reclining chairs with foot rests, and to have somebody wait on me quietly while I enjoy the movie. And I do this quite often, sometimes 2-3 times a month because its fun. I realize this is the theater, not the studios doing this, and getting profits from it, but I assure you I would not be going so much if the theater didn't give me a reason to.

I do my part to support the studios bottom line despite the fact that I haven't purchased a movie on disk for several years. On that note however, if a studio offered a free digital download for a movie after watching it in a theater, say for an extra $5 dollars, even if it I cant download it for a couple months, I would most likely be willing to do that. But, I refuse to pay $20+ dollars for a blueray, just to have it sit around and collect dust. I run all my media off an HTPC and I don't want a bunch of movies taking up space on a shelf somewhere.

Sounds like a freakin witch hunt to me.... Salem all over again?

I agree with you for the most part. If a content provider wants to pay the ISP for some "peering" agreement, they should be allowed to do so. However I take issue with the ability of the ISP to regulate what happens outside of the bounds of that agreement. If it begins to affect the bandwidth that I pay for even if I am not using that service then I would have a problem with it, Im sure most people would share that sentiment.

Having not read the proposed bill itself; it seems to me that all it is trying to do is prevent ISPs from discriminating on the connection to the consumer, and is not necessarily preventing peering.

If they sold em off for like 100 bucks a pop, I would certainly buy one. As much as I hate windows 8 on the desktop I think its great on a tablet. They aren't THAT bad, just a little underwhelming compared to the competition.

What really irks me is shit like this: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19166043-obama-not-scrambling-jets-to-get-nsa-leaker-snowden Whereby we now have US Trade Representatives considering revoking trade privileges of an entire country (Ecuador) because the administration has a personal vendetta against Snowden. It is really sickening what our government is willing to do to cover its own ass.

Just a thought, but have they stopped to consider that maybe the polar shifts might be causing the melting ice, and not the other way around?