I don't think explanations work with this topic. It's not like there's a lot to explain. The issue is experiencing roll playing games. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an experience is worth a lifetime of explanation.

You can read about the Grand Canyon on Wikipedia and look at thousands of pictures, but until you've stood on the rim at Sunset you have no idea what it's like to stand on the rim at Sunset.

If I had the money, and was enough interested in having such a device, the Macbook Pro with Retina display is worth every penny. It's also required that it be non-user upgradeable in order to be what it is. If the parts were upgradeable it would be a more clunky computer and therefore not what was the target of the design. I don't think they logically came to the conclusion of eliminating upgradability as the primary goal. Their goal was to eliminate unnecessary bulk and weight while expanding functional capacity.

The only people prospering from all this are the lawyers and the journalists. STOP THE MADNESS!

I was in La Spezia and Lerici for a week.

It could be built into the Flash video player, theoretically.

This seems like an excellent use of torrent streaming. Even if the average feed was a few minutes behind it should be an improvement in data distribution.

San Diego
Lap of Lake Michigan
Italy
Seattle
Florida

Photography
Computers
Sports cars
Sporting events
Bicycling
Hiking

Standard work
Work for friends and family

Visited snowy mountains in the Cascade range - that count for "Winter"?

I believe Microsoft's stance on the topic is "So." It's not like the OEMs have anywhere else to go, with any significant product sales that compare to Windows based sales.

Except I don't see Google pawning off their service. They ARE the conglomo-corp. And historically their ads are not terribly invasive in their services, because the ads are so much better targeted at the users that they don't have to pepper the page with a dozen ads.

Google can really stick it (gymnastics term, weird of me) if they don't force the UI changes on the user. Develop new stuff, absolutely, don't force it.

I like electric vehicles a lot. I think they have a lot of potential. But this is just dumb.

He did say they were tasked with setting up a room full of computers, so I would imagine that these gentlemen are not constrained to any of the roles you mentioned. They are probably considered by their employer as "general IT specialists", which is often the case in smaller companies. Whether they agree with their assigned task or not is irrelevant - they were told to do it and failed where the newbie figured it out, regardless of time frame. Furthermore someone was tasked with purchasing the equipment and failed to determine if their antiquated OS choice would even operate to their requirements before spending "thousands of dollars" (which could be a mere handful of PCs, ha ha!).

So these people you know in the "information technology" category who are not interested in new technology, what are they interested in? Old information technology? Those people are called archaeologists.

Because you asked direct questions I will answer them, rather than providing a list of snarky remarks.

I work for what I believe is actually a fairly young company. The average age is probably 30, possibly slightly higher but I wouldn't expect it to be over 35.

We're a bunch of geeks - we LIVE for new technology. That's not to say we accept everything with open arms, there's plenty of bitching when something bucks the norm, but for the most part we like new stuff and we like integrating it into our clients' environments.

I believe most IT people are interested in fancy new technology, making it work, and integrating it with things they are already familiar with. However, there are people who are just in it for the money and probably don't have the interest in geeky exploration. They took required courses and fulfill a specific role. If you ask them to do something outside of that role they will become agitated quickly.

Move to the Pacific Northwest. That's what my wife and I did.

http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/graph/USOR0275

No concern of heat or dry or hurricane or earthquake or tornado ...

They're already out there, but you're probably not in the right country to get the really good ones.

http://www.hecklerspray.com/top-26-sexiest-tv-ads-for-men/200816793.php