SS2 has not completed testing and it is probable that there will be a need for redesign of one or more components. So, this is a really bad time to have the hand-off. Publicity isn't a good reason.

What would be the upside of them letting you skip it? They want to provide web services they need an account. The same way as you needed a mouse in older versions.

Nobody would mind a better OS, but when the GUI has reached the pinnacle of usefulness, why try to force a change?

Because your assumption is way off. The GUI wasn't at a pinnacle. A few examples:

1) The file: open, save, close is really designed around a dual floppy paradigm. It makes no sense at all with SSD hardware.
2) As the number of system services require notification increase integrated notification handling becomes key
3) As device types become much more variable (ranging from a watch to a 55+" TV) graphics need to switch more readily
4) As input devices became more variable applications needed to take better advantage of them.
etc...

Windows 7 was not a pinnacle. It did some things reasonable well on some particular types of hardware that were rapidly becoming less important and mainstream for an ever shrinking percentage of the population.

That's what the Ribbon does, it hides based on context. Which means they can have more items not fewer.

Continuum creates a continuum between desktop (windows 7) and Metro, integrating the two into a single GUI. That names makes sense.

  Charms bar is a play on cntl-c to end where Win-C is used to bring up a bar to switch contexts (search web or change settings). At least the C makes sense.

Well of course the right way to do that would be to make the new style of icons mandatory. But forcing change through was the Windows 8.0 days. Microsoft chickened out with 8.1 and so now you get the half assed slow movement in a general direction kind of change.

That's not what they said. What they said was that they considered modules to be data not code and thus not covered by the GPLed i.e. no linking occurred. An explicit statement from the copyright holder that action X is not a copyright violation is a very strong endorsement. Better yet of course would be an explicit written and signed license permitting it, but the statements could and would be considered by the court in a lawsuit.

I'm seeing the same 30 characters for Teradata and Sybase. When I look at the 2008 SQL standard (last version I own) I get totally lost in the notation and I'm just not that motivated, I'm going to take their word for it. As for everyone else that matters I'd say those two matter.

As for it being big enough. Table names can have synonyms and be accessed functionally via. PLSQL. Oracle itself tends to use table names like X12A with another table that uses a descriptor. If you want documentation Oracle provides a means for documentation.

In any case This issue certainly isn't a huge constraint with Oracle. My point is that they are tremendous innovators whether one particular limitation annoys you doesn't change that.

No they aren't. The AC was wrong. It is a lousy GPL test case since the people with standing to sue Revolution have multiple times already said they don't think what they are doing is a violation of the GPL.

The R core team indicated that in their opinion any module code was just data for the GPL-R engine. Also those modules in theory could work with S. So given that Revolution publishes their changes to base R, I think it is a stretch to say they are a GPL violation.

That's not Oracle that's ANSI/ISO SQL Standard. Complain to them. Though 30 characters seems pretty long to me.

This isn't fluff. Though I can see why Dropbox just cares about the results.

You asked for a complex application with good quality source from Facebook. Presto is one notable example.

Meh. I took two years of chemistry in high school (second was AP). It was okay, and I suppose it's been marginally useful. I'm not sure everyone needs more chemistry than is taught in seventh and eighth grade science class, though... atoms and molecules, a bit about chemical reactions, an overview of the periodic table, including a basic notion of what the columns mean, a brief discussion of the ideal gas law, etc. I think that's sufficient for most. Stoichiometry, understanding valence shells, etc... not so much. The general structure is crucial. The details, including the construction of chemical names, really isn't.

What's more important, and not taught very well at all, is the theory and operation of the scientific method as a whole. I discovered a while ago that my wife -- who has a BS in biology and taught junior and high school science -- didn't really understand the scientific method. Specifically, she didn't understand the distinction between hypothesis and prediction, or why it matters, and didn't fully understand the critical nature of falsifiability and its implication that science is and always will be a series of successive approximations to the truth, never achieving perfect truth, yet being by far the most effective tool we have for getting ever closer to it.

Oracle invented the commercially viable relational database. That's not a small innovation.
Oracle has consistently pushed the database world with new technologies that really did make a difference on computation speeds.

Lately Oracle has been one of the few vendors to have a a broad range of large enterprise software designed to work together.

The AC addressed this point quite well, so I'll let his comment stand.

Your reading comprehension needs work, then. But I'll summarize: I was agreeing with you.