To be fair to the author, he released his software before there were any numbers.

To be fair to Windows RT, it's sold through an excessively limited distributed channel (Microsoft kiosks and Microsoft Stores). To then expect overnight miracles for a game that, admittedly, I have never heard of is a little astounding. Granted, 52 pounds is probably a bit of a shock, but having never heard of it (as an admitted iPad and Surface owner), I can't really say I am stunned.

It appears that he expected it be promoted by Microsoft because of their 10,000 pound investment, even though his company apparently refused to recompile and support x86, which sounds like an obvious no brainer. I cannot imagine that a game like theirs has many ARM-specific code blocks, and if it does, then I fully expect they are easily swappable for something in x86-land (if not just the high level language equivalent that would run faster on x86).

We are talking about a company with two mobile flops, and one of them was seemingly expected internally. The Kin was an undersupported and overpriced piece of junk thanks to Verizon (pricing it like a smartphone), with apparently a poor experience thanks to Microsoft. Windows Phone 7 appears to have been merely a stopgap to flesh out Metro, and to hold on until the Windows 8 kernel was ready for the phone.

As I have described in my random other posts, the Surface is actually a very solid (physically) device with much higher usability than my iPad (although I only have an iPad 2). Having a kickstand, USB port, microSD card expansion slot, attachable keyboard, larger (admittedly lower resolution than the "New iPad") screen, direct access to the file system and bundled Office makes the Surface worth iPad money. I'm honestly a bit stunned so many people hate it on Slashdot, beyond the obvious Microsoft bias, because it actually supports Flash. That's something that even Android cannot say ever since Adobe stopped supporting "mobile" platforms.

That is pretty humorous (for those that don't feel like checking his profile, it claims that he is a Microsoft employee).

That doesn't change the fact that your post combined "heavy" and "bulky." I will give you the fact that "bulky" is quite a subjective term, but heavy is not as subjective. It's a device that is larger than the competition, and the leading competition is the "New iPad." No one is looking at buying the iPad 2 versus the Surface, because the iPad 2 is so much cheaper, but it's also over a year and a half older. Regardless of the iPad, it shouldn't feel heavy because you should very rarely need to actually hold it in the air unlike the iPad. The kickstand alone enables much greater versatility, and it only increases when combined with the Touch Cover.

The Surface loses in the screen resolution corner (and the Surface Pro will continue to lose that fight). Now, as a power user, I would have definitely preferred something akin (maybe I should avoid the word "kin" with Microsoft) to the Retina display, but the heat and reduced battery life really loses it for me. Having said that, I have wanted the Retina display quality in a few games, although, to be fair, I haven't missed it in others. The Surface RT's screen does a good job hiding its lower resolution very well particularly alongside Metro (Microsoft Design), as it suits itself well to nice screens regardless of resolution.

I have both the Touch Cover and iPad Smart Cover, and I honestly can't feel a difference in weight even though it is just an iPad 2 (and not its heavier cousin). In all honesty, I strongly prefer the Touch Cover for multiple reasons. For starters, when combined with the built-in kickstand, I can comfortably use the Surface in my lap without holding it. In fact, I rarely find myself holding the Surface in the air, which is why I think that I really enjoy using it so much. Given a few minutes, I am sure that I could distinguish the heavier of the two, even when just talking 0.35 lbs (difference with covers), but that's frankly the best part about the Surface. I can actually use it on a table with or without the Touch Cover, whereas every iPad requires it, and even then the usability is greatly reduced. Using the Surface on my lap, I find that I have a harder time using the Touch Cover without a solid surface (no pun intended) beneath, and for less frequent typing I love being able to fold the Touch Cover under the kickstand, which lets me flatly rest the Surface on my legs, or even my stomach when I am laying down on my bed. That's something you cannot easily do on the iPad without propping up your legs, uncomfortably holding it in the air, or laying it in your lap and arching your neck.

It's because of all of that that I do not think the Surface is heavy. It's marginally heavier--at best--upon first grab, but you should rarely be holding it. You can if you want too, but most real world situations lead to positions that give the Surface the edge. I personally hate kickstands on phones, but I think that it was brilliant for Microsoft

Throw in the ability to add a microSD card and a USB hub, and I have been thrilled with the versatility of the Surface. Shy of development, I can replace my laptop usage with it entirely. I could never comfortably say that about the iPad.

The iPad's chip is definitely faster than the Tegra 3. I am frankly a little surprised at times when the Tegra 3 is choking, considering the amount of talk I had heard when it was being included in many other devices. Apple has clearly done a very good job in the SoC arena, and I do not know who will be able to take their crown within 2013--I suspect it won't be until 2014 until someone catches up. What I really miss most from the iPad, and Apple products in general, is their battery life. Being that Apple makes the entire product, including the chip, they clearly get the edge here, but they also have amazing batteries regardless of everything else. I hate the inability to replace them, but I have never actually seen a real case where someone needed to do it.

That's not to say that the Surface has low battery life (as I use it throughout the week with WiFi left on to get live tile updates, unlike my iPad, which I instinctively turn off considering I have to enter apps to get meaningful information anyway), but if it had Apple's battery savvy inside of it, then I cannot help but wonder how much longer it might last.

Finally, both the Surface and the iPad fall short on the camera, but I didn't exactly buy either one for a camera. The Surface's camera being intelligently angled has already come in handy once while talking with someone over Skype at the same as I was writing a very long email, and I split-screened the apps (IE and Skype) to be able to see the other person at the same time; that was awesome and very smooth.

It's relatively heavy and bulky for what it is.

Good on you for pointing out that the above poster was wrong, but your follow up can only be said by someone that has no idea what they are talking about. You should at least try to hide your ignorant bias.

First google image result for "ipad versus surface": http://gdeluxe.com/ipad-3-vs-surface-tech-specs/

The Surface RT is 0.1 mm thinner than the iPad 3 (the first "New iPad"), and the added weight is likely because its screen is 0.9 inches larger (10.6 compared to 9.7), which only adds up to 0.06 pounds more.

And, for what it is, it gives your more flexibility than an iPad. You can actually browse the file system. There's no question that both Android and iOS tablets have a much larger swath of apps currently available, but I have gotten far more use out of my Surface in the month that I have owned it compared to my iPad 2 for the entire time that I have owned it (a few months after its initial release). Add to that the free copy of Office that comes with Surface RT, and it's rather dubious to scoff clearly without any actual knowledge of the matter.

It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

This story is entirely about Microsoft's tablet...

Yep. Anything short of that is racist on either end of the spectrum. You're either claiming one race is superior, or claiming one race is inferior and thus it needs your support.

I don't really see how this isn't the obvious solution.

I thought there were whistle blower laws to shield people from these mishaps?

Is it because he went to the media rather than the FBI? I'm genuinely curious as the article doesn't say much except that he's a "hacker" that downloaded a bunch of public web addresses that were easily predictable.

That logic is unbreakable.

The threat of a filibuster is only necessary when your side doesn't have more votes. People can blame Republicans for it all they want, but it was Democrats that didn't vote for the Bill.

Not to mention the obvious by adding that it's a good thing that a Lame Duck session did not grant more power to one of the most incompetent bureaucracies in the US: the DHS. The last thing that anyone needs is the DHS knocking on every business' door while making inane requirements that protect nothing.

It would be analogous to how they oversee the TSA, which we all clearly believe makes us totally-super-duper safer.

Not to mention that the submission fails to note that Republicans cannot block anything in the Senate when done by a vote shy of a filibuster. They are the minority party in the Senate--both before and after the election--and anything that goes by party lines will always fall in favor of the Democrats in that case. Therefore, a 51-47 vote means that one person didn't even vote, and that some Democrats agreed with the Republicans that it was a bad bill.

Besides, anyone that thinks creating a new, major bureaucracy during the Lame Duck session is simply asking for trouble. And, furthermore, why Congress and the President are focusing on anything other than the looming tax increases and sequestration is beyond me, but the latest Slashdot poll made it clear that it will always be the Republican's fault. There's one month to left to do it; whether or not this bill had passed, nothing would have changed within that month anyway, which means that it could have waited until next year.

This Bill would have put the same people in charge of cybersecurity as are in charge of the TSA: the DHS. There's a winning group of government bureaucrats with a proven track record of incompetence. But, I suppose based on the rest of the poster's sentiments that the Republicans can likely be blamed for that as well (rather than the shocking reality that the DHS came about through the same issue proposed to break Congressional deadlock).

From the second-to-last paragraph, it sounds like they really had a chance to pull you into their ecosystem with Windows 8. I bet you gave a really serious shake too.

Pundits continue to weigh in on Steve Sinofsky's sudden exit from Microsoft (as executive head of Windows Division, he oversaw the development and release of Windows 7 and 8).

followed by

Few PC users are upgrading to Windows 8 with its unwanted Touch UI, sales of the Surface tablet are disappointing, and few are buying Windows Phones.

If the second statement is to be believed, then why should anyone be worried that the person behind it leaving the company?

Alternatively, if you choose not to believe the second statement (though WP sales being high is certainly hard to claim no matter how you look at it), then the first statement is scary for Microsoft.

I was personally a bit stunned by Steve's sudden departure, but considering that the people that supposedly came up with the most hated pieces of Windows 8 took over for him, I doubt much will change (love it or hate it).

Still stemming from the implication being that people aren't riding bikes because they have to wear helmets. I don't bike because I work too far away from wear I live, and I don't want to have to take a shower when I get to work. Not to mention, unlike a lot of people, I take time out of the day for exercise separate from my commute.

I also don't buy that a lot of drivers miss bikers because, just as anecdotally as the article, I have seen far more bikers--both with and without helmets--riding like morons both in and out of traffic. With very few exceptions, bikers appear to expect the best of both worlds: respect on the road, as if they were moving remotely the same speed as traffic, and the ability to act as a pedestrian whenever it's convenient, thus enabling them to run red lights and similar signs. That last bit is why bikers need to wear helmets: in practice, they appear both in-and-out of traffic as they see fit.

It's incredibly risky business, and you are not going to fix the drivers that are texting any time soon.

Me thinks you misunderstood my entire post. I was not attacking the use of the word illegal in the GP post, nor was I getting into whether the OP actually used the word, which he clearly and literally did not.

I was attacking your definition of free speech, and how it applies to the United States, which was flatly wrong. Finally, I was separately attacking the idiocy of your last statement regarding a lack of Muslim hypocrisy.

It makes sense that you did not get it, as you did not refute a single point that I made, nor do you coherently make any of your own. For example:

So I point out that this poster is missing any claim that the original poster has said he's a scumbag and this is illegal.

The original poster literally called the person a dirtbag in the title of his post, which is synonymous with scumbag. The poster that you responded too was making the--apparently to you--audacious point that simply being a dirtbag is not illegal in-and-of-itself, linking the idea that him being locked up because of making a film that has incited Muslim rage goes against free speech. Then you made a series of misinformed, or downright wrong points.

In summary, you were wrong in your last post on all but one thing: the OP never literally said "illegal." And you're still wrong about everything, except that.

As I ended my last post, continue moving forward with your blinders on.

You misunderstood my stance on the matter. I think even the founders would agree that the WBC stands on the unfortunate side of free speech. They are protected, when clearly no one wants them to be, simply to protect everything else. But, I still think, like the founders, that they are a necessary evil to put up with to avoid the slippery slope that it would otherwise create.

It's not particularly clear from the story, nor is it clear from the abstract on how they actually differentiated for natural bias in the random selection. Did each professor receive the same candidate twice, once as a male and once as a female (hopefully far apart)?

It sounds like the data set was randomly generated once, and then used to push through the study. It's quite possible that the data set simply had a lopsided pool of better qualified "males" versus "females." Considering that they do not state the number of students in the pool in either the story or the abstract, it also seems plausible that the results are from a very small pool of students, which makes the bad random data bias much more likely regardless of a large pool of graders (the 127 professors).

Of course, it could also be that the mandating of gender equality, where they are otherwise not equal, has led to a worse perception of actually qualified female candidates due to bad past experiences. Anyone in a decent engineering program has seen women coast through when they otherwise should have failed like many of their male peers, and I suspect that happens in science as well, where the number of women in the programs is simply far lower than the number of males. This, in effect, results in an immense quality bias given the same academic record, so when women have a certain academic record, it will be called into question due to past experiences.

Now, with that said, I would like to believe that people would rate people as equals from paper until the actual interview process differentiates them. Without seeing the random applicant data (specifically the quantity, and the randomization of it), then it's impossible to say. Just as we've seen women coasting where they shouldn't, literally this week, I heard of a professor in academia that still hold the age-old idea that women are only good for dictation and secretarial duties.

Ah, the apologist logic here is pathetic.

Clearly you see the word "illegal" everywhere, even when it hasn't been written.

The trouble with freedom of speech is that speech isn't just words...

That doesn't change the definition of Free Speech. That just means that if you have threats along with your Free Speech, then it changes the issue entirely. It's the threat that is the issue, and not the speech itself.

The issue at hand is from a terribly low budget movie's trailer, which is insulting to Muslims. It is not threatening. Calling for the destruction of Israel is threatening, particularly when said Imam is calling upon his followers to make it happen.

This is no different than the Westboro Baptists that go around protesting at military funerals. They can get away with it it because it's not threatening anybody, and that's why it is the unfortunate side of acceptable Free Speech.

At least the Muslims demanding this movie be banned aren't being hypocrites over it.

The issue to them is very cut and dry, but it is far from not being hypocritical. You cannot insult Islam in any way. But the reverse is completely acceptable; they can insult your nation (e.g, Great Satan, which also associates religious aspects to it), or your religion (e.g, Jews), and you had better accept it. And they're going to do it while they destroy your embassy, even if your nation wasn't involved at all (e.g., German Embassy protests).

But you're right, I guess I don't see any hypocrisy in there. Keep running around with your blinders on.