I complain about UAC while rooting for sudo. The annoyance caused by UAC is not because of badly written software that assumes it has full admin rights.

Firstly, the software is not badly written; it complied completely with previous versions of Windows. Vista and beyond introduced a breaking change; you can't blame the developers any more than you can blame web developers who write code that is not standards-compliant when almost all web browsers render them fine.

Secondly, the annoyance is in the fact that, in UAC, you ask to do something first, and then Windows asks you for authorization. sudo is less annoying because you authorize first (or at the same time, depending on how you look at it) and then ask to do something.

What?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing/

# Web Edition: Up to 1 GB relational database = $9.99 / month
# Business Edition: Up to 10 GB relational database = $99.99 / month
# Bandwidth = $0.10 in / $0.15 out / GB

Web Edition Relational Database includes:

        * Up to 1 GB of T-SQL based relational database
        * Self-managed DB, auto high availability
        * Best suited for Web application, Departmental custom apps.

Business Edition DB includes:

        * Up to 10 GB of T-SQL based relational database
        * Self-managed DB, auto high availability
        * Additional features in the future like auto-partition, CLR, fanouts etc.
        * Best suited for ISVs packaged LOB apps, Department custom apps

http://aws.amazon.com/rds/

# Small DB Instance: 1.7 GB memory, 1 ECU (1 virtual core with 1 ECU), 64-bit platform.
# Large DB Instance: 7.5 GB memory, 4 ECUs (2 virtual cores with 2 ECUs each), 64-bit platform
# Extra Large DB Instance: 15 GB of memory, 8 ECUs (4 virtual cores with 2 ECUs each), 64-bit platform
# Double Extra Large DB Instance: 34 GB of memory, 13 ECUs (4 virtual cores with 3,25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform
# Quadruple Extra Large DB Instance: 68 GB of memory, 26 ECUs (8 virtual cores with 3.25 ECUs each), 64-bit platform

(Price per hour)
Small DB Instance $0.11
Large DB Instance $0.44
Extra Large DB Instance $0.88
Double Extra Large DB Instance $1.55
Quadruple Extra Large DB Instance $3.10

Provisioned Database Storage

For each DB Instance class, Amazon RDS provides you the ability to select from 5 GB to 1 TB of associated storage capacity for your primary data set.

        * $0.10 per GB-month of provisioned storage
        * $0.10 per 1 million I/O requests

                Data Transfer In

                        * All Data Transfer $0.10 per GB

                Data Transfer Out

                        * First 10 TB per Month $0.17 per GB
                        * Next 40 TB per Month $0.13 per GB
                        * Next 100TB per Month $0.11 per GB
                        * Over 150 TB per Month $0.10 per GB

Data transferred between two Amazon Web Services within the same region (e.g. between Amazon RDS US and Amazon EC2 US) is free of charge.

The minimum on Amazon is 5GB, so let's compare 10GB. For Amazon at 1 month, you're paying $0.10 * 10 = $1 for storage and your $81.84 is about right. Note that this $82.84 is not comparable to the "Web Edition" offering from Microsoft, as that's for 1GB of storage. The "Small DB Instance" offering from Amazon is for an instance, not for storage, which you pay for completely separately.

So this $82.84 figure is really only comparable to Microsoft's "Business Edition" offering at $99.99, both before bandwidth costs. Bandwidth costs apply to Azure too under a different pricing model. The data in cost is exactly the same and the data out cost is $0.02/GB more expensive for Amazon for the first 10 TB and cheaper after that. You do have to pay Amazon an additional $0.10 per 1 million I/O requests, though.

On the other hand, Amazon allows you to buy way more than 10GB of storage, different instances, and did I mention they were using MySQL?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/sqlazure/

SQL Azure Database supports Transact-SQL (T-SQL). Customers can use existing knowledge in T-SQL development and a familiar relational data model for symmetry with existing on-premises databases. SQL Azure Database can help reduce costs by integrating with existing toolsets and providing symmetry with on-premises and cloud databases.

Right...

Your question actually doesn't make much sense.

What software are they offering as a service?

If it wasn't your point, don't mention it. Your response is a reiteration of everything I didn't respond to in your original post.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/microsoft-upgrade-to-windows-7-can-take-up-to-a-day.ars?comments=1&comment_id=136007241041

I am completely convinced. This is completely sound argument to buy a Mac.

Windows isn't exactly a good example of support for open standards. The only reason it "inter-operates" with other machines is because the designers of software for other OS's made them "inter-operate" with Windows. Don't give Windows developers credit for something they not only have not done, but have never cared for.

Even better: it's not quite done, but classes have already started and faculty have moved in. There's still construction going on in some areas, unpainted areas, unfurnished classrooms, etc.

A recent patch fixed the ~60 degree AC in some rooms. There's still a strange bug that causes the fire alarms to go off all the time.

I'm still waiting for SP1.

But this makes your password recovery questions worthless in case you actually do forget your passwords, so you might as well enter "ashfiuwafewufiawhf" as your answer.

Though I doubt you did it purposely, it was the section you snipped that makes them "socialist":

This is so annoying. Please tell me how to turn it off. As with OS X, I don't want my computer telling me how big my windows should be.

And what kind of Nazi are you now?

So the tests the experiments used were:

Given three single tasks, they found that "light multitaskers" performed better than "heavy multitaskers." Why is this surprising?

"Stereotypical?"

Anyway, I challenge you to do the same on a Windows machine. As the other reply to your comment says, Windows does not have an easier learning curve.

No, it's not. 'rm' is by no means a "low-level power-user interface." That doesn't even make sense. While it is arguably for "power-users," it is not anyone's fault for using this high-level userspace tool for file management. The perception that it is low-level annoys me.