There's more to the missing functionality than just the missing shut down button though. I can recreate that with a bit of JavaScript and a shortcut, even if it's more of a pain than it should be.

No, the problem is what else I'm missing compared with the old Start menu. Quick access to the Control Panel when I want to change something. Quick access to my Documents, Downloads, Pictures and Music folders. Quick access to printers and print queues when something isn't quite working right. Yes, I can recreate them, but that takes time and effort. The default is a gigantic step backwards, and even once the items are recreated it's less efficient than the old menu was.

Once you put a Start menu on Windows 8, it's actually not that bad. Metro tends to get out of your way more than I expected to be honest. The Start screen is not an adequate Start menu replacement for everyone though, and it's high time Microsoft acknowledged that.

No, it DOESN't have all of the same features. All the quick links from the right hand side of the start menu are gone. I have to manually tweak the content that shows up to make it usable, rather than it doing so automatically based on what I'm running at any one time. I lose the hierarchy, so actually navigating to items is a lot slower and less efficient. I have to move the mouse over bigger distances. I have to scan a grid, rather than a list when I'm looking for something. The context switch of changing UI makes me have to stop and think "hang on, what am I doing here" every time I open it.

In short, it commits the biggest sin an application launcher can do. It gets in my way.

You can re-arrange the Start screen to make it better, but it's still less efficient than the Start menu that it replaced. I've tried. No matter how you slice it, it's still a step backwards

No, the Start Screen is not more efficient in all cases. Especially for me. I've been actively trying to use it for a week or so, and it's just not up to scratch. It removes functionality that was previously front and centre. It hides functionality. It includes loads of junk by default. It's difficult to arrange things logically. It's difficult to scan effectively as the applications list is essentially two dimensional, rather than a simple list. You can make it usable, but it requires a lot of work to do so. Even then, it involves bigger mouse movements and a context switch every time you open it. It's almost like Microsoft looked at OS X, realized "hey we have a dock, Apple seem to be doing OK with their launchpad thing, let's copy that". What they missed is that Mac users also have a lot of quick access to stuff like System Preferences or Shut Down via. the Apple menu at the top of the screen, and Microsoft haven't replicated that functionality in a way that's easily accessible on a desktop.

There is no restriction on encryption in general. There IS a restriction in the amateur radio licence that states that you cannot encrypt your transmissions made under the terms of the amateur radio licence. I'm not sure what the US equivalent is, but here's the UK terms and conditions: http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/spectrum/amateur-radio/guidance-for-licensees/amateur-terms.pdf See specifically section 11 (2).

It's an old article, but it's still relevant today: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137708/Opinion_The_unspoken_truth_about_managing_geeks The worst characteristics of Sysadmins tend to emerge when the organization treats them badly. The stereotypes exist for a reason. The conditions that create them? Always the same.

Except that the middle of the machine doesn't appear to contain anything - the electronics are all around the outsides, the middle is mostly air and heat sink. Any liquid spilled into the top probably comes straight out of the bottom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London should answer many of your questions. The City of London borough is governed to serve the needs of the businesses based there, not the (very few) people who live there.

No, it's significant for precisely that reason. Other police forces have more important things to worry about. The City of London police serves an area run by businesses for businesses. Other police services have more important things to worry about. The City of London police are focussing on what matters to the people in their area - IP enforcement for the businesses that work there. Their jurisdiction extends to the entire country, not just the City of London borough. They're holders of the office of constable, just like every other police officer in the UK. This isn't the USA, where police authority ends at regional boundaries.

Particularly when the area in question is a one-of-a-kind area in the UK, where local government is elected almost entirely by the "haves".

Not in the City of London borough it doesn't. Hit Wikipedia, check out the City of London area. Make sure you check out the section on Elections.

In short, the area has very few (under 10,000) actual residents. It's right in the centre of London. It's almost all businesses. It's the only borough in the UK where businesses representatives can vote in local elections, and the business reps outnumber the residents by a massive margin. It's a borough that's run in the interests of businesses, not in the interests of residents. It's why this is happening there - the Police in other areas of the country have other things to worry about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London

Considering the fact that PowerShell still lets you output a textual representation of an object, that's still possible. On the plus side, being able to pipe one object directly into another without having to do a load of text processing in between is useful, and would make Unix scripting a lot easier and more concise in the cases where it's supported. I don't like PowerShell's syntax, but its design goals are solid.

I wonder if this means someone will port JK2's physics/damage engine over to Jedi Academy. Jedi Academy was (on paper) a much better game, but the lightsaber combat was HORRIBLE compared to its predecessor.

Secunia PSI will do what you're looking for - it pulls down a list of the latest versions of common applications, checks them against the applications you have installed and alerts you to any that require updates or that are no longer supported. It's free for non-commercial home use, and gets installed as standard on any machine I use at home. I believe they do a corporate version as well, but I never paid any attention to it beyond the fact that it exists, and has a price tag somewhere in the general region of "my boss is never going to approve it".

Macs also tend to benefit from not having crap screen resolutions, meaning that you actually have space to get multiple windows on screen at once. Cheap PCs? Not so much.