I'm just guessing here, but probably:

Give me this.
Buy me that.

What I find interesting is how Microsoft still uses the Office suite to fend off threats to the real reason it is still entrenched in many back offices... Exchange.

I've personally seen many businesses try alternative office suites only to say that while they are more or less happy with the replacements for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and the like, they didn't feel they could drop Outlook because they rely so heavily on the collaborative features of Exchange.

These companies don't want to migrate to Google's cloud based offering because they want things kept on premises. And there isn't a compelling all-in-one alternative to Exchange that is as easily tied in with their existing systems (e.g. auto-login via Windows authentication). So because they keep Exchange, they keep Outlook. Because they keep Outlook, they keep Office. And so the wheel turns.

Isn't that already ostensibly an issue? If a candidate states that he will vote according to such-and-such values, including supporting or opposing same-gender marriage, then voters will turn out in support of or opposition to that candidates election, according to their motivation on the subject.

Those with a minority view that have a favorite candidate rarely ever get them elected. Certainly not without gaining support from outside their base in some way.

How is this different?

That's the first comparison that came to mind for me as well. While Microsoft might be able to be accused of not having fully leveraged their former position, they aren't exactly at the bottom rung. RIM is not only on the bottom rung, it's barely got a hold of it. I may not care for Microsoft but it seems you have to really have it out for them to put them below RIM's performance.

Not saying what's right or wrong here, but ... ... in most cases, the converted murderer would be presumed to go to heaven. 11th hour conversions have a pretty solid place in Christian systems and the typical thinking is that as long as the conversion is sincere (which of course anyone aside from the murderer and God himself cannot know), then salvation is assured.

The real question hinges on the disposition of your Buddhist friend. For denominations of Christianity with a more liberal interpretation of the bible, the Buddhist may very well still be considered heaven-bound, on the belief that they are espousing the tenets of the faith even if they aren't explicitly claiming the Christian god as being one's savior. On the conservative end, the belief would be that he would not have salvation because one of the most important requirements is considered belief in Jesus as the one and only savior and the only means to achieve salvation. I don't know of any Buddhist tradition which teaches this (though I suppose I could be mistaken; I'm given to understand some Buddhist teachings are pretty flexible in some respects). In between these liberal and conservative views you'll find interpretations that shift away from outright claiming one thing or another but still lean in some direction. Many folks would feel uncomfortable taking a position on the issue and would therefore tend to obscure it or avoid it altogether.

With the constant switches to a blue screen with the word 'simplified', I was primed for an IBM commercial close.

For any AI to substantially compete in the arena of killing humans, they must first overtake the leader in that arena -- humanity.

You, like many others, cite a poor shopping experience as a reason not to visit Best Buy and/or other big box electronics retailers. So here's a question... assuming Best Buy were to ratchet up the shopping experience by explicitly retraining sales staff and store managers to no longer be so pushy, to instead be fonts of information, there to aid customers and not to push any specific merchandise or foist things off on the uninformed, would you then consider it a positive place to go? Would you actively seek them out?

Restated, is the sole reason people no longer desire to go to Best Buy due to the poor shopping experience or is that just the most glaring issue among many?

All they have to do is make one. One really good one.

I have a question then....

Doctors... could you perhaps ask your billing office to do a statistical analysis on how much you actually ended up getting paid for various procedures? Then compare that to time lost negotiating with insurance companies? Now you have the actual amount you made net of collections efforts, ignoring efforts to collect from non-paying patients of course. So would you be willing to charge that amount to those who don't have insurance? Or who, for example, use an insurance company who actually pays quickly and on time with minimal fuss?

Put another way, it seems likely that if working with the current insurance companies is so onerous, doctors would have started to work around them instead of continuing to work with them. There must be some positive benefit to working with the insurance companies or you would have found a better way?

For the patient, there is no better way currently. The costs are typically too high to be able to assume the entire burden yourself so you are forced to pay even if only to get the in-network contracted rates. It really seems like if anything is going to change it is either going to have to be through the doctors.

Half of us do anyway.

I think the point is that the King User (i.e. CTO), if they become an Apple user, will dictate that the IT shop *will* support Apple products.

Granted, the guy who set the wifi up in the first place likely wasn't pursuing the loftiest of goals, but I'd rather see the trolls rooted out and exposed for who and what they are when they reside within positions of power within our government institutions. So troll on I say.

Quite right. I think we can all agree that the industrialization of the northern states vs. the agricultural base of the southern states, which has typically been linked with the ongoing use of slave labor, had absolutely zero effect on the north's ability to continue to produce war materiel for a protracted period of time.

After doing some reading, I see a lot of mention about pulling out battle mats for 4E. I saw some software that folks use for virtual tabletops and then realized that there must be a lot more dependence on line of sight, proximity and general physical location than previously. Stuff that back in 1E, you'd just toss in a situational modifier for on the fly and roll with it. Interesting...