I don't think Windows would dethrone either iOS or Android by copying them. People are not gonna buy Microsoft just b'cos they're like Android.

Microsoft had a unique selling point that they could offer a tablet that could potentially run the vast legacy of Windows apps to date. So let's say someone bought something like a Visio, or a Acrobat that they would have liked to have been able to use w/ their tablet, either the same way (w/ an attached or wireless keyboard) or an enhanced tablet experience (if the underlying OS could modify the way the application worked w/ the new input types). Then one could have said that there is value added.

But just trying to come up w/ a better phone interface, and in the process, totally screwing up a much loved interface that people had grown used to over the last ~20 years was no way to do it. Even for people who were comfortable w/ both, there is something seriously lacking in Windows 8

I just wish there was a way that I could still boot into UEFI while running PC-BSD/Linux/whatever. Right now, I have it disabled, and enabled the legacy boot. But it's nice to be able to boot from USB sticks

I don't quite get you. I've used Windows 8 in 2 environments - a Lumia and the laptop that I described above. In fact, I used the phone first. The experience of the 2 was totally different.

I had a Lumia 520, which I loved. OneNote alone demonstrated to me how handy that phone was - I could make shopping lists that I never forgot, or travel plans. Nokia's HERE was perfect for finding places. Above all, the typing experience on a Lumia was superior to both that of an iPhone as well as an Android. I currently have an iPhone and a Kindle - a Verizon deal that I got that included both - and while I like both of them, the typing on them ain't as smooth as the Lumia was. Also, Lumia's touch experience was fantastic - the entire phone seemed to vibrate when you touched it. Anyway, those 2, plus a few more apps - things like unit converters, currency converters and some other utilities really made that phone handy. I gave that as a gift to my neice before my job brought me back to the US.

Now, as I described above, I bought a new Dell Inspiron 17. It had a keyboard wide enough like the old classic keyboards, complete w/ a backlit numeric keypad. The trackpad is huge. As described above, I started using it out of the box. The first thing that I saw ticked me off. Unlike in Windows 7 or XP or 95, it forced me to either log into a Microsoft account (Hotmail/Live/Outlook) or create one - something I never had to do previously. Since I already had my Live account from my phone, I just used that and got in.

That was just the beginning. The Windows Start button threw up a lot of icons, and I used a few which I had used on the phone, like Contacts. Do these morons really think that everybody will use their laptops to make calls? One only has Skype sessions when needed. Otherwise, if I want to see my relatives, I use FaceTime. Even the other apps - like the news - has preselected channels, and doesn't let you exclude all and just use the websites you like. My other grudge.

I then decided to play about w/ their App Store. I downloaded their version of FreeCiv, one of my favorite games. Boy, does it suck - the native Windows 8 version! Yeah, yeah, I know, the Android version on my tablet sucked as well, which is why I deleted it, and I did the same w/ the one I got from the Windows 8 store, instead going to the FreeCiv website and downloading it. Then played w/ it a bit.

However, both when I was playing, as well as when I was working, the charms bar would sometimes appear w/o warning, sometimes threatening to totally disrupt my work. I had had enough. I painstakingly sat down one weekend, put in the PC-BSD disk and finally, deleted the Windows 8 partition from the laptop. I was done.

In short, Windows Phone 8.1 is great. Only shortcoming - a market one - is the lack of apps like the Apple or the Play Store. But aside from that, if you don't have to have the latest & greatest games, then Windows Phone 8.1 is great. However, even if you have that experience w/ the phone and go to a PC/laptop, w/ experiences of both Windows 7 in the past, and Windows Phone 8.1, you'll find that Windows 8.1 still sucks. (Granted, I had a non-touch screen, but guess what? When I pay $800 for a toy, I really don't want to smidge the screen. My kindle already looks pretty bad, despite having a screenguard.)

On a tablet, I suppose Windows 8.1 could be okay, if you are not forced to deal w/ crippled apps from the store, but manage to use original applications written for Windows 7 and installed via disk or zipped files.

I bought a Windows 8 laptop as well - a rather large Dell Inspiron 17. One w/ a Core i7, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of hard disk. Installed Classic shell & tried it out. Problem was that even when I went into the desktop and was working on an application there, the Charms bar would just pop out of nowhere. Also, despite being the latest & greatest, from the Metro screen, there was no way of starting multiple desktops, each w/ 1-2 apps, so that I could avoid clutter. Oh, and also, the trackpad was getting in my way.

Finally, I took the trouble of trying to Install PC-BSD. At first, the UEFI kept ensuring that it kept going to Windows only, so finally I hit F2 and disabled UEFI. The first few times, the PC-BSD seemed to be in a permanent loop, but after hitting F12 to select the boot from device and selecting the DVD, the installation happened. Unfortunately, it failed to recognize the Wi-Fi, so I had to keep it connected to the router w/ the ethernet cable. Also, adding another user was tricky, and PC-BSD doesn't install root as a loggable user, despite prompting one to create a root password during install. So addition of another user had to be done via the CLI.

Finally, I had the thing completely set up w/ PC-BSD. It does what I need, so I'm liking it. Yeah, it has some rough edges, but nowhere near as ugly as Windows 8. Also, I'm using Lumina - KDE still has Akonadi running in the background, and sometimes KLaunch doesn't work, whereby the Logout doesn't work.

So for now, PC-BSD and Lumina is it for me.

But if animals ain't gonna be eaten, why're they made up of meat?

Precisely! Wind & Solar are good for low power devices, but for heavy duty applications, such as air-conditioning or transportation, it's just the dirty fuels for now, and nuclear whenever it's ready (as in the environmental wackos not opposing it)

As for the headline, I'm one of those who don't cut energy use. But then again, I'm not concerned about global warming - so I duck the 'hypocrite' label, and instead embrace the 'callous' one

There was a time I loathed UNIX, but Microsoft letting down their RISC platforms (Alpha & MIPS), and most recently, the forced Windows 8 UI change drove me to this. Yeah, I could have gone Linux, but had issues w/ it in the past.

On SSL, they now have the choice of SSL or LibreSSL. If they wait long enough, they'll also have LibreUnicode and LibreIPv6 to choose from as well

The sizes come in 3 sizes for some icons, and 2 for others. There is no way I can reduce the size of the tiles to be really small squares that I can just line up on one side. Yeah, same was true of icons, but at least they were small enough.

Other thing - I did install classic shell, but classic shell doesn't get rid of the accidental charms bar on your right popping up accidentally either if your cursor goes too far right, or sometimes, for no reason at all. It was frustrating working w/ it. I finally bit the bullet - had a PC-BSD CD that I had picked up from LinuxFest a few weeks ago. With some difficulty, installed it, and now Windows 8.1 is a thing of the past on my laptop. Am ironing out some rough edges, but otherwise, it works fine for what I do - e-mails, web browsing and FreeCiv.

Slashdot doesn't have IPv6 support, for whatever reason

Could be a new source of income

1. 1. Buy a bunch of online games
2. 2. Kick up huge debt
3. 3. Sell kid to traffickers
4. 4. Pay off debt
5. 5. Impregnate wife again
6. 6. GOTO 1

Not just that, they are huge, fixed sizes & occupy a disproportionate area on the screen. Hit the Windows key again, and you get a desktop, but just 1. Oh, and when you add new apps from the Windows store, they are invisible, unless you pan down and get it added to the Metro screen

I bought a new laptop last week, and wiped out Windows 8.1, replacing it w/ PC-BSD 10. It was some work, had some rough edges, but was worth it!

Plan 9 is an academic project? I thought it was an internal research project of Lucent/Bell Labs

Minix3 is a BSDL OS. So even if AST stops working on it, others can take the code as it is, and build it further, fork it or do whatever