Suppose it has a security vuln?
Suppose it depends on a certain version of a legacy DLL we need to service for other callers?
Suppose it was never localized beyond English?
Suppose admins want to enable/disable it via group policy?

(etc)

For better or for worse, it is incredibly expensive to put something in the Windows Box.

We give away VS for free, in a variety of different versions/avenues. By not putting it in the windows box, we avoid a huge # of headaches.

Your conclusion is entirely wrong.

Because Microsoft doesn't do the things YOU think Microsoft should do, you can ascertain the motivations and goals of Microsoft?

How interesting. Suppose we hire you to lead our CS education strategy. Can you promise results? Are you willing to bet your career on your prophecies coming true?

Let me tell you what IS true.

Microsoft lets me -- and many other MS employees -- volunteer to teach CS in public K-12 schools, 1 hour a day, before heading into the office for our "real jobs".

MS spends money to make this happen (volunteer matching hours), and gets less of my productive time (without docking my pay). There are full-time employees dedicated to this project. They have no other MS business function.

The program I am referring to is called TEALS (www.tealsk12.org)

It is just one of the ways that MS puts time, money, and people, into trying to build a better pipeline of students who can do CS.

I don't think stuffing GWBASIC back into windows is going to take us from where we are to where we need to be.

Relevant:

http://everythingfunny.org/wp-...

You could sound the message out in Frequency Shift Keying.

E.g.

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

1200 baud is 120 characters per second. So you could dump an uncompressed 80x24 screen of text in 16 seconds. You'd just repeat the dump over and over again.

Software on a mobile phone would capture the FSK and submit it as a bug report.

Perhaps a less whimsical way to do it would be to write to a dump file and submit when the system reboots. E.g. the kernel could keep enough of the Bios alive so that it could switch back to real mode and use int 13h to write to reserved bit of the disk.

People with money can afford to be coke addicts, for a while at least. Give 'em a month or so and both sets of people will be 'borrowing' from the relatives to feed their addiction.

Luckily, tens of thousands of pioneers wouldn't have to be housed all in one starship. Spreading people out among multiple ships also spreads out the risk. Modular ships could dock together for trade and social gatherings

Hrmm.

http://www.urbandictionary.com...

I don't think this will contribute to genetic diversity....

60 minutes has had credibility problems for a long time.

They _destroyed_ Audi in the 1980s. They fabricated the "tests" and the results. They modified the cars and rigged them to fail in the way 60 minutes wanted them to.

Nothing 60 minutes says about cars should be considered accurate.

If there was any justice in the world, the show and the people behind it would have been in prison 30 years ago.

Funny you mention that.

Early in my Microsoft career, I built a system that provisioned thousands of windows machines on an as needed basis, differing by SKU level, language type, windows version, etc.

I'm was proficient in scripting the installs of windows machines -- even back when windows didn't natively support that sort of thing very well(e.g. NT4)

To be honest, Windows looks pretty good compared to any Linux distro I've worked with when it comes to automated provisioning and post configuration. That's a subjective comparison, of course, so I'll just say: I don't think windows was your problem.

It sounds like your management wasn't especially visionary nor technical, and that you failed to make an adequate business case to them regarding how much productivity the team would gain in the long run if you worked to automate these repetitive tasks.

That's a shame. I'm glad you moved on to greener pastures.

Why didn't you script all of the activities you just described?

April Fool Mr Baluchi! April fool!

Maybe mild autism has been associated with higher wages ever since industrialization? E.g. being a factory worker who was better adjusted to city life, earning more than your peasant agrarian non-autistics? Continuing up to today where lawyers and software developers get higher salaries? That might correlate with slightly higher reproductive success. Just a guess.

(Factory worker, lawyer and programmer are roles where limited empathy wouldn't be a hindrance, and "restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests" might be a help).

I'd had it twice. The first time raw in Japan it was okay.

The second time, seared, in Iceland, it was sublime. Like a combination of the best bits of sashimi and the best bits of high quality steak, somehow unexpectedly combined in one delicious whole.

This doesn't add up...

If the carriers currently take in $2bn in theft premiums but only pay out $0.5bn in payouts, then they're pocketing a huge $1.5bn/year difference. Therefore

(1) We can expect them to lobby strongly against anything that will reduce this free money, and attempt to water down any proposed legislation

(2) If the legislation goes through we can expect them to try to gain that money in different ways, maybe with a "remote wipe services fee"...

Rule of thumb: IP law is so complicated that it's safe to assume that (1) TFA got it wrong, (2) the Slashdot summary and title got it wrong, (3) all slashdot posters (including me) got it wrong, with the sole exception of NewYorkCountryLawyer. I think the only way is to read what the actual filing said, and then look up patents, and then look up the claims section of those patents.

As far as I can tell, Blackberry complained that Typo Keyboard infringed one or more of:

* US Patent 7629964 - a patent about the invention of a particular angling+placement of keys on a handheld mobile device where the keys are optimally placed and angled to allow two-thumb typing. It looks like there was thought and extensive user research into figuring out that particular angling and placement. While it was obvious that some kind of angling+placement would be good, I guess no one had done the inventive work to figure out that particular angling+placement.

* US Patent 8162552 - a patent about the invention of a particular ramping of individual keys for the same end. I know that HP had beveled keys before. This patent is for a particular angling and beveling and crest and so on. Again it looks obvious that some kind of beveling is useful, but I guess no one had done the inventive work to pick out this particular angling and beveling. It looks like anyone who used a DIFFERENT angling and beveling wouldn't infringe on this patent.

* US Design Patent D685775 - a design patent which is very specifically for Blackberry's design. Design patents are for the ornamental shape of a functional item, and only apply when the design is novel and not the obvious shape for devices. I guess we didn't have the particular Blackberry proportions or layout on other devices before.

* Blackberry's trade dress. Trade dress is about the recognizable look of a product, that would let consumers readily recognize whether something is distinctively a Blackberry from its distinctive shape, colors etc.

I don't know on the basis of which of these the temporary sales ban was enacted. But I do know that Blackberry keyboards are indeed nicer to type on than any other phone keyboards I've used, and it really does suggest there was something non-obvious about their research into key placement and contours and their particular results. And I do think that Blackberry keyboards have a distinctive recognizable look. From photos, that Typo keyboard really did look a heck of a lot like a Blackberry in both its overall form. If indeed it also copied the particulars of Blackberry placement/beveling, rather than using any of the INFINITE other possible placement/beveling, then it seems like a slam dunk for Blackberry.