not too sure why this is a surprise, and the actual approach a mystery. Back around the launch of windows 8, AMD announced a tie-up with bluestacks to add support for android apps into windows via appzone. http://www.amd.com/us/vision/shop/cool-apps/Pages/androidapps.aspx

If anyone's expecting booting to android, or even a virtual machine to run a tablet in a window, then I expect they'll be wrong. It seems apparent that this will just run android apps alongside other RT apps. I don't know if this will be via appzone (which doesn't seem to require an amd processor) or another similar suite

they don't need 'rescuing' the ship needs freeing from the ice, but the ship is perfectly safe, the crew and passengers healthy, and enough supplies to last a good time yet. If anything happens and any emergency evacuation is needed then there is helicopter rescue in place.

the calendar archive's a neat idea, but click on any year and it just says "desktop"

And what does Bing maps use? Navteq, which remains owned by Nokia (not the phone division sold to MS)
I remain convinced that the MS Nokia partnership worked out well for both (separate) companies. If nokia had gone google (android) would their other properties be in such a good position?

.... and do what, become yet another also-ran along with the multitude cowering in Samsung's shadow?
By choosing an alternative, nokia was able to sell on a lot of its services (mapping etc) that it wouldn't have been able to do if it went with Android. Nokia retains that, and it makes a lot of money for them - and now has a lot more marketshare than before. If they'd started using android, it would have been hard work convincing the other manufacturers to use their stuff over googles own.
The remainder of Nokia not sold to MS is arguably in a better position by choosing to partner with MS.

Thorsten Heins is free at the moment. Not being entirely funny by thinking he'd do a good job, he'd inherited a problem and his actions, though ultimately futile, probably helped extend BBs life and put them in a better position to recover.

Yes, you're absolutely spot on. Symbion was heading downwards - the whole point of the 'burning platform' i.e. they were concentrating on developing something without seeing it was slowly burning away around them, and that the time spent continuing on this path meant a long path to turn it around (and in some areas they are).

Dunno about typical but I and many people I know have had one for around 3yrs. tbh, unless the screen is damaged I can see it going on for some time yet

I think you're right on Albion, which was a big disaster which hurried in a few H&S changes. I can't find any reference to the controlled break of tethers - but it's one of those things that I remember being described to me so either one of those things that gets passed along but never actually happens, or nobody deems it worth mentioning. I'm with you on this one though. Incidentally, I found this http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/06/this-is-what-happens-when-you-launch-a-massive-ship-sideways-and-dont-get-out-of-the-way/ which is another good example of the forces at work in a launch, and you can understand how a gantry piled high with people could easily get torn away.

"so somehow, LinkedIn basically dumped his entire address book without his permission and started spamming everyone on it."

When signing up, and at random periods, linkedin asks you if you would like to have it trawl through your address book and automatically add people. It then prompts you to input your email address and password for the mail service.
This is the same service that was on Slashdot recently as somebody was launching a class action suit for hacking their accounts.
It's pretty clear what they're asking for, and I'm sorry but your friend did give his permission and account details; linkedin didn't just 'somehow' leech it from his phone or laptop.

Not to take anything away from the principle underlying the anecdote, but SS Great Britain was launched at the Bristol Docks with nothing of great note occurring (apart from getting wedged in the lock leading to the Avon)

There's a bunch of countries in the world with Presidents. I have no fucking idea which one Barrack Obama runs. How bout throwing us a bone and just telling us which country we're talking about

It really needs to be consistently applied, don't you think - there's often a reference to something particularly USian that needs further research. Either concede that it's going to be necessary sometimes, given the nature of a summary, or give the full background detail for all regardless of if it originates in the US

Yes to the first, no to the second (I think it's a uniquely American thing, to hand over credit cards to anyone to take away, and often unsigned? Or maybe I just watch too much TV - do you really do that?)

And my point was that if my provider had two services - email and credit card storage, of which I may be happy to trust and use both - and then one day, as the parent states, a new 'attach money' option appeared then I'd be wary. It sounds like there was no option and whilst I may trust both services independently I'd like the option to decide if I wanted to link the two. Therefore the provider isn't winning my confidence.

the decision to not hand over my card details was not available as I was already using the service that, until that point, remained separate. Of course, as I said in my opening statement - there may be other safeguards that would make me think differently but in the presented scenario I'd be concerned.

I'd be thinking of it as I'd consider it a sign that they weren't thinking things through properly, from my perspective not theirs obviously.

I don't know about you, but if my email provider suddenly added an 'attach money' option and stored my card details I'd be thinking of moving to another provider that didn't integrate everything. I'm sure there's more checks and balances and probably a 'verified by visa' stage each time (please god, I hope so). But my gut feeling is not good on that one.

It does look as if google have some good systems in place to detect hijacks, but the sheer amount of 'my gmail account has been hijacked" tales you hear don't add up to a warm fuzzy. At least with the system here (and the Canadian forebearer) they're separate entities.