...it won't have a single thing I need.

So, desktop apps. What's the difference now?

The correct analogy would be: do you like tofu? No? Well, here's a coupon for free tofu anyway. If you like it, pick it up at the store. If not, don't. Either way. Free tofu.

BTW, question...

If they have a retail copy of Windows 7 and want to keep using it, why are they wanting to buy a machine that comes with Windows 8 on it?

Why not buy a machine without Windows?

-----------

Let me put this another way...

I recently bought a 2015 Yukon XL, it came with Bridgestone tires on it. I'd rather have Michelin tires... Should I be able to demand a refund for the tires, since they were third party products?

FYI, I can't, they won't do it (I asked, they are legally "used tires" once they are mounted on the truck).

They did offer a credit for the tires as trade towards the Michelin, about half what they cost.

And that is fine, if they bought a retail copy of Windows 7.

If their old machine came with Windows 7 OEM, then they can't move it (legally) to their new machine.

or a world where any person would be equally likely to have biological children and grandchildren.

They would have to have precisely the same number of children (i.e. not die to due accident or stillbirth before reproduction), and reproductive assignment between sexual partners would have to be completely random, not sexually selected as it is today (even in countries where sexual partners are determined by parents, the parents are still performing a kind of sexual selection).

But with sexual reproduction, even in such a completely "fair" and "random" mating situation, genetic drift would still occur because although at a single locus each parent passes on one or other allele with a 50% probability of each, that 50% is a statistical average. Out of a ten thousand reproductions, you might find one reproduction where an allele is over-represented or under-represented. So across the population, genetic change will happen.

Nobody expects the "operational capabilities" of the Australian Inquisition!

Strat

Stop. Apple just adds the album to the list of music you have access to. Everything else you describe flows from your incorrect understanding of this key point.

They absolutely do not in any way make you listen to it.

That's basically what they did. They gave everyone access to it, so you now have a link to download the music by clicking one of the songs and tapping "play.

and am soooo pleased to be rid of the other ISPs I've been stuck with in the past.

And of course *the moment* Google rolled out in this area, a bunch of other ISPs magically offered a competitive 1Gbps fiber plan as well.

Too late—you had me. And you pissed me off. And now I'm gone.

This is a pretty transparent proposal to immediately cap speeds, then approach platforms for extortion money based on user demand.

In short, it's exactly the same thing. The words have changed, but the idea about what to do with the cables is the same.

Business has always had various levels. When it comes to most successful technology companies, be it Tesla, or a small web developer, there's the strategy and there's the execution.

In a technology company, there's no doubt that the execution needs to be done by a technically superior person, but there's a problem with academic structure: it fosters process and procedure. Curtainly a STEM degree imparts critical thinking in terms of experimentation and analysis and calculation. Once a direction exists, yeah those skills are going to run the execution to create the product, service, or effect desired.

But business doesn't start with execution.

Scientific method may be the basis of STEM, and it starts with a "falsifiable hypothesis". Business is very different. Innovative business starts with a "false thesis" -- this doesn't exist, it isn't making any money now, I say it will, let's do it.

It takes a liberally-minded strategist to come up with whatever "it" is. The artist dreams it up. The philosopher contemplates how it ought to exist. The grammarian discerns its structure. The thespian convinces others to invest in it.

The problem is that the scientist concludes that it's impossible before it's even been tried. Either there's simply no evidence in existence yet, or there's no way to experiment on the nothing in-advance of starting.

Inventors aren't STEM scientists. There's no scientific method for innovation, and you aren't likely to find a scientist who's willing to risk everything on a new business idea -- yes I can also list dozens of very famous scientists who did throughout history; contrast that to the number of musicians who spend every dollar they have to start a band.