It'll land on two of them if the gear won't drop.

Application compatibility in Windows 8.1 is pretty good (except for really ancient 16-bit apps).. but a server environment is different with products that are often much more complicated and with very difficult migration paths to a newer version. If one exists. Take for example database clusters with custom code written by people who no longer work for the organisation - migrating from those is extremely difficult.

But.. although it is a pain, but Microsoft's EOL was well-known many years in advance. People are moaning about the dropping of support, but it has been around for 12 years. For a migration path Windows 2012 R2 will be supported until 2023, Windows 2008 R2 until 2020

The problem isn't that Windows 2003 will stop working.. the problem is that it won't get patched. Now, servers are generally lower-risk than client PCs because they just tend to do a couple of things without users surfing for porn, reading email or downloading crap. And also the products *running* on those servers may well continue to get updates anyway.

But about once a year or so, there is a vulnerability in Windows that is exploitable over the network remotely without authentication, the sort of thing that Conficker used to spread on (i.e. MS08-067). Wormable vulnerabilities are the highest risk, and the time between the flaw being announced and an exploit being created can just be a matter of days.

So, eventually those Windows 2003 boxes are going to get pwned. It might be weeks or years after 2003 goes EOL, but eventually it will happen.

It doesn't matter how secure the password is, if a site or service gets compromised then it is highly likely that the password will get revealed. What makes a difference in those cases is how well encrytped or hidden the password is, and how determined the attacker is. Attackers can use precomputed tables made up of all sorts of phrases, letters, numbers etc which will get a handle on even very secure passwords.

It's far more important to have a different password on each site.. or at least a different password on each site you care about. For some sites is really doesn't matter if it gets hacked or not. The Gawker breach a few years back for example.. who would really give a stuff about having their Gawker password compromised.

So, it doesn't really matter on a lot of these sites if your password is 123456 because everything of value is protected by something better. Isn't it?

Tizen = LiMo + MeeGo + Bada
Although also Tizen = liMo + MeeGo because Bada was rolled into Tizen later
And MeeGo = Maemo + Mobilin (Nokia and Intel respectively).
So, ultimately Tizen = LiMo + Maemo + Moblin + Bada.

So I can power the sensors for my smart home that doesn't need switches, by the pressure of my finger on a switch? I'll take a dozen!

...find fields of gold?

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Slashdotters rushing to post that this is lame and/or they did it 20 years ago.

It did cross my mind when there was shepherd's pie on the menu last week...By the time I got there, though, they'd run out of shepherds.

My office building is next to the pathology department, and I can't go to lunch without seeing a hearse loading or unloading.

Yeah, I remember that one. The petrol in station was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere (for the UK, anyway), and was already on the expensive side as a result. The owner said that he wasn't profiteering, rather it was about conserving what little they had. Until they could get another delivery, he wanted to ensure that anyone who wasn't desperate didn't stop there, and anyone who was only bought enough to get them to civilisation.

Made sense to me. Didn't make sense to the Daily Mail, of course.

Seriously, I'm getting tired of the endless stream of apps.

There's a nap for that.

Permadeath? Well, one of the first things you have to learn to do is cheat by backing up those file. Of course, on a Unix box you'll need to be root, but easier on other platforms.