The financial costs are only a part of the total cost of ownership when you get in bed with Windows.

Are you suggesting those who wrote the federalists papers were not involved with the writing of the Bill of rights or the Constitution, and that they were therefor incapable of stating what their intent was in framing them as such?

Under which administration did all of the domestic surveillance get started? The NSA was not started under Bush, and you might want to ask yourself what was it that the Church Committee was intended to accomplish.

Woodrow Wilson already did that when he was leaving office. It was quite direct and regretful of what he had done.

Which state is that? Seems insane to me.

You might want to actually read the Federalists papers before you spew this nonsense. The writers are quite explicit in the reasoning and intent. The comment you made is one bandied about by those wanting to misrepresent the truth.

Well if Windows becomes a rental system, then wouldn't that spell the immediate removal of the MS tax, and that the base OS can't essentially be pirated any longer? Meaning All hardware companies can freely put any OS or none on there without fear of reproach?

I too used to work for the Herbal supplement industry. What you are saying is true to my experiences as well. The barrels originating in China always required extra scrutiny. It was not uncommon to find things wholly foreign to the ingredient list in the shipped packages. It was disturbingly common to find Chinese/Indian suppliers being less that honest in their COA's.

My theory is China/India or another manufacturer/supplier failed to send what they claimed (ripped them off). The fact that the ingredients went to manufacturing none the less is a scary thought. I guess it is possible the manufacturing occurred over seas as well.

Edit: Every ingredient in an herbal supplement needs a COA... Should have written that more clearly.

Every herbal supplement that is going to be ingested in America needs a COA (Certificate of Authenticity) to verify their legitimacy. Disclosure: I used to work in the herbal supplement industry. This is not wholly uncommon. The biggest issue here is that the suppliers/manufacturers were ripping off the GNC etc. Someone along the way faile dto check the authenticity, and they got burned.

I'd be equally worried that a US made device would have the NSA back doors allowing my government to spy. I think the saddest part is that I am now more threatened of my own government (and their refusal to allow privacy) than I am of foreign powers...

It depends how you define success. Enterprise agreements hold that in order to install Win 7 you need downgrade rights, made available by purchasing Win 8 licenses.
How exactly are you defining success? Success in sales? Success in giving them a presence in mobile? Success in unifying two disparate paradigms of interface? Win 8 failed on many fronts as well.

BBM was made for Blackberry only and served precisely to keep people locked into the platform by not allowing other platforms to access the service. It wasn't until they had lost their user base that they cared about such things. It was as wrong when they did it, as when Apple does it now.

Not everyone who uses a SCADA/Siemens system has internal staff to maintain the system levels. I was asked this week to connect a SIEMENS /SCADA system for Rail delivery to be connected for remote access for support/trouble shooting. The saddest part was the lack of network and security knowledge that the deploying entity had in their possession. It was uncomfortable to discuss networking with them. We were paying them to listen to why their solution was insecure, and would not be set up in the manner they wanted. They got it eventually. But I'll say this..There are many many many SCADA systems which are online for no reason other than simplicity's sake. Don't get me started about the ones left with default settings by the VAR during deployments. Scary world.

Don't get me wrong. I think Obama is a worthless pig fucker, but what he is proposing seems reasonable here. My bigger fear is the hidden addon items and agenda that isn't being spoken about .. You know the CISPA 2.0 sort of sneak in the back door verbiage. I imagine this is a 750 plus page document. with all sort of power being grabbed.