I would think that someone with such a low UID and [assumed] broad experience would have a little more insight, especially the "no one uses Macs for business". There are a lot of businesses that would chuckle about that, starting with one of the world's most profitable and valuable businesses (on and off).

You can add to that practically everyone in the entertainment media creation field, especially in LA. Forrester says almost half of enterprises with 1,000 or more employees are issuing Macs. Macs are the default choice of many Silicon Valley startups and larger companies like Google. Some CTOs even make fun of the last Windows holdouts for using a "typewriter".

I work for a giant media conglomerate which four years ago forbade Macs from entering the IT system, but after a great deal of upheaval from the top, IT has been told to shut up and deploy Macs, now present as some 30% of new machines. The greatest "ecosystem" Microsoft has are the IT admins who don't know of or won't examine anything else. Those days are ending.

The Mac is not "an obscure also ran" since more than half of new Mac users come from other platforms... well, one in particular. It's more of a refuge for the many millions of people who are sick to death of Windows. Just having Macs in my workplace side by side with Windows machines is driving many users to ditch their home PCs in favor of Macs (some of them Hackintoshes). None of them would even consider a Linux machine. The Mac is now what Linux wants to be.

Microsoft had become quite lazy under Ballmer. Anything a competitor did, Microsoft would release a half baked lookalike that generally really sucked in a number of ways. Microsoft's belief is that they would automatically prevail because the competition (usually Apple in this context) was an obscure also ran. After having their asses handed to them over and over, they're finally getting it.

The best thing I can say about Microsoft's foray into the tablet and advanced phone world is they're the only ones not blatantly copying Apple. That's turning out to be a mistake but I don't think they could have won if they had copied Apple. The tide has turned against Microsoft and once the legacy has worn off, they're done unless they come up with something totally new that nobody can live without.

Sounds a lot like John Maddon's Turduckin. Would this be Cameepin?

"Six independent studies have proven that fracking doesn't harm the environment or people one bit" - Fracking Institute of America

I'm sure every Muslim in this country hope the guy's name doesn't have Mohammed in it.

Like every energy breakthrough in the past, someone decided the Big Oil companies would know how to handle and distribute it. Somehow, all those promising alternative energy sources never seemed to work out. BP axes solar power business, Transition from oil to renewable energy 100 years away, says Exxon Mobil and dozens more.

Could also cure breathing.

Correct again. Microsoft likes to play the "standards" game as long as they can retain a proprietary component inside. Their very first attempt at "standards" was to contribute WMV to the HD-DVD consortium and press for its adoption for Blu-ray without releasing any information required to create the codec. The effort eventually became the VC-1 standard, but the people I knew on the standards body said Microsoft kept thinking they didn't have to release any details about the codec believing the world would simply accept a Microsoft based "standard" because nobody dared bet against them. Meeting after meeting ended with no resolution which looked anything like a disclosure suitable for standards ratification. That was about the beginning of the end for Microsoft (the very first concrete indication that nobody trusted them any more) and signaled the end of HD-DVD.

Correct. The A/C has an agenda and doesn't understand that codecs have less to do with video quality, extensibility and function and more to do with royalties. Microsoft's history has always been to run as far away from standards as possible as fast as they can.

Why would anyone want more of the crudely inferior VP8 in the world?

The joke is on Google if they gave anything up. Nobody wants it except YouTube.

Open the Wi-Fi completely, don't use a password at all. Next stop to the internet is a VPN firewall. Let's see how much time he's got on his hands.

Fire the SCSI!

NIce try. The Amiga came out in 1985.

HA! True dat. And they accuse Apple of form over function!

You're being very kind by saying WebM is "less effective" compared to H.264. I'd put it closer to "why in the hell would I want crummy looking compression unless I use at least twice the data rate?" This from someone who's livelihood partially comes from putting compressed streams on the Internet. WebM isn't good enough and just got lapped again.

China has just voted against North Korea probably for the first time. How angry are the North Korean leaders I wonder? How long before North Korea starts biting the hand that feeds it? If China thought through the likely outcome of what the North Korean behavior is, they'd probably take the DPRK out themselves.

I just looked up some sources on artillery and the DPRK has lots of artillery, most of which can't reach Seoul. They apparently have 17 guns that can, however, and those can be quickly located and silenced before too much damage is done to Seoul. All they have to do is fire one round from each gun and we'll have return fire on the way before their shell hits anything. It's likely that the South Koreans have figured on intercepting projectiles from these guns. The U.S. has had field portable radar systems since the 1960s designed to calculate the source of mortar fire for this purpose. I can imagine it's more sophisticated now.

The DPRK million man army (and 8 million reservists) would likely come pouring over the DMZ in an old fashioned charge and get chewed to ribbons before they finished the 40km trek to Seoul through the rugged mountainous areas. There are a bunch of mountain passes to defend but they can forget about making it through the passes or the mountains. The ROK army has thought of that and they've got some nasty surprises ready to go.

I'm sure the DPRK has got missile systems to deliver plenty of fire power to Seoul, so that would be the bigger worry. If I were a leader of the South, I'd have a line of anti kinetic weapons systems aimed northward. They already know where it's coming from.

I'd say a DPRK attack would create more psychological impact than physical damage to Seoul, much like the V1 and V2 rockets of WWII. Most everything coming over the DMZ would get toasted. Once the DPRK shoots that wad, they're essentially undefended. Then what?