The sites that restart my autoplay preferences constantly. ESPN does this, and others.

Fat Lou did clean house.

A lot of those execs founded their own ventures, and a lot of them bought IBM stuff.

Of course, he also let go a lot of people who did nothing. I worked for a man at the time who had to deal with the do nothings, No love lost when they were gone.

FWIW...

I work for a S&P 500 financial corporation. I've been here through multiple major layoffs, one a 10% global layoff, the other a 20% global layoff. One in response to the unpleasantness in 2008-9, the other in response to business decisions to refocus and drive growth by investing in new markets and new products, necessitating divesting and letting a lot of good people go that simply did not do what was needed at the time.

It's a familiar and trite complaint that layoffs serve the C-level exclusively, but I can easily see Microsoft choosing to remove distractions, reduce current expenses, and even take the opportunity to shake the tree and rid itself of (real or imagined) low-hanging underperformers.

IBM did this repeatedly, and is still doing it, as large corporations regularly have to sift their work force and reset priorities, UNLESS they are consistently evaluating their strategies, have truly strategic planning that looks beyond the horizon, and work from a position of true knowledge of their business and performance. Microsoft is regularly accused of failed strategy and poor performance. And they can certainly be accused of being too big to be well managed, especially in the eyes of the minions who live with the decisions.

Microsoft's market(s) is(are) difficult places to predict performance. Intangibles rule in that space, and failure is the norm. Success if fleeting. Windows is Microsoft's bedrock, so as the marketplace starts to embrace nontraditional devices that need not use Windows, Microsoft should be looking beyond traditional and on to emerging opportunities. Can they move quickly enough to outflank competitors? Google is huge, but acts like a startup on specific projects. From my viewpoint, Kinect is the last Microsoft project that could be described as nimble. There are some interesting things they show off, but none yet ready for a product. Surface is just not floating anyone's boat yet. Nokia was dead on arrival, so losing that is admitting they could not resuscitate it with Windows Phone, the poster child for losing the traditional to the nontraditional. Ask me some time about my new set top box, running Microsoft Mediaroom, and closed captioning. At least Microsoft left this in marginally perfect state, but another idea they had to abandon.

Harrison's Postulate confirmed. Enjoy.

I raised $1800 for my first Turbo XT clone with a yard sale. Dual 5 1/4 floppies, 20MB HD, 8MHz CPU, 640K RAM, CGA baby!

It got updated to 3.5 HD floppies, 40MB drive, then out the door in 2 years and on to 286s, 386SX, blah blah blah. I paid a lot to be bleeding edge right up to Pentium 90s. After that I slowed down, and still run a Core 2 Duo at home that does Windows 8.1 very, very well.

My 3D Printer experiment will be a home made something, probably a GMax clone or similar beam frame kit. I need not pay all that retail, and I may buy a used Printrbot Simple which I see pretty regular. I can always resell it or scavenge parts.

GMax. I'm thinking of building a clone.

Actually my initial response was to an AC, not you.

No, notion that somehow I disagree that they're monopolies, and that somehow i rationalize against emergence of competition like charter schools. I not only do NOT, but I'm very much interested in alternatives to our failED public school system nationwide.

My comment about unions being corporations was informed by the reality that many unions are effectively subcontractors to trucking, contstruction, technology companies. Teachers unions fit this mold, though they and school systems would probably argue that.

Somehow you seem to think I'm not a lifelong conservative, steeped in capitalism, clinging to the hope that our Nation can somehow leverage our Constitution and sa be out nation from this president. Please reconsider your opinion of me.

What? You've confused me with some other person you've confused with a real person.

Here's a concept for yah...

Unions are actually corporations. They have a purpose.

That suffer the same problems as any corporations.

Deal with it.

Apologies for the typos.

I'm not arguing that global warming doesn't exist, nor of it is man made our not. Just asking if the premise that it began in t 30s took into account the dramatic warming of the 30s.

This is what makes this an impossible debate? If you are not lockstep with the AGW faithful, they demonize you as Luddite, ignorant, anti-science, evil.

Take that and stuff it. Reason with me or stop pretending you have science.

My disagreement with you is, in this thread, still hypothetical. At least let me make the statement, please, before you decide if I'm for or against something, k?

Is it unreasonable that claims of warming beginning in the 30s might use data from before, at least the 30s? Certainly from the early 1800s, if not before?

Seriously, is it that hard to discuss this?

Seriously? Wow.

Read this carefully, and with an open mind. At least this is an example of the sort is analysis that can lead a skeptic to distrust the scientists trying very hard to prove their hypothesis.

Can we extend that observation to justify the euthanasia of babies, children, out adults with intellects below a certain threshold? Or does birth convey more rights?

Did these observations and conclusions that warming began in the 40s correct for the warming in the 30s? Remember, Dust Bowl and all?