No where near as bad as optical SPDIF cables. Whoever designed those should be poisoned, shot four times, stabbed, beaten, rolled up in carpet, and thrown into a freezing river.

It's the only way to be sure.

I figured this might be coming. Between Windows 8 trying to become a cell phone UI and Apple's brilliant idea to place an eject key on its keyboards instead of a forward delete key, it won't be long before a PC is completely gimped and useless to anyone that produces anything. Apple hit it big with its touch screen UI. So big that they're going to impale themselves on it.

And Brazilian labor is already pushing back. Interesting to see how this plays out over time and which culture ultimately wins out. If only the Chinese had a Great Artist they could dispatch to culture bomb Rio De Janiero.

There's already a concept for this: the cloud. Folks already have a range of devices that scale as you describe. It's just that they all need access to the data and content universally. While the hardware is having it's day right now, it's the access to relevant zeroes and ones that makes any of it worth a hoot.

Raising taxes from historically low, unsustainable levels? Preposterous!

Same for me. The vimeo link worked. Using Chrome 10.0.648.133 on Mac OS X 10.6.6.

Yes, conglomerates are going out of style lately. Investors have good reason, because the sum of the parts would be worth more instead of languishing under the same roof. You've got MSFT split out similarly to how I see them. Some of the businesses (desktop and business) are mature cash cows with good cash flows and should have rich dividends. Others (consumer products and internet) should be freed from the conservative yoke and strive for accelerated growth. All would get a boost from an announcement that Ballmer was stepping down to "spend more time with his family."

$41 billion in cash and short term investments and no material debt. Love 'em or hate 'em, they have considerable resources to make gains for consumers and investors alike.

Wish I had mod points. As concise an assessment of Ballmer's M.O. as has ever been written.

I has it.