There are quite a few typos in the article, it seems to have been created by OCR. My guess is the OCR got the 3 and 8 mixed up.

It was quite interesting to read, but a simple pass by an editor would have fixed most of the little errors (usually extra spaces in words).

According to Wikipedia, the current eInk Kindles are all about 68 ppi. So this screen would be as good (if not better) than the current Kindles in that department.

Unfortunately, this screen looks like it lacks color saturation, which seems to be a common trait among all color eInk displays. It's a big improvement over previous displays, but I still wouldn't put it in a product yet. People would immediately put it next to LCD displays, and compared to the display on a $60 "might as well sell it at the drugstore" tablet, it would look bad.

You're right that we don't know for sure. But MS has a long history of detailing their plans long in advance, and they don't tend to make sudden turns at the last minute. MS really wants developers to know what's going on so they can be ready when the OS is. They won't pull a full interface shift (to differentiate RT from 8 in Metro Mode) at the last minute, it would cause trouble for developers.

But given that MS has already announced the way this stuff works, and the possible harm of letting this get released into the market so that computer users suffer months without being able to put on their browser of choice (thus basically giving MS their way for a few months after release), this seems like something that should be discussed now.

Right, but MS is clearly pushing Metro style apps as the "correct" future direction. If you don't use the older desktop style apps, you could easily have the same experience with both Windows 8 and Windows RT.

What do most users spend their time on their computers doing? Web browsing, email, IM, and maybe iTunes/WMP for music, games. All those will be available in Metro.

I think for the average user, it will be quite easy to stay in Metro all the time, leading to the possible confusion.

I know they share a lot of code, but to the end user they are relatively clearly differentiated. Apple has been closing that a little bit (such as Launchpad on Lion), but if you show a screenshot of the desktop/home screen to someone, they could tell you if it's from a phone or of desktop.

With Windows 8/RT, the start screen of both devices is the same, leading to easy confusion.

I don't think the fact Apple doesn't allow this kind of thing matters. Apple has a very clear differentiation of products. The desktops/laptops run a different OS from the iPads. I'm going to ignore the "Apple shouldn't be able to do this" argument, which I don't really disagree with. The fact is that's status quo.

With Windows 8, all tablets get the same interface and run the same software. The difference is that, based on something esoteric to the population at large (the architecture of the CPU), you lose the ability to load some kinds of software. Not because that software wasn't ported, but because it can't be ported without being severely crippled. What this means is that when someone buys a tablet from BestBuy, they may or may not be able to run the software they expect. Some Windows 8 software runs on everything, some Windows 8 software doesn't. What's the lesson? That FireFox thing doesn't always work. Just use the built in stuff or you'll have problems.

If MS was clearly positioning the ARM tablets as something different from the non-ARM tablets, that would be different. They may call it "Windows RT", but when two tablets are in the store next to each other, looking identical, running identical interfaces, I think it's fair to say they're the same. Duck typing for tablets. Since I'd expect ARM tablets to really take off due to cost and efficiency, this certainly seems like a round about way to force people to use IE.

C already has a syntax for declaring and invoking functions, and it already has a syntax for accessing variables bound to instances of structs. why did they have to invent a completely new syntax for declaring and invoking functions bound to structs?

Because you're not calling functions or accessing variables, you're invoking methods. The difference can be subtle, but it's important.