I'll give you my 2-second review: Right now, it's still buggy. It crashes. In fairness, it's a beta. Aside from that, if you like flat design and dislike skeuomorphism, you'll probably be pleased with some of the design changes. The improvements in multi-monitor support are kind of good, but still problematic. If you use the new setup, you can't have one window overlap with multiple monitors. Each window will only appear on on monitor at a time. I didn't really like that, but at least they let you change back to the old way of working. It's nice that they have a new "iBooks" app, since the lack of one always seemed like a glaring oversight. I could see the new interface for labels being useful for a lot of people, though I keep forgetting that I have the option of using tabs in Finder.

Overall, not that different. Small incremental improvements. I don't like the design of their updated multi-monitor interface.

I'm with you, and my only solace is that I believe Apple is less stupid than Microsoft. If they pull something comparable to the Windows 8 "Start Screen", I don't know how I'm going to cope. I guess I'll have to move to Linux, even if I lose a lot of applications.

Yes, the transition happened fairly slowly. Cell phones had roaming charges, so people would generally avoid using their cell outside of their home area, which is part of the reason why it made sense to give them a geographic area code. They also had long-distance charges. people moved to a new area, they got a new cell phone number to avoid roaming/long-distance charges. SMS messages were also free then. Not many people had cell phones, relative to now. Landlines also had long-distance charges which could be pretty expensive.

Then, competing with each other, cell phone carriers extended the roaming areas, and then dropped the roaming and long-distance charges nationwide. Around that time (I think a few years after), you became able to transfer your cell phone number between carriers. These two things together meant that it was increasingly practical to keep the same phone number year after year, even when you moved or changed your cell phone plan. The carriers also started allowing you to transfer your landline number to a cell phone, which increased the frequency with which people would drop their landline entirely-- which was a more attractive option because long-distance phone calls were free on cell phones, so cell phones were becoming cheaper than landlines.

In competition with cell phones and VoIP (which also didn't charge for long-distance), most carriers started dropping or eliminating long-distance charges.

In my memory, it all started much earlier than 5 years ago. Remember, "5 years ago" is late 2008. A lot of these transitions started in the early 2000s.

People in the US generally aren't getting charged for calling different area codes. I suppose some people still get "long distance charges", but most people are in a plan where they only get charged for calling a different country, and even then sometimes they can call Canada for free or something. To a large degree, the "area codes" are being used now just to allow for more numbers.

In fact, lots of younger people don't have landlines, and only have mobile phones, and they try to keep their number throughout their lives. If you live in a major city, a lot of people you meet will have phone numbers from all over the country. The "area code" is no longer a good indicator of where you actually live.

Or transfer them to a recording of you saying, "Ok, I'm back!" followed by silence interspersed with an occasional "Ah" or "uh-huh" or "yes, I see...."

Well if you want to buy major computer games, Windows is still the platform for that. Someone else responded with 'Excel'. Then there's the whole Outlook/Exchange situation.

Aside from that, there's just the fact that businesses have a huge investment in Microsoft. You get a business where all of their current servers are Windows, Exchange, MSSQL, etc. They have custom-built apps that only run on Windows. All of their IT personnel are trained on Windows. Next time they have a round of purchasing, they're going to buy Microsoft products again.

I'm not sure what you'd suggest then. The whole concept of "safeguards" doesn't work? Precautions are just not going to help? I guess we should just go kill ourselves, then.

Or maybe you misunderstand and you think I'm saying that the NSA's program would be fine, but we only need a few additional safeguards? Not really. My point is more that the system of having secret courts with secret laws governing a secret surveillance program all enables abuse, and the public has no safeguards against what's done in secret.

So my point is, there's no such thing as secret courts with secret courts with secret laws governing a secret surveillance program that is "not being abused". Having that sort of system enables abuse with no accountability, which is equivalent to abuse even before the abuse takes place.

Yeah, it's pretty interesting to think about how much of our personal computing now takes place on Unix or Linux. There are, of course, people who use Linux or BSD on the desktop and server, but setting that aside, there are now a lot of people using Macs, which are running a certified Unix. Then there are the iOS devices, which are also running unix, and Android devices which run Linux. I've also seen some people running around with Chromebooks, which is again Linux.

There are a couple of big moves to watch out for in the future. One of the big ones sitting in plain site is Valve's recent Linux support for Steam. If they can move their game catalog over to Linux, either through ports or by using something like WINE, it'll be a huge blow for Microsoft. There are some indications that Valve is looking to do just that, so that they can release a Linux-based game console. Even though it might not seem like a big deal, liberating the gaming market from Windows has the potential to have a big effect on home computing. Another thing to watch is the market share for products like Google Apps or LibreOffice. If Microsoft loses their dominance in office suites and email servers, they're going to be in a tough spot.

Sorry, but this is a really stupid thing to say. Yes, I know you probably think it makes a lot of sense, because lots of people think about things that way, but it's just amazing that you assume that wealth and intelligence are necessarily linked.

First, there's the expectation that smart people are all focused on making making money, as though it's intelligent to waste your life scrambling to accure more money than you can use. Second, you assume that intelligent people can simply think themselves into being wealthy, as though it has nothing to do with having connections, being ruthless, or having dumb luck. Finally, you conclude from these assumptions that rich people (e.g. Microsoft) have they money that they have because of smart leaderships and decisions.

I know I'm going off on a tangent, because I'm not talking here about Microsoft per se. Even if we assume that Microsoft is filled with brilliant people who have made their billions of dollars through intellect alone, you're still saying something stupid.

Yup. It seems to me that Microsoft still has the idea lodged in their collective heads that they're in a position to say, "Fuck you if you don't like our product. You have to buy it anyway." Unfortunately, they are still kind of in that position, but their position is increasingly tenuous.

Having the government build out the infrastructure will not significantly increase their ability to monitor your internet usage. The fact that it's currently controlled by private companies hasn't slowed them down.

In fact, I'd find it less unsettling if the government just had access to some of the information by virtue of the fact that I use their infrastructure, rather than knowing that they have access to the same information by strong-arming private companies who provide the illusion of privacy.

On the other hand, I'd rather have a 200 mbps connection that's lightly filtered rather than a 384 kbps connection that's completely unfiltered. Arguably providing slow speeds can be a stronger form of control and censorship than filtering.

This is something we should all understand: There's effectively no difference between "actual abuse" and "a system that enables abuse with no accountability". If you have a system that enables abuse without the proper safeguards against abuse, then it's only a matter of time before people start taking advantage of the situation.

The aftermath of Vista is precisely when he should have resigned. CEOs of other tech companies have resigned for lesser debacles.