I think they want everybody on Windows 10 to entice developers. If you are going to write a Windows application, they want you to target Windows 10 and their universal platform. Until they get a big enough number of users there, it's a pretty tough argument to make.

If that's true, then I think they are damaging their brand for nothing. Other than games there's just not a lot of interesting things happening in Windows for mainstream consumers anymore. Windows is most interesting for business users and Microsoft has shown that they aren't willing to accept that yet.

As long as you don't go online, you should be fine.

What computer do you use and where was it made?

I'm genuinely curious about this - what exactly is it that you want to do with Cortana? I've been running W10 on my home machine (desktop) since the original release and I've always had it configured to deactivate Cortana as much as possible (it's still always running though). I've never once been tempted to turn it on. Is there some use case that I'm not thinking about?

I understand the use case on mobile, but I don't see the value on a desktop machine.

Of course the concepts are related. You think a deterministic universe is compatible with free will?

I didn't have to roll out of bed this morning

The free-will-is-an-illusion crowd would point out that you had no choice about rolling out of bed. That you would do so was determined by the big bang billions of years ago. You're just a meat robot.

A company like Google surely has all of their records online. I can understand a raid 20 years ago when there would be a wall of file cabinets to cart away, but what do they expect to get today? A thumbdrive?

First pre-indicted President.

Can't she just pardon herself?

You're right. For a lot of people, the benefits outweigh the costs. Start showing people that their privacy has value and maybe the trend will be reversed.

Illegal? Maybe, maybe not: http://gizmodo.com/its-perfect...

It might be illegal but I don't have an ethical problem with stripping DRM from books I purchase.

I know what you mean, but at the same time I have a hard time being angry with Amazon because they serve me so well.

> it's not hard to choose

I'll take the ebook every time. Thankfully, ebook DRM is pretty weak, so I've been able to strip it from every book I've bought.

Initially it used to bother me when a paper book cost less than an ebook, but I've pretty much let go of that now. Being able to search a book makes it more valuable and so it's worth a smallish premium to me.

If I'm operating over an encrypted connection (like https) how can they determine of the endpoint is the phone or a laptop?

I'm not sure what your point is.

Google can help some people and that's a good thing.

Also the sports coaches are digustingly overpaid.

How do you get around the fact that there are a small number of top coaches and a large number of places that want to hire them? Athletics departments are income generators for a lot of schools and a high profile coach can have a huge impact.