This is how IP laws keep growing.

Every time 2 countries decide to "rationalize" their IP laws, they add their restrictions together, instead of compromising. You tend to end up with the longest term, the lowest bar, and the heaviest penalties.

AFAIK, none.

There's a lot of "privileges" that blacks get, though; and some of those can actually be detrimental. For example, black students are more likely to get the "privilege" of getting remidial classes, even if they don't need them (and would be better off in regular, or even advanced, classes).

MIcrosoft doesn't want to fix their UI. They want to train users in their touch UI.

The tablet space is an attractive market, and Microsoft wants to use their power on the desktop to win the tablet war.

This won't win them any friends in corporate IT, but corporate IT is so tied to Microsoft that they could release the next version with MS Bob as the interface, and businesses would still be forced to buy it when they upgrade. The only reason corporate IT is slow to upgrade now is that XP (and now Windows 7) is good enough, and corporate upgrade cycles are slow. Businesses skipped Vista, and went with 7. They'll skip 8 no matter what. When they are ready to upgrade again, Microsoft can just release a "Pro" version which enables a "classic" interface, and leave regular consumers with an interface that trains them to use MS tablets.

While there's lots of good self-taught musicians, generally educated musicians are better. The same is true for lots of things. People *can* teach themselves, but only if the skill is very easy, or they are hell-bent on learning.

That's the great thing about cloud computing. It's always there, like a cloud. Except when it decides to go away. Like a cloud.

Look at what similar jobs in the area are offering. Then email someone (via linked-in, or a search of the org's website) who's not advertising a position, so they only have 1 resume in front of them. There's a 20% chance that there's a position opening up, but it hasn't gone to HR yet (ass-pull statistic), and it's quite likely that the manager will forego dealing with 200+ mostly useless applicants if they have one solid candidate so you'll get the job with not other competitors.

> Tablets can't get real work done without add-on peripherals anyway.

A desktop can't either.

Probably more if you raise your own.

No, it's a good point (if a little ... mercenary).

Illegal aliens don't pay many taxes, rent expensive apartments, buy expensive food, or buy expensive food; because most of them are poor. High skilled immigrants pay lots of taxes, and blow lots of money on expensive things (like hiring maids, dining out, etc). Murica would rather have badly educated kids who are there to serve highly paid immigrants than well educated kids who make money which they can use to pay low-skilled immigrants.

You *could* educated American kids better, but that's a states issue (not a federal one like immigration). OK, the federal government has tried to fix education (with No Child Left Behind), but ... maybe it would be better if they found something else to wreck.

Arguably William Shockley too. His parents were American, but he was born in the UK.

A couple of the Traitorous Eight (who left Shockley's lab, to found Silicon Valley) were immigrants too, including Kleiner. Yes, the one who bankrolled Google (among many other things).

Don't like it? Move to China. Then they'll sell you it for cheaper, because you are so poor.

> But haven't Windows tablets been available since the early 90s? What does the Surface bring to the table if you leave out the Metro part? Why would this be more successful then the preceding Windows 7 tablets?

More touch-screen friendly. Cheap (compared to most tablets in the past). Powerful. Good industrial design.

> It's running Win8, which means 90% or corporate IT shops are going to eye it with tremendous suspicion, if not outright hostility, and unless your job title is a TLA starting with "C" and end with "O", odds are you're not even going to get a Surface Pro through the door.

Win8 has a few UI "issues", most of which become benefits when it's on a touch screen device. It still runs virtually all apps fine. There's no real reason to upgrade, and a slight cost of helping users find the login screen, shutdown screen, and desktop; but it's no biggie.

If users *want* a Surface, there's no reason why corporate IT would really care. It's not really hard to support it if.

They can't kill VPN, unless they only allow https on whitelisted sites, or MITM all non-whitelisted SSL.

> mobile vendors.

Apple is the best mobile vendor. Well, MS probably does a good job, but they aren't a big player.

We are comparing iOS to Android; not OSX to Windows.