Given the propensity of legislators/executives/courts to construe the language of the Constitution and amendments as broadly or narrowly as desired, I doubt that removing the Bill of Rights would make any significant difference. See the Commerce Clause and its construction since the 1930s for an example of extremely broad construction, and the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I for an extremely strict construction. Commerce can restrict what you grow in your garden for your own consumption. Necessary and Proper, despite being a literally broad clause, has been considered an insufficient ground for pretty much anything (unless combined with some other power).

For the Bill of Rights, the 9th amendment has generally been interpreted to convey no rights at all, while the 1st and 4th have been given a nebulous privacy component. Fun with courts!

TL;DR: The Constitution is very malleable to the whims of government, with or without the Bill of Rights.

Depends on the reasoning behind the final ruling. If all relevant law are found unconstitutional on their face, then the convictions should be reversible. If the final ruling uses weaker (weaseling) language, then it gets much murkier for those previously convicted.

That said, higher courts tend to use the weakest language they can, so I wouldn't hold my breath for a bunch of releases. Also, many of the convictions probably have other charges/etc connected, so it won't necessarily change anything for many people. For example, you have a 5 year sentence under this law running concurrently with a 5 year sentence for theft/robbery - you're still doing the 5 years (or whatever it takes to hit parole eligibility for the other offense(s) in IL).

Not to be an MS shill, but for Server 2012 R2 (no idea about vanilla 2012), I'd toss volume level deduplication and SMB 3.0 support out there as major features for many use cases. The savings on disk space I'm seeing from dedupe alone are worth thousands per year, just not enough thousands to justify dedupe capable hardware. The new features in SMB 3.0, particularly more graceful handling of disconnects and quasi-multipath support are worthwhile when both endpoints support it, though I can't put a dollar value on that just yet.

There are several other features that probably make the ridiculous GUI worth tolerating for many use cases, but those have been worth it for my backup repositories and file servers (particularly those that hold redirected folders).

That said, if 2008/R2 work well for your uses, don't fix it if it isn't broken (so long as it is supported).

You know what really makes the charm bar awesome? Remote Desktop to Windows Server 2012 (or Windows 8/8.1, I suppose). Move your cursor to the edge without moving it out of the remote desktop window. Ugh.

Ok, a few issues. First, there are *9* black robes in Washington. Second, the U.S. Supreme Court is and always has been empowered to hear controversies arising from the U.S. Constitution. The 4th amendment concerns in this case would be of that nature.

With respect to gay marriage, the Court is hearing challenges to DOMA (a federal law), and cases that determine whether states are in violation of the U.S. Constitution with their particular implementations of gay marriage bans.

Federal courts do not generally hear (or have the power to hear) things that do not involve federal law or the U.S. Constitution. If it's a state law or constitution that has nothing to do with federal law, the state courts will be the only ones to hear your case. (There are exceptions, but that's the short version.)

Just enjoy it while it's a discount they're offering. I seem to recall things going downhill in Minority Report.

Apparently you failed to account for the new touchscreen BSOD R&D costs. You can't actually touch it, but they'll fix that with SP1.

Yep, if there's one thing that was clear in the mid-1990s, it was how online marketing worked. (I just spent some time with archive.org - it was pretty amusing.)

You can get satellite broadband, though last I checked it was significantly more expensive than other broadband options (and with higher latency, but I'm sure you realize that). Again, I didn't go check, but it used to have slower speeds and relatively low data caps, as well.

I don't know how this would play out in the UK, but most US judges I've been before would have them back in court ASAP. It's true enough that they've put the required text in the required font on their site, and so they've technically complied with the letter of the order.

However, this isn't like an everyday contract where you get to find a loophole and laugh - it's a court order. Judges can and do ensure that parties abide by the letter *and* spirit of their rulings, and do not take kindly to those who skirt around their intent. (Unlike contracts, courts have a decent amount of latitude to clarify/modify their orders when things like this happen.)

I'm fairly certain that the judge did not intend for Apple to post the required text, then follow it up with excerpts from the court that appear to endorse Apple products - and I'm just as certain that Apple's lawyers knew that. Apple is seeing if they can get away with it, and I suppose the rest of us are, too.

IAAL, and I know exactly how the legal system would react. Ever imagine Wall Street bankers rolling in piles of money? Sort of like that...

From my perspective, the difference would be that virtual servers are far easier to provision/clone/move between providers than physical machines. Seizing a virtual server leaves the hosting provider out in the cold, not TPB. Setting up a new server just involves uploading/transferring an image/template rather than purchasing/installing a new box. It's easier, more versatile and resilient, and costs them far less when the police come knocking.

(That's not always true with 'cloud' computing, but it seems to be an excellent match for their needs. I'd agree that keeping physical load balancers decreases the effectiveness of the strategy, but virtualizing those could be a good next phase.)

Yeah, I'm not eating ramen in my dorm either. Now I only eat ramen in my office and my mortgage-is-cheaper-than-rent home.

Sort of like that, except that the parent had the money to replace the car, but decided to spend it elsewhere. Oh, and the parent evidently gave up their car without a sufficiently solid agreement with the neighbor about priority/etc. Oh, and they didn't just give up their car, they went out of their way to render it inoperable and shut down the entire auto industry.

If the idiot parents in your analogy didn't foresee the rather obvious scenario of a teenager doing something obnoxious, then car ownership may not be the only thing that's out of their league.

Hence bankruptcy.