There's nothing at all unethical about it. The post is essentially, "Here's a cool thing that someone is charging money for. And you can probably make it yourself." It's an excellent example of fair use enabling concise communication.

No matter how good it is, I won't go. It is after all, a live action Akira.

A big mistake many people make is failing to cross the suburban—urban divide. They snuggle up to the city but don't quite get into it, retaining their semi-rural life as much as possible. If they went just a little further, they could dump the car completely (i.e. not even own one) and it's not the only advantage.

Chances are you're not an astronaut. So American or Chinese, it's gonna be someone else that goes.

In most (all?) cases, because they aren't even trying.

I tend to think PA ends once you've got a stable, thriving society. A shitty, run-down, unstable situation isn't a dystopia if the primary cause is a basic lack of resources, some kind of disease, or obviously bad government. This can lead to pr trigger the rise of a dystopia (optionally after a genuine utopia rises…

Not just saucer insurance. Anyone living along a major commuter route will see a big jump in house and life insurance. Discounts for anyone who installs a home SAM battery and brings a rocket launcher when walking their dog.

The way things are going these days, even if one flops miserably we can probably expect a reboot attempt a few years later.

That's an overreaction.

There *is* a theme in Windows. I'm always the first or only one of my friends to rant about publishers who take it upon themselves to skin over the nice Win7 chrome with some horrifying mess of overlays, bad fonts, and gradients.

Yeah, I watched the video. No reason is given why "deep integration with the interface" or "integration with Windows Live" means you shouldn't be able to get apps from non-MS sources.

"I'd really, really like to see some sort of sanctioned option to turn it off ..."

That's where I am on this. And if for no other reason than the Metro start button sitting on a Win7 taskbar. MS will be reading the reviews and running user studies, polishing and tweaking. Win8 might not be as well received on desktops as 7, but it's extremely unlikely to be the catastrophe some people are predicting.

But do they dick around in the Start menu because it's better or because it's there?

Oh god, I *wish* the 90s internet had looked like Metro.

Exactly. You don't remake movies that people like. You remakes movies with good ideas that were done badly or that no one liked. Or you "re-imagine" a classic, but give it a new goddamned title and let it stand on its own.

Surface is neither capacitive nor resistive. It's infrared optical (not sure what term they're actually using). It can see things and parts of things that are not touching the screen. It can keep track of which fingers are part of which hands because it can see the palm they're attached to. Maybe think of it as a…

I think you've misunderstood.

Look, you'll just have to read up on Surface yourself. If the key differences and significant innovation aren't obvious to you, I don't know that anyone will ever convince you of them.

Similar complaints to those levelled against WinXP on tablets for not being a "touch first" design would apply to IOS (as is) simply being enlarged to 40". IOS still needs an "up" to work properly. Surface is "multi-multi"-touch usable by multiple people from multiple angles simultaneously. The wall-mount situation…