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You really should read up on MMT, since all of your points are addressed there. Let me reply with some pointers anyway even though I don't have much time, since you do sound like a reasonable person - but please excuse the fact that some of the following may become a bit badly-edited stream-of-consciousness:

You know, if I had a dollar for every time people asked me to read up on a fringe theory, I would be a rich man now. You seem reasonable enough that I read the criticism section, which convinced the theory was not solid.

Please read up on how bond sales and open market operations by the government interact to set the interest rate. The fact is that if the government deficit spends without issuing bonds, the interest rate goes down.

If the government covers a deficit by printing money, it will increase inflation, because greater supply leads to lower prices. This also applies to money.

Conversely, when the government issues more bonds than it deficit spends, the interest rate goes up.

Which interest rate, exactly? And once you tell me this, could you outline why the (market) interest rate would increase?

So the government can just give itself a better rate for the bonds if it wants to.

Tell the Greeks that ;) That example alone should tell you something. Paying the few institutions left willing to buy Greek bonds with newly-printed money is unlikely to help the situation.

This clearly contradicts your understanding of how inflation works.

There is nothing magic about inflation. Inflation happens when there is an effective supply of money greater than the demand. Which is why any central bank can control the inflation rate if they want to, simply by increasing or decrease the amount of money it prints.

In fact, inflation is a mixture of different actors in the economy fighting for shares of real income, and a result of the interplay of supply and demand: if aggregate demand is too high for the productive capacity of the economy, this conflict will be resolved via increasing prices. If aggregate demand is too low for productive capacity, the conflict will typically be resolved via unemployment, and factories being idle.

Sorry, but that is just nonsense. No Western economy have had a general dearth of produce of any significant mind since after the aftermath of 2nd world war. So by your argument, we should not have experienced inflation since. In my little country, we hit well over 15% in the 1970's (due to bad policy of the government at the time).

So when private spending collapses and the government props up aggregate demand with its deficit, this is not inflationary. Whether the government issues bonds or not is irrelevant as far as inflation is concerned, it only affects the interest rate (yes, yes, monetarists claim that the interest rate is super important for inflation, and yes, there probably is some linkage there; but it's very indirect, and much weaker than the obvious link between aggregate demand and inflation).

The (state bank) interest rate is not that important for inflation, it's the amount of money printed. Of course, if the government are loaning out money to sub-market interest rates (as is currently common), that money has to come from somewhere. If that somewhere is by printing money, you'll get inflation. It really is quite simple.

Believe me, you're not the first person to engage me or the MMT academics on this topic. Suffice to say, what it eventually ends up being is that you concede all points, but declare them irrelevant by clinging to an extreme interpretation of the Quantity Theory of Money. The latter doesn't hold up to empirical evidence and not even to comm

I don't understand people who bash Linux. I am not talking about trolls like OP, but there are people who are serious about hating Linux.

Why would one want to demotivate people who work on an "indie" OS? Would he/she also bash amateur music bands for making "indie" music and not working for a major record label? What kind of person are such people?

The Dutch court found that Samsung's license demands were unreasonable:

At a hearing on September 26, it turned out that Samsung was seeking a royalty of 2.4% of the chip price for each (!) of its asserted patents. In today's ruling, the Dutch court says that Samsung's offer was so far out of the FRAND ballpark that, in the court's opinion, Samsung has failed to honor its obligation to make an offer on FRAND terms.

http://floorter.blogspot.com/2011/05/protecting-your-privacy-with-adsuck.html

You really should read up on MMT, since all of your points are addressed there. Let me reply with some pointers anyway even though I don't have much time, since you do sound like a reasonable person - but please excuse the fact that some of the following may become a bit badly-edited stream-of-consciousness:

Not quite. Printing more money would just devaluate the currency, meaning that everything the government buys would be more expensive, and the taxes it gathers would be worth less. On the other hand, a better rate for the bonds (that is, people invests in bonds) translates directly into more buying power.

Please read up on how bond sales and open market operations by the government interact to set the interest rate. The fact is that if the government deficit spends without issuing bonds, the interest rate goes down. Conversely, when the government issues more bonds than it deficit spends, the interest rate goes up. So the government can just give itself a better rate for the bonds if it wants to. This clearly contradicts your understanding of how inflation works.

In fact, inflation is a mixture of different actors in the economy fighting for shares of real income, and a result of the interplay of supply and demand: if aggregate demand is too high for the productive capacity of the economy, this conflict will be resolved via increasing prices. If aggregate demand is too low for productive capacity, the conflict will typically be resolved via unemployment, and factories being idle.

So when private spending collapses and the government props up aggregate demand with its deficit, this is not inflationary. Whether the government issues bonds or not is irrelevant as far as inflation is concerned, it only affects the interest rate (yes, yes, monetarists claim that the interest rate is super important for inflation, and yes, there probably is some linkage there; but it's very indirect, and much weaker than the obvious link between aggregate demand and inflation).

I mentioned this further up: When you find yourself disagreeing with a great majority of experts, it is time to recheck your facts. Odds are that you are mistaken :)

Believe me, you're not the first person to engage me or the MMT academics on this topic. Suffice to say, what it eventually ends up being is that you concede all points, but declare them irrelevant by clinging to an extreme interpretation of the Quantity Theory of Money. The latter doesn't hold up to empirical evidence and not even to common sense, but if you refuse to even consider the possibility that you're wrong about it, I can't help you.

Note that you have already taken the first step of this type: First you said, people will buy more bonds, which allows the government to spend more. Then I said, that's false, because the capacity of (sovereign) government to spend is independent of bond issue. You conceded that point (at least I assume so) but evaded by claiming that it would necessarily be inflationary, irrespective of what else is going on in the economy. That's Quantity Theory of Money, and it's nonsense because it implicitly assumes that the size of the real economy is constant (i.e. the Q in MV = PQ cannot change) -- but that is so obviously false, it's not even funny anymore.

Again, not quite. Your point about deposits is rather silly, as the loaner will probably immediately withdraw the loaned amount from the bank. This money will come from deposits to the bank, or from loans from other banks. Due to the fractional reserve system, some money is created in the process, but only a certain multiple of the money originally issued by the state bank. The exactly factor depends on the locals laws. I suggest you read the Wikipedia article on the fractional reserve system to see how this process works.

You're right about the withdr

OK, accepted.

I was going to say that "monkey" isn't a common insult doled out at white idiots. But then I remembered Steve Bell's cartoon version of George Bush.

for my masters, but sadly without the advantages of having access to a custom PrimeSense camera (I had initially looked at the kinect but the 50cm minimum range makes things rather awkward). Lordy, I'm almost embarrassed at how primitive what I'm working on is in comparison to this piece of work (in my defence though, part-time, unfunded student, and its a HCI rather than comp-sci oriented masters).

This is fantastic stuff since THE primary problem I'm seeing in creating any usable interaction from Wearable Gestural Interfaces such as this is in getting accurate and reliable computer vision techniques working to detect finger/hand positioning. Time of flight cameras solve this of course and shoulder mounting, although it looks strange, is actually a very good use of the body for placement since its an area that is seldom obstructed and relatively safe from being knocked when moving around. Personally, where I see this evolving is so that devices such as these end up being similar to large closed-cup headphones that you wear around your neck - does saying that make the concept prior art? *grin*

So I guess I'd better ensure this one makes it into my lit review...luckily I'm looking at something slightly different since my focus is primarily on the use of in air gestures for command and control and the projector is really secondary....but damn it would have been nice to have access to some of the underlying depth sensing tech.

Oh http://os6sense.blogspot.com/ if anyone is interested

That's not true. The only issue litigated in the German case that Dragonslicer was referencing was the Community Design he linked to. It is solely on the basis of that community design that an injunction was issued.

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/preliminary-injunction-granted-by.html

From http://kianadavenportdialogues.blogspot.com/2011/08/sleeping-with-enemy-cautionary-tale.html But I was debt-ridden and needed upfront money that an advance would provide.

Maybe going off topic and I don't know if writing is all she does(http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/depression-and-writers.html) but wouldn't having a full time job be a solution to your debt problems instead of leading an "artists" life and if you can't find work locally its time to move on.

The authors propose a link in their paper to fragments of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks.

This is nonsense however, as pointed out here: http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2011/10/ot-1883-zacatecas-observation-of.html

The earth has its closest approach to the 12P/Pons-Brooks orbit near December 6th, not August 12th (see diagrams in the link above). Hence, fragments of the latter cannot pass close to earth mid-august (and they do not come even particularly close on 6 December, as the minimal earth to comet orbit distance is still 0.2 AU, i.e. the comet passes closer to the orbit of Venus than to the orbit of Earth).

The whole story has very little substantial fact behind it, and factual errors such as pointed out above do not promote confidence.

Uhm, I think you're either leaving something out of your description, or you're confused. MAC addresses aren't transmitted across the Internet. They stop at the first router they come to. Meaning in most sane situations only your DSL modem's MAC is transmitted, and it never leaves your ISP.

newsflash: the WIRELESS MAC address address might not be transmitted across the internet but it sure is broadcast via radio. Add Google street view//norc.eu//other gps+photography+wardriving service into the mix and you've got a gps-to-router_wifi_mac lookup database.

refs:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20005051-266.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20009223-265.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html

Is there a new thing where you capitalise your spelling mistakes as some kind of ironic statement? I've seen this ALOT (but not that alot) recently.

Well, this is the creationist version of how snakes get their shape anyway

My personnel solution is that neutrinos feel a fifth force (many at low energy), and this fifth force as left a enough binding energy for the Scarnhorst effect to increase the speed of there force carrier above the speed of light. see axitronics for details.

I'm thinking a car cover along these lines should do the job...

Have a few numbers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/25/christian-brothers-abuse-payout [guardian.co.uk]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23521616/ns/us_news-faith/t/catholic-sex-abuse-payouts-top-million/ [msn.com]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557479/Roman-Catholic-Church-agrees-sexual-abuse-payout.html [telegraph.co.uk]

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/08/18/clergy-abuse-payouts-pushing-dublin-archdiocese-toward-bankruptcy/ [nationalpost.com]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Catholic+Church+seeks+limit+abuse+payouts+Germany/3605154/story.html [montrealgazette.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/24/usa.danglaister [guardian.co.uk]

http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2011/03/catholic-jesuits-in-166-million-abuse.html [blogspot.com]

http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2011/01/catholic-abuse-victims-offered-firm.html [vaticancrimes.us]

The response has been documented to have AGGRAVATED the problem, and continued over decades.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/25/christian-brothers-abuse-payout [guardian.co.uk]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23521616/ns/us_news-faith/t/catholic-sex-abuse-payouts-top-million/ [msn.com]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557479/Roman-Catholic-Church-agrees-sexual-abuse-payout.html [telegraph.co.uk]

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/08/18/clergy-abuse-payouts-pushing-dublin-archdiocese-toward-bankruptcy/ [nationalpost.com]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Catholic+Church+seeks+limit+abuse+payouts+Germany/3605154/story.html [montrealgazette.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/24/usa.danglaister [guardian.co.uk]

http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2011/03/catholic-jesuits-in-166-million-abuse.html [blogspot.com]

http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2011/01/catholic-abuse-victims-offered-firm.html [vaticancrimes.us]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/25/christian-brothers-abuse-payout

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23521616/ns/us_news-faith/t/catholic-sex-abuse-payouts-top-million/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1557479/Roman-Catholic-Church-agrees-sexual-abuse-payout.html

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/08/18/clergy-abuse-payouts-pushing-dublin-archdiocese-toward-bankruptcy/

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Catholic+Church+seeks+limit+abuse+payouts+Germany/3605154/story.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/24/usa.danglaister

http://vivekajyoti.blogspot.com/2011/03/catholic-jesuits-in-166-million-abuse.html

http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2011/01/catholic-abuse-victims-offered-firm.html

The problem is that Apple's form factor and "blank rectangular slab" is not unique nor creative. All you have to do is watch 2001:A Space Odyssey to see a design that is 40 years old.

You mean this? That doesn't even look like an iPad if you cut off the ten buttons and the angled holding area with the IBM logo. You'd still be stuck with something with very un-round edges.

I mean like, totally, dude.

I wonder if the results would have been any different had the Judge allowed the lawyers to see all 360 degrees of the device, and not just the front. Something tells me the SAMSUNG logo emblazoned on the device would assist in differentiating it from the iPad.

iPad 2 - http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UTeQhQcvdNU/TPGrM-2_lVI/AAAAAAAAF20/U7xNqZ0as4s/s1600/things-about-apple-ipad-2.jpg

Galaxy Tab - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UTeQhQcvdNU/TProAcaIpnI/AAAAAAAAF5M/wtS26PrDbeU/s1600/Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-4.jpg

Can you tell the difference?

I wonder if the results would have been any different had the Judge allowed the lawyers to see all 360 degrees of the device, and not just the front. Something tells me the SAMSUNG logo emblazoned on the device would assist in differentiating it from the iPad.

iPad 2 - http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UTeQhQcvdNU/TPGrM-2_lVI/AAAAAAAAF20/U7xNqZ0as4s/s1600/things-about-apple-ipad-2.jpg

Galaxy Tab - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UTeQhQcvdNU/TProAcaIpnI/AAAAAAAAF5M/wtS26PrDbeU/s1600/Samsung-Galaxy-Tab-4.jpg

Can you tell the difference?

can't you let the students recreate how they filmed the 3d "run around" scenes from the matrix? Would make for an interesting project... (this is what i mean http://theunhens.blogspot.com/2011/05/bullettime.html . In dutch, but the pictures should make clear what I mean)

A tribute, let's all sing: http://write-in-c-song.blogspot.com/2009/08/write-in-c-geek-song.html

An account of the incident with Phoenix Jones, whose author claims to have been on the scene and peripherally involved, can be found at http://heroesinthenight.blogspot.com/2011/10/statement-on-phoenix-jones-patrol.html. It's interesting to hear a complete description of the whole incident. Is it all true? The blogger is writing a book about "real life superheroes" and potentially has some stake in making Phoenix and his crew look interesting. Still, the account given by the blogger in question sounds pretty plausible and it accounts for all of the known facts. Maybe the most interesting thing about it is how the "superhero" and his crew could see a fight in progress (Phoenix seems to be stretching the truth a bit about stopping attempted murder,but one guy does get hit by a car) while the police arriving later would see a group of citizens assaulted with pepper spray without sufficient cause. I'm afraid that the video of Phoenix dodging the attack by the woman who was angry about being maced or angry about her boyfriend getting maced or both, isn't doing much for his public image. Of course, the plain truth is that most of these guys don't have a public image to begin with, despite whatever publicity they've had. (I say that as a resident of the greater Seattle area. I don't mean that they have "bad" image, I mean that they have almost no public recognition beyond "there are some guys in town who style themselves as superheros".)

Much as I dislike Florian Muller, and his anti Google shill rants posing as 'news', he says the same thing: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/10/steve-jobs-patent-enables-apple-to-shut.html

A good web author knows how the search engine works with their site. Things like overuse of a keyword, not enough content or excessive boiler plate content will cause your site to rank low. While things like canonical urls, matching meta description with page content, lots of diverse keywords in narrative format and links pointing to pages that contain the link text in prominent locations all will help your position in a search engine.

I'm sure there are some SEO companies that sell people bullshit, but that story is as old as time, you'll find con artists in every business. This is not "hacking" or "spamming" or even gaming the search engine. It's presenting a semantically correct page that both humans and spiders can understand well. You can get a good rank without doing anything nefarious. Just from my own searching, as a non-author, I can see nefarious stuff rarely works and when it does it's fleeting.

When I do SEO on a site I use a program like http://www.seoengine.com/ to tell me what's wrong with my page. More good info on SEO can be found at Google webmaster blog And A bunch of great videos from the Google guys (Tons about SEO):.

Here's one of the best interpretations of how it might have looked - a huge hungry monster:
T-Rex

I've worked hard to master a writing style able to bump marbles out of their customary grooves. It's a lot more work that flipping open an ideological switchblade.

I'm shocked at the number of responses here by middle manager types whose life motto is to fly comfortably under the radar. The culture of considerate memos with broad input from every desk in the company is what Bill hung upside down by its ankles in the early 1980s.

When you start reading the literature on leadership and change, the lesson is that you have to shake some trees, and communicate communicate communicate and communicate some more.

If you tone it down to the level of Indiana Jones in the classroom at the beginning of Raiders, does anyone actually listen?

What he's saying about Bezos rung a bell from a distance era:
Story about Sun Tzu and the kings' concubines:

Without these concubines, my food and drink will not taste good. It is the King's wish that they not be beheaded.

Sun Tzu's response: Sorry boss, conflicting orders, does not compute, off with their heads.

It's a fact: beheading favorite concubines gets results. I think Steve would like to see Google achieve the same results using more modern methods.

Wave and Google+ are worrying setbacks should their ad revenue business model falter. His message might be wrong, but it needs to be vigorously debated ASAP. If Google is the company I think it is, there will be a lot more heated discussion about the import of this menu than the context of its divulgence.

Leadership is dangerous business. The image seared in my mind is Confederate General Lewis A. Armistead leading the charge of the Battle of Gettysburg hat upon sword.

The post was long, I think you skimmed it. When he complained about the Amazon website user interface it was hyperbole. When he spoke of Jeff Bezos' dictatorial management it was surrounded before and after by statements that Google was better than Amazon in every single way save platforms. If he thought running the company like an emperor made sense, he would have listed that among Amazon's virtues.

Go read his other blog rants at http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/ He is blunt, but he's also very intelligent and even when you disagree he writes a solid argument. He probably won't get reprimanded because he's damned good at what he does, which is why Google hired him away from Amazon and Facebook is trying to hire him away from Google.

"I know your secret!"

Oh yeah, there's a reason they keep him around.

It's worse, it looks like they want to shut down Cassini early: http://futureplanets.blogspot.com/2011/10/updates.html

The plan was to have Cassini end its mission by flying between the planet and the rings to do essentially the Juno mission at Saturn. NASA's already paid for Cassini, it's a waste to shut it down early... Juno was $1B, and Cassini could do the same thing at Saturn for pennies on that dollar.

1) How about bikini pics? Of course having normal hips/waist for a female is only one problem with the 12 year old boy comparison. She also has boobs, which a 12 year old boy shouldn't have. This whole conversation is an exercise in denial of the obvious, so I'm not sure how much of this is necessary to point out, but there you go.

2) The exception to the no girls on the internet rule is that fat girls do use the internet. There is a decent chance that Hazel Bergeron is a fat tranny, but it is more likely that she is just a fat girl. Fat girls like the internet because nobody can tell that they are fat. That is, until they rage about hot girls like Natalie Portman.

3) As Strom Thurmond once said, "The pecker knows no prejudice."

1) How about bikini pics? Of course having normal hips/waist for a female is only one problem with the 12 year old boy comparison. She also has boobs, which a 12 year old boy shouldn't have. This whole conversation is an exercise in denial of the obvious, so I'm not sure how much of this is necessary to point out, but there you go.

2) The exception to the no girls on the internet rule is that fat girls do use the internet. There is a decent chance that Hazel Bergeron is a fat tranny, but it is more likely that she is just a fat girl. Fat girls like the internet because nobody can tell that they are fat. That is, until they rage about hot girls like Natalie Portman.

3) As Strom Thurmond once said, "The pecker knows no prejudice."

1) How about bikini pics? Of course having normal hips/waist for a female is only one problem with the 12 year old boy comparison. She also has boobs, which a 12 year old boy shouldn't have. This whole conversation is an exercise in denial of the obvious, so I'm not sure how much of this is necessary to point out, but there you go.

2) The exception to the no girls on the internet rule is that fat girls do use the internet. There is a decent chance that Hazel Bergeron is a fat tranny, but it is more likely that she is just a fat girl. Fat girls like the internet because nobody can tell that they are fat. That is, until they rage about hot girls like Natalie Portman.

3) As Strom Thurmond once said, "The pecker knows no prejudice."

1) How about bikini pics? Of course having normal hips/waist for a female is only one problem with the 12 year old boy comparison. She also has boobs, which a 12 year old boy shouldn't have. This whole conversation is an exercise in denial of the obvious, so I'm not sure how much of this is necessary to point out, but there you go.

2) The exception to the no girls on the internet rule is that fat girls do use the internet. There is a decent chance that Hazel Bergeron is a fat tranny, but it is more likely that she is just a fat girl. Fat girls like the internet because nobody can tell that they are fat. That is, until they rage about hot girls like Natalie Portman.

3) As Strom Thurmond once said, "The pecker knows no prejudice."

Mazda is just not producing anymore renesis rotary engines. Does not mean they are not producing a new rotary engine. "Thank you so much for all your supportive messages concerning the RX-8 and the rotary engine! We are also excited. Mazda is aiming to achieve a breakthrough with the ‘Skyactiv’ technology, and we are zealously working on new models to house the next generation rotary engine. Thank you for your continued support!" http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2011/10/mazda-pr-tweets-that-company-is-working.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Carscoop+(CARSCOOP) This article is so wrong on so many levels that its funny.

Natalie Portman doesn't have an hourglass figure? As in her hips and shoulders aren't around the same width, while her waist is thinner? Compare a 12 year old boy to Natalie Portman, and you will find Portman has the wider hips and narrower waist. That is all it is. Guys have more broad shoulders and narrower hips. Girls have narrower shoulders and wider hips.

How many 12 year old boys do you know who look like this? You are so obsessed with this idea that Natalie Portman looks like a boy. She is absolutely beautiful. A perfect 10. Get over it.

Pretending that beautiful women are ugly and that men who aren't attracted to you are gay pedophiles won't do anything to make you a happier person. Not in the long run.

New Hampshire is making the news on each of these cases because we have a flock of activists that come down on the state like a ton of bricks each time one of these incidents happens. That particular incident in Weare started out when two friends of some activists got pulled over in a routine traffic stop. They called an activist alert hotline to let their friends know about the stop, and within minutes half a dozen people showed up to video the cops. The cops reacted by charging several people with "wiretapping," all of whom ended up going to court over it, and at least one of whom is now suing the town over civil rights violations.

Here's the blog of one of the activists who's following these cases closely (and has one of his own wending through the courts).

And here's a bill at the State House to fix this mess. All of those sponsoring reps are libertarians, by the way (not as in the "Libertarian Party," but as in highly rated by a non-partisan liberty lobbyist group). Out of 400 state representatives, we have maybe 40-50 staunchly pro-liberty reps in office. The chair of the subcommittee hearing this bill was the NHLA's legislator of the year for 2011. Can you say the same about your state?

N.H. was chosen by the FSP because, of the fifty states, it's the freest. It's by no means "free" by most libertarians' standards. But with almost a thousand FSPers in the state, and over a hundred of those active in the political system, it probably will be soon.

#2 "They suck."

No.

Metro is not a GUI library. It's not a library at all. It's a term to describe a new kind of apps, specific to Win8, that are fullscreen, run in a very tight sandbox, and have different life cycle that allows the OS to unload them. Basically, tablet-enabled apps for Windows.

WinRT (Windows Runtime) is the library (and a bit more than that; the term is overloaded). It's not just a GUI library, mind you. It also has file I/O, and sockets, and HTTP, and lots of other stuff. It's most similar to .NET or Java standard class library.

WinRT is not on top of .NET. The implementation itself is pure native code. It it "projected" into .NET, so that WinRT classes and interfaces look like CLR classes and interfaces. This is done on runtime/bytecode level, not on language level, so any .NET language can target WinRT.

Not all Metro apps have to use WinRT. In particular, HTML/JS apps don't use it for GUI, and they may not need to use it for anything else if capabilities provided by HTML5 modules (canvas, IndexedDB etc) are sufficient. If they do want/need to use it, it is projected into JavaScript (sans UI parts, since HTML5 is supposed to be used for that with JS).

It's not projected any more than the Win32 is "projected". It's an API pure and simple. Just as I could write C++ code using MFC to write a Windows classic application, so could I indirectly call those same APIs via the WinForms library in .Net framework. WinRT is thesame. It expressed several different bindings for different envionments that call into this code. An NO it is not a .Net - like system. It's the .Net framework. If you actually knew anything about .Net hosts work you'd realize that sandboxing and assembly loading is 100% in the control of the host system. Just by default everything get's loaded. Not so in WinRT, it has a very detailed policy.

I run a blog with 800 readers - foo-wow.blogspot.com
I looked at also joining google+; but I will not use my real (or wallet) name; and will not risk access to my blog (which also uses a google login).

So - no google+ for me.

While 'users' are the product, not the customer; Google+ isnt even gathering the users.

my account of Stallman's appearance at the Yorktown HS computer club.

nice writeup of Stallman talking. He is extreme, but makes a lot of sense most of the time.
It's easy for people to get all excited about disagreeing with him, then throw out all the good ideas or at least the vision that RMS sees.

The single most effective thing they ever did was to replace real state-issued money with bank-issued monetized debt. That's how you grab a nation by the balls without ever using physical force.

Sure, most educated people know the history but that's not what the protests are about.

There's plenty of people sophisticated enough to explain things in laymans terms and even more sophisticated analysis for those stupified intellects that remain in denial.

Obligatory: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OSwDLiKxrvI/To-d8_zmQII/AAAAAAAAniE/EqVjpDPvVo0/s1600/111007-down-with-evil-corporations.jpg (I swear it's not gotse.)

I think this photo pretty well sums it up.

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/10/down-with-evil-corporations-photo.html

Just wait until they invent the Keely Harmonic Engine.

my account of Stallman's appearance at the Yorktown HS computer club.

You can roll back to an earlier version without too much trouble. OK, harder than it should be, but it wasn't what I would call hard.

I didn't run into any "conflicts".

I wrote about it here http://scottbarr.blogspot.com/2010/07/rolling-back-iphone-ios4-to-iphone-ios3.html

Here is one more write-up that may be helpful in putting the bits together.