My understanding was this was the first pass with adding patterns to the language with later versions potentially extending the types of patterns and / or where patterns can be used in the language.

It looks like the article was written in 2012 where the crashing behaviour was normal in Windows 8.0, this changed in Windows 8.1

The Surface Pro's come with only one USB port on the device, they make it up for it with having one on the power brick which I think is an awesome idea.

The surface pro also has a separate charging port.

With this new macbook, one cannot charge and use a mouse at the same time without an $80 addon.

Well, the official Apple mouse does not require a dongle, their logic must be something along the lines of "that's what you get for using third party mice".

What if i want to connect an external harddisk? or a pen drive having my work documents? or I want to connect a projector to do my presentation.

Is Apple's logic "that's what you get for having friends or working with people who do not buy the latest apple devices"?

You are ignoring the obvious answer that Apple even said in the announcement: wireless everything.

This is exactly like the removal of the DVD drive in MacBook Airs. "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO USE MY DVDs?!?!?" The answer is: don't. Download things over the network instead.

Same logic applies here.

Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Syncthing, BTSync, Aerofs, and others would all serve this use case.

"Waiting to upload 336 files at 3.6kb/s. Estimated time to complete 3 weeks."

Seen such messages right when I NEEDED those files. Also - remember epic KDE failure? When they had corrupted repository and it was perfectly mirrored to 1500+ other repos? And they had to search offline PC with a uncorrupted snapshot?

In general "all cloud" tech is at most 50% ready for use by everyone.

So the whole world (my office, friends, family, clients, colleagues) should change to suit my laptop?

For a disruptive product to be successful it should not be behind its time (where others are already there) it should not be too far ahead of its time (The technology might not be ready, the people might not be ready to understand the product, etc), It has to be just ahead of its time. I am sorry but I maintain that Apple has overshot with this product. This is not like removing DVD support or even removing flash support, because a lot of the world is still wired. Except for those who are fortunate to live in their own Apple bubble, many of the people who buy this will have to frequently face the frustration of owning such a device with practically no reward (apart from shaving of a few inches and grams off their laptop).

You mean like this one?

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB112LL/B/apple-mouse

He's talking about the more popular (and wireless) magic mouse.

That mouse has literally been around forever, and no it's not what users are generally using now.

Wow, I didn't even know they still sold that model.

Third party mice that require their own dongle instead of using bluetooth are just stupid.

For general use, yeah.

For gaming, you can get less input lag with wireless mice with dedicated dongles if you're intent on going wireless.

The macbook does have bluetooth, so I don't really see your point. There are lots of inexpensive, perfectly decent bluetooth mice out there.

Only if you like Apple's mice since no one else makes a half way decent Bluetooth mouse.

And a Mini Display port. External monitor(s) on the one and USB hub the other. Surface can drive 1 4k or 2 1080p monitors from that port. Will be interesting to see if you can get the daisy-chain of monitors off that AND have a spot to set up a hub or charge another device.

That age old saying, "Change you job, or change your job."

Also the management portal hasn't required Silverlight for at least a year now, it's all HTML5.

And if you don't want to use the portal then there's command line tools for both Node and Powershell.

Seems to have been a more general change; the Bing Webmaster Tools portal dropped Silverlight about a year ago as well. Not sure if there was an official announcement or they've just quietly decided to move away from it.

99% of WP7 apps worked perfectly well on WP8. The only ones that had issues were usually the ones that had managed to get exemptions from Microsoft to use underlying private APIs that may have changed (hence private).

Yup that gesture (swipe from the left hand side) switches between the active running apps (the desktop counts as one "app"). If you swipe slowly then you can dock the app to either side.

I like the stylus for scribbling notes / impromptu architecture diagrams in one note, especially in meetings.

I definitely view it as an ultrabook replacement. My only major gripe is that it's not a comfortable machine for on the lap work compared to a proper laptop.

Could this be fixed with some of those iPad cases with built-in keyboards (except, of course, made for Surface)?

Potentially, because the join between the type cover and tablet is obviously flexible it moves a lot when laying on a non uniform surface (my thighs).

Also because of it's width I feel like I need to sit with my knees together to try and balance it, trying on one leg feels stupidly awkward.

Yes and No :-)

Most utility apps that aren't supporting an existing brand will often support both themes. However I've noticed that apps that are already branded will go along with only the theme that works best with their brand.

The market certainly seems to be agreeing with you in that the 520 and 620 are the most popular models.