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When you've consumed your 40 miles...it's an engine that's under powered, it'll feel like a lawnmower engine powering a sedan...It'll feel anemic on the highway. It's problematic, neither fish nor fowl.

-- Elon Musk, on the Chevrolet Volt.

'Cadillacs are overpriced barges.' - Henry Ford.

OK, I made it up, but it's just as applicable.

-- Elon Musk, on the Chevrolet Volt.

Assault rifles are good, they supported by the Second Amendment as a bulwark against government tyranny.

Church is fine, I mean if you believe in that sort of thing. I think it's a little silly, given that clown in the Vatican, but whatever floats yer boat.

Destroying the planet? Oh, I doubt he believes deliberately destroying Tesla will have much impact either way.

However, Tea Party rallies?

  Ok, now you are getting somewhere. No, he probably doesn't attend the rallies, but the Tea Party is just an astro-turf organization funded by Big Oil and specifically the Koch brothers. The Koch Brothers are probably bribing either Broder or the NYT as an organization as well.

As T. Boone Pickens has stated, "The biggest deterrent to an energy plan in America is Koch Industries, They do not want an energy plan for America because they have the cheapest natural gas price they've ever had, and they're in the fertilizer business and they're in the chemical business. So their margins are huge. And they do not want you to have an energy plan, because if you had a plan, then natural gas prices would come up."

With the kind of economic resources the Brothers grim can bring to bear, getting a test scuttled in a major newspaper is nothing. At any rate, someone decided to skew the test, and I doubt it was because Broder has a personal grudge against electric cars or Tesla motors.

As always, follow the money and ask, "who benefits?"

You might want to follow the cite I gave on to the article it cites. Here's the link for you: http://www.businessinsider.com/government-spending-2011-7

There, the breakdown is by quarter, and going by that, they have Bush taking the spending rate from $1.9 trillion to $3.2 trillion, while Obama takes it from $3.2 trillion to $3.8 trillion, and then it starts to go back down. That's a $1.3 trillion increase for Bush, but a $0.6 trillion increase for Obama.

Note too that while Obama inherited deficit spending, Bush started off with a surplus.

Misremembered the citation - Bush grew federal spending by more than twice what Obama has, not the deficit. My apologies. Here's the citation: http://www.businessinsider.com/whos-responsible-for-budget-deficit-2012-8

Not quite... The facts are rather different. President Bush took Federal spending from $2.01 trillion to $2.98 trillion, a growth of $970 billion.

President Obama took spending from that $2.98 trillion to $3.8 trillion, a growth of $820 billion. And he did it in 5 years, versus the 7 of President Bush.

Your claim of double simply doesn't hold up. It's nearly equal right now, and - even if President Obama scales Federal spending back to just inflation - will out-pace President Bush dramatically, by several hundred billion dollars, by the time his 2nd term is over.

Is this an absolution of President Bush? Not at all. Rather, it is a condemnation of the squandering by BOTH Presidents. For, based on the facts, as bad as President Bush was (which was rather bad), President Obama is considerably, provably, worse.

Misremembered the citation - Bush grew federal spending by more than twice what Obama has, not the deficit. My apologies. Here's the citation: http://www.businessinsider.com/whos-responsible-for-budget-deficit-2012-8

Federal Income Tax is down - almost every other tax has increased. Local wage taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes... It took the recent financial crisis to knock us back down to 1970s levels, but expect that to ramp back up as the economy recovers. Just prior to the financial crisis, we were at an all-time high for total tax burden as a percentage of GDP.

Got my numbers here.

Except that unlike the mythical WMD's, 'drone bombing' is all too real, e.g.

""Did we just kill a kid?"
"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.
"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.
They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?"

It's true, and I think it first really hit home with most people when Business Insider posted their "Microsoft Operating Profit By Division" chart about 3 years ago. Since then the XBox group has had some profitable quarters and some losses (a big one last spring), but is still down a couple billion. If you're "genuinely interested" in the exact amount, just open Excel and type in the numbers from all of Microsoft's quarterly reports for the last decade to get an exact amount-- the numbers aren't secret.

Where's the evidence that reasonable counter measures will destroy the economy?

In Spain.

"they get most of their income from ink cartridges"

Exaggerate much? You really don't know wtf you are talking about do you?

here's a chart with HPs revenue by segment:
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-hp-revenue-by-segment-2011-8

here's their 2012 q2 results:
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-newsarticle&ID=1699267

printing and imaging division is about 20% of revenue -- that includes ink cartridges, printers, commercial printers, etc. The division has a 13.2% operating margin -- less than their software division (17.7%). For comparison, services has a 11.3% operating margin, enterprise servers - 11.2%, financial services - 9.9%, and personal systems - 5.5%

The fact that MSFT had to cut their Surface order in half [bgr.com] should be a surprise to nobody

I've seen you post this at least a dozen times. Every time you start a rant about Surface, you invariably bring up this unsubstantiated claim from unnamed Eastern component suppliers. After this "rumor" hit the web, Microsoft actually increased retail distribution, said they're increasing production, are increasing availability to more countries, and said they're expanding the product lineup. Together, these point to a completely different direction than your stale, 3 month old rumor.

You're starting to sound like a broken record.

Hell even with this, is it 23GB in base 2 like the OS, or is it base 10 like the manufacturers?

It's base 2.

all those people getting home and finding none of the Windows software they've accumalated for years will run on the damned thing, THAT is what is gonna make this into a megaflop.

All the software they've accumulated over the years WILL run on the Surface Pro. That's the entire point of this device. It runs full Windows 8 on an Intel Core i5. You don't seem to know much about this product you constantly are blasting. Even 23GB is enough for any application I've come across, but this can be expanded to 30+ GB by removing the recovery partition. This is the same you'd get with a Macbook Air at 64GB. You can even expand storage easily with an SD card.

Wow plus starcraft, 36gb. your point?

The founders of the United States banned a state religion in the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof") because they realized churches were competing power structures.

Nowadays, we have the new church, corporations and specifically corporations of the financial sector.

You really want to know who runs this country? Here are four data points from which you can draw your own conclusions:

1) The head of Goldman Sachs goes before Congress and admits he was selling bad products to clients, products which he was betting against. A classic swindle. Nothing ever came of it. Or any of the other revelations.

2) There was a PBS show called "The Untouchables" which chronicled why Wall Street executives were never prosecuted for fraud.

3) However, someone you'd think was powerful and connected, a former Michigan state Supreme Court justice is facing jail time for lying to a bank which she was working with in order to get a short sale completed for a house she owned. Her crime? She tried to hide another asset, a paid off house, from the bank.

4) Another person you'd think is powerful and connected, the chairman of the Washington DC City Council, Kwame Brown, was removed from office and convicted of a felony for lying about his income on a pair of loan applications, totaling around 200,000 dollars. Absolute small potatoes. Also a very common practice in the mid-to-late 2000s, on home loans.

Noticing a trend? If you're a financial sector executive, you run the show. It doesn't matter that you've swindled billions of dollars from the country, nothing is going to happen to you.

However, If you cross the financial sector, even over relatively trivial matters and sums, it won't matter if you're the elected head of the city council or a justice on the state supreme court, you will be removed from office and suffer significant consequences.

The financial sector runs this country.

Posted here because it's sooo sloooow to load. Where's the Coral Cache when you need it?

Again, apologies for the blatant copyright violation and thanking my lucky stars the publisher isn't Co$. For the duration of the slow-load any reasonable person would call this reposting "fair use." The /. overlords are welcome to delete this when it is no longer needed, if they wish to do so. I wish Slashdot's overlords would come to some kind of caching agreement with newly-posted stories so the publishers can keep their ad revenue without being beaten into submission by traffic loads.

Anyhow, here we go....

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-richest-interns-in-tech-2013-1?op=1

00--snip--00

20 Tech Companies That Pay Interns Boatloads Of Money
Alyson Shontell
Feb. 2, 2013, 8:15 AM

If you intern for a high-profile tech company, you can make more money than the average US citizen.

Facebook, for example, pays its average intern $6,056 per month. That ends up being a base salary of about $72,000 per year.

But there's another tech company that pays its interns even more than Facebook.

Glassdoor, a career and company rating site, helped us compile a list of tech companies that pay their interns the most. Its salary data is based on anonymous salary reports voluntarily shared by current and recent employees, including interns.

The following list combines monthly average pay with hourly monthly pay to take into account a larger data sample among tech interns. Companies were only included if they had 20 or more salary reports within the past two years.

Here's who pays its lowest level people thousands of dollars every month.

20. Cisco Systems pays its interns an average of $3,930 per month

Annually, that would be: $47,160

"Great company, very knowledgeable peers from top universities, work is good, good compensation and you learn a lot. Flexibility and work/life balance is unmatched. Free movie tickets, tickets to amusement park, free frequent lunches, great gym, free train pass, lot of intern events with free food, pays for your tuition, San Jose a good place to live. College grads like me these days wants to work for more recent brands like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter but companies like CISCO and others who have been there from decades are great places to start your career." -- Former Cisco Systems college intern (San Jose, CA)

19. IBM pays its interns an average of $3,942 per month

Annually, that would be: $47,304

"Tech giant with massive resources and really talented people. You work on products that are touched by millions in mission critical areas. For such a big company, it feels very nimble. You can easily reach any employee worldwide through Same time. It feels like a tight-knit environment, even thought you are 1 or hundreds of thousands. Every manager I have dealt with is awesome. Uber professionalism throughout." -- IBM software engineer intern (Austin, TX)

18. EMC pays its interns an average of $4,004 per month

Annually, that would be: $48,048

"EMC is a great company with great employees. Seniors are willing to help and easy about timelines. Its was a awesome experience as a starter and provided me a good learning experience. With that said, it has good salaries for the intern." -- EMC software engineer intern (Hopkinton, MA)

17. Hewlett-Packard pays its interns an average of $4,008 per month

Annually, that would be: $48,096

"Great place to start working, a lot of opportunities, resources in other departments, great pay for an internship, great company to start a career with." -- HP intern (San Diego, CA)

16. Dell pays its interns an average of $4,024 per month

Annually, that would be: $48,288

"Excellent community, with an open atmosphere. The company is reshaping itself, there is a lot of room for upward movement, and it is clear that Dell will

their userbase growth is still accelerating.

Wow, an AC using a third derivative to argue his case. That's gotta be a first (though oinly for ACs, not for sitting US presidents). Actually, from the first chart I found when googling, it looks as if the userbase has been linearly rising since November 2010, so the rise is not growing, much less accelerating.

The XBox and XBox360 succeeded

You call this "success"?

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-losses-on-xbox-2012-6

"Overall, the Xbox group has lost $4 billion for Microsoft. "

And don't forget the "XBox group" -- the Entertainment and Devices group also includes the profitable Mac Business Unit, The XBox has been a an even bigger net lost for MS than it appears.

LMAO Tell me you don't actually believe that.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-product-placements-in-tv-and-movies-2012-8?op=1

'Governor Jiabao. I should have expected to find you holding General Mingfu's leash. Do you realize the more your hackers attack our free (well mostly free) press, the more we will think you're are carrying on like a pack of spoiled brats unfit to replace America as the world's superpower?' http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-general-ominously-warns-australia-not-to-side-with-the-us-tiger-2013-1

The idea that Iceland has recovered in a short time is a great exaggeration.

Intentional misreading of "has been recovering" as "has recovered" and "steadily for a few years now" as "in a short time" does not help your argument. Of course they went through severe pain; the point is that they took the necessary medicine and are now recovering, unlike pretty much everywhere else where organized wealth confiscation continues either under the guise of austerity, or monetary easing such as Japan and the US.

Your numbers are off base too, both in absolute and relative terms: 213% of household disposable income was incurred before the crisis, as a direct result of bank deregulation in 2001 (which caused the crisis itself) and has been unwinding since. The 80% savings loss number perhaps comes from the 80% external debt holdings of the banks that were nationalized/placed in receiverships, which includes Icesave holdings in the UK and NL. These were eventually made whole, up to certain limits (in NL the deposit guaranteed by the state was raised from 40 to 100k Euro per account as a response), so most ordinary people lost no money. The main losers were the carry trade speculators and large bond holders taking unwarranted risks.

Relative to the rest of the world their numbers look pretty damned good too:
- unemployment was down to 6.3% in mid 2012, compared to 25% in Spain (50% (!) for youth) and 11% EU average, 8% in the US (which in itself is a lie, considering the mechanism invented to suppress this: due to Obamacare many small companies switched from full employment to part-timers under 25 hours, thus increasing the number of workplaces - as well as not counting those who have been looking for work for more than four weeks, or those that have simply given up and started to claim disability benefits). BTW, almost 50 million Americans are now on foodstamps. Which is administered and profited from by the largest bank, JP Morgan Chase.
- government debt has stabilized at 80-90% of GDP, which is lower than a lot of countries (including the US) and nowhere near extremes like Japan, with well over 200% and a promise to ramp it up some more with the new government. Also compare overall levels of debt: the UK for example has a staggering 900%+ debt to GDP ratio due to their financial sector, which is - unsurprisingly - guaranteed by the government.

It needs no mention that FT is a City publication that toes the party line; Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's are the chief ratings component enablers involved in massive fraudulent misrating of securities and sovereign debts, spanning from Goldman's swaps for obfuscating Greece's accounting for entry into the Euro through the subprime MBSs that have already blown up through various others such as CDOs, CDSs, now student debt etc. They are part and parcel of the racket that is rampaging all over the world: TBTF banks enabled by complicit ratings agencies, unscrupulous accountancy bureaus, captured regulators and corrupt politicians.

This has taken such forms that they no longer even care to hide the facts, as even the New York times freely reports about these abuses.

The fact that MSFT had to cut their Surface order in half [bgr.com] should be a surprise to nobody

I've seen you post this at least a dozen times. Every time you start a rant about Surface, you invariably bring up this unsubstantiated claim from unnamed Eastern component suppliers. After this "rumor" hit the web, Microsoft actually increased retail distribution, said they're increasing production, are increasing availability to more countries, and said they're expanding the product lineup. Together, these point to a completely different direction than your stale, 3 month old rumor.

You're starting to sound like a broken record.

Hell even with this, is it 23GB in base 2 like the OS, or is it base 10 like the manufacturers?

It's base 2.

all those people getting home and finding none of the Windows software they've accumalated for years will run on the damned thing, THAT is what is gonna make this into a megaflop.

All the software they've accumulated over the years WILL run on the Surface Pro. That's the entire point of this device. It runs full Windows 8 on an Intel Core i5. You don't seem to know much about this product you constantly are blasting. Even 23GB is enough for any application I've come across, but this can be expanded to 30+ GB by removing the recovery partition. This is the same you'd get with a Macbook Air at 64GB. You can even expand storage easily with an SD card.

maybe if Google woud pay their f***ing taxes as they should, the schools could afford the Pi's for themselves....

They would be better catching up with Apple or Microsoft for Tax avoidence as they have more money squirreled offshore http://www.businessinsider.com/tax-loophole-congress-google-apple-microsoft-2012-12 four times as much as Google.

I suspect your being a little disingenuous. :)

Then Jobs died.
Then ios5 wiped out the maps application off your phone.
Then the iphone5 came out which didn't work with any of your existing power cables and docks.
The high end market where you'd get an iphone as it just worked well now had stumbling blocks. It wasn't an obvious choice any more.
Then apple's share price fell.

Microsoft should have been there to take the lead. The android ecosystem just doesn't work well -- too many disparate devices, too much choice. People like uniformity and simplicity. They weren't.

The market, honestly, doesn't seem to care. iPhone 5 sales are at an all time high, and iOS is ahead of Android again inside the US.

http://www.businessinsider.com/att-iphone-sales-2013-1
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/24/technology/att-iphone-sales/index.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-iphone-sales-for-q4-2012-2013-1
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/25/apples-hardware-q4-2012-26-9m-iphones-14m-ipads-4-9m-macs-and-5-3m-ipods/

I mean, I know it hasn't been smooth sailing for iOS recently, but let's have some perspective here. In the US, Apple is kicking ass.

My point is, given all that's happened with Apple over the last year, it's competitors should be eating up customers. If they can't at this stage, they've got no hope when apple's back to full strength.

Then Jobs died.
Then ios5 wiped out the maps application off your phone.
Then the iphone5 came out which didn't work with any of your existing power cables and docks.
The high end market where you'd get an iphone as it just worked well now had stumbling blocks. It wasn't an obvious choice any more.
Then apple's share price fell.

Microsoft should have been there to take the lead. The android ecosystem just doesn't work well -- too many disparate devices, too much choice. People like uniformity and simplicity. They weren't.

The market, honestly, doesn't seem to care. iPhone 5 sales are at an all time high, and iOS is ahead of Android again inside the US.

http://www.businessinsider.com/att-iphone-sales-2013-1
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/24/technology/att-iphone-sales/index.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-iphone-sales-for-q4-2012-2013-1
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/25/apples-hardware-q4-2012-26-9m-iphones-14m-ipads-4-9m-macs-and-5-3m-ipods/

I mean, I know it hasn't been smooth sailing for iOS recently, but let's have some perspective here. In the US, Apple is kicking ass.

My point is, given all that's happened with Apple over the last year, it's competitors should be eating up customers. If they can't at this stage, they've got no hope when apple's back to full strength.

Then Jobs died.
Then ios5 wiped out the maps application off your phone.
Then the iphone5 came out which didn't work with any of your existing power cables and docks.
The high end market where you'd get an iphone as it just worked well now had stumbling blocks. It wasn't an obvious choice any more.
Then apple's share price fell.

Microsoft should have been there to take the lead. The android ecosystem just doesn't work well -- too many disparate devices, too much choice. People like uniformity and simplicity. They weren't.

The market, honestly, doesn't seem to care. iPhone 5 sales are at an all time high, and iOS is ahead of Android again inside the US.

http://www.businessinsider.com/att-iphone-sales-2013-1
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/24/technology/att-iphone-sales/index.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-iphone-sales-for-q4-2012-2013-1
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/25/apples-hardware-q4-2012-26-9m-iphones-14m-ipads-4-9m-macs-and-5-3m-ipods/

I mean, I know it hasn't been smooth sailing for iOS recently, but let's have some perspective here. In the US, Apple is kicking ass.

Then Jobs died.
Then ios5 wiped out the maps application off your phone.
Then the iphone5 came out which didn't work with any of your existing power cables and docks.
The high end market where you'd get an iphone as it just worked well now had stumbling blocks. It wasn't an obvious choice any more.
Then apple's share price fell.

Microsoft should have been there to take the lead. The android ecosystem just doesn't work well -- too many disparate devices, too much choice. People like uniformity and simplicity. They weren't.

The market, honestly, doesn't seem to care. iPhone 5 sales are at an all time high, and iOS is ahead of Android again inside the US.

http://www.businessinsider.com/att-iphone-sales-2013-1
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/24/technology/att-iphone-sales/index.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-iphone-sales-for-q4-2012-2013-1
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/25/apples-hardware-q4-2012-26-9m-iphones-14m-ipads-4-9m-macs-and-5-3m-ipods/

I mean, I know it hasn't been smooth sailing for iOS recently, but let's have some perspective here. In the US, Apple is kicking ass.

No, this is crony capitalism

I think it is Oligarchy.

I believe work visa and outsourced projects must be pegged to Human rights/Caste system in CHINDIA.
http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-tech-apple-workers-forced-to-sign-no-suicide-pledge/20110504.htm
http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/29/un-says-indias-Caste-system-a-human-rights-abuse.htm

Otherwise it's "rich getting rich"
http://www.businessinsider.com/profits-versus-wages
 

1. While random people might host temporarily mappable bits from your devices (as you would theirs), the actual files would not be reassembled or stored on other peoples machines, so random people would not have your file. If you got your file using BitTorrent Sync, you would be getting it from one of your other devices using bit torrent as the method of file transfer.

2. I agree that there is not a lot of risk having files in a Dropbox folder and available online, but the risk is not negligible. Will Dropbox someday fall into the hands of some PHB and MBAs who decide to make more money by sifting your data in order to serve up ads? Would you like to see ads based on your unsavory content popping up? Also, could any of such unsavory content (or copyrighted content) get turned over to over zealous government prosecutors? Also, could based storage may not always be secure -- Dropbox had its infamous failure a few years ago.

Here's a map of what could happen.

That's rather a lot of maps.... I knew it was bad, but damn.

The only way the civilized world is going to limit the cost of dealing with the ultimate war with N. Korea is to prepare S. Korea, with the help other friendly countries, to do a massive surgical strike to take out the entire N. Korean military and its facilities and have S. Korea able and supplied and armed with its own people who can move in to supplie staples and organization to the society.

I am not convinced the military which is ultimately in control of everything, will ever give up its power, no matter what the "Glorius Leader" says or does, as he can be replaced.

You let the cancer grow or you cut it out and deal with the consequences. Of course this could never happen within the next 4 years because of leaders in power now who have no vision other than their own personal power.

We certainly have battle plans ready that would allow us to militarily unify Korea under the south. There would be nothing "surgical" about it, though. North Korea has massive numbers of troops, rockets, artillery, etc., and South Korea's capital is only 35 miles from the border, within range of the larger NK guns. Here's a map of what could happen. Seoul would be a pawn in the battle, and it would destabilize the entire area for some time.

I think the fundamental question here is whether this is a show of strength being done because North Korea wants to talk but has nothing else to negotiate with. If so, perhaps you meet them, acknowledge their big scary threats, trade around for some perks (maybe make Kim Jong Il the equivalent of the British Royal family in the new Korea, with a figurehead role), and unify them peacefully with everyone coming out ahead. On the other hand, maybe they want to remain independent and hold a nuclear threat over the United States' head... in which case better to strike sooner, before they have the capability. I don't have any of that information, so I'm not going to second-guess the decisions.

That story isn't listed, but read these 16 examples, and you will not find it hard to believe. http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-jerk-2011-10?op=1

You didn't need to wait until after his death. There are plenty of people out there who knew this, ex-employees and partners all have spoken up.. Frankly, he fit the mold of every modern industrialist when it came to competition. It amazes me now how much people want to white wash him as some visionary and cult hero, he was just a ruthless entrepreneur who would walk over anybody to get what he wanted. Now it would be really great if the planet could get off his dried up nutsack.

Here's some of his less famous exploits.

The prosecutor [Heymann] even claimed Watt had psychopathic tendencies and was trying to bring down the entire financial system, Watt told Business Insider.
Those accusations came after Watt admitted to liking the movie "Fight Club," according to Watt.
"I think that he had a very bombastic manner of describing the crime and the alleged calculating manners of the co-defendants," Watt said.

Read more: Ex-Con Shares How Hard It Is To Be Targeted By One Of Aaron Swartz's Prosecutors

Heymann does seem to be a particularly bad example of a bad bunch of people, an Ogre among the Orcs. The truth is, the corruption of the Justice Department goes all the way up to the President, and includes Eric Holder and Carmen Ortiz as well. (I'm not being partisan here, the previous administration was no better, but we are talking about today.)

This is an article from 2011:

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-01-28/tech/30063548_1_xbox-live-money-pit-kinect

In January of 2011 they were making 1 billion/year profit. Not too shabby. That's just for the Xbox/gaming division. The online division (whatever that includes) was still a money pit at that time but the Xbox has been turning a profit for some time now.

Microsoft makes more than 75% of its profits from Windows and Office. Less than 25% comes from its vaunted servers and tools. And Microsoft makes nothing from its xBox/Kinect entertainment division, while losing vast sums in its on-line division (negative $350M-$750M/quarter). No matter how much anyone likes the non-Windows Microsoft products, without the historical Windows/Office sales and profits Microsoft is not sustainable.

To be quite honest he makes a good case.

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

"Well they are just wrong and it's easy to demonstrate that."

Whether it may be easy to demonstrate that, getting people in the USA to change their minds about that is another issue... Otherwise, how do we end up with group think like this?
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm
"Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, says a poll out almost two years after the terrorists' strike against this country. "

When it should have been obvious there was essentially no connection? Something deep is wrong with the USA to have such a survey result. What produced that information bubble which then translated into support for invading Iraq (a country that posed the USA no immediate danger and cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives)?

The fact that there are worse aspects in NK than the USA does not invalidate the point of TFA talking about the NK bubble without considering similar processes in the USA (or any country for that matter). Look at what just happened to Aaron Swartz for trying to make publicly available publicly funded research as a form of civil disobedience by engaging in a form of freedom of speech that has been criminalized in the USA (granted with various other complexities):
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/01/20/1823256/edward-tuftes-defense-of-aaron-swartz-and-the-marvelously-different

So, there are clear criminal limits to freedom of speech in the USA when commercial interests are involved... And those limits did not exist when Tufte was a boy (back then most copyright violation was a civil issue not a criminal issue). And now Aaron Swartz is dead in part because of them (although I can think he might have gotten caught in US group think about avoiding the sun and so became vitamin D deficient, or perhaps ate the hacker way and became phytonutrient or omega-3 deficient which may have contributed to a depressed mental state, so a couple types of group think may have converged to cause a terrible thing to happen).

BTW, just for contrast:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-good-side-to-life-in-north-korea-2012-10
"One of the most interesting phenomenons about North Korea isn't the extraordinary lengths that some citizens make to escape the country â" it's the extraordinary lengths a minority of refugees make to get back into the country. ... As part of their series "Ask a North Korean", NK News asked North Korean Jae-young about the good things about life in the hermit state, and the recent refugee is easily able to find something to miss. Jay-young says that her life in North Korea was "mentally rich -- even if it was materially insufficient" and that affection between neighbors was "very pure and deep". She writes about the joyful side of life in North Korea: "On major holidays, we invited our neighbors (we used to call my mother's friends "aunt"), shared food and stories with them. My mom was really good at making 'Jong-Pyun rice cake' and I can still remember my aunts exclaiming how good they tasted. During nights, we gathered together, turned music on and danced. On days when electricity went out, we used to play the accordion, sing, dance and have fun. I used to have so much fun and danced so hard that my socks had holes when I checked them in morning. My father used to be respected as a gagman (comedian).""

Now, the same might be said about many more traditional societies including the Amish. But however they found a life with more community of some sorts and less technological addictions, maybe the good points is still something to be considered against the bad?

I would cite a CDC study on gun violence, but I can't. Because the NRA successfully lobbied to eliminate the funding for it 20 years ago.

The problem with your belief is that there are no facts to back it up. We know that Apple make lots of profit on the hardware. But there's no evidence that they make very much profit from iTunes.

How about this? The amount is so (relatively) tiny it's almost a rounding error.

Wow...way to miss the fucking point. Show me EXACTLY where I said they'd replace "everybody" because you know what? Never said it. What I DID say was that fewer and fewer would get a seat in this game of IQ musical chairs and the evidence very much bares that out. Look at the link above you, 1 million workers at Foxconn being replaced by machines. China pays their workers a pittance, has practically no environmental laws or worker protections yet it STILL ends up cheaper in the long run to replace them with the machine.

You have 8 billion people on the planet or so, been awhile since I looked at the figures, and by the very nature of a bell curve half of those are gonna be below average, following me so far? Now you replace those doing manual labor with machines which is increasingly becoming easy to do, I mean just look at the $22K robot in FA, you are talking nearly half the population whose labor is no longer required. We have 42,400 factories lost since 2001 and at an average per factory of lets say 1000 workers per factory counting all 3 shifts that gives you 42 MILLION workers out of a good paying job. If just half of those are permanently replaced by machines that is 21 million jobs gone forever...what do you do with those people? As we've seen with the education bubble that is getting ready to burst you can't educate your way out of this, so what do you do? Pay them to sit at home? let them starve?

Finally your farmers example simply doesn't work, all those workers on the farm ended up taking factory jobs in the big city, where are those jobs now? They don't exist. For the first time in all of human history are we actually capable of replacing the human almost completely. In my home town there used to be a factory that employed over 1800 people to make aircraft parts, know how many they employ NOW at that very same plant? Less than 30 to keep an eye on some screens because thanks to lasers that can measure cuts in the nm scale and automation the majority just aren't required.

Mark my words as all you are gonna see in the next decade is the White House continue to fudge unemployment numbers, why? The jobs that supported so many just don't exist anymore. Again look at Foxconn, China is one of the cheapest places on the planet to make anything and even THERE the corps are replacing the workers with bots as they are cheaper...what do you do with those million if the other factories follow suit? I just don't see how you can't look at the past 50 years and see what is coming, I really don't. We'll have a $15K 2 legged bot by the end of this decade that can climb ladders, work in hazard areas, and for the corps it's lack of need for medical benefits and pay will just make it a better long term investment...what then?

Why would doing something you like for money stop being fun. Sure some parts of the job, may not be enjoyable but others our. Even in hobbies you may not enjoy every single aspect of that hobby.

I like my job, solving problems is great fun. Are there things I would rather do yes, but that doesn't mean work is not enjoyable. There is nothing about work that implies that it cannot be fun.

As for the percentage of the population who enjoy there work it is hard to say because I can only draw from my personal experience, probably the same as you

quick search give a bunch of numbers:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2011/11/11/your-emotionally-disconnected-employees/ 70% unhappy
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-10-04/strategy/30001895_1_new-job-passion-careers 80% unhappy.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-6056611.html 55% unhappy and rising but you would expect that sort of thing with shrinking job market, since more people have to settle.

Overview of the trillion dollar coin.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints federal reserve notes and the Federal Reserve bank issues them. The US Mint mints coins. Platinum coins can be minted in any face value by the Treasury Secretary at any time and as he/she sees fit, but the BEP can only print and the federal reserve issue note quantities authorized by congress, and only in denominations already approved.

Yes, I agree. Jeff Han's 2006 demo (predating the iphone by a year and a half) shows the power of a multitouch drafting table (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiS-W9aeG0s). How badass would it be for editing video, page layouts, working with maps, etc? Not to mention some novel interface for writing code... Steve Jobs didn't really rule this out, he simply pointed out the problem with vertical screens ("Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical." - http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-touch-screen-mac-2010-10). The first thing I did when playing with Windows 8 on the 23" screen at Best Buy was flip it down to this orientation, and it was actually pretty cool to use (although too small in this context). It could work well in conjunction with mice/stylus/trackpads for the occasional high-accuracy work. I was mostly surprised that Microsoft beat Apple to market on this one (although the hardware is still really lacking). I wonder if all the talk of an "Apple Television" could be a smokescreen for parts acquisition for such a device.

Wages are record lows as percentage of GDP and dropping. At the same time wealth inequality is continuing to expand with the top 1% of the country currently owning as much wealth as the bottom 50%. Pretty damn obvious where those productivity gains have gone.

Exactly what type of "horrible shit" are you talking about?

Basically, standard big business horrible stuff. This is behavior that lots of megacorps engage in, Monsanto just uses a new set of tools.

I don't consider their GM stuff to be evil, but Monsanto's predatory practices are pretty shameful, and organic farmers do tend to take it in the shorts, more than most.

Monsanto is certainly not alone in these types of scandals.

This is one reason why I think that classifying businesses as "people" is ridiculous. If people behaved the way that corporations do, they would be locked up. However, corporations are rewarded for that type of behavior.

He picked the wrong battle.

Whenever a Mr. Natural starts lecturing me about how we need to all return to hunter-gathere lifestyle, I counter with "No problem! We just need to exterminate about 90% of the human population on Earth. Would you like to start?"

Whether we like it or not, the future is here, and we can't survive without factory farming, container transportation, nuclear and fossil energy, farm fishing, etc.

There's just too damn many of us.

The only answer to "too damn many" is "culling the herd."

Just remembered a very good chart of marketshare from the time:

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4ec2c5a6eab8ea105200001b/chart-of-the-day-android-share-of-smartphone-operating-system-market-nov-14-2011.jpg

True as it may be, teaching our children and teenagers (the main market for Zynga games), and to a lesser extent young adults, the harsh reality of capitalism by inflicting emotional pain is not socially acceptable.

The harsh reality of capitalism is that there are plenty of people who kill babies to make a quick buck and they often get away with it. How, exactly speaking, do you propose explaining this in a way that doesn't cause emotional pain?

Let us all know when you have any actual numbers on 7" tablets. From any vendor.

This is just one story http://www.businessinsider.com/ipad-mini-sales-2012-12 even Apples own Mini is outselling the iPad 4, and its not like the Googles and Amazon 7" tablets are particularly secret.

Step 0: Control media outlets and discredit all that are not under your power, Propaganda!!!
Why is this step 0? Because with the media intact and doing what it is required by society, none of the other crap would have happened, however the buck stops with the people, if the people aren't going to do anything about it then they get what they get.

Step 1: Create a crisis or allow one to happen.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
-Rahm Emanuel

Create an enemy that will never go away (terrorist) and wage a war that will never end (terrorism) and define the enemy as "those without any rights" and can be held indefinitely (National Defense Authorization Act)

Step 2: Promise to protect the populace from said crisis/enemy by any means necessary, begin by restricting rights in the name of security.

Step 3: Implement a massive trillion dollar (data from The Economist) surveillance network HLS, TSA, NSA, DIA OMG, WTF, BBQ ), record all calls, maintain facial recognition database (thank you Facebook) fill the air with drones and the ground with cameras.
Monitor for dissent. (see: fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy below)

Step 4: Dis arm populace (http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/assault-weapons)

Step 5: Tighten grip further via martial law or other "required security protocols", rename political protest groups as "terrorist" deregulate corporations, dismantle workers rights, remove environmental protections, and finally ammo up. (Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets)

Anyone not complying or protesting is a terrorist. (see step 1)

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/09/costs-homeland-security

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/fbi-treated-occupy-terrorist-group/60289/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-28/news/31247765_1_atk-rounds-bullet

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html