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Here's one. That doesn't mean all labs have those problems, but certainly a prominent one seems to have.

A key quote from C. Fred Whitehurst (former FBI agent):

"Guys in the lab wanting to ‘solve’ the case and be heroes might have pushed the envelope and been the guy who did what no one else could do," he said. "I have no doubt there will be more exonerations.”

The article you linked is the number for all cellphone plans in the US. This include older, more basic cellphones as well. It make sense, because I have a cellphone. I also have a desktop. Everyone I know has both a cellphone and a desktop. None of replaced one with the other, and certainly those who use their desktops to do anything more than check email certainly appreciate a large screen and the 1000x more processing power.

You're also incorrect about the number of PCs out there. It's actually over a billion. Believe it or not, it's still growing:

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-06/tech/30481049_1_android-apps-ios

You have a good point about the hundreds of millions being global.

But through the second quarter of this year, Apple has sold 86 million iPhones in the U.S., and 34 million iPads (again in the U.S.).

That's still over 100 million devices, the 12 million number against that is not of a size that would match anything except what an app developer would be collecting (and keep in mind a lot of those UDID's are probably not from the U.S.).

Again I must stress how useless it is to have a UDID for anything the FBI would want to do.

And yet not one of the CEOs responsible for the epic fraud that crashed the world economy in 2008 has even been arrested, let alone charged and tried.

Some will go to jail.

Georgia banker gets 12-year sentence for fraud

Mark Conner, former president of the failed FirstCity Bank in Georgia, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay $19.5 million in restitution for his part in several schemes that sunk his and at least 10 other banks.

Conner served in several top positions at the bank between 2004 and 2009. While there, he lied to the bank's board and loan committee for approvals on multimillion-dollar commercial loans to borrowers who were only using the money to buy property Conner and his co-conspirators owned, according to court documents.

He even duped at least 10 other federally insured banks to invest in the fraudulent loans. This way, Conner scammed at least $7 million for himself while shifting the risk to these other firms that eventually failed.

As the financial crisis struck, Conner then tried to unload FirstCity nonperforming loans and foreclosed homes to straw buyers, who were taking out loans from Conner to buy the assets. He then tried unsuccessfully to get a $6 million bailout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Some will be at least inconvenienced.

SEC charges ex-Fannie, Freddie CEOs with fraud

WASHINGTON — Two former CEOs at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Friday became the highest-profile individuals to be charged in connection with the 2008 financial crisis.

In a lawsuit filed in New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil fraud charges against six former executives at the two firms, including former Fannie CEO Daniel Mudd and former Freddie CEO Richard Syron.. . . .

Unfortunately, the real cause of much of this is beyond the hand of the law:

How The Government Caused The Mortgage Crisis

A sad story:

While Freddie & Fannie Spanked, Dodd Leered

Thanks for the additional feedback, even as you are still discounting that this also reflects what Fuhrman and his colleagues have seen in clinical practice across a broad range of disease, and that there is essentially very-little-to-no funding to trial non-patentable medical interventions. Many medical interventions do not have "gold standard" double blind scientific support, and often as not it seems such expensive studies can't be replicated anyway -- even in the rare cases when someone can get funding just to duplicate an existing study,.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/06/139231/majority-of-landmark-cancer-studies-cannot-be-replicated
http://www.businessinsider.com/reproducibility-initiative-study-replication-2012-8

Or:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
        "Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors -- to a striking extent -- still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science."

To raise the stakes a bit to a disease that affects many more people than Fibromyalgia, I'd be curious what you thought about the following cited study and Fuhrman's comments on the implications for the scientific basis of the multi-billion dollar industry of cardiac surgery vs. nutritional interventions?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who were not treated in this manner.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al. Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009; 373(9667):911-918."

A link on that study:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60319-6/abstract
"Sequential innovations in the catheter-based treatment of non-acute coronary artery disease showed no evidence of an effect on death or myocardial infarction when compared with medical therapy."

I wish I had known all this over a decade ago before my father went through an invasive angioplasty and stent emplacement procedure and died some few months afterwards of a heart attack it was supposed to prevent. After reading that study, would you let an MD perform an angioplasty procedure and put a stent in you or a loved one under typical circumstances for heart disease? Or might you instead opt for aggressive nutritional intervention like Fuhrman does with his patients? Or maybe do something else?

Your implication that removing the minimum wage would eliminate unemployment is baseless.

No. Just because you don't choose to recognize the basis, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ultimately, employment is a trade: my labor for your money. Minimum wage prevents a certain range of trading. That means some people are less well off than they would be with the opportunity to sell their labor.

The US has a lot of ways to hide unemployment, via prisons, schools, retirement, and just ignoring people who aren't employed for long enough. For example, labor force participation is now somewhere around 63.5%. While that's not far off its high of around 68%, it hasn't been this low since the early 80s.

And the figures mask a huge decline in labor participation rate among men who have steadily declined in labor participation over the past 60 years.

There's also huge unemployment among youth and certain minorities which can easily be predicted due to the relatively low value of these groups' labor.

I don't think that minimum wage is solely to blame for these trends, but it is a big factor.

Maybe they can spend some of their 30%-35% profit margin on workers and only pocket a "modest" 10%. But that would make the investors mad of course. Screw the employees.

Here are 11 hilarious examples of false advertising.
http://www.oddee.com/item_97929.aspx

Here are 14 False Advertising Scandals That Cost Brands Millions
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-16/strategy/30164309_1_false-advertising-false-claims-marketing-policies

Everybody should read the WP entry to see if they missed something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising

jellomizer wrote:
>There is the argument If Romney doesn't have anything to hide then why isn't he releasing his taxes.

His father argued that, ``One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show, and what mattered in personal finance was how a man conducted himself over the long haul.'' ultimately releasing 12 years' worth in _Look_ 12 December 1967.[1]

William

1 - http://www.businessinsider.com/romney-wont-talk-about-taxes-until-after-hes-the-official-nominee-2012-8

Even if the number was zero, we'd still be falling behind because of population growth. We need to add more teachers every year just to keep up with the increasing number of students. So any cuts at all are doubly harmful.

And the social problem here is not that teachers themselves are struggling (although public sector employment is worse off than the private sector) but that we're undermining the education of the next generation of citizens.

So the median house costs 4 years of median income - perhaps a little excessive I agree, but hardly enough to put it out of reach - assuming you dedicate 50% of your income to it you could buy such a house in 8 years (plus a couple more to pay off the interest accrued). Or, assuming you lose ~50% of your income to insurance, retirement, etc. you could dedicate 50% of take-home, 25% total or $1k/month to pay it off in 16 years (call it 20+ including interest). That would still leave your $50k median household with ~$1k/month for food, utilities, maintenance, incidentals, savings, etc, and after that you only pay taxes and maintenance and could pass it on to your kids/grandkids when the time comes. Of course what actually seems to happen these days is that long before your house is paid off you sell it and buy a larger more expensive one so that you can go to the grave still making payments on a McMansion stuffed to the gills with junk you never use.

Not an ideal situation I agree, a median of price closer to $100k would make home ownership far more appealing - and historically that's roughly what it was until the housing bubble at the turn of the century (one reason I believe the bubble is still in effect). The biggest problem with returning to a more sustainable market is that over the last few decades most of the "desirable" neighborhoods have been slowly "upgraded" to larger, more expensive houses, and "downgrading" them doesn't make financial sense, so we're forced to wait through a long slow decline during which time purchasing a house is far less appealing as it's value is only likely to decline over time, where as historically it could be expected to hold reasonably steady.

America may not have all the freedoms I'd like, but it sure as hell beats any other place on this planet!

That must be why it is ranked #7 *

Not that I think the precise rankings of any given country are indisputably correct; the important take away is that:

a) The USA is undeniably a very good place to live on this planet.

b) The USA does NOT "sure as hell beats any other place on this planet!" There are a number of other very good places to live on this planet; several of them arguably better than the USA.

(* http://www.businessinsider.com/oecd-better-life-index-2011-5?op=1)

We have a doc like app that takes up the whole screen that's used as a launcher called launchpad: http://www.businessinsider.com/mac-os-x-lion-launchpad-2011-8?op=1

I never use it but my father does and my daughter sometimes as well. Some people like it some don't, some use it some don't.

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/08/dayintech_0806/
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-comeback-story-2010-10?op=1
http://macdailynews.com/2009/04/14/steve_jobs_engineered_apples_resurrection/
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-return-19972011-10062011.html
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html

I could go on forever on this one. It's very well documented that in 1997 Apple was extremely close to bankruptcy (some speculate days away) when Steve Jobs, then brought back to Apple as an "interim CEO", negotiated with Bill Gates to have Microsoft invest in Apple to the tune of $150M.

Thank you, that's exactly the only-reading-the-headlines garbage I was expecting you to come up with.

So let's look at the facts, shall we? I already linked you to Apple's quarterly filings.

The CNet article you cited in which Microsoft promised $150,000,000 was published August 6, 1997.
Apple's quarterly report Filed 08/11/97 for the Period Ending 06/27/97 showed that Apple had $1,018,000,000 on hand.

Look at those numbers again:
150,000,000 - Amount Apple got from MS
1,018,000,000 -- Amount Apple had sitting in the bank

The number on top is less than 15% of the number on the bottom. That's not rescuing a company from bankruptcy. That's a bad tip at a restaurant.

You may want to review this important lesson on honestly representing the difference between millions and billions.

Of course, Steve Jobs' ego knew no bounds, and he loved to say that he single-handedly rescued Apple with Bill Gates' money. But that's just not true. The benefit Apple got from BillG's pocket change was that it satisfied Microsoft that Apple was no longer a threat, so that Apple could build itself up to where it was a threat.

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/08/dayintech_0806/
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-comeback-story-2010-10?op=1
http://macdailynews.com/2009/04/14/steve_jobs_engineered_apples_resurrection/
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-return-19972011-10062011.html
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html

I could go on forever on this one. It's very well documented that in 1997 Apple was extremely close to bankruptcy (some speculate days away) when Steve Jobs, then brought back to Apple as an "interim CEO", negotiated with Bill Gates to have Microsoft invest in Apple to the tune of $150M.

It doesn't help when the industry involved refuses to collect real data and has massive social media presence dismissive of real evidence.

Children in Fukushima are just getting lymph abnormalities and diabetes. That's why nuclear Pollyannas are talking about "natural background in Denver".

We do have hotspots in Tokyo Metropolitan Area that have led to these physiological disorders — some of the disorders that have been observed are as shown here. Things like diarrhea, nasal bleeding, headache, eczema and so forth. We are expecting thyroid disorders in children, but also cancers (bladder, leukemia, lung), diabetes.”

http://midnightwatcher.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/japan-physician-radiation-levels-are-4000-higher-than-reported-by-the-japanese-government-radiation-already-causing-health-problems-around-tokyo/

http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-children-have-abnormal-thyroid-growths-2012-7

My wife worked for a pediatrician in a well to do area a couple of years ago and if it looked like their kid was going to be under 6 foot, they would ask for a referral to an endocrinologist for hormones to get the kid to grow a bit more. The pediatrician didn't think it was necessary in most cases, but they are his patients so he complied. The parents wanted the best for their kids and wanted to insure that they could get any advantage that they could possibly get for them.

James Watson, co-discover of DNA, was on the National Press Club a few years ago, and this question was asked (can't find the archive right now - heard on NPR). Anyway to paraphrase,

90% of CEOs are over 6 foot. A 5 foot 2 inch tall man and a five foot tall woman may want to better the opportunities for their child.

Of course, what he meant was that up to a point, height matters in all sorts of endeavors and not only sports: politics, finding a mate, work, etc ... There is a strong correlation between height and success. Yes, I know - queue up all the exceptions but keep in mind, many of those were extraordinary people; such as Einstein - 5' 5".

Malcolm Gladwell pointed out this exact phenomenon in his book Blink , which he calls the Warren Harding effect.

While searching for the presiden't name (I'd forgotten it, but I loved reading the book) I also ran across this: Malcolm Gladwell Explains Why Underdogs Win An 'Astonishing' Amount Of The Time. Ha! Take that You expert in practical ethics!

What the hell is an expert in practical ethics, anyway?

The iPhone has never been more than 20-30% of total smartphone sales.

Perhaps, but what I actually said was that Apple fans *claimed* it was higher, and they would link to some page like this as evidence ("If you look at this January 2009 data, The iPhone was actually less than half of a percentage point away from owning 70 percent of the mobile browsing market.") or "iPhone grabbed 72% of smartphone market share in Japan" or "iPad owns 96% of enterprise market and iPhone share climbs to 53%". And even now we are seeing stuff like "Apple's iPhone Has Staged A Monster Comeback, Android Is Now Dead In The Water". Yes, a platform that with almost a million phones being activated every day is apparently now "dead in the water". Those Apple marketing guys are good at getting their message broadcast.

Apple's share has never amounted to a large percentage of computing device sales.

According to this, Apples market share in 1980 was 15%. Okay, that is "huge" on the scale of all PC clones combined, but it beats out the market share of individual manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo today. This article says "In 1984, the Apple II had 15% of the market, Apple's best showing ever. (When combined with the Mac, Apple had over 20% of the market that year.)". The same page says that Apple's low point in 2001 was 2.3%. So from a high of 20% to a low of 2.3%... that's a big fall, losing 88.5% of the market, which was my real point.

It really doesn't matter whether 50 cents worth of your shiny new Samsung toy goes to Apple, or vice versa.

I think you underestimate the seriousness of this issue to these companies. This isn't about tiny license fees. Apple is ultimately aiming for a complete sales ban on most (all?) Samsung smartphones (and then HTC). A few years ago Apple fans were proudly shouting that the iPhone had 70%+ of the smartphone market, and was growing by 200% to 300% every year. They don't talk about market share these days - now they brag about profitability - and the reason is that the iPhone market share is falling, and is down to 32%. The Samsung Galaxy phones are widely popular - UK sales data show the S2 and S3 outselling the iPhone every month except April 2012 - and if you check the "Android fragmentation" graph you will see that Galaxy devices (GT-x) alone comprise a huge proportion of the Android market.

Apple executives are terrified that what happened with the desktop market - Apple initially gaining huge market share, and then falling to below 5% - will be repeated in the phone and tablet markets. And in a completely free market, that is what would probably happen, since competitors will produce lower price products with similar capabilities and over time erode market share of the dominant manufacturer. Thus the obvious answer is to try and avoid the dangers of the free market by asking the government to stop your competitors from being so competitive.

And, in turn, I presume *you* were in the room. I at least bothered to read the news reports including what the women had to say and noting that initially Swedish authorities were so convinced there was nothing to prosecute that they told him he was free to leave the country. I am aware that re-opening the matter was considered unusual at the time. It's also a bit strange that the authorities were unwilling to accept his statements at the embassy considering that charges are not yet filed.

It's funny the way you reverse cause and effect repeatedly in an effort to see the worst but fail totally to explain why the women returned to him night after night for more of the same. That seems a bit unusual to say the least.

But as I said, feel free to believe whatever you care to.

But first, read this.

So, I suppose this means giving people jail time for minor civil infractions (while letting major crimes, such as international larceny and funding terrorism, go unpunished) is the new normal?

Looks like Vickerman's real crime was not being wealthy enough to buy his way out of trouble...



This world, she is fucked...

Wow that's a thoughtful, complex post. Let's deal with these issues one at a time.

Para 1: Bill is gone. Bill Gates remains the chairman of the board at Microsoft, and hand-picked all the other board members - who pick the CEO and evaluate his performance, give him goals and guidance, set his pay, bonuses and options, and set policy. Bill is still very much responsible for what goes on there, and weighs in on every big decision.

Para 2: Steve Ballmer. You neglected to mention the sea of red ink that is Microsoft's Online Services Division. I happen to like the direction Steve Ballmer is taking Microsoft. Clearly this is a man with vision and purpose who is ready and able to take the company where I want it to go. It takes Marvel Comics level superpowers to get rid of this much cash flow, to destroy a 42 percent success in mobile market share from 2007 given their advantages and high hopes, to so capably destroy the morale and productivity of the world's best developers, to put a company with this much income in $55B of debt. So let's lay off of Steve-o, mmkay? I like him where he is, sweaty shirt and all.

Para 3: No more Big, Bad MS. With the OOXML debacle that nearly ruined ISO, their recent rape of Nokia, their current ongoing rape of OEMs, retail vendors of both their products and Windows PCs, their planned rape of software distributor partners, developers and competing independent software vendors and much much more they prove every day that they have not changed. Last week they confirmed they're going to murder the advertisers they bought relationships with in an acquisition by making "Do Not Track" the default in IE. Just yesterday it came out that the new replacement for Hotmail, Outlook.com is incompatible with Android. The "new kinder, gentler Microsoft" is a myth. They have now declared war on absolutely everybody on Earth, including the people who pay for their products and excepting only the Women's Temperance Union and media executives. Naturally this means I expect them to announce an embedded bittorent feature for IE that involves a drinking game next.

Para 4. Ballmer outbound. Steve Ballmer is not retiring for another seven years at least, when his last kid goes off to college.

Para 5. Immortal desktop victory. It's not enough to take ground. Once you take ground, you have to hold it. MS won mobile with 40% share too [link above], once upon a time. And now they'r

While that would indeed be better than the current fleet of water-cooled reactors, I'm skeptical of sodium-cooled IFRs, given their less-than-stellar track record over the years. IMHO, molten salt is the best way forward. LFTRs have gotten some attention lately, and I'm all in favor. But there's another MSR variant being developed now that is specifically designed to use our existing waste stockpile as its fuel, called WAMSR (waste annihilating molten-salt reactor).

It's almost certain lifespans will be reduced significantly, though we won't necessarily be told how many and by how much.

When asked why these results haven't been widely reported, Calidcott noted that Japanese officials are not sharing ultrasound results with foremost experts of thyroid nodules in children and accused the media of "practicing psychic numbing," saying that she doesn't understand why media outlets are choosing to ignore the nuclear fallout.

http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-children-have-abnormal-thyroid-growths-2012-7
 

When the above four studies are tallied in one table, it becomes obvious that the result of the thyroid examinations of children in the “Fukushima Prefecture Health Management Survey” is astonishing. This is because one-third of the children had developed “ cysts.” A “cyst” is a fluid-filled sac. Cysts don’t mean there is an immediate chance of developing thyroid cancer. However, it is apparent that something extraordinary is happening inside the thyroid gland, such as inflammation or changes in cellular properties.

Summarizing the thyroid ultrasound examination results from Japan and overseas, prevalence of “cysts” detected in children around the age of 10 is approximately 0.5-1.0%.

The fact that 35% of Fukushima children (average age around 10) have thyroid cysts strongly suggests that these children’s thyroid glands are negatively affected by undesirable environmental factors.

http://enenews.com/head-of-internal-medicine-at-japan-hospital-astonished-by-fukushima-thyroid-exams-immediate-evacuation-is-imperative-a-violation-of-human-rights-for-those-exposed-to-radiation

In June [2012], 56 percent of Japanese fish catches tested by the Japanese government were contaminated with cesium-137 and -134. (Both are human-made radioactive isotopes—produced through nuclear fission—of the element cesium.)

And 9.3 percent of the catches exceeded Japan’s official ceiling for cesium, which is 100 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg). (A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity equal to one nuclear disintegration per second.)

The numbers show that far from dissipating with time, as government officials and scientists in Canada and elsewhere claimed they would, levels of radiation from Fukushima have stayed stubbornly high in fish. In June 2012, the average contaminated fish catch had 65 becquerels of cesium per kilo. That’s much higher than the average of five Bq/kg found in the days after the accident back in March 2011, before cesium from Fukushima had spread widely through the region’s food chain.

In some species, radiation levels are actually higher this year than last.

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/are-fish-pacific-ocean-and-japanese-coastal-and-inland-waters-safe-eat-16-months-after-fuk

Sevendsen et al, from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of South Carolina, demonstrated in 2010 that children who had been living in areas heavily contaminated with radioactive cesium have decreased pulmonary function.

http://fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/position-statement-what-is-currently.html

Take your resume lessons from this guy.
Read bottom up.

Even Steve Wozniak says that Google voice search is vastly superior to Siri

Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if your sources actually supported your claim? Did Voice Search tell you they did?

1.Article: "The Apple co-founder,[said] that he was an early fan of Siri, but the app has gotten worse since Apple bought it." And why? Because it now also searches Google. No mention of Google Voice Search. The second article is basically just the video from the first.

Google voice search is just an alternative entry method for the standard search. It is hardly a strategic counter to the more AI-driven approach (ok, quasi-AI) that Siri represents.

Are you kidding me? It's not even a contest. Comparing Google Voice Search to Siri is just like comparing Google Search to Yahoo Search (the Yahoo Search of 10 years ago). Even Steve Wozniak says that Google voice search is vastly superior to Siri (even long before Gingerbread came out, he was saying stuff like that, now Google voice search can be used offline in addition to what it can already do online, and in that time, Siri has only been getting worse with even more commercial answers to non-commercially based queries).

Also, the idea of launching specific intents/actions on a phone instead of launching just a web page is an idea that Google pioneered long ago, that Apple just recently imitated.

And it does little to address either the vertical search gap presented by Yelp, or the "diagonal" functionality gap that Siri addresses by smoothly integrating with your other iOS apps like text message, alarm or calendar.

But Google Voice Search does also search through the internal content/actions of your phone at the same time as the Internet. It did that for a while now (that's why I can't comprehend how Apple even got a patent on a similar idea).

Fair amount of it here

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-samsungs-step-by-step-guide-for-how-to-copy-an-iphone-2012-8?op=1

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-instagram-will-make-money-2012-4

Is the BBC turning into The Onion? Or is the author just plain daft to start with?

Substituting the words "mini-livestock" in place of "dead insects"? What the fuck are these Brits smoking?

I know crushed-up insects may pass for a semi-decent gourmet meal by British culinary standards, but here in America I'll stick to my 97% lean ground beef and REAL pork chops, thanks.

The other 3% being made up of god knows what of course (in addition to the expected fat):
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2507910n
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLmJ_-Ygaww
http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-mcdonalds-workers-kick-around-a-dead-rat-like-its-a-soccer-ball-2012-6
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/kfc-says-sorry-for-dead-caterpillar-941451

livestock [lahyv-stok] Show IPA
noun ( used with a singular or plural verb )
the horses, cattle, sheep, and other useful animals kept or raised on a farm or ranch.
source:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/livestock

No reason not to use the words mini-livestock when talking about insects bred on an insect farm, for example, that would be sold as food.

By the way, if you're going to be offensive you should at least get your shit straight before vomiting it up on here and embarrassing those of us Americans that don't want to look like complete idiots.

Witness this article, referenced elsewhere in /. earlier today:

http://www.businessinsider.com/if-the-iphone-5-really-looks-like-this-apple-may-be-screwed-2012-7

which states:

"Now that most phones do the same things and work pretty much the same way, the most obvious (and, arguably, important) difference between them is the screen."

This is hogwash. No tablet comes close to the experience of the iPad; no phone comes close to the effectiveness of the iPhone line. No question-- I'm no fanboy, I think Steve Jobs was a jerk, but Apple simply has done things better.

There's a lot of drivel there that doesn't deserve comment ("very few decent places to eat"? are you old or broke?), but this is ridiculous:

I lived in the PHX area 2003-2007 and there are indeed few decent places to eat. Most restaurants are chain and/or shitty. The thing that surprised me the most was how hard it was to find a decent Mexican restaurant in the PHX area. Forget about Asian cuisine.

It's been rated by several places as the worst city in America to drive in, mainly because it's so chaotic and because there's no consistent driving style (the frequent road-rage shootings don't help).

What's the problem, does the square NS-EW street grid confuse you? You're going to need to back up that claim, because Phoenix is nowhere near the worst cities to drive in:

http://fillmyemptyblogspace.com/2010/12/24/10-worst-american-cities-to-drive-in/ http://www.businessinsider.com/cities-with-most-car-crashes-2010-10?op=1 http://autos.yahoo.com/news/15-dangerous-cities-for-driving.html http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/22/going-nowhere-10-worst-u-s-cities-for-traffic/

In fact, if you look closely, you can see Chandler listed by Allstate as one of the safest cities to drive in.

If it is so damn safe to drive, why were my auto insurance rates double what they were in Chicago while I lived in PHX? I routinely found myself at 4-way stops where everyone stared at each other wondering who should go next. There were major crashes on the 10 almost daily. People drive as if they are wandering aimlessly. If I am on the road, I have a destination in mind and want to get there.

You can't bicycle here (one of my favorite outdoor activities) because of the heat most of the year

People bike here year round, Facebook posts from other people doing just that are proof. You choose not to, that doesn't mean other people don't do it also. There are people enjoying the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, Dreamy Draw, and South Mountain year round.

Yes, crazy people bike there year round. I was amazed by how many people I saw out jogging at 2pm in 105 degree heat. Pure insanity. Not only the heat, but it is so dusty and dry, outside exercise is pure torture most of the time. Not to mention the threat of valley fever. The other thing that got me is that even though it is a desert, people use insane amounts of water. Every new subdivision has a big water feature out front. Most people opt for a big green lawn (that has to be watered daily). The drinking water is absolutely terrible unless you get an RO system or get bottled water. Public transportation is a joke, mainly because the population density is not high enough to merit the infrastructure. They build roads like crazy, though. The other factor is the people. This is purely subjective, but the PHX area has a lot of evangelicals and conservative religious types. And don't forget the plain old (and I mean old) conservatives. Maybe that's your cup of tea.

Wow, have things gotten that bad at MS that they're making you guys post this stuff to keep your jobs?

We all should take pity on the Microsofties.

As a protest against the treatment of Microsoft employees and in the spirit of PETA's ads, I will use Linux exclusively while stark naked.

And I will NOT use Windows or any other Microsoft product until the they treat the Softies better!

There's a lot of drivel there that doesn't deserve comment ("very few decent places to eat"? are you old or broke?), but this is ridiculous:

It's been rated by several places as the worst city in America to drive in, mainly because it's so chaotic and because there's no consistent driving style (the frequent road-rage shootings don't help).

What's the problem, does the square NS-EW street grid confuse you? You're going to need to back up that claim, because Phoenix is nowhere near the worst cities to drive in:

http://fillmyemptyblogspace.com/2010/12/24/10-worst-american-cities-to-drive-in/
http://www.businessinsider.com/cities-with-most-car-crashes-2010-10?op=1
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/15-dangerous-cities-for-driving.html
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/22/going-nowhere-10-worst-u-s-cities-for-traffic/

In fact, if you look closely, you can see Chandler listed by Allstate as one of the safest cities to drive in.

violent home invasions are common

Define "common". The police claimed that for 2008 there were "over 300" home invasions and kidnappings (fewer than 1 per day, in an area with 4.2 million people), and that claim was investigated by the feds to see if it was exaggerated to get more funding:

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2011/01/26/20110126phoenix-crime-stats-federal-audit.html

You can't bicycle here (one of my favorite outdoor activities) because of the heat most of the year

People bike here year round, Facebook posts from other people doing just that are proof. You choose not to, that doesn't mean other people don't do it also. There are people enjoying the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, Dreamy Draw, and South Mountain year round.

They used to have Mill Avenue in Tempe that was kinda fun to walk along, which used to have a bunch of quirky little independent shops, but the Tempe government drove all those out of business to make room for a bunch of mall stores and high-rises, which of course went south when the economy crashed, so most of the place is boarded up now.

Really? The main recreational area next to the largest university by enrollment in the country is boarded up now, huh? That's weird.

This place sucks, and I can't wait to move out in a couple of months.

Neither can I. Let me know if you need help leaving.

I think a lot of this hoopla has to do with small sample sizes and poor implementation. People are jumping to conclusions here about 80% bot traffic and all that, but nobody has actually examined the numbers and methodology. They are taking all of this at face value and extrapolating to... ???

Anyway, with people who DO know what they are doing, and are using Facebook ads for direct response (e.g. driving traffic directly to their website), Zappos has been doing an incredible job using some of the methods you describe above:

http://www.businessinsider.com/zappos-social-media-guru-just-revealed-facebooks-hidden-ad-secret-2012-6

FYI I'm not a Facebook shill, and I think a lot of the advertising doesn't work because people don't know how to do it correctly. In my experience, it's a lot easier for a non-sophisticated advertiser to be successful with something like Google AdWords because the intent of the person being advertised to is clearly known. It's much harder to tease out the "intent" of someone who clicks your FB ad or likes your page, since you are engaging with them via demographics and not an explicit statement of intent, such as searching for a keyword.

Apple has done a great job, but others are not standing still - http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsofts-massive-windows-sales-compared-to-apple-2010-7

Strategic for Microsoft, and who would want it? Just few % of Windows 7 users will make it a huge success - http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsofts-massive-windows-sales-compared-to-apple-2010-7

the data shows Windows 7 is most successful, 3 times all of OSX, iOS put together http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsofts-massive-windows-sales-compared-to-apple-2010-7

Apple was never in that shape. They had billions in the bank. The issue was MS continuing Office support

“We were 90 days from going bankrupt.” - Steve Jobs.

More details. and from a Mac fan site perspective

So basically, yes, they were in that shape, no, they did not have billions in the bank.

(a) Our demonstrations and protests are cracked down on pretty fiercely here -- http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-report-nypd-violated-rights-of-protestors-2012-7
(b) Our simple-majority voting and non-parliamentary system basically ensures that just two parties can nominate a candidate (see Duverger's Law), and both of them are equally moral-free spineless shits, so we're just structurally completely screwed.
(c) What you're seeing is the slow decline of an imperial republic, where the citizens are fundamentally decadent and pain-averse. I don't think revolution ever comes from the center of the empire, it's always forced from without, isn't it?

All that you say would be righteous except for one thing: cheating.

Morgan Stanley used selective disclosure. "Privileged clients" were informed that Facebook's revenue would not meet expectations. The rest of us were kept in the dark.

I didn't stay away from Facebook only because it was overvalued and overhyped. I stayed far, far away because I was sure there'd be fraud. These days, small investors maybe shouldn't be in the stock market at all. You do your homework, determine what stocks are good values based on the fundamentals, and then all that goes out the window when management swindles the investors through omission and with fat pay packages and consulting fees to buddies that come straight off the stock's value through options and the like. The markets have yet to earn back the credibility they lost over the subprime mortgage fiasco.

Are you fucking kidding me? No one mentions the strike price for all these employees with bad morale. I'll speculate: $1 for employees, $.1 for the investors.

Oh wait, I'm totally wrong. They're fucking RSU's! Your free money is only worth 40% of $38. Boo-fucking-hoo.

This article linked to popcorn articles about playing with the big boys. The reason the stock is down has nothing to do with "pressures of being a large company". This is about insider trading and "selective disclosure" which shows how corrupt wall street works behind the scenes. The SEC needs to crack down on wall street and not allow this elitist mentality to happen. The truth is, this IPO was a shell game and it was rigged.

Here's what really happened:
http://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-heres-the-inside-story-of-what-happened-on-the-facebook-ipo-2012-5

Insider and material information was verbally conveyed to the big investors but not to smaller investors. On May 9th, Facebook filed an amended IPO prospectus with the SEC which implied growth and the appearance that everything was fine. The truth was the that Facebook's value was deteriorating.

Some estimates are that inside of 400 years, if we continue at the present rate of increase, should see us nicely toasted.
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-21/home/29979154_1_growth-trend-energy-growth-solar-panels

You can search youtube to see cases of fake drug dogs. A K9 handler in Nevada is also filing a lawsuit against the state alleging that not only do they use fake drug dogs to perform illegal searches but that there's a company in CA that sells just such a product.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nevada-police-accused-of-using-dogs-to-violate-citizens-rights-2012-7

See their complaint here:

http://www2.8newsnow.com/docs/k9_troopers.pdf

Read that to see what kind of slime are hired by police departments. It will blow your mind.

Apple blacklisted Gizmodo after they bought a stolen iPhone prototype a few years ago and refused to give it back before doing a full disassemble and report on every little detail. Since then, they've been left as the only major blog or news outlet that can't do firsthand reporting on the keynotes and product announcements, which has left them a little bitter. Small wonder that Gizmodo (Jesus Diaz in particular, of recent) has been saying all sorts of nonsense about Apple ever since.

Even if we ignore the chip on their shoulder, their reporting is shoddy and slimy, with them sometimes substantially altering their articles after they're posted. For instance, Briam Lam's account of returning the iPhone makes it sound like they got a letter from Apple's legal team and they sent it right back. What you don't see in that version of his account is that Brian received a personal phone call from Steve Jobs, asking for it. Brian responded with an e-mail in which he refused to return it until Apple went on record, then altered the online version of the e-mail he sent to Apple's legal department, since the original version made him look like an ass. The original reporting also contained a rosy accounting of a lot of those facts, but even that was later edited out in an effort to sweep it under the table as the original text of his correspondences leaked from other sources.

And that's far from being the only incident, though it is the most famous. RoosterTeeth lampooned Gizmodo and their "reporting" a few years back. They're a bunch of classless jackasses who treat facts as malleable ideas for their own benefit and cannot be trusted.

Let's see, Fox News, plus a 2-year-old prediction that has been pretty well blown away by subsequent events. I very much suggest that you treat Fox News as the digital equivalent of used bird-cage liner. Studies (well, one study) show(s) that watching it makes you ignorant: http://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5

And a couple more: http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4f0b5867eab8ea4c24000033/spending-per-pupil-by-country.jpg http://www.supportingevidence.com/sitebuilder/images/PISA_Test_Scores_vs_cumm_edu_spend_by_country-820x565.jpg

Suck it up Apple! Change your business model or die!

If you haven't noticed, numerous companies in the world are attempting to "copy" Apple's business model of selling at high profit margins -- because the model is actually profitable (compared with the "race to the bottom" model by competing on "value and price" of Dell, etc. etc.).

Perhaps the AAPL quarterly results (which will be announced today) will prove me wrong (I doubt it), but by all measures Apple is far away from "can't compete in the marketplace". [1] Perhaps you thought your friends bought an iPhone because Apple sued Samsung? I'll have sympathy on your logic and not call you an idiot, because you probably bought a Samsung device because Apple sued Samsung.

[1] http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-25/tech/31396858_1_iphone-business-profit-apple

"Weâ(TM)re Apple. We donâ(TM)t wear suits. We donâ(TM)t even own suits." - Steve