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Spotify has been around since 2011, Apple Music was launched last year. Good logic.

Except, Spotify's biggest period of grown in number of new users has come since Apple music was launched.

http://www.fool.com/investing/...

Nice try.

I've actually suspected that Musk will sell his stake in Tesla around the year 2020. At that point, the Model 3 will be in high volume production and the share price should be very high. I suspect he will use those proceeds to finance the trip to Mars.

They guy plays a long game. Both technically and financially. I suspect Tesla and Solar City are just means to get himself to Mars, where he will retire.

Do you mean like when Apple removed the SD-card slot or the ability to change batteries ? Those that did not follow the move are now gaining market shares.

You really ARE a moron, aren't you?

1. Apple phones have NEVER had a card-slot that can be used for user storage.

2. Apple phones have NEVER had a removable battery.

Therefore, it is actually IMPOSSIBLE for Apple to have REMOVED that which it never had, moron.

And, I am SURE that those "missing" features have cost Apple thousands (maybe even tens-of-thousands) of unit-sales (out of a total sales of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS, in fact, nearly a BILLION phones as of Q3 2015). IOW, it has cost them less than a statistical rounding-error's worth of sales overall.

Having said all that, of those two features, I would personally like to see a Micro-SD slot (if only to shut up morons like you); but since I haven't even filled a quarter of my iPhone 6 plus' 128 GB of internal storage, the pressure is pretty minimal for more storage for all but the most mobile-centric people.

Steal everyone's content, never pay for anything (ie youtube)

This is absolutely not true. You should reread the comments on that article. Also, if YouTube is bringing in more financial benefits than deficits, this is the first anyone has heard of it.

What all this has to do with public ownership of the means of production is beyond me, but maybe you're just using "socialist" to mean "something I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit."

http://www.fool.com/investing/...

Under 25 $6,137
35-44 $32,000

Boloney.
  Tesla stated before taking pre orders delivery is scheduled for late 2017. That's about 20 months away. I don't see how you can say Tesla can't begin to deliver in 20 months, as it already has a handful of prototypes right now (they gave test drives, you know it, doesn't you ?)
  A for Tesla doesn't have enough money, that's another BS argument. Tesla is loosing money overall because its funding for Model 3 R&D with revenues from MS/MX deliveries. For the last reported quarter (Q4 2015) MX deliveries were still inconsequential. But Q1 2016 MX deliveries have skyrocketed, and by years end more than half of deliveries will be MX, substantially increasing revenues.
  I fully expect by the time Model 3 deliveries start, there will be one million reservations. That's a US$ 1 billion interest free loan to Tesla, courtesy of its future customers. By end of Sat, 4/2/16, reservations were closing at 276k (in just three days). Half a million reservations are already a SURE thing in my book, with a very high probability of a full million reservations.
    Tesla doesn't have the obligation to deliver all of those reservations in 6 months or in a year. It might very well take them 2 years or more, which might make the whole cycle self funding (once the first 50000 units are delivered, Tesla gets paid, which funds the next 100k units and so on).
    You should take a look at this: http://www.fool.com/investing/...

Tesla has a small volume luxury product that still loses money,

There is a difference between investing all of your profit per car into increasing production capacity, and actually losing money on each car. Tesla's profit margin on the Model S is 25%. They invest all of this and more in building their production line for their lower cost Model 3, as well as in battery production. The losing money per car meme is GM and fossil fuel industry FUD.

this is for income taxes stupid. most of these people make most of their income from dividends and other non-salary income which is taxed at much lower rates

"Qualified" dividends are taxed at a lower rate, "ordinary" dividends are taxed as ordinary income. I know, I get both from my investments, in addition to income from my job.

Qualified Dividends vs. Ordinary Dividends

That is because things never come out of R&D int the tech world. Microsoft and Google learned this a long time ago.

Yet Microsoft and Google spent more money on R&D than Apple does.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/14/5-tech-companies-spending-more-on-rd-than-apple-in.aspx

The point of the second article was that SpaceX wants to Dramatically Accelerate Its Launch Frequency and, if all goes as planned, the company will achieve a launch rate of once every two to three weeks. They have 40 Falcon 9 missions and 6 Falcon Heavy missions on their manifest. The more launches, the more chances for problems but for now the only constraining factor appears to be the number of cores they can produce. They need 61 cores for their current manifest (40 x1 F + 7 x3 FH) so even if they increase production to 30 cores per year, it will still take over 2 years to produce all the cores they need for their current manifest.

So buying outdated software to compete with Google will work over night? Give this guy a grant or some capital investment. Maybe its just me but it seems like they give are practically giving them out these days.

I see where you are going with this. My concern from a business perspective is that 10 years ago Microsoft did such bold move to include Internet Explorer in with with Windows effectively killing Netscape.

In this case, it isn't in Apple's best interest to keep a quality solution in place that handles this. Just as its not Google's place to do these sorts of things either. However, consider this article and just ponder for a moment what Wall Gardening them completely would do for computing in general?

http://www.fool.com/investing/...

A plush article I must say. I think the domain name speaks volumes as to who wrote the story. But his initial point is valid. What if Google told FaceBook to take a hike for example.

For the fact that Buffet's trains carry the bulk of the oil from where the pipeline ends?

Wow. Like most nut jobs your links don't show what you believe they do. Here's a detailed analysis. His trains do not carry the bulk of that oil and that oil is only a small portion of the oil they do carry. No wonder Buffet supported the pipeline and still does.

Try Bluebird

Hopefully the mobile site didn't mung this.

And it hasn't even been one week since the election. Well, I for one welcome our new Canadian overlords.

But on a more serious note, we all know the real reason why this pipeline was rejected. And its name is Berkshire Hathaway.

The median price of a car in the US is $32K.

As someone who purchased an average new car in 2001 I thought this had to be false so I went searching to find a suitable correction. Instead I learned that the average American can no longer afford a new car. (Of course the fact that they can't afford them doesn't mean they've stopped buying them. It just means we'll have toxic auto loans to deal with in a few years instead of toxic mortgages.)

I wonder if automakers are paying their workers well enough for them to afford their products.

That was in 2009. More recently, Frontier also bought Verizon's landline operations in Texas, Florida, and the rest of California. That deal is still pending. http://www.fool.com/investing/...

GM deliberately lobbied for rules that were different from foreign markets to make it harder for foreign entrance into the US.

And that's why there are no longer foreign cars sold in the US.

The Ranger's not sold in the US because Ford closed the Minnesota plant where they built them and decided not to sell them in the US and the market for small pickups has tanked. Has nothing to do with "rules".

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2...

http://www.fool.com/investing/...

North America Plans
Officially, Ford says it is still "all in" on investing and expanding the F-Series lineup for North America with a focus on new powertrains and improved fuel efficiency, but a midsize pickup doesn't fit into current plans.

"The compact pickup segment in the U.S. has been declining - from almost 8 percent of total industry sales in 1994 to 1.5 percent of industry sales in 2014," said Mike Levine, Ford truck communication manager. "The F-Series works best for customers in North America. The all-new 2015 Ford F-150 with the 2.7-liter EcoBoost V-6 has better EPA-estimated fuel economy ratings than V-6-powered midsize pickups from Toyota and GM, as well as better payload and towing capability."

While other similarly sized midsize pickups sold in the U.S. and abroad have had different dimensions (the Toyota Hilux and Tacoma, and Nissan Frontier and Navarra come to mind), the new 2016 Ford Ranger seems to be both similar in size to some existing midsize pickups as well as too close in size to an F-150. Looking at the dimensions compared to the current Toyota Tacoma, we see the Ford Ranger is just a bit taller and longer while not quite as wide.

Our guess is that Ford will only green-light a new U.S. Ranger if it could build it economically, make it on a smaller platform, give it much better fuel efficiency than the F-150, and offer it with a much lower price tag. No matter how you look at it, that's an unlikely set of circumstances that needs to come into alignment.

Ukraine has only Soviet-era air force, and it is all grounded due to concentration of Russian anti-air tech

No, they were using, what little was usable after two decades of neglect (much of it induced by Russia's infiltrators in Ukraine's military). It just was not much to begin with and there were combat losses...

not unless major long-range missile bombardment effort was undertaken to suppress all that AA.

The enemy's AA is not any better — and likely worse — than the Serbian army's was, when we bombed them in Kosovo... It can be done — and with minimum losses.

Also, the enemy's AA has been reduced (if not entirely withdrawn back to Russia), when the morons shot down that unfortunate airliner a year ago. Should Ukraine suddenly grow a capable air force, Russia may give the Buks back, but it will take them time during which some juicy targets can be spectacularly destroyed...

Finally, even those scary Buks, apparently, aren't such a menace to the real fighting planes — most of the air-losses Ukraine suffered were transport-planes and helicopters...

Uhh, have you been paying attention to oil prices and the reasons for the decline?

Commodities are not magically insulated from the law of supply and demand.

Elon Musk is not an expert, except perhaps at being at the right place/right time. He won the internet lottery:

internet banking

and sinks the windfall resources into unprofitable geek hobbies:

solar panel installation, electric cars, launch systems, or satellites

Good for him. I share his enthusiasm. But don't confuse lucky celebrities for experts.

What has he done? Made a car that isn't even on the list of Green cars. A solar panel company that keeps the money from the electricity you put back into to the grid. Massive environmental destruction of the mountain of argentina and Peru with lithium poisoning from the Lithium mines. http://www.fool.com/investing/... The vacuum train that he came up with accept he didn't and isn't putting one penny of his on money into. He is a smart business guy and he is making cool shit. He isn't Tesla, or Bell. He might be Edisonish accept he hasn't come up with any of his companies on his own. At least edison invented some stuff himself. Elon is more a Elison. Pretty freaking smart guy by no means the smartest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

The thing is when you're the CEO of the richest company in history (maybe?),

Not even close

Dutch East India company at an inflation adjusted capitalization of $7,000,000,000,000.00
http://www.fool.com/investing/...

The very reference quoted for cash reserves paint a much grimmer picture.

Of a company getting its shit together but still being far away from standing back up, not yet breaking even but already looking for ways to cut another billion dollars of expenses on top of that goal, sacking thousands of employees, planning further layoffs and actually quite needing those $150 million to pay off a short term debt ($152 million actually) and other debts.
Also, claiming at the time that they didn't need partners nor that they were approached by anyone.
That was July. Next month they announce they're partnering up with Microsoft.

$150 million wasn't just money. MS agreed not to sell that stock for the next 3 years.
It was a guarantee of solvency and trust.
"MS plans to hold on to Apple stock. They must know something no one else does. Maybe it's not the time to get rid of it yet. Maybe it's time to buy more of it."

That's what $150 million and partnership with MS got them. Not just cash in hand.

https://www.fool.com/Calls/199...

FOOL CONFERENCE CALL SYNOPSIS*
By Debora Tidwell (TMF Debit)

Apple Computer, Inc.
(Nasdaq: AAPL)
One Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 996-1010
http://www.apple.com/

ALEXANDRIA, VA (July 17, 1997)/FOOLWIRE/ --- Apple Computer, Inc. released their third quarter 1997 results after the market close yesterday. Revenues for the quarter were $1.7 billion compared to $1.6 billion last quarter and $2.2 billion in last year's third quarter. International sales accounted for 53% of revenues in the quarter. Gross margins for the quarter were 20% compared to 18.9% last quarter and 18.5% in the year-ago third quarter. The company reported a net loss for the quarter of $56 million or $(0.44) per share compared to a net loss of $708 million or $(5.64) per share last quarter and a net loss of $32 million or $(0.26) in the year-ago quarter.

OPERATING LOSS. The company's loss from operations was $60 million representing a significant sequential improvement from the loss from operations of $186 million exclusive of charges for restructuring and writeoffs of in-process R&D. The company's loss from operations a year ago was $160 million. Operating expenses for the quarter were $408 million, down $81 million from last quarter, exclusive of charges for restructuring and the writeoffs of in-process R&D, and down $111 million compared to the year-ago quarter. One analyst noted that they are ahead of their projected expense reduction targets and asked if there were new targets. Apple responded that consistent with wanting to drive the break-even point below $8 billion, they will want to drive the operating expenses, which had been targeted at $400 million per quarter or $1.6 billion, lower.

UNIT SALES. In terms of sales, revenues increased by 8.5% sequentially. Unit sales were approximately 698,000 and represented a 6-8% sequential increase over last quarter. The sequential growth was driven largely by sales in the US education market, as well as greatly improved sales in Japan. Unit sales of Apple-branded entry level desktop products, which they are now referring to as "value product line" internally grew by approximately 27% during the quarter while sales of the flagship PowerMac products grew by 32%. Sequential growth in these two product lines were offset in part by a 29% reduction of Powerbook unit sales. They attribute the reduction in Powerbook sales to both an easing in the pent-up demand for their high-end 3400 series, which was introduced last quarter, as well as general softness in the entry level segment of the Powerbook space.

OTHER INCOME. Other income breaks down as follows: $18 million in interest income, $18 million in interest expense, a foreign exchange gain of about $6 million, and then a couple of other minor items. Claris was a little lower than last quarter at $55 million in

Yes, that sweet Swedish internet, discussed before on Slashdot, from an article on the Motley Fool called How Come My ISP Won't Increase Internet Speed and Lower My Bill, Like They Do in Sweden?

Kinda, not quite right.

Just checked at https://epbfi.com/internet/, 100 Mbps is $57.99... not free, but not bad. Triple-play goes for $132.82. It ain't Sweden, but not awful.

And whereas Bob the Politician would like campaign funding for keeping his job (would that be a part-time or a full-time job, by the way? term limits? what's the pay? does he really give a shit about keeping that job in a local city council?), he can get a lot more campaign donations by getting into bed with commercial internet providers with deeper pockets then some small-change locals.

And while one state's corruption laws vary from another's, a politician putting his friend (or relative) in charge of a government program, and then receiving campaign donations back, is at least easy-pickings for a local TV eye-team investigation report. Taking such a man's seat in the next election would be like shooting a fish in a barrel... just run on a campaign of anti-corruption and eliminating government waste. I'll bet Frontier or Comcast would be happy to pay for printing up your campaign signs.

And don't think customers who get service from Frontier don't send money through the Council's hands. Be it through fees or taxes, the City gets paid. Always. The only difference is whether there are shareholders who get a piece of the action.

When Comcast runs the Internet, a substantial cut of the profit goes to shareholders, and another cut goes to expanding territory and growth, again to please shareholders to thereby drive up stock price and raise the value of the company, further increasing the wealth of the shareholders. When the City sets up its own internet, all profit goes back to the City to be redistributed by the Council, maybe to upgrade equipment, maybe to fix roads or schools, maybe as a local tax cut.

If the City Council's internet starts to suck, well, the customers are also voters, and they can replace a politician, maybe with the guy next door. On the other hand, if Comcast starts to suck in a town where there's no competition, customers can call customer service and wait on hold until they go insane. Comcast has enough customers that they don't have to listen to any customers. They only have to listen to shareholders... that is, shareholders with enough voting stock to threaten the sitting Board of Directors (currently, their stock price is $55.81, for just one little share; you can look up how many shares you'd have to buy to get anyone at the company to listen to you).

The point is, if you're a Chattanooga customer, and you're upset, you have a lot better chance of someone giving a shit than if you're a Comcast customer. Local politicians can fuck things up, sure, but unless the local politician is aiming to move higher to state of federal office (where the money is), then he's got to live with you, and probably would just as well keep you happy and off his lawn. A board member or senior management in Comcast, on the other hand, will never give a shit about who you are or what you think of your service, ever, unless maybe you start a class-action lawsuit, or a local broadband initiative in your home town. Then, you'll hear from their lawyers.

So Tesla solved that by marking the price real high and said "Here, you don't have to haggle anymore" and people ate it up.
 
I'm still failing to see how Tesla is the good guys in this case. If this were any other industry (or any other auto maker) people around here would be screaming bloody murder over those profit margins. And you know damn sure that if Tesla's profit margins were lower every fanboy would be screaming it in every post.
 
I really just don't understand how a crowd of people that mostly condemn stuff like this from Apple and their ilk are so quick to suck at the teat of Tesla.

Pretty much:

http://www.fool.com/retirement...

You could start by comparing the expenditures of a single "green" lobbying group, the "Environmental Defense Fund" of $120 million with the TOTAL lobbying dollars for all of the oil industry, which came in at about $71 million.

Why would you compare the **total revenues** (not even expenditures) for a group like the EDF with the lobbying expenditures of the oil industry? Let's see what they actually spent on lobbying... oh, about $940,000. Sierra Club? $280,000. Greenpeace? A laughable $23,387.

opensecrets.org can help you correct your numbers, if you actually care.

If the greenies and those making billions off of CO2 hysteria, like Gore,

1) Citation needed.

Well, let's see. You could start by comparing the expenditures of a single "green" lobbying group, the "Environmental Defense Fund" of $120 million with the TOTAL lobbying dollars for all of the oil industry, which came in at about $71 million. Of course, we've left out all the big ones like the Sierra Club, SELC, Greenpeace, etc. To see what it's really like here is a handy chart for you.

it's clear that the major players in the K-12 market today are Apple, an ascendant Google, and Microsoft, which has only shown hints of its strategy for the market segment.

Here's another :

Apple is still the main and dominant player in the [education] market

The software side was Pearson. LAUSD is now allowing Chromebook purchases.

TASER International

After two years and nearly $2 billion in losses, Microsoft's Surface turned a profit in the September quarter, the company said Thursday.

October 31, 2014, via the Motley Fool:

The Surface Pro 3, released earlier this year, is selling far better than its predecessors, and for the first time Microsoft has recorded a positive gross profit for the Surface business.

It would do you well to source timely things, sir.

SolarCity? The Gigafactory (which hasn't even been built yet)? Tesla?

The common denominator in all these businesses: tiny market share.

And the iPhone, iPad, iPod? Huge market share.

So, I guess Musk is a genius at making stuff nobody wants.

Tesla Motors, Inc.'s Demand Is Growing Faster Than Production

Model S has been an enormous success. Not only has the all-electric luxury sedan been outselling all comparably priced cars in North America in 2013, but Tesla is expecting sales to increase by more than 50% this year. Most surprising of all, however, is that Tesla is achieving this without spending any money on advertising.

People want the car, but most people can't afford it and Tesla still can't build the car fast enough to keep up with demand. But I suspect you knew that. You also probably know that consumer reports is calling the Tesla Model S the best car it has ever tested. The Gigfactory is part of the plan to price the Model 3 such that the middle class can afford it.

And you forgot to mention SpaceX which has single handily brought commercial satellite launches to the US. And supplies cargo missions to the ISS. And just won a bid for commercial crew to transport astronauts to the ISS. And have a launch manifest with over 40 launches on it worth over $4 billion dollars. In other words, SpaceX is in demand.

Gain control? For what purpose?

For the same reason politicians become politicians (and policemen become pigs) — the feeling of control over fellow human beings gives them a high...

The way I see it, if this all bogus, we end up with cleaner air, less pollution and a better place to live.

Not obviously, actually. Tesla's wonderful batteries, for example, are a hell to make and aren't particularly easy to dispose of either. The early "green" toilets don't use enough water to do the job quite often — requiring multiple flushes, where an old one would've done with one. The mandatory recycling of this and that requires additional trucks on the road to haul the "special" refuse without clear benefits to the environment — in fact, often enough the stuff ends up in general refuse anyway after incurring all of the costs (financial and environmental) of the separate handling. The certified "green" buildings (sometimes?) use more energy, than regular structures...

You win either way.

Yeah. There is this line of thinking — Blaise Pascal, in his time, put forth the same idea on whether or not God exists.

Good to see, you aren't (any longer?) claiming it is the science, that drives your thinking about global warming... You aren't alone.

OMG you ignorant fuck. Tesla batteries are made of wonderful shit like Nickel. A fire in such a plant could loft heinous amounts of contaminates which would promptly precipitate out in the vicinity downwind of the plant.

Do you want cancer with that battery?
January 19, 2014

Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy undertook a study to look at the environmental impact of lithium-ion batteries for EVs. The study showed that batteries that use cathodes with nickel and cobalt, as well as solvent-based electrode processing, have the highest potential for environmental impacts, including resource depletion, global warming, ecological toxicity, and human health. The largest contributing processes include those associated with the production, processing, and use of cobalt and nickel metal compounds, which may cause adverse respiratory, pulmonary, and neurological effects in those exposed.

This is what CA is throwing it's precious regs under the bus for; it's politically correct industrial golden boy.

You know what the worst part of all this happy horseshit is? At the end of the day all we're really doing is off-shoring our impact. The elements that Tesla is going to need to feed this "giga" factory are going to come from Africa and Asia, far beyond the reach of EPA, DOE, OHSA, NLRB and the rest of the gang;

Tesla’s Gigafactory: Needs 6 new graphite mines, but where will cobalt be sourced?

Nickel refining is particularly heinous. It's worse for the environment than copper mining and refining. Downwind of a third world nickel mine or refinery is a dead zone. That's why we won't tolerate it near ourselves anymore.

And yeah, doesn't this story just put the lie right to the Left when they argue how environmentalism and economy aren't in conflict. And what happened to Tesla here? Playing one state off against another for regulatory wavers? Tsk tsk.

All these regs and legislated morality have a price. It really does. I'm sorry about that. A magic fairy wand would be nice, but we don't have one. Get that through your la-la land head and grow up a little.

waive certain parts of the nearly half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act

This seems to affirm the giant elephant in the "save the Earth" room: Tesla (as well as other products relying on highly-capable batteries) aren't all that "green". It may be a great car to drive, but if one needs violates environmental regulations — and not the recent ones — to make it, then green it is not.

Oh, and then comes the problem of disposing of those wonderful batteries — or recycling them...

waive certain parts of the nearly half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act

This seems to affirm the giant elephant in the "save the Earth" room: Tesla (as well as other products relying on highly-capable batteries) aren't all that "green". It may be a great car to drive, but if one needs violates environmental regulations — and not the recent ones — to make it, then green it is not.

Oh, and then comes the problem of disposing of those wonderful batteries — or recycling them...

I would go a step further, in that the SEC was completely complacent in the whole Banking Investment fraud that led up to the collapse of the economy.

If you want to blame anyone, blame Congress. The SEC is badly underfunded and that is entirely the fault of Congress. I won't get into the politics of why but you can probably guess the various political motives involved. The SEC simply doesn't have the funding or the manpower to oversee what they've been charged with managing adequately.

Why even post something like that? Is uninformed cynicism what passes for a constructive comment these days?

The location of the gigafactory has not yet been announced, but Musk said it would include lots of solar and wind to power it, leading many analysts to assume somewhere in the southwest U.S., such as New Mexico.....

---The Motley Fool

It's completely irresponsible and foolish to speculate that the gigafactory will be built in New Mexico. The obvious location would be in Watts.

Why even post something like that? Is uninformed cynicism what passes for a constructive comment these days?

The location of the gigafactory has not yet been announced, but Musk said it would include lots of solar and wind to power it, leading many analysts to assume somewhere in the southwest U.S., such as New Mexico.....

---The Motley Fool

Not to mention that Tesla is "green" by making money selling zero emission vehicle credits to other manufacturers. http://beta.fool.com/dcawrey/2...

According to Motley Fool, only 14% of IBM's sales are from hardware. And that 14% is including the x86 server business that they just sold. And yet, between 2002 and 2012, their sales grew 28% and their earnings per share grew a whopping 7x (total earnings grew much less because of huge share buybacks, but it's earnings per share that matter). IBM is a software and services company. They keep selling some "big iron" to promote lock-in for their software and services - essentially their hardware is the corporate version of Amazon's Kindle Fire. Cool stuff like Watson notwithstanding, IBM usually tends to dump hardware divisions around the time when that division can no longer provide any reliable software or services lock-in.

My last few Apple orders suggest otherwise. The tracking shows on a plane in Shenzhen China, a stop in Alaska to refuel and clear customs, a stop in Memphis to sort, and then on to my door. About 36 hours from when it left China it is in my hand.

There are also articles from credible sources that suggest Apple keeps 5.3 days of inventory on-hand, almost all in its retail stores, and that online orders ship directly from China in most cases. Other sources have documented a similar process, and suggested a Boeing 777 can carry 450,000 iPhones at a cost of $242,000 to charter, a whopping $0.56 per phone.

I'm going to bet most of your iPhones are destined for Best Buy, Wal Mart, AT&T, Radio Shack, or similar. Those vendors probably want Apple to bulk-ship into their normal supply chain where they can be sorted and intermixed with other goods going to those stores.

If the current patent mess had been in place when cars were first industrialized

It was. George B. Selden is credited as being an early patent troll. He patented a version of the internal combustion engine, then went around demanding licensing fees from automobile manufacturers. It was eventually overturned, but was a early indicator of the problems in the patent system. Read more here: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/11/05/the-original-patent-troll.aspx

Jet engine makers have made and tested (successfully) titanium turbine blades using additive manufacturing.

Which jet engine maker? 0.0001"? Really? No, seriously, really?? Show me anyone who's *printing* parts of higher quality than a skilled CNC machinist. I'd love to see it!

They're not turbine blades, but GE is already printing fuel nozzles. Rolls-Royce is also looking at doing the same. Maybe the OP got his parts mixed up.

Jet engine makers have made and tested (successfully) titanium turbine blades using additive manufacturing.

Which jet engine maker? 0.0001"? Really? No, seriously, really?? Show me anyone who's *printing* parts of higher quality than a skilled CNC machinist. I'd love to see it!

They're not turbine blades, but GE is already printing fuel nozzles. Rolls-Royce is also looking at doing the same. Maybe the OP got his parts mixed up.

I bet all of the 24 Surface Pro 2 customers were really satisfied with the upgrade.

Aparently not:

Microsoft Fails to Fix the Surface Pro 2
Microsoft recently unveiled an update to the Surface Pro: The Surface Pro 2 is better, faster and the battery lasts longer. Yet, early reviews have not been kind. It appears Microsoft still has much work to do to beat back Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) .

"It makes you compromise everywhere"

The Verge, in its lengthy review of the Surface Pro 2, ultimately concludes that it's a machine not noticeably different from its predecessor. The tech site awards it a 7.8 (on a 10 point scale), noting that -- despite its versatility -- it still comes with numerous drawbacks.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/22/microsoft-fails-to-fix-the-surface-pro-2.aspx

One, he's joking. But two, he's also serious.

You just blew my mind.

Once upon at time, royalty did not brook criticism. But, it was understood that there was a need for certain uncomfortable truths to be told, lest kings be so totally out of touch with their realm that they, well...end up doing what a lot of royals did anyways. But anyways...the mechanism for this was known as the "Motley Fool," usually a deformed individual or a dwarf that nobody would take seriously. They dressed in fanciful clothing and, well, acted like a fool. But as they did it, they also wove those uncomfortable truths into their humor, thus informing the king in a way that was acceptable to them and thus permitted. This, in fact, is the reason why the website for personal finance, The Motely Fool named themselves thus.

Being Android the OS with the biggest marketshare on tablets this year could qualify it as the year of the linux tablet.

What ubuntu (and other linux derivatives taking the same approach as it) must do is grow the market share of proper linux distributions.