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4) What they're managing isn't that important. "But football is big business"... No, it isn't. It's a money pit. They produce nothing of value short of some recreational TV time and some T-shirts. The "income" of college football comes from donations to the college.

College football playoff TV rights alone are worth $500 million. The regular season deals are harder to find about, but Notre Dame had a $9 million per year deal with NBC a long time ago. Big Ten network brings in $7 million to each school per year [all info in this post is public].

Quote:"Every year, Sweden publishes everyone's income tax returns. So do Finland and Norway. And nobody really cares." ( http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-06-18-salaries_N.htm )

Not quite the same, but still.

CC.

Oh, and I forgot to include this link in my response above...

Simulator training flaws tied to airline crashes:
http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/2010-08-31-1Acockpits31_ST_N.htm

heavy enough to kill a child.

Just adding some citation "One child dies every three weeks from a falling TV".. not just CRT's either.

Walter Cronkite did that sixty years ago.

I'm thinking it should be, "Federal IT Capabilities Limit Ability for Federal Gun Control." And that isn't a bad thing.

"Universal Background Checks" sounds all nice and good right up to the moment that you realize any such system would require a database of every known felon, every person found incompetent mentally, for just a negative-control system. (As opposed to a positive system confirming an SSN or Driver's License belongs to that person.)

The Government has such a great record with massive databases:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-02-05-immigration_N.htm

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/16/158932528/states-arent-submitting-records-to-gun-database

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57432795/family-of-no-fly-list-toddler-wants-apology/

They've done so well, after all, I'm sure this will be no trouble for them.

Japan's ANA says Dreamliner batteries replaced 10 times.

I know you're going for "funny" (and it is humorous), but Drinking alcohol may help you fall asleep faster, but is likely to disrupt your sleep later in the night and leave you less rested, a new review of 27 studies confirms. Alcohol also can contribute to sleep apnea, a disruption in breathing during sleep. The negative effects are strongest in people who drink the most, researchers say. (WebMD)

2) Send your kid to work at a supplier to Apple ...which does not work because policies like this make most suppliers check for age before hiring anyone.

Yes yes, just like Olympic committee
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2010-04-28-olympic-medal-underage-gymnast_N.htm

People argue about the minimum wage. This is what I call our "maximum wage" policy. We have this fixed notion of what different jobs "should" make. And when supply and demand gets out of line with our preconceptions, we allow immigration to drive down wages on picking fruit, or construction, nannying, technology work, or whatever.

Screw that! If we need this for anything, it's doctors, since the supply is artificially limited by the AMA. So why isn't that happening?

Already do. Mind you, it was announced 15 days ago.

1TB - http://www.usatoday.com/story/technologylive/2013/01/09/kingston-terabyte-flash-drive-ces/1820159/

Yep, and in the end, they let them build it--along with the 2,000 other mosques in the U.S. (up 74% since 2000, incidentally).

Number of churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia: 0 (up 0% since forever).

Bush tried to get rid of Fannie Mae.

No, he wanted to investigate what was going on inside Fannie Mae, but some people stopped him - and when it was later found out that they were cooking the books to inflate their bonuses, those who defended Fannie Mae acted surprised.

Bush wanted Congress to get rid of Social Security.

No, he wanted to offer people the choice to invest some of their Social Security payments in the stock market or other, more conventional investment vehicles (other than US Treasury debt)

Bush opposed Federal regulation of electricity sales in the aftermath of the 2001 California electricity price runup.

Did you ever notice that the 2001 California price runup was limited to the state of California? The 49 other states had no problems - suggesting that California created their own problem, and the imapct of the problem was contained within the borders of California. Typically "national issues" impact more than one state - the need for federal regulation was not proven by California's inability to regulate their electricity/energy markets.

Bush greatly restricted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

He limited the creation of federal funding that includeed the creation of new "lines" for study, but left the private sctor free to invest their own money in such efforts - apparently the private sector never saw the huge potential embryonic stem cell research supports claimed was there.

"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 really don't see how posting this kind of information is harassing, or making things difficult for gun owners. I'm actually pretty pro-gun, AND reside/work in NYC but I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Are we going to seal the records of crime stats because it might lower property value? What about code violations? Should we seal every single damaged sidewalk complaint too? The argument that this somehow puts gun owners in danger or subjects them to unfair scrutiny is absolutely ridiculous. These people are armed, they have one additional means of protection (if not more, since the only limit as far as I know in NYC is to have a safe after 7 guns). Speculation about what kind of criminals these lists/maps/dbs can attract is just foolish. By that logic, all store locators on websites could potentially attract thieves because they know where the goods are.

I'm not sure how I feel about it or where I stand on it yet, but the recently passed gun control laws in NYS allow permit holders to limit their information from public release: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/19/ny-gun-control-law-limits-public-info/1847485/

Amtrak is a quasi-government operation that has no competition...... so I guess it's not surprising that it costs Amtrak about $16 dollars to make a hamburger

With the following:

1. So many people who wish to travel but cannot fly (because of fear, or health problems)
2. So many retirees who would love to relax and spend days seeing the nation (many end-up in RV's)
3. Wonderful routes with amazing scenery (the Rockies, the deserts of the southwest, the Pacific coast, etc.)
4. A government-guaranteed monopoly that includes the ability to regulate anybody else who dares to put a passenger car (even a private one) onto any train
5. A Government bailout in every year where you might lose money and government funds to re-build any infrastructure that is damaged by natural disasters
6. A very-durable pre-existing infrastructure
7. One of the world's most fuel-efficient transport methods

you really have to excel at business incompetence to be losing money

Why would the TSA be providing security for sports games?

They already do. The reason most likely has to do with a politician getting box seats.

Sure we are. Haven't you heard a single speech from Obama in the last couple years. Just about every single one was promoting class warfare and saying those who pay 52% of total income taxes aren't paying their "fair share". Despite his constant hate speech against law abiding US citizens they still re-elected him.

We ARE trying to become a class-segregated society, we just proved that if a group of classes gang up on another class we can take stuff from them for ourselves without having to work for it. I might believe you if the president himself wasn't engaging in such hate speech against people, today's hate speech was against legal gun owners. But he keeps giving hate speech after hate speech against law abiding citizens and keeps getting cheered on.

I don't think they ever did. There was the incident with Dan Rather in 2004, but worse was six decades ago when Walter Cronkite lied on air during coverage of the 1952 Presidential election.

In summer 1952, a Remington Rand executive approached CBS News chief Sig Mickelson and said the Univac might be able to plot early election-night returns against past voting patterns and spit out a predicted winner. Mickelson and anchor Walter Cronkite thought the claim was a load of baloney but figured it would at least be entertaining to try it on the air.

Eckert and Mauchly sought help from a University of Pennsylvania statistician, Max Woodbury. He and Mauchly wrote one of the first algorithms for computing, working at Mauchly's house because Mauchly had been blacklisted as pro-communist. "John wasn't allowed into the company anymore," says Mauchly's widow, Kay Mauchly Antonelli.

On election night, the 16,000-pound Univac remained at its home in Philadelphia. In the TV studio, CBS set up a fake computer â" a panel embedded with blinking Christmas lights and a teletype machine. Cronkite sat next to it. Correspondent Charles Collingwood and a camera crew set up in front of the real Univac.

As polls began to close, clerks typed the data into the Univac using three Unityper machines, which punched holes in a paper tape that would be fed into the computer.

By 8:30 p.m. ET â" long before news organizations of the era knew national election outcomes â" Univac spit out a startling prediction. It said Eisenhower would get 438 electoral votes to Stevenson's 93 â" a landslide victory. Because every poll had said the race would be tight, CBS didn't believe the computer and refused to air the prediction.

"Mauchly was at home getting telephone calls all the time about what was happening," Antonelli says. "All he could say was, 'Sit tight, we've done the best we could.' We sat there all night in front of the TV set with bated breath."

"It was essentially a live demo, on national TV," says Jim Senior, historian at Unisys, the computer giant that traces its roots to Remington Rand and Univac. "That took a lot of daring."

Under pressure, Woodbury rejiggered the algorithms. Univac then gave Eisenhower 8-to-7 odds over Stevenson. At 9:15 p.m., Cronkite reported that on the air. But Woodbury kept working and found he'd made a mistake. He ran the numbers again and got the original results â" an Eisenhower landslide.

Late that night, as actual results came in, CBS realized Univac had been right. Embarrassed, Collingwood came back on the air and confessed to millions of viewers that Univac had predicted the results hours earlier.

Journalistic integrity? CBS has no clue such a thing ever existed, and it seems they were always that way. I remember as a teenager that CBS was the Fox of the 1960s. Except unlike Fox, their bias and propaganda extended to its entertainment as well as "news". Remember "Matlock"?

I suggest you read a book on statistics.

I also suggest you read the summary as the issue isn't guns, the swiss have guns, it's about the fact that you don't care about how you keep them (i.e. not safely nor securely) which leads to accidents.

There are approximately 600 accidental gun deaths per annum in the USA. Doesn't even make the Top 5 causes of accidental death, which happen to be:

5: Choking (~2,500 deaths/yr)
4: Fires (~2,700 deaths/yr)
3: Slip-N-Falls (~25,000 deaths/yr)
2: Accidental Poisoning (~40,000 deaths/yr)
And the number one cause of accidental deaths in the US: Automobile accidents, comprising over 50,000 deaths per year.

Side note: In 2011, of the ~50,000 deaths caused by automobile accidents, over 3,000 of them were caused by people texting while driving.

That is 5 times the rate of accidental firearms deaths.

Food for thought.

Did they also explain to you that 61 of the last 62 mass shootings took place in "gun free zones" ?

Citation, please? Given that USA experiences a mass killing once every 10 days (and a mass shooting once every 15 days), I find it difficult to believe that your statistic is current.

Too soon

Apple has sold 100 million iPads in less than 2 years.. While I would prefer a 7" tablet, it seems like a large market thinks 10" is fine.

Its not often I criticise another poster for extreme ignorance but do not waste my time or your own with a unrelated link dated the start of 2012...that pre-dates the rise of the smaller tablets the Nexus 7; Fire and Ipad Mini who outsell the iPad. The fact that Apple had ealy success with a larger tablet does not refute its sales are being cannibalised by also the outdated iPad mini.

Not so right about the form factor though. The 7" tablet seems to have become the dominant one, without people filing down their fingers :), although attributing Everything to Steve Jobs without acknowledging the natural progression of technology, or what happened before it is ridiculous, or the other people who worked on the iPad. The most remarkable thing about the iPad at launch was its price :) something Apple seem to have forgotten.

Apple has sold 100 million iPads in less than 2 years.. While I would prefer a 7" tablet, it seems like a large market thinks 10" is fine.

The genetically modified part is to do only 1 thing: genetically modify humans.

And if you eat an apple, you will inherit apple genes. Your ideas are wildly intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Ok... granted that GP's idea is a little off, inheriting apple genes isn't as far fetched as you might think:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/04/japanese-have-nori-eating-gene-we-dont/1

In short, the Japanese have a gene in the bacteria of their gut that American's don't. This gene came from seaweed that they ate.

I'm sure there are better articles. I just plucked the first one I saw on Google.

Are you in the US? Few if any domestic flights have power (DC or AC), in cattle class anyways. (Maybe I just fly the wrong airlines? Nope.)

And yet, in the US, there are no mass murders with knives and uncountable ones with guns..

[citation needed]

Oh, here it is..
between 2006 and 2010:
"A third of mass killings didn't involve guns at all. In 15 incidents, the victims died in a fire. In 20 others, the killer used a knife or a blunt object. When guns were involved, killers were far more likely to use handguns than any other type of weapon."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/18/mass-killings-common/1778303/

You'd think that, but 'hard on crime' and 'good (Christian) morals' have been pretty influential there lately. The current thing is that weed sold in the infamous coffee shops may only be sold to residents of the country (although enforcement is left to the cities):
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/10/30/dutch-amsterdam-weed-marijuana/1668761/

Disinformation combined with demagoguery is a powerful tool in any country with very capable profit-oriented media organizations. Apparently, science is becoming more and more corrupted in the necessary quest for money as well.

The researchers here do not deserve their titles. From the *abstract*:
"Conclusions: Cannabis use predicts psychosis vulnerability in adolescents, and vice versa which suggests that there is a bi-directional causal association between the two."

Please tell me nobody here on Slashdot gives any credibility to that 'suggestion'. If you do, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation#Third_factor_C_.28the_common-causal_variable.29_causes_both_A_and_B

Just stop using cow's milk.

60% of the global population can't digest milk once they become adults.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-08-30-lactose-intolerance_N.htm

Health researchers at Harvard have even come out and said cows milk isn't a necessary part of a healthy diet, it is something that is TOLERATED in a healthy diet if people don't get too much:
http://beforewisdom.com/blog/milkandbones/experts-lose-the-cows-milk/

Some dairy foods can have as much or more cholesterol and saturated fat as meat.

There are substitute milks made out of almonds, rice, hemp or soy in many supermarkets now. You can use those or fortified orange juice to get plenty of calcium without the digestive stress or the many health, digestive issues of cows milk

Really?
You would not drop in cost comparable to what we see in the summary for that risk?

I would in a heartbeat. I fly fairly often, and when I do it tends to be over one of the worlds large oceans or the other one. If I could get there for $200 instead of $2000 I would consider giving up some safety margin for that. The odds of dying in a plane crash are so low they are not even a thought I have.

Your odds of dying in car crash per year, over a lifetime or per mile are hundreds of times more likely, yet no one suggests paying 10 times more for a slightly safer car.

Citation:
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/air-travel-safer-car-travel-1581.html

I wish I knew about the "one-time showing" bullshit going into this. The other news sites never even mentioned it.

I hop on the Xbox this morning and all it says is that it will start at 8PM. I spend the rest of the day with family/friends ('tis the season) and then before bed I realize that it's after 8 so I should grab it. After downloading their stupid app I get a screen saying that it's over. Huzzah!

I have had a DVR for about 14 years now, and even though I watch considerably less TV now than back then, I am certain of one thing: I watch on my time, not yours. Nielsen data is showing that other people do too.

The really sad thing is that if this was on normal TV, I could have recorded it and watched it when I damn well felt to. Microsoft, this was a pre-recorded film not an event. There was nothing that needed to be streamed live, and nothing that needed to have me schedule time during a holiday weekend outside of some pretty viewer numbers that you can report immediately instead of waiting a nominal time to also include time-shift viewers.

Know this that if you want to replace the usual set-top boxes and be the TV device of choice that you better not have less functionality than a simple DVR. If you do, then you lose the battle. Nintendo, I'd say that you should be paying attention as well, but I've used your hardware and you clearly don't have a clue.

Apple is appealing this. From USA Today: SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple today filed notice of appeal in its battle with Samsung, in which a judge this week denied its injunction request. The highly anticipated move comes after U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh late Monday rejected Apple's request, stating the company has not been able to show that Samsung's actions support a ban of its products. Apple is taking the matter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit along with "all other orders, rulings, findings, and conclusions underlying and related to that order," according to the court filing. Judge Koh stated Monday, "Apple's evidence does not establish that any of Apple's three design patents covers a particular feature that actually drives consumer demand." The judge's ruling came after a San Jose jury in August found Samsung violated six of Apple's patents and awarded a whopping $1 billion in damages. Jurors had sided with Apple in deciding that Samsung had violated key designs covering iPads and iPhones. Apple shares closed 0.87% lower at $521.73. http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2012/12/20/apple-samsung-iphone-ipad-patents/1783017/

Last year 29 kids were killed by falling TVs in their house and on average 18,000 people are inured every year from them. This is just what was reported and documented. Before people start jumping on the bandwagon that guns kill when these horrible tragedies pop up, remember.... there are many other common things that can happen in and around your house that are statistically just as dangerous as guns to children.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/12/falling-tvs-children-deaths/1764539/

Something like 40% of American households live paycheck-to-paycheck. The next bracket up has a small cushion but not enough to provide outlay for 8 years worth of electric bills. Then there is the class that's underwater in their mortgages.

There are now several companies that at eating this up front cost for you and doing free installs of solar. No, not everywhere, but in more and more places. What the homeowners get out of it is maintained solar panels and a *lower* power bill.

http://www.verengosolar.com/
http://www.solarcity.com/ (who went public yesterday http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/12/13/solarcity-ipo/1766375/)

To name a couple...

While enjoying yourself, don't forget to pick up memorabilia at the NCTC gift shoppe.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-06-14-national-counter-terrorism-center_N.htm

Chinese leadership back North Korea and the other nations (iran, Burma, Pakistan, etc), that are building nuke bombs. Heck, China is covertly trying to provide the equipment that those nations need to make this happen. Realize that all of those launchers were NOT stolen from China. They were bought, or possibly given, with Chinese gov. knowledge.

Make no mistake. China is building up their own NATO quietly. Sadly, our gov and DOD are also quiet about it.

It's not global warming that is killing coral reefs. It is ocean acidification.

No. Ocean pH varies an order of magnitude more than the slight change over the last centuries we believe we can measure.

Coral reefs bleaching due to cold water:
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/weeklynews/mar10/cwcoral.html

Coral reefs bleaching due to warm water:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-11-02-coral-caribbean_x.htm

No, the warming and sea level rise are continuing to accelerate meaning the last decade was the warmest on record.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-01/broadband-telecom-lafayette/52920278/1

Pity the cable companies and telcos are the ones fighting Google and incumbents.

How you want the world to work.

Google really wants is for Verizon/comcast/AT&T/etc. to pull the finger out and start upgrading their own infrastructure. A bit of competition never hurt.

How the world works

Verizon/comcast/AT&T/etc. start upgrading their lawyers and politicians to fight Google at every step of the way, costing billions of dollars

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-01/broadband-telecom-lafayette/52920278/1

Cox has spent millions fighting the city, and finally has lost.

Simply put, the US is in no position to lecture anyone about incarceration rates [wikipedia.org].

Simply put, you just changed the subject from one which many Europeans and Westerners would rather avoid, limits on free speech, to the ever popular topic of US prison population (Why do they have so many people in jail when crime rates are dropping? Duh!)

Why free speech is baffling to many
European Free Speech Under Attack
Are there limits to freedom of speech?
Muslim Protests Show Limits of Free Speech

Yeah, like that backwards place where they trust rapists more than atheists:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-12-10/religion-atheism/51777612/1

Wait, that was the United States. Looks like Americans have some really poorly reasoned attitudes and legislation.

USA Today said he was accompanied by his 20 year old girlfriend to the hospital. Perhaps the 2 minor heart attacks were after a conjugal visit?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/12/05/guatemalan-police-arrest-mcafee/1749997/

but it's currently not allowed to take Chinese workers onto US soil to do local work like construction work and maintenance so that has to be done in the US by US workers.

The desire to avoid employing US workers is very strong, even in construction. The Chinese are fabricating entire bridges and shipping them to the US for final installation. We outsource our cultural monuments to China today.

There is precious little beyond civil servants that can't be outsourced, which is why government workers are doing so much better than everyone else. Our income disparity balloons while we feather our regulatory nest, evacuate our capital to Asia and hone our hate for the 'rich' to a fine point.

According to USA Today he has requested asylum, claiming he is being persecuted in Belize.

I think the actual biggest reason for this is people who wanted a tablet already got a different product from Samsung or Motorola or Apple and they're not going to spend all that money again just to switch. MS came into the game WAY too late.

This has got to be one of the most erroneous lines of logic I've heard in awhile. You're essentially arguing that the tablet market is saturated and that the majority of purchases occurring are being made by people who already own a device and are simply upgrading to something newer within the ecosystem in which they're already locked. I.e. We should be seeing flat sales as upgrades occur at a relatively static rate.

Does anyone really expect to see iPad or other tablet sales go down this holiday season from where they were last year? Come on.

The truth of the matter is that tablet sales have been consistently increasing year-over-year for the last few years, starting with the iPad and now moving up even faster due to the Kindle, Galaxy Tab, Nexus tablets, and other lines. At this point, they're starting to eat into lower-end desktop and laptop PC sales, and there seems to be no end in sight, since their numbers continue to just go up and up at a pace that is still gaining speed. The market is nowhere close to being saturated.

The reason the Surface is failing is simply because most people don't want one. Nothing more than that. It may be a marketing issue. It may be a design issue. It may be an engineering issue. It may be an economics issue. But it all boils down to people not wanting them. That's why they're not selling. If the issue were lock-in to existing ecosystems, you'd still see people making the jump as they replaced old hardware, just as we routinely see on the PC side of things (e.g. of the Windows 7 users planning to purchase a new computer soon, over 40% are planning to jump ship for an iPad or Mac instead of upgrading to Windows 8), but as the iPad 2 starts to show its age while getting shown up by yet another newer generation of tablets, and with its owners looking around to see what they want to get next as the holiday season approaches, we're not seeing Surface sales picking up. Instead, we're seeing that the majority of people have never even heard of Windows 8, which runs the Surface, and of those who have, 2/3 don't consider it an upgrade.

To say the least, their problem is not what you think.

cause I think I have seen like 3 iPads in the wild (phones yea a ton) that people owned and not just behind a case, this guy endangers his life for one, and it will be obsolete before the stink from this case ends.

its just a toy people

It is just a toy, yet people insist on risking it all for these 'shinys. Four Hofstra University students, who all had scholarsips and bright futures, have thrown it all away for a short term gain. "Find my iPad" saves the day again. http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/colonial/2012/11/30/4-hofstra-basketball-players-charged-in-burglaries/1737957/

I maintain that you CAN'T really program morality into a machine (it's hard enough to program it into a human). And I also doubt that engineers will ever really be able to overcome the numerous technical issues involved with driverless cars. But above these two problems, far and away above *all* problems with driverless cars is the real reason I think we'll never see anything more than driver *assisting* cars on the road: legal liability.

To put it bluntly, raise your hand if YOU want to be the first car manufacturer to make a car for which you are potentially liable in *every single accident that car ever gets into*, from the day it's sold until the day it's scrapped. Any takers? How much would you have to add onto the sticker price to cover the costs of going to court every single time that particular car was involved in an accident? Of defending the efficacy of your driverless system against other manufacturer's systems (and against defect, and against the word of the driver himself that he was using the system properly) in one liability case after another?

According to Forbes, the average driver is involved in an accident every 18 years. Let's suppose (and I'm sure the statisticians would object to this supposition) that that means that the average CAR is also involved in a wreck every 18 years as well. Since the average age of a car is about 11 years now, it's not unreasonable to assume that a little less than half of all cars on the road will be involved in at least one accident in their functional lifetimes. And even with the added safety of driverless systems, the first model available will still have to contend with a road mostly filled with regular, non-driverless-system cars. So let's say that a good 25% of those first models will probably end up in an accident at some point, which will make a very tempting target for lawyers going for the deep pockets of their manufacturers.

Again, what car company wouldn't take that into account when asking themselves if they want to be a pioneer in this field?

People You May Know... your husband's other wife

There is absolutely no way that Apple could conduct its business in the way it does and capture a majority of the mobile market

Apple doesn't even have 30% of the worldwide mobile market., and they've lost a huge portion of their market share to Android because of their micromanaging.