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Socialism works for people who don't pay for it.

Of-course today it is the wealthy that are forced to pay for all this socialism and that's why the concept is so popular with the majority of voters, who are simply voting for a bigger government that promises to tax the rich and redistribute the proceeds of this confiscation, more commonly known as theft or robbery (it is done with weapons of-course, under the barrel of a gun).

More on the topic of taxing the wealthy today much more than 60 years ago and with a video.

Of-course the purpose of taxes is supposed to be using it to pay for minimum Constitutionally sized government, not this forever growing monstrosity people vote for today. Income taxes are illegal and are collected illegally by the way.

Not talking about market share, usage share. iOS users generate more web traffic via google search than Android users do

http://www.zdnet.com/ios-users-generate-twice-as-much-web-traffic-as-android-users-7000008292/

http://news.yahoo.com/ios-users-generate-double-traffic-android-users-215354607.html

http://gigaom.com/mobile/why-are-android-users-less-engaged-than-ios-users/

Those are from this month. The pattern has remained consistant

Being an American corporation, it is their officers' duty to use any means legally available to maximize the profit

Yes, but... management has a lot of discretion over the best method to maximise profits. There is no requirement to maximise short term profits, so management can easily say that paying taxes improves the good will that the company enjoys and thus will maximise profits over the long term.

The reason companies tend to obsess over quarterly profits is because management is measured (and profits from) short term measurements of stock price.

I do understand the reason, but I fail to see how - given the circumstances - one can expect any other reaction from the management. Given the percentage of shares are actually traded in a speculative way, you think that any management team would actually be able to escape the "focus on short term profit"? Not even Apple is immune to this pressure on long term.

perhaps you weren't following what actually happened with TARP very closely. this is only where things are now. suffice to say it won't get better, and will probably end up costing much more than $140 billion.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=aoneq&ql=1

any acquisition news means big jump.

Yes this makes perfect sense. Look at all the places that ban handguns like Chicago, DC, and London. No murders going on there, that's for sure.

There are far fewer murders in London than similar sized cities in the US. This quote has lots of stats that all seem fairly accurate even though it is a shit source:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100128231404AAGurXl (I would find a better one but my lunch break is nearly over, so don't really have time)

Not sure about Chicago but the difference is that in Chicago you can just bring a gun into the city from outside as there is no border to speak of so it is probably still pretty easy for a criminal to get a gun if they want one. In the UK we do still have a border that is policed by customs who do their best to stop weapons being smuggled in. That does not mean we have no guns in criminal hands but it does make it harder to get hold of one, even if only marginally.

We also have a law that means if you are caught with a firearm it is almost a certainty you will spend the next couple of years in prison. That seriously discourages gun ownership amongst all but the most hardened of criminals. In the US the social acceptability of gun ownership even in the cities you mention where it is ilegal is still a factor that you have to consider. Would a pot dealer in Chicago get an extra 5 years on his sentence just because the police found a unloaded gun in the back of a drawer somewhere when the raided him like in the UK?

Or:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-inc-reports-judgment-lawsuit-214700948.html

>> blablabla ... Id rather use microsoft. With them you got a billion dollar company with the tech and manpower to back their products ... blablabla

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RHT

I'm not sure about Illinois, but in California, the problem isn't current pension payouts. The problem is the payouts we've promised to future retirees are sorely underfunded. In the late 90s the state legislature made the calculation that the stock market would keep going up and up, and expected that the DOW would be around 30,000 right now. Add to the problem that CALPERS hasn't made the best investments, and California has a $500billion unfunded liability.

Note that if any CEO of a company managed retirement funds like the state legislature does, he/she would be [CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation].

FTFY. It goes back to the 1980's and is coming home to roost now.
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204138204576605482876191482.html
2. http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/retirement-heist-u-pensions-plundered-corporate-greed-author-131151510.html
3. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB92939825896784903.html

And much of it was due to an FASB accounting rule change that those same corporations initially resisted. Excellent quote that sums it up: "For years, people saw the pension as this bucket of money you can't touch ... Companies are looking to not leave the asset dormant, but use it to deliver better returns for the company."

The California state legislature wasn't doing anything new they were simply following the well-beaten path blazed by major corporations.

Not when the US Government and others are providing the funding for those communication devices.

Actually Elop sold his shares and Ballmer doesn't even seem to be in the top 5 individual owners. Only 10% of the stock is owned by insiders, the rest being owned by institutional investors. So it seems that either Microsoft is defrauding everyone including the largest institutional investors in the US, or the Licenses Sold metric is a valid way to measure the pace of sales.

Of course, Microsoft has their own spin on the numbers, but if you take the Vista "Licenses Sold" statistics and put them into context with similar statistics reported by Microsoft for other OSes, you can tell the Vista numbers reported at the time were too low to indicate the OS was growing at an acceptable rate. For instance, consider the following chart, which shows reported sales data from Microsoft for W95 - W7, and projections for W8, based on historical trends. You can easily tell that even with all the double counting, Vista sales are far below what you would expect for an OS that is selling well, such as XP or W7. To me, this says the effect of the double counting from upgrades is negligible compared to the sheer volume of regular license sales that make it to end users.

To check the reasonableness of this, take a look at this data in the chart for W7 sales, compared to actual growth reported by market share trackers like statcounter. The linked chart shows relatively linear (R^2 = .99) monotonic growth of Windows 7 after launch, implying a constant per month rate of sales. The Windows 7 "Licenses Sold" data from Microsoft in my chart shows Windows 7 sold on average 20.10 +- 2.2 Million units per month over the course of 36 months.

So to check to see how the "licenses sold" number reflects real adoption of the OS, we could probably look at the ratio of the rates of sales for Vista and W7 in both units sold and marketshare gain. We would expect, that if licenses sold translates to marketshare gain, then these ratios should be the same.

From the statcounter figures, in the period where Vista was on sale but before W7 was released, it gains marketshare at about .61 percentage points per month. Windows 7, after its release, gained market share at about 1.4 percentage points per month, for a ratio of 2.3. The same ratio for average "Licenses Sold" data is 20.01M/9.54M over the same period (12/2008 - 09/2009 for Vista, 12/2009 - 10/2012 for W7), for a ratio of 2.1. That means that either Microsoft understated Windws 7 Licenses Sold by 6.05%, or the overstated Windows Vista licenses by 5.71%, or some combination thereof.... and factor in Piracy which would not count as license sold.

Anyway, the point is that from past data released by Microsoft for "Licenses Sold" and actual data representing actual OS market share growth, the Licenses Sold metric is very nearly identical to and indicative of growth of the OS.

I'm gonna print me a woman!

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/dilbert-slideshow/20121105-dt121105-gif-photo-050640732.html

Because, unions, while useful about 100 years ago....outlasted their need and expanded and became corrupt and ingrained into a system that choked the life out of companies.

Absolute horseshit.

One only has to look at GM for a prime example. The unreasonable pensions, and benefits for fucking manual labor...drove them almost out of business.

And tell me, what was management willing to sacrifice in order to save the company? What was management willing to do to save the company?

Assholes like you will constantly jump on unions not being willing to cut their pay, yet won't mention a thing about management not cutting their own pay either.

Look at Hostess...the company was forced to close its doors and go bankrupt. The unions would NOT negotiate or budge enough on their demands to allow the company to continue. Rather than the unions negotiate...they stood their ground, forced the company into bankruptcy, and ALL jobs with them are now gone forever.

Yes, let's look at Hostess. The unions had ALREADY agreed to cuts a number of years ago. They didn't want to be cut any more. On top of that, over the past several years, compensation for the CEO of a company that was failing was raised 300%! Why the fuck, as a regular worker, would I agree to take a cut to pay and benefits, if my CEO and the other executives are giving themselves raises? In addition, not only are they asking to liquidate the factories, but the company is asking the bankruptcy court to grant the executives over $1 million in bonuses!

http://news.yahoo.com/hostess-executives-earnings-revealed-blame-bakery-workers-company-210214635.html

Blaming the unions in this situation is absolute horseshit, and shows that you are completely dishonest when it comes to this topic. Hang your head in shame.

Exactly how is that in the best favor of the worker or the US economy?

How is what? Enabling incompetent management?

Their usefulness is over.

Clearly it is not.

Good grief, you're serious, aren't you? Answer: About negative a million times.

Ummm...pot meet kettle.

I was actually more referring to cat III autoland rather than straight an level autopilots. Autoland is used when conditions are less than optimal and typically do better than the pilots can do under optimal conditions.

and even then, that's by massive cheating using lidars and GPS

That's not cheating. Those are the very technologies that are going make it practical. Or rather improved and cheaper computing making those technologies affordable is what is making it practical.

Actually it's 222Trillion, not 650K but 740K per person in USA. Of-course that number doesn't include the public debt, the 16T and thus 54K per person and it doesn't even start to touch the contingency, which is what USA gov't would have to tax and borrow for (or print as it does) in case it actually has to stand behind all of the obligations that everybody will fail upon. FHA with all the mortgages, FDIC with all the bank deposits, all the student loans and various other off the books items.

The guy who counts it is Laurence Kotlikoff, he is an economist at Boston University. He is co-author of "The Clash of Generations" and author of "The Purple Plans". Nobody is challenging him on the numbers.

sig

Oh, and only about $700 billion is military, and much of that is spent in the U.S., so cutting it means less industry, less employed people, etc.

The GP is right. You must be blinded by "imperialism syndrome" to address 700 BILLIONS of Dollars with the adverb "just".

A lot of the problems USA faces today is the result of the very same policy you're defending as if means "more industries, more employed people, etc".

We must talking about efficiency. USA took 10 years and 2 TRILLION Dollars and something just to kill a single man. USA is clearly holding, I mean, doing something very wrong.

Granted, I'm not saying everything is wrong, neither that all the military expenses are unnecessary...

Actually, no. I was referring to real-life actions of the PRC in the South China Sea. There may be petroleum resources in that area. See the red line in the map in the linked article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Sea#Territorial_claims

Latest aggression is that the PRC now publish the map in the passport. The thinking is that since it gets stamped by foreign countries, it is tacit approval of their claim.

http://news.yahoo.com/china-angers-neighbors-sea-claims-passports-095849066.html

Yeah, other people's lives are valueless.

You know who I am talking about, the family who have an overly-grown fur on them through several generations.
Is that just a chance mutation relating to hair? Or something deeper?

Chance mutation. Possibly not even a mutation, just part of the random gene mixing that happens in everyone. Vestigial traits are suppressed and then are repressed in individuals basically at random. If a trait has little affect on a person's survival or reproduction it may tag along in a for an indefinite length of time in a gene pool.

For example, I can't grow a beard and I shave my face about every 3 or 4 days. When I was 18 I shaved once a week because after about 7 days I had 5 0-clock shadow. It's a trait that generally runs on my dad's side of the family, but it skipped him. My father can grow a beard normally. Somehow, whatever gene combination that suppresses facial hair growth is suppressed in him but expressed in me.

Another fun item is to see if you have a Palmaris Longus tendon. http://voices.yahoo.com/palmaris-longus-tendon-yours-single-double-absent-7878310.html I have one in my left wrist but none in my right. For years I wondered if there was something wrong with one of my wrists in that my tendon structure didn't match.

The question I ask then, is what mechanism are you proposing that is stopping physics from doing its thing here.

That is a silly question, red herring'ish. No serious person is claiming that some basic mechanism of physics is misunderstood. What serious people are claiming is that our model(s) of how the environment functions as a whole have problems. For example:

"In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted."
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

And now, it looks like the jobs are moving out of the country.

That turned out really well.

Mimic?
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NTDOY+Interactive#symbol=ntdoy;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

It's not like the market has extrapolated the success of the DS and Wii forward or haven't discounted (some of) the future already.

Given that Netflix' CEO was (until last month) a member of the board of directors of Microsoft

Are you from the future? According to this he will be on the board until Nov. 28th.

The Netflix CEO will be stepping down from the Microsoft Board of Directors at the end of the month. Hopefully we'll see some native support shortly after this happens.

Yes, they have said as much in their press release: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/everspin-debuts-first-spin-torque-140000887.html

Well your first mistake was not wiping any new PC completely before use. Microsoft have acknowledged that malware can be installed on new PCs at the factory, so using it at all without wiping is russian roulette with your personal information.

Download a DBAN ISO and keep it somewhere for when you buy a new PC. Wipe it, reinstall Windows, install drivers (which you should download from the vendor's website from a different PC. Don't put a memory stick in to the new PC before wiping). It's more work, but your experience with the new PC will be better for it.

Won't have to worry about it in any case, just look at how they refused to backport DX 11 and to this day most games are still DX 9. Some may have the option to run DX 11 but I have only seen one game so far (Just Cause II) that required DX 10 and none that is DX 11 exclusive. Oh there may be a few out there, but cutting out a huge number of potential customers is retarded.

Oh and it looks like the first half of my prediction, that after Win 8 flops that Ballmer and Sinofsky will "pursue other interests" is coming true because Sinofsky is outta there fuck yeah! Now that Snickerdouche, the asshole that forced so many of the bad design choices of Win 8 down our throats is gone, that will only leave Ballmer...guess who the board is gonna blame when Win 8 turns out to be Vista II? They have spent 2 BILLION on advertising and actually had the balls to brag they sold 4 million copies...that is $500 for each $40 sale, so I'd say we are already on our way to flop city baby yeah! Now that everyone other than MSFT has decided to "delay" (read not put out) WinRT tablets its all on Ballmer's head now.

Finally I hate to burst your bubble but until Torvalds is booted like Sinofsky good fucking luck on Linux going anywhere. Quick, what do BSD, Solaris, Windows, OSX, and OS/2 have in common that Linux does NOT have? A stable driver ABI and boy does it show. Anyone who can do basic math could see Torvalds "let the devs handle it" simply won't work. you have MAYBE 200 devs (probably closer to 50, but benefit, doubt, yadda yadda) that are truly experienced enough and qualified to do low level driver writing and diagnostics, and you have 100,000+ drivers and every subsystem from the kernel on up in a constant state of flux...see the problem?

Anyone that thinks Linux is ready is welcome to take the Hairyfeet challenge, not a single Linux variant has passed it yet, it simulates a typical 5 year PC lifespan and is less than half the support cycle of Windows yet every single distro ends up with one or more drivers busted. Anyone who wants to see the conditions can look it up by Googling "Hairyfeet Challenge".

In the end the problem with Linux is Torvalds and his arrogant fellow devs, to truly gain the masses you have to do things at LEAST as easy as the competition, yet Torvalds thinks its perfectly fine to have to Google for fixes, do forum hunts, and input piles of CLI (that often one has to tweak because it was written for hardware A, rev B, firmware C and Linux is so damned picky it won't take it if you have hardware A, rev C, firmware D if you don't tweak the damned thing) just to get the drivers that were working before the update to work after.

so I'm sorry but you'd have better odds of Apple Macs becoming the new gaming platform, at least you can update OSX for the lifecycle of the version without the drivers crapping themselves.

Fact: In this election, young people (18-29) cast more votes than old people (65+) for the first time ever; and they vastly prefer Dems positions on social issues (immigration, health care, women's rights, gay marriage, etc.). Demographics say this will only increase in the future -- http://news.yahoo.com/gop-faces-steep-climb-young-voters-080006202--politics.html

That's not everything, not a panacea for all our problems, but saying "the entire country has been moving to the right" just doesn't seem generally valid.

"The Republicans have the hick and religious nutter vote locked up, why court them at all?"

Actually, no. Among the bitch-slaps the GOP took this cycle was the fact that, against all expectations, 6 million fewer white people voted than in 2008 (and of course, their population is actually larger) -- http://news.yahoo.com/karl-rove-why-romney-lost-obama-suppressing-vote-215625694.html

Meanwhile, increasing voter participation occurred for Blacks and Hispanics. Young people (18-29) cast more votes than old people (65+) for possibly the first time ever -- and they vastly prefer Dems positions on social issues (immigration, health care, women's rights, gay marriage, etc.), breaking 60% for Obama even when most pundits thought they were disenchanted. This demographic trend is only expected to increase -- http://news.yahoo.com/gop-faces-steep-climb-young-voters-080006202--politics.html

Arguably, the GOP is between a rock and a hard place; their primary seemingly cannot nominate a person acceptable to the electorate at large. This might even be seen to be the case for the last 20 years if the vote in 2000 had been counted accurately.

"The Republicans have the hick and religious nutter vote locked up, why court them at all?"

Actually, no. Among the bitch-slaps the GOP took this cycle was the fact that, against all expectations, 6 million fewer white people voted than in 2008 (and of course, their population is actually larger) -- http://news.yahoo.com/karl-rove-why-romney-lost-obama-suppressing-vote-215625694.html

Meanwhile, increasing voter participation occurred for Blacks and Hispanics. Young people (18-29) cast more votes than old people (65+) for possibly the first time ever -- and they vastly prefer Dems positions on social issues (immigration, health care, women's rights, gay marriage, etc.), breaking 60% for Obama even when most pundits thought they were disenchanted. This demographic trend is only expected to increase -- http://news.yahoo.com/gop-faces-steep-climb-young-voters-080006202--politics.html

Arguably, the GOP is between a rock and a hard place; their primary seemingly cannot nominate a person acceptable to the electorate at large. This might even be seen to be the case for the last 20 years if the vote in 2000 had been counted accurately.

Shouldn't we spend tax dollars on stuff that is useful, such as not being beholden to our #1 creditor, China?

My, don't we sound talking-pointy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/biggest-holders-of-us-gov-t-debt.html

That’s right, the biggest single holder of U.S. government debt is inside the United States and includes the Federal Reserve system and other intragovernmental holdings.

Black-on-black crime widely ignored, say African American activists

In 2009, completed law-enforcement investigations showed that 352 African-Americans were killed by known whites — a category that includes Latinos — and 4,094 African-Americans were killed by African-Americans, according to FBI data.

NYPD Report Says 96 Percent Of Shooting Victims Are Black or Latino

The statistics, which cover crime in 2012 through the end of June, show that 96 percent of all shooting victims and 97 percent of all shooting suspects in the city were black or Latino. The report also shows that more than 90 percent of New Yorkers stopped and frisked so far in 2012 were black and Latino.

In comparison, climate change, here, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is not going to get dramatically worse, if we don't do anything about it. For example, they generally forecast the loss of about as much land over the next century from rising water levels (assuming a one meter rise) as are lost each year from desertification due mostly to bad agricultural practices.

This is a joke. This is the exact opposite of what every scientific report says.

Your post is a classic example of someone holding forth in an authoritative tone who knows exactly zero about the subject he's pontificating on.

Global Warming Threatens Our National Security IISS: âoeA Global Catastropheâ For International Security

A recent study done by the International Institute for Strategic Studies has likened the international security effects of global warming to those caused by nuclear war. [On Deadline]

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/09/climate-change-.html

U.N.: As Dangerous As War United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said this year that global warming poses as much of a threat to the world as war. [BBC]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6410305.stm

Center for Naval Analyses: National Security Threat In April, a report completed by the Center for Naval Analyses predicted that global warming would cause âoelarge-scale migrations, increased border tensions, the spread of disease and conflicts over food and water.â [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/320929_secured.html

Genocide in Sudan
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon charges, âoeAmid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.â [Washington Post]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/15/AR2007061501857.html

War in Somalia
In April, a group of 11 former U.S. military leaders released a report charging that the war in Somalia during the 1990s stemmed in part from national resource shortages caused by global warming. [Washington Post]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041401209.html

Starvation
A study by IISS found that reduced water supplies and hotter temperatures mean âoe65 countries were likely to lose over 15 percent of their agricultural output by 2100.â [Yahoo]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070912/ts_nm/climate_security_dc

Large-Scale Migrations
Global warming will turn already-dry environments into deserts, causing the people who live there to migrate in massive numbers to more livable places. [MSNBC]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19479607/

More Refugees
A study by the relief group Christian Aid estimates the number of refugees around the world will top a billion by 2050, thanks in large part to global warming. [Telegraph]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/14/nclimate14.xml

Increased Border Tensions
A report called âoeNational Security and the Threat of Climate Change,â written by a group of retired generals and admirals, specifically linked global warming to increased border tensions. âoeIf, as some project, sea levels rise, human migrations may occur, likely both within and across bo

Yes, I have seen an income statement. Here's blizzards:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ATVI

Notice it has separate lines for
Revenue, gross profit, and net income

That is because they are DIFFERENT

"Different" is when two things are not the same.. like how revenue and gross profit are not the same.

CIA death squads?

He said George H.W. Bush who, prior to being president and vice president, was CIA director for just under a year in 1976. While this is probably prior to the involvement of CIA with death squads in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and after the Phoenix Program in VietNam, it would be surprising if there wasn't CIA involvement with death squads in Guatemala, Argentina, Chile (very likely), the Phillipines (also very likely) or another country with with one of the right-wing governments known to use death squads to silence political opposition during periods spanning the mid 70s.

While some of the death squad targets may have aguably been combatants like the Afghani and Pakistani targets of current Predator strikes, most were just citizens using speech to raise awareness of injustices perpetrated by the right wing governments and their cronies. You generally don't need death squads to kill combatants because the army can do that job. You use death squads to perform extra-legal killings of civilians in the middle of the night because they are being a political annoyance and you don't have (or can't be bothered to gather) evidence that they are involved in illegal activities.

All because of the fear that those countries would irreparably fall to communism like dominoes even though, when Nicaragua and El Salvador eventually fell, the eventual outcome wasn't as feared.

yes it is. It's so important you should get some facts straight.

That's why I attributed them to where I got them.

the request was for a different embassy.

Really? Amabassador Stevens was making requests for security support for some other embassy, not the one he was in charge of? Why would he do that?

which has been shown to be wrong over and over again.

One more time, from here:

The White House issued the following statement in response to the death of J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya:

"I have directed my Administration to provide all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe. While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants."

That statement about "denigrate the religious beliefs of others" is a reference to the movie that was allegedly the cause for the incident. Obama knew otherwise. And wouldn't it be interesting to know how supporting the security of our personnel in Libya might have worked out had he directed his administration to do it before the attack?

And if the New York Times is more to your liking, here:

For days after the attack, as it became clearer that the Benghazi violence was a Qaeda operation rather than a protest, White House officials continued to stress the importance of the "hateful" and "disgusting" video, and its supposed role as a catalyst for what Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, insisted was a spontaneous attack.

This narrative was pushed on Sunday morning programs, on late-night talk shows and at news conferences, by everyone from Rice to Hillary Clinton to the president himself. When Obama spoke at the United Nations shortly after the attacks, the video was referenced six times in the text; Al Qaeda was referenced only once.

Ever wonder why Romney didn't harp on about it?

Because it wasn't appropriate at the time. Because other members of his own party were jumping down his throat for pointing it out.

not with people who can't even get the most basic facts about it correct. i.e. YOU.

I've quoted the timeline with "the most basic facts", which aren't what you claim. This "other embassy" fact you keep repeating isn't supported by the real facts. The '28 minutes' is also wrong. "Proven over and over again wrong", as you are using it, has been proven to be wrong. And I didn't make a single reference to this "Fox News" to do it.

There is even precedent.

It seems Americans will vote pretty much anyone into office. Really, I've heard worse ideas. Zombie Feynman 2016, anyone?

Nothing illegal in your photo drive?

Do you have a flag of Taiwan in a picture? Perhaps you took a picture of your car? (Especially if you post it on your company's vanity page...) Or maybe there was a stranger in the background?

It's not so much what is illegal in your photos, as it is "who takes offense at your pictures". And when anyone can sue (civil court) anyone for anything, there doesn't even have to be a law against it.

Numbers like this absolutely do matter outside fanboy circles. As I pointed out in another thread yesterday, Apple has lost 20% of it's share price in the 7 weeks since it hit it's all time high, shaving $130bn off the value of the company.

This figure has actually now increased to 22% including today's trading figures upping that dollar loss in value substantially more. Whether this is because of this news, or the story about them losing their Facetime patent battle I'm not sure:

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AAPL+Interactive#symbol=aapl;range=20120919,20121108;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

There seems little doubt Apple is faltering now, as their legal strategy has largely fallen flat in all but their own backyard too. The only question is whether they can do anything with next years product releases (iPad 4 and iPhone 6), or release any new devices in new markets to reverse the current trend. If they can't do that then I'd argue they're in pretty severe trouble, the vast majority of their profits are based on their mobile offerings right now. I imagine It'll be an interesting 2013 for those watching Apple one way or another, either a tragic plummet (if iPhone/iPad sales struggle they inherently suffer a risk of iTunes store content and app purchases plummeting too) or an impressive comeback.

Either way, the tides have certainly changed against Apple this last month or two for the time being at least, despite two new major product releases.

Apple's stock has lost 20% of it's value in the last 6 weeks alone. This is, in monetary terms, a decrease of over $130bn in value:

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AAPL#symbol=aapl;range=20120917,20121107;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

Their legal strategy is now beginning to fall apart and they've not innovated in over 2 years now, offering only minor updates on their products. It'll be interesting to see what happens regarding the appeals in the US Apple vs. Samsung case, because if the $1.05bn award does get undone, then that's going to tear another massive chunk off of their value.

I don't know that it is too early to say whether Apple is heading for a wall, honestly, it looks like they've already hit it. It's just a question of whether it's now continued decline, or if they can pick themselves back up with another miracle turnaround.

I suspect a lot of it will depend on next years performance, if the iPad 4 and iPhone 6 offer a dramatically new set of features and innovation, or if they produce a whole new product range on the scale of at least the iPad in terms of success then I suspect they may well be able to turn things back around, but if we see nothing more than just yet another minor iteration on a then few year old design since the last real innovation happened then I think they're going to struggle to remain such a sizeable player. The problem is they're not diversified enough for the scenario where their mobile strategy does falter as it accounts to the majority of their profits. Their Mac business is still relatively small compared to the overall PC market (though large as an individual seller) and not as profitable as their mobile business. If their mobile business starts to really struggle (The iPhone is now down to a mere 14% global marketshare from 19% at the start of the year), then all their other profit centres (digital content/apps) will struggle too. Their other markets are just too weak (Apple TV), or have been dropped (Servers).

Honestly, 2013 will be the real test for Apple's survival as a continued major player, it can go one of two ways, either a turnaround in innovation with new products or product lines that regain the momentum, or the tipping point of losing relevance if the iPhone loses the same degree of marketshare it has this year, hence bringing it down to under 10% globally and if new iPad/iPhone models continue to dissapoint the markets and the public.

Well then find an actor who looks like Hoagy Carmichael, as that is who Ian Fleming compared Bonds looks to in the first novel, Casino Royale. For kicks, compare the above linked picture to this one of Ian Fleming.

casual discussions about a potential acquisition/hire agreement

That's a long way from an actual buyout. About half of big deals that are announced as done fall through. If you're not in a conference room at Wilson Sonsini on Page Mill talking to someone who reports to Zuckerberg, its not serious yet.

A pending patent is mentioned. That's not that big a deal. Anybody who's any good in Silicon Valley has a patent or two. I have six, two of which have produced significant revenue. It's unlikely that broad coverage can be achieved on a scheme for packing disk drives into racks. There's much prior art. You probably have a six month advantage over the competition. If that. Evtron doesn't seem to be actually shipping product. Compare what AmpliStore is actually shipping. The number of disk drives per rack is lower, but there are 40 computers in there, too. A storage farm with small ARM-based CPUs might cut the space needed for the compute power, but that's not exactly an original idea.

So take the money if you can get it.

Sorry to burst both your bubbles, but if you track a 2 year chart of the Nasdaq and in fact the Dow Jones composite too, and you overlay it on the AAPL chart, you see that AAPL for the past year have basically been broadly tracking the overall ups and down of the market itself ... and that actually has more to do with factors like central bank market interventions, currency and bond markets, inflation, happenings in Europe etc.

Nasdaq

Dow

Sorry to burst both your bubbles, but if you track a 2 year chart of the Nasdaq and in fact the Dow Jones composite too, and you overlay it on the AAPL chart, you see that AAPL for the past year have basically been broadly tracking the overall ups and down of the market itself ... and that actually has more to do with factors like central bank market interventions, currency and bond markets, inflation, happenings in Europe etc.

Nasdaq

Dow

Amazon certainly do get that "luxury" as its how they are currently screwing over people in the UK for VAT on ebooks.

Amazon collect VAT from UK residents for ebooks, however as they are "based" in Luxembourg they remit a VAT rate of ZERO, so the VAT they collect is pure profit.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/amazon-exploits-vat-tax-loophole-090021516.html

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=AAPL&t=3m&q=l&l=off&z=l&a=v&p=s&lang=en-US&region=US

  [romney_wants_to_buy_your_vote.com]

From over $700 per share not even two months ago to heading under $477 per share today !! How the rich and shiny fall so fast !! It's a taking Sharp, The Jap Conglomerate, with it !!

Is the bad punctuation and grammar an "All Your Base" joke?

The 24-month chart is probably more informative than your 3-month chart. I realize it kind of spoils your intended narrative, though.

Like any stock, Apple's shares have seen significant corrections before - especially in the modern market.

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=AAPL&t=3m&q=l&l=off&z=l&a=v&p=s&lang=en-US&region=US
  [romney_wants_to_buy_your_vote.com]

From over $700 per share not even two months ago to heading under $477 per share today !! How the rich and shiny fall so fast !! It's a taking Sharp, The Jap Conglomerate, with it !!

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=AAPL&t=3m&q=l&l=off&z=l&a=v&p=s&lang=en-US&region=US [romney_eats_to_his_own_beat.com]

From over $700 per share not even two months ago to heading under $550 per share today !! How the rich and shiny fall so fast !!

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=AAPL&t=3m&q=l&l=off&z=l&a=v&p=s&lang=en-US&region=US

From over $700 per share not even two months ago to heading under $550 per share today !! How the rich and shiny fall so fast !!