Again, this is a misunderstanding of Foxconn. These are company towns. Foxconn employees kill themselves at the workplace, because they're living in Foxconn dormitories. If you work, eat, sleep, and hang out on company property, and decide to kill yourself, you're going to do it on company property.
There will always be specialization occurring somewhere. Perhaps a country will heavily subsidize computer manufacturing, or have sufficient cheap energy to give them an advantage. Perhaps somebody will develop a robot that requires minimal maintenance, can work 24/7 without complaining, and produce computer parts cheaper than any human labor force.
My theory is and always will be, if a robot can do your job better and cheaper, you're in the wrong line of work. Much of these factory jobs we lament losing in the west, as they move to the east, we didn't want anyway. Far better to be the ones designing the next iPad than building it, if building it can be done with cheap unskilled labor. Eventually even robot factories will be too expensive and obsolete, as we have 3D printers that can make anything we want right in our homes without expensive shipping costs or labor.
Building things, in a pre-designed rote way, may give you some satisfaction but it's hardly a job. Inventing things is what humans are good for, and the more inventors we have in society, and the less builders we need, the better off we'll all be.
I agree that these sorts of things are just PR stunts more than anything, and probably wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the media coverage.
But let's consider the nature of that media coverage, to begin with. It seems that only Apple gets mentioned in Foxconn stories. In some cases, like this story, it makes sense, but most of the negative coverage of Foxconn only ever mentions iPads and iPhones.
These are Foxconn's major clients: Acer Inc., Amazon.com, Apple, ASRock, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Cisco, Dell, EVGA Corporation, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, Motorola, Netgear, Nintendo, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Vizio
And yet, only one of those companies appear in every single Foxconn story. Hmm. If people defending Apple here are just Apple shills, what level of bias can we attribute to the negative stories then, in light of the fact Foxconn makes everybody's tech but the stories only paint Apple in bad light?
Again, Apple's just doing what Apple needs to do, for PR. I don't think they're all a bunch of heartless bastards, though, any more than any other company. But the spotlight on Apple's relationship with Foxconn is a bit strange, since every competitor they have that I can think of is on Foxconn's client list.
These workers know their jobs suck, and they would gladly trade places with any western factory worker with their massive pay, massive pension, tons of benefits, and far higher standard of living.
Of course, that same western factory worker's pay, benefits, and conditions is why it's so expensive to make anything here. Western standard of living and OSHA is why all the jobs are going overseas, because nobody here is willing to take a pay cut to keep their job.
But the Chinese workers in these factories know something that some people here seem to forget, and that's a job is better than no job. These Chinese workers are working long hours in tough conditions because they are making pretty good money compared to their other options. They're working hard and making enough money to give their children a better life, so that their children, and their children's children, can rise up, get a good education, get better jobs, and live the Chinese Dream. When Foxconn expands their factories, they have more people lining up to get a job than people here line up to buy the latest iPad. It's not because they've been tricked, it's because poverty in China sucks a lot worse than factory conditions. They simply have no better options.
We in the west should be glad Chinese workers are making pennies a day to produce our products, because as unemployment falls in China, Chinese living standards and working conditions will improve, just as the industrial revolution in western countries created the middle class, and created a living standard that's the envy of everyone in China. Someday, China will be losing jobs to other countries, because their pay, benefits, and conditions have improved to our standards, and they need to make all of their goods cheaply someplace else. It will not be because of magic, it will be because western tech companies created millions of jobs for Foxconn workers to do.
I don't know why people keep talking about suicides at Foxconn factories, since the population of China has a higher suicide rate than the population of Foxconn workers in China.
Foxconn employment correlates to less suicides, not more. You know what that means? I know you refuse to believe it because for some reason you've decided to have an irrational hatred for everything Apple, but Foxconn saves lives.
Suicide is not something to be happy about, but let's be honest, it's just one more cause of death in the world. Some people kill themselves, and always will. There are far more preventable causes of death in the world, like say, starvation. How many Foxconn workers starve to death? How many of them would starve to death if they didn't have a job? Again, employment in a factory is better than unemployment.
People freak out over suicide numbers at Foxconn facilities because they don't realize just how large these places are. These are massive, massive factories, and there are going to be a lot of deaths from a lot of different causes in any population of that size anywhere no matter what. What is important to look at is not absolute quantities, but percentages, and compare those to statistics for China as a whole.
People target Apple because Apple is a big popular company doing a lot of business right now, but just about every major tech company you can name has their stuff made at Foxconn, or a similar company in China. This isn't some Apple problem, and yes, the reality is Apple is doing more than most of those other companies to identify and fix problems. Perhaps you should save your moral outrage for those big tech companies that are silent on these issues, or even better, the factories that have higher death rates than China's population as a whole (if there even are any).
Is that ceramic knife going to cut through the locked cockpit doors?
No? Then who gives a shit. I can get knifed walking around in public anywhere. We don't need our airplanes to be safer than any other public space, we just need them to be safe enough that the plane won't be used as a missile against people on the ground.
By all means, keep the planes free of weapons or explosives that can bring the plane down, but with cockpit doors reinforced and locked, we're never going to have another hijacking. Passengers now are willing to fight back, too, which is something that changed for good on 9/11. No terrorist is going to try a hijacking again.
Instead of searching people for knives at the gate screenings, how about we breathalyze the pilots and check they're alert and rested? It would do the greater good.
Biometrics are good for determining identity, but not for encryption keys. You'll find that your voiceprint changes every time, and your data will not be decrypted ever. You need a mathematically repeatable key.
I plan on taking that extra time spent getting lost on wikipedia links I'd normally lose in my day and write letters to my Senators and Representative, then call up all their offices. Unfortunately both my Senators are co-sponsors of PIPA, so I don't expect much movement there.
I'm by no means an entomologist, so it's possible this is already being studied or has been studied extensively, but I'd be really very curious to understand the mechanism among the species that do produce these supersoldiers (and for that matter regular soldiers) to regulate their numbers. Do the numbers of these soldiers increase at certain times, and how do the worker ants feeding the larvae or whatever decide to give them the extra hormones or special food? Is there a steady percentage of the population with these traits, or do they ramp up the numbers under certain conditions?
Well, a lot of slashdot readers don't get past the headline, which while sort of accurate is intended to elicit Simpsons quotes and anti-GMO reactions to fuel more discussion and ad-hits.
But the thing is, it's not really a mutation. The genes are there, they're just being switched on, artificially, at a specific stage in development. These supersoldiers don't reproduce. If they did get out of the lab, they'd live their normal livespan and die, and there'd be no more supersoldiers.
I think widespread genetic tinkering with the human genome will have several pressures involved. There's the parents who say "I want my baby to be normal" and the parents who say "I want my baby to be special."
In the first category, you'll have pressure to eliminate stuff like autism or ADHD as you mention, but the second category is perhaps enough to balance that out. Those parents who might induce autistic-like conditions to make their child smarter in certain ways, or entirely new conditions that don't occur naturally that hold possibilities we can't fathom. As long as these new variations don't preclude successful mating with "normal" humans, the species will become more diverse, with more potential for evolution, not the other way around.
I agree, this is very cool. I do worry about these induced supersoldiers getting free, but I think the risk is minimal of that. Perhaps nonexistent if the ants themselves don't know how to unlock the special caste anymore, which would seem to be the case.
Think about what it's like to be a kid stuck in a hospital with a serious illness, perhaps even terminal. Long days, in pain or otherwise miserable, with nothing but worry and boredom. Having spent some time in the hospital myself as a kid, it's rather awful.
If a Gameboy or Playstation (or DVD, or art supplies, or other things they provide) can distract them for even a little while? That's worth it. The nurses and doctors who work in those children's wards that are lucky enough to have these sorts of programs all say that recovery is faster, that kids have a higher quality of life, and gives them some normalcy in their otherwise scary and painful lives.
I give yearly to Child's Play. They're not in it to create a self-sustaining entity, and the cause could not be better. When you're sick, your quality of life can really make a difference in your recovery. If a game can distract a kid from their pain or fears for a little while, that is everything. Their administrative fees are pretty low, and quite reasonable considering what those fees are paying for. I'm sure PayPal and the credit card companies are getting their cut, and there's shipping costs for all those games, art supplies, and DVDs. I believe they only have two employees, and I'm not even sure their salaries come from the donations (they may get their money from Penny Arcade's profitable ventures instead), but either way I doubt they're paid that much. From their website:
We try our best to have every dollar that comes in go right back to the hospitals, but there is a slight administrative cost that does get paid for with donations (for example, shipping $200,000 worth of Nintendo DSes to dozens of hospitals worldwide is not free, sadly). Historically, these charges have not exceeded 5%. Itâ(TM)s true that weâ(TM)re a non-profit, but unlike most non-profits, weâ(TM)re not in it to create a self-sustainable entity. We do it to give.
Having spent some time in the hospital myself at various points in childhood, and being a gamer, Child's Play is really important to me. The best part, really, is that you can go right to an Amazon wishlist set up by the hospital of your choice and buy exactly what you want the hospital to get with your money. If you'd rather just give money, you can do that too, of course, but I prefer to know exactly what the kids are getting, give to a local hospital instead of the general pool, and pick out games and movies and stuff that I would want to play myself.
It's not that hard to explain, and understanding it shouldn't crush your moral outlook. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
The casualties, on both sides, would have been much much higher had Japan not surrendered rather quickly, not to mention the Soviets were going to bust in at any moment and we all know how friendly they were to conquered native populations. Between Japanese civilians being trained to fight to their last breath and the suicidal fanatic loyalty of the soldiers, there pretty much would have been widespread genocide (not intentional, but de facto) as a result of invasion of the mainland, leaving the entire country in utter ruin and the Japanese people pretty much wiped out. The atomic bombings saved countless lives because it showed the leadership that we could accomplish the same thing without spending too many of our own soldier's lives, and that it was better for them to just surrender sooner, rather than later, and just get it over with. It nearly didn't even happen, since the military attempted a coup to prevent the surrender. They were that crazy stupid, willing to die for nothing and doom the rest of their people along with them. Thankfully, saner heads prevailed and Japan is doing quite well now, instead of an uninhabited wasteland.
I should point out that the atomic bombings were relatively tame compared to some of the fire bombings we did elsewhere. Just because we did it with one bomb instead of thousands, that makes a big difference to some people, apparently. GP was right, you have a shallow understand of history.
Certainly an interesting article, but while I don't claim to be an expert, your understanding seems more limited than mine. The bacteria your link discusses are very different than the ones being talked about in TFA. Your bacteria are rather helpful, and they aren't invading human cells and screwing them up. The ones being talked about in TFA are doing significant harm and the cells' natural defense mechanism is what's being researched.
Actually, the use of these special walls talked about in TFA might have less side effects than broad spectrum antibiotics used today, which go and kill those helpful bacteria living in your guts indiscriminately. Some medicine that encourages septins would probably only target harmful bacteria invading human cells.
Nice story, but Catholics are not discouraged from reading the Bible. They hand them out in those Catechism classes you're criticizing. Good thing, too, since otherwise Catholic children might go and pick up one that's missing a whole slew of books the protestants found uncomfortable and edited out.
Probably not a good idea to get your information about Catholicism from anti-Catholic propaganda literature, since "Catholics can't read the Bible" is the sort of ridiculousness found only from such sources. What's next, you'll accuse us of polytheism and ancestor worship?
Don't worry, it'll never happen. The last iPhone was supposed to be 4" too, and I'm pretty sure the one before that as well. This rumor comes out every single week on Mac rumor sites. Why slashdot decided to talk about this one and not the others, is anyone's guess. Just don't encourage them, or they'll start posting these stories every day with new rumors that never come true.
There's a very specific reason for why the iPhone is 3.5" and that is usability. Apple cares less about the spec sheet numbers and more about how people feel using the thing. 3.5", they decided in the beginning, was the perfect size. It corresponds to the reach of most people's thumbs, and allows for the device to fit nicely in your hand and pocket.
Apple also doesn't want to dilute its "retina" display marketing with a lower resolution, or make your job, as an iOS developer, harder with a new resolution that's not doubled in both directions.
The stories you should pay attention to are the ones about the new iPad 3 screens. They are supposed to be retina displays, so expect a third resolution to have to worry about (3GS, 4/iPad, and now iPad 3), though thankfully again it'll just be a doubling in both directions.
I can't say I'm particularly surprised, they were selling extras when I did a free trial a few months ago, and the players seemed to be buying them like crazy. It wouldn't surprise me if they were already making most of their money from nickel and diming the players.
Now that the game is going free to play, I might go back to it. Ground missions were pretty lame, I thought, but I enjoyed space combat immensely.
I'm sure a man who doesn't understand computers or technology (at least, 7 years ago, that might have changed) is absolutely quaking in his boots over threats from an internet group.
What exactly are they going to do, find and release a video of him beating his daughter to get him thrown off the bench?
Plus, that's now, more than a year after the current Mac Pro line came out. Apple notoriously does not lower prices over time as components get cheaper. When it first came out, the price comparison would have been a lot closer.
Particularly with the Mac Pro, people forget that it's made with workstation/server hardware, not regular consumer PC hardware. A lot of the price comparisons people make use consumer hardware to make the point that the Mac Pro is overpriced, but it's not a fair comparison at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, this is a misunderstanding of Foxconn. These are company towns. Foxconn employees kill themselves at the workplace, because they're living in Foxconn dormitories. If you work, eat, sleep, and hang out on company property, and decide to kill yourself, you're going to do it on company property.
There will always be specialization occurring somewhere. Perhaps a country will heavily subsidize computer manufacturing, or have sufficient cheap energy to give them an advantage. Perhaps somebody will develop a robot that requires minimal maintenance, can work 24/7 without complaining, and produce computer parts cheaper than any human labor force.
My theory is and always will be, if a robot can do your job better and cheaper, you're in the wrong line of work. Much of these factory jobs we lament losing in the west, as they move to the east, we didn't want anyway. Far better to be the ones designing the next iPad than building it, if building it can be done with cheap unskilled labor. Eventually even robot factories will be too expensive and obsolete, as we have 3D printers that can make anything we want right in our homes without expensive shipping costs or labor.
Building things, in a pre-designed rote way, may give you some satisfaction but it's hardly a job. Inventing things is what humans are good for, and the more inventors we have in society, and the less builders we need, the better off we'll all be.
I agree that these sorts of things are just PR stunts more than anything, and probably wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the media coverage.
But let's consider the nature of that media coverage, to begin with. It seems that only Apple gets mentioned in Foxconn stories. In some cases, like this story, it makes sense, but most of the negative coverage of Foxconn only ever mentions iPads and iPhones.
These are Foxconn's major clients:
Acer Inc., Amazon.com, Apple, ASRock, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Cisco, Dell, EVGA Corporation, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, Motorola, Netgear, Nintendo, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Vizio
And yet, only one of those companies appear in every single Foxconn story. Hmm. If people defending Apple here are just Apple shills, what level of bias can we attribute to the negative stories then, in light of the fact Foxconn makes everybody's tech but the stories only paint Apple in bad light?
Again, Apple's just doing what Apple needs to do, for PR. I don't think they're all a bunch of heartless bastards, though, any more than any other company. But the spotlight on Apple's relationship with Foxconn is a bit strange, since every competitor they have that I can think of is on Foxconn's client list.
These workers know their jobs suck, and they would gladly trade places with any western factory worker with their massive pay, massive pension, tons of benefits, and far higher standard of living.
Of course, that same western factory worker's pay, benefits, and conditions is why it's so expensive to make anything here. Western standard of living and OSHA is why all the jobs are going overseas, because nobody here is willing to take a pay cut to keep their job.
But the Chinese workers in these factories know something that some people here seem to forget, and that's a job is better than no job. These Chinese workers are working long hours in tough conditions because they are making pretty good money compared to their other options. They're working hard and making enough money to give their children a better life, so that their children, and their children's children, can rise up, get a good education, get better jobs, and live the Chinese Dream. When Foxconn expands their factories, they have more people lining up to get a job than people here line up to buy the latest iPad. It's not because they've been tricked, it's because poverty in China sucks a lot worse than factory conditions. They simply have no better options.
We in the west should be glad Chinese workers are making pennies a day to produce our products, because as unemployment falls in China, Chinese living standards and working conditions will improve, just as the industrial revolution in western countries created the middle class, and created a living standard that's the envy of everyone in China. Someday, China will be losing jobs to other countries, because their pay, benefits, and conditions have improved to our standards, and they need to make all of their goods cheaply someplace else. It will not be because of magic, it will be because western tech companies created millions of jobs for Foxconn workers to do.
I don't know why people keep talking about suicides at Foxconn factories, since the population of China has a higher suicide rate than the population of Foxconn workers in China.
Foxconn employment correlates to less suicides, not more. You know what that means? I know you refuse to believe it because for some reason you've decided to have an irrational hatred for everything Apple, but Foxconn saves lives.
Suicide is not something to be happy about, but let's be honest, it's just one more cause of death in the world. Some people kill themselves, and always will. There are far more preventable causes of death in the world, like say, starvation. How many Foxconn workers starve to death? How many of them would starve to death if they didn't have a job? Again, employment in a factory is better than unemployment.
People freak out over suicide numbers at Foxconn facilities because they don't realize just how large these places are. These are massive, massive factories, and there are going to be a lot of deaths from a lot of different causes in any population of that size anywhere no matter what. What is important to look at is not absolute quantities, but percentages, and compare those to statistics for China as a whole.
People target Apple because Apple is a big popular company doing a lot of business right now, but just about every major tech company you can name has their stuff made at Foxconn, or a similar company in China. This isn't some Apple problem, and yes, the reality is Apple is doing more than most of those other companies to identify and fix problems. Perhaps you should save your moral outrage for those big tech companies that are silent on these issues, or even better, the factories that have higher death rates than China's population as a whole (if there even are any).
Not only would I fly on a TSA free airline, I would gladly pay more for it. I am perfectly fine taking responsibility for my own safety.
Is that ceramic knife going to cut through the locked cockpit doors?
No? Then who gives a shit. I can get knifed walking around in public anywhere. We don't need our airplanes to be safer than any other public space, we just need them to be safe enough that the plane won't be used as a missile against people on the ground.
By all means, keep the planes free of weapons or explosives that can bring the plane down, but with cockpit doors reinforced and locked, we're never going to have another hijacking. Passengers now are willing to fight back, too, which is something that changed for good on 9/11. No terrorist is going to try a hijacking again.
Instead of searching people for knives at the gate screenings, how about we breathalyze the pilots and check they're alert and rested? It would do the greater good.
Biometrics are good for determining identity, but not for encryption keys. You'll find that your voiceprint changes every time, and your data will not be decrypted ever. You need a mathematically repeatable key.
They sell out of WWDC tickets pretty fast.
I plan on taking that extra time spent getting lost on wikipedia links I'd normally lose in my day and write letters to my Senators and Representative, then call up all their offices. Unfortunately both my Senators are co-sponsors of PIPA, so I don't expect much movement there.
I'm by no means an entomologist, so it's possible this is already being studied or has been studied extensively, but I'd be really very curious to understand the mechanism among the species that do produce these supersoldiers (and for that matter regular soldiers) to regulate their numbers. Do the numbers of these soldiers increase at certain times, and how do the worker ants feeding the larvae or whatever decide to give them the extra hormones or special food? Is there a steady percentage of the population with these traits, or do they ramp up the numbers under certain conditions?
Well, a lot of slashdot readers don't get past the headline, which while sort of accurate is intended to elicit Simpsons quotes and anti-GMO reactions to fuel more discussion and ad-hits.
But the thing is, it's not really a mutation. The genes are there, they're just being switched on, artificially, at a specific stage in development. These supersoldiers don't reproduce. If they did get out of the lab, they'd live their normal livespan and die, and there'd be no more supersoldiers.
I think widespread genetic tinkering with the human genome will have several pressures involved. There's the parents who say "I want my baby to be normal" and the parents who say "I want my baby to be special."
In the first category, you'll have pressure to eliminate stuff like autism or ADHD as you mention, but the second category is perhaps enough to balance that out. Those parents who might induce autistic-like conditions to make their child smarter in certain ways, or entirely new conditions that don't occur naturally that hold possibilities we can't fathom. As long as these new variations don't preclude successful mating with "normal" humans, the species will become more diverse, with more potential for evolution, not the other way around.
I agree, this is very cool. I do worry about these induced supersoldiers getting free, but I think the risk is minimal of that. Perhaps nonexistent if the ants themselves don't know how to unlock the special caste anymore, which would seem to be the case.
Think about what it's like to be a kid stuck in a hospital with a serious illness, perhaps even terminal. Long days, in pain or otherwise miserable, with nothing but worry and boredom. Having spent some time in the hospital myself as a kid, it's rather awful.
If a Gameboy or Playstation (or DVD, or art supplies, or other things they provide) can distract them for even a little while? That's worth it. The nurses and doctors who work in those children's wards that are lucky enough to have these sorts of programs all say that recovery is faster, that kids have a higher quality of life, and gives them some normalcy in their otherwise scary and painful lives.
I give yearly to Child's Play. They're not in it to create a self-sustaining entity, and the cause could not be better. When you're sick, your quality of life can really make a difference in your recovery. If a game can distract a kid from their pain or fears for a little while, that is everything. Their administrative fees are pretty low, and quite reasonable considering what those fees are paying for. I'm sure PayPal and the credit card companies are getting their cut, and there's shipping costs for all those games, art supplies, and DVDs. I believe they only have two employees, and I'm not even sure their salaries come from the donations (they may get their money from Penny Arcade's profitable ventures instead), but either way I doubt they're paid that much. From their website:
Having spent some time in the hospital myself at various points in childhood, and being a gamer, Child's Play is really important to me. The best part, really, is that you can go right to an Amazon wishlist set up by the hospital of your choice and buy exactly what you want the hospital to get with your money. If you'd rather just give money, you can do that too, of course, but I prefer to know exactly what the kids are getting, give to a local hospital instead of the general pool, and pick out games and movies and stuff that I would want to play myself.
It's not that hard to explain, and understanding it shouldn't crush your moral outlook. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
The casualties, on both sides, would have been much much higher had Japan not surrendered rather quickly, not to mention the Soviets were going to bust in at any moment and we all know how friendly they were to conquered native populations. Between Japanese civilians being trained to fight to their last breath and the suicidal fanatic loyalty of the soldiers, there pretty much would have been widespread genocide (not intentional, but de facto) as a result of invasion of the mainland, leaving the entire country in utter ruin and the Japanese people pretty much wiped out. The atomic bombings saved countless lives because it showed the leadership that we could accomplish the same thing without spending too many of our own soldier's lives, and that it was better for them to just surrender sooner, rather than later, and just get it over with. It nearly didn't even happen, since the military attempted a coup to prevent the surrender. They were that crazy stupid, willing to die for nothing and doom the rest of their people along with them. Thankfully, saner heads prevailed and Japan is doing quite well now, instead of an uninhabited wasteland.
I should point out that the atomic bombings were relatively tame compared to some of the fire bombings we did elsewhere. Just because we did it with one bomb instead of thousands, that makes a big difference to some people, apparently. GP was right, you have a shallow understand of history.
Certainly an interesting article, but while I don't claim to be an expert, your understanding seems more limited than mine. The bacteria your link discusses are very different than the ones being talked about in TFA. Your bacteria are rather helpful, and they aren't invading human cells and screwing them up. The ones being talked about in TFA are doing significant harm and the cells' natural defense mechanism is what's being researched.
Actually, the use of these special walls talked about in TFA might have less side effects than broad spectrum antibiotics used today, which go and kill those helpful bacteria living in your guts indiscriminately. Some medicine that encourages septins would probably only target harmful bacteria invading human cells.
Nice story, but Catholics are not discouraged from reading the Bible. They hand them out in those Catechism classes you're criticizing. Good thing, too, since otherwise Catholic children might go and pick up one that's missing a whole slew of books the protestants found uncomfortable and edited out.
Probably not a good idea to get your information about Catholicism from anti-Catholic propaganda literature, since "Catholics can't read the Bible" is the sort of ridiculousness found only from such sources. What's next, you'll accuse us of polytheism and ancestor worship?
Don't worry, it'll never happen. The last iPhone was supposed to be 4" too, and I'm pretty sure the one before that as well. This rumor comes out every single week on Mac rumor sites. Why slashdot decided to talk about this one and not the others, is anyone's guess. Just don't encourage them, or they'll start posting these stories every day with new rumors that never come true.
There's a very specific reason for why the iPhone is 3.5" and that is usability. Apple cares less about the spec sheet numbers and more about how people feel using the thing. 3.5", they decided in the beginning, was the perfect size. It corresponds to the reach of most people's thumbs, and allows for the device to fit nicely in your hand and pocket.
Apple also doesn't want to dilute its "retina" display marketing with a lower resolution, or make your job, as an iOS developer, harder with a new resolution that's not doubled in both directions.
The stories you should pay attention to are the ones about the new iPad 3 screens. They are supposed to be retina displays, so expect a third resolution to have to worry about (3GS, 4/iPad, and now iPad 3), though thankfully again it'll just be a doubling in both directions.
I can't say I'm particularly surprised, they were selling extras when I did a free trial a few months ago, and the players seemed to be buying them like crazy. It wouldn't surprise me if they were already making most of their money from nickel and diming the players.
Now that the game is going free to play, I might go back to it. Ground missions were pretty lame, I thought, but I enjoyed space combat immensely.
Of course, SWTOR is coming out soon...
Plus all your current transactions, if you never changed your password on a line I wasn't watching.
I'm sure a man who doesn't understand computers or technology (at least, 7 years ago, that might have changed) is absolutely quaking in his boots over threats from an internet group.
What exactly are they going to do, find and release a video of him beating his daughter to get him thrown off the bench?
Plus, that's now, more than a year after the current Mac Pro line came out. Apple notoriously does not lower prices over time as components get cheaper. When it first came out, the price comparison would have been a lot closer.
Particularly with the Mac Pro, people forget that it's made with workstation/server hardware, not regular consumer PC hardware. A lot of the price comparisons people make use consumer hardware to make the point that the Mac Pro is overpriced, but it's not a fair comparison at all.