except i just demonstrated that your expert doesn't say what you think he does, and that what he does say is incorrectly generalized. you've concluded you're correct a priori, and are ignoring any evidence or reasoning that runs counter to that.
okay, sure. first of all, i do not use my computer primarily for fundamental education. sure, i learn thing while using it, and in the course of my work, and do research using it, but my primary purpose is in accomplishing a task, not learning and discovery. so that's one difference. second, i'm highly literate and well educated. 9-year-olds anywhere don't have my level of education, and in many communities literacy is minimal. the target markets for all major mass-market consumer systems assume a much higher level of literacy. so that's a substantial difference. i'm also an adult, while they're children, which implies significant differences in cognitive development, particularly in areas of abstraction. i also demand different tradeoffs from my computer than these kids are wont to: better graphic, higher performance, more tasks at once. none of this, of course, says anything about broader cultural differences, which are substantial. i could go on if there was a reason. you're willing to discount all these? so i ask again, why do you assume their requirements are the same?
i note the fact that you didn't contest my first point. great. now i'll ask you to cite evidence of my bias, please. you do understand that stating a conclusion is not evidence of bias, right?
i didn't ask for a reputable source, i asked for a citation in statue or case law. he provides some, but he makes assumptions (for effect) about what they imply, and you're misreading him. i'll address the problems with your reading of the articles as supporting your assertion first, because it's more obvious. this guy says corporate law "inhibits" responsible behavior. that's almost certainly true, at least to some degree. but "inhibits" is not "prevents". your assertion was that it is illegal for Apple to act in a socially responsible manner, which is not a conclusion that these articles support. the big mistake that the author makes (and i think it's willful, to make the persuasive power of his argument stronger) is a bit more subtle, and very common. look at this comment discussion the cited Maine statue:
Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money.
he asserts that the duty to the shareholders is inherently to make money. but the statue he's citing - and those i've seen in other states - makes no such assertion. it's much more general: the duty is simply to "the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders". those interests likely include making money, but the certainly need not be limited to that. in fact, i don't know of a single corporation in existence which is limited to that (although some do act like it). the board, acting on behalf of the shareholders, formally state the intentions of the company; the board is obligated to ensure that those match the interests of the shareholders. but these corporate objectives - often delivered in the the form of a mission statement, objective, statement of purpose, or similar declaration - pretty reliably include things beyond making money. i don't happen to know Apple's stated objective, so let's use Google as an example i'm more familiar with. their stated objective is (paraphrasing here) "organize and make accessible the world's information". that is the stated objective of the company. if the shareholders want the corporation to have different objectives, they should get the board to change that statement - or change the board; that certainly happens from time to time. now, none of this says anything about why the shareholders would have that objective. it's certainly likely that the vast majority of them have that objective because they've bought the sales pitch that pursuing it will make them money. but, again: the stated objective is the mission; making money is a motivation. others might simply believe that it's a nice thing to do. but, at least implicitly (by not voting against the board) the shareholders generally support the mission statement - which is not "maximize shareholder revenue", and especially doesn't say anything about doing so in the short term. note, of course, that many companies do explicitly include statements about shareholder value in their mission statements. that's fine too; it's yet another interest.
so your path for arguing with this is to either (as originally suggested) cite statues or case history that suggest social responsibility - while not conflicting with the stated objectives of the shareholders - is illegal, or show how Apple doing so in support of OLPC or technology in education generally would specifically conflict with their stated objectives.
for the record, i entirely agree with this guy's conclusions, even though i think he's taking liberties with his reasoning to get a point across. we could - and should - certainly do a lot to reform corporate law to encourage or enforce social responsibility.
comparing the relative effectiveness of tools and concluding that one is more effective than another does not make that one magical, nor does it make anyone who professes that comparative advantage a proponent of a magic bullet theory. the magic bullet theory is based on the idea that the thing in question is all you need; that it will entirely solve the problem itself. that's not what the OLPC folks are doing. again, look at the project: they're being very explicit about working with local NGOs and government education ministries to get the laptops integrated into existing educational systems. you're either incorrect in your assessment of the OLPC project or you're misusing the phrase "magic bullet".
your note about paying for textbooks illustrates exactly how you're missing the point: part of the XO's value is that it's a more cost-effective way of delivering the same information (and keeping it relatively up-to-date).
i can't tell if you're joking or not. i really hope so.
a lot of people believe this. it's not true. i'd like you to find any statute or case law that supports it. SEC regulations would be a promising place to start, if such things existed. i eagerly await your results.
i've spent a bunch of time in this discussion defending OLPC from people who're saying just stupid things; i wanted to respond to you because you're very different. you actually raise specific problems with the interface and software as it exists. you don't jump to unsupported conclusions of OLPC being worthless and the XO being crap (which doesn't say anything about whether you hold such opinions, but you don't act as though your given argument proves them). while i disagree with your conclusions (i'm more pleased with where they've gotten with Sugar overall), i can still agree with your observations, and those observations could be usefully applied to improving the situation. this is what more of this discussion should look like. thanks.
I believe his point was that with the OLPC's limited resources they pretty much managed to do nothing BUT get the "entirely new graphical paradigm" MOSTLY working.
yes, i believe that was most of his point. but it's flatly, obviously, egregiously false.
i've got two of them right here. two of the laptops designed close to from scratch, distributed through a promotional campaign, running a custom-packaged operating system, packaged with a handful of other OLPC-provided applications, to which i've added a handful of third-party applications in a format they defined obtained from a repository they run, contributed by a community they built. these are all major things that OLCP has accomplished, none of which has anything to do with Sugar. your "mythic powers" comment is just a diversion; the thing has a lot of good stuff built in, and is built so that the value can grow over time.
It would be kind of like starting a transportation project and as a first priority deciding that you didn't want to use any wheels because they seem old fashioned.
no it would not. the thing uses a keyboard, trackpad, lcd screen, wifi, and so on. all standard technologies. OLCP is more like starting a transportation project and deciding you didn't want to use petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines. sure, integrating the alternative might take a little more time and effort than just having honda slap an engine in, but the result will be much better in the long run, and will create fewer externalized problems.
the whole "delay" argument just seems to not have much to do with reality. OLCP ran G1G1 and shipped a slew of laptops (two to me). they've done a handful of real deployments in their target markets. if using Sugar was going to cost them a decade, clearly it wouldn't be worth it, but it seems more like it's costing them... what, maybe a year? you weren't making the mistake of thinking getting XP (or linux distro of your choice) running and integrated on these things is going to be zero effort, were you? if you can produce a significantly more effective product which has fewer negative externalized consequences, that level of delay is most certainly worth it.
nice: that's a pretty reasonable project to look at for a comparison; certainly more so than the mini-laptops most people point to. still, it's important to note the difference in scope. just start with the fact that radios are pretty close to inherently single-function, whereas computers (most, including the XO) are designed to be multi-function. that's a big deal. also, our industry simply doesn't have 80 years of experience to build on in educational computer use, let alone in developing countries. that's a much bigger deal.
and besides, it's not like OLPC threw out everything our industry knew. they just put the pieces together in a new way for a new problem. the thing hardly looks or feels like it's from another planet, which is the impression you'd get from people complaining about how "different" it is.
in what way was the common current desktop metaphor tested, proven and working? the flaws are legion. it was training wheels for the industry before we knew what computers could really do, what people would use them for, and how. we know more now.
now, let's say you're convinced that the desktop metaphor is tested (just because it's been around for a long time, which doesn't make something tested, but okay), proven (that'd involve some form of formal studies and comparisons, i'd think), and working (which it clearly does; working well is another story). in some context. now explain to me why you'd assume that kids in developing countries - with no computer experience, low literacy rates, and very poor infrastructure - would have the same requirements as you.
honestly, i don't get what the anti-Sugar fuss is about. it's pretty good. not perfect, but it works well on the XO, doesn't get in the way of applications (which is crucial for an education-geared project), and is easy to pick up. the big complaint seems to be that it's different from the standard desktop metaphor. big friggin' deal; get over it. is there some inherent reason to believe that the metaphor that we, as an industry, made popular first, back when we knew very little about mass market factors and HCI, is the "right" one? in any particular case, let alone in all cases?
And if you can't see the difference between frustratingly banging your head against a keyboard to get Linux to run properly and learning something new every day, then you're not really seeing with very clear eyes, I don't think.
uh, yeah, but that has nothing to do with OLPC or the XO, does it? i've got two; i've never done anything to "get linux to work". i turned it on, there it was. it worked; done. i think your parent is a bit off base in his comparison, but you and the article's author are farther off base by comparing the experience with a current XO to endless tweaking a standard linux desktop solution.
1) "giving people FOSS" was never the goal, it was a tool. this has never been a FOSS advocacy project (even less than it was a laptop project, which it never was; it's a friggin' education project). and it still is the tool of choice as far as anyone can see. there's been various talk about alternatives, but they're still pursuing the same platform they had been. you just don't know what you're talking about here.
2) cite? "has problems" is not the same as "is a failure".
best not to distribute at all? why on earth is that? even if the thing's imperfect (obviously), how do you come to the conclusion that it's better to shelf the things? what damage are they doing?
After reading the article, it becomes apparent that they did NOT have proper business management of the OLPC project...
ah, the internet.
really? that's clear after reading this? i'd love to see some corroborating evidence, or even a consensus among knowledgeable people. as it is, this is just some guy's opinion. which is valuable, sure, since he's got first-hand knowledge, but coming to a conclusion based on it is just stupid.
amen. it's amazing to me that so many people here on slashdot have such a poor grasp of fundamental engineering principles (it probably shouldn't, but it does). the XO is explicitly designed for kids in developing countries. its closest "competitors" are simply not - they're shrunken laptops. it's not a question of better or worse in some abstract absolutist sense, it's a question of engineering your solution to fit your problem.
can we get anything more reliable than "he's told me so" here? that statement certainly doesn't match any public statements by negroponte or the OLPC project. i think it's reasonable to be somewhat skeptical about one irritated writer.
they probably could've done a better job (well, everyone could always do a better job; maybe they could've done a lot better), but it's not like it's been a disaster. you talk about failure like it's over and done with. they've got a handful of live, successful deployments done already, and are still chugging along. i don't see any good reason not to believe they'll learn from their mistakes and improve the handling of future deployments.
you think the idea is flawed from the start because you fundamentally misunderstand what that idea is.
the OLPC folks have been very clear all along that they don't think of technology as a magic bullet. this is exactly why they're not just airlifting a bunch in and handing them out at grocery stores, but rather working with government education ministries. OLPC is, in their own words, an education project, not a laptop project; the laptop is just a particularly effective - and cost-effective - tool. in light of that, your argument is somewhat akin to saying that trying to get up-to-date textbooks to students is a flawed idea from the start because the presence of books isn't a magic bullet. also true, but also a pointless non sequitur.
Just like any company, Apple is not some fairy godmother who goes around granting people's wishes.
look, i'm as anti-corporation as the next crypto-socialist quasi-liberal in the IT world (huh?), but seriously, what's with this idea that corporations can't occasionally just want to do something good? i mean, yeah, Apple's a for-profit company, but does that really mean they can't also actually care about education in the developing world? this certainly seems to be something that Jobs has cared about for a long time. even Bill Gates, by all reliable reports, actually did come back from africa genuinely moved to action (even if his subsequent choices of action are suspect). corporations, like the people that compose them, are seldom as flat and monolithic as they're made out to be.
that aside,
If they had interest in the low-cost laptop business, why aren't they in it by themselves? Intel did it, Via did it, Asus did it.
let's assume Apple's motives are simply for-profit. can you really not come up with anything other than them making money on the boxes? how exactly would they do that with OS sales? it's totally against their corporate culture: they operate in places they can get good margins. this is in stark contrast to Intel, Via, and Asus, who're all commodity players. this isn't to say one's better than the other, but they're very different skills. Apple's good at making very good product at reasonable prices; it's a very different set of tradeoffs to get a reasonable product very cheaply.
EDS has also had their hands in a whole bunch of other sub-industries, too. they've sold off lots of their smaller divisions over time, but they used to do pretty much any kind of IT service you could think up.
I recently helped my wife purchase a multifunction printer from HP (LaserJet M3035 MFP).
i don't know what the structure of HP actually is, but it very much seems like they've got two unrelated groups working on printers/scanners/&c vs. multi-function thingies. their printers have always been, and continue to be, solid; their MFP things have always been awful (not the least of which is installing obnoxious software on your computer and making half the functionality depend on using it). anyone with knowledge of HP's org know what's going on?
see, this is why starting a sentence in the subject and continuing it in the body is a bad idea. i just used the toilet less than an hour ago and there's nothing left in my bowel. and why do i need you scheduling my bodily functions for me, anyway?
i'm not going to do the math, but have you considered at what point you max out your motherboard bus? i'd be really, really surprised if any off-the-shelf motherboard can handle that kind of throughput.
Both of those shareholders who have Google stock because they care about human rights in China instead of the mad-cash Google will bring to them were probably drowned out in the shouts of the rest of the money-focused shareholders screaming for better stock valuation.
okay, first off you're assuming it's an either/or situation. there's nothing to prevent someone from caring about human rights and also wanting to make a buck. the two do not inherently conflict; the question is about methods as much as anything else. you're also assuming the "right answer" regarding the human rights question; i don't think that's fair. the issue is very complex, and i think there's (at a minimum) very good arguments to be made that Google's current path (which it shares with its competitors) genuinely is better for human rights in China (at least as far as Google has control over things, which isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things; the correct course for world governments is a different discussion).
i agree with you (and google) about the right course of action here, and that folks like Amnesty are missing the big picture or long view, but i think you're off base on one point:
Taking a stand in prinicple is just that, in principle with no effect on things in the real world.
principled stands can and do often have an effect on the real world. in this particular case, having Google make a hard-line principled stance would have no effect on China because Google has lots of competitors that aren't likely to make the same decision. similar debates have come up in the US federal government, and it's a very different question there. there's no logical inconsistency between voting against this Google-specific measure (because it'd have no positive effect, and arguably a negative one by removing the best information service and replacing it with an inferior one) and voting for government mandated restrictions (because getting Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft aligned could be powerful enough to make a difference in China's policy), even though both represent hard-line principled stands.
google is a company, NOT a person. It's purpose is to survive and make profit.
according to what? the fact that they're a listed public company doesn't (inherently) say anything about their purpose. their own statement of purpose:
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
as far as the company is officially concerned, stock price - and even profit! - are simply means to that end (although obviously profit is a pretty crucial one). investors buy the stock because they either (a) believe in that mission or (b) believe that pursuing that mission will make them money. granted, (b) dominates public shareholders, but that doesn't change the company's mission. also, holders of publicly-traded stock are not the only voters. go read Google's revised Certificate of Incorporation for the difference between Class A and Class B stock (hint: you want Class B, but you can't have it).
Slashdot Mirror
except i just demonstrated that your expert doesn't say what you think he does, and that what he does say is incorrectly generalized. you've concluded you're correct a priori, and are ignoring any evidence or reasoning that runs counter to that.
okay, sure. first of all, i do not use my computer primarily for fundamental education. sure, i learn thing while using it, and in the course of my work, and do research using it, but my primary purpose is in accomplishing a task, not learning and discovery. so that's one difference. second, i'm highly literate and well educated. 9-year-olds anywhere don't have my level of education, and in many communities literacy is minimal. the target markets for all major mass-market consumer systems assume a much higher level of literacy. so that's a substantial difference. i'm also an adult, while they're children, which implies significant differences in cognitive development, particularly in areas of abstraction. i also demand different tradeoffs from my computer than these kids are wont to: better graphic, higher performance, more tasks at once. none of this, of course, says anything about broader cultural differences, which are substantial. i could go on if there was a reason. you're willing to discount all these? so i ask again, why do you assume their requirements are the same?
i note the fact that you didn't contest my first point. great. now i'll ask you to cite evidence of my bias, please. you do understand that stating a conclusion is not evidence of bias, right?
i'll address the problems with your reading of the articles as supporting your assertion first, because it's more obvious. this guy says corporate law "inhibits" responsible behavior. that's almost certainly true, at least to some degree. but "inhibits" is not "prevents". your assertion was that it is illegal for Apple to act in a socially responsible manner, which is not a conclusion that these articles support.
the big mistake that the author makes (and i think it's willful, to make the persuasive power of his argument stronger) is a bit more subtle, and very common. look at this comment discussion the cited Maine statue:he asserts that the duty to the shareholders is inherently to make money. but the statue he's citing - and those i've seen in other states - makes no such assertion. it's much more general: the duty is simply to "the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders". those interests likely include making money, but the certainly need not be limited to that. in fact, i don't know of a single corporation in existence which is limited to that (although some do act like it). the board, acting on behalf of the shareholders, formally state the intentions of the company; the board is obligated to ensure that those match the interests of the shareholders. but these corporate objectives - often delivered in the the form of a mission statement, objective, statement of purpose, or similar declaration - pretty reliably include things beyond making money.
i don't happen to know Apple's stated objective, so let's use Google as an example i'm more familiar with. their stated objective is (paraphrasing here) "organize and make accessible the world's information". that is the stated objective of the company. if the shareholders want the corporation to have different objectives, they should get the board to change that statement - or change the board; that certainly happens from time to time. now, none of this says anything about why the shareholders would have that objective. it's certainly likely that the vast majority of them have that objective because they've bought the sales pitch that pursuing it will make them money. but, again: the stated objective is the mission; making money is a motivation. others might simply believe that it's a nice thing to do. but, at least implicitly (by not voting against the board) the shareholders generally support the mission statement - which is not "maximize shareholder revenue", and especially doesn't say anything about doing so in the short term.
note, of course, that many companies do explicitly include statements about shareholder value in their mission statements. that's fine too; it's yet another interest.
so your path for arguing with this is to either (as originally suggested) cite statues or case history that suggest social responsibility - while not conflicting with the stated objectives of the shareholders - is illegal, or show how Apple doing so in support of OLPC or technology in education generally would specifically conflict with their stated objectives.
for the record, i entirely agree with this guy's conclusions, even though i think he's taking liberties with his reasoning to get a point across. we could - and should - certainly do a lot to reform corporate law to encourage or enforce social responsibility.
comparing the relative effectiveness of tools and concluding that one is more effective than another does not make that one magical, nor does it make anyone who professes that comparative advantage a proponent of a magic bullet theory. the magic bullet theory is based on the idea that the thing in question is all you need; that it will entirely solve the problem itself. that's not what the OLPC folks are doing. again, look at the project: they're being very explicit about working with local NGOs and government education ministries to get the laptops integrated into existing educational systems. you're either incorrect in your assessment of the OLPC project or you're misusing the phrase "magic bullet".
your note about paying for textbooks illustrates exactly how you're missing the point: part of the XO's value is that it's a more cost-effective way of delivering the same information (and keeping it relatively up-to-date).
i can't tell if you're joking or not. i really hope so.
a lot of people believe this. it's not true. i'd like you to find any statute or case law that supports it. SEC regulations would be a promising place to start, if such things existed. i eagerly await your results.
i've spent a bunch of time in this discussion defending OLPC from people who're saying just stupid things; i wanted to respond to you because you're very different. you actually raise specific problems with the interface and software as it exists. you don't jump to unsupported conclusions of OLPC being worthless and the XO being crap (which doesn't say anything about whether you hold such opinions, but you don't act as though your given argument proves them). while i disagree with your conclusions (i'm more pleased with where they've gotten with Sugar overall), i can still agree with your observations, and those observations could be usefully applied to improving the situation. this is what more of this discussion should look like. thanks.
i've got two of them right here. two of the laptops designed close to from scratch, distributed through a promotional campaign, running a custom-packaged operating system, packaged with a handful of other OLPC-provided applications, to which i've added a handful of third-party applications in a format they defined obtained from a repository they run, contributed by a community they built. these are all major things that OLCP has accomplished, none of which has anything to do with Sugar. your "mythic powers" comment is just a diversion; the thing has a lot of good stuff built in, and is built so that the value can grow over time.no it would not. the thing uses a keyboard, trackpad, lcd screen, wifi, and so on. all standard technologies. OLCP is more like starting a transportation project and deciding you didn't want to use petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines. sure, integrating the alternative might take a little more time and effort than just having honda slap an engine in, but the result will be much better in the long run, and will create fewer externalized problems.
the whole "delay" argument just seems to not have much to do with reality. OLCP ran G1G1 and shipped a slew of laptops (two to me). they've done a handful of real deployments in their target markets. if using Sugar was going to cost them a decade, clearly it wouldn't be worth it, but it seems more like it's costing them... what, maybe a year? you weren't making the mistake of thinking getting XP (or linux distro of your choice) running and integrated on these things is going to be zero effort, were you? if you can produce a significantly more effective product which has fewer negative externalized consequences, that level of delay is most certainly worth it.
nice: that's a pretty reasonable project to look at for a comparison; certainly more so than the mini-laptops most people point to. still, it's important to note the difference in scope. just start with the fact that radios are pretty close to inherently single-function, whereas computers (most, including the XO) are designed to be multi-function. that's a big deal.
also, our industry simply doesn't have 80 years of experience to build on in educational computer use, let alone in developing countries. that's a much bigger deal.
and besides, it's not like OLPC threw out everything our industry knew. they just put the pieces together in a new way for a new problem. the thing hardly looks or feels like it's from another planet, which is the impression you'd get from people complaining about how "different" it is.
in what way was the common current desktop metaphor tested, proven and working? the flaws are legion. it was training wheels for the industry before we knew what computers could really do, what people would use them for, and how. we know more now.
now, let's say you're convinced that the desktop metaphor is tested (just because it's been around for a long time, which doesn't make something tested, but okay), proven (that'd involve some form of formal studies and comparisons, i'd think), and working (which it clearly does; working well is another story). in some context. now explain to me why you'd assume that kids in developing countries - with no computer experience, low literacy rates, and very poor infrastructure - would have the same requirements as you.
Repetitive Strain Injury of the brain.
honestly, i don't get what the anti-Sugar fuss is about. it's pretty good. not perfect, but it works well on the XO, doesn't get in the way of applications (which is crucial for an education-geared project), and is easy to pick up. the big complaint seems to be that it's different from the standard desktop metaphor. big friggin' deal; get over it. is there some inherent reason to believe that the metaphor that we, as an industry, made popular first, back when we knew very little about mass market factors and HCI, is the "right" one? in any particular case, let alone in all cases?
1) "giving people FOSS" was never the goal, it was a tool. this has never been a FOSS advocacy project (even less than it was a laptop project, which it never was; it's a friggin' education project). and it still is the tool of choice as far as anyone can see. there's been various talk about alternatives, but they're still pursuing the same platform they had been. you just don't know what you're talking about here.
2) cite? "has problems" is not the same as "is a failure".
best not to distribute at all? why on earth is that? even if the thing's imperfect (obviously), how do you come to the conclusion that it's better to shelf the things? what damage are they doing?
really? that's clear after reading this? i'd love to see some corroborating evidence, or even a consensus among knowledgeable people. as it is, this is just some guy's opinion. which is valuable, sure, since he's got first-hand knowledge, but coming to a conclusion based on it is just stupid.
amen. it's amazing to me that so many people here on slashdot have such a poor grasp of fundamental engineering principles (it probably shouldn't, but it does). the XO is explicitly designed for kids in developing countries. its closest "competitors" are simply not - they're shrunken laptops. it's not a question of better or worse in some abstract absolutist sense, it's a question of engineering your solution to fit your problem.
can we get anything more reliable than "he's told me so" here? that statement certainly doesn't match any public statements by negroponte or the OLPC project. i think it's reasonable to be somewhat skeptical about one irritated writer.
they probably could've done a better job (well, everyone could always do a better job; maybe they could've done a lot better), but it's not like it's been a disaster. you talk about failure like it's over and done with. they've got a handful of live, successful deployments done already, and are still chugging along. i don't see any good reason not to believe they'll learn from their mistakes and improve the handling of future deployments.
you think the idea is flawed from the start because you fundamentally misunderstand what that idea is.
the OLPC folks have been very clear all along that they don't think of technology as a magic bullet. this is exactly why they're not just airlifting a bunch in and handing them out at grocery stores, but rather working with government education ministries. OLPC is, in their own words, an education project, not a laptop project; the laptop is just a particularly effective - and cost-effective - tool. in light of that, your argument is somewhat akin to saying that trying to get up-to-date textbooks to students is a flawed idea from the start because the presence of books isn't a magic bullet. also true, but also a pointless non sequitur.
that aside,let's assume Apple's motives are simply for-profit. can you really not come up with anything other than them making money on the boxes? how exactly would they do that with OS sales? it's totally against their corporate culture: they operate in places they can get good margins. this is in stark contrast to Intel, Via, and Asus, who're all commodity players. this isn't to say one's better than the other, but they're very different skills. Apple's good at making very good product at reasonable prices; it's a very different set of tradeoffs to get a reasonable product very cheaply.
EDS has also had their hands in a whole bunch of other sub-industries, too. they've sold off lots of their smaller divisions over time, but they used to do pretty much any kind of IT service you could think up.
see, this is why starting a sentence in the subject and continuing it in the body is a bad idea. i just used the toilet less than an hour ago and there's nothing left in my bowel. and why do i need you scheduling my bodily functions for me, anyway?
i'm not going to do the math, but have you considered at what point you max out your motherboard bus? i'd be really, really surprised if any off-the-shelf motherboard can handle that kind of throughput.
you're also assuming the "right answer" regarding the human rights question; i don't think that's fair. the issue is very complex, and i think there's (at a minimum) very good arguments to be made that Google's current path (which it shares with its competitors) genuinely is better for human rights in China (at least as far as Google has control over things, which isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things; the correct course for world governments is a different discussion).
and it's "caught".