It also indicates the further wish to be out of touch with Western markets and continue to decline in overall quality. Checking a few boxes and translating the manual makes for a bad execution on implementing a product in other markets - as opposed to integrating the expectations made by the target market.

Besides, having it in Los Angeles doesn't diminish the value of Eastern contributions, but serves as a barrier to entry for the unqualified.

China and their fellow freedom-reducing brethren operate on the idea of stealing from nations that innovate. A proven secondary use for that is for them to use it against their own citizens.

The US and the rest of the civilized world operate on the idea of creating something new or advancing existing technology in a new way. Unlike China, there has been no solid evidence to prove use against citizens - just the allegations of a spurned traitor(who in turn gave what he had to China and Russia, of all irony).

(Something I've been waiting a long time to see happen to someone else. Long story, heh.)

Dump a glass of orange juice in his lap about 30 minutes into a long-haul flight. I recommend iced for best effect.

There are lots of orgs thinking about switching to Linux? Well, yeah, thanks for that, Captain Obvious. Tell us something else we already know.

They' called caltrops.
Of course, if we're buying them on a military contract, they cost 20x as much as the civilian version.

Those numerals originated in India, where the Arabs encountered and adopted them (and later transmitted them to Europe).

Imagine what Europe would be like if some foreign powers came in, colonised big chunks of it for a century or three, then drew borders for new countries that had nothing to do with ethnicity or language. So Milan is now the capital of the Styrian Republic, which comprises Lombardy, Styria, and most of Slovenia; the mix of languages shouldn't be a problem since we're going to educate all their kids in Korean, anyway, right? Then let's draw a nice straight line at an angle across France, and combine the part to the south of that with Catalonia. Let's call it "Franconia"--nevermind the locals already using that name for a different region of the continent--what do they know? And wouldn't it make things more convenient for us to administer if the Rhineland, the Netherlands, and peninsular Denmark were a single entity? And so on... and so on...

Now you know where the most of the national borders in the Mideast and Africa came from. And now maybe you're beginning to see why most if not all of these states are doomed to failure.

You've not read much news from Europe lately, have you?

Correct--there was no Big Daddy In The Sky yesterday, there isn't one today, and I'm willing to bet there won't be one tomorrow, either.

You, SirMa'amOrFido, have just earned yourself a gold star.

Such as...?