Yes, but everyone does this, at least, of any size. IBM at least seems to get a product out of it.

It's not IBM's fault if you don't leave yourself some breathing room, though I agree that is shitty. Still, if the going rate is falling, I'm going somewhere else.

They truly do have a massive stack of useless consultants. That's not to imply that the majority of them are useless, although I suspect that's the case. I've simply met several of them.

The thing is, that's often what's called for. Except the pile of shit part, but seriously, old doesn't mean bad.

On the low end it costs twice as much as an entry-level windows PC. On the high end, it is also a ripoff.

Uh no. I can still get more performance by building my own.

Being willing to accept a computer a couple mm thicker does not show that I don't care about design.

Anyone who thinks we should be proud doesn't have a CLUE as to why we were in those conflicts in the first place. Even WWII, which we should have probably been in, we deliberately delayed our entry so that our "allies" would get their asses pounded so that we could come out ahead economically. Proof? We were selling war materials including Alcoa aluminum and of course fuel to the Third Reich. We knew it was going on, and we let it continue and then seized the assets. But that didn't stop vital war supplies getting to the enemy.

Obviously not.

Microsoft entertainment division may or may not have paid off its investment yet but Xbox is profitable year-by-year now. That's one area in which Microsoft has executed well, RROD and Xbox 180 aside.

There is, but by making it just a few CCs larger (for a bigger cooler) they could also have made it cheaper and faster. But presumably, that would eat into sales of still more expensive products with larger margins, so that would be a mistake for them. Which just underscores the point of how bad a deal you're getting when you buy Apple hardware.

right, but just like retail, it's not clear that this is possible,

It's not clear that it can. Amazon's model depends on endless growth, but you can't grow forever.

No, no they were not. The problem is that hiring criteria have gotten all fucked. Instead of proving what you can do, it's having all the right buzzwords on your resume, and being young. So they hire young people who haven't developed common sense yet and then wonder why there isn't any in their organization. They fail to reward their most valuable players, literally often pushing them out the door, and then wonder why they can't execute.

It's not because there are not people out there with critical thinking skills. It's that the people doing the hiring lack them. They're hiring people based on ooh shiny, and not on actual abilities needed to get the work done.

TL;DR: If they stop hiring people based on bullshit and actually hire for creativity, common sense, flexibility, and yes, critical thinking skills, then they won't be having these problems.

Not really. An unloaded gun is a shitty club. A sword can take parts off of a person.

That doesn't prove that at all, nor does it even try to.

If someone told me I voided my warranty for installing CM, I really would see them in court. They're going to have to show that CM is incompatible, and in the process, they'll basically have to declare that their phone is not an android phone, which will make them look like cunts in the press.

That's because it's such a successful imitation of life. That feeling is supposed to galvanize you to action... hopefully not involving firearms

But a lot of government really is after their guns. Why do you see this as an unrealistic concern? Forgot Waco already?

[citation needed]

Before you even try, you're completely, absolutely wrong. The assault rifle did nothing to blow away the second amendment, because it does nothing to change the reasons for its inception. And the internet does nothing to blow away the first amendment, it only makes it more important.

But, I can't wait to see your reasoning as to why freedom should be reduced because progress has happened. You just want to maintain a balance of progress, and we have to go backwards socially to make you happy?

oh, you get it!

You can't work towards an unattainable goal. And that's what this is about. It's not trying to get as close as possible to utopia, it's trying to create it. But utopia means "nowhere" for a reason. You cannot create perfection. You can only mitigate the lack of perfection inherent to a world with free will. Or, you know, you can eliminate free will. That's the only way to have an "ideal" system. And again, that's precisely what this is about. The attempt to eliminate free will. Instead of building a fairer system, and thus reducing events like these, they want to build a system that maintains the status quo while also suppressing events like these. In order to do that, they will reduce free will.