So, in the end, basically all computers are iMacs, Macbook Airs, iPads, or iPhones now (some made by Apple and others not).

The majority of people who have bought Android tablets did so because they do not like Apple rather than because they wanted something with a smaller screen. Additionally, it is easy to forget now, but when the iPad first came out it was widely criticized as being too similar to an iPod Touch. It was only after quite a bit of time that it seemed to start to be taken more seriously despite having a screen with less than half the area of a "real computer".

I understand the effects of the parasite are related to cysts and the like that are produced and reside in the brain when the parasite is inactive. If you take the medication that kills the parasite, do you also get rid of the neurological effects, or is your brain possibly permanently altered?

What exactly are you saying is the way to promote innovation and discourage stealing? You seem to be in favor of innovators being protected, but you side with Samsung over Apple?

I care. I like to see people innovate. If there is no incentive to innovate, then it's stupid to innovate, because innovation involves risk and investment. When everyone can just sit back and minimize their costs by not innovating, instead only copying others as necessary to offset competitive advantages, then nobody innovates. Apple shouldn't be the only company developing these kinds of products. If companies could be secure that their ideas wouldn't be stolen then I'm confident we would see a lot more of these kinds of game-changer products. I want to see Apple defend their products vigorously, see other companies being encouraged to innovate more by it, and then see other companies out-innovate and have to defend themselves against Apple. That's all I want.

The iPhone completely revolutionized telephones and general personal gadgets unbelievably. They freakin took the risk of designing and producing a device no other company would (or at least apparently could) have dared produce. They freakin deserve to be able to protect their work from theft. If all one had to do to make the best products was wait for someone else to sink all the resources into coming up with and trying out new ideas, and then steal them and clone them, then naturally it would be a losing proposition for anyone to ever do anything innovative. We don't want this. We want companies to be able to invent revolutionary devices like iPhones without it being bad business. So Apple needs to and deserves to be protected. I'mbewildered by the incredible Apple resentment people have toward Apple. It's as if no one hear has ever had anything they did ripped off and taken advantage of by somebody in a manner that made them benefit at your cost. Don't tell me it isn't obvious these Galaxy phones aren't blatant knock-offs because we all know they are. Frankly, we all know Android immediately morphed into an iOS clone as soon as the iPhone was released as well. Don't tell me you think these phones wouldn't look and function 90% the same as iPhones if Apple hadn't taken the risk and investment. For the previous 20 years before the iPhone phones advanced a fraction of the amount they advanced when the iPhone came out. 5 years later and every phone's a damn iPhone clone. Unfortunately, patent law is the only thing we have to force companies to innovate. If companies like Samsung can't come up with their own ideas then they should be required to at least compensate other companies for the investments they have made in creating the ideas and technologies Samsung would like to rip off. I'm outraged by the outrage over this.

Funny you should mention this because the elimination of need for all those slots and connectors is precisely one of the most compelling things about Thunderbolt.

It looks like Thunderbolt is a sure thing on Apple machines in future. Apple hasn't included USB3 in any of their machines and USB3 has been very slow to grow. Hopefully, when Apple includes a new interface it significantly encourages its adoption by others. There's some precedent in the history of USB prior to USB3. And Apple hardware characteristics has more influence on market than it probably ever has in the past. Excited for Thunderbolt!

I find these kinds of comparisons between "liberals" and "conservatives" distasteful. For me, what my political leanings might be are about making the world better in the little way that I can as a person who can vote. They're not about sitting around and deciding I am "an X" and comparing my lifestyle etc to "the Ys" in order to find differences, feel that I'm superior, blah blah blah. Would it be too much to ask for "liberals" and "conservatives" to try to focus on finding things had in common and little less trying to find things that different from one another?

Are you purposely being obtuse? The Ford Focus and/or Fiesta have been outselling any compact car sold in the US market by any company for over ten years now. The majority of humans worldwide like Ford compacts more than any others. But your one person's supposed firsthand experience means that all Fords forever will be unquestionably bad. Guess I'm lucky you wrote on here otherwise I totally would've been fooled about the truth about a Ford car that you know is bad even though it isn't even for sale in your country yet.

In the time you just spent on Slashdot bloviating on all your prejudices regarding apparently all small cars from every manufacturer in a country, you could have glanced at any review of the Fiesta and picked up on such facts as that (a) the Fiesta is considered by much of the automotive media to be the benchmark of its class and (b) buyers seem to agree with the automotive media (#1 selling vehicle in Europe where it has been available for 2 years).

This is admittedly a bit OT, but I was just curious: Why do people refer to Android as if it was a distinct OS from Linux? To me that's like saying "I use SUSE OS" or something. Just a pet peave of mine. It's not as if it's a new OS. It's a variant of Linux just like countless other variants of Linux that we call Linux.

You've got the volumetric efficiency relative to rpm part backwards. Volumetric efficiency goes down with rpm. Thermal losses go up as surface area of cylinder goes up. However, pumping losses etc go up with rpm. So, the most efficient engine is one that is able to produce the most torque out of the smallest displacement. Or in other words, run at the lowest rpm to meet application's power needs. This is what lies at the heart of why you see in countries where fuel is more expensive than in the US the majority of cars sold are turbocharged diesel engines even though these engines are much more expensive to make than gasoline engines -- they get high power at low rpm the way large engines do but have lower surface area in cylinders). In other words, they are large engines stuffed into small displacement using positive pressure induction and high compression ratio. Another example would be how, if you have a manual transmission car, you'll notice that operating at higher rpms exponentially decreases mpg. A corvette with almost twice the power of a car like a Honda S2000 will actually get better gas mileage in any conditions where the drivers are using the full power of the vehicles (eg racing of course but even just driving them like sports cars are designed to be driven on mountain roads or whatever).