Consider a farmer with a couple hundred acres. Annual 'income' of $20,000, but on paper, a millionaire, because of the land.

That makes no sense at all. If his equity in the land is more than a million, then he *is* a millionaire. Being a millionaire doesn't mean he has a million dollars in cash laying around.

And if he is a millionaire, then busting his ass to make $20k doesn't make much sense either. Surely he could rent out that land for a lot more than that.

Talk about read-only code!

Hmmm. How would something like that get written?

Adding numbers with less and less energy means nothing in the physical world.

Boy is that wrong. It's extremely valuable and important.

The numbers quoted are what some analyst thinks that someone might theoretically pay.

There's nothing theoretical about it. They raised a bit over $500M in return for a bit over 20% of the company. 500M / 0.2 = $2.5B.
Like all companies, they are worth what someone is willing to pay.

you should write google a letter about this

I'm pretty sure the only emails Google doesn't read are the ones addressed to it.

What the fuck is this? Is it 1998 again?

You say that because using those marks is out of fashion, and so anyone using them looks out of date and out of touch.

*Everyone* is subject to fashion, even Slashdotters who live in the basement. It might be a different subset of fashion, but deep down it's the same thing.

The new MacBook's are less functional than the 2013 Macbook Airs.

They're not a replacement. The Airs got updated as well. They're a different product for different uses. Being less functional than a different product is not important. The new Macbook is not something I would buy, nor would it be suited for most Slashdotters. But that's not the point.

Can someone summarize what it's [sic] value was

Om Malik is a first-rate tech writer/reporter. Though I'm sure he'll land somewhere.

My house, on the other hand, I pay taxes for owning.

You're really just renting it from the government. Don't pay the rent and they'll kick you out, just like any renter. Except you paid a huge fee to be able to rent it. And when you're done with it you can't just leave, you have to find somebody else willing to pay a huge fee to take over the rent.

have used Macs since they existed, and I never once saw the Sad Mac

Boy I sure did. And it is a sad moment. I also once knocked the back end of the CRT while adding RAM to a "toaster" Mac, and the hissing sound of air rushing into it was a *really* saddening sound.