Easy: Let's say Dell sells 50 million machine a year, and they are using 100% Intel chips. AMD wants to supply some of their business, and makes a bid to sell Dell as many processors as they can make (let's say 20 million). Dell wants to take the deal, and buy the remaining 30 million processors from Intel, but Intel informs them that if they do any business with AMD, Intel no longer supply processors for them (or will supply them at a much higher price than previously). Dell, faced with the choice of losing a supplier they must have to be in business, makes the only logical choice and doesn't buy from AMD.

Except, of course, that nagging fact that Dell did decide to sell AMD processors and Intel continued to sell CPUs to Dell and provide volume rebates. Forced, eh?

What could possibly go wrong?

AMD was very open that they were capacity constrained during the time in question- they were selling everything that they could manage to manufacture. They made a few feeble attempts to increase their capacity, like the whole UMC debacle. But in the end, the limits on AMD's success were all self-imposed by crappy management. At its heart, the semiconductor industry is about manufacturing, and whoever can make the most chips with the highest yields will win. AMD still doesn't understand that.

Well that helps, but also due to the anti-competitive tactics that Intel used against AMD.

Fab capacity more than helps- its main factor in the success of a semiconductor company! AMD was self-admittedly fab constrained for the entire period when they had a performance advantage over Intel. They were selling every chip that they made! The limits on their success during this period had nothing to do with what Intel did or didn't do- AMD did as good as they could have given their anemic manufacturing capabilities.

You can't blame Intel for AMD's crappy manufacturing history. AMD made several very public missteps with regard to their Fabs, ranging from high profile delays in opening new Fabs to that whole UMC debacle (where Hector Ruiz proudly declared that AMD no longer had to build any Fabs anymore only to see the deal fall through a year later). You can't blame that on Intel.

The removal of QPI in favor of DMI (much slower but simpler/cheaper) is a *significant* difference.

Funny. QPI was not removed or replaced by DMI in any sense of the word. In fact, DMI has existed for at least the last 5 generations of chipsets from Intel. On last year's Nehalem release, QPI connected the CPU with their "IOH" called Tylersburg. Tylersburg was then connected to the ICH with DMI. It was a 3 chip solution. With Lynnfield, the CPU and IOH have been combined to a single chip. The QPI connection still exists, its just internal to the (now combined) chip. Almost everything that used to be north of DMI is still north of it (including PCIe graphics, memory, etc), and everything that used to be south of it is still south (like USB and SATA).

Actually, thats what I said, not the person you are responding to, and your bizarre counter-example doesn't make any sense (even in context).

I don't think it is corrupt for me to have the right to exercise some control over the works that I invest my resources in to create. This control doesn't even need to be to generate profits (look at the GPL, for instance, whose entire existence is based on the so-called "corrupt" concept of copyrights).

I do think it would be corrupt for somebody else to be able to take those works that I created and do whatever they want with them- even at my expense- with no recourse. But, oh, I forgot, information needs to be freeeeeeee, man!

No, copyright is not corruption. Like anything else, it is susceptible to corruption, but the concept itself is not corrupt. Instead, it is intended to limit truly corrupt practices, like attempting to unfairly profit from somebody else's hard work.

Except Humans have been around for much less than 30% of the earth's existence are are HIGHLY dependant on the current state of the earth's climate.

If there is one thing that we humans have demonstrated in our existence, it is that we are adapt to the constant changes to our environment. Do you really think that we would just sit in a paralyzed fear if the earth warmed to dangerous levels?

US manufacturing activity is now down to its lowest level since 1948. That's right, we've lost 60 years of growth.

Good grief. If people misunderstand basic economic indicators as badly as you have, it is no wonder that they are so pessimistic about the current economy.

I assume you are basing your comment on todays release of the Manufacturing Index by the Institute for Supply Management because of this statement in the release:

"New orders have contracted for 13 consecutive months, and are at the lowest level on record going back to January 1948."

That is the index for new orders- not the overall index for manufacturing. That overall manufacturing index is at 32.4%, which is a horribly low number, but not as bad as the recession in 1980. And none of these indexes describe an absolute level of manufacturing activity like you seem to think. The indexes are derived through surveying manufacturers and asking them if they expect to expand or contract their activity levels in the next quarter. An index of 32.4% means that almost one third of the manufacturers surveyed still expect to see some expansion. It has nothing to do with 60 years of growth.

I've learned to lower my expectations for honest reporting of the economy- especially when current political leaders are unpopular. Just this morning in the local news one of their headlines was that 1 in 5 local businesses were planning on laying off employees this year. The article was full of doom and gloom about unemployment and the economy, but buried at the very end they mentioned that "only" 16% of businesses planned to hire new employees during that same timeframe- almost the same % as were planning on laying off employees. Good grief.