Companies are allowed to value donations are fair market value for tax purposes.

Regulations 1.170A-1(c)(2) and (3) states:
"The fair market value is the price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or sell and both having reasonable knowledge of the relevant facts. If the contribution is made in property of a type which the taxpayer sells in the course of his business, the fair market value is the price which the taxpayer would have received if he had sold the contributed property and, in the case of a contribution of goods in quantity, in the quantity contributed. The usual market of a manufacturer or other producer consists of the wholesalers or other distributors to or through whom he customarily sells, but if he sells only at retail, the usual market consists of his retail customers."
Source: http://www.nchv.org/images/upl...

It should be possible for Apple to actually make money from these donations.

In 2013, IHS estimateed Apple's costs to produce an iPad were between $274 and $361. Current retail price on an iPad Air w/ cellular is $829. Add in high-margin accessories and software, and it is quite possible that Apple could write-off a donation of around $1000 per device against $350 in cost. This $650 reduction in taxable income could save Apple about $227.50 in taxes... if they actually paid a typical 35% corporate tax rate.

This is on the heels of the City Council in Lexington, KY voting recently to oppose the Comcast/Time Warner merger.

Story on Ars: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/10/kentucky-city-threatens-to-block-comcasttime-warner-cable-merger/

Perhaps there is a way to find ideas for this on the interwebs?
Ah yes! https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=information+technology+conference

Is stupidity common? Yes. Yes it is.

In my experience, the stupid people tend to get fired eventually. But the mess they leave behind can be tremendous.

My point is not that you should never automate things. Rather, when you automate things, you should make sure your managers know (1) that you were smart enough to improve processes and are therefore valuable to future projects and (2) that the things you automate could one day break (process changes, etc.).

At very least, the poster should be able to articulate a better reason for automation than "I wanted to sleep in".

By proving that your job can be largely automated, you are eroding the reasons to keep you employed.

Sure, we all know it's a bad idea to set things on autopilot because eventually something will break badly. But do your managers know that?

Limiting the supply will just push up the black market price. Oculus just gave a boon to the first-mover scalpers.

The markup in Beats puts iHome to shame.

Beats takes analog audio hardware that hasn't changed since the 70s, sprinkles fairy design dust on it, and sells it for big money. What better model for Apple's transistor & software business?

The design of TCP is such that the way you throttle a connection is to drop packets. Therefore, isn't throttling just a measured block?

Other than the sentimentality, what are the real benefit of bringing ISEE-3 home? If the benefit is the data, what is the evidence that the "data that ISEE-3 could generate would have real value"? If the benefit is educational, which institutions have committed to taking part?

...US tech firms blame Snowden for failing confidence in the safety of using US tech companies: The 'Snowden Effect' Is Crushing US Tech Firms In China

Pot, meet Kettle.

Bullshit. This wasn't a business decision about improving service. This was extortion. Comcast got all the upside (gained revenue from Netflix, plus reduced peering traffic) and Netflix almost broke even (loses payments to Comcast, saves on hosting costs elsewhere).

Customers pay Comcast to be connected to the internet at a given speed. They deserve to get the speed they pay for, regardless of where the traffic comes from.

What we need is IT unions IN OTHER COUNTRIES.

It would raise prices abroad, and narrow the disparity in standard of living (thereby eroding one of the main reasons H1B applicants want to come to the US).

Satellite brings broadband everywhere.

Many prividers:
http://www.hughesnet.com/
http://www.exede.com/
http://www.wildblue.com/