The fictitious one in his/her mind so that he/she could make an untrue jab at Apple

Not only that but Microsoft held a funeral for the iPhone when they launched the Windows Phone. Hubris?

I'd have to disagree with this. While the major components of a PC are no longer designed and built by the manufacturer (CPU, memory, drives), Apple does do more with hardware design than the next manufacturer. Sure in PCs, they don't design their own CPUs but they still design motherboards and the overall case. While the like of Dell and HP and Lenovo offer very bland models with little differences, Apple does make some interesting design choices in their computers.

For example, the Macbook Air is Apple's answer to the netbook. Instead of shrinking the whole laptop in all dimensions (and making it hard to type on), Apple went thin. Now that seems like there isn't much engineering but to make it thin, Apple did have to design motherboards much smaller, use customized Intel chips, use SSD instead of HDD in laptops years before it was the norm, remove many I/O plugs from the case. These were not without criticism but years later and after refinement, the MacBook Air is the direction almost all PC manufacturers are going with.

Another example is the MacPro. The newest version is dramatically different than other workstations. First of all, it's not boxy. There's little expansion. It uses PCIe SSD drives. Cooling wise everything does up instead of through and the main components are separated on 3 different boards instead one motherboard.

Controlling the software does make Apple better at integration but Apple does make an attempt at hardware differentiation.

And the yearly stacked ranking and purging wasn't enough? MS problem was that they were in the 90s mindset where they could buy themselves into new areas by buying companies. They got good people but the problem was they didn't know what to do with those companies.

MS didn't get all the IP. Nokia kept most of it which makes the original deal more unsound. MS got the business while Nokia kept the patents.

The acquisition never made sense because Microsoft's experience at computer hardware was abysmal. Sure their peripherals were decent but when they tried to make something more complicated like an Xbox 360, they had to write off billions in defects. Also MS made their money on software licensing. Apple at least made computers before they went into the mobile device market.

Apparently Elop is also out as part of the layoffs. Most likely he'll get a big payout for his part.

Again I said better quality cables. In your own example, thicker gauge speaker cables will work better than thinner, cheaper speaker cables. But you will pay a little extra for it.

So you like having exposed wiring? Some people prefer not to have that.

Again, I explicitly said better quality and specifically not Monster.

Er, if you are making cables for Apple Devices, "Made for iDevice" is the standard. Not to say that you can't get good cables that are not certified. Some digital cable standards are controlled by private companies.

Sound better is subjective. For analog cables, better quality cables help with noise and distortion. Note that I said "better quality" and not exclusively Monster cables. You can pay a little bit more for higher quality cables that have better shielding and better contacts and not pay the obscene Monster prices. In the long run the better cables will last longer.

You do understand space is very cold right? Melting isn't the problem unless you don't understand how RTG works or are built.

I'm not sure why heat would be an issue. I would think you want hear to keep the electronics from freezing in deep space.

That's not the issue at hand. The opposition is not to the satellites. The opposition is to making the fuel that the satellites use. One of the former methods was to obtain them as by-products of making weapons grade nuclear weapons. I'm not a nuclear expert but it seems that unless someone came up with a way to make the satellite fuel without making the other products, there will be less and less fuel for use in the future.