Specifically if I invest money in a corporation with certain rights, I have the right to expect to see those rights not tampered with.
Nonsense. Laws are changed all the time. There's no constitutional guarantee to any of those rights, and many of them are based on deliberate misinterpretation of existing laws in any case.
get a better job
Is your company hiring?
Thinkpads used to have titanium frames, but those were internal and I don't think they were one-piece.
I thought they were magnesium.
Is there any reason to believe that you won't be able to find room inside the case to add the functionality, at least to run a cable?
I think you have no idea what you are talking about. Drilling one hole with a laser isn't too hard. Drilling millions of holes with tight tolerances with near perfect repeatability IS as difficult as "rocket science". (as if that is some sort of valid comparison...) That's exactly what make manufacturing hard.
No, he's right. The benefit of laser cutting is that it is predictable and repeatable. It's far easier to laser-cut millions of holes with tight tolerances with near perfect repeatability with a laser cutter than it is to do it with a mill, provided that the surface being cut lends itself to laser cutting. The problem of positioning the laser is no more complex than the problem of positioning the part on a mill (arguably, it is less so) while milling the holes adds a significant number of additional complexities which are not present in a laser cutting system. That's why laser cutting has become so popular, to say nothing of its ability to handle materials which cannot practically be machined. Then again, laser cutting a fat billet isn't really practical either, so clearly both approaches have their benefits. I imagine that's why both approaches are used by Apple on the same hardware.
Maybe you define yourself in terms of how others view you; I don't.
Nonsense. A percentage of everyone's behavior is defined by their reactions to how they are treated. If this weren't true for you, you wouldn't have even felt a need to leave the above comment. QED.
Outsource to a big company like Foxconn or Solectron that has already invested in all the expensive equipment and processes (in both cases, some of it actually paid for by Apple), and have them do your manufacturing for you.
The problem with that notion is that you can and will be pushed aside if Apple wants to do a bunch of manufacturing right now. You are last in line for the big guys. You need to be matched with the appropriate manufacturer.
I wonder if some kind of fair trade system could be developed for electronics, just like we have for food products?
The simplest fix is to charge a tariff to offset the benefits of cheap labor. Then you get money and eliminate the benefits of slavery, without actually outlawing trade. In order to prove that you're unfairly assessing these tariffs, they have to prove that they're not oppressing their people, so the process drives transparency.
It won't fix the low value of human life in China overnight, but it will apply pressure in the correct direction. Sadly, it's not even on the radar.
Until you get really sick or run off to Argentina with Miffy, and then the remaining staff hasn't a clue about how to run or fix all the custom contraptions.
The complexity of equipment we're talking about here is nothing like software development. You do realize that even machine tools only have a handful of moving parts, right? Tools which hold animals (or cut, smash, or otherwise affect them) can be apprehended simply by dissasembling them. Then you measure some distances center to center, and maybe the bore and stroke of some cylinders, and do some simple math (as in, even I can do it, and I have issues with numbers) and et voila, you know how it works. Especially if they have more than one of them, and replacement parts can be copied from another machine. Farm equipment is regularly repaired by people who don't have a manual.
Because in order for me to give a shit, I have to be able to afford it. Otherwise, I really don't care. I can, however, muster enthusiasm for open-source cameras with the quality of video provided by an expensive DSLR, but cheaper, and still able to use their lenses. If someone can point me to something like that, I'll be excited.
However unless you forgo ALL the tax claw backs you are eligible for, it is questionable if you have a right to criticise Google.
Great. Let's answer that question. The answer is yes, yes you do. A person is not the same thing as a corporation. For one thing, a person is real, and a corporation is a legal fiction which was created by government and which does not exist without its protection. Government is meant to serve the citizenry (hahaha) and corporations thus must also serve the citizenry (HAHAHA) or they should not be permitted to exist. Indeed, one of the tests for granting of a corporate charter used to be public interest, but now it's simply shareholder interest.
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know.
