Your claims that Jobs followed Dell's advice is the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard. Not only is the logic twisted and distorted, but what you stated as facts are actally all wrong.

Firstly, Apple did not abandon its personal computer business, and Macintosh computers remains an important part of Apple's business. While you claim that Apple was clearly losing in the computer business, the fact was that after Jobs's return, he was able to make the Macintosh business profitable. In fact, Apple's profit margin on Macs sales alone is much higher than those of makers of windows boxes.

More importantly, Apple did not pull R&D effort away from computers. Here, your claims that Jobs shit-canned his own operating system is not only factually wrong, but reveals that you know very little about Apple's history. At that time, the operating system used by Macs, known as Macs OS 9, is the one that everyone know was obsolete. The new operating system to replace it, Macs OS X, is based on the operating system developed by the NeXT computer company, which is founded and owned by Jobs. In fact, Apple purchased the NeXT computer company from Jobs in order to get its operating system. Since then, Apple continued to make significant R&D investments in Macs OS X. If simply grabbing FreeBSD, Konqueror and Cups would allow one to make a decent desktop computer experience, then Linux or FreeBSD should have a higher market share of desktop operating system than Macs OS X.

And by calling the shift of focus to iPad/iPhones as "moving to gadgets", you have failed to realize that these gadgets are actually computers themselves, although in a form factor different from the traditional desktop. What most people used to do using a desktop computer, can now be done using an iPhone without having to sit by a desk. The operating system of iPhones is an adaption of Macs OS X, which is the technical foundation which enable an iPhone to do the same things that were used to be done by desktop computer. To say that Apple's computer line has failed and need to be killed off is like saying that Intel microprocessor business has failed and need to be killed off because the old Pentium 4 CPU are obsolete, while in fact Intel is making heaps of profits producing newer core i3/i5/i7 CPU.

This blogger has a very narrow point of view, seeing only the technology issues, but failed to take into account the social and moral issues. As stated in the summary, from a purely technological standpoint, giving the information to a court or giving the information to a drug cartel may be the same. However, motivation and other social issues often play a key role in determining whether something is good or not. For example, from a purely technogloical standpoint, an explosive detonating in an underground tunnel may be the same as an explosive detonating in an underground railways. The chemistry and physics are the same. However, if it is known that in the former the explosion is for the purpose of mining of materials, while in the latter the explosion is a terrorist act designed to cause harm and injuries, then the two explosions are completely different. In order to make a sound judgment of whether something is good or bad, it is not enough to consider only the technological issues, but factors like motivation must also be given important consideration.

People use computer networks for many different purposes, and decentralized network is not necessary always better. The fact that mainframe computers are still used by many enterprises and show no sign of declining suggests that some tasks are better done in a centralized environment. Replacing a mainframe computer with multiple computers spaced many miles apart may not be necessary cost effective or even practical. "Local is better" may make a nice theory, but blindly claiming that a theory is a cure-all solution for all problems without checking that the prerequisite conditions has been met, could result in wastes and failures.

There is no evidence that Linus Torvalds is responsible for any bad decisions or mistakes made by Nokia. If you have any information that can support your speculation in your previous comments, please post them. I have read the theregister.co.uk article you linked, the only thing it said about Linus Torvalds was that he convinced Nokia to create a Linux unit. The article never said he advised Nokia to go for WiMAX or partner with Intel. Many other companies have successes in adopting Linux in their products or technology. In fact, company like Google are able to make good use of Linux in their development of Android, and Android become highly successful. The failures faced by Nokia are squarely Nokia's own responsibility, and Nokia's own poor executions are to be blamed. It is crazy to try to blame Linux or Linus Torvalds for mistakes made by Nokia itself.

In this post you are suggesting that the postal service is a monopoly, but in another post you say Fedex and UPS compete for your business. This is a contradiction. The fact that you can choose other carriers such Fedex or USP shows that the postal service is not a monopoly.

It should be pointed out that private business can also becomes monopoly. In some political circle's rush to dismantle what they viewed as government granted monopoly, they inadvertently helped to create private monopoly.

There seems to be some ambiguity as to whether you believe both private citizen and the government should have nuclear weapons, or both private citizen and the government should not have nuclear weapons. If the former, then instead of hearing news about shooting like the Aurora, Colorado one that killed dozens of people, news of nuclear detonations that kills millions of people would be heard occassionally from time to time. It does not take a genius to figure out that if a single person or a small group of people can control a piece of nuclear bomb, it is unavoidable that eventually one or more crackpots would be willing to press the button to detonate it. There is no lack of terrorists in this world who are willing to commit suicide in order to cause great harms to their "enemy". If the latter, you seems to not know that in addition to the government in United States, there are actually many other governments in the world. Once the USA government get rid of its nuclear weapons, governments in other countries who have nuclear weapons would have their power and influence over the rest of the world, including USA, greatly enhanced. However, you can be assured that there would be no immeidate danger of any foreign country invading USA. Astute statemen like Vladimir Putin make calculation rationally. They would first use their countries' nuclear advantage to obtain economics and political concessions first. Only when their opponent is sufficiently weakened, then they will consider the use of military force to achieve their objectives, when the cost to them is minimal.

While the police may be stupid to use ambulance as transport vehicle, it is not appropriate to compare this situation to that of a war zone. In a war zone, everyone is shooting at the others. Not shooting red cross is an humanitian exception. However, in a civilian settings, no one has the right to shoot at any passing vehicle, regardless of whether the vechicle is a police car or an ambulance, unless people inside the vehicle shoot first. It is important to point out that these people who shot at ambulance are not soldiers who are doing their duty, but criminals who use violence for their own benefits.

This story tells an important reason why the police want to form more SWAT. Who are these people shooting police cars from the houses, and why they are doing the shooting? Unless the police in the cars are shooting at the houses, no one has a right to shoot at the police cars. In all likelihood, the ones doing the shooting are violent criminals, and it is therefore no surprise that the police feel the need to concentrate their force into SWAT.

Your story about the ambulance being shot is even more illustrating. While it may well be stupid for the police to use ambulance as transport vechicle, no one has the rights to shoot at the ambulance. No matter whether it is the terrorists or police being inside the ambulance, the ambulance should not be shot unless the people inside the ambulance shoot first. If these people feel free to shoot at police cars or ambulance passing through the road, do you think they will sit calmly when the police come to arrest them?

An earlier post in slashdot said Microsoft has 1 million servers. Therefore, Microsoft could put these unsold Surface tablets into good use by converting them to servers. Instantly increase the number of servers by 600%. :)

You misunderstand what Streisand effect is. No one is trying to delete or remove the report published by ABI Research. If you want to know what Streisand effect really means, a quick trip to wikipedia would show you the common usage of this term. Discussing the merits or shortcomings of such reports is something anyone with a brain would like to do. Only those ignorant or lazy would blindly accept everything they read without questions. Your attempt to defend Intel from accusation of cheating using compiler is misleading. You keep saying that if ARM engineers are good at making compiler, programs would run faster in ARM CPU than in Intel CPU. However, whether ARM engineers are good or bad at making compiler is completely irrelevant to the quesition whether Intel is cheating or not. Appying your way of thinking to the case of a sports race, when one of the athletes in a race is suspected of cheating, your answer would be that the other athletes should run faster than the suspected cheater if they are good athletes. This is ridiculous. Unless you believe cheating is good, as some marketroids do, those who cheats should be exposed and shamed in the public. To find out if cheating has occured or not, the only valid method is to do a technical analysis of the output of the compiler and the benchmark programs, which is what some other analysts are doing. In case you haven't heard it before, there is a well known saying, âoeWhen you point your finger at someone, three are pointing back at youâ. By calling people who supports ARM CPU as "ARM jihadists", you have revealed your bias and prejudice, and it is now reasonable to believe that you are yourself an "Intel jihadists".

Everything in slashdot is unsourced anecdote. If you only read something if it has clear citations, you should read only wikipedia. :)

Without more information about the real cause of the problem, it is too early to declare that it is "not an indicator of a failure of free market". Just because something appears to be working right now does not imply that it is optimal or near optimal. Otherwise, in 2008 before the subprime crisis exploded, someone could say that the banking industry is "near optimal from a cost/benefit viewpoint". Especially for a geek, one should always research and study the possibilities for improvement. Otherwise, it is just blind faith in the current system.

It is too early to tell if Snowden is a hero or not. While it is true that he is willing to give up personal comfort and riches in order to do something he deems important, so do Osama Bin Laden and his followers. Bin Laden and his followers are even willing to commit suicides in order to achieve their aims, and in their way of thinking, they may even believe they are fighting for the freedom and welfare of their fellow Muslims. To qualify as a hero, it is also necessary to ascertain that the benefits of his action significant outweigh the damages caused. The debate about this would certainly continue for quite a while.

 

Does anyone notice the name of this poster? According to wikipedia, "Spies" most commonly refers to people who engage in spying, espionage or clandestine operations. And someone claiming to be the CTO of a company providing Email Encryption Gateway has the name "Spies". If this is not a joke, the irony is incredible.

If you truly believe that a race to the bottom is a good thing, you should start drinking baby milk produced in China. The melamine enriched milk is a shining example of products of a race to the bottom.

This is the reason why a certain level of regulation must be enforced by the government. And, no, the purpose of a government is not to collect millions of tax or to ensure hefty profit for a few corporations, but to help to protect the well-being of its citizens.