Seriously, what the fuck will it take to get a high-level executive of one of these companies to see the inside of a jail cell for an extended period of time?

To be fair, I didn't post backup to my statement either. I never took a copy of the Apple internal knowledge base pages to post, I'm afraid.

Yes, now you can. Again thank your Attorneys General and the E.U. for that.

Disclosure: I used to work for Apple in their Customer Relations Department.

You are correct that the perceived quality of Apple products is just the same Chinese manufactured products in a flashy shell with really good advertising. I know they've been doing this since the return of Steve Jobs to apple and the candy colored iMacs. I can't speak about before that time. How they managed to create the perception of superior quality products while using the same cut-rate manufacturers used by Dell while at the same time instituting Apple's infamous "No Return" policy is baffling to me. You couldn't even return same day D.O.A. (Dead on Arrival) equipment to the store you bought it from. You had to take it in for repair. Add this with the debacle of the Power Mac G4 Cube which had over a 33% D.O.A. rate that Apple was denying and their success can't be explained by anything short of Jobs making a deal with the devil. It's that illogical. Needless to say that it was not a fun time to work for Apple Customer Relations.

Their policies have improved some, mostly due to the work of the Attorneys General of several states and the European Union but, they still use the same manufacturing facility that all the other electronic companies use (Foxconn). So all they still do is put it in a pretty package and charge more for it. Yet, people still fall for it in droves. *sigh* I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

A few rare people can achieve a REM-like state while awake. I am one of them. In my case, I learned to do it due to having a lifelong hereditary sleep disorder. Going without sleep for up to five days is a common occurrence. I enter a trance state and begin to dream. I have more control over these dreams than during normal sleep but, I am mostly unaware of my environment though it is not hard to snap me out of it. I'm aware enough that if my name is called or someone touches me, I come out of it. On rare occasions, the dream state does not end right away and I have both stimuli at the same time. It is awkward but, navigateable. The state give me most of but, not all of the benefits of real sleep. My mind responds as if rested, it stops dulusions that occur because of sleep loss and the general mental slowdown that naturally occurs. What it doesn't do is some of the more complex physical cleaning that the body does when you sleep such as clearing substance P from your pain receptors. As I have fibromyalgia, this last point is very relevant.

Posting to erase moderation mistake.

You forgot the <Sarcasm> tag.

If you're legitimately worried about crime, you look up crime statistics not apps relaying people's "opinions" on crime in neighborhoods. Statistics may not always be fair but, at least they're mostly impartial.

I'm not old enough to have been there but, a friend of mine that was part of the protests in the 1960s. One of the things he mentioned that caught my attention was that in the late 60s there wasn't 'the Women's rights protesters' and 'the black protesters', etc. The groups supported and worked with one another to achieve their goals. Then, new people started joining their groups. He stated that they stood out as they always had their dues ready on time and always in exact change. And once they came in, they started infighting between the groups that eventually led to the groups separating. At the time he believed these were government agents and in the last couple decades evidence has come out the the FBI was involved in counter-intelligence operations against protesters during that era.

If this is all true than this is just the next stage against freedom of expression in this country. :-(

It already happened for Occupy Wall Street. I find it extremely unlikely that it isn't being used against other forms of political dissent as well. They're just being more subtle about it... for now.

Jamie Dimon paid his bribes *ahem* ... I mean donations to the powers that be (both democrats and republicans) and Kim Dotcom's enemies did the same. What's the confusion?

Big corporate CEO says open source projects are only for geeks, children and people who can't afford it. News at 11.

I'm pretty sure that CEOs have been feed this so much by their marketing executives whose paychecks are on the line that they truly believe it. It just makes it so much more fun when they file bankruptcy or get bought out and the new company cans them without their golden parachutes.

Prepaid debit cards.

No

That describes 90% of all U.S. (and I suspect the world's) drivers.