There are plenty of things in science that are not predictable. Look at the realm of chaos theory. Just because you can't predict it doesn't make it "not science". There are plenty of ways to determine that evolution is correct. You don't have to be present for the entirety of 5 billion years to witness every change from amoeba to human to know that is how we are here today. It's not just circumstantial.

What if they are invisible elves that are magically capable of keeping themselves from being un-detected?

SSD will probably completely replace regular drives at the consumer level in about 5 years. Though external backup systems for the consumer market will probably still use regular drives for 5-8 years. Memristors, mram, etc have been touted as the Next Big Thing for years now and nothing has come up yet.

And he responds "I buy them on sale and sell them on ebay. I then pocket the difference"

So if I make a leather bound bible with gilt edges, I shouldn't be allowed to charge for that? The costs hard quite a bit higher than other bibles. Besides, if you want a free bible, call up the Gideon's. I'm sure they will be more than happy to hook you up.

I think you mean G8 :)

I can guarantee that Ubuntu will NOT work 100% on every hardware configuration. Good luck getting certain graphics cards to work, fully accelerated. That is the issue with phones. Yes, Android will run on the phones. The trick is that there are proprietary HW drivers that are needed to make the phone work properly. Guess who has the drivers? The manufacturers. Guess who doesn't want to release the drivers? The manufacturers.

Umm....you just outlined the Nexus program in a nutshell. By providing stock systems, it allows for phones to be more easily updated by El Goog themselves....but you still need the manufacturers to provide the drivers for the phones.

True, but they were also selling the phone for $599. IF (BIG IF), they can sell the device for $399, then they probably can get more takers.

Not at this size they wont. More like Embraer and Bombardier will get more customers

I don't know if that'll work. If you take a look at the similarly aimed "WAR ON DRUGS", targeting users instead of dealers has been a resounding success!