One should also take into account the useful life of the products they manufacture, with sealed-in batteries and throw-away design, along with their own marketing effort to out-fashion their own devices after only two years.

Using terajoules of the cleanest energy to produce stuff that will end up in the trash faster than you can say "planned obsolescence" is still waste.

I'll applaud when they reverse the flow and encourage people to keep their computers longer through cheap support plans and openness.

Isn't that what "LIVE FREE OR DIE" is about? We keep them as oversea slaves to fullfil our material desires, trampling our own principles of human integrity. A though choice, yes, but possibly one that would pay off in the long term.

Luke, Han, Lea, Gweedo, hell, they can bring back the goddamn Ewoks if they want, as long they keep George Lucas himself out of the crew, they'll be fine.

I haven't healed from Howard the Duck yet.

That's LOLCODE you insignificant cod.

Nothing that a shotgun can't fix. Yet.

Sorry Canuck, no hockey, no trades.

What is being monetized when publishing news is reputation. Anybody can report "facts" but will you trust them?

Quite right. They are threatening the french newspaper corporations, not the government. Maybe some of these companies are state-owned. Tough shit.

These guys became popular because they provided something GOOD AND CHEAP to the masses - light, cars, culture. They weren't elitists, not did they try to create new churches (well maybe Disney). Jobs legacy will not endure as well as Gates, for he was never one to compromise in order to touch everybody. He created his own bubble and died within it. Had he had the clout to push his excellent design antics along with a all-american bargain price, then maybe he would have changed the world in a durable fashion. He just changed computer's GUIs.

I've yet to adopt either platform (iPhone / Android), because both force me into a subscription model that sees me like I was a bovine to exploit. What I want is a small, open, mobile computer with enhanced wireless communication that empowers me more than it enslaves me. FirefoxOS and open WebOS would be quite welcome on that front, if they could get through the north american carrier's evil marketing departments.

Boo-hoo. Here, take these FULLY OPENED woodblocks on a skewer. They don't need drivers and you can do math-stuff with'em by moving the blocks around.

Installed industrial base and public perception are the main culprits, I guess.

The production, distribution and consumption chain is geared towards gasoline, making diesel a less safe option as you can't be sure you'll be able to refill at any station.

North Americans are also used to equate V6 and V8 with power (although this is changing with the latest small turbo-4s such as EcoBoost), where the car diesel engines are most often geared for economy rather than performance (unless you look at BMW *35d series).

How about chip fabbing? I'm sure the likes of Intel and TSMC are looking at this closely.