The real issue is that those who believe in a God that watches over them also tend to feel that their lives are being guided, and they PREFER to feel that someone is guiding/controlling/watching over them. Now, a big part of depression comes from feeling powerless about your situation in life, so from that point of view, feeling like SOMETHING is looking out for you is a positive thing, no matter what or who it may be. The solution to treating depression then, is to provide a system(can be peer based, not government) where people who are depressed have others who may be able to help them, or watch out for them to give support. What has happened with modern society is that there is a notable lack of community in most places, and that lack of community leads to depression, and a feeling of isolation. Picture if you had no friends living near you, and the only thing you do is go to a bar and drink by yourself, where you see others who have connections or are making connections. Do that for years, and depression is sure to set in. Neighbors would help, but if society makes it so people are not interested in being connected to your neighbors, that leads to depression.

A fab isn't just some generic piece of equipment, and getting beyond 32nm has proven difficult for most companies. If it were so easy, then AMD would have 22nm processors currently and wouldn't be having nearly as many problems competing in the CPU space. There is also expertise that is required beyond the basic equipment.

When Apple has not really brought anything NEW to the table in years, and instead has just done a copy of what others have invented, it becomes clear that people are not copying APPLE, but instead can be copying from the same inspiration that Apple used. For example, NFC is available on multiple Android devices, but it is NOT a new idea. Apple looks at this, comes up with its own modified implementation, and then claims it invented the idea of NFC, rather than their own implementation of the idea. Invention then becomes a new implementation of an existing idea to Apple, while for others, it is working on new concepts that really are new and innovative.

Larger screens and higher resolutions for screens, smaller, lighter, thinner implementations of the same thing...those are not INVENTIONS, and should be seen as naturally evolving things. Individual solutions in the form of copyright can make sense, since even if a concept is known, there is a lot of work that goes into figuring out how to implement that concept, and THAT should not automatically be open for others to duplicate. Without the concept of copyright, there is nothing that would prevent AMD from just looking at the exact designs that Intel is using in chips and then implementing them in its own chips.

This also brings into question the idea of special pricing based on market being what is at fault. Why should the exact same product that is being sold for a low price in China sell for more in the USA, except for the cost of shipping, import tariffs, and taxes? From that point of view then, if you buy a product outside of the USA and then sell it here, the seller should be expected to pay all of the associated fees, and that would generally eliminate any benefit for selling the product cheap(because you give up your profits and then some).

The problem is that pretty much every product these days uses computer chips or various sorts, which WILL have all sorts of copyrights, patents, and such. Since many chips are made outside the USA, that DOES mean that just about everything has at least one element that comes from a foreign country.

There are many places where new highways/freeways are needed, and many places where expanding on existing roads makes more sense. To say that because YOU live in a place where there is no need for a new highway that it isn't a good idea to build new ones just shows the limitations in understanding that so many people have.

One thing that adds to costs of goods is the cost of shipping. If you have a very rural area that has small roads with only one lane in each direction, that means that transportation of goods will slow down, and that increases costs. The whole Interstate system in the USA was introduced to help deal with that issue, but there are still MANY places that have a horrible road system. There are also areas where you can NOT widen the existing highways due to limited space, or where it would help, but not do enough in the long run.

On the flip side, many people do not know what it is like to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and where you need to drive 30-45 minutes just to get to the nearest highway. If you did, then the idea that a new highway that connected your town to the rest of the world would be a really big positive, and would open the doors for more businesses to move into the area, which means more jobs. Adding highways to an area that already has one or more highways just does not sound like it would help, though it CAN.

The big thing is that people should not assume that their own personal experiences apply to EVERYWHERE. People in the Northeast USA really have very little comprehension of what life would be like in a small town in Kentucky for example, because it is going to be VERY different. Then again, most people have a problem with thinking outside the box, or assuming that knowledge of EVERYTHING around you will prepare you for anything that might happen. Isaac Asimov understood this very well, and reading the Foundation series(both the original trilogy as well as following books) will illustrate that idea. The more you think you understand everything, the less prepared you are for the unexpected.

Considering the piss-poor quality of Intel based machines in the $500 and under range, and when AMD based machines do tend to have higher quality components in that range, you could compare buying an Intel based machine like putting a Ferrari engine into a Yugo. Yea, it may be faster, but the overall experience of owning it will be shorter and more prone to failure. Obviously, going to a higher end Intel machine would result in a better experience, but at the low end, Intel based machines have a much higher failure rate across all brands compared to AMD.

In this day and age, CPU performance means less and overall performance is the thing people look for. A quad-core 1.5GHz is easily enough for your average home user for day to day, and at that point, GPU power for things like full-screen youtube or Netflix videos becomes a bit more of a concern. We WILL have to wait and see what the performance numbers come in at, but a 10% bump in CPU performance is expected over the last generation from AMD.

What, Creative Labs can't release a decent driver for a new version of Windows? There is NOTHING new there since they couldn't come up with a decent driver for Windows XP for the SB Live cards, and actually drove me and many others away. Creative has NEVER been good about drivers.

There are a number of things in Windows 8 that look like they WILL be a big improvement, but it will take some time to get used to the changes. If you think about it, we have had "explorer" since 1995, so for most people, a "start" button is very natural and anything different would take time to get used to. With that said, many people are really resisting the change in the UI, to the point where they are looking for excuses to NOT make the switch. Yes, Windows 7 is the best version of Windows to date, and we CAN expect a number of annoying issues with Windows 8 due to the number of changes to "how you use the computer". I suspect we will see most of those issues fixed with service pack 1. The problem is that the longer you avoid the upgrade to Windows 8, the more difficult it will be to adapt and accept the changes.

There really is an almost instinctive fear in humans of change. Moving is considered a traumatic experience...for those who have not moved very often. New jobs involve change, etc. So, embrace change, and adapt. Those who can not adapt will eventually die as others who can adapt will move forward more quickly. It is all just a part of being human.

You can wait, but I STRONGLY suggest doing a multi-boot at least so you can get used to the changes in Windows 8, because it will only continue to evolve, and hanging back will only cause YOU more grief in the long run. Again, expect issues, but the original Windows 95 wasn't perfect either.

Apple has one thing going for it, very few models with fairly little variation between models. This means that the OS can be EASILY updated for every iOS device without a ton of effort. With Android, there are a ton of different hardware combinations from many different vendors, and to offer an OS update, you need DRIVERS that will work on each model. This is also why you have driver issues with each architecture change in Windows, because getting hardware vendors to get good drivers out requires EFFORT.

Now, considering that fairly few devices have come with Jelly Bean on them, it makes sense that the adoption rate would be low. Device drivers seem to have come out, and device makers have been working to certify that JB works PROPERLY on existing devices before doing the release.

Market cap means NOTHING. You could have a 5 employee company with 10 trillion shares going for $1 each and end up as the largest publicly traded company in the world, but it doesn't mean the company is big or even matters in the grand scheme of things. How many employees, what is the gross and net profit and so on is what is really important, and Apple is NOT in the lead in that regard.

If you look at any digital camera that has a flash that only goes off when it is "dark enough", doesn't that preclude this Apple patent since device settings change based on the amount of light in the room? My Palm Pre Plus has it in the camera app, and prior art should be found in most digital cameras at this point. Ford Sync has settings on adaptive audio based on speed, which could also feed into the arguments about "we know about the environment, so adjust settings accordingly".

Piledriver in October of 2012 should answer your question about performance, so you won't need to wait for next year. 8 cores at 4GHz without the scheduler problems SHOULD beat the Phenom 2 generation, but we have another 1-2 months before we know for sure what the performance will be. Socket AM3+ does mean that DDR2 will finally be fading away, so many of us with older systems WILL need all new motherboards and memory on those older machines that didn't get updated yet.

Piledriver(not in an APU) comes out in October of THIS year(2012) with the 8350 set to be released at 4GHz and a turbo mode to 4.2GHz speed without overclocking. Steamroller will be the next step after Piledriver for next year. It is almost a given that improvements to performance per watt will happen every YEAR, so what comes out in a 125 watt max this year will be a 90 watt chip next year for the same performance, possibly even going below that level depending on improvements in the process technology.

The big questions will be in overall performance improvements, such as moving from modules(with shared resources between two cores) to each core getting its own resources. Fab process advances outside of Intel will be a key for that, since a Piledriver design on a 22nm fab process would be a huge improvement in size and power which could also allow for larger cache sizes, which would help with overall performance.

You know the Intel tick-tock strategy, fab process one year, core design improvements the next, back and forth. AMD has been limited in not getting those fab process improvements to allow for better speeds and to allow for design improvements that would require more transistors to make work.