Comment Re:The year of the Linux Tablet (Score 1) 487
doesn't pertain to anything about the question I was asking which was what metrics was the OP using to make the determination
Ok, so you harp about your "question". I was not replying to your question. You said "When exactly do you expect Apple to suddenly go into the red?", which aside from being a question, is a statement that the commenter expects Apple to suddenly go into the red now or in the future. (Read this for how it is wrong). Followed by straight statements, undisguised as questions, like "People like to say Apple is declining, but there really isn't any financial indication this is so".
So your post to which I originally replied did not come across as a question at all and was full of statements made in the forms of explicit statements or questions.
In short, no, you cannot pretend you were asking a question.
What does arbitrarily multiplying things by -1 prove exactly?
Already explained. "Proof that unqualified downward slide need not mean financial woes, or any woes in general. "
Then the qualifier to your statement must be 'downward can never apply to all aspects (of Apple)?
First off this could be false and so your statement has a fallacy.
No. Profit and loss are definitely aspects of (slides of) Apple. If downward slide is of profits, it is by definition, an upward slide of losses. Losses could be negative in a particular instance, but unquestionably, slides of profits and losses must be in the opposite directions. Hence all aspects, which include both profit and loss, cannot have a downward slide. QED.
Second, my question never involved all aspects of Apple, but was a simply question of what metrics led the OP to make the statement Apple is on downhill slide.
I replied to your statements that the downward slide must mean financial woes as explained above - e.g. asking when the commenter expects Apple to post losses.
How more wide open can a question be than what metrics are you using to come to the conclusion you have stated?
If you actually just asked a question to the commenter, you would have let the question remain wide open, but you are not correct in retrospective conversion of your own post as a question.