The Lisa did.

However from what I've heard (I have no firsthand experience with the Lisa, unfortunately) it was designed to be very easy to open up and repair or upgrade.

Apple cares far more (as they should) for the people that buy their stuff new (and produce revenue for Apple) than they care for the economic well-being of secondary-market resellers. Which makes total business sense.

Since buyers can purchase from internet-based businesses with no fear via the mighty eBay/PayPal or Credit Card chargeback, the only resellers that will be hurt will be those that were moving stolen equipment and will have their product source dry up. (Or sketchy cash-only sellers on Craigslist... lets just say they weren't that trustworthy of a source to begin with.)

A drop in the bucket, considering Latin America is well over half a billion people in a vast, emerging market. Coke and other US companies make far more than a billion a year in this market alone. The aid you give does end up coming back to you in terms of new markets. As for latin politics, I don't think an American has any grounds from which to criticize. Democrat or Republican? American politics don't matter because the result is always the same. Spend spend spend. War war war. Bully bully bully.

They would not be missed. Because it also means we wouldn't have to "Americanize" our laws - especially IP laws (impossible to enforce). And drug laws (which are expensive/impossible to enforce). Aid from the US today is given with strings attached, because the American ego thinks that everyone needs fabulous relations with the US and is willing to bend over backwards. Aid from China is given as aid, in the hope that China will gain fair treatment at the border for the goods it sells. You know. Like countries used to be when they weren't so interested in violating the sovereignty of their neighbors.

No. Do the math. I've done the math.

It has to use the river to connect to the Caribbean. Also Nicaragua has been dredging this river recently (and dumping the waste mud on the Costa Rican side).

There are already ships far larger than Panamax in operation and docking at ports, they just have to take a different route if they want to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic (or vice-versa.)

If the canal wasn't there, the water would simply flow into the ocean naturally. Panama doesn't exactly need that water for irrigation (it's rains enough already), and bulk water transport is impractical, the only other use vs. letting it flow naturally would be a hydroelectric dam. But the canal is far more valuable to Panama than using that same water to generate electricity.

Saying the water is "wasted" is like saying that we should suck all the water out of the Mississippi and send it to dry parts of the US instead of letting it flow into the Gulf. (As a side-note, this is essentially what we do with the Colorado; while it's slightly better now, 20 or so years ago the mighty Colorado withered down to a muddy drainage ditch by the time us and Mexico were done with it.)

This is what I've been looking for! I was trying Feedly, but their interface isn't nearly as responsive or well-organized.

Vasectomy reversal is difficult, expensive, and only works about half the time. I think it's pretty clear that the summary was referring to something with reversibility as a design point, not a workaround...

Of course China is being strategic. I live in Costa Rica, where Xi Jinping just visited before going to the US, and right next to Nicaragua. China has been very generous to these small latin countries, donating stadiums, highways and bridges. Like the US used to do back in the bad old days. The US nowadays though only threatens. Threatens will sanctions, threatens with cutting aid programs, etc. Guess who is popular and who isn't in latin America now? China has pretty much bought Africa and S. America. I wonder where the US seeks to expand its economy in the future - oh yeah, they don't make anything anymore anyway.

Nearly any accident in a motorcycle involves you being thrown from it. A convertible is a car; the only accident where this would be an issue is a rollover, and due to their lower center of gravity, this is less likely than in a regular car. Convertibles also have roll bars and stiffer A-pillars to provide some protection.

Rubbish. Melting all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica would raise the global sea level a few inches at best. The sea level will change much more because of continental drift - but we won't be around to notice, since it will take thousands and even millions of years.

Costa Rica owns 1/2 of the San Juan river. Minor technical detail, since navigation on this river has been in dispute for at least 100 years between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Throwing a lucrative Chinese canal into the works will just make things more complicated, since Nicaragua does not have exclusive rights to the river they don't have the authority to make such a deal with China. Unless of course they build it entirely on the Nicaraguan half of the river.

If you paid 35K you are not rich, you are middle class. I paid a bit more than you, and am at the higher end of middle class. Taxes are absolutely unfair. Wealthy people pay 8-10% tax on average while you and I pay 35-40%.

Over 65,000 pages of tax code ensures that the elites do not pay their fair share. Any argument otherwise should be directed at the 65,000+ page tax code as proof of an unfair system. I'm sure some dip shit will claim "most of that 65,000 pages is dedicated to who pays taxes" at which I will laugh and tell the to actually read the codes instead of listening to the fantasized summary someone want's them to believe.

The original reasoning given under Reagan for creating such a disparate system is "Trickle Down" which has been proven to be a false theory for nearly 3 decades. It's continued under the fallacy argument that the economy will collapse if we had a fair tax for the elites. The fallacy can be dispelled by simply looking at the system working very well from the 40s through the early 80s where the elites paid a much higher percentage of income in tax. In the early 70s, it was nearly a 90% tax on millionaires and was that rate for half a century. The tax rates are public information, go learn something if you have doubts as to my statements.