Apple is unique, in that they really could buy damn near anything they wanted with pocket change. Most companies would take out a loan to purchase something worth tens of billions, but Apple could do it without putting much of a dent in their cash reserves. According to Wikipedia, in 04, $30-$40 billion in music was sold. So yeah, they are making billions and billions. And yes, Apple could buy them without much thought.

Clearly you don't understand the financial markets. The overwhelming majority of things that impact stock values and market prices are not present/actual happenings, but concerns over potential happenings. US President dies? VP might start a war over it, or change economic policies. Leader of middle eastern country gets the flu? Oil supplies might get disrupted by his successor.

A lot of basic policies didn't change between Obama and Bush (sadly), but the president represents the public face and voice of the country moreso than anyone else can. Obama is way more eloquent, patient, and understanding than Bush was, so the overall view of the US has improved from then--it's no longer quite so dangerous for a US citizen to travel to Europe or Asia and admit to being an American. Would Biden do as well as Obama has with this? Probably not. So it does affect more than just the people in his immediate family.

As long as it ships with 4.x, it is not tough to move up. 4.0 was a nearly complete re-write of major parts of the OS from 2.3/3.0. CyanogenMod took nearly a year to get 4.0 done, and now has nearly complete versions of 4.1 going.

Correct - they wouldn't get close enough to score a hit on the carrier with any of those weapons.

How is it being a hypocrite? OS X is only available (legally) on a small set of hardware. Windows is available on anything x86, and just works. Linux is available on anything (x86 or otherwise, pretty much), yet does not just work. There really aren't that many companies that sell Linux systems and offer the same level of support on those as you get with Apple or Windows.

Obviously, a lot of people care about why - otherwise nobody would be posting comments here regarding Linux when the "story" wasn't even about Linux.

Name something Linux does that Windows doesn't. Or something that Linux does better than Windows.

Sure. See the fact that XP has only just now been surpassed by 7. Or try interacting with the average person who uses computers because they have to, not because they want to. If you believe I'm wrong, you're out of your mind.

Because they have no reason to. Seriously. Linux offers so little of value over Windows 7 to the average user that would justify dealing with a significant UI change and loss of support. The average user has had a hard enough time moving from XP to 7 (and these are honestly almost identical except for a couple of eye candy tweaks). The differences going over to any of the current Linux distros would be too much.

The argument that Linux could ever take off on the desktop is based on the idea that it's equally easy to use for a complete novice. Unless you regularly deal with people who are genuinely novices, you really don't understand just how much changing things scares them. The support infrastructure for Linux on the desktop is just plain awful compared to that of Windows--OEMs do not support it except under specific circumstances, and the average neighborhood computer geek is far less likely to know how to fix an issue with Linux than with Windows.

Converting to MacOS X happens because of marketing hype and chic factor, but at least there is a decent support infrastructure in place from Apple, and the platform is consistent and stable enough that most issues that arise can be fixed.

Windows "just works" on almost any hardware. MacOS X "just works" on Apple systems. Linux does not, unless you are willing to do some digging.

If "everybody copies", there is a good chance that the concept was "obvious to those skilled in the art", which is the other main reason to invalidate a patent.

Except that when it comes to servers, the differences are far fewer. Target just a few different variations of a Dell or HP motherboard, all with very similar architecture, and the potential for havoc is great.

Well then perhaps Apple should spend more of that massive amount of cash they have sitting around.

Nintendo is currently losing money, last quarterly result that I saw. The Wii also has not outsold the 360 for quite some time.

Nintendo would do better to give up on handheld hardware and focus on finding a good way of porting their franchises to Android/iOS instead. It's horribly impractical for most people to bring another device around with them besides their phone.

As opposed to continuing to burn fossil fuels which is actively trashing the planet right now? We've yet to come up with anything cleaner or safer than fission. Just like anything else in life, though, if you cut corners, there are risks. Do it right, and stop worrying about a fucking profit, and your grandkids (and mine) might just live to see their own grandkids grow up.

Scientists very rarely do any of the amazingly awesome stuff they do because they want tons of money. The people who fund the scientists only do so because they expect to make tons of money off of them. This is a very important distinction. Just like politics, if we remove money from the equation, a lot of good can happen. Medical and scientific progress shouldn't depend on the ability to turn a profit.