If you are asking questions like that to your iPhone/Siri you are questioning your faith.
Can't have that.

Thank you, I will hold off from upgrading to Windows 3.11 for now.

And the best part is that all the elevators and boilers will be reconfigured back to normal the next day and the world keeps on spinning like nothing happened.

This has been done before... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087622/

Oh come on, not all sequels are as bad as the original.
After its disastrous predecessor Windows 98 was fine.

Other than being a money pit... it is a great idea.

Father to Daughter/Son

Hmm, there seems to be some abnormality in the data, the blackbox registered that you were driving on a saw-tooth road, yet the vehicle was not moving.

Yes, as a punch bag.

Thank you,
Now you got me wondering on who will win... the Fox or the Weasel...

The real problem is that there are two camps that are competing for patent legislature.
1. Software/hardware patents. Enough is said about that on Slashdot.
2. Pharma patents. If you bind two chemicals it does wonders for a particular disease patents.

Developing a patent for the pharma group genuinely costs a lot of money (research, test groups etc.) whereas a software/hardware patent not necessarily does (think of an idea "People need blue handsets" and document it). Both camps have a ton of money and both have very different stakes at this. The software camp can do without, the pharma group cannot. This is a deadlock from different business interests which results in no effort to reform the mess. The recent changes in legislature are just weak.

An evolutionist answer never flies in those situations.
To be honest, I am more disturbed by making ponies sexy than slim...

I was a fan of the iPhone 3Some.

Welcome to the new internet.
In case you have not noticed, "half" the world is on the net which means the number of morons out here quadrupled as well.
Try to read the comments section on your favorite news site, you will understand what I mean...

I think we are on the same page...

When I said, 'everyone needs to have one', it is a statement that a large number of people think that they need to have one (disclaimer, I do not carry a smart phone).
With that behavior, the portion of money spent on non essentials moves to the smart phone business with the effect that this money doesn't do much for the economy other than the Apple's (and Apple's effect on the local economy is marginal). the behavior feeds only the Asian supply chain, not much in US or Europe.

People buying luxury items feeds/reignites the economy (the essentials economy remains in a recession), the problem now is that the luxury items people buy are no longer sourced/built/shipped in the US/Eur limiting the effect on recovery. Things that fuel our economy best: Kitchen/bathroom/garden remodels and products sourced and built in your region.

As someone said before: a $500 handbag to carry food stamps.

In the past year I have been saying something along this lines to explain why there is a recession and the iPhone (I am using this device as a generalization for the entire smart phone/tablet market) is one of the initiators.

It is the device everyone should have, so sales for these devices (including apps) are skyrocketing. It is something that you can flounder around with, peer pressure... Because the non-essential money is spent on these luxury items, no money goes towards the things that are within the home (like furniture, carpets, appliances etc. - again a generalization). Just look around, all I see are furniture stores (and the likes) close all over the place.

So what happens is that a couple of companies benefit from this trend (Apple, HTC, Samsung, etc.). Since these devices are not assembled in the USA/Europe, our hard earned cash goes to China (not your local furniture store and its supply chain), with the result that a large part of our money is not inserted in the US/Eur economy.