The real question here is what's the broadband situation like inside the Pearly Gates?

Perhaps they're already gone and the role is being fulfilled à la The Dread Pirate Roberts. This might explain some of the step-changes in editing quality over the last decade.

Are we sure this isn't a line some libidinous individual used on some naive prey, which inadvertently made it into scientific research or the press?

You've hit the proverbial nail on the head. Valuing revenue over customers only works for a finite number of annual financial reports. More mature companies, even other evil ones, know that a retained customer is one of the best sources of revenue and especially of profit.

That noise, Mr. Ballmer, is the sound 10% browser market share makes when migrating to the competition.

I guess somebody thinks that knowing more about less eyeballs is more profitable. I suppose there's a possibility that may work for a while ... a short while.

RIAA Plants Seeds of Inaccuracy- News @ 11.

Has anybody checked that this it's not patented? I'd hate to have to the pay licensing costs retroactively cause I've been throwing 'em around pretty liberally.

That the ROI is abysmal is beyond a doubt. What's just as alarming to me is that they spent $8B. Successfully launching a new platform shouldn't take anywhere near that amount. Look around- people are doing embedded, non-MS O/Ses on all sorts of intriguing new platforms w/innovative new applications and spending a tiny fraction of what MS spent to get Xbox going. That's the way the industry should be - FOSS has served as a very effective catalyst for indy product development. I feel the tier 1 vendors have always resisted this sort of thing and done what they could to stifle it because it means the R&D / ROI cycle is much much faster then they want it to be. There's always some rock star cooking up something new in his garage that can threaten them and they can't reap as much profit off something new they took forever and spent a bundle to make happen.

Careful- I know smart people from LA, including ones that drive over-sized vehicles. Some of them even feel religion has a place in the world. As far as evolving the English language- that's neither here nor there but probably explainable given the cultural mash-up going on down there which is a defining characteristic of that part of the country and one I believe that should be applauded.

While it's comical how tightly they cling to their religion I think the question that has to come before the one of religion in schools is whether parents have the right to impress belief systems on their children. I believe they do- even when passing on their beliefs puts their children at a disadvantage relative to those with exposure to a more scientific curriculum. Isn't our country supposed to be about tolerance, freedom to believe what we want and empowering local gov't as much as possible? I think we should try to avoid ridiculing their beliefs and let them run their little corner they want to.

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. Sometimes I feel like the tax rate never changes- they always tax us as much as we will bear. When they need money for a war, tax revenue is reallocated. Sure, it might be costing me something somewhere but you'd be hard pressed to identify or quantify it.

Funny question- I participated in the Gulf War as active duty military. The short answer is "I don't know how much it cost me." I understand the point- and obviously it has cost the US a great deal, but has it effected me directly in any way as a citizen? It doesn't feel like it.

I've done some time in Europe. I don't remember the quality of life being higher than the USes in as a broad a way as you suggest. Sure, some things are better. But some things are worse. To talk about it any more detail than that would require un-bundling the countries represented by the use of the term "Europe." As an American, I believe I pay less than half of what Europeans pay for gas. That's just one example, but it's an important one that a lot of other "qualify of life" metrics derive from.
Granted our government could stand some Spring cleaning but I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from condescending to the 300 M people that populate one of if not the most industrious country on the planet.

Windows isn't a choice- it's an OEM default.

Do you know that for sure? I have a sneaking suspicion that as soon as mankind masters interstellar travel a bunch of meatballs from Jersey are likely to do just that to some other planet.

I bet not all of them will be back in line. They lost customers the minute they shipped a product that shouldn't have made it through QA. Superior engineering & QA is how many people justify the Apple Tax & if Apple has decided to do less QA then they will lose customers. That they are suppressing the voice of their customers will cost them more customers- perhaps even more than due to the former cause. I'd be willing to bet that the lost "brand equity" over this issue will cost them more in the long run then doing proper QA in the first place (call it justice, karma, etc.). Your point is well taken though- it won't cost them as much as would other companies because of the blind loyalty of many of their customers.