Sure there is choice, I can for example abandon OS X for Windows OR Linux (Hint: That's two choices). There is a world outside Linux-land there is a world outside Wiindows-land and there is a world outside OS X land and you are allowed to travel between them.

I'm no expert in international politics but I'll take a jab at it.... The EU is a unified market area of over 500 million 1st world consumers. Google is not going to want pass up on an opportunity to make money in a place like that. If Google want's to make money in the EU it has to either have a presence somewhere in the EU or by some other means funnel cash from customers in the EU to wherever Google's favourite tax havens are at the moment. That gives the EU a way to make life hard for Google and also a motivation to make life rather easy for Google's competitors. For example, at the moment Google is, AFAIK, doing most of it's tax dodging in the EU via the Irish Republic. The EU has the Irish by the balls because of the 2008 financial crisis and all the EU commission has to do to make life unpleasant for Google is squeeze since it'll be hard for them to find another EU country willing to take Ireland's place knowing that the instant they invite Google in, the EU commission will be knocking on their door.

It's funny how some people just classify everything as weird or useless if they see no sense or use in it. I have the habit of eating fries with strong mustard rather than ketchup. A friend of mine was appalled when he saw me do this and gave me a long lecture on how unappetising it was, after ranting on for a while he finally got tired of it and dug into his gouda-cheese, mayonnaise and jam sandwich.

I'll wash off the stink and you can swamp me with women but you'll have to shave my manly beard off my pale dead face. There is no way you'll get us beardy weirdys to participate you strange metrosexual war on body hair, it's donwright unmanly.

His original idea was a wind up radio for areas where batteries are hard to get ahold of. Another motivation was that batteries are not exactly affordable in many poor communities in developing countries and people in the these communities have to spend a significant amount of their disposable income to buy batteries, a fact that seems to be hard to understand for 1st worlders who buy batteries by the dozen and throw them away without a second thought. At least that's what Baylis claimed in an interview I watched back in the 90s.

Precisely... lawsuits in general are something the average citizen cannot afford if they drag on for any length of time. The legal system has become an instrument of extortion for rich people people with money to burn.

But we get to bail them out when they screw up because they are 'too big to fail'.

NeXT computers started development on their desktop environment in the late 1980s, the debut was in 1988. NeXT was OS Xs daddy and yes, it's desktop had a dock. Risc OS beat NeXT to it by about a year but their implementation wasn't as close to the OS X dock as the one by NeXT which Looking Glass then remade in 3D.

No, Android is gaining market share faster than iOS which is not surprising when every mobile vendor from high end device makers to the lowest shitphone peddlers are pushing Android devices onto the market and Android has pretty much exterminated every competitor except Apple. This was kind of inevitable when Apple refused to compromise, release budget iPhone versions and compete with the lower end Android device makers in a race to the bottom. Considering the fact that Apple makes decidedly high end devices it's remarkable how well they have kept up with the growing legion Android device makers. The ones bleeding market share like stuck pigs over the last couple of years are pretty much everybody except Apple with the biggest losers being Blackberry and Nokia. We are heading into a Mobile OS monoculture dominated by Google/Android to thundering applause from half the people on this forum.

And according to a recent /. article, if I could snare an asteroid, bring it into earth orbit and mine the sucker I'd be able to pocket $195 billion, if, if, if. Here's a few bit more supposition: Microsoft is not going to make a dent in Apple's share of the mobilem market much less Google's Android OS empire just like that ** snaps fingers **. The bigger threat is Google so another option would be to accept this reality and make tons of money backing Apple against Google by releasing MS office for iOS but not Android. That would hurt Google/Android in the enterprise market since you'd instantly have a cloud enabled Office suite that is cross platform over Windows, Windows Phone, OS x and iOS with native and web apps but not on Android. Google is the bigger threat, business is war, war creates odd alliances.

There is a difference between corporate and conservative bias?

He is playing for votes, there is an election coming. His left wing party, where he is part of an isolated radical faction, will probably be voted out in favour of the neocons that brought us the 2008 financial collapse and a populist right wing party that wants to build toll barriers and promotes xenophobia so that's where this crusade is likely to end. Conservative as these right wingers are they are no more keen than the rest of the Icelanders to become known as the only western democracy in the 'Enemies of the Internet' club along with countries like China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The CIA found porn on Bin Laden's computers...

That's harsh, I'm sure they give generously to the politicians who enable their business practices.

Becasue by using Apple devices you join the Sith....