It would be a really good idea for Apple's PR department to go forward and make some form of public statement about what the company intends to do with this patent. Otherwise, if this story becomes more widely known, it could easily cast a bad light on Apple in the public opinion.

Do you copy, Mr Employee-At-Apple-PR-department By-chance-reading-Slashdot?

to quote Snow Crash, "you can't argue with Reason".

Well, as you wrote: "almost no chance...". The thing is, the probability estimates in this regard have a habit of turning out wrong; somehow something comes up that was not included in the estimate. In Chernobyl, well, it was a Russian plant, well, of course communists can't build proper plants. In Fukushima, it was either (a) the reactor design is outdated, or (b) the scale of the natural disaster was so unexpectedly large.

What will it be next time? How about maybe, "My bad, the reactor design was absolutely safe, but of course we didn't anticipate a terrorist attack / software glitch in the controls / human error."

I think it is not too convincing to keep hearing, "of course, in the past we were too stupid to prevent such disasters, but now we got the hang of it, honest"

You forgot several cost terms:

1. probability of catastrophic failure times damage when failure occurs
2. cost of long-term depositing, containment and securing of radioactive waste (no suitable storage places found as of yet AT ALL)
3. cost of dismantling plants after decommision

All of these externalities (and maybe some more I have not thought of) should be factored into the price. But they are not.

I honestly don't know how the figures would work out then, but the Germans may be correct in recognizing this.

And I forgot... you suggest "It was suggested that the people screaming might want them in THEIR countries" - you obviously refer to non-american countries. Why wouldn't they take these people?

Well, for one, because they aren't the ones who were illegally holding and torturing them for years on end. It's the duty of the wrongdoer to compensate. How about offering them one of your smaller states?

No.

If they actually carry out illegal acts, prove so in a fair trial and jail them in a plain old prison. No five-star resort involved. If you can't, release them (or don't imprison someone you don't have any reasonable evidence against). No one is forcing you to hold anyone innocent.

You know, standard procedure if you have rule of law.

Strictly manogamous people don't need any contraceptives - by definition ;-)

No, it means "way". Although you can shorten the word "Eisenbahn" (train) to "Bahn" (like you can shorten "hard drive" to "drive" in a computer context even if "drive" alone means, well, "drive").

An aspect that has bothered me but isn't mentioned here yet is that lots of Linux games are multiplayer (or at least start to be developed that way). This is quite understandable, since it's easier to get the basic game mechanics running if you don't have to care about either AI or write a story. However, I don't like multiplayer that much for reasons already stated here (repetitive gameplay, griefers, time investment to leave noob stage). Alas, very few interesting games remain, if you don't want ancient ones like "Return of the Amazon Queen" or the 100th Sokoban clone. There are some exceptions like rocksndiamonds and Battle of Wesnoth, but most games that at first seem interesting to me turned out to be multiplayer-only. Alas, I mostly don't bother checking the "games" section in the package manager anymore...

Only if all states would be necessary for a simulation. Non-random information (needed for a simulation) can generally be represented using less (compressed) information, and the universe is apparently not "random", but exhibits a great deal of structure. I do not mean to say that simulation would be possible, but I think your argument does not prove otherwise.

Don't forget Poland!

+1 Lyrical
This really produced a nice impression of the lone icy astronomer from "Ridge A" singing his song in my imagination ;-)

Now that is an evil word.

Cop: I charge you 20 Euros for violation of the ... REISSVERSCHLUSSVERFAHREN!

We should be better than that

or

We think we are better than that

fixed that for you.

Ever heard of the military-industrial complex? Hmmm...

"It is difficult to estimate the degree of dependence of the U.S. economy on its military and defense spending, but it is clearly enormous, and legislators fiercely resist defense cuts that affect their districts." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_industrial_complex)