All of these pale in significance when compared against two wars and tens (or hundreds?) of thousands dead. The budget mess that Bush caused, and the new associated national debt. The financial crisis. The foreign policy hits. The disabled veterans (both physical and mental injuries).

It is arguable that items 1, 2, 5, 6 and maybe 7 from your points are all directly a result of unwarranted use of force in 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'.

One should not get annoyed at the janitor for cleaning up a bathroom that has been abused.

But by all means, let's return to a Republican administration, with a net loss of jobs, a huge increase on the debt, more outsourcing, loss of real wages and wealth holdings. And them blame the next Democrat that gets to come in and try to clean up the hangover that the republican administration leaves after its 4 (or 8?) year party.

While you may think this a minor aspect of your larger point, we Spartans would dispute this as 'minor'. It is closer to an unintended insult.

Michigan State University is _NOT_ UMich (the University of Michigan).

Calling a Spartan as a rodent might not go over too well. Remember the scene with the well in 300?

There is a serious point in there..somewhere. Green and Blue dont mix very well.

There is significant precedent in copyright law that lists of facts or data cannot be copyrighted.

See, e.g. Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991)
Link

I don't think anyone out there is saying that from a $/GB perspective that SSD's are a bargain.

But here are two key points:

1) Not everyone needs 1TB of storage (about $100, and practically entry level now for hard drives). Especially on laptops, a $350 32GB SSD (also entry level) can get you quite far, especially if it is reserved for the OS and applications. You can pick up a 32GB SSD for a reasonable price, and get the really good performance, and use a big, cheap HD for media files.

2) Many people view the extra performance + lower power consumption + greater reliability as worth the premium price, and that makes them a value. Just because they can't compete on a $/GB basis doesn't make them a bargain to some people.

Are you talking about Microsoft BOB? That was my first distro too. I wonder when MS will be coming out with a 64-bit version. :)

There's a big difference between manufacturing a chip and designing one. Unless Apple suddenly acquires the capital and know how to run a fab, manufacturing is best left to foundries like TSMC.

I'd even be surprised if they did the design completely in-house. Most likely it would be a collaborative effort with an already established low-power design house like ARM.

How about Michael de Mare's Confessions of a Recovering Preppie? It was given a 0/10 on a Slashdot book review.

I'd like to see a follow-up book on all the crazy shit that's out there like the penis enlargers, the motorized belts that vibrate your fat away, oddly shaped ergonomic chairs and desks, ionic air purifiers, the automatic muscle exercisers, yadda yadda yadda.

Flip through a SkyMall catalog on an airplane some time and you'll find tons of examples of devices like this that supposedly improve your body or health. (Also, a magnet stand that magically ages your wine collection 100 years in minutes!!) This industry is even less regulated that alternative medicine but can be just as dangerous, if not more so. At a minimum, they lend credence to the saying, "a fool and his money are soon parted."

Not only that, but it's not like the silicon used in today's chips is low grade crap. The purity standards for electronic grade silicon are pretty insane considered to the standards of most things we think of as "pure", including pharmaceuticals. (Seven to eight 9's purity is not uncommon). And yet its produced in great volumes relatively cheaply.