The problem is that this money is not exclusively earned abroad. Large companies can easily setup shell "holding" companies that own their IP licensing and use transfer pricing to pull fund legitimately earned in countries where they would owe tax out to the tax havens by use of internal licensing fees. And since the US corporate taxes are on profits and not revenue, this internal transfer of funds is heavily abused by anyone with a half-way competent accounting department.

Overly Simplified Example:
Revenue: $100M
Fictitious Licensing Cost of already developed internal system: $80M
Staffing Costs: $10M
=============
Taxable Income: $10M instead of $90M
Effective Tax: $3.5M instead of $31.5M
Evaded Tax: $28M

I think the point that was being made is that optical will eventually replace all electrical connections. It was not saying the only jump to be from Silicon -> Optical, but rather will ultimately be replaced by Optical as a faster medium just like the advances we saw by deploying Fiber Optic cables (and the more recent push for optical-based network switches to replace existing electrical). Realistically the full Optical transition is still years away and you are likely correct that we will move to on of the other transitional architectures that are still electrical-based in the mean time.

Starting off the You must embrace your robotic overlord indoctrination early on?

Really? My internet through Comcast is great and I get the speeds I pay for, but only during non-peak times much like non-rush hour traffic on the roads. However, the speeds are abysmal on nights and weekends much like rush hour traffic to and from work.

We can add as many lanes as we would like to the expressways (internet backbones, e.g. cogent) to try and ease congestion, but at the end of the day it is the exit ramps (ATT/Verizon/Comcast/TWC/etc cross-carrier connections) and the local "last mile" roads (ISP to home) that still trigger contention within the system. Unless we improve the infrastructure at all levels, we will always encounter a bottleneck.

Sorta like these conglomerates? Just to name a few :)

• ConAgra
• Kraft
• Nestle
• Proctor&Gamble
• Diageo

Perhaps that was in part due to CGI Federal SVP in charge of the Healthcare.gov project, Cheryl Campbell, testifying before the House of Representatives September 10, 2013 that the project was still on track [video - Testimony starting around 36m20s.] & [pdf]. While some of the other organizations present during this testimony were flagging issues, the primary contracting organization was communicating that the project was still on track and would be ready for the October 1, 2013 launch.

If the key players in the project are communicating an "all clear" up the chain, it is difficult for anyone outside of these organizations to ascertain possible issues as they are not receiving information about the regular day-to-day. The Government's response (contracting Google/Redhat/Oracle) to the situation once they learned the truth was a management-base response to them finally receiving real information. Had Middle Management (Read: CGI Federal) properly communicated the issues earlier, the Government may have been able to enact a gauged response earlier that could have avoided the debacle.

Exactly. It's just a parasitic relationship.

Well, I suppose it's good that Apple switched to Intel and the x86 architecture in 2005 and dropped support for PPC chips in 2009...

Umm... they don't. According to their 2012 10-K Annual report Apple paid $12.2B in Federal taxes, this was most at a 35% rate applied to securities that their foreign-based subsidiaries (e.g. ireland-based) owned in the US since these values are not considered revenue. These were cashflows that occurred in the US and could not be avoided. Apple also paid $1.2B in foreign taxes at a lower rate (which lowers their effective US tax rate) and avoided $6B in US taxes all together by keeping funds in foreign subsidiaries. So if it were not for their subsidiary, they would be on the line for almost 50% more in taxes than what they are actually paying into the system.

There are micro-soldering repair shops that can reseat the ports with new connections to the board that will fix that issue. A friend of mine needed it done for his Galaxy S3, I think the total cost was around $45 including shipping and guarantees on the work being done.

Especially the freedom to bend over and take it...

Pretty sure he meant the quote, "Some are more equal than others," was from Animal Farm, not the year that Animal Farm took place.

I really hope that was sarcasm... ADP is one of the most incompetent companies I have ever had the displeasure of working with.

While using an Intel 4000 integrated graphics chipset... pass.

Given the complete crap my company's Dev team has pushed out over the past 2 years... it's definitely not a requirement here.