@eternalcthulhu: Unlike the XBox 360, Microsoft isn't building the hardware though. Their marginal cost is practically nil.

@MrEvil: Not really. Look at the major fab companies in the world: Intel, Samsung, TI, IBM, TSMC, UMC, GlobalFoundries... they have a few fabs in China, but most are not.

@Delano_J: Well, to buy American debt, you have to have dollars, so the Chinese government needs to trade a lot of yuans for dollars. This boosts the value of the dollar on currency markets, and suppresses the value of the yuan. The other side of this trade are Americans buying yuans with their dollars, to buy Chinese…

@Delano_J: The thing to beware of in economics is nominal figures. It sometimes takes some analysis to determine the reality behind the numbers (i.e., real figures).

@m4ximusprim3: It's been a very long time since menial labor was the backbone of the American economy.

@Clashwerk: That hasn't been possible for a decade, at least.

@Dacker: Rare earth metals are everywhere, but it's a lot cheaper to mine them in China because they have infrastructure, and they don't have a lot of environmental regulation to deal with. In the long run, a Chinese embargo would lead to the reopening of mines elsewhere, but it's the short run that matters.

@OMG! British Dinosaur!: Did you see mine? The original comment was that OS X's underpinnings are already good enough, that it doesn't need any non-cosmetic/UX improvements. Perhaps YOU don't need or want BluRay, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a counterexample to the original point.

@OMG! British Dinosaur!: Glad to hear you're representative of 100% of all users.

Full screen mode cracks me up, since over the years I've had many Mac users tell me that having a program take over the whole screen is a flawed and primitive user interface paradigm.

@blash: Agreed. I could see this being an Ubuntu release, but Ubuntu is free and updates often. Microsoft wouldn't even bother with an OS update for this; it'd be a free addon pack like Live Essentials.

@Grindhouse Murders: Yes, but 10.0 stank to high heavens. The first three releases were just getting the underlying OS working correctly; it wasn't really good until 10.2 or 10.3. This didn't really bother most Mac users since it was still an enormous step up from System 9.

@brijazz: That's why it already supports BluRay playback. Oh wait, it doesn't.

Jobs lives in the world of the zero-sum game. The only way he can win is for everybody else to lose. It's immature and one of the key reasons I dislike him, and by extension, Apple.

This story has been doing the rounds for weeks, but when I look at the details, it seems to be constantly misreported. The software in question is NOT used on board Predator drones; the drones would not be 'grounded' if an injunction is granted.

@Voldy1: Ah, fair enough. Apparently my sarcasm detector is not working well today. My apologies.

@CaseyG: Heartclick.

@llryuujinll: Sure, why not? If this actually achieves 60% thermal efficiency, then this sounds like a great technology to upgrade and improve your friendly neighborhood coal burner.

@Voldy1: While your comment is rude, I shall resist the opportunity to make fun of you, and instead use this as an opportunity for public education.

@raleel: It comes from the current produced by the flow of electrons.