NemWan

SpamSandwich said:

The faster the ACA falls apart and market-based competition is everywhere the faster we’ll see real innovation and automation taking over in healthcare. The systems in place today are completely (and needlessly) archaic.

So, like before the ACA?

I'm curious if Apple would have these AC Wellness places in other countries or if they'd be non-viably redundant to the more available and affordable health systems existing elsewhere besides the U.S.

LoneStar88 said:

I think this measure will have its intended positive effects in the form of encouraging private investment in infrastructure—especially in rural areas.

It may not happen soon enough, but it will happen.

In pursuit of what profit in rural areas? There would be lower return on investment because there will never be as many subscribers in rural areas. Rural areas in many parts of the country are depopulating below "frontier" levels.

When the landline telephone network was deployed a century ago it was mandated to provide universal access to all areas of the country. If the Internet existed when the Communications Act of 1934 was passed it would have been included in its principles of "rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges" to "all the people of the United States."

This was and is paid for by raising everyone's prices, and there's nothing wrong with that concept so long as industry is also regulated enough to see that people are getting what that price increase was expected to pay for. Rural civilization depends on being subsidized by wealthier, more industrialized urban areas. Rural citizens receive more federal funding per captia than they pay taxes while the reverse is true for urban citizens. This is a benefit to everyone — after all urban Americans gain the ability to communicate with rural Americans and vice versa. If we don't want to pay to be able share our lives together there's something fundamenatally wrong with our unity as a nation.

If we want a strong and growing rural America that can give birth to new hubs of capitalism we must have a regulatory framework that lays the foundation for opportunty, such as modern communications. It may be that satellites can meet some needs that would otherwise requiring the expense of upgrading all those landlines, but you can't overcome the fact that the speed of light is not fast enough at the distance of satellites to replace ground links.

If Apple continues to preserve Steve Jobs' office suite as he left it, it will always maintain Infinite Loop. Walt Disney's office was temporarily sealed off and inventoried but then was used by other executives for decades, only recently restored to be a semi-public historical exhibit. Jony Ive's lab from the Jobs 2.0 era would be another point of interest.

MacPro said:

Watching TV shows these days you'd thing Macs are the only laptop out there!

These days or any days in the last few decades.

Like counterfeit fashion clothing it's a good bet as a business because it's a short term trend and by the time the IP lawyers find you you've moved on.