The funny thing today is that it helps Microsoft to strengthen Apple's iOS, iPhone, etc., against Google's Android juggernaut

Weird as it might sound, Microsoft benefits from a strong Apple against Google. So Microsoft should release amazing applications for iOS and should leave out some of these great programs for Android, thus boosting Apple's iOS ecosystem. Microsoft doesn't want Google to become an insurmountable force through Android's near-total dominance.

Why does turning off the car AC - when its cooling starts to feel excessive - immediately makes one feel quite warm

Happens frequently. Rather all the time. It's summers and you turn on car's AC to cool yourself. After some time it seems as if the cabin is quite cool and the direct cool air coming to your face - which initially felt quite good and relieving - now feels a bit uncomfortably cool. You turn the AC knob and turn off the AC, but you immediately feel uncomfortable and turn it back on. Likely happens with many/most people. Why?

One explanation could be that cool AC air gives both pleasure and pain simultaneously, like two vector forces in opposite directions whose "overall" effect can be abstracted/simplified as one "net" value and direction but which nevertheless act independently. When you're feeling very hot, pain component is close to zero while pleasure component is substantial positive. As you cool down, pleasure component comes slightly down, and as you cool down very much, pain component [or call it pain effect] starts to grow. When pain [or call it displeasure] component becomes meaningful, you feel urge to turn off the AC. As soon as you turn it off, you withdraw both pleasure and pain components. Pain goes away no doubt, but pleasure also goes away and so you immediately feel urge to turn the AC back on.

Or to put it the other way, the moment you turn off AC, ambient temperature gives you pain associated with heat and so you feel urge to turn AC back on.

LinkedIn can become a potent rival to Facebook if Microsoft tries properly

When Microsoft [henceforth MS] announced the acquisition of LinkedIn [henceforth LI], at first I thought - why in the world? But after looking at both the [large] number of users LI has and also the quality of LI’s users [all grown-up professionals], I now feel that LI is one of those very few social networks in the world that have the real potential to become serious Facebook rivals, provided these networks morph into full-blown social networking platforms [others include Skype and Twitter]. It's my genuine fear that FB might become insurmountable soon if a strong rival to it doesn't emerge soon - and existing networks with hundreds of millions of users have the best chance of rivaling FB. New networks simply don't stand a chance due to network effect.

That being said, LI shouldn’t alter/adulterate the core ideology behind LI by adding FB-like features directly to the core LI service. Such a step would corrupt LI's value proposition - the very proposition that makes people have and use both FB and LI rather than shifting to FB alone. Instead, a separate service that relies on LI credentials/identity can be launched which allows these professionals to have fun with photos, videos, animations, games, etc., without disclosing their real LI profile.