A Million-Dollar Laptop Created

aluminumangel writes "For those of you who don't know what to do with all your money, why not a one million-dollar laptop from the U.K-based company Luvaglio? With 128GB of solid state disk space, Blu-ray, and a detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key."

Comments

Rare diamond?

[dkoulomzin]

I'm not that impressed when we talk about how expensive a laptop is on account of its rare diamond!

Re:Rare diamond?

[moosesocks]

Less than the Iraq War costs per day.

*ducks*

Re:Rare diamond?

[newt0311]

and less than what social security, medicare, and medicade cost every minute. I have no problem with bashing excessive spending but atleast go after the big ones first.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem since the cost is related to the diamond...which is mined in Africa by said poor child

If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Anonymous Coward]

...wrong with this world, this is it. Some people control enough resources that they can WASTE a million on one laptop, while others could build 10000 laptops with that money. Don't get me wrong: The rich should lead comfortable, even luxurious lives, but this is just wasteful. Its only value is in showing the ridiculous amount of resources that are at the buyers disposal, by wasting them on something that will be out-of-date in at most a year.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[Bluesman]

Nah, it's what's right with the world.

How else would you separate very rich and foolish people from their money, aside from forcibly taking it?

The best thing about this is that rich people create incentives for creativity and growth, and spending on luxury items just fuels that.

Think about the laptop maker, web designer, advertising agency -- all of the people who make a living off of the sale of just one of these.

Plus, the $1,000,000 is obviously far better off in the hands of somebody willing to use it for a laptop selling business than someone who would spend it on a diamond laptop.

Besides, someone who is dirt poor in Africa would say the same thing about you. Why do you need to spend an amount of money that would supply a lifetime of food on a computer in the first place?

In a perfect world, there would be no market for $1,000,000 laptops because everyone would be busy creating more wealth by curing diseases and solving energy crises. Since that's never going to happen, this is the next best thing.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[WhiplashII]

but this is just wasteful.

Incorrect. This is one of the most useful items in society, a way to transfer economic power from the idiots that buy gold plated laptops to the genius that is selling one...

Let's face it, we need to remove as much money as possible from anyone that would buy one of these!

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[tompaulco]

The type of person who would buy this laptop is not Bill Gates, with his billions, but some upper middle class guy who makes maybe $200k a year. He could get rich if he would save his money and invest wisely, but instead spends more than he makes on a McMansion, fancy cars, and gimmicky electronics. He will have nothing to leave to his children, and is probably one paycheck away from having to declare bankruptcy.
Truly rich people reinvest their money to make more money and fuel the economy. They don't buy gimmicky million dollar laptops. The truly rich leave that kind of frivolous spending for the far less wealthy who need to appear to be rich.

Re:If there's one thing that shows what's...

[ChronosWS]

(this is not aimed at the direct parent specifically, but at the general tone of arguments against luxury spending)

Most of these arguments revolve around "this is inefficient" or "that is wasteful." This is all dependent on your point of view. Most of the things you (yes you, the reader) currently own are luxuries in many parts of the world and are not strictly necessary to your life. You don't see them that way but someone else does. The fact that you view this laptop that way simply is an extension of your perception based on your (relatively) meager wealth combined with your predictably human hypocrisy when viewing someone else's perceived excess.

The second class of argument which comes out of these is when something is not considered contributing to 'productivity.' Television, sports cars, etc are oft raised examples of this useless excess. However, the simple fact is that we work to enjoy ourselves, and what each of us enjoys differs. We don't work to be the most productive person we can be, so that between the time we are born and the time we die not a minute goes wasted that couldn't have been spent on more productive ventures. Heck, that you are reading this now is almost certainly an example of lost productivity, and another hyporcisy. We spend money on nice things because nice things make our lives enjoyable in some small way. It's human.

As soon as you go around starting to draw lines around what YOU think is excessive and what is not with regards to what people do with their legitimately acquired wealth, you presume too much.

But it will it run Vista?

[splatterboy]

I hate to use cars as an analogy but TFA doesn't mention OS, and if its just a windows box - that would make it the computing version of a Ferrari chassis and body with a Chevy/Ford/VW engine... For a cool million I would think it should have Linux/Mac/MS running virtual with a Jeff Han/perceptive pixel gui... Seriously - if the craftsmanship and precious materials are the only metric here - its just a case-mod. Who made the mobo and cpu?

Re:WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY

[Anonymous Coward]

carbon is a metal now?

You can't waste money

[NotQuiteReal]

The notion that money can be wasted (by spending it) is stupid.

It all contributes to the economy, which helps generate more money. In this case, I am sure a lot of the million dollars for the laptop goes into the cost of goods - supporting everyone in the supply chain from the diamond miners to the jewelers and artisans who created the art/wasteful object of your loathing. Then there is the "profit". Either way the money is somewhere. For all you know the money might end up for some use for which you do approve.

There is no difference, in principle, on people "wasting" money on luxury items than there is spending money any other way. When it comes right down to it, nobody "needs" anything more than food and shelter, assuming the world even "needs" people at all.

There is a continuum from needs-wants-excess/your definition of waste.

Personally I would not buy a million dollar laptop, either, however I think it is awesome that it is possible for someone to be able to do that if they so choose.

If you think there is something wrong with this world now, you'll rue the day that it is ruled by people who think they know best how to run it for everyone else.

Re:You can't waste money

[Anonymous Coward]

Money represents resources (work, materials). If you can't waste money, then it must be impossible to waste resources, but that is certainly not true. Resource allocation depends on the investment decisions of the individuals in an economy and if the majority of the investments (by value) goes into luxury items, that's where the economy grows and where progress is made. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, diamond laptops don't make a good shelter and they don't substitute for food. They don't fight crime well and can't heal diseases. They don't even entertain much, because like all electronic devices, they'll be superseeded by faster machines in no time. IOW, making one-million-dollar laptops is a wasteful allocation of resources.

Early April Fools?

[sherpajohn]

I checked the website - nothing there but a box with focus to enter something. A contact page. An address in London, that does not really parse as a street but a place. Google search on the company name yields nothing but this laptop - all based on the same article. Google search on the CEO yields a now "private" page on a site the "connects" business people. The cached page has a bunch of luxury names in it. Googel images even has a cached image of a young guy leaning on a car.

This sounds like viral cow pies publicity grab or April Fools to me. There's a $350,000+ laptop noted here: http://most-expensive.net/laptop-world - and its covered in gems. There's no way you can justify technology alone making this worth anywhere near $100,000 much less $1,000,000. I call BU-double-hockey-sticks on this story.

Re:one.. million... dollars

[Arwing]

I would hope one million dollars laptop will get you lifetime upgrade option.. .. A new hardwares spec every 6 month?

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Brandybuck]

Economics in half a lesson: A mountain of diamonds won't feed an undernourished child, nor will it teach an undereducated child. But then again, neither will your whining. If you want to feed and teach children in Africa, stop worrying about what other people do with their own money, and start sending them yours.

Have *you* done anything to directly help undernourished, undereducated children in Africa? I'm not talking about voting for hypersensitive politicians with overactive tearducts, I'm talking about actually sending your own money to where it can be directly used to nourish and educate. Have you "adopted" a needy African child? Have you given to a charity that sends food and books? Have you ever dropped a quarter into a World Vision collection box?

Give, don't bitch.

Spare sectors

[tepples]

There's no way you'd use Flash RAM for that, though. It has limited writes! So does a hard disk. Both flash memory and hard disks reserve about 5 percent of their sectors as replacements for sectors whose bit error rate has passed a threshold. Do you claim that flash memory will run out of these spare sectors significantly faster than a hard disk? If so, then let's toss in another 16 microSD cards for redundancy, bringing the total to 144.

Re:Creating it is only half the battle

[Brandybuck]

I do take an effort to find out about the charities I give to. But even if they aren't 100% perfectly efficient, they're still a damned site better than foreign aid.

Don't act like your taxes are some sort of carbon offset that absolves you from helping others. Don't act like voting for the politically correct candidate is a substitute for charity.