I just sold my soul and gave $200 to AT&T, I'd really like to play with my iPhone.
And you're not even allowed to play with it by yourself without activation?
Try and tell me that the future wouldn't be darker with Apple at the helm than Microsoft... Just try.
Let's see:
Apple's iPods - no activation Apple's computers - no activation Apple's other hardware - no activation Apple's operating system - no activation Apple and AT&T's iPhone - mandatory activation AT&T's other mobile phones - mandatory activation
Blaming Apple for cell phone activation is almost as silly as blaming your sports car manufacturer for speed limit signs.
As previously mentioned, the "immunity" is only from civil lawsuits. Not criminal prosecution.
Nothing in the bill says the telcos' actions were legal, or that they can't be taken to court. It only says that their prior actions can't form the basis of a civil suit, so long as they were acting under orders from the government.
I'm still extremely disappointed by Obama's vote on this, but there's no sense exaggerating the facts.
Yes, but those plants are far more efficient and produce far less pollution per unit of energy generated than the little combustion engine in your car.
Plus, some regions are already powered by "clean" hydroelectric, solar, or wind generators. As more "clean" power plants are built, they can be immediately hooked to the grid to power electric cars already on the roads. Electric cars are very "agile" when it comes to power sources.
It depends on how the monitor is configured; some monitors have poor color curves, so some colors are a bit "farther apart" than others. Worse, some monitors (even ones marketed as 8-bit) show less than 8 bits per channel due to cheap controllers or "dynamic contrast" systems. These displays show distinct banding on many images and should be avoided.
But as long as the display is well designed and capable of outputting a solid 8 bits per channel, it's unlikely that anyone will notice banding outside of special test patterns, even those of us (myself included) who can detect 9-10 bits of color definition per channel. While I wouldn't mind the extra colors, and it's a relatively easy thing for display manufacturers to implement, it's not a feature I'd spend much extra for.
The big advantage to >8 bits per channel color, though, is during the editing process.
When working with raster-based programs like Photoshop, it's pretty normal to create a gradient, then compress or tweak the colors, then mess around some more, then adjust the color levels again, lather, rinse, repeat. What started out as a fine gradient got compressed into a small range of colors, then expanded back again, and you now have very ugly, obvious color bands.
With higher color depth (16 bits per color channel is the norm for good image editors) you have a ton more headroom, so you can mess with levels to you heart's content without losing any color definition.
But once the editing is complete, it's pretty normal to export the final distribution copy at 8 bits per channel. It saves space, and anything beyond 8 bits per channel is virtually imperceptible.
It's kind of like lossy audio encoding: If you do it once, after the editing is complete, the music will still sound great. But if you compress, expand, and compress again twenty times you'll end up with crap.
The one practical use for high color depth displays right now is for color profiles. With extra overhead, it becomes possible to tweak displays warmer or cooler, compress or expand the color gamut, or even slightly tweak certain patches of the display to compensate for uneven backlighting, all without any loss of definition. It's not something the average person would bother with, but it's a good reason to add a few extra bits per pixel to professional displays.
Also, monitors today can't show extremely vivid or bright colors that the human eye is capable of perceiving. Backlight technology is improving this to some degree, but if there is ever a quantum leap in display technology we may *need* a lot more bits to describe all the new colors we can show. In fact, we would probably need to start using floating point color, which is already used for video editing and HDR video games.
My standards on "wasted" energy are simple: Could you accomplish the same work with less energy? If so, the extra energy used is called "waste". The ratio of energy required to energy used is called "efficiency".
Most new European refrigerators use 150-300 KWh per year. Most new Energy Star-certified American refrigerators use 400-1000 KWh.
Most new European dishwashers use ~1KWh per load. Most new Energy Star-certified American dishwashers use ~1.5KWh per load.
Washing machines can't be directly compared, as European models heat their own water as needed, while American models offload their energy use to an inefficient tank-based water heater. European washing machines, however, are almost exclusively front-loading models. American washing machines are still primarily the much less efficient top-loading design.
On a related note, Europeans are rapidly replacing their hot water cylinders with more efficient instantaneous water heaters. These tankless water heaters are still almost unheard of in the USA.
European electronic appliances have had mandatory PFC and efficiency requirements for some time now. In the USA, efficiency is voluntary and PFC is rare. Because of this, devices sold in the USA often put two or three times as much strain on power generators as devices sold in Europe. On the other hand, many USA computer manufacturers have "voluntarily" adopted European standards in order to have their products certified for use in the EU.
Americans also adopted air conditioning earlier and to a greater degree than Europeans, and American cars are of course some of the least efficient in the developed world.
===
American energy apologists claim that the country is naturally disadvantaged; that European nations have greater population density, milder climates, and less industry than the USA. This is a fallacious argument, as many countries are precisely the reverse: The USA has ten times the population density of Canada. In theory, this should reduce energy consumption, particularly in the case of oil. The USA has a much milder climate. In theory, this should also reduce energy consumption. The USA has a massive trade deficit, importing far more than they export. The USA outsources much of their manufacturing and heavy industry, which should also reduce their energy consumption. Canada, quite the opposite, has a trade surplus, engaging in excess industrial production to export to other nations. The USA draws its power primarly from non-renewable, highly polluting coal and oil, which should, if the government and EPA had real power, increase prices and reduce energy consumption. Canada produces the bulk of their power from cheap, renewable hydroelectric sources. Canada also ranks higher than the US in the UN-sponsored Human Development Index.
In the UK, where the researchers are located, the average household uses around 500 Watts averaged over the course of a year. Keep in mind that England, like most island countries, has a relatively mild climate, and large appliances generally have a low duty cycle.
In the USA, for comparison, the average household uses ~1KW. Lower electricity prices, less efficient appliances, and a more variable climate are all contributing factors to the USA's high energy use, but Americans are nevertheless some of the world's biggest wasters of electrical power.
The only countries that significantly out-consume the USA per capita are at far norther latitudes — Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden — and each of those countries produce their power primarily from non-polluting renewable hydroelectric and geothermal sources.
Averaged over the entire year, the average American household uses ~1KW.
In more efficient industrialized countries (UK, South Korea, Germany, etc.) 500W per household is a reasonable figure.
In a developing country the number would be much lower; India, Indonesia, and the Philippines use less than 1/10th as much electricity per capita as the USA.
If this tidal generator is relatively cheap and requires little maintenance, it could be a great resource for many developing nations.
The problem isn't altitude, it's speed. The SpaceShipTwo will peak at 2600mph, which is in the same ballpark as the SR-71 but only 1/6th the velocity required to reach any sort of orbit.
It's still a neat craft, but it would need to fifty times as powerful to become a true spacecraft, capable or doing more than popping above the "space barrier" for a few minutes.
Ever hear of hard links? Apple uses hard links for their Time Machine backup system, but anyone can implement it. By linking multiple "files" to the same data, every incremental backup can contain the entire file structure without wasting space. You get the performance and efficiency of incremental backups with the simplicity of a filesystem image.
Another plus is that each version of a file, no matter how many times it was "backed up", is stored exactly once on the backup media. So if you have, say, a quad-mirrored backup system, you can be sure that each and every version of every file has exactly four backups. With conventional full image backups, old files will be duplicated hundreds of times while frequently modified ones will only have a single backup.
The only downside to hard-link backups is an inability to span filesystems; if you can't fit a full backup onto one device, you'll have to split the backup up or RAID multiple drives for storage. Hopefully ZFS will simplify this, but it's still a small price to pay for fast, efficient, easily recoverable backups IMHO.
Yep, if we just shut down Google Street view we'll be guaranteed privacy in any public location, yes-sir.
Seriously, Google Street View is basically useless in terms of "evil government surveillance". Even if we had Star Trek technology capable of identifying any citizen in a country of 300 million from a bad photo, the chances of catching someone in some recognizably suspicious activity from a single photo taken on a random date from a public street is downright infinitesimal. We're not talking about 24/7 video cameras on every street corner here.
The only real "privacy" concern is a social one: A few people caught by Google Street View will be doing something embarrassing or indiscreet. Someone may find an embarrassing photo, post it on teh internets for the subject's friends/coworkers/family to find, and ignominy ensues. But there are lots of other places to find photos on the Internet; anyone doing something embarrassing in public view runs a risk of public humiliation, Google Street View or not.
Of course, you could try to mitigate the risk by enacting laws which criminalize showing photos of an individual without their consent. But trying to enforce such such laws would, ironically, require a complete lack of anonymity — at least for anyone with a camera — and move the nation several notches towards "police state". Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
The people I deal with have the reverse problem: Internet Explorer* is "The Internet". Outlook (or even worse, OE) is "The Email", which is completely separate from "The Internet". Even if they learn to use a webmail service, they assume that Internet Explorer magically takes them off of "The Internet" and on to "The Email".
If you asked them what "the Web" is, they'd look confused for a minute, then say "oh, that's The Internet."
*And, of course, "The Internet" is disconnected from their computer whenever they close Internet Explorer.
I am a fan, but Apple is notorious for creating artificial product lines. Back in the day my family had a IIsi [wikipedia.org] - a famously stunted, budget-line computer with a slower crystal than the IIci, PDS instead of nubus, and low-res display which is a pain to upgrade because of the said PDS. Now it would have cost apple all of a few cents of parts to make this on par with the IIci, but instead they deliberately kept it stunted. But antitrust? No, why would it be?
Practically every company in the world does this. A company that knows its market can design a product for each segment, targeting the poorest and richest customer alike.
Manufacturing cost is hardly relevant to the end user; what matters in any market is how much customers are willing to pay. As much as we like to dream that companies are simply passing their manufacturing costs on to us, expensive cars don't cost that much more to assemble and transport than cheap cars, expensive appliances cost virtually the same as cheap ones, and so on. In some product lines the "cheap" and "expensive" models have precisely the same cost, like CPUs and software. It's not unheard of for "cheap" models to actually cost more to produce than "expensive" ones, or for a company to sell an identical product at two different prices (usually with different branding).
Finally, don't assume that the world would be a better place if companies charged "fairly" for their products. Currently, "cheap" products often squeak by with the smallest of profit margins, while the large margins on the more expensive models pay the company's fixed costs, like R&D. If a company charged an equal markup on all their products, prices on "cheap" goods would have to rise, and poorer customers would be priced out of the market.
I'm sure the Macintosh IIsi was a bad machine, but "it didn't cost any less to manufacture!" isn't a valid argument.
Well, trying to fit that machine into that form factor was a mistake. Slot-based upgrades with macs were a joke - buggy to the point of being unusable. What about the slightly slower crystal on the IIsi? It served no purpose other than to create a slower machine.
Yes. Curse Apple for inventing the product line. No other company would stoop so low.
...as their own upgrade prices are all over the map.
For instance, on their entry level Vostro desktop, upgrading from the stock Core 2 E4600 to a Q6600 costs $150. On a Precision workstation, upgrading from the same E4600 to the same Q6600 costs $339.
On the Vostro, adding a E228WFP 22" LCD costs $175. On the Precision, $289.
On the Vostro, upgrading from a 160GB SATA hard drive to a 320GB SATA costs $60. On the Precision, the same upgrade costs $210.
On the Vostro, upgrading from a 16X DVDROM to a DVDRW drive costs $15. On the Precision, $45.
There are several factors at work here:
One, Dell just slashed the upgrade prices on their low end computers, hoping to stay competitive with aftermarket upgraders. High end systems are somewhat immune to this, as professional workstation users may not know how to upgrade their systems, or care more about not affecting the factory warranty, or simply value their time too much to bother, and are less likely to shop around for the best prices on parts than bargain-basement deal hunters.
Two, you pay for service. Dell offers much better all-round support on their higher end systems. You're a lot less likely to be bounced around by low level techs or wait on hold for an hour if you own that expensive Precision workstation. The cost of those intangible features trickle down into all the costs related to the PC, including upgrade prices. Especially upgrade prices, as that's where VARs make the majority of their profit.
Three, even if two parts have the same manufacturer and matching specs, they may not be identical. Hardware manufacturers know that not every part that comes off their assembly lines is the same quality: Some come from older or newer factory lines, some were assembled with better or worse batches of components. Hardware manufacturer know that some of their products are more likely to fail than others. To exploit the difference in qualities, OEMs will very often grade their products — offering "Enterprise Grade" and "Consumer Grade", with a price difference to match, when selling parts directly to end users, and a finer gradation when selling to large VARs like Dell or Apple. VARs want to buy the best parts for their high end systems, both because they want to maintain the perception of quality, and because high end tech support is expensive. Lower end components are paired with low end systems where cost savings are critical, or home systems where perception of quality is less important and a lost customer is no big deal, and in either case tech support is relatively cheap.
So, for a variety of factors, upgrade prices vary widely depending on where you buy your computer and how nice of a system you get. If it bothers you, you can always upgrade aftermarket. Granted, Apple's obsession with sleek, unbroken lines makes their computers a pain to take apart, but it can still be done with a bit of effort (and a guide). And their memory slots — the most common upgrade by far — are always easily accessible.
Great, now I can't stop imagining a Monty Python skit:
...
Reporter: You've all lost loved ones in recent years, while your research has had many near-triumphs and terrible setbacks. I'm sure it must have been difficult seeing those around you die while you were so close to a breakthough? Scientist #1: Difficult, yes, difficult... Scientist #3: Indeed, terrible... Scientist #2: Horrible, horrible... Reporter: And Dr. Zweinhart - Pardon me for bringing the subject up, but your aunt passed away only days before your team announced this miracle cure. I can hardly imagine how bittersweet this achievement must feel for you, knowing that you will save billions of strangers' lives but not one so close to you? Scientist #3: Truly... Truly a pity... Scientist #1: Pity, terrible pity... Scientist #2:...pity...
Slashdot Mirror
I just sold my soul and gave $200 to AT&T, I'd really like to play with my iPhone.
And you're not even allowed to play with it by yourself without activation?
Try and tell me that the future wouldn't be darker with Apple at the helm than Microsoft... Just try.
Let's see:
Apple's iPods - no activation
Apple's computers - no activation
Apple's other hardware - no activation
Apple's operating system - no activation
Apple and AT&T's iPhone - mandatory activation
AT&T's other mobile phones - mandatory activation
Blaming Apple for cell phone activation is almost as silly as blaming your sports car manufacturer for speed limit signs.
As previously mentioned, the "immunity" is only from civil lawsuits. Not criminal prosecution.
Nothing in the bill says the telcos' actions were legal, or that they can't be taken to court. It only says that their prior actions can't form the basis of a civil suit, so long as they were acting under orders from the government.
I'm still extremely disappointed by Obama's vote on this, but there's no sense exaggerating the facts.
Yes, but those plants are far more efficient and produce far less pollution per unit of energy generated than the little combustion engine in your car.
Plus, some regions are already powered by "clean" hydroelectric, solar, or wind generators. As more "clean" power plants are built, they can be immediately hooked to the grid to power electric cars already on the roads. Electric cars are very "agile" when it comes to power sources.
It depends on how the monitor is configured; some monitors have poor color curves, so some colors are a bit "farther apart" than others. Worse, some monitors (even ones marketed as 8-bit) show less than 8 bits per channel due to cheap controllers or "dynamic contrast" systems. These displays show distinct banding on many images and should be avoided.
But as long as the display is well designed and capable of outputting a solid 8 bits per channel, it's unlikely that anyone will notice banding outside of special test patterns, even those of us (myself included) who can detect 9-10 bits of color definition per channel. While I wouldn't mind the extra colors, and it's a relatively easy thing for display manufacturers to implement, it's not a feature I'd spend much extra for.
The big advantage to >8 bits per channel color, though, is during the editing process.
When working with raster-based programs like Photoshop, it's pretty normal to create a gradient, then compress or tweak the colors, then mess around some more, then adjust the color levels again, lather, rinse, repeat. What started out as a fine gradient got compressed into a small range of colors, then expanded back again, and you now have very ugly, obvious color bands.
With higher color depth (16 bits per color channel is the norm for good image editors) you have a ton more headroom, so you can mess with levels to you heart's content without losing any color definition.
But once the editing is complete, it's pretty normal to export the final distribution copy at 8 bits per channel. It saves space, and anything beyond 8 bits per channel is virtually imperceptible.
It's kind of like lossy audio encoding: If you do it once, after the editing is complete, the music will still sound great. But if you compress, expand, and compress again twenty times you'll end up with crap.
The one practical use for high color depth displays right now is for color profiles. With extra overhead, it becomes possible to tweak displays warmer or cooler, compress or expand the color gamut, or even slightly tweak certain patches of the display to compensate for uneven backlighting, all without any loss of definition. It's not something the average person would bother with, but it's a good reason to add a few extra bits per pixel to professional displays.
Also, monitors today can't show extremely vivid or bright colors that the human eye is capable of perceiving. Backlight technology is improving this to some degree, but if there is ever a quantum leap in display technology we may *need* a lot more bits to describe all the new colors we can show. In fact, we would probably need to start using floating point color, which is already used for video editing and HDR video games.
My standards on "wasted" energy are simple: Could you accomplish the same work with less energy? If so, the extra energy used is called "waste". The ratio of energy required to energy used is called "efficiency".
Most new European refrigerators use 150-300 KWh per year. Most new Energy Star-certified American refrigerators use 400-1000 KWh.
Most new European dishwashers use ~1KWh per load. Most new Energy Star-certified American dishwashers use ~1.5KWh per load.
Washing machines can't be directly compared, as European models heat their own water as needed, while American models offload their energy use to an inefficient tank-based water heater. European washing machines, however, are almost exclusively front-loading models. American washing machines are still primarily the much less efficient top-loading design.
On a related note, Europeans are rapidly replacing their hot water cylinders with more efficient instantaneous water heaters. These tankless water heaters are still almost unheard of in the USA.
European electronic appliances have had mandatory PFC and efficiency requirements for some time now. In the USA, efficiency is voluntary and PFC is rare. Because of this, devices sold in the USA often put two or three times as much strain on power generators as devices sold in Europe. On the other hand, many USA computer manufacturers have "voluntarily" adopted European standards in order to have their products certified for use in the EU.
Americans also adopted air conditioning earlier and to a greater degree than Europeans, and American cars are of course some of the least efficient in the developed world.
===
American energy apologists claim that the country is naturally disadvantaged; that European nations have greater population density, milder climates, and less industry than the USA. This is a fallacious argument, as many countries are precisely the reverse: The USA has ten times the population density of Canada. In theory, this should reduce energy consumption, particularly in the case of oil. The USA has a much milder climate. In theory, this should also reduce energy consumption. The USA has a massive trade deficit, importing far more than they export. The USA outsources much of their manufacturing and heavy industry, which should also reduce their energy consumption. Canada, quite the opposite, has a trade surplus, engaging in excess industrial production to export to other nations. The USA draws its power primarly from non-renewable, highly polluting coal and oil, which should, if the government and EPA had real power, increase prices and reduce energy consumption. Canada produces the bulk of their power from cheap, renewable hydroelectric sources. Canada also ranks higher than the US in the UN-sponsored Human Development Index.
But Americans use just as much energy as Canadians. Norway, Sweden, and Finland, while having equally cold climates, very low population density, trade surpluses, cheap, renewable energy, and high standards of living, actually use as little as 75% as much energy per capita as the USA. Most other highly industrialized countries — ranging from South Korea and Japan to New Zealand to France, the UK, and Germany — use rougly half as much energy per capita as the US.
If the rest of the industrialized world has superior trade balance, has equal or superior culture and leisure, overall health, and
In the UK, where the researchers are located, the average household uses around 500 Watts averaged over the course of a year. Keep in mind that England, like most island countries, has a relatively mild climate, and large appliances generally have a low duty cycle.
In the USA, for comparison, the average household uses ~1KW. Lower electricity prices, less efficient appliances, and a more variable climate are all contributing factors to the USA's high energy use, but Americans are nevertheless some of the world's biggest wasters of electrical power.
The only countries that significantly out-consume the USA per capita are at far norther latitudes — Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden — and each of those countries produce their power primarily from non-polluting renewable hydroelectric and geothermal sources.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Averaged over the entire year, the average American household uses ~1KW.
In more efficient industrialized countries (UK, South Korea, Germany, etc.) 500W per household is a reasonable figure.
In a developing country the number would be much lower; India, Indonesia, and the Philippines use less than 1/10th as much electricity per capita as the USA.
If this tidal generator is relatively cheap and requires little maintenance, it could be a great resource for many developing nations.
The problem isn't altitude, it's speed. The SpaceShipTwo will peak at 2600mph, which is in the same ballpark as the SR-71 but only 1/6th the velocity required to reach any sort of orbit.
It's still a neat craft, but it would need to fifty times as powerful to become a true spacecraft, capable or doing more than popping above the "space barrier" for a few minutes.
Ever hear of hard links? Apple uses hard links for their Time Machine backup system, but anyone can implement it. By linking multiple "files" to the same data, every incremental backup can contain the entire file structure without wasting space. You get the performance and efficiency of incremental backups with the simplicity of a filesystem image.
Another plus is that each version of a file, no matter how many times it was "backed up", is stored exactly once on the backup media. So if you have, say, a quad-mirrored backup system, you can be sure that each and every version of every file has exactly four backups. With conventional full image backups, old files will be duplicated hundreds of times while frequently modified ones will only have a single backup.
The only downside to hard-link backups is an inability to span filesystems; if you can't fit a full backup onto one device, you'll have to split the backup up or RAID multiple drives for storage. Hopefully ZFS will simplify this, but it's still a small price to pay for fast, efficient, easily recoverable backups IMHO.
Thank goodness no one seems interested in aggregating and geolocating all those random photos and combining them into a cohesive image.
Yep, if we just shut down Google Street view we'll be guaranteed privacy in any public location, yes-sir.
Seriously, Google Street View is basically useless in terms of "evil government surveillance". Even if we had Star Trek technology capable of identifying any citizen in a country of 300 million from a bad photo, the chances of catching someone in some recognizably suspicious activity from a single photo taken on a random date from a public street is downright infinitesimal. We're not talking about 24/7 video cameras on every street corner here.
The only real "privacy" concern is a social one: A few people caught by Google Street View will be doing something embarrassing or indiscreet. Someone may find an embarrassing photo, post it on teh internets for the subject's friends/coworkers/family to find, and ignominy ensues. But there are lots of other places to find photos on the Internet; anyone doing something embarrassing in public view runs a risk of public humiliation, Google Street View or not.
Of course, you could try to mitigate the risk by enacting laws which criminalize showing photos of an individual without their consent. But trying to enforce such such laws would, ironically, require a complete lack of anonymity — at least for anyone with a camera — and move the nation several notches towards "police state". Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Acoustic and electric guitars are fundamentally different, but an electric guitar is still a guitar to a guitarist.
Apparently we don't know the same guitarists.
If only I had a mod point; the world needs more rude math puns.
The people I deal with have the reverse problem: Internet Explorer* is "The Internet". Outlook (or even worse, OE) is "The Email", which is completely separate from "The Internet". Even if they learn to use a webmail service, they assume that Internet Explorer magically takes them off of "The Internet" and on to "The Email".
If you asked them what "the Web" is, they'd look confused for a minute, then say "oh, that's The Internet."
*And, of course, "The Internet" is disconnected from their computer whenever they close Internet Explorer.
In 2005 Viacom spun off a lot of their companies. These are now under the new "CBS Corporation".
On the plus (?) side, every Star Trek series is owned by CBS Corp, not the post-2005 Viacom.
positronium...number 3 was prevalent in dreams and waking experiences.
That was a pretty good episode.
--
You must be some kind of super-troll robot from the future where apple has taken over the world.
Lies!
You kept calling him "bro", didn't you?
Well, you said...
I am a fan, but Apple is notorious for creating artificial product lines. Back in the day my family had a IIsi [wikipedia.org] - a famously stunted, budget-line computer with a slower crystal than the IIci, PDS instead of nubus, and low-res display which is a pain to upgrade because of the said PDS. Now it would have cost apple all of a few cents of parts to make this on par with the IIci, but instead they deliberately kept it stunted. But antitrust? No, why would it be?
Practically every company in the world does this. A company that knows its market can design a product for each segment, targeting the poorest and richest customer alike.
Manufacturing cost is hardly relevant to the end user; what matters in any market is how much customers are willing to pay. As much as we like to dream that companies are simply passing their manufacturing costs on to us, expensive cars don't cost that much more to assemble and transport than cheap cars, expensive appliances cost virtually the same as cheap ones, and so on. In some product lines the "cheap" and "expensive" models have precisely the same cost, like CPUs and software. It's not unheard of for "cheap" models to actually cost more to produce than "expensive" ones, or for a company to sell an identical product at two different prices (usually with different branding).
Finally, don't assume that the world would be a better place if companies charged "fairly" for their products. Currently, "cheap" products often squeak by with the smallest of profit margins, while the large margins on the more expensive models pay the company's fixed costs, like R&D. If a company charged an equal markup on all their products, prices on "cheap" goods would have to rise, and poorer customers would be priced out of the market.
I'm sure the Macintosh IIsi was a bad machine, but "it didn't cost any less to manufacture!" isn't a valid argument.
Well, trying to fit that machine into that form factor was a mistake. Slot-based upgrades with macs were a joke - buggy to the point of being unusable. What about the slightly slower crystal on the IIsi? It served no purpose other than to create a slower machine.
Yes. Curse Apple for inventing the product line. No other company would stoop so low.
...whoosh...
...as their own upgrade prices are all over the map.
For instance, on their entry level Vostro desktop, upgrading from the stock Core 2 E4600 to a Q6600 costs $150. On a Precision workstation, upgrading from the same E4600 to the same Q6600 costs $339.
On the Vostro, adding a E228WFP 22" LCD costs $175. On the Precision, $289.
On the Vostro, upgrading from a 160GB SATA hard drive to a 320GB SATA costs $60. On the Precision, the same upgrade costs $210.
On the Vostro, upgrading from a 16X DVDROM to a DVDRW drive costs $15. On the Precision, $45.
There are several factors at work here:
One, Dell just slashed the upgrade prices on their low end computers, hoping to stay competitive with aftermarket upgraders. High end systems are somewhat immune to this, as professional workstation users may not know how to upgrade their systems, or care more about not affecting the factory warranty, or simply value their time too much to bother, and are less likely to shop around for the best prices on parts than bargain-basement deal hunters.
Two, you pay for service. Dell offers much better all-round support on their higher end systems. You're a lot less likely to be bounced around by low level techs or wait on hold for an hour if you own that expensive Precision workstation. The cost of those intangible features trickle down into all the costs related to the PC, including upgrade prices. Especially upgrade prices, as that's where VARs make the majority of their profit.
Three, even if two parts have the same manufacturer and matching specs, they may not be identical. Hardware manufacturers know that not every part that comes off their assembly lines is the same quality: Some come from older or newer factory lines, some were assembled with better or worse batches of components. Hardware manufacturer know that some of their products are more likely to fail than others. To exploit the difference in qualities, OEMs will very often grade their products — offering "Enterprise Grade" and "Consumer Grade", with a price difference to match, when selling parts directly to end users, and a finer gradation when selling to large VARs like Dell or Apple. VARs want to buy the best parts for their high end systems, both because they want to maintain the perception of quality, and because high end tech support is expensive. Lower end components are paired with low end systems where cost savings are critical, or home systems where perception of quality is less important and a lost customer is no big deal, and in either case tech support is relatively cheap.
So, for a variety of factors, upgrade prices vary widely depending on where you buy your computer and how nice of a system you get. If it bothers you, you can always upgrade aftermarket. Granted, Apple's obsession with sleek, unbroken lines makes their computers a pain to take apart, but it can still be done with a bit of effort (and a guide). And their memory slots — the most common upgrade by far — are always easily accessible.
I shudder to think where you work, at 10PM, on a Sunday.
Using Firefox implies that you probably care about what web browser you're using. People who don't care just stick with what came on their system.
Great, now I can't stop imagining a Monty Python skit:
Reporter: You've all lost loved ones in recent years, while your research has had many near-triumphs and terrible setbacks. I'm sure it must have been difficult seeing those around you die while you were so close to a breakthough? ...pity...
Scientist #1: Difficult, yes, difficult...
Scientist #3: Indeed, terrible...
Scientist #2: Horrible, horrible...
Reporter: And Dr. Zweinhart - Pardon me for bringing the subject up, but your aunt passed away only days before your team announced this miracle cure. I can hardly imagine how bittersweet this achievement must feel for you, knowing that you will save billions of strangers' lives but not one so close to you?
Scientist #3: Truly... Truly a pity...
Scientist #1: Pity, terrible pity...
Scientist #2: