On a related note: A few days ago on of the local papers had an interview with a guy responsible for a rather large water purification plant. Apart from emphasizing once again what one should or shouldn't flush down the toilet, he remarked on there being spikes in the number of condoms they filter out right around the time of power outages. Just a random anecdote, but it's sourced from the guy who should know best.
Sending free stuff to the press isn't purely a thing of gadget and software markets, it's been around for quite a long time before that. Magazines reporting on concerts get free tickets for their reporters plus in some cases tickets to give away. Radio stations, too, along with free CDs (well, until they're forced to pay royalties for each "performance", but that's a new development). The Academy receives free screeners of nominated movies. Oh, and to get the car analogy in: Those car reviews in newspapers and magazines, they get to try those rides for free, too.
As long as expensive toys need to be returned after the review (does not apply to services like concert tickets), this doesn't strike me as any problem at all. Anything more than that starts to blur the line to bribery, and that is where it starts getting problematic.
Building the robotics and image processing bits of an automated testing environment would take an (expensive) Engineer a bunch of weeks, even more for a more complicated setup. Quadruple digits at least. Paying a college student for four days of work is approximately 32 hours at $8 or so; that's some $250.
You raise an interesting point. A standard 2-D movie is basically a succession of I-frames (full images) and B-frames (delta information). Seeing how the I-frames are expensive in terms of storage space, the standard (e.g. left eye) track could be left as normal, but an alternative path of B-frames for the right eye could branch off after each I-frame. Alternatively, each right-eye frame could be branched off it's corresponding left-eye frame with that path staying intact, again. The former would work better for heavier differences in the two channels; the latter would conserve more space in case of lots of change on screen. Though I guess both mightn't be as visually great as the one possibility where the additional channel gets it's own set of I-frames. Almost, sure, but probably not exactly as good.
I'm pretty sure there will be a live fast/die young trade off.
Sounds quite right. Triple the metabolism means triple cell replacement means triple aging.
OTOH, apparently, we tend to sleep way too much. Sleep was (in the hunter & gatherer days) a very useful way to expend less energy. Sleep less, eat more. The same may be true for the mutation mentioned in TFA. A faster metabolism will build more muscle and so on, but (as even mentioned in TFS) require a higher amount of energy intake. In a world of limited supplies, Liam might've died of hunger quite quickly. In our situation of abundance, his particular mutation might prove useful, if only for decorative purposes; but well, decorative purposes are what keeps peacocks colourful, and it seems to be working out pretty well for them.
They test DirectX 9 against DirectX 11. Version 9 is the latest available on XP and can be perfectly emulated by 10, which is the one Vista ships with. Also, of course by 11, which is what Windows 7 ships with. I'm guessing (educated, but still a guess) there's a "compatibility mode" that runs features available in DirectX 9 (directly or through 10 or 11, doesn't really matter) which includes everything from "Low" to "High" and a "quality mode" that'll max out the details with DirectX 11's features. The former makes the game run on XP, the latter makes it look prettier on Windows 7 and, if you manage to skip the DirectX 11 setup, Vista. Oh, I almost forgot: The level also depends on what kind of GPU is used. Windows 7 on a DirectX 9 GPU will probably disable the "Ultra" setting (or make it unplayably slow as all the tesselation would need to be done by the CPU.)
If I'm not mistaken, High sets the game to use the highest quality rendering it can get using only DirectX 9 features while Ultra is the only setting that actually enables stuff specific to DirectX 11. The article doesn't mention there being two cards or different installs or anything, so they probably just ran the game twice on the same box, first with DirectX-9-style rendering (done through DiretX 11 and only then switched on DirectX 11's full visual splendor (Ultra quality).
spending the money on the hardware necessary to control access by IP.
Huh? Controlling access by IP is probably the most simple and quick way to do it; all you need is a database capable of storing two 32-Bit* integers per row. First column takes the IP address, second the Unix timestamp. Before each (free) access, you check if there are five (or however many stories you're "giving away") or more entries for that address already. If so, block the request. If not, let it through and add the necessary row. Throw in a cronjob that deletes everything older than 24 hours and Shazam, you're done.
* I realize a (very) few people out there use IPv6, which would make addresses longer than 32 bits. Either widen that column or (smart answer) ignore them. They blog and twitter and whatnot, so letting them get their news free could very well pay off in more hits. Also, they tend to be the folks who get around technical measures, so don't even try. I also realize Unix timestamps will overflow 32 bits in the near future (i.e. 29 years). Doesn't matter as the system isn't going to live that long.
About the API, I'm guessing that it'll focus on feeding Google News, including News results in Google Web Search, but not GWS itself. I'm also guessing that many a publisher will be too lazy to make the 5 articles a day properly and instead just stick to the behaviour where coming from or being Google gets you the full text for free, but anything else (including clicking any of the internal links you see on that free page) would go behind a paywall. Should my guess prove true, the methods as described above will get you free full articles.
And for those papers who actually implement a five-a-day-free, it'll either be done with cookies (flush 'em for another five free stories), your IP address (reset your router, use TOR, use CoralCDN (.nyud.net), use a proxy) or tied to your Google Account (very unlikely, but solvable with more Google Accounts.)
Most 'papers like Google and the visitors Google sends them; so the Google Bot and hits with a google.com Referer tend to get a free pass. Use this to your advantage:
Google the Article's URI, click the link and off you go (with a real Google referer).
If it's not indexed yet and you're using Opera: Go to any Google page, press Ctrl + U, change any one link's href to the article's URI, click "Save Changes", click the link and off you go (with a fake Google referer. This works for any fake referer, by the way).
If they're picky, they mightn't let hits from Google through but still allow the Google bot to index their pages. Change your User-Agent accordingly. In Firefox, go to about:config and change general.useragent.extra.firefox to Googlebot 2.1 and off you go (as Googlebot).
As a last resort, there's quite a few ad-blocking personal proxies out there. Most of them allow you to fake Referers or change User-Agents, for any browser.
Gas consumption, size and increased dangerousness to other people in crashes (SUV vs car as well as SUV vs person).
Minivans I don't mind because they tend to be driven out of necessity/utility, not as penis extenders. Trucks are no issue around here, so I don't really have any opinion on them; but I'm guessing it'd be along the lines of minivans.
Sorry for omitting the sarcasm tags. I don't actually like people dying, not even in SUVs. Especially seeing as SUV drivers don't quite strike me as the kind of people carrying an organ donor card.
On CAFE: Actually, I didn't; thanks for that. Reading up on it, I can't help but dislike it. Seems like another unnecessary piece of legislation. In my opinion, just jacking gas up to reasonable rates (say, $6 to $6 per gallon, somewhere in the vicinity of the rest of the world) and using the tax brought in with that measure for roads and public transit would help a great deal more, while allowing those 30% of station wagon drivers who actually require the space to choose for themselves if they want or don't want to pay up.
Being European, I'm also not that familiar with the Clean Air Act, but seeing how the DMCA, CAN-SPAM or the Various Wars on Stuff are working out, I can imagine expense and results.
In any case: I don't have a problem with soccer moms driving their 6 kids to school/soccer/whatever in a minivan; they need the extra seats. I don't mind lumberjacks driving their F-150 to their place of work; they may not have any roads there. What annoys me are pretentious pricks driving pretentious SUVs with dismal mileage, handling or anything exclusively through well-plowed and much-used city roads and highways. Also, soccer moms using the same kind of vehicle for the same purpose; especially if the vehicle only features the same number of seats a normal sedan would.
... and that, kids, is why I proudly drive my M1 Abrams. With a track width of more than 3.5 metres, it won't flip over sideways, and it has that stalk extending forward to stop it from flipping over it's front when braking sharply.
On a more serious note, though, this is quite probably the most awesome news I've heard today. Well, anything that'll increase mortality in SUV drivers is a good thing. Let's hope this sells a few extra Priuses or even Del Sols.
Uh, the only impact being the "hottest new music" has is being served from one of their SSD hosts instead of the normal streaming cluster. This is completely transparent to the user. It doesn't limit what you can listen to or even make it more likely you'll hear "hot new" music from an SSD host. It's caching of the most popular files, plain and simple.
12.1" was awesome back when they still made non-widescreen laptops. ThinkPad X series with SXGA+ (1400x1050) on 12.1" were made of pure awesome with ground unicorn sprinkles on top. Nowadays, if you want 1000+ rows, you'll probably have to go 15" or more.
The N900 is shaping up to become a truly kick-ass device. With all that openness and technological superiority (it's a full linux distro on a mobile device; not just a mobile stack on a linux kernel), it could be to Android what Betamax was to VHS. Milestone ("Droid") for me, please.
There already are sites that will let you see who looked at your profile, so it's not a novel thing and it doesn't start a whole new era of creepiness. Actually, thinking about it, this shouldn't even be hard to do on facebook. There's this magnificent API, embeddable into profile pages... Methings I just might try something out tonight. Wouldn't want to make the app public as it's against facebook rules, though. Back to topic & bad analogies: Seeing a list of whom looks at your profile is like the mirror on the wall behind the liquor bottles in a bar. Sitting right at the bar, Greg's buddy Sally is sure to pull some looks. She knows, you know, the bartender knows best. Out of chance, AmigaMMC & a few of his friends ended up at the same place as her, sitting on a table, having a few drinks and laugsh. Ever so casually, AmigaMMC will tend to have a look at Sall^Wthe bar. Now if Sally were to turn around at look him in the eye, he'd look away quickly, right. But Sally's a smart gal. Checking through the mirror, she notices he actually does seem interested (in a non-creepy "we're in a bar, let's have a drink & talk about stuff") way. So she might send appropriate signals. Like, for example, placing her empty glass in AmigaMMC's line of sight. Or making sure she's marked as "Relationship status: Single; looking for: Men"... And if she's actually creeped out, a mean look ("Status: It's complicated") or a stroll down the block to another bar (Are you sure you want to remove AmigaMMC from your friends?) will take care of that.
The most important factor is to keep some kind of plausible deniability going for as long as possible. "Don't I know you? Lemme buy you a drink" can be cancelled with "Funny, you DO look exactly like Kim from High School, well, it was fun talking to you, have a good one". A "quick glance" is easily explained with "I thought I've seen you at xyz, just wanted to make sure. It wasn't you. Have a good one." (and done). It's harder to explain half an hour of looking through each and every picture in their gallery, but fb won't probably implement that.
All in all, the dating game requires her to know he is checking her out and him to be able to deny it. "xyz looked at your profile" is a good way to start. Especially for those who get cold hard cash selling that info.
Many of my "friends" on facebook would barely qualify as "acquaintances" in real life, but I don't think there's anybody whom I've never met and still friended. I, too, don't see how Facebook is a useful tool to meet new people. It's quite great when it comes to keeping in touch with people you mightn't otherwise call or write to, but that's mostly it.
...ask them for a fee to see whom of their friends viewed their profile.
Facebook isn't a true dating site, it's more of an extension of your real life social circle. Remember that cute chick your friend Greg was with at that concert where you randomly met? You two exchanged a few words, and you're pretty sure she smiled at you in an "interested" sort of way, but you were too shy/drunk/whatever to ask her for/write down her number. Luckily Greg has her as a friend, so you add her too. After she's accepted your friend request (she will, there's at least one mutual friend & she might've already met you); you of course want to know if she just Accepted and was done with that or actually checked out your profile. And that party photos where you're totally drunk, half passed out and look wicked cool. Well, guess what: You can. For 20 credits (1000 credits are $9.99) you get 24 hours of access to your profile's visitor log. Another 20 credits will even tell you whom looked at which one of your photos and videos. You spent 40 cents for quite a bit more information than you'd get before buying a girl a drink in a bar. In five out of six cases, she might never even visit your profile, but you'll be checking for that occasional one out of six who will. At 20 cts per day and a moderate guess of 100 checks per year, they make $20 off of you directly, $50 off of you for advertising and $30 for some data mining (they have your credit card, know what ads you click, what profiles you look at and they've got pics of everything you do). That's $100, annually for, say, 5% of their 300m user base. $1.5bn ain't that bad.
(This is just a somewhat educated guess, any EEs reading this: Please correct me)
A soldered BGA contact point will probably have a greater contact area with better signal quality. Since all of that signalling is done digitally, they can lower the voltage potential between their ones and zeros to the lowest point where they can still reliably be distinguished, and that point ought to be lower with a neatly soldered BGA chip than a socket with it's tiny contact points. Also, including the socket generates cost for the socket, additional CPU packaging and wastes very precious space. Lastly, keeping the cooling system yet upgrading the CPU isn't a smart move if you're not *really* sure your cooling equipment is up to the job. Thus an enthusiast thing.
Tying refers to bundling unrelated goods. You cannot use a modern computer without an operating system except perhaps as a space warmer. Most OEMs realize this and find bundling Windows exclusively gives them the best returns, so they stick to Windows. Let's not get into how Microsoft sweetens exclusivity with discounts, PR money and whatnot; fact is you need an operating system and most vendors stick to Windows as their only choice.
An engine is just as integral as an OS. Without it, both car and computer are mostly useless, but will still serve well as decorations or as places to store stuff in. The OS can be replaced by either different versions of the same family (e.g. Windows XP/Vista/7); the engine can relatively easily be replaced with a larger or smaller one from the same manufacturer. With some extra work (you might run into missing drivers, will require a new set of applications), the computer can run an entirely different OS (e.g. Linux, Mac OS). Same goes for the car -- go crazy with wheel-integrated electric motors or throw in actual foot pedals for each seat.
So we have that down to one response, and I don't know the answer. I'm guessing "Yes", even if it's only for accounting reasons or similar. Also, buying a car, the engine has extremely probably been used at least to drive it onto the lot, so some value would already be lost.
Slashdot Mirror
On a related note: A few days ago on of the local papers had an interview with a guy responsible for a rather large water purification plant. Apart from emphasizing once again what one should or shouldn't flush down the toilet, he remarked on there being spikes in the number of condoms they filter out right around the time of power outages. Just a random anecdote, but it's sourced from the guy who should know best.
Sending free stuff to the press isn't purely a thing of gadget and software markets, it's been around for quite a long time before that. Magazines reporting on concerts get free tickets for their reporters plus in some cases tickets to give away. Radio stations, too, along with free CDs (well, until they're forced to pay royalties for each "performance", but that's a new development). The Academy receives free screeners of nominated movies. Oh, and to get the car analogy in: Those car reviews in newspapers and magazines, they get to try those rides for free, too.
As long as expensive toys need to be returned after the review (does not apply to services like concert tickets), this doesn't strike me as any problem at all. Anything more than that starts to blur the line to bribery, and that is where it starts getting problematic.
Building the robotics and image processing bits of an automated testing environment would take an (expensive) Engineer a bunch of weeks, even more for a more complicated setup. Quadruple digits at least.
Paying a college student for four days of work is approximately 32 hours at $8 or so; that's some $250.
Which one seems cheaper?
You raise an interesting point.
A standard 2-D movie is basically a succession of I-frames (full images) and B-frames (delta information). Seeing how the I-frames are expensive in terms of storage space, the standard (e.g. left eye) track could be left as normal, but an alternative path of B-frames for the right eye could branch off after each I-frame. Alternatively, each right-eye frame could be branched off it's corresponding left-eye frame with that path staying intact, again.
The former would work better for heavier differences in the two channels; the latter would conserve more space in case of lots of change on screen.
Though I guess both mightn't be as visually great as the one possibility where the additional channel gets it's own set of I-frames. Almost, sure, but probably not exactly as good.
Sounds quite right. Triple the metabolism means triple cell replacement means triple aging.
OTOH, apparently, we tend to sleep way too much. Sleep was (in the hunter & gatherer days) a very useful way to expend less energy. Sleep less, eat more. The same may be true for the mutation mentioned in TFA. A faster metabolism will build more muscle and so on, but (as even mentioned in TFS) require a higher amount of energy intake. In a world of limited supplies, Liam might've died of hunger quite quickly. In our situation of abundance, his particular mutation might prove useful, if only for decorative purposes; but well, decorative purposes are what keeps peacocks colourful, and it seems to be working out pretty well for them.
They test DirectX 9 against DirectX 11. Version 9 is the latest available on XP and can be perfectly emulated by 10, which is the one Vista ships with. Also, of course by 11, which is what Windows 7 ships with.
I'm guessing (educated, but still a guess) there's a "compatibility mode" that runs features available in DirectX 9 (directly or through 10 or 11, doesn't really matter) which includes everything from "Low" to "High" and a "quality mode" that'll max out the details with DirectX 11's features. The former makes the game run on XP, the latter makes it look prettier on Windows 7 and, if you manage to skip the DirectX 11 setup, Vista. Oh, I almost forgot: The level also depends on what kind of GPU is used. Windows 7 on a DirectX 9 GPU will probably disable the "Ultra" setting (or make it unplayably slow as all the tesselation would need to be done by the CPU.)
If I'm not mistaken, High sets the game to use the highest quality rendering it can get using only DirectX 9 features while Ultra is the only setting that actually enables stuff specific to DirectX 11. The article doesn't mention there being two cards or different installs or anything, so they probably just ran the game twice on the same box, first with DirectX-9-style rendering (done through DiretX 11 and only then switched on DirectX 11's full visual splendor (Ultra quality).
My guess would be he's referring to the largest (uncovered) infiltration of the U.S. gov't.
Huh? Controlling access by IP is probably the most simple and quick way to do it; all you need is a database capable of storing two 32-Bit* integers per row. First column takes the IP address, second the Unix timestamp. Before each (free) access, you check if there are five (or however many stories you're "giving away") or more entries for that address already. If so, block the request. If not, let it through and add the necessary row. Throw in a cronjob that deletes everything older than 24 hours and Shazam, you're done.
* I realize a (very) few people out there use IPv6, which would make addresses longer than 32 bits. Either widen that column or (smart answer) ignore them. They blog and twitter and whatnot, so letting them get their news free could very well pay off in more hits. Also, they tend to be the folks who get around technical measures, so don't even try.
I also realize Unix timestamps will overflow 32 bits in the near future (i.e. 29 years). Doesn't matter as the system isn't going to live that long.
Firebug, according to this guy.
I know I wasn't, but at least I tried, aye? ;)
About the API, I'm guessing that it'll focus on feeding Google News, including News results in Google Web Search, but not GWS itself. I'm also guessing that many a publisher will be too lazy to make the 5 articles a day properly and instead just stick to the behaviour where coming from or being Google gets you the full text for free, but anything else (including clicking any of the internal links you see on that free page) would go behind a paywall. Should my guess prove true, the methods as described above will get you free full articles.
And for those papers who actually implement a five-a-day-free, it'll either be done with cookies (flush 'em for another five free stories), your IP address (reset your router, use TOR, use CoralCDN (.nyud.net), use a proxy) or tied to your Google Account (very unlikely, but solvable with more Google Accounts.)
Most 'papers like Google and the visitors Google sends them; so the Google Bot and hits with a google.com Referer tend to get a free pass. Use this to your advantage:
Without heatsinking, the P4 will melt in short order
Wrong. :)
Gas consumption, size and increased dangerousness to other people in crashes (SUV vs car as well as SUV vs person).
Minivans I don't mind because they tend to be driven out of necessity/utility, not as penis extenders. Trucks are no issue around here, so I don't really have any opinion on them; but I'm guessing it'd be along the lines of minivans.
Sorry for omitting the sarcasm tags. I don't actually like people dying, not even in SUVs. Especially seeing as SUV drivers don't quite strike me as the kind of people carrying an organ donor card.
On CAFE:
Actually, I didn't; thanks for that. Reading up on it, I can't help but dislike it. Seems like another unnecessary piece of legislation. In my opinion, just jacking gas up to reasonable rates (say, $6 to $6 per gallon, somewhere in the vicinity of the rest of the world) and using the tax brought in with that measure for roads and public transit would help a great deal more, while allowing those 30% of station wagon drivers who actually require the space to choose for themselves if they want or don't want to pay up.
Being European, I'm also not that familiar with the Clean Air Act, but seeing how the DMCA, CAN-SPAM or the Various Wars on Stuff are working out, I can imagine expense and results.
In any case: I don't have a problem with soccer moms driving their 6 kids to school/soccer/whatever in a minivan; they need the extra seats. I don't mind lumberjacks driving their F-150 to their place of work; they may not have any roads there. What annoys me are pretentious pricks driving pretentious SUVs with dismal mileage, handling or anything exclusively through well-plowed and much-used city roads and highways. Also, soccer moms using the same kind of vehicle for the same purpose; especially if the vehicle only features the same number of seats a normal sedan would.
... and that, kids, is why I proudly drive my M1 Abrams. With a track width of more than 3.5 metres, it won't flip over sideways, and it has that stalk extending forward to stop it from flipping over it's front when braking sharply.
On a more serious note, though, this is quite probably the most awesome news I've heard today. Well, anything that'll increase mortality in SUV drivers is a good thing. Let's hope this sells a few extra Priuses or even Del Sols.
Why would the kids cling to their back seats? It's an Escalade, preservation of momentum and so on dictates a crash won't bother it much. Pesky kids.
Uh, the only impact being the "hottest new music" has is being served from one of their SSD hosts instead of the normal streaming cluster. This is completely transparent to the user. It doesn't limit what you can listen to or even make it more likely you'll hear "hot new" music from an SSD host. It's caching of the most popular files, plain and simple.
12.1" was awesome back when they still made non-widescreen laptops. ThinkPad X series with SXGA+ (1400x1050) on 12.1" were made of pure awesome with ground unicorn sprinkles on top. Nowadays, if you want 1000+ rows, you'll probably have to go 15" or more.
The N900 is shaping up to become a truly kick-ass device. With all that openness and technological superiority (it's a full linux distro on a mobile device; not just a mobile stack on a linux kernel), it could be to Android what Betamax was to VHS. Milestone ("Droid") for me, please.
There already are sites that will let you see who looked at your profile, so it's not a novel thing and it doesn't start a whole new era of creepiness.
Actually, thinking about it, this shouldn't even be hard to do on facebook. There's this magnificent API, embeddable into profile pages... Methings I just might try something out tonight. Wouldn't want to make the app public as it's against facebook rules, though.
Back to topic & bad analogies: Seeing a list of whom looks at your profile is like the mirror on the wall behind the liquor bottles in a bar. Sitting right at the bar, Greg's buddy Sally is sure to pull some looks. She knows, you know, the bartender knows best. Out of chance, AmigaMMC & a few of his friends ended up at the same place as her, sitting on a table, having a few drinks and laugsh. Ever so casually, AmigaMMC will tend to have a look at Sall^Wthe bar. Now if Sally were to turn around at look him in the eye, he'd look away quickly, right. But Sally's a smart gal. Checking through the mirror, she notices he actually does seem interested (in a non-creepy "we're in a bar, let's have a drink & talk about stuff") way. So she might send appropriate signals. Like, for example, placing her empty glass in AmigaMMC's line of sight. Or making sure she's marked as "Relationship status: Single; looking for: Men"... And if she's actually creeped out, a mean look ("Status: It's complicated") or a stroll down the block to another bar (Are you sure you want to remove AmigaMMC from your friends?) will take care of that.
The most important factor is to keep some kind of plausible deniability going for as long as possible. "Don't I know you? Lemme buy you a drink" can be cancelled with "Funny, you DO look exactly like Kim from High School, well, it was fun talking to you, have a good one". A "quick glance" is easily explained with "I thought I've seen you at xyz, just wanted to make sure. It wasn't you. Have a good one." (and done). It's harder to explain half an hour of looking through each and every picture in their gallery, but fb won't probably implement that.
All in all, the dating game requires her to know he is checking her out and him to be able to deny it. "xyz looked at your profile" is a good way to start. Especially for those who get cold hard cash selling that info.
Would you care to elaborate on that?
Many of my "friends" on facebook would barely qualify as "acquaintances" in real life, but I don't think there's anybody whom I've never met and still friended. I, too, don't see how Facebook is a useful tool to meet new people. It's quite great when it comes to keeping in touch with people you mightn't otherwise call or write to, but that's mostly it.
...ask them for a fee to see whom of their friends viewed their profile.
Facebook isn't a true dating site, it's more of an extension of your real life social circle. Remember that cute chick your friend Greg was with at that concert where you randomly met? You two exchanged a few words, and you're pretty sure she smiled at you in an "interested" sort of way, but you were too shy/drunk/whatever to ask her for/write down her number. Luckily Greg has her as a friend, so you add her too. After she's accepted your friend request (she will, there's at least one mutual friend & she might've already met you); you of course want to know if she just Accepted and was done with that or actually checked out your profile. And that party photos where you're totally drunk, half passed out and look wicked cool. Well, guess what: You can. For 20 credits (1000 credits are $9.99) you get 24 hours of access to your profile's visitor log. Another 20 credits will even tell you whom looked at which one of your photos and videos.
You spent 40 cents for quite a bit more information than you'd get before buying a girl a drink in a bar. In five out of six cases, she might never even visit your profile, but you'll be checking for that occasional one out of six who will. At 20 cts per day and a moderate guess of 100 checks per year, they make $20 off of you directly, $50 off of you for advertising and $30 for some data mining (they have your credit card, know what ads you click, what profiles you look at and they've got pics of everything you do). That's $100, annually for, say, 5% of their 300m user base. $1.5bn ain't that bad.
(This is just a somewhat educated guess, any EEs reading this: Please correct me)
A soldered BGA contact point will probably have a greater contact area with better signal quality. Since all of that signalling is done digitally, they can lower the voltage potential between their ones and zeros to the lowest point where they can still reliably be distinguished, and that point ought to be lower with a neatly soldered BGA chip than a socket with it's tiny contact points. Also, including the socket generates cost for the socket, additional CPU packaging and wastes very precious space. Lastly, keeping the cooling system yet upgrading the CPU isn't a smart move if you're not *really* sure your cooling equipment is up to the job. Thus an enthusiast thing.
Tying refers to bundling unrelated goods. You cannot use a modern computer without an operating system except perhaps as a space warmer. Most OEMs realize this and find bundling Windows exclusively gives them the best returns, so they stick to Windows. Let's not get into how Microsoft sweetens exclusivity with discounts, PR money and whatnot; fact is you need an operating system and most vendors stick to Windows as their only choice.
An engine is just as integral as an OS. Without it, both car and computer are mostly useless, but will still serve well as decorations or as places to store stuff in. The OS can be replaced by either different versions of the same family (e.g. Windows XP/Vista/7); the engine can relatively easily be replaced with a larger or smaller one from the same manufacturer. With some extra work (you might run into missing drivers, will require a new set of applications), the computer can run an entirely different OS (e.g. Linux, Mac OS). Same goes for the car -- go crazy with wheel-integrated electric motors or throw in actual foot pedals for each seat.
So we have that down to one response, and I don't know the answer. I'm guessing "Yes", even if it's only for accounting reasons or similar. Also, buying a car, the engine has extremely probably been used at least to drive it onto the lot, so some value would already be lost.