Well, no one is forcing anyone to live in Sweden, so if you don't like it, I would suggest that you find somewhere else to live. Sweden's government is fairly popular with the people it serves, so what's your big problem with people choosing to live under a system that works for them?
One advantage the Segway has when stopping is that it can't go all that fast to begin with. It's a lot easier to stop a bike going 12MPH than one that is going 20MPH.
Though I imagine that one other advantage the Segway may have is that it would be easy to bail off of it if you knew you couldn't stop in time.
Newsflash: Recycling metal is vastly cheaper and less energy intensive than mining new ore and refining it.
In case you haven't noticed, cars are made out of more than steel. You've got to seperate the metal from the glass, fabrics, and plastics. You have to properly dispose of the fluids in the car, many of which are hazardous. Even with the metals, you usually have a mix of steel, aluminum (usually), and copper to deal with. With the cash for clunkers cars, you also have to deal with the sand that got poured into the engine (though honestly, I don't know if that presents a big problem or not). So yes, recycling a car actually does consume energy and resources, which is why it's better to keep a car on the road so long as it's not a hazard and the emissions systems are still functional - even if the car is a bit of a gas guzzler.
Not to reward the rich and environmentally irresponsible,
It may not be intended, but when anyone who bought and drives a car that gets more than 18 MPG* gets dick from the program no matter how much of a clunker the car really is, it's kind of hard to avoid people coming to the conclusion it rewards those that bought fuel inefficient vehicles.
not to subsidize cars for lower income Americans,
Clearly that's true, otherwise they would open it up to qualified used cars too, instead of just new cars that poor people can't afford even with the discount. Luckily, this really isn't for the rich** either, it's primarly the middle class taking advantage of it.
The program is designed to get fuel inefficient cars off the road.
If they really cared about saving fuel, they would realize that crushing perfectly good cars is a terrible idea once you factor in the energy needed to recyle the old car and build a new replacement. They would also make any new truck and SUV ineligable for the voucher, instead of a $3500 credit for a lousy 2MPG increase. It's basically a bailout for the auto industry by helping them move inventory they can't sell and removing good used cars from the market.
*That's 18 MPG when the car was new, not the actual mileage it gets now. **Except those that own and run the auto companies, of course.
Baloney. The cars being traded in aren't long for this world anyway.
Go look at the vehicles that are getting scrapped with this program. The people driving the worst clunkers are also the ones that can't afford a new car. So overwhelmingly, we have middle class people trading in cars that they would normally get something like $2000-3000 for from the dealer. Since Obama is giving them more for the car, it they that that instead. The poor people end up screwed again - not only can't they afford the new car even with the voucher, used cars they would otherwise have available to buy are instead being destroyed.
Funny you should mention windows though. There's another stimulus plan for tax credits on energy efficient windows. I happen to have 6 windows that are all rotten and in need of replacement. I likely would have bought the cheapest window I could get that'd last, but with a 30% tax credit I chose the energy efficient model. Also, I likely could have waited another few years to replace them if I wanted t, but the stimulus plan means I have to do it this year or next.
The point being, I have to replace my windows ANYWAY. Doing it NOW rather than in a few years helps the economy when it needs help. I also gain the economic benefit of more energy efficient windows, which puts more money in my pocket to spend on other things. The broken window fallacy addresses none of these economic benefits.
That doesn't mean it the mostlogical thing do is to force people to replace something. Say new windows last 30 years if bought today - if you replace them now, the clock starts ticking now. If you replace them in five years, the clock starts ticking then. So is it worth waiting five years to see if something better comes out, or at the very least put off the next replacement five years? That depends on a lot of factors, but since the windows you buy will almost certainly look like the windows you can buy 5 years from now, it probably makes sense to replace them now.
But take something else, like computer screens. For example, should you replace a perfectly functional CRT with a LCD? The CRT won't last forever, obviously, and will be replaced with a LCD at some point. The LCD uses less power, and if you replace the CRT now you'll start receiving that benefit immediately. Well, take someone who decided to replace their CRT years ago and bought a small LCD that likely ran at the same resolution as the CRT they replaced. Now that larger screens are out, they've replaced the small screen with a big one. Now take someone who waited for their CRT to fail, and now that it's crapped out they just went out and bought the same big LCD screen. So what was worse - manufacturering and recycling the small LCD for the first person, or the additional power usage from the CRT from the second person?
The fuel economy part has a very real impact on disposable incomes for people who gain the most from this program.
Cutting the number of times you need to fill up by 50% will save you enough money to: go out for dinner, subscribe to something, pay down credit debt, and much much more...
I think the fuel savings would be wiped out by the new car payment, assuming that the gas guzzler that was traded in was paid off and they need to finance the new car. If they wanted to do this right, they would allow vouchers to be used on qualifying used cars too - except that isn't what the auto industry wants, so it's not going to happen.
Don't you think the parts are worth more than the whole here? Sure, scrap metal has value, but I would think it has more value as a functional Jeep Grand Cherokee, especially given that the cost of building said car has already been paid. Really, if they wanted to do it right, they would not be crushing good late model vehicles, but instead reworking the program towards getting the real unsafe and polluting vehicles off the road instead. Using taxpayer dollars to destroy useful vehicles in the name of spurring economic activity is just a form of the broken window fallacy, and is completely assine.
From my understanding, anything the parts yard hasn't sold has to be sent to the recycler after 6 months. A lot of scrap yards are a bit leary of these vehicles - the most valuable parts (the drivetrain) is ruined, and they have to keep track of the inventory to make sure they don't sell parts off of these vehicles after 6 months have passed. A lot of major parts have the VIN stamped on them, so in theory the government can check up on this if they wanted. It's probable that many vehicles may go straight to the crusher instead.
Top bracket taxpayers are overwhelmingly small business owners paying their business taxes on their personal tax returns.
From all the small business owners I know, this is not how it works. The business is incorporated, and the owner usually games the system so that the "business" owns everything that seems remotely plausible, and pays for everything that is remotely plausible. This is easiest if the business is run from home. For example, their vehicle, laptop, digital camera, cell phone, workshop/garage, tools, etc. are all owned by the business, and things like car payment, fuel and insurance, phone bill, morgage (usually only partially), utilities, internet, etc. are paid by the business. The reason is that they can then write those expenses off as "business expenses" when it comes to taxes. Then the amount of money they pay themselves from the business is small, so their income taxes are low (you can get away with a small income when your job provides you with a free vehicle, pays your utilities, etc). So always be a bit skeptical when you hear a small business owner claiming something like "I only made $18,000 last year!".
Not that I'm bashing small business owners here, just that the system is pretty broken.
The people who really need this program as the poor driving old clunkers, but they can't afford the new car or secure the financing for the new car (even after the discount). So the effect is that the most of the people taking advantage of this are the middle class, who are trading in older, but perfectly servicable vehicles, as part of the program. The "clunkers" name is a lie - many of these vehicles are problem-free, and feature functional modern safety and emissions systems. Many of these are families doing a "swap" - most families have a large family vehicle and smaller 2nd car, so trade in the old family vehicle for a new smaller car to get the voucher, then turn around and trade in the old smaller car for a new fuel-inefficient family vehicle.
Many people don't know what happens to the old vehicles either. The program requires that they be disabled on the dealers' lot, or face a fine. The prefered way of doing this is to drain the oil and pour a sand solution into the engine and run it to it seizes. Youtube is full of videos now of this procedure being done to these "clunkers": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjBilHH5z2A (late model Jeep Grand Cherokee getting destroyed) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-ZP6aG2xl0 (Rather nice looking Oldsmobile Aurora gets trashed) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOEqJIGnXRw (Late model Chevy Blazer/GMC Jimmy getting destroyed) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OhW9u9R49w (Nice looking Dodge utility van, apparently they just drained the oil on this one)
So not only do these cars have to be scrapped, to add insult to injury, when the scrap yards get them the most valuable part of the car (the engine) has been permanently ruined. So as far as I'm concerned, this program is nothing more than a disgusting waste of a lot of perfectly good vehicles in some kind of bizarre bailout for the auto industry by using taxpayer dollars to buy new cars for people who don't need them, and removing perfectly good vehicles from the used car market. There is nothing green about it at all when you consider the environmental costs of replacing these non-clunkers with new vehicles and recycling the carcass.
(as a note, I'm particulary pissed about that Volvo... it's a nicer car than mine, not that my car is a bad car - but I can't trade it in for a voucher even if I wanted to because it gets 22MPG and now I get to watch nicer cars than mine get destroyed with my taxpayer dollars. As far as I'm concerned, the program running out of money is a good thing)
Actually, I've found that if you just hand someone an iPod, the fact that the circle on the front is actually a control you use by running your fingers across it isn't exactly intuitive to many people who have never seen one before. The old ones with the click wheel is actually a lot better in this regard.
That doesn't mean there is anything complex going on in the keyboard itself. They could do something as simple as shorting one of the pins on the ribbon cable to ground to tell the controller that it's a UK layout.
Since there is no way to backspace, if you screw up a digit (which is all too easy to do on many phones) you can just hit the pound sign early and re-enter it. If you instead just hit more random numbers until you hit 5 digits, then there is a risk that the number you entered might be valid and it will let you incorrectly proceed.
In this case, I think something like CDs or bonds would work well. Sure, you're locked into them until they mature, but you're going to know when you're decommissioning the plant years, if not decades, in advance, so it's not like you can't plan for it. Either that, or buy gold, since they already have a highly-secured site to store it in:)
Because they presumably show that there's just ice up there. It can be just as important to hide what you don't have as it is to hide what you do have.
All have had their good runs and bad runs. Some of the bad runs killed the company. (eg: IBM's Desk-star "death-star" line)
Actually, they are still around - Hitachi bought the line from IBM and continues to make DeskStar drives. I have never used the Hitachi versions myself, but I haven't heard any big complaints about them.
Incidently, I just bought my first WD drive in a long time (they've been on my shit list for a while) as they had the best deal on PATA drives, and I needed to replace a 45GB DeathStar in an old computer that is somehow still running. It arrived DOA. Way to go WD!
Cheap webcams and typical camera phones are both usually 640x480 res and give similar results. If you want better resolution, pretty much any digital camera in the $80-100 range will do the job just fine.
My understanding is that while the Andromeda Galaxy is definently getting closer to the Milky Way, we really don't have a good feel for the tangential velocity of the Andromeda Galaxy relative to us - so in other words it could still miss us, possibly by a wide margin.
Well, imagine that due to increased productivity, the average person would only have to work 10 hours a week for everyone to maintain a reasonable lifestyle. This would be good, as we could all live a life of leisure with lots of free time to travel, persue hobbies, etc. But what would really happen is instead you have some people working the regular 40+ hours a week, and a bunch of people who are unemployed because they aren't needed. Naturally, this isn't healthy as the unemployed sub-class won't be able to buy the stuff the remaining workers buy, so there are more cuts, etc. So what you end up with is a few rich people, a small number of people who are employed supporting them, and a whole lot of people starving (or basically subsist on something like welfare).
The way I see it, this is already happening to some extent due to the gains in productivity we've achieved in the past few decades. Due to various bubbles, we've avoided it for a few decades, but now that things seem to be settling down to closer to where we should be, we've suddenly got 10-15% of our workforce with nothing to do. And it would be a lot worse if it wasn't for Unions and pork projects from the government.
Underpowered for the price. Compare a $600 PC with the base Mac Mini. The PC will have a considerably faster processor, a faster 3.5" drive, a considerably better graphics card, and at least twice the ram and disk space. You also will get expansion slots and expandibility. Like I said, it's great if you want an ultra-tiny power-sipping computer, but they hardly move in comparison to anything else in its price range.
Try something like an IBM PS/2. Granted, you have to to go back in time a bit - the market rejected propriety designs like that so they are harder to find today.
But there was an effort here to try and pretend you were getting the same sort of hardware with a Mac as a much cheaper PC. And that isn't so. You get what you pay for.
So what's your point? Apple computers use the same chipsets and components as standard PCs, it's just that Apple hinders everything with propriety connectors and form factors to limit upgradability and control the replacement parts market. Granted, it also allows them to make the insides of their computer pretty, but it's a huge disadvantage in my mind.
As far as AMD is concerned, even if they went out of business tomorrow, the chips I have are more or less 100% compatible with Intel and will run whatever future software comes out for Intel's chipsets, likely for well after the computer they're in gets retired.
Anyway, the latest versions of Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio are Intel-only. Many games are Intel-only, like Call of Duty 4, are Intel-only. I think Adobe is also abandoning PPC, all of the releases now are Intel only, like Soundbooth. You are also missing out on all the Parallels/Bootcamp to run Windows applications natively, but perhaps you don't care about that. I really don't find it surprising that 3-4 year hardware isn't supported, but generally if I'm paying $2000+ for a desktop PC, I expect to last longer than that without replacement. I figure the PPC Macs probably have another 2 years tops - when Apple releases 10.7, they'll stop patching 10.5 which pretty much closes the book on the PPC-era.
Thing is, a PC from 2005 would be far more "shit" in comparison.
At least a decent PC from 2005 would be either an AMD64 system, or one of the EMT64 Pentium 4's, and would pretty much be able to run anything a new PC can run today, including the latest 64 bit operating systems and applications. A G5 Mac is already missing out on all kinds of software that's Intel-only, and won't even get the next release of OSX. In my mind, a PC from 2005 would be far more useful than an obsolete PPC Mac.
The problem with the Mac Mini is that it is horribly underpowered for the price. Admittedly, it's a pretty good deal if you really want an ultra-small, power efficient computer that is not a laptop. But most people don't really want that - they think they do, but when they realize how much more they can get for their money buying something else, the Mini becomes a hard sell. For the same reasons, the mini PC's like the Dell Hybrid Studio are also niche products.
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Well, no one is forcing anyone to live in Sweden, so if you don't like it, I would suggest that you find somewhere else to live. Sweden's government is fairly popular with the people it serves, so what's your big problem with people choosing to live under a system that works for them?
One advantage the Segway has when stopping is that it can't go all that fast to begin with. It's a lot easier to stop a bike going 12MPH than one that is going 20MPH.
Though I imagine that one other advantage the Segway may have is that it would be easy to bail off of it if you knew you couldn't stop in time.
Actually not too far from the truth: http://www.jstraubel.com/EVpusher/EVpusher2.htm
In case you haven't noticed, cars are made out of more than steel. You've got to seperate the metal from the glass, fabrics, and plastics. You have to properly dispose of the fluids in the car, many of which are hazardous. Even with the metals, you usually have a mix of steel, aluminum (usually), and copper to deal with. With the cash for clunkers cars, you also have to deal with the sand that got poured into the engine (though honestly, I don't know if that presents a big problem or not). So yes, recycling a car actually does consume energy and resources, which is why it's better to keep a car on the road so long as it's not a hazard and the emissions systems are still functional - even if the car is a bit of a gas guzzler.
It may not be intended, but when anyone who bought and drives a car that gets more than 18 MPG* gets dick from the program no matter how much of a clunker the car really is, it's kind of hard to avoid people coming to the conclusion it rewards those that bought fuel inefficient vehicles.
Clearly that's true, otherwise they would open it up to qualified used cars too, instead of just new cars that poor people can't afford even with the discount. Luckily, this really isn't for the rich** either, it's primarly the middle class taking advantage of it.
If they really cared about saving fuel, they would realize that crushing perfectly good cars is a terrible idea once you factor in the energy needed to recyle the old car and build a new replacement. They would also make any new truck and SUV ineligable for the voucher, instead of a $3500 credit for a lousy 2MPG increase. It's basically a bailout for the auto industry by helping them move inventory they can't sell and removing good used cars from the market.
*That's 18 MPG when the car was new, not the actual mileage it gets now.
**Except those that own and run the auto companies, of course.
Go look at the vehicles that are getting scrapped with this program. The people driving the worst clunkers are also the ones that can't afford a new car. So overwhelmingly, we have middle class people trading in cars that they would normally get something like $2000-3000 for from the dealer. Since Obama is giving them more for the car, it they that that instead. The poor people end up screwed again - not only can't they afford the new car even with the voucher, used cars they would otherwise have available to buy are instead being destroyed.
That doesn't mean it the mostlogical thing do is to force people to replace something. Say new windows last 30 years if bought today - if you replace them now, the clock starts ticking now. If you replace them in five years, the clock starts ticking then. So is it worth waiting five years to see if something better comes out, or at the very least put off the next replacement five years? That depends on a lot of factors, but since the windows you buy will almost certainly look like the windows you can buy 5 years from now, it probably makes sense to replace them now.
But take something else, like computer screens. For example, should you replace a perfectly functional CRT with a LCD? The CRT won't last forever, obviously, and will be replaced with a LCD at some point. The LCD uses less power, and if you replace the CRT now you'll start receiving that benefit immediately. Well, take someone who decided to replace their CRT years ago and bought a small LCD that likely ran at the same resolution as the CRT they replaced. Now that larger screens are out, they've replaced the small screen with a big one. Now take someone who waited for their CRT to fail, and now that it's crapped out they just went out and bought the same big LCD screen. So what was worse - manufacturering and recycling the small LCD for the first person, or the additional power usage from the CRT from the second person?
I think the fuel savings would be wiped out by the new car payment, assuming that the gas guzzler that was traded in was paid off and they need to finance the new car. If they wanted to do this right, they would allow vouchers to be used on qualifying used cars too - except that isn't what the auto industry wants, so it's not going to happen.
Don't you think the parts are worth more than the whole here? Sure, scrap metal has value, but I would think it has more value as a functional Jeep Grand Cherokee, especially given that the cost of building said car has already been paid. Really, if they wanted to do it right, they would not be crushing good late model vehicles, but instead reworking the program towards getting the real unsafe and polluting vehicles off the road instead. Using taxpayer dollars to destroy useful vehicles in the name of spurring economic activity is just a form of the broken window fallacy, and is completely assine.
From my understanding, anything the parts yard hasn't sold has to be sent to the recycler after 6 months. A lot of scrap yards are a bit leary of these vehicles - the most valuable parts (the drivetrain) is ruined, and they have to keep track of the inventory to make sure they don't sell parts off of these vehicles after 6 months have passed. A lot of major parts have the VIN stamped on them, so in theory the government can check up on this if they wanted. It's probable that many vehicles may go straight to the crusher instead.
From all the small business owners I know, this is not how it works. The business is incorporated, and the owner usually games the system so that the "business" owns everything that seems remotely plausible, and pays for everything that is remotely plausible. This is easiest if the business is run from home. For example, their vehicle, laptop, digital camera, cell phone, workshop/garage, tools, etc. are all owned by the business, and things like car payment, fuel and insurance, phone bill, morgage (usually only partially), utilities, internet, etc. are paid by the business. The reason is that they can then write those expenses off as "business expenses" when it comes to taxes. Then the amount of money they pay themselves from the business is small, so their income taxes are low (you can get away with a small income when your job provides you with a free vehicle, pays your utilities, etc). So always be a bit skeptical when you hear a small business owner claiming something like "I only made $18,000 last year!".
Not that I'm bashing small business owners here, just that the system is pretty broken.
The people who really need this program as the poor driving old clunkers, but they can't afford the new car or secure the financing for the new car (even after the discount). So the effect is that the most of the people taking advantage of this are the middle class, who are trading in older, but perfectly servicable vehicles, as part of the program. The "clunkers" name is a lie - many of these vehicles are problem-free, and feature functional modern safety and emissions systems. Many of these are families doing a "swap" - most families have a large family vehicle and smaller 2nd car, so trade in the old family vehicle for a new smaller car to get the voucher, then turn around and trade in the old smaller car for a new fuel-inefficient family vehicle.
Many people don't know what happens to the old vehicles either. The program requires that they be disabled on the dealers' lot, or face a fine. The prefered way of doing this is to drain the oil and pour a sand solution into the engine and run it to it seizes. Youtube is full of videos now of this procedure being done to these "clunkers":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjBilHH5z2A (late model Jeep Grand Cherokee getting destroyed)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-ZP6aG2xl0 (Rather nice looking Oldsmobile Aurora gets trashed)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOEqJIGnXRw (Late model Chevy Blazer/GMC Jimmy getting destroyed)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OhW9u9R49w (Nice looking Dodge utility van, apparently they just drained the oil on this one)
If you love cars, please don't click on these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3qXvDDhUpE (BMW 7-series getting destroyed)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waj2KrKYTZo (late model Volvo S80 with the turbo option and Satellite Nav(?) getting destroyed)
So not only do these cars have to be scrapped, to add insult to injury, when the scrap yards get them the most valuable part of the car (the engine) has been permanently ruined. So as far as I'm concerned, this program is nothing more than a disgusting waste of a lot of perfectly good vehicles in some kind of bizarre bailout for the auto industry by using taxpayer dollars to buy new cars for people who don't need them, and removing perfectly good vehicles from the used car market. There is nothing green about it at all when you consider the environmental costs of replacing these non-clunkers with new vehicles and recycling the carcass.
(as a note, I'm particulary pissed about that Volvo... it's a nicer car than mine, not that my car is a bad car - but I can't trade it in for a voucher even if I wanted to because it gets 22MPG and now I get to watch nicer cars than mine get destroyed with my taxpayer dollars. As far as I'm concerned, the program running out of money is a good thing)
Actually, I've found that if you just hand someone an iPod, the fact that the circle on the front is actually a control you use by running your fingers across it isn't exactly intuitive to many people who have never seen one before. The old ones with the click wheel is actually a lot better in this regard.
That doesn't mean there is anything complex going on in the keyboard itself. They could do something as simple as shorting one of the pins on the ribbon cable to ground to tell the controller that it's a UK layout.
Since there is no way to backspace, if you screw up a digit (which is all too easy to do on many phones) you can just hit the pound sign early and re-enter it. If you instead just hit more random numbers until you hit 5 digits, then there is a risk that the number you entered might be valid and it will let you incorrectly proceed.
In this case, I think something like CDs or bonds would work well. Sure, you're locked into them until they mature, but you're going to know when you're decommissioning the plant years, if not decades, in advance, so it's not like you can't plan for it. Either that, or buy gold, since they already have a highly-secured site to store it in :)
Because they presumably show that there's just ice up there. It can be just as important to hide what you don't have as it is to hide what you do have.
Actually, they are still around - Hitachi bought the line from IBM and continues to make DeskStar drives. I have never used the Hitachi versions myself, but I haven't heard any big complaints about them.
Incidently, I just bought my first WD drive in a long time (they've been on my shit list for a while) as they had the best deal on PATA drives, and I needed to replace a 45GB DeathStar in an old computer that is somehow still running. It arrived DOA. Way to go WD!
Cheap webcams and typical camera phones are both usually 640x480 res and give similar results. If you want better resolution, pretty much any digital camera in the $80-100 range will do the job just fine.
My understanding is that while the Andromeda Galaxy is definently getting closer to the Milky Way, we really don't have a good feel for the tangential velocity of the Andromeda Galaxy relative to us - so in other words it could still miss us, possibly by a wide margin.
Well, imagine that due to increased productivity, the average person would only have to work 10 hours a week for everyone to maintain a reasonable lifestyle. This would be good, as we could all live a life of leisure with lots of free time to travel, persue hobbies, etc. But what would really happen is instead you have some people working the regular 40+ hours a week, and a bunch of people who are unemployed because they aren't needed. Naturally, this isn't healthy as the unemployed sub-class won't be able to buy the stuff the remaining workers buy, so there are more cuts, etc. So what you end up with is a few rich people, a small number of people who are employed supporting them, and a whole lot of people starving (or basically subsist on something like welfare).
The way I see it, this is already happening to some extent due to the gains in productivity we've achieved in the past few decades. Due to various bubbles, we've avoided it for a few decades, but now that things seem to be settling down to closer to where we should be, we've suddenly got 10-15% of our workforce with nothing to do. And it would be a lot worse if it wasn't for Unions and pork projects from the government.
Underpowered for the price. Compare a $600 PC with the base Mac Mini. The PC will have a considerably faster processor, a faster 3.5" drive, a considerably better graphics card, and at least twice the ram and disk space. You also will get expansion slots and expandibility. Like I said, it's great if you want an ultra-tiny power-sipping computer, but they hardly move in comparison to anything else in its price range.
Try something like an IBM PS/2. Granted, you have to to go back in time a bit - the market rejected propriety designs like that so they are harder to find today.
So what's your point? Apple computers use the same chipsets and components as standard PCs, it's just that Apple hinders everything with propriety connectors and form factors to limit upgradability and control the replacement parts market. Granted, it also allows them to make the insides of their computer pretty, but it's a huge disadvantage in my mind.
As far as AMD is concerned, even if they went out of business tomorrow, the chips I have are more or less 100% compatible with Intel and will run whatever future software comes out for Intel's chipsets, likely for well after the computer they're in gets retired.
Anyway, the latest versions of Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio are Intel-only. Many games are Intel-only, like Call of Duty 4, are Intel-only. I think Adobe is also abandoning PPC, all of the releases now are Intel only, like Soundbooth. You are also missing out on all the Parallels/Bootcamp to run Windows applications natively, but perhaps you don't care about that. I really don't find it surprising that 3-4 year hardware isn't supported, but generally if I'm paying $2000+ for a desktop PC, I expect to last longer than that without replacement. I figure the PPC Macs probably have another 2 years tops - when Apple releases 10.7, they'll stop patching 10.5 which pretty much closes the book on the PPC-era.
At least a decent PC from 2005 would be either an AMD64 system, or one of the EMT64 Pentium 4's, and would pretty much be able to run anything a new PC can run today, including the latest 64 bit operating systems and applications. A G5 Mac is already missing out on all kinds of software that's Intel-only, and won't even get the next release of OSX. In my mind, a PC from 2005 would be far more useful than an obsolete PPC Mac.
The problem with the Mac Mini is that it is horribly underpowered for the price. Admittedly, it's a pretty good deal if you really want an ultra-small, power efficient computer that is not a laptop. But most people don't really want that - they think they do, but when they realize how much more they can get for their money buying something else, the Mini becomes a hard sell. For the same reasons, the mini PC's like the Dell Hybrid Studio are also niche products.