In just about every other case Apple's markup over the industry baseline has been about 100%. Asus has a $1000 premium laptop? Apple sells the exact same specs for $2000.
And every time someone makes a claim like that and is challenged to come up with an actual comparable model that is cheaper they fail to do so.
Inferior models are available from other manufacturers for sure. Apple is not a low-end manufacturer. But no one matches Apple's PCs for spec and quality, but lower price.
You think Samsung doesn't owe taxes in the US as well? How do you imagine they manage to do profitable business in the US without owing taxes?
Don't you understand that just as Apple owe taxes in the EU, Samsung owe taxes in the US?
Or you think Samsung pays all that they should in the US, and doesn't do everything that they can to avoid paying, the same as every other multinational corporation?
As regards professional music, it's Pro Tools all the way. Which is both Mac and PC. And Adobe Premiere is both Mac or PC.
So your software arguments do nothing to eliminate the Mac Pro.
Advantages of the Mac Pro, which you cannot get on PC, is the possibility to use Final Cut and Motion, and the ability to use legal and non-hacked OSX.
The people that buy it will be people who do jobs that need this sort of power, and which pays enough for this to be a good option. These are creative professionals, and so are certainly not lacking in sense. Though they won't be lacking in money either.
Because there's a variety of mice, trackpads and keyboards to chose from. So they are a configuration option, rather than bundling a fixed choice in the box.
Pretty obviously he bought it because for him it's the best phone for the money. Yes, it is't perfect for him without a jailbreak, and it's better with the jailbreak,
I'm with you on most of what you post. White collar crime is under-legislated, detected and punished. Whilst the use of drugs is at most a health issue, but certainly shouldn't be a crime. etc.
However, this is nonsense...
Why stop people for drinking and driving when we can easily tell if someone is weaving in their car -- THAT person is impaired. The person who had a glass of wine at dinner, who functioned just fine until the "surprise" road block with breathalyzer -- that person's inebriation is only detectable by sniffing alcohol -- not by judging impairment.
The two major driving skills that are impaired by drinking are reaction times, and ability to perceive risk. They go way before the stage when someone is so inebriated they can't keep the car in lane. Most of the time, the modestly drunk person will get home without incident. But if it happens that there is a hazard on the road, then that is when the alcohol stops them performing, and people die.
That's why the blood alcohol level is set somewhat below the level when people start weaving. And why it needs testing for. Because simply acting in retrospect after an accident isn't enough to deal with the problem. It's bolting the door after the horse has bolted.
Apple shareholders *cough* would focus on their presence in smartphone market. It is a telling that shareholders now quote the Phone market...with their plummeting market share in smartphones.
When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone his target was to get 1% of the phone market. Not the smartphone market. From people other than Jobs and Apple there has been discussion of all various definitions of market share> Generally with a definition of which market share is being talked about. Though not with you. You don't specify, because usually when you make a claim, you invented it on the spot.
Apple needs to drop its(compete on) price to remain relevant in a worldwide market.
Apple is one of only 2 manufacturers making a profit from smartphones. The other being Samsung. And Apple's profits are much larger than Samsung's. So why on earth would Apple need to do anything to compete with companies that are doing far worse than they are?
I mean the percentage of mobile revenue and profits is shrinking at a rapid rate
Another stat which you do not have. You can't just wish statistical claims out of the air. You won't get a pony for christmas either, no matter how hard you wish.
Worldwide Apple marketshare has been flat at 5%-7%
Apple's worldwide market share of what? Phones, mobile phones, smartphones, mobile devices, PCs, jelly beans? With neither a market specified, nor a source of your percentage, your claim is worthless.
Yes, considerably out-of-date. Folks have already taken the original Liberator design and added a metal sleeve to the barrel, dramatically improving its reliability.
So important it hasn't even got onto the wiki page. Wow, so out of date....
So it's regressed from being a printed gun to being a homemade gun with some printed parts. Homemade guns have of course always been possible. And irrelevant in number.
Which he stole after killing her. Thus, criminal....
Are you saying he killed her with some gun other than hers. I don't think so. But it makes no difference. Obviously both the stealing and the murder are both criminal, and he becomes a criminal with either. But you are using the label criminal to state that he can get guns through some imagined criminal network, that doesn't go away if gun control comes in. And that's not true. With decent gun control he wouldn't have got the guns.
Which is why the faster there can be an armed response the fewer people die.
Why do you just ignore things already pointed out. Again, zero deaths through him not having guns in the first place is better than a quick response after having already started killing.
You can continue to ignore facts if you like, but comparing Sandy Hook and Arapahoe (not to mention simple common sense) illustrate the stupidity of your argument.
That is diametrically opposite to what's happening here.
I'll let you have the last response since unreasonable people don't learn, they just keep talking.
Nowhere have I said that the decisions people make are always the best for them.
So neither rational nor best for them. So what are you saying beyond peoples choices are people's choices? In many areas, government legislation can and does improve on this a lot.
I don't even believe the logic of the second amendment was about the population resisting their own government. It's about resisting foreign governments, presumably uppermost in their minds being the British at the time.
You are considerably out-of-date as the current state of 3D-printed firearms. We
1) Considerably out of date? The 1st such gun was only a matter of months ago.
2) "We". You're either a wannabe, or a nut-job. Or both. Either way your opinion on any firearms issues has just become as irrelevant as an alcoholic's view on alcohol licensing.
The point still remains, though: if Bob chooses $5 now instead of $500 a week from now, he demonstrates that he prefers the $5 now to $500 a week from now.
That's YOUR assumption. He may be demonstrating that he isn't aware of the $500 option. He may be demonstrating that he isn't aware that $500 in a weeks time is better than $5 now. He may be demonstrating that he doesn't know that 500 is a bigger number than 5. Or many other things that mean he's not making an informed choice.
Of course these sound unlikely, but that's because you chose a hypothetical, rather than a real case. When you go for real scenarios, the alternative explanations are also more real. As I pointed out in another post, people take out loans at 3200% APR. They are almost certainly not making an informed choice when they do so.
But going back to a real example, similar to yours. They've done experiments with kids. Eat one marshmallow now, or you can have 2 marshmallows if you resist eating for 3 minutes. Very young children can't even consider the 3 minutes away option. they eat the marshmallow straight away. A bit older and they try to wait 3 minutes, but fail, and temptation cause them to eat the single marshmallow. Older still, and they develop the ability to patiently wait for a bigger payoff.
In your example, choosing $5 now rather than $500 in a week may be just a sign of immaturity. An inability to envisage future benefits as outweighing instant gratification.
Who are we to tell him he's wrong? We are the people with the knowledge, wisdom or maturity to understand the deal. There is no great good being served by leaving people to make decisions that are bad for them, purely because they lack the intelligence or maturity to make better decisions themselves. You may think there is, but that would be just a religious belief in freedom of the individual being the greatest good. It's not even common practice in the USA. For example with seat-belt laws we accept that the good to the person and society of wearing a seat belt outweighs a drivers freedom to make a stupid decision.
E.g., if Bob is offered $5 right now or $500 if he waits a week and he chooses the $5 now, he has demonstrated that he values $5 now more than $500 in a week. That is what I mean by economically rational.
In other words what you mean by economically rational is economically irrational.
I simply mean that at any given point in time, a person acts based on his or her own subjective value scales; these scales of course, may be based off of misinformation, personal preferences, and possibly self-destructive reasoning.
Most decisions are made emotionally. And that's pretty much the antithesis of rationality.
And then there's the failure to act when acting would be the rational course. Laziness and procrastination are the biggest reasons for that.
And then there's people acting because they've been manipulated by commercial interests. That's what marketing and advertising are all about.
Most of the time it isn't that they reason irrationally. They just don't reason at all.
In areas where government do make decisions on behalf of people, it's because they are areas where people can harm themselves and/or society because they don't behave with any rationality when making choices. Or where they often make selfish choices that cause harm to society.
Economically speaking, people *always* behave rationally.
This is a completely false statement of faith. It's simply not true.
In the UK there are "pay day loans" advertised at up to 3200% APR. And people that don't understand APR or are just ignorant in other ways take them in sufficient numbers for it to be big business. When there are loans available at much lower rates.That simply is not rational.
People do not behave rationally even at the best of times. In economic decisions are certainly not the best of times for most people. Most people don't have good enough math to understand their decisions in an economically rational way. People make most of their decisions emotionally. Including the ones economists are interested in.
Slashdot Mirror
In just about every other case Apple's markup over the industry baseline has been about 100%. Asus has a $1000 premium laptop? Apple sells the exact same specs for $2000.
And every time someone makes a claim like that and is challenged to come up with an actual comparable model that is cheaper they fail to do so.
Inferior models are available from other manufacturers for sure. Apple is not a low-end manufacturer. But no one matches Apple's PCs for spec and quality, but lower price.
You know who appeals to "the law"? Assholes, that's who.
You have some insightful and sophisticated ideas. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
You think Samsung doesn't owe taxes in the US as well? How do you imagine they manage to do profitable business in the US without owing taxes?
Don't you understand that just as Apple owe taxes in the EU, Samsung owe taxes in the US?
Or you think Samsung pays all that they should in the US, and doesn't do everything that they can to avoid paying, the same as every other multinational corporation?
As regards professional music, it's Pro Tools all the way. Which is both Mac and PC.
And Adobe Premiere is both Mac or PC.
So your software arguments do nothing to eliminate the Mac Pro.
Advantages of the Mac Pro, which you cannot get on PC, is the possibility to use Final Cut and Motion, and the ability to use legal and non-hacked OSX.
The people that buy it will be people who do jobs that need this sort of power, and which pays enough for this to be a good option. These are creative professionals, and so are certainly not lacking in sense. Though they won't be lacking in money either.
Because there's a variety of mice, trackpads and keyboards to chose from. So they are a configuration option, rather than bundling a fixed choice in the box.
Rackable? It's a workstation not a server.
Internal expansion is the dirty past. Let it go. It's about as relevant electric drill attachments for sawing and sanding.
Total memory is the significant metric, not the number of slots it fits into. And that's 12/16 GB vs 6/12GB for the older versions.
Sockets? The old Mac Pro didn't have any ThunderBolt sockets. This one has 6 ThunderBolt 2 sockets (supporting up to 36 devices).
It also has 4 USB 3 sockets (vs 5 USB 2 sockets on the old model.) Which presumably is the straw you're clutching.
Your complaints are without merit.
I would be up in arms if the same thing happened on my Android phone! How can you even tolerate this sort of thing
And yet you tolerate Android being a den of malware. Each to their own.
Which one? Android spies on people far more than iOS does. It's Google's business model to do so.
Pretty obviously he bought it because for him it's the best phone for the money. Yes, it is't perfect for him without a jailbreak, and it's better with the jailbreak,
But clearly the competitor phones are worse.
I'm with you on most of what you post. White collar crime is under-legislated, detected and punished. Whilst the use of drugs is at most a health issue, but certainly shouldn't be a crime. etc.
However, this is nonsense...
Why stop people for drinking and driving when we can easily tell if someone is weaving in their car -- THAT person is impaired. The person who had a glass of wine at dinner, who functioned just fine until the "surprise" road block with breathalyzer -- that person's inebriation is only detectable by sniffing alcohol -- not by judging impairment.
The two major driving skills that are impaired by drinking are reaction times, and ability to perceive risk. They go way before the stage when someone is so inebriated they can't keep the car in lane. Most of the time, the modestly drunk person will get home without incident. But if it happens that there is a hazard on the road, then that is when the alcohol stops them performing, and people die.
That's why the blood alcohol level is set somewhat below the level when people start weaving. And why it needs testing for. Because simply acting in retrospect after an accident isn't enough to deal with the problem. It's bolting the door after the horse has bolted.
Something that happened to a "friend of a friend" is pretty much the definition of an urban myth.
Apple shareholders *cough* would focus on their presence in smartphone market. It is a telling that shareholders now quote the Phone market...with their plummeting market share in smartphones.
When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone his target was to get 1% of the phone market. Not the smartphone market. From people other than Jobs and Apple there has been discussion of all various definitions of market share> Generally with a definition of which market share is being talked about. Though not with you. You don't specify, because usually when you make a claim, you invented it on the spot.
Apple needs to drop its(compete on) price to remain relevant in a worldwide market.
Apple is one of only 2 manufacturers making a profit from smartphones. The other being Samsung. And Apple's profits are much larger than Samsung's. So why on earth would Apple need to do anything to compete with companies that are doing far worse than they are?
I mean the percentage of mobile revenue and profits is shrinking at a rapid rate
Another stat which you do not have. You can't just wish statistical claims out of the air. You won't get a pony for christmas either, no matter how hard you wish.
Worldwide Apple marketshare has been flat at 5%-7%
Apple's worldwide market share of what? Phones, mobile phones, smartphones, mobile devices, PCs, jelly beans? With neither a market specified, nor a source of your percentage, your claim is worthless.
Yes, considerably out-of-date. Folks have already taken the original Liberator design and added a metal sleeve to the barrel, dramatically improving its reliability.
So important it hasn't even got onto the wiki page. Wow, so out of date....
So it's regressed from being a printed gun to being a homemade gun with some printed parts. Homemade guns have of course always been possible. And irrelevant in number.
Which he stole after killing her. Thus, criminal....
Are you saying he killed her with some gun other than hers. I don't think so. But it makes no difference. Obviously both the stealing and the murder are both criminal, and he becomes a criminal with either. But you are using the label criminal to state that he can get guns through some imagined criminal network, that doesn't go away if gun control comes in. And that's not true. With decent gun control he wouldn't have got the guns.
Which is why the faster there can be an armed response the fewer people die.
Why do you just ignore things already pointed out. Again, zero deaths through him not having guns in the first place is better than a quick response after having already started killing.
You can continue to ignore facts if you like, but comparing Sandy Hook and Arapahoe (not to mention simple common sense) illustrate the stupidity of your argument.
That is diametrically opposite to what's happening here.
I'll let you have the last response since unreasonable people don't learn, they just keep talking.
That too.
Nowhere have I said that the decisions people make are always the best for them.
So neither rational nor best for them. So what are you saying beyond peoples choices are people's choices? In many areas, government legislation can and does improve on this a lot.
I don't even believe the logic of the second amendment was about the population resisting their own government. It's about resisting foreign governments, presumably uppermost in their minds being the British at the time.
You are considerably out-of-date as the current state of 3D-printed firearms. We
1) Considerably out of date? The 1st such gun was only a matter of months ago.
2) "We". You're either a wannabe, or a nut-job. Or both. Either way your opinion on any firearms issues has just become as irrelevant as an alcoholic's view on alcohol licensing.
The point still remains, though: if Bob chooses $5 now instead of $500 a week from now, he demonstrates that he prefers the $5 now to $500 a week from now.
That's YOUR assumption. He may be demonstrating that he isn't aware of the $500 option. He may be demonstrating that he isn't aware that $500 in a weeks time is better than $5 now. He may be demonstrating that he doesn't know that 500 is a bigger number than 5. Or many other things that mean he's not making an informed choice.
Of course these sound unlikely, but that's because you chose a hypothetical, rather than a real case. When you go for real scenarios, the alternative explanations are also more real. As I pointed out in another post, people take out loans at 3200% APR. They are almost certainly not making an informed choice when they do so.
But going back to a real example, similar to yours. They've done experiments with kids. Eat one marshmallow now, or you can have 2 marshmallows if you resist eating for 3 minutes. Very young children can't even consider the 3 minutes away option. they eat the marshmallow straight away. A bit older and they try to wait 3 minutes, but fail, and temptation cause them to eat the single marshmallow. Older still, and they develop the ability to patiently wait for a bigger payoff.
In your example, choosing $5 now rather than $500 in a week may be just a sign of immaturity. An inability to envisage future benefits as outweighing instant gratification.
Who are we to tell him he's wrong? We are the people with the knowledge, wisdom or maturity to understand the deal. There is no great good being served by leaving people to make decisions that are bad for them, purely because they lack the intelligence or maturity to make better decisions themselves. You may think there is, but that would be just a religious belief in freedom of the individual being the greatest good. It's not even common practice in the USA. For example with seat-belt laws we accept that the good to the person and society of wearing a seat belt outweighs a drivers freedom to make a stupid decision.
E.g., if Bob is offered $5 right now or $500 if he waits a week and he chooses the $5 now, he has demonstrated that he values $5 now more than $500 in a week. That is what I mean by economically rational.
In other words what you mean by economically rational is economically irrational.
I simply mean that at any given point in time, a person acts based on his or her own subjective value scales; these scales of course, may be based off of misinformation, personal preferences, and possibly self-destructive reasoning.
Most decisions are made emotionally. And that's pretty much the antithesis of rationality.
And then there's the failure to act when acting would be the rational course. Laziness and procrastination are the biggest reasons for that.
And then there's people acting because they've been manipulated by commercial interests. That's what marketing and advertising are all about.
Most of the time it isn't that they reason irrationally. They just don't reason at all.
In areas where government do make decisions on behalf of people, it's because they are areas where people can harm themselves and/or society because they don't behave with any rationality when making choices. Or where they often make selfish choices that cause harm to society.
Economically speaking, people *always* behave rationally.
This is a completely false statement of faith. It's simply not true.
In the UK there are "pay day loans" advertised at up to 3200% APR. And people that don't understand APR or are just ignorant in other ways take them in sufficient numbers for it to be big business. When there are loans available at much lower rates.That simply is not rational.
People do not behave rationally even at the best of times. In economic decisions are certainly not the best of times for most people. Most people don't have good enough math to understand their decisions in an economically rational way. People make most of their decisions emotionally. Including the ones economists are interested in.