So by that argument the headline should talk about Paris rather than Paris, right?
Just checking. IRL I happen to agree with you, btw. Anglicization of proper nouns is somewhat weird, especially when it often came from trying to pronounce a written word (or write a spoken one, or a few iterations between the two) before we knew any better. Now we do.
that's just big BS, small cars can even polute more than a big SUV, especially when we are talking about old cars.. for instance an old mini cooper or citroen deuxchevoux (or whatever that old ugly duck car is called) polutes more than my Jeep, especially when I'm driving on LPG (hell my jeep on LPG even polutes less than an average mercedes).. If they plan on banning SUV's then they should also ban old cars which polute just as much...
Which is why, if you'd RTFA or even the summary, you'd see that this applies not based on the size of your vehicle but on its expected overall pollution, as approximated by C02 emissions. Your point is valid and the law is already being crafted to explicitly address it.
Paris is spending $hitloads right now on a city-wide short term car rental program to operate similarly to their mind-blowingly-successful bicycle rental program. So not really a new business idea, but more validation of an existing very good business idea.
Or did you really not understand that this is already in widespread public use from places like Scandinavia, where its brass-monkey-cold, to crowded cities like Paris and London, and it really, truly, does work? Not is-projected-to-work, but has-sold-assloads-of-cars work?
Google "human reaction time" - the mean on lab tests (admittedly an artificial environment) was 0.215 seconds. Throw in a 50 percent adjustment as a guesstimate for real world traffic conditions, that's still only 1/3 second.
Right. And reaction time plus the action time it takes to move your foot to the accelerator, especially when not in an emergency stop situation...
Although your 1/3 of a second is in and of itself longer than the GPP's posited 1/2 a second in the first place...
Actually, there is another company that makes something similar to a Ranger, still - Toyota Tacoma. Supposedly the Tacoma is the reason why the Ranger is falling behind; I don't know.
The reason that the Ranger is falling behind is that it has had almost no upgrades in, what is it, 23 years? Seriously. The fact that its still around and doing as well as it is should be lauded, not lamented.
You are claiming that the car will instantly be up to operating speed the moment you take your foot off the brake and hit the accelerator? That would be pretty impressive, even if the starter spun the engine up at 1000rpm, it would still take a fraction of a second. Would also take a hefty splash of gas, too.
I'm not thinking that it would take seconds, like in starting a regular car, but it would surely take 1/4 to 1/2 second before you could actually drive off (on top of the time needed to actually accelerate).
First of all - yes, far less than 1/4 of a second. But even using that measurement - do you really think that you move your foot from the brake to the accelerator in less than 1/4 of a second? Really? C'mon... Seriously, have someone time you (while the car is off) when you're actively trying to be fast. If they can - 1/4 of a second is damn hard to measure even on a decent stopwatch. In the real world when you're not trying to sprain yourself going for a foot-moving-6-inches-in-three-dimensions record, there's plenty of time.
Precision control helps as well; these days, knowing that you can stop the engine with a cylinder in the perfect position to be fired makes starting almost effortless, especially with the aforementioned hot engine.
This system sounds like hell if it's cold, and/or if your battery is low. Get a jump, start the car... and it turns itself off again. Soo, you've got to drive around to keep it going to make the engine actually run. All the while, the cold weather wear and tear on an engine that hasn't warmed up takes its toll - particularly at highway speeds.
Fortunately the automotive engineers at Ford and other companies - who, incidentally, already sell tons of these cars in North Europe, where its freezing - aren't complete morons. The engine control software already has access to the temperature of the outside air, the inside air, and the engine oil and coolant. What on Earth makes you think that they'd build it in such a primitive manner?
Actually, you had a problem with your alternator - you can remove your battery completely once your engine has started and drive around town just fine (seriously, give it a go - just remember not to turn off the motor unless you're next to another battery). As long as the engine's running, all power for the car comes directly from the alternator, indirectly from the engine.
As to your FUD though... what would have happened if the water pump had died instead? In your scenario you'd have had absolutely no heat very shortly, and if you continued to drive around you might well have ended up with no engine to speak of as well. And water pumps die all the time. But guess what? We deal with it. Besides, if you're that concerned about vehicle reliability in cold weather, make sure you have a decent candle, some matches, and a blanket in the trunk. Add a jar of peanut butter and a few bottles of water and you can hold out for a remarkably long time just fine.
Correct... it seems a lot of people here are ignoring TFA where it specifically says that this technology is already widespread in Europe....there's no point in all these posters saying, "aha, but clearly it can't work because of xyz" - it already DOES work.
Ah, I see you missed all of the discussions where the USA was proving that government-provided healthcare could never work as well. Probably distracted by all the people dropping dead on the streets over there, from what I heard on our fine conservative news stations.
Where I lived in Montana, traffic could get sufficiently stop-and-go that you'd be spending more time shut down than running. When it's -40 even a warm engine is going to cool down significantly in just a few minutes. So it could essentially get a cold start half a dozen times just from driving down the street.
And that's exactly the kind of problem that modern vehicle electronics could never account for, especially in Northern Europe (where this technology is fast becoming commonplace).
Never hurts, but do keep in mind when discussing mercury that simply smashing the CFLs upon EOL (not recommended btw) releases less mercury than would be released by a coal-fired powerplant powering incandescent lights over the same time period. Just something to think about - a lot of people really bring the hate to CFLs over that concern.
"How to Solve It" also talks about more general problem-solving than just mathematical problems - crossword puzzles, for example. Prof. Lewis's article talks about the universal question "Why did they teach me the quadratic formula when I will never use it?" and this is really the answer; doing mathematics (should) teach people how to solve any problem logically. Well, any problem that can be solved logically, of course.
Then why not teach logic and problem solving, possibly using mathematics as the language (but not necessarily)? When we tell ourselves that we're teaching maths, that's all people tend to teach (and learn, for the most part). I agree that teaching logic and deduction is valuable, more valuable than a lot of mathematics to many people (since with skills you can get the maths, but not necessarily vice versa)... but its rarely seen called out on a school curriculum. And that's a shame.
But your assembly kit analogy is was really kind of throws me off. 80% of what you use your droid for will be built into it, no assembly required. Particularily the line "With the increased power to do your own thing all to frequently comes the need to do your own thing" - I honestly have no idea where thats coming from or what you mean by it. So your phone is more flexible... so you feel pressured to use its flexibility? Can you elaborate on the situation where you felt the need to "Do your own thing" - what that thing was and how an iPhone got you around that problem? This is what is absolutely perplexing me.
Frequently, with flexibility comes the absolution of design. Standard keyboard doesn't work quite right? No worries, the user can install one that they really like, and most apps will even respect that decision! Can't make up your mind as a developer on the right way to solve a problem? Add a checkbox and let/force the user to decide. Crap at making GUIs? Make a completely skinnable app and let the user sort though them all, or make their own! Not everything scrolls smoothly? Don't worry, truly high-class apps can just implement their own scroll solution!
Its the same way that I don't miss having a carb on my daily-driver (even though I enjoy rebuilding and tweaking them) - the ability to completely tweak my air/fuel ratios is nice, but having something that isn't perfect but is "good enough" and never having to think about it is also nice, and frequently underrated.
The iPhone will never be perfect for my needs, but with close to zero time spent messing with it, its almost there. The Android devices I've looked at before could probably be tweaked closer to my ideal than my iPhone, but out of the box (or rather with a couple of hours of tinkering, at least on the Dell/Droid ones I've spent more time with) they fall below that line.
Hence the ludicrous situation earlier in the year when Apple royally screwed the iPhone4's antenna and *blamed the user* for holding it wrong. Its more than just marketing, its borderline brainwashing - they just could not under any circumstances accept their entire product range of 1 was a turkey
Not really - as an admitted iPhone 4 user, and as someone who knows many other people with them (and who use them without cases), its just another case where one group tries to bring down another group by spreading FUD about a popular product. Feel free to criticize it as much as you want, of course, but do pick something worth criticizing. You'd think that after selling 14+ million of them (according to Wikipedia at least) this particular piece of dirt would have been well-discredited.
Ah,/. I love how a post can be modded redundant when there are only 6 available (browsing at -1) and its the only one that contains significant discussion about phone development... Good job, mods!
Looks like I'm sticking with the iPhone for a while then. I've gotten to the point where I'll happily sacrifice a small amount of money and a little flexibility in exchange for a well-vetted, vertically integrated solution rather than an assembly kit that I can use - if I wish - to build something great. With the increased power to do your own thing all to frequently comes the need to do your own thing, with your own time and your own money. Not on my phone, thanks - I'll leave tinkering to the hobbies I choose rather than a useful accessory for my life. And yes, I'm a developer.
If you can't wrap your head around the fact that any person who has already set foot in your store is a potential sale, you'd make a terrible salesperson. Checking prices is not a guarantee that the customer is going to shop somewhere else. If your prices are even in the same ballpark, there is a decent chance they'll pick up the item *now* because they are already there, and it is convenient. If the staff was pleasant, that is another point in their favor.
I was also looking at this follow-on comment from the same poster:
That's the best part though - I didn't have to bounce around! Most of the stuff was cheaper on the net, and most had free shipping.
Let's face facts. There is no way that a B&M store can be consistently cheaper than online for common retail items. Just can't be done. I agree with your point that harassing anyone in your store is a bad idea; I also feel that taking advantage of the convenience that B&M stores offer you to browse and have your kids play with stuff should mean a willingness to give them your business as well.
When you're comparing, say, Target and Best Buy, that kind of cross-shopping was reasonable; both provided comparable services, both had similar cost structures, et cetera. But in this case, the service (looking and touching) is always going to be only offered in person, and the better prices are almost always going to be offered online.
Would you similarly endorse someone going to Nordstrom's to use their personal shopping service (after all, its "free" too), writing down all their recommendations, and then purchasing their clothes online? Its just a different scale of the same problem. And when a few people do it (either example), nobody's really hurt. When a lot of people start to do it, businesses die. And if you don't care that the B&M retailer dies... why are their services worth using up in the meantime?
Any customer who goes to shop at a B&M store with her kids to see what they want and then scans the barcodes to buy online later is not a customer that store would ever have - more specifically, they're not a customer. That's not "shopping intelligently," that's taking advantage of service you know full well you'll never pay for. While legal, its unethical.
Here's a good ethics test for you. If there's a practice that when one person does it is "smart" but when many people do it will ruin the company/person/state/whatever that's on the losing side of the deal, especially if there's no way for the loser to change the rules to their advantage without turning away other ethical business, that's a situation that's unsustainable and almost certainly unethical. Just because the B&M store is "big" doesn't give you the right to treat them like dirt. Of course, if enough people start doing it, nobody will have the benefit of the local shop any more.
Would it be wrong if I brought a newspaper flyer from a competitor's store, came into your store and looked at your prices, then left because your prices sucked? It's no different than using an iPhone to do the same thing.
Nope. Would it be wrong if you knew the prices elsewhere were lower but came in to my store because it was large, well-lit, and had lots of display models on-hand for you to try-out (and devalue, just a little) before leaving, having now decided what to buy elsewhere? Yes.
Not illegal, I'll grant you. But many things that are legal are still wrong.
Look, people shop around, they did before the internet, and they did before mobile phones. There is nothing any retailer can do to stop this.
Being grumpy at a customer for using the tools at their disposal to shop around more efficiently is simply driving that customer away. Treating your customer with respect, on the other hand, *might* make you a sale even if your prices aren't the absolute lowest.
In this case, though, the price of the toy online will always be less than the price in the store, because the online merchant doesn't have to pay for the services that the in-person merchant does. Using the resources of one business (display models, boxes, et cetera) in order to decide which of a number of other businesses to shop at is unethical, plain and simple.
No, its not illegal. But it will drive B&M stores out of business. I suggest that you re-read The Tragedy of the Commons and think about how that applies here as well...
Sometimes narrowing down the choice of product is helped tremendously by looking closely at it.
Yup. And that's why retailers are deserving of some kind of reimbursement (ie: your business) for buying and opening all those models for you to look at.
If the retailer isn't adding any benefit to the purchase, such as on site information, delivery time, ease of return, product adjustment for you needs, or just a cozy ambient, then he shouldn't get his cut. If the retailer is asking too high a price to add those benefits, then he will have to adjust.
You can buy coffee through the internet, or in major supermarkets, much cheaper than in a coffee shop. But coffee shops will still be around because they provide a service and they add value to the product.
And just as most coffee shops are understandably upset if you bring your own coffee in a thermos but expect to enjoy their benefits, most B&M stores are upset if you use their benefits (personnel, demo models, etc) and then make your purchase elsewhere. The only difference is that the retailer was kind enough to front you their "free" value-adds before your purchase, with the understanding that if you decide favorably that they'll get your business.
I'll chip in the the "rationality of the decision". Someone deciding whether to change their habits on $50 vs $100 is indicating they are concerned with the overall effect of the purchase on their budget. Someone making a capital investment of $1000 for a computer shouldn't be worrying about where their next necessity purchase is coming from. It's like the famous joke "I'll take 2 Angus Bacon Cheeseburger meals, supersized, but make the drinks diet coke because I'm on a diet".
Although anyone buying 2 Angus Bacon Cheeseburger means is probably not the best candidate for a test-case on rational thinking, soda-selection notwithstanding!
Slashdot Mirror
So by that argument the headline should talk about Paris rather than Paris, right?
Just checking. IRL I happen to agree with you, btw. Anglicization of proper nouns is somewhat weird, especially when it often came from trying to pronounce a written word (or write a spoken one, or a few iterations between the two) before we knew any better. Now we do.
that's just big BS, small cars can even polute more than a big SUV, especially when we are talking about old cars.. for instance an old mini cooper or citroen deuxchevoux (or whatever that old ugly duck car is called) polutes more than my Jeep, especially when I'm driving on LPG (hell my jeep on LPG even polutes less than an average mercedes)..
If they plan on banning SUV's then they should also ban old cars which polute just as much...
Which is why, if you'd RTFA or even the summary, you'd see that this applies not based on the size of your vehicle but on its expected overall pollution, as approximated by C02 emissions. Your point is valid and the law is already being crafted to explicitly address it.
Happy now?
Paris is spending $hitloads right now on a city-wide short term car rental program to operate similarly to their mind-blowingly-successful bicycle rental program. So not really a new business idea, but more validation of an existing very good business idea.
Woosh....
Or did you really not understand that this is already in widespread public use from places like Scandinavia, where its brass-monkey-cold, to crowded cities like Paris and London, and it really, truly, does work? Not is-projected-to-work, but has-sold-assloads-of-cars work?
Google "human reaction time" - the mean on lab tests (admittedly an artificial environment) was 0.215 seconds. Throw in a 50 percent adjustment as a guesstimate for real world traffic conditions, that's still only 1/3 second.
Right. And reaction time plus the action time it takes to move your foot to the accelerator, especially when not in an emergency stop situation...
Although your 1/3 of a second is in and of itself longer than the GPP's posited 1/2 a second in the first place...
Actually, there is another company that makes something similar to a Ranger, still - Toyota Tacoma. Supposedly the Tacoma is the reason why the Ranger is falling behind; I don't know.
The reason that the Ranger is falling behind is that it has had almost no upgrades in, what is it, 23 years? Seriously. The fact that its still around and doing as well as it is should be lauded, not lamented.
You are claiming that the car will instantly be up to operating speed the moment you take your foot off the brake and hit the accelerator? That would be pretty impressive, even if the starter spun the engine up at 1000rpm, it would still take a fraction of a second. Would also take a hefty splash of gas, too.
I'm not thinking that it would take seconds, like in starting a regular car, but it would surely take 1/4 to 1/2 second before you could actually drive off (on top of the time needed to actually accelerate).
First of all - yes, far less than 1/4 of a second. But even using that measurement - do you really think that you move your foot from the brake to the accelerator in less than 1/4 of a second? Really? C'mon... Seriously, have someone time you (while the car is off) when you're actively trying to be fast. If they can - 1/4 of a second is damn hard to measure even on a decent stopwatch. In the real world when you're not trying to sprain yourself going for a foot-moving-6-inches-in-three-dimensions record, there's plenty of time.
Precision control helps as well; these days, knowing that you can stop the engine with a cylinder in the perfect position to be fired makes starting almost effortless, especially with the aforementioned hot engine.
This system sounds like hell if it's cold, and/or if your battery is low. Get a jump, start the car... and it turns itself off again. Soo, you've got to drive around to keep it going to make the engine actually run. All the while, the cold weather wear and tear on an engine that hasn't warmed up takes its toll - particularly at highway speeds.
Fortunately the automotive engineers at Ford and other companies - who, incidentally, already sell tons of these cars in North Europe, where its freezing - aren't complete morons. The engine control software already has access to the temperature of the outside air, the inside air, and the engine oil and coolant. What on Earth makes you think that they'd build it in such a primitive manner?
Actually, you had a problem with your alternator - you can remove your battery completely once your engine has started and drive around town just fine (seriously, give it a go - just remember not to turn off the motor unless you're next to another battery). As long as the engine's running, all power for the car comes directly from the alternator, indirectly from the engine.
As to your FUD though... what would have happened if the water pump had died instead? In your scenario you'd have had absolutely no heat very shortly, and if you continued to drive around you might well have ended up with no engine to speak of as well. And water pumps die all the time. But guess what? We deal with it. Besides, if you're that concerned about vehicle reliability in cold weather, make sure you have a decent candle, some matches, and a blanket in the trunk. Add a jar of peanut butter and a few bottles of water and you can hold out for a remarkably long time just fine.
Correct... it seems a lot of people here are ignoring TFA where it specifically says that this technology is already widespread in Europe....there's no point in all these posters saying, "aha, but clearly it can't work because of xyz" - it already DOES work.
Ah, I see you missed all of the discussions where the USA was proving that government-provided healthcare could never work as well. Probably distracted by all the people dropping dead on the streets over there, from what I heard on our fine conservative news stations.
Where I lived in Montana, traffic could get sufficiently stop-and-go that you'd be spending more time shut down than running. When it's -40 even a warm engine is going to cool down significantly in just a few minutes. So it could essentially get a cold start half a dozen times just from driving down the street.
And that's exactly the kind of problem that modern vehicle electronics could never account for, especially in Northern Europe (where this technology is fast becoming commonplace).
Never hurts, but do keep in mind when discussing mercury that simply smashing the CFLs upon EOL (not recommended btw) releases less mercury than would be released by a coal-fired powerplant powering incandescent lights over the same time period. Just something to think about - a lot of people really bring the hate to CFLs over that concern.
"How to Solve It" also talks about more general problem-solving than just mathematical problems - crossword puzzles, for example. Prof. Lewis's article talks about the universal question "Why did they teach me the quadratic formula when I will never use it?" and this is really the answer; doing mathematics (should) teach people how to solve any problem logically. Well, any problem that can be solved logically, of course.
Then why not teach logic and problem solving, possibly using mathematics as the language (but not necessarily)? When we tell ourselves that we're teaching maths, that's all people tend to teach (and learn, for the most part). I agree that teaching logic and deduction is valuable, more valuable than a lot of mathematics to many people (since with skills you can get the maths, but not necessarily vice versa)... but its rarely seen called out on a school curriculum. And that's a shame.
But your assembly kit analogy is was really kind of throws me off. 80% of what you use your droid for will be built into it, no assembly required. Particularily the line "With the increased power to do your own thing all to frequently comes the need to do your own thing" - I honestly have no idea where thats coming from or what you mean by it. So your phone is more flexible... so you feel pressured to use its flexibility? Can you elaborate on the situation where you felt the need to "Do your own thing" - what that thing was and how an iPhone got you around that problem? This is what is absolutely perplexing me.
Frequently, with flexibility comes the absolution of design. Standard keyboard doesn't work quite right? No worries, the user can install one that they really like, and most apps will even respect that decision! Can't make up your mind as a developer on the right way to solve a problem? Add a checkbox and let/force the user to decide. Crap at making GUIs? Make a completely skinnable app and let the user sort though them all, or make their own! Not everything scrolls smoothly? Don't worry, truly high-class apps can just implement their own scroll solution!
Its the same way that I don't miss having a carb on my daily-driver (even though I enjoy rebuilding and tweaking them) - the ability to completely tweak my air/fuel ratios is nice, but having something that isn't perfect but is "good enough" and never having to think about it is also nice, and frequently underrated.
The iPhone will never be perfect for my needs, but with close to zero time spent messing with it, its almost there. The Android devices I've looked at before could probably be tweaked closer to my ideal than my iPhone, but out of the box (or rather with a couple of hours of tinkering, at least on the Dell/Droid ones I've spent more time with) they fall below that line.
Hence the ludicrous situation earlier in the year when Apple royally screwed the iPhone4's antenna and *blamed the user* for holding it wrong. Its more than just marketing, its borderline brainwashing - they just could not under any circumstances accept their entire product range of 1 was a turkey
Not really - as an admitted iPhone 4 user, and as someone who knows many other people with them (and who use them without cases), its just another case where one group tries to bring down another group by spreading FUD about a popular product. Feel free to criticize it as much as you want, of course, but do pick something worth criticizing. You'd think that after selling 14+ million of them (according to Wikipedia at least) this particular piece of dirt would have been well-discredited.
Ah, /. I love how a post can be modded redundant when there are only 6 available (browsing at -1) and its the only one that contains significant discussion about phone development... Good job, mods!
Looks like I'm sticking with the iPhone for a while then. I've gotten to the point where I'll happily sacrifice a small amount of money and a little flexibility in exchange for a well-vetted, vertically integrated solution rather than an assembly kit that I can use - if I wish - to build something great. With the increased power to do your own thing all to frequently comes the need to do your own thing, with your own time and your own money. Not on my phone, thanks - I'll leave tinkering to the hobbies I choose rather than a useful accessory for my life. And yes, I'm a developer.
If you can't wrap your head around the fact that any person who has already set foot in your store is a potential sale, you'd make a terrible salesperson. Checking prices is not a guarantee that the customer is going to shop somewhere else. If your prices are even in the same ballpark, there is a decent chance they'll pick up the item *now* because they are already there, and it is convenient. If the staff was pleasant, that is another point in their favor.
I was also looking at this follow-on comment from the same poster:
That's the best part though - I didn't have to bounce around! Most of the stuff was cheaper on the net, and most had free shipping.
Let's face facts. There is no way that a B&M store can be consistently cheaper than online for common retail items. Just can't be done. I agree with your point that harassing anyone in your store is a bad idea; I also feel that taking advantage of the convenience that B&M stores offer you to browse and have your kids play with stuff should mean a willingness to give them your business as well.
When you're comparing, say, Target and Best Buy, that kind of cross-shopping was reasonable; both provided comparable services, both had similar cost structures, et cetera. But in this case, the service (looking and touching) is always going to be only offered in person, and the better prices are almost always going to be offered online.
Would you similarly endorse someone going to Nordstrom's to use their personal shopping service (after all, its "free" too), writing down all their recommendations, and then purchasing their clothes online? Its just a different scale of the same problem. And when a few people do it (either example), nobody's really hurt. When a lot of people start to do it, businesses die. And if you don't care that the B&M retailer dies ... why are their services worth using up in the meantime?
Any customer who goes to shop at a B&M store with her kids to see what they want and then scans the barcodes to buy online later is not a customer that store would ever have - more specifically, they're not a customer. That's not "shopping intelligently," that's taking advantage of service you know full well you'll never pay for. While legal, its unethical.
Here's a good ethics test for you. If there's a practice that when one person does it is "smart" but when many people do it will ruin the company/person/state/whatever that's on the losing side of the deal, especially if there's no way for the loser to change the rules to their advantage without turning away other ethical business, that's a situation that's unsustainable and almost certainly unethical. Just because the B&M store is "big" doesn't give you the right to treat them like dirt. Of course, if enough people start doing it, nobody will have the benefit of the local shop any more.
Would it be wrong if I brought a newspaper flyer from a competitor's store, came into your store and looked at your prices, then left because your prices sucked? It's no different than using an iPhone to do the same thing.
Nope. Would it be wrong if you knew the prices elsewhere were lower but came in to my store because it was large, well-lit, and had lots of display models on-hand for you to try-out (and devalue, just a little) before leaving, having now decided what to buy elsewhere? Yes.
Not illegal, I'll grant you. But many things that are legal are still wrong.
Look, people shop around, they did before the internet, and they did before mobile phones. There is nothing any retailer can do to stop this.
Being grumpy at a customer for using the tools at their disposal to shop around more efficiently is simply driving that customer away. Treating your customer with respect, on the other hand, *might* make you a sale even if your prices aren't the absolute lowest.
In this case, though, the price of the toy online will always be less than the price in the store, because the online merchant doesn't have to pay for the services that the in-person merchant does. Using the resources of one business (display models, boxes, et cetera) in order to decide which of a number of other businesses to shop at is unethical, plain and simple.
No, its not illegal. But it will drive B&M stores out of business. I suggest that you re-read The Tragedy of the Commons and think about how that applies here as well...
Sometimes narrowing down the choice of product is helped tremendously by looking closely at it.
Yup. And that's why retailers are deserving of some kind of reimbursement (ie: your business) for buying and opening all those models for you to look at.
If the retailer isn't adding any benefit to the purchase, such as on site information, delivery time, ease of return, product adjustment for you needs, or just a cozy ambient, then he shouldn't get his cut. If the retailer is asking too high a price to add those benefits, then he will have to adjust.
You can buy coffee through the internet, or in major supermarkets, much cheaper than in a coffee shop. But coffee shops will still be around because they provide a service and they add value to the product.
And just as most coffee shops are understandably upset if you bring your own coffee in a thermos but expect to enjoy their benefits, most B&M stores are upset if you use their benefits (personnel, demo models, etc) and then make your purchase elsewhere. The only difference is that the retailer was kind enough to front you their "free" value-adds before your purchase, with the understanding that if you decide favorably that they'll get your business.
I'll chip in the the "rationality of the decision". Someone deciding whether to change their habits on $50 vs $100 is indicating they are concerned with the overall effect of the purchase on their budget. Someone making a capital investment of $1000 for a computer shouldn't be worrying about where their next necessity purchase is coming from. It's like the famous joke "I'll take 2 Angus Bacon Cheeseburger meals, supersized, but make the drinks diet coke because I'm on a diet".
Although anyone buying 2 Angus Bacon Cheeseburger means is probably not the best candidate for a test-case on rational thinking, soda-selection notwithstanding!