I travel with my laptop - current one has over 200,000 documented miles on it. That includes travel all over the world (5 continents with this one so far), nearly every day to different client's offices, in labs, conference rooms, dance clubs (I work in acoustics and audio development, and many of my clients are prosound companies), studios, theaters, etc. I guess I just take care of my stuff a bit better that many...
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My previous laptop was a Dell Latitude D505, and it racked up close to 500,000 miles. Finally died when someone stepped on it (dumb roommate) and cracked the motherboard right under the charging control circuit. Battery lasted long enough to do a final backup of everything. It had been on all 7 continents and in the back of countless rental cars, desks/beds/tables, etc.
As far as metal shavings, the Macbook I have has attracted metal shavings before, and I check it religiously when I do take it into the field (it's more of an office-desk-queen). Lots of metal shavings around in speaker factories, what with the lathing of poles and yokes and all. Plenty of low-carbon metal shavings to get stuck in there.
Neither my previous Dell, or my current HP has had any big issues with the environments I go. Including one I'm dreading next week, Ningbo Strong Magnet in Ningbo China. It'll be around 44 deg C and 85% humidity on the factory floor, with bursts up to 50 deg C when the kilns are opened. Not good for laptops (or me), but they soldier on without a problem. Just an occasional blowing clean with compressed air (keyboard and fan ports). They just keep going...
Half-joking; Apple really lives on churn now, and it's seen with the fact they're really no longer a computer company. They make mobile entertainment devices predominantly, and have a small group who makes computers as well. For the last several years Apple has made considerably more money with iPods, phones, and music sales than they do with computers. Churn is now the corporate approach, get customers to buy new every year or two. Dinosaurs like you (and me - 2007 Macbook here as one of my dev platforms) aren't the desired market anymore...
Spoken like someone who's never used one. Call me a fanboy if you like,
Spoken like a fanboy. The article is for a generic laptop connector; most laptops do NOT use magnets for closing the lid or the lid position sensor. Generalizing the extremely small share of Mac to the world is a common sign of fanboydom...
I've never had a power supply cord fail for any laptop I've owned. In 19 years, never had a Gateway, Dell, Toshiba, or my current HP have a problem with the power connector. Never broke, and certainly never melted or smoked as you experienced with your Apple unit!
And the attraction of metal shavings is a real and distinct concern. Foreign debris in any connector is a concern; adding attractors to the connector simply enhances that concern.
Most switchmode power supplies (SMPS) tend to increase efficiency as you reach their optimum/maximum rating. Using a SMPS at 40% of its rated capacity usually has less efficiency than using it at 95% of its rated capacity. So a 130W power supply providing 120W might be 94% efficient (dissipating 7.7W of heat), but when that 130W power supply is only delivering 40W of power it may be just 80% efficient (dissipating 10W of heat).
Figures I see are mainly from the textile industry and other industries, where labour is a larger share.
What I hear for manufacturers is that they typically have to work on margins like 2-3% for fob price. Doubling labour cost would be more than their profit margin.
Forgot to mention about this: you're typically quoted FOB in USD, but not including the 17% tax kickback. So the factory "claims" they are only earning 3-5% relative to EXW inside China, but they're ignoring the 17% in taxes they WON'T pay by exporting to you. They're earning closer to 20-23% on that sale. Is it a lot? Nope, but it's certainly not as low as they claim. After all, Mercedes and Audis are still expensive, even in China. Likewise Buicks and other cards used to pick up lao wai at the airport. You can't afford that fleet of expensive Mercedes out front of the factory, if you're doing 2% profit on 30,000,000 RMB a year in revenues.
Would you or your client pay RMB 11 a piece more? Or would you walk to another manufacturer that's making the same product for less money?
Well, it's been easy for them to absorb that extra 6 RMB that labor has gone up over the last 7 years (yes, 7 years ago it was around 5 RMB of labor); it's been slow. The exchange rate jump in the last 3 years, however, has been a lot more difficult to swallow!
By the way interesting you quote the fob price in RMB. I'm used to seeing fob prices quoted in USD. If only because most overseas customers can not pay in RMB, as it's not a freely convertible currency.
Heh - I do the design and 9 times out of 10 the supply/logistics. They pay me in Hong Kong, I pay the factory in RMB. Prices to my client are quoted in their native currency (USD, CAD, AUD, EUR, etc) but with pegs for pricing based upon the exchange rates because I have to pay the factories in RMB quotes - even when we do the transactions in HK. I'm not going to get stuck holding the bag for an appreciating RMB...
My experience has been different; for example, a new 10" prosound woofer I'm doing for a client has a 215 RMB FOB cost. Labor is 11 RMB of that. Even doubling labor would add negligible cost to the product. But taking the exchange rate from 8 RMB to 1 USD down to 6.47 RMB to 1 USD has a huge impact (similar to a 6X increase in labor costs).
It varies from State to State. In WA State, we're pushing $9 per hour minimum wage, plus mandatory social security (another 7.62%), workman's compensation insurance, unemployment insurance, etc. There isn't a single State that I know of that has a minimum wage at the Federal level.
Most manufacturing in China has labor costs accounting for 2-5% of the product. The big "cost" increase is the rising strength of the RMB. Four years ago it was 8 RMB = $1 USD. Now it's 6.47 and falling. That's where the cost of Chinese production is coming from.
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Move to Cambodia, or Vietnam, or Thailand or Laos and their economies will also grow and you'll see their currency appreciate in value as well, leading to the same issue. In the mean time you'll need to live with greatly reduced infrastructure and shipping capacity as compared to China.
And yes, I do a lot of work in Asia, and live half my life in Shanghai supporting manufacturing in China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
One year does not change the downward slope we've seen for the last 10 years. Look at the graphs - the slope is unmistakable. Even Phil Jones has admitted we've been cooling for the last 13 years.
Well, my point was that if you had chosen 12 or 14 years for your graph instead of 13 years the data would have shown warming. That's why I called it cherry picking.
Actually, no. It would show less cooling, but not warming. You need to stretch out to 20+ years to get warming. And if you stretch out to 800 years you get cooling.
Nothing that has happened contradicts the GCM's.
Cooling in the face of increasing CO2? and we have a model that doesn't even use CO2 and accurately matches the past and present? The GCMs are wrong, or at least less accurate than other models.
I don't get where you think the models don't match the MWP or the Little Ice Age. I've never seen any indication that they don't.
The initial insistence that the MWP never existed, or was - at best - a localized phenomenon. Most of the GCM modelers tried really hard to discount it because it didn't fit their models. And their approach was backwards - rather than fixing a model to match data, they tried to discount data that didn't fit their model.
Simple question: which trumps, observed data or model results?
The point isn't that we are actually cooling, the point is that we're cooling exactly when the models say we should be warming. CO2 has increased, but the temperature is falling. Models that are dominated by CO2 all break with the current reality - they do not account for the current trend.
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Now, if you look at the predictions by Professor Don Easterbrook you find he accurately fits the warming of the 90s AND the cooling of the 00s - and fits them quite nicely. His model doesn't rely on CO2, however - and thus most AGW supporters ignore it.
If your model doesn't match reality, then the model is wrong. Models based on CO2 driving the climate don't match reality (either the MWP or the little ice age or the current cooling); it's time to start looking at other variables that affect climate change.
Just because it's been cooler at your house for the last two years, does not mean the earth, as a whole, is not getting warmer in general.
It's perfectly plausible that the average temperature on the planet could rise significantly while a region, like Europe, gets colder.
Except we are getting cooler, overall, for the last 12 years. The trend is unmistakable and now well outside the bounds of the IPCC report. The fact that recent global data does not match the models would indicate the models are wrong and need to be modified.
The recent warming (over the past four decades) is at a much faster rate than the warming since the last ice age, by orders of magnitude. It's not the warming that's the problem. It's the rate of warming that's the problem.
Really? Because the historical record says otherwise. The "rise" now is equal to what happened in the MWP, to past inter-ice-age periods, and on the REALLY long term, we're experiencing general cooling.
So what will the "naysayers" response be to continued warming despite reduced insolation?
Except for the fact we've been cooling for the last 13 years, even as carbon emissions continued to grow. Perhaps the models are wrong? Maybe there's something else controlling the majority of our climate change? Because they certainly don't seem to predict or model what's happening now - temperatures falling while carbon emissions increasing.
No you wont, because the temperatures are well within the prediction envelope. As is sea level rise. Sea level rise stands a chance of breaking through the top of the prediction envelope soon.
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My previous laptop was a Dell Latitude D505, and it racked up close to 500,000 miles. Finally died when someone stepped on it (dumb roommate) and cracked the motherboard right under the charging control circuit. Battery lasted long enough to do a final backup of everything. It had been on all 7 continents and in the back of countless rental cars, desks/beds/tables, etc.
As far as metal shavings, the Macbook I have has attracted metal shavings before, and I check it religiously when I do take it into the field (it's more of an office-desk-queen). Lots of metal shavings around in speaker factories, what with the lathing of poles and yokes and all. Plenty of low-carbon metal shavings to get stuck in there.
Neither my previous Dell, or my current HP has had any big issues with the environments I go. Including one I'm dreading next week, Ningbo Strong Magnet in Ningbo China. It'll be around 44 deg C and 85% humidity on the factory floor, with bursts up to 50 deg C when the kilns are opened. Not good for laptops (or me), but they soldier on without a problem. Just an occasional blowing clean with compressed air (keyboard and fan ports). They just keep going...
Half-joking; Apple really lives on churn now, and it's seen with the fact they're really no longer a computer company. They make mobile entertainment devices predominantly, and have a small group who makes computers as well. For the last several years Apple has made considerably more money with iPods, phones, and music sales than they do with computers. Churn is now the corporate approach, get customers to buy new every year or two. Dinosaurs like you (and me - 2007 Macbook here as one of my dev platforms) aren't the desired market anymore...
WTF, Apple. People have varying needs to make use of your products. Step up to offer the solution, or get out of the way.
"You're using is wrong" - Steve Jobs
It's a Mac - you're not supposed to keep it more than a year or two, so oxidation and failure of connectors isn't an issue - for the first owner...
Spoken like someone who's never used one. Call me a fanboy if you like,
Spoken like a fanboy. The article is for a generic laptop connector; most laptops do NOT use magnets for closing the lid or the lid position sensor. Generalizing the extremely small share of Mac to the world is a common sign of fanboydom...
I've never had a power supply cord fail for any laptop I've owned. In 19 years, never had a Gateway, Dell, Toshiba, or my current HP have a problem with the power connector. Never broke, and certainly never melted or smoked as you experienced with your Apple unit!
And the attraction of metal shavings is a real and distinct concern. Foreign debris in any connector is a concern; adding attractors to the connector simply enhances that concern.
Most switchmode power supplies (SMPS) tend to increase efficiency as you reach their optimum/maximum rating. Using a SMPS at 40% of its rated capacity usually has less efficiency than using it at 95% of its rated capacity. So a 130W power supply providing 120W might be 94% efficient (dissipating 7.7W of heat), but when that 130W power supply is only delivering 40W of power it may be just 80% efficient (dissipating 10W of heat).
So.... Basically a fancier, heavier-weight version of Flash?
...is good.
Do you intend to turn that into carbon dioxide and water?
Probably solid waste with a dose of methane for good measure...
Figures I see are mainly from the textile industry and other industries, where labour is a larger share.
What I hear for manufacturers is that they typically have to work on margins like 2-3% for fob price. Doubling labour cost would be more than their profit margin.
Forgot to mention about this: you're typically quoted FOB in USD, but not including the 17% tax kickback. So the factory "claims" they are only earning 3-5% relative to EXW inside China, but they're ignoring the 17% in taxes they WON'T pay by exporting to you. They're earning closer to 20-23% on that sale. Is it a lot? Nope, but it's certainly not as low as they claim. After all, Mercedes and Audis are still expensive, even in China. Likewise Buicks and other cards used to pick up lao wai at the airport. You can't afford that fleet of expensive Mercedes out front of the factory, if you're doing 2% profit on 30,000,000 RMB a year in revenues.
Would you or your client pay RMB 11 a piece more? Or would you walk to another manufacturer that's making the same product for less money?
Well, it's been easy for them to absorb that extra 6 RMB that labor has gone up over the last 7 years (yes, 7 years ago it was around 5 RMB of labor); it's been slow. The exchange rate jump in the last 3 years, however, has been a lot more difficult to swallow!
By the way interesting you quote the fob price in RMB. I'm used to seeing fob prices quoted in USD. If only because most overseas customers can not pay in RMB, as it's not a freely convertible currency.
Heh - I do the design and 9 times out of 10 the supply/logistics. They pay me in Hong Kong, I pay the factory in RMB. Prices to my client are quoted in their native currency (USD, CAD, AUD, EUR, etc) but with pegs for pricing based upon the exchange rates because I have to pay the factories in RMB quotes - even when we do the transactions in HK. I'm not going to get stuck holding the bag for an appreciating RMB...
My experience has been different; for example, a new 10" prosound woofer I'm doing for a client has a 215 RMB FOB cost. Labor is 11 RMB of that. Even doubling labor would add negligible cost to the product. But taking the exchange rate from 8 RMB to 1 USD down to 6.47 RMB to 1 USD has a huge impact (similar to a 6X increase in labor costs).
It varies from State to State. In WA State, we're pushing $9 per hour minimum wage, plus mandatory social security (another 7.62%), workman's compensation insurance, unemployment insurance, etc. There isn't a single State that I know of that has a minimum wage at the Federal level.
Move to Cambodia, or Vietnam, or Thailand or Laos and their economies will also grow and you'll see their currency appreciate in value as well, leading to the same issue. In the mean time you'll need to live with greatly reduced infrastructure and shipping capacity as compared to China.
And yes, I do a lot of work in Asia, and live half my life in Shanghai supporting manufacturing in China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Now if only there was a way to put advertisements and in-page marketing... Maybe Google should get on that! /s
What's the point? Why not just do a rich website and support ALL your consumers with a single source - the ubiquitous web page?
Yeah, I'm more of a beer guy myself...
One year does not change the downward slope we've seen for the last 10 years. Look at the graphs - the slope is unmistakable. Even Phil Jones has admitted we've been cooling for the last 13 years.
This President is 100% - after all, he's won a Nobel Peace Prize, how can he be wrong about what is hostile and what is not?
Well, my point was that if you had chosen 12 or 14 years for your graph instead of 13 years the data would have shown warming. That's why I called it cherry picking.
Actually, no. It would show less cooling, but not warming. You need to stretch out to 20+ years to get warming. And if you stretch out to 800 years you get cooling.
Nothing that has happened contradicts the GCM's.
Cooling in the face of increasing CO2? and we have a model that doesn't even use CO2 and accurately matches the past and present? The GCMs are wrong, or at least less accurate than other models.
I don't get where you think the models don't match the MWP or the Little Ice Age. I've never seen any indication that they don't.
The initial insistence that the MWP never existed, or was - at best - a localized phenomenon. Most of the GCM modelers tried really hard to discount it because it didn't fit their models. And their approach was backwards - rather than fixing a model to match data, they tried to discount data that didn't fit their model.
Simple question: which trumps, observed data or model results?
Now, if you look at the predictions by Professor Don Easterbrook you find he accurately fits the warming of the 90s AND the cooling of the 00s - and fits them quite nicely. His model doesn't rely on CO2, however - and thus most AGW supporters ignore it.
If your model doesn't match reality, then the model is wrong. Models based on CO2 driving the climate don't match reality (either the MWP or the little ice age or the current cooling); it's time to start looking at other variables that affect climate change.
Wow...
Just because it's been cooler at your house for the last two years, does not mean the earth, as a whole, is not getting warmer in general.
It's perfectly plausible that the average temperature on the planet could rise significantly while a region, like Europe, gets colder.
Except we are getting cooler, overall, for the last 12 years. The trend is unmistakable and now well outside the bounds of the IPCC report. The fact that recent global data does not match the models would indicate the models are wrong and need to be modified.
The recent warming (over the past four decades) is at a much faster rate than the warming since the last ice age, by orders of magnitude. It's not the warming that's the problem. It's the rate of warming that's the problem.
Really? Because the historical record says otherwise. The "rise" now is equal to what happened in the MWP, to past inter-ice-age periods, and on the REALLY long term, we're experiencing general cooling.
And they're going to be sorely disappointed when the warming continues despite reduced solar output.
Even if the Sun went into a new Maunder Minimum Global Warming will continue because the forcing from increased GHG's (primarily CO2) overwhelms the change in insolation. There is a peer reviewed paper on the subject here: On the Effect of a New Grand Minimum of Solar Activity on the Future Climate on Earth (Feulner & Rahmstorf 2010).
So what will the "naysayers" response be to continued warming despite reduced insolation?
Except for the fact we've been cooling for the last 13 years, even as carbon emissions continued to grow. Perhaps the models are wrong? Maybe there's something else controlling the majority of our climate change? Because they certainly don't seem to predict or model what's happening now - temperatures falling while carbon emissions increasing.
No you wont, because the temperatures are well within the prediction envelope. As is sea level rise. Sea level rise stands a chance of breaking through the top of the prediction envelope soon.
Actually, we're well out of the bounds of the 1990 IPCC estimate. Even well below the "lowest" estimate.
When observed data doesn't match the model, it's time to change the model, not ignore the observed data.
The period you select is very important. Over the very long term, we're slowly cooling...