It isn't half bad but it does use a lot of terminology
That’s why it’s user friendly. Try configuring one of those “user friendly” consumer grade crap routers. Due to the use non-standard descriptions in a misguided effort to be user friendly no one actually has any clue what settings actually do.
As a Dutch person I can’t imagine how you can live like that. My bike is my primary mode of transportation and it’s infinitely more convenient than using my car. It’s faster to get around, you can actually ride into the city center and park your bike right outside any shops you need to go to. With a car you need to park it at the edge of the shopping district and walk everywhere (while paying an absolute fortune for parking).
Even when the car is a little faster, I go by bike anyway. My parents live one city over and while it’s 20 minutes by car and 40 by bike, I’d rather cycle. Instead of sitting in a stuffy car on a boring road breathing in the exhaust fumes of the guy in front of me, I can ride my bike through the fields and woods, enjoy the fresh air and the sounds of nature. I go months between uses of my car.
And how do you consider that a comparable machine? Slow/hot Intel CPU, slow GPU, low-res screen, the ‘upgradable’ RAM can only be upgraded to 32GB (so pretty much useless), slow SSD, weighs more than a MacBook even with the smallest battery option, despite the fact it’s made of plastic. No thunderbolt. It can’t even drive my monitor at 60Hz.
Another thing they did is add hardware support for the x86 strong memory model to their ARM chips, allowing for efficient emulation. Without this, translated code takes a big performance hit.
Did Qualcomm add something similar to their ARM CPUs ?
Simple economies of scale. They are expensive to produce because they don’t make a lot of them. The intended audience for the monitor it goes with doesn’t need a stand, and that monitor is a niche product to begin with. Neither is meant for the consumer market to begin with and the monitor, even with stand, is cheaper than many of the alternatives.
You are confusing ‘costs a lot of money’ with overpriced.
Yes, Apple hardware costs a lot of money, but you do get what you pay for.
My current MacBook Pro (M1 Max, 64GB RAM) is simply the best machine I’ve ever used. It’s a no-compromise laptop. It’s fast, chews through everything I throw at it (which is a lot, I use it as a development machine). It never slow down, it never gets hot, I haven’t heard the fan run ever (not sure if it is just that silent or it simply never needs to turn on). The screen is amazing. The trackpad is amazing. The sound is amazing. The build quality is rock solid. The battery life is insane. I plug in a single thunderbolt cable and it charges my machine, connects to gbit ethernet, my audio system and drives 2 high-res monitors (5k2k and 4k).
Every time PC people claim they can get a ‘better computer’ for less it’s always some compromise. “This one has a much faster GPU and is cheaper”, sure, it also weights 8 kilos and runs for 20 minute on a full charge, is made of cheap plastic, has a screen with terrible viewing angles a crappy trackpad and sounds like a fighter jet with full afterburners on every time you put a little load on the system.
There is also the practicality angle. If apps were listening in on all the random bullshit conversations people have, that would be such an unbelievable crapton of data to sift through, it would simply be uneconomical even if possible, just to show you an ad for cat food that will pay out like one cent IF someone clicked on it?
As for the lab grown diamonds thing, there is a real possibility that it went exactly the other way around. The ads didn’t get shown because they talked about it, but they talked about is because of the ads. We see ads all the time to the point we’re no longer consciously aware of them. Obviously, they still influence our behavior or companies wouldn’t spend a fortune on them. So a lab grown diamond company is running an ad campaign on FB. Someone sees that ad and it doesn’t consciously register, but it plants the idea of lab grown diamonds in their head. Then this causes them to bring it up in a conversation later. Now consciously aware of the concept, you suddenly notice the ad you ignored earlier.
IMO, this is a much more realistic and even scarier scenario than apps listening in. It’s apps manipulating your unconscious thoughts.
How is this possible? How did you pay your bills before online billpay systems - did you pay them all by phone?
We had something called an ‘acceptgiro’, it was basically a pre-filled money transfer order. Usually the amount, beneficiary and some reference number were pre-printed. All you had to do was sign it and mail it to the bank (which usually was free, you had pre-paid envelopes from the bank). It was usually attached to the bill, basically a tear-off part of the bill that you signed, stuffed into an envelope and mailed.
For recurring payments you usually give the other party ongoing permission to directly take it from your account. This is still extremely common and how I pay 99.999% of my bills. For things like mortgages, rent and insurance it’s usually required to pay in this way. Basically, my monthly bills get paid without me even having to think about it.
That’s why it’s user friendly. Try configuring one of those “user friendly” consumer grade crap routers. Due to the use non-standard descriptions in a misguided effort to be user friendly no one actually has any clue what settings actually do.