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Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

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Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#491

Post by brudgers »

ryandrake wrote: post #243
adamgordonbell wrote: post #84

Apple is very tied to Chinese manufacturing in a way that is hard to replicate in US. They will agree to make some high margin simple to assemble thing in the US to appease government, but if it goes as well as last time, they will stop as soon as they can. In china they were often able to iterate on designs and have custom screws and other parts made and ramped up in very short times. Something about having the whol…

> Something about having the whole supply chain in one place I can't find the source but I thought I read somewhere that the major manufacturing cities in China are all geographically laid out like giant assembly lines. The companies that process the raw materials are located mostly inland, then the companies that form those raw materials into metal and plastic stock are next door, and then the companies that take th…

The US can't even zone a residential neighborhood without lawyers and special interests jamming things up for decades through endless impact studies and litigation.

Famously, Houston has no zoning.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#492

Post by callmeal »

pear01 wrote: post #314
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a great freakonomics podcast that talked about China being run by engineers and America being run by lawyers. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/china-is-run-by-engineers-a...

That guy is so annoying his subpar analysis has become such a trope. America used to build things too. Lawyers have been part of the founding and fabric of both societies. Trying to reduce China v America to engineers vs lawyers is so reductive it's just mind blowing this keeps getting repeated.

> Trying to reduce China v America to engineers vs lawyers is so reductive it's just mind blowing this keeps getting repeated.

Think of it as engineers vs non-engineers (lawyers/mba types/etc). We complain about that on here all the time (ex. boeing). It's where the priorities are: is it on making things better or making more money? In an ideal world, it would be both. Unfortunately here, it is not otherwise enshittification would not be a thing.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#493

Post by deaddodo »

apercu wrote: post #150
deaddodo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that blows my mind. People seem to think the US is incapable of and does no manufacturing. It is the second largest manufacturer[1], and has a capacity about 65% of what China does. Which is 350% of the next largest manufacturing country. What they stopped manufacturing was menial and low-end product; because it's not price-effective to have 100 Americans sit on an assembly line and solder SMT compon…

Fair, but there is tons of HIGH END manufacturing we could do that we just don't, even though there is every incentive to do so.

The US does 65% of China's manufacturing capacity at 25% their population.

They are doing fine.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#494

Post by tw1984 »

typ wrote: post #367
mikestorrent wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to brand efficiency and structure-at-scale as "authoritarian"; how painfully American of you. I know it's a completely foreign concept for anyone that has grown up in America, but it's actually within the realm of human possibility for the government and the individual to be aligned and want the same thing. Typically this is evidenced by tremendous social progress, which we see in evidence with the rap…

If that were the true secret sauce of the economic success in China, why had it not taken off before the 2000s? Like, they have been that "aligned" and "want the same thing" and "run by engineers" since the 50s, no?

> why had it not taken off before the 2000s?

This topic has been discussed on Chinese forums and social media for like 1 million times. The short answer is it did. To give you a prefect example - the J-10 fighter jet was first tested in 1998, it shot down multiple best EU made fighter jets last year.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#495

Post by fragmede »

palmotea wrote: post #488
fragmede wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem like money is the only issue. Infinity dollars won't help if the culture is radioactively toxic and shitty. (Arguably if you had infinity dollars you could spend it on therapists and counselors to fix the culture.)

> Infinity dollars won't help if the culture is radioactively toxic and shitty. And what's "radioactively toxic and shitty"? Not wanting to slave away for low wages in bad working conditions? Business apologists like to slander American workers, and it's tiring. Most of the "radioactively toxic and shitty" culture is management culture.

As mentioned upthread, if you go to an American machine shop, they'll take two weeks to get back to you, and generally be a PITA to work with, vs China's jumping at the chance to build stuff.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjEVB5p2/

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#496

Post by callmeal »

Avicebron wrote: post #272
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a great freakonomics podcast that talked about China being run by engineers and America being run by lawyers. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/china-is-run-by-engineers-a...

Authoritarian central planning isn't an inherent trait of engineers and nor should we aspire for it to be.

>Authoritarian central planning isn't an inherent trait of engineers and nor should we aspire for it to be.

I would say that for long-term engineering projects (building bridges etc) authoritarian central planning is a required trait.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#497

Post by palmotea »

tencentshill wrote: post #105
vsgherzi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as manufacturing in China took time manufacturing in the US will take time. The US has lost much of its skilled labor and mom and pop parts shop. If we have any hope of re-invigorating this some large company is going to have to bite the bullet. Chicken and egg problem imo. I'll leave whether this is worth it or not up to the economists.

It needs a careful long term approach from real leaders. Not a run-and-gun, corrupt, chaotic president throwing tariffs (taxes) up on a whim.

>> Just as manufacturing in China took time manufacturing in the US will take time. The US has lost much of its skilled labor and mom and pop parts shop. If we have any hope of re-invigorating this some large company is going to have to bite the bullet. Chicken and egg problem imo. I'll leave whether this is worth it or not up to the economists.

> It needs a careful long term approach from real leaders. Not a run-and-gun, corrupt, chaotic president throwing tariffs (taxes) up on a whim.

The problem is all the real leaders got indoctrinated and drank the globalization kool-aid. Unfortunately, it seems only an insane and chaotic person was able to actually buck the iamverysmart consensus.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#498

Post by palmotea »

fragmede wrote: post #495
palmotea wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Infinity dollars won't help if the culture is radioactively toxic and shitty. And what's "radioactively toxic and shitty"? Not wanting to slave away for low wages in bad working conditions? Business apologists like to slander American workers, and it's tiring. Most of the "radioactively toxic and shitty" culture is management culture.

As mentioned upthread, if you go to an American machine shop, they'll take two weeks to get back to you, and generally be a PITA to work with, vs China's jumping at the chance to build stuff. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjEVB5p2/

> As mentioned upthread, if you go to an American machine shop, they'll take two weeks to get back to you, and generally be a PITA to work with, vs China's jumping at the chance to build stuff.

Probably because the Chinese are working 996. I know people who work 996, in China, and they dislike it as much as I would.

That's "jumping at the chance."

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#499

Post by gaigalas »

> Apple today announced a significant expansion of factory operations in Houston, bringing the future production of Mac mini to the U.S. for the first time. The company will also expand advanced AI server manufacturing at the factory and provide hands-on training at its new Advanced Manufacturing Center beginning later this year.

So, servers and minis share a production line then.

I kinda knew it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45599894

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#500

Post by Gud »

pear01 wrote: post #314
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a great freakonomics podcast that talked about China being run by engineers and America being run by lawyers. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/china-is-run-by-engineers-a...

That guy is so annoying his subpar analysis has become such a trope. America used to build things too. Lawyers have been part of the founding and fabric of both societies. Trying to reduce China v America to engineers vs lawyers is so reductive it's just mind blowing this keeps getting repeated.

The USA still has a lot of high end manufacturing going on. There is no “used to”.
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