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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

#711

Post by tom1337 »

Maxious wrote: post #562
tom1337 wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never heard about this procedure but sounds interesting. Is there anywhere to read about how this works?

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pdfs/whitepapers/latest/security... obviously not framed in terms of "here is how we create more e-waste" but you can see the additional barriers to attempting to reuse decommissioned hardware

Interestingly I am getting an access denied error on that page. Anyway your comment basically answers my question because I wondered how they would perform maintenance when the server breaks the moment you pull it out the rack.

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

#713

Post by Shocka1 »

AdamN wrote: post #547
apercu wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on all of these except: low tax I grew up in DFW. My house in WI is assessed at a significantly higher value than my siblings house in Ft Worth. My 2025 property tax bill ~$5k, my 2025 state income tax - not gonna publish it here but not all that significant. Sibling in Texas property tax bill: ~$14k. Significantly higher than my state income tax + property tax. Also, I don't have to live in Texas.

Oh ... they don't care about the taxes their workers are paying :-) Apple probably got a nice little abatement for 20 years so they're doing ok.

Indeed and surprised you are the first to mention it. The abatements these tech companies receive is quite substantial and will easily pay for flood damage.

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

#714

Post by bdelmas »

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…

I copied your comment to Gemini Pro and it has some interesting things to say.

The link to avoid everybody to do the same query: https://g.co/gemini/share/15fc8eb095a2

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

#715

Post by _heimdall »

ijustlovemath wrote: post #617
_heimdall wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we can both consider FEMA's 1% flood risks and also assume no longer know what plausible is with these storms.

I think it's safe to assume given recent storms that the 1% floodplains are _underestimating_ the risk

It sounds like you know what is plausible then though. Its plausible that 1% is and underestimate and implausible that its an overestimate.

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

#716

Post by fragmede »

Loughla wrote: post #706
fragmede wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's a fundamental attitude problem of "that's not my job, it's your problem". It's like after your car gets into a crash. You just want your car back the way it was before the crash, assuming you don't take the insurance pay out. You want to be taken care of. But no, you gotta take it to a mechanic, then a body shop, and then a glass place. Or for software "well, it works on my machine". Even if we take the att…

First off, if you have a car accident and one shop doesn't do everything to fix it, you went to a terrible shop. I've never seen a body repair shop that didn't do all that. But that's beside the point. Do you honestly expect a machine shop, a place that specializes in creating or fixing or modifying pieces of metal, to find you packaging and fluff for inside the package and then ship it to your customers? Why? I'm ab…

And now you're calling me irrational. Can you see why all those jobs moved to China?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZThGL1ngx/

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

#717

Post by Noumenon72 »

maxglute wrote: post #691
audunw wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These anecdotes come from the very peak of Chinas demographic dividend. In a decade or two their demographic dividend will be in a steep decline. China also needs to change something drastic to avoid brain drain. The migration of competent people is still one-way. There no path to become a Chinese citizen. China has come a long way, but Europe is still ahead on building liveable communities and wok/life balance, whil…

>very peak of Chinas demographic dividend No, 2000s-2020s was peak blue collar dividend, think world combined, but low value dividend. When PRC had lots of hands but few brains, i.e. fraction of STEM vs US / west. 2040s-2080s is PRC peak tertiary skilled dividend. They'll have about 2-4x US in just STEM who'll be in workforce for most of our and our children's life times, even while tfr math starts eating away at fut…

I just wanted to thank you for sharing your opinions on this site -- the sole poster here who I actually bookmarked to read like a blog.

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

#718

Post by Noumenon72 »

kube-system wrote: post #686
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: I grant I could be old and outdated. But having seen cycles. Having seen Japan go up and down. Having seen offshoring first go to Mexico then easily transition to China, I just don't see any black and white here. 1. The HVAC guys would definitely fill the the quick turnaround, small shops that surround the manufacturing industry in China if that was an option. Culturally doesn't matter. The majority of young me…

I don't think you realize the difference to which cultural expectations of the workers are different. Yeah, people "hate" their service industry jobs here, but you can get a job in Iowa wrangling spreadsheets making $50,000 a year, grab coffee from the office coffee pot, sit in air-conditioning all day, then you clock out at 5 PM and drive your truck home to your house in the suburbs with a yard and a white picket fe…

I worked in a plastics factory in a 10,000-person Wisconsin town through the 2010s. Hot plastic extruders, no air conditioning, 12-hour days 3-4 times a week with some mandatory overtime. You're always shorthanded but I might be the only person I know who ever left for a spreadsheet job. So the cultural expectations might not be as different in the heartland as they are in the cities.

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

#719

Post by chrsw »

msabalau wrote: post #381
chrsw wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well put. I tried to explain this to someone years ago after they asked a question like "why don't they just build a factory here?". I was like "you need more than _a_ factory, you need a whole ecosystem of manufacturing". I guess I didn't make my argument clear enough based on their response. I think the USA has been very clear based on our actions over the past 4 or so decades: we don't want this kind of labor in t…

It is really unclear why you think that either the political interest or strategic logic of not wanting to rely on manufacturing in China, and having some on the value being created here goes away, or is some idle whim. Sure, if it took decades of slow patient effort to create the current situation, it might take decades to unwind it. And, sure, the US political system is exceptionally bad at industrial policy. But,…

I understand the logic of getting out of China, and the reasoning is sound. However, cost is the bigger issue. Are you willing to pay more for your computers and electronics? Is your neighbor? Is your company? Are your investors?

The pressure to reverse this disaster will always be there but material change isn't realistic. We have neither the capacity nor a strong enough inclination to built out an industrial base anywhere near what China can do. I understand China is supplying the whole world and we'd only need to supply ourselves to achieve security, but that also makes the cost problem even worse.

Chips will come from Taiwan and everything else will come from China for the foreseeable future unless like you said there's a major disruption from somewhere. Without that, I only see one pathway everyone can stomach: continue growing the economy, which includes leveraging China's industrial and labor base, and hope any political differences with China can be mitigated diplomatically.

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

#720

Post by apercu »

jamescostian wrote: post #583
apercu wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on all of these except: low tax I grew up in DFW. My house in WI is assessed at a significantly higher value than my siblings house in Ft Worth. My 2025 property tax bill ~$5k, my 2025 state income tax - not gonna publish it here but not all that significant. Sibling in Texas property tax bill: ~$14k. Significantly higher than my state income tax + property tax. Also, I don't have to live in Texas.

I think there's more to your sibling's taxes than property taxes. The data tell the opposite story - WI property taxes are higher than TX ones, at least if we look at the medians: https://www.propertytax101.org/propertytaxbystate As someone living in Fort Worth and making good money as a Staff SWE, I got a tax refund this year. It was due to paying interest on my house, but still. I'd recommend asking your sibling se…

The sibling is a tax accountant?

Also, everyone gets a mortgage interest deduction in the US on their primary residence, so it shouldn't be that surprising.

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