Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 March 21

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March 21

Way too many models

Why do so many companies release way too many models in there lineup. I'm not even talking about a specific industry, everything from car companies to electronics companies often release so many models in the same class/category. Wouldn't it cost much less to focus on exceptionally well designed models that are very widely distributed? I imagine this would also vastly improve customer support, resalebability, fame/popularity/recognisibility, and so on. Despite all the alleged shorcomings of their devices, Apple Computer seems to have nailed this strategy down perfectly. They don't really have any competing products or redundancies. Other highly successfull companies like Sony, HP, and HTC seem to always have a massive ambiguous list of models that serve more or less the same niche, never become iconic, and aren't known well known or supported for very long. What's the advantage of this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 05:58, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Halo effect implies that not all of, say, Apple's products are exceptional, but the great trick is to achieve one or two exceptional, famous, widely-loved products so that the other products can bask in the glow. This sounds like a hopelessly optimistic thing to declare as a goal, and I expect that all major companies are hoping to do it with whatever their flagship product is, but they can't. You might also ask "why do so many bands release so many stodgy, similar-sounding tracks instead of concentrating on creating a hit?" 81.131.35.68 (talk) 06:25, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I can think two ways this can happen:

1) Due to merging companies. For example, General Motors was created by merging several different car and truck companies together, each of which had their own product line. This led to redundancy in models, but eliminating any of them might lose customers who remained loyal to that model.

2) For short-term benefits. While having too many models is bad in the long run, leading to higher costs and decreased brand recognition, in the short term it may increase sales, as people want to try out something "new". General Motors's Saturn division is an example of this.

So then, how can they get rid of all their redundant models ? One way is to discontinue models which are no longer profitable. (If the name of the model has value, while the product does not, the name can be transferred to a more successful product with a name that's less well-known.) Another approach is to make a single product but sell it as more than one model. In some cases this might involve minor cosmetic changes between them. The worst option seems to be to wait until bankruptcy, then eliminate a large number of models all at once. StuRat (talk) 07:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Offering a wide choice of models is a way of entering a competitive market at multiple price/performance levels, a way of sounding buyers' preferences, and is usually done using many common parts. It allows different product images to be promoted for the same underlying product, so-called "badge engineering", see the article Brand#Branding approaches. Individual models may be restricted to particular sales areas and price structures. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:12, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing for one single model per company, but the question was about companies which have redundant models. StuRat (talk) 10:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Planned obsolescence may play a part. In my experience, video equipment is one of the worst for that, where the EX690 model doesn't even have dust on it when the EX691 comes out. There's no real difference between them, so retailers can sell both at the same, with the EX691 marked up for the consumers who want the "cutting edge". Our article on product binning is a bit narrow; the process occurs in several industries and also results in multiple models on the same floor. Matt Deres (talk) 13:41, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

It is due to Product differentiation. By making a few cheap superficial changes you can charge different prices and appeal to different sectors of the market. 92.15.25.108 (talk) 14:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You say that Apple has "Nailed" the strategy you suggest, of focusing in on a small number of products. I think that's more branding than anything else. For instance, Apple may be focusing on the "iPod", but actually there are actually a lot of iPods :

2gb iPod Shuffle (In Five colors)
8gb iPod Nano (In Seven Colors)
16GB iPod Nano (In Seven Colors)
8GB iPod Touch
32GB iPod Touch
64GB iPod Touch
160GB iPod Classic (In Two Colors)

And that's just the current models!

You want a laptop computer? Apple has you covered :

MacBook 2.4GHz : 250GB
MacBook Pro 13-inch: 2.3 GHz
MacBook Pro 13-inch: 2.7 GHz
MacBook Pro 15-inch: 2.0 GHz
MacBook Pro 15-inch: 2.2 GHz 
MacBook Pro 17-inch: 2.2 GHz 
MacBook Pro 17-inch: 2.3 GHz 
MacBook Air 11-inch : 64GB
MacBook Air 11-inch : 128GB
MacBook Air 13-Inch : 128GB
MacBook Air 13-Inch : 256GB

Sure, they're all called "MacBook", so you might not think that Apple has "too many products in their lineup", but it's really just a carefully crafted illusion. If Apple had given each one of these products their own name, and a slightly different style of case decorations, you'd think of them as separate products, now you think of them as 'versions' of the same product.

It's all a marketing illusion. Marketing is something that Apple is very good at. (Since Steve Jobs returned to the company.) APL (talk) 15:04, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Steve Jobs' return is key - to have this discipline you need a strong lead who can over-ride entrenched departmental support for the products that need to be eliminated. Internal lobbying to keep products can be very powerful and prevent weak CEOs from killing products they really should kill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 18:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

But what I'm saying is that it's at least as much about intentionally branding your products all the same. They've got eleven different laptops available right now and seven different mp3 players, it would have been easy to give them all different names and different visual styles. That wouldn't cost them anything.

They could have gone with the illusion of a "too many models" portfolio like the question-asker was complaining about without changing the products they sell.

I don't know enough marketing to know why this is a good idea or a bad one, but it sure seems to work for them.APL (talk) 00:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If the model name actually describes the difference between them, that's fine. I certainly know the difference between an 11-inch screen and a 13-inch or 64Gb and 128. However, I have no idea what is different between a MacBook "Air" and "Pro", so that model designation isn't as useful to the consumer. If we switch to cars, then the difference between a coupe and sedan is obvious, as is 2WD versus 4WD, so putting those in model names makes more sense than random numbers and letters. StuRat (talk) 03:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Not that I'm an Apple fan but Air refers to light models, Pro to advanced heavier models. What's the difference between a coupe and sedan and how am I expected to know? Nil Einne (talk) 09:53, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

You can be expected to know because those terms are standardized. When Toyota and Ford use the word "coupé", they both use it roughly the same way. "Pro" is ill-defined; sometimes it means "best", but not if another version is called "premium", for example - basically, it's marketing speak. "Air" is meaningless without context - why wouldn't they call it "light" or, ugh, "lite", which is a companion term to "pro" I've seen quite a few times? If you wanted to manufacture laptops and call the heavy one "Air" and the flimsy one "Pro" (lighter is always better, right?) it would be just as meaningful as what Apple's doing. But if you built a full-size station wagon and called it a "coupe", people wouldn't just be confused, you would be "wrong". Matt Deres (talk) 14:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the differences are pretty straightforward — if you actually look at any Apple product literature (or just go to a store) it is pretty clear. I mean, my parents know the essential difference at this point, and they aren't techy at all. All it takes is one person saying, "oh, the Airs are really light." I think the fact that "Pro" indicates "premium with more stuff" is pretty clear even if you don't know what are in them.

That's the level of information they are trying to convey, not specific technical data. It's for a different audience of consumer than the sort of person who wants to wade through technical specs. The essential strategy here is your consumer will say, "oh, I want a really light laptop" or "I don't care about lightness, but I don't think I need the top of the line features" or "I want the biggest, baddest laptop I can get," and once you've made that big, general distinction, your choices come down to how much more money you want to spend. It's a clever (and I think clearly proven successful) approach to selling computers to people who don't want to spend an hour researching graphics cards and bus speeds and things like that. From the consumer side of things there are essentially two choices to make, total: which broad category do you want, and then what level of features do you want. It's a lot easier for the casual consumer than wading through ten screens of customizations. My father loves his MacBook Pro because it took him about ten minutes to figure out which one he wanted and now he never has to worry about the technical stuff again. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point. These terms are only standardised over time. And cars have existed a lot longer then laptops. It's not hardwired into our brains what coupé and sedan mean and these terms only mean what they mean because people have used them in that way for a long time. And as I'm sure makes Trovatore happy, there's no standardisation committee who decide what car related terms mean(Er maybe I was wrong about the last point but anyway the main point remains.) There's no reason why 50 years from now if cars go the way of the dodo but for some reason laptops remain and Steve Jobs succeeds in taking over the world everyone will know what a Pro and Air laptop is but no one will any idea what a coupé and sedan is and if suddenly someone starts making cars again (perhaps we come up with a magic solution for global warming) and they reverse the terms or use them in different ways few will bat an eyelid. Incidentally, it's obviously not true that lighter is always better. If you prefer lightness it's better in that way but even such a person will acknowledge when the heavier laptops have better features. More to the point, even if you can argue Pro makes sense for light laptops, air for heavy feature laden laptops doesn't make sense in any way so if you have light reduced featured laptops and heavy more featured laptops and you want to use the terms 'air' and 'pro' I think most people with a decent command of English even without any experience with computers will make the same decision. In fact looking at the history of the terms coupé and sedan and the meaning nowadays it seems possible it would make more sense if those terms were used in a reverse fashion nowadays. Nil Einne (talk) 01:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Trivia: colloquialism

What is the source (or inspiration) of the term "milking the clock"? Usmale48 (talk) 15:38, 21 March 2011 (UTC) JTC,JR

The OED doesn't have an entry for milk the clock specifically, but it does give as one definition of milk "a. trans. To deprive or defraud (a person, etc.) (†from, of money, etc.), esp. by taking regular amounts over a period of time; to exploit, turn into a source of (freq. illicit) profit, advantage, information, etc.; to extract all possible advantage from. Also (in extended use): to drain away the contents from (in figurative contexts)," with examples going back to 1531. It also gives "b. intr. to milk dry: to drain completely of resources; to exploit exhaustively," with cited examples back to 1849, and "To elicit (something), to draw out; to extract or extort (money, advantage, information, etc.) from a person, business, situation, etc. Also: to drain away, out of from a person," examples to 1628. So it appears that the idea behind the term is of long standing. Thus far I have not found anything definitive for the actual phrase. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 16:01, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The earliest citation I can personally find is from the New York Times Jan. 20, 1985 "KNICKS DEFEAT HAWKS.(Sports Desk)." The quote is: "We wanted to milk the clock down to about eight or nine seconds, said the Knick coach, then bring it to the side and try to get it to Tucker. If not then to Cummings or Orr. But they were playing both of them real tough. It was real big shot for Darrell." 1985 is the outer edge of the database's coverage, however, so I'm quite confident there are older examples out there. The NYT website yields a possible hit for Dec. 22, 1974: "Raiders' Frustration Ended," but it's not freely available and I'm not motivated enough to go load a spool of microfilm right this moment. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Posting this question at the Languages ref. desk would be more appropriate. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:17, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Future predictions, tested empirically?

Hi there - The business of predicting the future seems to have become somewhat more respectable the last few years, and I am looking for occasions when economists, political scientists, historians etc (not quacks and astrologers) have gone on record with predictions of trends or changes in a 10-20 year timeframe, and what kind of trends there are around accuracy. ie -is there better accuracy about some areas, geopolitics, economics, environmental etc? Does accuracy decline linearly, or does it fall off rapidly past a certain point? I'm really looking for an evaluation of the efficacy of this kind of thing - ideally I'd like to look at people who made predictions in 2000, and follow up ten years later or something like that. Any ideas whether someone has done this already, or on where to start? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 18:31, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

We have an article about this, futurology. Looie496 (talk) 18:48, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - unfortunately it does not address the questions of efficacy that I'm asking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 18:57, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that so many people make predictions that some of them will inevitably be right just by random chance. That means you need to be very careful how you select the predictions you include in your sample. You probably want to consider just predictions of people that are good at making predictions (we already know there are lots of people that are terrible at it, we're interested in whether it is possible to be good at it), but you need to make sure they aren't just lucky. That probably means finding someone that is consistently accurate. So, for example, you could look at all the predictions make in 1990 about 2000 and then reject everyone that was inaccurate and then look at the predictions they made in 2000 about 2010 and take an average of the accuracy of those that will give you an idea of the actual level of accuracy that is possible. Unfortunately, that is a lot of work! Also, there aren't many people that make long-term predictions repeatedly over a long period of time. --Tango (talk) 20:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

If you're thinking of psychics and whatnot, some of their highest profile predictions are kept secret. Often times in missing persons cases, psychics will offer advice on the condition that their predictions not be released unless it's successful!

That's done intentionally to prevent the sort of hit/miss tally you're trying to find. APL (talk) 00:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. thanks - that is an issue. I found at least one interesting article looking at the predictions from the Limits to Growth study 30 years ago here:http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf - that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for, I was imagining that some of the larger futurist consulting houses might have this kind of thing, but the fact that I can't find it easily on their websites makes me think maybe they don't. There are also of course issues around specificity and accuracy when you get into it. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 20:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The science fiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback in his delightfully tacky novel Ralph 124C 41+ successfully predicted in 1911 television, remote-control power transmission, the video phone, transcontinental air service, solar energy in practical use, sound movies, synthetic milk and foods, artificial cloth, voiceprinting, tape recorders, spaceflight, and gave the first accurate description of radar. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:12, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for my pair of Platinum-Barium-Arturium Eyeglasses, though. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Somewhere I recently read an account of a study (I'll have to look it up, it is somewhere nearby...) where someone tallied up a number of predictions by scientists, engineers, and futurists over the past 60 years, and the "success" rate (even with rather modest predictions) was something like 30%. Which isn't that great, though you can always pick out a few exceptional ones and say, "my god, what a genius!" and ignoring all of the false ones. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Fish on a Friday

What is the origin of eating fish on a friday, I always used to assume that this was because it was a Catholic thing and was done because it was the sabbath and that Jesus was a fisherman. However from reading the wikipedia front page article about the battle of Ohrid, and how they fed on the fish, it states that this was a tradition that was done by Byzantinian Kings. That is to say that the Byzantinin Kings ate fish on a friday. Now they were not Christians and they were not Jews either, so I am curious to gather further information concerning this, please and thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.144.75 (talk) 22:55, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The article Fasting and abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church is not exactly definitive on the fish question, but it talks about abstinence in general terms. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Pure OR here, but folklore around where I grew up in Australia was that the tradition came from Catholic Church edicts designed to commercially assist fishermen, maybe a few hundred years ago. HiLo48 (talk) 01:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting. I never heard that one. The rule was simply that meat must not be eaten on Friday. Anything else was fair game (pun), which is a wide field of choice, but for people used to having "meat and three veg" every dinner, fish would have been the obvious replacement, being the "meat of the sea", so to speak. For families particularly, a fish meal would have been more suitable than a vegetarian concoction, given how kids are particularly fussy about which veges they will eat. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 01:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The kings (or emperors) of the Byzantine Empire at the time of the Battle of Ohrid certainly were christians, the remains of a very powerful and influential christian empire. Abstinence from meat on significant days probably simply slowly grew into a tradition of eating fish, although there are various legends about it, such a deal struck between a pope and the fishing industry. meltBanana 01:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Oops seems this battle was just after the fall of Byzantium, but it clearly means the christian emperors. meltBanana 04:05, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of financial considerations (which I would not at all disbelieve), there's the fact that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice on a Friday, so abstaining from meat was probably seen as a good way to honor it... as well as referencing Jesus' words about his disciples, many of whom were in the fishing business, as becoming "fishers of men." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Friday wasn't the Sabbath. Marnanel (talk) 11:55, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Right. Saturday was the Sabbath (and still is, actually) while Friday was crucifixion day. As I recall from Sunday School many years ago, some were wanting it to be over before sunset - when the Sabbath would begin. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:09, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly, if slightly off topic, Capybara meat is considered not-meat for the purposes of meatless Fridays, and consequently becomes very popular during Lent in Latin America [1]. It's a similar thing with fish: fish aren't considered meat, so they're allowed even when meat is not. Buddy431 (talk) 19:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If the capybara population is a bit thin, is squirrel acceptable? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

No. Squirrel is a type of meat. Capybara is a type of fish. --Carnildo (talk) 00:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

In the same way that pigs are a type of bird, perhaps? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 08:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Rather an odd-looking fish. Looks more like an oversized guinea pig. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:13, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, yet interesting: The section "The Church" in our featured article on medieval cuisine. Particularly: "The trend from the 13th century onward was toward a more legalistic interpretation of fasting. Nobles were careful not to eat meat on fast days, but still dined in style; fish replaced meat, often as imitation hams and bacon; almond milk replaced animal milk as an expensive non-dairy alternative; faux eggs made from almond milk were cooked in blown-out eggshells, flavored and colored with exclusive spices." ---Sluzzelin talk 02:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

"Wikepedia Has An Article About Everything!" - Friday Fast tells all. Alansplodge (talk) 18:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)