Sales Tax and Apples

A few days ago I was standing in line at a Subway looking at the prices of the menu items; $4.99, $5.89, $0.99, etc. This just got me thinking, why don't they just give you the price after tax? Just imagine being an immigrant and going to the store and buying two products both listed at $5.99. You go to the register and expect to pay $11.98, but you have to pay $12.82 after 7% sales tax. The first thing that you think is "What is going on here? Why do I have to give you more money than the listed price?" The truth of the matter is that most other countries the price that is shown is the one after tax, so you can imagine how this would cause confusion. Honestly, how difficult would it be for stores to just calculate the tax and add it on to the already listed price? Not very I hope.

I know that no matter how much I, or anyone else for that matter, rants about this, this stupid policy is not likely to change.

Just browsing around the internet I came upon an all too familiar forum discussion topic: "Why are Macs better than PCs". Of course as expected I saw the typical "viruses" claim. What made this thread interesting however, was that there were other claims that were made, some of them irrational but at least they tried to be original. After the virus statements, I would have to say that the next most popular claim was that Macs had better graphics. Now I don't know how true this is since I have never sat the two down side by side and compared so I have no real opinion on this. Some other listed reasons included, easier to use, being faster, and just look better. Now Macs looking better is obviously not a reason that they are better than PCs so I will just disregard this one. Whoever made the being faster claim obviously knows nothing about computers. It's not the computer, but the processor, RAM, and amount of programs running that determine speed. Finally, as far as being easier to use this is really just a matter of getting acclimated. Every time I have to use a Mac I have the hardest time navigating, not because I don't know how to find what I am looking for, but because the keyboard shortcuts are different. This and the way you interact with open windows is a little different when it comes to maximizing/minimizing and other such task.

Amidst all this PC bashing there was the occasional "voice of reason". One of the reasons for the "lack of Mac viruses" is obviously the small portion of market power they have but also because of how the OS and software are closely integrated. One of my favorite statements in the whole thread went something like this, "I don't have anything against Macs, however, what I do have an issue with is the air of superiority that seems to surround almost all Mac users. They seem to think that just because they own a Mac that they are so much better than all PC users. Really, from the looks of things it seems that the extra money you pay for a Mac is not for a better computer but rather for this false sense of superiority." I would have to agree with this statement. Almost all the Mac users I know seem to always try to mention how much better their computer is than mine. Even though it is true it's not because I am using a PC but because I have less RAM, a slower processor (which is about to change), and the amount of programs I run simultaneously. When I was looking for laptops I originally though about getting an iBook or Powerbook. However, as it turns out they were selling for about $2,000 and if I wanted to get the same thing on a PC I would only have to pay about $600-700. So it's no surprise I went with my HP Pavilion dv6700.