Apple does not support 10.6 for G3s. The last version to support G3s is 10.4. In addition, 10.5 only supports G4s that run at 867 MHz or faster. I believe that there are workarounds to these restrictions, but I've never looked into them.

For an Intel processor, the official Apple answer to upgrade from 10.4 to 10.6 is to buy a copy of the Mac Box Set, which is $169, and includes 10.6, iWork, and iLife. That being said, the 10.6 upgrade DVD will directly upgrade 10.4 to 10.6, saving $140 if you're not interested in iWork or iLife.

Home-schooling satisfies this requirement.

In the case of electronics for use in a nuclear reactor, the cost premium is for the testing and the paperwork documenting the tests. Using your example of a resistor, the test for each resistor include: burn-in (100 to 10,000 hours), thermal shock, short-term overload, dielectric withstand voltage, DC resistance, x-ray inspection, and visual inspection. Furthermore, each lot is sample tested for solderability (destructive), and a physical destructive analysis. The costs for performing all these tests, documenting it, and storing the data (2 years minimum, 7 years is commonly required on government procurements) all has to be included in the price!

So yes, you can get a resistor that rolled off the same exact line for a significantly lower price, but for the higher price you get a product guaranteed and verified to work - not to mention one known not to be a counterfeit.

Technically, putting anything into a mailbox (not for them to pick up, but as a delivery), is illegal, with a fine of up to $300 per item plus postage. It seems this is only illegal if you don't put postage on the letter though.

Considering that California gets 78 cents of federal spending for every dollar in federal taxes paid (43rd lowest return rate), and California sent the federal government $250 billion in taxes, I wouldn't say that the entirety of the American people are helping prop up California's economy. Quite the opposite, in fact, I'd say California is helping prop up quite a number of other states.

I'd just advocate returning to California the excess $55 billion that the feds distribute to other states, rather than seceding like the GP suggests. $55 billion would more than compensate for our $20 billion deficit.

Isn't that effectively what we did for the shuttle? Lockheed Martin makes the external tank, ATK makes the solid rocket boosters. Rockwell Collins built the orbiters themselves, at a cool $1.7 billion a piece. United Space Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, pockets about 90% of the $450 million cost of each flight. United Space Alliance is responsible for mission design and planning; software development and integration; astronaut and flight controller training; system integration; flight operations; vehicle processing, launch and recovery; vehicle sustaining engineering; flight crew equipment processing; and Space Shuttle and International Space Station-related support to the Constellation Program. (Sorry, I can't find a link on the amount of each launch that's passed directly to contractors. I'll have to cite my experience working at one of the contractors that takes such a large cut of that money.

All of these, at least originally, were on cost-plus contracts. Government contractors on cost-plus contracts make the government look like the model of efficiency.

Now maybe if we had given out the same amount of money as a firm fixed price contract.... But when the original request for proposal went out, I doubt anyone would have bid on it under those circumstances.

P.S. NASA and the DoD deserve their fair share of the blame for the exorbitant costs of the shuttles. Defining requirements that are never used (DoD wanted to use the shuttle to launch and service satellites in polar orbits, launching from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California) is a great way to increase the cost of a project.

Kinky.

Except they don't pocket the difference between billing rate and employee pay rate as profit. To work with round numbers, say that the company pays the IT guy $20 an hour and bills at $100 an hour. Employer-side payroll taxes, health insurance premiums, and the like, usually end up being about 50% of the rate paid to the employee, so that's $10. The company also has to pay other people who don't get to bill clients directly, such as HR, janitorial, or other overhead-type employees. 15% of employees working overhead is normal number, so call that another 15$ of the billable rate. Oh, and the company has to pay for electricity and other utilities. I'm wildly guesstimating that to be about 15% of the overall budget, call it $15. There's office supplies, maintenance on the building, and all the other stuff the company has to buy. I'm not a finance guy, I don't know how much that costs.

But even so, out of the $100 per hour billable, we're down to $40 still in the company's hands, and I know that there's other expenses that I haven't covered. I don't know where the other expenses go, but I do know that when you account for those, the profit ends up being around 8% for most industries.

That being said, I agree that the working conditions in a lot of IT shops are poor. At the very least, overtime should be paid if you're consistently asking people to work over 40 hours in a week.