The movement isn't part of the brand. It's not part of the signal. The case/dial/sometimes band are the brand. And if you couldn't tell them apart, they wouldn't be any good at signaling, the entire point of wearing them.
> So the only thing distinguishing one top brand from another was the name printed on the dial
Respectfully disagree.
Since the 60's (and one could argue, even long before that), watches are 1) fashion, and 2) male wealth-signaling fashion. That's it. Nothing more. And for males who subscribe to this wealth-signaling cult, they know from a long way away what watch brand is on that guy's wrist.
Okay, today's brands signal maybe a little differently than just wealth. Casio G-Shock watches aren't substantially different than their non-G-Shock counterparts in any significant way, but they cost way more. The G-Shock brand signals... I dunno, sportsy-ness? Maybe it is closer to a pure fashion brand here.
I think we've been in "The Brand Age" since the advent of advertising. There are plenty of products that have virtually no differentiation besides brand, and there (almost) always has been.
Which reminds me of another "there, problem solved!" pet peeve of mine. I call it the Default Trap.
In many cases (Norman Doors are an example), there are two or more equally valid ways to do something. By "equally valid", I mean there is no clear standard for whether it should operate one way or the other, and if you ask 100 people which way it should work (which no one ever does), you get something approaching 50%.
So the product manager or perhaps developer simply says "make it a setting", and everyone agrees and declares the problem solved.
But the problem is, you have to choose a default. And 90% of the time, no one is going to change that default, or even discover how to. So you have to be very correct about assuming which value is the best default - and at that point, it probably doesn't matter that you make it an option.
Almost all of the reports from people I know who have done ayahuasca have reported seeing "elves". It's not only common, they say it's not a "valid" trip unless you do, and even converse with them.
Though I don't know any reports of profound conversations.
It's funny. one of the most significant UI axioms I ever learned came from Bill Atkinson: "Always make the 'click zone' a little larger than the visual indication of the affordance." This becomes tricky or impossible for some things like touch-keypads, but for most things it makes the difference between frustrating and magical.
Apple seems to have forgotten its own innovations.
If I understand them correctly, Ebers-Moll equations are based on the exponential relationship between voltage and current in a BJT.
But tubes aren't current amplifiers, they're voltage amplifiers, like FETs.
You can look at the "characteristics curves" of tubes (plate curves and transconductance curves), which tell the story of current against plate-to-cathode voltages for fixed grid voltages.
Rob Robinette is a great guitar-amp resource; knows just about everything about Fender amps in particular. He has many mods to many common/not-so-common Fenders.
Just his list of 5E3 mods (Fender Deluxe) is awesome:
There are probably broad categories that I might find myself using, but for my own core collection of music (deeper than it is wide, mostly), it barely matters.
I had the opposite experience with my 10-year-old Model S.
Most parts could only come from Tesla, including the Bilstein struts (a part number Bilstein refuses to sell to anyone but Tesla). $900 per corner.
USB port between the console? $400. I found a used one on eBay, fortunately.
When the wheel rotation sensor receiver went bad, it cost $2500 for them to install and reprogram the replacement, because they "upgraded" to a different mfr. When that one started to go bad (water ingress, which wasn't cured by the new part), I sold the car and said good riddance.
Some of these fees are, indeed, paid to the government. That does not mean they are a tax, in the same sense that (as mentioned elsewhere) a building permit is not a tax, but is still required by, and paid to, the government.
I'm not trying to excuse Verizon for not including them in their overall pricing, but these two in particular:
- Fed Universal Service Charge
- Regulatory Charge
are both paid to the government, and variable based on usage.
Edit: I will also note that Verizon has a $3.50 per-line fixed line item called "Admin & Telco Recovery Charge" that is utter BS.