Slow

You may find my comment yesterday that HP-12c calculator is deliberately slow somewhat unbelievable. Nonetheless, it is ordinary psychology. We tend to put more trust on people who say things slowly - because they probably have a more thorough consideration of the problem (even though that's actually the result of a slow CPU).

This is, in fact, not the only application of slowness.

You know what, all Intel chips are made of one computing speed - the fastest one of course. All the other versions on the market are deliberately slowed down. In fact, the cost is actually higher for those slower chips. What's the point ? Well, it creates a desire on your side to buy (and pay more) for the "most advanced" version.

The same is true for Microsoft Office. We know very well there are the Professional version, Standard one, and Microsoft Work. You could easily guess now all three are made from the same base - just that some valuable parts are removed (suppressed ?) from the CD for the latter two versions. Again, it is a bait.

PS. My friend TW made a similar comment a few days ago on my blog about how quick we see cases in the out-patient clinic. She's perfectly right.