Recent -K CPUs don't come with coolers as vocal enthusiasts have been telling Intel they just throw away the stock coolers and use third-party ones instead. You can buy Intel coolers separately for CPUs that aren't supplied with one.

You can buy Intel BXTS13A (air) and BXTS13X (liquid) coolers separately.

Intel produce liquid coolers too: http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-034340.htm

I got some of those HA-FX67s for about £12 from a supermarket. I wasn't expecting much, but I think they're pretty darned good compared with the Sennheisers at a similar price point I've sworn by in the past. I mostly listen to rock and metal, and with a bit of scooped EQ, they sound pretty good. I suspect they'd work quite well for electronic/dance stuff too.

I picked up a pair of Goldring DR-150s for a bargain price of just under £30 a few years back; they're pretty good for at-home listening, but being open-backed are too anti-social to use whilst commuting etc.

The Sandy Bridge-E models are "enthusiast" CPUs, with the top version priced at $1000. Pretty sure the motivation here is that few enthusiasts use the stock cooler, so they figured they could omit it from expensive enthusiast-only CPUs without anybody raising much of a fuss. The money customers spend on a separate HSF is almost certainly going to go to companies like Thermaltake who build overclocker-style HSFs, not Intel.

I agree; that sounds like the most likely explanation, combined with a bit of obscuring inflation (in the same way food manufacturers are cutting package sizes/weights rather than increasing prices).

Incidentally, I've always used the stock Intel cooler that comes with their boxed CPUs and found them to be reliable and to cool the CPU completely adequately, even in a non-air-conditioned domestic environment. The only things that would drive me to third-party heatsinks would be if I wanted to overclock (I don't - I prefer a machine that I can rely upon to perform to specification at all times) or if I was building a completely silent/fanless machine (even my MythTV box has at least four fans in it, which I really don't notice, given the solidity of the Antec case).

Emulation would have disadvantages compared with teaching on the actual hardware, but it also has advantages too; it's almost trivial for an emulator to provide In Circuit Emulation-like features, such as being able to snoop on IO, CPU register contents, pause execution etc. Back in the day, devices like the Multiface were the closest thing most people had to debug at the very lowest levels (though some of the POKEs hackers had access to rather more advanced semi-custom built kit).

Since 1972, we've developed the technology to be able to build autonomous robots to do our exploring for us and sent them to Mars and other bodies in the solar system, which is both cheaper and safer than sending fragile humans.

At least, that's what I tell myself to avoid feeling the doubt in progress that you apparently do. :-)

Specifically size, economies of scale/competition, and subjective value (people value restoration of their hearing more than having a teensy weensy computer they can Facebook on).

I don't advocate Open Source. I advocate Free Software.

How does the GPL help you gain access to the (trade secret, unpublished) source code for a proprietary application so you can fix a bug or enhance it?

By spotting that they've linked against or included GPL-licensed code, forcing them to stop distributing their binaries, re-write using GPL-free code, or release their own source code. Or, simply by setting an example and creating a community that they feel like contributing to and working with.

I don't propose to solve the issue of proprietary source, just that the Open Source/Free Software movement would still be known as the Public Domain movement if our laws weren't so screwed.

Sure, but by focussing on fair-use of binaries and eliminating copyright protection of GPL and similar licenses makes it possible for proprietary creators to incorporate GPLed code with impunity (which in turn will probably erode the community that developers Free software), whilst not enabling users of proprietary binaries to obtain the source for the applications they use and make use of them in the ways they wish. In other words, it'll make the current situation worse not better. Thankfully, PPUK leadership seem to understand this, these days, but it doesn't stop some of their supporters focussing solely on getting their warez without the risk of prosecution.