The bottom-line reason to care about this stuff is often not spelled out. But years ago, during a BYTE demo, an Intel guy whose name I've long forgotten -- if you are that guy, please stand up and be recognized -- made it crystal clear by asking a profound question: "Why don't I have an itemized electric bill?" Why not, indeed? My cellphone provider bludgeons me with 15 pages of line-by-line detail. But my electric bill is a single number. Why can't I know that a new refrigerator would pay for itself in 12 years? How can I evaluate whether to keep on heating water with electricity, or recruit the oil furnace for that purpose? Astonishingly large sums of money depend on answers to these questions.