"Dear resident, your neighbors have kindly signed an extraction agreement with us. Your property values will be in the toilet in 6 months, and your well will no longer be drinkable. Plus, the gas under your property will flow under theirs once the pressure differential gets high enough... How about accepting our reasonable offer of compensation?"
Your analysis of why things turn out as they do is spot on.
I'm mostly just reacting to my frustration that "unlimited freedom to impose externalities on others" has been adopted as a so called "libertarian" position(conveniently, mostly by people who make money doing high-pollution things), when it is, in fact, about as "libertarian" as eliminating the regulations against burglary or assault.
I'm pretty sure that whoever ends up causing the destruction of all the world's armaments overnight will Not be invited to the smoldering ruins of Norway to accept a peace prize...
Magnitude 4 seismic events are of relatively little concern, in the scheme of things; but the water pollution that has resulted is more serious.
There is a more serious governance/philosophical issue at work, though. These sorts of energy extraction operations, whether they be hydrofracking gas, doing the assorted horrid things required to get tar sands and oil shales flowing, or mountaintop removal, all involve the extraction company imposing (often quite significant, sometimes fatal) externalities on the people in a broad swath around them. Generally, these externalities are not compensated. That's how pollution goes.
When a price needs to be paid, two things matter: "How big is it?" and "How will it be allocated?". At present, while the jury may still be out on the size of the bill, the method of allocation appears, at first approximation, to be "Suck it, peasants, costs will be imposed as is most profitable for your betters!".
Such a cost allocation scheme really ought to have no friends anywhere on the political spectrum. The reasons for liberal opposition should be so obvious as to no need mention. For conservatives or libertarians, such rampant imposition of externalities on other people's persons and properties should be recognized as making a mockery of man's right to person and property, and the state's legitimate role in preserving the same.
We must be careful that, in attempting to break our dependence on kleptocratic energy-despotic hellholes, we do not allow ourselves to become one...
The theory that fracturing the local geology by pumping in a lubricant under extremely high pressure might cause some sub-surface movement certainly sounds preposterous to me...
I suspect that they don't do any direct outsourcing(other than possibly hiring some relatively local machinist/metalworking outfit to do custom waterblocks or cases or something, since setting up your own machine shop is a little messy, and there are plenty of fairly local outfits who will take modest sized lots); but they certainly do(if reviews are to be believed) buy standard "enthusiast" parts. That isn't direct outsourcing; but it means that the origins of most of the guts of their systems are exactly the same as those of everybody else. There just aren't that many options, nor do the sellers necessarily tell you which one you are getting.
Because of the economics of JIT supply chains and CPU/RAM/Option card level customization, it is fairly common for even bulk box guys to have a US(generally southern, because labor is cheaper) or northern Mexican(cheaper still) final-assembly facility, where finished components are put into cases according to customer demand. For systems that offer no customization, and just stock shelves at Worst Buy, all assembly may be done at point of origin; but for BTO systems the increased responsiveness of a domestic finishing step can make up for the higher labor costs...
Given that eye tracking has been used for years(though usually in slightly bulkier rigs) for things like attention study, website layout optimization, etc. it certainly isn't the novelty.
You usually generate a "heat map" of where the user is focusing, then tweak your layout/visual cues so that the test users find that their eyes are "guided" naturally around your layout. Turning that into a UI that would be attractive to somebody with a functioning lower body, though, is an interesting challenge...
I can understand(with their push toward embedding lots of exclusive features in their chipsets: IAMT) why they might want an AV company; but why McAfee? 7.68 billion will buy you a damn lot, including a variety of smaller vendors with better technology. As for brand name, Intel already has that. Why McAfee?
Assemble, quite possibly(even Dell does, or did until fairly recently). That just covers the "shoving customer's choice of CPU and expansion cards into motherboard and case" part of the job, though.
Intel silicon is likely made in the US, AMD Germany, both packaged in Malaysia or other cheaper locations. RAM probably Taiwan or Japan, among other possibilities.
PCB stuffing and physical assembly(except for last-stage card-level customization) almost certainly China.
I knew that seeding the word-salad text databases used by the spammers with strings like "harmonious Falun Gong", "Independent Taiwan", and "h4rb/\L Tiananmen Square" would pay off one day!
Some degree of ASLR showed up in Vista and 10.5, respectively. Same year; but Vista's was a little earlier. Both are limited in some respects, but that gets into serious nit-picking.
Windows picked up OS-integrated file-level encryption with EFS in Win2k, and volume-level encryption with Bitlocker in Vista. I don't think OSX does full volume level stuff to this day; but 10.3 and later supported using encrypted disk images for user home directories. There isn't really a 1 to 1 equivalence between the two approaches. Filevault is architecturally kind of a nasty hack; but it is quite easy to use. EFS exhibits a much more sensible design; but is exudes a strong sense of "don't touch, this is really here for corporate admins".
TFS is poorly worded; but refers to the fact that(while Windows suffers the, er, Lion's... share of attacks) Microsoft has been much more aggressive with rolling out architectural changes like ASLR, driver signing, etc. In pwn2own and like contests, the Windows systems are now most typically taken down by flaws in the (still deeply sucktastic) set of commonly used 3rd party software.
They sure have increased their emphasis on security, now that they are in a position where insecurity might allow their customers to treat the devices that they own as such...
In terms of actual expectation, only noobs and idiots ever have. Theory and experience are complementary; but you can only substitute one for the other so much.
Rhetorically, though, there is absolutely nothing for them to lose by taking this public stance. Who wants to go to the trouble of training employees if one can convince colleges and universities to train them for you at some mixture of individual, state, and parental expense? Training them yourself costs money, and means that you can't just flush them down the toilet and find a new one at a moment's notice...
That is why I find these articles(and they seem to pop up as regularly as the seasons) so infuriating. They are partly written by half-wits who don't understand that universities have a job to be doing that isn't "EZ-Training-while-U-Wait" and partially written by business lobby types who know exactly what the score is; but see nothing to lose in trying to externalize the costs of training their expendable peons.
That is pretty common; but the eSATA port seems to show up in eSATA/USB "eSATAp" form. As best I can tell, you can get USB connectors that will fill exactly the same board holes as eSATAp connectors, just not making contact with the SATA signal lines. It means dropping a bullet point; but it makes redesign a snap if you don't mind doing so. If you do mind, you'd have to do the slightly more costly work of putting a third party controller or port multiplier on board.
I don't know which way any individual outfit chose to go; but they certainly had that option.
Apple is typically very aggressive about killing legacy things in favor of whatever new hotness they have decided on, even when customers whine about it, and they have recently been Intel's shiny launch partner of choice(so there is usually a short period of exclusivity for Intel's new hotness). They are also pretty aggressive about deciding that some feature should be 'baseline' rather than 'upgrade' at a relatively early date(this shows up with things like bluetooth today, or 802.11b back when that was optional on nastier PC laptops...) That is the yes.
The "no" is that Firewire was pretty much the last hardware standard that Apple had a major hand in. USB? Appeared on PC motherboards well before Apple ones(it was Intel's baby after all), Apple was just the first to burn the legacy options. 802.11b? All of Apple's 1st gen gear was rebadged Lucent off-the shelf stuff. Apple made it an available consumer option while Lucent was still squeezing the enterprise guys; but that was pure sticker engineering? Killed off the floppy? The first to stop offering it across the board, possibly; but you've been able to spec PCs without floppies well back into Apple's beige era. 64bit desktops? Hello AMD, 3D cards? Apple's selections are always archaic, even now that they are an Intel shop. etc, etc.
By virtue of their disinterest in coddling legacy users and low price points, Apple does, certainly, come up a lot on the "pushed technology X into ubiquity within their product line by murdering its predecessors and making it a standard option" list. However, the list of "was actually first" is substantially shorter, especially in more recent years. The list of "invented here, rather than launch partnered here" is shorter still, especially these days.
They undoubtedly do adopt-and-polish quite well; but their actual degree of pioneering needs to be kept in perspective.
There was a previous article that made Slashdot to the effect that Intel had, at the request of certain unnamed customers(clearly including, though not necessarily limited to) Apple, resumed shipping the flawed P67 chips on the condition that they be used only in products where the 4 affected ports would be irrelevant.
Speculation at the time was, as seemed logical, that this was basically a reflection of the fact that all the OEMs didn't want to hold up their laptop releases for something that basically only affected desktops and huge DTR beasts.
Slashdot Mirror
Yo, Microsoft, I'm really happy for you, and I'mma let you finish; but the Kinect SDK has been in multiplaform release for months now, months now!
"Dear resident, your neighbors have kindly signed an extraction agreement with us. Your property values will be in the toilet in 6 months, and your well will no longer be drinkable. Plus, the gas under your property will flow under theirs once the pressure differential gets high enough... How about accepting our reasonable offer of compensation?"
My knowledge of our skill in crafting ghastly little banana republics is, in part, why I really don't want to see that first hand...
Your analysis of why things turn out as they do is spot on.
I'm mostly just reacting to my frustration that "unlimited freedom to impose externalities on others" has been adopted as a so called "libertarian" position(conveniently, mostly by people who make money doing high-pollution things), when it is, in fact, about as "libertarian" as eliminating the regulations against burglary or assault.
People have the unfortunate tendency to commit terribly boring speeches when they win things. Anonymous, on the other hand, could keep it pithy.
"Thank you, thank you. We did it for the lulz." *Applause*
I'm pretty sure that whoever ends up causing the destruction of all the world's armaments overnight will Not be invited to the smoldering ruins of Norway to accept a peace prize...
Hey, just be sure you don't end up with somebody else's bugs on your application after a lubricant pumping session....
Magnitude 4 seismic events are of relatively little concern, in the scheme of things; but the water pollution that has resulted is more serious.
There is a more serious governance/philosophical issue at work, though. These sorts of energy extraction operations, whether they be hydrofracking gas, doing the assorted horrid things required to get tar sands and oil shales flowing, or mountaintop removal, all involve the extraction company imposing (often quite significant, sometimes fatal) externalities on the people in a broad swath around them. Generally, these externalities are not compensated. That's how pollution goes.
When a price needs to be paid, two things matter: "How big is it?" and "How will it be allocated?". At present, while the jury may still be out on the size of the bill, the method of allocation appears, at first approximation, to be "Suck it, peasants, costs will be imposed as is most profitable for your betters!".
Such a cost allocation scheme really ought to have no friends anywhere on the political spectrum. The reasons for liberal opposition should be so obvious as to no need mention. For conservatives or libertarians, such rampant imposition of externalities on other people's persons and properties should be recognized as making a mockery of man's right to person and property, and the state's legitimate role in preserving the same.
We must be careful that, in attempting to break our dependence on kleptocratic energy-despotic hellholes, we do not allow ourselves to become one...
The theory that fracturing the local geology by pumping in a lubricant under extremely high pressure might cause some sub-surface movement certainly sounds preposterous to me...
I suspect that they don't do any direct outsourcing(other than possibly hiring some relatively local machinist/metalworking outfit to do custom waterblocks or cases or something, since setting up your own machine shop is a little messy, and there are plenty of fairly local outfits who will take modest sized lots); but they certainly do(if reviews are to be believed) buy standard "enthusiast" parts. That isn't direct outsourcing; but it means that the origins of most of the guts of their systems are exactly the same as those of everybody else. There just aren't that many options, nor do the sellers necessarily tell you which one you are getting.
Because of the economics of JIT supply chains and CPU/RAM/Option card level customization, it is fairly common for even bulk box guys to have a US(generally southern, because labor is cheaper) or northern Mexican(cheaper still) final-assembly facility, where finished components are put into cases according to customer demand. For systems that offer no customization, and just stock shelves at Worst Buy, all assembly may be done at point of origin; but for BTO systems the increased responsiveness of a domestic finishing step can make up for the higher labor costs...
Given that eye tracking has been used for years(though usually in slightly bulkier rigs) for things like attention study, website layout optimization, etc. it certainly isn't the novelty.
You usually generate a "heat map" of where the user is focusing, then tweak your layout/visual cues so that the test users find that their eyes are "guided" naturally around your layout. Turning that into a UI that would be attractive to somebody with a functioning lower body, though, is an interesting challenge...
Dear consumer: Your Intel(tm) ActiveProtect(r) co-processors are performing as designed.
I can understand(with their push toward embedding lots of exclusive features in their chipsets: IAMT) why they might want an AV company; but why McAfee? 7.68 billion will buy you a damn lot, including a variety of smaller vendors with better technology. As for brand name, Intel already has that. Why McAfee?
It is arguably the case that the "envy" is so called because that is what "inspired" the HP 'design' team; but prices are prices...
Apple Rev. A's are pretty notorious for having more character than one would like...We'll see if this turns out to be an issue, or just cosmetic.
Assemble, quite possibly(even Dell does, or did until fairly recently). That just covers the "shoving customer's choice of CPU and expansion cards into motherboard and case" part of the job, though.
Intel silicon is likely made in the US, AMD Germany, both packaged in Malaysia or other cheaper locations. RAM probably Taiwan or Japan, among other possibilities.
PCB stuffing and physical assembly(except for last-stage card-level customization) almost certainly China.
You must be thinking of little people rules...
I knew that seeding the word-salad text databases used by the spammers with strings like "harmonious Falun Gong", "Independent Taiwan", and "h4rb/\L Tiananmen Square" would pay off one day!
Some degree of ASLR showed up in Vista and 10.5, respectively. Same year; but Vista's was a little earlier. Both are limited in some respects, but that gets into serious nit-picking.
Windows picked up OS-integrated file-level encryption with EFS in Win2k, and volume-level encryption with Bitlocker in Vista. I don't think OSX does full volume level stuff to this day; but 10.3 and later supported using encrypted disk images for user home directories. There isn't really a 1 to 1 equivalence between the two approaches. Filevault is architecturally kind of a nasty hack; but it is quite easy to use. EFS exhibits a much more sensible design; but is exudes a strong sense of "don't touch, this is really here for corporate admins".
TFS is poorly worded; but refers to the fact that(while Windows suffers the, er, Lion's... share of attacks) Microsoft has been much more aggressive with rolling out architectural changes like ASLR, driver signing, etc. In pwn2own and like contests, the Windows systems are now most typically taken down by flaws in the (still deeply sucktastic) set of commonly used 3rd party software.
They sure have increased their emphasis on security, now that they are in a position where insecurity might allow their customers to treat the devices that they own as such...
In terms of actual expectation, only noobs and idiots ever have. Theory and experience are complementary; but you can only substitute one for the other so much.
Rhetorically, though, there is absolutely nothing for them to lose by taking this public stance. Who wants to go to the trouble of training employees if one can convince colleges and universities to train them for you at some mixture of individual, state, and parental expense? Training them yourself costs money, and means that you can't just flush them down the toilet and find a new one at a moment's notice...
That is why I find these articles(and they seem to pop up as regularly as the seasons) so infuriating. They are partly written by half-wits who don't understand that universities have a job to be doing that isn't "EZ-Training-while-U-Wait" and partially written by business lobby types who know exactly what the score is; but see nothing to lose in trying to externalize the costs of training their expendable peons.
That is pretty common; but the eSATA port seems to show up in eSATA/USB "eSATAp" form. As best I can tell, you can get USB connectors that will fill exactly the same board holes as eSATAp connectors, just not making contact with the SATA signal lines. It means dropping a bullet point; but it makes redesign a snap if you don't mind doing so. If you do mind, you'd have to do the slightly more costly work of putting a third party controller or port multiplier on board.
I don't know which way any individual outfit chose to go; but they certainly had that option.
Yes and no...
Apple is typically very aggressive about killing legacy things in favor of whatever new hotness they have decided on, even when customers whine about it, and they have recently been Intel's shiny launch partner of choice(so there is usually a short period of exclusivity for Intel's new hotness). They are also pretty aggressive about deciding that some feature should be 'baseline' rather than 'upgrade' at a relatively early date(this shows up with things like bluetooth today, or 802.11b back when that was optional on nastier PC laptops...) That is the yes.
The "no" is that Firewire was pretty much the last hardware standard that Apple had a major hand in. USB? Appeared on PC motherboards well before Apple ones(it was Intel's baby after all), Apple was just the first to burn the legacy options. 802.11b? All of Apple's 1st gen gear was rebadged Lucent off-the shelf stuff. Apple made it an available consumer option while Lucent was still squeezing the enterprise guys; but that was pure sticker engineering? Killed off the floppy? The first to stop offering it across the board, possibly; but you've been able to spec PCs without floppies well back into Apple's beige era. 64bit desktops? Hello AMD, 3D cards? Apple's selections are always archaic, even now that they are an Intel shop. etc, etc.
By virtue of their disinterest in coddling legacy users and low price points, Apple does, certainly, come up a lot on the "pushed technology X into ubiquity within their product line by murdering its predecessors and making it a standard option" list. However, the list of "was actually first" is substantially shorter, especially in more recent years. The list of "invented here, rather than launch partnered here" is shorter still, especially these days.
They undoubtedly do adopt-and-polish quite well; but their actual degree of pioneering needs to be kept in perspective.
There was a previous article that made Slashdot to the effect that Intel had, at the request of certain unnamed customers(clearly including, though not necessarily limited to) Apple, resumed shipping the flawed P67 chips on the condition that they be used only in products where the 4 affected ports would be irrelevant.
Speculation at the time was, as seemed logical, that this was basically a reflection of the fact that all the OEMs didn't want to hold up their laptop releases for something that basically only affected desktops and huge DTR beasts.