Intel clearly is not making any friends here. It's a dumbheaded move that will do them more harm than good.
But what about Harvard? If you look at the Crimson Online story, you'll see that the Computer Services (FACS) group diod not believe that covering the Macs was the right thing to do.
According to the article: (1) "FASCS Director Franklin M. Steen said he felt the request unfairly impaired student usage." (2) "[Steen] allowed the computers to be covered 'only after multiple request and great reluctance.'"
So if Harvard felt that this was wrong, why didn't they refuse the request? It's a prestigious, rich institution that could have afforded to tell Intel to take a hike. If Harvard has to kowtow to the corporate gods, what kind of hope is there for other academic institutions?
They probably figured it wasn't worth fighting. That's their decision to make, but still, it's kinda sad.
Ok, so the polar lander cost $165, which I admit is cheap. But how much is a manned mission to Mars going to cost? A few hundred billion dollars? A few trillion dollars? More? Manned space flight has proven to be extremely expensive.
There's no question that a manned mission to Mars would be cool (where do I sign up?). But I think the question should be: is this really the best way to spend our tax money?
The only way Mars is going to be economical is if private industry takes the lead role in space development, rather than the govt. (This is already beginning to happen, of course.) Space entrepreneurs will find a way for us to travel cheaply to Mars, if the government can't....
According to a Reuters story in the New York Times the system was down approximately 72 hours. But in order to fix it, they spent thousands of man hours and $1.5 million! That's quite a problem... not simply reinstalling the OS on some workstation somewhere, I mean, how do you spend $1.5 million on repairs within 72 hours? Did they have to buy themselves a new Cray?
She said the code was originally written by a WebTV employee as a means of tracking people who visited the site but has since turned into a tool for ne'er-do-wells.
Huh. Doesn't this seem, well, *dumber* than usual? Haven't seen the code, but it sounds like this hole is not even a bug, but rather an intentional "feature", one that was designed exceptionally poorly...
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Intel clearly is not making any friends here. It's a dumbheaded move that will do them more harm than good.
But what about Harvard? If you look at the Crimson Online story, you'll see that the Computer Services (FACS) group diod not believe that covering the Macs was the right thing to do.
According to the article:
(1) "FASCS Director Franklin M. Steen said he felt the request unfairly impaired student usage."
(2) "[Steen] allowed the computers to be covered 'only after multiple request and great reluctance.'"
So if Harvard felt that this was wrong, why didn't they refuse the request? It's a prestigious, rich institution that could have afforded to tell Intel to take a hike. If Harvard has to kowtow to the corporate gods, what kind of hope is there for other academic institutions?
They probably figured it wasn't worth fighting. That's their decision to make, but still, it's kinda sad.
...why did you see it twice?
Ok, so the polar lander cost $165, which I admit is cheap. But how much is a manned mission to Mars going to cost? A few hundred billion dollars? A few trillion dollars? More? Manned space flight has proven to be extremely expensive.
There's no question that a manned mission to Mars would be cool (where do I sign up?). But I think the question should be: is this really the best way to spend our tax money?
The only way Mars is going to be economical is if private industry takes the lead role in space development, rather than the govt. (This is already beginning to happen, of course.) Space entrepreneurs will find a way for us to travel cheaply to Mars, if the government can't....
According to a Reuters story in the New York Times the system was down approximately 72 hours. But in order to fix it, they spent thousands of man hours and $1.5 million! That's quite a problem... not simply reinstalling the OS on some workstation somewhere, I mean, how do you spend $1.5 million on repairs within 72 hours? Did they have to buy themselves a new Cray?
She said the code was originally written by a WebTV employee as a means of tracking people who visited the site but has since turned into a tool for ne'er-do-wells.
Huh. Doesn't this seem, well, *dumber* than usual? Haven't seen the code, but it sounds like this hole is not even a bug, but rather an intentional "feature", one that was designed exceptionally poorly...