Hey, it took 19 years to get rid of some of this crap. "Just throw it away" kind of trivializes a collection that required that kind of dedication...:-)
I kept the 333MHz machines and the 166MHz machines. They're powered off in the basement, but I kept them all, just in case I want a dumb little server for something.
Anyway, no, the rest of the stuff was not useful. I'm sure someone could have claimed a 66MHz 486-SX would have been worth something to someone, but I'm seriously not interested in wasting my time finding that someone. (I'd rather waste it posting to Slashdot.) It's certainly not worth the $25 worth of hassles I might hope to get on eBay.
None of it was particularily power-efficient, either. "Watts per computron" are far higher than a new PC. The annual cost of operating an old box would be higher than the cost of purchasing a $300 1.4GHz Athlon machine.
And putting it out for the thieves is the same reason I didn't put it in the trash bin in the first place -- once the idiot thief realized he'd stolen garbage, he'd either throw it in his garbage; or more likely he'd throw it in a ditch or alley. The same is basically true of anyone dumb enough to buy it on eBay, too. Recycling wouldn't have happened. This way, I know all that lead stayed out of the waste stream. Hey, it's my crap, I can at least take that little bit of responsibility for it.
Those of us who have been married for 19 years simply have 19 more years worth of extra sh!t laying around in the basement.
Earlier this month, we (my wife) got fed up with the mess, so we (I) started cleaning out as much of the old crap as I could bear to part with. Old hard drives (anything smaller than 1GB -- gone) an old never-supported parallel port scanner, old computers (Pentium class or older,) an old cassette tape deck, old cordless phones, several dozen ISO-8 bit and ISO-16 bit PC cards, and literally fifty pounds of RS-232 cables. Basically, if it didn't currently work, or was older than about 1995, it went on the rubbish heap.
Recycle
I then started pulling the NiCd batteries out of the old cordless phones, and realized I had a lot more than just batteries that needed recycling. I got two garbage cans: a large one for plastics and metals, and a smaller one for circuit boards or anything with solder. I then spent a few hours with a screwdriver, prybar, hammer, wire cutters, etc., and segregated out the electronic boards, soldered connectors, etc. Anything with lead still on it went in the circuit board bin. The batteries went in a separate battery pail. All the rest of the metals and plastics went in the other bin.
Our recycling center charges for electronics by the pound. (I think it was about $0.60/lb. An old 13" TV set cost me $12.00 to dispose of last month.) I haven't taken the circuit board bin it to the recycling center yet, but I ended up with only about 15 pounds of circutry in it. Much less than the aggregate total of the hardware, cases and frames that had been piled up down there. The rest went with the ordinary recycling or trash. I also haven't gotten rid of the old cabling yet, I am assuming they'll take copper wire at no charge.
Finally, that which I had decided to save went into clear Rubbermaid bins. I kind of groupd them into "internal computer components", "external computer components", "other electronic components", "other electronic gear (telephones, etc.)", "computer cabling", "110 VAC house wiring", and "low voltage house wiring" bins. I also found a surprisingly large number of drill bits, screwdrivers, and other assorted tools piled in with my junk. My toolbox is now full again!
I'm not as "thrilled" as I'd like to be with the new organization of my stuff, but it's a lot better than it was. And I'd like to be able to tell you I found a way to tell my currently-obsolete-but-still-hanging-onto-it stuff from my I-should-save-this-because-I-will-really-use-it-in -the-future stuff. But I didn't find that magic formula.
According to the page, if you laid down a line of dollar bills end-to-end, you would have to pick them up travelling at a speed of 19.02 MPH to make money at the same rate as Bill has.
I remember back in the day when you actually had to hit over 60MPH to keep up with the guy.
Thank you for the recommendation. I have not yet read "Beyond Fear", but it's on my list.
I understand why someone would want to use biometrics as one of the three components of authentication (something you have, something you know and something you are; pick any two for good authentication.) But I still think that biometrics are easily stolen, and once stolen are irrevocably lost. You think the problems with identity theft are bad now? Just wait for stolen biometric data to hit the fan.
It seems that biometrics are the next big sell to the credit industry. "By using fingerprints we can absolve ourselves of all blame on disputed claims!" But once the data is in the wrong hands, the thieves will steal with impunity, and the victims will have little recourse. Credit companies will be exceedingly slow to recognize charges of biometric ID theft, since dodging the fraud bullets will save them lots of money in the short term. Don't forget that the merchants still have no real incentive to protect the biometric data. And again, once your biometric is compromised or stolen even one time, that's it. You can never replace it.
I find it interesting that you acknowledge the threat of misuse of electronic signatures is greater than the threat of misuse of paper signatures. That is my point entirely about the misuse of biometrics, with the added attraction of not being able to replace a misused fingerprint or retina.
IMNSHO, the other two components of authentication should be enough. Something you know, a PIN, can be changed easily. As for something you have, strengthening "smart cards" makes them harder and harder to duplicate. They can be updated more securely than most other devices. And they're cheap to replace -- currently, they're about a dollar apiece. Lost, stolen, or even left behind at a restaurant for an hour? Replace it. The mechanisms for reading them are already present at most retailers (PIN pads and smart card readers,) they're cheaper than biometric readers (Target gave away USB smart card readers to people who signed up for their smart Visa card.) And the cryptographic protocols are such that you don't even have to trust the readers. The chip in the card does all the work, shifting the burden of trust to the retailers and the creditors. Not so with biometrics, where the burden of trust lies upon the reader itself.
As I said earlier, I think biometrics are fine for closed systems: small campuses where all readers are trusted readers and the number of users is finite and trainable. The users can be trained to recognize authentic readers, and to protect their own biometric data. The system owners have absolutely every reason to protect their readers and their data. But the model doesn't scale to the real world. Users can't trust every system; most system owners are just middlemen carrying data from customers to creditors without the financial incentive to provide trusted systems. Some will be thieves, others, merely careless. The ID theft victims will be left holding the bag. Convincing the authorities "that's not my thumbprint" isn't going to work, not for a long time. Finally, once the news breaks that the systems are being defeated by hackers in Brasil, the bottom will fall out of the market completely and there will be a reverse rush away from biometrics, to the point where even the currently trustable systems would be suspect by association.
Fortunately, as you pointed out, businesses will make decisions based on the bottom line. For now, smart card readers and PIN pads are far cheaper than thumbprint scanners; since they're practically ubiquitous already, the investments have already been made. As for me, I'll continue to insist Home Depot et al print receipts for me to sign in ink. Perhaps the tinfoil is keeping my beanie a bit warm, but I can continue to deny that I sign charge slips electronically, and will be able to deny any fradulent charges that are based on an electronic signature.
Why stop with the steady stream of articles that point out the real shortcomings of biometrics? So you can keep your job? Sorry, but that's a pretty selfish reason that only works for you, your boss, and a handful of investors.
As Bruce Schneier pointed out years ago, biometrics are a double edged sword. Biometrics are hard to forge (I am deliberately ignoring the $0.50 gelatin trick that fools fingerprint readers since I assume someone will repair that particular shortcoming,) and look to the implementations of the systems for the weaknesses instead. Yes, they are hard to forge. But once the data is turned into bits, it's pathetically easy to copy. And you can't put the genie back in the bottle it once it's gone!
It comes down to "who do you trust?" Do you really trust the department store or the bank to not keep a copy of your biometric identification? What's to keep an unscrupulous merchant from intercepting a copy of your raw biometric data, and saving a copy?
I see signature capture pads all over the place these days. I categorically refuse to use them because I have no confidence that my signature won't be captured and replayed by the wrong person. You can't tell me that a "secure" system will prevent this, because I can't tell a secure system by looking at one. The promise of Open Source is no guarantee, either. Even if it had a picture of a penguin on the outside, a spiffy GNU-y logo, and OSF and SourceForge brand stickers on it, how do I know it's really "IdentifyMe_2.0" and not some hacked-up demo being run by Vinnie the Chiseler? People believe that when they walk into a Home Despot that Home Despot doesn't keep a permanent record of their signature. Of course they keep it; it's actually required by law to retain the audit copy for 36 months (42 in Illinois.)
There are also plenty of known cases of fraudulent ATM machines that read your card, accept your PIN, spit out "TEMPORARILY UNABLE TO DISPENSE CASH", and report both your card and PIN to the machine's owner. How is a user supposed to be able to authenticate the biometric device is genuine; that it's not a sham, running a copy for a thief?
How will this change with fingerprinting, hand geometry, retinal scans, or whatever the biometric system of the week may be? It won't; it can't. And since the systems can never be trusted to not "steal" or retain copies of identification for future playback, the systems should never be used in the first place. Using them even one time will put your irreplaceable data in a system it may never escape from.
Biometrics are a technology that should not ever be mainstreamed. They might work fine for a secure military facility, but once they're out in the general populous for any length of time, the protections they represent are gone.
Everybody seems to be so worried that Ritz is going to come down on some "evil hackers" with the DMCA. I even see words in the preceeding posts that make it sound like people are mad that Ritz has already sued someone over the DMCA (they haven't.) As a matter of fact, all Ritz has done so far is sold these cameras for $10.99 + processing. I know this is Slashdot, and we tend to get worked up quickly, but be realistic. Nobody's suing anybody at this point and the black-pajama-clad-ninja Federal DMCA shock troops haven't stormed any illegal camera chipmod factories. Take a deep breath, clear away the images of assault helicopter pilots toggling whisper mode, and relax.
If you think about it, the cameras probably cost them in the neighborhood of about $10.99 each, and that any returned cameras turn into profit quickly. And the vast majority of customers will return the cameras and pay for processing as designed. Let's face it: cameras made this cheaply are going to be cheap cameras. Hackers aren't going to stock up on them because they're only worth the $10.99 you pay for them.
Say some percentage of the cameras are never returned, and of those that are, some percentage of those are unusable. They're still making their money, they're making lots on the processing, and the hacker-factor can be safely ignored as a blip on the fiscal radar. With any savvy at all, Ritz will know enough to simply ignore the hackers. If some clueless PHB gets his panties in a twist over it and demands lawsuits, then Ritz simply ends up with all the bad PR over a "Big Corp. v. Little Guy" lawsuit, and galvanizes the hackers against them. The hackers won't stop hacking, regardless.
If they truly are concerned about rates of return of the hardware, then we might expect to see cycles of upgraded firmware that "dodge" the published hacks. Or, we might see "rental agreements" at the cash registers. I think that it won't come to this, however. I think the cameras simply aren't good enough value for the money for many customers to keep, even with the hackability factor. And that was probably the business plan to begin with.
I think you haven't taken into account the methods of operation of many hackers.
They're frequently not looking for a box they can simply get "out" of. They're looking to create an army of zombies; boxes that sit there listening on some random port. Upon receipt of the hackers' commands, the zombie army rises up and strikes at whatever the target du jour is. Sometimes the signal is simply to log onto an IRC channel and await further instructions from their puppet masters.
A firewall will prevent anything that doesn't already have an established outbound link from being so controlled. Punching holes through the firewalls would allow the task to listen silently until otherwise ordered from afar.
If they dialed home to look for instructions, well, that would pretty much tip off everyone who their controller is. If they sit there waiting for random UDP packets that can be inserted anywhere in the network then the hacker can call upon them from anywhere.
Finally, sometimes the hackers are looking to establish servers. Underground FTP servers that can function as storage and trade boxes for warez, IRC servers for controlling the aforementioned zombie armies, SMTP servers for control by spammers, HTTP servers for criminals looking for temporary boxes to host phony web pages for phishing expeditions or for quick-buck porn operations, the list is long and the hackers' desires are great.
And sometimes people have reasons we don't expect. Some people may simply want to arbitrarily disable other peoples' firewalls out of sheer perversity. So, there are lots of reasons hackers might want to have a program open up a firewall from the inside.
They get a good amount of money, but then again so does everyone involved in the supply side of a wedding. It's like the earlier discussions about pro-sports players. We live in a capitalist society. People are free to get as much money for their services as other people are willing to give them.
And if the guy isn't ever "wowed" by wedding photos, well, it's probably the subject matter. An altar full of overdressed people isn't something a photographer's eye can fix. Face it -- they're boring for everyone except the couple involved.
Frankly, I think anyone who is reading Slashdot at work probably meets some definition of overpaid...
Viruses are being genetically modified and used in theraputic applications to deliver drugs. The traits that allow them to reproduce themselves throughout a host are the same traits needed to deliver drugs to targeted cells. Their ability to invade specific cells far exceeds anything else humans have been able to come up with so far. While current technologies require an extensive focused effort on a per-patient basis, it's expected that someday the treatments will be more "cookie cutter."
And as far as the software != biology example, both "genetic programming" and "genetic engineering" are yielding very exciting results. While they're not software "viruses" in the classical sense, self-modifying and self-selecting programs are coming up with some startling new creations.
I remember an article in Scientific American that spoke to a young man named Richard Skrenta, who wrote an Apple ][ virus in 1982. I remember him bemoaning the fact that "it got onto his disks, the math teacher's disks and all his friends disks."
Sorry, but Fred Cohen was not the first virus writer.
These viruses can already drink, and they can probably vote on a Diebold machine. They may already have...
Trinity:
Help us, Johnny Mnemonic! You're our only hope!
Neo: [ emphatically ]
Dude!
Scene II
Setting: In the Matrix world, which looks suspiciously like Rivendell placed on the Forest Moon of Endor.
Agent Smith:
Hobbits... are a disease. And I -- we -- are the cure.
Neo: [ puzzled ]
Dude?
[ Agent SMITH divides like an amoeba, but unsuccessfully. The second Agent MINI-SMITH is only 1/4 the size of the original. ]
Mini-Smith:
Ki-yii! [ Uses martial arts to punch and kick NEO, along with the larger SMITH. ]
Neo: [ startled ]
Dudes!
[ Fighting ensues. At each punch at a SMITH, the SMITH divides into more MINI-SMITHS. The MINI-SMITHS mainly try to bite NEO's crotch. ]
Neo: [ pleading ]
Dudes!!??!!
[ All the population of ZION appears. Most of them look like Ewoks. Most of the Ewoks of ZION are wearing pink.]
Ewoks of Zion: [ caringly ]
Ooooo! They're so cute!!!
[ ZION swarms MINI-SMITHS ]
Mini-Smiths:
Nooooo!! [ MINI-SMITHS run away; as they are beaten they are dividing into more MICRO-MINI-SMITHS on the way. ]
Neo: [ victoriously ]
Dudes!!!
SCENE III
Setting: A parade field in the landing bay of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Trinity:
For bravery in the face of danger, and the best played game of 3D Tic-Tac-Toe Hogwarts has seen in many a year, I award you this diploma. No, wait, you get the medal.
[ TRINITY kisses NEO ]
Neo: [ lustily ]
Dudette!
Ewoks:
Awwww!
[ EWOKS break into joyous song of celebration. Roll credits. ]
SCENE IV
Setting: Theatre lobbies around the nation.
Audience: [ waving pitchforks and brandishing torches ]
We want our money back!
Wachowskis: [ laughing, on the way to bank ]
Ka-ching, suckers! Did you really think it would end any other way?
Sorry about the flamage, but you (obviously) got my goat with your initial post. The way I read your statement in its context was that '1-in-9 cellphone users would develop brain cancer'; that's a statement so ludicrous I felt it was worth wasting my time with flames. To me, statements like that make the speaker sound like someone so far off the reality chart that they believe in astrology, commune with crystals, or spout any other amount of pseudoscience. (I'm not saying that you do now, but the way I read your first posting implied it to me at that time.) My reactions were quick and over the top, and for that I apologize.
Yes, I know that RF heats tissue. I know that sufficiently strong RF causes cancer. I know the exposure limits set by the FCC for transmitters over 50 watts. I also know that the wavelengths involved in cellular telephony are very similar to the dimensions of the human skull, to the point where cell phones may be considered optimal for inducing standing waves in the skull. So yes, I agree that there is the possibility that there is the potential for harm. And yes, I see no harm in using Bluetooth or plastic soundwave guides to reduce the transmitted power (and/or shorten the wavelength) of the RF emitted next to my skull. I certainly won't be strapping my old Motorola banana to my head, although it did two things to minimize exposure: it cut the power from 3W to 600mW when used with the portable battery out of its car mount, and it used a rubber duckie antenna to move the signal to above the user's head, rather than next to the ear.)
But there is still no evidence for health risks associated with these very low power (no health risks associated with cell phones. (If unavailable, see this google cache.)
Feel free to keep monitioring the public's health, don't buy a cell phone, (commune via crystals:-) whatever you want to do to keep yourself feeling safe; but don't "sound alarms" to the public when there has been absolutely no evidence to even suggest trouble. If you want to hand out realistic and useful safety advice for cell phones, tell people not to drive while talking on them.
Again, I was just extremely annoyed when your argument tripped all my triggers all at once, and I flew off the handle. Sorry.
Where the hell do you tinfoil-beanie wearing paranoiacs get your statistics from, anyway? 1-in-9 have cancer? Brain cells frying and dying? WTF are you talking about? Do you actually have studies with control subjects, evidence of cancer-causing radiation, or are you simply parroting the conspiracy-theory-of-the-moment party line?
Tell me, do these alleged studies compare the different cancer rates for 900MHz, 1800MHz and 1900MHz cell phones? Analog or digital transmission? PCM, CDMA or TDMA? Maximum transmitter power, or varied transmitter power? 600mW or 3W? Internal or external antennae? Telephone brand? Average cell-tower density? Data from the 1980s, 1990s, or 2000? Statistics from control subjects living in the same household, or working in the same profession? Can you provide links to these studies? Are you referring to the single unpublished study by a Swiss researcher that has yet to be reproduced anywhere?
Or is it just simply possible that these mythical studies don't actually exist; it's just a couple of anecdotes along the lines of "Well, my friend's dad died of brain cancer and he used a cell phone a lot!" or "Oprah said on her show that cell phones cause brain cancer!" or "CellPhonesCauseCancer.com says that cell phones cause cancer!"
Maybe, just maybe, it's because YOU THINK cell phones should cause cancer that therefore they MUST cause cancer, and the rest of us should believe you.
The ONLY evidence I've seen of the harm caused by cellphones are studies correlating an increase in traffic accidents with driver cell phone usage. Not that this is inconsequential, mind you, but it has everything to do with inattentive driving and nothing to do with RF emissions.
Go collect some facts. Not anecdotes, they don't mean jack without context or controls. And while I may come off as biased here, it's because nobody has ever proven real long term health risks associated with cell phones. If those risks exist, we should see spikes or data showing all kinds of correlation with transmitter power, antenna location, etc. Believe it or not, with real data I'd be happy to change my mind. And as far as bluetooth goes, I personally would rather have an ultra-low power bluetooth headset talking to a low power cell phone in my pocket rather than have the full cell transmitter located at my ear. But that doesn't excuse unsubstantiated claims that 1-in-9 have cancer, or "ignore it or not." When real facts emerge, then you can start ranting. Until then, you're just another tinfoil beanie wearing scare monger, a crank who won't be taken seriously.
No, I knew it was a hard drive based player. I wasn't particularily put off by that. Sure, solid state would be nicer from a durability POV but the microdrives I've used haven't ever given me problems before.
For me, the points that sold me over the comparably sized-and-priced iPod were the inclusion of the FM receiver and the ability to act like a hard drive over USB without adding software; I also considered it a plus that it supports OGG Vorbis out of the box. The iRiver's software is upgradeable, and it sounds like they're going to try to add AAC in the future. (Not that I care much about AAC at this point, but it might be nice, and it's nice to know the machine is upgradeable.) I don't know if Apple has any interest in playing anything but their DRM AACs and MP3s, but I had already pretty much written it off since it is firewire-only and has no FM tuner. Apple's software is definitely nice, and the iPod looks nice, but it's really tough to flash an FM tuner or Hi-Speed USB (the USB formerly known as 2.0) onto an iPod...
Used to have a Nomad jukebox, which wouldn't act like a generic storage device and would only talk to the way fugly Creative software (meaning it couldn't carry stuff to and from public computers.) I was also considering the FM tuner remote for an additional $60, (bringing it up to almost this price anyway.) But it got stolen, so time to go shopping again.
I'll second that comment. My first interesting "structured" program was a Conway's Life game on an Apple ][ in ApplePascal. Optimized it to make it run really fast (like two or even three frames per second.)
<ObAppleDis>God, I hated the Apple's hi-res graphics mapping. I think that must have been the catalyst for a lifelong hatred of Apple, and a tendency to nitpick on their crap, even when they might otherwise have a "mostly good" product.</ObAppleDis>
He wasn't saying "switch black boxes", he was saying "hook up this simulated speed sensor, these simulated engine sensors, this simulated oil-pressure sensor, these simulated brake sensors, etc."
Then, drive like a bat out of hell until you have an accident. Disconnect simulated sensors before police arrive. Reconnect the original sensors. "Honest, sir, I was only going 30. You can check my black box if you'd like."
Now, you have proof you're an "easy driver" who never speeds, and never jackrabbit starts from a standstill. Your service garage would warranty all your parts, and you could apply for a good driver discount on your insurance. You could argue speeding tickets (although that would probably quickly become self-defeating...)
Of course since this same system is the computer that decides whether or not to fire your airbags, how to optimally adjust the fuel flow, etc., I'm not really sure I'd want to mess that much with it...
Actually, it can be (and has been) done. Wish I could remember the link...:-(
There are many people running downlevel IEs that allow web sites to execute arbitrary code. While you may think you have turned off everything allowable, there may be Yet Another Security Hole of the Week in IE allowing scumware to slip onto your box.
Granted, most of these holes are first exploited for worms, not spyware, but "unethical does as unethical is." If they're not being used for spyware yet, it's only because the spyware operators are slow on the uptake.
I'm sure your box is much more protected than the average user's, and it's great that your system is so tight a 9-year-old hasn't clicked OK on the wrong thing. But don't rest solely on the configuration. Trust, but verify. Spybot S&D is still your friend.
I can't personally speak for your boobness, but I think you might be a bit tin-eared. You may also just be listening to the "right" kind of music where the distortion caused by the extra compression is less noticeable.
I find 128kbps audio to be noticably "flatter" sounding (less dynamic, not pitched too low as in a musical flat) than uncompressed music. The highs are "muddy". I think 192kbps is OK, but I still rip at 256 or 360 when possible.
If you're interested, try listening to a stream encoded at 64kbps, or even 32kbps. You should definitely hear the mud or flatness at these lower quality compression rates. That'll give you an idea of what kind of distortion you might expect to hear at the 128 kbps rate.
Anyway, it's a 100% personal thing. I'm over 40, and spent way too much time listening to The Who the way they were meant to be heard. Even so, I still can tell when lower qualities of compression are being used.
Most users don't want "constant care and attention." One thing we tend to forget here is that over half of the people using IE don't know what a browser is, and wouldn't want one if you offered them a free one. They just want to click on the "intarweb" and book hotels. They don't even know that they ARE loyal customers, or to whom.
They might know if their browser was secretly replaced with Mozilla, but only because some things would act "differently" and other things wouldn't work at all. They might even think its a bad thing if their purple monkey went away! "Someone broke my 'the internet'!"
Mozilla's first branding strategy needs to be overcoming this browser apathy. Whether that means the purple monkey is replaced by an ugly red dinosaur head, pop-ups and pop-unders allowing you to take pictures of your neighbor's ugly red dinosaur heads, or a TV-radio-billboard blitz of ugly red dinosaur heads happily surfing the web, I can't say. And while secretly replacing their browser was pretty obviously a tongue in cheek solution, just think: someone could distribute a BHO that replaces every current X-10 and porn pop-under with an ugly red dinosaur head telling them "Mozilla is great, it doesn't have these stupid advertisements! Click here to get rid of these windows forever!"
An excellent observation, but your idea of counting hangups is even skewed a bit anyway.
I have already said to every survey organization and phone solicitor that's ever called me in the last five years these exact words: "Please add me to your do not call list and never call this number again. Thank you." (By the way, these simple words have really reduced the number of phone solicitations I get. I never went overboard demanding names, nor was I rude except for the occasional hangup on a persistent pest.)
I'm also on my state's Do Not Call list, as well as the federal Do Not Call registry. However, these lists will not stop telephone surveyors or pollsters.
So the people they called to perform the survey wouldn't have included many of the most ardent anti-spammers, simply because the survey was conducted in a spam-like fashion that was already being filtered.
Not in the dark, not with a spark.
Not on a boatse, not with a goatse.
I won't mod the box, and I won't overclox.
I will not hot swap it here or there.
I will not hot swap it anywhere!
I do not hot plug CPUs, Sam. I will not do it, Sam-I-Am.
I used to have such luck. 22 years of PC building and rebuilding (and lots of work on non-PCs before that) and never damaged any hardware (except for a melted SCSI cable; boy, those ribbon cables don't last for many seconds when +5 VDC at one end connects to ground at the other end.) But my good-luck string ended earlier this year when I mistook "powered-down" for "switched-off" one too many times. I didn't even know I had done it until I received a small shock while swapping the AGP video card, (the back of my hand bumped a card in the PCI slot.) I think the system lasted about an onosecond after that.
I think my problem with hot-swapping AGP cards was the compact design of the connector. The traces are designed with two levels of contacts on each side of the card, but as the card is inserted or removed the outer set of traces is wiped past the upper set of contacts in the socket where they short out adjacent pins.
I definitely fried the mobo (which was an IWill that sucked anyway) and a 256MB DDR stick. The rest of the components including the CPU survived the experiment. But, after buying a new mobo, I just had to upgrade the CPU of course... and heatsink and fan... which drew more current from the power supply... and why upgrade the CPU without adding more memory... and what good was all that memory without faster video... and a hard disk for the new games... and since the new CPU, heatsink and fan didn't fit in the old case...
These people were working jobs long before computers became ubiquitous. They've focused completely on their jobs for the last 20 years, perhaps 50-80 hours a week. The PC thing is just a time-sink to them, something that they know they should learn, but haven't had the chance. For a while in the 1980s-1990s there was even a question among some CEOs whether or not the PC-on-every-desk thing was another passing "fad", and they were simply too busy to have to learn yet another thing that was about to pass them by anyway.
Perhaps they're running Windows, and the few times they've sat down at the keyboard it's crashed. Or they did "something" wrong, or their "internet broke." And when they needed help they asked their local technoguru; some guy with the social skills of a goat and the attitude of a hornet. (If you've ever seen a Saturday Night Live sketch featuring "Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy," ask yourself if you thought it was funny because those office people asked such stupid questions. If you answered "yes" then you probably aren't the kind of person your boss would willingly approach for help.)
I once had to show such a person which way to hold the mouse. She thought that since it was a "mouse", the cord was the "tail" and so the other end must have been the "nose", and she was frustrated because when she pointed the nose where she wanted to go, the arrow thing didn't move right. A smart person, she just had no exposure to the technology because she was so busy doing her own job.
And they recognize that the PC revolution has left them behind. It's no surprise that extremely busy, successful people have gotten themselves to this point. These people aren't trying to get enough training to know whether or not they should buy rack-mounted servers, they're trying to learn enough to be able to effectively use a spreadsheet, or be able to save a document in Word without losing it. These sorts of people already are typically smart enough to allow their hired technical guns to research the decision, mostly because they know they don't have time to do the research on their own. That's why they hire the techs in the first place.
Learning which end of the mouse to point is a far cry from considering themselves qualified to make 802.11b vs 802.11g type decisions. The people hiring these tutors aren't the idiots who make ill-informed choices. These are the people who have gotten to the top because of other skills, and they probably aren't going to get instantly stupid just because they can open their email without getting a virus.
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I kept the 333MHz machines and the 166MHz machines. They're powered off in the basement, but I kept them all, just in case I want a dumb little server for something.
Anyway, no, the rest of the stuff was not useful. I'm sure someone could have claimed a 66MHz 486-SX would have been worth something to someone, but I'm seriously not interested in wasting my time finding that someone. (I'd rather waste it posting to Slashdot.) It's certainly not worth the $25 worth of hassles I might hope to get on eBay.
None of it was particularily power-efficient, either. "Watts per computron" are far higher than a new PC. The annual cost of operating an old box would be higher than the cost of purchasing a $300 1.4GHz Athlon machine.
And putting it out for the thieves is the same reason I didn't put it in the trash bin in the first place -- once the idiot thief realized he'd stolen garbage, he'd either throw it in his garbage; or more likely he'd throw it in a ditch or alley. The same is basically true of anyone dumb enough to buy it on eBay, too. Recycling wouldn't have happened. This way, I know all that lead stayed out of the waste stream. Hey, it's my crap, I can at least take that little bit of responsibility for it.
Those of us who have been married for 19 years simply have 19 more years worth of extra sh!t laying around in the basement.
Earlier this month, we (my wife) got fed up with the mess, so we (I) started cleaning out as much of the old crap as I could bear to part with. Old hard drives (anything smaller than 1GB -- gone) an old never-supported parallel port scanner, old computers (Pentium class or older,) an old cassette tape deck, old cordless phones, several dozen ISO-8 bit and ISO-16 bit PC cards, and literally fifty pounds of RS-232 cables. Basically, if it didn't currently work, or was older than about 1995, it went on the rubbish heap.
Recycle
I then started pulling the NiCd batteries out of the old cordless phones, and realized I had a lot more than just batteries that needed recycling. I got two garbage cans: a large one for plastics and metals, and a smaller one for circuit boards or anything with solder. I then spent a few hours with a screwdriver, prybar, hammer, wire cutters, etc., and segregated out the electronic boards, soldered connectors, etc. Anything with lead still on it went in the circuit board bin. The batteries went in a separate battery pail. All the rest of the metals and plastics went in the other bin.
Our recycling center charges for electronics by the pound. (I think it was about $0.60/lb. An old 13" TV set cost me $12.00 to dispose of last month.) I haven't taken the circuit board bin it to the recycling center yet, but I ended up with only about 15 pounds of circutry in it. Much less than the aggregate total of the hardware, cases and frames that had been piled up down there. The rest went with the ordinary recycling or trash. I also haven't gotten rid of the old cabling yet, I am assuming they'll take copper wire at no charge.
Finally, that which I had decided to save went into clear Rubbermaid bins. I kind of groupd them into "internal computer components", "external computer components", "other electronic components", "other electronic gear (telephones, etc.)", "computer cabling", "110 VAC house wiring", and "low voltage house wiring" bins. I also found a surprisingly large number of drill bits, screwdrivers, and other assorted tools piled in with my junk. My toolbox is now full again!
I'm not as "thrilled" as I'd like to be with the new organization of my stuff, but it's a lot better than it was. And I'd like to be able to tell you I found a way to tell my currently-obsolete-but-still-hanging-onto-it stuff from my I-should-save-this-because-I-will-really-use-it-in -the-future stuff. But I didn't find that magic formula.
According to the page, if you laid down a line of dollar bills end-to-end, you would have to pick them up travelling at a speed of 19.02 MPH to make money at the same rate as Bill has.
I remember back in the day when you actually had to hit over 60MPH to keep up with the guy.
He's slipping. It must be that penguin's fault.
I understand why someone would want to use biometrics as one of the three components of authentication (something you have, something you know and something you are; pick any two for good authentication.) But I still think that biometrics are easily stolen, and once stolen are irrevocably lost. You think the problems with identity theft are bad now? Just wait for stolen biometric data to hit the fan.
It seems that biometrics are the next big sell to the credit industry. "By using fingerprints we can absolve ourselves of all blame on disputed claims!" But once the data is in the wrong hands, the thieves will steal with impunity, and the victims will have little recourse. Credit companies will be exceedingly slow to recognize charges of biometric ID theft, since dodging the fraud bullets will save them lots of money in the short term. Don't forget that the merchants still have no real incentive to protect the biometric data. And again, once your biometric is compromised or stolen even one time, that's it. You can never replace it.
I find it interesting that you acknowledge the threat of misuse of electronic signatures is greater than the threat of misuse of paper signatures. That is my point entirely about the misuse of biometrics, with the added attraction of not being able to replace a misused fingerprint or retina.
IMNSHO, the other two components of authentication should be enough. Something you know, a PIN, can be changed easily. As for something you have, strengthening "smart cards" makes them harder and harder to duplicate. They can be updated more securely than most other devices. And they're cheap to replace -- currently, they're about a dollar apiece. Lost, stolen, or even left behind at a restaurant for an hour? Replace it. The mechanisms for reading them are already present at most retailers (PIN pads and smart card readers,) they're cheaper than biometric readers (Target gave away USB smart card readers to people who signed up for their smart Visa card.) And the cryptographic protocols are such that you don't even have to trust the readers. The chip in the card does all the work, shifting the burden of trust to the retailers and the creditors. Not so with biometrics, where the burden of trust lies upon the reader itself.
As I said earlier, I think biometrics are fine for closed systems: small campuses where all readers are trusted readers and the number of users is finite and trainable. The users can be trained to recognize authentic readers, and to protect their own biometric data. The system owners have absolutely every reason to protect their readers and their data. But the model doesn't scale to the real world. Users can't trust every system; most system owners are just middlemen carrying data from customers to creditors without the financial incentive to provide trusted systems. Some will be thieves, others, merely careless. The ID theft victims will be left holding the bag. Convincing the authorities "that's not my thumbprint" isn't going to work, not for a long time. Finally, once the news breaks that the systems are being defeated by hackers in Brasil, the bottom will fall out of the market completely and there will be a reverse rush away from biometrics, to the point where even the currently trustable systems would be suspect by association.
Fortunately, as you pointed out, businesses will make decisions based on the bottom line. For now, smart card readers and PIN pads are far cheaper than thumbprint scanners; since they're practically ubiquitous already, the investments have already been made. As for me, I'll continue to insist Home Depot et al print receipts for me to sign in ink. Perhaps the tinfoil is keeping my beanie a bit warm, but I can continue to deny that I sign charge slips electronically, and will be able to deny any fradulent charges that are based on an electronic signature.
Why stop with the steady stream of articles that point out the real shortcomings of biometrics? So you can keep your job? Sorry, but that's a pretty selfish reason that only works for you, your boss, and a handful of investors.
As Bruce Schneier pointed out years ago, biometrics are a double edged sword. Biometrics are hard to forge (I am deliberately ignoring the $0.50 gelatin trick that fools fingerprint readers since I assume someone will repair that particular shortcoming,) and look to the implementations of the systems for the weaknesses instead. Yes, they are hard to forge. But once the data is turned into bits, it's pathetically easy to copy. And you can't put the genie back in the bottle it once it's gone!
It comes down to "who do you trust?" Do you really trust the department store or the bank to not keep a copy of your biometric identification? What's to keep an unscrupulous merchant from intercepting a copy of your raw biometric data, and saving a copy?
I see signature capture pads all over the place these days. I categorically refuse to use them because I have no confidence that my signature won't be captured and replayed by the wrong person. You can't tell me that a "secure" system will prevent this, because I can't tell a secure system by looking at one. The promise of Open Source is no guarantee, either. Even if it had a picture of a penguin on the outside, a spiffy GNU-y logo, and OSF and SourceForge brand stickers on it, how do I know it's really "IdentifyMe_2.0" and not some hacked-up demo being run by Vinnie the Chiseler? People believe that when they walk into a Home Despot that Home Despot doesn't keep a permanent record of their signature. Of course they keep it; it's actually required by law to retain the audit copy for 36 months (42 in Illinois.)
There are also plenty of known cases of fraudulent ATM machines that read your card, accept your PIN, spit out "TEMPORARILY UNABLE TO DISPENSE CASH", and report both your card and PIN to the machine's owner. How is a user supposed to be able to authenticate the biometric device is genuine; that it's not a sham, running a copy for a thief?
How will this change with fingerprinting, hand geometry, retinal scans, or whatever the biometric system of the week may be? It won't; it can't. And since the systems can never be trusted to not "steal" or retain copies of identification for future playback, the systems should never be used in the first place. Using them even one time will put your irreplaceable data in a system it may never escape from.
Biometrics are a technology that should not ever be mainstreamed. They might work fine for a secure military facility, but once they're out in the general populous for any length of time, the protections they represent are gone.
If you think about it, the cameras probably cost them in the neighborhood of about $10.99 each, and that any returned cameras turn into profit quickly. And the vast majority of customers will return the cameras and pay for processing as designed. Let's face it: cameras made this cheaply are going to be cheap cameras. Hackers aren't going to stock up on them because they're only worth the $10.99 you pay for them.
Say some percentage of the cameras are never returned, and of those that are, some percentage of those are unusable. They're still making their money, they're making lots on the processing, and the hacker-factor can be safely ignored as a blip on the fiscal radar. With any savvy at all, Ritz will know enough to simply ignore the hackers. If some clueless PHB gets his panties in a twist over it and demands lawsuits, then Ritz simply ends up with all the bad PR over a "Big Corp. v. Little Guy" lawsuit, and galvanizes the hackers against them. The hackers won't stop hacking, regardless.
If they truly are concerned about rates of return of the hardware, then we might expect to see cycles of upgraded firmware that "dodge" the published hacks. Or, we might see "rental agreements" at the cash registers. I think that it won't come to this, however. I think the cameras simply aren't good enough value for the money for many customers to keep, even with the hackability factor. And that was probably the business plan to begin with.
They're frequently not looking for a box they can simply get "out" of. They're looking to create an army of zombies; boxes that sit there listening on some random port. Upon receipt of the hackers' commands, the zombie army rises up and strikes at whatever the target du jour is. Sometimes the signal is simply to log onto an IRC channel and await further instructions from their puppet masters.
A firewall will prevent anything that doesn't already have an established outbound link from being so controlled. Punching holes through the firewalls would allow the task to listen silently until otherwise ordered from afar.
If they dialed home to look for instructions, well, that would pretty much tip off everyone who their controller is. If they sit there waiting for random UDP packets that can be inserted anywhere in the network then the hacker can call upon them from anywhere.
Finally, sometimes the hackers are looking to establish servers. Underground FTP servers that can function as storage and trade boxes for warez, IRC servers for controlling the aforementioned zombie armies, SMTP servers for control by spammers, HTTP servers for criminals looking for temporary boxes to host phony web pages for phishing expeditions or for quick-buck porn operations, the list is long and the hackers' desires are great.
And sometimes people have reasons we don't expect. Some people may simply want to arbitrarily disable other peoples' firewalls out of sheer perversity. So, there are lots of reasons hackers might want to have a program open up a firewall from the inside.
And if the guy isn't ever "wowed" by wedding photos, well, it's probably the subject matter. An altar full of overdressed people isn't something a photographer's eye can fix. Face it -- they're boring for everyone except the couple involved.
Frankly, I think anyone who is reading Slashdot at work probably meets some definition of overpaid...
And as far as the software != biology example, both "genetic programming" and "genetic engineering" are yielding very exciting results. While they're not software "viruses" in the classical sense, self-modifying and self-selecting programs are coming up with some startling new creations.
Sorry, but Fred Cohen was not the first virus writer.
These viruses can already drink, and they can probably vote on a Diebold machine. They may already have...
Return of the Matrix -- The Sequel, Episode $$$
... Neo! Yousa da one!
... are a disease. And I -- we -- are the cure.
Scene I
Setting: In the swamps of Zion.
Morpheus: [ with much spit and slobber ]
B-b-b-b-b
Neo: [ questioningly ]
Dude?
Morpheus:
Yousa gonna teach Z-z-z-zion howza fight! B-b-b-b-b-b!
Neo: [ righteously ]
Dude.
Trinity:
Help us, Johnny Mnemonic! You're our only hope!
Neo: [ emphatically ]
Dude!
Scene II
Setting: In the Matrix world, which looks suspiciously like Rivendell placed on the Forest Moon of Endor.
Agent Smith:
Hobbits
Neo: [ puzzled ]
Dude?
[ Agent SMITH divides like an amoeba, but unsuccessfully. The second Agent MINI-SMITH is only 1/4 the size of the original. ]
Mini-Smith:
Ki-yii!
[ Uses martial arts to punch and kick NEO, along with the larger SMITH. ]
Neo: [ startled ]
Dudes!
[ Fighting ensues. At each punch at a SMITH, the SMITH divides into more MINI-SMITHS. The MINI-SMITHS mainly try to bite NEO's crotch. ]
Neo: [ pleading ]
Dudes!!??!!
[ All the population of ZION appears. Most of them look like Ewoks. Most of the Ewoks of ZION are wearing pink.]
Ewoks of Zion: [ caringly ]
Ooooo! They're so cute!!!
[ ZION swarms MINI-SMITHS ]
Mini-Smiths:
Nooooo!!
[ MINI-SMITHS run away; as they are beaten they are dividing into more MICRO-MINI-SMITHS on the way. ]
Neo: [ victoriously ]
Dudes!!!
SCENE III
Setting: A parade field in the landing bay of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Trinity:
For bravery in the face of danger, and the best played game of 3D Tic-Tac-Toe Hogwarts has seen in many a year, I award you this diploma. No, wait, you get the medal.
[ TRINITY kisses NEO ]
Neo: [ lustily ]
Dudette!
Ewoks:
Awwww!
[ EWOKS break into joyous song of celebration. Roll credits. ]
SCENE IV
Setting: Theatre lobbies around the nation.
Audience: [ waving pitchforks and brandishing torches ]
We want our money back!
Wachowskis: [ laughing, on the way to bank ]
Ka-ching, suckers! Did you really think it would end any other way?
Except at airports. At airports, a new sucker walks by every three seconds or so.
It has potential ...
Yes, I know that RF heats tissue. I know that sufficiently strong RF causes cancer. I know the exposure limits set by the FCC for transmitters over 50 watts. I also know that the wavelengths involved in cellular telephony are very similar to the dimensions of the human skull, to the point where cell phones may be considered optimal for inducing standing waves in the skull. So yes, I agree that there is the possibility that there is the potential for harm. And yes, I see no harm in using Bluetooth or plastic soundwave guides to reduce the transmitted power (and/or shorten the wavelength) of the RF emitted next to my skull. I certainly won't be strapping my old Motorola banana to my head, although it did two things to minimize exposure: it cut the power from 3W to 600mW when used with the portable battery out of its car mount, and it used a rubber duckie antenna to move the signal to above the user's head, rather than next to the ear.)
But there is still no evidence for health risks associated with these very low power (no health risks associated with cell phones. (If unavailable, see this google cache.)
Feel free to keep monitioring the public's health, don't buy a cell phone, (commune via crystals :-) whatever you want to do to keep yourself feeling safe; but don't "sound alarms" to the public when there has been absolutely no evidence to even suggest trouble. If you want to hand out realistic and useful safety advice for cell phones, tell people not to drive while talking on them.
Again, I was just extremely annoyed when your argument tripped all my triggers all at once, and I flew off the handle. Sorry.
Tell me, do these alleged studies compare the different cancer rates for 900MHz, 1800MHz and 1900MHz cell phones? Analog or digital transmission? PCM, CDMA or TDMA? Maximum transmitter power, or varied transmitter power? 600mW or 3W? Internal or external antennae? Telephone brand? Average cell-tower density? Data from the 1980s, 1990s, or 2000? Statistics from control subjects living in the same household, or working in the same profession? Can you provide links to these studies? Are you referring to the single unpublished study by a Swiss researcher that has yet to be reproduced anywhere?
Or is it just simply possible that these mythical studies don't actually exist; it's just a couple of anecdotes along the lines of "Well, my friend's dad died of brain cancer and he used a cell phone a lot!" or "Oprah said on her show that cell phones cause brain cancer!" or "CellPhonesCauseCancer.com says that cell phones cause cancer!" Maybe, just maybe, it's because YOU THINK cell phones should cause cancer that therefore they MUST cause cancer, and the rest of us should believe you.
The ONLY evidence I've seen of the harm caused by cellphones are studies correlating an increase in traffic accidents with driver cell phone usage. Not that this is inconsequential, mind you, but it has everything to do with inattentive driving and nothing to do with RF emissions.
Go collect some facts. Not anecdotes, they don't mean jack without context or controls. And while I may come off as biased here, it's because nobody has ever proven real long term health risks associated with cell phones. If those risks exist, we should see spikes or data showing all kinds of correlation with transmitter power, antenna location, etc. Believe it or not, with real data I'd be happy to change my mind. And as far as bluetooth goes, I personally would rather have an ultra-low power bluetooth headset talking to a low power cell phone in my pocket rather than have the full cell transmitter located at my ear. But that doesn't excuse unsubstantiated claims that 1-in-9 have cancer, or "ignore it or not." When real facts emerge, then you can start ranting. Until then, you're just another tinfoil beanie wearing scare monger, a crank who won't be taken seriously.
For me, the points that sold me over the comparably sized-and-priced iPod were the inclusion of the FM receiver and the ability to act like a hard drive over USB without adding software; I also considered it a plus that it supports OGG Vorbis out of the box. The iRiver's software is upgradeable, and it sounds like they're going to try to add AAC in the future. (Not that I care much about AAC at this point, but it might be nice, and it's nice to know the machine is upgradeable.) I don't know if Apple has any interest in playing anything but their DRM AACs and MP3s, but I had already pretty much written it off since it is firewire-only and has no FM tuner. Apple's software is definitely nice, and the iPod looks nice, but it's really tough to flash an FM tuner or Hi-Speed USB (the USB formerly known as 2.0) onto an iPod...
Used to have a Nomad jukebox, which wouldn't act like a generic storage device and would only talk to the way fugly Creative software (meaning it couldn't carry stuff to and from public computers.) I was also considering the FM tuner remote for an additional $60, (bringing it up to almost this price anyway.) But it got stolen, so time to go shopping again.
How about the iRiver iHP-120? 20GB, and it can act like a storage device. ClubMac has 'em for $349. Seems particularily realistic to me.
<ObAppleDis>God, I hated the Apple's hi-res graphics mapping. I think that must have been the catalyst for a lifelong hatred of Apple, and a tendency to nitpick on their crap, even when they might otherwise have a "mostly good" product.</ObAppleDis>
Anyway, yeah, Life was teh bomb.
Then, drive like a bat out of hell until you have an accident. Disconnect simulated sensors before police arrive. Reconnect the original sensors. "Honest, sir, I was only going 30. You can check my black box if you'd like."
Now, you have proof you're an "easy driver" who never speeds, and never jackrabbit starts from a standstill. Your service garage would warranty all your parts, and you could apply for a good driver discount on your insurance. You could argue speeding tickets (although that would probably quickly become self-defeating...)
Of course since this same system is the computer that decides whether or not to fire your airbags, how to optimally adjust the fuel flow, etc., I'm not really sure I'd want to mess that much with it...
There are many people running downlevel IEs that allow web sites to execute arbitrary code. While you may think you have turned off everything allowable, there may be Yet Another Security Hole of the Week in IE allowing scumware to slip onto your box.
Granted, most of these holes are first exploited for worms, not spyware, but "unethical does as unethical is." If they're not being used for spyware yet, it's only because the spyware operators are slow on the uptake.
I'm sure your box is much more protected than the average user's, and it's great that your system is so tight a 9-year-old hasn't clicked OK on the wrong thing. But don't rest solely on the configuration. Trust, but verify. Spybot S&D is still your friend.
I find 128kbps audio to be noticably "flatter" sounding (less dynamic, not pitched too low as in a musical flat) than uncompressed music. The highs are "muddy". I think 192kbps is OK, but I still rip at 256 or 360 when possible.
If you're interested, try listening to a stream encoded at 64kbps, or even 32kbps. You should definitely hear the mud or flatness at these lower quality compression rates. That'll give you an idea of what kind of distortion you might expect to hear at the 128 kbps rate.
Anyway, it's a 100% personal thing. I'm over 40, and spent way too much time listening to The Who the way they were meant to be heard. Even so, I still can tell when lower qualities of compression are being used.
They might know if their browser was secretly replaced with Mozilla, but only because some things would act "differently" and other things wouldn't work at all. They might even think its a bad thing if their purple monkey went away! "Someone broke my 'the internet'!"
Mozilla's first branding strategy needs to be overcoming this browser apathy. Whether that means the purple monkey is replaced by an ugly red dinosaur head, pop-ups and pop-unders allowing you to take pictures of your neighbor's ugly red dinosaur heads, or a TV-radio-billboard blitz of ugly red dinosaur heads happily surfing the web, I can't say. And while secretly replacing their browser was pretty obviously a tongue in cheek solution, just think: someone could distribute a BHO that replaces every current X-10 and porn pop-under with an ugly red dinosaur head telling them "Mozilla is great, it doesn't have these stupid advertisements! Click here to get rid of these windows forever!"
I have already said to every survey organization and phone solicitor that's ever called me in the last five years these exact words: "Please add me to your do not call list and never call this number again. Thank you." (By the way, these simple words have really reduced the number of phone solicitations I get. I never went overboard demanding names, nor was I rude except for the occasional hangup on a persistent pest.)
I'm also on my state's Do Not Call list, as well as the federal Do Not Call registry. However, these lists will not stop telephone surveyors or pollsters.
So the people they called to perform the survey wouldn't have included many of the most ardent anti-spammers, simply because the survey was conducted in a spam-like fashion that was already being filtered.
Not on a boatse, not with a goatse.
I won't mod the box, and I won't overclox.
I will not hot swap it here or there.
I will not hot swap it anywhere!
I do not hot plug CPUs, Sam. I will not do it, Sam-I-Am.
I think my problem with hot-swapping AGP cards was the compact design of the connector. The traces are designed with two levels of contacts on each side of the card, but as the card is inserted or removed the outer set of traces is wiped past the upper set of contacts in the socket where they short out adjacent pins.
I definitely fried the mobo (which was an IWill that sucked anyway) and a 256MB DDR stick. The rest of the components including the CPU survived the experiment. But, after buying a new mobo, I just had to upgrade the CPU of course ... and heatsink and fan ... which drew more current from the power supply ... and why upgrade the CPU without adding more memory ... and what good was all that memory without faster video ... and a hard disk for the new games ... and since the new CPU, heatsink and fan didn't fit in the old case ...
These people were working jobs long before computers became ubiquitous. They've focused completely on their jobs for the last 20 years, perhaps 50-80 hours a week. The PC thing is just a time-sink to them, something that they know they should learn, but haven't had the chance. For a while in the 1980s-1990s there was even a question among some CEOs whether or not the PC-on-every-desk thing was another passing "fad", and they were simply too busy to have to learn yet another thing that was about to pass them by anyway.
Perhaps they're running Windows, and the few times they've sat down at the keyboard it's crashed. Or they did "something" wrong, or their "internet broke." And when they needed help they asked their local technoguru; some guy with the social skills of a goat and the attitude of a hornet. (If you've ever seen a Saturday Night Live sketch featuring "Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy," ask yourself if you thought it was funny because those office people asked such stupid questions. If you answered "yes" then you probably aren't the kind of person your boss would willingly approach for help.)
I once had to show such a person which way to hold the mouse. She thought that since it was a "mouse", the cord was the "tail" and so the other end must have been the "nose", and she was frustrated because when she pointed the nose where she wanted to go, the arrow thing didn't move right. A smart person, she just had no exposure to the technology because she was so busy doing her own job.
And they recognize that the PC revolution has left them behind. It's no surprise that extremely busy, successful people have gotten themselves to this point. These people aren't trying to get enough training to know whether or not they should buy rack-mounted servers, they're trying to learn enough to be able to effectively use a spreadsheet, or be able to save a document in Word without losing it. These sorts of people already are typically smart enough to allow their hired technical guns to research the decision, mostly because they know they don't have time to do the research on their own. That's why they hire the techs in the first place.
Learning which end of the mouse to point is a far cry from considering themselves qualified to make 802.11b vs 802.11g type decisions. The people hiring these tutors aren't the idiots who make ill-informed choices. These are the people who have gotten to the top because of other skills, and they probably aren't going to get instantly stupid just because they can open their email without getting a virus.