What was this guy thinking ? Is he BLIND ? Did he not realize that just about every brilliant hacker is single for a reason ?! Women, all women, are totally insane! There is ample empirical evidence that shows that only intellectually challenged men can endure extended female companionship.
As young girls, they are taught that girls are smart and boys are stupid. See when a clever fella gets a woman, at first all is rosy, but over time the woman gets comfortable and that's where the power struggles begin. First the man will turn down alcohol and sex, favoring long nights of caffeine and code. This spites the woman, who retaliates by offering the same alcohol and sex to an ugly-ass close friend of the hacker. As the nonsense altercations grow in frequency, the clever male begins to apply his vast intellect to find a solution. Possessing above-average intellect, he starts to believe he can get away with murder, since he is far smarter than the common police detective. Woman is ground using a beowulf cluster of noisy Celeron CPU fans, then buried in the chassis of a nearby AS/400 mainframe. Hacker assumes he is home free.
Cops show up, ask "Hey where's your wife". Hacker says "She's went to fuck my ugly-ass friend four weeks ago". Cops pool their collective IQ and ultimately decide something is amiss.
All this crap could have been avoided if the hacker had ordered a replacement wife from Bride.ru. Then he could have said "My wife is right here, NOT dead in a mainframe and NOT fucking my ugly-ass friend". The cops would have celebrated this non-event with coffee and donuts and ReiserFS would live on as a crappy-ass attention-whoring unsupported agenda-driving filesystem.
The reason your torrent downloads go faster than Kazaa and sons, is because people usually run just a handful of torrents at once, whereas Kazaa shares your entire collection all the time. The same aggregate bandwidth pie is just being cut into larger pieces. Back when the old P2P networks were still popular, I had no difficulty maxing out my pipe, I just had a long list of 40-50 smallish files transferring at the same time. Now with torrents, people tend to post larger stuff, usually collections that classically you would have downloaded one by one; for example the complete works of Led Zeppelin, in one huge 4.5gb torrent versus fifty 100mb zips on Kazaa/Limewire. Sure, the one torrent shoots at 500kb/sec, but I'm sure you could have achieved 50 times 10kb/sec on Limewire, it just feels slower because the individual numbers are smaller.
Maybe I'm just being rude here, but isn't it a low priority to run an SQL Server on a desktop OS ? Yes I know it's for developers but really, if you're developing enterprise software, maybe you should use an enterprise OS, like say... Windows Server 2003 (keep your M$ flames to yourself). "No," I hear you say, "I need to ensure my code is functional on Vista". No, you don't. Your server application needs to be functional on what the client will be using. Last time I checked, serious IT administrators weren't jumping on bleeding edge operating systems to run business-critical apps that ran just fine on the old stuff.
Vista is intended as a desktop. Longhorn is intended as a server, and guess what: it's not ready yet. What will you do, oh poor ill-equipped idiot database consultant ? Well I guess you'll just have to keep your current OS for development; you probably need to get a new computer to run Vista decently anyway.. one development box, one Vista testing box. Surely a skilled enterprise software developer can afford that, yes ? Hell I'd go all the way and build a true server just like the client has, with a real SQL Server license. That way you don't end up with idiot consultant design errors like "select *" bandwidth abuse, that isn't necessarily obvious when client and server are the same machine, but are cruelly sluggish when that same query flies over 100mb ethernet (or worse). Hey I don't care, it's YOUR career.
Bittorrent itself is just a protocol. If you were to encrypt the movie file and give the decryption key to everyone you want to share it with, then an outsider could not play back the movie. Now is an encrypted movie file still a movie ? Or is it just random garbage ?
This could be interpreted at least two ways. You could say that it is like a car with no engine. Technically it's still a car, even though you can't operate it. This is likely what a large corporation would use for an argument. Let's turn it around now, what if you have just the engine. Are you still in possession of a "car" even though most of its parts are missing ?
Back to piracy: If I'm sharing 99% of a file, but the file is unusable, I am probably going to get sued for piracy. Now if I were to share only the 1%, I'm still technically committing piracy. In both instances, the result is unusable. In both instances, I am distributing a portion of copyrighted content. In both instances, it can't be proven that what I am distributing is actually someone's copyrighted work. Repairing the file by replacing the missing bits could be construed as fabricating evidence, because we start out with a useless file, and after reconstruction it is now a playable movie. Well what if I am on trial for a stabbing murder, but the only "weapon" I'm carrying is a banana, so the prosecution "repairs" my banana by tying it to a machete, turning it into an illegal death banana. Yes it's loony, but to a non-technical person they are one and the same. The difference is most people know the difference between a knife and a banana, common sense takes over. Not nearly as many people know the intricacies of digital encryption and steganography and we're left having to trust the "expert", who is on someone's payroll.
Not so long ago there were accusations that uTorrent was tracking searches, because it was presenting context-sensitive advertising. These allegations were firmly denied by the author, but it caused many people to think twice about this "miraculous" client. I'll be quite honest with everyone, I tried uTorrent and it didn't rub me the right way, but I'm fussy. I've been with BitComet for a while, I suffered through the tracker bans, and quite frankly if tracker operators think it wise to exclude people based on their software preference, it's really their loss because I can go elsewhere.
The same applies to this Bittorrent/uTorrent merger. So what if Mr Cohen takes Bittorrent in a direction we don't like ? Are we forced to follow ? Heck no. On the odd chance that this group actually creates something better, we're free to embrace their brainchild, or pass on it and look for the next cool thing.
What really grinds my gears though, is all the hubbub with the bittorrent "phenomenon". Seriously, what Mr Cohen has created is hardly any different from Kazaa or Napster, except for its so-called democracy. he's given everyone the freedom to easily spring up a tracker, which is really just an index server. So now instead of having one central hub that can be taken down, we have tens of thousands of puny little trackers that would require individual lawsuits to even try to take down, and no corporate entity behind them to pay "damages" to the litigators. Congrats! Give him a pat on the back for pulling off one of the first solid implementations of the painfully obvious evolution of decentralized file sharing. He didn't cure cancer, he didn't create peace in the middle east, he just took everyone's ideas and made them reality. Now move along, nothing more to see.
Amen to that! Well maybe not full-on feminism.. but equality is a healthy phenomenon in my opinion. Heck, I certainly don't mind having a sugar mama:) More appropriately, there are few things that insult me more than the concept of the traditional housewife: barefoot and pregnant, no career, no education, no purpose other than making babies. To me that's no different from the idiot neighbor who does nothing but smoke dope and play music all day, with his 2 best friends pooling their welfare checks together. Actually the stoner dude is a notch above the mindless housewife: at least he's not hatching more unfulfilled children into the world.
Does anyone else find it cute that Word 2007 isn't listed as being vulnerable ? That would certainly explain why they're in no hurry to release a fix. The "fix" is to upgrade:P How convenient that Office 2007 was just released last week. You know it only takes one loaded document to scare someone's PHB into buying the "fix" impulsively. Some will surely upgrade preemptively just out of fear.
I'm not an anti-MS fanboy at all, but I do scratch my head when I see these things. Exploits every week, sloppy code all over.. why is it that a huge company like Microsoft, with its enormous installed user base, thus guaranteed income, has such tremendous issues with deadlines and quality control ? Why was Windows 95 almost Windows 96 ? Why is Vista still not out ? Are there not enough skilled developers in the world for them to hire ? Do they need better tools to assist the massive workflow ? What about the resources spent chasing down exploits and producing fixes, and the collective waste of bandwidth, labor and mindshare of "patch tuesday" all over the world... They have a company that could so easily take the lead and commit ample resources to new developments and experimental computing paradigms, instead they spend all their time playing catch-up. The longer they fidget, the bigger the opportunity for a young, dynamic contender to shape up, be it Linux, Mac, or even a newcomer. Eventually, they will meet an opponent that won't sell out; one that has the balls to stand up to them and bite off some of MS' market share, rather than trading their own defeat for some shiny MS stock. By then it will be too late to turn the sinking ship around.
The "problem" with recreational drug use is that someone ends up footing the bill for it. Whether it's promoting organized crime (which, let's face it, was all the government's fault in the first place), or increased health care costs, or loss of efficiency in the workplace, or evading taxes.... there's something "wrong" with drugs at a political level. I frankly don't give a damn what people do on the weekend, because I don't have enemies in Columbia that are being funded by that cocaine. But the government does! The war on drugs is just as shady as the war on terrorism, and just as socially devastating. Let's face it: What if you could buy pot, cocaine, ecstacy at the drug store, along with your Advil and Pepto Bismol ? Would we see a decrease in the number and severity of drug-related crimes ? Hell yes. Would there be a controlled, stable and and taxable business model for the substances ? Hell yes. Now would there be serious damage to society if we brought drugs out of the streets and into normality ? I don't think so. People would go on with their lives, clean people would still be clean, and junkies would still be junkies. It's everyone else in-between that would benefit from honest progressive drug legislation.
Same thing goes for sex.. why do we have so many sex crimes ? Because we have sexual tension. Why the tension ? Because we're so stuck up and hypocritical about it. What do children do when you tell them not to do something ? They get obsessed with that one forbidden thing. Adults are no different. Take away the stigma of sexual openness and you'll also take away the drama.
The big problem with both of these ideas, is money. Sex sells because apparently we can't get enough on our own. Dope runners prosper because you can't get it elsewhere. Why does everything have to revolve around money anyway ?
I don't think we can draw any sort of correlation like that. Some might say we have a low birth rate because we're more liberal about sexuality, with less emphasis on procreation and mostly healthy views on recreational sex. Or maybe we're so obsessed with physical perfection that only a small subset of our population is having sex, while the chinese will fuck anything:P Or maybe our social structure is so fucked up and warped around money that it simply doesn't make business sense to have kids. Or maybe it's all MTV's fault that the young today are lazy, stupid and sedated. Or maybe we have so much violent crime that couples are subtly afraid of bringing a fragile child into the world.
There are a million theories and few facts. The one thing we can't quantify is cultural difference. I, for one, think a lot of people should forget about having kids. I firmly believe the world is already overpopulated as it is, even in the western world. I can't even imagine how packed it is in India and China. All it's doing is exhausting the limited resources, spreading thin while demand shoots way up. High demand + low supply = tension
So what they're basically saying is: Emory U was interested at first, and now that the film has been shot they've changed their mind ?
What the hell happened during those 2 weeks that brought about the change ? This would have gone through an executive board, and fines probably paid for breach of contract. Cancelling a movie isn't something you do on a whim.
Back in the day we called it "Y2K consulting", today it's "Supercomputer grid consulting". The main difference is this guy has friends in the business whose products he will be pushing for a nice kickback, in addition to his hourly fee.
Any twit can write "Qty: 1000" next to a system order when someone else is footing the bill.
Having lived in the vicinity of that high school, I can quite honestly say that while I totally disagree with this censorship, there are two sides to this story. Should the video be removed from Youtube ? No. Should we immediately accuse the prof ? No. Did the kids provoke the prof ? I wouldn't be surprised. Mont-Bleu is one of the more problematic communities because of the very high student population and generally low income; an educated ghetto. Combine that with idiot parents and you end up with what we have here, a teacher losing their mind to these stubborn disrespectful teens.
I hope this fiasco raises some stir in the local press and maybe get a few big heads talking. I just compare kids today with kids ten years ago, and well I wish I could drive the school bus into the river because these teens are going nowhere.
Ahh it's analogy time! Computers are like cars. Gaming machines are like race cars. You can take a normal car, drop in a bigger engine, exhaust, performance chip, high-power spark plugs, stiffer suspension etc and turn it into a street racer. Or you can buy a luxury sports car that's already tuned up. What kind of guy would soup up his own car ? A mechanic or hobbyist. What kind of guy buys a Viper or Lamborghini ? A rich small-dicked white guy.
What kind of guy builds a gaming machine from scratch ? A techie. What kind of guy drops a shitload of cash on a VoodooPC or Alienware ? A rich small-dicked white guy.
The big difference is that the DIYer spends a fair bit of time researching, assembling/modding and tweaking, whereas the rich guy just drops a bit more money and doesn't have to fuss with any of that. Time is money.
We ? Not quite. Our Governments have a long way to go before they wake up and lay down the adequate infrastructure to support nationwide broadband. They're still of the attitude that high-speed internet access is a luxury, that it's for geeks and gamers. Will someone smack them in the face and demonstrate that we can do a helluva lot more online, and could do even better if there were enough pipe to push content through. VOIP, IPTV, day-to-day business.. Hell I'd rather pay my bills online than physically walk down to an ATM, with the inevitable scum walking by, checking out how much cash I'm carrying, judging the risk vs benefit of trying to jump me. Or maybe I have a beef with the act of renting videos, only to pop them into a computer for playback, then returning them to the physical store... when it would have been faster and easier to just download it off the net, and that's with my current 5meg line - imagine 100meg like some european countries offer...
People are quick to shoot it down because they think more bandwidth will mean more piracy. I do consider piracy to be a direct competitor to traditional business, simply because the pirated material is usually more convenient and certainly cost-effective, because they take advantage of the latest technology advancements. We've had DivX for what, 6-7 years now ? Why doesn't Blockbuster or Jumbo Video offer video streaming ? Why do I have to spend an hour driving to the store, hunting down a box that's in no particular order and is probably already out, just to see a stupid movie ? Most cable companies now offer "digital cable", including video-on-demand... pay-per-view done better, and they're immensely successful. They'd be even better if they charged reasonable prices instead of the $6.99 average for movies (and godawful prices for porn - have they never heard of the internet?). Still at that price point, the convenience of not having to leave home and not having the risk of all copies being out, there is great value in there!
Now we need more businesses and services could learn to adapt to online-ness and harness it's potential. Some places offer telework over the net, which is fantastic when applicable. Why waste limited real estate just for a chair, desk and phone when we all have that at home ? I'd be happy to give up my physical work place, save the travel and lunch money and use it to rent a bigger residence, or maybe upgrade my office equipment to help me work more comfortably, efficiently. The costs saved to the employer could to to create more jobs, or offer better price competition, more value to the shareholders and the customers. So why the hell are we not doing this already ? Government barriers, financial barriers, tax barriers, and old-mentality brick walls.
It's foolish to think they took resources away from technical development to focus on sound engineering. We're not talking about some jobless geek's weekend project, this is Microsoft. If they need a sound guy, they hire a sound guy independent of the dev team.
I think my issue is that if they spent 18 months working on a bunch of sounds, someone (or a group of someones) had to have been paid during that time. How much of that cost relates to the sticker price of Vista ? Do the sounds make me more productive ? Do they justify the added cost ? One person's labor of love does not translate into a business need. Besides, one of the first things I do when I install Windows is clear out the sound events because, well, I'm not blind. I can tell when email comes in because I'm staring at the email client. I can tell when someone IM's me because their stupid window pops up. I can also tell when I just clicked a link on a web page without that annoying click sound, because I just friggin clicked on it myself. I'd rather be hearing my own choice of music, or the carefully crafted sounds of a video game, unencumbered by all these spurious noises.
The same applies to other software developers too. I don't remember which one it is, but there's some burning software out there that plays a little xylophone jingle when the burn is finished. That was nice in 1996 when it took 80 minutes to burn a disc, and you had to leave the PC alone while it was doing it.. a polite tone to call my attention from the other room was appreciate. When the burn takes 5 minutes and I'm still sitting at the machine, I don't need it to go "ring-a-ding bing bong" and make me instinctively reach for the mute key. Or the girlfriend's printer that says "Printing started" in a loud SoBe collegiate voice, and "Printing complete" at the end. Gee, thanks! I didn't notice I had just clicked the "Print" button, and I was wondering why all that paper was coming out of that thing.
If you could please stand down from the soap box and give me a turn, I think the big issue here is that costs are RISING because of Vista.
Computers have been steadily (and dramatically) decreasing in cost over the years. Windows XP has been out for over 5 years now, and OEM's typically source it for less than $100 per copy. On a $399 piece of shit Acer computer, the Windows license represents 20-25% of the sticker price!!! But that's how it's been for years and that's fine. Now with Vista they have this tiered pricing model with the various editions of Vista, naturally customers want the Ultimate because well, more is better, right ? If M$ were flogging Vista to the OEM's at the same price it charges for XP, there would be no problems at all, but they're not.
The other, bigger problem is that people have had access to Vista betas for a long time now. A LOT of people have tried it on their own machines, and a lot more have known a geeky type that's reviewed it and played around with it. They know it's nothing special, just a shinier UI with a bunch of annoying security popups, but it doesn't do anything dramatically better (yet). Then consider the great majority of home users, who really just want internet access, moderate gaming and Kazaa/Limewire/whatever the P2P of the week is (not many non-techies understand/respect BitTorrent). These are all things that work 100% fine in XP and that Vista doesn't do much better, if at all. The increase in cost is therefore unjustified.
Will this stimulate a push towards Linux desktops ? Hell no, quit dreaming! Linux doesn't run MSN Messenger, nor MS Office, nor Adobe Photoshop, or any of the other mass-warezed apps kids are using. Don't tell them to try using Wine, it ain't gonna happen. If the average moron can't pop in an Autoplay CD and have it quickly install a game or app without having to fish through shell scripts and config files, he's just going to trot down to his brother-in-law and burn a copy of Windows.
The only viable solution that's actually feasible is for M$ to get slapped on the wrists for being too american, and force them to sell Vista Ultimate to OEMs at the same price as XP Pro is, and Vista Basic at the same price as XP Home (or less). If they don't, then you'll simply see a bunch of overseas manufacturers snub Vista and keep distributing "old" images of XP (illegally) until M$ cleans up the mess. Lawsuits ? Sure there will be lawsuits, but we're talking hundreds of millions in licensing fees.. the settlement will cost peanuts and get the message across, showing M$ who is in control of their revenue. Hint: it's not the customer.
Isn't there a law forbidding the government to interfere with telecoms ? I read a few months ago that the free wi-fi in New Orleans had to be shut down because of this stupid law. Sounds like this kind of thing could prevent the USA from laying down fast pipe. There's also the fact that many many people over here don't "get it" when it comes to networking and communication. They're used to old-world mentality, they still believe the large corporations have everyone's best interests in mind, and they probably don't lock their doors at night. Fly to Japan and they have weird anti-social bars that are a hybrid of starbucks, internet lounge, swing club.. zany stuff! Heck, people today think Wikipedia is a big deal. Ummmmm yeah.. it was a big deal a few years ago when it was in its infancy, but the same could be said of any wiki at the time. Heck, my own girlfriend, who is rather computer literate (a prerequisite:), still does her banking by phone, even though both our main PC's are on 24/7 and it would take a fraction of the time to do her transactions online.
Broadband will improve when the people using it come up with a business need. That's how things work under american capitalism. Why would the government spend a dime for something that benefits the people at large, when those same funds could be spent to fuel hatred and intolerance in the middle east.
So you're basically saying that iTunes is a legal alternative to torrent sites ? Blah. We watch various TV series here every week, but I'm horrible with TV schedules so I'm usually knee-deep in a WoW instance when Heroes or Lost comes on, so the lady will watch it, then once the show is over I just load up a popular torrent tracker and look for that same episode that just played. It's hardly any different from taping shows on VHS or TiVo. One advantage is that I usually go for the HDTV 5.1 version and watch it on my PC in amazing high-rez. One disadvantage is that I have to rely on the dedicated TV cappers.. I don't know why they bother with all the hassle of getting HDTV capture equipment, then skillfully encoding the video and audio and putting it on the net for free, but I'm sure glad they do!
Another pitfall of torrents is that, much like home taping, you only have a brief time window to get the content. For taping, well you have to record it live, sometimes you might have a west-coast rebroadcast 3 hours later but that's it. With torrents, you have anywhere from a couple days to a few weeks before the seeders abandon the file. iTunes has the advantage that they can keep hosting older episodes indefinitely (as long as their contract permits), but how hard is it to download a show within a week or two ? Heck with some clients you can fully automate the process with an RSS feed, how easier could it possibly be ?
Movies on the other hand, well, I'm divided on the issue. On one hand, yes electronic access to everything everywhere is a great concept if we can pull it off. There's few things I hate more than having to physically go somewhere for petty things. I probably waste 15-20% of my waking hours to travel; e.g. work, food, government services etc. Renting movies at the local video club can be a bit of a pain too, because the selection is limited and you can't "Google" for the stuff you want, you have to stroll across the entire store and hope your eyes don't fail you. Then what if the movie you want is out ? You just wasted your time and end up choosing some crappy substitute. And then the store itself uses up space on the main street that could be better used for housing, not to mention the electricity and various losses due to theft and fraud, which is inevitable, especially in a business run by teenagers. The whole system is inefficient.
But then on the converse, sometimes you're just bored and don't know what to rent. Then the physical location means you will run into other people at the store, even the clerk can help you make a selection. You'll also have the opportunity to browse related movies, maybe catch a screener on the demo displays that will pique your interest. Or worst case you won't find a movie, but end up at the live music club next door where a fresh young indie band is playing.
Ahh yet more people repeating the same bullcrap as six years ago. The levy on CD-R discs is $0.21 each. This means that for the typical 50-disc spindle, $10.50 of the price goes to just the levy. Given that the local distributor has been flogging Ridata spindles for $9.99 forever, I think it's safe to say the levy is a joke, and that we are thoroughly unaffected by this obnoxious chapter of our country's misguided political past. Wake me up when SOCAN or the CRIA actually gives a damn.
Despite the problems, most Americans still think we have the best government on Earth.
That's only because they've never been to Canada (w00ts!), Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, hell even Bhutan makes the list of top 10 happiest countries. I don't give a flying fuck how much money you make if your life is wrought with fear and deceit. I'm just happy Canada is #10 and despite the hairy economy, most people outside of Ottawa are generally pleasant and lovable. I guess that means it sucks that I live right in the core of Ottawa, with its shitheaded Audi-driving bureaucrats, inflated cost of living and shameful unemployment, but at least I can walk about the downtown core without fear of getting randomly attacked or robbed, because well.. even the dope dealers are upscale here:)
Yes how sad it would be for all these healthcare raping gluttons to become bracketed and their skills evaluated. Don't you just dread the notion of having unionized, managed, disciplined healthcare workers that actually charge you less money for better services ?
I will tell you one thing: Canadian-style healthcare is great for health, yes, because it lets anyone from the bottom to the top of the social ladder receive equal service and live equally long lives.
That is also the worst thing about it. Simple: what's the worst thing about community college ? Any freaking idiot in the community can go. Canadian hospitals are particularly affected by overpopulation because well, all the lazy ass welfare bottom-feeders hang out there to get their work exemption forms or to claim invalidity.. I don't know how the hell someone can get a crippling back injury when all they ever do is watch TV and smoke indian cigarettes 8 days a week, but hey what the hell do I know, I'm just a genius with a paper degree:P
I don't have a good solution for it, you can't just deny service to the unemployed (well, I would, but I'm not exactly the most ethical guy). I don't think the true solution lies halfway like that, it's going to be a tangential divergence. Something that's not as easily forged or corrupted. It's a case where if you trim off the bottom 5%, the other 95% of patients will greatly benefit
I hope we get it done first.. -50% mineral costs for every Nessus orbital device makes a big difference in the endgame.
But seriously though, it'd be nice if my country could pull this one off. We're always so busy cleaning up other people's messes with our peace keeping missions that nothing big ever happens at home. Canada may be once of the nicer places to live, but the only thing this country's a leader in is taxation, and that's not a good thing:P
Oh and uh, we have better broadband than the USA *snicker* But still not as good as Sweden
Methinks they should give them a merit badge for finally realizing how utterly broken and obsolete the scouts system is and leaving to tackle the world, sans-organization, with their buddies the same way everyone else does nowadays. Pre-teens are better at Google and Wikipedia research than most adults because they have the time, drive and creativity to pursue their desires. They can't afford the music they want, or their well-meaning half-bred suburban parents refuse to buy the (C)rap albums, so the kids go online and get it for free.
If modern kids really cared about their education (which they don't), and really wanted to know about the world around them (which, except for hip-hop culture, shitty drugs and fast-food sex, they don't), they could easily tap into the wealth of resources at their fingertips and become exemplary specimens of humanity (when hell freezes over). Boy/girl scouts is an old-world holdover that just can't provide the rapid-fire learning that's required in today's ever-increasingly hectic life. Evolve or die, I say.
Once again I posted with a case of "tunnel vision", being a geek of all trades myself I am equally gifted in both software and hardware, and I often have a hard time understanding how a software dude can be so oblivious to the hardware that actually runs his/her code. I started back in the day where the brilliant developers were those who could realize the impossible, thanks to deep knowledge of the machine and clever optimizations. I remember ripping my brain to shreds writing the smallest, fastest assembler version of Tetris. It ended up being 254 bytes. Nowadays I'd allocate that much to a freakin' filename buffer "just in case".
What I should have said is that if there is even a faint business justification for an upgrade or purchase, when it comes to your coders GO for it. Of course, a 750gb drive on a code machine is just fluff.. but what about four 10k rpm drives in raid-0 just for crazy-fast access, without neglecting the nightly backup of course. And so what if your coder wants to collect his favorite music ? They're going to spend at the very least, 40 hours a week at that machine. For me at least, music helps to block out the other distractions and lets me focus on the task at hand, making me vastly quicker and sharper.
The important thing is to not choke your employee. If there's something they feel is holding them back or slowing them down, it is your job as their boss/manager to fix it. If the fix means dropping 200$ on Ram, that's gotta be one of the cheapest solutions ever.
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What was this guy thinking ? Is he BLIND ? Did he not realize that just about every brilliant hacker is single for a reason ?! Women, all women, are totally insane! There is ample empirical evidence that shows that only intellectually challenged men can endure extended female companionship.
As young girls, they are taught that girls are smart and boys are stupid. See when a clever fella gets a woman, at first all is rosy, but over time the woman gets comfortable and that's where the power struggles begin. First the man will turn down alcohol and sex, favoring long nights of caffeine and code. This spites the woman, who retaliates by offering the same alcohol and sex to an ugly-ass close friend of the hacker. As the nonsense altercations grow in frequency, the clever male begins to apply his vast intellect to find a solution. Possessing above-average intellect, he starts to believe he can get away with murder, since he is far smarter than the common police detective. Woman is ground using a beowulf cluster of noisy Celeron CPU fans, then buried in the chassis of a nearby AS/400 mainframe. Hacker assumes he is home free.
Cops show up, ask "Hey where's your wife". Hacker says "She's went to fuck my ugly-ass friend four weeks ago". Cops pool their collective IQ and ultimately decide something is amiss.
All this crap could have been avoided if the hacker had ordered a replacement wife from Bride.ru. Then he could have said "My wife is right here, NOT dead in a mainframe and NOT fucking my ugly-ass friend". The cops would have celebrated this non-event with coffee and donuts and ReiserFS would live on as a crappy-ass attention-whoring unsupported agenda-driving filesystem.
The reason your torrent downloads go faster than Kazaa and sons, is because people usually run just a handful of torrents at once, whereas Kazaa shares your entire collection all the time. The same aggregate bandwidth pie is just being cut into larger pieces. Back when the old P2P networks were still popular, I had no difficulty maxing out my pipe, I just had a long list of 40-50 smallish files transferring at the same time. Now with torrents, people tend to post larger stuff, usually collections that classically you would have downloaded one by one; for example the complete works of Led Zeppelin, in one huge 4.5gb torrent versus fifty 100mb zips on Kazaa/Limewire. Sure, the one torrent shoots at 500kb/sec, but I'm sure you could have achieved 50 times 10kb/sec on Limewire, it just feels slower because the individual numbers are smaller.
Maybe I'm just being rude here, but isn't it a low priority to run an SQL Server on a desktop OS ? Yes I know it's for developers but really, if you're developing enterprise software, maybe you should use an enterprise OS, like say... Windows Server 2003 (keep your M$ flames to yourself). "No," I hear you say, "I need to ensure my code is functional on Vista". No, you don't. Your server application needs to be functional on what the client will be using. Last time I checked, serious IT administrators weren't jumping on bleeding edge operating systems to run business-critical apps that ran just fine on the old stuff.
Vista is intended as a desktop. Longhorn is intended as a server, and guess what: it's not ready yet. What will you do, oh poor ill-equipped idiot database consultant ? Well I guess you'll just have to keep your current OS for development; you probably need to get a new computer to run Vista decently anyway.. one development box, one Vista testing box. Surely a skilled enterprise software developer can afford that, yes ? Hell I'd go all the way and build a true server just like the client has, with a real SQL Server license. That way you don't end up with idiot consultant design errors like "select *" bandwidth abuse, that isn't necessarily obvious when client and server are the same machine, but are cruelly sluggish when that same query flies over 100mb ethernet (or worse). Hey I don't care, it's YOUR career.
Good, Bad, I'm the guy with the book :P /apologies...
Bittorrent itself is just a protocol. If you were to encrypt the movie file and give the decryption key to everyone you want to share it with, then an outsider could not play back the movie. Now is an encrypted movie file still a movie ? Or is it just random garbage ?
This could be interpreted at least two ways. You could say that it is like a car with no engine. Technically it's still a car, even though you can't operate it. This is likely what a large corporation would use for an argument. Let's turn it around now, what if you have just the engine. Are you still in possession of a "car" even though most of its parts are missing ?
Back to piracy: If I'm sharing 99% of a file, but the file is unusable, I am probably going to get sued for piracy. Now if I were to share only the 1%, I'm still technically committing piracy. In both instances, the result is unusable. In both instances, I am distributing a portion of copyrighted content. In both instances, it can't be proven that what I am distributing is actually someone's copyrighted work. Repairing the file by replacing the missing bits could be construed as fabricating evidence, because we start out with a useless file, and after reconstruction it is now a playable movie. Well what if I am on trial for a stabbing murder, but the only "weapon" I'm carrying is a banana, so the prosecution "repairs" my banana by tying it to a machete, turning it into an illegal death banana. Yes it's loony, but to a non-technical person they are one and the same. The difference is most people know the difference between a knife and a banana, common sense takes over. Not nearly as many people know the intricacies of digital encryption and steganography and we're left having to trust the "expert", who is on someone's payroll.
Not so long ago there were accusations that uTorrent was tracking searches, because it was presenting context-sensitive advertising. These allegations were firmly denied by the author, but it caused many people to think twice about this "miraculous" client. I'll be quite honest with everyone, I tried uTorrent and it didn't rub me the right way, but I'm fussy. I've been with BitComet for a while, I suffered through the tracker bans, and quite frankly if tracker operators think it wise to exclude people based on their software preference, it's really their loss because I can go elsewhere.
The same applies to this Bittorrent/uTorrent merger. So what if Mr Cohen takes Bittorrent in a direction we don't like ? Are we forced to follow ? Heck no. On the odd chance that this group actually creates something better, we're free to embrace their brainchild, or pass on it and look for the next cool thing.
What really grinds my gears though, is all the hubbub with the bittorrent "phenomenon". Seriously, what Mr Cohen has created is hardly any different from Kazaa or Napster, except for its so-called democracy. he's given everyone the freedom to easily spring up a tracker, which is really just an index server. So now instead of having one central hub that can be taken down, we have tens of thousands of puny little trackers that would require individual lawsuits to even try to take down, and no corporate entity behind them to pay "damages" to the litigators. Congrats! Give him a pat on the back for pulling off one of the first solid implementations of the painfully obvious evolution of decentralized file sharing. He didn't cure cancer, he didn't create peace in the middle east, he just took everyone's ideas and made them reality. Now move along, nothing more to see.
Amen to that! Well maybe not full-on feminism.. but equality is a healthy phenomenon in my opinion. Heck, I certainly don't mind having a sugar mama :) More appropriately, there are few things that insult me more than the concept of the traditional housewife: barefoot and pregnant, no career, no education, no purpose other than making babies. To me that's no different from the idiot neighbor who does nothing but smoke dope and play music all day, with his 2 best friends pooling their welfare checks together. Actually the stoner dude is a notch above the mindless housewife: at least he's not hatching more unfulfilled children into the world.
Does anyone else find it cute that Word 2007 isn't listed as being vulnerable ? That would certainly explain why they're in no hurry to release a fix. The "fix" is to upgrade :P How convenient that Office 2007 was just released last week. You know it only takes one loaded document to scare someone's PHB into buying the "fix" impulsively. Some will surely upgrade preemptively just out of fear.
I'm not an anti-MS fanboy at all, but I do scratch my head when I see these things. Exploits every week, sloppy code all over.. why is it that a huge company like Microsoft, with its enormous installed user base, thus guaranteed income, has such tremendous issues with deadlines and quality control ? Why was Windows 95 almost Windows 96 ? Why is Vista still not out ? Are there not enough skilled developers in the world for them to hire ? Do they need better tools to assist the massive workflow ? What about the resources spent chasing down exploits and producing fixes, and the collective waste of bandwidth, labor and mindshare of "patch tuesday" all over the world... They have a company that could so easily take the lead and commit ample resources to new developments and experimental computing paradigms, instead they spend all their time playing catch-up. The longer they fidget, the bigger the opportunity for a young, dynamic contender to shape up, be it Linux, Mac, or even a newcomer. Eventually, they will meet an opponent that won't sell out; one that has the balls to stand up to them and bite off some of MS' market share, rather than trading their own defeat for some shiny MS stock. By then it will be too late to turn the sinking ship around.
The "problem" with recreational drug use is that someone ends up footing the bill for it. Whether it's promoting organized crime (which, let's face it, was all the government's fault in the first place), or increased health care costs, or loss of efficiency in the workplace, or evading taxes.... there's something "wrong" with drugs at a political level. I frankly don't give a damn what people do on the weekend, because I don't have enemies in Columbia that are being funded by that cocaine. But the government does! The war on drugs is just as shady as the war on terrorism, and just as socially devastating. Let's face it: What if you could buy pot, cocaine, ecstacy at the drug store, along with your Advil and Pepto Bismol ? Would we see a decrease in the number and severity of drug-related crimes ? Hell yes. Would there be a controlled, stable and and taxable business model for the substances ? Hell yes. Now would there be serious damage to society if we brought drugs out of the streets and into normality ? I don't think so. People would go on with their lives, clean people would still be clean, and junkies would still be junkies. It's everyone else in-between that would benefit from honest progressive drug legislation.
Same thing goes for sex.. why do we have so many sex crimes ? Because we have sexual tension. Why the tension ? Because we're so stuck up and hypocritical about it. What do children do when you tell them not to do something ? They get obsessed with that one forbidden thing. Adults are no different. Take away the stigma of sexual openness and you'll also take away the drama.
The big problem with both of these ideas, is money. Sex sells because apparently we can't get enough on our own. Dope runners prosper because you can't get it elsewhere. Why does everything have to revolve around money anyway ?
I don't think we can draw any sort of correlation like that. Some might say we have a low birth rate because we're more liberal about sexuality, with less emphasis on procreation and mostly healthy views on recreational sex. Or maybe we're so obsessed with physical perfection that only a small subset of our population is having sex, while the chinese will fuck anything :P Or maybe our social structure is so fucked up and warped around money that it simply doesn't make business sense to have kids. Or maybe it's all MTV's fault that the young today are lazy, stupid and sedated. Or maybe we have so much violent crime that couples are subtly afraid of bringing a fragile child into the world.
There are a million theories and few facts. The one thing we can't quantify is cultural difference. I, for one, think a lot of people should forget about having kids. I firmly believe the world is already overpopulated as it is, even in the western world. I can't even imagine how packed it is in India and China. All it's doing is exhausting the limited resources, spreading thin while demand shoots way up. High demand + low supply = tension
So what they're basically saying is: Emory U was interested at first, and now that the film has been shot they've changed their mind ?
What the hell happened during those 2 weeks that brought about the change ? This would have gone through an executive board, and fines probably paid for breach of contract. Cancelling a movie isn't something you do on a whim.
Back in the day we called it "Y2K consulting", today it's "Supercomputer grid consulting". The main difference is this guy has friends in the business whose products he will be pushing for a nice kickback, in addition to his hourly fee.
Any twit can write "Qty: 1000" next to a system order when someone else is footing the bill.
Having lived in the vicinity of that high school, I can quite honestly say that while I totally disagree with this censorship, there are two sides to this story. Should the video be removed from Youtube ? No. Should we immediately accuse the prof ? No. Did the kids provoke the prof ? I wouldn't be surprised. Mont-Bleu is one of the more problematic communities because of the very high student population and generally low income; an educated ghetto. Combine that with idiot parents and you end up with what we have here, a teacher losing their mind to these stubborn disrespectful teens.
I hope this fiasco raises some stir in the local press and maybe get a few big heads talking. I just compare kids today with kids ten years ago, and well I wish I could drive the school bus into the river because these teens are going nowhere.
Ahh it's analogy time! Computers are like cars. Gaming machines are like race cars. You can take a normal car, drop in a bigger engine, exhaust, performance chip, high-power spark plugs, stiffer suspension etc and turn it into a street racer. Or you can buy a luxury sports car that's already tuned up. What kind of guy would soup up his own car ? A mechanic or hobbyist. What kind of guy buys a Viper or Lamborghini ? A rich small-dicked white guy.
What kind of guy builds a gaming machine from scratch ? A techie. What kind of guy drops a shitload of cash on a VoodooPC or Alienware ? A rich small-dicked white guy.
The big difference is that the DIYer spends a fair bit of time researching, assembling/modding and tweaking, whereas the rich guy just drops a bit more money and doesn't have to fuss with any of that. Time is money.
We ? Not quite. Our Governments have a long way to go before they wake up and lay down the adequate infrastructure to support nationwide broadband. They're still of the attitude that high-speed internet access is a luxury, that it's for geeks and gamers. Will someone smack them in the face and demonstrate that we can do a helluva lot more online, and could do even better if there were enough pipe to push content through. VOIP, IPTV, day-to-day business.. Hell I'd rather pay my bills online than physically walk down to an ATM, with the inevitable scum walking by, checking out how much cash I'm carrying, judging the risk vs benefit of trying to jump me. Or maybe I have a beef with the act of renting videos, only to pop them into a computer for playback, then returning them to the physical store... when it would have been faster and easier to just download it off the net, and that's with my current 5meg line - imagine 100meg like some european countries offer...
People are quick to shoot it down because they think more bandwidth will mean more piracy. I do consider piracy to be a direct competitor to traditional business, simply because the pirated material is usually more convenient and certainly cost-effective, because they take advantage of the latest technology advancements. We've had DivX for what, 6-7 years now ? Why doesn't Blockbuster or Jumbo Video offer video streaming ? Why do I have to spend an hour driving to the store, hunting down a box that's in no particular order and is probably already out, just to see a stupid movie ? Most cable companies now offer "digital cable", including video-on-demand... pay-per-view done better, and they're immensely successful. They'd be even better if they charged reasonable prices instead of the $6.99 average for movies (and godawful prices for porn - have they never heard of the internet?). Still at that price point, the convenience of not having to leave home and not having the risk of all copies being out, there is great value in there!
Now we need more businesses and services could learn to adapt to online-ness and harness it's potential. Some places offer telework over the net, which is fantastic when applicable. Why waste limited real estate just for a chair, desk and phone when we all have that at home ? I'd be happy to give up my physical work place, save the travel and lunch money and use it to rent a bigger residence, or maybe upgrade my office equipment to help me work more comfortably, efficiently. The costs saved to the employer could to to create more jobs, or offer better price competition, more value to the shareholders and the customers. So why the hell are we not doing this already ? Government barriers, financial barriers, tax barriers, and old-mentality brick walls.
It's foolish to think they took resources away from technical development to focus on sound engineering. We're not talking about some jobless geek's weekend project, this is Microsoft. If they need a sound guy, they hire a sound guy independent of the dev team.
I think my issue is that if they spent 18 months working on a bunch of sounds, someone (or a group of someones) had to have been paid during that time. How much of that cost relates to the sticker price of Vista ? Do the sounds make me more productive ? Do they justify the added cost ? One person's labor of love does not translate into a business need. Besides, one of the first things I do when I install Windows is clear out the sound events because, well, I'm not blind. I can tell when email comes in because I'm staring at the email client. I can tell when someone IM's me because their stupid window pops up. I can also tell when I just clicked a link on a web page without that annoying click sound, because I just friggin clicked on it myself. I'd rather be hearing my own choice of music, or the carefully crafted sounds of a video game, unencumbered by all these spurious noises.
The same applies to other software developers too. I don't remember which one it is, but there's some burning software out there that plays a little xylophone jingle when the burn is finished. That was nice in 1996 when it took 80 minutes to burn a disc, and you had to leave the PC alone while it was doing it.. a polite tone to call my attention from the other room was appreciate. When the burn takes 5 minutes and I'm still sitting at the machine, I don't need it to go "ring-a-ding bing bong" and make me instinctively reach for the mute key. Or the girlfriend's printer that says "Printing started" in a loud SoBe collegiate voice, and "Printing complete" at the end. Gee, thanks! I didn't notice I had just clicked the "Print" button, and I was wondering why all that paper was coming out of that thing.
Noise pollution, that's what it is.
If you could please stand down from the soap box and give me a turn, I think the big issue here is that costs are RISING because of Vista.
Computers have been steadily (and dramatically) decreasing in cost over the years. Windows XP has been out for over 5 years now, and OEM's typically source it for less than $100 per copy. On a $399 piece of shit Acer computer, the Windows license represents 20-25% of the sticker price!!! But that's how it's been for years and that's fine. Now with Vista they have this tiered pricing model with the various editions of Vista, naturally customers want the Ultimate because well, more is better, right ? If M$ were flogging Vista to the OEM's at the same price it charges for XP, there would be no problems at all, but they're not.
The other, bigger problem is that people have had access to Vista betas for a long time now. A LOT of people have tried it on their own machines, and a lot more have known a geeky type that's reviewed it and played around with it. They know it's nothing special, just a shinier UI with a bunch of annoying security popups, but it doesn't do anything dramatically better (yet). Then consider the great majority of home users, who really just want internet access, moderate gaming and Kazaa/Limewire/whatever the P2P of the week is (not many non-techies understand/respect BitTorrent). These are all things that work 100% fine in XP and that Vista doesn't do much better, if at all. The increase in cost is therefore unjustified.
Will this stimulate a push towards Linux desktops ? Hell no, quit dreaming! Linux doesn't run MSN Messenger, nor MS Office, nor Adobe Photoshop, or any of the other mass-warezed apps kids are using. Don't tell them to try using Wine, it ain't gonna happen. If the average moron can't pop in an Autoplay CD and have it quickly install a game or app without having to fish through shell scripts and config files, he's just going to trot down to his brother-in-law and burn a copy of Windows.
The only viable solution that's actually feasible is for M$ to get slapped on the wrists for being too american, and force them to sell Vista Ultimate to OEMs at the same price as XP Pro is, and Vista Basic at the same price as XP Home (or less). If they don't, then you'll simply see a bunch of overseas manufacturers snub Vista and keep distributing "old" images of XP (illegally) until M$ cleans up the mess. Lawsuits ? Sure there will be lawsuits, but we're talking hundreds of millions in licensing fees.. the settlement will cost peanuts and get the message across, showing M$ who is in control of their revenue. Hint: it's not the customer.
Isn't there a law forbidding the government to interfere with telecoms ? I read a few months ago that the free wi-fi in New Orleans had to be shut down because of this stupid law. Sounds like this kind of thing could prevent the USA from laying down fast pipe. There's also the fact that many many people over here don't "get it" when it comes to networking and communication. They're used to old-world mentality, they still believe the large corporations have everyone's best interests in mind, and they probably don't lock their doors at night. Fly to Japan and they have weird anti-social bars that are a hybrid of starbucks, internet lounge, swing club.. zany stuff! Heck, people today think Wikipedia is a big deal. Ummmmm yeah.. it was a big deal a few years ago when it was in its infancy, but the same could be said of any wiki at the time. Heck, my own girlfriend, who is rather computer literate (a prerequisite :), still does her banking by phone, even though both our main PC's are on 24/7 and it would take a fraction of the time to do her transactions online.
Broadband will improve when the people using it come up with a business need. That's how things work under american capitalism. Why would the government spend a dime for something that benefits the people at large, when those same funds could be spent to fuel hatred and intolerance in the middle east.
So you're basically saying that iTunes is a legal alternative to torrent sites ? Blah. We watch various TV series here every week, but I'm horrible with TV schedules so I'm usually knee-deep in a WoW instance when Heroes or Lost comes on, so the lady will watch it, then once the show is over I just load up a popular torrent tracker and look for that same episode that just played. It's hardly any different from taping shows on VHS or TiVo. One advantage is that I usually go for the HDTV 5.1 version and watch it on my PC in amazing high-rez. One disadvantage is that I have to rely on the dedicated TV cappers.. I don't know why they bother with all the hassle of getting HDTV capture equipment, then skillfully encoding the video and audio and putting it on the net for free, but I'm sure glad they do!
Another pitfall of torrents is that, much like home taping, you only have a brief time window to get the content. For taping, well you have to record it live, sometimes you might have a west-coast rebroadcast 3 hours later but that's it. With torrents, you have anywhere from a couple days to a few weeks before the seeders abandon the file. iTunes has the advantage that they can keep hosting older episodes indefinitely (as long as their contract permits), but how hard is it to download a show within a week or two ? Heck with some clients you can fully automate the process with an RSS feed, how easier could it possibly be ?
Movies on the other hand, well, I'm divided on the issue. On one hand, yes electronic access to everything everywhere is a great concept if we can pull it off. There's few things I hate more than having to physically go somewhere for petty things. I probably waste 15-20% of my waking hours to travel; e.g. work, food, government services etc. Renting movies at the local video club can be a bit of a pain too, because the selection is limited and you can't "Google" for the stuff you want, you have to stroll across the entire store and hope your eyes don't fail you. Then what if the movie you want is out ? You just wasted your time and end up choosing some crappy substitute. And then the store itself uses up space on the main street that could be better used for housing, not to mention the electricity and various losses due to theft and fraud, which is inevitable, especially in a business run by teenagers. The whole system is inefficient.
But then on the converse, sometimes you're just bored and don't know what to rent. Then the physical location means you will run into other people at the store, even the clerk can help you make a selection. You'll also have the opportunity to browse related movies, maybe catch a screener on the demo displays that will pique your interest. Or worst case you won't find a movie, but end up at the live music club next door where a fresh young indie band is playing.
Different people, different needs.
Ahh yet more people repeating the same bullcrap as six years ago. The levy on CD-R discs is $0.21 each. This means that for the typical 50-disc spindle, $10.50 of the price goes to just the levy. Given that the local distributor has been flogging Ridata spindles for $9.99 forever, I think it's safe to say the levy is a joke, and that we are thoroughly unaffected by this obnoxious chapter of our country's misguided political past. Wake me up when SOCAN or the CRIA actually gives a damn.
That's only because they've never been to Canada (w00ts!), Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, hell even Bhutan makes the list of top 10 happiest countries. I don't give a flying fuck how much money you make if your life is wrought with fear and deceit. I'm just happy Canada is #10 and despite the hairy economy, most people outside of Ottawa are generally pleasant and lovable. I guess that means it sucks that I live right in the core of Ottawa, with its shitheaded Audi-driving bureaucrats, inflated cost of living and shameful unemployment, but at least I can walk about the downtown core without fear of getting randomly attacked or robbed, because well.. even the dope dealers are upscale here
Yes how sad it would be for all these healthcare raping gluttons to become bracketed and their skills evaluated. Don't you just dread the notion of having unionized, managed, disciplined healthcare workers that actually charge you less money for better services ?
:P
I will tell you one thing: Canadian-style healthcare is great for health, yes, because it lets anyone from the bottom to the top of the social ladder receive equal service and live equally long lives.
That is also the worst thing about it. Simple: what's the worst thing about community college ? Any freaking idiot in the community can go. Canadian hospitals are particularly affected by overpopulation because well, all the lazy ass welfare bottom-feeders hang out there to get their work exemption forms or to claim invalidity.. I don't know how the hell someone can get a crippling back injury when all they ever do is watch TV and smoke indian cigarettes 8 days a week, but hey what the hell do I know, I'm just a genius with a paper degree
I don't have a good solution for it, you can't just deny service to the unemployed (well, I would, but I'm not exactly the most ethical guy). I don't think the true solution lies halfway like that, it's going to be a tangential divergence. Something that's not as easily forged or corrupted. It's a case where if you trim off the bottom 5%, the other 95% of patients will greatly benefit
I hope we get it done first.. -50% mineral costs for every Nessus orbital device makes a big difference in the endgame.
:P
But seriously though, it'd be nice if my country could pull this one off. We're always so busy cleaning up other people's messes with our peace keeping missions that nothing big ever happens at home. Canada may be once of the nicer places to live, but the only thing this country's a leader in is taxation, and that's not a good thing
Oh and uh, we have better broadband than the USA *snicker* But still not as good as Sweden
Methinks they should give them a merit badge for finally realizing how utterly broken and obsolete the scouts system is and leaving to tackle the world, sans-organization, with their buddies the same way everyone else does nowadays. Pre-teens are better at Google and Wikipedia research than most adults because they have the time, drive and creativity to pursue their desires. They can't afford the music they want, or their well-meaning half-bred suburban parents refuse to buy the (C)rap albums, so the kids go online and get it for free.
If modern kids really cared about their education (which they don't), and really wanted to know about the world around them (which, except for hip-hop culture, shitty drugs and fast-food sex, they don't), they could easily tap into the wealth of resources at their fingertips and become exemplary specimens of humanity (when hell freezes over). Boy/girl scouts is an old-world holdover that just can't provide the rapid-fire learning that's required in today's ever-increasingly hectic life. Evolve or die, I say.
Thank god I don't have kids!
Once again I posted with a case of "tunnel vision", being a geek of all trades myself I am equally gifted in both software and hardware, and I often have a hard time understanding how a software dude can be so oblivious to the hardware that actually runs his/her code. I started back in the day where the brilliant developers were those who could realize the impossible, thanks to deep knowledge of the machine and clever optimizations. I remember ripping my brain to shreds writing the smallest, fastest assembler version of Tetris. It ended up being 254 bytes. Nowadays I'd allocate that much to a freakin' filename buffer "just in case".
What I should have said is that if there is even a faint business justification for an upgrade or purchase, when it comes to your coders GO for it. Of course, a 750gb drive on a code machine is just fluff.. but what about four 10k rpm drives in raid-0 just for crazy-fast access, without neglecting the nightly backup of course. And so what if your coder wants to collect his favorite music ? They're going to spend at the very least, 40 hours a week at that machine. For me at least, music helps to block out the other distractions and lets me focus on the task at hand, making me vastly quicker and sharper.
The important thing is to not choke your employee. If there's something they feel is holding them back or slowing them down, it is your job as their boss/manager to fix it. If the fix means dropping 200$ on Ram, that's gotta be one of the cheapest solutions ever.