Uh... I think we must be existing on different planes of reality. In my reality, 'kdawson' is pretty much synonymous with "sensationalistic, overblown stories with little or no fact checking before being posted to the front page."
So, who is this 'kdawson' in your reality?;)
For those that are humor-impaired, this is a joke.
The 7.6 update is for iTunes, not QuickTime. QT's current version is still 7.4.
The amount of knee-jerking in this thread is insane. This is a kdawson-posted story people! I would think that alone would make everyone a bit more suspect of the veracity of the claims within.
You've forgotten to include a suite of applications that mimic the iLife programs in integration and functionality.
The iMac also comes with a remote control, so you'd also need to add in some sort of remote control system for the PC as well. Then there's FW800, built-in Wireless (802.11n), and Bluetooth. Also not accounted for on the PC.
So, if you add in all those 'extras' that come with a Mac, how does the price compare then? A couple-hundred quid difference (if that)? For a solution that works out of the box without a ton of hand-wringing and configutation? To some people, it's worth the extra money.
As an aside, I can't believe you picked a Packard Bell to do the comparison with... they have a reputation here in the states as quite possibly the worst computer brand ever.
Reading comprehension is an underrated skill. Although I'm loathe to respond to an AC, here's the breakdown:
Movie Industry:
1. Content created.
2. Content rated.
3. Rating enforced by theatres.
Games Industry:
1. Content created.
2. Content rated.
3. Rating not enforced by retail outlets.
Now if you compare that to my original post, you'll see that I made the same assertion, though with more words. If you read the article (I know, I know) you'll see that Clinton is focusing on #3 in the Games Industry scenario. If the stores don't enforce the ratings (like theatres do), then the government will do the policing for them.
Well, the main problem is that the game industry isn't self-policing. They may have a ratings system in place for games, but then it's up to store managers (or employees) to enforce the ratings.
This is different than the movie industry where they do self-police and you don't find many young kids getting into rated R movies without a parent present (unless they happen to sneak in). Contrast this with most game stores where they really don't care about the ratings system, as long as you have cash in hand.
If theatres didn't self-police, don't you think the government just might step in and do something about it?
That deep field photo is humbling beyond words. It really gives you perspective on just how insignificant we are, in the philosophical grand scheme of things.
To paraphrase Carl Sagan's Contact, if there isn't any intelligent life out there, it sure would be an awful big waste of space.
After having used Leopard for the past four days, the one feature that I so far love to (almost) hate is Stacks. From a theoretical standpoint, Stacks sound great, but Apple's implementation leaves something to be desired. In it's current incarnation, Stacks are barely usable, especially if you relied on the old Dock functionality that turned any docked folder into a nested hierarchal menu.
There's currently a debate going on in the Macintoshian Achaia over at Ars on whether or not Stacks are a useful addition to the OS, or a horrible mess that should've been sorted out before Leopard's release. My personal opinion is that while Stacks show promise, making them a substitute for the old functionality (hierarchal menus) was unwise (to put it kindly). Stacks should have been an addition to Dock functionality, not a replacement for a widely-used system of navigation.
One even said if somebody was wearing an identifiable t-shirt, you had to blur it if you couldn't get "clearance."
I have always been under the impression that the blurring of identifiable items was to prevent "product placement" advertising for corporations that didn't want to kick down the cash to keep editors from blurring out their logo. IMO, corporations would be stupid to force the blurring of their logo by not giving permission for it's use, since it would essentially be free advertising (probably to the tune of thousands of dollars).
But PHB's aren't known for their common sense, so that throws a wrench in the works of logic.
How trivial is it to perform a firmware checksum prior to attempting the update (via the updater)? If the checksum fails, the firmware updater can do one of two things: it can offer to reset the firmware to factory defaults (i.e. a 'complete' restore), or it can simply show a splash screen refusing the update until the iPhone is restored to factory defaults.
This crap of bricking the iPhone is pure nonsense, when it's easy enough to avoid without completely pissing off the customer.
Remember the old adage: "Whether you CAN do something is irrelevant, it's whether or not you SHOULD do it." (I know I mangled that, so please don't nail me on correctness).
Words of wisdom, those are (to paraphrase Yoda).
Well, that's true if you disregard the fact that it was John Sculley and Jean-Louis Gassee, and not Steve Jobs, that launched the Newton. IIRC, Steve was the one who killed it during Apple's restructuring.
The one thing you neglected to mention is that these 'fossil fuels' are also the reason why we have a net oxygen surplus in our atmosphere. There's a crapload of carbon sequestration in coal mines and pools of crude oil, that we're extracting and returning to the atmosphere. Thankfully at least half of it is economically unviable, so there isn't a chance that we'll return our atmosphere to Mars-like conditions, but that's the direction we'd be headed otherwise.
It's like finding an argument that concludes "Therefore, Bananas can fly." -- We don't need to know anything about the argument to know that it isn't sound.
He clearly resisted arrest at first. There is no doubt at all about that.
How could he 'resist arrest' when at no time was he told he was under arrest? He refused to cooperate when they tried to eject him from the meeting, but I think that had a lot to do with the fact that Kerry told them to let him be and that he'd answer the question.
I for one am glad he didn't humbly submit to police authority, when he in fact had done nothing wrong other than hog the microphone and ask three questions instead of one.
This is a little tidbit of info, that I thought some of you might find interesting. Coverflow was originally coded by a chap with the username of 'Catfish' over at the Ars Technica Macintoshian Achaia forums, as a little project to play around with OpenGL. It was basically a standalone application that allowed you to browse your music collection with visual album covers, and would then launch iTunes and play that album (no individual song choices back then). People loved it, because once again it felt like you were thumbing through your stacks of CD's (or Vinyl). Development was brisk at times, and at times it seemed like nothing was happening, but the concept was awesome.
Then 'Catfish' just up and disappeared for a couple of months, and when iTunes with 'Coverflow' integration was released, he returned amid astonished guffaws from the rest of us.
Not only did Apple love the concept, they bought the name to it as well.
With the amount of Coverflow integration going into Apple's products, I really hope that he was well compensated for his little learning experience.
Okay, since this was a 'public forum' meeting with a political figure, we can assume that any questions asked by students would first be vetted for content, so that the good Senator could fire off the current Democratic talking points (it's been known to happen).
Now, this journalism student presents his questions, only to have them refused for inclusion, so instead he decides to 'crash the party' and ask them anyway.
This could explain the disruption which caused the guards to follow him into the proceeding, couldn't it?
Since of course this is hypothetical (I don't know shit from shinola in this instance), would that change your mind about the incident?
I for one would applaud him were the above true. It takes guts to try to reopen the closed little world that today's politicians live in, and have them answer 'real' questions for a change.
I'm reminded of a video I saw of British students questioning Tony Blair at a discussion, and this guy's statement was like asking Kerry about the weather compared to the questions the students were hammering Blair with. Blair looked like he had been punched in the stomach a few too many times once it was over.
I keep seeing comments that he deserved what he got, and I find that frightening.
I must've watched a different video, because the video I watched had this chain of events:
1. He's standing at the microphone waiting patiently for Kerry to finish his speech.
2. Kerry finishes and calls on him to speak. The guy thanks him for his time in addressing the students.
3. He holds up a book and recommends Kerry read it, because it states that he actually won the 2004 election.
(Kerry states he 'has' read the book)
3. Question #1: (after a statement leading into the question... he's a journalism student after all) How could you concede the election with so many unknowns in relation to disenfranchisement of voters and improper vote counts?
4. He gets a bit upset at a security officer trying to cut him off before he even gets to the question stated in point 3.
5. Question #2: Why not impeach Bush before he invades Iran, since Bill Clinton was impeached over a blowjob?
6. Question #3: Is Kerry a member of the Skull and Bones society, along with Bush?
7. The officer then shuts the microphone off halfway through his last question/statement. (by this time it's been 1 minute and 30 seconds of him at the mic).
8. Then he gets upset that they shut off the mic before he was completely finished, but not combative at all, then they grab him and attempt to eject him from the proceeding.
9. He pulls himself away from the guards once Kerry states that everything's OK and that he'll answer the question(s), but he still shows no signs of combativeness.
10. It pretty much devolves into a melee from here.
I really see nothing here that warrants his treatment, nor justification for the tazering. The fact that some people feel it was justified makes me glad that they're not police officers. Even the cops replying to this thread are saying that the guards were out of line... that should say something.
I would buy OSX in a second if I could run it on my hardware. That's why this article is sort of wide of the mark. Apple will never be able to really compete with Vista (or Microsoft) as long as they insist on being a hardware company before all.
I see this claim a lot, that Apple is a 'hardware' company, when in fact I could make the argument that they're actually a software company, first and foremost.
Take for instance OSX. For most people, it's the reason they love the Mac. If you want to run it... well, you buy the hardware.
Same thing with Final Cut Pro, or Logic Audio, or Garage Band. These are all great pieces of software, but you have to buy the hardware to be able to run them.
IMO, it's the software offerings from Apple that truly make the Mac a 'Mac', and while their hardware looks nice, it's the ability to run Apple's software that truly drives the Mac market. How many people buy Apple hardware just to run Windows or Linux? Also, I believe that the iPod's interface (software), and the iTMS (software) are very compelling reasons to buy an iPod over a competitor's product... so it isn't necessarily the 'sexiness' of the iPod hardware that drive sales.
Of course there's ample arguments that Apple is primarily a hardware company, which are just as plausible as the one's I'm making of it being a software company...
This leads to Apple's claim that it's dedicated to the 'whole widget' concept. If you make both the software and hardware a compelling reason to buy your product, and keep a tight focus on integration of the two, you'll attract customers. They're happy with the little niche they've carved out for themselves, so it's doubtful that OSX will ever run on your hardware. You'll have to pay the 'Apple Tax' (as it's so endearingly referred to), if you want the full Apple experience.
The primary reason that Apple ended it's retail agreements with stores like Circuit City and CompUSA is because they did not showcase the Mac the way Apple wanted it done. In fact, it's safe to say that the Mac was presented in a diminished capacity because most of the areas the Mac was in were in disarray or even in the store's least-prominent position (like behind a partition and facing the back wall in one instance).
So there was a bit of reasoning behind that decision, though there still are many other resellers that carry Apple products. The 'big box' stores just got the most press-time.
It continues to annoy me how folks assert that Apple nefariously 'killed' the clone market, when the clone market is what almost killed Apple. I claim self-defense, like cutting the head off of a python before it strangulates you. You claim what you wish.
There's plenty other defensive positions regarding the rest of your arguments, but I'm pretty sure that folks here can spot the inaccuracies in your arguments, so I won't bother.
That's all fine and good, but how exactly do you explain the molten pools of steel that were present for several weeks after the collapse of the towers? Oh... you can't explain those? I didn't think so.
I know I'm burning Karma on this one, but I'm truly tired of hearing know-it-alls completely dismiss anyone who doesn't tow the party line when it comes to the explanation of what happened to all the WTC buildings.
I'm not a conspiracy nut, but something just doesn't feel right when it comes to the explanation of events on September 11... and believe me, I'm not alone out here.
So are you a Physicist, or did you just sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night?
I don't invest in solar companies because at the moment they still haven't licked the whole "Making our products net energy producers" problem and until they do my only hope to profit from that investment would be hoping solar's massive government subsidies continue and expand.
Here in California, the solar industry isn't subsidized by the government, but is instead supported by our electric utility, PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric).
They've looked at the economic analysis of building power plants, and it actually works out cheaper for them to subsidize up to 50% of the installation of solar panels than it would be to build a power plant that provided this extra power (multiplying the solar installations by several thousand of course).
It's a win-win situation in that people become independent from the grid, and at the same time generate power for those that are still on-grid. Plus the subsidies bring the cost of solar down enough that the payback period is entirely within reasonable limits, given today's electrical rates in our state.
Another little-known factoid is that Californians consume less power per-capita than any other state besides Rhode Island, so it's safe to say that conservation will only get you so far... sooner or later you're going to need more power, and distributed power generation is where it's at.
"Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier..."
Unfortunately, the bold portion is the kicker... while oral death threats could probably still be prosecuted, the part of the law you quoted pertains only to written death threats sent through the mail (at least in my interpretation). I think costing Disney/ABC bucketloads of money would be far more satisfying than putting their talk radio hosts in jail, because then they'll become martyrs for the neocon religious right, and that would be far worse IMO.
If I were in charge of AW, I'd make sure that Hexus recieved a requested unit for review.
Why?
Simply because if Hexus has been critical in the past of a ('our') product, then when they release a favorable review regarding another of the company's products, it appears much more honest (and thus more trustworthy) than a site that has always had glowingly positive reviews of our product line.
Plus it gives AlienWare a chance to prove that they indeed listen to criticism and intend to correct design (or marketing) deficiencies in an effort to make their product the best it can be (because that's what 'AlienWare' stands for, right?)
Of course, this could also point to the fact that AlienWare knows the new product sucks, so they're avoiding those reviewers that will point out this little fact in an effort to sell as many units before general discontent rears it's ugly head.
The editor of Hexus did kinda come across as a dickweed in his e-mail, but that's forgiven because he's British... I don't think they know how to sound polite.
Well, where your analogy falls apart is that 'only' people on the internet within a 10-mile radius (or thereabouts) are directed to 172.16.20.104. Anybody else further out still can access the 'real' IP address.
I was going to post the same comment, though you beat me to it. One thing to keep in mind is that with the time value of money the amount they'll save is actually a lot less than $1,800,000 since you have to adjust it for today's dollars.
So, if you do the figgerin', the present value of that money is only $1,176,024.00 in today's dollars. Wow! And they only had to spend $36m to save that amount!
Slashdot Mirror
Uh... I think we must be existing on different planes of reality. In my reality, 'kdawson' is pretty much synonymous with "sensationalistic, overblown stories with little or no fact checking before being posted to the front page."
;)
So, who is this 'kdawson' in your reality?
For those that are humor-impaired, this is a joke.
The 7.6 update is for iTunes, not QuickTime. QT's current version is still 7.4.
The amount of knee-jerking in this thread is insane. This is a kdawson-posted story people! I would think that alone would make everyone a bit more suspect of the veracity of the claims within.
You've forgotten to include a suite of applications that mimic the iLife programs in integration and functionality.
The iMac also comes with a remote control, so you'd also need to add in some sort of remote control system for the PC as well. Then there's FW800, built-in Wireless (802.11n), and Bluetooth. Also not accounted for on the PC.
So, if you add in all those 'extras' that come with a Mac, how does the price compare then? A couple-hundred quid difference (if that)? For a solution that works out of the box without a ton of hand-wringing and configutation? To some people, it's worth the extra money.
As an aside, I can't believe you picked a Packard Bell to do the comparison with... they have a reputation here in the states as quite possibly the worst computer brand ever.
Would you care to elaborate? Or is that just your hunch?
Reading comprehension is an underrated skill. Although I'm loathe to respond to an AC, here's the breakdown:
Movie Industry:
1. Content created.
2. Content rated.
3. Rating enforced by theatres.
Games Industry:
1. Content created.
2. Content rated.
3. Rating not enforced by retail outlets.
Now if you compare that to my original post, you'll see that I made the same assertion, though with more words. If you read the article (I know, I know) you'll see that Clinton is focusing on #3 in the Games Industry scenario. If the stores don't enforce the ratings (like theatres do), then the government will do the policing for them.
Is that more clear?
Well, the main problem is that the game industry isn't self-policing. They may have a ratings system in place for games, but then it's up to store managers (or employees) to enforce the ratings.
This is different than the movie industry where they do self-police and you don't find many young kids getting into rated R movies without a parent present (unless they happen to sneak in). Contrast this with most game stores where they really don't care about the ratings system, as long as you have cash in hand.
If theatres didn't self-police, don't you think the government just might step in and do something about it?
That deep field photo is humbling beyond words. It really gives you perspective on just how insignificant we are, in the philosophical grand scheme of things.
To paraphrase Carl Sagan's Contact, if there isn't any intelligent life out there, it sure would be an awful big waste of space.
After having used Leopard for the past four days, the one feature that I so far love to (almost) hate is Stacks. From a theoretical standpoint, Stacks sound great, but Apple's implementation leaves something to be desired. In it's current incarnation, Stacks are barely usable, especially if you relied on the old Dock functionality that turned any docked folder into a nested hierarchal menu.
There's currently a debate going on in the Macintoshian Achaia over at Ars on whether or not Stacks are a useful addition to the OS, or a horrible mess that should've been sorted out before Leopard's release. My personal opinion is that while Stacks show promise, making them a substitute for the old functionality (hierarchal menus) was unwise (to put it kindly). Stacks should have been an addition to Dock functionality, not a replacement for a widely-used system of navigation.
I have always been under the impression that the blurring of identifiable items was to prevent "product placement" advertising for corporations that didn't want to kick down the cash to keep editors from blurring out their logo. IMO, corporations would be stupid to force the blurring of their logo by not giving permission for it's use, since it would essentially be free advertising (probably to the tune of thousands of dollars).
But PHB's aren't known for their common sense, so that throws a wrench in the works of logic.
How trivial is it to perform a firmware checksum prior to attempting the update (via the updater)? If the checksum fails, the firmware updater can do one of two things: it can offer to reset the firmware to factory defaults (i.e. a 'complete' restore), or it can simply show a splash screen refusing the update until the iPhone is restored to factory defaults.
This crap of bricking the iPhone is pure nonsense, when it's easy enough to avoid without completely pissing off the customer.
Remember the old adage: "Whether you CAN do something is irrelevant, it's whether or not you SHOULD do it." (I know I mangled that, so please don't nail me on correctness).
Words of wisdom, those are (to paraphrase Yoda).
Well, that's true if you disregard the fact that it was John Sculley and Jean-Louis Gassee, and not Steve Jobs, that launched the Newton. IIRC, Steve was the one who killed it during Apple's restructuring.
The one thing you neglected to mention is that these 'fossil fuels' are also the reason why we have a net oxygen surplus in our atmosphere. There's a crapload of carbon sequestration in coal mines and pools of crude oil, that we're extracting and returning to the atmosphere. Thankfully at least half of it is economically unviable, so there isn't a chance that we'll return our atmosphere to Mars-like conditions, but that's the direction we'd be headed otherwise.
I thought all fruit flies like a banana?
How could he 'resist arrest' when at no time was he told he was under arrest? He refused to cooperate when they tried to eject him from the meeting, but I think that had a lot to do with the fact that Kerry told them to let him be and that he'd answer the question.
I for one am glad he didn't humbly submit to police authority, when he in fact had done nothing wrong other than hog the microphone and ask three questions instead of one.
This is a little tidbit of info, that I thought some of you might find interesting. Coverflow was originally coded by a chap with the username of 'Catfish' over at the Ars Technica Macintoshian Achaia forums, as a little project to play around with OpenGL. It was basically a standalone application that allowed you to browse your music collection with visual album covers, and would then launch iTunes and play that album (no individual song choices back then). People loved it, because once again it felt like you were thumbing through your stacks of CD's (or Vinyl). Development was brisk at times, and at times it seemed like nothing was happening, but the concept was awesome.
Then 'Catfish' just up and disappeared for a couple of months, and when iTunes with 'Coverflow' integration was released, he returned amid astonished guffaws from the rest of us.
Not only did Apple love the concept, they bought the name to it as well.
With the amount of Coverflow integration going into Apple's products, I really hope that he was well compensated for his little learning experience.
That's all I got.
Here's a hypothetical...
Okay, since this was a 'public forum' meeting with a political figure, we can assume that any questions asked by students would first be vetted for content, so that the good Senator could fire off the current Democratic talking points (it's been known to happen).
Now, this journalism student presents his questions, only to have them refused for inclusion, so instead he decides to 'crash the party' and ask them anyway.
This could explain the disruption which caused the guards to follow him into the proceeding, couldn't it?
Since of course this is hypothetical (I don't know shit from shinola in this instance), would that change your mind about the incident?
I for one would applaud him were the above true. It takes guts to try to reopen the closed little world that today's politicians live in, and have them answer 'real' questions for a change.
I'm reminded of a video I saw of British students questioning Tony Blair at a discussion, and this guy's statement was like asking Kerry about the weather compared to the questions the students were hammering Blair with. Blair looked like he had been punched in the stomach a few too many times once it was over.
That's democracy in action.
I keep seeing comments that he deserved what he got, and I find that frightening.
I must've watched a different video, because the video I watched had this chain of events:
1. He's standing at the microphone waiting patiently for Kerry to finish his speech.
2. Kerry finishes and calls on him to speak. The guy thanks him for his time in addressing the students.
3. He holds up a book and recommends Kerry read it, because it states that he actually won the 2004 election.
(Kerry states he 'has' read the book)
3. Question #1: (after a statement leading into the question... he's a journalism student after all) How could you concede the election with so many unknowns in relation to disenfranchisement of voters and improper vote counts?
4. He gets a bit upset at a security officer trying to cut him off before he even gets to the question stated in point 3.
5. Question #2: Why not impeach Bush before he invades Iran, since Bill Clinton was impeached over a blowjob?
6. Question #3: Is Kerry a member of the Skull and Bones society, along with Bush?
7. The officer then shuts the microphone off halfway through his last question/statement. (by this time it's been 1 minute and 30 seconds of him at the mic).
8. Then he gets upset that they shut off the mic before he was completely finished, but not combative at all, then they grab him and attempt to eject him from the proceeding.
9. He pulls himself away from the guards once Kerry states that everything's OK and that he'll answer the question(s), but he still shows no signs of combativeness.
10. It pretty much devolves into a melee from here.
I really see nothing here that warrants his treatment, nor justification for the tazering. The fact that some people feel it was justified makes me glad that they're not police officers. Even the cops replying to this thread are saying that the guards were out of line... that should say something.
I see this claim a lot, that Apple is a 'hardware' company, when in fact I could make the argument that they're actually a software company, first and foremost.
Take for instance OSX. For most people, it's the reason they love the Mac. If you want to run it... well, you buy the hardware.
Same thing with Final Cut Pro, or Logic Audio, or Garage Band. These are all great pieces of software, but you have to buy the hardware to be able to run them.
IMO, it's the software offerings from Apple that truly make the Mac a 'Mac', and while their hardware looks nice, it's the ability to run Apple's software that truly drives the Mac market. How many people buy Apple hardware just to run Windows or Linux?
Also, I believe that the iPod's interface (software), and the iTMS (software) are very compelling reasons to buy an iPod over a competitor's product... so it isn't necessarily the 'sexiness' of the iPod hardware that drive sales.
Of course there's ample arguments that Apple is primarily a hardware company, which are just as plausible as the one's I'm making of it being a software company...
This leads to Apple's claim that it's dedicated to the 'whole widget' concept. If you make both the software and hardware a compelling reason to buy your product, and keep a tight focus on integration of the two, you'll attract customers. They're happy with the little niche they've carved out for themselves, so it's doubtful that OSX will ever run on your hardware. You'll have to pay the 'Apple Tax' (as it's so endearingly referred to), if you want the full Apple experience.
The primary reason that Apple ended it's retail agreements with stores like Circuit City and CompUSA is because they did not showcase the Mac the way Apple wanted it done. In fact, it's safe to say that the Mac was presented in a diminished capacity because most of the areas the Mac was in were in disarray or even in the store's least-prominent position (like behind a partition and facing the back wall in one instance).
So there was a bit of reasoning behind that decision, though there still are many other resellers that carry Apple products. The 'big box' stores just got the most press-time.
It continues to annoy me how folks assert that Apple nefariously 'killed' the clone market, when the clone market is what almost killed Apple. I claim self-defense, like cutting the head off of a python before it strangulates you. You claim what you wish.
There's plenty other defensive positions regarding the rest of your arguments, but I'm pretty sure that folks here can spot the inaccuracies in your arguments, so I won't bother.
That's all fine and good, but how exactly do you explain the molten pools of steel that were present for several weeks after the collapse of the towers? Oh... you can't explain those? I didn't think so.
I know I'm burning Karma on this one, but I'm truly tired of hearing know-it-alls completely dismiss anyone who doesn't tow the party line when it comes to the explanation of what happened to all the WTC buildings.
I'm not a conspiracy nut, but something just doesn't feel right when it comes to the explanation of events on September 11... and believe me, I'm not alone out here.
So are you a Physicist, or did you just sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night?
I don't invest in solar companies because at the moment they still haven't licked the whole "Making our products net energy producers" problem and until they do my only hope to profit from that investment would be hoping solar's massive government subsidies continue and expand.
Here in California, the solar industry isn't subsidized by the government, but is instead supported by our electric utility, PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric).
They've looked at the economic analysis of building power plants, and it actually works out cheaper for them to subsidize up to 50% of the installation of solar panels than it would be to build a power plant that provided this extra power (multiplying the solar installations by several thousand of course).
It's a win-win situation in that people become independent from the grid, and at the same time generate power for those that are still on-grid. Plus the subsidies bring the cost of solar down enough that the payback period is entirely within reasonable limits, given today's electrical rates in our state.
Another little-known factoid is that Californians consume less power per-capita than any other state besides Rhode Island, so it's safe to say that conservation will only get you so far... sooner or later you're going to need more power, and distributed power generation is where it's at.
"Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier..."
Unfortunately, the bold portion is the kicker... while oral death threats could probably still be prosecuted, the part of the law you quoted pertains only to written death threats sent through the mail (at least in my interpretation). I think costing Disney/ABC bucketloads of money would be far more satisfying than putting their talk radio hosts in jail, because then they'll become martyrs for the neocon religious right, and that would be far worse IMO.
If I were in charge of AW, I'd make sure that Hexus recieved a requested unit for review.
Why?
Simply because if Hexus has been critical in the past of a ('our') product, then when they release a favorable review regarding another of the company's products, it appears much more honest (and thus more trustworthy) than a site that has always had glowingly positive reviews of our product line.
Plus it gives AlienWare a chance to prove that they indeed listen to criticism and intend to correct design (or marketing) deficiencies in an effort to make their product the best it can be (because that's what 'AlienWare' stands for, right?)
Of course, this could also point to the fact that AlienWare knows the new product sucks, so they're avoiding those reviewers that will point out this little fact in an effort to sell as many units before general discontent rears it's ugly head.
The editor of Hexus did kinda come across as a dickweed in his e-mail, but that's forgiven because he's British... I don't think they know how to sound polite.
Well, where your analogy falls apart is that 'only' people on the internet within a 10-mile radius (or thereabouts) are directed to 172.16.20.104. Anybody else further out still can access the 'real' IP address.
I was going to post the same comment, though you beat me to it.
One thing to keep in mind is that with the time value of money the amount they'll save is actually a lot less than $1,800,000 since you have to adjust it for today's dollars.
So, if you do the figgerin', the present value of that money is only $1,176,024.00 in today's dollars.
Wow! And they only had to spend $36m to save that amount!