You're not kidding. I quote the first case from Appendix C:
Negative Work-Related Events
After more than four years of successful service marked by stellar performance reviews,
management commendations, and nomination for the organization's executive training
program, a female employee filed multiple complaints with human resources against her
male supervisor and male coworkers. She claimed her coworkers had made sexual
remarks, overridden her technical decisions regarding databases (an area in which she
was considered an expert), and contacted her team's contractors regarding her projects
without her knowledge. No action was taken by human resources, and the actions by
her coworkers continued. The employee's performance reviews declined sharply in the
next two years, and she was demoted. Subsequent complaints to her supervisor
resulted in a suspension for insubordination. Almost a year following her written
complaint to human resources, she resigned and began employment with another
organization. Two months later, she learned that only her more recent, negative
performance reviews had been forwarded to her new employer. She used one of
several shared DBA accounts to delete critical table spaces in the organization's Oracle
database, deleting crucial data.
This seems like a mighty big pile of evidence to support her side. Many valid harrassment cases (yeah, I know there are many false ones) drag on for years and end with meager or no findings for the harrassed. What recourse did she have? They were ruining her career and her livelihood.
This was a good example to include in the report, if only for balance, but the report forgot to mention why it was being cited: Companies can reduce their risk of insider sabotage by not being giant assholes. In more practical terms, keep your house clean; don't let asshole managers fester in the obscurity of lax oversight.
(And since I know some childish dorks will assume otherwise... I'm male.)
It doesn't take a great genius to discover that all Microsoft software is completely and utterly defective down to its very core...
Fanatically worded but largely true. There is no excuse for writing a buffer overflow in the 21st century. Everyone who calls himself/herself a professional knows how to routinely avoid such pitfalls.
For years, Microsoft deliberately created defective software in order to continuously sell upgrade after upgrade.
It sure seems like it. But I think you're ignoring good ol'
Hanlon's Razor
here. It's much more likely that they deliberately did little or no QA,
and naive programmers did foolish things which went unchecked. This is
even easier to believe if you've worked with "professional" programmers and
witnessed the things some are doing even to this day.
One of the more prized members of my collection is a CompuMate. It's a keyboard that plugs into an Atari 2600, making the machine into a computer with a usable BASIC.
For over 20 years, every damn console has tried to say, "Look, it's also a computer!" And every single time, it's an utter flop. No one will use a console to do what a computer does, because the console invariably is a substandard personal computer.
Seriously, how many times have we seen this? The CompuMate, the Intellivision Computer Adaptor, the Coleco Adam, the FamiCom, the Sega Channel... in fact, I just saw a Dreamcast Web Browser CD in a flea market the other day. Anyone ever use that?
No gaming console will ever threaten personal computers in any area except gaming (and even that's arguable). I don't know that I've ever seen a single business lesson which has been so forcibly resisted by one generation of companies after another.
No, he'd make a shitty Java programmer. I've lost count of all the everything-looks-like-a-nail dimbulbs who use inheritance to do everything, because it's the most visible new "feature" of Java (to a C or Pascal or Fortran programmer).
A good programmer does not subclass as a way to share code, especially when other ways, like public methods, do it so much more simply.
Critics suggest a simple solution: use Apple or Linux to be safe and sound.
But Linux (and Unix) systems have been hacked before, and Apple's brand-new Tiger operating system has already been fingered for a security flaw.
Yes, Microsoft's software has security holes, but hackers mainly love it because there are so many Windows PCs out there. Write one virus and 90% of the wired world could be yours.
Not this again. I can see an ignorant PHB still flippantly throwing this lame FUD around, but a journalist? For the BBC, no less?
Tiger has "a security flaw," so the implication is that it's just as vulnerable as Windows? That's clearly what the article is insinuating.
For those who don't know, all OSes get attacked. Given 100 Windows machines and 100 Linux machines, the success rate with attacks on Windows is a hell of a lot higher.
How can a journalist do even a modicum of research outside Redmond and not know this?
I have to wonder if the real purpose of this article's presence on Slashdot is to demonstrate how pitifully primitive the average programmer in the commercial world is.
If you're still in school, you may not be aware of this, but a huge percentage of people who program for money are no more competent than the article's author. Many are just discovering these basic (no pun intended) programming techniques for the first time.
This tells us two things: 1. You can get work even if you barely know a compiler from WINMINE.EXE. 2. If you choose to become a truly competent programmer, you will kick ass in the commercial world. The need for such people is great.
Looking at the Microsoft page (same link that's in the summary), I believe I see the reason for Microsoft's action:
The following table lists programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows XP SP2-based computer.
Encyclopedia Britannica 2000 Deluxe
Java rendering does not function after you install this program.
I'm sure Microsoft is shocked, simply shocked, by this incompatibility.
Interdimensional space, plain and simple. (Well, maybe not so simple.)
These aren't robots built by Sony. They're extraterrestrial and a hell of a lot more advanced than any human tech. If Megatron has a "fusion cannon" for a weapon, then an interdimensional portal isn't much of a stretch.
In fact, in some scenes of the original show, you can see the trailer disappear into an interdimensional portal with a flash as Prime takes robot form.
And as I recall, Transformers Universe (from Marvel) stated that Megatron had another weapon which could interdimensionally draw on the gravitational force of a black hole. (Yeah, I know, Technobabble Science. But who cares, it's cool.)
Similar explanations apply to the inevitable question of how Megatron and Soundwave and Blaster and Perceptor can go from five-ton robots to four-kilogram guns, boom boxes, and microscopes. Very very advanced tech. Get over it.
But you can bet that such size/mass changes won't be in the movie.
In fact, if they go with the original "Ark awakens in 1984" storyline, they probably will make Megatron transform into something other than a real pistol. Wouldn't want to inspire another Columbine by showing any actual guns.
Why should they bother making a good movie, anyway? It's not for Transformers fans, it's for general 80s nostalgia suckers. Long as those tickets sales are made, I doubt the producers give a rat's ass about the Transformers story.
In all likelihood, the producers view this as no different from the Scooby Doo movies or the Brady Bunch movie or the Beverly Hillbillies movie.
As someone who lives in the boondocks, I can assure you that cost and latency are just the beginning of what's wrong with satellite Internet. It requires Windows, it only accelerates HTTP and non-passive FTP (which means e-mail, peer-to-peer, UseNet and IRC are all 8KB/second), and there's a 500 MB/week upload cap. Oh, and the sat-modem "drivers" require about 40 MB of RAM. And did I mention it requires Windows?
And that's Starband, the *better* of the two services.
Satellite is a satisfactory form of broadband in the same way masturbation is a satisfactory form of sex: it's better than nothing.
I'm afraid that many of us who live out here don't accept this particular trade-off. Some trade-offs are acceptable: dark and paved roads, well water, long drives to restaurants and stores... but seeing how easily Verizon can install broadband when they don't drag their feet has made it obvious that it no more needs to be a trade-off than electricity or motor vehicle ownership.
And we've made it repeatedly clear to Verizon (and the cable company) that we'll gladly pay for it. It's not that Verizon would lose money; they just wouldn't make *as much* money as they do from dense areas. It's all about the low-hanging fruit, as another poster pointed out.
Q: There is a box in the computer lab with 3 lights on it (red. blue, and white). If any one of the lights are out there is a problem with one of the servers. The red light and the white light can never be off at the same time. You come into your office and all the lights are off, what is wrong?
Why:People will pine over this for 20 minutes. This is a test of common sense. I've heard that the box has failed, all the servers are down, even the power is out. Simply put "YOUR IN THE WRONG ROOM!" The box with the lights are in the Lab you walked into your OFFICE, duh. Some clever people will say, "I don't know but I turn the lights back on in my office and walk down to the lab and check so see if the box lights are ok." That is someone you want working for you verus "I don't know" as an answer. I'll take a guess over nothing.
Some of your questions are wise, but this one is not. It's a childish trick question that uses semantics. If all your questions required a careful analysis of their semantics, it would be a reasonable question; but to throw out ten or twenty or fifty ordinary fact-oriented questions, and then mix in a trick question based on semantics and shell-game manipulation of words, is just a petty power trip that mean-spirited teachers use to bolster their need for a quick fix of superiority.
Essentially, it's just changing the rules so the house is more likely to come out on top.
Realize that we haven't seen *ANYTHING* yet. Just imagine the death throes of one of the most profitable companies that ever existed. EXPECT character assassination. EXPECT lobbying. EXPECT fronts like SCO. EXPECT software patenting and litigation. EXPECT FUD books, FUD articles, and FUD conferences.
It's a little scarier than that. Considering the amount of money at stake, is it really such a stretch to believe they would resort to more brutal methods? Physical violence is an unlikely last resort (but not an impossibility). Far more likely are aggressive seizure campaigns, à la Scientology raids on homes, under the guise of believing pirated software is on the premises. Anyone familiar with such bully tactics knows they are impossible to fight, particularly at the moment they take place. (If you're thinking that a warrant is needed, think again; Scientology didn't need one, and the RIAA hasn't needed one.)
How likely are you to risk becoming a prominent Microsoft-basher if you know that you could lose all of your hardware and software? Or that someone might invade your home while you're away, breaking locks and possibly harming whatever pets are deemed a threat or nuisance?
Yeah, I know, tinfoil paranoia. But also things that have really happened to real people. Considering how far above the law Microsoft has shown itself to be, so far, I don't see this as a large leap.
I have a Dish PVR 510 and I can confirm mesocyclone's story: I can make exactly the same thing happen. Not that I try to.
There are a few other bugs in the system as well, but not many. In damn near every case, I get perfectly recorded shows.
Considering the price of the 510, particularly compared to the other models and TiVo, I am quite happy with it. Like a lot of other Dish Network customers, it was free for me. Well, okay, I pay $5 more a month, but I'm pretty sure that's for the enhanced program listing. (A normal Dish receiver only downloads the listings for the next hour or so, unless you specifically request them, in which case you'll have to wait roughly 60 seconds for them to download. With the PVR's program listing, everything for at least the next 7 days is already downloaded at all times.)
Re:Lies, statistics, and analysts
on
Java vs .NET
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You are really hitting on the biggest problem with Java: it is not a standard. Java is a proprietary technology championed by a maga-corp (Sun, in this case). How, exactly, is that different from.Net and Microsoft?
When I encounter a problem, I can submit a bug report at developer.java.sun.com. Of course, I would first search the bug database to see if the bug has already been reported. Some bugs have sat around for a long time without getting attention, but for each of those, a hundred have been fixed. At least two of the bugs I reported have been fixed.
If there is a public C# or VB bug database, I have not heard of it.
Oh, and the JDK comes with the source to all of Java's classes, and I believe even the native (C) source code is available somewhere. You shouldn't ever need it, but it's there just in case.
Yes, but my great-grandparents were legal immigrants. And despite being poor, they were never on welfare, and never committed any violent crimes. They learned English and they respected the society that had taken them in.
This was, in my opinion, proven out twenty years ago. Businesses have trouble taking something that has a lot of pretty colors seriously. That is why IBM PCs became dominant in offices: because they originally had Monochrome Display Adapters, which were capable of text modes only. That made them "serious" machines.
People may not move their mouse to the top left and then along the title bar, but they do move their eyes to the top left and then along the title bar (assuming they natively speak a language with that orientation). They may not consciously think of it as looking at the end of the title bar, but it's still the end of the title bar, and that makes it slightly less easily accessible. After they've looked at thousands of windows, that "slightly" adds up to hours and even days of wasted time.
The eyes of people who read top-to-bottom, left-to-right will naturally gravitate first to the top left corner of a rectangular object containing text. Check out some
usabilitystudies
to see what I mean.
Anyone who's smart enough to distinguish it as belonging to Sun rather than MS should be smart enough to go find it on their own (these days; granted at the original time of the suit perhaps it wasn't nearly so straightforward), and it *is* free, after all.
Depends on your definition of "free." Not everyone has the bandwidth to download a 20-megabyte JRE on a whim. And we need to consider the laziness factor which has helped MS do so well all these years: the average dumb user is always more inclined to use things that came with the computer.
So, the JRE is not free in terms of bandwidth (for which some people must pay), and it's not free in terms of time to download and install.
I was a Nielsen household for a couple weeks. At the time, I was a big Tiny Toon Adventures fan and I wanted to see it continue forever. I put it down in my log for every single weekday, and just to be fair, I actually watched it on every one of those days.
FOX brought it back and aired it for two more years... even though no new episodes were made during that time. (I assume I don't need to point out that FOX is typically no friend of the shows it airs.)
I'd say one Nielsen participant's opinion has a disproportionate amount of weight.
Isn't the burden of proof on Microsoft? The lack of paper licenses is not proof of theft.
Or can Sears demand that I produce a receipt for the shirt I've worn every so often for the last 12 months?
The only halfway reasonable explanation I can muster is that since government organizations keep records of their purchases, a court might consider the lack of a record of such purchases an indication that no purchases were ever made.
They shouldn't be forced to include ANY 3rd party app in Windows. They make it easy to install Sun's Java if a user wants. That's good enough.
No, it's not. Haven't we learned by now that the vast majority of users are too lazy to change their system, and will use whatever it comes with? How do you think Internet Explorer triumphed? (Netscape 4.x may have sucked, but have you seen early versions of IE?) Why did the court rule that MS cannot dictate what icons are on the Windows desktop? Why the widespread objections to MSN Messenger or MediaPlayer being pre-installed?
Having first access to the desktop is a foothold that makes a world of difference in what may be the most apathetic, inert consumer base on earth.
How many non-developers do you know who are willing to download and install Java?
I think you've hit upon the ugly future of online RPGs. The practice of letting incapable players pay their way around skill improvement started with 80sarcadegameswitha"continue"feature.
Dumb consumers part with their money more easily than smart ones, and it's profitable to appease the former by letting them pay their way to success instead of earning it. Expect this to happen a lot in future online RPGs: more money gets you a more 1337 character.
Unfair to other players? Sure, but megacorps like Sony aren't in the business of fairness.
Slashdot Mirror
This was a good example to include in the report, if only for balance, but the report forgot to mention why it was being cited: Companies can reduce their risk of insider sabotage by not being giant assholes. In more practical terms, keep your house clean; don't let asshole managers fester in the obscurity of lax oversight.
(And since I know some childish dorks will assume otherwise... I'm male.)
Fanatically worded but largely true. There is no excuse for writing a buffer overflow in the 21st century. Everyone who calls himself/herself a professional knows how to routinely avoid such pitfalls.
For years, Microsoft deliberately created defective software in order to continuously sell upgrade after upgrade.
It sure seems like it. But I think you're ignoring good ol' Hanlon's Razor here. It's much more likely that they deliberately did little or no QA, and naive programmers did foolish things which went unchecked. This is even easier to believe if you've worked with "professional" programmers and witnessed the things some are doing even to this day.
Indeed.
... in fact, I just saw a Dreamcast Web Browser CD in a flea market the other day. Anyone ever use that?
One of the more prized members of my collection is a CompuMate. It's a keyboard that plugs into an Atari 2600, making the machine into a computer with a usable BASIC.
For over 20 years, every damn console has tried to say, "Look, it's also a computer!" And every single time, it's an utter flop. No one will use a console to do what a computer does, because the console invariably is a substandard personal computer.
Seriously, how many times have we seen this? The CompuMate, the Intellivision Computer Adaptor, the Coleco Adam, the FamiCom, the Sega Channel
No gaming console will ever threaten personal computers in any area except gaming (and even that's arguable). I don't know that I've ever seen a single business lesson which has been so forcibly resisted by one generation of companies after another.
I heard Wesley's lines got cut at the last minute.
No, he'd make a shitty Java programmer. I've lost count of all the everything-looks-like-a-nail dimbulbs who use inheritance to do everything, because it's the most visible new "feature" of Java (to a C or Pascal or Fortran programmer).
A good programmer does not subclass as a way to share code, especially when other ways, like public methods, do it so much more simply.
Critics suggest a simple solution: use Apple or Linux to be safe and sound.
But Linux (and Unix) systems have been hacked before, and Apple's brand-new Tiger operating system has already been fingered for a security flaw.
Yes, Microsoft's software has security holes, but hackers mainly love it because there are so many Windows PCs out there. Write one virus and 90% of the wired world could be yours.
Not this again. I can see an ignorant PHB still flippantly throwing this lame FUD around, but a journalist? For the BBC, no less?
Tiger has "a security flaw," so the implication is that it's just as vulnerable as Windows? That's clearly what the article is insinuating.
For those who don't know, all OSes get attacked. Given 100 Windows machines and 100 Linux machines, the success rate with attacks on Windows is a hell of a lot higher.
How can a journalist do even a modicum of research outside Redmond and not know this?
Were I moderating, I'd give a +1 just for your employing the term "fucky fucky"...
I have to wonder if the real purpose of this article's presence on Slashdot is to demonstrate how pitifully primitive the average programmer in the commercial world is.
If you're still in school, you may not be aware of this, but a huge percentage of people who program for money are no more competent than the article's author. Many are just discovering these basic (no pun intended) programming techniques for the first time.
This tells us two things:
1. You can get work even if you barely know a compiler from WINMINE.EXE.
2. If you choose to become a truly competent programmer, you will kick ass in the commercial world. The need for such people is great.
Interdimensional space, plain and simple. (Well, maybe not so simple.)
These aren't robots built by Sony. They're extraterrestrial and a hell of a lot more advanced than any human tech. If Megatron has a "fusion cannon" for a weapon, then an interdimensional portal isn't much of a stretch.
In fact, in some scenes of the original show, you can see the trailer disappear into an interdimensional portal with a flash as Prime takes robot form.
And as I recall, Transformers Universe (from Marvel) stated that Megatron had another weapon which could interdimensionally draw on the gravitational force of a black hole. (Yeah, I know, Technobabble Science. But who cares, it's cool.)
Similar explanations apply to the inevitable question of how Megatron and Soundwave and Blaster and Perceptor can go from five-ton robots to four-kilogram guns, boom boxes, and microscopes. Very very advanced tech. Get over it.
But you can bet that such size/mass changes won't be in the movie.
In fact, if they go with the original "Ark awakens in 1984" storyline, they probably will make Megatron transform into something other than a real pistol. Wouldn't want to inspire another Columbine by showing any actual guns.
No, you're not the only one. I'd bet money on it.
Why should they bother making a good movie, anyway? It's not for Transformers fans, it's for general 80s nostalgia suckers. Long as those tickets sales are made, I doubt the producers give a rat's ass about the Transformers story.
In all likelihood, the producers view this as no different from the Scooby Doo movies or the Brady Bunch movie or the Beverly Hillbillies movie.
As someone who lives in the boondocks, I can assure you that cost and latency are just the beginning of what's wrong with satellite Internet. It requires Windows, it only accelerates HTTP and non-passive FTP (which means e-mail, peer-to-peer, UseNet and IRC are all 8KB/second), and there's a 500 MB/week upload cap. Oh, and the sat-modem "drivers" require about 40 MB of RAM. And did I mention it requires Windows?
... but seeing how easily Verizon can install broadband when they don't drag their feet has made it obvious that it no more needs to be a trade-off than electricity or motor vehicle ownership.
And that's Starband, the *better* of the two services.
Satellite is a satisfactory form of broadband in the same way masturbation is a satisfactory form of sex: it's better than nothing.
I'm afraid that many of us who live out here don't accept this particular trade-off. Some trade-offs are acceptable: dark and paved roads, well water, long drives to restaurants and stores
And we've made it repeatedly clear to Verizon (and the cable company) that we'll gladly pay for it. It's not that Verizon would lose money; they just wouldn't make *as much* money as they do from dense areas. It's all about the low-hanging fruit, as another poster pointed out.
Why:People will pine over this for 20 minutes. This is a test of common sense. I've heard that the box has failed, all the servers are down, even the power is out. Simply put "YOUR IN THE WRONG ROOM!" The box with the lights are in the Lab you walked into your OFFICE, duh. Some clever people will say, "I don't know but I turn the lights back on in my office and walk down to the lab and check so see if the box lights are ok." That is someone you want working for you verus "I don't know" as an answer. I'll take a guess over nothing.
Some of your questions are wise, but this one is not. It's a childish trick question that uses semantics. If all your questions required a careful analysis of their semantics, it would be a reasonable question; but to throw out ten or twenty or fifty ordinary fact-oriented questions, and then mix in a trick question based on semantics and shell-game manipulation of words, is just a petty power trip that mean-spirited teachers use to bolster their need for a quick fix of superiority.
Essentially, it's just changing the rules so the house is more likely to come out on top.
It's a little scarier than that. Considering the amount of money at stake, is it really such a stretch to believe they would resort to more brutal methods? Physical violence is an unlikely last resort (but not an impossibility). Far more likely are aggressive seizure campaigns, à la Scientology raids on homes, under the guise of believing pirated software is on the premises. Anyone familiar with such bully tactics knows they are impossible to fight, particularly at the moment they take place. (If you're thinking that a warrant is needed, think again; Scientology didn't need one, and the RIAA hasn't needed one.)
How likely are you to risk becoming a prominent Microsoft-basher if you know that you could lose all of your hardware and software? Or that someone might invade your home while you're away, breaking locks and possibly harming whatever pets are deemed a threat or nuisance?
Yeah, I know, tinfoil paranoia. But also things that have really happened to real people. Considering how far above the law Microsoft has shown itself to be, so far, I don't see this as a large leap.
And no, I have never seen the movie Antitrust.
I have a Dish PVR 510 and I can confirm mesocyclone's story: I can make exactly the same thing happen. Not that I try to.
There are a few other bugs in the system as well, but not many. In damn near every case, I get perfectly recorded shows.
Considering the price of the 510, particularly compared to the other models and TiVo, I am quite happy with it. Like a lot of other Dish Network customers, it was free for me. Well, okay, I pay $5 more a month, but I'm pretty sure that's for the enhanced program listing. (A normal Dish receiver only downloads the listings for the next hour or so, unless you specifically request them, in which case you'll have to wait roughly 60 seconds for them to download. With the PVR's program listing, everything for at least the next 7 days is already downloaded at all times.)
When I encounter a problem, I can submit a bug report at developer.java.sun.com. Of course, I would first search the bug database to see if the bug has already been reported. Some bugs have sat around for a long time without getting attention, but for each of those, a hundred have been fixed. At least two of the bugs I reported have been fixed.
If there is a public C# or VB bug database, I have not heard of it.
Oh, and the JDK comes with the source to all of Java's classes, and I believe even the native (C) source code is available somewhere. You shouldn't ever need it, but it's there just in case.
Yes, but my great-grandparents were legal immigrants. And despite being poor, they were never on welfare, and never committed any violent crimes. They learned English and they respected the society that had taken them in.
I can confirm this. How do I know? I called the FCC last year and I asked. I believe the complaint form is Form 475, which can be found here.
This was, in my opinion, proven out twenty years ago. Businesses have trouble taking something that has a lot of pretty colors seriously. That is why IBM PCs became dominant in offices: because they originally had Monochrome Display Adapters, which were capable of text modes only. That made them "serious" machines.
The eyes of people who read top-to-bottom, left-to-right will naturally gravitate first to the top left corner of a rectangular object containing text. Check out some usability studies to see what I mean.
Depends on your definition of "free." Not everyone has the bandwidth to download a 20-megabyte JRE on a whim. And we need to consider the laziness factor which has helped MS do so well all these years: the average dumb user is always more inclined to use things that came with the computer.
So, the JRE is not free in terms of bandwidth (for which some people must pay), and it's not free in terms of time to download and install.
I was a Nielsen household for a couple weeks. At the time, I was a big Tiny Toon Adventures fan and I wanted to see it continue forever. I put it down in my log for every single weekday, and just to be fair, I actually watched it on every one of those days.
... even though no new episodes were made during that time. (I assume I don't need to point out that FOX is typically no friend of the shows it airs.)
FOX brought it back and aired it for two more years
I'd say one Nielsen participant's opinion has a disproportionate amount of weight.
Isn't the burden of proof on Microsoft? The lack of paper licenses is not proof of theft.
Or can Sears demand that I produce a receipt for the shirt I've worn every so often for the last 12 months?
The only halfway reasonable explanation I can muster is that since government organizations keep records of their purchases, a court might consider the lack of a record of such purchases an indication that no purchases were ever made.
They shouldn't be forced to include ANY 3rd party app in Windows. They make it easy to install Sun's Java if a user wants. That's good enough.
No, it's not. Haven't we learned by now that the vast majority of users are too lazy to change their system, and will use whatever it comes with? How do you think Internet Explorer triumphed? (Netscape 4.x may have sucked, but have you seen early versions of IE?) Why did the court rule that MS cannot dictate what icons are on the Windows desktop? Why the widespread objections to MSN Messenger or MediaPlayer being pre-installed?
Having first access to the desktop is a foothold that makes a world of difference in what may be the most apathetic, inert consumer base on earth.
How many non-developers do you know who are willing to download and install Java?
I personally hate Sun's Java.
Ah, good, I'd hate to think you had an agenda.
Dumb consumers part with their money more easily than smart ones, and it's profitable to appease the former by letting them pay their way to success instead of earning it. Expect this to happen a lot in future online RPGs: more money gets you a more 1337 character.
Unfair to other players? Sure, but megacorps like Sony aren't in the business of fairness.