Companies rarely choose the best product. Thin client stations have been around for ages, but companies buy PCs. They will continue to do so, and most companies will insist on Dell/Intel/Windows regardless of whether or not those are the best choices.
The fact that client stations have been around for ages, yet are not chosen, strongly suggests they are not the best solution. One possible reason: The GP mentioned a Sun Ray, they are $299 without display. The entry level Dell Dimension B110 is $299 with a 17" monitor. More possible reasons: The UI/Front end software is already written and working, and it's DOS, OS/2, or Windows based.
You know, your post seemed more shill-like than his. That or fanboi'ish. I'm not interested in Wii, and not really that interested in PS/3, but he brings up a valid point and you attack the messenger because you don't want the point to be brought up. Sorry "Mr Sony" but competition exists and consumers are going to compare and contrast, get used to it.
The PS3 is far from the most expensive console in history (that would be the Neo Geo, at almost $1000 adjusted price), but that hasn't stopped analysts, publishers, developers, and gamers from grumbling about it the week after E3.
That comment would have made more sense if the Neo Geo had been the sort of monster hit that Sony needs with the PS/3. If the PS/3 only achieves Neo Geo like sales that will be very bad for Sony and PS/3 developers. The developers are right to be complaining and very concerned.
But there's a reason why nobody has done this, and I think that's because it just seems like a really bad idea. There's no safe failure mode for a system like this. If the controls stop working, bad things happen.
Maybe for submersibles then, no drilling a hole throught the pressure hull. Of course I am guessing, for all I know submersibles use magnetic induction or something rather than cabling of some kind to make the transition between the interior and exterior. And of course the failsafe, well surface.
A 'wireless' plane! My first thought was why the hell would you want to do that?
It does solve one problem. There have been crashes due to primary and redundant systems having to be routed through a single chokepoint. Such an area was damaged and all systems were lost in a few high profile crashes. Wireless would address this issue. However in reality you are not simply fixing one vulnerability, you are trading one vulnerability for a different vulnerability. Hopefully the new one is lesser.
None of the newspapers would cover the Clinton impeachment trial? What planet were you on? It was the biggest story in years and it was plastered all over every newspaper in the country!
Nice straw man. They covered, but they went with the Dem party spin for the most part, that Ken Starr was persecuting Clinton for a private affair that should be left between a man and his wife.
The same newspapers that breathlessly printed every seedy leak from Ken Starr's office were right there wringing their little hankies about the example the president set with his tryst, but they never tried to tell anyone he was impeached for anything other than lying.
Of course they went for every bit of salacious info, the cigar, the dress, the tapes, etc. As I said, they *will* go after a fellow liberal when hungry. They want the glory and the pulitzer for taking down a president. My point, as opposed to your straw man, is that for a fellow liberal the threshold is far higher than for a conservative. They will attack a conservative with far less info, far less reliable info, etc.
And that's because the so-called "liberal" press is all owned by wealthy conservatives? go figure. and stuff yourself and your idea of a "liberal" press.
When was the last time that the board of directors of Time Warner, General Electric, etc. were writing the on-air scripts and editing film clips and audio? The people who do those tasks overwhelmingly identify themselves are liberals and in all honesty when they are covering a topic a bias is evident. It's subtle sometimes, watch the coverage of a hot button issue, say gun control or abortion. They'll interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson from the pro-gun control or pro-choice side but not interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson for the other sides, rather they'll go find some fool wearing a bit too much camoflauge for a strip mall or some fire and brimstone spouting zealot. Now a liberal may not even notice something subtle like that, it confirms to their stereotyping and demonization of the "enemy". A conservative will probably notice because they're think "where did they find that idiot, he doesn't represent me or any of the people I know who agree with me". In short, when portrayed bias conforms to your bias, you don't see it. It doesn't matter if it's left leaning or right leaning.
Put agents *actually* in the field at risk, puts Europeans at risk in the event that terrorists attempt a rescue or kidnap locals to coerce the local government to release prisoners, put American service members and civilians at risk by interfering with interrogations (torture not required) involving time sensitive information.
2) Warrantless taps on calls going into and out of the US by the NSA
Put American service members and civilians at risk by interfering with legitimate intelligence operations. The constitution prevents warrantless taps from being used to prosecute someone but disrupting a terrorist plot or (para)military operation is something entirely different. There *is* a war going on and I am not referring to Iraq.
3) Database of American call records assembled by the NSA
A damn smart thing to do in order to do traffic analysis and discover covert networks. And of course leaking this does in fact put American service members and civilians at risk. As for whether this was a legitimate activity, there is the war angle, there is the not used for prosecution angle, there is the trivial nature of the data (do you shred your phone bill?), etc. However regardless of the ultimate decision on legality the leak does in fact put people at risk.
4) Monitoring of reporters phone calls by as yet unnamed federal agency
Reporters have a right to publish what they learn, they do not have a right to break the law to acquire that knowledge. If there is probable cause that a reporter is breaking the law they should be investigated and potentially prosecuted just like you or I.
5) Identifying CIA case officer to scare a whistle blower
A former field officer and an operation that happened long ago. No one actively endangered as in 1, 2, & 3.
Yeah, remember when Clinton was being impeached and none of the newspapers would cover it because of their "liberal bias"?
Actually they covered it but did a pretty good job of publicising the liberal spin, that the BJ was a marital issue, and successfully buried the conservative argument that the offense was lying to the court under oath, not the BJ itself.
Gimme a break. Whoever is in power has a big target on their ass.
Agreed, but with a caveat. The predominantly liberal press will take a shot at a fellow liberal when they are hungry, but they will take shots at a conservative simply for the sport of it. Conservatives are at a greater risk.
To paraphrase a great man: First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they outlaw you, then you win.
One great man, one worthy movement. Now consider the thousands of worthy movements that do die at any one of those stages. Inspirational quote meet reality.
"Having to rely on hacks from a 3rd party is a bit of a security risk itself. Sure it will be loads of fun to get Mac OS X running on a homebrew system, but these system will be novelties and fun topics of conversation, very rarely will they have serious users."
I'd say put your shit together. We're talking hackers here. You think they will be confused in installing and using OSX when there a simple quide with steps and installations all over the web? My dog can install it. And you can bet that if they find an exploit in Safari from hacked OSX 10.4, it'll work on Safari from original OSX 10.4, since the hacked components are related to the BIOS support and the TPM chip, and nothing to do with 99.99% of the OS.
No only you are talking hackers only, which is a pretty useless thing to do.
The real point here is that what hackers do on their own system is irrelevant. If they can't use it to exploit someone else's system it's pointless in a discussion about MacOS X security. If it's your machine of course you can do anything. You can put the HD in another machine and hex edit the code all you want.
The truth is the Intel processor is a lot more prone to buffer overflow attacks, which is what most exploits on Windows are based on. This is why the no-execute command was introduced in later chips but OSX doesn't take a lot (if any) advantage of it.
Sorry, but no. The historical problems with x86 are irrelevant. Apple did not ship retail computers with those CPUs. The Core Duo and Solo CPUs support no-execute. The vulnerability does not lie with the CPU, it lies with Apple failing to use that capability of the CPU.
Also don't forget: most hackers have self-assembled Intel/AMD machines... that certainly counts.
Sorry, but again, no. What mischief occurs on these machines is irrelevant to Apple and the Apple market in general. These machines are running a hacked Mac OS X that requires skill beyond that of nearly all PC users and it will likely be a fairly unreliable system as it may break every software update. Having to rely on hacks from a 3rd party is a bit of a security risk itself. Sure it will be loads of fun to get Mac OS X running on a homebrew system, but these system will be novelties and fun topics of conversation, very rarely will they have serious users.
The FAQ says that people frequently get modded insightful just because they seem confident, and apparently you prove them right.
I think you underestimate the importance of assembly language when coding exploits. There are plenty of crackers out there who know x86 ASM. There are *far* fewer who know PPC ASM.
I think you overestimate the effort required to learn PPC once you know x86. The first assembly language you learn is difficult, especially if it is x86, but for subsequent ones it is far less difficult. After many years of x86 I wrote my first serious PPC code, it beat Apple's MrC compiler quite easily.
PC: Typically used with a screen too small to fit four players.
I realized you had to stretch to find something bad about the PC but that's all you could come up with, man that's lame. Four player spit screen is a workaround for a lack of networking, of having to get everyone in front of the same console and same TV. Now that console's are getting true networking you will see a move away from that. The console is moving towards the PC in this regard.
Recall the trick used in Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon: Wrap several coils of wire around the doors and windows, and during the evening run several amps through them. Anybody stealing a hard drive will be left with a paperweight.
Works of fiction may not offer the best advice, real world meet artistic license. People have tried to erase disks with degausers, bulk video tape erasers, etc without success.
I am not an accountant either. I just recall "historical basis" is required by GAAP from a financial accounting class. The difference between an asset's historical and market value would be one of the things that may differ between reports filed with the Security and Exchange Commission and "Pro Forma" reports where a company tries to sell the idea to investors that the company is worth more due to these "intangibles" that don't appear in GAAP statements. GAAP goes with historical in this case since it is not ambiguous, less prone to manipulation. It's not a perfect compromise but it's what the law requires.
Am I the only one who can't understand why newfound "Intel Apple fans" are the only ones thrilled about running Windows ?!?
You are. We live in a world where one sometimes needs or wants a Windows app. Emulation can be slow (PPC emulating x86), file compatibility can be spotty,... Not having to own two machines is a huge improvement. Dual booting is fine for now, virtualization would be better still.
After decades of Mac zealotry ?!? Even MS's own employees have a thing called Mini Microsoft http://minimsft.blogspot.com/.. Somebody must pay hard cash to keep up the good blogging of Macs running XP...
No. Pick a site that has a World of Warcraft dual boot showdown, WoW on OSX/GL vs WoW on XP/D3D. XP/D3D kicks butt (for now), no more having to normalize the two computers, one computer running both OSs, a far fairer comparison. Comparisons like this generate a lot of organic grass roots excitement. Comparisons like this and being able to coneniently run formerly troublesome software is something worth getting excited about.
The Apple world is quite Orwellian. Yesterday's "enemy" is today's partner, get used to it. IBM, Microsoft, Intel, they've all flipped sides at least once. If you are going to be associated with Apple, get used to this and learn to go with it.
Executive pay *is* too low and it is the source of many evils. The low pay is offset by performance based bonuses. This creates:
1) An incentive to cook the books, in both legal and illegal ways(*).
2) A short-term perspective.
3) Other bad things.
If you made the salaries large and the bonus' small then you might get more long term thinking and a little more honesty.
(*) An example of legally cooking the books: The Income Statement is going to fall a little short of expectations, that will hit me in the wallet via a smaller bonus. But wait, there's that piece of land we own that we may expand our oerations on. We've owned the land for a while, it's market value has appreciated, I can sell it and the gain will makeup for the shortfall elsewhere and the Income Statement will look good, my bonus will look good, mission accomplished. Oh, you say we'll have to spend even more money in the future to buy the land we'll eventually need, so it's a net loss. Not my problem, that's years off and I'll have moved on by then.
But, we still won't be able to afford or justify the cost of the new good stuff.
The "good stuff" is very cost effective and attainable. The "I'm at the top of the pissing contest" stuff is what is not cost effect, unattainable, or more like undesriable because most are playing something other than the pissing contest game.
The demo system Intel is showing at E3 features a Core 2 Extreme processor, which, judging from past pricing strategy, will cost slightly over $1000, as well as a Quad-SLI graphics card (i.e. probably two dual Nvidia graphics cards at around $1000 each).
Now, when you build such a high-end system you probably wouldn't skimp on the case ($200), motherboard ($200 & up), memory ($300 & up), power supply ($100 & up) and peripherals, either, so let's allow another grand for these things and you wind up with a $4000 PC.
Put in a Blue-Ray drive (expected to cost around $1000 initially) and you just hit 5 grand.
Let's not, I don't want Blue-Ray. I don't want $1000 video cards, you can compete against PS3 with far less. You are effectively creating a gold plated PC that no one really goes shopping for, a tactic once commonly employed by Mac advocates. It was a bogus tactic then, it still is now. Peripherals, are well peripheral. You components are inflated. You can do the job with a $2500 PC and that is with name brand components, Antec case/PS, Intel mobo, Plextor, etc, and of course that $1000 CPU. And of course using today's prices. If you wait for when PS3 ships you could probably do just about as well with a $300-$500 Intel dual core, so we're really talking about a $2000 contempolrary PC.
The PS3 still costs a lot less, but now it is a reasonable comparison. Now folks can argue about practical issues, like will they get $1500's worth of value out of the computer with respect to non-gaming activities.
Look away from the textbooks and consider the real world for a moment. Consider the GP's "According to the NYT interview, Jeff Kaplan thinks that about 25% of WoW players with level 60 characters have killed Ragnaros, and 15% have killed Nefarion.". Data analysis from Excel or SPSS is not needed. 99%(*) of your statistics textbook is not needed. The key thing that I believe you are missing is that sampling is not required. Given that this is an on-line only game that only plays from company servers means that they can simply observe the *entire* population. Record who killed Nefarion, count uniques accounts, divide by total accounts.
The world is usually more complex that we think, but sometimes, on rare occasions, it is much simpler than we think.
(*) Yeah, a made up number but we are talking statistics so that is appropriate.
"What does the first Amendmant have to do with the private sector?"
Contrary to what you might think, the government runs the jails.
Contrary to what you think the first ammendment is about free speech, not free access to someone else's private server and private email lists.
Contrary to what you think the government employees who run the jail check your conviction status, they do not evaluate your arguments of constitutional rights. The latter would be done by an appeals court while your butt was in jail, unless you were fortunate enough to have your sentence delayed and receive bail pending the appeal.
Basically, he used the company's smtp server to send the messages just like he uses it to send ANY email from work
You may have some re-reading to do yourself. It said he used his *former* employer's email server. That most likely is criminal. If he had sent the email from a personal account then he might only face a civil lawsuit for some sort of breach of confidentiality.
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Companies rarely choose the best product. Thin client stations have been around for ages, but companies buy PCs. They will continue to do so, and most companies will insist on Dell/Intel/Windows regardless of whether or not those are the best choices.
The fact that client stations have been around for ages, yet are not chosen, strongly suggests they are not the best solution. One possible reason: The GP mentioned a Sun Ray, they are $299 without display. The entry level Dell Dimension B110 is $299 with a 17" monitor. More possible reasons: The UI/Front end software is already written and working, and it's DOS, OS/2, or Windows based.
You know, your post seemed more shill-like than his. That or fanboi'ish. I'm not interested in Wii, and not really that interested in PS/3, but he brings up a valid point and you attack the messenger because you don't want the point to be brought up. Sorry "Mr Sony" but competition exists and consumers are going to compare and contrast, get used to it.
The PS3 is far from the most expensive console in history (that would be the Neo Geo, at almost $1000 adjusted price), but that hasn't stopped analysts, publishers, developers, and gamers from grumbling about it the week after E3.
That comment would have made more sense if the Neo Geo had been the sort of monster hit that Sony needs with the PS/3. If the PS/3 only achieves Neo Geo like sales that will be very bad for Sony and PS/3 developers. The developers are right to be complaining and very concerned.
But there's a reason why nobody has done this, and I think that's because it just seems like a really bad idea. There's no safe failure mode for a system like this. If the controls stop working, bad things happen.
Maybe for submersibles then, no drilling a hole throught the pressure hull. Of course I am guessing, for all I know submersibles use magnetic induction or something rather than cabling of some kind to make the transition between the interior and exterior. And of course the failsafe, well surface.
A 'wireless' plane! My first thought was why the hell would you want to do that?
It does solve one problem. There have been crashes due to primary and redundant systems having to be routed through a single chokepoint. Such an area was damaged and all systems were lost in a few high profile crashes. Wireless would address this issue. However in reality you are not simply fixing one vulnerability, you are trading one vulnerability for a different vulnerability. Hopefully the new one is lesser.
None of the newspapers would cover the Clinton impeachment trial? What planet were you on? It was the biggest story in years and it was plastered all over every newspaper in the country!
Nice straw man. They covered, but they went with the Dem party spin for the most part, that Ken Starr was persecuting Clinton for a private affair that should be left between a man and his wife.
The same newspapers that breathlessly printed every seedy leak from Ken Starr's office were right there wringing their little hankies about the example the president set with his tryst, but they never tried to tell anyone he was impeached for anything other than lying.
Of course they went for every bit of salacious info, the cigar, the dress, the tapes, etc. As I said, they *will* go after a fellow liberal when hungry. They want the glory and the pulitzer for taking down a president. My point, as opposed to your straw man, is that for a fellow liberal the threshold is far higher than for a conservative. They will attack a conservative with far less info, far less reliable info, etc.
And that's because the so-called "liberal" press is all owned by wealthy conservatives? go figure. and stuff yourself and your idea of a "liberal" press.
When was the last time that the board of directors of Time Warner, General Electric, etc. were writing the on-air scripts and editing film clips and audio? The people who do those tasks overwhelmingly identify themselves are liberals and in all honesty when they are covering a topic a bias is evident. It's subtle sometimes, watch the coverage of a hot button issue, say gun control or abortion. They'll interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson from the pro-gun control or pro-choice side but not interview a lawyer/PR spokesperson for the other sides, rather they'll go find some fool wearing a bit too much camoflauge for a strip mall or some fire and brimstone spouting zealot. Now a liberal may not even notice something subtle like that, it confirms to their stereotyping and demonization of the "enemy". A conservative will probably notice because they're think "where did they find that idiot, he doesn't represent me or any of the people I know who agree with me". In short, when portrayed bias conforms to your bias, you don't see it. It doesn't matter if it's left leaning or right leaning.
1) Secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe
Put agents *actually* in the field at risk, puts Europeans at risk in the event that terrorists attempt a rescue or kidnap locals to coerce the local government to release prisoners, put American service members and civilians at risk by interfering with interrogations (torture not required) involving time sensitive information.
2) Warrantless taps on calls going into and out of the US by the NSA
Put American service members and civilians at risk by interfering with legitimate intelligence operations. The constitution prevents warrantless taps from being used to prosecute someone but disrupting a terrorist plot or (para)military operation is something entirely different. There *is* a war going on and I am not referring to Iraq.
3) Database of American call records assembled by the NSA
A damn smart thing to do in order to do traffic analysis and discover covert networks. And of course leaking this does in fact put American service members and civilians at risk. As for whether this was a legitimate activity, there is the war angle, there is the not used for prosecution angle, there is the trivial nature of the data (do you shred your phone bill?), etc. However regardless of the ultimate decision on legality the leak does in fact put people at risk.
4) Monitoring of reporters phone calls by as yet unnamed federal agency
Reporters have a right to publish what they learn, they do not have a right to break the law to acquire that knowledge. If there is probable cause that a reporter is breaking the law they should be investigated and potentially prosecuted just like you or I.
5) Identifying CIA case officer to scare a whistle blower
A former field officer and an operation that happened long ago. No one actively endangered as in 1, 2, & 3.
Yeah, remember when Clinton was being impeached and none of the newspapers would cover it because of their "liberal bias"?
Actually they covered it but did a pretty good job of publicising the liberal spin, that the BJ was a marital issue, and successfully buried the conservative argument that the offense was lying to the court under oath, not the BJ itself.
Gimme a break. Whoever is in power has a big target on their ass.
Agreed, but with a caveat. The predominantly liberal press will take a shot at a fellow liberal when they are hungry, but they will take shots at a conservative simply for the sport of it. Conservatives are at a greater risk.
To paraphrase a great man: First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they outlaw you, then you win.
One great man, one worthy movement. Now consider the thousands of worthy movements that do die at any one of those stages. Inspirational quote meet reality.
"Having to rely on hacks from a 3rd party is a bit of a security risk itself. Sure it will be loads of fun to get Mac OS X running on a homebrew system, but these system will be novelties and fun topics of conversation, very rarely will they have serious users."
I'd say put your shit together. We're talking hackers here. You think they will be confused in installing and using OSX when there a simple quide with steps and installations all over the web? My dog can install it. And you can bet that if they find an exploit in Safari from hacked OSX 10.4, it'll work on Safari from original OSX 10.4, since the hacked components are related to the BIOS support and the TPM chip, and nothing to do with 99.99% of the OS.
No only you are talking hackers only, which is a pretty useless thing to do. The real point here is that what hackers do on their own system is irrelevant. If they can't use it to exploit someone else's system it's pointless in a discussion about MacOS X security. If it's your machine of course you can do anything. You can put the HD in another machine and hex edit the code all you want.
The truth is the Intel processor is a lot more prone to buffer overflow attacks, which is what most exploits on Windows are based on. This is why the no-execute command was introduced in later chips but OSX doesn't take a lot (if any) advantage of it.
Sorry, but no. The historical problems with x86 are irrelevant. Apple did not ship retail computers with those CPUs. The Core Duo and Solo CPUs support no-execute. The vulnerability does not lie with the CPU, it lies with Apple failing to use that capability of the CPU.
Also don't forget: most hackers have self-assembled Intel/AMD machines... that certainly counts.
Sorry, but again, no. What mischief occurs on these machines is irrelevant to Apple and the Apple market in general. These machines are running a hacked Mac OS X that requires skill beyond that of nearly all PC users and it will likely be a fairly unreliable system as it may break every software update. Having to rely on hacks from a 3rd party is a bit of a security risk itself. Sure it will be loads of fun to get Mac OS X running on a homebrew system, but these system will be novelties and fun topics of conversation, very rarely will they have serious users.
The FAQ says that people frequently get modded insightful just because they seem confident, and apparently you prove them right.
Actually you just proved them right as well.
I think you underestimate the importance of assembly language when coding exploits. There are plenty of crackers out there who know x86 ASM. There are *far* fewer who know PPC ASM.
I think you overestimate the effort required to learn PPC once you know x86. The first assembly language you learn is difficult, especially if it is x86, but for subsequent ones it is far less difficult. After many years of x86 I wrote my first serious PPC code, it beat Apple's MrC compiler quite easily.
PC: Typically used with a screen too small to fit four players.
I realized you had to stretch to find something bad about the PC but that's all you could come up with, man that's lame. Four player spit screen is a workaround for a lack of networking, of having to get everyone in front of the same console and same TV. Now that console's are getting true networking you will see a move away from that. The console is moving towards the PC in this regard.
Recall the trick used in Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon: Wrap several coils of wire around the doors and windows, and during the evening run several amps through them. Anybody stealing a hard drive will be left with a paperweight.
Works of fiction may not offer the best advice, real world meet artistic license. People have tried to erase disks with degausers, bulk video tape erasers, etc without success.
I am not an accountant either. I just recall "historical basis" is required by GAAP from a financial accounting class. The difference between an asset's historical and market value would be one of the things that may differ between reports filed with the Security and Exchange Commission and "Pro Forma" reports where a company tries to sell the idea to investors that the company is worth more due to these "intangibles" that don't appear in GAAP statements. GAAP goes with historical in this case since it is not ambiguous, less prone to manipulation. It's not a perfect compromise but it's what the law requires.
Am I the only one who can't understand why newfound "Intel Apple fans" are the only ones thrilled about running Windows ?!?
... Not having to own two machines is a huge improvement. Dual booting is fine for now, virtualization would be better still.
.. Somebody must pay hard cash to keep up the good blogging of Macs running XP ...
You are. We live in a world where one sometimes needs or wants a Windows app. Emulation can be slow (PPC emulating x86), file compatibility can be spotty,
After decades of Mac zealotry ?!? Even MS's own employees have a thing called Mini Microsoft http://minimsft.blogspot.com/
No. Pick a site that has a World of Warcraft dual boot showdown, WoW on OSX/GL vs WoW on XP/D3D. XP/D3D kicks butt (for now), no more having to normalize the two computers, one computer running both OSs, a far fairer comparison. Comparisons like this generate a lot of organic grass roots excitement. Comparisons like this and being able to coneniently run formerly troublesome software is something worth getting excited about.
The Apple world is quite Orwellian. Yesterday's "enemy" is today's partner, get used to it. IBM, Microsoft, Intel, they've all flipped sides at least once. If you are going to be associated with Apple, get used to this and learn to go with it.
No need to sell the land. Just re-evaluate it to current "market value", and reflect that in your books.
That's not allowed. Land has to go on the books under it's historical cost.
Executive pay *is* too low and it is the source of many evils. The low pay is offset by performance based bonuses. This creates:
1) An incentive to cook the books, in both legal and illegal ways(*).
2) A short-term perspective.
3) Other bad things.
If you made the salaries large and the bonus' small then you might get more long term thinking and a little more honesty.
(*) An example of legally cooking the books: The Income Statement is going to fall a little short of expectations, that will hit me in the wallet via a smaller bonus. But wait, there's that piece of land we own that we may expand our oerations on. We've owned the land for a while, it's market value has appreciated, I can sell it and the gain will makeup for the shortfall elsewhere and the Income Statement will look good, my bonus will look good, mission accomplished. Oh, you say we'll have to spend even more money in the future to buy the land we'll eventually need, so it's a net loss. Not my problem, that's years off and I'll have moved on by then.
But, we still won't be able to afford or justify the cost of the new good stuff.
The "good stuff" is very cost effective and attainable. The "I'm at the top of the pissing contest" stuff is what is not cost effect, unattainable, or more like undesriable because most are playing something other than the pissing contest game.
The demo system Intel is showing at E3 features a Core 2 Extreme processor, which, judging from past pricing strategy, will cost slightly over $1000, as well as a Quad-SLI graphics card (i.e. probably two dual Nvidia graphics cards at around $1000 each). Now, when you build such a high-end system you probably wouldn't skimp on the case ($200), motherboard ($200 & up), memory ($300 & up), power supply ($100 & up) and peripherals, either, so let's allow another grand for these things and you wind up with a $4000 PC. Put in a Blue-Ray drive (expected to cost around $1000 initially) and you just hit 5 grand.
Let's not, I don't want Blue-Ray. I don't want $1000 video cards, you can compete against PS3 with far less. You are effectively creating a gold plated PC that no one really goes shopping for, a tactic once commonly employed by Mac advocates. It was a bogus tactic then, it still is now. Peripherals, are well peripheral. You components are inflated. You can do the job with a $2500 PC and that is with name brand components, Antec case/PS, Intel mobo, Plextor, etc, and of course that $1000 CPU. And of course using today's prices. If you wait for when PS3 ships you could probably do just about as well with a $300-$500 Intel dual core, so we're really talking about a $2000 contempolrary PC.
The PS3 still costs a lot less, but now it is a reasonable comparison. Now folks can argue about practical issues, like will they get $1500's worth of value out of the computer with respect to non-gaming activities.
Look away from the textbooks and consider the real world for a moment. Consider the GP's "According to the NYT interview, Jeff Kaplan thinks that about 25% of WoW players with level 60 characters have killed Ragnaros, and 15% have killed Nefarion.". Data analysis from Excel or SPSS is not needed. 99%(*) of your statistics textbook is not needed. The key thing that I believe you are missing is that sampling is not required. Given that this is an on-line only game that only plays from company servers means that they can simply observe the *entire* population. Record who killed Nefarion, count uniques accounts, divide by total accounts.
The world is usually more complex that we think, but sometimes, on rare occasions, it is much simpler than we think.
(*) Yeah, a made up number but we are talking statistics so that is appropriate.
Of course it was criminal, he was using *someone else's* server and mailing list. Are you missing the point that he was not an employee?
"What does the first Amendmant have to do with the private sector?"
Contrary to what you might think, the government runs the jails.
Contrary to what you think the first ammendment is about free speech, not free access to someone else's private server and private email lists.
Contrary to what you think the government employees who run the jail check your conviction status, they do not evaluate your arguments of constitutional rights. The latter would be done by an appeals court while your butt was in jail, unless you were fortunate enough to have your sentence delayed and receive bail pending the appeal.
Basically, he used the company's smtp server to send the messages just like he uses it to send ANY email from work
You may have some re-reading to do yourself. It said he used his *former* employer's email server. That most likely is criminal. If he had sent the email from a personal account then he might only face a civil lawsuit for some sort of breach of confidentiality.