but not your assertion that people break the law "because they don't have any other options." That may be one reason some people break the law, but the reality is far more complex.
Using your car analogy (/. loves those) it might be the case that some people run red lights because they're being tailgated. Far more common, however, is people who run the red light because they're in a hurry to get where they're going, or are driving too fast for the conditions and can't stop, who are too busy talkin on their phone to notice that the lgiht changed, or narcissists who essentially say to themselves "My desire for unimpeded travel outweighs the needs of others for the same." In my experience, morons and the selfish far outnumber cautious drivers trying to avoid an accident.
That said, I agree that any attempt to exploit this would probably fail. For one thing, tell the average person that "Some OSS programmer killed his wife" and you're going to get a blank stare and the question "What is OSS?" A backlash against precieved exploitation of the situation is another possibility. In addition, companies that have a legal department have to tread lightly in cases like this, since all you can say until he's convicted is "accused killer"--and even that is iffy.
Of course that was quite a while ago (two years almost, if I remember correctly). And as far as I know, you could always buy a smartphone (for full-price) and put the CIM from your non-smart (dumb?--that doesn't work for a phone... unintelligent?) phone into it and get phone service on your normal plan and just use the pay-per-bit data.
but does this surprise anyone? For-profit companies maximizing profit by locking users in and limiting access to ensure demand--what a shocker.
Let's face it, if this were any non-Apple or non-tech product we'd all shake our heads at the sad gullibility of the purchasing public and move on. The fact that this is a highly anticipated product that's going to have limited availability isn't anything unusual in and of itself. Apple and Cingular are going to make a good bit of money, which is what they're both in business to do.
Cellular service providers have made it a practice to "strongly encourage" customers to sign up for multi-year contracts to get a better deal on phones, subsidizing the cost of the phones, for which very few people would be willing to pay full price. The WiFi restriction, if true, is just more of the same.
In any event, I can pretty much guarantee that there will be hacks to work around this. I've never owned a phone (much less a smart phone) that wasn't hacked to get around carrier restrictions.
One of which is the small form factor, as you mention. The other is that it's cool-running and has near-silent operation. I have a MacM Mini serving as my HTPC (inside a storage ottoman, no less) and it is definitely a good choice for that use. The only thing comparable on the Windows side is a VIA chipset (I have a mini-ITX based PC in my garage) which doesn't compare performace wise. If you're looking for a "desktop" computer for general use, and not taking anything but the hardware into consideration, I'd agree that the bottom-of-the-line Mac Minis don't compete well against comparibly priced Windows boxes.
Of course, Macs have an-ease-of-use that's quite simply, sublime. As an example, every time a family member has visited and wanted access to our wireless network with their PC, it's been a hassle to set up. On the other hand, I took my Mac to my parents or in-laws and hopped on their wireless networks with nary a hitch.
Saying that "the Pentagon" is wasting money shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how military funding works. Generally speaking, the Pentagon asks for money for projects (say, gun-gizmos) that the military thinks should be a priority. After that, some wholly-owned congresscritter logrolls whatever crap is manufactured in their district into the budget and the military winds up with a lot of useless, overpriced crud.
Sure, there's a lot of unethical and dishonest stuff that happens--generals going to work for defense contractors and selling to their old buddies, defense contractors who lie about the capabilities and usefullness of their hardware... but overall, I think generals would be a lot happier if they made their own purchasing decisions.
The same one used by the Bagle worm (and others) that executed code in an email if the preview pane was open. So your snarky
Which client is that? I use Outlook, and it doesn't automatically launch attachments
while technically accurate is essentially wrong. Code in an email was being automatically executed--whether this was in an "attachment" or not is irrelevant. There's a comment earlier in this discussion that said that no MS email product has ever automatically executed code
by design
-- another interesting parsing of the problem.
Microsoft has a huge user base, millions of lines of code in their OS and applications, and a lot of 3rd pary legacy applications with which they don't want to break compatibility. On top of this, the majority of Windows users are not computer savvy. These restraints, combined with the huge financial incentive for hacking MS products, prevent them from writing software that's completely secure. That's not because they're Microsoft and thus evil (as half the posters here seem to think) or because they just don't care (as the other half assert). It's because they've reached a size and complexity (both in their applications and as a company) where it's no longer possible.
In other words, I don't think any company could do what Microsoft is trying to do, so I'm not surprised (nor angry) when they fail.
They've been buying those invisible planes for quite a while now...
"Yes Sir, General Smith. The totally stealthed invisible plane is right over there." "No Sir, of course you can't see it. It's invisible." "Well, we think that we can produce them for about $2 billion each, Sir." "500. No problem. We'll have them ready in three weeks."
Unless the memory stick or other flash media has some sort of wireless built in, there's no way that the "Blue screen of coffee tables" is going to "download" the contents into the PC running the display on the table. It might be able to get your contacts off your phone via bluetooth (but note that this won't be the demo's automagic version either, as most phones require user interaction to do transfers).
The fact that the whole media card "spilling" images onto the surface was reported as such a "Wow! Brilliant! The BEST thing EVAR!" just goes to show the poor state of technology journalism today.
And the demo of this particular feature isn't very Apple-like. An Apple interface wouldn't "spill" a random pile of crap onto the desktop. As for providing links to cell phone plans when you put your phone down on the table, that's such a bad idea it's hard to know where to start the critique. New from Microsoft! Spam on your coffee table! Yes, Bill, whenever I put my phone down I want to be bombarded with ads. Thanks so much! Most folks who have a plan (in the US) are locked in because that's how they got the cheap phone. Which shows the deep thought put into this product. And on, and on, and on.
As for the bar codes on everyday products, that sounds suspiciously like the CueCat business plan.
Let's face it, most everyone out there learned to use a computer on a Windows box, bought their computer from a retail store or online shop that only sells Windows boxes, and has friends and family who all use Windows. How would these people know that Windows sucks?
Yesterday I gave a presentation where we needed "loaner" laptops for some folks who were coming in for training. So eight Windows laptops that weren't currently in use were brought to the meeting room. The IT guy arrived two hours early and was still working to get the software end of the laptops' network connections up when I arrived. I plugged my PowerBook in to the hub and was on the network immediately. After the training, I went to help a lady who had her personal Dell laptop with Vista installed. I saw the "cancel or allow" dialog three times in four minutes. "That's normal" she said.
Users are frustrated with things like network setup (though that's a one-time thing for most users) and viruses, updates, etc. but they've learned to accept those hassles as part of the computing experience. Everybody knows you have to reboot computers regularly to keep them from getting screwed up, right? Everybody knows that viruses, trojans, and worms affect all computers, right? It's a well-known fact that if you want a secure computer, any time you open an application you should have to click "Cancel or Allow" isn't it?
I used to think that way myself, long about 1995. I really enjoyed having my computer as a hobby--I built them myself from components, fiddled with the OS and applications to make it "just right" for my uses, and generally liked dabbling. I wrote simple programs, set up my own home network, and jumped on the Internet when you had to pay for Netscape Navigator. But along the way, a lot of the fun went out of it: having to resolve the same problems in a painfully manual way again and again, having updates wipe out preferences, having applications bluescreen the OS, losing work to application crashes--it just wasn't worth it. So a couple years ago, I bought a Mac mini (all I could afford at the time) and had my eyes opened. I haven't touched a "setting" (except to enter the WiFi password) in the last two years--which leaves a lot more time for the things that got me interested in computers in the first place.
I'd be much more interested to see the results of a survey given to people who are aware of the alternatives and perhaps even some familiarity with them. Asking "Does Windows work OK for you?" isn't really useful--if people understood the options, I suspect there would be a significantly different outcome.
by the time the successor to Vista comes out. I doubt very much anyone will care about it not running on ~20 billion-year-old hardware. Not even Mac users:-)
I'm not sure the distinction is as straightforward as you indicate.
In the original question, the poster asked if a background check including fingerprints was "over the top" for his sister who is seeking a programming job in the financial sector. The answer might well be: it depends. If the sister is going to be programming systems that handle financial transactions, and there's the possibility that she might have the opportunity to set the system up to benefit her personally (think Richard Prior's character in Superman III --I think it was-- who reprogrammed the system to credit his personal account with all the fractional cents left over from transactions) then I don't see this as going too far.
In the "good old days" a store keeper could give credit based on his personal experience or knowledge of the customer. Farmer Jones owns a working farm, buys from me regularly, and has always been honest with me. Farmer Smith is a sharecropper, comes in once every four months, and has told a whopper or two in my hearing. These days, when most of our business relationships are with people we have no personal experience with or knowledge of, a background check is a reasonable hurdle for financially responsible jobs, or those dealing with children.
who have cheap labor doing the work are more likley to have procedures, because the workers aren't trained enough to answer questions like this--it's like a customer service script they wade through.
IMO, the most dangerous aren't the untrained script-readers from a large ISP, nor the three-CS-college-friends small ISPs, but the folks at "mid-sized" ISPs who know just enough to be dangerous. At a big company, procedures protect you. At a small company, it's possible that the knowledge of the smart guy running the shop will help protect you. A mid-sized shop, that's hired some less knowledgable folks but doesn't have procedures yet, seems to me to be the most likely to screw up.
Where I am now, we have good sys admins. They do their job, I do mine, and interactions between us are pleasant. Even when I've got a problem, they're generally helpful in a non-condescending way. Of course, I'm a geek myself, so maybe that's more an indication of the problems I can't solve myself than their forebearance:-)
What gets my back up (or perhaps "got my back up" since it was a previous employer) is where the sys admin thinks that their job is to keep the computer I use in some sort of pristine "as-deployed" condition. The way I see it, the sys admin's job is to help everyone else do the actual work of the company... you know, the work that the customers pay for.
I appreciate the fact that there might be a corporate policy "no installing WoW" or "block all NSFW sites" -- but if someone proposes a policy that's ridiculous (like "no installing anything") isn't it also the job of the IT people to say "that's nuts--how will people get their work done?" After all, they should know better. I don't mind a reasonable limit (nor the enforcement of it); what I do mind are unreasonable limits blindly enforced.
Again, I really appreciate the IT guys here. They're very helpful (though I only see them once or twice a year) and easy to work with. They're more enablers than blockers, which is a terrific thing.
For all you sys admins out there who are like that: thanks!
Sheesh, most of the bozos out there apparently think a yellow light means speed up and that it's OK to turn right from the left lane (and vice versa) and you want to add roundabouts to the mix?;-)
It'll never work where we currently have very few of them: at least half of the drivers would enter and not be able to find their way out again. Another quarter would decide at the last second that the exit they wanted was immediately to their right and cut across everyone's path in their hurry to make sure that they get to their Very Important haircut appointment. Some portion of the final quarter would be so busy talking on their cellphones they'd miss their "exit" at least once.
Traffic lights and stop signs may be slower on paper, but I wouldn't trust the average Bay Area driver to figure out a roundabout.
Back in the day, "hi tech" devices like floppy drives and CD-ROMs were manufactured by companies that had a reputation to keep and some notion of quality control. With the massive move of manufacturing to China and the victory of the generic device (and price over all other considerations), that's no longer the case.
If you buy a CD drive from Frys made by NewCoTech and it fails, it's pretty unlikely you're going to remember NewCoTech when you're out buying a replacement. Even if you do, chances are that by then NewCoTech will have renamed itself GoodTech and you'll buy another piece of junk all unknown. Basically, it's the luck of the draw these days, and as far as I can tell, there's no Chinese word for "quality."
I've basically come to the point where if I can't find a non-China manufactured product, I generally won't buy whatever it is. The exception are inexpensive throw-away items that I don't need to last. If there's no other option (computers, for example) I buy a branded product where I know that the brand has a reputation to uphold. Even that's risky. I've had branded stuff that was made in China die on me, and
Made in China is the new Made in Taiwan from the 70's, or the new Made in Japan from the 60's (for those who are old enough to remember). For something like a plastic toy that my daughter is going to play with for a year, it's fine. For anything you need to last, find something made somewhere else.
The student discount programs Microsoft currently offers aren't some sort of noble-hearted effort to do good for all mankind. They are explicitly offered to get the consumers of tomorrow using Microsoft's products at an early age/stage. Like a free crack sample, there's no philanthropy involved.
This offer is more of the same. Whether you believe that this is a direct response to the OLPC project or not (I do, but really it's immaterial) is not as important as recognizing that this is a direct response to the "danger" (to Microsoft) that 5/6ths of the world's population will grow up on non-MS software and learn to like it.
The results of that (either most people going the MS route, or using FLOSS) is open to interpretation based on whether you are an MS- or FLOSS zealot.
If you're re-imaging employee's systems if you can't figure out their problem in 15 minutes, my guess is you're the most-hated and lowest rated department on any internal customer service surveys.
"Sorry, Joe. I can't resolve your problem and the egg timer just went off, so I'm remotely re-installing Windows and destroying whatever customization you've done to the machine. Now, about that 'How is IT doing' survey..."
I bet there are a lot of support people who would love to work for an organization the solution is to nuke from orbit if you can't resolve the issue in some arbitrary time period. I'd also bet that for other employees attempting to use computers to get their work done, having you for a "support" organization is like having Hannibal Lecter for a physician.
1. My PowerBook 2. My wife's Dell laptop 3. Mac Mini HTPC 4. Server/Firewall box 5. Gaming box
And I don't feel like that's an unreasonable number of computers for even a fairly non-technical household like mine. Heck, my folks have four: both mom and dad have a laptop and desktop -- and they're about the most un-technical people you could imagine.
Slashdot Mirror
come into their own!
but not your assertion that people break the law "because they don't have any other options." That may be one reason some people break the law, but the reality is far more complex.
Using your car analogy (/. loves those) it might be the case that some people run red lights because they're being tailgated. Far more common, however, is people who run the red light because they're in a hurry to get where they're going, or are driving too fast for the conditions and can't stop, who are too busy talkin on their phone to notice that the lgiht changed, or narcissists who essentially say to themselves "My desire for unimpeded travel outweighs the needs of others for the same." In my experience, morons and the selfish far outnumber cautious drivers trying to avoid an accident.
That said, I agree that any attempt to exploit this would probably fail. For one thing, tell the average person that "Some OSS programmer killed his wife" and you're going to get a blank stare and the question "What is OSS?" A backlash against precieved exploitation of the situation is another possibility. In addition, companies that have a legal department have to tread lightly in cases like this, since all you can say until he's convicted is "accused killer"--and even that is iffy.
There, fixed that for you
Or did you mean that figuratively?
Working...
Of course that was quite a while ago (two years almost, if I remember correctly). And as far as I know, you could always buy a smartphone (for full-price) and put the CIM from your non-smart (dumb?--that doesn't work for a phone... unintelligent?) phone into it and get phone service on your normal plan and just use the pay-per-bit data.
but does this surprise anyone? For-profit companies maximizing profit by locking users in and limiting access to ensure demand--what a shocker.
Let's face it, if this were any non-Apple or non-tech product we'd all shake our heads at the sad gullibility of the purchasing public and move on. The fact that this is a highly anticipated product that's going to have limited availability isn't anything unusual in and of itself. Apple and Cingular are going to make a good bit of money, which is what they're both in business to do.
Cellular service providers have made it a practice to "strongly encourage" customers to sign up for multi-year contracts to get a better deal on phones, subsidizing the cost of the phones, for which very few people would be willing to pay full price. The WiFi restriction, if true, is just more of the same.
In any event, I can pretty much guarantee that there will be hacks to work around this. I've never owned a phone (much less a smart phone) that wasn't hacked to get around carrier restrictions.
One of which is the small form factor, as you mention. The other is that it's cool-running and has near-silent operation. I have a MacM Mini serving as my HTPC (inside a storage ottoman, no less) and it is definitely a good choice for that use. The only thing comparable on the Windows side is a VIA chipset (I have a mini-ITX based PC in my garage) which doesn't compare performace wise. If you're looking for a "desktop" computer for general use, and not taking anything but the hardware into consideration, I'd agree that the bottom-of-the-line Mac Minis don't compete well against comparibly priced Windows boxes.
Of course, Macs have an-ease-of-use that's quite simply, sublime. As an example, every time a family member has visited and wanted access to our wireless network with their PC, it's been a hassle to set up. On the other hand, I took my Mac to my parents or in-laws and hopped on their wireless networks with nary a hitch.
Saying that "the Pentagon" is wasting money shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how military funding works. Generally speaking, the Pentagon asks for money for projects (say, gun-gizmos) that the military thinks should be a priority. After that, some wholly-owned congresscritter logrolls whatever crap is manufactured in their district into the budget and the military winds up with a lot of useless, overpriced crud.
Sure, there's a lot of unethical and dishonest stuff that happens--generals going to work for defense contractors and selling to their old buddies, defense contractors who lie about the capabilities and usefullness of their hardware... but overall, I think generals would be a lot happier if they made their own purchasing decisions.
Microsoft has a huge user base, millions of lines of code in their OS and applications, and a lot of 3rd pary legacy applications with which they don't want to break compatibility. On top of this, the majority of Windows users are not computer savvy. These restraints, combined with the huge financial incentive for hacking MS products, prevent them from writing software that's completely secure. That's not because they're Microsoft and thus evil (as half the posters here seem to think) or because they just don't care (as the other half assert). It's because they've reached a size and complexity (both in their applications and as a company) where it's no longer possible.
In other words, I don't think any company could do what Microsoft is trying to do, so I'm not surprised (nor angry) when they fail.
They've been buying those invisible planes for quite a while now...
"Yes Sir, General Smith. The totally stealthed invisible plane is right over there."
"No Sir, of course you can't see it. It's invisible."
"Well, we think that we can produce them for about $2 billion each, Sir."
"500. No problem. We'll have them ready in three weeks."
Unless the memory stick or other flash media has some sort of wireless built in, there's no way that the "Blue screen of coffee tables" is going to "download" the contents into the PC running the display on the table. It might be able to get your contacts off your phone via bluetooth (but note that this won't be the demo's automagic version either, as most phones require user interaction to do transfers).
The fact that the whole media card "spilling" images onto the surface was reported as such a "Wow! Brilliant! The BEST thing EVAR!" just goes to show the poor state of technology journalism today.
And the demo of this particular feature isn't very Apple-like. An Apple interface wouldn't "spill" a random pile of crap onto the desktop. As for providing links to cell phone plans when you put your phone down on the table, that's such a bad idea it's hard to know where to start the critique. New from Microsoft! Spam on your coffee table! Yes, Bill, whenever I put my phone down I want to be bombarded with ads. Thanks so much! Most folks who have a plan (in the US) are locked in because that's how they got the cheap phone. Which shows the deep thought put into this product. And on, and on, and on.
As for the bar codes on everyday products, that sounds suspiciously like the CueCat business plan.
He's a friend of mine!
Let's face it, most everyone out there learned to use a computer on a Windows box, bought their computer from a retail store or online shop that only sells Windows boxes, and has friends and family who all use Windows. How would these people know that Windows sucks?
Yesterday I gave a presentation where we needed "loaner" laptops for some folks who were coming in for training. So eight Windows laptops that weren't currently in use were brought to the meeting room. The IT guy arrived two hours early and was still working to get the software end of the laptops' network connections up when I arrived. I plugged my PowerBook in to the hub and was on the network immediately. After the training, I went to help a lady who had her personal Dell laptop with Vista installed. I saw the "cancel or allow" dialog three times in four minutes. "That's normal" she said.
Users are frustrated with things like network setup (though that's a one-time thing for most users) and viruses, updates, etc. but they've learned to accept those hassles as part of the computing experience. Everybody knows you have to reboot computers regularly to keep them from getting screwed up, right? Everybody knows that viruses, trojans, and worms affect all computers, right? It's a well-known fact that if you want a secure computer, any time you open an application you should have to click "Cancel or Allow" isn't it?
I used to think that way myself, long about 1995. I really enjoyed having my computer as a hobby--I built them myself from components, fiddled with the OS and applications to make it "just right" for my uses, and generally liked dabbling. I wrote simple programs, set up my own home network, and jumped on the Internet when you had to pay for Netscape Navigator. But along the way, a lot of the fun went out of it: having to resolve the same problems in a painfully manual way again and again, having updates wipe out preferences, having applications bluescreen the OS, losing work to application crashes--it just wasn't worth it. So a couple years ago, I bought a Mac mini (all I could afford at the time) and had my eyes opened. I haven't touched a "setting" (except to enter the WiFi password) in the last two years--which leaves a lot more time for the things that got me interested in computers in the first place.
I'd be much more interested to see the results of a survey given to people who are aware of the alternatives and perhaps even some familiarity with them. Asking "Does Windows work OK for you?" isn't really useful--if people understood the options, I suspect there would be a significantly different outcome.
by the time the successor to Vista comes out. I doubt very much anyone will care about it not running on ~20 billion-year-old hardware. Not even Mac users :-)
I'm not sure the distinction is as straightforward as you indicate.
In the original question, the poster asked if a background check including fingerprints was "over the top" for his sister who is seeking a programming job in the financial sector. The answer might well be: it depends. If the sister is going to be programming systems that handle financial transactions, and there's the possibility that she might have the opportunity to set the system up to benefit her personally (think Richard Prior's character in Superman III --I think it was-- who reprogrammed the system to credit his personal account with all the fractional cents left over from transactions) then I don't see this as going too far.
In the "good old days" a store keeper could give credit based on his personal experience or knowledge of the customer. Farmer Jones owns a working farm, buys from me regularly, and has always been honest with me. Farmer Smith is a sharecropper, comes in once every four months, and has told a whopper or two in my hearing. These days, when most of our business relationships are with people we have no personal experience with or knowledge of, a background check is a reasonable hurdle for financially responsible jobs, or those dealing with children.
who have cheap labor doing the work are more likley to have procedures, because the workers aren't trained enough to answer questions like this--it's like a customer service script they wade through.
IMO, the most dangerous aren't the untrained script-readers from a large ISP, nor the three-CS-college-friends small ISPs, but the folks at "mid-sized" ISPs who know just enough to be dangerous. At a big company, procedures protect you. At a small company, it's possible that the knowledge of the smart guy running the shop will help protect you. A mid-sized shop, that's hired some less knowledgable folks but doesn't have procedures yet, seems to me to be the most likely to screw up.
8-)
Total chaos!
Where I am now, we have good sys admins. They do their job, I do mine, and interactions between us are pleasant. Even when I've got a problem, they're generally helpful in a non-condescending way. Of course, I'm a geek myself, so maybe that's more an indication of the problems I can't solve myself than their forebearance :-)
What gets my back up (or perhaps "got my back up" since it was a previous employer) is where the sys admin thinks that their job is to keep the computer I use in some sort of pristine "as-deployed" condition. The way I see it, the sys admin's job is to help everyone else do the actual work of the company... you know, the work that the customers pay for.
I appreciate the fact that there might be a corporate policy "no installing WoW" or "block all NSFW sites" -- but if someone proposes a policy that's ridiculous (like "no installing anything") isn't it also the job of the IT people to say "that's nuts--how will people get their work done?" After all, they should know better. I don't mind a reasonable limit (nor the enforcement of it); what I do mind are unreasonable limits blindly enforced.
Again, I really appreciate the IT guys here. They're very helpful (though I only see them once or twice a year) and easy to work with. They're more enablers than blockers, which is a terrific thing.
For all you sys admins out there who are like that: thanks!
Sheesh, most of the bozos out there apparently think a yellow light means speed up and that it's OK to turn right from the left lane (and vice versa) and you want to add roundabouts to the mix? ;-)
It'll never work where we currently have very few of them: at least half of the drivers would enter and not be able to find their way out again. Another quarter would decide at the last second that the exit they wanted was immediately to their right and cut across everyone's path in their hurry to make sure that they get to their Very Important haircut appointment. Some portion of the final quarter would be so busy talking on their cellphones they'd miss their "exit" at least once.
Traffic lights and stop signs may be slower on paper, but I wouldn't trust the average Bay Area driver to figure out a roundabout.
Back in the day, "hi tech" devices like floppy drives and CD-ROMs were manufactured by companies that had a reputation to keep and some notion of quality control. With the massive move of manufacturing to China and the victory of the generic device (and price over all other considerations), that's no longer the case.
If you buy a CD drive from Frys made by NewCoTech and it fails, it's pretty unlikely you're going to remember NewCoTech when you're out buying a replacement. Even if you do, chances are that by then NewCoTech will have renamed itself GoodTech and you'll buy another piece of junk all unknown. Basically, it's the luck of the draw these days, and as far as I can tell, there's no Chinese word for "quality."
I've basically come to the point where if I can't find a non-China manufactured product, I generally won't buy whatever it is. The exception are inexpensive throw-away items that I don't need to last. If there's no other option (computers, for example) I buy a branded product where I know that the brand has a reputation to uphold. Even that's risky. I've had branded stuff that was made in China die on me, and
Made in China is the new Made in Taiwan from the 70's, or the new Made in Japan from the 60's (for those who are old enough to remember). For something like a plastic toy that my daughter is going to play with for a year, it's fine. For anything you need to last, find something made somewhere else.
The student discount programs Microsoft currently offers aren't some sort of noble-hearted effort to do good for all mankind. They are explicitly offered to get the consumers of tomorrow using Microsoft's products at an early age/stage. Like a free crack sample, there's no philanthropy involved.
This offer is more of the same. Whether you believe that this is a direct response to the OLPC project or not (I do, but really it's immaterial) is not as important as recognizing that this is a direct response to the "danger" (to Microsoft) that 5/6ths of the world's population will grow up on non-MS software and learn to like it.
The results of that (either most people going the MS route, or using FLOSS) is open to interpretation based on whether you are an MS- or FLOSS zealot.
If you're re-imaging employee's systems if you can't figure out their problem in 15 minutes, my guess is you're the most-hated and lowest rated department on any internal customer service surveys.
"Sorry, Joe. I can't resolve your problem and the egg timer just went off, so I'm remotely re-installing Windows and destroying whatever customization you've done to the machine. Now, about that 'How is IT doing' survey..."
I bet there are a lot of support people who would love to work for an organization the solution is to nuke from orbit if you can't resolve the issue in some arbitrary time period. I'd also bet that for other employees attempting to use computers to get their work done, having you for a "support" organization is like having Hannibal Lecter for a physician.
1. My PowerBook
2. My wife's Dell laptop
3. Mac Mini HTPC
4. Server/Firewall box
5. Gaming box
And I don't feel like that's an unreasonable number of computers for even a fairly non-technical household like mine. Heck, my folks have four: both mom and dad have a laptop and desktop -- and they're about the most un-technical people you could imagine.