The Use of the Corporate PC

It sounds dumb to ask whether companies really need a computer on every desk. Of course they do...right? Or maybe not so much. One editorial from last month claims that they're a big drain on financial resources because employees use them for routine tasks that don't require today's processor capabilities. Not only that but it allows for more security holes and companies could just rent out centralized data centers. So why plunge so much into new computers? Bill Gates claims that they are important cogs in the corporate machine,, but his reasons are rather flat. It is true that it allows for richer communication capabilties and that innovation is increasing at an alarming rate, but I think he misses the point of what he's trying to counter. It's obvious that it's important in homes and schools to a certain extent, but is it worth the cost in every company? Sure Moore's law is great and all, but they're basically paying the same to replace their computers with better technology every year. Why not use the same computers or use less of them? It's an interesting topic to ponder.

There are a few other topics of interest in the world of nerds. Though I'm not the biggest IBM fan I've gotta hand it to them when they do something right and they've done something right with spam. They've developed a new service to send spam back to the actual computer from whence they came, and the spam is detected as compared against some giant database. The UK has been a hot name in the news today with two provocative stories. One of their television stations has decided to sell parts of a show online. The show is of car reviews and for a few bucks you can buy DVD-quality video reviews of some sweet cars. They're on the right track but for too high a price. Unfortunately for the insular country though, a fourth of all bots are there. This means that there are more computers there than anywhere else that are being patsied by hackers. And lastly, G4 has put up some great articles pitching the PSP against the DS. They have one focused on the PSP, one focused on the DS, and a grand final verdict. It's unbiased and his decision favors the PSP with good reason so give it a look if you like handheld stuff.

The movie news pipe is surprisingly dry today. There's been an official confirmation from Fox that Matthew Vaughn will be the director and Hugh Jackman will still be Wolverine, but there are still negotiations in progress regarding Storm, Professor X, and Magneto, who will likely return. It must really aggravate them that they can't bring back Cyclops though, and the the war between X3 and Superman Returns rages on. While I'm on superhero news I should mention that the main villain for Spider-man 3 has been cast and it will be none other than Thomas Hayden Church, who has been in good and bad movies. No announcement yet on who he'll play so I wouldn't want to mislead anyone...



Does he really have that Eddie Brock look though? Anyway, there's actually even more comic book movie news. Some lucky bastard got to see ten minutes of Batman Begins, but he was gracious enough to share his tale. I do enjoy the off and on sputter of news on Batman. They made a flash version of their website too. I'm not a big fan of Harry Knowles's reviews but he has a rather vivid one of Sin City if you haven't had enough of them already. There's a new tv spot out for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and you can take a look at that here. And finally, Ben Affleck is leaning towards a role in Die Hard 4.0, which makes his career the most unpredictable ever.

Just a couple of quick things left. The Fed, as expected, raised interest rates by 25 basis points today (i.e. a quarter of a percent). Let's hope that energy prices cool down a little, otherwise the Fed will be in quite a bind. Sony is slowly pushing forward development of PS3 games by sending development kits to select European developers, namely the British. If I had one of those kits I'd feel like a kid in a candy store with the added capabilities of the hardware.

And now for the Ten on Tuesday meme, which has really grown on me:

Ten Things You're Good At
10. Blogging, I suppose.
9. Sticking to a plan.
8. Taking leadership roles when necessary.
7. Giving advice (on something I know about that is).
6. Typing (that's a no-brainer).
5. Video games :)
4. Getting work done early.
3. Playing classical guitar.
2. Organizing my time.
1. Programming!

There's probably better stuff than that but it's hard to come up with a list like that.