The New PC Conundrum

My old 1GHz Pentium III was quickly becoming obsolete. I started running into problems where it wouldn't run the software I wanted very quickly. My old graphics card was chugging to keep up with the 3D graphics rendering that makes new games unbelievably realistic. So it was time for an upgrade.

Like most gamers, I headed over to Alienware's website to price out my dream PC. Turns out that it would cost somewhere north of four grand. Dell and Gateway weren't exactly accommodating either, with cutting edge desktop PCs pricing out well over $3K.

Folks, these PCs are obsolete within three years of purchase. I'm not willing to spend over $4,000 for something I won't be able to enjoy by early 2007. So I started looking at the second tier of PCs.

I ended up solving the problem by going to Best Buy, finding a PC that had the basic components I wanted, and then ordering add-ons to customize it. The base PC is an HP with the following specs:

• 3.0 GHz Pentium IV with hyperthreading
• 512 MB PC3200 DDR RAM
• 200 GB hard drive
• DVD+R/CD-RW combo drive
• Additional CD-R drive
• Card reader, plenty of USB ports, firewire port, etc., etc.

This PC is a notch or two down from the 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition with all the bells and whistles, but it also costs only $999 after $50 rebate. I bought it and added another 512 MB of RAM ($129) and a mid-level graphics card - an eVGA GeForce 5700 Ultra ($199). The only other part I needed was a cable extender to get power to the graphics card. Thankfully I happened to have one lying around in my apartment. I hung onto my Sony 18" flat panel display, so there was no need to go out and buy another monitor. So there you have it - A performance PC for under $1,500. No, it's not an Alienware Area 51, but I could buy three of these for a tricked-out one of those.

What's really cool about this is that the machine absolutely screams in comparison to my old Pentium III. I installed Unreal Tournament 2004 and pushed the graphics detail settings up to almost the max. The 3D environment is just insanely realistic. Let's put it this way...As my game character was charging over a hillcrest with rocket launcher in hand, the sun coming over the rise produced a corona effect that effectively blinded me. The only thing that saved me from certain gory death was my spotting of a shadow of another character in the corner of the screen, running to hide behind a rock and ambush me. (A well-placed grenade took care of that problem.)

Lesson learned: One doesn't always need the most cutting-edge technology. Economize by picking your components carefully (a version or two behind the latest and greatest) and doing the customization yourself.

Breslin: Giuliani Is An Attention Whore

Will somebody please convince Jimmy Breslin to retire? This load of bilge is his latest.

Sure, there's plenty to criticize Rudy Giuliani about - his approach to NYC's homeless, his treatment of programs for the arts...Heck, I hold him personally responsible for the Disneyfication of Times Square, but most people look at that as a good thing.

But "illness being used for publicity?" If Breslin's memory is foggy, perhaps we should remind him that Giuliani fans wanted him to run for the Senate and that his prostate cancer kept him from running against Hillary Clinton. His own father died of the disease. Today, he does commercials urging New Yorkers to go in for checkups. Rudy isn't an attention whore. He's a concerned public figure. He doesn't currently hold office, nor is he running for anything, but he still performs a public service by doing the commercials.

Breslin goes on to accuse Giuliani of unfairly taking credit for decreases in the New York City crime rate, saying "It had dropped all over the country." Perhaps he forgets that before Giuliani took office, people were afraid to be in certain Manhattan neighborhoods after dark. Thanks to Giuliani, that pretty much ended. In the mid to late 90s, crime dropped by double-digit percentages while crime rates in Dallas and Detroit dropped only 2 percent and Los Angeles dropped only 4 percent.

Worst of all, though, Breslin accuses Giuliani of playing to the cameras on 9/11. Maybe Breslin forgets that the city was in a blind panic that morning, seeing its two tallest buildings destroyed and thousands of people killed. We heard broadcast reports that the Pentagon was simultaneously under attack. Many of the people I saw on the street that morning thought World War III was underway. Giuliani's rational and calming appearances on television reassured the city and saved lives.

Take Your Agency Public? Just Say No.

This is why you don't take your ad agency public.

I find it silly that in the above-linked story by Stuart Elliot, there is no discussion of the advertising business in general or the challenges that face holding company IPG. Just a lot of bitching on the part of investors that IPG's stock isn't performing as well as they might like, that IPG gives bonuses to its executives, and that investor dividends have been suspended. IPG Chair and CEO David Bell justifies the bonuses by saying that failing to give them invites competitors to poach the talent that IPG needs in order to turn things around. This totally makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense is having to put up with this nonsense from shareholders who want to make a quick buck instead of investing for the long haul.

To me, the freedom to grow a company in a smart and realistic fashion is worth tons more than the money an IPO can raise. I wouldn't trade this freedom away if it meant having investors constantly pressuring me for short-term gain at the expense of long-term sustainability. If you're making money and you don't need IPO cash to fund things like expansion or acquisitions, stay private and avoid the aggravation.

Abu Ghraib=Gitmo

Everybody read the New Yorker article? Good...

I wanted to believe that the incidents at Abu Ghraib were isolated ones - that perhaps they were simply the result of misguided and inexperienced military personnel playing to their own personal sadistic tendencies. Now I'm thinking that this is what was expected of them by the chain of command, which leads directly to Donald Rumsfeld. Here are two paragraphs from the New Yorker article that were red flags for me:

The solution, endorsed by Rumsfeld and carried out by Stephen Cambone, was to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents. A key player was Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the detention and interrogation center at Guantánamo, who had been summoned to Baghdad in late August to review prison interrogation procedures. The internal Army report on the abuse charges, written by Major General Antonio Taguba in February, revealed that Miller urged that the commanders in Baghdad change policy and place military intelligence in charge of the prison. The report quoted Miller as recommending that “detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation.”

Miller’s concept, as it emerged in recent Senate hearings, was to “Gitmoize” the prison system in Iraq—to make it more focussed on interrogation. He also briefed military commanders in Iraq on the interrogation methods used in Cuba—methods that could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in “stress positions” for agonizing lengths of time.

My last post about this situation drew parallels between Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. I simply couldn't believe that the administration would want to set two separate standards for detainees at these two distinct facilities. When the administration can essentially deal with the Gitmo detainees in a lawless fashion and use torture as a tactic to gain information, why wouldn't they want the same thing for Abu Ghraib, where any intelligence gleaned would be immediately actionable?

So maybe what we're looking at here is a concerted effort on the part of Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense to extend the lawlessness and state of legal limbo of the prisoners at Guantanamo to other places where we're embroiled in conflict. Can someone please tell me why we bother to even make mention of the Geneva Conventions if the administration can continue to set up these concentration camps wherever they want, whenever they want?

Rumsfeld knew. This whole thing has been designed to create an environment in which the administration can have concentration camps where anyone who appears remotely suspicious can be detained indefinitely and be tortured to obtain information, regardless of guilt or innocence.

How far does this administration need to go before we make it known, as a nation, that we won't stand for concentration camps and lawlessness?