Sorry, forgot we're talking about Apple where their products go EOL after 6 months.

Bzzt. Try again.

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=60826169A5CA7304

That's, as of this posting, $339.99 for two 8GB DDR3 ECC DIMMS for the current-generation Mac Pro. To get to your precious 64G goal, you'd buy four of those two-dimm bundles which would total $1359.96 before taxes and shipping. And that's prices a well-known seller, without whatever coupons might be offered. I'm sure there's a newegg deal or something that'd make it even less. But that's "retail" right there. A far cry from your claimed "more than 5k by itself."

Fun fact: Apple had a TPM chip in their laptops, but they removed it in a recent product revision.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=248858

Good luck getting it back!

the FIPS201 PIV (HSPD12) cards you refer to can be used for contactless authentication in a number of ways:
1. CHUID (easily duplicated, no authentication required to read from the card)
2. CAK (PKI validation of the card itself)
3. PKI (PKI validation of the cert issued to the person, stored on the card)
4. BIO (on card or off card matching of fingerprints)

3+4 = awesome stuff. if they can do it. i'd be surprised if they are using this for their doors. it's a ton of equipment, labor, time for end users, money, and burden for getting through a door.
1 = horrific, LESS secure than mifare or desfire or prox. i believe someone at Defcon was sniffing and playing these on a wall-of-sheep sort of display in '08 or '09

now. wanna know how most organizations are doing contactless access control with their HSPD-12 cards? they get them manufactured with a mifare or desfire inlay inside, instead of the contactless antenna for the PIV electronics. and they can even go further and have a PIV+Mifare+Prox card or PIV+Desfire+Prox card by putting a oldschool 125khz prox inlay inside as well (different frequencies, so no interference)

to the outsider or layperson it looks like your super-sexy PIV card is doing everything. In reality, it's the same old tech sandwiched in the middle of your PIV card.

not saying this is the case at NASA, i have no knowledge of their PIV deployment. But this is how it's done elsewhere.....

O RLY?

According to a book entitled Michigan Yesterday & Today authored by Robert W. Domm, the assembly line and its basic concept is credited to Ransom Olds, who used it to build the first mass-produced automobile, the Oldsmobile Curved Dash.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Assembly_line#History

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2373443?start=0&tstart=0

hope this helps.

your point?

Microsoft is exceeding their patch target dates, while Apple is trailing the pack with shoddy patches only for its current-gen non-PPC machines?