As a final note, having Iraq be free is important to our National Defence
Well, it may be useful, but the main problem is really cost-benefit ratio. Could those resources (big ass attack army, maintenance, not to mention cost in human lifes for army and its contractors) be better put into some other venture? I find it hard to believe it'd be anywhere near best "investments" allmighty US army could have done, to factually improve defence and security of the father land. And oil... well, while important, it's over rated as far as security is concernerned. Higher prices that could result from crisis in the gulf would just move economy to another direction it's now heading; free enterprises (and even governments) are surprisingly good at finding alternatives (german cars on 40s using methanol etc). It'd be inconvenient, and may be unfortunate, but hardly Armageddon.
Above I'm being kind and just ignoring your use of "free", too; freedom as spouted my mr. Bush, for example, is something more akin to mr. Orwell's freedom, WRT "freedoms" he imposes to his own subjects (from patriot act to [all but] endorsing pollution and squashing free speech on radio and TV). That kind of freedom, which seem to be getting shipped to Iraq soon, too (closing of newspapers may be just beginning), hardly improves anyones security. At least according to ideology of open free democratic society, something GBW just pays lip service to.
Often C/C++ code uses gotos to go to shared cleanup code, from various error check conditions; to keep allocation/access and cleanup in same method. If you don't use it, you'll use some other mechanism to same end (note, too, that I have nothing against use of goto in this way -- it is one of valid uses of it in C).
Nor do I need to handle pointers. Nor do I want this degree of error checking compiled into my code. The debugger should deal with this. The end user has no use for it.
User often may not need to see it, but no, debugger certainly isn't going to solve it. Exceptions can occur for perfectly fine programs (network timeouts, remote end crashing, running out of some resource such as memory or disk space, another process accidentally changing file permissions etc. etc. etc). Without generic extension mechanism, every single method would need to be able return any indication of abnormal circumstances. Plus, without higher-level catch blocks, you'd have no choice but check at lowest level code all however remote problem cases, if you want to make high-availability system.
And although program definitely should check for expected error conditions (bounds checks, nulls), it's like saying acrobats should never use nets -- they only needed if they fall, and good one shouldn't fall. Asserts, logging problems are good too, but exceptions are eventually necessary for high-availability (server) systems.
One final note; in some languages (notably Java), one minor benefit of exceptions is also that this way you need not waste return value on error/success condition marker: you can return whatever normal value is, and just signal error conditions using exceptions. Without exceptions code would be pretty clumsy.
In theory this would be an ideal solution. It forces programmers to think about what they're doing. In practice, it doesn't. Coders are too busy thinking about the actual problem. Error checking gets in the way. They end up implementing the quickest way of ignoring the problem.
Are you by any chance just generalizing based on YOUR behavior here? I have no stastical sampling, but I have no trouble using exception-based systems in Java just nice, nor do my team members. I agree that C++ has its own clunky version that's not quite as useful, being half-assed bolted-in bastardization of general concept, but most other languages (Java, C#, not to mention languages more favored by academia) have reasonably straight-forward implementations.
I disagree with try... catch being useless or worse than simple old return error code approach. Maybe there are better solutions -- if so, hopefully someone presents it soon. But until then, try/catch works just fine in Java, for my purposes. From what I've seen, people who ignore errors propagated via exceptions, would be as unlikely to check for special error codes as well.
As to your "simple" check-for-NULL approach, that's just load of bull. With error codes one ends up having to use gotos; being unable to pass exception straight (ie. having to properly propagate error codes up the stack), maybe have to use specific error handler pointers (to emulate exception handling), and so on. It works ok in some simple situations, but is a real bitch to scale. With error codes it is tricky to separate generic (shared) but error type specific handling; something easy in languages with exception-based handling. With things like separation of checked and unchecked exception, it's also very easy to make high-level catch-all handling of nasty problems like null pointer/array index out of bounds, so that program does not have to terminate. And that's a real boon for long-running server processes (esp. with ones that allow modular plug-ins to be dynamically loaded); you want to log and fix problems, but not terminate your business critical system; this without having to declare or handle such problems at low level code. Try to do that with error codes.
Finally, no one forces you to use exception-based error handling in most languages. You can choose to use your trivially simplistic error code approach if you so choose.
Actually, same (non-literal interpretation of Genesis story) goes for pretty much any non-fundamentalist christian group. At least all mainstream protestant groups are fairly ok with evolution as "implementation" of God's plans, and Genesis being story that was properly watered down by mr. G so that even ancient nomads could dig it.
Fundamentalist christians really are but minority in the world (or even amongst christians in general); many of them are loud and obnoxious in US, trying to leverage their zeal and energy to get more power to their "mission" (ie. pushing their ideals down others' throats)... but they are still minority, thank doG.:-)
Interestingly, though, there are plenty of less vocal christian fundamentalist groups, both in US and in european countries; folks like Amishes or luddite-like groups in scandinavia (don't own TVs, stay quite isolated from "non-believerers, but have no mission to convert "outsiders"). Those folks are generally easier to respect, because they walk the walk, without having to talk the talk; not vice versa.
Learning the syntax of a new language should not be a significant challenge to an experienced, talented developer.
No, but syntax really is one of the easiest aspects of programming languages to learn. Learning new and differing semantics takes more time, and especially best practices with the new language.
But like others have pointed there's also the delicate balance between optimal tool, and availability of professionals knowing how to use the tool, or willing to learn how to use it. Further, languages themselves are not even so much tools but specifications FOR tools; that is, what matters a lot is quality of tools (compilers, debuggers) for language, as well as compatibility of programs written in language (if and how they can access code written in other languages). Many of reasonably popular "academic" programming languages (Smalltalk, Common Lisp, probably Eiffel too) have trouble with one or the other; either they need their "own" virtual machine, have only one de facto implementation of compiler and/or VM, or some other limitations.
Now, personally I think that as long as applications that use Gnome and its libs can be written in most commonly used languages, and implementation is efficient enough, I wouldn't
greatly great about actual implementation language. But I have no plans to start developing those Gnome components either.
Yeah, a "real world" language that will only let you do a select-case on an int.
Yeah, as opposed to other real world languages such as C and C++.
Yes, C# allows using syntactic sugar, to do "switch of Strings". Other than that, it's mostly just scripting languages that allow it; mostly because most scripting language have no static typing.
I must admit this is amongst funniest "proofs" of "why java sucks".
Maybe, maybe not. Note that you are comparing something official announced by the company (which, amongst other things, means it's what's told as current truth to its shareholders) with unsubstantiated rumours, which at best outline one prominent way of thinking amongst Sun's leaders. Basically, even if rumour is true to its fullest, many things can happen now and then. Executives always keep many options open, have multiple scenarios, from best to worst case plans etc. etc.
Personally, I very much doubt that company would total net reduction of 30% over next financial year. If they tried, they might as well liquidate company's assets right now and give proceeds to shareholders. That's where Sun's current value is (share value fairly close to book value, that is); to get more share value via growth, company HAS to continue spending on R&D... and that can not be done by firing 30% of employees during next year. It's hard enough to grow by 30% over couple of years; reducing by that amount in one year is only done on death spirals of companies when all other options have been exhausted. It's like amputating your left leg, instead of liposuction, to lose more weight.
ice is used more heavily in traditional german beers.
Nope, certainly not TRADITIONAL german beers.
Such beers conform to so-called purity standard (whatever it's in german) which defines the few ingredients allowed to be used for beers (water, hop, malt, yeast?). And surprisingly enough, that centuries old list does not contain rice (or corn for that matter).:-)
Sun is a Hardware vendor first and a Software vendor second.
I would agree, except that this is to change, if one is to believe Sun's executives. It's hardly a coincidence that former software exec is now COO; his goal is to move Sun to become (more of) a software company. If he fails, he'll be history; to get the position he has promised he can do it... and if (when) he does not deliver, he'll be out and someone else will promise something else for eager board.
Note that I'm not saying Sun should become s/w corp (few big corporations really make any money directly from s/w these days), nor that I think it's necessarily even possible. But make no mistake, that's what McNealy and board want to happen; and they have said that repeatedly over past year or so.
Sure, it's unlikely that our garden variety bacteria would survive on Europa, but then, how likely is it that life would arise on its own? If you believe in the latter you have to allow the former, which is a lot more likely, statistically...
No, it is not. Not that you or I can provide much in way of statistics to speak of, but consider the fact that "our" microbies would have only one chance to get enough of them to mutate, to survive, and failing that. They're dead, until next spaceship comes, if ever.
On the other hand, getting native ones to develop can happen at any single point over millions of years, under potentiallty varying circumstances.
Chances of either happening are probably miniscule, but one is a continuing process, and the other discrete tiny one-time chances. I'd put my money on life evolving spontaneously, over someone bringing in specialized life-forms ill-suited for new environment any day.
So putting copyrighted files, whether or not someone else actually bothers to download them, is violation of copyright (unless of course permission to distribute in that fashion has been granted, of course) because you are distributing an unauthorized copy of the work.
No, not the way I understand distribution it is not. Distribution involves transfer of the copy (or creating a new copy, such that copy is made by one party and received by another party). Just making a copy available does not it distribution make. Library example many people have used it nicely analogous to putting/leaving something in a shared directory.
About the only twist I can think of would be whether creating Mp3 etc. copy from, say, CD, would be illegal due to copyrights; that depends on fair use laws (or precedents). Or, perhaps, combination of fair use copy, and making that available would render fair use copy not really protected by fair use any more... if it's thought intention is not to use it according to restrictions (by same person that owns legal copy)?
I agree that there are some things that should be obvious, like following the 15 (crash) 10, 10 commandments,
No, not really. None of commandments (assuming you refer to the bible) is a law. Some of them are rougly analogous to actual laws in most western countries... but only some (few). Commandments are rough approximation of commonly agreed upon ethics of a nomadic tribe few millenia ago, and thus quite logically are not all that close approximation to modern laws of western countries. They are still used as generic ethical guidelines by some of more sincere christians (interestingly enough, not necessarily by fundamentalists... who seem to focus on distinct subset of commandments), obviously, but are nowhere near as being universal laws, not even in USA, one of more fundamentalist western countries.
But putting a copyrighted file that you have not received permission to distribute in your shared folder *IS* unauthorized distribution, no matter how you slice it.
Huh? No it is not. There's no semantic difference between hard copies and copier being accessible, and having electrical access to electrical copies. Both are cases of making copyrighted content accessible, nothing less nothing more.
Act of distribution would be active thing; printing an article on newspaper that gets delivered to one's home, for example. Your shared folders isn't magically getting sent to distribution list. Unless there are specific arrangements for other systems to do automated copies, it just does not qualify as distribution, no matter how firmly you claim it does. Try to prove your point, instead of just repeating the claim,
NO OTHER BUSINESS is required to pay a kickback to the city... the local Menards doesn't have to pay a franchise fee directly to the city.
Maybe, but telcos definitely have to (many states regulate pricing, require certain level of service for remote areas etc. etc. etc). And developers sometimes have to pay for infrastructure and/or maintenance costs, for new malls. The concept is hardly unique to cable cos.
I do agree in that kickbacks should be eliminated, even more so to prevent unfair competition by cities, states, when trying to lure in "lucrative" corporation HQs. But with regards to monopolies; as long as monopolies exist, I don't have a problem with local governance from demanding something in return. That is, if monopolies go, all kickbacks could and should go; if not, it makes sense that monopoly status is auctioned one way or the other, not just given with no strings attached.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it does; all historic price/dividend stats take basic facts like that into account. And checking adjusted daily values seemed to confirm this.
however I will also have to try not to swallow cyanide while dying through Java classes teaching me how to program in a way so dumbed down that even the greatest imbecile can't screw up.
...
This afternoon I made some money writing some boring PHP code, but also worked on my personal projects,
While I whole-heartedly agree with points you are making, it's worth mentioning that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with either Java or PHP, that leads to boring lowest common demoninator programming: it's possible to do interesting advanced and sophisticated things using both, as well as with their countless alternatives. Except for some elitits who claim one has to use, say, functional programming languages to do anything interesting, or "no pain no gain" hard-core low-level language fanatics, most truly good programmers understand it's not tools that make exceptional advances; it's the craftsmen that use them.
Independent of whether Apple continues to operate as a company, keep in mind that from investment point of view, Apple hasn't been all that great a thing.
Even when taking a long-term view (like
this, comparing AAPL with dow jones since Apple's listing) main reason to own Apple shares
would be to show your loyalty to company, not
to make money. On medium term; over past 10 years,
investing in Apple would have been even worse, and had brought you only 50% growth (and dividends are almost neglibly small). That's much lower than
what is traditionally expected (somewhere slightly above 10% annual ROI).
So what does this matter? Just that from investment POV (it was written by Money mag)
Apple has been a dog, and they are trying to
explain why they think it remains such, even
though it has good brand, got the spotlight,
positive "mindshare". You may disagree, but
that's their background.
false factoid, like that the internet was built to survive a Nuclear War.
Perhaps it's a typo from your part -- original Arpanet was certainly designed such that a network could be built that would survive effects of parts of network to be completed wiped out; something that could happen as a result of nuclear strike. I don't think Arpanet infrastructure itself was more than a (eventually large-scale) prototype (physically, I mean; protocols were certainly engineered correctly), and thus neither it, nor Internet later on, was built to be as tolerant as what protocols would allow.
That Arpanet was designed to survive catastrohic (yet not completely destructive -- there still has to be at least one route between nodes that want to communicate, obviously), is not an urban legend , and should be easily verified from various accounts by its creators.
if they didnt log anything, think of the crimes people could get way with.
And all this time I thought it was police that should investigate crimes? Really, there are good reasons to have logs (to protect ISP itself and its customers, from abuse, security faults etc); but being a vigilante surrogate police is not one of them.
Like another poster said, though, for general purpose logs, it would make most sense to keep logs for limited amount of time; much like what is usually done with security cameras (reuse tapes/storage space after couple of days).
142 miles across a completely barren plain, with very few obstacles
You might to read the facts about challenge; SciAm for example had nice article.
But basically, it's not "just 142 miles in the middle of nowhere", but 142 miles with rather tight time limit (ie. they have to race almost as fast as human drivers would drive normally); exact route they HAD to follow (with some max. deviation allowed) was only disclosed few hours before start, and definitely wasn't just a straight line, and terrain was not just barren, it's pretty rough (meaning that staying on the road or path or whaver is a must) no matter how you look at it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it may be useful, but the main problem is really cost-benefit ratio. Could those resources (big ass attack army, maintenance, not to mention cost in human lifes for army and its contractors) be better put into some other venture? I find it hard to believe it'd be anywhere near best "investments" allmighty US army could have done, to factually improve defence and security of the father land. And oil... well, while important, it's over rated as far as security is concernerned. Higher prices that could result from crisis in the gulf would just move economy to another direction it's now heading; free enterprises (and even governments) are surprisingly good at finding alternatives (german cars on 40s using methanol etc). It'd be inconvenient, and may be unfortunate, but hardly Armageddon.
Above I'm being kind and just ignoring your use of "free", too; freedom as spouted my mr. Bush, for example, is something more akin to mr. Orwell's freedom, WRT "freedoms" he imposes to his own subjects (from patriot act to [all but] endorsing pollution and squashing free speech on radio and TV). That kind of freedom, which seem to be getting shipped to Iraq soon, too (closing of newspapers may be just beginning), hardly improves anyones security. At least according to ideology of open free democratic society, something GBW just pays lip service to.
Often C/C++ code uses gotos to go to shared cleanup code, from various error check conditions; to keep allocation/access and cleanup in same method. If you don't use it, you'll use some other mechanism to same end (note, too, that I have nothing against use of goto in this way -- it is one of valid uses of it in C).
Nor do I need to handle pointers. Nor do I want this degree of error checking compiled into my code. The debugger should deal with this. The end user has no use for it.
User often may not need to see it, but no, debugger certainly isn't going to solve it. Exceptions can occur for perfectly fine programs (network timeouts, remote end crashing, running out of some resource such as memory or disk space, another process accidentally changing file permissions etc. etc. etc). Without generic extension mechanism, every single method would need to be able return any indication of abnormal circumstances. Plus, without higher-level catch blocks, you'd have no choice but check at lowest level code all however remote problem cases, if you want to make high-availability system.
And although program definitely should check for expected error conditions (bounds checks, nulls), it's like saying acrobats should never use nets -- they only needed if they fall, and good one shouldn't fall. Asserts, logging problems are good too, but exceptions are eventually necessary for high-availability (server) systems.
One final note; in some languages (notably Java), one minor benefit of exceptions is also that this way you need not waste return value on error/success condition marker: you can return whatever normal value is, and just signal error conditions using exceptions. Without exceptions code would be pretty clumsy.
Are you by any chance just generalizing based on YOUR behavior here? I have no stastical sampling, but I have no trouble using exception-based systems in Java just nice, nor do my team members. I agree that C++ has its own clunky version that's not quite as useful, being half-assed bolted-in bastardization of general concept, but most other languages (Java, C#, not to mention languages more favored by academia) have reasonably straight-forward implementations.
I disagree with try ... catch being useless or worse than simple old return error code approach. Maybe there are better solutions -- if so, hopefully someone presents it soon. But until then, try/catch works just fine in Java, for my purposes. From what I've seen, people who ignore errors propagated via exceptions, would be as unlikely to check for special error codes as well.
As to your "simple" check-for-NULL approach, that's just load of bull. With error codes one ends up having to use gotos; being unable to pass exception straight (ie. having to properly propagate error codes up the stack), maybe have to use specific error handler pointers (to emulate exception handling), and so on. It works ok in some simple situations, but is a real bitch to scale. With error codes it is tricky to separate generic (shared) but error type specific handling; something easy in languages with exception-based handling. With things like separation of checked and unchecked exception, it's also very easy to make high-level catch-all handling of nasty problems like null pointer/array index out of bounds, so that program does not have to terminate. And that's a real boon for long-running server processes (esp. with ones that allow modular plug-ins to be dynamically loaded); you want to log and fix problems, but not terminate your business critical system; this without having to declare or handle such problems at low level code. Try to do that with error codes.
Finally, no one forces you to use exception-based error handling in most languages. You can choose to use your trivially simplistic error code approach if you so choose.
Fundamentalist christians really are but minority in the world (or even amongst christians in general); many of them are loud and obnoxious in US, trying to leverage their zeal and energy to get more power to their "mission" (ie. pushing their ideals down others' throats)... but they are still minority, thank doG. :-)
Interestingly, though, there are plenty of less vocal christian fundamentalist groups, both in US and in european countries; folks like Amishes or luddite-like groups in scandinavia (don't own TVs, stay quite isolated from "non-believerers, but have no mission to convert "outsiders"). Those folks are generally easier to respect, because they walk the walk, without having to talk the talk; not vice versa.
No, but syntax really is one of the easiest aspects of programming languages to learn. Learning new and differing semantics takes more time, and especially best practices with the new language.
But like others have pointed there's also the delicate balance between optimal tool, and availability of professionals knowing how to use the tool, or willing to learn how to use it. Further, languages themselves are not even so much tools but specifications FOR tools; that is, what matters a lot is quality of tools (compilers, debuggers) for language, as well as compatibility of programs written in language (if and how they can access code written in other languages). Many of reasonably popular "academic" programming languages (Smalltalk, Common Lisp, probably Eiffel too) have trouble with one or the other; either they need their "own" virtual machine, have only one de facto implementation of compiler and/or VM, or some other limitations.
Now, personally I think that as long as applications that use Gnome and its libs can be written in most commonly used languages, and implementation is efficient enough, I wouldn't greatly great about actual implementation language. But I have no plans to start developing those Gnome components either.
Yeah, as opposed to other real world languages such as C and C++.
Yes, C# allows using syntactic sugar, to do "switch of Strings". Other than that, it's mostly just scripting languages that allow it; mostly because most scripting language have no static typing.
I must admit this is amongst funniest "proofs" of "why java sucks".
Personally, I very much doubt that company would total net reduction of 30% over next financial year. If they tried, they might as well liquidate company's assets right now and give proceeds to shareholders. That's where Sun's current value is (share value fairly close to book value, that is); to get more share value via growth, company HAS to continue spending on R&D... and that can not be done by firing 30% of employees during next year. It's hard enough to grow by 30% over couple of years; reducing by that amount in one year is only done on death spirals of companies when all other options have been exhausted. It's like amputating your left leg, instead of liposuction, to lose more weight.
Nope, certainly not TRADITIONAL german beers. Such beers conform to so-called purity standard (whatever it's in german) which defines the few ingredients allowed to be used for beers (water, hop, malt, yeast?). And surprisingly enough, that centuries old list does not contain rice (or corn for that matter). :-)
I would agree, except that this is to change, if one is to believe Sun's executives. It's hardly a coincidence that former software exec is now COO; his goal is to move Sun to become (more of) a software company. If he fails, he'll be history; to get the position he has promised he can do it... and if (when) he does not deliver, he'll be out and someone else will promise something else for eager board.
Note that I'm not saying Sun should become s/w corp (few big corporations really make any money directly from s/w these days), nor that I think it's necessarily even possible. But make no mistake, that's what McNealy and board want to happen; and they have said that repeatedly over past year or so.
I sure hope it is, otherwise SCO will claim it's derivative of their UNIX IP...
No, it is not. Not that you or I can provide much in way of statistics to speak of, but consider the fact that "our" microbies would have only one chance to get enough of them to mutate, to survive, and failing that. They're dead, until next spaceship comes, if ever. On the other hand, getting native ones to develop can happen at any single point over millions of years, under potentiallty varying circumstances.
Chances of either happening are probably miniscule, but one is a continuing process, and the other discrete tiny one-time chances. I'd put my money on life evolving spontaneously, over someone bringing in specialized life-forms ill-suited for new environment any day.
No, not the way I understand distribution it is not. Distribution involves transfer of the copy (or creating a new copy, such that copy is made by one party and received by another party). Just making a copy available does not it distribution make. Library example many people have used it nicely analogous to putting/leaving something in a shared directory.
About the only twist I can think of would be whether creating Mp3 etc. copy from, say, CD, would be illegal due to copyrights; that depends on fair use laws (or precedents). Or, perhaps, combination of fair use copy, and making that available would render fair use copy not really protected by fair use any more... if it's thought intention is not to use it according to restrictions (by same person that owns legal copy)?
No, not really. None of commandments (assuming you refer to the bible) is a law. Some of them are rougly analogous to actual laws in most western countries... but only some (few). Commandments are rough approximation of commonly agreed upon ethics of a nomadic tribe few millenia ago, and thus quite logically are not all that close approximation to modern laws of western countries. They are still used as generic ethical guidelines by some of more sincere christians (interestingly enough, not necessarily by fundamentalists... who seem to focus on distinct subset of commandments), obviously, but are nowhere near as being universal laws, not even in USA, one of more fundamentalist western countries.
Huh? No it is not. There's no semantic difference between hard copies and copier being accessible, and having electrical access to electrical copies. Both are cases of making copyrighted content accessible, nothing less nothing more.
Act of distribution would be active thing; printing an article on newspaper that gets delivered to one's home, for example. Your shared folders isn't magically getting sent to distribution list. Unless there are specific arrangements for other systems to do automated copies, it just does not qualify as distribution, no matter how firmly you claim it does. Try to prove your point, instead of just repeating the claim,
Yeah, that is plain wrong, not to mention short-sighted and stupid from local authorities' part. :-/
But probably "business as usual" in many places.
Oh Yeah? I wouldn't be so sure:
Maybe, but telcos definitely have to (many states regulate pricing, require certain level of service for remote areas etc. etc. etc). And developers sometimes have to pay for infrastructure and/or maintenance costs, for new malls. The concept is hardly unique to cable cos.
I do agree in that kickbacks should be eliminated, even more so to prevent unfair competition by cities, states, when trying to lure in "lucrative" corporation HQs. But with regards to monopolies; as long as monopolies exist, I don't have a problem with local governance from demanding something in return. That is, if monopolies go, all kickbacks could and should go; if not, it makes sense that monopoly status is auctioned one way or the other, not just given with no strings attached.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it does; all historic price/dividend stats take basic facts like that into account. And checking adjusted daily values seemed to confirm this.
This afternoon I made some money writing some boring PHP code, but also worked on my personal projects,
While I whole-heartedly agree with points you are making, it's worth mentioning that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with either Java or PHP, that leads to boring lowest common demoninator programming: it's possible to do interesting advanced and sophisticated things using both, as well as with their countless alternatives. Except for some elitits who claim one has to use, say, functional programming languages to do anything interesting, or "no pain no gain" hard-core low-level language fanatics, most truly good programmers understand it's not tools that make exceptional advances; it's the craftsmen that use them.
and little value in the stock.
Independent of whether Apple continues to operate as a company, keep in mind that from investment point of view, Apple hasn't been all that great a thing. Even when taking a long-term view (like this, comparing AAPL with dow jones since Apple's listing) main reason to own Apple shares would be to show your loyalty to company, not to make money. On medium term; over past 10 years, investing in Apple would have been even worse, and had brought you only 50% growth (and dividends are almost neglibly small). That's much lower than what is traditionally expected (somewhere slightly above 10% annual ROI).
So what does this matter? Just that from investment POV (it was written by Money mag) Apple has been a dog, and they are trying to explain why they think it remains such, even though it has good brand, got the spotlight, positive "mindshare". You may disagree, but that's their background.
Hmmh. But that doesn't make any sense... I always thought there were already 1001 known planets and... uhm, never mind.
Perhaps it's a typo from your part -- original Arpanet was certainly designed such that a network could be built that would survive effects of parts of network to be completed wiped out; something that could happen as a result of nuclear strike. I don't think Arpanet infrastructure itself was more than a (eventually large-scale) prototype (physically, I mean; protocols were certainly engineered correctly), and thus neither it, nor Internet later on, was built to be as tolerant as what protocols would allow.
That Arpanet was designed to survive catastrohic (yet not completely destructive -- there still has to be at least one route between nodes that want to communicate, obviously), is not an urban legend , and should be easily verified from various accounts by its creators.
And all this time I thought it was police that should investigate crimes? Really, there are good reasons to have logs (to protect ISP itself and its customers, from abuse, security faults etc); but being a vigilante surrogate police is not one of them.
Like another poster said, though, for general purpose logs, it would make most sense to keep logs for limited amount of time; much like what is usually done with security cameras (reuse tapes/storage space after couple of days).
You might to read the facts about challenge; SciAm for example had nice article.
But basically, it's not "just 142 miles in the middle of nowhere", but 142 miles with rather tight time limit (ie. they have to race almost as fast as human drivers would drive normally); exact route they HAD to follow (with some max. deviation allowed) was only disclosed few hours before start, and definitely wasn't just a straight line, and terrain was not just barren, it's pretty rough (meaning that staying on the road or path or whaver is a must) no matter how you look at it.
I wonder if he also constructs bridges and digs tunnels? Perhaps we should consider offering to sell him a bridge so he wouldn't have to build one...