Denmark is also incredibly windy. Average windspeeds of >30mph over large parts of the country, and it's windy year round.
Iceland uses tons of geothermal energy. Of course, it sits on the mid-Atlantic ridge, and therefore has plentiful geothermal energy.
There is tons of hydroelectric potential from melt water of all the mountain ranges in the western US.
The moral here is that for sustainable and eco-friendly development, each area should use resources appropriate to what is available. For the Danes it is wind. For Iceland it is geothermal. The US is large enough that it must resort to differing sources for different parts of the nation. I suspect wind could provide a lot of energy in areas that are relatively unpopulated--the plains of central US.
It's really nice to see a nation like Denmark make it a national priority. As wind turbines approach economies of scale, I'm sure costs per megawatt will improve considerably.
JBoss typically uses Tomcat (v3 or v4 Catalina) or Resin for serving dynamic web pages. Both Tomcat Catalina (v4) and Resin are included in the benchmark.
High availability should not be confused with handling load. High availability ensures uptime for a server. Load balancing distributes a load across multiple servers, allowing the handling of larger loads. Linux-HA is for the former.
Here are some links to some load balancing projects I'm aware of:
Ultra Monkey - A high-availability and load balancer solution based on Linux (it looks like Super Sparrow may be Ultra Monkey's load balancer)
LVS - A high-availability and load balancer solution based on Linux
I've never used any of these, so I can't give any first-person accounts as to their effectiveness. This list isn't meant to be exhaustive, either. It's just a starting point.
Sending a message from one employee to another using one of the standard IM systems (ICQ, Y!, AIM, MSN) sends messages to an outside server by design. Sending message from one employee to another should keep the message inside the local network (unless the company has an unusual setup for their mail servers, or if they use third party email servers). In this case, email is private, doesn't go outside the company, and isn't sniffable by third parties.
There are situations where communications must be monitored (one in particular is equities and derivatives traders). It can be required by law. In these situations, only authorized instant messaging systems are acceptable (I believe IBM's PROFS is commonly used). Central logging of all communications is vital. Some IM systems, namely MSN, don't even offer logging capabilities.
In these cases, blocking communications technology is the Right Thing(tm) to do, although I would argue it is probably easier to achieve this purpose by preventing users from installing applications.
Well, I was incorrect. What you do is actually start 2 X servers, and start all your clients in VNC's X server. Or you can run syncviewer (this is the one I was remembering...runs an SVGA version of VNC). Or you can use x0rfb. In any case, there are many ways to do what you desire.
The Unix VNC server does not mirror the current display. It provides a seperate remote display. On Windows VNC lets you use the current display which can be very usefull. I wish the Unix VNC server could provde this feature.
Try x0rfbserver This does what you want. It's been around for years and years.
VNC's approach of setting up a separate display is a design feature, designed to take advantage of X's natural ability to support more than one output display. You can also start the regular old AT&T VNC server such that it also starts X in the same session, giving you the same effect as x0rfbserver. This has been there since day one with VNC.
I only wish the Windows and Mac versions of VNC let you start a session that *didn't* control the current display. This is a failure of the design of the windowing systems under Windows and MacOS. Please don't attribute your lack of knowledge of VNC as a failure in the design of the X Window System or the Unix version of VNC.
OK. I've configued my X server for multiple resolutions. I hit ctrl-alt-+ and I get a different resolution. Not a larger or smaller viewport at the same resolution. A different resolution. I can switch between 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200. At all resolutions I see the entire viewport (i.e. no scrolling). This implies that I am actually getting different resolutions, not different viewports at the same resolution.
Also, I think you've overlooked one VNC project named x0rfbserver. This runs an rfb server (the VNC protocol) on display 0 of your X server. Therefore it shares the current desktop over VNC (just like VNC on Windows and the Mac). This project has been around for years (I stumbled across it probably 5 years ago or thereabouts).
No. We don't agree with the problems of the patent system. I told you I didn't want to get mired in a discussion about the patent system. From your statements, I can only state that we disagree--I really don't want to discuss it, because such a discussion wouldn't accomplish anything.
Comparing Columbus to Newton or Einstein is simply wrong. One took daring bravado and required leadership skills. The other two were geniuses that come along very infrequently. If Newton had only discovered gravity, then maybe you could write it off as him being at the right place at the right time. But he bested this achievement by creating integral calculus. This took an unusual level of genius. Had Einstein merely discovered that matter and energy were intimately linked (e=mc^2), then maybe you could write it off as him being at the right place at the right time. But he bested this achievement with his Theory of General Relativity. If Archimedes had merely discovered that water displaced by an object placed in a tub of water equals its volume, you might be able to write it off as him being at the right place at the right time. But he bested this achievement by developing the fundamentals of what we now know as differential calculus.
These sorts of discoveries don't happen twice to the same person (OK...maybe they *could*, but I really doubt this was the case with any of these people, and the odds of this happening are essentially zero). These people made their great leaps of discovery not because of luck (or leadership or bravado) but instead because of an amazing level of genius. They are not comparable to Columbus, IMHO.
Patents don't apply to scientific discoveries. I don't want to get involved in an argument about the efficacy of patents. Our patent system isn't based upon, nor does it apply to, scientific discoveries. Our patent system applies to inventions, a very different subject than scientific discovery. One applies more to science, the other more to engineering (I don't mean to imply that either is bounded by these, however).
I was merely commenting on the futility of using Einstein as an example of "ordinary" genius and incremental scientific discovery. I do not think Einsteins meets these criteria.
Several people have achieved significant leaps in scientific discovery. Among these people I include Newton, Einstein, and Archimedes. Using these people as examples where giant leaps in understanding were not achieved is, IMHO, wrong.
Please re-read my original statement. I didnt' state that Special Relativity was somehow a greater achievement than General Relativity. I stated that his 1905 paper, the one that earned him a Nobel Prize, had ZERO references.
Then, I stated that Einstein's genius was of the revolutionary form, not an evolutionary form. The impact of his Theory of General Relativity (which did not receive a Nobel Prize, although I would agree that it was a greater piece of work than Special Relativity) merely reinforces that. Einstein is a poor choice of an example when trying to demonstrate that there are no revolutionary ideas in science.
OK. Let's get this straight. There are something like 6 billion people in the world. 6000/13 != 50. Maybe 500, but not 50.
Second, I really dislike it when someone brings up Einstein in this type of discussion. How familiar are you with PhD theses? Generally, PhD research is based heavily upon other works. In fact, just as with today's world, I think you would find that the scientific world of 1905 would be etremely sceptical of any research that did not contain references to other peoples' works.
Yet Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity (the one published in 1905 entitled "The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") had no references. Zero. This thing defies all logic according to what is publishable. Even by 1905 standards. Research without references generally is considered bunk. Without merit.
Einstein's genius transcends almost every scientific achievment known to man. It is without a doubt on par with Newtonian physics and the invention of calculus. There was no work that it built upon. Einstein's theory of special relativity is completely original, without need of references. His genius is not that of 1 in 13 million. It is the genius of one in 10 billion. It is a genuine leap of faith. It is completely revolutionary. It is far more than the result of 3000 (or 3 trillion) monkeys typing randomly. If we see another Einstein in our generation we should consider ourselves lucky.
What this has to do with patent law, I'm not sure. But please don't pull out Einstein as proof that there are no "revelotionary" concepts. Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity is about as close to revolutionary an idea as I think humanity has ever produced.
The British are responsible for naming it "soccer". Aparantly, in the 1800s, many games were known as "football"--it referred to almost any sport played with a ball and two teams. The Football Association decided to codify the rules of what Americans call "soccer". Through a twist of abbreviations and name changes, the name got translated into "soccer" (the "soc" was from the word "association", and I guess "soccer" was easier to say than "the Football Association Football". To this day, you'll still find "soccer" stores (using that name) in the United Kingdom.
In case you hadn't noticed, rugby is actually a shortened name for Rugby Football. Football refers to lots of sports. The word "soccer" comes from the UK (I heard this on a BBC program about the sport). The US retained the name to prevent confusion from the other sport Americans played known as "football". Meanwhile, the rest of the world changed the other "football" sports to "rugby" (or any of a number of other names--the name really referred to hundreds of sports in the 1800s).
Since the UK invented football/soccer, and then codified its rules and named it "soccer", then the Americans can claim to be correct in calling it "soccer".
Here's a link to the origins of football/soccer. I can't find a reference as to when the name was assigned. You'll have to take my word on it (or do your own research). But the name definitely did not originate in the U.S.
Yes, but we have a duty to overturn laws that make no sense. The punishment for posession of pot is completely disproportionate to the crime. In most cases, it is a "victimless" crime. When attempts to overturn such laws are unsuccessful, I feel it is the duty of the population to disobey the law in a peaceful manner.
If I recall my history correctly, most of the wars between Christians and Muslims were started by Christians.
Islam does not preach war towards Christians and Jews. Just like Christianity doesn't preach violent crusades to convert unbelievers. Actually, Islam preaches tolerance to those that also believe in the one true god (according to them...remember that Jesus and Abraham are considered prophets in Islam, too).
Religion has been used to justify wars since the dawn of time. "Religion is the opiate of the masses".
Egypt doesn't follow Islamic law. You won't get your hand chopped off for theft. You must be thinking of a nation such as Saudi Arabia. Of course, Saudi Arabia does not subscripe to international IP laws.
There's plenty more to complain about in your message, but I won't bore everyone else.
The US federal government was supposed to be merely a custodial bureacracy overseeing the day-to-day administration of national defense and infrastructure (you forgot law enforcement). However, the form and structure of the government is not static (by design). The federal government has changed over time. Now the federal government also invests in things like education and healthcare. It's not 1787 any more.
We don't have a constitution to restrict the government's power to "plan" the lives of people or the direction of the economy. From the preamble of the US Constitution,
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Yes, it's a living document. Promoting the general welfare of people has expanded to include guiding the economy and educating the people. Like I said before, it's a living document.
The Constitution is designed to limit the powers of the federal government. But it was not designed to outline explicitly every power the federal government has. Over time, the federal government can take on new powers, so long as they do not overstep the bounds outlined by the Constitution. The constitution doesn't say what the government can do, it says what the government can't do.
Those are absolutely fantastic questions, although they are very specific to programmers. The first question requires a general degree of knowledge about computer languages, including facets of language design and use that are only exposed when someone programs frequently. The second one tests your reasoning skills, especially your abilities to think outside the box (i.e. to put yourself in others' shoes). I like them, and I will adopt them as my own.
The signal is just a medium. Like a videotape. Or a CD. I understand that beaming data over public airways should mean that people can use the airways anyway they want within the confines of copyright law, I don't understand how the medium affects the copyright.
The copyright is still valid. If I read a book over the radio, that doesn't make the book part of the public domain.
Don't confuse the medium with the content. You should be able to do whatever you want with the medium. But altering the content for anything other than for personal use (i.e. rebroadcasting or whatever) crosses the boundary into copyright law. The question is really whether altering the TV program (by removing commercials) constitutes a violation of copyright law. IANAL, but I wouldn't think it would (unless rebroadcasted...i.e. put on the Internet w/o commercials).
1) Java isn't slow. v1.3 and earlier of the JDK didn't implement video copies to utilize hardware acceleration (their line was "correct running first, optimization second). v1.4 fixes this. Scrolling is fine under JDK1.4. In fact, performance is pretty zippy under v1.4.
2) Because Java is still the fastest OO language for server-side programming. Perl & PHP are faster but not object oriented. Servlets and JSPs are fast in large part due to extensive object pooling (although they've got some architectural flaws. tag libraries are my answer--all the performance of JSPs & Servlets with true separation of Model & View). And, besides, for loops that get executed frequently, HotSpot doesn't do a bad job with runtime optimization (and it's a *lot* easier than writing apache modules, the only way you'll get superior performance under Apache with C++).
3) FUD? See #1, 2?
4) See #1, 2.
Look, people don't choose Java because it's the tightest language available. They do it because it's the best tool for the job. I don't know about you, but I get paid for proper design, not for optimization. I can get orders of magnitude performance improvements through proper design. This more than makes up for the loss in performance of a JIT interpreter.
I write code faster in Java than in other languages (no, haven't tried C#...it does look like a nice language, though). They have fewer bugs. I get products to market quicker. It's slow? Then buy a new computer. Today, $500 will buy a computer nice enough to run Java comfortably.
Java isn't the right answer for every job. However, for rapid application development and server side coding, it's a pretty damn good choice. It's slow? Yes, v1.0-v1.3 were slow with client code. Yes, v1.4 is slower with client code than C++, although it's close enough that I don't care. Java is a good language for getting things done, though. It's not pure OO. It's not perfect. But is is good at what it does. Choose the right tool for the right job.
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC believe 1800MHz phones work in the US. The coverage isn't as dense, tho. Buy a tri-band if you want US & int'l service.
I think it's because the 900MHz spectrum was already set aside as unlicensed. It's the frequency used by many cordless phones and baby monitors.
Denmark is also incredibly windy. Average windspeeds of >30mph over large parts of the country, and it's windy year round.
Iceland uses tons of geothermal energy. Of course, it sits on the mid-Atlantic ridge, and therefore has plentiful geothermal energy.
There is tons of hydroelectric potential from melt water of all the mountain ranges in the western US.
The moral here is that for sustainable and eco-friendly development, each area should use resources appropriate to what is available. For the Danes it is wind. For Iceland it is geothermal. The US is large enough that it must resort to differing sources for different parts of the nation. I suspect wind could provide a lot of energy in areas that are relatively unpopulated--the plains of central US.
It's really nice to see a nation like Denmark make it a national priority. As wind turbines approach economies of scale, I'm sure costs per megawatt will improve considerably.
JBoss typically uses Tomcat (v3 or v4 Catalina) or Resin for serving dynamic web pages. Both Tomcat Catalina (v4) and Resin are included in the benchmark.
Hmmm. $500 for 10 clients. That works to about $50 per client, or $1 per feature.
Uh, the DirecTivo is a DirectTV decoder. And it's a dual-tuner Tivo. Pretty sweet, actually.
Here are some links to some load balancing projects I'm aware of:
- lbnamed - A load balancer written in Perl
- Super Sparrow - A Linux-based load balancer
- Ultra Monkey - A high-availability and load balancer solution based on Linux (it looks like Super Sparrow may be Ultra Monkey's load balancer)
- LVS - A high-availability and load balancer solution based on Linux
I've never used any of these, so I can't give any first-person accounts as to their effectiveness. This list isn't meant to be exhaustive, either. It's just a starting point.You've got the translation wrong. Closer to the size of France and Spain.
Sending a message from one employee to another using one of the standard IM systems (ICQ, Y!, AIM, MSN) sends messages to an outside server by design. Sending message from one employee to another should keep the message inside the local network (unless the company has an unusual setup for their mail servers, or if they use third party email servers). In this case, email is private, doesn't go outside the company, and isn't sniffable by third parties.
There are situations where communications must be monitored (one in particular is equities and derivatives traders). It can be required by law. In these situations, only authorized instant messaging systems are acceptable (I believe IBM's PROFS is commonly used). Central logging of all communications is vital. Some IM systems, namely MSN, don't even offer logging capabilities.
In these cases, blocking communications technology is the Right Thing(tm) to do, although I would argue it is probably easier to achieve this purpose by preventing users from installing applications.
Well, I was incorrect. What you do is actually start 2 X servers, and start all your clients in VNC's X server. Or you can run syncviewer (this is the one I was remembering...runs an SVGA version of VNC). Or you can use x0rfb. In any case, there are many ways to do what you desire.
Try x0rfbserver This does what you want. It's been around for years and years.
VNC's approach of setting up a separate display is a design feature, designed to take advantage of X's natural ability to support more than one output display. You can also start the regular old AT&T VNC server such that it also starts X in the same session, giving you the same effect as x0rfbserver. This has been there since day one with VNC.
I only wish the Windows and Mac versions of VNC let you start a session that *didn't* control the current display. This is a failure of the design of the windowing systems under Windows and MacOS. Please don't attribute your lack of knowledge of VNC as a failure in the design of the X Window System or the Unix version of VNC.
OK. I've configued my X server for multiple resolutions. I hit ctrl-alt-+ and I get a different resolution. Not a larger or smaller viewport at the same resolution. A different resolution. I can switch between 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, and 1600x1200. At all resolutions I see the entire viewport (i.e. no scrolling). This implies that I am actually getting different resolutions, not different viewports at the same resolution.
Also, I think you've overlooked one VNC project named x0rfbserver. This runs an rfb server (the VNC protocol) on display 0 of your X server. Therefore it shares the current desktop over VNC (just like VNC on Windows and the Mac). This project has been around for years (I stumbled across it probably 5 years ago or thereabouts).
No. We don't agree with the problems of the patent system. I told you I didn't want to get mired in a discussion about the patent system. From your statements, I can only state that we disagree--I really don't want to discuss it, because such a discussion wouldn't accomplish anything.
Comparing Columbus to Newton or Einstein is simply wrong. One took daring bravado and required leadership skills. The other two were geniuses that come along very infrequently. If Newton had only discovered gravity, then maybe you could write it off as him being at the right place at the right time. But he bested this achievement by creating integral calculus. This took an unusual level of genius. Had Einstein merely discovered that matter and energy were intimately linked (e=mc^2), then maybe you could write it off as him being at the right place at the right time. But he bested this achievement with his Theory of General Relativity. If Archimedes had merely discovered that water displaced by an object placed in a tub of water equals its volume, you might be able to write it off as him being at the right place at the right time. But he bested this achievement by developing the fundamentals of what we now know as differential calculus.
These sorts of discoveries don't happen twice to the same person (OK...maybe they *could*, but I really doubt this was the case with any of these people, and the odds of this happening are essentially zero). These people made their great leaps of discovery not because of luck (or leadership or bravado) but instead because of an amazing level of genius. They are not comparable to Columbus, IMHO.
Patents don't apply to scientific discoveries. I don't want to get involved in an argument about the efficacy of patents. Our patent system isn't based upon, nor does it apply to, scientific discoveries. Our patent system applies to inventions, a very different subject than scientific discovery. One applies more to science, the other more to engineering (I don't mean to imply that either is bounded by these, however).
I was merely commenting on the futility of using Einstein as an example of "ordinary" genius and incremental scientific discovery. I do not think Einsteins meets these criteria.
Several people have achieved significant leaps in scientific discovery. Among these people I include Newton, Einstein, and Archimedes. Using these people as examples where giant leaps in understanding were not achieved is, IMHO, wrong.
Please re-read my original statement. I didnt' state that Special Relativity was somehow a greater achievement than General Relativity. I stated that his 1905 paper, the one that earned him a Nobel Prize, had ZERO references.
Then, I stated that Einstein's genius was of the revolutionary form, not an evolutionary form. The impact of his Theory of General Relativity (which did not receive a Nobel Prize, although I would agree that it was a greater piece of work than Special Relativity) merely reinforces that. Einstein is a poor choice of an example when trying to demonstrate that there are no revolutionary ideas in science.
OK. Let's get this straight. There are something like 6 billion people in the world. 6000/13 != 50. Maybe 500, but not 50.
Second, I really dislike it when someone brings up Einstein in this type of discussion. How familiar are you with PhD theses? Generally, PhD research is based heavily upon other works. In fact, just as with today's world, I think you would find that the scientific world of 1905 would be etremely sceptical of any research that did not contain references to other peoples' works.
Yet Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity (the one published in 1905 entitled "The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") had no references. Zero. This thing defies all logic according to what is publishable. Even by 1905 standards. Research without references generally is considered bunk. Without merit.
Einstein's genius transcends almost every scientific achievment known to man. It is without a doubt on par with Newtonian physics and the invention of calculus. There was no work that it built upon. Einstein's theory of special relativity is completely original, without need of references. His genius is not that of 1 in 13 million. It is the genius of one in 10 billion. It is a genuine leap of faith. It is completely revolutionary. It is far more than the result of 3000 (or 3 trillion) monkeys typing randomly. If we see another Einstein in our generation we should consider ourselves lucky.
What this has to do with patent law, I'm not sure. But please don't pull out Einstein as proof that there are no "revelotionary" concepts. Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity is about as close to revolutionary an idea as I think humanity has ever produced.
The British are responsible for naming it "soccer". Aparantly, in the 1800s, many games were known as "football"--it referred to almost any sport played with a ball and two teams. The Football Association decided to codify the rules of what Americans call "soccer". Through a twist of abbreviations and name changes, the name got translated into "soccer" (the "soc" was from the word "association", and I guess "soccer" was easier to say than "the Football Association Football". To this day, you'll still find "soccer" stores (using that name) in the United Kingdom.
In case you hadn't noticed, rugby is actually a shortened name for Rugby Football. Football refers to lots of sports. The word "soccer" comes from the UK (I heard this on a BBC program about the sport). The US retained the name to prevent confusion from the other sport Americans played known as "football". Meanwhile, the rest of the world changed the other "football" sports to "rugby" (or any of a number of other names--the name really referred to hundreds of sports in the 1800s).
Since the UK invented football/soccer, and then codified its rules and named it "soccer", then the Americans can claim to be correct in calling it "soccer".
Here's a link to the origins of football/soccer. I can't find a reference as to when the name was assigned. You'll have to take my word on it (or do your own research). But the name definitely did not originate in the U.S.
Yes, but we have a duty to overturn laws that make no sense. The punishment for posession of pot is completely disproportionate to the crime. In most cases, it is a "victimless" crime. When attempts to overturn such laws are unsuccessful, I feel it is the duty of the population to disobey the law in a peaceful manner.
If I recall my history correctly, most of the wars between Christians and Muslims were started by Christians.
Islam does not preach war towards Christians and Jews. Just like Christianity doesn't preach violent crusades to convert unbelievers. Actually, Islam preaches tolerance to those that also believe in the one true god (according to them...remember that Jesus and Abraham are considered prophets in Islam, too).
Religion has been used to justify wars since the dawn of time. "Religion is the opiate of the masses".
Egypt doesn't follow Islamic law. You won't get your hand chopped off for theft. You must be thinking of a nation such as Saudi Arabia. Of course, Saudi Arabia does not subscripe to international IP laws.
There's plenty more to complain about in your message, but I won't bore everyone else.
The US federal government was supposed to be merely a custodial bureacracy overseeing the day-to-day administration of national defense and infrastructure (you forgot law enforcement). However, the form and structure of the government is not static (by design). The federal government has changed over time. Now the federal government also invests in things like education and healthcare. It's not 1787 any more.
We don't have a constitution to restrict the government's power to "plan" the lives of people or the direction of the economy. From the preamble of the US Constitution,
Yes, it's a living document. Promoting the general welfare of people has expanded to include guiding the economy and educating the people. Like I said before, it's a living document.
The Constitution is designed to limit the powers of the federal government. But it was not designed to outline explicitly every power the federal government has. Over time, the federal government can take on new powers, so long as they do not overstep the bounds outlined by the Constitution. The constitution doesn't say what the government can do, it says what the government can't do.
Those are absolutely fantastic questions, although they are very specific to programmers. The first question requires a general degree of knowledge about computer languages, including facets of language design and use that are only exposed when someone programs frequently. The second one tests your reasoning skills, especially your abilities to think outside the box (i.e. to put yourself in others' shoes). I like them, and I will adopt them as my own.
The signal is just a medium. Like a videotape. Or a CD. I understand that beaming data over public airways should mean that people can use the airways anyway they want within the confines of copyright law, I don't understand how the medium affects the copyright.
The copyright is still valid. If I read a book over the radio, that doesn't make the book part of the public domain.
Don't confuse the medium with the content. You should be able to do whatever you want with the medium. But altering the content for anything other than for personal use (i.e. rebroadcasting or whatever) crosses the boundary into copyright law. The question is really whether altering the TV program (by removing commercials) constitutes a violation of copyright law. IANAL, but I wouldn't think it would (unless rebroadcasted...i.e. put on the Internet w/o commercials).
1) Java isn't slow. v1.3 and earlier of the JDK didn't implement video copies to utilize hardware acceleration (their line was "correct running first, optimization second). v1.4 fixes this. Scrolling is fine under JDK1.4. In fact, performance is pretty zippy under v1.4.
2) Because Java is still the fastest OO language for server-side programming. Perl & PHP are faster but not object oriented. Servlets and JSPs are fast in large part due to extensive object pooling (although they've got some architectural flaws. tag libraries are my answer--all the performance of JSPs & Servlets with true separation of Model & View). And, besides, for loops that get executed frequently, HotSpot doesn't do a bad job with runtime optimization (and it's a *lot* easier than writing apache modules, the only way you'll get superior performance under Apache with C++).
3) FUD? See #1, 2?
4) See #1, 2.
Look, people don't choose Java because it's the tightest language available. They do it because it's the best tool for the job. I don't know about you, but I get paid for proper design, not for optimization. I can get orders of magnitude performance improvements through proper design. This more than makes up for the loss in performance of a JIT interpreter.
I write code faster in Java than in other languages (no, haven't tried C#...it does look like a nice language, though). They have fewer bugs. I get products to market quicker. It's slow? Then buy a new computer. Today, $500 will buy a computer nice enough to run Java comfortably.
Java isn't the right answer for every job. However, for rapid application development and server side coding, it's a pretty damn good choice. It's slow? Yes, v1.0-v1.3 were slow with client code. Yes, v1.4 is slower with client code than C++, although it's close enough that I don't care. Java is a good language for getting things done, though. It's not pure OO. It's not perfect. But is is good at what it does. Choose the right tool for the right job.