Agreed. What gets forgotten in the debate is that Java is a reference implementation of all true OOP constructs: Interface Abstract Class Class Which when applied judiciously, allow u to do things like inversion of control, dependency injection and test driven development in a strongly-typed environment, and this strongly-typed nature, when properly embraced, makes it easier to write software which you can refactor as often as you desire with orders of magnitude less risk than with "fsck-all-typed" languages like ruby or JavaScript. So, if your application does little more than pushing data into and reading data from some storage engine, then okay, JavaScript is an okay choice. If your application is growing into having significant business logic, then JavaScript will turn into thousands of lines of spaghetti untraceable closure hell , whereby each refactoring attempt will almost certainly have catastrophic consequences in production down some obscure execution path in some anonymous callback function you couldn't be bothered unit testing because how the fsck do you write a unit test against that anonymous function? There's not a concept of a Class in JavaScript. Sure you can mimmick inheritance patterns with prototypes with albeit some unintended consequences (hasOwnProperry) and encapsulated properties by having your closures reference variables from their enclosing context etc, but those techniques are what i call "expressively contrived" Strongly-typed OOP languages have very-well established tried and true patterns for writing test-driven code Ruby while not strongly typed, at least has a concept of Class/methods/inheritance/polymorphism . Problem with Ruby is as i am writing things TDD in it, the first half of my tests are there to ensure that my methods behave correctly when i pass them arguments of the wrong types, and my methods are littered with lines of code ensuring that my arguments have the expected properties. Totally retarded. And Ruby doesn't know anything about an Interface, but that's okay because it's got "fsck-all-typing" so it's not like you would even try to enforce modicums of contracts. Anyway, as applications grow in complexity, building things TDD in strongly-typed OOP languages leads to more fun, and frequent refactoring which makes ur code more stable instead of more brittle. I've written a crap ton of JS code. Java code too. And PHP. And a minimal amount of Ruby: I've appreciated their strengths. And drawbacks. Feel free to learn the same thing I have the hard way: this panacea mentality to stacks is just one big circle jerk. If you think JS, in its current form, is the only true way to build web applications, then by all means, keep that head firmly planted in the sand while the rest of the World out innovates you with a blend of languages and platforms best-suited for their use-cases.

This comes up occasionally and this is not a traditional patent, but a design patent. You can still build a wedge-shaped laptop, you just can't have it look exactly like a MacBook Air. There are lots of ways of designing around it. You could make it almost the same, but with a different finish, for example.

No, you didn't get a "nothing to see here". You actually got an answer. By design, if a water-moderated reactor loses its cooling, it also loses moderation of the neutrons. Fast neutrons don't work as well, so the reaction rate would slow. The residual heat would still have melted the fuel rods and it would be a big mess to clean up, but nobody would have died.

I know it is not the answer you want, but there you have it. It would not have been a Chernobyl-type accident. The Chernobyl reactor had a positive-void coefficient, which means that the reaction rate would go up if cooling was lost. Davis-Besse has negative-void coefficient. The reaction rate will go down if coolant is lost.

Thunderbolt is not exclusive to Apple. They are just the first mover on it. They also have a large market (video and audio editing) that will eat this up. For that group, USB3 is basically a non-starter. The implementations are still buggy, and the throughput isn't as good.

Also, because Thunderbolt basically tunnels PCIe for communication, devices that use it just need a Thunderbolt adaptor chip coupled with a PCIe chip to convert to any protocol you like. You don't need a new ASIC, you just buy the Thunderbolt one from Intel and then use any PCIe chip you like. Thunderbolt is basically external PCIe. In fact, Sonnet has announced a PCIe expansion chassis using Thunderbolt.

If that were true, we've have seen the iPhone on T-Mobile or Sprint by now. This was AT&T's exclusivity expiring. AT&T knew it was coming. That is why AT&T was so generous with people upgrading from the 3GS to the 4, even though it had only been a year. It let them lock people into contracts through 2012, knowing that the Verizon version was coming in just a few months.

Why? They have similar revenue, but Apple makes a much higher profit. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft still makes boatloads of money off of Windows and Office, but the compitition for them is Linux and OpenOffice/GoogleDocs. They will be constantly competing against free, which will keep squeezing their margins and therefore their revenue and their profit. Apple is in a position where they make hardware that allows them to charge a premium. Apple on the other hand, keeps very close to the leading edge and has a reputation for quality. They've seamlessly moved from product category to product category and find the most profitable niche. They've still got a lot of growth potential, even just by starting to manufacture a Verizon iPhone. In the last ten years, they've managed to enter and dominate the market for portable music players, smartphones, smart-not-a-phones, and tablets.

Calling the iPad a netbook with no keyboard it a bit of a stretch. Even if you don't like Apple, you'd be hard pressed to find a netbook with an IPS LCD display, for example. Also, I don't know of any netbooks that have a touchscreen, which more than makes up (costwise) for the lack of a keyboard.

Anyway, If anyone could make a 10" iPad competitor at $500 or less, they'd have done so by now. That everyone who is trying is coming in at half the screen size should be confirmation. There were stories when the iPad was announced that it was going to $800-$1000. Everyone was preparing tablet competitors to go up against that price range. When the iPad came out at $500, it submarined everyone else's plans. It killed the HP Slate, for instance.

Because, believe it or not, Apple came in at a price point that nobody could match without Apple's sales volume. The only way to under cut Apple's price is to reduce the screen size. By half, it turns out (7^2 = 49, 10^2 =100).

Apple didn't shut down Lala.com with licensing. They bought Lala (apparently for the engineering talent) and decided to discontinue their signature product.

I care if it doesn't work. I care if it has security flaws. I paid for them, so I'd like to have the latest version. But it is a real pain if I haven't used an app since, say, Leopard. If it doesn't work on Snow Leopard, the app's own built-in update mechanism is useless. It is also a pain if I need a little utility that I bought two years ago on my wife's computer. Not only to I have to download it, I also have to find the license key and hope it will let me activate it.

Well, you can't get all your apps up to date at one time with Sparkle. I have a lot of apps that I only use occasionally. Every time I run one of them, I have t update it. Sometimes I even find an app that won't run because it needs updating for compatibility with whichever version of MacOS X I'm on now.

It would be nice to have a centralized system for updating third-party apps. This isn't perfect, but it is a step in the right direction

Actually, your numbers are off. The city gets paid $26/ton for recyclables, but if those same recyclables go to the landfill, it costs $30/ton. So the city nets $56/ton from recyclables.

Also, I live in Cleveland. The recycling rate here is really pitiful. I think it is around 3% last I heard. Most of the city doesn't have curbside recycling pickup (aside from a few pilot areas). You have to haul your recyclables to a drop off. If this system gives us curbside pickup and some enforcement, it is easy to expect the rate would at least quadruple. Combine that with the $56/ton savings and it is paid for in two years.

Cleveland, for what it is worth, has been handing out free rainbarrels and encouraging their use.

Can I get an "Amen" brothers?

I certainly would. Whether it was stolen from Palm, Google, or Nokia. The circumstances were still a criminal act regardless of who it was stolen from.