Except vanilla html5/javascript won't let you touch the filesystem other than to load files (you can with extensions or using some other method like PHP). That makes it difficult to design an exploit as well as create a safety sandbox for the program itself. Flash is essentially an OS, so exploiting it makes exploiting the machine much easier. I've been hacked so many times with PHP vulnerabilities I've stopped using it and use my own coded CGI calls for file access.

Speaking of CGI, CGI's been around since 1993 and has pretty much all the vulnerabilities of whatever application it calls. I've used it for some strange stuff - kick of a csh, run a program that takes specifically (and well parsed) text as input and then elevate itself to root to load it as a crontab, run perl scripts, start a terminal on the web server as root when I didn't have root (exploited a root vulnerability and placed my little password protected file there, and then created a way to start it from my web browser - that eventually broke when my computer was refreshed and the hard coded DISPLAY was wrong), etc.

I have two Barracudas and neither shows any sign of failure. Neither are primary hard drives, though. They certainly outlived the 6-8 month life of my Death Star drives back in the day (before IBM sold its Desk Star unit to Hitatchi HGST - and the replacement from HGST have been rock solid - I have two that were replaced by HGST in 2003 that are still functional).

Really? I've had lots of problems with ASUS hardware and they replaced or repaired all of it under warranty. My laptop with an nVidia 8800M (I think that was the model) died twice under warranty and once just out, all three times due to the graphics card (which notoriously had problems). I've also sent in one graphics card under warranty and it got fixed.

Hmm... my GPU count is bad - I forgot the two returns under warranty for that laptop. GPU was my winner anyway, but it just extended its lead over hard drives.

Sapphire, on the other hand... RMA'd the same brand new card three times and was returned the same card with the same exact problem (it worked until you tried to use graphics memory and then crashed within 2 minutes). I marked the card with a dot sticker on my second return because I guessed they were just sending me the same unmodified card back. The third time I sent them a CD with a demo program I wrote that would cause the crash. Same card minus the CD returned to me.

Me too! I also find the foot pedal hard to use.

I've sort-of never had one die - I had one get loud as heck and need to be replaced, but it was still technically functioning. I've also had one stop, but after sucking the dust and spider webs out of it and the rest of the machine with a shop vac it started right up again. I've also replaced one where it didn't fix the problem (north bridge overheating, and I think it was shorting out).

Wish there were such an option for laptops. I replace mine due to critical component failure (usually display and/or graphics card) every 2-3 years. The last one lasted only 1 year and 3 days (3 days out of warranty) before having critical component failure (graphics card), but then I read if you pull it apart and push the nVidia card into the board, it fixed the problem. It did, but after having to do this every time I travel, some of the ribbon cables broke. Now it only works with a separate keyboard (some keys work, but not all) and mouse (the trackpad ribbon cable broke completely).

So far for laptops: ASUS (display), HP (display), ASUS (graphics card, and a known problem with that model - still sort of works as a desktop), Dell (power supply and disk drive, probably fried by the bad PSU, replaced under warranty twice within 6 months of purchase and then I sold the lemon before it was a year old). I'm on my third ASUS so we'll see how that goes. So far it is the best laptop I've ever owned both in construction and stability.

Hmm... my wife had a computer die due to its watch-like rechargeable battery on the motherboard failing (and the motherboard wouldn't start without it). That was an easy fix, at least. I diagnosed that one when the computer wouldn't keep proper time before it failed entirely.

I've had laptops die due to battery failure, but usually removing the battery got them working again. Not very useful for portability, but at least they worked.

Hmm... well I have a nearly decade old box running an OCZ power supply. Tested it a few months ago (November) with a multimeter and it runs closer 3V and 12V than my 3 year old Corsair (both are close enough to not worry about, though). My ancient B&W G3 mac power supply died in late October and it tested as 2V on the 12 volt line and after I learned how to test PS using a multimeter, did it on all of my boxes.

OCZ got bought by Toshiba last year, though. Not sure if that is a bad thing or good. I think their main focus now is SSDs.

Never had a CPU fail that wasn't self-killed. Specifically, I nuked one overclocking.

Of my 3 Apple computers, all three died with power supply failures. One I didn't count in my personal inventory because it happened after I sold it to a friend, but I diagnosed the failure and he replaced the component and used it at least another 3 years. On the plus side, my Blue and White G3 ran my web server from ~2000 to 2014 before its power supply failed. It got upgraded to a G4 but was switched to Linux around 2007 due to Apple ending support. My current web server is actually running in a Linux VM (running on Linux) since I lack other available hardware and have a huge desktop machine available that hosts Windows and Linux (and has hosted a hackintosh, but does not currently).

5 power supplies, 5 hard drives, 2 video cards (one laptop), 1 north bridge (motherboard - would overheat and crash the computer every 2 minutes despite the heatsink/fan, and no, it wasn't the HS/fan, I tried replacing that), 1 fan.

Missing option - display. I've lost display on 3 laptops and only one was video card related. It wouldn't win due to my rotten luck with power supplies (at least 3 died in warranty, two of those were on laptops and ZERO were on home-built machines - all were shitty components from the likes of Dell, HP, and Apple).

I gave my vote to power supply, mainly because aside from the four Death Star (IBM Desk Star) disks that all died under warranty, the Seagate was 15 years old. None of the PS were older than 3 years.

Yeah, I didn't particularly care for Discworld, but I liked Good Omens. My wife despised Good Omens but loves most Gaiman.

With a business major boss like I've had (not currently), it'd go something like this:

Boss: We need to synergize our efficiency and put a sustainable product in the cloud. First course of action, we need a language - I've heard html5/javascript is the one to use.
Me: Everyone uses that, but Intercal would make a much better choice for us
Boss: Great! I want a dynamic prototype in the cloud by morning!
Me: No problem... writes the program in perl, leave it on my dev machine, and proxy it from a cloud site.
Boss: This is fantastic! Great job!

My current boss would laugh at that joke and force me to write it in html5/javascript (which I don't mind, it just often takes me longer than perl for quick mockups).

C++ breaks the object model by not including encapsulation, so calling it object oriented is a stretch. It also lacks a primary object. Both of those can be worked around to make it more like true OOP, but I've seen few people do it. Personally I think C++ is a bit long of the tooth and there seems to be a lot of things poorly implemented, STL being a big one - this functionality should have been built into the language, not added with abstract functions leaving us with bloated code and incomprehensible errors. For a long time those same abstract functions also caused a massive performance hit, but that is better these days (but it was horrible 20 years ago - 600% slower than non-abstract in a chunk of code I wrote because of the lookup tables according to the profiling I did).

Yep - this is my problem with this case, too. This is like if everyone that played Samba had to pay the originator of Samba to play it or Soul had to pay the originator of Soul or Blues Blues. I certainly hope they appeal and get a better jury.

I've been there - just started jamming with a band and quickly knock out four songs on the 4-track (this was a while back, lol).

OTOH, I have another piece I've been working on off-and-on for 22 years because I can't find a transition I like between two sections. It is an absolutely lovely piece with lots of transitions and closely related key changes and on my bucket list to finish and record.