I'm fully aware that there are dangerous things around the house. But most of them are well known by Joe User.

A slightly broken laptop battery burning down the house isn't.

It isn't statistically likely your laptop will catch fire. But considering the number of laptops out there, it's just a matter of time. Having ten times the energy density just means the difference between a scorched desktop and a burned down house.

Just to make clear that progress isn't always beneficial.

Solar panel efficiency is progressing slowly but steadily. Evolution instead of revolution. Todays panels are way better than panels made a few years ago.

Todays panels aren't ultra efficient, but they get the job done. Price isn't an issue anymore, the break even point is just a few years.

Energy density is a double edged sword. Yes, I would love to have ten times the runtime of my laptop. But there are inherent dangers. The current Lithium-Ion batteries are pretty dangerous when they are mistreated. Having ten times the energy stored in a battery? I'm not sure that is a blessing or a curse. Burning down your house isn't worth having a longer lasting laptop;

The record labels aren't interested in increasing the band's revenue stream. They care only about their own revenue.

I buy the CD because I like to support the artists I'm buying from,

Go to a concert. They make a whole lot more money that way. The percentage they get from CD sales is minimal.

For some of us, the CD is still the preferred method of buying music. It's tangible, you can play it on the trip home from the store (or in your hotel room since I bought a lot of my music when traveling), and if something happens to the 'puter, you can re-rip the tracks.

For me, downloading the mp3 file is the preferred method of getting music. It doesn't take up physical space, you can play it directly without having to go to a store with a minimal selection and you can get it wherever you have internet access (i.e. everywhere nowadays). And if something happens to the 'puter, you can easily redownload.

It's not news, so it must be stuff that matters. I think it is.

As in, didn't support the same number of business processes. I'm not sure if the application ever got finished as I've since gone to greener pastures.

See, now I know you're lying. You could have said three years and maybe you could have fooled some people. But you had to go with a completely unbelievable 18 months. Ridiculous! Preposterous! Unpossible!

On a more serious note, I've witnessed a SAP implementation as a replacement of an in-house developed application. Original development took two years, SAP took four years. And after those four years the application still didn't have all the functionality of the original app. You might take a guess at the costs involved, but I assure you that it was a lot higher than that. Guess again and you're still not thinking in the same ballpark.

SAP, that name still sends shivers up my spine.

Same here. I don't fly to the US and I won't fly over the US anymore because of the atrocious border shenanigans.

Instead I'll spend my money in places where they seem to be pleased to have me as their guest. Best of luck with your tanking (tanked?) economy, btw.

So basically you're saying that assembler is faster than C? Or am I missing your point?

Cocaine is better for your health than a case of Red Bull anyways.

After extensive testing to find a durable DVD-RW I can honestly say that none of the ones I tested was completely readable after two years in storage. All had defects to some extend. Most surprising find was that there was no correlation between price and low error count. At all.

If you have experience with a brand that lasts for a lot longer I'd really appreciate to hear about it.

Why not? You can saturate any commercial network link with a 100 MHz Pentium machine easily.

If you do some heavy scripting on the machine, it might cave a bit. But if your quad-core machine doesn't hold up, then indeed You're Doing It Wrong.

I'm sure nobody will call you on this one. It's obvious C has a lot of drawbacks compared to more modern languages. But for raw performance there isn't much that can keep up. I'm even willing to up the ante by saying that the solution in C will be at least twice as fast as the other competitor. And that is a conservative estimate.

It brings the 'P' to the ISS...