1. Would infrared work just as well?
2. What happens if the phone orientation is incorrect? Light beam reaches its side or the phone lies face-up.
3. What happens if multiple phones are detected?
4. What happens if the phone is turned off?

"Computer expert" is a broad, broad definition. Nobody's a "computer expert", except in their narrow field.
So ease off with the smug. One might be an expert in their field and totally suck at another, both computer-related.

If they're nor large enough or random enough, yes.

Doesn't matter which frame of reference you use.
Say you go absurd and link intelligence with weight. There's still gonna be an average, a median and 50% of the population lower / higher than that. And given the very large values (full Earth population, around 7B souls), there will be normal distribution simply because there are so many data points.

IMO it's the same crap, only reworded.

Interesting point. Let's say a planet orbits the Sun once every 1000 years (Pluto's is almost 248 years). This means roughly 4.6 million planetary "years" from that planet's reference frame. Did Earth clear its orbital neighborhood in 4.6 million years? Probably not.

While talking to some good friends from the USA (current and former colleagues), I found this out:
- When Person A comes to you and asks for your opinion/feedback on person X (which they are considering hiring), you are not allowed to say person X sucks. At most, you can refrain from commenting. Reason? Person X might sue you. In Romania (where I live), person A actually expects you to be honest and nobody's suing you for saying person X sucks.

IMO this would make it a lot harder to hire someone based on informed opinions. You have to do some guesswork. It's counterintuitive.
Now, I don't condone attitudes like Linus's either, and I think both are extremes of the same range. On one hand, you have someone who doesn't give a rat's ass about other people and ranks them based on their usefulness (and shows that). on the other hand, you have a society so afraid of being sued that they're afraid to speak their mind openly.

There's a lot of middle ground to cover and I think both sides should migrate towards the centerline, if even a little bit.

My primary school was twice that distance and I walked it alone back and forth every day since the age of six.
Granted, a large city is more dangerous, but this over-protection is becoming ridiculous.

"an eye for an eye" can be easily used with no victims. So newspaper X puts up a cartoon of Mohammed the Prophet. Newspaper Y could put up a cartoon with Jesus, making is a zero-sum game. Problem solved.

Which is enough to realize you don't want any of that :)

Any stats on how often does that happen? Or is it just an assumption?

Makes me think of the "a car will never be better than a horse" argument.

*well. Doing it well.
"Do me good" belongs to porn movie scripts, not Linux scripts. But I heard basements tend to muddy waters...

...or maybe you assumed he was trying to be this or that way.
Frankly, assumptions aside, he never played down the importance of TV, nor did he emphasize on its lack of importance either. He says "for the last couple years I've been doing something else". Nothing wrong with that.

What do you mean "you have never seen it"?
Bars have TV, for example. I'm seeing enough to realize there's nothing there that might keep me interested. The few TV series I am interested in can be bought on DVD. No endless commercials, no cable TV price, etc.