The Python code

s = ''
for i in range(0,1000000):
    s += str(i)

will be painfully slow too, for multiple reasons. Both Java and Python have ways to do this that aren't dumb.

One of them looks like a chemical engineering PhD student and the other is a tech, so maybe not. The third is an electrical engineering professor who's supposed to be doing software performance research though. He should definitely know better.

Although, when I was at the U of C the people doing software stuff in the EE department had some very interesting ways of doing things.

They're not doing something weird, the article is crazy.

Basically, they wrote some shitty code to do highly inefficient string concatenation and, wow, it turns out that it's less efficient than the caching code in the operating system. They're not comparing in-memory versus disk operations at all.

They don't need to give a crap about how developers feel about the platform - they're printing money and the fanbase will bounce anyone critical of what they're doing.

Seriously; try voicing any sort of well-reasoned logical criticism of the brand - in short order some kool-aid guzzler is going to try like hell to make you feel like your problems with OS X or iOS or Final Cut Pro or QuickTime codecs ("using Apple products for more than five years," basically) are your fault and not Apple's.

Uranium nukes are even worse. They require strip mines to get the uranium, and then a bunch of very special purpose equipment to enrich it. If you think it's hard to hide a nuclear reactor from a spy satellite, try hiding a strip mine!

"The Sum of All Fears" was released in 1991. Clancy's comment about using computer weapon design is even more applicable today. CnC machines are also now something geeks build in their basements out of a few hundred dollars worth of parts.

Generally it's not an accepted defence to say "you should have seen what I would have done if I hadn't nuked them!"

So is American culture. It doesn't mean all Americans are killers.

So you burn over 800 calories an hour running? Why is it you think I don't? I bet we're using the same calculators and you weigh a bit less than I do.

I think I struck a Slashdot nerve. You're the third person so far to reply with a weirdly aggressive and poorly researched message.

I agree. Now turn it around. Think of all the things on the Internet you WOULD miss if they were gone. Now think of how many of them you would be willing to pay for. Think of the number of times you've seen the term "paywall" used on Slashdot.

I don't weigh 150 lbs, and I didn't say per day.

I'm not sure I really follow your argument, but the open source community seems like a reasonable example. Linux is paid for - big companies sink billions of actual dollars into it, and contributors put in even more value in time. Quality, in the things that are important to the people contributing to it, is high. Quality in the things that are not important to contributors, but are important to many of the people who do not contribute? Not so high.

Quality is also high in ad encrusted click bait sites - in the eyes of the people contributing to them. But that's not you.

naturally a muscular heavy build

Or, you know, if you lift, bro.