There are two types of efficiency here.

The first is up front design efficiency. The time it takes to develop the code. This could be impacted by a combination of a poor c/c++ programmer and a decision to use it. You pay for this loss of efficiency once, if indeed it is a loss (likely it would not be much or any of a loss if the c/c++ programmer is competent.)

The second is execution efficiency, that cost that is paid every time someone uses the facility. Here, using c/c++ can (should, again with a competent programmer) provide a much faster response time with all the benefits that accrue from that, and these benefits will be gained again and again, every time someone uses the facility. As compared to, for instance, Perl or Python.

You can consider client-side execution, but if you choose to use it, you're locking out many potential visitors who will not be able to use your pages. There are huge numbers of devices out there that are old and/or small, and they simply don't do client-side stuff. Even knowing your site is targeting "only" owners of, say, IE, doesn't justify such a choice; because in the real world, people won't always have IE in their pocket. If someone can't browse your site at lunch with whatever is in their pocket, the odds of them coming back later -- much less buying / participating now -- drop precipitously.

Part of the job is to determine what kind of traffic could be encountered, while knowing the capacity of the hardware you have available, and then figuring out which efficiency you're better of going after.

If your web site serves one person in the organization, and they only check in once a day, then if Python is fast enough on your desk, its fast enough on their desk, too, at least if it doesn't impact the site's ability to do its other tasks, like serving WAN customers. But if your thing is WAN facing, and could potentially see any number of customers up to the max the server can handle, then you'd best consider execution time efficiency before you consider up-front development time efficiency (and again, if you hire a competent c/c++ programmer, there probably won't be a huge difference. Even less if they have already done this for you once or twice.

Make your websites a PDF file.

What you're doing here is making sure that a whole raft of smaller/older devices won't be able to display your pages. Which is exactly the same thing as intentionally reducing the customer base of your client.

You want PDF printables? Put a link to a static PDF version on any HTML web page the user might actually WANT in PDF form. HTML pages should be in either HTML, HTML+CSS, HTML+CGI, or HTML+CSS+CGI. HTML and HTML+CGI produce the best quality -- most usable -- pages. Use of *any* other technology cuts off some number of smaller and/or older clients at the knees, but of those technologies, pure front-facing PDF would be difficult to beat for complete failure of a website to show up for the person trying to look at it.

If you think an indication of when someone joined slashdot (/. UID) gives you a reliable insight into how old they are, or how long they've been doing technical work, or what technical work they can do, you are one thoroughly deluded human being.

Gaia is living, breathing, self stabilizing organism. Gaia actively maintains optimum conditions for live to thrive. If the sun fluctuates hotter, Gaia will keep us cool. If the sun fluctuates cooler, Gaia will keep us warm. We have released two quadrillion pounds (2,000,000,000,000,000) of CO2 into the atmosphere and the laws of physics say that will trap heat.... and Gaia will.... umm I dunno... but Gaia will do it's super-smart-Gaia-thing to to actively counter it and keep us in a loving protective embrace of shielded stability. If we have a nuclear war, Gaia will cleanse the environment and protect us from that nasty radiation-stuff. Gaia loves all life, gaia loves us and protects us. Gaia loves broadway shows and long walks on the beach. Gaia has profiles on eHarmony.com and JDate.com.

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Nah, I just bought one from Dyson. Works great!

The energy of the vacuum HERE would be decreasing over time,

You can't assume that everything everywhere behaves the same. You can't assume that energy drawn from one location will show up as a deficit in another (you find running water in the street's gutter... you learn Joe's pool is draining. Assuming Mark's pool is also draining doesn't follow.) You can't measure anywhere but (very) locally, which also means you can only measure data very near temporally -- and so you really have no bloody idea what is going on without resting your conclusion on assumptions made entirely free of supporting data.

What you're claiming is equivalent to saying you know exactly what's going on on a planet orbiting some star in Andromeda because you've done some observations as to what is going on here. Evidence is utterly insufficient to your claim.

It might be simulated turtles all the way down.

It's virtual turtles, you insensitive clod!

Because empty space is full of particles

No, see, by definition, that's non-empty space. Empty space is... empty.

I am pretty certain that calculations of the vacuum energy do not depend on the size of the universe.

I am pretty certain the idea's never been tested. And may not even be testable. So you might want to adjust your confidence level a bit. At least until we can go everywhere and measure everything. Breath-holding doesn't seem to be called for.

How can we definitively tell if the vacuum over there has the same energy density as the vacuum over here?

Further, how can we tell if the energy we think we find in vacuum here isn't energy that arises from particulate contamination? Or, for that matter (ha) is coming from somewhere else? Has someone managed to (a) create a perfect vacuum and (b) measure its energy and (c) determine that whatever was measured as appearing at X, definitely hadn't disappeared from all the possible Ys? Somehow, I doubt it. If for no other reason than our access to some of the other Y (say, around Andromeda) is... limited. As well as non-contemporaneous -- if something disappeared from that region, to appear here, we wouldn't have any indication it had happened for about 2.5 million years. And even then, our ability to measure vacuum precisely at that distance... not so good.

My (admittedly not very deep) understanding of vacuum is that it is defined by a lack of content, and that a perfect vacuum would be defined by a perfect lack of content -- and were that simplistic idea correct, then I don't see why how much perfect vacuum there is has any bearing at all upon the total amount of energy.

And, if vacuum is indeed empty when perfect, but we think there is energy detected in what we consider a perfect vacuum, then perhaps we're simply misinterpreting the goings-on within an imperfect vacuum. Perhaps there is more to get rid of than the molecules and particles we know of at present.

Or, perhaps space is infinite and at least somewhat plastic to start with, and our situation (going with the idea that the space we can observe seems to be expanding) is more like adding a thimble of water to a planetary ocean (let the ocean conceptually be infinite for the sake of an example.) Perhaps space over there is contracting, while space over here is expanding.

My own position is that any cosmological proposal that includes the phrase "arose from nothing" or similar is probably better filed under astrology until actual evidence is found of the idea -- not possible precursors or echos, but an actual example of what is being described. We seem to be pretty clear on the idea that matter and energy are essentially interchangeable, and we have no experimental data that proves stuff arises from non-stuff, so at least at this point, I see no reason to take an assertion of "arose from nothing" seriously.

Regardless of specifics of the actual objective results, anthropogenic climate change is a scientific question -- whether certain consequences of our actions are leading to a fairly specific set of changes to climate.

That politicians want to vote on it strikes me as a significant indicator as to their incompetence. As if we needed any more...

I post. Doesn't seem to suck to me. My family is there, my friends are there.

It could be better. Faster, mostly, and a little better at blocking other users, but all in all, I find it adequate to my needs.

Also, I wonder about the analysis. Perhaps all the active users are in the AI and other groups where I hang out; but somehow, I doubt it. Maybe I don't understand what he means by "post public content"; wouldn't that be a post to a group or a post to one's own profile? Because there's a great deal of that going on.

Anyway. As long as it's there, I plan to use it. Meets my needs.

I think that's a wise position. Well put, too.

Is that a fox I see hanging off your left ass cheek by his teeth?

Computer security is not a naturally intuitive domain for most human beings, absent some properly directed training and experience.

It doesn't make them idiots. But it does make them vulnerable.